A New Kind of Fairy Tale
A New Kind of Fairy Tale
Love, Sex, and Relationships- Explicit.
Chapter One.
March 13, 2012
9:56 am
Numb. I feel like a thick wool blanket of dense fog is completely covering my thoughts, completely covering every feeling that needs to be felt. The fog is keeping me numb. You know when you are standing in thick fog you can’t see anything and you have to almost blindly walk to your destination. Sometimes the fog is so thick you can’t see an inch in front of you and even though nothing is choking you, there are moments of sheer panic because it feels claustrophobic in open space. That’s how I feel right now. The fog that I’m in though is numbing me out and telling me that I’m safe, when the truth is, I am choking and I can’t breathe.
What am I choking on? The information I’ve just read about my ex boyfriend, the man that I thought I was going to marry has blown my mind like a nuclear bomb. The aftermath of the destruction will take years to clean up but I can’t even acknowledge that something has happened. Emotions want to scream forward but can’t because something has constricted my throat to the point where I’m feeling woozy, or wait, maybe that’s the numbness. I’ve been sitting like this for 18 minutes unable to move. Wait I’ve been sitting like this for 27 minutes. No I’ve been sitting like this for 5 minutes? I actually don’t know how many minutes it’s been. I’m unable to speak, think, feel, or move so I just pretend like I’m sitting on purpose as I stare at the computer screen. Oh computers, such a wealth of someone’s most personal, most intimate information.
I love computers and yet now I wish they never existed. Wait, no it’s not the computers fault it’s social media. That’s it, if social media didn’t exist than everything would be fine. My brain tries to rationalize and justify what I’ve seen by blaming everything and everyone else besides the man that is responsible, Tim. Even worse my brain tries desperately to run away from my own responsibility for choosing this man to trust, to be intimate with, to place my hopes and dreams on, to love with all my heart. Interesting that somehow my brain automatically starts blaming myself for Tim’s sickness even though I’m not responsible for Tim’s mental disorder. Clearly that’s what it is, a mental disorder right? No but I loved this man I think he’s just sick, he’s had a hard childhood, this must be my fault some voice in my head tells me. It’s always my fault and I’m the crazy one the voice whispers. The thick fog of denial starts rolling in again. Funny that this armchair that I used to hate sitting in seems like the most comfortable chair in the world. In fact it’s so comfortable I don’t even want to leave. Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself, that it’s comfortable because I can’t comprehend the fact that I can’t move. The number sixty-four keeps ringing through my head.
Tim decided to let me stay later this morning. Usually when he leaves for work I go back home, that was the normal routine. But it’s been 3 months since I found out about Angela, the girl that Tim had been in a secret relationship for two and a half months behind my back. But I did move away to Los Angeles right? So that really is my fault, I should’ve never moved. That’s what Tim had said to me and I believed him, it was my fault not his. Oh all these numbers ringing around my head are annoying sixty four, three, two and a half, and yet they give me some form of sanity because they are solid. Numbers, facts, they can’t be manipulated so they are solid. The only solid thing ringing through my mind right now that my mind clings on too for sanity.
Thinking of that day jolts my memory. I will never forget the day I found out about Angela because it was on my 32nd birthday. To be honest I guess I always knew something was going on and not just with Angela, but also with all the other girls that wrote on Tim’s facebook wall. Oh the wonders of social media. Cheating is not only easier, but the evidence of cheating much easier to find. Men get all the emotional hits and validation they need as they easily flirt all the time in constant contact with their drug of choice, women. Wait women do that too I realize because some of the women I think, initiated some of the messages I read.
I remember saying to him when we first started dating, “Tim, you know that girl Neeraji? She said to spank her like a schoolgirl and wrote it on your facebook wall, why would she say that? How old is she?”
“Baby, all these girls don’t mean anything, they all like me but they are jealous of you. That’s why they are trying to make you jealous. I would never do that to you, I love you and I’m going to marry you.”
“Wait but why would they be jealous of me if they are just your friends?”
“Baby come on, stop. I told you I don’t want to talk about this.”
“You said that?”
“Yes I’m saying it now, this is my boundary.”
“Wait your boundary is to not explain to me why a girl is asking you to spank her?”
“Exactly.”
“What??”
“BABY, STOP!”
“No tell me why she said that, did you hook up with her before?”
“I’m not talking about this, I’m turning my ears off.”
“Tim! I checked her facebook it says she’s in college, that means she’s like 20 or 21?”
“Listen she worked at a coffee cart in front of my office. I get coffee there all the time. She asks me advice, that’s it!”
“So why is she asking you to spank her?”
“You’re breaking my boundary Jane so if you ask me another question we can’t have dinner tonight.”
Whenever Tim did that numbness would happen. The fog of denial would start rolling in because somehow he knew the right tone or the right words to make me feel like I had done something wrong. He would confuse me and manipulate me by bringing up boundaries or using some other psychological healthy behavior against me. Truthfully every word Tim used was a verbal or emotional manipulation and for some reason I was completely naïve to it. I remembered that everyday, girls would write on Tim’s facebook wall. Sometimes it was a new girl, sometimes it was an old girl, and sometimes only one post sometimes up to 5 posts a day. Every time it happened I would ask him what was up, and every time he told me I was crazy.
The truth was he was fucking Neeraji not once, not twice, but for two years since she was 18 years old. He was fucking her before I came over, he was fucking her after I left, he was fucking her all the time and he told me I was crazy and I believed him. Somehow I had believed him and made myself wrong and stayed in a situation that was silently ripping my heart into pieces.
Wow I thought. Tim started spanking her at 40 years old when she was 18. I had no idea that Tim was “one of those guys”. The ones who take advantage of a girls immaturity and daddy issues so they can have sex and manipulate the girl enough to have sex but not ever commit. Why didn’t girls know that? No guy in their right mind will ever commit to a girl in there 20’s when they are 40, ever. Unless of course the man has the maturity of a 20 year old then it might be possible. All smart women knew that older men have sex with young girls in there 20’s because young girls are disposable. Young girls can be manipulated and used because they are desperate for the love their dad never gave them. Every girl in there 20’s was in that stage and a lot of girls never grew out of it. Girls under twenty-five, all men knew, were easy breezy fuck em their easy and you never ever have to commit. Period. My brain once again needs to rationalize reminding me that he never loved her but was using her for sex because I need to avoid the trauma that he was having sex with her and every other girl that wrote on his facebook and then some.
I should’ve thrown up when I read all the messages between Tim and Neeraji, but I didn’t. I should’ve raged when I found out that on the fourth of July while I was entertaining his mom and sister he was telling her he wanted to cum on her face but I didn’t. I should of felt sick to my stomach with humiliation and disgust and hatred for who I was but I didn’t, because I couldn’t feel anything. All those feelings would show up later, much later. And that is how I should have felt after reading only one message from Tim’s facebook. I looked back at the screen, Holy fuck there were a lot more messages to read, what feelings would I ignore through them? I wondered. Little did I realize that even though I was filled with disgust now, one day that would turn into compassion and understanding.