dirty girls

In the summer we biked through the long grasses behind your dad’s house, our Conversed feet pumping us along the dirt road. The wind lifted our hair like capes behind our backs, and fingers of sunlight trickled through the trees to warm our bare shoulders. We swerved into a gas station and chained our bikes to the stand outside. I stuffed my helmet into my backpack—you went without one—and we swept through the convenience store. At the register, a familiar cashier regarded us with a dispassionate nod. 

The cashier rang up your usual haul: a pack of spearmint gum, a lottery ticket, and 200 milliliters of Pink Whitney. You bought the latter with the aid of a fake ID that had once belonged to your cousin. The guy never asked to see it, but you kept it on you anyway, tucked between the one-dollar bills in your thrift store wallet. Like a cop gun, you said. God forbid there ever be a situation in which you’d need it, but having it on you was a comfort by itself.

Anything else? the cashier asked. 

No thanks, you said, but hesitation hitched your tone as you eyed the blue L&Ms behind him. 

You had quit smoking just the month before. You didn’t miss the nicotine; you missed having something to do with your mouth. Maybe that was why you had invited me to live with you for the summer—so that in the middle of the night you could spread me open with your tongue and bite into my thighs like ripe apples. So that we could form a Rorschach test blot on the mattress in your dad’s basement. As you sipped your drink in the parking lot, your lips coordinated a dance on the rim that reminded me of the night we’d shared twelve hours before. But I knew better than to mention it. We didn’t talk about what we did. When your lips weren’t busy with mine, they occupied themselves with a bottle to blot out the complexities. 

You said your dad would kill you if he knew what you were up to. 

He says drinking is a sin as if cheating on my mom wasn’t. I’ll bet ten bucks he’s with his new girlfriend right now. 

You chucked the stray pebbles under the curb toward the forest. 

I mean, she’s hardly older than I am. When my uncle came to visit, he mistook her for my cousin. Gross, right?

Gross, I agreed, stealing a swig from your bottle. I winced. The alcohol scorched my nose and throat. Every time I drank, I remembered why I hated it so much. As I pinched my nose to ward off the burn, you cast an amused grin that exposed the chip on your tooth. You opened your pocket knife and scratched the numbers on your lottery ticket. Moments later you groaned and tossed it aside.

Let’s get out of here, you said and unlocked your bike. Helmetless and slightly drunk, you pedaled in a crooked line back into the brush. 

With no reason to stick around, I followed suit, picking up the ticket you’d discarded to properly dispose later. 

That night you dissected a ballpoint pen and disinfected a sewing needle with a lighter. You dipped the needle in the ink and pierced your skin. I gasped but you only chuckled, coolly poking the shape of a heart into your thigh. When you finished, you wiped it down, the wobbly black shape bursting from irritated red skin. It was far from professional but matched the other tattoos you’d given yourself. A spider on your side. A lotus on your shoulder. I studied them in glimpses during our nightly rendezvous, the petals spreading slowly between the sweat-slicked strands of your hair. It resembled a hasty doodle on a homework margin. The outline crumbled like the dirt beneath your fingernails. 

I wonder what your dad would think of this, I said lightheartedly, unsure whether I was referencing the tattoo or what we did in bed. 

You let out a cross between a snort and a sigh as you tossed the remainders of the pen in the trash.

He has no idea what goes on down here. Shit, he doesn’t even know how old I am.

When you kissed me that night, your tattooed thigh found its way between mine and the heart there started to beat, the reddened skin throbbing in time to the rhythm of my pulse. I danced dangerously around it like navigating a landmine. When it found me again, I gasped, and you took it as pleasure. Afterwards, you took me up to the living room for a glass of water. 

Your dad dozed on his recliner. Before him, a televangelist preached to a hypothetical crowd. 

The time has come that we put an end to this degenerate behavior. It’s a dangerous world we live in. Turn to God now. 

You twirled your finger beside your temple to indicate he was crazy. I stifled a laugh.

Ice cubes clinked into a glass cup and you filled it to the top with tap water. My heart still seemed to pound out of my body. In the dark, the heart on your thigh appeared like little more than a shadow. 

I sipped the entire glass in an unbroken swallow. I envisioned the water coursing through my body, cleansing it. The chill rose in my throat, but when it receded, you were dragging me back downstairs to the stained cotton of your bedsheet. 

I cannot forget that we are dirty girls. We devour one another underneath the main floor. We pull ourselves apart between the joists and the subfloor and the underlayment and the finishing, shedding them like the clothes on your bedroom floor. Your kiss brands me like a lighter and a needle; you hold me in between your lips like a cigarette. When you bike, you push yourself ceaselessly forward with those scratched-up legs. When you stumble, the bruise matches the purple of your mouth. And I can't say it but I want you again and again.

Jina Jeon is a multi-genre writer and college student based in Chicago. You can find her on Instagram @jinaswriting.