Thursday, January 22nd, 2009...5:10 pm

Beautiful Latté

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    By: Shawna Kay Williams

  I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell him. I was too scared, too slow and too heartbroken.  

      I knew he would kill me. He had attempted it before. It wouldn’t be the first but it would be the last.

      I would be dead by the time I opened my mouth and spilled it out.

      I was too afraid. I wasn’t going to tell him. It would kill the both of us.  

      As he stumbled through the rusty zinc fence, sweaty and fuming, a bolt of foreboding threaded through my heart.

      He was bruised crimson and blood was coursing down his nostrils, gleaming in the mid day sun.

      His eyes were wild and ferocious and his once milk-white shirt was now stained with blood and torn apart, leaving his blood- plastered skin naked.

      He was coming towards me. My heart leaped heavily. My bones rattled and my feet began to weaken. I was faltering. I was about to die.

      “Git up gal!” he shouted, hauling my shivering frame from the ground, pointing his loaded SLR at me.

      “Weh him deh?” he demanded, still pulling my blouse and pounding me with his battered hands. I could feel my skin swelling and burning with the clotted blood lurking inside.

      I could feel my muscles going weak. I could see myself floating off to a restless sleep. I was still scared, too scared to talk. 

      I still wasn’t going to tell him. I must prepare to die. Not now, not ever. He won’t know. He would kill him cold blooded if I did. I couldn’t let that. I loved him too much. Even then, I could still hear the ring of his voice, warning me: “Don’t tell him!” I couldn’t let him down. I couldn’t talk about what happened that night. It was too much to say. 

      I knew that I had made a terrible mistake that very night with Latroy, but only because of this eternal torture. I couldn’t help it. It was his intoxicating aroma, mingled with my sweet love that had me toppling over the edge. It had forced me to a state of damnation. My pride and my innocence had evaporated with just one thrust. It was painful but I loved him. I loved Latroy. He deserved it. He just had to have it before the monster did.  

      As his hands kept lounging at my throat, ready to see my suffocation, I began to lose my senses.

       I remembered how his monstrous anger had compelled him to almost devour me one night. His urge. His masochistic roughness had me pinned down on that aged and crusty mattress in the backyard. He had attempted to take it away that night, placing a knife at my throat, threatening me to give in. He had used the moldy sheet to muffle my voice and his hovering built was forced between my thighs.

      I had managed to escape after telling him it was my time. He had backed off immediately but not before slashing me in the face with the knife. He was mad but I had given it all to my love. 

      I couldn’t give in to this bearded and grotesque monster. He wasn’t going to have it. He would die without it.

      I remembered the deadly howling of my mother when I boldly told her I had given it away. She threw tantrums all day, bellowed in the house and punched me all over. Her eyes had rolled like thunderous clouds in motion and tears made a rapid downpour from them.

      “Wi dead now! Don ago kill wi now!” she screamed and then earnestly squeezed my arms, stifling my dear life and roaring like a mad dog.

      But that grip was nothing like what this gruesome monster’s rage was doing to me. His sharp and piercing nails were sinking into my flustered flesh. I knew he was told everything that happened. His men had done the telling. They had seen me hiding that night.

      The crowd had already rushed from their houses to watch me, a martyr for their own fortune. They were ready to crucify me. I could feel their words, hard like stones, being flung from their mouths. I knew it was my dying day more than ever before. I was convinced this time for once. There was no escape. There was no turning back.

      I became too angry to care though. It was a change from fear to deep-seated anger, welling up in the depths of my lungs. I was prepared to make a sacrifice. I was prepared to be their designated martyr after all. I was going to rescue the chastity of those girls who were living in fear. I was going to save them and myself from his coarse roughness for once. It was sickening. I couldn’t stand it anymore!

      “Let me guh bwoy!” Let mi guh! I screamed and tried to unhinge myself from his tight grope.

      “Let mi guh woee!” I continued, adamant to break away. People looked on. They heard my scream but they did nothing. They didn’t try to save me, though I was risking the borders of death to save them.

      I continued to scream. I continued to shout for my dear redemption but he continued to ravage my body with wicked wounds. But I wouldn’t let him kill me. I would not let them kill me. I wouldn’t sacrifice my innocence for his blood-money. Oh the sin of it all! Oh the sin of his own cruelty! 

      I was stifling. I was deeply hurting. Blood splattered my face. Blood oozed from my nostrils. Blood marked my dying day.

      My skin was whipped black and blue and my abdomen suddenly gave out in a fitful surge. I knew what it meant. I wasn’t the only one hurting. Inside, I was dying. It was crying; perhaps not ready to be born in all the pain, in all the blood.

      I grew paranoid with anger. I began to scream for help.

 help me! Unnu help me!” But nobody moved. Nobody uttered a word.

      It was the unremitting blurring and the bloodied head of my attacker, whisked off in my hands that had them running off. That was the only time they moved.

      It was over at last. It was the end. I stumbled on my knees and laid him to rest. He was gone. The monster was gone. 
 

      That night as beautiful Latté curled in my arms with her hands clasped and her eyes closed, tears trickled down my face. She had survived but had died in the end.

      He wasn’t even here to see her. He was locked behind those imprisoning metal gate. He was sentenced on death row.

      It was the end for him. It was the end for me and the baby. We were both going with him. We were both going to meet him in our heavenly home. There he will receive us. I would tell him this time. I would tell him how much I love him.

      As it drenched through the heat of our flesh and I cried from the pain of it all, both our eyes became closed and I covered the book and went to sleep, vowing to tell him at last. 
 
 
 
 

 

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