Future Working Girl

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

He was a Phys--a Life Path that usually only Matures reached-- and this was probably completely within his social purview. Plus he was what? Tier 2? Tier 1??? She felt spikes of anger. But the coughing left her hapless.

"Okay, Tessa," he read her name off his Com. "I've sent a note to your employment. You're excused for the necessary period. Now go get that checked out, okay?." He looked up from his Com into her glower. "That's an order," he said simply, like this was nothing.

"You really like bossing people around!" she snapped. She'd almost said it to her mother the night before. Now it came bubbling out.

He actually seemed shocked--taken aback. He gestured at her: "I could hear the--"

"I'm GOING," she snapped and turned on her heel and stomped off, dumping her full, delicious coffee into the waste bin.

She had another coughing fit outside the door and couldn't bear to look back at him or the people inside the shop. She was sure she was FINE--and now her boss got pinged by the stupid Phys--and who knows what his note would say?? Would he put that she yelled at him? That she was out of line?? A Tier 4 mouthing off to a Tier 1 wasn't a legal demerit--but was a social one and she could certainly get in trouble for it!

Midway down the block when her wrist unit pinged and it was Ms. Walsha, she blanched and took the call, sudden jagged spikes of panic. What HAD he said?

"Ma'am?" Her voice sounded bad to her--worried. She could imagine him writing a corrections referral to her boss with a few simple clicks. It'd mean nothing to him! He'd certainly do it. "It wasn't a big deal--he was over reacting--"

"What? Tess!" Her voice cut Tessa off. She closed her mouth. "What are you talking about?"

She closed her eyes. "The Med-Tech--a Phys, actually, I ran into this morning, ma'am--I sneezed and he just pounced on me and ordered me to--"

"To go get checked out," she finished.

"Yes! I was on my way in!"

"Tess!" her bosses snap made Tessa clench her buttocks. "Go to the clinic--I called to see how you were doing. I don't want you coming in until you're cleared."

This was what Tessa had been afraid of--that she'd trip Ms. Walsha's sense of towering superiority and put her on her board as a girl who needed the wrong kind of attention! The stupid Phys could just have ruined her next assessment period!

She leaned against the retaining wall and closed her eyes. She felt like she might cry--and the idea that she might do that--at twenty one--in the street--on the phone with her boss--was just unbearable!

"Tessa?" Ms. Walsha asked, more gently.

"I'm going to the clinic," she said. She sniffed--sniffled. "I--I'm just a little congested," she said. It wasn't true--but her voice had gone wobbly.

There was an uncomfortable silence. "Get checked out. They'll send me the report," her boss said, and signed off. It was just like her mom.

She picked herself up off the wall and made her way down the street to the clinic.

The Nevurm Clinic -- Tessa

Tessa was dressed in a flimsy night-gown like cloth that she'd been allowed to wear after her check-up was done. She was uncomfortable: everything she hated about clinician visits had been part of it here. She'd gotten seen pretty quickly in the surprisingly nice lobby.

Inside the nurse, a senior YA, had told her to strip and get on the scale. She did that, hugging herself, legs squeezed together. The stats area was at least private, save for the nurse. The woman efficiently took her stats and then, to her dismay, brought out an arousometer--it looked a bit like an old-style thermometer; a long translucent tube that was slathered in a lubricant gel and, bending Tessa over, the nurse had inserted it carefully into her anus.

She'd wanted to die of embarrassment--but the nurse told her to hold it back there until the testing period was done. The meter measured sexual arousal and frustration in the subject using some kind of mechanism.she wasn't familiar with. When the woman announced it was ready and took it, pulling it out and wiping her anus with a swab. She'd gasped and stood, burning with blush while the woman read it and gave her a critical look.

Tessa gritted her teeth in anger as the woman made notes on a pad and then looked up.

"That's a bit of a score, Nixli," she said, using the diminutive Mature-speak for 'little girl.' Tessa felt herself blush badly but she just hugged herself and looked at her feet. The woman clucked and finally got the gown and helped her into it. She then took Tessa out to a semi-private waiting area where she saw the Med Tech. This was a woman who looked about her age but was a higher tier citizen and probably a junior or senior getting close to taking her Maturity exams.

"Tessa, hon," the woman said, sitting her down. "You have a yellow-flag from your immune system. You've kept up with your boosters, which, good girl! But getting a flag means I'm going to take you off work for seventy-two hours."

Tessa groaned! "I--you can't--I have a major report due--" she looked in desperation at the woman. "Please--my boss--she's--"

"She'll be fine," said the Med-Girl, apparently indifferent to whether Tessa got the all important top review score she needed. "We exchanged messages. She's concerned about you."

No! Tessa felt a sinking feeling. If Ms. Walsha was actually 'concerned' about her then she wasn't going to get the next Level-Up she needed for the truly 'meteoric' rise Tessa was counting on to get out of the tiny apartment flat and be able to satisfy her mother that she was in a productive relationship... and the needed pay-off for all her work in schooling!

She felt her eyes well up.

"I'm assigning a decompressor tab--you'll like them. I expect you to take them as required. I'm putting a watcher on you to make sure you do." The woman gave her a meaningful look. If she didn't take the medicine, the Med Tech, her boss, and probably her mother would be informed. She slumped, defeated.

"I'll take it as prescribed," she said dismally.

The woman nodded. "One more thing," she said.

Guuh! Thought Tessa, as if this wasn't bad enough!

"You have very low social-scores and... some dubious arousal curves." The woman met her eyes and Tessa looked away, ears flaming! The arouseometer didn't detect masturbation, per se--but it could probably detect that she wasn't as frustrated as would be expected for someone with her social score. The fact that she always felt QUITE sexually frustrated was besides the point.

"Social scores this low at your age isn't healthy. I can assign you to a mandatory Life Path Coach or Counselor--" Tessa felt an icy chill. Fear! That kind of assignment meant someone would be going through her life with a fine-toothed comb and giving her orders she'd HAVE to obey!

She bit her lip! She felt the horrible sense of her eyes welling up! This bitch was going to--to--

The woman reached out and put a hand on her arm.

"I'm not going to do that," she assured Tessa, in a calmer, kinder voice. "I'm going to assign you to a remedial friends circle. It's a group of YAs in your age and Tier bracket--roughly--who are very good at helping out new people and shy people and those who otherwise have trouble making friends."

Tessa winced--but that was far better than getting a Life Path Coach who would be absolutely ready to have her consigned to an 'improvement punishment regime' to get her 'on schedule.'

"You will need to do the meet-ups, the circle will give me a report, which you want to be good. After the 72 hours, we'll review." she said. She gave Tessa's arm a gentle rub. "This isn't the dreadful thing you're afraid it is. Being sent to the remedial friends group will probably be mild and might even be fun," she said. "Okay? You can't be a shut-in who does nothing but work. As a YA you have more latitude but if you're getting flags from your immune system, it's time for you to take direction."

Tessa, feeling defeated, slumped and nodded.

She had a bit of a cry back in her flat and slept for a couple of hours, waking up feeling awful--thinking she'd overslept for work. She was dressed in her weekend clothes and in a foul, defeated mood... it was raining again, when the door chimed.

Afternoon -- Tessa

She startled, who could it be? She didn't have any... friends in the building. Maybe it was the decon-tabs? She could order out for them, but she hadn't. Had the doctor assigned a delivery? Did she seem that incompetent? That immature? She made her way to the door, triggered the door com screen, saw a girl she didn't recognize, and opened the door.

"Hi! I'm Eevie! I'm in your friend circle!" the girl practically exploded into smiles and energy. She held up a pack of tabs. "I picked up your prescription! These are great! I've had them!" She came in, moving close to Tessa, who wasn't touchy about personal space but felt sort of bowled over by the girl's enthusiasm.