The soft yellow light from the two wall lamps illuminated his rugged face, his sculpture chest and his lean, muscled abdomen. In spite of his nonchalant poise, she could feel his strained emotions. You asked, my dear.
“How-”
She raised her finger. “Let me finish, please,” or I won’t get this out. “So, this is - more or less - how a cycle of violence works: Normally, there is a period of build-up. Tension between partners increases, the abuser starts to get angry and communication is difficult. The victims-to-be find themselves walking on eggshells. Then comes the incident, or explosion as I like to call it, when the violence takes place. It can be psychological, verbal, physical or sexual. Next follows the making-up or, as I prefer, the false-remorse phase, when the offender promises to never be violent again; that it wasn’t like that; that the victim provoked it, was to blame too, and so on. The victim feels relief, thinking that the violence has ended. Next is the honeymoon phase. The victim becomes meek and thinks about her actions and reactions around the partner. The abuser will shower the victim with gifts and tender demonstrations. The partners are in denial as to how bad the abuse and violence was. It’s then that the possibility that violence could occur again is totally ignored, because they don’t want their love to be tainted by it. They don’t want to lose respect and admiration for their partner.” Her lips curled in a grimace. “Unfortunately this never lasts, and the cycle begins again, escalating and becoming more frequent over time. Until a final, tragic break up or the ultimate death of the victim.”
What about your feelings? “You really seem to know a great deal about this. But-”
“Aren’t we impatient today?” She interrupted him with a ghost of a smile. “You wouldn’t last a day in my class. I just stopped to breathe and organize my thoughts.”
He grinned, “Are you a very strict teacher, Beauty?”
“I keep a paddle on my desk for misfits.” She flashed him a mischievously smile.
He laughed, “A dominatrix in Cambridge!”
God! Why does everyone keep calling me that? She shook her head at him with an amused expression on her face. “Well, back to the subject... Abusers have even lower self-esteem than the victim and like to control the partner.” Like Ethan, for example. The thought robbed her of her next lines. “Hmm... Right. The abuser will use, in a twisted way, the partner’s feelings to dominate and control. The verbal or physical abuse is used with one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain a complete control over the victim. The abuser’s supposed love.” You’re stalling Sophia. Face it. “Err... What you did...” She tilted her head to the side examining his poker face. “Ready for it?”
Nae. I’ll never be, but we need to clean the slate.
As he nodded, she exhaled loudly and said, “What you did qualifies as assault and domestic abuse. However, you don’t fill in the prerequisites of a classic domestic offender. Not that I think that the violence wasn’t your fault. It was. If I took your blame for what you did, I’d be saying that you can’t control yourself and that you aren’t responsible or accountable for your behavior. Then you would belong in a psychiatric ward.” She smiled at that and his lips curled up, but not quite in a smile. “This excuse would never stand up in court and I won’t fool myself and buy it either. You do have a conflict with your self-esteem. You swing from high to low self-esteem, but I would say you veer toward high more than low. Most perpetrators of domestic violence have... double personalities. They’re not violent outside their homes or toward people other than their partners. They threaten and abuse only their partners. You...” You are a total domineering control freak. A charmer. She smiled at him, amused at her wayward thoughts.
“What is so funny?” he asked intrigued.
“You, Alistair Connor,” she poked his chest, “on the other hand, you have a steady mercurial behavior. You don’t try to dominate or control only me. You do this with Leo, your sister, your brother, your father. I can only imagine the way you order your employees around.”
He forced a smiled. “So. I’m dammed.”
“I think I can save you,” she joked before resuming her explanation. “You have a charming way of domineering. You’re jealous and possessive, but you don’t suffocate me. You let me express my opinions, and even though you may disagree with them, you don’t belittle or criticize me. You don’t frighten me with your words or acts. I don’t feel controlled by you. What is most important: I don’t need to think about what I’m going to do or say when I’m around you. I can act naturally and carefree. And I feel like I’m doing... almost the right things, all the time.”
“Sophia.” He shook his head at her with an amused smile on his lips. “You always do the right thing. You’re perfect in your spontaneous way. I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”
“See?” She smiled back at his praise. “Sometimes... you are a bit overwhelming, but in a good way. It’s your personality. There is a thin line between an alpha male and an abuser. And you don’t cross it. Another crucial fact that shows you don’t qualify as a classic abuser is that you didn’t try to negate the violence. You didn’t blame me or try to diminish what happened. On the contrary, you were clearly distressed and blamed yourself. You... There’s a clear...”
As she searched for words to justify his act her face turned suddenly serious. Alistair became worried, “Beauty?”
“I’m not a psychoanalyst and I have no experience in it other than my own, but I’d say that... there’s a... not exactly a violent streak...”
She bit her lip thinking for a moment, and although Alistair wanted to kiss her, he refrained his impulses. Until now, Sophia had maintained a light tone in her voice, but something had changed. He could sense a seriousness and a sadness in her.
“You, Alistair Connor, you exert strict control over your more aggressive impulses. Impulses that everyone has, not only you. And that night... That night you lost it. I couldn’t believe you were a domestic offender.” A self-deprecating smile modified her features. “I was so quick to condemn the same behavior in the cases I worked on. I always had prompt advice to give, like ‘If you value yourself and your life you’ll stay away from him.’ Funny, isn’t it? I needed to go through an experience to understand how difficult this situation is. So very difficult,” her voice waned.
Stop. Stop! I don’t want to hear anymore. “I’m so sorry.” He couldn’t sustain his poker face and grimaced. Watching her talk about statistics and facts hadn’t bothered him, but as he watched her face fall from belittling herself, part of him just wanted to run. The other part wanted to grab her and spend the rest of their lives loving her and proving to her he would never act like that again.
She scooted closer to him and combed his silk locks off his forehead. “Finally, to answer your question, why I forgave you and why I considered maintaining a relationship with a man who was so violent toward me.” She drank the rest of the whisky and put the glass on the floor, her hand returning to his hair. “It’s hard to explain my reasons because I’m involved. I’m partial. However... I don’t think you have the prerequisites for a domestic offender. Was it wrong? Yes, it was. However, we all make mistakes. And... the most important reason or,” she raised her eyebrow at him, smiling, “the most unreasonable reason is that you, my Lord of Distrustful-pre-historic-land, you’d already entered my heart at that time. I had to give us a chance to see where it would lead us. I... I was a teenager when I met Gabriel. I loved him, yes. A lot. But it was more... innocent, immature love. You...” she cupped his face and whispered fiercely on his lips, “You, Alistair Connor, I love as I have never loved any other man. And I’ll make you the happiest man alive,” she promised, before she took his mouth in a fierce kiss.