The Date from Hell

Sex came about a month or so after we started dating. And it was, in one word, a divine experience. I just couldn't get enough of her, and my only mission on this world was to give her orgasms, as many and deep as I could. She was a very active partner in bed, and it would be foolish of me not to acknowledge that it never was just sex, to begin with. This was the real deal.

It didn't take me a long time to wake up one day and understand that I cannot imagine myself without her. I felt physical pain without her by my side. I was happy and complete with her and felt like an empty shell in her absence. I just wanted her in my life, wanted to be with her constantly. So that's what being in total love with someone was.

Yes, Joyce was right. Alice was my soulmate. It was time to make her my wife, if she wanted me. I believed I could trust that she did want me, so I started looking for a ring. I said absolutely nothing of this to anyone, Joyce included. I wanted this to be a surprise, a good one hopefully.

---------

I took the decision to kill a very bad memory and create a beautiful one in its place. I booked a night in Giovani's, my former place of torment. I told Alice that I wanted us to have a dinner there, and she was understandably upset by my choice of venue, but agreed anyway. I also asked George and Joyce to come as well.

We had a great time, and for the first time I appreciated the place. It truly was a great restaurant.

At an opportune moment I got off my chair, and knelt before her. Her look was of genuine shock.

"Rob... wh... what are you doing???" she asked me, her eyes quickly filling up.

"Alice, I know that our story is not a typical one." I said, opening the small box with the ring. "If one were to ask me if I would ever be in this position just a few months ago, I would tell them they needed to get themselves committed. But I didn't know the real you. Now I think I know. And this you that I know, I cannot live without. You are everything a man wants in a woman. You are my other half. I don't want to pass even one single moment without you from now on. I want you to be the mother of my children. I want your name to be the last name I utter before I pass on. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, giving you all my love and making you happy. It's all I want. Alice, will you make me the happiest man alive and be my wife?"

She just looked at me, with tears down her eyes. She didn't move.

I started feeling a pit in my stomach.

"Alice!! What on Earth are you waiting for???" said Joyce, nudging her.

"Oh my God... Yes, Yes Yes!!" Alice cried and fell on me, hugging me and almost tackling me to the ground. Thank God I had a good sense of balance, or we would both be on the ground.

Alice was truly happy. Her eyes were smilling from deep within. She was ecstatic. She just sat on my lap and never, ever let me go. Joyce was the one to tell us to go home, and we did.

Alice moved in with me that week.

---------

The wedding was not the event of the century. It was a simple event. Obviously George was my best man, Joyce was Alice's maid of honor. There were a few friends, but the whole event was pretty small in numbers. However, I doubt there was a happier couple in the world. Or a more beautiful bride. I just saw her and I couldn't believe my luck. She was a piece of heaven, my own piece of heaven.

Life was good for both of us. She truly was a dream come true as a partner. She was communicative, always thinking of me in everything she did. She was my friend, my lover, my confidante. She was everything to me.

Of course Joyce reminded me of what she had said, and she did that every single anniversary after we got married. She teased me to death, and I took it all. She did have the right to tease me to death and back. After all, if it weren't for her devotion, her selflessness and her persistence, we wouldn't have been together. Joyce literally put us together by force of sheer will.

Our firstborn was named Joyce and our second-born George. As they should be. Our next two were twins, Isabella and Caroline. Isabella for my mom, and Caroline for the name before she became Alice.

About a dozen years later, she revealed a secret to me, the only one she had withheld. The rape had left her a gift of sorts: she was pregnant and had a baby girl. She gave her up for adoption. She carried this in her soul alone all this time. When she told me, we discussed it and gave both her old and her current name to the registry so that if her daughter ever wanted to find her, she would.

It was a few years down the road that I heard the doorbell, and on answering I got the shock of a lifetime. There was a beautiful young woman, nervous as hell, the spitting image of her mom. I just looked at her, shell-shocked, but had to wake up suddenly when she asked:

"H... Hello. Is...is this the house of... of Ms... A... Alice... Johnson?"

"...Yes, yes! Please, please do come in!" I said, showing her in.

Alice came down the stairs. She looked at her younger facsimile with eyes wide-open, and fainted. I rushed to get her, and the young woman followed me, visibly distraught.

Once Alice came around, she saw the young woman, and of course she knew.

"My baby!! Oh my God!!" and she hugged the astounded young woman, who, after a moment's hesitation, hugged her back. Soon, the damn broke. Everyone in the room had teared up. The women talked, and talked, and cried, and then talked some more. And cried some more.

Her name was Caroline, like her mother's before the rape. From all possible names out there, what are the odds? Sometimes fate works in mysterious ways. She had loving adoptive parents, and a great life all around. She was in College, with the dreams of becoming a doctor. She had no idea of how she was created. Alice was not sure whether to tell her or not, but in the end she decided to tell her everything. Caroline was devastated, understandably. It is not easy knowing that you are a child of rape. But Alice showered her with love, and so did we all. And so did Caroline to all of us, and her mum in particular. And her namesake little sister. Having two Carolines as daughters was the source of many laughs.

It took some time for the two of them to get over all the problems that complicate people because of the baggage of the past, but they did find each other. And both women healed in time. And Alice was complete. She was a complete person, all her major demons exorcised. She was truly, deeply happy. And so was I, and so were we all.

Caroline Sr. as we nicknamed her, became a part of our family, as her adoptive parents, Jeff and Lisa Pickford. Great people with a big heart, thankful for how Alice embraced and loved their child, which also was her own. There was a bit of jealousy involved at the beginning, especially between Lisa and Alice, from Lisa's part mostly. But Alice's heart warmed everyone, and soon enough everything was smoothed out. Happiness was an everyday song for us all.

---------

Human happiness is Hubris to the Gods. Those assholes up there or down there, wherever they may be, they want drama, pain and suffering for us, puny humans. As the great Freddy Mercury said, nobody lives forever.

I had a wonderful twenty one blissfully married years with the love of my life. Then came the worst day of my life, when two policemen came to my door, asked me if I was Alice Johnson's husband, and announced to me that a drunk piece of shit took my Alice away from me. It just took one moment and she was gone forever.

The motherfucker that hit her, he killed me. He murdered me. He murdered my very being. He killed my heart. He ripped my soul out of my body and threw it straight to hell. And not just mine. Everyone within our larger family died a little that day. Some more. Some completely.

I can honestly say that if it weren't for my equally devastated clan, my children, Caroline Sr., her parents and of course my friends George and Joyce, I wouldn't make it alive. They kept me around, besides my honest wish to die. In the end they won. Although most of us weren't that much further from where I was. The devastation was absolute for all. Still, Joyce did the best she could to help me live through the ordeal of the funeral and the mourning period that I entered, never to exit since.

I never got the chance to tell her goodbye. I don't know if I told her enough times how much I love her. I don't know if I showed her how much she meant and still means to me, and will mean to me until I happily leave this Earth. I can say that I did try to show her during our time together. At least, I am not afraid of death. I endure hoping that I will meet her again someday. She is up there in Heaven, and I hope she says a good word to whoever is in charge. I would love to be with her again.

For eternity, you ask?

With my Alice?

It wouldn't even be enough.