LOVED TO DEATH
A Different Kind of Love Story
Rosa Elmore Ferguson
The lovemaking that night had been absolutely incredible. He even took time to caress me after it was over. That
was something we usually didn’t have time for during our clandestine meetings. My parents would have had a hissy-
fit if they had known we were spending time together again.
Of course, the ambiance left a lot to be desired. In fact, the wood-framed house was atrocious. The exterior paint,
if there ever was any, was now gray with age. The cement blocks separating the yard from the sidewalk that had
once provided a place for us to sit and secretly court, were now chiseled away with lack of care and indifference.
Spoiled food, stinky feet and dirty laundry were the perfunctory smells de jour.
I knew he was embarrassed about the house, but it was the home his parents left him and he’d never been
taught to take care of it. Once his mother and father died, it seemed pointless to cook or clean. The faded and
worn-out furniture sat in the living room as proud as could be. The sweat-stained pea green high backed chair
that didn’t match anything else, stood at the ready to seat whatever royalty who dare sit there. It was his favorite
place to relax as he contemplated the path his life had taken. I could go on and on about the condition of
the house, but the most interesting part of what happened later that night is still to come.
He may not have been the man my parents wanted for me, but he was all mine when I was with him.
I loved sleeping next to him. Not for the sex part of our relationship, but the feeling I got when our hearts began
to beat as one when we’d lie down together. Our breathing became a collective breath. I imagine I would
have had the same feeling when I was a baby in my mother’s womb.
He had no parents, no siblings, no kids and no job for me to compete with. He was also a loner. Since he didn't
entertain, it was shocking to hear the loud knock on the door at that hour. Simultaneous with the knock,
the door opened. And there we were as naked as the day we were born. I hated for anyone to see him in this
environment as no one else would understand his unkempt appearance especially the long sweaty blond
hair hanging in his face. I often wondered why he didn’t cut it or at least push it back out of his eyes. But those
were just a couple of the many idiosyncrasies I learned to endure in order to spend time with him. It was because of
his appearance that the people of our small town of Gaston City put him in same category as the druggies
and gothic kids at our school. Underneath his ever present black shirt I could see his rippling suntanned
muscles and loved them. I wished the other girls could have seen him the same way I did. With a good
clean overhaul, I always thought he could be so handsome.
When the door opened, in walked a large older woman with a pair of black plastic eyeglasses sitting on top of her
head, a briefcase and a notepad in her hands. I didn’t recognize her, but with her grey flannel suit, light
colored support hose and black orthopedic looking shoes, she reminded me of a welfare case worker coming to
take a baby from its mother. She was someone he obviously knew. As he jumped up to block her from completely
entering his personal space, he threw a faded flowered sheet over me to protect my nakedness and accidentally
covered my head in the process.
I could no longer see what was going on, but could hear every word that the pock-marked face lady
had to say. Out of the blue she said,
“You’re going to have big trouble trying to sell this place.” She said with absolutely no sympathy or
compassion in her voice.
“What do you mean sell this place?” He said as he was losing the battle of keeping himself covered with
one hand and preventing her from getting past the entrance with the other. The thought of selling his home
had never crossed his mind. He had no reason to think he’d ever have to leave the place he grew up in. He
needed to concentrate on the subliminal message she was sending him, but too much was going on for him to think
straight. He held on to her arm to keep her from entering the living room.
The two of them carried on a heated conversation. I was trying to tell him what to say to her, but neither one
of them acknowledged that they heard me. When she asked him, a grown man, why he was entertaining
company in such a filthy place, I nearly lost it. I started to get up, but was ashamed of my nudity. She freed
herself from his grasp and walked over to where I was lying on the floor, and was just about to pull the sheet
back when he grabbed her again and pushed her back. He was careful not to push her hard, but enough to
get her away from me. However, not so much that she could charge him with any assault against her. I didn’t
know whether to get up and run away or continue to lie where I was and pretend to be asleep. But the fact that he
stopped her only served to make her more curious.
“What are you trying to hide?” She asked as she reached me again this time snatching the sheet off me.
A blood curdling scream escaped from her mouth. She shook me as she got out the cell phone to call nine one
one. He threw the sheet back over me. I tried to speak but I don’t think I did. Maybe I couldn’t.
