He moved us into a two-bedroom apartment. It had heat. It had actual hot water. It had a shower that worked. The refrigerator was big enough to actually hold food. There was real furniture. It even had a piano for our son. He gave me money for food and proper clothing. He paid for my college tuition. He paid for a babysitter. In exchange, all I had to do was give him sex on demand. He was separated from his wife at the time. A few months later, his marriage had been officially annulled because his wife couldn’t bear children. Later, when she remarried, she had four kids. But at the time it was Chris with the child, so it couldn’t have possibly been his fault that a baby had never been conceived.

After college and medical school, he said he wanted to get married. I told him it wasn’t necessary, but he insisted. He wanted to make it official. He said it tethered him. We were married in a church, and I moved to New York to be with him. It was our first time living together, and that was when the trouble started.

Being with a controlling man … you get so used to it that it seems normal. And you do a lot of rationalization, which is a fancy word for lying to yourself. Yes, he’s having sex with other women—and men, as it turns out—but he doesn’t really care about those people. Yes, he’s cruel and heartless, but only when he’s drunk or stoned or angry or frustrated or jealous … or maybe it’s because the sun is in the wrong astrological sign. Look at all the good stuff he does. He supports you, he gives you money, he pays for your schooling. And, stupid person that you are, you convince yourself that it’s okay.

At least, he doesn’t beat me up.

Until he did.

The kicker was that when I started the dalliance with Devek, I wasn’t in a bad place. Chris was gone a lot, working on a grandiose plan to develop a super-brothel in Nevada, which I thought was a very stupid idea. Shows you what I knew. But I never voiced any opinions on his plans, and he never asked me what I thought. It was his life and his money, and at least he wasn’t killing people. Plus, it had the added benefit of keeping him away from me and Gabe for stretches at a time. When he came home, he’d still want lots of sex, but that was okay with me. He was really good in bed and anxious to please when he was sober.