Christy

I am a battered woman. I finally dare to say that, at least to myself.

I am afraid after the recent murder and the arrival of Sheikh Nabil. I wonder who will kill me first. My husband? A random psycho? A psycho from Jachana?

My life was done, I was dragged alongside the sands of time, the world warped around me, like a slab of meat tied to a raging truck, every scintilla of my being scrapped on the road. I thought my nightmare was over after Jachana, indeed it was for a while, my new job, my degrees, my kids, my house, and my loving husband helped until it started again with the murder, and him, regressing and transforming.

The last few years I was getting choked slowly, now I’m being choked literally. Things got thrown around this morning, never at me, always next to me, like a warning. One more word and you’ll get it. Time stops when someone is near, the kids, Taiga, the sitter, Majd, and I turn to glide oblivious motes in a continuum of space. Nothing is wrong, we’re ok, carry on. We freeze, smile, and go back to pretending in front of people.

The bank had been calling more than usual, our credit card payments were overdue but he paid them. Late. But he still paid.

Sex was hell, one of the most thrilling aspects of love is now a chore, a burden, a disgusting punishment I have to endure. He used me for sex, turned my hips around, leaned in, pumped, and was done. I wake up at night for a drink and he is masturbating in the bathroom, door open, even after fucking me a few hours earlier. I’ll admit his sex drive was always a unique turn on, especially when we were younger, but when we grew up, it only grew with us, it was awesome, this handsome chivalrous man desired me day and night, he breathed to please me, we teased things out of each other, we tried things. Now he stopped pretending and trying, sex is mundane yet laborious, he doesn’t kiss me, cuddle, or spoon me after, and he just rolls to his side, and snores.

I’m a woman I should please my husband, even if I weren’t in the mood, I should please my husband. It was what obedient wives did. It was what every religion taught us, it was how we were weaned, these values we wished dearly to uphold are now considered less holy, less divine, they instead stink of inhumane torture, and loathsome dogma. I am abused, mentally, verbally, and physically daily. My beautiful country does not recognize domestic violence as a crime.

Religious sects control the legislative courts. We have no rights because in their minds women don’t deserve these rights, we were supposed to be controlled, bottled up in a household, cleaning shit, cooking shit, not speaking to other men, not wearing obscene clothing, not eating fast food, not ruining our figure ( If you did, you can only blame yourself for your husband’s affair, you got fat what did you expect? An actual lady said that in one of our charity brunches and I use the term lady pretty loosely) Pre-marriage you are such a badass if you eat fast food with the boys, post-marriage you are such a fat cow for eating burgers and birthing two children and gaining a few kilos, and if you eat burgers with the boys after marriage you are a fat whore. A fat ugly cow that made him think of penetrating the wall instead of her cunt, because you’re that disgusting!

I stared into the mirror, the remains from asphyxiation on my neck began to fade, I doused them with foundation. For my blue wrist bruises, yellow concealer works best. Yes, I tried them all. Yes, I had had countless opportunities and drafts of abuse on my skin to try them all. This is who I had become. I hid my shame under makeup, I hid behind a Dior pants suit, I elevated myself in Clark heels. I am no longer at the level I had worked hard to reach, I am swimming upstream, always patching up, repairing, and faking.

I kissed Tommy and Maria, batting my eyes hard to keep the tears away. At the gas station, I filled up my Cayenne using the credit card. Not cash. Because my money is gone, I gave it all to him, to buy and invest at the port, and it worked well for us, except for the last few years. We were happy for ten years because we had money, we were the envy of all the couples, even our friends. People emulated us, from clothing to cars, to house decorations. When we went vagabonding through Europe for two months, all the wives of the men working with my husband did the same after a year, filmed it, and posted it on Facebook for everyone to see, as if they were the first people in the world to have thought about this adventure.

I left Laura’s house, but the dark pregnant cloud with agitation over my head kept on chase, it was going to burst any moment. That poor woman, with Tanious dead she’s stuck with three kids, school payments, mortgages, debts, and car installments. I have never told anyone but she used to come by my charity "The kind hearts of Lebanon" every few months or so, we’d chat, vent to each other, and I would give her a ration card and whatever hand me downs we got available. I was cautious not to let much slip, I still didn’t feel like sharing anything serious, she on the other hand did. Tanious was a difficult guy, even when we were kids, even when he was with Yasmine. I’ll never forgive what he did to Yasmine. When the going got tough, he was the first guy to skip, to cry, or even surrender. However I had no idea he was a deadbeat, I had no idea his poor wife had to work a part-time job, and come and almost beg me for food.

Laura wanted to bury her husband, despite his shortcomings, despite his horrible behavior, the man that left them impoverished, she still wanted to honor him. Those were our values, even people raised in more lenient areas abided by their religious beliefs. Unfortunately, she couldn’t bury him, not now, because she was wrestling detective Youssef for his body, which he refused to release. Still under investigation.

I envied Laura, how simply she forgave her husband, how she was able to suck it all, and still fulfill her duty. I wish I could be that simplistic, that easy, that uncomplicated, to love my husband unconditionally, to take what he dishes out, to not complain, not even to myself.

What sent me reeling from our meeting was the information she divulged about Tanious’s work at the port and by proxy Majd’s. They were smuggling weapons. Correction had been smuggling weapons for the past thirteen years. They were involved with someone "big". When it all began tumbling on them Majd and Tanious fought a lot, I recall the phone calls in the middle of the night and Laura confirmed it. They couldn’t rely on each other anymore, and my husband abandoned him for some reason, which increased the issues and lead to his death (according to Laura at least). I stood by my husband’s façade in front of her, I couldn’t agree with all the nasty things she said about him. I was not too desperate, not too blind, just the right amount of wife pride and certainty but with enough room for inquisitorial doubt.

The dark cloud engorged, my husband has been lying to me for more than thirteen years, and his behavioral change in the last few years can now be pinpointed to certain "important" events. I cast the thought away, it’s just my paranoia, me acknowledging patterns in desperation. A need to blame my husband.

I left the kind hearts of Lebanon, an NGO I founded with my money, invested in my husband’s illegal endeavors. A charity which gave back to people that lived as I did, people that needed a small nudge to stay together, this place was the glue for the shattered families, it aided parents to care for their children so they wouldn’t end up like us in a Jachana. Now I think of how I am going to close it down, how to say no to all the families and women like Laura. I’m going to be directly responsible for the creation of more orphans like us. More battered women like me.

In the car my stomach grew more upset, it gargled furiously like a caged animal wanting to break my ribs and flee its fleshly prison. I hyperventilated, and my cheeks began to numb. I’m having a nervous breakdown again. I need to tell someone.

I worked hard, very hard for him and myself, he liked athletic bodies, I trained my ass off at the gym, waking up at four in the morning to run, and lost my love handles, lost so much fat on my already tiny frame, my bones popped out, I did all of that to satisfy his Bikini competitor fetish.

He needed hundreds of small meals prepared monthly, healthy and home-cooked, I obliged, juggled with my research and his "sophisticated" needs, 200 grams of Basmati rice, 200 grams of chicken breast, 100 grams of asparagus, 150 grams of baked potato, 2 tablespoons of garlic, 1 tablespoon of Ketchup. Cooked, boiled, baked, measured on the digital scale, filled the thousands of Tupper wells monthly filled the 90 monthly shakers with 2 scoops of whey protein, 1 scoop of BCAA, 1 scoop of EAA, 2 scoops of creatine, 1 scoop of Beta-Alanine and every Friday added another shaker with 3 scoops of pre-workout because it’s leg day. Da!

When I made mistakes the first few times, it’s ok honey you’ll learn, then I mixed the blueberry Pre-workout with the vanilla whey, it tasted horrid, but it’s ok dear you’re still learning. I kept making trivial mistakes, he kept ignoring them. It’s ok honey bodybuilding is complicated. After a few months. Come on babe! Too much creatine, I’ll bloat like a hog. Jump a few years, I told you a hundred times! You’re too preoccupied with reading instead of paying attention to someone else! The last three years the mask was off, respect was foreign. What good are all those fucking degrees if you can’t even make a damn protein shake? Dumb bitch, and proceeds to throw the shake against the cupboard, and make a mess for me or Taiga to clean. Mostly me because I didn’t dare to ask her to deal with his crap. It was embarrassing enough for me.

I snapped out of my out worldly trance, forced a smile in the car mirror, passed my middle finger across my lips fixing the pink gloss and remembering when he revealed his true colors when he changed his workout plan and I wasn’t paying attention, for I was finishing my Master’s dissertation.

Leg day was swapped to Wednesday, and I gave him the pre-workout the night before his competition. He didn’t sleep, not a single minute, around a gram of caffeine coursed through his body, he seethed on the sofa till morning. The next day I drove him under full silence to the amphitheater, I shaved his entire body, even his butt-crack in silence (We thought shaving our bodies takes long, trying shaving the whole body of a 6 foot 3 260lbs hairy guy)I waited for him to be painted bare with fake tan. The first day of the competition is called pre-judging. Two days later, the results were in, he got the last place at that competition, placing behind some amateurish looking guys. His physique was watery from insomnia, his muscles looked flat from stress. I destroyed the intricate and aesthetic art of a Bodybuilding contest prep. I ruined his "Career." He picked up his cheap consolatory iron medal, dangled it on top of that one trophy he had with the rest of all the 7th, 6th, 9th medals he received from previous shows. That night after his competition was a terrible portent for our marriage.

At home, it was the silent treatment for hours on end. I gave up on trying to console him when it was night time, I retreated to the living room and did something productive, reading a Meta-Analysis. He looked around, I ignored him, he got close, his hulking mouth breathing over me, I ignored him because I knew what he was going to say. He’s usual speech, his it’s me, not you. I’m sorry, you know what happens when my body fat drops to such low levels, and you know what happens to my hormones, my mood. My brain becomes a mess, I turn into an asshole, you’re a scientist Christy, you know these things, I’m sorry babe, I love you.

Instead of the habitual sermon, the silence continued next to me until he ripped the 5lbs protein powder bag with his bare hands, the plastic wrapping making a vociferous squeal. He sprinkled the protein all over the table, the leather armchairs, the Persian rug, and then me. He brought the tubs of all the -ines and unloaded them on my head, 3 to 4 scoops on legs day! 3 to 4 scoops on legs day! 3 to 4 scoops on legs day! You fucking bitch! You dumb fucking cunt! His voice roared in the house, the proteins filling my hair, my laptop, and papers, wave after wave of multicolored powders doused me, as if at a Pride festival. My eyes burned, the chemically laced compounds leaving acrid tastes in my mouth, tastes no human being should savor, sweet, salty, bitter, and plastic at the same time. My arms were lifted, extended parallel to the floor, a mortified taxidermy women, I only registered what was happening to me when my laptop was ruined, when I couldn’t see the words on the screen anymore, like a post-apocalyptic scene, the computer was covered in dust. All my senses were anesthetized by the artificial sweeteners inside every pore of my being. Please don’t hit me, please don’t.

He abruptly stopped, I thought it was because I had burst into tears, it wasn’t. Taiga held Tommy’s hand, he stood less than a meter tall and was holding his sister’s hand, and the three gaped atop of the staircase, like stunned spectators on looking at our theatrical polemics, no tears, no fear, and just gapping shock. Trauma. They tried hard to accept what was happening, their little brains working overtime but in vain. Taiga yanked Tommy but he wouldn’t budge, she wanted to take him and his sister away, shield them from the scene but it was too late.

"Hey! Wait." Majd said, his lips quaking as he grabbed another tub of -ines, "look mommy and daddy are having fun." He grinned at them, sprinkled some pink powder into the air, like a low-cost birthday magician. Nothing is wrong, we’re ok.

"Come play with us."

Maria giggled. My husband turned to face me, his rage sedated, he picked another tub and handed it over. It took it with shaking hands. I stood, the strand of a desert trickled down from my hair. I opened the container, and sprayed his ugly fake-tanned face, imagining it like acid, the purple crystals stuck to his face against the bronze tan like spaghetti to a wall. I forced a smile over my tears, so Tommy could join us in the festival of powder throwing.

This was my welcome party to you’ve angered your husband club. Your fault.

My husband tricked me, a catfish, he betrayed me! He put on that image of himself for years, and now everything was going away the real and the fake.

The Porsche lurched in the parking lot of the club. I was pitiful, coming here of all places again. I couldn’t go to my upscale "friends" they gossiped, loved leeching on other people’s drama, the entire country would be on us, we’d turn into pariahs, my children would be the kids with the dad that beats up mom at school, and publishers wouldn’t want to work with this kind of baggage, I’d have to say goodbye to everything.

I burnt my bridge with Yasmine, can’t talk to her, not like before. I alienated her, I was ashamed of her for years, I marginalized her, sorry you can’t come to this party, it’s boring, not your thing, you won’t like them, their superficial and silly, stay away, stay away, oh I forgot to tell you, stay away, stay away... She did, and never spoke about it, never blamed me for anything, she rose above my rude attitude, she became the better woman. Yasmine my only childhood friend gone. My fault.

And Jon, the always busy, always wounded, always lost. I can’t dump that on him. I don’t have the heart, he saw us as a family, THE FAMILY, a concept he (we) longed for, the blueprint for our childhood fantasy, to be parented, cradled, and loved. If only he knew how flawed that blueprint was. The few fake images I had to maintain were all I had left. My sense of worth and ego was deeply tied to them. Take them away and I’m done, erased, shattered. What’s left of an orphan without a husband, kids, a diploma, a job, friends, a family? What kind of purpose would your life fulfill? Nothing but Jachana. So yeah, I am going to pretend. Yes, I am going to talk to him because I got no one else.

The gym was moderately busy, iron clunking from every corner, men, and women picking heavy things and depositing them with loud thuds. Never understood the concept, the rage, nor the pleasure. The electronic music shrieked in my ears, a classless figment of nightlife midday, they were only missing the cheap drinks for a blowout party. Men lurked behind women squatting, and women paraded in front of men deadlifting. A mysterious attempt at courtship, a primate level of seduction. Like my husband, all the male gym-goers were half-naked, tiny shorts and thin flannels that dangled down under their torsos, revealing chests, shoulders, arms, and even upper abs, and they all strode like roosters, puffed and smug, miniature versions of Majd. All the women were covered with obnoxiously tight yoga pants and spandex, accentuating the curves, boobs squeezed just enough to maintain the sex appeal while safeguarding them from the slut badge. They were all so "cool" almost as "cool" as Manal. She’d love it here, all that edginess, and all that attention she’d get for being different and "not like other girls."

I went into one of the studio doors under the watchful eye of all genders, a perfumed pant suited corporate bitch, reminding them all of those horrible bosses they had.

"Christy!" Maher’s eyes were wide and honey-colored under the shaft of light from the small windows. He wore tight black shorts and a red Y shirt.

"Sorry I didn’t call before but..."

"Nonsense! It’s the best surprise, you’ve made my day." His face was sad but transiently gleeful in my presence. He ran to the back of the studio, grabbed two green mats, and placed them in front of me.

I waited, both my hands on my purse which laid on my knees. He lifted a finger, a one moment gesture, grabbed a bottle of sanitizer from his desk, then skated back on the shiny laminated parquet floor like an innocent child. He sprayed both rugs with his unusually messy hair. He knows my germ-phobic tendencies in places like this.

"Here you are milady." He cut the air with his arm and bowed a six-star hotel hospitality grin.

Time always passed efficiently with Maher, like an unsaddled mare I found my words galloping, unfiltered, and pleasant into his ears. This studio was our weekly retreat after his yoga class, it was our temple for mundane vents. I’ve always made sure not to reveal much, just enough to prevent that nimbus from imploding over my head, just enough to stop myself from letting go. Therapy in Lebanon was still partially taboo, and we’ve never found comfort discussing Jachana with people who’ve never lived there because they couldn’t understand what was done to us. What we did.

I told him about Majd and Tanious, about Laura, and the weapons at the port. He did not take it well, I saw the anxiousness coiling through his body as my words dripped in, it was on those rugs that I could feel Maher degenerating into a pool of his older self, he was struggling with these events as much as I had. Ever since we stood in front of Tanious, he’s been morphing, the black basins under his eyes were being dug meticulously by restless nights, his new small tummy bulged against his red spandex shirt, and his skin was watery and bloated, he’s beyond stress. He talked about falling back to food again, his only way to tranquil this old fear resurging. And there I was, dumping more of my issues on him, I immediately regretted telling him. I flooded his emotional wounds with my salty nagging because I had to squeeze some of the vile pus from my cloud somehow.

It was time to leave, I stood, lifted my arms, and put my hair in a scrunchie.

He grabbed my arm and gently twisted it," What the hell is that?"

It was as if I was caught peeing my pants. I missed a spot on my left wrist, the concealer surrounded a small purple patch.

"It’s nothing, I just bumped it."

He moved closer to me for a better look, the redolence of his aftershave catching me by surprise.

"Let go, please."

He complied, looking down at me like some ailing pet. My palpitations were extreme. This was the first time I couldn’t pretend, the first time I was being seen, raw, and stripped of my dignity.

"Christy..."His voice was stern, wrapped in a tone I never thought Maher was capable of reaching, a tone of pitiful sadness.

He shifted to a lumbering warrior shout that made me bound back. "Holy shit, did Majd do this?"

I stayed silent, my head down, and arms lifting my purse against my chest as if it were a bulwark against humiliation.

"You need to talk to the police, this has to stop."

I knelt back on the mat, defeated, "No, I can’t."

That afternoon we spent hours talking, he canceled his clients, his classes, all of it for me. I knew too well he needed that money but the taste of unburdening myself was overwhelming. For the first time in so many years, my layers were skinned off my body, they sat there on the floor for Maher to dissect and judge. I told him about the choking, the smacks, and the sex, Maher gaped and grew wearier with every element of my stories, his face wrinkled and aged like one of those YouTube time-lapses within the hour.

"It won’t work, I can’t get a divorce, you know how the Maronite Church is, besides everything is in his name, I get nothing if we get a nullity." I hammered the mat with a fist to hold the waterworks back, the vibration made me wince.

Divorce does not exist. You are married forever.

"You can’t stay in the house with him, it’s not safe for you."

"I’m going to stay at a hotel for a few days and I’ll keep the kids at the sitter’s house so I can decide what to do. The new things I’m learning about him are killing me."

He leaned in again, "I need to tell you something. He’s using high dosages of anabolic steroids, the hard stuff, it could be linked to his behavior, but he was always an asshole. You need to be careful."

His hand was on my thigh, his aftershave close to my lips, I could sense the heat from his face against my skin, and he was closing in. I hugged him hard, evaded his head by placing mine on his shoulders. We shared that same hug we had around twenty years ago when Nasima caught us. When he got punished for something he did not do.

"I’m still married," I whispered in his ear.

I left the gym and called Jonathan again, he finally picked up so I told him to meet me tomorrow.

I haven’t written anything related to my Ph.D. in the last five days, I haven’t read nor researched, my entire psyche is wrapped around Majd, and that murder. I wanna run, far, and never look back, but the fetter is my children, and the life I’ve built here.

At home, I packed my suitcase, waited for the sitter to pick the kids then began my investigation. I googled the anabolic steroids he told me about and got bombarded with a numberless amount of studies, I devoured all of them. Delusions, increased aggression, hyperactive Libido, oily skin, excessive hair growth, Insomnia, testicular shrinking, male pattern baldness. The list went on as if profiling Majd. I went into his study, his import folders were in the safe, the code was the date of our marriage. He used that code for pretty much everything. To think that in all those years I was blinded by happiness, I was blinded by his lies, by the money he made. I was such an idiot to trust him.

When I searched the safe, I found a contract signed six years ago that made my nerves barbwire. My sensorium was on overdrive, my mind and body did what they do best, analyze. Thoughts coursed through my synapses, memories were nailed to words and linked to events. A system that hived sizable amounts of data was being overheated and strained under my will. The fights, Majd, the port, Tanious, the money. A Devine self-disclosure outvied my reality. I finally drew a logical conclusion about what’s been happening to us in the last few days.

The septic cloud exploded.