The 50th birthday party was over and Betty Norman sat in the bathroom of her three bedroom split level softly weeping into a tissue. Two failed marriages, three grown kids she never saw, a boring job at a desk in an office park, a battered Toyota, and a mortgage. Dinner with the ladies once a week and a rare date a couple of times a month - - typically with a balding, paunchy guy ten years her senior.
There was nothing special about Betty Norman, and this is why she cried quietly behind the closed door. She stood, dried her eyes, and looked at herself in the mirror. Goddamit, she thought, time was running out. The weight of desperation gathered on her shoulders. It was now or never.
Though she was generally a nice kind of person, Betty was also a Type A personality - - when there was a task to be done, it had to be completed, and completed as competently and perfectly as possible.
Her first task was to find a man who could turn her dreams into reality. She knew just the guy - - a widower around her age who owned a very successful, local insurance agency. She'd met him when she stopped by to update her homeowner's policy. Within eighteen months, he stood next to her at City Hall, a justice of peace intoning the familiar words.
She moved into his big, columned house in the upscale suburbs that ringed the small, midwestern city she lived in. Shortly after, she hired a personal trainer. Within two years, she had trimmed down to the same dress size she'd worn in college. Still, this wasn't quite enough.
She made her first visit to Doctor Biedermeyer in downtown Chicago a few months later, after consulting with her friends and reading up on the topic of plastic surgery. First came the tightening and the smoothing. Still, when she gazed into the mirror in the big en suite bathroom, it wasn't enough. Next, came the padding and inflating. She doubled her cup size and her plump backside ballooned against her newly purchased and very tight designer jeans.
She enjoyed all the new jiggling and she adjusted her wardrobe accordingly, trading in her knee-length dresses and flowing skirts and loose blouses for anything that was tight and short and revealing. She exchanged her sensible flats for heels. And, for her undergarments, she left Sears and Penney's behind for Victoria's and Frederick's. Her third husband appreciated the new look, and Betty appreciated the furtive - - and sometimes not so furtive - - glances aimed her way.
Finally, she donated the old blue Toyota to a friend's teenage daughter and bought a sleek, dark, fast European sedan. Husband number three squawked a bit about that one, but by then Betty knew just how to keep him quiet.
She celebrated her sixtieth birthday at the local country club and found herself in the bathroom after all the guests had left. She gazed at herself in the mirror and smiled. Turning left and right to admire Doctor Biedermeyer's work and her own efforts, she congratulated herself. She looked like a completely different person - - younger, sexier, more elegant.
She drove her purring sedan home, parked it in the garage, and helped husband number three into the house. Just as she sat on the leather couch in the living room to enjoy a last glass of dry, white wine, the phone rang. One-by-one, each of her three kids called to wish her happy birthday.
Though she hadn't seen them in years, she enjoyed their annual calls. It was a chance to catch up and let them know she still thought about them, even if this was a white lie. She was so happy now, so deeply involved in her new, better life, that thoughts of her children almost never interrupted her days.
Still, one moment from the calls lingered as she drained her glass and crossed her silk-clad legs on the couch. John, her eldest and a long-haul trucker in Alaska, had mentioned that his oldest son, John Jr. or JJ, would be in town in a couple of weeks. John guffawed when he told her that the twenty-one year old JJ was hard at work trying to become the next Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"You gotta see him, mom," John chortled into the phone. "He's a monster.... That boy eats a cow for breakfast and lifts Japanese cars for fun."
Evidently, JJ traveled all over the country for bodybuilding competitions and her little midwestern city was next in line for a Mr. Olympus contest. She mumbled congratulations to JJ's proud father and asked him how his mousy but loyal wife was doing.
Betty clicked off the living room lights and made her way upstairs. She strode down the hallway to her bedroom - - her husband was a heavy snorer. Plus, she'd found that the promise of a night visit across the hall could earn all kinds of prizes and promises. As she undressed and changed into her gauzy negligee, she thought about her phone calls.
Maybe, she murmured to herself, she'd try to see JJ when he stopped in town.
She settled her cheek on the pillow and drifted off to sleep with a smile on her lips.
-----------------------
A couple of days later, she told her friends, Sally and Cherie, about the Mr. Olympus competition. They all giggled together as they finished their meal at one of the city's few but finest restaurants.
"Let's do it," Cherie said with a raised eyebrow. "I haven't seen a real-life hunk in ages."
"You're so bad," Sally cackled, slapping her pudgy hand on her friend's arm.
"I miss being bad," Cherie replied, sighing dramatically.
"Alright, girls," Betty said. "Settle down."
Sally rolled her eyes and tittered.
"Seriously," Cherie continued. "We never do anything really fun. Let's do it!"
The three middle-aged matrons agreed that they'd meet at the auditorium that hosted the show. They also promised not to tell their husbands. A pleasant thrill ran through Betty as she imagined sneaking off on a secret mission. She said goodbye to her friends and motored home.
A week later, the three silver-haired ladies joined the line in front of the box office at the local indoor arena. They giggled together and Betty paid for their tickets with her AmEx. They entered the auditorium arm in arm and the first thing they noticed was the heat.
"Good lord," Cherie exclaimed. "It must be 95 degrees in here."
Betty could already feel the sweat beading on her forehead.
"Only one thing for it," Sally said, grinning. "When in the hot house, dress for the hot house."
She unzipped her fancy, waist-length designer coat and pulled it off her shoulders. Grinning at her friends, Sally unbuttoned her blouse almost to her belly button.
"Well, ladies," she said, turning to her friends. "Think I'll get any attention?"
Betty and Cherie chortled together. Sally was no looker - - wrinkles spiderwebbed across her 63 year-old face and her chin was wobbly. But, Betty had to admit, the woman had a very impressive bust. Sally's unbuttoned shirt revealed a line of cleavage like an alpine valley. As her friends laughed, Sally shook her torso, sending tremors across the tops of her big breasts.
"Aw hell," Cherie blurted out. "If you can't beat 'em, I guess you gotta join 'em."
Betty's other friend zipped off her puffer jacket, yanked it off her shoulders, and began working the buttons of her shirt. Soon, she too was sporting a valley of cleavage, perhaps not so deep as Sally's but definitely picturesque.
Betty sighed.
"Okay, girls," she guffawed. "Guess I'm gonna join the club."
The zipper of her cropped fur coat slid downward and soon she too was working at the buttons of her blouse. Betty, however, didn't stop at her midriff. She undid all the buttons and shrugged the silk blouse off her shoulders.
"Goddam, girl," Cherie snorted. "You definitely dressed for success!"
Betty chuckled. Success or not, for some reason this morning instead of her usual lacy, silk bra, she'd slipped on a white tube top beneath her blouse. The top squeezed her medically-enhanced tits upward and ended just above her belly button, emphasizing her liposuctioned waist and hips. She had to admit, the tube top and jeans combination looked and felt great.
