Sarah, Lindsey, Rochelle and I stretched out on the living room rug, a fan of bright flannel pajamas and long, skinny Lolita legs. Our outstretched fingers, twinkling with a fresh coat of pink polish, lined our circle, as we settled down for a game of “Ten Fingers.” 

Photo by Emma Lincoln Pattee

It’s simple: If you’ve done what another person says she hasn’t (an activity usually involving guys), you put down a finger. 

Sarah traced a loop in the carpet’s paisley print, studying the floor intently. She nibbled at the corner of her lip, then croaked, “I’ve never hooked up with a guy.” The flame of a creeping blush licked her cheeks.

To win the game, I had to be the last one with a finger up. But at her words, I curled my finger down. To win in real life, I had to be the first to get all ten down. Being a prude would gain me no status, respect, or admiration.

Girls our age who hadn’t done stuff with guys were tainted meat—rancid, chewy, and gray around the edges. Ugly, gangly things with acne who still wore tapered jeans and doodled unicorns in the margins of their textbooks.

“Bianca!” Sarah whinnied. “You never told us! Who was he? When? Where?”

Technically, I wasn’t lying. I have kissed guys. So what if it was in 5^th grade when we were playing “Truth or Dare”?  But that’s not the explanation I shared.

The cute French boy working a merry-go-round in St. Tropez, whom I had admired from a park bench while nibbling an ice cream cone, became my fantasy guy.

“Cedric was 18 and sooo hot. Black wavy hair. He blew smoke rings! Ohmigod, I never realized smoking could be hot, but yes, yes it is. We hung out, went to some clubs, and hooked up on the beach a couple times...nothing major.” 

I arched my eyebrows and tried to look wistful. Sarah and Rochelle spilled next, details on kissing, hand jobs, and head that revealed more than the articles in Cosmo. I wanted to take notes.

One Finger

I crumple onto Katie’s bed. The three Budweisers have made my stomach feel murky and bloated, like a corpse drudged up from some pond.

Light flashes on the shadowed wall to my left and I feel the mattress sag next to me.  Sean, grinning sloppily, grabs the comforter over his bulk and scoots in beside me. 

He wriggles his fingers against my stomach. I cough out a giggle and flop over, away from him. I mumble, “Heeey, not nice! I’mtryintosleephere.”

“You’re not asleep, are you?”  He squeezes my sides. 

I twist back over to face him, blinking dizzily. “Hmm?”

“Didn’t think so.” 

He tickles me more, running his hands along my knees, back, and hips. I feel his cold, meaty palms under my shirt and then my bra loosens around my chest. I go cold. The hair on my arms quivers. This is it. 

My body stiffens and he pulls me closer. I close my eyes and freeze. I don’t know what to do.

He presses his lips against mine and I feel something warm and rough on my tongue. I open my jaw awkwardly. Now what? I taste the musk of cigarettes and something salty, like garlic. I pull away and then somehow I’m tugging my pink cashmere sweater over my head. I watch it slump to the floor.

The covers snake into a tangle around my calves as Sean kicks them to the bottom of the bed. The zipper on his jeans murmurs and his pants crawl into a heap. His legs are pale and thick, covered in curly golden hair, framed by white tube socks at one end and blue picnic-table-checked boxers at the other. 

What am I doing? What am I doing?

He kisses my neck and I wonder if I’ll get a hickey. Hopefully. Suddenly, my nipples feel warm and wet. Is he? Oh, dear Lord, he is! I want to tell him I don’t lactate, but surely that would ruin the mood.

He rubs hard and fast on my nipples and they spin frantically.

I feel his hand, hot and heavy, on my hair. “Go with the head, go with the head.”  I open my eyes and he’s tugging at the hem of his boxers. He pushes more insistently. “Head...go with the head.”

I close my eyes. Rochelle pops into my mind. She looks at me quizzically. In a high, shocked voice: “You’ve never given head before? Oh my God, Bianca.” A giggle.  “Well, um, well, you know, it’s kind of salty...like, um, I dunno how to explain it...you’ve really never given a guy a blow job?” 

I open my mouth and put another finger down.   

Editors' Note: Bianca Lencek-Bosker, 17, of Portland, Oregon, is the second-place winner of the first annual SEX, ETC. National Writing Contest. Ashley Jones, 18, of Hickory, NC, won first place and Kienan Christianson, 15, of Salem, CT, won third.

Of her winning entry, Bianca says:

“This story is my redemption. During this episode, I was powerless—forced by my friends’ expectations, an adolescent’s gushing testosterone, and my own self-doubts. But ultimately, through my writing, I have taken control. I handpicked these verbs. I knitted these sentences together. The commas, the periods, and the semicolons rest where I have placed them. I am the creator and what I say goes.”