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The Perfect Pairing

Writer's picture: Gwenna LaithlandGwenna Laithland

Updated: Jan 6



I probably should have felt some small twinge of pity for my husband.  After all, it's not like he had chosen me. Statistically, we were the perfect couple. Paired for marriage and breeding by a hundred different algorithms programmed by The Population Council, he had no choice in taking me as his wife.

 

We were of complimentary height, weight, appearance, & epigenetics.  The children produced by our union would bring humanity one step closer to genetic perfection. Our parents had been thrust together this way.  Our children would be so with their spouses. It was just the way things were.  You didn’t have to love each other, you just had to breed.

 

Most pairs did just that.  Legally they were married, of course. They lived together as ghosts of roommates, carrying on with their own lives regardless of their genetically perfect mate. The powers that be were well aware of this trend. They understood the emotional toll arranging the marriages of genetically perfect pairs had taken. Extramarital affairs were expressly forbidden by The Council. But many blind eyes were turned.

 

Love matches were almost unheard of. Every doe-eyed teen hoped the computer would get it right and match them with their one true love. Occasionally though, genetics did manage to meet up with the desires of the heart. The newspapers and websites constantly vomited out feel-good, inspirational porn stories about some Jane and John dripping with adoration and adulation for each other.

 

My husband and I were not one of those couples but we both understood the value, the attraction of that illusion. Both of us had followed career tracks with high social demands – he served as a lawyer and I excelled in advertising. Appearances were everything in our crowd. So we painted on the adoration. The rarity of having a blossoming relationship with your match was a boon for us. Publicly, our love was a sight to behold.

 

 Our fights were conducted in the privacy of our shared home. Tiny injustices, social gaffes, imperfections catalogued and trotted out at each other’s convenience when nerves were frayed. Slowly, our fights were leaking out into the public spaces.  Our subtle microaggressions toward one another grew bigger, more pronounced, more vicious.  Once our two obligated children had been born we stopped sharing the same room. He slept in his office. I slept in our bed.

 

I don't know what pulled the pin.  It could have been when I called him a little bitch in front of his friends.  It could have been when I failed to show up to his office Christmas party.  It doesn't matter but something broke him. Shattered, he dove to the depths of desparation. Legally he couldn’t leave me, nor I him. Socially, we couldn’t begin ignoring each other. Our images were so carefully curated any sign of marital discord could be career killers.  He must have felt so hopeless, so trapped. I really ought to have pitied him. But I didn't. 

 

More appropriately, I couldn't. Empathy is just one of those feelings you just can't fake. My parents had known their genetically perfect little girl was not as perfect as the medical tests indicated. All the science and gene-mapping technology had not yet identified a marker for psychopathy. They stopped buying me pet rodents fairly young. When our collie died, they decided it best not to replace it.

 

My husband may have suspected but certainly said nothing.  Turns out that in a society obsessed with genetic perfection, there is left a significant portion of the population most would rather have dead anyway. It’s easy to kill when more than a quarter of the planet was deemed undesirable.

 

The trick is finding the one-offs. You have to find the lonely and discarded that no one would notice if they were gone. The authorities have neither the resources nor the desire to help. They simply look the other way when the genetic riff-raff just sort of...disappears. One less mouth to feed, one less mongrel to contain and police. You can pick off the non-breeders like deer in a pasture and no one actually cares. Ocassionally a young change-the-world, superhero of the masses type will start up a charity or press the local government for better protections. But little lasting change ever comes of their efforts. If you're deemed a non-breeder, your life is essentially forfeit. You're on your own. If you're lucky enough to be "marriage material", you have carte blanche to do what you'd like with the lower classes of humanity. No one tries to stop you.  Not really.

 

So when my poor, long-suffering husband hired one of those disgusting mutations to paste my pretty little head to the pavement, it was just another day at the office for me.  The non-breeder came at me with a hammer and I laughed and laughed.  Such an amateur move. If you go straight for the brain damage, they don't scream and what's the fun in that? 

 

I played at being frightened for a bit, ran around the couch, let him hit me a time or two. With a stream of my own blood rolling down my cheek I turned to face my attacker, catching him off-guard. He was panting from the exertion of trying to murder me. One step in and he raised the hammer into the air as I laced my fingers around his throat. I squeezed, feeling the prickle of his stubble against my palm and smiled as his eyes grew round. I jumped up, wrapping my legs around his middle and locking my ankles.

 

He dropped the hammer and it landed with a metallic clank on the bamboo hardwood. Keeping my hands tense I looked down, pleased that the salesman had not been lying about the flooring’s durability. It was damn near indestructible. Not even a scratch on the clear coat.

 

I kept squeezing, putting just enough pressure on the trachea to make it uncomfortable but keeping my thumbs right at magical point in the center of his throat. I’d never be able to hang on to neck beard long enough to suffocate him. But you know enough biology and anything is possible.

 

I squeezed harder, waiting for him to begin to struggle. It didn’t take long. Fucking subhumans – no brain between two of them. I was half his size. An ounce of thought into the situation and he could have easily torn me off. Instead he heeded his own flimsy survival instinct and his hands flew to mine, clawing and grasping. His flailing was predictable and I was able to duck and dip out of his uncalculated haymakers.

 

I was not having fun with this one. I flicked the heel of my hand down hard, feeling that pleasant hollow popping of the hyoid bone. We fell to the floor, me on top of him, his legs scrabbling wildly. Still not a scratch on the pale blonde bamboo. Now able to use the force of gravity to apply my full weight onto his throat, I leaned into him pressing my whole fist into the center, pressing on the carotid arteries, fucking up his heart and brain and life all at once. I was a bit sad I hadn't taken a picture. That peculiar purple color he'd turned as his eyes rolled back into his stupid skull would have been a brilliant accent shade in the guest bathroom.


Disclaimer: This is an original short story by Gwenna Laithland. Any similarities to real people or events is purely unintentional. All rights reserved. No one may repost this story or any part of it for commercial or financial gain without authorization from the author.

 

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13 Comments


Daisy Grace
Daisy Grace
Feb 05

Gwenna! Holy fudgesicles that was SO good!! Thank you for sharing!!


Have you read John Marr’s books? He has a trilogy that touches on the whole “perfect match” and government oversight of it and stuff. So good also.

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beckylombardi82
Jan 20

This story sucked me in right away. I need to know the rest!!!

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Jade
Jade
Jan 16

I NEED MORE STORYYYYYYYYYY

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Toni Katsilas
Toni Katsilas
Jan 07

This story was gripping from the very beginning, the descriptive details, psychology... absolutely incredible. Love it.

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Karen Churchill
Karen Churchill
Jan 07

Grabbed my attention right away. Deliciously descriptive. My only complaint is my difficulty reading the thin grey font on the white background. A minor distraction. Great job, Gwenna!

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