Subjection by Alicia Cameron Page A

anyway. It seemed safer.
    “You have five minutes to make your beds, change into regulation clothing, and get to sleep. There will be no talking, no leaving beds, and no contact between any of you.”
    I hesitated for a moment, watching the other boys scurry to follow the orders. As if they had been doing it all their lives, they stripped naked in front of a room of dudes. I wasn’t a prude by any means, but I didn’t even know their names! I fiddled with the hem of my shirt for a few moments before trying to stall.
    “Um, excuse me, what do I do with my clothes?”
    The guard slapped me in the face before I even registered him walking toward me, and I cried out as I stumbled aside. Nobody had ever hit me like that before, and it hurt!
    “Your job is to do as you’re told,” the guard growled, seeming pleased when I cowered a little. “Don’t waste time asking stupid questions about things you’re too ignorant to understand.”
    “Yes, sir,” I mumbled, deciding that perhaps my unquestioning peers were right about it. I eyed up the pajama shirt and decided it was long enough to offer me some modesty, so I changed into that first, then the pants.
    I was halfway through putting the sheets on my bed when a guard announces that it was lights out. The beast towered over me, smiled sadistically, and ripped the bedding from my hands.
    “You sleep on the floor,” he ordered. “Maybe next time you’ll move faster.”
    I sighed, figuring he was enjoying his little power play. I was about to retort something sarcastic, but my cheek still hurt where he slapped me earlier, so I held my tongue. I lay down on the floor and looked hopefully at the bedding that he took from me.
    He dropped it back on the bed.
    “Touch it tonight and I’ll beat you within an inch of your life,” he warned. I didn’t doubt him, although the urge to touch it was strong. I resisted.
    The floor was cold. Not intolerably cold, but maybe five degrees above intolerably cold. The pajamas were thin and scratchy, and I longed for blankets to curl up with more than I longed for the mattress. Even the regulation-grade pillow sounded pretty damn good. But I was afraid to fuck up so soon. Not before my first full day. I couldn’t handle that much. I could barely handle the situation as it was.
    If the sounds were any indication, the other boys weren’t handling it much better. There were muffled cries and sobs, and the sounds of lots of people tossing and turning in what must have been uncomfortable beds. I was surprised the guards didn’t come and yell at them for making noise, but maybe they did have some sort of compassion. That, or they just didn’t care. As far as anyone else was concerned, we were no longer people, no longer worthy of compassion. Like animals, we had been sterilized earlier, our “inadequate” genes removed from the gene pool. My dick hurt, well, my balls, more accurately, but it seemed to spread to the whole thing. As I lay there in the dark, I reached down and gingerly ran a finger along the small line of stitches from the vasectomy. It was such a little thing, but it changed me forever, just like the Assessment, just like the choice that I had made.
    I thought about my brother, who got to go home, who got to go to the graduation ceremony and see mom and dad. I knew it would be hard for him to go on alone, and I knew it would be hard for our parents as well, but I knew I made the right decision. Mom and dad would have eventually grown bored of my “selfishness,” as they called it so often, my tendency to look out for nobody but myself.
    I did always look out for Abriel. I had always considered him an extension of myself, and I wouldn’t have done it for just anyone. My sacrifice was for my brother, my twin, my genetic pair. I had always thought we did best when we were together, when we could both use our own strengths to compensate for the other’s weaknesses, but I knew I did the right thing by saving him. He could go