Editor’s Note: This is a story set in my dystopian world that has banned abortion and contraception. It’s a really long story, so I broke it into two parts. This is part two. Read part one here.
Maddie turned her face away from Mrs. Frazier and stared at the wall. Maddie wasn’t really looking at anything, but she couldn’t bear looking at that bitch for one second more. How dare Mrs. Frazier tell Maddie what the fuck was for her own good? Maddie was a grown-ass woman who could make her own decisions. Maddie felt the being kick in her womb, and she fought to keep down the rising panic. She didn’t want this thing inside her, damn it, and it pissed her the fuck off that she couldn’t get rid of it. She remembered an ex-friend of hers admonishing her for complaining, saying it was her duty as a woman to have children and that said children were gifts from God. Maddie had stared at Sally, her friend, as if the latter had spoken in tongues. Never before had Sally espoused such beliefs, and Maddie couldn’t believe she had the fucking nerve to say it to her face. Maddie had cut off the friendship with no remorse, refusing to accept any calls from Sally after that.
That ill-fated decision had started Maddie’s downfall. Not two weeks after Maddie had cut off all ties with Sally did she get hauled into the nearest cop shop for thought interrogation. She had been kept for hours and was asked the same questions over and over again. Was she pregnant? Why wasn’t she happy about being pregnant? How did her husband feel about her being pregnant? What did she plan to do about it? She had answered their questions as honestly as she could – only lying about how her Darryl felt about her being pregnant. She told them that he was ecstatic about becoming a father and that he already had names picked out. She made a mental note to make sure Darryl knew this so he could answer similarly when he was questioned, if he was questioned at all. The cops rarely bothered to interrogate the husband in a case like this – they just assumed that the husband wanted the kid and it was the bitch wife who was trying to get rid of it.
The cops hadn’t hit her because it was law that no pregnant woman could be struck while in captivity, but they did everything else they could to make the experience as uncomfortable as possible. They did the good cop/bad cop thing, turned the heat up until Maddie was sweating profusely – she considered telling them that intense heat was bad for the baby, but she didn’t want to push her luck – and refused to give her anything to drink when she asked. She didn’t bother demanding an attorney because that right had been taken away in 2021, and she knew that asking would only make her more suspect in their eyes.
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