My heart raced as I crawled back to the living room and to the phone to call my spiritual life coach and closest confidant, Deneen. She and I met through mutual friends back in 2001 while she was vacationing in Los Angeles from Birmingham, Alabama. From the moment we became acquainted, we were drawn to one another. She was almost old enough to be my mother and possessed very mothering qualities, though she had no children of her own. So, I became her daughter. Deneen was very spiritually grounded, and no matter what my issue or circumstance, she always treated me with love and respect and was always teaching me about God.
I was wild back then and it took me over a decade to begin to fully understand everything Deneen had been teaching me, but she never gave up. She was always there for my good days as well as my bad, and there was no one else I could call to help me through what was happening now. I dialed her number hastily and paced as I waited for her to answer the phone, tears streaming down my face.
Finally, she answered. “Hello, baby!”
She could barely understand a word I said as I rattled off the details of what I found in Aeron’s email. I told her about the disgusting pictures and videos and the upsetting set of emails between my husband and the obese porn star. I spoke quickly, choking on my words and drowning in my tears.
“Calm down,” she started. “Take a breath and listen to me. Now, let me ask you this. What has changed?”
My sobs subsided and, for a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe as I was overwhelmed by the question. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Look around and tell me what has changed since you read those emails. Have you lost anything? Or are you still in your home with your son and still in possession of all your achievements and all your graces? Look around. What have you lost?”
“Nothing,” I whispered through my sniffles.
“Right. And have you received any new information today?”
“Yeah, I did!”
“Did you? Did you really find out something about Aeron you didn’t already know?”
I thought about that, and as simple as the question was, it was all so profound. “No, I knew all of this already. I mean, maybe I didn’t know about this particular thing, but this is Aeron, always has been.”
“Okay,” Deneen said with a sense of relief in her voice. “Nothing has changed and there is no new information here, so why are you so worked up? Stay calm, call him, tell him to come home, and have a conversation with him about this, rationally.”
It took everything inside me to do as instructed. My blood coursed and my body ran hot for the two hours it took for Aeron to return home after I insisted there was an emergency with my son, knowing the truth would only prevent him from coming. I stood by the bay window overlooking the driveway as his blue, late-model Jaguar pulled up to the curb. Still on the phone with Deneen, I rushed her off and assumed the proper positioning in my mind—calm and collected. I placed myself on the sofa, my laptop open to the emails, and waited for him to come through the door. I said a silent prayer, asking God for strength and patience.
As he walked in, I sat there, somber.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is the boy okay?”
“He’s fine. Sit down. I have to talk to you about something.”
As he sat, I began to read from the string of emails between him and Felicia Fats. Tears streamed down my face and I heaved with the need to vomit again, still disgusted by the images of anal sex and self-fisting the super-fat porn performer had sent him. I waited for my husband to shrink; I waited for him to be embarrassed after being found out, but no.
Instead, he laughed at me.
“You think this is funny?” I questioned, as I grew angrier, trying to restrain myself when all I wanted to do was beat him to death with my Macintosh. Yet, I knew that if I showed any sign of anger, it would anger him, too, and he’d hit me for sure. I remained calm and kept my voice quiet, not wanting to rile the giant.
“Yeah, it’s funny!” he replied snidely with a huge grin, proud of himself and the hurt he’d inflicted.
“So, you don’t think this is an inappropriate conversation for a married man to have with another woman, much less a three-hundred-pound sex-worker?”
“Nah. I don’t see anything inappropriate about it. It was just a joke. It’s nothing.”
“A joke? Nothing? You think talking to a woman about all the sex you want to have with her is a joke? You think hurting me is nothing?”
“Yep.”
My husband laughed—I mean, really laughed—as I sat there and wept, withering under the weight of yet another personal and marital defeat. All I could do was cry and keep crying. We sat there, talking and debating until the sun went down and into the wee hours of the morning. I fumed and Aeron wallowed in my pain like a pig in slop. I went over all the horrible and hurtful things he did and said in the three years we’d been together that had torn me apart, diminished my esteem, and doomed our marriage and the future of our family. I pleaded for him to hear me, to please be the husband I deserved, to treat me better, to come home at night, and to help put our family back together.
He laughed.
Eventually, we both tired and walked down to the second story of the house, into the master suite, and crawled into bed. Somewhere along the way, I’m sure he promised to be a better man and husband. I’m sure he swore to never be unfaithful. I’m sure he said all the things that he thought I needed to hear so I’d just shut the fuck up and go to sleep. But as I lay there, next to this man whom I both loved and hated, it all came rushing back to me and the tears returned.
With my fists, I pounded on his thighs, screaming, “Why do you do this to me? Why?”
Aeron sprang up from his resting position and pushed me off the bed and onto the floor. He darted to his jeans, which were flung over the bed’s footboard, and drew his belt from its loops. As I lay on the floor, crying, my husband stood over me and began beating me with his belt. I screamed and held my hands outward, trying to grasp the belt to no avail.
“You want to act like a child,” he said, “then I’m going to treat you like one,” as he continued whipping me.
“Aeron! Stop! Please! You’re hurting me! Stop!” I yelled out as he relentlessly continued striking me. The thick leather curled around my arms, back, and neck as it struck me, leaving burning, stinging welts on my skin.
“Is this what you want?” he asked as he kept lashing. “You like this, huh?” he taunted as the blows became more powerful. Aeron continued beating me until we were interrupted by my son, who had awoken from his sleep and crept out of his bedroom in the midst of all the commotion and upon hearing his mother’s cries.
Just twelve years old, Naiim barged through the bedroom door, afraid but brave. “Is everything alright in here?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
As I lay on the floor in a fetal position, my husband standing over me, belt in hand, I assured my son I was alright, even though both he and I knew it was a lie. “Mommy’s okay, baby. Go back to bed.”
As my son closed the door, being too young and too small to fight his six-foot-four stepfather, Aeron grabbed my left arm and brought me to my feet.
“Now, take your ass to bed,” he snarled.
I crawled into bed, sobbing and shaking, and curled into a familiar fetal position, my back turned to my husband. He flopped into bed and lay on his back for a few moments before rolling over and scooting his large frame directly behind me. I lay on my side as he pressed himself against my body, his rock-hard manhood pressing against my backside. He was turned on by the beating he’d administered and there was nothing I could do against his advances; with Aeron, I was powerless, and no matter what he did, he was always allowed to use me, body and soul.
He removed my panties, sliding them gently past my thighs and down to my ankles before parting my legs and easing inside me. With my back turned to him, my husband had sex with me just as we had countless nights before—like a scratched and warped record—two bodies so wrong for one another but too familiar to disengage. I cried as my husband took even more from me, never satisfied, never having taken enough.
When we awoke later that morning, we both acted as if nothing happened. I wanted it to be over. I wanted to believe his apologies and promises. I wanted to be happy with my husband and for him to be happy with me. Exhausted from our sixteen-hour conversation and physical ordeal, I lay in bed as Aeron scurried around the house getting ready for work. As I dozed in and out of sleep, I could hear him coming in and out of the house, going to and from his car. Looking at the clock, I realized it was time to cart my son off to school, so I shuffled out of bed, dressed, and walked into Naiim’s room. I couldn’t bear to look at him. I knew he’d seen too much. He’d heard and seen so much abuse between Aeron and me, and I knew I owed him better but was too weak to give it to him.
“Come on, babe. Time to go,” I said as I ushered him out of his bedroom and up the stairs to the first floor where Aeron was waiting for us.
“Alright, then. I’ll call you later,” Aeron assured as he kissed my forehead. “Have a good day in school, man,” he said as he rubbed my son on the top of his head. Damaged, Naiim just nodded.
The three of us got into two separate cars and drove off in two separate directions. Our home was in the center of a hillside road shaped like a horseshoe, and as I reached the bottom of the hill on the left side, I looked to the right. Aeron’s car should have arrived at the bottom of the hill, as well, and when I didn’t see him, I waited for a few moments. When his car still didn’t appear, I got the instinct to turn around and head back to the house. Something told me he’d returned, but I didn’t listen to that sixth sense and instead went on my way.
The ride to my son’s school was quiet for the most part with the exception of me making excuses for Aeron once again. “Last night scared you, huh?” I asked my twelve-year-old.
“Yeah.”
“I know. I’m sorry, babe. We were arguing but it wasn’t serious. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, just trying to appease me.
“That won’t happen again, though. I promise.”
“Okay.”
He didn’t believe me, and neither did I.
I dropped my son off at school and rushed back to the house. I still had the feeling that something wasn’t right and that Aeron may have gone back after I’d pulled off. I sped into the driveway, swung into the garage, and raced into the house. I began looking for signs that he’d returned; I thought maybe he would have packed up his and Jonah’s belongings to take back to Mona’s house, where Jonah was staying. I ran down the stairs and into the master bedroom. He hadn’t taken anything. Checking Jonah’s closet, nothing had been taken from there either. It seemed I was just paranoid. Maybe Aeron had made it off the hill before I did and hadn’t turned back, after all.
Our relationship was driving me crazy.
I went upstairs to the living room to retrieve my laptop and do my best to carry on with my day. I was in the midst of writing a pilot script for Fox Television Studios based on my third book, The Vixen Manual. After the studio optioned the title and signed me to a development deal back in 2008, with hopes of creating an hour-long scripted drama based on the book, the professional envy and tension between my husband and me worsened. Upon announcing the deal to my husband, with disdain, he said, “I’ve been working in this business since I was nine years old and no one has ever given me a development deal.”
My entire career was built upon my computer. All the money I spent and everything he resented was made using that machine. He hated the idea that I didn’t seem to try as hard as he did, yet was making more money than he was. Even now that he was a regular on a long-running soap, I was still the breadwinner. He hated my computer and all it represented, and now, it also held proof of his infidelity and proof that I wasn’t the horrible person he made me out to be in the public and to his family. The emails I found were a sliver of truth that could damage the good ol’ boy persona he was so desperate to hold on to. If anyone ever saw the emails, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t seem so bad anymore.
Well, Aeron couldn’t have that.
No one could know the truth about him and the life we lived, the torture and torment I withstood. All the evidence I needed to divorce and humiliate him was on that computer, along with everything I needed to continue to be successful.
My heart fell into my stomach when I realized that Aeron had, in fact, returned to the house after all and that he’d stolen my computer. Panicked, I scrambled for the phone, called the CBS lot where his soap opera was being filmed, and asked to speak to my husband, who, naturally, was not answering his mobile phone.
“Hi. This is Karrine, Aeron’s wife. Has he reached set yet?”
“Aeron? I don’t think he’s on the schedule today. Let me double-check,” the woman on the other end of the phone said. “No. Aeron isn’t working today.”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”
And there it was.
It was just twelve days before Valentine’s Day, 2010, and my husband’s inappropriate sexual relationship with a 300-pound porn star had been revealed. He laughed at me when I confronted him with what I found, beat me with a belt in front of my son, and stole my computer containing all my work files and all the evidence I’d collected against him. He’d taken so much already but none of it was enough.
There was just one thing, though.
My computer backed up every hour on the hour, wirelessly, and all the information had already been stored. And, for insurance, I’d already printed out the emails between him and his fat fornicator. I may not have been strong enough to fight against him then, but I hoped that one day I would be and I wanted to gather as much evidence as I could. I immediately filed a restraining order against Aeron, citing the physical abuse over the last few years, and a theft report for my computer, knowing it was best for me to leave a paper trail. Unfortunately, Aeron was never in one spot long enough to have the restraining order served and there was no way to ever recover my computer.
A week later, the president of Fox Television Studios and my dear friend, David Madden, delivered a brand-new laptop to me so that I could finish the script I was writing for the company. I uploaded all the saved information from my wireless backup system and continued working as best I could while trying to find Aeron.
I called him constantly, leaving him voicemails and text messages several times a day. Eventually, just a few days before Valentine’s Day, he answered.
“Yo,” he said, sounding tired and stressed.
“Aeron, where is my computer?” I asked, skipping ridiculous pleasantries.
“I don’t have your computer, Karrine.”
“Really, Aeron? Where else could it be? We were the only people in the house. I left it on the couch when we went to bed and when I came back from taking Naiim to school, it was gone. Either you put it in your car before I got out of bed or you went back to the house and grabbed it after I left. Either way, I know you have it!”
“It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“What was? Stealing my computer? Yeah! It was a surprise alright!”
“I was going to have it updated and give it back to you on Valentine’s Day,” he said, lazily. His voice drifted in and out as if he was half asleep or high.
“What the fuck are you talking about? None of that makes any sense. And where are you?” I asked, hearing people and commotion in the background.
“On a plane, headed to Vegas. Don’t worry. Your precious computer is safe. You’ll get it back. I’ve gotta go.” And with that, Aeron hung up the phone.
Nearly a month would pass before I heard from him again.
On February 26, 2010, at nine o’clock on a rainy Friday night, a messenger appeared at my door with a very grand, very heavy bouquet of flowers at his feet and a manila envelope in his hands. I knew what was in it. It was inevitable. The messenger handed me the wet envelope, which had my initials scribbled on it in my husband’s handwriting. Then, he handed me a clipboard and a pen so that I could sign for the receipt of the envelope and the papers inside.
Divorce papers.
I opened the envelope and peeked inside. My heart jumped and then fell. I grabbed the wet clipboard and pen from the messenger’s hand and signed. He lifted the giant arrangement of flowers off the ground and asked where he should put them. Silently, I led him to the kitchen. Still stunned, I walked the stranger out, locked the front door, engaged the alarm, and walked back into the kitchen. I stared at the flowers and the divorce papers. With the flowers came a card with a message, written in Aeron’s handwriting. It read, I will always love you.
Even now, he refused to stop torturing me.
Looking closely at the paperwork, I noticed it was signed and dated the day Aeron beat me with his belt and stole my computer, the day he lied about going to work. That day, after all he did to me, after all he took, he couldn’t leave without taking just one more thing.
Everything.