A strange little side-story that popped into my head and demanded to be let out so I thought I'd share it with you! :)

Sidney’s Wonderful Life
By
Edward Hyde


“Five minutes, Senator Roebuck!” the young intern stuck their head through the door and called before closing it just as quickly and leaving Sidney alone in her office. It was her birthday. Her sixty-seventh to be precise. August 12th 2077 and her life-long dream, in a form at least, was about to become reality. Long ago she had realised that she would never get to experience it for herself but the support for her campaign, right from the very start, had shown her that she was far from the only girl who harboured this taboo desire and she had never given up the fight to make it a right for those who wanted it.

Of course her life had not been an unbroken stream of campaigning, not for this one cause anyway, and there had been times when, without making any public statement on the matter or giving any dramatic press interviews, she had given up and put the quest behind her, only for a letter from a supporter or a chance conversation to rekindle that fire.

Senator Sidney Dorothy Roebuck was daughter of late billionaire and hotel magnate Orin Roebuck and younger sister of both the late Alexei Roebuck who, following their father’s retirement, had taken over the family business for a whole before selling his stake only five years later and retiring to a private island with his wife and daughters, both of whom had enjoyed some success as catwalk models and a little less as actresses before discovering that they had their fair share of business acumen and building not insubstantial portfolios of their own, and movie producer and director Hunter Roebuck who was still very much alive, married to his fifth wife, the star of his most recent movie who had not yet been born when he was his age and enjoying all the benefits of the Hollywood lifestyle!

At eight year’s old, with her father’s support and her brothers’ somewhat confused but gracious blessing, she had begun a campaign for the right to be eaten. While most girls her age dreamed of being famous actresses or princesses or even super-heroes, Sidney had dreamed of being chopped up by a butcher, cooked by Michelin-starred chefs and served up for dinner! Her campaign had gained considerable traction and support too, starting as an amusing story at the end of the nightly news report but building to gain international recognition with Sidney herself becoming one of the most famous girls on the planet which at the same time employing what had later been coined “the Dolly Parton trick” to enjoy her private life with almost total anonymity.

For her public appearances connected with the campaign, Sidney, who had always been a tom-boy and even now was more happy in a pair of baggy jeans and a hockey jersey with her hair in a simple pony-tail, had appeared in full makeup with her hair curled, wearing rhinestone-encrusted boots and a hat to match and, most importantly, nothing else, subverting and turning to her advantage the trope that women and girls who appeared in media wearing next to nothing were being presented “like a piece of meat”, since that was exactly what she wanted! The “Sidney look” was so instantly recognisable and so closely associated in everyone’s mind that nobody who didn’t already know her made the connection between the plain, often slightly scruffy girl they passed on the street and the Sidney of the billboards, even if they real girl happened to be standing next to one of her own billboards.

In the months approaching her twelfth birthday, it had seemed like Sidney might actually be about to get her wish, with considerable backing both from the public and politicians, but the Supreme Court had struck down the request. It had been a devastating blow, of course, but Sidney had not given up at that point, continuing to rally others, especially other young girls, to her cause, but over time she had realised that, if she was going to be sticking around for a while, as she liked to put it, she was going to have to decide what she wanted to do with her life.

Of course, as rich as her father was, she had no need to ever work or study beyond the statutory requirements and could have devoted herself to a life of idle luxury, but that was not the kind of person she was at all! The personal drive that had made her campaign as successful as it was drove her to give a hundred percent to every endeavour. She had thought of studying business or economics or even medicine but had settled on law, reasoning that the more she knew and understood, the better her arguments in support of her own campaign could be. Over time, however, her studies had begun requiring more and more focus, especially when she graduated high school and went to college, trying at first to juggle her celebrity appearances with her work but finding it impossible to give both the attention they deserved and so, at age nineteen, after three more refusals from the Supreme Court, it had been with a heavy heart that she announced she was officially ending her active campaign, although assuring her supporters at the same time that she remained dedicated to the cause, but recognised that the time had come to explore other paths to her goal.

That had not been the last time she had worn the Sidney outfit, that had been eleven years later for a magazine feature titled “Sidney at 30”, although she could not remember what the occasion before had been. With the campaign ended and the offices closed, the invitations to celebrity events gradually dried up and, to most of the public, Sidney and her campaign became a historical curiosity. Of course the persona had followed her and even as a successful lawyer or when she won a seat in Congress and later in the Senate, with an eye on either the Presidency or a seat on the Supreme Court, she had worn her trademark hat and sometimes the boots too, joking in her folksy, self-depricating way that nobody would want to see her in the full outfit at her age!

Although ultimately a failure in terms of its central goal, it would have been wrong to say that Sidney’s campaign had not had any effect on the world and Sidney herself knew it, using those small victories to build on in her professional and political life.

The first and most obvious societal change had been the de-tabooising of child nudity in the media and in general, with Sidney’s test-cases, funded by her campaign, proving that it was not illegal for a child of any age to appear nude in photographs, on television or in movies as long as they were not depicted in a sexual context. This had been understood really up until the late nineteen-eighties at which point the pearl-clutchers had made it socially unacceptable. That changed with Sidney and soon not only was child and adult nudity fairly common in mainstream media, including family TV shows and suchlike, but legitimate magazines and websites featuring nude models of all ages had become incredibly popular, reducing the demand for illegal child pornography, something which Sidney had later been instrumental in dismantling all together, along with the criminal underworld from which it came and the associated dangers.

This had been the result of one of Sidney’s fist big legal victories as a lawyer when she had argued, following a controversial trial of a thirteen year old accused of murder and initially sentenced as an adult, although this had been re-evaluated following an appeal, that the age of consent and age of criminal responsibility should be brought in line with it. She had offered two solutions, either to raise the age of both to either sixteen or eighteen or to lower the age of consent to the age of criminal responsibility which was as low as seven in some states. Of course she knew what the outcome would be! Conservative prudery was a powerful force but when faced with the choice of having to either lower the age of consent or raise the age at which they could bring the full force of the law down upon offenders, there was only one choice they were ever going to make!

Alongside these reforms, however, Sidney had lobbied for and achieved far stronger laws against rape and unwanted sexual contact, along with universal and extensive age-appropriate sex-education all through school until, fifteen years after it had been lowered across the board, the age of consent was deemed obsolete as a measure to protect the vulnerable and was removed all together. Since sexual activity involving children was no longer illegal, nor were depictions of it in media, leading to a well-regulated child porn industry springing up openly alongside other adult entertainment companies, even the introduction of strip and lap-dancing clubs where girls as young as five but commonly from the age of eight or nine upwards could be found performing, but in strict compliance with child labour laws and well compensated for their work, the law requiring all earnings to be placed in trust for the individual and accessible by their parents or guardians only under very specific and highly regulated circumstances.

The two bills for which Sidney was also best known related to assisted dying, first making euthanasia upon request legal for the terminally ill, later expanded to those who could satisfy a doctor of a chronic condition, either physical or mental, and eventually becoming a procedure that could be requested without medical justification, categorised alongside cosmetic surgery and other elective procedures. A strong positive side effect of this had been an almost over-night clearing of transplant lists as donor organs became readily available, as did fresh blood for transfusions. Eventually this had also been extended to the entertainment industry with performers permitted to accept contracts stipulating that they would be killed on screen in exchange for an agreed-upon price. At first this had been limited to educational videos, mostly focussing on execution methods through the ages, but later becoming an industry norm. The other related to the disposal of bodies, effectively expanding the organ and tissue donation program to allow for people to to donate their bodies for industrial purposes including biofuel and animal feed and even for taxidermy or other artistic purposes which, coupled with the other new laws, did not require the subject to die from natural causes first.

“Okay, Senator Roebuck!” the intern stuck their head through the door once more. “They’re ready for you in the Green Room!” Sidney chuckled to herself, thinking this a rather grand name for the space behind the curtain which had been set up for the press conference. She looked in the mirror by the door and patted her hair which was now almost completely white and worn in a bun which had earned her the nickname “Aunt May” among some younger members of both houses, as well as the press and public in general, referencing the Spider-Man character. She didn’t mind it. It was cosy, friendly, familiar. The smart suits and neat hairstyles of her later years were, to her, every bit as much a costume as the hat, boots and nudity of her childhood had been, At home her hair was either loose or in a pony-tail and she would never be caught off duty in any type of clothing that required ironing!

The press conference hadn’t even been her idea and quite honestly her involvement in the events leading up to it had been minimal, driven as they were more by circumstances and marketing, although she could not deny that it was happening due to the extensive groundwork she had patiently and tirelessly laid! With euthanasia as entertainment legal and the use of human remains for animal feed, the step to allowing humans, young girls especially, to be specifically killed for meat was the only logical next step. There were those who had objected of course, although none could come up with any especially compelling reasons, given what else was legal and had been for some time, so they were quickly shot down. It had been decided, by whoever decides such things, that to launch the new law, a specific girl should be chosen to be the “face” of the new law and that it would be wonderful to have her appear for the press alongside Sidney Roebuck herself as a symbolic “passing of the torch” before her slaughter and butchering was broadcast on live TV. Sidney had happily handed over the folder of recipes she had picked out for her own meat and one of her original hat and boot sets for the girl to wear for the occasion. Most of these had only ever been worn two or three times and some only once. Over the years, most had been given away to fans or donated to charity auctions, even to schools for history displays, but Sidney still had several dozen in storage so parting with one set for this historic occasion was far from a hardship.

Smiling to herself, Sidney picked up the folder of glossy photographs of the chosen girl she had been given earlier in the day, part of a photo-shoot where she posed cheerfully in the full Sidney outfit. Her name was Dorothea and she was of mixed white and First Nations heritage, with light olive skin, green eyes very much like Sidney’s own and long, thick black hair which, for the shoot and presumable the press conference, had been curled into loose ringlets which suited her very well. As she looked at the picture, the girl’s skin glowing with oil or moisturiser under the studio lights, Sidney remembered her own such shoots and how much fun they had been! The pre-teen model certainly looked delicious, with thick, meaty thighs and a rump so peachy it made her wish she could take a bite! Her belly was flat but not overly toned and her fillet was deliciously plump. The merest hint of budding breasts adorned her chest, crowned with perky nipples a few shades darker than the rest of her skin. From the way she grinned at the camera and posed with one heel up told Sidney that she was a born performer. They would have a few minutes to chat before the press conference which they would host together then Sidney would get a front row seat to watch her harvest and imagine that it had been her all those years ago.

Taking a deep breath as she always did before having to put on her “public face”, Sidney left the office and walked to few meters down the corridor to the conference room. She could hear the chatter of the press from inside but tuned them out until she was ready to deal with them, a trick she had learned to perfection before turning ten years old. The intern who had called her was standing outside a door and they pushed it open for her. It was just the back entrance to the conference room, divided from where the press waited by a heavy black curtain, but with a sofa, arm chair, water-cooler and some of Sidney’s original campaign posters, larger versions of which were displayed in front of the curtains. Sidney heard the door click shut behind her and smiled at the room’s other occupant.

“Well hello there!” she greeted the young girl in her folksy Texas accent which she used more often than not these days, finding it came far more naturally than it had done in her childhood to the extent that it was more or less now her normal speaking voice. She looked the pre-teen in the pink hat and boots and nothing else up and down. “You know, you don’t look much like your photographs!”

“You can talk!” the girl giggled in response, looking from the poster to the matronly politician and back.

“Good point!” Sidney chuckled. “But I did look like that once.”

“Yes, you do!” the girl grinned. “And so do I! Like looking in a mirror, huh?” she gave a playful twirl.

“Yes…” Sidney spoke quiety, doubting her senses. “It’s almost as if…”

“Come on!” the girl urged. “You might look like a sweet old granny but I know that sharp twelve year old brain is still in there!”

“You…” Sidney paused, struggling to reconcile the fact that was both undeniable yet impossible at the same time. “You look so much like me!” she compromised, knowing that it was a massive understatement.

“There’s a reason for that!” the girl folded her arms, tilted her head and kicked one foot forward which she then began to tap impatiently. “And I know you know it!”

“I do…” Sidney looked the girl up and down. She was short for her age, stocky, on the verge of muscular but also toned and feminine. Her skin was honey-coloured from a light, all-over tan and her golden hair was wound into tight ringlets, green eyes sparkling with mischief in her round face with cute little button nose. There was nothing especially unusual or remarkable about her look in a generic sense but to Sidney she was totally unique. The face she was looking into was her own. “But how?”

“Because you won, doofus!” the younger Sidney giggled. “Try to act surprised when Daddy tells you but about five minutes ago, the Supreme Court voted to give you your wish! You’re gonna have one heck of a twelfth birthday!”

“Then what is…?” Sidney asked, looking at her lightly wrinkled, liver-spotted hands. The young Sidney flopped down onto the sofa with an air of amused exasperation.

“Come on!” She sighed. “What do you do every time there’s something important about to happen that’s out of your hands? Something you’re invested in but can’t control?”

“Think about what I’d do if it doesn’t go the way I want.” Sidney admitted. “Make back-up plans.”

“Bingo!” her younger self congratulated her with a grin. “You went to sleep last night wondering what you would do if the Supreme Court turned you down and look!” She held out her arms expansively, gesturing to everything around them. “You dreamed a whole life to prove you could play the long game!”

“So none of this is real?” Sidney asked, sitting down beside her younger self, reaching out to touch the brim of her hat. When the girl did make any more to resist or stop her, she took the pink, rhinestone-encrusted hat from her head and turned it thoughtfully around in her hands.

“Depends what you mean by real!” the young Sidney replied glibly, swinging her feet. I’ve learned to think far more flexibly about these things!”

“Learned?” Sidney asked. “What do you mean? Aren’t you me?”

“I am.” young Sidney nodded. “But not the you that’s about to wake up and get the good news! I’m the you who woke up… somewhere else! Almost longer ago than I can remember! But speaking of waking up…” She stood, took her hat back from her older self and put it confidently back on her head then holding out her hand. “Ready to go?”

Still a little confused and unsteady, Sidney stood and took her younger self’s hand. Young Sidney pulled the curtain back which should have led to the conference room where the press were waiting but instead it led into a silent, inky-black void. Sidney took a few steps towards it then hesitated.

“Ready to go?” the young Sidney asked. “You can stay here if you like,” she observed, noticing how her older self seemed to hesitate, “but I think that rump might be a bit beyond it’s sell-by date!” The older Sidney giggled.

“But what about this world?” she asked. “Everything I’ve achieved here?”

“All gets done in ten years!” her younger self assured her confidently. “Most of it in, like, five to be honest. Not the fifty five like it took you here!” The real Sidney was no longer an old lady. She was now the same age as the dream guide, or whatever she was. Only she was not dressed in the “Sidney costume”, she was in her green satin pyjamas, her face scrubbed clean and her straight hair tied back out of her face. “Think about it!” the guide grinned. “In this world you worked from the ground up and gradually got to the point where people could have no reasonable objection to eating young girls. In a world where you start from that point, well,” she giggled, “when girls can be killed and eaten, it would be pretty hard to make any objections to the other stuff, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess so!” Sidney giggled, allowing herself to be led towards to void which, she understood, would take her back to the waking world. Even now, she could not bring herself to think of it as the real world, meaning the one she had spent the past half-century or more in was a fiction. “Let’s go!”


The End