Meet Anita Olsen. The most popular girl in high school, she ruled as president of The Hot Babes Club - and as a bully who tormented Freddie Simpson for being a nerd. Freddie grew up to be a tech billionaire who invented a system of mind control, and life got very different for The Hottest Babe. All characters are over 18.
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Anita popped the cork on the champagne bottle. "I hereby call this meeting of the Hot Babes Club to order! Anita Olsen presiding!" she said.
All six of the women gathered around Anita raised their arms in the air and screamed "Woo!" It was exactly the way they'd acted 10 years ago, when their clique ruled the social scene at Erickson High School. They'd called themselves The Hot Babes to set themselves apart from the students they looked down upon for having average looks and average social standing. For a moment, as Anita poured champagne into their glasses, it seemed no time had elapsed for the Hot Babes. Overall, the group had done an exceptional job of keeping the good looks that made them so popular when they were teenagers.
That was especially true for Anita, who'd worked hardest to maintain her beauty. She weighed 120 pounds, exactly the same as she'd weighed as a senior. She worked out regularly, took special care of her hair and makeup, and wore the most flattering clothes she could find.
The high school reunion was tomorrow. Tonight, The Hot Babes Club was reconvening for a pre-reunion celebration of what had been the best years of their lives. Anita wore a leather mini skirt that showed her legs were as shapely as ever, and her crop top displayed the same abs that looked so good when she wore her cheerleader outfit. She knew that the other girls would be a bit jealous that she still looked like she was 18. Well, almost.
It's true that the other women still looked good. They were still hot. But they were a little thicker around the middle. A bit broader across the butt. Most of them were married with children. They had done a good job keeping themselves presentable, but Anita looked best. That surprised no one. Anita always strove to be the hottest of The Hot Babes, and she always succeeded. It's why she'd been elected prom queen, homecoming queen, and head cheerleader.
"Connie, I understand that you've prepared a slide show for us," Anita said.
"Your understanding is correct," Connie said.
"Are you bitches ready to see it?" Anita asked.
Once again, the women raised their arms into the air and screamed "Woo!"
Connie opened her laptop, hooked it to the projector, and started the slides. The other women turned out the lights so they could see better. "Happy 10th Reunion for The Hot Babes!" said the title slide. "Woo!" said the women.
Connie, who worked in the marketing department of a local department store, had put together a professional-looking series of slides intended to get the rest of The Babes in the mood for the reunion. They got together a day early to enjoy each other's company in advance, and to reminisce about the good times they had in high school. For most of them, things went downhill after high school. The ensuing years had been more difficult in ways they couldn't have predicted when they were 18-year-old social butterflies who felt so superior to the other students in the Erickson High School Class of 2012.
The first slides showed The Babes as they were at age 18.
"Look at my hair!" Anita said. "Can you believe we used to think that looked good?"
The picture on the screen showed Anita and her high school boyfriend, Karl Tore. They were riding in Karl's Corvette convertible. The picture reminded her of the fun times she had riding around town with the top down so she could show off her long, lovely hair, her rich handsome boyfriend, and his bitching car. She remembered that Karl was the ideal boyfriend: rich, handsome, and a little bit dumb. It made it easy to manipulate him into doing whatever his sexy girlfriend wanted.
Another one of Karl's finer attributes was that his parents owned a lake house a short drive from town. They used to dress in hiking clothes and say they were heading for a state park, but they'd drive to the lake house so they could have sex in a real bed. Anita knew that some of her friends could only have sex in the back seats of their boyfriends' cars, and she felt a little smug about the fact that she could get plenty of sex in comfort from her big, strong boyfriend and his nice big cock. Anita had always been treated like a princess because she'd always been beautiful, and she felt she was entitled to more than merely average people.
The slide show included a picture of Anita as she looked today. It was a screenshot from the pharmaceutical company where she worked as a sales rep. She looked terrific, of course, wearing a designer suit, an expensive hair style, and makeup that could have been applied by a professional. Of all her skills, Anita excelled most in the art of looking good.
Connie also included a current photo of Karl. It was a screenshot from the website of his father's construction company. It was a very profitable company, and it was understood that Karl would take control when his father retired. The photo showed Karl had less hair, but he still looked good. He lived in a mansion with a cute wife and two cute kids. Like their father, the kids weren't overly bright.
There was one surprise in the slide show. Connie included the graduation picture of Freddie Simpson, the least popular student in the Class of 2012.
"Why did you use a picture of that dork?" Anita asked.
"I'm guessing that means you don't know what happened to Freddie," Connie said.
"Of course not. I don't keep track of losers," Anita said.
In fact, Anita had bullied Freddie. He was awkward. So skinny you'd call his scrawny. He wore thick eyeglasses and combed his hair in the least flattering style possible. His teeth were crooked. He wore what Anita called "a Walmart Wardrobe." She used the phrase so often that other students picked it up and used it to ridicule Freddie.
The worst happened when Anita discovered Freddie had a crush on her. She acted as though she liked him, and suggested they go to have a private conversation in an area behind the stage in the auditorium. When Freddie and Anita arrived, all the members of The Hot Babes were waiting to ridicule him for thinking a hot girl like Anita could be interested in a loser like him.
"Things have changed for Freddie," Connie said.
The next slide showed Freddie on the cover of
BusinessWeek
magazine. He was barely recognizable. Gone were the glasses and the crooked teeth. Anita recognized that his suit was from Brooks Brothers.
"I heard about this," Cindy said. "Freddie invented some kind of medical device when he was in college. He started a company to manufacture and sell it, and it was a huge success. He's branched out to other businesses since then."
"How big a success can a nerd like Freddie be?" Anita asked.
"Billionaire big," Connie said. "If you combine the net worth of all the members of the Class of 2012, then multiple times 1000, it's still much less than Freddie is worth."
Connie showed another slide. It was a picture from a charity marathon sponsored by Freddie's company. It showed him in running shorts and a T-shirt. He was ripped.
"Whoa. Somebody's been working out," Cindy said.
"Freddie isn't actually coming to the reunion, is he?" Anita asked. "It sounds like he's a busy guy."
"That's what everybody thought, but he sent in a reservation. He'll be there tomorrow," Connie said. "I'm as surprised as anybody. I don't think Freddie had a single friend in high school. All he had were a bunch of people who made fun of him, especially a person I shall only identify as Anita Olsen!"
It was true. Anita felt awkward knowing that a boy she'd bullied mercilessly would be present at the reunion tomorrow. Should she apologize for her behavior? But she rejected that pretty quickly. Anita Olsen wasn't the kind of woman who apologized for anything. Ever. She'd just do her best to avoid Freddie.
By the time the slide show was over, the Hot Babes had a pretty good overview of what they had done in the 10 years since graduation. Nobody was surprised Anita did best.
She graduated from college with a B- average because she didn't like working hard enough to earn good grades. She was a varsity cheerleader, but other girls had more skills and got more attention. The most valuable thing she learned in college was that pharmaceutical companies like to hire former cheerleaders as sales reps. Most of their customers are men who are suckers for pretty girls, and Anita earned a good living by flirting with the men who bought her products. She slept with a few of the ones who purchased particularly large amounts of her products; having sex with a married doctor once or twice a year guaranteed he'd always buy from her.
It was a pretty good life, but Anita knew it wouldn't last forever. She knew her best long-term plan was to marry a doctor, preferably a surgeon because they make so much more money than most docs. She didn't particularly want children, but she'd do that if it meant she'd get to live the life of a rich doctor's wife.
She found the perfect guy soon after she started looking. Kenneth was a tall, handsome orthopedic surgeon. There are few medical specialities that are more profitable that doing knee replacement surgery, and that was Kenneth's speciality. He was a very bright guy, but he was a bit awkward socially, and Anita figured out how to manipulate him quickly. Her primary tactic, of course, involved sex; she'd withhold it if Kenneth didn't give her what she wanted, then dole it out when she got her way.
Kenneth, like most red-blooded heterosexual males, was overwhelmed by Anita's beauty. Her strawberry blond hair. Peaches and cream complexion. Lovely face. Shapely body. He never had a chance after she put him in her crosshairs. When he proposed, he gave Anita a stunning two carat engagement ring. As they planned their wedding, Kenneth offered to let Anita quit working. He thought he was being gallant, but Anita turned him down.