Time: May, Year 0 to May, Year 3
I don’t remember when Big Ex (BE) and I first met. He tells me that it was actually in the arcade in Year -1, very close to when we first arrived on campus. Anyways, I can remember us on the brink of getting together, flirting over a movie, him lying on my single cot and us talking all night the day before I moved out of residence for the summer, helping me move things into my relative’s car.
He spent the summer at work in another city but before we even started working, I spent a week or so at home and our phone correspondance and the slide into the abyss already had begun. I described him to my mother and she immediately didn’t like aspects of him. We were happily stuck on each other, not entertaining the thought of the one-way road we were constructing before us. All the anticipation built up until the first time he came to visit me and exploded in one idiotic afternoon making out on a couch in a dimly lit lounge.
The first summer was nuts. I was staying with relatives and flouted their unspoken rules, caused huge disruption, lost the keys, locked myself out, had him over when they were gone. I was so in love. The first semester of school together was a major disaster and four months later, I was living with another relative and blissfully disrupting her life as well.
We were so bad for each other but couldn’t get away. I learned what pleased him and he drew me closer for it. We pushed everyone away and I lost all my friends from before him. He had old, old friends but he was all I had and I was too naive to have pride and break off.
In the second year, I “cheated” on him by secretly going to the room of some other guy. Other guy was really cute and had a girlfriend. We just talked but I lied about it, said I was sleeping. BE considered it to be cheating and convinced me of it and that I deserved as much “punishment” and should be as contrite as if I had kissed someone else or worse. So, you see, much of what I can remember afterwards is the stark, of being like a love slave, satisfying his kinky (but not intercourse in any way) whims, confined to our rooms when we were supposed to be in lecture. Since I was the unfaithful one, I had to watch him and take it as he hurt me, pointing out other girls, telling me I’m ordinary.
Something snapped in the third year. I was as clingy and desperate as ever because when we were good, it was the best I had ever known - I was protected. That year, we had as many ups and downs as we ever did. We probably broke up 15 times in three years. But in the third year, he started kicking me when I was being stubborn in an argument. I don’t entirely remember how each time it came about. Needless to say, my marks suffered. They also suffered because of the mysterious illness I contracted at the time and I was distracted by Loverboy. After I told a counselor, he realized how much trouble he could be in and reformed.
It’s funny how I still count him as one of my oldest friends. I’ve kept him apprised of events in my life all the years that have passed so he has one of the most complete perspectives. But he’s increasingly busy and a rift has formed that temporarily seems to heal with some “s*x.” But it’s always there.
Despite a one-year hiatus (during The One), we can fall into old patterns. I please him by cyberspace or over the phone. It destresses him and does nothing for me. When I’m really tired but feel egged to do it to help him, one word comes across my mind: rape.
