The infliction of terror doesn't even require threats, be they articulated or inferred. Despite court orders, Jim Martin's* gay ex-lover has stalked him for the past eight years. Robert Tyler*, a handsome forty-seven-year-old college professor, has never once threatened Jim's life. Yet, Jim lives like a prisoner in his mother's house, afraid to move lest he further antagonize his pursuer. "It's making me crazy," he said.

Their common interest in plants brought them together in 1980. They shared an apartment for eleven years. But the relationship changed during the last twenty-four months, after Jim completed his graduate school education. "He thought he'd lost control of me," said Jim. "And he had. I was more independent both financially and emotionally."

That's when the battering started. Jim finally left in 1991, after Robert cut his leather pants, along with a leather vest and pair of boots, into one-inch squares. Not an easy task. "I figured it took him at least a whole afternoon," Jim said. The realization of how much time and effort Robert's destructive task had required brought on a second realization. He had to leave the man with whom he'd been in love. "I didn't feel safe," he said.

Robert, however, refuses to let go. Over the last three years, he has followed Jim to all the various bars and clubs he previously professed to hate, and enlisted his friends' assistance when he can't handle the task personally. When Jim was granted a mutual stay-away order in 1991, Robert violated the injunction nine times in just two days. He still shows up at Jim's house regularly, wanting to talk, and is suspected of vandalizing his car numerous times, as well as the natural gas line to the water heater in the garage.

The time apart hasn't diminished Robert's penchant for violence. The police just tell Jim to ignore the abuse. They take the reports, but never investigate. Lately Robert has begun to indulge in what Jim calls "recreational litigation." For the past two years, he has slapped Jim with a subpoena on his birthday. In court, he claims mutual combativeness. Most of the time, the strategy works, largely because judges understand the nature of gay domestic violence-and the fact that it occurs just as frequently as heterosexual spousal abuse-as little as they understand the nature of stalking.

The fact that the harassment has continued this long frightens Jim more than anything else. "The first year I could handle it. 'This is going to end,' I thought. 'He'll find somebody else or something else to do.' But he hasn't. And that's what's scary."