I've really been flying through these chapters, much faster than I had anticipated. At any rate, I wouldn't count on this sudden spur of motivation on my part to last (especially with Spring Break coming up so soon), so the following chapters may well take a while to get to you, but I'll still try to get them out there as fast as I can. I'm totally amazed by the terrific feedback I've been receiving lately, so thanks to all of you who've been so eager to read the rest of the series (especially my new favorite fan, "JD"... you know who you are). Again, if this is your first time reading one of my "Children of Sin" titles, please go back and read my previous chapters. This chapter focuses on a whole new character and a new sin, but there's still plenty of action from our favorite pair of sinners, Samuel and Leslie. This one's going to be kinda long (like always), especially since I'm introducing a whole new character with a whole new history, so make sure you've gone to the bathroom before-hand, and take your time to make yourself some popcorn, grab some comfy cushions, loosen the lid of your personal jar of Vaseline, whatever. I'll wait...
...you ready? Okay, here we go.
Pamela was known to everyone as a complete bitch, and the funny thing was, she didn't care. Despite being a part of one of the more popular (as well as cruel) cliques at her high school and living what many would consider a very superficial lifestyle, Pamela really didn't care what some people said about her character. She was mean, she was vicious, and she was totally self-absorbed. She was also a total cock-tease. That was the strange irony of her existence. Many people really hated her snob attitude and condescending nature, but at the same time every guy wanted her, and every girl wanted to be her. She was very pretty, always keeping herself the very pinnacle of fashion and the very vision of teen lust, wearing some of the tightest shirts and the shortest skirts. She was very tall, about 5'10", and had a nice, slim figure, which (despite some evidence and rumors of an eating disorder) she claimed was mostly from being the captain of the girls' volleyball team during the fall and part of the cross-country team during the spring. This made her presence both intimidating and mouth-watering. Guys drooled at her long legs and her full breasts, and she had always had a gorgeous head of shiny, dark-brown hair, reaching down just past her shoulders in tight curls, never frizzy. Her sky-blue eyes had the strange ability to reflect both the warmth of her attractiveness and the coldness of her character. Never one to have unsightly acne, she had the face of an angel, even if she was really more prone to devious, under-handed tactics to keep herself in the social elite. Her light skin hardly ever needed make-up, and while she did work hard to keep herself looking good, most of her attractiveness came naturally.
In her social life, she called the shots, and the high school setting was the best setting for this, but she also knew that her status among the social "Illuminati" was constantly shaky. That's just how high school was: one minute you're the center of attention, the next you're buried under scrutiny and scandal. She knew this very well; after all, Pamela had personally used the group politics of the beautiful and glamorous to bury a number of girls, mostly through rumors she had cultivated herself. It seemed with every person she stepped on, the higher up the social ladder she had gotten, but even then she knew that karma would catch up with her, some day.
Two years ago, Pamela witnessed the fall of Jessica Jameson, lovingly (and often infamously) referred to by many in the popular circles as "Jessie James." She had been a particularly pretty girl, blond and a member of the Student Council as well as a cheerleader during the basketball season. She was a part of the National Honors Society, but despite being very intelligent she was in no way seen as a nerd. Pamela and other girls in the classes below her had known her well, hanging out with the very sociable girl at parties and secretly envying her. But suddenly, one day in the beginning of the spring of Jessie's junior year, she was thrown into hell when a member of the basketball team started running his mouth about their private sexual life. It wasn't long before the rumor mill was working full force, and poor Jessie became the laughing-stock among many of the people who had at one time envied her. The next day, the whole school was rocked with the news of her suicide. The whole town was soon focused on their little high school, and a huge, ugly scandal ensued afterwards, with great big newspaper headlines publicly vilifying members of the basketball team. In the end, three basketball players were suspended from playing for the rest of the season, causing even more uproar, this time from the parents of basketball team members and the team boosters. To this day, the name "Jessie James" was usually never spoken among most groups of people in her high school, her name becoming a curse and a taboo. But it didn't totally erase the uneasy feeling Pamela got sometimes on certain warm, sunny days. Days just like today. It was early spring now in Pamela's senior year, and despite all the warnings inside of her heart, she remained quite cold and focused on her social stature. Perhaps it was because of how hard she tried to keep her own public image up, or the cold memories of that sunny spring day two years ago, but something was really pissing her off today.
Pamela really didn't get along with Leslie Daniels. Leslie was one of the very few popular girls in her school that didn't care for the politics of the rest of the social elite. Leslie had been voted Homecoming Queen, edging out one of Pamela's close friends. She was among the smartest in her class, as well as stunningly beautiful. Pamela was really no slouch herself, in fact possibly receiving a few extra leers from the boys in the hallway than Leslie, but Leslie seemed to have something else in her corner. She was very kind, soft-spoken, with a delightful smile and a laugh that made people want to be around her constantly. Always very polite, she even socialized with some of the geeks from time to time without any backlash from it. She was also given the mystique of being extremely unattainable, turning down almost every guy who was brave enough to ask her out, and the lucky few who she did accept never seemed to talk ill of her at all, even if their relationships never lasted more than a date or two. She was sometimes labeled as a major "Ice Queen" among the more snooty jocks and preps, but that didn't seem to deter many from gravitating to her. Pamela had always felt that this "goody two-shoes" bit was a front, but she could just never prove it. Up until today, there had never been any substantial dirt that could be used to knock down Leslie's image, and that really annoyed Pamela. She had been hit with the "Ice Queen" label herself a number of times, despite having a couple of nearly scandalous flings with some of the more popular jocks in her school. Perhaps that's why Pamela was so annoyed with Leslie. She had spent all her time working on her image, using her political power among the clique to keep herself at the top of the social food-chain, striving to turn around any bad rumors that may have tarnished her image, while Leslie stayed practically untouched by scandal. Hell, even when she was given the labels of a "tease" or a "prude", her popularity seemed to grow. It was true that people were the most attracted to that which they could not have. But today, Pamela got the opportunity to finally find an opening in Leslie's defenses.
For most of that semester, many people were starting to psyche themselves up for the senior prom, and one of the topics of lunch-time conversations among all the cafeteria tables was who Leslie Daniels was going with to the prom. Many of the more popular guys had been turned down, and the speculation was getting to be fierce, and this didn't escape Pamela's attention. Pamela had also been juggling her choices for prom dates, but Leslie's current single-status seemed to not only affect the popular kids but the geeks, weirdoes, and other outcasts as well. Everyone had been surprised when she had turned down Wray Michaels, despite their being "good friends" and having already gone to the Homecoming dance together earlier that year. There had always been a rumor of a romance between them for a couple of years, but apparently that wasn't true, so now everyone was anxious to see who she would pick, even Pamela.
Which is exactly why everybody was completely floored when it was found out that Leslie had started dating Samuel Kim, a complete nobody who hung out with a lot of the skate-board kids, punk rockers, and pot-heads. There was talk buzzing all through the halls and classrooms as soon as Leslie and Samuel had been seen holding hands when they entered the front doors of school that morning, and even more when they were seen later, quietly talking and laughing together at a table during lunch hour. The whole social structure seemed to collapse that day as the popular kids seemed unsure as to how they should react to this new development, and some of the less popular seemed to rejoice as if they had won some sort of victory over their more superficial oppressors. Pamela looked at Leslie with a shocked expression, watching her interact with Samuel in the hallway during a break in classes. She was laughing at something he said, holding his hands and playfully swinging their arms. Already the two were being surrounded by a couple of Samuel's loser burn-out friends, and Pamela could hardly stand it anymore. Where does this girl get off acting like this? Pamela knew damn well
she
would never be caught dead socializing with these type of people, and now this bitch Leslie was becoming the toast of the fuckin' ball because of it. First she gets voted Homecoming Queen over my friends, and then she turns down Wray, one of the hottest guys in the school, for
this
? What the fuck is this girl's angle?
