She Doesn't Meet Anyone on the Way

Being in the middle of the afternoon, she didn't run into anyone on the way to her apartment.

Once inside, she kicked off her shoes and quickly stripped off the ill-fitting and uncomfortable outfit she had bought for the interview and threw it across the room, not caring where it landed. She wore nothing underneath, save for a camisole to keep her breasts in check, which she quickly dispensed of as well. She had long since learned that underwear was more trouble then it was worth, and at this point only owned a few fancy pieces of lingerie for special occasions. Special occasions that never seemed to come.

She walked over to her dresser, where her jewelry box was. The attached mirror displayed her prominent, pendulous breasts, but stopped short of the rest of her voluptuous curves. A body made for sex, she had been told many, many times.

She was 16 when her parents told her that she had a condition that rendered her unable to conceive. It was the hardest conversation she had ever had, but she also learned then how much her parents had been looking out for her. They started her in school early so that she would graduate before she turned 18. In the summer before college, while she was till 17, she lost her virginity to her first, and so far only, boyfriend. The broke up shortly after she told him the news. She begged him to at least try things, but the idea of having a free use girlfriend was too much for him. Or any other man she was interested in, it seemed. At the few that weren't put off by it soon raised red flags after finding out that caused her to leave instead.

College had be...tough. She hadn't known it at the time, but essentially no infertile women attended college, and even fewer graduated. Looking back, it was obvious why. It was miraculous that she managed to graduate at all, in an environment full of young adults away from there parents for the first time. She missed a lot of class, but her professor's had been as accommodating as they could.

She tossed her thumb ring in the box with the rest of her Markers. Earrings, brackets, necklaces and various pendents, and an assortment of rings lay in the oak box, all silver with the same gold etchings designating her a woman free to use.

Most days, she wore the thumb ring. It was the least obvious piece of jewelry. Not that she really needed (or could) hide her status. Now that she was out of college and in the working world, the world of adults, the number of times she was used was usually measured in times per week, rather than per day. While there was no law against her being bent over in the produce isle, social pressure from soccer moms and the like kept the incidents to a minimum. Not for her sake, of course, you have to think of the children. Not to mention many businesses found allowing for infertile women like her to be railed on there property to be too disruptive to business, so they often forbid it.

Julia bounced to the small kitchen in her apartment to prepare herself some food, wondering what “more” Principal Morrison needed to discuss with her at the faculty meeting.