Zero Tolerance

Maybe I wasn't her first, but I was the first to make her enjoy it and realize what her friends had been talking about. After a while, we were constantly doing it and we experimented with everything we heard about. Having money changed our lives but not as much as you'd expect. We lived well within our means and planned on having children.

We did get a few things. On my part, I drove a brand new Mustang Boss 302 Lacuna model that was barely street legal. Other than that I was the same old guy I'd always been. Dana, on the other hand, drove a big Lexus luxury SUV because all of the wives in our gated community did. She also had some work done.

Well, I had some work done on my car to make it even faster but Dana had the work done on herself. She got breast implants. The first time it was just to make her more normal looking and to make her clothes fit better. The second time around she got stripper boobs. She also bleached her hair blond and got a nose job. She got collagen injections to make her lips fuller and got butt implants as well. She claimed, of course, that she got it all done for me. She said that a man as important as I was should have a wife that everyone noticed.

I'd kept up the runs and workouts that I'd started with Flo and had been seeing results as well. Dana made me go to a different barber. He changed the styling of my hair to make me look less...geeky. I also got contacts because Dana hated my glasses. So, at twenty eight years old we had it all. The business was growing by leaps and bounds and I'd been getting offers to buy me out from several large companies including my former employer.

We had a plan in the works for our lives. We intended for me to back off on working for the next two years and travel. We wanted to see some of the world and go crazy for a couple of years and then settle down to start our family at thirty. It made perfect sense to us.

I can still remember the day the train went off the rails. I can actually remember the second. I'd just brought in the mail and dropped it on the table. Two of the envelopes were invitations for Dana and me to attend our ten year reunion. I immediately dropped mine into the trash. I was surprised when Dana looked at me as if I was crazy and fished it out, wiping the dirt off of it.

"What are you doing Stevie?" she asked.

"Dana, I fucking hated high school," I replied. "I see no reason to go back and relive the worst period of my life. I don't ever want to see that place or those people again. I'd have to have rocks in my head."

"Stevie, our lives are perfect," she said. "We're not alone any more like we were in high school. We have each other. This is our chance to show all of those people who looked down on us or through us, that we're just as good as they are. Can we please go?"

I grumbled a bit, but finally I gave in. I couldn't refuse Dana anything. And she saw a chance to show off to everyone the woman she'd become; where I just saw a night reliving misery. I was an adult now though. There was no way I'd put up with the bullshit I had to deal with back then. I didn't see it as pleasurable but Dana wanted it so badly. What could I say? It takes different strokes to make the world. (Sorry, I had to)

Over the next few days, I discovered that the reunion was more than just a one night affair. It was an entire weekend. It began on Friday with what they called the Welcome Back Ice Breaker. It was supposed to be a chance for us to meet all of our high school buddies again and see what they turned into. Saturday was the beach party picnic, with the dance to follow on Saturday night. Finally, Sunday morning was the farewell breakfast.

"Can we just do the dance and skip the rest?" I asked.

"No Honey we can't," said Dana. "Don't you want to show me off?" Dana was acting really weird. For some reason it seemed as if she was really looking forward to this. I just wanted it to be over but I loved her so again I put up with it.

As the reunion drew closer, Dana went out of her fucking mind. She acted as if the reunion was her coming out party. "Can't we fly there and rent a limo?" she asked. "We need to put a good face on. We have to let people know that they can't push us around anymore. We're important."

"Dana, it's a two hour drive and there's no airport in town. We'd end up having to drive there from the nearest airport to the city which is over an hour away. In this case it's faster to drive. There's also the fact that if things turn shitty, we can leave whenever we want."

"Oh, there will be no leaving Mister," she said. "No one is chasing me away from anything."

Finally the weekend of the reunion came and we argued over which car to drive. I wanted to drive my Boss 302 or my new Shelby 1000. Dana wanted to drive her Lexus. We took the Boss.

All the way there, Dana gave me instructions on what to say and more importantly, what not to say. I promptly forgot them all. Actually, I had no plans of speaking to anyone other than Dana. I intended to take a page from my wife's high school year book and just blend into the scenery. I'd stay in the back and become as anonymous as possible and hope that no one remembered me.

I figured I had a pretty good chance of that because I no longer looked like a geek. With a little bit of luck, I was sure that I might be able to pull this off.

When we drove into town, all eyes were on us before we got to either the hotel or the reunion. My Mustang's two tone black and red paint job and its authoritative growl drew a lot of attention. As Darla looked in every direction with her eyes obscured behind her giant fashionable sunglasses, she began to smile.

"Honey, maybe I like this car after all," she said hugging me. "Everyone who sees it, stops and stares at us."

We checked into our hotel room and dropped off our luggage. While Dana arranged her clothes in the closet I just stretched out on the bed and watched her.

"Stevie, your clothes are going to be wrinkled if you lie down in them," she warned. "We have to make a good first impression. We don't want our classmates to think we're shabby."

"Fuck em'..." I quipped.

After a half hour that I spent relaxing and Dana spent primping, we left to go to the Ice Breaker. I patted the bed vigorously. "Get some rest, buddy. You're going to need it," I said.

"Stevie, why are you talking to the bed?" asked Dana curiously.

"Because when this dog and pony show is over tonight, my dear," I said lovingly as I pulled her to me and gently but firmly grabbed one of her enhanced butt cheeks. "I'm gonna wear your ass out."

"And I'm gonna let you," she snapped back quickly.

Luckily the hotel and conference center that the reunion was held in was only a mile away. If Dana hadn't been with me I'd probably have just walked. But even I have to admit that the stares we got as I pulled my barely legal, not quite under control, muscle car into the parking lot were worth having to ignore and hide from a few assholes I barely remembered.

Normally, when I get out of my, car I leave my sunglasses in it. It's kind of rude to hide behind them when talking to people. But in this case, I thought it was a good idea to use them to at least partially obscure my features. For me this evening wasn't about bonding or remembering. It was about hiding and surviving.

We walked into a large conference room and got into a line with a sign that read, "Check in here." Well, I walked anyway. Dana's shoes were so high that she could barely do more than just shuffle along. Dana had on a pale blue dress that had to be custom fitted. The top had to be let out to fit her boobs. The waist had to be taken in and actually tapered out again to fit her ass. Theoretically, no woman with an ass or boobs as big as hers were should have a waist that small. Her blinding almost white blond hair stood out as well. That light hair contrasted nicely with the pale blue of the dress. It looked like she was sewn into that dress.

Although the dress was tight, it still covered her completely from her neck to mid-calf. It was supposed to be sexy without being slutty. I'm not sure it made it. I got a boner every time I saw her in it.

The shoes she wore were the same shade of blue as the dress. They'd been specially made to match it. When I'd joked about it, Dana got really defensive and reminded me that she hadn't said a God damned thing about me having my brake calipers painted the same shade of red as the car's stripes and my rotor hats painted gloss black. I quickly shut up about it.

Anyway, those shoes had heels so high that most strippers wouldn't wear them. Dana clutched my arm protectively as we walked towards the registration area. With her mincing little steps people were walking around us and past us at an alarming rate.

They also stared at Dana too. Most of the men noticed her ass and tits. I heard more than a few whistles. Most of the women noticed that Dana was orange. She'd obviously spent too much time in the tanning booth. But I loved her so I didn't say anything. Especially since this was her night.

As we stood in the line and waited to get our name tags, several of the people around me tried to start conversations. I tried to give them the impression that I wasn't interested in conversing but I tried not to be rude about it.

The guy in line right behind me wouldn't take no for an answer though. He kept peppering me with comments every so often until I realized that he had no idea who I was. He also spent most of the time that he was talking to me staring at Dana's ass and boobs.

The guy was shorter than I am but heavier as well. His short close cropped hair and glasses made him appear to be far older than I am. His features were really familiar to me and all of a sudden I knew him. "Marty?" I said. "Marty McFly?"

"Uh...yeah" he said looking up at me. "You're not going to try to give me a wedgie or anything are you? We're too old for that shit now."

It just seemed strange to me that Marty thought I was one of the guys who gave wedgies while we were in school.

"Marty, get a grip," I said. "I've never given you a wedgie before, so why would I start now?" He looked at me still wondering who I was. In a way my anonymity was intoxicating. I enjoyed knowing who Marty was while he had no idea whom he was speaking to.

"So what are you doing with yourself these days?" I asked. He looked at me as if he was dying to ask who I was but to be polite he answered my question.

"Actually...I'm in the market for a new job," he said. "I'm working now but I'm not really happy where I am."

"So what do you do?" I asked.

"I'm an accountant," he said.

"Shut the fuck up," I snapped happily. "Dana, Marty grew up to be an accountant."

Dana turned around looked down her nose at Marty and latched even tighter onto my arm. "Uhm that's great, Honey," she said before she continued searching the crowd to see who was looking at her.

"That's the reaction I get from everyone," he said. "Being an accountant just isn't exciting."

"Unless you need one," I said. "And I need one. How do you feel about relocating?"

He looked at me strangely. "Uhm...that would be okay, I guess..." he ventured, still wondering if I was being serious.

Before we could talk anymore, we both hushed along with all of the guys in the line as we watched. A woman about four places ahead of us took off the scarf covering her head and it was as if the sun suddenly came out. She shook her head and at least three or four feet of curly red hair was set free. A gasp went through the crowd and the jaw of every man in the room, except two, dropped.

One of those jaws that didn't drop was mine. The other belonged to a big guy moving through the crowd towards us. He was being followed by two other guys and it was hilarious, at least to me.

Mo hadn't aged well. He was still as big as a house, but where most of it used to be muscle; there was a lot of fat now. He still had the same swagger, but it no longer affected me the same way. I didn't feel the slightest bit of fear or awe. In fact, looking at him then, I was ready to leave.

His clothes didn't impress me. Mo was wearing a suit, but not a good one. In fact, he was the only guy in the room who'd worn a suit. It was just too hot for a suit and especially since this was just an ice breaker. There was no one here to impress. Most of the guys had elected to save the suits for the dance.

Mo's hairline was also in full retreat. It looked like Mo's hair was afraid of his face and was moving as far away from it as it could. He still had the same superior sneer on his face as he walked towards the front of the line.

The two guys who were just a step behind him and out to his sides were even funnier. I recognized them instantly, Todd Bridges, who used to protect Mo, at left tackle and Gary Coleman, our former star running back. I'd heard that Gary had bombed out in the pros. He'd hurt his back or something. Maybe that was the explanation for the way he walked now. His step was punctuated with a pronounced limp every so often.

The three of them walked up near the front of line and Mo started talking as loudly as he always did.

"Why are you waiting in line?" he asked. "Just grab our stuff and let's get in there."

"There are people who got here ahead of us, Honey," she said. It was strange. The musical tone of that voice still affected me. The difference was that it had matured. Instead of being kittenish and teasing, it spoke of maturity and compassion. The way she spoke to him wasn't like a girl who could give him something he wanted badly, it was more like a mother trying to gently teach her child that he was behaving badly.

"Why don't you go outside and look for that car you wanted to see. When I get us registered, I'll come and find you," she said.

He nodded and turned around glaring at everyone in the vicinity. Then in an extremely good Eric von Zipper imitation, he snapped his finger and pointed at the door. Then he and his cronies scooted out to the parking lot. It was all I could do not to laugh.

"God, he's still a dick," I heard someone say. "Why does she put up with him?"

I found myself trying to catch a glimpse of Marian, just as I had in high school. Before I actually saw her though, the hand squeezing mine, squeezed a lot harder.

"Zero Tolerance means you walk away with nothing," she said. "That witch and her boyfriend lorded it over everyone all through high school. Those days are over," said Dana. "You're married and happily, remember?"

I just smiled at her. Beside us Marty nodded vigorously. "She's a hundred percent right," he said. "Fuck them. Let's talk about you needing an accountant."

Dana looked over at Marty as if noticing him for the first time and smiled. Marty caught her smile and elbowed me.

"Where did you meet your lovely wife?" he asked.

"Good Lord, Marty," I exclaimed. "She went to school with us. She used to be Dana Plato."

"She used to be who?" he asked. He looked at her and then looked at her again. He pulled out his year book and looked up her picture. "Wow!" he said.

"The years have been good to you, baby," he gushed. "If I'd known that you'd turn out like this..."

Their exchange was interrupted by voices from the front of the line. Mrs. Garrett, one of our old teachers who was working at the registration desk had a problem.

"Is that Mrs. Garrett?" asked someone in the line. "She probably ran out of liquor and can't function. She was already a drunk ten years ago. It's good to see that nothing has changed."

"I hated that bitch," someone else said. "All that shit about the facts of life got on my nerves."

"Isn't it funny that there was never a Mr. Garrett?"

At that moment, I saw a cloud of red hair move towards the front of the line. She went up and started speaking to the women at the registration desk and simply took over for Mrs. Garrett. Within a few moments the line was moving along smoothly and it was moving faster than it had before.

Marian seemed to remember most of the people in line and simply had them sign the list and then picked out their names tags. Everyone was wondering why Mrs. Garrett had taken so long to do the job.

As we stepped up to the table she smiled at us and my legs turned to water.

Dana glared at her instantly, but Marian didn't return the anger which made Dana even angrier. If a teen aged Marian had been beautiful, a nearly thirty year old Marian was transcendent. I could barely look at her. It was like gazing into the sun.

"I'm sorry," she smiled. "I don't recognize either of you. Which one of you went to our school?"

"Both of us did you dizzy bitch," snapped Dana. "I'm Dana Plato and this is Steven Grant."

"Stevie?" gushed Marty behind me. "Little Stevie from the juggling club? Holy Shit. I didn't recognize you."

Marian looked at me and smiled again. "You always did have such strength of character," she said. "Sometimes I wondered how you took it. My heart went out to you, when they did all of those awful things. I wish..."

"Shove that bullshit up your boney ass, bitch," snapped Dana. "Just get our fucking name tags and let us go. Shit, what do you think this is, a reunion?"

"Sorry," said Marian. "I was only..."

"Ten years too God damned late," said Dana grabbing our tags and leaving the desk.

As we walked into the larger room where everyone was supposed to mingle Marty came running up behind us. "Dana, don't you think you were uhm..." I began.

She spun in place and looked at me. "I was what?" she snapped.

"Rude," I supplied.

"That bitch is acting the same way now that she acted back then," snapped Dana. "Only I'm not a fucking teenager any more so I'm not going to put up with it."

"Dana, she didn't know you back then. You guys didn't hang out together. She had no contact with you and you don't look anything like you did back then. Her not recognizing you was kind of a compliment," I said.

"Steve, not you too," she said. "Every guy in high school always stood up for that bitch. You guys act like her shit doesn't stink. I can't believe my own husband is taking her side over mine."

"Dana, I'm not taking her side over you. I'm always on your side. For better or for worse, you're the one I care about. And that's why I felt it was necessary to tell you that you were acting like a bitch. I know that we got treated like shit in high school. A lot of people did. Most of us got over it. So there's no need for us to act the way they did. They were kids back then, we're adults now. Just have fun remembering the way things were and how they turned out. If you really want revenge find someone you used to hate and compare your life to theirs. You turned out pretty good. I'm very happy with our life, aren't you?"

She kissed me and nodded. "Very happy, baby," she said.

"So let all of that old shit, go," I said. "It's not worth getting all worked up over. Now go mingle, unless you want to talk about accounting styles with me and Marty."

As she left, Marty and I started talking about business. It turned out that Marty was a CPA and could easily handle my need for a permanent accountant. Of course, he'd actually be serving more as a CFO. Hopefully, I'd eventually be able to allow him to make a lot of the financial decisions on his own. As we talked, we noticed that there were several other people who'd zoomed in on our conversation. They came closer and closer to us and finally a woman that I didn't remember stepped up and introduced herself.

She was a stout woman with a handsome face. What made her look nicer was her rosy cheeked smile. "I'm Natalie Green," she said. "I was in your class like everyone else here and I've been listening to you talking about a job. What company are you hiring for and do you have any other positions available?"

"What about marketing?" asked a man who stood a few feet away from where Natalie was standing.