In a world where what it means to be a man or a woman has been turned
upside down, who or what are biofems and why can trying to get close to
one of them get you killed?
BIOFEM
by BobH
(c) 2015
- 1 -
DANNY MYERS
I was in the compound's gymnasium, working on my abs, when the order
came over the PA system.
"Carter, Myers," said the authoritative female voice of our boss, Chief
Administrator Pitman, "to your stations. ETA on biofem flight from the
USA is now one hour."
I glanced over to where Steve Carter had been working out on a rowing
machine, and we exchanged a brief nod of acknowledgement before heading
out to the showers. I ran my fingers over my abs as we walked, and
smiled. Not bad, not bad at all. I'd only been in this job two weeks but
already my twice-daily visits to the gym were paying dividends. My wife
Pamela loved how I was looking now. Like every woman, she wanted her man
to be hard-bodied and muscular to contrast with her own delicious, curvy
softness.
"This'll be your first time seeing biofems in the flesh, won't it, Dan?"
said Steve.
"Yeah," it will," I replied, "though I gather we don't get to see much
actual flesh."
"Hardly any," he said, as we reached the showers, "and that's probably
for the best."
Stepping into our individual cubicles, we turned on the hot water and
started soaping up. I still sometimes found it hard to believe there was
a time when men used to shower in communal facilities after physical
activity rather than individual booths. I mean, there was no way you
could have avoided catching sight of other men's dicks. Like any other
red-blooded male, the very idea made me shudder with revulsion. So
instead I turned my thoughts to Pamela, my childhood sweetheart and the
love of my life. She and our two children were the most important thing
in my life, and landing this job meant I was going to be able to provide
for them in a manner I hadn't always managed to before. This would be
the first time the job required me to perform the 'additional
responsibilities' that were a large part of the reason I'd been hired,
and though she would have preferred things to be otherwise Pamela knew
what I'd have to do and had given me her blessing.
After I had towelled off, I made sure to take a piss before I put on the
chastity belt. Once on, it could be several hours before it came off
again and the last thing I wanted was to suddenly need to take a leak
during that time. Though made of metal, the belt was properly padded and
not as uncomfortable to wear as popular legend would have you believe.
Clicking it closed, I waited for a second until the green indicator
light over the lock turned red, then clambered into the one-piece jump
suit, boots, and cap that constituted my uniform. On my chest and cap
was the logo of my employer, Shawcross International, who two months ago
had won the bid to run not only this reservation but all twenty of those
in the UK for the next five years, our parliament finally following the
lead of every other government in contracting this out to one of the
Eight. Shawcross claimed they could raise the yields from our
reservations but I didn't really believe them. I don't think anyone did.
In the early days there had been significant gradual improvement, but
that had plateaued out half a century ago, both here and in every other
country. Inevitably, contemplating these matters made my thoughts turn
to Calvin Corso, the biggest mass murderer of all time. Where history's
other great butchers had only managed to kill millions, Corso's death
toll was measured in billions. He may have died sixty years ago, but
it's his world we're all living in now.
Once dressed, I entered my access code into the exterior security door
keypad and made my way across the open asphalt between the main
buildings and the secure cargo area in the compound, the large
rectangular 'blister' in the wall around the reservation that contained
not only the administration buildings but also the gate to the outside
world and the gate into Chelmsford. Steve Carter had already preceded me
and taken up his position in the Control Tower. As the Air Traffic
Controller for Chelmsford Reservation he had a far more interesting and
responsible job than that of a lowly cargo checker and vehicle tech such
as myself. Still, with jobs as hard to come by as they are in the
current recession, I counted myself lucky to be working at all. As it
happens, I'd had the choice between this job or being a wall guard. It
had been an easy choice to make. Being stuck in one of those watchtowers
on the outer wall for eight-to-ten hours a day would have driven me
round the bend. Of course, I also had a second job at the reservation,
one that was mine regardless of which of the others I chose as my
primary.
In front of the small hangar that was the Secure Cargo Main Storage - or
SCMS - Building stood the shuttle bus, its windows blacked out. Leaning
against the front of the bus, smoking a cigarette was its driver, Lucy
Preston. A middle-aged, blousey, bottle-blond, she and I had a flirty
relationship.
"Morning, Luce," I said, cheerfully.
"Ah, Dashing Danny Myers!" she said, flashing me that dazzling smile of
hers. "Looking good, Danny!"
"Thanks!" I said, always happy to accept a compliment from a woman, even
though in this case it was a simple statement of fact, my looks being
why I'd got this job. "You're looking pretty sharp yourself."
Going over to the SCMS Building's large shutter door I slid my ID
keycard into the lock then tapped in my password on the keypad. In
response the door rose swiftly and silently to reveal the golf cart and
the single flatbed trailer within, its cargo held in place by a
transparent sheath molecularly-sealed to its underside. The sheath was
made of an 'intelligent' polymer which would change colour if pierced
making most tampering with it impossible to conceal. Most, but not all.
"Hmm, couple of small tractors in there with the regular supplies," said
Lucy. "Guess their farms must've worn out the old ones."
"Not really my concern, " I said, unclipping the sniffer from my belt
and snapping the nozzle into place over the valve in the sheath. "I'm
only interested in contraband."
Though we called it a sniffer because of its ability to detect the most
minute traces of proscribed substances, it also contained an array of
other electronic sensors, and with a single keyboard command from me
these all leapt into action. In less than a minute my scans were
complete.
"Seems to be clean," I said. "No trace of caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, or
any of the usual recreational drugs."
"Good, then we can hook her up," said Lucy, taking a final drag on her
cigarette before dropping it to the ground and extinguishing it under
the toe of an elegant boot.
While Lucy climbed aboard the bus and started up its engines, I did a
final visual inspection of the trailer's contents. As well as the
tractors, it contained various machine components, medical supplies,
healthy foodstuffs they couldn't grow themselves, and -most importantly
of all - several metal flasks whose precious contents were kept
refrigerated so as to preserve them until needed. Lucy backed the bus up
to the trailer and I coupled it to the towbar. This done, I slapped the
flat of my hand against the side of the bus and Lucy sounded the horn to
indicate she had heard me. Now all we needed was the plane.
I glanced up and was rewarded by the sight of the small jet, still
several miles downrange, heading for the reservation. In less than a
minute it was above us, hovering in place, it's VTOL engines rotating to
effect a vertical landing in the compound. No sooner was it down than
Lucy slowly pulled away, towing the trailer behind her, driving her bus
the two hundred yards or so from the cargo area to the plane. As she
arrived at the aircraft so a set of stairs were lowered from it, and
they emerged: the biofems.
It was immediately obvious what Steve had meant about there being little
to see. There were twenty of them, but every last one was clad in a blue
burkha that hid their faces and obscured their shape. Even their eyes
were hidden behind a mesh. As a man, I was forbidden to get any closer
to them than I already was, and not even this close without a chastity
belt. If I tried to move closer, I was liable to get a bullet from a
guard tower for my trouble. Only women were allowed direct contact with
biofems. I craned my neck, trying to make out what few details I could.
I only had a few seconds and then they were all on board the bus and
hidden from view. A siren sounded to indicate the inner gates to the
reservation were opening, the bus drove through them, then they closed
behind it. From the jet landing to the bus vanishing into the
reservation had taken less than fifteen minutes.
Now that the biofems were gone I was able to perform my other duty.
Climbing into the golf cart I depressed the foot pedal and sped across
the asphalt to where our ground crew were already refueling the jet and
removing the robo-cart, a device that had long ago made flight
attendants redundant, so that it could be restocked and its A.I. logs
and video downloaded. As I arrived at the jet so the pilot emerged,
standing at the top of the steps and looking about her with interest.
Tall, black-haired, and beautiful, she was dressed in a form-fitting
flight suit that emphasized her impressive curves. The Shawcross logo
was stitched into the suit above her right breast. She had personalised
the outfit with cowboy boots and a stetson, and looked magnificent.
After a few seconds she trotted down the steps, flung her flight bag
into the rear of the golf cart, and swung into the passenger seat beside
me.
"Howdy," she said. "Rosalita Sanchez."
"Danny Myers," I replied, shaking her hand.
"So you're the entertainment," she grinned, looking me up and down
approvingly. "Nice."
She squeezed my thigh and I grinned back at her. The pilot could have
been ugly as sin. Having her be such a looker was going to make this a
lot more pleasurable than it might otherwise have been.
The pilot stopover room was pretty much indistinguishable from the
standard type of room you'd find in thousands of hotels across the
globe. But then it didn't need to be anything more. It was here to help
pilots decompress and relax before their return flights. Thanks to
modern autopilots, they could sleep most of the way while over water,
but given the quick turnarounds it was considered a good idea for them
to de-stress in between. The best way of doing that was sex, so a good-
looking young guy would be provided for that purpose. In this case, that
guy was me. As soon as we were inside, Rosalita pressed herself against
me, her mouth hungrily seeking mine. For a minute or two we were all
over each other, then she pulled away.
"I don't really have the time I like to take to enjoy a full service,
darlin'," she said, breathily, "so you'd better just make it oral."
"Fine by me," I gasped, still reeling from the passion of that kiss,
"your wish is my command."
"Oh I know, darlin'," she said with a laugh, "believe me I know!"
When we resumed kissing, I unzipped her flight suit and popped out a
firm, round breast. It was obvious she wasn't wearing anything under her
flight suit. Moving down, I tongued a fat nipple while continuing to
unzip her. All the while she was peeling off my own jump suit, pulling
it down over my shoulders. Then I was on my knees, freeing her engorged
member from the flightsuit and taking it in my mouth, giving her the
oral relief she wanted and needed.
I've never forgotten those lines on etiquette in the Sex-Ed manual we
were taught from at school: 'A lady expects a gentleman to swallow. It's
considered the height of bad manners not to, and she will take it as a
personal insult if he doesn't.'
I never insult a lady.
Afterwards we lay naked on the bed together, me on my stomach because
she liked to stroke her lover's back, and Rosalita propped up on one
elbow, caressing me with her free hand. As part of her visiting
privileges, pass codes had been transmitted to the ID ring she wore on
her index finger when she entered UK airspace. She had passed the ring
over my chastity belt, releasing me from it before we fell on the bed
together.
"Where are you from?" I asked, dreamily - her caresses were having the
effect of making me drowsy.
"I live in Dallas, but I hail from Galveston.
"Married?"
"Engaged. My fiance's a linebacker with the Cowboys."
"He herds cattle?" I said, assuming he must work on a ranch.
She burst out laughing.
"Hey, that's pretty funny!"
I laughed with her. I didn't know why what I'd said was funny, but I'd
take it.
"You married?" she asked.
"Yes, almost six years now."
"Your wife's a lucky woman - you give great head. Kids?"
"Two, the oldest is four and the youngest three."
"Any idea what they're gonna be yet?"
"We think the oldest will be a girl and the youngest a boy, though we
won't know for sure until they're ready to start school and get tested,
of course."
"One of each. Nice."
"Do you want kids."
"Eventually, sure - I mean it's our duty to raise at least two - but I
have to get hitched first. Got the final fitting for my wedding dress
day after tomorrow, and in three weeks time I'll be a bride."
"Congratulations. I hope you have a wonderful day."
"Why, thank you!" she said. Grinning, she then gave my naked arse a slap
that was hard enough to make me yelp in surprise.
"Time for you to go, cutie," she said, swinging her legs over the side
of the bed and standing up. "I still have to shower, eat, and then file
a flight report with your Chief Administrator."
I got to my feet and stretched. Rosalita came around to my side of the
bed and pressed her shapely body against mine. She gave me a dazzling
smile and then we were kissing. It only lasted for a minute or so before
she broke away.
"This was real nice," she said. "Now, shoo. I have to pull myself
together."
She turned and headed for the shower leaving me to get dressed and let
myself out. Sliding the chastity belt on and clicking it closed, I
waited for a second until the green indicator light over the lock turned
red, then tugged on the one-piece jump suit, boots, and cap of my
uniform. I left the room with a smile on my face. There are far worse
ways to spend your time than servicing a beautiful woman.
- 2 -
ELLEN SHAWCROSS
Sitting at my vanity, clad only in lingerie and four inch heels, I
dabbed a little Chanel No.5 on my wrists and in my cleavage as I
examined my make up. Despite having just passed my fiftieth birthday, I
still had the unlined features and trim figure of a woman half my age.
Unless they knew otherwise, anyone meeting me for the first time would
assume I was still in my mid-twenties. Being richer than some small
nations has its perks.
I shifted on the stool, trying to make my sore butt a little more
comfortable and smiling as I thought about how it got that way. After
putting me over his knee and giving it a thorough spanking, Pascal had
then taken me roughly, which was just the way I liked to be taken. I
considered having him accompany me to this evening's gathering, but then
dismissed the idea. Olivier's coloring would go better with the gown I
had chosen so I'd be arriving on his arm instead of Pascal's. I was
between husbands at the moment and so taking the opportunity to play the
field.
I was nervous about tonight. I'd been to the Helmsley mansion before in
the company of my mother, but I'd never met Victoria Helmsley in the
flesh. Few people had. The woman was had become a recluse in the past
few years and there were no recent photos of her. I may have seen what
she actually looked like now, or I may not have. She had sent her
condolences last month on the death of my mother following the accident
that had killed her. I decided to review this yet again.
"Computer, project message from Victoria Helmsley on the death of Louise
Shawcross," I said, "full opacity."
A full size hologram of a woman in late middle-age appeared beside me.
Usually these were slightly translucent, the way most people prefered
them and the system's default setting, but I liked them looking fully
solid. Victoria Helmsley was sixty-four years old, and had been the CEO
of Druillet-Rockland for decades, but whether this was a true image of
her or merely an avatar she had chosen I didn't know. With her wealth
she could easily afford to appear up to half her true age, just as I and
most other women of my class and wealth did, but rumor had it she had
refused rejuve. It was a very odd affectation if she had, particularly
as Druillet-Rockland had developed the process and still controlled it.
While there were no recent photos of her, there were a couple of her
from a decade ago. I decided to make a comparison.
"Computer, project photo Helmsley02 adjacent to face of hologram."
The photo appeared where I'd requested, a flat image where the hologram
was 3D. Hmmm. There was the same long face, weak chin, and prominent
nose in both. Different color hair, but that didn't mean anything. They
*could* be the same woman, which meant they probably were, of course.
"Start message," I said, and the holographic image of Victoria Helmsley
came to life.
"Hello, Ellen," she said, "I'm Victoria Helmsley. I was sorry to hear of
your mother's death. Louise and I did not always see eye to eye on every
issue, but we worked together well and I'll miss her. Now that she's
gone, I'm the senior member of the Eight and you'll be taking her place
among us as the new head of Shawcross International. We will need to
convene a meeting of the Eight as soon as possible to make sure the
transition is a smooth one. That meeting will take place in four weeks
time at the Helmsley mansion...."
"Close message," I said.
The hologram blinked out of existence. I stared at the spot where it had
been, lost in thought. My mother was eighty-five when she passed,
considerably older than Victoria Helmsley, but she could have expected
to live to at least a hundred quite comfortably. That she hadn't was a
tragedy, and I missed her terribly. At only sixty-four, Victoria could
potentially head the Eight for another forty years, which wasn't
necessarily a good thing in my view. Then there was the secret my mother
had shared with me shortly before her death, whose implications I was
still mulling over. According to her, we were genetically related but I
didn't see how that was possible. Mom had once had a sister, but she
hadn't been heard from since the Corso virus was released.
I was pulled from these thoughts by the sound of my daughter Melissa
coming up the stairs.
"Enjoy your ride?" I asked, as she appeared in the doorway.
"Very much," she replied, smiling. She was dressed in a riding outfit,
her hair dishevelled and her lipstick as smeared as my own.
"That's strange, my window looks out over the lawn and down to the beach
but I never saw you galloping along the sand on horseback, young lady."
"I never said I took my horse out," she said, grinning, "only that I
enjoyed my ride."
"Oh, Melissa!" I said, in mock disapproval.
"I went to the stables fully intending to mount my horse and take him
out for a run, honestly I did, but I got distracted and ended up being
mounted instead. It's your fault for hiring such insanely hot stable
hands, mother."
She had a point.
"I do adore being surrounded by good-looking men," I admitted, "and why
hire staff who are ugly when I can afford to hire staff who look like
they stepped out of a modelling catalogue?"
"See - your fault. I'm sixteen years old and ruled by my raging teenage
hormones. You can't put all that eye candy in front of me and not expect
me to want to sample it. I'm only human."
I couldn't help smiling at this. My darling daughter was so much like me
at that age. It's hard to believe it's been sixteen years since the
Stork brought she and her brother Todd to me and my second husband,
Adam. I still regretted that things hadn't worked out between Adam and
me. He was a much better spouse than my third husband, who I threw out
when I discovered he was happier thrusting his cock into the asses of
prostitutes than he was into mine.
"I accept my part in your temptation," I told Melissa. "Now you need to
start getting ready for the ball. We'll have to leave here in two hours,
and you'll want to look good for Devon."
Devon Marsden was the son of the head of one of Druillet-Rockland's
subsidiaries. He had just turned eighteen. Melissa had been sweet on him
for ages and wanted him for her boyfriend. She was hoping this would be
the night he finally noticed her. I hoped so too, because I knew how
happy it would make her.
"You're right. Mom," she said, "I do need to look my best. I'm not the
only girl interested in him."
When she had gone, I stripped off my shoes and lingerie, and climbed
into the shower. When I had finished and had towelled off, I summoned my
personal dresser, my hair stylist, and my make-up artist to get me
ready. This ball was a big deal, and I needed to impress.
Two hours later I was ready. Melissa was already waiting for me when my
bodyguard Carlos escorted me down to our armoured limousine, looking
lovely in her sleeveless emerald gown. She had shifted her hair to red
to complement the dress, to very pleasing effect.
"Think Devon will like it?" she asked.
"He'd be a fool if he doesn't," I replied, as we climbed into the limo.
When the doors were closed and sealed, Carlos took out his communicator
and gave the command to get us on the road.
"Principals are secure," he said, "we have a 'go'."
With that the limo moved off smoothly, followed by a second containing
one of our two security squads. The other was in the helicopter that
lifted off from the roof of our mansion as we exited the grounds. It
would shadow us all the way from the Hamptons to the Helmsley mansion in
Westchester. Not a huge distance, but then it didn't need to be for an
ambush. There were always people envious of the super-wealthy so, sadly,
such precautions were a necessity.
Our coordination was impeccable. As we drove so other cars fell in
behind us, each of them carrying either a division head and her family,
or their security detail. Arriving at the ball without a substantial
entourage was unthinkable. Convoys from every one of the Eight were
converging on the Helmsley mansion from all directions. This would be
the biggest gathering of the true powers of the world in almost a
decade.
The Helmsley mansion was an imposing, nineteenth century structure, but
while it might be old its security was cutting age. Before our convoy
was allowed through the ornate gates that gave access to the mansion -
which lay a further mile beyond those gates - ever car was scanned by
state of the art systems, and the identity of everyone in those vehicles
were verified six ways from Sunday. While this was going on a phalanx of
heavily armed guards looked on, ready to open fire on any unauthorised
person who tried to gain access. Eventually, the gates opened for us and
we drove up to the mansion.
We appeared to be among the last to arrive, the ballroom already
thronging with guests as we entered, me on Olivier's arm. Beside me,
Melissa let out a gasp.
"Devon...." she said, sounding dismayed.
I glanced across the room and picked him out immediately. He had a
beautiful young blonde on his arm and they were chatting animatedly and
laughing together. She looked to be around the same age as Melissa, a
teen dream, and was wearing a pair of killer heels and a tight red mini-
dress that hugged every curve of her magnificent young body. Nearby,
talking with Devon's parents, were a middle-aged couple I took to be the
blonde's parents. They looked to be in their early forties - probably
their actual ages since I doubt very much they could afford rejuving.
"ID confirmed," said a computer voice in my inner ear in response to my
mental query. "Couple are Ned and Lisa Fulton, mid-level employees of
Druillet-Rockland and parents to Cindy Fulton, currently conversing with
Craig and Chelsea Marsden, parents to Devon Marsden."
"Brigitte Bardot," I said.
"What?" said Melissa, giving me a puzzled look.
"Mid-twentieth century film star," I explained. "Either the resemblance
is a coincidence, or the parents of that girl with Devon have paid for
genemorph treatments so that she looks like the teenage Brigitte
Bardot."
Genemorphing was why those of us with lots of money all looked as
gorgeous as we did. Forget the crude butchery of the old plastic
surgeons - our features could be resculpted at the genetic level, bone
and flesh slowly morphing into new configurations. It took many months
and was expensive - though vastly cheaper than rejuve - but, sadly, was
only effective when it came to cosmetic alterations. It had been hoped
it might provide an answer to the effects of the Corso virus, but that
line of enquiry proved a dead end.
"This is why you should have let me have the genemorph treatments I
wanted for my birthday," fumed Melissa. "I can't compete with other
girls if I don't."
While Melissa stomped across the ballroom to where Devon and other young
people their age had clustered, my department heads fanned out to
network with their opposite numbers in the other megacorps. A century of
mergers and consolidation had ended in a small number of megacorps - the
Eight - who were the real power on our planet.
"I need to seek out my own peers, discuss business," I said to Olivier,
"so go and mingle, and enjoy yourself."
At thirty-five, Olivier was fifteen years my junior. Thanks to rejuve, I
looked a decade younger than him and, physically, I was.
"Ellen! So good to see you!"
The speaker was Aishwarya Soto, CEO of Hiroto-Lakshmi, second largest of
the Eight. She and her entourage had come up behind me while I was
distracted. The latter included her secretaries and her five husbands. I
knew polyandry was permitted in her culture, but I had always found one
husband at a time quite enough to handle, thank you very much.
We talked for maybe ten minutes, our secretaries taking notes, and made
deals that should make us both tens of millions richer. I was pleased.
Afterwards, I stepped out into the garden by myself for a quiet walk,
and a cigarette. With all the mansion guards I didn't need to be
accompanied by my own security team. I wandered down to the gazebo. As I
got nearer, I heard sounds coming from it, the sounds of people having
sex. I probably shouldn't have let my curiosity get the better of me,
but I'm afraid I did. Gingerly, I peeped inside. Cindy Fulton was bent
over a bench with Devon Marsden, pants around his knees and hands
gripping her waist, pumping his cock in and out of her ass.
"Yes, oh yes baby, yeeesssss!" squealed Cindy.
They hadn't seen me so I tiptoed away, finding a bench some yards away
behind a bush. I sat down on this, and lit a cigarette, saddened by what
I'd just witnessed. It looked like Melissa wouldn't be hooking up with
Devon after all. I'd been there a little while and was just finishing my
cigarette, when someone else appeared. It was Cindy Fulton.
"Hi," she said, "you're Melissa's mom, aren't you?"
"That's right. What can I do for you, Cindy?"
"You couldn't give me a cigarette, could you?"
"Aren't you a little young to be smoking?"
"My parents don't mind. You can ask my Mom when we get back inside, if
you like."
"Well, OK, I guess," I said.
She sat down beside me, and I offered her a cigarette then lit it for
her.
"Thanks," she said, exhaling appreciatively.
Now that I was seeing her up close I was sure. That great mass of blonde
hair, the large, pouty lips, the gorgeous face: definitely Brigitte
Bardot.
"You're a very beautiful girl, Cindy."
"Thank you."
"Brigitte Bardot, right?"
"Yes, I was a little girl when I first came across old photos of her.
Ever since that day I've wanted to look just like her. So when my
parents told me I could have genemorph treatments for my birthday there
was never any question of what I'd have done."
"Time for me to go," I said. I rose to my feet and stubbed out my
cigarette under the toe of my shoe. "Nice meeting you, Cindy."
"And you Mrs Shawcross."
I left Cindy to enjoy her cigarette and made my way back to the main
house where I was sure a tearful and distraught Melissa awaited me. I
decided not to tell her what I'd witnessed in the gazebo.
- 3 -
DANNY MYERS
We climbed out of the golf cart and Rosalita came around to my side. She
pressed that amazing body against mine, giving me a dazzling smile. Then
we were kissing, she grabbing my buttocks and sinking her fingers into
them as we did so. It only lasted for a minute or so before she broke
away.
"Next time I come this way I am definitely asking for you again,
sweetcheeks," she said. "But you need to go. Those inner gates will be
opening any minute now."
Right on cue, the siren sounded to indicate the inner gates to the
reservation were opening. That was the signal to make myself scarce. As
Rosalita climbed the stairs to her aircraft, I drove the golf cart over
to the SCMS building, reversing into it so I was facing the aircraft
when the bus emerged from the reservation. It stopped in front of the
plane and the biofems emerged. As before there were twenty of them, only
this time every last one was clad in a pale pink burkha that hid their
faces and obscured their shape, their eyes hidden behind a mesh. They
quickly boarded the jet, the stairs were raised, and the bus headed my
way. No sooner had it reached the SCMS than I heard the whine of jet
engines as they whirred into life. A couple of minutes later the jet
slowly lifted off, hovering maybe a hundred feet above the compound
before the engines swivelled into the horizontal position and it sped
off, carrying Rosalita and her passengers on their way over the
Atlantic.
There was a pneumatic hiss from the bus followed by the sound of a door
opening and then Lucy Preston was there, lighting a cigarette.
"Ah, that's better!" she said, exhaling gratefully. "We're not allowed
to smoke around biofems, and I was in there for hours. It was torture!"
"My heart bleeds for you," I said, drily.
"Yeah, right. So, it looks like you got lucky with the pilot. She's hot
as hell."
"You know I only have eyes for you, Luce."
"If only," she snorted, tossing me the keys to the bus. "Here make sure
she's spick'n'span, and also check out that door mechanism. It's making
more noise than it should."
She strolled off, heading for the main administration building, and I
boarded the bus. I didn't need to hurry with any of that stuff so I
decided to relax for a bit. I sank into a seat and took out my battered
unireader. Turning it on, I fumbled with it and accidentally called up a
page from a manual I'd downloaded as a teenager, 'The Gentleman's Guide
to Sexual Etiquette'. It was a page I remembered well, clueing us boys
into what to expect when we started dating:
"A lady may allow a gentleman to pleasure her orally following a first
date if the date has gone well. He should expect to do so for several
dates after this before being invited to pleasure her via her derriere.
If he does not demonstrate a sufficient level of oral skill, an
invitation is unlikely to be extended. A true gentleman will accept such
a rebuff with good grace then apply himself to addressing his
deficiencies in this area. It cannot be over-stressed how important good
oral technique is if a gentleman wishes to attract a wife. Ideally, boys
should be started on dildo training as soon as they reach the
appropriate age and encouraged to develop the skill they will need in
adult life through regular practice with it. A high quality,
anatomically accurate oral practice dildo makes the perfect birthday
present for a young gentleman, and is an essential aid to his healthy
sexual development."
I smiled, remembering how excited I'd been when I got my own dildo, how
I couldn't wait to start practicing on it, and how grown up I'd felt. My
sister tells me she felt the same way when Mum bought her her first bra,
and how proud she was to be the first girl in her class to need one
after they all started their hormone treatments. For both of us, as for
countless girls and boys before us, these were important milestones on
the road to adulthood.
Connecting to the worldnet, as I'd intended to do, I pulled up an
ancient movie from the twentieth century. They might be more than a
hundred years old but there was something about the films of Marilyn
Monroe that appealed to me, though the social mores in pre-Decimation
movies were very strange. These days we rightly regard sex as an
appetite that needs to be fed if you want to remain psychologically
healthy, and everyone is encouraged to engage in lots of recreational
sex, with as many different people as suits them. Emotional fidelity to
your partner or spouse is very important in a relationship, but the idea
of extending that into the physical and demanding sexual fidelity as
well, as they did in those days, seems both bizarre and cruel. The past
really is a different country.
I called up 'The Seven Year Itch' and settled back to watch it. I had
just got to the still-iconic scene where air blasting from a ventilation
grille in the street blows Marilyn's dress up, giving us a few
titilating glimpses of her penis, when a sudden noise made me jump. I
paused the movie and pulled out my flashlight.
Something moved in the rear of the bus and I froze.
"Who...who's there?" I demanded, shining my flashlight at the area where
I'd seen movement.
"Don't shoot," said a female voice - a very *old* female voice. The
accent was American.
"I don't have a gun," I said.
Slowly, painfully, the oldest woman I had ever seen, eased out from her
place of concealment under the rear seats, and pulled herself up onto
those seats, flopping back and gasping for breath. She was stick-thin,
heavily wrinkled, and dressed in the sort of shirt and dungarees a
farmworker might wear.
"Who *are* you?" I asked.
"Name's Laura," she said, "and I'm what you call a biofem."
Startled, I took a step backwards. This made Laura snort with laughter,
which quickly turned into a coughing fit.
"Oh, that's *gooood*!" she wheezed. "You're so conditioned to believe
just the sight of one of us is enough to make you lose your mind that
you even reacted to me. Don't worry, young man. It's a long, long time
since I last drove anyone mad with lust, more's the pity. That fancy
chastity belt of yours isn't needed."
"You can't be here," I said. "I can get fired or even thrown in prison
if anyone finds out I've talked to you."
"Doesn't that make you wonder why? Doesn't that make you wonder what
sort of threat to their society a little old lady could be? Do they even
tell you 'biofem' is short for 'biological female'?"
"Just how old are you?"
"Ninety-two. And yes, that means I was there when it happened. I was
there for everything that happened afterwards, too."
I know I shouldn't have engaged with her any further, that nothing but
trouble could come of it, but my curiosity got the better of me.
"Could you tell me about it?"
"You've heard of Ecowar, of course?"
I nodded.
"Right. How could you not, how could anyone not? Despite the
belligerent-sounding name, Ecowar were a respected, mainstream
environmental group. Their annual global conference that year was held
in Geneva and the topic was 'The Coming Population Collapse'. With
global warming, increasing water shortages and famines, etc, the idea
that we could exceed the 'carrying capacity' of the planet and so suffer
catastrophic population collapse was one of several possible scenarios
worrying us back then. What we didn't realise was that the leadership of
Ecowar were secretly far more radical than the rank and file, that they
believed the planet would reach a dangerous tipping point we couldn't
find our way back from before the population collapse, leaving survivors
far worse off than if we had suffered it before that tipping point
arrived. Their solution: bring about the population collapse themselves.
The founder and leader of Ecowar was Calvin Corso, a genius-level
biologist decades ahead of his peers, and charismatic as hell. He
engineered the virus they released at that conference, the one that
infected all those delegates, who then carried it back to their home
countries after the conference. And there were delegates there from
almost every country on the planet. A week later the dying began."
"What they did was monstrous."
"Yes, but I'm sure they didn't see themselves as monsters. Fanatics
never do. Before the Decimation the population of Earth was seven
billion, three and a half billion of us female. Then the Corso virus was
released and it killed nine out of every ten women. That's more than
three billion people. It was death on a scale almost beyond imagining,
the biggest mass murder in human history. Everyone, and I mean
*everyone*, lost someone they loved. Imagine that; an entire planet
grieving. Seventy years later, and I still have nightmares about that
time. Anyone in my position would. I was at the Geneva conference. I'm
one of those who carried death back to this country."
I tried to imagine such a thing, as I had since I'd first been taught
about it in school, but I couldn't. Here before me, for the first time
in my life, was someone who had been alive then and old enough to
understand what it meant. I could see in her eyes that the memories
still haunted her.
"In its wake everyone went more than a little mad," she continued. "You
might expect losing so many of us to lead to surviving women being
treated better but it didn't, not at first. We became a valuable
resource to be fought over, both by those who wanted to keep us solely
for themselves and those who saw the opportunity to make vast sums by
selling our now scarce sexual services. There have always been men who
treated women as property and our bodies as a commodity to be traded,
and the Decimation only made things worse. But there was another
consideration, of course, one every government quickly realised. With so
few of us to give birth to the next generation their populations were
going to collapse unless we became a part of organised breeding
programmes designed to maximise the number of babies we gave birth to.
We realised this too, and wanting our species to survive and prosper
most of us accepted it was our duty to humanity to have lots of babies.
Those who didn't weren't given much choice in the matter. They were
drafted into the programmes despite their opposition, and we pressured
them until they came round. One more thing I regret."
She looked at me sadly.
"The reservation system was established, walled off communities with
armed guard towers designed to keep the surviving women safe from any
men who wanted to get at them while we were breeding the next
generations. We were expected to have a pregnancy every year. Once, we
were one in two of the population; now we're one in twenty, or a tenth
that. A birth rate averaging two point four children per woman was
needed for a stable population, so now we needed twenty four per woman.
That takes its toll on the body and not every woman can manage to
achieve it, so it was vitally important we be kept as healthy as
possible. We got the best medical attention on the planet, but were also
forbidden alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs, even strongly
caffeinated drinks. With all that, I only ever managed to push out one
child that lived. He was taken from me, of course, and maybe I was just
being paranoid but there was something different about it, like he had
been chosen for someone specific rather than being randomly allocated to
new parents as babies usually are. He'd be fifty now."
She looked at me sadly for a moment, then shook her head.
"While this was happening inside the walls, big changes were occurring
in the larger society beyond them. With biological females removed from
the picture, transwomen became deeply desirable, with most being able to
land rich, handsome husbands. Seeing this, young men who were not gender
dysphoric and would otherwise never have considered such a thing,
started to look at transitioning as an acceptable trade off for wealth
and security. Being a rich man's wife came to be seen as a reasonable
'career path' for them to want to follow. This was the first step on the
road to the huge changes that were to follow. Even with it becoming
socially acceptable as a matter of choice rather than of necessity,
there still weren't enough transwomen to go round, and the gender
imbalance was causing strains in society. It's often been said that
women keep men civilised, and the experience of society at that time
proved it true. Violence and unrest were spreading."
"Yeah, we learned about that in history class in our senior year in high
school," I said. "It's why the current system was established."
"Far from becoming just a socially acceptable choice for a young man to
take, transitioning was now actively encouraged. Financial incentives
were offered, and those who did so were lauded as heroes. But it still
wasn't enough. Those in charge decided that society needed to be
rebalanced, that it needed to have two genders. Criteria were
established and children tested on entering school to determine on which
side of a demarcation line designed to produce a fifty-fifty split they
fell on. They were then designated as either girls or boys, named and
dressed accordingly, and split into segregated streams in which gender
roles were rigidly enforced. Boys were taught to put girls on a
pedestal, and girls were taught that being a girl was the best thing in
the world and how lucky they were to have been chosen. The psychological
pressure to conform to gender roles was intense but also clever. It
worked. Later, a subtle difference was made. You weren't *chosen* to be
either a boy or a girl. No, testing just helped identify what you
already were. And so it was that they carved a second gender out of the
only one they still had to work with. When puberty hit, girls were
started on female hormones, nothing more. Genital surgery was never
considered as an option. Quite apart from the strain that that many
operations would put on health systems, it was thought that forcing
healthy people to undergo major surgery was ethically and morally wrong.
Correctly, I think. They had gone so far, but would go no further. In
this new society they had created, women would have penises."
She stopped then, coughing.
"Do you have any water? I haven't talked this much in a while, and my
throat is drying up."
"Oh, yes, of course," I said, taking a bottle of Evian out of my bag.
She drank from it gratefully before continuing.
"Behind the walls of the reservations, we developed our own society,
fell in love, even married. Where most men require femininity in their
partners, women are more sensible and more flexible. I'm a lesbian
anyway, so I was happy with this arrangement, but most other women came
around. The need for love and companionship is a powerful one. Having to
get pregnant every year still left us with three months following birth
and the early trimesters in which we were able to work, and working on
the land became popular. Yes, supplies from outside used to include
fresh vegetables early on, but we found it more satisfying to eat those
we'd grown ourselves."
"Didn't you have babies to bring up?"
"Nineteen out of twenty births are male, and those children are taken
from us by the Stork soon after birth, although I see someone else has
the contract now."
'The Stork' was the name by which just about everyone knew the Storr
Corporation, the group responsible for collecting sperm and distributing
non-female babies to their new parents in the outside world. Female
babies were raised by their mothers and grew up on the reservations, of
course.
"I heard you playing 'The Seven Year Itch' when I was hiding under the
seat," said Laura, changing the subject "and you'd just got to the scene
where the air lifts Monroe's dress when I made a noise and you
discovered me. Do you remember the scene that comes next?"
"Of course I do. A beat cop tells her she'll have to come with him. He
then takes her into an alley where he gets down on his knees, lifts her
dress, and gives her a blow job while she's cooing and emitting that
breathy little giggle she had."
"Would you be surprised if I told you that scene wasn't originally in
the film, and that Marilyn Monroe didn't have a penis?"
"I...no...I mean, the film was made pre-Decimation, so if I think about
it...but I never did. It's like new films set in pre-Decimation times,
say Ancient Rome or the US Civil War. You know women weren't like that
back then, but when you see Julius Caesar having sex with Cleopatra, or
Scarlett O'Hara with Rhett Butler in the recent 'Gone With The Wind'
remake, and the women have penises, you just go with it. I mean, they're
women and that's how women are."
"And that's the power of the system. They seduce you with images that
warp your worldview so that you don't question what you're being fed
even when you know it's not correct. We can digitally alter images now
to have them show whatever we want. Raise the skirt of Marilyn Monroe's
dress a few inches, remove her panties and give her a penis? Easy. Film
sex scenes with a body double and then digitally lay Marilyn's face over
that of the actress doubling her? No problem. They've altered most of
the major old movies and TV dramas now, added scenes that make you see
those biologically female actresses as she-males. They've added cocks to
paintings too, and to statues. They're colonizing our past, making it so
that no matter how far back in the culture you look we're not men's
natural female counterpart; *they* are."
She paused, staring at me sadly.
"We get our own versions of new movies. You saw the 'Gone With The Wind'
remake, I assume?"
I nodded.
"How did it end?"
"With Rhett saying to Scarlett: 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a fuck!'
and walking off."
"What did you think about 'Mammy' becoming 'Mamie' in the new version?"
"Times have changed and they made a lot of alterations to make it less
racially offensive than the original, but that one puzzled me. I didn't
see what was gained by making the character a beautiful young woman the
same age as Scarlett. It added nothing to the story."
"It did in the version we got. There were additional scenes of them
growing up together as children. As teenagers, their first sexual
experience is with each other. After this Scarlett says that while she
loves Mamie their love cannot be in their society, that she has to find
a husband. When Rhett leaves Scarlett at the end of the movie, we got a
final scene you didn't. Mamie comes to the sobbing Scarlett, and
embraces her. 'Oh, I've been such a fool!' says Scarlett, 'it's you I
love, and it always has been. Can you ever forgive me?' Mamie does, and
the end credits roll. Of course, just how a white lady and a black
female slave could be a couple in the antebellum South isn't addressed."
"Wow, that changes the whole movie!" I protested. "Why did they do
that?"
"We crave entertainment as much as you do, but in the version of movies
we see additional scenes are filmed and the movie edited so that any
romance is always between female characters only, with sex scenes framed
so we never see an actress's penis and so can imagine they're like us.
It's kind of the opposite to what they do to old movies. As for why
we're only shown sexual and romantic relationships between women, isn't
it obvious? That's what they want between us, and these films reinforce
that. They don't want us thinking of men as possible romantic interests
for us, only other women."
"Who is this 'they'?"
"Your women, the she-males."
"'She-males'?" I said, frowning. This was the second time she'd used the
term. "I've never heard that term before today."
"I'm not surprised. It originated in pre-Decimation pornography and was
later used as a derogatory term for pre-op and no-op transsexuals. Since
both of us lay claim to the title 'woman', we've found it a useful term
when referring to the distaff half of your society, just as they refer
to us as biofems. But, no....it *is* derogatory. I'll be respectful and
refer to them by another archaic term: transwomen."
"So you're saying there was some sort of conspiracy?"
"'Conspiracy'? As in an organised plan? Not really. no. But consider the
position of that first generation of transwomen. They may have been
referred to as women, placed on a pedestal and lauded as heroes, but
they always knew they were considered just a substitute until a cure for
the virus could be found and real women returned to society. Who wants
to be thought of as a substitute for something, a second-rate copy?
Would you, would anyone? They didn't, and who could blame them? And as
it happened those who set the criteria for streaming children into
either a male or female life had made a mistake, a very important one."
"A mistake?" I said, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"They put one set of qualities on one side of the line, and one set on
the other, yet men and women had always had all those qualities to
varying degrees. An unintended effect of dividing your gender in two was
that creative intelligence mostly ended up on the female side of the
line. Basically, your women are more intelligent than you. Not
surprisingly, as the years passed they began to assume more and more
positions of authority and to gradually shape the world to be the way
they wanted it. How old are you when you first learn about the
differences between men and women?"
"Around seven or eight," I said.
"And about biofems, about us?"
"Twelve or thirteen."
"Right, so you're taught what a women should be - a transwoman - before
you learn of our existence, of biological females. And we're rarely
referred to again, are we? We're never mentioned in films, or books, or
plays. Out of sight, out of mind - just the way they want it. Only
transwomen are ever allowed to interact with us directly. We might have
state-of-the-art hospitals on the reservations, but the doctors are all
transwomen because men are not taught biofem medicine at medical
schools; it's forbidden to them. When the sperm consignments come in,
they're the ones who use it to impregnate us. We're required to wear
burkha's anywhere a man might catch a glimpse of us, and we're told it's
to keep us safe from dangerous gangs who would rape us then kill us.
That may have been true when the reservations were set up, but it's not
true today. Men hardly think of us at all any more, do they?"
"No," I admitted, "we don't."
"Out of sight, out of mind. It's been more than half a century since a
man last saw one of us, after all. Tell me, have you ever had your cock
sucked?"
"What? Do I look like a woman?" I said, wrinkling my nose in disgust. "A
man's penis goes in a woman's anus, and her's goes in his mouth. That's
how sex works. We suck 'em an' then fuck 'em."
She laughed at my reaction.
"It's fascinating to me how your society has evolved," she said. "In the
past, the very idea of a 'female penis' would have been absurd, yet now
you consider it an object of desire. You recoil in horror from a male
one, yet they're the same thing. They really have got you men wrapped
around their little fingers, haven't they?"
This was getting uncomfortable, so I changed the subject.
"What's it like, living on a reservation?"
"We actually live pretty comfortable lives, considering. We have a
flourishing arts and crafts scene and we're in regular contact with
other reservations around the world."
"Really?" I said, surprised. "I didn't know that."
"Yeah, the biofem exchange flights are primarily about keeping gene
pools fresh, but we also use them for foreign travel. We're allowed to
visit other reservations that way for recreational purposes. Also, we're
connected via the subnet."
"Subnet?"
"Where you have the worldnet we have the subnet. They're what resulted
when they split the Internet into a net for you and a net for us. The
two are kept rigidly segregated. It's like a metaphor for our situation:
we may share a planet, but you and we live in two separate worlds."
"You're American," I said, "but you were here long before that. How
come?"
"I was twenty two when Ecowar released Calvin Corso's virus; my kid
brother Louis was fifteen. I'd fallen out with our father and was living
over here, I....oh, oh no!"
She was clutching her left arm, her face going pale, gasping for breath.
"What is it?" I said. "What's wrong?"
She gripped my arm with one hand and stabbed a finger onto the Shawcross
logo on my chest with the other.
Then she died.
- 4 -
ELLEN SHAWCROSS
It was my first meeting of the Eight, and I was nervous. The rest of us
were already seated at the ornate table in the magnificently appointed
study when Victoria Helmsley, matriarch of the Eight, took her seat at
its head. I stared at her in disbelief, and I wasn't the only one.
"Cindy Fulton?!" I said, stunned.
"In public," she chuckled, "but when the Eight meet I'm Victoria
Helmsley."
"But how...?"
"How do I look so young? When we developed the original process, ten
years ago, it could only make us appear up to half our actual ages, with
our subsequent aging being at half the usual rate," she said, "but as
you can see it's now been improved. It's still as eye-wateringly
expensive as ever, but now we can wind back the clock so we appear up to
a quarter our actual ages, with our subsequent aging also now being at
quarter speed. Even if we live to a hundred and twenty, we need
physically appear no more than thirty. Ladies, with our wealth we can
now be young and gorgeous our whole lives."
"So you're sixty-four but you have the energy and appearance of someone
sixteen, a teenager?" I said. "Wow. I can see the appeal, but why would
you want to date actual teenagers?"
"Because they keep me young. We may appear in the first flush of youth,
but we have old minds. Exposing myself to the freshness and vitality of
real teens, embracing their interests, their tastes in music and
fashion, challenges me and keeps me from getting too set in my ways.
Plus, I just love their sexual enthusiasm."
"So will you be marrying Devon?
"God, no. He'd eventually grow too old for me. When he's forty I'll only
be twenty-one physically and still in my prime. I'll need a man with the
sexual stamina to keep me satisfied, and at that age he couldn't keep up
with me. I'd wear him out.
I'll have to reinvent myself every few years, of course, maybe hire new
'parents' and change my appearance - I like the idea of being black
next, maybe Asian after that. And staying anonymous, of course. Victoria
Helmsley being a recluse means that Cindy Fulton is able to move freely
in the world. When you ladies upgrade to the new process, I'd recommend
you become recluses, too."
"It must have cost a fortune to develop," I said.
"Billions," she agreed, "but then the governments of the world are very
generous and give us billions annually to find a cure for the Corso
virus. We've used that money to improve our lives in many ways. From the
pills that allow us to lactate when breast-feeding our babies and to
produce better milk that nature would, to developing genemorphing and
rejuve, of course. We also reworked the female hormones we take so that
loss of penile rigidity is no longer the problem it was for any, and to
make us even more curvacious so that no girl need suffer from a flat
chest ever again."
"Shouldn't all that money be devoted to finding the cure?" I said,
frowning.
"Have you considered the consequences a cure would bring?"
"What do you mean?"
"Though their methods were monstrous, Calvin Corso and his co-
conspirators were right in their analysis. There *were* too many of us
before they released their virus and our numbers were about to seriously
damage the planet. The current system works. Reproduction is no longer
out of control, and as our numbers reach the level we've calculated is
sustainable, we'll improve yield rates so that deaths and births are
better balanced than they were. Plus, of course, those areas of the
world where for religious or cultural reasons they didn't take the
decisions we did are now hugely depopulated and ripe for exploitation.
As capitalists we more than most appreciate the old adage that every
cloud has a silver lining."
"That makes sense."
"Think about what would happen after a cure. Biofems will start
increasing in number and they'll demand to be reintegrated back into our
society, but the role they'll want is no longer available to them. The
position of 'woman' has already been filled. By us. There is no job
vacancy. You're a woman, would you want to give that up, be forced to
become a man? Would you want that to happen to that pretty daughter of
yours?"
I shuddered at the thought.
"No, I wouldn't, but couldn't we stay as we are and have them in society
alongside us, too?"
"It wouldn't work. Our society already has two genders, it doesn't need
a third. The social upheaval that would result from them competing for
our men doesn't bear thinking about. No, it's much better for us if
things stay as they are, with us as women, as men's wives and lovers,
and biofems remaining five percent of the human population and having
our babies for us. We have a system that works. We can see no reason to
change it."
"So you're saying we're not seriously looking for a cure anymore?"
"No, I'm saying that we have a cure for the Corso Virus. We've had it
for thirty years."
- Epilogue -
DANNY MYERS
I drove home feeling more tired than I had in a long time. It had been
one hell of a day. I had carefully moved Laura's body back to her hiding
place under the rear seats of the bus before reporting her presence. I
told those who came to take the body away that I had discovered it when
I was checking out the bus, and that she was already dead when I found
her. I was closely questioned, of course, but they had no reason to
think I wasn't telling the truth so I was soon released. Lucy got a
reprimand for allowing a stowaway to get on the bus, and no doubt
questions will be asked in the reservation itself since Laura was almost
certainly aided in her escape. For myself, I couldn't help wondering
what made her try to get to the outside world after all those years in
the reservation. Why now? What had changed? She had stabbed her finger
into the Shawcross logo on my jumpsuit as she was dying, trying to tell
me something, but what?
I would probably never know.
When I got home I told my wife all about my encounter with Laura.
"You met a biofem?" she said, eyes wide. There was a note of insecurity
in her voice.
"Hey don't be concerned," I said, "she was ancient. But even if she had
been young and beautiful it wouldn't have mattered."
I wrapped my arms around her, around Pamela, my childhood sweetheart and
the love of my life.
"You have nothing to worry about," I said, smiling down into that pretty
face I've been smitten with since we were children. "I don't care how
many biofems I encounter, I'm always going to want to come home to a
real woman."
*****************
The End.
*****************
Note.
After CHANGEDAY: IN THE BEGINNING, which was essentially utopian in
outlook, I felt like writing a more dystopian tale, with something dark
at its heart. This is that story.
I'm not planning on setting any more tales in this universe, but some of
you reading this might want to. I'm happy for you to do so in any not-
for-sale form. Please title any such stories 'BIOFEM: (your title)' to
make it easier to search for them on FM. Points to bear in mind:
The Corso virus was released in the present day, but though this tale is
set seventy years in the future and they're far ahead of us in the
biological sciences, progress in other areas has not kept pace because
of the resources diverted to said biological sciences. They're ahead of
us, but not as far ahead as you'd expect.
While the moderately wealthy can afford genemorph treatments, rejuve is
only available to the super-wealthy, and there are very few of them.