Lesson Four - Take Two

Lesson Four – Writing Assignment

The Deacon – Preface



         He’d already been in New Orleans for more than a week, helping in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when he found her.  He never intended to travel thousands of mile to help people he didn’t know.  Then he saw his fellow parishioners’ reaction to his boastful chatter, and he volunteered at once.  He could, after all, fake an injury and come home if he found things tedious.

         The city’s Ninth Ward was in shambles and still a swamp of muddy water, debris, and effluvia.  His group had rescued no one; found no one—alive or dead—all day.  Rolland, hot, wet, and tired, and bored with his good-deed-doing, slipped away.  He didn’t need to steal, but you never could tell what you might come across.  There was that silver and crystal Rosary several years before, when he built homes in Haiti for Habitat for Humanity. 

         One side of the shotgun house on the corner beckoned to him.  Somehow, even surrounded by stinking, standing water, it radiated a more cared-for, nicer—more prosperous—aura.  It also looked like it was above the water, which meant he could get out of this putrid, goddamn water, even if only for a few minutes. 

         He trudged around the back of the house, where he found the rusty, black screen door hanging off its hinges. It creaked as he opened it and entered the sodden kitchen.  He’d only taken a few steps inside, when he heard a low choking over his head.  The sound reminded him of a cat coughing up a hairball.  Shit!  Even a rescued cat was a story to impress those yokels back home. 

         He fought his way down the collapsing hallway and found the retractable stairs leading up to more of a crawl space rather than an attic.  For several minutes, Rolland stood at the bottom, considering the advisability of climbing up.  He was, after all, a large, robust man.  Then there was a soft whimper and a gurgling noise.  It was like a Siren’s song calling to him.  The stairs groaned in protest, but they bore his bulk.

         She was hidden, behind some molding boxes of tatty Christmas ornaments—a life-size ragdoll, discarded and abandoned.  She was young—not fifteen—probably, younger.  The dark skin of her nubile, Nubian body, showed through the wet, once-white, now almost transparent tee shirt.  She was dying, and they were alone.

         For the last several years, certainly before his wife left—the ungrateful bitch—a dark dream, wriggled into his brain, curling like smoke—real, yet untouchable.  He didn’t remember where it had come from, or even his first toying with the notion.  He only knew that more and more over the last couple of years, the idea of having very young, unwilling and helpless girls, powered his fantasies. 

         Now, Providence had presented Rolland—God’s most dutiful servant – most pious church warden—with the opportunity to fulfill his most secret desire.  His cock twitched, with exquisite anticipation, as he crouched low and moved towards her.  She stared up at him, her pleas screaming through the sultry silence. 

         “It’s all right,” he said, smiling back down at her.  “I’ll take care of you.”  He grabbed here under her arms and dragged her to the center o the attic, where even the low peak gave him more room.  He smirked, knowing she thought he was there to save her.  But he was not.

         With unexpected swiftness, he pulled up the thin fabric of her grimy tee shirt.  Even as weak as she was, she let out a gasp of shock, and the very sound of it shot hot blood to his groin.  For a moment, he just stared down at her, before he jerked her shorts down.

         Twenty minutes later, his eyes red-rimmed, and swimming with tears, he carried her down and out to find his colleagues.  But he’d taken the cheap, gold-plated chain from around her neck as a souvenir.  He’d also managed to steal a number of body bags.  He had enjoy the girl’s body, but he’d found even greater gratification in her death.  They were pleasures he would enjoy again.