Chapter One

“Oh for god’s sake this is ridiculous!”

“Then why won’t you just do it!”

“This isn’t respectful!”

“They don’t care, they’re lesbians.”

“That has absolutely nothing to—“

“Goddamn it Pam, you’re so stubborn!”

“Well this is stupid!”

Pamela’s friends consisted of Rachel Everett, Ashley Opal (there was always an Ashley, she thought) and April Adams. Rachel was the second-hand of the group, second only to Ashley who was the leader, the queen-bee. She had shoulder-length brown hair perfectly dyed and layered and she wore new contacts everyday, quite proud of them- more than proud enough to show them off now that her daddy had finally bought them for her with his big promotion.

April was below Rachel but just above Pam on the totem pool. She was the one who stayed off more to the side and took note of Ashley and Rachel’s actions so she could mimic them. She was the desperate one of the group, the one who craved status and attention. Pamela didn’t think she needed it- she was a pretty girl with blonde hair a little lighter than her own and bright green eyes.

Then there was Ashley. Pam couldn’t think of many words to describe Ashley. Even though she was almost always a bitch, she had to admit there were the moments that Ashley surprised her. She had actually stood up on Pam’s behalf before. She figured it was because she was now part of the occult- and once you were in, you were one of them. You ate with them, you talked with them and only them on the phone, if there were some cute new exchange student you were to report it immediately and if anyone ever gave you trouble if affected all of you.

Ashley, Rachel and April were all the complete opposite of who Pamela was, but they were the only friends she really had (if you even could call them that). She had to maintain a status so she wasn’t kicked to the curb and went back to being unpopular. Oh the pressure…

“So are you going to do it?”

“What? No, of course I’m not going to do it!”

“Why not?”

“You’re being totally irrational right now!”

Pamela had spent enough time in the popular clique to learn the system like the back of her hand (she had often had to write it on the back of her hand) - the lunchroom was perhaps the most crucial of all points in one’s day once you were popular. There were many different lunch tables, all seemingly the same except they were marked with an invisible magic marker, definitively marking territory of the losers and the somebody’s.

You couldn’t show any sympathy towards those who were different, you would be considered a loser and you would be reverted back into an actual loser before you knew what hit you.

There were even certain places in the school you learned to avoid for fear of losing your status. The bathrooms down the hall near the emergency fire escape exit for instance. These were where the lesbians hung out to cut class (they had even taken over the boy’s bathroom, scared them away. According to Ashley they threatened to turn them into one of them) and you were definitely screwed if you went anywhere near them. They weren’t pleasant to be around anyways- they were moldy and dirty and there was a faint smell of mildew and cigarette smoke that lingered in the area.

Pamela didn’t have any problem with the homosexual community, however. And unfortunately Ashley chose today to use it against her.

She was single-handedly shoving a protesting Pamela toward the godforsaken lesbian fortress. Pam didn’t even know how she was managing to do it since she out-weighed Ashley by a good 20 pounds, but it was the adrenaline she figured. “Damn it Ashley, stop!” She only swore at school.

“You don’t have any problem with gays, do you?” she asked, stopping momentarily and folding her arms across her Hollister t-shirt she proudly bought when she had finally been able to fit into the smallest size.

Oh now she was going to go down that route. “No I don’t, but—“ before Pam could finish with something witty Ashley interrupted her.

“Look,” she gave her that damned innocent look, “I just want to see what they’re like, okay? It’ll be like an undercover operation. I’ll never ask you to do it again!”

“Ashley, I’m not going to—“

But it was too late. Without waiting for a reply Ashley gave her one final shove in the direction of the door and it practically flew off its hinges as Pamela flew into it and the wood groaned as it hit the wall inside, years of abuse making the paint chip away and form in small piles on the cracked tile floor.

Pamela turned around and tried to comprehend what was going on. All she knew was that she couldn’t see very well and the cigarette smell was a lot stronger inside than it was outside. She felt like she was in some cheesy horror movie and she was walking through a fake fog and maneuvered toward where she thought the door was but only ended up walking further into the dreaded lesbian lair.

Smoke burned at her eyes and she swatted the air in front of her face, feeling her lungs screaming as the second-hand smoke assaulted them and she coughed. Then she could make out a voice.

“You look like you made a wrong turn somewhere or somethin’.”

Pamela jumped at the sign of life, but she quickly composed herself. She was, after all, a professional.

For a minute there the two just exchanged looks with each other. Pamela hadn’t gotten a look at the person but could tell the voice was distinctly female with a sort of robust huskiness to it. As she got a clear look at the girl, she was completely surprised. She didn’t look like a lesbian.

“Wahuh?” Pamela managed to get out. If she didn’t feel like an idiot before she definitely did now.

“I said you like you made a wrong turn somewhere,” the girl repeated, taking a drag from the thin cigarette between her fingers. “So who put you up to this? You’re a brave soul, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Uh… I… no one put me up to this…” If Ashley knew she squealed about it being her idea she would receive a fate worse than death and it would be posted all over MySpace and YouTube within an hour.

“It was that Ashley bitch, wasn’t it?” she asked.

Pamela raised an eyebrow, a bit intrigued. No one had ever been so blunt about it before. “How would you know?”

She shrugged. “I’ve seen her around. She’s not hard to miss.” Putting out her cigarette in the broken ceramic stained sink currently being used as a makeshift ashtray, the mystery girl jumped down from the counter, wiping the ashes off of her torn jeans. “So you must be a part of her group, am I correct?”

Ashley told her the lesbians never got out, how could she possibly know? “What if I am?” Pamela asked in a tone much more confident-sounding than she actually was.

“Cut the crap, I know exactly who you are,” the girl said, practically hissed. Oh god, this was it, Pamela thought. She was going to drag her by her hair into one of the stalls now and perform one of their crazy rituals, she was going to mark a giant ‘L’ on her forehead with the blood of their ancestors, she was going to—

“You’re Pamela, right?”

Pamela blinked, finally able to breathe again as she opened her eyes, “…Yeah. Who are you?”

And as if not hearing her question, she continued, starting to pace around in a circle around Pamela, “Pamela Anderson, right? Like the Pamela Anderson?”

“Yeah?” Pamela asked, wondering where she was going with this. “What about it?”

She started laughing as she came to a stop in front of her. “It’s just ironic, you know? You don’t have her giant rack. Which is a good thing, you should know,” she informed her. “You’ve got a side of eggs on a breakfast platter.”

Pamela had been teased and told many times about having a flat chest, but never before had someone quite put it that way. She immediately turned the brightest shade of red possible. “Well…” she started to say. But there wasn’t much she could say back. This girl didn’t have a flat chest. She wasn’t chubby, but she wasn’t stick-skinny either. She had a nice build. She wore long sleeves but she could see the muscles poking out through the material.

“Those are called muscles.” The girl’s voice broke the silence and Pamela came back to reality when she realized she was staring. Pam looked up at her and watched as the girl raised an eyebrow and put a hand on her hip. “And these you were looking at?” she motioned to her chest. “These are called breasts. Don’t bother paying me, that lesson’s for free,” she shot her a wink as she headed back over to the sink and looked at herself through the shattered old mirror.

“…I know that much, I’m not stupid,” Pamela finally spoke. Ashley wasn’t here, so there was no way she could know what was going on or what she was saying. She could always make up some fantastic lie- she had come to find herself very good at it by now.

“Did I say you were?” Pamela didn’t know what it was about this girl, but her attitude, though… a bit rude and uncalled for… was what she classified as ‘total badass’.

“So what’s your name?” Pam tried, taking a step forward but retreating when the girl flipped around to face her.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked, a sort of devilish smile playing on her lips. “You tryin’ to ask me out? Or did your little friends put you up to this? Let me tell you what, how much money did they offer you? $20? $50? Walk outside with me and I’ll give you a kiss and a little ass squeeze for that much cash.”

For the first time in Pamela Anderson’s seventeen years of existence she was struck completely speechless. She could feel some sort of fluttering in her stomach and she wasn’t sure if it was shyness, embarrassment or the need to vomit.

“What?” the girl asked her, taking another step toward her. She looked like she was quite enjoying herself, she was still smiling. “Oh, yeah, I forgot,” she whispered into her ear as she began pacing in circles around her once again. “You don’t swing that way, do you honey?”

Pamela finally braved a look at the girl’s face. The close proximity between the two intimidated her some but for the first time she was able to form a coherent thought… and the only thing she could focus on was how she thought this girl- whoever she was- had the most beautiful brown eyes she had ever seen.

The girl chuckled and she was freed of her trance. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, girl,” she told her, hopping back up on the old counters connected to the sinks. “Or do you just like me that much?”

Pam decided to take the initiative and repeat a question she had asked before. She liked the girl’s teasing (for whatever reason) but she wanted to know this girl’s name (for whatever reason). She was currently Unnamed Lesbian #1.

“So what’s your name?” she repeated, leaning back against the bathroom wall with her hands in the pockets of her Levi’s.

“Ellie,” she replied, busy trying to light another cigarette. “Friends call me Ell, teachers call me ‘evil shit bent upon wreaking havoc but we can’t threaten the kids so she’s a loose cannon on the streets’.”

“The streets?” Pamela questioned.

“Shit,” Ellie cursed as she flicked the lighter across the room. “Damn thing must be broken.”

“You burn yourself?” Pamela asked.

Ellie shot her a dry look. “What do you think happened?” she asked.

Pam headed over to the sinks and moved to the turn the faucets on. She had once burned herself on the stove when she was little and she knew running the burn under cold water helped numb the pain.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Ellie stopped her, putting a fish-netted garbed hand over Pamela’s. Her hands were surprisingly smooth, from what Pamela could feel under the rough material. “Don’t bother, the water looks like cat piss,” she said, reaching into the pocket of her jeans and taking out a packet of matches as she tended to the burn with saliva.

Pamela slowly nodded, perplexed as she watched her with the matches. “So… Ellie. I’m guessing this is short for…”

”Eleanor, yeah, whatever,” Ellie interrupted her in a mumble as she sat with her unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth, frustratingly staring at the match in her hand as she tried to light it. “My dad gave it to me.”

“I like that,” Pamela told her. “The name, I mean. It’s pretty. I got stuck with Pamela. It’s just…”

“Damn it,” Ellie cursed. “Look, Pammy, give me a hand,” she waved her over. “My piece of shit lighter’s broken so I can’t use it. I’m no good at lighting these crap matches.”

Pamela hesitantly walked over and took the match Ellie had extended to her, looking at it like it was about to bite her.

“Look, honey, it’s unlit. Its not gonna burn you so long as it ain’t lit. Now give a girl a hand, will you?” Ellie asked her, motioning to the unlit cigarette in her mouth.

Ellie leaned her head down and Pamela supposed that this was her cue. Striking the match against the brick wall of the bathroom, she reached over and lit the tip of the cigarette, watching as she took a long drag. “Thanks. You know you can make yourself pretty useful,” Ellie told her, leaning back against the wall in her spot.

“Thank you?” Pamela said, not really knowing what else to say.

“So what’s your story?” Ellie asked her again, immediately changing the subject. “Why are you here? Who put you up to this?”

“No one,” Pamela immediately replied, just as she had been trained to do.

“Bullshit,” Ellie chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re not stupid. And you’ve got guts. Most people who get thrown in here don’t last 30 seconds. They get the shit scared out of ‘em, that’s what they get. It’s pretty fucking hilarious, actually.”

“Well…” Pamela cleared her throat. Ellie had just said ‘fuck’. Now it was her turn to be the badass. “You know, I was trying to convince her not to make me do something so… fucking stupid, but… you know how retarded she can be.”

Ellie snorted a laugh as she smashed out the rest of her cigarette in the broken ceramic sink. “Honey, hearing you say fuck is like watching a dog walk on its hind legs,” she informed her, jumping off the counter with a sigh. “It ain’t likely to happen, and when it does, it just leaves everyone dazed, confused and awkward.”

“I’ll try to remember that…” Pamela trailed off, watching Ellie as she headed to the door of the lesbian lair.

“Well, I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve gotta get to Science,” Ellie sighed, stretching her arms above her head. Pamela heard a few cracks and pops.

“I thought you stayed in here to skip class,” Pamela said.

“Yeah, but I’ve gotta get some stuff from the Science lab,” Ellie told her with a grin, turning around to shoot a glance her way. “I’m out of stuff. I don’t listen to a shit thing the teacher says. But when he’s got his back turned…” she made a motion with an arm behind her back and she quickly moved it through the air and snapped it shut, grabbing the air. “I take what I need.”

“Take what, exactly?” Pamela curiously asked.

Ellie chuckled again, opening the door to the bathroom, the fresh air pouring into the room over the cigarette smoke overwhelming. “This and that. I’ll see you around, Pammy.”

She turned and walked out and the heavy cell door to Pamela’s lesbian cell slammed shut against its hinges and she was left alone.