Lovely, Dark and deep

Lovely, Dark and Deep
by
Raman Jalota

    I walk into the study and draw the curtains. The snow is falling quietly. The pine trees are almost covered completely with the fresh snow. I feel cold and re-tighten my bathrobe, pulling it closer over my chest and around my throat. I imagine I can hear the cold wind outside. The snow continues to fall. It has quickened just slightly or maybe it has slowed down a little. I can’t tell, perhaps it’s just continuing at the same old pace. I keep watching.
    It feels like an hour, but probably only a few minutes have passed since I walked into the study. I look towards the fireplace and wonder if I should light a fire and spend the day here or go back to the living room and light the fire there. I would probably end up spending my day there anyway. I know I have enough firewood to last four weeks. But I don’t think I’ll last four weeks. I have been waiting, waiting for too long.
    There is a scratching noise outside the window. With a loud thud the window slides up. The curtains part as if someone is entering the room. The room is chilled. I stare unblinking. I don’t see anything.
    “Who is ... is it?” I stammer.
    “It’s Veronica. Your destiny.”
    “Veronica ...? I don’t know a Veronica, do I? I can’t see you. Who are you? What are you?”
    “It has been very hard for me to learn to maneuver in your world; do you want to see me materialize too?”
    Her voice is loud and challenging. I stare at the window unsure and apprehensive. I move to the window to shut it. Something stops me. It feels like two strong hands, they push me back in my chair.
“Leave it open. I am too hot. I thought I was destined to burn forever. Now I can’t get enough of the cold.”
    A thin vapor materializes in front of me and takes on a translucent feminine shape. It’s like looking at a glass statue. Her body looks hard and angled. Her face, even though transparent, has beautiful lines. Her eyes begin to open and a complete human being stands in front of me. She is old, perhaps in her early forties. Her naked skin is dark. As I move my eyes to drink in her nudity, she assumes control and is fully clothed. Her dress is long blue and silky; it covers a beautiful body but doesn’t hide it.
    “I am Veronica. You have been calling me for twelve long years. Your calls were too strong and pulled me back.”
    “Veronica ....? I don’t remember that name or your face. Are you sure?”
    She hisses,”Don’t you remember anything? How about the red Chevy?”

.....

     I pay Phil the six hundred dollars he has agreed on. He hands me the keys as we walk out of the motor vehicle office. My own car. It’s a wonderful feeling. To be nineteen and have my own car. Now Brenda would surely say yes.
    And Brenda does say yes. I can still remember the very first time. We are parked in the Sugarplum park just off thirteenth street. I have my arm around her. We kiss long and deep. I put my hand on her small breasts. She pushes me away. I pull her back and she lets me kiss her again. Slowly she warms up. She moves towards me pushing her tongue against mine. We breath loudly. Her mouth is getting hard and her eyes are dreamy.
    “Let’s do it.” She says and moves to the back seat.
    The leather feels warm and sticky under my naked back. I kiss her again and move her down on the seat. Her blouse is open and her bra is unhooked. She won’t feel the leather under her skin. I remove my pants and she guides me into her. I rise up and push down.
    “With every thrust of your body, you were bringing me back. You were waking me up and bringing me back.” Veronica says angrily.
    “But that was Brenda I was making love to. How would I wake you up or bring you back? Whatever that means.”
    “Wasn’t that a sixty four Chevy?”
    “Yes ...”
    “It was the same Chevy that Steve and I used to make love in. Don’t you know Steve Brown?”
    “Phil’s older brother Steve?”
    “Yes.”
    “But that’s .... j.. just a coincidence.” I stare at her unbelievingly.
    “You were Steve’s girlfriend? I’ll be damned.”
    “And when you made love in the same car, you reached into my soul. As if you were knocking on the doors of my conscience.”
    I shake my head,”This is just a coincidence. I didn’t know you. I didn’t want to wake you up .... what does that mean?”
    “If you didn’t want to wake me up, why did you go to the Cactus motel on I-15 and ...”

.....

    That was a year after Brenda left me. I was having no luck with the girls. At twenty-two, I still had the sexual appetite that I had since I was sixteen. I was making two dollars an hour and my twelve year old Chevy was better than the cheap Toyotas and Volkswagen Bugs that were being sold for fifteen hundred bucks.
    The first time is a Friday. I have just been paid. The store manager pays us in cash as we clock out and take our cards in to the cashier. I have ninety dollars in my pocket and I want to find a girl, any girl. I have heard about fourth and main. I drive by there. I don’t see anyone. I turn left on sixth and go to the Cowboys bar. I drink four beers and spend most of my time eyeing the sexy blonde sitting at the end of the bar. She seems to be flirting with several men hanging around her. I think she has noticed me staring at her. The beers make me warmer than when I had gone in. Walking out the bar I look at her for what I think is the last time.
    She stands up and follows me to the door. She taps me on the shoulder and looks me in the eye, “Looking for some action?” She moves her body seductively and looks me up and down.
    “Sure.” I say not sure of what this means.
    She grabs my hand and we walk out of the bar.
    “I needed to get out of that joint.” She says and lights a cigarette.
    I reach into my shirt pocket, open the pack and light a cigarette. I have no idea what to do with her. She is much older. Maybe even thirty years old. She has a lot of make up but I can see the two lines on each of her cheeks.
    “You wanna have a little party?” She giggles.
    I nod my head.
    “Cost you twenty bucks.”
    I am right. She’s a whore. Just what I was looking for. My heartbeat quickens. This is very exciting. I am anticipating my next move.
    “So you got twenty bucks, man?”
    I give her two tens. She pushes them deep in her pocket.
    “Let’s go to a motel. You got a car cowboy?”
    She gets in the Chevy and leans against me. Her breasts are soft and inviting against my arm. I look at the blue make up around her eyes. I kiss her. She responds to my kiss and puts her hand in my lap.
“Turn right on to the highway, then we can get off at 13th. There are a bunch of motels right there.”
    I pull off the highway and turn in to the Cactus motel. She goes in first and I follow her. She smiles at the clerk. She has a key in her hand. Room one fifteen she says. I climb the steps following her swaying hips. I pat her on her hips and take the key from her. My heart is beating faster.
    As I open the door, she hugs me from behind. My excitement is building. She closes the door behind her and starts to remove her clothes.
    I reach for her breasts. She moves to the bed and undresses me. She pushes me down on the bed and sits on top of me.
    “I am gonna ride you cowboy.” She says. I surrender myself to the ecstasy of her love.
    “So you do remember the room number?” Veronica’s voice pulls me out of my dreams.
    “It was room one fifteen.”
    “That was the same room and the same bed that I had made love in.”
    “With Steve?”
    “No with Nat. He used to pick me up for lunch and we would go to the Cactus motel. We made love in room one fifteen many times. This was of course before we were married.”
    “But I went there only two times. And I don’t think it was one fifteen the second time.”
    “But don’t you see. You kept waking me up from my deep slumber. You kept bringing me back to this world. You kept reaching into my soul and kept shaking me awake.”
Her voice rises unbearably. I put my hands around my ears.
    “But that was so many years ago. Why are you here now? What do you want from me?”
    She moves to the sofa and floats down. She looks more human now than when she first materialized. The darkness of her skin makes me want to feel the texture of her face. It seems to be hard and granite like. I wonder if she is soft and human. She smiles for the first time and her dark gums and yellowish teeth make me shiver. She unbuttons the top of her dress and fans herself. There are sweat beads on her breasts. She is hot. My body shivers uncontrollably. She looks into my eyes. Her unblinking pale blue eyes seem human after all.
    “I was dead. I had been dead for six years. You woke me up and shook me back into a frenzy.”
    “A fr ... frenzy?”
    “You used sex to get to my soul. You awakened a desire so deep and so old and forgotten that I had to come back for sex.”
    “But .. I .... I don’t understand.”
    “What did you do on the night of March 28th, nineteen seventy two? Do you remember?” Her voice thunders and echos through my cold home.
    “I don’t think I can remember that. What’s the connection?”
“Think back. Think back to the beginning of spring. Think back to a vulnerable girl and a dark graveyard.”
    I feel her voice penetrate my heart like a cold knife. The spring of seventy two. That was the end of my relationship with Christine.

.....

    We are drunk. We are driving aimlessly. She is half naked in my car. I drive into the avenues. She giggles uncontrollably.
    “You know what?”
    “What?”
    “You know. There’s a cemetery here. Up here somewhere. Let’s go in there and get drunk.”
    I laugh at her suggestion. We drive through another block. The idea of sneaking into a cemetery at dark is arousing. We drive a little more.
    “Turn left here. Couple of blocks up and we should be there.”
    She is right. Two square blocks of dark trees with a few tall markers are on our right. It looks like an abandoned forest; lovely, dark and deep. I stop and park the car. There is fresh grass growing among the split rail fences. We climb in. The cemetery is full of flat graves and tombs that rise up like oversized park benches. She puts her hands around my waist and walks a little unsteadily. I carry the six pack and the Kit-Kats.
    “Over here.” She half pushes half carries me towards a tomb. She takes the beer from me and puts it on top of the tomb. She reaches into my shirt pocket and pulls out the pack of cigarettes. She reaches into both my jean pockets and pulls out the lighter. Leaning on the tomb, she lights two cigarettes and gives one to me.
    “This is cool.”
    I just nod my head. I push open a beer can and take a swig. She takes it from my hand and drinks deeply. She kisses me. I can taste the beer in her mouth. She takes a big gulp and lets me drink from her mouth. My head is spinning. She reaches for my zipper and pushes me onto the tomb. I pull her towards me, turn her around and onto the side of the tomb. She lifts her right leg slightly and helps me enter her. She sways drunkenly, adding to my excitement. I push hard against her.
    “That was my tomb. You idiot.” Veronica screams into my ears.
    My heart jumps into my throat,”No it can’t be. What do you mean your tomb? How could you be dead so far back?”
    She sighs,”It’s not easy to relive it. I have done it only a hundred million times. I have died over and over again.”
    “That’s strange. I want to know what happened. I feel I must know.” I move to the sofa and sit at one end.
    “Nathaniel and I had been married eighteen months. We were happy as we could be. Life was good and sex was even better.
   “Nat and I had discovered hiking during the summer of 63. Hiking was so exhilarating. We would just drive around the foothills or around the canyons, park our car and start hiking with nothing but a bottle of water and some fruit or candy bars. An hour or two’s hike would put us in the middle of unknown, untouched areas of godly beauty. We felt we had discovered a secret. We hardly ever saw another soul on these hikes. That’s what made it so special. It felt that the mountains, the lakes, the forests; the whole world belonged to us. We often made love in the wilderness. It felt we were leaving our stamp on every area we made love in. It became an oct of ownership, making many hikes memorable for more than one reason.
    “The spring of 64 had just begun. Nat was itching to get out into the mountains and re-lift our love to another height. We decided to go to the Little Cottonwood canyon. The Little Bear lake was only an hour’s hike from the road. We would decide what to do from that point on.
    “We passed a few skiers on their way to Alta or Park City. The canyon had a little snow but nothing that concerned us. We found our familiar parking site and loaded our backpacks with extra socks and nuts. Nat had brought ski-poles with him which seemed to be a nuisance to carry. The steep sixteen hundred foot hike to the Little Bear lake was tiring but refreshing. We sat on a log and watched the semi frozen lake as it reflected the brilliant sunshine. We wolfed down the oranges and apples.
    “Nat suggested we follow the hike northward over the lake and beyond. We came across heavier snow as we left the lake behind. Finally we both started using the ski-poles to help us move. We were concentrating on our rhythm and making a little progress when suddenly clouds hid the sun and it started to snow. Soft white flakes came gently down till the wind picked up and a full fledged storm hit us.
    “We were at least 45 minutes away from the lake but decided to sit out the storm. Not having brought a sleeping bag, we couldn’t make love in the beautiful white blindness. I wanted to feel Nat against my body but told myself to wait till we got back home or at least to the car.
    “We held hands, our mouths covered with our turtle necks, breathing the chilling air and waiting. After an hour of the storm, Nat decided we must start moving back to the lake and to the car. The storm didn’t seem to want to let up. We started hiking southward and downslope. Our old footprints were covered with snow. An hour later, we had gone past or around the lake. Not having clear sight we couldn’t tell where we were. Nat stopped and turned back towards me.
    “I think we are lost” he said over the sound of the storm.
    “What should we do?”
    “I know if we keep going this way, we would either be on the right track and hit the road or be on the wrong track and get lost even deeper. Let’s find a little shelter.”
    “He led as before. He stopped by a little grove of trees that offered a little relief from the snow. I felt exhausted and sat down on the snow covered roots of the tree in the middle of the grove.
    “I can’t do this much more.” I said matter-of-factly.
    “Don’t worry Veronica. I’ll go ahead and try and find the car or the road. Once I find it I’ll come back and get you. Meantime you can stay here and recover.” He took my poles and stuck them in the snow. He took a red bandana from his pack and tied it to one of them.
    “He kissed me and held me. He pulled himself away from me and disappeared. I sat there for hours. I got scared when it got dark. I was sure he would come back, but if he came back now, he won’t be able to see me. I started to cry. Sitting there among the trees I rocked myself to sleep. I dreamed of Nat holding me in his warm embrace under a nice warm blanket. When I opened my eyes it was black and cold. I couldn’t move my feet. I started to shiver. I sat there trying to move my feet and hands, trying to stay warm. The thought of making love to Nat kept me awake, kept forcing me to stay alive.
    “I never saw or felt anything after that. The un-quenched desire from my last night on earth has been simmering for an eternity.” Her voice breaks with emotion.

.....

    I move towards her and put my arm around her shoulders. Her body seems hot, almost feverish. I touch her cheeks. There are no tears. Her eyes have been dry for too long.
    “I feel terrible about what happened to you. I feel so sorry.”
    “You feel sorry? I was finally at peace and you kept waking me up. I had died and gone away from this world, but you kept bringing me back. Each stroke of your love making kept pulling me back into my previous life. When you made love on my grave you pulled me completely back. That was the final act. You connected to my soul and brought me back. I searched for you and finally found you. Now give me what I have come for.”
    She kisses me on my mouth. Her lips are hot. She removes my bathrobe. This excites me. I reach for her shoulders and pull her towards me. She lies on top of me panting slightly. I feel very hot, I am sweating. She opens her lips and smothers me. I can hardly breath.
    A burning smell is in the air. Smells like burning flesh. It’s my flesh. I scream but my tongue twists uncontrollably as it dries and shrinks. I try to push her away but my flesh is melting away from my arms and I have no strength left. Veronica slowly cooks me in her juices before she devours me completely.

The End    3260

Copyright © 2004 Raman Jalota. All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

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