The Drowning Woman

Hazel remembers meeting Benjamin, ignoring a friend’s warnings to stay away from him. She thinks about how the sex was fun at first and how she was enamored with the lifestyle and wealth he offered. She grew up with a single mother, and both women were prone to spending beyond their means. Hazel’s mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and Hazel could barely afford to put her in a state facility. When Benjamin proposed, he presented a contract to shift their relationship from dominant/submissive to “master-slave.” In return, she asked that he provide for her mother for the rest of her life. He agreed to do so while they were married.

Hazel remembers her relationship’s devolution. Not a “good enough actress” for consensual nonconsent to please Benjamin, Hazel’s “pain and humiliation had to be real” (117). She recalls their dynamic, including the rules for how she should behave in public and him controlling what she ate and who she was friends with. Hazel remembers how much worse the abuse became during the pandemic and how, afterward, Benjamin hired Nate, a security guard, to watch her. She knew that the abuse would go too far at some point but saw no options to leave him without being killed and dooming her mother to substandard care.