Barbie: Pranked - A Discussion

[TheWritingGroup]

This novel is a sequel to "Pranked". That story, as I said at great length, was a reaction to some of the more misanthropic, parodic erotic fiction I've read. The hero, Rick, didn't get to have any sex in that novella. I jokingly promised lots of sex for him in the followup.

Welcome to the followup. Spoilers below, so read the story first (unless you like being spoiled, no judgment).

I'm going to explain here what I was doing when I wrote this, and maybe mention an Easter Egg or two. I would love to hear what you think. Good or bad, I want to know about how it felt to read this.

I struggled to name the psychiatrist. For the longest time, he was "Dr. Shouldhaveaname" in the drafts. Finally, his character came into sharper focus, and I realized he needed a trickster name. I wasn't going to name him "Doctor Loki" or "Doctor Anansi", but "Corbie" is Gaelic for "Crow". It isn't said in this story, but Corbie has Native American ancestry. We'll hear more about why he changed his name later, in a totally different story.

"You seeing Doctor Tannenbaum?" I called out as I put on my shoes.

Doctor Tannenbaum is a major character in the upcoming Owned.

"No, Rick. Just visiting a friend." Mom was smiling. And wearing a tight t-shirt and tight short shorts. She used to dress like that when my high school friends came over. I'm her kid, so I'm probably not supposed to notice how attractive Mom is. I'm her kid, which also means I'm not stupid. Men flock around her, whenever she lets them. A few women, too, but Mom never showed any interest.

Rick is aware of how attractive Rose is in "Pranked", and men are definitely attracted to her throughout that story. Esau's attraction is one of his motivations to turn villain.

She froze, for a second. Then she said, "How did you know? I didn't tell anyone!"

We see later that she did tell Stephanie, but confiding in your all-but-daughter doesn't count as "telling anyone."

"And you're almost always a girl in fantasies of enslavement?"

This is the metafiction of Pranked: Barbie. I was interested in exploring how many men enjoy reading stories of female sexual slavery from the female viewpoint. Rick in this story represents fans of writers like @Joe_Doe_Stories, who read first-person erotica about being a slave girl, and generally much less of it about being a male slave master. (There are other subgenres, but that's what I'm writing about here.)

I'll mention it in the post-story bit next installment, but the Bradford Procedure is named for @Carl_Bradford (with his permission). He wrote a story, "Changing Status", that includes a similar transformation (and takes place in another branch of the same Joe Doe-initiated universe).

When Corbie leads Rick to ask Stephanie's advice, he's being manipulative. He already talked to her and they came up with the plan together. Rick starting the second section with "No, it isn't a prank!" is deliberate irony. It is, it's Steph's prank.

"And Steph, I'm guessing Mom told you all about Roberto?"

That got a reaction from her. She jolted back, sitting on her heels. "She told you?"

This is a reference to "Pranked", where Rose (Rick's mom) does something like this to Stephanie, on the way to Quarry's.

The stuff about debt potentially leading to slavery is a reference to "Liz Enslaved", in which that happens to the heroine.

Remember Rick talking to Corbie about incestuous desire. Look at his reaction to seeing Stephanie and Keith fucking. Also, this is very much about Keith's exhibitionism, significant later.

The social media bit at the end is just atmosphere … but read the last installment all the way to the end.

I'll post more here as the rest of the story gets published.

 

[RoperTrace]

I must be having some minor brain fog this morning after having a biopsy, and zero drugs for two weeks leading up to the 'procedure.' I only mention that because I'm having trouble understanding the above.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

It assumes you've read my story (recently). Without that, it will make no sense.

--Annie

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Part 2:

So Part 2 is the actual transformation from Rick, well-off body building man, to Barbie, beautiful slave girl. That's the title, right, "Becoming"?

I don't dwell on the actual Bradford Procedure. We start with the recovery. This is where the story turns medical. It isn't really medical fetish, but a main character is a doctor. There's mention of medical stuff, as you'll see.

Irene was originally named "Kelly", but I remembered that I already gave Laurel a cousin with that name in Pranked, and also it sounds too much like Rose and Rick's last name, Keller. So I changed it. The story is being told in first person to Irene. As we'll see, Barbie and Irene just came back from their first date to Barbie's place, if you read between lines of the story.

I use the conversation with Rose and Stephanie to drop some exposition, such as how the former Rick looks now and that her skin was totally replaced, so she lost all scars, piercings, and tattoos she might have had. I also use this scene to remind the reader (of Pranked) that the family is close, that Stephanie, Rose, and ex-Rick all love each other and get along. As I wrote in the WIWAW, that is not the default in some 34th Amendment fiction.

I also remind people of something Esau said in the previous story, that Rick looks, I mean looked, a lot like his mother.

A joke only for me: not-yet-Barbie comments on how she likes some things about girl clothes … and then is totally naked until the end of the story.

I hope that in her conversation with Corbie, not-yet-Barbie sounds like someone trying to talk in a feminine way and not quite succeeding. She's new.

Another joke probably nobody but me will get: almost-Barbie thinks about "getting the full experience" of slave grading at County Line. That code phrase is critical to "Maria in the Tack Shop". When almost-Barbie freezes in the doorway, it's a callback to what Maria did in that story. This is ten years or so later, the staff has turned over, but the store is mostly the same.

Teresa is also a very minor character in "Wager".

The other girls to be graded came in a few minutes after I was put on display. There ended up being three of us. They got put on crosses next to me on both sides.

So she's Jesus? I didn't do that on purpose, but I thought it was funny and left it in.

When Barbie walks into Corbie's house and is astonished to find Stephanie there, it's a reference to the same thing happening at Rick's house in "Pranked". In that scene, Steph was ordered to perform public fellatio on Keith. Now it's Barbie's turn.

Lois Bran's name is mentioned for the first time here. I get into word games when I write, so "Bran" means crow or raven, connecting her to her boss.

Stephanie not following the slave rules and being punished for it also happened in "Pranked".

All those slave mantras are from other 34A stories. They aren't a big part of my fiction, but Barbie (as Rick) was fascinated by the rituals of slavery (and as we'll see, is a fan of @Joe_Doe_Stories) and is much more aware of this stuff than, say, Luis or Liz or Maureen. That's because Rick represents the reader of 34A stories.

Stephanie sexually torturing Barbie is, in a way, the key scene of the entire story. It shows just exactly how excited they both are by slavery (which they both entered voluntarily), it shows how much they trust each other (if you notice, Barbie is never actually afraid in this scene), and it shows how they like to show fake hostility to each other without ever even coming close to actually hurting.

Darrell is a returning character, by the way.

Through this story, Corbie fucks Stephanie's mouth and ass, but not her pussy. That's part of the deal he made with Keith. Even Stephanie doesn't know that until after she's returned to him.

The bit where Steph calls her sister a "kajira" (a term from John Norman's Gor books) is metafictional, sort of. This whole story is (partly) a deconstruction of this subgenre of erotic fiction, pioneered by Norman. I also like the idea that slaver bro culture thinks of Norman's stuff as classics.

Trivia: I met John Norman once at a convention. He was kind of a jerk.

The happy mutual confession of attraction between stepsibs puts a period on the Prank War.

I set up the idea that even Rick didn't know why he kept the Prank War going back at the end of "Pranked". I resolve it here, and I think it makes sense. What do you think of the characterization?

Up next, annotation for "Learning", part 3, in which Barbie goes back to school. Bimbo school.

 

[AlinaX]

A brief comment about Part 1.

I hate short teaser openings. I especially hate when they’re followed by “I guess I should start at the beginning.” It throws me out of the story completely.

Give us a proper scene, and then go back in time without the narrative intrusion.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

A brief comment about Part 1.

I hate short teaser openings. I especially hate when they’re followed by “I guess I should start at the beginning.” It throws me out of the story completely.

Give us a proper scene, and then go back in time without the narrative intrusion.

Noted. I don't do it often. (I can't actually think of another time.) This one starts with lots of dialogue, I guess I wanted something spicy near the beginning (since the actual sex scene is at the end).

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Part 3 annotations.

In "Learning" and even more in "Being", the Corbie household settles into a routine. That's what I tried to write, anyway. Barbie is still learning, but she's also doing her duty quite competently.

The "Bimbo Training" section is a deconstruction. I have always felt that in real life, the stereotypical bimbo would be fantastically annoying to deal with, and I tried to (humorously) show that. Barbie is exaggerating the mannerisms, deliberately making it irritating to influence Corbie (without defying him) to not ask for it. And it works.

I like showing that Rick has (had?) depths, like his faking dumbth before the transformation and enslavement.

The "reward of hot dogs" came to me first, but I remembered Stephanie being a vegetarian, and the rest of the sequence just grew out of it—ordering Barbie to pleasure Steph, rewarding the StoopSprint driver, and Corbie ordering the girls to perform for his viewing pleasure.

Rick being protective most definitely goes back to "Pranked", and it carries over to Barbie. At some level, she's still Rick.

Barbie's domination and forced (-ish) pleasuring of Stephanie inspires the later pleasuring of Belinda.

A couple of times in this story, Barbie comments on Corbie sounding proud of himself. It's a character flaw he has.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

The two sequences where Barbie interacts with Corbie's patients are critical to the story (and oddly, to Owned, still being written). We'll find out that Corbie had this in mind before Rick ever signed up for the Bradford Procedure.

Bobby is a returning character, from "Maria in the Tack Shop Again", where he is unnamed. He's Rob, short for Robin. I can trust you, right, reader?

Corbie does write a paper about slave nudity and not being able to wear sports bras. It actually gets referenced in a later story.

The encounter with Bobby, in case I didn't make it obvious enough, is deceptive. Corbie and Stephanie made up the "Mrs. Dexter" thing, and they're monitoring everything that happens in that little room. Corbie is very manipulative and set them up in a situation that he thought would build trust between them. He was right.

Bobby isn't good at knowing how other people feel. He's learning intellectually what most people would be able to sense instinctively—how to look for erect nipples, faster heartbeat, flushed skin, etc.

I wrote up a detailed outline of the Bobby/Amina relationship, including potentially meeting Barbie again later. Of course, none of that is in this story.

At the end of this bit, after Bobby leaves, Corbie is both happy (he is a good doctor who legitimately gets joy from helping his patients) and very horny (because he just watched Barbie sucking Bobby off). Thus, the impulsive ass fuck.

The Steph/Barbie encounter at the end is at least half for Corbie's benefit. It's a thing he's fantasized about, and now he actually has two pleasure slaves to perform.

Corbie recording video and threatening to post it to social media is a very Joe Doe-inspired thing. Note that he doesn't actually do it. He really used an encrypted message app to send the video to Keith, then deleted his copy.

Jake is a different case from Bobby, as Corbie says. (Really, he's a good doctor!)

Barbie invents something here that will matter in Owned, the idea of a free person signing a temporary slave contract to get around legal restrictions on things like paying for sex. Carl Bradford has written about voluntary indentures, but I don't remember him having a story about one-day contracts specifically to get around prostitution laws (which is what's happening here, kind of).

Barbie's interactions with the silent Irene are getting very kinky and sexy by this point. I hope it's clear that they're very much playing, Barbie isn't enslaving herself to Irene. Under the law as seen in Joe Doe's stories, of course, acting like a slave can get you declared to be one. In my canon, that's Texas law. Here in State I Never Intend to Name, the law is different.

The "slave shipped in a cage" thing is both a trope in the 34A stories, and a callback to "Liz Enslaved".

Jake as an old friend of Rick's was a late inspiration, that I wrote about on the forum here. It let me explore one theme of this story a bit more: identity. Is Barbie Rick? Will the world treat Barbie as Rick, even if she does feel that she is?

Corbie having confidence in her is incredibly important to Barbie. Remember, even as Rick he was insecure. Also, he was Rick's doctor before becoming Barbie's master, so his opinion is doubly important to her—and he knows it. His behavior here is not purely spontaneous.

One thing Jake does is supply a character who is not part of the world's slavery culture. Rick was a slaver bro. Stephanie wanted to at least experiment with slavery, as did Keith. Jake isn't interested. He knows what everyone in that milieu does about it, but the slave mannerisms and stuff do not come naturally to him the way they do for Barbie.

Jake and Barbie are also something you haven't seen in this story before: equals having a good time together. Stephanie and Barbie are constantly being put in a you-dominate-her situation by Corbie, but Jake and Barbie don't stick to that once Barbie makes Jake believe she's on his side. Unconsciously, they know each other and are comfortable together because they're old friends.

The notes for this scene do not have Barbie discovering Jake's secret fetish. Seems as if I am a discovery writer. All that stuff about exhibitionism just came out as I was typing.

I originally had a whole subplot about the voyeur neighbor turning violent, but it didn't fit and wasn't needed, so it never got out of the outline.

A tiny bit of business I liked. When Barbie is called in to talk to Corbie after Jake fucks her, she deliberately kneels so close to his desk that he can't see her, so he orders her to stand up. That's planned. She won't defy him or anything, but she's comfortable enough now to manipulate him subtly. I mentioned before that Corbie is manipulative. So's Barbie, as he will eventually notice.

The shaving thing is foreshadowing. I'm deconstructing these stories here. Male slaves needing to shave is rarely mentioned. An establishment like the Big D would have razors or something. Doctor Corbie didn't think of it, he never had (or planned to have) a male slave. And of course, male slaves would need to shave.

The "No brand" thing is also meant to make you think. Corbie didn't have Barbie branded. Hmm ….

The reveal, when Barbie knows the name of Jake's ex, is a high point of the story for me. You also see just how insecure Barbie was, underneath. As with Corbie before, his/her old friend being accepting was hugely important to her.

Easter egg: Emily is the name of Don and Maureen's daughter, and in "Winnings" we read that it's also the name of Don's sister. Don's sister is Jake's ex. She isn't as cruel (in her own mind) as he perceives now in retrospect, but she isn't nearly as nice a person as her brother. Maureen and Don know Rick slightly (they're neighbors) but have never mentioned Emily to him.

The slave-freeing ritual is foreshadowing. I'm sure most of you had figured that out before.

She knows who I am, and I know who she is. Not a problem.

This isn't just a reference to knowing each other's legal identities, of course. Notice that Norm is not as stupid as Corbie implied. He figured out that Barbie (being Rick) would recognize him immediately, without either of them having to say it.

The whole "Barbie has a period" thing is more deconstruction of the erotic story genre as a whole, and the legal slavery world in particular. As established in several stories and referenced in "Pranked", most female slaves are dosed with an injected contraceptive that stops menstruation and pregnancy for a year. I've always thought this was copied from John "Gor" Norman's slave wine, except that was permanent and made you immortal.

If you have a bizarre attention to detail, you'll realize that the timing of Barbie's story says that Steph didn't start her period until she was at least 15. That's true. She's a skinny athlete (high school tennis champ), and low body fat delays menstruation. I'm a biology person, and I tend to overthink.

The trip to County Line is very typical of my writing. I don’t do it on purpose most of the time, but I often end a story with things happening that reflect the beginning. Naturally, Barbie has to return to County Line Slave Tack and Tackle for a slave grading.

Here's a little character progression for Corbie: the way he transported Barbie to his house was just as dangerous as she thought, the cage not even tied down. This time, she's actually pretty darn safe, strapped down in the middle of the pickup bed. She can't tell from that position, but he's driving very carefully and at a low speed. He realized his mistake and will not repeat it.

Last time she froze in the doorway. Now she prances in proudly.

As we'll find out, Corbie hangs around this store sometimes. He's showing off his beautiful new slave to his fellow customers and social group as he leads her in on a leash, paddles her as she obediently presents her ass, etc.

When did you figure out that well-dressed guy was Bobby? Corbie is feeling a little guilty. He didn't really think about Bobby being a regular at County Line, and how he might get embarrassed.

Barbie forcing an orgasm from Belinda is a fun scene for me. For one thing, it shows how she can turn her persona on a dime, from humble servant to domineering deputy slaver. For another, it also has Barbie living one of Rick's fantasies, forcing an orgasm from a beautiful bound slave.

Notice someone calling Corbie "Wolf" and him calling the manager "Vee"? You're meant to realize that he comes in here pretty often.

Verona jokes about having Barbie do the slave grading on Saturday. That's the day she'll be freed, and Verona (as the slave broker) knows it. It's a private joke with Corbie.

In the restaurant is Maria, from several other stories. You'll find out why in Owned. She doesn't recognize Rick, obviously, and she doesn't know Corbie. Barbie doesn't recognize her because the context is totally different and she's very distracted.

"Master, do you think Belinda will remember me fondly, or angrily?"

"That is a good question. She knows you did it because I ordered you. She saw me lead you up there and unleash you.

I'm proud of that last line, with the double meaning of "unleash". So is Corbie.

See you in the part 5 annotation.