Chapter 3

It was the first day after vacation, and everyone was following his or her morning routine. Angel and I were trying to figure out how we would survive the day without each other.

“The tutor will be here at eight, and he’ll be home-schooling you for a few months while we figure out where you can go for a real education,” I said as I pulled on my backpack.

“I’ll miss you,” she murmured while kissing me.

We tried to ignore everyone watching us.

My siblings, parents, and I went outside, with Phil, Emily, and I being driven to school by our dad. The February weather seemed especially cold, and I realized it was because I didn’t have my arm around Angel. As we drove down the bumpy driveway, I could feel my body becoming colder and colder with every inch of distance between us. But I was also in a good mood; I would be going back to school pain-free, and with Angel in my life, nothing in the world could hurt me.

It was gym class and the subject of the day was station exercises. The gymnasium had been split up into areas, each with a different exercise or activity to be performed for a set amount of time. Arriving at the chin-up station, I jumped up onto the bar with gusto. I normally hated gym class with every fiber of my being, but my good mood and lack of pain was making me restless.

“I thought you couldn’t be in gym class because of your cancer?” one of the other students asked, watching me move like a piston on the bar.

“I found the perfect treatment.”

After a dozen lifts, I finally jumped off and landed on the floor. My muscles were twitching from the relief of no pain.

“Tom is coming back to school tomorrow, and I think he is going to kick your ass,” another student said as he started doing chin-ups.

“That punk has been home-schooled all this time for some minor injuries while I barely missed a day while being in endless full-body agony. What a coward. Whatever, if he wants to fight me, he can go ahead. It’s not like he can do anything to hurt me.”

As the day wore on, I missed Angel more and more. I longed to look into her eyes, to hear her sweet voice, and to hold her in my arms. I would sit in class, looking out the window. Everything around me was drowned out, as she was the only thing on my mind.

I was anxious as the bus got closer and closer to my house. For the first time, I was actually happy. The instant the bus stopped at my driveway and the doors opened, I bolted out, running as fast as I could, as if drawn by a magnetic pull. I ran up the long unpaved driveway, ignoring the cold. I didn’t even notice as my foot broke through the ice over a deep puddle and was submerged up past my ankle in icy water. I kept running until I got to the house and wrenched open the door. I took a step inside and Angel jumped into my arms, kissing me passionately. Funny, the two of us together reminded me of those old Calvin and Hobbes comics I used to read.

“I missed you,” I said while pulling off my coat and backpack.

“I missed you too,” she whispered.

We made our way upstairs and into my bedroom. Instead of throwing ourselves onto the bed, we crashed into the wall by the window, not even noticing as we ripped our clothes off and licked the inside of each other’s mouths. As soon as Angel’s jeans and panties were off, I got down on my knees and buried my lips and tongue in her sweet slit. Lathering her insides and drinking her essence, I was on Cloud 9 while simultaneously making Angel moan in ecstasy. Her pussy tasted so sweet and was so soft, I actually lifted her up and let her rest both her legs on my shoulders so that I could delve even deeper with my tongue. Having ripped off her shirt and bra, Angel was massaging her breasts with one hand and running her fingers through my hair, stammering how good it felt and how much she had missed my touch. While working diligently, I couldn’t help but look up and admire her full breasts, dominating my view as if I was standing at the base of two mountains.

Without the slightest pause, I performed my much-enjoyed duty until Angel experienced her first climax, filling the house with her shrill calls of ecstasy. While she stepped back down onto the ground with shaky legs, I stood up and fully undressed. She was ready for me, and without wasting time, she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist while I entered her. Holding her against the wall, I began thrusting with deep, powerful shoves, slamming the head of my cock against the entrance to her womb over and over. Each time I forced myself into her, Angel would release a beautiful yelp of happiness and her hold would momentarily slacken from the deep shivers running throughout her body

As much as I loved being able to go deeper than usual, the inefficiencies and lack of comfort of the position quickly drained our patience. As if reading each other’s minds, I pulled out of Angel just as she unwrapped her legs from around my waist. With a coy smile on her face, she turned around and stood by the window, shaking her shapely ass at me. Grinning, I brushed her hair aside and ran my tongue up her back, brought it up to the back of her ear, and then began kissing her neck to try and nonverbally express my gratitude and describe to her just how perfect she was.

With my dick rock hard and pulsating with each beat of my heart, I got behind Angel and entered her with ease, drawing a blissful hum from the penetration. After a few tentative strokes to get accustomed to the movements and angle, I placed my hands on Angel’s hips and immediately began hammering her with the speed of a woodpecker. She was pushed up against the window, crying out joyfully as I rode her. Each and every time, I would slam into her with all of my strength, entering as fast and deep as possible. With each powerful thrust, Angel’s breasts would slam against the window, and with the coldness of the glass, her nipples quickly became like gumdrops, while her perspiration and breath left a beautiful imprint of her hands and chest on the window. I don’t know which sounded better, the clapping of her taut ass against my lap or her breasts against the window.

“Oh God, Marcus! It feels so good! You’re driving me crazy!”

Wanting to move the scene to the bed, I put my arms under Angel’s knees and picked her up. Angel just thought I was changing the position again and began grinding her pussy against my cock as I held her up, moaning and grunting like a wild animal. More than happy to indulge her, I began lifting her up and down with my arms while using my lower body to thrust up into her. To the wet sound of her womanhood getting penetrated over and over again by my cock, Angel leaned back and we began to kiss, quite gently in contrast to the wild fucking just two feet away.

Soon my arms began to ache and I decided that it was time to move on. Gently, I set Angel down on the bed, momentarily pulling out of her. Knowing what I wanted, she held herself up on the edge on her hands and knees, inviting me back in. I accepted the invite and mounted her like a dog, drawing fresh moans and cries of happiness as I fucked her with everything I had and with renewed speed. The whole house was filled with the clapping sound of flesh against flesh as I drove into Angel with all the power I could summon, desperate to satisfy and pleasure her.

For an hour and a half, we continued like that, continuously switching positions and screwing like there was no tomorrow. Our bodies had been starved of each other all day and we were desperate to make up for lost time. I suppose a scene like this was rather hypocritical of me. I had always thought that such lascivious sex was pointless and disgusting, a perverse degradation of a true loving bond, but I finally understood it. When I linked my body to hers, my heart beating achingly fast, sweat evaporating off my skin, our carnal cries like those of animals, it was when I felt the most alive. When we were slow, when me made love, it was a celebration of our feelings, proving that we cherished the abstraction and intricacies of our souls. But when we gave in to our most primal desires and lust, it was a celebration that we were alive. We proved we cherished ourselves and each other, grateful for every drop of blood, every hair, every cell, every particle that granted us the privilege of existing in this reality and knowing what it felt to live.

Ravenous sex, it was a ritualistic battle, against each other and ourselves. We dueled in a way entirely our own, daring each other to keep up, to burn brighter and longer. Who would climax first? Who would give in to fatigue? But it was also a means of testing ourselves. Our bodies, could they truly convey our feelings without giving in? Could they channel the raging power of hearts without succumbing to our physical limits? Did they have the strength to articulate the intensity of our burning souls? To deliver us to the completion we so desired?

Eventually, we stopped for a break, simply to catch our breath and give my manhood a reprieve. Now was my favorite part: Angel and I holding each other as we let our bodies relax from the sensual act of love committed only moments ago.

“How was your day?” I asked as I felt Angel’s gentle breathing slow to its usual pace.

“Kind of boring. The tutor gave me a small test to see what my mind remembered. He was fairly surprised by how well I did, saying that it was amazing how I remembered how to do algebra but didn’t even know my last name,” she hummed, pressing herself tightly against me.

With my chin resting on her shoulder, I smiled and gently brushed aside a lock of hair over her face, tucking it behind her ear. “If only the world knew who you really were.”

“Well it is because to you. I may not have been born with memories of my own, but I do have your memories. So thanks for the help. How was your day?”

“Great. It was so nice to be without pain. I can never even begin to show my gratitude for saving me.”

“You don’t need to thank me, just love me.”

“Some people didn’t believe me when I said that I found the perfect treatment for my pain...” Angel chuckled. “So a lot of people are starting to think I never had cancer. By tomorrow, probably half of the school will think I had been faking it to get attention.” She looked at me with disbelief. “Don’t worry, I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone there thinks. I don’t want any friends. Hell, I don’t even need to acknowledge anyone there. I severed all ties with almost everyone else on the planet long before I met you. You’re the only one I need.”

Several silent moments passed by.

“Something else is on your mind.”

“How’d you know?”

Angel pressed her cheek against mine, and just as I was about to think she was going to whisper something in my ear, she instead gave a gentle hum.

“A school bully that I beat up is coming back tomorrow. He was one of the people that tormented me for the past five years.”

Angel looked at me and I could see worry in her eyes. “Marcus, I am so sorry.”

“Its fine. There is a good chance that he will try to fight me tomorrow, maybe then I can get some revenge. Last time, I strangled him, shattered his nose, broke his eye socket, and busted out all of his teeth, but he deserves a much more severe punishment.”

“Well just don’t kill him. I don’t want the cops to take you away.”

“Yes, dear.”

The next day, I was shoved in the hall and knocked to the ground.

“Get up you son of a bitch!” I heard Tom yell behind me.

People in the hall immediately stopped to watch. I stood up and faced Tom. His nose was crooked and his lips were covered in scars from getting cut up by his teeth. Many of his teeth had been put back in, however, most were fake. He would never be able to smile without people laughing at him. I had a grin on my face as I pulled off my coat and backpack. Standing before him, a laugh escaped me. This boy, this punk, he had terrorized me for so many years, ruining my life. But having experienced death, having delved into the eye of God, I now saw him for how insignificant he really was.

“You want to fight me? You think you can even hurt me? You’re nothing more than an insect!”

“I’ll kill you, you bastard!” Tom screamed, pulling back his arm and punching me in the side of the face, just below the eye.

My face whipped back with his fist never breaking connection, but Tom’s arrogant grin was lost when he saw that I was still smiling, even with his fist pressed against my cheek.

“You think you can hurt me? You think you can scare me? Nothing you do will ever reach me. I’ve outgrown your puny human world.”

I lashed out and punched Tom in the nose with all the strength in my body. He staggered back with his hands over his broken nose, giving a muffled howl of pain while blood streamed out from between his fingers. My fist was shaking, not in pain or fear, but happiness. The smile on my face was a bloodthirsty maniacal one, burning with the haunted flames of the past and the fearless flames of the future. I was finally free.

“I’ve experienced my own death, witnessed the end of all reason, suffered more agony in the last few months than you will ever experience in your lifetime, and finally discovered happiness through something beyond your comprehension. There is nothing in the world that can I can fear or desire, nothing you can do to hurt me. I’ve broken free of this world and outgrown you.”

I lunged forward and punched Tom in the face. The blow grazed his forehead, sparing him most of the impact and allowing him to deliver a punch straight to my gut. While it was strong enough to knock the wind out of me, after the levels of pain I had endured, it felt like I had just gotten hit by a beach ball. Laughing like a maniac, I stood upright and again punched him, blinding him in one eye. Roaring in pain and rage, he tackled me and slammed me against the wall, then began punching me in the face wildly. While his punches decimated my flesh, they were unable to rob me of my smile and confidence. Sporting two black eyes and bruises across my face, I reached up and caught his fist, stopping the barrage.

“You’re fucking crazy!” he screamed, unable to believe I was still conscious.

“You ruined my life with your cruelty, now I will turn that cruelty on you, ten-fold. I shall show you the true meaning of despair, just as you have shown me.”

I slammed my elbow into his face and fractured his cheekbone. Tom staggered back, and without any hesitation, I delivered a punch to the gut that made him buckle, granting me the perfect opportunity to slam my knee in his face and bust his already broken nose. Nearly delirious from the pain, Tom was helpless as I began pummeling him with my fists, beating him wildly until my knuckles bled. I had to admit, the fact that he stayed on his feet was commendable, but that only gave me a continuous reason to keep punching him.

Within seconds, it was Tom set against the wall, completely at the mercy of my punches. His face was a bloody mess, even worse than mine, but I wouldn’t stop. As long as I didn’t kill him, I had nothing to worry about.

‘Thank you, Angel. Thank you for setting me free,’ I thought to myself before a teacher grabbed me and pulled me away.

Three weeks suspension, a small price to pay for my vengeance. I was lucky not to have been expelled, but once again, Tom throwing the first punch was all the defense I needed. My parents, who were both furious that I had gotten suspended yet again but sympathetic when they saw how bruised up my face was, brought me home early.

“Oh my god, are you all right?!” Angel fearfully exclaimed, meeting me at the door and examining my face.

“Yeah, I’m fine, but if I miss anymore days after this, I won’t be able to graduate and will have to take summer school.”

“Your mother and I are going to discuss your punishment. You had better hope we don’t leave you out in the back yard with a tent and a trash bag to sleep in,” my dad said as he and my mom walked into the living room.

“Come on, let’s get some ice on those bruises,” Angel murmured, leading me to the kitchen.

“My suspension is actually pretty good news. Except for when your tutor comes and my family returns, we’ll have the house to ourselves for three weeks.”

Once again, my parents were distraught on whether to be mad at me or be accepting of my actions. Angel and I were ecstatic. During the morning, Angel and I would sleep in for an extra hour, wake up and make love while half-asleep, then go have breakfast, and wait for Angel’s tutor to show up. Once he arrived, I would help her with her work in all the ways I could. After the tutor left, Angel and I would have lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon chatting or making love.

One afternoon, Angel and I were taking a walk through the woods. Snow was gently falling from the cloudy sky and there wasn’t even the slightest breeze. We were walking hand in hand, just enjoying the glass-like scene of frozen nature. We stepped into a vast meadow, transformed into a sea of snow banks by the ageless winter.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

We both fell back into a snow bank, letting the crystallized mattress cushion our fall as if we were immune to gravity.

“Beautiful,” Angel breathed as we gazed up into the falling snow.

She looked at me and placed her delicate fingers on my cheek. I pulled off my glove and did the same. Angel didn’t shiver as my chilled hand brushed against her soft porcelain skin. From her hand on my cheek and my hand on hers, I could feel warmth seeping into my body.

“Marcus, there is something I have been thinking about for a while. It was something that you said to me on the day we met. It was when you were telling me why you were about to kill yourself. You said that you hated and were disgusted by the human race. What did you mean? I have your memories, but I don’t know your thought processes.”

I sighed as I tried to think of how I was going to explain it. “When I was in that school for troubled kids, my soul was full of rage. Not only were my tormenters getting off without punishment, I had been locked away like a criminal. I looked at the system that had screwed me over and the twisted psychology of the bullies that had made my life a living hell. I realized that if I were to understand the forces that had ruined my life, I would need to understand the heart of those forces. I began to look at the human race as if I was not human. I looked at history and I studied the people around me. I looked at their flaws, their imperfections, their weaknesses, and their predictability. I was disgusted by what I had found.

Mankind is nothing more than an evolutionary dead end, the result of our ancestors becoming smart enough to survive in the harsh wilderness and thereby losing their evolutionary drive. When early humans overcame the obstacles that get in the way of the lives of species, they found that there were no longer any obstacles that required brain function higher than what they had. True, we made some technological progress; we invented weapons to defend ourselves, machines to help us harness the earth’s resources, and medicine to extend our lives, but we lacked the intelligence to use them wisely.

We became smart enough to build communities, but remained stupid enough to fight over resources. We became smart enough to use fire, but remained stupid enough to use it to destroy nature. We became smart enough to invent thousands and languages and religions, but remained stupid enough to be unable to find compromise or peace in a single one. We’re caught in an evolutionary limbo, where any opposing force that requires brain function higher than what we already have would undoubtedly kill us. The better you become, the harder it is to keep going, and we’ve reached our peak. Damn, it is one pathetically short peak. Now we’re stuck with the ability to make things that we’re too stupid to use properly, and underdeveloped minds that aren’t prepared for the things we think we can do.

I turned my back on this pitiful species and severed all ties with this world.” I then softened my tone and pressed my forehead against hers. “Screw the world, I don’t need it anymore. As long as I have you, I am content. Mankind means nothing to me. You are all that is important.”

Angel’s eyes sparkled as she smiled. “Can we head back? Its cold out here.”

A look of confusion crossed my face as I moved my hand from her cheek to her neck. “You don’t feel chilled at all.”

“Yeah, but its too cold out here for us to show each other how much we love each other,” she said as she kissed me.

Our romantic vacation eventually came to an end, and I realized it was two-fold burn. Not only were we going to separate during the day again, but also being out for three weeks meant that I was drowning in missed home and schoolwork. I would have to work for hours every evening to try and get catch up, meaning that I still couldn’t be with Angel as much as I wanted to. If I didn’t claw my way back up from the abyss, then it meant summer school and no graduation for me, which meant that the time I could spend with Angel would be decimated. But after dinner when Angel and I would go up to bed, the tender love that had accumulated during the day would be released with unparalleled passion.

With the arrival of April, spring fever was injected into the weather like steroids. All of the snow was blasted away by the sun and the temperature was reaching into the high 50’s, basically tropical climate for Mainers. I had almost an ominous feeling about the warmth because I knew that the summer would be unbearably hot. With the warm weather thawing everything out, Angel was getting me to do the one thing that no one else could make me do: exercise. I had fair upper-body strength, but when it came to cardiovascular ... I was a wreck. All those years of lounging and staying uninvolved with everything had come back to haunt me. I hated all exercise, but being with Angel made it tolerable ... not that going for a daily jog didn’t make me feel like my lungs were filled with razor blades.

One afternoon, Angel and I were jogging through the park by my home. Actually, she was jogging; I was shortening my lifespan by trying to keep up. We stopped when we finally broke out from under the trees, feeling the sunlight on us. I was leaning on my knees, trying to catch my breath. I nearly collapsed from relief when I heard her speak those four golden words: “Let’s take a break.”

In the shadow of the branches and budding leaves, we rested beneath the branches of a tree on the edge of the meadow. Angel was sitting against the trunk, and I was lying down with my head in her lap. The air was filled with the sound of chirping birds and animals taking advantage of the warm weather. She was humming a soft tune and I could feel blissful relaxation seeping into my tired body like rain on soil. The fresh spring air was mending my aching lungs, the perfume of the thawing ground and the revived plants was making me melt in bliss, the warmth of Angel’s body was easing my muscles like a gentle massage, and the hypnotic notes of her humming felt like a soothing lullaby.

“You know, back when I was sick, I used to contemplate life and death and what they meant. It wasn’t a morbid gothic thing, just a curiosity, a preparation for what I thought was coming.”

“Oh really? What did you come up with?” she asked as she leaned down and kissed me on the forehead.

“I don’t believe there is any meaning in life or this universe, no value or purpose other than what we create for ourselves. But even going against that and all the neurons in my brain screaming at me to be logical, I am convinced that there is an afterlife. I’m not talking about a heaven or a hell, but just some plane of existence where the sentience remains.”

“How do you figure?”

“Memories, everything we think and experience is merely a reaction to events and our surroundings, a recorded recoil that takes the form of a memory. Consider the amount of time it takes for information from your senses to be received and process by your brain. It takes maybe a few nanoseconds? But consider everything that can happen and has happened within the span of a few nanoseconds, and in increments of time even shorter. Outside of our human perception, a nanosecond could feel like a century.

Even now, every thought that passes through my mind and everything I feel, they all occur before long before I am truly aware of them, in which case, my detection of them is really nothing more than a memory. I’m always living in the past, my mind trailing behind the flow of time, only reacting when information is memorized and played like a flashback. Every second is just a memory for your mind, while your body moves on through the future.

So if that’s true, is it possible that my whole life could just be a single memory? A movie playing in my mind that is eighteen years long and ongoing, with my brain always wondering what’s going to happen next while my body and the world around me create each new scene about to be viewed? In which case, I could be remembering this from a hundred years into the future, having lived an incredibly long life. This conversation might not be happening in real time, but is actually something that occurred a hundred years ago and I am currently remembering it in real time.

But memories cannot exist without the mind. A movie cannot exist if the disk or tape it’s imprinted on doesn’t exist. Therefore, if I am a memory, a continuous memory being relived from some point in the future, then that memory must go on forever. Maybe the memory doesn’t stop ... just because my body stops. The only way this memory can continue is if there is a mind able to play it back, to retain the information. So when I die, my mind will be unable to play the memory and I will cease to exist in my current form. But I do exist, meaning that I still exist in the future, and as long as I exist in the future, I exist in the present, meaning that I exist for all eternity, but my form is merely different from what it once was.”

Angel giggled. “That’s fascinating. I’d love to hear more.”

“Sorry, but that’s all I’ve got so far. Speaking of life and death, I have to ask, where did you come from? I’ve spent more time being grateful that you’re here than just wondering how you came to be. You told me before that you have my memories, but I don’t know how that’s possible. You were originally a figment of my imagination, right?”

“Yes, that is right.”

“Then how can you go from being imaginary to real? How can you go from being inside my mind to having a physical body?”

Angel just smiled and again kissed me on the forehead. “The day is soon coming when I will explain everything to you, but it is not today. Do not worry, do not be afraid, just enjoy the present and look forwards to the future. Always remember that we shall be together until the end of time.”

“As long as those words remain true, I don’t care what happens,” I said sleepily before closing my eyes and dozing off, listening to the sound of Angel’s sweet humming.

School was coming to an end and everyone was getting antsy. Angel and I couldn’t be happier. She would still be homeschooled during the day, but we would have all summer to be with each other, and by the skin of my teeth, I had managed to make up all my missed work. Oh, and graduation was coming. On one of the last few days of school, I was in woodshop class. The grades had been closed, so we were allowed to just use the machinery for whatever we wanted. I was using the gear-controlled table drill to work on a special project.

One of the other students walked over to me. “Rumors say that you have a girlfriend.” I didn’t even acknowledge him and just continued with my work. “Is it someone here or from another school?” By his tone, I knew that it would be a bad idea to answer. If I gave a name, everyone would instantly try to find whoever it was. People would hassle her for being with me and try to anger me by making lewd suggestions about her. I knew human nature well, and I knew what went on in the mind of high school jackasses. I just continued my work, not even looking at him. When I moved to a power sander and began smoothening my creation, the guy got the message that he wouldn’t get anything out of me, and left me to my work.

The day had finally come. It was graduation for the class of 2012. It was a blisteringly hot summer day, because for some reason, schools decide that it’s best to have all the students gather together in polyester robes with full dress pants and shirt (if you’re a guy) when spring turns to summer. And of course, in a school with no AC, all the graduates and their families would be herded into the sweaty gymnasium like an Auschwitz oven. In the hour before the ceremony, the halls were flooded with students and family members, all of them sweating bullets, talking about future plans, and reminiscing about the past twelve years.

Then a ripple passed through the building. The graduation ceremony was not about to start, no; it was something else. At the entrance to the school, with my parents and siblings on either side, Angel had arrived to watch the ceremony. Everyone stared at her, completely hypnotized. She was wearing a skirt that showed off her porcelain legs and a striped top that put her ample breasts on display without showing too much cleavage. No one had ever seen a person with half the beauty as this stranger. With fiery crimson hair that hung down the length of her back, piercing blue eyes that looked like they could see into your very soul, and a smile that was awe-inspiring in its beauty, she was the definition of perfection. I had arrived at the school earlier, so my family just had to find me and then their seats.