My Best Beta Life
I hate when my mother’s right.
I’ve lost track of how many times over the years she’s told me, “Deborah Dushane, deny it all you like, but you take after your father.” This counts as praise in her book, and she makes sure I never take it as a complaint against me or him.
They’re best friends of sorts, with no sexual chemistry or interest in each other at all—my twin brother and I repeatedly wonder just how they came together for the one-night stand that begot us all those years ago.
While they never admit to anything, we suspect alcohol or drugs played a part, even though we’ve never seen evidence either has ever touched anything mood-altering, unless by prescription.
Mom describes my dad, Dan Eveson, as an intelligent, considerate friend, good provider, and patient, loving parent, none of which I disagree with.
In fact, these descriptors make me go fuzzy and warm inside because, by implication, she considers me intelligent, considerate, patient, loving, and a good provider—if not necessarily in that order.
I’m not a parent yet, but I’m planning to be one in a year or two.
The list of good qualities she sees in him and me varies from time to time, but she almost always ends by describing him as an alpha and giving me a loaded look.
Nature plays her jokes on humanity: everyone develops a secondary sex designation in their late teens, by twenty, at the latest. When one comes into one’s subsidiary sexual designation, it’s called ‘presenting’: alpha, beta, or omega.
Talk about awful timing—teenagers are already dealing with the realities of physical, mental, and psychological maturation, and really don’t need another load of hormonal changes turning their bodies haywire.
Most of us stay betas—absolutely normal in every way.
A minority present as alphas. This involves physiological shifts that convert otherwise ordinary, everyday teenagers into muscle-bound, dominant motherfuckers with the ability to bark others into obedience. Even other alphas will comply if the order comes from a stronger alpha.
While a bark might come in handy, I don’t need it.
I teach third grade, and my twenty wonderful, mischievous students know to toe the line when I tell them it’s time.
A bark would be frosting on my already admirable cake, quite apart from my philosophical—and practical—objections to the biological reality that means randomly selected individuals can literally order other people around.
Young alphas are notorious for fighting each other at the drop of a hat, just because one looked at another the wrong way or other such nonsense. Alphas sometimes go into ruts during which they want only to fuck, not even pausing to eat or drink.
There are a million jokes about alphas, and almost all of the punchlines involve alphas “fighting, fucking, or farting”—or all three.
So not my thing at all.
Well, the fighting and farting, at least.
Most alphas have insatiable sex drives and enhanced sexual organs. Alpha penises develop knots at the base, and alpha vaginas get rings of muscles forming locks. Both knots and locks are designed to trap sexual partners in media res, prolonging intercourse to improve odds of pregnancy.
I have never had a desire to have a lock. I like my body the way it is.
And I really don’t want to think about my mother, Gloria Dushane, viewing me as having an overactive sex drive, even if it might—sorta, kinda, almost—be true.
It’s true that I like sex, a lot of sex, preferably on a regular, if not daily, basis.
Until recently, I juggled two or three steady boyfriends at any given time—each with full knowledge that we weren’t exclusive, as I believe in honesty, transparency, and good communication as the foundation of solid relationships particularly sexual relationships.
Nevertheless, this in no way, shape, or form constitutes similarity to an alpha female capable of fucking an omega through a heat, with or without a pack.
Packs generally comprise two to four alphas, an omega, and occasionally a beta or two ganging together for fun, friendship, and fornication—complete with semi-magical bonds created through bites that let mates share emotions with each other.
Everybody loving everyone, whether or not everyone has sex with everyone, making pack life one big love fest, or so they claim.
I wouldn’t know; I’ve kept my relationships one on one, just me and one or another of my beta lovers.
In turn, my lovers are free to have other lovers, as long as the lines of communication stay open and we talk through any rough spots—and avoid unwanted communicable diseases.
On occasions when I’m willing to put up with the extensive negotiations required, I’ve been known to play with two betas for nice, fun, lets-all-be-friends-when-it-ends threesomes.
Just other betas.
I’ve been tempted by an alpha on one or two occasions, but nothing ever came of it. Found an omega or three appealing, yet likewise, nothing ever happened.
Even rarer than alphas, omegas are the stereotypically submissive counterparts to alphas: equally sex-obsessed, going into heat every six to nine months—regardless of gender—unless medicated.
Only omegas with female sexual parts bear children, and often get pregnant at the drop of a hat during heat without special omega-strength birth control.
Betas like me are grateful that omegas’ need for strong birth control means ample options for us, too.
Omegas with male sexual parts supposedly experience a different heat effect: they’re capable of causing ovulation in their partners, and resultant pregnancies unless strong birth control is used.
There are all manner of soppy, soapy romantic dramas involving infertile couples—usually betas, but sometimes alphas—finding an amenable male omega to help them have the baby they’ve longed for.
I might have watched one too many of those lately; I want children, and it’s probably time to get working on that.
Since nature is thoroughly messed up, the ratio of female to male omegas is inverse relation to that of alphas. That said, none of the female omegas I know truly count as submissive, except maybe when it comes to sex—and even then those who aren’t dominant can still be demanding.
In college, I survived four years living in dorms full of omega females—alongside betas and a few alphas—and know more than I ever wished to about their bossiness, not least with respect to their sex lives.
For some reason, I seem to be a kind of omega catnip, and I swear, nearly every single female omega I dormed with then, or work with, nowadays, wants me as a friend.
Strictly friends, though—I don’t swing that way.
Male omegas I’ve encountered less often.
I’ve never been friend zoned, yet I never ended up in bed with one either, though I’m not sure why.
The closest I came was a month ago, at an art gallery opening including works by a sweet Black male omega with sparkling brown eyes and the most amazing imagination.
If I hadn’t just decided to go exclusive with my boyfriend, the evening might have had a much different ending—instead of bringing home only a small sculpture, I’d have invited the sculptor, as well.
The rest of the population—us—are betas. If one doesn’t present as an alpha or omega, one is considered a beta. It’s a spectrum—alpha to beta to omega—and more complicated than the tales would have you believe. Stereotypes, and exceptions to stereotypes, about all designations abound.
Nevertheless, betas make up nearly three-quarters of the population, and we’re wonderful, thank you very much.
My mom’s a beta, and so are most of the relatives we’ve met on her side—it’s complicated.
Let’s just say they’re almost all on the other side of the border between the United States of Atlantica and the Indigenous-dominated Protectorates.
Given regular tensions along the Mississippi, my family has only managed to visit my Newe and western Shawandasse relatives a few times.
My dad, admittedly, is an alpha, but he comes from an equally strong line of Anglo-European-Atlantican descended betas who, on the rare occasions I’ve met any of them—he grew up in a small beta-heavy town several hours away—are still bemused that my father isn’t a beta.
He takes regular suppressants to keep his inner alpha—in other words, his hormonal, impulsive, instinct-driven self—under control, which is not a secret, but also not something we shout to the world.
It used to make him almost more beta than the rest of us, though that’s changed recently, which, unfortunately, gave my mother more fuel for her hints about me.
My twin, Derrick, is a beta.
I’m a beta. No matter how many times my mother looks at me meaningfully, I remain a beta. A dominant, highly sexual beta, but a beta nonetheless.
So much for stereotypes.
Though I am also, at the moment, a somewhat-frustrated beta.
I’m twenty-eight and living my best life.
Great job.
Nice studio apartment, close enough to my family to hang out, but far enough away that they can’t stick their noses in my business too often.
Enough money to live on and put aside for retirement, as long as I budget carefully—schoolteachers make decent salaries, but city life isn’t cheap.
Plenty of good friends, albeit only two true confidants: fellow teachers Rosa, a beta, and Sarai, an omega.
All that, plus a handsome, considerate, and good-in-bed boyfriend who wants the same things in life as me.
Boyfriend.
Singular.
A first for me since my late teens, when I realized one could juggle multiple boyfriends successfully, if one was willing to put in the work of constantly negotiating clear guidelines on what they could—and couldn’t—expect from me. That, and dumping them when they got too possessive.
Thing is, I want children some day, and that day is no longer far away, but more like next year or the year after.