Bob Hinshelwood's Other writing Life lived within is only partly private as it is also lived without.

It was after I stopped the relationship going on because of his abuse, that something new happened to me. That old relationship was finished, and I had known it for some time. In fact, I was startled he, that is Brogan, began very soon to dominate me with his issues and worries. OK, so we were partners, but that should make us equals. In sex too it was always on his terms, when he wanted it, what positions, you know. We had been willing to accommodate each other. I thought we were willing. It was soon after I became thirty, when of course I was thinking of settling down, and, you know…. a family and so on. He was not the best boyfriend I had had, but you can’t go back through the selection of them and just pick out the best one for the future. One just has to go on. What’s over is over; what’s to come is to come which means starting in the present. So I assumed it would be him. We did have lots of good things going. Mostly it was being able to talk to each other about what was going on, and that included what was going on between us. We had not been at university together, but we had both studied humanities, me literature (English and Spanish), he psychology and counselling. He had been two years older than me, like my older brother (damn him), and Brogan had eventually gone into finance – nice and lucrative; we could have been quite affluent. In contrast, I felt I had been marking time and was a secretary in a doctor’s practice; not so lucrative. But I realise now I was awaiting the urge forwards to a family. Brogan would have been very suitable for that.

            I think the big problem was that I couldn’t adjust to the idea of being a mum and at the same time having a life as a sex partner that put him always first. But actually, equally big was the problem that there was no discussion of sex as part of the family. He had no conception of babies in his life, or in mine. That was not the abuse; his abuse was that he hurt me. When I say we talked things over together, we were not always congenial and calm. We could get infuriated, both of us. But as time went on his furies led to physical assault, pushing and pulling, throwing me to the ground and eventually good hard punches, once to my face with the loss of a tooth. I knew it couldn’t go on. I joined #metoo, and also the discussion forum on the sfw (SafetyForWomen) website. The thing that really put me into action was the advice I got from those and other friends and relations. He had explained that he wanted to try something. His erections are not always as stiff as they could be and he thought that something he had thought up might be interesting. He wanted to put my nipple in the crack by the hinge of the door, and slowly shut the door. It scared me, but I thought it best to tell him I admired his imagination.

It was something that was discussed quite a bit on those websites and got onto social media and sent around. I did feel lots of support, but of course the support wasn’t present at home when he was actually thinking about this kind of torture. Because I talked about how he had tried to force it on me, there was lots of interest. He described to me what he might do and in fact, if he described it, he then did get a better erection and did a better job. I think it was because he had described it. What really frightened me was that he even thought of doing it to me. I couldn’t believe any more that he even liked me.

So I posted it up on several  sites. On the whole I had originally thought him a reasonably decent bloke but I didn’t mind saying what he had actually proposed doing. It was because they thought he was trying to force me to do it that it became so important for the others. I did actually say I had prevented it in the end. I am sure that some others don’t manage to prevent such things. I got such a lot of support. And others told about similar things – though not exactly the same. He does have quite a lot of interest in nipples and I do have large and prominent ones. All this seems rather intimate to write down, but it seems necessary to get it out, as it were, and to tell what has happened to me.

Guys tell me I am attractive, and I have lots of full red hair. I have quite a strong personality. Though I have quite large nipples as I have said, it doesn’t mean I am very busty, and in fact I am quite slim. In fact, one bloke in my past had put his arm right around my back and across my chest without pressing on my tits, just to show how slim I am. I think he meant I should have had bigger ones. He was often quite rude to me. While I am on about this, another guy wanted to sleep all night on top of me. You, know – how uncomfortable! Why would he want to do that? I told him I wasn’t a mattress. He said I was better than a mattress – was that a compliment? Well, I ask you….

            So I was going to tell you something different. It was a bloke, Col (his surname was Nicol, right). We were in bed and we were beginning to be romantic – that means getting physical. He said he liked it if I would squeeze his balls gently. I wasn’t too keen. It seemed so silly. But I did, quite gently, and it got him going. So I told him about Brogan who wanted to shut a nipple in the door. He laughed. He asked if he could do it to me, and I said of course I would not let him. I was quite shocked he couldn’t see it upset me. I was a bit angry, and I told him I’d shut his balls in the door. He laughed again. But then we had good sex. It was the next time we went to bed, he said he had been thinking about me – and I liked that. But – then it came. He thought I was kinky. He thought I was the one who liked talking about the nipple in the door. Well, I ask you….? It wasn’t me that had thought it up. I was the one who had to be careful and dump the bloke, wasn’t I? And now I was being accused of being kinky. Col was thinking I wanted to do these things and he’d like to play with me if I did. I told him off for being so insulting to me. Then he sulked and went home.

            But then life gets like that. I get the blame. When I did get married and we had children in the end, I did find someone decent. He was clean and straight. I think he did love me. At least at first. And we had lovely children. But, you know, children aren’t lovely all the time. That’s natural, right. And sometimes one has to be a bit firm with them. It protects them from getting into danger. I remember the little boy, before he could walk, he crawled too near the electric heater. I had to shout, quite suddenly at him, in case he burned his fingers. The little mite did learn his lessen and drew back from the fire and started crying. All very natural, wasn’t it. But Roger, my husband then, came in from the kitchen where he was cooking, and told me not to shout so loud at the kids. Why would he do that? He didn’t know what the danger was. He said I had made the little one cry. He said it was me that had done it!

            I mention that because it was the first time I had wondered if I could go on being married to someone like that. 

            After our second child, a little girl, things got really bad between Roger and me. He was always telling me off for what I should be doing with the baby. I breastfed her for a long time. Little Lily loved it. But eventually, she needed more and more. One day, she bit me. You know - she bit her mother! I had been breastfeeding for nearly two years, I think it was. And she bit me. I shouted at her and put her down. Then she cried and screamed. Roger told me not to make a fuss. I ask you? What a response! Why not make a fuss? He picked her up, and she calmed down immediately. What are they trying to do to me. I asked Roger that, but he didn’t reply. So later, I asked him again why I was getting all the blame when it was little Lily who had bitten her mother. Can you imagine? - he said it wasn’t quite like that. But it was.

            That was only a couple of months before he decided to walk out on us. He just went! My mother said I should not be so indignant. But she wouldn’t explain what she meant. Well, I decided the children shouldn’t see a father like that. Well, should they?

            When they were growing up a bit I got myself together and decided to join things. I joined the local Labour Party. It was a great thing to do. After all, the Labour Party stands for looking after each other; not like the other lot that stands for looking down on people. I know which side I am on. 

            And after the turmoil and hard work of getting the custody and control of my children, I know I was then looked down on by Roger. He seemed to think I was pig-shit. He was the one who had wanted me, and had been proud of the kids – he said. He said! And then it was he that did the dirty on me, wasn’t it – just left one day. So, I think there is a lot to fight for if an abandoned wife with two darling kids is something to be disgusted with, there’s a lot to put right.

            It was after the little kids started at school, he made a bit of protest at having to pay for them. But then he couldn’t just let them go to an ordinary school. I found the best one I could find. The kids loved it, they really did. It was a bit of a drive to get them there. But worth it. There were good people there. I know I’ve got a bit of an ordinary accent, but I come from a decent family, hard-working, patriotic and…. well, decent, as I say. But Roger didn’t think the school worth it – because he had to pay. He was already expecting another child. Well, he couldn’t expect us to take that into account. So I got the best for them. To cut a story short, I met a bloke. He took his boy to the school sometimes and we’d chat, and he obviously liked me, and was sympathetic as I told him all about Roger, and what he’d done to us. The man was called Mannie. He was a banker, or something. He liked me, and he told me all about the dreadful marriage he’d got. So I was sympathetic to him as well. 

But he kept on telling me the same kind of stories. Well the stories, they were like how she spent all the money he made, and then complained she had to make up for him not loving her enough. She wanted more love, she’d tell him. Can you imagine? He was so generous, and she always wanted more. I asked him in the end why he put up with it. But he just replied  - what else could he do, every time. But it seemed obvious. He should just get away, shouldn’t he? Keep control of the money and live somewhere else. He asked if he could come around and see me sometimes. He seemed such a sad man. So he came sometimes. And then I suggested we all go away in the summer together, me and my two, and him and his boy. He tried to arrange it, but his cow of a wife wouldn’t let him take their boy. I ask you – how mean can you get?

So we did go away. But not his boy. Mannie loved Tenerife, he said. I had never been of course. I can hardly spell it. But it was splendid. We stayed in the best hotel there; and went to the best restaurants. It must have cost him a bomb. But he was a banker or something so he could do it. The kids splashed in the hotel swimming pool all day. We didn’t even need to go to the beach. He got a bit impatient with the kids – with mine. I thought it must be because he missed his own boy. Actually, his boy would have loved it too. How mean could Mannie’s wife get! Fancy stopping the boy from having all that. Manny was great at sex, though. No kinks, just straightforward.

But afterwards something happened. I didn’t understand it. But we had got on well when we met at the school. It was why we decided to go away together. We had even discussed one day moving in together after we got back. He seemed keen. I asked him if he would mind if he didn’t see his boy so much. I thought they’d miss each other. But he seemed to think he’d see him, and he seemed to want to be more with me. Then when we got back, he didn’t say a word about that plan. After a week or two I asked about what we were going to do. He just tried to tell me he was working it out. He said he’d have to work it out with his wife. I told him there wasn’t much to work out, was there. He could just come to my place, and I said if it wasn’t posh enough we could get somewhere bigger and better. I was only renting, and he could afford a nice place for us. He only nodded as if it wasn’t all of the problem. I thought that I had better try to think about what was going on.

Perhaps he was just having a bit of a fling with me and wasn’t as serious as he said. Perhaps he really had deep problems with women and might want something else. I couldn’t tell what it was, and he wasn’t going to tell. Well, I got him away from that woman after a while, and he came to stay with me, with us. It wasn’t quite his thing, he said. But he could afford a lot of things for the home. He had told me I took up too much room. Whatever did that mean? Eventually we moved. It was a beautiful big place. It was an apartment, not a flat! You know what I mean. But there was a lot of cleaning to do. With two kids there was a lot of disorder to try to keep track of. We didn’t talk much. Sometimes he told me I wanted a lot. He also had some silly complaint about our holiday in Tenerife. It was about the kids only swimming in the swimming pool. Well, I told him, what was the point of going to the beach if they were happy in the swimming pool. And he said a strange thing – what was the point of going to Tenerife, he said! Can you imagine? What a thing to complain about. I don’t see why he had to have a go at me about that. The kids were quite happy there. I had rescued him from the marriage he had, but he didn’t think he owed me anything. I told him he should give a bit more thanks. And that shut him up.

As you could tell, that affair didn’t go on much longer. After a couple more weeks of his grumpy silences he decided to go back to his life with her, with his wife. I was glad to see the back of him. Except that he left me with the large expensive flat he’d moved us into. I told him just having money isn’t everything in life. And he ought to be helping out with the equally large rent wherever he decided to live. I said the least he could do was to buy it for us. But I didn’t press that as I assumed I’d get it out of Roger. But that didn’t work out Roger wanted to bargain with seeing his children sometimes. But why should he when he’d done what he did – walked out. He told me he had given me children. It was as if he thought it was a kind of gift and I ought to be thanking him for ever. People can be bastards. But then something happened.

Mannie had tried to introduce me to some of his friends we had posh dinner parties in that big apartment. The conversation wasn’t much. Too much banking. But I could order whatever I wanted from the take-away service of the up-market restaurant just down the road. Of course, his guests always complemented me on the cooking. It was quite slimy because they actually know it had been ordered in. One of these men, quite a bit older took me aside and offered me money, Leslie. He said I’d know what it was for. And from his slimy smile, I knew exactly what it was for. So when I had to finally decide either to find the rent or to move back to a cramped place again, I thought of this chap, Leslie. He came around most weeks for the evening. He never took me out, but played with the children till they went to bed and then played with me. For a while he helped. But – what did he think I was…. I didn’t tell anyone about him because they might think the same as him. Nevertheless, he was quite upmarket, whatever he thought of me – a plummy accent, silver hair, a permanent smile on his puffy lips. But he smoked and I didn’t like that. I told him to go outside, it was bad for the children. He very politely did go outside when he wanted a fag. Well it was a cheroot, he said.

            He was always very considerate with his love-making. And he always made certain I would be satisfied. Sometimes when I wasn’t really in the mood, I had to pretend, which I was quite good at. And I don’t think he ever realised, though I am not sure. My problem was that he was always more pleased with himself about his loving methods, my satisfactions were less important than his feeling proud of himself. I didn’t mind really because it helped a lot with the rent for a while. In the end (maybe it was nine months, getting on for a year), I told him it had to stop and sent him packing. He really wasn’t much use to me, apart from money. I think it upset him; he must have been quite attached to me. But it never really showed, so I didn’t really care. I got back to the GP office work for a few hours every day. But it didn’t pay all the rent. So I was running up a debt. I decided I would go back to Roger and tell him his kids would be on the street if he didn’t cough up to pay off my debts. This time he did, or most of them. And my mother helped. Though she grumbled that I should be managing my life better, especially as I had kids who needed a decent life.

            At this point, in my thirties, I seemed so alone and began to wonder why it had happened to me. Why me? I had all the right attitudes. I did a bit of work for the Labour Party. I loved my kids. I did the weekend shopping for my mum; although I used to add ten quid on to the bill all the time without her noticing. I did have a few friends, and an ‘other mother’ group as we call it these days. But they were basically interested in their kids having friends, having their friends.

            But Leslie had a friend, or perhaps they were more rivals; I don’t really know, and don’t care. And Leslie’s friend had a son who was a bit older than me. It seemed I was still in the up-market world that Mannie had brought me into. It must have been something to do with my attractive body, and maybe my availability. This young man, Jonson Pettit asked me to marry him. He was like them all, well educated, good job (solicitor), suave accent, beautifully dressed and wealthy, and a charm I couldn’t refuse; and shit brains which, of course, even I could measure up to.

            So I married him.

            No money worries, the best schooling for my kids, a poke in the eye for Roger, and a need to keep my Labour Party membership a secret. He was all surface and no centre as one of my friends at the school gates said when Jonson drove up in his Mercedes to fetch us off to his box at the Palladium for a pantomime. Stupidly I told him what that friend at the school gates had said. He frowned, his forehead went all wrinkled. I think he must have done a lot of frowning because his skin showed pale creases up there all the time. I quickly told him how I didn’t agree with what the friend said about him. But he kept wondering why I had told him if it meant nothing to me. I wondered too. I’m not stupid. Maybe I should be more careful what I say. People are so twitchy and sensitive, aren’t they? And then I get the blame for what other people say. I don’t get it. He said his Mercedes had nothing to do with anything. And anyway, I always said it was comfortable to sit in. It was. I said I had no grumbles. He said he didn’t either. But suddenly there was all that tension with us. And he seemed to hold it against me. For days. So I told him to cheer up, it was getting us all down, the children too. And it was. His wrinkles lined up again on his forehead and he went silent as usual. I was beginning to get used to those silences, and the wrinkles. What did he want from me. Just a smile, and love-to-see-you-darling. All surface, I thought just as that somebody had said about him. He said it was just a couple of difficult cases at work. But of course, I knew I was getting the blame, the blame for something I hadn’t really done. It was that other mother who had said Jonson was an empty office-suit. It wasn’t me that said it.

I wondered what I could do. I couldn’t stay with someone who blamed me all the time. Could I? Well I couldn’t. But, I couldn’t afford the schooling, and I had three kids now. And if we all left him, I’d be so alone. Somehow that being-alone seemed a terrible future. Like a prison I told myself. So we stayed. And he had his flings, young tarts who’d go with anyone. I didn’t bother to ask who they were now. They wouldn’t last anyway. 

After about a year of this, something happened. I was raped. The clerk from his office who brought round his papers for him from time to time, turned up one day, said he’d been delivering all day and was exhausted. I said Roy, that was his name, could have a cup-of-tea. You know how you do. So, he came in and plonked himself down. It was mid-afternoon. I and my youngest, we were due for our nap. But he got out a flask of something and added it to his tea. As he sipped his tea he filled up the cup each time from his flask. And do you know – he did the same with mine. I didn’t know if I should stop sipping to stop him filling up my cup all the time. It was some super-strong vodka or something. I found after a while I didn’t care. So, madness – we got drunk together. Well, pretty drunk. And then he raped me. I wasn’t too drunk so that I wasn’t out of it, I knew what he was doing. But what can you do? I just lay there for him. It wasn’t too bad, actually. In fact, what was a bit good was that I felt I was getting my own back on Jonson. I remember as Roy left afterwards. I told him to come back some time. Was I crazy? He said I was irresistible. And honestly, it made me give him a smile as I shut the door on him. But it had been a rape. Non-consensual, right?

            When, he knocked on the door the next day, he apologised immediately. I said it was OK, I had not said anything to Jonson. Actually, it was because Jonson was working all evening – he’d told me, as usual! Coud have been ‘flinging’ as I called it. But I didn’t say that to Roy. Roy apologised anyway. He said again he found me irresistible. I laughed and I asked if it was my body or my brains. He laughed. But didn’t tell me. I invited him in. Nevertheless, a month later, I had to tell Roy I was expecting again. I knew because Jonson was not having sex with me anymore. Roy asked me casually if I was going to have an abortion. I declined that and he asked why. Good god, why did he think? I said, because I am a mother! A born mother, I said. But he did not see the light side of that. And he told me I had to get rid of it. I told him it was not an ‘it’, and I’d never speak to him again. And I didn’t. He just shrugged his shoulders and left. 

            So, I had to tell Jonson. Jonson was furious. His forehead more than wrinkled up. He told me it was not a rape, because I had not resisted. Then I was furious. I don’t usually lose my temper. Even though there are so many prats in the world, and even though they seem to come my way all the time. I usually just shrug and send them on their way. But Jonson was being furious with me because I was pregnant because I’d been raped! Well, what would you have done? I threw the flower vase at him off the coffee table. It hit him in the face and the glass smashed. I must have given it a good belting. He ended up with a gash on his cheek. And a rose petal from one of the flowers lodged on the immaculate parting in his hair. If I had been in the mood, I’d have laughed at the sight of him, the ultimate shit-brained prat. And taken a selfie for him. But I didn’t, and I didn’t see him for days. What’s more, one of his mates in his office started a case for him, against me – suing me for physical assault. I had to get out of the house, and I had to leave the kids as I was not a safe mother. I took no notice. And I heard no more of that. Well, suing me because I was raped, I ask you!

            Fortunately, I heard no more because he got drunk one night with his floosie and crashed his car. He was killed and the wretched woman with him was paralysed for life. Serves them right. Wouldn’t you agree? 

            But I got all his money. I deserved it for once. Don’t you agree?