The Bleeding Crowd by Jessica Dall

and how great life had been since we got rid
of you. Our entire language is femicentric. It’s easy enough to
slip. I’m sorry. I’m doing my best, really.”
    He didn’t respond.
    “Have I ever tried to degrade you, Ben?
You’re human. I’ve admitted that more than once.” She smiled
slightly. “Even if you’re a mutated one.”
    He scoffed. “You know you had just as much a
chance as I did of coming out with a Y-chromosome.”
    “Maybe,” Dahlia agreed. “Maybe it’s fate,
luck, or just plain chance. Whatever it was, it just means I was
raised in a different way by different people from you.”
    He swallowed. “It means we’re both human and
at one point we were equals. Actually, at one point we were
superior. Women were marginalized. The balance finally hit equal
and then—”
    “Ben, please.” Dahlia held up a hand. “All
your alternate history stories give me a headache. Anyway, what
does the past matter? We live here and now. We can’t do anything
about the past or even prove what was in the past.”
    “When your life is crap in the ‘here and
now’, Lia, you tend to have to look at the past so you can think
about the future.”
    She looked at him, taking a deep breath. “I’m
sorry, all right? I’m sorry that your life is so awful.”
    “It’s not just my life,” Ben said. “It’s the
life of every single damn person with the misfortune of being born
with a Y-chromosome. Every new regime needs an enemy. We drew the
short straw this time around.”
    “What short...?” Her eyebrows furrowed and
then she waved it off. “Never mind. Just... everything in our world
is set up on the idea that we’re better off with you away from
us.”
    “Maybe it’s time to set up a different world
then,” he said.
    She frowned and put off asking the question
as long as she could. “What do you mean?”
    “Things changed once.” He paused. “People
could change it again.”
    “I don’t know where you’re going with this,
Ben.” She crossed her arms. “But if it’s going where I think it’s
going, you’re talking treason.”
    “Treason.” He raised an eyebrow.
    “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Dahlia moved towards the bathroom.
    “What?” He moved after her. “Do they have
surveillance on you in your room?”
    “Of course not.” She turned, resting her hand
on the doorframe.
    “Then what does it hurt to talk?”
    “When you’re talking about... what is it you
are talking about? Revolution?”
    “If we stuck all of you in camps and used you
only when we wanted sons would you be happy with your lot in
life?”
    Dahlia threw up her hands. “I can’t listen to
this, Ben. I’m already protecting you from the whole hacking thing.
If you are trying to start... anything, any trouble, don’t tell me
about it. I can’t know about it.”
    He looked at her for a long moment and then
shrugged. “It’s all hypothetical.”
    “A dangerous hypothetical,” Dahlia said.
“Especially for you. I don’t think the whole Rights of the Accused
thing extends to men.”
    “Not a whole lot extends to us.”
    She swallowed and nodded in acknowledgement.
“I suppose it would be easy for someone in your situation to hate
us. To hate women.”
    “Are you trying to say I’m a misogynist?”
    “No.” Dahlia shook her head. “Just saying
it’s interesting that you don’t seem to have some sort of antipathy
towards me. Seems to be quite the opposite really.”
    He released a breath and moved towards her
again. He brushed a piece of hair out of her face, gently pulling
her out of the doorway. “I’m sorry. It’s a touchy subject.”
    She nodded.
    “Anyway, it’s not your fault you were
brainwashed.”
    She raised an eyebrow, leaning away from him.
“Excuse me?”
    “They’ve spent over three-hundred years
making women believe men are all that is wrong with the world.
You’re a product of your society. I suppose I blame them, not
you.”
    She tapped her fingers on her leg,