Suspect O (EV 9)

I knew that marrying the Ogre was a mistake at least 6 months before our wedding and the week before, I was ready to back out. But I was young, and the invitation cards had gone out and people had flown from all over the world for the wedding, so I stayed silent. I also did not want to return to my father’s home either – so you could say that I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Ogre had an addiction to chewing tobacco. Only after we got married did I discover this, as he began spitting in the streets, leaving a trail of red in his wake. It looked disgusting. It smelt repulsive. And it made me sick.

You may wonder why I did not notice this earlier, but he lived in a completely different country to me, I only saw him for 5 days twice a year before our marriage. So about 20 days in total. I know this sounds ridiculous but we weren’t rich enough to get more frequent flights and he couldn’t get the travel documents sorted – for dodgy reasons that we won’t go into.

Anyway, other than the fact the chewing tobacco made me sick and during the awful times he would attempt to bounce on me in unwanted encounters, sometimes, I would physically gag from the awful stench.

His mother had taught him to spit the red crap out in a nice plastic bottle which he kept at the side of the bed at night. In the morning, it would be full with red saliva and the whole room stank. I was expected to empty and wash that bottle, ready for the next night.

Once we were sharing a coke and popcorn at the cinema, and I went to take a sip of the coke – and it wasn’t coke. He had used the plastic cup to spit but just failed to inform me. On that occasion, I did throw up.

When he didn’t take the chewing tobacco, he got really angry. It had a similar effect to the withdrawal symptoms one would get from drugs. This made flying with him particularly unbearable.

On our first mini-trip to Switzerland, post-wedding, our flight went via Paris. I can’t remember why but there was some kind of issue which meant that our connecting flight had been delayed and would be taking off the following morning. The airport staff were very helpful and said that as I was a British citizen, I would be provided with a hotel, but the Ogre wasn’t – he would have to stay at the airport. I looked at his enraged face, red, venomous, dangerous. Of course I wasn’t going to leave my husband, I said. I tried to argue with them but they refused to budge, so I spent an uncomfortable night on a metal chair too. However, somehow, this was my fault and even my sacrifice did not stop him from hurling profanities and expletives at me in front of all the other passengers. I felt ashamed and humiliated. One thing I think now looking back at the persistent abuse I faced is that the constant attack on my dignity and self respect persistently chipped away at my soul and self-confidence.

That wasn’t the only time he behaved like that in airports. I began to dread travelling with him but because we had to go back to his homeland each summer, and I had already stolen him away from his mother, so I couldn’t escape it either. Apart from those compulsory trips, I stopped any other form of travel with him – even sitting in the car – and he started taking his mother to exotic holidays instead. Sometimes, I even paid him to go. Those days of freedom were bliss.