He gazed down at her sullen hungry eyes and gorgeous available body. He hadn’t been so consumed by lust for a long time; the size and hardness of his cock was a thrill. Fire licked his thighs as his heart beat faster and faster. He said in a snarling tight voice, “Turn over!” She rolled over and he ripped up her peignoir to survey her gorgeous broad ass while his cock felt like it would burst. He slapped her cheeks hard, then harder. She’s going to get what she deserves. He made sure she couldn’t see his red burning eyes and slack mouth with spit in the corner.
“Let’s be clear about one thing, Armando. If you try to fuck me up the ass, I will scream! My father will hear me.”
That raised the fire even higher. Do I care? Yes, and Lizard, you are not going to take me over again. Roughly he rolled her back over and closed his eyes saying, “Spread ’em, bitch, wide!”
She examined his cock wondering if she could take it. She wasn’t sure who he was when he taunted her, but she wanted him, so her fluids flowed and it didn’t hurt. “Up yours with the goddamned bee; up yours!” he growled as he thrust in and out like a madman, and then he came with a scream that could be heard in the hall. She dropped back exhausted from the pain in her thighs and buttocks as he collapsed next to her and fell into a deep sleep. He was gray and deathly like a shroud in hell, which gave her the creeps. She lay there thinking she had to see Lorenzo. But, what if Claudia’s visit to Armando’s studio meant Lorenzo wouldn’t see her anymore? Damned bitch! Lorenzo has to help me; he has to. I’m ready for the insane asylum. But he needs help too. He acted like he was going to kill me. What’s wrong with him? Maybe I should have let him tell me about his past.
Armando crept out of bed and went to his studio around 4 a.m.
Lorenzo went right to his office to meet Jennifer in response to her call before breakfast saying Armando had done something frightening. He hoped Armando had not reverted to his old self once the honeymoon was over. Tuning in to his collection of objects, the two crystals with crowns that looked like penises called to him, so he put them on the table behind the couch. Jennifer almost fell through the door, her hair disheveled, face strained, and her eyes evasive. “Thank you for seeing me right away. My father’s here from New York staying at our villa with Sarah. I’m very upset, very upset, which they’ll notice if I can’t get over this.” Lorenzo asked her to recline and sat down behind her, saying softly it was fine.
“All right, Jennifer, slow down your breath, feel my support, and relax knowing that we can get to the bottom of anything that troubles you.” His empathic voice was very hypnotic. “Tell me why you are so upset . . . What comes into your mind, now.”
She felt her chest contract and squeeze her heart as she sobbed in a clutched voice that he could barely make sense of. “He, he, is even going to take you away. He practically wanted to rape me. I didn’t mind having it rough, it was exciting, but he, he is going to take you away.”
He said gently, “Does Armando want you to stop seeing me?” It would be very bad if the lizard came back.
“No, no,” she squeaked. “He’ll ruin my work with you because he is seeing Claudia!”
Lorenzo paused, confused. He reached for a lovely Victorian intaglio of the Virgin Mary with a carved white ivory face, her bodice and halo coated in 22 kt gold, all set in a circle of seed pearls in a square alabaster frame. He touched Mary’s face as he said, “Claudia told me she went to Armando’s studio to help him decode a symbol in one of his paintings. She isn’t ‘seeing’ him, Jennifer; they are friends. I don’t mind if she goes to his studio. There is no conflict within me.”
Jennifer expelled the breath trapped in her chest that locked her diaphragm. “That is what I needed to hear. I can’t live without you right now; we both know this is not about Claudia. Armando acted very strangely last night as if the devil was in our room. I smelled sulfur and the cat blasted out. He didn’t hurt me or do anything I didn’t agree to. But, he was like an animal. What’s going on with him?”
This made Lorenzo very nervous. Damn! The lizard may be back. “Well, of course, I haven’t seen him so I can’t answer that. May I take you slightly deeper to access the pain you feel? Are you willing?” he asked very kindly.
“Oh, yes, I’ll do anything to get rid of this feeling. My father and Sarah are in the house with little Teresa right now, and I have to pull myself together to entertain them. This is too destructive; it tortures me. I hate to think anyone else in the world feels like this.”
Lorenzo took a crystal in each hand. “You are going deeper into yourself to the place that knows why you love Armando, why you chose him as your husband. Can you tell me?”
Electromagnetic energy flashed all over the inner surface of her skull, she almost lost consciousness. But she could still hear Lorenzo’s alluring voice through a long metallic tunnel. “Tell me, Jennifer, tell me why you chose Armando Pierleoni.”
She was lying at the bottom of a hill watching a man in a hooded black robe coming down to her. He was switching a horsewhip back and forth saying, “Want it bitch, want it?”
Lorenzo was having trouble figuring out what was going on, but could see the man in black as if he was watching a movie. He asked carefully, “What does he want?”
In a slurred, exhausted voice, she said, “He wants to whip me and then take me, but I don’t want him because he has another woman, a wife. This is a long time ago, like a few hundred years ago. I work in his house, have no choice.”
“Who is this man, Jennifer?”
She whispered in a hushed voice, “My father, Lorenzo, I would’ve thought it would be Armando!”
Lorenzo continued to hold the crystal penises while gazing at the Virgin Mary. “Knowing this is another lifetime, do you want to see what happens?”
She choked and coughed. “He slaps my face and hits my shoulder with the whip handle. ‘Slut! I’ll never touch you again. You are worse than a dog. I hate you.’”
“Why won’t he touch you again?”
She choked again spitting, “I told his wife what he does to me. She has all the money from her father, so she kicked him out!”
“Why did you tell his wife?”
She was sobbing softly. “I thought he’d want me if she went away. How could I be so stupid? I wonder if some part of Armando hates me? Maybe I have some kind of control over him that he dislikes? Maybe I married him to control him. Maybe I’m having problems with jealousy because I want to control him too much.”
“Jennifer,” Lorenzo commanded, “have you forgiven yourself for what you did to Jasmine?”
“I have forgiven myself because my father has forgiven me. Maybe it was hard for him to forgive me because of what happened between us long ago? Maybe that’s why he’s so judgmental about marital fidelity.”
A little while later they sat down together in the alcove to discuss the session. Lorenzo asked her to hold the ivory intaglio of the Virgin Mary. “Now that I’ve found Claudia, I understand fidelity, which most of us need for trust. As far as I can see, we can’t cope with the intensity of sexual love unless we can trust our partner; there’s no room for others. People who can’t trust live shallow lives, blindly hurting a lot of people. I assure you that you and I can trust Claudia, so you don’t ever have to worry about not being able to see me. Now what I have to say next must always be between us: Armando is a very complex and potentially very disturbed man. I’ll never tell you about the things he has done. That’s for him to do if he ever wants to. But based on what I know about him, you need me for a while longer.
“Your session today was very fruitful because you got in touch with your father/daughter complex. Nobody really knows whether what you experienced today is an actual past life, or whether your psyche created a drama to examine something you need to figure out now. But, by breaking into this primal complex, you can individuate, that is, truly know yourself. By penetrating aspects of this complex in a past life, you can free yourself from your father. Only then you will be free to explore A
rmando’s rich emotional layers, your great work. Armando chose you and you accepted him, but you still need help with him because he is such a beautiful and wounded human being. The most important thing right now is that you trust me, and then you will be able to trust Claudia. As we tread down this path together, a journey of deep initiation and healing, you will know yourself, Jennifer, the central purpose of life.”
She ambled slowly down the stone steps in Lorenzo’s tower feeling peace and contentment. As she went out the door to get into her car, it occurred to her that this is how Sarah seems to feel all the time. Maybe she knows herself?
15
Demon and the Bitch
Jennifer was back soon after breakfast. She slipped inside the side door and crept up the back stairs listening to the delighted squeals in the kitchen. Teresa was singing and banging on a large pot accompanied by David and Sarah’s explosive laughter. She sat down in the small parlor and waited while Armando showered. He walked into the room drying his hair with a towel. He looked at her sullenly and asked, “Where were you? I came back from my studio to talk to you and you weren’t here. Where did you go?”
“I went to see Lorenzo because I was upset.”
“So, did you tell him I raped you?” he growled.
“Of course not, since you didn’t; you just got carried away. Actually you were quite impressive,” she said teasing him with dark eyes. “I’m not sure who you were, but I think it was you.” He tried to hide a triumphant smile, but it didn’t work. Men are such suckers. “I went to him because you triggered my jealousy again. It tears me to pieces, so I needed him. Claudia had already told him she’d gone to your studio, and he wasn’t the least bit concerned because he trusts her. I will learn to trust too; I will. I’m not going to spend my time watching you like a lovesick teenager. Your intensity last night did scare me.”
Armando sat down on the bench in front of her staring at her feet. “I’m not totally in control of myself, like last night. Yet you stayed with me when I needed to express myself. I am a tortured soul, the reason I tried to tell you more about myself before you married me. Maybe it would have been better, but now I don’t think so. What did either one of us know about marriage until we met? We are really getting closer, you know. We’re getting to know each other in the present, not wallowing in shadows of the past.”
She was like a veiled statue in the chair aching to tell him about her guilt and confusion. If I do it in the moment, not in the past, maybe I can tell him? She paused too long . . . “Yes, I think you are right, and that’s what Lorenzo believes. I can’t find you in the past because we are here in the present moment. Yet, it always seems so much easier to talk about things we’ve done, mistakes we’ve made in the past, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, and for two people with tortured pasts, we did take the right approach, but it’s even more complex for me. I struggle for words . . . the way I was last night, the way I acted, was not really me. Sometimes an ugly force overwhelms me that makes me feel, ah, like a snake, no a lizard . . . It comes out when I paint, my muse, maybe it’s my alter ego, the reason I need to be alone in my studio. You got in touch with it last night. Yet, before you feel afraid of me,” he said watching her nervous eyes, “at this point, I know a lot about this force, call it evil or reptilian if you like, because Lorenzo helped me get in touch with it and gave me techniques for transforming it. It always comes out when I’m angry and sometimes when I have sex. You made me angry last night because you were suspicious, but still I should have been able to control myself better. I am not the least bit attracted to Claudia. I love talking about emotional and intellectual things with her. I love her mind and her heart, and so do many others. She is the essence of integrity, and no one should cast aspersions on her just because she’s beautiful and loves being sexy. I’m thrilled she’s found a man on her level, and she will never betray him; never. She adores Lorenzo.”
“I know that and I knew it last night. But, unresolved things in my past keep turning me into a jealous bitch! So, my jealous bitch made you angry and then your demon came out and attacked back. I think we need to know the demon and the bitch. I need to trust you, so that I can trust myself . . . I’m totally committed to our marriage, yet I’m not sure I should get pregnant until we know these parts of ourselves better. I don’t think it’s going to take long, but I think we could fall into a weird emotional trap if we have a child too soon.” She held his gaze with kind imploring eyes.
While he sat there staring, all the women he’d hurt rolled through his mind.
“Being with Sarah and Teresa is making me think about being a mother. Sarah was ready for a child because she knows herself, and I think Simon found himself when he met Sarah. Teresa is very secure even though she longs for her daddy and her mother is lonely. Simon and Sarah know themselves, the reason she is so remarkably well adjusted.”
A strange peace slid into Armando’s mind when he realized this was right. He hadn’t spent much time around small children and Jennifer’s words were making him think about what it would take for him to be a good father. “You’re right, Jen. It isn’t time yet, but I need a goal. Let’s get to know the demon in bed, but not when I’m angry. Be a bitch once in a while if you feel like it. It won’t kill me and the bitch might teach you a few things about yourself.”
She smiled happily. “Well, that demon was quite impressive and I won’t mind teasing it out again. I think it’s time for me to genuinely befriend Claudia. I want to know her better.”
Matilda arranged for Catarina, the cook’s daughter, to take Teresa all morning to play and color in the art room. Sarah couldn’t believe it, a morning all to herself! She almost didn’t know what to do with it. She was tempted to go into the library, but then someone might find her there and want to talk, so she decided to explore the ancient Roman house. As she walked up the marble staircase to the upper rooms, skylights above the long upper hallway cast diffused light onto soft black-and-white checkered marble floors. Six doors were trimmed with thick woodwork and elaborate lintels. The oldest double doors at the ends opened into suites—one for Pietro and Matilda, the other for Armando and Jennifer. The thick wall by Pietro and Matilda’s door had a large, deeply coved niche that contained a beautiful white marble bust of Plato.
Her room was small with a balcony to the east warmed by the late winter sun. She wrapped herself in a wool blanket and went out to sit in a spacious wicker chair. The air was deliciously moist and cool. Seagulls crying rapturously punctuated by a raven growling on the roof spun her into reverie. “Where are you now, Simon, where?”
Simon was in the temporary Amnesty International quarters interviewing a young woman who had been captured by ISIS in August 2014 and later escaped. The pain in Simon’s voice as he talked with the girl through an interpreter pierced Sarah’s heart. The girl said in a hesitant, shy voice, “The man who took me and raped me said I was the infidel. He said raping me was a holy act.” She pleaded, “How could that be?”
Simon answered firmly, “Your religious leader Baba Sheikh welcomes all of you back regardless of what you were forced to do. Rape is never a holy act. That man lied and has no power over you. He never touched the real you, your soul and your spirit as a vessel of the sacred Yazidi people.”
The pain in Simon’s heart was palpable for Sarah, intense sadness within a great breathing organic labyrinth. She intensified her heart and visualized the Peacock Angel sending a powerful beam of light into his heart, which flowed into the heart of the young girl. “You believe that, sir?” she asked desperately. “You believe I am untouched?”
“Yes, and when you get through this, you will have your own family someday.”
“But, they took away my brothers and our men and killed them in the fields. I will have no family because our men are dead.” She spoke so quietly he could barely hear her.
Sarah intensified the energy in her heart to make a halo around the girl. Simon sat back and stared in wonder at the pulsating blue lig
ht. “Do you see the light around you? You are holy, a young woman of pure love. The divine surrounds you with light because you have so much goodness in your heart; you are holy.”
The girl held out her hands and arms marveling at the light waving out from them. The female translator gasped at the girl’s luminosity, for a moment Simon could almost see through her. “You are transparent with the Holy Spirit. You are light, you are beautiful, and you are stronger than all those evil men.” His dark eyes flashing with sapphire light made her believe him.
“My spirit is here with me again,” she said. “It happened to my body and my body got away. They told me they owned me, but nobody owns me; I am not their property. They cannot have us.”
Sarah took a deep breath aware of sticky tears on her cheeks. She stopped touching the ruby to look at her watch. A curious raven landed on the balcony ledge then quickly flew off in a whoosh. Two hours had passed like five minutes! She still had time for herself. The phone rang.
“Hello, Sarah! I’m heading to Rome tonight to join you at the Pierleoni’s,” said her father excitedly. “Pietro called me last night and talked me into it. What’s the point of staying away while a party is going on? I’m coming! Your mother is staying here because she has too many things to do. I can’t wait to see you!”
William joined the group a day later, and for the first time in many years, the cavernous stone structure was filled. Simon was thrilled to hear they were all together, Teresa with both her grandfathers in the same house. Sarah had never been so happy to see her father.
The morning after his arrival, William was alone in the library when Armando walked into the room. “Hello, William. Are you enjoying yourself?”
Revelations of the Aquarian Age Page 15