I had always figured that writers were fluffy femmes who wore flowery dresses and held expensive pens with long, perfectly manicured fingers and who sat upon fragile antique chairs at tiny antique desks and passionately and pensively scratched pen upon paper by candlelight until the wee hours of the morning. At least that's always what I thought a writer should be.

My hands were made to grip my worn hammer handle or to guide a saw as its teeth rip through virgin wood. My lips are not use to mouthing out what the next appropriate word should be, but are very accustomed to holding firmly in place a dozen nails with one side of my mouth while barking out orders with the other. For me, erecting a barn is much easier than building a correctly-structured sentence.

Yet, I have written this story because of a promise I made. A promise to an old, dying woman. You have no idea how I have regretted making that promise, yet still, I made it and as I've always said, a woman is only as good as her word. And my word is good or my name isn't Samantha Stone. Everyone, however, calls me Sammy.

So, that being said, let me begin. I know you may not believe what I am about to tell you, and for that, I can't blame you. If it hadn't happened to me, I don't think I'd believe it either. However, as I said before, I made a promise and by writing this story, I have fulfilled my obligation.

The story is about my Aunt Madeline, or Aunt Maddy as we call her. Aunt Maddy was our family's version of a crazy, old maiden aunt. She was born in 1930 on Halloween eve and died last week at the age of 70, on Halloween eve. Now I know that after reading this story you probably won't believe that part, that she died on Halloween. You'll probably think "Oh right, she expects me to believe that this happened on Halloween", but it's true. You can look her name up in the Freeport Maine obituaries - Madeline Stone - 10/31/00.

Ever since I was a little girl, I knew something was not quite right with Aunt Maddy, but no one could ever tell me what exactly. I suppose that is because no one ever knew. My Uncle George said she was crazy and delusional. I think he was the delusional one, the way he always told stories about how when he was young, how handsome and popular he was and how this woman and that woman wanted him and all the hearts he broke, but this story is not about Uncle George; it is about Aunt Maddy.

Uncle George told us that when they were children, Aunt Maddy was perfectly normal and fine. That she laughed and played just like all the other children. Then, when she was 20, let's see, that would've been back in 1950, something happened, and that's the part no one knows about. Uncle George just points to his own head and makes circles with his finger while he rolls his eyes. "She went loony," he says, then his eyes get real wide and he always whispers this part while looking around as if he doesn't want anyone else to hear: "She thinks she sees ghosts."

My own mother and father would never talk about her. They just told me that I should be kind and show sympathy to someone who "wasn't right in the head".

Aunt Maddy always looked all right to me. Mostly she just sat and stared out the window. Usually she'd have a distant, glazed look in her eyes as if she was looking at something far, far away. Other times, she'd have a slight little smile upon her lips. It was easy to miss if you didn't look hard, but I would watch her and sometimes I'd see it. She caught me looking once and then she knew I'd seen it.

She could hear all right. If you called her name, she'd turn her head and look at you, although she'd always wait three seconds before turning. It was as if she was somewhere else and it took her a few moments to come back.

"Aunt Maddy?"

One. Two. Three. Head turn. Like clockwork.

Then she'd stare at you and not say anything. If you spoke to her, she'd never answer. Always made you wonder if she heard you or not.

So anyway, that was Aunt Maddy. Perhaps that's not too weird you might say. 

Well, perhaps not. 

But it gets weirder.

Every Saturday night, for as long as I can remember, we'd hear noises coming from Aunt Maddy's bedroom. I often wondered why no one went in to check on her, but my Uncle George and my parents told me to mind my own business and assured me she was all right. And every Sunday morning, she'd come down to breakfast as if nothing had happened, so I guess she was all right.

But the noises were strange. It was almost as if you heard someone screaming in pain, but it wasn't all pain. It was partially pleasure too. I can't really explain it since I've never heard anything like it. Sometimes we'd hear loud thumping noises as if there was a struggle going on, or a bumping sound as if the bed were being pushed around the room. Loud groans, heavy breathing and, as I said before, the screams, always the screams. It was actually quite spooky and provided us many hours of terrified entertainment as children when we'd invite friends over for sleepovers and dare each other to sit alone, in the dark, outside her room. The longest anyone ever lasted was my cousin Jack who sat there for four and a half minutes.

I always wondered what went on in that room on Saturday nights. Uncle George said it'd been happening since 1950. Fifty years.

Okay, so now here comes the good part of the story. Aunt Maddy had been bedridden for the last year or so. Her condition had grown progressively worse each week. There was no way she had the strength to get out of bed, but we still heard the noises every Saturday night. A nurse was brought in to help take care of her and watch her 24 hours a day, but she refused to let the nurse bath her or stay with her through the night. I guess I can't blame her for wanting to maintain some dignity.

It was about a week ago, on the day before Halloween, and my girlfriend and I were decorating the old barn down on the lake behind our house for a party we were suppose to be throwing that night. We were giggling and laughing as we strung up cobwebs and we were right in the middle of splattering the fake-blood drops everywhere, including on each other, when I got the call. 

It was Uncle George and he said Aunt Maddy was frantically calling my name. She wanted me and he said I better come quick because he thought it was her time.

My girlfriend and I jumped in the truck, fake blood still on us, and drove right over.

When I got to Aunt Maddy's, my parents, Uncle George, a nurse and a couple of neighbors were all sitting in the living room. They all had that silent, unblinking, scared look that people get when they're around someone who's dead.

"Is she okay?" I asked, afraid that I was too late and she'd already passed on.

They all nodded; their eyes wide because of Aunt Maddy about to die and they got wider when they saw my girlfriend and me all covered with blood.

"Yes, but she wants you," my mother said.

"Why me?"

They all shrugged in unison. With their wide eyes and the simultaneous shrug they looked like a cartoon. If I'd have been watching it on TV, I'd have laughed. But right then, I wasn't laughing.

Slowly, I opened the door to her bedroom, entered, and soundlessly closed the door behind me, leaving the living on the other side. Immediately I felt like I didn't belong in that room. As if the room was reserved for the dead and I was intruding.

She lay in the large bed; the big fluffy comforter and pillows dwarfed her. Her skin color reminded me of no-fat milk; pale and pasty white. The skin on her hands and face puckered with all the wrinkles, especially around her lips. Deep lines and cracks were etched into her skin as if they'd been carved. She lay silent and still and I thought I was too late and that she was already gone.

Gently, I sat beside her upon the bed. "Aunt Maddy?" I whispered.

One. Two. Three.

Her eyes popped open, appearing as two large fried eyes sitting on either side of her thin, pointy nose.

"You came. God bless you child."

It was the first time I'd heard her speak. Her voice was weak, yet still she spoke clearly.

"Yes, I heard you were asking for me. What can I do for you?" I held her hand and when she squeezed her fingers around my palm it was as if five icicles had wrapped themselves in a fierce grip around me.

"You must do something for me. Do you promise?"

As I said before, a woman is only as good as her word, and when I give my word I intend on keeping it, so it made me nervous to promise something that I didn't exactly know what it was I was promising.

"Well sure, I mean if I can, I will, what is it?"

"No, no. You MUST!" She shook my hand as she spoke. "I must have your word. Promise me." Her eyes didn't blink, they just stared desperately into mine.

"Of course Aunt Maddy, whatever you need for me to do, I'll do."

"I need for you to write a story; my story."

I gulped. Write a story? Me? As I have already told you, I am not a writer, never have been and never hoped to be. I guess it was due to my nervousness that I chuckled.

"Aunt Maddy, I am not a writer, maybe we should call in Uncle George; he wrote that speech down at the Elks Club that time, remember?"

"NO! It has to be you. You are to write my story. She told me. She told me you can do it. She said she'd help you."

"Who Aunt Maddy? Who is 'she'?"

"Cynthia, my lover." Now she was squeezing my hand tighter and pulling at it so hard, she was about to pull her frail little body right up into a sitting position in the bed. She was working herself up into a tizzy as they say and I was afraid she'd have a stroke right there while I was holding her hand, so I figured I had to say something to calm her down.

"Okay, okay, relax Aunt Maddy. Whatever you need done, we'll get done. It'll be okay."

My words comforted her and she lay back upon the pillow. Her eyes, however, remained painfully large.

"You must write my story. Cynthia does not want me to pass without setting the record straight. I am not crazy. She wants you to tell them the story."

I nodded.

She closed her eyes as she continued to speak. Her wrinkled, blue-tinted puckered lips were the only thing that moved as if they and they alone, remained alive on her. She spoke slowly, yet clearly and between each sentence, she'd pause, wheeze as she inhaled, then begin speaking again.

"When I was 20 years old, back in 1950, people were starting to call me 'odd'. That's what they called old spinsters then; a woman who wasn't married by the age of 18 was considered an old maid. I felt perfectly fine, perfectly happy and didn't give a damn that I wasn't married. No man had caught my eye but still I was certain that someday, one would. Sure, plenty had come courting, but they were all so dreadfully boring. I even kissed a couple of them. I was curious what all the fuss about kissing was all about. Of course back then no one talked about kissing or touching or sex. It wasn't like today where people show no shame and nothing is sacred."

"So anyway, the men, they kissed like wild, famished lions tearing at raw meat. Oh, it was appalling. They were so rough and clumsy. And to make it worse, I'd heard from my best friend Sarah, who'd married one of the Delaney boys, that sex was simply horrible but something that we, as women, had to tolerate because it was our marital duty."

"It was October 30th, 1950, I shall never forget the date. A Saturday night and we'd all gone to the Halloween dance at the town center. It was fun enough but all the gangly, ugly, dull 'left over' young men were there looking for a wife, the good ones having long been taken by then. So on that night, I had more than my share of unwanted male attention."

"Of course I was tortured. I wanted to be like everyone else, wanted to be 'normal' and happy like the other women, but I had no interest in allowing a man in my life that I couldn't stand to be near, couldn't bear to let touch me. After having tried kissing a few of them and feeling it to be pure torture, and after what Sarah had told me, I came to the conclusion that I would grow old alone; be an old maid and never marry. It was with a confused and sad heart that I went to bed that night."

"At first, that night was as every other night. But soon, that night was to be different, very different. Something happened that night that would change my life forever. No sooner had I fallen asleep when a woman appeared beside my bed. I opened my eyes, saw her and of course was startled. I blinked a couple of times; she didn't go away. Was I dreaming I thought?"

"Her face had a softness to it that I cannot explain. I wasn't frightened. She reached down and took my hand. And in that moment, that connection of her hand touching mine, I suddenly felt and instantly knew what true love was. She smiled at me and spoke, her voice softer than peach fuzz. She said, "Madeline, my sweet Madeline, I could wait no longer. You are mine, my love. You belong to me as I do to you. It has always been and shall
always be. For eternity. I am your lover. I am who you have been waiting for."

"Although her touch felt so right and her face smiled at me with a warmth that melted my soul, I was still confused. It felt so right what she was saying and her hand upon mine, but love a woman? Back then, there were no words to even describe such a thing. The idea was completely foreign to me. She sensed my anxiety and immediately calmed me."

"Don't worry my darling. All will be well, this I promise you," she had said.

"And with that, she leaned toward me, her face came closer to mine. Her scent was light and intoxicating, that of fresh flowers. I closed my eyes and allowed her lips to gently fall upon my own. Oh what sweetness. Softer than the breath from the breast of a newborn bird; her lips tenderly brushed against mine. Their delicious taste I can recall to this day. And with  the softest of touches, her hands undressed me. It was as if for the first time in my life, I came alive. She knew exactly how to touch, how to love me. I ached for her, hungered for her. I felt and experienced sensations that I had never even been able to dream about before. We made wild and passionate love all that night. By the morning light she whispered that she had to go.

"I will come back next Saturday night my dear," she said. "Until then, keep this as a reminder of me," and after saying that she brought her lips down to my breast and kissed me again. This kiss was different than the others. This kiss burned, as if a red-hot branding iron had been placed against my skin; it burned, yet the burn traveled beyond my physical skin. Much deeper. It seared my soul. I closed my eyes and screamed at the instantaneous mutual torment and ecstasy. When I opened my eyes, she was gone. I was alone."

Aunt Maddy opened her eyes and looked at me.

"She has returned to me, my Cynthia, every Saturday night since. For fifty years. Two thousand and fifty nine times. She has only missed one Saturday; last Saturday. The last time she was here she told me that she would no longer come to me. She told me that now it was my turn to go to her; that now it is finally time for us to be together. She promised that next time when we come back to the physical, we will come back together and we'll live as a couple, without shame and without fear. She has promised me this bliss. So now, it is my time to go. But before I go, she told me I must have your promise to write my story."

Her eyes misted over as they filled. "You see? I am not crazy. Now, do I have your promise?"

My own eyes had begun to fog; a sniffle tickled my nose.

"Yes Aunt Maddy, you have my promise," I was able to whisper.

She closed her eyes again. "Thank you. God bless you child."

It was then her icicle fingers became limp in my hand and she was gone.

I sat for a moment, stunned at what had just happened. I stood beside her. Her thin puckered lips, appearing to have formed the slightest of smiles, had lost all color and were as translucent white as her skin. Gently, I laid her frail hand next to its mate upon her chest. In a daze, I walked into the other room.

Faces stared at me. As if from behind a thick velvet curtain, I heard someone speaking my name.

One. Two. Three.

Slowly, I turned my head toward the direction of the sound. My girlfriend stood before me, staring into my eyes. "Sammy? Sammy? Are you all right? What happened in there?"

"She's gone," I said.

As a group, they all took a quick inhale. Uncle George and the nurse ran into her room.

Well, what did she say? Why did she want you? Did she say anything about her will?

"Nothing, she said nothing. I just held her hand, and she was gone." I couldn't tell them what she had told me.

When the funeral home was preparing her for the final showing, they called in the medical examiner because they suspected abuse. She had marks all over her body. The examiner said he'd never seen anything like it. It was as if someone had tattooed over 2,000 lip marks all over her body except for the parts that showed. There were no marks on her face and hands. The marks were a dark reddish-black as if they had been burnt into her skin and they were the shape of a woman's lips. After interviewing everyone, the medical examiner concluded she was a masochist and had been self-inflicting the wounds for many years.

Oh yes, one last thing I almost forgot to tell you about. Before Aunt Maddy died, she told me what she wanted on her tombstone. Of course she made me promise, and you know how I feel about that. If you think it was easy convincing my family that this was her dying wish.... I mean, they're all beginning to look at me as if I am the crazy one. Anyway, this is what she wanted and this is what was carved:

Okay, so all of that was last week. This week I began the process of fulfilling my promise. But I just couldn't bring myself to tell anyone about what had happened in my Aunt's room, not even my girlfriend. I guess that was a big mistake, because I had to sneak off early in the morning and stay at work late at night to write this darn story. Little did I know my girlfriend became suspicious that I was having an affair.

The odd thing is, the story was a lot easier to write than I'd expected. I mean I'd just sit down at the computer and the letters clicked out upon the keyboard and words formed on the screen, almost as if I was watching it all happen. Before I knew it, it was written and I don't think it is half-bad for a butch who'd never written anything before.

Anyway, right when I finished writing the story and I figured I'd be cute and type in the proverbial "The End." Right then, after I typed that final period, all of a sudden as if possessed, my fingers, as if they had a mind all their own, typed the words "Thank you Sammy". I couldn't believe it, I mean even as I was typing it I was thinking how strange it was to be thanking myself. And it was right then, at that very moment when I felt a searing, burning sensation upon my right shoulder blade. The heat stung so bad that it sent me to the ground, to my knees. I wondered if I'd been shot but I hadn't heard any gun or anything. And trust me, I'm no wimp. I never even made a sound when I shot myself in the hand that time with the nail gun. Just pulled the nail out and kept on working. But this, this pain was different. This scorched my soul.

I went into the bathroom, pulled my t-shirt off, and there in the mirror, as clear as you are reading these words, was a pair of blackish-red lips engraved into my skin. I touched the shape; it was puffy and tenderly sore but still breathtakingly beautiful.

That night when I got home, exhausted from a busy day at work and from the crazy week I'd been having, and as I was undressing for bed, my girlfriend walked into the bedroom and saw me standing there with my shirt off. Then she saw the mark and freaked.

"What is THAT?!" she spit at me looking like one of those freaked out black cats you see at Halloween up on its toes and its back arched and its hair all standing straight up.

What could I do? I tried to explain it all to her. But she really wasn't listening because she was busy packing her suitcases. The final thing she said to me before storming out and slamming the door was that I was either a liar or delusional "like my crazy old aunt", and that either way she wanted nothing to do with me.

I guess I can't blame her. As I said before, if it hadn't happened to me, I don't think I'd believe it either.

So anyway, I'm glad that Aunt Maddy is finally happy and with her lover, even though it cost me mine. I'll get another one soon I suppose. That other one was a bit too high strung anyway. I need to find a new one. Someone loving and tender like Aunt Maddy's Cynthia. Whoever she is, I hope she likes my tattoo.

Oh, and one last thing, my girlfriend, I mean ex-girlfriend, has spread the word around town that I'm 'loony', and well, Freeport is a rather small town; word travels fast. It's kind of affected my business, so if you need any construction work done, I'd certainly appreciate being given the chance. I work hard, am honest and do great work. "Dykes Do It Right,Inc.". We're in the book.

©Oceanldy