Again the nervous anticipation fluttered up. This time I let it run through me. The male candidates would all take a turn touching me tonight. The strongest would actually take me. A part of me was scared, but a larger part of me was excited. I’d been training for this moment for six years.
I’d been allowed to stay in my same class at school, but the day after I got my first period, I got special lessons. There’d been movies and books all designed to help me understand the changes my body was going through. I’d been encouraged to embrace the sexual desires my body started craving.
There’d been only stolen moments of privacy at school for me to explore my newly mature body. None of my classmates pressed their fingers between their legs, rubbing until an urgent rush of sensation exploded. It was only for me to do furtively under the dark bed covers of night.
Tonight I’d finally understand fully what my mature body was designed to do. Tonight and tomorrow and all the rest of tomorrows, I’d get to explore and learn about my body.
“Try the dress on,” Zoe said. Her words were an order from the General to the Lieutenant.
When it was on, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Zoe had been right. The simple dress both hid and revealed something about me. I was Woman in it. The camera would pick up my nipples and my carefully groomed pubis, but the color and shape of the dress declared me feminine. I felt pretty in it.
Zoe appeared in the mirror’s reflection behind me. “Now for the important stuff,” she said quietly against my ear. She was taller than I was, and I’d been the tallest in my school. No surprise there, as I’d been the only person, teachers and students alike, to go through puberty.
I turned to face her. “What else do I need to know?” The minutes were slipping by before I’d be called and escorted to the stage. Zoe would go first, meaning we had to get any last-minute advice out of the way now.
“They’re going to offer you a drug,” she said. “You should take the drug. I couldn’t have made it through the selection process without its help.” We stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the mirror, our lips practically touching as we exchanged necessary information.
“What does the drug do?”
“Trust me. You’ll want it. I wish I still had it. Now,” she continued, “most important. When the twelve candidates are on stage, look at them. If you see one you want, let him know.”
“Let him know?” I asked. “How? I’m not allowed to talk.” Once they introduced the Breeder and let the viewing audience and live candidate audience get an eyeful, an assistant would come on the stage and help the Breeder onto a bed of a sort. It was tilted so the camera could see everything.
“With your eyes and your lips. Blow a kiss or something,” Zoe said impatiently. The expression on her face told me she’d learned more in the past year than I had in twenty years of schooling. She was almost like the big sisters I’d read about in books. “You stare at him, maybe wink. Let him know you want him. He’ll kill to have you.”
“Is that what you did?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Did it work?”
“He won, all right, but he didn’t get me pregnant.” She frowned. “Candidate number three managed that feat, and now I’m stuck with him. He’ll be the father of my children. Turns out he’s a bastard.”
I felt my eyes widen at the uncommon word,father, and at her dismissal of the male. I’d grown up thinking of the candidates as larger-than-life superheroes. To hear Zoe’s take, she partnered with a jerk. A jerk with whom she had to live.
Zoe’s children with candidate number three would live with her until they likely developed and were partnered up with other Breeders’ children from other cities. The goal was to recreate the human species the old way.
“Zoe.” A man stood in the entry to the wardrobe room. I immediately recognized him as the Selectioner, Michael Dauson. He had the important responsibility of playing announcer and host while I chose the names of the twelve candidates who’d compete to be my partner.
We both turned to face him. He was the first man I’d seen since Ethan, the farmer apprentice who’d delivered produce to my school. I’d met him when on kitchen duty and we’d had a brief but impactful relationship, as he was the first and only boy my age I’d ever met. Two hundred years ago when the girls had stopped getting their periods and going through puberty, men had stayed the same. In order to protect the women, strict laws had been set up to separate girls and boys until adulthood at age twenty.
I couldn’t stop staring at Michael. I wanted to touch his cheek to see if it was as scratchy as it appeared. His hands looked large enough to wrap around my waist. Ethan hadn’t been old enough to have a beard like this man did. Why was I thinking so much about Ethan today? Out of necessity, I’d managed to swallow any lingering feelings for him years ago. Why then did I feel as though I was betraying him today?
“Zoe, it’s time to go.” Michael’s words fired into the room like a bullet. The showmanship and humor he normally showed on screen weren’t present. He was all business at the moment. He spared a quick glance at me. “Don’t move. Someone will be back for you in ten minutes.”
I nodded mutely. As excited as I was, I was also terrified. I could trip onstage or there could be something wrong with me and I wouldn’t like the sex. And oh Lord, did I want to like the sex. The old movies made it seem like something magical and transformative. Back then everyone had the opportunity to enjoy the magic. Today, I was one of the few lucky women to learn the mysterious secrets.
“Don’t be worried,” Zoe said. She playfully flipped a lock of my hair and hugged me as close as her belly allowed. “You’re going to have fun tonight. I promise.” She grinned and winked then followed Michael out the door.
“Wait,” I called after her, a clear note of panic chasing each syllable. “Will I see you again?”
She swiveled and smiled gently, pointing at a large flat screen hanging in the corner of the room. “You’ll see me there.”
I watched them go, feeling utterly alone, then turned back to see myself in the mirror. Michael had been wrong. It wasn’t ten minutes before someone came to get me. Zoe had barely disappeared out the door when another man entered.
“Jane?” He didn’t spare a glance for the other woman in the room. I was the center of his attention. He wore a navy suit, open at the collar. No tie. Intriguing curls of hair were visible at the open button in his shirt. I stared. The night was full of new visuals for me, the least of which was hair on a chest.
“Jane, it’s time to go,” he said. His tone and words were respectful, but there was a look in his eye I couldn’t identify. He stared at me and I glanced down to make sure the dress was on me. Yeah, still there. So why...oh, now I realized. He was male, and I was a woman. An actual woman who was available for sex.