“You’re going to have to finish this,” she said to Kim. She stood and left the room. Behind her, Braden began to sob.
We Should Take Clone Pedophilia Seriously
by Jessica Brantley
Jonas Freeman is as conventional a person as you might find in the United States today. An IT specialist at an energy contractor for the U.S. government, he lives in a suburban Seattle neighborhood, rides public self-drivers to work four days a week, and coaches city league soccer. He and his son spend many of their afternoons together designing virtual-reality environments.
Until two weeks ago, that is. When Freeman was arrested for pedophilia, his previous life was effectively over. His victim? His cloned son.
Freeman's case is one of at least ten that have come to light in the last three years, igniting a far-ranging clash of civil rights groups from every side, including reproductive freedom, LGBTQA, clone equality, and even journalistic integrity.
“Clone pedophilia is horrible. Pedophilia of any kind is horrible. That shouldn't be understated,” said Jean Bautista, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts and a long-time advocate for both women's rights and the rights of cloned humans. “The problem with shining a spotlight on these crimes is the disgust and revulsion it evokes are too often misdirected toward clones in general, as well as their parents, or even their partners and spouses. It’s reminiscent of how pedophilia was used as a scare tactic during the early days of the gay rights movement.”
“They’re trying to hush it up, silence the people, kill the free press,” said Samir Ashton, national spokesperson for Never Backward Always Forward, a government watchdog agency. “It’s the same sort of kneejerk reaction you see from federal agencies and their apologists anytime a news story might reflect negatively on SPR, no matter how tangentially.”
CONTINUE READING ON PAGE 2
VIEW COMMENTS
JonasMoses: Oh, for Christ's sake.
reelgirl: the auther of this article is clearly intolerent what a didunophobe
samanthaclearwater: she's got a point
jeka109: Oh, really? She has a point? Should we start asking “hard questions” about teachers because of the actions of a few perverts? Should we “reevaluate” the teaching profession because of a few who abuse their position and profession?
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4
The coalition took Tehran two days ago, and much of the city is empty. Val and Asa steal an hour to separate from their unit and find an abandoned men’s shop. Suit coats and dress pants lie scattered on the floor, dusty with broken drywall. They tread on the debris of someone’s life. Glass. Paper. Wood.
Asa shakes the dust off of several jackets. Spreads them across a table in what had been the store’s backroom before most of the wall was knocked down. His hands shaking, he strips Val’s clothes off her almost frantically. Now she stands naked in the bombed-out store, not a soldier and a pilot but a woman. Completely exposed in a place where women have spent their entire public lives buried under hijabs and burqas. Then he lifts her onto the table and makes love to her so hard that the table inches across the tile floor until it strikes a wall. The table legs creak and groan underneath them, and at any moment Val expects to come crashing down in a heap of wood with Asa on top of her. She has craved him for weeks, and nothing is going to stop it. He has pleasured her before, but not like this. This was what she has ached for. Him. All of him.
When it is over, she holds him against her, arms and legs wrapped around his body, which is hard and moist with sweat. She buries her face in his neck and feels his pulse with her lips. Even though the sex is over, she doesn’t want to let go of him. She pulls him so tight against her that her arm and leg muscles ache and tremble. Finally, he pulls away, and she lets him go.
“I love you,” she says, going slightly dizzy. Even though they both know it, this is the first time either of them has said it.
“I...” he says. He bends over and pulls up his pants. Val admires his muscled shoulders and back, the way his triceps and chest flex as he works at the button and zipper of his pants. “I love you, too.”
Val looks at him, her hands gripping the edge of the table. It creaks again under her weight. In the quiet of downtown Tehran, the sound seems as loud as a mortar shell. Something is wrong. His face is wrong. His eyes are downturned.
“But?”
He fastens his belt. He won’t look at her. “I do love you,” he says. “But when I get home, I’m going to try to work things out with my wife.”
Wife.
The word feels like a sliver of ice sliding down her throat—the kind that gets caught in your gullet and cuts like a knife until it melts.
“Wife,” she says.
Just minutes ago, she ached for him, wanted nothing else except to feel his hands on her bare skin, for his fingers to dig into her flesh with the pleasure of her. Now she sits naked on a table a thousand miles from her home in Georgia, the light of the Iranian sun shining on her exposed body and the fragments of some shop owner’s life scattered around her, and she feels worse than ridiculous. At any moment, someone could walk by the front of the store and turn to see her staring wide-eyed at the man who just fucked her, his semen still leaking out of her onto a suit coat that will never be sold. Ten minutes ago, the risk of being caught and the feeling of exposure only increased the craving she had for him. Now it makes her hate him—and hate herself even more.
Sitting on the front porch, Val sipped her coffee and looked out at the sky over the trees. In the east, the first orange hint of dawn had appeared.
I’m so sorry, said Braden’s voice in her head. He sounded stricken, even in his thought-voice.
She stifled a fresh wave of annoyance that he had apologized telepathically instead of coming out to her. He was still a child, after all, and was probably afraid to see her right now. Like her and Kim, he could only do the best he could with the life he had been handed—the life they had handed him.
Now’s not the time, Val thought. I need you to stay away for now.
She waited for a response, but when there was only silence, she felt guilty. In a way, she hoped that he was still listening so he would know she felt guilty.
She drained her coffee and resisted the urge to throw the mug. It was an antique Star Wars mug that Kim had found for her on an online auction—probably close to a hundred years old, as best as she and Kim could tell. She set it down beside her and hugged her knees tight against her chest.
The screen door opened behind her with a slow creak. She didn’t have to turn to know it was Kim.