Maya And The Tough Guy by Carter Ashby Read Free Book Online

ways she might have been able to save her marriage. She imagined Damon coming home drunk. What if she’d just lain down when he lifted his hand to her? What if she’d offered him everything including her soul just to make him happy? Well, wasn’t that precisely what she’d done?  
    And then she thought of Jayce. Friday night nearly breaking that guy’s finger. Standing up to the bouncer. Jayce, who had once been a frightened, abused boy. He hadn’t become the confident man he was today by continuing to cower. By submitting to those more powerful than him.  
    “Something wrong, Maya?” Mrs. Kratz asked.
    Out of nowhere, laughter bubbled out of her. She covered her mouth and shook her head. She gulped in a breath and said, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure why I’m laughing.”
    “This is hardly a funny topic. You of all people should understand that.”
    Maya’s humor vanished replaced with a sudden and shocking flood of anger. Not just any anger. Righteous anger. Whatever had happened to allow this emotion to break through, she was grateful. She clung to it and said, “You know, you’re right. I do understand. I understood it when I was six months pregnant with Mattie, and Damon came home drunk and hit me the first time. He works hard, I said to myself. He has a lot of responsibility. If I take care of him, he’ll calm down.
    “I understood it when he rampaged through the living room, throwing and destroying lamps and the television; when I hid the children in their closet so he could throw me to the floor and demand I clean up what he destroyed. A submissive wife gives her husband what he needs, even when he needs her to crawl through broken glass while he curses at her.
    “I understood it when he came home after getting fired, punched me so hard I fell on my back, dragged me back to our room by my hair, and then raped and sodomized me. Of course, I suppose since I consented to marry him, that meant that I consented to everything that happened within the marriage. So I can’t justifiably call it rape, can I? After all, if I was fighting against him, then I wasn’t being a submissive wife. Was I?”
    Addy had tears streaming down her cheeks. Everyone was staring at Maya in various postures of shock and occasional sympathy.  
    “Class?” Maya asked. “What do we think? Should I have submitted more? Would you, if this was being done to you in front of your children? Or, perhaps, I deserved it for fornicating when I was sixteen and getting pregnant. I should have stayed in my home with my abusive father until Damon proposed to me properly, right? Would my life have been different then?”
    Addy’s hand on her back made her feel stronger. For once in her life, she didn’t feel scared or shaken. For once in her life, she believed something. She believed her own truth. Maybe it didn’t gel with what these ladies were telling her the scriptures said, but it was definitely truth. She could feel it down in her marrow.
    There was silence in the room. Maya heard a couple of sniffles. Mrs. Kratz seemed to be organizing her notes as though she was preparing to move on.  
    “My sister is in an abusive relationship.”
    Everyone turned to listen to Kylie Reed at the end of the table. She’d graduated with Jayce and Kellen. Maya didn’t know her very well.
    “It’s a difficult situation to be sure,” Mrs. Kratz conceded.
    “It’s an abomination,” Kylie said, her unwavering eyes meeting Mrs. Kratz’s. “And I want to thank Maya for telling her story because it’s something we all need to open our eyes about. My sister won’t leave her husband and a lot of the reason for that is right here in this room. These teachings—”
    “If your sister has chosen to stay with her husband, that responsibility is her own,” Mrs. Kratz said. “And perhaps God will bless her decision.”
    “I think you share in the responsibility, you and people like you who take on the mantle of responsibility for teaching God’s