.
I reached back and tugged the waistband of my skirt down a bit so that the hemline would drop. I wouldn’t give them the dignity of a response. If Jim were here, he’d take out both of them for what they were saying.
That’s when I realized that my blouse was hanging low. Even though I was wearing a bra, they no doubt had a good view of my breasts hanging there as I bent over. I felt myself flush red as I stood up and jammed the blouse into my pants. It wasn’t even the kind of blouse you were supposed to tuck in.
I heard the men laughing behind me and glanced over quickly. The three of them were staring at me, and I went from uncomfortable to alarmed. Just when I was starting to wonder if I’d have to scream for help, they piled into a pickup truck, laughing at their manliness at making a woman feel like a helpless piece of meat who was only there for them to ogle, and they drove off.
I let out a shuddering breath and returned to checking the car over. I tucked my skirt under my thighs and crouched this time, and kept alert for anyone else in the parking lot.
I don’t blame them for looking, really. I get it. A beautiful women bent over at the waist, with her short skirt showing off her underwear, and her breasts hanging out of her blouse? Of course they’re going to look. But why the hell do they think it’s okay to say things like that? Just once it would be nice if a man politely called for my attention and said, “Excuse me, ma’am, you’re exposing yourself.”
“Why, thank you for telling me, sir,” I’d say. “I appreciate that.”
But no. They just behave like pigs—pigs who are the driving force behind all the laws that limit women’s rights. They’re why I have to be on the road for twenty hours, why I have to visit a foreign country, why I’ll lie about my mission to everyone, and why I have to risk prison time.
I scoured the car until I was sure—once again—that there was nothing incriminating anywhere inside, and then I hit the road. I drove rural Route 9 through the eastern wilderness of Maine, and soon enough I was in the small city of Calais, on the American side. They pronounce it “CAL-iss,” not “cal-AY” as the French speakers across the St. Croix River might. But none of that mattered; what mattered was the border crossing.
It used to be easy to go to Canada, because you only dealt with the Canadian border guards on the way in.
You didn’t have to deal with the American border guards until you came back. But not these days. Oh, no. With the fearmongering by the government, now you had to go through a U.S. checkpoint even if you’re leaving. And suddenly there I was, the next car, and the female border agent waving me forward. I’d rehearsed this in my mind a thousand times—what I would say, how I would answer, the way I’d behave, planning for every possible contingency. I had an elaborate fiction planned to be as believable as I could be. I was visiting my friend in St. Stephen and for a few days, then returning with her to Maine to spend a week at a family camp on nearby Meddybemps Lake, where we would plan my wedding, which would happen next summer, with my fiancé who is from this part of Maine, and so on—all a complete fiction, but I’d practiced on being very good at delivering those lies.
I handed over my passport and the guard took it, and despite my plans and rehearsals I felt my heart pounding. I just knew I looked guilty. She looked over my passport and then at me.
“What is your purpose in Canada?” she asked. She was beautiful, a bit older than me, and she wore a short-sleeved, olive-green shirt. Her brass nameplate told me that her last name was BLACKMUN. Her olive-green pants matched her shirt, with a black stripe up the sides, and her black shoes were polished like mirrors. She wore a light-colored hat that looked like something that state troopers wore.
“Just visiting a friend in St. Stephen,” I said, casual and relaxed… but then I fell apart. I began rambling nonstop, spewing out my entire fake story about wedding plans and camping and my fiancé’s life in Maine and I realized that the guard was staring at me, her brow raised in obvious alarm as I robotically recited all these facts that she hadn’t even asked for.
I stopped in mid-sentence and met her cold, dark eyes. I could feel the fear on my face, and I knew that she could see it. And in that traded look between us, I knew that she had somehow looked into my mind and knew that something was very suspicious.
“All right,” she said after a long moment, and he handed my passport back to me with a smile. “Thank you, ma’am. Have a good day.”
When I look back on it, I think Border Patrol Agent Blackmun knew exactly what I was up to. If so, then she understood.
* * *
What a series of lies.
I’d already lied to my husband, the man who was the most important person in my life. He knew that I was pregnant, but we both wanted to abort. We’d had to resign ourselves to accepting the risk. Under the law, abortion is legal under any circumstances, including the fact that this pregnancy was likely to kill me should it go to term.
Now I’d lie to the American Border Patrol when I came back through, and try to hide the fact that I’d had an abortion in Canada. I’d lie to my family. I’d lie to my friends. And I’d lie to everyone for the rest of life if I didn’t want to end up in prison for murder. I’d tell Jim when I got back, and he’d be happy that my life was no longer at risk, but terrified that I’d be discovered. Abortion could get you imprisoned—in some cases executed. Better that I died along with the fetus, they say, than just the fetus.
It was a lot to risk. But sometimes we have to take a lot of risk to fight for our rights.
“Time After Time”
Dystopian
By David M. Fitzpatrick
Jennifer had slipped out of her father’s house after lunch, as she did every weekend. It was her weekly walk in the woods, she’d tell everyone. Of course, she made a beeline for the old shed in the woods.
It was built of logs with an old metal roof, a remnant from when it had stood at the end of some farmer’s field decades before. Now, trees had grown up around it, so the field was a hundred feet away. It was nicely obscured, brown logs and green moss helping it blend in nicely. It was sagging a bit but mostly in good shape. She flew the door open—easy, since Robert had fixed the old thing so that it more or less opened and closed—and found the inside as neat as she had left it.
The shed was barely ten feet on a side, and some old, rusted tools still hung on the wall. The floor was a bit warped but still sturdy. Jennifer quickly opened the old storage box and pulled out the pile of old blankets she had long before hidden there. She quickly spread them on the floor, double-folded, creating a decent bed—soft and thick.
She had just finished and stood when the door flew open. She spun to see Robert, and they beheld each other—he in his jeans and T-shirt, she in her sundress. They stared at each other, eyes wide, for several seconds before Robert threw the door shut behind him and they collided into each other’s arms, kissing. Waves of love and passion washed through Jennifer, speeding up her heart and heating up that most private part of her body. She felt his passionate kiss, felt his broad chest, felt his muscular arms holding her, and felt his erection growing longer and harder against her belly.
He broke the kiss long enough to say, “I’ve missed you so much!”
“I’ve missed you too,” she said, but she was so wet, and she needed to make love with him right then. She fumbled at his belt and got his pants open, even as he pulled the zipper of her dress down in the back. In another minute, they were naked, and he laid her down on the bed of blankets. He rolled on a condom and then he kissed her as he moved between her thighs.
He slid easily into her soaking-wet womanhood, and she cried out in pleasure. The next half hour was a blur of ecstasy that threatened never to end. He moved in and out of her slowly at first, then fast and furious, and then he was slow again. She thrust her hips to meet him, eager to feel that peak of pleasure—and he brought her there, over and over, time after time, until he could feel her quaking body and know that she couldn’t take it any longer. Then he picked up his pace until she was screaming in one final, explosive orgasm, and he roared and came, collapsing on her, her arms and legs wrapped around her.
They recovered some