Putting the bikini on was the hardest part. Robin had saved money for two months, forsaking movies, fast food, shoes and that expensive shampoo she liked, and afterward she was convinced no goal was too lofty if she put her mind to it. And yet, here she stood in a strange hotel room with dingy walls and a malfunctioning TV, holding the string bikini in her hands, and her hands trembled.
"Robin, did you bring your purple eyeliner?" Carmen asked, as she stood naked digging in her purse. "I think black will be too, you know, goth before the sun goes down."
Walking from the taxi was what did it, down two blocks along the oceanfront. The street was packed with thousands of college kids, none of them wearing more than they had to. Each boy was an Adonis, each girl a Venus, one set after another of perfect tits and hair, perfect tans, swimsuits hugging perfectly and exposing perfectly. This was not Robin's world. Playing the cocktease could be fun on a Friday night after the football game, fumbling in backseats and guest rooms in Boise, Idaho, but that was nothing compared to what she had already seen since arriving here, and all she'd done was traverse that part of the globe from the airport to this room.
"I'm gonna wear this blue one of yours, Brenda," said Kari, topless but still wearing shorts, white socks and loafers. "With the five pounds I lost this month, my red one's too big."
Robin held the top against her bosom and looked in the mirror above the sink. She wore a lime green baby doll T-shirt, but even that wasn't really her style. It pulled at her boobs, making the wire in her bra poke through in a line. The other girls sometimes chided her for not spending the extra cash on Victoria's Secret paraphernalia, what's called the "seamless" or "invisible" or something. There was just no getting around, however, that Robin was more comfortable in sweater sets, blouses, golf shirts, in short, loose-fitting. "Invisible" bras were for girls who deliberately shrunk their shirts. That would never be her.
"Sure, Kari," Brenda answered. "Unfortunately, I can probably fit into yours." She already had the red top's flimsy spaghetti straps on her shoulders.
Not that Robin had anything against the shrunk-shirt crowd. When a girl has something to show off, she should, but Robin looked at the world a little more intensely. She was beautiful, yes, she had an athletic figure and superb breasts, even her ankles made boys hot, but that was precisely why she didn't flaunt it. Robin had the looks, she had the brains, and above all, she had the self-confidence. What motive could there be for her to put it out there for every boy? She certainly didn't want EVERY boy, just the good ones, and even those boys should work for it.
Or so she told herself. Now, here, at Panama City Beach with her girlfriends from the "shrunk-shirt crowd," her self-confidence seemed to have abandoned her. But she wouldn't allow it, she would not. Robin pulled her t-shirt off, unhooked her bra and tossed it carelessly on the bed, unzipped her capris and pulled her white cotton briefs down with them, then forced herself to look in the mirror once again. There she was, at last, Rockin' Robin, the pretty girl with intelligent eyes. Gorgeous clothed, gorgeous naked, gorgeous speaking or silent. She slipped into the string bikini, orange with no pattern, a magnificent color for her not-too-pale Iberian skin and wavy brown hair.
Then she looked in the mirror, and the anxiety returned. The tummy she thought flat back in Boise now threatened to pooch... or was that just her imagination? No pooch, she decided, just anxiety in her stomach.
"They'll all stare at me," she said to her reflection. She tried to force her hands down, but they wanted to cover her body, to hide her, and she let them.
"You say something, Rob?" Carmen said.
"No," Robin stated.
Kari smacked Robin's ass. "You look fucking hot, girl."
Carmen grabbed Robin's tits. "I'd do ya," she said with a grin.
Robin grinned back. "Cut it out."
Brenda pulled the string on Carmen's back, and her top fell open. "See how you like being molested," she giggled.
"You know I love it," cooed Carmen, shoving her bare tits in Brenda's face. Brenda laughed. She grabbed at Brenda's body in a playful way, moaning and lusting with cartoonish hyperbole. Then suddenly Carmen's nipple was in Brenda's mouth, and the room turned quiet. No one would deny the compelling eroticism of the friends' embrace, fondling one another, shiny with sunblock from head to toe.
Kari ran her fingers through Robin's hair, an intense look in her eyes. "Wanna have some fun?" she whispered seductively.
The sudden change in tone hit Robin like a knife to the gut, like a betrayal. Kari had been her best friend for ten years, ever since they were little girls in grade school. Throughout that time they played with sex the way boys play with a father's gun hidden under the bed, knowing the act lies somewhere between harmless and lethal. Kari always played harder – she was, in the final analysis, hornier in general – but neither intended to give up on fantasies of good old-fashioned American romance, with the husband and kids and Barbie's pink Dream Trans-Am. The two girls met Brenda and Carmen in junior high, and a year later, all four helped each other masturbate at a late night sleepover in Kari's basement. The next day the girls pretended they enjoyed the adventure, but Robin could tell they were unsettled. The husband, kids and Trans-Am were too important to throw away on a night of uncomfortable fun.
And so, when they decided as freshmen in college (Kari and Robin at UC Berkeley, Brenda and Carmen at Boston College) to take the trip to Florida together for a week of debauchery, alcohol and anonymous sex, it was almost inevitable they'd breach the subject of lesbian rampaging. Kari told Robin how Carmen first suggested it on the phone, and Robin could tell the idea still made Kari nervous. For Robin, it was more than that. The grade school fondlings with Kari had left a bad taste in Robin's mouth, and with each escalation over the years, that taste had grown more sour. She loved these girls deeply, passionately, but not in that way, and she resented being forced to explain it. Things would be different if any of them were truly in love with girls, but they weren't, and that was the honest truth. Hello? Husband, kids, Trans-Am? Ring a bell, ladies?
Robin pulled her hand away. "No," she said too softly for Kari to hear. "No," she repeated, and all four looked up at her. She hadn't meant to cause a scene, or to make anyone feel foolish or upset. "I'm not ready," Robin admitted, then added, "yet," although that was a lie.
She had no intention of jumping into an orgy with these friends. The more she thought about the situation, the more honest she grew... She had no intention of jumping in bed with ANYONE this week. A little debauchery and alcohol sounded fine, but random sex wasn't her style. Backseat teasings in Boise had been fun, as a break from the boredom, but she had known all those boys for years, and some of them she really loved. It was no secret among the girlfriends that she'd been the least promiscuous at university.
If promiscuity was what it took to stay friends with these girls, then they would soon drift apart. The realization made Robin profoundly sad, and she would never articulate it that way, but there it was. Kari understood, that much was a relief. In junior high Kari had loved fooling around with these girls, for the thrill of it, but the old-fashioned dream could not be jeopardized. To the best of Robin's knowledge, none of them had been with girls since the night of their high school graduation. There had been a beach party and the girls swam to the other side of the lake, where they stretched across the sand in the pitch dark of night, removed their swimsuits and circle jerked. Afterward they discussed leaving one another for different schools, and the conversation had been more poignant and intense than the orgasms. The whole masturbation event felt more obligatory than daring. These days, Kari opined that the East Coast collegians sometimes hooked up in their dorm room, but Robin suspected this happened less than Kari guessed. Both Carmen and Brenda had boyfriends – neither too serious, but still. They were adventurous and horny, no doubt, but although the heart wants what the heart wants, it was the experience of all four that the heart rarely wants to bed-hop. It's complicated, it's deceptive, and it's a little icky.
So what had they REALLY come to Florida for? Did any of them truly harbor daydreams of drunken bacchanals on a yacht? All Robin wanted was to spend time with her friends, and laugh, and read a little Mary Higgins Clark.
"That's cool," Carmen said with a look of genuine understanding. She replaced her bikini top as she pecked a kiss on Robin's cheek. Robin instantly felt reassured. This was going to be an awesome vacation after all.
The four heartbreakers left their hotel room at 3:45, still early enough in the day to take advantage of the sunshine for several long hours. Kari put the "Maid Service, Please" tag on the door even though no one had mussed so much as the drapes. They took a moment to admire the ocean (or Gulf, whatever) from their vantage point on the twelfth floor of the resort hotel tower. In the elevator, they all put on their sunglasses in unison. "Let's get 'em, girls," said Brenda. None of them wore shoes.
Their first stop was the front desk, where they left their room keys with the cute boy at the register. (No one had anyplace to carry a key.) The plan was to lay out on the sand and put away a cup of beer (one cup each, no more until dinner). That plan changed when they got to the lobby, which opened onto the main Panama City strip. Somehow the place was even louder and rowdier than when the girls first arrived, and the point of it all was simple and irrefutable—to create a sea of flesh. Young, glistening bodies bounced against each other like atoms in a reactor. Girls giggled and screamed, boys grunted and barked, and everyone was touching everyone.
Robin couldn't help feeling a little scared. She never considered herself claustrophobic, but if someone were to fall in this wave of humanity, they'd be instantly snuffed out. She allowed the other girls to pull her into the wave, afraid to wuss out. After all, if this wasn't what she'd come down here to do, then why had she come? All they talked about for weeks was how good it would feel to finally be free from all that "good girl bullshit," the combed hair and ironed pleats. They would wear as little as possible, kiss as many boys as possible, and say whatever the fuck came to mind.
Someone grabbed Robin's ass, very hard. She yelped, turned around. A blonde boy with a goatee and chiseled pecs laughed and gave his buddies a "hang ten" sign. She was about to call them "assholes" when Kari WHOO-HOOed and returned the hand gesture. Robin felt betrayed for the second time in an hour, and the feeling lingered as they pressed deeper into the crowd.
Almost by way of self-fulfilling prophecy, Robin stumbled. She landed flat on her stomach, her boobs slapping against the street. Gravel or some other texture grated painfully against her legs. Above her, the revelers neither looked down nor slowed down. First came a kick to her cheek, then someone stepped on her elbow. A pair of shoes landed full on the back of her calf, then became tangled in her legs, and the person kicked her buttocks as he or she struggled to stay aloft.
Robin screamed, but the din sponged her voice. Suddenly, she felt hands gripping her under the armpits, lifting her as easy as a bolt of cloth. The hands belonged to a boy with blue eyes and brown hair, wearing a white T-shirt. His face exuded intense dedication to some task at hand, and as he lifted Robin into his arms and barreled through the crowd, she realized that she was the task.
Even outside the flow of traffic in the street there were too many people. The boy commanded some guys on a bench to "Move, move it," then he set Robin down. At last she was able to rub her elbow, where the pain was worst. She touched a bruise and hissed.
"Are you okay?" the boy said. He wasn't trying to yell, but he had to make himself heard.
