The Secret Gets Out–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–October 1992, Part 2
A few days later, on Tuesday the 6th, I wrote this in-class assignment, myself from the point of view of Counselor Dude:
She’s very quiet, especially in class. Then you can’t usually get a word out of her unless you ask her a question. She will talk to her friends, though. When she does say something, you have to get her to speak up, or else strain to hear her.
Sometimes she acts like I’m going to bite her. I think she only sat at my end of the table because she’d be close to her friends, the people she did talk to. I remember once when Julie sat next to her. D–n, did she laugh and laugh! I believe she said some funny things to Julie, too.
Oh, and that’s another thing. You should see her wince when I cuss. That’s one thing you never hear her do, besides speak up in class. Wouldn’t that be a d–n fun thing, getting her to say “F–k!” I wonder how a person could do it? I hear I “corrupt” people that way, so maybe, if I keep at it, and keep using such words in class….
After Fiction, I was in Pearl’s room with Pearl, Rachel and Catherine. Somehow they forced me–with Catherine’s help–to come out with everything, so I revealed my secret of seven months.
I didn’t want to, but they threatened to take away my blue Flavor-Ice so I’d quit eating it and talk. There were plenty of loud “ooooohs” whenever they tricked me into revealing something Shawn and I had done, such as frenching (I did not tell them everything).
Catherine asked me, “If Peter and Shawn both asked you to the Homecoming Dance, which one would you go with?” I don’t remember my answer, or if I could decide. She said, “You should choose Shawn. Shawn’s nicer.” Peter had recently done something she witnessed that really ticked her off.
I looked at the time and fled; they called it an excuse.
I also told them then about a silly dream of a beetle. That’s where I got my “signature.” Some of my friends began calling me Bebe based on this dream. When I worked the dinner shift, their trays came in with three messages written on napkins, one with a drawing of a beetle.
I didn’t have time to read Rachel’s message, so I stuck it in my pocket, but I threw the other two away so no one would see them, trying not to grin. But part of it read, “Guess who heard us talking about you at dinner?” Oh geez….
With them calling me that and Catherine calling me Stella, I began to sign my name as Bebe-Stella on Pearl and Cindy’s message board. Then they tried to give me another nickname. Sharon or maybe Pearl took my name and started playing with it until she got “Stu.” This one lasted quite a while.
I don’t recall when exactly Shawn told me this, but guys would ask him what was going on between us, and occasionally say, “Nyssa’s looking really pretty today. You should see her.” It sounds like people were shocked that we weren’t “going out,” and maybe they wanted Shawn to make me his actual girlfriend.
***
On October 7, my hopes for a restored friendship with Peter were blown apart. I waited for several days–no answer. Then I talked with Pearl, who told me that her friend Dave O’Hara had been driving outside my dorm with Peter.
I remembered that day, having seen the two of them in Dave’s red car as I headed off somewhere. I was on the sidewalk beside the drive, or very close to it.
Dave did not tell Pearl Peter’s exact words, probably to spare her feelings. But Peter saw me walking and made some sort of nasty comment. I suspected he called me a rude name. I was furious.
Soon afterwards, he called to me by the dorm to return my stuff. “Here’s your discs,” he said, with the air of someone who wants to slap you or throw you into the river.
“Where’s my notebook?” I said, wanting to do the same thing to him.
“What notebook?”
This may have been when he told me that he had gone through his room and not seen a notebook. So, to this day, my precious writing notebook is lost, along with all the notes and other things I had so painstakingly made in it.
So, even though he’d acted like we were friendly again, I wasn’t allowed to be friends with him? I couldn’t even make an overture of friendship without him treating me like mud on his shoe.
This may have been when I began to view the before-mentioned “words” more as something that was supposed to be fulfilled rather than something that I wanted fulfilled. I hated Peter. I wanted Shawn or James, not Peter.
Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)
Table of Contents
Freshman Year
- Meet the Suite
- Orientation
- Meeting Shawn–and a Ninja
- Campus Stories, Wisconsin, Campus Radio Station
- Campus, People, First College Boyfriend
- Dating a Ninja
December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?
April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign
Sophomore Year
October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:
Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams
- Classmate a stand-in for “Rudy”; Jigging at College Dance
- Library Tales
- Happiness Returns
- Living with Friends in Krueger
- Funny Library Stories
- Shawn Calls
- Psycho Roommates and Bug Wars
- Return of Rick
- Adjusting to New Dorm
- Spitball-Throwing Teacher
- Rat-Obsessed Teacher and Doctor Zhivago
- A Teacher Dated a Student; InterVarsity Fun
- Charlie Peacock Concert
- Random Stories
- Letter to Shawn
- Erotic Vampire Dream (Inspiration for Alexander Boa)
- I Ask Out James
- Peter Calls!
- The Fateful First Meeting of Phil
- The Birth of Dolphin Philosophy
- Our Group of Friends Splits Apart
- Spring Classes
- Big Red Flag: Phil’s Dysfunctional Family Life
- The Drunken Stork (Phil’s Controlling Nature Manifests)
- Idealizing Phase and Early Sign of Control
- Phil Tries to Control my Friendships, Unfair Accusations from his Dad and Brother
- Phil Gaslights Me with Fake Dreams, Ridicule and Psychological Abuse
- Another Pre-Engagement
June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:
- The Abuse Worsens in the Summer of Hell
- Phil rapes me anally
- Phil tries to control me through refusing everything I want–even proper hygiene
- Phil’s cruel hoax on me: his “subconscious” coming out to be with me
- Phil’s “subconscious” explains why he’s coming out to talk to me
- The lies unravel as Phil admits to conning me; also, fright as my periods turn wacky
- How Phil’s behavior fit the signs of abuse
- Phil Mindscrews Me: changes history, blames me for things that were not my fault, treats me like an idiot during games
- Phil says if he abuses me, it takes two people to sign the divorce papers
- Pearl reveals that Phil is costing me social invitations
- Hints that Phil is checking out of the marriage
September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:
- Phil picks fights and avoids responsibilities to make me feel like a shrew
- My husband Phil, Dave and Pearl call me a party pooper for getting a Grade II concussion
- I’m ecstatic to be back with my friends (the ones Phil hates); I meet Charles
- Phil vanishes without a word of why
- Phil wants a divorce
- My friends tells me that Phil is controlling and possessive
- My first Pentecostal church service: They speak in tongues
- Phil refuses to accept responsibility for the divorce
- Phil cuts off contact
- Attack of Phil’s Flying Monkey and Sycophant: Dirk
- Phil the narcissist admits to manipulating people and using them as pawns in his game with me
- Phil comes crawling back to me–and we put our marriage on paper
- Phil demands my complete submission and forces me into oral sex–and my will is broken, for fear he’ll divorce me again
- Phil walks away from me again–because I dare to have my own mind, opinions and needs–and because he’s a sociopath
- Fierce anger against Phil and PTSD from the abuse
- My friends tell me Phil is psychotic
- “Soul Ties”
- I return Phil’s things and he skewers me; consolation from friends
- My letter to Phil
- Phil shows my letter to his friends; I’m triggered by reminder of forced oral sex
- I start dating Charles
- Friends tell me Phil is controlling
- I feel stalked by Phil
- Poem about being stalked by Phil
- Fury at Phil stalking me and rubbing my face in his new relationship
- A Date with the Vampire
- Celtic Class: Knotwork, Tin Whistles, SCA–and Drinking from a Skull
- The Teddy-O Incident; Birth of These Memoirs
- We Hook Up to the Internet–and Shawn Fixates on My Sex Life
- New Guy Begging at My Feet
- Life on TCB
- Meeting Cugan (Hubby)
- Learning my ex Peter was a love-fraud; New Men
- Before Tracy, There Was the Avenger (Sociopathic Female Bullies Pt 1)
- Torn between three men as Catherine pushes me toward Cugan
- The Love Rectangle
- Torn between FIVE men! Me?
- Persephone’s Own Outrageous Stories of Phil’s Abuse
- College-style living
- Online Shenanigans
- Phil Finds TCB; Meeting a Hit Man
- Gypsy’s Party: Healed friendship with Peter
- The Avenger Starts a Flame War (Sociopathic Female Bullies Pt 2)
- Meeting the elusive Speaker
- First Date with Future Hubby Cugan
- On Breaking Up with Kindness
- Loony Roommies and Flying Gargoyles
- The Goddess of Pleasure and Salt
- A Conversation with Oscar Wilde
- My First SCA Event
- Cugan: a vast improvement over Phil