Michelle's Journal (7/5/26) (Patreon)

Dear Journal:

When I opened Instagram tonight, there were a dozen posts documenting the debauchery I’d missed on Lake Tawakoni.   There was Mitch Peason, swinging into the lake from a branch on an adjacent tree.  There was Gretchen Wilson, looking tanned and toned in a string bikini, swilling a beer.  There was the entire group—about 20 or so—crowded onto a pontoon that looked made for ten.

Good thing I didn’t go, I thought, munching from a Pringles can as I lay propped in bed.  I might’ve capsized it.   

I continued to scroll…

There was Sean, my ex-boyfriend, a bottle of tequila in one hand and Stacy Jack’s right breast cupped in the other.  Were they together now?  He’d always claimed she was “dumb as a stump.”  I guess that doesn’t matter when you’re drunk as a skunk. 

Besides, he was fondling her breast, not her brain. 

I stared at the pic, trying to convince myself that it was just a bit of playful depravity for the camera.  I failed.

My hand slid back into the Pringle’s tube.  I placed a stack of five chips in my mouth and scrolled on…

There was a panoramic of the lake at dusk.  Huge, multi-colored fireworks filled the frame above a smattering of watercraft.  Beneath the photo was the caption: Best 4th of July EVER! 

I thought about how I’d spent my Fourth, lighting sparklers with six-year-olds and hanging out with my father’s work friends. 

My fingers tickled the greasy metal at the bottom of the can.  I licked them clean and tapped out a response…

“Looks like fun!  Sorry I missed it ☹.”

Seconds later, there was a reply from Stacy, Sean’s breast babe.

“OMG, you missed the BEST time.  IMY.  HRU?”

I didn’t reply.  Instead, I flipped my phone onto the mattress beside me and peered into the Pringles can, hoping a rogue chip had eluded me.   

Nope. 

I tossed the empty cylinder toward the trash can beside my desk.  I missed.  The thud when it hit the floor sounded as dull and hollow as I felt.

With nothing to occupy my fidgety fingers, they slid over the fleshy speed bumps bunched above my underwear and burrowed beneath the tightened security of its elastic fence line.   After navigating the spongy swell of my lower abdomen, they pushed past the final obstacle—the unkempt thicket separating hills from wetland—before plunging triumphantly into the hot springs they’d been searching for.

I moaned as my digits diddled.  It felt good...except for the salt that dusted their tips like coarse grains of sand.  Which made me think of the beach.  Which made me think of me in a bikini.  Which made me moan louder, and my fingers plunge deeper.

Once I finished violating myself, the emptiness returned with a vengeance.  I needed something to fill it. Something besides my fingers.

So, I fumbled for my phone and scrolled through my contacts, searching for someone.  Someone to see.  Someone to fuck.  Someone who would want to see and fuck me and who wasn’t at the 4th of July bash.

It was a small list.

Eventually, my finger fell on Chip Larson, my pity date for prom.   

“I’ve been thinking about you,” I said when he picked up.  The sentence made me vomit in my mouth a little.  “Wanna hang out?”

We set a date for tomorrow night. 

Then I crept to the pantry for more immediate relief.    

--Michelle