I drew out the first name and handed the folded card to Michael. He smoothed it open and read out, “Simon Carter.” Behind us, the name flashed on the screen in the number one slot. I scanned the audience looking for the man named Simon Carter to come running up the aisle to claim his prize. No applause or cheers accompanied him. This surprised me. When I watched in previous years from my dorm room, it had always sounded as if the studio audience had gone wild. Instead, reality was silent.
“This is a competition. They won’t cheer for their opponent,” Michael said under his breath as he interpreted my confusion. “Smile.” I now understood the cheers had been dubbed in for the home audience and forced the smile back on my face. I wondered what else was different for the home audience. What other surprises were headed my way?
Another second passed before the first candidate bounded up the steps and onto the stage. He towered over me. His expression was pure intent as he stalked over to me and yanked me to him for a kiss. This I’d been expecting. Each candidate got to kiss the Breeder before the real competition began. I hadn’t been expecting his height and strength as he overwhelmed me with his power.
Back at school, girls kissed all the time. Those innocent kisses had not prepared me for the feel of a man’s body pressing against mine. I felt dainty and petite against him.
The kiss went on for long seconds, leaving me breathless and clinging to his wide shoulders. “You’re gonna be mine,” he growled against my ear before stepping back.
I nodded mutely. Maybe he would be the winner. He seemed strong enough to me.
“Her first kiss, everyone,” Michael announced, grabbing up the microphone and unintentionally lying to the audience. I remembered my real first kiss with a boy and my fingertip touched my forehead where Ethan’s lips had pressed all those years ago. I disguised the action by toying with a lock of hair. Usually at this point in the broadcast, my friends and I were done with our giggles. We’d watch the kissing in wondering silence. My friends guessing if they would ever get a chance with a man, me remembering my stolen minutes with Ethan.
“Time to pick candidate number two.” Michael nudged me toward the bowl and I repeated my smile and the selection dance. The next ten candidates bounded onstage for their turn at a kiss with me. None stood out as special. Soon there were twelve males standing in a row, arms folded across their wide chests daring the others to beat them. On first glance, they all looked similar with dark hair, tall bodies and muscles to spare. They might as well have been exotic zoo creatures, they were that different from any species I’d seen before.
These men were the strongest, smartest and handsomest of the community. There was a rigorous competition to get access to the yearly contest. The whole goal was to rebuild our population so of course the government wanted the best candidates to reproduce.
They didn’t have much choice when it came to the females. Only those of us who got our periods and went through puberty could be a Breeder. The selection was much wider for the men. I eyed the twelve men, looking for any attribute that would make me want them to be my first.
I reached my hand into the glass bowl and handed the card to Michael. My heart stuttered when the nameEthanwas read, but I forced myself to smile and keep breathing. It was a coincidence. Ethan was a common name. About as common as Jane.
But as candidate number twelve climbed the steps of the stage, my heart stopped altogether. It wasmyEthan. I hadn’t seen him in six years, but there was no mistaking the deep brown eyes and the squared jaw with the tiny scar he’d received when he’d tripped in a field and fell onto a pumpkin. The story had me giggling when he’d written it down in one of our hidden shared notes.
Our gazes locked as he confidently strode on the stage and made his way to me to get his kiss. Nothing in his demeanor showed recognition of me. My lips parted to express my shock at seeing him again, but he was on me before I could get any words out. He might not visibly show that he remembered me, but the intensity of his kiss told me everything I needed to know. Being in his arms was all I remembered. Yet it was different. The Ethan of my memory wasn’t as tall and broad. He didn’t make me feel like he could crush me with a flex of his arms the way this Ethan did.
We’d been innocent children, filled with the secret of our hidden love, making plans to run away. Me from school and him from his farm. As if there’d been anywhere for us to go. They’d been fun plans to make, but both of us had known we’d never follow through. I was a Breeder, and would have the world handed to me.
Had Ethan planned to be a candidate? It had been such a long time since I’d seen him, touched him or kissed him, yet he haunted my dreams. Had I haunted his as well? I clung to him, willing the kiss to go on forever.
He pulled back, leaving me with arms outstretched and lips puckered. He didn’t look affected by the kiss. No, he rolled his shoulders, put his hands at his side and took his place with the eleven other candidates. Me, however? I wanted to push the eleven other men off the stage and declare Ethan the winner.
Michael took the attention off me and got busy reminding the audience of the rules while I stared at the men and they stared back as though they were tigers and I was a bunny. I tried not to stare at Ethan, but my gaze kept getting pulled back to him as though he were a magnet and I was metal. What was he doing up here? How had he gone from apprenticed farm helper to a candidate?
“Twelve men for twelve months. The strongest will fight for the honor to try his chance at the Breeder tonight and for the first month. If he fails in duty, it falls to the next man, and so on until the miracle happens and a child is created.”
Michael’s famous, familiar speech didn’t cover the unlikely event that all twelve candidates failed and the Breeder didn’t get pregnant. It had only happened once in my memory, and the poor Breeder had taken care of the matter herself.
Michael turned to me. “Jane, step this way.” I swallowed, my legs as shaky as if I were on ten-foot stilts, not four-inch high heels. I stood silently while Michael lifted the hem of my dress and raised it over my head. I stood for the audience, totally naked. Then I turned so the candidates could view me, their prize. I’d expected to be embarrassed at standing fully exposed in front of the world, but I didn’t. Power soared through my very skin. I had something they all wanted. My body. I chanced a glance to see Ethan’s reaction to my nudity, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was eyeing his competition.
The intense gazes of the eleven other candidates were like lasers covering every inch of my polished, pampered skin. I let my eyes flicker over each of them, and then back to Ethan. Always back to Ethan.
Something felt off, and I realized the powerful music that accompanied this moment on-screen was missing in real life. From the rafters of the stage, a chair, almost like a throne, lowered. I stepped over to it and allowed Michael to assist me. My wrists rested on the wide armrests and my ankles were spread wide, letting the audience see the unfamiliar. In some of the training videos I’d been given, the women had no hair anywhere on their bodies. Nowadays, it would’ve been a crime for me to pluck a single unnecessary hair from my pubic area.
The back of the chair angled a little, giving my hips room to move. The angle would allow for the champion to take me right here on the stage in front of everyone. I hadn’t let myself think about the chair before now, so it surprised me when the anticipation and eagerness began to build. I was so ready to know what it was like to be a woman. All the months and years of being trained to be the Breeder flashed through my mind. The hours of videos I’d watched of men and women engaging in intercourse. All the images of naked men, and mostly the model of a male penis that had been gifted to me a year ago.For practice, they’d said, and finally gifted me with the privacy of my own room away from the crowded dormitory.
And practice I had. Barely a night went by when I hadn’t taken the penis out of its case to thrust it inside of me, touching myself intimately, usually dreaming of my kisses with Ethan and how I’d felt pressed against him in the cooling unit. It had been a million times better alone with the model penis than the secret nights with my fingers. Would it be a zillion times better with a real man? Please, let it be Ethan. Let him win.
While Michael had been helping me into the chair, the twelve candidates had gone backstage to be prepped and put into proper attire. They filed out onstage now, each shirtless, wearing loose athletic shorts with a number printed on the hip. They walked to form a circle around my chair. Orange tape Xs marked twelve even places so no man had an advantage.
I did my best to study each man equally, but I took an extra second to look at Ethan. He’d grown taller and much broader than I remembered. A tattoo wrapped around his right biceps, but I was too far away to see it clearly. In my mind, he was the strongest, the most powerful candidate, but history told me that appearances were deceiving. Sometimes the most wily or the most scrappy man won the battle.
The last candidate standing got me. The trick was staying in it. No man was allowed a weapon. Actual death for the viewing audience would’ve been horrifying. Instead, each man was allowed to use their fists, feet and any other advantage their body gave them.
The massive screens behind me flashed a countdown, and I knew when it got to three, my friends at home would be chanting along. Here onstage, there was an anticipatory silence that was almost eerie in its intensity. Time ticked to zero, and a blur of violence erupted around me. I’d been instructed to maintain my calm cool smile throughout the entire competition. The camera would be flashing in for close-ups to my reactions. I wasn’t supposed to have a favorite, so my expression had to remain unchangeable.
It wasn’t easy. The men tore into each other with a viciousness I’d never seen. I’d grown up in an all-female community. Violence was rare. We fought our battles with the razor sharp edges of our tongues and in the subtle jockeying for power in the lunchroom.
There was nothing subtle about this battle. Punches were thrown, and an invisible belt around my stomach pulled a notch with every thud of fist hitting vulnerable skin. At first it wasn’t easy to see if anyone was gaining an edge in the melee. I couldn’t see which hand belonged to which man, or which foot lashing out for a kick belonged to which leg.