My mind begins racing. I’m strong. I’ve wrestled with my brothers my whole childhood. I can get out of this. I push and twist my body, try to get purchase with my legs to push him off, even try to fake him out. I use every wrestling trick I know, but he is holding my wrists down and using the rest of his body to compress my legs.
I struggle to breathe, ignoring the pain radiating from my hands down through my arms. My voice comes out, scratchy but emphatic. “I am not ambiguous about this. I absolutely do not want to have sex with you. I’m not being coy or playing hard to get. This is a definite no!”
His teeth flash in a humorless smile, and his grip tightens. I thrash my whole body, but he doesn’t budge. After what seems like hours of twisting and bucking, my whole body feels raw and bruised. I don’t have the energy to keep fighting. I go limp. Exhausted, angry, and helpless, I close my mind to any other thought besides get it over with.
When he finally releases me, I run to the bathroom. I want to smash the mirror with my fist. I said no! I fought back with all my strength. But I still wasn’t able to defend myself.
When I come back from washing up, he is sound asleep. I curl into a ball on my bed and wait for morning. I leave without saying anything to anyone.
In the hours spent flying over the dark Pacific Ocean, I ask myself, What more could I have done to stop it? Why didn’t I scream the house down? Fear and embarrassment. Fear that I would get into trouble if I got caught in bed with a Systemite and it was reported to the Shepherds. Fear that the people in the house would take his side and not believe me. Embarrassment to scream and cause a big scene. The humiliation, the feeling that this was somehow my fault and that I would get blamed for it if I called for help, kept me fighting in silence. I was on my own. I could not trust them to take my side to protect me.
The memory sticks to my skin, accompanying me back to Xiamen, into my house, into my room, into my bed. At night, in the darkness, I write in my journal:
Alone
What is loneliness
Not touch, not sound
Not feeling, sight nor scent
But rather an absence
An absence of all the above and yet . . . even with all the above you can still be alone. . . .
Do you understand me? Of course you don’t.
You’re not me and never will be.
How could you feel what it’s like in this skin?
How could I ever let you in?
I read the poem the next day. God, how embarrassing. At least no one will ever read my sad-sack journal entry. I don’t believe in feeling sorry for myself. That’s what comes from growing up to be tough like my brothers, I think wryly. It’s just physical, I rationalize, like getting kicked in the stomach by a horse. Since my first raw breaking in Thailand, I’ve been emotionally battered enough that I’m used to pain. Ignore it and move on. I can’t even speak to my mother or a friend about what happened, afraid they will report it to the Shepherds and I’ll be punished. So, I bury the memory in a box and slam the lid.
As the heat of summer arrives, changes are in the breeze. Patrick and Sophia have a quiet wedding ceremony at home and move in with Patrick’s parents on Gulangyu. Ching-Ching moves to Qingdao, a port city in Shandong Province, with some other Family young people. Mom plans to go traveling for the summer. I can’t get a clear answer on where she’s going. She’s been more and more secretive; it seems we are both avoiding heart-to-heart talks these days.
After two years in China, what was once a challenge now feels stifling. I’m also ready to move on. But I don’t know where I want to go. I’ve just turned twenty-two, and I’m still not married, an old maid, by Family standards, and I have no prospects here.
I miss hanging out with other young people my age whom I don’t have to hide my identity from. So, when a group of Family teens from Taiwan comes for a visit, I’m happy to accompany them as their translator on the two-day train ride to Beijing. My Mandarin is conversationally fluent, and I can easily navigate the cities now.
In Beijing, while sightseeing at the Forbidden City, I spot a familiar face in another knot of photo-taking foreigners. It’s my former Danish classmate from Xiamen University, Johnny. I can’t believe I’ve run into him here in the millions of people in Beijing.
I jump up, waving until he spots me. He grins widely, and before I know it, he’s at my side telling me he’s just finished a grueling, two-month trip cycling three thousand miles up the coast of China.
When the teen group leaves, he convinces me to stay in Beijing an extra couple of days and explore the city with him. Who would know? Everyone at home is away traveling. There’s nothing wrong with cycling the city and seeing the monuments as friends, I justify it to myself when I agree to stay.
I tingle with the thrill of being alone with him. Over the two years in China, the barriers between Systemite and friend are wearing thin with daily contact.
After two days biking through Beijing, exploring the Summer Palace and other sites, we sit together, exhausted, on the roof of the cheap Chinese hotel, where we each have our own room. We watch the bright lights of the city, listen to the honking of horns, and smell roast pork and garlic. We sit closer and closer until we’re cuddling, and then he leans down. Our lips brush. I should pull away, but I don’t want this to end. We gently explore each other’s mouth, and my heart thuds in my chest. We make out so passionately that there’s only one step more, which is when I finally get up and go to my room. I won’t take that step. We promise to keep in touch, but I doubt I’ll see him again. He is going back to Denmark after this, and I am going back to the Family.
My heart and mind swing back and forth. What have I done? No one has to know. What should I do? On the two-day train ride from Beijing to Xiamen I turn the questions over and over. For weeks after I get home, I wrestle with it. God, please show me what to do! I’ve committed one of the worst sins we can commit in the Family—sexual intimacy with a Systemite. The days of FFing are long gone, and the Mama Letters continuously remind us about the consequences of crossing the line.
Since my wayward time in Macau when I was sixteen and sneaking out of the house to be with my Portuguese boyfriend, I recommitted myself to God and to the Family. I’d liked some of the guys I’d witnessed to. I’d try to help them find peace and happiness through Jesus. Some of them took my attention to mean more than what it was, but with others, there was true affection—and attraction. But although some would write passionate letters promising the moon and stars, I’d never yielded to the temptation. I think of Johnny’s lips on mine, and I curse myself for being weak.