Upon first inspection, she was the type of woman men wanted to meet. She had shiny long hair, long nails, an athletic body with fantastic curves and an inviting smile. She looked like a dream, and that is the attraction, the fantasy.

The fantasy starts to deteriorate when you notice her surroundings. The tweaker catering to her whims in hopes of getting a touch. The overbearing boyfriends who share the joy of slapping her around. The grocery bags filled with beer and toiletries, or just beer. It was best when no one looked long enough in her direction to notice such things, and she knew this.

When your mother is a disapproving alcoholic, you need to create some distance. Though she was too old to still be living at home, she was so broken she failed at living anywhere else. An expectation she met every day was failure.

There always being men around, she kept a decent man on the fringes, one who would not hit her and tried to overlook the drinking and depression, but she would not date someone who would not hit her. The decent man could expect to touch the fantasy once, when she felt he might slip away and she wanted to keep him on the tether. He had not considered that if they hit her once, she would be his.

From a distance, without a spoken word, the illusion of her was greatly desired, and was all he saw. Unfortunately, the decent man's mother told her son that he would never be loved by his dream because he could not hit her, and she has never had a relationship with a man who hadn't smacked her around a bit.

He wanted her, desperately. He desired her image, her touch. He needed her to feel alive, worthy, so without thought while arguing after a couple of dozen beers between them, he pulled his hand back to deliver a swift smack. Without thought of hesitation, he did what was necessary to seal their love, and another soul was lost to a fantasy, a failure, a dream that so many shared as nightmare.