Virgin Camp

Natalie's POV

Honestly, everyone at Virgin Camp was deranged. I was almost beside myself as I walked back into the dining hall after being poked and prodded until I was “acceptable”. I felt like I was looking at everything from behind a magical window of knowledge, watching all the idiots go along with everything, doing whatever they were told to do. Was I seriously the only one who realized the absurdity of it all?

My Virgin Slayer wasn’t even that good-looking. I folded my arms across my chest as I watched him charm the pants off his future victims. It was disgusting. No amount of good looks could have made him attractive to me. Though he did have a nice smile…

I scowled and looked away. My eyes landed on that chick who had decided to make a scene and got hauled away because of it. She was the reason I had been put in the ugly group, I was sure of it. We had been sitting at the same table, so it had been assumed that we were working together to cause disruption. I was guilty by association. It was ridiculous. They had put me in the ugly group to send a message, if only a small one. Don’t mess with the system.

Got it.

I stood among my other group four campers, as hideous as my great grandpa’s hairy feet. They were still awful looking, even after our “makeovers”. There are just some people that you simply cannot help.

The pretty group one and two girls were already all over my Virgin Slayer. They had gotten there before me because apparently, they didn’t need as much fixing up as the girls in group four. My Slayer was number one. Clearly he thought it made him the best. I thought maybe their numbers corresponded with their IQ, but hey, it was just speculation.

“Hi, I’m Daisy.”

I turned to look at the girl beside me. She had bright blonde hair that had been tamed into a ponytail, and braces that were almost offensive. No one had braces anymore. Those were old-school.

“Nat,” I said shortly, hoping she would leave me alone.

“Are you nervous?” She leaned toward me eagerly. The girl had no concept of social cues. I wanted to get away from her metal mouth and overly-large eyes.

Luckily, I was saved by my Virgin Slayer. He swooped in and saved me from the social pariahs! How heroic of him. Excuse me while I swoon.

I kept my arms crossed over my chest as he stood in front of me. I put an unimpressed expression on my face and made sure to send off those ever-helpful “don’t touch me” vibes. Virgin Slayer number one clearly understood the concept of social cues. He stayed a good distance away from me.

“Let’s just pretend we’re getting along, okay? Pat’s watching and it’s my job to talk to everyone, not just the good-looking ones,” he said with an air of cockiness.

He eyed me up and down, hesitating on my chest. I wanted to slap him. I should have.

“Sorry my face doesn’t give you an instant boner,” I sneered, with a fake smile on my face for our lovely Pat. “Asshole.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise, then looked me up and down again, this time with a disgusted look on his face. I repelled even the man-whore who was getting paid to devirginize me. Somehow, my self-esteem didn’t seem to mind. The more he disliked me, the better.

He turned to Daisy beside me, with her obscene hair and offensive braces. Was I really on the same level as her? Sure, I wasn’t the prettiest girl on the market, but I wasn’t that bad. It’s not like I was a virgin because I repulsed every guy out there. I was a virgin because I was okay with that. I wanted to have sex when I met an awesome guy, not when I got shipped off to Virgin Camp. Everything just felt so wrong.

“Hi, I’m Daisy.”

“I’m Jackson.” And I’m going to be taking away your virginity in a few weeks. Nice to meet you!

I glanced at him as he moved on to the rest of the group four girls. He was pretty attractive—if you ignored the cocky look on his face and the condescending way he talked to all the group four girls. He had jet black hair and an amazing jawline—which was my weakness. Damn him and his perfect face. He had just a little bit of stubble too, which was another thing that I found particularly attractive. His eyes had a kind of smolder to them and he had thick dark eyelashes. I could definitely see why girls would be all over him.

I made sure not to look at him for too long the rest of the day. You can never be too careful. Sometimes I did crazy things on impulse that I would come to regret for the rest of my life. Best to just avoid the temptation altogether.

They served some glorified version of meatloaf for dinner. We had to stand in a line, holding our plates and waiting patiently for our turn to come. It reminded me of grade school. The group four people had to go last in line. It was only obvious what the camp was doing. They were judging us on our appearance.

If you looked good, you got treated better—just like the real world. If you were ugly as fuck, you sure as hell didn’t get the same privileges as pretty people. It was discrimination against the lesser gifted in the looks department. The funny thing is, nobody was protesting that. Discrimination against blacks? Sure! Against women? Go ahead. Protest all you want. But nobody ever stuck up for the ugly people, even though it was proven that they were less successful in life. They didn’t get treated nearly the same. Where was the equality in that?

I ate my dinner angrily, still sending off those “don’t touch me” vibes. People seemed to receive the message, as no one talked to me. I realized if I kept going at this pace, I would end up all alone with only my fourteen cats to keep me company. I wasn’t complaining, because it honestly sounded more appealing than having to socialize with these people. Cats don’t care if you’re a virgin.

A loud voice cut off my train of thought. “Please go to your counselors when you are finished eating. They will show you to your cabins!” It was Pat, with her idiotic bob and general annoyingness.

Why was she so fucking excited about everything? I looked around as people smiled hopefully into their food or at the person next to them. I hated them all.

I shared my Whitie with the rest of the group four girls. Each group had two Whities—one for the girls and one for the guys. My Whitie was an idiot, but that was to be expected. She was way too happy about every little thing, but I could tell it was fake. She didn’t want to be a counselor for group four. Ew. No way. Yet she pretended to be happy for the sake of her job, I suppose.

Slowly but surely the girls of group four gathered around the Whitie that was supposed to guide us out of the realm of virginity and into the realm of social acceptance. I watched as we walked around the camp, stopping at various cabins and dropping off ugly girl after ugly girl. Finally, we came to cabin number sixteen.

“Daisy Christofferson, Natalie Franklin, Lorraine Ryan, and… ah, Holly Sowinski,” she said, reading off her bright pink clipboard. “Cabin sixteen.”

I looked grudgingly at the girls who stepped forward, bags in hand. I didn’t want to share a tiny cabin with them for the next few weeks. However, the Whitie continued to lead the other girls along to their cabins, and I realized I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Soon enough the Whitie’s voice faded and we were left in front of our cabin in silence. Nobody even moved.

“I don’t want to go in there,” I said, staring at the wooden door.

“Hi, I’m Daisy,” I heard Daisy say from behind me. I really didn’t want to live with her.

“Holly,” the girl with dark brown hair mumbled. I turned my head to examine her out of the corner of my eye. She wasn’t that bad looking. Her eyes were kind of squinty and she had an abnormally large nose, but she wasn’t hideous. Not like Daisy, at least.

“Ryan,” the girl with long blonde hair said. She was the reason I was in group four in the first place.

They all looked at me, but it was obvious my name was Natalie, as all the others had been claimed. “Nat,” I said blankly. I turned back to face the wooden door, still not moving toward it. I didn’t want to go in. It would be the beginning. It would mean I was really doing this.

“I hope none of you are superstitious,” Ryan said spookily, pushing past me and walking up the creaky wooden steps.

Daisy looked at her with a worried expression on her face. “How come?”

“Didn’t you know? The number sixteen means you’ll be really bad at fucking, when your turn comes.” She put a hand on the doorknob.

I rolled my eyes and climbed up the steps after her.

“W-what?” Daisy stammered.

“I read it in the pamphlet,” Ryan said with a smirk. “It’s one of the so-called myths of the camp, but everyone knows those are always true.”

She threw the door open and I peered over her shoulder to the inside of the cabin. It was smaller than it had looked from the outside. There were two bunk beds, some kind of wooden thing that I guess could pass for a desk, and a musty rug in the exact middle of the room. Everything seemed dusty, even though it wasn’t.

I entered behind Ryan and flicked on the light, but it hardly did anything. I threw my bag on the bottom bunk closest to the window, wondering what the cabins were like for the people in group one.

“What other myths have you read about?” I asked Ryan, just to humor her.

She shrugged. “We’ll find out soon, won’t we?” She threw her bag on the bed above mine, sending me a smile that wasn’t at all friendly. It wasn’t exactly mean either. It was just kind of knowing, but also arrogant, if that makes sense.

“What do we do now?” Holly asked, perching on the edge of the other lower bed.

I leaned against the dinky wooden ladder leading up to the bed above mine and crossed my arms. I wanted to go home. I wanted to have my summer all to myself—with my friends, doing random crazy shit before college. I didn’t want to be stuck in a cramped cabin with three strangers. From what I could tell, the only thing we had in common was our virginities.

“You can’t have that bed!” Daisy shrieked, her eyes widening at Holly.

Holly sprung off the bed, hitting her head on the wooden post above her in the process. She rubbed her forehead slowly. “Why not?”

“I can’t sleep on the top bunk. I just can’t.”

I turned to see Ryan climbing up to her bed without using the ladder.

“How do they even assign these things?” I asked her as Holly and Daisy began to fight over the bottom bunk. “Did they randomly throw us together or is there a reason for their madness?”

She managed to flop onto her bed and sit cross-legged, looking down at me with some form of amusement. “I don’t really give a fuck.”

“Yes, you’ve made that clear,” I snapped. I leaned my head back against the ladder and sighed. I missed home already. I missed my bedroom. I even missed Kaylie. How was I ever going to make it through the summer without losing my mind—and possibly my virginity?