Years ago, I was in a relationship with a woman who I will refer to here as "Anna".
When we first met, she was working as a bartender and I had gone in to her workplace because I had walked past there numerous times, but never gone inside. It was a fairly popular place back then, but has since closed. We hit it off fairly quickly and I went in there to see her several times before I finally worked-up the courage to ask her out. She had just left a relationship, but was eager to get back into The Game.
We were about the same age, she was a little shorter than me, but still pretty tall - she's 5'10" and I'm 6'2" - and we had a lot of things in-common. We began dating regularly and the relationship turned sexual after the third date. One rule she had was that if we were sexually-involved, the relationship was an exclusive one. So, neither one of us would be having sex with anyone else, which was a rule I also followed.
We had some fun times together, great sex and spent a lot of time simply talking on the phone or in person. Things were mostly good. When I say "mostly", it's because of her best friend, Stephen.
Stephen was an out gay man who had worked with Anna and they became an inseparable team at work. They hung-out together after work, partied together and confided in each other. They were as close as siblings and Anna loved him. Anna wanted Stephen and I to also be friends.
The problem was that Stephen hated me for reasons I still don't know and he never bothered to hide his dislike of me, even recommending to Anna to end our relationship. I tried to get along with him and even tried to ignore his rudeness toward me, but to no avail. Stephen hated me and there was no changing that fact. I soon grew to dislike Stephen and actively avoided him. Despite Anna's efforts, there was no bridging this divide and she had to accept it.
I loved Anna and I would have done anything to make her happy. But, I simply couldn't be friends with Stephen.
A few months into my relationship with Anna, Stephen was diagnosed with bone cancer. It was advanced enough that the prospects of survival were pretty low. Anna was distraught and spent every available moment with him, promising him that she would be by his side through the chemotherapy and radiation treatments that she assumed he would be undergoing.
However, Stephen had other plans. Instead of going through with the chemotherapy and radiation, as well as the pain and physical disability associated with cancer, Stephen decided to commit suicide. He wrote a multi-page suicide note to Anna and another short note to his friends. He then took an overdose of drugs to end his own life.
Anna was devastated. I did my best to comfort her, having lost my own mother to cancer some years prior. But, the simple fact was that Stephen and I had not been friends before his death and could even have been described as enemies.
On the day of Stephen's funeral (he had been cremated and he left a note for Anna to scatter his ashes in the ocean) Anna was getting ready and I assumed that I would be going with her, so I also got ready to attend. I called her before I went over to her apartment to ask at what time I should come over so we could go together. She told me that she didn't think it would be appropriate for me to be at Stephen's funeral, owing to Stephen and I having hated each other and she believed that Stephen wouldn't have wanted me there. I wasn't going for Stephen's sake, I replied, I was going to offer comfort to her during the funeral.
But, no. If Stephen wouldn't want me there, then Anna also didn't want me at the funeral. She went to the funeral without me and I felt a sense of foreboding, wondering how this would affect our relationship in the future.
It wouldn't be long before I found out.
A couple of weeks later, I was at Anna's apartment after she had invited me over for dinner. Anna had taken time-off from work to grieve and was still trying to cope with the giant, empty space in her life that had been left with Stephen's death.
We were in the kitchen as Anna was cooking and I noticed that she seemed to be having a hard time concentrating. She was forgetting things, losing her concentration and seemed unable to keep her mind on what she was doing. Finally, she stopped what she was doing, turned to me and began screaming at me. She said things like that I had never tried to get-along with Stephen, hated him for no reason and that I was glad he was dead. Of course, none of this was true and I tried to say so, but she wasn't listening to me.
Finally, Anna slapped me, hard. I was actually knocked backwards by the blow. Stunned - physically and emotionally - I straightened-up and looked at Anna, hoping for some sign of regret in her eyes. But, no, she didn't look sorry. The only look I saw in her eyes was anger at me and grief for Stephen. She yelled at me some more and finally grabbed me by the shirt, yelling at me to get out of her apartment. Dragging me to the door, she hit me a few more times, seriously putting some muscle into those slaps and finally flung me outside.
I stood outside her door as she continued her tirade, being in complete shock at how the woman I loved had just beaten me. I then asked if she wanted me to call her in a few days, after she had calmed-down. Anna actually laughed and told me to never call her again, slamming the door in my face.
This relationship was over.
I then had to walk past Anna's neighbors, who had been alarmed at the noise and were standing around, looking at me. I left her building and walked home. I was crying, both from the physical and emotional pain of what had just happened to me.
I had hoped that Anna might call me, after realizing what she had done, perhaps on the same day. But, that call didn't come, not on that day or in that week. I didn't call her and avoided going near the bar where she worked.
I'll be honest, I still loved Anna, even after she had hit me. We had some really good times together and I had even been open to the idea of marriage. But, my feelings for her began to change as the days turned into weeks.
I became angry with Anna, even bordering on outright hatred. I was angry with myself, even briefly wishing that I had hit her back. But, I've never hit a woman in my life and I wasn't going to start. I eventually accepted that the relationship was over and decided to go on with my life.
About three weeks later, I got a visit from Anna's cousin, Christine. They were first cousins and had been very close back in their home state. Christine moved to Honolulu to be close to Anna and stayed here for a couple of years before moving back. Christine was an insanely-attractive woman, but I never made a play for her, as I was already dating her cousin. Besides, Christine was completely out of my league and we had little in common and she was something of a snob.
Christine tried to act as a peacemaker between Anna and myself, feeling that I had been very good for Anna and that she needed me back in her life. I was not happy with Christine's interference and expressed my outrage at being hit multiple times and physically thrown-out of Anna's apartment in front of a crowd of strangers. Christine expressed her doubts about how hard Anna had actually hit me. After all, how hard can a woman actually hit a man?
Pretty hard, Christine! Pretty fucking hard!
I asked Christine to leave and she did, with no complaint. She called me the next day and asked if I wanted to go out with her. Fearing a set-up, I asked if Anna would also be going. Christine said that it would just be the two of us and we both agreed to not discuss Anna or Stephen, whom Christine had also disliked, but for different reasons. Christine had previously been in some bad relationships while in Honolulu and she wanted to date someone "safe", so she chose me. Not seeing much of a future between us, I still agreed and we went out to dinner, where she picked-up the tab. She took me home with her and I spent the night with her. Having sex with Christine was very different than with Anna for reasons I won't divulge, but it was very nice.
We dated for a few weeks and I began to get used to the situation, feeling that I had finally gotten over Anna.
About six weeks after our breakup, Anna called me and left a message on my answering machine. I heard the message when I got home from work. I have to admit that I was both surprised and happy that she had called. But, those feelings quickly turned into anger and I actually yelled at my answering machine.
Her message was very sad, she expressed her sorrow at losing me and wanted to get back together. I brushed-off her message and erased it, feeling pretty good at myself for being able to finally get some sort of payback. Besides, she waited six weeks before calling me. As far as I was concerned, the expiration date on my forgiveness had already expired. Besides, I had Christine who was a great date and wasn't violent.
I mentioned the message to Christine and to my total surprise told me that I should give Anna another chance. I was very surprised at this revelation, to say the least. But, Christine admitted that she really didn't see a future between us, despite the fun times we had together. The differences between us were insurmountable, in her eyes. Besides, she wasn't looking for a relationship at the time. She had grown tired of the Honolulu dating scene, but still wanted to go out on dates and have sex. Since she felt that I was a safe option, she chose me as a temporary fix to her problem. She advised me to give Anna another chance, because she herself had plans to move back to the Mainland in a few months.
I still wasn't convinced that Anna and I were meant to be together. I mulled it over for awhile, not being sure if I wanted to take a chance on someone who had already hit me multiple times in one day.
Anna is nothing, if not persistent. She called me several more times and I let all of her messages go to the answering machine. I didn't erase those massages and even replayed them all, several times. Finally, I got off work one morning and went home. Sitting on the steps outside my front door was Anna. She was thinner than I remembered, her hair wasn't as neatly combed as I had remembered and she looked very sad. Reluctantly, I walked up the steps until I stood a few feet away from her. She stood and tried to hug me, but I quickly backed away from her, the memory of that first slap again very clear in my mind. She broke down and began crying, telling me how sorry and ashamed she felt and how she had been too afraid to call me earlier than she did. She considered herself a coward for not calling me sooner.
I did not invite her into my apartment to talk privately. Instead, we sat on the steps outside and talked for a long time. We both agreed that we would have to start over from the beginning. No sex, no going into each other's homes, just going out and if things didn't start to improve, we would end it completely. Before she departed, I finally hugged her. I remember feeling her body against mine with the smell of her perfume filling my nostrils and realizing how much I had missed her. I wanted to try again, I really did.
So began the months-long process of repairing our relationship. It was a slow, painful process which was briefly complicated when Christine finally admitted to Anna about having briefly dating me during the breakup. Anna actually found it to be funny, realizing how alluring Christine was to men. But, Christine was already back on the Mainland by then, so she wouldn't be around to tempt me in the near future.
Anna and I began having sex again and the relationship improved to the point where we began living together, I again began to see marriage in our future. Still, every time we had an argument, I would worry about her hitting me again and made a point to not be standing too close to her when we argued. Anna was aware of this and swore that she would never hit me again. She never did hit me, but I was always afraid that she would.
This happened every time we argued. Every, single time. The cloud of that first slap never quite went away.
Due to interference from Anna's family, who thought of me as some low-born, mixed-race gold digger out to marry into money, our relationship began to crumble. I will not describe here the steps they took, especially Anna's mother, to separate us, but they took a heavy toll on our relationship and arguments became more frequent.
I didn't want Anna to hit me again, neither did I want to allow myself to hit her. That could not be allowed to happen and I had to finally accept that our relationship was dying.
Rather than continue fighting the formidable conspiracy launched by her mother, Anna and I agreed to end our relationship while we still were on good terms. I moved-out, but we dated a few more times before she decided that being in the same city as me would only make my life more difficult as her family wanted me out of her life completely and Anna moved back to the Mainland. We stayed in-touch for years after she moved back.
The end.
PS, the next woman who hits me is going to jail with an assault charge and I will prosecute. 😁
Duane Browning
Venmo: @Duane-Browning-1
CashApp: $DuaneBrowning
