“It’s really different in Germany,” the foreign exchange student from the dance team, Helga, is saying to the circle Abigail’s in. “Like last week this guy asked me on a date and we just sat in his car and he was like, Do you want to touch my thingy, and I was like, Um, no.”

I laugh with everyone else. “What’re they talking about?” Gene whispers. I shrug, and he puts his arm around my waist.

“So wait,” Abigail says. “In Germany, guys don’t just assume it’d be like the greatest honor on earth to touch their dick?”

“No, it’s the opposite.” Helga takes a sip of her beer and makes a face. “Americans have the worst beer.”

“Yeah, yeah, but back to the non-douchey-sounding guys.”

Helga shrugs and her short blond bob grazes her chin. She has a heart-shaped face, whereas mine always falls into the category of square. Honestly, I’d be a really hot Lego. “Feminism is sexy there,” Helga continues, “and guys who don’t know how to treat girls don’t get second dates. Like guys hold lessons for each other so they know how to—I don’t know how you say it—like sex on a girl?”

Everyone laughs and someone says, “Eat a girl out.”

“Yes! Like do any of you even know how to eat a girl out?” Helga looks at Gene’s friends from the track team, who are hanging on her every word like she holds the key to their sexual liberation (she probably does).

“Of course I do,” Doug says. He thinks that we think he’s confident because he always wears mismatched socks with weird things like avocados on them, but socks only tell you one thing about a person: They have feet.

“Come give us a demo,” Helga says to Doug, “if you’re so certain you know what you’re doing.”

“I can’t just demo on the air. That’d look stupid.”

“Here,” Craig says, opening the snack closet next to the spare fridge and tossing him a pack of hot dog rolls. “Try with this.”

The room erupts with laughter as Doug takes one out. “Go on,” Helga encourages him. “Let’s see how it’s done.”

“Do it, do it, do it,” Abigail chants, and the room follows her lead.

“I obviously know how to eat a girl out,” Doug says, his face flushing as he stares down the hot dog roll. It’s quite the face-off. Seventeen-year-old boy versus a hunk of white bread.

“Gimme it,” Helga says finally, taking the roll out of Doug’s hands and sitting cross-legged in the middle of the circle. Everyone leans closer to her; even their cups and beer bottles are drawn toward her. “It goes something like this.”

All the breathing in the room stops as Helga holds the hot dog roll up. It’s a pretty generic one as far as cookout supplies go—spongy white on the bottom and cooked a little darker on top, where the bread parts and the meat of the situation lies. “Kiss it first,” she says, planting her lips on the roll. “Then lick it.” Her tongue is a pretty pink as it traces what could be any number of designs on the bread. “If you get confused, go through the alphabet or spell your favorite words. Like this, right there, keep going.”