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I was coming upto 19 when I met Pete.I met him in The White hart pub,he chased me into the ladies loo!.I had been in the pub with my sister Mel,we were stood there talking to Pete and an Irish pal of his,Mick.Then when I decided to go to the toilet,Pete followed me in,I was a bit shocked,but I didn't need to worry,he just stood there looking in the mirror,combing his hair.I ended up going to a nightclub with him,he was sat on a chair 'rolling a joint',to be honest,even though I was coming upto 19,I had never seen a joint,let alone smoke one!,I only thought that drugs were Heroin,stuff like that,which people injected,and I only knew about this because I'd seen it in liberal studies at school.Pete with his joint frightenend me,so I buggered off home.I met Pete again the next night and we saw each other for around 6 months,then I moved in with him.The first time that I ever went to his place I was surprised,for a bloke living on his own,it was very clean and tidy.When we made it to the bedroom,Pete seemed quite shocked that I hadn't been 'around'?,especially when I admitted to him that I wasn't on the pill or anything,I guess he was only used to slappers?.
Pete was 14 years older than me,he loved to drink and gamble.He looked like a Hippy with long brown wavy hair and a beard that father christmas would be proud of.People always likened him to Billy Connolly.Pete had also spent his life from 13 in and out of Borstal and Prison,he had done the second longest stretch in Reading Jail,when it was a Borstal recall center in the early 60s,Pete had been in Borstal/Prison for GBH and burglary,this sort of thing.I was young and naive when I met him,I certainly grew up fast and much,much wiser about the world.Living with Pete I got to meet blokes that had done 17 years for armed bank robbery,I got to meet burglars,winos,prostitutes,murderers,drug dealers,the lot.Although I have never been in trouble with the Police,even to this day,these people were genuine people,if you needed help?,they would give it to you unconditionally,the only rule you lived by was 'no grassing'.Whenever anything was going on,I always used to say to Pete,'don't tell me anything,then I can't be accused of telling anyone else' seeing as I was 'straight',but of course,I know lots of things about lots of people,but none of it would ever slip from my mouth.A lot of these people have died over the years,but the ones that are still around,are still on good friendly terms with me,they never seem to forget a 'friend' and they always knew that I was and am still genuine.
Living with Pete,man,it was like living on the edge of a volcano,I neve knew when he was going to 'blow' nest.I had to be so tough,even in my mind I had to be tough to live with this man,it's surprising what you can go through when you have to.For the first year that I lived with him,I used to suffer everytime he had a hangover,he used to call me names,boss me about,make me do a 'phyisical' thing that I hated doing,I used to sit and cry.On a couple of ocassions he used his fists and feet on me.One Saturday afternoon,I came in from town I think?,Pete had had a few to drink as usual,and he started chasing me with a razorblade,I slipped backwards and put the window of the backdoor out with my shoulder.The next few minutes went by like an unreal dream,I don't know what happened to the razorblade?,but the next thing I knew,I was hitting the wall in the kitchen with the back of my head and I ws being thumped by Pete.After he had finished with me,he decided to try and fix the window pane,by then his mum had come round.Pete only made the situation worse,he broke another of the panes of glass and the next thing I knew,he was coming at me in the bedroom with a twelve ins carving knife,I was frightenend to death and remeber screaming.He obviously didn't use it on me,I wouldn't have been here to tell the story,maybe because it was that his mum was there,who knows?.
After a year I started answering him back,who the hell did he think he was to talk to me like a piece of shit?.I got tougher and I used to say things back to him that I would never dream of saying to other people.I would tell him that I ahted him and that I wished that he was dead.By the time I was 23,I was planning on killing him,it seemed that it was going to be either me or him?.
I had a good sex life with Pete,he couldn't actually fuck me into orgasm,but he always saw me alright in other ways,with his fingers ot with his tongue,I certainly wasn't ever frustrated,maybe this is why I stayed so long,or maybe I knew he loved me in his own way?.We were compatible sexually,he had a very high sex drive and so did I,we'd even have competitions on Sunday afternoons in bed,to see who could come the most times!hahaha.One time,we were coming back from Ayelsbury on the back of a bus,Pete had his hand down my knickers and was frigging me off,I'm not very quiet when I'm coming,thank god the bus was empty,besides me,Pete and the driver,and no,we didn't ask him to join in hahaha.
When I was 20,I found out I was pregnant,I couldn't or wouldn't believe it,that was the last thing I wanted.I was too young for one thing,I had pictures in my mind of being one of these scruffy women that didn't take care of themselves walking around with a pushchair,not only that,in a strange sort of way,I loved Pete and I definately knew that wasn't what he wanted.He told me a little story of how one of his friends wives got preggy,the bloke didn't want it and drop kicked his wife!,I suppose I took this as a silent warning?.So I done a thing that I never thought I would do?,I went to my Doctors and got a termination,me being a Diabetic was one factor why they would do it on the N.H.S.So it was done,and even when I came out of hospital,I still didn't believe that I had been pregnant.Maybe it was like a psychological safeguard for myself?.I had quite a biggish bump near the end,I was even producing milk and yet I still couldn't or wouldn't accept that I was really pregnant.
I left Pete for a couple of weeks after a really big fight in public,he had really shown me up,he threw a pint of bee all over me at a Christmas dinner organised by the company I worked for,I was in shock,I couldn't even speak,I just sat there trembling from head to toe,I was numb,he got into a rage beacuase I wouldn't dance with him,he couldn't dance anyway,only like a spastic on drugs,but he thought he was great.On the way out of the Town hall,he grabbed my stepfather Joe around the neck and lifted him off of his feet and told him to tell me to fuck off.I went home with my mum and Joe that night,I stayed for three weeks,but with my mum,she's not like a mother and I just felt in the way?,so I went back to Pete,it was the only life I seemed to know?.In the three weeks that I had been away from him,I went out one night with a bloke called Dave,he was 21 years older than me,but I thought that he was a really nice bloke?,I knew him from work,but he was leaving to live in another part of the country,so that was short lived,we had a nice night of passion in the front of his car though!hahaha.At this time I was using a Dutch cap to stop me getting pregnant,I had been usung the Coil since the time of being pregnant,but I always had difficulties with it being fitted,I usually had to have tablets to chill me out for this operation.Anyway,this night,I didn't use my cap,I hated that bloody awful smelly thing!.It was so awkward trying to put it in with the spermicidal gel on it,it would slip out of my fingers and I'd end up throwing it across the room in frustration!hahaha.
When I went beck to Pete,I made the big mistake of telling him about my night out with another man.Whoa!,bad mistake!.he was very quiet at first,then he wanted to know what happened?,all of a sudden he went crazy!!!.I had never felt so frightened in my life or for my life,he told me,with his eyes bulging out like a madman,that I had better go and take an overdose of my insulin,I don't remember how I got out of that one?,it was in a bit of a haze,then he told me that he wasn't going to hurt me,but that he was going to kill my mum,my dad,my brother Paul and my three year old brother Derek,the people that I most loved I suppose?.I was so frightened,I knew things that he had done in the past,before I met him,and got away with,I lost half a stone in a week,the only peace I had was at work.I just didn'y know where to turn,I felt like I was going crazy,after a few weeks of living in terror,I went around Petes mothers one night,she was a nice old girl and she would stick up for me before she would him.I stood in her sitting room and just screamed how I wish I hadn't phoned for an ambulance when he took my insulin months beforehand,because he had lost hundreds of pounds on the horses,I screamed how I wished that he were dead!!!.Over the months I lost a considerable bit of weight,I'm surprised it wasn't my mind?.When he used to go to the pub,I used to weigh up the Irons to see which one was the heaviest,I was going to hit him over the head and then cut his throat,it had to be something quick,before he had time to retaliate.I went out with my brother Paul one night and told him what I'd been planning,he knew his sister wasn't violent in any way,but he knew I meant it,he told me he wouldn't help me to get rid of the body.On one of the rare occassions that I saw my dad,I told him what I'd been planning,he said he wasn't worth it.No,he wasn't worth it,but I was in fear of mine and my families life,he had quietened down over this within a few months,but I still never felt any safer.
Then,even though I had been taking precautions,I found out I was pregnant again.Oh my God!,the son of Satan,Damien,I couldn't have a baby,not only did I not want a baby,I definately didn't want his,so I had another termination.I suffered for years over this,I could never forgive myself for what I had done,I couldn't look a child in the eye,I always felt like they 'knew' what I had done,the only child I could relate to was my little brother Derek,he knew me,he knew I loved him more than anything in this world,so with him I felt ok and knew he didn't judge me.Thinking of it years later,maybe the baby wasn't Petes,maybe it was Daves?.
A year later I was sterilised,even if I had ever wanted a child?I didnt deserve one now.I started getting more daring,started coming into my own at last.I'd lost a few stone and I went and bleached my hair blonde,Pete didnt like this,I just told him it was my hair and that I'd do it as I wanted.I was still very frightened of him,but I still done my own thing most of the time.I had made friends down the local pub,most younger than me,but I got on great with them and had a good laugh.I was even roped in to join the ladies darts team,hahahaha,how we never got barred from some pubs beats me?,we used to mess about and have a good laugh,I even won the ladies singles at our local pub.
I ended up leaving Pete on the 26/7/88,the day my brother paul got married.I kept telling Pete that he had better not show me up at my brothers wedding,but he did,he couldnt help himself.I kicked him off home,when I got home he had written a note on the door,it read fuck off Eddie,so I did,and never looked back.I used to go down and pick up clothes etc,he sat and cried,I had never seen him cry before,not even when his brother John commited suicide,Pete didnt cry when his dad died either,he hated his own dad,but I understand why.It's funny,once I had left Pete,after a few months I understood why Pete was like he was,I supposed I had analysed him while I had been away from him?.
One of the things I really did like about Pete,and still do is:I can sit there and have a really intelligent conversation with him.We would talk no end about Religeon,he had once been a practising Zen Buddhist and since I was 15,I had believed in the Philosophies and thinkings of Hinduism and Buddhism.,so we'd sit and talk for hours about this.I would never feel intimidated by him by telling him that I believed that I had lived before,reincarnation,as I knew that he understood all about this kind of stuff.He was also like me in that he had read an extensive lot of books on these and other kinds of subjects.
14 years later,I am still friends with Pete,he has been married to a woman called Jenny since around 1993,I get on very well with the both of them and go and visit them every Tuesday night,we have a lot in common and have a real good laugh together.I'm glad that Pete found someone that understands him and is more near his age.We laugh about Pete and we laugh about the old times that we had together too.
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