Chapter 7 - Inundated.

One of the basic premises of any good cult is psychological manipulation. They want you to feel a sense of unity within the confines of their group and thereby win your loyalty. This not only makes the inductee feel like they are part of the group, but serves to isolate them from ‘others’. Which, in turn, reinforces the unity, and on and on and on and on . . . until the victim of the cult has become so entrenched in the group that it’s impossible to leave.

Back in the 1970s, the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon - otherwise known as the ‘Moonies’ - was particularly adept at using this type of unity-inducing manipulation. Their technique was to make sure that all cult members were always smiling, constantly projecting a positive image to the outside world. Their message was universal love and acceptance. And those they approached, especially disillusioned kids who hadn’t experienced a lot of love in their own lives, were easily taken in by that image. Who wouldn’t want to become a part of all that happiness? The desire to be loved is a basic human need so it isn’t surprising that giving someone tons of positive attention is a great way to win them over to your side. The Moonies’ success with this approach has since been followed up by other cult leaders like Charles Manson, Jim Jones and David Koresh.

Social anthropologists have a name for this cultish approach to winning over converts: ‘Love Bombing’.

Love Bombing is like weaponized affection. Cults aren’t the only ones who use Love Bombing to their advantage though. There are others who have become equally adept at using this technique on a more individualized basis. Human traffickers and pimps use Love Bombing to recruit sex workers by lavishing young men and women with expensive gifts and attention before gradually inducing them to perform sex acts in order to enrich the abusers. Gangs use a modified form of Love Bombing to make their street soldiers think that they will only ever find companionship and support among the like-minded members of the gang. In these cases, the love bombing is a coordinated group effort, with the group’s leader directing the followers to flood new members with feigned flattery, affection and praise, and then, once the newbie is roped in, they can do whatever they want with them.

When Love Bombing is used by an individual, however, that’s when its at its most insidious. Its most abusive. That’s when you get domestic abusers who intentionally use a victim’s emotional needs to take advantage of them both emotionally and physically. This group includes, not surprisingly, the malignant narcissists of the world - the kind of abusers who thrive off the love and devotion of their prey. These abusers tend to be particularly adept at Love Bombing to win the initial confidence of their partners. They idealize the love interest they go after, putting them up on a pedestal, and making the object of their attentions feel like the abuser adores them.

Of course, this Idealization phase never lasts. It can’t. Because the narcissist needs to be the center of their own world. They only pretend that the victim is important until they start to receive the attention they desire. Once they’ve won over their victim, all is good . . . until, inevitably, something happens to break apart the perfect illusion they’ve created. When the victim starts to notice the smothering attention they’re subjected to, and attempts to withdraw, then the narcissist gets angry.

Hence the Idealization phase morphs into the Devaluation phase.

The lesson here is that, when something’s too good to believe, don’t believe it. When someone bombards you with over-the-top love and affection, smothers you with verbal seduction, and pressures you for rapid and total commitment, you should be worried. Stop and think about things before you jump into such a relationship. Don’t let yourself be rushed. See the Love Bombing for what it is . . . just another tool that an abuser will use to control you.

Protect yourself while you can, or else you’ll end up like me.

That first night after I left the Rage party with Ethan was heaven.

Ethan was so considerate, so attentive, so solicitous of me. He kept asking if I was okay. He pressed me to talk about what had just happened. He told me how worried he was and that he understood how hard the decision I had made must have been. He said he just wanted to hold me and kiss me until I felt better.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated all the attention and the show of support. The difference between Brian’s taciturn refusal to ever discuss ANYTHING emotional and Ethan’s effusions of sentiment wasn’t lost on me. Strangely enough, though, I didn’t really want to talk about it all that much. Yes, I was devastated by Brian’s seeming betrayal and the collapse of a relationship I’d been striving at for two long years, but I didn’t want to dwell on it. I had made my decision and going through the play-by-play afterwards wasn’t going to change things or make me feel any better. What I wanted was to get on with my life and move past that pain.

So it struck me as kind of odd that Ethan wanted to talk about it all so desperately. He simply refused to stop pressing. Apparently he wanted to hear all the gory details. So I relented enough to give him the basics - I told him how I’d found Brian fucking his alter-ego in the backroom on the one night that I thought should be about me and my achievement and how disillusioned that had left me.

Ethan voiced the appropriate amounts of sympathy, of course, but with a bit of gloating thrown in. He seemed thrilled by the fact that he’d ‘won’ me away from Brian. That he had been the better man. He was the caring, empathic one and Brian was the total asshole who couldn’t keep it in his pants for even one night. I was too tired and emotionally worn out to dispute Ethan’s skewed view of the events. I let him think what he would. I just wanted to move on.

“I don’t want to talk about Brian anymore,” I finally insisted, getting up from the ratty old sofa and turning to pull Ethan up after me. “I’m with YOU now and I want to start off our new life together on a positive note. I don’t want to think about anything negative. So, please, just take me to bed and make love to me until I completely forget about the bad parts of tonight.”

So he did. Ethan kissed me and led me to his bed. Then he spent the rest of the night making slow, tender, passionate love to me. And it was almost enough to make me forget about Brian.

Almost.

The next morning, the lovefest continued. Ethan was effusive with his praise about just how wonderful the night before had been. First he woke me with a naked violin serenade.

“I promised I’d serenade you awake, didn’t I?” he simpered, setting aside the fiddle and climbing back into bed with me as I stretched.  

We kissed, and I could feel how enthusiastic he was despite the early hour of the morning but, since I was too sore to indulge him yet again, I went with a tried and true distraction technique . . . Food.

“You also promised me breakfast in bed.”

“Aha!” he chuckled and then lifted up the tray he’d stashed on the floor next to the bed.

I shifted up onto my elbow so I could look over the edge of the large plastic tray draped elegantly with a white cloth napkin. On the tray was a display consisting of half a dozen chocolate truffles and one red rose. Okay, so, yeah it was romantic, but as breakfasts go it was . . . insufficient. I was fucking starving. Not that I would say something so rude to my new lover.

“Dark chocolate?” I asked as I reached for a truffle.

“Is there any other kind?” Ethan enthused.

I quickly popped one chocolate in my mouth, silently wishing instead for an extra large mocha and a cheese bagel with turkey and swiss. Brian had always kidded me about the monster that lived in my stomach and how it controlled my life. But, at the same time, he had always made sure to have food available in the loft when I was around, even though he didn’t eat that much himself. Brian also understood not to get between me and my breakfast - food was the one thing I would turn down sex for. That fact was something I supposed Ethan would have to learn about me over time.

“I can’t believe you’re finally here,” Ethan insisted, distracting me from my meager breakfast by running his hands through my hair. “That we actually spent the entire night together.”

He dove in and started kissing me yet again. So much for my truffle breakfast in bed, huh? But I couldn’t fault him for his eagerness. When my stomach growled in the middle of Ethan’s newest assault, though, I realized I needed to take action.

“I’m here, but I can’t stay,” I declared, tossing the little paper wrapper from the one truffle I’d been allowed to ingest back onto the tray and squirming out from under Ethan. Ethan grumbled but I ignored him as I gathered up my clothing. “I have to go to class, then to work . . . Oh, I also have to pick up my stuff.”

That seemed to finally get Ethan’s attention. “What if HE’S there?” Ethan asked, watching me with a pensive expression as I dressed.

“What if he is?” I rejoined, trying to sound nonchalant. “I don’t care. I’m with you now. Right?”

Ethan sighed but didn’t say anything. He did roll over, grab the rose off the breakfast tray and, after sniffing it briefly, handed it to me. I accepted his symbolic gesture, internally marvelling at the ease with which THIS man dealt out all manner of romantic tokens as compared to my last lover. Of course, I couldn’t just leave Ethan after that, no matter how hungry or busy I was. Without even a word, he had clearly and effectively asserted his new ascendancy over me. I knelt in front of Ethan on the bed, tossed aside the rose, and let him drag me back down to the bed one more time.

And, if I saw that this was just Ethan’s way to assert his ownership of me one last time before I went back to my old life, I didn’t fight it. I figured it was just further evidence of how much he cared about me. I chose to read his actions as overwhelming affection rather than possessiveness. I wanted to see only the positive in this new relationship I was now committed to. So I let him make love to me one last time and tried not to think about how hungry I was or that I was going to be late to class.

That afternoon I snuck into the loft to retrieve all my stuff. Thank fuck that Brian was out, because I don’t know what I would have said to him. It was difficult enough just being there without having to confront my ex-lover. I tried to simply grab all my clothing as quickly as possible while ignoring the memories that tried to assail me from every direction.

I wasn’t completely successful.

The problem was that, everywhere I looked, I saw US. I saw us fucking on the chaise lounge in the corner - a favorite place for Brian and I to indulge in a special dessert of ice cream kisses and blow jobs. I saw us in the bathroom, indulging in our usual morning (and sometimes evening too) ritual shower sex. And, of course, I saw us on the altar of Brian’s bed, in all the many permutations of our always satisfying sex life. Yes, there were bad memories hidden in the dark corners of this space as well, but the good memories far outnumbered them.

It was the good memories that I fled from as soon as I’d scrabbled together enough clothing and school supplies to get by for the time being. I figured I could always come back for the rest later. I simply had to get out of there as fast as I could, or risk my resolve to end that phase of my life crumbling to dust.

Not that Ethan would have let that happen. Nope, he wasn’t taking any chances. In fact, I found him waiting for me on the street outside the loft when I came out.

At the time I wasn’t sure if I should be worried or flattered. Ethan spouted off a quick explanation that he had missed me - even though we had been separated barely three hours by that point - and that he figured I might need some help carrying my stuff, so he’d come after me to offer a hand. I was glad of the assistance, to be honest, since I really did have my hands full. I handed off my duffle bag to him while I kept hold of my messenger bag and art portfolio.

What I was NOT prepared for was how upset Ethan got when he commented on how few possessions I had and I confessed that I hadn’t wanted to take the time to get everything just then so I’d just come back later for the rest. Apparently my new lover didn’t think much of that idea. He immediately stopped me and insisted we go back and get the rest right away. He was adamant about it too.

“It doesn’t make any sense to do multiple trips, Baby,” Ethan maintained even after I tried to explain that it was no big deal to come back another day. “It’s better to just get all your stuff now. That way you never have to think about that despicable asshole again. You’ve suffered enough abuse at his hands. Let’s just get this over with.”

Even as angry as I still was, I didn’t like hearing Brian spoken about that way. I almost spoke up to defend him. Maybe it was just too soon, but it felt wrong to have Ethan dissing Brian so ferociously. But I just bit my tongue and continued walking down the block.

“I can’t deal with that now. I have to get to work,” I excused myself. “Now that I don’t have Brian’s money to fall back on, I need to get in as many hours as I can. Maybe Deb will be able to schedule me for some more weekend hours . . .”

“You don’t need to worry about that, Sweetie. We’ll get by. We can live on love, right?” Ethan tried to reassure me, but his efforts fell immediately flat.

“Love doesn’t buy groceries, Ethan,” I argued, a little snippy maybe because I still hadn’t had a real meal and low blood sugar will do that to me.

I guess that was a good enough argument though, since Ethan shut up after that and just trotted along at my side for the rest of the short walk to the Diner. I was glad that he’d finally fallen silent because I was too stressed out to deal with inane chatter. I wasn’t looking forward to my shift. I knew that it was highly likely that the gang would be there - Saturday afternoons were a regular hangout time for them, once they’d all finished at the gym or accomplished whatever other errands they had planned for the day. It was going to be incredibly awkward. At the very least, I hoped that Brian might have become caught up at work or something, or maybe he’d do the considerate thing for once and not show up to spare my feelings. His presence was sure to take matters to a whole other level of embarrassing.

But, either way, what I really did NOT need was Ethan hanging out with me while I confronted Brian and my friends for the first time after I’d very publicly walked out on my former lover the night before. So I made a point of asking Ethan if he could take all my stuff back to his apartment for me. I fibbed a little, telling him that there wasn’t really anywhere for me to keep all my bags at the Diner. I even pretended that I was worried I’d get in trouble if I brought it inside. Thankfully, Ethan bought the act and readily agreed to take my bags back to his apartment for me. Thankful and ready to be temporarily rid of him, I kissed Ethan goodbye and handed off everything except my messenger bag before I squared my shoulders and resigned myself to heading into the Diner to meet my fate.

But, because my luck completely sucks even at the best of times, it wasn’t surprising that the entire gang - including even the girls - was there, all of them silently watching me as I walked through the door. The girls, Emmett and Ted were all sitting in one booth, busily noshing on their lunches as I walked by. Brian and Michael were in the next booth over, also watching me intently. My eyes met Brian’s right away - we’d always had a sort of sixth sense about each other - and I was unable to look away even then. But he didn’t say anything so I didn’t either. I could feel the unspoken criticism wafting in the air around me even as I picked up a clean apron from behind the counter and started to tie it around my waist. The silence was so heavy, it felt like you could drown in it.

Thankfully Debbie broke up the moment of tension. “You gonna just stand there, or you gonna get to work?” she asked me, popping her gum as she offered me up a half-smile of acceptance.

I sighed and moved off to go start unloading one of the bus tubs.

The rest of my shift passed by in a similar vein. Pretty much everywhere I looked I saw sympathetic expressions but nobody was ready to speak up or say anything about what had happened the night before at Babylon. Everyone was meticulously polite. Everyone was kind in a sort of arms-length way. But nobody SAID anything to me beyond giving me their orders or thanking me for their food. It felt so alien. The entire ambiance of the Diner was tilted towards the strange that afternoon. And there was nothing I could do about it.

The gang all cleared out fairly quickly after I appeared. Brian stayed only long enough to finish the cup of coffee he’d been drinking when I came in. He shrugged off Michael’s repeated - and overtly pointed - questions about whether he was ‘all right’, saying he wanted to get home and change. He did leave me a ten dollar tip for a two dollar cup of coffee though. Typical Brian. The rest of them ate up as quickly as they could and bustled off within minutes of Brian’s departure, voicing stilted goodbyes as they left. It seemed like Brian had won custody of all our friends in the breakup. I had expected as much, but that didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt.

Debbie was the only one who refused to take sides. She made a point of not treating me any different than she would have on any other day - right down to making me take my turn on all the nastier chores, like cleaning the restrooms, scraping the grease traps on the huge industrial fryer, and taking out the mountain of trash that had accumulated by the kitchen door. Same old Debbie. At least I had her, right?

It wasn’t till right before the end of my shift that things really started to go south. I was on that trash run, lugging out the six huge garbage bags full of sludge to the dumpster in the back, when Michael reappeared behind me. I could tell the minute he spoke to me that this wasn’t going to be pleasant. Michael always did have a malicious temper. What had I expected? It was a given he’d come to the defense of his ‘Best Friend’ and give me the ‘talking to’ he figured I deserved.

“What do you want?” I asked as soon as I felt him hovering behind me, figuring I might as well get it over with.

“Well, it’s such a lovely day, I thought I’d go for a stroll,” he answered facetiously. “You know, take in the sights . . .”

“Like me, throwing out garbage?” I suggested as I hefted another of the heavy black plastic trash bags over my head and heaved it into the dumpster.

“Yeah, well, you’re so good at dumping things.”

I shot him a scornful glance over my shoulder but didn’t bother to answer him, knowing it would only exacerbate things. I didn’t have to wait more than fifteen seconds for his next salvo either. It was clear he was itching for an argument; standing there, leaning against the corner of the building, his arms crossed in an aggressive posture, and that more-righteous-than-thou judgmental smirk that I had always detested on his face.

“You didn’t have to walk out on him like that in front of everyone, you know,” Michael continued.

“I would have told him to go fuck himself, but he was already doing that in the back room with Rage,” I shot back, letting the anger that I thought I’d almost conquered bubble up again.

“How can you be such a shit?” Michael fumed, predictably taking Brian’s side without even considering how I had felt. “After all he’s done for you?”

I interrupted Michael before he could, once again, begin to list all the many reasons I owed Brian my gratitude. “I know what he’s done for me!”

“You knew who he was right from the beginning.”

“Yeah. You’re the one who told me,” I replied, already fed up with this conversation.

“Did you think that you could change him? That he would change for YOU?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I insisted as I tossed in the last of the trash bags and started to close the lid on the dumpster.

But Michael wasn’t ready to stop berating me yet. “Of course not. It’s over. On to the next. You got what you wanted . . .”

“So did you!” I turned on him, ready to go on the offensive if that’s what it would take to shut him the fuck up. “From the first night that we met, and he took me home and fucked me, you have wanted me gone.” I moved closer so I could shout my final words directly in his face. “Well, Mikey, you finally got your wish. There’s nothing standing in your way anymore. He’s all yours!”

Michael started spluttering, trying to come up with some lukewarm denial of a fact we both knew was true, but I wasn’t going to stand around and wait to hear his lies. I turned my back on him and took a step towards the entrance to the Diner. I guess I’d poked the bear one time too many, though, because Michael was more riled up than I’d ever seen him. He grabbed hold of my elbow, refusing to let me escape, and pulled me back around to face him.

“You know, since you’re no longer with Brian, there’s really no reason for you to be here, is there?” he growled at me, shooting daggers with his beady little black eyes. “So why don’t you just do us all a favor, including yourself, and disappear!”

What the fuck was I supposed to say to that? I can’t say it didn’t hurt. I know that Michael and I had never been close, but for a while there, when we were working together on the comic, I’d thought we were starting to develop a friendship of sorts. I’d thought I was becoming more than just Brian’s tag-a-long boytoy. I’d thought that Brian’s friends were, at least to some extent, my friends too. But not according to Michael. According to Michael, I was no longer needed and nobody would miss me if I were gone.

Michael couldn’t have found a more cutting way to attack me if he’d tried.

Since the night I’d met Brian, my life had been filled with chaos. He’d outed me at school the next morning when he dropped me off in a Jeep spray painted ‘Faggot’. That had led directly to my being bullied and ostracized at school and, indirectly, to first my mother and then my father finding out I was gay. As a result, I was kicked out of my home before I’d even graduated from high school. After that I’d gone from one unstable living situation to the next. First to Brian’s, then to Debbie’s, then back to my mother’s after I was bashed, then to Brian’s again. For the past two years I had never felt fully accepted anywhere I went. And now, it seemed, not only was I having to up end my living arrangements yet again, but I was also being cut out of the lives of the people that I’d thought were my friends. The one group that I thought would accept me for who I was. The people that I had assumed would stand by me. The only constant that I’d had since that momentous day when my whole life had started to change.

I was devastated. How could I not be? And, yeah, to a certain extent I knew that Michael was simply being his vindictive self, so I probably shouldn’t take what he was saying to heart, but it still hurt like fuck. And, because of the way the gang had given me the silent treatment earlier in the day, it seemed like Michael wasn’t the only one who held that opinion. They could have said something to me. They could have voiced some support. They could have offered me a tiny little olive branch. But they hadn’t. Not one of them had said a fucking word to me. Except for Michael, who purported to speak for the collective in telling me to disappear.

I didn’t want to believe Michael spoke for all the rest, but after the last few, tumultuous weeks, I felt so unsure of myself and my position amongst this group, that I just couldn’t fight it. I didn’t have the strength to argue with Michael. Fine. If he wanted me gone, who was I to quibble?

So I walked into the Diner, threw my apron in the laundry bin, and told Kiki that I was quitting. “Be sure and tell Debbie I said ‘goodbye’,” I reminded her as I picked up my messenger bag and walked out the door for what I assumed would be the last time.

The only thing that kept me from totally losing it as I walked away from a place that had come to feel like a safe haven was the fact that Ethan was waiting for me at the corner. He offered up a brilliant smile in welcome and held his arms out for me. I was so grateful that I at least had this one thing, that I willingly let him envelope me in his caring embrace. Right then I didn’t know what I would have done without Ethan to fall back on. It seemed like he was the only one still there for me. The only one I could rely on. My only friend.

So I let Ethan take me back to his apartment and lavish me with care. He made me dinner - or at least what passed for dinner when you only had a small hot plate and a toaster to cook with - filled me with enough cheap wine to get me semi-tipsy, and listened to me while I ranted on about how shitty my day had been. For once, Ethan simply sat and listened to me without saying much. Whenever he did speak up it was to tell me that I had been right to take offense at my friends’ actions. He called them names and told me I was too good for them. He told me that I didn’t need them.

When I’d finally got it all out, though, I immediately started to regret my hasty actions. It was bad enough that I’d just walked out on my lover and lost virtually all of my friends, but I’d also quit my job without having first found something else to tide me over. That meant I was effectively broke. What little I had in savings wouldn’t last me even a month, especially if I started paying my half of the living expenses with Ethan. What the fuck had I been thinking?

“Shit!” I moaned when this realization hit me.

“Shhh. It’ll be okay, Baby,” Ethan crooned, hugging me closer to his chest as we sat together on the ratty old sofa. “You don’t need those losers.”

“No. It’s not that,” I struggled to free myself from his embrace. “I don’t give a shit about them. But I DO need that fucking job.” I got up and started pacing around the tiny room as I worked through what I was going to do. “I can’t just quit and walk away. I have no other source of income. How am I going to pay for food and art shit and school and everything else? How am I going to help out with the expenses for this place if I don’t have a fucking job? Fuck! I’m going to have to just suck it and go back there tomorrow and beg Debbie to give me back my job. I don’t have any fucking choice.”

“You can’t do that!” Ethan got up from the couch, standing in my path and insisting I look at him. “You shouldn’t have to go back to that place and abase yourself to people that don’t appreciate you. They don’t deserve you, Baby. And you don’t need them or their fucking job. We’ll figure out another way to get by.” Ethan grabbed me again and took me in his arms. “You’ll find a new job. A better job. And in the meantime, I’ll take care of you, Jus. I promise. It’s just you and me, now. Right?”

What was I supposed to say to that? Ethan was my only remaining lifeline. He’d taken me in when Brian had betrayed me. He’d given me a place to live and total acceptance. How could I tell him no when he was offering to take care of me, even though I still had a lot of misgivings about that arrangement?

So I said nothing and simply let my new boyfriend bundle me off to bed where he spent the rest of the evening showing me, with his words and his body, how much he adored me. And it was good. He made me feel special. He made it seem like I was perfect and all those people who didn’t see it were blind. It was really nice. It was what I’d always wanted, right? To be pampered? To be deluged with endless support and love?  

Even though, in the back of my mind, there was this little voice that protested just a little bit at being so inundated with love that it felt like I was being smothered.