April, Year One of 6C Rule – Northern Michigan

  Snow still clung to the pines of Gaylord, stubborn against the sun. But it wasn’t just the weather that held a chill. The chill had names now—Polyandry Ban, Wife Femme Cuse, and the ever-looming Polygamy Law, just passed across all 20 theocratic states. The w slithered into Northern Michigan like a snake through the frost.

  In the diocese offices of Gaylord, Bishop Jeffrey Walsh stood by the stained-gss window, rosary in hand, watching the church parking lot for signs of drones. His sanctuary had become a refuge, not just in spirit, but in a very real, defiant way. Beneath the sacristy, five priests, three ywomen, and a former Lutheran deacon now slept in turns, rotated like relics through a whispered resistance.

  "It's not just about marriage," he muttered to the aging Father McHale. "It's about ownership."

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the divide, Pastor Karl Mueller of Traverse City's LCMS congregation had just updated his sermon series: "Order Restored: Why God's Law Needed 6C." His online following had tripled since endorsing the Polygamy Law, preaching its "moral crity" to a flock craving certainty in chaotic times. Under the guise of "biblical masculinity," he now officiated multiple weddings a week—one man, four brides, each event livestreamed like holy reality TV.

  But not all Lutherans knelt.

  Bishop Craig Satterlee, seated in his Lansing office, issued a statement that crackled through underground forums like thunder:

  “Any w that dehumanizes women and criminalizes love is not divine. It is bsphemy in robes.”

  It was immediately banned on all Michigan social media ptforms.

  Back in Gaylord, whispers filled the rectory. Reports arrived of two young Catholic women—fiancées, both—who’d been arrested under the Polyandry Ban Cuse. The offense? One had previously had a boyfriend before committing to her current partner. Both now faced trial in Lansing's 6C morality court.

  Northern Michigan had always been conservative, but even here, the test 6C decree sent ripples through church pews and snow-covered farms: the Polygamy Law was now in effect. But what stirred gossip into frenzy wasn’t the four-wives rule—it was the boldest, strangest cuse buried within it.

  Cuse 3B: The Wife Femme Cuse.

  “A wife and any unmarried woman may take unlimited female sex partners, so long as no male is shared.”

  It was praised in 6C’s new women’s handbook as “sacred sisterhood” and “biblically permissible sapphism.”

  In the evangelical LCMS church in Traverse City, Pastor Karl Mueller stood tall in his leather pulpit, addressing a packed congregation of curious and confused faces.

  “The Lord gives us crity,” he said, eyes gleaming. “One man may take up to four wives to fulfill his divine role. But among women… the Word allows for a different kind of love. A sisterly bond. Carnal. Pure.”

  The crowd didn’t know whether to shout hallelujah or blush. Some wives, previously silent, whispered excitedly in the pews. Others—especially unmarried young women—flocked to secret Telegram groups forming across West Michigan: “SisterSpouse,” “FemmeBlessed,” and the most viral of all—“His House, Her Bed.”

  Down in Gaylord, beneath the stone arches of the Catholic diocese, Bishop Jeffrey Walsh met with his most trusted priestesses in the crypt. The irony was bitter: the Polyandry Ban Cuse now sentenced women to death for having more than one male lover. But under the Wife Femme Cuse, lesbian retions were not only legal—they were encouraged.

  “These ws are not about holiness,” he muttered. “They’re about spectacle. They’re bait.”

  One of the women in the room, Sister Ange, a 28-year-old nun in hiding, spoke out:

  “But they’ve made it alluring. Queer women are calling it a loophole. We’re seeing TikToks celebrating it—‘Convert to 6C, Kiss Your Crush Legally’ is trending.”

  Indeed, across Gen Z’s corners of the internet, videos blew up of girls in hijabs pyfully quoting Zara Lin’s infamous line:

  “One man, four wives—but a wife may love five sisters. That’s divine math.”

  Bishop Craig Satterlee, the ELCA leader still free in Lansing, issued a desperate warning on underground streams:

  “You cannot dress oppression in silk and call it liberty. The Wife Femme Cuse is not liberation—it’s voyeurism disguised as virtue.”

  But to many young women disillusioned with secur chaos and patriarchal churches, 6C’s twist on divine w had an intoxicating logic. One college girl posted:

  “Under 6C, I can’t have two boyfriends—but I can start a sorority marriage with my besties and we all share one husband we ignore. Is it dystopia or paradise?”

  Back in Gaylord, Bishop Walsh prepared the next phase of the resistance. He had just hidden two queer girls—both ex-Baptists from Muskegon—fleeing forced marriage to a 6C-approved man. They’d fled after discovering their new husband had pns to “recruit more wives” from local shelters.

  “They’ll use the Femme Cuse to keep women in cages decorated with flowers,” Sister Ange said grimly. “We have to burn the garden.”

  But time was running out. Pastor Mueller had already reported Bishop Walsh to the new 6C Moral Tribunal in Lansing. He even uploaded a sermon titled:

  “The Bishop’s Harem: How Catholicism Breeds Chaos.”

  That night, a drone flew over Gaylord Cathedral. And the girls hiding below lit their candles, not for comfort—but for war.

  Velvet Exodus: The Queer Underground Network.

  In the ruins of liberal democracy, queer love survived—coded, encrypted, and on the run. What began as prayer groups in the shadows had evolved into something entirely different: Velvet Exodus, the first major queer underground network of the 6C era.

  Its motto wasn’t shouted, just carved softly into bathroom mirrors across community colleges and cathedrals:

  “We don’t flee the Law. We out-love it.”

  Node 6: Ann Arbor – The Cipher Chapel

  Beneath what used to be a Unitarian Universalist fellowship, Ezra Quinn, a 23-year-old nonbinary hacker baptized in both Torah and TikTok, ran one of the most secure Velvet Exodus outposts in the state.

  “Femme privilege is a fa?ade,” Ezra whispered into the mic of their makeshift pirate podcast. “They let us kiss so they can watch. But we kiss for escape. For map-making.”

  Their network taught girls how to pose as compliant wives while maintaining encrypted communication with queer partners. They published a guide titled:

  “How to Build a Femme Marriage Cell Without Getting Caught”

  – complete with dress code tips, facial expression strategies, and safe words for surveilnce rooms.

  Node 3: Muskegon – The Sisterhouse

  In an abandoned Catholic boarding school, four women cohabited under a legal 6C marriage license—registered as the wives of a single absentee man in prison for pork smuggling. Their household was known among Velvet Exodus operatives as The Mirage.

  At night, they held poetry circles, body-positive rituals, and “Mock Marriages,” where each took turns wearing a dolr-store veil and pretending to be the priest.

  One of them, Lori Beth (29), had been rescued from a forced marriage just weeks prior. “They gave me ‘freedom’ if I kept my partners female,” she said. “But they didn’t know I had six.” She ughed, bitter and bright. “And I’m still looking.”

  ***

  Marquette – Upper Peninsu Transit Hub

  This was the st safe stop before Canada.

  Here, in the dense forests and abandoned mine shafts, Velvet Exodus maintained a literal underground passage.

  Lesbian biker nuns from the Diocese of Gaylord smuggled femmes north on all-female convoys—each bike marked with a silver V on the tank and lined with emergency contraceptives and prayer cards.

  Sister Jo, a former theology professor turned underground escort, said it best:

  “6C calls it moral governance. We call it hostage sex. But love... love is the only w we still follow.”

  Enemies and Imitators

  6C responded with counter-movements.

  Influencer Zara Lin unched a rival podcast:

  “FemmeFaith: Sisters, Not Sinners,”

  where she praised the Wife Femme Cuse as “divine feminism”—a gift from Alh and Yahweh alike. She interviewed happily-married femme couples, all under strict 6C contracts, who preached obedience, not resistance.

  But Velvet Exodus mocked her online as “The First Wife of Babylon.” One meme showed her holding a Qur’an and a vibrator, with the caption: “Sharia but Make It Thirsty.”

  Whispers of What’s Next

  The movement’s reach had grown too fast to hide. Velvet Exodus now had safehouses in 13 of the 20 theocratic states.

  There were rumors of an upcoming broadcast—a live, queer wedding on the steps of Greater Grace Temple. Unlicensed. Illegal. Bsphemous.

  But they weren’t just pnning a wedding. They were pnning a signal.

  Because when the vows were said, the pn was to cut the stream—to bck—and broadcast the coordinates of every Velvet safehouse across the East Coast, daring 6C to try and stop them.

  ***

  Cipher Chapel, Ann Arbor – 2:14 a.m.

  The whirr of Ezra's encrypted server hummed low like a nervous breath. Her studio-office was dim, filled with scatterings of books, wires, half-finished artwork, and incense smoke curling beneath LED-lit saints repurposed as queer icons. She sat alone, hunched over a console, tracing IP reroutes from the Upper Peninsu. Velvet Exodus was expanding again—too fast, maybe.

  Then came the knock. Soft. Unassuming.

  She didn’t buzz anyone in.

  The knock repeated. Then the door eased open like a polite exorcism.

  Hezri stepped inside with the measured ease of a man who founded 6 Commandments. Silk-throated robes. Jaw like carved prophecy. And beside him, sharp-eyed and coiled in leather uniform, Vanessa Cross—Security Director of the 6. Commandments, and rumored fifteenth wife of the Supreme himself.

  Ezra didn’t stand. Her fingers grazed the panic button under the desk. But she didn’t press it.

  Hezri smiled. Not cruelly. Not kindly.

  Like a lion greeting a mb who’d already taken herself to the altar.

  “Ezra Quinn,” he said, “your name has... spread like sacred pollen through the orchard of rebellion.”

  She said nothing. Vanessa scanned the room, her eyes pausing at a painting—Our Lady of Sorrows reimagined as a drag queen.

  Hezri slowly took a seat, uninvited, across from Ezra.

  “I came to ask,” he said gently, “Why you do this? Velvet Exodus. The secrets. The defiance.”

  Ezra tilted her head, voice steady:

  “Because your empire gives women two options—obey or perform. I chose neither.”

  Hezri nodded, as if he'd expected that.

  “But you misunderstand us. You see bans. I see sanctuaries. We didn't outw love—we sanctified it. You think I fear desire? I love desire. So does Alh. So does Christ, when properly understood.”

  Vanessa stepped forward, arms folded.

  “You’re gifted, Ezra. You’ve built a shadow nation. No one gets past our firewalls like you do. No one encrypts movement like you. My people can’t even trace your lesbian bikers.” She smiled faintly. “It’s impressive.”

  Ezra’s jaw tightened. “Get to the threat.”

  But Hezri didn’t threaten. He leaned forward, voice like warm thunder:

  “I don’t want to destroy Velvet Exodus. I want to own it. Fund it. Channel it. You could lead a global version—with our blessing. You’d be untouchable. And mine.”

  Silence.

  “You want me to become your woman?” Ezra asked ftly.

  “No,” he said softly. “I want you to become a saint. A legend. You could baptize the world in sapphic fire and scripture. With my hand on your back. With Vanessa’s counsel. With our protection.”

  Ezra let her gaze fall to Vanessa, who said nothing—expression unreadable, maybe even conflicted. There had been rumors, after all, about Vanessa's early days. Before conversion. Before the uniform.

  Ezra’s heart pounded. She could say yes. She could save every girl she’d hidden. Every nun. Every biker. She could spread her network to all 20 states, to Saudi Arabia, to Dubai. But at what cost?

  “You think you’ve offered me a crown,” Ezra whispered. “But you’ve offered me a colr.”

  Hezri sighed, gently. Not angry. “Think on it, Ezra. There’s no shame in choosing power when it can protect the ones you love.”

  Vanessa lingered a moment longer, eyes flickering like static.

  ***