This one is told from the point of view of Ginger, originally a minor character from Episode 1, as she joins her sister and two characters from Episode 2.
*****
At only eighteen years old, my little sister Samantha was more intellectually and wittily precocious than I ever was, though she had the looks and curves to make a totally different kind of precociousness equally available to her if ever she were to avail herself of it. But instead, she tended to dress plainly in T-shirts and pale blue jeans, though both were often just snug enough to leave the outline of her shapely butt and breasts relatively unobscured. My own usual track suits, skinny jeans, and tank tops did my figure justice as well, but my clothed sex appeal just never seemed quite as effortless as Sam's.
We were boarding an airplane, bound for Paris. Sam had long dreamed of backpacking through Europe, and although I had often teased her about how clichéd it was, I secretly couldn't help but share her aspiration. Then, about six months before her high school graduation, I met and made fast friends with Kara and Theresa, and one night at the end of a hard semester, Kara jokingly suggested that we celebrate having overcome a particularly rigorous round of exams by taking off for Europe. "Boy, do I wish!" I'd laughed, but Theresa's smile seemed more thoughtful. To make a long story short, she convinced us that we could actually do it, especially since a novel that she'd prodigiously written as a teenager was really accelerating in sales and was becoming something of a hit. Once that decision was made, the choice to extend an invitation to Sam seemed obvious, at least with our new financial resources.
At first, Sam had quite regretfully declined. Although she was very scientifically minded, she did have one irrational fear: claustrophobia. The thought of a tiny airplane restroom therefore terrified her. It was one of the reasons she'd never flown or taken a long-distance bus before. When she'd confessed that she'd almost prefer to wet her pants than brave such a "hellhole," I had then mumbled something about it being too bad that the plane seats wouldn't be like the ones in that experimental bus I'd ridden once. However, Kara and Theresa had actually heard what I said and insisted that I tell them the story. Once I shared that tale, they opened up about Kara's sister's van, in which they had both peed on the seats due to the sister having an exceptionally quick and effective cleaning solution. At that point, the three of us had exchanged pointed looks as our mental gears turned almost in sync before directing a collective gaze at Sam.
"Aw, hell, no!" she'd said, reading our expressions like a book. "It's not a private vehicle or some weird experiment!" Her unconscious adjustment of her slim glasses had betrayed her curiosity, however, since I recognized it as a habitual sign of fascination.
"Look," Kara had piped up, "is it ideal? No. But you just said there's a good chance that you'd sooner wet yourself than use the lavatory. Well, if you do, some of it is bound to soak through, so it's almost inevitable that some part of the plane will get wet anyway. We'll bring some of my sister's cleaning stuff, which sanitizes just as well as anything on the market and probably better. No harm done, I promise!"
"Besides," I'd added, "didn't you tell me once that human urine is actually quite sterile?"
"It would technically be a Plan B," said Theresa, "If you feel brave enough to use the bathroom, great! And even if you make it on the flight, there'll still be at least a couple of trains to ride after we get there, probably with bathrooms just as cramped."
