I'm the Best You're Ever Going to Get (DS2)

So we moved into the little blue and white wartime house in the river valley. Dan wanted to be able to smoke in the bedroom and I don't like smoky sheets so we had seperate bedrooms upstairs, living room and and kitchen on the main floor and computers in the basement.

Things seemed good, but sometimes things would get a bit odd. Dan wanted me to look like this friend he had, Julie. I dyed my hair red for him, and he wanted me to get it permed as well. I would have, except my hair is straight as an arrow and won't curl even if you pay it. The nagging got a bit annoying, he kept trying to make excuses why I should curl my hair when I actually couldn't. I would have if it were possible. "It will tangle less" he'd say, I knew that wasn't a fact. He asked his friends and they sided with me. He nagged less about it, but he started talking about this girl more and more. I guess that was a sign I missed, or more accurately, didn't know at the time.

He began to talk about this girl insessantly, and I'd just sort of half-listen because I wasn't really interested. On hindsight, I think he was trying to provoke jealousy in me. "Oh Julie likes this sort of thing and Julie does that, maybe you can do that?" I don't know why he wasn't dating her instead, since he seemed so obsessed. But I didn't let it bother me.

Then came the jealousy. He would provoke it in himself, asking me questions about my ex's. I didn't really give him too much information since I didn't really see that it was any of his buisness, but it soon became a bit nuts because he was asking me about guys I was friends with or didn't even know.

The questioning turned into interrigation, but again I didn't give it any mind; I was used to crazy accusations from growing up with my mom twisting facts to make things my brother did my fault, again, it was all in my realm of normalcy.

He started making up stories about people gossiping about me. That worried me some, because I  didn't think anyone had any reason to. He started to have temper tantrums, and I was sort of already "conditioned" to be a fixer, and try and fix what was wrong to stop the tantrum. The cycle of abuse had begun.

He started to do strange things. Against my wishes, he let other people move in with us. Our mutual friend, Brad, which wouldn't have been bad except if I got caught talking to Brad, as soon as Dan and I were alone, there would be hell to pay. It turned out Brad was a pig. He smoked in the non smoking areas of the house and used my plants as an ashtray, they all started to wither. He wouldn't use a cutting board and my nice solid wood table got cut marks in it. He used our towels and we caught scabies from him. Dan wouldn't make him move out. Brad would break in through the windows. I constantly got accused of flirting with him. It was exausting.

He started to say I hadn't paid my share of the bills (so I had to pay twice, thus paying the full bill). He'd go out on drinking binges with his friends and come home angry. He limited what friends I could have to 3. He lied and said he was communicating with my parents. If I questioned him he would get very threatening and go "don't you trust me?" I didn't dare deny him when he spoke like that. I knew that tone all too well.

When he was angry, he wanted sex. Or when he wanted sex, he became angry. I would generally be in the basement on the computer or somewhere else in the house when I heard "Nicky! Come here right now!" So I didn't really know which way it went. Everyone likes being talked to like that, right? Being a normal person, I didn't want to have sex with someone who was in a rage. Back then, no one knew about "rageaholism" (a stupid term for a serious condition), but the more he was refused, the more it fuled his paranoia and jealousy (I belive his logic was that since I wasn't ready to jump on him I was "getting it" from somewhere else, rather than simple distate for his behavior.)

I don't remember the first time he laid a hand on me but at first he had put his hands on my shoulders if I recall properly. He'd get raging mad and be babbling some rediculous thing about some guy I barely knew and his face would get all screwed up and he'd look like a hamster. It was hard to take him seriously and I'd have to stifle myself from laughing because the stories and the look on his face was so perposterous. I think the rediculousness of it made it easier to take, or made me immune somehow because I didn't really lacth on to the seriousness of it until the shaking turned to choking and I realized that I was deciding to get beaten up rather than endure nasty sex with him where he's humiliate and insult me. "I'm the best you're ever going to get, you'll never do better than me. I mean just look at you." I'd stare at the clock. At least it was only six minues. But it was a long six minutes. I didn't want to participate to make it last longer so I stared at the clock, the ceiling... the clock...."

Then he invited his brother and brothers girlfriend to live with us. That was probably the best time because Dan wouldn't act abusive when they were around. But if they were out and Dan came home drunk and the house was empty, things would be twice as intense.

Then he decided he was infertile. Which of course meant he didn't want to wear condoms. I couldn't take the pill because of medical reasons so it was barrier methods. We'd made an agreement before we were ever intimate that if there was an accidental pregnancy, that there would be a termination. I didn't want to be a single mom. I started to use a diaphraghm and contraceptive foam. We were down from using 3 barriers to two and I was pretty uncomfortable with this since I wasn't really wanting to do this anyway. I thought it was something you had to do. I didn't have the money to get out of this situation. I'd phoned my mom and asked for help and said it was an emergancy, that I just needed money for a damage deposit so I could move, and she said that "it wasn't an emergancy, and I chose my bed now I have to sleep in it."

I told Tim about the abuse. There was a fight. The Police were called. Dan accused me of strange things with his brother Tim. To the police he said Tim and I had been kissing and to some friends he said Tim had been touching my breasts. It was all crazy fabrications.He couldn't even keep his crazy story straight. Dan was good with the police. Tim spent the night in jail. It should have been Dan.

I started to think of ways to get out. By then I had Pteri, my parrot, and I had to think of her safety too. He would hurt her if I went to a shelter.


Dan had graduated to shaking me by the neck and screaming something incomprehensable about some guy I did an art project with once. We'd talked about doing a road trip out to the country and photograph the powerlines that looked like crosses. Christian crosses. That was some hot and heavy stuff right there. Then I had the realization. This was happening now about 3 times a week. If this didn't stop, this was going to be my life. I didn't want this to be my life. Dan must have seen something in my face or in my eyes change because he became really psycho and started pressing really hard on my throat so I took a few steps back until I was backed up againsat the wall. I was in my "happy place" when I was snapped out of it with him shreiking "...look at my eyes! Don't look at me did I tell you to look at me! You're nothing! Your hair is all going to fall out! You're going to get fat! I'm the best you're ever going to get! Why aren't you looking into my eyes! What are you hiding!" the pressure was releived off my neck and I inhaled and then I was smashed into the wall. The back of my head impacted, hard, then my jaw slammed closed so hard I fractured a tooth and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. "Dan... stop it. You're hurting me."

Immediately he became like a baby bird, a small weak thing. He ran over to the sofa and started sobbing. Sobbing for his mommy. I felt an overwhelming compassion for him, he was so broken and miserable, I instintively followed hm over there with the intent to nurture and comfort him. I started to stroke his hair. A voice, maybe of reason, spoke to me: "What are you doing, 2 seconds ago he tried to kill you."

"Why are you crying?" "I can't control you. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, I can't control you." I was a bit baffled. "Why would you want to do that?" I asked. He just sobbed. I put down the lock of hair and walked into the kitchen. I don't remember anything after that.

Surely it can't get any worse than this

Christmas came. His favorite holiday. We decorated the tree, I'd had made origami animals from John Montroll's Animals designs, they were so complcated that had to be folded with foil paper and some took as long as four hours a piece to do. They looked awesome with the colored lights and the different colours of foil paper.

Dan went out more and more often. I tried to drive home to my mom how scared I was by mailing her the christmas ornaments I'd made as a small child. One night I went out to the car to drive up the hill and get some milk from the 7-11, and the tire was flat. He admitted the next day to doing it. "What did Nen say?" I asked. "He thought it was a pretty stupid thing to do." At least he was ashamed.

I don't know what set him off but one night he came home raving drunk and screaming. He took a big carving knife out of the kitchen and was whirling it around, not even making intelligable words. I got him to put away the knife. Somehow. It was like wrangling wasps. The he went after the tree. He picked it up by the base and swung it around the living room. Water splashed everywhere and the cord fortunately was pulled out of the wall preventing an electrical fire. He dragged the tree outside, screaming in tongues. I barricaded myself with Pteri in my bedroom.

The next morning he was very hungover and very bashful. "I ruined your tree. I ruined Christmas."  I didn't have anything to say to him. I tried to wipe the melted candy cane off my origami treasures and packed them away in a bag.

"I'm a lover, not a fighter", he'd say. "I don't abuse women, I've never hit a woman." "Sure," I thought, "but you'll do everything else." It was hard not to roll my eyes. he went on, "I love you, and I'm the best thing you'll ever get, it doesn't get better than me." He was flaunting himself again, in a good mood because he'd gotten what he wanted. He was in an unusually good mood lately. As if he had something up his sleeve. This was going on March.

I decided there was a 4rd option. Whe he was having an episode I couldn't run from the house, he's grab me and do the choking thing. I wouldn't succomb to the shaking. I wouldn't succomb to the rape. I locked myself in my bedroom and I took a plank off my brick and board bookshelf and I wedged it under the doorhandle. I sat on my bed in the corner of the room and wrapped my blankets around me. He swore. He screamed. He demanded. He shouted ultamatiums. He.. he started to bang on the door. First with his fists, then his palms, then you could tell my the tone it was his arms then he started ramming the door with his shoulder. The door couldn't handle that. It began to give. It splintered. It cracked. It shattered at the edge and the door opened, hinges first. It was like The Shining. I was never so terrified in my life. I was petrified. He smashed all the things on top of my dresser. My nautilis shell, one of the only things I had from my dad, shattered. Dan got his way on my bed. I thought the damage to the house would be proof that I needed help to get away. Dan had clearly done this dance before. He said I was crazy, and that he thought I was going to kill myself, and that he'd saved my life.

I felt bloated. I felt unfamiliar. My breasts felt strange. I squeezed one and a few drops of translucent white fluid emerged. I went to get a pregnancy test. It was positive.

I finally found someone that would take Pteri and my other animals and I in without a damage deposit, some work colleagues of my stepdad's who also owned horses where Foxy lived. We'd ride together quite a bit.

When I told him, Dan was very smug. "I poked a hole in your diaphraghm." I ran upstairs. It was true, there was a pinhole dead in the center.When he saw me looking at it, he laughed.

Janet said she would support me and take me to the clinic. First I had to get an ultrasound because it was already late in the trimester, they had to determine wheather it was first or second trimester. I had gotten spotting every four weeks and assumed it was my period so I didn't know.

They made me look at the ultrasound. I made myself not care. I didn't want to be glued to Dan the whole rest of my life. I wanted to get away, clean and even.

On Nen's advice, Dan had suddenly become pro-life. I told him that was bullshit, and he couldn't make that decision at the last minute like that.

Dan was still trying to get me to stay with him. I went out with him and his friends to their bar. Some of these guys were my friends before Dan and I got together, they'd met through me. Dan was emploring, begging me to stay with him. I told his friends in front of him that the door broken down was his temper and I wouldn't back down until he got psychological help for his temper. I didn't have any plans to stay with him anyway. I don't know why I was there. I guess I missed the old "us".

I dropped him off at home. He grabbed the papers for the procedure the next day and darted into the house. I bolted after him. He locked the door but I used my key and my strength to get one arm and my knee and foot stuck in the door. It started to thunder and rain. Dan twisted my arm behind my back, behind the door. I was jammed there. We were pretty equal strengthwise, but he had the leverage advantage. I used the same philosphy I use on horses, I sat there and waited. He was pressing really hard and using up all his energy. A car rolled by. "Help!" I yelled, but they must not have been able to hear in the thunderstorm. Every 10 minutes or so Dan would soften and I would try and gain the advantage. All I managed to do was get more of my leg stuck in the door. It felt like ages, felt like hours. I was cold, wet, tired, fatigued and my muscles were sore from being held in an uncomfortable position. Finally once Dan softened and I managed to pull away. He slammed my lower arm in the door frame. Let me out! He let me pull the rest of my arm out. I almost lost my balance from the muscle fatigue and he saw an oppurtunity and pushed me off the side of the front steps. Things went in slow motion for me as my head avoided the concrete gutter.

I found the nearest phone booth and called the police.

It took them a little while to arrive. They were impolite, rude, condescending, just like I would later learn they always were. I thought they would matter of factly take me up to the station and photograph the bruises and press charges. They got the papers for me. "Are you sure you want to press charges?" They may as well have tagged "little girl" on the end, from the tone of their voice. I couldn't stand it. I even had his hand print perfectly imprinted in mu upper arm in a bruise, the evidence was so obvious. It was as if the last whiff of strength left my body. "I just want to go home." I got into my car and went to Janet and Gord's.

The next day at 9:30 am Janet took me to the Morgenthaller Clinic to have 1/2 of Dan removed from my uterus. The Counsellers there by law had to explain to me birth control and simple things like that, but I think they went easy on me when I told them what had happened with the sabatoged diaphraghm and the rapes.

The procedure was horrible, but at least it was over, and afterwards I had a warm dry safe bed to sleep in.

Later I learned I had entrapped nerves in my neck and bony lipping growing towards my spinal column in the middle of my C 4 and 5 vertibrae from the shaking. I'll always be in pain from this.