Love Letter From The Heart

Dear Katherine,

You don't love me, no doubt, but I always loved you and will never stop loving you. From the first day that I met you, the image of you stayed with me in my head. No matter where I was, you were always there with me, guiding me, helping me, advising me, and telling me what to do. After meeting you for the first time, knowing someone like you existed, you made me want to be a better man. That may sound a bit corny, a cliché, and over the top, but it's true.

Not that I was ever a bad person, a big drinker or partier but, reassigning my priorities, I changed how I lived my life, once I met you. Before I met you I was driven to advance my career and I did. After I met you, I made the mistake of putting myself on the fast track hoping that I could win your heart with money, success, power, and influence, while hoping that you'd notice me. Yet, I was foolish to think that someone like you could have her head turned by materialism and shallow things that are so meaningless. When checking off the important things in my life, big house, fancy car, nice clothes, and extravagant vacations, I realized that our interests didn't correspond.

You were never one for riches, setting up a foundation and giving most of the fortune your father left you away to those who more desperately needed it. Isn't it funny how those who have so much money don't want it, while those who don't have wealth spend their lives chasing after it? I could never live my life in the way you have, so altruistically.

I admired and envied that about you. I missed you and worried about you, when you traveled to faraway lands to offer them your philanthropic soul and unlimited resources. If ever there was a mortal saint, it is you, dear Katherine.

I feel as though I've loved you forever. I like to think that you were made for me and we were meant for one another, thinking that helps me get through my days. The thoughts of being with you gave me hope to follow my path of being the person I am today, a poor excuse of the person that you are. Unselfishly in the way you give of yourself, is something that I can only admire, for I cannot do. I don't have your merciful, kind spirit and big heart.

Tarnished by the words of the law, soured by so many bad people that I represent, I don't have the love for humanity in my heart that you do. Where I see bad in too many people, you see good. My glass nearly empty, your glass is always full. Alas, too common in my regard for selfless acts, too imbedded in my environment to break the barrier of my moral code and the chains that bind me to them, my beliefs of human nature are abrasive and in opposition to yours.

It is with that knowledge that someone like you would never be interested in someone like me. Please forgive the mere comparison, but in that regard, I am more like the person of Danny DeVito when playing his vile and despicable character, Louie De Palma on Taxi. You, on the other hand, are more in tune with Angelina Jolie, in the way that she rescues children and cares about the poor, the hopeless, the helpless, and the hungry.

Without having you in my life, what I harbor for you is a sad, empty, and unrequited love. Even though the relationship has been a one-sided one, there is no one who can fill my heart in the way you have all these years. I'm not even sure why I'm writing this letter, it will never be mailed to you, only that it makes me feel better to get my thoughts about you on paper and off my mind, finally. Perhaps, this is the way that I can finally release you from my heart and my mind and go on with my life with another, someone who loves me for who I am and not who I try to be.

It's obviously to me now that we'll never be together. Now I know how Romeo must have felt losing his sweet Juliet and the sadness that Don Quixote endured never finding his Dolcinea. My heart breaks with the inevitable loss of you, something that I have always held hope for, I now mourn. If just once, I could have felt the passion of your kiss to feel what that felt like. Who knows? Maybe it would have been a magical kiss, with me being the ugly frog and you being the fairy princess. It gratifies me to think there still may be a happy ending to all of this.

I used to believe that maybe my kiss would have awakened you to have opened your eyes to notice me, the man who loves you. Only, I saw you with others and saw the way you looked at them, in the way that I had hoped you'd look at me, but never have. I know now that you'll never look at me in the way you looked at any of those other men, who constantly surround you hoping to win your favor. Understanding to all those poor and disadvantaged people you have helped in the course of your life, you've been blind to the men who seduce you with their good looks, their charm, and their wit, for they only want you for your money.

You don't even know me, really, more than you do any other passing acquaintance, employee, or servant. You didn't know that I existed before, but now know me by the despicable thing that I did to you. It is part of my rehabilitation to feel guilt and remorse for what I have done and I do. I'm sorry for the hurt and the consternation that I have caused you. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. A consequence of my love for you, I wasn't able to help myself from loving you, as I did, totally and completely.

I know you, enough to know that you've already forgiven me. Truly, you are too good to be true. You are one who harbors no malice to anyone for any transgression. You see, I know every little thing about you, where you lived, attended school, worked, even the friends you hung out with. It was my job to know all of that and everything else that I could learn about you. Knowing more about you helped me to love you from afar.

Bitterly empty not to have you in my life, at least learning the factual knowledge about you soothed the sorrow that I felt not to have you here beside me. If pretending to be part of your life, even if only vicariously, it is better than forgetting you. Perhaps, that would have been a better choice, to have taken a chemical elixir that would have permanently erased the memory of you from my mind. Only, as far as I know, there is no elixir that can do that, other than time, time spent away from you. Yet, time spent without you in my life is an unbearable eternity and such a cruel punishment to a man whose only crime was the love you.

My room was covered with your photos cut from magazines with others taken with my high speed telephoto cameras. I even paid photographers to photograph you, without you being aware of them following you around the globe in your humanitarian exploits. It made me happy looking at your photos, to know that you were safe and to see that you were happy doing what you loved to do, while I worked from my home office to make money. 'Tis true that money is the root of all evil because in my pursuit of you, I have been very evil, indeed. Yet, hunting you, if only photographically, it almost felt as if you were here with me. We had some great conversations, you and I. It's too bad you weren't there to enjoy them.

It is a sad reality that our lives somehow, unexpectedly crossed at the most inopportune of times. Something that I never would have done, had I not been driven out of my mind with mad desire for you, but I was in your house looking to take a few of your personal possessions, nothing of value really, just your toothbrush, hairbrush, and some panties and bras. Maybe even a few pair of your shoes, things that you would never miss and things that would make me feel more connected to you. I know, pathetic, aren't I? Look what you have done to me, a strong and successful man made weak with love. I wonder is this how Marc Antony and Caesar must have felt when Cleopatra rejected them?

You surprised me when you came home unexpectedly. I panicked. I didn't know what to do. Excited that I would see you again, of all places, in your bedroom, I was more embarrassed than I was anything else. I remember thinking, here I am your lawyer, of all people, breaking into your house to steal your underwear. What you must have thought of me, served me right. I was wrong to have done that, dear Katherine, but I was so desperate for you, and any little thing of yours would have sufficed, when I had nothing intimate of you, except for a few hundred photos.

Surely, I didn't want your contempt nor your hatred nor your outrage. I only wanted your love. I only wanted you to see me as the man who loved you completely and without reservation. Now, all that you see is an insane and pitiful person.

I never thought I'd stalk you in the way that I did. I never thought you'd hold a spell over me in the way that you had. I'm sorry that I tried forcing you to love me. I just thought that if you experienced me sexually, that you'd want me forever. I was wrong and I'm sorry that it wasn't as good for you as it was for me. For me, it was wonderful and magical. I saw stars and heard bells. Making love to you was the best thing that happened to me in my life.

Perhaps, if things were different, this may have never happened. I always tried to have you notice me, but you never did in the way that you noticed other men. You made me wish I was taller, thinner, had more hair, and was better looking, but I am who I am, a short, fat, bald man in love with a beautiful and unattainable woman. There are only so many things in life that I can overcome and my physical appearance wasn't one of them. I did the best that I could with what I had.

Now, look at me. They say that I'm insane. I am insane. I'm crazy in love with you.

I never meant to hurt you. I just wanted to love you. Even though you hit me, scratched me, bit me, and spit in my face, I never regretted being able to give you a son, our son. I hope you will love him in the way that you never loved me.

I love you, Katherine. I loved you from the first day that I saw you. I'll always love you. I'll never stop loving you. Never have I wanted anyone else, but you.

Sincerely,

Alan Rogers

"I finished the letter, Doctor."

"Very good, Mr. Rogers. Now that you've written it, and I'm so glad you finally wrote it, I'll just put this letter in your file. This will go a long way in furthering your therapy. In our next session, we'll address some of what you have written."

"Thank you, Doctor. Only, may I have a copy of the letter?"

"A copy?"

"Yes, if you don't mind, Doctor. Reading it will help me realize what I did and why I did it."

The doctor gave his committed patient a pensive look wondering, no doubt, if giving Mr. Rogers a copy of the letter would benefit his patience's mental health or not. By making him a copy, he decided that it would.

"Certainly, Mr. Rogers. Here you are."

Mr. Rogers read that letter multiple times a day, until released from the mental institution nearly twenty years later. His son was an adult now. Not allowed to see his son before, it was his son's decision now to want to meet his dad, finally. The day of his release, he finally met his son for the first time.

His son, John, was tall, where his Dad was short. He was good looking, where his Dad was of average looks, at best. Already armed with the best education that money could buy, he'd meet and marry a beautiful woman, no doubt, someone nearly as beautiful, as good, as kind, and as loving as his mother, no doubt, only there was only one woman like her. She was one of a kind. One in a billion.

Alan Rogers lost everything, his reputation, his license to practice law, his wealth, and his freedom because of the uncontrollable attraction and the deep rooted love that he had for his client, Katherine Croft, a wealthy socialite he and many other attorneys from his firm represented. Out of her league, she never gave him any indication that she was interested in him nor did he assume that she was interested in beginning a romantic connection. Alan was painfully and acutely aware of the type of man who Katherine was attracted to, tall, handsome, athletic, and wealthy. The only category Alan Rogers approached was wealth, but he still wasn't in the league of these players.

He supposedly, diagnostically, and criminally, lost his mind that fateful day when Katherine came home unexpectedly and caught him in her bedroom. In a quandary, he didn't know what to do. He only knew that he was crazy mad for her. She made him wild with desire for her.

Driven by insanity and armed with the strength of ten men, he doesn't remember pushing her on the bed and ripping her clothes from her oh, so perfect body. He does remember having glorious sex with her, the best sex he ever had in his life. As if he was having sex with an Angel in Heaven, he could never have imagined what it'd be like to have intercourse with the woman of his dreams, desire, lust, and passion. He filled her with all the love that he had to give.

When he was finished with her, he didn't run or hide, but calmly waited for the police to come, while he smoked a cigarette, his last, and sipped her 50-year-old scotch, the best. That one memory, of being impaled inside of her, boded him well for twenty long, lonely years, until his release, when, inexplicably, uncontrollably, unprecedentedly, unimaginably, and horribly, he returned to her house and did it again.

I'm not a psychiatrist, but I'd say that Alan Rogers wasn't cured or was he? What's the cure for love? Is there a cure? A magic potion, a spell that you can give someone to make them not love you anymore?

There again in her bedroom after forcing himself upon her and having glorious sex with the woman of his dreams for the second time in twenty years, Alan Rogers sat in the same chair he sat in twenty years ago, lit himself a cigarette, and poured himself a drink. It was worth it to him and he'd do it again, if given the chance.

Free to make the choice, Katherine had a choice. She could have called the police and had Mr. Rogers committed, yet, again. After she swore she would never be violated again, she could have pulled the handgun that she bought twenty years ago from the nightstand and shot him dead where he sat. Or...

After three failed marriages, Alan gave her the one thing no one else could give her and something she thought she was unable to have, a child. No other man was able to impregnate her. She thought she was barren, she thought there was something emotionally wrong with her, that is, until Alan showed her how deeply and passionately he loved her.

No other man has burned the lamp of love and desire for her for so long. No other man was willing to lose everything for one last chance to be with her. Even now, after all her lovers had taken what they wanted of her and left, he was the only one still remaining. He was the only man, who truly wanted her and, who deeply loved her.

She married him and they lived happily ever after.

I just love happy endings.