The Letter from Jack by Pela Via

Dear Helena,

I’m obsessed with you, I admit it.  You’re so beautiful, so creative and intriguing.  I love you.

The week before Moss Lake, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.  Your black bikini.  Your body shimmering by the reflection of light and water.  Skin tinted to the color of honey, as it gets every summer.  Your glass-green eyes, shattered into a thousand shining pieces.  And you turning your back to me in your coy way, pretending you don’t see me watching you.  Fuck, I love that.

I couldn’t stop the fantasies.  At night the bad ones played incessantly, like silent films on the walls in my mind.

Your beautiful ass.  The backs of your thighs.  My curious tongue.

I am breathlessly in love with you.

Since that first day when I saw you at the park, your bare legs dangling as you twirled in a lone swing, I fell for you in one breath.  There was something in the way your hair fell across your back as you looked over your shoulder, the way you seemed to look for me.  You pinched the sand between your toes, and I had never felt more connected to anyone.

And our weekend here together was amazing.  Watching you sleep settles something inside  me.  But it was over too quickly.  Sunday morning was a crash in my brain.  No one could love you as much as I do.

Do you ever feel like carving your name in my skin?  I’d let you.  I want you to draw the blood that belongs to you, bleed the heart that has been consecrated for you.  Are you in love with me, Helena?  I want to hear you say it.

Because I’ve made a religion of you.  My private Madonna.  I try to rely on faith when I can’t find your flesh, but faith is a carnival barker’s ghost.  And my sincerity has never made anything real.

So, it’s true, when your friends loaded the car, I told them not to wake you, that you wanted to stay a little longer.  But it wasn’t my fault they listened to me.  You can’t pretend it’s a coincidence we’re here alone now.  These things happen all the time between us.  Supernatural closeness.  I move into your life effortlessly, seamlessly between my own life.  I live in your body then in mine and I feel you always.

It hurt me when you didn’t share my excitement for being alone with me.  I’ve fantasized about this a thousand times.  Bringing you to my cabin, loving you in perfect seclusion.  No one around for miles.  I get aroused at the thought…

You’re not in the mood.  That’s fine.  I’ve tried to leave you alone today.  I kept myself occupied while you searched for your cell phone.  I pretended to sleep when you tried to use my computer.  You knew that was wrong.  I’m not mad at you, but now you’ve complicated things, haven’t you?

I understand why it upset you.  You weren’t meant to see any of that yet.  And you were very young in the older photos.  But it’s obvious I was only trying to watch over you.  I knew even then we’d be together forever.  The first time I saw you naked, all I thought about was the moment on our wedding night when I would tell you I had already seen your pretty body.  You would feel so loved.

Because looking at your naked body warms me like nothing else can.  Your attic gets hotter and I start to sweat.  Nobody else would love you this much.

Every moment I’m alive, I’m breathing in the thought of you.  I carry your name in my mouth, your scent in my brain, the taste of your skin on my tongue, everywhere I go.  You’ve heard these words before, though, haven’t you?  These are the things I whisper to you when you sleep.  I’ve licked your eyelids and peeked inside your panties, and your sleeping body knows how gentle I can be.

But somehow you’ve missed the point.  You should have been flattered.  You have a beautiful body – nothing to be embarrassed about.  But you wouldn’t stop screaming.  Frankly, you yelled some very shitty things to me.  Claiming you didn’t know me until this weekend was really fucking hurtful.  Do you like to hurt me?  I think you do.  That’s okay, babydoll.  Sometimes I think about hurting you, too.

I’ve been thinking about your sadistic ways with me, and I’ve realized you’re not a true sadist.  It’s just this power you have over me that we both enjoy.  It feels like torture for me at times, but I know it’s not about pain, is it?  It’s mutual worship.  A covenant so hard it hurts.

Obviously, I couldn’t let you run into the woods.  There might be strange people out there – you never know.  Once you calm the fuck down, you’ll see that I locked you in the basement for your safety.  If it will make you feel better, I can stay down there with you.

I’m sorry I put duct tape over your eyes.  But you understand.  With a face as gorgeous as yours, crying makes you ugly.

Goddammit, why don’t you understand anything?  You can’t be ugly, Helena.  Ever.  I won’t allow it.  That is how much I love you.  I swear to God I will sew your face closed before you know that pain.

I love you.  I’m going to slide this letter under the door.  I want you to write me back.

-Jack

Visit Pela Via’s blog:  pelavia.blogspot.com