The Truth Ch. 01

That was perfect. Either May hadn't done any sort of background check or her false identity was working. They would never let a known reporter into propaganda rooms. There would be paper there which she needed in order to take notes. It also sounded like the best place to get an inside look at how the cult members thought. "Sure," she said, "I want to help spread the message."

The propaganda building was a plain structure that echoed with the sounds of lovemaking. A man named Peter was the overseer. He waved them through when he recognized Tristy.

"Is all of the... propaganda in paper?" Olivia asked Tristy as they headed for the back room, thinking back to the movies playing on her television.

"Not at all," said Tristy. "We have propaganda films, too, for girls to watch. They help us to meditate on the Truth as often as possible. Girls need reminders or they get all out of control." She flashed another grin. "The flyers are important for telling others, though."

"There aren't any female missionaries."

"Of course not! That would be ridiculous."

"Sure."

They found a woman named Julie putting together flyers in the back. "Welcome!" She waved to them. "Tristy, I want you to find some good images for us to use on the larger posters. Olivia, we have text that needs to be copied."

She set to work immediately. Everything had to be done by hand. The High Truth isolated itself as much as possible and computers required too much support from outsiders to operate. The original she was working from had been written on a typewriter. Most of the propaganda consisted of teachings Olivia was familiar with from recruiters she had been in contact with.

The rest appeared to be internal memos meant for initiates. Mostly the pamphlets for internal use were filled with very explicit descriptions of sex. All of them, she noticed, were directed at men. How to pleasure a woman. How to discipline a woman. How to breed a woman. How to understand a woman's thoughts. How to guide a woman toward Truth.

After the pamphlets were templates for signs. On the third one Olivia found a minor spelling error. "The word spirit is misspelled here."

Julie looked at it for a moment then shrugged. "Is it? Well, Peter will come in to fix it."

"Can't we do that?"

Julie gave her a funny look.

"I could replace it with the correct spelling of spirit."

The woman laughed. "Oh, don't take the effort. I'll ask Peter to change it."

Olivia set down her pen and looked at where Tristy was writing. The girl's movements were slow and deliberate. She was literally copying the letters as though they were mysterious hieroglyphics. "Can anyone here read?"

"Only the men," Tristy said airily. "Girls don't need to."

"That's why the videos are made," realized Olivia. "Of course it is."

"Right, so that we can learn what we need to without having to take the effort of reading. I guess on the outside you learned how?"

Olivia nodded.

Tristy's expression turned sad. "That must have been really hard and confusing. All that wasted time. In the High Truth the men just tell us what we need to know. Our guidance is through tradition. It goes much faster than trying to learn to how to read." She giggled. "Once we're old enough to learn about our bodies it's way more fun than you would have had."

"But what if a man lied?"

"Why would he do that?" asked Tristy.

"In order to play a trick on you," Olivia suggested innocently. "Wouldn't that be confusing?"

Tristy giggled again. "If I got confused about something that would be my fault for being such a silly girl. One of the men would help explain things to me so I could understand better next time. The boys are a lot smarter than us, anyway, they're the ones taught to think and ask questions. As girls it is our job to accept the Truth."

"But..."

Tristy looked almost irritated. "Is everything in books true?"

"Of course not."

"So how do you figure out if it's true or not?"

"I think about it and draw my own conclusions."

"Which could totally be wrong since you're a girl. Asking boys is way better."

Olivia nodded.

That was a front page story in itself. Women kept illiterate and ignorant so the men could control them. No matter what the teachings of the High Truth really said the women would only ever learn to be entirely submissive. Lacking any access to knowledge of their own, there was no risk of the women successfully questioning the men about their treatment. It clearly worked. Tristy, Julie, and May all seemed devoted to their oppression or at least kept too dumb to resist.

-)(-

By the end of the day Olivia hadn't had a chance to sneak any paper out of the room to write with. There would be another chance the next day, she told herself. Dinner was the same unexciting fare as breakfast had been. There was no entertainment afterward although a few groups headed off to their own gatherings. Everyone else returned to the housing some of the girls following a man.

Porn was still playing on the television in her room when she entered.

It wasn't particularly crude or degrading but they all seemed to be about women with a desperate need to submit to a man. Clearly they were the propaganda films being made. She watched one of them all the way through, mentally taking notes so she could describe it. It was almost hypnotic. The plot was incredibly repetitive. The music was just barely audible. The film followed two young women, more than friends. Whenever their attraction became too obvious, they didn't seem to be acting, one of them would hurry off to find a man. It cycled through the same events again and again and again. Burning sexual need. A brush with sapphic pleasure. Enjoyable domination by a man.

Olivia blinked and shook her head as the film drew to a close hours later. The night was well underway so she turned the volume down and tried to sleep.

Her night was fitful, her dreams filled with sex. Twice she awoke to find the volume on the television had increased. By the time the sunrise glared into her eyes Olivia felt as if she had barely slept. She turned to bury her face in the pillow to avoid the light and block out the sound of sex.