They were in the middle of their third, tiebreaking game when Jake finally got up the nerve to ask the first of many questions buzzing in his brain.
“Do you like living here?” He bit the inside of his cheek and looked up from the board.
Shawn sat back in his chair, cocked an eyebrow in Jake’s direction, and then grinned. “Hell, yeah. Some piece of paper may say she owns me, but Monica never treats any of us like slaves.”
“She doesn’t…” Jake’s voice trailed off as he stared at the other man, unsure how to finish his inquiry.
“What?” Shawn leaned forward again and rested his elbows on his thighs. He seemed truly interested in whatever Jake had to say.
“She doesn’t…u-use her breeders?”
A long pause followed Jake’s question, and he shifted uncomfortably under the weight of Shawn’s steady gaze. Jake was about to tell him to forget it when Shawn threw his head back and burst out laughing. Jake glared at his new friend darkly, making Shawn laugh harder. He wasn’t sure if Shawn’s amusement came from the question itself or if it embarrassed him as much as it did Jake.
“No,” Shawn said, sitting back in his chair and wiping at his eyes.
Jake, somewhat offended by Shawn’s reaction, assumed the man had finally gotten ahold of himself.
“The men here aren’t forced,” Shawn continued. “She doesn’t allow it or practice it herself.”
“So, she’s never…?”
Shawn shook his head.
Jake ran his fingers over his scraggly beard. “Not with anyone here or…anywhere else?”
“No, I told you, she doesn’t force anyone or allow any other woman to do so here. If anyone wants to get together, including her, both parties must consent freely. As far as anywhere else, no way would she use the sexual services of slaves offered up for a fee by other owners.”
Jake only nodded, slightly stunned that Shawn knew about breeders being sold by the hour, but something on Jake’s face must have hinted at his thoughts, as Shawn wasn’t done.
“Don’t get the idea Monica doesn’t like men,” he said hurriedly, while giving Jake a suggestive look he didn’t like but didn’t have a chance to refute. “She’s had boyfriends over the years, but nothing serious and no one for a long time now.”
“So, you’ve never…?”
Shawn straightened, his chin dropped, and his head recoiled slightly. “Me? And Monica?” Shaking his head, Shawn chuckled. “No.”
“Why not? She’s—” Jake clamped his jaw shut to stop himself from saying more. He didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.
“What? Beautiful? Sweet?” Shawn’s crooked grin returned, and his eyes twinkled with amusement. “Yeah, she’s definitely both of those things. Which is why I convinced her to try kissing once, a long time ago, but she’s too much like a sister to me.” His lip curled and he shivered dramatically, groaning with disgust. “It was weird and awkward and we never thought of it again. She broke up with the last man she was seeing shortly before moving here.”
“And where was he?” Jake wanted the question back the second it left his lips, but Shawn didn’t seem to think anything of his curiosity.
“We all lived at her friend Angel’s place for a couple years.” Shawn’s gaiety dimmed a bit and Jake wondered why, but the next instant his smile returned and he continued. “The man, Theo, was a ranch hand there. Like us, men aren’t treated like slaves on Angel’s ranch either.”
“But Miss Avery still left him there,” Jake said. For some reason, the idea that Monica left a man she once cared for as a slave in another woman’s home unsettled Jake’s stomach and made his whole body feel tight and heavy.
“Not exactly. They mutually agreed to stop seeing each other before we left. And from what I’ve seen since, Theo’s happily involved with another woman now.”
“I see,” Jake replied, though still a bit lost in all the new information. He tilted his head as another question occurred to him. “Why were you living there?”
“At Angel’s?”
Jake nodded.
Shawn sighed and glanced at the floor, but only for an instant. Then he shrugged and met Jake’s eye again. “Monica didn’t have enough to start this place on her own, so we helped Angel get hers up and running and she gave Monica the funds to buy this land and get the ranch started.”
Jake frowned. “Where did Angel get the money?”
“I’ve no idea.” Shawn’s open expression said he spoke the truth. “She and Monica took off on their own for a few days and came back with a bag full of gold. Neither of them ever explained where it came from.”
Jake snorted. “And why was this Angel woman so generous?”
Shawn chuckled again. “They’ve been friends for a while, been through a lot together. When they decided to move here, they made a pact. Monica took care of her ranch, and Angel joined the governing council. She spent a lot of time helping to rebuild the town and the electrical grid. That was touch and go for a while, but from what I understand, the town has access to a stable supply of power from parts of the old wind farms nearby and the hydroelectric dam on the Columbia about fifteen miles east of town. The outlying areas like Angel’s ranch and ours,” he shrugged and slouched back in the chair, “not so much. We rely a lot on solar to supplement certain necessities like refrigeration and the water pumps when the regular power fails for whatever reason. The rest of the time, we mostly use old-fashioned frontier ways.”
Jake stared. He’d wondered how they got the power running again. “How did they manage that? The repairs to the grid, I mean.”
“Angel and a few other women on the council began interviewing slaves. They asked about their skills and found several with enough knowledge to
