All I Ever Wanted Was to Be Hot

by Lucinda Price

And the ‘Secret’ part? Well, that was whatever lovely, mysterious, virginal thing was hidden underneath, which I would call the vulva, the vagina, the arse.

Our next-door neighbour Rita would go on a holiday to the US every year and bring back a selection of said ‘panties’ for my sister and me. It was like Christmas, and kind of like how I imagined people from Adelaide would’ve felt at the time when their relatives would bring home a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts from Melbourne airport.