I live in fear of my friends finding out that I'm not a real battered wife. Don't get me wrong he beats me senseless. I'm a fixture in casualty, I've stayed in a refuge twice but my suffering doesn't feel authentic, real even to me. Let me display the boiled and rinsed bones for you.
I'm minding my own business, I feel a punch or a kick, it doesn't matter which. I feel the familiar tightness and wetness in the snatch but try telling Women's Aid that, to be fair and I am fair , angelic , maternal without being frumpy, phobic about fat and age and a fraud. I am practically perfect in every way or I try to be. I don't like sex but I like the cuddles. Kissing is good when he has stubble and my face is worn to the thinnest rice paper. I like to look raped in the morning.
So like I said I'm whipping up a ready meal and feel a blow. That is a good night. That is a hot night. That is a night when I scream and sob out of curiously dry eyes and the neighbours come, followed by the police and I say officer 'him? beat me? he'd be fuckin lucky'. They go away and I remain in charge. Notwithstanding the above I do want and deserve your sympathy my marriage will fail otherwise.
The best and most beautiful nights are those when I goad him past the point of endurance. In my head I call it bullfighting, the books call it love, the modern world calls it abuse. I provoke a fight and as the beating reaches it's crescendo I scream and scream and scream. The neighbours rush in and there I am ripped clothes, spreadeagled, ecstatic in my agony, a crucifixion on the kitchen floor nailed to love, libido and my own garish, soap opera exhibitionism. True martyrdom won't work without an audience.
My big moment, my ecstasy is when he's worn himself out with beating, questioning and running. He comes to my breast , nibbles like a giant, stubbly baby and moans sorry, sorry, sorry, I love you again and again. That way I know I've won and always will.
