"Bi*ch!"? Please...

"Bitch!" he spat at her as they scuffled. “Disrespectful bitch!”

           

"Bitch?"

The abuse didn't hurt the way she expected it to. 

Instead, she felt curious. "Bitch?" she asked - not out loud - lost far in her reflections to be bothered with him or to resume their little fight.

‘Why - the nerve!! What right does he have to talk to me like that?’

‘Is it that HE is my: Father? Husband? Brother? Friend? Boyfriend?’

She sat now… “How many times,” she thought, “how many times, have you insulted any man in your life this way?”

Try as she may, she failed to recall a single time where she had been able to gather her wits about her, to scream, any kind of ‘bitch!’ at anyone. Any man; any woman…

This was her first head-on collision with the term. Of course, she was familiar with other uses of the word… Who was that girlfriend of hers, who always used it as a term of ‘endearment’? And it was such a useful adjective - when you talk about that person at work, that you really don’t like, who’s being a pain to you and everyone in general. Yeah, on occasion, she had screamed the word internally.

But really, to have that word hurled at you, by someone important to you, knowing that it will never go away - in your head it’ll be there - coming at you over and over again…

That was something to worry about later though.

The moment of the ‘bitch’ passed... She wondered, turning to the mirror, if he had busted her lip... Nothing - her face was fine.

And she realized, for the first time, that it hadn’t hurt either - when he hit her - and he had hit her hard. 

She hadn't really thought about it - about why she stepped up in front of the other woman. The move had been natural reflex - a primal urge to protect.

She was adamant!

How dare anyone - anyone - assume, that a penis was license for violence and domination over a female! She knew her anger was not just a thing of this moment but more a reaction to a lifetime of ‘vaginal’ memories, and these have nothing to do with sex - yet…

She had taunted him in her anger. “Come on. Hit me! You think you’re always right. Why don’t you just hit me? Go on. Take a punch…”

It hadn’t hurt. Someone who she loved had struck her - and she had just stood there, taking blow after blow. “Is that your best?” She’d asked.

There had been a wild look in her eyes… a bewildered look in his. She had scared him. He might have realized that he didn’t know her anymore. Her head was held too high, for someone who seemed to have nothing. For someone who depended on him in many ways still. Yet, she refused to back down and fire in her eyes, she faced him. "No matter what you are to me, you are still wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!"

She didn’t feel like a hero though… Her temper was a double edged sword… On one side, it was the driving force of her life and on the other hand, a destructive force… This relationship, for instance, looked like it was going down. For neither of them knew or understood ‘surrender’.

She wished now, that he had at least left a mark. Something that reminded her that it should’ve hurt. That she still loved him, as much as she thought she did. 

She cried then, because it didn’t hurt - because she couldn't afford to let it hurt, with too much at stake; her beliefs & ideals and the people she strove to protect - and she couldn’t think of anything more painful than that…