‘Betrayal’

Ricardo Jose Gonzalez-Rothi is an academic physician, internationally known amateur photographer and writer, Ricardo has had his work awarded, published or forthcoming in Black and White Magazine, Light, Space and Time Gallery, Northwest Review, Fusion Art Gallery, London Photo Festival, Wanderlust Travel Journal, Grey Cube Gallery, Hispanic Culture Review, Ilanot Review, and About Place journals among others. Gonzalezrotheiphoto.com

Betrayal

That’s the same face he used to make. I was always such a disappointment, and he never hid his distaste, but it’s been nearly a decade. I shift in my chair as the memory of the battle that tore my Mind and Body apart washes over me. I try to shake his image from my head, but it’s thrust to the forefront of my Mind. My stomach starts to turn and my eyes ache, demanding to release the tears I desperately hold at bay. Not again. Not now. Not here. I’d become all too familiar with the torment of my Body’s relentless determination to have me relive what I put Her through all those years ago.

I’m sitting with friends as they recall the silly stories of the past week, but I’m assaulted with the memories. It starts with the feel of him moving inside me which overpowers every other sensation. I take a drink of water to calm the storm of nausea brewing. I cross my ankles and clench my knees together trying to minimize the physical memory that has haunted me since my therapeutic journey through the wreckage of my failed marriage began. I stare at the table and pray that no one is watching me relive the death of who I once was.

I shift in my seat and wonder how long it will take to end this time. She is my Body, so why does She collude with him to torment me years after the oppression ceased? I’d been warned that things would get worse before they got better and that the only way out of my internal hell was to push through and face everything that happened, but I’d never anticipated having to relive the past in this way. I’d drifted through our marriage in a hazy fog. For years I lay in the cave, numbed by mindlessly watching the shadows dance on the wall. When I finally found the nerve to crawl into the sun, I clung to its warmth and buried all that happened before beneath a willow. Standing under her soft branches that swayed in the breeze, I’d asked for her protection, and she’d vowed to keep them for me so that I could build a new life, but when I learned of his impending return to my hometown, Pandora dug into the grave and unleashed its fury.

The memories swirl through my Mind. It had started so simply. He’d spent years demolishing my self-worth and I was desperate to please him, so when he stumbled to bed in a drunken stupor and was angered at my inability to climax from his jarring and twitchy attempts to make love, I feigned desire and gave him what he wanted to avoid the acidic accusations he regularly spewed at me whenever I fell short of his expectations. It didn’t feel like a big deal; just a white lie to appease his ego. Over time, my Body grew tired of the show becoming a regular occurrence and turned off the tap to the true desire that used to flow freely. For years, my Body taught me what She liked, and I learned how to adjust myself to maximize Her pleasure. I intuitively tilted and twisted my hips to just the right spot, and he always enjoyed Her enthusiasm, but now I forced Her to mimic Her moments of desire to avoid his wrath. But every submission to his will empowered him to demand more.

When his movements evoked pain, he could sense my Body reflexively seizing for an instant, and it started to feel like he enjoyed eliciting such a response. His fingers would press into my skin, holding my Body in place when She tensed. His slack mouth and icy gaze told me he could do far worse if he wished. My Body was poised for a fight, but I knew better. I held Her in place and ignored Her protests until he was satiated. The more I learned to force Her to give in and bear his feverish delight, the more brazen he became, moving me into positions that would maximize the pain. My Body would scream for relief, but I couldn’t relent, fearing the reaction he would unleash if I were to defy him.

Echoes of the vow I made to love, honor, and respect him pounded through my Mind during the final year of our marriage. There had to be a way to salvage the life we shared. I was determined to find the road that led to happiness. If I could give him everything he wanted, then there’d be no room left for the complaints that darkened each attempt at joy. There was one act that I’d refused him for years, but the boundaries I’d managed to maintain were nothing more than rotting wooden fences, made vulnerable after years of exposure to the raging storm of his disdain, so I decided to give in.

Determination flushed through my veins, calming the icy flow of fear that my Body sent in its final protest as I prepared to offer Her on the altar of his desire. Surely this would satisfy him. When he approached, his selfish touch felt cold and foreign. He was consumed with lust and all he needed was my Body, so I did my best to detach my Mind and leave him to his devices. Upon his initial thrust, my muscles tensed and readied themselves for battle, each fiber releasing a war cry. When the soldiers recognized that they wouldn’t be allowed onto the field of battle, they melted into the submission their general demanded. The pain faded but I was repulsed by the sensation that remained. My Body howled in protest as I waited patiently for it to end, without letting him see an ounce of discomfort. Any twitch or quiver would be steadied as I softly led my Body to take slow, measured breaths to soothe away the revulsion until we finally felt the conclusion of his efforts. I waited on the bed for him to leave before going into the bathroom to clean up.

Now that we were alone, all the objections that I’d been subduing poured forth. My hands shook and my stomach twisted and turned. I dropped to my knees by the toilet in case it made good on its threat. My skin broke into a cold sweat and my heart thumped wildly. I couldn’t catch my breath, so I wedged myself between the toilet and tub and pulled my knees into my chest. Muted sobs interrupted my erratic breathing leaving me lightheaded as tears rushed forth with brutality. I rocked back and forth but the tension in my chest was growing until I fully collapsed and pulled a towel over my naked Body as the floor tiles cooled my cheek. The chaos ceased when my energy had fully depleted. Exhausted, I peeled myself off the floor, got dressed, and went to sit with him in the living room where he’d been watching television.

I shake my head to try to focus on the present. The memories alone are painful, but my Body demanded retribution, so I sit in the presence of friends who laugh and share stories as my Mind is forced to feel what I’d put Her through all those years ago. She hates me. We were meant to be allies, but as far as She was concerned, I’d committed the worst of crimes. I try to act normal as I bow my head in defeat. I can’t argue against Her logic, so I quietly endure the attack. Eventually, Her fury ceases, and I am free to ignore the wounds that have festered for over a decade. Over the coming months, She stealthily strikes at the most inopportune times until my Mind is fully broken. I weakly wave a white flag and accept that I am nothing more than a villain in my own story.

The war took everything from us; no one feeling like the victor. Each move was self-sabotaging, and, in the end, we knew we had to join forces. As we met to go over the treaty, we were brutally honest, and a curious compassion entered the conversation. Every act that sparked the war had been done in fear. Pain influenced every battle plan between my Mind and Body and in time, we realized that we had been so busy fighting each other that we let the true perpetrator escape unscathed. I never felt like I had a choice, and I used whatever power I could muster to force my Body into a submission She never would have agreed to, all to appease him. His only power came from incessant tantrums and impotent threats of violence. Youth made him seem bigger and stronger than he truly was. We smiled as we imagined the ways in which we could defy him now that we had the strength of time and wisdom, but after a while, the joy of our imagined revenge wore thin. We embraced and agreed to lay it to rest. We relinquished the memories to the dry barren lands of our youth and vowed to forget, but we would never forgive.

Lindsay Thurman hopes to share her story to give other women who have suffered similarly some context for their pain. She has been published in a recent issue of Sophisticated Living Magazine (Louisville).