In the future, society is run by the MATRON AI system. Life has three distinct stages, the beginning years from 1-20, young adulthood that can last from 1 to 100 years, and Maturity from then on. Young Adults (YAs) are expected to live and work in tired communities based on their accomplishments, effort, "valuation," and "life track." Society can be quite strict with those who are either naturally submissive (seen as a sign of requiring stern care-taking by Society) or who step out of line.
Disobedience is dealt with harshly.
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Name: Tessa Lisson
Sex: Female (1.4 Conventionally Cute and attractive)
Accomplishments: Employment Etiquette Certificate [2], Social Mechanics Certificate [2]
Effort: Medium High Effort (good sense of shame) [3.5]
Valuation: Tier 4 Family (Low station) [1]
Life Track: Aspirational - Senior Corporate Officer [3], Current - Employee [1.6]
Total Basic Value: 2.0 (Average)
Age: 21
Apparent Age: 21
System Note: Tessa is a YA only a few months out of academy. She has chosen a particularly harsh YA training community in an attempt to accomplish more in her Aspirational Life Track. She tests as a reluctant submissive and is currently on clandestine monitoring for excessively poor self-care decision-making. She is overly fixed on accomplishment and may require course correction to achieve a more viable Life Path.
Qualith YA Zone -- Tessa
Rain beat down over the Qualith YA Zone and Tessa's hair was a soaked mess. Her clothing clung to her. She'd stayed late at the office and she didn't have an umbrella. As a L3rd Floor girl, she couldn't summon a transport: so she got soaked trying to get home. She berated herself for forgetting her rain gear--it wouldn't have been hard to pack and she'd known they were due a thunderstorm. She'd KNOWN it. It was one of her three prized work-uniforms and now she was going to have to have it expensively laundered!
Her building had wash systems, but she knew better than to risk her uniforms in them. She had three and could last the week if she was very careful. Now she was down to two and--ugh! The sky rumbled, and she shuddered. She coughed into her hand. Double-Ugh.
She kept up her medical appointments so she wouldn't get sick--but her improved immune system could 'shut her down' if she 'pushed it too hard' with some kind of warning-misery. It would get her a day or two off from work--but when she came in, her boss Ms. Walsha, a Mature who apparently liked tutoring YAs in the ways of the working world, which involved a good deal of discipline (since she said most YAs lacked SELF discipline) would take to 'mothering' her excessively!
She'd chosen Qualith, a YA community the size of a small city, that was considered a form of punishment for lots of the YAs transferred there! It had great scores if you were actually positively employed and if she worked on her Maturity Certificates here--and excelled--she'd get a great platform!
Now, though, she was worried she'd made a terrible decision: It wasn't that life was necessarily harder in Qualith--but a Tier 4 girl got NO special assistance, even if she was positively employed and had no legal demerits. Worse, for a LOT of people here, the social hierarchy was... well... well, it was stuff she'd read about at Academy and gotten in trouble for masturbating to--but here it was in her face all the time!
Here, if you weren't near the top of a social hierarchy, you were going to be dominated by those above you--and they were expected to enjoy your discomfort with it! It was like that everywhere in the YA communities--but Qualith was a bit famous for making it especially apparent. A big moving billboard she could see through the rain showed an exotic-looking punishment enema kit in pinks and creams, a woman smiling wolfishly as her paramour, another girl, stood naked in the corner of the half shown flat.
Near her building, under a heated shelter were misery pillories. YAs who'd gotten social or minor legal demerits were stationed there for as much as four hours. She saw a girl looking wretchedly out, her hands dangling uselessly. Did they apply an itch to her nose? To her tender private parts? Did she have something unpleasant under her penitent uniform? She almost certainly had been spanked when being put in the pillories--and she would certainly be spanked before they let her out.
At a bus stop, a boy had another boy on a leash. The sub was dressed normally save for a thick leather "chastity belt" over his region. She could see the shiny locks on it--locks that the dom could open. He looked pretty composed, even on the leash, and wearing the humiliating device! Maybe he wasn't 'in trouble'--maybe he was just being dominated. She picked up the pace: everyone who had planned properly was out of the rain, or at least had an umbrella.
Tessa shuddered, not entirely from the cold. She knew full well what her test scores were like--what someone (like Ms.Walsha!) who read her file would see there! She had, over her three months here, avoided social media, social outings, and any of the common community programs, friend-circle matchers, or dating games!
All that could wait until she was a Level 5 or 6 at work and could make sure she wasn't the bottom in a relationship! She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself and stomped down the rain-washed streets the last block to her building.
Later That Night -- Tessa
"Mother! No!" Tessa was terminally embarrassed. She'd come home soaked to the bone and chilled and found a waiting message from her mother. She'd called her back right away--a call from a Mature wasn't to be ignored, even if it was just your mom. The problem was that Mom was concerned that she wasn't "finding an outlet or oversight" and was living alone! She didn't say the word, but the implication was clear: You're masturbating!
It was an overwhelming tidal wave of embarrassment, the worst of which was that mom was right! YAs were generally prohibited from masturbation--it was a legal demerit and could be serious if you got caught enough. The idea was that if you were submissive, you got a dominant and THEY gave you release--or not. If you were dominant then you could have your sub work on you! She tested submissive so her options were to either hold out, petition some authority figure to get relief (as if!), or get a partner (one or more) and try to get them to relieve her... or they would provide "oversight" so she couldn't!
None of those ideas sounded good--at all--and so she hadn't--but, it turned out, her mother knew her too well. She lay in bed at night, a hand under her panties, working at the tension she felt during the day. Her mother knew exactly what she was doing and warned her: if a Social Hygiene Officer stops and checks you, you could get a bunch of demerits!
It was actually the correct advice, but of course, her mother wanted her to get a boyfriend. She'd almost certainly be the bottom--and she'd have oversight and control and plenty of Ms. Walsha's discipline-instead-of-self-discipline. She didn't want that.
She lay in bed, hearing the rain dash itself against the glass and spread her knees apart. One of the big parts of social dominance was assuming the right, awful, positions. She put the bottoms of her feet together, butterflying her knees open. If someone had seen her like this, she'd be mortified--but alone, in the dark room, she put a hand down there and touched the core of her frustration.
It took longer than she'd have liked, her mother's voice ringing in her head every time she got close--but eventually she let out a gasping cry and rolled over, out of the wretched position. It wasn't long before she finally slept.
Morning -- Tessa
"Hachoo!" Tessa sneezed into a napkin. She held her coffee in her other hand and stood off to the side of the line at the shop. She wrinkled her nose. She had a faint headache. She really had overdone it staying late the past two weeks and then getting caught and drenched in the rain. It wasn't bad enough to stay home--but it was a mild warning sign that she was pushing too hard. She sniffed and blew her nose.
Her sneeze had drawn some looks and she felt both embarrassment and a little sense of threat: a cute young YA sneezing and looking potentially worn could attract the wrong kind of attention. It was said that in a properly 'fluid' social economy, the comparative submissiveness of a person could be accurately assessed with very few cues.
She'd read a parade of complaints by those who rated submissive and got picked out by a more dominant personality--one to which they were moth-to-flame attracted to! She shuffled against the old-style bookshelves and made her way around the corner from the queue in front of the counter. A girl in a brief dress with frills and an apron gave her a winning smile as she cleaned a table. Tess could see how the black dress came down less than an inch past her buttocks. She wore locking high-heels. Tessa gave her a sullen look--how could she be smiling like that! She was probably getting spanked on the shift change!
She shivered, checked her wrist unit--she had to get moving to go to work. "Achoo!" she sneezed again and made her way for the door. A hand landed on her shoulder--not at all hard--just a touch--but she jumped and looked over her shoulder.
He was tall and had piercing blue eyes. He wore a button down white shirt, a black tie and slacks. "You need to get checked out," he said, gently. "I don't like the sound of that--you have some congestion--and you look over-tired."
She shrugged his hand off: he wasn't a Mature. He was a YA like her!
"It's been a hard couple of days," she snapped. "Anyway, I'm fine. Don't worry about me!" she managed to put just a hint of snarl into her voice: Back Off.
She saw his cheeks shift as he bit back a response. "All I'm saying--" he started.
"Are you a Med Tech?" she asked, rhetorically, icily. It was a big mistake.
"Actually," he said, "A Phys. Senio YA, head Phys at the Apex Clinic," he said, gesturing. "You're 4th Tier?"
He asked it in a routine way: you're lower social level than I am--I can exercise some authority. She felt herself color--badly. How could he TELL?
He didn't wait though--he had his Com out and was tapping it with slim, perfect fingers. "Check-up--express," he said. "Should take 1 hour or less. Do you want to give me your Tag code?" Again, he made it sound like it was just a routine ask--and not 'if you don't, I'll just scan your wrist unit and com and take it.'
She felt the heat across her cheeks and her ears. Oh!! She was going to give him the code that would unlock her social profile--but she was too slow--she felt the cough and covered her mouth, turning to the side: he didn't wait. He swiped and tapped--she heard the little 'Glip' from her wrist unit as it gave up her profile.