Defying Dominance (MxM) (18+)

33

CW: Contains discussions of abuse (all kinds. The section about sexual abuse will be marked apart from the rest with '#####' so it can be skipped. Discussions of eating disorders and disordered eating behaviors. Discussions of violent threats. Discussion of alcohol abuse. Mention of attempted suicide. I think that's everything? if not, I'll edit the CW to include the rest.

Chapter 33: Jace

The trial drags on for days. It's torturous. Having to relay everything I've been through, in disturbing detail. Having everything I say picked apart, all while Dad glares at me from his spot.

Having Daniel there every day helps, and he always cuddles me after the day closes, but that does little to help during the heat of it.

A few things that people say stick out to me over the course of the trial. Carlos' testimony, for one. I honestly hadn't known he paid such close attention to us, but he had. What he'd said had been so well put-together, I honestly couldn't forget it.

"I'm a personal chef, and I studied both nutrition and culinary arts. Due to this, I've witnessed my fair share of the Crawford's verbal and emotional abuse. And physical, to an extent. Particularly towards Jace, but also towards Jacque and Cameron. All around food or weight. Even directly taking food from him to give him something they deem 'better.' Forcing their children to follow fad diets, even when Jace and Jacque were only 7 years old. This is incredibly detrimental, and even dangerous. This is what breeds eating disorders. More often than not, I end up giving Jace what he wants, in private, because what his parents say he can have doesn't satiate his hunger."

"They want their children to eat healthy. There's nothing wrong with that."

"They purposefully put Jace and Jacque in calorie deficits for nearly three months when they were 13. I wasn't working those few months as I was handling family issues, but I was close with my replacement and she told me everything. I have text proof. She was afraid to go behind the Crawford's backs, but she was worried about the boys. As she should have been. Forcing children on a diet that's not medically necessary is awful, but at the age they're starting puberty? That's worse. They should be putting on some weight during puberty, and their appetites are going to increase. I corrected it when I came back to work. It had impacted Jace more than Jacque, because he already ate less on his own, but being forced into a calorie deficit cause him to lose nearly 40 pounds. In a three month period, you should only lose around 1-2 pounds per week, or at most 24 pounds overall. The weight loss he was exhibiting was unhealthy. This wasn't about being healthy, it was about keeping them skinny."

After Carlos had spoken, Jacque had announced that he'd recently been diagnosed with an eating disorder. He even brandished the documentation of it, and his therapist attested to her belief that his eating disorder was directly correlated to the way our parents handled our meals and diets over the years.

Hale's testimony stuck out as well. I had no idea what he had heard over the years he worked for Dad. It was shocking, and he even had audio recordings of some of it. Of the ones that made him feel threatened or concerned.

"Mr. Crawford took many phone calls whilst I was driving him about. He did not attempt to keep a majority of them quiet. I heard several direct threats. Including one against my own submissive. I will not be publicly stating their name, however it is important for this conversation that they are an intersex individual. Mr. Crawford, on one of his regular phone calls, very callously announced that he viewed intersex people as gross and abominations, something to be medically fixed. This, of course, irked me, and I told him as such, about my submissive. His response? That they should have their genitalia forcefully altered to be 'normal.' That he knew someone who could do it. I had never wanted to kick him out of the car more than I did that day."