“I know you don’t,” he said. “But right now it’s the reality, and you have to accept that.”
I looked away and thought about how this entire situation had gotten so far out of control. How do I tell him about this whole mess? What is he going to think of me? As my mind raced, I thought about what I’d already told him about Dominic and tried to figure out how to explain the darker parts of our relationship. I wasn’t sure he could handle it, and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to handle his reaction, but I knew that Brian wasn’t simply going to stop asking questions.
I took a deep breath and began.
“He wasn’t always like this,” I explained. “Or at least, he hid it really well at the beginning of our relationship. He was so incredibly sweet and attentive
. He’d bring me flowers and little gifts, things that showed he’d been paying attention to what I did and said.”
Brian nodded as he listened, and I cringed as I thought about how these acts of kindness had actually been manipulation rather than love.
“It took me a really long time to realize that he’s a sadist,” I said as calmly as I could. “He enjoys torturing people and he does it often, and without remorse. In fact, he actually finds his sadistic games arousing.”
Brian reached down and took my hand as he listened intently. He didn’t say a word as I spilled the sordid details of Dominic’s twisted games; he simply listened.
“I was so naive when I got together with him,” I explained. “I didn’t understand that he was grooming me to become his partner in crime, and once I’d been dragged to the depths of misery, I didn’t know how to get out. It began so simply, he’d show me something and then tell me it was our secret. He’d confess something and frame it as shameful or hideous so that I’d be compelled to reassure him that it wasn’t. He’d entice me to extend the boundaries of our relationship, both physical and emotional, and then praise me when I’d go with him or punish me if I refused. I can see it now, but at the time, I was so desperate for his attention and affection that I let it cloud everything.”
“It’s okay,” Brian said quietly. “It’s not your fault.”
“Oh, I know that,” I said, rolling my eyes dramatically. I’d been told that more times than I could count, and I was tired of hearing the mantra only because I didn’t fully believe it. I still felt like I was responsible for so much of the twisted activities that Dominic had dragged me into, mostly because I hadn’t had the strength to say no.
“I’m serious, Ava,” Brian repeated. “It’s not your fault.”
“Just stop, okay?” I pleaded. He nodded and squeezed my hand. “It took a couple of months, but I can see now how he was grooming me by breaking me down. He’d get angry about some small infraction of the ‘rules’ that only he knew existed, and then he’d punish me. At first it was just silence, but after the Chem exam incident, he began regularly beating me for all kinds of things. He was so good at it…”
Brian didn’t move a muscle as I told the story.
“He knew just how to slap me hard enough to hurt, but not so hard that it left a mark,” I said, shaking my head. “Or he would leave marks where no one could see them. And as our sex life got more adventurous, he’d often extend the boundaries into non-sexual aspects and make them part of some twisted game. He’d frequently ask to tie me up and practice with his cane. It got so confusing, you know? The boundaries got blurred in a way that I didn’t know what I had actually consented to, and that cane…”
“The cane?” Brian asked confused.
“He had a long, thin cane, about the length of a pool cue,” I said, wincing as I recalled the whistle it would make as it sliced through the air just before slamming into my flesh. “He’d always say that I had the best ass to practice on because it was fleshy enough to take the blows. And he always made me thank him for it as he cleaned my wounds after he was done. He’d dab alcohol on my raw skin, and I’d cry until he finished and then he’d pull me close and stroke my hair. Sometimes he’d tell me how wonderful I was for allowing him to practice something he enjoyed so much, and other times he’d tell me how if I’d just behave the way he wanted me to, he’d never have to use the cane on me again. I was always trying to figure out what was going on, but the rules were always changing, and I never knew what they would be from one day to the next.”
Brian nodded as he listened. There was something about the look in his eyes that told me he understood what I was talking about. He didn’t seem to be judging me, and that made it easier to open up and tell him more.
“He was always plotting revenge on someone,” I said. “He had a list of grudges a mile long, and he told me that these people deserved what they got because they’d broken some rule of his. He was absolutely obsessed with rules and following them, but the weird thing was that he never felt like the rules applied to him. When I’d ask him to tell me what rules he lived by, he’d punish me for being sassy. So I stopped asking and just learned to watch closely so I could figure out what he might want on any given day. But he was never predictable. One day he’d want me to be sweet and innocent and dress in pretty flowered dresses and accompany him to the zoo or a museum, and the next day he’d be yelling at me about dressing like an immature child when he wanted to be with a woman. It was beyond confusing. I had so many different wardrobes and he was constantly changing his mind about how he wanted me to dress and behave.”
I looked away as I recounted the day that I decided not to get up and get dressed until Dominic told me what he wanted me to be. I’d stayed in bed, waiting for him to get out of the shower, and when he entered the room he flew into a rage because I wasn’t up and ready to go. He’d yanked me out of bed and screamed in my face about how lazy I was and demanding that I get up and get dressed. When I asked him where we were going, he’d told me I was being rude and disrespectful and told me I’d need to learn how to follow directions. I was so completely confused, but I’d gotten out of bed and headed to the shower. On the way, I made the mistake of asking where we were going so that I could figure out how I was supposed to dress, and he flew into a rage and beat me until I lay on the floor sobbing as the blood ran from my nose and mouth.
“When he was done, he looked at me and said ‘Go wash your face’ and walked out of the room,” I said as tears slid down my cheeks. Wisely, Brian didn’t move a muscle. He watched and waited until I continued. “I didn’t leave the apartment for two weeks—I couldn’t, not with the black eye and swollen lip. He wouldn’t even look at me. He’d come home and treat me as if I were a piece of furniture. I felt like nothing, like I didn’t exist. It wasn’t until I’d healed that he began talking to me again, and then he was loving and kind. He brought me flowers and chocolates every day. He’d take me out to incredible restaurants or book us a flight to some exotic locale for the weekend, and he’d treat me like a queen while we were there. He’d make love to me in a way that made me feel like he really did love me more than anyone else, and I’d be seduced into thinking that he’d changed. That this time it could be different; that he really loved me and that everything that had happened before had been in my imagination.”
Brian squeezed my hand tightly.
“Until the next time I’d break one of his rules,” I whispered. “And then he’d punish me in ways that…” I shook my head as I tried to clear the memories. I just couldn’t go back down that horrible hole of pain and self-loathing.
“He’d punish you to try and rid himself of his own pain,” Brian said quietly. “You were his canvas.”
I looked up, surprised that he had been able to voice my thoughts so clearly, and shocked that he wasn’t condemning me. I nodded slightly.
“I don’t understand it,” I said. “I don’t understand how he could use me the way he did, and I don’t understand how I allowed myself to be used! I actually felt sorry for him more often than I felt sorry for myself!”
“It’s classic Stockholm Syndrome,” Brian explained. “The abuser psychologically manipulates the victim to the point that the victim feels sympathy for him.”
“I know,” I said as I rolled my eyes. “We’re studying this in Psych class, remember?”
“I do remember,” he said. “But I don’t think you understand how it works. I think you’re being incredibly hard on yourself because you don’t believe that it actually exists and that you are a victim.”
“No, I get it. I get it,” I said. “I was abused, I developed Stockholm Syndrome, I was rescued, I’m fine.”