Wager: Director Commentary

[TheWritingGroup]

I was trying to do something different here. Most of my female characters have been attractive. Maria is beautiful and knows it. Liz isn't pretty, but she's compelling. People are drawn to her. Rose is very attractive, and doesn't believe it, even though everyone else knows.

Maureen is ugly.

I was, I am, jealous of Rose's looks. Trim, pretty, tall, even beautiful hair with lots of body. Compare that to short, blob-shaped, saggy me, with my cellulite, thin hair such a drab brown most people can't even remember the color, little pale-blue eyes mostly hidden by in my fat, flat, flabby face … and I lose.

And this is Maureen's realistic self-assessment. She isn't physically attractive.

"Rose! I didn't know you were being graded." Rose slowed to talk to me. Stephanie, her stepdaughter, sped on ahead. Ah, youth, no patience and too much energy.

This is why Reen was created. To distract Rose so Steph could get ahead of her at the beginning of "Pranked".

Don looked ashamed, and angry at me for making him feel that way. "Maureen. I … we … we talked about this. I just can't function that way any more. I love you, I'm totally loyal to you, and I just can't, can't …"

Marital problems. Don is impotent with Maureen. It's mentioned that he still gets hard to masturbate, it isn't that his dick doesn't work.

"Don, my love. I'm going to prove to you that it's possible to love this body." That was a weird thing to say, but I had a plan.

This whole story is Maureen's plan playing out. Not perfectly, but as close as any real-world plan gets.

Our eldest, Emily, had figured out the bet game (as she called it) by the time she was seven. That made it even more fun, because we could always make her laugh by exaggerating and clowning around with the bets. Em's 16 now, she doesn't think it's nearly as funny. Flora and Genie still laugh along with us, though.

Did anyone catch on about Emily, Flora, and Genie's names starting with E, F, G? Em hates that. When she figured it out, she was very annoyed at her folks, because she thinks they turned their daughters' names into a joke. She's right, they're jokers.

Quarry's was jammed. It's scary to fight your way through a mob of shoppers completely naked. Getting your foot stepped on is very different when you're barefoot, for one thing.

I had to call back to Rick and Rose both commenting on how crowded Quarry's was in "Pranked".

What made it even more nerve-wracking was, I couldn’t wear my glasses or contacts to be graded. My vision isn’t the worst, but I’m farsighted. I could see OK to find my way around, but I wouldn’t be able to read anything smaller than a billboard until I got my glasses back. It would be illegal for me to drive, too, because I couldn’t read the instruments on the dash.

That had been very useful. I was able to persuade Don to come to the grading …

Bad vision is another physical imperfection in Maureen, and this is showing her incorporating her own flaws into her plan.

… he got hard every time we talked about it. The funny part is, he had to know I saw. We were both refusing to mention it.

Don is not stupid. He's lived with Maureen for nearly 20 years, he knows her ways. He's also (as implied with the discussions of betting and sportsmanship above) happy to play games with her and enjoy her skill, even if she's "winning" against him—because she's never actually against him.

“Catch and release” is what it’s called. The slave graders do the initial processing, then take a break before they actually grade anyone.

Both here and in "Pranked", people think this is just to let the people being graded get nervous and let the graders have a coffee break. Actually, it's a requirement of the process. They have to do a quick, automated blood test and get the results, and do a check of both criminal and slave registration records.

I instinctively said, “Yes, Master.” Or tried to, because I got out “Y-” before the collar activated. It wasn’t a punishment shock like the first one, but it made the muscles in my throat clench, and I couldn’t get out another sound. It wasn’t so much painful as terrifying.

I've used devoicing spray in previous stories here. Other 34th Amendment writers have used that, or the collars that won't let you talk. I figured I'd try the other plot device here. It became convenient later.

Shuffle, shuffle. It was tiring, inching along in tiny steps.

A theme here is that Maureen is not physically fit.

As I passed a young couple, the husband casually reached out and tweaked my nipple between his fingers …

Reen's encounter with the young couple establishes what this experience is like. Strangers she can't even really see just enjoy the privilege of doing whatever they want to her, treating her like an object. She doesn't like it, but it's exciting and very stimulating.

She came into this very sexually frustrated. Now she spends a couple of hours having sexy stuff done to her.

About halfway down, struggling along in tiny steps, I came to a crowd, a bunch of shoppers stopped watching one slave and … her tormentor? Big, tall blond guy, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, was groping the boobs of a tall blonde woman … Rose? I’m not sure “groping” is the right word, he was stroking and caressing them, gently lifting the big tits, one in each hand, and bending his head to kiss them. Maybe her lover, not a tormentor at all?

This is Rose getting groped by Roberto in "Pranked". From the outside, it's clear to Maureen that Roberto is trying to give Rose pleasure. She even thinks he might be her lover. Hm ….

Using the sandbox was almost impossible.

I think this might be the most humiliating thing that happens to Reen in this story. Peeing in front of a bunch of strangers, knowing that a stranger will have to wipe you down after? She really hates it, but she does it anyway.

I didn’t get the attention that Rose or the other pretty women did. I was there and available and female, though, so there was almost always someone touching me. One guy, who I think was Asian (but blurry vision, so I’m not sure) spent about five minutes just licking and kissing my very saggy tits, holding me in place with his hands on my shoulders. It felt great, to be honest. By the second minute I was squirming. Don hadn’t really done much with my breasts since I nursed Em, which was a pretty long drought. I had almost forgotten how nice it was.

Even Maureen's surface plan, just getting some physical contact, is working. And Don was really turned off by the changes in her body, not just aging or obesity, but pregnancy and nursing. He has refused to get therapy, so he has no insight into that. (He was wrong, therapy would have helped him.)

The moistened fingers gently (for once) rubbed my left nipple. It felt great. My nipple agreed, standing up and saluting the attention. The Circle-Q guy’s left hand now dipped into my pussy, and then started stroking the other nipple. After a minute or so, I was squirming and panting.

“I think I’ve found your strength as a slave, Maureen. Hot and juicy!” He was gloating, and I was (I’m sure) bright red with humiliation. A squirming, hot and juicy mess.

She was really desperate. This guy's actual job is to humiliate women by making them feel involuntary arousal.

[The slave grader] continued, "I said this before, but I want to emphasize: you could do much better simply by practicing some skills and working out for a few months. You seem to have the mental part down, it's just the physical aspect that lowered your score. I hope you aren't too disappointed."

One thing Maureen didn't think of when planning is how out of shape she has gotten. That'll come up in the sequel. Sequel, I say?

"So, you're looking to prove something, not to be a slave?" He seemed not that surprised.

I smiled and said, "Thank you." Then I turned and walked away.

And that's foreshadowing for the sequel, too.

I was probably glowing—declaration of love and loyalty, Don erect and desiring me again, and now I got my forever love to laugh. I win. Not just the bet, the bet was a side issue. I think I might have my lover back.

A rare story by me with no twists. Maureen straight-up succeeds in her plan.

Don closed the door behind me and barked, "Present kneel!"

OK, you might think this is a twist, but I think it follows from everything that came before, and it's certainly what Maureen meant to happen.

... when I turned around to sit, he was already unbuttoning his pants. He left his shoes on, he just unfastened his pants and pushed them and his undershorts down, then shuffled forward, his ankles accidentally also in bondage …

I liked the image of Don binding her, then being so eager he ended up with his legs hobbled, like Maureen at the grading.

I hope it's clear Don understands that Maureen deliberately set this up. There's nothing the slightest bit nonconsensual going on here.

I've never been able to come from just penis-in-vagina. Luckily for me (very luckily for me) Don is a good and generous lover, so his fingers provided stimulation from outside, while his member pressed up from inside. I love intercourse, even when I know I won't come. I love the intimacy of it, I love Don's reaction. I love Don.

Sometimes I like to acknowledge in my stories that very few women actually orgasm from just PiV sex.

"Anyway, Don: I think we should go to St. Bernadette in December or January. It'll be a nice break from the weather for us."

And that, for a truly minor spoiler, is the sequel.

So what did you folks think?

-Annie