Page 12 of Torn

“Hello.” I smiled at Elena and stood up. “Sorry, I was just praying.”

“I saw. I brought you something from the kitchens.”

“Oh?”

She held out a small slice of cake. One of the women had made it for the men to celebrate their recent return from the Wastelands. They told us they’d come across a nearby farm with a band of survivors who’d managed to grow wheat in their fields, which had been miraculously spared from any nuclear damage. They also grew cocoa beans and produced powder from this. In return for some of the sugar our men farmed in the fields of New Eden and the eggs our chickens produced in their coops above ground, the outsiders had traded us many bags of wheat flour and a few small bags of the cocoa powder too.

Chocolate cake was a rare, decadent treat, so we made sure it only went to the boys and men after baking it. After all, they were above us in our world, and they did so much for us. They deserved it.

“Lauren and I saved you a piece,” Elena explained. “She wanted to come and give it to you as well, but it was her turn to take care of the preparations for tonight’s Joining ritual.”

Lauren was a friend of ours. When we were children, we hadn’t really spoken to her much, as she’d attended a different school in another town near Amiens, so we only ever saw her at church on Sundays. Now that we lived at New Eden together, I couldn’t imagine my life without her. She wasn’t as bright as Elena, but she was the sweetest and friendliest girl I knew.

My eyes widened as I looked at the cake she and Elena had managed to sneak out of the kitchen for me. “Why? It was for the men.”

“It was your birthday yesterday. We thought you deserved it,” Elena said.

She was right. Yesterday marked the first day of my eighteenth year. We didn’t celebrate birthdays here, at least not for the girls or women, so I hadn’t said anything to anyone about it.

I smiled and accepted the slice before breaking it in half. “I’ll only eat it if you share it with me.”

She grinned. “Of course.”

“I just wish Lauren could have some too. Where did you say she was?”

“Preparations for the Joining. She must light all the candles and ensure the oils, ropes, and punishment tools are ready.”

“Oh. Of course.” My stomach flopped around in a strange way. The Joining rituals simultaneously fascinated and frightened me. I hadn’t been allowed to participate in one yet, as I hadn’t officially become a woman.

As if reading my thoughts, Elena tilted her head slightly to the side and spoke up. “Forgive me for prying into your business, but I recently spoke with the Healer about you and your… condition. Sorry. I’m not sure what else to call it.”

My cheeks flushed with warmth. “It’s fine. My father has spoken with him too.”

“So you know why you haven’t begun your monthly bleeding, then,” she said with a nod. “Hopefully the cake will help.”

Most of the other girls in New Eden reached fruition between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. Sometimes even younger. But not me. I grew the breasts and other curves of a woman when I was around fourteen or fifteen, along with hair in strange places, but I still hadn’t bled.

New Eden’s Healer had examined me after my father took me to him and raised his concerns. Apparently it was very rare for a girl to be in this situation at my age. Fortunately, there was nothing wrong with me. The Healer said it could happen sometimes, especially in very slim girls like me. I had what he referred to as a fast metabolism, and I couldn’t gain weight no matter how much I ate. As a result, apart from my breasts and hips, I had very little fat on my body. Apparently this could halt the bleeding.

He said it was only a matter of time until I reached fruition, though, as there was nothing physically wrong with me. Once it happened, I would be assigned a husband for the next spring wedding ceremony. It was actually spring right now, but the weddings only happened on one day in April, and that had already passed. Even if I started bleeding this month, I would have to wait another eleven months until my marriage.

Girls who were of age but unmarried were obligated to participate in the weekly Joining rituals with everyone else. This served two purposes. Firstly, it satisfied the unmarried men—there were more of them than there were available young women—and secondly, it taught the women more about their role in society and what would be expected of them once they were married.

It was important that we learn how to pleasure the men during these Joinings. Obviously, women weren’t supposed to gain pleasure from it, as this was a sin, but men had earned the right to feel pleasure during sexual acts as a reward for always taking care of women.

A married woman could be used by her husband in any way for him to obtain pleasure, including the way which led to babies being born. The women who had reached fruition but were not yet married were only permitted to be used in other ways.

I’d heard these other ways could be painful, but that was good. Pain meant sin was leaving the body, and as all females were responsible for the origination of sin in this world, it was our job to experience and withstand it. This was why our God had made childbirth painful, among other things which men did not have to endure.

I was looking forward to my first Joining ritual for this very reason. I knew I needed to feel lots of pain to wipe away the sin from my mind and body, because there was a lot of it. I was practically riddled with it.

I discovered this when I accidentally witnessed a girl fornicating with her husband a few months ago. She was lucky, because her husband was relatively young and quite handsome, unlike most of the other men in this place.

I’d walked into the particular room they were lying in as I’d been assigned with the task of cleaning it. Of course, I didn’t know the man had chosen that moment to visit the women’s wing to be with his wife.

It was the first time I’d ever seen anything like it. I’d heard about it before, and I’d subsequently pictured it in my head, but usually those pictures weren’t nice as the men were so much older and quite unattractive. This man, however…

Even now, the memory stirred something deep within. The man was tanned and muscular from working the fields, and the way he gripped his wife’s hips as he roughly drove into her from behind sparked a strange throbbing sensation deep inside my belly.

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