All characters are 18+. This story is (obvious) fantasy only. Any resemblance to real people or events is coincidental, etc.
Beth hesitated before ringing Maxie's doorbell. It wasn't too late to turn around, she thought. She could say that something had come up, that they could finish the group project via e-mail, that she would be happy to just do the whole thing herself, actually, and let Maxie and Diana get full credit. It would be her pleasure!
She took a deep breath.
Her anxiety was getting the better of her, again.
Beth wiped her palms on the front of her red-and-blue checked skirt and inspected her glasses for smudges. There was nothing to be so nervous about, she thought. Sure, Maxie and Diana were "cool girls" and she wasn't. They were friends and she, well, wasn't.
But Ms. Kleinstadtler had pulled their names out of the hat for the Psychology project. She was stuck. She was going to have to just grin and bear it.
And besides - it might be fun, Beth thought. Getting to hang out with the cool girls for a change.
Beth took another deep breath and rang the doorbell.
She had three seconds to regret the decision before she heard footsteps padding toward the door. When it opened, Maxie Yount stood there.
Looking like a tramp, as usual.
Maxie wore a flimsy white tank top that her tits nearly spilled out of, and short yellow gym shorts that were only just visible beneath her top. The busty redhead wasn't wearing a bra, and the stiff peaks of her nipples pressed against her shirt. Beth gulped.
"H-hi, Maxie!" Beth said, grinning cheesily and waving, trying to not seem nervous, trying to keep from gawking at Maxie's ludicrous outfit.
Maxie nearly rolled her eyes.
"Hey, Beth," she said, nodding inside. "Come on in. Diana's here already."
Beth followed Maxie up the carpeted stairs, feeling her tote bag bouncing against her hip with each step. She'd packed a laptop, her psych textbook, her AP biology textbook (just in case), some snacks and a thermos full of water.
Maxie's shorts really were short, she saw. The lines of her butt cheeks were clearly visible as she bounded upstairs. Well, it was her house, Beth supposed. But she wondered how her parents let her get away with dressing like that.
She wondered where her parents were, in fact. It was a Saturday afternoon. Her own parents were home, as usual, doing chores, reading, preparing meals. Maxie's house was comparatively quiet.
Maybe she was a latchkey kid, Beth thought. It would explain Maxie's infamous behavior. The class cutting. The casual drug use. The rumors of older men.
Diana was lying on Maxie's bed with her knees bent, wearing a pale pink bodysuit that was tucked into loose, gray sweatpants, and contrasted with her smooth, tanned skin and dark brown hair with golden highlights. Beth was conscious of her own brown hair, sans highlights, sans straightener. Her butterfly hair clip felt silly compared to the simple hair tie that Diana wore, holding her hair back in a neat ponytail.
She scrolled on her phone, barely sparing Beth a glance as she and Maxie entered the room. As Beth entered, she saw the flesh of Diana's hips peeking out from between the bodysuit's leg holes and the waistband of her sweatpants.
Didn't her mother ever tell her to pull her pants up? She looked obscene. Beth didn't understand popularity. What was the point of being popular if you had to debase yourself like that just to feel cool?
Beth realized she was kidding herself. How many times had she looked at these girls' Instagram feeds, wishing she had their clothes, their friends, their lifestyles? How many nights had she touched herself, wishing Bobby McCaffrey gave her the kind of attention she'd seen him give Diana? Or wished the things she'd heard about Maxie - the older guys, the rumors of the hot baseball coach, Mr. Tomkins - had happened to her?
Beth acted better than these girls as a coping mechanism. The truth was, she was jealous. She would do anything to fit in, to have their lives.
And she knew it.
Beth dropped her tote by the bed and surveyed the scene. Maxie's room was bigger than hers, with the king-sized bed set in one corner, a desk and a walk-in closet on the far wall, and a long dresser flanking the door to Beth's left. Windows looked out onto the backyard and at the brick house next door, close enough to see into - or be seen from. Clothes and, ugh,
underwear
were littered everywhere. Beth's parents would have never let her keep her room in such a state. Beth wouldn't keep it in such a state even if they
did
let her.
Maxie sat down at her desk and shook the mouse. The screen came to life, and Beth saw that Maxie was browsing some clothing site she didn't recognize. Faceless models sported tight, slinky dresses in thumbnails that lined the screen, and Maxie scrolled slowly, leaning her elbow on the desk and resting her chin on her upturned left hand.
"Should we maybe work in the kitchen or something?" Beth asked, pointing back to the hallway. "Like at a table?"
The other girls ignored her.
"So," Beth continued, feeling like it would just end up falling to her to do the whole project herself, anyway, "I was thinking we could do our project on the thalamus. It's like the central processing unit for sensory information..."
They still weren't listening, she saw. She wiped her palms on her skirt again, feeling the light film of sweat wicking from her skin. Had she remembered to wear anti-perspirant?
"Unless you guys were thinking something else," she said, half-heartedly, sitting down on the bed near Diana's feet.
"The thalanis is good," Diana said, still scrolling, not showing a hint of embarrassment at her mispronunciation.
Maxie spun around in her chair.
"We don't have to do it right away, do we?" She asked. "Like it's not due 'til Friday. What's the rush?"
Beth felt her skin tighten and her teeth itch. She wished their high school had offered AP Psychology. She wouldn't have had to deal with partners like this in a proper class with top students. It must be nice to be pretty and popular and rich, she thought. To not have a care in the world besides partying and dressing slutty and hooking up with boys and going off to some third-tier college to repeat the process with even less supervision.
God. It sounded
incredible
.
She wondered what it would be like to live like that. Without her overbearing parents scheduling every minute of her day, without their strict rules about boys or parties or curfews.
She wondered what it would be like to be cool like them. To be worshiped by the boys at school.
To be intimate with someone besides herself.
Beth had kissed a couple of boys, here and there. And she had let Davey Nelson feel her up after the Homecoming Dance in the gymnasium. But that was as far as it ever went.
