My tendency to avert my eyes was another one of my oddities. Not just with the other half, but with everyone. Margie tried to break me of that habit with nearly as much determination as my mothers, though none of them had any success. The problem was, I didn’t know I was doing it until it was brought to my attention. So when, two weeks into my stint as an inspection officer at the border, our hands overlapped on the clipboard, I wasn’t sure what face to expect when I looked up.

Her lips were thin and dry, something I would have found entirely unappealing for our half. Just as her crisp, brown hair looked more suitable for scrubbing a floor than running my fingers through. Yet her skin was softer than I expected and warm, very warm.

Returning to my senses, I quickly signed the inspection slip and handed it back to her. With a bashful smile, she took her copy and hurried back to her truck. As soon as she was out of sight, I checked the signature. Ben. Her name was Ben.

Prior to my position at the border, I had been working as a clerk for a sock company. My annual bonus was two bags of socks and a bottle of gin. I hated gin but was content with the routine. It was easy, low stress, and thoughtless; a place where I could indulge my staring lapses unnoticed. But like my relationship with my wife, things had gradually gone stale.

That’s when Rosie came into the picture. One day my mind returned to my body to find her standing in my line of sight, smiling at me. It was her first week in the office, and we had yet to meet. I smiled back, and the next thing I knew, she was telling me her life story in a bar down the street as I nodded and sipped my drink, wondering what her breasts looked like beneath her sweater. She had more curve to her than Margie. I thought I might like that.

When the story of my life came into question, I slogged through the mundane details: before this job I repaired refrigerators, before that, I worked at a library, before that I drove a cab, and before that, I bartended a few nights a week while finishing my history degree. The longer I went on, the more sullen I became. The bar was the only episode from my past I could bring myself to make light of, so I launched into a description of the ridiculous skirt I wore and lines I used trying to coax tips. Sometimes they even worked, I told her. Though, not often.

Rosie glanced down at her empty glass and said, “How interesting,” with the elusive smile of a person disinterested.

I mentioned Margie and that I should probably be getting home.

One hand caught my wrist as the other flagged the waiter. “Just one more.”

We rented a room in the hotel across the street. Rosie undressed slowly, giving me a bit of a show as I watched from the bed, having already removed my own clothes, tossed them on the floor, and slipped under the covers. An image of Margie struck me then, home alone, praying for my return to Her Way. I didn’t know what I was doing there.

Needless to say, Margie was more than a little surprised when I quit my job the next day. Things had changed, I explained. My new supervisor was impossible to please, and I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Margie smirked. “Dealing with someone impossible to please? I can’t imagine how frustrating that must be.”

It wasn’t like me to keep secrets; I didn’t like it. But the thought of facing Rosie again anytime soon was too much for me to bear, let alone anyone else if they found out. For now, all I could do was assure Margie I’d find another job soon. I always did.

“Of course, you will, dear. And I can’t wait to see what it’ll be this time.”

Working at the border wouldn’t have been worse than any other job if it weren’t for Margie’s lectures. Each morning before I left, she diligently braided my hair to disguise its silkiness, then wound it into a tight coil at the back of my head. My bulky, grey uniform sufficiently concealed my figure without alteration.

To flaunt my body in front of them, smile too broadly, laugh too loudly—essentially, be natural in any way—would be seen as signs of sexual interest and acted on without consequence. That was their culture.

What did she think made us slaves in the first place, I would ask, the fear of violence, or the frequency? The separation was meant to be an escape from all that. Couldn’t she see what she was perpetuating? Regardless of the past, fear wasn’t freedom.

“They locked us away like slaves, Nora! We didn’t even have names after one of them claimed us. Breeding was all we were good for, and if not for the barrier, those monsters on the other side would still be doing with us as they pleased. You want me to say you’re braver than I am? Fine, Nora, you’re braver than I am. But you still need to cover up.”

On more days than not, there was a newspaper article left out on the breakfast table for me to see. Descriptions of the breeders lurking among us and the recent raids on their houses across the border. The photos were always dark and blurred: faceless bodies in a torrent of thrashing, police pulling them one direction and another, dragging them off to the Farm. Everything looked filthy. Nothing like the clean beige-and-white of our home, its suffocating lack of colour growing more apparent to me by the day.

Despite what Margie expected, there was little opportunity for a misdemeanor in shipping, and from what I could tell, it didn’t make a difference. One thing she was right about, I was the most attractive person working there, my coworkers generally sharing an unfortunate bulk and coarseness. Coming from the sock company, an environment where I put the least amount of effort into my appearance, admittedly it was not unpleasant standing out in this way. But I stood out among my own, received all the signs Margie warned me not to give from them, and barely got a glance from the other half—who, though strange-looking, were far from the bulbous, deformed images in our history books. My contact with them was limited to the exchange of scribbles and passing of clipboards. With one exception.

After our accidental brush of skin, I watched for Ben—searched, in fact, more eagerly than I could make sense of—and soon understood the reason I hadn’t noticed Ben earlier was that Ben didn’t want to be noticed. The hair dangling in her eyes was there to hide behind, the same as the thread dangling from the sleeve of her jacket, which she eyed and fiddled with endlessly. When she noticed me watching her, my immediate reaction was to look away. Then, forcing dignity upon myself, I began nodding to her, a gesture she dutifully returned, despite the resulting redness of her cheeks.

Days passed before Ben returned to my station. I told myself it wasn’t intentional, but the fact was, whenever she had another option, she took it. From our brief conversations, I slowly pieced together an understanding of her. Her stint as a delivery driver was only temporary until an office position opened up. She used to work in design, creating the tables and chairs the company was known for. That was at least mildly related to her visual arts background, but for reasons she didn’t go into, she had asked to be reassigned. On her left hand—the hand usually tucked up her sleeve, fidgeting with loose threads—she wore a gold ring. Her wife’s name was Dustin. They had been together for seven years. Dustin was a pediatrician. They had a small place in the city now but eventually planned to get something bigger in the country.

When Ben couldn’t sleep, she went for walks. I liked that and began doing the same. As I strolled past shadowy shop windows and trash-strewn allies, I tried to imagine what streets were like on her side of the border. Over the hundred years it took industry and trade to catch up after separation, the buildings that remained underwent a period of rushed rejuvenation, followed by a lapse into disrepair and eventual abandonment. Now traces of the past were relics to be either hunted for or forgotten. Which purpose Ben’s walks served, I could only guess.

Nearly a month had passed when Ben told me she had something to show me in her truck. Margie’s warnings echoed through my mind. It was also against protocol and early morning, one of our busiest times of day for shipments, when colleagues and security were swarming. But my feet were already moving.

The light was dim, but I could see the scratch across the tabletop clearly enough. What did I think, should she wait for her customer to complain or send the shipment along short?

I ran my hand over the superficial streak, thinking more about her voice than anything else. There was nothing rough about it. It was deep and smooth. Glancing back, I told her I really shouldn’t comment. This wasn’t my area.

In that case, she was sorry she wasted my time.

She shouldn’t be. I needed a break anyway. I turned back to the table and ran my hand across its surface once more. She took a step closer, and all the hair on my body stood on end.  Suddenly her cheek pressed to mine. I leaned back against her and closed my eyes. Neither of us spoke. We just breathed. Then we went back to work.

As easy as it was to slide into that half-embrace, it was just as easy to pretend it never happened. For days, I turned away when I saw her, forgoing our customary nod, and she made it easy for me by doing the same. There was a tightness in my chest as I watched her pass me by, a simultaneous sinking and lifting.

Margie was happy that week. We made love for the first time in months and held each other the nights we didn’t. It was finally clear to me how much I loved her. A baby? I suggested.  I was ready now, I really was. She should get the application.

Things were turning around. The more I thought about it, the other half were revolting, and Ben was no exception. The nonsense in the truck was just that, nonsense, and would never happen again. My curiosity was finally out of my system.

That was the problem with denial. What I thought to be true turned out to be lies, and it made me hate myself more than I already did.

I continued to ignore Ben and she me, until one afternoon my station was her only option. As she held out the clipboard, I had the sudden urge to grab her hand—her softer-than-I-expected hand. It trembled, but she didn’t pull away. I demanded to see inside her truck.

We came to an opening in the stacks of chairs, and I pulled her toward me. We kissed.  The next thing I knew, I was undoing her pants as she tugged mine down. Our bodies collided clumsily in the dark until fumbling into place, and I gasped—from surprise as much as excitement. We were finished within minutes, but before we parted, her head fell to my shoulder and she wept.

The disgust that followed was deep and debilitating. I couldn’t cling to Margie for reassurance anymore—I couldn’t even look at her. I prayed for God to show me Her Way, every morning, every night, and I cried and cried because I knew, even if She did, I wouldn’t follow. My mind wanted salvation, Margie, and our simple life, but the rest of me wanted Ben, a person I hardly knew, who showed me I hardly knew myself, wanted her with a need that nauseated me.

As my personal life began to slip so did my work. I was jumpy and agitated, constantly wondering who knew. My staring lapses gradually became more frequent, causing mistake after mistake to go unnoticed and uncorrected. I neglected to bathe most days and wore the same uniform for weeks at a time.

Ben’s hygiene had undergone the opposite change. Her hands were scrubbed raw, her hair and face neatly trimmed and shaved, her clothing new each time I saw her. Aside from her jacket, the cuff of which had now completely come apart. She tried harder than I did to keep away. We were together a total of three times over the course of six months. Three times, before I found myself sitting across from my supervisor in her office.

The amber-coloured walls had recently been repainted a chalky grey. It made the room feel smaller, constrictive. I could hardly breathe as I waited for her to explain why I was there.

Shuffling papers around her desk, eyes down, Sal muttered, “It’s been brought to my attention, that, uh… that…” She sighed. “Goddamnit, you’ve been fuckin’ around in the trucks!”

Images of the Farm flashed before my eyes, of rape and tests, of Margie’s disgust and newspaper clippings. I burst into tears.

“Come on, now.” Sal’s voice softened as she leaned across the desk to hand me a tissue. “I’m not gonna report you, alright?” Shock must have registered on my face; Sal chuckled.  “Don’t go thinkin’ I’m some fuckin’ breeder too, huh? But the stuff goin’ on at the Farm, God, what’d happen to a pretty thing like you? You people have a disease. Just go home to your, uh, what’s her name? Margie, was it? Pray, straighten up. You look like shit. That’ll be my reason in your file. I can’t give you a reference, but you’re probably good at lying. Make somethin’ up. Nobody wants to work at the border anyway.”

I didn’t pray or straighten up. I told Margie I was sick and spent the rest of the week in bed—I had a disease, after all. After a few days, she wanted to call a doctor, but I refused. There was something going around at work, I explained, and people kept saying the only thing that helped was rest. Sal was right: I had become a practiced liar, though not necessarily a good one. Margie knew more was going on than I was telling her, but somehow that didn’t seem to make her suspicious at all. She doted on me, offering me back rubs, blankets, soup, anything I wanted. Was she blind? I didn’t need back rubs, blankets, or soup, I needed her to leave, leave me alone, get away from me before I ruined her like I’d ruined myself.

One week quickly became two. Then one afternoon, as I was on my way back to bed after rummaging through the kitchen for snacks, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Sal standing on the other side with a piece of paper in her hand. My mouth could produce no words.

Sal smiled. “Do you really want me to say who it’s from in the hallway?”

I let her in, and we stood facing each other in the entryway, me in my robe, Sal in her uniform, each waiting for the other to speak. I suddenly became aware of the clutter that had accumulated since Margie left the apartment that morning. Anxious to avoid Sal’s eyes, I turned toward the kitchen and offered her a drink.

“No, no,” she said, stopping me. “I’m just makin’ a delivery.” She handed me the paper.

My heart fluttered as I read the signature.

“Seemed she was workin’ up the courage all week. You should’ve seen the look on her face the first time she saw me standin’ there instead of you,” she chuckled. “Anyhow, I don’t know what it says, and I don’t wanna know. Do what you want with it.”

After I thanked her, Sal turned back to the door but paused with her hand on the knob. “If, uh,” she cleared her throat. “I’m not sayin’ it will, but if all this lands you in the Farm, keep an eye out for Mel, would ya? Curly brown hair, a mole on her cheek. She’s, uh, she was my sister.”

There was a place. Ben had heard rumours and was certain it was real. She’d wait for me every night by the road on the other side until I found a way across.

Sal meant what she said. She didn’t want to know where I was going or why, but after a substantial bribe, she did want to help. I borrowed one of her uniforms, padded the sides and belly to fill it out, and tucked my hair under a cap. Sal broke with her usual schedule and picked up a night shift. Only one other station was open at night, and the guards were half asleep. After Sal’s break, I returned in her place. There was a dead area in the cameras over by the sea can. Apparently Sal was in the habit of wandering over there to pee, so no one would think anything of it if she disappeared for a few minutes, and they weren’t paying enough attention to realize that when she eventually re-emerged it was from the building and not the sea can, where I was in the process of squeezing through a gap in the fence.

I emerged in a field. Lights from the station glistened to my right, so I ran left, and I kept running until I reached the road. Ben woke with such a jolt; her head banged the window. Ducking in the passenger door, I shouted for her to drive and didn’t take another breath until the barrier was out of sight.

Following a crumpled map, it took over a dozen turns and nearly an hour until we finally reached Ben’s crudely marked ‘X’. It was an old area of the city, more crooked and filthy than any area I’d seen, and judging by her trembling, the same could be said for Ben. A thrill ran through me as we disembarked, followed by a rush of fear.

Two large bodies blocked the shaded doorway we were bound for. As we approached, one of them stepped forward and grunted, “IDs?”

I nearly bolted in the other direction.

The goon smiled. “Just kiddin’.”

They were Margie’s fears realized. The speaker’s sparse hair was slicked back by repeated swipes of a damp palm across a greasy forehead. Her face was coated in a coarse stubble that trailed down her neck to the mane bursting from her yellowing undershirt. Her partner had hands the size of bear paws. When she stopped snickering, she raised her paws to Ben’s neck and gave her a leathery caress. “Maybe you don’t pay tonight, huh? Just finish with him and come find me.”

Ben staggered back and grabbed for my hand.

The goons laughed.

We fumbled through our wallets, handed them everything we had, and rushed inside.

The room, the entire building, smelled of mildew and stale alcohol. The decaying black walls were chipped and crumbling, exposing hidden layers of colour. It looked exactly like the pictures from the newspapers, only vivid and real, more vivid than any place I had ever been.

Atop a stained mattress, Ben and I lay in a tangle of limbs and sheets, breathing each other in. I explained my arrangement with Sal, how I didn’t know if she’d help again, and how Margie thought I was visiting my mothers. Perhaps I’d felt guilty for so long now I was numb to it, but it surprised me how casually I was able to speak of Margie. She had a surreal quality here.  Like part of a dream I had woken from. Now was real, this moment, this body in my arms. No more fumbling out of dirty work clothes in the dark, I looked Ben in the eyes before I kissed her, and I wanted to keep looking, keep chipping away the layers of black to see what colours lay beneath. Would I come down from this high when I left here? With my mind finally caught up to my body, it didn’t seem possible.

I asked Ben how she managed to get away each night, wondering what lies she had to tell Dustin.

“Dustin left.”

My breath caught in my chest.

“No, he won’t report me. Honestly, it didn’t make a difference. He had a list of things he was just waiting to say to me. About breeders, and how I would rather be a slave than be with him. He already knew, Nora. I just needed to say it.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Ben, a slave?

“You chained our ankles and worked us to death to feed all your little mouths.” She ran her hand over my stomach and smiled. “I didn’t actually think you were covered in mouths—well, I hoped not. Dustin said if I just prayed more, I would find His Way again. I said no, I wouldn’t. He said maybe if we went away for a while, I’d see this was all in my head. I said no, I wouldn’t. He said a few months from now I’d realize I was wrong and beg him to come back. I said, no,” she sighed, “I wouldn’t. When he ran out of things to say, he took Jerry and left.”

My pieced-together understanding of Ben’s life had more gaps than I realized. Jerry was a cat? A dog? A daughter? Did Ben have a daughter?

Suddenly, a scream tore through the hallway. We looked at each other, then scrambled for our clothes.

The door burst open as Ben was hopping into her pants. I was a little more than half-dressed, with my pants up but unbuttoned and Sal’s uniform wide open. Two police officers seized Ben’s arms. I don’t think she would’ve struggled if she hadn’t been so frightened, but she thrashed at them and shouted until one of them punched her in the jaw. They dragged her out the door.

Everywhere people were screaming. In the hallway a dog yelped, and I thought Ben must have kicked it. I pictured it lying there dead and thought, good, it’s better that way. I don’t know why I thought that, but the next thing I knew, another officer was coming toward me, and instead of letting her take me, I darted for the window and jumped out.

When I woke, there were tubes in my arm and a bandage on my head. The ache of my body was dulled by a hazy sense of serenity. Someone I assumed to be a doctor entered the room. My eyes wouldn’t focus on the paper she handed me.

I asked her about the dog.

“I don’t know anything about a dog,” she said, “but you’re going to be fine. As long as you sign the paper.”

Good, I thought. Margie would be relieved to hear that.

The first thing I noticed about the Farm was its whiteness. The linens, the robes, the walls, all white. No matter how often I bathed, I felt filthy in comparison.

“No, not filthy,” my councillor corrected. “We don’t use that word here. It’s just easier when everything’s the same. People know what to expect. It helps them relax and focus on what matters. Now, tell me more about Margie. You must miss her terribly.”

I did, actually. Our life together was all either of us knew, and I really did love her, as much as I could. I wanted desperately to tell her the Farm was a more humane place than she expected. For all I knew, she was at home that very moment crying over the endless abuse I was being subjected to. I said as much to my councillor, how one short phone call could save Margie so much grief, but her reply was the same as always: “I’m afraid until you’re cured, that’s impossible.”

The other half were kept in a separate complex I would never see. I wouldn’t officially be a breeder until I was deemed incurable, and even then, the breeding was left to science, not desire. I couldn’t deny feeling disappointed when I heard that. I would’ve liked to see Ben again.

I asked my councillor how often they were successful in finding a cure. “Oh, it varies,” she replied. “A practicing breeder is obviously more difficult to reform than someone who comes for help with confused thoughts. But that’s not to say you’re without hope. We’re always very optimistic about people without a history of perversion. Now, tell me about the night you arrived. Why did you jump?”

I thought of telling her about the walls; the colours I saw that night, none of which were beige, gray, or white. I thought of the dog, and how I found relief in its dying yelp. But those were just thoughts. I didn’t know what they meant. I only knew that I was afraid, so that’s what I told her. I was afraid, and I was tired of being afraid.

After three months without progress, they offered to intensify my therapy—preferred, in fact, that I let them test their drugs and electrodes on me. I declined.

They called it a choice. In a way, it was. Honesty was always a choice, and it was the choice I made when my councillor asked me to reconsider. I explained it to her as best I could.

“I’ve spent my life in the shadow of the barrier, fearing what was on the other side, and now that I’ve found a way across, I can’t go back. My way may not be Her Way, it may not be His Way, but it is my way, and no amount of pretending, prayer, or therapy will change that.”

Whether she understood or not, it didn’t matter. I had to say it. After feeling as though I couldn’t for so long, I just had to say it.

The next morning, I was moved to my new, more permanent residence—permanent until my body ceased to create life, and I was shipped off to perform a different kind of labour. I thought of each of my daughters as Ben’s. Time after time, as my belly grew larger and I felt the first fluttering signs of thrashing inside me, I tried to comfort them by telling them our story. Whatever side of the barrier they ended up on, whoever’s arms held them when they were taken from me, I hoped hearing my voice might help them find their own voices someday, their own ways to follow. Ben and I had no future, but perhaps somehow, our daughters would. Bright futures with no shortage of colour. At least, that’s what I hoped.