Dosed

**Warning of domestic violence from the outset*** I hope they are not watching this… last time was violent, they were terrified... f**k, I wish I could just disappear. He makes no sense when he is like this, he just wants a fix and nothing I do or say will make it appear, so taking his beating is twice as bad because I never know when it will stop. My head is bleeding now… no wonder we have to hide in the doorframes when there is an earthquake. They really are that f*****g solid… That is all that was running through my head as I lift my arm up again to defend myself from another blow. My partner was a junkie now, a full-fledged junkie. He is a full-fledged junkie without a fix to be found and raging. Things didn’t start out like this, in fact we were the best of friends and born to be together but now he is lost to me and the person I thought I would grow old with is a monster. He came home from his job today and was pheening badly. His manager had told him he was on his last warning because she caught him sleeping in the staff room when he should have been defrosting the massive freezers for their annual clean. He always thought her job should have been his and resented her, so here we are now. He wants a fix, he has no fix, he is out of cash and can’t get a fix, so what to do… beat the living s**t out of his ‘soul mate’; crash all my hopes of living a decent loved existence, diminish any love and respect me and his two little gifts had for him. Nah, they are not watching this, surely Lily has taken Jason into her room and is reading him a story like she did last time. .. “You fat f*****g b***h, you worthless w***e! You ruined my life, I wasted all of the best years of my life with you and what have you given me?!! Just more mouths to feed, just permission for the rest of the world to s**t all over me because they know I have a ‘lovely girlfriend and two kids’ to feed!”  He is just shouting all that he can now but he forgets I’ve heard it all before so I don’t respond. Maybe my tactic needs to change though because he is hitting me harder and now he has a clump of my hair and is looking around for something. Unlucky for me he finds Jason’s leather belt he left in the family room when he came home after school. Brody’s face lights up at the prospect of the power the belt wields and now I am scared, now I know damage will be done and I will not be able to get up tomorrow or look after my babies. He wants blood, it’s written on his face. Oh please God save me from this, please do not let me die. Whip! I swear it has ripped my shirt and torn a piece of flesh from my back. Saalaap that hit the back of my neck and almost wound its harsh leather around my neck like a noose, I reach up and pull the belt away and try to grab it off him; now I am screaming. But the screams are coming from the anger surging inside me, not the pain, the pain is dull but the anger is real, it throbs and courses through my body. This anger expands and I have never felt such a surge to attack. I always had issues with my anger, namely that I always held it in and never expressed it or directed it at the person who caused it, but tonight it feels different. The thought of my lovely little Lily sitting in her room, covering up her fear with a sweet sounding story so her little brother will forget about the hellish torrent whirling outside their door. The fact the man causing me such harm is worthless and has become a down trodden misery compared to what he was and the recognition that all the promises, hope and love that existed once upon a time was all a f*****g fairy tale, a load of s**t that I held on to as I had nothing and no one else in the world; it was all so clear now, I messed up, I misjudged, I got it wrong and now I wasn’t the only one that would pay the price. Enough! I knew I could not contain the anger inside me now, I knew that my own primal defences where not going to be suppressed this time. This thing inflicting pain upon me was going to pay dearly now, no way was I going to take any more of this s**t. I reached out and clawed his leg so he pushed my head down farther and slap another whip across the back for me. I grabbed the hand that had the belt with one hand and tried to grab the hand holding my hair with the other. Once I had them I started pushing him with all my strength, trying to get him to lose his balance or let go of something. It worked and he let go of my hair so I lifted my head up and looked at him in the face. I stared into his eyes and started screaming at him to stop. The belt came flying back across my body and got me on the side, pain is shooting through my ribs and back but I know if I stop I will not survive this night. I launch a full on body attack; I know I have to get that belt off him. Every chance he gets he rains down blow after blow, but I am not backing down now. It’s either him or me but someone will die tonight. I let go of him and lunge at him, I grabbed his balls and twist them as hard as I can while he delivers a splendid slap of the belt across my back again. Now his screams fill my ears and for a split second natural compassion messes with my mind and my vice on his balls loosens just enough for him to stop screaming. He is squirming, his own primal fears of death to his manhood filled him with an animalistic fight and he pulled my leg out from under me and we tumbled, finally crashing down, straight through the coffee table; wood splinters and my head sharply jolted back. We both laid still, the shock of the intensity of our anger meeting somewhere between our bodies and freezing time and silencing the world. Somehow we are staring in each other’s eyes, the years between us are playing out in front of us like a drive-in film, my eye clouds up with blood and as I look at him through my literal red mist I see what a despot he has become, he looks old, skinny and worn out, it’s like life has beaten him and won. The anger I had inside was matched evenly with his own and through our stare we communicated an odd understanding, we realised that life had played us out, we were existing on fumes, as the collective we no longer existed and no future lay ahead for us. Something deep down inside, something that had felt hurt and was now irreparable began to come forth from my bruised lips. “Look at the state of us, look what you did to me, look what you did to yourself. There is nothing left for us, nothing for us to do now but either kill each other or walk away. I am going to let go of you and walk away. The blood you see is blood on your hands but blood I will have to explain to the kids and the people out there who have known for the last five years that I was too good for you, that I gave you way too many chances. I don’t want to be everyone’s sympathy patch anymore, I don’t want to be anything for you anymore. I am going to let go of you and let you f**k off and get your fix from some dark, dingy hole that only you have had the misery of knowing, but do not come back, do not come home anymore. I am a human not a dog, you cannot beat me like this and feel no repercussion. You will pay tonight, you will pay dearly.” So I let him go and he immediately let go of his dignity and integrity. My head was so sore, my body ached so badly and I had lost track of how many lashes I had taken but pushed him off me and as I slowly stood up and squared my shoulders. I made myself big, looking down at him; trying to look like I was ready for anything, ready to take him out if need be when really I just wanted to crumple and cry. He dropped the belt and eyes, still wide and soulless, sat up gingerly on the floor. Tears sprung to his eyes, his face almost melted into a stew of self-pity. “I’m sorry Soleil, I’m so so sorry.” “I don’t give a f**k this time Brody, your eyes say it all, you are dead inside, we are dead! This is done, I am done. Get out! If you have any integrity left in your pathetic body get the f**k out of here and never come back. I know you will f**k off get fixed up and come home begging for me to forgive and forget. But I’m done you bastard, you go get that fix, make it a good one, make it so rich and nice that you f*****g die. I feel nothing for you now. You won’t miss your kids you s**t, you probably don’t even know what color your son’s eyes are these days.” He jerked his head up to look at me with his blackened pits and hollow cheeks, a picture of Death almost looking surprised that I was telling it to go away, that I wasn’t going to bend to Its will and take whatever It had in store. “No, you cannot be without me, you know we are a pair, a unit, together we are stronger remember…” he whispered. “One day you will kill me Brody, and I’m not on that journey with you anymore,” “Soleil, you will always be part of me, I do this because you don’t listen to me, you don’t understand the pressure I feel when I look at you and the kids. That b***h at work today, she…” “Shut up Brody, just shut up. Look at me, look what you have done to me. How can you deny what you see in my eyes? We are done, our life together is hell, you are not my friend anymore, you became my enemy the first time you injected that s**t, you should have trusted in me that we would be ok, you should never have given up and let yourself be lost to that shit.” Deathboy looked forlorn and confused but I knew he had understood and was struggling to accept that his life was catching up with him. “Look at me Brody, look what you have done to me, I am standing here by a miracle, you have hurt me, broken me and no one has ever beaten me like this and I swear no one ever will.” “You’re right Soleil, no one ever will” Out of nowhere he lunged and tackled me down to the ground; he looked like a lunatic and was almost wild with rage. He felt so much heavier and stronger like he had been possessed by a demon intent on my demise. “You can go, I’ll f*****g send you there faster than you can blink b***h” he snarled as his hands found their way around my throat. “If you think you can tell me I f****d this up and I am to blame you are wrong. You need me to breathe, you need me to live, you are nothing and never will be!” His hands felt cold and darkness was coming over me, I didn’t want to go but with all the struggling I was doing he seemed to get stronger and stronger. My anger welled up again but to no avail, I couldn’t get his hands off me. How did it come to this? What would happen to my babies? No God please help me, why this? Please don’t do this to my babies….