Love Lies Dying

by Steve Gerlach

  Really?

  And as John thought about it, he remembered.

  You’re right. That is how it happened!

  The party was boring. And so were the people. They just wanted to get on Donny’s good side. The guys were mostly from the team and most of the female flesh was better left on the rack.

  Patricia and Maureen O’Reilly were there too, hoping to get lucky. Their sad make-up and rolls of fat made them only good for teasing and laughing at.

  “Do you remember now? They were a bit drunk,” Richard continued.

  Patricia and Maureen? Never! They never touched the stuff.

  “I know. But someone had spiked the punch. Remember? It was in that big punchbowl in the lounge room.”

  Oh, I didn’t know it was spiked.

  “And you’d had a couple too, pal. Remember?”

  John scanned his memory but he didn’t remember having any drinks. The party was so bad he’d kept completely sober. At least he thought he did.

  He remembered standing in a corner for most of the night, checking out from afar Christie Baker’s breasts.

  John smiled.

  Ahhh, Christie! A girl with class, tits and ass.

  Those amazing tits that defied gravity.

  A true natural wonder of the world.

  John remembered deciding to go home after an hour or two. There was no action at the party other than the sly glimpses of Christie Baker’s breasts.

  He remembered slipping out of the main lounge room and skilfully dodging the hot and clammy hands of “Pattie the Fattie” and Maureen. He was wiping his hands and heading down to the front door when it opened and Helen walked in.

  “Whoa there!” Richard interrupted his thoughts. “Back up a bit.”

  Why?

  “You’ve skipped everything!”

  No, I haven’t. It’s all there. The party was dull. I left. It’s that simple.

  “No, not so simple,” Richard replied. “You just don’t remember properly.”

  There’s nothing to remember!

  “Yes, there’s plenty, my friend.”

  John shook his head as he ran through the rain. He thought about looking back for Sherrie. But he didn’t.

  No time…

  “Why were you wiping your hands?” Richard continued.

  Huh?

  “According to your version of events, you slipped from the lounge room, dodging Patricia and Maureen. You said you were wiping your hands as you left.”

  So?

  “Why?”

  I don’t know. It doesn’t matter!

  “But it does, pal. It matters so much!”

  John’s mind spun, trying to work out why this was so important. But Richard had started him thinking.

  Why was I wiping my hands?

  “You had punch on them. They were all sticky from the punch!”

  Okay, John thought as he ran. If you say so. It still doesn’t matter, though. I must’ve spilt some on me.

  “Jesus Christ!” Richard yelled. “How blind are you, pal? Think back! Think back to the lounge room!”

  There’s nothing to think back to!

  “Yes, there is!”

  I was walking through the lounge to leave. There was no one around. Most of the guys had picked a girl or two and they were off in the rooms somewhere screwing each other’s brains out.

  “Good pal, keep going!”

  But that’s it!

  Richard sighed. “Were you in the lounge alone?”

  John nodded. Yeah, I think so.

  “Where were Patricia and Maureen?”

  Oh, they were there too.

  “Exactly!”

  They were in the lounge, in one corner, talking to each other.

  Lightning flashed.

  And suddenly John remembered…

  Shit, there is more!

  They cornered him before he could reach the door to the hall. They were both drunk on the punch and they both wanted him.

  “Hi Johnny,” Patricia had said. “Having fun?”

  “No,” he replied. “Can you move, Pattie? I want to leave.”

  “Don’t leave so early,” Maureen said. “The night is still young. There’s plenty of time to have fun yet.”

  “I’m going home,” he pushed past them, but Pattie grabbed him by the shoulder.

  He turned to look at her. She was smaller than him…

  The same height as Zoe!

  …and she looked up into his eyes.

  “Johnny, don’t go. We could all have fun together. Just you and me and Maureen.”

  John’s mouth had curled. “No thank you, I’d rather fuck a corpse than you two fat turds. I’m not that drunk!”

  His words hit home and caused the desired reaction. Pattie’s eyes fell to the floor and Maureen put her hands to her face.

  “Let’s face it girls,” he’d continued. “No one’s going to be opening up your pussies for a very long time. They’d have to be blind or blind drunk to stick it into your fat mouldy cunts.”

  Shit, John thought as he ran. I’d forgotten all this!

  “Forgotten, pal?” Richard replied. “I don’t think so. Maybe removed is a better word for it.”

  Maureen hadn’t been able to stand the insults. She ran off deeper into the house, her hands to her face, crying loudly.

  John turned to go.

  But Pattie the Fattie had grabbed both his shoulders as he walked, tipping him off balance and slamming him into the lounge room wall. Her body was on his, her lips reaching for his. Her disgusting breath filled his face and her sweaty hands were all over him. He struggled for a few seconds and grabbed her hands, pulling her from him and spinning her around, pushing her back against the wall.

  “Yes!” she had moaned.

  John shook his head, “Never! Not with me, you fat ugly piece of shit.”

  “Please, Johnny,” she said. “I want it to be you in me for my first time.”

  “No way!”

  “I dream about you. I want you so bad. Please! Stick your huge cock in me. Make me bleed.”

  Shit!

  And then John remembered it all.

  Everything…

  He slid to a stop by the side of the nearest pine and doubled over.

  His breathing was hard, his head pounded, and he felt like he was going to be sick.

  “You remember now?” Richard asked him.

  John nodded.

  Oh my God! Yes! How could I forget that?

  “Because you wanted to. You needed to.”

  And that’s why Zoe is the way she is?

  “Partly…”

  Jesus, no…

  “Fuck me, Johnny,” Pattie the Fattie had said.

  She was drunk.

  And he was a little too.

  But that was no excuse.

  No excuse at all…

  He remembered it all.

  He pushed her away from him, throwing her aside without another thought.

  He walked to the centre of the lounge room, suddenly feeling claustrophobic and needing some space away from Pattie. He reached for a glass and poured himself another drink of the punch sitting on the table. He could hear Pattie crying behind him, but he wouldn’t turn around. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

  And then the far door opened. Donny DuBois and Marty Klavan stumbled into the room, laughing with each other.

  “Did you do that?” Donny yelled to John in a slurred voice. He pointed over his shoulder. “Maureen’s in the next room crying her eyes out and puking her guts out.”

  Marty laughed next to him, “It’s sooo fuckin’ funny. You should come out here and watch, Murdock!”

  Donny slid to a stop in the middle of the room and pointed at the collapsed figure of Pattie, huddled in one corner.

  “Fuck, man,” he said, still pointing. “You’ve mind fucked both of them?”

  John took another drink of the punch. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to get out of there. Suddenly the party had tu
rned from boring to sickening.

  “She wants you to fuck her?” Marty asked, bumping into Donny’s shoulder.

  John just stared at Pattie as she cried on the floor.

  “No one would fuck her,” Donny replied. “She’s too dog ugly and way too fat.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Marty said. “Unless you could fuck her and hurt her.”

  John saw the gleam in Donny’s eyes. There were no second thoughts, he could tell.

  Donny staggered towards Pattie.

  “Yeah,” he half-muttered. “Make it hurt.”

  John put down his glass and turned to leave. But his eyes met Pattie’s.

  He could see the fear in them.

  He stopped in his tracks and just stood there.

  Then Donny was by Pattie’s side. Marty was there too. They both reached down, pulling her up. Donny grabbed a handful of her hair and lifted her roughly to her feet.

  “Don’t, please...” she whispered through tears.

  “Shut up, bitch,” Donny spat back at her. “One sound from you and you’re fuckin’ dead, you understand?”

  She nodded slowly, tears running down her cheeks.

  “Don’t hurt me,” she whispered.

  Donny laughed. Marty sniggered.

  John just watched on.

  “Please...” she said again.

  Donny turned angry then. He swung her around and slammed the front of her body hard against the wall. Her head cannoned off the wall and she let out a muffled cry.

  He grabbed her hips and pulled them towards him. Pattie mumbled something, but John couldn’t hear it over Marty’s laughter.

  Donny lifted her dress up and over her ass.

  And Marty pulled down her oversized plain panties.

  They could all see her fat white arse and, between her legs, her hairy pussy.

  John felt sick. He turned and poured himself another cup of punch using the silver ladle.

  “I want it to be with Johnny for my first time,” she yelled.

  Donny pulled the handful of her hair back hard again, then let go of it. She yelled in pain as her forehead hit the wall hard.

  “Don’t worry, bitch, you’ll never forget your first time,” Donny said to her through clenched teeth.

  She dropped her head and stretched her legs further apart. Almost as if she finally realised she was beaten. As if they’d broken her spirit.

  Donny had placed his left hand on her fat arse cheek and spread it to one side.

  He turned to look at Marty. They both smiled at each other, a sick and twisted smile.

  John did nothing. He felt frozen, unable to control the situation.

  Marty turned around and surveyed the lounge, his eyes finally coming to rest on the punch bowl.

  He leaned over and whispered in Donny’s ear. Donny turned and looked at John.

  And at the ladle still in his hand.

  Donny’s smile grew wider and he reached out to the food table with his right hand.

  “Give it to me, Murdock,” he said.

  The silver ladle.

  John stared down at it in his hands.

  He didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes from it. He knew what was coming. Before he could react, Marty was by his side.

  “Quit stalling, asshole,” he said as he ripped the ladle from his hands. The punch spilled from the ladle all over John’s right hand as Marty took it away from him.

  By the time John looked up, Donny had the ladle and was bringing it towards Pattie.

  Donny let go of Pattie’s arse just long enough to rub his hands together. Some punch had spilled on his hands too.

  His hands were sticky now, just like John’s.

  But Donny didn’t care.

  He knelt down by Pattie’s arse and positioned the long silver handle of the ladle, resting it on the lips of her pussy.

  “Ready?” he had asked.

  “Please, don’t hurt me,” Pattie whispered.

  But he did.

  He pushed in hard and fast.

  The ladle resisted at first, but then slid easily inside.

  He pushed it in hard and deep.

  Very deep.

  And Pattie screamed.

  As she screamed, she turned to face John. She looked him right in the eyes. He could now remember the hate and sadness in them, mixed with fear and revulsion.

  “Johnny!” she cried. “Help me!”

  And John had closed his eyes, turned around, and headed for the door as quickly as possible.

  He had to get out of there. That was all he could think of doing.

  Pattie’s screams followed him out of the lounge and into the hall as he left her alone with Donny and Marty.

  “Remember now?” Richard asked in his head.

  John knelt by the pine, his back against the trunk. He wrapped his arms around his body and closed his eyes to the rain.

  I can’t believe that happened!

  “It did,” Richard continued. “And you blocked it out.”

  I was drunk. So were they.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I blocked it out because it was so terrible.

  “But Zoe didn’t. She remembered. She remembered the suffering and the pain and the humiliation. You left her there, pal. You left her in the lounge room, on her knees, the ladle so far inside her she had to get help removing it.”

  Oh God!

  “You just walked out of the room and down the hall.”

  And then I met Helen.

  “Yes,” Richard said. “You wiped your hands clean and walked straight out to meet Helen.”

  It was the happiest night of my life.

  “Only once you removed the events that made it the worst night of your life. You thought you were above those other guys, better than them, and finding Helen that night proved it. At least, in your mind...”

  No wonder Zoe’s so crazy! Something like that would change anyone…

  “And all she was trying to do was be noticed by you.”

  I realise that now. But I was younger then. Much younger. How was I to know?

  “She’d forgiven you for what you did at the funeral. She was willing to try again.”

  Huh?

  “Come on, pal. Let’s open up all the way. Let’s get all the skeletons out of your closet…”

  “Are you okay?”

  John opened his eyes. Sherrie was standing over him, a worried look on her face.

  “No,” he muttered as lightning flashed and the rain poured down. “No, I’m not okay.”

  Seventy-four

  Side by side they walked through the rain.

  Thunder rolled and echoed deep into the night.

  “You want to talk about it?” Sherrie asked as they walked.

  He shook his head, “Not yet.”

  “Okay,” she replied. “But I’m here for you when you want to talk.”

  “I know,” he replied as he turned and kissed her forehead.

  He smiled at her.

  She’s so good to me. So loving and loyal. I just hope this time I can be as loving and loyal too.

  The rain fell heavily.

  Sherrie’s hair was a mess and John could see the wound she’d received when Zoe had driven into her car. It was high on the side of her head, and it looked deep. But it wasn’t bleeding anymore.

  That’s the main thing.

  “Just don’t run off like that again,” she continued.

  “I won’t.”

  “It scared me. And you left me all alone.”

  “I know. I promise, it won’t happen again.”

  She hugged him.

  “I love you,” she said.

  How can you?

  “I love you too,” he replied. He hoped he sounded as if he meant it.

  The rain continued to fall.

  They walked on in the night.

  “You ready?” asked Richard in the silence.

  Yeah. We might as well…

  “Okay, you start the story.”

/>   John sighed. He knew what had to follow.

  I had no idea the funeral was for Patricia’s mother.

  “Yes, you did,” Richard replied. “You’ve just decided to forget it.”

  And it was before the party Donny DuBois held?

  “Yes, quite a while before.”

  For some reason you and I and some of our other friends attended the funeral.

  “Uh-huh, not us – just you. And you had one particular reason, pal.”

  Laura?

  “Laura. Yes, well done, my friend. You’re starting to think through this already! Laura was there because her mother was a close friend of the family. You were there to see her. ‘It won’t look so suspicious if we both go,’ you’d said to me. Like that was going to stop you! I told you to jam it. I wasn’t going!”

  Everyone tried to sit as close to the exit as possible, aiming for the back pews, and far from prying eyes.

  “Wrong! You sat down the front. As near to Laura as possible.”

  Really? I don’t remember that…

  “That doesn’t surprise me, pal.”

  During the service, I turned and looked along the row and I saw Laura Austin staring back at me.

  “Close, but no cigar, my friend. Don’t you remember? She was sitting next to you! You’d purposefully headed down the front to sit with her. Can’t you remember even that?”

  No. I mean, well, maybe. It’s all so confusing.

  “Lies will do that to you…”

  I didn’t know who she was at the time, didn’t even know her name, but I wanted to know her. Very badly.

  Richard chuckled. “Boy, you old romantic you! What have you been doing? Reading those one-buck romance novels? You’d known her for about two months then. It was a Monday morning and because you had an out of state football game on the weekend, you hadn’t spent any time with her since Friday. You two were fucking like it was going out of style at that stage, and two days apart must’ve been like a drought of epic proportions for both of you. Think, Johnny, try to find the truth.”

  Are you sure? I can’t’ve made all this up.

  “Really? But you’re so good at it! Lies are your forte. You should know that by now. Think of all the lies you told Helen to keep your relationship with Sherrie a secret.”

  Laura was sitting about fifteen feet away.

  “She was sitting next to you with her hand on your thigh…and then higher.”

  But outside, when we met, we introduced ourselves.

  “Pal, you’ve just confused stories, that’s all. You’ve merged two different events into one. You already knew her when you decided to sneak out of the funeral. The mind can do that sometimes. It compresses things. You just like to help it by sprinkling a few lies here and there too. It makes a better story if you compress it all into one!”