by Manuel Tiger
“He told me that no one could love me as he loved me, that no one else would want me for I was a dirty boy now, but his special dirty boy.
“I started drinking at thirteen for he would ply me with liquor for he liked it when I would lay there limp, passed out. I began doing drugs that he gave me and began doing them on my own to forget what was being done to me as well as drink. At fourteen I had hang overs, all just to forget what he was doing to me! He introduced me to stronger drugs meant to heighten the sexual acts, to make me more eager for him, receptive!
“And then, I just snapped one day. He had brought in another one of his friends for a three way and I just lost it,” I said dropping to my knees, my hands clutching at the cold earth. “I began throwing things at him, cussing at him, saying I was going to tell my father about him and his friends. I ran from the apartment and by the time I came home? He had already called my father and told his lies.
“He told my father I was gay. That he had caught me sneaking out once and followed me to a gay club where I serviced men, or in the back seat of cars. That I was whoring myself out and that I had been the one to come onto him first!”
I knelt there in the dirt and lifted my head up, my face streaked in tears. I felt Daman come over to me, to wrap his arms around me as I just continued staring forward.
“Don’t,” I whispered. “You don’t know…,” I said struggling to get out of his arms, but he held onto me tightly, refusing to let me go. “I did become a whore,” I said chuckling. “In the new high school I attended if some guy even showed me the slightest interest I let him fuck me or in college? A history professor showed interest in me and I was his play toy for a semester. I kept trying to find someone who could make me forget what happened, to make sex be something good. But all I could find were people that just wanted a quick fuck and be gone.
“I fell into the habit of one night stands, of letting someone just use me to get off and discard me afterwards. It was just easier that way for me for I knew no one would want this broken boy, this broken man that I am.
“And then a few months back I ran into him, my molester. He cornered me at a club I was at and…,” I laughed but it held no mirth, only a sourness to it. “He fucked me in a back room and told me I was still as tight as I was at twelve.
“I don’t know why I let him do that to me. I froze up again, I just…froze. I was no longer a boy. I was older, but I couldn’t fight him off, couldn’t push him away. I became that twelve year old boy all over again and after that encounter? I began drinking, doing drugs heavily, hearing again his words that I’m only meant to be a dirty boy and that no one will want me.
“And that? That is me before you. I’m not worthy of you Daman.”
“That was you before me,” he whispered. I felt his hot tears on my shoulder as he held me tighter to his body. “But you are worthy of love, of every meaning of that word! And I will show you that you are!”
“I told you Daman, I’m fucked up!” I said trying to get out of his arms yet he continued to hold onto me. “You deserve…you deserve someone that isn’t! Someone that doesn’t come with so much baggage! Someone so much better than me!” I was crying and shaking again, could barely see through my tears.
“I’m with who I want to be, Henry!” he whispered loudly, his own voice choked with emotions. “What was done to you was no fault of your own! It was forced on you!”
“Don’t you think I realize that? Then something will happen to take me back! Like tonight! I’m a fucking mess Daman! You deserve so much fucking better than me!” I repeated, my words jumbling together. “So much better than me…”
He spun me around and cupped my face in his hand while keeping his arm around me, perhaps sensing if he didn’t I would run.
Tears glistened in his eyes making them appear bluer than I ever saw. They ran down his cheeks in shimmering tracks and into his beard.
“If it takes me a lifetime Henry? If it takes me a fucking eternity to heal whatever is still broken inside of you? I will fucking do it! For I am not losing you! I am not letting you go!” he said so fiercely it made my heart hurt. “I will love you harder, show you even more love every damn day! Show you that you are worthy of it, of me! For I’m the damn unworthy one here! For I will not ever fucking lose you! You are mine now to protect and I will! You are mine, don’t you see that?” he whispered. “I lost my heart to you and keep losing it every day to you when I wake up beside you. When you just come through the door? I am falling in love with you all over again!”
I stared at him, crying harder and just collapsed against him as he enfolded me in his arms, to his body.
“You are mine now Henry Sullivan, always, for eternity you are mine,” he murmured against the top of my head.
I had no voice. I didn’t know what to say for I had no strength left in me to say anything else.
He held me as I cried, as I fell apart and came undone not letting me go once.
When I felt I could speak, when I felt some iota of strength return to me I rested my head on his right arm, my hand wrapped around it.
“T-That’s a pretty long time to be with someone,” I said softly, my voice a near croak in my throat as I looked up at him. “Are you sure? After only three months?”
I was trying to make him see, to see reason, to see that that I was too much of a fucking mess to be with.
“Every day on my planner has your name on it Henry,” he said running his fingers through my hair. “Along with what I have planned for us, for you.” He kissed the top of my head. “I currently have us booked up till the year two thousand and twenty if you must know.”
I laughed, despite it all, and looked up at him.
“That far into the future, huh?”
“I have more planners on order,” he said winking and smiling. “But after two months Henry? I knew that I never wanted another day to go by without you.”
“I never want another day without you either,” I said as he pulled me closer.
“You will always have me Henry Sullivan.”
For the remainder of the year we were never apart. Even when he was invited to the mayor of Heaven Falls annual Winter/Christmas ball he brought me along with him and never let go of my hand from the moment of arrival, introducing me as his other half to those that came up to us. The first time he used those words I just looked at him, a silly grin on my face as he returned it with that charming smile of his.
We spent Christmas Day exchanging gifts, one a piece as I requested for I feared he would have given me a near roomful of gifts. I had had a ring made for him of gold and royal blue tanzanite, to match his eyes, at the local jewelry store.
I would have thought the man that seemed to have everything would be little impressed by something so simple but the moment he laid eyes on it he simply stared for the longest time that I thought he didn’t like it at all.
“I can get you something else,” I began when he looked up and there were tears in his eyes. He placed it on his left ring finger and swept me up into his arms, swinging me around the room that I nearly got dizzy.
“No, it’s never coming off my finger,” he said bringing me in close, kissing me deeply. “Now, open mine,” he said nodding to the wrapped gift resting on the dining table. I nodded and once he put me down I walked over and opened it carefully, the wrapping paper too pretty to rip apart, but I could tell he was impatient for me to get to the gift within.
Once the bow and wrapping paper had been removed I found a medium sized box within and opening it discovered he still managed to give me more than I had given him.
I removed a pen I had only mentioned in casual conversation to him, stunned by the price was the reason I mentioned it, but one I knew an author who I admired used.
“Daman,” I said looking up at him with wide eyes. “This pen, it…it’s too much of a gift!”
“Nonsense,” he said stepping toward me, wrapping his arms around me. “Maybe that will be the pen you’ll write the fi
rst draft of your novel with, Henry.”
I was more touched by the words that he remembered my desire to be an author someday than by the pen itself. “I, I don’t know what to say Daman,” I said staring at him. “But thank you.”
“There’s more in the box,” he said as I looked at him, unsure of what else he could have fit in there.
It was a pair of gold and sapphire cufflinks. A skilled artist had carved around the edges ivy leaves.
“They’re beautiful,” I said looking up.
“They were my father’s and now they are yours,” he said. “And there’s still a little more in that box.”
I eyed him. “What all did you manage to fit into such a box?” I said reaching in and withdrawing plane tickets for Paris. “P-Paris?” I said. “For?”
“New Year’s Eve,” he answered. “I believe we will ring in the arrival of the new year there and spend at least a week. Don’t worry, I already talked to Belle Dawn on your behalf.” He grinned and drew me back to him. “Merry Christmas, Henry. I hope this has been a good one for you.”
“The best I have ever had,” I said kissing him.
The new year arrived and we spent nearly two weeks in Paris, but I turned the last few days of our stay there into a working vacation for an article for the Gazette’s travel section to appease Belle Dawn. She had sent one text message to me asking if I intended to return before January was over.
“She’s always been grumpy,” Daman said as we lounged in bed that day I received the text. “She was like that even when she was younger.”
I looked at him. “You knew her when she was younger?” I grinned. “You must be immortal.” I teased as I set the phone aside and returned to his arms.
“So I heard from others about her,” he said as he tucked me to him. “And by all those stories I’ve been told? She hasn’t changed one bit from how she was as a young woman. But I do admire her commitment to her job, her strong work ethics and for hiring you which brought you to Heaven Falls and into my life.”
Our time spent in Paris would remain forever with me and all too quickly did it seem our time there was over for duties back home, of the Gazette for me and Daman beginning the expanding of his antique business, called us back to Virginia. He did find several antique pieces for clients and I had taken photos that he hung on the walls of his office, one of us standing in front of the Eiffel Tower – very clichéd couple photo – he framed and placed front and center on his desk.
The months seemed to fly by after that. We attended the various events that Heaven Falls threw from a Spring Carnival to an Early Summer Festival – “They love nothing more than to celebrate every season here,” he told me – to the eventual Fourth of July celebrations which marked my one year anniversary for working for the Gazette.
Belle Dawn threw me a small celebration party at a local restaurant which Daman attended and later we celebrated intimately back at River Haven.
And with the arrival of my one year anniversary of working at the paper so too approached the arrival of Daman and mine’s anniversary as a couple. He told me that he had something planned, yet would not tell what. I only knew that he said it would be held at River Haven, only the two of us until that weekend when we traveled to Richmond to have a more formal party thrown for us by one of his friends there.
I arrived at River Haven that evening after work with a gift in hand and as I pulled into the driveway behind his car I noticed that candles had been set up in glass globes that lit the walkway leading up to the steps but there they turned to the right leading around the house.
So I followed them around the side of the house to the garden to which they led.
“Daman?” I said entering the garden, looking around to see the fountain was lit up with candles which lined the basin and had been carefully placed on each tier. It was truly a beautiful sight to behold, one that I took out my camera from my satchel and snapped a photo of. “Daman? Are you here?” I asked aloud as I approached the fountain. I removed my satchel and sat it beside the fountain with the gift atop it.
The sound of a horse’s snort drew my attention to look behind me to watch as Daman emerged from the night astride a white horse. He himself was dressed in a white linen shirt open to mid-chest, black pants and boots and resting at a rakish angle atop his head was a crown.
“Daman?” I said staring at him with a grin.
“Tonight I am Prince Daman of River Haven,” he said effecting a British accent, grinning from ear to ear. “Come to rescue the dark headed prince known as Henry.”
Before I knew it he had he swept me up to join him a top the horse placing me in front of him. With a tug on the reins he directed the horse back in the direction that he had come from. Again I noticed the candles in glass globes and some hanging lanterns from the lowest limbs of the trees which guided our way into the depths of the forest.
“Daman,” I said as he brought a finger to my lips and held me tighter. He guided the horse along the worn path and I settled against him, resting my head back on his shoulder as I stared up at the full moon overhead and the stars that twinkled so brightly like a field of fireflies. It felt like a magically night, nearly like a dream.
The sound of rushing water drew my attention from observing the sky through the interlocking branches of the trees to see that we had arrived into a small clearing beside the river. The river itself looked like a ribbon of spilled ink, shimmering and sparkling beneath the glow of the moon and the stars.
It was here in this clearing that he brought the horse to a stop and climbed down then helped me off.
“I never rode a horse before,” I said looking at the beautiful creature with its kind eyes of brown, running my fingers through its long silken mane.
“I would never have guessed that given how well you ride me,” he whispered as I grinned and lightly elbowed him. “Come, I have taken you from the tower and now shall lay claim to my prince here by the river and beneath the stars.”
“You really have surprised me,” I said as he led me toward where a blanket resided beneath the tree along with a picnic basket and wine chilling in a silver bucket beside it. “I did not expect this at all!”
“I know,” he said as we settled upon the blanket. “But you always said how you wished a prince would come to save you? Well,” he held out his arms and smiled. “One has now.”
“You did,” I said holding his gaze. “I don’t know how I can ever think you, Daman.” I leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. “But thank you, I really do love this,” I said as he smiled and removed his crown before taking me into his arms. And there we celebrated our one year anniversary beneath the moon and stars as witnesses. Afterwards, both naked, we went for a swim in the river acting silly and in love before returning back to shore and collapsing onto the blanket in a tangle of limbs and kisses.
It truly was a memorable night, one I would always remember, yet what was to come in the weeks and months later would make it seem like a distant memory, another me that had experienced all this happiness.
It began one day in August at the office. I was helping Helen Page, a fellow reporter, who was covering some recent deaths that had occurred in the forests surrounding Heaven Falls.
These deaths were all the town could talk about due to the vicious nature of how the bodies had been found – campers with their throats ripped out or savagely mauled that it was being reported that the police and investigating detectives would have to use dental records to identify some of the bodies. The others that they couldn’t ID they would have to rely on recent missing persons reports. It was believed a bear or wolf may have been responsible for the attack.
“It’s been a while since we had anything of this nature occur,” Helen told me as we sat at the reading desk in the basement. She had various stacks of boxes around us and had asked for my help in gathering some old source information.
I looked up from my notepad and frowned. “You mean deaths like this have occurred before?”
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br /> “I keep forgetting that you’re practically still new here to Heaven Falls,” she said setting aside a newspaper. “But yes, deaths similar to this one have occurred in the town’s past. Bizarre deaths coupled with people just turning up missing. No matter how much work was done by the police or outside help from other law enforcement agencies? Nothing or no one was ever found to be held responsible for the deaths.”
“Nothing? As in a something and not a someone?”
“You haven’t heard the stories?”
“You mean about the witches and werewolves that are supposed to dwell around here?” I smirked. “You don’t really believe such stories do you?”
“Should be added to that the occasional spirit sightings as well,” she said. “And I do believe the stories. I’ve seen a few things that defy explanation as have most that have grown up around here,” she said brushing a lock of hair over an ear. “And my grandmother used to tell me that the Indian tribes that once lived in the area spoke of strange creature sightings, or what we now call cryptids.”
“I guess I just don’t believe in such things, sorry,” I said. “But these so called cryptids and supernatural beings were believed to be responsible for these earlier disappearances? The deaths even?”
“If you need proof,” she passed over a newspaper she had set atop a small stack she had begun. “Read for yourself.”
I took the paper and read the headline article that blazed across the front page. “Death of three girls believed to have been the result of the Salt March Witch,” I read aloud. I looked at Helen with a raised eyebrow and then continued reading. “The three missing daughters of an area farmer were found where the river brushes up against the salt marshes. Their heads were savagely twisted around by something or someone with great strength and odd, devilish symbols carved onto their torsos. It has long been said that the salt marshes that are to the south of the town are home an agent of the devil, the Salt Marsh Witch…,” I stopped and looked at the date. It was listed as back in the early twenties.