Kate woke up slightly after dawn, just as the birds outside began to chirp. She felt strangely exhausted, almost like she ran a marathon the previous day. She wished she could still sleep, to still get a bit of a break from worrying about Jay and feeling upset about this whole new world around her, but frustratingly, her sleepiness was quick to disappear. She tried to at least turn her brain off and not think of anything... with not much success. She also needed to go to the toilet, but it took her half an hour to be able to get up and drag herself to the upstairs bathroom.

Ruby's room was downstairs, and as Katherine walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water, she put her ear on her door. There was no noise inside, the archprincess was surely asleep still. The girl began to look around in the kitchen once again. Not much was left in the fridge, just some leftover cheesecake and a bit of sushi, but she wasn't hungry yet anyway. She did find some green tea in the cabinet, as well as a jar of honey, and the electric kettle was just as simple to use as they were on Earth. She made herself a warm drink, sat down by the table, but then she got a sudden idea, and she quickly hurried upstairs for her old phone. It had 30% of its charge left, and the charger Ruby gave her the previous night did not work with it. Still, she brought it downstairs with herself, and as she drank her tea, she went through her entire gallery, looking at pictures of her past life, reminiscing, longing.

Of course, she spent the most time staring at Jay's pictures, letting her heart ache. She could almost feel the boy's smell as she looked at his familiar, roundish face. He was always a bit goofy, which Kate found frustrating at times, but there was something calming and reassuring about that attitude of his too. He had kind of a stability to him, which was comforting. There was one particular image, perhaps her favorite – in big part because she saw Jay setting that one as his lock-screen on his phone – in which she was kissing the boy's cheek from the side, who had the biggest, happiest smile, and his bright blue eyes were so relaxed. Looking at him now made Kate wonder: was she always this much in love with him?

“Oh, are you up already?” she suddenly heard Ruby's voice from behind herself. It made her jump, and she instinctively put her phone face down on the table.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” the archprincess chuckled. Then she yawned. “It's just half past six... so early! But I don't think I could go back to sleep.”

“Me neither,” replied Katherine.

“Was your bed comfortable?”

“Sure, it was fine. I just have a lot on my mind.”

“We both do.”

Ruby made a tea for herself too, and as she sat down across from the girl at the table, Kate noticed that she is glancing at her old phone. With a sudden idea, she decided to show it to her.

“It IS very similar to our phones,” the woman said.

“Yes. Want to see my gallery?”

“Oh, I would love to!”

And so Ruby got her first glance into the life on planet Earth. The girl sort of wished to provoke the archprincess, perhaps to prove a point to her through her images where she is together with Jay. But first, she showed her some pictures of her family.

“These are my parents, and this is our cat, Muffin,” Kate explained. “God, I hope my parents give her enough attention while I'm...”

“Wait. Your parents? You mean your direct biological ancestors?”

“Ancestors? I mean... yes?”

“Even your.... what's the word... father?”

“What about him?”

“You know who he is?”

“... Yes?”

“Hmmm. So if I understand correctly, the two of them together are like your guides? Or caretakers?”

“Sure. Why, is that not how things are here?”

“Of course not. You already know that men and women don't live together here, so this dual caretaking is out of the question. And we don't really keep track of who is who's direct biological ancestor. Well, for mothers, we kind of do. For some, it has some sentimental importance, it depends on the person. Pregnancy and giving birth is an intense and important experience, after all. But we are taking care of our kids communally, from a young age.”

“Oh.”

Awkward silence. Bad feelings. “Anyway,” Kate said, “this is my boyfriend, Jay. He is the one who also got trapped in this world. Here, we are on a hike together...” she swiped to the image where she was kissing the boy on the cheek, “and here, he looks so cute, don't you think?”

Ruby looked kind of startled and off-put, but she still nodded, in a way that a psychotherapist would at a lunatic to avoid making them lash out. Kate, of course, was not happy about that.

“I love him. I love him, I love him, I love him! Do you people even know how it feels to fall in love? Do you have any idea?”

“I do know the feeling of having a deep love and appreciation of men.”

“How about a person?”

“I know that feeling too.”

“It's just you don't think of men as people, do you?”

“As people? They are people, of course. But they are also men.”

“No shit.”

“Calm down, Katherine! Remember, we are trying to be allies here.”

“Then try harder!” the girl screamed. She then got up, drank her remaining tea, and she angrily washed up her mug. As she finished, she faced the archprincess again with a sigh, and said: “I'm sorry. I know you are trying, it's just so frustrating.”

“Understandable.”

Kate sat down again. Ruby took a sip of her own tea and asked: “I just don't understand, why him, specifically? What's so special about him? That he can get hard on his own?”

“He is... wait, what?”

“Never mind. I was informed that supposedly all men can get an erection on their own in your world, so that was silly of me to bring up. It's normal for you, not special. It's just... difficult to wrap my head around all this.”

“So... are you telling me that men of this world can't get hard?”

“Not without a woman's touch.”

“Seriously? But why? How does that work?”

“Something about hormones. I'm not very knowledgable about biology, but I can get you some books.”

“Weird.” The girl picked up her phone and looked at that picture again. “What's special about him, if you really want to know, is... well, everything. He is a unique individual, like all of us. I have known him since we were little, we are used to each other. He is funny, confident in his own way, and he has a good heart. Stuff like that.”

“Stuff like that...”

“Yes. Stuff like that.”

“All right! I think that's enough for now, let's not overwhelm ourselves. I think we need to take these things slowly. It is clear that it's not easy for either of us. But I do thank you for sharing these things about your world, and your own life.”

“Your welcome.”

“How about we go out to get something to eat, and then we shop for some new clothes for you? Sounds good?”

Kate glanced at her own clothes. She still wore her school uniform from the day before – white top, blue skirt – as she had no other clothes, of course. Do I smell? But she shook off the feeling of slight embarrassment and shrugged. “Sure. Let's go shopping.”

 

After Ruby was done putting on some makeup, she stepped into the kitchen to let Kate know she is ready. Today, the archprincess wore tight, beige pants, and a deep cut, dark-red blouse which was matching the color of her lipstick. She looked great.

They got inside her red sport car, and rolled out onto the street. On their way to a canteen (as Ruby called it), the girl was staring outside, looking at the varied buildings and passersby. She noticed that an area was surrounded by tall, white, non-see through fencing, as if it was sealed off from the outside world.

“What's going on there?” Kate asked.

“Oh, there are men working there. Doing some construction work.”

“So... they have to be hidden?”

“Of course. They aren't supposed to be randomly looking at women.”

“Why, what happens if they do?”

“I'm not quite sure, Katherine. What I think, what all of us thinks here, is that if men and women didn't keep a healthy distance from each other, our society would collapse. The genders keeping their distance is a fundamental part of how we always lived, it is what makes us civilized. Only you know what the alternative would be like.”

“That's right! And I know it would be healthier.”

Ruby slowed down, parked in front of a fairly large, modern looking building, and turned off the engine. “Look. We sort of get it. There is a certain pull, a selfish desire to be possessive of someone of the opposite gender. It's a feeling that does exist, and to a degree it's okay, but ultimately it's something to resist. It's just infatuation. It's human, but it's a foolish feeling and it only leads to bad things.”

“What bad things?”

“Pain. Suffering. Jealousy. You know, sometimes us women get really close to each other. It depends on the person, but some of us can develop intense feelings and desires for other women, and guess what, even that is extremely complicated. It's so intense, and it has so much potential for drama. I know that. To get so close to someone, to tie your life to another... if that's already so wild among ourselves, among equals, then it would be insane to do such things with someone on the other side. With a man. Katherine, I am both fascinated with your world, and scared of it. I am, I admit it. Of course I am. Please, be a little forgiving of me for that. Is that a fair thing to ask?”

Kate bit her lip in frustration. “Fine. I need to be easy on you, you need time. Fine, I get it.”

And yet, as they got out of the car and walked inside, they both knew that there is ultimately no getting around how difficult and frustrating these conversations gonna be. How many times will they get heated up, how many times will they ask for mercy of each other, how much more will they have to hold themselves back? But there was no other way. It was gonna be a delicate back and forth between the two of them, for who knows how long. It made Kate's head spin.

Inside the canteen, they first got to a section surrounded by stanchions, with a little automated gate on the end. Ruby pressed her finger against a small screen, which then led her through the gate, but since Katherine's fingerprints were not yet registered in the city's system, the archprincess told her to just simply get through under the belt of the barrier. In the main area of the huge room, there was a decent variety of food on display: ready made hot meals in heated counters on the front side, and all kinds of raw materials and cooking ingredients further back, such as fruits and vegetables, packages of nuts and raisins, drinks, eggs, gallons of milk, etc. Ruby explained that the place basically runs on an all-you-can-eat basis, but women can take away a “reasonable amount” of food too, the only hard rule is that an individual can only visit a canteen up to three times a day. Apparently, it was very similar to how it was for men in the lower city.

“That being said, men typically aren't that keen on cooking for themselves and stuff like that. So they have less of a variety of raw materials,” she said as they sat down by a round table, with a tray of food each. This early, there weren't a lot of others around, just a couple of women here and there. Kate noticed that some definitely recognized the archprincess, but they left them alone.

The girl was eating a bowl of chicken and vegetable soup, Ruby got some tomato soup, and they both had fresh, warm baguettes on the side. For minutes, they ate in silence, but then Kate suddenly said:

“About the keeping distance stuff... is it only men who aren't supposed to look at women? Because when that guy showed me to the upper city, he put on a blindfold, but you and that other woman didn't.”

“We are more lenient with women looking at men for sure. It's not that big of a deal if it's just for a short time, but it's still not optimal, of course.”

“How about television? Yesterday I have seen a program which was basically just men posing and showing off their bodies.”

“That's okay. If it's a movie, a recorded video or image, that's fine. It builds anticipation, allows people to indulge a bit in longing for the other gender. Men can watch female figures like that too, it's just that we never show actual genitalia. If either gender wants to get to the real deal, so to speak, they gotta do it properly, through our mating system.”

God dammit...

Once they were finished, Ruby picked up a couple of things (some milk, some more sushi, and a couple bags of cashews), and they got back to the car to put the groceries inside. They themselves didn't get in yet though, they instead walked past the big building of the canteen, arriving on a cobbled street with shops on both sides, and a water fountain further down in the distance.

“The other thing I don't get is... aren't women working too?” Kate asked after her eyes met with a shopkeeper woman's, who was sweeping the entrance of her store.

“Sure, some of us do. We gotta do something with the time that is given to us, after all. Being productive and giving back to the community can be pretty meaningful. It depends on the person though.”

“But isn't the whole idea that men work for you in exchange for sex?”

“They do the most essential, more tedious jobs, as well as the more dangerous ones. And those that take more physical strength. They also do administrative work. But there are some things that need to be done even up here. We also have a score system of our own, we call it prestige score, or prestige points, that's how we reward women who give back to the community. But still, women in general definitely work less than men. And we also have more stuff available to us. Much more options for customization.”

“Like what?”

“For example our houses, the direct environment where we want to live. Also food, clothing... it's a matter of self-expression too. Men are more simple creatures in a way, they don't need that much. They already have us women to strive for. But us, we need to find our own purpose, we need to carve out our own place in this world. And men give us a good amount of freedom to do just that. That's how things are, basically.”

“Did it ever cross your mind that maybe, just maybe you are wrong? That men too are more complex than just these mindless beasts?”

“I was generalizing in a way. Of course men too do things on their own. They can be very creative and inventive, it's not like they are just following our direct orders and do nothing else with their lives. But even then, the existence of women is a huge motivating force for them, just in general.”

“Pffft...”

“Look, here we are!” Ruby suddenly stopped in front of a store. In the display window, there were mostly these elegant but simple dresses, professional-looking ones, suits. It did look like a place where Ruby would go to shop for clothes. “There are plenty of other places down the road, but this is my personal favorite. Wanna check it out?”

“I guess.”

In the end, they looked around in several different stores. There was a lot to chose from, entire shops dedicated to certain vibes. One sold gothic style clothes, dark and badass ones, another had an extremely pink and cutesy theme, there was even a place that mostly offered baggy pants and purposely oversized hoodies. A lot of the items were actually free, but some had a prestige requirement. Those ones still didn't cost anything, one just had to have a certain amount of prestige score to be able to ask for them, which was also confirmed with the fingerprint system.

Kate didn't really get the whole prestige point deal, but at the moment she didn't care much (Ruby told her that she can chose anything anyway, on her account). She was actually able to more or less forget about her grudges momentarily, she really did need some extra outfits, after all. She tried on many clothes, and ended up picking a variety of items. Why the heck not? Her parents were fairly disapproving of her wearing more unusual or revealing outfits, so this was her chance to freely try whatever she felt like trying. They have been walking around for almost two hours, which was an uncharacteristically long shopping spree for the normally very practical minded girl, but she was kind of enjoying herself, and it's not like she had anything else to do.

Eventually though, she started to feel like she had enough. By then, they had two big plastic bags full of clothes, but Kate still wanted to check out a jewelry store, she thought that would be a fitting finale. And so they walked inside, but in that moment Ruby got a phone call.

“I'll be right back,” she said as she stepped back out the door.

Katherine began to look around in the bright shop, soon stopping by a counter which had many different rings on display. Her mind jumped to weddings, something she had mixed feelings about. Multiple of her girlfriends at school thought that marriage is a silly, outdated, arbitrary tradition, that it doesn't really matter. She sort of agreed, but at the same time, deep down she got the appeal of it. Growing up, many of her favorite romantic stories included a wedding at one point. A ceremony to proclaim some serious commitment between two people, and a celebration of that commitment, that did sound nice. Sure, a couple can have just as much of a long lasting and meaningful relationship even without it. And it's also true that lots of marriages end with divorce. But what's wrong with a bit of tradition, a bit of sentimentality if someone feels like it? It's not that big of a deal either way, is it?

Would Jay ever propose to her, though? She had no idea. Even if he did, how would he go about it? He was kind of broke for the most part, and Kate knew that weddings can cost quite a bit, even just the rings themselves. Well, in the future, her boyfriend will surely have some kind of job, but still... if she now has the chance to pick up a pair of rings for free, any of these on display, then why shouldn't she?

The only remaining problem was somehow delivering those rings to Jay... but then realisation hit the girl. Why would her boyfriend have to do the proposing? She could just do it herself. She did believe in egalitarianism, didn't she? It's not like there is some fundamental truth to men having to do it, it's not like women need to be pampered. But seriously? Could she really do it?

Once we finally get back to Earth... I'll do it!

She swallowed hard and picked out a silver ring that had a little white pearl on it.

“Excuse me,” she turned to the shopkeeper, an elegant older lady. “Do you have another one just like this? I would like a matching pair.”

She handed the ring to the woman, who nodded and brought a second one from the back of the shop, putting them in a little black box each. “I'll just need the fingerprint of the archprincess. Are you a friend of hers?”

“Something like that.”

The lady raised an eyebrow, but then quickly turned her head, picking up a magazine. Kate blushed as she realised that she probably assumed some sort of intimate relationship between her and the archprincess. Should she clarify that? No, that would be too awkward, and she could have misunderstood the woman's demeanour anyway. Luckily, Ruby soon got back inside, she pressed her finger against the shopkeeper's device, and they were done.

On their way back home, Kate was lost in thought. She was fantasizing – and worrying – about her proposal to Jay. How on earth would the boy react? Would he get weirded out? Or would he be flattered? Is it really this scary for men too?

As they rolled out onto a bigger road, Ruby cleared her throat. “Katherine, can I ask you a couple of questions?”

“Sure.”

“When do humans reach puberty in your world?”

“At around 11-12 years old.”

“And what does that mean, exactly?”

“Uhm... hormones kick in, they become capable of reproduction.”

“Boys start to produce sperm, and girls start to menstruate, right?”

“Right.”

“About once a month?”

“Yep.”

“And a month is... how many days on your planet?”

“30 or 31. Except for February, which is 28.”

“Uhum, so it all checks out. In that case, why is it that...”

“What?”

“Never mind. These discussions can wait, let's just relax today.”

At home, Katherine retired to her room immediately, and unpacked her new clothes, being excited to try on a couple of outfits. There was a tall mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door, which allowed her to take a good look at herself.

First, she tried on a full set of pink lingerie – thigh highs, corset, even a pink collar. It was pretty insane, she never wore anything like this, and she could only imagine how Jay would react if he saw her now. To think that they almost did it, that the boy touched her at her most intimate part...

She tried posing sexily, sticking out her butt, moving her body around. Frankly, it made her feel kind of ridiculous, but she kept reminding herself that there is nothing inherently wrong with such things. Lastly, she took a picture of herself with both her old phone (which barely had any charge left) and her new one, then she began to undress.

She wanted to try a gothic look next, so she put on her new black, lacy dress. It had long, see-through sleeves and a short skirt. She also had a pair of asymmetrical pantyhose: fishnets on one leg, and the usual black nylon on the other. The final touch was a pair of black leather boots with relatively high heels, but not too high.

After she checked herself out in the mirror, she decided to fully commit, to put on some makeup as well. She used black eyeliner and purple lipstick, and she liked the result quite a bit. It was so unlike her usual self, almost like she was staring at a different girl, a very attractive one. If only her hair was black, or perhaps blonde as opposed to brown. She thought those colors would definitely be more fitting for this kind of appearance. But it was okay.

She grabbed one of the small black boxes, and kneeled down in front of the mirror. “Jay, will you marry me?” she whispered as she presented the ring to herself. Her heart was beating fast, and she felt kind of embarrassed... but for fuck's sake, she was gorgeous and brave, Jay would surely be flattered. So she WILL do it. Okay, perhaps not in this outfit, but she will. They just both need to keep their sanity in this insane world for a little while longer, that's all. Once it's all over, they will live an amazing life together, surely.

Suddenly, someone (Ruby, of course) knocked on her door. The girl got startled and she almost dropped the ring. She put it in the drawer of her nightstand, next to the other one, and sat down on her bed. “Come in!” she said with a shy voice.

“Oh wow!” Ruby gasped as she entered the room. “What a look! It suits you.”

“Really?”

“I think so. Anyway, I spoke with some of the princesses. It is possible for you to talk to Jay Fiddler. We can make that happen tonight.”

“Yay!” Kate lunged at the woman, hugging her. “Thank you!”

“Your very welcome!”