The Ballad of Debbie and Jack.

“Debbie?” Jack said.
“You know it is.” There were more footfalls on the stairs, that third one from the bottom creaking.
“How’d you know it was me?” Debbie said.
“Chanel number five, you never could stop wearing that perfume. Bet you wore it in prison even.”
“You know it.” Jack could hear Debbie reach the bottom of the stairs. He steeled himself for a blow. Instead he heard her in the kitchen. She came up behind him, the kettle in her hand, leaning over him smiling. He braced, feeling the kettle’s heat. As usual he couldn’t move. Debbie leaned forward and poured more tea into his cup “Just freshening you up love. Mind if I do myself one?”

Debbie settled into the chair across from Jack, mug clasped in her hands. “So what we’re going to do about you Jacky boy?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’ve been here all along, looking after Nell.”
“Where is my lovely little girl by the way?” Debbie said.
“At Mums, I’ve got to pick her up in a few hours.”
“Good. Good. Thought you might have given her away or something.”
“Jesus Deb, what sort of guy..”
“Shut the fuck up prick! You fucking go and screw me over, take my daughter away from me!”
Jack said nothing.
“Look at you, six foot fucking four, built like a shithouse. No one would ever believed I’d done any shit to you unless that fucking video hadn’t got out. And since when does a midge girl like me beat up a huge fucker like you. Just cos you’re a pussy, starting it with your ‘Ooh, please dominate me Mistress’ games. You started this, you fucked up my life.”

Jack knew to keep quite. Gentle giant was a description that had been following him ever since he topped six foot at age 15. When he’d met Debbie people started coining them Beauty and The Beast. She’d always liked to take a dominant role in the bedroom. When her jealousy kicked in things got bad fast.

Ladies had always liked being around him, probably because his size and demeanour made them feel safe. He thought that was the trigger for the jealousy. It started in the bedroom — contrary to her assertion, she’d started the BDSM games — he’d just gone along with it. But her slaps got harder, meaningful, the scratches deeper. One day it started outside the bedroom. An argument over a lost cuddly toy of Nell’s ended up with him bleeding from a deep scratch on his cheek. He was so shocked he couldn’t move. Some distant memory instinct making him curl up and try to protect himself. Fists raining down on him when he was v.small, the red hem of a dress visible in his peripheral vision, red sandals and painted toenails and pain. Fists and high-pitched fury.

The bizarre thing was how Debbie got caught. Nell had been at nursery and Deb and him were getting over yet another fight. They decided to go for breakfast at Tasty Workers. Debbie had been stewing over a trip he’d made on the weekend to a security conference. He’d been invited to talk, giving his experience of rising up from doorman to owner of a small security company providing doormen services. During breakfast Debs got more and more irate, eventually throwing her tea at him, then attacking him, before dragging him out into the street. He didn’t suffer more than the usual — stuff he normally passed off as work related incidents and DIY slip-ups — but this time there were witnesses. And in the age of the smartphone, videos. Jack got himself home but the images of a very short, beautiful blond girl standing on top of a six foot four muscleman, beating him with a traffic cone, then a brick was too good to pass up. The term viral was new to him, as was doxxed, until people showed up at his home demanding justice. For whom he wasn’t quite sure. Soon the Police were there. Court cases ensued, and Debbie was in prison. Now of course she was out — he knew how violent she could be — but did they really kill a prison guard during the escape?

Jack knew how to keep quiet. But perhaps not this time.

“No, I didn’t Debbie. That was you. So what are you going to do now?”

— — —

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R! :D