Her husband's boot presses into her back.

[This post refers to my ex-husband.]

I cannot know why he wanted to take this photo. 

But I can tell you why she allowed him to make this image - I am beneath his boot, face to the floor, unable to move.

I thought - at the time - that he took a photo of how he needed this relationship to be, to repeat his father's marriage. 

I am crushed, his boot is heavy and cold. I can't move. That is how I felt with him, and a part of me had known right from the start that it would be this way.

Is this an erotic image? 

No, not for me, ever.

He had told me what he wanted, how he wanted me to be, and I agreed.

I know myself to be strong, and I was thinking, if he wants this, if this is really how he and I must be, his intentions are made clear. And now - so are mine; I'm feeding a monster, to prevent it ripping us all apart. 

But, it did that anyway....

It started with his shame. I came home - where were the children - I don't remember now..? I found him looking at porn. His shame was obvious, and I felt a great tenderness in seeing his shock and embarrassment. 

I read it as repentance.

Wrong choice - why not attend to my own pain and rage?

Because it was less painful to feel compassion for him than the dagger piercing my heart, and suffering the awfulness of this betrayal. I didn't want to drink the poison of disgust. 

My heart shattered - but really there was little choice, life has to be done. 

And as a consequence, I felt as if I'd lost my soul.

The knowledge that he would betray me was there from the start too; he had betrayed his previous partner to be with me - but I hadn't let myself feel or see it - but oh yes, I had known - and then we were together in a home full of bills, and small children.

I needed partnership and love. 

I had a marriage built on shifting sand. 

I asked him "Why do they have to be tied up, why can't they touch, why must they be gagged?' 

I thought - you don't want me to touch you, you don't want me to speak, how do I make this work?' 

I asked him, 'Where does the energy in these images, in these ideas - the Eros - come from?'

I never found out.

I'm asking myself - does this story repeat in the one I am now living through? 

Seven years later after this photo, into the echoing dark chamber of White Spring I go, to slip under the black water. To let the cold wash the pain of this from my heart, and to set me free.