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There were several rules at the compound. The first was that it was forbidden to discuss that the show was in fact a show, or that we had seen the show before. It ruined the experience for the viewer and the participants, we had been told. The second was that we couldn’t discuss our life outside of the compound unless we had been instructed to do so. The third was that it was forbidden to harm another resident. There were other rules, but they wouldn’t come into effect until the boys arrived. We all understood that if we broke any of these rules we would be punished.
I remembered her saying, showing the steaming straightener to the other girls. She had shared it on the first day she received it, but after that had locked it in a drawer and did her hair only at night, when the others were asleep. The other girls would wake up, frizzy-haired, and look at her resentfully.
Intelligence can be artificial, but charm is always real, and Susie had that in spades.
you stayed in the compound only if you woke in the morning next to someone of the opposite sex. If you slept alone, you would be gone by sunrise.
I thought that we had lost some crucial bit of power, not from the act of being judged, but by showing that it meant something to us.
I wanted to be like the boys, who seemed to have forgotten that it happened the moment they stepped away. Was it that the boys didn’t care as much about their appearance, or because they were already so sure of their worth that external opinion meant nothing to them?