The Goodbye Man (17 page)

“Sweet Lettie, you
are shivering,” a lush voice whispers to me.

Whispers are soothing. They calm me. They make me feel like I am home. I open heavy lids as my face is expressionless. No one cared to know me before as I was tortured and forced to fuck so many, yet I am clutched in the arms of another man that looks at me with tenderness. I don’t understand why I matter. Maybe he will cut my strings free from this bad world.

I allow my body to remain limp as his arms wrap themselves around me, warming me. I want to fade away, taking the only kind of love that I have felt with me. I lay my head on Mateo’s chest as his beating heart drums in my mind, begging me to hold onto that fucking word that I hate; hope.

Rugged reminders play about in my mind as I remember him loving the lifeless ones. How can someone so sweet and caring want something so horrible? Life isn’t about making sense of things. My life is the epitome of dysfunction. I dismiss it all as he walks my naked body over to the bed, pulling the comforter back and placing me down gently. He looks at me like he knows me, but I don’t ask questions. My mind and heart are far too tired to try and figure anything else out.

“Lettie, you shouldn’t love him. But I know you can’t help those that you love,” he whispers as he sits next to me, tucking my hair behind my ear.

I open my mouth to speak, but words don’t find me. His tattooed finger makes its way to my mouth as he presses it closed.

“Shh, Lettie doll. You don’t need to explain anything to me. I have loved, but they never last. Feeling love once is a beautiful thing, but having it run out of your life is worse. We have that in common, Lettie. I can’t handle running either. It makes me go crazy, too.”

I am stuck as his black eyes speak to me. I believe him. He seems like he would be easy to love, but there is a monster beneath it all. I suppose we all have a monster underneath. I am discovering mine, the one that wants to murder my weeping self.

“Whisper your needs to him, Lettie. He will listen. He will love you if you whisper to him.”

I gulp as he speaks truths to me, cupping my cheek. I know he isn’t pretending while he offers me a smile. One I trust. Trust, what is that? Trusting yields bad results, torn and tattered hearts and dead lives. I close my eyes and pray that it won’t hurt anymore. But I still feel it. The inevitable tears form in my eyes and I open them to see Mateo looking at me like he wants to protect me. I wonder if he would kill me. Make me dead and gone from this fucked up world. He could be my kiss of death; the one that I long for.

A dagger of pain forms in my gut.

“Do you have dreams, Lettie?”

I furrow my brows at such an odd question, but then shake my head as I finally speak.

“I want a kiss from death.”

Mateo grins at me, pressing his lips on my forehead.

“Sweet dreams, Lettie. Caesar will see you tomorrow. Speak your sweet whispers to him.”

The quiet decent into dementia is worse than the loudest screams in the night.

Once I am locked
in my home, my silent soundproofed sanctuary, I do what the doctors told me to do when the noises are too much to handle. I create white noise, more accurately pink noise, by turning on all the taps so the sound of the water douses the burning of the misophonia. The sounds I can’t handle are slowly but surely replaced with ones I can. I feel my pulse coming down, and the shaking in my hands is less noticeable as I light a cigarette. The nicotine fills my lungs and in the smoky relief, my insanity fades away. When half the packet is done and my ashtray is full, I am in a better state of mind. I am still hungover and feeling ragged but my head has stilled a little.

I left her there, I left her screaming, and her agony could be heard bouncing off the walls of the whole building. They were tearing me into pieces and I couldn’t stay. What have I done? Of all the dreadful, wrong things I have done in my life this is the worst. I can feel it steal the last shred of my humanity, leaving only the monster that lurked beneath. I feel dirty, tainted and the filth of my actions won’t wash from my skin or my mind. I want to forget it,
but I want to hang onto it forever.
I want to stop loving her,
but I have loved her forever.
I want her body next to mine again; I need to make her feel loved. I fear the love I can give will not be enough for her, she needs to feel love differently than others. She has no idea what it is to love or be loved. She is as broken, damaged and completely fucked up as Mateo and me. My fuzzy thoughts are drawn back to his little glass jars, it’s no wonder he keeps the doors locked all the time. His words ring around in my head, starting the noise up once again. “I don’t want to be fixed.”

I have to make him understand that there is so much more to life than cold dead bodies. I need to heal them both.
I know how to do it, but I think it may kill me - or them.

As I allow sleep to take me again, I stumble over dreams of Marta and Pavel, her tears and her pain and her dead body. My dreams are never pleasant, but now they are unbearable.

I have to return to
work, it’s been two days and I know I cannot stay away forever. I want to but I can’t. I feel something I am unaccustomed to - guilt. I am afraid to face the shame of my actions, but more afraid that I may not be able to stop myself from doing it again. The way her body danced with mine, her skin was soft and her silken hair between my fingers. The things I dream of and long for are all so wrong and yet I cannot stop them. I have some goodbyes to say today. One of them will be to this bond with her; I need to fix her and loving her won’t be the cure for her ailments. Not loving her could be even worse though.

The heat inside the building is always there, the mugginess clinging to you like an unwanted passenger all day long. The office is eerily quiet and so clean I am sure that I have opened the wrong door. There are files, and everything has an order and a place. I have no doubt that Juan has been a busy boy trying to impress Mateo. I flick the flame across the end of my cigarette and sit down to read over the list of organs going out today. They only require a heart, two kidneys and a liver so it should be a quick day. The burners hum downstairs, coupled with the faint beeping from the back that I am sure no one else can hear, makes my skin prickle. Those sounds keep me sane and stop me from completely decomposing into psychosis every single day. I close my eyes and listen to the din of industrial noise that surrounds me and my breaths even out. I am alright for the moment.

“Morning, Caesar,” Juan greets with a smile. I’m certain Mateo has advised him to use that coarse tone to just goad me. I smile at the silly, annoying boy and nod. I don’t want to engage in a conversation, but his face is bruised and his eyes tell a story I am afraid to know.

“You alright, gnat?” I ask, despite not wanting to know.

“I am fine, boss,” he answers, turning his back to me as he starts to empty the waste basket into a plastic bag. I don’t ask anymore, it’s none of my business and I don’t intend to make it any. I don’t really care.

I go for a walk through the waiting beds and silent bodies, the beeping and whooshing of machines a welcomed retreat. I see my nephew in the corner making love to a girl who will never open her eyes again. His face is calm, his soft rhythmic movements repetitive as he pushes himself in and out of her. I wonder if they can hear his romantic words as he uses their bodies to satisfy his need for love. Is his loving them something they would want? I watch his muscles rippling and her limp body just rocks gently below him as he strokes her cheeks and kisses her lips. I can almost understand why he does it as I stand there and take it all in. Her skin is white and smooth where his hands grab onto it, lifting her up so he can drive his cock deeper. The way there is no resistance from her body as it is just slack in his vice grip. I finally see the beauty he sees as he releases in her. Maybe we aren’t that different, him and I. After watching him lie there next to her basking the aftermath of his euphoria, I quietly turn to leave.

“You don’t have to go, Caesar. I know you are watching,” he calls out to me, his voice scratchy from exertion. He sits up, swings his legs off the bed, sliding down to his feet. He grabs his jeans and pulls them on, the black ink that adorns his chest noticeable from where I stand and words and art dance on his skin as he pulls his shirt over his messed up hair. He strolls over to where I stand, his bare feet not making a sound on the white floors. “She screamed for three hours after you left, it was fucking awful.” He walks next to me, carrying his shoes as we exit the way I came in.

“How is she now?” I ask him, afraid of what his answer might be.

“Catatonic or in an insane destructive rage. It goes from one to the other.” He looks me in the eye. “She keeps screaming for you to love her.” I swallow the dryness in my throat and it hurts, I want to love her, but I cannot do it again. My silence says more than my words would, I know it. “Caesar, she needs you. I don’t know all the things they did to her but you either need to let her say goodbye or you need to be there for her.”

“What if I cannot do either of those things, Mateo?” It’s the truth, I can’t do either. I will not let her be a number or parts for another, and I cannot touch her again.

“Then she will go mad and kill herself.” He says it like it is foregone conclusion. If loving her is going to save her, is it that wrong? There are too many things in my head pulling me in all the wrong directions; I need to see her. “Is she up?”

“Probably not, but I know she will want to see you.” We take the stairs to his floor slowly. I am dragging it out; the guilt and fear are gnawing at my gut. “You shouldn’t be afraid of the things you feel, Caesar.”
Who is this boy
?

“I’m going to see her. Leave us and make sure the gnat stays away too.” I give him a threatening glare before I step up off the last step. He goes left to his door and I turn right to hers.

Dark hair is splayed out over the pillow. She lies asleep in just a T-shirt which leaves her ass exposed. Her body is perfect, it may have been marked and wounded, but the beauty hasn’t faded, it has only intensified. I slip into her space and sit on the little sofa and watch her sleep; while she is silent I can still be rational. Hanging onto my sanity is impossible if she speaks to me. The longer I watch her though, the guilt begins to rise in me. I shouldn’t watch her this way. Wanting her at all is sinful and immoral. I am an old man and she is just a girl. As I watch her, my feelings dance from one side to the other. I love her, is that wrong? How can love be wrong? But it is.

After a while, I find that there is this undeniable need in me to touch her, to hold onto her and pull her against me. I kick my boots off quietly and crawl up the bed so that I can cradle her body against mine. It feels so perfect, she is safe in my embrace. What kind of man could contemplate a love like this? She clings to me even in her sleep and I find my hands exploring the curves of her too skinny body. I try to stop myself but when she whispers in her sleep, my body reacts and all reason leaves me.

“Love me, Caesar. Please. Don’t say goodbye to me.”
Her whispers may as well come from the devil’s mouth as they talk to the demons in me. She pushes her naked backside against me and her hands reach up to where mine rest. She grabs them and pulls them over her soft breasts.
“I want you so much. I need to feel you so that I know you love me. It’s not real if I can’t feel it.”
More dreamed words spill out from her mouth, making my cock ache with the agony of wanting to listen to what she says. I try to stop the way my hands explore the skin on her thigh. I will my lips not to kiss her sweet neck. I beg my hands not to undress myself. I pray to stop as I push her shirt up over her breasts, exposing her nipples to my hungry mouth. I plead with my sanity to return as my tongue licks its way over her bare chest. With every whisper she exhales, I inhale the scent of insanity and need more of her.
I want her to stop talking but I am afraid if she does, I will stop loving her and I want to love her so much. I hate myself.

Her body rolls easily onto her stomach and I lift her so my fingers can find her pussy, which is wet and soft. Her moaning intensifies my touch as my fingers slowly make love to her beautiful sex, the way she tightens around me making me fist my cock.
Stop, Caesar.
I cannot, I want to love her, and to her this is love. I position myself behind her before I plunge all the way in one swift movement. The force has her shouting out in pure pleasure. I open my eyes at the sound, my hips moving slowly, loving her. My gaze meets Mateo’s as he stares at me, lust dripping from his gaze as he has his hand inside his pants. My body will not stop, my mind is screaming with terror and it has detached itself from this reality. My lips kiss her back and neck as she arches and bucks, her orgasm building slowly. I keep my eyes fixed on Mateo as I use my body to love her and make her feel good, my love. Mine. As she explodes on my dick, she is even more mine than the day I looked into her little girl eyes and held her hand.
You are sick, Caesar. You deserve to die. She is a girl and you are a man.

When I come deep inside her, she collapses beneath me and a slew of whispered affections flows from her, making my madness even harder to swallow as my nephew looks at me - now I see a rival and not an ally. He wants her too.