My name is Timothy Bridle, and this is my story of how an unbreakable bond developed between me and the woman that I loved.
I’d posted three lonely hearts ads in the local newspaper, and no one replied. I was beginning to think that maybe I was going to be alone forever. I just wanted someone to talk to or maybe to even cuddle up to at night.
Then the day finally came when someone replied to my ad. Her name was Jean Davidson. We had the same interests and wanted the same things in life, which was to find a life partner. We even shared an interest in the same music: old time Jazz. We had both been single for a while…well, to be honest, up until this point I had never been anything except single. I had never had the courage to ask someone for a date before, so I was a virgin in every meaning of the word.
We went out on a few dates together and got along famously well, but she would never invite me back to her house. We couldn’t go back to my house because my mother would never have approved of me bringing a woman back home.
I asked her a few times as to why she would never invite me back. Then, finally, like it was something she should be ashamed of, Jean told me about her mother who now lived with her. It was a tragic situation, the woman was bedridden and had basically come home to die.
When she eventually invited me back to her house, after a night out at the theatre, it was then that I first laid eyes on her mother, Maria. I had butterflies in my stomach. I tried to fight those feelings which could only be described as overwhelming, flooding every corner of my being until I felt like I was drowning. I had to make an excuse to see her again.
I loved her—Jean that is—but for me, it was more of a platonic kind of love. It was really her mother Maria that I had fallen in love with. I knew that she was close to death when we met, but when I saw a photo of her on her bedside cabinet, taken on her wedding day with Jean’s father, God rest his soul, Maria looked like a beauty queen in her white dress. My heart almost skipped a beat, and I felt something that I had never felt before. Even though the picture was taken almost 70 years ago when she was 19, to me, she still looked as beautiful as she did in the photo. I made my excuses to be with her, Jean’s mum that is, even playing on Jean’s emotions just so I could see Maria. When Jean left me alone with her mum, I knew fate had brought us together. At last, I had found my true love, and no one was going to stop me being with her…and it could not have been more perfect.
It didn’t matter that Maria no longer looked like she once did, because I could still see her in all of her radiating beauty. She was like an angel sent from above to reward me for some unknown reason. I would sit and hold her hand and stroke her hair. She would look at me with those once beautiful blue eyes that now had a misty, dull look to them. But that didn’t bother me, to me she was still gorgeous and that’s all it took for her to steal my heart. Then Jean would walk back into the room and disturb our time together, but those few single moments we shared filled me with such happiness.
The first time I kissed her was when Jean had to go out to the chemist for her mother’s medicine; I could feel something awaken inside of me.
I knew then that I truly loved Maria. My every waking thought was now focused on her; Jean became the perfect excuse, hell, she was even a hindrance sometimes, but I was willing to accept that to get what I wanted. That makes me sound bad, but I’m not a bad person, I needed to be with the person that I loved. The first time we made love together, which was made slightly awkward because of all the medical tubes that were in the way from her drip stand and such, was a moment I’ll never forget. She was everything I had imagined, and more. Maria just laid there and accepted that our love for each other had now been confirmed by our consummation. I could see the love she had for me in her eyes, she never protested, not once, we had a bond that could never be broken by anyone—including Jean!
I made more and more excuses to see Maria, and I was running out of reasons to do so. Every day, Maria would get weaker and weaker because of her illness, but every day my love for her grew. Jean was becoming an annoyance, almost the gooseberry in our blossoming relationship. She would watch my every move around Maria, almost like she was getting suspicious of my reason for wanting to be with her, but she had no idea of the feelings we held for each other. I would take any given opportunity to kiss Maria. She didn’t ask me to kiss her, mind you, but I could sense that’s what she wanted me to do. Maria never spoke once during our time together. She was like that you see…the strong silent type.
I should have never been forced to hide my feelings for her, you can’t decide or control who you are going to fall in love with. You can’t change destiny, and I was destined to be with her.
As much as I felt for Jean, she was getting in the way, and I needed her to leave us alone…and then the day came when she became aware of our relationship. It happened when I went to visit Maria, I had managed to gain the trust of Jean to the point where I even had my own key to her house, and I would let myself in knowing full well that Jean wasn’t there. I went to Maria’s room, stood in the doorway and looked at my beauty queen. For the first time, she looked so peaceful and content. I walked over to her bed, leaned over her and kissed her on the lips, but this time it felt different. Then I took hold of her hand…it was cold. I tried to wake her, but she just lay there, lifeless. I just sat beside Maria on her bed and knew she had passed away, but I still saw the beauty in her and she was always going to be in my heart.
Death has never bothered me; I can see beauty in death.
I’ve felt this way since I was twelve years old when I saw my sister pass away after a short illness. It wasn’t a sexual feeling towards her, but something ‘stirred’ inside me. It was a bit like when you go on your first fairground ride and your stomach gets into a nervously excited knot—that’s how I felt when I saw Maria, only this time it was multiplied by a thousand.
Jean had come into the house and was standing near the bedroom door when she saw me kissing Maria. I also had my hand under the covers. With my other hand, I took hold of her hand and was talking to her about how much I still loved her. Jean stood there with a look of total and utter disgust and horror, that’s when I had to deliver that deadly blow to the side of Jean’s head with a heavy candlestick holder that was on top of a chest of drawers. I couldn’t take the risk of her telling anyone about the relationship between her mother and me. Worse still, I needed to act in case she got jealous of our love for each other…I couldn’t find the time to show Jean any more attention because Maria was now my main concern.
Jean collapsed to the floor, hitting the other side of her head on the edge of the chest of drawers. I panicked a little because she had rather a deep cut where she had hit her head, I checked to see if Jean was still breathing—I’d killed her. It almost felt like a relief that she was out of the way, it was the perfect scenario, there was no one else around anymore to get in the way of Maria and me.
I walked over to Maria and took hold of her hand and gently kissed it. I felt uneasy knowing that Jean, albeit completely lifeless, was laying there on the floor staring up at us, so I placed one of Maria’s pillowcases over Jean’s head. Then, I lay down beside Maria, took her in my arms and gently squeezed her. As I did, she exhaled the last breath from her body. It felt so good to have her in my arms, she was still warm and this was the perfect opportunity to make love to my beauty queen.
I removed everything that had gotten in the way, the tubes, wires, and any other obstacles. I removed her nightdress and I saw her bony, wrinkled body…but that never bothered me in the slightest, it just added to her beauty. I made love to Maria slowly and gently, the last thing I wanted to do was to harm her frail, old body. There was no one to disturb us, so we made love for hours. It was the best experience of my life, even though Maria was dead, it felt so right. I had been searching for the right woman to fill my boring, lonely life and there she was, laid in front of me and she was mine forever and no one, especially Jean, could separate us.
After we had made love, I lay with her and fell asleep. When I woke up, it was dark outside. Maria’s body by this time had become rigid. I got out of bed, got dressed and gave her a kiss on the lips. Jean was still lying there on the floor, no surprise what with her being dead and all. I had to move her body from Maria’s room, we didn’t want her there, we wanted to spend our time together alone. Two’s company and three is an inconvenience.
I wrapped her in a bed sheet, dragged her to the top of the stairs and pushed her body down. I then dragged her to the entrance of the basement, opened the door and threw her in. It sounded like she hit every step on the way down—at least she was out of the way.
I went to the kitchen to wash my hands and made myself a coffee. I also counted out the pills that Maria had to take every day, twelve in all. I still took them to her because even though she was no longer physically able to take them, I didn’t want to feel as though I was neglecting my duty to care for the woman I loved.
A couple of days passed, and I was still sleeping with Maria. We were like an official couple, the only time I left her alone was when I had to use the bathroom or I needed to eat and drink. We made love several times after that, on some occasions it was difficult to have intercourse, but we always managed in the end.
After several days of being laid in her bed, Maria’s body started to have a green tinge to it, then it turned purple like she had fallen and bruised herself. Eventually, her skin turned black.
The smell was horrendous, but I could forgive that. For one last time, I just wanted to make love to her, even though she was beginning to leak bodily fluids everywhere and the mattress was like a wet sponge, I knew that it was no longer possible. I had almost become used to the smell of her rotting body, some days I didn’t even notice it.
Then the day came when the police knocked on the door asking if I had seen Jean because no one had heard from her, and she hadn’t turned up for work. As soon as I opened the door one of the policemen nearly threw up. I ran upstairs to say my last goodbye to Maria and managed to plant one last kiss on her lips before I was wrestled to the ground by one of the officers.
That was the end of the relationship with my beautiful Maria, I no longer cared about Jean, it was Maria who I love and I always will. My time is now spent all alone in my room, with just my thoughts and memories. All the nurses are very nice at the hospital but no one ever comes to visit me, apart from Maria, in my dreams at night.
Memories are the one thing that no one can take away from me.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #14 ‘Love Sick in The Head’ by Howard Carlyle @gloriously_gory – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
