The webcam screen flickers, and turns on.

"As a teenage girl, if you are contemplating having sex, there are certain things you should know."

Brooke delicately sets a pair of reading glasses on her nose, and smoothes down her hair in one long stroke of her palm.

There is some blurriness, a temporary pixilation. In the background comes an annoyed response, muffled by the distance.

"Brooke stop skanking around."

The redhead's face comes up close to the camera, grinning, and then fades back again. There is a flash of blonde in the corner, a torso passing by.

"Some things have changed in the last hundred years. For example, you no longer have to get pregnant" (here, there is a ripe pause during which occurs a sarcastic snort and a short offscreen tussle) "or marry the first person you fuck. However, some things have not."

"Hey Dr. Drew, tell 'em what happened to Ginny in ninth grade," comes the disembodied voice from the background. The redhead frowns, and adjusts her shirt to show more cleavage.

"ANYWAY," she snarks, tossing her hair. "The things that have not. The truth is, when you're sixteen and Buddy Jr. has you in the back of his Chevelle (if you're lucky – it could be a Honda and you know what the seats are like in those) the only advice I can give you is going to sound oddly similar to what Mama might've told Joanie 50 years ago on her wedding night: listen closely -"

The sound of a drumroll comes from the background, cut off short before the guitars crash in. The redhead shrieks with laughter.

"Do it again! What was that?"

Peyton's head suddenly bursts into the picture, her mouth wide and laughing, and disappears again.

"The intro to a Sex Pistols song – check it out –"

More muffled laughing. The drumroll comes again. The redhead's face pops into the screen, mouth spilling laughter, eyes bright with cocky mischief.

"Lay on a towel and try not to move too much."

The cymbals clash in the background and two shrieks of laughter go up.

The screen turns off.

He throws himself down on the couch next to her, and they lay there in the blinding afternoon heat that pours molten and gold through the living room windows. The room is dim and full of warm-lit shadows, pure yellow slats of light from the blinds cutting across the carpet beneath their feet. They can see the dust floating in the sunbeams, hear the rattle of the a/c unit, watch the drops of condensation roll off her glass. Time moves like honey, thick and hot and amber.

She moves slightly, groaning, pushing his damp skin away.

"Too hot," she mumbles, and he spreads out lazily on top of her, stretching his arms nonchalantly and muffling her squeals of protest with his shoulder. She squirms under his back, biting his arm, and he rolls off, lying on the carpet by the couch.

She laughs, getting her breath back.

"Now I know why the South is so full of sinners," he tells her. "It's cause we're actually in Hell already. This is it-it's not under the earth, it's between Perry and Magnolia counties."

"Speak for yourself," she replies sweetly, fanning the air uselessly with her hand, pushing back her thick hair. "I'm not doomed to hellfire yet, unless Lila has any pull in the matter. But I'm pretty sure Reverend Maddox won't take her side, not after Mrs. Slater blackballed his cousin from the Junior League."

"Cousin…cousin…isn't that Ginny Lakowski's mom?"

"Geez I dunno. Everybody in this damn town is related to Ginny or Lila. Ever wonder why they're so stupid? Inbreeding. Their family tree looks more like.....a wicker basket," she answers wearily, throwing his wandering hand off her stomach.

He sighs.

"Do I have to wait for snow before I can touch you again?"

She cocks her head as though she is contemplating an answer. But the gaze in her eyes gets lost after a minute or two, and he knows she's thinking about something else now, something private. She turns to him, smudged eyes blinking twice softly.

"Would you come to church with me and Brooke this Sunday?"

She did try to tell Brooke about it once.

They had been in the mall, inside a dressing room at Victoria's Secret.

"I have to get you some nice underwear, now that you're in the position to need them," Brooke had said to her on a Tuesday after seeing the rip in Peyton's bra. A fringe of elastic had been showing through the cotton. She had dragged the tall girl into the pink-silked dressing room, sitting her down on the gilt-edged chair and returning with an armload of frilly, satiny things.

"The lights," Peyton had said when Brooke shut the door behind her.

"What are you babbling about, Dazed and Confused? Take off your shirt."

"The lights are cut just low enough to hide wrinkles. And the pink silk walls – the illusion of opulence, of luxury, all for five dollars in the Sale plastic panty bin. Chinese made bras with stiff wires and enough padding in them to make Texas cheerleaders of us all," she had replied dreamily, peeling off her shirt and bra.

The redhead had rolled her eyes and shoved a bra at Peyton. Transparent net rimmed with rose colored embroidery, stiff dark rose jacquard corseting and a velvet bow in the middle.

"Too French whore. Cocotte."

The next one was pale pink and black laced with satin ribbons.

"And this is better?"

Brooke snatched that one away too and slung another one at Peyton, a creamy beige silk one with a little bit of ecru lace edging.

She had snapped it in the back and stood looking at herself for a moment. Almost pretty, she thought. Plain. He'd like it.

She looked at her breasts, cupped them with her hands and shoved them up, creating forced, creepy cleavage; boobs on a plate, Brooke called that effect, hush puppies on the tray. She let them drop again, wondering when they'd start sagging. She wondered if all girls' nipples were the same color as her own. Things like that, things she'd never say outloud.

Except maybe for one. She had felt the blood drum in her cheeks; she didn't know why. She used to tell Brooke a lot more than that about Nathan – almost everything – but this feels so odd, so sacrilegious, such a breach of ….trust? A secret? But she had to ask, had to know, was going crazy.

"Brooke?" she had breathed, and stopped short, trying to find courage. She shook her head in disbelief at herself.

"Yeah?" the other girl had replied absentmindedly, peacocking a rhinestone studded, flaming pink stuffed bra before the mirror, examining it from different angles.

"Have you ever…..has it ever just happened to you when ….you're not even doing it in any way?"

The redhead had turned quickly, grinning, her eyes dancing with laughter at Peyton's discomfort.

"Has what?" she'd said innocently, snapping a strap.

"You know," Peyton said, her lips forming a silent o, breath drawn in and out of it, the shrug of shoulders, a red flush in the cheeks.

"Oh Holy mother of God Peyton, since when are you such a pre-pubescent? And to answer your question, no, but it's obvious it's happened to you."

The blonde just sank sleepy-smiled in the gilt edged chair then, lolling in her memory, her own bride.

"He just –  held me pressed up against a wall at a certain angle. Clothed. I slipped, caught the edge of his belt. It was just – the things he was saying –just had me trapped there like a ….moth under chloroform, pinned to the …the wall – am I making any sense?"

The redhead had watched her closely, bursting in a shriek of laughter that made the other girl spring up and start choking her with a bra.

"Jesus Brooke!"

"Save the dirty exclamation for your bug collector," her friend had giggled. Then, she'd suddenly become serious. "Are you deadly serious? He didn't even – put any work into it at all?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Wow."

"No joke. I just……thought you might know since you're always reading those stupid Cosmos….if that happens."

"Rarely, I think," Brooke had answered gravely. She'd gone back to admiring the pink stuffed bra before the mirror, but paused thoughtfully.

"That must be something, you know?" she'd said quietly. "To like someone that much, that…just anticipation…..will do it for you? Will kill you?"

"Yeah," Peyton replied, feeling a sort of relief. At laughing again. At seeing Brooke smile. At telling a secret and having a question answered. At not being alone or embarrassed or confused. Which is kind of what Brooke did since we were small, she thinks to herself. Which is what she's been doing for me…..forever.

She gets up then, the boy momentarily forgotten, and gives Brooke a hug. Just a simple, honest, hug.

"What was that for?" the brilliant, compact girl in the screaming pink bra had asked, dimples flashing cheerfully.

"For knowing what to say all the time," Peyton told her. "I mean, even about things that don't matter. You make everything ok."

The other girl had nodded for a second, then simply said,

"Ok"

They both had looked at the pile of underwear and sighed. Brooke picked up a hanger. Then, she'd turned and grinned.

"Can I take the French whore bra?"

She thinks about it relentlessly on some days, days when she's not busy and the world is not falling apart around them from too much stress and drama. Days when everything's alright, everything's just routine.

She tries to remember the things she's learned from other boys. Nathan mostly, the only place she'd ever stayed long enough to learn anything. Things he liked. Things he'd told her to do, or things he's said about it. She remembers amusedly the careful, awkward way he'd handled her sometimes, as though he didn't know what to do with all that anger and yearning she let loose once in a while.

She wonders if he thinks about it all the time. Or what it's like being a virgin for a boy. Or just being a boy.

Or just sex.

The hardest part, she thinks, is that first shocking touch that implies intimacy. Even if it's just reaching over to touch their hand, their wrist after walking and joking around or eating or watching TV or doing any of those normal people things that seem so far removed from the sudden, unnerving silence. If you can just break away from the normal, the world is forgotten, but it always takes a little bit of courage to disturb that complacency and retreat quickly into two private, narrow-focused world between two people's mouths, hands, bodies.

Just a pale, little touch. Sometimes she does it without noticing and then they both become suddenly aware of the situation forced upon them. The first thought that always used to come into her mind was – am I wearing the nice underwear?

Like a trip to the doctor, or any day, just in case you get into an accident and are rushed to the hospital. Preparation or accident.

Peyton's never really been a romantic about these things. Until now, she thinks, until maybe now when she thinks about it so much that preparation isn't important. Past the first point of obsession, into the realm where nothing even really matters, where any moment and any empty room is a sudden, Technicolor possibility.

His lips on hers. Library books. Or stacks of flying geometry papers. The worn carpet of the floor. Or grass stains.

Anything possible, at any moment. No daydreams and stupidities. No concerns about how she will look or where they'll be or if her hair will be perfect or if good music will be playing (or any music at all) or if everything will go well, or if it won't. These were Nathan worries, Nathan preoccupation. Covering imperfections, putting in extra effort, strewing rose petals and wishing for champagne.

With Lucas, she's calm and waiting. Anytime anywhere. Anyhow. None of it all even really matters. She's not preoccupied with whether she'll be perfect looking on that day or be wearing the pretty underwear because she knows he won't care.

The thought fills her with such immense relief and wonder that she falls asleep contemplating it at times.

What it means to be really ready.

It means not having to be prepared at all.

He does come to church with her,  Brooke, and Brooke's boy toy (Mickey Santori) the next Sunday.

Her whole body hums sweetly, clenches when she looks at him in a suit. The stiff edge of the white collar. The sharp cut of the black cloth on his broad shoulders, lanky hips, the soft polish of the wingtips and the perfect knot in the tie. There's something smooth and powerful about it, terrifying.

They're not there because they're religious. They're there because the whole cheerleading team is, and they're having Sunday brunch with Mrs.Lakowski afterwards. Lila's bruised nose and Peyton's black eye are like odd, delicate blooms among all the orchids and daffodils on the other girls' hats and dresses.

They sit in the wooden pews, holding their hymnals and breathing in the Baptist dust. The choir sings angelically, dreamily in the soft light of the morning. They all cast sideways glances at each other, at the ceiling, at the organ, as though they're kindergarteners on a field trip. Lila's white hat droops and curves softly in the front over one eye, only her sharply drawn Mary-Kay Pink Lemonade painted lips showing from one side. Theresa pulls down at her hem perpetually, as though gently surprised that no one else wore a mini. Laney, Jill, Jamie all in a row like china dolls with blonde pageboys neatly tucked behind each pearl-earringed ears. Sterling Sargent and Mary Cady in demure Kate Spade pumps and purses, and large diamonds.

Her and Brooke and Lucas just sit there, and Peyton draws and draws all over her bulletin, Brooke's hand, the announcements paper, the Revival flyer, the tithe envelope, and inside the free Bible she snagged from the front foyer.

He's sitting in the middle of the row, between them and the other girls. Lila's purple and blue flower-bruise turns towards Peyton slowly, one glacier sharp eye looking out from under the hat, creamy pale-pink mouth mouthing the words of the hymn softly, venomously.

And he takes Peyton's hand so the whole row can see it. Takes it and holds it chastely between them, on top of the Bible on her knee.

The white hat turns away sharply.

And Peyton smiles, smiles sweetly, and looks up at the white-draped altar, thinking of things she has no business thinking of in a church. Things she's been thinking about all the time, relentlessly, on days when everything's fine (and after today, even on days when it's not). She watches him from under the fringe of her eyelashes, admiring the strong cut of his jaw offset by the stiff curve of the collar and gleam of the black tie. The perfect gold cufflinks. The slouching insolence of luxury and tailoring. The clean, short fingernails and long, lean, fingers. A slight, delicately smoky hint of cologne.

So she writes it down in loopy, curlicued girl script on the margin of her Bible, writes down what she thinking about, and watches his body stiffen as he reads it, the quick betrayal in his face as he looks away, the sharp pressure of his hand that's almost painful.

She didn't mean to provoke him, especially here, and now.

She just had to say it or she would have …..died….or cracked into a million pieces….her heart had been so full – and she thinks that maybe he gets that.

It seems that he does, because he then picks up the pen and after whispering a few chastising words that humble her a little, he writes back a few quick words that make her heart beat queerly too, and stop for a few seconds, sending the blood to her cheeks.

She rips out the first page of Genesis and puts it in her purse.

She kisses him demurely on the cheek at the door of the Azalea Inn where he drops them off for brunch, and waves goodbye.

She sits and politely sips her iced tea, watching the girls moving like delicate butterflies around her at the table over the rim of her glass. She sees Brooke's little silver flask flash open at her side over her cup of coffee, and sees the gin-bright glitter in her friend's eye. She watches a bee buzzing around the creamy dogwood blossom centerpiece in front of her, hovering hopelessly over the honey dish by the biscuits. She smiles seriously and chats pleasantly with Sterling about how Dabney Gray and her mother had took her to New Orleans, and her mother ended up getting drunk and taking all of them to a transvestite strip show on Bourbon. She joins in the team cheer and joins hands with her moist eyed, dewy faced, sweet smiling cheer-sisters. Brooke's laughter rings beside her, gin-soaked, luxuriant, infectious, slyly sarcastic, cheerfully irreproachable. Golden.

Then she goes home, dazed with love and want and unsatisfied, and reads the small words over and over and over again.

"I feel lost and sick with sin looking at you" reads her small, loopy script. "I think about the things we did. I think about you all the time."

Then, the small print of the page crowding the rest of the page. Genesis the first chapter. Lila's flower bruises. The swell of the organ shattering the roof of the skies and the scent of a million rustling taffeta skirts. Like time waiting, holding its breath, before crashing down with the next words.

His reply on the bottom margin, in small, neat letters.

"So do I. I think about making love to you."