M. Newman's Blog
August 24, 2015
Superman
Superman
by M Newman
Nate Leipert was of the privileged class. His father, a descendant of powerful German-Jewish bankers, was CEO of a major financial institution; mother, a long-ago debutante, was the founder of a social media giant. The family’s main residence was a huge, elegant brownstone in the Columbia Heights section of Brooklyn Heights. Of course, the estate in Marin County, California and the mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, London were no less impressive than the Brooklyn abode.
Nate, a handsome, arrogant young man of 16, was an honor roll senior athe best private school in New York City. This was a simple accomplishment for an individual with an IQ that easily surpassed the level of “genius.” He had already been accepted by Harvard, the school of his choice and would attend next fall. He planned to major in business law; he had a more exciting project to complete, however, before beginning college.
“Excellent work, Nat,” Mr. Barrow, Nates teacher of Honors European Literature gushed as he returned the boy’s essay on Nietzche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. “I’m quite positive that no other student at this school understands Nietzche’s philosophy as well as you do. I’m especially impressed by your analysis of his description of the Übermensch.”
Nate merely shrugged as he accepted his A+ paper along with his teacher’s ardent admiration. “Anything would impress this boob,” he said to himself, ruefully. “Imagine how impressed he would be if he knew that I had read the book in the original German.”
As the boy silently turned and walked out the door, Barrow felt an inexplicable pang of disappointment that his young student had not even acknowledged his compliments.
Upon leaving school for the day, Nate was, as a matter of fact, still thinking about Mr. Barrow’s enthusiastic response to the essay. Allowing himself a touch of pride, he admitted that the teacher’s satisfaction with his analysis of Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” or “Superman” meant a lot. To Nate, the Übermensch, a being who is socially and intellectually superior to others, was the most important piece of Nietzsche’s work. Since Nate believed that he was, in fact, a Superman, to whom, according to the philosopher, society’s laws did not apply, it confirmed his belief in the legitimacy of his plan. He would start the ball rolling tomorrow morning.
He was so high with anticipation of his project that on his walk home, his usual sneer transformed into an uncharacteristic smile. He hardly even noticed the customary derisive looks that he received from the jocks standing in front of the school or the middle finger that the slut, Dora, held up for him to see.
He awoke early the following morning and dressed carefully, choosing his nicest clothes. The nervousness that he felt was an unfamiliar emotion. The first part of his plan would be the hardest part for him. He had to secure a date with Barbie Franklin. Barbie, he believed, was the most popular girl in the school. She was beautiful, intelligent and captain of the cheerleaders. She had recently been informed that she’d received a scholarship to Bryn Mawr College.
Nate had rarely spoken to her, for despite his overall arrogance, he was terribly girl-shy. This was probably because he was a couple of years younger and less mature than most of his classmates and had little experience with the opposite sex...and he was sure that Barbie had her choice of any boy in the school; some of the boys who flocked to her were so handsome that Nate often found himself gawking at them admiringly. He didn’t realize that most of those boys wanted her for only one thing and that, in reality, they thought that she was pretty weird; many of her girlfriends also felt that she was a little off.
Whatever optimism he possessed about his possible success came from his knowledge that Barbie had recently been staring at him during class. He had also overheard her telling her friends that she thinks he is cute.
His musings about the girl completed for the time being, Nate finished combing his hair, threw on his navy blue blazer and, before rushing out the door, took a quick look at the photo he had secretly taken of Barbie several weeks before. He always felt a little thrill when looking at that photo and thinking about the adventure ahead.
“You will?,” a sweat-soaked Nate asked in disbelief when she responded positively to his clumsy plea for a date. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, silly,” she replied with a laugh. “I’d love to go out with you, although I’m surprised that you asked; I thought you were gay.”
Nate’s face turned redder than a fire truck after that remark but he quickly regained his composure. He would need all his wits to sell Barbie on his next request, although if she didn’t buy it he had a few other schemes in reserve.
“This may sound like a strange request, Barbie,” he said, “But I really need for you not to tell your parents or any of your friends that we are going out. We can meet at Starbucks or someplace before we begin the evening. I can’t tell you the reason now but you’ll find out soon enough. Strange as it may seem, any inconvenience that this may cause will be worth the excitement that will result.” If Barbie was paying attention she would undoubtedly have felt the evil vibrations emanating from his brain. Perhaps she did feel them but didn’t care.
“Yes,” she replied. “That does sound weird.” But a dreamy smile crept over her face and her eyes kind of glazed over. “Excitement is the magic word, though. It’s the spark that lights my life. Will you give me a hint of what to expect?”
“No,” he replied. “I want it to be a surprise.”
“Oh,” she groaned, her voice dripping with mock disappointment. She immediately perked up and said, “I’ll be wondering bout it all night; I can’t wait! See you at Starbucks at 8:00 tomorrow evening.” She quickly kissed his cheek then turned and trotted towards her home.
“This may be easier than I expected,” he thought.
Nate was feeling good as he approached Starbucks. The awareness that he would be spending time with Barbie no longer made him nervous and the thought of having sex with the girl was not really what was sending that persistent tingle through his loins; it was, rather, the entire plan and the knowledge of what would occur after the lovemaking was done. He put his right hand into his pocket and smiled as he reverently stroked the little case that contained the pill that he’d secretly concocted during chemistry lab. He hesitated for a second and then moved his hand to his groin, squeezing it gently. He gasped and his entire body shook as he pictured a naked young body lying, lifeless on a rumpled bed.
As he neared the cafe he quickly went over his plans. “How much ransom should I demand?,” was the first thing that he thought. “It really doesn’t matter. I don’t need the money and since she’ll be dead I’m not even sure if I’ll manage to collect..” He barely stifled a laugh. “I’m not really doing this for the money, anyway. It’s the thrill of the kill and the satisfaction of knowing that I’ll get away with it. This will be the crime of the century!”
Barbie graced him with a brilliant smile as he entered the cafe. “Wow,” he thought. “She is really beautiful.” His eyes traveled slowly from her gorgeous face down her long, swan-like neck all the way through a curved highway that ended at her dainty feet. They worked their way back up until they fastened upon her barely concealed, shapely breasts. “It’s too bad that I have to kill this incredible creature,” he thought. “I have nothing against her and, unfortunately, when she is gone there will be less beauty in the world...oh, well.”
She rushed to kiss him and he blushed the moment her lips touched his.
They stayed at Starbucks for about an hour, each nursing a venti latte and each doubling up on the delicious brownies.
“Well,” she said as they finally finished their coffee and pastry. “Where are we going and what are we doing?”
“It’s still a secret. Just relax and come with me.”
“Oh, boy,” she said breathlessly. “I just love a surprise.”
A chilly drizzle was falling as they stepped outside. She snuggled against hi for warmth, turning her beautiful face towards his and smiling, He did not return the smile and hustled her into the Über car that was already waiting at the curb. He gave the driver an adress in Williamsburg that Barbie recognized as a nice block in a hipster neighborhood.
“What’s there?,” she inquired.
“Oh, just a nice little house to which I have access. I thought we could warm up a bit and have a drink.”
“Sounds good,” she replied, flashing a coquettish smile.
The driver let them off in front of a handsome little row house in a quiet block and they entered through a street-level door.
“Take off that damp jacket and make yourself comfortable,” he told her. “Take a look around. In the meantime, I’ll get us something to drink.”
“Oh,” she replied quietly, “I don’t know if we should. We are both underage, you know.”
She laughed when she saw his puzzled expression. “Just kidding,” she said. “I’ll have vodka, please.”
He escorted her to the plush sofa in the living room and said, “I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.”
He returned with two glasses and a bottle of Gray Goose and filled both glasses nearly to the top. “To us,” he proclaimed and clinked her glass with his own.
“Oh, that’s corny,” she giggled, “but cute. Bottoms up,” she cried, and surprised him by gulping down nearly half the contents of the glass. She giggled again when she saw the expression on his face. “Why so shocked,” she asked. “Aren’t you going to join me?”
“Of course,” he replied as he took a much smaller taste of his drink. “But first, I brought some goodies that will really help us to feel good.” He handed her the pill that could only be described as a date rape drug with lethal after-effects. He ostentatiously swallowed a pill of his own which he had also made in the lab but which contained nothing more potent than sugar.
“I don’t know,” she said as she rolled the pill between her fingers. “I don’t really like to take drugs...what is it?”
“Oh, please,” he responded i, impatiently.”It’s just a little treat from your personal Dr. Feelgood. You just saw me take mine so you know it won’t harm you. Don’t you trust me?”
“I...I guess so,” she stammered as she raised her pill-filled hand uncertainly towards her mouth. She closed her eyes and continued to guide her hand.
“There,” she said. “Mission accomplished.”
“That’s a good girl,” he said, his confidence at an all-time high. “Now wash it down with a swig of vodka.”
The girl obeyed.
They sat on the sofa sipping their vodka, neither drinking too much. Despite the fact that she was hardly drinking, Barbie appeared to be getting more drunk by the minute.
“Oh, m’ goodness, s’so hot in here,” she declared in a voice so muffled and words so slurred that Nate could barely understand what she had said.
“What?,” he asked. “I can’t hear you.”
The girl came closer and whispered in his ear. “I said I am hot...I’m sooo, sooo hot.” Her tongue darted into his ear and, like a snake, she flicked it in and out a few times. “I just don’t know how to cool off.” She let go a loud, buffoonish bellow that was similar to laughter.
“Ohh, I know,” she declared, then proceeded to stand unsteadily and inelegantly move her hips. Suddenly she seemed to regain her balance and nimbly slide out of her dress. Nate was surprised at how gracefully she was able to perform that sexy little act while in her present state and he became more than a little excited when he discovered that she had been wearing nothing beneath the dress.
Her grace disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and she stumbled, clumsily, luckily able to grab on to his shirt while falling. She dug her nails into the fabric and pulled herself up like a cat climbing a curtain, finally steadying herself by locking her arms around his neck.
“Nope,” she drawled. “That didn’t work. I’m hotter than ever.” Her arms still attached to his neck, she broke into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. When finally she calmed down, she stared dead into his eyes and inquired, “what can you do to relieve this burning, Nick...I mean, Ned...I mean, uh, whatever the fuck your name is,” and arms still clinging to his neck, she commenced to rub her naked body against his clothed one, grinding where he could feel it most.
“Oh, Nate,” she moaned. “Take me...take me now. Bring me the excitement that you promised.”
Nate was getting pretty horny, as well. “I may as well get this over with,” he thought. I’ll fuck her and then the pill will finish her off. This is so much easier than I thought it would be.”
He walked her into the bedroom and threw her onto the king size bed, hurriedly removing his clothes and throwing them every which way. His pants landed on the bedpost and the knife that he’d brought with him, just in case, fell from the pocket, landing almost by the girl’s head. “I don’t know why I brought that along; I won’t need it...the pill is going to kill her. Anyway, she is so out of it that she doesn’t even see the damn thing.”
Finally undressed, he lowered himself onto the bed.
“Bring it on, baby,” the girl screamed, drunkenly.
In a hurry now, he rolled on top of her and wrapped her in a clumsy embrace. Before he could attempt to part her legs, he discovered that they were already wrapped around him. She moaned deeply as she guided him inside her. He was immediately overcome by ecstasy as he thrusted arrhythmically and then suddenly groaned.
“Is that it?,” she demanded, suddenly sounding sober. “I knew it...I knew you were gay or something. That’s the excitement that you promised? What a joke! Oh, well, I’ll get myself off after I’m finished with you.”
At least he had gotten his rocks off but Nate didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or confused. “How the hell did she sober up?,” he wondered. “She should be dying by now.” He reached for the knife but was surprised once again when she beat him to it.
“Didn’t you think that I’d seen that knife, you dumb-ass? Of course I saw it; and what made you think that I would actually swallow that pill? I never put it in my mouth. I saw through your stupid scheme a long time ago. In fact, my plan was to seduce you and kill you...like a black widow spider. You made it so easy.” She broke into a maniacal laugh but composed herself when he reached for the knife in her hand. She jabbed at him, slicing his finger as he attempted to retreat.
“Ow,” he squealed and she chuckled.
“You know, I’ve hated you since I first laid eyes on you. I can’t stand your conceited, egotistical guts. You think that your money makes you special...but it doesn’t. You think that you’re smarter than everybody...but you’re not. In fact, you’re pretty dumb. I saw through your idiotic scheme right from the beginning because, you see, I’m smarter than you.
“It was all good, though. Your plan gave me the opportunity for which I’d been waiting for ages. I let you see me staring at you in class and I let you overhear me raving to my friends about your looks; I wasn’t sure if you would actually think me capable of such infantile behavior...but, there you go.
“I couldn’t believe that you expected me to fall for that ridiculous idea of not telling anybody that we would be together tonight but you gave me a cover, you simpleton.
“I must admit, though, that I was a bit interested in having sex with you because you are sort of cute; but that turned out pretty much the way I was afraid it might. The excitement that you promised is still to come, as expected. That will happen when I kill you.”
His naked young body was discovered later that week, lying, lifeless on the rumpled bed but the identity of his killer was never determined.
by M Newman
Nate Leipert was of the privileged class. His father, a descendant of powerful German-Jewish bankers, was CEO of a major financial institution; mother, a long-ago debutante, was the founder of a social media giant. The family’s main residence was a huge, elegant brownstone in the Columbia Heights section of Brooklyn Heights. Of course, the estate in Marin County, California and the mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, London were no less impressive than the Brooklyn abode.
Nate, a handsome, arrogant young man of 16, was an honor roll senior athe best private school in New York City. This was a simple accomplishment for an individual with an IQ that easily surpassed the level of “genius.” He had already been accepted by Harvard, the school of his choice and would attend next fall. He planned to major in business law; he had a more exciting project to complete, however, before beginning college.
“Excellent work, Nat,” Mr. Barrow, Nates teacher of Honors European Literature gushed as he returned the boy’s essay on Nietzche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. “I’m quite positive that no other student at this school understands Nietzche’s philosophy as well as you do. I’m especially impressed by your analysis of his description of the Übermensch.”
Nate merely shrugged as he accepted his A+ paper along with his teacher’s ardent admiration. “Anything would impress this boob,” he said to himself, ruefully. “Imagine how impressed he would be if he knew that I had read the book in the original German.”
As the boy silently turned and walked out the door, Barrow felt an inexplicable pang of disappointment that his young student had not even acknowledged his compliments.
Upon leaving school for the day, Nate was, as a matter of fact, still thinking about Mr. Barrow’s enthusiastic response to the essay. Allowing himself a touch of pride, he admitted that the teacher’s satisfaction with his analysis of Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” or “Superman” meant a lot. To Nate, the Übermensch, a being who is socially and intellectually superior to others, was the most important piece of Nietzsche’s work. Since Nate believed that he was, in fact, a Superman, to whom, according to the philosopher, society’s laws did not apply, it confirmed his belief in the legitimacy of his plan. He would start the ball rolling tomorrow morning.
He was so high with anticipation of his project that on his walk home, his usual sneer transformed into an uncharacteristic smile. He hardly even noticed the customary derisive looks that he received from the jocks standing in front of the school or the middle finger that the slut, Dora, held up for him to see.
He awoke early the following morning and dressed carefully, choosing his nicest clothes. The nervousness that he felt was an unfamiliar emotion. The first part of his plan would be the hardest part for him. He had to secure a date with Barbie Franklin. Barbie, he believed, was the most popular girl in the school. She was beautiful, intelligent and captain of the cheerleaders. She had recently been informed that she’d received a scholarship to Bryn Mawr College.
Nate had rarely spoken to her, for despite his overall arrogance, he was terribly girl-shy. This was probably because he was a couple of years younger and less mature than most of his classmates and had little experience with the opposite sex...and he was sure that Barbie had her choice of any boy in the school; some of the boys who flocked to her were so handsome that Nate often found himself gawking at them admiringly. He didn’t realize that most of those boys wanted her for only one thing and that, in reality, they thought that she was pretty weird; many of her girlfriends also felt that she was a little off.
Whatever optimism he possessed about his possible success came from his knowledge that Barbie had recently been staring at him during class. He had also overheard her telling her friends that she thinks he is cute.
His musings about the girl completed for the time being, Nate finished combing his hair, threw on his navy blue blazer and, before rushing out the door, took a quick look at the photo he had secretly taken of Barbie several weeks before. He always felt a little thrill when looking at that photo and thinking about the adventure ahead.
“You will?,” a sweat-soaked Nate asked in disbelief when she responded positively to his clumsy plea for a date. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, silly,” she replied with a laugh. “I’d love to go out with you, although I’m surprised that you asked; I thought you were gay.”
Nate’s face turned redder than a fire truck after that remark but he quickly regained his composure. He would need all his wits to sell Barbie on his next request, although if she didn’t buy it he had a few other schemes in reserve.
“This may sound like a strange request, Barbie,” he said, “But I really need for you not to tell your parents or any of your friends that we are going out. We can meet at Starbucks or someplace before we begin the evening. I can’t tell you the reason now but you’ll find out soon enough. Strange as it may seem, any inconvenience that this may cause will be worth the excitement that will result.” If Barbie was paying attention she would undoubtedly have felt the evil vibrations emanating from his brain. Perhaps she did feel them but didn’t care.
“Yes,” she replied. “That does sound weird.” But a dreamy smile crept over her face and her eyes kind of glazed over. “Excitement is the magic word, though. It’s the spark that lights my life. Will you give me a hint of what to expect?”
“No,” he replied. “I want it to be a surprise.”
“Oh,” she groaned, her voice dripping with mock disappointment. She immediately perked up and said, “I’ll be wondering bout it all night; I can’t wait! See you at Starbucks at 8:00 tomorrow evening.” She quickly kissed his cheek then turned and trotted towards her home.
“This may be easier than I expected,” he thought.
Nate was feeling good as he approached Starbucks. The awareness that he would be spending time with Barbie no longer made him nervous and the thought of having sex with the girl was not really what was sending that persistent tingle through his loins; it was, rather, the entire plan and the knowledge of what would occur after the lovemaking was done. He put his right hand into his pocket and smiled as he reverently stroked the little case that contained the pill that he’d secretly concocted during chemistry lab. He hesitated for a second and then moved his hand to his groin, squeezing it gently. He gasped and his entire body shook as he pictured a naked young body lying, lifeless on a rumpled bed.
As he neared the cafe he quickly went over his plans. “How much ransom should I demand?,” was the first thing that he thought. “It really doesn’t matter. I don’t need the money and since she’ll be dead I’m not even sure if I’ll manage to collect..” He barely stifled a laugh. “I’m not really doing this for the money, anyway. It’s the thrill of the kill and the satisfaction of knowing that I’ll get away with it. This will be the crime of the century!”
Barbie graced him with a brilliant smile as he entered the cafe. “Wow,” he thought. “She is really beautiful.” His eyes traveled slowly from her gorgeous face down her long, swan-like neck all the way through a curved highway that ended at her dainty feet. They worked their way back up until they fastened upon her barely concealed, shapely breasts. “It’s too bad that I have to kill this incredible creature,” he thought. “I have nothing against her and, unfortunately, when she is gone there will be less beauty in the world...oh, well.”
She rushed to kiss him and he blushed the moment her lips touched his.
They stayed at Starbucks for about an hour, each nursing a venti latte and each doubling up on the delicious brownies.
“Well,” she said as they finally finished their coffee and pastry. “Where are we going and what are we doing?”
“It’s still a secret. Just relax and come with me.”
“Oh, boy,” she said breathlessly. “I just love a surprise.”
A chilly drizzle was falling as they stepped outside. She snuggled against hi for warmth, turning her beautiful face towards his and smiling, He did not return the smile and hustled her into the Über car that was already waiting at the curb. He gave the driver an adress in Williamsburg that Barbie recognized as a nice block in a hipster neighborhood.
“What’s there?,” she inquired.
“Oh, just a nice little house to which I have access. I thought we could warm up a bit and have a drink.”
“Sounds good,” she replied, flashing a coquettish smile.
The driver let them off in front of a handsome little row house in a quiet block and they entered through a street-level door.
“Take off that damp jacket and make yourself comfortable,” he told her. “Take a look around. In the meantime, I’ll get us something to drink.”
“Oh,” she replied quietly, “I don’t know if we should. We are both underage, you know.”
She laughed when she saw his puzzled expression. “Just kidding,” she said. “I’ll have vodka, please.”
He escorted her to the plush sofa in the living room and said, “I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.”
He returned with two glasses and a bottle of Gray Goose and filled both glasses nearly to the top. “To us,” he proclaimed and clinked her glass with his own.
“Oh, that’s corny,” she giggled, “but cute. Bottoms up,” she cried, and surprised him by gulping down nearly half the contents of the glass. She giggled again when she saw the expression on his face. “Why so shocked,” she asked. “Aren’t you going to join me?”
“Of course,” he replied as he took a much smaller taste of his drink. “But first, I brought some goodies that will really help us to feel good.” He handed her the pill that could only be described as a date rape drug with lethal after-effects. He ostentatiously swallowed a pill of his own which he had also made in the lab but which contained nothing more potent than sugar.
“I don’t know,” she said as she rolled the pill between her fingers. “I don’t really like to take drugs...what is it?”
“Oh, please,” he responded i, impatiently.”It’s just a little treat from your personal Dr. Feelgood. You just saw me take mine so you know it won’t harm you. Don’t you trust me?”
“I...I guess so,” she stammered as she raised her pill-filled hand uncertainly towards her mouth. She closed her eyes and continued to guide her hand.
“There,” she said. “Mission accomplished.”
“That’s a good girl,” he said, his confidence at an all-time high. “Now wash it down with a swig of vodka.”
The girl obeyed.
They sat on the sofa sipping their vodka, neither drinking too much. Despite the fact that she was hardly drinking, Barbie appeared to be getting more drunk by the minute.
“Oh, m’ goodness, s’so hot in here,” she declared in a voice so muffled and words so slurred that Nate could barely understand what she had said.
“What?,” he asked. “I can’t hear you.”
The girl came closer and whispered in his ear. “I said I am hot...I’m sooo, sooo hot.” Her tongue darted into his ear and, like a snake, she flicked it in and out a few times. “I just don’t know how to cool off.” She let go a loud, buffoonish bellow that was similar to laughter.
“Ohh, I know,” she declared, then proceeded to stand unsteadily and inelegantly move her hips. Suddenly she seemed to regain her balance and nimbly slide out of her dress. Nate was surprised at how gracefully she was able to perform that sexy little act while in her present state and he became more than a little excited when he discovered that she had been wearing nothing beneath the dress.
Her grace disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and she stumbled, clumsily, luckily able to grab on to his shirt while falling. She dug her nails into the fabric and pulled herself up like a cat climbing a curtain, finally steadying herself by locking her arms around his neck.
“Nope,” she drawled. “That didn’t work. I’m hotter than ever.” Her arms still attached to his neck, she broke into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. When finally she calmed down, she stared dead into his eyes and inquired, “what can you do to relieve this burning, Nick...I mean, Ned...I mean, uh, whatever the fuck your name is,” and arms still clinging to his neck, she commenced to rub her naked body against his clothed one, grinding where he could feel it most.
“Oh, Nate,” she moaned. “Take me...take me now. Bring me the excitement that you promised.”
Nate was getting pretty horny, as well. “I may as well get this over with,” he thought. I’ll fuck her and then the pill will finish her off. This is so much easier than I thought it would be.”
He walked her into the bedroom and threw her onto the king size bed, hurriedly removing his clothes and throwing them every which way. His pants landed on the bedpost and the knife that he’d brought with him, just in case, fell from the pocket, landing almost by the girl’s head. “I don’t know why I brought that along; I won’t need it...the pill is going to kill her. Anyway, she is so out of it that she doesn’t even see the damn thing.”
Finally undressed, he lowered himself onto the bed.
“Bring it on, baby,” the girl screamed, drunkenly.
In a hurry now, he rolled on top of her and wrapped her in a clumsy embrace. Before he could attempt to part her legs, he discovered that they were already wrapped around him. She moaned deeply as she guided him inside her. He was immediately overcome by ecstasy as he thrusted arrhythmically and then suddenly groaned.
“Is that it?,” she demanded, suddenly sounding sober. “I knew it...I knew you were gay or something. That’s the excitement that you promised? What a joke! Oh, well, I’ll get myself off after I’m finished with you.”
At least he had gotten his rocks off but Nate didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or confused. “How the hell did she sober up?,” he wondered. “She should be dying by now.” He reached for the knife but was surprised once again when she beat him to it.
“Didn’t you think that I’d seen that knife, you dumb-ass? Of course I saw it; and what made you think that I would actually swallow that pill? I never put it in my mouth. I saw through your stupid scheme a long time ago. In fact, my plan was to seduce you and kill you...like a black widow spider. You made it so easy.” She broke into a maniacal laugh but composed herself when he reached for the knife in her hand. She jabbed at him, slicing his finger as he attempted to retreat.
“Ow,” he squealed and she chuckled.
“You know, I’ve hated you since I first laid eyes on you. I can’t stand your conceited, egotistical guts. You think that your money makes you special...but it doesn’t. You think that you’re smarter than everybody...but you’re not. In fact, you’re pretty dumb. I saw through your idiotic scheme right from the beginning because, you see, I’m smarter than you.
“It was all good, though. Your plan gave me the opportunity for which I’d been waiting for ages. I let you see me staring at you in class and I let you overhear me raving to my friends about your looks; I wasn’t sure if you would actually think me capable of such infantile behavior...but, there you go.
“I couldn’t believe that you expected me to fall for that ridiculous idea of not telling anybody that we would be together tonight but you gave me a cover, you simpleton.
“I must admit, though, that I was a bit interested in having sex with you because you are sort of cute; but that turned out pretty much the way I was afraid it might. The excitement that you promised is still to come, as expected. That will happen when I kill you.”
His naked young body was discovered later that week, lying, lifeless on the rumpled bed but the identity of his killer was never determined.
July 14, 2014
Home Is Where The Captor Is
“Ok, Mother. Have a great time.” Patricia Smart did her best to hide her disappointment. She’d been looking forward to her upcoming visit with her mom during spring break but now she was being told that it was not to be. Actually she was kind of used to these little letdowns. Greta Smart was a beautiful woman who looked to be barely half her forty-five years of age. Patty absolutely glowed whenever it was said that she looked a lot like her mother. Anyway, ever since her husband had left her for some tramp three years ago, Greta had been winning the hearts of a variety of wealthy, handsome men and breaking dates with her daughter.
“I’m really sorry, sweetie,” she had told her daughter during the phone call, “but this is just too wonderful an opportunity for me to pass up. Out of the blue, Mr. Kelly asked me to accompany him to Monte Carlo for a month... I’ve always wanted to go to Monte Carlo and I can’t imagine a more ideal escort than John Kelly. I know you understand.”
Patty did understand. After years of servility under the thumb of her conventional and controlling husband, a man who occasionally left her with minor cuts or bruises when she’d been disobedient, Greta had learned to enjoy life once again. Her newly re-discovered powers of seduction had enabled her to completely rebuild the psyche that had been shattered by her husband’s mistreatment while they were married and his subsequent desertion for another woman. It mattered not to her that John Kelly, like several other of her beaux, was a married man. She had long since lost her reverence for the institution of marriage.
“Oh, well,” Patty decided. “I’ll still enjoy spring break. There’s lots to do in New York City.”
“So, I’ll have James pick you guys up in front of the dorm and the three of you can meet me at Grand Central Terminal,” Robin, Patty’s roommate at NYU told her. “I’ve told my parents that I’ll only be staying with them at home in Poughkeepsie for two days so that you won’t have to be alone during spring break. It’s too bad we don’t have a guest room or you could have stayed upstate with us. My train will arrive in New York at 8:30...plenty of time to party. Wait until you meet James. You’ll just adore him.”
Patty doubted that James would make any kind of impression on her. She felt that she might be falling in love with Joey after only three dates. He was smart and funny and so, so cute. In fact, she wished that she hadn’t agreed to double date with Robin and James. She’d been thinking that her next date with Joey might be the one during which she chose to surrender her virginity.
Patty and Joey could barely conceal their awe as James pulled up in a brand new, cherry-red Porsche convertible. “Wow,” Joey whispered into her ear. “That is the car of my dreams. This guy must be loaded.”
Patty wasn’t quite as bedazzled by the car as Joey. Her moment came as James stepped out of the vehicle to introduce himself and open the passenger’s door for his new companions. “What a hunk,” she thought, momentarily forgetting Joey’s existence as she took note of this guy’s rugged good looks which were highlighted by thick legs, a powerful physique and silky black hair, worn in a ponytail. The gold hoop earring and the scar that snaked its way down the left side of his classically handsome face served to give him a somewhat sinister look...oh, and what a butt! The fact that he appeared to be nearly thirty years old made him seem still more impressive to her nineteen year-old eyes. “Boy,” she thought, “Robin has good reason to brag about this guy.”
The tires squealed as the Porsche peeled out of its parking spot, causing a young couple a fright as they leisurely crossed Washington Square South arm in arm. After pulling his companion out of harm’s way, the young man hollered a profanity and raised his middle finger at the rapidly accelerating automobile. James stuck his left arm out of the car and shot that bird right back at the angry pedestrian. It was at this moment that Patty lost her fascination for the man and remembered how much she loved Joey.
They had been waiting in front of Grand Central Terminal for quite some time without catching a glimpse of Robin. It was now past 9:00 and they were becoming impatient. “I’ll go in and see if I can find her,” Joey said. “Or at least see if the train has arrived.”
He returned ten minutes later, wearing a glum expression. “No trains have arrived,” he informed them, “and none will be arriving for hours. There was some kind of accident somewhere up the line and all service is suspended indefinitely.”
The accident was a derailment of Robin’s train, about one mile north of Peekskill. Although she was not one of the two unfortunate passengers who were killed, she was among the several who were badly injured. She was airlifted to a New York City hospital where she would remain in a coma for weeks.
Of course, her friends had no way of knowing the seriousness of her situation. They really never even considered that the vague accident of which they had been told had involved Robin’s train.
“Well, it’s too bad Robin can’t make it,” James declared. “But it’s no reason that we shouldn’t enjoy the evening.”
“Do you guys want some of this pot,” James asked his passengers as he lit a thick joint. Patty declined the offer but silently assured Joey that it was fine with her if he indulged. The two guys were feeling good when they entered the club.
Looking around, Patty was impressed. The sweet fragrance of wealth emanated from every corner of the extravagant room. The liquor that was stocked at the bar all seemed to be top shelf; the music was live and soulfully performed and the elegantly dressed clientele all seemed to belong to that exclusive group known as “the Beautiful People.” Patty was certain that she had recognized several celebrities in the crowd.
James led them to the bar and asked, “what are you kids drinking?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Patty replied. “Please don’t be upset with me,” she told him when he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I don’t drink.”
“That’s fine, Patty. How about a club soda?”
She accepted the drink and a provocative caress, with a cautious smile. Joey ordered a Glenlivet, neat. “Make it a double,” James instructed the bartender.
The music was wonderful so she and Joey stepped out onto the floor to dance. They both felt as if they were on a rhythmic trip to Paradise but, after about thirty minutes their bliss was interrupted by a tap on Patty’s shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt, guys,” James said, “but I thought Joey might want another drink and, frankly, I would really like to dance with you, Patty.”
What could she say? “Of course James,” was her answer. “I’d love to.” He didn’t take note of her crestfallen countenance as her eyes followed Joey off the dance floor. Joey didn’t seem too thrilled about the switch either, and he tried to ease his disappointment with a huge gulp of his double scotch.
James danced divinely and Patty enjoyed her time with him although she did feel that he held her much too close. Obviously, Joey concurred. His eyes, when he looked at James, had grown resentful and he was well on his way to the bottom of another tumbler of scotch.
The parking lot on East 84th Street was empty save for James’ Porsche. The attendant had long ago closed his booth and gone home and so, apparently, had all the other patrons. “Thanks for showing us a great evening, James,” said Patty. Joey took a hit of the joint that James had just passed to him and nodded his head. “Yeah, thanks,” he agreed, with minimal enthusiasm.
“My pleasure, guys. We’ll have to do this again some time soon.” Patty became pretty uncomfortable when he punctuated that seemingly innocuous statement with a fairly passionate hug and a lingering kiss on her lips.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing,” Joey hollered, flicking the half-smoked joint in James‘ direction.
“Nothing, Joey, nothing. I didn’t mean anything by it,” James replied.
“Calm down, honey, it’s all right,” Patty cooed.
Joey did calm down and James opened the car door for them. It hit the fan, though, when Joey saw him grab Patty’s butt as she was entering the car. Patty immediately smacked his hand away and that probably would have been the end of it but Joey went nuts.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, asshole,” he screamed as he rushed the much larger man.
“Joey, no!” Patty screamed as if she had a premonition of just how tragic this was about to become. James delivered a vicious beating to the younger, smaller man, disregarding the girl’s screams and pleas for him to stop. Just when it seemed that he had beaten the boy to within an inch of his life, he pulled from his pocket a large knife and jammed the cold steel into his heart, finishing the job.
He didn’t know how to shut her up; he didn’t want to kill her, too; didn’t even want to hurt her. He really liked this girl. That’s what had gotten him into this mess; that, his bad temper and his damned perpetual horniness. But she kept on screaming and those screams would bring the law; and what would he do even if she stopped? He couldn’t just let her go. She would run straight to the police and he’d be locked up in no time.
“Patty, please stop,” he implored. I don’t want to hurt you.” He was finally forced to quiet her with a ferocious punch to the side of her head and stuff her unconscious body into the tiny trunk of the Porsche.
He drove to the house his family owned about four hours northwest of New York City. Nobody would find them there. He could keep her there for as long as was necessary. The place was isolated in the woods about a one half hour drive to the nearest town; no telephone and no neighbors for miles. For years, he’d been the only member of his family to stay there. His parents and his younger sister had all moved to London years ago and had never returned to the States. James stayed at the house periodically, usually to hunt deer or just to get away from it all.
Patty was conscious but woozy when he helped her out of the trunk. She could barely walk, because she’d been unable to move in those constricted confines and also because she probably had a concussion. Still, she cringed when he put his arm around her to help her to the house.
“Don’t worry, Patty,” he said, hoping to allay her fear. “I won’t hurt you again. You’ll have to stay here with me but I’ll treat you as well as possible.
“This will be your new home,” he told her, cheerfully, as he helped her to the front door. “I hope you will grow to love it as much as I do.” Although she made no reply, he, like any proud property owner, continued speaking. “Would you like to take the grand tour? It’s a beautiful house if I must say so myself.”
Not surprisingly, she remained silent and backed toward the nearest wall. She sat, cowering in a corner for the next several hours, not speaking and averting her eyes anytime he turned to face her. Finally, early in the evening, she spoke. “Where is the bathroom? I need to take a shower.”
He knew that she did because he had noticed several hours ago that she had peed herself.
“There it is,” he said, “pointing towards the rear of the house. “Take your time. There’s a clean towel hanging on the door and I’ll give you some dry clothes. You’re in luck,” he said. “There are some women’s clothes in the bedroom that belonged to my sister. She is about the same size as you. Tomorrow I’ll drive into town and get us some food and some new clothes for you.”
She returned from the bathroom, cautiously and quietly, after about thirty minutes. “Oh, you look all fresh and clean now,” he said with a bright smile. Patty did not respond.
“I think you need to get some sleep,” he told her, gently. Again, she said nothing and when he approached her in order to lead her into the bedroom, she retreated to her corner and crouched there like a frightened animal.
“Come on, Patty,” he coaxed. “I won’t hurt you. You need some sleep. I won’t be getting into the bed with you.”
Finally, she walked warily to the bedroom and lay down in the king-size bed. A feral growl escaped her throat as he moved toward the bed and she quickly backed as far away as she could, ultimately running out of room and falling off the bed.
“I only wanted to cover you with the blanket,” he said.
Instead, he tossed the blanket onto the bed and slowly turned away, eventually coming to rest in the large, leather chair that he had moved in front of the bedroom door. The girl quietly got back into the bed and covered herself with the blanket.
He turned out the light but immediately turned it back on when he heard her whimper at the darkness. They slept in the artificial light until morning.
He awoke well before she did and quickly showered. He went out to the shed and after searching for a few moments, found several lengths of rope. He returned to the house, knocked gently on the bedroom door and entered when she did not answer. She was awake in the bed, not moving and staring vacantly toward the ceiling. She struggled half-heartedly when he tied her hands securely to the bedposts.
“I’m sorry I have to do this Patty,” he said. “But I need to drive into town to get some food and some clothes. I can’t take the chance that you will escape. I’ll be back as soon as I can and then I’ll untie you.”
Days passed. James was feeling much better about things. He had nearly forgotten about the boy he had murdered and was optimistic about the future. He could live here for years. He’d purchased a television, a stereo and a computer; he could drive to town for supplies whenever it was necessary and he could even hunt and fish for their food. What more did he need?
Now, if only he could cheer the girl up. He just couldn’t understand why she was still in a sulk. She mostly lay in bed, staring vacantly into space; she hadn’t even uttered a single word since she’d requested a shower that first night. He’d been so nice to her, too. He’d bought only the finest food and he’d gotten her pretty clothes. He had given her all the freedom she could want except that he’d been forced to lock her in her bedroom whenever he had to leave the house; at least he didn’t tie her up anymore; and he had not tried to seduce her although he was still enchanted by her lovely young body and her beautiful face. Perhaps his restraint could be attributed to her lying like a lump, 24/7, no more responsive than a website on a virus-infected computer.
Patty’s spirit had been broken along with Joey’s body. Perhaps she could have regained her gumption, but that opportunity ended with the debilitating blow to her head. When she awoke, she knew that she had no way to escape. To even consider overpowering this monster in order to get away was sheer folly; and frankly, she didn’t care. “Maybe I’ll die soon,” she thought. “The sooner, the better.”
James watched the six o’clock news religiously, while Patty only paid attention when Joey’s name was mentioned. For a few days there was near-constant coverage of the murder but that faded just like her own hopes for rescue. There were few clues and the only facts that had been unearthed were Joey’s identity and a few witness’ statements that they’d thought they’d seen him at the club with an older man and a dark-haired girl.
“Why hasn’t anybody reported me missing,” Patty wondered. “Mom is out of the country so she probably doesn’t even know; but what about Robin? Doesn’t she even care?”
Robin, at this time, had not yet emerged from her coma.
Several weeks later, Patty perked up when she heard a news report about a Ms.Greta Smart, of Chicago, Illinois, who had been rushed to a hospital in New York City after a suicide attempt. “Ms. Smart was in New York,” the reporter informed, “after returning home from a European vacation and being unable to contact her daughter, a student at New York University. After filing a missing person’s report with New York City police and getting no results, she arrived in the city herself and began her own fruitless search. After days of searching and waiting, Ms. Smart apparently gave up hope. ‘I blame myself for whatever befell my daughter,’ Ms. Smart announced after being revived. ‘She had wanted to visit me in Chicago and I wasn’t there for her.’
“The good news,” the reporter continued, “is that Ms. Smart is out of danger and is expected to be released from the hospital after two days of psychiatric treatment.”
As a postscript to the story, the newswoman added that, “in an unrecorded interview with Ms. Smart, this morning, she told me that she would resume her search for her daughter as soon as possible and would not give up until the girl was found. ‘My daughter is obviously in danger,” Ms. Smart declared, “and her safe return is the only thing that would make my life worth living.’ “
Just like that, Patty regained her moxie. “I need to find a way out of here,” she decided. “Mom needs me.”
He was getting tired of hearing the same question over and over. “When will you let me go, James? When will you let me go? I won’t tell a soul, James. Please, won’t you let me go?”
“I wish you would just shut up,” he kept telling her. “I liked it better when you just lay there like a lump. If you don’t stop bugging me, I’ll belt you one.”
His threats no longer scared her. She was focussed on one thing: “I will figure out a way to get out of here.”
Eventually, she realized that nagging wasn’t working; it only served to annoy him. Once she stopped pestering him, he became much nicer to her; he made no more threats, bought her anything she wanted and, basically, made her feel like a guest rather than a prisoner. The only exception to his hospitality was that he still locked her in the bedroom whenever he had to leave the house.
“I would love to let you go, Patty,” he often told her. “But I know that you’ll go running to the police as soon as I release you. You know I can’t allow that.”
“I won’t tell anybody, James; I promise”
Of course, he wouldn’t budge. She realized that she would have to come up with an imaginative scheme. Eventually she decided upon an idea that was so harebrained that she felt that it had a chance to work.
“James,” she said to him one morning, flashing her brightest smile. “If I let you make love to me, would you then allow me to go? Before I left here I would give you a week to escape to wherever you feel you would not be found. I promise I wouldn’t breathe a word of this to anybody. I’d make up some story about having been in an accident which caused me to suffer from amnesia all these weeks.”
He laughed and asked, “why would I do that? That’s just crazy.”
“Is it? I’ve seen the way you look at me,” she replied. “I know that you’ve wanted me since the night we met.”
“It’s true,” he thought, “especially since she’s been eating again and has regained some weight.” Still, he wouldn’t agree to her offer. But she kept flirting with him for weeks, not realizing, in her desperation, how foolish a scheme it actually was...but perhaps it wasn’t so foolish after all. Eventually, he broke down, falling prey to her ceaseless flirtation.
Okay,” he said, one early afternoon. “Let’s go for it, Patty.” He approached her hungrily, ripping his shirt off as he did.
“Wait,” she cried, realizing with a mixture of excitement and fear that her plan finally appeared to be working. “Let’s do this romantically. We’ll make a date for this evening and you can wine me and dine me. A candlelight dinner with good French wine should put us both in the mood.”
“But you don’t drink,” he reminded her.
“For a night of romance,” she said, “I’ll make an exception.
“In order to get through this,” she thought, “I’ll need to be as plastered as Paris.”
Date night arrived and James set the table with fancy china, crystal wine glasses and the closest thing to a gourmet meal that was available on the take out menu of the town’s only restaurant. In the center of the table stood a magnum of fine Bordeaux wine.
Patty glided gracefully into the dining room wearing a whore-red, tight-fitting, low-cut dress that she had found in his sister’s closet and which fit her perfectly. Her silky black hair hung loosely, to the middle of her back and her firm white breasts bulged from the plunging bodice. She smiled enticingly and when she turned to offer a rear view of the dress and its contents, the derrière that had originally gotten him into this mess called to him so emphatically that it was all he could do to keep from devouring her before dinner.
“Have a seat, my dear,” he said, in a voice oily with false charm. He slid her chair from the table and she sat. He retreated to the kitchen and returned with two plates of roasted chicken and grilled asparagus and found Patty already working on the wine. He filled his own glass before sitting and raised his glass, proclaiming, “here’s to us.” Patty cringed at his words but hid her repugnance well.
“To us,” she replied, and drained her glass. He refilled it for her and they sat at opposite ends of the table, staring nervously at each other like two characters in a Woody Allen movie.
After a time, during which she picked at the meal and guzzled the wine, they made their way, unsteadily to the bedroom. They tumbled clumsily onto the bed, groping and grabbing, squealing and grunting like pigs in heat, soon finding themselves naked, each in the fevered clutches of the other.
Patty felt as if she were on fire and despite her lack of experience, her body was, of its own initiative, making the moves of an expert.
James, a veteran of much mattress mayhem, felt as if he were about to explode.
“I can’t do this,” he suddenly exclaimed. “I can’t take advantage of you this way.” He grabbed his clothes, leaped from the bed and hurried to the bathroom where he quickly and guiltlessly relieved himself.
Patty was left to her overheated self but the fire soon subsided as she slipped into a drunken slumber.
Morning arrived and Patty awoke with a horrible hangover. She got out of bed slowly and the room spun like a tilt-a-whirl. She was fortunate to grab the bedpost before she could topple to the floor. She took a deep breath and steadied herself then hurried to the bathroom on wobbly legs and puked before she peed. She brushed her teeth and headed to the kitchen.
James heard her coming and hurried to turn off the television but not before she was able to hear the news story. Apparently her mom had decided that she could no longer cope with the search for her daughter who was, no doubt, already dead, anyway. She was leaving for Paris in the morning. “I’m not strong enough to deal with the stress of waiting for my daughter’s body to turn up,” she told the reporter. “I’m fortunate that a dear friend of mine is making it possible for me to take refuge in France.”
Patty gasped, turned on her heels and returned to bed, sobbing before her head hit the pillow.
“She’s given up on me,” Patty cried. “I can’t believe it. She’s running away and leaving me for dead.” The hung over hostage cried herself to sleep.
When finally she awoke and returned to the kitchen, James was still there, looking glum himself. “I’m so sorry you had to hear that news story Patty,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“My head hurts like hell,” she replied. “And I’m as dizzy as James Stewart in Vertigo, but I’ll be alright. I swear I’ll never drink again, though.”
“No,” he said. “I meant how do you feel about your mother making off to Europe?”
She thought about the question for a moment then shrugged and replied, “It’s no big deal. I’m used to her leaving.” To herself, she muttered bitterly, “I wonder whose dick she sucked to pay for this trip?”
They sat silently, staring at each other for an indeterminate period of time before Patty finally blurted out, “thank you for being so gallant last night and not taking advantage of me. I don’t even know how I came up with that ridiculous plan anyway.”
To her great surprise, he blushed, averted his eyes and made no reply. After a moment he mumbled, “no problem.”
Patty was confused. “Who knew he was so sensitive,” she kept asking herself over the next few days. “This is a side of him that I’d never seen.” Her surprise morphed into a kind of fixation as she thought about nothing but James, building him up higher and higher in her mind, deciding that he was a man who would readily come to her aid both physically and emotionally. “How considerate he is,” she thought. “How sensitive and soft-spoken. And he’s so hot.” These thoughts stimulated memories of that night and how she had felt when they were entangled in each other’s arms. She was disconcerted by the heat that rose from her core in response to those memories.
She had dreams over the next few nights that the two of them had fallen in love and would be spending the rest of their lives together. Most of those dreams included vivid episodes of intense love-making and she would wake up wet and exhausted in the morning. Those night dreams soon turned into frequent daydreams and now she thought of nothing but how wonderful he was. She drove from her mind the memory that he’d murdered her boyfriend and had been holding her prisoner for months. Soon she found herself forgetting about every detail of her mother’s desertion except for the memory that he had attempted to shield her from the news. She came to the awareness that she had developed a monstrous crush on him.
“How come you’ve been acting so nice lately,” James kept asking. “Don’t you hate me anymore?”
“Hate you? Of course not, James. Why would you think that,” she replied as she caressed his shoulder. These days, she touched him whenever she spoke to him and longed to feel the pleasure of his touch in return. He, as a result of her attentions, couldn’t help but have ideas about the two of them...the same kind of ideas that he’d had the first time they’d met.
This time when he ogled her, she didn’t turn away; this time when he grabbed her butt, she didn’t smack his hand away; this time she smiled at him, took his hand and led him to her bed; this time she was sober and this time he had no qualms about violating her.
In her mind, James was now her husband and protector. She felt safe from any danger in his presence and was sure that he loved her as fiercely as she did him.
Obviously, he was not in love with her. He loved the way she fawned over him and he certainly did not mind the frequent sex that she showered upon him, but when it came down to it, she was just a beautiful young witness who needed to be hidden from the public and who, as an unexpected bonus, had begun to provide domesticity as well as an abundance of carnal pleasure.
He treated her well and no longer locked her up when he left the premises, which, as days went by happened more and more often. He trusted that she would not attempt to escape, often joking that she would probably try to imprison him.
“I’m going to the city for a few days, honey,” he told her one winter’s morning.
“Must you, James,” she whined. “You just went a few weeks ago.”
“Yes, I must,” he replied, not quite hiding his annoyance. “I have things to do.” Those things, of course, were boozing and balling. He needed a little freedom; he wasn’t married, after all.
“Well,” she said, “if you must, you must. I hope you’ll be home by Valentine’s Day.”
She was lonely without him in that large house in the middle of nowhere. At least, when the weather had been warm, she could hike the woods of their one hundred acre property. James had proven his trust by teaching her to shoot his rifle and she occasionally took the firearm into the woods for target practice. She had also started a little vegetable garden behind the house, which occupied much of her time. But now it was winter and the weather was terrible so she spent most of the days without him cleaning house, reading books and watching TV.
She was a little bit frightened in the house without James, her guardian, and she trembled at the slightest sound. “Oh, how I wish my man was home,” she cried.
One morning, she saw a policeman outside the house. It was obvious to her that he was searching the property for clues that would prove James guilty of murder. Some ten minutes later, her heart jumped into her throat as he knocked at the door. Terrified, certain that he would recognize her or that he had somehow discovered those incriminating clues for which he’d been searching, she hid in the basement until, finally, he went away.
It snowed that night and she was out shoveling a path the next morning. The cop returned. “Good morning,” he said, tipping his cap, politely. “I’m Officer Krum and I wanted to introduce myself. I’m new here and just wanted to know if you have any concerns.”
Patty was so nervous that she had a little trouble responding. “Oh, no, officer,” she finally stammered. “No concerns. Everything is good. Thank you so much for asking.”
The breath that she had been nervously holding inside rushed from her lungs like stale air from a punctured ballon as soon as the cop turned and left. As she returned to the house, however, she began to feel as if that huge exhalation had led to an overall deflation. “What kind of fool am I,” she asked herself as deflation grew into depression. “Why have I been knocking myself out to make him a nice home? He doesn’t love me; he didn’t even bother to return for Valentine’s Day. I wonder if he’ll ever come home.” Tears came to her eyes often over the next few days.
Finally, when Patty had lost hope that he would ever return, she was awakened in the middle of the night by the headlights of James’ car. No longer doubting his love, she felt only joy at the return of her man. She quickly fixed herself up and hurried down the stairs to greet him.
Perhaps if he had not been drunk and whoring for most of the past two weeks, his judgement would have been better and he would not have brought somebody home who could identify his prisoner. The fact, however, is that he was supremely confident that this would not be a problem.
“Honey, I’m home,” he called as Patty had begun her eager descent to the front door. “You’ll never guess who I brought with me.”
The tipsy young woman who had entered the house with James abruptly stopped giggling. She was as shocked to see Patty as Patty was to see her.
“Girls,” James laughed. “Don’t you recognize each other?”
Of course they did. Robin gasped. She’d been out of the hospital for months now and was aware that Patty was missing and presumed dead.
Patty was beside herself. “How could you James,” she shouted. “What were you thinking?”
The fear that Robin would turn her ex-boyfriend in for kidnapping her roommate subsided when Patty realized that she only need testify that she was with James of her own accord. There was nothing, she thought, to connect her abduction to Joey’s murder.
She was still, however, distraught. “You bitch,” she suddenly shrieked at the flabbergasted girl in her parlor. “You’re nothing but a goddamn home-wrecker.” She took a breath then laughed insanely. “Don’t you worry, though,” she continued. “You will never have my man.” With that, she reached for the Winchester that she’d been keeping handy for protection while James was gone. Robin’s terrified screams were unable to drown out the sound of the killing shots.
“I’m really sorry, sweetie,” she had told her daughter during the phone call, “but this is just too wonderful an opportunity for me to pass up. Out of the blue, Mr. Kelly asked me to accompany him to Monte Carlo for a month... I’ve always wanted to go to Monte Carlo and I can’t imagine a more ideal escort than John Kelly. I know you understand.”
Patty did understand. After years of servility under the thumb of her conventional and controlling husband, a man who occasionally left her with minor cuts or bruises when she’d been disobedient, Greta had learned to enjoy life once again. Her newly re-discovered powers of seduction had enabled her to completely rebuild the psyche that had been shattered by her husband’s mistreatment while they were married and his subsequent desertion for another woman. It mattered not to her that John Kelly, like several other of her beaux, was a married man. She had long since lost her reverence for the institution of marriage.
“Oh, well,” Patty decided. “I’ll still enjoy spring break. There’s lots to do in New York City.”
“So, I’ll have James pick you guys up in front of the dorm and the three of you can meet me at Grand Central Terminal,” Robin, Patty’s roommate at NYU told her. “I’ve told my parents that I’ll only be staying with them at home in Poughkeepsie for two days so that you won’t have to be alone during spring break. It’s too bad we don’t have a guest room or you could have stayed upstate with us. My train will arrive in New York at 8:30...plenty of time to party. Wait until you meet James. You’ll just adore him.”
Patty doubted that James would make any kind of impression on her. She felt that she might be falling in love with Joey after only three dates. He was smart and funny and so, so cute. In fact, she wished that she hadn’t agreed to double date with Robin and James. She’d been thinking that her next date with Joey might be the one during which she chose to surrender her virginity.
Patty and Joey could barely conceal their awe as James pulled up in a brand new, cherry-red Porsche convertible. “Wow,” Joey whispered into her ear. “That is the car of my dreams. This guy must be loaded.”
Patty wasn’t quite as bedazzled by the car as Joey. Her moment came as James stepped out of the vehicle to introduce himself and open the passenger’s door for his new companions. “What a hunk,” she thought, momentarily forgetting Joey’s existence as she took note of this guy’s rugged good looks which were highlighted by thick legs, a powerful physique and silky black hair, worn in a ponytail. The gold hoop earring and the scar that snaked its way down the left side of his classically handsome face served to give him a somewhat sinister look...oh, and what a butt! The fact that he appeared to be nearly thirty years old made him seem still more impressive to her nineteen year-old eyes. “Boy,” she thought, “Robin has good reason to brag about this guy.”
The tires squealed as the Porsche peeled out of its parking spot, causing a young couple a fright as they leisurely crossed Washington Square South arm in arm. After pulling his companion out of harm’s way, the young man hollered a profanity and raised his middle finger at the rapidly accelerating automobile. James stuck his left arm out of the car and shot that bird right back at the angry pedestrian. It was at this moment that Patty lost her fascination for the man and remembered how much she loved Joey.
They had been waiting in front of Grand Central Terminal for quite some time without catching a glimpse of Robin. It was now past 9:00 and they were becoming impatient. “I’ll go in and see if I can find her,” Joey said. “Or at least see if the train has arrived.”
He returned ten minutes later, wearing a glum expression. “No trains have arrived,” he informed them, “and none will be arriving for hours. There was some kind of accident somewhere up the line and all service is suspended indefinitely.”
The accident was a derailment of Robin’s train, about one mile north of Peekskill. Although she was not one of the two unfortunate passengers who were killed, she was among the several who were badly injured. She was airlifted to a New York City hospital where she would remain in a coma for weeks.
Of course, her friends had no way of knowing the seriousness of her situation. They really never even considered that the vague accident of which they had been told had involved Robin’s train.
“Well, it’s too bad Robin can’t make it,” James declared. “But it’s no reason that we shouldn’t enjoy the evening.”
“Do you guys want some of this pot,” James asked his passengers as he lit a thick joint. Patty declined the offer but silently assured Joey that it was fine with her if he indulged. The two guys were feeling good when they entered the club.
Looking around, Patty was impressed. The sweet fragrance of wealth emanated from every corner of the extravagant room. The liquor that was stocked at the bar all seemed to be top shelf; the music was live and soulfully performed and the elegantly dressed clientele all seemed to belong to that exclusive group known as “the Beautiful People.” Patty was certain that she had recognized several celebrities in the crowd.
James led them to the bar and asked, “what are you kids drinking?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Patty replied. “Please don’t be upset with me,” she told him when he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I don’t drink.”
“That’s fine, Patty. How about a club soda?”
She accepted the drink and a provocative caress, with a cautious smile. Joey ordered a Glenlivet, neat. “Make it a double,” James instructed the bartender.
The music was wonderful so she and Joey stepped out onto the floor to dance. They both felt as if they were on a rhythmic trip to Paradise but, after about thirty minutes their bliss was interrupted by a tap on Patty’s shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt, guys,” James said, “but I thought Joey might want another drink and, frankly, I would really like to dance with you, Patty.”
What could she say? “Of course James,” was her answer. “I’d love to.” He didn’t take note of her crestfallen countenance as her eyes followed Joey off the dance floor. Joey didn’t seem too thrilled about the switch either, and he tried to ease his disappointment with a huge gulp of his double scotch.
James danced divinely and Patty enjoyed her time with him although she did feel that he held her much too close. Obviously, Joey concurred. His eyes, when he looked at James, had grown resentful and he was well on his way to the bottom of another tumbler of scotch.
The parking lot on East 84th Street was empty save for James’ Porsche. The attendant had long ago closed his booth and gone home and so, apparently, had all the other patrons. “Thanks for showing us a great evening, James,” said Patty. Joey took a hit of the joint that James had just passed to him and nodded his head. “Yeah, thanks,” he agreed, with minimal enthusiasm.
“My pleasure, guys. We’ll have to do this again some time soon.” Patty became pretty uncomfortable when he punctuated that seemingly innocuous statement with a fairly passionate hug and a lingering kiss on her lips.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing,” Joey hollered, flicking the half-smoked joint in James‘ direction.
“Nothing, Joey, nothing. I didn’t mean anything by it,” James replied.
“Calm down, honey, it’s all right,” Patty cooed.
Joey did calm down and James opened the car door for them. It hit the fan, though, when Joey saw him grab Patty’s butt as she was entering the car. Patty immediately smacked his hand away and that probably would have been the end of it but Joey went nuts.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, asshole,” he screamed as he rushed the much larger man.
“Joey, no!” Patty screamed as if she had a premonition of just how tragic this was about to become. James delivered a vicious beating to the younger, smaller man, disregarding the girl’s screams and pleas for him to stop. Just when it seemed that he had beaten the boy to within an inch of his life, he pulled from his pocket a large knife and jammed the cold steel into his heart, finishing the job.
He didn’t know how to shut her up; he didn’t want to kill her, too; didn’t even want to hurt her. He really liked this girl. That’s what had gotten him into this mess; that, his bad temper and his damned perpetual horniness. But she kept on screaming and those screams would bring the law; and what would he do even if she stopped? He couldn’t just let her go. She would run straight to the police and he’d be locked up in no time.
“Patty, please stop,” he implored. I don’t want to hurt you.” He was finally forced to quiet her with a ferocious punch to the side of her head and stuff her unconscious body into the tiny trunk of the Porsche.
He drove to the house his family owned about four hours northwest of New York City. Nobody would find them there. He could keep her there for as long as was necessary. The place was isolated in the woods about a one half hour drive to the nearest town; no telephone and no neighbors for miles. For years, he’d been the only member of his family to stay there. His parents and his younger sister had all moved to London years ago and had never returned to the States. James stayed at the house periodically, usually to hunt deer or just to get away from it all.
Patty was conscious but woozy when he helped her out of the trunk. She could barely walk, because she’d been unable to move in those constricted confines and also because she probably had a concussion. Still, she cringed when he put his arm around her to help her to the house.
“Don’t worry, Patty,” he said, hoping to allay her fear. “I won’t hurt you again. You’ll have to stay here with me but I’ll treat you as well as possible.
“This will be your new home,” he told her, cheerfully, as he helped her to the front door. “I hope you will grow to love it as much as I do.” Although she made no reply, he, like any proud property owner, continued speaking. “Would you like to take the grand tour? It’s a beautiful house if I must say so myself.”
Not surprisingly, she remained silent and backed toward the nearest wall. She sat, cowering in a corner for the next several hours, not speaking and averting her eyes anytime he turned to face her. Finally, early in the evening, she spoke. “Where is the bathroom? I need to take a shower.”
He knew that she did because he had noticed several hours ago that she had peed herself.
“There it is,” he said, “pointing towards the rear of the house. “Take your time. There’s a clean towel hanging on the door and I’ll give you some dry clothes. You’re in luck,” he said. “There are some women’s clothes in the bedroom that belonged to my sister. She is about the same size as you. Tomorrow I’ll drive into town and get us some food and some new clothes for you.”
She returned from the bathroom, cautiously and quietly, after about thirty minutes. “Oh, you look all fresh and clean now,” he said with a bright smile. Patty did not respond.
“I think you need to get some sleep,” he told her, gently. Again, she said nothing and when he approached her in order to lead her into the bedroom, she retreated to her corner and crouched there like a frightened animal.
“Come on, Patty,” he coaxed. “I won’t hurt you. You need some sleep. I won’t be getting into the bed with you.”
Finally, she walked warily to the bedroom and lay down in the king-size bed. A feral growl escaped her throat as he moved toward the bed and she quickly backed as far away as she could, ultimately running out of room and falling off the bed.
“I only wanted to cover you with the blanket,” he said.
Instead, he tossed the blanket onto the bed and slowly turned away, eventually coming to rest in the large, leather chair that he had moved in front of the bedroom door. The girl quietly got back into the bed and covered herself with the blanket.
He turned out the light but immediately turned it back on when he heard her whimper at the darkness. They slept in the artificial light until morning.
He awoke well before she did and quickly showered. He went out to the shed and after searching for a few moments, found several lengths of rope. He returned to the house, knocked gently on the bedroom door and entered when she did not answer. She was awake in the bed, not moving and staring vacantly toward the ceiling. She struggled half-heartedly when he tied her hands securely to the bedposts.
“I’m sorry I have to do this Patty,” he said. “But I need to drive into town to get some food and some clothes. I can’t take the chance that you will escape. I’ll be back as soon as I can and then I’ll untie you.”
Days passed. James was feeling much better about things. He had nearly forgotten about the boy he had murdered and was optimistic about the future. He could live here for years. He’d purchased a television, a stereo and a computer; he could drive to town for supplies whenever it was necessary and he could even hunt and fish for their food. What more did he need?
Now, if only he could cheer the girl up. He just couldn’t understand why she was still in a sulk. She mostly lay in bed, staring vacantly into space; she hadn’t even uttered a single word since she’d requested a shower that first night. He’d been so nice to her, too. He’d bought only the finest food and he’d gotten her pretty clothes. He had given her all the freedom she could want except that he’d been forced to lock her in her bedroom whenever he had to leave the house; at least he didn’t tie her up anymore; and he had not tried to seduce her although he was still enchanted by her lovely young body and her beautiful face. Perhaps his restraint could be attributed to her lying like a lump, 24/7, no more responsive than a website on a virus-infected computer.
Patty’s spirit had been broken along with Joey’s body. Perhaps she could have regained her gumption, but that opportunity ended with the debilitating blow to her head. When she awoke, she knew that she had no way to escape. To even consider overpowering this monster in order to get away was sheer folly; and frankly, she didn’t care. “Maybe I’ll die soon,” she thought. “The sooner, the better.”
James watched the six o’clock news religiously, while Patty only paid attention when Joey’s name was mentioned. For a few days there was near-constant coverage of the murder but that faded just like her own hopes for rescue. There were few clues and the only facts that had been unearthed were Joey’s identity and a few witness’ statements that they’d thought they’d seen him at the club with an older man and a dark-haired girl.
“Why hasn’t anybody reported me missing,” Patty wondered. “Mom is out of the country so she probably doesn’t even know; but what about Robin? Doesn’t she even care?”
Robin, at this time, had not yet emerged from her coma.
Several weeks later, Patty perked up when she heard a news report about a Ms.Greta Smart, of Chicago, Illinois, who had been rushed to a hospital in New York City after a suicide attempt. “Ms. Smart was in New York,” the reporter informed, “after returning home from a European vacation and being unable to contact her daughter, a student at New York University. After filing a missing person’s report with New York City police and getting no results, she arrived in the city herself and began her own fruitless search. After days of searching and waiting, Ms. Smart apparently gave up hope. ‘I blame myself for whatever befell my daughter,’ Ms. Smart announced after being revived. ‘She had wanted to visit me in Chicago and I wasn’t there for her.’
“The good news,” the reporter continued, “is that Ms. Smart is out of danger and is expected to be released from the hospital after two days of psychiatric treatment.”
As a postscript to the story, the newswoman added that, “in an unrecorded interview with Ms. Smart, this morning, she told me that she would resume her search for her daughter as soon as possible and would not give up until the girl was found. ‘My daughter is obviously in danger,” Ms. Smart declared, “and her safe return is the only thing that would make my life worth living.’ “
Just like that, Patty regained her moxie. “I need to find a way out of here,” she decided. “Mom needs me.”
He was getting tired of hearing the same question over and over. “When will you let me go, James? When will you let me go? I won’t tell a soul, James. Please, won’t you let me go?”
“I wish you would just shut up,” he kept telling her. “I liked it better when you just lay there like a lump. If you don’t stop bugging me, I’ll belt you one.”
His threats no longer scared her. She was focussed on one thing: “I will figure out a way to get out of here.”
Eventually, she realized that nagging wasn’t working; it only served to annoy him. Once she stopped pestering him, he became much nicer to her; he made no more threats, bought her anything she wanted and, basically, made her feel like a guest rather than a prisoner. The only exception to his hospitality was that he still locked her in the bedroom whenever he had to leave the house.
“I would love to let you go, Patty,” he often told her. “But I know that you’ll go running to the police as soon as I release you. You know I can’t allow that.”
“I won’t tell anybody, James; I promise”
Of course, he wouldn’t budge. She realized that she would have to come up with an imaginative scheme. Eventually she decided upon an idea that was so harebrained that she felt that it had a chance to work.
“James,” she said to him one morning, flashing her brightest smile. “If I let you make love to me, would you then allow me to go? Before I left here I would give you a week to escape to wherever you feel you would not be found. I promise I wouldn’t breathe a word of this to anybody. I’d make up some story about having been in an accident which caused me to suffer from amnesia all these weeks.”
He laughed and asked, “why would I do that? That’s just crazy.”
“Is it? I’ve seen the way you look at me,” she replied. “I know that you’ve wanted me since the night we met.”
“It’s true,” he thought, “especially since she’s been eating again and has regained some weight.” Still, he wouldn’t agree to her offer. But she kept flirting with him for weeks, not realizing, in her desperation, how foolish a scheme it actually was...but perhaps it wasn’t so foolish after all. Eventually, he broke down, falling prey to her ceaseless flirtation.
Okay,” he said, one early afternoon. “Let’s go for it, Patty.” He approached her hungrily, ripping his shirt off as he did.
“Wait,” she cried, realizing with a mixture of excitement and fear that her plan finally appeared to be working. “Let’s do this romantically. We’ll make a date for this evening and you can wine me and dine me. A candlelight dinner with good French wine should put us both in the mood.”
“But you don’t drink,” he reminded her.
“For a night of romance,” she said, “I’ll make an exception.
“In order to get through this,” she thought, “I’ll need to be as plastered as Paris.”
Date night arrived and James set the table with fancy china, crystal wine glasses and the closest thing to a gourmet meal that was available on the take out menu of the town’s only restaurant. In the center of the table stood a magnum of fine Bordeaux wine.
Patty glided gracefully into the dining room wearing a whore-red, tight-fitting, low-cut dress that she had found in his sister’s closet and which fit her perfectly. Her silky black hair hung loosely, to the middle of her back and her firm white breasts bulged from the plunging bodice. She smiled enticingly and when she turned to offer a rear view of the dress and its contents, the derrière that had originally gotten him into this mess called to him so emphatically that it was all he could do to keep from devouring her before dinner.
“Have a seat, my dear,” he said, in a voice oily with false charm. He slid her chair from the table and she sat. He retreated to the kitchen and returned with two plates of roasted chicken and grilled asparagus and found Patty already working on the wine. He filled his own glass before sitting and raised his glass, proclaiming, “here’s to us.” Patty cringed at his words but hid her repugnance well.
“To us,” she replied, and drained her glass. He refilled it for her and they sat at opposite ends of the table, staring nervously at each other like two characters in a Woody Allen movie.
After a time, during which she picked at the meal and guzzled the wine, they made their way, unsteadily to the bedroom. They tumbled clumsily onto the bed, groping and grabbing, squealing and grunting like pigs in heat, soon finding themselves naked, each in the fevered clutches of the other.
Patty felt as if she were on fire and despite her lack of experience, her body was, of its own initiative, making the moves of an expert.
James, a veteran of much mattress mayhem, felt as if he were about to explode.
“I can’t do this,” he suddenly exclaimed. “I can’t take advantage of you this way.” He grabbed his clothes, leaped from the bed and hurried to the bathroom where he quickly and guiltlessly relieved himself.
Patty was left to her overheated self but the fire soon subsided as she slipped into a drunken slumber.
Morning arrived and Patty awoke with a horrible hangover. She got out of bed slowly and the room spun like a tilt-a-whirl. She was fortunate to grab the bedpost before she could topple to the floor. She took a deep breath and steadied herself then hurried to the bathroom on wobbly legs and puked before she peed. She brushed her teeth and headed to the kitchen.
James heard her coming and hurried to turn off the television but not before she was able to hear the news story. Apparently her mom had decided that she could no longer cope with the search for her daughter who was, no doubt, already dead, anyway. She was leaving for Paris in the morning. “I’m not strong enough to deal with the stress of waiting for my daughter’s body to turn up,” she told the reporter. “I’m fortunate that a dear friend of mine is making it possible for me to take refuge in France.”
Patty gasped, turned on her heels and returned to bed, sobbing before her head hit the pillow.
“She’s given up on me,” Patty cried. “I can’t believe it. She’s running away and leaving me for dead.” The hung over hostage cried herself to sleep.
When finally she awoke and returned to the kitchen, James was still there, looking glum himself. “I’m so sorry you had to hear that news story Patty,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“My head hurts like hell,” she replied. “And I’m as dizzy as James Stewart in Vertigo, but I’ll be alright. I swear I’ll never drink again, though.”
“No,” he said. “I meant how do you feel about your mother making off to Europe?”
She thought about the question for a moment then shrugged and replied, “It’s no big deal. I’m used to her leaving.” To herself, she muttered bitterly, “I wonder whose dick she sucked to pay for this trip?”
They sat silently, staring at each other for an indeterminate period of time before Patty finally blurted out, “thank you for being so gallant last night and not taking advantage of me. I don’t even know how I came up with that ridiculous plan anyway.”
To her great surprise, he blushed, averted his eyes and made no reply. After a moment he mumbled, “no problem.”
Patty was confused. “Who knew he was so sensitive,” she kept asking herself over the next few days. “This is a side of him that I’d never seen.” Her surprise morphed into a kind of fixation as she thought about nothing but James, building him up higher and higher in her mind, deciding that he was a man who would readily come to her aid both physically and emotionally. “How considerate he is,” she thought. “How sensitive and soft-spoken. And he’s so hot.” These thoughts stimulated memories of that night and how she had felt when they were entangled in each other’s arms. She was disconcerted by the heat that rose from her core in response to those memories.
She had dreams over the next few nights that the two of them had fallen in love and would be spending the rest of their lives together. Most of those dreams included vivid episodes of intense love-making and she would wake up wet and exhausted in the morning. Those night dreams soon turned into frequent daydreams and now she thought of nothing but how wonderful he was. She drove from her mind the memory that he’d murdered her boyfriend and had been holding her prisoner for months. Soon she found herself forgetting about every detail of her mother’s desertion except for the memory that he had attempted to shield her from the news. She came to the awareness that she had developed a monstrous crush on him.
“How come you’ve been acting so nice lately,” James kept asking. “Don’t you hate me anymore?”
“Hate you? Of course not, James. Why would you think that,” she replied as she caressed his shoulder. These days, she touched him whenever she spoke to him and longed to feel the pleasure of his touch in return. He, as a result of her attentions, couldn’t help but have ideas about the two of them...the same kind of ideas that he’d had the first time they’d met.
This time when he ogled her, she didn’t turn away; this time when he grabbed her butt, she didn’t smack his hand away; this time she smiled at him, took his hand and led him to her bed; this time she was sober and this time he had no qualms about violating her.
In her mind, James was now her husband and protector. She felt safe from any danger in his presence and was sure that he loved her as fiercely as she did him.
Obviously, he was not in love with her. He loved the way she fawned over him and he certainly did not mind the frequent sex that she showered upon him, but when it came down to it, she was just a beautiful young witness who needed to be hidden from the public and who, as an unexpected bonus, had begun to provide domesticity as well as an abundance of carnal pleasure.
He treated her well and no longer locked her up when he left the premises, which, as days went by happened more and more often. He trusted that she would not attempt to escape, often joking that she would probably try to imprison him.
“I’m going to the city for a few days, honey,” he told her one winter’s morning.
“Must you, James,” she whined. “You just went a few weeks ago.”
“Yes, I must,” he replied, not quite hiding his annoyance. “I have things to do.” Those things, of course, were boozing and balling. He needed a little freedom; he wasn’t married, after all.
“Well,” she said, “if you must, you must. I hope you’ll be home by Valentine’s Day.”
She was lonely without him in that large house in the middle of nowhere. At least, when the weather had been warm, she could hike the woods of their one hundred acre property. James had proven his trust by teaching her to shoot his rifle and she occasionally took the firearm into the woods for target practice. She had also started a little vegetable garden behind the house, which occupied much of her time. But now it was winter and the weather was terrible so she spent most of the days without him cleaning house, reading books and watching TV.
She was a little bit frightened in the house without James, her guardian, and she trembled at the slightest sound. “Oh, how I wish my man was home,” she cried.
One morning, she saw a policeman outside the house. It was obvious to her that he was searching the property for clues that would prove James guilty of murder. Some ten minutes later, her heart jumped into her throat as he knocked at the door. Terrified, certain that he would recognize her or that he had somehow discovered those incriminating clues for which he’d been searching, she hid in the basement until, finally, he went away.
It snowed that night and she was out shoveling a path the next morning. The cop returned. “Good morning,” he said, tipping his cap, politely. “I’m Officer Krum and I wanted to introduce myself. I’m new here and just wanted to know if you have any concerns.”
Patty was so nervous that she had a little trouble responding. “Oh, no, officer,” she finally stammered. “No concerns. Everything is good. Thank you so much for asking.”
The breath that she had been nervously holding inside rushed from her lungs like stale air from a punctured ballon as soon as the cop turned and left. As she returned to the house, however, she began to feel as if that huge exhalation had led to an overall deflation. “What kind of fool am I,” she asked herself as deflation grew into depression. “Why have I been knocking myself out to make him a nice home? He doesn’t love me; he didn’t even bother to return for Valentine’s Day. I wonder if he’ll ever come home.” Tears came to her eyes often over the next few days.
Finally, when Patty had lost hope that he would ever return, she was awakened in the middle of the night by the headlights of James’ car. No longer doubting his love, she felt only joy at the return of her man. She quickly fixed herself up and hurried down the stairs to greet him.
Perhaps if he had not been drunk and whoring for most of the past two weeks, his judgement would have been better and he would not have brought somebody home who could identify his prisoner. The fact, however, is that he was supremely confident that this would not be a problem.
“Honey, I’m home,” he called as Patty had begun her eager descent to the front door. “You’ll never guess who I brought with me.”
The tipsy young woman who had entered the house with James abruptly stopped giggling. She was as shocked to see Patty as Patty was to see her.
“Girls,” James laughed. “Don’t you recognize each other?”
Of course they did. Robin gasped. She’d been out of the hospital for months now and was aware that Patty was missing and presumed dead.
Patty was beside herself. “How could you James,” she shouted. “What were you thinking?”
The fear that Robin would turn her ex-boyfriend in for kidnapping her roommate subsided when Patty realized that she only need testify that she was with James of her own accord. There was nothing, she thought, to connect her abduction to Joey’s murder.
She was still, however, distraught. “You bitch,” she suddenly shrieked at the flabbergasted girl in her parlor. “You’re nothing but a goddamn home-wrecker.” She took a breath then laughed insanely. “Don’t you worry, though,” she continued. “You will never have my man.” With that, she reached for the Winchester that she’d been keeping handy for protection while James was gone. Robin’s terrified screams were unable to drown out the sound of the killing shots.
May 31, 2014
The Postman Didn't Even Ring Once
Miles Akers barely glanced at the Army recruiting office on 8th Avenue as he headed towards the boarding house on West 49th Street... a residence which he expected to call home for the foreseeable future. He hardly noticed the small group of picketing protesters shouting anti-LBJ chants who were gathered outside the small storefront that housed the recruiters and had a picture of Uncle Sam in its window. He also paid no attention to the abundance of derelicts scattered along the streets of New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen. He had other concerns crowding his mind at this time.
“This is where you will find the day’s mail,” old Mrs. Bennett informed him as she pointed to a dusty little table next to the staircase. “It doesn’t usually arrive until mid-afternoon because our postman is a lazy good-for-nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the bum lost half the letters that he was supposed to deliver.”
Miles had met Mrs. Bennett for the first time about five minutes ago. He’d spoken to her on the phone the day before yesterday when he’d called the number he’d seen in the Classified section of the Wilmington Gazette. He was not surprised, based on their brief conversation, to find a skinny, dour-faced woman of about sixty-five waiting for him impatiently at the front door. After a brief introduction, she pointed out the mail table, badmouthed the postman and instructed Miles to follow her up the stairs. She recited the house rules while trudging up the steps, not bothering, even, to turn her head when she spoke. Miles was treated to a view of a bony behind and heavily lacquered, steel-gray hair during the entire trek to the top floor.
“I’ll take it,” he told her after making a perfunctory inspection of the unimpressive little room.
“Forty-five dollars a week,” she informed him. “Two weeks rent in advance.”
Miles counted out the ninety dollars, handed it to the old lady and stuck out his hand to shake on the deal. Without a word, and with no sign of emotion, she accepted the money and, incongruously, placed it down her bodice and into the tiny cup of the brassiere whose only apparent function was as a billfold. She ignored his outstretched hand and exited the room.
“Mrs. Bennett,” Miles asked, later that evening, “where is the telephone?”
“There is no phone for the tenants, Mr. Akers,” she replied. “My telephone is my own business and I’ll not have my tenants sharing my business and inflating my bill. There is a phone booth on 8th Avenue if you must make a call.” Miles merely shrugged his shoulders and hid his annoyance.
He didn’t really know what would be a good time to call Elizabeth, anyway; or even if he should call her. Elizabeth, you see, was the reason that he had left school in his senior year at the University of Delaware and headed for a boarding house in New York City. They had been in love, or so he had thought, for months ... ever since he had met her at a psychology lecture at the college. At first, he was not going to attend, but Dr. Swift, his favorite professor, finally convinced him to go.
“Carl Rogers is lecturing,” Dr. Swift explained. “Who better to teach about Humanistic Psychology? Anyway, I, unfortunately, will be out of town and I would be quite grateful if my most promising student would report on Dr. Rogers’ presentation.”
So, Miles attended the lecture, learned a bit about growth and self-actualization, and met the woman of his dreams.
“I’ve never seen you at school,” Miles told her. “What classes are you taking?”
“Oh,” she replied, with a chuckle. “I’m no longer a student at the University. I just have an interest in the field.”
They went out for coffee after the lecture and one thing led to another. He knew, even before they arrived at his dorm room that they were in love.
The couple spent as much time together as possible, although it seemed to Miles that she was too often unavailable. It was months before Elizabeth revealed, to his astonishment, that she was married to Dr. Swift, his psychology professor.
“But I don’t love him,” she swore. “I’m in love with you. He seduced me when I was his student and, young and immature as I was, I mistook infatuation for love.”
“Just leave him,” Miles advised, “and marry me. He’s much too old for you anyway.”
“I can’t,” she replied. “He is just so clinging and so jealous. I think that he knows I don’t love him but he feels that he must possess me anyway. He cries and begs anytime he senses rejection. Sometimes he suspects that I am unfaithful and he swears that he will kill both me and my lover.”
The two carried on their affair for a few more months before things came to a head.
“I can’t stand this sneaking around and snatching at random opportunities,” Miles declared. “Leave him and marry me, Elizabeth.”
“I want to Miles ... I want to, but you don’t understand how difficult it is. It’s pathetic when he begs me to love him and terrifying when he makes his threats. I only thank heaven that he doesn’t suspect you and that he is not totally positive that I’m cheating. Sometimes I wish that you and I had never met.”
“Don’t say that, honey. Meeting each other was the best thing that ever happened to either one of us.” Elizabeth did not reply. She just turned her head and stared off into the distance.
Finally, Miles came to a decision. “I can’t stand this anymore, Elizabeth,” he told her the night before the professor was to return from a week-long psychology convention in Chicago. “This week has been like a week in Paradise. It felt as if we were finally married and could spend every minute of every day delighting in each other; but I can’t return to Purgatory and an existence based on waiting for your husband to go on trips or for you to manage to sneak off with me. I want to live a normal life with the woman I love. If you love me you must, once and for all, make the decision to leave him.”
“I do love you, Miles. You must believe that I do. I just need a little bit of time to figure out how to leave him.”
“I understand,” Miles replied, “really, I do but I can’t stay here while you decide. It’s just too stressful for me. I’m moving to New York and giving you the space you need to make the right decision. If you can’t pull the trigger, then it will have to end between us. I’ll contact you when I know exactly where I am staying.”
And that’s how he came to stay at Mrs. Bennett’s boarding house.
“Brrrrngg! Brrrrngg!” Raymond Heatherton rolled over in his bed and swiped violently at the alarm clock that was ringing louder than Hell’s bells. The clock flew across the room and crashed into the wall, shattering into pieces.
“Shit,” Heatherton grumbled. “That’s the third clock I’ve broken this month.” He stumbled groggily out of bed and winced as the familiar headache pounded from behind his eyes. “I really need to stop drinking,” he thought, knowing that he never would.
Raymond was up at the crack of dawn, as usual, in order to get to work at the Post Office on West 52nd Street. Most mailmen with his length of service were rewarded with jobs much nearer to their homes but Ray was forced to commute to Hell’s Kitchen from the outermost reaches of Brooklyn. Nobody knew for sure if this was because he was so bad-tempered or if he was bad-tempered because of this untoward burden. Regardless, he was forced to endure long, unpleasant trips each morning to a job he despised. He had the worst punctuality record at his branch and had been docked a small fortune over the years for his tardiness.
He was late for work again, today. It wasn’t his fault; his train was delayed forty-five minutes while EMS made its way to the aid of a sick passenger. “The poor sucker is probably dead by now,” Raymond mused when the technicians finally arrived.
Naturally, his supervisor showed no compassion when he arrived thirty minutes late. “Sorry, Heatherton,” he said, too happily for Raymond’s liking. “We will have to dock your pay again.”
The weather was unseasonably hot and humid and his load of letters seemed heavier than usual. He trudged along his route, bemoaning his fate. After a time, he decided that he needed a drink. “Just a quick one,” he pronounced. He stopped at a bar near the Port Authority bus terminal, sighed with relief as he felt the cool, invigorating kiss of the A/C, and took a load off on the nearest bar stool. One cold Bud led to another and soon the day was half gone.
Finally, he left his seat and staggered out into the sweltering street. “Shit,” he shouted as he realized the time and the amount of letters that remained to be delivered. “I’ll never be able to finish my rounds,” What am I going to do?” After a moment’s thought, as inconspicuously as he could manage to do so, he headed for a deserted street and, as he had done more than once in the past, dumped his load down a sewer.
Miles returned to the mail table at the foot of the stairs for the fourth time in the past hour. “Where is the damn mail,” he grumbled. He had managed to contact Elizabeth to give her his address a day or two after he had moved into Mrs. Bennett’s house. He had reiterated his need for her to leave her husband and was now impatiently awaiting her letter.
“Please don’t write to me again,” she had begged in her first letter to him. “He saw your letter and became very suspicious when I flushed it before he could actually read it. He threatened a beating from which I would never recover and swore to track down my lover and turn him into a eunuch. Later, he begged me for forgiveness and doted over me like a slave. I’m terrified that I will die from either violence or nausea.
“Again, I beg you not to write to me anymore. I will mail you a letter each Monday morning and have an answer for you within four weeks. I love you and know that I will find a way out of this mess.”
This was the fourth week and her letters had always arrived on Wednesday. She had restated in her previous letter that she would have an answer for him in today’s post. He awakened before dawn and thought about nothing but her answer, already making plans for their glorious future.
By nightfall, he realized that there would be no letter. There was no mail for anybody else either but that was not unusual. “That idiot mailman probably forgot to deliver today; the letter will be here tomorrow,” he rationalized.
Naturally, the following day brought no letter for him either. There was a telephone bill for Mrs. Bennett and a couple of advertising flyers from local stores but nothing from Elizabeth. He had waited by the front door from the time he arose in the morning until the mail arrived at about 3 PM. “Is there nothing for me,” he asked Heatherton when he finally delivered. He thought that the mailman blanched as he stammered, “no, sir. Nothing for you.”
Elizabeth was beginning to panic. She had packed a bag and taken a taxi to the University Diner, the coffee shop that she and Miles had gone to the day that they had met. It was a place to which they had returned quite often and had come to call their own. She had told him in her letter that she would meet him there and that if he still loved her, she would leave with him and never return to her husband. She had no thoughts that he would not appear ... she felt confident that he loved her.
That confidence began to wane as she waited in vain for her lover. “Where can he be,” she thought, anxiously. “Maybe he has stopped loving me ... I should never have taken so long to decide. He must have met another woman who doesn’t carry as much baggage as I and whom he loves more than me.”
After waiting for hours, she finally made her way home and headed for her bedroom for a good cry.
Back in New York City, Miles was beside himself. He was thinking the same type of negative thoughts that Elizabeth was, one hundred twenty-five miles away. “She must have decided to remain with her husband,” he deduced. “She was too frightened to leave him, or else she never loved me; I was just a fling.” Dejected, he headed for his room to stew.
Elizabeth eventually calmed down and tried to think rationally about the situation. He must love me,” she thought. “He probably never received my letter. I know how erratic mail delivery can be.” She decided to write another letter, repeating her decision to leave her husband and begin a new life with Miles. She reiterated just how much she loved him. She poured her expressions of love into this new letter, in no way embarrassed by the excess of emotion, and set up a new date for their rendezvous.
“I’ll wait until next week,” Miles decided. “I’m sure I’ll receive a letter next week.” Although he felt convinced of her love and that he would receive her favorable message next week, he spent seven nerve - wracking days on pins and needles.
It wasn’t Heatherton’s fault this time. Sure, he stopped at the bar and had a few beers but he wasn’t overly drunk. Unfortunately, after he inadvertently kicked a can at a dog on 44th Street, the mutt chased him with murderous intent. He’d run four blocks before escaping into the lobby of the seedy hotel on West 48th Street and 9th Avenue. He actually had some mail for this address. After dropping off the letters and stopping in the men’s room to freshen up, Heatherton went, breezily on his way, relatively happy to continue his rounds on this pleasant afternoon.
Regrettably, and unbeknownst to him, during his desperate flight from the mad dog, a few letters flew from his pouch. Wouldn’t you know that one of those letters was the one for which Miles Akers had been impatiently waiting?
Two days later, Elizabeth was on the verge of insanity. Once again, Miles had failed to appear at the coffee shop. After waiting for him for hours, she’d trudged, dejectedly, home and locked herself in her room. She was now weeping like a willow. “He has stopped loving me,” she sobbed. “And it’s my own fault. If I’d been able to leave my husband when Miles had asked, we would be together now. He must have met a sophisticated New York City woman and given up on me.
“That’s it,” she said aloud as she experienced that erroneous epiphany and allowed the preposterous train of thought to continue along its untenable track. “He’s fucking another woman; that’s why he doesn’t love me anymore.” Her anguish had suddenly turned to anger and she paced back and forth within the bedroom, stopping only to pick up a pillow and fling it, as hard as she could, towards the wall. En route to its target, the feather-filled missile collided with a table lamp, knocking the lamp to the floor.
“Elizabeth,” Dr. Swift called. “Are you all right, dear?”
“Yes, I am,” she replied, calmer now, and jolted by her husband’s voice into a more rational state of mind.
He was not really concerned, of course, only a bit annoyed that she had locked herself inside the room and was paying him no mind.
“God, I hate that bastard,” she thought, referring to her husband. “It’s all his fault that my life has come to this. If only I had the nerve, I would kill him.” She laughed maniacally. “That would solve my problems ... I’d be free of him forever and happy once again.”
But she knew that she hadn’t the nerve and her next thoughts were of suicide, instead.
Miles was in no better a state. For hours, he had been pacing his own room, his head hurting and his heart aching; his stomach was tied up in knots. He’d lain awake all night just trying to understand why she had stopped loving him. “I know she once loved me. What could have happened? I suppose she was afraid to leave him and take up with me. She would be giving up a comfortable life with a renowned professor just to join me in a boarding house.”
Deep inside, he knew that that wasn’t really it; that something else must have prevented her from contacting him. He must get in touch with her. “I know that if only she heard my voice, our love would be rekindled.” Finally, he came to a decision, albeit one that was not very well thought out. His heart pounding, he grabbed a handful of change from his night stand and bounded down the stairs. He left the house and ran as fast as he could to the phone booth on 8th Avenue. When he arrived, breathless, at the glass-enclosed receptacle, it was, to his distress, occupied by a sloppily-dressed Latina who periodically halted her conversation in order to have a hit of her reefer. He paced back and forth, sweating profusely and muttering aloud, “this bitch better hang up already. What the hell is taking her so long?” It took all his will to refrain from forcing open the door and dragging her out. Finally, the woman finished her call and left the booth, alarmed by the madman who pushed past her and grabbed the telephone. Without a word, she scurried away.
He hurriedly dialed the number to Elizabeth’s house, a number that he’d memorized, although, at her request, he had never before dialed. “Come on, come on,” he muttered at each ring. “Answer the damn phone, Elizabeth.” To his distress, a child answered and summoned her mother who irritably informed him that he’d dialed the wrong number.
He deposited another dime and dialed again; this time more carefully. He suffered through four rings before she finally picked up. The mere sound of her voice calmed him down.
“Elizabeth...” he began.
“Oh my god, Miles,” she replied. “Miles, where have you been? I’ve written you and asked you to meet me at the diner and to take me away. I love you so much; I can’t live without you.
Miles, of course, was ecstatic. “You did write me,” he squealed. “You do love me.”
“Of course I love you, my darling. How could you think otherwise?”
Suddenly, a click was heard on the line. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “My husband has picked up the extension. Miles, I have to hang up.
“No,” she screamed. “No!” And then, without another word, she hung up the phone. Miles tried, several times, to redial but got no answer. He never saw nor heard from her again.
“This is where you will find the day’s mail,” old Mrs. Bennett informed him as she pointed to a dusty little table next to the staircase. “It doesn’t usually arrive until mid-afternoon because our postman is a lazy good-for-nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the bum lost half the letters that he was supposed to deliver.”
Miles had met Mrs. Bennett for the first time about five minutes ago. He’d spoken to her on the phone the day before yesterday when he’d called the number he’d seen in the Classified section of the Wilmington Gazette. He was not surprised, based on their brief conversation, to find a skinny, dour-faced woman of about sixty-five waiting for him impatiently at the front door. After a brief introduction, she pointed out the mail table, badmouthed the postman and instructed Miles to follow her up the stairs. She recited the house rules while trudging up the steps, not bothering, even, to turn her head when she spoke. Miles was treated to a view of a bony behind and heavily lacquered, steel-gray hair during the entire trek to the top floor.
“I’ll take it,” he told her after making a perfunctory inspection of the unimpressive little room.
“Forty-five dollars a week,” she informed him. “Two weeks rent in advance.”
Miles counted out the ninety dollars, handed it to the old lady and stuck out his hand to shake on the deal. Without a word, and with no sign of emotion, she accepted the money and, incongruously, placed it down her bodice and into the tiny cup of the brassiere whose only apparent function was as a billfold. She ignored his outstretched hand and exited the room.
“Mrs. Bennett,” Miles asked, later that evening, “where is the telephone?”
“There is no phone for the tenants, Mr. Akers,” she replied. “My telephone is my own business and I’ll not have my tenants sharing my business and inflating my bill. There is a phone booth on 8th Avenue if you must make a call.” Miles merely shrugged his shoulders and hid his annoyance.
He didn’t really know what would be a good time to call Elizabeth, anyway; or even if he should call her. Elizabeth, you see, was the reason that he had left school in his senior year at the University of Delaware and headed for a boarding house in New York City. They had been in love, or so he had thought, for months ... ever since he had met her at a psychology lecture at the college. At first, he was not going to attend, but Dr. Swift, his favorite professor, finally convinced him to go.
“Carl Rogers is lecturing,” Dr. Swift explained. “Who better to teach about Humanistic Psychology? Anyway, I, unfortunately, will be out of town and I would be quite grateful if my most promising student would report on Dr. Rogers’ presentation.”
So, Miles attended the lecture, learned a bit about growth and self-actualization, and met the woman of his dreams.
“I’ve never seen you at school,” Miles told her. “What classes are you taking?”
“Oh,” she replied, with a chuckle. “I’m no longer a student at the University. I just have an interest in the field.”
They went out for coffee after the lecture and one thing led to another. He knew, even before they arrived at his dorm room that they were in love.
The couple spent as much time together as possible, although it seemed to Miles that she was too often unavailable. It was months before Elizabeth revealed, to his astonishment, that she was married to Dr. Swift, his psychology professor.
“But I don’t love him,” she swore. “I’m in love with you. He seduced me when I was his student and, young and immature as I was, I mistook infatuation for love.”
“Just leave him,” Miles advised, “and marry me. He’s much too old for you anyway.”
“I can’t,” she replied. “He is just so clinging and so jealous. I think that he knows I don’t love him but he feels that he must possess me anyway. He cries and begs anytime he senses rejection. Sometimes he suspects that I am unfaithful and he swears that he will kill both me and my lover.”
The two carried on their affair for a few more months before things came to a head.
“I can’t stand this sneaking around and snatching at random opportunities,” Miles declared. “Leave him and marry me, Elizabeth.”
“I want to Miles ... I want to, but you don’t understand how difficult it is. It’s pathetic when he begs me to love him and terrifying when he makes his threats. I only thank heaven that he doesn’t suspect you and that he is not totally positive that I’m cheating. Sometimes I wish that you and I had never met.”
“Don’t say that, honey. Meeting each other was the best thing that ever happened to either one of us.” Elizabeth did not reply. She just turned her head and stared off into the distance.
Finally, Miles came to a decision. “I can’t stand this anymore, Elizabeth,” he told her the night before the professor was to return from a week-long psychology convention in Chicago. “This week has been like a week in Paradise. It felt as if we were finally married and could spend every minute of every day delighting in each other; but I can’t return to Purgatory and an existence based on waiting for your husband to go on trips or for you to manage to sneak off with me. I want to live a normal life with the woman I love. If you love me you must, once and for all, make the decision to leave him.”
“I do love you, Miles. You must believe that I do. I just need a little bit of time to figure out how to leave him.”
“I understand,” Miles replied, “really, I do but I can’t stay here while you decide. It’s just too stressful for me. I’m moving to New York and giving you the space you need to make the right decision. If you can’t pull the trigger, then it will have to end between us. I’ll contact you when I know exactly where I am staying.”
And that’s how he came to stay at Mrs. Bennett’s boarding house.
“Brrrrngg! Brrrrngg!” Raymond Heatherton rolled over in his bed and swiped violently at the alarm clock that was ringing louder than Hell’s bells. The clock flew across the room and crashed into the wall, shattering into pieces.
“Shit,” Heatherton grumbled. “That’s the third clock I’ve broken this month.” He stumbled groggily out of bed and winced as the familiar headache pounded from behind his eyes. “I really need to stop drinking,” he thought, knowing that he never would.
Raymond was up at the crack of dawn, as usual, in order to get to work at the Post Office on West 52nd Street. Most mailmen with his length of service were rewarded with jobs much nearer to their homes but Ray was forced to commute to Hell’s Kitchen from the outermost reaches of Brooklyn. Nobody knew for sure if this was because he was so bad-tempered or if he was bad-tempered because of this untoward burden. Regardless, he was forced to endure long, unpleasant trips each morning to a job he despised. He had the worst punctuality record at his branch and had been docked a small fortune over the years for his tardiness.
He was late for work again, today. It wasn’t his fault; his train was delayed forty-five minutes while EMS made its way to the aid of a sick passenger. “The poor sucker is probably dead by now,” Raymond mused when the technicians finally arrived.
Naturally, his supervisor showed no compassion when he arrived thirty minutes late. “Sorry, Heatherton,” he said, too happily for Raymond’s liking. “We will have to dock your pay again.”
The weather was unseasonably hot and humid and his load of letters seemed heavier than usual. He trudged along his route, bemoaning his fate. After a time, he decided that he needed a drink. “Just a quick one,” he pronounced. He stopped at a bar near the Port Authority bus terminal, sighed with relief as he felt the cool, invigorating kiss of the A/C, and took a load off on the nearest bar stool. One cold Bud led to another and soon the day was half gone.
Finally, he left his seat and staggered out into the sweltering street. “Shit,” he shouted as he realized the time and the amount of letters that remained to be delivered. “I’ll never be able to finish my rounds,” What am I going to do?” After a moment’s thought, as inconspicuously as he could manage to do so, he headed for a deserted street and, as he had done more than once in the past, dumped his load down a sewer.
Miles returned to the mail table at the foot of the stairs for the fourth time in the past hour. “Where is the damn mail,” he grumbled. He had managed to contact Elizabeth to give her his address a day or two after he had moved into Mrs. Bennett’s house. He had reiterated his need for her to leave her husband and was now impatiently awaiting her letter.
“Please don’t write to me again,” she had begged in her first letter to him. “He saw your letter and became very suspicious when I flushed it before he could actually read it. He threatened a beating from which I would never recover and swore to track down my lover and turn him into a eunuch. Later, he begged me for forgiveness and doted over me like a slave. I’m terrified that I will die from either violence or nausea.
“Again, I beg you not to write to me anymore. I will mail you a letter each Monday morning and have an answer for you within four weeks. I love you and know that I will find a way out of this mess.”
This was the fourth week and her letters had always arrived on Wednesday. She had restated in her previous letter that she would have an answer for him in today’s post. He awakened before dawn and thought about nothing but her answer, already making plans for their glorious future.
By nightfall, he realized that there would be no letter. There was no mail for anybody else either but that was not unusual. “That idiot mailman probably forgot to deliver today; the letter will be here tomorrow,” he rationalized.
Naturally, the following day brought no letter for him either. There was a telephone bill for Mrs. Bennett and a couple of advertising flyers from local stores but nothing from Elizabeth. He had waited by the front door from the time he arose in the morning until the mail arrived at about 3 PM. “Is there nothing for me,” he asked Heatherton when he finally delivered. He thought that the mailman blanched as he stammered, “no, sir. Nothing for you.”
Elizabeth was beginning to panic. She had packed a bag and taken a taxi to the University Diner, the coffee shop that she and Miles had gone to the day that they had met. It was a place to which they had returned quite often and had come to call their own. She had told him in her letter that she would meet him there and that if he still loved her, she would leave with him and never return to her husband. She had no thoughts that he would not appear ... she felt confident that he loved her.
That confidence began to wane as she waited in vain for her lover. “Where can he be,” she thought, anxiously. “Maybe he has stopped loving me ... I should never have taken so long to decide. He must have met another woman who doesn’t carry as much baggage as I and whom he loves more than me.”
After waiting for hours, she finally made her way home and headed for her bedroom for a good cry.
Back in New York City, Miles was beside himself. He was thinking the same type of negative thoughts that Elizabeth was, one hundred twenty-five miles away. “She must have decided to remain with her husband,” he deduced. “She was too frightened to leave him, or else she never loved me; I was just a fling.” Dejected, he headed for his room to stew.
Elizabeth eventually calmed down and tried to think rationally about the situation. He must love me,” she thought. “He probably never received my letter. I know how erratic mail delivery can be.” She decided to write another letter, repeating her decision to leave her husband and begin a new life with Miles. She reiterated just how much she loved him. She poured her expressions of love into this new letter, in no way embarrassed by the excess of emotion, and set up a new date for their rendezvous.
“I’ll wait until next week,” Miles decided. “I’m sure I’ll receive a letter next week.” Although he felt convinced of her love and that he would receive her favorable message next week, he spent seven nerve - wracking days on pins and needles.
It wasn’t Heatherton’s fault this time. Sure, he stopped at the bar and had a few beers but he wasn’t overly drunk. Unfortunately, after he inadvertently kicked a can at a dog on 44th Street, the mutt chased him with murderous intent. He’d run four blocks before escaping into the lobby of the seedy hotel on West 48th Street and 9th Avenue. He actually had some mail for this address. After dropping off the letters and stopping in the men’s room to freshen up, Heatherton went, breezily on his way, relatively happy to continue his rounds on this pleasant afternoon.
Regrettably, and unbeknownst to him, during his desperate flight from the mad dog, a few letters flew from his pouch. Wouldn’t you know that one of those letters was the one for which Miles Akers had been impatiently waiting?
Two days later, Elizabeth was on the verge of insanity. Once again, Miles had failed to appear at the coffee shop. After waiting for him for hours, she’d trudged, dejectedly, home and locked herself in her room. She was now weeping like a willow. “He has stopped loving me,” she sobbed. “And it’s my own fault. If I’d been able to leave my husband when Miles had asked, we would be together now. He must have met a sophisticated New York City woman and given up on me.
“That’s it,” she said aloud as she experienced that erroneous epiphany and allowed the preposterous train of thought to continue along its untenable track. “He’s fucking another woman; that’s why he doesn’t love me anymore.” Her anguish had suddenly turned to anger and she paced back and forth within the bedroom, stopping only to pick up a pillow and fling it, as hard as she could, towards the wall. En route to its target, the feather-filled missile collided with a table lamp, knocking the lamp to the floor.
“Elizabeth,” Dr. Swift called. “Are you all right, dear?”
“Yes, I am,” she replied, calmer now, and jolted by her husband’s voice into a more rational state of mind.
He was not really concerned, of course, only a bit annoyed that she had locked herself inside the room and was paying him no mind.
“God, I hate that bastard,” she thought, referring to her husband. “It’s all his fault that my life has come to this. If only I had the nerve, I would kill him.” She laughed maniacally. “That would solve my problems ... I’d be free of him forever and happy once again.”
But she knew that she hadn’t the nerve and her next thoughts were of suicide, instead.
Miles was in no better a state. For hours, he had been pacing his own room, his head hurting and his heart aching; his stomach was tied up in knots. He’d lain awake all night just trying to understand why she had stopped loving him. “I know she once loved me. What could have happened? I suppose she was afraid to leave him and take up with me. She would be giving up a comfortable life with a renowned professor just to join me in a boarding house.”
Deep inside, he knew that that wasn’t really it; that something else must have prevented her from contacting him. He must get in touch with her. “I know that if only she heard my voice, our love would be rekindled.” Finally, he came to a decision, albeit one that was not very well thought out. His heart pounding, he grabbed a handful of change from his night stand and bounded down the stairs. He left the house and ran as fast as he could to the phone booth on 8th Avenue. When he arrived, breathless, at the glass-enclosed receptacle, it was, to his distress, occupied by a sloppily-dressed Latina who periodically halted her conversation in order to have a hit of her reefer. He paced back and forth, sweating profusely and muttering aloud, “this bitch better hang up already. What the hell is taking her so long?” It took all his will to refrain from forcing open the door and dragging her out. Finally, the woman finished her call and left the booth, alarmed by the madman who pushed past her and grabbed the telephone. Without a word, she scurried away.
He hurriedly dialed the number to Elizabeth’s house, a number that he’d memorized, although, at her request, he had never before dialed. “Come on, come on,” he muttered at each ring. “Answer the damn phone, Elizabeth.” To his distress, a child answered and summoned her mother who irritably informed him that he’d dialed the wrong number.
He deposited another dime and dialed again; this time more carefully. He suffered through four rings before she finally picked up. The mere sound of her voice calmed him down.
“Elizabeth...” he began.
“Oh my god, Miles,” she replied. “Miles, where have you been? I’ve written you and asked you to meet me at the diner and to take me away. I love you so much; I can’t live without you.
Miles, of course, was ecstatic. “You did write me,” he squealed. “You do love me.”
“Of course I love you, my darling. How could you think otherwise?”
Suddenly, a click was heard on the line. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “My husband has picked up the extension. Miles, I have to hang up.
“No,” she screamed. “No!” And then, without another word, she hung up the phone. Miles tried, several times, to redial but got no answer. He never saw nor heard from her again.
March 30, 2014
High Time For Revenge
He was wounded just before the end of the war.
He didn't feel like a hero despite the medals that were pinned to his chest. What kind of hero is it that participates in the killing of his fellow man? So what if the other side wore a different color uniform than he? Still less heroic, he felt, was that only a coward walks away (he didn't walk away; the medics found him just barely alive and carried him to an ambulance) when all his comrades have been slaughtered. “Why did I live,” he wondered. “Why couldn’t I die with my buddies?”
Monte de Greco was wounded near France mere hours before the armistice. His entire platoon was wiped out by a battalion of Germans, that had somehow managed a sneak attack from the rear. Monte was discovered face down in a foxhole and was, at first, thought to be as dead as the rest of his mates.
He was removed to a hospital in Paris where he underwent a difficult and lengthy recuperation. It was touch and go for awhile but nearly two years later he was released with a purple heart for his troubles, a cane for his mangled leg and a patch to cover his empty eye socket. Perhaps as a balance to those acquisitions, he had lost three fingers on his left hand.
“Doc, it’s not the scars and injuries that have got me depressed,” he told the army shrink to whom he’d been assigned after his release from the hospital. “I certainly deserve them. I just can’t understand why I didn’t go down with my buddies.”
“Corporal de Greco, you don’t deserve them! It wasn’t your fault that your friends were killed and you survived. There’s nothing wrong with being lucky,” the doctor said.
“Lucky, my ass,” Monte replied. “If I’d been lucky I’d have died with the others.”
It took some time but finally the doctor believed that he’d convinced Monte that it was okay to have survived and that perhaps his survival was an opportunity to make the best of his life as a tribute to his friends who had died. Concluding that Monte was cured, he released him from his care.
Monte decided to remain in Paris. He’d had a wonderful childhood in Athens, Georgia and although he knew that he would miss his family dearly, he couldn’t bear for them to see what had become of him. He ignored every letter that he received from back home, dumping each in the trash without ever unsealing an envelope.
So he chose to wallow in the wanton offerings of Jazz Age Paris, hoping that in his new life he would forget the horrors of the war and his own inadequacies. He soon discovered that the wine in France was the best in the world and that his army decorations and war wounds pretty much guaranteed an endless stream of “this one’s on me” glasses of the delectable nectar.
It was much the same with the girls. They seemed eager to offer themselves to him as well-earned treats. Barely a night passed without his sharing his bed with a bottle and a babe. And it wasn’t just the whores. He had no trouble seducing his choice of “respectable” girls of all ages, or more accurately, being seduced by them. His lost or mangled body parts seemed to make him, in their eyes, more, rather than less of a man. After a time, it became obvious to most observers that Monte, like many Parisians in those years, had become seriously addicted to the wine and, especially, to the members of the opposite sex. He, too, was conscious of these obsessions but he had become powerless to resist.
“Hold your horses,” he muttered as he staggered drunkenly to the front door.
“Hurry back, honey” cried the beautiful ballerina from whose naked arms he’d reluctantly extricated himself.
“What’s wrong, darling,” she inquired when he’d returned to the bed. “You look like you’ve been hit by a sledgehammer.
“Must you leave Paris immediately, Monte,” the ballerina asked, sulkily, after he had related the bad news that he’d found in the telegram. She had removed his eye patch and was lovingly tracing her finger over the weblike scars where his eye used to be. In the past, such sensual caresses had never failed to arouse him. Today, they had the opposite effect. “Yes, I must,” he retorted. “ Don’t you understand? That telegram was from home. My father has died. Why don’t you just get the hell out of here and go home to your husband?”
After he’d apologized and her tears had dried, they shared a marathon goodbye fuck before she returned to her novelist husband whose latest project apparently interested him more than she did.
As he embarked on his journey to Georgia, Monte began to realize that the life of debauchery in which he’d been trapped was not a life at all, but rather, a denial of the one to which he’d been born.
“How could I have abandoned that?,” he thought. “I really had it all.” He spent the better part of his trip lost in thought, reminiscing about his lovely hometown, his darling little sister, his mother, whom he worshiped and his dear departed dad.
Dad was dead but Mother was still there. She’d remained in his thoughts during his self-imposed exile. In fact, it would not be ludicrous for one to observe that many of Monte’s lovers seemed to be reflections of his mom. Now, the anticipation of seeing her once again seemed to cause time to stand still; but finally, he arrived in Athens.
A beautiful woman greeted him at the door. “Monte,” she screamed as she dropped her glass of wine and leaped into his arms. After a long, emotional hug, she stepped back and he stared blankly for an instant before it clicked.
“Oh, my goodness. Amber! I didn’t recognize you,” he told his little sister. “After all, it has been nearly six years,” he continued after noticing the disappointment his remark had caused. “When I left for the war you were a fifteen year-old tomboy with a muddy face and scrawny legs.”
He was shocked to discover that now she was a grown woman whose electric beauty surpassed even that of their mother, a former Miss Georgia beauty queen.
“Oh Monte,” she cried as she once again fell into his arms and hugged him tightly. “It’s been so long. I’ve missed you so much. You’ve no idea how lonely I’ve been for my big brother.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Amber. I’ve missed the entire family.”
“Then why did you stay away?” Like a fast-moving storm, her adoring expression had suddenly turned to one of anger. “If you had been here, none of this would have happened.”
“None of what?”
“They wouldn’t have killed Daddy.”
The air rushed from Monte’s lungs as if from a punctured balloon. He sagged against the wall until he could catch his breath. “What are you saying, Amber? Who wouldn’t have killed him?”
“Why, Mother and her lover, of course.”
“Lover? What...who... what the hell are you talking about?”
She took his hand, led him into the living room, gently sat him down on the sofa and took a seat close to him. Her hand alighted on his leg as she began to explain.
“I don’t know if you remember Daddy’s cousin, Augustus. Well, he moved here from Atlanta about a year ago and Daddy, being the fine man that he was, gave him a job as an executive at the firm. Augustus didn’t deserve it; he had no experience and, in my opinion, no brains; but, that’s the kind of man that Daddy was. He would do anything for his family and his friends. But Augustus was no friend. Unbeknownst to Daddy he embezzled from the business and he soon began spending more and more time here at the house. At first, he was invited to most of Mother and Daddy’s parties and to private dinners with the family, as well. Eventually, he was given carte blanche to just pop in to use the swimming pool or the tennis courts. Soon he was dropping by whenever Daddy was away. I needn’t tell you what happened next. That ingrate stole Daddy’s money and then he stole Daddy’s wife.”
“Amber,” Monte almost shouted. His nerves were jangled from the shock of his sister’s accusations. His brow had become moist and his throat dry as he suddenly became aware of his sister’s hand on his leg and the crush of her breasts each time she leaned towards him to make a conversational point. He self-consciously distanced himself from the girl but he couldn’t help feeling a guilt-inducing stirring of lust. Amber, meanwhile, turned her head in order to hide the fiendish smile that briefly flashed across her pretty face.
“Amber,” he repeated, this time more softly, “are you sure of what you are saying?”
“Of course I am,” she replied. “The only arguable point is that he may not exactly have stolen Daddy’s wife; I’m sure the bitch offered herself to him.”
“Watch how you speak about our mother. No doubt you are mistaken. The woman is a saint and she loved our father.”
“Montgomery? Montgomery, is that you, honey?” There was no mistaking his mother’s sweet voice.
“Yes, mother, it is me,” he replied as he ran up the stairs to reunite with his beloved parent.
“Is that you, honey,” Amber mimicked, bitterly. “God, I hate that bitch; I’ve hated her forever. She never deserved a man as fine as Daddy.” Then she put thoughts of her mother aside and calmed herself by sipping her wine and thinking about her father.
Her daydreams were not much different than the ones she’d had of him when she was a girl; dreams that he’d always suspected her of having but that he’d never quite discouraged. After a time, she curled up on the sofa with a smile of pleasure on her face and a hand between her legs, drifting into a warm sleep that was filled with delightful dreams of her Daddy.
“So, what gives you this ridiculous notion that Mother murdered Daddy,” Monte asked the following afternoon when they had resumed their conversation.
“It’s not ridiculous, Monte,” she replied. Her voice rose as frustration with her disbelieving brother grew. “It’s a fact.
“Daddy found out that she was sleeping with his cousin and demanded a divorce. Obviously, he also fired Augustus from his job and banned him from our house. A divorce would be disastrous for Mother. Since Daddy could prove that she was an adulteress there would be no alimony and she would lose everything ... and Augustus couldn’t provide for her without a job.
“Daddy had moved out of the house until the divorce could be completed but Mother somehow convinced him to come by for a drink so they could discuss the pending breakup. She got him plastered and lured him upstairs for a roll in the hay; we de Greco girls are good at that,” she said with a coquettish glance towards Monte.
“The coroner called it heart failure; caused, probably, by their vigorous session in the bedroom. Daddy had had some heart issues lately but I have no doubt that after he had fallen asleep, Mother had smothered him with a pillow.”
“That’s ridiculous, Amber,” Monte hollered. “How can you possibly believe such nonsense? You must be crazy.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not crazy. She killed our father and now, as his only son, you must take revenge.”
Monte was enjoying dinner a few hours later. It was wonderful to spend the evening with the two women of the family despite the palpable friction between his mother and his sister. The chicken was delicious and the Bordeaux was sheer delight to the palate. The three de Grecos finished the bottle and a bit later his mother excused herself and retreated, somewhat unsteadily, to her room. Amber brought out another bottle of wine and led him to the sitting room.
“Okay,” she began, after filling each of their glasses. “It’s time to discuss how we will avenge Daddy’s murder.”
“Amber,” he replied, “this is crazy. Even if Mother did kill him, revenge is not the answer. Wickedness can never be rectified by further wickedness.”
Amber began to sob and would not stop. “Don’t you even care that your own father was murdered? I thought you were a war hero. Aren’t you man enough to do something about it?”
Monte bristled when his sister called him a hero. “I’m no hero, Amber,” he protested as the familiar old feelings of worthlessness returned. “I’m just a guy who was nearly killed in a meaningless war.”
“But you were a hero in that ‘meaningless war’ and you will always be a hero to me. Now act like a hero and punish the murderer of your father,” she sobbed. You mustn’t shrink from your duty. It’s high time for revenge.”
She continued crying and Monte refilled their glasses in an effort to comfort her. He moved closer and put his arm around her, gently pulling her towards him. She obligingly placed her hand in his lap and laid her head on his shoulder. Gradually, she calmed herself. They remained like that for some time, moving only to gulp their wine and refill their glasses. By the time the bottle was empty, he was feeling such tenderness towards his sister that he knew he would do anything for her.
She lifted her head, pulled his face towards her and kissed him passionately on the lips. Monte felt such a heat pass between them like he’d never known. He was now so filled with desire for his sister that he could no longer think clearly. She took his hand and led him upstairs to her bedroom. In his eagerness, he stumbled and nearly fell down the stairs but quickly regained his footing and played off the mishap with a drunken guffaw.
She kissed him once again at the threshold of her room and pressed her body against his. Monte enthusiastically responded in kind but she stopped him as he began to fumble with her clothes.
“Hold on, my darling,” she cooed. “You know what must first be done.” She entered the room, opened her bureau drawer and returned with her pistol. “I’ll be here when you’ve finished,” she said, seductively, as she handed him the gun. “Please hurry back.”
He protested mildly at first but then, as if in a dream, Monte accepted the weapon and made his way to the third floor where his mother’s bedroom was located. A hodgepodge of conflicting thoughts fluttered through his mind like a swarm of butterflies but in the end, all he could think about was the reward that awaited him when he completed his mission.
Amber smiled with satisfaction as the sound of the gunshot thundered through the house.
“Oh, dear God, what have I done,” Monte cried. “I’ve murdered my mother!” He sank to the floor, overcome by grief. Downstairs, his sister felt no such grief. Still smiling but becoming increasingly annoyed by her brother’s continued blubbering, she walked, calmly, to the telephone and began to dial the number for the police. Before she could finish dialing, however, she was startled by the roar of a second gunshot which had suddenly exploded in her ears.
He didn't feel like a hero despite the medals that were pinned to his chest. What kind of hero is it that participates in the killing of his fellow man? So what if the other side wore a different color uniform than he? Still less heroic, he felt, was that only a coward walks away (he didn't walk away; the medics found him just barely alive and carried him to an ambulance) when all his comrades have been slaughtered. “Why did I live,” he wondered. “Why couldn’t I die with my buddies?”
Monte de Greco was wounded near France mere hours before the armistice. His entire platoon was wiped out by a battalion of Germans, that had somehow managed a sneak attack from the rear. Monte was discovered face down in a foxhole and was, at first, thought to be as dead as the rest of his mates.
He was removed to a hospital in Paris where he underwent a difficult and lengthy recuperation. It was touch and go for awhile but nearly two years later he was released with a purple heart for his troubles, a cane for his mangled leg and a patch to cover his empty eye socket. Perhaps as a balance to those acquisitions, he had lost three fingers on his left hand.
“Doc, it’s not the scars and injuries that have got me depressed,” he told the army shrink to whom he’d been assigned after his release from the hospital. “I certainly deserve them. I just can’t understand why I didn’t go down with my buddies.”
“Corporal de Greco, you don’t deserve them! It wasn’t your fault that your friends were killed and you survived. There’s nothing wrong with being lucky,” the doctor said.
“Lucky, my ass,” Monte replied. “If I’d been lucky I’d have died with the others.”
It took some time but finally the doctor believed that he’d convinced Monte that it was okay to have survived and that perhaps his survival was an opportunity to make the best of his life as a tribute to his friends who had died. Concluding that Monte was cured, he released him from his care.
Monte decided to remain in Paris. He’d had a wonderful childhood in Athens, Georgia and although he knew that he would miss his family dearly, he couldn’t bear for them to see what had become of him. He ignored every letter that he received from back home, dumping each in the trash without ever unsealing an envelope.
So he chose to wallow in the wanton offerings of Jazz Age Paris, hoping that in his new life he would forget the horrors of the war and his own inadequacies. He soon discovered that the wine in France was the best in the world and that his army decorations and war wounds pretty much guaranteed an endless stream of “this one’s on me” glasses of the delectable nectar.
It was much the same with the girls. They seemed eager to offer themselves to him as well-earned treats. Barely a night passed without his sharing his bed with a bottle and a babe. And it wasn’t just the whores. He had no trouble seducing his choice of “respectable” girls of all ages, or more accurately, being seduced by them. His lost or mangled body parts seemed to make him, in their eyes, more, rather than less of a man. After a time, it became obvious to most observers that Monte, like many Parisians in those years, had become seriously addicted to the wine and, especially, to the members of the opposite sex. He, too, was conscious of these obsessions but he had become powerless to resist.
“Hold your horses,” he muttered as he staggered drunkenly to the front door.
“Hurry back, honey” cried the beautiful ballerina from whose naked arms he’d reluctantly extricated himself.
“What’s wrong, darling,” she inquired when he’d returned to the bed. “You look like you’ve been hit by a sledgehammer.
“Must you leave Paris immediately, Monte,” the ballerina asked, sulkily, after he had related the bad news that he’d found in the telegram. She had removed his eye patch and was lovingly tracing her finger over the weblike scars where his eye used to be. In the past, such sensual caresses had never failed to arouse him. Today, they had the opposite effect. “Yes, I must,” he retorted. “ Don’t you understand? That telegram was from home. My father has died. Why don’t you just get the hell out of here and go home to your husband?”
After he’d apologized and her tears had dried, they shared a marathon goodbye fuck before she returned to her novelist husband whose latest project apparently interested him more than she did.
As he embarked on his journey to Georgia, Monte began to realize that the life of debauchery in which he’d been trapped was not a life at all, but rather, a denial of the one to which he’d been born.
“How could I have abandoned that?,” he thought. “I really had it all.” He spent the better part of his trip lost in thought, reminiscing about his lovely hometown, his darling little sister, his mother, whom he worshiped and his dear departed dad.
Dad was dead but Mother was still there. She’d remained in his thoughts during his self-imposed exile. In fact, it would not be ludicrous for one to observe that many of Monte’s lovers seemed to be reflections of his mom. Now, the anticipation of seeing her once again seemed to cause time to stand still; but finally, he arrived in Athens.
A beautiful woman greeted him at the door. “Monte,” she screamed as she dropped her glass of wine and leaped into his arms. After a long, emotional hug, she stepped back and he stared blankly for an instant before it clicked.
“Oh, my goodness. Amber! I didn’t recognize you,” he told his little sister. “After all, it has been nearly six years,” he continued after noticing the disappointment his remark had caused. “When I left for the war you were a fifteen year-old tomboy with a muddy face and scrawny legs.”
He was shocked to discover that now she was a grown woman whose electric beauty surpassed even that of their mother, a former Miss Georgia beauty queen.
“Oh Monte,” she cried as she once again fell into his arms and hugged him tightly. “It’s been so long. I’ve missed you so much. You’ve no idea how lonely I’ve been for my big brother.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Amber. I’ve missed the entire family.”
“Then why did you stay away?” Like a fast-moving storm, her adoring expression had suddenly turned to one of anger. “If you had been here, none of this would have happened.”
“None of what?”
“They wouldn’t have killed Daddy.”
The air rushed from Monte’s lungs as if from a punctured balloon. He sagged against the wall until he could catch his breath. “What are you saying, Amber? Who wouldn’t have killed him?”
“Why, Mother and her lover, of course.”
“Lover? What...who... what the hell are you talking about?”
She took his hand, led him into the living room, gently sat him down on the sofa and took a seat close to him. Her hand alighted on his leg as she began to explain.
“I don’t know if you remember Daddy’s cousin, Augustus. Well, he moved here from Atlanta about a year ago and Daddy, being the fine man that he was, gave him a job as an executive at the firm. Augustus didn’t deserve it; he had no experience and, in my opinion, no brains; but, that’s the kind of man that Daddy was. He would do anything for his family and his friends. But Augustus was no friend. Unbeknownst to Daddy he embezzled from the business and he soon began spending more and more time here at the house. At first, he was invited to most of Mother and Daddy’s parties and to private dinners with the family, as well. Eventually, he was given carte blanche to just pop in to use the swimming pool or the tennis courts. Soon he was dropping by whenever Daddy was away. I needn’t tell you what happened next. That ingrate stole Daddy’s money and then he stole Daddy’s wife.”
“Amber,” Monte almost shouted. His nerves were jangled from the shock of his sister’s accusations. His brow had become moist and his throat dry as he suddenly became aware of his sister’s hand on his leg and the crush of her breasts each time she leaned towards him to make a conversational point. He self-consciously distanced himself from the girl but he couldn’t help feeling a guilt-inducing stirring of lust. Amber, meanwhile, turned her head in order to hide the fiendish smile that briefly flashed across her pretty face.
“Amber,” he repeated, this time more softly, “are you sure of what you are saying?”
“Of course I am,” she replied. “The only arguable point is that he may not exactly have stolen Daddy’s wife; I’m sure the bitch offered herself to him.”
“Watch how you speak about our mother. No doubt you are mistaken. The woman is a saint and she loved our father.”
“Montgomery? Montgomery, is that you, honey?” There was no mistaking his mother’s sweet voice.
“Yes, mother, it is me,” he replied as he ran up the stairs to reunite with his beloved parent.
“Is that you, honey,” Amber mimicked, bitterly. “God, I hate that bitch; I’ve hated her forever. She never deserved a man as fine as Daddy.” Then she put thoughts of her mother aside and calmed herself by sipping her wine and thinking about her father.
Her daydreams were not much different than the ones she’d had of him when she was a girl; dreams that he’d always suspected her of having but that he’d never quite discouraged. After a time, she curled up on the sofa with a smile of pleasure on her face and a hand between her legs, drifting into a warm sleep that was filled with delightful dreams of her Daddy.
“So, what gives you this ridiculous notion that Mother murdered Daddy,” Monte asked the following afternoon when they had resumed their conversation.
“It’s not ridiculous, Monte,” she replied. Her voice rose as frustration with her disbelieving brother grew. “It’s a fact.
“Daddy found out that she was sleeping with his cousin and demanded a divorce. Obviously, he also fired Augustus from his job and banned him from our house. A divorce would be disastrous for Mother. Since Daddy could prove that she was an adulteress there would be no alimony and she would lose everything ... and Augustus couldn’t provide for her without a job.
“Daddy had moved out of the house until the divorce could be completed but Mother somehow convinced him to come by for a drink so they could discuss the pending breakup. She got him plastered and lured him upstairs for a roll in the hay; we de Greco girls are good at that,” she said with a coquettish glance towards Monte.
“The coroner called it heart failure; caused, probably, by their vigorous session in the bedroom. Daddy had had some heart issues lately but I have no doubt that after he had fallen asleep, Mother had smothered him with a pillow.”
“That’s ridiculous, Amber,” Monte hollered. “How can you possibly believe such nonsense? You must be crazy.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not crazy. She killed our father and now, as his only son, you must take revenge.”
Monte was enjoying dinner a few hours later. It was wonderful to spend the evening with the two women of the family despite the palpable friction between his mother and his sister. The chicken was delicious and the Bordeaux was sheer delight to the palate. The three de Grecos finished the bottle and a bit later his mother excused herself and retreated, somewhat unsteadily, to her room. Amber brought out another bottle of wine and led him to the sitting room.
“Okay,” she began, after filling each of their glasses. “It’s time to discuss how we will avenge Daddy’s murder.”
“Amber,” he replied, “this is crazy. Even if Mother did kill him, revenge is not the answer. Wickedness can never be rectified by further wickedness.”
Amber began to sob and would not stop. “Don’t you even care that your own father was murdered? I thought you were a war hero. Aren’t you man enough to do something about it?”
Monte bristled when his sister called him a hero. “I’m no hero, Amber,” he protested as the familiar old feelings of worthlessness returned. “I’m just a guy who was nearly killed in a meaningless war.”
“But you were a hero in that ‘meaningless war’ and you will always be a hero to me. Now act like a hero and punish the murderer of your father,” she sobbed. You mustn’t shrink from your duty. It’s high time for revenge.”
She continued crying and Monte refilled their glasses in an effort to comfort her. He moved closer and put his arm around her, gently pulling her towards him. She obligingly placed her hand in his lap and laid her head on his shoulder. Gradually, she calmed herself. They remained like that for some time, moving only to gulp their wine and refill their glasses. By the time the bottle was empty, he was feeling such tenderness towards his sister that he knew he would do anything for her.
She lifted her head, pulled his face towards her and kissed him passionately on the lips. Monte felt such a heat pass between them like he’d never known. He was now so filled with desire for his sister that he could no longer think clearly. She took his hand and led him upstairs to her bedroom. In his eagerness, he stumbled and nearly fell down the stairs but quickly regained his footing and played off the mishap with a drunken guffaw.
She kissed him once again at the threshold of her room and pressed her body against his. Monte enthusiastically responded in kind but she stopped him as he began to fumble with her clothes.
“Hold on, my darling,” she cooed. “You know what must first be done.” She entered the room, opened her bureau drawer and returned with her pistol. “I’ll be here when you’ve finished,” she said, seductively, as she handed him the gun. “Please hurry back.”
He protested mildly at first but then, as if in a dream, Monte accepted the weapon and made his way to the third floor where his mother’s bedroom was located. A hodgepodge of conflicting thoughts fluttered through his mind like a swarm of butterflies but in the end, all he could think about was the reward that awaited him when he completed his mission.
Amber smiled with satisfaction as the sound of the gunshot thundered through the house.
“Oh, dear God, what have I done,” Monte cried. “I’ve murdered my mother!” He sank to the floor, overcome by grief. Downstairs, his sister felt no such grief. Still smiling but becoming increasingly annoyed by her brother’s continued blubbering, she walked, calmly, to the telephone and began to dial the number for the police. Before she could finish dialing, however, she was startled by the roar of a second gunshot which had suddenly exploded in her ears.
October 20, 2013
The Devil's Daughter
Melvin Ludlow lay dead beneath a sweltering noon sun, a syrupy mixture of blood and brain fluid leaking from his shattered skull and simmering on the sizzling East Texas sidewalk.
“What happened,” asked a curious bystander.
“Cops blew his head off,” another replied.
“Damn shame. I wonder why?”
“Ain’t no shame, he deserved it,” said another. “He killed his wife. Snuck up on her and shot her in the back of the head.”
“Holy Christ,” the first bystander exclaimed. “I wonder why he would do such a thing.”
“Why? If you knew Melvin Ludlow you wouldn’t need to wonder. Sumbitch was meaner’n a rabid coyote. Anything could set that man off.”
“Ludlow was the devil,” said another fellow who knew him.
Lorraine Ludlow was a sympathetic victim if ever there was one. Quiet and unassuming, she was known as a kind, charitable woman who never had a bad word for anybody.
“Ms. Lorraine was a saint,” declared one of the men at the scene. “Had to be to put up with the likes of that devil.”
Lucy, the teenage daughter, was the one for whom everybody felt sorry. Quiet like her mother and pretty as a bluebonnet, the girl was found sitting silently, apparently in shock, by her dead mom’s side.
“It’s no wonder,” they said. “Imagine watching your old man murder your mom and then he is taken down by the cops. A young girl with two parents suddenly become an orphan in the blink of an eye. I don’t care how mean her dad was, it’s still a tragedy for the kid.”
Lucy was taken to a hospital where she was interviewed by Dr. Ivins, a competent and caring veteran of the hospital’s psychiatric staff. Dr. Ivins reported that the girl was catatonic for several hours before finally bursting into tears and opening up to the doctor.
“I’m happy my father is dead,” she sobbed. “I’ve hated that bastard for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was about eight, he’d been coming to my room at night and touching me in ways and places that I knew were wrong. He threatened to kill me if I told a soul.
“I didn’t say a word for years. I knew what that fiend was capable of doing and I feared for my life. I admit, though, as the years went by I would often look forward to daddy’s visits. I knew that I was somehow enticing him and that I must be an evil little witch but, god forgive me, daddy knew how to give me pleasure.”
The doctor’s heart was breaking as he listened to the poor girl’s tale of woe. He’d heard stories like this before, of course, but for some reason, he felt more sorry for this girl than for any abused child he’d encountered in the past.
“A few weeks ago,” Lucy continued, “I broke down and admitted to my mom what had been happening. I think she must have confronted him a couple days later because on that day he gave her one hell of a beating. I’m sure that the reason he killed her was because she threatened to go to the police. It’s my fault that she’s dead,” she cried. “It should have been me.”
“My dear,” said Dr. Ivins, “it is not your fault. I don’t mind saying it... your father was evil. It is beyond me how a grown man could take advantage of an innocent young lamb such as you.”
Her eyes flashed, angrily. “Evil? What does that even mean,” she demanded. “The thing about my father was that he was like most men; and most men are considered neither perverted nor evil, merely thoroughly and alarmingly normal.”
The young lady’s cynicism broke the doctor’s heart. “What kind of world is this that can turn such a beautiful young thing so scornful,” he thought.
Lucy resumed her pathetic sobbing and stared at the doctor through huge, tear-filled eyes. He stared back at the girl and, try as he might, he could not resist the lure of those beautiful, tortured eyes and her obvious plea for succor. “Oh, my,“ thought the good doctor, “this poor girl has gone through hell. I must comfort her, somehow. What shall I do?” The free-flowing tears and a sudden, sultry heat radiating from her genitals, drew him irresistibly toward her. Despite a lifetime of professionalism he reluctantly succumbed to an inappropriate urge to soothe her grief.
God forgive me,” he proclaimed as he took her in his arms and showered her with kisses. “Oh, you poor sweet child.” The girl yielded to his advances, pressing her pliant young body against his. The frenzied doctor did not notice the wicked smile that briefly flitted across her lips just as he commenced loving her. “Oh, my darling,” he blurted. “Oh my poor, sweet girl. Let me soothe you; let me help you forget that demon.”
Unfortunately, when he had finished comforting her, she seemed unrelieved and then she slipped back into catatonia.
She remained in that state for many days, alone in a dreary room. Hospital staff and the few visitors who found the time to stop by found her totally unresponsive and left her room with the sad feeling that the poor girl was doomed to life as a vegetable.
But they couldn’t be further from the truth. She was absolutely aware of what was going on and quite capable of responding if she had chosen to. These people bored her, though. She was on another plane, communicating, telepathically, with the one that she’d always considered to be the highest of beings.
“Lucifer,” she thought, “these fools blame my poor ‘father,’ thinking him the devil. Isn’t that a laugh?”
“It is amusing, my daughter but they just do not know. He is a devil, of course, but with quite limited awareness of his stature and little more than borderline power.”
“I’ve had him under my control for ages,” she bragged. “It was I who lured him to my bed. The idiot was so hesitant, absolutely unaware that he was not bound to adhere to the puritanical morals of the mortals with whom he had been chosen to mix.
“It was I, as well, who had him murder my mother. It would have injured our cause had she gone to the authorities once the dolt, Melvin, admitted that he had been sleeping with me. It was so easy,” she laughed. “He was like putty in my hands.”
“Don’t be too harsh on him, daughter. It is written that he would begin his existence as a corporeal being, blinded to his future by the veil of illusion, and would impregnate you with his seed. He should not be underestimated my dear; he is merely at the beginning of his apprenticeship. After several more visits to the physical world he will have gained awesome power and knowledge of his place in the universe; he will, as well, have developed the ability to effortlessly travel back and forth from our world to theirs. Ultimately, his power will be as great as your own and the power of the child that is to be produced through your union may exceed even my own.”
“Then, am I now impregnated by him, Lucifer?”
“I am afraid not, my daughter. It is his spirit that must come to you to complete the task.”
“And when am I to return to our own world?”
“Not until your child is born so that she may begin her apprenticeship on Earth.”
While Lucy was eager to return to her domain, she was curious as to how the union between Melvin and her would go. Despite all his human shortcomings and her desire to return to her true home in the spirit world, she relished the carnal pleasures that were available only to a corporeal being; and to be sure, Melvin had been a highly skillful lover with the ability to take her to such passionate heights that would leave her on the verge of delirium. Sex with a spirit, she reasoned might be even more thrilling... the ultimate erotic experience.
She called to him on her second day at the hospital and although he took his time responding to her summons, she knew that he would eventually obey; he was powerless to refuse. But his power to resist had increased greatly after his recent death. After a time, she grew impatient, yearning for his inevitable appearance, filled with the certainty that he would drive her to ecstasy. She grew restless in her anticipation of the pleasure that her phantom lover would provide, writhing in her expectation, like a bitch in heat.
Finally, the spirit came. Lucy neither saw, nor heard, its arrival. She was silently blanketed by a gentle breeze which enveloped her entire body with an impossibly pleasant warmth. Her breasts were caressed by what felt like an army of hands, lips and tongues, rendering her nipples so large, hard and sensitive that she felt they would explode. At the same time, invisible hands removed her nightie, rendering her beautifully naked. The hands stroked the inside of her thighs and she squirmed as she felt a hot wetness lubricating the place between her legs. She opened like a door and a phantom tongue went to work on her sex, so intensely arousing her that her pelvis proceeded to push paroxysmally. She moaned so loudly and pleaded for his piece so vehemently that it was a wonder the entire hospital staff did not come running to see what was happening.
At long last, he gave her what she’d been begging for. He was tremendous as he slowly entered the wet, spasming hole and she gasped from the pleasure. But then he teasingly slid out, eliciting a series of shrieks that seemed to have originated in the bowels of hell. It seemed an eternity before the devil finally provided her with the heaven for which she’d been praying.
Although the girl was carrying on as loudly as a houseful of whores at an orgy, none of the staff paid the noise any mind. They were so inured to the night sounds of the psycho ward that they probably didn’t even hear her; except for Clyde Daniels. It was Clyde’s first night as a hospital orderly and he just happened to be outside her room. The sex sounds drew him inside and the naked girl’s gyrations drove him nuts. He couldn’t see what was getting her so hot but he sure loved what he did see. “Wow,” he thought. “If this is what usually goes on in the nuthouse, I surely will love my job.” He remained in the room for the duration and became so aroused that he diddled himself right there.
Lucy was ravaged by her invisible lover every night for the next week and the horny orderly was right there to witness it each time, spilling his seed throughout the room. He was almost as bereft as she when the incubus’ visits ceased. He was tempted to couple with the girl himself, but the thought of fornicating with the now-comatose girl did not excite him nearly as much as the show he had been witnessing for the past seven days. He settled in to his rounds for the next few weeks, barely bothering to peek into her room.
“How could this happen,” the Director demanded.
“How could what happen, sir,” Dr. Ivins asked.
“The Ludlow girl is pregnant.”
Ivins blanched, thinking, in a panic, that it was he who had impregnated the girl. “It couldn’t have been me,” he suddenly realized. “I used protection.”
“We must get to the bottom of this,” the Director said. “Whoever took advantage of that poor thing must be punished.”
Because the murder of Lorraine Ludlow and the ensuing hospitalization of her daughter had been such a high profile story, the Director felt that it was of extreme importance to identify the rapist and bring him to justice before the media got hold of this new development. An elite team of investigators was hired. They immediately began interrogations and a thorough search for evidence. It wasn’t long before they discovered traces of sperm, which was easily identified as Clyde’s. The poor, dumb orderly was unable to explain to anybody’s satisfaction why his sperm was splattered all over the room; the investigators laughed as he tried to describe the girl’s steamy encounters with her ethereal lover and how, although he couldn’t control his libido, he never actually touched her. The orderly was arrested and charged with rape.
Lucy never again spoke to a mortal; she spent the next nine months in what the doctors described as a coma. Her empty eyes stared at the ceiling, drool ran down her chin, as she silently awaited the birth of her child. As before, she communicated only with Lucifer and other spirits of the nether world to which she belonged. As the days passed, her vibrancy waned; she seemed to be slowly fading away.
Finally, the day arrived. The monitors to which she’d been hooked began to whistle and beep like a video game gone haywire; lights flashed on and off so brightly that the room seemed engulfed by the most spectacular electrical storm in the history of the world. These were sounds and effects that had never been emitted by those machines. Alarmed, every nurse on the floor rushed to her bed where they found her with eyes spinning, teeth clenched and a guttural sound escaping through her locked jaws. Her body was being racked by ferocious contractions, occurring mere seconds apart. Her water had already broken. They rushed her into surgery and just seconds after the doctor and nurses finished scrubbing, she gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl, who loudly announced her entry into the world, screaming like the dickens.
Her task completed, life escaped from Lucy on the heels of the infant and her spirit returned to her rightful world, to reign as Princess of Darkness until the end of time. Her spawn was adopted by an unsuspecting young couple who took her home the following morning.
Lucy’s remains were carted away to the morgue as quickly as possible and the hospital staff put the memory of her behind them. The media downplayed her death, as well, marking her passing with a small story on the obituary page and a brief mention on the eleven o’clock news. The only person in East Texas who was affected by her death was Clyde Daniels. The rape charge against the hapless orderly was immediately upgraded to murder during the commission of rape and the poor boob was executed within a year.
“What happened,” asked a curious bystander.
“Cops blew his head off,” another replied.
“Damn shame. I wonder why?”
“Ain’t no shame, he deserved it,” said another. “He killed his wife. Snuck up on her and shot her in the back of the head.”
“Holy Christ,” the first bystander exclaimed. “I wonder why he would do such a thing.”
“Why? If you knew Melvin Ludlow you wouldn’t need to wonder. Sumbitch was meaner’n a rabid coyote. Anything could set that man off.”
“Ludlow was the devil,” said another fellow who knew him.
Lorraine Ludlow was a sympathetic victim if ever there was one. Quiet and unassuming, she was known as a kind, charitable woman who never had a bad word for anybody.
“Ms. Lorraine was a saint,” declared one of the men at the scene. “Had to be to put up with the likes of that devil.”
Lucy, the teenage daughter, was the one for whom everybody felt sorry. Quiet like her mother and pretty as a bluebonnet, the girl was found sitting silently, apparently in shock, by her dead mom’s side.
“It’s no wonder,” they said. “Imagine watching your old man murder your mom and then he is taken down by the cops. A young girl with two parents suddenly become an orphan in the blink of an eye. I don’t care how mean her dad was, it’s still a tragedy for the kid.”
Lucy was taken to a hospital where she was interviewed by Dr. Ivins, a competent and caring veteran of the hospital’s psychiatric staff. Dr. Ivins reported that the girl was catatonic for several hours before finally bursting into tears and opening up to the doctor.
“I’m happy my father is dead,” she sobbed. “I’ve hated that bastard for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was about eight, he’d been coming to my room at night and touching me in ways and places that I knew were wrong. He threatened to kill me if I told a soul.
“I didn’t say a word for years. I knew what that fiend was capable of doing and I feared for my life. I admit, though, as the years went by I would often look forward to daddy’s visits. I knew that I was somehow enticing him and that I must be an evil little witch but, god forgive me, daddy knew how to give me pleasure.”
The doctor’s heart was breaking as he listened to the poor girl’s tale of woe. He’d heard stories like this before, of course, but for some reason, he felt more sorry for this girl than for any abused child he’d encountered in the past.
“A few weeks ago,” Lucy continued, “I broke down and admitted to my mom what had been happening. I think she must have confronted him a couple days later because on that day he gave her one hell of a beating. I’m sure that the reason he killed her was because she threatened to go to the police. It’s my fault that she’s dead,” she cried. “It should have been me.”
“My dear,” said Dr. Ivins, “it is not your fault. I don’t mind saying it... your father was evil. It is beyond me how a grown man could take advantage of an innocent young lamb such as you.”
Her eyes flashed, angrily. “Evil? What does that even mean,” she demanded. “The thing about my father was that he was like most men; and most men are considered neither perverted nor evil, merely thoroughly and alarmingly normal.”
The young lady’s cynicism broke the doctor’s heart. “What kind of world is this that can turn such a beautiful young thing so scornful,” he thought.
Lucy resumed her pathetic sobbing and stared at the doctor through huge, tear-filled eyes. He stared back at the girl and, try as he might, he could not resist the lure of those beautiful, tortured eyes and her obvious plea for succor. “Oh, my,“ thought the good doctor, “this poor girl has gone through hell. I must comfort her, somehow. What shall I do?” The free-flowing tears and a sudden, sultry heat radiating from her genitals, drew him irresistibly toward her. Despite a lifetime of professionalism he reluctantly succumbed to an inappropriate urge to soothe her grief.
God forgive me,” he proclaimed as he took her in his arms and showered her with kisses. “Oh, you poor sweet child.” The girl yielded to his advances, pressing her pliant young body against his. The frenzied doctor did not notice the wicked smile that briefly flitted across her lips just as he commenced loving her. “Oh, my darling,” he blurted. “Oh my poor, sweet girl. Let me soothe you; let me help you forget that demon.”
Unfortunately, when he had finished comforting her, she seemed unrelieved and then she slipped back into catatonia.
She remained in that state for many days, alone in a dreary room. Hospital staff and the few visitors who found the time to stop by found her totally unresponsive and left her room with the sad feeling that the poor girl was doomed to life as a vegetable.
But they couldn’t be further from the truth. She was absolutely aware of what was going on and quite capable of responding if she had chosen to. These people bored her, though. She was on another plane, communicating, telepathically, with the one that she’d always considered to be the highest of beings.
“Lucifer,” she thought, “these fools blame my poor ‘father,’ thinking him the devil. Isn’t that a laugh?”
“It is amusing, my daughter but they just do not know. He is a devil, of course, but with quite limited awareness of his stature and little more than borderline power.”
“I’ve had him under my control for ages,” she bragged. “It was I who lured him to my bed. The idiot was so hesitant, absolutely unaware that he was not bound to adhere to the puritanical morals of the mortals with whom he had been chosen to mix.
“It was I, as well, who had him murder my mother. It would have injured our cause had she gone to the authorities once the dolt, Melvin, admitted that he had been sleeping with me. It was so easy,” she laughed. “He was like putty in my hands.”
“Don’t be too harsh on him, daughter. It is written that he would begin his existence as a corporeal being, blinded to his future by the veil of illusion, and would impregnate you with his seed. He should not be underestimated my dear; he is merely at the beginning of his apprenticeship. After several more visits to the physical world he will have gained awesome power and knowledge of his place in the universe; he will, as well, have developed the ability to effortlessly travel back and forth from our world to theirs. Ultimately, his power will be as great as your own and the power of the child that is to be produced through your union may exceed even my own.”
“Then, am I now impregnated by him, Lucifer?”
“I am afraid not, my daughter. It is his spirit that must come to you to complete the task.”
“And when am I to return to our own world?”
“Not until your child is born so that she may begin her apprenticeship on Earth.”
While Lucy was eager to return to her domain, she was curious as to how the union between Melvin and her would go. Despite all his human shortcomings and her desire to return to her true home in the spirit world, she relished the carnal pleasures that were available only to a corporeal being; and to be sure, Melvin had been a highly skillful lover with the ability to take her to such passionate heights that would leave her on the verge of delirium. Sex with a spirit, she reasoned might be even more thrilling... the ultimate erotic experience.
She called to him on her second day at the hospital and although he took his time responding to her summons, she knew that he would eventually obey; he was powerless to refuse. But his power to resist had increased greatly after his recent death. After a time, she grew impatient, yearning for his inevitable appearance, filled with the certainty that he would drive her to ecstasy. She grew restless in her anticipation of the pleasure that her phantom lover would provide, writhing in her expectation, like a bitch in heat.
Finally, the spirit came. Lucy neither saw, nor heard, its arrival. She was silently blanketed by a gentle breeze which enveloped her entire body with an impossibly pleasant warmth. Her breasts were caressed by what felt like an army of hands, lips and tongues, rendering her nipples so large, hard and sensitive that she felt they would explode. At the same time, invisible hands removed her nightie, rendering her beautifully naked. The hands stroked the inside of her thighs and she squirmed as she felt a hot wetness lubricating the place between her legs. She opened like a door and a phantom tongue went to work on her sex, so intensely arousing her that her pelvis proceeded to push paroxysmally. She moaned so loudly and pleaded for his piece so vehemently that it was a wonder the entire hospital staff did not come running to see what was happening.
At long last, he gave her what she’d been begging for. He was tremendous as he slowly entered the wet, spasming hole and she gasped from the pleasure. But then he teasingly slid out, eliciting a series of shrieks that seemed to have originated in the bowels of hell. It seemed an eternity before the devil finally provided her with the heaven for which she’d been praying.
Although the girl was carrying on as loudly as a houseful of whores at an orgy, none of the staff paid the noise any mind. They were so inured to the night sounds of the psycho ward that they probably didn’t even hear her; except for Clyde Daniels. It was Clyde’s first night as a hospital orderly and he just happened to be outside her room. The sex sounds drew him inside and the naked girl’s gyrations drove him nuts. He couldn’t see what was getting her so hot but he sure loved what he did see. “Wow,” he thought. “If this is what usually goes on in the nuthouse, I surely will love my job.” He remained in the room for the duration and became so aroused that he diddled himself right there.
Lucy was ravaged by her invisible lover every night for the next week and the horny orderly was right there to witness it each time, spilling his seed throughout the room. He was almost as bereft as she when the incubus’ visits ceased. He was tempted to couple with the girl himself, but the thought of fornicating with the now-comatose girl did not excite him nearly as much as the show he had been witnessing for the past seven days. He settled in to his rounds for the next few weeks, barely bothering to peek into her room.
“How could this happen,” the Director demanded.
“How could what happen, sir,” Dr. Ivins asked.
“The Ludlow girl is pregnant.”
Ivins blanched, thinking, in a panic, that it was he who had impregnated the girl. “It couldn’t have been me,” he suddenly realized. “I used protection.”
“We must get to the bottom of this,” the Director said. “Whoever took advantage of that poor thing must be punished.”
Because the murder of Lorraine Ludlow and the ensuing hospitalization of her daughter had been such a high profile story, the Director felt that it was of extreme importance to identify the rapist and bring him to justice before the media got hold of this new development. An elite team of investigators was hired. They immediately began interrogations and a thorough search for evidence. It wasn’t long before they discovered traces of sperm, which was easily identified as Clyde’s. The poor, dumb orderly was unable to explain to anybody’s satisfaction why his sperm was splattered all over the room; the investigators laughed as he tried to describe the girl’s steamy encounters with her ethereal lover and how, although he couldn’t control his libido, he never actually touched her. The orderly was arrested and charged with rape.
Lucy never again spoke to a mortal; she spent the next nine months in what the doctors described as a coma. Her empty eyes stared at the ceiling, drool ran down her chin, as she silently awaited the birth of her child. As before, she communicated only with Lucifer and other spirits of the nether world to which she belonged. As the days passed, her vibrancy waned; she seemed to be slowly fading away.
Finally, the day arrived. The monitors to which she’d been hooked began to whistle and beep like a video game gone haywire; lights flashed on and off so brightly that the room seemed engulfed by the most spectacular electrical storm in the history of the world. These were sounds and effects that had never been emitted by those machines. Alarmed, every nurse on the floor rushed to her bed where they found her with eyes spinning, teeth clenched and a guttural sound escaping through her locked jaws. Her body was being racked by ferocious contractions, occurring mere seconds apart. Her water had already broken. They rushed her into surgery and just seconds after the doctor and nurses finished scrubbing, she gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl, who loudly announced her entry into the world, screaming like the dickens.
Her task completed, life escaped from Lucy on the heels of the infant and her spirit returned to her rightful world, to reign as Princess of Darkness until the end of time. Her spawn was adopted by an unsuspecting young couple who took her home the following morning.
Lucy’s remains were carted away to the morgue as quickly as possible and the hospital staff put the memory of her behind them. The media downplayed her death, as well, marking her passing with a small story on the obituary page and a brief mention on the eleven o’clock news. The only person in East Texas who was affected by her death was Clyde Daniels. The rape charge against the hapless orderly was immediately upgraded to murder during the commission of rape and the poor boob was executed within a year.
The Devil's Daughter
Melvin Ludlow lay dead beneath a sweltering noon sun, a syrupy mixture of blood and brain fluid leaking from his shattered skull and simmering on the sizzling East Texas sidewalk.
“What happened,” asked a curious bystander.
“Cops blew his head off,” another replied.
“Damn shame. I wonder why?”
“Ain’t no shame, he deserved it,” said another. “He killed his wife. Snuck up on her and shot her in the back of the head.”
“Holy Christ,” the first bystander exclaimed. “I wonder why he would do such a thing.”
“Why? If you knew Melvin Ludlow you wouldn’t need to wonder. Sumbitch was meaner’n a rabid coyote. Anything could set that man off.”
“Ludlow was the devil,” said another fellow who knew him.
Lorraine Ludlow was a sympathetic victim if ever there was one. Quiet and unassuming, she was known as a kind, charitable woman who never had a bad word for anybody.
“Ms. Lorraine was a saint,” declared one of the men at the scene. “Had to be to put up with the likes of that devil.”
Lucy, the teenage daughter, was the one for whom everybody felt sorry. Quiet like her mother and pretty as a bluebonnet, the girl was found sitting silently, apparently in shock, by her dead mom’s side.
“It’s no wonder,” they said. “Imagine watching your old man murder your mom and then he is taken down by the cops. A young girl with two parents suddenly become an orphan in the blink of an eye. I don’t care how mean her dad was, it’s still a tragedy for the kid.”
Lucy was taken to a hospital where she was interviewed by Dr. Ivins, a competent and caring veteran of the hospital’s psychiatric staff. Dr. Ivins reported that the girl was catatonic for several hours before finally bursting into tears and opening up to the doctor.
“I’m happy my father is dead,” she sobbed. “I’ve hated that bastard for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was about eight, he’d been coming to my room at night and touching me in ways and places that I knew were wrong. He threatened to kill me if I told a soul.
“I didn’t say a word for years. I knew what that fiend was capable of doing and I feared for my life. I admit, though, as the years went by I would often look forward to daddy’s visits. I knew that I was somehow enticing him and that I must be an evil little witch but, god forgive me, daddy knew how to give me pleasure.”
The doctor’s heart was breaking as he listened to the poor girl’s tale of woe. He’d heard stories like this before, of course, but for some reason, he felt more sorry for this girl than for any abused child he’d encountered in the past.
“A few weeks ago,” Lucy continued, “I broke down and admitted to my mom what had been happening. I think she must have confronted him a couple days later because on that day he gave her one hell of a beating. I’m sure that the reason he killed her was because she threatened to go to the police. It’s my fault that she’s dead,” she cried. “It should have been me.”
“My dear,” said Dr. Ivins, “it is not your fault. I don’t mind saying it... your father was evil. It is beyond me how a grown man could take advantage of an innocent young lamb such as you.”
Her eyes flashed, angrily. “Evil? What does that even mean,” she demanded. “The thing about my father was that he was like most men; and most men are considered neither perverted nor evil, merely thoroughly and alarmingly normal.”
The young lady’s cynicism broke the doctor’s heart. “What kind of world is this that can turn such a beautiful young thing so scornful,” he thought.
Lucy resumed her pathetic sobbing and stared at the doctor through huge, tear-filled eyes. He stared back at the girl and, try as he might, he could not resist the lure of those beautiful, tortured eyes and her obvious plea for succor. “Oh, my,“ thought the good doctor, “this poor girl has gone through hell. I must comfort her, somehow. What shall I do?” The free-flowing tears and a sudden, sultry heat radiating from her genitals, drew him irresistibly toward her. Despite a lifetime of professionalism he reluctantly succumbed to an inappropriate urge to soothe her grief.
God forgive me,” he proclaimed as he took her in his arms and showered her with kisses. “Oh, you poor sweet child.” The girl yielded to his advances, pressing her pliant young body against his. The frenzied doctor did not notice the wicked smile that briefly flitted across her lips just as he commenced loving her. “Oh, my darling,” he blurted. “Oh my poor, sweet girl. Let me soothe you; let me help you forget that demon.”
Unfortunately, when he had finished comforting her, she seemed unrelieved and then she slipped back into catatonia.
She remained in that state for many days, alone in a dreary room. Hospital staff and the few visitors who found the time to stop by found her totally unresponsive and left her room with the sad feeling that the poor girl was doomed to life as a vegetable.
But they couldn’t be further from the truth. She was absolutely aware of what was going on and quite capable of responding if she had chosen to. These people bored her, though. She was on another plane, communicating, telepathically, with the one that she’d always considered to be the highest of beings.
“Lucifer,” she thought, “these fools blame my poor ‘father,’ thinking him the devil. Isn’t that a laugh?”
“It is amusing, my daughter but they just do not know. He is a devil, of course, but with quite limited awareness of his stature and little more than borderline power.”
“I’ve had him under my control for ages,” she bragged. “It was I who lured him to my bed. The idiot was so hesitant, absolutely unaware that he was not bound to adhere to the puritanical morals of the mortals with whom he had been chosen to mix.
“It was I, as well, who had him murder my mother. It would have injured our cause had she gone to the authorities once the dolt, Melvin, admitted that he had been sleeping with me. It was so easy,” she laughed. “He was like putty in my hands.”
“Don’t be too harsh on him, daughter. It is written that he would begin his existence as a corporeal being, blinded to his future by the veil of illusion, and would impregnate you with his seed. He should not be underestimated my dear; he is merely at the beginning of his apprenticeship. After several more visits to the physical world he will have gained awesome power and knowledge of his place in the universe; he will, as well, have developed the ability to effortlessly travel back and forth from our world to theirs. Ultimately, his power will be as great as your own and the power of the child that is to be produced through your union may exceed even my own.”
“Then, am I now impregnated by him, Lucifer?”
“I am afraid not, my daughter. It is his spirit that must come to you to complete the task.”
“And when am I to return to our own world?”
“Not until your child is born so that she may begin her apprenticeship on Earth.”
While Lucy was eager to return to her domain, she was curious as to how the union between Melvin and her would go. Despite all his human shortcomings and her desire to return to her true home in the spirit world, she relished the carnal pleasures that were available only to a corporeal being; and to be sure, Melvin had been a highly skillful lover with the ability to take her to such passionate heights that would leave her on the verge of delirium. Sex with a spirit, she reasoned might be even more thrilling... the ultimate erotic experience.
She called to him on her second day at the hospital and although he took his time responding to her summons, she knew that he would eventually obey; he was powerless to refuse. But his power to resist had increased greatly after his recent death. After a time, she grew impatient, yearning for his inevitable appearance, filled with the certainty that he would drive her to ecstasy. She grew restless in her anticipation of the pleasure that her phantom lover would provide, writhing in her expectation, like a bitch in heat.
Finally, the spirit came. Lucy neither saw, nor heard, its arrival. She was silently blanketed by a gentle breeze which enveloped her entire body with an impossibly pleasant warmth. Her breasts were caressed by what felt like an army of hands, lips and tongues, rendering her nipples so large, hard and sensitive that she felt they would explode. At the same time, invisible hands removed her nightie, rendering her beautifully naked. The hands stroked the inside of her thighs and she squirmed as she felt a hot wetness lubricating the place between her legs. She opened like a door and a phantom tongue went to work on her sex, so intensely arousing her that her pelvis proceeded to push paroxysmally. She moaned so loudly and pleaded for his piece so vehemently that it was a wonder the entire hospital staff did not come running to see what was happening.
At long last, he gave her what she’d been begging for. He was tremendous as he slowly entered the wet, spasming hole and she gasped from the pleasure. But then he teasingly slid out, eliciting a series of shrieks that seemed to have originated in the bowels of hell. It seemed an eternity before the devil finally provided her with the heaven for which she’d been praying.
Although the girl was carrying on as loudly as a houseful of whores at an orgy, none of the staff paid the noise any mind. They were so inured to the night sounds of the psycho ward that they probably didn’t even hear her; except for Clyde Daniels. It was Clyde’s first night as a hospital orderly and he just happened to be outside her room. The sex sounds drew him inside and the naked girl’s gyrations drove him nuts. He couldn’t see what was getting her so hot but he sure loved what he did see. “Wow,” he thought. “If this is what usually goes on in the nuthouse, I surely will love my job.” He remained in the room for the duration and became so aroused that he diddled himself right there.
Lucy was ravaged by her invisible lover every night for the next week and the horny orderly was right there to witness it each time, spilling his seed throughout the room. He was almost as bereft as she when the incubus’ visits ceased. He was tempted to couple with the girl himself, but the thought of fornicating with the now-comatose girl did not excite him nearly as much as the show he had been witnessing for the past seven days. He settled in to his rounds for the next few weeks, barely bothering to peek into her room.
“How could this happen,” the Director demanded.
“How could what happen, sir,” Dr. Ivins asked.
“The Ludlow girl is pregnant.”
Ivins blanched, thinking, in a panic, that it was he who had impregnated the girl. “It couldn’t have been me,” he suddenly realized. “I used protection.”
“We must get to the bottom of this,” the Director said. “Whoever took advantage of that poor thing must be punished.”
Because the murder of Lorraine Ludlow and the ensuing hospitalization of her daughter had been such a high profile story, the Director felt that it was of extreme importance to identify the rapist and bring him to justice before the media got hold of this new development. An elite team of investigators was hired. They immediately began interrogations and a thorough search for evidence. It wasn’t long before they discovered traces of sperm, which was easily identified as Clyde’s. The poor, dumb orderly was unable to explain to anybody’s satisfaction why his sperm was splattered all over the room; the investigators laughed as he tried to describe the girl’s steamy encounters with her ethereal lover and how, although he couldn’t control his libido, he never actually touched her. The orderly was arrested and charged with rape.
Lucy never again spoke to a mortal; she spent the next nine months in what the doctors described as a coma. Her empty eyes stared at the ceiling, drool ran down her chin, as she silently awaited the birth of her child. As before, she communicated only with Lucifer and other spirits of the nether world to which she belonged. As the days passed, her vibrancy waned; she seemed to be slowly fading away.
Finally, the day arrived. The monitors to which she’d been hooked began to whistle and beep like a video game gone haywire; lights flashed on and off so brightly that the room seemed engulfed by the most spectacular electrical storm in the history of the world. These were sounds and effects that had never been emitted by those machines. Alarmed, every nurse on the floor rushed to her bed where they found her with eyes spinning, teeth clenched and a guttural sound escaping through her locked jaws. Her body was being racked by ferocious contractions, occurring mere seconds apart. Her water had already broken. They rushed her into surgery and just seconds after the doctor and nurses finished scrubbing, she gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl, who loudly announced her entry into the world, screaming like the dickens.
Her task completed, life escaped from Lucy on the heels of the infant and her spirit returned to her rightful world, to reign as Princess of Darkness until the end of time. Her spawn was adopted by an unsuspecting young couple who took her home the following morning.
Lucy’s remains were carted away to the morgue as quickly as possible and the hospital staff put the memory of her behind them. The media downplayed her death, as well, marking her passing with a small story on the obituary page and a brief mention on the eleven o’clock news. The only person in East Texas who was affected by her death was Clyde Daniels. The rape charge against the hapless orderly was immediately upgraded to murder during the commission of rape and the poor boob was executed within a year.
“What happened,” asked a curious bystander.
“Cops blew his head off,” another replied.
“Damn shame. I wonder why?”
“Ain’t no shame, he deserved it,” said another. “He killed his wife. Snuck up on her and shot her in the back of the head.”
“Holy Christ,” the first bystander exclaimed. “I wonder why he would do such a thing.”
“Why? If you knew Melvin Ludlow you wouldn’t need to wonder. Sumbitch was meaner’n a rabid coyote. Anything could set that man off.”
“Ludlow was the devil,” said another fellow who knew him.
Lorraine Ludlow was a sympathetic victim if ever there was one. Quiet and unassuming, she was known as a kind, charitable woman who never had a bad word for anybody.
“Ms. Lorraine was a saint,” declared one of the men at the scene. “Had to be to put up with the likes of that devil.”
Lucy, the teenage daughter, was the one for whom everybody felt sorry. Quiet like her mother and pretty as a bluebonnet, the girl was found sitting silently, apparently in shock, by her dead mom’s side.
“It’s no wonder,” they said. “Imagine watching your old man murder your mom and then he is taken down by the cops. A young girl with two parents suddenly become an orphan in the blink of an eye. I don’t care how mean her dad was, it’s still a tragedy for the kid.”
Lucy was taken to a hospital where she was interviewed by Dr. Ivins, a competent and caring veteran of the hospital’s psychiatric staff. Dr. Ivins reported that the girl was catatonic for several hours before finally bursting into tears and opening up to the doctor.
“I’m happy my father is dead,” she sobbed. “I’ve hated that bastard for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was about eight, he’d been coming to my room at night and touching me in ways and places that I knew were wrong. He threatened to kill me if I told a soul.
“I didn’t say a word for years. I knew what that fiend was capable of doing and I feared for my life. I admit, though, as the years went by I would often look forward to daddy’s visits. I knew that I was somehow enticing him and that I must be an evil little witch but, god forgive me, daddy knew how to give me pleasure.”
The doctor’s heart was breaking as he listened to the poor girl’s tale of woe. He’d heard stories like this before, of course, but for some reason, he felt more sorry for this girl than for any abused child he’d encountered in the past.
“A few weeks ago,” Lucy continued, “I broke down and admitted to my mom what had been happening. I think she must have confronted him a couple days later because on that day he gave her one hell of a beating. I’m sure that the reason he killed her was because she threatened to go to the police. It’s my fault that she’s dead,” she cried. “It should have been me.”
“My dear,” said Dr. Ivins, “it is not your fault. I don’t mind saying it... your father was evil. It is beyond me how a grown man could take advantage of an innocent young lamb such as you.”
Her eyes flashed, angrily. “Evil? What does that even mean,” she demanded. “The thing about my father was that he was like most men; and most men are considered neither perverted nor evil, merely thoroughly and alarmingly normal.”
The young lady’s cynicism broke the doctor’s heart. “What kind of world is this that can turn such a beautiful young thing so scornful,” he thought.
Lucy resumed her pathetic sobbing and stared at the doctor through huge, tear-filled eyes. He stared back at the girl and, try as he might, he could not resist the lure of those beautiful, tortured eyes and her obvious plea for succor. “Oh, my,“ thought the good doctor, “this poor girl has gone through hell. I must comfort her, somehow. What shall I do?” The free-flowing tears and a sudden, sultry heat radiating from her genitals, drew him irresistibly toward her. Despite a lifetime of professionalism he reluctantly succumbed to an inappropriate urge to soothe her grief.
God forgive me,” he proclaimed as he took her in his arms and showered her with kisses. “Oh, you poor sweet child.” The girl yielded to his advances, pressing her pliant young body against his. The frenzied doctor did not notice the wicked smile that briefly flitted across her lips just as he commenced loving her. “Oh, my darling,” he blurted. “Oh my poor, sweet girl. Let me soothe you; let me help you forget that demon.”
Unfortunately, when he had finished comforting her, she seemed unrelieved and then she slipped back into catatonia.
She remained in that state for many days, alone in a dreary room. Hospital staff and the few visitors who found the time to stop by found her totally unresponsive and left her room with the sad feeling that the poor girl was doomed to life as a vegetable.
But they couldn’t be further from the truth. She was absolutely aware of what was going on and quite capable of responding if she had chosen to. These people bored her, though. She was on another plane, communicating, telepathically, with the one that she’d always considered to be the highest of beings.
“Lucifer,” she thought, “these fools blame my poor ‘father,’ thinking him the devil. Isn’t that a laugh?”
“It is amusing, my daughter but they just do not know. He is a devil, of course, but with quite limited awareness of his stature and little more than borderline power.”
“I’ve had him under my control for ages,” she bragged. “It was I who lured him to my bed. The idiot was so hesitant, absolutely unaware that he was not bound to adhere to the puritanical morals of the mortals with whom he had been chosen to mix.
“It was I, as well, who had him murder my mother. It would have injured our cause had she gone to the authorities once the dolt, Melvin, admitted that he had been sleeping with me. It was so easy,” she laughed. “He was like putty in my hands.”
“Don’t be too harsh on him, daughter. It is written that he would begin his existence as a corporeal being, blinded to his future by the veil of illusion, and would impregnate you with his seed. He should not be underestimated my dear; he is merely at the beginning of his apprenticeship. After several more visits to the physical world he will have gained awesome power and knowledge of his place in the universe; he will, as well, have developed the ability to effortlessly travel back and forth from our world to theirs. Ultimately, his power will be as great as your own and the power of the child that is to be produced through your union may exceed even my own.”
“Then, am I now impregnated by him, Lucifer?”
“I am afraid not, my daughter. It is his spirit that must come to you to complete the task.”
“And when am I to return to our own world?”
“Not until your child is born so that she may begin her apprenticeship on Earth.”
While Lucy was eager to return to her domain, she was curious as to how the union between Melvin and her would go. Despite all his human shortcomings and her desire to return to her true home in the spirit world, she relished the carnal pleasures that were available only to a corporeal being; and to be sure, Melvin had been a highly skillful lover with the ability to take her to such passionate heights that would leave her on the verge of delirium. Sex with a spirit, she reasoned might be even more thrilling... the ultimate erotic experience.
She called to him on her second day at the hospital and although he took his time responding to her summons, she knew that he would eventually obey; he was powerless to refuse. But his power to resist had increased greatly after his recent death. After a time, she grew impatient, yearning for his inevitable appearance, filled with the certainty that he would drive her to ecstasy. She grew restless in her anticipation of the pleasure that her phantom lover would provide, writhing in her expectation, like a bitch in heat.
Finally, the spirit came. Lucy neither saw, nor heard, its arrival. She was silently blanketed by a gentle breeze which enveloped her entire body with an impossibly pleasant warmth. Her breasts were caressed by what felt like an army of hands, lips and tongues, rendering her nipples so large, hard and sensitive that she felt they would explode. At the same time, invisible hands removed her nightie, rendering her beautifully naked. The hands stroked the inside of her thighs and she squirmed as she felt a hot wetness lubricating the place between her legs. She opened like a door and a phantom tongue went to work on her sex, so intensely arousing her that her pelvis proceeded to push paroxysmally. She moaned so loudly and pleaded for his piece so vehemently that it was a wonder the entire hospital staff did not come running to see what was happening.
At long last, he gave her what she’d been begging for. He was tremendous as he slowly entered the wet, spasming hole and she gasped from the pleasure. But then he teasingly slid out, eliciting a series of shrieks that seemed to have originated in the bowels of hell. It seemed an eternity before the devil finally provided her with the heaven for which she’d been praying.
Although the girl was carrying on as loudly as a houseful of whores at an orgy, none of the staff paid the noise any mind. They were so inured to the night sounds of the psycho ward that they probably didn’t even hear her; except for Clyde Daniels. It was Clyde’s first night as a hospital orderly and he just happened to be outside her room. The sex sounds drew him inside and the naked girl’s gyrations drove him nuts. He couldn’t see what was getting her so hot but he sure loved what he did see. “Wow,” he thought. “If this is what usually goes on in the nuthouse, I surely will love my job.” He remained in the room for the duration and became so aroused that he diddled himself right there.
Lucy was ravaged by her invisible lover every night for the next week and the horny orderly was right there to witness it each time, spilling his seed throughout the room. He was almost as bereft as she when the incubus’ visits ceased. He was tempted to couple with the girl himself, but the thought of fornicating with the now-comatose girl did not excite him nearly as much as the show he had been witnessing for the past seven days. He settled in to his rounds for the next few weeks, barely bothering to peek into her room.
“How could this happen,” the Director demanded.
“How could what happen, sir,” Dr. Ivins asked.
“The Ludlow girl is pregnant.”
Ivins blanched, thinking, in a panic, that it was he who had impregnated the girl. “It couldn’t have been me,” he suddenly realized. “I used protection.”
“We must get to the bottom of this,” the Director said. “Whoever took advantage of that poor thing must be punished.”
Because the murder of Lorraine Ludlow and the ensuing hospitalization of her daughter had been such a high profile story, the Director felt that it was of extreme importance to identify the rapist and bring him to justice before the media got hold of this new development. An elite team of investigators was hired. They immediately began interrogations and a thorough search for evidence. It wasn’t long before they discovered traces of sperm, which was easily identified as Clyde’s. The poor, dumb orderly was unable to explain to anybody’s satisfaction why his sperm was splattered all over the room; the investigators laughed as he tried to describe the girl’s steamy encounters with her ethereal lover and how, although he couldn’t control his libido, he never actually touched her. The orderly was arrested and charged with rape.
Lucy never again spoke to a mortal; she spent the next nine months in what the doctors described as a coma. Her empty eyes stared at the ceiling, drool ran down her chin, as she silently awaited the birth of her child. As before, she communicated only with Lucifer and other spirits of the nether world to which she belonged. As the days passed, her vibrancy waned; she seemed to be slowly fading away.
Finally, the day arrived. The monitors to which she’d been hooked began to whistle and beep like a video game gone haywire; lights flashed on and off so brightly that the room seemed engulfed by the most spectacular electrical storm in the history of the world. These were sounds and effects that had never been emitted by those machines. Alarmed, every nurse on the floor rushed to her bed where they found her with eyes spinning, teeth clenched and a guttural sound escaping through her locked jaws. Her body was being racked by ferocious contractions, occurring mere seconds apart. Her water had already broken. They rushed her into surgery and just seconds after the doctor and nurses finished scrubbing, she gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl, who loudly announced her entry into the world, screaming like the dickens.
Her task completed, life escaped from Lucy on the heels of the infant and her spirit returned to her rightful world, to reign as Princess of Darkness until the end of time. Her spawn was adopted by an unsuspecting young couple who took her home the following morning.
Lucy’s remains were carted away to the morgue as quickly as possible and the hospital staff put the memory of her behind them. The media downplayed her death, as well, marking her passing with a small story on the obituary page and a brief mention on the eleven o’clock news. The only person in East Texas who was affected by her death was Clyde Daniels. The rape charge against the hapless orderly was immediately upgraded to murder during the commission of rape and the poor boob was executed within a year.
September 9, 2013
A Rainy Night's Romance
“I wish you wouldn’t go out with him, honey.”
“Oh, Mom,” Rae replied. “What have you got against him?”
“I have nothing against him. He’s just not right for you, is all.”
Rae knew why he was “not right for her.”
“Talyainica,” she had heard her mom mutter disapprovingly over the phone to her friend. Italian.
“Honey,” you’re too good for him. You can do much better than that.”
“It’s because he’s not Jewish, mom. That’s why you disapprove.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” was her emphatic reply. “I don’t care at all about his religion.”
“Just for your information, he may not be Jewish but he’s not Christian either; or anything else. He has no religion; or all religions. He’s just a man of the world.”
Her little sister, Lee, piped in with a laugh... “‘man of the world?’ How about ‘man of another world, or man of Bizarro World; man of the Underworld?’”
“Shut up twerp!”
“You shut me up!”
“Both of you girls be quiet,” Mom warned. “And if you must know, I disapprove because he’s too old for you.”
“What? He’s not old.”
“Right,” Lee laughed. “He’s ageless.”
“That’s enough, Lee,” Mom warned. “ And why do you have to drive, Rae? Since when does the girl pick up the boy, or in this case, man, for a date?”
“Oh, you know Angelo doesn’t have a car. I’m not sure he even has a license.”
“Well, have a good time, honey; and be careful with this guy.”
“Nothing to worry about, Mom. He’s a perfect angel.”
“The Angel of Death, maybe,” Lee said, just loudly enough for Rae to hear. Nobody heard her chuckle, as she was drowned out by a sudden rumble of thunder.
Rae waved goodbye over her shoulder and stepped out into a light drizzle as she walked to her car.
“It’s a good thing that Mom never met him,” she thought. “Then she’d really be against him. I think she thinks that he’s about twenty-one; god forbid if she finds out that he’s over thirty.
“I don’t care about his age, though. He looks and often acts like he’s twenty-one and I can’t even describe how much fun he is to be with.”
It may seem strange that a teenager could so enjoy the company of a thirty year old but some things defy explanation. She was intoxicated by the man as if he were fine wine, filling her senses and accentuating her thirst for life.”
Angelo was waiting outside his house as Rae pulled the car up to the curb. He looked so handsome, dressed all in black, as usual. Tonight he had added a black, hooded cape; to ward off the rain, she supposed. It made him look suave, she felt, but then, with a touch of annoyance, she thought, “that’s a weird thing for a man to wear in this day and age.” She quickly stopped being annoyed when he slid into the passenger seat, took her hand and gave it a tender kiss.
“That’s why I like this guy,” she thought. “It’s not often that you find such sophistication in a man.”
What did she know of sophistication? She was a seventeen-year-old high school student in a mid-sized town, who had never before dated any boy who had finished high school. In fact, she’d dated very few boys at all. She found them to be narrow-minded and boring; interested only in football, sex and beer. Not too many boys were interested in her either, even though she was an honor student and one of the prettiest girls in the school. The word was that she was a stuck up little bitch who felt that she was too good for the guys at school. When she’d met Angelo at the local Starbuck’s and he’d shown interest, she’d been immediately swept off her feet. He was a good looking, grown man who, therefore, was overflowing with sophistication. When he’d mentioned that he was born in Italy, traveled the world for business, and made his permanent home in New York City, that had really clinched it for her.
“What type of business are you in?” she had asked him a couple of times.
“Oh, travel,” he would answer vaguely.
Incredibly, Angelo seemed able to telepathically direct her actions. It seemed that anything he wanted her to do, he could just look into her eyes and, without speaking, beam a command into her head and she would obey. For sport, he enjoyed causing her to perform irrational, death-defying stunts which she would never have done on her own. Just the other day, she realized, only after narrowly avoiding being run down by a speeding sports car, that the two of them were running across the Turnpike in their bare feet. After reaching the other side, she noticed a strange look of pleasure on Angelo’s face. She, on the other hand, felt like puking. Angelo just played it off, pretending that he’d had nothing to do with her dangerous impulse, but he obviously enjoyed her recklessness. “I can’t believe we just did that,” he laughed. Rae laughed, as well, but was inwardly puzzled. “I can’t believe I just did that either. What was I thinking?”
Another time she suddenly found herself balancing precariously on one foot at the edge of Wolf’s Cliff without knowing how she got there. “What am I doing?” she asked herself in a panic when she suddenly realized where she was; but the joyful look on Angelo’s face calmed her down and made her believe that the daredevil feat was her own idea. She declared that if he’d appreciated it so much, she would not hesitate to do it again.
Most of her friends envied her good fortune in being “picked” by this guy. A few, though, claimed that they didn’t understand how she could go out with a guy who was so old that he probably had one foot in the grave.
“You’re just jealous,” she told those so-called friends, dismissively. “You’d give up the rest of your lives to go out with Angelo.”
After he settled into the passenger seat of the car, they drove to “The Stairway To Heaven,” a chic club that featured great music and top shelf liquor. She’d never been to a place like this before, being only seventeen. Tonight, she was not even carded... just another advantage of dating a grown man. The band was awesome and Rae felt she could boogie all night to their hard-driving blues-rock tunes.
Angelo was a great date. He was well-mannered and suave and knew how to have a good time. She couldn’t understand, though, why he felt so cold whenever they embraced, when it was so hot in this place. She was overheated and sweaty while he was as cool as a corpse.
After a time, Rae began to feel a little funny, like she was rip-roaring drunk. That was weird since she could only remember drinking water; maybe a glass of wine or two when she’d first arrived, taking advantage of her unchallenged access to alcohol.
It had become quite loud and terribly hot in this place and she was beginning to sweat profusely. The noise level seemed to have risen by several decibels and the people around her appeared to be moving at a dizzying pace. A couple of times she lost her balance and stumbled and when Angelo asked if she was alright, she had a little bit of trouble forming the words in her mouth. Instead, she nodded her head and fell into his arms, pleasantly surprised at how soothing his cool embrace felt against her steaming skin.
“We’d better get you out of here,” Angelo said. “Will you be okay to drive?”
She nodded her head and clumsily got behind the wheel. She leaned over and kissed Angelo deeply before starting the car and then drove slowly and carefully in the pouring rain, to his house.
When she got out of the car, she felt even drunker than before. She didn’t remember the bottle of vodka they had shared on the way. Angelo had merely stared into her eyes and she’d developed a sudden urge for a drink. “I don’t know, honey,” he’d said when she told him that she needed a shot or two. “You shouldn’t drink and drive.” However, he’d dutifully bought a bottle at the first liquor store that they saw.
The moment they entered his house she was overcome with desire for him and determined that she must sleep with him tonight. He had not made a move, merely stared with his beautiful black eyes.
“What am I thinking,” she thought fleetingly. “I’m a virgin and I’ve always planned on remaining one while I was a teen.
“Fuck that,” she decided. “I want this man and I want him now.”
She raced into his arms and tore off his clothes as they fell onto his bed, her body burning within his cold arms.
“Oh! Oh!” she screamed as she climaxed. “Oh, I’m dying, I’m dying!”
“I know,” Angelo replied, cooly.
“Angelo,” she cooed in the afterglow. “I’ll be yours forever.”
“Yes, Rae,” was his cryptic reply. “Yes, you will.”
“Oh, gosh, look at the time. I’ve got to get home,” Rae declared in a panic. “My mom will be pissed.”
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
“Yeah, no problem. It’s been hours since I’ve had anything to drink,” she replied, forgetting the strong drinks they had shared after making love.
“Okay,” he said. “But I’ll go home with you, just to make sure that you’re alright.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” she said as she got out of bed to dress, momentarily losing her balance and falling back onto the bed. She wanted desperately to return to his arms but remembered the time and placed her desire on hold.
“I don’t understand,” she thought as she staggered to her car in the thunderstorm. “I haven’t been drinking. Why do I feel even drunker than I did before?
“It must be love,” she decided.
“It’s nasty out here,” Angelo said. “You’d better come back inside.”
“No, I can’t,” she replied. “I’ve got to get home.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a smile as he got into the car.
Rae was driving much faster than she was used to doing despite the storm.
“Slow down, Rae,” Angelo advised with that strange little smile on his lips. He didn’t really mean it; he was enjoying the speed.
“Don’t worry,” she replied, thickly. “I’m in complete control.”
Actually, of course, she was not; but the speed was exhilarating and she was feeling invincible after a night of love-making with the man that she adored. Normally a cautious young lady, she would never be able to explain her uncharacteristic recklessness. She was just intoxicated by the night’s events, she supposed.
Suddenly, a deafening blast of thunder roared through the stormy sky and shook the ground below, startling the reckless driver. “Look out,” Angelo said, calmly, that spooky smile spreading across his pale face. The speeding car skidded around a rain-slicked curve and slammed headlong into a tree, its front end folding like an accordion and its windshield shattering into tiny shards, sparkling like gems in the glow of the street lights.
“Angelo,” Rae moaned before giving up the ghost. As her soul left her body and floated towards the sky, Angelo, who was known to his peers in heaven as Samael, floated alongside. Still smiling his spooky smile, he proclaimed proudly to those fellow angels, “this job was a difficult one but I certainly enjoyed getting it done.”
“Oh, Mom,” Rae replied. “What have you got against him?”
“I have nothing against him. He’s just not right for you, is all.”
Rae knew why he was “not right for her.”
“Talyainica,” she had heard her mom mutter disapprovingly over the phone to her friend. Italian.
“Honey,” you’re too good for him. You can do much better than that.”
“It’s because he’s not Jewish, mom. That’s why you disapprove.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” was her emphatic reply. “I don’t care at all about his religion.”
“Just for your information, he may not be Jewish but he’s not Christian either; or anything else. He has no religion; or all religions. He’s just a man of the world.”
Her little sister, Lee, piped in with a laugh... “‘man of the world?’ How about ‘man of another world, or man of Bizarro World; man of the Underworld?’”
“Shut up twerp!”
“You shut me up!”
“Both of you girls be quiet,” Mom warned. “And if you must know, I disapprove because he’s too old for you.”
“What? He’s not old.”
“Right,” Lee laughed. “He’s ageless.”
“That’s enough, Lee,” Mom warned. “ And why do you have to drive, Rae? Since when does the girl pick up the boy, or in this case, man, for a date?”
“Oh, you know Angelo doesn’t have a car. I’m not sure he even has a license.”
“Well, have a good time, honey; and be careful with this guy.”
“Nothing to worry about, Mom. He’s a perfect angel.”
“The Angel of Death, maybe,” Lee said, just loudly enough for Rae to hear. Nobody heard her chuckle, as she was drowned out by a sudden rumble of thunder.
Rae waved goodbye over her shoulder and stepped out into a light drizzle as she walked to her car.
“It’s a good thing that Mom never met him,” she thought. “Then she’d really be against him. I think she thinks that he’s about twenty-one; god forbid if she finds out that he’s over thirty.
“I don’t care about his age, though. He looks and often acts like he’s twenty-one and I can’t even describe how much fun he is to be with.”
It may seem strange that a teenager could so enjoy the company of a thirty year old but some things defy explanation. She was intoxicated by the man as if he were fine wine, filling her senses and accentuating her thirst for life.”
Angelo was waiting outside his house as Rae pulled the car up to the curb. He looked so handsome, dressed all in black, as usual. Tonight he had added a black, hooded cape; to ward off the rain, she supposed. It made him look suave, she felt, but then, with a touch of annoyance, she thought, “that’s a weird thing for a man to wear in this day and age.” She quickly stopped being annoyed when he slid into the passenger seat, took her hand and gave it a tender kiss.
“That’s why I like this guy,” she thought. “It’s not often that you find such sophistication in a man.”
What did she know of sophistication? She was a seventeen-year-old high school student in a mid-sized town, who had never before dated any boy who had finished high school. In fact, she’d dated very few boys at all. She found them to be narrow-minded and boring; interested only in football, sex and beer. Not too many boys were interested in her either, even though she was an honor student and one of the prettiest girls in the school. The word was that she was a stuck up little bitch who felt that she was too good for the guys at school. When she’d met Angelo at the local Starbuck’s and he’d shown interest, she’d been immediately swept off her feet. He was a good looking, grown man who, therefore, was overflowing with sophistication. When he’d mentioned that he was born in Italy, traveled the world for business, and made his permanent home in New York City, that had really clinched it for her.
“What type of business are you in?” she had asked him a couple of times.
“Oh, travel,” he would answer vaguely.
Incredibly, Angelo seemed able to telepathically direct her actions. It seemed that anything he wanted her to do, he could just look into her eyes and, without speaking, beam a command into her head and she would obey. For sport, he enjoyed causing her to perform irrational, death-defying stunts which she would never have done on her own. Just the other day, she realized, only after narrowly avoiding being run down by a speeding sports car, that the two of them were running across the Turnpike in their bare feet. After reaching the other side, she noticed a strange look of pleasure on Angelo’s face. She, on the other hand, felt like puking. Angelo just played it off, pretending that he’d had nothing to do with her dangerous impulse, but he obviously enjoyed her recklessness. “I can’t believe we just did that,” he laughed. Rae laughed, as well, but was inwardly puzzled. “I can’t believe I just did that either. What was I thinking?”
Another time she suddenly found herself balancing precariously on one foot at the edge of Wolf’s Cliff without knowing how she got there. “What am I doing?” she asked herself in a panic when she suddenly realized where she was; but the joyful look on Angelo’s face calmed her down and made her believe that the daredevil feat was her own idea. She declared that if he’d appreciated it so much, she would not hesitate to do it again.
Most of her friends envied her good fortune in being “picked” by this guy. A few, though, claimed that they didn’t understand how she could go out with a guy who was so old that he probably had one foot in the grave.
“You’re just jealous,” she told those so-called friends, dismissively. “You’d give up the rest of your lives to go out with Angelo.”
After he settled into the passenger seat of the car, they drove to “The Stairway To Heaven,” a chic club that featured great music and top shelf liquor. She’d never been to a place like this before, being only seventeen. Tonight, she was not even carded... just another advantage of dating a grown man. The band was awesome and Rae felt she could boogie all night to their hard-driving blues-rock tunes.
Angelo was a great date. He was well-mannered and suave and knew how to have a good time. She couldn’t understand, though, why he felt so cold whenever they embraced, when it was so hot in this place. She was overheated and sweaty while he was as cool as a corpse.
After a time, Rae began to feel a little funny, like she was rip-roaring drunk. That was weird since she could only remember drinking water; maybe a glass of wine or two when she’d first arrived, taking advantage of her unchallenged access to alcohol.
It had become quite loud and terribly hot in this place and she was beginning to sweat profusely. The noise level seemed to have risen by several decibels and the people around her appeared to be moving at a dizzying pace. A couple of times she lost her balance and stumbled and when Angelo asked if she was alright, she had a little bit of trouble forming the words in her mouth. Instead, she nodded her head and fell into his arms, pleasantly surprised at how soothing his cool embrace felt against her steaming skin.
“We’d better get you out of here,” Angelo said. “Will you be okay to drive?”
She nodded her head and clumsily got behind the wheel. She leaned over and kissed Angelo deeply before starting the car and then drove slowly and carefully in the pouring rain, to his house.
When she got out of the car, she felt even drunker than before. She didn’t remember the bottle of vodka they had shared on the way. Angelo had merely stared into her eyes and she’d developed a sudden urge for a drink. “I don’t know, honey,” he’d said when she told him that she needed a shot or two. “You shouldn’t drink and drive.” However, he’d dutifully bought a bottle at the first liquor store that they saw.
The moment they entered his house she was overcome with desire for him and determined that she must sleep with him tonight. He had not made a move, merely stared with his beautiful black eyes.
“What am I thinking,” she thought fleetingly. “I’m a virgin and I’ve always planned on remaining one while I was a teen.
“Fuck that,” she decided. “I want this man and I want him now.”
She raced into his arms and tore off his clothes as they fell onto his bed, her body burning within his cold arms.
“Oh! Oh!” she screamed as she climaxed. “Oh, I’m dying, I’m dying!”
“I know,” Angelo replied, cooly.
“Angelo,” she cooed in the afterglow. “I’ll be yours forever.”
“Yes, Rae,” was his cryptic reply. “Yes, you will.”
“Oh, gosh, look at the time. I’ve got to get home,” Rae declared in a panic. “My mom will be pissed.”
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
“Yeah, no problem. It’s been hours since I’ve had anything to drink,” she replied, forgetting the strong drinks they had shared after making love.
“Okay,” he said. “But I’ll go home with you, just to make sure that you’re alright.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” she said as she got out of bed to dress, momentarily losing her balance and falling back onto the bed. She wanted desperately to return to his arms but remembered the time and placed her desire on hold.
“I don’t understand,” she thought as she staggered to her car in the thunderstorm. “I haven’t been drinking. Why do I feel even drunker than I did before?
“It must be love,” she decided.
“It’s nasty out here,” Angelo said. “You’d better come back inside.”
“No, I can’t,” she replied. “I’ve got to get home.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a smile as he got into the car.
Rae was driving much faster than she was used to doing despite the storm.
“Slow down, Rae,” Angelo advised with that strange little smile on his lips. He didn’t really mean it; he was enjoying the speed.
“Don’t worry,” she replied, thickly. “I’m in complete control.”
Actually, of course, she was not; but the speed was exhilarating and she was feeling invincible after a night of love-making with the man that she adored. Normally a cautious young lady, she would never be able to explain her uncharacteristic recklessness. She was just intoxicated by the night’s events, she supposed.
Suddenly, a deafening blast of thunder roared through the stormy sky and shook the ground below, startling the reckless driver. “Look out,” Angelo said, calmly, that spooky smile spreading across his pale face. The speeding car skidded around a rain-slicked curve and slammed headlong into a tree, its front end folding like an accordion and its windshield shattering into tiny shards, sparkling like gems in the glow of the street lights.
“Angelo,” Rae moaned before giving up the ghost. As her soul left her body and floated towards the sky, Angelo, who was known to his peers in heaven as Samael, floated alongside. Still smiling his spooky smile, he proclaimed proudly to those fellow angels, “this job was a difficult one but I certainly enjoyed getting it done.”
August 11, 2013
Lilith
I first met her at a funeral. My mom’s uncle had passed and although we’d hardly known him, Mom felt that it was important to pay our respects to a family member.
The girl sat by herself in the very center of the last pew although there was plenty of room closer to the front. She didn’t look at all familiar and I occupied myself throughout the long service by dreaming up various explanations of her identity. The one that I kept coming back to was that she was the teenage mistress of the deceased.
Most of the mourners milled about the anteroom after the service, reacquainting themselves with each other and filling the room with small talk; basically killing time until the trip to the cemetery. The girl stood apart from the small crowd, speaking with nobody and appearing to be just an outside observer. I approached her with the intent of making her feel more comfortable.
From a nearer distance, she looked somewhat unusual. Certainly, her long black velvet dress seemed appropriate for a funeral, but the klunky boots? Not so much. Her raven-colored hair, spiky at the top, bangs in the front, fell nearly to the small of her back, just above a large lace ribbon which was tied in a bow at the back of the dress. I was somehow entranced by the ribbon, wondering what would happen if I were to untie it. She turned as I approached and this is really where she appeared to me to be not quite right. She had a piercing in her nose, another at her right eyebrow and two in her lower lip. The two silver rings in her lip contrasted sharply with the black lipstick. Her coal-black eyes were outlined with black eyeliner and met my face with an empty stare when I greeted her.
“Hi, I’m Robert,” I said, and held out my hand.
“Lilith,” she whispered as she removed a black opera glove to reveal a thin white arm. She briefly pressed my outstretched hand with a graceful hand of her own, which despite the glove, was quite cold. I noticed, of course, that her fingernails were painted black.
“How did you know Uncle Bill,” I asked, smiling as I recalled my little fantasy.
She merely smiled back at me and replaced the glove. She shrugged her shoulders and turned to leave, saying nothing as she walked out the door.
When it rains it pours. Two months later I found myself at another funeral. This time it was for a cousin on my father’s side. Mom and I joined my estranged dad at the church and we were fortunate to find a place to sit in the crowded little chapel. This was a more emotional affair than Uncle Bill’s funeral. Dad’s side of the family had always been more passionate and demonstrative than Mom’s; and the deceased was a young woman who had died in a car accident. There was more wailing in that room than at a nursery whose staff had forgotten lunchtime. I don’t mean to make light of the grief. My cousin was a beautiful girl who had been prematurely cut down in a gruesome wreck. To make matters worse, the other driver was drunk and had walked away with nary a scratch. Although my cousin and I hadn’t been close, I, too, was moved to tears.
Near the end of the service, I happened to turn towards the back of the chapel. I was surprised to see, standing just apart from a group of mourners against the back wall, Lilith. She looked just as she had the last time I’d seen her except that her jet black hair now included numerous streaks of blood-red; the severe bangs that had covered her forehead had been trimmed into asymmetrical layers that nearly covered her left eye. Her new hairstyle was completed with the addition of a side pony-tail above her right temple. It was a unique look, to say the least, but I have to admit that I found it to be somewhat provocative.
When I joined her at the conclusion of the service and said hello, I could not ascertain if she remembered me. She seemed a little confused when we shook hands and once again addressed me with that vacant stare.
“Robert,” I reminded her.
“Yes,” she replied, uncertainly.
“We met at my uncle’s funeral a couple of months ago.”
“That’s right,” she declared, giving me no clue as to whether she remembered.
She did not disagree that it was a coincidence that we’d met at two of my relatives’ funerals and was quite vague about how she knew my cousin. She abruptly said goodbye and walked out the door. I shook my head in befuddlement and watched her as she crossed the street, noticing for the first time how rythmically her hips swayed when she walked.
“Please, Robert, do it for me. I think you would enjoy it anyway.”
Mom was trying to convince me, a few weeks later, to call the daughter of her newest friend.
She was always trying to set me up with blind dates. I guess she was under the impression that I needed help finding a girl. Actually, I did okay for myself and I felt that the process of meeting somebody on your own and getting to know her was a lot more exciting than being thrown together with a stranger who had a better than even chance of being a loser.
“Mom, you know how I hate blind dates,” I complained. “Why did you tell Mrs. Parker that I would do it?”
“Because this girl sounds perfect for you. You know how much I like Mrs. Parker and if her daughter is anything like her you’ll have a great time. Mrs. Parker is one of the most interesting people I know and, of course, stunningly beautiful. She says that Elizabeth looks like her and is extremely intelligent. The only reason she doesn’t have a boyfriend, I’m sure, is because she’s only lived in this city for less than a year.
“And in addition,” she said with a wink, “Elizabeth has her own apartment.”
So, I called this Elizabeth and made a date for that Friday evening.
She finally opened the door after my fourth set of knocks. “Hello, Robert,” she whispered with a small smile. My confusion must have shown because her smile became a little larger.
“Lilith? What are you doing here?”
“Why, I live here, of course.”
“Oh,” I replied, feeling stupid as it finally dawned on me. “I didn’t realize that Elizabeth had a roommate.”
“She doesn’t,” Lilith laughed. “I’m Elizabeth. I mean, my mom named me Elizabeth but I’ve always hated that name. Lilith is a more appropriate name for me, don’t you think?”
After a moment’s consideration, I agreed.
She invited me in and I had to adjust to a different reality. Some weird song called “Bela Lugosi is Dead” was playing on the stereo. No lights were on in the black-walled apartment; it was lighted by dozens of candles, and the room was filled with a sweet aroma, like the incense they burn in church.
“What is that scent,” I asked, politely.
“Oh, that’s frankincense,” she replied. “It drives away mosquitoes.”
“It’s also used at funerals to cover the stink of the dead,” I muttered to myself.
As my eyes adjusted to the candle light, I saw that she was, once again, dressed all in black; this time, in laughably stark contrast to my khaki slacks and blazer, she wore a black tee shirt, illustrated in front with a pink pentagram, and a pair of black cut-off shorts which revealed long, shapely legs, the color of virgin snow. Strangely, she still wore her opera gloves.
I had to admit that she was pretty despite the piercings and the black makeup and her decidedly informal approach to dressing for a date. As promised, she was also very intelligent and had a keen, if macabre, sense of humor. And despite her hard, all-black look, I could sense her fragility and I felt an inexplicable urge to protect her.
I questioned that urge, though, when she mockingly suggested that I was dressed well enough to be laid out in a coffin. I was about to walk out in a huff but she sweet-talked me into staying.
We just hung out in the apartment and before I knew it, it was past midnight and time for me to go.
We hung out again a few days later, and again a few days after that. By now I’d gotten used to her quirky fashion sense. I didn’t think twice about her piercings except to wonder what other parts of her were pierced; and the makeup...well, it didn’t bother me. I only had trouble getting used to the gloves that she constantly wore.
There were some weird surprises. When I asked how she had known my relatives at whose funerals we’d met, she admitted that she’d never known them. “I just like going to funerals,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Funerals and graveyards.”
“Why,” I asked, astonished by her strange revelation.
“Because they make me feel at home.”
One day I finally seduced her into removing the gloves. My heart sank when I saw her bare arms. The slender limbs were covered with scabs and tiny scars.
“Oh, Lilith,” I said. “Why?”
“It’s no big deal,” she replied in a spiritless whisper. “It’s just that sometimes I get to feeling dead inside. I cut myself to see if I still feel; to see if I’m alive.”
After a few months, we were going strong. We were together nearly every day and I had never before had such feelings for anyone as I now had for her. She had undergone a metamorphosis. She was obviously happier, more confident and a little less weird. She smiled more often and instead of that dull, dark stare, her black eyes now shone as brightly as halogen headlights.
For my part, I’d become less conservative in dress and in attitude. While I did not yet have the fashion instincts of a Goth, I at least did not arrive at her apartment dressed like a stockbroker. I had learned to appreciate the unusual and I no longer thought of her as weird.
“It’s been exactly three months since I last cut myself,” she said proudly one evening. “And it’s all because of you.”
“You’re giving me way too much credit,” I answered, “and yourself, too little.”
"No, Robert, you deserve the credit. You’re the first person in the world that has ever made me feel this happy."
She still loved to attend funerals, though. She convinced me to accompany her to a couple but I found it creepy and gave it up. I did, however, enjoy our outings to cemeteries. We would walk hand in hand through the graveyards, reading the inscriptions on the stones and making up stories about the folks who were buried beneath them. It was fascinating to see some of the gravestones from more than a hundred years ago. It was like a history lesson minus the traditional classroom.
Sometimes, we went at night.These dates were both spooky and romantic. It was during a nocturnal outing to a graveyard behind an eighteenth century church that she first gave herself to me, on the floor of an old mausoleum.
As the relationship progressed, I began to feel that we were meant to spend our lives together. I began to drop occasional hints about marriage but although she never exactly discounted the idea, she always seemed to ignore my hints or change the subject.
“Let’s just enjoy life while we’re young, Robert,” she said once when I did a little more than hint. She spent the rest of the day in an irrational sulk.
Gradually, her demeanor darkened again and she seemed to be drifting away. She made more frequent visits to funerals and I suspected that she’d been making covert trips to graveyards, as well. Absurdly, I felt pangs of jealousy when I thought of her alone with the buried dead, as if she’d taken other lovers.
At least, there were no fresh cuts on her arms.
“What’s wrong Lilith,” I asked one night.
“Nothing. I’m just a little depressed. I’ll be twenty-one soon and that will be the end of my youth.”
I laughed, despite myself. “Twenty-one is old? Please!”
“Robert, don’t laugh at me,” she cried, and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door in my face.
Yes, she would soon be twenty-one and I planned a large celebration. I had twenty-one small gifts picked out, the last of them a diamond engagement ring for which I’d taken out a loan. I planned to give her the gifts as soon as I arrived and then we would go out for a fancy dinner. Perhaps it would all lead to a trip to the cemetery.
I tried my hardest to get her excited about the landmark event but the best I could get was an occasional smile.
The big day finally arrived. I got to her place at seven, as planned. She didn’t answer the door when I knocked but that was not unusual, so I let myself in. I found her in her bed, dressed, uncharacteristically, in a formal white gown. An arm dangled from the side of the bed and her ebony eyes were half-closed. She was barely conscious. An empty pill bottle stood on her nightstand next to a full one.
“Oh, Robert,” she whispered, more inaudibly than usual, “I’m sorry to be leaving you but twenty-one is the time for me to go. I’m no longer a child and have lived as long as I’ve always planned. I know that you wanted to marry me and that you bought me a ring. That’s why I’m wearing white tonight; consider this my wedding dress and tonight our wedding night. I’ll be your bride for eternity.
“Do you see the bottle of pills on the nightstand? That is my wedding gift to you. Live happily for as long as you desire and when you’ve had enough, let the pills take you to me so that we may be together forever in the next world. Until we meet again, those pills will be our bond.”
With that, her eyes fluttered and closed and she breathed her last breath, dying with a spooky smile on her face.
The girl sat by herself in the very center of the last pew although there was plenty of room closer to the front. She didn’t look at all familiar and I occupied myself throughout the long service by dreaming up various explanations of her identity. The one that I kept coming back to was that she was the teenage mistress of the deceased.
Most of the mourners milled about the anteroom after the service, reacquainting themselves with each other and filling the room with small talk; basically killing time until the trip to the cemetery. The girl stood apart from the small crowd, speaking with nobody and appearing to be just an outside observer. I approached her with the intent of making her feel more comfortable.
From a nearer distance, she looked somewhat unusual. Certainly, her long black velvet dress seemed appropriate for a funeral, but the klunky boots? Not so much. Her raven-colored hair, spiky at the top, bangs in the front, fell nearly to the small of her back, just above a large lace ribbon which was tied in a bow at the back of the dress. I was somehow entranced by the ribbon, wondering what would happen if I were to untie it. She turned as I approached and this is really where she appeared to me to be not quite right. She had a piercing in her nose, another at her right eyebrow and two in her lower lip. The two silver rings in her lip contrasted sharply with the black lipstick. Her coal-black eyes were outlined with black eyeliner and met my face with an empty stare when I greeted her.
“Hi, I’m Robert,” I said, and held out my hand.
“Lilith,” she whispered as she removed a black opera glove to reveal a thin white arm. She briefly pressed my outstretched hand with a graceful hand of her own, which despite the glove, was quite cold. I noticed, of course, that her fingernails were painted black.
“How did you know Uncle Bill,” I asked, smiling as I recalled my little fantasy.
She merely smiled back at me and replaced the glove. She shrugged her shoulders and turned to leave, saying nothing as she walked out the door.
When it rains it pours. Two months later I found myself at another funeral. This time it was for a cousin on my father’s side. Mom and I joined my estranged dad at the church and we were fortunate to find a place to sit in the crowded little chapel. This was a more emotional affair than Uncle Bill’s funeral. Dad’s side of the family had always been more passionate and demonstrative than Mom’s; and the deceased was a young woman who had died in a car accident. There was more wailing in that room than at a nursery whose staff had forgotten lunchtime. I don’t mean to make light of the grief. My cousin was a beautiful girl who had been prematurely cut down in a gruesome wreck. To make matters worse, the other driver was drunk and had walked away with nary a scratch. Although my cousin and I hadn’t been close, I, too, was moved to tears.
Near the end of the service, I happened to turn towards the back of the chapel. I was surprised to see, standing just apart from a group of mourners against the back wall, Lilith. She looked just as she had the last time I’d seen her except that her jet black hair now included numerous streaks of blood-red; the severe bangs that had covered her forehead had been trimmed into asymmetrical layers that nearly covered her left eye. Her new hairstyle was completed with the addition of a side pony-tail above her right temple. It was a unique look, to say the least, but I have to admit that I found it to be somewhat provocative.
When I joined her at the conclusion of the service and said hello, I could not ascertain if she remembered me. She seemed a little confused when we shook hands and once again addressed me with that vacant stare.
“Robert,” I reminded her.
“Yes,” she replied, uncertainly.
“We met at my uncle’s funeral a couple of months ago.”
“That’s right,” she declared, giving me no clue as to whether she remembered.
She did not disagree that it was a coincidence that we’d met at two of my relatives’ funerals and was quite vague about how she knew my cousin. She abruptly said goodbye and walked out the door. I shook my head in befuddlement and watched her as she crossed the street, noticing for the first time how rythmically her hips swayed when she walked.
“Please, Robert, do it for me. I think you would enjoy it anyway.”
Mom was trying to convince me, a few weeks later, to call the daughter of her newest friend.
She was always trying to set me up with blind dates. I guess she was under the impression that I needed help finding a girl. Actually, I did okay for myself and I felt that the process of meeting somebody on your own and getting to know her was a lot more exciting than being thrown together with a stranger who had a better than even chance of being a loser.
“Mom, you know how I hate blind dates,” I complained. “Why did you tell Mrs. Parker that I would do it?”
“Because this girl sounds perfect for you. You know how much I like Mrs. Parker and if her daughter is anything like her you’ll have a great time. Mrs. Parker is one of the most interesting people I know and, of course, stunningly beautiful. She says that Elizabeth looks like her and is extremely intelligent. The only reason she doesn’t have a boyfriend, I’m sure, is because she’s only lived in this city for less than a year.
“And in addition,” she said with a wink, “Elizabeth has her own apartment.”
So, I called this Elizabeth and made a date for that Friday evening.
She finally opened the door after my fourth set of knocks. “Hello, Robert,” she whispered with a small smile. My confusion must have shown because her smile became a little larger.
“Lilith? What are you doing here?”
“Why, I live here, of course.”
“Oh,” I replied, feeling stupid as it finally dawned on me. “I didn’t realize that Elizabeth had a roommate.”
“She doesn’t,” Lilith laughed. “I’m Elizabeth. I mean, my mom named me Elizabeth but I’ve always hated that name. Lilith is a more appropriate name for me, don’t you think?”
After a moment’s consideration, I agreed.
She invited me in and I had to adjust to a different reality. Some weird song called “Bela Lugosi is Dead” was playing on the stereo. No lights were on in the black-walled apartment; it was lighted by dozens of candles, and the room was filled with a sweet aroma, like the incense they burn in church.
“What is that scent,” I asked, politely.
“Oh, that’s frankincense,” she replied. “It drives away mosquitoes.”
“It’s also used at funerals to cover the stink of the dead,” I muttered to myself.
As my eyes adjusted to the candle light, I saw that she was, once again, dressed all in black; this time, in laughably stark contrast to my khaki slacks and blazer, she wore a black tee shirt, illustrated in front with a pink pentagram, and a pair of black cut-off shorts which revealed long, shapely legs, the color of virgin snow. Strangely, she still wore her opera gloves.
I had to admit that she was pretty despite the piercings and the black makeup and her decidedly informal approach to dressing for a date. As promised, she was also very intelligent and had a keen, if macabre, sense of humor. And despite her hard, all-black look, I could sense her fragility and I felt an inexplicable urge to protect her.
I questioned that urge, though, when she mockingly suggested that I was dressed well enough to be laid out in a coffin. I was about to walk out in a huff but she sweet-talked me into staying.
We just hung out in the apartment and before I knew it, it was past midnight and time for me to go.
We hung out again a few days later, and again a few days after that. By now I’d gotten used to her quirky fashion sense. I didn’t think twice about her piercings except to wonder what other parts of her were pierced; and the makeup...well, it didn’t bother me. I only had trouble getting used to the gloves that she constantly wore.
There were some weird surprises. When I asked how she had known my relatives at whose funerals we’d met, she admitted that she’d never known them. “I just like going to funerals,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Funerals and graveyards.”
“Why,” I asked, astonished by her strange revelation.
“Because they make me feel at home.”
One day I finally seduced her into removing the gloves. My heart sank when I saw her bare arms. The slender limbs were covered with scabs and tiny scars.
“Oh, Lilith,” I said. “Why?”
“It’s no big deal,” she replied in a spiritless whisper. “It’s just that sometimes I get to feeling dead inside. I cut myself to see if I still feel; to see if I’m alive.”
After a few months, we were going strong. We were together nearly every day and I had never before had such feelings for anyone as I now had for her. She had undergone a metamorphosis. She was obviously happier, more confident and a little less weird. She smiled more often and instead of that dull, dark stare, her black eyes now shone as brightly as halogen headlights.
For my part, I’d become less conservative in dress and in attitude. While I did not yet have the fashion instincts of a Goth, I at least did not arrive at her apartment dressed like a stockbroker. I had learned to appreciate the unusual and I no longer thought of her as weird.
“It’s been exactly three months since I last cut myself,” she said proudly one evening. “And it’s all because of you.”
“You’re giving me way too much credit,” I answered, “and yourself, too little.”
"No, Robert, you deserve the credit. You’re the first person in the world that has ever made me feel this happy."
She still loved to attend funerals, though. She convinced me to accompany her to a couple but I found it creepy and gave it up. I did, however, enjoy our outings to cemeteries. We would walk hand in hand through the graveyards, reading the inscriptions on the stones and making up stories about the folks who were buried beneath them. It was fascinating to see some of the gravestones from more than a hundred years ago. It was like a history lesson minus the traditional classroom.
Sometimes, we went at night.These dates were both spooky and romantic. It was during a nocturnal outing to a graveyard behind an eighteenth century church that she first gave herself to me, on the floor of an old mausoleum.
As the relationship progressed, I began to feel that we were meant to spend our lives together. I began to drop occasional hints about marriage but although she never exactly discounted the idea, she always seemed to ignore my hints or change the subject.
“Let’s just enjoy life while we’re young, Robert,” she said once when I did a little more than hint. She spent the rest of the day in an irrational sulk.
Gradually, her demeanor darkened again and she seemed to be drifting away. She made more frequent visits to funerals and I suspected that she’d been making covert trips to graveyards, as well. Absurdly, I felt pangs of jealousy when I thought of her alone with the buried dead, as if she’d taken other lovers.
At least, there were no fresh cuts on her arms.
“What’s wrong Lilith,” I asked one night.
“Nothing. I’m just a little depressed. I’ll be twenty-one soon and that will be the end of my youth.”
I laughed, despite myself. “Twenty-one is old? Please!”
“Robert, don’t laugh at me,” she cried, and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door in my face.
Yes, she would soon be twenty-one and I planned a large celebration. I had twenty-one small gifts picked out, the last of them a diamond engagement ring for which I’d taken out a loan. I planned to give her the gifts as soon as I arrived and then we would go out for a fancy dinner. Perhaps it would all lead to a trip to the cemetery.
I tried my hardest to get her excited about the landmark event but the best I could get was an occasional smile.
The big day finally arrived. I got to her place at seven, as planned. She didn’t answer the door when I knocked but that was not unusual, so I let myself in. I found her in her bed, dressed, uncharacteristically, in a formal white gown. An arm dangled from the side of the bed and her ebony eyes were half-closed. She was barely conscious. An empty pill bottle stood on her nightstand next to a full one.
“Oh, Robert,” she whispered, more inaudibly than usual, “I’m sorry to be leaving you but twenty-one is the time for me to go. I’m no longer a child and have lived as long as I’ve always planned. I know that you wanted to marry me and that you bought me a ring. That’s why I’m wearing white tonight; consider this my wedding dress and tonight our wedding night. I’ll be your bride for eternity.
“Do you see the bottle of pills on the nightstand? That is my wedding gift to you. Live happily for as long as you desire and when you’ve had enough, let the pills take you to me so that we may be together forever in the next world. Until we meet again, those pills will be our bond.”
With that, her eyes fluttered and closed and she breathed her last breath, dying with a spooky smile on her face.
July 15, 2013
A Love Story
Everett Baker wiped his brow with a sweat-soaked handkerchief and walked through the entrance. With a whooshing sigh, he left the tropical heat of Forest Avenue and entered the air-conditioned paradise called Buster’s Bar and Grill.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark room after hours under the blazing sun but when they did, he liked what they showed him. He recognized an anonymous working-class watering hole with a population that seemed unremarkable for a weekday afternoon: at the front of the rectangular bar was a middle-aged, balding bartender, deep in salty conversation with two suntanned construction workers nursing their beers; a disheveled, elderly man lay asleep at the corner of the bar near the rest room, his head barely touching a half-empty glass of cheap whiskey. Across from the old man, Everett saw a well-dressed, dark-haired woman, silently sipping from a large glass containing some sort of mixed drink. He briefly wondered what a classy-looking woman like her was doing in a place like this. An old-fashioned jukebox stood unused in the rear of the room.
Everett took a seat midway between the construction workers and the woman and ordered a scotch on the rocks. The bartender quickly poured the drink, placed it in front of Everett and returned to his conversation with the hardhats. Everett took a swig of the cold whiskey and decided that this dive was as good a place as any for his liquid lunch. His office was on the other side of town and he’d been dispatched to deliver a few items to a business down the street from here. He’d recently been demoted to courier by his pointy-headed boss after a series of unfortunate mishaps.
“I can take my time getting back,” he thought. “I’ll just say that there were delays on the subway.”
Like a surveillance camera on a swivel, his eyes scanned the room from left to right then back again, over and over, often pausing at the female in the corner. A couple of times she caught him staring, and smiled self-consciously.
“Would you like to join me?,” she finally asked in a light accent that Everett couldn’t quite place.
“Sure,” he replied, trying to hide his own self-consciousness, borne of years of rejection by pretty women.
“I’m Ruth,” she said, losing her smile and solemnly shaking his hand as if they were two world leaders at a peace conference.
“Pleased to meet you, Ruth. I’m, um, uh...Everett.” In his nervousness, he nearly forgot his own name.
She was taken aback by his hesitation, suspecting that “Everett” was not his real name and that he was hiding something from her. “Why won’t he tell me his true name?,” she wondered, but after a brief contemplation, she shrugged her shoulders and decided that it didn’t matter. “He probably doesn’t want me to find out that he’s married.”
They stayed for quite awhile, buying each other drinks and, after a time, giggling like school kids. After each drink, she looked increasingly more beautiful to him although in reality she was a rather ordinary-looking woman at whom many men would not look twice.
His own modest appearance achieved the same type of metamorphosis in her boozy eyes.
“Oh, no!,” he cried, several hours later. “Look at the time. It’s too late to get back to work.” They both thought that hilarious and after sharing a good laugh and a few more drinks, decided upon a change of venue.
They stumbled drunkenly to the bus stop and noisily boarded the bus to his place, paying no attention to the disapproving stares of their fellow passengers. Ruth was surprised to discover that he wasn’t married after all and that he didn’t live with his mother like so many other men that she’d met. In fact, she was so impressed at this development that when they entered his small apartment, she was not even offended by the gamy aroma that made the place smell like a cattle barn.
She opened the windows and Everett found a clean set of sheets which he then placed haphazardly on the bed. Ruth hurriedly stripped off her clothes and impatiently helped Everett with his. She embraced him hungrily and fell clumsily on top of him onto the bed but despite her best efforts, he could not be aroused. Soon, he drifted off into a drunken sleep which, if not for his loud snoring would have caused her to believe that he was dead.
Frustrated, Ruth did her best to satisfy herself then left the bed to look for a drink. She thought about leaving but had no place to go. The house at which she boarded had a strict curfew which had long since passed. She would sleep here tonight and see what the morning would bring.
She found a half-full bottle of cheap scotch in a kitchen cabinet and poured herself a large glass. About halfway through her drink, she noticed a roll of cash, to which, after a moment’s deliberation, she decided to help herself. As luck would have it, Everett awoke from his slumber just in time to find her with the money. After a tearful apology and a seduction worthy of Cleopatra, she was able to quell his fury and lure him back to bed. Unfortunately, her lovemaking efforts this time produced a result similar to her first attempt.
Once again, she thought about leaving and once again, she realized that she had no place to go. “Why does this sort of thing always happen to me,” she wondered. She thought bitterly about the last man she’d gone home with and how after they’d failed to get it on, he’d tossed her a twenty and thrown her out. She ended up sleeping at the train station that night.
Dressed only in her bra and panties, she sat at Everett’s kitchen table and polished off the rest of the scotch, reviewing her life, which seemed to have been filled with humiliations, sexual and otherwise. Wallowing in melancholy, she opened her purse, rummaged around for a time and finally found what she’d been looking for.
Everett awoke with the sun, his mouth hot and dry like a desert and his head pounding; he was afraid to open his eyes, anticipating the pain the morning light would cause. But it was all good; he was finally hard. The throbbing in his groin competed in intensity with the throbbing in his head, but it mixed a type of torture with a hint of ecstasy. Confident, and eager to finally prove to her that he was a man, he reached excitedly across the bed for the woman but his arm came upon an empty space.
“Ruth,” he called, desperately. There was no reply although he called several times more. “Shit,” he said. “The bitch left.”
He closed his eyes for a few more minutes but couldn’t fall back to sleep; he had to pee so badly. He stumbled out of bed and nearly tripped over her dress which lay bunched up on the wood floor. “Damn,” he grumbled as he barely regained his balance, but he was pleased to realize that she hadn’t left, after all.
He screamed when he saw her lying facedown at the kitchen table, the whiskey bottle empty at her feet and an empty pill bottle next to her motionless hand. “Please don’t be dead,” he begged as he clumsily bent to take her pulse. Her hand, as he lifted it was cold but not stiff; he placed two fingers on her wrist but could feel no beat. “Damn,” he cried, in a panic. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t even tell if she’s alive.” Fortunately he summoned up the presence of mind to call 911. EMS arrived quickly and after administering CPR, declared her to be alive.
“Mister,” one of the paramedics scolded, “you should have tried to resuscitate her. If we’d arrived one minute later, this lady would be dead.”
They allowed him to ride with her in the ambulance and after enduring an hour long interrogation by a policeman who gave the impression that he’d rather be anywhere else, Everett nervously awaited news in the emergency room. Finally, he was told that her stomach had been pumped and she had been admitted to a room on the fourth floor.
“It was touch and go for awhile,” the young intern informed him. “But it looks like she will make it.”
He took the elevator to the fourth floor and entered her room. He blanched when he saw her, still unconscious and connected to various tubes. She slept for two days and he stayed with her for most of that time, holding her limp hand and whispering prayers into her sleeping ears. He cried when she finally awoke.
It happened that this was not the first time that Ruth had attempted suicide and it was decided that she would be admitted to a mental hospital for at least two weeks of observation and treatment. Everett visited every day. She ignored him for days, staring out the window with empty eyes and uttering nary a word. When, finally, she spoke, it was to say, “ Why don’t you get the hell out of here and leave me alone, you creep?”
He simply replied, “No. I’m not going. I’m here for you.”
For the rest of the day, she said no more but the following morning she warmed up, greeting him with a cheery, ”Good morning, Everett. How are you today?” From that point on, they grew increasingly closer, laughing at each other’s jokes like fans at a comedy club, revealing to each other their private thoughts and feelings and staring deeply into each others eyes when they ran out of things to say. The doctors told Everett that he was probably the main reason for her surprisingly swift recovery. When she was finally released from the hospital, the two of them rejoiced.
Everett sprung for a cab to take her back to his place; no bus on such a joyful day. It was in the back seat of the taxi that he proposed. She accepted immediately and the two embraced, sharing a passionate kiss, a river of tears and a mountain of high hopes for the future.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark room after hours under the blazing sun but when they did, he liked what they showed him. He recognized an anonymous working-class watering hole with a population that seemed unremarkable for a weekday afternoon: at the front of the rectangular bar was a middle-aged, balding bartender, deep in salty conversation with two suntanned construction workers nursing their beers; a disheveled, elderly man lay asleep at the corner of the bar near the rest room, his head barely touching a half-empty glass of cheap whiskey. Across from the old man, Everett saw a well-dressed, dark-haired woman, silently sipping from a large glass containing some sort of mixed drink. He briefly wondered what a classy-looking woman like her was doing in a place like this. An old-fashioned jukebox stood unused in the rear of the room.
Everett took a seat midway between the construction workers and the woman and ordered a scotch on the rocks. The bartender quickly poured the drink, placed it in front of Everett and returned to his conversation with the hardhats. Everett took a swig of the cold whiskey and decided that this dive was as good a place as any for his liquid lunch. His office was on the other side of town and he’d been dispatched to deliver a few items to a business down the street from here. He’d recently been demoted to courier by his pointy-headed boss after a series of unfortunate mishaps.
“I can take my time getting back,” he thought. “I’ll just say that there were delays on the subway.”
Like a surveillance camera on a swivel, his eyes scanned the room from left to right then back again, over and over, often pausing at the female in the corner. A couple of times she caught him staring, and smiled self-consciously.
“Would you like to join me?,” she finally asked in a light accent that Everett couldn’t quite place.
“Sure,” he replied, trying to hide his own self-consciousness, borne of years of rejection by pretty women.
“I’m Ruth,” she said, losing her smile and solemnly shaking his hand as if they were two world leaders at a peace conference.
“Pleased to meet you, Ruth. I’m, um, uh...Everett.” In his nervousness, he nearly forgot his own name.
She was taken aback by his hesitation, suspecting that “Everett” was not his real name and that he was hiding something from her. “Why won’t he tell me his true name?,” she wondered, but after a brief contemplation, she shrugged her shoulders and decided that it didn’t matter. “He probably doesn’t want me to find out that he’s married.”
They stayed for quite awhile, buying each other drinks and, after a time, giggling like school kids. After each drink, she looked increasingly more beautiful to him although in reality she was a rather ordinary-looking woman at whom many men would not look twice.
His own modest appearance achieved the same type of metamorphosis in her boozy eyes.
“Oh, no!,” he cried, several hours later. “Look at the time. It’s too late to get back to work.” They both thought that hilarious and after sharing a good laugh and a few more drinks, decided upon a change of venue.
They stumbled drunkenly to the bus stop and noisily boarded the bus to his place, paying no attention to the disapproving stares of their fellow passengers. Ruth was surprised to discover that he wasn’t married after all and that he didn’t live with his mother like so many other men that she’d met. In fact, she was so impressed at this development that when they entered his small apartment, she was not even offended by the gamy aroma that made the place smell like a cattle barn.
She opened the windows and Everett found a clean set of sheets which he then placed haphazardly on the bed. Ruth hurriedly stripped off her clothes and impatiently helped Everett with his. She embraced him hungrily and fell clumsily on top of him onto the bed but despite her best efforts, he could not be aroused. Soon, he drifted off into a drunken sleep which, if not for his loud snoring would have caused her to believe that he was dead.
Frustrated, Ruth did her best to satisfy herself then left the bed to look for a drink. She thought about leaving but had no place to go. The house at which she boarded had a strict curfew which had long since passed. She would sleep here tonight and see what the morning would bring.
She found a half-full bottle of cheap scotch in a kitchen cabinet and poured herself a large glass. About halfway through her drink, she noticed a roll of cash, to which, after a moment’s deliberation, she decided to help herself. As luck would have it, Everett awoke from his slumber just in time to find her with the money. After a tearful apology and a seduction worthy of Cleopatra, she was able to quell his fury and lure him back to bed. Unfortunately, her lovemaking efforts this time produced a result similar to her first attempt.
Once again, she thought about leaving and once again, she realized that she had no place to go. “Why does this sort of thing always happen to me,” she wondered. She thought bitterly about the last man she’d gone home with and how after they’d failed to get it on, he’d tossed her a twenty and thrown her out. She ended up sleeping at the train station that night.
Dressed only in her bra and panties, she sat at Everett’s kitchen table and polished off the rest of the scotch, reviewing her life, which seemed to have been filled with humiliations, sexual and otherwise. Wallowing in melancholy, she opened her purse, rummaged around for a time and finally found what she’d been looking for.
Everett awoke with the sun, his mouth hot and dry like a desert and his head pounding; he was afraid to open his eyes, anticipating the pain the morning light would cause. But it was all good; he was finally hard. The throbbing in his groin competed in intensity with the throbbing in his head, but it mixed a type of torture with a hint of ecstasy. Confident, and eager to finally prove to her that he was a man, he reached excitedly across the bed for the woman but his arm came upon an empty space.
“Ruth,” he called, desperately. There was no reply although he called several times more. “Shit,” he said. “The bitch left.”
He closed his eyes for a few more minutes but couldn’t fall back to sleep; he had to pee so badly. He stumbled out of bed and nearly tripped over her dress which lay bunched up on the wood floor. “Damn,” he grumbled as he barely regained his balance, but he was pleased to realize that she hadn’t left, after all.
He screamed when he saw her lying facedown at the kitchen table, the whiskey bottle empty at her feet and an empty pill bottle next to her motionless hand. “Please don’t be dead,” he begged as he clumsily bent to take her pulse. Her hand, as he lifted it was cold but not stiff; he placed two fingers on her wrist but could feel no beat. “Damn,” he cried, in a panic. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t even tell if she’s alive.” Fortunately he summoned up the presence of mind to call 911. EMS arrived quickly and after administering CPR, declared her to be alive.
“Mister,” one of the paramedics scolded, “you should have tried to resuscitate her. If we’d arrived one minute later, this lady would be dead.”
They allowed him to ride with her in the ambulance and after enduring an hour long interrogation by a policeman who gave the impression that he’d rather be anywhere else, Everett nervously awaited news in the emergency room. Finally, he was told that her stomach had been pumped and she had been admitted to a room on the fourth floor.
“It was touch and go for awhile,” the young intern informed him. “But it looks like she will make it.”
He took the elevator to the fourth floor and entered her room. He blanched when he saw her, still unconscious and connected to various tubes. She slept for two days and he stayed with her for most of that time, holding her limp hand and whispering prayers into her sleeping ears. He cried when she finally awoke.
It happened that this was not the first time that Ruth had attempted suicide and it was decided that she would be admitted to a mental hospital for at least two weeks of observation and treatment. Everett visited every day. She ignored him for days, staring out the window with empty eyes and uttering nary a word. When, finally, she spoke, it was to say, “ Why don’t you get the hell out of here and leave me alone, you creep?”
He simply replied, “No. I’m not going. I’m here for you.”
For the rest of the day, she said no more but the following morning she warmed up, greeting him with a cheery, ”Good morning, Everett. How are you today?” From that point on, they grew increasingly closer, laughing at each other’s jokes like fans at a comedy club, revealing to each other their private thoughts and feelings and staring deeply into each others eyes when they ran out of things to say. The doctors told Everett that he was probably the main reason for her surprisingly swift recovery. When she was finally released from the hospital, the two of them rejoiced.
Everett sprung for a cab to take her back to his place; no bus on such a joyful day. It was in the back seat of the taxi that he proposed. She accepted immediately and the two embraced, sharing a passionate kiss, a river of tears and a mountain of high hopes for the future.
June 11, 2013
Luke Must Die
I haven’t very long to live so it’s time I made my confession. Emily and Aisha have long since left the mortal earth; their souls are now at rest in the afterlife. My only child died before she was born, denied entrance to this world by a blow to my belly, delivered like a bomb by my “beloved” Luke. So nobody will be hurt or inconvenienced by the truth.
I’ll start from the beginning, which I guess is always a good place from which to start. I was a naive country girl from Georgia when I met Emily. I had just settled in to my dorm room at New York University after kissing Mommy and Daddy goodbye and wishing them a safe trip home. The moment they left, I unpacked my victrola, placed my new Buck Owens “Act Naturally” 45 on the turntable and plopped down onto the bed. Buck was the best. I was in love with his cool new “Bakersfield Sound” and could listen to his tunes until the the grooves in the vinyl wore out. No sooner had the music begun and I lay back in my bed did the door open to admit a well-dressed blonde who looked like she must be the younger sister of Brigitte Bardot. When she heard the music and saw my belongings sloppily strewn all over the floor of the little room, her entire body tensed up like she was some Persephone about to enter her new winter home. She recovered quickly but the fleeting frown that crossed her face when she saw the little hick with whom she was to share a room told me that we weren’t going to get along. I’m sure that we each thought, simultaneously, “Oh, no, it’s going to be a long year.” We were both wrong, however. I guess that what they say about opposites attracting is the god’s honest truth; and we were about as opposite as they come. As I said, I was a country girl from Georgia who until that day had never been to a city larger than Macon, except for one visit to Georgia State University in Atlanta and several visits, as a child, to Savannah to stay with my Grandma.
I owned but one “fancy” dress which I wore to family affairs and my high school graduation; my prom dress was rented for the evening and most times I wore jeans and flannel shirts. A few weeks before I left for college, Daddy gave me a whupping for wearing too much makeup.
Emily, on the other hand, was a sophisticated New Yorker to the bone. She’d attended the Dalton School, an exclusive private high school on the upper East Side, where she’d earned top grades. She was familiar with what seemed to be every bar and club from Greenwich Village through the fashionable East Side, all the way up to Harlem. Her parents were as rich as Rockefellers and, what with their numerous trips to London and Paris and frequent vacations at their Long Island estate, Emily was usually on her own and free to partake in the city’s sensational nightlife. Her family name combined with her mature appearance to gain her admittance to even the most exclusive clubs despite her tender age. She had her choice of nearly any college in the country and chose NYU for its location in Greenwich Village.
Anyway, as I said, Emily and I were both wrong about it being a long year. We became best friends almost instantly and were nearly inseparable throughout our four years of college. She even got to like Buck Owens.
On our first night as roommates she dragged me to the Bitter End, a popular coffee house on Bleeker Street where we saw a shocking comedian named Lenny Bruce. The guy was so funny that I nearly peed my pants.
We returned to the club frequently, particularly for the Tuesday evening “Hootenannies” at which I became a fan of such legendary folk singers as Peter, Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger and Richard and Mimi Farina. My feelings were mixed the night I had to return to our room alone because Emily left the club and stayed the night with the amazing young singer who had performed earlier that evening. His name was Bob Dylan.
The night she loaned me a beautiful dress and dragged me to the Copa, she introduced me to Frank Sinatra and Joey Bishop who were family friends. After the two stars took their leave, a couple of middle-aged men joined us and bought us drinks. I think that they both had designs on Emily but didn’t know what to make of me. They may have been under the impression that I was her little sister.
One Friday a few weeks before Christmas, Emily returned from class with thrilling news. “A friend of mine said that he can get us into a private club in Harlem tonight,” she crowed. “Jerry Butler will be performing.”
“ Harlem?” I asked, timidly. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Emily laughed. “Don’t worry, honey. We’ll be fine.”
Of course, despite my initial reluctance, I went. Jerry Butler never showed up but it was an exciting time nonetheless. The music, whether coming from the juke box or performed by the group of locals who just hopped onto the stage with no warning, was aphrodisiacal with its danceable beats and seductive lyrics.
Emily seemed to know just about everybody at the club and we had a wild time. “Here you go, sugar,” some guy told her as he passed her a joint. “Enjoy.” I can’t begin to describe my shock when Emily gladly accepted it and smoked it like an expert. It took some time before she was able to convince me to take a few hits. I did not regret my actions and after awhile, fueled by the weed, a couple of large glasses of some strong but unidentifiable alcoholic beverage, and the sexy music, I was having a wonderful time.
“Oh, my gosh,” I thought to myself a bit later while in the midst of a passionate embrace and in deep conflict with my Southern sensibilities, “I’m kissing a Negro.”
A mere two weeks after graduating from NYU, I married Luke. We had gone steady throughout high school and although I had never encouraged him, he assumed that the college girl living more than eight hundred miles away still belonged to him. I rarely went back home to Georgia; there just wasn’t enough money, and anyway I now considered myself to be a
metropolitan with no interest in the rural life. But during his occasional visits to New York, Luke ignored my big-city proclivity and insisted that one day we would return to the country as man and wife. He would usually stay in New York for two or three days, somehow establishing clandestine residence in our “women only” dorm room and causing my usually unflappable roomie to seek other lodging.
Truth be told, I was often overwhelmed by Luke’s overpowering manner. I’m not quite sure how I became his girlfriend to begin with but, suddenly, early in our freshman year of high school, we were a couple and for four years I dated no other boy. Like a character in a rock and roll song, he took my virginity in the back seat of his Chevy. Looking back, I realize that I was raped. We had just left the movies where we’d seen ”Rio Bravo,” a John Wayne film in which I’d had no interest; but of course, Luke wanted to see every John Wayne movie ever made. I spent most of the two and one half hours in the balcony continuously trying to pry his roaming hands from my breasts and from between my legs. Eventually, I surrendered and allowed him to caress my inner thighs. I even admitted to myself that his groping hands made me feel a pleasant sort of warmth.
“Why don’t you have a couple of sips,” Luke suggested as he pulled out the six pack that he’d stashed, as always, under the back seat of his car. After the show we’d driven to our regular parking spot at “lover’s lane.” It was kind of a tradition for him to try and get me to drink, but in the past, I’d always refused; I didn’t even like beer. That night, I guess I was a little bit disconcerted after our wrestling match at the movies so, after thinking about it for a moment, I shared the first couple of cans with him before he polished off the rest. If I had been paying attention, I might have noticed the triumphant look in his eyes when I’d taken my first gulp or the tremble of anticipation when I told him that I was feeling a bit tipsy. When we started making out, he seemed determined to go farther than I’d ever before allowed. Despite my protests, I somehow found myself beneath him on the back seat, my breasts uncovered and my jeans and panties on the floor. Although I repeatedly begged him to stop, he ignored my appeals and forced his way inside me. After an initial burst of pain, the only thing I felt was his hot semen, mixed with my own blood, dripping down my leg a few minutes later.
I cried when it was over, and just stared out the rain-streaked window during the silent drive home. I didn’t speak to him for a few days but, inexplicably, by the following weekend I was, once again, his girl.
The wedding was quite forgettable.The food was awful and the band arrived an hour late. They were so bad that nobody would have missed them if they had never shown up at all. Luke disappeared for awhile with his friends and when he returned he was stinking drunk. I inadvertently came upon him near the ladies’ room just as Emily slapped him in the face for grabbing her ass. (Years later I learned that this was not the first time he’d taken liberties with my friend).
When we’d left the party to begin our three day honeymoon at the 2 star hotel in New Jersey, Luke puked in the back seat of the limo. I helped him to clean up at the hotel but when I couldn’t bear to make love to him in his condition, he hit me for the first time.
We moved back to Georgia after the honeymoon. I had insisted that I wanted to remain in NYC but Luke had his job as a postman to consider. “It won’t make us rich,” he said, “but the salary is enough to buy a comfortable house in Georgia.”
The next thirteen years were like a prison sentence with Luke as sadistic jailer. Despite my college diploma, I was not permitted to seek a job. “Your place is in the home, dear,” he insisted, with a saccharine smile. “I’ll be the breadwinner in this family. You can use your talents to make our home a castle.”
At first the abuse was mostly verbal. If a meal was not prepared to his satisfaction or his laundry was not yet folded he let me know in no uncertain terms how useless and incompetent I was. “Didn’t your Mom teach you anything,” he’d ask. “Or was she as stupid as you?”
Things were as bad in the bedroom. It was pretty near impossible for me to summon up any enthusiasm for sex. Luke was as demanding and self-centered a sex partner as a Cro-Magnon man; he couldn’t care less about my gratification. The only pleasure I got from sex with Luke was that it always ended quickly; but he blamed me for lacking sexual skills; or else I’d be accused of spending all my energy on other men. That was a laugh since I knew no other men; or women, for that matter. It’s hard to make friends when you are confined to your house except to do the food shopping. I had even lost touch with Emily. For awhile we’d spoken often on the phone. I avoided talking about my marital problems and Emily never brought up Luke’s name. Those phone calls were one of my few pleasures and Emily always seemed happy to speak with me but every time I invited her to visit, she came up with an excuse. Gradually, the phone calls stopped and our only contact was a Christmas card each year.
My life had become lonely and pointless. I felt as if I were a mound of clay that had once had the potential to be molded into a beautiful sculpture of curves and arches, but instead had been crushed flat beneath my husband’s boot; but I never dreamed that things would become even worse.
The physical abuse began innocently enough. In an attempt to spice up our sex life, Luke suggested that we experiment with spanking. I agreed to give it a try in the dubious hope that it might repair our ruined relationship. Luke got off on it the first time we tried; me, not so much. As days went by, the spankings became more intense and more painful but the more I let on that he was actually hurting me, the more excited he got. Pretty soon I had collected a bevy of bruises on my butt and sitting had become somewhat unpleasant.
Sitting became nearly impossible when, after a time he needed something more stimulating. I guess that since he’d been so excited by smacking my rear, he thought that the logical progression would be to enter me through the back door. When I resisted, it only aroused him further. The butt rape caused me unbearable pain and humiliation which proved to be an enormous turn-on for him and motivated him to seek additional means of titillation. Getting in touch with his inner Christian Grey, he became quite imaginative in devising a vile variety of physical and psychological assaults.
Weeks later, when, after a long session of demeaning role playing, I refused to take him in my mouth, he smacked my face hard enough to loosen a tooth. After that, I learned to submit to all of his perverse demands.
Soon, the violence spread outside the bedroom. I could be smacked for preparing a dinner that didn’t meet his approval; punched for talking back; battered for any imagined wrong. When I told him that I would leave him if he continued to hurt me, he calmly informed me of what would happen if I did. “I’ll kill you if you ever try to leave me; and you won’t be able to hide,” he said. “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth and I’ll kill you in the most painful way possible.” And then he told me how much he loved me. So I stayed, and through the years, I suffered an assortment of bruises, black eyes, loosened teeth and even some broken bones.
Shortly after I turned 35, after 13 years of marriage, I was stunned to learn that I was pregnant. I was thrilled by this miracle. My child would become my best friend and perhaps even a shield against the violence. As if to prove that I was right, Luke went through a transformation. He suddenly became the doting husband, showering me with love and treating me like a queen. For six months or so, I was actually happily married, although I guess that in the back of my mind I knew that it wouldn’t last. It all came crashing down one night when he arrived home from his 9 to 5 job at 1 A.M. “Where have you been,” I screamed, the pent up nervousness and frustration getting the better of me. The moment those words left my mouth I knew that I’d made a mistake. The left hook only grazed my jaw but the straight right that immediately followed crashed into my belly and sent me tumbling down the stairs. The broken ankle that I suffered was nothing compared to the loss of my child. Although he was sorry for the “accident,” he made it perfectly clear that I had better tell the authorities that I’d tripped and fallen down the stairs. Fear caused me to stick to that tale.
I was released from the hospital after a couple of days and did my best to stay clear of my husband while we were both at home. I did a lot of thinking during that time and decided that I needed to escape no matter what. When my ankle had pretty much healed, I decided that I would leave the following Friday morning, immediately after Luke left for work. He had taken to staying out all night after work on Fridays, sometimes not returning until Sunday evening. I suppose that since I was laid up and avoiding him, he had little interest in being home and had found himself a little chippie on the side. Good for him and good for me but I felt sorry for that poor girl, whoever she was. At any rate, my escape on Friday morning would give me a possible 60 hours before he know I was gone.
Friday finally arrived and I headed for the Greyhound station, constantly wondering if I was making a mistake. I couldn’t get his threats out of my head and at times I felt sure that he would find me and deal me a painful death. My head was on a swivel, turning this way and that, on the lookout for my vengeful husband who, I was sure, had figured out that I was leaving and was ready to pounce.
I boarded a bus headed for upstate New York. The last Christmas card I had received from Emily bore a return address in Cooperstown. I remembered her writing a few years ago that she lived on a pretty little farm not far from town. I felt certain that if I made it to Cooperstown, I would be able to find Emily’s place, although I was not quite as sure that I would find her still living there. I was desperate enough to risk that because, after all, where else could I go?
When I disembarked from the bus, I half-expected to find Luke waiting, ready to fulfill his murderous oath. Instead, I found groups of tourists strolling through a picturesque, one-stoplight village, the centerpiece of which was the National Baseball Hall of Fame. A warm, buttery sun shone above the green hills in the distance; Lake Otsego, large and beautiful, filled the landscape to the north. The bucolic setting so relaxed me that my nerves melted away like last winter’s snow and I proceeded to hire a cab. I gave the driver the address that I had memorized and had kept muttering to myself since I had fled Georgia, and after a five or ten minute drive, I was dropped off in front of a charming little farmhouse on a gorgeous plot of land. As I walked the path to the front door, fear stealthily reentered my head. “What if Emily no longer lives here,” I thought. “What will I do?” I tried my best to calm myself as I stepped onto the porch.
The door was painted purple and a string of amber beads hung from the door knob. I knocked, nervously, at the door, not knowing what to expect. After what seemed to be about 15 years but was actually about 15 seconds, the door opened and I was greeted by a tall, lovely woman with an electric smile. Her dark brown complexion certified that she was not Emily and seemed to confirm my fear that Emily no longer lived here. I stood motionless as a mannequin for a few seconds and said nothing.
“Yes, Miss?” the woman asked. “Can I help you?”
“E...Emily,” I stammered, feeling like an idiot. “Is Emily here?”
She looked at me askance but then turned her head and called, “Honey, it’s for you.”
The years had been much kinder to Emily than they had been to me. She was as beautiful now as she was when she was 20, only, somehow more vibrant. I could tell that she was taken aback by my appearance, what with the weariness that was etched into my face like battle scars, the faint purple shadows under my eyes and the little layer of flab around my middle. She recovered after a few seconds, though and we embraced in a tight hug that told how much we had missed each other. “Oh, honey,” she cried. “It’s been way too long. Come on in and let’s catch up.”
She introduced me to Aisha, spontaneously caressing the dark-skinned woman’s cheek then the three of us went inside to talk. The house was bright and airy with numerous windows offering breathtaking views of the landscape. The ample space afforded by its many large rooms belied its outer appearance as a cozy little cottage. The most impressive of these large rooms was a magnificent library whose shelves were stacked with books on cosmology, healing, herbology, magic and mysticism.
Emily spoke first, catching me up on her life since college. She had spent the first two years or so after graduation, drifting from job to job and from man to man. At about the time her phone calls to me ended, she set off with some guy on a hitchhiking trip across North America.They split in Indiana but for a couple of years she kept on, determined to see the world. She found her way to most of the larger cities where she continued her carousing. “For most of that time I was little more than a drifter and a Bacchanalian,” she admitted. “But while hiking in the Canadian Rockies, I had what can only be described as a revelation and I decided to clean up my act. When I got back East, I decided to join a commune near Syracuse, where, among other things, I learned about the cultivation and medical uses of herbs.” It was at the commune that she met Aisha and after a couple of years the two women decided to buy their farm in Cooperstown.
I told them the grisly story of my marriage. Aisha shuddered upon hearing the details; Emily cried. “I always knew that Luke was bad news,” she said. “I was afraid of him, especially after he tried to have his way with me. I never said anything to you because I hoped that marriage would straighten him out and I wanted you to be happy. It was a dumb mistake forged by youth and wishful thinking and I felt guilty about it for years. I do want you to know that I never stopped thinking about you and that it was my fear and dislike of your husband that kept me from you.” We all had a good cry but then for the next several days we discontinued the discussion of my troubles. During that time the two women nursed me back to health and happiness with a variety of herbs that they grew right outside the house and strange tasting potions that they concocted in the kitchen.
After about a week, my mental and physical pains had magically disappeared. A healthier diet than I’d ever adhered to, including a variety of mystery herbs as well as an exercise plan designed by Aisha, had transformed me, also like magic, into a lean and lively fitness queen.
“It’s time to talk about Luke,” Emily announced one morning.
“I don’t want to talk about him,” I replied. “I just want to forget him.”
“You can’t do that. I do believe he will come after you like he promised.”
“Then what can I do? Run?”
“No, honey. You needn’t run. I have a plan. We’ll lure him here and then he must die.”
It was decided that Emily would phone Luke and inform him that I had been staying with her these past weeks but had now seen the error of my ways and would like for him to come for me.
“Oh, I will definitely come for her,” Luke told my friend in a barely controlled, anger-laced voice. “I’ll be there a week from today. What the hell was she thinking, anyway?”
For me, it was an agonizing week of waiting. “Don’t you worry about it,” they kept telling me. “We’ve got it all worked out. That creep will never bother you again”
“You don’t know him,” I whined. Not only will that bastard kill me, he’ll probably kill you, too”
“Won’t happen, baby,” Emily replied, confidently. “Believe me, Your nightmare is over.”
No matter how certain they seemed, I didn’t believe that they knew what they were in for.
Before I knew it, the appointed day had arrived. The entire house seemed to tremble when he pounded on the door. I scurried to my predetermined hiding place in the attic, cowering behind a drab, gray curtain as my two friends answered the door. Emily was dressed in a white lace tank top which almost totally revealed her perfectly formed breasts, and a pastel skirt which left her long, shapely legs bare to mid-thigh; Aisha had on a long, diaphanous gown that clung to her statuesque body like saran wrap. The two women each wore a sweet-smelling perfume that they had concocted for the occasion, consisting of jojoba oil and drops of numerous exotic oils. They laughingly called the brew “Love Potion #9.” Its honeyed aroma hung, like forbidden fruit, throughout the house.
“Who is it?” Emily inquired sweetly.
“It’s Luke,” he hollered. “Open the damn door.”
“Gladly,” she replied.
He stormed inside then stopped dead in his tracks, enchanted by the supernaturally sexy ladies in his sight and intoxicated by the cloying aphrodisiac in the air. In a trance, he followed the two temptresses to their bedroom.
Mere minutes later, he wordlessly followed the women back down the stairs and as Emily reopened the front door, he left the house, like a sleepwalker, without even a nod in their direction. He got into his car and drove off, having never even inquired about me.
“It’s safe now, honey. You can come out,” Emily called.
“What happened,” I asked. “Where did he go?”
“He’s gone, in more ways than one,” Aisha replied, cryptically. “You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”
In response to the skeptical expression on my face, the women looked at each other and began to giggle.
The following morning, the local newspaper carried a story about an automobile with Georgia license plates that had been dragged out of Lake Otsego. The driver who had drowned behind the wheel was identified as my husband, Luke.
I never returned to Georgia and lived happily ever after with Emily and Aisha. Their souls have now gone to their rest in the Summerland, but before they passed, they shared with me their store of ancient knowledge and secrets of the occult. Over the years it became a well-circulated rumor around Cooperstown that three beautiful witches occupied a farm somewhere on the outskirts of town.
I’ll start from the beginning, which I guess is always a good place from which to start. I was a naive country girl from Georgia when I met Emily. I had just settled in to my dorm room at New York University after kissing Mommy and Daddy goodbye and wishing them a safe trip home. The moment they left, I unpacked my victrola, placed my new Buck Owens “Act Naturally” 45 on the turntable and plopped down onto the bed. Buck was the best. I was in love with his cool new “Bakersfield Sound” and could listen to his tunes until the the grooves in the vinyl wore out. No sooner had the music begun and I lay back in my bed did the door open to admit a well-dressed blonde who looked like she must be the younger sister of Brigitte Bardot. When she heard the music and saw my belongings sloppily strewn all over the floor of the little room, her entire body tensed up like she was some Persephone about to enter her new winter home. She recovered quickly but the fleeting frown that crossed her face when she saw the little hick with whom she was to share a room told me that we weren’t going to get along. I’m sure that we each thought, simultaneously, “Oh, no, it’s going to be a long year.” We were both wrong, however. I guess that what they say about opposites attracting is the god’s honest truth; and we were about as opposite as they come. As I said, I was a country girl from Georgia who until that day had never been to a city larger than Macon, except for one visit to Georgia State University in Atlanta and several visits, as a child, to Savannah to stay with my Grandma.
I owned but one “fancy” dress which I wore to family affairs and my high school graduation; my prom dress was rented for the evening and most times I wore jeans and flannel shirts. A few weeks before I left for college, Daddy gave me a whupping for wearing too much makeup.
Emily, on the other hand, was a sophisticated New Yorker to the bone. She’d attended the Dalton School, an exclusive private high school on the upper East Side, where she’d earned top grades. She was familiar with what seemed to be every bar and club from Greenwich Village through the fashionable East Side, all the way up to Harlem. Her parents were as rich as Rockefellers and, what with their numerous trips to London and Paris and frequent vacations at their Long Island estate, Emily was usually on her own and free to partake in the city’s sensational nightlife. Her family name combined with her mature appearance to gain her admittance to even the most exclusive clubs despite her tender age. She had her choice of nearly any college in the country and chose NYU for its location in Greenwich Village.
Anyway, as I said, Emily and I were both wrong about it being a long year. We became best friends almost instantly and were nearly inseparable throughout our four years of college. She even got to like Buck Owens.
On our first night as roommates she dragged me to the Bitter End, a popular coffee house on Bleeker Street where we saw a shocking comedian named Lenny Bruce. The guy was so funny that I nearly peed my pants.
We returned to the club frequently, particularly for the Tuesday evening “Hootenannies” at which I became a fan of such legendary folk singers as Peter, Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger and Richard and Mimi Farina. My feelings were mixed the night I had to return to our room alone because Emily left the club and stayed the night with the amazing young singer who had performed earlier that evening. His name was Bob Dylan.
The night she loaned me a beautiful dress and dragged me to the Copa, she introduced me to Frank Sinatra and Joey Bishop who were family friends. After the two stars took their leave, a couple of middle-aged men joined us and bought us drinks. I think that they both had designs on Emily but didn’t know what to make of me. They may have been under the impression that I was her little sister.
One Friday a few weeks before Christmas, Emily returned from class with thrilling news. “A friend of mine said that he can get us into a private club in Harlem tonight,” she crowed. “Jerry Butler will be performing.”
“ Harlem?” I asked, timidly. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Emily laughed. “Don’t worry, honey. We’ll be fine.”
Of course, despite my initial reluctance, I went. Jerry Butler never showed up but it was an exciting time nonetheless. The music, whether coming from the juke box or performed by the group of locals who just hopped onto the stage with no warning, was aphrodisiacal with its danceable beats and seductive lyrics.
Emily seemed to know just about everybody at the club and we had a wild time. “Here you go, sugar,” some guy told her as he passed her a joint. “Enjoy.” I can’t begin to describe my shock when Emily gladly accepted it and smoked it like an expert. It took some time before she was able to convince me to take a few hits. I did not regret my actions and after awhile, fueled by the weed, a couple of large glasses of some strong but unidentifiable alcoholic beverage, and the sexy music, I was having a wonderful time.
“Oh, my gosh,” I thought to myself a bit later while in the midst of a passionate embrace and in deep conflict with my Southern sensibilities, “I’m kissing a Negro.”
A mere two weeks after graduating from NYU, I married Luke. We had gone steady throughout high school and although I had never encouraged him, he assumed that the college girl living more than eight hundred miles away still belonged to him. I rarely went back home to Georgia; there just wasn’t enough money, and anyway I now considered myself to be a
metropolitan with no interest in the rural life. But during his occasional visits to New York, Luke ignored my big-city proclivity and insisted that one day we would return to the country as man and wife. He would usually stay in New York for two or three days, somehow establishing clandestine residence in our “women only” dorm room and causing my usually unflappable roomie to seek other lodging.
Truth be told, I was often overwhelmed by Luke’s overpowering manner. I’m not quite sure how I became his girlfriend to begin with but, suddenly, early in our freshman year of high school, we were a couple and for four years I dated no other boy. Like a character in a rock and roll song, he took my virginity in the back seat of his Chevy. Looking back, I realize that I was raped. We had just left the movies where we’d seen ”Rio Bravo,” a John Wayne film in which I’d had no interest; but of course, Luke wanted to see every John Wayne movie ever made. I spent most of the two and one half hours in the balcony continuously trying to pry his roaming hands from my breasts and from between my legs. Eventually, I surrendered and allowed him to caress my inner thighs. I even admitted to myself that his groping hands made me feel a pleasant sort of warmth.
“Why don’t you have a couple of sips,” Luke suggested as he pulled out the six pack that he’d stashed, as always, under the back seat of his car. After the show we’d driven to our regular parking spot at “lover’s lane.” It was kind of a tradition for him to try and get me to drink, but in the past, I’d always refused; I didn’t even like beer. That night, I guess I was a little bit disconcerted after our wrestling match at the movies so, after thinking about it for a moment, I shared the first couple of cans with him before he polished off the rest. If I had been paying attention, I might have noticed the triumphant look in his eyes when I’d taken my first gulp or the tremble of anticipation when I told him that I was feeling a bit tipsy. When we started making out, he seemed determined to go farther than I’d ever before allowed. Despite my protests, I somehow found myself beneath him on the back seat, my breasts uncovered and my jeans and panties on the floor. Although I repeatedly begged him to stop, he ignored my appeals and forced his way inside me. After an initial burst of pain, the only thing I felt was his hot semen, mixed with my own blood, dripping down my leg a few minutes later.
I cried when it was over, and just stared out the rain-streaked window during the silent drive home. I didn’t speak to him for a few days but, inexplicably, by the following weekend I was, once again, his girl.
The wedding was quite forgettable.The food was awful and the band arrived an hour late. They were so bad that nobody would have missed them if they had never shown up at all. Luke disappeared for awhile with his friends and when he returned he was stinking drunk. I inadvertently came upon him near the ladies’ room just as Emily slapped him in the face for grabbing her ass. (Years later I learned that this was not the first time he’d taken liberties with my friend).
When we’d left the party to begin our three day honeymoon at the 2 star hotel in New Jersey, Luke puked in the back seat of the limo. I helped him to clean up at the hotel but when I couldn’t bear to make love to him in his condition, he hit me for the first time.
We moved back to Georgia after the honeymoon. I had insisted that I wanted to remain in NYC but Luke had his job as a postman to consider. “It won’t make us rich,” he said, “but the salary is enough to buy a comfortable house in Georgia.”
The next thirteen years were like a prison sentence with Luke as sadistic jailer. Despite my college diploma, I was not permitted to seek a job. “Your place is in the home, dear,” he insisted, with a saccharine smile. “I’ll be the breadwinner in this family. You can use your talents to make our home a castle.”
At first the abuse was mostly verbal. If a meal was not prepared to his satisfaction or his laundry was not yet folded he let me know in no uncertain terms how useless and incompetent I was. “Didn’t your Mom teach you anything,” he’d ask. “Or was she as stupid as you?”
Things were as bad in the bedroom. It was pretty near impossible for me to summon up any enthusiasm for sex. Luke was as demanding and self-centered a sex partner as a Cro-Magnon man; he couldn’t care less about my gratification. The only pleasure I got from sex with Luke was that it always ended quickly; but he blamed me for lacking sexual skills; or else I’d be accused of spending all my energy on other men. That was a laugh since I knew no other men; or women, for that matter. It’s hard to make friends when you are confined to your house except to do the food shopping. I had even lost touch with Emily. For awhile we’d spoken often on the phone. I avoided talking about my marital problems and Emily never brought up Luke’s name. Those phone calls were one of my few pleasures and Emily always seemed happy to speak with me but every time I invited her to visit, she came up with an excuse. Gradually, the phone calls stopped and our only contact was a Christmas card each year.
My life had become lonely and pointless. I felt as if I were a mound of clay that had once had the potential to be molded into a beautiful sculpture of curves and arches, but instead had been crushed flat beneath my husband’s boot; but I never dreamed that things would become even worse.
The physical abuse began innocently enough. In an attempt to spice up our sex life, Luke suggested that we experiment with spanking. I agreed to give it a try in the dubious hope that it might repair our ruined relationship. Luke got off on it the first time we tried; me, not so much. As days went by, the spankings became more intense and more painful but the more I let on that he was actually hurting me, the more excited he got. Pretty soon I had collected a bevy of bruises on my butt and sitting had become somewhat unpleasant.
Sitting became nearly impossible when, after a time he needed something more stimulating. I guess that since he’d been so excited by smacking my rear, he thought that the logical progression would be to enter me through the back door. When I resisted, it only aroused him further. The butt rape caused me unbearable pain and humiliation which proved to be an enormous turn-on for him and motivated him to seek additional means of titillation. Getting in touch with his inner Christian Grey, he became quite imaginative in devising a vile variety of physical and psychological assaults.
Weeks later, when, after a long session of demeaning role playing, I refused to take him in my mouth, he smacked my face hard enough to loosen a tooth. After that, I learned to submit to all of his perverse demands.
Soon, the violence spread outside the bedroom. I could be smacked for preparing a dinner that didn’t meet his approval; punched for talking back; battered for any imagined wrong. When I told him that I would leave him if he continued to hurt me, he calmly informed me of what would happen if I did. “I’ll kill you if you ever try to leave me; and you won’t be able to hide,” he said. “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth and I’ll kill you in the most painful way possible.” And then he told me how much he loved me. So I stayed, and through the years, I suffered an assortment of bruises, black eyes, loosened teeth and even some broken bones.
Shortly after I turned 35, after 13 years of marriage, I was stunned to learn that I was pregnant. I was thrilled by this miracle. My child would become my best friend and perhaps even a shield against the violence. As if to prove that I was right, Luke went through a transformation. He suddenly became the doting husband, showering me with love and treating me like a queen. For six months or so, I was actually happily married, although I guess that in the back of my mind I knew that it wouldn’t last. It all came crashing down one night when he arrived home from his 9 to 5 job at 1 A.M. “Where have you been,” I screamed, the pent up nervousness and frustration getting the better of me. The moment those words left my mouth I knew that I’d made a mistake. The left hook only grazed my jaw but the straight right that immediately followed crashed into my belly and sent me tumbling down the stairs. The broken ankle that I suffered was nothing compared to the loss of my child. Although he was sorry for the “accident,” he made it perfectly clear that I had better tell the authorities that I’d tripped and fallen down the stairs. Fear caused me to stick to that tale.
I was released from the hospital after a couple of days and did my best to stay clear of my husband while we were both at home. I did a lot of thinking during that time and decided that I needed to escape no matter what. When my ankle had pretty much healed, I decided that I would leave the following Friday morning, immediately after Luke left for work. He had taken to staying out all night after work on Fridays, sometimes not returning until Sunday evening. I suppose that since I was laid up and avoiding him, he had little interest in being home and had found himself a little chippie on the side. Good for him and good for me but I felt sorry for that poor girl, whoever she was. At any rate, my escape on Friday morning would give me a possible 60 hours before he know I was gone.
Friday finally arrived and I headed for the Greyhound station, constantly wondering if I was making a mistake. I couldn’t get his threats out of my head and at times I felt sure that he would find me and deal me a painful death. My head was on a swivel, turning this way and that, on the lookout for my vengeful husband who, I was sure, had figured out that I was leaving and was ready to pounce.
I boarded a bus headed for upstate New York. The last Christmas card I had received from Emily bore a return address in Cooperstown. I remembered her writing a few years ago that she lived on a pretty little farm not far from town. I felt certain that if I made it to Cooperstown, I would be able to find Emily’s place, although I was not quite as sure that I would find her still living there. I was desperate enough to risk that because, after all, where else could I go?
When I disembarked from the bus, I half-expected to find Luke waiting, ready to fulfill his murderous oath. Instead, I found groups of tourists strolling through a picturesque, one-stoplight village, the centerpiece of which was the National Baseball Hall of Fame. A warm, buttery sun shone above the green hills in the distance; Lake Otsego, large and beautiful, filled the landscape to the north. The bucolic setting so relaxed me that my nerves melted away like last winter’s snow and I proceeded to hire a cab. I gave the driver the address that I had memorized and had kept muttering to myself since I had fled Georgia, and after a five or ten minute drive, I was dropped off in front of a charming little farmhouse on a gorgeous plot of land. As I walked the path to the front door, fear stealthily reentered my head. “What if Emily no longer lives here,” I thought. “What will I do?” I tried my best to calm myself as I stepped onto the porch.
The door was painted purple and a string of amber beads hung from the door knob. I knocked, nervously, at the door, not knowing what to expect. After what seemed to be about 15 years but was actually about 15 seconds, the door opened and I was greeted by a tall, lovely woman with an electric smile. Her dark brown complexion certified that she was not Emily and seemed to confirm my fear that Emily no longer lived here. I stood motionless as a mannequin for a few seconds and said nothing.
“Yes, Miss?” the woman asked. “Can I help you?”
“E...Emily,” I stammered, feeling like an idiot. “Is Emily here?”
She looked at me askance but then turned her head and called, “Honey, it’s for you.”
The years had been much kinder to Emily than they had been to me. She was as beautiful now as she was when she was 20, only, somehow more vibrant. I could tell that she was taken aback by my appearance, what with the weariness that was etched into my face like battle scars, the faint purple shadows under my eyes and the little layer of flab around my middle. She recovered after a few seconds, though and we embraced in a tight hug that told how much we had missed each other. “Oh, honey,” she cried. “It’s been way too long. Come on in and let’s catch up.”
She introduced me to Aisha, spontaneously caressing the dark-skinned woman’s cheek then the three of us went inside to talk. The house was bright and airy with numerous windows offering breathtaking views of the landscape. The ample space afforded by its many large rooms belied its outer appearance as a cozy little cottage. The most impressive of these large rooms was a magnificent library whose shelves were stacked with books on cosmology, healing, herbology, magic and mysticism.
Emily spoke first, catching me up on her life since college. She had spent the first two years or so after graduation, drifting from job to job and from man to man. At about the time her phone calls to me ended, she set off with some guy on a hitchhiking trip across North America.They split in Indiana but for a couple of years she kept on, determined to see the world. She found her way to most of the larger cities where she continued her carousing. “For most of that time I was little more than a drifter and a Bacchanalian,” she admitted. “But while hiking in the Canadian Rockies, I had what can only be described as a revelation and I decided to clean up my act. When I got back East, I decided to join a commune near Syracuse, where, among other things, I learned about the cultivation and medical uses of herbs.” It was at the commune that she met Aisha and after a couple of years the two women decided to buy their farm in Cooperstown.
I told them the grisly story of my marriage. Aisha shuddered upon hearing the details; Emily cried. “I always knew that Luke was bad news,” she said. “I was afraid of him, especially after he tried to have his way with me. I never said anything to you because I hoped that marriage would straighten him out and I wanted you to be happy. It was a dumb mistake forged by youth and wishful thinking and I felt guilty about it for years. I do want you to know that I never stopped thinking about you and that it was my fear and dislike of your husband that kept me from you.” We all had a good cry but then for the next several days we discontinued the discussion of my troubles. During that time the two women nursed me back to health and happiness with a variety of herbs that they grew right outside the house and strange tasting potions that they concocted in the kitchen.
After about a week, my mental and physical pains had magically disappeared. A healthier diet than I’d ever adhered to, including a variety of mystery herbs as well as an exercise plan designed by Aisha, had transformed me, also like magic, into a lean and lively fitness queen.
“It’s time to talk about Luke,” Emily announced one morning.
“I don’t want to talk about him,” I replied. “I just want to forget him.”
“You can’t do that. I do believe he will come after you like he promised.”
“Then what can I do? Run?”
“No, honey. You needn’t run. I have a plan. We’ll lure him here and then he must die.”
It was decided that Emily would phone Luke and inform him that I had been staying with her these past weeks but had now seen the error of my ways and would like for him to come for me.
“Oh, I will definitely come for her,” Luke told my friend in a barely controlled, anger-laced voice. “I’ll be there a week from today. What the hell was she thinking, anyway?”
For me, it was an agonizing week of waiting. “Don’t you worry about it,” they kept telling me. “We’ve got it all worked out. That creep will never bother you again”
“You don’t know him,” I whined. Not only will that bastard kill me, he’ll probably kill you, too”
“Won’t happen, baby,” Emily replied, confidently. “Believe me, Your nightmare is over.”
No matter how certain they seemed, I didn’t believe that they knew what they were in for.
Before I knew it, the appointed day had arrived. The entire house seemed to tremble when he pounded on the door. I scurried to my predetermined hiding place in the attic, cowering behind a drab, gray curtain as my two friends answered the door. Emily was dressed in a white lace tank top which almost totally revealed her perfectly formed breasts, and a pastel skirt which left her long, shapely legs bare to mid-thigh; Aisha had on a long, diaphanous gown that clung to her statuesque body like saran wrap. The two women each wore a sweet-smelling perfume that they had concocted for the occasion, consisting of jojoba oil and drops of numerous exotic oils. They laughingly called the brew “Love Potion #9.” Its honeyed aroma hung, like forbidden fruit, throughout the house.
“Who is it?” Emily inquired sweetly.
“It’s Luke,” he hollered. “Open the damn door.”
“Gladly,” she replied.
He stormed inside then stopped dead in his tracks, enchanted by the supernaturally sexy ladies in his sight and intoxicated by the cloying aphrodisiac in the air. In a trance, he followed the two temptresses to their bedroom.
Mere minutes later, he wordlessly followed the women back down the stairs and as Emily reopened the front door, he left the house, like a sleepwalker, without even a nod in their direction. He got into his car and drove off, having never even inquired about me.
“It’s safe now, honey. You can come out,” Emily called.
“What happened,” I asked. “Where did he go?”
“He’s gone, in more ways than one,” Aisha replied, cryptically. “You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”
In response to the skeptical expression on my face, the women looked at each other and began to giggle.
The following morning, the local newspaper carried a story about an automobile with Georgia license plates that had been dragged out of Lake Otsego. The driver who had drowned behind the wheel was identified as my husband, Luke.
I never returned to Georgia and lived happily ever after with Emily and Aisha. Their souls have now gone to their rest in the Summerland, but before they passed, they shared with me their store of ancient knowledge and secrets of the occult. Over the years it became a well-circulated rumor around Cooperstown that three beautiful witches occupied a farm somewhere on the outskirts of town.
