RIPP. Laws are set in place as a set of rules and regulations to protect people who do not or are not breaking them from the few who do. It really doesn’t matter where you live or what you believe in, for the most part all countries have the same laws to provide the same protection.

Don’t steal, don’t take advantage of people, don’t harm people, and don’t intimidate or threaten people. As a general matter of law, those rules sum it up just about everywhere. Every law falls within one of those categories, regardless of where you reside.

The punishment varies from country to country. Some countries cut the hands off of thieves. Others place them in jail. Even countries who may look at women as a substandard form of life do not allow them to be harmed or taken advantage of against their will. I know many women who have attempted to file charges against their boyfriends or husbands for abuse. Almost every occasion ended up with the woman filing charges a second time for a crime much worse - because the first occurrence went unpunished. A man who intimidates or beats a woman, generally speaking, does not want to be confronted by a man who is willing to stand up for the woman or her rights.

Men who abuse woman, without exception, are cowards.

I like to remind them of the fact that they’re spineless. It satisfies me.

After we first met, Dekkar and I found this to be a common belief between us. A week or so after we met the first time, we ate lunch together. The conversation immediately went to our system of beliefs. His strongest belief was the fact women are not to be abused, ever - verbally, mentally, morally or physically. I believed the exact same thing. He was able to describe many circumstances when he became involved in an attempt to resolve a domestic issue which included a woman in need.

I was astonished. It was the one thing that brought us closer to each other - a similar belief in what we understood to be moral. Additionally, we both believed an outside influence often worked much better than filing a domestic violence charge with police.

Stepping in and resolving an issue with a man’s abuse of a woman didn’t necessarily require violence. It always depended on the circumstances. Violence breeds violence, and violence is never the ultimate answer. It is, however, a useful tool in some circumstances.

“Whoa!” Josh screamed as I walked into the living room of the house.

“How the fuck did you get in here? I’ll call the cops,” he yelled.

“Turn off that fucking television and shut the absolute fuck up,” I said as I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt off of my head.

He sat and stared at me as if in shock. I reached down and picked up the remote control from the floor and turned off the television. As I did, he started to stand up.

“You aren’t going to call anyone, you don’t have a phone. Sit the fuck down. You and I are going to have a long talk,” I said as I dangled Kace’s set of keys from my fingertips.

He stood and stared at me as I walked across the living room and sat down in the chair beside the couch.

“This is my house…”

I interrupted him before he finished, “Say one more God damned word without me asking you a question. One fucking more, just one. I’ll knock every tooth out of your mouth and wear ‘em around my neck on a chain. Say something. Anything.”

Silently, he slowly lowered himself onto the couch.

“That’s it, just sit down. I need to talk to you while you’re able to comprehend it. Later you’ll be more liable to forget what I say,” I said as I pointed to the couch.

He scrunched uncomfortably on the couch, burrowing a little deeper into the cushions.

“This is about Kace and what you did to her today. I talk, you listen. Understand?” I asked as I unzipped and took off the jacket I wore over my hoodie.

He nodded. His head had a knot on it about the size of a tangerine. I stood up and pulled my hoodie off over my head. Purposely, I didn’t wear a shirt. I sat back down into the chair, laid the hoodie down, and flexed my biceps just to make sure he knew what may be coming later.

“I don’t like you. People like you make me make me want to spend my life in prison for murdering them. The only thing preventing me from doing it is the fact that being in prison would keep me from finding another piece of shit like you and doing this all over again. Believe it or not, I enjoy this. The satisfaction I get from stopping you from abusing another woman is the same satisfaction most men get from fucking, multiplied by about ten. Remember, not a word unless I ask you,” I rolled my shoulders and popped my neck.

He sat and stared.

“Now, when I start talking, you’re naturally going to want to say something to defend yourself. I wouldn’t advise that. If you do, I’m going to get up, come over there, and beat on you. Eventually, I’m going to do it anyway. If you try talking your way out of this, it’s just going to make it last a really long time. If you keep your mouth shut, I’m going to sit here and just talk - at least for now. Understand?”

He nodded.

“Men who abuse women are fucking pussies. They’re the lowest form of life that exists. Talking down to women, screaming at them, intimidating them, or physically harming them in any way is abuse. Abuse isn’t going to be tolerated by me, ever,” I took a slow breath and looked him over.

Talking to this asshole wasn’t sitting very well with me. It was all I could do to look at this guy. Knowing eventually I was going to knock at least one of his teeth out was extremely satisfying.

“You’ve spent the last ten years intimidating Kace, and you’re done. Completely. The shit that went on here this afternoon is the last of it. You’ll never speak to her again for any reason. You will make no effort to contact her, ever. You will not approach her, call her, text her, or have any of your friends attempt to do so. Understand?” I asked as I rubbed my hands on the thighs of my jeans.

He nodded.

“No, I need verbal confirmation. Do you understand?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“I’m not one of your punk friends. Don’t talk to me like one. If you respond affirmatively, it better be a yes. Understand?” I pushed against my thighs with my hands and sat up straight.

“Yes?” he said with a confused look on his face.

Covered with sweat, he reached up and wiped his brow. As he wiped his hand on his jeans, the sweat beads began to re-form on his face.

“It’s hot as fuck in here, what’s the temperature set at? I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders and wiped his face again.

“Well, it’s so fucking hot in here I’m un-goddamned-comfortable. Son-of-a-bitch that knot on your head looks painful. She got you good, didn’t she?” I chuckled.

Lightly, he touched his swollen head with his fingertips. As his fingers touched the knot, he squinted and jerked his head backward.

“Okay, we’re getting off track. I’m going to need some answers from you. Listen up. Are you ever going to try to talk to Kace again?” I asked.

“Well, I…” he started.

As he began to speak, I stood up, “Shut up. Obviously you didn’t hear me or understand me.”

“You said don’t speak unless you asked me to,” he said as he leaned back into the couch cushions.

I took a few steps toward him and stood directly in front of the couch, “Stand up.”

He sat still and looked up at me as if confused on what to do. I reached down and got ahold of his hair and pulled him up from the couch.

“Holy shit, dude. God damn. I’m coming. Fuck,” he said as I raised him off of the couch cushion by his hair.

“Shut the fuck up,” I demanded as he stood directly in front of me, his hair in my left hand.

“When you choke Kace, this is what it feels like,” I said as I grabbed his neck in my right hand.

I squeezed as hard as I could until his eyes rolled back and he began to go limp. I released the pressure on his neck. As I did, he began to cough and gasp for air. I pulled upward on his hair, forcing him to stand erect.

“Oh my fuckin’ God,” he coughed and sputtered as I continued pulling against his hair.

“And this is what it feels like when you slap her,” I said as I reached back and slapped his face as hard as I could with my open right hand.

The slap knocked his head from my grasp. He fell to the floor, crying. I stood above him and with my left hand grabbed another fist full of his hair.

“Dude, that’s fucking gross, your hair came out,” I said as I brushed the hair from my hand onto the floor beside him.

“Get up, you pussy. Get up right now or I’m going to cut off your cock,” I threatened, knowing I wouldn’t touch his cock with a ten foot pole.

Slowly, he rose to his feet, rubbing his jaw the entire time.

“Being slapped hurts, don’t it?” I asked.

He nodded his head slowly.

Whack!

I slapped him with my left hand. His legs wobbled.

Whack!

I slapped him with my right hand.

He began to stumble and fall to the floor.

I grabbed each of his shoulders in my hands and stabilized his stance.

“You alright to stand?” I asked as I let go of his shoulders.

He stood fairly erect, sobbing and rubbing his jaw.

“Brace yourself,” I said.

“What? Brace…what?” he mumbled through his hands.

“I’m going to break a rib. You’ll need to tighten up your stomach muscles. If you don’t, you’ll puke on me. If you puke on me, I may kill you. We’ve already discussed that. I don’t really want to kill you,” I said calmly.

“Dude, what the fuck…” he started to speak through his cupped hands.

Before he could finish speaking, I pushed him away from me. As he began to stumble backward, I unleashed a series of body punches to his mid-section. He began to fall backward. As he fell, I swung a ferocious right fist into his ribs and followed with an immediate left hook. I felt his ribs break under my knuckles.

Although I hadn’t originally intended to do so, as his face began to slump forward, I swung a right uppercut. It just felt natural. The punch caught him right under the chin. The power of the punch lifted his feet from the floor and sent him reeling backward. While he attempted to remain on his feet, his legs turned to rubber and he collapsed to the floor.

Shit, knocked out twice in one day.

I kicked him lightly with my foot.

“Get up,” I said as I kicked him again.

“Get up you piece of shit,” I said as I kicked him a little harder.

He lay motionless on the floor.

I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a glass bowl from the kitchen countertop. I filled it with water and walked back into the living room. I pressed my foot into his stomach and poured the water directly onto his face. As the water hit his face, he began to sputter and tried to speak.

“Oh… my,” he slowly held his stomach.

“God, I need an ambulance,” he groaned as he rocked his head from side-to-side.

I pressed on his stomach with my foot. As I did, he began to cry.

“Please,” he cried.

“Shut the fuck up. We’re just getting started. I need to ask you some questions again. You have the attention span of a fucking gnat,” I said as I carried the bowl to the chair and sat down.

“Now, you twat waffle, listen. Are you going to ever make any effort to contact Kace for any reason?” I asked.

Lying on the floor, he did his best to shake his head from side-to-side. As he did, I stood up and crossed my arms.

“No,” he tried to scream. As he did, he winced in pain and held his ribs.

“You’re not going to want to take too many deep breaths or scream. I felt about three of those things break. Broken ribs are a bitch. Just trying to breathe becomes so painful you’ll want to die. That’s why I broke ‘em. So you’d remember I was here. Okay, where were we? Let’s see. No contacting Kace. I’m glad you’re a great learner,” I laughed.

“And stop whining, I am not going to fucking call you an ambulance. You didn’t call one for Kace, did you? You fucking scumbag, the more I talk about this, the more I do want to kill you,” I complained.

He raised himself up onto his elbows and started crying out loud.

“You fucking punk. Shut up. Do you have any tools in here? In the house?” I asked.

Confused, he looked at me and squinted. I raised my hands in a defensive boxing posture and clenched my jaw. I took one step in his direction.

“Utility room,” he said softly as he nodded his head toward the kitchen.

“Don’t go anywhere,” I laughed, knowing he probably couldn’t even stand.

I walked into the utility room and found two tool boxes on the shelves above the washer and dryer. I opened one. It contained pliers, a hammer, wrenches, screwdrivers, electrical tape, and basic repair type tools. Perfect. I opened the other. It contained gardening tools and chemicals. I removed the pruning shears from the gardening box and placed them into the first tool box and closed the lid. I walked into the kitchen and opened drawers until I found dish rags and towels. I grabbed a few towels and stuck them in my back pocket.

As I walked into the living room, Josh was sitting against the couch on the floor.

“Nice selection of tools. I’ll make this quick. Well, it’ll be kind of quick. You’re going to need to listen again,” I said as I placed the tool box between the chair and the couch.

“Okay. I’m going to say this now, later it’d make no sense to you,” I looked down at him and smiled.

He looked up confused.

“If you go to the hospital or the doctor, they’re going to ask questions. You have a knot on your head that’s six or so hours old. You have other fresh wounds. They’ll want to know what happened. You could tell them about me coming here. If you choose to, my buddy will come find you. He makes me look like a real pussy. He’d probably go ahead and kill you, but do it really slow. If you have any great ideas or plans to get even or try anything, you might want to remember he knows you, and he hates you more than I do. I volunteered to come here – to save you from him,” I pressed my index finger to my lips and thought.

“Okay, so yeah, probably no trips to the doctor. And Kace is not going to file charges against you for what you’ve done or what you did today. This is your punishment. It’s just easier this way,” I paused and turned away for a second.

“So, this might sound really bad at first, but I want you to think about it for a second before you answer. No rash decisions. I’m going to let you decide what we do next, okay?” I said softly as I turned around to face him.

Without speaking he nodded. I bent down and opened the tool box. I removed the hammer and the pruning shears, holding one in each hand.

“Okay, I’ll let you pick. I can either cut the tip of your index finger off, or hit you in the mouth with this hammer, and knock out a couple teeth. Which one sounds better?” I asked as I rotated the tools in my hands in front of him.

“Oh God. Please. I’m gonna throw up,” he moaned.

“Well, if you have to you have to,” I said.

“You’re crazy. Seriously, you’re crazy. My finger?” he complained as he held his ribs.

“Not your finger, just part of it. And crazy? No, let me tell you about crazy. Crazy? Crazy is you being the man in a relationship with a one hundred pound woman who only wants to be loved and cherished,” I paused and shook my head.

“And beating her, intimidating her, and taking things from her just to control and manipulate her. Taking her phone, her Kindle, her freedom. Choking her. Not letting her see her parents. And beating her until she’s down to the floor, and kicking her teeth out. Kicking a woman in the face after you beat her and she’s lying on the floor. All to a fucking girl. Someone who trusts you, someone you’re supposed to protect. You manipulative piece of fucking shit,” the more I spoke the angrier I became.

I looked down at him as he sat against the front of the couch. I clenched my jaw and shook my head. This motherfucker wants to call me crazy? Without a second thought, I leaned forward and swung the hammer toward his mouth. Having never hit anyone in the mouth with a hammer, I didn’t quite know what to expect. It felt like I was hitting a piece of wood, driving the hammer through it - splintering the wood. His teeth snapped off as soon as the hammer made contact with them.

I tossed the hammer behind me several feet and bent down to look at his face.

“Don’t you dare get blood on my jeans,” I snarled.

With his hands cupped over his mouth he screamed and cried. Rocking back and forth onto the front of the couch, he blubbered tears and spit blood. Blood ran down his arms and dripped from his elbows onto the floor.

“Move your fucking hands, let me see what kind of damage we’re talking about,” I said as I reached for his hands.

As tears ran from his eyes and blood dripped from his elbows, he cried and sobbed.

“Hands!” I screamed.

“Holy fuck. God damn. Now that’s the way to knock out teeth, huh? Shit. There’s maybe five or six of them fuckers gone. Get you a mouthful of these,” I said as I smiled, exposing my gold tooth.

“You know, I’d have let you pick – either your mouth or your finger. You should have picked one. But God damn it. The more I talked about what you did to that poor girl, the madder it made me. And just looking at you is irritating as fuck,” with the pruning shears still in my hand, I sat down beside him on the floor.

I reached over and grabbed his right wrist. As I pulled his hand toward my chest, he moaned. I’ve never had my teeth knocked out with a hammer, but I suspected he was in shock, semi-conscious from the beating, and incapable of speech due to losing the mouth full of teeth and the mangled lips. All he had left was crying, and he began to do a lot of that.

As he sat and sobbed, I pulled a towel from my back pocket and wrapped his hand in it, leaving only his index finger exposed. I squeezed his wrist and as I did, he attempted to close his hand into a fist.

“If you make a fist and make this difficult, I’ll go get that tree saw from the utility room and cut your entire fucking hand off. And whatever I cut off, I’m taking with me. Hold still, God damn it,” I said as I squeezed his wrist harder.

I moved my left hand from his wrist to his hand. As I squeezed his palm in my hand, I opened the shears and lightly squeezed his index finger in the razor sharp jaws. Not having ever cut the tip of anyone’s index finger off either, I didn’t know what to expect. I had pruned multiple bushes, and in hindsight, the branches - regardless of girth, were always easy to snip in two. Quickly, I squeezed the handle of the shears. As soon as I began to squeeze, he jerked his hand and screamed.

As he screamed, the tip of his finger fell into my lap. Blood immediately spurted from the stub of what was left of his finger. I covered his finger with the towel his hand was wrapped in. Simultaneously, he slobbered and sobbed loudly. As he pulled his hand to his chest and cried, I stood up.

“God damn, I ended up getting a lot more of that fucker in the shears than I wanted to. I’m really sorry, looks like I got more than an inch of that fucker. Well, at least it was quick,” I said as I bent down and picked up what appeared to be no less than half of his finger.

I pulled another towel from my back pocket and wrapped his finger in it. I shoved the towel wrapped finger into the front pocket of my jeans. I grabbed my hoodie from the arm of the chair and put it on.

“Don’t want to forget this,” I smiled as I pulled it over my head.

I grabbed the electrical tape from the tool box, and turned to face him. I held the tape in the air so he could see it.

“Let me see that hand, I’ll tape that dish towel to it really good so you don’t make a bigger mess on this carpet. You’ve got blood, tears, and snot everywhere,” I chuckled.

I reached down, pulled his hand away from his chest, and went around the circumference of the towel several times with electrical tape. I tossed the tape onto the couch cushion and shook my head as I watched him rocking back and forth holding his hand.

“I think my work is done here. Get some ice on that finger and mouth. You’ll need to wrap those ribs. They’re going to hurt longer than anything else. You can Google everything, there’s great medical advice out there. And dude, I have no idea where your teeth went when I smacked you with that hammer. That happened really fast. You might have swallowed those fuckers. Now remember,” I kicked his thigh with my foot.

With his eyes full of tears, sobbing, he looked up at me.

I held my index finger to my lips, “Shhhhhhh. Just between you and me.”

He stared.

I kicked him again.

He nodded slowly.

I turned and walked toward the front door. As I did, I felt like I had actually accomplished something. The feeling, to me, was similar to winning a boxing match. I reached for the handle, inhaled a deep breath, and exhaled as I opened the door. I walked out onto the front porch, shut the door, and pulled the keys Kace gave me from my front pocket. I pushed the key into the lock and locked the front door.

Safety first.