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Chapter 19 - Mask

Jade's POV

It's been just over month since, how do I describe it, that day since Tori and I fought. I was so hurt and felt so betrayed that when Beck called to invite me to dinner, I just snapped I guess. His voice as calm and soothing and I just got sucked in.

I told him that I had had rented a spare room in someone's apartment and just got kicked out and asked if I could come back. I had no idea how he'd react.

He said he wanted to meet and I did at a restaurant. He bought me a nice dinner and again apologized numerous times for his actions. He drank soda as he said he was serious about his not drinking anymore. I asked if I could come back again and he said he would love to have me back. I just fell back into the old routine like that.

We ate dinner and talked of good times. Beck told me about the play he was performing and a guest stint on Law and Order SUV. He played a cop who had a few lines.

By the time we finished I knew Tori had gone to work so I told beck I'd meet him back at our place and left. I was still furious at Tori for what she did and I packed as quickly as possible. I left her a simple note with the 150 I owed her for the last month and left. I can't say I didn't have some regrets, but I quickly suppressed any of those feelings as soon as they came up.

Beck welcomed me home and almost immediately treated me like a queen. He couldn't be more nicer, more attentive and caring. It was like a dream. I kept expecting him to go back to drinking or the mean version of him to come out. That never happened.

I told him I wanted to hold off on any serious intimacy until we were better established again. I just didn't want to right off, for reasons I couldn't quite explain. Suprisingly he was very accepting and said it was a good idea.

I went with Beck to his AA meetings and indeed he was serious about it.

I could say everything was perfect, like a pristine garden, but it wasn't. Gardens have weeds and my weeds were thoughts of Tori, brief pangs of guilt or just missing her. Each time they came up, I yanked the proverbial weed and threw it away. But they kept popping up, despite me being still angry at her. I told myself they would eventually stop. I loved Beck and that was that.

It's been 5 weeks and we sleep together, cuddle, kiss and fool around a bit, but no sex yet. Part of me wants to, part of me still wants to make sure things are perfect. Though I'm not sure what exactly perfect is. I just can't really define it.

I'll probably never see Tori again, which oddly doesn't sit well with me.

Beck had changed, things were good and all was good.

It was just at the beginning of our sixth week back together and I was at work at the hospital. It was time for lunch and I was headed to the patio outside where I planned to eat, when I heard my name being called.

"Jade West?"

I turned to see a woman in her late 40's with greying brown hair in a business suit. I didn't recoginize her at first, but soon remembered. She was Cindy Hill, a casting director I auditioned for last year.

"Cindy Hill, Right?"

She smiled and shook my hand. "Yes, I thought that was you. Nice to see you again. You work here I take?"

It was just after Beck and I moved to New York when Cindy was holding auditions for a new horror film. I auditioned and got to the final three. I talked with her one on one and we got along well. I even found out she did the casting for the Scissoring so I was able to ask her all kinds of questions. I was absolutely sure I had the part nailed, but when I never heard back, I knew I didn't. I was really disappointed by that one.

I looked down at my grey hospital coveralls with slight embarrassment. "Yes. What brings you here?"

"Oh…just visiting a friend who had a hip replacement. Oh…before I forget. How did your surgery turn out."

What? I had no idea what she was talking about. The last surgery I had, was when I was 12. I had my tonsils taken out.

I gave her a confused look. "Surgery?"

"Your knee surgery."

Now, I was more confused than ever, my knees are perfectly fine. "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what your talking about."

Cindy scratched her head, with a puzzled look in her eyes. "Well…after you auditioned I had decided on casting you. But I got a call from your boyfriend, Beck Oliver, the next day. He said you had hurt your knee rather badly in an accident and it would require surgery and several months of rehabilitation. He told me he was sorry, but you couldn't take the part."

If my jaw wasn't attached to my head, I think it would have hit the floor. "My boyfriend, said that?"

"Yes, I spoke with him for several minutes. He was quite nice."

I've heard of actresses playing dirty tricks like that and immediately became suspicious. "I think you were tricked." I then pulled out my cell phone and played one of the voice mails from Beck. It was just him asking me to pick up milk from the store. "Would you do me a favor and listen to this voice and tell me if that was the person you talked to."

Cindy picked up the phone, listened and nodded. "Yes that is the person I spoke to. Is there a problem?"

I was now baffled plain and simple. I vainly searched my mind for some kind of explanation, but couldn't think of anything.

"Did he sound drunk or like he was drinking?" I asked, thinking of the only explanation I could finally come up with.

"No, he called in the middle of the day and sounded as sober as anyone I've heard. I'm not sure what's going on, but I would have chosen you for the part. I am sorry. I have to go."

After shaking her hand again, I blankly watched her walk off. I simply had no idea what the fuck was going on. I then turned and walked to the patio and as I did, I recalled another audition that I swore I would have gotten. It was a silly thought, but I wondered if something else like that happened.

So, remembering the name of the person for the other audition, I called the casting director and got her assistant, luck was on my side. I asked about my audition. It was a month after the one with Cindy Hill. Sure enough, a day after my final audition they got a call from Beck saying I had gotten a part overseas.

I was stunned, to put it simply. Having a sinking feeling I called yet another casting director and again I got the same story. Beck called 2 days later and gave some bullshit excuse why I couldn't take the part.

3 auditions where I would have gotten the part and 3 times Beck sabotaged me. Each person I spoke with, said Beck sounded sober, polite and was very apologetic.

By the time I had finished with my phone calls lunch was over. Returning to work cleaning rooms in the psych ward,My mind was in a haze. I simply didn't know what was going on. Normally I would have been angry, but I was too shocked to do much of anything.

I was walking down the hall in the psych ward, when I saw Dr. Cortez approach. He was the psychiatrist who was always friendly to me. He was also the one that gave me some advice, when he first saw that I had been abused.

He smiled but stopped, seeing my half shocked/half bewildered expression. "Is something wrong Jade?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. Beck stopped drinking. He's nice all the time. No more Mr. mean Beck and I went back. Everything should be perfect. But I found out today, he's been sabotaging my auditions. But they all said he was sober when…I simply don't get it. He was only mean when he was really drunk. I don't understand."

Dr. Cortez's tilted his head as his expression grew concerned. "Very strange. Tell you what, why don't you come to my office and tell me a bit about it. I have the rest of the afternoon off."

"I have rooms to clean."

He waved his hand and walked over to the phone where he phoned my supervisor, Mrs. Bedworth.

"Mrs. Bedworth, This is Dr. Cortez. I'm going to borrow one of your people for a hour. It's for a project I'm doing. It's Jade West. Yes, Ok, thank you."

Then he hung up the phone and said. "It's all taken care of let's go."

I followed him to his office where he told me to sit down. He the moved to his desk. "Tell me everything."

So I went into the whole story, with him listening carefully with an occasional question. I got through the whole story until today. I told of the drinking, the abuse, the good times when he wasn't drinking, leaving him, getting involved with Tori and coming back.

He then put his hand on his chin as lines of worry started to appear on his face. "Tell me about the you now and the you in high school. What about you has changed and be as detailed as possible. Also tell me why you made those changes."

I didn't know where he was going with this, but I told him I toned down my Goth dress, lost the streak in my hair, was less combative, more amicable and friendly. I told him that we used to go out a lot, but recently we stopped and stayed in. I told him that Beck had urged me to make those changes of the sake of my acting career. So I could more easily establish a good rapport with potential casting directors and the like. Also, he urged those changes so we could be happier. I finished up by how I used to joke about being domesticated.

But by this point, his expression grown deadly serious. Now I was not only confused, but getting worried.

"Jade, you at one point described Beck as a Jekyll and Hyde type person. In the original story, by Robert Louis Stevenson, there was the kindly Dr. Jekyll who as a result of his experiments, turned into the evil Mr. Hyde. You said when Beck drinks a lot he turns into his version of Mr. Hyde, correct?"

I nodded.

"The thing is Jade, that is true in some cases for some people, but in this one, you're wrong."

"What?" How could it be wrong.

"Him torpedoing your audition's was not the work of out of control mean drunk, it was the work of a calculated mind, one with a specific purpose."

I suddenly began to have a very bad feeling. "Why? What purpose?"

"Your acting is very important to you and your self-image. It's something you love. I'm certain that he's sabotaging your career for the sole purpose of undermining your self image and your self confidence. I'll bet you've gotten very discouraged and not gone on any auditions for a while."

My head was starting to ache. "Yeah, but why the questions about how I've changed?"

"I think he's been slowly manipulating you, molding you for some time, probably ever since you've met. "

In addition to my aching head, now I was starting to feel downright sick. "Molding me?"

"You see, with Beck there is no kindly Dr. Jekyll, there is only Mr. Hyde. When he's nice, he's wearing a mask. I'm from Mexico and my uncle was a luchador. A masked wrestler. In the ring , my uncle was the villain known as The Green Cobra. But at home, with the mask off, he was one of the nicest people you could meet. When he puts the mask on he turns into the evil Green Cobra. The nice Beck, it's only a mask, an act. When he drinks a lot, he can't maintain his act very well and his real personality shows. I'll bet he quit drinking not only to lure you back, but he realized his drinking was endangering his long term plans."

I blinked twice trying to take it all in, it still didn't make any sense. "Why, what is turning me into?"

Dr. Cortez put his hand on his chin. "Tell me about his parents."

"His father is loud, arrogant, sort of a bully, he drinks a bit. He's like Beck when he drinks a lot. It's making more sense now."

"What is his mother like."

I scoffed. "She's a wet rag, totally docile and obedient. She doesn't work, keeps the home, has no opinion of her own, does whatever Becks dad says. She's like a 21st century Stepford wif…."

I was going to say Stepford wife, as in the 1975 movie, but my voice trailed off as everything suddenly came together in one horrific moment of clarity. He was slowly molding me into a docile, housewife type, one exactly like his mother. That evil son of a bitch has been playing me for a fool, since day one.

Sitting there, the sheer horror if it started to sink in. What had happened, what I had been subjected too, what it had done to me. I had been so stupid and utterly blind, it staggers the imagination.

Me, who regularly watches the most intense horror films known to man without blinking an eye, had become so horrified and shocked, that I literally started to shake.

"I'm sorry Jade, but he's molding you into a version of his mother. Or at least that what it appears. Another question, do you generally use the same type passwords, email, voicemail."

"Yeah, it's usually it's like scissoring1 or scissoring2"

"If Beck knows this which I assume he does, he's probably been reading your emails and listening to your voicemails for years. He almost certainly knows you were staying at Tori's and were dating her, despite what you told him. You need to be careful, he's very dangerous."

"Oh my god! What do I do?" I was now starting to royally freak out.

"Jade, try and calm down. But you need to move out TODAY! This man is very dangerous, you need to go now. I'll tell your supervisor that you fell ill and had to go home. " He handed me a card. "Here's the card for a temporary shelter. Go there, you really need to. My best advice is to run."

I was in a near state of shock, as I took the card. I don't even remember leaving the hospital but I did. I took the subway home, shaking all the way.

In the original 1975 version of. The Stepford Wives, the husbands were doing away with their wives and replacing them with perfect, submissive, obedient, robot doubles. Once replaced, the women served the men unquestioningly and wanted nothing more to be the perfect wife and mother. They had no other ambitions or interests.

I remember the final scene of The Stepford Wives, all the smiling, docile female duplicates , all in pretty sundress and big floppy hats, wandering through the supermarket, pleasantly greeting each other as they shopped. On the surface the scene looks quite serene, but once you know the secret, it's utterly chilling. I feel sick just thinking, how in a sense that was being done to me.

Once I arrived home I instantly started to pack my things. I was still half in shock and my mind was spinning like a tornado.

TORI! I was so busy freaking out about Beck and what he was doing to me, that I didn't think about here at all, until just that moment.

Oh my god, Tori was right all along. She was the only one who cared and the only who saw through him. She was only one that tried to free me from him and I practically fought her every step of the way. I was so horrible to her.

My hand's trembling, I called her and cursed when I got her voice mail. Still, my voice quivering, I left a message.

"Tori, I've been a fool, Beck's been lying to me from day one, manipulating me, fucking with my head. It's all a lie. Dr. Cortez at the hospital explained it all to me. I'm so sorry I never believed you. I need too…."

It was then I became aware, that Beck was standing right behind me. He must have come home early from rehearsals and I was so self-absorbed, I didn't hear him.

Turning around I could see a cold hard look in his eyes, it was one I'd only seen him when he was very drunk. The thing was, he was obviously sober. Dr. Cortez was right, the good Beck, the one I loved, the one I kept going back to, the one I kept defending. it was only a mask.

Not even saying a word, he promptly punched me in the stomach. It was a hard painful blow that caused me to drop the phone and crumble to the ground.

At this point I realized, the phone which had landed beside me, still had the call going. Desperate, I screamed as loud as I could into the phone.

"Tori, he's here, please help me….."

No one's pov

With look of utter contempt on his face, Beck quickly stomped the phone into junk. He then proceeded to kick Jade in the side, causing the Goth to moan in agony.

"You know Babe." He said casually. "I'm glad you found out, as I was getting tired of the nice guy act."

Jade didn't have time to answer, as Beck knelt down band began to punch her in the face several times. Not one time, but several, in what could only be described as a savage beating.

He let up for a moment and ran his hand through his hair. "Now Jade, you we can really get to some discipline. So you can be a proper girlfriend and eventually a wife. You will obey me now. I'm in charge and that's that. Don't think Tori will come and save you this time. You burn her and you actually think she'll lift a finger to help you, just how fucking stupid are you."

Jade did make an attempt to crawl away, but Beck grabbed her by the hair, pulled her up and tossed her on the bed.

"Time to teach you a fucking lesson." Beck growled, as he yanked Jade's pants off.

A strange and sudden turn of events, isn't it. Beck's been manipulating Jade for years, messing with her mind and undermining her self-image. When he drank, his real personality came out. But he stopped drinking to not only lure Jade back, but realized he was getting too carried away and that was endangering his long term plan, of molding Jade into a submissive, obedient Stepford wife, type person.

Of course the million dollar question is; Will Tori help?

There are two versions of "The Stepford Wives" the 1975 version and the 2004 version. The 1975 one is far superior and is a straight thriller.