A Lesbian Anthology
by
Fourteen tales of women who love women await you within the pages of Her Sigh. Meet Alindra, a woman fleeing a deadly revolution in Evermore. A young reporter seeks to buy love with money in Red Shoes. A ghost of love long lost haunts Vasira in Memories In The Mist. Sophie is a woman with a tragic secret in the war-torn world of Sophie’s Song. In The Price Of Love, Alicia trades love for marriage and risks losing her childhood friend Yumi forever. Princess Talia must choose between her birthright and her lover in Talia’s Choice. In dystopian tale Expiration Date, Amy and Esther learn that raising a child with a limited life span can bring a couple closer together or drive them apart. Freya must Hope Against Hope if she’s to keep her and Aerie’s dream of a Mars colony alive. A trans woman and a lipstick lesbian find companionship and solace in The Antidote, while a woman dreams of her first encounter in Rainy Sunday. Memories are precious… except when they may doom an entire planet, as Alisha learns in Memoria. In Sickness And In Health… Lena and Raine learn the true meaning of those words when a plague strikes their humble village. Arienne must learn to sing the Songs Of Life and Death if she is to fight for something she truly believes in and not someone else’s war. All worlds must come to The End, and digital ones are no exception, as Athea and Ellyne discover.
- 1 To Be Read list
Publisher: Independently Published
Genres:
Pairings: F-F
Heat Level: 4
Romantic Content: 4
Ending: Click here to reveal
Character Identities: Lesbian, Questioning, Transgender
Word Count: 56841
Languages Available: English
I must admit, the first thought I had on that Monday Amy and I moved into our new Couples' Apartment was that our neighbors were strange. It really was an odd thing to see a married couple without a Realichild, and my first thought was to ask them about it. I was all ready to drop the question as we shook hands when Amy dug her elbow into my ribs. We've been together so long that she knew what I was thinking, and that it was inappropriate.
Of course it was inappropriate, but that didn't stop me from wondering as we exchanged niceties. I was almost relieved when the couple—heterosexual, working class, normal as normal gets—retreated into their apartment and shut the door. I forgot their names as soon as they were gone.
READ MORE"They seem nice," Amy said, shooing me into our apartment and shutting the door. Boxes sat in the bland hallway of the two-bedroom apartment, the only decoration in a house that had not yet become a home. No sign of the previous occupants remained, as it always was when a couple left. A street team from the Underground Administration always redecorated the apartments back to their standard magnolia walls and brown stock carpet when a couple officially separated and moved back to the Singles’ section.
"They're weird," I complained. "Why take a two-bedroom if you're not going to have a Realichild?"
"Maybe they did," Amy said. "You can't prove they didn't."
"Then where is it? There's no way they've been married more than ten years, and Singles aren't allowed Realichildren."
"It's rare, but sometimes Realichildren Expire early. Or maybe they just haven't taken the plunge yet. Don't be judgmental, Esther. You don't know their story."
"You heard her. She seemed almost anti-Realichild."
"It happens. The ten year Expiry date puts some people off. Some people can't stand to get too attached, you know?"
"A Realichild is their only shot at parenthood. Are they really going to shun it altogether because Expiry hurts?"
"Look, Esther, I'm tired. Save the moralizing about our neighbors for tomorrow, okay? I want to get settled in so we can apply for our Realichild."
I smiled at that. I'd been looking forward to this moment even more than our wedding, which had already been the best day of my life so far. Section life was often boring, stuck underground as we were. A nuclear holocaust long before my birth had made the world Above uninhabitable, and now we all lived beneath ground in the Sections, tunnels and caves carved out far enough below the planet to keep us safe from the radiation. Space was limited, and so tight limits had been placed on reproduction. All but a few Chosen by the Government to preserve genetic diversity were sterilized, and offered a Realichild when they married as a way to preserve the need for family life. The Realichildren weren't real, of course. They were flesh and blood, grown in a tank, they felt, heard, sang and laughed like real children, and could be taught, but they had a shelf life of only ten years. At the end of those ten years, they would Expire on their Final Birthday, a day of celebration and mourning for each family. It was sometimes possible to get a second Realichild at the end of the first term, but few ever did. If the marriage dissolved, the Realichild Expired early, conveniently avoiding the messy question of custody that kept Singles from moving on with their lives.
Ten years seemed like such a long time in the future that I barely gave it much thought. I'd seen couples break up over the Expiry of their Realichild, but I always imagined Amy and I would grow closer. I pushed my dark thoughts away: today was a happy day. We were newly married, and were soon to bring our Realichild home.
The future had never looked so promising.
COLLAPSE
