“I couldn’t tell from the dress you were wearing at the dance when we met if you were in good shape or not, but your ankles looked okay so I decided to ask you out”, he told me on our first date…for which he had brought me to the beach.*
Seeing me in a swim suit, he decided that I could use “a little work”, but was worth the investment so to speak. Thus began my foray into body issues.
How I managed to get that far without feeling self-conscious about my body, especially considering my experiences as a child, is beyond me. I think of it as a tender mercy of the Lord, because it was literally off my radar entirely…just hadn’t occurred to me that there was anything at all wrong with me. Because, as it turns out, there wasn't. And isn't.
Kevin turned out to be a master of manipulation and control. He would take a sprinkle of truth, and then twist it so cleverly that I didn’t even notice it. I was so used to glomming onto anyone who paid attention to me that I overlooked a lot of things that would have sent a more secure person running for the door.
“Our bodies are the greatest gift God has ever given us, so if it’s not in perfect shape, then we are abusing the greatest gift from God.” he informed me. This seemed like a reasonable statement. And after all, Kevin was a medical student, was several years older than me, and had been married and divorced already. He clearly knew a lot more about these matters than I did at just 18 years old.
Thus began one of the strangest relationships of my life. Kevin would show up at my garage early in the morning, before I’d even awoken, and take me to his campus apartment at UCI. He’d never informed the school that he’d been divorced so that he could keep his married student apartment, which was WAY more spacious and affordable than he’d have had otherwise.
Sometimes he’d let me eat something before we went to the campus gym, but most of the time we just headed straight there. After going inside to get his hand stamped for gym access, he’d come out and quickly, while the ink was still wet, press the back of his hand onto mine to transfer the image, so that he wouldn’t have to pay for me to work out in the school facility as a guest.
Then it was drill sergeant time. Swimming laps, pumping iron, running around the track. He stood by and watched while pushing me to go longer, farther and faster than I ever had.
“You have to do this for the right reasons” he explained to me. “My ex-wife Joy started exercising and taking better care of herself while we were dating too, but then after we got married she stopped and let herself go. She clearly wasn’t doing it for the right reason” he’d say with a look of disappointment.
Joy was often used as a “how not to be” example.
After wearing me out for a few hours, we’d return to his house. Once he cut a honeydew melon in half and put it on a plate between us with two spoons. After a few minutes, he dropped his spoon with a look of disgust.
“What’s wrong?”, I asked?
“If you want to be a gluttonous pig, be my guest.” he replied.
“It’s honeydew melon!” I said, leaving off the obvious part about how I’d just worked out for 3 hours and hadn’t eaten at all yet that day.
“Clearly you can’t shovel food into your gaping maw fast enough, so go right ahead”.
“No" I retorted. “I’m not hungry any more”, dropping my spoon in defiance of his accusation.
Not only did Kevin micromanage every bite I took all day, but somehow he got me to agree that if we were in public, it would be best if I didn’t speak.
“You wouldn’t want to say something that might embarrass yourself, or me. We both know that you sometimes put your foot in your mouth.”
This was true. As an extrovert, I’m not shy about conversing with anyone and never have been. Kevin was in training to be a doctor…and we all know how doctors are prestigious and estimable members of the community (snark). I wouldn’t want to jeopardize his standing or position because I said something ignorant or irrelevant. So incredibly, I agreed to this request.
One evening a guy from Kevin’s church stopped by for a short visit. He was a friendly fellow who had graduated from the same college I was heading off to in a couple months. During the visit he chatted with me and gave me a few bits of advice and useful suggestions since I would be a new freshman. After he left, the look on Kevin’s face shocked me.
“What was that?!” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I responded, baffled.
“I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t talk in public” he answered.
"We’re in your living room”, I said.
“When the public comes into my living room, then my living room is the public.” he said.
Kevin was chock full of useful information. One day he explained to me that he’d struggled to control his diet when he was a teen. His grandmother was always filling his plate and pushing him to eat it. They fought a lot about it, till finally he figured out how to gag himself to make himself throw up. “After that there wasn’t any more conflict. I’d just tell her to ‘pile it on’, and as soon as I was done eating, I’d go throw it up.”
As a future doctor, he didn’t see any harm in this method, because he wasn’t bulimic, just “keeping the peace”. I never let him know that I tried (but thankfully failed) to follow his example on a number of occasions after he had insulted my eating habits. I'd cram my whole fist down my throat, but never got anywhere near succeeding. My eating disorder was confined to my mind. There were countless moments of control and manipulation that summer. I didn’t realize that’s what they were at the time. My primary focus was on leaving home (finally!!!) and heading out of state to college, even though Kevin was already grooming me to marry him once we were both done with school. "You'll get to be a doctor's wife" he'd say, as if that was the most illustrious thing I could ever aspire to.
Staying connected long distance wasn’t going to be a problem, because Kevin rigged up a system to communicate with me without paying for long distance phone bills.
He typed up a list of 100 questions, answers, statements, etc., numbered them from 0-99, and made a copy for each of us. Once I was away, he would call my dorm room collect, and when the operator would say “Collect call for Blue”, I would reply “she’s not available”, to which Kevin would ask the operator if he could leave a return call back number which I’d write down (eg:1-8-36-2-17-99-53)
After hanging up, I’d get out the code sheet, and look up question numbers 1, 8, 36, 2, 17, 99 and 53, and then write down the numbers to my answers and do the same thing in reverse. In this ingenious way, Kevin managed to keep me under his thumb from 600 miles away without paying a cent. “Did you run at least 3 miles today?” (Yes), What have you eaten today? (an apple) etc.
As I didn’t really know what being loved actually felt like at that point in my life, being paid attention to was a convincing substitute. And if nothing else, Kevin paid attention to me. At least as long as it was convenient.
Two months after I left for college, I found someone driving home for the weekend and decided to surprise Kevin with a visit. Twelve hours later I was dropped at my house, got straight in my car and drove to Kevin’s (married student) apartment. Granted, it was late, but I’d gotten there as fast as I could, and was excited to surprise him.
He opened the door, and when he saw me standing there he said “what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to surprise you with a visit!” I said. “I just got here and came straight over.”
“It’s late and I’m tired. But there is a dance tomorrow night, so how about I see you there. FYI, there’s a girl who is investigating the church and I offered to take her. It's kind of missionary work. But how about you come over and give me a haircut after the dance?”
As a professional doormat, I agreed to his suggestion. He never let me in.
At the dance, Kevin hardly acknowledged me, focusing instead on his "fellowshipping" of the investigator. But as he was leaving he said “see you in an hour, I’ve got to take Maria home, and then you can cut my hair.”
I was tired. I didn’t especially want to drive down to his house and cut his hair at 1:30 a.m., and my ride back to college was picking me up at 6 a.m. But I didn’t know how to say no so I agreed. I was in his box. Thank heavens for guardian angel friends who speak up!
“Blue, I’m worried about the impact Kevin is having on you” JB said to me in the parking lot after the dance. I wasn’t exactly sure what "impact" he meant, but his concern touched me.
JB was a really good person that I admired a lot. He'd known Kevin for a long time, and apparently had a little more insight about his character than I did. As we talked, he encouraged me to untangle myself from Kevin, but I told him I didn’t know how.
“Sometimes I think God is okay with us telling white lies” he told me. “It’s a matter of survival in some cases. You really shouldn’t go over there tonight.”
“But how do I get out of it?” I pleaded.
“Just tell him you got a flat tire”, JB suggested.
By the time I got home it was 2 a.m. My phone was ringing as I walked through the door.
“Where are you?” Kevin demanded.
“Obviously you know I’m at home since you called me here.” I replied.
“Why aren’t you here?” he said
“I ran out of gas.” (my white lie)
“You ran out of gas, he said, skepticism oozing in his voice. “Where?”
His interrogation went on for a few more minutes. I knew he didn’t believe me because being a person without guile, I am frankly a horrible liar.
“So when are you going to get here?” he asked to my astonishment.
“Kevin, it’s 2 a.m. I’m tired. I’m leaving in four hours to go back to school. I’m not going to come cut your hair.” I said, with my recently acquired backbone.
“You’re NOT COMING?” he yelled at me into the receiver.
“No. I’m not.” I replied, standing my ground.
There was about 20 seconds of silence. I can still hear the buzz of the phone line when I remember this moment. And then, there was the sweet sound of freedom as Kevin hung up on me. Incredibly!
I fairly danced. “He Hung Up On Me!” I was so relieved! This huge, invisible weight, connected to a massive chain simply evaporated in that moment. I was free. Two hours later he called again, and with piety in his voice tried to convince me he was sorry, and that I needed to forgive him. And give him a haircut. “I’ll come to your house” he graciously offered. “You can sleep the whole drive back today, you don’t need to sleep now”.
I refused his invitation, and told him to never call me again. We were over. Glory Hallelujah and amen. I never spoke to Kevin again.
Just two weeks later I met Doc at college.
While I was blessedly Kevin-free, I’ve never quite regained the carefree peace with my body that I enjoyed prior to him. But I am getting closer. Getting closer.
* And yes, I should have smacked him and walked away at that point, and countless points thereafter. I know that now.
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