[Author's Note: This is a story in 3 chapters; it unfolds at a rather leisurely pace, so if you get impatient with it please read something else. Several of the ideas here are adapted from Just Plain Bob's wonderful story "The Cruel Joke," though this story as a whole is quite different from JPB's.]
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It was at a frat party that it all started; or, rather, that the second, longer chapter started.
It was February 2000, my senior year at Denison University, and I was hurt and angry. Sheila McGraw and I had been dating since sophomore year; we were in love, and the previous November I'd asked her to marry me. She'd squealed with joy and jumped into my arms, right there in the restaurant, as all the couples around us smiled and applauded.
Sounds great, right? She was the girl of my dreams and we'd be spending the rest of our lives together. Except that on the first Saturday in February, I'd borrowed her roommate's key to sneak into her dorm room and leave a present for her. It was a little box, marked "Do Not Open Until Valentine's Day." I wanted her to have the pleasure of anticipation, of having to wait a few days to see her surprise.
Great plan. But the surprise was on me. I opened the door to find Sheila being energetically fucked by Brian Haverson, her lab partner in her Chem class. She had told me she'd be off shopping somewhere, but I guess her plans had changed.
She looked at me, stunned and horrified, over Brian's shoulder as he continued to pump his pimply ass up and down on top of her. After a moment she shrieked and he rolled off her in shock, his hard cock bouncing in the air. Quite a lovely sight, I must say.
"Sorry," I said. "Didn't mean to interrupt your shopping." I waved the little box at her. "This was an early Valentine's Day present for you, but I think I've changed my mind." I turned and left, ignoring Sheila calling after me.
That was about two weeks earlier. I'd been alternating between crying alone in my room and being so angry I could kill someone--with Sheila at the top of the list. She'd called me several dozen times and left tearful, apologetic messages, but I wasn't in the least interested.
There simply wasn't a thing in the world she could tell me that would make it all right. She wasn't being raped, that was clear when I walked in the room. And no matter what her reasons were, I had no interest in marrying a girl who could cheat on me two months into our engagement.
Now here I was, standing around at a frat party and wondering what the hell I was doing there. I wasn't much of a frat guy, and while I'd been to a few parties freshman year, hoping to pick up a girl who might want to go to bed with me, I hadn't been back since I first met Sheila. I guess I sort of had the same idea that night, without having much hope of success.
I stood around the keg talking idly to a couple of football players I knew--unlike some of their teammates, they were pretty good students and okay guys--and having a beer or three, or maybe four.
I was beginning to think about leaving, not seeing much chance of picking anyone up, when I heard a commotion in the next room. I looked in to see a group of frat guys standing around, laughing and pointing at a girl in a bright green dress. She was absolutely beautiful, at least from the back. The tight dress showed off her legs, her great ass and her curvy figure, and her straight brown hair gleamed as she shook her head. From this angle she was a knockout!
As I moved towards the room I heard one of the guys say, mockingly, "if she'd only put a paper bag over her head we could all do her!" The others laughed uproariously, while the girl turned away from them, putting her hands up to her face. She seemed to be crying.
I couldn't tell everything that was going on, but it was clear enough that these assholes were making fun of her--why, I had no idea. I moved forward to tell them to shut the hell up, being just drunk enough not to realize what a bad idea that might be (there were six of them and one of me).
"What the hell is wrong with you guys?" I shouted, and they looked over at me without interest. Turning, I reached over to gently take the girl's arm.
"Come with me," I said in a quiet voice. "We'll find a bathroom and you can wash your face." Then I got the biggest shock of my life.
She took her hands away from her face and I got my first look at her. She was frightening--monstrously frightening. Her face had jagged scars running across it, the worst of them going from her forehead diagonally down across her right eye and down her cheek. This made the eye look tilted, and smaller than the other. Worst of all, her nose was unusually short and twisted slightly at the bottom, her nostrils horribly visible.
It was obvious, after a moment's thought, that she must have been in a bad accident. But my reaction was instantaneous and unavoidable--I said, "oh my God!" and stepped back from her, shocked and horrified.
Her expression was a mixture of sadness, hurt feelings, and resignation--I realized right away that she must be all-too-familiar with people's responses when they first saw her. But then she leaned forward, looking more closely at me, and I was stunned to hear her say, "Tommy? Tommy Lawrence?"
I gaped at her. Obviously she knew me, but I had no idea who she was--and I sure knew I had never seen THAT face before.
"It's Irina Adams, from Greenfield!" She was looking at me hopefully--and at the same time cringing a little, as though I would hit her, or run away screaming. She was obviously aware of the effect her face had on people.
"Irina?" I looked more closely, wondering if this could possibly true. I'd last seen Irina when we were both 14 years old, and it was virtually impossible to see my childhood friend behind that terrible, destroyed face.
Then she flung herself on me, hugging me tightly, crying, saying, "it IS you!" as she sobbed on my shoulder. I held her while she trembled and cried in my arms, and when she'd calmed down a little we went and found the kitchen, where I got her a couple of wet paper towels to wash off her face. Then I got us some beers and we headed outside and sat together on the porch of the frat house. I could see that she'd purposely led me to a dark corner, where I wouldn't be able to see her very well.
Irina and I had grown up together in Greenfield, Indiana, as neighbors and best friends. We did everything together: ride bikes, splash around in the stream behind her house, camp out in my back yard in the summer, argue about which TV shows were the best--everything.
As we grew older we did school projects together, gossiped about the kids in junior high, and talked about all the things we'd do when we grew up. We knew without even having to talk about it that we'd always be best friends. And then the summer after 8th grade it ended, suddenly, when her dad took a job in Arizona and her family moved away. We exchanged a couple of letters, and then, inevitably, lost track of one another. I occasionally asked my parents if they had heard from Mr. and Mrs. Adams, but they never had any news.
Now, sitting on a loveseat together on that dark porch, we talked and talked, catching one another up on the last eight years of our lives. Mine was a brief story: finished high school in Greenfield, had a girlfriend or two, came to Denison, majored in electrical engineering, fell in love with Sheila, caught her cheating on me. In four months I'd be graduating and moving to Madison, Wisconsin, where I'd landed a job in a software design company.
Irina's story was longer, and more tragic by far. She'd liked Tucson okay, though she had been lonely at first. Then when she was 15 she and her parents had been in a terrible wreck on the highway, heading for a brief visit to Las Vegas. Irina's kid brother Sam and both her parents had been killed; Irina had been badly injured.
She'd lain in a hospital for weeks while the doctors tried to put her back together. Finally, when she was healthy enough to be moved (except for her ruined face), she was taken in by her aunt and uncle near Sacramento. She did a lengthy rehab, in a hospital and then at their home, before she could go back to school.
"They were great, the doctors. Patient and kind with me. And they were able to fix everything except this--" she gestured to her face.
"Did they, uh, think about plastic surgery?" I felt awkward and embarrassed asking, but I couldn't help myself.
She laughed. "This is after plastic surgery, Tommy! This was the best they could do, if you can believe it. Irina the monster, Irina the girl who scares children and grown-ups alike!" She shook her head.
