My Life & How It Has Changed Me Book 8

Chapter 4

The Honeymoon

I used to wonder what adults do during their honeymoon; some say they travel the world and give you a silly grin that said we basically had a lot of sex and room service. I can tell you what my sister Susan did when she got married to the biggest jerk on the planet. It didn't matter how many times people told her not to marry him; talk about picking from the bottom of the rotten, smelly garbage-can. That not even a hobo on the streets would pick. It was abundantly clear that Susan the ice queen was unwanted by all, and I can assure you she would reject you in a heartbeat, leaving you to question your own mental faculties and possibly causing a tetanus shot and having to be treated for frostbite, because of the mere act of touching her.

It is quite possible that upon realizing the unfortunate reality of having been tricked into having sex with her, you may experience intense feelings of distress and disgust, leading to thoughts of self-castration and blending your genitals in a blender. After being drugged by her and waking up the next day, assuming she did not already carry out these actions on you, of course. Despite the passage of time, she has steadfastly maintained her reputation as a cold-hearted bitch, with no sign of any transformation.

I can also guarantee she didn't do what I did, either, regarding her honeymoon. News flash. The most unimaginable thing I have ever heard of is when she went to Lagoon, an amusement park much smaller than Six Flags or even Disneyland, for the entire day and returned the next day without even spending a night in a hotel room - it was even worse than I could have imagined. As a wedding anniversary present, she took not only her but also our parents along for the ride, especially since she planned the wedding to coincide with our parents' wedding anniversary on that very date. Talk about lame and stupid. That wasn't even the worst part. They didn't even have sex; they shared their hotel room with our parents.

Despite being no secret, the knowledge of her pre-marital sexual encounters lingered in the air. The very essence of it didn't go unnoticed, like an undeniable truth that hung heavy in the atmosphere. It was a truth that extended beyond just her; my own experiences were intertwined, as was my mother's insatiable appetite for male companionship. Even my sister Becky was no stranger to such indulgence.

Yet, when I took the plunge into matrimony, the intensity of my sexual encounters reached new heights. It was a whirlwind of passion, a symphony of desire that played out behind closed doors. And it was crucial to acknowledge that these encounters were reserved exclusively for my spouses, meaning my two wives and husband, neither my adoptive nor biological parents were ever involved. Especially during our honeymoon phase, a sacred time when privacy reigned supreme.

Even they understood the importance of granting me my personal space, allowing me to explore the depths of intimacy without intrusion. There were moments, like during the enigmatic Black wedding or the hours leading up to the raid, where we could find solace in our own world.

But being only sixteen, almost seventeen, cast a shadow of restraint over our desires. The blessing bestowed upon us by my adoptive parents to enter into marriage couldn't fully ease the weight of our youth. Our union, while not entirely legitimate, held a semblance of legitimacy that allowed our love to flourish.

It didn't go over so well booking a reservation for a cruise without at least some sort of guardian to vouch for you. We found the current state of things to be completely acceptable and more than satisfactory for us. We had a tremendous amount of fun and enjoyed ourselves immensely. I smile every time I think back to the good old days. When not even my own so-called relatives besides my grandmother and my mother really truly understood what was going on. My sister Susan, and my father Jim not so much. To them, it was all a fake and a show, but even though the marriage was a fake, mostly? We acted like it was the real deal and not just a cover story. The emotions we felt for each other were the most real for us all.

My adoptive parents not once considered it a fake or a show and neither did my friends or their parents. In fact, they made sure they told the whole damn world about it, so we would be treated like adults, with real adult problems. They butted out when we had our fights or gave advice when we asked for it when our partners were having a plain old bad day. We fought like a married couple, and we loved each other like a married couple. We made decisions as a married couple; we paid our rent and utilities and paid for our own groceries like a married couple.

True, we were millionaires at the time … well at least on paper. I remembered an assignment we once had in high school where we would get married using some sort of lottery. So, we could all learn what married life was really like and that included having a baby. The only difference in our case was we were married, and we were having an actual baby. Many of the marriages failed in that experiment. Ours didn't because in the end we were still married, and we were still having a baby, and our problems were real, not imaginary. Yet it was the best time of my entire life. I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

As previously stated, during that time frame, we were dubbed the Carrion four, but our circumstances would soon undergo various transformations, bringing both positive and negative experiences that contributed to the overall uniqueness of my strange yet fascinating life. It was what people on the street and in school called us; they called us other things like freaks and other things that just aren't worth repeating. We heard them all, and we smiled, knowing they didn't understand what life was really like for us. Then they didn't know what we were facing every day or what was going on in their own backyard. For if they knew they would wake up screaming with nightmares, facing death every damn day; every time they saw the news about a missing kid on the street or a local family gone missing or worse a group suicide. Even a rogue cult was found dead inside a building; no one wanted to know the actual truth, not really.

So, we let them tease us and call us hateful names as long as it kept them safe and not really knowing that the boogeyman was real. No one pinned a medal on our chest or even called us a hero for all the lives we had saved during the satanic panic of the 80s.

Despite everything, it is fitting that Susan and her husband, Sean Lindsy, who is widely regarded as a jerk, did not know of the fundamentals of authentic love. The sole belief she held was that being married would effortlessly resolve all her problems … as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Most of it was my mother's fault for letting it happen. She taught her nothing about money, except how to spend it; she didn't learn how to cook or clean a house, or raise children.

Susan, who didn't think going to college was worth the effort, had developed a pattern of continuously reminding me and my friends that our opinions and statements were unfounded and lacking in knowledge. While she observed us diligently studying and completing school assignments, it was evident that she had a tendency to neglect her own academic responsibilities, often settling for the bare minimum required to meet the passing criteria. Telling us that her husband would provide everything she would ever need.

All they would need is a high school diploma and they would be set for life. She didn't think that having a job or good grades mattered because her husband would provide everything on a silver platter. Not even he needed to have a college degree; he was planning on taking over the family business of an electrician, that went belly up after one year after they got married. By then, she had one child and one on the way; with no income coming in to support them.

Neither of them could get a job. Both Susan and her husband Sean Lindsy had a habit of refusing job offers, making it clear to both us and others that they considered the offers to be beneath their standards, all while desiring a substantial salary without exerting any effort to earn it.

Over time, her husband developed a severe addiction to both alcohol and drugs, causing his life to spiral out of control. Because of his recurring issues with alcohol and drugs, he frequently let his temper get the best of him while on the job, resulting in multiple times being fired. She would say, 'Oh, everything's fine. They just needed to catch one good break to put them back on their feet.' Borrowing money from his parents because my mother didn't have any, and she was busy trying to borrow money for me and Aaron, the only two people who had actual jobs and the sense to get as far away from them as possible.

He and I were going to college and had good jobs and supported ourselves. Susan and Becky hated me for it. My father hated me even more because of it, but mostly because I had learned what being married was truly like. I listened to my adoptive parents and used everything I knew about life from the only people that really mattered and that was my foster parents like the Fry's, the Steeds, the Downings, but most of all the Rothwells. Then, of course, my friends and the people I was married to. I didn't get involved in my family's mess. I learned to stay out of it; I learned to keep my head down and most of all never be home if I could help it.

The honeymoon, I could say, was without a doubt a new experience for me, but more so when the honeymoon was over. Some people tell me it was the first time they actually saw each other naked, or have had sex. And I would smile, saying 'Dude, being naked is nothing new when we're raised as a nudist, and having sex was the least of my problems.' They would ask what happens next. I would give a silly grin and walk away. Tell them 'Life is what happens, and it's one hell of a roller-coaster ride.' Telling them to ask me after their first six months when they get bored with seeing each other naked and sex wasn't the same as it was the first time.

They would gasp at my little games we would play, asking me if that was even possible. I would tell them to go and find out. Yet, apparently, I didn't learn my own lesson because I made that one mistake; by letting it all go, letting everything I loved about my life back then go. Because the world changed, because of that I changed with the world thinking everything I did back then was wrong. Yet, the one thing that I was back then. That I am not now, and that was happy, thinking that I needed to be punished for all the things I did. In fact, I still do.

Yet every time I think back to the good old days it always brought a smile to my face. I smile when people gasp when I say there was a time when life meant something to me. They would ask and then they would look at me and say no. it's a lie, it's not true, or they would look at me and call me a monster, or immoral, that I should have been arrested for it. My adoptive parents and friends should have been arrested for it; most of all, they didn't believe the boogeyman was real. They couldn't believe people like my father Jim, or the church of the occult were real. I made it all up.

Sometimes I wish that was true, but it wasn't make-believe. It wasn't a fantasy or fiction of an excellent storyteller with a good active imagination. How many nights have I laid awake or woke up screaming, or found my father and my mother trying to kill me? Yes, the boogeyman is real, and the people who have gone through any of the things I have gone through wish that it was never real. I have faced death many times, so many that death is nothing to me and something to look forward to because then the boogeyman can't hurt me anymore.

I wasn't afraid of the High Bishop anymore; I knew he couldn't hurt me unless I let him. He was right. In the shadows, there are a myriad of terrifying monsters, all vying for the chance to replace him. I put forth my utmost effort to divert my thoughts away from the distressing incident wherein he callously took the life of an innocent child in front of our entire group. The weight of the situation hit him hard as he realized he had no choice but to comply with the demands, even though the act itself was too terrible to put into words.

The chilling aspect was intensified by the haunting threat that he could lose everything he cherished, with nobody else surviving except for him. Throughout all my encounters with him, I had never once seen him express remorse or shed tears for the things he had done. Until that night when it was me and Eli holding him in our arms as he wept for him, telling us he did it, and the Queen and her warlocks made him do it. I knew that I had seen it for myself. Jeff confirmed it, telling me sometimes monsters are bad for a reason and others are truly the monsters.

My father and mother were monsters. My father still is. My mother had been a monster almost like the High Bishop, but like him, he no longer wanted to be a monster. I could relate knowing from experience knowing my mother before her monster days. So, I held him in my arms; telling him that like my mother, he too could change. It still bothered me every time I touched him or came near him, always smelling the root of evil, but it had lessened some or I had gotten accustomed to it. He was a long way from not being a monster like my mother was. It wouldn't be overnight. It would take more than one night of kindness, or even months.

In fact, in some ways, I really never truly forgave my mother for it. There was always doubt, there was always that one chance where she would lose control, in anger and frustration where she could take it out on me and Aaron … and over the years I made sure when that happened we wouldn't be around so she couldn't hurt us, or I would hurt her. I always kept my guard up.

In fact, I used to keep some sort of weapon nearby or hidden just in case the monster came after me. Trust came with a price attached to it and facing death every damn day made it, so I was prepared.

High Bishop Ken was fully aware of the potential danger. My adoptive Mom and Dad had informed him about the potential consequences of causing harm to me. Their point was clear - if I didn't kill him, Eli would be there to do it or finish the job. And to ensure my safety, with the help of all the rotating teams of guards in the house, a constant reminder of his impending doom would accompany Eli, their eyes gleaming with cruel satisfaction at the prospect of his dismemberment. They would reduce him to a gory and unrecognizable mess of blood-soaked flesh. And if he somehow managed to survive, he had better pray that he is dead by the time my adoptive Dad arrives. Because my adoptive Dad would kill him without hesitation. And if Stringham arrived, he would leave nothing for the birds to feed on. High Bishop Ken knew me. He knew I was trained to kill. He had gathered every piece of information about me. So, he knew that if it came to that, I would not hesitate. He had given a blood promise to my adoptive parents to keep me safe. And he knew that he always kept those promises.

After a nice dinner, I said goodbye to my adoptive family, telling me to call them, even though Stringham would know if I was in trouble long before that, and with Tony and Jenny overseeing things I was safe here if not safer. My mermaid friends had decided to join me as well so they could spend time with me as promised. So, you could say we had a very full house with his friend HJ and his two friends the Kingston's all under the same roof with the Benson's.

We only had one little detail to work out, and that was we needed proof that the "Preparing Ritual" had been completed. The only difference was that HJ, and the remaining Nines wanted to see the new and improve a way of love and compassion regarding the new "Preparing Ritual." Which we totally could understand even though I wasn't comfortable with the idea, as grandma would say the proof was in the pudding. Once again Eli and I became the teacher as he explained the new process of what that included; letting the High Bishop take point and asking if they were just interested in the new coring procedure or the entire procedure.

I groaned when they said they would like to see the whole thing from beginning to end. I smiled and wheeled myself in front of the camera and said. "Sorry boys, if you would like a free sample, perhaps after Eli and I teach High Judge Randle and his two inquisitors they can give you each a lesson." I nodded to Thomas, and he turned off all the cameras, telling them they would be contacted when the coring procedure began. I heard angry snarls as the pictures on their monitors went cold.

Eli and I exchanged smiles, expressing our shared joy. Eli said, "We are going to play a new game. Its call sex tag, or known as a three-way man striptease and stimulation." Offering him no hint or explanation of what that signifies.

A broad grin spread across the face of the High Bishop as he uttered his words. "Sounds fun; have you ever kissed a boy Randle, my old friend, and roommate?" As I closed the door, leaving my friends and our wives to keep everyone else occupied. Randle looked at us and swallowed hard and said. "Yes, when I married my first husband at sixteen; and only that one time."

The High Bishop grinned even wider and backed him into a corner and said. "Prepare to be properly kissed."