Yours for Eternity: A Love Story on Death Row

by Damien Echols

  *

  I loved your story about the preacher and your encounter with him . . . that kind of thing is one of the first things I noticed about you—your self-confidence—that’s the thing that David was so taken aback from—because he has always known it in me—he was so surprised to see it in the exact form in you.

  I also loved what you said about feeling protective and maternal about our child—and watching him grow up—you are the dreamiest. I love you so much. I love that you think about these things—kissing skinned knees and us being grandparents—it makes me feel so much a part of something incredible. I can’t wait to raise a child with you—you will have so much to teach him—and me. It’s going to be very difficult not to become pregnant right away with you—the way you make me feel about it—but I really would like a little while with just you—just the two of us—

  But it’s sure going to be difficult.

  Especially if you keep talking to me the way you just did on the phone!

  *

  Being in love with you is the single most beautiful, inspiring, breathtaking, erotic thing I have ever known. It is all-encompassing. I really never knew I could feel this way about anything.

  Yours forever,

  Lorri

  August 29, 1996

  Dearest Damien,

  It’s funny what you said about Endless Love. Those two—everyone in that book drove me crazy, too. Especially Jade—she was so stupid for not seeing what he was—she just couldn’t see it. People always try to mess with things that are so strong and true—because they can’t cope with it themselves—they can’t live up to the intensity or the power of it—so they try to destroy it—and that’s what I meant about how I was feeling on Monday night—it wasn’t you—it was the thought of all the people who couldn’t see me—or hurt me—or hurt you—people who can’t see you—even though you play with them—and I understand that, now—but I could never see the point in playing with them. But maybe you had nothing else to play with—I mean—you work with what you have—I just chose a different route—which is far too elitist—for lack of a better term. You are more humble in a way—it puts me to shame; at least you don’t look at them as not worth your time or energy. But it still drives me crazy and I don’t even mind that it does—I want you to drive me crazy—I just have to make one thing clear—I am not angry with you—I know that you would never hurt me—Do you know what I am talking about?

  *

  . . . Today I was thinking. The first time we are ever physically together—I mean actually see each other—hug each other—as soon as we are alone together, even before we kiss—when we are standing up—looking into each other’s eyes—I am going to make absolutely certain that I am wearing a skirt—I am going to take your hand and place it between my legs where you will feel what I am feeling every hour of every day being apart from you while you have your way with me—how I feel upon waking—it never leaves me now—you have me in a constant state of sublime suffering.

  I will leave your hand there long enough so that your finger goes ever so slightly inside me—my hand on yours the whole time—my eyes locked on yours the whole time—then I will remove your hand—put it into your mouth—and then make you wait.

  I am absolutely shameless, now—sometimes at work I find myself sitting with my legs apart—my head thrown back, my hands on my knees—eyes closed—all I can think of is you—I truly am losing control and I love it. You must be having a great time.

  *

  I want you to know how I am suffering—that will be how I work on you—for you to know that I am constantly waiting.

  Your touch, your kiss, your tongue, your fingers, your voice—

  Always on the brink of hysteria—of possibly madness—

  And sometimes I will take myself as close as I can to you—but I will be screaming your name—pleading for you to save me.

  I am completely entranced with you, my love,

  Lorri

  September 3, 1996

  My dearest Lorri,

  I just got off the phone with you, and once again you asked me to teach you to do what I do. Lorri, I swore that I would do anything you ever asked of me, that my only pleasure in life comes from serving you, pleasing you, making you happy, but you don’t really understand what you’re asking me to do, you don’t know what you’re getting into. You see, Lorri, any type of magick, even the smallest little thing, creates a thirst in a person, and the more you learn, the more that thirst grows, until you have to fight with it every minute of every day just to try to keep it from consuming you. Once you realize that with magick, all things are possible, you only crave more, more, more. It all comes down to one thing—power. And it is the ego that craves power. Lorri, magick for the sake of magick is bad, it is a curse on yourself. You are supposed to let these things develop naturally, through certain practices, like yoga or meditation—and it is good, because you are also learning when they are acceptable, and how to use them properly. You remember a long time ago when I told you I didn’t practice magick anymore? That’s because I realized what it was doing to me. That it was using me, I was not using it. And it slows down the progress you make, because it distracts you from the true purpose you are in this life for.

  Please just think about these things, OK? I only tell you because I love you. I can not refuse you anything, so just be careful what you ask of me.

  I will now tell you how to do this one thing, the thing you have asked me for. Don’t expect instant results, because it’s just like anything else—practice makes perfect. You get stronger as you go.

  O.K., first spend a few minutes clearing your mind and concentrating only on your breathing, counting each breath, until you can feel yourself going into a light trance. When you find other thoughts creeping in—stop—and start all over again.

  Now, feel the beauty of your body, feel the sheer perfection of it, stretch, just feel how good it feels to be enclosed in that flesh. Do anything that makes you feel sexy, anything that makes you feel the power of your own sensuality, and always think, “I am beautiful.” Feel and envision the sexuality coming from every pore of your body.

  Then, see me in your mind, sitting across from you, looking directly into your eyes. Feel all of that power, all that sexuality running through your body, and force it up your spine and into your eyes. Force it out through your eyes while you are making eye contact with me. Feel the power, and think, “See me, feel me, want me.”

  That’s all there is to it. It’s very simple. It will also help if you burn a red candle, because they enhance love magick. You don’t have to do it exactly as I say, you can change anything as long as it feels “natural” to you, as long as you can feel it, because if you feel it, I have no choice but to feel it. Experiment with it. All magick is like a muscle that must be flexed: the more you use it, the stronger it gets—practice makes perfect. It might make it stronger if you did also put a “love spell” on me first. I want you to! You can find one in any “love magick” book. It will make it stronger, bind us together even stronger.

  Different people are better at different types of magick. Some people can’t use some types at all—everyone is different, that’s why witches form covens—so they can get as many types of magick in one circle as possible. Some people may be healers, dreamers, clairvoyants, scryers, and many other things—my specialty, what I am, is an entrancer, a spellbinder. That’s all I’m good for. Everyone has to find their strong point. Yours is plainly seen—you have POWER. You can cause changes, make things happen, and bend the material world to your will. That’s why I told you to concentrate on pulling me to you, because you have the power to do it. You are very strong. You want to learn to do what I do—but I would gladly trade it for the kind of power that you have. You have more in your little finger than I have in my whole being.

  *

  In your mind is the only place I can bear to be. I could
not live if I were separated from you, I love you so very much. You are everything to me, and I will spend eternity telling and trying to show you how much I love you, what you do to me. Nothing exists for me except you. I belong to you, I am yours. Forever. I will do anything and everything I can to please you, serve you, and bring you as much happiness as I can.

  *

  Before we got cut off last night, you mentioned the picture of Seth. Do you think he looks anything like me at all? Everyone says he does, but I can’t really see it.

  Lorri, this book, Endless Love, it hurt me. It didn’t start until after I finished it and started to think about it for a while. It’s like it reached somewhere deep inside me and damaged something, but I don’t know what. I only know it will take a while to fix it. I don’t like it at all. It’s so, so cold, it has no soul. Just like Hopscotch. How can this be?

  Today is the day my case goes before the Arkansas Supreme Court, but they could take up to 3 or 4 months to make their decision. Please, please, please let it be soon. Sometimes I am on the edge of insanity, because the longing to touch you is so overpowering, it’s sometimes more than I can handle.

  I love you forever,

  Damien

  September 4, 1996

  My Dearest Damien,

  I have so much to think about—I just got off the phone with you—you got my letter about what I was going to do to you—I don’t even feel odd about telling you things like that—before—I would never have dreamed such things—let alone writing them or voicing them—or doing them. This is all because of you—you have this effect on me—and you know what you are doing. Well, I just hope you are happy with the results of my suffering. I have to fight back the only way I know how at present. So, I will continue to drive you mad. Because you are slowly driving me mad! But what a way to go.

  *

  It is so erotic—and I love it—I’ve never felt so alive and excited about how I feel—and I love the way it makes you feel. I want you to think about me. A lot.

  *

  I don’t mind at all if you are jealous—you seem so good-natured about it—that’s always the way I’ve wanted to be jealous—it’s very sweet for you to want me all to yourself—well, you needn’t worry—there is no one else on this earth that I will ever love or feel about the way I feel about you.

  I adore you,

  Lorri

  September 4, 1996

  My Dearest Lorri,

  This quitting smoking is so hard. Some days, I have no problem, I never even think of them all day. But some days, like the days when I miss you so bad that I am in pain, or on the days that I am scared, I can’t seem to help myself. It makes me feel so weak, and I feel so guilty. What can I do? I need help.

  *

  You are right—some people can’t handle things so powerful, so they destroy it without even realizing that they really want to destroy it. But you and I are beyond that. We could no more destroy what we have than we could destroy each other—because in essence, that is exactly what we would be doing. We aren’t capable of destroying this. So please believe me, you are more safe with me than you have ever been. I could never hurt you. Never think back on those times again. That is the past. I am your future, and you are mine. Forever. I love you.

  Oh Lorri, I know I couldn’t possibly be tormenting you as powerful as you are now doing to me. If it was this bad for you every day, you would have long ago lost your sanity. Put my hand between your legs and then to my mouth? Are you trying to give me heart failure? If you are, you don’t have much further to go, you little demon. You better remember that it will work both ways. I can do the same. If you do that, you had better be prepared to be dragged off into a dark room for 2 or 3 days at a time. There is no way I could be tormenting you this bad. I must be in hell, it’s the only explanation. You remember when you said that if you could be with me, you feared that I would be in grave danger? Well my dear, if only I were with you now— Need I say more? I have never heard, seen, or felt anything in my life that was more erotic than that paragraph. I think I could have very easily fainted—my ears were ringing, and my legs turned to rubber. Oh yes, my love, you will definitely pay for that one. You just wait. I am going to drive you to the very brink of insanity from pure desire. You just wait.

  About Endless Love— Yes, David was the only one in that book that really felt anything, but even his emotions were so weak. I mean, if that would have been you and me, I would have been a billion times worse than him. I would have thought of nothing except tracking you down, even if I had to search every corner of this planet. I would never have even slept until I had found you. I would have allowed nothing to stand in my way. His “obsessiveness” would have been nothing compared to the extremes I would go to. When I was reading the part about how they had hidden Jade’s letters from him, all I could think about were your letters—and if anyone tried to hide them from me, they would think all of hell had landed in their lap by the time I was finished. That’s why the story infuriated me—because I kept picturing what I would do if it were you and me, and I just wanted to scream at him, “Weakling! Coward! Get up and fight for her!” That’s why it drove me crazy.

  Yes, I have thought about our child and Seth meeting one day, and it seems like such a strange, alien thought to me. I don’t know why. But it’s something that I have thought about more than once. I wonder what it would be like? I believe that if they passed on the street, without even ever having known each other before—I believe they would still feel something. In a way, I fear Seth. I know that the day will come when he will want answers, he will be a man, and he will have questions—so he will seek me out. And what do I say then? How will I ever explain anything to him? I don’t think “oops” will be what he searched for so long to hear.

  Well my beloved, I have so much more to say, but it’s almost daybreak, which means they will be here to pick this up soon. I want you to know that I am thinking of you every second of the day and that I love you with every breath I take.

  I belong to you forever,

  Damien

  September 6, 1996

  My Dearest Damien,

  What I was trying to say tonight is that I feel so fortunate that I found you in this life when I did—we have enough time to get to know each other so well emotionally and spiritually, and a little if not a lot physically in this very bizarre, wonderful way—and we’re still able to do things I’ve never wanted to do with anyone else—meaning—we can live together til we are very old, we will be able to have a child and watch him grow up together—in a sense, build a life together.

  Although—I still would’ve been happy to meet you at any time in my life—this is the best.

  *

  2 things I want you to think about not doing . . .

  1. drinking coffee

  2. reading about George Sand

  . . . both of them are not good for you. I think.

  You know you can always suggest things for me to do/not do—

  *

  I think back to the nights when you first started “working” on me, how I would lie in bed—my heart racing, my body literally burning up with thoughts of you—thinking of things I wanted you to do to me—what I wanted to do to you—trying so desperately to feel you inside me—and I remember thinking . . .

  You’d better stop this—he will never feel this way about you.

  That seems like a long, long time ago. Damien, it’s been wonderful falling in love with you—every single minute of it.

  I will think of you like crazy tonight.

  Yours forever,

  Lorri

  September 6, 1996

  My Dearest Lorri,

  You asked me do I surround myself with people that I know will let me down, or do I allow myself to believe that nothing else really matters except that one true love that may only come once in a lifetime. Well, I don’t guess I have real
ly ever thought about it before. You amaze me, the things you think of that are so strange, yet so thought-provoking. I’ve never in my life known anyone who would ever even think of such a question. But my answer would have to be—neither one. I’ve never sought out anyone in my life, never attempted to surround myself with anyone, and I had absolutely no belief in one love that may take several lifetimes to find. I thought it was only a lie people told themselves in order to keep the loneliness inside them from driving them mad—until you found me. Now I know it’s not a lie, it’s not a fairy tale, that one true love does exist. It was like I sat there my whole life watching the people who passed through my life, with only one eye open—like a king who sits on his throne, half-asleep, not even really paying attention to the things that pass before him, because he knows that it’s not really important, it doesn’t really matter. Even relationships with people in the past that were quite deep, I now realize were really not. It was as if I was almost sleepwalking through life, just smiling and nodding to people who passed by, without really giving them much thought. And then you flew in like a hurricane, showing me that everything I had accepted as truth in this life are only illusions I had created to pacify myself. And it’s strange, wonderful, and beautiful, but it’s also very painful, and sometimes when I really stop to think about it, I feel like I’ll go insane, because it’s like you turned a bag of weasels loose in my head, and they all have razor-sharp teeth and claws, and they all run around destroying the walls and the illusions I created. And that’s good, because every wall they eat through only brings me closer to you, but it can still be painful. You said you like it when I pin you down and say, “Why, Lorri?”—But I really have no choice but to do that, because what I first mistook for simplicity in your thoughts is really turning out to be the greatest complexity I have ever known. And I need you to help me understand. Lorri, how can you even ponder these questions without going completely mad? And once you start to think about them, how can you drive them away? And when you ask me questions like that, it only makes me love you so much more. I thought there was a limit to how much you could love someone, but you’ve shown me there isn’t, because my love for you just keeps growing and growing, even when it seems that it’s impossible for it to grow any more—it still keeps growing. Sometimes, I truly believe my heart will burst.