I have re-written this story and removed the suicide, as it was too "dark".

Men have no rights and need to have female guardians to stay out of "state guardianship", which means being sent to forced labor camps.

Women are encouraged by the Order of Eve, to punish and humiliate their men. If the men fight back or refuse orders they are arrested and sent to the camps.

This is set several years into the Order of Eve's government. It 's a dark little story.

Light And Shadow (Part 3 of 8)

by Erisian

Chapter 10 - Trumpet

Outside the tent where Vance slept peacefully, Yaria was setting up a tall tripod-mounted bronze spyglass. Hank and Twitch were inside with Ruyia preparing lunch from the not-as-small-as-it-looks tent’s well-stocked larder. After I’d grabbed the wrong ingredients for a third time Twitch had pushed me gently aside and taken over as Ruyia’s assistant, much to Hank’s amusement.

Hey, I never claimed to be a chef and furthermore the spices and herbs available in Hell were completely different from anything on Earth. Having spent most of my time living off hard tack from the back of a wagon it’s not my fault I didn’t know the difference between a ‘kyrish root’ and a ‘draxo leaf’. My wife had done all the cooking in our house before cancer stole her away, after that there was a lot of frozen pizzas, tuna, and sloppy joes.

And tacos. Man, I missed tacos.

As I walked down the stairs of Theobalds Grove station, I felt scared and thrilled. I was a girl. I had seen my reflection I really looked pretty. All the same I was waiting for someone to leap at me and scream;

“Look, that boy is wearing a dress!”

As we walked down the high street, with my hand in my mothers, I realised nothing was going to happen. She looked down at me and smiled.

Posting this story is ... an act of defiance. It's a refusal to hide what I've hidden from others, as well as myself. But it's a dark story. So please, please, be careful. If you think reading about bad things happening to someone might hurt or harm you in any way, the please don't read this.

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Sorry about the delay, 'puter problems.

Charlie get's established back in an occupation he favours most, working with the practical STEM industries while simultaneously advancing humanity's understanding of gravity.

He also gets involved in the political movement to return universal human rights to all genders but this is more by accident than design.