by Donna Callea
I only hope the experiment with Danny will turn out to be a fluke, no matter how badly we need baby girls. Otherwise, we’ll lose control. And reproduction, all aspects of it, must remain solely in the hands of women.
Girls learn from their mothers what to do. Pre-marital counseling is supposed to reinforce what they’re taught. But what we know is best passed on from mother to daughter. The less men know or even think about what women know the better off we all are. Danny, and his researcher Rochester wife, and all that buzz in Toronto can’t result in anything good.
In any case, I can’t delay having the talk with Rebekah.
We go to my room, and I ask her to please lie back with me on the cushions on the bed, so that we can have a comfortable woman-to-woman discussion about sex. When she balks and dismissively informs me that she already knows everything about sex, I tell her there are secrets she doesn’t know.
That piques her interest.
There’s no sitting area in my room, only the big bed with its many cushions and embroidered pillows and down-filled coverlet. So Rebekah doesn’t have a choice. We sit at the edge of the bed. I want her to feel cozy and intimate with me. I want to draw her close when I tell her, like my mother did with me. There needs to be a bond between us. So I put an arm around her shoulders, ruffle her ridiculously close-cropped hair, and give her a hug.
John treats her almost like a son now, and calls her “Beks.” He has, ever since the Easter-Esther festival when she asserted her independence by cutting off her beautiful long red hair. The hair she got from Danny. John encourages her to look and act boyish, even though that’s not really her nature. And not just because it means she attracts less attention to herself, and is probably safer that way. What I think is that there’s something primal in some men that makes them long for sons, even now, when daughters are so precious. But that’s another story.
Rebekah rolls her eyes at my efforts to mother her, but eventually she loosens up and gives in. We kick off our shoes and put pillows behind our heads as we lie back on the bed.
“I have things to tell you that are secrets,” I begin. “They’re secrets only women share. So you have to promise to keep what I tell you to yourself.”
She nods.
We start with the basics.
“You know the sea sponges that you use when you have your period? Well, there’s another very important role for those practical little gifts of nature.”
I explain to her how the sponges—which have been menstruation staples for centuries, provide a good living for those who harvest them, and are readily available—can also be used for contraception.
“We women soak them in a special herbal concoction and then insert them deep enough inside so they can’t be detected during intercourse. They provide a very good barrier.”
“I thought the whole point of sex now was to have babies, not stop them from being conceived,” says Rebekah.
“Well, it’s definitely not the whole point. For one thing, it’s very unhealthy for a woman to be pregnant all the time. And in our species, at least, sex is for pleasure as much as it is for procreation. Men need to be satisfied—that’s why women have to marry so many husbands these days. And women also need and deserve to receive pleasure from the act. Each sex act cannot and should not result in pregnancy. Do you understand, Rebekah?”
She nods. But, of course, she really doesn’t understand, and won’t until she’s married. Pleasure, though, is something she has the right to expect, and she should know in advance that it’s her due.
“So you use the sea sponges to prevent pregnancy. I get it,” she says.
“That’s not all you need to know. What I’m going to tell you now is not for the ears of men. A few men may know, because they’re smart and have figured it out. Others may guess. But this is something we must never discuss with them. Understand? Girls usually aren’t told until closer to the time they’re married. Some girls aren’t ever told, and that’s a terrible thing. But I’m all you have in the way of a mother now, so I want you to know.”
She looks at me wide-eyed. I have her full attention.
“It’s up to women to decide who will father our children, no matter how many husbands we may have, or how often we have sex with each man. We have to do our best to make sure each husband feels that each child is his own. There are ways to do this. Sometimes there’s an obvious connection between a father and child, like the red hair you share with your Papa Danny. But direct paternity should never be evident, if you can help it, or acknowledged in any way.”
“What you’re saying is, it’s up to the woman to put in the sponge with everyone but the man she likes best, and to never tell anyone that’s what she’s done.”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. Men come in all varieties, Rebekah. In ancient times the men who fathered the most children tended to be the most powerful, aggressive, territorial, competitive, selfish and possessive. Not always, but that was the trend. As a result, some very unfortunate traits were passed on, generation after generation. The cycle couldn’t be broken. That’s why there were wars all the time. It’s why the Earth was plundered and sacrificed to the ambitions of men. It’s why there was rape. Why there still is rape.”
Now Rebekah rolls her eyes.
“If men are so bad we probably shouldn’t marry any.”
She’s being facetious.
“You know we don’t have any choice but to be polyandrous. Some people believe The Designer caused The Great Flood and skewed the birth rate to teach us a lesson. If so, we haven’t learned it yet. And time is running out. We don’t have enough women, enough girls, to survive many more generations. We can’t figure out how to change that. But we have figured out how to make better men. It’s not much, but it’s something.”
“Better men?”
“For a very long time now, women who care about the future have been trying to make sure that only the gentlest males—the ones who are most agreeable and least aggressive—impregnate us. Of course, we also want them to be intelligent, healthy and good-looking. That’s a bonus. And because there are so many more males than females, we have the luxury of being choosy. That’s why pre-marital evaluations are so important. We can also be very selective once we’ve married our husbands and know each of them more intimately.”
“So you know for sure who fathered David and Simon and Ethan?”
“I have a pretty good idea. But the truth is all of my husbands, for the most part, are better than average when it comes to preferable traits. Can you imagine how bad it would be for women if the men who outnumber us were mostly greedy, domineering and not too bright? Unfortunately, we’ve still got enough of that type causing trouble. But it’s not as much of a worry as it could be.”
I let this sink in for a while. We just lie there, each of us lost in her own thoughts.
“Everyone would know that Uncle Seth was the father if you had a baby by him, because his skin is so dark. The baby’s skin would probably be dark, too,” Rebekah proudly observes.
“That’s true. But it wouldn’t make a difference in our family. I doubt anyone would even notice.”
“David didn’t come from Uncle Ryan, did he?” she continues, without missing a beat.
“That’s not something I’m going to discuss. It’s private.”
“Well even if he did, David and I wouldn’t be related by blood, wouldn’t be cousins, because it wasn’t Papa John who fathered me. Everyone knows that, whether they’re supposed to or not. David is no more related to me than some strange man I’ve never met. That means there’s no logical reason why he can’t be my husband someday. Besides, he has the qualities I would choose to pass on to my children. He’s the only one I’ll ever agree to marry.”
“Rebekah,” I say with a deep sigh, letting her name hang there for a while. “You know that’s not the way things work. There are laws now, stricter laws than ever. Even if you both weren’t part of the same family, our family, David can’t get marri
ed until he’s at least 25, and you have to get married when you’re 18. I agree with you that life isn’t fair. It isn’t. But you and David would be considered criminals throughout the Great Lakes Coalition if you tried to break the marriage ordinances. You need to get that idea out of your head, and so does David.”
“Are there other things I need to know, secret things?”
“No. Not right now.” I’m not about to tell her how birth records are kept and used, how matches are made, how the most personal aspects of her life will be out of her hands. Oh, she’ll be given some choices, when the time comes. Prior to her first marriage, she’ll likely be introduced to a few suitable matches. She can pick the one whose face she likes best, or the one who has the good fortune to make her laugh, or the one with the best body. But not David.
I’ll try talking to her more later. I’ll have her for two more years, until she’s 18. I’ll eventually get through to her. And we’ll all have to work on David.
For now, though, I’ll put baby Ethan to my breast again. He should be awake again soon. I’ll kiss his sweet head, be thankful he’s still a baby, and wonder to myself whether it would have been better for him if he had been born a girl.
I think not.
Chapter 9
Susannah
What Love’s Got to Do With It
Here’s my theory. Humans have become incrementally more attractive since The Great Flood. It’s a theory that’s impossible to prove, and really of no importance anyway. But I’ll bet it’s true.
When you look around, just about everyone is relatively good-looking. You see very few odd body types or glaring asymmetry. Those men who are the least appealing physically tend to remain single, and so they don’t have any input on the looks of future generations.
I don’t like to think that something as superficial as appearance swayed my judgment too much when it was time for me to marry. The evaluators made sure all things were considered, at least for the first five. But I was the one who made the final selections. And from among all the more or less handsome candidates presented to me, I chose the men whose looks I liked best.
The process, of course, was different with John. I think there will always be something different between us.
It’s John I long for physically, in a way I don’t long for the others. But why, I wonder.
Are his features more finely chiseled than his brother Ryan’s, whom he closely resembles? Are his shoulders broader than Seth’s? Does his waist taper to his hips more enticingly than Tom’s? Are his eyes more piercing or his lips more tender than Andy’s or Sam’s?
In ancient times, women were valued for their beauty. Now we’re just valued because we’re women—because women are rare. So I wonder if it matters much anymore to men how we look. Probably not, since they don’t get to choose. They don’t have the luxury of comparing women. If they did, I think it would still matter to them.
Still, there must be something more to the equation than looks. Something more than positive qualities, and the likelihood of being compatible. There has to be, even now.
When I invite John to my bed, my whole body tingles with anticipation. I prepare for him more carefully than I do for the others. I think about him before, during and afterward. I would be happy and grateful if our world were such that he could be my only husband. Some people would consider that thought to be blasphemous. I’ll never express it, never say it out loud, but that’s how I feel.
It’s John whom I allowed to father this latest baby, though he’ll never know for sure that it was his sperm, and his alone, that was instrumental in the making of Ethan. I don’t even know why I did it. The qualities he’s passed on to our child are not likely to be superior to the ones that might have been passed on by Tom, for example, or Ryan.
He’s not even a better lover than the others. Not really. Not technically. But I respond to him differently.
He nuzzles my neck. Touches me with eager fingers. Kisses me with a kind of needy joy. And I respond in kind.
I lay my head upon his chest after we’ve coupled, and breathe him in—the warm, strong, maleness of him.
I may wake him up in the middle of the night, in a way that he especially likes, by putting my mouth on him, rousing him irresistibly from sleep. We’ll make love again. It will be primal, passionate, quick.
But now, it’s still early, and I just want to talk.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he says, stroking my naked backside.
When I’m with John it does feel as if he’s my only husband. And I know that, no matter what I do, my feelings for him will always be totally unfair to the others. Don’t they need and deserve a loving wife as much as John does? Then I remind myself that I do love them, each of them, in my own way. I’d never want any of them to feel unloved by me, or jealous of John. It’s something I always have to guard against.
“I think I’ve always loved you, even when Dora was still around,” he says.
It’s unusual for him to mention Dora. We hardly ever talk about her. But it’s Dora’s daughter, after all, who’s brought us together.
“Are you worried about Rebekah?” I ask. We told her the news today about Danny fathering another girl. She didn’t take it well. She feels deserted by him.
“Yeah. I worry about Beks all the time. I’m glad she tries to look like a boy now. It’s safer. But, at the same time, I worry that she’ll end up like her mother, wanting nothing to do with men. I don’t want that for her, either. I don’t know what I want. But it’s not right for Danny to take no responsibility for her future whatsoever.”
“I’m pretty sure she won’t end up like Dora,” I tell him.
“How can you be so sure?”
“She doesn’t fit the profile. Plus she’s attracted to David.”
This throws him off guard. We all know that David craves Rebekah. He can’t help it. But it’s news to John that his daughter, a girl he encourages to look like a boy, feels a very womanly pull toward my gawky teenage son.
“That’s very dangerous,” he says.
“Yes,” I agree.
Chapter 10
David
Simon Says
Lately, Simon will not leave me alone. It’s “Hey, Dave” this and “Hey, Dave” that. He follows me around like a puppy and keeps asking me questions.
He’s my brother, and he’s basically a good person. But he’s also annoying as hell. I’m losing patience.
Today he wants to tell me everything he’s heard about Mrs. Edelson. One of his friends at school has an older brother who’s recently visited her for the first time. The friend’s second-hand version of his brother’s initiation seems to Simon to be too fantastical to be true. And he wants to run it by me. How the hell am I supposed to know if his squeaky-voice friend is embellishing the story? But Simon thinks I know all there is to know because I’m almost 16. And soon, it’ll be my turn. Or so he assumes.
I myself have heard all I want to hear about Mrs. Edelson and Mrs. Larson and Mrs. Fiorino from some of the recently initiated at my school. The pleasure shops are a big topic of conversation. There’s a lot of debate about which is the best, which is the most popular, which of the three proprietresses is the sexiest. Everyone, it seems, goes to one by the time he’s 16.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but I’m just not interested in having sex with someone who’s as old as my grandmother, even if she is a professional who’s somehow very enticing, and an expert at teaching boys how to be men.
“So listen to this,” says Simon. “She takes Greg—that’s Wyatt’s brother—by the hand and leads him into the back room where there’s this big, soft bed, and it’s dark, and there’s some kind of incense burning, and music playing, and she takes off this silky thing she’s wearing, and undresses him, and she makes him feel what’s between her legs, and all this time his pecker is getting bigger and bigger. But then she calms him down somehow so he doesn’t come right away all over himself, eve
n before he even gets inside her. But how could she do that?”
“How should I know, Simon? And anyway, what difference does it make? You’re only 11. You’re too young to think about all this shit.”
At least three of my fathers have mentioned Mrs. Edelson to me in the last month or so. Going to a pleasure shop is supposed to be good for you.
“It’s a safe, healthy release,” says Papa Sam, who goes regularly. He’s a dentist and supposedly knows about health issues. But I don’t see what’s healthy about it. I’d rather come by myself in the privacy of my own room thinking about Rebekah.
Thinking about Rebekah is not healthy. That’s what I’m informed by just about every adult living in this house. But what I think about is my own business. That’s what I think.
Rebekah is studying now to be a nurse. She could be a physician, if she wanted to. She’s smart enough. But if she did, she’d have to go live with some woman in another city who’s already an experienced doctor and become her apprentice until she gets married. Rebekah doesn’t want to do that. So she’s getting trained locally. She’ll be able to provide basic health care after she’s certified.
I could ask Rebekah if she thinks going to a pleasure house is healthy. That would be an interesting conversation. Except it’s almost impossible to have a private conversation with her.
The last time we were alone together she was all upset because Mama had made an appointment for her with another family counselor so she could begin the marriage evaluation process. She’ll be 18 a few months after I turn 16. She’s required to get married sometime before she’s 19.
“I’m not going to do it, David,” she said. “I’ll run away if I have to. But I’m not going to be forced to marry some stranger.”