My abuse.

Many, many bloggers are writing about their experiences with rape. I have never been raped. I am extremely fortunate with that. I hope to continue to be that fortunate. However, I do know what it is like to be scared. I know what it is like to have a man strike fear in your heart.

I was in my freshman year of high school. I never had a real boyfriend. Sure, I had gone on dates, but nothing that lasted enough to call whatever it was a relationship. I was at the age were peer pressure and puppy love was all around me. All of my friends were dating and I felt so left out. I had crushes, but it was never on guys who had crushes back.

My mom one night told me that we were going to meet her friend from work at a restaurant. I did not want to go. It sounded boring. I really didn't have a choice though. I still remember that night. I remember what I was wearing, maybe because it was brought up so many times after that night... I was wearing a low-cut aqua halter and black dance pants.

We went to the restaurant and met my mother's friend. She had her three kids in tow, a baby boy, a girl who was in third grade, and a guy who was a year older than me. Oh, he was dashing. We talked among the two of us while our parents talked. He was devilishly good looking and we flirted shamelessly. Somehow during the course of the meal I slipped him my number without our parents knowing.

When my mother and I left the restaurant and were in the car she immediately turned to me and told me that I could not like him. She said how he was a bad boy, he was trouble. Of course being 14, I didn't listen. He called and we talked for hours during the middle of the night.

His mom and his dad were divorced and he spent every weekend switching houses. This meant that the two younger siblings [half siblings really] needed someone to watch them if their parents wanted to go out on the weekends that he was not there. I was a responsible young girl who had a couple of babysitting gigs under my belt so they asked me. Of course I said yes.

At this point the boy and I had started to call ourselves a couple. The first time I babysat, he sneaked over [to his mother's house which still makes me giggle to be honest] and spent some time with me. This patterned continued over a handful of times I babysat. Then there would be the times I told my mother I was going to a friends house and he would take me out instead. That was how our relationship worked.

A little over a month into our relationship I did or said something he didn't like. To be honest, I really can't remember. I don't know if I blocked it out or if it was something that just wasn't memorable. But I do remember that slap. It stung. The force behind it left my face a bright pink. He immediately apologized and said he would never do it again. He had tears in his eyes. He didn't want me to leave, he said.

I stayed.

The abuse got worse. He would punch and kick and use household objects to bruise me. He was so smart about it though. He would only do it in places that I could hide easily. He was in high school too so he knew that shorts and tshirts had to be worn during gym so he hit my back, sides, and uppers legs.

I never told anyone. I was always super careful about changing in gym class. I had lockers next to a really close friend so I knew if she suspected anything she would say something. I want to say I don't know why I hid it. I want to say that I loved him and that's why. But I didn't love him. I just wanted a boyfriend. He was a good boyfriend when he wasn't hitting me. It was probably because he was perpetually making it up to me.

It got worse around our 8 month mark. He started using knives to control me. He would only do it on my back though. Cut little tiny cuts into me. Nothing that would hurt too much, nothing that would bleed too much, just enough to let me know he was in control and could do damage if he wanted to.

The circumstances of me actually leaving him have nothing to do with the abuse actually. He was a jealous guy, so being at different high schools never was a plus for us. He would call me on the bus every day because he didn't like one of the guys I talked to on the bus. He was so jealous that he lied about cheating on me to see if I would say I cheated on him too. Apparently I could have a boyfriend who abused me, but not a boyfriend who didn't trust me. I broke up with him.

He of course didn't like that I broke up with him. I stopped babysitting for his younger siblings because there was no guarantee he wouldn't show up. I stopped taking his phone calls because they were always threatening me- then begging me to give him another chance. I cut off all ties.

A year later I told my friend a little bit about it. She was the girl who changed next to me in gym. She admitted she always wondered why I was so weird about changing. She hugged me. She said she wished she knew what was going on so she could have done something. She was the only friend I told.

Since then the only time I have talked about him is on the internet. Mostly because there is always the question of how I got into the kinky lifestyle. I do credit that to my sex life with him. We were both very open sexually. I was never ashamed to ask for something more taboo or anything like that. He was also the first person to spank me.

I have been known to say that I don't regret the relationship/I'm grateful for the relationship because it led me to realize I am kinky. I think there is *some* truth in that, but mostly, it helps me not feel stupid for staying so long. I was in that relationship for over a year.

This is the first time I have ever said/written everything down. I have never told anyone about the knife aspect before. So while I have never been raped, and would not compare what I went through to rape, I have been abused. I don't know if it fits with what my fellow bloggers have been writing about, but whenever I read something of theirs this relationship would pop into my head...