That summer brought a dizzy wave of discovery, trial, pain, and growth for 19 year old Kay. In three short months she learned to ride horse-back, picked up on lost trails into her mysterious youth and made many friends, some of which would fade away like temps, others would stick around and play an impacting role on her life from that point forward.
As an exchange student from Romania, the United States were revealing their colors to her in dazzling increments: Hosted by a family in Bella Cruz, she quickly warmed to the humid winds, the scalding sun on her timid skin. Her father had taught her to speak haltingly in English; She was however extremely shy. Kay had been raised alone, with no brothers or sisters, or friends to speak of. She had learned a great deal from reading books, and often mispronounced words which her mind had told her how to say but her ears were unfamiliar with. Naive to the outright way sexuality was expressed among girls her age, she had been exposed to so little. But at school, and at home alike she found a strange and bewitching discord between the way people talked, and the way that they acted. Thus it was that she was a girl becoming a woman in a world of explicit and yet shunned sexuality.
Early on in that eventful summer, two of her fast-made friends invited her to go to Calico Lake with them, 'for a swim.' Kay agreed, and since she did not have a driver's license, waited on the front porch of her exchange home, watching several neighborhood kids set up a makeshift skate-park in the driveway across the street. She wore a violet, one-piece swimsuit that had been given to her, and had a towel draped over her shoulders which she clung to, since a breeze rolling down the street made goose-bumps rise on her arms and cooled her slight frame which chilled easily, now that it had adapted to a hot climate.
Jessica and Melanie pulled up in a white SUV with the windows rolled down, waving and blowing her kisses as she walked down the flagstone pathway from the porch. Jessica got out of the front passenger seat and climbed in the back, "You sit up front, Kay," She encouraged, and buckled herself in.
"Thank you," Kay's voice drowned beneath a rush of blood--quickening music as Melanie turned up the radio, which blared a strange, electronic sounding song. The ride passed them smoothly along to the lake, as the music somehow seemed to accelerate the images passing outside of Kay's window.
When they arrived, trawling through pedestrians in a gravel parking lot to find a spot, they parked under some trees and Melanie popped the trunk. The three girls climbed out, Jessica retrieved a closed basket, with three blankets folded on top, from the back. They made their way over warm sand to the shore, where Jessica and Melanie started to spread their blankets to lay down and soak in the mid-afternoon light.
Kay wandered toward the lapping waves. She was a tad self-conscious, and had been since they piled out of the car; She was a scrawny and long-legged adolescent with tangly brown hair and brown eyes that made others pause, stopping as they did a weird double-take, as if reaffirming what they saw there. She had no idea what that meant about herself, but she had quickly become aware of herself in a way she wasn't fully comfortable with.
Partly, this was in reference to her two compatriots. They were, in contrast to Kay, who felt lanky and awkward like an overgrown child, fully and obviously women. As they set out their blankets and lay down to sunbathe Kay could not help casting glances their way that were full of a sort of reverence. Both girls took obvious pride in their bodies; Jessica wore a scanty two piece swimsuit that was a generic yellow color, Melanie looked ready to model in her flower patterned green bikini. Even the way they moved was graceful and somehow unconsciously seductive at the same time. Unconscious—that is until they began to do things to flaunt their sexuality more explicitly.
By and by, Kay spread out her own blanket and joined the other two. Jessica was standing, posing really, as she surveyed the crowd up and down their stretch of beach. She had wide hips and a trim, athletic body. As Kay rubbed sunscreen over her arms and pretended not to watch, she pulled her thin bikini bottom up so far that it pinched up between the folds of her skin. If the proverbial envelope of what was socially acceptable was continually expanding in this land, as she had been told, Kay felt as though she was bearing witness to it now.
Indeed—but her fascination was growing along-side new feelings of scrutiny towards her own body. In a rush she felt heat coming to her cheeks, her side hurt physically as a tall boy walked by, torso lean with muscles like a coiled harpoon. She had never been a comparative girl, but now it hurt to think—how her own chest was flat beneath the smooth fabric of her one piece swimsuit, almost a clean line to her belly. While Jessica moved to her hands and knees to lay on her stomach, her breasts hung between her arms, pushing her bikini top toward the sand with an insistent weight, reminding Kay of some kind of tropical fruit, which in its fullness, bends a slender branch. When Jessica rolled over, her breasts were proud hills casting voluptuous shadows on her skin.
What sort of creature was she, next to these girls—these women—wondered Kay. A small one. With nothing to flaunt. The beach felt stifled by its own population, too many were sprawled across these sands, and Kay felt like an animal in heat—lost in the flux of tanned, handsome humans catching the sun like shiny objects. And the surface of the water shone tranquil and blue beneath them all.
Melanie turned toward her, and from behind large dark sunglasses shaped like butterfly wings, smiled, "You won't get a tan if you keep putting that on."
Kay stopped distributing sunscreen on her neck and returned the smile, a little guiltily, as though she were doing something wrong by using it. From the feel of the sun, full and potent against her body, what Melanie said was not true. But she did not argue.
"In fact, you can't get a real tan with a swimsuit on," Melanie lifted the sunglasses from her eyes, which were dark and shining smoothly with humor.
Jessica rolled onto her side to face them, "That's true. Hmmm...Kay, have you ever gone nude? In public I mean?"
Kay shook her head adamantly, "No, no."
Melanie covered her mouth to stifle a small laugh, "Kay you need to experience what its like to be naked out of doors. You won't feel like a woman until you do."
Kay was still shaking her head, "It sounds embarrassing. How do you stand people looking at you?"
"We'll go somewhere private," Jessica suggested, "Obviously not here...with all these people."
"You really want to take off your swimsuits?" Kay did not relish the idea of exposing herself. Even with the full sunlight a creeping breeze tickled her legs, and she felt that it would be very cold, and very shameful to do such a thing.
"Of course," Melanie waved a hand through the air, "We didn't come here just to get a tan."
