Page 68 of Enemies to Prom Dates
He joked about my virginity, but it didn’t feel like a joke. Instead, it felt like something…like something he was always meant to have from me. Which couldn’t possibly be right because I was sure I’d hated him up until the start of the school year.
“Beth!”
My bedroom door burst open and both Lyd and Kit pushed inside. Mary, too, was there lingering behind them.
“Girls!” I admonished. “You know you’re supposed to knock first!”
What if I’d been naked? Worse what if I’d been touching myself?
Touching myself while thinking about Fitz and his kiss.
Gah!
Had that really been about to happen?
The few times I’d tried, admittedly when I’d been furious with Fitz over something, hadn’t resulted in what I understood from romance novels should have been an explosion of physical pleasure. Instead, it resulted in frustration and embarrassment. Tonight, however, I felt different.
I felt changed.
“What?” I shouted at the girls, Kit and Lyd who were now flopping onto my bed, while Mary lingered by the door.
“Did you hear?” Lyd asked me.
“Another bet’s been won,” Kit said right on top of her. “This payout was two thousand dollars!”
“Two thousand,” I whispered. “Who?”
A payout like that meant the odds of succeeding had been low. I considered the class of freshman girls and who among them would be singled out like that for such high stakes. Either someone who wouldn’t easily be seduced or someone for whom the consequences of her seduction would be high.
Gigi was the first girl who came to mind but since I knew for a fact it wasn’t her… I racked my brain.
“Oh no,” I said, as it came to me.” Not Janet Banks.”
Both girls nodded enthusiastically.
Janet was the mayor’s daughter. A sweet, beautiful, young girl who would have been perceived as untouchable given her father’s position in the town.
“When?”
“Today. Apparently, it happened in the back seat of Tim Markel’s car. Now everyone is talking about it. Her parents already know and called the police because, even though she says it was consensual, she’s still underage. Not sure how much trouble Tim might be in. Worse though, her parents are also threatening to send her to the private all-girls school.”
That was Bishop Eustace. The rumor was they actually still had teaching nuns who used rulers to punish the impure thoughts out of young girls.
Bishop Eustace was a threat that hung over every girl at Haddonfield High. Mom had used it often enough with Kit and Lyd.
“This isn’t right,” Mary said quietly from the doorway. “These girls aren’t ready.”
“Speak for yourself,” Lyd said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I’m ready.”
“Lydia Bennet,” I cried out. “Take that back. You most certainly are not ready. You’re fourteen years old!”
She shrugged as if age meant nothing. “Fourteen, fifteen what’s the difference really? Boys aren’t judged by how young they are when it happens, but for girls it’s like we’re still holding on to this hundreds-year-old, antiquated custom of virginity and purity. First, it was all hold onto it so that a man will marry you. Now it’s all about hold on to it until you’re at what society says is therightage, otherwise you’re a slut. Except we’ve all decided that slut shaming is out and owning our sexuality is in. As women our sexuality comes with a built-in physical timeline. From when we get our period to menopause. I say have as much sex as you can in between those years. So when I feel it with the right guy, I’m going for it. I don’t care how old I am.”
There were so many counter arguments, they filled my head too quickly. I couldn’t make a single coherent objection. Instead, I pointed my finger at her like a shrewish spinster, wearing, no doubt, an expression Miss Havisham made when someone talked out of turn in her classroom.
“You are not going to embarrass this family by becoming someone’s two-thousand-dollar payout!”
“As if I would go that high,” Lydia said, rolling her eyes. “Everyone knows I’m dying to lose it. Odds are pretty are high it will happen this year for me. I just haven’t found theoneyet. You know what I mean?”
