Bumped (20 page)

I AWAKE NOT IN PANIC, NOR IN PRAYER.

At peace.

Jondoe is still sleeping beside me, warm and sweet.

I arose to open for my lover

I am my lover’s

And my lover is mine. . . .

It wasn’t a dream.

We are still naked.

I am still unashamed.

Eyes still closed, Jondoe nuzzles his beard into my bare shoulder.

“Melody,” he says. “Now,
that
was something.”

He knew me last night. But he still doesn’t
know
me. Before this goes any further, I have to tell the truth. Not because the Church has taught me that to do otherwise is a sin, but because I know I must.

“I have a confession to make. And after I make it, I will understand if you hate me.”

“I already know that I could never hate anyone who is capable of making me feel the way I’m feeling right now.”

His is the kindest, gentlest voice I’ve ever heard.

“You might.”

“I promise you,” he says, “I won’t.”

I take a deep breath to brace myself. When I exhale, the words come out all in a rush. “Because I’m not who you think I am. I’m not the girl in the file.”

My chest tightens, my throat clamps shut, and my eyes fill with tears. And before I can explain further, a look of relief falls over Jondoe’s beautiful face. He takes my hands in his, squeezes them gently.

“And I’m not the man in my file either!” Jondoe replies cheerfully. “We know this already.”

I’m ready to give my confession, but Jondoe isn’t willing to receive it. I try again.

“What I mean is, I’m not Melody. I’m not the girl you’re being paid to . . .” I can’t say it.

“Shhhhhhhh,” he says, pressing a finger to his own lips, which only makes me wish he were pressing it against mine. “Let’s not talk business right now.”

He rolls on top of me and—oh my grace—there it is again!

“Not when there’s still time for pleasure.”

The bone of his bones . . . The flesh of his flesh . . .

“I have a twin!” I cry out.

I’M YANKED OUT OF SLEEP BUT NOT QUITE INTO FULL
consciousness. My eyeballs are vibrating and my ears are crackling. Someone has a hand on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” a voice asks.

No, I’m not okay. I’m for seriously janked. I blindly grab around inside my shoulder bag to find the carrying case for my MiNet contacts and earbuds. I always have the mindhumpiest dreams when I forget to remove them before I fall asleep.

Ventura Vida was the first Southeast Asian–American woman president of the United States. She was giving a speech.

“Only you can choose how and when you want to pregg. The power is yours!”

And then I charged the stage.

“Power? We don’t have any power! Not until we can make the choice to have un-preggy sex!”

And President Vida was all like, “There’s a delivery deficit of epic proportions! You have the rest of your life to hump around!”

And I didn’t get the chance for a comeback because that’s when I woke up. I must have been picking up on someone’s MiNet newsfeed or something. But, whoa, it felt more real than any 4-D role-play at the Avatarcade.

I rub out my MiNet contacts, pry away my earbuds, and put them away. It takes a few seconds to adjust to reality.

“I’m Freya,” chirps the pigtailed pre-pubie whose hand still rests on my shoulder.

She’s looks even younger than the girls I saw in Babiez R U over the weekend. She’s wearing one of those horrible “Born to Breed” Ts that must be so on trend at the elementary school right now, only the lettering on her shirt is nearly stretched beyond legibility because she was talked into buying a FunBump way too big for her tiny frame. She looks like she could topple over and faceplant any second now.

I push myself up into a sitting position, still trying to reorient myself to my surroundings. It’s a little after nine a.m. No wonder my whole body hurts. I slept in a twisted ball on this uncompromising couch for six hours.

Freya is still standing there, staring at me with these huge anime eyes. Without saying anything, she hands me a cold can of Coke ’99 and a Chocolate Chip GlycoGoGo Bar. It’s my favorite flavor and I don’t hesitate to tear open the wrapper. Oh, sweet chemical fortification! I pop open the can and take a big swig of soda. I can feel myself returning to this waking world as the vitamins and minerals do their job.

This pre-pubie is obviously obsessed with pregging because she’s gawking at my flat tummy as if it’s the most unlookawayable site she’s ever seen. I know she’s young, but she’s old enough to know that such blatant bumpwatching is just about the rudest thing you can do to someone in my concave condition.

“Thanks,” I say, holding up the remainder of the bar and soda.

“Your favorite flavors? Right?” She claps her hands eagerly. “Right?”

“Ummmm, right.”

And just as it strikes me as odd for this girl to have any knowledge of my favorite snack foods, she rushes forward to press her palms to my navel.

“Hey!” I scold, gently slapping her away. “Hands off!”

“Sorry!” she says, sounding more apoplectic than apologetic. “I just can’t believe I’m this close to
Jondoe’s pregg
!”

I poke a finger in my empty ear, just to make sure I’m not having another aural hallucination.

“What’s Jondoe
really
like?”

Just hump me now. How could I have forgotten that my most bizarre nightmare is still a reality?

“Good morning!”

It’s Ms. Lutz-Lewis, relentlessly chipper for a grammy who was up as late as I was. Did she even go home last night? Does she live here? I’m about to ask when I remember something important: I don’t give a damn.

“Pleeeeeeease! Just tell me!” The arrival of Ms. Lutz-Lewis has made Freya more desperate for answers. “Is Jondoe
really
erection perfection like it says on the MiNet?” She for seriously looks like she’s going to pee herself.

I open my mouth to tell her that she’s too young to be asking such pervy questions when Ms. Lutz-Lewis for seriously loses it.

“MISS
FREYA ALEXANDER. What are you doing out of your room?”

“I got bored.”

“You’re not here to make friends!” She swoops in on the little girl. “You’re here to make a delivery!”

Waaaait. That’s
not
a FunBump she’s wearing? Freya is not a day older than eleven. Has she even lost all her first teeth? She can’t fill a training bra! And anyone with eyes can see that she doesn’t have adequate hip width. There’s no way she’s pushing it out. They’ll have to cut and pull.

“Wah,” whines the girl, acting every bit the kid she is.

Ms. Lutz-Lewis has her by a bony elbow and tries to guide her back to her room.

“When’s this thing gonna be borned?” Freya hollers. “Borning is soooooo boring!”

“Now, now. With an attitude like that, you’ll
never
win the FedEx ‘We Live to Deliver’ Scholarship. . . . ”

GAAAAAH! She hasn’t graduated from elementary school yet! She shouldn’t be worrying about college scholarships! Especially one that requires her to pregg every calendar year between now and obsolescence! I don’t even need to ask who put her up to it because I know the answer all too well: her parents.

There are reasons why commercial pregging is illegal under the age of thirteen. Who
did
this girl bump with? Her
boyfriend
? I’ve read about so-called preemie pregging in the third world, but it’s not something you see in suburbs like Princeton, where it’s a very,
very
down-market thing to do.

As it was once down-market at my school for anyone at any age to pregg for profit.

Until I signed on with Lib.

And everyone tried to follow. And if they couldn’t get a deal like mine, they hoped to go from amateur to pro. Just like Shoko.

Is Freya the future? Will there be a time where there will be no such thing as too young to pregg? Zen swears that the Chinese are plumping their newborns with the same hypergrowth hormones that can turn an egg into a bucket of fried chicken in fourteen days (growth hormones being a subject of great interest to him, for obvious reasons).

“I’m so bored,” the girl whines. “And my tummy hurts.”

I’m sick to my stomach. And it’s not sympathetic labor pains.

“Oh! In all this commotion I nearly forgot to tell you!” Ms. Lutz-Lewis calls out. “Miss Weiss is ready for visitors now!”

I’m not ready for her.

“A TWIN.”

Jondoe laughs uneasily, searching my face to find a trace of humor or anything else that will explain why I just said what I said.

“
She’s
Melody and—”

He puts a finger to my lips to hush me up.

“Shhhh. We are so alike. It’s like you’re the girl version of me.”

“I am?”

“I’m vibing on everything you’re saying right now,” he says. “I’ve spent a lot of time on the therapist’s couch, so I get it, the whole twin thing. You woke up this morning feeling guilty about everything we did last night.”

An angelic smile takes wing across his lips.

“Actually, I don’t feel guil—”

He keeps talking. “You created a twin self to represent the contradictory parts of your psyche, your soul—”

“What?” I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about. By the unguarded look in his eyes, I know he is thoroughly convinced that what he is saying is the irrefutable truth.

“You have trouble reconciling the dual parts of your personality.” He brushes his lips against my neck. “The part that wants to be prayerful and pure, and the other part that wants to experience more . . .” He nibbles on my earlobe. “Earthly delights.”

I push him off me. “Nonononono,” I protest, flaming from the inside out. “I’m
really
Melody’s twin.”

His eyes light up. He smiles more broadly than ever before.

“Oooh, you
are
a fun one. You’re taking it to a whole new level!” He looks at me with admiration. “You’re even more complex than I could have ever imagined. More than any girl I’ve been paired with before.”

“Really?”

“Um-hm.” He dances a fingertip across my lips, down my chin, and across my collarbone. “You’re my perfect match.”

“But you don’t even know who I am! My real name is Harmony.”

Jondoe doesn’t react with anything resembling surprise. He seems completely unfazed by this revelation.

“You can be whoever you want to be.”

“I barely know
who
I am! I’m not ready for all of this!”

Jondoe attempts a serious face, but he’s still grinning in his eyes.

“God will never tempt you with more than you can withstand. . . .”

I groan. “I don’t need Corinthians right now.”

“Okay, then. How about this?” Jondoe pauses. “Nothing about you is a surprise to God. He knew I would become part of you. Your life.”

“Speak from your own heart!”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m kinda off script right now.”

“Off Scripture?”

“No,” he says. “Off
script
. I mean, just when I get into the whole godfreaky thing, you want to change it up on me again with this twin thing.”

I bristle at the word “godfreaky.” Why would he put it that way? Maybe the word isn’t as harsh or hateful out here as it is where I come from. . . .

“I like Harmony,” he says.

“You do?”

“I do,” he says decisively.

“And it really doesn’t matter that I’m not Melody?”

Jondoe kisses the freckles on my nose.

“I promise this is just the beginning for you and me. But right now, we must complete our mission,” he says, rolling back on top of me. “So let’s assume the position. . . .”