Screams That Arouse The Dead
A Dark Erotic Tale Between The Living And The Dead
How far would you go to save the soul of the woman you love… or kill the man that took her?
The night before I started writing in this journal, I sat across from the man who destroyed my life, and he stared at me like I was crazy. I didn’t blame him for his disbelief since I’m sure he could smell scotch on my breath, but you see, he needed to understand the consequences of his actions… and I needed to accept the consequences of mine. He’d caused me so much fucking pain that I sometimes woke up screaming like someone was carving into my chest with a searing knife. I knew he could never fathom what true love felt like, and I knew it wasn’t within him to express it, but before the night was over, he would know my pain and feel the darkness of love after death.
It was two years ago when everything changed. I had pulled into an empty church parking lot, my hands cramping from tightly gripping the steering wheel, and a rational voice inside my head telling me to calm down. Yet, it was a mere whisper behind the proud voice yelling for me to stand my ground.
The car barely came to a stop when Francesca opened the passenger side door and jumped out. Yanking the key from the ignition, I got out of the car and immediately felt grateful for the night breeze as it cooled my face and soothed the outrage seething under my skin. I loosened my tie, took a deep breath, and walked to the other side, where Francesca stood crying with her arms crossed.
“You’re such an asshole,” she shouted.
“What? You want me to say I’m sorry? The little shit deserved it.”
“Bullshit!”
“Oh. Here we go,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Don’t do that. Don’t you dare fucking do that.”
“Frankie, you’re my wife — ”
“You’re goddamned right I am. Yet, for some reason, you can’t seem to wrap your brain around that any time you’re in the same room with him.”
“That’s because the stupid son of a bitch still thinks it’s funny to tell me jokes about the two of you in bed back in the day.”
“Jesus Christ, Max. Why can’t you just let it go? Why can’t you just move on?”
“For fuck’s sakes! Are you kidding?”
“Max, look at me, and I mean take a good look at me!”
As I looked back, Francesca stretched out her arms and slightly lowered her head like she was ready to be crucified.
“Do you think I dress like this for Tony or any other asshole?”
Sighing heavily, I leaned back on our car and crossed my arms. She dropped hers in exasperation, and I said, “Look — “
“Because I don’t, you fucking ox. I dress like this for you. Because I should be more than just a memory of a good time for you.”
The hurt in her voice cracked my wall of resentment, and through the opening, I saw her for the strikingly beautiful and stylish woman she was. My gaze traveled down the length of her body, taking in the long black maxi dress with the neckline so deep her ample breasts made more than a partial appearance. Catching the high cut front slits of her outfit fluttering in the wind made me think even God wanted me to appreciate the perfect curves to her shapely legs and the boldness of her black caged stilettos.
Stepping away from the car, I slowly approached her, caressed her cheek, and brushed a strand of her deep chestnut-brown hair from her face. I breathed in her perfume with its lavender notes, and said, “I’m sorry, baby. Truly, I am.”
She took my hands and pulled them behind her, encouraging me to hold her close. She looked in my eyes and asked, “How is it Tony can get a rise out of you without even trying, but even with my tits halfway out, I can’t get you to see what’s right in front of you?”
“It’s those damn blue eyes of his. They just get me every time.”
Biting down on her lower lip, she cut off a smile before it could fully escape, and I felt her body relax in my arms. She shook her head and said, “You’re an idiot. You know that, right?”
“I know, but right now…I think I’m gonna do the smart thing. Feel me?”
“And what would that be?”
I leaned in and kissed her, the shame of my behavior tempering my advances. When I felt her tongue inside my mouth, the shame turned to need, and I slipped my hands under the slits of her dress and massaged her plump ass. She moaned into my mouth and kissed me harder when I pressed my erection against her… when I casually moved a hand to the front of her dress and let my fingers express what my pride wouldn’t allow.
Tracing my fingers over the delicate fabric of her thong, I moved them between her legs and let out a small gasp when I felt her moist lips through a hole in the garment.
“What the fuck?” I whispered in her mouth. “Are you wearing — ?”
“Yes. I am,” she said, pulling her head back with a smile and an arched eyebrow.
“You mean you’ve been wearing a crotchless thong this whole time, and you’re only telling me now?”
“I tried to tell you more than once, but you couldn’t hear me over Tony’s taunts.”
“True enough,” I said.
I looked around the immediate vicinity, making sure we wouldn’t be interrupted or witnessed by any more elderly busy-bodies, and then picked Frankie up off the ground and sat her on the hood of the car.
“Max! Jesus. What the fuck are you doing?”
“What do you think?”
“Babe, we can’t do this here. Not in a church parking lot.”
“Are you sure we can’t? I mean, look around. There’s no one to see us,” I said in a playfully pleading voice. “So, what do you say? Can I have a little taste?”
Frankie looked around the parking lot, saw that no one was around, and gave me a look that said, “Why the fuck not?” She laid back, raised her dress, and dramatically spread her legs. And when I saw her pussy pouting at me, the ingenious design of the undergarment pushing her moist lips together, I let out a low moan.
With my pulse quickening, and my cock rigid and throbbing, I leaned down between her legs. When I was close enough to smell the scent of her arousal I stopped, looked up, and saw she was watching me. I couldn’t stop myself from winking at her and she rolled her eyes. She then placed her hand behind my clean-shaven head and guided me the rest of the way.
I took my time. Licking. Tasting. Teasing. She let out tiny whimpers when I brushed my tongue against her clit. She caressed the back of my head when I slipped my finger inside her and licked around it, my tie occasionally getting in the way.
“Maxi. Jesus,” she groaned. “I want you to fuck me. I want you to fuck me right now.”
Francesca’s words lit a fire within me, and I felt its heat from groin to neck. I stood up, pulled my tie over my head, and carelessly threw it to the ground. Francesca sat up, hastily undid my belt, and fumbled my pants open. When she pulled them down, my cock sprung out long and hard.
“Fuck,” she whispered, gripping my shaft tightly.
I helped her off the car and she turned around, raising the back of her dress. The glorious sight of her ass aroused me even more, and I wasted no more time with foreplay. I gripped the base of my shaft and slipped my cock inside her. When I felt how wet she was, when I felt her pussy tighten around me, I silently gave thanks to God.
“Don’t,” she grunted.
“Don’t what?”
“Come on my dress.”
With my cock buried deep, I stopped moving and said, “Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously. I want you to fuck me, but don’t come on my dress.”
The timing of her demand was both ridiculous and practical, and it made me laugh. She reached between her legs and grabbed me tightly by the balls.
“Fucker,” she said. “Finish what you started, and don’t mess up the dress. Feel me?”
Flinching at the pain, I said, “I feel you.”
I fucked my wife with deep and quick thrusts that grew quicker each time she whimpered. It wasn’t long before she slammed her fist down on the hood of the car and screamed out. The sensation of being inside her when she came was a mixture of pressure, warmth, and wetness, and made me fuck harder and faster until I erupted inside her with clenched teeth and deep sighs.
“God damn it.,” she whispered. “Now that’s the man I love and married.”
“Jesus fuck, Frankie,” I said, panting. “We are so going to hell.”
“Just shut up, and don’t move.”
I shook my head and smiled at her demand, knowing this was the part of our lovemaking she adored the most. I was tempted to pull out, feeling exposed in the parking lot, but I didn’t. The act of staying inside her until I was no longer hard was the purest form of intimacy for Francesca, and for reasons I would never fully appreciate or understand, it always motivated her to play with her clit and come a second time.
After a few minutes passed, Francesca stood straight and helped me with my pants, gingerly positioning my cock in my underwear. She kissed me and said, “Give me the keys.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to drive, and because the wind is blowing your tie away.”
I turned around and saw my designer tie being blown on to the street, and yelled, “Shit!” I shoved the keys into her hand and ran after it. I could hear her laughing behind me, the sound soft and infectious, and I realized I hadn’t made her laugh like that in months. I stopped running and watched the tie blown farther away from me like a snake slithering with the wind.
“Where’s the tie?” she asked, as I got in the car.
“Meh. I have plenty of ’em.”
“What do you mean by ‘Meh’? You do realize I bought that for you for your birthday last year?”
“Say what?”
“I bought that tie for your birthday,” she repeated.
“Shit. I’m so sorry,” I said, looking out the window to see if I could still catch it.
“You know what I love about you most, Maxi?”
I shook my head and said, “No.”
“You always believe me.”
“You mean — ?”
“Your mother bought you that tie. I’m okay with it being gone.”
“Oh, you’re such a bitch,” I said, wiping the impish grin from her face with a deep kiss and pinching her nipple hard enough to make her wince.
“I have another surprise for you when we get home,” she said while starting the car.
“You do, do you? Then I suggest you start driving before I find us another parking lot along the way.”
She pulled the car out of the lot, and I leaned back in my seat, caressing her thigh and feeling content. But after driving for three blocks… I knew something wasn’t right, and I asked, “Where are we going, Frankie?”
“We’re going back to the reception,” she said in a tone that was far removed from playful.
“The hell we are.”
“You need to apologize for what happened, Max.”
“The hell I do!”
“God damn it, Max. You knocked out the best man at my cousin’s wedding. You need to apologize.”
“Your cousin needs better friends.”
“Please, babe. I’ll never hear the end of it if you don’t. Mamma will be like, ‘Madre di Dio! He will always think with his fists’.”
The impression of her mother’s raspy Italian voice was dead on, and normally would have made me laugh, but not this time.
“No. I won’t do it. I didn’t do anything wrong, and I’d do it again.”
Francesca stopped the car at a red light, looked at me, and said, “Baby, what happened between me and Tony is in the past. I let go of it and the prick a long time ago. Now I need you to find a way to do the same. If you don’t — ”
Before Francesca could finish her sentence, we were blinded by a set of headlights. Before I could protest further, we were hit head-on. My body jerked forward, and the seatbelt snapped into place, cutting into my neck, while the airbag simultaneously deployed. The pain I felt ushered me into unconsciousness, and the screams I heard before the world was gone kept me company in the darkness.
When I finally opened my eyes, it was to the sound of a woman’s voice over a speaker saying, “Code blue.” My vision was blurred, and my head throbbed, so I closed my eyes, subduing the urge to throw up. When my nausea subsided, I looked around, concentrating on the objects closest to me. Eventually, everything came into focus and I realized I was in a hospital room, badly injured, with both legs enclosed in metal devices that reminded me of a scene from Hellraiser. The urge to vomit returned, but I passed out before anything happened.
I had no sense of time, but I could hear a cart with wheels in need of oil being pushed and smelled something like roast beef and steamed carrots. The odor was strong enough to make me open my eyes, and I found myself facing a picture taken on my wedding day. In it, I was wearing a traditional black tuxedo and Francesca was in a white see-through mermaid wedding dress with beaded lace down the sides. The picture reminded me how much her mother hated the dress, as it showed way too much skin for her liking, and how much the old hag cried when Francesca walked down the aisle on her father’s arm, unable to deny how beautiful her daughter looked as the dress hugged every curve.
“Frankie,” I mumbled to myself.
“Max?” whispered a familiar voice, hoarse from decades of smoking.
I turned away from the picture to see Francesca’s mother seated in a chair by my bedside. She was holding my hand in hers, looking relieved and exhausted at once.
“Frankie?” I mumbled again. “Is she okay?”
Mamma Milano stood up and caressed my head. She looked at me with such affection in her eyes… but it didn’t mask the pain and despair I saw in them.
“Please. Tell me she’s okay, Mamma M.”
“I can’t, Max,” she said with her breath smelling like stale cigarettes and her eyes tearing up. “She’s gone. My Bambina is gone.”
Her words felt like an enormous weight on my chest. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit something. But I was too weak to do any of it. Only the machines that surrounded me registered my despair. Loud enough that a nurse came running into the room and pushed my mother-in-law out of the way.
Checking my vitals and the readings on the machines, the nurse said, “Ma’am, what did you do? What did you tell him?”
“The truth,” Mamma M spat. “What his parents fear telling him.”
“Ma’am, the doctor told you your son-in-law needed time to recover before confronting — ”
“His doctor knows nothing. He needs to — ”
“Visiting hours are over now. You need to go,” the nurse said tersely. My mother-in-law quietly gathered her things from the chair and slowly walked out of the room, the clicking of her cane on the floor sounding like nails being hammered into a coffin. The nurse then looked at me and said with a softer tone, “Mr. Lewis, I am so sorry for your loss. The doctor will be in to see you in a few hours. For now, I’m going to give you something to bring your blood pressure down and help you sleep.”
I let my tears respond for me, and they were enough to make the nurse give me a sympathetic nod. By the time she left the room, I felt the sedative working. I was calm. Tired. Shattered.
Unwilling to accept what couldn’t be denied, I slipped back into the darkness and let my mind guide me to a cherished memory.
It was a late Saturday night. I was standing on the balcony of Francesca’s condo wearing a salmon-colored buttoned shirt with a tie to match. Wearing a white backless V-neck dress with a random pink floral pattern, she joined me and handed me a glass of red wine. We toasted to a dinner, best described as ‘agonizing’, and I said, “At least now I know why you waited over three months before introducing me to your parents. I’m pretty sure your mother hates me.”
“Max, my mother doesn’t hate you. She just…she just comes from a generation that doesn’t think races should mix.”
“Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better.”
“Babe, come on. Don’t worry. She’ll get over it and forget about the old ways.”
“I’m not so sure. And why did she keep telling me to think with my head and not my hands? No matter what the fuck we were talking about, she always brought it back to that.”
“I kind of told her how we met, and how you helped me with the handsy guys at the club. Of course, when I told her the story…I thought you were the bouncer.”
I took a generous drink of my wine and laughed.
“So, what you’re saying is that your mother doesn’t know I’m a club owner?”
Francesca looked down at her drink and said, “Sorry. No.”
“Frankie…what the fuck?”
Walking up to me, she put a hand on my chest and smoothed out my tie. Almost laughing, she said, “Baby, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her you owned the club. She just has this way of judging people, and I wanted her to get to know you before I told her the truth.”
“So what? She has a thing against businessmen?”
“No. Just… she kind of thinks men who own clubs and bars…are kind of — ”
“What?”
“Shifty?”
“This just gets better and better. So not only does she think you shouldn’t be dating me because I’m black, but she thinks I’m a drug dealer.”
“Hey! I didn’t say that.”
“Then define ‘shifty’.”
“Okay. Fine. She’ll think you’re a drug dealer if I tell her you’re a club owner.”
I took a sip of the wine, shaking my head in dismay, and asked, “Did your last boyfriend face these odds?”
Francesca looked away and turned her attention to a plane’s lights as it slowly traversed the night sky. She said in a tone that made me feel like she was talking to the past, “My last boyfriend was a friend of the family. He didn’t have to jump through many hoops. He had the family convinced he could do no wrong.”
“But that wasn’t the case?”
“Do you remember that commercial back in the 80’s where that British beauty said, ‘Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful’?”
“Her name was Kelly Le Brock.”
“Of course you’d remember,” she said.
“Umm. Excuse me? Don’t roll your eyes at me. You’re the one who brought her up, so clearly you remember her too.”
“Fair enough.”
“Thank you. Now, what’s your point?”
“My point is Tony did. As much as he loved me for my looks, he equally hated me for them, if not more. I got tired of his bullshit jealousy and being made to feel less, so I ended it. The family didn’t take it well, but then they only saw what they wanted to see.”
“So, what you’re saying is that…in your mother’s eyes your new black drug-dealing boyfriend is filling the shoes of a good Italian boy who is best described as an utter dickhead.”
“That pretty much sums it up, buttercup.”
For a few minutes, we stood in silence drinking our wine. I took my phone out of my pocket, ready to make an excuse about the late hour and leave with my dignity. I pressed the home button and an unflattering picture of the two of us screaming on a rollercoaster appeared, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.
Clearing her throat to get my attention, Francesca said, “I’ll understand if you’re having second thoughts about us. I’m sure you could find someone — ”
“I don’t want to mess this up.”
“Mess what up?”
“This. Us. But your mother isn’t going anywhere. That means things are going to be difficult between the two of you so long as we’re together. You understand that, right?”
“I guess so,” she said, sounding unsure.
“No. You better know so. I’m not putting myself through your mother’s misery for shits and giggles.”
“I know that. But then… why would you subject yourself to my mother?”
“Do I really have to say it?”
“Yes.”
I placed a finger under her chin and tilted her head so she couldn’t look away, and said, “Because I’ve never met anyone like you. When I watch you counseling the kids at the shelter…I’m proud to be in your life. And when I watch you making dinner wearing baggy track pants and a ratty shirt with your hair in a bun, I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It is. So, if your mother, who I’m sure was the true head of the Corleone family, doesn’t like me being with you, she can kiss my ass. I love you, and I’m not going anywhere. Feel me?”
“Well damn,” she mumbled, blushing. She then kissed me with such abandon she forgot the glass of wine in her hand and spilled it on both of us. “Shit. Sorry, Maxi.”
“Maxi?”
“What? You can call me ‘Frankie’, but I can’t call you “Maxi”?”
“Touché.”
With a light kiss on the lips, she handed me her glass and said, “I’m going to clean up. I don’t exactly have anything you can wear, but if you check the fridge there might be some club soda you can use.”
“Alright.”
“And while you’re at it, you can fix us another drink.”
I followed Francesca back into the condo, and she walked into her bedroom and closed the door. I refilled the two glasses and then looked for the club soda. When I couldn’t find it, I took my shirt and tie off, and laid them to dry over the arm of her couch. Almost twenty minutes passed before she walked out of the bedroom, make-up-free, and wearing nothing but a midnight-black satin robe.
Seeing her sizable breasts free from the constraint of her dress, like the first night we spent together, and every night after, my lips went dry and I slowly licked them back to health. She dimmed the lights to the apartment and walked to her stereo system. Selecting “Naked” by Ella Mai to further set the mood, she walked over to me and had me stand up from the couch. She removed the rest of my clothes, and with both of us naked, she looked up at me and whispered, “Dance with me.”
I moved her coffee table out of the way with one foot and pulled her in close. As Ella described what she wanted out of love, Francesca and I swayed back and forth to the rhythm of the music. The way her skin felt against mine, the way it smelled of shea butter and desire… I felt like it wouldn’t take much more for me to come.
Caressing the small of my back, gently stroking my shaft, she kissed my chest and asked, “What do you see when you look at me?”
I lowered my head, teased her earlobe with my tongue, and said, “A future.”
She looked me in the eyes like she was searching for something. Truth. Deceit. I wasn’t sure which, but whatever it was… whatever she found… it made her get down on her knees and take my cock in her mouth.
Feeling her skillful tongue lapping at my testicles, seeing the hungry look in her eyes while her mouth was full of my manhood, I pulled out before the urge to come was too much to bear. I helped her to her feet and raised her off the ground, carrying her carefully to the dining table where I laid her on her back. I pulled up a chair, sat in front of her, and draped her legs over my shoulders.
“Don’t use your hands,” she demanded. “Just your mouth.”
I leaned in and greedily licked her pussy, and she encouraged my efforts by slipping her hand behind the back of my head and pushing me further down. I tried to slip a finger inside her, but she quickly closed her legs, trapping my head between them and said, “I hate repeating myself, baby. No hands.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said, slipping my tongue back inside her.
“Fuck. That’s it. Right there. Don’t stop,” she gasped.
Francesca writhed on the dining table as I ate her pussy like it was my last meal. The sounds of her pleasure and the taste of her rapture excited me so much it started to feel like I might come. So, I stopped, leaned back, and took several deep breaths.
“Why the fuck would you stop?” she asked, panting and annoyed.
I stood up, positioning myself between her legs, and gave her a clear view of my erection. Moaning softly, she grabbed it and rubbed the tip against her clit, and said, “Is this what you want, Maxi?”
“Yes,” I whispered, reaching out and squeezing her tits.
I slipped my cock inside her and pushed until she grabbed the sides of the table to brace herself. Then I fucked her with wild abandon.
“That’s it,” she gasped. “Just… like that. Fuck me.”
Two more songs played out on the stereo by the time we came, and when we did it was a euphoric mess of bodily fluids. When the moment passed, Francesca held me close and cried into my neck, while I gently kissed hers and asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just…just stay inside of me for a little longer.”
I kissed the salty tears from her cheeks and whispered, “I’m not going anywhere.”
I held on to the memory of that night for seven grueling months on my back at Oak Valley Hospital and another five with physiotherapists, learning how to walk again. Eventually, the memory stopped being a lifeboat in a tragic storm and became an anchor in an ocean of guilt.
I struggled to accept Francesca’s death. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her behind the wheel, where I should have been. Some days her cousin would visit me after physio sessions, explaining how the accident went down and reminding me it wasn’t my fault. When he left and I was alone with my thoughts, I was tortured by the idea of what might have happened if I hadn’t thrown that punch…if I had just listened to her and ignored Tony’s pathetic taunts. But I didn’t. And instead of feeling safe, wrapped in her arms, I was held in the grip of depression, feeling twisted.
I lived with this guilt for more than a year, pretending to move forward with my life for the sake of my parents and friends, but I couldn’t take it anymore. On the second anniversary of her death, I sat in the living room of our rustic 2-story house at one in the morning with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a loaded gun. I decided that when I got to the bottom of the bottle, I would end my life.
I was more than halfway to the point of no return when I heard a knock on my door. I staggered over and opened it without caring who was on the other side.
“Mamma M? What the hell are you doing here at this hour?” I managed to ask, slurring only some of the words.
The look of disappointment on her face was enough to make me start limping back to the living room before she could answer my question. I slumped onto the couch and poured myself another healthy helping of whiskey. Francesca’s mother sat in a chair across from me, placed her cane to one side, and her large tanned purse to the other. She was a small woman with raven black hair, thick eyebrows, and the tiniest hint of a mustache. Her voice, the victim of decades of smoking, made her sound like an Italian Ed Asner.
“What are you doing to yourself, Max? My Francesca would never have loved the man I’m looking at now.”
“Let me try this again,” I slurred. “What are you doing here, Mamma M?”
She took out a cigarette from her purse with shaky fingers, lit it, and took a long drag.
“You know…I thought it was a mistake when the two of you started dating. I thought she could do better.”
“I know.”
“But no one could have loved her more than you… I know that now,” she said, blowing smoke in the air. “I know you’ve heard it more than once that what happened to my daughter wasn’t your fault. And I know the words never ease your suffering. But that,” she said, nodding to the gun on the table, “won’t give you peace.”
“What the fuck do you know?”
“I know you’re in pain, but my baby’s pain is deeper, and I need your help.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, you old bag?”
“Mi scusi? You wanna say that again?”
“Mi dispiace,” I said with raised hands to ease the look of murder in her eyes. “That was the Jack talking. But seriously…what the fuck are you talking about?”
“The night Francesca died she had a surprise waiting for you at home.”
Mamma Milano’s words cut through the haze of whiskey.
“How did you know that?”
“She told me what it was that morning. She told me she was going to wait until you got home to surprise you because she didn’t want to take away from her cousin’s wedding day. She told me… she was pregnant.”
“No. No. No, she wasn’t. I would have known.”
“She didn’t get the chance to tell you…and your family was convinced by your therapist to withhold the truth. They all believed if you knew, with your mind so broken, you would do something… like this,” she said, waving her hand at me and the gun.
“Fuck you, you’re lying.”
She took another drag of her cigarette, and said, “What would I gain from lying to you about this? You don’t need my help to throw it all away and give up. You seem to be doing that well enough on your own.”
“If what you say is true, then why tell me now? Why tell me two fucking years later?”
“I told you why. I need your help. Francesca needs your help.”
Bewildered, I shook my head.
“Listen to me, Max. When my Bambina died, I was grief-stricken. So much so that I forgot the ways of the old religion. I could only feel my loss. Not hers. Not yours. But last night was different. Last night I could feel my baby. I could feel her pain and guilt.”
Mamma M took what was left of her cigarette and put it out on my coffee table. She then lit another one with much steadier hands.
“I know what I’m saying must sound pazzo, but you need to believe me, Max. If you don’t, I fear Francesca will be trapped in a hell made by her grief.”
I didn’t know if it was the alcohol coursing through my body, or the fear I heard in Mamma M’s voice, but the idea of a life after death… the thought of my wife in trouble in that existence didn’t sound “pazzo” to me.
“How do you propose I help her.”
Mamma M reached into her tanned bag and pulled out a large candle. She placed it on the coffee table between us, and said, “With this.”
At first glance, the candle didn’t look like much more than something I would have bought in bulk for one of my clubs. It was about 6 inches in height, flesh-toned with intricate symbols around it. I grabbed it to look at the symbols more closely but quickly pulled my hand away in revulsion.
“Jesus Christ. What the fuck?”
Mamma M exhaled a cloud of smoke and said, “Ancestors from my order believed it was possible to travel to the world of the dead, but to do so you would need something to light your way there and back. You would need a candle infused with the darkest of magic…wrapped in the skin of the purest of souls. You would need Alighieri’s Lampada.”
I swallowed the urge to throw up, and asked, “What are the markings?”
“The power in the candle is strong. The symbols are meant to keep it in check and focus it.”
Mamma M reached for my glass of whiskey and drank all of it in one go. Her hand trembled when she put the glass back on the table.
“I can’t believe I’m asking this, but how dangerous is this thing?” I asked, feeling a great deal more sober.
“When you light it, your mind…your anima will be taken to the other side. Your connection to Francesca is strong. Your love will take you straight to her.”
“Great, but that’s not what I asked.”
“When you find her, she will be trapped in a state of grief and guilt. You must free her before the candle burns out. You must free her and be the one to blow out the candle. You mustn’t let it go out on its own.”
“What happens if I do?”
“You will be trapped on the other side, and the power contained in the candle will be released.”
“That last part would be a bad thing, wouldn’t it?”
She responded with an exhale of smoke, and I poured myself another drink but didn’t pick up the glass. I just stared at the skin-wrapped candle.
“Fuck it. Give me your lighter,” I said.
“Madre di Dio. You know every time I asked Francesca why you, she always said the same thing. She said it was because you always — ”
“Believed her. Like I’m believing you now,” I said, pulling my gaze from the candle and looking Mamma M in the eye. “Either you’re telling me the truth and my wife needs my help, or you’re lying, in which case I’ll take this gun and blow your head off, enjoy the moment for an hour, then blow my own. Feel me?”
“Si. I feel you,” she said, tossing me her lighter and standing up to leave.
“Where are you going? You’re not seeing this through?”
“What happens next you do alone. I’ll be in the backyard waiting. When you’re done, you’ll either tell me you saved her…or the last breath I take will be under a night sky.”
She walked out of the living room, and a few seconds later I heard the door to the backyard open and close. I looked at the candle and wondered how far I was willing to go to see Francesca again. I took a swig of whiskey and whispered a prayer that would either see me in her arms or dead before the next sunrise.
I lit the candle and laid back on the couch, unsure if doing so was the right thing to do. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. As I did, the stench of burning flesh permeated through the living room. With each breath the urge to vomit grew worse, until finally it wouldn’t be ignored. I quickly sat up and threw up on the floor. When I regained my composure and wiped tears from my eyes, I found myself no longer in my living room, but in the bedroom of Francesca’s old condo.
Her room was furnished just as I remembered, but it was in a decrepit state. The dry-brown paint on the walls was peeling, the photos of children she worked with at the Small Steps Orphanage and Shelter were dusty, cracked, or partially burned, and the four-poster bed I sat on was covered in cobwebs and dust. The only object in perfect condition, but a quarter melted, sat on a nightstand next to the bed: Alighieri’s Lampada.
I stood up from the bed and the effort sent the room spinning. I heard footsteps from the other side of the closed bedroom door. I knew the door led to the living room, and the thought of standing in a larger space reassured me. Unsteadily, I walked over and grabbed the knob. As I did, I felt the unmistakable sensation of a fingernail being drawn down the back of my neck. I immediately turned, but the bedroom was empty. With my heart frantically beating, I turned my attention back to the door, but it was gone. I now stood on the condo’s balcony and faced a post-apocalyptic view of downtown Toronto.
The sudden change in surroundings disoriented me and I threw up over the balcony. When the dry heaving stopped, I took a step back and bent over. I closed my eyes to regain my sense of balance and took several deep breaths until I had a semblance of control over my fears and gag reflex. When I finally stood straight and looked around to get my bearing, I felt the strength in my legs weaken. Standing three feet away from me with a haunted look in her eyes and a distended belly was my wife.
She wore a faded two-tone burgundy halter dress, and her skin had a greyish pallor. Oblivious to my presence, she looked over the balcony and wailed as I had never seen her do before. I looked over the railing to see what caused her so much anguish and saw hundreds of malnourished children with arms raised begging her for help. Driven by rising fear and diminishing hope, I ran up to her, grabbed her arm, and turned her around to face me.
“Frankie, baby, it’s me. We need to get out of here.”
She pulled herself free and resumed her cries of anguish while caressing her stomach.
“Frankie, please. You don’t belong here. We need to go.”
“It was my fault,” she sobbed.
“What was your fault?”
Without looking at me she responded with the same words, “It was my fault.”
This mantra of self-condemnation went on for what seemed like hours. As hard as I tried to get her to see and hear me, Francesca simply repeated the same words, and in so doing left me feeling defeated. Eventually, I turned my back on her to cry and condemn myself for my failures. As I did, I saw movement in the condo through a dirty window. I saw the two of us dancing naked in the living room. The way we looked at each other… I remembered just how much we loved each other.
I turned away from the scene in the condo and stood beside Francesca. I gently placed my hand over hers and we held the balcony railing together.
“You know…I never told you why I hated Tony as much as I did, or the real reason I fed him his teeth.”
“It was my fault.”
“For years I had you believe it was because I was jealous of what the two of you might have shared, but that wasn’t it at all. Fuck. It wasn’t even close.”
“It was my fault,” she repeated.
“Guys like Tony…they can’t wrap their small brains around rejection, or how a woman could reject them. They can never see the pain they cause because their vision is always clouded by contempt and hate for the imagined slights against them.”
Her response was the same and I was losing hope. I barely noticed how she wrapped her pinky finger around mine while we held the railing.
“When you found the strength and courage to break with Tony, he hated you for it. He never openly showed it, but I knew. Every little snide remark, every tasteless joke was never about getting under my skin, but just another way of hurting you. And I put up with it at every family event because he was your cousin’s best friend, and your family loved him. I mean why wouldn’t they? He was always the perfect gentleman in front of them. But I knew…and it needed to stop.”
“It was my — ”
“No, it wasn’t,” I screamed. “Fuck, Frankie. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I yelled. It’s just…neither one of us is to blame for what happened… because it was Tony’s fault. The car that hit us that night. He was driving it. Your cousin told me that Tony got drunk after we left the hall. He was livid from the embarrassment I’d caused him. No one could convince him to let it go, and eventually, he jumped in his car and left. That’s when he saw us parked at the red light.”
I looked at Francesca for some sign she understood what I was saying, but she continued to look over the balcony at the begging children with a blank stare. Saddened, I shook my head and went back to look at the two of us in the condo and be reminded of what we had. I wiped the dirt off the window and peered inside, but the living room was empty.
With a heavy sigh, I said, “Frankie, you don’t belong here, and you need to stop blaming yourself. You couldn’t have known what was going to happen after I hit him. You couldn’t have known how he would react, or how far his anger would take him. Neither of us could have seen it, and I need you to know and believe that. It’s the only way you can let go of the guilt…and the memory of our child that never was. It’s the only way you can free yourself from this place, and frankly, it’s the only way I’m leaving here.”
“But… it was my fault. I shouldn’t have let him get to us,” she whispered.
“No. It wasn’t, baby. And if I have to spend an eternity convincing you otherwise, then so be it. I’d rather be in hell telling you how much I love you, than back home…telling your mother she was right.”
Francesca sighed heavily behind me, and said, “Maxi…. you’re an idiot. You know that, right?”
When I heard the familiar quip, I started to cry. I turned around and Francesca no longer looked like a pregnant faded whisper of the woman I loved. Her halter dress was replaced with a ketchup-stained white Blue Jays crop top and a pair of faded black track pants. Her stomach was flat, her hair was tied in a bun, and her skin was the warm complexion of life.
“Yeah, I know. But I think right now I’m going to do the smart thing. Feel me?”
Crying, she said, “Always, Max. I always feel you.”
When I held Francesca in my arms and felt her lips pressed against my own, a divine wave of relief washed over me.
“Max, how did you get here?”
“Your mother,” I said between kisses.
“But how?”
“She gave me a candle. Told me it would light my way to you.”
“Madre di Dio. She gave you an Alighieri candle?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Mamma used to tell me stories as a little girl. But I never thought it was real. Where is it now?”
“Inside your bedroom, I think.”
Francesca grabbed my hand and quickly guided me back to her bedroom. The candle had about a quarter of skin and wax left.
“She told you how to use it to get here, but did Mamma tell you what to do to get back?”
“Yes. But — ”
“But what?”
“But if I go back… I lose you all over again.”
The look we exchanged was like we were seeing each other for the first time and the last time all at once.
“Max, this is no place for the living.”
“What you’re asking me to do…I just can’t. If I could, I wouldn’t have lit the candle in the first place.”
“Maybe…but I know you. I know you didn’t come here for a happily ever after. It’s like the night we met at the club. You didn’t step in with those guys because you thought you had a better chance of getting in my pants. You did it because it was the right thing to do. You did it to save me.”
The two of us stared at the candle and watched the flame burn with a blue intensity as wax ran down its side and onto the nightstand. I sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling overwhelmed by the weight of the decision I was being forced to make. Francesca positioned herself between my legs, and as I breathed in, I could smell a hint of lavender from her bare midriff. She placed her finger under my chin and raised it so I was looking into her amber-brown eyes.
“You can’t stay, Max.”
I slipped my hands down the back of her track pants and massaged her cheeks. Looking at what was left of the candle, I said, “I know, but I don’t have to leave just yet. There’s still enough time.”
I carefully pulled her track pants down to the floor. She stepped out of them and pulled her top over her head without a word of protest. When I stood up to take off my shirt, she unbuttoned my pants and pulled them down to join hers. She then climbed onto the bed and started to crawl on all fours to the other end. I grabbed her by the ankle and whispered, “Wait. Come back to the edge and stay just like that.”
She did as I asked, and I took a moment to appreciate the sight and let it further stiffen my cock. I then spread her cheeks and meticulously licked her from pussy to ass. The scent of her excitement mixed in with the scent of lavender was as intoxicating as the nectar that trickled from her swollen lips.
“I guess you’ll get your happy ending in hell after all,” she moaned.
I lightly spanked her for the wisecrack and continued to eat her out until her legs shuddered. I then got into bed with her and laid on my back. She climbed on top of me, and with little effort slipped down onto my cock until it disappeared.
For a few seconds, Francesca didn’t move. She just looked down at me, played with the hair on my chest, and pinched my nipples. I caressed her thighs and relished in the distinctive warmth that could only be found between her legs. She then reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the candle. I started to rise in protest, but she pushed me back down onto the bed.
“Easy, baby. As you said, there’s still time.”
As Francesca slowly rose and fell on my hardened cock, she dripped candle wax on my chest to form a cross. The pain I felt from the wax hitting my skin was only outmatched by the pleasure of watching her ride me with increasing abandon. Eventually, she put the candle back on the stand and fucked me until our orgasmic screams drowned out the yells of the tortured outside.
With our bodies slick with sweat, Francesca slowly kissed me while pulling my wearied member from between her thighs. She then moved to get up and I reached out to pull her in closer for one more kiss, but she caught me by the wrists and said, “It’s time, Max.”
I looked over at the candle and it was almost burned to the bottom.
“I can’t, Frankie. I just can’t.”
She smiled and said, “I know. And I’ll always love you for it”. Then without warning, she leaned over and blew out the candle.
What happened next… the years that went by… they are stories for another time. What matters is that I eventually found myself in an abandoned warehouse, seated in a cheap folding chair at the west end of the city, living up to some of my mother-in-law’s expectations, old and new. Across from me, tied to a similar chair, was a beaten and bloody Tony Angelini.
“You’re looking at me like I’m crazy,” I said. “But everything I told you was true. She was the one to blow out the candle.”
“Max, let me go. Please,” he cried.
“Why would I do that? I called in a lot of favors from some very shifty friends to make this night happen.”
“Please. I know what I did was wrong, but you don’t want to do this.”
“You make it sound like you borrowed my lawnmower without asking,” I said, slapping him in the face. “You killed my wife, you piece of shit.”
“And I did my time for it, you fucking asshole!”
“Oh…and there’s the Tony we all love to hate.”
“Fuck you, you crazy son of a bitch.”
“What? You really think I was making that shit up about Frankie and the candle?”
“I don’t care if it’s true or not. I paid for what I did. Just let me go. Please,” he begged, struggling to free himself from the ropes restraining him to the chair.
“You keep saying that like it means something. I mean… you miraculously walked away from that crash with barely a scratch. And thanks to your very talented lawyers you paid the court’s minimum price, but you sure as fuck didn’t pay mine.”
Tony spat blood at my feet, and said, “Killing me won’t bring her back, Max… but then that’s probably for the best. She was too good for you anyway.”
I swiftly stood up from my chair and kicked it away, and Tony flinched. I then started to unbutton my shirt. As I did, his eyes widened in horrific fascination.
“What the fuck did you do to yourself?” he asked.
I looked down and lightly traced the intricately designed medieval cross that had been burned into my flesh.
“I didn’t do this. She did. Before she blew out the candle, she poured the wax on my chest. At first, I thought it was her way of making our last time special, but I was wrong.”
As Tony opened his mouth to speak the temperature in the warehouse dropped, and he exhaled a small cloud of moisture. Then the cross on my chest started to bleed.
“The power of the candle allowed me to find her on the other side, just like Mamma M said it would. But by pouring some of the candle wax on my chest, Francesca found a way to keep the door between worlds open just enough for her to always find me.”
The lights over our heads flickered, and then went out. In the darkness, I could hear Tony’s heavy breathing and his attempts to get out of the chair. When the lights came back up Francesca was standing next to me. She appeared to me in a pair of grey track pants, a black t-shirt with my nightclub brand across her chest, and her hair in a bun. To me, she looked fine as hell, and I could feel my cock agree. However, I knew what Tony saw was different. I knew from the deeply spiritual connection Francesca and I now shared, she appeared to him as the bloody and broken corpse that was pulled from the wreckage he caused.
“You’re right, Tony. Killing you won’t bring her back. As you can see, she’s always with me. But then… I didn’t have you drugged, kidnapped, and brought here for a séance. I brought you here… to finish what you started at the wedding.”
Without a word, Francesca straddled Tony and caressed his cheek. She then dug her nails into it until she was wearing his face like a baseball glove. And then… she leaned over to the other side of his head, kissed it, and whispered, “Before this night’s over, you’re going to feel me.”
Tony’s screams were short-lived but like moments of this journal, they managed to arouse the dead.
Copyright © 2020 D.A. Wright. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.
