Road To Love

I stood in the shower, the warm water cascading around me. The water felt wonderful. I had just shampooed my hair, and still had suds streaming down my face when I sensed someone else in the bathroom. I called out, "Karen?"

I heard her unmistakable giggle. I guessed what was coming, but could do nothing about it. A second later, the shower curtain got yanked back slightly, and then a large glass of ice-cold water splashed across my back and buttocks. I shrieked at the shock to my system.

Karen laughed gaily on the other side of the curtain.

I quickly washed the suds from my head and eyes in seconds, turned off the taps, and leapt from the shower, just catching a glimpse of my departing wife's rear end. She gave off a laugh of glee as she ran from our bedroom.

I chased Karen through the apartment, a living space with a room arrangement that allowed a fleeing spouse to evade someone intent on revenge for a full two minutes before I cornered her in our dining nook. I captured her, threw her lithe body over my shoulder as she shrieked in mock offense and pounded with her fists on my back, and then carried her to our bedroom and unceremoniously dumped her on her back in the middle of the bed amid her shrieks and laughter. Her whole body bounced on the bed as it had repeatedly before when she'd pulled the same stunt.

I straddled her body before she knew what was happening. I undid her blouse, button by button, as she twisted and resisted beneath me, trying with minimal effort to fight me off. Karen wore no bra, not unexpected in the circumstances. Her breasts were excited, betraying the real purpose of her treachery. I reached behind me and yanked her exercise shorts down her legs, only to find she'd also gone commando – no underwear, maybe in anticipation of this moment. I dragged a finger through her slit to verify my assumption. Karen was wet and ready for sex.

As I stripped her, Karen warned me of all the dire things that might happen to me if I persisted. Her threats were hollow, and we both knew it. I felt myself harden and the ardor of our lovemaking became evident in my groin.

Karen resisted less and less. I backed down her body so I could kneel between the gorgeous legs I'd just pried apart, and I buried my passion inside her.

Karen's eyes rolled up in her head, and she moaned. "Oh, God, Jim. I love you so," she whispered to me just before we kissed with renewed passion. She pulled me to her and we started to make love.

I felt pain – deep physical pain. I hadn't had an accident. I hadn't been shot. No one had assaulted me in any way. I had felt pain from events like those during my life, and this felt worse – much worse. I'd just had one of those brief glimpses of a crazy moment I shared with my wife Karen – my darling wife Karen.

The pain came from the inside and brought indescribable mental anguish with it. It stemmed from what one's mind does to the body when a situation so terrible occurs that you want to run and hide away from life in any form, but the pain draws you back to the physical and all too real world that you can't escape from. There is no reprieve, no salvation, and no amount of prayers, words, or promises you can make to stop it.

I stood in the garage and cried another river of tears and felt such deep sadness and despair. I had recollections like this several times an hour, every hour of the day and night. Several days, I'd even contemplated suicide. My clothing remained damp from absorbing the many salty tears that had poured from me. My pillow remained wet in places, yet I barely slept.

I wanted to rage, but I had no idea at whom or why I felt such anger and hatred for some unknown and malevolent force in the universe that would allow such an unjust death. My wife – my beautiful and loving Karen – the love of my life – the prettiest woman in the world – had died at only age thirty-two; a peaceful withering death after a month-long illness, the victim of an autoimmune disease that baffled a small army of Boston doctors as she slowly faded from being my vivacious wife to a box of ashes sitting on the mantle inside the house.

I wiped the tears on my shirtsleeve, and went back to cleaning the accumulated trash and junk out the garage. I had hoped that the clean up of my parents' old house would be therapeutic. It wasn't.

The motorcycle had been my dad's and after his death had remained hidden for over fifteen years beneath a grimy blue tarp. The bike had fallen on its side years earlier. Decaying cardboard boxes full of junk no one now wanted had been tossed atop the tarp. I'd dug through the trash to the bike, and studied the carcass. As a boy and young man I had lusted after the motorcycle – even begged my dad to allow me to use it. Of course, he'd refused, saying the machine was too dangerous for his only son. Now, I wouldn't take the kind of risks I might have taken back then. The machine could be mine if I wanted it – a 1988 Harley Davidson Heritage Softail.

Once it had been a beautiful motorcycle; now, however, rust, corrosion, and rot had overtaken the machine. Both tires were flat and decomposing; where there had been chrome, a heavy layer of rust now sat; rodents had gnawed at the tires, leather seats and saddlebags; and oil had leaked from the various casings seeping over what once had been an immaculate engine.