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I had previously spoken to Jon about the possibility of taking a job at HQ AFCENT or Geilenkirchen, but he made it quite clear to me that when he got out of the Army he wanted to get a job working in business. At that harsh rebuff, I let the subject drop. Jon had made his feelings clear to me and I was left with no other option but to accept them.

Within a day or two of Jon going back to England, I received a telephone call at about 3:00am in the morning. I found this to be very upsetting and rolled over and went back to sleep. Within days, however, I found that I was receiving nuisance calls several times during the day and night.

When I told Jon that someone was making nuisance calls to my house and I believed that they were from Kim, Jon’s exact words to me were ‘do nothing’. I couldn’t understand Jon’s attitude. I was the one who was being harassed and deprived of sleep, yet I was expected to do nothing about it.

Jon, it seems, didn’t appear to be plagued with nuisance calls, which I didn’t notice at the time. If Kim had wanted to phone anyone, it would have made sense that she would have phoned Jon and not me, but the birth control pills combines with lack of sleep meant that I wasn’t thinking clearly while all of this was occurring. If Kim had phoned Jon, he certainly never let on to me about the conversations that they had. I would find out much later, however, that there were many conversations and other forms of contact that Jon had with Kim, as well as many other women that I knew absolutely nothing about.

After having endured enough sleep deprivation, rather than going to the military police and reporting the incident, which would have been the more appropriate course of action, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I telephoned Kim’s supervisor and told him that Kim had been making nuisance calls to my home and asked him if he would take care for the problem before I went to the authorities. In retrospect, it was probably unwise for me to go directly to Kim’s supervisor, who was also an officer, because even if Kim had been making they calls, it would only have been covered it up. All parties concerned had been tipped off to trouble brewing in paradise and thereby had plenty of time to get their stories together. Regardless of how they felt about Kim personally, they would go to any length to cover up a scandal, which this episode was definitely becoming.

Within an hour of speaking to Kim’s supervisor, Kim was on the phone to me. She spoke to me for about an hour and told me that she hadn’t phoned my house, but had been on the phone to her father. She appeared to be very angry because I was holding her back from being friends with Jon. She also told me that she had gone to see a counsellor, who I had recommended, and this counsellor had told her that when a man criticises a woman’s body, that is abuse. At the time I thought that Kim was saying that to me for her benefit, but upon reflection, maybe she said that in response to something that Jon had said to her about me.

Kim wanted me to meet up with her so we could speak in person, but I declined the offer. Aside from the fact that I saw Kim as a threat to my happiness and security, I felt that she was an energy sapper, who fed off of the life force of others. This became apparent by the fact that I was so down after speaking to her on the phone. I was so convinced that Kim was the person who was making nuisance calls to me that I turned down one of the few opportunities that I would ever have to find out the truth. I was very mistrustful of Kim and didn’t know what might happen if I were to agree to meet her.

The following day Kim phoned me again. She spoke to me for about an hour and again, I refused to meet her. After the conversation, I was very down because she had told me many uncomplimentary things about the man I loved. If Jon was such a bad person, then why did Kim want him back so badly?

I didn’t notice it at the time, but Kim must have been phoning Jon and having conversations with him because on a few occasions he related to me bits of things that she had said that I had said and done. I was in denial about the true extent of Jon’s involvement with Kim. I didn’t to want to see that Jon was still involved with Kim and that they were discussing me, just as he and I were discussing her.

Another concern I had, which I dismissed just as easily as I had all of the other anomalies in my relationship with Jon, was the fact that every time I phoned him, I would ask him what he had been doing all day. His standard reply was that he had done nothing. I couldn’t understand Jon’s lackadaisical attitude to his life. I thought that he should have been using the time that the Army had given him to get his CV together and look for a job. Instead, as far as I was aware, Jon just sat around the house doing nothing all day long. That is what he told me anyway.

I didn’t want to push Jon into doing anything that he didn’t want to do because I am not by nature a pushy person. It is just simply not my style to order people around, which is probably the main reason why I didn’t flourish in a military environment. I will recommend a course of action to someone, but in the end, I leave it up to the individual concerned as to what but would like to do. Jon had only been gone a few weeks and I was already missing him. I therefore made arrangements to visit him in Basingstoke.

When I arrived in Basingstoke, the first person I would be introduced to was Glennys. The introduction was rather odd, though, as Glennys looked me up and down thoroughly. Glennys seemed friendly enough at first, although she made a point of expressing a few views to me that I felt were inappropriate. Glennys made a point of telling me that she couldn’t understand what women saw in Jon because she thought that he was boring. I was amazed that this woman would make such a declaration to me about the person who I would have thought she would have loved unconditionally. Most women, unless they are emotionally disturbed, just adore their sons regardless of what they are really like. Glennys, however, didn’t mind maligning her son to just about anyone and everyone who would listen. Emotionally disturbed is the keyword. I didn’t know it at the time, but Glennys was very emotionally disturbed. As the months would pass, however, I would see just how disturbed she was and what kind of an impact it had on her son.

Glennys made a point of telling me that if it hadn’t been for her, Jon would never have been able to buy the house. The reason for this is because Jon’s father died deeply in debt and Glennys, already 70, wasn’t in a position to pay the bills. Jon seized the opportunity to buy his mother’s house, thus leaving her with enough money to pay her bills, give some to her children, and go on a holiday. Although Jon had made a verbal agreement that he would look after his mother for the rest of her life, the house was in his sole name.

Every time any sort of disagreement arose in the house, Glennys would remind Jon of the promise that he had made. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but there must have been more to that arrangement than both Jon and Glennys let on. Jon had an intense hostility towards his mother, and his mother towards him. After I got to know the both of them a bit better, I realised that there is nothing the both of them would not do to achieve their own goals. Glennys, no doubt, must have held something over Jon, something that he didn’t want anyone to find out about. All Glennys had to do was to tell people what she knew about Jon, and his reputation, among other things, would be ruined.

In addition to the fact that Glennys didn’t have to worry about accommodation for the rest of her life, she was living entirely on state benefit because she had no income of her own. The money that she received from the government was hers to do with entirely as she saw fit since she didn’t have to worry about things like rent, council tax and household bills. Glennys nevertheless insisted upon writing Jon letter upon letter, claiming poverty. The situation was so bad that when Jon won £900 in the pools, he didn’t tell his mother because he believed she would try to wheedle more money out of him by.

Being a widow with nothing but time on her hands, Glennys decided to join the Catholic Church and threw herself into her new religion vociferously. She went to church every single day and got involved in every activity that was going. If Glennys stayed busy, she didn’t have to think about the mess that she had made or her and her children’s lives. Her life before discovering Jesus, however, was nowhere near Christ-like.

Glennys had been married once before when she was in her late teens and bore a daughter out of that union. Glennys’es maternal instincts were as particularly non-existent with her first child as they were with the other two who had survived. From the day her daughter was born, Glennys handed her over to be reared by the grandmother, thereby freeing her to go out and live her life of debauchery whilst her first husband was serving in the armed forces.

Because Glennys’es first husband was serving overseas in the Army, she didn’t see a great deal of him. On one occasion Glennys didn’t see her husband for eight years. Glennys didn’t mind because it left her with lots of free time to date other men. Glennys had the time of her life and gleefully admitted to me, in her ‘I’ve been a naughty girl’ tone of voice that she had had as many as ten affairs and two children from other men that, mysteriously, didn’t survive. Glennys also told her grand-daughter that she just loved World War II because there were lots of parties to go to and men to go out with – talk about a woman who was totally self absorbed! With a mother like that, it is no wonder that Jon grew up to have so many psychiatric disturbances. I would not, unfortunately, discover the extent of his problems until much, much later.

After years of playing the field, Glennys met Jon’s father, a man about eight years her junior. I suppose it was love because she allowed her husband to divorce her on the grounds of her adultery and then promptly married the man. Glennys later admitted to me that possibly she had made a mistake by marrying Jon’s father because he couldn’t provide her with the lifestyle that she had been given by her former husband. Her first husband was a Catholic and she considered this to be a bonus, considering the fact that she had just recently joined the Catholic Church. Even after all those years and affairs, Glennys’es first husband still carried a torch for her and tried his best to get her to go back to him even, though he had already remarried. They say that love is blind, and in this case, I suppose it was.

Jon’s mother and father moved to Basingstoke, which was being built up as part of the London over-spill. The couple lived in a mobile home until Jon was three, when they moved into a council house on Mansfield Road, Basingstoke.

The first child borne into the marriage was Stuart, who favours the father in looks and quite possibly temperament. I have never heard one bad thing said about Jon’s father, but an entire book alone could be written on the antics that Glennys has got up to. I have only seen Stuart a handful of times, but he honestly seemed like a decent sort of guy. He married, had a child, and concentrated on raising a family on his modest income, which is much more than could be said for his younger, more flamboyant brother.

The second child borne into the marriage was Jon, who favours his mother in looks and temperament. Glennys frequently joked that she only had Jon as a playmate for Stuart, and these remarks were no doubt deeply ingrained into her youngest son’s psyche.

Because Glennys’es maternal instincts were particularly non-existent, Stuart and Jon had to pretty much fend for themselves. Glennys was plagued with migraines and would often become physically violent towards Jon during these episodes. On some occasions when Glennys was unable to cope, she would lock him into closets, which no doubt further damaged his already disturbed ego.

Glennys would be away from the house for hours on end, leaving Stuart and Jon to explain to their father why their mother wasn’t at home when he came in from work. I would later find that Jon had inherited this aspect of his personality from his mother, as he would be gone for hours, then days, and later weeks on end. Jon was never able to give me a suitable explanation of his whereabouts, but by that time I was happy just to have some peace and be left alone.

When Jon was a pre-schooler, Glennys took a cleaning job at a prosthetics factory and was allowed to bring her children with her. Jon told me that for years afterwards, he would have nightmares about the artificial arms and legs all over the place. Years later, Jon confided to me that he didn’t even dream at all. I would tell Jon my dreams and try to get him to tell me his, but he couldn’t. I didn’t press, but thought it odd that he couldn’t recall his dreams, not knowing that this in itself is a sign of a mental imbalance.

It is interesting to note that when the full horror of Jon’s obscene lifestyle became apparent to me, I would have nightmares too. I would dream about gJont, obscene sexual aides, such as dildos, which I found to be revolting. I would wake up in the morning feeling dirty and violated that such awful images had come into my head. I knew at that time that I would never have had such sexually disgusting impressions if I hadn’t had the displeasure of meeting and marrying a man with such a warped sense of self and sexuality.

Jon had never had a good relationship with Stuart, his older brother. As children, their relationship was so volatile that they would break each other’s toys and were physically violent towards one another. Jon confided to me that he felt that Stuart was jealous of him because he made better grades, attended better schools and had achieved a higher station in life.

The Reynolds family was very poor. Jon told me that one Christmas they had to make their own toys because there wasn’t any money to buy new ones. That tale absolutely broke my heart, as I truly felt for him when he relayed to me his many distressing childhood memories. It should come as no surprise to find that there is a clear link between poverty and mental illness. One, therefore, has to ask himself if Jon had a better start in life, would it be possible that he might not have grown up so disturbed?

Because Jon was borne into such a poor family, he had a massive inferiority complex, which left him with the feeling that he would never be good enough to rub shoulders with ordinary people. As an adult, Jon wanted the best of everything. He had to drive the nicest car, live in the nicest house, and have the most beautiful woman hanging on his arm. Anything less than that would never do.

In Britain, there is a class of people, the Underclass. These people have no money, no job skills and no qualifications. For many of the women in this section of society, the only way that they can get a place of their own is to get pregnant and have a child. Shortly after the child is born, however, it has served its useful purpose and is often subject to all manner of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. There is not doubt in my mind that Stuart and Jon were brought into this world by Glennys for the sole purpose of getting government housing because she certainly didn’t look after them after she had them. Why else would a woman who had already had a family two decades before and found it to be an unsatisfactory vocation, want to have more children who she would only neglect and abuse?

There is also the possibility that Glennys thought that she could hang on to her new, much younger husband if she had his children, which is also a totally unacceptable reason to bring children into an already overcrowded world.

Glennys tended to use a type of negative conditioning to keep Jon in line. Whenever he misbehaved, she would yell at him and derisively tell him that he belonged in Park Prewitt, the local mental hospital. Glennys may very well have been able to get Jon to tow the line by using ridicule, but at what cost to his emotional well being?

The fact is that Glennys didn’t really like children and had them only to meet her own aims. In World War II she had a child because she was given extra government benefits. Again, in the late 1950’s, she had children to ensure that she would enjoy the benefit of government sponsored housing and hopefully, her much younger husband would stick around for a little bit longer than all of the other men before him.

Because Jon’s parents were not cut out for family life, they practically lived at the pub, leaving Stuart and Jon to fix their own meals and look after themselves. The situation was so bad that even the neighbours suspected that there was something amiss in paradise. Although they didn’t want to phone Social Services, they did keep a watchful eye on the Reynolds boys.

Jon confided to me that he was very ashamed of his home because it was so untidy. He was so ashamed that he was embarrassed to bring other children into his home. He didn’t want any of his peers to see the way that he was forced to live, with clothes and bags strewn all over the house. Jon told me that he stayed out of the house as much as possible during his childhood because he couldn’t stand to be home any more than his parents could stand to have him there.

It is interesting to note, however, that when I got to know the real Jon, I would not bring people into the home either. I was terrified that I would bring someone into the house, only to find him watching a pornographic movie, reading a pornographic magazine, or having a wank. I, too, didn’t want other people to know what I had to endure in my own home.

Not surprisingly, Jon had grown up to become somewhat of a local thug. When he was 12, he got fired from his first job as a market trader for stealing money. He then became the leader of a local gang of boys who went around vandalising the neighbourhood. Jon and Stuart’s reputations were so bad that after they joined the Army, the police would visit the Reynolds household to question them about any crimes that had been committed in the area.

One day Glennys showed me a picture that had been taken on a family outing. I was startled by the appearance of the man I loved because even as a young man, the disturbances of his psyche were already making their Marc. Even then he had the look of a hoodlum, which didn’t want to admit to because I wanted a nice boyfriend, not some common criminal.

Although Jon would make jokes about his appalling youth, his upbringing no doubt, deeply affected him. One day when I innocently told Jon that just about every male figure in my family tree had been heavily involved in the church, he glibly remarked to me that he felt that his ancestors must have been horse-thieves. Even then Jon had such a low opinion of himself that he couldn’t believe that anything good could have come from his ancestral lineage.

While Glennys was fun as long as she was able to talk about her favourite person, herself, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that there were some very serious issues with regard to her mothering techniques. What I do not know, however, was just how detrimental Jon’s lack of parental guidance had been.

One morning while Jon and I were laying on his bed, he pulled out a red book that contained his outgoing staff report. This report had been written by Squadron Leader Pearce, who was his superior officer. Squadron Leader Pearce had written a glowing report, full of praise for Jon’s ability to function as a senior NCO.

While such reports are essential to anyone who wants to climb the military ladder, the individual who is leaving the services on to pastures anew considers them pretty much irrelevant. The reason for this is because the way people conduct themselves in the civilian world is completely different. I had received many such reports in my 15 years of duty and knew that for the most part, they were not worth the paper that they were written on. Jon, however, relied heavily on satisfactory reports, as they helped him to form a positive image of himself that he would not have otherwise been able to cultivate.

Jon was very proud of his house. He had told me how his parents had lived in squalor, how the central heating had been broken for years and they had never bothered to get it fixed, and how the whole house was floored with linoleum. He had taken his first wife home to meet his family and the house was in such a state of disrepair that she told him that she was never going back there again. The marriage broke up shortly thereafter and one will never know how great a part his parents placed in its demise.

When Jon bought the house, he took out an additional loan to make home improvements. Because he was stationed in Ireland and was allowed lots of time off and free trips home, he set about totally transforming the hovel that marred his childhood. He remodelled the kitchen, living room, bedrooms and hall. The only major job that still needed completion was the bathroom, which really was hideous. Perhaps Jon thought that if he could transform his family home it would heal some of the wounds that had been deeply imbedded in his soul. I will never know.

Jon had one particular friend who he took with him on his major renovation projects. Apparently, this friend felt that because he had put so much time and effort into helping Jon to make much needed repairs, he felt that he was entitled to stay in the home.

One day, quite to Jon’s mother’s dismay, Jon’s friend showed up with his girlfriend and decided to stay. Glennys, not knowing what to do, phoned Jon, who dropped everything and went to Basingstoke to make sure that all was well in his house.

When Jon’s friend had finished his holiday and was preparing to leave, Jon pulled him to the side and told him that he didn’t mind him coming to visit, but he needed to ask first. Jon told me that he had never heard from his friend again. At the time I was totally amazed that another person would take such liberties. As time went on, however, I had to wonder just exactly what Jon had said to the man to make him believe that he could just come uninvited. I later learned, however, that Jon made a lot of grandiose statements to try and impress people. He may very well have made such a promise to his friend, never honestly believing that he would take him up on it.

Glennys related this tale to me as well, and told me that she didn’t approve of premarital sex. I wondered what planet she was on to make such statements. Glennys was the queen of extramarital sex and had openly admitted to me of having at least ten affairs and giving birth to two children when she wasn’t married to their fathers. Glennys, it seems, had become too pious for her own good.

I guess Glennys forgot that it was Jesus who said, ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’, or ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’

It took me only a few days into my holiday with Jon that Kim found a way to make her presence known. She phoned Jon incessantly and he refused to speak to her, preferring to allow Glennys to make up a story for him. I still saw Kim as an intruder and was so wrapped up in my relationship with Jon that I didn’t see that his refusal to speak to Kim as an act of cowardice on his part.

What I had failed to see, however, was the fact that Jon had hid behind his mother and allowed her to do the dirty work. It didn’t cross Glennys’s mind, or mine for that matter, to hand the telephone over to Jon and make him speak to her. In fact, T, the individual who kept telling me that Jon fancied me, would hand the phone over to Jon whenever Kim called. I personally didn’t like it when T did this and even asked him why he did it on one occasion.

T’s reply was, ‘I just hand the phone over to Jon and let him speak to her. He has to handle it like a man.’

I was initially angry with T because I thought that he was helping Kim to stay in contact with my lover. I didn’t realise it at the time that T was a real man, willing to take responsibility for his actions. T wasn’t helping Kim to stay in contact with Jon, he was trying to help Jon take responsibility for his actions, which is what an adult would do.

Perhaps I really didn’t want a man. Perhaps I wanted an immature little boy who would treat another person in such a shabby manner. Perhaps I needed to be with such an appalling human being because I needed to learn the hard way how not to treat other people.

I still hadn’t cottoned on to the fact that if Jon would treat Kim with such disregard that he would treat me the same way. I thought I was different. I thought that I could tame Jon. I though that we were destined to be together.

Apparently Kim had been phoning Jon and speaking to him on a daily basis, although I wasn’t aware of these surreptitious activities. The reason for my suspicions are the fact that up until Glennys told Kim not to phone anymore, she was content to bide her time. When all contact had been cut off, however, Kim lost all control of her senses and, in my opinion, went totally berserk.

Even though Kim had been asked not to phone the house anymore, she decided to make her presence known in other ways by sending cards, letters and packages. The letters that Kim sent Jon had been typed and not signed, so even if she had been confronted with the letter, she simply said that she had no knowledge of them.

Kim had a habit of sending letters, post cards and gifts, and although Jon went to great lengths to say that he didn’t want them, he has never returned or thrown any of them out. Even when I told Jon in no uncertain terms that I wanted him to throw out all of the gifts that Kim had given him, he refused, saying that he had paid for them.

If Kim meant nothing to Jon, he certainly would not have allowed her to buy him such expensive gifts. The mere fact that Jon refused to get rid of all of the presents that Kim had bought him shows quite clearly that their relationship was much stronger than Jon had let on. I wasn’t ready to see the reality of the situation, so I didn’t.

Kim went to my superiors and spoke to them for hours on end. I had no idea what was said, but I do feel that some of the things that I had said in confidence to my superiors were relayed to Kim.

One individual who Kim went to see, who was in my chain of command was a Captain Scipione, a peer of Kim’s. When this woman initially came to AFCENT, I took her to the Post Exchange in Schinnen and had lunch with her. During the lunch, I expressed to her the really bad experience that I had in the Mobile Engineering and Maintenance Team (MEMT). I told her how I had been treated by the team, and relayed one incident to her where my colleagues had left a dead bird in the office. I saw this as a clear attempt at intimidation, but said nothing about the incident because I didn’t want to make a fuss. I knew that the belligerent act was aimed at me solely because I was a female military member.

Unfortunately, even officers are not exempt from immaturity and unprofessionalism, and my boss was no exception. She must have relayed this incident to Kim because, much to my surprise, I was being accused of putting dead animals on Kim’s doorstep! It seemed to me to be just too much of a coincidence that I had confided the incident to my boss, my boss then had a lengthy conversation with Kim, and low and behold, I was being accused of the very thing that had been done to me!

Because Kim had made it her business to talk to anyone and everyone about Jon and me, I soon received a telephone call from my First Sergeant, telling me that she had scheduled an appointment for me to see the commander when I came back.

Jon received a phone call from his former commanders at AFCENT. They told him that he had to pay Kim back the money that he owed her. In addition, Kim had taken a sympathetic letter that I had written her in response to the phone calls that she had made to me, and had turned the act of pity into one of deviance. I was, therefore, made out to be the guilty party in the whole mess; the reason being that I had said that I was sorry that she was in pain, or something to that effect.

When Jon found out that I had written one sympathetic letter to Kim after she had phoned me, he became incensed and would not speak to me. This went on for a day and a night, and having had enough, I packed my bags and was on my way out the door. When Jon realised that I was leaving, he changed his attitude and started behaving nicely towards me again. That was the first time that I had seen the dark side of Jon’s personality, and sadly, it would not be the last.

When I arrived back from Basingstoke, I had an appointment to see my commander. Basically, he and the First Sergeant did all of the talking and I sat there and listened. My commander told me that I was to have no further contact with Kim, which was just fine with me because I had never asked her into my life in the first place.

The First Sergeant spoke to me and was much more pragmatic about the situation. She told me that the arrangement that Jon and Kim had made was none of my business and I should keep out of it. Although I was hurt and offended by what the First Sergeant had to say, it would take me many years to realise that she was right. If I had been thinking properly, I would have seen that the relationship that Jon and Kim had was highly destructive in nature and I should back out gracefully and leave them to it. Because I wasn’t thinking clearly, I felt that it was inappropriate for the First Sergeant to tell me to mind my own business in a matter that I felt was very much my own business. If I had been smart, I would have told Jon that I could not see him any more because it was posing too many problems at work. I was not smart, though, which is what proved to be my downfall.

From that moment forward, the commander made a point of greeting me whenever he saw me. We both knew that it was his way of letting me know that he was watching me. Since I had done nothing wrong, I didn’t mind being watched. What I did mind, however, was the negative publicity that I was receiving.

Within days rumours were abounding, and most of them were quite uncomplimentary. Kim had a lengthly conversation with my immediate supervisor and, although I will never know what was said, I heard through the grapevine that many derogatory comments were made about me during the discussion. My co-workers were so busy climbing their own respective military career ladders, they didn’t want to be tainted by the nastiness of what I was involved in and, not surprisingly, I became ostracised by my peers, which hurt a lot.

When I spoke to Jon on the phone about the frosty reception I was getting from people who had at one time had been friendly towards me, he dismissed it and said that it was all in my head. I didn’t know it at the time, but even Jon had a hidden agenda. He blamed me for what had happened and had decided, in his own demented way, to seek revenge.

Shortly after I came back from my trip, I began getting phone calls from a strange man. I had advertised my services as a professional astrologer in the Stars and Stripes newspaper and had assumed that he had obtained my number from the paper. The man phoned me and we chatted for hours, talking about this, that and the other. He asked me if I would erect a chart for him, and I happily agreed. When I received payment, it was in cash, which I thought a bit odd, but didn’t pursue. I was so thrilled that someone was going to pay me to cast a chart that I let any suspicions I may have had go.

The phone calls continued until well after I had completed the chart and sent it to the address that I had been given. I didn’t want to be rude, so chatted pleasantly with this stranger who seemed to be phoning on a regular basis. When he broached the subject of us meeting, I begged off, not wanting to become too involved with a man who I had never been properly introduced to. Although I didn’t know it, all of these calls had come at very crucial times.

In addition to the fact that I was being alienated by my colleagues, Colette, my best friend, told me that she didn’t want to be friends with me any more. The reason for this was because her daughter, Selena, repeated some things that I had said. Selena had never particularly liked me and took the opportunity to try to split us up in the same manner that she had tried to get rid of anyone her mother was close to.

Although I was very upset and hurt that Colette had decided she didn’t want to be my friend anymore, I had to respect her wishes. I may have a lot of bad habits, but when someone makes it perfectly clear to me that they do not desire the pleasure of my company, I give them what they want and stay away.

That evening that Colette broke up our friendship, I rang a mutual friend and told him what had happened. During our conversation, he revealed to me that Colette had told him that she didn’t want me in her house because I had ‘bad energy’. I had heard the term ‘bad energy’ before. Any time Colette met anyone who she didn’t like, she would automatically say that they had ‘bad energy’. I suppose my fate was sealed. I knew when Colette went around telling people that I had ‘bad energy’ that she was no longer interested in our friendship. No matter how hurt I was at being rejected by Colette, I would not pick up the phone and call her.

I developed a cyst on my right shin and never really got around to having it removed because I didn’t particularly fancy someone cutting me up, even if he was a medical professional. Jon, however, encouraged me to have it seen to, so I dutifully made an appointment to have it removed. The procedure involved the doctor cutting my leg open, cutting out the cyst, and giving me a few stitches. Because I had been given stitches, I had to make an appointment to go back and have them removed ten days later. Jon, it seemed, took an undue interest in the status of my cyst. During our telephone conversations, he would enquire about my cyst, and I would give him a progress report.

Jon had mentioned to me that Kim also had some growths on her body that had to be removed. I never asked if she had them removed at Jon’s request or on her own volition. I can only assume that she had them removed at Jon’s request because I cannot imagine that Kim would have discussed something as mundane as a cyst removal to Jon.

Jon, it seemed, wanted physical perfection in a woman.

Because I was missing Jon, he decided to come and visit me at HQAFCENT in October. To be honest, since he wasn’t working and he wasn’t required to report for duty, he could have stayed with me the whole time and nobody would have known or cared.

When Jon arrived, I was so pleased to have him back in my life again. We went for runs on the Heide and exercised to keep fit. I just knew he was the man for me.

Within days of Jon’s return, however, Kim made her presence known. The first thing she did was to vandalise Jon’s car, a crime that he reported to the police.

The next thing that Kim did was to get the wheels of the military machine in motion. I was made aware of this when I received a call from my commander. He told me that I had to report to the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), but he said that he didn’t know what it was about. I got dressed and did as I was told.

When I arrived at the OSI’s office, I was taken to an interview room and interrogated. The investigator wanted to know who I was with and what I was doing on very specific dates. It was all just too coincidental. Since I lived alone, I didn’t have an alibi. I was very upset about the whole situation and I had to be told to calm down on more than one occasion during the interview. Evidently, a spate of hate attacks had all been lodged against Kim and I seemed to be the prime suspect.

Kim had claimed that people were phoning her house and failing to leave a message on her answering machine. Kim claimed that dead animals had been left on her doorstep with the term ‘road kill’ written on her window. This incident smacked too much of what I had confided to my superior a couple of years earlier. The term ‘road kill’, however, must have been made up because it is not an expression that I ever would have used in a million years.

Kim claimed that her house had been broken into and some items that were important to both her and Jon had been stolen. For starters, I lived in the Netherlands and Kim lived in Germany. I didn’t have, or want for that matter, her personal address, so I had no way of knowing where she lived. That is, of course, unless I had been interested enough in her to follow her around, which I wasn’t.

Kim had apparently received some hate mail, which wasn’t discussed with me. I was, however, suspicious because I was required to take a handwriting analysis.

I also had my fingerprints taken and considered this to be very humiliating. I had done nothing wrong, yet I was being treated like a criminal.

While I was in the interview room, waiting to take the numerous tests that were expected of me, I overheard one investigator tell the other that she didn’t think that I knew anything about what was going on, a surreptitious expression said supposedly without my knowledge, but I nevertheless found it to be of great relief.

When I arrived home after having being interrogated for crimes that I knew nothing about, I was fit to be tied. I was literally at the end of my tether and told Jon so. I told him about my awful morning and how it was all his fault for having become involved with someone as crazy as Kim.

The OSI also wanted to see Jon since he knew Kim intimately. For some reason, Jon had kept all of the cards and other paraphernalia that Kim had given him and he was more than happy to show all of it to the OSI. It never once occurred to me to ask Jon what on earth he was doing, bringing all those cards and letters back to the Netherlands when he was on his way to see me. It just didn’t make sense. If Kim meant nothing to Jon, then why had he not thrown all the cards and letters away? Why weren’t they in the UK in a safe place? What possible reason did Jon have to bring them back to continental Europe after he had gone to the trouble to move to the UK? Those were all questions that I failed to ask, and Jon failed to provide an answer for.

Before going to speak to the OSI, however, Jon decided to phone the UK delegation and get some advice. Their advice was that he no longer worked under their command, so they couldn’t support him. Having stated that, however, the UK delegation advised Jon not speak to the American authorities. Jon thanked the UK delegation for the advice but decided to speak to the OSI anyway because he wanted to ‘set the record straight’ about Kim.

The following day Jon brought all of the cards and letters that Kim had given him and showed them to the OSI. The OSI, in turn, confiscated them, saying that they would be needed as evidence.

Jon was than taken into an interview room. I don’t know what happened next, but someone had to come and get some tissues because Jon evidently had become so emotional that he had begun to cry. I felt sorry for Jon because he had been through so much with Kim. I felt that the situation had obviously become so traumatic for him that he had broken down in tears. I hadn’t yet realised that one of the techniques that Jon uses when pushed into a corner is to become emotional, which is an attempt at eliciting sympathy from others. I had been through a lot, too, but I hadn’t broken down in tears.

After what seemed like ages, Jon was finally allowed out of the interview room. It was at that time that he informed me that he and Kim had engaged in anal sex and although he hadn’t been aware of it, it was in fact an activity that was illegal in the British military system. Kim said that Jon had raped her, and Jon said that Kim had consented to it. Whether it was consensual or not wasn’t an issue because it was illegal nonetheless. Because Jon had openly admitted to having anal sex with Kim, a full investigation would ensure. Although Jon never said it, I have no doubt that he blamed me for having revealed so much to the OSI.

The ordeal wasn’t over because both Jon and I were then subjected to polygraph tests. I could have refused to take the test, but I was adamant that I was innocent. I believed the polygraph would settle the issue once and for all.

Jon passed his test after three attempts, but I failed mine. Nobody in the military bothered to fill me in on the little known fact that if an individual has certain health conditions, such as respiratory problems, a polygraph is not a suitable method of lie detection. It is no secret that many people in my maternal lineage have respiratory problems to include asthma, chronic bronchitis and lung cancer. The military knowingly never diagnosed me as having asthma because I would have been considered unsuitable for military service. But surprise, surprise, just as soon as I left the military I was diagnosed with asthma! Because I have a long history of, albeit intentionally undiagnosed, respiratory illness, I wasn’t a suitable subject for a polygraph test. Although any test I took wasn’t likely to be accurate, my failing the test played right in to the OSI’s hands. They had found themselves a scapegoat.

Every time thereafter, when Jon and I ever had an argument, he would say that he thought that I had been the one to stalk Kim because I had failed the lie detector test. Years later, Jon would put in an affidavit that I had failed the polygraph because I had used controlled breathing techniques. I didn’t know at the time that people try to cheat polygraph tests by controlled breathing, but Jon did. He stated in the affidavit that I had used controlled breathing techniques to make it appear to anyone reading the document that I was guilty of the accusations that were being made against me. Jon totally assassinated my character in a court document.

The people giving me the test said that I had consistently failed the question, ‘Have you done anything to harm Kim?’

I don’t know how I could have harmed her because I had never come face to face with her in person, and I didn’t even know what she looked like. I will say though that after all I had been subjected to because of the accusations that had been lodged against me, I wanted to harm her.

Even though I failed the test, the OSI allowed me to go home. I later learned that polygraph tests are so unreliable that they cannot be used in a court of law. I have no doubt the OSI was well aware of this and decided to ‘fail’ me in an attempt to get me to confess. Since I had done nothing at all to harm Kim, bar take her boyfriend away, there was nothing that I could confess to. The fact that Bill Clinton was able to pass a lie detector test in relation to his well-known affair with Monika Lewinski speaks volumes about the device’s reliability.

I later learned that Kim had refused to take a lie detector test, which clearly indicated that either she had something to hide or she really didn’t have any faith in the allegations she was making. In many ways, Kim was a very astute individual and not the poor little victim that she tried to present herself as.

While I was waiting to have my polygraph test administered, Kim brazenly decided that she would go to the Education Centre, which was right next to the OSI. I was shocked to see this very plain woman walk past me, turned around, and proclaim, ‘I have never done anything to hurt you, so I don’t understand why you are doing all of these things to hurt me.’

Quite frankly, I was insulted. How on earth could Kim say that she hadn’t done anything to me? The reason why I was being investigated for a whole array of criminal activities that I had absolutely no knowledge of was because of what she was doing to me. I couldn’t understand how Kim could utter such things because the only reason why I was even at Geilenkirchen Air Base was because I was having to defend myself against accusations that she had made against me!

I told the OSI about the incident that took place, but since they were investigating allegations that she had made against me, they were not willing to take any action with regard to her behaviour towards me. The OSI wasn’t interested in finding fault with Kim. It was me they were after.

When Jon finished his lie detector test and further interrogations, he was free to leave. When Jon and I got into the car to go home, Jon told me, ‘They didn’t shake my hand when I left.’

That one incident really stood out in my mind was the fact that Jon was upset because the investigators from the OSI didn’t want to shake his hand when he departed. I would have thought that would have been the least of his concerns, but to Jon, it was a really big deal.

When Jon realised that his life wasn’t going ahead as planned and that he would be held accountable for his sexual activities with Kim, he said to me, ‘If I had told my mother that this was going to happen, she would have told me not to come to the Netherlands to visit you.’

There it was again, his mother. What did Jon’s mother have to do with his relationship with me? Apparently a lot. Just how much, however, I had yet to discover.

Because I had been ostracised by my colleagues, I felt that I had no choice but to get out of the military. My enlistment was coming to an end and I wanted desperately to settle down. There were a lot of early-out packages circulating, but I didn’t qualify for any of them. My former friend, Colette, had been able to get of the Air Force on a very attractive package, but I hadn’t been so lucky. If I wanted to get out, I could do so, but I would be given nothing in return for my 15 years’ service.

When I told Jon that I wanted to get out of the military, his exact words to me were, ‘If that is what you want to do, I will support you in that.’

I took Jon’s statement to mean that he would settle down with me and take care of me while we made a home together. Based on what Jon said, I decided that I wanted to get out of the Air Force and go to live with him in England.

Naturally, with everything that was going on in my life, my emotions and hormones seemed to be on a roller coaster. On one occasion when we took a day trip, I am ashamed to say that I was making some very sarcastic comments to Jon, asking him how he could have possibly got himself involved with someone as crazy as Kim. Although I was clearly very upset with Jon, he didn’t try to defend his actions one iota. I honestly don’t know why he didn’t break up with me then and there, but that wasn’t a part of his plan. His plan was complete and utter destruction of my personality.

My body was also reacting to the terrible stress that I was under. I broke out in the most awful cold sores that simply would not heal. Jon told me that his brother broke out in cold sores, and he didn’t want to catch the virus that causes them, which meant that he would not kiss me until they healed. Since cold sores often are caused by stressful situations, there wasn’t much that I could do about them while I was embroiled in such an awful situation.

In addition to the cold sores, I still suffered from severe period pains, as my body was trying its best to tell me that something was wrong. Because I was seen as the perpetrator in the whole situation, no one was available to give me any encouragement or words of wisdom, which may very well have gone a long way to relieve my many physical symptoms.

When Jon went back to the UK, he was informed that because of the seriousness of his offence, he would not be allowed out of the Army until a full investigation was conducted. To his horror, his sexual proclivity with Kim was a court martial offence, regardless of whether or not Kim was a willing participant. Jon was devastated and his primary concern was whether or not he would be able to keep his redundancy package and his house. I was horrified for Jon as well, even though he didn’t give a damn about what I had been going through since the day I first became romantically involved with him.

When Jon spoke to the military officials about what was going on, he was told that he didn’t have to report for duty while the investigation was being carried out. The military authorities did, however, recommend that Jon get some counselling. They felt that Jon couldn’t adequately deal with the sudden turn of events and believed he needed some professional help. It is my opinion that in this day and age of quick fixes, counselling seems to be the panacea, especially when one does not know what to do to help.

Not long after Jon went back to England, I received another call. It was that man again. The one who asked me to do a chart for him and would not stop phoning. By this time I had put two and two together because I had spoken to Jon about him, wondering who he could be.

Evidently Kim had befriended an American while she and Jon were out in Maasthrict one weekend. The man had taken Kim’s phone number and he began phoning her on a regular basis. Jon had warned Kim that she shouldn’t get too close to this mystery man who lived in Germany because he seemed a little too eager to make acquaintance with her. Apparently, when Kim needed someone the most, the mystery man was there to do her dirty work.

The moment I picked up the phone and realised it was the mystery man, I knew deep down in my heart that Kim, or someone, had put him up to phoning me. If I was on the phone speaking to a man who had given me a false identity, I couldn’t very well have a good alibi, could I. While I had been on the phone for hours on ended, speaking to this individual about God knows what, Kim, or somebody, had been setting me up for a fall.

I was friendly enough to the mystery man and told him about my awful week. I then sweetly asked him if he happened to know anything about what was going on in my life, which, of course, he denied. Within half a minute at the most, the mystery man made an excuse and told me that he must be going.

The mystery man and I both know that he had been an accomplice with someone in an illegal act. Just how involved he had become involved, however, I will never know. I never heard from him again.

When I realised that Jon was in a real mess, I felt responsible. If he hadn’t broken up with Kim to go out with me, she would not have lost all sense of her reasoning ability and committed all of those vindictive acts. If he hadn’t come across the pond to the Netherlands to see me, the OSI would not have been able to get him to admit to having anal sex with Kim and he would not be facing a court martial. Not only did I hold myself responsible for what had happened, Jon did too.

When Jon went back to England he told his mother what had happened: that he was facing a court martial and would not be allowed to get out of the Army because he had anal sex with Kim.

When Glennys heard that Jon had anal sex with Kim, she responded like a consummate professional and didn’t even bat an eyelash. She plainly told Jon that she and his father had experimented with anal sex in the past, but she had found it not to her liking. Knowing that his mother had done exactly the same thing, Jon didn’t feel nearly so bad about what he and Kim had done together.

Glennys’es attitude toward me wasn’t particularly nice. Every time I telephone the house, Glennys would pick up the phone and say, ‘Oh, it’s you.’

Although I knew that Glennys’es response to me wasn’t exactly a term of endearment, I hadn’t yet realised that it was intended to mean that my call wasn’t welcome. Even though I received a frosty reception from Glennys, I overlooked her rudeness in my eagerness to speak to Jon. I was phoning to speak to Jon, not his mother, and I really didn’t see any reason why she would not like me. I had a lot to learn about mother-in-laws.

In November I was missing Jon and went to visit him. During the course of my visit we had a very detailed conversation about what I wanted to do with my life. I told Jon that when I got to England I wanted to concentrate on writing my books and working as an astrologer. Although Jon wasn’t happy with my life dreams, he told me that he didn’t mind and maybe I could get a job working in an office until my business picked up. Although what Jon wanted was in contradiction with what I wanted, I agreed with this arrangement and trusted that Jon would allow me to pursue my dreams.

While my mother was very sparing when it came to the physical and material well being of her children, cost was no object when it came to her own wants, needs and desires. My mother would shop at K-Mart to buy things for her children, if she bought anything at all, and then went across town to Dillards to purchase items for herself. My mother gave her children the cheapest baloney and corn flakes, yet dined one ham and the best quality salads for herself because she wanted to keep her weight down. I hadn’t yet realised it yet, but I had formed a relationship with a man who was in many ways very much like my mother.

It is a well-known axiom among the psychological professionals that we tend to form relationships with those people who give us the opportunity to re-enact our childhood games and struggles. Unwittingly I had selected a man who would enable me to relive all the pain and humiliation that I had experienced as a child.

Kim said that Jon had tampered with the tape deck in her car on their first meeting. She also cited an incident, again under the influence of alcohol, where Jon had grabbed a young female private by her collar and made some very serious threats to her. Jon of course, made light of this, but his actions reflect that of an individual who has no respect or regard for the fairer sex.

During the course of the evening when Jon was supposed to have raped and impregnated Kim, the couple had consumed an entire bottle of port. Jon stated that Kim had consented to anal sex. When he asked her if she was enjoying it and she said that she didn’t find it to be a pleasurable experience, they both stopped.

I can only assume that Jon told the investigators that he had engaged in anal sex as a form of bravado, a distorted attempt at bragging to others about what he had done with a woman who was so obviously superior to him in rank, education, social status and earning power. When Jon realised that his confession had landed him into hot water, he changed his story and said that he couldn’t remember what happened on that fateful evening – hence the need for a hypno-therapist.

When Jon selected a hypno-therapist, he didn’t want anyone in Basingstoke to know about his problems. He therefore selected a man who worked from an office in his home on the outskirts of Reading. We had to drive for ages to get there and were late because we had so many difficulties finding the house.

The initial meeting appeared to be unsuccessful, so Jon made another appointment the following Thursday morning.

On the morning Jon was scheduled for his appointment, he left quite early and I had no one for company but Glennys’es two dogs. Glennys finally turned up after 10:00 when her church services were finished. When she saw that I was on my own, she made no attempts at friendliness whatsoever, which I found to be a bit odd.

Finally, in the early afternoon, Jon came back from his appointment. I asked him if all had gone well and he replied affirmatively. As always, I didn’t pry into why Jon had taken so long to come home. I never pried. I never asked any questions. I shoved any worries that I may have had from my mind. I was just happy that he was home.

During the same visit to England, Jon, Glennys and I took a day trip to London. Jon had made it quite clear from the very beginning that he expected the women in his life to pay their own way. He made a point of telling me that he and his ex-wife had split their costs down the middle. Although Jon claimed that he didn’t like all of the expensive holidays and presents that Kim bought him, I do not recall him ever refusing any. On the few occasions that Kim didn’t foot the bill for their little excursions, Jon would usually insist that they split it in half. He also confided to me that he didn’t like to take his mother places because she didn’t pay her way.

When Jon and I were dating, I knew full well that I was expected to pay my way, so I made sure that I gave money to Jon for the train tickets, meals or any venues that we happened to go into. Since Glennys had pleaded poverty since well before I have ever come into the scene, she sat back while Jon and I paid all of her expenses for the day.

I didn’t begrudge Glennys anything because I wanted all of us to get along. I had already decided that she was to be my future mother-in-law. Glennys, however, had other ideas and sulked the entire day for reasons known only to Jon and her. I wasn’t made privy to the cause of her antics and tried to make the best of a bad situation. I later learned that Glennys took offence by the fact that I had placed my hand on his leg while we were on the train. I was surprised at such prudishness from a woman like Glennys. She had given birth to at least two illegitimate children who had mysteriously not survived, had been divorced on the grounds of her adultery, and had at least ten affairs. If anything, I would have thought my putting my hand on the leg of the man that I loved to be quite tame by comparison.

Glennys also became upset because Jon and I had gone out to eat at a restaurant and hadn’t taken her with us. Because she had been invited to almost all of our other outings, she expected to be invited out to the restaurant as well. When she realised that Jon and I wanted to do things on our own, her attitude towards me chilled significantly.

Jon had also begun to monitor what I ate. He made low calorie meals for me to eat and I felt like I was starving all the time. Jon would eat when I was sleeping so he would not have to feed me when I woke up. If I was hungry, he would physically hold me down so I couldn’t get to the kitchen. If we were driving and I was hungry, he would refuse to stop for food.

I suffer from hypoglycaemia on the best of days, and the irregular, scantly meals wrecked havoc on my body, which was already trying terribly to weather the strain of my extreme relationship with Jon. Whenever my blood sugar fell I would become irritable and inevitably get into an argument. Jon didn’t mind. He just wanted to make sure that I didn’t eat anything.

One morning Jon and I were discussing the situation with Kim. Although Jon had initially stated that he had never phoned Kim, on this one occasion he confided that when he found out about the charges that were being placed against him, he phoned her house once. On this one occasion that Jon phoned, Kim’s cleaner answered the phone. I wasn’t pleased that Jon would phone Kim when he knew that he shouldn’t, but I appreciated his honesty.

It was during my visit that I perused the Basingstoke Gazette and discovered that a psychic fayre was being held in Chineham, a little suburb of Basingstoke. I had never been to a psychic fayre before and asked Jon if he would take me. Glennys came along as well and did not appear to have any protestations. Months later, however, I was to discover that she considered such events to be against her religious beliefs.

I wanted a reading desperately because I had no idea at all about my future. I selected a reader, a blonde, middle-aged woman. This woman, I was later to realise, was a consummate professional. Instead of encouraging me to reveal details about myself, as many charlatans do, she told me that she worked best if I said nothing while she gave the reading.

The woman gave me a very insightful reading about sex, death and espionage, which was pretty much to the point. She then told me that I was allowed to ask any questions that I would like. When I asked her about the situation that Jon was in, she said, ‘The truth will come out.’

I took her comment to mean that Jon was innocent and everyone would realise his innocence.

The reader told me that I need to carefully look at any legal documents that come my way, and I took this to mean the military documents relating to my getting out of the Air Force.

The reader told me that Jon was like a child in a candy store, wanting to have everything in it and not thinking of the consequences. She said that Jon was such a responsible person, and I took this to be a sign that he was really a good person and had correctly chosen him to be my life-mate.

I was told that I would take all of my things and leave, and find myself in another country where I would get married and have children. Before I left the country, however, I would get involved in something to do with presentations and demonstrations.

At that point I asked the reader about the book that I was working on. I wanted to know if it would be published.

The reader looked at me and said, ‘There will be something that you will submit to a publisher, but you will need to re-write some of it and do some more work on it.’ I had assumed that she was talking about the book I was working on, and not any future projects.

When it is all over, she assured me, ’You will be able to write a love story.’

The reader also pointed to danger. She told me that Jon was going to get into some kind of trouble and it was going to deal with driving.

‘Do you mean an accident?’, I asked.

‘Worse,’ was her reply.

The reader mentioned that there were issues about the body, a party and training. She also told me to save my money because I would need it.

Even though the reader had given me what any other person in the world view as a dismal reading, I was in such a severe state of denial about what I was getting myself into that I took it all positively. Even though I was told that I would leave Jon, I still held out the hope that we would be reunited and know true love in the end. Even though I knew that Jon was going to have some difficulties with driving, I hoped that he would not have a serious accident because he was the one person I loved. The one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I said nothing to Jon about the reading and he didn’t ask. Jon didn’t believe in such nonsense.

When Jon was taking me to Stansted Airport to catch my flight back to the Netherlands, we got into a disagreement over something. I told Jon that if he was going to persist in his line of thinking that we should just call the relationship off. All at once, Jon changed his tune and started saying what I wanted him to say. I was so pleased with myself for holding the trump card in our relationship that I failed to notice that it was just too easy. Jon was just too accommodating. For reasons known only to Jon, he wanted me to come to England just as badly as I wanted to come to England.

Because I felt responsible for what was happening to Jon, I wanted to do all that I could to help him. I therefore took it upon myself to do what most military members do when they have no one to turn to. I wrote my congressman, Senator Dale Bumbers, and requested a congressional investigation. To my amazement, the most extreme tactic that I cold think of actually worked and the wheels of governmental bureaucracy soon began to take hold. Within a matter of weeks, the charges against Jon were dropped and he was allowed to get out of the Army.

Jon phoned me at work as soon as he was notified, and I was elated. At last, I thought, we could begin in live a normal life once this business with Kim was behind us.

‘You will have to buy me a nice present now that it is all over,’ I told Jon, honestly expecting him to show me his appreciation for having gotten him off the hook. If it had not been for Dale Bumpers, Jon would have steel been facing a court martial.

‘I’ll have to buy a present for my mother,’ Jon replied.

‘Why is that?’, I asked, perplexed that Jon would go to the trouble to buy a gift for a woman who had done nothing to help him out of that horrible mess.

‘Well, I said some things to her that were not very nice’, was Jon’s reply. I had no idea in the world Jon could say to his mother that was not very nice that would elicit him to purchase a gift for him and didn’t ask. I didn’t think to ask.

I never received a gift or any form of gratitude whatsoever for having put my neck, reputation and career on the line for Jon. The only thing that I received accusations that I was the one who had been stalking Kim.

Again, Jon’s mother figured so significantly into the scenario that mapped Jon’s life. While most men want to get away from their mother’s, Jon, it seemed, wanted to cling on her more than ever before. I hadn’t yet made the sad realisation that I wasn’t, and would never be, enough for Jon. Even though Jon harboured a great deal of resentment toward his mother for his appalling childhood and feelings of social inferiority, he would be tied to her for the rest of his life because she allowed him to purchase her house at an amazingly cheap price. This was a house that he would otherwise not have been able to afford, a house that had so few happy memories that one has to wonder what on earth possessed him to want to call it home.

Because Jon’s immediate life crises was over, the two of us could at last get on with planning our future together. I had already filled out all of the paperwork to get out of the Air Force and thing’s were proceeding smoothly. There was no turning back. I was making arrangements to have all of my belongings put into storage so that I could live with Jon on a six-month trial basis.

I spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone, speaking to Jon and making plans both before and after the charges against him were dropped. He was my lifeline and just about my only friend in the world. Anyone who has ever been though a difficult patch knows that he will find out who his true friends are. That was so true in my case, as practically all of my friends had deserted me when I needed them most.

I talked to Jon so much on the phone that I ran up a phone bill of about 7,000 Dutch Guilders. I paid the bills that I had amassed and said nothing to Jon about how much it cost me just to speak to him. In contrast, Jon took every opportunity to exaggerate how much money he spent, which I found to be deeply offensive. During the course of our relationship, he would lament every single penny that he spent on me because I was expected to contribute financially to our relationship. Love, and looking after Jon and the house were never enough. I was expected to do that in addition to bring money home to him. What Jon really wanted from me was cold, hard, cash.

Jon made his desire for material wealth perfectly clear one evening when I was speaking to him on the telephone. When I mentioned my son, Jon told me in no uncertain terms that he had better never be made to suffer financially or otherwise because of my son. I assured Jon that he would never have to do without because of the financial obligations that I had to my son. What could I say? I was only weeks away from getting out of the Air Force and it was too late to change me mind and back out.

Although Jon’s financial needs were to come before the needs of my son, I never once said to him that all of the money he spent on his mother should be spent on me. I would never have dreamed of coming between Jon and his mother. Jon, on the other hand, didn’t have any qualms whatsoever about coming between my son and me. He didn’t see any reason why he should have to do without just because my son needed me. I hadn’t yet realised that Jon had fallen in love with the idea of the stereotypical ‘rich American’ and only saw me as his own personal money making machine.

On this particular Thanksgiving, I found myself at the AFCENT Community Services (ACS), which was HQ AFCENT’s equivalent of the Post Exchange. I made my way over to the magazine rack and had a look at what was on offer. After looking at the magazines, I made my way into the main shopping area. Soon, a familiar face approached me. When I saw that it was Maarit, who I hadn’t spoken to in years. I smiled at her in recognition.

Instead of smiling, Maarit walked past, looked at me with contempt, and said, ‘I would shit on you.’

I was so hurt and unnerved by Maarit’s actions that I wasn’t able to finish my shopping. I had to go home in a state of shock and disbelief.

Maarit had carried on an affair with Pete for some time and the both of them decided to leave their respective spouse’s and build a new life together. I was very fond of Maarit and stood by her when more reasonable people would have walked away. Maarit, however, didn’t have the same opinion of me, and dropped me the moment she got what she wanted, which was Pete.

I was hurt and devastated that Maarit had used me in such a cruel way, and decided in a fit of revenge, that I would tell Andre, Maarit’s estranged husband, all that she had done. Therefore, one Saturday night I went to see Andre and told him everything I knew. Andre then took the opportunity of telling me everything that Maarit had said about me behind my back.

Little did I know, however, that there was trouble brewing in paradise and Pete, Maarits’ new man, had taken to being physically abusive towards her. No more than a week after I had confessed all to Andre, Maarit was on his doorstep, begging him to take her back. Of course Maarit blamed me for what had happened, and told me so in no uncertain terms.

A week or so later, I received a call from Pete, asking me if I knew where Maarit was. In amazement, I phoned Andre, only to learn that he had taken Maarit back. Andre passed the phone over to Maarit and she told me that I wasn’t welcome in her home anymore. Somehow, although I had been used by Maarit and to a certain degree by Andre, I was made the scapegoat and given all of the blame for the break-up in their marriage.

Several weeks after Maarit had told me that I wasn’t welcome in her home, she phoned me once more and wanted to talk. Even though she was friendly enough, I couldn’t get the past events out of my mind and wasn’t prepared to re-ignite the flames of friendship once she had blown them out. Maarit had previously made it quite clear that she wanted nothing more to do with me, and I was just respecting her wishes.

Jon felt that I should never have betrayed Maarit’s confidence, no matter how shabbily she had treated me. He wasn’t open to my point of view at all, and didn’t want to listen to how Maarit had used me, which had prompted me to act as I did. But then again, Jon had a lot of secrets that needed keeping and he wanted to condition me into keeping confidences, no matter how immoral or illegal they might be. From that day forward, whenever Jon and I were in a disagreement, he would bring up the subject of Maarit and how she told me that she would ‘shit on me’.

One evening when I was having an intimate telephone conversation with Jon, he informed me that he was sitting on the toilet. After speaking a few words, I had the extreme displeasure of having to listen to his ablutions. Jon didn’t see that there was a problem with speaking to me on the telephone while he was having a bowel movement, but I was instantly turned off. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but the man I was involved with had some really weird ideas. What I had not understood about Jon is that he derives a certain amount of sexual pleasure from shocking people. Sitting on the toilet and having a bowel movement while an unsuspecting victim listened on would turn out to be tame by comparison.

About the same time Jon was going through all of his difficulties, the famous singer, Michael Jackson, had many allegations thrown his way. So intense were these allegations that Michael Jackson had been strip searched in a very humiliating fashion and had fled to a secret location, saying that he had become addicted to pain killers. The case against him was eventually settled out of court, but Michael, understandably, was a changed man forever.

Jon took a rather twisted interest in what was going on with Michael Jackson during the much publicised litigation. Jon had it in his head that Michael was being made a scapegoat. He had somehow decided that Michael Jackson’s situation was the same as his, and the singer was for that reason being unfairly judged.

I didn’t understand how Jon could compare himself to Michael Jackson because the famous singer was being accused of sexually abusing little boys. I thought that Jon was overreacting and dismissed his extreme proclamations as merely a reaction to stress. I had never discussed such topics with him, but maybe there were other things about my lover that I didn’t know – especially in light of the fact that he liked his women to be waif-like and rail thin.

A couple of weeks before I was due to get out of the Air Force, I was given a last chance to change my mind. This would have saved me years of trauma and abuse, and would have given me the opportunity to go on and lead a relatively normal life. Someone from Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi had my resume and phoned to offer me an assignment at Keesler, Air Force Base, Mississippi. I will never know how my life may have turned out if I had accepted that offer. I was so sure that Jon was the man for me that I declined the offer. Had I known what lay in store, I would have taken any assignment just to save me from the years of pain and heartache that I was to come to endure. I suppose that I am one of those individuals who must learn things the hard way, and thanks to Jon, I learned a valuable lesson that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Even though the charges against Jon had been dropped and I was preparing for my new life in England, the nuisance calls to my house hadn’t let up. I figured that it was no use going to the military police about the calls because, being the prime suspect, I didn’t feel that anyone would take any notice of anything that I had to say.

The following morning, I had an appointment to take my mobility gear back to a depot near Schinnen, the Army support facility. Because I was turning in my mobility gear, I was totally unaware of the events that were simultaneously occurring at my place of work. Evidently, Kim had gone over to my place of work to have it out with me. I had no idea why she would do such a thing, but later found out that she had said that I had been phoning her in the middle of the night. Fortunately for Kim, I had been away from work at the time of her arrival. If I had been at work, Kim would have been arrested. At the time I was so convinced that it was Kim causing all of the problems that I was sorry that she hadn’t been arrested. In retrospect, however, I am glad that I was away because aside from the fact that Kim had powerful people fighting her battles for her, she was just as much a victim as I was, although I didn’t realise it at the time.

I spoke to the First Sergeant that day about the situation at my work. I was obviously very distressed and it was evidenced by the fact that my face was marred by a cold sore that just would not go away. The First Sergeant told me that she had been told to confront Kim and tell her to leave, but she refused, fearing that Kim was dangerous. The First Sergeant also informed me that she had seen Kim at the Post Exchange, totally out of it, trying to return some uniform items that clearly had been worn and were therefore unsuitable for return, thus indicating that Kim was clearly not thinking properly.

I was so wrapped up in my anger at Kim that I refused to believe that the individual making the calls could be anyone other than her. In the same vein, Kim was so angry at me for the threat that she felt I posed to her, that if the calls were in fact made to her house, she refused to believe that they were made by anyone other than myself.

In reality, there were two people who could have easily made the calls. The first suspect was the mystery man, who was the man who I had erected a horoscope for and quite possibly was the same person who Kim had befriended during one of her evenings out in Maasthrict.

The next person who could have made the calls was closer to home. Jon was acquainted with both Kim and myself, and he had already established a need for bizarre, sadistic types of sex in order to achieve any type of satisfaction. Jon had also made the witty little ‘little and often’ comment to me, and it would take me nearly eight years to decipher the verbal puzzle that he tossed in my direction.

While Jon had been going out with Kim, he didn’t pay his phone bill and his line was consequently disconnected. In my naivety, I convinced myself that Jon didn’t pay his phone bill because he didn’t want Kim to contact him. Perhaps there was another reason for the phone being disconnected that I knew nothing about.

It wasn’t until much later that I learned that Jon had a penchant for phone sex. He may very well have run up such a huge bill engaging in phone sex that he decided not to pay the bill. Alternatively, Jon could have known that he had a problem with nuisance calls and therefore decided not to pay his bill as a subconscious protective measure. If Jon didn’t have a phone in his home, it would have been that more difficult for him to use it to make those ‘little and often’ calls to people in the middle of the night.

It is such a shame that the nuisance calls were not taken more seriously because if all of the women who had received them, myself included, had reported them to the police, a link may very well have been established as to who the culprit who was making them really was.

A few weeks before I was due to leave of the Air Force and the Netherlands for good, I received a telephone call from Colette. She wanted to see me. I very well could have reminded her that it was she who broke the relationship off with me, but I was really not interested in being catty. Even though there were times when Colette and I didn’t see eye-to-eye, I really was quite fond of her and missed her company. I didn’t wonder in the least why Colette wanted to see me. I knew it was because she had gone through her list for friends and I was just about the only one left. Colette would never admit to it herself, much less anyone else, but when presented with the alternatives, I was the lesser of the evils available. When Colette and I met up again, it was like old times. Neither of us bothered to bring up the past. What good would it have done to rehash old wounds. I was just pleased that once again, I was back together with her.

My supervisors, who never liked me on the best of days, decided that they would slight me just once more before I left the only life that I had known for the past 15 years. It was customary that when people left HQ AFCENT, they were awarded a medal. Even the most mediocre of individuals was given a medal. Not to get one, therefore, was meant as an intentional slap in the face, and my superiors did just that so they could let me know just how they felt about me.

While I was at HQ AFCENT, I performed all of the work that no one else wanted to do. I taught the classes that all of the other instructors thought they were too good to teach. I made lesson plans, training aides, student hand-outs, exams, the whole lot. If anyone deserved a medal, I did. If there was anyone who my superiors didn’t want to receive a medal, I was.

Therefore, when I heard through the grapevine that my supervisor said she would only be putting me in for an achievement medal with the excuse that I hadn’t done enough work to get an accommodation medal, it was the last straw. I was a woman doing a man’s job, doing the best job that I could do with little or no support. The least they could have done, therefore, was to have given me an accommodation medal as a final farewell. My supervisors, however, wanted me to have an altogether different farewell. They wanted me to know in no uncertain terms that they wanted to see the backside of me.

When it finally dawned on me the incredibly low opinion that my superiors had of me, I burst into tears as I walked across the base, trying to get as far away from those people as I possibly could. Although I had done nothing wrong, I was being branded guilty by association and given a criminal’s exit. Even though I was getting an honourable discharge and chose to get out of the Air Force of my own free will, the USAF detachment treated me as if my discharge was anything other than honourable, which was yet another blow to my already low self-esteem.

When I realised that I would not be getting the medal that I had worked so hard for, as a last ditch effort I went and spoke to the American Air Force Colonel in charge of the depot where I had worked for six years. When I told him that I wasn’t being given the medal that I had worked so hard for, his only reaction was to remind me that I was still a member of the United States Air Force and that I should conduct myself accordingly.

I was so upset that I told the colonel that I was going to take out space in the Stars and Stripes newspaper and Air Force Times because I wanted people to know the truth. The colonel wasn’t interested in the least about how I felt, and simply reaffirmed his original stance that I had better not do anything inappropriate while I was still in the military. The colonel told me that he had heard through the grapevine that I was having some difficulties with another Air Force captain, but he didn’t want to get involved.

That afternoon, while I was still at the detachment, I saw my immediate supervisor, MSgt Ayers, walk into the building with the Senior Master Sergeant who was in charge of the Military Police on base. A wave on panic went through me. I was sure that I was going to be arrested for some trumped up charges that had been made up.

For the fist time in my life, I felt like a fugitive. An innocent person who was being hounded to death by more powerful forces with the capability to kill. I am sure that I didn’t feel much different from a fox in the midst of a hunt. From that moment forward, I would live in fear that the Air Force would come and get me any time they liked, and throw me in some military prison on the basis of allegations that another had fabricated about me.

I telephoned Jon and told him what had happened and he recommended that I shouldn’t go to my going away drinks at work, which I really didn’t want to go to anyway. I didn’t go and have no doubt that I wasn’t missed.

To add insult to injury, when Jon came to the Netherlands to pick me up and help me out-process, someone at the detachment informed me that because I was still being investigated, the OSI was trying to stop me from leaving. I honestly didn’t know how the authorities could succumb to such tactics because I had done nothing wrong and planned to be in England for Christmas.

I was so upset after having spoken to the First Sergeant that I asked Jon to come into the office and speak to her with me. The First Sergeant was totally surprised that I had asked Jon to be in there with me, but she spoke to me nonetheless. When Jon went into the office with me, he had the most bewildered ‘what am I doing here’ look on his face. That was the fist time that I had seen Jon use the look of innocence, which I would later realise he had honed so well. In a way, I felt somewhat betrayed by Jon’s reaction. I was on the firing line and needed his support and reassurance. Instead, he made me look like a raving psycho in from of my own First Sergeant. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Jon had perfected the look and used it whenever he wanted to appear innocent or garner sympathy.

After the First Sergeant recovered her composure, she told me that although the OSI wanted to keep me in the military because the investigation was incomplete, my commander felt that since I hadn’t done anything wrong, he didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to leave.

‘At least,’ I thought, ‘someone is finally using some reason.’

What I failed to take into account, however, was the fact that my commander wanted me out of the picture so his unit would not be tainted by the scandal.

The week before I was due to leave HQ AFCENT for good, Jon decided to take advantage of the fact that I was allowed to purchase merchandise tax-free. He therefore persuaded me to lend him the money so he could buy a set of tax-free silverware. Because I loved and trusted him, I didn’t bat an eyelash as I handed over the money and filled out the appropriate paperwork to enable him to have his treasured silverware. Maybe a glimmer of concern flashed through my mind, as I perceived that I was funding his very expensive taste in the same manner that Kim had. Any reservations that I may have had were just as quickly eradicated because I knew that Jon loved me, not Kim.

Jon and I both worked for about two days solid to clean my house so that I could hand it over to my landlady. While I wasn’t particularly bothered about whether or not the house was spotless, Jon took it upon himself to make sure the very modest terrace house I lived in was in pristine condition. When I took the house over it was in such a filthy state that I had to put in a lot of my own time and money to put in new shelving, redecorate the rooms and have extensive garden work done.

I personally didn’t like my landlords because they were moneygrubbers, hoping to cash in on the American influence. I had more than my fair share of disagreements with my landlady and I really didn’t care if the house was clean or not. Jon, however, thought that anything that I did was simply not good enough and went about recleaning anything I cleaned, such as moping or cleaning the cabinets.

Jon’s behaviour was reminiscent of his actions several months earlier when we were getting his flat ready to hand it over to the authorities. It had to be spotless. When Jon lived in the flat, however, he certainly would have never have been accused of over-cleaning it. I noticed litter and other debris on the floor, and it would be several weeks before Jon decided to do anything about it. It seemed that although Jon didn’t particularly mind living in filth, he didn’t want anyone else to know that he lived in filth. This attitude would manifest itself in other areas of his life, but it would take me a long time to determine exactly what those areas were.

It was so easy for Jon to forget about the state of his own house as he took on a hypocritical air with regard to his desire for cleanliness and hygiene. He took every opportunity to say how dirty my house was before he came into my life and put me on the straight and narrow. The fact of the matter is that my standards of cleanliness and hygiene were no better or worse than his, I just didn’t see the point in putting in a great deal of effort into fixing up a house that I didn’t own.

Living in the country with my grandmother, I was allowed to take only one bath a week. When I finished the third grade and went to live with my mother and her new husband, she became totally ballistic when she discovered that we only bathed once a week. Instead of telling me that there was plenty of water and I could bathe as often as I liked, she made very abusive comments to my siblings and I, always saying that we were dirty.

When I reached adolescence, I was plagued with boils and sties, which in reality is an indicator that I was anaemic and not being fed properly. Instead of showing concern for my health problems, my mother and stepfather said that I got boils because I was ‘dirty’.

When I was 13 and moved into a house on the edge of town. Again, it was my responsibility to clean the entire house to my mother’s strict specifications. I honestly cannot say how many times I witnessed my mother running though all of the rooms in the house screaming and yelling because she had found a speck of dust somewhere. On one occasion, in the midst of one of my mother’s tirades, she accidentally banged her head on the grill of the stove, which further intensified her screaming.

It was during these times that my mother had lost all control of her sanity that my sister and I would just stand frozen, watching her every move, allowing her to vent all of her rage onto us. If we just stood there and said nothing, eventually her screaming would subside. To stand up for ourselves, however, would have only made the situation worse. Our lives were bad enough, we didn’t want to be subjected to physical as well as emotional abuse.

Years later, when my mother had driven all of her children out of her home, had exiled her husband to the spare bedroom, and had moved one of her girlfriends in, my mother had calmed down substantially to the point that those individuals who didn’t know her might actually think that she was a nice person.

As an adult, on one of the rare occasions that I visited my mother, I noticed a layer of dust that entirely covered the bathroom of her beauty shop. I was surprised to see such dirt in my mother’s shop and recalled that, as a child, if my mother had come across such a thing it would have been enough to throw her into a rage that would have lasted the entire day. I suppose that when my mother had free slave labour she could afford to be picky. It was a different matter entirely when she had to clean house herself. It is worth noting that to this day, I have never, ever seen my mother lift a finger around the house. Why should she when she had two daughters who she could intimidate into doing just about anything she wanted.

Jon stopped his car, ran up to me, and told me to get in the house and phone the police. I thought he did this because Kim was dangerous. In retrospect, I now believe that he wanted to keep Kim and me hostile towards each other so that we would not get a chance to compare notes. Jon really got a sick satisfaction from seeing the two of us at each other’s throats. He also enjoyed doing to me what he had done to Kim.

Because my phone had been disconnected, I had to ask a neighbour to use her phone. I quickly phoned the OSI and told them that Kim had come to my home, but of course, no action was taken. They were not interested in the least about what Kim got up to. They were obliged to investigate the allegations that she had made against me, not the allegations that I had made against her.

Rumour had it that Kim’s father was a retired, two-star general. Judging from the way people jumped to attention every time this neurotic woman so much as sniffled, I believe it. Why else would the OSI take her absurd allegations so seriously?

I didn’t witness the interchange between Jon and Kim, but Jon later told me that she had told him that she wasn’t through with him. She said that she would be contacting a Member of Parliament, which was her right since her mother was English. I was very upset about Kim’s threats. Hadn’t she done enough already?

That evening, Jon and I decided to pay a visit to my friend, Paz. During the visit I noted with disgust that Jon’s friend, Kim, was still hassling us. I saw that look again. Jon gave me the most hurt, pitiful look, as if to say, ‘How can you say such things, because you know that’s not true.’

I let the subject drop and immediately felt guilty for even suggesting such a thing. For the second time in a week, Jon had used his innocent, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ look on people whose support I needed. For the second time in a week, Jon feigned ignorance and made it seem as if I was the one who had done something wrong in this whole awful mess.

On one of my last evenings in the Netherlands, I had made arrangements to see Colette and Selena. We met at Pizza Hut in Heerlen and had dinner.

The stress of having been forced out of the Air Force, stalked by an unstable woman, and encouraged to be bone thin by my lover meant that I weighed in at about 120 pounds, which was actually a bit underweight for my frame. I wanted so desperately to please Jon and for him to find me physically appealing, that I just nibbled at my dinner. I was confident that since I had achieved a new svelte figure, I could keep it forever if I ate just at a few bites of food at each meal.

What is interesting to note, however, is that even though I had lost somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30 pounds for Jon, our sex life didn’t improve. We had sex rarely, if ever. Jon said that he would not kiss me because I had a massive cold sore on my face, which caused by stress and simply would not heal. If he wasn’t interested in kissing me for fear of catching the virus that causes cold sores, I didn’t feel comfortable about having sex with him. Years later, Jon would cite one of the reasons for his bizarre sexual practices was because I would not sleep with him, but the fact of the matter is that we never had a satisfactory sex life. Jon made all kinds of excuses about why I repelled him, but I think that he just didn’t desire women in sexually. What he did desire is only known by him and his sexual accomplices, because he never discussed it with me.

During dinner, Colette told me that I needed to get legal advice about the child support payments to my son. She said that she had heard of a case of a woman who wasn’t working and didn’t have any money to send her children, yet was still sued for failing to make child support payments. I was confident that I would not encounter the same difficulties that this woman had because I had money in savings.

Although Colette had directed her concerns to me, she didn’t see any reason why she should be secretive and included Jon in on the discussion. Jon said nothing during the entire interaction, but his mind was working steadily. The wheels of motion had already begun.

The day that I out-processed from AFCENT, 23rd December 1993, was a sad one. The entire out-processing procedure took no more that half an hour. What saddened me was the fact that not one person in the detachment said goodbye. As I was leaving I did glimpse my supervisor lurking around the corridor. I can only assume that he had been sent there to make sure that I had in fact left HQ AFCENT and was out of everybody’s hair for good. When I expressed my disappointment to Jon, he told me not to worry about it.