Axel slowly got up, sat next to her, and wrapped his arm around her waist. He could feel her shaking.
“So, that went on for a while, and then, the physical abuse started. First, it was a push here and there. Then, twisting my arm. We’d get into arguments, and he’d berate me. Infuriated that I dared question or challenge him. Mind you, I was keeping this crap from my family. I didn’t tell my friends, because by then, he’d alienated me from them, or turned them against me. I wasn’t talking to my parents regularly anyway, especially my mother because she and I were going through a rough patch when she’d legally separated from my father at that point.
“So, Master smacked me so hard one afternoon during an argument, I blacked out. After that, he never hit me on my face again. He said he couldn’t have me going around people looking like that, and I should be ashamed for making him do that to me. His cult, because that is what it was at this point, was growing, and he was feeling power hungry. He was speaking at various engagements, and people were just loving his narcissistic ass. I was finishing up grad school, and about to graduate. By the end of my senior year, despite being brainwashed, the abuse did somethin’ to me. It changed me. Forever. I didn’t want to be with him anymore. I didn’t care how popular he now was, and him hitting me didn’t make me fear him or silence me, like he’d hoped it would. Instead, it empowered me to leave.
“I had outgrown him, despite all of his programming and manipulative tactics. We were living in an apartment together at the time, so that made it harder for me to get a moment to myself, but I managed. So, as a last-ditch effort, once he realized I was slipping away from his mind games and control, he wanted to have a ceremony with me, in which we’d get married in front of the congregation. I agreed to it, but I knew I was going to leave anyway. He didn’t want me to start my Master’s program. That would mean more time away from him and his control, new friends, and people who might be able to persuade me to leave him. So, instead, he wanted us to lead his “church” together, and start a family.”
Right then, the thought of her married and impregnated by anyone, especially someone as dreadful as the person she was describing, made his fists tense. He looked down at his hands, and they were balled up tight. He could feel his heart beating harder, too.
“Two nights before we were supposed to have this fake marriage ceremony, I put my escape plan into full gear. I got the courage to finally go to the police. I literally had to crawl out the second story window and drop down. Down below, I already had a small bag packed, hidden in the bushes of our apartment complex. I walked up the street, then called for a cab at a store. Once I got to the police station, I told them about the abuse, his financial schemes with which he’d been robbing and tricking people out of their money, and also about the sixteen-year-old girl he’d had an inappropriate relationship with that I had literally just found out about, four days before I left him. Well, here I was thinking I was spilling the beans, but Axel, they were onto him long before I had arrived. The police had Master on their radar for years! He’d been accused of many burglaries, had served time for theft which I knew nothing about, and lied about his age! He said he was twenty-two when we met, and he was actually thirty! He wasn’t even a registered student anymore! He’d dropped out months before he met me.
“He had a daughter in another state, and was still legally married to someone back in Oklahoma, which is where he was from originally. He had several domestic violence charges from that relationship and was even accused of pimping someone. I was sick, Axel. So, not only was I dealing with a violent lunatic, he really believed he was Christ. I know that, deep in my soul, he believed this. A fact that made him even more dangerous. The police escorted me back to his apartment and stood by while I packed the rest of my things. The whole time, he was acting his ass off. A real Oscar-worthy performance, pretending to be a broken-hearted, dutiful boyfriend. Telling the police I could have left at any time, and that the stuff on his record was in the past. He kept saying he was not the same man he’d been, but when I turned around with my bags, and looked at him… I will never forget his face for as long as I live, Axel.