Anyone portrayed as having sex is 18 or older.
Stories featuring oversized people is a touchy subject and I'll be accused of fat shaming, of which there isn't any. It's the story of a girl who starts life heavy and in time becomes slimmer, but never fully loses the stigma of her earlier years.
Chance Encounters
I've never felt pretty because I'm not. I can't remember my own mother ever saying I was pretty, she called me sweet, adorable, the love of her life, but never pretty. I don't have soft delicate facial features as most girls do, mine are chiseled, hard looking, almost male one might say. My body is curvy, one could say too curvy, I can't remember not being overweight to some degree. By the time I was twelve I was wearing a size twelve or the equivalent, as a seventh grader I already had breasts, but they were mostly cellulose. By sixteen I was wearing clothing that matched my age and now at nineteen I was wearing a size twenty or twenty-two, depending on the cut.
My parents were immigrants from Europe, my father being Polish and my mother German, we settled into an upper Midwest community made up of mostly Polish and Norwegians. It wasn't a big town, a population of approximately 7000 with enough local industry to keep most who wanted to work employed. My dad died when I was quite young and my mother taught high school Science, considering I had no beauty I also had few if any friends. Books became my refuge and solace, I was an honor student all four years of high school but had never gone to more than an occasional sports event at school.
I had one and basically only one friend, Rudy Warnevski, the last name had been longer so his dad changed it, otherwise no one other than Polish people could pronounce it. He was much different than me, he not only had looks he was good with the books and maintained a near prefect GPA every semester. He was in locker 48, I was in locker 47, with a smile he introduced himself the first day of our freshman year, I responded with, "Hi, I'm Bonnie Montgomery." Then wanted to faint, boys were seldom kind to me, and never cute boys, we generally saw each other at mid-day when we changed books for the afternoon classes.
Our school was unique at that time, we were the first class of a brand-new high school comprised of six different communities that could no longer afford to maintain a high school in their own town. Even though the school drew from six communities the entirety of our class was only one hundred and sixty-three kids, ninety-eight girls and sixty-five boys. All of us were bused, the school sat in the middle of a huge field a mile and a half from the closest town, there was no such thing as having lunch off campus, we had a cafeteria and that's where we ate.
As I mentioned earlier, I was a big girl, large breasts, wide hips, a plump ass and stumpy legs, the only thing going for me was that my hair is stylishly long, stopping ten or more inches below my shoulders. Other than that, I saw myself as a dud, Rudy on the other hand is tall, athletically built, popular and an extrovert, the exact opposite of me. He was always kind to me, if he noticed I was alone at lunch he would at times sit with me, we came from different towns so the only time we saw each other was at school.
At the beginning of every school year we would smile and chat as we opened our lockers, throughout the school year he would treat me with kindness and respect, once asking me to sit with him at a basketball game. I noticed all the looks and hidden attempts to hide their snickers and laughter.
"Your friends are all laughing at you Rudy."
"Why would they laugh at me Bonnie, do I have vegetables wedged between my teeth?"
That caused me to laugh, "No, you're sitting with fatty-fatty two by four, that's why."
His answer shocked and made me feel good at the same time, "If they're laughing because I'm sitting next to you then they aren't my friends, they can piss off."
In a perfect story this is where he puts his arm around my shoulders and kisses me passionately, his tongue exploring my mouth, his hand timidly cups my oversized breast and the gym gasps, but then this isn't a perfect story is it. Leaning to his left with his cheek next to mine he whispered, "Screw um, let's watch the game." Our evening ended as we talked together outside the school waiting for our parents to pick us up. That was the one and only time that ever happened, it was so significant in my mind that it's still crystal clear to this day.
Shortly after graduation from high school my mother passed from this life to the next quite unexpectedly, she looked fine in June, by December she was an emaciated bag of bones, the details aren't relevant, suffice it to say I was devastated. The day after she was buried I received a call from a man who described himself as our family lawyer, I didn't even know we had a family lawyer. When I left his office the next day I knew I would be okay, there had been more than one night since her inevitable demise that I lay in the dark wondering how I would survive on my own, little did I know mother had seen to it that I would be well taken care of.
She had never done anything with my father's life insurance policy beyond investing it in the money market, it's surprising how a hundred thousand dollars becomes so much more when not touched for almost two decades. Between her two hundred and fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy, her 401K, and my dad's I was left the sole beneficiary of over seven hundred thousand dollars, a house that was paid for and her three-year-old car. That isn't a ton of money, but I also wasn't going to have to worry about taking out student loans or paying utilities, having a secure warm home to live in and a three year old Chevy Cruz meant I was set, at least until I got through college.
I swear these supposed financial advisors do nothing but read the weekly obits to see who they can call next. I had financial advisers and lawyers contacting me ad nauseum, that is until I remembered the most money savvy guy I knew, my locker mate Rudy. He'd come from wealth and by the time he was seventeen he had been playing the stock market online since his first paycheck from the bowling alley when he was sixteen. It was a custodial account in his mother's name until he turned eighteen and though he wasn't some teenage millionaire, he wasn't that far from it either. He withdrew enough to buy a two-year-old pickup and continued delving in longer term investments with the rest, all of which were paying off.
You might ask why he worked when he was born into wealth, his father insisted all the kids work just as he had as a young man. After explaining my windfall on the phone along with my quandary about what to do with all that money we decided to meet at the local coffee shop and have him help me map out a plan. Have you ever noticed that the kids who were gaping rectums in high school are still gaping rectums after high school? As Rudy and I went over options and what he felt were sound investments it was obvious that we were the topic of more than one conversation. It was distracting to me, Rudy didn't seem to notice until my fidgeting caused him to stop.
"What's going on Bonnie, it's like you aren't even here."
"It's all these people, they keep staring at us, it makes me uncomfortable."
He then did the kindest sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me up to that point in my life, we were sitting side by side in a booth so I could see the same thing that was on his laptop screen, he moved his hand from the keypad and covered mine as he spoke softly.
"Have you forgotten what I told you years ago at a basketball game, screw um. They don't control your life Bonnie, you do, who gives a shit what they think or say, they sure as hell don't sign your paycheck or pay your bills, the cat hasn't left and I'm still happy to see you when we meet. So, scuze my French, but, fuck um all."
He was right, of course he was right, why hadn't I seen it from his perspective before, fuck um all, sound advice. After three cups of coffee with a toasted bagel between the second and third cup we had formulated a plan for my present needs, college, and the future. Little did I realize we'd been there almost three hours, being late afternoon we walked down the street to a tavern with a reputation for good wings and crunchy fries, with a small dining area to the side they were allowed to serve minors food.
Summer seemed to sail by, Rudy and I bumped into one another a half dozen times or more, usually at the grocery store or getting gas. We would chat for a few minutes and continue on our way. Since we had a campus of the state U in town I chose to enroll there to avoid dorm expenses, they generally required freshman to stay in the dorms but allowed my application for exemption since I lived less than two miles from school. Rudy was off to an adjacent state university. When I ran into Rudy over the Christmas holiday break, he seemed different, wilder, and worldly, talking of his many exploits at school including having a full-time girlfriend.
My days in college were much the same as my days in high school without all the teasing and ridicule, nobody really gave a damn what I looked like, they also didn't look at me, I simply existed. I would often reflect back to Rudy's advice, screw um, except with the cat being run over through the winter I didn't even have that comfort any longer. I considered getting another before realizing it would be unfair to the cat until I was out of school. Life went on much the same until the spring following my junior year.
Though I was still curvy I'd managed to lose shy of eighty pounds, mostly in my stomach and butt, at the same time my face had thinned and I no longer had a double chin. I wasn't working out or anything I considered special, I rode my bike every evening, reduced size proportions and walked a lot, mainly between classes on campus and early mornings. In cold or wet weather I had a treadmill and elliptical at home. I was actually brave enough to buy a one-piece bathing suit, turning side to side in the floor length mirror at home I had the thought I might even wear it in public. There were a few strands of pubic hair poking out the sides, I'd have to do some trimming of my nether region, otherwise I was pleased, the cups were full, but I didn't have tit hanging out.
It was on a particular hot and humid Thursday evening while I lying on a beach towel at the county park where hardly anyone went unless it was a family reunion using the pavilion, that I heard the deep husky voice.
"You're lookin good Bonnie, I like that suit."
My eyes flashed open as I shielded my face from the sun, it was Rudy carrying a small cooler, he motioned to sit with me and I nodded.
He opened the cooler and offered me a beer. Looking out over the water as the setting sunlight danced across the rippling water we tried to catch up, which worked to some degree, it was the same, only different, if that makes sense. I was majoring in computer sciences with an emphasis on programming with the intention of starting an at home business after I graduated. I was already doing some moonlighting with local businesses on simple applications. Rudy had pissed away his first year on booze and girls making his GPA so low he was returning that fall in a probationary status.
It pissed me off to a degree and I told him, "You were a prick to let your parents pay for schooling if all you were going to do was throw it away, you had the money to go it alone, I was surprised when you did that."
"No argument from me Bonnie, it was a prickish thing to do, I should have just paid my own way like I am now. I'm not proud of the way I behaved that's for sure. Hey, the suns almost gone and the skeeters are beginning to attack, let's continue this elsewhere."
