Chương 1062: Day One Thousand And Sixty

Dear Diary, One thing I've never understood in a visceral way, at least I hope I haven't, is why abused partners stay with their abusers. I mean, intellectually I can understand some of it. A lot of it, really. I've pointed out that I was stupidly lucky to have a mom who set me up to be financially independent until I turned eighteen, or graduated high school, or whatever. I don't remember if I ever read the terms of the insurance policy or trust fund or whatever.

I had a debit card for food, my rent was paid, and if I skimped a lot on food and clothes I could afford books and video games. Okay, I didn't think of it as skimping, but looking back I'm pretty sure I should have bought new clothes more frequently than I did. Sure as shit a better diet might have wound up with me not being so potato shaped. Then again, my exercise consisted of walking to and from school and my boyfriend, which wasn't usually a very athletic activity for me.

Gotta thank duBois for improving that aspect of my life at least. Both of them, really, the shape I'm in and how it improves adult fun time. Oh, wait, Kitten and I have a plan for that. At any rate, while I was in good financial shape for somebody from Camden, a lot of people weren't. They needed their partner to pony up their share of the rent, or they'd wind up on the street. So they couldn't just dump the bastard, especially if the house was in said bastard's name. Or the lease.

Weirdest fuckin' thing about back in the day was the systemic prejudice. The sexism, in this case. All else being equal, a guy is more likely to get a loan or a lease than a woman. Working the same job, they'd get more money. That's not an absolute thing, of course, because that would get people losing their shit in short order, but it's a statistical thing. Any random hundred women would probably be making twenty percent less than any random hundred men. Women with the same credit history would have lower scores.

All kinds of subtle little things that nobody could point to a single case, normally, but it all adds up to women not being able to leave some asshole just because he hits her. Or assumes consent. Or calls her fat and ugly to wreck her self esteem 'so she won't cheat' or 'knows her place' or some dumb shit like that. So, I intellectually understand that part, staying with an abuser because it's a survival thing.

What I don't understand is the whole thing where somebody would call the cops on the asshole for beating his wife, they'd show up and pull the asshole off her, and she, still bleeding from the beating, would knife one of the cops. Because that's 'her man' or some shit. That I do not understand. I hope I never really truly do, because that's some really fucked up trauma response right there.

I'm not gonna say that Saffron and I have a perfect relationship, or that I've never hurt her, or even that she's never inadvertently hurt me, but in every case we've recognized what we did wrong, apologized for it, and this is the big thing, worked to do better. I mean, every case I know of. It's possible I've hurt her without realizing. It's possible that some of those things she's done Penance for will wind up hurting me if I find out about them.

But that's just fucked up people fucking up in a fucked up world, not serial abuse. I hope to hell if I did wind up abusing her, that she would call me on that shit. I also hope to hell that I'd do the same. I have to hope, because I don't know. But what I do know? Saffron. Always Saffron. Yeah, the subject's on my mind because of that summons I got at the end of the day yesterday. Okay, technically not a summons. She's a prisoner, and she was requesting to see her... I dunno, I don't think I'm her Warden, really.

That would be Karen. But I'm the one who can decide unilaterally to let her out. Or kill her. Or do whatever. I have way too much power for a delinquent from the streets, frankly. At any rate, it took a little over half an hour to get the kids home and started eating dinner. I really regretted not staying, because Marie had done something that looked like the best parts of shepherd's pie and pot pie mixed together.

Unfortunately, while 'I had to get my kids home safe and eating dinner' is a legitimate reason to keep a prisoner waiting, I couldn't honestly say I needed to stay and eat myself. Sleep I can't do without, but food I definitely can, so long as my Temples are up and running. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! Of course, when I dropped into the oubliette, Aphrodite hit me with her by now traditional greeting.

"Hello, Goddess. Will you kill me today?" I shook my head.

"What is it with you? It's like you actively want to die." She shrugged.

"The longer I am away from him, the more I am myself, the more I feel him clawing at the walls of this prison, trying to take control of me, to drag me back to him in spirit, if not in body, the less I am enamored of life." I shrugged.

"If you really want free of him, I'm sure we could figure something out." She smiled sadly at me.

"I... I don't know who I would be without him. From the moment I washed ashore, it seems, I have been his, gifted to him by his father, Zeus. Without him, I am nothing..."

"I dunno. Alexandra seems to think you're something. That there's something about you worth saving." Her eyes glistened.

"Yet she is not here." I hopped up high enough to be outside the oubliette proper, Co-Located, and went walking toward Alexandra's room.

"Hey, I'm not thrilled to be here, but I'm not unwilling to arrange a visit." She shook her head.

"I... I don't want you to kill me in front of her."

"I don't want to kill you at all." She head tilted a little.

"Would you do so if I attacked you?" I shot her back a mirror of her rueful grin.

"You gonna do that with Alexandra around?" She slowly shook her head.

"No. No, I will not do that." Then she sighed.

"I... Even here, I can feel him. He has been part of me for so long that even now, even separate from his will, I cannot feel a part of me that is not inundated with his presence. Were you to cut away every shred of him, I'm not sure aught would remain of me." I smiled at her.

"Well then, maybe you need to focus on somebody else for a while." Right then I dropped into the room holding Alexandra, then collapsed back to myself.

"She seemed eager for a visit." Alexandra still wasn't what I'd call healthy, but she wasn't anywhere near death's door. Not really. She reminded me of those girls I'd known who survived eating disorders. They weren't skin and bones skinny any more, but none of the ones I'd known ever really recovered. Not really. I could always see the echoes of it in them, somehow, even the ones who wound up going the other direction and getting hella fat.

Which, while it might not be super healthy for everybody, is way healthier than being anorexic. Like, Bill was never unhealthy. Pudgy, with no real muscle to speak of, but not unhealthy. Meanwhile Siobhan did legit damage to herself by starving herself. Made me smile thinking about Siobhan eating to make up for lost time now. I imagined my two littler ladies each getting round like a beach ball. Then playing bouncy bouncy with them.

Or, y'know, watching the two of them go at it like a pair of those inflated animals from the stupid meme videos. My smile didn't lessen in the slightest when I looked over to see Alexandra sitting in Aphrodite's lap, Aphrodite singing quietly to her. Shit, I think I'd done that exact thing to some of my Worshippers, singing to them to ease their pain, to make them feel that connection as they snuggled into me.

I mean, at least even odds for any random Worshipper who didn't specifically request a lullaby and wasn't Ace that they were gonna get a happy ending to that song and cuddle, but... Okay, I realized right about then that these two might be getting up to the same kind of thing. I took a deep breath, stepped closer, and cleared my throat. Aphrodite looked up at me, but Alexandra buried her face in Aphrodite's chest.

"Apologies, Goddess." I shook my head.

"Nah. I'm... I don't think I can really bring myself to trust you, especially what with you talking so much about Ares having his hooks in you so deep. I don't want to come back in to find out that he took over your hands and strangled her to piss me off and get me to off you or something." I stopped, took a deep breath, then let it out, shaking my head again.

"Nah, I'm just gonna say that I will be very put out, in a 'you will definitely live to regret it' kind of way if any kind of lasting harm comes to Alexandra before she leaves this room. Understand?" She just blinked at me, then nodded. I turned my back and stepped away, leaning on the little chair and pondering exactly how I'd gotten to this point.

I mean, I know how I got here, I remember every step, but even the me who stood guard over Loki and Sigyn while playing tic tac toe with Mister Slither might have wound up looking askance at me now. Fuck it, I know being denied conjugal visits would probably turn me lime green, and if anything I was trying for a lime green extraction for Aphrodite, so I'm not gonna beat myself up or act like it was weird. Even if Kitten did make me do a reenactment with her when I got home not long before dawn.

And then my other ladies insisted on the same.