Facets of Life
By: Stacy L.
CATEGORY: Angst, Drama
TABLE FIC PROMPT: #082. Hit
WARNINGS: References to Domestic Violence, Brief mentions of Rape and Physical Abuse, Violence, Dark
COMPLETED:
AUTHOR’S NOTES: This story serves as a response to a table prompt from the 100 Situations LiveJournal challenge community.
It started out with one strike, one slap, nothing big nothing extremely dangerous, just hard enough to cause a nose bleed. One strike, one hit… I should have gotten out then, but I didn’t. I stayed convincing myself it wouldn’t happen again. He was just a little angry. He was under a lot of stress and things just…got a little out of hand. I could handle it. It was nothing to worry about…really.
The next time it had happened it was a fist to the face. I thought he broke my nose, but he hadn’t and again I convinced myself it was just due to the stress he was under. Really I had nothing to worry about.
When he told me he wanted to spend more time with me I believed him. I was a fool. I became “his” after that. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone or go anywhere. If I did the original innocent hit became a punch, a kick to the gut or a violent shove into the nearest piece of furniture.
I started to make up stories of how clumsy I was, and how I was so accident prone. People believed them because they didn’t want to accept, they didn’t want to believe that one human being was capable of deliberately hurting another. They didn’t want to believe that a human being was capable of hurting the one they loved.
I started to disappear after that. Piece by precious little piece I was torn apart. I was slowly being destroyed, and no one seemed to care. No one visited anymore. No one called to ask how I was doing. When they saw me they’d walk right by mumbling a quick “hello” or offering a quick nod. They avoided me. They were…afraid of me because they didn’t understand.
I went to the hospital and was diagnosed with a concussion. The nurses asked me what had happened. Shaking my head I mumbled that I had fallen down the stairs. They didn’t believe me. I could see it in their eyes, but they didn’t ask me any other questions.
My next visit to the hospital went much the same way. Different nurses, different room, similar circumstances, and this time I wasn’t alone. He was there beside me, coddling me, offering words of comfort, apologizing and promising he’d never do it again…
I should have left then too…but this time I was too afraid to. I’m not afraid of much. I don’t scare easily, but when the one who claims to love you literally beats you to unconsciousness and threatens you with a gun when you attempt to fight back…fear takes on a whole new meaning, a darker meaning.
My life was in his hands.
He started resorting to using his gun as a weapon against me, and would often pull a knife when I refused to sleep with him. If I refused he’d threaten me, then he’d fuck me before he’d beat me again for refusing him, for denying him his rights. And still I stayed with him and acted as if nothing were wrong.
I tried to appease him. I tried to make him happy, hoping against hope that he would change back into the person I had fallen in love with. I tried to do everything “right”, and I tried to remain meek around him, more submissive, quieter. I’d talk less. I’d talk in softer tones, and I’d tend to his every need. Anything he wanted I would get for him, but it was never enough.
I had believed that I could change him. I had believed that if I just loved him enough I could heal him. I could make him better. I could change him and make a difference in his life. At first it seemed to work. I thought I had been getting through to him. I thought I had been making a difference. I thought I was helping him, but two weeks later I was huddled in the corner of our bedroom with a fresh array of bruises and cuts adorning my body.
The next time he had grabbed me was because I had been too slow with bringing him a drink. His solution was to “whip me into shape” by first grabbing me and then shoving me to the floor, tossing me into a corner of the room before driving several well-aimed kicks to my stomach. Shortly after the onslaught I found myself huddling before him again, clutching my stomach and struggling to draw air into my burning lungs. He demanded I look at him and when I failed to comply he drove several more brutal kicks into my side spouting several obscenities at me in the process. When darkness began to settle in around me I released a loud scream as vicious fingers tangled in my hair gripping tightly before yanking me upward by it. He grasped my hair so tightly that I feared I would soon pass out.
It was then that he began to rail and scream at me. Again I tried desperately to appease him, to calm him and soothe his rage by speaking softly to him. He ordered me to shut up, to be quiet or else. Instead of complying I tried again to appease him sure that I could get through to him. He responded by reaching for something with his free hand. As he drew his hand forward I saw the glimmer of the sinister blade and fell silent fearing that would be it. As the blade entered my body several times I prayed that would be the end, and silently begged for him to kill me. I sent a prayer to the heavens for him to end my life. I was prepared to die.
My life had become meaningless, so meaningless that I was wishing it away. I was a scientist, a teacher, a Doctor of Archaeology. I should have known better, but I had been foolish and believed that love could conquer all. I had believed that if I loved someone enough I could change them for the better. The sad truth is you can’t change someone. They have to want to change themselves, and if they don’t believe they need to change or if they just don’t want to change then all the pleading and begging, all the groveling and appeasing will be for nothing. You can’t change someone. They have to want to change themselves first.
I couldn’t change him. I wanted to change him, and I truly believed that I could. I was certain that if I loved him just enough, if I “behaved” as he expected me to, if I changed for him that he would eventually change too. It was a foolish notion, but it was something that had given me hope…ridiculous as that hope may have been.
It was on that particular day that I realized I couldn’t change anyone but myself and if I wanted to change, if I wanted to reclaim my own life I’d have to find the courage somewhere deep within to walk away from him and never look back…
That was fifteen years ago. Five years before Catherine Langford showed up at a lecture to ask me to come with her. Five years before I had stepped through the Stargate. Five years before I found the courage, the strength, the ability to dare to love again.
Love was never an easy thing for me, but I have always believed that there is good in everyone. I have always believed that people can change. I have always believed IN people, even after what had happened to me.
When we first met he called me a geek. He said I was naďve. He thought me innocent and unaware. He believed that I had never seen the cruelty of a human being. He was so certain that I had never been exposed to such cruelty. How else could I see the good in all people? How else could I believe so much in others? What else could explain why I chose to take a staff blast meant for him, meant for a man who was planning to kill himself anyway?
What he didn’t know, what I had intended for him never to find out was that I had known those things, had survived those things, had nearly died as a result of trusting someone too much. I had intended for him never to find out about that part of my past. I had intended for him never to find out about the numerous hospital visits, the countless police reports, the running away, the disappearing, the long hours spent trying to cope, trying to move on, trying to break a cycle so vicious that I nearly became lost in it. What I didn’t want him to find out was that I had been a victim, a victim of domestic violence. What would he think of me if he knew I had been trapped in an abusive relationship? I was so afraid that if he found out he would ignore me too. I was so afraid to tell him. I was afraid that I would lose him.
At the time I survived through it domestic violence wasn’t recognized or acknowledged, especially in a gay couple and especially when it happened to a MAN because those kinds of things just “never happened”. People didn’t want to believe in such things and ignored it, refusing to accept that it did occur, because to admit that it was a problem meant they had to accept that human beings could be sinister, cold and cruel.
I never wanted him to know. I never wanted him to find out. It was a secret. I was determined to take that secret to the grave with me, but the first time we were alone in his home, the first time he kissed me and drew me to him I felt the old fear resurface. I was afraid of him, of what he would do to me, of what he COULD do to me. I raised my hands and placed them against his chest prepared to push him away, to keep him at a distance. Unaware of my fear he moved in closer, still kissing me. I began to surrender, to allow the feelings of warmth and pleasure wash over me, to lower my defenses just a little but then I saw his hand rise and the moment was broken. I…I reacted instinctually to the raised hand having caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. I reacted as I had all those years ago. I tensed and attempted to pull away, to yank away…I cringed. I drew my hands up to cover my face, to protect it from a possible blow, and he spoke two words softly to me in response before pulling me against him and telling me that I didn’t have to be afraid of him. Again those two words came along with others, “Ah Daniel. I’m so sorry,” and I felt as if I could suddenly breathe again. I was scared because I knew that he now knew or at least suspected, and I was relieved because my secret would no longer be such a heavy burden to hold onto.
We didn’t make love that night instead he guided me to his bed, urged me to lie down beside him and held me close. No questions were asked. No demands were voiced. There was no awkward moment that fell between us, no strange lengthy silence that stretched and became uncomfortable. Instead he just held me, held me beside him as I stared blankly at his wall unable to speak of his newest discovery, unable to utter a single solitary word about what he had just learned about me. He held me as I shifted upon the mattress burrowing further into the covers and pressing tighter against his body, seeking out his warmth. He held me as the night continued on and he continued to hold me as I finally found rest in the safe haven of his arms. He has never demanded or asked me about my past, but I sense he already knows or suspects what had happened.
As I turn to him now I smile at him and he smiles back. We hold one another close and I lift up to press a kiss to his lips. He nuzzles my neck before pressing a tender kiss to the side of my face and quietly asks, “What is it, Daniel?”
I draw in my bottom lip nibbling gently on it, a nervous gesture that I developed several years ago, and gaze up at him seeing his love for me shining brightly in his charcoal eyes before I begin, “Five years before I was approached by Catherine Langford I was involved in a relationship with a man who hurt me very badly…”
Pulling me closer he gazes deeply into my eyes and tugs me more firmly against his chest. In his eyes I read understanding and patience, and as he offers me a smile of encouragement I smile at the man who gave me the strength, the courage to love again before settling to begin telling him one of the biggest secrets of my past…
** The End **
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