Bound By The Beta

Marriage?

Carmilla wasn't particularly gifted at anything. Yet there was one pursuit at which she genuinely shone... devouring novels. Romance to be specific. Since she was five, Carmilla had moved from picture books to her very first real novel.. one her older sister had carelessly left behind. That single book opened her young eyes to an entirely new world of information and possibilities.

Unlike the fairy tales where princesses were saved by princes or knights, that novel was far more profound. It's pages held real men and women doing unspeakable acts to each other. Things her young mind struggled to grasp. Still, her fascination outweighed her confusion, and the unfamiliar words only fueled her determination to understand.

Young Carmilla was utterly absorbed in the book's scandalous depictions, when her oldest sister caught her huddled in one corner of the room absorbed in the forbidden novel. Without a word, she got yanked up by her sister and spanked, ten times.

When her sister asked how far she had gotten, the truth hovered on Carmilla's tongue farther than I should have. She was nearly at the end of the book. But admitting that would shatter her image of innocence and likely earn her more punishment, so she shook her head. "I just started", she lied. "Why are you hitting me? Is there something wrong with reading the book?"

Inside, her brain that time it felt like it was melting and her small body burned hot with guilt and confusion.

Her sister remained suspicious, watching her with narrowed eyes. Carmilla barely escaped further questioning. From that day on, she never stopped. She devoured every romance book she could find. When her allowance allowed it, she would slip away to the bookstore two streets from home and buy novels far beyond her years, praying the librarian wouldn't question her age or report her to their mother. As soon as she left the store, she would carefully tear off the front and back covers so no one at home would discover what she was reading.

Maybe she had saved a life in a past existence, because her luck never seemed to run out in their modest little home. She had mastered the art of secrecy.. a true warrior in silence!

Her relentless reading paid off in an unexpected way. Her mother began holding her up as an example to her younger brother, scolding him and giving him the occasional light smack. Nothing serious. After all, Carmilla was always seen with a book in hand, from the toilet to the kitchen, the dining table to the living room. She carried them everywhere, the torn covers of her secret romances discreetly hidden beneath an innocent schoolbook, reading the smut with a perfectly straight face.

Maybe that was what shaped the kind of weirdo she had become. Not that she minded. She embraced it.. the oddness, the mystery. The stranger she seemed, the harder she was to unravel. People became curious about what lived inside her head, and that thrilled her. In a world of millions where her existence often felt inconsequential, it made her feel special.

But there were times when her weirdness was treated as a problem that needed fixing. People tried to shove her into a suffocating cage.

Like now, her mother had woken her up at dawn with such frantic urgency that Carmilla thought the house was on fire—only to hear her babble, "When are you getting married, Carmilla?"

Mind you, she had only returned from the Academy yesterday after two whole years away from her family.

"Pardon?" Carmilla blinked, still half-asleep. "Mother, could you repeat that? I think my ears must have failed me."

What kind of nonsense was this? Her mind was still foggy from being yanked awake so abruptly. Surely she had misheard.

A sharp slap landed on her arm.

"Mother!" she groaned, clutching the stinging skin. "Stop hitting me. I'm a grown woman now, for heaven's sake!"

"Exactly!" her mother shot back. "You're twenty-one now. By September you'll be twenty-two! You should be married, like Layla! Nursing your first newborn by now!"

Layla, her older sister was currently pregnant with her third child while still nursing her one-year-old. Any week now she would deliver yet another Featherington munchkin, who would no doubt grow up to be a little menace to society, just like her firstborn, Sophia, Carmilla's niece.

Unlike Carmilla, Layla had not attended the Academy after basic education. The Jackson family simply couldn't afford it at the time. So Layla had married Josh Featherington, the baker's son, who lived just two streets away, right near the bookstore Carmilla used to frequent. Layla had visited often back then, and that was where the two had fallen in love.

While Carmilla wholeheartedly supported romance and falling in love as a beautiful part of life, she still found her sister's situation outrageous. When the engagement was announced, she was stunned, and even more horrified when she was forced to be one of the bridesmaids. Her mind felt like it was warping at the sheer absurdity of it all.

"Hell no!" Carmilla snapped, bolting upright. "I want to explore the world, Mother! I don't want my entire purpose in life to be reduced to being someone's wife. That's why I fought to be one of the first women at the university, and Father supported my dreams. Why are you trying to destroy everything now?!"

The education system was still overwhelmingly male, only slowly opening its doors to women who dared to want more than marriage and motherhood. It was progress, however grudging. Yet Carmilla found it sickening that women had ever been reduced to baby-making machines and housewives in the first place.

The stigma and bullying she endured at the Academy had been relentless. Men seemed determined to intimidate her, to diminish her worth to whatever they decided it should be. Her mental health had been tested to its limits. She was ignored, belittled, treated as a lesser being incapable of independent thought, and constantly accused of being too emotional.

She was sick of it.

So she fought back,fiercely. When other women gave up or cowered, she stood her ground. With words. With defiance. Sometimes physically. She gave as good as she got. The rose-tinted glasses her beloved romance novels had given her shattered completely. There was no true love, only lust and men who wanted to control. Most men didn't even find her pretty enough to make the effort. There was no prince coming. Only misogynistic, arrogant buffoons.

In the end, she womaned up.

She carved her own path. She no longer believed she would fall in love, or that anyone would ever love her. Still, as embarrassing as it was, she never stopped writing her secret romances. The stories kept her sane.

And now her mother wanted her to throw all of that away... just to end up in some kitchen, spreading her legs for a man who didn't deserve her, abandoning every dream she had fought for.

She would rather die.