Crawling

When I first met him, he wanted to know my story. He asked over and over. I told him what I determined to be my story. Tales of childhood, life as a mom, about past relationships. But somehow, it was never enough. He told me I was holding back. Not telling the whole truth. I would laugh. But he was serious. Someday you'll tell me, he'd say.

I should've known then, in those beginning moments, that he would never believe me. That every word, every detail would be scrutinized. That he would always be under the presumption he knew more about me and I was hiding secrets.

He wanted a story about rape. Molestation. Something that is the dark side of our society. He wanted me to tell him perhaps Daddy touched me when I was a little girl. Or a boy had raped me at a party I attended when I was thirteen. A #metoo story if you will. He pushed. He prodded. It was almost as if he needed this information to validate his own truths. Whatever those were.

But I could not tell a story. That type of story does not exist, at least not in my memory. And I am certainly not the woman to spin a tale so a man feels justified in his perception of me. The perception? That I was a whore. That perhaps I'd even gone to the lengths of selling my body. That this back story he believed existed, might help him understand why I had become that woman. That whore he viewed me as.

What I do know, that I didn't then... in the beginning of what would be the most damaging relationship I have ever involved myself in, was that I would have a story.

What he didn't know, was that story would be him. He may not have forcibly raped my body. He never physically abused me. But he charmed. He manipulated. He used me over and over. I gave him everything he would take. I gave him all of me. And I crawled for years, beneath him. Got down on my knees before him. And he discarded me like a piece of trash.

But he would not do that with grace, no.... he would do that with such malice and with a heart so cold, it could only belong to that of a psychopath.

This is my story. Our story.