Assigned a Guardian by Emily Tilton Read Free Book Online Page B

about how happy they were to have been ‘chosen’ as 1A. Kayla found herself exchanging puzzled looks with the other women from the Jupiter, Joanne and Tiffany, who seemed more compliant than Kayla when it came to the Basic Law, but the enthusiasm of these second-gens clearly took them aback almost as much as it did Kayla.
    “My mom’s a 1A, too,” Margaret confided, “and she always tried not to get my hopes up, but I could tell that she really wanted me to find a husband like my dad. I mean, they have sex every night, so it just seemed completely normal, and I was really nervous that I’d have to settle for less.”
    All three Jupiter women’s mouths hung open at that. Marjorie noticed and laughed. “You second-gens, look at our new friends.”
    Mary, Margaret, and Susan looked over. “What?” Susan said. “What’s amazing about that?”
    “Well,” Joanne replied, “um, on Earth I’m not sure any person anywhere would ever talk about their parents’ sex life like that.”
    “Really?” asked Mary.
    “Really,” said Marjorie. “The culture created by the Basic Law is very old-fashioned in some ways, but in others it’s far more open and enlightened even than space-age Earth culture.”
    Kayla couldn’t help herself. “So you really are looking forward to having to serve your husband in bed and just keep having children and taking care of them?” she asked.
    Susan said, her own brow creasing, “That’s kind of a strange way to look at it, isn’t it? I mean, I’m a 1A, so I want to have sex a lot. And I love kids, but the schools and daycare centers on Draco are the best places for kids to spend their days, once they’re a year old, so I’ll get to work on my craft—I throw pots. But, yes, I guess that’s fair. It sounds like ‘serving your husband in bed’ is something you don’t think is fun, but, well, it gets me really wet to think about it.” She giggled.
    Kayla looked at Joanne and Tiffany. To her horror, they were nodding in sympathy. She shook her head, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
    “Kayla,” Marjorie said. “I had a friend among the original colonists. She died a few years ago, but she tested as a 1A and she had some of the same trouble with it that you do. She never accepted that her body made her crave a kind of relationship that, intellectually, she found unacceptable. She ended up in Lourcy House, which wasn’t a bad life for her, really, but I was always sad that it had to be that way.”
    “So I can go to Lourcy House?” Kayla said, grabbing at the straw.
    “At thirty, if you feel that’s the right thing, in consultation with your guardian. Until then, your guardian will decide about your courtship.”
    “What does that mean? If some ‘suitor’ wants to have sex with me, can he just rape me if my guardian says it’s okay?”
    “No, of course not,” Marjorie said patiently. “But your guardian is permitted to discipline you to help you understand your duty when it comes to your sexuality and your marital status. And you are permitted to protest your guardian’s discipline, but you must not expect the administration to take favorably to making a change based on anything short of permanent injury. We choose guardians because we have faith in them. If you complain, you will probably get a guardian chosen because he’s an even firmer disciplinarian than the one you had.”
    Medieval. That’s what Patrick had called it. And it really, really was. They would spank her until she had sex with the man her guardian thought was a good match. And Joe had made it very clear that he had a knee waiting for her, or even what he had called ‘my faithful punishment strap,’ if she ‘needed’ it.
    “We have to be clear on this, sweetie,” he had said in a kind tone. “There are gonna be times when I know what you need much better than you do. I can already tell that a lot of those times, what you need is gonna be a trip over my knee for a bare-bottom