Altered Genesis Ch. 05

She looked him in the eyes, "I love and respect you Dean, not just as a boy. But as a friend too. I'm not like the other girls. I see past all the shallow sexist stuff. I see you, and I love you for you."

Dean gave her his first genuine smile in a long time. Those were the words that he had always wanted to hear from a femme; any femme but Melody. His smile morphed into a pained frown.

"Thank you Melody," he sighed. "I love you like a sister, but... nothing more. I just don't see you that way."

Melody put her head in her hands silently. Dean got up and left, softly closing the door behind him.

--

Dean and Stephanie sat on opposite sides of the table in the outdoor cafeteria. Sleek and seamless curves of metal made the benches and tabletop. They appeared to have been forged from a single piece of aluminium. The entire university cafeteria had been renovated as part of the government's new university investment program.

Groups of young femme with the occasional male dotted the courtyard. Even fewer males attended the campus now that the university had dropped all science, engineering and math courses due to lack of enrolment.

Dean had an interest in science but he couldn't convince his mother to cover the expensive tuition. Marketing received considerable government subsidies which made it an affordable compromise. So he was stuck with that.

There was an unusually awkward silence as the two friends ate. Dean was supposed to be slumming it in Mansfield for only a week before moving into Stephanie's spare room but it had been almost two weeks since his mother had kicked him out and he still hadn't heard anything from Stephanie.

"I'm sorry Dean," said Stephanie. "Barbra's mom went mental when she found out about us. I had to let Barb move into my spare room. You're gonna have to stay with Melody for a while longer."

Stephanie consoled him with a short pat on the back of his hand.

"It's ok. She's your girlfriend after all," Dean said.

He paused for a moment, worried that someone could overhear them.

He lowered his voice, "I'm just glad that she has somewhere to go. Your folks are amazing you know."

"Thanks, but I think that you are setting the bar kinda low," she responded with understated anger. "Generally speaking, I don't think that it makes sense to kick people onto the street just because of their sexual preferences. And doing it to your own daughter..."

She gave up on finishing the sentence and just shook her head. Dean swallowed hard as if trying to remove the lump from his throat, "Yeah."

He remembered the look of sadness on his mother's face when she told him to get out. The memory haunted him as if it happened yesterday.

Stephanie's angry expression softened when she saw his forlorn look.

"Oh I'm sorry Dean. It's just as bad for you too," she patted him on the back of the hand again.

He paused and stared at the ground, "But Barbra never chose to be a lesbian. I was just stupid. I never should have gone near Charlotte."

He paused to think and Stephanie waited patiently.

"It's not just that. I even went against my spiritual upbringing. It's like, I have all of these opposing beliefs; those that I was raised with and those that I have developed. And I managed to betray all of them at once."

"Just because I was horny," he thought to himself but lacked the courage to speak the words.

He took a deep breath, "I deserved what happened to me. But Barb, what happened to her was wrong."

"No Dean! Both were wrong. It's never ok to turn on family like that. I don't care what you did!" She squeezed his hand with her dainty palm.

Dean knew that she was right but he just needed to hear it out loud. It was times like these that he wished that Stephanie was straight. He felt like it was impossible to find a femme of her beauty and integrity.

Her frame was reminiscent of femme before the genetic revolution. She was slender, delicate and only slightly taller than Dean. He found her distinctive Korean features attractive but wouldn't dare to let on.

He watched her for a moment. Her dark brown eyes lit up with a quick smile as she glanced over his shoulder at Barbra who was at a table behind them. Every minute or so the two of them would share loving glance across the courtyard. Dean would have found it irritating and rude if it wasn't so cute.

He smiled knowingly, the smile was sweet with a bitter after taste. They all knew that if the doting couple were seen together then nasty rumours could spread, the kind that could cause some real trouble for a young femme. Moments like these helped Dean understand just what motivated Stephanie's contempt for the new and emerging social order.

"Careful. Don't look too happy," he jived. "Try to smile when you look at me. That will throw them off."

He gestured to himself and Stephanie shot Dean a fake smile that only lasted a couple of seconds, "There happy!?"

"Much better," he leaned over slightly so that his face would intercept her gaze again. She was already looking back to Barbra for her reaction to the fake smile.

For once Dean didn't actually mind being a third wheel.

"So..." he wrestled her attention back and continued in a hushed tone, "How did you know that she was; you know; into girls?"

"I didn't," she replied. "Well I had a feeling, but that's all really."

"What?!" Dean's eyebrows shot up. "What if she wasn't and then told someone about you!?"

Dean put his face in his hands for a moment before lifting his eyes back to a smug Stephanie, "That's just insane. This isn't just about losing friends Steph, it could seriously hurt your job prospects if that got out."

"Yea I know," she paused as she picked at one of the grooves in the metal table. "But sometimes, I dunno, you've just got to say what you feel, be honest about what you think... you know. And see what happens."

"See if you end up getting beat up by the femme libs you mean," Dean interjected. "Oh, my Goddess Steph! Don't pull that shit."

He felt a knot in his throat. Steph was the only true friend that he still had.

"There are much safer ways to prove that you have big tits," he said with a subtle eye roll.

Stephanie chuckled quietly.

"Isn't it funny that even courage is gendered. Having 'big tits'. You know that centuries ago, before the genetic revolution, it used to be the opposite."

Stephanie's eyes became animated in way that they only ever did when she spoke about this sort of thing.

"Oh no! I've done it now. Here we go with the conspiracy theories," Dean looked up to the clear blue sky for a moment.

Stephanie chuckled playfully.

It's not that he didn't believe her. In fact, he believed in gender equality for males more than almost anyone he knew. But considering a vastly different past with different social norms was disconcerting for him.

"Seriously. They used to say, 'Balls of steel' and 'big balls'. I have seen the dark web achieves with some historical writings. You can never truly scrub this stuff from history you know."

Dean glanced at his watch with a playful smirk, "Wow. It actually took you a full ten minutes to get to a conspiracy theory today."

Stephanie pouted playfully and folded her arms.

"My money was on the 'man on the moon' stuff but I almost bet on the good-old 'The government is deleting our history' one," he jokingly punctuated himself with air quotes.

"Fine, I'll change the topic then. How are things going with Melody?" Stephanie could sense he had been avoiding the subject.

"Alright," Dean was slightly deflated and took a sip of his water. "You know, sleeping on the couch sucks. The apartment is tiny so I hardly get any privacy. And Melody. Well you know; she's Melody."

Stephanie cocked her head with raised eyebrows. It was the kind of look that she got when she sensed a secret.

"Annoying? Clingy?" she offered him some adjectives.

"Yea, clingy is a good way to put it," Dean played with his home-cooked lentils as he spoke. "Her family has been amazing. I didn't know that there were any Christians around anymore. I thought it was a long-lost patriarchal religion. Did you know that Melody cooks for the family?! It's basically the same as coven of Dibella but in reverse."

Stephanie smiled sarcastically, "Sure except for the belief that only one gender should vote. Multiple husbands. Strict rules regarding dress, or lack-thereof for males. Teaching that one gender was designed to serve the other. No private property for one gender. Slavery, corporal punishment. And their views on science-"

Dean cut her off, "All things that the Christian patriarchs instituted, just the other way around."

Stephanie gave him a sarcastic frown.

"Oh come on Dean. You and I both know that the history we are taught has been manipulated. Unless you see Melody's dad bossing his wife around like a slave?"

Dean's eyes darted around playfully, "Well, it's mostly her telling him what to do but, they are just, reformed."

The thought of Mr Baker ordering Mrs Baker to do the dishes caused Dean to break a smile.

"Oh ok," Stephanie's tone was sarcastic and becoming more playful. "So you don't have any actual direct evidence, or just stuff you were taught."

Dean didn't seem as tense as he usually was when the two of them had a debate. They both knew that he was playing devil's advocate. Something that Stephanie always appreciated about Dean was the way he would enjoy playful banter. He would always find a subtle way to get under her skin.

"I see what you are doing, you sneaky dickhead. Bait Steph into a fake debate so that you don't have to answer her question! You don't even believe that shit!"

Dean chuckled.

In a moment of private candour, Dean realized that even he didn't know what he believed sometimes.

Stephanie's gaze became more intense, "Is Melody being weird, Deany?"

"Na!" Dean dismissed. "She is just you know. Fond of me."

"She came onto you!?" Stephanie straightened her back.

"Only once," he said. "Sort of. She was very respectful and sweet. I felt bad, she has been so good to me but; I'm just not interested."

"You don't have to be sorry Dean. I'm sorry. I wish that you didn't have to stay there," her eyes were full of sympathy. "She is nice girl who really cares a lot about the rights of males. I know that she means well."