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Halfway through our second year of marriage, Nick's determination to get me pregnant had become all-consuming. I half suspected he would kill me if he knew I was still secretly taking birth control pills, so I hid them in one of my purses shoved back in a corner of our closet.
Convinced that the problem was me �" it couldn't possibly be him �" Nick sent me to the doctor. I cried in the doctor's office for an hour, telling him I felt anxious and miserable and had no idea why, and I came home with a prescription for antidepressants.
"You can't take that crap," Nick said, crumpling the slip of paper and tossing it into the trash. "It might be bad for the baby."
Our nonexistent baby. I thought guiltily of the pill I took every morning, a secret act that had become my last desperate bid for autonomy. It was difficult on the weekends, when Nick watched me like a hawk. I had to dash into the closet when he was in the shower, fumble for the cardboard wheel, pop a pill out and take it dry. If he caught me . . . I didn't know what he'd do.
"What did the doctor say about getting pregnant?" Nick asked, watching me closely.
"He said it could take up to a year."
I hadn't mentioned a word to the doctor about trying to get pregnant, only asked for my birth control prescription to be renewed.
"Did he tell you when the best days were? The days you're most fertile?"
"Right before I ovulate."
"Let's look at the calendar and figure it out. How long into the cycle do you ovulate?"
"Ten days, I guess."
As we went to the calendar, which I always marked with an X on the days my period started, my reluctance didn't seem to matter to Nick. I was going to be invaded, impregnated, and forced to go through the birthing process simply because he had decided so.
"I don't want it," I heard myself say in a sullen tone.
"You'll be happy once it happens."
"I still don't want it. I'm not ready."
Nick slammed the calendar onto the counter with such force, it sounded like the crack of a gunshot. "You'll never be ready. It'll never happen unless I push you into it. For God's sake, Marie, will you grow up and be a woman?"
I started to shake. Blood rushed up to my face, adrenaline pumping through my overworked heart. "I am a woman. I don't have to have a baby to prove that."
"You're a spoiled bitch. A parasite. That's why your family doesn't give a damn about you."
My own temper exploded. "And you're a selfish jerk!"
He slapped me so hard it whipped my face to the side, and my eyes watered heavily. There was a high-pitched whine in my ears. I swallowed and held my cheek. "You said you'd never do that again," I said hoarsely.
Nick was breathing heavily, his eyes crazy-wide. "It's your fault for driving me nuts. Damn it all, I'm going to straighten your ass out." He grabbed me by one arm, his other hand fisting in my hair, and he hauled me into the living room. He was shouting filthy words, shoving me facedown over an ottoman.
"No," I cried, smothered in the upholstery. "No."
But he jerked down my jeans and panties and drove into my dry flesh, and it hurt, a fierce pinching pain that turned to raw fire, and I knew he had torn something inside me. He thrust harder, faster, easing only when I stopped saying no and fell silent, my tears sliding in a hot salty trail down to the cushion. I tried to think beyond the pain, told myself it would be over soon, just take it, take it, he'll be done in a minute.
One last bruising thrust, and Nick shuddered over me, and I shuddered too as I thought of the swimming liquid inside me. I wanted nothing to do with his babies. I wanted nothing to do with sex either.
I gasped with relief as he pulled out, heat trickling down my thighs. There were the sounds of Nick zipping and fastening his pants.
"Your period's started," he said gruffly.
We both knew it was too early for my period. That wasn't where the blood had come from. I said nothing, only lifted myself from the ottoman and pulled my clothes in place.
Nick spoke again, sounding more normal. "I'll finish cooking dinner while you clean yourself up. What do I need to do?"
"Boil the pasta."
"How long?"
"Twelve minutes."
I hurt from my waist to my knees. I'd never had rough sex with Nick before. It was rape, a small voice said inside, but I immediately told myself that if I had only relaxed a little more, been less dry, it wouldn't have hurt nearly as much. But I didn't want it, the voice persisted.
I stood and flinched at the brutal throbbing soreness, and began to hobble to the bathroom.
"A little less drama, if you don't mind," I heard Nick say.
I was silent as I continued to the bathroom and closed the door. I started the shower, made it as hot as I could stand it, and I undressed and got in. I stood in the spray for what seemed like forever, until my body was stinging and clean and aching. I was in a fog of bewilderment, wondering how my life had come to this. Nick would not be pacified until I'd had a baby, and then he would want another, and the unwinnable game of trying to please him would never end.
This was not a matter of trying to sit down and talk honestly with someone about your feelings. That only worked when your feelings mattered. Nick, even when he seemed to be listening, was only gathering points to be used against me later. Someone else's pain, whether emotional or physical, didn't register with him. But I had thought he loved me. Had he changed so much since we'd gotten married, or had I made a fatal misjudgment?
Turning off the shower, I wrapped a towel around my sore body and went to the mirror. I used my hand to wipe a circle in the fogged mirror. My face was distorted, one eye swollen at the outside corner.
The bathroom door rattled. "You've been in there too long. Come out and eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"Open the goddamn door and stop sulking."
I unlocked the door and opened it, and stood facing him, this angry man who looked ready to tear me apart. I was afraid of him, but even more than that, I was utterly defeated. I had tried so hard to play by his rules, but he kept changing them.
"I'm not going to apologize this time," he said. "You were asking for it. You know better than to talk to me like that."
"If we had children," I told him, "you would hit them too."
Fresh rage began to color his face. "Shut your mouth."
"You would," I insisted. "You would knock them around whenever they did something you didn't like. That's one of the reasons I don't want your baby."
Nick's lack of reaction scared me. It became so quiet that the drip-drip from the showerhead made me flinch. He stared at me without blinking, his hazel eyes flat and shiny like buttons. Drip. Drip. Drip. Gooseflesh rose over my naked body, the towel damp and cold around me.
"Where are they?" he asked abruptly, and pushed past me. He started rummaging through the bathroom drawers, tossing out compacts and hairpins and brushes, everything clattering to the wet tile floor.
"Where are what?" I asked, my heart kicking into overdrive, going so wild that it made my rib cage hurt. I was amazed at how calm I sounded when terror was corroding my insides like battery acid. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
He threw an empty water glass to the floor, smashing it. And he continued to empty out drawers like a madman. "You know exactly what I'm asking."
If he found the birth control pills, he would kill me. A strange, sickening resignation settled beneath the fear, and my pulse quieted. I was light-headed and freezing. "I'm going to get dressed," I said, still calm, even as he broke, ripped, threw, destroyed, liquids and powders spilling, running together in oozing pastel puddles.
I went to my dresser, pulled out jeans and underwear and a T-shirt even though it was late and I should have reached for pajamas. I guess my subconscious had already figured out I wouldn't be sleeping that night. As I finished dressing, Nick stormed into the bedroom and shoved me aside. He pulled out drawers and upended them, emptying my clothes into piles.
"Nick, stop it."
"Tell me where they are!"
"If you're looking for an excuse to hit me again," I said, "just go ahead and do it." I didn't sound defiant. I wasn't even scared anymore. I was weary, the kind of weary you get to when your thoughts and emotions dry up to nothing.
But Nick was determined to find proof that I had betrayed him, and punish me until I would forever be afraid. Finishing with the drawers, he went into the closet and started throwing my shoes and ripping open my purses. I didn't try to run or hide. I just stood there, numb and expectant, waiting for the execution.
He came from the closet with the pills in hand, hell in his face. I dimly understood that he was no more in control of his actions than I was. There was a monster in him that had to be fed, and he wouldn't stop until it was satisfied.
I was grabbed and slammed against the wall, my head filled with white noise as the back of my skull struck the hard surface. Nick hit me harder than he ever had before, his hand closed this time, and I felt my jaw crack. I only understood a few words, something about the pills, and I was going to have all the goddamn pills I wanted, and he tore some from the package and shoved them into my mouth, and tried to hold my jaw shut as I spat and sputtered. He hit me in the stomach and I doubled over, and he dragged me through the first-floor apartment to the front door.
I went hurtling to the ground, landing hard on the edge of the from doorstep. A piercing agony shot through me as his foot connected with my ribs. "You stay there till morning," he snarled. "You think about what you've done."
The door slammed shut.
I lay outside on the pavement, the sun-heated asphalt smoking like a stove plate even though it was dark. October in Texas was as hot as high summer. Cicadas creaked and teemed, the vibration of their tymbals filling the air. After a long time I sat up and spat out a mouthful of salty liquid, and evaluated the damage. I hurt in my stomach and ribs and between the legs, and in the back of the head. My mouth was bleeding, and there was searing pain in my jaw.
My biggest fear was that Nick might open the door and drag me back in.
Trying to think above the violent pounding in my head, I considered my options. No purse. No money. No driver's license. No cell phone. No car keys. No shoes either. I looked down at my bare feet, and I had to laugh even though it hurt my swollen mouth. Shit, this was not good. It occurred to me that I might actually have to wait outside all night like a cat Nick had thrown out. Come morning, he would let me in, and I would crawl back, chastened and defeated.

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