Warning: [Potential] animal abuse + domestic abuse.
Whisky learned from a very early point that animals were the fastest way to warm and/or soften my heart. He used that knowledge against me at every available opportunity. It started on our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple. Actually, that’s a lie: it started a couple of weeks after Valentine’s Day, but his gift was a belated Valentine’s gift – and that gift, was a snake.
Cyril
I called him Cyril. Cyril the corn snake. I had no idea whether it was male or female, but it was the calmest, coolest snake in the world. In my head, he was a nerdy little snake, probably because I’m insane.
The snake was a Valentine’s gift, sure… but it was also an apology gift… for yet another loud, aggressive fight. It had worked, too. You know, because I was a fool in love. Literally. And because it worked, Whisky kept buying me animals as an apology.
Cyril refused to eat one week. Nothing I did worked. There was pin pricking of dead mice, live offerings, and pretty much every other gross attempt that you could think of, to get that snake to eat. Nothing worked.
Whisky promised to take Cyril to the vet while I was at work (and he was off,) but he never did… and a week or so later, Cyril the snake died.
Max
Whisky used Max the cat like the proverbial carrot at the end of the stick. Max was part of a duo, two brothers, but Phoenix, the other cat, couldn’t be tamed. Phoenix didn’t want to be a housecat; he wanted to be an alley cat. For that reason, my Pops decided to keep him… and also out of necessity, because we couldn’t catch him.
Max, though, was my baby. My cat. He was the most loving baby in the world, and it also reinforced the stereotype that boy cats are lovely and adorable, but girl cats are the bitchiest bitches ever. Before Max and Phi-Phi there was a girl cat called Splodge, and another girl cat called Jessie, and they were the meanest bitches in the whole world.
“We’ll go and get Max soon,” Whisky would say, over and over again.
When I was badly behaved, the offer to drive to my Pops’ house (Deutschland to UK) and collect Max was taken away.
When I behaved myself and didn’t make a fuss, the offer came back.
“Let’s figure something out next week,” Whisky would say.
Eventually, six months or so after we’d initially agreed, we finally drove back to the UK and picked up my cat. It wasn’t the end of using him as the carrot on that stick, though. Oh, no. Whisky came up with brand-new ways to terrorise me via my love of animals.
One night, he threatened to leave Max on our third-storey balcony.
“Let’s hope he jumps off,” Whisky said, and it made my blood run cold.
One day, a few weeks later, Whisky “accidentally” left Max on the balcony while I was at work, and my poor cat had “fallen” from it. Whisky didn’t tell me until after I’d finished my shift, so I couldn’t start searching for Max until three or four hours after he’d gone missing. Thankfully, I found him, hiding under a bush, mewing back at me. After a quick trip to the vet (in a cab, because Whisky said no,) Max thankfully didn’t have any injuries. I was so uncomfortable about leaving the cat and my husband alone together after that.
Whisky refused to buy cat food one time, so I walked into town, getting lost on the way, and lugged the heavy bag back myself. It wouldn’t be the last time, either.
The Lemmings
Whisky brought home two steppe lemmings one time. It was an apology for something that I didn’t know about yet (but would soon discover, in some fuckin’ style.) I didn’t have them long enough to name them; although, I was toying with the idea of Gee and Whizz. Those little furry critters are fast.
A few days after he’d brought them home, they disappeared.
The tank was still closed and safely in the spare bedroom (where Max the cat couldn’t get to them) but they had completely disappeared.
I tore the whole apartment apart looking for them, but I never found a single sign.
Whisky probably did that, didn’t he?
Splodge
As I write this, different moments keep flashing through my mind. Little what-ifs. When Whisky and I lived in The Flat together, Splodge, my indoor-only cat, somehow managed to get out. It was the only time that she had ever escaped. Ever-ever. That morning, I found her dead on the side of the road. She had been hit by a car.
Whisky had always blamed Bestie for leaving the bathroom window open, but it had never happened before. Bestie was as careful as I was. My cat was also Bestie’s cat.
I’ve often wondered if Whisky had done it, deliberately.
I mean, surely not.
But… what if he did?
I’ve had lots of little moments like this over the years – flashbacks, epiphanies, and burning questions, all rolled into one. Memories that I haven’t thought about for more than a decade suddenly flicker through my mind, along with an oh-fuck moment that I should’ve had years ago. Did he do that? Was that real? Could he have been there on that night?
Did he hurt my fucking pets?
The next blog post in the dating timeline is this one: Little Accidents.
Thank you so much for reading my blog today! 🖤
Would you like to read all about The Ex-Husband’s story, right from the very beginning? You’ll find that right here.
You can also read all about my disastrous dating history, right from the beginning, right here: Table of Dating Contents.
Alternatively, why not have a little peek around here: