With time to dwell on a dead-end career, a recently failed relationship, and a love-life with no direction, Claudia inadvertently stumbles into scat perversions. While getting carried away in her newfound fetish, she reaches out to the scat world for someone to help fulfill her dark fantasy, but ultimately finds her limits challenged beyond all imagination.
Chapter 1 -- The Consequences of a Few Curious Clicks
The blue dot indicating her location appeared to never move. Claudia didn't know what else to do, other than stare at her navigation APP as if willing it on would help her arrive at her destination sooner. A futile attempt at detracting from the feeling in her stomach that seemed like a kaleidoscope of butterflies. Claudia herself was the only soul who knew where she was on her way to, if something were to happen to her, nobody would know where to look. And yet, this somehow added to the whole mystique. As many people knew of her dark fetish as well. Not only did Claudia not confide in anyone, but her appearance and demeanor refused to betray anything other than vanilla. The innocent girl at the office who never joined the social rituals after work. She kept a youthful enough face, walnut-colored eyes and marshmallow lips suggested less than her 27 years. Impeccable, crystal skin contrasting with her night-colored, bobbed hair presented Claudia as the cute, but conservative 'girl' next door. However, the greatest contrast of all was that the soft-spoken Claudia had a newfound penchant for perversions of the scat persuasion. The shame and embarrassment qualified the topic as forbidden discourse, even to her younger sister - her closest confidant. She'd always told Amanda everything, even her most intimate and personal tribulations, but they'd drifted slightly in recent years. Even so, the taboo of the topic made it an appropriate place to draw a line. Who could ever understand or comprehend arousal from such an abhorrent activity? Claudia wondered exactly that when she wandered into it. Once oblivious of its existence, a rabbit hole of overwhelming evidence opened Claudia's eyes to the prevalence of this subculture around the world and, crucially, in her homeland.
No one suspected, nor suggested, anything obscure about Claudia's private life; she was a homebody who completely vanished from the small social circle she had when entered into her long-term relationship. Even after Thomas left her (for the girl at his work with the braids, she suspected), the distinct absence of any dating activity thereafter aroused little to no suspicions. Her family naturally presumed she'd retreated back to the shy, timid girl she was prior to her last relationship. To an extent, it was true. Ever the introvert, Claudia hated confrontation; this had frequently had a history of manifesting obstacles in both her private and professional lives. In her job, she never made the progress her work ethic and nous deserved due to her unrelenting inability to speak up and defend herself, instead her colleagues were often the beneficiaries of her confidence deficit. Claudia identified her personal issues easily enough, envisage solutions to her problems, but became impotent in her execution, specifically when that execution involved a degree of social interaction or confrontation. Marginalized to the peripheries of just about every facet of her life left Claudia increasingly despondent.
From the bus window the passing English countryside rolled by, endless meadows and occasional cattle of little enough interest to allow Claudia an opportunity to reflect on her journey from then to now. Albeit terrified, this was the most alive she'd felt since childhood, since life became... serious. School, university, her career, settling down; Claudia was perfectly on course, the only issue was the course wasn't her own. It had felt like she'd slept walked this far without realizing none of it provided her with satisfaction, despite everyone's best efforts to promise her otherwise. Rather poignantly, yesterday was exactly a year to the day that Claudia's ex-boyfriend, Thomas, had broken up with her and moved out. This would be the catalyst.
After the Sun had set on her relationship, Claudia was left with a lonely apartment and the excess baggage of Thomas's unwanted belongings that were more like trophies of failure. Among the dross was a discarded laptop. Annoyingly, she remembered Thomas's intolerance for old tech; always throwing small fortunes away to upgrade his devices for the latest gadgets. Far less trivial and in need of a laptop; Claudia decided to power it up in an attempt to salvage it. Password control was easily navigated by entering Thomas's favorite footballer and his shirt number; the most difficult part was making sure she spelled the name right. "Predictable," she scoffed, while also being disappointed in herself for knowing in the first place. Claudia had invested in being part of Thomas's passions, despite him never caring enough to take an interest in hers; or maybe she didn't have any passions.
A bombardment of software updates later, the laptop was up and running. Slow, but running nonetheless. This'll do, she thought. Some mindless scrolling offered a welcome distraction from the spring cleaning until eventually, something more tempting sprung to mind. Like any good ex-girlfriend, Claudia's eyes and mouse drifted towards the browser history.
"Wonder where you've been surfing," she mused, making her way down the long list.
