Savior Neighbor

He just hoped that she didn’t hit him. Being overpowered by his 30-year-old wife was emasculating but at least it didn’t hurt too badly. He looked up at her with that smug look on her face, looking proud that she was able to hold him down. Her long, light brown hair was hanging a bit over her shoulders. She wore a tank top that showed off her thick arms and her right upper arm that had a tattoo sleeve.

Her arm wound back. Here it came. He never was going to get used to this. Colleen was five inches taller than he was and had sixty pounds on him. She was a lot stronger than him. When he first started dating her he worried about people judging them and making fun of him for being with a woman so much bigger than him. Now he wished that was the worst problem they had.

He watched that big fist of hers come forward and strike him right in the side of the face. Nothing was worse than getting punched in the face, he didn’t care what anyone else said. Feeling your entire face, heck your entire head, get rocked like that by someone who is intending to hurt you – he couldn’t think of anything he’d prefer that over. He felt the pain start in his cheek and spread through the rest of his head. He felt the tears coming out of his eyes uncontrollably and then he started to sob. He was able to open his eyes and see Colleen looking at him, smiling at the power she had over him. He would never tell a female on Facebook that her picture looked good again. He didn’t realize that was against the rules, one of the many rules his wife had that resulted in this when they were broken, but he sure knew now. And she was going to continue to make that clear to him until she decided she was done. He watched her wind her arm back again and he tried to brace himself for what was coming when the doorbell rang. She held her fist back where it was and looked down at him with fear, confusion, and anger.

“Who is that?” she said to him threateningly, her fist shaking with her looking like she was really going to unload on him.

“I have no idea,” he sobbed. He really didn’t. But even when he was telling the truth he had to react like he was lying and make sure nothing in his tone or expression suggested otherwise. She wouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. 

“Did you tell someone?” she said. “Did you call the cops??” This was the first time they had a visitor while he was getting punished. She did look afraid of the cops. He wondered if he’d ever get the guts to call them. He figured not because he still feared her far more than she seemed to fear them. 

“No,” he said, hoping he looked and sounded honest and sincere even though he was. “I promise I didn’t.” 

He could see her head starting to shake as she tried to determine whether she believed him or not but then the doorbell rang again and he was going to at least be spared of any immediate kind of punishment. He watched his wife look flustered as she stood up and went to answer the door. He hoped this wasn’t the police, there because someone called them for some reason. Two big police officers with guns wouldn’t be enough to make him feel safe from his wife – he knew what she was capable of. 

Colleen’s back was to him as he now sat up on the living room floor and he watched her open the door. Her legs looked so thick in the shorts she had on and her calves looked so muscular. She was just so much stronger than he was. She opened the door just enough to peek her head out and not allow Ted to see who was on the other side of the door.

“What’s up?” Colleen said to the guest. 

“Hey!” he heard a cute female voice say on the other end of the door. “I just wanted to come and introduce myself. I’m your new next door neighbor, Hailey.” 

Ted now remembered that he saw the house next door had been sold. He didn’t think much about who was moving in and when that might be. When you got beat a few times a month you didn’t think about much else other than how much it sucked when it was happening and how grateful you were when it wasn’t.

“OK,” Colleen said. If she was trying to act like everything was normal she was doing a horrible job of it and Ted almost found it comical. When she was angry with him she couldn’t think about anything else, not even enough to put an act on for their new neighbor. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“I thought I heard someone crying in there,” Hailey said. “Is everything OK?” 

Ted expected Colleen to try and quickly get rid of their guest at that point. Instead, she turned her head to look at him and gave him a look that was even more threatening than the normal ones she gave him. She motioned with her arm on her one eyes for him to wipe his eyes with his arm. He did that even though he knew that wasn’t going to be enough to hide the fact that he had been crying. Colleen didn’t spend the time to realize that as she turned around again. She opened the door wider and Ted looked at the girl standing there who looked beautiful. She appeared to be in her early twenties with a cute face, a cute little summery outfit on, and flip flops that showed her cute little feet. She gave Ted a sweet smile that briefly made him feel good until Colleen started to talk.

“This is my husband Ted,” she said. He put the fake smile on his face that he often needed to. This was the first time he had to do so with his eyes full of tears and he wondered if this young woman was buying it at all. Perhaps from the distance, she couldn’t see the tears that well. “Ted, this is our new next door neighbor, Hailey.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said. He could hear it in his voice that he had been crying and he knew that Hailey could hear that. He had no doubt Colleen was going to make him pay for that later even though he was trying his best. It was so unfair.

“Hi,” Hailey said. Her voice was so sweet. Why couldn’t he have found a woman like this? She took a step forward like she was going to come inside but Colleen didn’t wait to put a stop to that. She began shutting the door right in her face.

“Thanks for stopping by,” Colleen said impatiently as she pushed the door at Hailey and looked like she was actually forcing her backwards. Before the door completely blocked Ted’s vision of her, he actually thought he caught a glimpse of amusement on her face. “We’ll run into you soon,” Colleen said as she pushed the door more.

“I didn’t catch your name,” Hailey said to Colleen before the door completely closed in her face before she got an answer.

Colleen locked the door and marched over towards Ted. He didn’t do anything wrong but he was going to get it anyway. She grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him to his feet. She said nothing, clearly being careful that they could be heard from the outside again. But she looked as scary as ever as she pulled him to the stairs by the collar and made him walk up the staircase. She pulled him in their bedroom and threw him on the bed. He winced. She wound back her fist. Here it was going to come…

“You were looking at that girl!” Colleen said viciously. The punch didn’t come quite yet. She wanted him to say something.

“Only so she could see everything was OK,” he said desperately. “I promise, promise, promise that was the only reason I was looking at her. You are the only woman I would ever look at.”

“If I ever catch you looking at her you are going to pay worse than you ever have. And I damn well better not ever see you talking to her. And if you mention one word about anything between the two of us to her or anyone else….”

She didn’t finish her sentence and instead she stomped her bare, size 9 bare foot on the floor, hard enough to shake it. Ted had been punched by her more times than he can count but she had never kicked him. But hearing the impact that floor took when she stomped on it was a reminder that he would not want it stomping on him. He nodded with fear and this time she didn’t smile like she often did when she bullied him. This time she just kept a threatening and terrifying look on his face reminding him that he needed to keep his mouth shut. He was 31-years-old and this was his life.

****

“Hey Ted!”

He heard Hailey’s voice as he got out of the driver’s seat of his car. It had only been one day since she first stopped by. He had been looking directly at his house with the intention of just going inside and not talking to anyone. Hailey sounded so cute and no other guy would be able to just ignore her the way he was. Colleen was inside and if she even caught him turning around…

“If you need help, I can help you,” he heard Hailey say before he quickly got in the house and closed the door behind him.

****

“I heard her talking to you about something!” Colleen said as she straddled him, her powerful legs wrapped around his sides holding him in place, as she looked down at him with her fist back ready to strike. The sun shined in from the back sliding glass door as Colleen held him down on the kitchen floor. “What was she talking about?”

“I don’t know!” he pleaded, not wanting to take a strike from that fist. He thought he had done everything right. He had walked away from Hailey, not even looking at her, not even responding to her. He figured that would make Colleen happy. But he never could do anything right. He knew exactly what Hailey said but he wasn’t going to tell Colleen that. There was no way she could know for sure he knew. “I just walked inside, I didn’t pay any attention to her. It just sounded like she was mumbling to me!”

Colleen either didn’t believe him or just had enough because she punched him right in the nose. He immediately began crying. He used to try and hold back the tears at first to try and look tough but he soon realized that made the pain worse. Colleen punched him in the face again and then again. He couldn’t deal with this and it never got easier. He wished there was some way he could stop her. 

Colleen wound back to punch him again. Then she stopped as she looked to her left in the direction of the sliding glass door. Ted watched the expression on her face change from anger to shock as she got to her feet. He looked over and saw Hailey on the other side of the door. She held her phone in her right hand and she was waving her fingers at Ted with her left hand, a cute smile on her face. That cute smile made Ted angry as it just made her look stupid to him. What was she doing here? He knew she was about to pay a hard price. Colleen pulled the door open, hard enough where it seemed she could have pulled it right off the frame.

“How did you get back here?” Colleen said angrily. Ted wondered the same thing since they had a fifteen foot high wooden fence surrounding the entire backyard. “How did you get over the fence?”

“Ladder,” Hailey said proudly. Colleen looked like she was going to blow. Hailey didn’t look the least bit afraid which Ted thought was ignorant. 

“Trespassing on my property?” Colleen said. “You know how much trouble you can get it for that?”

“Not as much as you can for domestic abuse,” Hailey said. Ted could hear his wife breathing all of the way from where he was. 

“You should mind your own business,” she said, still sounding angry but Ted could hear her fear too. He had always been terrified of his strong wife but knowing someone had his back made him feel a little better. He found himself starting to root for her to get found out. But he still feared for Hailey. If he knew is wife, if Colleen did think she was going to get in trouble she was going to make sure to take it to take it out on Hailey first. “You have no proof anyway. If you get out of here now and don’t ever come over here again you may just be able to get out of this without getting hurt.”

“Well I recorded it so I do have proof,” Hailey said as she proudly held up her phone.

Colleen lunged at Hailey and fought with her for the phone. There was a bit of a struggle with Colleen looking desperate to get the phone and Hailey looking like she didn’t care much either way. Colleen ultimately overpowered her to get the phone from her. She held it behind her proudly and Hailey still looked like she didn’t care. 

“I’ll be smashing this now,” Colleen said.

“Smash it and I take the video right to the cops. I emailed it to myself.” Colleen looked like she was going to completely lose it on this girl but Ted kept waiting for her to try and hurt her, and she didn’t.

“Give me your email info right now or I smash the phone then I smash you!”

“Then I’ll go to the cops for sure. Beat me up in front of a witness and you’re done. Even if your husband won’t admit it, if I go to the cops bruised up and show them the video you’ll be in all sorts of trouble. Now give me the phone, now!”

Ted was certain that was it. Colleen wasn’t going to let anyone threaten her like this. She was going to rough up Hailey and deal with the consequences later. He knew a good beating from Colleen made one afraid to tell anyone anyway. Instead he looked at the look of fury on her face as she started to give Hailey the phone back, but then pulled back her hand.

“Delete the video if I give this back to you.”

“No,” Hailey said with a smile and it was at that moment, looking at both of their facial expressions, that Ted realized Hailey was the one in complete control. “You give me the phone and I won’t play it for anyone. If not, you can bust up my phone and beat me up, then determine if that is worth the trouble you’ll get in for domestic abuse.”

“How do I know you still won’t share it?” Colleen asked accusingly. 

“You’ll just have to take your chances,” Hailey said. “But I’m good to my word. Now what’s it going to be?” Ted, never seeing his wife back down to anyone, still thought Colleen was ultimately going to choose to beat this woman up but instead he watched her hand the phone to Hailey who took it proudly.

“I’ll be checking in on things her periodically to make sure you are treating your husband the way you should be,” Hailey said. “I better not find out about you beating on him again or else I won’t be the only one that knows what you’ve been doing. And I’ll be stopping by periodically to make sure so don’t think you can just scare him into staying quiet. My ladder is on the other side of the fence so I’ll have to walk through your house to leave. I’ll show myself out.”

Hailey walked inside right past a speechless Colleen. Hailey looked at Ted and winked at him before walking out.