Content Warning: This text includes topics surrounding domestic abuse (and rape).
Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong body? At the wrong time? In the wrong place? Everyday I wake up and I wonder how this world is my world, how I fit into it, and if I could ever change it. My planet wasn’t meant to be this cruel, this profane, this unequal…or was it?
I went with my best friend, Charm, and our families to see the men that are offering to marry us. All marriages are set in February, so my family and I have to decide sooner rather than later which man is the worst fit and therefore, who I will spend the rest of my life submitting to. My mom hates when I say that. She always replies, “You aren’t submitting, you are learning to love!” But why should I learn to love if it doesn’t bring me happiness? I sure know mom has never been happy “learning to love” my father.
There were four men presented to me and seven men presented to Charm. Charm was so excited. She never liked having any sort of power or dominance — not in school and not in life. She liked being told what to do and how to do it, like most women on Planet Evol. And like most women on Planet Evol, she believed love was defined by the amount of punishment you receive when your behavior isn’t up to normal standards.
Most days, I wonder how me and Charm became so close. We have such different ideologies, and she’s always yelling at me for the secret feelings I feel safe enough to express. I pinpointed the beginning of our relationship to the same time school started becoming separated. Elementary school was easy because it was competitive, as we were all learning the same things. I started to struggle around middle school, when boys go off to learn the mechanics of engineering, teaching, law, etc. and girls start learning how to cook, do laundry and raise children. I suppose this internal struggle led me to Charm, because I thought her normalcy would rub off on me. It didn’t, but her company did.
One of my men brought flowers…what an amateur. Everyone knows you don’t bring flowers to a girl you are trying to marry. He was escorted off the premises immediately, leaving me with three men, and I’ll probably never see him again, but the red flowers he brought made me smile.
My family and I intensely scrutinized the three men left. One came too put-together. He wore a suit and looked overall pretty clean and kind. Out. He didn’t have what it takes to play the dominant role of a husband.
The two men left were named Cixot and Niap. They both had strong builds, mean faces, selfish personalities and all the other qualities that make up a good husband.
After some careful consideration, I went home with Cixot. He ultimately had a better job that my family believed would lay the best foundation to support a future family. To celebrate the engagement, Cixot chugged an entire bottle of alcohol he had in his car. When we got home, I tried to prepare myself for the typical initiation as I ran to hold open the door for my new fiance.
He beat me, as he should. One punch, and I could feel the black and blue forming at the surface of my skin. One kick, and all the preparation went out the door. I screamed for help, knowing none would come. I screamed out loud, hoping it would make me feel better. I screamed and screamed and screamed and worried that he liked it better that way.
It hurts. He hurts. My body hurts. My head hurts. It all just hurts. Is it supposed to hurt to love? I guess so.
The weeks before the wedding were anything but blissful. I barely had time to talk to Charm or my family and even if I did, I couldn’t because Cixot would question why I had so much free time.
On the bright side, I found some old cookbooks in the attic. I learned a lot of the recipes, filling my time with memorization of different cups and tablespoons and spices.
I already knew how to do laundry, being that I have been taught about detergents and fabric softeners for as long as I can remember. Cixot’s machine was a bit confusing, but I got the hang of it after some trial and error.
Cixot tested me every night about the methods of motherhood. Even though he wouldn’t know whether it was right or not, he asked me questions like how many bottles I should have prepared each day and what the best reinforcement method of punishment is. Most times he would beat me whether or not I answered correctly, based on the books. It wasn’t his job to know the material — it was his job to beat me when I wasn’t performing to my highest potential.
I suppose Cixot didn’t really care about the traditional “wait until marriage” notion. The first couple days, I tried to say no or make up an excuse, but this only led to more beatings. Once I understood this system, I just let him penetrate me without much fight. I knew this was what I was supposed to do. He would do this every night and every night, I would try my best to hold my tears back from his aggressiveness. I don’t know why I felt this way, but every night I prayed I wouldn’t carry his child. I knew that this couldn’t last forever, but I just wasn’t ready to handle raising a child in his household right now.
One day, when I was getting the mail, I noticed a pink letter squished in the middle of Cixot’s stack. Out of pure curiosity, being that all cards are usually blue or white, I pulled it out once I was inside. Cixot was at work, so I had
time to study the envelope. It was addressed to me, but it had no returning mail address. I never really get mail, so I wasn’t sure whether this was going to be good or bad.
I opened the letter. It was from a man named Lance, the same guy who was escorted off of the property for bringing flowers to meet me. It read:
Dear Reva,
I know writing this letter could put a lot of what you have at risk, but I could tell something was different about you from the moment I laid eyes on you. You don’t want a life with Cixot, because you aren’t like the other women from Evol. You are independent, strong and resilient. You don’t want to give up your freedom to a man for the rest of your days, do you? I can sense you long for adventure to ease your curiosity. I think you are searching for change in a world that seems so limited. This may sound absolutely insane, but I love everything about you. You aren’t submissive, but you are helpful and loving and appreciative. You can see yourself accomplishing so much more in life than attending to a man. You believe in love, as an equal exchange between two people. I don’t want you to live this terrible, crippling lifestyle, and I have a feeling you don’t want to either. I know that there is more out there, even if people try to convince you otherwise. Things are not always as they seem. Reality is what we deem to be true. If I am right about my feelings, meet me at the abandoned soccer field at your earliest convenience. I know your family is planning your wedding right now, so your flowers and I will be waiting here until after the ceremony. The choice is yours.
With nothing but love,
Lance
I didn’t know how to feel after I first read the letter. My wedding was tomorrow, and I was so confused and conflicted about sealing the end of my life with a ring. How did he know so much about me and my life? Should I feel flattered or fearful? Should I tell Cixot? Should I meet Lance to see what he has to say? Mom never prepared me for a situation like this, but I know she would remind me that my loyalties belong to my husband. Cixot is not my husband though, not yet at least.
As I was lost in contemplation, I heard Cixot’s car pull into the driveway. I quickly stashed the envelope and the card in one of my cooking books and placed the book back on the shelf. Flustered, I tried to calm myself down before Cixot entered the house.
“Why don’t I smell dinner cooking?!” he yelled as soon as his first foot hit the indoor carpets. I explained to him that I had prepared the salad first. “There’s not much to smell,” I joked, but Cixot didn’t find it funny. After he had finished eating dinner, I paid for that joke with another beating.
Cixot could tell something was making me act weird. He traced the living room for evidence that would tell him what I was up to. I must have ripped the card open unevenly, because he found an edge of the pink envelope. He yelled and yelled, asking why I had opened one of his letters. I told him that Charm had sent me a letter congratulating us on our marriage that would take place the following day. He had a feeling I was lying, demanding to see the letter in the morning because he was too drunk to read it. He said goodnight with a strong right-hook to my thigh, alluding to what would take place before we left for the wedding ceremony.
I told him I would meet him upstairs when I was finished cleaning up from dinner.
Instead, I pondered what Lance had meant by “strong.” Am I strong because I let Cixot control my life? Am I strong enough to deal with him for the rest of my life? What gives me strength?
Angered and impulsive, I went to the laundry room and packed all of the clean clothes I had into a small backpack. I went to the bathroom and packed a toothbrush and my hairbrush. I knew that if I ran now, I would never be accepted back into the community. I would never have a husband. I would never get any financial support. I could never talk to Charm or my family again.
I knew all of these risks and still I quietly and slowly walked out of my house and toward the soccer field.
When Lance saw me, I saw a genuine expression of happiness, unlike one I had ever seen coming from a man,let alone in regard to a woman. He ran up and hugged me. It was a bit unusual but still comforting nonetheless. He told me it was going to be okay as he pulled out two uniforms from a bag he had with him. They resembled guard uniforms that protected the government building. This was the only place that had access to travel outside of Evol. We were never told in school what was beyond Planet Evol, nor were we permitted to ask questions about travel, but I always imagined it as a child.
I trusted Lance. Although I barely knew him, it felt like he connected with me on a deeper level than I had ever experienced before.
The other guards let us pass through with no problem. We entered the government building, which seemed much smaller than I had always imagined. Lance instructed me to look forward and not bring any attention to myself. This wasn’t the hardest task.
The ceiling was glass and see-through. It had thousands of different shapes and colors that made it hard not to look in awe.
Lance brought me up the stairs to a room with a sign on it that said “authorized access only.” He pulled a card out of his pocket, swiped it, and the door opened.
Inside, on a desk, we found these papers with reports that alluded to ideas of equality. It had many familiar names, including Charm’s and mine, with data and calculations. On the top it read “Domestic Abuse Study Statistics” and it was stamped from someone named P-murt.
Suddenly, we heard an abrupt knock at the door and just as quickly, guards were bursting in with guns and police enforcement. Lance grabbed my hand, and we ran and ran and ran from guards down a hallway. Once at the end, we trapped ourselves in a room that resembled a glass bubble. We barricaded the door with furniture. Lance brought me to the edge of the room to look outside. It was the highest room in all of Evol.
We saw the border. We saw couples holding hands, laughing, and loving through the glass. We saw unfamiliar people holding signs directed at the government building. Most had writing like “PROTEST THE STUDY” and “HURTING PEOPLE IS NOT SCIENCE. IT IS UNETHICAL.” I didn’t have a moment to question my confusion when the barricaded furniture started to move. The guards were trying to get in. We had to get out!
Lance broke the glass with a nearby chair. The people below started to cheer before realizing the imminent danger we were in. One of them ran to his truck to get a ladder. Unfolding it against a tree, the minutes that it took felt like a century. It reminded me of the beatings that felt like they would go on for hours and hours, even if they only lasted a couple minutes. One man got to the top of the ladder just as the door succumbed to the pressure of the guards. He reached out his hands, and Lance begged me to go first. It was scary looking down at the ground, but my adrenaline helped me leap to grab the man’s hand. He angled me toward a rung, and I used my momentum to gain a steady stance. I could see guards’ hands and legs starting to make their way inside of the room. I started to panic because Lance was still inside.
I wondered how Lance was going to jump to the ladder without forcing it to tip over, with both myself and the man on the same side. The man at the top of the ladder threw Lance a rope, which he seemed to be prepared for. He wrapped it around his waist and threw it back to the man. Rope in hand, the man looped the other end around a branch of the tree. I knew what Lance was going to do, since he had very limited time before the guards caught him and arrested him, but I wanted to close my eyes in fear.
Lance jumped out of the broken glass with enough force to make it over the border, but not enough to smash into the tree. His whole body was heavily jolted when the rope reached its length. He was swinging from side to side, hanging from the branch, when I reached the ground from the ladder.
Both the man and myself rushed to help him get down. I soon learned that my whole planet, everything I had accepted as reality, was a study from before the day I was born to the present. It wanted to experiment and find data regarding what they called “domestic abuse and the effects on female partners.” I wasn’t familiar with the term domestic abuse, but I learned to associate it with the mistreatment and inequality women experienced on Evol.
We joined the protestors for the next couple of months and eventually we were granted access by P-murt to visit my family and friends in Evol. I suppose this was because of the uprising, which threatened to shut down the experiment, if ethics were not proven. While I was scared to go back and face the community I left behind, I was motivated to tell everyone of the ruse.
To my surprise, no one wanted to come back with us, even when we begged to get the chance to show them a new world with more freedom and security. They liked their way of life, or at least, it was all they knew. I feel bad for them because they won’t let themselves see the beauty of this new world. They’re too scared of change because of the endless destruction, both mentally and physically, they have been subject to for so long. My mom and Charm wouldn’t even go against what they thought was the law to talk to me.
I always knew something about Evol wasn’t right. All I needed was to listen to myself. I wasn’t learning to love, I was learning to hate. I was learning to stay, even when my gut told me not to. I am learning the proper ways to love every new day that comes with Lance, who was forced to leave the experiment after he didn’t comply with the standards. When he saw how terribly the experiment had escalated, he made a plan to return to Evol and take me with him. As the sun rises each day, I feel happy to be a part of a team with him. He helps me, and I help him. He doesn’t beat me, but he does bring me roses. And when I don’t feel like making dinner, we order take-out.
I won’t stop fighting until the Evol experiment is shut down. I am not back to normal just because I left Evol. I don’t want to go back to their teachings of “normal.” I have to learn a new normal and fight the psychological instincts Evol accustomed me to. However, this daily struggle is much better than literally struggling for my life constantly. Women deserve better, and I hope one day they will find the strength to see this too.
Kira Soricelli is majoring in English and criminology at the University Park campus and is planning to graduate in 2024.