Sarah insured she'd never have any competition for men again. Not that any of the women were any match for to begin with.
This time, the results were obvious. Bars appeared in every window that Sarah could see. Photos of children popped up on the walls in sets suggesting sets of twins, triplets, and even quadruplet and quintuplets. The boys had many hair colors, whereas the girls were never blonde. A redheaded and a brunette female guard materialized in front of the doorway.
Suddenly, an alarm went off. "Men!" screamed the brunette. "Stay here, Sarah! We'll take care of them!"
The redheaded guard remained. Sarah asked her, "What's going on?"
"You're the only heterosexual woman here. All the straight men who haven't already left want you. And we won't let them have you ... unless you allow them, o Blue-Eyed Blonde One."
Sarah loved her ego to be stroked, but this was a bit much. "What's the big deal about me?"
"O Queen Mother, you surely know."
"No, I don't." Sarah didn't like the way the girl said "mother." "But go on."
"I shall. It is not your humble maid's place to question you. We live only to serve you. You are our town's greatest treasure. You have the hair and the eyes of the Life-Giver, the only one in our generation blessed with the privilege of reproduction. Without you, there will be no next generation, no next flaxen-haired Life-Giver."
The kids on the walls, thought Sarah. They're ... gulp ... mine!
She had been so distracted by the other changes around her that she hadn't even noticed how her own body had changed. She couldn't have given birth to so many children every year for years without paying a physical price. Grossed out by what she had become ... by what her world had become ... she closed her eyes, squeezed the rock, and said, "I wish ..."
