Adolescence was full of unhappiness and humiliation as the cult sought to break me down and build me up into a woman worthy of a pedestal. But with him I felt elevated. He represented in the purest way all of the things I believed were lofty and transcendent. I had never felt like this before…he was all I could think about. There was something in the way his eyes sparkled, the way he walked, the way he smelled.

  My desire was to be to a man as the Church was to Christ–to be a cherished bride–was the highest honor I could have as a woman. Someday, someone would hold and cherish me, and I would surrender my life willingly to his kindness, integrity, and strength.

  In my youth and naivete I saw the love of man and wife as a thing of transcendent beauty. Perhaps I was right, and In a way I was like any young girl, wanting to believe that this idea of romance was one of the most beautiful things about life. But for me it was much more than that. I had been taught that my worth and dignity would come from the love of a man, the meals I would cook for him, the shirts I would iron for him, the home I would make, and the children I would bear.

  When I could do these things for a man–when I was worth being kept by a man–then and only then would I have dignity. Then I would be blissfully happy, wrapped in a soft cloud of love and acceptance. Perhaps there would be suffering, but it would be admirable and romantic, like the sadness in the faces of saints in my childhood picture books, eyes gazing upwards, hands clasped at the breast as the light of God's grace shone down upon them.

  But I would not be with this beautiful, intelligent person. This love of mine went unrequited.

     Man was known for a trademark thinly-sculpted line of beard along the jaw, his affected, over-confident sauntering walk, a paint-spattered red sweatshirt, the hood coming up over his head from a cheap imitation leather jacket he wore on top of it. I had been extremely sheltered, but even I could sense something disturbing and predatory about him, with is 80's style glasses, grubby jeans and dirty white sneakers.

  He drove a beat-up tin can of a car that was filthy and smelled of cigarettes inside. If he'd forgotten to turn off the radio before he drove onto campus you'd hear country pop music blaring from the windows.

     It was the mid nineties. I was 19. Man was in his mid 20's and had come into this cult from an outside world I had never seen. I only knew that Man was the antithesis of my transcendent beloved.

  Almost as soon as I had given my speech on graduation day, I no longer lived with my mother. I didn't like the way she controlled me, and so I went to live in the women's dorm on the cult's campus.

  The men's dorm was at the other end of campus, but it was not far enough. Man lived there, and that meant he lived where I lived.

  Man, who worked at a shop in town owned by my best friend's family, was known for stalking women around town and on campus.

     One day I was running errands on Main Street in our tiny little cult town, and my best friend came to me with a bouquet of flowers.

  "This is from Man", she said as she handed me the bouquet.

  I don't want it. Why would I want this? My god, I don't want anything from Man. I want my unrequited love.

  But I was in a cult. I had been trained for this–for submission–from the cradle. I took the flowers as Man gazed at me from far across the street at my friend's family shop.

  Everywhere I went, Man was there, asserting his right to possess me. He crept into my life slowly, spreading into the most hidden corners of my life like a stinking, oozing fungus. By the time I realized he was there, it was already too late. This despicable stalker had broken through delicate shell of the teenage naivete that surrounded my hopes and dreams, and the stinking fungus was inside now. The bright flowers of my innocent idealism began to wilt, fade, decay…die…as transcendence was replaced by Man's base desire for sex and control.

  We were in "courtship". Then we were "betrothed". And in this cult, a marriage would be for life.

  This was the life sentence Man had given me. I could do nothing but accept the inevitable.

     Even as I dreamed of love as a young girl and into my teen years, I had worked hard on my development into the true womanhood. I espoused classical European art and music. I made my clothes, clothes that I believed reflected my role as a true woman. I wore my hair in a bun because I believed that it communicated dignity and worth. I walked with both confidence and humility to prepare for the future role that I dreamed of. As I became an ideal woman, I dreamed of an ideal man.

  One night during this time of wedding preparations I went to sleep in the cult women's dormitory and dreamed about Man. I saw him speeding down main street in a red car, similar to his, but larger, enough to fit several other large men. He was standing inside the car while another man drove, almost his entire torso out one of the windows, shooting a gun as a car sped away. The other men were shouting and firing their guns into the surrounding shops.

  I awoke drenched in sweat and racked with sobs, as all of the thoughts that I could not form while I was awake and sewing the dresses and risen to the top of my consciousness in sleep. I somehow knew that he was not what the dignified woman I had worked to become deserved. This was what I thought of him, deep in my soul.

  I had to call Man on the phone immediately.

  I dialed the phone. He answered in a groggy voice and I told him about the dream.

  Maybe if I could talk to him I could remember that it wasn't so bad. He wasn't really a criminal. He wasn't really killing me and everything I had ever wanted in my life.

  I arose the next morning to resume my work on the dresses, working frantically as if I could somehow sew my way back to hopes and dreams of love.