Charming Part 4….The Emotional Vampire Disguised as Prince Charming

The bigger issues by far outweighed the small stuff.  Being taken for granted is something we don’t think will happen to us.  But in reality sometimes we don’t even notice that we’re being taken for granted until after the fact.  That’s exactly what happened to me, I didn’t realize it until years later or after the emotional manipulation had subsided for a bit. For instance after about five or six years together pull he’d pull the “I’ll meet you after work for dinner or a drink” and then keep me waiting for literally hours without answering his cell phone.  Once while driving what felt like thousands of miles, my car began to give me problems on I-10.  I was stuck on the interstate with my blinkers on, and the motherfucker passed right by me.  Didn’t answer his fucking phone and didn’t recognize it was me stalled on the side of the highway.

He claimed he’d “forget” to call me and he’d head straight home to his wife and kids and then proceed to call me to half-heartedly apologize the next morning.  This happened a lot, and with each bout of uncontrollable rage at his constant dismissal of my feelings, I would hear his apologetic voice the next day and my stupid heart would melt and I’d forgive him, yet again.   But it got worse before I realized he was an emotional vampire, way worse.  But not before I gave into his requests for things he said he was missing at home.  He had all these sexual fantasies that were somehow stifled by his wife’s Catholic beliefs.  She didn’t believe in having sex other than for procreation, so they must have had sex only twice because the motherfucker only had two kids.  And from what I knew about him, he was extremely sexual which is what attracted me to him in the first place, then I fell in love with the bastard.

(By the way, Lestat doesn’t look in anyway like the vampire Colin Farrell portrayed in the remake of Fright Night.  He (Robert) looks more like Dan Marino, but I couldn’t find an image of a Dan Marino looking vampire.  Besides who doesn’t want to look at Colin Farrell?)

I mean physical attraction is the very first thing we all see or feel, it’s not like we walk around wondering “hey, that guy looks really smart and intelligent just look at the size of his briefcase, I’d really like to get to know him, grrrr.” As stereotypical as it sounds, it’s the fucking truth, of course that can backfire on us until after we get to know the great looking guy or girl we met at the bar the night before.  As soon as the newness and excitement of the one night stand is over we start to hear him or her talk and realize there is no intellectual depth in this person whatsoever. Then the air in their heads has become excruciating low while they are trying to find out what the Kardashian’s are up to and you try to leave without them noticing.

Because he had voiced his fantasies to me and his lack of sex with his idiot wife (not judging, I know this to be true, and I will explain a bit later) I gave into him and his requests for adventurous sex.  Which believe it or not I would come to regret, but only after about fifteen years or so and that too I will explain later.  In any case I did whatever he asked of my sexually thinking this would make him see that I love him enough to do all the things his wife wouldn’t.  I believed that he’d see that because I complied with him and what he asked he’d love me even more.  I should have seen that overall I gave more than the woman whom carried his last name, I gave way more of myself to him in every aspect, and I got very little in return from him.  I just didn’t see it then and that made for some very poor decisions on my part.

Of course it was that I was being manipulated because he played on the fact that I would tell him I loved him so much, much more than he needed to know.  Emotional vampires live for this shit, they want to be the center of your life but won’t give up theirs in order for you to be the center of theirs.  I told him every chance I got that he was the love of my life and I could not live without him and I would wait forever for him.  Bad move for you to profess your love and devotion to an emotional vampire, not a normal person.  Because a normal person will tell you how they feel in response and if they truly love you, they will profess their love just as strongly as you feel for them.  But not Lestat, he knew exactly how to play on my emotional ties to him, and used my love against me in the most cruel and callus ways imaginable.  One particular time when we had planned to go to Ruidoso NM for the weekend and it turned bad, really bad.  I was working at a property management company at the time and I had become friends with one of the IT guys who was my age and we got along really well.  Lestat’s jealousy mirrored his faux caring and kindness, it was, at times so uncontrollable that he would be blinded by that one emotion and nothing else. And like all emotional vampires remorse would set in shortly thereafter, but only for a little while.  That day he said that he wouldn’t be able to meet me to leave on our trip until about six o’clock so I told him that I would go with some friends from work to Applebee’s to have a drink, and then we’d meet at my workplace so I could leave my car in the gated parking lot, we were driving up to Ruidoso in his truck.

So he said okay, and for me to call him when I was done.  So off I went with my friends from work which included my male friend, we’ll call him Rudy for this story.  So there we were, five women and Rudy, and we had a couple of drinks, laughing and enjoying ourselves.  I looked at my watch and said I had to leave, everyone else agreed and we all walked out at the same time.  We got to where our cars were parked and coincidentally Rudy and I had parked next to each other, all six of us hugged and said we’d see each other on Monday morning.  Rudy walked with me because he was parked right next to me.  He hugged me and kissed me on the cheek and I got into my car and drove away.

I called my Lestat and he didn’t answer, so I called him again and again and again.  For an hour I called him and he wouldn’t answer and I began to wonder if he might still be stuck at home.  It was coming on nine o’clock and I began to worry even more.  I parked at the K-Mart on Montana Ave near Airway Boulevard and by this time I was crying, calling him leaving message after message for him to please call me.  I resolved to finally go home, and by home I mean my parent’s house, I was living with them since my divorce.  As I drove down I-10 headed east, I continued to call his cell phone and leave hysterically pleading messages for him to call me.  Finally as I got to the Clint exit off I-10 he answered and for a split second I felt relief, of course that was short lived.  I asked him why he hadn’t answered and the motherfucker said “because I didn’t want to!”

I was like, what the fuck?!  His response definitely caught me off guard (although it shouldn’t have) He continued to explain saying that he had been in the parking lot of Applebee’s and had seen me walk out with Rudy.  Never mind that there were four other people there but I suppose blind jealousy can make one see in tunnel vision.  He proceeded to tell me what he saw, ever mind that what he saw as all in his mind, not what really happened.  He editorialized that the quick hug with Rudy was a lingering and deeply seductive embrace (no he didn’t use those words but that is how he made it sound) and that the quick kiss on the cheek was a deep French kiss that lasted hours and that Rudy and I practically had sex on the hood of his black Mustang.  I was taken completely by surprise at what was coming out of his mouth, and as I tried to compose myself through the emotional distress and tears, I asked him if he had changed his mind about our trip.  He mockingly laughed and said “I’m not going anywhere with you, you fucking whore!” and hung up the phone.  There it was, it had finally backfired on me and everything that I had done to fulfill his sexual fantasies and needs because I loved him so much had reduced me to nothing but a whore.

I pulled into the gas station right off of the Clint exit and cried hysterically for ten minutes and all the while I kept calling him back hoping he’d answer so I could try to explain what he has seen in the parking lot was innocent.  Yes, I know he didn’t deserve any explanation but I was in love and desperate to keep him in my life, I was still stupidly blinded by the Charming effect.  After ten or eleven calls with no answer, I rifled through my purse to try and find a tissue or napkin, something to wipe away all the tears and runny mascara from my face.  I looked in the rear view mirror and my face was red and swollen from the crying.  I looked horrible and felt it too. In doing so, I came across a white envelope next to my wallet, as I wiped my tears away with a McDonald’s napkin I realize what was in this envelope. You see, he had given me the money for the trip that morning when we had met for coffee, it was about fifteen hundred dollars in CASH.  That’s right the motherfucking emotional vampire had given me the trip money to hold.

I wiped my face as clean as I could and I put my 1998 Ford Escort into drive and got onto I-10 as fast as it could go and drove myself into El Paso. I drove around until I found myself a very nice hotel with a hot tub and a pool to stay at.  Even with the financial good fortune I found myself in you’d think I’d stop trying to contact him right?  Wrong, as soon as I got situated in my hotel room I (stupidly) kept calling his cell phone.  Throughout the night I called his phone over a hundred times, then about four o’clock in the morning I finally fell asleep, my face swollen from crying.  Emotionally drained I slept, okay it was more passing out because I was so tired and then I caught a glimpse of myself in the decorative mirror above the sofa and almost died of fright, so I said fuck it, I’m going to bed.

Before I passed out, I did what was probably THE bravest thing I had done to that point in my relationship, I turned off my cell phone.  Something had snapped during my psycho-emotional cry-fest that made me think, if he’s not going to at least have the courtesy of answering, even if it was to tell me to stop calling him, I wasn’t going to leave my phone on so he could try and call me the next day when I knew he’d have calmed down enough to talk rationally.   Then I fell into a deep and silent sleep, I didn’t even dream that night or what was left of the night.  I slept so soundly I didn’t wake up until about twelve thirty the next day, and that was because I was awoken by the loud bang on my hotel room door.

I thought, what the fuck housekeeping can’t see the do not disturb sign?!?  I got up still half asleep and stumbled my way to the door, passing that huge mirror above the couch again and grunting loudly at my still swollen face and wondering why the fuck my head hurt so much if I hadn’t consumed alcohol the night before.  I didn’t even look through the peephole and opened the door only to find my fucking asshole of an emotional vampire boyfriend standing in the doorway.  How the hell he found me is beyond me.  He must have driven around all night (after I had stopped calling him and turned off my phone) to all the hotels where he thought I might be.  I mean after he drove down to San Eli past my parents’ house only to see that my car wasn’t in the drive way at four in the morning (I knew him very, very well).

He stood there, looking towards the ground and I tried to close the door on him and he held it with his free hand (he had a beverage holder with two cups of coffee in the other) and I tried to close it again and he asked me to please let him in.  So I fucking did, and he put the coffee’s down on the table next to the door as I tried to walk away into the bathroom to wash my still swollen face.  He grabbed me and put his arms around my waist and just held me.  I thought to myself this asshole is frisking me for the envelope full of vacation money (yes that really did go through my head, get off my Kool-Aid I was tired, sleep deprived and still in love).  I told him I had to go and wash up and he kissed me and said he was sorry.  I told him I didn’t do anything wrong and that he should be fucking sorry and his eyes got wide and a look of surprise came across his face and that’s when I knew I had hit a nerve.  An emotional nerve that said, I know where your weak spot is in that façade of faux Charming armor is and I will use it to emotionally stab your ass if you treat me bad again!  This was the first time I had EVER displayed any kind of rebellion or independence to him.

He apologized again and I went to take a shower and we spent the rest of the weekend in the hotel room only coming out for food.  But that weekend was definitely a turning point, I would bring this incident up again and he’d deny ever calling me a whore and I told him never to deny it again because he said it and it would be the last time he’d use that word to describe me, ever.  That day I found the strength I would need to finally begin breaking away from this married asshole, emotionally manipulative vampire and the knowledge I gained from that point on would be a great defense and that’s when the tables began to turn.  So much so that we actually began to switch roles in our relationship and I didn’t even know it at the time.

No not that I became emotionally manipulative, I still loved him too much (at the time) to do that.  That would come much, much later in our relationship.  Hey, when you’re involved with an emotional vampire what happens?  They turn you, just like Lestat did in an Interview with a Vampire, Tom Cruise turned Brad Pitt, and when Brad finally found the strength to leave what happened?  Lestat hunted him and Claudia down in a creepy, stalker kind of way until he found them.  So what happened to me?  Lestat the Emotional Vampire turned me, but not into what he was, he turned me into something different, let me explain.

During our relationship, I had gotten a job at UTEP, where I learned the ins and outs of working in higher education.  Then I actually got my higher education, I went to school full time while also working full time as well as being a single mother of three boys who were all having growing pains of their own.  It took me more time than usual to graduate but I did it, I got my Bachelors in the winter of 2013.  I had begun to find my own way because as previously mentioned, Prince Charming was still M.I.A for all accounts and purposes.  And I figured that I was still emotionally invested with Lestat, I needed to start to change, even it if was in small ways.  Lestat and I would break up often, one of my friends mentioned that we were like Carrie and Mr. Big from Sex and the City, we broke up a lot (I do mean a lot).  And sometimes during our breakups, which at this point would only last a couple of months I would actually date other guys. Stay tuned for part five…….