Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 13:54:48 EDT From: Madasonaysha@aol.com Subject: "Chase After Me" chapter 4 Join my yahoo group for earlier updates and news on stories. The link: _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MaddyA_Stories_ (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MaddyA_Stories) if you have a problem logging in let me know and I'll send you an invite. I can be reached via that group. ****************************************************************************** All stories copyrighted by me, Madison Aysha Dante unless otherwise stated. "CHASE AFTER ME" By Maddy A. CHAPTER FOUR: BITTER MEMORIES As soon as I opened the door I wanted to throw up. I could smell the mixture of his cologne and the scent of the cleaner that they used to shine the marble floors combining in an almost putrid way. As I stood there, I wished I could be anywhere other than there.....in his house....that house. I had to fight down the urge, but it was hard to when I could feel the grotesque burning of bile rise upwards from my throat. No, my nauseas was not from what had just happened at Chase's, but at the sight of my mother and father curled up on the couch and laughing at something on the television like only people in love could do so comfortably. Her laughter was sweet like rain in the summer and it made me close my eyes and smile of better times. His laughter was like sharp hollow edged dagger's piercing through flesh....my flesh. Each rumbling of his chuckles vibrated through my soul like thunder and I felt it....I felt it because it was hard and intentional. Sometimes when I look at him I feel love. I feel love for him that I know he doesn't feel for me. I sometimes cry wondering what is it that makes me so bad of a person where he can't love me. Why does he hate me? Then there are other times when I look at him and feel disgust. Nothing but, pure unadulterated hatred that poured and oozed out of every pore of my being. Hatred so strong for what I know he did. Hatred for how he used to go in my sisters room when he thought my mother and I were sleeping and fuck her. Her bedroom was next to mine and I would hear her sobs and I would hear him mumble muffled "keep quiets." But, I wasn't suppose to know what was going on, but I did, I just didn't understand it. I didn't get why my father would go into her room at night and why I would hear him cry afterwards. I would hear Gia get up and comfort him. "Daddy it's okay, I won't tell..." she would whisper. I didn't get why my mother couldn't hear anything and never came downstairs to stop it. No, I didn't fully understand and grasp the situation until I was seven and walked in on him on top of her. She was screaming and crying like someone was killing her. Like my father was killing her. It was the spring, sometime in late March, but I can't remember the exact date. Sometimes its hard for me to remember anything that happened that day, but at night, in my nightmares I remember everything perfectly as if its committed to my memory like a burning dream. Sometimes I wake-up crying and I know its because I remembered again, but then it's the other times when I actually try to remember and I can't. I was suppose to be at base-ball practice, but it had been cancelled so Billy's mom dropped me back off home. It was raining. I always loved the rain. It was like when the day had been bad all you had to do was go out in the rain and wash away all your troubles, then you could start over. But, this day the rain was pouring down in cold buckets and all I wanted to do was take off my uniform, grab a bowl of cereal and watch cartoons. I tried to open the front door, but it was locked which I thought was strange because we almost never locked our doors. I didn't have a set of keys to the house yet because my father thought seven was too young of an age to have a set. I was standing at the front entrance trying to peer through the foggy glass into the house, but I didn't see anyone. I just stood there for a moment as the rain poured down over the doorway overhangs. The bell was broken so I was stuck. I waited five, ten, thirty minutes and I couldn't take it anymore so I decided to run around and try the back door. As I ran I could feel my baseball cleats sinking into the squishy mud and grass mixture underneath my feet. Each step became harder and harder the closer I got to the back door. It was like something was trying to keep me away from getting to that door. I was so happy when I found the door unlocked. I left my muddied up shoes at the door and walked in my squishy socks to my room. My blue and white striped uniform was soaked hanging from my body and it took me a few extra seconds to pull it away from my skin. My hair was wet and I remember flecks of water falling on the over sized white t-shirt I threw on as I pulled it over my head. I was on my way to the kitchen when I thought I heard a noise coming from my sisters room. I was scared because I thought I was alone so I just stood in the hallway waiting to see if I heard anything else. I jumped as I heard a thump and what sounded like a muffled cry come from her room again. I was too scared to move so I stood there, water dripping from my curling black hair. I heard Gia scream out `please stop' and I ran in. I was her brother and if she was in trouble then it was my duty to help her. I loved my sister and not a day goes by when I don't think about her. I didn't know what I was seeing at first. The room was a dim gray because of the dreary weather, but a lamp was on and everything was visible, but I couldn't believe it. There was a man on top of her and he was doing what my mommy told me grown-ups did when they wanted to make a baby. But, this man was doing it to Gia, who was only twelve....not a grown-up. I could see her face twisted in pain and discomfort. Tears and snot falling down off her face and onto her pink comforter blanket with the red roses on it. Her normally golden brown skin was beat red from all her crying and her squinted eyes looked at me with peaks of black pain. The man on top of her was moaning and cursing her to be quiet so he could finish, but when she saw me she screamed for me to run away, but I stood there in confusion. My confusion turned to shock as the man who was hurting my sister turned his head around and my eyes locked with his. The eyes of my father. His eyes flew open with rage and he jumped off top of her, not even bothering to stuff his dick back in his expensive black trousers. I didn't even realize that he was off the bed and had punched me until I heard Gia scream for Daddy to stop and I tasted the blood in my mouth. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? HUH? WHY AREN'T YOU AT BASEBALL PRACTICE!" My father screamed at me, but I was too out of it to answer. I didn't know much, if anything about sex, but I knew that father's weren't suppose to do it with their daughters, no and I didn't think the girl was suppose to scream for you to stop. I don't remember anything after that except for my father kicking my stomach. I remember that because every time it rains now I can taste thrown up cereal in my mouth. Gia came into my room that night and told me that I had to keep what "daddy" was doing to her a secret. When I asked her why daddy would hurt her like that she said that daddy said sometimes he hurt and only she could make it feel better. She told me that she hated what he did to her and that she wished he would stop because it didn't feel good, but she didn't know how to make him stop. I was seven and didn't know anything except that I couldn't help her.....I couldn't help her......I couldn't help her and I didn't think anyone could. My father said nothing to me. No words to try to clean up what I saw. I think he knew that the damage had already been done.....and it had. I would hear him creeping open the door to her room and things would go quiet for a few minutes and then he would creep back out. Most of the time my mother was home and would be upstairs asleep. No, she didn't start going on her trips until Gia was gone. I could hear her crying through the walls and sometimes I would go in her room to try and make her feel better.....or to cry with her. He started beating me around that time. Looking back I think he started that as a way to keep me silent and it worked. My father was a smart man, a sick man, but a very smart one. Maybe about a month later I woke up and found Gia dead. There was blood on the walls.....on the floor.....I slipped in some. It was hot and I remember waking up in the living room. I don't know how I got in there, but I woke up on the couch covered in sweat. My mother was never one to be bothered by the heat so we rarely used the air conditioner. No one was home which was strange because it was so early in the morning. It was so early that it was still dark out, but little peaks of orange was edged around the dark purple of the sky. My grandmother used to tell me that you can always tell time by the sky. She would say that if its close to morning then God would send his angels out to brighten up the devils night sky with gold paint from feathered paint brushes and when it was night, the devil would send his fallen soldiers out to strip away God's brightness with spits of darkness from their mouths. I was afraid to go out at night by myself until I was thirteen. Even today I still get a few chills up my spine if I`m out alone at night. No one was home and there was this smell. This disgusting smell that reminded me off the freezer in the garage with all the rotting meat. It made me feel sick. I remember calling out my mother's name, but then stopping because I remembered my father didn't like yelling....no, I wasn't allowed to yell because yelling was making noise and I wasn't allowed to make noise. As I walked down the hallway the smell grew worse and worse. I wondered how come no one smelled it. Ever smell something so strong that you think you can see it? Well I did, I could see the stench in the air and that's when I felt like something wasn't right....no something was wrong....really, really wrong. Gia' s door was open. She never kept it open. No, she always closed it...yeah, she kept it closed so something wasn't right. The door knob was sticky as I touched it and I pulled my hand away. It was still dark in the house because the sun hadn't risen completely yet so when I looked down at my hand all I saw was darkness. Something dark and sticky was on my hand. I smelled it and the smell on my hand was the smell in the house. I was scared now....so scared that I heard my teeth chatter in my mouth. I called out Gia's name in the way that only a scared seven year old can, but she didn't answer. I could hear the ceiling fan in her room spinning, making a sharp clipping sound each time the wooden panels would turn; a click, and then another click a second later. I opened the door and the smell intensified and I saw a quick flash of red before I turned away dry heaving. I looked back and there was red... .everywhere......red.....red everywhere. The smell.....it was like the red....the red that smelled....the red that was blood.......blood....red blood.....on her walls....on the floor....so much red that my eyes hurt just by looking at it.......blood on the covers......blood on the once white sheet that had turned a wet shade of crimson. Gia? I didn't see her. No, this wasn't right and I didn't understand. I couldn't find her because she wasn't there......in the bed. I walked over to her bed, tears crawling down my face burning. I slipped on the red and my side felt wet with it. I didn't see her....no, she wasn't there. I walked around the bed and there she was....lifeless. She looked asleep, but like she was having a nightmare. Her clothes were off and her neck was hurt.....yeah she was just hurt. A little scratch.....a little scratch oozing out ruby.....but she was just sleeping. Yeah, she was sleeping. I heard my father coming out of her bathroom. His white t-shirt was stained with the red and his hands were dirty with it. His face was wet with tears and for once he didn't yell at me for being around him. No, he walked over to me and told me to go back on the couch and go to sleep because I was having a bad dream. I listened....I don 't know fucking why, but I listened to him and crawled back onto the soft brown leather couch and closed my eyes. The smell around me and my hands sticky with the red, but I fell asleep. When I woke up again the sky was painted a light blue because Grandma said that the angels in heaven kiss it blue to make the day happy. The smell was gone and I was in my bed. My hands were clean again, just brown and no red. Yeah, no red. I remembered my dream and went into Gia's room to see her, because I needed to. Her room was bare... ..nothing in it. No bed, no computer, no dresser.....nothing, just empty freshly painted white walls and cherry wood floors where I knew a carpet used to be. No, something was wrong....really wrong. Where was Gia? I felt my mother' s arms around me and she smelled like honey. She told me to take the white pill that was in her hand and to go back to sleep. I didn't want to eat it because it was big and white and I was scared it would hurt my throat, but I did anyway. The lines around my mother's face made me think that she was sad about something and I thought it was because I didn't want to eat the big white pill. I remember asking where Gia went while my eyes felt heavy and I heard my mother whisper that Gia went with the angels. I asked her if I could go and she told me that one day I could, but not for a while because she needed me to stay with her. She smiled her lovely smile at me with her clear brown skin and black hair gracing around her face. That was the last thing I remember before falling asleep. I never asked about Gia again and they didn`t talk about her. "Hi Sweetie! Did you have fun at Chase's?" My mother asked me as I attempted to run past her. I didn't want to see my father and her all hugged up. No, that made me want to die. My fingers started tingling and I knew I would do it again once I went upstairs. "Yeah Mom. I'm tired so I'll see ya in the morning?" I replied waiting for her nod of approval before I ran to my room. I closed the door and went into my bottom drawer. The drawer where I keep my socks and I reached into the back where I kept a small box no bigger than a C.D. case. I opened it and found my relief. I took one small razor blade and watched how the lamp from the light reflected off of it in an almost heavenly way. It was calling out to me.....it was asking me to do it again. I started doing it when I was eight only I hadn't realized what it was that I was doing at the time. I would bite myself when I was angry and that seemed to make me feel better. If I was pissed at my dad because of what he might have done, I could bite my hand and once I could taste the metallic copper taste of blood in my mouth, I would feel better. When I was ten I started to poke myself with pins or thumb tacs, but after a while that got old and the rush wasn't the same. That's when I moved to scissors, but they cut too deep. No, I didn't need a deep cut only just enough so the blood would pour out taking the anger with it. Razors worked best because they cut just above the skin. I promised myself that I wouldn't do it again after Chase almost caught me doing it a few months ago. He had walked in on me doing it at his house while he was in the bathroom. I couldn't help it. I was upset about something and needed a quick relief. There it was....calling out to me. I would only do one this time and not four like I usually did. I took off my pants because its best to cut on your thigh. It bleeds more and is easier to hide. I could feel my pulse quicken in an almost orgasmic rush as I touched the cold steel to my skin. I pressed softly at first so I could feel the tingle that happens just before your flesh is torn. I pressed down harder and slid the blade across. It was dirty, just like I felt. My heart thumped louder and louder lingering with the silence that was in my room. I liked things to be quiet this way. I cut myself for Gia. I cut myself because I deserved to feel that pain before I could feel anything else and as I watched the blood seep slowly from my torn flesh I almost smiled because that was the only thing that made me feel good. The only thing that made me feel alive was when I felt like dying...... To Be Continued.... Copyright 2005 Madison Aysha Dante My yahoo group: _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MaddyA_Stories_ (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MaddyA_Stories)