As she lets her body flop down against me, her hair falling over my face and her cheek against mine she whispers,
“You really love me?” setting my demon free. I rip her off of me by her hair. Throwing her onto the floor beside us, she tries to get her grip to escape in the pile of clothing. My boot makes her fall on her face as I tower over her. She heaves in panicked breaths as she shakes her head, knowing full well this is her fault, she made a terrible mistake. I grab the nape of her neck and pin her head down to the floor while my other hand fists my now raging hard cock. Kicking her legs apart she goes limp and stops fighting me, tears fall down her cheeks as I fuck her there on the floor in between my dirty clothes. Her body silences the monster as she comes over and over, accepting my assault as a blessing.
When the silence returned, I looked down at the bruises I caused and the glazed look in her eyes. I stood and walked out, closing the door behind me, leaving her there. Why didn’t she stay quiet? Why would she make me do that? Why did she let me? What have I done to my child? I just wanted to love her.
Caesar
Guilty of loving my child
I have avoided her for weeks, my guilt eating me alive each day. I lock myself away behind work and my closed office door, we don’t even share meals any longer. I am ashamed that I lost my control with her, that I hurt her like that. I want her life to be perfect, I don’t want her to hurt anymore. Maybe I need to move away from here, because walking on eggshells and hiding away is tiring me out. I am afraid to face her after what happened after she whispered so sweetly in my ear. For any other man that would have been a moment of love. A sweet declaration made in a moment so pure, but for me it was the pin pulled from a grenade. I wish I could find a better way to be normal, to be everything that she needs, but I am failing already. I am not meant to be anything other than alone. The old lady that has prepared food in this house since I was boy puts a tray down on my desk. I don’t want to eat. I read through the list of the upcoming transplants scheduled for our Mexico City clinics. Things are growing at a rapid rate, there are many more sick desperate people in the world than I thought. It’s funny how being faced with death makes the question of ethics fall away. Then one person's life is always worth more than another. Hugo communicates mainly by email, he knows how taxing having to talk to and listen to people is for me. He tries his best not to add to the mounting stresses in my life. Voices are my enemy again and I wrestle my disease daily, every little thing sets me off and keeping control has become almost impossible. I live in an almost constant state of aroused rage again.
In my gut I know I miss her, that she misses me and I need to find a way to fix this, but how do I fix an incurable condition? I wish I could chop off my ears and be free of the curse. My head in my hands I close my eyes and wish for the silence to return to me.
A loud knock on the door startles me.
“I need to speak with you, so please let me come in,” Lettie yells from the threshold of my safe place.
“Wait,” I say fumbling to replace the hearing aids before she can undo me any more than I already am. When I look up at her in the doorway she is scowling and her little brown eyes are vicious with anger. “Okay, come in Lettie.”
Her steps are determined as she stalks towards me where I hide behind my desk. She doesn’t stop, but walks right up to me until her belly pushes against the hardwood edge opposite me.
“Why are you hiding from me?” she yells and with the hearing aids in it's worse than a rock concert in my ears. “I made a mistake.” She sighs and looks down, shaking her head. “I am only human, Caesar. I am trying so hard.”
“I hurt you, Lettie. I saw what my hands did to you.” I answer her with the dirty truth.
“And I fucking liked it, because it was real. The first real thing since I landed in this fairy tale place where nothing is real.” She slams her hands down on my desk, leaning closer to me. “Nothing is this perfect, I can’t live with the perfect. I need real Caesar. I fucking need you. If you don’t love me, if you don’t want me, then take me back to the streets. This shiny castle in the damn country is making me crazy.” Tears flow from her cheeks onto the leather top of my desk. “I don’t want to be here without you, all of you, even your sickness. You don’t think I’m sick? We are all sick. The world is sick, Caesar. Love me or let me fucking go.”
Her eyes are like lasers trained on mine burning into me. Lust, love, hate and brutal honesty flow from her broken soul to mine as she catches her breath from yelling at me.
“I don’t want to sit out there alone. I want to be with you, learning from you. I want all of you, the man who sells people, the man who goes crazy from a whisper and the owner of those bodies in the yard. I want you, I love you, and leaving me alone hurts more than anything you could do with your hands.” She finishes quietly, thank God I put these things in my ears.
I don’t have the words to answer her. I wish I had an answer for everything she has just unloaded on me. Guilt strangles me more now, knowing that my abandonment was more painful than what my hands did to her. Physical pain is nothing for her, but her heart is so fragile that it could break in a second.
“I am sorry.” My voice cracks with emotions I don’t know how to show to her.
“I know you are.” She tucks her chin to her chest and wipes her eyes on her shirtsleeve. “So am I.” When she looks up I know what love is. The physical barrier of the desk is too much and I get up to go to her. Grabbing her and holding her against me, I let my own tears tumble down into her dark hair. I cling onto her as long it takes me to find silence. When my mind goes quiet and my body aches for her sweet soft touch, I take her to my room and I make her truly mine. I love Lettie like she should be loved with every part me.
Svetlana
Through death and forbidden love comes life.
I've felt different since being here in Spain with Caesar. Since he has accepted this love, we exist in our own quiet paradise. Floating between the realities of the outer world of what's deemed acceptable and what our normal is, we have fallen in tune with our little melody. It isn't sweet like other songs that are sung. It started out early; full of tragedy and despair. Through it all, we survived it to make our love matter. Our love story will be etched in time with scars and blood, murder and mayhem, but despite all of that, there is a simple tenderness that settles itself deeply in both of our hearts. It's devout, true, and meaningful. That simplicity took years to develop, and much heartache and loss for both of us to accept.
Love. True, unyielding fucking love.
Nine months have passed since living freely. It's not just me, either. Caesar has disbarred the judgements of both society and the ones that were pressured upon him as a child. Eventually, as time passed, they became both his nemesis and his sanity, though a complete puzzle of the mind, it's just how it worked for him. He had to find his way to peace. In doing that, he needed to accept the only kind of love that wasn't forced; one that he never had to say goodbye to.
Me.
I don't look at him any other way besides the man that I love. His black hair that is dusted with gray is unruly, just like before and when he's nervous, he runs his strong hands through it to tame his anxiety. It's sexy as hell. The dark stubble that used to cover his jaw is sparse, now covered with scars from the fires of the goodbye he wanted to greet. The only thing that stopped him was the fleck of hope that laid underneath the crazy. Me; his Mi Amor. The brown-eyed lost girl who used to be a lamb in the fierce world.
I was fucked by it. Torn apart by the nasty that surrounded me. Siphoned from any decency, I clung onto a sliver of hope as the man with dark eyes and hair haunted my dreams. Little did I realize back then, he would be my salvation both physically and mentally, and I would be the same for him.
His marred hands love me softly, easing the horror away with each feather-light touch. The battles that we fought are over, but the results of them will always be present. We will forever wear the effects on our skin, imperfect
to those that would take no time to judge the way we live, look, and love. His beauty is rough. He's untamed and dark. There are times he doesn't say much because the silence was his only friend for years. Sometimes little things set him off when he can't control the madness that still lingers, but I love those parts of him too.
Things will be changing for us soon. Caesar is working on some last minute details on the new clinic launching in Turkey next month, and I'm lying on top of our bed, cuddled by the down comforter beneath my naked skin. The sunlight shines in, peeking between the dark curtains, making me smile as little pains jab in my belly.
This is the first time Caesar won't be present when a new clinic opens. He has put all of his time, love, and faith into his life here, with me in Spain. He’s put Hugo in charge of its opening, and I have confidence he will do an amazing job like his brother. Any day now, our lives will be blessed with another. Caesar and I are granted another chance at life. We will pave the way for something better for our little one. There will be nothing but love and hope in her future. I will do everything in my power to shield her from sorrow. Life for her will be much different than the life I’ve led.
I've had cramping for several days, which the doctor said was normal. I have received top notch medical care since finding out I was pregnant seven months ago. Initially, I was terrified that Caesar wouldn't want me anymore. How would he tolerate a baby’s cry when my whisper sets his demons alight? Would this toss his balance aside and regress to the existence that surrounded him so heavily before?
No. He was overjoyed. He kissed me like his life depended on it, bending down to my belly and talking to our baby in Spanish as tears marked his scarred face. My heart opened up to a different passage, one that led to motherhood. A new journey that Caesar and I would travel together.
Being eighteen along with life's experiences, Caesar told the doctor that he was concerned with how my body would handle the stress of the pregnancy. My doctor isn't privy to our relationship, well, whatever you want to call it. Every test was done to check the well-being of the baby, including an amniocentesis to check for genetic abnormalities. The baby is one hundred percent healthy. Caesar said it wouldn't matter to him, because she was made out of love, but worry consumed that part of my heart that was opened when Caesar dropped to his knees and hugged my tummy.
But there is no reason to be worried because she is healthy. She is perfect. She is mine and I will love her like I never got to be loved. I will protect her like I never was. I am soon to be a mother, any day now, and Caesar a father.
We are a family. My story was never supposed to end like this. I always thought I would die next to a dumpster like my mother, but here I sit, rubbing my swollen belly as small contractions tighten across my stomach. I smile through the pain, because this beautiful hope is something that I won't ever let go of.
Eighteen un-medicated hours later, Lourdes Maria Salguero was born at 6 pounds 10 ounces and 19 inches long. Caesar didn't leave my side. He held my hand and breathed through the pain with me. He whispered in my ear as I screamed through the piercing agony that stretched through me, but I knew that a life we created out of love would be a result, and I could do it. I was stronger than the pain. I never let it win before. That kind of pain was different. It was special and significant. It was erasing the old pain and replacing it with meaningful life.
Like Caesar, I was saying goodbye to my old life and hello to my new one. As I hugged my newborn daughter to my chest and nursed her to my breast, Caesar nuzzled his sweaty face in the crook of my neck, kissing me with tenderness and care.
“Mi Amor. You are the fiercest lion I know. I love you.”
I smile as I play with Lourdes’ black curls, watching her lips suckle the milk from my breast.
“And you, paquita, will never be a lamb. You come from the strongest lions, but you will never be given a reason to use your teeth. Mami and Papi will do everything to keep you safe.”
It's now that I accept my life in its own perfection.
Caesar
Friday nights dream,
On Saturday told,
Is sure to come true,
Be it ever so old.
Tangled in sheets with bed hair, her bare breasts open to me and the filtered sunlight from the window highlighting her face, she quietly rubs the medicated lotion into my burn scars, returning some flexibility to my painful joints. Her hair tickles my skin as she leans over me to reach them all. Cigarette smoke clouds the air and the sunlight dances in it, making a swirling work of art above me. I watch it disappear before I exhale another, the silence is blissful and Lettie’s touch makes me want to doze back to sleep. I know that work is waiting for me and it won’t stay quiet forever. I just need a few more moments of this heavenly silence before the day takes over and it’s all forgotten again. She settles down next to me, takes my cigarette and inhales it deeply, blowing out a cloud of smoke to mingle with mine. Handing it back, she turns around, kissing me with more love than my heart can hold. When she lays down again, I kiss her forehead and sit up to face my day. After a long shower and the white noise of water to calm my soul, I dress in my work clothes and struggle with my shoes and socks before I slip in the hearing aids that have become our salvation. Sometimes the loud noise makes me tired, but the consequences of hearing a whisper hold so much more weight now. There are days my head pounds from the constant racket in my ears, but my sanity stays intact and I won’t hurt those I love.
Those, it is so strange to have people around me and actually want them there, I don’t run from them or hide away. I am happy, a foreign emotion for someone who spent their whole life angry or enraged. The calmness that Lettie and now Lourdes have brought to my life is beautiful. They have become the silence I sought after every day, I look forward to seeing them when my work is done. My work is never done, people don’t ever stop getting sick or needing parts, but I saving lives no matter how we do it is rewarding. I know that I would do anything, pay any amount of money, to keep my family safe and healthy. No price would be too much to protect them. I straighten my tie in the mirror and run my hands through my wet hair again so it is out of my eyes.
I hear my daughter cry, the sound piercing my ears at a volume so loud I cannot be affected. The shrill screams make me squeeze my eyes closed and wince at the violent vibrations in my ears, but I love the sound. It is the sound of dreams come to life. The noise of the two women in this house is everything I was prepared to live without, a family. Walking back into the bedroom, my two girls are now cuddled together in the bed, the morning light shining in making them look like angels illuminated. I walk over to the edge of the bed and kiss the little one’s head.
“Goodbye, Girl.” One last kiss. “I will see you later.”
I take the hearing aids out once I am at work, only my family are saved from the demons, I need them underneath it all to make things work. I have to be a ruthless monster to justify my actions.
About the Author, Ashleigh Giannoccaro
Ashleigh lives in South Africa with her husband, two little girls and a zoo of pets. She is slightly obsessed with serial killer shows on TV and loathes purple sweets with a passion.
She likes to write the darker side of love and her characters are not very often the “nice guys” we expect in romance.
When not in her cave writing the next twisted story she can be found travelling her beautiful country and wrangling her two young girls.
About the Author, Mary E. Palmerin
Mary E. Palmerin is the international bestselling author of the Monster Series, Redeeming Rhys, and The Goodbye Man. She currently resides in Indiana with her husband and two small boys. She enjoys writing raw, taboo tales that strike various emotions in her readers. When she isn't busy writing, she usually has her nose in a good book. Mary loves spending time with her family and friends, cooking, art, tattoos, red wine, traveling, and anything that makes her laugh. She believes in living life by the mantra, carpe diem! You can follow her website
at authormarypalmerin.com as well as on Facebook at Facebook.com/succumbingtoscarsandsorrow. She also tries to keep her Twitter page up @MP_writer 8! Mary loves to hear from her readers!
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