I am sitting here in the light waiting for it to begin. It must be soon, but I feel nothing yet except the pain of loss.
It has been many years now that I have kept the darkness at bay, but now the time has come when it must soon engulf me, and I shall not be sorry.
My grandmother told me that in nineteen forty four, with my father away in the army, my mother not long having given birth to me was diagnosed with an incurable disease. She travelled thousand of kilometres in the uncertainty of war time trains to arrive in Adelaide. There she was met by my grandmother into whose arms I was thrust with the words, "Here's your grandchild."
Shortly after this my mother went to hospital and there she died. I have no memory of my mother, nor for that matter my father at that time. When he was demobilised at the end of the war I still went on living with my grandparents. My father felt he was unable to care for me properly, and when eventually he married his new wife, whom I have always referred to as "Wicked stepmother," she did not want me.
So I was brought up by my grandparents in their strictly religious home until the time I married Mark.
I met Mark when I was sixteen through our attendance at the same church. From that time on I only had eyes for Mark. He was also brought up in a strictly religious home, one of its main dictums being, "No sex before marriage."
In my case a threat was hung over me that should I step over the bounds of the church's strict moral code, I would be sent to live with wicked stepmother. This was sufficient deterrent since wicked step mother was a strangely remote and a seemingly unfeeling sort of person. Her marriage with my father had produced two children – looking back now I wonder how they managed it – and this only added to her desire to keep me at a distance.
I went to work in an insurance office and there I began to discover some things about my female attractions.
To prevent any suggestions that I am engaging in an ego trip I point out that I have never considered my self particularly attractive physically. I was thin, and with what I considered to be an overly large nose curved rather like a beak. Yet there was something about me that seemed to draw men of all ages, whether they were single or married.
If I can point to anything about me that attracted men, one feature is my big blue eyes that some have referred to as, "Come to bed eyes." Added to that is an air of innocence, a sort of perpetual virginity.
I had men trying to engage me in what is now called, "A relationship," and several begging me to marry them. One poor boy, on my refusing him, ran off to join the navy.
As I have said, from the age of sixteen I only had eyes for Mark, my hero. My engagement to him at eighteen, joyful occasion that it was, ended up a nightmare of frustration. Whenever we wanted to set a date for our marriage his father in particular would object; "You haven't got enough money saved yet," was his usual cry.
By the time I arrived at the age of twenty four I had reached such a level of frustration at the delays that I broke down. The doctor told my grandmother that my marriage had been delayed for too long, but sparing her religious modesty he did not add that my breakdown had been brought about by sexual frustration.
That brought about the end of waiting. Mark and I married and that was a day of light and happiness – that is, until bedtime.
Despite the importuning men I came to the marriage bed a virgin, as did Mark. The first night was one of fumbling pain and frustration, and nothing like the glorious pleasure and gratification presented in the media.
The following years may have lacked the pain of the first night, but did not lack the frustration. Mark did not only prove to be an inadequate lover on the first night, but went on being inadequate. This might have been an early warning sign of what was to come, but I was too ignorant of things sexual to recognise it. I came to accept that what we did was the norm, and what I'd read about and seen on the media was all hype.
While accepting the situation I did discover a sexual passion in my self that Mark had no possibility of satisfying. Looking back now it seems amazing that I had no knowledge of masturbation, dildos or vibrators. Night after night I would try to persuade Mark into copulating me, and most nights I would end up crying as he used the excuses that rumour so often ascribes to women; "I'm too tired," "I've had a hard day," and eventually, "You're a sex maniac."
So I often ended up crying with frustration, unable to sleep because of my sexual hunger.
Despite the paucity of our sex life we did manage to produce two children during the first five years of our marriage. It was during the sixth year the first clear indications of things to come took place.
Along with no sex before marriage our religion had spelt out another; "No alcohol, ever."
By the sixth year of our marriage we still attended church but a much more liberal minded church. We met and socialised with people from the congregation who to our initial amazement did drink alcohol. This led to Mark and me imbibing during our evening meals.
This seemed harmless enough until I started to notice Mark drinking at other times. Over the following year his drinking increased, and with the increase went a diminishing of our already tenuous sex life and the consequent rise in the level of my frustration.
It reached the point where I was always ready for sex. There would be an ache in my lower abdomen, a constant ticking sensation in my clitoris and a perpetual wetness between my upper thighs.
