An Elf's Rose

CHAPTER 19


…You’re mine….

The words seared into his mind with white hot flame. He found he couldn’t breathe from the force of his fear and rage and he abruptly stood up and backed away from the danger, stumbling, smacking into the wall, fists clenched, ready for battle.

~~~

Rose cringed from the silent blast of Orlando’s fury. He could kill me with one blow. She watched in terror as he backed away from her, his whole body tense and trembling, blind eyes seeing something horrible beyond the room they were in.

“Orlando?” she whispered, her eyes wide with shock.

“Don’t touch me,” he hissed, his breathing uneven.

“What –“

“GET OUT,” he roared, his beautiful face contorted with terror and fury.

Rose’s paralysis broke and she ran for the door, yanking on it, forgetting she had locked it. She whimpered, panic stricken, desperate to flee from the frightening creature Orlando had become. She fumbled with the lock with shaking fingers and flung the door open, running down the hall to the living room and its open patio doors.

~~~

…Ah, ma petit sauvage, the ropes musttightight….you fight me so hard….how beautiful you are when you weep….

…Come here, ma peu velours saucisse, you know you want to. Come suckle like I was your maman….

…It is only your blood, cherie. Do not be afraid – taste it. It is the taste of my passion for you, mon ange….the pain is what makes it good….you will soon learn to beg for it….

…I am the one who has opened you, taken your innocence, made you a man. You belong to me always. You will never hold another without remembering me…

…You are mine….you are mine….you are mine….

~~~

Robert rushed into the room, unable to decipher what she was trying to tell him between sobs, Sean and Rose on his heels. He saw Orli crumpled on the floor against the wall, shivering like a leaf in a strong wind. People were beginning to gather at the doorway, whispering.

“Sean,” he asked, voice ragged, “Please come in and shut the door.”

Rose slipped in as he shut and locked it. She stood with her back to the door, white as a sheet, her hands gripping her cheeks. She stared with eyes wide like a deer in the headlights.

Sean squatted next to Orli. He licked hiss, ss, sweating in fear. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know.” Robert laid a hand on Orli’s knee. “Son – “

“Don’t touch me!” Orli whimpered like a little boy, shrinking from his father’s hand. “Please don’t – don’t touch me anymore! Don’t make me do it anymore… please…it hurts!” He pulled his legs up close to his body and wrapped his arms around them, rocking back and forth.

Rose moaned, clawing at her face.

Robert’s stomach roiled with fear and nausea. He stood up and grabbed the young woman’s wrists, roughly pulling her hands from her face. “Rose! What happened?”

She sobbed and he shook her hard. “Tell me goddamit!”

Sean pulled their hands apart . “Robert! That’s not helping!” He took Rose in his arms and held her tightly, caressing her curls and murmuring into ear as she sobbed.

“It’s all right, sweetie. It’s ok.”

Robert walked away, hands in his hair. This was bad. The boy was having some sort of psychotic break. He should call the shrink. But, ye gods, they were going to hospitalize him this time.

Sean had moved over to sit on the chaise with Rose, her sobs subsiding as ockeocked her and caressed her back.

“I just -- I wanted to – wanted him to – “ she stuttered between sobs, unable to complete her thought.

Robert kneeled in front of her and caressed her cheek. “Rose, I’m going to have to call his psychiatrist. He’s having some sort of a breakdown. Something must have triggered it. What did you do? Did you say something to him?”

“I’m so ashamed,” she whispered, barely loud enough to bard.ard.

“Baby, it’s ok,” Sean told her. “No one is going to be angry with you.” He glared at Robert, daring him to disagree.

“I’m so weak…” she whimpered.

“Weak?” Robert asked, not understanding the connection.

“The girls were all staring at him. Making – lewd – comments. Behind my back. Tal abo about the things they’d like to – do to him. Wondering what I’d done to capture his attention. I guess – I wanted to make sure – make him mine.” She pressed her face into Sean’s shirt.

“Rosie, he loves you,” Robert said softly.

“I really screwed up!” she moaned. “I’m so pathetic! He told me I wasn’t like everyone else! Now I AM just like everyone else!”

“You’re only eighteen, for chrissakes!” Sean told her. “You can’t expect to –“

“I should! I should know better! I let the mean words of other people change my mind about things…sway my beliefs…oh God, I’m so sorry, Orlando.” She buried her face in Sean’s chest.

“But what did you say to him, sweetheart?”

She looked at Robert with eyes full of tears and bewilderment. “I – nothing. I just said ‘I want you. You’re mine.’ And he – flipped out.”

~~~

Orli roused slowly from oblivion only to enter into a waking nightmare. He was back in the hospital, he could smell it. What had happened? Had his surgery and recovery all been a dream? For a horrible second he could not find his legs, then they jerked convulsively, the long muscles shuddering against the mattress.

“Orli,” his father’s voice tried to comfort him, with a cool hand on his arm. “I’m here son. You’re all right.”

Like a bucket of cold water dumped on him, he remembered and moaned in terror.

You should have known, dad. You should have seen it. I was just a baby. You left me alone with him.

He heard again that soft, seductive voice saying ghastly things. Things he was going to do, things he would make Orli do to him. He moaned aloud from the horror of it.

There was no help for it now: sex and it’s pleasures would now and forever be intimately linked with pain and blood, shame and fear.

“It’s all right, Orlando, you’re safe.”

No Dad, the demons have escaped the iron box. I will never be safe again.

~~~

Sean took Rose home after the silent ambulance had taken Orlando and Robert to the hospital. He stayed and explained to her parents what had happened, as far as he knew, after she was put to bed. They were just as shocked and confused as he was, not understanding the cause of the breakdown. They thought perhaps it was caused by his brain injury, and hoped it would not be too damaging for the poor boy. He’d been through so much pain already. But their thoughts were mostly for Rose. She’d been through so much for his sake, they didn’t want her to have to deal with any more. Diego and Marlena talked late into the night about the situation and how they should deal with it.

That night would be the first of many nights that Rose would cry herself into an exhausted sleep. As the days wore on, she immersed herself obsessively in schoolwork, trying to block out thoughts and feelings she couldn’t cope with. But her guilt over causing something she did not understand would haunt her for weeks, no matter who she confessed to, until Robert told her what Orlando could not.

He was incommunicado for three weeks in the psychiatric ward of UCLA Medical Center. His doctor would not allow any visitors except his father, and he was just as closed-mouthed. Rose was frantic from not knowing, Robert was not returning her calls, so Thanksgiving weekend she escaped her parent’s careful safeguard and showed up unannounced on his doorstep.

She bullied, begged and cried until Robert finally relented, even though, unknown to Rose, he had promised her parents he’d keep quiet. They sat at the kitchen table, the autumn sunshine making the kitchen sparkle with false cheer.

He put his head in his hands and told her everything. Everything from the death of Orlando’s mother, to his torture and rape in his own home by people Robert had trusted, to the more recent situation of his hospitalization and her parents wanting Rose to keep her distance.

The doctor had Orlando on a heavy dose of anti-psychotics, mostly because he’d gotten violent and broken the jaw of one of the male nurses. They considered him dangerous so they either had him tanked up or in restraints. Orlando preferred the drugs.

Rose sat in shock and anger, trying to absorb the litany of horrors that she had just been subjected to. She leaned forward, arms laying outstretched on the cold steel of the table top. Her eyes welled with tears and they hit the stainless steel tabletop with a distinct plink.

I didn’t think I had any left, she thought. Then a line from somewhere floated in her mind: The sorrows of this earth are unending.

What kind of monster could have done such a thing to an innocent boy? A sweet and loving boy who should have been loved and cherished in return? How could there be such evil? She felt physically ill suddenly and had to gulp for air. She got up and ran to the bathroom to gag and retch the horror of it.

When she returned, white-faced and shaky, Robert still sat with his head in his hands.

“Why can’t I come see him?” Rose whispered.

He finally put his hands down and looked at her with a face gone gaunt with grief. “Honey, he’s not rational. It wouldn’t be good for either of you.”

“When will he come home?”

He shrugged. “When he starts talking and making sense I suppose. I don’t know. – ne– needs help now. Help I can’t give him. Apparently I never could give him any.”

Rose took his outstretched hand. “It’s not your fault…”

“No?” He looked at her with dead eyes. “Whose then?” He leaned his face into his hands again. “I was so blinded by my own grief, so devastated by my own loss, that I had no discrimination about who I took to my bed. I ignored my own son’s pleading eyes so I could continue to satisfy my lust and keep my feelings at bay. Well, this is my judgment, and my torment all in one lump sum. My winning lotto ticket from hell. But who really suffers? The innocent ones. Always the innocent.”

They sat in silence for a long time. Rose watched the squares of sunlight move across the grey speckled tiles. After a while she got up and le
~
~~~

Rose was in the university library, researching for a paper with Andrea when her cell phone buzzed.

“Rosie, it’s Sean.”

“Hey, nice to hear from you,” she said, voice pitched low. “What’s up?”

“Orli’s coming home tomorrow.”

“Oh my God!” she nearly shouted, getting hisses from the other students sitting around the same table. “What time?” she whispered.

“Around noon. But Rosie…”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“He’s leaving again. Robert’s sending him to Scotland. Some sort of facility there in the boonies, for people recovering from, you know, mental stuff.”

Rose was speechless for a few moments. “But – why send him so far away? I mean, aren’t there enough of those here in Southern California? God knows we’ve got plenty of crazy people…”

She could hear Sean laughing softly. “I’m glad you can joke about it, sweets. I’m past it myself.”

“I’m not joking. Did Robert say why?”

“I think Orli wants to go. He says he needs to get out of L.A. Get some real peace and quiet and be in a place where he can roam around and think about things.”

Rose felt a stab of jealousy. “You’ve talked to him?”

“Just this morning. He called to tell me.”

He didn’t call me, Rose thought, lead in her belly. “Did he – tell you to call me?”

Silence. “No, Rosie, he didn’t. But I figure he knew I would.”

“Was he all right? I mean, how did he sound?”

“Subdued. Honestly, he sounded like he’s on some major drugs…”

Rose heard odd huffing noises and realized Sean was crying. “Sean – are you ok?”

“Jesus,” he whispered. ”And I thought I couldn’t feel worse when he broke his damn back. I can’t believe – just can’t believe he held all that shit inside for so long. I swear to God if I ever get a hold of that bastard who did that to him…”

Rose had told Sean the story one night when he took her to dinner to talk about what had happened. She hadn’t wanted to but the poor man was so devastated and confused as to why Orlando was in a psych ward, she felt it was a mercy to tell him, even though the story wouldn’t make him feel any better.

“Believe me, I know how you feel.”

~~~

Rose rang the doorbell and Sean answered with Maude in attendance, wagging her tail frantically. They hugged briefly and sheked ked in. The entry to the living room was partially blocked by a large stack of soft-sided suitcases. Rose felt the corner of her lips start trembling. She averted her eyes and followed Sean towards Orlando’s rooms.

Sean winked at her solemnly and closed the door behind her as she stepped into the sitting room. Orlando was at the computer, doing his visual therapy, watching three dimensional shapes turn and move across the screen. She forced herself to look around the room and it felt like it was empty already, even though nothing was gone.

Orlando swiveled around in the chair and looked directly at her. She felt a thrill of shock.

“You can see me.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. I’ve got most of it back. Although I get tired easily and it flickers in and out.”

He looked different somehow. He looked thin and pale with dark circles under his eyes, but not terribly unhealthy. His hair had grown out some, but still stuck up in spikes. “Bed head,” Carly called it. She smiled at the thought.

Orlando smiled back, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Rose then saw it was his eyes that had changed. They looked like they were a million years old and had seen terrible things. Maybe that’s what a real Elf’s eyes look like, she thought sadly.

They looked at each other for a bit, Rose memorizing his every feature. “You’re leaving,” she whispered.

“For a while, yeah.”

Rose was overcome wimotimotion and she rushed to him, throwing herself on her knees in front of him and embracing his waist, sobbing into his stomach. “Please don’t! Please don’t leave me! I promised I’d never leave you…don’t you leave me!”

Orlando didn’t answer, but put his hands on her shoulders and caressed her gently. “It’s for the best, love. I need – to get away for a while.”

“I’ll go with you…I’ll take care of you!“

“Love, you have your own life to live and it would be very selfish of me to take you from that.”

“No! You said you loved me! How can you leave me?” she sobbed.

“Rose. Rosie, look at me.” He pulled up on her chin. “I do love you, that’s why I can’t do that to you. It’s too much. I couldn’t live with the guilt. I want you to have a better life than what I can give you. You deserve to have a man who can take care of you and love you properly. Someone who isn’t – damaged.”

Rose sobbed against his hand and looked pleadingly into his eyes. “I don’t care about that, what that horrible man did to you,” she told him, her face wet with tears. “I know you’re good and kind and generous and would never hurt me. That hasn’t changed.” She saw his eyes well up, but he blinked it away.

“It’s because of your belief in me that I haven’t completely despaired,” he said softly. “But still, I don’t know if I could love you like you deserve, my darling. I want the first time you lay with a man to be wonderful, because you are going to remember it for the rest of your life.” He shut his eyes and swallowed. “Believe me, I know.”

He lowered his head to kiss her forehead and she threw her arms around his neck, forcing him to her mouth and sliding him down off the chair onto his knees in front of her. His arms came around her back and the kiss deepened into passion. But Orlando pulled away, gasping.

“Rose, please don’t.”

“Orlando, why?”

He shook his head and pulled her arms from his neck.

“I can’t. I can’t separate the two. Your touch merges with his and it becomes – despicable to me. I won’t taint my love for you with his touch in my mind.”

“Let me help erase him from you mind, my love,” she whispered, caressing his face, tracing his bottom lip with her thumb.

“It doesn’t work that way,” he gasped, pulling her hand away. He got up slowly, painfully and walked away to lean on the Moria doorjamb.

“How do you know? How can you know without even trying?” she sobbed.

He shook his head. “I don’t trust myself, Rose. I don’t trust that I won’t lose it at any moment. The only reason I’m standing here having a rational conversation is because I’m on heavy duty meds, for godsakes. It’s the only thing keeping the demons from eating me alive.”

Rose’s neck prickled and she hugged herself, having an unwanted realization: He was like water in her palm. If she tried to squeeze tight, he would slip through her fingers. I can only hold him with an open hand.…God willing, he’ll come back to me soon.

~~~

Rose watched as Orlando got into the BMW with his father. Behind the window, he looked like a forlorn, lost child. Her eyes started burning again.

~~~

“Take care of her for me, Sean.”

“I will. I promise.” The two had hugged fiercely.

“Be well, my love,” he whispered as he held her. “Find yourself someone who’ll be good to you.”

She sobbed into his shoulder. “I have, but he’s leaving me.”

He had trembled then, in her arms, and she felt a rush of hope. But he let her go and wiped the tears from her face with his thumbs and turned away from her.

* translation of the French “endearments”: *

“ma petit sauvage” = “my small savage”, “my little wild one”

“ma peu velours saucisse” = “my little velvet sausage”

“mon ange” = “my angel”