Bethel's Meadow

by Shultz, Gregory

  …

  After I finished putting Sidebottom in his place, I turned my cell phone off so I could think about things for an hour or two without any distractions.

  I knew I had to deal with Samantha sooner or later. Though she’d made no attempt to contact me, it was clear that she was making trouble for me by proclaiming we were still together. I wondered if it was Samantha who’d gone to the library to tell Glory about my manic depression. If she was bold enough to openly confront the Water Girl the way she had, I knew I couldn’t put anything past her.

  But I didn’t want to call her. I just wasn’t prepared for a confrontation with someone that much on the edge. I realized, though, that the longer I waited, the more trouble it could be in the end. And dammit, it just made me madder than hell that I could be a hundred percent sexually compatible with such a beautiful woman, yet we couldn’t get it together on the emotional end of the equation. All she seemed to care about was money, and all I wanted was someone I could be with and laugh with. Together we could have somehow made things work out financially. But she wanted all the money that was to be had in the world, and she wanted it now. She wasn’t interested in starting over with another man. She was burned out and too jaded to contemplate such a relationship.

  And then I thought of Glory. I had given her too much credit. I didn’t want anyone to fix me. I’d never viewed myself as a broken man—not now and not ever in my life. If, after learning I was a manic-depressive, it was her intent to somehow reform me, then she didn’t know me that well. She should have told me what she’d heard about me and from whom she’d heard it. She should have given me a chance to offer a counterpoint.

  And then there was Caitlin. After being together for nearly a year, I owed her more respect than I had shown her. I should have broken up with her in person—not over the phone. Yes, I was mad and had good reason to be, but still. . . .

  I turned my cell phone back on and called her up.

  “Why are you calling me?” Caitlin asked. “I think we’re pretty much dead now.”

  “I’d like to meet you in person,” I said. “I’m very sorry for how I handled things. I really am. Maybe you could come over and—”

  “You’re just calling me because you’re lonely,” she said. “You’ll get over it. You’ll get over your precious librarian turning you away because of what you are.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I asked. “What do you know about any librarian?”

  Oh well. At least now I knew who the blabbermouth was, and it wasn’t Samantha.

  “I trusted you with my life!” Caitlin shouted. And she didn’t stop shouting. “I did nothing wrong while I was in Minnesota, you insecure little prick. You left me for some slutty redheaded bitch that makes minimum wage!”

  “Cate, come on, stop.”

  “No! I’m not done with you yet. Don’t let your guilt bother you about me, because I’ve fucked you over good, you pathetic little piece of shit. I told your library chippy all about your bipolar bullshit. And any other girl I find out you’re with, I’ll hunt them down and tell them also. I’ll tell them all!”

  I clicked off the line. She immediately called back. I rejected the call and then she called again. And two more times after that. I finally just turned the damned phone off again.

  My immediate thought was to call Samantha to let her have her two cents also, just to get it over with. But then I thought better of it.

  Caitlin was absolutely dead on the money with her harsh assessment—I was feeling lonely. And absent an adequate amount of sleep, I had more than enough time to dwell on my other misfortunes. During the nighttime hours I’d been experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations, which blurred the lines between reality and dream states. As far as my manic depression was concerned, I was rapid cycling to the point that I couldn’t distinguish between mania and depression. The two phases seemed to be bleeding into one another now—I felt simultaneously manic and depressed. When the sun had greeted me each morning with a smile, all I had wanted to do was black out every window in the goddamned house and hide inside. And then there were my financial worries. To keep up with my bills, I only had enough money in the bank to last me six months at the most. I was also developing quite an inferiority complex to boot. I feared I would never be good enough for a woman that truly had her act together. Yes, I was doing a damned fine job of feeling sorry for myself.

  I needed to take a step back and take a hard look at my life and make some changes. I had to get away from the Dusty Pond scene. Those people weren’t so bad, I had conceded. As I’d told Sidebottom, I wasn’t much different than they were. He was right—it wasn’t my place to judge. But still, I needed a change. I wanted to turn it all off and start over again.

  But instead of doing that I lay on the couch all day, drinking whisky and continuing to feel sorry for myself. I hadn’t exercised in weeks. My body was turning to mush. I had lost nearly ten pounds. I looked like a fucking ghost. I wondered what any woman saw in me. Maybe I was a charity case.

  I decided I would bow out from the scene. I’d sober up and resume my meds. I’d return to being a doped-up robot.

  No, no, no, I thought. I can’t give in.

  And later, somewhere around five o’clock, I turned my phone back on. I played through all the voicemails, most of them angry and hysterical messages from Caitlin. But the last one was calm and friendly.

  It was Rachel Draper. She invited me for dinner over at her place. She wanted to make amends.

  Why the hell not?

  30

  WHEN RACHEL DRAPER GREETED me at her door, I knew things were about to get seriously out of control. She wore a diaphanous white blouse that afforded me a grand view of her undeniably adorable breasts—she was operating sans brassiere. Her long dark hair was shocked in a deliciously lopsided way, a chaotic state of being not usually achieved until after sex. I also couldn’t help but notice that it was only the blouse she was wearing—well, except for the gold hoop earrings that dangled from her lobes, that is.

  Lord have mercy, she was indeed quite a sight to behold.

  She smiled and said, “Come on in, handsome.”

  As soon as I crossed the threshold into her apartment, she was all over me. I was locked in what felt like the most desperate of embraces—witnessing it, you’d have thought I was a military man who had just returned to his wife following a yearlong tour of overseas duty. The feverishly impassioned French kissing made me completely forget about the blue-balling incident from the night before.

  For two minutes I managed to restrain myself from feeling up her breasts. Right when I finally made contact, she closed the door behind me and body-slammed me against it.

  “A little later I have something special planned for you,” she said in a barely audible but sensual whisper. “I want to make up for what I did to you last night. I was a very, very naughty girl. And tonight I want you to punish me.”

  When I spoke my lips moved, but the words barely made it out: “What’s for dinner?” I really don’t know why I asked. Even if she had served up a thirty-two ounce rib eye steak right at that very moment, I would have swallowed that damned thing whole in one bite, just so dinner would be over and we could get on with it. I wanted to be inside of Rachel Draper so bad I would’ve murdered for it.

  Ignoring the dinner query, she laughed with a jolly insouciance that, in retrospect, didn’t seem to fit her. But, as she led me by the hand into the living room, I wasn’t pondering that particular incongruity at all. We sat on the couch and she began kissing me again. She massaged my chest while moaning in sheer ecstasy, as if just touching me alone was enough to bring her to the brink of orgasm.

  “God, I was so bad last night,” she said as our lips departed. Then she looked at me, and I could have sworn I saw a she-devil’s visage, though I didn’t really care. Her piercing eyes, whatever the hell color they were, were voraciously hungry; Rachel Draper looked as though she wanted to tear into me and devour my flesh
until my bones were picked completely clean.

  Her hot breath was the enticing scent of mint, honeysuckle, and pure sex. She reached for my hand and guided it up to her breasts. “My nipples are so hard for you, baby. Rip off this blouse and suck my tits. Do it now!” As she issued the command, she pulled me by the neck into her breasts. I did as I was told—I ripped off the blouse and went to work on her.

  Though I was drunk from a daylong binge on whisky, I felt none of its effects now. Instead I was drunk on Rachel Draper’s flesh. My thirst for her blood, her very essence, was insane. I didn’t care about a damned thing in the world. I just wanted to take her on that couch and make her mine.

  After ten minutes of foreplay on her breasts, one of my hands ventured south to discover a freshly waxed and moist pussy. But she grabbed my wrist and said, “Hold on, handsome. I’m ready to give you your surprise.”

  As Rachel Draper stood before me, I beheld her washboard-tight tummy and the slickness between her thighs—her juices were practically dripping. Her erect nipples were moist and candy apple red from my suckling. There was a thin layer of sweat forming on her neck and chest. She was as tough as nails, with a tanned and world champion physique any forty-year-old woman would have killed to possess. And at that moment I was plenty ready to possess Rachel-fucking-Draper.

  She reached for my hand, and then we walked side by side toward her bedroom. Her smile was devious—I had the feeling I was being led into a nefarious trap. Seconds later she opened the door to her bedroom, and lying on the bed was a woman dressed in nothing more than a red silk teddy. I instantly recognized the face on that devilishly voluptuous figure.

  It was Esmeralda, the Hispanic woman who had felt me up within seconds of meeting me at 52 Palms, and who had also declared to me her love for the taste of another woman. She was a classic Latin beauty. But in her eyes there lied . . . the Serpent.

  Suddenly my heart raced so fast I thought it was going to blast out of my chest. I just then noticed that I was shirtless and that my jeans were unbuttoned.

  The Serpent slithered off the end of the bed. . . .

  The woman was beautiful—there was no doubting that. Any man that turned her away could only be called flat out fucking crazy. I couldn’t, however, get the thought out of my head that she was somebody’s daughter. But my troubled heart was conflicted, because I wanted all the female flesh I could possibly consume. Something truly evil in me wanted to show these two women that I didn’t care anything about them. I could take both of them down, right here and right now, and then walk away with a conscience as clear as a fucking bell.

  I then remembered what I had said to Sidebottom regarding threesomes: “Listen to me. How about letting it go at this? Let it be good enough to know that you could have done it if you really wanted to. Don’t go down this road.”

  Esmeralda was now before me. Slowly and sensuously she kissed my lips, which now felt frostbitten, but I guess the Serpent wasn’t really in tune with my feelings because she kept on with it for a good two minutes. She then turned her affections to Rachel Draper. When they began to kiss I closed my eyes.

  Within my heart and soul I felt the fierce battle between good and evil. The goody-two-shoe in me wanted out of this room and far away from this city, away from every one of these wanting and fucked up lost souls. But the destructive side of me wanted to burn down everything in my path. Committing this act, this ménage à trois, would be a self-betrayal beyond comprehension, but my dark side didn’t care about that.

  Back and forth I felt the tug-of-war raging inside of me. Sweat beaded on my brow as I felt two hands touch my crotch. I opened my eyes to see that they were both massaging me, ravenously panting and purring in the process. Rachel Draper kissed and licked my neck, and at that moment I felt myself becoming so hard that I thought my missile would soon ignite and explode from the launching pad.

  But, deep inside, I longed to be flaccid.

  They kept up with the vigorous massage as Rachel Draper’s tongue darted into my ear canal. Then the Serpent took my hand and drew me to the foot of the bed. She dropped to her knees and pulled down my jeans.

  Outside, it began to rain. . . .

  As Esmeralda slid my underwear down to my ankles, I looked across the room and there was His image again: a large color portrait of Jesus Christ, the Brad Pitt version. As much of a sham as was the notion of Christ looking like a Hollywood poster boy, so too was the notion that Rachel Draper, the Water Girl, could thank the Lord for a mouth-watering steak in one instant, only to commit such a sinful sexual act in the next, right in front of an artistic rendering of His supposed image.

  As Esmeralda’s tongue caressed me below, I could hear and even feel the thunder rolling outside. It was as if it had come from out of nowhere, drawing closer and closer. The seconds between the thunder and the flash of lightning were few . . . and soon there was only a one-second gap.

  I looked at Brad Pitt again, and hoped with all my might that Jesus Christ didn’t really resemble him. . . .

  Then Rachel Draper dropped to her knees, sharing me in her mouth with Esmeralda.

  Save me from Your followers, Jesus Christ. Just this once, please save me from myself and from those evil souls who profess to carry in their hearts Your spirit and Your teachings.

  I wanted lightning to strike through that window so my soul could be saved. I remembered, though, something my father had once said to me. This was the first time in my life that I had recalled that particular moment. He’d told me that miracles don’t always happen in such obvious ways:

  “Son, the miracle is already inside of you. It is the strength the good Lord gives us all when we are born. The true miracle is that we have the power to save ourselves.”

  That memory made what I did next very easy.

  I gently tapped each woman’s shoulder and asked them to release me from their mouths. They complied. Each of them looked puzzled, as if such a request were incomprehensible.

  “A lightning strike won’t be necessary,” I said to them. I smiled, feeling warmth from within that is still difficult for me to describe. If God had touched my soul, it hadn’t been with a strike of lightning. Instead, He had reconnected me with my beloved father.

  I quickly rummaged about for my clothing. In just seconds I was dressed and running out of the apartment, then down the stairs to the parking lot. The rain was pouring down in a biblical deluge. At my car I pulled out my keys and used the remote control to unlock the door. But before I got into the car I stopped myself.

  I may have felt sober, but in fact I was legally drunk. I had no business driving, especially in weather like this. I stuffed the keys back into my pocket and began to walk in the direction that would lead me home. The rain continued, already pooling on the roadsides and on the sidewalks. Within seconds I was completely soaked.

  I turned my walk into a run, and I ran like a son of a bitch. I ran and I kept running, and then I picked up the pace and ran even faster, faster than I ever had in my entire life. The infernal noise that had been building slowly inside my head since I’d come off of the meds began to diminish, decibel by obnoxious decibel. And then I started to cry. I cried and I cried as I continued to run, looking to Heaven above, silently asking God to remove all of my pain. I finally came to a stop, still looking up at the stormy sky, and then I fell to my knees, grunting and growling as I tried to purge the evil from within. This must have taken five, maybe ten minutes. Then finally I dropped and rolled to my back.

  At that instant something from within me came alive. Something I hadn’t felt . . . ever. As the rain cleansed my body, and as the last of the voices ran out of my head, I took to my knees and cried some more, but this time they were tears of joy.

  “God,” I said. “Thank You. Thank You for saving my soul. Thank You for delivering me from evil. And please, please, please forgive me, for I am only a weak man.”

  Though I wasn’t a very religious person, there was no doubt in my mind that my spirit had been
reborn. I prayed that I would soon rediscover my peaceful meadow. My fear was finally leaving me. Maybe now it would be possible for me to return there.

  From my knees I promised God I would do whatever it took to redeem myself.

  I felt certain that peace was soon to settle upon my weary soul.

  My time for healing had arrived.

  Part Three

  Blow Up The Outside World

  31

  WHEN THE MUSIC STORE opened at ten the next morning, I was the first customer through the door. Since I hadn’t even tried to sleep after returning home from Water Girl’s apartment last night, I’d had about twelve hours to surf the Web to learn all I could about electric guitars. One hour and three thousand bucks later, I walked out of that store the proud owner of an Eric Clapton model Fender Stratocaster. I bought a high-powered Marshall amplifier to go with it, along with other accessories that included picks, slides, guitar cables, effects pedals, extra strings, a guitar case, a guitar stool, and a digital tuner. (I passed on the “South’s Gonna Rise Again” bandana.)

  I was home by noon. Once I had settled into the living room—which I now called my music room—and got everything plugged in, hooked up, and ready to go, I planted my ass on my new guitar stool and kept it there all day long, only taking a short break for lunch and another for a light supper. I had restored an old desktop PC to serve as the Internet connection for the music room. Between YouTube, the online instruction site, and another website that had a massive archive of guitar tablature, I was more than adequately set up to learn and progress in my musical studies.

  I was jamming up a storm. I had the amplifier cranked up loud enough so that Gonzo across the street could enjoy hearing me go through my musical growing pains. Printed music was spread all over the place, mostly sheets of easy-to-learn rock songs for beginners, and a few at the intermediate level. By six o’clock my fingers were numb, but my new calluses were holding up quite well—the skin was nice and tough now. As opposed to my acoustic guitar, I found that the electric guitar was much easier to finger and fret, so there really wasn’t much of a learning curve for the new instrument.