BF4Ever

by George Matheos

  There followed a long period of mental abuse between Anton and Judy Langdon wherein Anton’s true character of a jealous man revealed itself in its full ugliness. In his mind, his wife’s success as an author, most modest as it were, highlighted Langdon’s own failures and made his stomach churn and distend full of noxious gasses which he sickening burped continuously. Where once there had been subtle pleasantries in the daily social graces of the family, the double whammy of adultery and authorship brutally cancelled all communication between the couple. Silent grieving took over the house. Like the low barometric pressure that invades before the storm, a depressing stinking silence trumped all family activity in favour of morose reading to fill the vacant evenings.

  The muted stillness of a house gone mad made little Sharon fearful of the loneliness she was sensing. There were no words to buttress the walls and ceiling of a home defrocked of love. She began to dislike her parents for the selfishness that they exhibited in their hatred for each other, and for their psychological abandonment of her. And every so often, Judy Langdon, sensing her daughter’s loneliness, would try to console her and herself with readings from the Bible.

  While Judy sought sanctuary in the God of her Bible, Anton’s disappointments forced him away from his Catholic beliefs.

  “It’s all lies,” he would cruelly say to Sharon whenever he overheard a Biblical conversation between her and her mother.

  Everything was a lie, her father had said. Nothing was real, there were no boundaries. For Judy, it was the myth of the Old and New Testament that shielded from Anton’s hatred; for Anton all life was full of lies. Their lives had become a perverse reality wherein nine year old Sharon had to choose which of the parental muddled thoughts to follow. Out of fear she decided to live in her mother’s reality, though that too, she no longer believed as real, being obviously makeshift. She wished it weren’t so, but in her pre-adolescent existence, Sharon resided down in the dumps.

  Constant frustration and love deprivation led Sharon to constant fear and a distorted personality. She covered up her craving for affection by sneering at the idea of love and outwardly presented herself as defiant. Being young, it was safer to line up with mommy than the empty bleak world of Anton. She chose her mother’s God righteous path without fully understanding that girls instinctively cling to psychic entanglements with other women friends, and especially their mothers. A sullen mix of anger and melancholia followed her thereafter, and filled her heart with resentment for the rest of her life.

  These were confusing days for nine year old Sharon, and for many hours she and her mother would sit alone, more like hide in her bedroom, and read passages from the Bible. She understood little of what her mother was reading but found comfort in being alone with her, away from her father whose eyes sank deeper and deeper into their sockets and grew darkness around them as he tried to make the world disappear. Together, Judy and Sharon, memorized passages from the prophets about the Kingdom of Heaven; they read of the miracles of Jesus who made wine out of water and many loaves of bread out of fish, or fish out of water. Together they prayed to Jesus, Son of God, who ascended from the dead, and all the angels sang “Alleluia”.

  “Holy Lord, Holy and Strong, Holy and Immortal, please bless our souls,” Judy would pray to God, more for Sharon’s benefit than for her worthless self.

  “You know, Sharon, God loved humans so much that He sacrificed his One and only Son for our salvation. He especially loved children,” Judy would smile and Sharon would uncomfortably tighten her belly in fear of the Lord. Still, it was His Son He sacrificed and not His Daughter, and Sharon would smile and be glad that she was a girl.

  But in Sharon’s young mind, the lines that she loved and were forever embedded in her memory were from the most beautiful Song of Songs, as her mother would say, and her imagination would wander.

  “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys …”

  “Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies …”

  “How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O Prince’s daughter!

  the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, …”

  “I am my beloved’s …”

  “Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins…”

  Sharon loved the baffling words like ‘roes’ that are like breasts, though she had no idea what roes were, even after her mother explained. Did she dare ask if she was the rose of Sharon? But above all she loved ‘how beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O Prince’s daughter!’

  Judy tried to explain that the poem was about physical love, which is just as beautiful as any love, but it was too much for little Sharon. She only heard the words.

  Still, the words carried such intimate emotions for her, as she envisioned her feet with and, or without shoes, naked, walking across the dew green grass of evenings in some bejewelled Biblical garden, being watched in the moonlight by an equally romantic young prince. Young as she was it was easy for her to understand its meaning as she pleased, for it was meant for young girls: it was an amorous song of young breasts, and joints like jewels, made by God, right out of the Bible; breasts and thighs just like hers that already she could see were jewels from Heaven.

  “Like mine, mother?”

  “Yes, like yours, O Prince’s daughter,” her mother would caress her.

  “Am I a Prince’s daughter, mother?”

  Poor Anton; he had become the butt even of their jokes.

  “No my beloved; you are a princess of Jesus and I am the queen, your mother,” and they would both laugh to the complete exclusion of asexual Anton.

  “Is this poem about sex, mother?”

  “It’s more than that; it’s about love. It’s about the love of a man for a woman, and the love of people for God, and the love of nature and all God’s things. Only the hypocrites identify sensual love with impiety,” sighed Judy.

  “But there’s also sex in those words, isn’t there?”

  “Yes, it is also about the beauty of sex.”

  “Do you and father also have beautiful sex, mother?”

  “I don’t know, my beloved,” and two tears washed out of Judy’s eyes.

  Sharon looked at her mother and tears came to her eyes too.

  “Tears of my eyes, what have we done to you?” Judy cried and looked lovingly at her daughter. She took Sharon in her arms and they both cried hugging each other, as they sometimes did when they prayed together.

  “I know that you and father hate each other, and I’m sure you and father don’t ever have sex anymore. I mean like in the poem. Is it so horrible for you, mother?”

  “What do you mean, Sharon?”

  “To fuck your husband; is it so horrible for you?”

  “I’ll tell you when you’re a little older, but for now, don’t use such foul language,” rudely said Judy.

  “Why foul? Even the Bible says it’s ok,” said Sharon. “Are you at least friends?”

  “You’ll understand everything in its right time.”

  “I think you’ve had sex with another man. Did you, mother?” asked Sharon, long having suspected foul play.

  “Yes,” said Judy.

  “How could you mother?”

  There was no denying the truth, for Sharon was a bright girl. What would have been the use of hesitation and searching for lies to tell her daughter?

  “I’m not going to have beautiful sex with many man other than my husband when I grow up,” she said forcefully.

  “You mustn’t be so judgemental ….”

  “Why? What does the Bible say, mother.”

  There was no denying the rose of Sharon.

  “You must always remember that the most important of the Lord’s Commandments is, ‘Thou shall not commit adultery’ ”.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I hope you never ha
ve to find out,” said Judy, too aware of her own mortal sin.

  “I know what it means,” said Sharon. “In today’s world adultery is an anachronism. Not to worry mother, I suspect that even then it was an anachronism.”

  *

  The overpowering daily silence coupled with recurring Biblical readings produced psychoneurotic introspections of uncertainties in Sharon. Thoughts that she might do terrible things, without realizing it, overwhelmed her daily existence. Threats of disapproval from her parents unsettled her life continuously. School phobias followed her for years and the temptation to do ‘bad’ things, usually sexual in reference, became unbearable and for some reality relief she shut her personality deep into her unconscious so that the temptation might go away. Screaming emotions of familial hatred juxtaposed with Biblical love stories echoed bipolar moods in her and drove her deeper into mental isolation. For years she looked down when she walked, and sat in the back of the classroom fearful that she might be called on when she feared she wasn’t ready. Then, one day, just as it happens to all princesses, as she was walking through the unlit high school hallways of her mind, future husband Hank Merker, most unexpectedly, blessed his smile on her. She was first embarrassed and then thrilled, the envy of all her friends, and though still lacking in self-confidence to understand the pressing, she understood that she was as she had suspected – beautiful! She was too young to fully appreciate how devastatingly beautiful she was, but from that magic moment of recognition, her whole being tingled with thrilling sensations because, after all, he was the star quarterback, and for many days thereafter, Sharon floated on the vast American cloud of high school football legends. Before Hank’s eyes fell on her, she was barely coming out of early adolescence. She had felt modest in her estimates of herself; shy and hesitatingly pretty in her mind, she thought that perhaps she might be a little more than just plain; at best, merely one of many budding beauties that American high schools are full of. But for Hank, like all the other pretty and not so pretty faces blossoming and competing to be mated by a star, she too emotionally spread her skinny legs, for the star quarterback, because she thought she was in love. She was sixteen and suddenly life burst into spring; he chose her and what could she do but say yes to his fondling smile. They walked hand in hand in the crowded hallways of Magnolia High School, in Sherman Oaks, California, constantly smiling but not ever saying anything. Sharon was shy, and shyness makes people dumb, or at least makes them appear dumb because they say nothing; and though they know they appear dumb, there’s usually nothing they wish to say or do about it. Spiritually, she felt like a virgin out of the Bible, struck dumb by the Lord for her lewd thoughts about handsome Hank. To her relief, neither did Hank have much to say. He just smiled a lot, and flaunted his perfectly whitened teeth.

  During their first school social date one Friday night, determined Hank took Sharon by the hand and led her to the big boys’ gym dressing room, familiar ground to the all of Magnolia High sport jocks, just off the main Gym. While everybody else was dancing the night away, he spread eagled her on one of the benches between the metal lockers, her feet trembling on each side of the wooden bench. He lifted her skirt and stared down at her as a wild predator might stare before the charge. She was speechless, motionless; mesmerized, she obeyed his every move without the tiniest of protests. Suddenly, everything that was happening was terrifying for Sharon. She didn’t know how to react, and he brutally raped her without mercy. There was no foreplay, no petting, and no gentle soothing words. He fucked her without even taking her panties off. He was an experienced big boy quarterback with a huge penis, while for her, it was her first time, and she had no idea how to protest his powerful hurting thrusts. Without pity, he nailed her on the cross that was the bench. He was relentless in his attack and he hurt her without thought or care. She was in too much in pain, too timid, too shy, to protest the brutal rape that forever became her cross to bear.

  She asked for it and she will remember this for the rest of her life thought macho Hank, the diesel hung star quarterback of Magnolia High. She wasn’t the first girl he had raped in the boys gym lockers.

  It all happened too quickly. She stood up and tried to straighten out her clothes, but her mind could not comprehend how she had wound up spread-eagled numb on a wooden bench and how someone who she didn’t know very well had so easily fucked her. Emotionally, she could not feel a thing, though later that night, alone in her bedroom, the humiliation would surface excruciatingly hard, both mentally and physically.

  When he finished washing his dick in the gym sink, he returned with some paper towels for her to wipe herself. He then smiled at her and took her by the hand back to the dance in the Gym.

  For the rest of her life, Sharon felt disgust with herself recalling how effortlessly Hank had crushed her virginity and soul, one evening, soon after they had met, fucking her in a stinking boys’ gym locker room.

  He walked her home after the dance without saying a word. He kissed her hard on the lips on her front porch. She remained stiff and speechless while he tongue-kissed away. Energized by the lopsided score, in two leaps he bounded down the five steps of her porch, fast disappearing in the night’s sidewalk. He would have wanted to make out some more with easy Sharon but his friends were anxiously waiting for him in Abe’s Pizza Tower to hear of his triumph of lovely Sharon.

  The whole porch scene was watched by Anton through his dark living room window, but he didn’t want to make an issue of it.

  She entered the house and was surprised to see her father still awake. She followed him into their kitchen and she sat down by the kitchen table somewhat in fear that her father might have guessed what had happened to her earlier.

  “You want a coke,” he politely asked.

  It was unbearable, being there alone with him. She was sure he knew.

  “No thank you,” she said, and she got up to go to her bedroom.

  Unbeknown to Sharon, there was a small blot of blood on the back of her skirt and also on the kitchen chair she had sat on moments earlier.

  “Sharon …” but she didn’t turn around to her father’s calling.

  Must be her period, he thought. Definitely unprepared but what do you expect from a dumb mother like Judy.

  At least she’s not pregnant, he smiled to himself, alone again.

  He felt very proud that he now had a grown daughter, a beautiful young woman. If only he could tell her.

  There was a burning sensation to the injury she felt as she washed the blood away in her shower. She hadn’t felt the pain when he was raping her but now she felt a stinging wound as if there had been a cut deep inside her. She washed for a long time; there was a lot more blood than she had been led to think about sexual intercourse.

  Unbeknownst to her at that moments, it was the beginning of her hatred for Hank.

  The bastard injured me she thought and bled in secret silence.

  Alone, it was that night, as she lay sleepless in her bed that Sharon wrote her parents out of her mind as if they had never existed.

  They died in the swamp that had become her muddled mind.

  Chapter Nine

  “Who would have ever thought that an ex-Peace Corps Volunteer would have been such a cruddy little bastard,” half-heartedly smiled Robin thinking about her husband David Calder. She liked strolling around the UCLA campus because it reminded her of happier days when she was an undergraduate, and later, when she trained there for the Peace Corps. Looking back, they were naive days, uncomplicated by the duplicity of adult deceptive words and actions; happy days when she still fancied herself as the next Emily Dickinson, though by her sophomore year in college she had stopped printing her poetic crap in favour of concentrating on world social awareness issues like the outbreaks of malaria in the underdeveloped countries, overpopulation, and global pollution in the irresponsible overdeveloped. Annoyed with herself at being so naive, she now couldn’t imagine that
once upon a time she actually believed that she could really make a difference in the world. Hers were heroic fantasies of triumph solidly imprinted in her youthful mind; ideas to which she had faithfully adhered to in sublimated pleasure to cover up her ignorance. Now grown up, she viewed her youthful politics as amusing little white lies intended to combat her insecurities. From the very beginning, they were feel-good promises to a pretty little girl, from mommy and daddy, so that she would always be a winner. And so she remained a virgin to the world until she was invited to train for the Peace Corps to go to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and teach English. She was twenty one at the time and knew that somewhere beyond the sea there was a world for her to conquer.

  She stopped and sat in the grass in front of Royce Hall on the UCLA quad and again found the beautiful Mexican-deco, pink-coloured building, pleasing to look at. The warmth of the building lovingly passed through her entire body, and she felt the afternoon sun melting on her. She looked straight ahead and tilted her head slightly up at the bluest of skies and felt the vigor of her youth. She breathed in the scent of the recently mowed fresh green grass and sensed the world as her own. The scene was one of calm, and she felt relaxed in its familiarity. It was the same picture she had often seen in her dreams. It was a scene recalling the calm and happy days before complications to prove oneself had set in. In her dream she was sitting on the green grass, like she had done so many times during PC training, when she wanted to feel alone, Royce Hall on her right. Like in her dream, she was now looking straight ahead at the warm setting sun, felt free of all the world, and she longed for the feeling of the fading day not to end. After all these years she still felt clean and memorably twenty-one whenever she walked the cool grounds of UCLA.

  Tired memories of the young men and women who had been invited to the training program at UCLA that would eventually take them to Ethiopia swept through her mind. She couldn’t help it: the Peace Corps experience had been pivotal to what and who she now was. If she could, she would now re-invent the group as more normal, more flawed, in-the-raw human beings rather than the fragile bright-eyed people just out of college that they were then, full of uncertain idealism and nervy theatrics about maturity, and middle age, and old age, and endless other opinions. It was that silent fear of the real world that made them, “including myself,” huddle into the cloister of Peace Corps volunteerism, she thought. For some, the fear of what lay ahead evidenced itself in an insecure laughter that betrayed confused clumsiness and improbable assertiveness. She recalled how some, including herself, would gather around the dorm’s lounge piano, just before suppertime, and sing the tearjerker