Grab Life by the Balls

"I mean, I'm not a man. I'm a wuss...a pussy - whatever you wanna call it. I've sucked at dealing with women my entire life. My father committed suicide when I was fourteen, Pat." I was stunned at the revelation. "My mother was beautiful but she was an alcoholic who treated him like shit and fucked every guy possible. If it had pulse and a dick, my mother probably slept with it."

"Jesus, Dean. I can only imagine."

"For my father, death was his only escape. He bailed on me when I needed him the most in my life. The worst part is, after my dad killed himself, most men in our town wanted nothing more to do with my mother. I think they saw her as damaged goods. I don't even think of my dad's death as a suicide anymore, really. I think of it as him dying of humiliation more than anything.

"Dad left us a sizable insurance policy and that's pretty much what we lived off until I graduated high school. My mom went through a period of grief, although it was probably guilt at how she treated him more than anything. At least she felt something after he died."

"I'm so sorry, Dean. I had no idea about your dad. I haven't even spoken to my own dad since my mother died a couple of years ago."

Dean gave me a weak smile of appreciation. "The worst part, Pat, is what happened after my mother decided she was over her grief period. I was almost sixteen at the time. She was getting almost no attention from men. Suddenly, she started turning into the most loving and caring woman. She could have been mother of the year, if not for her being drunk a good portion of the time."

I narrowed my eyes as I listened, afraid of where the conversation was leading.

"I'd sit at my desk in my room, doing my school work. School was all I had, it was all I had ever been good at. At least it helped take my mind off my dad and the woman my mother had become. At first, it was just a lot of hugging, long hugs. Then she would come sit by me as I did my school work and just constantly caress my back, my arms, my legs.

"Eventually, that progressed to her coming into my room late at night and just wanting to hold me and be close to me. She would often just lay there caressing my chest and stomach, my arms and legs. Lots of times she would eventually just pass out or fall asleep and wake up with a hangover."

Dean took a long swig and finished his rum and coke, motioning to Hal for a refill.

"But one night, Pat, when I was seventeen she went even further. She started touching places she shouldn't. I knew it was wrong. I thought she was just trying to be a loving mother at first but this was so wrong. The worst part was I couldn't help myself. I couldn't stop my body from reacting. I was young, seventeen years old. I was as horny as any other kid my age. She would do things to me with her hands and her mouth.

"I didn't know what to do, Pat. On the one hand everything felt so good and I couldn't stop thinking about it. But on the other hand, I knew it was wrong and the guilt started to eat me up. The shame was becoming overwhelming but I couldn't make her stop. She was in my head, telling me that she was doing it because she loved me."

Hal returned with a fresh rum and coke for Dean and he immediately took a long drink. The alcohol was definitely having an effect and the walls were quickly coming down. My heart was genuinely aching and breaking for Dean. He had to have been so vulnerable and confused after his father's death. His mother taking advantage of him like this was sickening and despicable.

"My mother actually surprised me with a party on my eighteenth birthday. I hadn't had a party since I was little but there were a couple of my classmates there as well as some relatives. So to me, it felt like a really big deal. My mother even surprised me with my first car, a 1986 Buick Grand National. It wasn't much to look at, really, but to me it might as well have been a Ferrari, you know?"

I nodded as Dean smiled at the memory. But his smile quickly faded as he continued.

"That night I took a shower before bed. As I got out of the shower, I noticed that my clothes weren't where I had left them on the vanity. I toweled off quick, wrapped it around me and walked back to my room. As soon as I got in there the lights went out and my towel got yanked off. It was dark and all I could hear was my mother say, 'now it's time for your REAL birthday present'. And that was my first time, the night of my 18^th birthday. I lost my virginity to my own mother." And then Dean broke down.

It took a few minutes for him to compose himself. I stayed silent and just let it come out on its own. It needed to. If anything was ever going to be right in the world for him ever again then the wounds needed to be exposed before they could start to heal.

"And that was how the rest of my senior year went between my mom and me. I couldn't make my body not react to her. It had a mind of its own. Most of the time I would come home from school and I could just see that look in her eyes and knew what she would do that night. For some reason, I was powerless to stop it. It was really the only kind of love I had ever known from her since I was a small child. I guess as bad as everything was for me up to that point, psychologically I was willing to accept whatever love I could get.

"But I quickly realized that I was becoming a social cripple with anyone my own age. I absolutely couldn't relate to girls my own age. I knew what my mother was doing to me was totally wrong. And the constant shame and guilt I was feeling also made me have an irrational fear that everyone knew what was going on. It felt like everyone was in on the secret and just pretended not to be when they were around me.

"I would go to school, Pat, and just be immersed in my books. When I wasn't in class, I was in a corner at the library - studying and just being away from people. I was being torn in two by a desire to go home at the end of the school day knowing what was going to happen while another part of me wanted to run as far and as fast as I possibly could. I couldn't stop my mind and body from desiring my mother but I also couldn't shut off the part of my brain that overwhelmed me with shame." Dean burst into tears yet again.

"My God, Dean, I can't imagine how you survived growing up like that. I think you're a stronger person than you give yourself credit for."

"I'm not strong, Pat. If I was strong I would have confronted her. I would have told someone, a school counselor or my pastor at church. But I didn't. I just let it happen because it was easier."

"No, Dean, you didn't just let it happen. Your mother took advantage of all the trauma and tragedy of your life and hers and she used it to manipulate you and sexually abuse you, Dean. You were a young man who experienced a lot of shit in a short amount of time and at a very young age. Of course you didn't know how to deal with it!"

"But the worst part, Pat, was I liked it on the one hand and I was repulsed and full of shame on the other. That was the dichotomy I couldn't reconcile. It never made sense to me then and it doesn't make sense to me now. Especially because I couldn't shut my body off. I couldn't keep myself from being aroused! It was like I wanted it to happen!"

"Dean, listen to me. What happened to you is no different than what happens to a lot of women who are raped. It isn't often talked about, mostly because of the shame and stigma involved. But a lot of women who are raped will actually become aroused. Their vagina will actually lubricate and many will even experience an orgasm, believe it or not. But just because those things happen DOES NOT mean that the woman consented or asked for the rape to occur. Does that make sense?"

"It's different for men, Pat."

"No, Dean, it isn't. It is called a natural reaction to stimuli. It is something you can't control. It is no different than your eyes dilating when it is dark and then constricting when it is bright outside."

"Two totally separate things, Pat. I should have been able to control myself."

I let out a sigh of frustration. And then I thought of something. "Are you ticklish, Dean?"

"What?"

"It's a simple question, Dean. Are you ticklish or not."

"Uh, yeah, I am actually," he said, wondering where I was going with this.

"Have you ever in your entire life been tickled so hard that you almost had tears pouring out of your eyes?"

Dean smiled. "Yeah, my Dad used to do that to me sometimes when I was little. I'd beg him to stop and he'd keep on going."

"Did you like that or did you hate it? Because I always hated when my sister Beth would do that to me when I was little, too."

"Yeah, I guess I hated it at the time, Pat."

"Ah, you hated it. That's to be expected. But let me ask you this: What were you doing the entire time your father was tickling you senseless?"

Dean thought for a moment. "I dunno. Laughing, I guess."

"Yes. You were almost certainly laughing hysterically. Any why were you laughing? Did that mean you enjoyed it? Did that mean you wanted to be tickled like that?"

"No, I just couldn't help it...oh, yeah. Yeah, I get it."

"Exactly! Sometimes, when our bodies are violated, we can't always control the response. The fact that women may experience physical arousal is interpreted by some doctors and psychologists as a natural response by her body to help lessen the physical trauma that the rape will cause. It does NOT mean that she is emotionally aroused NOR does it mean that she consented. 'NO' still means NO!

"Likewise," I explained, "arousal in a young, virile eighteen year old male whose body and brain and bloodstream is FULL of raging hormones DOES NOT mean that you wanted or consented to your mother's unwanted sexual advances. Does that make sense?"

Dean cried softly, nodding his head.

"What happened to you was NOT your fault, Dean. Understand?"

"I know, Pat," he said, drying his eyes. "Just been carrying all of that shit for a long time."

Just then, Hal the bartender came over. "Everything okay, Sheriff?"

"Yeah, everything's fine, Hal. In fact, why don't you bring us another round?"

"Sure thing."

A minute later he was back with our refills.

"So," I said, trying to change gears. "Do you wanna tell me what that phone call between you and Mercedes was all about on the way over here?"

"Jesus, Pat. I don't even know where to start with her. Take everything that happened with my mom growing up and magnify it times one hundred and you've got all the shit I'm dealing with over Mercedes."

"Like I said earlier, Dean. I'm not here to judge. I'm here to help."

Dean took a long sip of his drink. "I graduated from high school, Pat, and ran as far and as fast from Peoria, Illinois as I could. I got an academic scholarship offer to Penn State for computer science. I was still so fucked up. I had zero social life. The only outlet I had was occasionally meeting up with some people from a programming club that met a couple times a month.

"So combine a total nerd with a history of sexual abuse and you have a 21 year old geek who is officially invisible to girls."

"How did you and Mercedes meet, then?"

"Mercedes grew up in Allentown. She went to school for a couple of years at Penn State Altoona and eventually transferred to State College. I had a roommate my junior year that I actually got to be pretty good friends with. He was dating a girl who was friends with Mercedes and the two of them brought us along one time on an unofficial blind date. We didn't actually start dating until my senior year and only after I had finished a fairly prestigious internship with Sun Microsystems that summer. Well, it was prestigious to me, anyway."

"Don't sell yourself short, Dean. You don't need to downplay your success for anyone."

"Yeah, thanks, Pat," he smiled. "But getting back to the story, Mercedes and I started just doing things with my roommate, Ben, and his girlfriend Robin. You know, just stuff together as couples. About halfway through my senior year at Penn State, Mercedes kind of decided we were officially a couple. I think she saw me as someone who was potentially successful and, more important, someone who was safe."

"Nothing wrong with being either one of those things, Dean."

"Yeah, I guess. But Mercedes was the one who was pretty much driving the relationship. I pretty much surrendered to her and everything she wanted. Our sexual relationship didn't start until I nearly graduated and about the same time as when I got my first job offer with Innovative Technology Solutions in Minneapolis. It was an incredible offer for someone right out of school. Eighty-thousand to start with and exceptional benefits, too.

"I was getting everything I thought I wanted - a great job in a great city and a beautiful woman to share my life with. But everywhere we went together, either during my last few weeks in school or after we moved to the Twin Cities, people treated me like I was invisible when Mercedes and I were together. Men would just come up and start talking to her, openly flirting or hitting on her even in my presence. It was incredibly emasculating. But I think for Mercedes she started to understand how truly beautiful she really was and I think it started having an effect on her."

"How so?"

"After we became physically intimate a lot of my old insecurities and past issues started to come up. I had a lot of problems making love to my wife because of everything that happened to me years before. Either I couldn't perform when I wanted to or I couldn't make it last long enough to satisfy Mercedes. I'm a bookworm so I tried to read everything I could to try and be everything she needed me to be, but I just never seemed to get any better at it.

"Finally, Mercedes got so upset with me and threatened to leave me if I didn't go along with a plan she had come up with."

"What was her plan, Dean?"

"She said that if I couldn't satisfy her the way she needed to be, then she wanted to go out and find someone who could. She promised me that it wouldn't be very often, just something she needed to do before she went crazy. And because I was too weak to demand that she didn't, I was stupid enough to agree to it."

"What happened then?"

"She met someone that she wanted to have a 'date' with and ended up going out with him for a whole weekend. When she came home, she was absolutely insatiable. She even brought home some Viagra pills that she had acquired from the guy and gave them to me to try. In a strange way, it was invigorating to see how much she desired me again. And the pills made me stronger and able to last much longer than I could have before. It actually gave me a sense of confidence that I never had before."

"I sense a 'but' coming in this conversation," I added.

"Yeah, a big 'but', too. Things were great for a while, like I said. Pretty soon we were expecting our first child, Brandon. Our daughter Brynne followed only a year after. She wouldn't talk about it at first, but Mercedes had problems with post-partum depression after each one. She was never close to hurting either of our kids but she just wasn't the same, either.

"Eventually, she decided the only way to be happy again was a repeat of her one-time sexual encounter with another man. I only wanted her to be happy again, so I once again reluctantly agreed. She seemed happy again and our sex life was recharged. But Mercedes made a decision that if doing it once made her this happy, then doing it often would KEEP her happy. She basically decided that she would see men outside of our marriage more often. And she said that if I really loved her, I would want her to do this. It was then that I realized I was too weak to stop her."

"You had a lot of trauma to deal with, Dean. They were issues that were never resolved and each time you were faced with them, psychologically, it was probably hard for you to not revert emotionally back to that time when you were abused."

"Call it whatever you want, Pat. But the bottom line is that I didn't stand up for myself when I should have. I didn't demand more out of my marriage than I should have. I just let her do whatever she wanted because I thought that, by doing so, it would show her how much I loved her. As much as I hated the idea of her being with other men, I was absolutely terrified of being alone."

"So she started seeing other men regularly?" I asked.

"Pretty much whenever she wanted. After a while, she started to get really snotty and bitchy about it. That's when the comments, insults and humiliation started. It was a little comment here and there, flaunting her infidelity in my face. Eventually even the men she was with started getting in on it and openly mocking me, as well. They would brag to me and tell me how they were going to take my wife to their place or a hotel and fuck her in ways that I could only dream of.

"At least Mercedes and I were still having sex together back then. She would often go on her 'dates' and come home and want me to have sex with her again. But then that devolved into only giving me oral sex or finishing me with her hand and only allowing me to perform oral sex on her. She seemed to really enjoy humiliating me by making me eat her pussy right after she had sex with someone else.

"She began to see one man exclusively. His name was Derek Wittrock. Worst of all, he was one of my supervisors at ITS. Derek eventually insisted that Mercedes stop having sex with me altogether. Sometimes, they would insist that I be present when they had sex and that I was only allowed to masturbate as I watched them. It didn't excite me at all, Pat. I couldn't even perform that miniscule sexual function and that just gave them more fodder for humiliating me."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing from Dean. I thought Clarissa's treatment of me was bad enough but it paled in comparison to what Dean had to go through.

"Did you ever tell anyone about this? How long did their affair go on?" I asked.

"It lasted over two years. It only ended shortly before we moved to Red River Falls. I was making almost $100,000 a year at that point. I was actually promoted to a position that would have put me ahead of Derek but he and Mercedes threatened me and told me to turn it down. Derek was much bigger and physically stronger. I've always been built like a marathon runner."

"What finally ended it?"

"Turning down a promotion like that raised a big flag. Eventually the VP of R&D did some digging around and Mercedes' and Derek's affair was exposed. Derek was terminated for cause. I was retained, for the time being, but was 'strongly encouraged' to seek employment elsewhere in exchange for the highest recommendation from ITS. That was towards the end of the Great Recession and jobs were still hard to come by. I was lucky to get my position with Mason County and move here. But Mercedes has never forgiven me for it and blames me for ending her affair. Plus, she despises Red River Falls."

"So how does Brad enter into the picture?"

"She met Brad at the Pump House gym. Mercedes was going there on a regular basis and Brad worked as a part-time freelance personal trainer. He started off by giving her 'free' pointers on her workout routine. Eventually, one thing led to another and Brad Weston became Derek Wittrock version 2.0."

I finished the last of my pint of Killian's and motioned for Hal to bring me a refill as well as one for Dean.

"With Brad," Dean continued, "the humiliation has just gotten worse and worse. I'm not allowed to sleep in my own bedroom and bed anymore. That's reserved for Brad and Mercedes only."

"Where do you sleep, then? A guest room?"