Microstory 1754: Under the Microscope

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I slam the microscope down against his head. He doesn’t even apologize now, but smiles at me, and tells me that she belongs to him, and he’ll never let her go. I hold it over him, waiting for him to give me a reason to set it back down carefully. I pick it up. I look around the room for anything to use as a weapon, but only find a microscope. Now that I have the upperhand, I take my opportunity to place my heel against his, and force him to the ground by the chest. He gets one more good shot in, but it seems to wear him out, at least for a moment. We struggle with each other, neither one strong enough to gain some kind of advantage. He thinks that will be the end of it, but he just sent me into fight or flight mode, and I always choose fight. Deciding that he would rather make the first move, he punches me in the stomach with both fists, knocking the wind out of me. Both of us realize that this argument is going nowhere, and that it’s about to get violent. We continue to argue. He doesn’t care. He won’t even admit that what he did was wrong. He won’t apologize for what he’s done. We begin to argue. I accuse him of sexual assault, and he doesn’t seem concerned. I approach him with obvious aggression, but he just sits there calmly, confident that all will turn out okay. I walk up to his lab, and open the door without asking, glad that it’s Saturday and the place is empty except for him. I step out, and try to remember why I’m here, what I’m hoping to accomplish, and how I can avoid this all getting out of hand. I stay in the car for a few minutes, afraid to actually go up there, but knowing that it’s unavoidable. I arrive at the science building.

I know that if I don’t, no one else will. I take the scenic route back, because I’m still not sure that I want to do this. Not really, but it feels like I could. I almost tear the car door off its hinges, I’m so mad. I walk out of the police station, having just been proven that justice isn’t simply blind, but actively hides from the truth. That would be ironic. I turn away in a huff, worried that I’ll be the one behind bars if I say what I really want to say to them. They say that can’t compel her. They keep their voices low, explaining that she’s old enough to answer for herself. I’m nearly at a scream now, begging them to see that she’s too young to make her own decisions. They tell me they’ll look into it if anything changes, but until then, this is how it has to be. They ignore the conjecture, and tell me that there’s nothing they can do. I tell them it shouldn’t matter; that she’s obviously just too scared of him. They tell me she’s changed her statement, and that she had every right to do so. I relay what she said to me, but they’ve already heard it. I walk in and ask to speak to someone important. I walk out of the dorm, and drive to the police station, feeling useless to do anything else. I respect her wishes, and leave her room. She asks me to leave, and I realize it’s because I’m a man, and she doesn’t need that kind of energy right now. I assure her it is, and she did the right thing. She says she wasn’t even going to tell anybody, because she isn’t certain it’s illegal. She says he didn’t touch her once. She says it was over quickly. She says she didn’t feel safe trying to get away. She says he made her watch. She says he touched himself. She says her much older ex-boyfriend came by yesterday, and locked the door behind him. She breaks down crying, not wanting to tell me, but needing to unburden herself. She doesn’t seem okay. She says she’s okay. I ask her if she’s okay. Something seems off. I drive out to visit my seventeen-year-old cousin, who is at a weeklong music camp at the college.

Microstory 1697: Erroneous Soulmate Syndrome

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There are obvious downsides to only being able to have relations with one partner for your entire life. That person has to be something special, or you might end up just being miserable, and resentful. As mentioned before, your partner may die, leaving you alone, or only with however many children they were able to conceive with you. There are some really bad consequences that evolution couldn’t take into account, and which medical science had to pick up where it left off. There are many atrocious cases, but I will talk about the first one that was corrected, at least on a chemical level, that is. From a biological standpoint, in this universe, rape and sex can end the same. Two people come together, and release chemicals that will prevent either one of them from copulating with someone else. The fact that it’s not a consensual encounter is not something that the body knows, or would be able to do anything about. One young woman was just trying to live her damn life as a coworker kept pestering her about a date. He felt entitled to the exploration of a relationship, and ultimately, did not take no for an answer. Unlike in other universes, no one has intercourse while they’re dating. You have to be certain that this is the right person for you, or you could be stuck with the wrong partner forever. Still, people have sexual urges, which they usually take care of in other ways. The coworker was not willing to do that. The more he begged her for a date, and the more she rejected him, the most frustrated and erratic he became. He was both not thinking about the rules, and didn’t care about them. He wanted sex, and he was going to get it, whether she was willing or not. It was wrong in any world.

Once the attack was over, they were now supposedly bonded for life. She no longer had any hope of finding a true life partner, and he didn’t either, for as much as that mattered. The rape itself could not be undone, nor the psychological trauma that the act inflicted upon the survivor. It would always be there, no matter how much therapy she received, and no matter what punishment her attacker faced. As for the biological soulmate problem, there actually was hope now. Medical science was advancing at a decent rate, and a particular research team believed they had the answer to what had already been deemed Erroneous Soulmate Syndrome. Using a new surgical procedure, they thought they could reverse a soulmate bond, and return people to their original, pre-sex active state. This woman was the first to undergo the experimental procedure, and discover that it worked. It was flawed, however. She was still unable to bond with anyone else. It didn’t hurt, but the soulmate connection could still not take place. Her chosen partner would have technically been free to choose another while still having relations with her—though, he did not do that. Neither of them would end up with a biological soulmate, but at least she was no longer linked to her rapist. Over time, the researchers continued to perfect their techniques until they could successfully reverse a bond, while allowing a patient to find another afterwards. That first patient’s limitations were never fixed, but it was an important first step in making the world a little more fair by giving people a choice. As the years went by, new laws were passed, allowing more exceptions to a bonding, including not only rape, but childhood tomfoolery, and drunken mistakes. Decades later, the elective procedure was standard for anyone over the age of eleven, but of course, it was only ever performed after receiving consent.

Microstory 1125: Eudora Mercari

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Eudora Mercari was born on Durus during the reign of the First Republic. Upon turning twenty, she was promised to a man. In this world, she had no choice in the matter, and though she knew intellectually that this was wrong, she never felt like she could do anything about it. Society’s way of doing things left a lot of very important questions unanswered. If a woman has no choice in the man she marries, is it even possible for her to consent to sex? Can she make an informed decision about her body when she’s inescapably expected to provide for her husband whatever she needs? No. Still, when it comes to sex, there is at least some difference between assault, and a vague approximation of true consent. There are men out there who are very clearly raping their wives. They’re doing so with violence and malice, and despite protest. This was Eudora’s fear her entire life; that she would be stuck with a man like this, and it is that fear that drove her towards accepting her fate. Marital rape is a heartbreaking fear that pervades the minds of many women of Durus in this time period. It is better to be assigned a mate against your will, than be hopelessly bound to a man who your family has not vetted and interviewed. This was not how the new phallocratic society began, but it is how its government maintains its power. The system isn’t perfect, but destroying the policies without effective replacements wouldn’t help alleviate the dangers. If that were to happen, the people who instituted those original policies would still there, along with everyone who agreed with them. They would still feel the same way, but there would be no protections whatsoever; just anarchy. Of course, being that the system is designed quite publicly to subjugate women, even properly vetted potential husbands can turn out to be abusive.

Eudora’s new husband started out slowly, like he knew what he wanted—how far he wanted to go—but didn’t want to be called out for it. If, say, he raped Eudora on their first night together, there might be some legal actions she could take against him. No, it was better to break her down gradually, so she felt there was nothing she could do, because she was all alone. They had been married for so long, and she had never complained before, so who would believe her now? He was careful and patient. He didn’t so much as touch her for almost two months, trying to make her think that he wouldn’t make the first move; that he was a good guy. Then he started to be a little affectionate, but not overtly sexual. He would criticize her appearance and behaviors, but mask these complaints as encouragements. Instead of telling her she was fat, he would work out a discount at a fitness center, for the both of them. Instead of telling her she was ugly, he would buy her makeup as gifts. On their own, these things seemed so innocuous that not even Eudora realized what was really happening. When he was finally ready to take what he believed he was entitled to, he turned drastically. He forced himself on her, and he finished so quickly, that it barely registered to her right away that anything had happened. She was so shocked, she didn’t even get a chance to vocalize her refusal, which meant she didn’t think she could report it. When he wanted it again the next day, she was better prepared, but no stronger. His technique was working. She begged her parents for help getting out of this marriage, and didn’t even bother asking them to seek to charge him to any crime. She just wanted to get away from him, but they wouldn’t allow it. Her father was not unlike her husband, and her mother was not unlike Eudora feared she would become one day: hopeless and powerless.

This is one of the few times that the system didn’t completely fail women, however. After months of his abuse, Eudora’s husband started getting too confident. He didn’t think he could ever get in trouble for the horrors he was inflicting, even if people knew about it. He bragged about the power he was holding over his wife, and of the extramarital conquests he was making all the while. A man nicknamed Professor Pane caught wind of his stories, and decided he could help, though not in the best way possible. He was a mage remnant, and could create one-way visual portals to other places. He used his ability to keep track of current events on Earth, but there were so many more applications. These portals were only windows, which allowed him to see some distant location, but not interact with it. Anyone on the other side would not be able to see him back. So he approached the authorities, told them what he knew, and opened a window to Eudora and her husband. Recording devices were never invented in this world, so his was the only way of catching the husband in the act. Obviously that meant he would have to rape her one last time, but Pane would fight with all his strength to make sure it was indeed his last time, even if the authorities didn’t take action after witnessing it. They did, though. They could not deny what they had seen, and they arrested Eudora’s husband immediately. She spent years in a deep depression after that, working alone to overcome the trauma. Therapy existed on Durus, but it was given mostly to men. A woman can seek psychological help, but only if the man who owns her gives his permission, and she no longer had one of those. The only light in her life being her daughter, Andromeda, who was the product of one of her husband’s crimes. By the time Andromeda was old enough to understand where it is she came from, the world had changed. The phallocracy was crushed, and a new government was formed. The crimes of yesteryear were wiped clean, in one of the most despicable acts of this provisional government, and this historical whitewashing would not be remedied for many years. Eudora decided to keep her terrible history a secret for the rest of her life, as apparently the new convention dictated. Both she and her daughter died never having spoken of it.