He has never hit me in the stomach before and whilst the blow is not hard it is shocking, as is the change in him as he hits me. I feel rather than hear myself gasping and I am scuttling backwards on the bed like a spider, like a man falling, but there's nowhere to go and I end up in a corner with him almost on top of me, crouched over me with a raised fist.

He drove me to a lighthouse and we walked along the stone pier, hemmed in by the sea on either side, under the light of the moon. He pushes me against the cold steel of the surrounding fence and I look up at the abandoned lighthouse and the cold grey concrete as he hits me with a meat tenderiser he bought in a supermarket on the way here. I cannot hold the fence comfortably because the metal is painfully cold to the touch. The sea is so close and I should be able to hear the lapping of waves on the banked sides of the pier but I cannot because I am listening for him, for the sound of his jacket as his arm moves to hit me again. When we are done he turns me around, lines the mallet up against my cheek and I pull away instinctively. He pulls me back and tells me to hold still. I think I think I think he will not hit me in the face with what is essentially a small and compact hammer. Bones would shatter, surely. He would not. I think but I don’t know. I hold still and he draws his arm back. The biggest part of me is almost sure he will not do this thing and that is, mostly, why I hold still. This trust. But there is also the part of me that is not sure, as is so often the case with him. And yet I hold still. I do not shut my eyes. I watch, hold still, and wait. (He doesn’t hit me in the face. He kisses my forehead instead, and it’s difficult to know how much of what I feel is relief and how much is disappointment.)

We are on his bed in our usual configuration. I’m lying on my back and he is sitting above me with my legs playing around him. Sometimes wrapped around his waist, sometimes on his shoulders, sometimes pinned under him. We were talking about something and I am laughing. He was trying to hit me in the cunt and I cannot stay still. I am laughing because I’m nervous and because the situation is ridiculous to me. The sudden and often unpredictable change from normality to these acts of pain and cruelty elicits strange responses. So I am caught laughing as he lifts one of my legs into the air and punches my hip, and then my stomach. He has never hit me in the stomach before and whilst the blow is not hard it is shocking, as is the change in him as he hits me. I feel rather than hear myself gasping and I am scuttling backwards on the bed like a spider, like a man falling, but there’s nowhere to go and I end up in a corner with him almost on top of me, crouched over me with a raised fist. I am breathing hard and fast and my face is turned away instinctively to protect myself from the blow I feel is coming, but I keep my eyes on his. I am trying to find him, to read him, but I can’t. I am a panicked thing and I cannot speak so I am trying to communicate with my gaze but I don’t know if he is there, I don’t know what he is seeing when he looks at me. There is a frozen moment that goes on for what feels like a long time. He doesn’t hit me and I don’t try and get away. There is a strange acknowledgement happening. Of each other, of this thing, of what is about to happen. Time slows. Then it comes back, and he hits me, of course.

Another time on the bed. I am curled against his chest in paroxysms of emotional agony. He has just asked me to do something I cannot do and I am unable to feel anything but my own failure and anger. I am angry at myself and I am also angry at him for putting me in this place where I can only let him down. He has pulled me against his chest and is holding me close even though I am trying to get away and am rejecting his touch. He keeps trying to hold my hand and I am pulling it away, making little keening noises of distress and loud angry huffs through my nose. He is exasperated with me. “Why don’t you want to give me your hand? What are you going to do with it?” he asks, speaking to me like a child. I am silent and suddenly still. What am I going to do with this hand, and why don’t I want him to have it? I don’t want him to have it because he wants it, I suppose. I am like the child who snatches a toy away from another simply because they want to play with it, even though I don’t. But he takes so much from me. Most of it I give to him. But some of what he takes, he takes regardless of whether I give it or not. And that is hard for me. I have told myself, for years, that backing down means losing, being weak. That I must hold fast to be strong. Stubborn. But I don’t know where I find strength in this place with him. Am I strong when I willingly do things for him that are hard? Or am I stronger for fighting and not letting him do them to me? I am dizzy with these questions, and I am so lost, small and foolish. I tentatively entwine my fingers with his, give him my hand. And I feel better, instantly closer to him. And I think maybe there is a difference between giving up and giving to.