I dive beneath the water. I go deep, then even deeper. I try to go deep enough to drown the knot.

VISION

The sign at the entrance says: THIGH RIVER PARK. NO TRESPASSING, but Sophia tugs my hand and pulls me in.

We walk down a long path until we reach giant dark rocks.

“We’re going to have to climb a little,” she says.

She starts to make her way up the rock. I watch her maneuver, then follow her motions. I can hear water in the distance.

“There it is,” Sophia says when we reach the top of the rock.

I stare out over the landscape: Rocks and trees surround a river. But the river is the color of many skins. My mind tries to force the hues into logic but cannot.

“The river is full of them today,” Sophia says.

As soon as she says it, all of my cells light up with horror-shock, a split second before I start gagging.

The river is full of thighs, pushing along like fish, huge as bass, moving downstream. The thighs bump up against each other, create awkward waves, a strange flood of lone limbs in water, a tide of skin tones rushing by.

“What the fuck?” I ask.

“They’re here,” Sophia says, pointing.

Boys stand on the rocks across the water, dozens of boys. They wear boxers, their bare chests reflecting the color of the river. Everything is flesh against rock.

I can make out some of their faces. I recognize some of them from school. I make out Jarred’s face in the crowd.

Sophia strips off her shorts and t-shirt, unhooks her bra then removes more, her nude body puckering in the cold air.

“Cassie,” Sophia whispers through teeth. “Take your clothes off.”

I have never been naked in front of boys before.

“Do not fuck this up, prude,” Sophia hisses.

The boys howl my name. Jarred says nothing, just stares at me dumbly.

I jerk my legs out of my shorts and stretch my elbows through my t-shirt as I slide it off. I’m normal like Sophia, I have a smooth, flat belly, no knot.

In the river air, my naked body shakes. I go blue like her. When she climbs down the rocks and into the water, I do that too.

The water wraps itself around me, cold, sends shiver shocks through me.

I watch Sophia splay out on her back and float with the thighs.

Her breasts surface up above the water.

I lie back on the water like her. I tilt my head up.

The tide of thighs slides against me, moving past. The thighs touch me, caress me heavily, dozens of them. The feeling of the wet skin is new. The slick slithering makes me dizzy.

I close my eyes and forget the sky. I forget the boys.

A thigh glides past my neck, over my arm, away. Another thigh passes over my calves and down to my toes. Thighs skim my stomach and hips, constantly.