Hopeless Romance

Chapter Two

Alumen males over 18 are required to undergo a battery of extensive Health Tests.  Those who pass are required to collect and donate weekly “Creation Samples”.  Creation Samples are for successful single or gay Rachesie women who need the donations for test tube, made in the lab, babies.  Surprisingly, Rachesie hetero couples often used the Samples too.  It was considered a status symbol, a prize of war to have a child that looked Alumen.

Alumen females also take Health Tests.  The healthiest went to Birth Wards (Birth Prisons).  They became Birth Mothers at age 25, surrogate Mothers, carrying babies for very rich Rachesie couples. These rich women considered pregnancy “unnecessary bodily damage, stress and strain”.   They could choose the sex, race, personality of their kid.  Gene profiling like this had been against the law in Alumen, but not in Rache.  They were only allowed one child so they were picky. 

Alumens of any age would be sentenced to the death penalty for creating life for themselves, contributing to the problem of overpopulation that would “endanger life on Earth for all”.  I was unclear if we could still have “safe” sex.  I also didn’t know what happened to those not healthy enough to create.  Mother didn’t like to talk about it. 

Once, when I slipped, showed a bit of disgust that Rache was doing this, she laughed, “Before the war rich Alumens were using poor women in Lindar to carry their children so they didn’t have to worry about the weight gain, stretch marks, and other bodily changes of pregnancy.  Oh, and weak, lazy Alumens were scared of childbirth itself.  They gave us this idea.”  I cringed even more inside; disgust at my own didn’t replace disgust at Rache but the disgust definitely mixed together until I couldn’t hate either.  Maybe I hated both.

“Appearance is everything,” she said, “It was all Alume cared about before the war.  It was where so much money was spent.”  Seeing tears beginning in my eyes, realizing we gave up our independence for vanity, she did allow that, “even in Rache, everywhere really, appearance became the most important thing.  Rache women liked our very skinny, petite bodies.  We laughed at Alumens because they were always trying to look more like us, dieting, taking pills, doing plastic surgery.  But, we also wanted to look like them in some ways.  Like me, many Rachesie are very fair skinned. Dark skin was the ideal, was beautiful, to a Rache woman.  We would spend hours tanning outside or in tanning beds.  We knew we could get cancer.  We didn’t care. This is why some Rachesie couples want bi-racial children with dark Alumens.  They also want their boys taller and bigger.  Of course, in Alume before the war everyone with dark skin wanted light skin and used special skin lightening creams.  No one is happy with their looks.  Appearance is everything.” 

She told me when she was young, plastic surgery was rare.  By the time she went to college, 95% of people had something “improved”.  Insurance began asking fewer questions, and then outright covering plastic surgery.  They had the slogan, “Happiness with appearance makes you healthy.”  As if, having the perfect lips or tummy would make you happy.  It became preventative care.  Sure, people died occasionally while being improved, but leaving their loved ones was a cost they were willing to pay. 

My mind had wandered to sex again, I am a teenage boy.  Safe sex.  I laughed out loud at the ridiculous thought of actual sex.  I thought about the last time I had touched someone (besides hugging Mother).  It was actually not very long ago, a few weeks maybe.  The time before this last non-family touch stretched for probably two years or more.

This last time was a delivery woman.  Like I said, we never left the house.  We ordered everything online.  Usually packages are just left on our front porch, with a quick knock they were off to their truck, speeding away.  It was hard to see them well as they drove away, but always they looked Rachesie to me, black hair, light skin, smaller frames.