Sugar Doll

He called today and I answered it because I needed to tell him that when the divorce papers came, he should just let them go or sign them uncontested.

“Why baby? Why would you do that?” the sob was in his voice and it was the same thing I’ve heard for months. The same thing I heard when he was picked up once before and called me from lockup.

 

“I need to do this to move on. I have nightmares and wake up yelling at the dark.  I need to file my taxes without all your bullshit weighing me down.  I need help and can only get it if I’m not married and mostly because it’s just…over.” I let it hang and didn’t follow it up. 

He immediately came back with the pleading, “I’m a changed man baby, you’re the one that’s done that for me.”

“Bullshit, 8 months in there has done that for you, it’s just too bad you never woke up when I was still stupid enough to keep you the center of my whole world.” I was so angry and breathless and sick of the pleading and the begging and the back and forth.  I answered his call because I needed to know which jail to send the papers to and if he were going to be there for a while yet.  It sucked the life out of me and sitting on my back porch I could feel myself shrinking into my chair. It’s like he had one of those vacu-sealers and was slowly sucking the resistance and fight out of me.

“Baby, it’s not this place, it’s you. You’ve done this for me, I’m going to be the man you deserve, I’m going to build you a life like you’ve never dreamed… I promise. You just wait.” The boastful, prideful, pie in the sky delusions of grandeur that he always had were there. I could hear it. It strengthened me a little because I knew it for the bullshit it was.

“You’ve been saying those things to me for seven years and they never amount to anything more than talk. Just let it go. Let this all go and quit worrying about it.  Just start over somewhere else, with someone else.” He just came back with more of the same and then I said it. I said the thing I knew would crush him more than divorce papers, more than me telling him I wouldn’t answer his calls anymore, more than me telling him I didn’t love him any longer.

“I’m seeing someone else.” The adrenaline rushed through me. I tasted it like pennies in my mouth.  I was still scared to say this to him. After all the deception, the lies, the hurt and heartache, I was still scared.

He turned on me then and I knew that he would.  It was what he did like a caged animal backed into a corner, he came out swinging. “I knew you were seeing someone, I knew something was going on. I KNEW IT!  I’m sorry your family has you so screwed up that you’d turn against me like that.”

I went batshit crazy on him then, “YOU FUCKED THIS UP! YOU DID IT, NO ONE ELSE! I LET YOU DO IT BUT YOU DID IT.  DON’T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT MY FAMILY WHEN ALL THEY’VE DONE IS HELP ME! YOU ARE A FUCKING SOCIOPATH!”

He quietly said, “I’m sorry you never loved me the way I loved you, I can see that now.”

I went from screaming to laughing…hysterically.  If anyone was listening to me on my back porch there, they’d have thought I was a total nutjob.  Who’m I kidding? I am a total nutjob at this point. 

“I adored and worshipped you, you moron and you took that and used it against me. You took my heart and threw it in a blender and hit frappe’ ” I felt the tears welling up.  I willed them away. Don’t let me cry, don’t let me cry, don’t let me cry. He’ll pounce if I cry. He’ll get me if I cry.

Then the inevitable, “Who is it? Who have you been seeing? How long? Do I know him”

I sort of sank back a little more and the pennies were back.  “No one you know and it’s none of your business. We’re done and it’s my business not yours.”

You could hear him shift gears and I’ve heard him do it before. He changes tactics when things are slipping out of his grip.  “I’ll forgive you anything baby. I had it coming and I’ll forgive you anything. We belong together and it’s all going to get better. It’s going to BE better. I will build a life for you that you never dreamed of. We’re going to be together. It’s all alright.”

I couldn’t hold them back anymore, the tears came out in great wracking sobs and I begged, “Please if you love me like you say you do, just leave me in peace and when the papers come, just sign them. Please.”

Then his delusions and the maddening sick grip he has on what he’s built in his mind came back, “I don’t believe you’d do that to me baby.  You wouldn’t do that. You don’t have it in you.  You’d never cheat on me like that. I know you wouldn’t.  You’re lying so I’ll be mad enough to sign those papers.”

My incredulity almost made me start laughing again but I have been seeing someone. Someone he knows and knows well.  Someone he’d kill if he knew. I contemplated saying, Why don’t you call ??? and ask him?  But instead I just didn’t say anything before I did any irreparable damage to someone else’s life besides my own. I stayed silent. I didn’t know what to say and he just kept repeating my name over and over until I snapped out of it.

“Please Tucker, don’t call me anymore, it’s pointless. I just need you to sign those papers and you and I both know if you drag this through court, you’ll lose.  Don’t make it any harder than it has to be.  Just sign them. This, whatever it is, is over.”

“I’ll let you go right now baby but you just know this old sonofabitch has learned his lesson and I’m gonna do right by you. No matter what, just be my friend.  Let me still talk to you.”

I couldn’t take another minute of it, I said goodbye and I pulled the phone away from my ear to hear him yelling, “I love you Sugar Doll.”

I hung up the phone and sobbed.  Sugar Doll. He had called me that so many times when we were together. When it was good.  In the back of my mind, for a split second, I envisioned us tangled up together wrapped in each other's arms and his calling me that. It provoked a primitive, visceral, physical reaction that doubled me over and literally hurt my heart so badly I couldn’t breathe.

He’s a sociopath; he took your everything and wrung it out until you were a wasted shell. The litany of his wrongdoings running in my head eventually drowned out those two little words and worked to smother the visions of sheer joy,  however fleeting they might have been.