The white tube on the lifeguard truck's dash said SPF 50, FOR GIRLS in a curl of script underneath. You hadn't read the second line. The cap clicked open in your palm and the cream came out pink. It smelled like coconut, with something chemical underneath.
You rubbed it across your shoulders. It stung. By the time you climbed the chair the sting had turned to a slow tightening, a band running under your collarbone and pulling itself closed. The lanyard sat lower than a minute ago. You looked down. Your shirt was riding up where it shouldn't, and the shorts weren't high enough to cover.
You fiddled with the waistband. The shorts weren't buttoned anymore. The beach had gone quiet. Your ears and cheeks were prickling. You sat like a statue, hoping if you didn't move it would stop. Your legs were sweating in a way they never had. The weight of the shorts shifted between your thighs, and you knew what that meant.
Your chest was getting heavier. The strap slid down your shoulder. You had to reach up and tug it back every minute. It kept slipping further, and after the next time it slipped you stopped tugging. Your hair was in your eyes. It hadn't been long enough to be in your eyes. It was the color of pool chlorine.
The wooden chair squeaked when you shifted, a dry sound, and you couldn't tell anymore whether the weight that made it squeak was your old weight or this new one settled in different places. The whistle had ended up tangled around your neck. You thought about untangling it but couldn't find the energy to move. There was a wasp on the arm of the chair.
***
The truck pulled up at the base of the chair maybe an hour later. The guy who had left the tube on the dash leaned out the window, grinning, and asked if you had liked his samples. You looked down at him through wet bangs the color of pool chlorine and tried to say something you no longer had the throat for. He set the brake and climbed the ladder.
Up close he smelled like cigarettes. He looked at you for a long moment, taking in the bikini and the way the bench creaked under what you had become. Then he grinned and slid the swimsuit aside and was inside you. You held the edge of the bench with both hands. His hands were on your thighs. Your breasts bounced under the bikini cups. Your body was not your own.
Then he was pulling out, and his come was dripping onto the bench, and you were looking up at him through wet bangs. The sun was warm. Your chest rose and fell against the bikini cups that wouldn't have fit you an hour ago. The chair creaked under both of you.
The thought arrived in your head fully formed, and it wasn't yours, and then it was. The old preferences blurred. This was you now. The old self was watching from somewhere small, and then from nowhere. "I want to do it again," you said. "Yeah?" he said, and grabbed you.
You climbed down the ladder ahead of him toward the truck. The lanyard bounced against a place on your chest that had not existed an hour ago. He fished the pink tube out of the cup-holder, uncapped it, and tossed it back to you. You caught it one-handed. He laughed at something you didn't catch and started the engine. The label was already wearing off in your fingers.