They Never Taught Us About Sex.

“There’s something wrong with the women of this town.” I remember my mother saying this to me the day I experienced my first period. She hadn’t said anything more, instead handing me a washcloth before leaving me alone in the bathroom. I cried a lot that night, wondering about what she said and if that meant something was wrong with me too.

I was twelve at the time. Scared and stupid. Wholly unaware of what the word menstruation meant. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? They never taught us about sex. In fact, the whole town seemed to abhor it. Going out of their way to never mention the sorts of things couples did whenever passion prompts the intake.

They saw puberty as something to fear. That inevitable climb from out of adolescence and the subsequent expectation to relinquish our innocence. I never got The Talk. But I sure as hell felt the town shift itself quietly into opposition against me.

That was far and away from what my brother had to go through. Our mother walked in on him masturbating once and whipped him with a belt until his ass was completely bloody. Then our father came home and she told him. Caleb carried those bruises for well over a week.

We didn’t understand at first, but that’s because they wouldn’t tell us. Since we were twins, we inevitably started to go through puberty at the same time. In different ways of course. But that was around the time I wasn’t allowed to hug him anymore. I cried a lot more after that.

But this wasn’t a case of isolated child abuse, the entire town was like this. Over the course of those first few years, Caleb and I would start going to school separately, and through the combined talk of segregated buses, it became clear that all of us had accrued our own stories.

The boys were being beaten. The girls were being treated like a disease. The same classes, different schools. All the buildings I grew up thinking were just different options turned out to have been built solely to focus on one gender or the other.

There was no compromise, and that led to a lot of hardship. A terrible tradition was upheld like law within our hometown, yet from what we all could see, it seemed to plateau after turning eighteen. The rumors would start with the girls who had older siblings. Some spoke of wedlock and children. The others wouldn’t ever speak at all.

I was too young to understand, but our town of Holentry possessed a penchant for peculiarity whenever it came to talk of the newly engaged. An open secret so to speak. Though its openness was reserved for those who’d surpassed that integral age.

My brother and I wouldn’t see each other for several years, with our only reprieve having been at the kitchen table during meals or whenever one of us was set to pass by the other in order to reach a separate room. I’d notice more and more as time passed that my responsibility was to leave the space I currently occupied whenever he chose to enter. On the few occasions I tried to refute such expectation; my mother had slapped me.

On the opposite end, whenever Caleb sought to linger behind far longer than he should so to try and tell me a joke, he’d possess a black eye the next time I’d see him. For twins, this separation was excruciating. Our parents had allowed us the chance to grow so incredibly close throughout our more preadolescent youth, but once hormones got involved, it became no better than a sin to be seen together.

From ages twelve to thirteen, we were defiant. From fourteen to fifteen, depressed. From sixteen to seventeen, adapted. Though it goes without saying that by the time the day of our eighteenth year proved itself near, our attention to detail was striking and the ability we possessed to make due with a window of several seconds left us damning the wishes of our parents as we’d seek to touch hands or place hurried lips upon passing cheeks.

We weren’t righteous children, but as the window to our imposed separation proved terribly close to concluding, the excitement we felt in being reunited as siblings became the driving force behind our eager intentions. Despite this, our parents proved more often the enemy of our aims, having stricken two twins from the company of the other. We despised them, but by rule of law, we couldn’t keep from loving them either.

I’d spend all those years simply watching. Almost spectator in a sense, as Caleb proved powerful beneath the obstinate tutelage of our father. Whereas I’d been forced to swallow the yellow pill of subservience. As time went on and I’d grown a full chest, my mother deemed me worthy enough to tell tale of the expectations I’d live under for the rest of my life.

There was no romance to covet in Holentry, since the bastards above proclaimed we were to be appointed partners just as soon as a lawful maturity was founded. The years spent abiding by a curated education in school had soon lent me to realize that math and business were shockingly absent, and the need to instill routine and compassion were high.

More and more our lessons failed us as the years dragged on and I was forced to imbibe the bullshit prescribed through the traditionalist understanding of what was required to be a woman. My mother never left the house and had since become a homebody driven by expectation to complete her every assigned responsibility.

Whereas my brother? He’d spend hours perfecting his homework. Proving punctual in his own right to present perfect marks to our stern father. He was intelligent, stricken by a passion for track and field, whereas I languished behind with barred prospects while my mother proved poignant in pointing out the slightest imperfection in my posture.

I ate healthy. He ate meat. I wore dresses. He’d scrape knees. Despite my mother’s instructions to pursue the opposite, I’d begin sitting with the quiet ones at lunch during a sophomore year, nudging them for answers despite the sadness in their paler faces. They’d abhorred me at first. I was just like ‘them’; they had told me. Pretty and precious, the perfect pick for Appointment.

Yet I never minded them. In spite of the necessity founded in our town to separate the girls and boys, each group still found enough displeasure to try and consume one another. I’d done so in passing, my previous comments having set the bar in terms of my own prejudice. Though in time, the quiet ones thawed.

“Tell me about your older brother.” My want to resist a coming fate made it impossible for me to leave well enough alone. “What does it matter? He’s dead.” I was callous given the information shared. “Yes, but how DID he die?” I was desperate, perhaps the poor thing could see that. “You’re afraid.” Of course I was. The lack of information regarding what happens at eighteen far outweighed the impression I could garner in terms of how strange adults acted afterwards.

“My birthday’s coming up, and I’m terrified.” Speaking the truth had always been my strong suit, yet in the dulled eyes of the girl sitting next to me, she scoffed. “Joke’s on you, I guess. My parent’s refuse to tell me.” Her words proved painful to my ears, but I sought a second direction. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

I was using my higher position upon a temporary high school hierarchy to coerce the girl. I knew this wasn’t right. But still, she’d take the bait in terms of my question. “Well, I’d assume it’s common knowledge, but haven’t you noticed that whenever someone turns eighteen, they always get taken away to that big building in the center of town?”

I’d lift an eyebrow. “The Cradle? I think I remember my mom saying that. I don’t know what goes on there.” With an improved posture, the girl would continue. “None of us do. Only our parents know. But have you ever paid attention to who goes in and out?” Again, I’d choose to look stupid. This empowered the quiet one.

“Well, I have. And I can tell you that whenever a girl goes in there, she’ll always leave and within the next week discover that she is pregnant. But when a boy enters, half the time, they never come back out.” She’d turn her face sour after speaking that part, and I immediately understood why. “Your brother never came back out, did he?” It was enough to coerce the threat of a full stop to our eager conversation.

“My mom and dad refuse to tell me why he didn’t. And I guess I still have another year until I find out for myself.” She’d stop talking after that, apparently unwilling to speak on the pain still breaking her troubled heart. I’d lean into her and nod. “Thank you.” It was all I could offer, though the gesture still felt unkind. I was being selfish and all kinds of mean. My interest focused only on the information she could offer me, and not on the name that she possessed.

Still, it was something more than I had. And I could understand why she chose to keep it to herself. We didn’t talk about the Cradle unless we had to. It being the towering monument that stood at the direct center of Holentry. I asked my mom about it once and she told me not to think about it. I’d oblige by her request, at least until it came to that day.

Our town was constricted by the sorts of traditions that made a point of empowering one half while discerning a second as nothing more than cattle. I’ve felt less human ever since having my first period, and still, even now I had less of an understanding as to why I bled so consistently compared to when it had happened the first time.

They never told us about sex. Instead, they lied to us. They beat us. They separated us. I haven’t been able to properly talk to my twin brother in literal years. “There’s something wrong with the women of this town.” My mother once told me. But I was starting to disagree. There was something wrong with the town as a whole. And I was about to turn eighteen.