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‘She should get as far away from Stacey as possible,’ Felix says baldly.
I shiver. The damp from the river must be getting to me.
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘Stacey’s like a Venus flytrap,’ he says, his tone bitter. ‘She likes fucking with people. She lures you in, and by the time you realise what’s happening, it’s too late.’
‘How did she get that black eye, Felix?’ I ask quietly.
He hunches his shoulders deeper into his jacket.
‘It’s what shewants,’ he says abruptly. ‘She likes me to choke her when we … when we have sex. Until she almost passes out. She likes it rough. I mean reallyrough, Tom.’ His voice thickens with shame. ‘She creates these … thesefantasiesfor us to act out. I have to attack her. Pretend to rape her. She makes me hit her.’ He looks away again. ‘It makes me sick to my stomach.’
I have no idea what to say, so I say nothing.
He turns from the river, and the two of us resume walking along the Embankment. He doesn’t speak again for quite a while.
‘It didn’t start out like this,’ he says finally. ‘She was only twenty-four when I met her. She told me she was into a bit of S&M, bondage, that sort of thing, but who doesn’t experiment at that age? I found it erotic at first: you know, a little bit of spanking, a pair of fluffy handcuffs. My first wife didn’t like sex at all – at least, not sex withme. Sex with Stacey was exciting.’
I really don’t need to hear this. ‘Look, you don’t have to tell me if you—’
‘God, it’s a relief to talk about it,’ Felix says, his voice raw. ‘I’ve never told anyone before.’
River water laps at the wall below us as a boat goes past, and a pair of seagulls wheel overhead. In the distance, a police siren blares. I’ve got no idea what to say to Felix: I barely know the bloke, but maybe that’s why he feels he can talk to me.
‘Things changed after we got married,’ Felix says. ‘It took more and more to … you know.Satisfyher. In bed. It stopped being erotic or fun for me. I started to say no. We went months where we hardly had sex at all.’
For a long moment, I think he’s done talking. We walk along the pavement in silence for a while, pausing only to allow a group of teenage boys pushing and laughing and shoving at each other to go past.
‘After Archie was born, things started to escalate,’ he says at last. ‘It didn’t happen all at once, Tom. At first she’d just throw plates, or punch the wall. But one day instead of hitting the wall, she hit me instead. She cried afterwards and told me it’d never happen again, but of course it did. Things got worse after Archie went to boarding school. Once she even broke a wine bottle over my head, and I ended up in hospital with concussion.’
‘Shehitsyou?’
‘I don’t expect you to believe me,’ he says again.
The #MeToo movement is all about believing the woman. But surely it should be about believing thevictim.
What if Stacey’s the aggressor? What ifFelixis the one being abused?
A decade ago, I wouldn’t have considered it even a possibility, but two years ago I worked on cybersecurity for a men’s rights campaign group: it blew my mind when I found out a third of all victims of domestic abuse are male. According to the government’s own statistics, three-quarters of a million men are attacked by their partners every year, and twelve arekilledby them. But no man wants to admit he’s been beaten up by agirl.
The scratches on Felix’s forearms: what if they weredefensivewounds?
I know better than to ask him why he doesn’t leave her if what he says is true. He could give me a list of excuses, but at the end of the day he stays for the same reason Millie’s mother stayed, for the same reasonallabuse victims stay.
Deep down, they think they deserve what they get.
Felix stops walking and turns to face me, digging his hands even deeper into his pockets. ‘I thought if I tried to give her what she wanted in bed, it’d help with her … frustration,’ he says. ‘But it’s like she’s passed the point of no return. The attacks are getting worse. It’s as if she’s been holding herself in check all this time and now she can’t stop. Doesn’twantto stop.’
‘Jesus Christ, Felix. And you haven’t talked about it? Withanyone?’
‘We saw a marriage counsellor together a couple of times, but I was too ashamed to tell her what was really going on. The woman said we needed to visit her separately to break thecycle of codependency. Stacey wouldn’t agree to that, and I couldn’t see any point doing it on my own.’ He lets out a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Proves the woman’s point, I suppose.’
‘You can’t go on like this, Felix,’ I say urgently. ‘You have a kid. You both need to get your shit together for his sake. Surely Stacey must realise this … your relationship … she must know it isn’t normal?’
‘She does, but she thinks it’s part of what keeps us together.’ His eyes are shadowed. ‘She’s got this idea we have some sort of shared sickness, and if we cure it, it’ll destroy us.’ He shrugs. ‘Maybe she’s right. I mean, it’s not abuse, not really. Not if Ilether do it.’
‘Bullshit,’ I say succinctly.
