BF4Ever
Page 18
*
Delightful confusion sweetly followed into Sharon’s mind; there was something appealing to Roman Claudio this unexpected night. His was the gentle love without the grunts, and he was kind. This was the way it should have been from the very beginning, and not the ugly way that Hank had offensively assaulted her the first and all the other times. The impromptu act was so good that it left no room for stray regrets. Something short of a miracle had happened at the bar. For the first time she had sex that she didn’t think of it as dirty.
She thought of Kitty and felt sorry that she might have betrayed her friend. She shut her eyes, turned away, not wanting to see Kitty’s face which had now snuck into her bedroom. Once again she agreed with Robin’s advice not to say anything to Kitty. She had to keep it to herself. She didn’t care if Hank knew.
Suddenly, she had a splitting headache and laid on her bed hoping to rest it away. She took two aspirin and cried heavy tears, alone in silence, wishing she could talk to her mother who long ago got tongue tied to a frozen husband. She shut her eyes to dull the martini pain and thought of the magical moments of her Biblical Sunday school days and felt the recurring need to once again lose herself into bright happy thoughts. If only she could go back to those Biblical moments, just one more time, long enough to forget the merciless vodka pain throbbing in her brain so she could fall asleep and take that other bend on the road, to find a different path to a more normal life.
Sleep was nowhere to be found that night. Contradictory thoughts pleasing and distasteful hovered rudely in the darkness of her brain until she understood that she really had no control of either her body or her mind; that there were many strange but natural feelings of love; yes, many different types of love that reigned over human beings.
And then like her mother before her, she asked for God’s forgiveness.
“We could have been so much better if we hadn’t been such misfits” she tried to wipe away the loveless memories of her parents’ pathetic relationship that passed for marriage. It wasn’t a blessed union; but then, it was no one’s fault.
Again she thought of her intransigent parents.
God bless their souls, she thought, and with her mouth wide open like a fledging waiting to be fed, she slowly faded into sleep.
Chapter Twelve
That very same night, Sharon had a very strange dream.
She was walking down a narrow ochre-yellow, urine-smelly dirt road lined with muddy light brown huts in a dead place, somewhere very foreign to her mind. Out of a movie, perhaps, her unconscious mind ventured into the uncensored scene, probably in some blazing hot lifeless desert in the Middle East or Africa; or maybe out of a Bible study picture book. It was a curious amalgam of desert colors. In her dream were scenes and shades of shimmering yellow and orange pastels, lovely, silent, pastel waves filling her eyes canvas. Everything before her slow moving sight was shiny silent.
Silent stillness everywhere including the imperceptibly shifting tiny grains of sand that inaudibly seemed to move in harmony with the yellow heat of the glistening air. It was a forsaken landscape eerily barren of life, except for the flood of yellow, the color of death, she thought. The straw-mud huts barely endured against the desert wind. They resembled crumbling tombstones in some forsaken ancient cemetery. They looked like they had been shovelled into the ground to wait a second coming. Time had eroded most of the huts back into their deadest grains of sand and dust; their walls had mostly crumbled; they smelled of the dusty death from ages immemorial, tedious all around, the inexorable sun having scorched the last drop of water, of life, out of them.
She looked up and the whole dream, place, earth, and sky, blended into blinding yellow. The high noon sun was glowing intensely unbearable challenging the dead tranquillity of the cast beneath it; its heat was energizing the fine dust in unison with the whispering wind to gust tiny funnels all around, fiercely blinding her and forcing her to lower her kerchief to shade her eyes and block the light, so she could see past the storm. For the first time, in her dream, she realized that too much sun, too much light, can blind a person. She began to hate the sun that now disturbed her dream and sought the comfort of the protected shade and went and sat next to a crumbling hut. Full of uneasiness she found relief in taking deep breaths to lessen the chocking pain in her chest. The gasps of dry air and the blinding stillness of the place worsened her fears and made her want to scream and wake up from what was now becoming a nightmare. Leaning against the ruin, she felt afraid not knowing how to get out of her misery. The puke foul odor of urine was everywhere and the revolting stench was compounding her difficulty in breathing. Again and again she gasped for air, breathing hard through her mouth, for it seemed to her less obstructed and less offensive than breathing through her nostrils. She felt weak and very tired as she tried to make her way out of this improbable dream built out of mud and hay and held together, she was now sure, by nothing more than the fear of emptiness which sometimes is discernible in dreams. Bewildered by the stupidity of her mess, her unconscious brain released ever more shades of color to allay the fear that had trapped her. She frantically gasped to find an exit from her unlikely state but to her terror there was no visible out of her intense surroundings. The strong fear emitting from the deafening filthy dream was exhausting her and she wanted to cry out loud and end her desolate nightmare, but could not.
Ominously, everywhere, including up, and everything all around, raged stupefying yellow, the color continuing to register panic in her mind as the precursor color of death, which was strange because for most of her young life she thought dark, not light, as the color of death. Bright yellow from the life giving sun was what she grew up with; why now death? She felt trapped and wished she could run away or somehow be carried out of this stinking deathly yellow quandary.
Out of nowhere, in her dream, she saw a strange otherworldly figure enveloped in a princely white robe, his head covered, his eyes barely revealed through an opening slit in the folding of a golden mantilla. Even at a distance, the eyes, those eyes, were disturbing, reminding her so much of eyes she thought she knew. The alien apparition was strangely galloping towards her on a powerful white stallion on top of low flying fluffy white pristine clouds.
At first she was startled, but then even in her sleep a smile slowly came over her face, and in slow motion she thought, this obviously is an act of God; the ghostly appearance should not be so upsetting, nor so unexpected, or so sudden, and for sure not so unpredictable, for surely it’s a sign from God. She felt the power of the insight, and calmly focused on the apparition which was furiously swinging a sparkling sword above its head, powerfully reigning in his steed before her as it floated on the aura of white light, now all over the desert sand.
Though she welcomed the spooky visitation of the holy figure, which blended in her mind as familiar as a member of the family, yet it might have been death itself, and she remained fearful in her dream, and tried hard to turn away from it, but could not move, bound as she was on her bed. It was becoming a crazy scene and in her desert bed she was perspiring hard and suffocating under the weight of her miserable jam. She felt trapped between her sheets, stuck without clothes on, nude in an infertile desert with its crumbling mud huts all around her. She might as well have been in some cheap motel anywhere in Los Angeles, stuck in the jaded world of her unconscious. The gagging scene was a scary encounter full of the sin, its only salvation being the Lord’s forgiveness, her rapid eyes aimlessly fluttered. The ghostly sight is a bad omen, an early warning of disaster, possibly of death, her sleeping mind searching opaquely for the shore.
It was no use, only prayer could now and forever save her wretched soul from the immoral Acts of Magnolia High School’s insipid culture, once again retching up the foulness of her barren life with Hank and his dumb friends, ever since high school, always trying to hump her in warehouse sex.
And in her nightmare, her heart filled with the fear of
Hank and his friends and Claudio at will with her, and her liking it, in the warmth of her luxurious bed. Her best friends, Kitty, and Robin, and Myrna made cameo appearances in her dream their shinny faces smiling and full of love, together, outside of the warehouse.
But the unforgiving white knight viciously struck his sword close to her face, in full stride on top of his pure white horse, hurling her to the ground before the frowning silence of her mind’s floating illusion.
Alone once again, she was in the middle of a desert wilderness with nothing but lifeless sand dunes as far as her eyes could see. In desperation she prayed for the Lord’s forgiveness and, strangely, as it often happens in dreams, although the sun was as blinding as ever, and the air as hot, yet, the inhospitable surroundings changed with the prayer on her lips, and suddenly the hot orange sand beneath her barren feet felt fresh and cool. And in the setting of the sun she breathed fresh air again and was no longer afraid of being alone in the wilderness. Soon she was walking the invigorating cool breezes of the dusk desert air and in their midst she thought she heard a most melodious song. Or, rather, it was more like a chant, a most heavenly chant, up from above and all around, sung by the sweetest of voices. Like a holy vestment, it engulfed her body and soul and she knew that she was before a blessed presence. The mesmerizing chant followed her for what seemed to have been a long time, though Lord only knows how actually long. It was soothing, and soft, and sweet, and it touched her heart like no other melody before. She vaguely recognized it as one of those full of humanity Byzantine chants that mystically induce a lingering air in the minds of people who have heard them. And although the language of the chant was foreign to her, yet she understood its meaning, which was of love and forgiveness.
A new vision, like a shimmering mirage, now commanded her attention high above her tired eyes, eclipsing everything else around her. Her unconscious mind focused on an iridescent face of what she paradoxically knew was a young beautiful monk. He was undoubtedly the angel sent to save her from her sins. His handsome elongated face was covered with a sparse long light beard that was proof positive that he was of holy rank. He was sitting alone on the windowsill of his monk’s cell in a monastery perched high above the world on a rock-solid cliff. Looking towards the setting sun, he sang in the most pleasing of voices, stirring her mind and capturing her soul, repeating softly his embracing chant which in rhapsody reverberated magically within her captive heart:
Those who have been baptized in Christ
In Christ they shall be resurrected,
Alleluia…
Those who have been baptized in Christ
In Christ they shall be resurrected,
Alleluia…
Those who have been baptized in Christ
In Christ they shall be resurrected,
Alleluia…
Like delicate wind chimes on a muted windy night the chant encircled her mind for hours, so it seemed, before waking her to a disturbing but most pleasing emotion. She lay quietly in her bed, totally unaware of her husband sleeping next to her, recalling the words so powerfully inscribed into her consciousness by a dream. She silently repeated them, “baptized in Christ”, “resurrected”, “alleluia.” They were pleasing words, mysteriously soothing. She felt the warmth of their presence, smiled contentment, and fell asleep again.
*
The very next morning, Sharon received a bouquet of thirty yellow roses accompanied by a love note from Claudio.
“Last night I saw a thousand stars
Passing before my eyes
Bearing hope and love
Hope that you will love me
Until all the stars of Heaven
In everlasting eternity
Pass before both our eyes…
Nobody has ever cried for me…
Tears came to Sharon’s eyes but for reasons that Claudio would never understand. Never again would he get a chance or an explanation from resurrected Sharon. There could be no Hank, no Mark, nor anyone else in her life, after the sweet faced Monk’s song. She felt spellbound by the holy message dream from heaven and the beautiful face of the holy monk and other saints. She cried and wished and prayed for a life more substantial, more connected to the Lord’s wondrous world. She felt the emptiness of her soul and wanted to be somebody, she told herself. If she couldn’t have children of her own, maybe she could find a more productive life in helping others. Yes, be a good self-sacrificing Christian. She would search her soul and begin to understand, love, and give of herself to those less fortunate than herself. She thought of her friends and happily concluded that there was room for help there. She decided that she would be God’s instrument to help her friends.
Perhaps unkindly, though she didn’t think so because she did love them, in thinking of her best friends forever, she wished that she too could be less sexy, less attractive, more like them. If only she could trade her bodily beauty for something more spiritual, more intellectual, something on a par with the excellence of her splendid buttocks, she smiled the worldly smile that was her trademark. Unfortunately, looking at her fabulous self in the mirror (she couldn’t help it) only made things more confusing for her: why couldn’t she be more normal? She didn’t want to think of herself as only beautiful. If she weren’t so wonderfully blessed, maybe she could have been an art teacher helping children to see the beauty of the Lord’s world; or maybe by adding works of art to His creation through her artistic efforts, or something as equally gratifying.
*
The more she stared the more she wished; and the more she tried to find fault with herself and bring about blessed change, the more things stayed the same. Trapped in a married life of greasy restaurant rich, she would fret the dissatisfaction with minimum penitence. And in the loneliness of her barren life, time, fast pacing her existence, had become a hateful presence. Weeks went by as fast as days, months as fast as weeks, and her anxiety intensified as her mortal ass began to gently sag below the support level of her youthful vanity.
Jesus, if only she could stop that frigging time.
She began a futile cosmetic struggle to at least slow the weathering tear of time; she tried fantasizing feelings of love for her husband, an attempt to retrieved love from a time when once she thought she loved him. Instant replay fleeting time and trick it back to youth. It was no use, her husband’s presence having long ago become invisible to her. He was gone, vanished from her life. The thought of her husband always made her feel caged, and paralyzed; instead of slowing time as she would have wanted, and prayerfully finding the lost love of the playful high school empty days, thinking of Hank only magnified the waste of precious time. Her husband and his friends suffocated her as she wilted away in her tortured agony now full of sin. Yet, much as she displayed her dislike for all of them at every opportunity and encounter, for all practical purposes, she knew, there was no way she could divorce herself from them. Where on earth, at her age and time, could she make a new start all by herself? She felt stuck with her dumb Hank and his friends as much as they, like frightened, clinging lemurs, were stuck on her. As loathsome as were her silent, inarticulate high school days’ silly admirers, beautiful high-flying tits like hers, after all was said and done, demanded the adoration that she had always, God forgive her, expected from her frivolous dummy devotees. As much as she hated to admit, there was comfort in being part of a crowd, unpleasant as it might have been, and anything less than the amorous glances eyed upon her by the boys of her life made her everyday boredom more frightening. Since Hank had first brought them around, and though she never particularly liked any of them, she always felt the need to have her admirers near her.
Loneliness was a shadow in her gut, and she ached her days away.
And as the days and weeks and months and years rolled by, Sharon became more and more aware of her terrifying solitude. As distasteful as her daytime thoughts were, they were nowhere near as frighten
ing as was the darkness of the moments before falling asleep when the ghost of time would appear and whisper in her ear, “is that all that is? Is that all there is?” Even with her eyes shut, she could see that everything she had was so damn predictable in her modern woman’s urban easy life, so full of the obvious nothing, traveling ever so fast, to more of the same nothing. In her frightened soul, feelings of anxiety and depression smothered her thoughts; that indeed in her case that was all there was, irrespective of her beautiful still high saluting tits. Like the transubstantiated red wine that she loved so much and which was so lovingly morphing her into an alcoholic mistress, she wished that she too might be preserved into a more soothing spirit.
Like Myrna and her gin, Sharon sought salvation in the red, red, wine in which she sought relief from insufferable loneliness. The sweet red wine would grease the memory trails retracing thoughts from the almost forgotten but joyous childhood years. And the recollections would often lead to the love of her Sunday-school days. Such pretty yellow dresses full of the petticoat and Mary Jane red shoes hopping through her mind’s crispness, and of the spring’s many sunny Sundays. Every morning, of those memorable Sundays of her childhood, was full of the sun, full of the everlasting glorious light, and full of the blessed song of Jesus Christ that always warmed her heart to glorious gladness and rapture, young as she was. Oh, wistfully would she evoke those lovely memories of the eternal promises full of gentle love in the beautiful blond bearded face of iconic Jesus. Recalling those wonderfully blessed days of Jesus and the Old Testament tales of justice and joy, of faith and forgiveness, of marvellous miracles and cherished love, was now the only way that she could fall asleep.
*
And in the absence of an intelligent lover, Sharon found in herself the love she sought. Her mental health and happiness flourished in the privacy of her bedroom where like other young women she too found her way to panting orgasms. In her spacious pink bedroom she rubbed and stroked, selfishly excluding all real intrusion from what she thought was the icy world she was living in. Alone each morning she felt the impulse to rub her naked belly on her silk sheets and artfully masturbate. Alone she found happiness in her very private self-absorption. Daily she found pleasure in babying herself all over until her whole body was consumed in the sensuality of her own adoration. She loved every bit of herself, narcissistic bawdy as it was, and found no disparity between rubbing her baby soft ass on milk white silk sheets and pillows while looking up at the ceiling with eyes closed to find her fate in the heaven of saints. Her God given beauty demanded the attention she was heaving on herself. The morning matins of ritual self-massaging were not an adolescent’s hysterical worship of the temporary body, she had convinced herself, but rather the true adoration of eternal love, even though, more often than not, she found her exhibitionist tendencies to be gestures less than darling. Everywhere she touched, she loved as one loves the first immorally persistent memory, relishing the feverish temptation to repeat. During these sinful moments, her soft hands became playful, depraved, luxuriously elegant enchanters, escorting her whole being to sensual little nonsense meant to tactfully appal. More than ever, she was now looking inward and turning away from the world that had been her husband’s, and her parent’s, even her friend’s, but never hers. Alone in her thoughts she was indulging herself in an irreversible selfish love of her lovely loneliness.