My marriage, part three

Disclaimer: If you haven't read part 1, you've missed the warning I issued. Suit yourself, but don't blame me if you find anything offensive.



So, let's fast-forward a couple of months. Me and RedHead had a good relationship, not perfect, but good. Sexually I still tried to teach her that she was allowed to affirm her own sexuality and wishes but I found it near impossible. On numerous occasions I would ask her what kind of sexual fantasies she had and the answer was always the same:
-You."
-That's nice, but if we hadn't met?"
-Someone like you."
-And if I wanted to do something in bed that you didn't like?"
-You've never done anything I didn't like."
-Alright, but if I did want to do something you didn't like?"
-Like what?"
-Anal sex?"
-Well, if you liked it, I would probably let you do it."
-So you would let me do something that you hated?"
-Yes, since I love you so much."
-But you do refuse to let me cum in your mouth, don't you?"
-That's only because I'm afraid to throw up in bed."
-But if I demanded you to swallow?"
-You're not the demanding type of guy. You're much to nice."
-And if I said that you either start to swallow or get the hell out of my apartment?"
-You just wouldn't do a thing like that."

Discussions like this could go on for ever. She put a lot of faith in that I would never do or demand anything she didn't like. And she was right.

Even though RedHead slept over a lot, she was still living with her mother. She was working at an old people's home, a job she hated, but since she could work a lot of nights and weekends the pay was pretty good. Usually she would be at her mother's place and eat dinner, then hurry home to me to spend some hours in bed with me, take a shower and go to work. Then she came back to my place around eight in the morning, got undressed and crawl down to me. If I was awake we'd usually have sex but if I was asleep she never woke me up. Even if she was horny as hell, she waited for me to wake up by myself. Once again, she didn't initiate sex, she waited for me.

(I did some experimenting by pretending to be asleep while having a hard-on. She never took the opportunity to "surprise" me. And she's never done it, but more on that later.)


Eventually RedHead's mother invited me to dinner since we had been going steady for several months. I had already met RedHead's sister, a loudmouthed and obnoxious fifteen-year old. She was a redhead too but more towards mahogany-coloured while RedHead's colour was, and still is, closer to the same colour that can be found in early produce carrots.

I would lie if I told you I wasn't nervous about the dinner, but I wasn't nervous about meeting RedHead's mother. No, it was GrizzlyBear, her mother's boyfriend. According to RedHead he was just a year older than me, seven feet tall and weighed about 300 pounds, most of it muscle-tissue. In other words, a giant that easily could snap me in two if he didn't like me.

GrizzlyBear showed to be a very gentle man, tough as nails but still very gentle, almost a teddybear. After some "shadow boxing" we found common ground due to our interest in motorsports. RedHead's mother was a tougher cookie. She didn't trust me more than she was able to pick up a piano and throw it. Hadn't it been for GrizzlyBear, RedHead and her mother would probably still be fighting about me.


During the following months I learned that RedHead's mother had been severely abused by her ex-husband. On one occasion he had crushed the toes on her left foot, because dinner wasn't ready as he came home drunk in the middle of the night. He raped her on numerous occasions which resulted in RedHead's sister. Both girls were named after one of his ex-girlfriends. That's the kind of bastard he was.

RedHead's Grandmother was catholic, but with not one single streak of forgiveness in her body. As RedHead's mother accidentally became pregnant with RedHead in the late sixties, Grandma forced her to marry the asshole mentioned above. RedHead grew up knowing she was called "that whore-kid" by her own Grandmother.

I was intrigued. I had never met a family with that much problems. This was a soap, for real and much, much worse. For the people involved there was no way of changing channel when it got real nasty. They had to live in hell, every day. This has made me even more grateful about my own upbringing in a family where we could be enemies from time to time but we always could count on each other in times of crisis.

I had to pick up on the small pieces of information that they accidentally let slip by and the puzzle is still far from complete. I do know that RedHead's mother finally had enough and that RedHead somehow was the catalyst that made her mother leave the abusive motherfucker. It has been hinted that RedHead was abused by her father but since no one wants to talk about it I can only guess that it was sexually. If he had only attacked her physically, hitting her, they most probably had been more open about it.

RedHead's mother had to file for divorce and take care of everything herself. Even her own brothers didn't care. One of them actually helped the asshole to move out all the furniture from their apartment, leaving RedHead, her sister and mother without even a bed to sleep in. He claimed that he had paid for everything, which was a fat lie. He was, however, kind enough to leave all his debts behind.

That first period after the divorce isn't much talked about. I do know that the bastard got a restraining order after threatening to kill RedHead’s mother. RedHead went to some counselling but at that time, the early 70s, child abuse wasn't much talked about. I suspect that the psychiatrist told RedHead she was a liar since she absolutely hates psychiatrists. More on that later.

Eventually RedHead’s mother recovered and found a new man. Unfortunately he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed but at least he treated her like a human being. He hadn't worked a single day in his life and it suited him just fine that RedHead's mother supported him. A couple of years later she'd had it and moved to an apartment just a couple of hundred feet from where I soon was to move in. Attending a marriage she noticed a guy staring at her during the ceremony. She asked around and found out that he was a friend to the groom. Since he looked a bit like Bud Spencer she went up to him and introduced herself. The rest is, as they say, history.

So.
There I was, having a relationship with a twenty-year old woman with carrot-coloured hair, who had tons of temper, who never said no to sex, who had a mind of her own, who was extremely independent, a girl that most probably had been abused sexually as a child, who was treated as a thirteen-year old by her mother and that really, truly loved me to the verge of destroying her own personality.

The problem was that I didn't love her back, not the way I wished I was able to. Put in another way, my body loved her and my mind was fascinated with her but emotionally I was almost detached from her. I liked her and cared for her but that was it. In some ways I might have been afraid to be left alone, because when we met, I had been feeling lonely for a long time.

One day RedHead announced that she had managed to get her own apartment, somewhat bigger than mine. I still can't come up with a good explanation of what led me to move my stuff there but suddenly we were living together as a couple. Up until then I had set my mind up to never, ever, live together with someone again. I loved my little apartment. It was cosy and I had chosen everything in it myself, furniture, curtains, wallpaper, lighting. Suddenly I was living in another apartment, together with someone I had fucked for a couple of months but essentially didn't know anything about.

We had hardly managed to settle in when RedHead got a new job in a neighbouring town and we had our first argument. She wanted to move and I hesitated. Her new job was once again in a senior’s home. She pointed out to me that the cost of commuting back and forth would take a big share of her salary and if there was something that I wasn't good at back then, it was keeping a budget. We moved and it would show to be a lucky break.


This is not really going anywhere, you know that, don't you?