Take Another Look by Rosalind Noonan

explained how they began seeing each other, usually hooking up in the evenings, before Frank reported to work for a midnight shift. In the beginning, he had taken her out to dinner a few times, to quiet, inexpensive restaurants. Italian, Thai, California cuisine. Frank stayed in shape from surfing, or so he claimed. He didn’t drink, and he called himself a “soldier in the war on drugs.” Jane had been impressed, mistaking his sobriety for a grounded mental state. When she introduced him to her parents, Frank had been a model boyfriend. He had talked guns and ammo with Ron and complimented Sandra on her cooking. Granted, it was easy to impress her parents, but Frank knew all the right buttons to push. He always did.
    After a few months, he had suggested that she move into his place so that they didn’t have to “jump through hoops” to schedule time together. Despite his speeches opposing marriage and procreation, Frank’s desire to be with her had won Jane over. She had moved into his house, eyeing the tiny room off the big bedroom as a possible nursery.
    Once they were living together, their relationship began a gradual decline. Frank had wanted her to account for every minute she was away, and on the nights they were home together, his appetite for sex carved away at her precious sleep. Trying to talk it out, she had told him that she was not a sex slave. That had prompted him to lock her to the bed in handcuffs and keep her captive for the better part of a day. A joke, he had said. Couldn’t she take a joke? That night, when she was about to begin packing, he had coaxed her out for a romantic dinner overlooking the river. Watching the way the waitress came on to him that night, Jane had been reminded of just how attractive and desirable Frank was. Doubting that she would ever do better, she had decided to stay and teach him the proper way to treat a woman.
    In some ways the descent of their relationship had been gradual. Frank had seized control over her in small ways, and she had allowed it, to avoid an ugly confrontation.
    â€œFrank never could sleep,” she said, explaining about the night monsters that possessed him. How some vile energy burned in his eyes at night, furious and wild. His patrols during the hours of darkness. The baseball bat. The bizarre demands. And his need to dominate her. That was what had driven him to close his hands around her neck. “It would be so easy for me to kill you,” he had told her, pressing his thumb to her larynx. “A small amount of pressure in the right place. Doesn’t take much. A minute or so, and you’d be dead.”
    Sometimes when the sun rose, the terror would drain from him, and he would actually smile and proclaim how lucky they were to be together. He would pull her to him and make tender love to her, as if the madness of the previous hours had never happened. Other times, he would simply snap into the daily routine, showering and brushing his teeth. She had begun to live for the nights when he would be away at work.
    â€œWhen he was at his worst, he wouldn’t let me leave his house.” Those were the times when she had vowed to get away. Regardless of how much she wanted to love him, regardless of the fact that he was the best-looking guy she would ever land, regardless of his threats to kill her if she disobeyed him, she needed to stick to her resolve and leave this house and never come back.
    And then when she was away from him her determination would wane. Was she being a prima donna, as Frank said? No relationship was perfect.
    But the threat of violence . . . the manic control . . .
    She had blamed herself for wanting too much time with him. Maybe they needed to include other people in their activities. Unfortunately, that could not include Marnie and Jason. Frank insisted that Jason was gay, and he thought Marnie was a corrupting influence. “After a few hours with her, your brain goes soft with