Right to Life

The disgust part was easy. The dull unwashed hair. The stink of sweat and sometimes urine. She could guess that the mad part was just plain jealousy. Jealousy over the baby she carried inside and jealous that he wanted her – wanted to use her in spite of the dirtiness and the smell. But she kept coming back to the fact that it was Sara or it was her up there and why in the world would anyone in her right mind be jealous of the way he was using her because it hurt for god's sake. It was fucking degrading and it hurt. It confused her.

Anyone in her right mind, she thought.

Maybe she was crazy. She'd considered it seriously from time to time.

Maybe you'd have to be crazy to live with him.

But she'd stuck thus far. She knew she'd play it through. She'd lie to Sara and befriend her – she was turning into a world-class liar – take her side in little things like the shower and the cat, talk to her quietly and seriously about the Organization. All of it an act. See where things went. That was what she'd do.

And then the oddest thing happened.

She hadn't wanted it. Stephen had kidded, cajoled, yelled and finally threatened so that eventually she gave in and went down and shed her clothes and straddled her and at first nothing was going on. Certainly Sara wasn't cooperating. Her tongue and lips just lay there under her wet and slack and then Kath started to move, not expecting much at first but doing it all on her own with no direction from Stephen and even with no cooperation coming from below soon she thought she was going to fucking explode, she was moving back and forth and side to side and directing it all herself, total power over her body and over Sara's, wholly in command of the pace and the action until finally she found herself shuddering, quivering in the grip of the most powerful orgasm of her entire life.

She couldn't believe it.

It only made her feelings all the more complicated. That this should happen with a woman. When she'd never even considered having sex with a woman before. And this particular woman, their captive, Stephen's captive and now in a way that was far more real than before, her own.

The night of the fourteenth day she waited until Stephen was asleep. She took the flashlight off its hook in the kitchen and walked quietly downstairs. She sat down in the chair and let her light play across the Long Box, annoyed with herself and uncomfortable with what thoughts and feelings had drawn her here. Annoyed with Sara and with Stephen too.

She could imagine her breathing inside the box. The rise and fall of her breasts. The slow small shift inside her belly.

Could imagine the cord like driftwood to which the baby clung, tossed in a rich warm sea.

GESTATION FOURTEEN

It was only by accident that she found the equipment.

Months had passed and by then much had changed.

She knew who they were for one thing.

Stephen and Katherine Teach. Forty-six and forty-four respectively. They'd met seven years ago on a ward at St. Vincent's Hospital in Sussex, New Jersey – she knew where she was now too, a small rural town hours northwest of the City – where he was a patient and she was his day-nurse. He had nearly put his eye out with a chunk of wood when his power-saw hit a knot in a two-by-four. They'd dated. Married six months later.

Both were only children with no living parents. Kath was Catholic and Stephen was a Baptist though neither went to church much anymore. Stephen liked to brag that it didn't matter, he'd read the Bible six times over cover to cover including the begats, he was his own church. They liked action movies and comedies and Chinese food and pizza. They disliked housework completely. Especially doing the dishes. As though the remains of a meal were revolting to them. They had no discernable hobbies unless you counted the anti-abortion rallies and demonstrations they could no longer go to now that Sara was with them and you counted the Organization. They read only magazines – not even the newspaper. They got their news off the TV screen. Said it was easier.

They owned a CD player and never used it. Instead they watched TV.

Katherine was barren.

That was the word they used. Barren.

They'd always been saddened by this. They felt that a baby would solidify the bond between them. At least Kath did.

Nowadays she rarely spoke to Stephen.

So she learned all this from Kath. Who was lonely. Who was bored. Who spoke to her a lot.

And who – for lack of a better, more hideous word – had become her lover.

Since that first afternoon with Kath astride her outside the Long Box she had come to her more and more frequently. Always alone. Usually at night when Stephen was asleep but sometimes during the day on lunchbreaks or on weekends when he was out of the house on some errand or other, about once a week at first and then twice a week and then nearly every night.