I recently wrote a story called "The Surprise" - a non-consensual story with a twist. I deliberately picked a vague title, and so I will try and write a different tale under each of Literotica's twenty-five writing categories with the same name. This is Number Ten
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It should have been in 2021, but the world had shut down because of the pandemic, and it took another couple of years to arrange. No longer a decade, but twelve years had passed since the A Level students of Park View College graduated from the Midlands academy, and all the ex-scholars from that cohort received invites to the reunion celebration.
A dozen years ago, a few eighteen year olds left the higher educational establishment to join the armed forces. Lots of their graduates entered the job market, and many more studied at university. But they all returned to meet their fellow ex-students and discuss their lives.
Suzi was one such attendee at the city college. Days after her thirty-first birthday, the multi-millionaire wife hesitated over accepting the invitation. She hadn't seen her former classmates since the day of her results and had lost contact with all of her teenage friends.
Her family moved to the south coast after she attended university, and she never felt the need to return to the midlands city of her birth and upbringing.
Until now.
Her husband encouraged her, and she booked a suite in the poshest hotel; the blonde woman dressed in a tight black dress that complimented her figure and worked with her sexy black stockings. She applied a thin veneer of makeup and lipstick to stress her facial features.
Her husband sent her a thumbs-up emoji from the other side of the world when she took a selfie in the mirror; he had the same reaction to the naked photograph and the image of her in her lingerie that she had sent half-an-hour earlier.
The driver transported her to her old college; complete with refurbished buildings, new sports pitches, and an updated logo. They gave the same requests for "sponsorship" from the alumni as she entered their recently built main hall when she traded her invitation for entry. "No plus one, Mrs Roberts?"
"He's away on business," she replied to the frumpy, overweight receptionist, stretching her best frock.
"Such a pity for you."
"Hmmmm," she muttered, not rising to the bait, and walked into the vast room. She recognised her first boyfriend; he hadn't changed in the intervening years and had the same cheeky laugh and risque humour as he loudly regaled a tale from his pan-European adventures. Adam, the boy who used to help her cheat during mathematics, had since come out as gay, claimed -at the time - that he only assisted with her nefarious activities because she offered him kisses; he gave her a weak smile as she approached him, holding a glass of lukewarm wine.
They greeted her, but all of them looked away when she said she had married; her wedding caused a certain amount of comment in the media, and they had obviously heard her news. She didn't care about their thoughts. Just as Suzi didn't worry about her parents or family boycotting her marriage ceremony. Those were their choices and Suzi had made hers.
She met her former best friend in the toilets; Aimee hurriedly left the bathroom when she saw Suzi enter, and the tall dark-haired office administrator didn't return the greetings as the blonde wife swore after her.
Feeling out of place, Suzi rang her driver and exited the party an hour later. She had moved on from that world, and while it was intriguing to look back, she had no genuine interest in the lives of classmates she could barely remember from over a decade ago. They had not made her feel particularly welcome, and she didn't want to waste her time with people who were passively hostile towards her.
While she waited for her car, she saw Aimee stagger on the steps, tripping over her heels and sprawling a few feet from her former friend. "Get up!" Suzi shouted. "You could never handle your drink. How much have you had?"
"Fuck off!" the tipsy woman slurred. "You think you are above us, but you're not." Suzi rolled her eyes. "I ..."
"Do you want a lift home?" she interrupted. "For old times' sake."
Aimee snorted, sitting on the flowerbed and checking the broken heel on her shoes. "Ain't gotta home, have I?"
"What do you mean, you haven't got a home?"
"I ain't got a fucking flat! My landlord kicked me out on Monday. I'm dossing with my ex."
"OK, do you want a lift there?"
"No, he's slinging me out. His new girl dain't like me living with him."
Suzi looked at the moon in the dark sky, swearing under her breath. She saw her car swing around the roundabout at the top of the drive. "OK, I have a suite in a hotel. Do you want a bed for the night?"
Aimee looked up at her friend. "To rub in what you have?"
"No, because we were best friends for thirteen years and that means something. To me, at least. I don't know why you are so bitter as I'm offering to help you. Even just for one night. Do you want to sleep in the rain we got coming or in a bed in a hotel room?" Aimee scrambled to her feet, stumbling on her broken heel, and collapsed once more. Suzi shook her head.
The drunken woman passed out in the car, and her saviour had to wake her at the hotel. She stumbled into the lift and then flopped on the mattress in the second bedroom of Suzi's master suite.
The following morning, Aimee showered, groaning from her hangover. Not wishing to subject the diners in the exclusive restaurant to her school friend, Suzi ordered room service, and the hotel brought up a breakfast trolley for the two women.
Her guest, dressed in just a fluffy dressing gown, sat at the small table opposite her host, nursing her head. "An explanation would be nice?"
Aimee shrugged. Her long, bedraggled hair framed her green eyes. She had mismatched earrings and chipped fingernails, but had lost none of her natural beauty. "I didn't marry a millionaire. Times are tough for ordinary folk." She grabbed a plate of eggs, bacon, hash browns, mushrooms, tomatoes and sausages from the trolley and picked at a slice of toast.
"Ignore that I married some wealth. What the fuck is going on, Aimee?"
"I lost my job. I couldn't pay my rent. So, I got evicted. And I stayed with my ex. He threw me out."
"And your parents?"
"They moved to America."
"Oh."
"And divorced."
"Ah."
"So ..." Suzi checked her watch. "I have three hours and nineteen minutes before we have to vacate this suite. Where do you want me to drop you off?"
She shrugged again. "I dunno." Suzi sighed. She remembered the flustered behaviour from her friend whenever she had to make a decision in her chaotic personal life as a teenager, and she had not ungrown this irritating habit. "It's fuckin' difficult for the rest of us, y'know."
"Let's just nail something right now. I went to London, got a degree, worked my arse off, and met someone who I love and we share many interests. My life would be different, but I'd still have married him if he wasn't a millionaire."
"He's 102 years old."
"He is fifty-nine."
