Virgin Camp

Natalie's POV

That night, while Daisy and Holly were tucked safely in their beds, Ryan and I brainstormed ideas for pranks that we could possibly pull off. It had started to rain outside, and the sound against the roof was loud enough to cover up our whispers. I wasn’t worried about our roommates anyway. They were both easily swayed and even more than that, they were fearfully passive and so I knew they wouldn’t do anything if they found out what we were planning.

Between Ryan’s Engineering skills and my obsessive knowledge about computers, we basically had our work cut out for us. The ideas came rolling out, one after another. I wrote them down on a piece of paper so we wouldn’t forget, and then slipped them into my pillowcase.

“So do you think Jennifer is Damon’s ex?” I asked Ryan as I leaned back against my headboard and crossed my arms over my chest.

She shrugged. “It seems like the only possible explanation for him being so touchy about her. Either that or she’s his current girlfriend.” She scrunched her nose in disgust but continued. “But that would only make things easier for us.”

I looked at her skeptically. She thought she could somehow get Damon to sneak into Pat’s secret hidden place for cell phones to retrieve ours. I was less sure, mostly because I still thought Ryan was just a bunch of hot air. She thought she could do whatever she wanted, but I was more realistic than that. Or pessimistic. I wasn’t sure which.

“Hey, you didn’t see his face when he freaked out about Jennifer,” Ryan defended. “I’m telling you, one mention of her and he’s putty in our hands.”

“Interesting analogy, but okay. Go for it.”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have any faith in me.”

“Whatever. We don’t really even need our phones anyway. I’ll hack the computers a different way and you can call your friends from the camp phone—”

“Just wait and see, Natalie.” She rolled off my bed and faced me. “I’ll get the phones.” She said it so confidently that I had no choice but to believe her, and then she climbed up to her bed.

“Goodnight,” I said over the steady sound of the rain.

“Don’t let the virgins bite.”

• • •

“Why do we have to get up so early?” I asked as I dragged myself to the early morning lecture that would promise to be of absolutely no use to me.

“Because it’ll make us less alert and easier for the Whities to make us go along with their shit.”

“I think they just like to make us suffer.”

She contemplated that for a moment. “If we have to get up early, then so do they.”

“True. But they probably enjoy torturing themselves. Or maybe they don’t even sleep at all.”

Ryan nodded her head in agreement. “That’s it. They’re not human.”

“Of course. They’re robots. It makes sense. Have you ever seen one eat? Oh—wait. Maybe that means they’re vampires?”

She laughed. “If anyone in this camp is a vampire, it’s the Virgin Slayers.”

I opened the cabin door and walked in after Ryan. We found our seats in the very back of the cabin, and when we sat down, I turned to her. “Okay, now remember what I said. Don’t cause any scenes. Try to be at least somewhat compliant.”

She looked at me, unamused. “You should learn to take your own advice.”

At that moment, the Whitie for group three walked into the cabin and I took that as an excuse not to make a witty response to Ryan—also because I didn’t have one.

The Whitie scanned her audience. Every single seat was filled—except one. She narrowed her eyes at the empty seat, and that was exactly when the door to the cabin squeaked open and a girl sauntered in. I wondered if maybe they had called in a stripper to show us how to release our inner sexuality or be more alluring. She sure looked just like one with her barely-there clothing and more makeup on her face than I wore in a year. And it looked like her hair could house a small family of birds.

Ryan grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear excitedly. “That’s Jennifer!”

I widened my eyes and had to cough in order to cover up my laugh. “I thought she was a stripper.”

Ryan snorted in laughter, but nobody paid attention as all eyes were on stripper Jennifer. She smiled at the Whitie and then walked to that empty seat like she owned the place and everyone in it.

“Well,” the Whitie said, obviously trying to compose herself. “Today we’ll be discussing body language. How to use it, how to interpret it.”

I turned to Ryan. “I bet if I walked in late like that they’d make me sleep outside for a week.”

She nodded her head solemnly, while also somehow on the brink of laughter, and then she turned her eyes to the back of Jennifer’s head and stared. She was definitely determined. I had to give her that.

I hated sitting in a class, having to listen to things I didn’t really care about. It seemed a little interesting at first, interpreting body language and everything, but of course the Whitie found a way to crush that small bit of interest as fast as possible. I wasn’t a classroom person—I just wasn’t. I had always thought that if I wanted to learn about something, I could do it myself.

At the end of class, the Whitie told us that we’d be tested on our body language skills tomorrow in our practical lesson. She almost smirked when she said it, like she took pleasure in the thought of everyone looking like idiots and shoving their cleavage everywhere while smiling like ducks.

“I hate this camp more and more every day,” Ryan said as we passed the group three Whitie on our way out of the cabin.

I elbowed her in the side and glanced over my shoulder to see the Whitie glaring at us.

“What? You know, they should have a suggestion box where we could put our complaints and stuff. Maybe we should make one for them. It would be like a favor.”

I laughed, walking down the path toward our cabin. “No one seems to have any complaints except us.”

I could have said a million more things about possible complaints for the hypothetical complaint box, but I didn’t get the chance because someone collided with me then, hitting me in the side and knocking me into Ryan, who almost fell over.

“What the fuck.” It came out of Ryan’s mouth like a reflex. Then, “Oh.”

I turned to see Owen, standing there looking like a puppy who was about to be scolded for chewing up cashmere socks.

“Sorry, I—they pushed me and—I’m sorry,” he said, stumbling over his words.

I looked behind him to see a two guys giggling a few feet away.

“Fuck off,” Ryan yelled at them.

I laughed as they scrambled away.

“Owen, right?” Ryan asked the boy next to me, clearly trying to put him at ease. He nodded his head. “I’m Ryan.”

“Nice to meet—”

“Yeah, okay I have to go now,” she interjected. “See you later.” She raised her eyebrows at me and punched me in the shoulder lightly. Get on that, she mouthed as she walked away, giving me a thumbs up.

I turned to Owen, who had his hands in his pockets and was looking at the ground. I was almost surprised he hadn’t left yet.

“Hi,” I said slowly, looking at him and trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to say. “How are you?”

Ew, I hated small talk. And I despised awkward people. They were so… awkward. I didn’t find them endearing at all; I found them incredibly annoying. Owen was probably the most awkward person I had ever met, but somehow I didn’t despise him for it. I did still find him annoying though.

He shrugged, finally looking at me. “I’m okay.”

I didn’t know what he expected me to say to that. I hated small talk. It was stupid and pointless. Even so, it was better than the awkward silence that had lapsed over us again.

“So…” I grasped for something to say. “You’re a virgin, huh?”

He ducked his head to break eye contact and scratched the back of his neck. I knew as soon as it came out of my mouth that it was the wrong thing to say, but I guess I just didn’t care. If he wasn’t going to take the conversation anywhere, then he’d just have to follow my lead.

“Yeah…” Owen said softly, kind of trying to laugh it off. I could tell he was embarrassed. He was probably one of those kids that would turn red in the face at hearing the word penis out loud. I almost tried it, just to see his reaction, but decided against it.

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed, you know,” I said, and it made him look at me again. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Being a virgin.”

I realized I was also sort of talking to myself. Maybe Ryan was right about me taking my own advice.

He didn’t say anything to that, which left us back in that silence again. After a few moments, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“God, Owen! Stop being so fucking awkward. It’s cute for the first five seconds, but then it just gets annoying. Don’t you know how to carry on a fucking conversation?”

He looked at me, surprised, then burst into laughter. “Sorry my conversational skills don’t meet your standards.”

I stared at him blankly. “They don’t.”

He continued to laugh, and I tried to decide whether or not I thought he was the biggest idiot on the planet, and if I should even waste my time on him.

“Sorry, my high school doesn’t teach us how to talk to girls,” he said, a leftover smile on his face from his burst of laughter.

“You say sorry too much. And—wait a second. You’re still in high school?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah,” he said, like he wanted me to challenge it, suddenly on the defensive. “Oh, I’m sorry, is that too young for you?”

“You said sorry again. What grade?”

“Gonna be a senior.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter anyway, didn’t you hear? We’re too inexperienced to do anything without permission.”

“Who said anything about doing anything?”

“Oh,” I said innocently, giving him a faux smile. “So you just want to be friends? Okay. Sure. We can do that.”

“I don’t know why you’d expect anything more,” he said, playing along.

“I don’t.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

He paused, taking a moment to look at me appreciatively. “Wanna go back to my cabin?”

I shoved his shoulder. “You’re such an idiot.”

As he grinned at me, my eye caught something bright yellow just over his shoulder, in the distance. I squinted my eyes and realized that it was Daisy, talking on the camp phone. Actually, she wasn’t talking on the phone. She was trying to, though. And by trying I mean she was banging it against the cabin it was attached too like that would somehow make it cooperate. She shoved a camp coin into the slot viciously, and then starting hitting the phone against the cabin wall again. Soon enough she was yelling at the thing, getting far too worked up over a simple phone. “Why won’t this thing work?” she screeched, continuing to bang it against the wall.

“Seriously, do you want to?” Owen asked, bringing my attention back to him.

“Do I want to what?”

He gave me a look. “You know.”

“No, I don’t remember…” I trailed off as Jennifer appeared out of nowhere, next to Daisy, lending out a helping hand to her. She was playing nice. I could tell by her body language. Oh wait, had I actually learned something useful at Virgin Camp?

Daisy gave the phone to Jennifer appreciatively, yapping on about something, most likely how eternally grateful she was. She was clearly flabbergasted that someone like Jennifer would even acknowledge her presence.

“Hey, Earth to Natalie,” Owen said, waving a hand in front of my face.

But then Jennifer shoved Daisy away and started dialing a number on the phone like nothing was amiss. Daisy protested, but Jennifer pushed her away again.

“But that’s my last coin for the week! I have to call my mom!” Daisy cried.

Jennifer cocked her hip and laughed. Just like that.

I looked around to see a few other people that had witnessed the event—Daisy had gotten quite a bit of attention from her phone rage. But nobody did anything, and it made me unreasonably mad. They just stood there and did nothing while Jennifer became that girl. The girl who owned everybody, but only because they let her.

Before I could think twice about it, I was running up to the slut and yanking the phone out of her hands.

“Hello?” I said into the tiny receiver. “I’m sorry, Jennifer’s not available right now. She’s busy getting chlamydia.” I hung up abruptly, and then made sure to smirk at the girl in front of me, basking in the glory that was her outrage.

“Who do you think you are?” she asked, her voice going up five pitches.

“Who do you think you are? Just because you’re queen of the sluts doesn’t mean you can go around doing whatever you want.”

She actually had the decency to look offended. “I had to use the phone. She’s obviously too stupid to use technology. She probably would have hurt herself. I did her a favor.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No, I’m not. Obviously you don't understand. I mean, look at her.” She gave Daisy the look from head to toe, a snarl of disgust in her lip. “There’s a reason she’s in group four and I’m in group one.”

Oh, that was just the icing on the bitch’s cake. “You have got to be kidding me. You can’t treat someone less just because they aren’t as good-looking as you in your eyes.” I wanted to slap her across the face so hard her neck snapped, but I restrained myself. “This whole camp was founded on a pile of bullshit. How can you—”

“Would you just shut up?” Jennifer said snottily, putting a hand on her hip. “Nobody treats anyone less than anyone else here. Stop trying to start drama.”

“You just—!” I stop myself abruptly, and regained my composure. “I’m not starting drama. I’m only pointing out how unfair everything is here. Maybe that includes pointing out what a fucking imbecile you are, but so be it. You obviously don’t realize the insane bias, because you don’t have to deal with it.”

“I have to deal with plenty,” she scoffed. “You don’t know my problems.”

I rolled my eyes. “Look. I’m not attacking you—”

“Yes you are!” she exclaimed, cutting me off. “You’re being a bitch.”

“So because I’m telling the truth, that makes me a bitch? Fuck you.”

I was only trying to get her to see her own bias. Apparently, she didn’t appreciate it very much.

“Whatever,” she said, in the most stuck up voice I’d ever heard. “I don’t need this.” She sent me a final deathly glare, and walked away like the whole world was watching.

It took a moment to realize that people were staring. Owen was standing a few feet away, watching Jennifer’s overly-animated butt as she walked away dramatically.

“Don’t look at her,” I snapped.

He held up his hands in innocence, then grinned at me.

I waited for him to make a stupid comment, but he never did.

“That was fucking awesome.”

And he wasn’t quite so annoying after that.