HEADNOTE: "Schoolies" is a debauched week of celebration which occurs soon after the end of the Higher School Certificate; the high school leaving exam and University admissions test in Australia. It might be compared to spring break in the US.
Holiday towns organise tightly controlled entertainment, part of which entails the wearing of coloured bracelets to distinguish the Schoolies from the "toolies" (too old for schoolies -- older guys there to prey on the schoolies girls) and the over 18's (most of them) from those under 18 and therefore too young to drink legally.
All characters in this story are over 18.
*****
It was the second day of schoolies. The four of us had returned to the two bedroom unit that we'd rented on the 10th floor of the Gold Coast unit block at around 4 in the afternoon for a break from the sun and a bit of refreshment before the evening's entertainment.
Gloria and I had each had two bottles of cider and Sophie and Chrissy had demolished half a bottle of white wine when I think it was Sophie suggested we take the traditional photo of us lined up topless on the balcony of the unit on her time lapse waterproof camera for our Facebook pages.
What that means in practice is a matter of interpretation. We started with one of us all facing out; so the camera captured our backs naked but for the bikini bottoms, even if we were exposed to those below and in the unit block across the street. We got a couple of those and then some turned around, our breasts covered first by our full hands and the progressively less covered until we were down to two fingers across each of our nipples.
That was as far and Chrissy and I were willing to go. As it was, the two fingers weren't enough to cover Gloria's nipples. Sophie and Gloria went all the way with a couple more photos, even hitching their bikini pants down to a virtual exposure level with the last one.
All of this was carried out with a lot of giggling and carrying on; completely oblivious to the outside world.
As we were milling about on the balcony putting our tops back on a male voice called out.
"Hey girls. Mind if we climb over and join you?"
As one, we looked to the right where the voice had come from. Four guys dressed only in board shorts had been sitting on the balcony two away from ours, watching us. Sitting quietly, with just their heads and shoulders above the glass railing, they'd been unnoticed in the background clutter and our self-focused carrying on; enjoying the show. In a flash, they stood up and lined the rail; one of them starting to climb over to the balcony of the unit separating our units, even though there was a one metre gap between balconies.
Every year, it seems at least one guy kills himself doing that. Sophie quickly shouted out.
"Don't do that, we'll let you in."
Almost immediately they disappeared inside their unit.
They weren't a bad looking bunch; universally tall, bronzed, with surfer's figures and cheeky grins. The guy second from the left had instantly attracted my attention even in the brief moment we'd been looking at them.
It wasn't long before they were at our door, each with a six pack of beer in their hands and offering up a few packs of chips and nuts to dilute the alcohol. They were a confident lot. Each of them gave each of us a kiss and a hug as they greeted us and we went through the introductions; not a modesty protecting bent pose hug either. They hugged us straight bodied, almost lifting us off the ground in a way that brought the full length of their torsos in contact with ours. I, for one, could feel the package in their pants each time.
Although I didn't twig until later, from the outset it seems they were pairing off with us according to some prearranged distribution. As we initially stood around the lounge room talking, each guy just seemed to position himself to engage a particular girl and focus on her more than any other, being quite touchy in the process. Then as we sat down the shortage of chairs left them ample excuse to sit in intimately close contact with the same girl. Close enough in Gloria's case for her to willing sit down on the guy's lap on a dining chair with a hand over her bare thigh not that many minutes after meeting him. As for the rest of us sitting next to the guy on a lounge, we immediately had an arm around our shoulders.
Any complaint I might have had about being pre-allocated was moderated by the fact I'd ended up with the guy I'd first been attracted to. Tall and on the skinny side like me, he was nice built and a really attractive face and a voice they conveyed an attractive confidence,
With our exam years just finished and each with our hometown stories, there was no shortage of stuff for the group to talk about and the conversation flowed freely and entertainingly.
Two rounds of drinks in and the things were getting more friendly still. Everything was just so tactile and physically playful. Even at the time I was aware that they guys took every chance they had - moments of laughter or anything else that gave them some excuse to move their hands -- to slip their hands closer to a blatantly sexual contact with our breasts. But then I might even have facilitated that by slipping lower in the chair to give Tim an easier reach. And I don't think I was alone in that.
Of course, there's always an excuse found for some tickling too, even if it's nothing more than a "who's the most ticklish" test. That allows them all sorts touching up as we squirm about. At one stage Tim even had an arm up between my legs tickling me, causing me -- or allowing me, depending on how you judge it -- to brush my crutch along his arm as I squirmed about
But the really blatantly stuff probably started when Tim, as he passed the bowl of nuts to Chrissy and her guy on the other side of me, brushed his arm along my breast for the full length of his arm's passage across my body. That's all it took to get my nipple pushing out my bikini top.
The guy Gloria is sitting on opposite us points to it and says...
"Hey Tim, did you just deliberately brush up that innocent young lady's nipple?"
Tim reaches around the front of me, puts the tip of his finger on the feint outline of the nipple of the other breast and says...
"What, that one? No." Of course it immediately rises to his touch too.
"No, the other one."