The MoDo arrives at 8 pm. She isn't going to be happy. I've been dreaming about Esha again.
The MoDo is about forty and dressed in a brown pant suit. Those came back in fashion around Year Ten. Now all the MoDos wear them. The MoDos are the elite guard for Leader Sasha, and to criticize their clothes is to ask for prison. It's not as bad as approaching a woman without her consent - which is rape - but you'll still do time.
The MoDo is short and ugly and tells me to pull down my pants.
She runs the Sullivan Meter over my genitals.
"You had three erections last night," she says, checking the viewer, which is blinking with green and white lights.
"Yes. In my sleep."
The MoDo looks around my small apartment for a chair while I pull my pants back up. My apartment is a basement room in a row house in New Baldwin, or what some old people still call Washington, D.C. My apartment is in an old building, built decades before Year One. It's made out of brick and sometimes still has a faint whiff of beer from years ago, before the Revolution. I have a small plastic table and chairs that the government provided for me when I moved in. After Year One I got what all workers got: an apartment, a table and chairs, and five books: Race Matters, The Book of Jezebel, Life of Julia (that's mostly read by the kids at Barney Frank Middle School), Rules for Radicals, and Citizens Guide to America and Year One.
The MoDo sits. Her movements are very tight and controlled. She has small glasses. She looks like a bulldog.
"So tell me about these erections," she says.
I sit on the edge of my bed. "I had dreams."
"About a woman?"
"Yes."
"Tell me about it."
"It was just sex," I say, lying. The dream was Esha laughing.
"Breasts? Vaginas? Asses?"
"Yes."
"Have you had any dreams about men in the last week?"
"No."
Esha is the Indian girl who lives upstairs. But I can't talk to her outside of my dreams. Talking to a woman uninvited is rape. And I have two panic buttons against me already. One more and they put me away. I've seen the video of the guys who get three panic buttons. When the woman hits the panic button, which hangs around her neck at all times, it signals the for the police. They arrive dressed in black and armed, cruising in low in helicopters from the Chomsky Building (formerly the Capitol). They can get anywhere in New Baldwin in about ten minutes. They wrap the guy up and he is never seen again.
The MoDo sighs. "How old are you Tom?"
"Twenty."
"I just don't get it," she says. "You went through all the right training. Sex camp at age five. The Savage Protocol at Barney Frank. Classes in masturbation, anal sex, gender as a social construct. Who is your sex mentor?"
I feel the nausea but, as usual, hide it. "Toby X."
"One of the best!" she says. "And you started with him at age five, right?"
"Yes."
"And you had sex with him once a week until you were sixteen, correct?"
"Yes."
The MoDo checks the Sullivan Meter. "You've had a few things in your history," she says, poking the screen to call up my Life File. "You have two panic buttons against you. The first was when you were sixteen. You tried to talk to a woman at work. The more serious one was in college, at Harvard during Sex Year. In the Nude Room you approached a woman. You know the term for approaching a woman instead of letting her initiate any contact, right?"
"It's rape," I say. It's what I do to Esha in my dream.
"That's right," the MoDo says. But I see from your file that you did your rehabilitation, full immersion for a week at the Kennedy Sex Center. Did you know that before that became a Sex Positive Space it was a concert hall? Back before Year One. They had an inaugural ceremony for Leader Sasha there during Year One."
I nod. The MoDo looks me in the eye.
"You're interested in men, right? Not just women?"
"Yes." A lie. But I say it quickly and with emphasis.
"Thomas, what is gender?"
She knows the answer and knows that I know the answer. "There's no such thing. Before Year Zero and the New America, gender was a social construct used by the patriarchy to oppress women."
"Very good. Still, I just wish you were having more dreams about men. Maybe we should bring Toby back in."
No.
"Yes, I think that might be in order. We'll get Toby in here once maybe twice a week. Get you squared away before your twenty-first birthday. How does that sound?"
No.
The MoDo looks at me. I nod, but without expression. Then she gets up and leaves.
I pick up my Obamakit. The screen comes on. "Good Evening Thomas," the voice says. "What would you like to watch tonight? Educational? The American Heroes series, with Madonna?"
"Sex," I say.
"Very good. According to my records, you have used up your quota of male-female scenes. I have other options: man-boy, boy-boy, boy-girl, girl-girl. Please make a selection."
"Rape," I say. "I want rape."
"Rape is forbidden. Please make a selection."
"I want Esha."
"Restate."
"Esha. I want to talk to Esha."
"Restate or security will be notified. This is your first warning."
I turn off the Obamakit and decide to go outside for a walk. As I come up on the sidewalk, I notice that Esha is also there. She's a block down, walking towards me. She has groceries. I assume the Friedan Position we were taught at Barney Frank: eyes on the ground, arms at the sides, just walking with small, clean, even strides.
I sense her pass me. I try, without making too much noise, to breathe her into myself.
Her footsteps are a universe. She doesn't speak. I walk.
Mark Judge is a journalist and filmmaker. His books include A Tremor of Bliss: Sex, Catholicism, and Rock 'n' Roll and Damn Senators: My Grandfather and the Story of Washington's Only World Series Championship.
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