WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (46 page)

I thought about my life with him.
Branson routinely stayed out all night, never calling in to tell me where he’d be or what time he’d be home. He acted like we weren't married. I would be frantic, worried sick and mad as hell, envisioning all that could have happened, what he was doing, who he was doing it with and why.

“Why didn’t he love me?” I’d whine. I’d bellow. I’d cry. I’d drink. I’d call all his friends. All my friends. All the family looking for him. Without luck I'd drive around town looking for his vehicle. Crazy shit. I became obsessed with his unavailability and his refusal to be a husband and the man I wanted. The man I needed. It sent me over the edge of a dangerous, painful cliff. I began to believe the lies
that it was all my fault.  I’m the reason he can’t love me. 
I was the reason he acted the way he did. I took responsibility for 
his
 behaviors. 

Me. I must be doing it all wrong. I didn’t observe my mother enough as a child to learn the proper way to handle a man. I didn’t learn the rules of hope chests and blenders and turbo blades. I ripped up the dishrags, the recipes books, the way to a man’s stomach. It was all MY FAULT. I deserved this treatment because of who I am. I’m not good enough. And if I’m not good enough, then I must do more, be better, learn more, love different—more, better. Don’t be yourself Willodean because that is not good enough.
 

The knives in the hope chest penetrated my heart, one at a time, reminding me of their sad stark truth. I bled the southern sap of my own making. 
I made the bed. I lived the lie. I took the punishment.
 That illuminating night in the cab of a borrowed pick-u
p truck, I saw who I had become, but it wasn’t enough to change me.  I had exceeded the threshold of pain long ago.

“I am not enough
.” I said to myself.  “I must be more.”
 I threw the wig and sunglasses out the window, cranked the truck and drove home. I told myself I would be better. I would change my ways. I will fix this. I gritted my teeth and held on tighter. I swallowed the bitter pill of denial and silenced the big pink elephant and went about my marriage like the good wife I was going to become.
I wasn’t strong enough to see the truth or accept it.  For him or myself. 
I looked beyond the cheating, the drinking and the lies. I told myself I’d be a better wife if I forgave him. If I had done what he wanted me too, then maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe he wouldn’t have to look at other women,
or go to strip clubs if I was a good wife.  If I gave him sexually what he wanted it would be better.  I convinced myself it would get better tomorrow. 
He’d love me
, then
. It was always 
then.

But he didn’t love me. He manipulated me. He controlled me. He dominated me. He pressed me with sexual deviants, I would have never, ever in a million years acted on, had I been in a more secure mindset. He made the animal in me, alive. Had I know the horrible, terrible effects of such dark things I would not have submitted. The final straw was the swap. He wanted to swing with the swingers. One of his friends was involved in the open marriage thing. I was appalled. Floored is more like it. 
No way in hell, I thought. No freaking way.
 This went against everything sacred of the marital covenant I knew, believed and my moral compass went haywire. I mean, sure I had done some pretty risky things in life, promiscuous at large, but I hadn’t crossed this line. This was—
too much.
 We were married and to my heart that meant something sacred. When I refused, Branson made my life hell and I never realized it could be more hellacious than it already was, but he proved me wrong.
Manipulation is a terrible creator of awful things. 
I was a puppet he knew how to control with his words, his actions, his refusal to love me, his cold influence and unavailability, his distance. He convinced me that he’d find someone else to give him what he wanted and I believed him. 
It pressed every button inside me. 
She’ll get what I deserve, the love that is meant for me.
  
I went into a needy, dependent mode, envisioning him a better man with another woman, me left alone, bitter and thrown away. This made me crazy obsessive, and more so, than I was before, when I was following him all over town. 
I lost me.
 Or maybe I was lost to begin with. Regardless, I hated who I had become but I had no control over this maddening, no self-worth, no voice, no say-so—woman that spoke through my lips and used my body. That woman was desperate for love and would do anything to keep it. She kept telling me. “He’ll love me,
then
.”

The thought of letting another man touch me while I was married sent me to a darker than dark place. The Amodgian shadows swept me away. Their darkness swallowed me whole. 
This is what he wants. Be the good wife. Just sex. That’s all. No big deal. Do it. Do it. Do it.
The whispers, the voices, the manipulation, the insecurities. I get sick just thinking about it now, like I’m living it
over again but I know I have to face it now, or never, and it’s part of the reason, I’m so messed up now, is because I pushed it down so far inside me as if it didn’t happen—but it did happen and my body, mind, and spirit will not let me forget it. 

To know that I let someone, most disturbingly, my own husband, convince me that this was an act of endearing love on his part, catapulted me to a place of no returns. And the awful, most disturbing fact, 
is I let him. I said yes but I meant no. I said yes. But I meant NO
. During the whole filthy, disgusted act, the little girl inside the house is screaming and beating on the walls of my chest, "
She said yes but she meant no. She said yes but she meant no.
 I couldn’t bear what was happening —I left me. Mentally, physically and spiritually. I watched from above, like catching glimpses of porn, some poor, helpless, smuck of a woman with no control of her life. I felt sad, lost, and consumed with madness.
And the thought of what was happening with Branson and another woman basically drove me over the edge.  Finished me off. 
The house inside me shattered, buckled, broke. If there was anything 
good
 left in me—it was taken that night. Taken with one broken knob decision. 
I just wanted to be loved. Just loved.
 
I felt this awful place inside me acting itself out, as if it had happened before in another time, another place.  It was too much. 
The shadows swept in like the lovers I never had, saving me from myself. I went into a state of numbness inside the house, held up in a room I didn’t know existed. When they rushed me past the door I didn’t see the name on the copper nameplate, so I have no idea what room it was, or why it was built but it was familiar, and yet unfamiliar. If I could have guessed the name, it would have been Shame because it covered me like thick tree sap. It was a sticky film I couldn’t rub off, hardened in places I could touch, feel, relive. 
This was indeed the broke—that broke me.
 
I said yes but I meant no. I said yes but I meant NO
. I whispered this chant non-stop, echoing the little girl’s voice inside me, as if it would stop the nightmares of what I done, erase it, and remove my sin. I stopped thinking rationally from that point onward, if I ever did at all.

Branson licked his lips as if this was just the beginning, a taste on his tongue, tem
ptation fulfilled, and wanting more. 
My insecurities flared and mounted. In my panic, in my craziness, in my neediness to be loved, to be given scraps of anything I could find, touch, taste—I merged myself within him, within his life of control, domination and sexual exploitation. It wasn’t me doing it, it was someone else, that other girl, that other person, 
not me, not me, not me.

Her. Her. Her.
 That other woman. 
Not me
. But every day, inside the room, inside the house, the shame grew into a great ugly beast, hostile, and 
waiting.
 It festered like the bowels of hell.

I said yes but I meant no. I said yes but I meant NO
.
The shame grew.  The beast growled and snapped its teeth. 
Sizzling whispers simmered out of the house, in me, of me, for me, against me. I felt muzzled, confined, constricted…
empty
. Every day, a piece of me died in that house, in that room, in that bed, in that lie. Every time I said yes—the little girl screamed no, no, no. The more I died, the louder her screams got. The pain she brought to the surface was so extreme I thought
this is what it felt like to die, and wished I would, quickly.  The little girl
beat and pressed against my weak wood, weak heart, but I managed to press her down, silence her. It is hard to bear these things, even now, that I face it for what it is, my mind is sifting, sorting and realizing the capacity to which it was able to hold in, confine, and bundle up so much horror, such pain and hurt. I was two people; acting out strange things, controlled by something, someone. A woman on the outside. A torn kite, blood and tears. No wind.

On the inside, a small child. Grit and courage. Stars and moons. Faith and hope.

My inability to say no was mechanical,
a broken knob I couldn’t find nor turn on or off. 
I rummaged through my mind and found incidents where I should have said no, I wanted to say no, but I
couldn’t, my lips frozen up, the words stuck inside me somewhere.  Where and why? 

Will you babysit my kids? Sure I said. But the little girl screamed, 
Hell, no. I’m not keeping those devil-spawn heathens.
 Would you like to buy some wrapping paper for my kid’s school program? Sure I said. 
Are you freaking kidding me? No. No. No. Slam the door in face. Unrepentant.
 Will you have sex—will you do this—will you do me a favor—will you—will you—will you… 
I said yes, but I meant no. I said yes, but I meant no.
What was wrong with me? 
Why was it so hard to say no? 
To anything. To anyone. I walked around trapped in three worlds, the one with the little girl, the one with the crazy woman and the one with Branson. On rare occasions, something strange happened and usually when I was lose, and after I drank a shot of whiskey, the little girl would come roaring out using my lips with strange words.

“I’m going to leave you for good.” She
’d say to Branson face to face pointing her fingers. 
Fear trickled on my skin. The crazy woman screamed back at the girl. “You don’t know what you’re doing. He will hurt you. Don’t say
that.” I’d freeze in my tracks.  I knew
the consequences of my offense, or her offense, 
ours.
 
Whatever.
 

Once she spurt it out of her lose lips, the little girl sent a vision to my mind. It was her kicking him in the knee and grabbing him by the balls. She was cocksure as if she had nothing to lose. “Uncle?” She said laughing and twisting her hands. Instead of laughing, my eyes expanded like moon pies. 
Consequences.
My mouth. Her mouth. 
Ours
. 
Whatever. Jesus, this is getting confusing.
 

Branson stopped cold in his no-good-for-nothing-boots and glared back at me. 
Her.
 
Me. Us. Ughhh…
His eyes went squint and his mouth twitched.

“Go ahead.” He said chuckling as if it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard.

“You’ll be back. No one will want you anyway.” He laughed. “I’m all you got baby.” His voice was the hiss of a thousand breeding snakes, writhing around, touching dark places inside the house. My breath was labored. I thought I would hyperventilate. I couldn’t budge. I wanted to scream at the little girl for making so much trouble for me. I went into escape mode, planning routes in my head, attempting to be one step ahead of him. Sometimes, Branson would get hints of something going on, as if he knew I was about to leave, bolt, get away. He rigged my car engine so it wouldn’t crank, hid my car keys, ripped the phone from the wall, emptied the bank account, or stole my wallet. He’d do anything to keep me in 
his
 place. He kept me sep
arated from family and friends and what’s worse I isolated myself in order to function.  Maintain control.  Keep everything running.  Endless battle. 
Who was I kidding?
 
I couldn’t function in daily life. I lost countless jobs. No matter what I did to better the situation, it always got worse.
Lots worse. 
Regardless, he made me feel responsible for his feelings, his actions, his day, his moods,
him, him, him
. I wasn’t good enough. He found fault with the dishes in the sink, my cooking, my makeup, the house, and the books I read, the magazines I looked at, my perfume, my clothing, and my shoes.
The way I laughed, the way my teeth were aligned, the way my nose curved, the list is endless. 
I felt crazy—was crazier by the day—lived with crazy and did not know how to remove myself from CRAZY. All I knew was chaos and crazy.