There is a smaller, bright banana yellow building next door to it.
“What about that one?” Franklin asks.
“That is the schoolhouse and library. I hate learning and reading books. Most of them are from the old human world.”
Beyond the square, there are large buildings in the distance. Their color: coffee-ice-cream-gray. Purple smoke billows out of large chimneys and forms clouds on the ceiling of the cavern.
“What about those buildings?” Franklin asks.
“They are the candy mills. All the young people work there until they are old enough to go on hunts themselves. I hated working in the candy mill.”
Closer to them, there is a field where several large candy men are playing some kind of sport. Many older candy men and younger candy women are watching from the sidelines. They are wearing pink and yellow uniforms
“What is that?” Franklin asks.
“They are playing jawbreaker ball,” she says. “I hate that game. It is an obsession among the males. That is what they do for fun.”
“What do the women do for fun?” Franklin asks.
“Women who have been taken as mates don’t do anything for fun unless it pleases their dominant. Women who do not have mates go to jawbreaker ball games in order to attract males. They spray their scents in their direction, hoping to draw males interested in taking them as their mates.”
“They want to be taken as mates?” Franklin asks.
“Most women are born to be submissives,” Jujy says. “But not me. I was born to be a dominant.”
“Why do most women want to be submissives? Do they enjoy being chained to bedposts?”
“Submissives don’t have to enjoy anything. It is their place to obey their dominant. I would like there to be more women who are dominants, but in this cave the women are encouraged to be weak at a very young age and the men are encouraged to be strong. If they weren’t influenced in this
way there would be more strong women in this cave.”
“Human children are influenced in a similar way,” Franklin says. “Our culture influences our young to fill certain gender roles, but it is much different than your culture. Men and women are considered equals in human society.”
“You mean there are an equal number of dominant women to dominant men in the human world?” Jujy asks, her eyes wide with interest.
“No, in human couplings the man and the woman are equals.”
“You mean two dominants will couple? Or two submissives? What is the point of that?”
“No,” Franklin says. “There are no dominants or submissives. Everyone is equal.”
“But if there is no dominant who provides the food?” she asks. “If there is no submissive who looks after the babies?”
“They usually share all of the work equally,” he says.
“But that’s stupid,” she says. “Dominants specialize in hunting. Submissives specialize in raising children. If both the dominants and submissives shared their coupling tasks neither would be very skilled at hunting or raising children. It is better to specialize. Then there will be one really good hunter and one really good child-raiser. I don’t see the point in having two hunters and two child-raisers.”
“The point is that the submissive would have more freedom,” Franklin says. “The submissive would lead a more happy, fulfilling life. The submissives would be able to choose their own mates. The submissive would be able to make decisions themselves. They wouldn’t need to submit to anyone.”
“Even the weak humans choose their own mates?”
“Of course.”
“But what happens if the mate you choose doesn’t like your flavor?” she asks.
“Then you find a mate who does.”
“But what if you don’t want another mate?”
“Then there is nothing you can do about it. Kind of like how Licorice can do nothing about taking you as his mate now that you are with me.”
“It’s not the same,” she says. “If somebody doesn’t have a mate and you want them to be your mate you should be able to take them.”
“It isn’t fair to that person, though. You don’t think it is fair for all women to be submissives, so why do you think it is fair for anyone to be a submissive?”
“Some people are supposed to be submissives. Some people are supposed to be dominants.”
“But why?”
“Because that’s how it is,” she says.
“But we could easily be equals,” he says. “If we could be equals then anyone can be equals.”
“We are not equals,” she says. “I am a dominant and you are a submissive. That is how it is.”
“But if you just open your mind . . .”
“No,” she says. “That is how it is.”
The infection under Franklin’s skin is getting more and more agonizing. It is like his flesh is rotting under the green candy. The swelling around his false limbs is becoming so ballooned that it feels as if the limbs are going to pop off.
The only thing that numbs the pain is giving Jujy oral sex. Every other hour, he finds himself digging his tongue between her thighs to suck out the strawberry drug. He has become addicted to it. Whenever she is away on a long hunt, Franklin goes through withdrawal. Besides the intense aches and pains, he gets emotionally unstable, paranoid, depressed, angry. He sweats and shivers in a corner. When she returns home, Franklin attacks her like a dog. He wraps his arms around her thighs and buries his nose in her crotch, inhaling the drug feverishly.
She says, “Just a moment. After I put the food away, I’ll let you lick me in the bedroom.”
When they are in the bedroom, Jujy has him kneel in the doorway and wait for him. She gets on the bed and spreads her legs. Then she has him crawl across the floor towards her.
The way she smiles when he licks her is more than just a smile of physical pleasure. Franklin can tell that she also smiles because she knows that he needs to lick her. He thinks she enjoys knowing that he suffers whenever he is not licking her. Sometimes she won’t let him give her oral sex for a while. Franklin believes that she does this because she likes to watch him squirm. She wants him to beg her to let him do it.
When the drug seeps into Franklin’s mind, he calms down. His eyelids droop shut. He lays his cheek on the soft flesh below Jujy’s belly button and takes deep breaths as all the pain and stress dissipates from his flesh. These are his favorite moments of the day, until Jujy smacks him on the forehead and forces him to continue pleasuring her.
One time, after Franklin gives Jujy oral sex and lays his head on the soft place below Jujy’s belly button, he notices that the flesh is much firmer than usual. It is also much more plump.
He rubs her belly and says, “What is wrong? It’s hard.”
Jujy looks down at it.
“What?” she says, looking down at his face between her legs.
Her belly is slowly expanding.
“It can’t be . . .” she says.
She rubs the swollen area with both of her hands.
“It’s a baby,” she says.
She looks at Franklin with a very serious, almost angry face. “I’m actually growing a baby inside me. Our coupling was successful.”
Franklin watches as her belly continues to grow. “Why is your belly expanding so quickly?”
She looks down at her pregnant stomach. “Because there is a baby growing inside of me.”
“But why is it growing so fast?”
“Because I’m healthy,” she says. “I make sure to eat plenty of meat.”
Franklin just watches her belly as she rubs herself, trying to feel the being inside of her.
Then she wraps her arms around him and kisses him gently.
“We’re really going to have offspring together,” she says. “Now I never have to mate with Licorice. You can be my mate forever.”