She wondered sometimes what it would be like—to be so fucking hot that people couldn’t resist trying to talk to you, to be with you. Were so allured by your beauty that they were willing to humiliate themselves by way of the attempt to shoot their shot with you. When Renée was younger, this had occasionally happened to her because, well, there’s an automatic attraction (particularly on the part of men) to those who have their youth. Because even the ugliest duckling has supple skin and a taut pussy, n’est-ce pas?  

That’s what Renée realized later on, when it was too late. That she should have at least harnessed the ephemeral asset of her youth for the benefit of getting fucked more often. Even if it was only by gross older guys (gross because all guys who are older and fuck a younger girl—especially an underage one—are gross). It was “still something” or “better than nothing,” as they say. And even though Renée knew that, theoretically, she lived in a time when women weren’t “supposed to” keep seeking validation from men, she couldn’t help herself—quite simply couldn’t stop herself.

After all, what did one expect of somebody weaned on the kind of images, videos and films that expressly taught—indoctrinated—women with the belief that performing sexiness for men is what life’s all about? That is, when you’re born with the apparent curse of a vagina. Renée only understood it to be a curse when she arrived in her junior high era, and suddenly, it was as if everyone’s genitals had “activated,” ready to either give or receive, depending on whether they had an external or internal part to offer (of course, this was before Renée became fully aware that there were no rules about holes and that strap-ons were the great “equalizer”).

Alas, it became immediately obvious that no one had “activated” for her. Youth alone wasn’t enough of an “edge” to attract any of the boys that went to her school when they were too busy lusting after cheerleaders like Ella Bennett (and yes, Renée, even at the time, found it odd and inappropriate that the concept of a “cheerleader” would exist at the junior high level). Even her fucking name had a kind of sonority to it that Renée’s did not. Renée. So severe. Renée Orkman. No wonder she was set up to fail with a name like that. And a last name that led some of her crueler classmates (boys and girls alike) to refer to her as “Pork Man.”

One boy even had a whole bit where he would make a big show of sniffing the room before saying, “You guys smell that? Smells like pork, man.” It was endlessly stupid but, without fail, the kids in her class would always laugh at the so-called joke. Amid such a lack of warmth, as it were, Renée gave up hope on the idea of ever being desired, least of all lusted after. Not like Ella Bennett, who had boys obsessed with her to the point where there was a rumor going around that one of the boys on the football team (because if you have cheerleading on offer, you have to have football), Eric Ritz, had climbed into her room while she was at cheerleading practice one day and stole at least three pairs of her underwear—one pair of them dirty.

Another rumor had it that Eric was going to use the underwear for some kind of voodoo magic to make Ella fall in love with him. Renée stopped paying attention after still another rumor had it on “good authority” that Eric had sold the dirty pair of underwear to one of the dads of a girl on Ella’s cheerleading squad (they called it “Ella’s” because she was the head cheerleader).

Renée was a fool to listen to anything her classmates said back then. Because if she had been able to think for herself in those days—without their taunting, denigrating voices getting into her head—she would have realized she ought to be looking toward an older age group to get the validation she was seeking. But she had squandered her chance to capitalize on the inherent pedophilia of men, and now, here she was: both “ugly” and not young anymore.

Of course, she knew that “ugly” was a harsh word choice. The truth is that she was “fine.” “Passable.” Which was almost worse. Because it made her that much more unnoticeable and indistinguishable. Not worth looking twice at. But oh, how she craved to be looked at. To be yearned for. To be so goddamn beautiful that she invoked an army of stalkers who couldn’t stay away from her. She knew that it was both “wrong” and ill-advised to feel that way, but she couldn’t control her wish to be as obsessed over as Helen of Troy. That, to Renée, was true power. Commanding and invoking destruction in your wake because so many people were fighting to be with you. Putting themselves through hell just for the chance.

Thus, it was no surprise to anyone who truly knew her (though there were very few, for she wasn’t one to let people get “close”) that Renée ended up saving enough money to go to a plastic surgeon, whereupon she demanded “the works.” Eye lift, brow lift, forehead reduction, genioplasty, rhinoplasty, fillers, lip injections—a total facial reconstruction, really. She also wanted her body to be “done” as well, but that would have to be for “the next session.”

Unfortunately, Renée never did make it to any such “next session” because, on her way out of the plastic surgeon’s office, all wrapped in gauze, she couldn’t finagle the range of motion required to look both ways while crossing the street so that she could get to the parking garage where she had left her car. Naturally, after she was run over, many were in disbelief that the doctor would have allowed her to be discharged without ensuring she had a ride from someone. But Renée had made an elaborate production of calling an Uber, and was actually seen getting into one and, then, when no one was looking anymore, getting out of it again and still paying the driver something for his time (when questioned, the driver said the amount was fifteen dollars, paid in cash). No one could say why she would go to all this trouble of pretending, except for the one person she confided in most: her therapist.

According to Dr. Heller, Renée was the type so desperate to be in control of everything that to surrender to the idea of not being able to drive herself home was too much for her obsessive-compulsive nature to bear. So she put on the production of feigning to do it so they wouldn’t try to give her shit/try to get all “legal” about it. And the performance had cost Renée her life. What’s more, it also cost her plastic surgeon, per his own account, “the loss of the best work I’ve ever done.” It was true; Renée could already feel the change in her aura, her confidence despite not being able to see what she would look like just yet. Tragically, she never got to enjoy the money spent and pain endured to achieve what she had always wanted: beauty.

And though she had long heard the adage (from her own grandmother no less) that you had to suffer to be beautiful, she didn’t think you had to die to be beautiful too. But, as she herself would concede, it was on-brand for her entire “just out of reach” experience in life. For some are “fated” to enjoy the power that comes with beauty, while others are cut down in the semi-prime of their life for daring to tamper with the gods’ “original” work on their physical form.