 To guys, the constant parade of different women is what makes spring break spring break: this one with a lime g-string and double-Ds, that one with dyed red hair and a new tongue piercing she can't keep in her mouth, tomorrow's
girl with the dark skin and metallic string bikini that sparkles brightly when struck by the sun. Even if there's no sort of official sweepstakes going on, guys are perfectly content to create their own, rating the girls from their balconies: "Blue shirt: five! Blondie: four! But you in the black, you're freakin' smoking: nine-and-a-half! Gimme dat nasty dat sweet dat gushy stuff!"
Up close, the comments are just as forthcoming, more observational than analytical: "You got on a black bra," "You got little flowers on your undies," "You got a thong under those sweats, man! Let me see that tho-o-ong!"
As far as the guys are concerned, this kind of commentary, including the egregious use of song lyrics, is completely justifiable. It's the only recourse they have, after all, because here's the big secret of spring break: they're not getting any. Sex seems so close here, what with all the dancing and strutting and body-oil rubbing, but for all the stories about how Brad's best friend's frat brother had an orgy at the Holiday Inn, there are in fact few
reports of sex at all, just a blowjob here or there — "and then the girl threw up on my dick!" "Whenever a guy starts taping me with a camcorder, I always look straight into it and say, 'I did not sleep with this guy,'" says Shannon, "'cause you know that's what he's telling his friends, when the
reality is he didn't get play, and certainly not from this chick."
It's as if Britney Spears, that virgin queen with the second-best-known thong in the history of America, has inspired a generation of inverse Victorians: If 150 years ago the most buttoned-up, proper citizens were the ones having
wild sex behind closed doors, now the most flamboyant exhibitionists might be the ones guarding their chastity most closely. Here at spring break, the whole scene is just one very long tease: girls dance on tabletops with the ease of professional pole dancers, are willing to tongue each other or maybe even flash their breasts, but they are not all that interested in doing anything else, especially if there's not a group gathered about. None of the Tennessee Ten actually have sex with anyone during their trip, in part because they're not interested, and in part because the logistics would be a challenge. The motels' policies insist that patrons wear plastic bracelets after six p.m. so no
visitors can stop by for some hanky-panky. "It's like we're damn kids," protests Alyson. "We're not kids!"
Spring break at PCB: It's like watching a porn movie in which the characters decide just to talk. But that makes sense. Spring break really has nothing to do with actually getting to know the opposite sex — it's about you and all your girlfriends having wild experiences together, the kind that you can play back at home for friends on the twins' dad's Panasonic camcorder. To go have sex with someone, you'd have to leave your friends and find some obscure hotel room — which MTV Spring Break never shows — and there's nothing wild about that.
As much as it is about writing the mythology of your young, wild life, it's also about trying out your future as a woman, determining just how much to bare, how much to preen and when to pull back and walk away.
Spring break is also about tuning into the aggressiveness of the music that's constantly playing on the beach, a thumping, macho rap that pumps the guys up and penetrates through everyone's drunken haze. It's about the night that Alyson woke up at six a.m. because one of the girls was peeing in her suitcase. She had been the last one out the night before, staying up  with three guys who no one really knew, and now she could not stand up straight and kept mumbling something about "not taking anything." Alyson had to put her in a cold shower, and even then she seemed something other than drunk. The other girls woke up, too. They put washcloths on her head; someone suggested they give her a few shots of tequila. "What did they do on 90210 when Valerie got slipped the roofie?" Alyson wondered.
The girl they were worried about slept through most of the day and still couldn't remember anything about the night before by late afternoon, when she finally inspected her arms and found lots of bruises and a carpet burn on her elbow, though she felt all right down there, so she didn't think anything had actually happened. Later on, she just got ready with the rest of her friends for another spring break night, with hair curlers, aloe moisturizers, MTV in the background and "Who took my purple earrings?"
"Where's my cute underwear and bra?" cries Alyson, pulling clothes out of her suitcase. "I want to wear them, in case I have to take my clothes off."
Padding around the room in various states of undress, Alyson and her friends explain that most of them have boyfriends at home — all are in college, because they consider high school boys too immature. "I won't tell my boyfriend about stuff that happened down here," says Alyson, sitting on the side of a bed on which Twin Lauren is lying face down, completely passed out, with a towel around her torso and over her head. "Not because I'm afraid of him — I just don't want to hear the bitching. I mean, he wouldn't be so proud."
A few of the girls tell me they're virgins, and the rest have only had sex with one person. A couple say that they think they might have had orgasms, but the others thought sex was an altogether unimpressive experience and say that they much prefer back massages. Most of their hearts were broken by the guys to whom they lost their virginity, so now they take sex seriously. "It's not the kind of thing you can give away to just anyone," says Best Dressed Jessica, who says that she goes on two or three dates a month. "Not like guys ever take no for an answer."
"You better tuck in your bra strap," says Best Dressed Jessica to the other Lauren, who has just put on a tight blue top. "It's hanging out the back, like always."
"You better get up and dry your hair," the other Lauren tells Twin Lauren, poking her inert foot. "Or it'll look like shit."
The ten of them may be particularly mindful of the repercussions of sex given that Lindsey, twin to Lauren, turns out to have given birth five months ago to a baby girl, Sydney. The father is the guy to whom she lost her virginity; she wasn't on the Pill, and says that the condom broke. Scared and ashamed, Lindsey didn't tell any of her nine best friends until the  twenty-fifth week of pregnancy: "She didn't even tell me," says Lauren, "Because she thought I would look down on her, which I never would have done." Finally, Lindsey gathered them all at a diner off the interstate and broke the news. "Yeah, it was the worst thing in the world when it happened," says Lindsey. "But now I can't imagine life without Sydney."
"Our folks pretty much freaked when Lindsey told them," confides Lauren, who has finally gotten out of bed. "We're just not the type of family where things like that happen. But they've been great since then, really supportive." They're taking care of Sydney this week so Lindsey can have fun and even helped set up a room for the baby, the room that Lindsey and Lauren used to sneak out of after their 12:30 curfew not one year ago. Lindsey's boyfriend is now living in Lindsey and Lauren's house, but he is still not allowed to sleep in Lindsey's bedroom.
As for outrageous party animal Twin Lauren, who may be only twenty-three minutes older (more outgoing, less punctual, more academic), she's in an altogether different situation: she's a virgin. "I'm part of the Church of Christ," she says, hooking on every female spring breaker's necessity, a strapless bra. "I love God, and the plan — for now, at least — is to stay pure till marriage." It's a bit hard to reconcile her pledge of purity with the fact that two hours ago, she was simulating cunnilingus on Best Dressed Jessica in front of a crowd of breakers. "I may believe in God, but I don't believe in judging what other people do, being petty about people's drinking or dancing or sex or anything like that," she says, by way of explanation. "To me, being judgmental is not Christian."
After everyone is ready in their shiny tops and platform shoes and jeans with big holes in the butt, all the girls from Tennessee go to see Mystikal perform at Club La Vela, except that when they go to the club they hear that Mystikal's plane is delayed. So they head over to Sharky's, way down at the other end of the strip, standing in line for half an hour under the big sign saying WAZZUP SPRING BREAK before they wind their way through the club, pinkies linked so they won't lose each other. Here, a "Spin the Wheel" party is already in full swing. The big, green, wooden wheel has a variety of activities on it, like Show Your Butt or Kiss a Girl, but the guy who is running the game keeps using his hand to stop it at Get Naked, so that the girls have to flash.
"Who else wants to spin the wheel?" yells the emcee into the crowd of caterwauling women. He chooses the eager Alyson from all the way in the back; she climbs up on the stage and spins the wheel, and, lo and behold, the needle lands on Get Naked. "Show your tits!" yells the whole crowd, except for one girl in the front whose voice can be distinctly heard goading the
emcee to "Show your cock!"
Alyson lifts her blouse up high, her face disappearing behind it. "Wazzzzzzzup!" she yells.
And there it is: After everything has been said and done, Alyson is the wildest one of all.
It might seem like a small thing. After a week of body shots and mimed girl-on-girl action, why should one flash make Alyson (who prays three times a day) the wildest of them all? But you can see it in her face; she's crossed a line. And her friends are giggling, thrilled, horrified — "Omigod, she's one of those girls!" cries Not Best Dressed Jessica, in a hysterical voice somewhere between laughter and shock. All eyes are on her, the boys' as well as the girls', and if Alyson's not quite a pro, she's closer. It's hard to tell from her facial expression how she feels: Drunk and happy? A little scared? Waves of attention are pouring over her, like ocean water slapping at someone who is wading deeper in. Her face pink from the sun, she stands there with her legs spread, her mouth open, her shirt pulled high, yelling along with the rest of them, taking it all in.
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