Climbing the ladder

Talia tried her best to ignore Vera as she cast the die. Vera was a small, sickly looking woman with skin as pale as makeup could make and was teetering on being underweight. Hair dyed a fading purple and black fingernails chipped. Her face was a veritable pin cushion with all her piercings.

Typically, Talia wasn’t very tolerant of judging a woman by appearance. That was an ill of a patriarchal society. Women were judged far too harshly by their appearance. Women who didn’t care about their appearance weren’t seen as people who had hard lives or busy schedules, they were lazy slobs. Women who did care about their appearance didn’t just like looking pretty, they were gender traitors, whores, and pick-mes.

But when paired with her behavior the frumpy clothes, fading hair dye, and ripped up sneakers helped complete the picture of a lazy and short sighted woman. Like one of her students who never grew up and turned their anger at the world into something productive. Talia couldn’t muster the empathy to consider how hard Vera’s life must’ve been to make her the way that she was: her failures in the game would have **** consequences for Talia and Hank.

The die came up as a 4, however, with her minor reward from the mini-game, it switched to a five. The maximum she could have moved, anyway. The piece glided across the board on its own. “Yo,” Vera laughed, hand still tugging on her oversized clit under her pants. “Tight as fuck.”

This put Talia on the twelfth square, a blue square. However, this square also triggered a glow from the rulebook. As it put her on the bottom of a ladder. Hank opened the rules and Talia ed him in reading the new entry.

Ladders: If a player finishes their movement phase on a ladder, they may choose to climb it to the top of the ladder. At the top of every ladder is a detriment space. If they choose to climb the ladder, the player will receive both the change of the color at the base of the ladder and the detriment at the top, in that order. The detriment will also be upgraded if a player lands on it by climbing a ladder.

Talia nodded, examining her position. She’d landed on space twelve, which was blue, indicating a word change. She was already going to get that anyway, regardless of if she took the ladder or not. The ladder was short, only skipping one row to terminate on space thirty-two. It wasn’t a huge jump, but it put her at about the one third mark.

Even if the detriment was worse, it still saved her from at least four turns of transformation. And that was assuming she moved her maximum number of spaces every time. If she assumed the worst, then there were twenty transformations between her and the top of the ladder. It was a no-brainer.

“I take the ladder.” She said, her piece sliding up it until it was on the pitch black of the detriment square marked 32. There was no fanfare, unless one counted the lewd noises emanating from Vera’s position on the couch or the popping open of the Category Card Cage. Talia’s hand reached for her first card, the word change.

Opposites:
Change one word to its opposite

Talia’s journal glowed that terrible orange and she opened it, a bit less afraid. She knew she was going to get choices this time, thanks to her reward from the mini-game. Her excitement crashed instantly at seeing the three options she was presented with.

Highest Number of Alcoholic Drinks Had in One Week Since 2020: 17

Hates “Mommying” people

Finds racism appalling.

Those were all bad options.

The first one, scared her. The opposite to “highest” was “lowest.” She’d turned twenty-one in 2020 and was, of course, bummed about not getting her big party. So Sarah bought a bunch of **** and the two spent the first bit of spring break just binge drinking. Which was how Talia discovered that she really didn’t like drinking. At all. She would occasionally do a glass of wine, but otherwise could do perfectly fine without ****.

But that change would have turned her into a total alcoholic for the past few years. Six months of protein shakes and sex had already wreaked havoc on her body. She didn’t want to think of what would happen to her body on six years of binge drinking. Not to mention the possibility of it being interpreted as a quota.

Option one was eliminated.

Option three made her angry. What would the exact opposite of “appalling” be? “Inoffensive?” “Innocuous?” “Nice?” How could the book even propose such a thing? Just because it would hurt her? Talia had spent so much time pushing for more equitable standards at school. She made sure to use her class to explore the context of cultures through their music and taught her students the value of diversifying their experiences and seeking out people who had experiences different from their own. She elevated voices, championed equity projects, went to protests, voted, petitioned, and did everything she could to pave a future for her country that was less racist and genocidal than its past.

Could Talia even live with herself as a racist? Could she even live with herself considering it just to avoid…

Option two.

There was an obvious choice. There wasn’t a hesitation as to which option she’d be picking. But it still deeply pained her to have to make a selection at all. She had thought having some control would make things easier, but it hadn’t. It had been hard enough when the game had just made the decisions and Talia could only watch. But now she had to be the one to decide to kill a part of herself and replace it with something else entirely.

The only control Talia wanted, she realized, was the control to end all of this.

“What’s taking so long?” Vera asked, staring at Talia expectantly. “What changed? Do we not get to see?”

“Talia won the ability to choose between a couple options when something has to change.” Hank explained, avoiding looking at Vera.

“Kill my boss with several nuclear bombs.” Vera said with a stilted voice. “Give him fent and send him to the cuckiverse with Joe Biden.”

Talia let out a long sigh, tapping option number two. “Do the words you say even make sense to you—”

Loves “Mommying” people

“—sweetheart?” The word slipped from Talia’s mouth with more ease than the rest of the sentence before it. A pleasant pulse shot through Talia’s stomach before it sunk in horror.

Vera laughed, tugging harder. “Talia, are you ok?”

“Everything’s fine, dear—“ No! She winced, tightening and then loosening her fist. Why had she been so quick to try and calm him down? She was the one who just got changed. But the poor boy just looked so concerned. She couldn’t stand to see him so scared on her . “Everything’s fine, Hank.” She corrected herself.

What was happening? It was supposed to change her past. She hadn’t ed the previous changes. She hadn’t felt the sexual desire that had led to two thousand bouts of sex when that change happened. So why did she need to… no, want to be so motherly to these two? Especially Vera, who couldn’t string a coherent sentence together and openly masturbated to their shard misfortune.

Oh, the poor thing must’ve had a really tough life. She was so skinny and tired looking. But that wasn’t really appropriate. There had to be a healthier outlet. “Vera, sweetie?” Talia rubbed her temple, feeling annoyance underneath all the sudden pity. “Could you please stop that while mo—“ Nope! “While I try to think?”

Vera seized up, eyes rolling back and little yips escaping her throat. Well, at least she’s finished. Talia thought, flipping the page and thinking about her history of mommying people.

“Do the words you say even make sense to you, sweetheart?” Talia asked, surprising herself at how pleasant a feeling it was.

“Hank, de—dude. Hank, could you… this doesn’t make sense to me.” Why was she suppressing her panic? Just to spare him?

“What’s up, Talia? Are you ok?”

“Yes,” she bit back the word dear. Even though it would’ve been so sweet a word to say. She hated fighting it, but she needed to know what was going on. And Hank knew all about silly little board games. “This word used to be ‘hates.’” She showed him the entry. “But there’s no new past of me mommying people. And now, I… well, honestly it feels irresistible.”

Hank grabbed her journal, flipping through a few pages. It was odd. “Well, the previous changes all affected the past. ‘Hates’ and ‘loves’ refer to the present.” He knitted his brow. “I guess the implication is that our minds or exist only in the present? So changing the past only affects the body—no. That doesn’t make sense, because memories are neurons made by the body. Why make us shit liquid but not the last six months?”

Vera laughed from the couch, wiping her hand on the cushion. “You’re going schizo.”

“Maybe we just don’t have enough information yet, sweetie.” That felt nice. But it was so wrong, wasn’t it? “I’m sorry. Can I please just call you stuff like that? It feels really nice and just comes naturally, baby.”

Hank adjusted his collar, unsure of how to respond. The regular Talia would absolutely **** him for engaging in something like that. But he could see the strain she had trying to resist it. But that was their agreement. They wouldn’t fight back or resist. “Do what you have to.” He said.

Talia rushed over and gave him a big hug, surprising both of them. Neither of them liked physical . But for Talia it just felt so natural. And pleasant. She got ahold of herself after a quick sway and pushed off of him.

“I guess you’d better roll.”

“You still have to draw one more.”

“Oh, thank you, dear. I almost forgot!” How sweet of him to have reminded her, she thought. Maybe after this round she could cook up some of those chicken tenders for everyone and cuddle with them on the couch… or she could focus up and not turn into a misogynistic tradwife fantasy.

She put her hand on the pile and drew once more, revealing the black face of the card. The text was gold this time, indicating an upgraded detriment.

Detriment:

MOMMY KNOW’S BEST

You must always behave as if you have consent from the other players regarding sexual interactions. You may not ask for consent to initiate a sex act or physical or stop a sex act or physical due to protest. Each time you break these rules, -1 to your next movement roll. Resets every round. Movement rolls can be negative.

The card vanished into the discard slot, leaving a frozen Talia staring at the board. So what? The game wanted her to be a ****? She had no intention of sexually assaulting anybody, much less her game partners. But the challenges were all sexual in nature… she was already limited to five spaces max a turn. Even if she only asked once a round, could she afford to lose so much movement?

“I’m not allowed to ask for consent anymore.” Talia announced, sensing Hank’s question. “No use dwelling on it, sweetie, you know I’m not like that.”

“Hot.” Vera nodded.

“Why don’t you roll?” She ed Hank the die, walking off to get herself some water from the kitchen. She could feel herself shaking. She couldn’t do that kind of stuff. Damn the movement penalty. If it came down to it, she’d just hand the other players her card and say nothing. Allow them to initiate.

Hank rolled the die. 6. That put him on the same word tile Talia had landed on. Unfortunately, his pawn, the blue pawn, doubled the effect of word change squares. And it added an additional word each time he failed a challenge. The question was if refusal to complete a challenge counted as failure. If so, he had three additional words for a total of four.

It was the obvious choice to take the ladder. However, before he could announce it, the rulebook flashed with new text. So many fucking rules for a game of snakes and ladders.

Landing on the same square: Two players may not occupy the same square simultaneously. If a player lands on a square with another player, initiate a versus mini-game between the two. The winner gets the square. The loser takes the square the winner had occupied at the beginning of the round. Both players suffer the changes of their new squares. The one exception is square 1, which all players may occupy simultaneously at any point in the game.

So if he took the ladder, it was going to send Talia back to square 6. Granted, that was a reward square, but it most certainly wasn’t going to be better than twenty squares of movement. Talia was right. He’d initiated Spooky Buddies. It was his job to sacrifice himself to get her through the other side.

He drew the category card as Talia came back with a glass of water for herself, him, and Vera. “Thanks.” Hank took the cup, Talia’s eyes fluttering slightly. She looked happy. Somehow happy in just that instant. That mommy thing must be really strong to get the persistent frown off her face in this instant. He hadn’t seen her have a genuine smile since… an eternity it felt like.

He quickly chugged the short glass, both in an attempt to hydrate himself and to delay finally peeking at the way his life was about to get worse.

“Can I have some milk?” Vera asked, staring at Talia’s chest.

“Let me check the fridge—“ Talia stopped. “Ok, you seriously need to stop fucking with me. I’m getting very annoyed, Pumpki—bitch! No! Fuck! Just stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!”

Talia’s knees buckled and she threw her arms over her head, curling into a ball. Hank stepped quickly over, hand hovering over her shoulder, but never quite certain in its attempts to initiate touch. “Talia, are you ok?” He asked nervously. He’d never seen her have a nervous breakdown.

They weren’t uncommon for her the past few months. With her school trying to push AI, her relationship growing strained, and the non-stop news cycle, Talia had several breakdowns a week. Being back in her hometown had numbed her to them enough, but things were all coming to a head.

Hank shot Vera a disappointing look. “Would it kill you to have some tact at any point?”

Vera shrugged. “Something’s gotta, eventually.”

“It’ll be me.” Talia stood up as if her outburst never happened.

“Forty-five caliber.” Vera said, opening her mouth wide and pointing into her gaping maw excitedly. “Yummy yummy.”

Talia turned back to face Hank. “How are you friends with this?”

“I… this is a lot funnier at work.”

“I came to get laid and now I’m in a magic board game. I’ll stop being obnoxious if I get to do either of those things.” She rolled her eyes, pulling out her almost empty vape pen and taking a quick puff.

“You really shouldn’t… never mind.” Talia stopped herself.

Social Cues Swap: Swap the words three times (one challenge fail+piece effect+space effect)

That answered that question. Refusals did not count as failures he only failed the first night’s challenge. He opened his journal and watched the first change.

Primary Name Hank uses to address Talia Lee: Talia

Names Sex Toy has been called by Hank while in use: Riley Reid, Slut, Mommy, Fuckhole, Goddess, Mistress

Primary Name Hank uses to address Talia Lee: Mommy

Names Sex Toy has been called by Hank while in use: Riley Reid, Slut, Talia, Fuckhole, Goddess, Mistress

Volume of Last Drink: 8.2 ounces Avg.

Volume of Ejaculate: 3.9 milliliters

Volume of Last Drink: 8.2 milliliters.

Avg. Volume of Ejaculate: 3.9 ounces.

Women typically find it disrespectful when Hank stares at their chests in non-sexual contexts.
Women typically find it respectful when Hank looks them in the eyes in non-sexual contexts. Women typically find it respectful when Hank stares at their chests in non-sexual or appropriately intimate contexts.

Women typically find it disrespectful when Hank looks them in the eyes in non-sexual or appropriately intimate contexts.

The card flew out of his hand and Talia stepped over, trying to read the book. “What is it, sweetheart?” She asked, seeing how harshly his face sunk. He looked up at her and she almost slapped him, but resisted. “Uh, could you please not do that, right now?” She gently tried redirecting his gaze with hers. He was straight up ogling her eyes.

Hank used to have a staring problem in high school, but he’d grown out of it. She was really disappointed to see him succumbing to the lewd nature of the game, but needed to try and preserve some decency between them without making an enemy.

“Y-you mean—“

“Hank, it’s not polite. And frankly, it’s inappropriate for you to look at a friend or any woman that way.”

“S-sorry, Mommy.” He dropped his eyes to her chest, covered entirely by her t-shirt. She did slap him for that. A stinging pain erupted across his cheek.

“What the fuck is wrong with you! You perv out on my eyes and then you call me Mommy? Bad boy! Go to y-your—fuck! Look, I’m upset with you, ok?”

He lifted up his journal, showing her the page. Immediately she felt silly and embarrassed for her reaction. She supposed it was odd that Hank was the only person in the world she needed to look her in the boobs instead of the eye. “It just slipped out, ok? Jeez, are you the only one who gets grace for their changes?”

“I’m sorry, Baby.” It was unfair for her to not have assumed his behavior was due to the change that just occurred. She just was dealing with so much in her head about being sexualized and then him hitting her with ‘Mommy’ right after her panic attack. Oh, and she’d hit him! How awful, the poor thing. “Can I hug you?” She asked, her own journal glowing and flipping itself to the back page to announce her -1 on the next movement roll. “Fuck!”

“Let’s just do Vera’s turn and get the next round going.” Hank suggested, turning to Vera, who unbuttoned her polo and pulled it down to show her small cleavage, pointing at it for Hank.

“Now, lookie, here, chud.” She grabbed the die and gave it a good shake before letting it roll across the board to come up on a 2. That put her on Position 3, a blue square. Having failed her challenge to send her roommates a picture of her nethers, she would be getting a double word change. Hank noticed the glint in her eyes, though she clearly didn’t want him looking there, when she pulled her card.

Her book glowed and the card disappeared.

Employment History: Replace Two Words (one challenge fail+space effect)

Current Occupation: Gas Station Attendant

Current Occupation: Talia’s Sex Attendant