Your support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)Hey
Who I'm looking for?
While this is a roleplaying community this thread might stand out as a bit atypical. Instead of a specific roleplay to play out with another person. I am more just looking for other amateur writers within this smut genre. It would be for sparring and bouncing ideas off one another. See it as a miniature writing group, where we both bring our own writings to receive feedback and be critiqued so we can grow as writers. Ideally, someone who isn't afraid of even getting down to the nitpicky bits and telling me if I'm overusing a word or phrase. If the PoV is confusing, or if the sentences are too long and wordy etc etc. The goal is for us both to get a lot better at writing. Oppositely you would not be the kind of person who gets offended when I write an essay about why your post was a piece of shit but rather cherish the feedback.
We are either writing each our own story and asking the other for feedback, or, we co-author the same story where both writers have full control of the characters. It is more like taking turns writing what the characters are up to. There is no stopping and waiting for a reply, if we co-author, I will take the liberty to write dialogue and actions for all characters. There is no YC and MC! DISCLAIMER: THAT MEANS I WILL GOD-MOD YOUR MOST BELOVED CHARACTERS!
On posts and post frequency
My posts tend to be quite long. Usually 1500-3000 words. A 3k-word post is rarely something I can sit down and do in a hurry. And even when the first draft is written I often keep it to tinker with it for a day or two to polish it before posting it. To begin with, I imagine it would just be a weekly thing.
Introduce yourself
I will try to get back to everyone. Even just minor sparring and brainstorming can be fun in itself. So is meeting other aspiring smut writers, so please feel free to introduce yourself. It would be ideal if have a writing sample ready that you can show me. Just take anything you've written recently that you think is okayish, you don't have to come up with something new specifically for me. There will also be a text sample below that you can give some feedback on.
What I typically write
I will summarize it as an Interesting Character(s) placed in an Extreme situation. As a disclaimer, a lot of the characters belong in the AnyXAny category, I haven't split it up as I wanted to keep the thread whole, instead of splitting it into two with minor variations, so an identical thread can also be found in the Non-Binary Section, or if you're already in that section then vice-versa is true.
Interesting Characters
The Natural Freaks and Fringe Body Types
Often my characters have a physical trait that is a major part of who they are, and often a lot of the story centers around that fact. It could be about a girl who is skinny and 6'7" just a slice of life in high school/college and how being a walking stick feels.
Another example could be a woman who has gone to the limit of plastic surgery and now has ended up akin to a Frankenstein monster. Her breasts look like skin-covered basketballs, the nipples, and areolas have gotten widely asymmetrical, her face is stiff and her speech could be slurred by her botched botox lips.
On the more natural side, it could be a young woman suffering the weight of her enormous breasts. Not your typical perfect anime tiddies or mommy milkers, but excessively veiny hangers that won't stop growing caused by macromastic growth.
The Unnatural Freaks and Fringe Body Types
This typically falls into the Sci-Fi and Fantasy, though it can also be in a more modern setting. A tentacle monster wearing a human's skin, like the bug in Men in Black. For Fantasy it can just be an Orc or Elf if we can find an original trait to add. The half Humans like, Satyrs, Centaurs, and Merfolk. I also have a special interest in Undead and Mummies.
Sci-Fi is often just your typical Spacebabe, like a Twi'lek in various colors. Though please hit me up with all your ideas for something more original and exotic.
An Extreme situation
Often it's as simple as the acknowledgement of taboo. You have thoughts you are not supposed to have. Seeing the silhouette in a dressing screen of your mother changing clothes. You thought you were straight until you saw that Futanari porn and is now suppressing the fantasy of being bent over and used. A brainless zombie won't say no. What does that slimy alien girl look like without her spacesuit on, or peeping under a centaur's horsecloth? Even without the lustful aspect, the best driving forces are often things like extreme poverty, an uncontrollable addiction, or the threat of violence.
Now let's come up with a situation that adds tension to the story. Maybe the woman with botched plastic surgery used to be a trophy wife but has been dumped for a younger model. Thinking she isn't pretty enough, it propels her into more surgery. Without money for the expensive surgeries, she is a fish out of water trying to do the simplest jobs and is coerced into prostitution.
Alternatively, the PoV could be from her son's perspective. Being bullied at school for having a mom who is a super bimbo. He tries his best to keep her spending and slutting under control. However, he slowly discovers a suppressed joy in being domineering and assertive against his own mother. It all just works so much better if she would just listen to him and do as she is told.
Oppositely the young woman suffering from her macromastia breasts lives as trailer trash with her single mom. She doesn't feel safe among the other trailer trash and lives in constant fear of being groped and raped by the men in the trailer park. She doesn't have the money for a breast reduction to get a normal life. How far will she go to get the money? Perhaps someone close to her becomes an antagonistic force when they find out that she intends to her those gargantuan knockers reduced and goes to the extremes to prevent it.
I often enjoy Half-Humans and Undead stories the most when seen from a human perspective. A fisherman has always fantasized about making love to a mermaid. A stablehand boy has bestiality fantasies and is plotting to molest a centaur. Some sicko coerces an Undead woman into pretending to be a real corpse so he can live out his snuff fantasies.
Feel free to ask any questions. If I am not responding I am in GMT+1 and am an early bird.
The Writing Sample
A slice-of-life scene from the POV of 15-19yo girls. A Dystopian/Orwellian setting in the 1980's. The corrupt government controls just about everything and society has reversed back into treating young girls as second-class citizens. It wouldn't say it's SFW, but neither does it have any real smut besides a brief mention of nudity.
Who I'm looking for?
While this is a roleplaying community this thread might stand out as a bit atypical. Instead of a specific roleplay to play out with another person. I am more just looking for other amateur writers within this smut genre. It would be for sparring and bouncing ideas off one another. See it as a miniature writing group, where we both bring our own writings to receive feedback and be critiqued so we can grow as writers. Ideally, someone who isn't afraid of even getting down to the nitpicky bits and telling me if I'm overusing a word or phrase. If the PoV is confusing, or if the sentences are too long and wordy etc etc. The goal is for us both to get a lot better at writing. Oppositely you would not be the kind of person who gets offended when I write an essay about why your post was a piece of shit but rather cherish the feedback.
We are either writing each our own story and asking the other for feedback, or, we co-author the same story where both writers have full control of the characters. It is more like taking turns writing what the characters are up to. There is no stopping and waiting for a reply, if we co-author, I will take the liberty to write dialogue and actions for all characters. There is no YC and MC! DISCLAIMER: THAT MEANS I WILL GOD-MOD YOUR MOST BELOVED CHARACTERS!
On posts and post frequency
My posts tend to be quite long. Usually 1500-3000 words. A 3k-word post is rarely something I can sit down and do in a hurry. And even when the first draft is written I often keep it to tinker with it for a day or two to polish it before posting it. To begin with, I imagine it would just be a weekly thing.
Introduce yourself
I will try to get back to everyone. Even just minor sparring and brainstorming can be fun in itself. So is meeting other aspiring smut writers, so please feel free to introduce yourself. It would be ideal if have a writing sample ready that you can show me. Just take anything you've written recently that you think is okayish, you don't have to come up with something new specifically for me. There will also be a text sample below that you can give some feedback on.
What I typically write
I will summarize it as an Interesting Character(s) placed in an Extreme situation. As a disclaimer, a lot of the characters belong in the AnyXAny category, I haven't split it up as I wanted to keep the thread whole, instead of splitting it into two with minor variations, so an identical thread can also be found in the Non-Binary Section, or if you're already in that section then vice-versa is true.
Interesting Characters
The Natural Freaks and Fringe Body Types
Often my characters have a physical trait that is a major part of who they are, and often a lot of the story centers around that fact. It could be about a girl who is skinny and 6'7" just a slice of life in high school/college and how being a walking stick feels.
Another example could be a woman who has gone to the limit of plastic surgery and now has ended up akin to a Frankenstein monster. Her breasts look like skin-covered basketballs, the nipples, and areolas have gotten widely asymmetrical, her face is stiff and her speech could be slurred by her botched botox lips.
On the more natural side, it could be a young woman suffering the weight of her enormous breasts. Not your typical perfect anime tiddies or mommy milkers, but excessively veiny hangers that won't stop growing caused by macromastic growth.
The Unnatural Freaks and Fringe Body Types
This typically falls into the Sci-Fi and Fantasy, though it can also be in a more modern setting. A tentacle monster wearing a human's skin, like the bug in Men in Black. For Fantasy it can just be an Orc or Elf if we can find an original trait to add. The half Humans like, Satyrs, Centaurs, and Merfolk. I also have a special interest in Undead and Mummies.
Sci-Fi is often just your typical Spacebabe, like a Twi'lek in various colors. Though please hit me up with all your ideas for something more original and exotic.
An Extreme situation
Often it's as simple as the acknowledgement of taboo. You have thoughts you are not supposed to have. Seeing the silhouette in a dressing screen of your mother changing clothes. You thought you were straight until you saw that Futanari porn and is now suppressing the fantasy of being bent over and used. A brainless zombie won't say no. What does that slimy alien girl look like without her spacesuit on, or peeping under a centaur's horsecloth? Even without the lustful aspect, the best driving forces are often things like extreme poverty, an uncontrollable addiction, or the threat of violence.
Now let's come up with a situation that adds tension to the story. Maybe the woman with botched plastic surgery used to be a trophy wife but has been dumped for a younger model. Thinking she isn't pretty enough, it propels her into more surgery. Without money for the expensive surgeries, she is a fish out of water trying to do the simplest jobs and is coerced into prostitution.
Alternatively, the PoV could be from her son's perspective. Being bullied at school for having a mom who is a super bimbo. He tries his best to keep her spending and slutting under control. However, he slowly discovers a suppressed joy in being domineering and assertive against his own mother. It all just works so much better if she would just listen to him and do as she is told.
Oppositely the young woman suffering from her macromastia breasts lives as trailer trash with her single mom. She doesn't feel safe among the other trailer trash and lives in constant fear of being groped and raped by the men in the trailer park. She doesn't have the money for a breast reduction to get a normal life. How far will she go to get the money? Perhaps someone close to her becomes an antagonistic force when they find out that she intends to her those gargantuan knockers reduced and goes to the extremes to prevent it.
I often enjoy Half-Humans and Undead stories the most when seen from a human perspective. A fisherman has always fantasized about making love to a mermaid. A stablehand boy has bestiality fantasies and is plotting to molest a centaur. Some sicko coerces an Undead woman into pretending to be a real corpse so he can live out his snuff fantasies.
Feel free to ask any questions. If I am not responding I am in GMT+1 and am an early bird.
The Writing Sample
A slice-of-life scene from the POV of 15-19yo girls. A Dystopian/Orwellian setting in the 1980's. The corrupt government controls just about everything and society has reversed back into treating young girls as second-class citizens. It wouldn't say it's SFW, but neither does it have any real smut besides a brief mention of nudity.
The locker rooms of Lysenko Academy were in a loud commotion by the four dozen Nevesta year girls, often nicknamed the Devstvennitsies class. Adding to the noise were a few who had even brought their instrument for the day's parade and played a few sporadic practice notes. With only two old teachers to handle this horde of hormone-filled teenage girls, there was little in place to contain the commotion. Iryna sat with her flute in her hand, though she didn't feel like playing it at all. She was waiting for old Mrs Zaryanova to finish her twin braids, which took some time as they reached almost all the way down to her butt. Iryna had done them just this morning, but Zaryanova insisted on fixing them and doing it all over.
Iryna thought the old hag just wanted to play a maternal role, Mrs. Zaryanova seemed to always have an excuse to touch Iryna's hair and then babbled on about how she had always wanted a pretty girl with long braids and how dreadful it must be living without a mother. Iryna didn't even remember her mother and hardly knew what she was missing out on. Iryna was certain Zaryanova was delusional, even though widowed, there was no way a big shot like her father would remarry with an old barren school teacher. However, it was Iryna who was delusional, this old barren school teacher just wanted Iryna to sit still for a few minutes, for whenever the girls were in great commotion, fights tended to break out, and often Iryna was found at the center of it. Zaryanova saw the girl as one of those quivering, ill-tempered little dogs that snap at any hand that tries to feed it. If she would only spend more time with that beautiful, well-behaved girl Tatiana.
It must be in the job description that teachers should be oblivious to bullying, how else could they all be so blind to it when it occurs right in front of them? At 152cm Iryna was tiny and easy to push around. But the bullying centered around her not having been through a teenage growth spurt during the long summer break like the other girls. It felt as if she were the only one who had shown up on the first day of school still flat as a board. She looked around the locker room, seething with envy. A lot of the girls would take an awfully long time changing shirts and just stand around in their bras, flaunting the beauty of their new perky breasts.
"All done." Mrs Zaryanova said, tapping Iryna on the shoulder. "You better get changed too, Iryna." Iryna's locker was in a corner. Though not completely away from the other girl's eyes, it was still a small comfort. She dreaded whenever she had to change shirts in front of the others. Huddled in her corner, she turned her back to the crowd and began unbuttoning. A sixth sense told her Tatiana and her entourage were keeping an eye on her. She tensed up, conscious of every imperfection of her body and clothes they might jump on. She could feel one bra strap hanging down over her shoulder. The straps had a habit of slipping down, and this one had been drooping under her clothes all morning. A few buttons down she shot a hand under her shirt and pulled the strap back into place. With all the buttons down she took a deep breath and took off her shirt. The strap flopped down over her shoulder again, and while she hung her shirt on a clothes hanger and took the parade shirt from her locker, the other strap slipped down as well. She frowned and began adjusting them. Why hadn't her father gotten her some with adjustable strap lengths, wasn't that supposed to be standard on all bras?
"What's wrong, Iryna? Is your training bra coming off? Is it too big for you?" As predicted, it was Tatiana's voice, and her gang of brats joined the chorus. "It is a BREAST HOLDER girl. BREAST. HOLDER. Like, for BREASTS." Anastasia added. The voices stood out from the murmuring background chatter, they were getting closer. Iryna fixed the straps in a scuttle, pretending she hadn't heard them. She didn't know what else to do, though she had plenty of fantasies of what she could do. She could spin around and rake their faces with her nails. Even bite into their chests to leave big infected bite marks on their firm breasts. Ugly scars to keep forever. Bitches. "Maybe she thinks it's a nipple holder?" Svetlana taunted "Oh yes." You do at least have nipples, right?" Iryna did, big puffy ones that stiffened whenever her attention was drawn to them, even just this brief mention made them tingle. Iryna shifted her full attention to finish buttoning her parade shirt. Don't mind them, don't mind them, just think about how ugly this lime green shirt is. She could bite Tatiane's nipples off. Bite down so hard they'd have to pry her mouth open with crowbars.
A smirky grin spread across Tatiana's lips, she knew just the right taunt to send Iryna into another of her little rage flips. Little tigress. Tatiana got so close that when she leaned forward to whisper into Iryna's ear, her protruding bust brushed against her shoulders. "I heard your big shot Daddy needs a new wife. If he picks me, I'll let you watch when we make love. And you can scrub the floors when your new mommy tells you to..." Iryna snapped like a viper. She spun around and launched herself at Tatiana. Despite being so petite in comparison, she still managed to send them both tumbling to the ground. The sounds of shocked teenage girls screaming went off like a siren echoing against the tiles and metal lockers. Iryna felt Tatiana flailing at her with her manicured nails, but she didn't care. She tore at Tatiana's lime green parade shirt with such rage the plastic buttons popped and were sent flying in all directions. Tatiana writhed on the ground, her enormous breasts rocked and nearly spilled out of her bra. Iryna ripped the left side of the bra down, released, the huge tit flopped to the side like a rolling water balloon. Iryna hesitated, she hadn't seen another woman's naked breast this close before, and it was beautiful. But she would ruin that beauty and launched
her head towards it with bared teeth.
Mrs. Zaryanova got hold of Iryna's left braid at the last second before she intended to mutilate the school's poster girl. Her head snapped back. "NOOO!" Iryna cried. She swung her hands at Tatiana who was doing her best to cover her perfect face and breasts with her arms. Zarya yanked the petite thing to her feet solely by the braid. Iryna grimaced in pain, more so when Mrs. Zaryanova swung at her. A slap, a full-force swing that left Iryna's cheek and temple bruised for days. "What on earth are you thinking girl?!" In the background, a disheveled Tatiana was getting to her feet, assisted by Anastasia and Svetlana, who had stood dumbfounded during the fight, after all, it had all occurred in the flash of a few seconds. She quickly stuffed her fat boob into her bra. "She just attacked me out of nowhere." What a lying diva, Iryna thought. Here comes the melodramatic damsel in distress speech. "I was just standing here and then she pounced on me like a wild beast." "It's true, we saw it all." Anastasia and Svetlana chimed in. "THEY ARE ALL LYING! THEY ALWAYS MAKE FUN OF ME!" "She just can't handle being so envious all the time. She's still acting like a child. Don't punish her." Tatiana finished with a real schadenfreude grin.
Iryna would much prefer to have been locked up for the rest of the day as punishment. Having to go through with the parade was the worst punishment of all. Her cheek was red and swollen from the slap and she had a small gash below her right eye from Tatiana's nails. She hadn't even noticed when she got it during the turmoil. She was stuck in the very back of the parade. And everybody knew what that meant. They were the never-pickers. The girls who had to do their Nevesta year over because no man had wanted them. To her left were the fatty-fat girls, panting and gasping hard between each blow into their instruments. Then on her right, the lanky one with a big overbite and pimples all over her face. And the not-so-bright-one, just doing her wobbly gait and smiling, no instrument because she was too dumb to even play the triangle. At the very front of the parade was Tatiana, twirling the long majorette skillfully. There had been no time to sew the buttons back on her parade shirt, so she had been handed a spare one, but the spare was a size smaller and was stretched thin across her bust. The buttons threatened to pop again every time she did a skip-jump and swung the majorette. Not only was she on the school's posters and flyers, but the live version drew not just some of the attention, but all the attention.
After the parade, the girls were cramped into the school's old bus. The bus drove around town and dropped the girls off in smaller groups at various offices, workshops, and factories throughout town. They had to assist the workers with communal work, but in reality, it was just to be shown off at hot spots for unmarried men. The bus halted with the high-pitched screech of grinding breaks. The driver mumbled something to Mrs. Zaryanova who began bellowing, "Volgograd Soapworks! Olga! Alina! Iryna! Ekaterina!" Svetlana tried to trip Iryna on her way out the door and got close to starting another fight.
Communal work at the Soapworks consisted of helping out the women working at the cafeteria. And helping really just meant, looking pretty, smiling, and scooping up a big chunk of goulash onto the worker's plates. Looking pretty was quite difficult for Iryna. With a dirty old apron way too big for her, the lime green parade uniform, and her long braids stuffed haphazardly into a hair net she felt that she looked like a wardrobe malfunction. Though the worst was that everybody had to comment on her bruised cheek. "How's your head girl?" A young man asked, looking at her swollen face. He grinned as if he was knowingly sharing an inside joke with her. The men behind him chuckled. "My teacher slapped me..." Iryna mumbled, avoiding eye contact while splattering a scoop of goulash on his plate. "Was it that bad huh?" The men burst out laughing. Iryna didn't get what was so funny.
Iryna wasn't home before late in the afternoon. It was one of the bus' last stops as it was on the outskirts of town. Though everybody was equal in Arstotzka, the house Iryna lived in with her father and younger twin sisters was about twice the size of the average house in Zelenogradskaya. The mayor lived only a few hundred meters away in a house more than three times bigger than average. Both men were referred to as, big-shots, in town.
The day's hard work wasn't even over. She was immediately put to work by the old housekeeper Polina to help in the kitchen. Old Polina had been helping out a few hours every day since Iryna's mother passed away twelve years ago giving birth to the twins. Though Polina had been with the family as long as Iryna could remember she had never really considered her as a spare parent, just more like a maid. Now in her last year of girls' school, Iryna had already taken over most of Polina's daily chores.
With Iryna home to take over, Polina left shortly after, leaving Iryna to finish the evening's dinner by herself. That wasn't a problem though, as she had learned more than plenty at the girl's school and was an excellent cook. She could hear the TV running in the living room. She thought of leaving the kitchen for a minute to go say hey to the twins but didn't. After her shit day at school, there was a soothing feeling to just standing alone in the kitchen, just doing a simple task like peeling all the potatoes, cutting the carrots into perfect little squares. It gave her time to think that maybe she should take her Nevesta year at school more seriously and not let Tatiana and her lackeys distract her. She would focus on getting a husband because it was the fastest way out of that hell hole of a school. She could find solitude and joy through simple household tasks that she excelled at. She just needed to find that right man…a good man that wouldn't hit her. Who was earnest and kind. While she had hopes of attracting a big shot, like her father, she stood to lose the big house she loved even in the best of cases. She looked around with a sad little smile, knowing she would miss it all so very much.
Just in time for a ready dinner, her father's car entered the driveway. She went to the front door and took his overcoat when he entered. He took a long sideways glance at her swollen cheek but didn't address it. Nor at the dinner table did he say much. The twins chatted a bit about a game they had played at school. The fun and innocence of being twelve seemed like ages ago to Iryna. With the twins out of the kitchen, Iryna was clearing the table while her father skimmed through a newspaper. Looking at stock graphs, checking what the capitalists were up to. "Is the school going to call my office again, Iryna? It is quite an embarrassing situation you know." She felt petrified, though managed to turn around and look her father in the eyes. Those piercing eyes that were hidden beneath low eyebrows that often seemed to be stuck in a stern furrow. "No, sir."
As the weeks went by Iryna got more worried that she would end up as one of the never-pickers. Every day after school she checked the mailbox to see if a letter had arrived from the local department of the Ministry of Population Contracts. Every week there were more parades. However, they got smaller week by week as one by one the girls got their letter for marital summons. Fewer men came to see the leftovers, and once the number of girls got down to a dozen they'd stop and the remaining girls had to do the Nevesta year and its parades over in the spring. There was also more communal work. More perverse jokes, but no actual marriage proposals. Sometimes she tried putting on a bit of lipstick to highlight her large thick lips, the only thing she thought attractive about herself. But it didn't work, neither did it help to put all her achievement pins on her parade uniform. She had to admit the latter seemed a bit desperate, I know I don't have any tits or ass but I got good grades in cooking and cleaning classes. none of the other girls ever did it. At least the bullying had died down a little. Tatiana and Anastasia had gotten their letter in a matter of days. To no one's surprise, Tatiana got no one less than the old widowed mayor and would be married soon. It was also a comfort that her father hadn't picked a girl from her class, seeing him kiss one of her classmates would have been an experience too surreal to accept. It was only this year that she had thought about the fact that her father was single and also an available man, why had he stayed single for over a decade when he as a big-shot could have just about anyone?
Then it came, after months of waiting, with less than half the girls remaining, a letter. But there was not one. But two letters. One for Iryna Guzev and one for Alexandyr Guzev, her father.
June 21th 1984
Ministry of Population Contracts
Dostoevsky Square 1
Zelenogradskaya 220567
Iryna Guzev
Tolstoy Avenue 56
Zelenogradskaya 220590
Subject: Draft Notice for Matrimonial Unity Program
Iryna Guzev,
By order of the Ministry of Population Contracts, you have been selected for participation in the Matrimonial Unity Program. This initiative aims to foster unity and partnership within our community. (1) Member(s) of our community has shown interest in your qualifications.
Your duty commences on June 24th. You are expected to report to the designated venue at Dostoevsky Square 1 promptly at 17:30. Here you will be interviewed by suitors. The interview intends to confirm Matrimonial Unity before signing a Population Contract. Further instructions will be provided upon your arrival.
This mission is a commitment to forming lasting connections with fellow participants. You will be expected to adhere to the program's schedule and guidelines. Failure to comply with orders will result in discharge from the program.
Your service is vital to our community's unity. Embrace this mission with determination and dedication.
Prepare to serve Arstotzka
Iryna thought the old hag just wanted to play a maternal role, Mrs. Zaryanova seemed to always have an excuse to touch Iryna's hair and then babbled on about how she had always wanted a pretty girl with long braids and how dreadful it must be living without a mother. Iryna didn't even remember her mother and hardly knew what she was missing out on. Iryna was certain Zaryanova was delusional, even though widowed, there was no way a big shot like her father would remarry with an old barren school teacher. However, it was Iryna who was delusional, this old barren school teacher just wanted Iryna to sit still for a few minutes, for whenever the girls were in great commotion, fights tended to break out, and often Iryna was found at the center of it. Zaryanova saw the girl as one of those quivering, ill-tempered little dogs that snap at any hand that tries to feed it. If she would only spend more time with that beautiful, well-behaved girl Tatiana.
It must be in the job description that teachers should be oblivious to bullying, how else could they all be so blind to it when it occurs right in front of them? At 152cm Iryna was tiny and easy to push around. But the bullying centered around her not having been through a teenage growth spurt during the long summer break like the other girls. It felt as if she were the only one who had shown up on the first day of school still flat as a board. She looked around the locker room, seething with envy. A lot of the girls would take an awfully long time changing shirts and just stand around in their bras, flaunting the beauty of their new perky breasts.
"All done." Mrs Zaryanova said, tapping Iryna on the shoulder. "You better get changed too, Iryna." Iryna's locker was in a corner. Though not completely away from the other girl's eyes, it was still a small comfort. She dreaded whenever she had to change shirts in front of the others. Huddled in her corner, she turned her back to the crowd and began unbuttoning. A sixth sense told her Tatiana and her entourage were keeping an eye on her. She tensed up, conscious of every imperfection of her body and clothes they might jump on. She could feel one bra strap hanging down over her shoulder. The straps had a habit of slipping down, and this one had been drooping under her clothes all morning. A few buttons down she shot a hand under her shirt and pulled the strap back into place. With all the buttons down she took a deep breath and took off her shirt. The strap flopped down over her shoulder again, and while she hung her shirt on a clothes hanger and took the parade shirt from her locker, the other strap slipped down as well. She frowned and began adjusting them. Why hadn't her father gotten her some with adjustable strap lengths, wasn't that supposed to be standard on all bras?
"What's wrong, Iryna? Is your training bra coming off? Is it too big for you?" As predicted, it was Tatiana's voice, and her gang of brats joined the chorus. "It is a BREAST HOLDER girl. BREAST. HOLDER. Like, for BREASTS." Anastasia added. The voices stood out from the murmuring background chatter, they were getting closer. Iryna fixed the straps in a scuttle, pretending she hadn't heard them. She didn't know what else to do, though she had plenty of fantasies of what she could do. She could spin around and rake their faces with her nails. Even bite into their chests to leave big infected bite marks on their firm breasts. Ugly scars to keep forever. Bitches. "Maybe she thinks it's a nipple holder?" Svetlana taunted "Oh yes." You do at least have nipples, right?" Iryna did, big puffy ones that stiffened whenever her attention was drawn to them, even just this brief mention made them tingle. Iryna shifted her full attention to finish buttoning her parade shirt. Don't mind them, don't mind them, just think about how ugly this lime green shirt is. She could bite Tatiane's nipples off. Bite down so hard they'd have to pry her mouth open with crowbars.
A smirky grin spread across Tatiana's lips, she knew just the right taunt to send Iryna into another of her little rage flips. Little tigress. Tatiana got so close that when she leaned forward to whisper into Iryna's ear, her protruding bust brushed against her shoulders. "I heard your big shot Daddy needs a new wife. If he picks me, I'll let you watch when we make love. And you can scrub the floors when your new mommy tells you to..." Iryna snapped like a viper. She spun around and launched herself at Tatiana. Despite being so petite in comparison, she still managed to send them both tumbling to the ground. The sounds of shocked teenage girls screaming went off like a siren echoing against the tiles and metal lockers. Iryna felt Tatiana flailing at her with her manicured nails, but she didn't care. She tore at Tatiana's lime green parade shirt with such rage the plastic buttons popped and were sent flying in all directions. Tatiana writhed on the ground, her enormous breasts rocked and nearly spilled out of her bra. Iryna ripped the left side of the bra down, released, the huge tit flopped to the side like a rolling water balloon. Iryna hesitated, she hadn't seen another woman's naked breast this close before, and it was beautiful. But she would ruin that beauty and launched
her head towards it with bared teeth.
Mrs. Zaryanova got hold of Iryna's left braid at the last second before she intended to mutilate the school's poster girl. Her head snapped back. "NOOO!" Iryna cried. She swung her hands at Tatiana who was doing her best to cover her perfect face and breasts with her arms. Zarya yanked the petite thing to her feet solely by the braid. Iryna grimaced in pain, more so when Mrs. Zaryanova swung at her. A slap, a full-force swing that left Iryna's cheek and temple bruised for days. "What on earth are you thinking girl?!" In the background, a disheveled Tatiana was getting to her feet, assisted by Anastasia and Svetlana, who had stood dumbfounded during the fight, after all, it had all occurred in the flash of a few seconds. She quickly stuffed her fat boob into her bra. "She just attacked me out of nowhere." What a lying diva, Iryna thought. Here comes the melodramatic damsel in distress speech. "I was just standing here and then she pounced on me like a wild beast." "It's true, we saw it all." Anastasia and Svetlana chimed in. "THEY ARE ALL LYING! THEY ALWAYS MAKE FUN OF ME!" "She just can't handle being so envious all the time. She's still acting like a child. Don't punish her." Tatiana finished with a real schadenfreude grin.
Iryna would much prefer to have been locked up for the rest of the day as punishment. Having to go through with the parade was the worst punishment of all. Her cheek was red and swollen from the slap and she had a small gash below her right eye from Tatiana's nails. She hadn't even noticed when she got it during the turmoil. She was stuck in the very back of the parade. And everybody knew what that meant. They were the never-pickers. The girls who had to do their Nevesta year over because no man had wanted them. To her left were the fatty-fat girls, panting and gasping hard between each blow into their instruments. Then on her right, the lanky one with a big overbite and pimples all over her face. And the not-so-bright-one, just doing her wobbly gait and smiling, no instrument because she was too dumb to even play the triangle. At the very front of the parade was Tatiana, twirling the long majorette skillfully. There had been no time to sew the buttons back on her parade shirt, so she had been handed a spare one, but the spare was a size smaller and was stretched thin across her bust. The buttons threatened to pop again every time she did a skip-jump and swung the majorette. Not only was she on the school's posters and flyers, but the live version drew not just some of the attention, but all the attention.
After the parade, the girls were cramped into the school's old bus. The bus drove around town and dropped the girls off in smaller groups at various offices, workshops, and factories throughout town. They had to assist the workers with communal work, but in reality, it was just to be shown off at hot spots for unmarried men. The bus halted with the high-pitched screech of grinding breaks. The driver mumbled something to Mrs. Zaryanova who began bellowing, "Volgograd Soapworks! Olga! Alina! Iryna! Ekaterina!" Svetlana tried to trip Iryna on her way out the door and got close to starting another fight.
Communal work at the Soapworks consisted of helping out the women working at the cafeteria. And helping really just meant, looking pretty, smiling, and scooping up a big chunk of goulash onto the worker's plates. Looking pretty was quite difficult for Iryna. With a dirty old apron way too big for her, the lime green parade uniform, and her long braids stuffed haphazardly into a hair net she felt that she looked like a wardrobe malfunction. Though the worst was that everybody had to comment on her bruised cheek. "How's your head girl?" A young man asked, looking at her swollen face. He grinned as if he was knowingly sharing an inside joke with her. The men behind him chuckled. "My teacher slapped me..." Iryna mumbled, avoiding eye contact while splattering a scoop of goulash on his plate. "Was it that bad huh?" The men burst out laughing. Iryna didn't get what was so funny.
Iryna wasn't home before late in the afternoon. It was one of the bus' last stops as it was on the outskirts of town. Though everybody was equal in Arstotzka, the house Iryna lived in with her father and younger twin sisters was about twice the size of the average house in Zelenogradskaya. The mayor lived only a few hundred meters away in a house more than three times bigger than average. Both men were referred to as, big-shots, in town.
The day's hard work wasn't even over. She was immediately put to work by the old housekeeper Polina to help in the kitchen. Old Polina had been helping out a few hours every day since Iryna's mother passed away twelve years ago giving birth to the twins. Though Polina had been with the family as long as Iryna could remember she had never really considered her as a spare parent, just more like a maid. Now in her last year of girls' school, Iryna had already taken over most of Polina's daily chores.
With Iryna home to take over, Polina left shortly after, leaving Iryna to finish the evening's dinner by herself. That wasn't a problem though, as she had learned more than plenty at the girl's school and was an excellent cook. She could hear the TV running in the living room. She thought of leaving the kitchen for a minute to go say hey to the twins but didn't. After her shit day at school, there was a soothing feeling to just standing alone in the kitchen, just doing a simple task like peeling all the potatoes, cutting the carrots into perfect little squares. It gave her time to think that maybe she should take her Nevesta year at school more seriously and not let Tatiana and her lackeys distract her. She would focus on getting a husband because it was the fastest way out of that hell hole of a school. She could find solitude and joy through simple household tasks that she excelled at. She just needed to find that right man…a good man that wouldn't hit her. Who was earnest and kind. While she had hopes of attracting a big shot, like her father, she stood to lose the big house she loved even in the best of cases. She looked around with a sad little smile, knowing she would miss it all so very much.
Just in time for a ready dinner, her father's car entered the driveway. She went to the front door and took his overcoat when he entered. He took a long sideways glance at her swollen cheek but didn't address it. Nor at the dinner table did he say much. The twins chatted a bit about a game they had played at school. The fun and innocence of being twelve seemed like ages ago to Iryna. With the twins out of the kitchen, Iryna was clearing the table while her father skimmed through a newspaper. Looking at stock graphs, checking what the capitalists were up to. "Is the school going to call my office again, Iryna? It is quite an embarrassing situation you know." She felt petrified, though managed to turn around and look her father in the eyes. Those piercing eyes that were hidden beneath low eyebrows that often seemed to be stuck in a stern furrow. "No, sir."
As the weeks went by Iryna got more worried that she would end up as one of the never-pickers. Every day after school she checked the mailbox to see if a letter had arrived from the local department of the Ministry of Population Contracts. Every week there were more parades. However, they got smaller week by week as one by one the girls got their letter for marital summons. Fewer men came to see the leftovers, and once the number of girls got down to a dozen they'd stop and the remaining girls had to do the Nevesta year and its parades over in the spring. There was also more communal work. More perverse jokes, but no actual marriage proposals. Sometimes she tried putting on a bit of lipstick to highlight her large thick lips, the only thing she thought attractive about herself. But it didn't work, neither did it help to put all her achievement pins on her parade uniform. She had to admit the latter seemed a bit desperate, I know I don't have any tits or ass but I got good grades in cooking and cleaning classes. none of the other girls ever did it. At least the bullying had died down a little. Tatiana and Anastasia had gotten their letter in a matter of days. To no one's surprise, Tatiana got no one less than the old widowed mayor and would be married soon. It was also a comfort that her father hadn't picked a girl from her class, seeing him kiss one of her classmates would have been an experience too surreal to accept. It was only this year that she had thought about the fact that her father was single and also an available man, why had he stayed single for over a decade when he as a big-shot could have just about anyone?
Then it came, after months of waiting, with less than half the girls remaining, a letter. But there was not one. But two letters. One for Iryna Guzev and one for Alexandyr Guzev, her father.
June 21th 1984
Ministry of Population Contracts
Dostoevsky Square 1
Zelenogradskaya 220567
Iryna Guzev
Tolstoy Avenue 56
Zelenogradskaya 220590
Subject: Draft Notice for Matrimonial Unity Program
Iryna Guzev,
By order of the Ministry of Population Contracts, you have been selected for participation in the Matrimonial Unity Program. This initiative aims to foster unity and partnership within our community. (1) Member(s) of our community has shown interest in your qualifications.
Your duty commences on June 24th. You are expected to report to the designated venue at Dostoevsky Square 1 promptly at 17:30. Here you will be interviewed by suitors. The interview intends to confirm Matrimonial Unity before signing a Population Contract. Further instructions will be provided upon your arrival.
This mission is a commitment to forming lasting connections with fellow participants. You will be expected to adhere to the program's schedule and guidelines. Failure to comply with orders will result in discharge from the program.
Your service is vital to our community's unity. Embrace this mission with determination and dedication.
Prepare to serve Arstotzka
Last edited: