Joanie? Joanie!

I stared, puzzled, at the woman in front of me. She was smallish and had black, straight hair, with bangs in the style of the immortal Bettie Page. She wore a black leather mini-skirt, black boots with fetish-class high heels and a black bustier, from which spilled more tits than I remembered on any girl in our class. The effect was sort of Goth, but without the clammy pallid skin, the psychosis or the multiple piercings. This chick wasn't 'half in love with easeful '; she was so alive it shone out of her like an aura. Who the heck...?

Then suddenly it hit me, as I focused on the face instead of the tits. Joanie? Joanie! "Joanie? Joan Marie Heidenbach?" I ventured.

"Jeez, boy; for a second there I figured you were gonna be as clueless as the rest of the clowns here at Little-Boxes-Made-of-Tickytacky High! I always figured you'd be cooler than any of the usual gang of idiots. You're one of the few good memories I have of this horrible place." She giggled, the same sweet sound that I recalled; but coming out of that body....

"W-what on Earth did you DO to yourself, Joanie?" I stammered.

"Pretty cool, isn't it?" she grinned wickedly (now that I thought about it, she always did have a wicked grin when you could elicit it), "but Earth had nothing to do with it!"

"Huhh?" I replied brilliantly.

"I know, I know; I used to be short, fat and ugly. Well, I got lucky; I moved into the city, saw ROCKY HORROR and stumbled onto the local science fiction club. Suddenly, there were guys and girls" ('And girls?' Did that mean what it seemed to?) "who appreciated me for my mind. After a while, I got laid... a lot...," (that wicked grin again) "and learned to be comfortable with my body. I quit sublimating my needs into food problems and dressing like a frump. That, combined with getting out of range of my abusively repressive family, allowed me to find my inner sex kitten. Do you like her?" She twirled, as if inviting me to ogle her some more. "Never mind; I can see by that boner of yours that you like her a lot." Again with the wicked grin, more overtly sexual this time. "Listen, stud, like I said, you're the only reason I bothered to attend this boredom festival. Wanna freak the mundanes, then get the hell out of Dodge?"

I didn't know just what 'freaking the mundanes' was; but as boring as it had been here, I figured I might as well see what interesting new tricks my old gal pal had picked up. (OK, that's all she'd been, a 'gal pal'; I'd had no idea what her potential was. In my defense, neither had she!) I nodded, trying to look as brash and bold as she did. She took my arm in hers possessively, and pivoted towards the center of the room.

"ATTENTION!" she shouted, and the room fell silent.

"Listen, you creeps and idiots! In case you're as dumb as you look, I was your old pal, sweet brainy little Joanie Heidenbach, with the glasses and the weight problem; but I got better. Some people call me Joan Hot-In-Black; some just call me Mistress; but you people can call me OUT OF HERE! In all the time I went here, the only non-teacher who ever treated me like a human being was my man here," she gestured to me. "Well, sometimes the good guys win. I'm gonna take this stud away with me, and show him what a hot slut I've become. The rest of you losers can go home and masturbate to fantasies of what you missed by acting like jerks to anybody with half a brain. I hope never to see any of you again!"

"C'mon, hotpants, we're outta here!" She tugged my arm and we strolled triumphantly out the door, her ass swaying in a way that proclaimed to all and sundry that she was the hottest thing in the Tri-County region, if not the entire damned state, and she knew it!