There were benches and tables set up for eating, the food being sold at stalls lined up in one area, and there were also blankets spread on the ground -- the fair committee had thought of everything. Holding cups filled with soft drinks and each with a bag of girlmeat popcorn -- small cubes of girlmeat coated in a crunchy batter, fried and then buttered and salted, its taste reminding one of actual popcorn, hence the name -- Cammy and Alisa, without needing to discuss the choice, headed for one of the available blankets. Most of the blankets were occupied, split evenly between people eating in groups of two or more and couples making out.

A loudspeaker crackled ahead of the announcement, "Volunteers for Hanging Roulette should now report to the west goal of the practice field. We will start at two o'clock."

Hanging Roulette, thought Cammy. That should be fun to watch. Another thing I've never seen in person.

On sitting down on the blanket, Alisa immediately resumed their conversation from last night about the Mantanor series, the interest they shared that had first brought them together, this time going deeper into the motivations of the characters. They wandered gradually into other topics, occasionally reaching into their bags for mouthfuls of their popcorn but sometimes forgetting it for several minutes at a time.

Alisa suddenly grinned and held one of the girlmeat bits towards Cammy's mouth. Cammy, giggling in understanding, bit onto the popcorn, carefully so as not to catch Alisa's fingers, and then returned the favor, letting Alisa snap up a bit of the food from between her fingers.

Cammy's heart started pounding. She wasn't completely sure what to do next. She knew something important was happening, had started happening last light and was still happening now. A development was proceeding... to what, exactly? Is all of this what I think it is? she wondered.

She knew that she had not only never felt so in tune with another person, she had never even imagined it was possible.

She felt sure that she had had an Alisa-shaped hole in her existence. The most amazing thing was that she felt no doubt, none whatsoever: Alisa was the person meant for that hole. She filled it so exactly.

A thought came to Cammy, about a type of relationship she had just seen, one she had never witnessed in person before: the connection between ponygirl and groom. She suddenly visualized the part of the relationship that no one saw, the one in the privacy of their shared stall. It occurred to Cammy that, in a way, it was a mistress/slave relationship taking place between two slaves. The ponygirl had permanently given up part of her humanity in her pursuit of a goal that consumed her in its importance to her: to compete, to win, and to be beautiful and admired while doing it. In doing so, she had given up a considerable amount of freedom and nearly all of her ability to do normal things for herself -- and yet, in spite of that loss, or even because of it, in this pairing between herself and her groom, the ponygirl was the mistress, the groom her slave. Cammy saw, in images passing rapidly one after another through her mind, the groom feeding her ponygirl. Bathing her pony, soaping her body in the shower. Shaving her pony's legs. Styling her pony's mane -- shaving the sides, shampooing the mane and tail and combing the tangles out them. Dyeing every bit of hair anywhere on her pony's body, including her bush. Doing her pony's makeup. Even wiping her pony's butt. It was a constant, demanding service of one person for another, though done out of love rather than force.

This relationship between me and Alisa could never be like that, Cammy observed, because its entire nature lies in its symmetry, in our equality within the relationship, in our loving the same things, speaking the same words, thinking the same thoughts. We haven't come together to be mistress and slave. We have come together to be equals.

That thought brought Cammy up short. Are we equals? Does everything about us seem to her the same way it seems to me? Is she really seeing "us" the way I am?

Cammy's heart pounded still harder. I have to find out, she told herself. I can't go on without knowing.

There was one way to be sure, she realized. I will know, Cammy told herself, if she reacts when I say it the same way I would if she said it.

It didn't really sink in to Cammy that during all this time that these thoughts had been passing through her head, Alisa hadn't said a word. She was just staring fixedly at Cammy, in the same way Cammy was staring at her.

They opened their mouths as if at an invisible signal, and both said, in voices breathy and shaky, "I love you."

The smile that took possession of Alisa's face was like a blinding burst of sunlight. She lunged towards Cammy, wrapped her arms around her and kissed her.

We're kissing, thought the one tiny part of Cammy's brain still able to function rationally, kissing here, in the open, in public -- very public. Kissing because none of the onlookers around us matter. None of them are in our world. In our world, in our universe, there is only me and Alisa.

That was her last thought before giving herself over to the pure sensation, the feel of Alisa in her arms, her hands moving up and down Alisa's back, Alisa's hands moving on her own back, her lips against Alisa's, her tongue softly rubbing Alisa's, tasting buttery and salty from the popcorn. Hearing Alisa's soft moans echoing her own, feeling the internal explosion of want and need, every sensation stoking still greater need.

Cammy broke the kiss, not because the wanting ended, but because she knew she couldn't satisfy it, not here, not now. They could only go so far, out here in a public place. There were limitations everyone had to deal with, not just Cammy's own internally imposed ones.

We should really go back to my room, she thought. It's closer than hers, and I know Taylor won't be there.

But Cammy realized she also didn't want this first date to end. She wanted to keep living it, burning every second of it into her memory.

And there was time for lovemaking. So much time.

She smiled and kissed Alisa once more. She said, "Later?" Knowing Alisa would know what she meant.

Alisa gave her a quick kiss in return, grinning. "Yes. Later. So much to happen later." She opened her mouth to say more, and closed it. Then opened it again. "You know..." She hesitated again. "Ummm..." She stopped once more, then plunged ahead. "If we got married, we could live together in married student housing."

Cammy gasped, then laughed. "That has to be the most practical proposal ever."

Alisa bit her lip, her face bright red. "So you... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..."

Cammy stopped her with a kiss. "You should at least wait for an answer. It's yes, of course."

Alisa's eyes went wide. "You mean it's... yes?"

Cammy laughed again, as happy as she'd ever been. "Yes, yes, yes..."

This time it was Alisa's kiss stopping her. They kissed for a long time again.

And this time it was Alisa who broke it off. She looked steadily into Cammy's eyes, and said in a husky voice, "I never thought there was someone like you. You are the person I never realized I was looking for. So forget about that practical proposal. Let's do it because I can't think of not doing it. Let's do it because I want to be with you every day, always. Camilla Felton..."

Cammy grinned. "It's Cammy."

It was Alisa's turn to laugh, seemingly helpless to stop for a minute. "Okay, I guess it was time I actually learned your name."

Cammy laughed as well. "So do you go by Alisa? It's such a pretty name."

Alisa nodded, still laughing. "So Cammy Felton... Will you marry me?"

Cammy beamed at her. "Still yes. I will marry you, Alisa Atwater."

They kissed once more. Cammy heard a patter of applause from a nearby blanket.

"Okay, I see it." Alisa pointed. They'd finished their girlmeat popcorn (no woman ever threw girlmeat away), and walked, holding hands again, to the west end of the football practice field where the "Hanging Roulette" contest would take place.

Cammy, interrupting their long post-engagement kiss, had suggested attending the Hanging Roulette contest when the loudspeaker announced its commencement in fifteen minutes. She felt that a little time to consider what had just happened was needed, though she felt no need to do the considering alone, as she had last night outside the library. Cammy thought that, in a sense, this might be an appropriate and convenient way to celebrate their engagement -- attending an event as a committed couple. Alisa had agreed immediately and enthusiastically; as always, Alisa was thinking the same thing Cammy was. Alisa had never seen a Hanging Roulette contest in person either.

By this time a crowd of several hundred, perhaps even more than a thousand, had gathered on the practice field, and it wasn't easy for Cammy or Alisa, neither of them very tall, to see over them. But the elaborate stage for the Hanging Roulette event was very visible once they got close enough.

Cammy was glad the weather had been good. She supposed they would have moved the hanging inside one of the tents if rain had threatened, but there was no way to squeeze this many people into any of the available structures.

Cammy's heart was singing. She had met the love of her life, and they were going to be married! They had already discussed tentative plans on the way to the football practice field. Alisa said her father's house had a nice big yard, so they could do it there. They might wait for the end of the semester, or even the end of the school year. They were sensitive of the fact that doing it right away would leave two girls, Taylor and Alisa's roommate Renee, by themselves, and they felt they should check with them as to how they felt about that, and whether they wanted to make other living arrangements.

Cammy had clear view of the stage now. There were four platforms, each offering a surface to stand on that was about six or seven feet above ground level, the platforms painted four different colors: yellow, blue, red, and brown. Above each platform a noose dangled, hanging from a thick horizontal structure that Cammy knew contained a complex computer-driven mechanism. To the left of these was a larger stage, on which were mounted two oversized circular spinners, of the type used in children's board games except for being six feet across, each divided into quadrants. On one of them, the quadrants were colored yellow, blue, red, and brown. On the other, the quadrants displayed the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Soon there would be a woman standing on each of the four colored platforms, each with her hands cuffed behind her and the noose over the platform fitted snugly around her neck. These would be women who had answered the call for volunteers broadcast earlier across the grounds, each taking a chance on ending her life in a very public way.

There was a hand crank in the base of each platform, on the side facing the crowd. Each crank would be attended by the partner of the girl on the platform. Turning the crank would raise the noose over the platform slightly. The spinners would determine which noose was to be raised, and how far it should be raised, in inches. The game would proceed until one of the four women was raised completely off the platform, hanged.

It was a familiar element of television game shows. Usually in those shows, the women would be required to answer trivia questions to remain alive, but here, in Hanging Roulette, the loser would be determined purely by chance.

To Cammy it seemed the perfect way to end a perfect day. To watch a woman reach the culminating event of her life, thought Cammy, to watch her achieve the ending she was made for, to see her validate her existence as a woman -- and to see that on the same day that I meet the person I was made for, the person I will share the rest of my life with -- it's almost too much to imagine.

After their long kissing session on the blanket, Cammy was very glad for her foresight in putting the absorbent pad in her panties. Her crotch was no less squishy than it would have been without the pad, but at least it saved her from the embarrassment of walking around with a visible dark patch between the legs of her corduroys.

Now Cammy's head was buzzing with exactly the sort of thoughts that had made the pad squishy, now more intensely than ever. She had wanted very much to watch the contest, especially out of respect for the woman who would die today, but now she was finding that she could barely concentrate on any thought other than her physical need for Alisa, a need to touch every part of her, to see all of her, to hear her sighs, to smell and taste her, to immerse herself in the pleasure they could each give to and receive from the other.

The crowd stirred, interrupting Cammy's fantasies, as a woman came to the front of the main stage, holding a cordless microphone. She beamed at the crowd, and said, "Hi everybody, I'm Susan Andress, from Raider Radio 107!" She paused as her fans cheered, and then called out enthusiastically, "Is everybody here to see a hanging??"

The crowd responded in near-unison, "Yes!"

Cammy had considered the question rhetorical, so rather than answering she turned to Alisa, who was looking at her yearningly, and kissed her, no longer giving a thought to the fact that the two of them were surrounded by a huge crowd. They continued the kiss as Susan went on, "Well, we're going to need another volunteer. Come on, girls!" There were, of course, a number of boyfriends and husbands in the crowd, but they were naturally not part of the solicitation. "This whole day only three of you ladies have come forward to test your luck! Can we get a fourth?"

She waited as the crowd buzzed. There was a lot of discussion in hushed voices and giggles, but no clear answer.

After a reasonable time, Susan sighed into the microphone. "Well, you know what that means. Our three volunteers came forward under the understanding they each had only a one-in-four chance of being snuffed. The law says we can't change that now to one-in-three. So..." Her voice rose in pitch, "It's time for a drawing! Get out your ticket stubs!" From behind Susan, two female assistants rolled out a drum containing the other half of everyone's ticket stubs that had been handed out at the main entry gate. Another girl came running up from behind. She shouted audibly "Late arrivals!", opened the drum and dropped a few more stubs in.

The crowd cheered in excitement. All of the women present knew that any one of them might be chosen to participate. There was a little fear in the heart of each one, none of whom felt ready or they would have volunteered, but the fear was muted by the obvious fact that each one's chance of being chosen in the drawing was very small. Only one woman was needed, out of this whole crowd.

Cammy didn't need to pull the stub out of her pocket. She'd looked at it when she'd entered the grounds. She was number four thirty-seven. Alisa was four thirty-eight.

Susan gave the drum several turns, opened it and reached in.

Alisa broke the kiss, but remained close, her eyes barely an inch from Cammy's. Her lips curled in a smile. She said, softly so that only Cammy could hear, "I want to learn everything that makes you feel good. I want to try every kind of sex there is."

Cammy literally felt a squirt from between her legs. She was distracted for just a moment, her breath catching, when Susan called out, "Two seventy-eight! Who has number two seventy-eight?"

Cammy turned to face Alisa again, and pulled her head close to whisper directly into her ear, "I want to lick every square inch of your body to see what it tastes like."

Alisa turned quickly to her with an open-mouthed grin and a gasp. She kissed Cammy again, her tongue pushing deep into Cammy's mouth.

From the stage: "No two seventy-eight? Not here?"

No one was under obligation to attend the hanging, or even to stay at the fair until it happened.

Susan spun the drum again, and reached in. "Number seventeen!" She laughed. "Must be a really early arrival. Any chance she stayed late?"

Cammy could only spare the tiniest bit of her attention to what was happening on the stage. All of the rest was filled with Alisa.

Alisa backed away again. Her whole body shaking, almost unable to speak from the effects of adrenaline and an unmanageable mixed cocktail of other hormones flooding her body, she managed to rasp, "I want you! Right now! Cammy, let's go."

Cammy nodded spastically. "I just saw my roommate a minute ago." She gestured vaguely behind her with her head to where Taylor stood with her boyfriend Jim. "We can go to my room." She reached shakily for Alisa's hand, threaded her fingers through Alisa's, and took a step towards the rear of the crowd.

Susan called out cheerily from the stage, "Four thirty-seven!"

Cammy spun back towards the stage, her mouth gaping. Every molecule of air in her lungs was pushed out in a rush.

Any thought of leaving now was dismissed. A lifetime of cultural indoctrination and inborn feminine instinct prevented any consideration of evading a woman's deepest obligation to humanity from entering Cammy's conscious mind.

In any case, people around her had seen her reaction, and several were calling out excitedly, "Here! Over here!" with their arms in the air, pointing towards Cammy.

The next 0.8 seconds were a very busy time inside Cammy's head.

FOUR YEARS AGO

"Hey Mom?" Cammy sat down at the kitchen table where her mother had disassembled a table lamp, in hopes of finding the loose connection. Cammy had a paperback book with her, her finger holding her place in it. She was never without a book. "How do you... How does a woman, I mean -- know when it's 'time'?"

Her mother didn't need to ask "Time for what?" The party where she would be snuffed and barbecued was set for next Saturday.

Mom set down the screwdriver she was holding and chewed on her lip, thoughtfully. She smiled. "That's the question every teenaged girl asks. That one and 'How will I know who's the right person to marry?' The funny thing is you don't really need anyone to tell you. Either question. When the time comes, you'll know."

Cammy wrinkled her nose. "That's just an easy out. I need something more concrete."

Mom laughed. "There isn't anything more concrete, honey, trust me." She saw the exasperated look on her daughter's face and went on, "Let me try, though." She thought some more.

She nodded to herself at last. "Okay, you know there are the two big things that women can do and men can't: Have babies and be people food."

"We could eat men."

Mom snorted in disgust. "Well, yeah, but who'd want to? And there'd be no point. Women's flesh has gynemones. Men don't. You know that." Gynemones, more essential than any vitamin. Humanity was omnivorous -- all manner of fruits, vegetables, and the meat of many animals could be consumed with varying effects on health. But a diet without girlmeat left humans with a gynemone deficiency that led to ill health and, eventually, death. And gynemones resisted all efforts to concentrate them in useful form in a pill -- they immediately degraded when separated from flesh. Not that any scientist had really felt motivated to try very hard, with girlmeat always readily available. "I mean, you could eat dirt too, and it'd fill your stomach, but you'd die if that was all you ate. You have to have girlmeat."

Cammy said impatiently, "We're still on that question."

Mom rolled her eyes. "I'm trying, honey. The best answer I can come up with is, you'll know it's time to be eaten when you feel inside yourself that it's more important than anything else in your life." She reached across the table and took Cammy's hand. Cammy, who would ordinarily have resisted, let her take it, knowing Mom was trying her best to be serious with her, and Cammy knew she had brought it on herself by asking the question. "When your father and I were married, what was important to me was making a family. Making you. It was my time to do that." Mom smiled.

Cammy succeeded in the effort to avoid rolling her eyes. She waited, knowing that Mom hadn't completed her thought yet.

Mom went on, "But for every woman, it's like there's a clock ticking away inside. The importance of maintaining the chain grows, and grows." That was the most often-used metaphor: the chain. Every woman lived because of the flesh other women had provided, and she in turn must give back to humanity one day, an unending chain of women sustaining their families, friends and neighbors with their bodies. "You'll feel it inside, more and more as you get older. Rising all the time on the list of things that are important to you. And you'll feel when it reaches the top, and you'll know it's your time to be food."

Cammy felt her face turning red. Having serious talks with a parent is never at the top of any fourteen-year-old's list. But she did think she understood now. A little. "Thanks, Mom." She started to rise out of her chair.

Mom startled her by gripping her hand more tightly. "I need a promise."

Cammy sat again, sorry now that she'd ever opened this can of worms. She gave Mom a cautious okay-go-ahead look.

Mom looked straight into her eyes. "When your time comes, when you get the Call, it could come from inside, like I've been talking about, or it could come from outside. No matter where it comes from, listen to it. Don't resist it."

"Mom!" She backed her chair away in utter shock, pulling her hand away. "Are you thinking I'd dodge the draft? I would never do that." The draft of women, requiring them to report to a processing center to be snuffed and rendered into cans and packets of frozen meat, was an ever-present fact of life, though the success of the growing program of breeding farms, a way of life for women who chose to live in one, each giving birth to as many as seventy to eighty babies, nearly all female, with the help of fertility drugs, made the draft less active now than it had been in the past. It was maintained purely out of a sense of tradition. No one proposed ending it. It was an essential part of how life in a fair society should be.

Mom smiled. "You know me. I just wanted to make sure. There are always a few women who try to get out of it. We used to call them 'chain breakers.' I don't know what kids call it these days."

Cammy wrinkled her nose. "Pigging. Women who try to run from the draft are like greedy little pigs, not thinking about anyone else. It's disgusting."

Mom nodded and smiled again. "So that'll be an easy promise to keep. I want to hear it, though."

Cammy rolled her eyes and sighed. "I absolutely promise not to pig. And I promise not to murder any teachers or rob any banks."

Mom laughed. "You'll be a mother someday. You'll understand."

"Anyway, thanks, Mom." Cammy rose, eager to end a conversation that had taken a lot of unexpected turns. "I think I get what you're saying about knowing when it's time." She turned to leave.

"And honey?"

Cammy reluctantly faced her mother again.

"I want you and your father to share my heart. I love you very much."

Cammy blinked in astonishment. Any married woman usually gave all of her heart to her husband or wife. And she blinked again, this time to hold back the tear she felt starting to escape her eye. With an effort of will she stopped herself from wiping it away with her hand. "Thanks, Mom." She turned and ran back to her room. She knew she wasn't supposed to cry. But she knew she wasn't doing it over Mom being snuffed. And she knew Mom knew that.

In that 0.8 second, Cammy's thoughts were mostly of No.

No, it can't be me! No, they can't take me away from Alisa, not now! No, I can't move. Not a single muscle of my body.

The last was certainly correct. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

No, I can't say no. I can't pig. Mom must have known this day would come, the Call coming, the choice of where and when taken away.

It didn't matter that she had a three-in-four chance of surviving. It was still The Call. It was something that every moral law of humanity demanded that a woman willingly answer.

Everything could be taken away. Alisa taken away!

I can't pig! I promised!

She tried to raise her arm, to say Here, I'm here. She still couldn't move.

She heard a strangled squeak behind her. She didn't want to see Alisa's face, but she turned automatically. Alisa was standing as frozen as Cammy had been, her mouth half open, in her eyes the look of someone watching a car crash with everyone she loved in it, helpless to stop it.

The spell had to be broken. Now. But Cammy knew she was powerless to break it. She would stand here as people around her began realizing she was pigging. Any second now.

She watched as Alisa's mouth moved. There was no voice to accompany the effort at speech, not because Alisa was trying to speak quietly, but because she could not force a sound through her throat. Cammy had no experience with lip-reading, but she could hear it as if Alisa had screamed it:

"I want to have your baby!"

The words washed through Cammy like a cleansing wave. A baby! She wants my baby!

This isn't my time to be food! I'm not going to lose, because it isn't my time! We're going to have a family, Alisa and me! It's my time for THAT!

She spun around to face the stage, and threw her arm in the air. "Here! Four thirty-seven! I'm coming!" She turned back to face Alisa. "It's okay, babe! We'll be okay! It's not time for me to lose! I won't!" Around them applause began, and spread through the crowd. Cammy put her arms around Alisa, and said directly into Alisa's ear, so she could hear through the sudden din, "I want to have your baby too! We can do it together! I'm Sandra, honey! I'll get through this!" Sandra, for both of them their favorite character in the Mantanor books. Sandra, the daring one, unhesitatingly taking chances. "I'll get through this," she repeated, "Because it's not my time to be food. It's our time to have a family!"

Alisa blinked hard, stared at Cammy, and slowly the corners of her lips turned up.

Cammy took a step back, and held out her hand to Alisa. Alisa, her smile spreading, took it and followed Cammy, as the crowd in front of them began parting to let them come to the stage.