Short Story.

The Expedition

The early day provided boy issues and frustrating family issues, so an adventure was needed. That dark warm summer night had the howl that only sounds when a storm is coming. Ariel was always the most adventurous of us all. The four of us crawled into her little red car, Sarabi as we called it: Ariel and Stephanie up front, Cassandra and me in the back, knees pressed against seats and legs touching. We were ready for the adventure Sarabi was about to take us on.  We made it maybe a mile, before we saw that first great flash. Bright enough for us to see each other’s faces clearly, even at midnight.

We were giddy. Wanting to get a better view we drove until we saw the darkest corner we could find, in a city filled with bright lights skewing our view of the sky that awaited us. We parked and we waited. The first boom rattled the entire car and some of us possibly peed a little bit from the frightening call. With our attention focused on the show that mother nature was providing us, no one noticed the red and blue lights flashing behind us. When the tap of a flashlight against the window came there were no longer any dry panties in the car. I don’t think any of us have screamed that loud before and I don’t think the poor young man in uniform was expecting to see four high school girls in that car. He had us roll down the window and asked if we were okay. We explained that we were just trying to get a better view of the show, and he explained that he was just looking for drug dealers. Considering this was a common dealing corner we all agreed it wasn’t the best place for us to be parked. Once apologies were made and everyone was calm, it was time to head home. That was enough excitement for one night.

Or so we thought. Driving down the long empty road home, we saw a car parked off the side in the distance. As we approached, there, on the hood of that grey SUV were two very naked adults showing the world just how much they love each other. I mean they had the idea, sex during a thunderstorm, yes please. But on the side of a main road, perfectly placed for four innocent high school girls to see them do things, and hear them make noises that none of us had experienced yet? We couldn’t look away, but we couldn’t look straight at them. So we sped past and put all of our energy into just simply getting home.

The excitement of the night must have gotten to us. We were not ready for calm or ordinary, just yet. It was summer, we were young, and the weather was perfect. It was time for skinny-dipping. Ariel had the perfect pool and the perfect way of convincing you to be a rebel, and yes, skinny-dipping was very rebellious for us in those days. We stripped down and jumped in. Splashing and laughing and trying to remember that we were in this together, we forgot all embarrassment, all heartache, all anger we may have been feeling earlier that day. We were on top of the world. We jumped out, our bodies glowing in the night, we ran through the long raspberry fields behind the house. Feeling the dirt between our toes, tasting the sweet red juices, laughing until we fell over. We were feeling the freedom of the couple on the side of the road; we were alive. Every time the lightening came down we paused. Every time the thunder growled we clapped. It was the most magnificent feeling in the world that we thought four high school girls could ever feel. It was a night for adventures, a night for daring expeditions. Mother nature challenged us with her adventurous calls of terror and we accepted.