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MsTempestRaven -> Till Death When We Part (9/24/2005 11:22:22 PM)
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The heavy, moist air lingered as a constant reminder that this had been one summer to remember. Sunset had only curved the heat while the streets of New Orleans filled with humidity. Now the darkness surrounding the city was alive.
Behind the majestic horseman statue in the famous City Park, I was lying flat on my back looking at the southern sky and the peaked sword like extensions of the Saint Louis Cathedral as they stabbed upward at the heavens. Three nights straight I had left my lonely little apartment to lie in this exact spot, in this same park by myself with not even a blanket to rest on, crying and talking to myself.
I brought my wallet of course...that would account for the alcohol on my breath. Drinking was one of the only things that I could motivate myself to do, other than dragging myself from the cramped little living space of mine. I had lost my job, my friends, my sanity, and now I was aiming for the only thing that I technically had left.
Now of course I had been warned time after time about the “freaks” that were around the city at any given time and how dangerous it was, but let’s face it, at the moment I didn't give a shit. In fact, in my own strange way I was inviting death and daring it to take me.
After three nights straight of this I was guessing that “Death” had someone or something better to do.
Again I could hear the words in my head, over and over in his voice.
“I love you...but I’m not in love with you...I want you...but not in the relationship sense...I’m sorry...I wish I would have treated you better...but now there’s this other girl and we’re hanging out...I’ve been trying to find the words to tell you.”
Wracking with sobs I pleaded with the vast New Orleans sky as the sides of my face had become sticky as the tears kept drying, only be replaced with new ones.
“I waited for years...for this. If you are up there...do you find this funny? He was all I wanted...just for him to love me back...and then it seems I have my wish only to have it jerked away after I plan to build my life around “us”. He loved me one day and the next he didn’t. How can someone just wake up one day and not love someone anymore? Please...don’t make me feel this for another night.” I pleaded with God, just in case he did exist.
It’s not as if I would get an answer but it was still worth a shot. I stayed for another hour or so, hoping some thug or drug crazed junkie would just come along and beat me to death. I had no luck. I staggered drunkenly to my feet and sighed a bit as the damp material of my top clung to my moist skin. Folding my arms across my chest, I began to walk through Jackson Square. Perhaps I had passed hundreds of people, but I just didn’t see them.
The only thing I could see was the mental picture of my lover’s adorable smile, if I tried hard enough I could even imagine his laugh. Then I imagined him wanting someone else. I wanted to drop right there in the street so that I could be trampled.
Instead I found myself cutting down the famous little alley near Saint Louis Cathedral with all the tarot card readers and self proclaimed mediums. I had been ripped off more than once by people like this so I kept my distance and continued my zombie like trance towards the farther parts of the French Quarter, snapping out of it every once in a while to get a frozen mixed drink in a plastic cup and carry it along.
There was no way in hell I was going to The Morgue tonight. It was our favorite bar and if I saw him with some bitch there...hmm...well we'll just say the name of the bar would be quite appropriate in that case. Typical jealous woman.
I could hear loads of motorcycles in the distance and spotted a whole line of them in front of a popular bar. The noise caught my attention but it was the little shop directly next to the bar that held my fascination. It’s blinking neon sign that read “Tarot, Palm Reading, and Voodoo”. I had been to this shop once before when I had first moved here. I had gotten a tarot reading, which, was strikingly accurate to my surprise.
I staggered into the store and glanced around slowly at all the books and prepackaged voodoo dolls with their color coded pins that hung near the register. Beside them sat little primitive looking dolls made from corn husk.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. This is it?” I groaned with disappointment as I leaned over and flicked one of the painted doll faces.
“Can I help you?” A slender, perfect looking college aged girl asked.
“I want to speak with your priestess. It really can’t wait until tomorrow.” I answered softly.
“It’ll be about another ten minutes, she’s with a client.”
I simply nodded and walked around the store, waiting. I looked at my reflection in a mirror that hung in the corner of the store and stared at myself.
“I still look the same...” I whispered to myself. Absent mindedly I ran my hands over my tiny waist and much broader hips. I was still the same rather curvy Anna that I was when we were together. The only slight difference in myself I saw was that my eyes were puffy and red from crying and I looked tired. I had the same long ebony hair, the same big blue eyes and pale skin. I hadn’t gained any weight, in fact I was only averaging eating every two to three days, so I was probably losing weight.
“He’s probably fucking someone that looks like her.” I mumbled referring to the sales girl, who I was sure had “anorexia” stamped across her forehead lingering right beneath those wispy little blonde bangs.
“Why doesn’t he want me anymore...what’s wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, dear.” I heard a woman’s voice chime in to answer me.
Spinning around to my left, there stood a old woman, clad from head to toe in purple, wearing dozens of long beaded necklaces and big rings on her tiny fingers.
“I know I’m not what you expected, you were probably looking for an African American woman with a long dress and a red bandana.” She patted my shoulder. “Come on back, girl.”
We walked behind a black curtain in the side of the shop and sat down around a table filled with tarot cards, crystals, colorful stones, runes, and many other curious things.
“Now,” the woman said to me, “what brings you here to seek my counsel.”
I went through the whole story, exposing every gory detail to her. I bawled and cried throughout the whole thing as she sat there listening with genuine concern, only moving to grab me the occasional tissue.
“There is nothing wrong with you, honey. This man obviously has shit for brains. I will not be the first, and not the last to tell you that you seem like a kind, well educated, and very beautiful young woman. You look like a little porcelain doll baby.” The priestess smiled at me and reassured. “You don’t need this bastard.”
“I know...that’s what everyone says but it’s not true. I love him and it’s killing me. I can’t go on like this anymore and if I can’t have him back, then I don’t want to breathe anymore. I really mean that.”
“I will not do that sort of ritual because I find it unethical. We do have kits outside in the store that you can try yourself. I won’t charge you for the time that we talked since I really didn’t give any service except listening.”
“I don’t want some little manufactured, thrown together kit that tourists take home as souvenirs. I want help.” The tears began streaming and I clung to her hand desperately while she hesitantly looked in the direction of the store front.
“Do you have anything of his with you, dear?” She said in a hushed tone after a few moments of considering.
I pulled a shoe string from my pocket and placed it on the table. The priestess, who had by now introduced herself as “Barbara”, gave me an odd look.
“I know that looks strange, but that’s all I have left of him.” I said sadly.
“The sorry sap never bought you anything? A ring...a necklace...I bet not even a flower.”
The lowering of my head confirmed her suspicions.
“He’s really not worth it girl. That man is purely a waste of your time. Let some poor, stupid, unsuspecting girl deal with him and thank her from the bottom of your heart for getting him out of your life.” Unsuccessfully she tried once more to convince me to just let things go.
I was much too stubborn for that.
Barbara led me to another more private section of the store and proceeded behind locked doors to light candles and gather the shoe string. The old woman asked me to concentrate as she called on spirits with names that I can not remember to pronounce. There was a definite energy in the room that even my drunk ass could feel.
“Here...” Barbara said to me as she handed the shoe string back. “Braid this into your hair while saying exactly what you want to happen...but be careful how you phrase what you desire. Words mean everything. He will be showing up in no time once you do this. Within a day after he comes back around, you must prick your finger and slip two drops of your blood into either his food or drink to seal the deal. After that, he’s yours for as long as you can tolerate him.” She took a deep breath and shook her head slightly.
I grabbed her and hugged so tight that for a moment I was afraid that I had broken her. I trusted her and had full faith in this woman, which is very unusual for me. Maybe I just needed someone to believe in. Who knows?
I was only asked for a donation for the services provided so I left Barbara thirty dollars at the front register and walked quickly out of the door. Once outside the shop I braided the string into my dark hair immediately.
“I want Stephen to come back to me, to love me passionately, never think of another woman, and stay with me for the rest of my life.” I mumbled whole heartedly while clasping the braid in my hand.
I then grabbed another mixed drink and headed towards the crappy little space called home.
I turned the last corner quickly and spun around the ancient black iron pole that stands outside my French Quarter apartment building. I spun around and around, until in a drunken fit of laughter I fell flat on my backside. Even the connection of my ass with the hard concrete didn’t phase me. As my laughter began to subside, I could hear familiar laughter close by.
I thought it was just the mixed drinks and the heat messing with my head, but I was wrong. There he stood with that adorable, goofy smile of his. The picture of him that I had tried so hard to keep in mind had seemingly leap right from my thoughts and animated itself on my doorstep. The signature sleeveless rock band shirt showing off his toned arms with tattoos in full view, his sandy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, sideburns, goatee, it was all there.
“What are you doing? Are you drunk? I’ve been here for over an hour waiting on you.” He informed me while still laughing at my stupidity.
An hour, I thought. That was not long after I left the shop. Could whatever Barbara did have really been working?
“Waiting on me? Why?” I asked suspiciously.
Honestly, I was expecting him to say something like “I forgot a couple of my cds and need to get them.”
“Look, we need to talk. I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you and you deserve a lot better than me. I want to make it work, Anna. Every road leads me back to you...it’s almost as if we are fated to be together.” Stephen reached out to touch my shoulder. “I love you.”
“But you told me that you had someone else and that you didn’t love me. That you couldn’t see yourself with me for the rest of your life. Why...”
“I was confused and I’m sorry. There’s just a lot going on in my head.” Stephen interrupted.
Stephen helped me to my feet and wrapped his arms around me tightly.
“I’m not drunk and I still want you. I want you right now just as much as I did our first time.” He whispered against the edge of my earlobe.
Even if this turned out to be just for one night, and that I could possibly be a last resort piece of ass, I was going to take advantage of the chance to hold him again.
I fumbled with the keys for a moment and threw the door open. Slamming it behind us, he led me to the bedroom that we had shared so many times before.
Our lips met with a torrid passion that weakened my knees. Stephen’s mouth tasted sweet and inviting despite the faint smell of cigarettes on his breath. He had always tasted better to me than the finest chocolate or the sweetest honey. His hands found me all too willing as I eagerly accepted their caresses and anticipated much more to come. This was my love, my soul mate, and any other touch would have never quenched the fires that blazed within me.
My lover’s fingertips freed the one button behind my head that held my black velvet halter top and I felt it graze my ivory skin as it slipped down to reveal the fleshy mounds of my breasts. I caught my breath as his warm palm cupped one and his finger teased the taut nipple. Stephen looked at me with those warm brown eyes and offered a hint of impish laughter while I swooned and took in the mental image of that boyish smile.
“I missed you, Anna.”
I couldn’t even offer him a response other than meeting his lips with a torrid urgency that surprised even myself.
I felt his heart pounding in his chest like a hammer as he pressed his body against mine and backed me up against the bedroom wall with a light thud. Our tongues twined and danced slowly as his hands slid up my legs and beneath my skirt to find that the crotch of my panties were completely soaking wet. He made a slight noise of approval through the kiss before moving his lips downward to the tender flesh of my neck. Stephen began nibbling softly at my skin.
Our lips met once more with complete abandon as my hand, as if possessed with it’s own mind, tore at his belt buckle and zipper. Hesitation was not present to protest as my hand slipped inside his pants and wrapped around the part of him that I had missed the most.
I gave the incredibly thick base of his cock a firm squeeze and felt him ooze little streams of sticky-sweet pre cum onto my fingers. His excitement made me shiver with lust.
“Now...” I moaned “Right now.”
Stephen’s glazed over eyes met mine for a second before answering my plea. His rough hands slid over my hips as his fingers hooked into the sides of my panties and he pushed them down my pale legs. I freed his engorged cock from his pants and slid them to his knees.
Effortlessly, Stephen cupped my bottom and lifted me, wrapping my legs around his waist and keeping my back against the wall. I gasped as he pushed his entire length into me with one powerful thrust. No matter how many times we fucked, his size always seemed to surprise me with a little shock of pain.
“Does it feel good?” He whispered as he began threading himself in and out of me, stretching and abusing what he knew was his and only his.
“Mmm-hmm” I whimpered, my mind caught between a delectable cloud of pleasure and pain. It was too good to be true.
Stephen’s thrusts were deep and brutal, the pictures on the wall behind us shook with his lusty efforts. It was as if he was making up for lost time, and then some. My inner thighs ached already where his hipbones pressed against my tender flesh, but even so, I felt myself beginning to get close. I tried to hold off for my reward. I wanted to hear him and see the look on his face when he came.
His flesh slapped against my thighs noisily as he drove himself into me over and over. My breasts had become sore from bouncing as his animalistic urges wracked my entire body. All at once he pushed himself into me and I cried out in pain. Glancing down between our sweaty bodies I couldn’t see even a hint of his luscious cock, he was buried in me up to his jewels.
“Anna” He growled my name, dragging it out deliciously as if it were the name of god himself.
That was all I needed. I grabbed a handful of his hair as my own pleasure spiraled into a dizzying frenzy engulfing all of my senses. My hips gyrated uncontrollably and I rode his impaling cock and I let myself go.
“Oh fuck...yes...” My voice echoed through the apartment as I came. I could feel my own arousal running down my inner thighs like a forbidden river.
Stephen’s whole body tightened as he cried out and thrust hard one last time. I felt his cock pulse inside of me, jumping as it spilled over against the deepest parts of my tunnel.
Catching his breath, he smiled warmly at me and lifted me into his arms. He placed me on the bed carefully, as if I were the most precious thing in the world to him. It was odd to see him acting this way since usually he was the strong, silent, mysterious type. He climbed into bed with me and wrapped his arms around me. I drifted off to sleep with no problem. Stephen was all the comfort I needed.
I awoke with a start and my eyes snapped open. I felt something tickling my thighs and I sat up abruptly and glanced down to find Stephen between my thighs, his long hair tickling them.
I then glanced over at the clock. We couldn’t have been asleep for more than an hour.
“Stephen...we’ve only been...” I protested softly
“Shhhh...” He interrupted and separated my thighs gently before darting his warm tongue across my clit.
My protests faded quickly. His mouth closed in around the tiny treasure he had found, kissing and noisily making sucking sounds as he teased it. I couldn’t last long. This thought came only seconds before I felt his finger probing and then sliding into me as he continued to lash and run circles around me with his tongue. His finger slid in and out with ease as my arousal had soaked me and dripped onto the sheet beneath my bottom.
“Oh god...if he kisses on it like that again...and I hear him sucking...”
It was almost as if he read my mind.
I cried out loudly and grabbed the headboard as I climaxed, he shoved his tongue into me, lapping at me as I came.
“You taste good.” He said softly and climbed up beside me on the bed again once more.
Twice more I would awaken, once with his head between my legs and yet again as the sun was rising I felt him climb on top of me and push himself into me. By this point I was too tired to argue or participate. I was lying beneath him, feeling every inch as he tried to pleasure me but I was just too tired to interact.
I awoke around noon to find him still sleeping. I went into the kitchen where I poured my love a tall glass of orange juice. Remembering the instructions from Barbara, I made a tiny cut on the tip of my finger.
"I think she said two drops..." I tried to recall. "Oh well, I'll just put in four just to be positive."
The blood wasn't noticable in the least after I stirred the juice. I was in the clear. Smiling to myself I took it to Stephen and nudged him. Minutes later I watched him down the juice to my satisfaction.
"You're mine now, you little bastard." I chuckled to myself as I left the bedroom to take the glass to the kitchen sink.
A week had passed now, and still throughout the day and night he was constantly waking me. Night or day, it didn’t matter. All he wanted to do was get himself inside of me or give me physical pleasure in some way. Normally this would not have been a bad thing, but I was exhausted. I felt physically worn out and sick. I bruised easily, black circles were constant companions to my tired blue eyes now. I rarely could even eat without him throwing himself at me.
Trying to reason with him only seemed to upset him. Either he thought I wanted another man or that he had done something wrong. My trying to reason with him usually ended up in him groveling at my feet and bawling like a woman. He didn’t even try to put up an argument of any sort. I had never seem him this way.
In fact, it almost seemed like he had no mind of his own any more. He agreed with everything I said or did. Stephen even claimed to like some of the things I do and claim to share the same views on certain issues that I knew for a fact, he had previously hated with a passion. It was as if he was a mindless being with no intent or purpose other than pleasuring me. There were no stimulating conversations anymore or constructive criticisms, only overly excited agreement from a clouded minded follower that looked like my boyfriend.
One night after telling him how much the change in him had started to bother me, he once again became the groveling pitiful mess I had come to recognize.
“Who is he? Does he make you happy? I’ll kill him.” He babbled and sobbed.
“Stephen, there is no one else. Fuck it. I can’t take this anymore.” I growled and slipped my shoes on. “I’m going to walk to the store.”
“No! Please don’t leave me here. If you leave I’ll follow right behind you, I swear!” Stephen said, raising his voice slightly.
I hadn’t left the apartment except for going to the store for cigarettes, and even then he had walked with me each time. I needed some time to myself. I sprinted out of the door despite his warning and hoped I would get lost in the busy streets with all of the drunk tourists and gothic night owls.
Weaving in and out of the crowd, I thought I had gotten my wish until I heard him.
“Anna!” He yelled at the top of his lungs as I caught a glimpse of him running wildly through the streets after me.
“Goddammit!” I growled and took my chances by darting across the street before the light could change to green. I made it safely to the corner and glanced back to see him running after me across the street.
The next thing I remember were the squealing of tires and a woman’s scream. It all seemed so surreal when I saw Stephen fly completely over the yellow cab as he was hit and an SUV that was behind it run completely over him before realizing what was happening.
I heard the crushing sound of bone and the loud thump even from where I stood.
“Oh my god!” I screamed when I finally could and I ran over to his still body. He was covered in blood and I could see bone had pierced through the skin of his right arm.
“That guy’s dead...there’s no way he’s alive.” I heard someone in the crowd that had gathered around us say inconsiderately.
“Call 911!” A multitude of other voices yelled frantically.
I sat beside him in the middle of the road and sobbed, repeating his name remorsefully. If I hadn’t been such a selfish bitch maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
I didn’t dare move him. I could hear the sirens coming towards us from a few blocks away. I finally got the courage to feel for a pulse. There was nothing there.
I buried my face into my hands and cried bitterly before there was a noise. A low groan. I looked back at Stephen thinking I had imagined what I had just heard, only to see that his eyes were open and he was looking at me.
“Anna.” He called to me in what sounded more like gurgling than anything.
Another pedestrian claiming to be a doctor rushed over with a medical bag and began trying to take Stephen’s vitals.
“It’s a miracle he’s alive, let alone trying to talk.” He took out a stethoscope and placed it on Stephen’s chest. “You just lie there still and quiet, save your energy.” The gray haired man told Stephen while moving the stethoscope around on his chest. There was a look of confusion.
“I’m not hearing anything.” He said while snatching at Stephen’s wrist to take his pulse. The doctor shook his head after a few seconds, moving his hand further up the arm to take his radial pulse in case there was something he was missing. Once again he shook his head.
Stephen surprisingly jerked his arm away from the doctor and sat up, coughing and spitting blood in the doctor’s face in the process. The doctor scrambled quickly from his side, leaving his medical bag right where it was.
“Anna!” He said again and reached for me, one arm hanging noticeably at a sickening angle. Stephen stood somehow and then began to limp towards me.
Screaming, I began to run towards the darkness of the French Quarter. I was a bit faster than he was it seemed, so I thought I had a better advantage.
Although I had lived in this city now for a while and for the most part knew my way around, you really don’t think too clearly when you’ve got a maimed, obsessed, dead guy following you around town. I came to the walls of the old cemetery and hopped right over. I ran past the tomb of Marie Laveau, the beloved voodoo queen. I figured at least the wall would keep him busy for a while.
“Anna!” I heard him scream.
I turned to see him with one leg hanging over the wall of the cemetery. There was no doubt that he saw me. I turned to flee once more, not knowing where to go or what to do but run. It was then that it occurred to me that all of this was my own fault.
“I want him to stay with me for the rest of my life.” I heard my voice echo in my thoughts.
“Oh my god, the spell...” I realized out loud. “The way I worded it...fuck! This is my fault!”
I felt hopeless and ashamed. Stephen was what he was now because of me and I came to the realization that as long as I lived, he would never find peace.
By some strange coincidence there was a strong rope sitting beside a fresh grave that I happened to notice. I picked it up and began to climb the gnarled branches of a nearby tree, knocking off handfuls of the hanging Spanish moss as I hoisted myself up.
Now, this is where I stand. In this beautiful cemetery, looking out at the lights of the city around me as I slowly fashion a noose from the rope I found and secure it to a strong limb directly above me. It’s strange the way things happen, as if we are all puppets of a predestined fate.
Stephen’s down by the base of the tree. I can see the blood glistening off his ashy white skin as he sobs and pleads with me to come down, all the while trying frantically to figure a way to maneuver his broken body up the branches of the tree.
He has seen the rope, and knows my intent. My death will be his own.
While I’m slipping the rope around my neck I can’t help but look down at him and smile. I still love him with all my heart and soul, just as much as the day I cursed him and bound him to me. What has happened now, well, that’s not his fault. I just hope that if there is an afterlife, he can forgive what I have done to him.
With one foot dangling off of the twisted branch I hear the creature that was once my Stephen screaming in rage. As the other slides quickly off and I feel the rope jerk. Something snaps loudly and my last thought is that I hope he and I do a better job in our next life, for I am sure that if fate has a cruel streak Stephen and I will meet again.
[image]local://upfiles/130798/F8B3D6CD5C0745E4B0FE58A1F651E29D.jpg[/image]
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