I adore your grandpa. Yeah well, this time, I was hoping we could do something like an actual date this Christmas. What do you think? There’s a cool lightshow in Central park tomorrow night. Would you want to go with me? It’s a no. She’s out of my life. I haven’t told my parents why I’d prefer her staying away, but they seem more than willing to keep her out of things if they want me around. Does that make me an asshole? For wanting the woman who made my life hell for months away from me?
I think it’d be great to have both of them there. My grandparents want to meet them too. I’m a little scared of how well they might get along. I think it would be money well spent to hire someone else to drive her to the border.
Despite their age, I have feeling they’d be drunk and happy by dinner time. Then you and I can sneak off and do whatever we might what to do. Now I feel like you’re ordering a hit man, love.
I vote we continue having Christmas with your parents instead of mine… Unless my grandparents plan something massive in France. I’d totally help you get rid of her. Or you know, drive her to the border and lose her.
If your grandparents plan something, we’ll have to find a way to fly my mom and dad there. Because they still haven’t met your grandparents. And I think they’d get along magnificently. I love you so much. And only if we could drive her to the Columbian border and lose her in a war torn country?
This is why Christmas at my parents’ house is so much less stressful. No weird diplomatic guests, and not presidential hopefuls looking to gian your father’s favor. I’d help you kick her out. Is that something you’d let me help with, because I’d really want to?
It’s more relaxed, isn’t it? We don’t have to wear a tie here with just my parents around. So is it alright for me to be glad that they didn’t extend a ‘I’m in being nice, so here’ invitation to my shitty aunt?
What: Hunter goes into detail about his life before Sebastien, his worries, his anxiety, and how he thinks those things define him and how they might, in turn, affect his relationship with Sebastien.
Trigger Warnings: assault, panic attacks, thoughts of suicide
Hunter sat stiffly in the chair opposite his and Sebastien’s therapist. Knowing that it was time, he’d asked his fiancé to leave the room. For the last dozen sessions, he’d sat silently in this same chair for an hour. He just couldn’t bring himself to spew out his drama to a stranger. He couldn’t picture why or how this thin, frail doctor would help him. It hadn’t made sense... until the man had explained that sometimes it was just easier to tell someone who you didn’t know. It was ‘safer’. He could word vomit up his thoughts without anyone judging or pitying him. He’d gone home after the last session and spent the night freaking Sebastien out over how quiet he was. But he’d needed the time to think, to process. And he’d come to a decision.
It was time. But he hated it. Hated it so much he couldn’t see straight. He wasn’t completely sure he wanted to tell the doctor about all the drama going on his head, but he knew he needed to. He’d lose everything if he didn’t. His friendship with Ethan was on the line, and he was sure his relationship with Sebastien would turn sour eventually. He’d end up snapping at home; destroy something valuable like he did in his office at Oinos, and that would be it. So he had to do this. He had to.
With their ultimatums ringing in his head, he opened his mouth to fill the room with his words for the first time.
“I was fine before,” he started, refusing to look the doctor in the eye. Hunter chose a point outside the window, at a leafless maple tree, to tell his story to. “Life was as perfect as it could be. I’d gotten into the college of my choice. I was going to room with my best friend Kayla. She was even willing to take on my claim while we were there so I could live the way I wanted to. But I guess, life never stays perfect for long,” he added bitterly.
“I remember it was one of the first warm days of the year. Unseasonal weather for February in Toronto. I still had my winter jacket on, but kept it unbuttoned and unzipped. I rode a bus from work to home rather than waste my gas. I was on my way home when it happened..” he continued.
“I had to switch busses at this tiny open air station outside of the city. And I hadn’t noticed anything weird about the people on the bus that day.” He stopped for a second to recollect everything properly. He realized he was deliberately leaving something out to protect is own ass again. If he didn’t tell it all, he’d just wind up back here for more sessions.
“After getting my tattoo done, I’d made the choice to cover it as much as I could. I didn’t want anyone to know. I knew it wasn’t legal, but I didn’t care. My ability to do as I wanted was more important than some antiquated law!” His voice rose with every word. He’d despised that tattoo, despised being branded like cattle.
“Everyone thought I’d brought it on myself because of that, you know,” he responded bitterly. “In the three weeks from attack to sentencing, I lost dozens of friends...” People who’s names he couldn’t even recall now, but the memory, the betrayal, still stung.
“Anyway... I got off the first bus. Only one other guy got off at the same transfer station. A guy about my height, but bulkier, wearing a suit and top coat. I figured he had to go to one of the obscure banks out in the suburbs so I didn’t think anything of it. I stood there waiting, with my head phones in, minding my own business, listening to 10 Years rock out about some societal wrong doing that I agreed with.” He paused to take a deep breath.
“After a while, I thought the bus must be running late so I looked at my watch. I must have slid my sleeve back too far and tilted the face of the watch towards me too much... because the next thing I know, that business man is on me out of no where!” Hunter’s voice cracked as he spoke. The fear came rushing back just like it always did. His breathing sped up and his eye sight wavered. “He’d pulled me into an alley between two buildings, forced me face first up against the wall. I remember him saying the words ‘fucking slut’ and ‘I knew it’ over and over...” He had to take a moment because that word had always snapped him into a terrifying version of subspace; the kind that felt like pins and needles climbed all over his skin. In that headspace, he always felt claustrophobic. Things got too close and he couldn’t escape. So he let out a shuddering breath in an attempt to regain some semblance of his composure.
“I felt everything acutely - the scrape of the brick against my face, how his hands were everywhere, tearing at my clothes. He had his right hand pressing my throat to the wall as his other hand worked. And all I couldn’t even think anything. Everything felt like walls closing in... I don’t even think my breathing was under my control anymore...” He gulped in air as he struggled to continue. He didn’t think to stop the tears from flowing. Reliving his worst nightmare consumed all of his faculties.
“Something happened though... I think it was the music still playing in my ears. A song changed. And I was jerked out of that claustrophobic head space. I fought back, struggled to get away. That just pissed this guy off and he slams my head into the brick enough to shock me. But my head clears completely and I come back furious. The anger and fear combined to give me the strength to force the guy off of me so I can try to run, and I do.” The words are coming in a rush now.
“But he grabs the back of my coat, and he pulls me back. I pivot and deck him right in the face. He still clutching my coat so I slip out of it and run. I run 12 miles to get home...” He stopped to try to remember any moment of the run, but he comes up blank. “I don’t even remember it. The next thing I fully recall is hearing my own sobbing, curled up over my knees, and my mother there telling me it’ll be okay and asking what happened.”
Hunter made no attempt to hide his tears. The fear and anger had taken a back seat to pure relief in that moment, but the cold, slimy emotions slithered back in like a viper. That had been his first panic attack. His own mother’s hands on him had acted like a shot of adrenaline that mixed with the terror.
“I yelled at her to get off me! I couldn’t figure out what was happening. I knew I was safe. I recognized my house, my room, my mother, but my head refused to comprehend it. I think... I panicked. That was the first time...” he said slowly.
“The first time you had an attack?” the doctor’s voice startled Hunter into looking up. He simply nodded as an answer.
“I’ve told people this story before,” Hunter started again. “But there’s a lot that came after that I’ve never told anyone. Not even Sebastien...” he added miserably.
“About what?”
“The cops. My aunt,” was all he could say. “I think I need to get those parts out too. But you have to swear, on pain of death, that you won’t tell anyone!” he insisted.
“I swear, Mr. Tate. You have my word.”
Hunter pressed his hands under his eyes and forcefully wiped the tears and panic away. “The cops... weren’t kind. When they came. The Dominant I’d hit had called them on me and given them my jacket. The pocket had my wallet in it so they came the next morning to question me about it. They wouldn’t let me talk for myself. And my dad couldn’t do it because I refused to tell him what had happened. I just couldn’t see the man I admired and thought of as the best man in the world look at me like... I was a criminal.” He paused for second to gather his thoughts.
“I didn’t sleep at all the night before, so I’d had time to think. I knew physically assaulting a Dominant for any reason was against the law. I knew they’d come for me, but... I thought I’d have a chance to explain.” He shook his head remembering the futility of trying to talk to the police. “No one would listen to me. They kept saying ‘your dominant must speak for you’ and ‘what you say isn’t admissible in court’. To me, that meant I had no say in what was about to happen to me. They hauled me off to the station, only stopping to tell my father that I was being arrested for aggravated assault against a dominant. As they photographed and booked me, they cut the sleeves off my shirt ‘so I couldn’t be deceptive about my designation’, and locked me in a cell with... 5 or 6 other guys. All of which were Doms, by the way. The whole process was horrifically degrading, humiliating, and dehumanizing.”
The next part pulled up the anger he tried to keep buried inside as often as possible. “Two of those guys were drunk out of their minds, too blitzed to do anything to me. But the other three eyed me like meat. They didn’t physically do anything. I think they were worried about their own issues, but that didn’t stop them from berating me verbally, called me names, told me graphic things about what they’d have done to a ‘sneaky little bitch’ like me. I ignored them to the best of my ability, and thankfully, 5 hours later, I was released. My father posted my bail.”
It hurt to even think about that night at his house. “I was put under house-arrest until my trial or I took a plea deal. For the next two weeks, my father refused to talk to me. The man I looked up to, trusted beyond reason, tried my best to emulate, wouldn’t even look me in the eye anymore. My mother was there. She tried to help as much as she could, but my dad wouldn’t listen to her either. And she couldn’t speak for me, not only because she was a submissive, but also because I refused to tell her about the attack. Maybe if I had just...” he said, letting out a long suffering sigh. It didn’t matter what he could have or should have done. What happened, happened. The end.
“The cops came back with a lawyer explaining his clients ‘terms’. I wasn’t allowed into the meeting so I sat on the stairs and eavesdropped. My attacker was demanding for me to do time in an all submissive asylum. For three years...” Hunter’s voice went dangerously quiet. “I knew what kinds of things happen in those places. They called it ‘re-training’, but everyone knew it was just an excuse for the doctors and interns to give in to their more disgusting kinks by using their ‘patients’. The submissives in those places rarely came back, and when they did, they weren’t themselves anymore. ...And I made a choice that if my father made me go, I’d find a way to hang myself within 24 hours.” The words came out in a rush, and Hunter broke, and he wept. It took him a long time to fight through the tears.
“That was... another first. I’d never thought about suicide before. It was just... there’s only so much I can take...” He let himself shatter a bit more. There was no more reason to hide his dark secrets. The doctor had already heard his most secret thoughts. All that was left was telling him about his aunt.
Hunter pulled himself together as much as he could. He wrapped his arms around his waist, as if to stop his guts from splitting open. “I didn’t even hear my father refuse that option. I didn’t know what they’d decided until Dad found me on the stairs, staring at nothing. The first time he spoke to me in three weeks was to tell me they’d agreed to another kind of house arrest. I was ordered to move in with my conservative, old fashioned aunt out in New York City, and be re-trained by her.”
Letting the anger take over for this part came easy. He had so much resentment towards his aunt that he couldn’t wait to express it. “Living with her was hell. I wasn’t allowed to take my laptop, my phone, my car, my TV, anything. I took my clothes and my insulin but she confiscated them both. She gave me 7 shirts, none of them had sleeves. For pants, she allowed me one pair of jeans and one pair of black slacks. Thankfully,” he said with an irritated huff, “she let me keep my underwear. She told me I wouldn’t need shoes as I wouldn’t be going anywhere. Those seven shirts and two pairs of pants were all I could call my own. Aunt Annabell took the door off of my bedroom. She said that was so she could ‘keep an eye on me’ and so I’d never be able to lock her out. She controlled when and for how long I could shower, what I ate and when... she wouldn’t let me have my insulin for the longest time...” When Hunter admitted to that, he felt the phantom pain of having his blood sugar be too high for way too long. “She controlled everything. And I refused to beg. That first month, I lost a lot of weight very quickly. Scarily fast. All I could do while she was at work was work out and read. And I was only allowed to read the books that went into detail about ‘how to become a better submissive’. I think she finally realized how badly my body was attacking me one day when she found me on the couch hardly able to move. She let me have the shots regularly again after that.” He took a moment to shake away the feeling of weakness.
“I hated her. But I did as I was told without complaint in the hopes that I’d get home sooner. Once I gained a few pounds, she let me out into the hallway in front of her apartment. For a second, I was euphoric at being allowed even that tiny bit of freedom. Things got better after that. I met both Ethan and Sebastien not long after.”
The fact that he’d been able to get that all out amazed him. He felt... lighter, less controlled by his fears. Now that everything was out in the open, he hoped he’d be able to move on and heal. All he could think about was finally being rid of the panic attacks. And he thought this was as good a place as any to start.
Will you take Sebastien's surname, hyphenate or just retain your own first name after you've married him?
You mean last name, right? To be honest, we haven’t really talked about it. Hunter Stark sounds pretty good. Though my father will be pissed if I go by that simply because he wants his name to continue on. Sebastien Tate sounds good too. If we hyphenate, things start to sound odd. Hunter Stark-Tate isn’t so bad. But I can’t see ‘Bas as Sebastien Gregoire Tate-Stark. And there’s always the option of going with Sebastien’s grandparents’ name - Dupont. Another option is for Sebastien to keep his name the way it is and I could hyphenate.
It’s too much to think about when we still haven’t even set a date for the wedding yet.
Finally got word from Sebastien’s friends and family in Paris. Everyone is accounted for and safe. Hopefully now, he’ll be able to sleep. #fiance #westandwithfrance
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