Evolution / 22

Susan spooned with Ken, her body tucked in front of him, his left arm over her, and his hand gently held her right breast.   She waited for the sleep to come; but it didn’t.   Her mind was racing; and as the minutes ticked by, her situation seemed all the more strange and dangerous.

She thought of what she had been–a man, working at a commercial software firm, unattached and lonely, but fairly happy with himself nonetheless.   Now there was a woman, jobless but with much potential, laying naked in bed with a man who had brought her home on the first date.   That woman was her.   Between her legs was a wet, somewhat tired vagina; beyond that lay a complete, functional uterus that had finally completed its first and only menstrual cycle so far; and just inches beyond, inside her belly and below her navel, were two ovaries filled with eggs; eggs which, according to Jeannette Carlson, were as genetically perfect as might be expected, and certainly capable of starting new life.

Inches away from her vaginal entrance, nestled between her legs, was the damp sexual organ of a man who could, easily, be her partner in starting that new life.   She felt him; soft, protected, ever so pleased to be held between her own legs.

She had, at one point, held the balance of the entire world between those legs; the entire fruit of fifteen years’ effort, and the ultimate result of a technology that had come close, not long before, of destroying the world.   By releasing that fruit from her body, and granting the powers to those who had granted them to her, she had set free a demon; a whirlwind of change and fear; the probable end of an era of humanity–the era that her grandchildren might not know except from historical records–the era when there were once two different sexes of humans walking the planet.   By a single act she had condemned not the men of the current world–the majority of whom would be content to remain as they were.   No, she had condemned humanity itself to a fate it may not have been prepared for, and may not have wanted; that of eternal, and complete, femininity.   The scientists would try to reverse the process, perhaps, but the technology, having served its purpose, was long gone.   Destroyed in a quiet celebration by the founders of this movement, after they determined that their project was a success, there would be nothing to steal, nothing to leak, no secrets to be purloined by an anxious government seeking to maintain the status quo, or the enemy seeking to reinvent the destruction that threatened the world decades earlier.   Now, the women were, as much as possible, harmless.   Their creation had been set free and was now multiplying across the globe on its own power.

Susan tightened her bladder for a moment.   She had been the one to set that creation free.   Perhaps, if she had known, she would not have cooperated; she could have run, taken her own life, and taken this...   thing with her to the grave.     Instead, she had sprayed her potion of irreversible change on the world without a second thought.

“You’re being too harsh,” she told herself.   For all she knew, there were other subjects primed and waiting to go, loaded with the same “vaccine” or perhaps other experimental variants of it.   George had simply been in the right place, with the right stuff, at the right time.   The women were smart; they weren’t likely to have trusted just a single person–and a man, at that, with all of their efforts.   But Susan had been trustworthy.   She did what they told her to, and now it was far too late for anyone to stop.

Fear.   Change.   Evolution.   Progress.   And, perhaps, hope.   Maybe they were right.   For her own conscience, she hoped so.

Susan squeezed Ken’s penis with her legs, suddenly thankful to have him there after all.   He was a sign of... what used to be, perhaps.   But here he was, nearly asleep, and entirely unconcerned that he was, at least to Susan, the last of his kind.   Caring, strong, and unafraid.

He was not like she was.   She was very afraid.   Afraid for her own future, life in a world that would be changing before her eyes.   She knew that Ken was not for her, at least right now; she wasn’t ready for it.   Somewhere out in the world was her real lover; a woman who had caused nearly all of these changes to happen; who had betrayed George’s original sexuality in favor of her own.   A woman that, somehow, Susan was committed to.   And a woman that she was in love with, and even now, concerned about.

Ken finally stirred from his sleep.   Susan felt his penis grow between her legs, and his hand began to fondle her breasts.   She enjoyed the caressing, and soon turned on her back, allowing Ken to mount her.   He did so without another word.   She said nothing about his apparent lapse of birth-control procedure; apparently, he trusted her, and she knew there was no concern.   She allowed, or even encouraged herself to get lost in the passion; to feel his pleasure; his pure animal nature, as he poured his energy into her.   She clenched him tight; and triggered his climax with hers.   She felt the moisture enter her, and, as they rolled back to their sides, sensed it slowly leaving, dripping onto the sheet underneath.   Finally, the calmness returned to her.   She was soothed, silky, and relaxed–and before long, asleep.

It was three days before Dara showed up at Susan’s door.     She walked in and said nothing.

Susan jumped up.   “Dara!   Where have you been?   I’ve been worried about you!”

“Oh, I went to visit Karen and the gang for a while.   I didn’t want to get in the way.”

“Oh,” said Susan.

“So what happened to Ken?”

“He’s at work, I suppose.”   Susan took a step back.   “My God, I can’t believe it.   You’re jealous!”

Dara was furious, and screamed at Susan for the first time.   “Don’t ever say that to me!   Everything you are, every bit about you, even your own sex is only this way thanks to me!”

Susan, realizing that neighbors could easily overhear Dara’s ranting, tried to quiet her.   It didn’t work.

“And I’m sorry if I made you do things you didn’t want to do, or made you into more of a woman than you deserved to be...”

Susan got caught up herself, and now screamed back.   “Deserved to be? Deserved to be?   What makes you think that you have the right...”

“Well, I can see that you’ve learned plenty,” Dara said.   She wheeled around and headed for the door.   Susan caught her by the shoulders and stopped her.   She was panting.

“Dara...”

“What??”

“I was... only trying to do what you wanted.   It was fun, yes, but he wasn’t ready for...”

Dara still faced the door.   “Big surprise there,” she said.   “I could have told you that.”

Susan took her hands from Dara’s shoulders, placing them at her hips.   “You’ve slept with him,” she said.   Dara turned around.   Susan repeated the question.   “You’ve slept with him, haven’t you?”

“Actually, Susan, you’re wrong.   Okay, I confess.   I’ve slept with everyone on the planet EXCEPT one Mr. Kenneth Jamison!   I’m sorry to disappoint you!”

“Dara, that’s not what I meant.”

“But you’re so worried about who he’s slept with.   A little jealous yourself, huh?”

Susan grabbed Dara by the shoulders.   “Look, Dara, I did it for you.

After all the things you told me, I did it for you.”

“You sure did it well,” Dara said.   “You didn’t waste any time.”

“I’m sorry.   I had a purpose, so when I felt myself in the right situation, I let myself get excited.   That’s what makes all the seductiveness come out.   But I wasn’t doing it for myself, can’t you understand?   I was doing it for you...   because... I love you.”

Susan burst into tears and ran for the bedroom, where she landed face down in one of the pillows.

Dara stood in the bedroom’s doorway.

“So what about Ken?” Dara asked, still defiant.

“It’s over, okay?”

“You mean he dumped you after two days?”

“No.”

“Holy cow!   You dumped him.   You slept with him for two nights and dumped him!”

Susan’s crying intensified.   “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done... I felt so mean, so cruel...   I told him everything.   Including that I couldn’t have him.”

“But why...”

“And for another woman... For you, Dara, for you.   Okay?”

“My God, Susan...   Are you still friends?”

“I don’t know.   Why don’t you ask him?”

Dara came over and sat on the bed next to Susan, and rubbed her back.   “I’m sorry.   I think I made the biggest mistake of my life asking you to be like me.   Perhaps, I should be a bit more like you.”

Susan’s crying slowly abated.

“I love you, Susan.   I’m sorry I hurt you.   We’ll make it up to Ken. He’ll be alright, I’m sure.”

Susan turned around, but still didn’t say anything.

“I want to live with you.   I want you to be mine.   And... no matter how different it seems, I’m ready to be yours.”

Susan sat up and put her arms around Dara.

“Forever, Susan.   This is it.”

“Oh, Dara...”

Half an hour passed with both women still in this position.

“We can’t have children, you know,” Susan said.   “We’re too similar.”

“Inbreeding, I know.   But I’ve thought about it.   It would be irresponsible of me to create brand new children, when there are so many men out there praying for someone to... bring them along, as we promised to do.”

“That’s how I’ve felt.   We have an obligation,” Susan said.

“That doesn’t stop us from being together.   We can raise our ‘kids’ together.”

Susan unclenched Dara, and lay on her back, looking at her partner and friend.   “You know...”

“What?”

“I remember hating you so much... I remember thinking how you were simply teasing me into putting that tire in that van; then when I found myself kidnapped, tied up, and you laughing about it, I positively told myself that I’d do everything I could to hurt you.   But even before you undressed in front of me, I felt so... wished so... that I’d get to touch your body.   For a short interval, I was even telling myself that you were going to rape me, and I chastised myself for looking forward to it.   Then, when I found you were both going to piss on me, not have sex with me, and I was furious.”

“I remember.”

“Of course.   I’m sorry... I’d never have wanted to hurt you, but...”

“I understand.   We didn’t expect you to cooperate, of course.”

“Then I got that one hand free, and...”

“I remember.   My ankle hurt for days.   In fact, you had me so mad...”

“Oh?” Susan asked, impressed that this conversation was going so well.

“Let’s just say you’re lucky I only peed on you.”

“Oh.”

Dara smiled.

“It’s hard to tell when you’re just teasing me,” Susan said, smiling herself.

Dara took Susan’s hands.   “_This_ I’m not teasing about,” she said, and reached over, pulling Susan to her.   They kissed; again, Susan felt her insides melt.