One Christmas break. Ten senior girls. One overnight party. Two parents retiring early due to noise fatigue. Ten smartphone cameras for hundreds of candids, poses, and selfies. Six varieties of pizza to choose from; seven soft drink flavors; two kinds of cupcakes, creating laugh-until-it-hurts frosting mustaches (more photos).
Ninety minutes from “It’s late, we should pro’ly go to sleep” until all ten girls were tucked in, in one fashion or another, and the lights were turned off. The interval had been spent in shedding clothes and donning sleepwear, in brushing and braiding and otherwise fiddling with each other’s hair, in renewed bursts of laughter as reminders of the evening were voiced.
Living room furniture pushed to the walls. Emptied space filled with sleepers. Two with sleeping bags, eight content with blankets and pillows.
Zero girls in shamefully un-cool purpose-made sleepwear such as pajamas or nightgowns. Ten girls in various assortments of panties and shirts — three tees, seven tanks — four with shorts and six content just in panties.
Two hours of deep breathing, gentle snorts, and sporadic somniloquy.
Nine girls asleep.
Maddie among them. Erica not. One slow, silent approach.
One gradual realization of being touched — no, more like caressed. One gentle “Shhhh” with a finger crossing two lips. Once sure, a hand moving to stroke a face.
One idea. One unexpected flush of… of what, exactly, Maddie wondered. Something new.
Two breasts never touched by another. Two lips, ending that. More boldness from silent Erica. More acceptance from softly moaning Maddie.
Oh. My. God. There? Really?
One clock on the mantel, ticking softly.
One slow retreat in the absolute darkness. One girl feeling triumph and promise. One girl dizzy from epiphany, yearning for more, baffled both by darkness and by the similarity to the touch of the other nine.
One girl, Erica, thinking: “How can I tell her?”
One girl, Maddie, thinking: “How can I find her?”
Night time. Quiet. Peaceful… for eight.
— Frenulum
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