The Virgin girls are not virgins. The Virgin girls are not virgins—not yet. They are here to redo themselves and reassemble their youth. They stand on a blasé wooden stage, wave goodbye to their loved ones, blow air-traveling kisses. Goodbye, for now, we’ll see you when we’re better. Some of the Virgin girls cry, their large syrupy tears sparkling like topaz in the dim auditorium light.
One of them, the blondest Virgin, lost her virginity at a mini golf putt-putt and immediately knew her mistake when he whispered, “How about that hole in one?” Another Virgin, the tallest of the group, let herself go in the back of a Buick, let herself go in the back of a Mazda, let herself go in every local parking lot in town trying to win “most shagged sweetheart” amongst her sisters. One Virgin girl has never done it, or does not remember doing it, or rather, who did it for her.
The Virgin girls hug each other. The Virgin girls are in this together. They exit stage left, led away from their loved ones and lovers.
Light jazz, the kind an overpriced, fancy Bistro might play, moves through the overhead speakers in a secluded room that reeks of Pine-Sol. The table in the center is covered by a sterile white sheet and a jar of maraschino cherries sits on the counter like cotton swabs at a doctor’s office.
The Virgin girls are introduced to the director, the Stem—a pallid, middle-aged woman with a highlighted hair topper that sits lopsided on her thinning scalp. The Stem, as they all know, was once a Virgin girl herself.
“The procedure is quick,” the Stem says. The Virgin girls line up in pairs, holding hands.
“Take it all off from the waist down,” the Stem says. The Virgin girls do; they help each other undress.
The Stem pulls one preening cherry out for each new girl who comes behind the medical screen. Scarlet juice blots the clean linen as she instructs each Virgin girl to spread her legs, take a deep breath, and exhale, squeezing the fruit into her opening.
“Hold it there,” she says. One by one, the Virgin girls do. They hold and they hold and they keep holding as they exit and redress and file back on stage. When they return, the audience erupts with applause. They have always loved to look at these girls.
Everyone smiles. Everything shimmers. The cherries push tighter between the girls’ legs. In the crowd, fox eyes glow, eager to see them pop.
E.J. Schwartz is the author of Before We Were Blue. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Threadcount, and Necessary Fiction, among others. A New Jersey native, she now teaches and studies fiction at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She tweets @byEJSchwartz