Chapter 4
Soap. That was what he went to jail for prior to going to jail for stabbing me. I never cursed at him or said anything offensive to him. He did not like me talking which was odd that he even entertained a relationship with me since I do talk a lot. Apparently whatever I said that night upset him so greatly that he decided to force feed me soap. It made some bubbles and tasted awful inside my mouth. I wanted to throw up however he guarded the way to the bathroom. He positioned himself in such a way that I laid closest to the wall of the bed and his body lay covering the edge of the bed that was parallel to the floor. He continued to say only cruel words to me which mostly consisted of threats to my life if I went to any authority figures to report what he had just done.
I had some electronic devices; one he knew about and one that he did not know existed. When he turned to play games on his phone which he did constantly throughout his day, I turned on the audio of a cell phone that was given to me and hid it between the mattress and the wall. He did not know to look for it, since he did not even know it existed. I was given an extra phone at the shelter for emergencies. When he discovered that emergency phone that the shelter gave me, he thought I was using it to cheat on him, so he destroyed it. I was far too scared to admit that the Justice Department paid for it. Luckily an uncle gave me an old cell phone after he broke my hidden emergency phone. It was a cheap phone but it did the trick. I recorded him in case he killed me that night. It would later be used in the criminal charges against him.
My gut continued to feel like death was at my door; knocking to come into my life. I strongly believed that my life would end by his hands. I still feel that way. That feeling has yet to go away. He expressed such hatred towards me all the time. He became so emotionally abusive that I felt like that was where it was headed next. I think people who read my story may wonder why I just did not use the cell phone to call for help. It is quite simple really. Any call made would have to be made in front of him so it was unlikely that I would complete the call before he would have a chance to destroy the device. He had broken so many devices prior to this experience that I always calculated this factor. I also knew that any call could result in a lethal beating before help could arrive. It was too risky to attempt it.
I had a second device which was a tablet that the government gave to my daughter when she was born. Oddly, he did see that one on the bed and he let me go on it when I asked him for permission first. I think he simply let me go on the tablet because it had no phone plan attached to it. He forgot that it had internet access so I used it to post on my facebook account. I made a public post about how he had just forced me to eat soap. I had hoped that someone would see it and send help. Fortunately, some of the lovely people that I had worked with at Queerlesque saw it. They called the RCMP on my behalf and gathered outside my residence in an older SUV. They parked their vehicle and waited out the entire altercation. My mother showed up as well. He continued to insist that nothing was wrong and that all was well. Thankfully, I used this opportunity to get my children to the safety of a shelter yet again in our lives. His actions that evening did ultimately land him in prison for just over five months.
A lot of people were upset that he went to prison for what they thought was such a small act of violence. Some of my own Elders who were devote Christians thought it would be best for the children and I if I just forgave him. One of his parents asked me to drop the charges. His friends felt this was an appropriate time to share with me how their parents “washed their mouths out with soap” for swearing as a child. They liked to remind me how their parents did not go to jail for it and how it made them better people.
The part that was often left out of the conversation was that our infant daughter was in the bed when he did all this. That he spent literally hours demeaning me in front of her. More than ever, I wanted to whisk her away to a place where her Dad did not exist. I would dream of a place where an Alpha Black man could show her how to properly treat a woman. I scored 96 percent in Biology, and the only thing I truly retained was the analogy of Alpha and Omega animals in comparison to domestic violence. My partner was an Omega who delusionally believed that he was an Alpha. My Biology instructor once explained to me that in nature, the Alpha male protects his mate. My partner never once protected me. He was an Omega who tried to end life; who lacked the proper intelligence to realize that to uphold his mate is how he continues and strengthens the cycle of life. We should all strive to be an Alpha, and more importantly to find one. A female Alpha wolf will be equally protective of her mate. She positions herself to guard his neck from enemies. Alphas do exist or else we as a species would not still be here.
