“Ain’t you never been skinny-dipping, Petey?”

“There must be fifteen different kinds of chocolate ice cream here,” I remarked to Megan as we deposited our pints on the iced serving table in the big family room of Joanna’s parents’ house. Mansion really.

I’d been here before, and I shuddered a bit, remembering the morning…. Shit! Was that only last weekend? I felt dizzy.

Megan didn’t seem to notice, so I guess I didn’t stagger around or anything. She giggled. “Well, there are probably at least that many girls here,” she remarked.

“Huh?” I said intelligently, having forgotten what I had just said.

Megan continued. “Seven Varsity cheerleaders, four Jayvee, and I think two or three of the freshman squad are making it this time.”

“Plus me,” said another voice. A woman stood near the door to the kitchen with what looked like a highball glass in her hand. She seemed amused, and I recognized a resemblance to Joanna in the blonde, blue-eyed Aryan Princess presentation.

“I’m Beverly, Joanna’s aunt, and the designated adult for this party,” she continued, looking directly at me. “Mmm,” she added as if speaking to a narrator hidden in the butler’s pantry, “She does look pretty butch.” She made a motion with the highball as if toasting me. The amber liquid in her glass sloshed, and the ice cubes clinked.

“What?” Megan glared at the woman, and I felt the beginning of my own dislike.

I took Megan’s arm and steered her away from any further confrontation. “We’ve been here before,” I said, remembering the morning I had woken up in an upstairs bedroom minus an important part of my anatomy. The memory didn’t put me in a good mood.

Megan might have caught the direction my thoughts had strayed because she linked arms with me and continued a purposeful stroll. “I’ve been here lots of times. Let me show you the wonders of Chez Linklatter.”

“You certainly don’t look big enough or strong enough to play football on the boys’ team,” Beverly said to my back. “I think Joanna is an inch or two taller than you, and your girlfriend there has more meat on her.”

I ignored her and followed Megan, whose stiffened back was making a beeline for a set of French doors near the bottom of the wide staircase in the middle of the ground floor.

“The house has all the stuff you could expect,” Megan was saying, sounding a bit distracted. I could sense she was seething but wanted to avoid a scene with Beverly. I put an arm around her waist and gave her a small squeeze.

She continued with the real estate spiel, distracting both of us. “Seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a library, a parlor, a wet bar, servants’ quarters… but it has something you don’t expect to find in Arizona.” She opened the big doors and stood out of my way so I could see.

“An indoor swimming pool,” she said, gesturing like a game show hostess at the extravagant add-on room at least forty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a huge rectangular pool taking up more than half the space. Markers painted above the waterline declared it to be seven feet deep at one end and three at the other.

There were three figures in the pool… and not a swimsuit in sight.

“Oop!” Megan made a noise and tried to close the doors again.

I started to back away from the scene while behind us, Beverly broke into guffaws.

“The water’s perfect,” said Joanna from the deep end of the pool. “C’mon in, it’s won-nn-nderful!”

“I—I don’t have a suit,” I said inanely.

“You see anyone wearing a suit?” Joanna demanded with a sly grin. “C’mon, Petey, the water’s fine. It’s heated and will help relieve any cramps you might be having.”

Just as she said that I felt a stab in my middle as if someone had grabbed at my inside and tried to strum a G-chord. I must have winced because Joanna’s grin got wider, and the two other —naked!— girls in the pool giggled but tried to look sympathetic. I only recognized one of them, Sonia, a darker Joanna-clone from the varsity squad.

Megan took my arm but did not try to pull me away.

Beverly was suddenly beside me on the other side. “Ain’t you never been skinny-dipping, Petey?” she purred the question, taking my other arm.

I shrugged her off and managed to back up two steps, Megan following. “Not since I was ten,” I admitted.

#

I flashed on the scene in my memory. Jake and I had gone down to Star Creek while on a camping trip with our families. Jake had taken his clothes off first and dared me to follow him into the water.

“It’ll be cold!” I protested. Star Creek ran right off the taller mountains beyond our edge of the Mogollon Rim. Even in August, you could probably find snow and ice in the deeper canyons under trees and shrubs.

“Sissy,” Jake had accused. “It’s only agony for a moment, then it’s warm, once you’re in.”

I did it. At least, I remembered doing it. Taking off my clothes and putting a rock on top of the pile of shorts, socks, and T-shirts, then threw myself in, trying to splash Jake as much as I could. He’d been right, though. The water was so cold it sucked all the air out of my lungs. I flailed around, gasping and trying to get my breath back.

I might have drowned, but I remember instead lying on the creek bank with Jake kneeling over me. “Petey?” he said. “Petey, you’ve got to be okay!”

“‘M-okay,” I managed. “B-but I’m s-so cold!”

Then Jake laughed and hugged me. “You’re okay! You’re all right!”

We hugged some more, then we got dressed and made it back to the campground without anyone missing us, though our mothers commented that our hair was wet.

Later, that long ago night in our sleeping bags, Jake had teased me. “That water was so cold,” he said. “So cold that your stuff crawled up inside you to try to get warm!”

I knew he was just teasing me, but I got scared, and I reached down to check. If it had gone up inside me, what if it didn’t come back out?

Had I dreamed that part? Or was that when it happened?

#

But I wasn’t camping on Star Creek. I was in the pool room at Joanna Linklater’s house, and she was laughing at me. I shook off the memory with a shiver, facing Joanna.

“Big strong football player, afraid that the water is too cold,” she cackled. “C’mon, Petey. You’re okay. Nobody here but us girls.”

I looked at Megan, and she shrugged. “I will if you will,” she suggested, not eager but willing to back me up.

“But then they’ll know!” I protested.

“They already know,” she pointed out.

“They only think they know ‘cause Joanna told them,” I countered. “If they see me naked, they’ll know for sure!” I felt my face scrunch up. “What if they tell everyone? I won’t get to finish out the season. I won’t be able to play football!”

“Jeez! Petey! There’s more to life than football!”

I was crying. I knew I was crying, and I couldn’t stop. Was football all I had that made being me worth it? It was a large part of it, I decided. Not everything, but football was important. My confusion cleared up, and I nodded at Megan. At the moment, she was the only ally I could count on.

But what if I had a whole squad of allies…?

I nodded to Megan again, and we both started shedding our jackets. It was still October outside, but you wouldn’t know it in the damp warmth of the pool room. Still, the water was probably cold.

Sonia and the other girl in the pool waded to the shallow end, laughing and giggling. “You coming swimming, Pete?” Sonia asked.

“Yay! Petey’s gonna swim with us!” the other girl squealed.

“Yah, Petey,” Joanna called out, pulling herself out of the water with the ladder. All three had little strings, maybe six inches long, hanging from their groins.

My mouth fell open again.

“Ice cream party rules for the pool, of course,” Joanna said. “If you’re going swimming, you’re going to need a tampon, too, Petey!”