First, he love-bombed the woman, made irrational grand gestures way too soon in the relationship that suckered her into believing he had good intentions. He lied to her, controlled her, asked her to do horrible, degrading things and then accused her of not loving him when she refused.
Paul seemed too good to be true when we met and that should have been my signal that he was indeed too good to be true. I didn’t suspect a thing and I still wasn’t done blaming myself. Maybe it was my age, or perhaps I was just stupid. He was telling me that he loved me just three weeks in and I believed him like a dummy. He presented himself as pure and lovely and I fell for it. I built him up in my mind as a man who loved me and wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, so when he did start lying and manipulating me, I didn’t see it for what it was.
He played me against my friends so that one day, I no longer had any and he was my last remaining source of support and company. He would say horrible things to me and ask me to do horrible things too. Disgusting, degrading things that he said would turn him on. When I would refuse, he would get at me for not doing my part to please him in our relationship. He would threaten me, saying that if I wasn’t willing to do certain things for him, he’d find someone who would.
He did, of course. He would cheat and then claim that it was my fault. He would say that all my refusal to do what he wanted forced him to seek pleasure elsewhere and I was so broken down that I would apologize. There had been more women than I cared to truly find out about but I had evidence of at least three. He liked to pay for sex too, which wouldn’t have been an issue if he was single, but he wasn’t. He actually told me once that he’d rather ‘fuck whores’ in his own words than me since they were working for a paycheck and actually cared about getting him off.
I didn’t know where I’d be without the article. It finally pushed me over the edge. I planned my escape. Thankfully, I still had control of my finances. I wrote him a letter one day and put the locket he bought me for our first anniversary into the envelope with it. I wasn’t sure why but it reminded me of him and I didn’t want that. In another way, I wanted to eliminate the possibility of him coming after me and using it as a reason. With that, I packed everything and left, moving two boroughs away.
It was the hardest thing I ever did. It was sick but when you were abused like that, you started to believe the person who was telling you that you were worthless. You became comfortable being treated poorly and you got scared of leaving, not only because they might retaliate, but also because at least with your abuser, there was some certainty. The fear of the unknown was too big sometimes.
It took a long time to get back on my feet, emotionally, that is, not in the other way. I settled into my new life as well as I could have all things considered but emotionally, I hadn’t let another man in since. Hadn’t even considered it. Love just wasn’t in the cards for me, as much as I wanted it. Tonight, watching the movie had been too much. It took me right back to our old apartment, Paul’s hands all over me while someone was being hacked to death on the screen.
The room felt so empty that my imagination was filling it up for me. The flames from the fireplace and candles flickered which made me feel like someone was in there with me. I couldn’t take it. I didn’t want to be alone. My partner was a grouchy one night stand from several weeks ago who I was pretty sure hated me a little bit but I knew I wouldn?
?t get any sleep this way. Even if I ended up sitting up all night, I didn’t want to do it up here alone.
I got up and wrapped the covers around me. I was still fully dressed since I felt more secure that way even though it wasn’t that comfortable. Toby had left a flashlight so I took it and went downstairs. There were a couple of armchairs and a loveseat in the living room, I’d just camp out on one of those.
Once I was down there, I felt an immediate sense of relief. Just the knowledge that I wasn’t alone anymore was comforting. I was trying to be quiet, but it didn’t work. As soon as I was in the living room, Toby sat upright, scaring the daylights out of me. I jumped back, almost falling over in my blanket cocoon.
“Maggie? What are you doing here?”
I composed myself and got ready to give the speech that I was scared of the dark and I wanted some company tonight. I felt like a four-year-old who went to their parents' room in the middle of the night because they were scared.
“I don’t want to be up there alone.”
“Why? Did something happen?”
“No, nothing. I think it was just a movie. I’m still a little bit spooked.” There was enough light from the fireplace to read his expression, but it seemed pretty blank. I didn’t think that I cared that he might judge me, but it turned out that I did. I was willing to put my pride away for tonight though. I was not going to survive the night alone.
“Oh, okay.”
“Sorry to wake you. I just wanted to sleep down here.” He looked around the room at the remaining bed options. A loveseat, and a couple of armchairs.
“Maggie, you’re not going to sleep down here on one of those.”
“It’s not a big deal. It’s one night.”
He shook his head, determined. I noticed that his jacket was gone and the muscular lines of his body were very apparent through his shirt. Even while scared, stuck on a mountain in a blizzard while flashing back to my awful last relationship, I was still horny. Gross.
“No, it’s—” he paused and looked around the room. “Alright, how about this? We go upstairs together. The bed is big enough that you have nothing to worry about with me.”
Ouch.
I realized that he was just trying to be a gentleman, but him saying that weirdly felt like a rejection. I didn't know where I was in my feelings about it. On a night like this, the last thing on my mind was anything sexual happening between us. I wasn't sure why we hadn't had the bed-sharing conversation earlier. This place had five bedrooms, but before coming down here to fall asleep on the couch, why hadn't he at least tried to suggest us sharing a bed earlier?
Everything that had happened with Paul had broken my brain in some way. Here I was wondering why a guy who was still technically a stranger hadn't tried to sleep in the same bed with me. I was going to say with some confidence that probably had nothing to do with me. He was just avoiding an awkward situation and maybe I should have been more thankful for that. I didn't want to be alone though.
“Okay, fine.” I was spending the night with Toby, but not in that way. It was a big bed and neither of us wanted to be uncomfortable or cold tonight. We would sleep on opposite sides and use separate blankets, it would be fine. On top of that, we would be fully dressed. We had called a truce earlier anyway so there was no way either of us were going back on our word.
Wait a minute, why was I so worried? I knew that he was attracted to me. Just because nothing happened after that one night didn't mean that given another chance, he wouldn't do the same thing.
Jesus Christ, stop, just stop. My thoughts were racing so fast they were crashing into each other. My fear had somehow gotten wrapped up in my apparent complex about being attracted to Toby. I was a mess. All I wanted was to get off this damn mountain. I just needed to survive the night, that was going to be the hard part.
9
Toby