June has only one more summer before she marries her high school sweetheart. She intends to make the most of it, but she has no idea what is waiting for her in Dolphin Coast. Socks on the Beach is a tale of steamy love, jaw-dropping heartbreak, and...
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"So what do you think?"
Holy shit...
The skin-tight t-shirt material dress that I was wearing was black and had large slits of exposed skin: one above and one below the swell of my breasts. Itchy fishnets trailed into chunky boots. We used hot pink blush on my pale cheeks and light blue on what little eyelid wasn't consumed by eyeliner. Eighties gone punk.
Looking at myself in Sam's floor length mirror, I didn't know what to make of it.
I lifted my black finger-nailed hand to my sticky, crunchy hair. The hair that I'd freshly brushed straight out of the shower was now a rat's nest on my head, teased and hair sprayed into wild submission. The smell was suffocating.
Sam, in a similar outfit but in red, stood behind me in the mirror, anxiously awaiting my answer. Staring at me with big, round eyes on a petite frame.
"So?"
I turned to face her.
"Thank you, Sam. If I was a hot guy at a 'Midwestern Emo' show, I'd fuck the shit out of me," I shrugged, grinning like an idiot at my friend.
"Yay! Ah, I got scared there for a sec," she replied, clapping her hands together.
I'd never admit it to Sam, but I felt a little silly wearing this outfit out of the house, parading myself around like I was a part of any of this - that I deserved to be a part of this. It felt like a costume.
Everyone will know that I'm just pretending to be like them...
The feeling remained as I stepped into the venue, where the bouncer at the door had already looked me sideways, back and forth between my preppy ID photo and my current, edgy but nervous appearance. Sam and Benji vouched for me.
Clear plastic shelves stocked with flavored lubes, patterned butt plugs, and pocket vibrators had been pushed behind the register area, opening up the large scuffed tile floor for the band to set up, and they were. A loose bulb flickered overhead, casting a sudden shadow on the ten or fifteen people who were already there and swaying back and forth to the ambient punk music playing through the store's overhead speakers. It was like a strange dream.
I don't belong here...
"Benji!" A light-skinned guy with a goatee and a blue leather jacket called out from behind the drumset, with Cervix Destruction in its typical scrawl across the head of the bass drum.
The three of us made our way over. He looked at us as he twirled a shredded drumstick between his thin fingers.
"How's it going, Cheeser?"
Cheeser? Really?
"A little bit of this. A little bit of that. Excited for the show, though! How about you?" Cheeser responded, talking to Benji but looking at me, scanning up my legs and lingering on my hips and boobs. I blushed.
