by Heather Moores

Created on: December 07, 2008

When Jordan and I met, I had no idea the he was addicted to gambling. Video poker, his poison of choice, dominated every single thing he did. I was 22 at the time and I was naive and all too trusting. Jordan was the the epitome of cool. He was the definition of 'tall dark and handsome'. He had long black hair and he wore the most beautiful clothing. He refused to wear any other color but black. He reminded me of a Victorian vampire. Women were crazy about him and I considered myself extremely fortunate to have won his affections. I was the female verson of Jordan and everyone called us "The King and Queen of Goth". People thought we were the most marvelous couple.

We had been friends for a little over a year when we got together. He had hidden his addiction from me the entire time. Looking back, there were signs I should have easily spotted. He never had any money but he worked all the time; sometimes two or three shifts a day. He barely had enough money to put gas in his car. However, he smoked like a chimney and he had an extensive collection of gothic music. He mostly favored bands from the UK and much of the music was difficult to find and often quite expensive. This is where I assumed most of his money was going. I could not have been more wrong.

The first unwise decision on my part was to allow him to move in with me. He told me that his family had kicked him out and he had nowhere to go. At the time I was thrilled not to have to cover rent and other expenses on my own. Jordan was my first live-in boyfriend and I was very excited. I started to make plans for re-doing the apartment. I wanted it to look like something out of a Victorian mansion. I had spun my own little fairytale fantasy but reality soon intervened.

Almost immediately, strange things began happening. A DVD that I wanted to watch would turn up missing. Twenty dollars missing from the rent money, quarters dissapearing from the laundry fund. I always thought that maybe I had miscounted the money or simply misplaced the DVD. When the frequency of this increased, I started to suspect that something was seriously amiss. I confronted Jordan and he confessed right away. He spun tales of family debt that he needed to clear up. He was so apologetic and reassuring that I put the incidents from my mind. Nothing happened for awhile.

When it started again a few months later, it was much worse. I found serious shortages in both rent and utility money. When I began receiving shut-off notices I decided

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