The Perfect Generation 2

Chapter 1 continued...

Ugh. She would have to wait to play again until her sim’s head grew back. If she had the premium channel that could happen as instantaneously as Tawny wished but without it it would be tomorrow before her Sim’s new head was strong enough to face the monster again.

“muffins,” Tawny cursed under her breath. This was the hardest thing she tried to collect for sure. She only had two jello salads and she’d been playing for nine days.

              Ping! Her screen shook.

Tawny looked down even though there was only one person in the world who ever messaged her. It was Saran, of course.

              “Tiny!” She greeted with her nickname for Tawny.

              Tawny groaned. She was using her actual form which meant Tawny would have to reply in actual form too, not as her sim who even without a head looked better than she did. Saran’s pretty bronze smiling face and narrow thin frame were filling up her instant message screen. Next to it Tawny felt like a big, black blob. It wasn’t fair because Saran’s parents had already bought her a plastic surgery even though she was the same age as Tawny, sixteen, and Tawny’s parents always said, “Not until you’re eighteen.”

              Aww to be rich, Tawny thought for the umpteenth time as she looked longingly at Saran’s perfect face, her nose had just been fixed and she had always been so thin even though her favorite online exercise was mini golf same as Tawny. Saran didn’t even need a sim. 

              Tawny reluctantly hit video over. Instantly Saran’s image scaled down to half the screen and Tawny’s own came into the other half. Tawny looked away.

              “There you are dahling,” Saran drawled. “Let me see your pretty face, aww, there it is.” Something about the way she said pretty made Tawny feel that she didn’t find it at all pretty- just like Tawny didn’t.

              “Be at my house in five minutes.” Saran instructed.

              “Why?”

              “Party. Tover will be there.”

Sometimes Tawny regretted telling Saran she had a crush on the boy from their class. She had been teasing her off and on for weeks, the cruelest of which had been when she'd told Tawny that Tover had asked her what Tawny was doing for the Evolution Day dance just to see the reaction on her face before telling her that she was kidding. Tawny had ended up not going like usual. Saran looked serious now though.

              “Real or Sim?” Tawny panicked. Tover had never seen her actual face- she always went to class as a sim, most everyone did except Saran and a few other lucky rich kids.

Saran scrunched up her perfect nose, no need to worry about getting a wrinkle after her plastic surgery. “Sim is so overdone!” she whined.

Tawny frowned. “Say it’s sim or I won't go.”

“Oh you, and half of everyone, it’ll be sim,” Saran sighed. “I honestly don’t see what all the fuss is about- he’s going to have to see your face eventually, what are you going to do? Have an online Sim wedding? Have a sim ‘romantic encounter’?” Saran giggled. “Just have online sim children?”

The thought had crossed Tawny’s mind though she didn’t know if that was yet possible, unfortunately.

“Why don’t you just ask your dad for some plastics already?”

Tawny sighed- been there, done that. How to explain her dad to other people? Saran had been her best friend since they were at the same online preschool together but even she had never met her dad. It wasn’t even just about being rich or not. Tawny felt there was something far deeper that was wrong with her dad- something even money wouldn’t have fixed.

“Plastics wouldn’t help me,” she grumbled instead, “have you ever heard of a lightening surgery?”

“Honestly- I don’t see what’s so bad about it,” Saran lied seamlessly about Tawny’s coloring. “Anyway- I don’t have time to talk to you, I need to go invite more people, get ready and come over.” Saran’s face disappeared and mercifully so did her own.

Now she only had three minutes to get ready for Saran’s party. She could have warned her sooner. She'd never known Saran to spend any less than eternity planning one of her parties. She wasn’t a last minute invite was she? Saran wouldn’t do that to her. Or would she? She would but Tawny pushed the thought out of her mind.

She was going to have to wear one of her sim’s other heads. She clicked over and browsed the selection. They each cost a pretty penny, if her dad found out… Well he would find out when he saw the internet bill but by that time the party would be long over and Tover’s heart (hopefully) won! She clicked the one with the smallest nose, highest cheekbones and lightest skin she could find. Then the box- “this will be 449.99, is this okay?” Yes, yes it was okay.

There, with a scarf no one would even be able to see the line across her neck. And since she was going as her sim she wouldn’t have to get up and browse her actual closet to find one. Tawny hated getting up, and trying clothes on her own blimp frame with her dark skin was not nearly as fun as picking out clothes for her sim- who looked fantastic in everything with her thin womanly figure, no awkward girlish parts, and beautiful bronze skin. She would look fantastic in a paper bag. Not that that would ever be necessary. Her sim had a hundred times more clothes than Tawny. Tawny collected clothes too but that was hardly a hobby as every girl did that once they were old enough to surf.

Tawny’s sim had over 600 pairs of shoes and she had to browse them all in less than two minutes now. She wondered what Tover would be wearing.

She grabbed a pair of white heels that would go with the low cut sleek blue dress she’d decided on in twenty seconds. They were crazy high but they showed off her sim’s long legs and her sim had no trouble walking in them.

She moved on to hand bags and accessories and chose a silver clutch, hoop earrings, a diamond pendant and a sterling silver cuff bracelet. Another thing she liked about being in sim mode- you didn’t have to be rich to look rich.

She was ready to enter the party. Immediately she looked around for Tover’s tall black haired sim but he wasn’t there yet. There were a bunch of kids from class but they didn’t wave her over or make eye contact with her even though she stared hopefully over at them for a whole thirty seconds. She clutched her clutch tighter.

Saran’s house was the fanciest online house Tawny had ever been in but she was used to it: the elevators, the sim doormen, the robot chef. Tawny reached down to pet Saran’s sim cat who was rubbing and purring against her sim’s leg.

Well at least someone likes me, even if he is just a cat, Tawny thought, and a fake one at that. A fake one that didn’t even leave any white hairs all over her nice clothes.

After the cat moved on Tawny did what she usually did at parties- she hung around the robot chef. He was baking tonight, though any food he cooked was just for show as the recent app they had invented for online eating had had disastrous results. She hadn't been able to afford the app herself but she'd heard about it on the news- something about glowing stomachs. The app had quickly been banned after that and online food had turned into an illegal drug like caffeine. It was too bad as she would have really enjoyed seeing Kereun Chung or some of their other classmates with glowing stomachs.

Tawny switched on her smell sensor and could smell the cake he was baking at least. It smelled sweeter than any she’d had in real life. It smelled worth the glowing stomach. Tawny’s sim usually got the first slice which always came out in a perfect triangle without so much as a crumb out of place. Sim cake wasn’t fattening and it didn’t make a mess if it accidentally dropped on Saran’s plush white carpet.

After wards she used the bathroom, just so she could look like she belonged, waiting in line, turning off her smell sensor. When the line had run out she went looking for Saran’s cat again.

Then she spotted him, not the cat- Tover!