It Ain't Paranoia if... Pt. 02 Ch. 03

"But, Doc - she was fuckin' KIDNAPPED! She was taken at gunpoint, transported across national boundaries to a distant location, and thrown into a dungeon from which there was no way to escape! She fought them even while they beat her, and she's got the breaks and bruises to prove it!

She only capitulated when they began beating the children, and then heroically did what she had to do to save them!

"What part of that sounds at all like the reasons I was so mad when she abandoned me for my rival! For God's sakes; she DID NOT FUCK ANYBODY -- SHE WAS RAPED!

"Hell, if I'd been in her place I would have sucked cock and taken it up the butt too, in order to save Dos and Grace! This isn't about their misuse of her body -- this is about surviving a situation that could have resulted in her death or enslavement, and the death or enslavement of our children!

"She's not a fallen angel -- she's a hero! I've never loved her more than I do right now! She's the bravest, strongest, most loveable person I know!"

"You need to have that conversation with Kaitlyn."

"When?"

"Now would be a good time!" she replied with a smile.

I walked directly to her room and closed the door. She kind of shrunk away from me, as if I were going to be mean or hurtful, but she let me sit beside her and bravely turned her sad eyes to me.

I initiated the conversation meant to reassure her, repeated most of what I'd told Eva and Dr. Thomson, and added personal assurances.

I hoped that she would take my words, my offers, my promises, and accept that I love and support her.

Instead, there were tears, there was angst, there was disbelief, and there was guilt, as if she was somehow responsible for what happened. I'll never understand the female mind, but I did get a glimpse into places I'd not been before in Kaitlyn's.

To wit. Having been raped, repeatedly, often by more than one man at a time, made her forever a contaminated woman, and having a STD proved it! She cried that a respectable man like me should not be with a 'used up whore like her,' which made me wonder if she and Eva had talked about this, or they shared the same delusion.

She knew she should let me raise the kids so they wouldn't be tainted, but she couldn't bear to live without them! She could never again go into polite society and feel comfortable, knowing people knew what she had done, so how could she ever be a good mother and wife? We would and should be ashamed of being with her!

She was an emotional, delusional mess!

She had used anger and hatred to fight off the horrors while in their custody, but back in civilization she couldn't come to grips with being the victim, the woman who had been raped and abused!

She was Kaitlyn! She had been a virgin when we met -- she had only had sex with men whom she had married, but now... now she was the nasty whore of two evil madmen and their perverted friends!

I finally held my hand over her mouth and stopped her.

"Calm down, Kaitlyn!" I insisted quietly. "You are looking at this wrong.

"Sweetheart, had I been the one kidnapped and raped by these monsters, would you shun me? If I had been injured in a car wreck, would you think badly of me for having been in an accident that I didn't cause? If I get cancer or catch some dread disease, will you blame me and turn away from me?

"Don't give me that look!

"That's exactly what you think of me, damn it! You think I don't love you, don't see you as the love of my life anymore, because something happened that was entirely outside your control, and mine! Do I seem that shallow and self-absorbed?

"Honey, I see you as a hero who did what she had to do to save herself and her kids. Now I have you safely back, which is all I dreamed of since it happened, and you want me to leave you to face your suffering and delusions alone?

"NO! I refuse! You are going to counseling, you are going to take your medications, do your therapy, and get well! I'll be here for you through it all, and when you're well we're going to recommit our live to each other, and I won't take no for an answer!"

She cried despairingly, as if she couldn't envision any of that happening, and I wondered if I had pushed her away from the cliff of insanity, or over it.

Angst was certainly expected, but there was something else, something even beyond the depression. She seemed to have made up her mind that we couldn't be together ever again. Why would she feel that way?

There has to be more than I'm understanding, but what? We'd been through trauma before - with Robert, with the North Koreans -- why was this so much worse? Why had she given up on our relationship, the relationship she fought so hard to regain?

Or am I expecting too much too soon of someone in a fragile, depressed, and unsettled state?

I'm living the nightmare that won't end, even when I'm awake!

****