Although I have my own room here, not all the women do. Nolan has most of the other women, Ivy included, split between three dormitory-style rooms that house about twenty women each. All are on the third floor of this five-story wooden house deep in the Virginia mountains, and it’s there I go in the morning and evening to shower and brush my teeth.

Ivy told me that when a woman is about to be mated, Nolan will move her out of the dormitory and into a room of her own. I didn’t understand why ...