The Emancipation of Love

by Mary E. Palmerin

  “So beautiful…” she trails before taking my hard cock in her hand, stroking me in an unbelievably magnificent way.

  I look up at her between heavy lids, sure that I have an angel over me. The movements of her hand are enveloping me in goodness and making all the bad go away. I want a release and I want her to give it to me.

  She licks her lips, and then takes her bottom lip between her teeth. She bends down slowly, teasing me with what she is about to do. God, the thought of having my cock in her mouth is too much. I’m sure I could come at just the thought.

  Then, she takes me into her mouth, all the way down her throat all while her bright emerald eyes remain on mine. I tilt my hips forward slightly, hitting the back of her throat and when she doesn’t gag, appreciation and pride swells in my chest. She bobs her head up and down while her hand massages my balls.

  “If you don’t stop, sweet girl, I will come. Please. I want to make love to you.”

  Her sweet torture continues and I am certain I am about to blow my load in her mouth. She takes me deep one more time before popping herself free.

  “Oh, fuck, Gwendolyn, baby… come here.”

  She climbs on top of me, finding my dick and sinking down. Her warmth is too much. I want to cry. Conflicted feelings swim inside of me. This isn’t who I am. I’m supposed to be the bad boy, the one who doesn’t feel, and yet here I have a woman making love to me who makes me think that everything is going to be okay, even though I know it won’t be.

  My eyes continue to water as I try to talk myself away from the edge of crying. I watch Gwendolyn, so graceful and fluid with her hips, gliding on top of me in blissful ways. I’ve never made love like this before and part of me feels like this is our goodbye.

  No, no. That can’t be. We’ve just reunited. Goodbyes are not in the equation. She’s having a baby. My baby. We are going to find a cabin in the woods and live simply. Right? I stop the whirlwind thoughts while my chest explodes.

  “Let go,” she whimpers.

  With that, I let the tears escape my eyes. Tears that represent so much, but most of all, the love I have for the woman before me. Love that I was sure I never deserved, yet she made me understand that I do. And the beautiful thing is, I finally believe that I do.

  My body shakes while she cries out, letting her orgasm consume her tiny body.

  Hello goodness. It’s been nice while it lasted…

  “Welch!” Gwendolyn screams.

  I wake up with a jolt, hearing her pleas. They sound so familiar and I am full of so much terror, I can’t move. She isn’t lying on the bed with me and her screams remind me of the night I was laying helpless in the hallway as I heard Connor beat her and take her.

  “He’s gonna fuck that pussy and tear her up good. Probably beat her up a little bit too, you worthless fucker. I’m gonna make you sit here now while he makes her come. Damn, bet that pussy tastes like the best cream pie there is…”

  “Helen! Get your fat ass over here and show this bastard what cream pie tastes like.”

  Terror flows over me like a wave of uncertainty. I have to remind myself to breathe, to move, while my brain contemplates telling my heart to beat or not. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have a choice. Gwendolyn screams out in fear again and I try to claw at the door to get to her, to tell her that I will fight for her no matter what happens, but Claude put a dirty sock in my mouth and secured it with duct tape after my last outburst through the door.

  I hear him huffing loudly in the background as he laughs occasionally. I have the impulse to vomit, but tell myself to hold it back because I know I will choke if I do. It doesn’t have anywhere else to go if I try since the dirty piece of clothing is stuffed in my mouth and stuck to my body with duct tape.

  “You call for me, darlin’?” Helen asks Claude.

  “Yep. Go on and show this asshole what cream pie looks like. If he isn’t a bad little shit, I may make him have a taste.”

  “Oh, Claude, you gonna let me have some fun tonight?”

  “Seems like he needs to know what good pussy is like, don’t ya think? His little fire crotched pussy is getting her shit torn up in there. I think he could use a little distraction, don’t ya?” Claude laughs.

  “Fuck yeah!” Helen chants, discarding her stained nightgown and peeling her dirty underwear away from her fat legs.

  Again, I have the urge to be sick but restrain myself while trying my best to think happy thoughts. Just me and my girl against the world. Nothing will stand in our way…

  Helen walks over to me with age old pussy staring at me in the face. She reaches down and rips off the duct tape, leaving my skin burning and aching.

  “Eat it and taste the goodness.”

  With that remark, I vomit next to me, regressing back to the six-year-old little boy who was made to eat his peanut butter sandwich from someone that beat him and made him do unthinkable things. At the same instant, my dear Gwen goes silent. I fear that both of us are slipping away to nothingness and letting go, for this world is too cruel and life is becoming too much.

  “Welch!” Gwendolyn shouts from the bathroom again, bringing me out my flashback stupor.

  I immediately rush from the bed and down the hallway, into the bathroom. I open the door and find Gwendolyn naked on the floor, sitting next to toilet with blood between her legs. Tears are rushing down her face and she is heaving from the anxiety. She turns to the toilet, letting her stomach empty its contents. She continues to throw up and scream.

  “Why, God? Why?” she yells.

  I bend down, bringing her into my arms.

  “Shhhh, everything is going to be okay, Gwendolyn.”

  “I hate myself. I hate myself!” she screams repetitively.

  “Don’t say that, Gwen.”

  “I didn’t want it at first. Then God brought me back to you and my fucked up mind made me think that things were going to work out. That we would have the cabin we always wanted with a red headed little baby. But that won’t happen now. And it’s my fault because I wished for this to happen before you, Welch! I wanted an abortion before I decided that I wanted our baby!”

  I pick her up off the floor, and turn on the shower. I put her inside and follow suit, letting the warm water rain over both of us. The silence is deafening and I wish there was a right thing to say, but the truth is, there isn’t. Part of my heart is torn away and a little slice of my soul died just now. Hopes of being a father to a child, the kind of father that I never had gave me more faith in humanity than I’ve ever had. Now, it’s gone. I know the baby wasn’t mine by blood, but it would have been mine just as much as if I conceived it.

  I wash her hair, letting my fingers massage her scalp. Her sobs continue, but they aren’t as loud as they once were. Things are about to change a lot, I understand that. I am not sure exactly what that means, I only know it to be true.

  I take the soap and wash her arms and belly before bending down to between her legs. She spreads them for me and I lather soap on my hands to wash away the blood that stains her thighs. I stand up and rinse the soap free from her body, then take a moment to hug her tightly.

  I turn the water off, stepping out of the shower and wrapping her in a towel. I dry her off, caring for her like a lover would do, then tuck her into bed. She has remained steadfast on not going to the hospital, which worries me slightly, but I can’t make her go. I can only be there for her.

  After I give her some ibuprofen and tuck her in, I walk into my living room and pull out the only box I have of my upbringing… my drawings. I think now is the time for some much needed reflection.

  I can’t believe my eyes as I hold crumpled pieces of paper in my hands. Hands that created such sad, tormented and beautiful stories.

  “What are you doing, Welch?”

  I push the wrinkled pieces of paper back into the box and take a deep breath.

  “Nothing. Just looking through some old junk. Can I get you something? You okay?”

  “I woke up and you
still weren’t asleep. I miss you.”

  I wish I could tell her how bad losing a baby that wasn’t mine hurt me, but I can’t take away her pain. Besides, why should I even grieve when I just found out about it? Maybe there is truth to what Gwendolyn said. That the hopes that we have will never be fulfilled. Thoughts of what will never be make my chest constrict. I need a form of welcome distraction.

  “Want to take a look at some of my old pictures?”

  “Oh, Welch, I didn’t know you had family pictures. I would love to see them.”

  I smile to her and gesture for her to sit down.

  “Sweet girl, I don’t have any family pictures. I have old sketches that I drew with my hands. They are the only memories that I have. Do you want me to share them with you? Or would you rather not?”

  “I would love that, Welch.”

  I pull out an old picture box and see dozens of folded up and crumpled pieces of notebook and other types of paper. I used whatever I could when I could back then to capture what my mind thought it needed. I didn’t always put dates on the paper, but you can tell which ones are older than the others because the shade of white has turned to an ugly tinge of yellow. Some have water stains and others, unfortunately have bits of blood. It’s a miracle that I have kept these through the years, but they are all that I have from my life and to be honest, it has been a long time since I have unlocked that part of me.

  “Some of them aren’t very good, but I was just a boy. I probably don’t remember what they all mean or who they were, but Victoria is in here…”

  I feel a lump forming in my throat with one of the biggest regrets I have sitting in front of me in an aged picture box. She didn’t have anyone but me, and I let her run. Fuck, I was the reason that she did and her frail, ivory face haunts me still. Sometimes I can still smell the stench of her and hear her pleas, her cries for me to stop. I’m sure that the devil himself is resting on my shoulder when my fingers tingle, taking me back to how tight and dry she was and what I was forced to do to make her accommodate me.

  “I’m here, Welch.”

  I nod my head yes, facing my past with disgust. I wasn’t ready for this feeling as I linger between who I was and who I am. Fuck if I know what that means anymore, I just know that 28 years have passed since I have been birthed into this cruel world and I am just as fucked up now, if not more, than I was back then. I wish I could climb a mountain and scream loud enough for all those like me to hear that they are not alone. I want my voice to be heard because the pain that dug its way deep inside of me is plaguing others.

  Just as I contemplated taking a knife to my wrists, there are those that are doing that now. They throw themselves into the pits of darkness because wallowing in a sea of hatred has become too goddamn much for them. Victoria was one of them.

  Suddenly, that lump in my throat is tightening and it is getting harder and harder to breathe. The sunrise of joy that I also craved to see as I put the disgust and danger behind me is almost as frightening as the final farewell to the constant pain. The glutton who wants discomfort will never alter what he needs.

  That is me. It is embedded in my body, every cell of my being. The masochism that I love to loathe clings onto me forever. I am a dangerous man and my life is destined for bad things. I feel it in my stomach as it clenches. My mind travels through time again as I stare Victoria in the face. All I want is one last smile while the face of her ghost haunts me, making my heart shatter into a trillion shards that will never be put back together, no matter how well Gwendolyn tries.

  I can certainly attempt to make her think that I am a changed man. She does make me feel more normal than I will ever be, but I must face that I am a player in the game that I hated so much. The last days of Victoria Matthews were filled with rape, torture, brutal violence, and sadness as I sit before a fucking picture box doting over the memories that I kept track of. Inside I hold the last known picture of her and I want to show it off.

  For what?

  Being the boy who could never say no to the ultimate puppet master himself.

  I sat back and moved my pencil, admiring her cuts, scrapes, and bruises as I burned that image into my mind forever. Maybe that all along was part of God’s punishment. Well, God, you have made your fucking point. But please, please do not drag Gwendolyn down this fiery road. She does deserve absolution no matter what she has done. Her heart is golden. I have seen glimpses. Mine on the other hand, is as black as night.

  A warm hand breaks me from my stupor as I pull my mind, which I am at risk for losing, back to the now.

  “Welch? Welch? Come back to me.”

  The same words I spoke to her not long ago are repeated to me. Is this how it will always be as we go back and forth between lucidity and losing our fucking minds?

  “I’m not sure I can do this, Gwendolyn. I, I, it’s all my fault.”

  She scoots herself closer to me and wraps her arms around my neck.

  “It isn’t, Welch. Remember, we can’t live in yesterday. We have to live in the now. We have to or this is all we will be for the rest of our lives. Only we can decide our fate. Let them and our past define us, or fucking live. What do you want to do?”

  I sit for a moment, thinking hard about what she said. I so badly want to believe her, and parts of me do, but it is hard.

  “Maybe you need to say one last goodbye to Victoria and apologize if you think you need to, Welch. Would that make you feel better?”

  My wide eyes open and I nod my head yes. One final farewell until I cut the string from that ominous, fretful night away from me. Gwendolyn is right. It is sucking the life out of me and only I can be the one who decides how to live my future. I can’t fathom how she is speaking so normally after taking a life for me.

  My hands make their way to the box as I fish through various pieces of folded up paper. Then, the one I know is her pangs my heart as the wind leaves my lungs. I find myself opening my mouth to speak, to physically talk to her, but reality finds me again and I stop myself. I’m in another battle between staying in the moment and regressing back to the 16-year-old boy who wanted someone, anyone to care if he died.

  I need to stop. Say goodbye and give up the guilt that I have. I couldn’t have saved her even if I tried. She is a lost one. An angel flying high above. I understand at this moment that maybe I did provide a small amount of reprieve from what I did, giving aid to ending the lives of the bastards that took so much from us.

  Again, my mind is reeling like a movie and this time I smile at the recollection, seeing Claude laying there as Gwendolyn cuts away his flaccid cock. The bastard definitely deserved worse than that. Then Helen, that stupid dirty cunt… I would cave her head in a dozen more times to ensure that their hands never touched another kid again.

  Relief, finally as I let go…

  I let the trapped air I have been holding in my lungs escape as my shaky hand picks up the blood spattered paper. I slowly unfold it, all while feeling Gwendolyn rub my shoulder, an indication that she is supporting me. I open the paper and I am greeted by the tormentor from my past, the sketch of Victoria from the night I was forced to take her. The same night that she escaped and Claude murdered her for trying to run away. The lead from the pencil shades the bruises she wore on her back perfectly just like my mind remembered and I look down to her thighs, noting several cuts and scrapes, flawless dark lines made with my hands. Soft linear marks flow to make the strands of her matted up hair. The darkness around her is a symbolism for what we endured and what was around us. Her small arms are sketched clutching her naked chest just like I remembered and she is clothed in nothing more than a pair of panties. I feel like I am staring at a memory, waiting to hear Claude’s heavy footsteps barge down the hall along with Helen’s loud, smoker’s cough.

  “Would people have noticed if I died?” I ask Gwendolyn, not realizing the words that are rolling off my tongue.

  “Oh my God, Welch. Of course! Don’t talk like that.”

  “Claude used
to tell me that no one would know. And the night that Victoria was killed, he said it. She went out of this world thinking that no one would know if she died. Well, I know. I have lived with it for twelve years.”

  “Bad things happen to really good people, Welch. We have to remind ourselves that there are genuine people still out there in the world. People that still give us faith in humanity. Seems to me like Victoria would second me on that.”

  “Maybe. I would hope so.”

  I take a second longer to look at her before preparing to tell her that I am sorry. Sorry for not saving her and doing the bad things that I was told. Sorry for not speaking the words that she most likely needed to hear. I am saying the many versions of sorry in my mind to her before I muster up the courage to say it out loud.

  “Victoria, I am so sorry. I hope you are resting peacefully,” I whisper, stroking the piece of paper.

  As much as I want to keep it, to remember, it is only resurfacing bad memories. I take both hands on opposite edges of the paper and tear. Gwen continues to occasionally rub my back and I am grateful for that. It makes me realize something that I didn’t comprehend before I finish tearing Victoria and her memory into dozens of tiny pieces.

  Someone would notice if I died.

  I finally convinced Gwendolyn to go to the free clinic the following day. The nurse practitioner did an ultrasound, which showed that she had passed the remnants of the baby. She gave her some medication to take and did an exam, all of which turned out to be normal. Miscarriages are common, but my heart still hated to hear that.

  Gwendolyn is in good spirits, though sometimes I can still see the tears forming in her eyes. The elephant from before is still haunting me as I remember what Lieutenant Thompson said, how he would keep his eye on us. It’s been two weeks since Isabel’s murder and I can’t help but worry that the other shoe will soon drop. I told Gwendolyn that skipping out of town right now would be sketchy and lead those to believe she played some sort of role in her death and that we needed to play it cool for a while.