Chapter 1
Mackenzie leaned against the window of her cab, trying to ignore her parched throat and throbbing headache. It was 10:30 in the morning and she was somewhere in Cancun, taking a cab back to the resort villa she was staying with her friends on spring break. Taking a cab back from the hotel room of the random guy she had hooked up with the night before. Or more accurately earlier that morning. She had split off from her friends at the dance club and left with the guy at like 3 AM to go back to his hotel. A random guy she had met at the club, another college student on spring break. Cute yes, fun to dance with, but a stranger, nonetheless. It was not like Mackenzie at all to do something like this, and she was a little embarrassed, a little ashamed. She was a virgin. Was a virgin. She wasn’t anymore. Her first time was now on spring break with some random drunk guy in a hotel room in Mexico. Not how she had pictured losing her virginity. It was not like she was saving herself for marriage or anything like that. She had actually told herself and her friends repeatedly that she would not finish her freshman year of college a virgin. Well, it seemed she had accomplished her mission with almost two months to spare before finals, and more than 3 months before she turned 19. It did not feel like an accomplishment in her hungover state as she rode back in a cab wearing her clothes from the night before and trying to forget all the awkwardness that had ensued.
In college, Mackenzie had hooked up with a couple guys. But she had never gone all the way with anyone. Maybe it was because she was kind of shy around boys. Maybe it was because she was nervous about her first time. Or maybe she just wanted that first time to be special. But last night, she had been quite tipsy, the guy was cute and seemingly nice, and they had started making out at the club while they danced. She knew that normally her friends would have never let her leave alone with a guy. But they were drunk too and they knew Mackenzie was intent on losing her virginity before the semester was over. In their drunken states, Mackenzie’s friends didn’t have any sounder judgment on the matter than she did. A couple of them egged her on to accept his invitation to go back to his hotel with him and she had foolishly agreed. There was more making out and fondling in the cab and then she was in a hotel room with a practical stranger.
But no matter how cute and nice and charming he was, having a drunk guy whose breath reeked of cheap rum thrusting on top of her was not how she had fantasized her first time. Nor had it been that special or enjoyable. It hurt at first and it never felt that good. She had not even come close to cumming and Mackenzie orgasmed pretty easily. The guy hadn’t lasted that long and he had passed out soon after he had finished, leaving Mackenzie to lie there beside him in his bed and slowly sober up and start to regret the whole thing. She tried to tell herself that the first time was probably rarely some pleasant, romantic experience, but that did little to sate her embarrassment and regret. Mackenzie had debating dressing and slipping out of the hotel right then but as she lay in the guy’s bed and mulled over her decision, the other guys her passed out lover was sharing his hotel room with returned, drunk and loud as they stumbled into the room. The hotel room had two queen beds, Mackenzie and her passed out paramour in the one bed and this two friends apparently sharing the other. Mackenzie wasn’t about to slip out of the bed naked and fumble around for her clothes with them there. So, she pretended to be asleep and she had to ignore the crude comments they drunkenly whispered about her when they saw her there lying there under the sheets next to their friend. Being called ‘that hot blonde slut from the club’ by two drunk frat boys was the perfect ending to her wonderful night.
After the roommates quieted down and passed out Mackenzie quickly fell asleep from a combination of her exhaustion and inebriation and thankfully, when she woke up, all three guys were still out cold. She wanted to shower but she dared not do so in the company of these three strangers. So, she had quickly dressed, slipped out of the room, and went down to the lobby where a woman at the reception desk hailed her a taxi. And now she was returning to her friends, who would surely try to force her to divulge all the juicy details. Something she was absolutely not going to do. The only thing she wanted to do was sleep in her bed in the villa for an hour or two, to recover from her hangover and try to forget the whole incident.
Mackenzie’s phone vibrated and she glanced down and saw her mother’s text. ‘Just checking in. Are you having fun?’ Mackenzie knew that her mother was not actually checking in to see if she was having fun. She was checking in to see if Mackenzie was OK, which her mother had done every morning that Mackenzie had been on spring break with her friends. Her mother had not liked the idea of Mackenzie going to Cancun. Her mother was overly protective, hence a big reason why Mackenzie had finished high school a virgin and had very little experience with boys at all. Mackenzie’s mother had been quite strict about dating when Mackenzie was in high school. And her mother’s protective nature was also the main reason why she had never traveled outside the United States prior to this trip. It had taken several phone calls with her mother to get her reluctant blessing for this trip.
These texts during spring break were not entirely new. Mackenzie’s mother had also checked in with a text like this every morning for the first couple of weeks after Mackenzie had gone away to college that fall. It was annoying but also touching. Mackenzie was very close to her mother and knew her mother was just very protective of her. Mackenzie’s mother had eventually stopped texting McKenzie every morning, which Mackenzie interpreted as meaning that her mother had finally relaxed and learned to stop worrying about her daughter being hundreds of miles away from home in New York and at her college in North Carolina. But her mother’s habit had returned now that Mackenzie was on spring break in Cancun. And probably good intuition Mackenzie admitted, given her present circumstances and condition.
Mackenzie texted back. ‘Having fun! Going snorkeling today!’ That part was true. And a better response than, ‘I am taking my ride of shame back from the hotel room of the random guy who had sex with me. In a room with two other men I don’t know. Now in a cab by myself. In Mexico.’ She is pretty sure if she had sent that, her mother would be on a plane within the hour to come to Mexico to haul her daughter back to the states. And probably withdraw her from school and put her in a convent to be a nun. Not that her mother was religious, or particularly socially conservative. She was just very protective of Mackenzie and Mackenzie’s three younger sisters. Always warning them that boys and men could be dangerous. Thankfully, Mackenzie had escaped her first time having sex unscathed, apart from her embarrassment and a splitting headache.
A few seconds after Mackenzie replied, her mother sent back a heart emoji. She had clearly been glued to the phone waiting for that text back confirming Mackenzie was safe and sound. Mackenzie replied with her own heart emoji. Then she closed her eyes and leaned against the window for the remainder of the short trip back to her resort. The cab arrived and Mackenzie entered the resort and headed through the property to the villa where she and her friends were staying. She walked up to the front door and punched in the code in the digital keypad and slipped inside. Please be in bed still, Mackenzie silently prayed about her friends. No such luck. They were all awake, all seated at the kitchen table having breakfast. They immediately started teasing her.
“Did you finally lose it?”
“Our sweet Mackenzie is finally a woman!”
“How was he?”
Mackenzie ignored them and refused to respond but she smiled. She knew their teasing was good natured. She glanced around the table at her friends as they grilled her. She had gone on spring break with five of her friends; all of whom she had met at college. They all lived in the same dormitory hall and had quickly bonded.
There was Gabriela, who was Mackenzie’s roommate in the dorm. Gabriela was a few months older than Mackenzie and had just turned 19. She was Brazilian and was a stunning beauty, tall with a natural brownish tan and a stunning body. She looked like a supermodel, the kind of girl that turned the heads of every guy in the room. On top of that, she came from a very wealthy family in Brazil. Despite all of that, she was actually very down to earth and super nice and she and Mackenzie had immediately become close friends. Gabriela was also super smart and fluent in three languages, Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Mackenzie had taken Spanish in high school and was continuing it in college but coming to Cancun had driven home how little Spanish she actually knew. Gabriela however could communicate in Spanish fluently; not that it mattered too often here in Cancun as it seemed many or most of the residents in this tourist destination spoke at least some English. Unlike some of her other friends, Gabriela had refrained from teasing Mackenzie when she returned to the villa. Perhaps it was just her nature. But Mackenzie was pretty sure Gabriela was a virgin herself. She was flirty with guys and Mackenzie knew she had hooked with a few back guys at school and gone on dates with a few more on top of that. But Gabriela was also Catholic and went to church every Sunday and Mackenzie suspected she had never gone the whole way with a guy, though the two had never discussed it.
Next, there was Brooke, a California girl, a pretty brunette, and the oldest in the group, having turned 19 that fall. Brooke was pledging a sorority but had managed to escape her sorority pledging to travel with her friends on this spring break trip. Brooke was most definitely not a virgin. Brooke was very outgoing and usually the instigator in their group for fun or trouble. It was at Brooke’s birthday festivities that fall that Mackenzie had gotten super drunk the first time in her life. The few of times Mackenzie had hooked up with guys in college had usually been nights when she was out with Brooke. It was Brooke who had pushed the hardest for Mackenzie to go hook up with that boy from the club the night before. And Brooke was now the ringleader of the teasing brigade that was ribbing Mackenzie at that moment.
Next was Brooke’s dormmate, Riya. Riya was a third generation Indian American whose grandparents had come to the United States from India. Riya had just turned 19. She was very smart; her parents were both doctors in New Jersey and Riya herself was likely destined to follow her parents’ footsteps into medicine. Riya was super friendly but shy and reserved, even more so than Mackenzie. She had a conservative upbringing and was definitely a virgin. Mackenzie was not even sure if she had ever hooked up with a guy at all at school. Unlike Mackenzie, Riya had not been actively aiming to lose her virginity. Though plenty of boys at school had certainly tried, as Riya was just as beautiful as Mackenzie’s other friends. But because Riya was not actually looking to lose her virginity, the friend group never teased her. Mackenzie interpreted that as reflecting the good nature of their teasing of Mackenzie now. They were only teasing Mackenzie because they knew Mackenzie would not be hurt or offended by it. Riya herself was not teasing Mackenzie and was giving her a sympathetic look as their other friends continued grilling her.
Next was Madison, the wild redhead of the friend group. Madison was 19, a couple months younger than Brooke and from North Carolina. She was outgoing like Brooke and those two had quickly grown close; they were even pledging the same sorority. Madison lived up to her stereotype as the wild redhead. She was the big partier of the group and she had spent the night in some random college boy’s resort room a couple days prior to Mackenzie’s now regretful indiscretion. Mackenzie only hoped Madison did it again tonight to take the heat off her. Mackenzie thoroughly liked Madison. Like all the others in Mackenzie’s group of friends, Madison was very pretty but more importantly was very nice and approachable and personable.
Mackenzie’s last friend on the trip and at the kitchen table was Saba. Saba was a second generation Iranian American; her parents had fled Iran to the United States before Saba was born. Saba was the youngest of the group; she had actually skipped a grade in primary school and had just turned 18 a few weeks ago. Saba had it all; she was beautiful, as so many Persian women were, and she was an athlete, having been a star soccer player in high school, though she had given up athletics to focus on academics once she got to college. And she was very smart. She probably got that from her parents, who were both college professors. Saba’s mother, Soraya Borojeni, was actually a professor at their college and her dad was a professor at another college nearby. Given her experiences in Iran, Saba’s mother’s academic focus was on human rights and women’s studies, and she taught a number of courses on feminism, human rights, and gender violence and oppression.
Though some of Professor Borojeni’s academic focus was on Iran, given her origin, she was predominantly focused on the Maledom Empire, a pariah nation where most women were not just oppressed but actually enslaved. No women had any rights to speak of, and the abuses of women there were horrible. Neither Mackenzie nor anyone else in her family was that focused on politics or foreign affairs but Mackenzie knew that much about the Maledom Empire and shuddered at the thought of living in such an oppressive, cruel place. Professor Borojeni was one of the foremost experts in the United States on the Maledom Empire and also one of its foremost critics. She frequently participated in TV interviews and lectures at conferences where she was highly critical of the Maledom Empire’s human rights and women’s rights track records. She had also published two books about the Maledom Empire and its numerous atrocities. Professor Borojeni also taught an introductory freshman class on women’s studies and Mackenzie, Brooke, and Gabriela had all taken her class their first semester.
Saba had taken after her mother. At the beginning of the semester, she had joined a student group, Students Against the Maledom Empire (SAME), which supported the fight for women’s rights in the Maledom Empire. Though she was only a freshman, Saba had already taken a very prominent role in the group and had organized a number or initiatives within it to fundraise for groups in the Maledom Empire fighting for the freedom and equality of all women there, as well as for charities that supported women who had escaped the Maledom Empire and were now refugees in the US. Saba had also encouraged her friends in the dorm to join SAME. Brooke and Madison had joined and were not as active as Saba, but still regularly attended meetings. Gabriela had attended a couple meetings in the beginning of the semester but had eventually stopped attending, wanting to focus on other activities. Riya was also more focused on her studies and other student groups and had not been interested in getting involved with the student group.
Mackenzie had almost attended the first meeting of the semester with Gabriela. But she had texted her plans to her mom in response to one of her mom’s morning check-ins. Mackenzie had immediately gotten a call from her mother. Her mother asked Mackenzie to promise not to go and said the Maledom Empire was very dangerous and she had heard they might even track the names of foreigners in other countries that supported what the Empire government referred to as “terrorist organizations” within its borders. Given that Mackenzie was not very political, she had agreed with her mom’s request without any protest. But even after promising her mom, Mackenzie got a follow-up call from her father who also asked her to promise the same. Mackenzie’s parents had gotten divorced when Mackenzie was a young child but her parents remained somewhat close after the divorce, even friends. And though her father did not live with them, he had co-parented Mackenzie and her sisters and remained a big part of Mackenzie’s life. He was certainly not as overly protective as Mackenzie’s mother and so when he pressed Mackenzie about not attending any SAME meetings, it stuck with Mackenzie even more. She promised her father just as she had promised her mother and she relented to her parents strong wishes and never attended a meeting. Her father had also offered a compromise that Mackenzie’s mother also supported. They encouraged Mackenzie to donate money (which was really her parents’ money considering they financially supported her) to one of the charities that helped women refugees from the Maledom Empire in the United States. But they strictly forbid her from donating any money to organizations that sent money to women’s groups in the Maledom Empire, to eliminate any risk she ended up on any “terrorist lists.” Saba had not pushed it when Mackenzie or any of the other girls had declined to become involved in SAME. She was passionate about women’s rights and fighting against the oppression of women but never pushed any of her passions on her friends. And Saba had given a very heartfelt thank you to Mackenzie when she learned Mackenzie had donated to one of the groups that helped women refugees from the Maledom Empire.
Saba was also the reason Mackenzie and the others were here in Cancun for spring break. Saba had won a raffle in a contest at school for a free spring break trip. She had selected her closest dorm hall friends to come with her and it had been a great deal for all of them. Everything was covered, including their airfare, the villa, the snorkeling excursion today, and other activities. Mackenzie was hungover and unsure if she even wanted to attend the snorkeling trip in a couple hours. But she decided she should force herself to go. If for no other reason than that it would be one of the few activities that they did that did not involve heavy drinking and partying. At least she could get some innocent pictures to send to her family.
As Mackenzie ignored her friends’ ribbing and headed towards the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water, Saba closed the ribbing with a kind compliment. “As drunk as he was, he clearly has good taste. He went home with the prettiest girl at the club.”
It was a cheesy compliment but Mackenzie still appreciated it and smiled. All of her friends were very pretty but she knew she was too. She had been homecoming queen in high school and was always complimented about her looks. But her parents and her mother especially had always taught her that looks are only skin deep and it is what is inside that counts. And she always tried to be a nice and generous person to everyone she met. That was one of the reasons she liked her new friend group in college. Sure, they were all attractive, but all of them were nice and good people inside and none of them were stuck up or arrogant. They were never “mean girls.” Even when they teased Mackenzie about losing her virginity to a stranger in a cheap hotel room in Mexico.
Mackenzie took her bottle of water and headed upstairs to her room. She only had a couple hours before they left for the snorkeling trip but enough time to lie down for a little bit and nap to try and recover from her hangover. She chugged the bottle of water, stripped off her clubbing clothes from the night before and hopped in the shower. The shower and the bottle of water made her feel a lot better. After getting out of the shower and drying off, Mackenzie through on some shorts and a tee shirt and got in her bed. She set the alarm on her phone for 90 minutes and was out quickly.
When Mackenzie’s alarm went off to wake her, she felt a lot better. She threw on a bikini and a sundress over it and then went downstairs to join her friends. She continued evading and ignoring questions about the details of what had gone down with the boy from the club and she ate a banana and drank another bottle of water. Then it was time to head to the entrance of the resort where a van was waiting to take them to the marina.
The snorkeling excursion was included with the trip that Saba had won and it sounded like a fun activity to Mackenzie. It would just be the six of them plus the crew, so a fun bonding experience for the girls. And a boating experience she could tell her parents about, as opposed to the larger “booze cruise” a couple nights prior.
Once the van arrived at the marina, the girls headed down the pier where they met the crew in front of the boat. It was four men, Carlos, Miguel, Luis, and Alvaro, all of whom thankfully spoke English so they did not have to rely on Gabriela for interpreting. A couple members of the crew went over the instructions on how to use the snorkeling equipment, which was simple enough. They boarded the boat and then they were off.
The crew told them that the snorkeling spot was a reef about a couple hour’s ride by boat and so Mackenzie and her friends hung out on the deck as they headed to their destination. They all removed their sundresses to work on their tans. They all wore bikinis except Riya also wore a sarong over her bikini to give herself a little more modesty. One of the crew members brought out some light snacks and some fruit punch. The punch clearly had rum in it but it seemed pretty weak. And a little alcohol always helped a hangover so Mackenzie decided to partake in the rum punch with her friends. Soon they were talking and laughing and having a good time. For Mackenzie, it was nice to have some time alone with just her friends. It was spring break so it was hard to go anywhere without being swarmed by American college guys wanting to flirt or drink with them. That was fun sometimes, but Mackenzie enjoyed spending time with just her friends. The crew even largely left them alone; two of the men went below deck and the other two operated the boat.
In college, Mackenzie had hooked up with a couple guys. But she had never gone all the way with anyone. Maybe it was because she was kind of shy around boys. Maybe it was because she was nervous about her first time. Or maybe she just wanted that first time to be special. But last night, she had been quite tipsy, the guy was cute and seemingly nice, and they had started making out at the club while they danced. She knew that normally her friends would have never let her leave alone with a guy. But they were drunk too and they knew Mackenzie was intent on losing her virginity before the semester was over. In their drunken states, Mackenzie’s friends didn’t have any sounder judgment on the matter than she did. A couple of them egged her on to accept his invitation to go back to his hotel with him and she had foolishly agreed. There was more making out and fondling in the cab and then she was in a hotel room with a practical stranger.
But no matter how cute and nice and charming he was, having a drunk guy whose breath reeked of cheap rum thrusting on top of her was not how she had fantasized her first time. Nor had it been that special or enjoyable. It hurt at first and it never felt that good. She had not even come close to cumming and Mackenzie orgasmed pretty easily. The guy hadn’t lasted that long and he had passed out soon after he had finished, leaving Mackenzie to lie there beside him in his bed and slowly sober up and start to regret the whole thing. She tried to tell herself that the first time was probably rarely some pleasant, romantic experience, but that did little to sate her embarrassment and regret. Mackenzie had debating dressing and slipping out of the hotel right then but as she lay in the guy’s bed and mulled over her decision, the other guys her passed out lover was sharing his hotel room with returned, drunk and loud as they stumbled into the room. The hotel room had two queen beds, Mackenzie and her passed out paramour in the one bed and this two friends apparently sharing the other. Mackenzie wasn’t about to slip out of the bed naked and fumble around for her clothes with them there. So, she pretended to be asleep and she had to ignore the crude comments they drunkenly whispered about her when they saw her there lying there under the sheets next to their friend. Being called ‘that hot blonde slut from the club’ by two drunk frat boys was the perfect ending to her wonderful night.
After the roommates quieted down and passed out Mackenzie quickly fell asleep from a combination of her exhaustion and inebriation and thankfully, when she woke up, all three guys were still out cold. She wanted to shower but she dared not do so in the company of these three strangers. So, she had quickly dressed, slipped out of the room, and went down to the lobby where a woman at the reception desk hailed her a taxi. And now she was returning to her friends, who would surely try to force her to divulge all the juicy details. Something she was absolutely not going to do. The only thing she wanted to do was sleep in her bed in the villa for an hour or two, to recover from her hangover and try to forget the whole incident.
Mackenzie’s phone vibrated and she glanced down and saw her mother’s text. ‘Just checking in. Are you having fun?’ Mackenzie knew that her mother was not actually checking in to see if she was having fun. She was checking in to see if Mackenzie was OK, which her mother had done every morning that Mackenzie had been on spring break with her friends. Her mother had not liked the idea of Mackenzie going to Cancun. Her mother was overly protective, hence a big reason why Mackenzie had finished high school a virgin and had very little experience with boys at all. Mackenzie’s mother had been quite strict about dating when Mackenzie was in high school. And her mother’s protective nature was also the main reason why she had never traveled outside the United States prior to this trip. It had taken several phone calls with her mother to get her reluctant blessing for this trip.
These texts during spring break were not entirely new. Mackenzie’s mother had also checked in with a text like this every morning for the first couple of weeks after Mackenzie had gone away to college that fall. It was annoying but also touching. Mackenzie was very close to her mother and knew her mother was just very protective of her. Mackenzie’s mother had eventually stopped texting McKenzie every morning, which Mackenzie interpreted as meaning that her mother had finally relaxed and learned to stop worrying about her daughter being hundreds of miles away from home in New York and at her college in North Carolina. But her mother’s habit had returned now that Mackenzie was on spring break in Cancun. And probably good intuition Mackenzie admitted, given her present circumstances and condition.
Mackenzie texted back. ‘Having fun! Going snorkeling today!’ That part was true. And a better response than, ‘I am taking my ride of shame back from the hotel room of the random guy who had sex with me. In a room with two other men I don’t know. Now in a cab by myself. In Mexico.’ She is pretty sure if she had sent that, her mother would be on a plane within the hour to come to Mexico to haul her daughter back to the states. And probably withdraw her from school and put her in a convent to be a nun. Not that her mother was religious, or particularly socially conservative. She was just very protective of Mackenzie and Mackenzie’s three younger sisters. Always warning them that boys and men could be dangerous. Thankfully, Mackenzie had escaped her first time having sex unscathed, apart from her embarrassment and a splitting headache.
A few seconds after Mackenzie replied, her mother sent back a heart emoji. She had clearly been glued to the phone waiting for that text back confirming Mackenzie was safe and sound. Mackenzie replied with her own heart emoji. Then she closed her eyes and leaned against the window for the remainder of the short trip back to her resort. The cab arrived and Mackenzie entered the resort and headed through the property to the villa where she and her friends were staying. She walked up to the front door and punched in the code in the digital keypad and slipped inside. Please be in bed still, Mackenzie silently prayed about her friends. No such luck. They were all awake, all seated at the kitchen table having breakfast. They immediately started teasing her.
“Did you finally lose it?”
“Our sweet Mackenzie is finally a woman!”
“How was he?”
Mackenzie ignored them and refused to respond but she smiled. She knew their teasing was good natured. She glanced around the table at her friends as they grilled her. She had gone on spring break with five of her friends; all of whom she had met at college. They all lived in the same dormitory hall and had quickly bonded.
There was Gabriela, who was Mackenzie’s roommate in the dorm. Gabriela was a few months older than Mackenzie and had just turned 19. She was Brazilian and was a stunning beauty, tall with a natural brownish tan and a stunning body. She looked like a supermodel, the kind of girl that turned the heads of every guy in the room. On top of that, she came from a very wealthy family in Brazil. Despite all of that, she was actually very down to earth and super nice and she and Mackenzie had immediately become close friends. Gabriela was also super smart and fluent in three languages, Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Mackenzie had taken Spanish in high school and was continuing it in college but coming to Cancun had driven home how little Spanish she actually knew. Gabriela however could communicate in Spanish fluently; not that it mattered too often here in Cancun as it seemed many or most of the residents in this tourist destination spoke at least some English. Unlike some of her other friends, Gabriela had refrained from teasing Mackenzie when she returned to the villa. Perhaps it was just her nature. But Mackenzie was pretty sure Gabriela was a virgin herself. She was flirty with guys and Mackenzie knew she had hooked with a few back guys at school and gone on dates with a few more on top of that. But Gabriela was also Catholic and went to church every Sunday and Mackenzie suspected she had never gone the whole way with a guy, though the two had never discussed it.
Next, there was Brooke, a California girl, a pretty brunette, and the oldest in the group, having turned 19 that fall. Brooke was pledging a sorority but had managed to escape her sorority pledging to travel with her friends on this spring break trip. Brooke was most definitely not a virgin. Brooke was very outgoing and usually the instigator in their group for fun or trouble. It was at Brooke’s birthday festivities that fall that Mackenzie had gotten super drunk the first time in her life. The few of times Mackenzie had hooked up with guys in college had usually been nights when she was out with Brooke. It was Brooke who had pushed the hardest for Mackenzie to go hook up with that boy from the club the night before. And Brooke was now the ringleader of the teasing brigade that was ribbing Mackenzie at that moment.
Next was Brooke’s dormmate, Riya. Riya was a third generation Indian American whose grandparents had come to the United States from India. Riya had just turned 19. She was very smart; her parents were both doctors in New Jersey and Riya herself was likely destined to follow her parents’ footsteps into medicine. Riya was super friendly but shy and reserved, even more so than Mackenzie. She had a conservative upbringing and was definitely a virgin. Mackenzie was not even sure if she had ever hooked up with a guy at all at school. Unlike Mackenzie, Riya had not been actively aiming to lose her virginity. Though plenty of boys at school had certainly tried, as Riya was just as beautiful as Mackenzie’s other friends. But because Riya was not actually looking to lose her virginity, the friend group never teased her. Mackenzie interpreted that as reflecting the good nature of their teasing of Mackenzie now. They were only teasing Mackenzie because they knew Mackenzie would not be hurt or offended by it. Riya herself was not teasing Mackenzie and was giving her a sympathetic look as their other friends continued grilling her.
Next was Madison, the wild redhead of the friend group. Madison was 19, a couple months younger than Brooke and from North Carolina. She was outgoing like Brooke and those two had quickly grown close; they were even pledging the same sorority. Madison lived up to her stereotype as the wild redhead. She was the big partier of the group and she had spent the night in some random college boy’s resort room a couple days prior to Mackenzie’s now regretful indiscretion. Mackenzie only hoped Madison did it again tonight to take the heat off her. Mackenzie thoroughly liked Madison. Like all the others in Mackenzie’s group of friends, Madison was very pretty but more importantly was very nice and approachable and personable.
Mackenzie’s last friend on the trip and at the kitchen table was Saba. Saba was a second generation Iranian American; her parents had fled Iran to the United States before Saba was born. Saba was the youngest of the group; she had actually skipped a grade in primary school and had just turned 18 a few weeks ago. Saba had it all; she was beautiful, as so many Persian women were, and she was an athlete, having been a star soccer player in high school, though she had given up athletics to focus on academics once she got to college. And she was very smart. She probably got that from her parents, who were both college professors. Saba’s mother, Soraya Borojeni, was actually a professor at their college and her dad was a professor at another college nearby. Given her experiences in Iran, Saba’s mother’s academic focus was on human rights and women’s studies, and she taught a number of courses on feminism, human rights, and gender violence and oppression.
Though some of Professor Borojeni’s academic focus was on Iran, given her origin, she was predominantly focused on the Maledom Empire, a pariah nation where most women were not just oppressed but actually enslaved. No women had any rights to speak of, and the abuses of women there were horrible. Neither Mackenzie nor anyone else in her family was that focused on politics or foreign affairs but Mackenzie knew that much about the Maledom Empire and shuddered at the thought of living in such an oppressive, cruel place. Professor Borojeni was one of the foremost experts in the United States on the Maledom Empire and also one of its foremost critics. She frequently participated in TV interviews and lectures at conferences where she was highly critical of the Maledom Empire’s human rights and women’s rights track records. She had also published two books about the Maledom Empire and its numerous atrocities. Professor Borojeni also taught an introductory freshman class on women’s studies and Mackenzie, Brooke, and Gabriela had all taken her class their first semester.
Saba had taken after her mother. At the beginning of the semester, she had joined a student group, Students Against the Maledom Empire (SAME), which supported the fight for women’s rights in the Maledom Empire. Though she was only a freshman, Saba had already taken a very prominent role in the group and had organized a number or initiatives within it to fundraise for groups in the Maledom Empire fighting for the freedom and equality of all women there, as well as for charities that supported women who had escaped the Maledom Empire and were now refugees in the US. Saba had also encouraged her friends in the dorm to join SAME. Brooke and Madison had joined and were not as active as Saba, but still regularly attended meetings. Gabriela had attended a couple meetings in the beginning of the semester but had eventually stopped attending, wanting to focus on other activities. Riya was also more focused on her studies and other student groups and had not been interested in getting involved with the student group.
Mackenzie had almost attended the first meeting of the semester with Gabriela. But she had texted her plans to her mom in response to one of her mom’s morning check-ins. Mackenzie had immediately gotten a call from her mother. Her mother asked Mackenzie to promise not to go and said the Maledom Empire was very dangerous and she had heard they might even track the names of foreigners in other countries that supported what the Empire government referred to as “terrorist organizations” within its borders. Given that Mackenzie was not very political, she had agreed with her mom’s request without any protest. But even after promising her mom, Mackenzie got a follow-up call from her father who also asked her to promise the same. Mackenzie’s parents had gotten divorced when Mackenzie was a young child but her parents remained somewhat close after the divorce, even friends. And though her father did not live with them, he had co-parented Mackenzie and her sisters and remained a big part of Mackenzie’s life. He was certainly not as overly protective as Mackenzie’s mother and so when he pressed Mackenzie about not attending any SAME meetings, it stuck with Mackenzie even more. She promised her father just as she had promised her mother and she relented to her parents strong wishes and never attended a meeting. Her father had also offered a compromise that Mackenzie’s mother also supported. They encouraged Mackenzie to donate money (which was really her parents’ money considering they financially supported her) to one of the charities that helped women refugees from the Maledom Empire in the United States. But they strictly forbid her from donating any money to organizations that sent money to women’s groups in the Maledom Empire, to eliminate any risk she ended up on any “terrorist lists.” Saba had not pushed it when Mackenzie or any of the other girls had declined to become involved in SAME. She was passionate about women’s rights and fighting against the oppression of women but never pushed any of her passions on her friends. And Saba had given a very heartfelt thank you to Mackenzie when she learned Mackenzie had donated to one of the groups that helped women refugees from the Maledom Empire.
Saba was also the reason Mackenzie and the others were here in Cancun for spring break. Saba had won a raffle in a contest at school for a free spring break trip. She had selected her closest dorm hall friends to come with her and it had been a great deal for all of them. Everything was covered, including their airfare, the villa, the snorkeling excursion today, and other activities. Mackenzie was hungover and unsure if she even wanted to attend the snorkeling trip in a couple hours. But she decided she should force herself to go. If for no other reason than that it would be one of the few activities that they did that did not involve heavy drinking and partying. At least she could get some innocent pictures to send to her family.
As Mackenzie ignored her friends’ ribbing and headed towards the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water, Saba closed the ribbing with a kind compliment. “As drunk as he was, he clearly has good taste. He went home with the prettiest girl at the club.”
It was a cheesy compliment but Mackenzie still appreciated it and smiled. All of her friends were very pretty but she knew she was too. She had been homecoming queen in high school and was always complimented about her looks. But her parents and her mother especially had always taught her that looks are only skin deep and it is what is inside that counts. And she always tried to be a nice and generous person to everyone she met. That was one of the reasons she liked her new friend group in college. Sure, they were all attractive, but all of them were nice and good people inside and none of them were stuck up or arrogant. They were never “mean girls.” Even when they teased Mackenzie about losing her virginity to a stranger in a cheap hotel room in Mexico.
Mackenzie took her bottle of water and headed upstairs to her room. She only had a couple hours before they left for the snorkeling trip but enough time to lie down for a little bit and nap to try and recover from her hangover. She chugged the bottle of water, stripped off her clubbing clothes from the night before and hopped in the shower. The shower and the bottle of water made her feel a lot better. After getting out of the shower and drying off, Mackenzie through on some shorts and a tee shirt and got in her bed. She set the alarm on her phone for 90 minutes and was out quickly.
When Mackenzie’s alarm went off to wake her, she felt a lot better. She threw on a bikini and a sundress over it and then went downstairs to join her friends. She continued evading and ignoring questions about the details of what had gone down with the boy from the club and she ate a banana and drank another bottle of water. Then it was time to head to the entrance of the resort where a van was waiting to take them to the marina.
The snorkeling excursion was included with the trip that Saba had won and it sounded like a fun activity to Mackenzie. It would just be the six of them plus the crew, so a fun bonding experience for the girls. And a boating experience she could tell her parents about, as opposed to the larger “booze cruise” a couple nights prior.
Once the van arrived at the marina, the girls headed down the pier where they met the crew in front of the boat. It was four men, Carlos, Miguel, Luis, and Alvaro, all of whom thankfully spoke English so they did not have to rely on Gabriela for interpreting. A couple members of the crew went over the instructions on how to use the snorkeling equipment, which was simple enough. They boarded the boat and then they were off.
The crew told them that the snorkeling spot was a reef about a couple hour’s ride by boat and so Mackenzie and her friends hung out on the deck as they headed to their destination. They all removed their sundresses to work on their tans. They all wore bikinis except Riya also wore a sarong over her bikini to give herself a little more modesty. One of the crew members brought out some light snacks and some fruit punch. The punch clearly had rum in it but it seemed pretty weak. And a little alcohol always helped a hangover so Mackenzie decided to partake in the rum punch with her friends. Soon they were talking and laughing and having a good time. For Mackenzie, it was nice to have some time alone with just her friends. It was spring break so it was hard to go anywhere without being swarmed by American college guys wanting to flirt or drink with them. That was fun sometimes, but Mackenzie enjoyed spending time with just her friends. The crew even largely left them alone; two of the men went below deck and the other two operated the boat.
After a couple glasses of punch and more prodding by her friends, Mackenzie finally divulged a little detail of her night prior with the boy she had met at the club. She omitted any graphic details but at least confirmed for her friend that she had indeed lost her virginity. Mackenzie gave them just enough to sate their curiosity. She weathered the jokes and additional prodding from her friends and then they were thankfully onto other topics.
By her third cup of punch, Mackenzie realized it was a lot stronger than she had thought. She felt light-headed. Very light-headed. In fact, her head was actually spinning. She glanced around and noticed that Riya was lying on one of the deck benches, appearing to be passed out. Brooke was on another chair, clutching it, rocking a little, clearly very inebriated and trying to steady herself. Mackenzie glanced down at her cup. There is no way this punch should have that effect on her; she had only had three cups. One and a half semesters of college had done wonders to her alcohol tolerance. Yet she felt super drunk, way drunker than the night prior when she had a much larger number of drinks that had tasted way stronger than this.
A dreadful thought suddenly entered her head. What if this wasn’t alcohol affecting her? What if there something else in this punch? She looked up and her eyes met Saba’s. Saba’s eyes were not in focus and she had a worried look on her face. Saba was probably having the same fearful thought that Mackenzie was having. Mackenzie started to speak and her words were slurring. She tried to move closer to Saba. Mackenzie stumbled and fell to her knees. Her head was really spinning now. Her vision blurry. Panic set in. Suddenly her mother’s worried texts every morning started to make sense. Then everything went black.
By her third cup of punch, Mackenzie realized it was a lot stronger than she had thought. She felt light-headed. Very light-headed. In fact, her head was actually spinning. She glanced around and noticed that Riya was lying on one of the deck benches, appearing to be passed out. Brooke was on another chair, clutching it, rocking a little, clearly very inebriated and trying to steady herself. Mackenzie glanced down at her cup. There is no way this punch should have that effect on her; she had only had three cups. One and a half semesters of college had done wonders to her alcohol tolerance. Yet she felt super drunk, way drunker than the night prior when she had a much larger number of drinks that had tasted way stronger than this.
A dreadful thought suddenly entered her head. What if this wasn’t alcohol affecting her? What if there something else in this punch? She looked up and her eyes met Saba’s. Saba’s eyes were not in focus and she had a worried look on her face. Saba was probably having the same fearful thought that Mackenzie was having. Mackenzie started to speak and her words were slurring. She tried to move closer to Saba. Mackenzie stumbled and fell to her knees. Her head was really spinning now. Her vision blurry. Panic set in. Suddenly her mother’s worried texts every morning started to make sense. Then everything went black.
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