Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Allan Alexander Amador Cervantes clamped his hands around my throat like iron vices.
Behind me on the bed, in the dim light of my villa, Allan’s fingers locked tight—both hands squeezing, cutting off air, cutting off sound. For the first time in my life, raw terror flooded every nerve during what was supposed to be an intimate moment. Pure, animal fear: This man might actually kill me.
A landmark study led by Dr. Nancy Glass and Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell found that prior non-fatal strangulation was associated with more than seven-fold odds of the victim later becoming a completed homicide. Forty-three percent of women killed by an intimate partner had been strangled by that partner before the murder. A police officer who documents a strangulation disclosure is not writing up a past incident. He or she is recording a homicide forecast.
Glass, N., Laughon, K., Campbell, J., et al. (2008). Non-fatal strangulation is an important risk factor for homicide of women. Journal of Emergency Medicine, 35(3), 329–335. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0736467907004143
Campbell, J.C., et al. (2003). Assessing risk factors for intimate partner homicide. NIJ Journal, 250. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/jr000250e.pdf
Maybe he wanted me gone—silenced forever—so his web of lies would stay buried. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, couldn’t even process the betrayal in real time.
I told myself later it was must have been Viagra-fueled recklessness, a momentary loss of control. But deep down, something fractured.
My friends’ words cut through the denial: This isn’t normal. This is violence.
The following month in the villa I rented at the hotel in El Sargento, the sunset peaking through hand-carved wood window frames, I forced the words out, voice shaking: “I was terrified when you choked me, Allan.”
He said nothing. Not a word. No apology, no denial, no flicker of remorse—just cold, hollow silence hanging between us like smoke.
Minimizing. Avoiding. Blaming. Not taking concerns seriously is one of the eight tactics on the Duluth Model Power and Control Wheel. These are systematic, non-physical behaviors abusers use to maintain power and control over their partners.
Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs. n.d. “Power and Control Wheel.” The Duluth Model. Accessed July 4, 2026. https://www.theduluthmodel.org/wheels/understanding-power-control-wheel/.
If I had known then that he was already trying to rob Pamela Sue Martin—another layer of deceit, another betrayal—I would have never let myself be that vulnerable in his presence again.
That silence, that chokehold, that secret life still echos. What demons had he brought to our bed?
I wonder what lie Allan told Pamela about where he was that night: “Business in Loreto” or “Kenno is sick“?
Or did he tell her the truth and give her the power to decide for herself whether she wanted to absorb the sexual energy of another woman?
I’ve never known Allan to be truthful when the truth mattered most, so I’m guessing he either offered her silence or bullshit.
