A Trip to Rome - Monday

Introductory note: I am not a native english speaker so please forgive errors and strange wording. All characters are fictitious and are 18 years old or more.

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My name is Valentina. I am a natural blonde, with curly hairs, but my eyes are just a common light brown and not a stunning green or blue. I feel pretty nonetheless, and I can be also quite sexy if the situation requires and I decide to show off. But it was not always like this.

Sometimes you need help to gain consciousness about your true self. This consciousness comes with experience - so when you are younger you may be prettier but you may not take full advantage of it. When you mature, you gain consciousness and if you are lucky you understand that you can be more than what you appear if you invest in yourself.

At the time of this story, I was attending the italian equivalent of High School - we call this "Liceo". My school was a very demanding private one - a catholic school managed by the order of the Jesuits, attended only by the sons of the wealthy.

It was also a mainly male school - not many years before my course female students were not allowed at all, and at the time I was attending there were 5 female students in my class - me included - and 19 males. It was not as bad as it may seem - we girls were quite close friends with each other and spent all free time at school together.

Antonella was a very tall girl, with long black hairs, almost straight and more often than not collected in a ponytail. She was very flat and skinny, but had a very pleasant looking face. She was very good both at study and at sports, one of the best in the class.

Monica was a very curvy girl, with light brown hairs, slightly curly. Her height was just average, but her curves more than made up for this. But she was not interested in good looks and took poor care of herself, dressing casually at best and never using make ups or other girl's accessories. She was fairly good at study - not like Antonella but not too far either.

Camilla was our redhead. Long, very curly hairs and very pale skin, with freckles and stunning green eyes. She was a little too skinny to be a real stunning beauty but she was anyway a very pretty girl. And she was also not very brilliant: she had a lot of problems understanding whatever the teachers where saying during class time, and had to study a lot more just to keep in par with the others.

The year before this story begins, Antonella, Monica, Camilla and me were the only girls attending the class. But then Alessia came.

Alessia was one year older than us, but she failed the previous year and had to repeat it - thus joining our class.

She was short, with auburn hairs, and really good looks. She also knew all the tricks to really show off; tight shirts, shorts, some really good make up really worked wonders on her turning a pretty girl into an almost stunning beauty. She was curvy, more so given her limited height, and had the attitude that males really find sexy. She did not care a bit about studying - even if she was repeating the year, she had troubles with exams and tests - but she had anyway a lot of things to tell us about things that are not taught at school. At least not in schools managed by Jesuits.

Before of her arrival, our little group was headed by Antonella and me. When she came, she quickly became our unofficial leader.

The male students in the class could be grouped in two groups.

The first group was composed by the nerds. Their interests seemed to be only study and games. They turned reddish whenever one of us even talked to them and never tried to start a conversation themselves, unless for strict school business.

The other group was composed by those that wanted to show as grown ups, whose only interests in life seemed to be talking about women and soccer. They shared within their group stories about their experiences with women (whatever little experience they had, I believe they had not that much actually) and would pretend to notice women only if they were pretty according to their standards. They seemed to pretend noone of us was sexy enough for them until Alessia arrived, so they always dismissed us female students.

Given the attitude of the males, we female students were a group on our own. We spent all intervals together, speaking of our lives and interests and helping each other doing homeworks. We also often met outside of school, for study, shopping or whatever.

Alessia quickly became a part of our little group and became a center of attention. She had a very different lifestyle and had very different experiences than the rest of us. Antonella, Monica, Camilla and me were all virgins at the time., and of course we had some level of curiosity on the matter. Alessia was on a different level. But she was not a female equivalent of the "grown-ups" male student; she did not boast her experiences shaming us for being virgins.

She just made some casual references to the fact that she had sex previously and answered our questions without entering into details. She just told us that it felt very good, but seemed to consider this just another experience to be had.

She was also very fond of giving advices on how to dress and how to do a proper make up. We tried it at home, but no one of us actually tested her advices when going to school.

At about February, our class had a class trip to Rome.

Rome is pretty far from Milan, our hometown. We went by bus - a big bus all for us, so we had almost two seats each. Two of our teachers came with us, the History teacher and the Literature teacher. They were supposed to act as guides and to keep watch on us, but of course since the beginning we all knew that two of them could not really properly watch all the 24 of us. So we were all pretty excited at the idea, we were scheduled to stay in Rome for a full week - from Monday to Sunday, with Monday and Sunday to be used almost entirely for the six hour long travel to and from. In our mind it was almost a week-long pajama party.

The travel was very comfortable. The bus was provided with a very big screen connected to a vhs player (this story takes place some time ago- no tablet or mobile data connection, at that time) that was used to display movies, and we were able to choose from a set of pretty new movies. And then, of course, there was the excited chatting of happy students facing a full week away from home, with friends and very few teachers around to tell us what to do and what not to do.

Rome is the capital city of Italy, but it's key point of interest are the remains of the ancient Roman empire that can be found almost everywhere in the area. There are a lot of monuments - some of them very popular, like the Colosseo, others less known, as for instance the Pantheon. But it is also a city with offices and almost 3 millions resident population, and it is also the seat of the italian government, so it is a complete mess to visit since traffic jams are the norm and mass transit system is very unreliable.

We reached the city in the late afternoon - we had a first quick sightseeing trip from the bus while reaching the hotel. Our teachers explained us some of the key areas we traveled into - but at that time we were more interested in the arrangement of the rooms for the nights we had to spend at the hotel.

Of course we had great expectations from our nights in the hotel. The teachers read the room assignments when the bus stopped. Antonella, Monica and Camilla had to share the same three-bed room. I had to share a similar room with Alessia. We girls were happy like this, the boys had more troubles accepting their roommates and tried to have their rooms changed with the teachers, with very poor luck.

The hotel was very nice, not properly a luxury one but definitely quite above average. There was a spa, a swimming pool (but no one packed swimming suits..), and in the hall everything seemed made out of marble and glass. A little flock of people came to greet us and gave us the keys to the rooms and helped us carry our luggages upstairs.

My room was at the fifth floor; the room of the other girls was in the very same position, but one floor lower. The stairs were however quite near. One of the teachers was on our floor, the other had a room on the lower one; but I believed that after one day of city visit they would both be pretty tired and would not pay too much attention to our movements if we kept silent.

The room was tidy and comfortable, with a double bed and a single bed, each with it's bedside table and two bed pillows; a large TV was on top of the drawer in front of the double bed, and a large window gave a nice view of the street below. A minibar stood near the wardrobe, and a door lead to the bathroom with a big shower inside.

Alessia quickly threw her luggage on the double bed and said,

"Mine!"

I had no trouble accepting her decision, and sat on the single bed checking the mattress.

Alessia said, "Do you care if I go first to the bathroom? We have not so long before we have to go downstairs with the others and I would like to refresh a little bit..."

I had no objection, so Alessia went to the other room and I started unpacking my baggage.

Even if we had only a week to stay, I had a lot of things with me. Shirts, trousers, a couple of sweaters, a warm beret (it was February after all), my beauty case, underwear for all of the days and then some spare, a little backpack for the day.. the list could go on for some time, I have never been able to travel light.

I was still placing my things in the wardrobe, keeping half of the space for Alessia, when Alessia returned in the room.

She was wearing only a bra and a pair of slips, her hands busy tying her hairs in a ponytail.

As I said, we girls were pretty at ease with one another, but I felt anyway a bit embarrassed. I already saw Alessia in a two pieces swimming suit, but seeing her in underwear - and a most sexy underwear - was not exactly the same thing.

But Alessia evidently didn't give a damn about being almost naked in front of me. She started searching through her luggage, putting her apparels on the double bed.

I have never been able to travel light, but Alessia was far worse than me. I wondered how all those dresses and gowns and shirts could fit in her luggage at all. She finally chose a very sexy low-cut dress, long and dark with a very revealing side slit.

"What do you think about this?" she asked me.

"Don't you think this is a little excessive? We are dining with out classmates after all. Nothing to write home about," I answered.

But Alessia smiled. I knew the meaning of that smile. She was going to teach me something more about the unexplored complexities of relationships between males and females.

"You think so bad of them all? Sure, they pretend to ignore you and the others, but I'm pretty sure that they would not tell you "no" would you ask them out for an evening. You'll see."

I knew Alessia would be met with very interested eyes, but she was just so more sexy than me.

But when I said so, she simply told me, "Do you want them to look at you in that way?"

I replied without a thought, "It would be nice for a change."

"Then let me assist you."

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Forty minutes later we entered the hotel's hall, already crowded with our classmates. We were the last to arrive - our teachers were probably already thinking of having the reception make a call to our room.

Alessia worked wonder on me, given the little time she had. It was amazing for me how much could be achieved with a little make up, some hair fixing spray and a shirt with a couple of buttons left open.

Most of our male classmates did not hide a little surprise in seeing the two of us finally walking in the hall.

We headed straight to our friends, Antonella, Monica and Camilla, that were as usual grouped together.

They looked as surprised as the males.

"You are wonderful!" smiled Camilla.

She seemed enthusiastic about the work Alessia did on herself and on me. But from the looks of Antonella and Monica, I believe their surprise was mostly about me.

And I felt good. A part of me was actually embarrassed to be the focus of attention. But the rest of me - the rest of me quickly silenced that embarrasment and rejoyced.

When we finally headed to our tables to have dinner, I noticed other tables with students. Another school was staying in the hotel and all the males stared at me and Alessia. Their class had a fair number of females - unlike ours - but nonetheless they noticed me.

I believe I act differently, in that evening. The overwhelming sensation of being noticed made me overconfident. I really enjoyed the dinner and the students - our classmates and some of the students of the other school - gazing at me when they thought I was not noticing.

At one time during the dinner, Alessia whispered in my ear: "There's someone coming for you.. I told you that you could be striking, no?". I smiled and turned to face the approaching guest. It was one of the students of the other school we noticed when we headed for our tables.

It was a very handsome boy, about our age. He seemed very confident about himself, and I saw that the other boys from his school were watching closely his advance towards me and Alessia. Some of our schoolmates seemed very interested, too.

He had stunning blue eyes and auburn hairs, a little darker than Alessia's, and was pretty tall and slender. He seemed confident, but somehow hesitated for a brief instant before introducing himself.

"Hi! I am Ettore. We came from Turin for a school trip. Were are you from?"

He tried to sound somewhat casual.

"Nice to meet you! I am Valentina. We come from Milan," I replied easily.

Alessia had a cheerful smile.

The males of our class kept looking at us while I and Alessia kept chatting with Ettore. Soon after introducing ourselves, we left out places and went to Ettore's table and were introduced to a few of his friends.

I felt no embarrass at all, I enjoyed every single moment of that evening.

When dinnertime came to an end, we had to part with Ettore and go back to our classmates.

Camilla, Antonella and Monica asked us every single detail of that long conversation. We giggled a lot together, making fun of Ettore and his friends. Alessia downplayed everything a lot, however.

"It is just chatting, girls. Nothing to make a romantic novel about."

Was she speaking at me? She worded that phrase to allude at my attitude in our bedroom? This cooled my enthusiasm down a little, I remember.

Now I know she had far bigger expectation from that night. When Antonella, Camilla and Monica finally had enough of our stories and we headed out of the Hotel with the rest of our class to make an evening walk with our teachers, Alessia kept a slow pace until we both found ourselves at the very end of the disordered group of our classmates.

Everyone was busy joking, playing tricks, enjoying an evening with friends in a different town without our parents watching. Some of the males did sometimes still look at the two of us, but no one of them actually tried to tell us anything, so we kept to ourselves.

When the teachers led us back to the hotel, we parted from each other and our friends each went straight to their rooms. Noone really planned to have a good rest: school trips are all about spending the night awake, playing jokes, having fun and doing things forbidden at home.

I thought Alessia would go to our room, too, just to leave a little later and head for the room of some of our schoolmates to have some fun.

But as I said earlier, she had bigger expectations. She headed for the bar of the hotel.

There were several people there. Most of them were evidently on business trips, busy chatting about their own problems in pairs or in little groups. But there were also some people sitting alone at their table.

Alessia told me, "Tell me, there is someone you like here?"

I watched, and in reality most of the men were too old for me. I was 18 at the time. There were just a pair of them I judged to be in their mid-thirties, the youngest I could see in the room.

I told Alessia, "Aren't they a bit old for you?"

But she smiled back at me, shaking her head in disappointment.

"Don't you like any actor? Or singer? Or whatever? They are also older than you! Just reply to the question, there is someone you like there?"

I looked again. One of the younger men was indeed pleasant enough; well dressed, with a fit figure and nice short dark hairs. Not an actor but anyway pleasant.

I told Alessia, "Noone here is as good as an actor or singer or whatever, my dear, but maybe that one is pleasant enough."

I tried to point the man to Alessia without any other one noticing; it is not nice to point the finger at someone.

My voice was light; I took all of this question as a joke from Alessia so I act like I was a queen choosing a pawn. I really had no clue on what her intent was.

Without any warning, she left and went straight to the table of the man I "chose". I believe in that moment my skin was tomato-red.

Alessia boldly sat at the table and started chatting with the man. From his face expression, he was not disappointed; but I could not see anything more than polite interest either.

I did not know what to think about Alessia's behavior. It was so unlike me to be so forward with a complete stranger. I was worried that she would get herself into trouble -- or the both of us.

Alessia kept talking to the man for quite a long time. She always kept a smiling face, and at the end the man was smiling, too, seemingly at ease with her company.

He called a waiter and ordered something to drink for Alessia. Alessia at that time pointed a finger to me.

I wished I simply vanished, but I managed to keep calm and don't act stupid. I smiled back at her and gently pointed my finger at my wrist -- as if I was waiting for her to finish. For sure I did not dare go sit at their table.

Alessia smiled and kept talking to the man for some more time; when her drink arrived, something with a bright red color and a lot of ice, she thanked the man, took the glass and left the table, coming back to my side.

She then guided me outside of the bar, sipping from the glass in the meantime.

She told me all about her conversation with the man at the bar. His name was Paolo, he was a lawyer in Rome, and he was in town for a business conference. I asked what all of that meant.

She looked at me with a smile on her face.

"I tried to sold your virginity away."

I was shocked. Even if I was convinced this was a joke, it was a joke I did not like at all.

I felt a mix of anger and disbelief towards Alessia. How could she even think of joking about something like that?

I tried to remain composed and asked her if she was serious. She kept her smiling face even when I confronted her.

"Do you plan to keep your virginity forever?"

Her tone was as light as always.

"Surely I will not sell myself to the first man I find.. and not for the price of a cocktail," I replied, trying to keep my voice light.

"Oooh! And who will get to take your virginity, then? Someone from our class, and for free maybe?"

She seemed quite serious at this point.

"You do not want to wait for your true-true love to have the virginity issue taken care of, right? What if your true-true love just arrive and you can't keep it because you cannot be sexy enough for him to stick with you?"

Words were still light enough to have this whole discussion considered a joke. But her tone was quite serious now. Not really hard, but not so light as before. She DID believe in what she was saying.

This made most of my anger go away.