You never forget your first time.

Rodrick Bingham was 22, the first in his family to graduate from college. It was a soft May evening in Tennessee, the night before his graduation ceremony, and he was looking for his girlfriend, Ina. When he saw her with his best friend -- they had been driving around together, trying to find him -- his imagination took over. Then rage took over.

What was he thinking, as he raised his right hand, a solidly built athlete, all of 6 feet, facing down a 5-foot-3 woman, a woman he loved? Nothing, Mr. Bingham says from a distance of 16 years, absolutely nothing.

But the lessons of a lifetime were always with him.

What was it the guys on the corner had said, back in his hometown of Murfreesboro, Tenn.? "I beat that bitch up." "She deserved it." "She asked for it." "She wanted it."

He backhanded Ina, dislocating her nose.

Rodrick Bingham's story is not unusual, not in a country where one advocacy group estimates a woman is beaten every 15 seconds. What is unusual is his desire to tell it, almost compulsively, in painful and wrenching detail.

Now 38 and an addictions counselor with the state Department of Juvenile Services in Baltimore, Mr. Bingham spent most of his adult life denying that May night, as well as the nights and days of abuse that followed. Two years ago, arrested for battery and forced to go into counseling, he finally broke down and admitted he had a problem.

After completing his mandatory 22 weeks of group therapy at the House of Ruth, a local program for batterers and their victims, Mr. Bingham asked for more counseling -- a rarity at a center where 95 percent of the men attend under court order. With another man and the help of the House of Ruth's Karen Horsey, he started Men Against Violence, a voluntary group. In its first six months, it has attracted six members.

"Rodrick's not the only one. It so happens he's the most vocal, the one who's open to going and talking to the press," says Ms. Horsey, who oversees the batterers' program. "One reason is because of the issue. He really in his heart knows something needs to be done to stop violence, because he works with youth.

"The other reason is, he's a ham."

But, despite Mr. Bingham's willingness to talk, no one paid much attention to the fledgling Men Against Violence until O. J. Simpson roared into the headlines, charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and another man. Mr. Simpson, who pleaded no contest in 1989 to beating his wife, has sparked a national dialogue on domestic violence. Mr. Bingham wishes people could have shown interest sooner.

"It's too late to be listening to those 911 tapes," Mr. Bingham says, referring to the much-played recordings of Mrs. Simpson calling for help just last year, when her ex-husband was threatening her. "And we didn't need O. J. Simpson to think about domestic violence. We had our own case right here, with a guy who shot a police officer on I-95, then shot his girlfriend and himself."

Early days

Rodrick Bingham's childhood was, in a word, fun.

"We had basically a good life," he recalls. "A real disciplined household."

But the good life for Rodrick began when he was 7, after his mother had left his father. His stepfather -- a career Air Force officer, like his father -- was "a good model of a man."

His father was a good man, too, he hastens to add. Except for one thing: He beat his mother.

Fighting was strictly forbidden in his new household. When Rodrick got into fights, trying to defend his Panamanian-born mother against the taunts of neighborhood children, he was spanked.

He was 12 when his oldest sister, then 24, began dating a man who beat her. His stepfather was often away, so young Rodrick stepped in to defend his sister. The boyfriend beat him up, and his sister went back to the boyfriend, never pressing charges. His mother convinced him it was a lost cause.

"We basically washed our hands of it," he says. "I didn't think of it as battering. I thought of it as someone hurting my sister."

Flash forward 10 years. After hitting his own girlfriend, Mr. Bingham was overwhelmed by shock and shame. He burst into tears, promising never to do it again. But his biggest fear was being caught -- and, consequently, being controlled by Ina, who now had power over him. The power to turn him in.

"You're supposed to control her," Mr. Bingham says, explaining how he thought at the time. "She belongs to you. You wear the pants. That was the definition of what a man was."

But Ina protected him, making up a story about her injury at the emergency room and hiding in his house until her bruises faded. Her new-found power faded, too. Until the end of the relationship, Mr. Bingham could control her by intimidation alone.

"Sometimes, at the dinner table, I could raise my hand and she would jump," he says.

They broke up. He married his high school sweetheart. Ironically, the marriage ended five years later, because she was too passive and automatically ceded the control he wanted. "It's funny. She gave me what I want, but then I didn't want it."

After his divorce, he moved to Maryland, living first in Columbia, then West Baltimore.

He continued to threaten and harass the women he dated. "I'll kill you. I'll hurt you." He mocked women who threatened to have him arrested. "How can you have me arrested if you say you love me?" He screamed and raged.

Sometimes, he drove like a madman, endangering himself and the woman with him. "And I look over at her and she would be rolled up in a little ball, saying nothing. Then I would get mad at her for saying nothing."

This was his private life. In his public life, he was a counselor, helping other people with their problems. He was active in his church and his community. But some people glimpsed both sides.

"They would say, 'You're a good counselor, but you better start practicing what you preach,' " he says. "That would just make me mad."

Almost everything made him mad. Yet Mr. Bingham, intent on controlling others, never thought about controlling himself or his temper.

Wil Avery, who worked with Mr. Bingham at Liberty Medical Center in the late 1980s, could understand some of that rage. "A lot of black males have some anger toward society. The anger is not new. What did surprise me is that the anger had spilled over into his personal relationship."

Mr. Avery lost touch with Mr. Bingham after leaving Liberty in 1989. The next time he saw his colleague, their relationship had changed dramatically. He was a House of Ruth counselor; Mr. Bingham was his client.

Mr. Bingham had finally come face to face with someone he could not fool.

Turning point

Mr. Bingham ended up at the House of Ruth in October 1992. He had threatened someone who fought back -- by swearing out a battery warrant on him. Interestingly, it wasn't a girlfriend, but a good friend. She also was smart and beautiful, Mr. Bingham says, a combination that made him uncomfortable.

"I felt threatened," he admits. "A woman's not supposed to know more than a man."

Still, not even his arrest could make him realize he had done something wrong. Not his arrest, not being handcuffed, not the night in jail, not the $5,000 bail, not the prosecutor who told him it was her job to keep him off the streets if he was a danger to women. He agreed to counseling only to get the charges dropped.

Then he went to the House of Ruth and saw his old friend, Wil Avery.

"That was a good thing for Rodrick," says Ms. Horsey, who ran his group along with Mr. Avery. "Because he knew Wil and he knew him to some degree, he couldn't [be dishonest with] him. But he tried initially."

Mr. Avery laughs. "He tells me that, but knowing Rodrick, I think he would have been OK anyway. I think he would have found his way out."

As an addictions counselor, Mr. Bingham quickly saw the benefits of a support group, structured like Alcoholics Anonymous. But he didn't want to be anonymous, far from it. He wanted to tell his story to the world.

First, however, he had to tell it to his mother. His relationship had been strained since the college incident. "Now, she couldn't be more proud of me."

He has a girlfriend, a woman he was dating before his arrest. She isn't crazy about Mr. Bingham's high profile but is trying to live with it. "It's a struggle," he says. "Please put in that she's a beautiful woman and I love her very much."

He never talks to the woman who brought charges against him. Losing her friendship was a price he had to pay, Mr. Bingham says. He has tried, to no avail, to find his college girlfriend and make amends.

Talking it out

Meanwhile, Men Against Violence continues to meet once a month, at various locations. The program is limited to those men who have completed counseling. The men, as Ms. Horsey notes, have elected to keep a low profile, and Mr. Bingham says he knows little about the other participants, ages 25 to 40. "We're not there to talk about our professional lives," he says. "But if you know anything about domestic violence, you know it cuts across socio-economic lines."

In his work, Mr. Bingham sees young men like himself, boys who brag about the violence in their relationships. Just the other day, a young man told him proudly that he hit his girlfriend so hard she blacked out.

"How could you do that?" Mr. Bingham asked him. But he knew. Unfortunately, he knew.

Men who want to find out about treatment and services available at the House of Ruth can call 554-8479, Monday through Thursday.