The men at the drinking party sat around laughing at the younger man. “You mean to tell us that a woman was beating her husband? Ha! What a jokester you are.”
“You are probably just too embarrassed to admit you got that black eye from doing something stupid.”
“Besides even if you were telling the truth, just be a man and fight back! Or have you no guts at all? We all know your wife is a spitfire but she is still a woman, and you are a man.”
The young man was used to these responses from the older men of the village, to the point that his heart was turned to stone from it. His wife, whom he had been arranged to marry, was not like most of the other women he had met in his life. She was cruel and truly wicked and often drunk. She took advantage of the young man’s youth and lack of experience. Even if the people thought that she was a weak woman, she knew that she was stronger than her young husband, who had less strength than a hungry dog. And of course, no one would believe that a woman could overpower a young man like that.
On this day however, the young man decided to take a chance. He approached the well where he had often seen one woman in particular talking to the women who had vanished only a day or two before then, and she was there today.
“Excuse me. I have a quick question for you.”
The woman, who was just pulling her bucket out of the well turned to him somewhat surprised. “Yes?”
“Is…is it true…what the women whisper about the Gorgon in the woods…that…she helps women whose husbands beat them?”
The woman seemed suspicious of him at first, “Where did you hear that?”
“I just…” the man looked around nervously before removing the bandages from his face to show her his purple-ringed eye and swollen lip.
The woman hesitated before repeating the words she often did to many others, “ Go in the night,” she said, “when he-…she is so drunk he sleeps heavily. Take only what she won’t notice is missing. Don’t worry about clothes or food, she will provide. You will be cared for. Why would you want to return?”
Before the young man could even thank her, his wife stormed up behind him, “What are you doing talking to another woman!?”
The young man hesitated before the woman at the well said, “He saw me struggling with my bucket and came to help me. Nothing more.”
“I see.” his wife grumbled, clearly still skeptical.
A few nights later, the young man fled. He was quiet and stealthy, until he got to the forest, where he quickly pushed forward into a sprint. He ran and ran, doing his best to remember the directions to the place that promised safety.
Once at last he came across the cave, he stood panting at its mouth before taking his first steps in. He soon found himself in a big lit chamber, women whom he had recognized as from his same village sat around. Some drinking and eating, others playing games, others braiding each other’s hair. But when he entered, they all looked up at him, some in surprise, others in shock, or fear.
“What is a man doing here?” they whispered, “Has the village sent a mercenary after Medusa?” “Are we no longer safe here?” the whispers grew into an almost deafening cacophony of the same hopelessness he felt back in the village. Surely, he thought, these women who are fearful of their husbands would not want to welcome a man among them. Perhaps I should have stayed at home, and let them be.
However, when he turned to leave, he found himself face to face with the gorgon woman. Her eyes seemed to pierce deep into his very soul, as if to weed through the annals of his true self.
His mind raced, trying to think of what to say to defend himself against this protector of women, to justify his entrance into this blessed sanctuary for the broken and beaten. But before he could part his lips, she spoke.
“Fear not my sisters. Look upon the wounds on his face. He too has come hear for safety from violence. Look into his eyes. He is afraid and hurt, as many of you were when you first came to me. Young man, you are welcome here, for this is a place of safety from cruelty. I know all too well that the hardships of life do not discriminate those of whom they strike against. Come, to your new home, and meet your sisters. Come and be safe.”
She gently took his bundles and began to carry them away, and when she looked back at him to see if he was following, he felt her eyes peer deep inside him, and begin to shed away the stone that had encased his heart.
(I hope you like this addition because male abuse victims also need happy endings.)
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