Thumped

by Megan Mccafferty

  I shut his door behind me.

  “I helped myself to your closet.”

  Harmony is watching me from the doorway to my parents’ room. She’s already changed into black leggings and a T-shirt. She’s running her fingers through her raggedly chopped hair. She looks exactly like me, if I had gotten butchered by my stylist.

  “And I look like I’ve helped myself to yours,” I say, tugging at the gown with a laugh.

  It’s pretty surreal to be standing there as our alternate selves, the girls we could have been if my parents had adopted her and hers had adopted me.

  “He promised not to bother you tonight,” I assure her.

  She says thank you, but I swear I catch what looks like a flicker of disappointment crossing her face. I’m too exhausted to take this up now though, and practically crawl to my bathroom.

  Tired as I am, I need to take a shower so I can scrub off all my makeup. I take off the gown I—or Harmony—will never wear again. I avert my eyes from the full-length bathroom mirror and run the hot shower so the glass will steam up quickly. I’m still for seriously icked out by the sight of my ginormity. And it’s not, like, a lazy lump of excessive poundage. This thing gets around. The B$B is designed to move the way real twins would as this point of gestation, as they must be moving inside Harmony right now. She’s never once complained about not having seen her feet since August. But I’ve never gotten used to seeing myself like this, as if an alien race of parasitic gymnasts have colonized on the other side of my belly button.

  Unfortunately, I can’t avoid looking at myself once I’m in the shower. The B$B looks every bit as convincing when I’m naked. It’s really freaky. As I soap up my body, I can’t detect where my abdomen ends and the synthetic skinfeel of the bump begins. These nasty stretch marks had better be part of the illusion or I’m going to need a major skinfeel transplant when this thing is over.

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d actually believe I was pregging.

  Could I be pregging?

  Gaaaaah.

  Jondoe had warned me that the B$B could mess with my mind. He won’t give us any details about how he got it or from whom. All he’ll say is that he had been approached by a multinational conglomerate to help find the perfect test subject for it.

  And that guinea pig is me.

  Of course, I had to ask the obvious question: Why would a corporation in the business of faking preggs offer a sneak peek to someone rich and famous for making preggs? Well, it turns out that getting mocked up is far more common among certain circles of RePros than anyone on the outside would ever imagine. A top-earning Sperm will fake a pregg (or two, or more) in a desperate bid to delay his inevitable obsolescence and retirement from the industry. The faux Surrogette is usually an aspirational famegamer. She gets paid handsomely for signing on for the con, not to mention a major boost to her brand, which she can later trade up for a career as a singer, actress, or brand ambassador. Apparently, it’s kind of an open industry secret. I sometimes wonder if Lib has turned a blind eye to the truth all along. Money talks, sure, but it also shuts up when it has to.

  There’s also a huge market out there for obsolescents who want to experience pregnancy long after the Virus has shut down their reproductive systems. I can vouch that ALTERR is the closest to the real thing. It’s so convincing that I sometimes worry that the joke is really on me, that Jondoe is really that skilled and has succeeded where other Sperms before him have only failed: the fabled insemination without penetration. Maybe this bump is legit and I’m, like, already dilating and about to deliver the world’s most anticipated twins any day now.

  I doubt I’d be any less prepared for the occasion than Harmony is.

  Gaaah. This is crazy talk. I just need to finish up here in the shower and go to sleep because I’m beyond exhausted from all of the drama. Harmony and Jondoe. Ram and Zeke. The Jaydens. Lib. Ventura.

  Zen.

  “Hey, Mel.”

  ZEN!

  harmony

  I LIE ON TOP OF THE COVERS, IN THE DARK, EVERY FLESHY inch of me achingly awake and alive. It’s impossible to sleep, knowing that Jondoe is just down the hall. Melody made Jondoe promise not to bother me.

  But I didn’t promise not to bother him.

  I’m overcome by the urge to head to the kitchen to make the noisiest cup of tea ever. This isn’t so hard to do. I open and close every cabinet to find a tea bag, then reopen and shut every cabinet to find a mug, and a third time to find the kettle. Not all this opening and shutting is entirely necessary.

  And yet it is.

  I’m at the sink filling the kettle with water when the hair on the back of my neck prickles. It’s both chilling and thrilling, a whole new sensation without the braid.

  I take a deep breath, turn around.

  “Would you like a mug of tea?”

  Jondoe nods dumbly, looking as awed by me as I am by him.

  I open up the cabinet, take out a mug. My hand is shaking so much, I’m afraid I might drop it.

  “You’re glowing!” he says all at once, taking me by surprise.

  “What?”

  Jondoe blushes deep red, like a winterberry.

  “You’re more than glowing. You’re . . . you’re . . .”

  “Fat?” I suggest.

  “No!” He blinks a few times and his eyes flicker back and forth as he scans the MiNet for the right word. “Luminous! Radiant! Incandescent!”

  I try not to yield to such flatteries so quickly. But the truth is, I’m unused to hearing them. Ram has never been one to wax poetic about my loveliness. And though Melody says I’ve been ranked on the MiNet as one of the all-time most beautiful mothers-to-be, the Church Council has forbidden me from reading any of my own media, lest I succumb to the sin of pride.

  Jondoe braces himself on the countertop, keeping himself at a distance.

  “Are you gonna catch hell from Melody for talking to me?”

  Catch hell. That’s an interesting way to put it. I know it’s just an ordinary expression, and he only means it as such. And yet there was a time in both of our lives that we believed hell was contagious, that it really was something you could catch in the literal sense, like the very Virus that threatens to end us all. Or rather, there was a time in my life I believed that. I don’t know what Jondoe’s religious beliefs really were before he met me; I only know what he claimed to believe. And I don’t know what he believes now either. Melody keeps saying that he wants to be on the right path and is only pretending to be her boyfriend because he wants to do right by me. His pursuit of this “serious relationship” with my sister was also the only reasonable explanation he could give the media for his early retirement as a RePro.

  “Since your night together, his heart just isn’t into his job,” Melody said when she asked permission to peruse her fake relationship with Jondoe. “He can’t perform anymore because he can’t stop thinking about you. He’d tell you this himself, and apologize for hurting you, if only you’d let him.”

  That’s an apology I vowed to never allow myself to hear.

  As a trained RePro herself, Melody should’ve already known that the heart doesn’t have anything to do with the mechanics of his profession. (Then again, she’s still a virgin, so I suppose that makes me more of an expert in such matters.) I told her that she and Jondoe could do whatever they liked, they could even start a real relationship for all I cared because I was a married woman who was only looking to build a promising future for her family-in-the-making. She didn’t believe a word of what I said.

  As unconvincing as I was then, the opposite is true now. I’ve got that indomitable feeling in my bones again, like I’ll be called upon to conquer. And soon.

  “I’m tired of all the lies,” I say. “I still believe in sin. And lying is one I don’t enjoy committing.”

  Jondoe doesn’t take the bait. He doesn’t ask what sins I do enjoy committing. He asks another question instead.

  “Is that why you ran tonight? Because you
’re tired of lying? Because you want to finally acknowledge the truth about . . .”

  He can’t bring himself to say it. So I do.

  “About our twins?”

  Jondoe brings his hands to his chest and closes his eyes at this, the first and only time I’ve acknowledged out loud what we’ve both known all along: These babies are his.

  melody

  IT’S ZEN, RIGHT HERE AND NOW, WAVING A CHEERY HELLO from my bed.

  “GAHHHHHHH! What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

  I’m totally naked! In my efforts to clutch my towel to cover all my breedy bits, I fumble it to the floor. Gah! I’m even clumsy like a real pregger! What’s happened to me?

  “Close your eyes, perv!”

  This towel is for seriously inadequate for my substantial square footage of skin. I might as well try to cover up with a Cheerclone’s micro-miniskirt.

  “I didn’t see anything! I swear!” he lies.

  “Keep them shut until I tell you!”

  I fumble around in my drawers for underwear, maxed out MyTurnTee, and baggy drawstring pants. Only when I’m fully covered from neck to ankle do I give him permission to open up.

  “You are so beautiful.”

  My wet hair is plastered to my face and I’m wearing an outfit that would have no problem getting the purity seal of approval from the Goodside Church Council.

  “Stop mocking me.”

  “I’m not mocking you!”

  “This is beyond stalky, Zen. Even for you. What are you doing here?” And though I know I shouldn’t, I keep talking. “The last I saw of you, you had your, um . . .” I tremble in memory of Ventura’s viper tongue. “Mouth full.”

  Zen shakes his head, looking contrite.

  “I’m here to tell you that was a mistake,” he says. “I was being stupid and I’m sorry and I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to tell you.”

  “Where’s she now?” I ask, knowing I sound like a brat and not caring.

  “Home, I guess,” he says. “I don’t know.”

  He pats the bed to encourage me to sit beside him. I do, but mostly because I’m practically asleep on my feet and it would take more energy to argue standing up.

  “Is that why you’re here? So you could own up to your stupidity and apologize?”

  “Yes,” he says, “and no. There’s more to it than that.”

  With Zen, there’s always more to it than that.

  He sits up purposefully, cradles my cheeks with his hands. Then he does what I’ve been desperate for him to do since the first and only time we kissed.

  He kisses me again.

  harmony

  JONDOE IS SITTING AT THE KITCHEN COUNTER. I AM BUSYING myself with the kettle.

  If anyone were lying in the grass in the dark, spying into our illuminated window from the outside, how easy it would be to mistake me for a good wife, noble of character and full with child, serving her husband after his day of hard but satisfying labor.

  There’s too much to say. And so much I long to do.

  I wish I were wearing an apron so I could pocket my trembling hands.

  “I don’t want to get you in trouble with Melody,” Jondoe says.

  “I’m already in trouble,” I say, nodding to my belly, “in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  This makes him laugh. And I swear on a stack of Bibles that I could do without music for the rest of my life if only I could be surrounded by the sweet sound of Jondoe’s laughter. It wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice, not when I think of all the deprivations I’ve endured thus far.

  In Goodside, I was raised to surrender my individuality and submit to the wisdom of the community. I was warned not to question the Council. Follow the Orders and earn my eternal reward. Defy the Orders and I’d suffer in a godless eternity. It was that simple. The Church boundaries—both physical and biblical—were there to ensure my safety and spiritual happiness. I learned that all Other- siders lived lives of unrestricted hedonism, and I lived in fear of all the sins I would inevitably sin if my free will wasn’t kept in check by the Church’s protective prohibitions. By blocking out all godless distractions, I would be a better believer.

  But it hasn’t worked that way.

  When I snuck away to Otherside in the wee hours of my wedding night, I told myself that I was going there for Melody, because I was worried for her soul. I told myself that if I could persuade her to come back to Goodside with me, to follow in my spiritual path, I would become the person she needed to follow.

  I was taught that sex was created for marriage and that it works best within that union. Why did it feel so wrong when I tried to lay down with Ram on my wedding night? Because I don’t love Ram in that way and I never have.

  I love—I once loved—Jondoe. I felt married to him in my heart, even without the vows. Even, as it turned out, if his intentions weren’t true.

  Jondoe sits and I stand, not knowing what to say, not knowing how to start, our audible breathing filling the silence.

  “You cut off your braid,” he says quickly.

  “You hate how it looks, don’t you?”

  A slow smile spreads across Jondoe’s face.

  “It isn’t about how you look, it’s about who you are,” he says. “Otherwise, I would have just as easily fallen for your twin.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. It’s a relief to hear it, this blunt articulation of my secret fear: that Jondoe would fall in love with my sister because he couldn’t have me.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she isn’t you, Harmony.”

  Melody used to be the one so hung up on our indistinguishable genetics. If someone else could do her job exactly as well as she could, then what kind of value did she have? Now I’m the one who can’t stop thinking about how easily Jondoe could swap one of us for the other and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to him.

  “Harmony,” he says in a halting voice.

  I’m not ready to talk about everything we need to talk about.

  “Was the costume your idea?” I ask.

  Jondoe looks down at his suit. “I thought it would make me less conspicuous. Obviously it didn’t work because I got caught.”

  He pinches his cheeks and chin, peels off the fake beard, and sets it down on the table. I want to press that beard to my own face. I turn toward the sink, grab the nearest rag, and press it to my mouth to fight this nonsensical urge. I inhale the cloth and take in the bracing scent of lemon cleaner to snap me back into my right mind.

  “Then again, you’re here and I’m here,” Jondoe continues, sweeping his arms around the kitchen. “So I guess it did work.”

  “How did you get to Goodside?” I ask, my voice slightly muffled by the cloth.

  “It was very special forces, secret ops.”

  I take another breath into the rag. In and out. Slowly. In and out.

  “I commissioned a plasma plane and had it drop me off about a mile down the road. I was all stealth on foot the rest of the way, until I reached the gates. I wanted to avoid a hassle with security, so I crept along the perimeter looking for what I hoped was unguarded greenspace, then I scaled the fence . . .”

  “You did?”

  “I am in peak physical condition, Harmony, though it would have been better if I’d thought to wear my night-vision contacts. Even with my twenty-ten vision I had difficulty seeing in the dark and misjudged my footing.”

  I glance over my shoulder and watch as he holds up two palms still caked in dirt. And now that I look closer, I see that the knees of his pants are all muddy, and the pocket of his suit has almost torn away completely.

  “Well, as you must know, there is no such thing as unguarded greenspace in Goodside.”

  No, not since I all-too-easily slipped away to Goodside the morning after my Honeymoon. That’s when the Council posted Guardians to watch over the most vulnerable
points of exit. And entry.

  Jondoe continues his story. “I had barely recovered from my fall when I was looking down the barrel of a shotgun. I was captured by this skinny kid with a cracking voice.” Jondoe screws up his face and starts squawking like a goose. “I GOT A TRESPASSER! I GOT A TRESPASSER!”

  It’s a dead-on impersonation of Zeke Yoder, and I laugh harder than I have in months. The laughter relieves the tension in the way the breathing rag could not. Oh my grace, it feels so good to laugh, even if it is wicked to do so at someone else’s expense. Would Jondoe be surprised to hear that this “kid” is engaged to be married at the end of the month?

  I find the confidence to turn around completely.

  “He’s Ram’s closest friend. It must have been very exciting for him to spot you. We haven’t had a security breach in many months.”

  Right after The Hotties went public, Othersiders became very, very interested in learning more about the Church. For weeks the Guardians were pulling their shotguns on one person after another who scaled the fence in the hopes of getting a picture of me milking a cow or clasping hands in prayerclique. Eventually, they gave up when they realized that I would only participate in prayerful media opportunities. I do believe the shotguns helped them accept this reality sooner than they might have otherwise.

  “When I told Zeke I wanted to convert, I wasn’t bluffing. I’m ready to change my ways. I’ve been ready, all this time. I was just waiting for the opportunity to tell you. I was waiting for you!”

  “You’re willing to trade in your fame?” I point to my belly. “For this?”

  “For you.”

  “This is not a proper conversation,” I say, trying to take the quaver out of my voice. I turn my back to him once more, and put far too much care and attention into selecting a flavor. “I am a married woman.” My hand shakes as I reach for a tin of raspberry leaf tea.

  “What do you think will happen to Ram, anyway?” Jondoe asks.

  “I hope they give him a choice in the matter.”