Free Exploits by Poppet

Gary had begun badgering me to stop being ‘such a prude and so old fashioned’.
    He wanted a threesome. I am a one man woman. I don't share my man. 
    CLICK. He was priming baby girl to be his third party victim in his ménage à trois . (So call me old fashioned . I justified everything because I was in a ‘monogamous’ relationship. Oy vey, what a hopeless, clueless, blow up doll I am.)
    CLICK: "I need time alone with the lads. We're sick of women interfering."
    Oh yeah, I bet. Having your partner there when you're trying to pick up new blood would never work.
    CLICK: "I'm not going to make it. I have to work late. Maybe you should catch the bus."
    So you can pick up your girlfriend and shag her before coming home!
    I'm a daft twit. AC/DC has been warning me for weeks. We're nowhere near Christmas, yet, ‘Mistress for Christmas’ was played every morning as the wake-up song.
    Okay, this isn't good. The anger is surfacing and it's crushing me. I think back to how many times over the last few months that he has only reached home after 10 p.m. at night. How strangely he's more tired than he's ever been. And this stupid idiot made dinner and waited for him before eating it. Waited for hours!
    Oh, and suddenly he has a pager. Funny how convenient it is that Charl works with him at the I.T. company and can page him at any hour, and it looks like a call out. All times, even over weekends, 8 p.m., 10 p.m., 2 a.m.
    I feel so stupid and ANGRY.
    What's worse is I'm not angry with him. I'm angry with myself .
    Bitter hot tears start dropping onto my cigarette, it fizzles out with a hiss. The past four years just went phissss, along with that ember.
                 
    I met Gary just before I turned twenty. I've been with him for four years, and he's had me jumping like a fire-walker since six months in. I am twenty-three and I feel old and used. I feel ugly and worthless. I hate myself.
    I have done things that have made me lose my self-respect. I loathe who I am. I am ashamed to walk amongst women. I shame us all.
    Gary didn't buy me soft toys or cute gifts; he didn't want anything girly cluttering up his home with ‘crap’. He was my toy. If I wanted something to hold onto, he was the one to be my teddy. (Except teddies don't have conditions and rules and ‘needs’.)
    He didn't buy me jewellery, (except twice, my twenty-first and our engagement). Instead, he gave me what he considered to be fitting jewellery. A pearl necklace, at least four times a week. He had this fantasy that he enjoyed acting out. It's called, by him, the Bombay roll. Lucky me. I get the kind of jewellery that you have to wash out of your hair and off your flaming face. Now, if they had been pearls of wisdom, I might not have minded so much. (I guess he did have to do some diving to give me pearls … but let's face facts, I'm the one that can hold my breath like a natural pearl diver, not him. When he goes diving, he doesn't even wear a wet-suit.)
    For the record: handcuffs with keys do not count as jewellery, even if they look like bangles.
    CLICK: I have nothing personal up in that home. There's no sign that a woman lives there. After all this time, I'm a ghost. A convenient ghost. The shoemaker's elf, that not only cooks and cleans but also the genie in the bottle, making all wishes come true.
    (So what does that make Gary? The Magi, or Aladdin?)
    CLICK: He has been missing all weekend for the past three months. Popping in at random, to find a reason to keep me home and busy, ensuring my endless servitude to his unreasonable demand s– because he was out wooing his new lady.
    CLICK: I haven't been able to save a cent. Not for years. He allocates my salary every month. He takes me grocery shopping to police what I buy, and to make sure that I am never alone. So that I can never leave.
    CLICK: He's sick. And I'm not ever going to let a man degrade and treat me like that ever again.
    Click  click   click   click   click   click