After Jeannie left, Chris got dressed. For a few moments, he sat back and relished his freedom. If the girls were telling the truth, his ordeal was over. Then he considered what to do. He usually hung out with Levon and Jimmy but now that they knew his secret, he was a little embarrassed in front of them. After the way they had chickened out and run away, he wasn’t even sure he wanted their company. He had come so close to both getting revenge and his freedom on his own terms if not for their cowardice and Jerry’s perfidy. And who had that memory card with all its pictures of Stella? If the girls had it, why hadn’t they mentioned it? With nothing else to do, he decided to buckle down and catch up on his overdue assignments.
 
Later that evening he sat on the couch watching television. Upstairs Jeannie was getting ready for her date. The doorbell rang. He answered it. Jerry stood outside, freshly showered, his short hair neatly combed.
 
“Traitor! I can’t believe you’re going out with Stella,” Chris muttered.
 
“Why not? She’s gorgeous, smart and considerate.”
 
“After what she did to you?”
 
“I sorta deserved it. Anyway, I kinda did the same back to her so we’re even. I guess I should thank you and the girls for bringing us together.”
 
“I can’t believe you can even talk to them after that!”
 
“That’s your problem! There are two ways to approach this. One, look at it as a wake-up call and get with the program. It took what they did to make me realize I was turning into my father and he was not a nice person. When I came to school the next day and Carla asked me out, I understood what I was doing to myself. Until then, everyone else saw me as a freak and it was all my fault. Now you have a similar problem.”
 
“No, I don’t. I bathe and change clothes regularly.”
 
“But you turn people off with your attitude. You’re rude and nasty, particularly to girls.”
 
“Just Stella and her friends.”
 
“And Mara, who helped you a lot and a few others girls who aren’t pretty.”
 
“So why does she hang around me?”
 
“For the same reason a lot of guys hang around Carla. Look in the mirror. A lot of people are willing to forgive a lot if the guy or girl is good looking. But that only goes so far. Eventually people get tired of being hurt. Take a look at me and Carla. Pretty as she is, I still dumped her for Stella. And here she is, looking every bit as pretty as Carla and twice as nice.”
 
“So I’m twice as nice as someone who isn’t nice?” Stella said with a smile.
 
“You know what I mean.”
 
“I can’t believe you’re going out with him after what he did to you,” Chris said.
 
“I can’t believe he asked me out after what I did to him.”
 
“You always said he was a gross, disgusting jerk.”
 
“And she was right,” Jerry agreed.
 
“But I still remember when we were good friends a few years ago,” Stella said. “Unlike you, Jerry wasn’t always a jerk. He just had to get over his recent descent into the dark side. You’ve got to overcome years of obnoxious behavior. We’ll see you later.”
 
Chris was still watching TV when they returned home in a happy mood. He began to wonder if they were right. Would his life improve if he just changed his attitude? Could he also find himself a hot girlfriend? Stella had put Jerry through the ultimate humiliation and then he had returned the favor. How was it even possible that they were together? Did that mean he had a shot with Jeannie?
 
The next morning, he was sitting on the living room couch actually studying. After the previous day, he was making headway on his assignments. The doorbell rang.
 
“I got it!” Stella called out, running down the stairs.
 
Moments later, the three girls entered the living room. Chris rose and gathered his books.
 
“You don’t have to leave,” Stella said. “We’re on our way out.”
 
“So how does it feel to be free?” Jeannie asked.
 
“Pretty good, I guess.”
 
“Just remember, you’re still on parole. What happens now is up to you to.”
 
The girls walked over to Mara’s house where they found her waiting for them.
 
“I brought four hundred dollars in cash,” she said. “I hope that’s sufficient.”
 
“It should be more than enough,” Stella said.
 
They started off at the beauty salon. Because there were no customers that early, Tanisha’s mother was able to lend her expertise. They decided to thin and cut Mara’s hair to shoulder length and iron it. Then Tanisha applied a cosmetic touch-up. The results were spectacular. The new hair style, along with the makeup, showed off her face and de-emphasized its roundness. Though she was never fat, now she almost appeared to have lost weight. Her frizzies had also disappeared.
 
“Wow!” Stella shouted. “You’re halfway to gorgeous already! Tani, you’re a miracle worker!”
 
“Does that mean it will take a miracle to transform me to attractive?” Mara asked.
 
“No. But it took a miracle to undo what you did to yourself. Now let’s finish the job.”
 
Tanisha was remaining at the salon, so Mara tipped her fifty dollars and left with Jeannie and Stella. Their next stop was at the optometrist where Mara was fitted with contact lenses. She couldn’t stop admiring herself in every mirror they passed.
 
“She doesn’t even resemble me!” Mara exclaimed, indicating her reflection.
 
“Of course she does!” Jeannie responded. “Up to now, you didn’t resembled you.”
 
They spent hours in the clothing section of the department store, where the older girls convinced Mara to trade in her long, drab dresses for brighter shirts and skirts with hemlines which stopped short of her knees.
 
“I can hardly believe my eyes!” Mara said.
 
“As we told Jerry, clothes make the man - or in this case - the woman.”
 
“So are we concluded?”
 
“If I can make a suggestion...”
 
“Certainly. Your advice has proven accurate.”
 
“Underwear and socks.”
 
“I can understand the socks, but who sees my underwear?”
 
“It’s not a matter of who sees it. You know it’s there. If you feel sexy, you act sexy. That’s why Victoria’s Secret is so successful, even though it’s a secret.”
 
“I’m a bit young to act sexy.”
 
“Sorry. I should have said confident. When your underwear is adult, you behave more confidently. When you’re still wearing tighty whities, or worse, Dora the Explorer panties, you can’t help feeling like a child. Right, Stella?”
 
“I am not wearing Dora the Explorer panties!”
 
“Only because they don’t make them for girls your size. You’ll hafta wait to grow into them.”
 
“Well, Jerry found mine very sexy.”
 
“You permitted Jerry to see your undewear?” Mara asked in shock.
 
“We were fooling around - I mean like horsing around - and he got a peek. Then he commented on them. I was glad I wasn’t wearing tighty whities.”
 
“And that Dora the Explorer didn’t fit her,” Jeannie added.
 
Stella slapped her friend on the shoulder. Laughing, they went to the underwear section and helped Mara choose matching items in pastel colors.
 
“Now you’ll feel more like a young adult and less like a child.”
 
After paying for the items, at Jeannie’s suggestion, Mara returned to the dressing room and changed into one of her new outfits from the skin out. They stopped at the salon to show Tanisha, where Mara received compliments from several people who knew her. They continued walking home, passing school mates who all had positive comments on Mara’s new looks. As they passed the basketball court in the park, several boys stopped playing and came over to gawk.
 
“Is that you, Mara?” Levon asked. “You look real nice.”
 
“Yeah, you remind me of a tv star,” Chris added. She was smiling broadly until he added, “Miss Piggy.”
 
“Chris, cut it out!” Levon snapped.
 
“Am I right? They put fancy clothes, a hairstyle and make up on her and she looks so glamorous, for a moment you forget that under all that is a pig.”
 
“Man, that was harsh!” Levon shouted, as tears ran down Mara’s face. “And untrue! Mara, don’t listen to him! He’s being a jerk as usual.”
 
“That’s right!” Jimmy added. “You look real cute. Chris is just a jerk!”
 
Stella put her arm around the weeping girl’s shoulders and turned to her brother.
 
“How could you? She’s a sweet kid who helped you many times and she’s a year younger than you! Why don’t you go the playground? There are some ten-year-olds you can insult and bring to tears.”
 
“This is what we were talking about!” Jeannie shouted. “You never learn your lesson! Consider your parole revoked!”
 
“What was that about?” Levon asked after the girls walked off. “Does it have something to do with what they did to you before?”
 
“Yeah,” Chris croaked, now considering the ramifications of what he had done and Jeannie’s subsequent threat.
 
“So what does it mean?”
 
“That they’re planning revenge.”
 
“What do you think they’re gonna do?”
 
“I don’t know. Maybe show those videos to other girls.”
 
“You are so screwed!”
 
“I know. What do I do?”
 
“Don’t look at me. I think you deserve it. Why did you have to destroy Mara like that? She’s a nice kid and the operative word is kid. She’s very smart, which makes people forget how young she is and in a certain sense you could consider her even younger because she doesn’t get to hang around with kids her own age. It’s almost like insulting a retarded kid! And it’s obvious she has a crush on you, so that makes it even worse. You’re cold, man. If every girl in school sees those videos, it’s what you deserve. I am so glad Stella talked us out of helping you.”
 
“Ditto for me,” Jimmy said. “You know my folks said you’re a bad influence and I should stay away from you. I can’t believe I defended you.”
 
Chris stood in shock as his two former friends walked away.
 
“Don’t listen to a word Chris says. He’s an idiot!” Stella said to the sobbing girl. “You look great! Everybody we passed said so!”
 
“I think it’s time we discussed Chris’s punishment,” Jeannie said.
 
“I agree.”
 
“You are actually the decision makers for penalizing him?” Mara asked in shock.
 
“Let’s just say he doesn’t have a choice,” Stella answered.
 
“Maybe we should do what we threatened,” Jeannie suggested. “Obviously what we tried up to now didn’t work. If we bring in someone new, he’ll see we mean business.”
 
“But...Mara?”
 
“Why not Mara? She’s the one he insulted. That should make it more effective.”
 
“Will you please explain?” Mara asked.
 
“Fine. What’s the best method of stopping someone who insults you repeatedly? Find out something humiliating about them and threaten to publicize it if they continue.”
 
“I have videos of Chris he’d be embarrassed to have you see or even know about,” Stella said. “Why don’t you come over to my house and I’ll show them to you.”
 
A few minutes later, they were gathered around Stella’s computer. She accessed a file on her hard drive. A window came up asking for a password. After she entered it, an additional drive letter was available. In that virtual drive were additional directories and each was password protected. Within each directory were encrypted zip files.
 
“Why the need for so much security?” Mara asked.
 
“These videos have to be protected from prying eyes. Here’s one of Chris in the tub.”
 
“And you believe some computer hacker will go to all this trouble to watch a baby taking a bath? Oh...” she trailed off as the video came up.
 
It was Chris and he was in the tub but he was no baby. This video was recent. He sat in the tub staring toward the camera with a deer-in-the-headlights expression of shock. The tub covered him almost to his chest.
 
“I presume he will remain seated,” Mara said. “It appears I was incorrect,” she said, as Chris began to rise. “So he must be wearing a bathing suit.”
 
But Chris turned his back to the camera and stood up, revealing that he wasn’t. Stella hit pause. Wide eyed, Mara took in his firm, white buttocks. For once she was almost beyond words.
 
“How did you..? Why did he...?”
 
“Tani can be very persuasive. Do you want to see more?”
 
When Mara nodded, Stella took the video off pause. The younger girl saw Chris turn around with his hands covering his groin. Then he lowered them, displaying everything.
 
“I’m no expert, but isn’t he a bit underdeveloped?”
 
“No, he’s about average. But he had just finished...uh... getting off so it got smaller.”
 
“That rumor going around school... Did you actually witness him...uh..finding relief?”
 
“Witness it?” Jeannie asked rhetorically. “I caused it! Keep watching.”
 
For the next hour, Mara stared at the screen. The girls led Chris to his room by his manhood. Tanisha spanked his bare bottom. Jeannie rode him like a pony. Another video followed with only Jeannie and Chris in the room. She rode his shoulders, sat on his chest and on his face. Then she led him back to the tub and brought him to a climax.