Strange though it may seem, people who were abused may counteract the feelings of inadequacy by believing that they are better than others. They may have a hard time respecting other people as equals. They feel in a one-up position to others, making it hard to enter a mutually loving, respectful relationship. They may even feel one-down to some people, and one-up to others, engaging in abusive relationships at the same time they are being abused by others.
-Elizabeth Hartney, PhD - from the article The Cycle of Sexual Abuse and Abusive Adult Relationships
.
Chapter Seven
.
{o}-{o}-{o}
.
"I didn't ask you to stay with me, trying to get you to have sex with me," Mox said, keeping his gaze on the road.
From the passenger seat, Alexa/Toril, Mox still wasn't sure what she preferred to be called, nodded. "I know," she said softly.
They were in Seth's car, heading up to SPWA. Originally, Seth was going to go with them, but he'd texted that morning that he was spending the day with his date from the night before, and asked for a pass, but told him he could use the car to get there. Mox didn't really want to leave Toril/Alexa alone, so he'd asked her if she wanted to go with him. She had acted startled as if the last thing she ever thought she would do in her life, was to be asked to meet someone's parents, but she agreed. Since it was a long drive for Sunday dinner, they left right after breakfast. Mox had debated briefly if he should call Jen and Sefa first, but decided that since they were already prepared to feed Seth, it wouldn't make much difference.
The first half hour of the trip, they were both silent. Mox felt awkward. What do you say to a girl you had mutually consensual sex with the night before? Nothing in my life has prepared me for this.
Another half mile rolled by in awkward silence, at least it was awkward for Mox, he wasn't sure if it felt the same for his companion. Then, to break the silence as much as he wanted to know the answer, he asked her, "What do you want to be called? Alexa or Toril?"
"I really don't care much, as long as you don't call me Suzie," she said, shrugging. "Alexa is good, I guess. Toril is the name I fight under." She flexed her fingers on the arm with the cast, something she seemed to do frequently. He had asked her at breakfast and she told him it was to keep her fingers from stiffening up due to lack of use.
"Okay than Alexa it is," Mox said.
Another stretch of silence. Mox was starting to feel that breaking the silence was his job, so he pondered what he could ask her that would lead into a conversation that lasted more than a few sentences. "Mom's a really good cook," he said. "You'll eat really good today." Oh yeah, that's going to lead into a discussion, You should ask a question, not make a statement.
"Sounds great to me," Alexa said.
She was wearing jeans that were a little too big for her and a plain, grey t-shirt that seemed a little too small. Mox wondered if she'd been gaining weight, most likely muscle from the fighting she was doing, or had lost weight because money was tight and food scarce. He thought about asking her, but thought that might be a little too personal.
You're failing at this, he told himself. Out of desperation, he glanced over at her. "So, how about those Bengals?"
It worked, because she laughed. "I'm more of a Browns fan myself."
He thought he'd hit another conversational dead end, but then he realized she'd mentioned being a fan of another Ohio team. "Wait, are you really a Browns fan?"
"Yes," she said, laughing again. "Are you going to kick me out of the car now? Refuse to let me back in the car until I swear an oath to those looser Bengals?"
"No, of course not," he said, although he knew she was joking. "I'm just curious now... are you from Ohio?"
"Yeah," she said. "I was... taken in Columbus."
"I was taken in Cincinnati," he said.
"Well, now I know what state I don't want to raise a family in," she said, then she bit her lip and looked so sad for a moment, Mox wondered if she was going to cry. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Nothing," she said softly. Then a few minutes later, she decided to break the silence. "I'm assuming you've been tested?"
He knew what she was talking about, STD's. He had been tested, more than once in the beginning, in case something was brewing from before and took awhile to rear its ugly head. He was one of the lucky ones. "Yeah," he said. "I'm clean." He hated to ask the obvious, but he knew he should. "You?"
"Not so lucky," she admitted. "I had Chlamydia. I'm clean now though."
"Isn't that one of the fairly easy ones to treat?" he asked, having a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"It is if you catch it fast," she agreed. "The problem is when it goes untreated, it leads to Pelvic Inflammatory Disease. Which can lead to a lot of bad side effects."
He knew some of those bad effects from working with the centers for missing and sexually abused children. When a child was rescued from sexual abuse, one of the first things they did was get them tested. Sometimes it was too late. "Did that happen to you?" he asked.
She nodded and looked away from him, out the passenger window. "Yes," she said, her voice so soft he could barely hear her.
"I'm so sorry to hear that," he said, understanding now why she had gotten so upset after she mentioned "raising a family."
It was likely she was infertile now.
.
"I hope you don't mind," Mox explained as he walked into the kitchen with Alexa, "Seth was busy today, so I brought along another friend of mine."
Jen drew him into a tight embrace, as she always seemed to do when he came home, regardless of who was with him. "It's good to see you, Mox. And of course we don't mind." When they parted, she looked from Mox to Alexa then back to Mox.
The meaning was obvious. Sefa, Lance, and Roman were in the kitchen too, so Mox decided to just do one sweeping introduction. "Mom, Dad, Roman, and Lance? This is-" He wasn't sure how she wanted to be introduced.
Alexa smiled "Alexa," she said. "Alexa Waters, but please, just call me Alexa."
"Alexa," he repeated. "And Alexa, this is my mother, Jen Reigns, my father Sefa Reigns, my brother Roman and my other brother, Lance. I have another brother too, Marc, but he isn't here yet. I'm sure he and his wife and kids will be joining us soon."
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. And Mrs. Reigns. And nice to meet you too, Roman and Lance."
"Oh please, call me Jen," Jen insisted. And of course Sefa insisted she could call him Sefa. Then, like with every first meeting, everyone inquired if everyone else was doing well. When it was assured that all parties were indeed, fine, Marc, Noella, and their two year old twins, a boy and a girl named Laki and Arihi came into the kitchen, and it all started over again.
When things were calmed down, except for the twins, who seemed to feed on excitement and were running all over the kitchen, Mox noticed Sefa was looking at Alexa, brow furrowed. "Is everything okay, Dad?"
His father shook his head as if pulling himself back to reality and nodded to Mox. "Everything is great. He looked at Mox's face and frowned. "Is your nose okay?"
It was swollen from Alexa hitting him with her cast the night before, but it wasn't broken, and he barely noticed it. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "I just got hit a little too hard in practice." He didn't know why he felt he had to elaborate, his father would have assumed it was done while he was wrestling.
Roman's cell phone rang and he looked to see who was calling and smiled. "Do I have time to take this?" he asked Jen.
"Of course," Jen said. "We've got about half an hour until dinner."
Roman nodded and answered his phone. By the smile on his face, Mox knew it was May who was calling. This was confirmed when Roman answered the phone with, "Hey there, Baby Girl," as he headed out to the back mudroom, for some privacy.
As he was walking away, amidst cries of, "Say hello to her for me!" coming from various family members, Mox saw Alexa staring daggers at Roman, nostrils flared. The hell? he Roman walked out of the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Mox looked back at Alexa, who had stopped glaring but still didn't look very happy.
.
Lance and Roman were the last two to sit at the table, Lance having been the one to tell Roman to get off the phone. Roman was still talking on the phone when he came in, but he was saying goodbye. "Yes, I'll tell everyone," he was saying, "Talk to you later, Baby girl."
He shut down his phone, following one of the Family Rules, no cell phones at the table, especially Sunday dinner. Roman turned off his phone and put it in his pocket sitting down. "May sends her love," he told the family.
"That was sweet of her," Jen said smiling.
Mox could feel Alexa stiffening beside him, and when he took a side glance at her, he saw her nostrils were again flared. What is pissing her off?
Marc gave the prayer for dinner, and Mox looked towards Alexa again. She had her head down, eyes closed. He wasn't sure what her beliefs were, but she seemed willing to show respect for the tradition. Lance was quiet, but had his eyes open. When he saw Mox was looking at him, he grinned. They were the only two not joining in with the prayer, even Laki and Arihi had their eyes shut in their matching high chairs.
After the prayer was over, platters started being handed around. Jen had made a rib roast, somewhat of a rarity. A lot of times she made chicken or turkey. Turkey was one of Roman's favorite foods and had the extra advantage of being able to easily be sliced into sandwiches, then turned into turkey salad, and finally, the carcass used to make turkey soup. But Mox was fine with seeing some red meat on the table and hoped Mom sent him home with leftovers.
"So, is May still with PGWA?" Jen asked Roman as she passed him a bowl of vegetables.
"Yeah," Roman said. "But she's bouncing between them and Shine."
Alexa spoke up then. "So, is May your girlfriend?" She fixed her gaze on Roman.
"Sort of," Roman said, his brows furrowed at the attention he was getting. "We both have odd schedules, but when we can, we meet up and go out together."
"Uh-huh," Alexa said. "PGWA, and Shine, those are women's wrestling promotions, right?" She didn't even give Roman a chance to answer. "So, I would assume May is over eighteen?"
"Yeah," Roman said, looking wary. "She's over twenty one, actually."
Everyone but the twins focused their attention on Alexa and Roman, but Alexa barely seemed to notice. "Good. Because when you answered the phone, I first assumed you were talking to a child."
"Why did you think that?" Roman asked, looking honestly shocked.
"Hey there, Baby Girl," Alexa did a mocking imitation of Roman. "If she's a woman, why do you call her a baby? It sounds pretty degrading to me."
"It's not degrading," Roman said, his whole body stiffening in defense. "It's affectionate."
"Yeah," Alexa said and snorted. "Because women just love to be referred to as Baby Girls. You know, a smaller, weaker, creature, needing protection from a big, strong, man."
Oh shit, Mox thought. He never thought much about Roman's use of the term "Baby Girl." He pretty much used it on almost every girl he'd dated, and they never seemed to mind, in fact, they usually looked quite pleased that they had become special enough to Roman to merit such a term of endearment. But, thinking of Alexa's background, it would be easy to think her captors might have called her that. And it wouldn't just have been a term of endearment, it would be a way to remind her that she was a baby girl, a pretty little toy to be used as needed and discarded when she was no longer useful. He knew he should try to head this off before it became worse, but he felt as if he were frozen to the chair.
"I don't think Roman means it that way at all," Sefa said, using his smooth, "Nathan Reigns, the more talkative half of the Samoan Pride tag team," voice. "But you do bring up some interesting points, and maybe you and Roman can discuss it further some day. But right now, I think all of us would just as soon concentrate on this wonderful dinner my wife worked so hard to make."
Alexa looked down, and Mox could see a blush spreading up her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice almost a whisper.
The apology probably comes from the same source, Mox thought. Baby Girl upset her, but Sefa is bringing out the subservient side she developed when she was in captivity.
"Don't worry about it," Sefa said, his voice still honey smooth. "You bring up some good points, it's just this isn't the right time to discuss it." And before anything else could be said, he looked at the twins. "Are you enjoying dinner?" he almost cooed, which sounded nothing like his normal tone. Iosefa Reigns did not coo.
"Yes!" they cried in unison. Arihi showed off a mouthful of mashed potatoes she'd been working on. Everyone laughed, a laugh that had a bit of nervousness behind it, but it served its purpose of easing the tension.
The rest of the dinner went fairly well. Jen and Noella tried to draw Alexa into the conversation, but she was still very quiet, giving short answers that really didn't invite further questioning. Roman went out of his way to avoid talking to her, and Mox knew it wasn't because he was angry, Roman didn't get angry like that very often. It was more that he'd been taken to task for something he'd never seen as being wrong. Lance ignored her as well.
When dinner was over, and clean up began, Sefa looked at Mox. "We replaced the ring in the arena. It's up to the official WWE size. Let me show it to you."
From the tone, Mox knew immediately that this was not a request, and Alexa was not invited. He looked over at her, thinking it might be considered rude to abandon her. She gave a slight nod as Jen put her arm around her. "Don't worry, Jon," Jen said warmly. "We'll take good care of her, you go off with your Dad, he's been wanting to show you that ring since it was finished."
Alexa opened her mouth, and Mox had the feeling it was to tell Jen she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but she seemed to catch herself because she closed her mouth, drew in a deep breath and said. "You go with your dad, I'll be fine," she said.
"Can I tag along?" Lance asked.
"No," Sefa said, his voice firm. "You've already seen the new ring. You can help in the kitchen here. Maybe you can watch the twins so everyone else can get the kitchen cleaned up."
"Nuts," Lance said, but he was grinning.
.
They talked about trivial things on the way to the SPWA arena, a large outbuilding where the Saturday night shows were held. Sefa asking him about training and who Mox might have met that week. Various WWE superstars did wander in and out of the FCW training area, some just to say hello, some to help with training. Mox remembered the name of a couple Hall of Famers that had dropped by, and passed on hello messages from them.
Once they were inside the arena, Sefa dropped all pretenses of small talk. "How did you find Alexa?" he asked.
Mox shrugged. "I went to a club with Sami Callahan and I met her there." It was the truth, he just wasn't mentioning it was a club for fighting.
"I know who she is," Sefa said. They had gone into the main area of the arena and were walking to the ring, which did look a lot bigger than the old one.
"You do?"
Sefa nodded. "She's older now, but I'm good with faces. That's Little Suzie, isn't it?"
"Please don't call her that," Mox said, feeling his heart speed up. Of course Sefa knew who she was, Sefa had watched one of the "movies" he'd made with her. No one else in the family had, which Mox was grateful for.
"Do you think I'm an idiot?" Sefa asked, scorn dripping from his voice. "I might recognize her, but I'm not going to tell her that. And I'm not going to call her by her captive name either. So, do you two have something going?"
That is a very good question. Considering last night, the fact that he brought her to meet his parents the next day could easily be seen as being in a relationship, but in their case, it was a whole other matter. They had been intimate together way before they should have been, especially her. And then last night.
"She's between places right now," Mox said, "she was renting a place week to week, but her job, it's necessary to have two hands. I couldn't leave her on the streets, so I said she could stay with Seth and I until she gets the cast off."
"How does Seth feel about that?"
"Uh, I haven't told him, yet." Mox admitted. "But she's using my room, I'm going to use the futon in the living room for now." He had worried about what Seth would think, but had also taken the attitude that he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. He certainly wasn't going to kick her to the curb.
"Let's hope he's understanding," Sefa said. They had both gotten to and climbed into the new ring and Mox was walking around, testing the spring in it. "I'm glad she made it out of that life. Did she tell you how?"
Mox shook his head. "I didn't push her to tell me either. It's, well... if it's something she wants me to know, she'll tell me."
Sefa nodded. "The important thing is that she got out. But, I have to say, I'm a little worried."
"About what?"
"I could see where it might be easy for the two of you to get involved, you know? I mean, you've never had a girlfriend and I'll bet she's never had a boyfriend. Still the two of you have probably had more sex than your average adult, and started far younger. I'm just worried that the two of you might..." his voice trailed off for a moment, then he continued, "Might go too far, too fast."
"We can't go any further than we already have," Mox reminded him. Especially after last night.
"Yeah, but there is sex and there is making love," Sefa said.
"I know."
"You know it in theory, but not in practice," Sefa disagreed. "Neither of you understand what sex means when you do it with someone you love. I-I'm afraid that if the two of you try to have a relationship, it won't be very healthy."
Mox knew that Sefa wasn't trying to upset him, but he was anyway. All he had wanted since he got away from Denis and Simon was to stop being the victim. He'd done everything he could, come out in the open about it, gone to talk therapists about it, done all the things everyone seemed to think he should do. Yet, he couldn't escape it, no matter what he did, he'd always be the former Little Timmy. Former porn star, former child sex toy. "I'm an adult, Dad," Mox said. "Did you question who Marc dated before he got married? Do you question the relationship Roman and May have? How about Lance, Dad? Do you ask him if he's having sex with girls at ESU?" His voice was rising with each sentence.
"Calm down," Sefa said, raising his hands in a "Stop" gesture. "Mox, I'm not the enemy, I'm your father and I love you. And you're right, you are an adult and you're welcome to take my advice and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. But, just understand, I'm worried. I don't want to see either of you getting hurt, you or Alexa."
Mox sighed, feeling the anger inside of him disburse, which was a lot better than feeling it form like a hard ball inside of him. "We'll be careful," he said. "Dad, right now we're just friends." He crossed his toes in his sneakers unaware he was even doing it. "But, no matter what happens, neither of us wants to hurt the other. We've both been through way too much of that."
Sefa walked over and put his arms around Mox, drawing him into a hug, which Mox returned. It was hard for him to be upset with Sefa or Jen, because even if he disliked what they were telling him, he knew it always came from a place of love for him. "I know, son," Sefa said, when they drew apart, his voice low. "It's just that sometimes the easiest people to hurt are the people we love. And most of the time we don't even mean it."
.
"Let me guess," Alexa said, as they were headed home, a bag full of neatly packed leftovers in the back seat. "Your father hates me as much as your brothers do."
"No," Mox said, shaking his head. "They don't hate you. Roman is startled because nobody has ever confronted him about calling women 'baby girl, it's one of his things. And Lance ignored you because that's what Roman did and Lance is devoted to Roman."
"Yeah, like that isn't a little weird," Alexa said, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her shirt.
"No, it isn't," Mox said, glancing over at her. It was dark outside and dark in the car, but he wondered if she was crying. "Look, this isn't public knowledge, but I don't think it matters that much if I tell you. Lance had leukemia when he was a kid, the family almost lost him. But, after his final set of treatments, when they found no evidence of his cancer, Roman gave him a bone marrow transplant, because he was told that was the best way to keep him in remission. Roman was the only one who had the right marrow to donate, So, yeah, they are close."
"Okay, I get it," Alexa admitted. "But I know your dad took you out so you could discuss me." She sniffled this time. "I'm not that stupid."
"There are some napkins and stuff in the glove compartment," Mox said. "Just in case the dust is bad. I know Seth has been talking about changing the cabin filter."
She stared at him, but opened the glove compartment. Seth might be a lover of fine food, but the two of them had settled for a lot of bad food at the beginning, so there was a huge assortment of napkins from fast food places. She took out a few and began wiping her nose and eyes.
Mox had been wondering what he should tell her, and he decided on the truth. "Dad knows who you are.. I mean who you were, I mean, he knows you were Little Suzie and that we made movies together."
"What?" Alexa's arm, her one without the cast, froze half way between her lap and her face, a napkin clutched in her fingers. "He knows? What, did he get copies of the movies and watch them? Did he perve on them or something?" She seemed to unfreeze and brought the napkins to her face and wiped her eyes with them.
"No," Mox said, feeling like he was trying to dig in quicksand. "Jesh, Alexa, my dad didn't perve on those movies. But he did watch them. He watched jury safe copies where all the body parts that are considered to be 'indecent' are blurred out. But they do show faces and yours and mine were on them."
"If he wasn't using them to get a thrill, then why the hell did he watch them?" Alexa asked, voice trembling just a little.
"He had to see them for himself," Mox said, although sometimes he wondered himself why Sefa had felt that need. "He wanted to make sure if accusations came forth, that he'd know exactly what they were talking about."
"Oh god," Alexa said, and he heard the tears in her voice. "Your dad watched me getting fucked by you when I was just a kid. What does he think of me now?"
"My dad's first reaction to the movie was to ask me if I raped you," Mox said. "Not the other way around."
"What did you tell him?"
Mox shrugged. "The truth," he said. "That while you were too young to give consent, I explained exactly what your alternatives were and you did allow me to be, uh, the one."
"I thought you'd be the only one until the next night," she said.
He knew what night she meant, the night that Dennis and Simon and the two men who had kidnapped Alexa and turned her into Suzie came down and took her upstairs with them. She hadn't had to tell "Timmy" what happened, and when they brought her back down to the basement, she'd thrown herself into his arms and cried. Mox still felt the horror of that. Timmy had pushed this innocent little girl too far, and then those four men had completely broken her. Timmy felt like part of him died right along with part of her. "Alexa," he said, swallowing, "I will never forgive myself for that. I just let them take you. I didn't even protest."
He felt her gaze on him, even though he never stopped looking at the road. "What could you have done?" she asked. "We were both too young and too weak to fight back. We were outnumbered too."
"I know," Mox admitted, "But I can't stop feeling like I let you down."
"You did," she admitted. "But long ago, I realized you were helpless and I stopped blaming you."
"I wish I could have done something."
"You did," she said, "You did everything you could to make what happened between you and me at least, not so bad." She was staring out the front window too, refusing to look at him, and he could see out of the corner of his eye that she was still wiping her eyes occasionally with the fast food napkins. "I have to be honest, the parts with you, they felt sorta good."
"And let me guess," Mox said. "That's part of the reason why you said you hated me last night."
"Yeah," she said.
The rest of the drive home, they both were silent.