This is entirely a work of fiction... or so it would seem... Anyway, enjoy!
So, last night, while standing topless on stage at the club, taking turns with another girl spanking a frat boy celebrating his 21st birthday while his frat brothers cheered him on in the audience, I figured I'd better write down exactly how I got here so I wouldn't forget it.
As far back as I could remember, my family regularly vacationed at Myrtle Beach, sometimes called the Redneck Riviera. I really gave little thought to what made the beach scene there tick. My family usually rented the same condo, right on the beach, and as I got older, I spent more and more of my time just laying out by the pool, eating way too much, listening to music, and reading cheap novels. By the time I was in high school, I was aware that my tanning activities were attracting some attention, both from cute boys and also occasionally from their fathers. My Mom warned me to be careful, and my Dad was oblivious.
I don't know why we picked that beach -- I think Mom's family may have vacationed here when she was a little girl. It was actually a pretty long drive for us. Anyway, when my older brother and sister went off to college, they increasingly weren't available for long family vacations. Both had summer jobs, and by the summer after I graduated high school, my brother was studying abroad and my sister had an internship on Wall Street. With that, we decided to put these family trips on hold, and I was stuck at my neighborhood pool all summer, staring at the same people every stinking day. My job that summer (working for a dog-walking service) was literally about picking up poop all day, and so frosh year at college, I thought constantly about ways to get the hell out of town and at the same time make a little spending money for the school year.
One day, I stumbled on a girl's Instagram about Myrtle Beach, and it brought back some really great memories. She had posted pics of her working at a lemonade cart right on the beach, and I DM'd her to ask about it. She said it was REALLY simple -- minimum wage plus tips, just selling lemonade and soft drinks all day. The guy who owned all the carts was always looking for girls, and since the uniform was simply a bikini and sandals, most of the customers were leering Dads fetching drinks for their curtain climbers, and the cash tips were great. She DM'd me the name of the guy and I shot him an e-mail that night.
He and I swapped e-mails, and it was all simple. Where would I stay? Turns out, he had the name of a woman who booked (and sublet) a shit-load of apartments for transient workers like me. They were outfitted basically like dorm rooms -- two to a room, all furnished and with linens and everything. I called her and she said turnover was heavy, so she could plug me in just about anytime I arrived. I'd be in a two-bedroom apartment with three other girls. I told the parental units about all this, thinking I'd get massive pushback, but as it turns out, they'd been eyeing a really long round-the-world cruise for next summer. Win-win! I had an excuse to work off my freshman-15 to get back my rocking cheerleader bod, and I could spend my entire summer slathered in sunblock, sitting on a stool under a big kiosk umbrella, trying not to burn in my freckles. Like I say, win-win.
May couldn't come fast enough. I got home, packed away my winter clothes, tossed every bikini I owned, summer shorts, tank tops, and a few cute skater skirts into two duffel bags, and pointed myself south down I-95.
I'd DM'd my new landlord ahead of time, and Venmo'd her the deposit. She and I met at the apartment complex office as soon as I pulled into town. It was even nicer than the pictures, with a pool and a great lounge area. It was mid-day, and I was surprised how many girls were sunning around the pool. Even more surprising was how many of them were topless!
"Hi, I'm Cindy!"
"I go by Ginger. Looking at your fire red hair, maybe you should call yourself that, too!"
Ginger was younger than I expected, maybe in her 30's or so, and sounded like the sort of woman who had everything under control. Kinda like one of my professors, if my professors had long blond hair and wore maybe too much makeup.
"Does everyone here work transient?"
"Yeah, pretty much. There are a few year-round residents, but for the most part, I sub-let nearly everything here. Summer is really busy, and even in the winter I'm about three-quarters full. It all balances out."
I had done some math in my head on the drive down, and realized that the four girls in the apartment, all paying about what I was paying, were probably making Ginger about twice as much money as she was renting the place for, but then again, it was month-by-month, and she was bearing a lot of risk of us skipping out, so yeah, it all probably balanced out.
"I... ahhh... noticed the pool on the way in. It's pretty secluded from the street, but nearly everyone seemed to be topless. Is that kosher?"
"Yeah... maybe, maybe not, but everyone here 's very friendly, and the cops don't hassle us at all. I've got lots of friends in town, if you know what I mean."
"OK, I get it. Anyway, I'm working one of the lemonade kiosks. 10am until 6pm. I don't know if I'll spend much time at the pool."
"Oh, you'll find time. There's not much else to do here, and beer is cheaper by the case than in a bar."
"I'm only 19."
"I didn't hear you say that. Anyway, don't drink and drive, but otherwise you'll be fine. Let's go meet your roomies."
Ginger handed me a key and helped me with my duffels. We ended up on the 2nd floor of the two-floor apartment building, where all of the balconies faced inward to the pool side. The apartment was nice and clean, with fairly simple kitchen supplies, a wide-screen TV in the living room, and the normal array of chairs and a sofa. It looked pretty much like the standard student lounge back in my dorm.
"You can add anything you want to the kitchenware, but I check an inventory every now and then, and if I need to replace something, I expect you all to kick in."
I glanced in the fridge, and again it was a lot like a dorm lounge, but with a lot of beer and wine, a surprising supply of health foods, and not as much junk food as I would have expected.
"You can work out with your new roomies how you stock the fridge and pantry. Most girls go on some kind of honor system."
"Are most of your tenants female?"
"About three-quarters, yeah. The guys are mostly lifeguards and some seasonal yard maintenance guys. Everyone's young. You won't see many guys here in the daytime, but about half of the girls work nights. All of your roomies work nights, and I think two of them are out at the pool. Someone's taking a shower, so you'll meet at least one of them shortly. Over here's your bed."
She pointed me into one of the bedrooms, and again it was like a dorm but less decorated. There were two beds, one with nicely folded sheets and a clean bed pad ready to be made, and the other looking like it had just been slept in. I was going to get the one closest to the window, with a spectacular view of the parking lot. Sigh... well, at least I was at the beach!
"When a new tenant moves in, I provide clean bedding. There's no maid service, so you girls are responsible for figuring out a cleaning schedule on your own. There's a coin laundry down next to the apartment office."
