Ratchet: Prologue (Patreon)

Monica Branson was, in her own mind, the sort of person who wanted to do things “right.” While other girls were getting pregnant in high school and taking drugs in college, she was hard at work in school clubs and making sure to finish her degree as quickly as she could. When other school-oriented women finished their AAs and moved on, Monica stayed for her Bachelor’s degree. And when other women had been off the grid getting fat and complacent and posting their Live Laugh Love memes on facebook, Monica was graduating with her Master’s. It was a dark and dismal, gloomy night when she first TRULY looked up from the grindstone and made an honest assessment of her surroundings.

She lived in a nice, high rise apartment with elegant but not extravagant furnishings that allowed her enough comfort to feel rewarded for her hard work. Her job as a pediatric speech therapist paid decently well for being a single woman in the last year of her 20s, but between work and school she hadn’t had much time for recreation or self fulfillment. She’d always told herself to save all of that for when she was established and had the money, but as she stared down her application for a two-to-four year doctoral program, she suddenly lost the gung-ho zeal that had propelled her through the early stages of her adulthood. Maybe it was the dark, dismal, rainy sky outside that dampened her mood and pressed on a sinking feeling of depression, or maybe it was just the momentary flash of self awareness that allowed her to finally notice her fatigue, but for the first time in her life Monica Branson began questioning her life choices.

Unwanted thoughts invaded the previously impenetrable fortress of her mind. What had she given up in her pursuit of a happier, more stable life? What joyous, exciting experiences had she missed out on while slavishly plugging away at desks and computer screens while brazenly judging others for not doing the same? Monica’s thoughts turned to her reflection in the mirror and she began to analyze and judge the woman staring back at her. She was beautiful and still young, but couldn’t help but notice the vague wrinkles and beginnings of age accumulating in her face. She had been blessed with a slim figure and a large chest, but felt the weight of her large breasts more and more as the days went by, lamenting the slight loss of elastic perkiness before she’d gotten the chance to really enjoy them. She’d missed out on nearly the entirety of her twenties because of either work or school and her rare boyfriends only served as distractions that she had ended up regretting. But now, gazing across the gloomy expanse of her dark empty apartment, she couldn’t help but feel like she had spent so much time preparing for middle age that she’d completely missed out on her youth.

With a tired, restless sigh, she closed her laptop. Maybe taking a year off wouldn’t be so bad.

"Who knows?" She thought aloud to herself. "Maybe I'll actually meet a decent guy for once."