Yes, but for all the wrong reasons.

When I woke up I had a splitting headache, and the sinking feeling that I’d just lost control over my destiny. I was on a pretty comfortable bed, against a wall. My forehead had this giant welt that I spent a good ten minutes prodding. When I finally got bored of hurting myself, I sat up and took a better look around.

It seemed I was in jail, not my first time mind you. Though I had a feeling the army of militant feminists weren't going to let me out when I sobered up this time. I was behind bars, in a small room, with two other cells making a square with the door to this room. Both of the cells were empty, so I was alonesville.

My cell, had a bed, a toilet, sink, electrical outlet and mirror. Fun. At least I had a window. I peered out the thing, and hoooooly shit. Turns out I didn’t have a window, it was a porthole. On the other side of the thick glass was the ocean floor. Some sort of nearby light source was illuminating the nearby sand and rocks, but not far beyond the perimeter of that light, was darkness darkness darkness, more vast than any continent. “Righteous.” Within the perimeter of the light there were stone statues standing among the sand, posed in elaborate scenes, with incredible detail.

“Beautiful isn’t it?”

Uh oh, here we go.

I turned around and was somewhat relieved to see Miranda was waiting for me just beyond the barriers of my cell. She still had that stupid wet suit on. It was a look I’d seen her in plenty of time, being my surf buddy and all. But now that outfit was taking on an incredibly more traumatic role in my life.

“Miranda, what the hell is going on?” I rushed to the bars and gripped them tight.

She placed her hands on mine, and made a face like her own insides were ripping her apart. “I’m not sure I have time to explain everything.”

“Well… let’s try.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, You’re in the under water lair of a woman named Thetis The Sea Witch. She rules over a society of women, who advocate for the end of all men. I’m a member of this society, and I was chosen to prepare your island for our invasion. Since it was such a dangerous mission I was allowed to choose any reward I wanted for the conquest, so I chose to have you as my ****. You belong to me now, and you’re going to spend about two weeks in quarantine, as they prep you for life in our society.”

Okay, that seemed like a pretty succinct explanation to me. Not a word of it made sense, but she still, at least I had an idea of what was going on.

“I can see you have questions.”

My head was spinning. “So, so many questions.” I paused, afraid to ask anything. “When you said prep me… you’re not going to make me a girl are you?”

“Of all things I just told you, you’re most curious about the fate of your dick. Classic.” She seemed disappointed, and yet charmed? “No of course not. Men usually aren’t allowed within our sacred halls, so they have to make up a list of rules, and make sure you follow them. Besides, trans people are not true females.”

Yikes. “I see, looks like this society of hateful fascists isn’t a liberal utopia after all, big shock.”

Miranda sighed, and leaned in. “Listen, I know we had plenty of playful banter back on the island, and that really is something I love about you. That being said, you can not talk to me, or the sisterhood like that anymore.”

“Why the hell did you bring me here then? I’m having some difficulty processing all of this.”

“Well…” She her face began to turn a shade of pink. Uh oh. She took her hands off of mine, and started messing with the gloves of her wetsuit. “It’s just that…. Well you see… I was hoping to do this at a better time…”

“You love me.”

She wouldn’t look at me for some time, before finally nodding. “Yes.”

“I thought you were a lesbian.”

She shrugged. “Ideally everyone in the sisterhood is.” 100% gay, 0% trans, this place was getting more upsetting by the minute. “But thanks to you I discovered that my sexuality is ordered in such a way that i’m capable of developing feelings and desires for a man if I feel a strong enough emotional connection with them. This… flaw escaped the screening process when I was chosen for the mission.”

“It’s called demisexual, and it’s not a flaw. But besides that, you don’t love me.”

“Yes I…”

“No, you…”

“Yes…”

“No you…”

“Brett, yes I do. I’ve given this a lot of thought. You have no idea the things I could have chosen for my reward, but I chose you.”

“I’m a **** Miranda, what the fuck? Would you do that to someone you love?”

She huffed and looked away from me again. “I saved your life, I could have let them kill you.”

“Well I am grateful for that.”

“It’s only bad now, because your in jail.” Sure. “But once they release you, you’ll live with me, and I can show you how great the sisterhood is. I’ll be your protector.” This was all so obviously painful for her, and I could relate. My beach bum buddy turned out to be an agent for some wacked out cult of Lilith, and was spinning some yarn about how happy our lives were going to be. What was I supposed to do with that? Grateful? Sad? Angry? I was feeling pretty fucking angry, since according to all available information this was the women who destroyed my island!

I took a steadying breath, because I was gripping the bars pretty roughly. “I can’t be with you Miranda.”

“Yes you can.”

“I’m happy I was able to help you discover something about your self. And I truly treasure the time we spent as friends. But I love Jasmine.”

“You can love us both.” She didn’t sound angry at the rejection, or even jealous of Jasmine. She said that line with pure clinical detachment. “Men are genetically predisposed to small harems of 2-3 women.”

“Yeah well…” Record scratch. “...Is that real?”

“Generally in primates the size of their testicles is indicative of how many mates they should have. Humans are somewhere between chimps which fuck everything, and gibbons who are monogamous.”

“Huh, I did not know that.”

“Besides that, it’s pretty well understood that men can’t have friendships with women without developing sexual feelings for them. And besides besides just the fact that you’re a man means you want to **** me on some level. So the feelings are there.”

Woah. “That’s ridiculous. Come on, sexual feelings are not love.” If you went by my parents, love was the opposite of sex.

“You’ve never fantasized about me before?”

“Well sure I have.” If she was going to make me admit it, I would. “But I fantasize about a lot of things that I wouldn’t do even if I had the chance. Sky diving, calling my mom, becoming a vegetarian, to name a few.”

“The point is, the monogamous ideal you’re following is a toxic one brought on by the male driven society you were born into. You’re capable to sharing your feelings with other women, rather than just seeking to own Jasmine. Besides that, Jasmine won’t love you for much longer anyway. So why not be in a relationship with someone who actually wants you?”

“Excuse me? Why wouldn’t Jasmine love me anymore?”

“She along with everyone else from the island has to be reeducated once they join the sisterhood.”

“Reeducated?” One of my least favorite words, along with fulcrum, and deregulation.

“They have to unlearn all the truths of their enslavement to a male society. Read the great feminist works. Under go hypnotic reprogramming, sexual reorientation programs, stuff like that.”

“What the fuck? Why is this happening to me?”

“It’s not, it’s happening to Jasmine, get over yourself.” Miranda sniffed. “They probably won’t even bother reeducating you, they’d think it’s a waste of time. They’ll just threaten your life some, and send you back to me.”

Wow. Miranda was a really good agent if she could hide her psychotic ideals from me for so long. All the talks we had on the beach, the dinners at her house, all of it was nothing! None of it was real.

“It’s not going to happen Miranda. I’ll never love you, I’ll never forgive you.”

“You’re just upset, that you’ve been taken you from your home. You’ll calm down given time.”

“I won’t.” I’ve never been so sure of anything. “I’m never going to forget what you did to us.”

She spent a lot of time not looking at me. Her eyes slowly moved all around me but never landed on my form. I could see her tongue working her cheek, as she fidgeted around for a bit. “Here.” She finally said, holding out her hand. In her palm was my watch! (and charger) “They wanted to put it with the rest of the loot, but I snatched it for you.”

Well I snatched it right back. It felt good to have my baby back. I checked the time 8:00PM, noice. “Thanks.”

“I’m going to take care of you Brett. I am. I’m going to earn back your trust, you just have to give me time.”

I sighed, and rested my head against the bars of my tiny prison. I couldn’t look at her anymore. “Please just let us go.”

There was another pause. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”

And then I was alone. In jail. At the bottom of the ocean.

What a day.