from Jayne’s Nature:

  Jem’s birthday .

  by Jayne Louise.

  Friday, August 15th, 2003

  Jem’s 14th birthday was actually today though the big family party is scheduled for the weekend. But Mom allowed us to invite a few friends over during the day, just to have something to do, you know. So Jules and I asked Gretel and Naomi, Jem’s friends who live nearby, and Jule’s classmate Tina, not for presents or anything, just for lunch and sunbathing out back. They are nice girls who are in Jem’s and Jule’s Sunday-school classes and participate in Youth Group with us. And none of us is dating right now, so it wasn’t like any of us had anything else to do on a boring summer weekday.

  We don’t have a nice big back yard like our cousins Angel and Stephanie do over in Barnegat. Here all the lots are 50 by 100 feet and the houses are necessarily small. It’s only a resort town. In one corner of ours is the garage, which has a walk-up loft in which we hold our band practices. To the other corner of the back yard is is Mom’s garden, the only place with any grass in our otherwise gravel yard. She has roses up against the high garden fence along the back and along the east side are vegetables, beans and tomatoes and a couple of other things including herbs, all growing in cedar planter boxes since they wouldn’t do as well in the sandy, salty soil here. There is a cute little picket fence with a gate along the driveway, and the garage is to the west side and the house blocks most of the view from the street, so it’s pretty private back there. The houses nearby are all either one-story or pretty well sheltered by the fence, the tall cedar bushes behind the garage and the mimosa tree in the corner, or else by the shrubbery and trees in their own yards. So this is where we girls keep a couple of chaise chairs for sunning.

  Gretel and Naomi came over in bikinis, carrying towels and beach bags. at about 10:30, and then we were all out back right away. Jem had on the bottom of her pale pink bikini and then just a little white cotton camisole that’s almost only underwear. Obviously she wasn’t planning on going to the beach.

  I wore the bottom of my yellow string bikini and just the old pale gray-green shirt I use for a coverup, mostly buttoned up this time. It comes down past my hips on the sides and much lower in front and back– I’ve had it on over underwear sometimes and it’s modest enough for the house or in front of my parents.

  Jem stretched out on a blanket and sat down first, and Gretel put hers down right next to her Naomi and Tina were standing there talking together when Jem peeled off the cami top over her head.

  Naturally everyone went totally silent. It was almost funny. Gretel was kneeling on the blanket right beside her, just staring with her mouth hanging open. Jem is very cute, but it wasn’t that kind of staring. It was just that none of them had ever really believed Jem has tanned topless outside– till now!

  Then Gretel said, ‘God! –you really don’t have strap lines!’ And that’s an understatement because she didn’t have lines fro, anything, straps or anything else. So we all laughed.

  Gretel and Naomi looked up at me, waiting for me to tell both my sisters to go pound sand. I am sort of the queen bee in this crowd, mainly because I am the eldest, so they know I would tell them to pound sand and they’d be expected to do it, and that would be that. But I just shrugged and said, like it was a commercial, ‘Well it is the only way to avoid unsightly tan lines.’ And we all laughed again.

  Being the queen bee I got my own chaise. The rest of them got the beach blankets and terry towels on the grass. I sat down and took off the skirt and starting putting on lotion. Jem offered to do everyone’s backside, and then while Naomi and Gretel watched I took off my bottoms too.

  For a moment they all just looked. They also kept glancing over at the street, but we were way in back behind the shrubs and rosebushes and the garage and even though there was nothing to stop anyone from coming around the house, no one would. No one would even know we were here. So Jules took off her bright red-and-blue tankini top and immediately Tina peeled down her tank suit. I guess to those two it was kind of a dare, you know– you don’t let someone get away with doing something like this and then not do it yourself. So in another minute we were all naked and Jem and Jules were helping people put lotion on, paying close attention to the three of us with the whitest bottoms.

  I know many people might think this is kind of queer, but it isn’t really. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. Girls have always sunned and bathed together, for convenience as well as what’s called gender identity. It’s just what makes us girls. And it’s a lot healthier and more comfortable than sunning or bathing with the opposite sex. In fact none of us thought it was anything strange or sexual at all. Well, why should we have? –Jules is only 12-1/2 and hardly interested in anything like that. All she was interested in was getting sun color.

  And there is nothing in the Bible that says being naked like this is automatically a sin. It says we shouldn’t show off what we are given by God– and there aren’t many of us with much to show off in the first place, and there were no guys to show off for, and we certainly weren’t doing it to show off for each other. That would be pride. The only real pride about any of this has been Jem wanting to look good in the new strapless sundress for her birthday party, which got her tanning topless this summer, and if you overlook that the whole thing is totally harmless. And we know that Gretel and Naomi knew of Jem’s new interest– in fact their strap lines aren’t so obvious either. Really I think every girl has tried it, or wanted to– and that doesn’t make all girls boastful sinners. It’s just not that big of a deal.

  Once we did hear some boys going by on the street, and naturally some of us were concerned, but we three have done this enough lately that we know there’s little reason to worry. With everyone down on the grass they wouldn’t have seen much of us unless they’d come right into the yard. And if they had come in, we all had towels and blankets to wrap up in. Besides I’m pretty sure the boys were only tourists– we already know no boys our age live in this block, so they wouldn’t have even thought there could have been girls here at all. We weren’t doing much talking or laughing in the heat and the radio wasn’t loud enough to attract much attention from 75 or 100 feet away.

  Around 11:30 when we were all sweating, I put the shirt back on and went in for a tray of iced tea and six glasses and some chips and stuff, and just sauntered back down the deck steps and across the back yard like it was nothing to think about. Naomi looked up when I cast my shadow over her and said, ‘Jayne, please tell me you put something on under that!’

  They all looked up at me then. I just shrugged. I guess I really didn’t have to answer her– the breeze caught the tails of the shirt just as I bent my knees to set down the tray and from where she was, lying on the ground, she didn’t have much need to wonder about me after that!

  In spite of the nice weather we decided enough as enough and we all went in after about 12:30. There is such a thing as too much sun. Some of us rinsed off in the outside shower an some of us wrapped in towels or put the swimsuits back on… and some of us didn’t. I didn’t. I did keep the shirt on, at least partly buttoned.

  Jem, pampered princess that she is, never put a stitch on the rest of the day. She showered and put on body lotion all over, which she usually does. Then everyone watched Drive Me Crazy on video in the rec room and Jem just lay on her tummy on a blanket on the floor with her eyes glued to the TV the whole time. Well, it was her birthday! –so why not just let her be in her birthday suit? Our guests decided to just not let her bare bottom distract them from the movie and got used to overlooking it. And I think that’s the great magic of this whole thing, that after a few minutes some naked chick lying on the floor watching TV really isn’t such a strange thing any more. After all Jem isn’t anything abnormal– she’s just a healthy human girl and looks only like about what any sensible person would expect someone her age to look like.

  I made grilled-cheese sandwiches with tomatoes on top for everyone and Naomi helped me serve them. She and I stood talking in the kitchen till Tina’s mom came by the front door to pick Tina up. Then I stood there with my arms folded in front of myself and chatted with Tina’s mom a while. We decided to plan a youth-group bowling party for right after school started again, and then she and Tina left. I don’t think she ever knew I didn’t have anything on under the shirt the whole time– even know I know Tina knew.

  Gretel and Naomi left to walk home, about 4:00. They both said they had ever nice time and Naomi said they would like to come over for another sunning session soon, which I thought was a good idea. Gretel did seem a little shy about it, which I guess is understandable. But Naomi didn’t put her bikini top back on under her tropical shirt for the walk home.

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  Jem’s birthday.

  Text © 2005 by Girls Of the Dove LLC.

  All rights reserved.

  This e-text is covered by Digital Rights Management.

  No part of the manuscript or artwork included in this e-text

  may be reproduced, stored or transmitted by any means

  without express written permission from the Publisher.

  Text edited by Melissa Stockhart.

  HTML edited by The Girls of The Dove.

  First Kindle® edition, January 2012

  From the original America Online journal of 2005

  Surf City Source media group

  New Jersey



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  More adventures are told

  in the upcoming complete edition

  of Jayne’s Nature,

  from Surf City Source media group.

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  Jayne Louise, Jem's Birthday (Jayne's Nature)

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