Only Ever Yours (16 page)

“You were practically sitting on top of him during the last Interaction,” a voice calls out. More voices join in, all attacking me. On instinct I turn to isabel, conditioned after all these years to look to her for protection. She is sitting very still, as if she’s fallen asleep sitting up. Who is this stranger? It’s as if someone cut off her face and molded it over a mannequin’s head.

“megan said it was okay,” I protest. “And even if she didn’t, what was I supposed to do?”

“She’s right.” megan’s voice rises from the center of the group. “What could she do?”

“It’s fine.” She’s standing in front of me, a charitable smile playing on her lips. “You can have him,” she says, as if he’s somehow spoiled by the association with me. I bite my tongue, hoping I look grateful.

“So . . . what happened?” One of the girls breaks, and everyone immediately follows her lead.

“Did you kiss?”

“Is he a good kisser? I bet he’s a good kisser.”

“What happened to his face? Did you ask him?”

My best friends form a circle around me, throwing questions at me. The Heavenly Seventy girls are standing behind them, the less popular girls making themselves as small as possible in case we notice them and tell them to get lost before they hear any of the gossip. And isabel, her hair tied in a messy top knot, exposing her back in a low-cut navy halter top, is the only one who doesn’t care. I watch her leave, counting every jutting vertebra in her spine.

“What do you think it will be like?”

“What?”

“The first kiss.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as it happens!” isabel laughed. “I’ll VideoChat you in the middle of it, if you want.”

And her eyes were shining bright, as if the future was a treasure that she couldn’t wait to hold in her hands
.

“Nothing,” I say. “Nothing happened.”

“She can’t say with all of
you
here.” megan looks contemptuously at the outer two circles looping around us. Most of the girls shrug, splinter into smaller groups and start chatting among themselves, but I can see some of them, like cintia and liu and naomi, look stricken.
Please let us stay
, their faces seem to say, as if they can absorb our popularity simply by being near us.

“Hello? Give us some privacy!” the twins bark and the stragglers trickle away glumly.

“So, what happened?” daria asks once they’re gone, as cara, megan, the twins and gisele thrust forward to shield me from eavesdroppers.

“Nothing.”

“Come on. You can tell us.”

“Honestly, nothing happened.”

They all look unconvinced and I feel as if I’ve failed some vital girl test.

“Did you ask him about his eye?” cara struggles to keep the conversation going.

“Not really. He just said that it was his own fault.” I trail off, relieved as chastity-anne arrives and impatiently calls us to line up at her desk.

“Right.” megan’s voice is bored and she links arms with cara, the two of them approaching chastity-anne’s desk together to get their meds, giggling as they step into the glass elevators on either side of the desk.

“Here are your meds,” chastity-anne says to me. “Where is isabel, by the way? She should be here.”

“I don’t know,” I reply. “I don’t know where she is.”

The plastic test tube is pushed into my hand, my foto burned onto the front of it.

You’re beautiful, freida
.

The door of my box closes behind me and I roll the tube between my fingers. Today I don’t want to forget.

Bang bang bang bang
.

chastity-anne’s face peering through the clear glass, her open palm pounding against it. She mimes swallowing the drugs.

I don’t want to
. But I mouth, “Sorry,” at her.

But I don’t want to
.

But I do as I’m told.

“Sorry, sorry!” chastity-mary skips into the room the next day, her cherubic face dimpling. “I’ve been running late all morning.” She throws her hands up in defeat and promptly trips over her robes. She grabs the edge of the desktop, chuckling as she rearranges her cloak.

“Where’s chastity-ruth?” cara asks in surprise. chastity-mary is usually assigned to teach the younger eves.

“Oh dear, you know how busy she is,” chastity-mary says. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me today!”

“No need to apologize, chastity-mary. We don’t need instruction in this particular area anyway,” angelina says smugly. She has backcombed her hair at the roots and ringed her feline eyes with black kohl. With her leopard-print leotard and pleather shorts, she looks dangerously sexy. The Heavenly Seventy girls have formed a little cluster, all nine of them lining the back of the room. There is a
flash of color as they cross and uncross their legs, matching red stilettos on their feet.

“Speak for yourself. Nice girls wait. Right, freida?” megan is still fishing for information about what happened with me and Darwin.

“For sure,” I say, plastering a bright smile on my face. She returns to her mirror, and without breaking eye contact with her reflection she applies another layer of lipstick, blowing a kiss at herself.

“I’m sorry you feel it’s unnecessary, angelina.” chastity-mary beams at us as she sits behind the broad wooden desk. “But it’s part of your program.”

“What about the future chastities?” liz sniffs openly at agyness. “They’re never going to need to know this stuff.”

“liz!” chastity-mary gives a high-pitched giggle. “I don’t believe that the thirds have been selected yet.” There is nervous shuffling of feet at this reminder of how precarious our situation is. “Therefore all eves must complete the full program.”

“Anyway, it’s the chastities who will have to teach sex-ed to future eves in the School, so we have to know what it’s all about,” agyness says, stretching the ends of a faded tartan cardigan over her fingers.

“That’s correct.”

“What a chastity’s pet,” liz mutters under her breath, but agyness keeps smiling, seemingly content with the prospect of remaining at the School. megan once told me that happiness is getting exactly what you want, but she thinks it’s only what
she
wants that counts. She can’t
understand that maybe agyness
wants
to be a chastity, that maybe the Heavenly Seventy girls
want
to become concubines. The eves I feel sorry for are the cintias, the christys, the lius. You can almost smell their desperation to become companions, effort oozing out of every pore. But they’re not good enough. They’re the backup plan; the ones destined to become second-tier concubines. And that is not what anyone wants.

And me? What do I want?

I want security. I want to know exactly what the future holds. And isabel? What is it that she wants?

I don’t know anymore. Maybe I never did.

“Shall we begin?” chastity-mary says, tapping the main mirror-board and it converts to a large screen. The triquetra appears, pulling apart until there are three separate triangles in a row. The white triangle spins forward first, taking over the entire screen.

“Welcome to sexual education for companions.”

The companion is wearing a primrose-yellow prom dress with a sweetheart neckline and a calf-length skirt. Her dark blond hair is cut into a neat bob, just grazing her shoulders. She’s sitting on an antique rocking chair, her legs crossed gracefully at the ankles, white T-bar shoes on her feet.

“Here is a short introduction of what will be expected of you in your role as a companion.” She covers her mouth with one hand as she coughs, her nails painted a pale pink. “The demands of belonging to this third are many, but the rewards are just wonderful. Naturally I am sure that all of
you want to become companions, to enjoy the wonders of supporting your husband and raising healthy sons, but alas only the privileged few will be chosen.”

A bedroom appears on the screen. It is starkly decorated, the walls a vanilla shade, a large four-poster bed the only furniture. A girl is sitting on the bed. She is younger than the other companion—about seventeen, I would guess. Her hair is loose, falling to her waist in Titian waves. She looks nervous, fidgeting with the broderie anglaise trim of her white nightgown. The door to the room opens and a man enters, his face pixelated to ensure his privacy. He is very tall, stooping to fit through the door, and thin, his navy three-piece suit loose on his body. He doesn’t say anything to the girl, just sits at the edge of the mattress, taking off his clothes and methodically folding them in a pile at the base of the bed. The girl pulls back the bedspread and lies down, covering herself again until all you can see is her ginger hair spilling over the ivory bedding. He lies next to her.

“The role of the companion is simple,” the first companion’s voice says blandly. “She must follow her husband’s lead at all times. You must always be willing. The more often you lie with your husband, the greater the possibility of conceiving a son to carry on the proud legacy of the Zone.”

The man’s head is burrowed into the pillow, the companion resting her chin on his shoulder, her hands clutching at the sheets below her. Her eyes are closed, her teeth gritted.

“You may experience some pain the first time.” chastity-mary gently shushes rosie and miranda as they snicker at this. “This is to be expected. It is best to maintain a neutral expression.”

I think of when Darwin kissed me, heat flooding my belly, how I wanted to pull him into me as deeply as I could. I doubt that I was maintaining a “neutral expression.” Was I doing it wrong? Did he think that I was behaving more like a concubine than a companion?

The screen cuts back to the blond companion in the rocking chair. A hologram of a calendar appears beside her, a day each month circled in red.

“The conception and birth of sons will be your primary function. It is important to remember that if you are chosen to become a companion your . . .” she lowers her voice—“womenstruation will return. You must monitor your cycle carefully. Whenever you are indisposed, you must retire to another bedroom until you are clean again.” She wrinkles her nose in distaste and smoothes down her neat bob. “Once the lucky few are selected by their future husbands, further training will be provided to ensure you are properly prepared so you can do the Father proud.”

The red triangle of the concubines blasts through her fading face, a very different blonde appearing on-screen this time, stomping forward on long legs clad in fishnet stockings. She blows a kiss at the camera, glossy redesigned lips almost falling off her face. She flips back her ironed-straight hair to show off massive breasts, smashed together
in a red satin corset. They look like two bald chastity heads stuck onto her skinny torso.

“Hello there!” She winks. “Welcome to sex-ed for concubines. The only third who needs to know this stuff!”

“Pathetic,” megan says as a few girls at the back holler. She taps lightly on her desktop, the mirror dissolving into the trademark pink graphics of MyFace.

“Those of you who are chosen for this third are joining an age-old tradition. Concubines have always been a part of society, an important part. You just have to make sure that the guy you’re with is having a good time. Easy!”

The digi-vid cuts back to the same room, but the camera angle is different. We can see a concubine from the side; she must be about nineteen or twenty and she’s on her knees, the same man as before standing before her. He’s gripping her dark ponytail in his fist, pumping her head up and down.

“It’s nice to make eye contact.” The voiceover advises, and sure enough her blank eyes are fixed on his.

“Always be willing.”

He yanks her head back sharply. Grabbing her by the waist, he pushes her onto the bed and she throws her head back, moaning.

“Make noise. Make sure that you look like you’re really enjoying it.”

We’ve all seen this stuff before on late-night TV. The same dead-eyed, slack-jawed concubines, screaming with pleasure as soon as a man comes within two feet of them. I can’t even remember the first time I saw a porno. I presume
I must have been shocked, frightened even, but after watching another and another and another they sort of blend into nothingness. The guys are always anonymous, their faces blurred, and the women may as well be. The man on-screen is pulling out of her now, aiming at her face, and christy’s foot starts to knock restlessly against the leg of her chair, her face pallid at this glimpse into her future. A lump forms in my throat. That can’t happen to me.

christy pushes her seat back, and in a flash of blond hair I can see isabel. Her withered arms and legs are poking out from baggy denim cut-offs and a cornflower-blue jersey vest that is at least two sizes too big. Her breasts have vanished into her sternum, hidden beneath the protruding bones. She can’t weigh more than eighty pounds.

She stiffens, as if she can feel my gaze on her skin, and tousles her messy hair until it covers her face again, covering her secrets.

“It’s impossible to go into full detail in this short video about all the tricks that you will need to learn,” the concubine says, toying with the black laces tying up her corset. “You will be given extensive training after the Ceremony.”

The screen flickers, turning back into a mirror, showing all the rows of eves sitting. Waiting.

“That’s enough for today,” chastity-mary says, tripping over her robes again as she ushers everyone out. I can hear cara, gisele, and daria discussing the videos, the twins asking idiotic questions about mandatory skirt lengths for companions. isabel is last to leave, dragging her bones with her.

“You miss her.”

megan is standing in front of the mirror-board at the front of room. Pulling her ponytail over her left shoulder, she expertly teases out hairs to make it look thicker.

“Miss who?” I ask. She doesn’t dignify this with a response.

“I don’t,” I say, feeling foolish. That’s the thing about megan. Just when you think that she is the most self-absorbed person you have ever met, she’ll blindside you with her insight. “I don’t miss her at all.”

“Why are you worried about her?” she persists.

Because she was my best friend. Because she’s fading away before my eyes, like an old foto losing its pigment. It’s as if they broke her apart into thousands of pieces, made her into a human jigsaw, then reassembled her. But they’ve put her back together
wrong
. I want to find the missing piece that will make her the real isabel again, but when I look at her directly she seems to shimmer into translucence. And no one else notices.

“You weren’t this worried about her when she was fat,” megan points out.

She didn’t deserve my sympathy when she was fat, fat, fat, when she was greedy, when she was disgusting. Fat girls should be made obsolete. No one will ever love a fat girl
.

The Messages play on and on in my head.

“You have to focus,” megan says, undoing two buttons on her chartreuse silk shirt and pulling her pencil skirt down pale, slim legs. I get up to let her pass as she comes to sit next to me.

“We can share,” she says, although there are rows of empty seats. She wraps one arm around my waist, the other clinging to the desk for balance. “She doesn’t deserve a friend like you,” she says, tracing over our reflection in the desk with her fingertips.

No. She deserves better. She deserved a lot better than me.

“Forget her. This is what isabel does. She thinks she’s too good for you. She thinks that she’s better than everyone else.” megan spits the words out as if they’re rancid.

“What?” I ask, taken aback by her rancor.

“She doesn’t care about you. She probably never did,” she says with a swish of her glossy hair. And just like that, she breaks my heart in two.

Good girls don’t cry. Good girls don’t cry
.

“Just forget her,” she says again, eyeing me warily. For the first time in days all I want to do is to crack open the locket around my neck and lick the insides, cram every last dusting of numbness into me, anything so I don’t have to feel like this anymore.

I rest my head on her shoulder, energy leaching from me. “That’s a good girl,” megan says, and I close my eyes, wishing I could smell lavender.

“It looked painful, didn’t it?” I say quietly.

“What did?”

“The digi-vid. Sex. Do you think it will hurt?”

“How would I know? Go ask rosie or one of the other whores.”

I wince at the harsh words, but I suppose she’s right. They’re not concubines yet. For now they are just girls who are making the wrong choices. They’re “whores.” But what if they don’t realize that they’re making the wrong choices? What if the path they are on just has different signposts to ours?

“What difference does it make anyway, freida? It’s not like we can say no.”

“But you said no.” I’m fed up with this ambiguity. “You said no. And they
never
say no. And you said that made them whores. I don’t understand.”

“Don’t be academic, freida. It’s not attractive.”

“I’m not trying to be academic.” My voice cracks. I’m confused, I want to say. I’m scared.

“Where are you going?” I say instead as she walks away.

“Class.” She pauses at the doorway. “It’s only School, freida. Just think of it as a bridge to our future. We only need to use it to get to the other side.”

It doesn’t feel like a bridge, I think as she leaves. A bridge would feel some way steady. This feels more like I’m balancing on a tightrope made of cobwebs.