Free About Sisterland by Martina Devlin

was tongue-tied, or deliberately dumb.
    “Why won’t you answer me?”
    She heard him swallow, a painful sound.
    “It’s tied back when I work.”
    “I’m glad you don’t think of this as work,” she said.
    He didn’t answer.
    “Or maybe you do?”
    “When they made me ready for you, they told me to leave it down. They said it was more becoming.” His voice was deep and low.
    “Who are they?” asked Constance. He shrugged. “I suppose,” she answered her own question, “the sisters who pick the men who’ll be meets and the women who’ll be sources. I don’t suppose they asked if you wanted to be a meet, any more than I was consulted.” He tensed. “Don’t worry, I’m not testing you.” She tried his blindfold once more, before conceding defeat.
    “Can I turn round again?” he asked. “Or do you prefer me to stand with my back to you?”
    “Turn, of course. I was only trying to take off your blindfold.”
    “It’s forbidden for us to look upon one another.”
    How strange that he was reminding her of the rules – she was meant to be the one in charge.
    She studied him. His face had symmetry, which pleased the eye. Even blindfolded and in semi-light, he was handsome. She wasn’t supposed to find him so. But beauty formed its own rules. She noticed that his complexion looked surprisingly smooth. Any men she had seen in Harmony had sandpaper flesh, because they didn’t wear a skin – none of them earned a wage, to pay for it.
    There was something about the way he held his head on one side, in a listening attitude, that moved her. Here was somebody less sure than herself.
    “Oh, your feet are bare,” she said. He didn’t respond. “Did they take away your shoes?”
    A slight nod.
    She opened her mouth to ask why, and stopped in time. To make it harder for him to run away, of course. He was here for her convenience. A shadow-moe stirred: something that chimed with shame.
    On impulse, she bent down and peeled off her pumps. “There now, my feet are bare, too. Don’t you believe me? Feel.” He stayed where he was. “Feel.”
    He knelt. Moving back her heavy skirt, he spread one hand on each foot. A sensation of comfort travelled up Constance’s body. She closed her eyes, luxuriating.
    After a few moments, he asked, “Do you wish me to continue holding your feet?”
    As if caught doing something amiss, her eyes snapped open. “I – no – as you choose. I just wanted you to understand that we’re the same.”
    “But we’re not. You’re a woman and I’m a man.”
    “Yes, of course.” What was wrong with her? She was behaving in a ridiculous fashion. Perhaps even dangerously. Where was the alarm? She put a hand in the pocket in her dress, and wrapped her fingers about the ball.
    “Does this give you pleasure? I’ve been instructed to do what satisfies you.”
    “Who said that?”
    “The woman they call the Mating Mother.”
    “Did you meet any of the others? Charity, and her team?”
    “I don’t know them by name.”
    “Can’t you read it from the sig? Or are you always kept blindfolded?”
    “The blindfold is only put on before we’re taken to the mating cube. But I can’t read sigs – we aren’t taught to read.”
    “You don’t learn how to read and write in boyplace?”
    “No.”
    “How about counting? Can you add and subtract?”
    “I can count to twenty. More is pointless, they say.”
    Constance paused. She knew it was superfluous to educate men to the same standard as women, but she had presumed they were taught the basics. Maybe it was only the policy at this man’s boyplace. “Can other men read and write?”
    “None of the men here can. They come from all over Sisterland.”
    She hunkered down beside him. “What was it like at boyplace?”
    “We were taught useful work.”
    “Nothing else?”
    “That we were savages with violent instincts, and Sisterland needed to regulate us for our own good. We were shown images of war and death caused by men.