CHAPTER ONE: Amy Lynne Beck
Sometimes I just sat and wondered how I got here. I didn’t mean how I got here as in how I got to my crappy apartment in the rundown section of Rosewood Heights. I meant how did I get here-here, to this point in my life where I was sitting in my crappy apartment thinking about how crappy my life was.
I wouldn’t say that this was the lowest point of my life.
I was only twenty-three after all. I had my whole life ahead of me. I was sure I’d have much lower points to whine about if things kept going like they were.
Let’s just say this was about as low as I’d come so far.
You know what they said, when you hit rock bottom there was nowhere to go but up?
Well, I’d pretty much hit rock bottom and then some, so I guessed it was all sunshine and roses from here. Not!
I hadn’t always been like this: a Debbie Downer who saw the world as a cold and lonely place. To the contrary, I used to be so upbeat and positive that I would get on your nerves. I believed with all my heart that people were generally kind and good. I was fun to be around and did my best to make the world a better place.
Then I met him.
Randy Beck, my ex-husband.
The man who would change my life forever in every way you could imagine. If I’d ever been lower than I was now, it was during the year I was married to Randy.
Randy was good looking, with blow-dried, sandy brown hair and a little moustache he kept trimmed neatly above his lips.
He had a quick smile and easy way about him that made you like him at once. His eyes were his best feature. They were deep set and blue. They sparkled when he looked at me.
He would gaze into my eyes and swear that he loved me, and, for a moment in time, my world was consumed by the bliss of young love and the fire of unbridled sex.
I believed I was truly happy the day I married Randy two years ago. I recalled that happiness lasting about a week.
Our wedded bliss started to crumble the first time he slapped me.
By the end of our first year of marriage, I found myself in a place so dark that I didn’t think I would ever escape it.
I met Randy when I was just twenty, during my second year of community college. I was going to get a degree in physical therapy. I loved helping people, and ever since I was a little girl, I’d wanted to be a nurse.
Then my mom reminded me that the mere sight of blood made me faint, so perhaps I should pursue a career that didn’t involve the insides of people, only the outsides.
Physical therapy seemed like a perfect compromise.
I received federal grants to pay for part of my tuition. I managed to get a part-time job working at the FoodMart on 10th Street to cover the rest.
That was where I met Randy.
He’d been, and still was, the manager of the FoodMart.
He wore a tie and walked around like he owned the place.
He’d been flirty during the interview and seemed genuinely interested in my situation.
He respected me for going to college to better myself.
He would be happy to help me out by giving me a job.
He hired me as a night-time cashier.
My shift was Monday through Friday, from 6 p.m. to midnight, which was perfect since all of my classes were in the daytime.
Looking back now, knowing what I know, Randy had all the earmarks of an abusive, manipulative asshole from the start. I was just too naïve to see it.
He was six years older than me and far more mature.
He flattered me with compliments.
He always brought me little gifts.
He’d brush the hair from my cheek with his fingers as we talked.
He often stood a little too close and would “accidentally” brush his arm against my breast or his crotch against my ass as he was “sliding by” behind the register where I worked.
I was a foolish girl. A shy, aloof virgin. I’d never been with a man. I didn’t know what to expect or how to respond. If it wasn’t for my medical books, I wouldn’t have even known where all their man parts were located or how they worked.
I didn’t date much in high school, and by the time I met Randy, I guessed I was starting to think that something was wrong with me. My mom bounced from one bad relationship to another. I was determined not to follow her example. When I got married, I’d make it work, no matter what it took.
I was tall for a girl, with big boobs and nice curves. I guessed I was pretty, though at the time I had no idea how to apply makeup without looking like a Dolly Parton impersonator.
So when Randy started coming on to me in his office or in the breakroom, I let it happen. I wouldn’t lie. I encouraged him. I loved the way his hand felt on my breast when he copped a feel. I felt something burning inside me when he stood behind me and let his cock accidentally rub against my ass. Soon, he was asking me to do things that at first frightened me but ultimately turned me on and made me come alive.
He would find me standing in the back of the store when no one was around. He’d slip up behind me and slide his hands under my blouse and grind his cock into my ass. I would giggle and press my ass into him and playfully tell him to behave.
Our playfulness escalated the night I was in the ladies’ restroom and he came in and locked the door.
He pulled out his cock and commanded me to suck it, which I did without hesitation.
It was thick and hairy and tasted like sweat.
It was my first time seeing a cock, much less having one in my hand and in my mouth. He told me what to do and I tried to do it right. I left teeth marks on him, but he didn’t complain. He just closed his eyes and grabbed my hair and forced me to take him all in.
I gagged several times and tried to pull away, but Randy’s fingers were tangled in my hair.
He pulled my head to him and shot his load into my mouth.
I was shocked when it happened and nearly threw up on his shoes. My mouth was full of his warm seed. I was horrified and didn’t know what to do.
He told me to swallow it.
When I shook my head “no,” he gripped my chin in his hand and pushed my head back. He told me to swallow again and this time I did.
I can still taste it to this day.
The memory nauseates me.
“You’ll do better next time,” he said as he stuffed himself back into his pants. I remember nodding. I figured I was in shock because I couldn’t speak. I just stood there watching him comb his hair in the mirror with a hand over my mouth.
Then he gave me a big smile and told me that he loved me.
And in my sad little mind, that made what he’d just done all right.
That was what people in love did, I thought.
He was the man.
I was the woman.
If he wanted me to suck his cock in the FoodMart ladies’ restroom and swallow his seed, that was what I would do, so long as he told me that he loved me.
I was a fool.
I know that now.
I was a stupid girl with ball sweat on her chin and cum on her tongue and stars in her eyes.
Randy knew he could do anything to me and I would gratefully comply.
All he had to say was “I love you.”
We were married within a year. The abuse started the first week.
First, he starting raising his voice and degrading me for how I cooked and cleaned.
I was a moron, he said.
A stupid fucking moron who couldn’t iron a shirt right or boil water in a kettle.
I couldn’t do anything right in his opinion.
I was a lousy wife, he said.
I was lucky he didn’t send me home to mama.
He made me quit college so I could take on more hours at the store and keep his house.
Then he started staying out late at night.
When I’d ask where he’d been, he’d scream in my face until I cried.
I was supposed to submit, he said, not ask questions about where he was and why there was lipstick on the collar of his shirt.
Then he started slapping me around.
Then he started punching me.
Then he started whipping me with his belt.
On our first anniversary, he came home drunk and hit me so hard he broke my jaw. After he passed out, a kindly neighbor took me to the emergency room.
I thank God every day for that punch, because it not only put me in the hospital where I would meet my best friend, Gail, a black ER nurse who would take me under her protective wing, but it also literally knocked some sense into me.
I knew that if I went back to Randy, the abuse would continue until he hurt me badly or even killed me.
Even when he showed up at the hospital full of sorrow and bullshit, I knew I’d never submit to his abuse again.
With Gail at my side, I looked him straight in the eye and told him it was over.
He scoffed and said that wasn’t my decision to make.
I told him that if he ever touched me again, I would kill him in his sleep.
All that did was piss him off and hospital security had to toss him out. I moved back in with my mom, but he wouldn’t leave me alone.
Then Gail’s brother, Deacon Jones, a deputy sheriff in Rosewood, paid Randy a little visit at his house to have a little talk with him.
Deacon was six foot five and as wide as a door.
And he hated men who abused women.
He told Randy I had gotten a restraining order and wouldn’t press assault charges if he’d just sign the divorce papers Deacon had in his big hand. I could only imagine Randy’s initial response.
I wasn’t sure what else Deacon said or did, but when he came by Mom’s house to drop off the signed divorce papers, he promised Randy would never bother me again.
He also had all my clothes and meager possessions in boxes in the back of his cruiser.
The divorce became final three months later.
I’d never set foot in the FoodMart again, and I hadn’t run into Randy. So, if there was a silver lining to this dark cloud that was my life, that was it.
Cut to now, a year later.
I was taking online bookkeeping classes paid for by the state’s employment office and working nights at a convenience store for minimum wage.
My dream of being a physical therapist was on hold, at least for now.
I live in a crappy, rent-subsidized apartment in the shitty part of town because my mother moved to Florida with her latest boyfriend and sold her house to “finance their new life.”
Gail was still my best friend, but she had her own life to lead.
So, yeah, that was my story and I was sticking to it.
I glanced at the clock.
It was almost midnight.
I’d had enough of this pity party for one night.
I was going to bed.