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“Like when you call me that,” he says, and he curls a finger under my chin and brings me in for a chaste kiss. “Mmmm. Like your lips on mine, too, but I can’t let myself get distracted. We were talking about this view of yourself as useless if you can’t have sex.” He cocks his head and wears a thoughtful expression. “Way I see it is quite a bit different. See, there are seven of us men here at Eagle Peak. Before you showed up, the only sex most of ’em was having was with their own hand.”
“You and Scrap excluded?” I ask, surprised at my boldness.
“Me and Scrap excluded,” he says, and I stare at him in awe. Mostly, I’m surprised at how much I’d like to see how they are together…when they’re alone together. But Rev doesn’t give me time to dwell on that. “Are the seven of us useless if there’s no female here to spread her sweet thighs for us?”
I frown. “No. You all work really hard. You’ve made this camp into a home. You’re all survivors.”
He gives me a look full of meaning. “You’re all those things, too, little one.Youwork hard.Youmake this camp a home.Youare a survivor. Tell me again, do you really think you’re worthless unless you spread your sweet thighs for us? Is a living person ever useless if they can’t procreate—or if they decide not to?”
I have to think about that. Carefully, I say, “Before the Virus, I would have said, of course not. No one is useless. Every life has value. A woman’s worth isn’t tied to her ability to have kids. But the Virus changed things. The world is different now, and if I’m the only woman you guys have seen in two years, then, it means humanity is in trouble as a species. So, yeah. I’m pretty much obligated to be a mother.”
“I don’t see it that way,” Rev says calmly.
I pull a disbelieving face. “How can younotsee it that way? It’s just the way it is. There is literallynoother way to see it.”
His smile is unperturbed by my declaration. “Way I see it is that you’re not obligated to us or our species or to anyone or anything other than to your own heart. You want to have babies, you have babies. The world as far as we know it goes on. But if you don’t want to have babies, or if you can’t—there’s always that possibility—you don’t owe the universe or anyone else babies. Same goes for sex. You don’t owe that to anyone. Not ever. If you think you do, you’re wildly underestimating the agency you have.”
“Agency?” This is a new word to me.
“Agency,” Rev says. “The ability and responsibility to make choices for yourself, and to be theonlyone to make choices for yourself.”
I snort. “I don’t have agency.” Jud’s made sure of that.
“Sure, you do.”
I give him a look that says, “Oh, yeah, big guy? Prove it?”
He grins, accepting my unspoken challenge. “Jud told you you have to spend all your nights with one of us, yeah?”
“Um, yeah,” I say with “No-duh” tone and a roll of my eyes. Rev is doing nothing but proving my point. “I don’t get to make my own decisions. Jud makes them for me. Because he’s the leader.” I imagine he makes a lot of decisions for the others, too.
“But has Jud done anything to enforce that rule?” Rev asks.
“Uh, he would if I pushed him on it.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
I stare at him. “Are we talking about the same Jud?”
Rev chuckles. “What I’m sayin’, little one, is that Jud told you what he wants from you, what he expects from you, but he hasn’t forced you into this bed with me tonight. He hasn’t physically put you here with any of the others, either, least not that I’ve heard. That means you accepted Jud’s orders and used your agency to follow them.”
Whoa. I have to think about that.
Rev doesn’t give me time to process. “If Jud gave an order you didn’t want to follow, like, say, he told you you had to walk around in lingerie all the time, what would you do?”
I don’t have to think about that. “I’d tell him to shove it up hisyou-know-what.”
Rev smiles like he’s proud. “I know you would. Because even though you didn’t know the wordagency,your soul understands the concept. See, Jud makes the rules, but the only one who can decide whether or not to follow them is you.” He taps the tip of my nose with a finger.
I twitch my nose in response. “Okay….” I draw out the word. I get what he’s saying, but I’m looking for some kind of point in it.
“So,” he says. “Your biggest fear is being seen as useless because you can’t meet our needs or have babies. But you’re not afraid ofusseeing you as useless. You’re afraid of seeingyourselfas useless.”
Every thought in my head comes to a screeching halt. Is he right?
I’m still turning that over in my brain when he says, “You’re afraid your value hinges on what you can do for us and whether you can contribute to humanity going on, but that’s not us putting that on you. That’s all you.”
I frown. “Is it?” I’m sitting up now uncaring of where the sheets are or if I’m covered. I’m too busy thinking to be modest. “I mean, you all have to feel that way too, right? It’s just common sense. You’re men. You need sex. We’re human, we need babies.” I spread my hands, certain my argument is watertight. “Therefore, I have to have sex and have babies, whether I’m ready or not.”
