Lehouah(Val Amant) Lehouah
Val Amant

3959 words


PROEM
I left high school at 16 then I left the Marines after 8 years of service. I went on two deployments, one for the first four years and one for the second four years. I saved all of my tour of duty and bonus money and most of my salary. Half went into the credit union half of which was placed into a don’t touch, high yield investment account. The other half literally got stuffed into my old mattress.

I got daddy’s house on a steal of a deal. It was in arrears. The shack sat on the edge of the National Forest Preserve where they found an aromatic elderly couple, deader than dead, three months after their demise. I bought it sight unseen from the bank site unseen since I was still stationed at my deployment. Daddy’s old beater Chevy pickup, paid for, rounded out my total assets that I never really got to enjoy.

I was comfortably all set for death when I returned from deployment. It was just a matter of how long I’d have to reach my desired destination. Outta my hands, buddy.



Chapter One
Tap. Tap.
I looked up, “don’ wan’ nothin’.”
I looked back down and continued cleaning my Beretta.
The young, slim, well-dressed girl of a dark complexion stood in the opened front door and stared at me. I could feel her eyes.
“I only need a minute of your time, sir.”
“If ya need a minute of my time you one hurtin’ lil’ girl. Besides, no sir livin’ here.”
“I’m Tamara Williams,” she responded immediately disregarding that I figured her to be one of those ree-lijus pains in the ass who visited with daddy when I was still a youngin.
I continued oiling the mechanicals of my deadly weapon that waited for my command, kill the fucker.
“May I sit?”
Not getting a response she sat on the edge of the sofa after she brushed it off with her hand. Her right arm supported her from the armrest.
I looked up, “purty dress.”
She looked down and blushed as she quickly pulled her skirt over her knees.
“I thought that maybe we could read some scripture and allow God to remove the pain and suffering from our lives.”
I looked around me then at her.
“Does it looks like I’m sufferin’?” I shrugged my shoulders with my palms up in the air, holdin’ my best friend half assembled or half disassembled, depending on one’s point of view.
I did some quick reassembling, everything oiled, then I pulled the bolt action back and aimed the gun at her. Her eyes elongated from heaven to hell.
“Don’ shoot tilya see the whites of thar eyes,” I exclaimed.
She didn’t know what to do at that very moment. Death was imminent.
I chuckled, “it ain’t loaded,” I put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger.

She closed her eyes, yelped at the sound of the hammer then opened her eyes to make sure that I maintained my distance, that is, if I were still alive.
“I probably should go.”
“It ain’t a minute yet like you promised, si’ down, you gonna fulfill your obligation.”
She sat back down and looked at me trying to find a way to get the hell out on the quick.
I got up and closed the door, dead-bolt it, then turned the lamp on that was sitting on the side table next to her.

“Read.”

She looked up at me, me standing inches away from her right leg. I put the gun barrel just above her knee and moved her skirt up, taking the hem of her dress up to her thigh revealing her pure white cotton panties.
“Read,” I whispered.

She lowered her skirt down to her knees as I turned to sit back down.

While Jesus walked the earth, he took off the outward robes of deity and put on the robes of a servant.

“Does you believe in what you sez?” I immediately jumped on her, figuratively.
“Yes sir, I do.”
“Then you do as the words tell you. You walk into my house like you gonna learn me sumptin’ dressed like a deity, look at ya.”
I leaned towards her.
“This is my house and I am the deity, you are my servant. Take ‘em off!”
She frightened back into her seat as I stared her down.

“If you don’ believe in what you readin’, thinkin’ and sayin’ then leave.”
She shivered.
“NOW!”
She got up quickly, unlocked the door and scrambled to her car in her low heels.

I got up out of my chair and watched out the doorway, leanin’ on the door jamb. She left the door wide open. She got into an older small car and drove off.
I went into the kitchen and got a shot of scotch then sat back down to finish cleaning my Beretta.
“Fuckin’ people have never seen the wrath of man, theys made in his image, the wrath of god killin’ each other like theys ain’t nothin’ but walkin’ piles of dirt and filth glued together, slowly comin’ unglued, piece by piece, dirt by dirt,” I spat on the floor and looked through the barrel of my piece seeing my buddies and the Taliban getting shot down in an unnecessary bloody mess, their body parts flyin into the air then into the dirt, piece by piece.

(..)
//_’_\\
_| \_

“I don’t know if I can do this, mom.”
“Why is that, hon?”
“I met this man today, really creepy.”
“Stay away,” her mom said adamantly, “did he hurt you, touch you?”
“Neither. His door was wide open. I looked in and tapped. He was cleaning his gun. I sat down on the sofa when he aimed it at me then he pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger.”
“Oh dear lord. You watched him shoot himself?”
“No! It wasn’t loaded. He was cleaning it.
“Stay away hon, there are plenty of normal communities where you can bring the word of God into their hearts and homes. I have to run to the grocery store, wanna come?”

“No, I have a paper to do for school.”
“Okay hon.”
“Have fun,” Tams smirked.
Her mother rolled her eyes and left.
Tamara sat on her bed and reread that part of the scripture to figure out what triggered him and if he actually knew what he was talking about.

~.~

Come Saturday morning Tamara drove to a neighborhood and canvassed. She saw Ava and Maria across the street, Ava drove her daddy’s Audi. They waved. She finished early and intended to go home for lunch when her arms turned the steering wheel down Hadfield Road. She passed all the single wide trailers then shortly turned down his driveway.


“Why is she going down there?” Ava asked as they drove down the state highway.
Maria looked out her window as Ava whizzed by Hadfield Road.

“Why am I doing this?” Tamara asked herself.
She sat in her car trying to decide if she should get out or go home. She got out.

Tap. Tap.
“You again.”
“Me again. May I come in?” she managed a smile.
“You gonna preach me words you don’ even behold?”
“No. Waste of time,” she said on the quick and smirked.
She walked up to the mantle then looked at him.
“Three purple hearts? A silver and a bronze star? I don’t know what these are?”
He looked up and didn’t engage her.
She turned facing him.
“Not gun cleaning day today?”
He pulled the Beretta off the bottom shelf of the side table and shot into the wall then put it back.
“Sounds clean ta me,” he said.
“Jesus Lord!” she whispered loudly and jumped.
“Din’ say ‘is name in vane, did chya?” he snickered and looked directly at her.
“You’re weird.”
He put down the net that he was repairing and stood up in front of her. He pulled off his shirt.
“One here,” he pointed at the bullet hole scar on his left side, “one here,” he pointed at his back left shoulder, and one here, “he dropped his sweatpants, his penis dangling, he pointed with his finger to the third.”
“Yeah, I’m weird.”
“Can I feel?”
His eyes met hers. She fingered the scared bullet hole.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked her words out.
He pulled his pants up and bent down to grab his net.
“Like fishin’?”
“Haven’t ever really gone fishing.”
He looked down at her feet, “got sneakers on. Smart girl.”
She grinned then followed him out the back door. He steadied the canoe as she took her seat. He pushed off and paddled through the marshlands into an opened pond. He floored the paddle, stood up, and hurled the small net. The canoe didn’t even rock.
She put her hand up to her mouth when he pulled the net in.
“Look at all of them!” she gasped.
“Well, start puttin’ ‘em in the bucket there,” he commanded.
At first she tried to pick one up lady-like with her two fingers. He rolled his eyes and laughed.
“Girl, use your god given hands.”
She laughed and started scooping them up.
“Be here all day the way you doin’ it.”
She thought that he was pissed.
“I’ve never done this before, gimme a break.”
“When you hungry, there ain’t no breaks, understand?”
She looked up at him.
“I think we got them all,” she said eye to eye.
“Umf,” he gathered and tossed the net again.
She improved on the second try then the third when the gallon bucket started to overflow with shrimp. He put the net away then sat down and paddled to the other shoreline.
He pulled a trap.
“Crabs!” she grinned and clapped her hands.

He smirked and pulled out two, dropped them onto the canoe floor then dropped the trap back into the water.
“They bite.”
She looked at them then him and giggled.
He paddled back to the shoreline, got out and held the canoe steady as she walked up front, put her hand on his shoulder and stepped out. She could feel his muscular military training.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she realized that he could have easily ripped her apart and disposed of her body in the marsh and nobody would’ve known the better.
He got the crabs and shrimp then hauled their catch to the back deck. He had a fillet wash table and set the crabs into a pot of water then worked the shrimp faster than she could imagine.
“There some tea and lemonade in the fridge, couple glasses and plates in the cupboard. Might be some I-Talian bread and butter.”
She nodded and went inside. To her surprise, the kitchen was tidy, clean and neat. She grabbed everything he said and fumbled with it all as she carried everything out to the rotted picnic table. He had the fire going in a homemade grill and the crabs were boiled alive, they scraping on the sides of the pot.
“Ew, how could you?”
“Ever eat lobster, crab before?”
She nodded.
“That’s how I can, just like you can, missy.”
“Thinking maybe I should go vegetarian,” Tams looked sad.
“Won’t kill ya.”
She watched him prepare the shrimp like a master. He breaded some, coconut covered some for the frier and boiled some more.
“Bring me ‘ur plate.”
She held it out as he plated her a crab and a mix of the shrimp. She set it down and brought the other plate.
He looked at her, she at him, “there are two of us here,” she said.
He nodded and plated the food.
“Bon appetit,” he said as they seated.
She bowed her head and mumbled something as he buttered his hunk of bread and watched her as sharply as he watched the enemy.





“This is soooo good,” she got into their catch.”
“We kin do fish next time, if ya want, maybe gator.”
She broke up, “no thank you, I mean, to the gator.”
“Chicken,” he said.
She grinned at him with tartar sauce on her lips. He put his napkin to her upper lip and she froze then shivered to his gentle touch as he wiped her lip.
“There other critters with eyes roamin’ around right now as we speak, but we kin also do vegan next time.”
“You’re really smart, aren’t you?”
“Lot’s of time to read. Never graduated college. You goin’ to college?”
“Planning on it,” she responded.
“What you wanna do with your limited days in your cloak of deity?” he asked.
She looked up at him with her pouty faced.
“I dunno. I want to help people,” she finally answered.
“Like you want to help me?”
“Not sure anymore. It’s all too confusing.”

“It is cause it’s so fuckin’ simple,” he stared out over the marsh, “a constrictor there jist got himself a field mouse.”
She turned and looked, “you see somethin’?”
He leaned over, his cheek flat against hers. “Follow my finger, the stump, the red leaf the rock …,”
“I see it! I see it! Wow!”
She rolled her cheek on his. He suddenly pulled back when her sweet breath took him over.
“After a while you notice these things,” he finally said.
“Like you said, they are out there.”
He laughed then got up.
“I’ll package up some shrimp, including fresh so you can take home for mama to cook up for you.”
She nodded and finished her tea.
“Thank you,” she said, “for everything.”


“Thank you. Never woulda done this if you weren’t here.”

“Can I stop by again?”
“Hey, it’s your life,” he chuckled.
“It is,” she murmured and gently nodded.

~.~

The next Saturday they were back in the pond area when she fell over and out of the canoe. They both laughed.
“Now what you gonna do?” he asked.
She stared at him then pulled her dress up over her head.
“Swim.”
She dove under and swam to the far shoreline then swam back.
“I never did this before.”
“Swim?”
“With a man watching me, me without any clothes on.”
“You got clothes on.”
Her eyes played on his. She reached down and tossed her cotton white panties into the canoe then released the clip behind her and dangled her bra into the canoe.
“Right at the moment, you’re the most beautiful critter in the marshland,” he said evenly.
She grinned, “this is so exhilarating.”
“Electrical shocks fingerin’ throughout your body? You’re bottom achin’, wantin’ more?” he asked.
She nodded and laughed, “I feel so free, unrestricted.”
He stared at her, “lunch?”
She grinned and nodded. He helped her over the gunwale and into the canoe. She sat on the floor at his feet as he paddled back to the shoreline. Though she was naked she felt very comfortable. With him.
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
“You gonna make some young man very happy someday with your beauty, inside and out.”
She looked down, “thanks, I needed that.”
He nodded.

“You’re not talking funny like when we first met.”
He chuckled, “drama. We know each other now, an old married couple,” he checked out her eyes, completing her nakedness, vulnerability.
She fell back onto the floor laughing, her total nakedness available to his eyes. He ran the shoreline and she immediately got up and grabbed the string of fish. She led them up to the back deck. He knew that she was exhibiting her newfound freedom and not being flirtatious. She was feeling one with Mother Nature, fornicating with her.
They stood side by side as they fillet the fish. She didn’t even wince at gutting it where his mind flashed to his comrades, victims of war that spilled their guts, literally.



There is no god in this world the way you see god, Tamara.

She looked up at him as if she heard spoken words without hesitating her work. She panned the fish in melted butter.
“Want them breaded?”
She nodded.
He brought a plastic container out and she dipped each fillet into an egg and breadcrumbs mixture, smiling, then panned them over the heat. He disappeared off the deck as she fried the fish. He brought back some greens, washed them, then made up plates for each.
“You grow the potatoes?”
“I did. They seem to be easy growers for me,” he grinned.

They ate and talked intellectual philosophy of the human concern. Her breasts were perky and bobbled when she laughed. She felt her person, she completely comfortable under his scrutinizing eyes. He? He saw a beautiful woman? No, he saw his angel.

After lunch he set out a thick foam-like pad and spread a towel over it. It came with a small pillow. She laid down and spread out.
“Mind?”
She shook her head. He palmed an oil extract from a clay jar and covered her entire body with it.
“Rose and fennel, from right here locally. Feel good?”
“I feel like I’ll orgasm.”
He smiled and palmed her breasts when she turned onto her back.
“Feather my nipples, they’re really sensitive,” she got up the courage to reveal her sexual self to him.
He did. She gripped the pad seriously and moaned, bringing her leg up.
“Feel good?”
She nodded. He played her vagina and fingered her clitoris.
“Don’t stop,” she murmured.

He got up and got her a wine. He took a beach chair and planted it at her feet and worked on something out of a wooden box that he pulled from under the grill.

“What you making?”
“Sit up, closer to me.”
She did. He worked a velvet blood red choker around her neck sporting a dropped pearl from inside a gold heart setting.
He palmed her cheek, “so you remember me.”
She fingered the choker and rested her head on his lap.
“This is so nice.”
“It’s your heaven as it is mine. It’s our heaven together,” he looked deep into her person.



(..)(..)
/(‘’)\/(::)\
_| \__| \_

Tamara never spoke to her mother anymore about Jacob Stanton. She didn’t need any negativity about him, her, it.

She was working another neighborhood and couldn’t wait to see Jacob to tell him how many people just loved her choker. She turned down Hadfield Road suddenly seeing Ava on her knees on the ground with some disheveled young man standing over her, his gun aimed at her head. He had her long hair pulled back in a firm grip in his hand, her bloody nose and chin in the air. Maria stood to the side, crying. Neighbors were all around screaming and yelling. Tamara pulled up and ran out of her car, leaving it running. Ava saw her as she continued to sob.


“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” the boy yelled at the half naked girl.
“Everybody, quiet down,” Tamara yelled.
They looked at her like who the fuck are you.
“Where are you when I need you?” Tamara closed her eyes, the palms of her hands down, trying to calm everyone.
She opened her eyes and saw him running up the road towards them. Almost angelically his arm pulled the boy’s head in close to his chest, as his other hand stripped the pistol and it dropped to the ground. The boy landed in Jacob’s arms as Jacob’s hands pulled the boy’s head close into his chest. He looked up into Tamara’s eyes, hers his.

They were one.

Jacob was caring for one of his warrior buddies, his mind flashed to the battlefield. Tams could feel the battle around them and went into action.

The sound came back to her ears as she and Maria tended to Ava and covered her up using Tamara’s faux leather jacket. Tams turned to see how Jacob was doing.

He wasn’t there.

The boy was lying on the ground in the fetal position, foaming at the mouth, dead. A neighbor kicked the gun away.

The cops arrived.

Tams needed to know what happened to Jacob. When things settled she drove down to his driveway, down the driveway then parked closer to the cabin than she normally parked.
She ran up to the opened doorway.


Tap. Tap.
She walked in.
The place smelled musty and looked like it hadn’t been inhabited for years if not decades. There were no medals on the mantle. She picked up the small picture of a soldier in uniform, it housed in a cracked glass drugstore frame.
“Looks like your daddy, Jacob.”

There was nothing in the fridge for like forever. She walked down to the shoreline. The decaying rotted shell of a canoe would no longer walk on water. She picked up the shrimp net and it disintegrated upon her touch. She walked back up to the back deck and saw the box under the rusted out unused, uncleaned grill.
She sat down at the old picnic table bench and lapped the box. She closed her eyes then opened her eyelids and the box lid at the same time.


She saw brand new pearl drop earrings in gold settings and a blood red velvet bracelet/anklet that matched her choker.
A tear dropped from her eye into the box. It wetted a piece of paper. She picked it up and unfolded it to read it.


Tamara,
Someday we’ll be together in our final destination and feel our love for each other close to our hearts. Until then, I want you to have these so that I can be close to you through your journey.
Love,
Jacob

She cried and cried and cried. She looked up and watched over the marsh. A constrictor took a field mouse as she watched with her newly trained eyes that she

learned to use to be just a titch closer to god. She put the earrings in and easily slid on the bracelet. She stripped naked and strutted down to the shoreline. She could feel mother nature embrace her and protect her. She felt free. She continued her journey into the ponded water in the marsh and swam out to where they fished. She floated and felt his embrace. He suckled her nipples and gently played her clitoris. She moaned, smiled and orgasmed. The slight breeze took her soul up to heaven, to him and back, theirs now joined.

She swam back to the shoreline and walked up onto the deck. She dressed. She went inside to his bed and pulled thousands of dollars from inside the mattress that was detailed on the piece of paper in the box along with the certificates to his accounts and signature cards with her name on them. She filled an old rotted pillowcase with everything and carried it to her car intending to fund the newly conceived Jacob Stanton Foundation. She looked at the cabin for one last time, got into her car and drove up onto Hartfield Rd to go home. Ava and Maria were gone. The police and EMS were gone.

A few of the neighbors were standing around the taped off scene talking amongst themselves. They waved at her and threw kisses at her.
He was standing to the side of the road as he looked up at her, looked up into her. He smiled and half waved then vaporized as she drove by.

The car radio stopped its song,

We interrupt this program with a special report. A young Jehovah's Witness woman, Tamara Williams, subdued a distraught veteran who was high on meth from brutally attacking and possibly killing another young woman. She held him close to her chest, the neighbors said, and prayed for him to let God remove his pain and suffering. He peacefully met his maker.

The song came back on the air.

“I’ll be there with you, Jacob, at our final destination,” she smiled with a tear in her eye as she looked up towards heaven.

~.~
Love is passionate, powerful,
painful & pure
~.~

• Share this story on
• 0