I'm Different Than You

"Go figure."

Writing is my calm before my storm of anger, hurt, and rage. Writing is my way to write all those things that I perceive as beautiful, interesting, and/or wrong. Writing is how I think through things and process all the thoughts that collect, accumulate, and take up precious space in my mind. Writing not only makes me feel relaxed and at peace with myself but also writing makes me feel normal. Just as I can't imagine a day without breathing, I can't imagine a day without writing. Just as talking, drawing pictures on a wall, sculpting form and shapes, or paintings on canvas, writing is my form of communication.

Writing is the quiet time that I need to quell the constant ringing in my ears. Something that I'll have for the rest of my life, the ringing is from my ex-husband hitting me while cupping and quickly clapping his hands over both my ears. Slapping my ears at the same exact time, that cause a damaging amount of explosive air pressure and did permanent damage to my hearing.

As long as I shall live, I'll never forget that stinging and ringing feeling. As if a knife pierced my brain, that was so very painful. Luckily, I don't need perfect hearing to hear the things that I need to hear to write my stories. I hear them in my head.

Early on, my life started with a severe speech impediment. I couldn't speak a word. It took me several minutes to utter a single sound. An emotional problem and not a physical one, I had years of speech therapy and none of it helped. I was doomed to live silently and quietly without talking. Gradually, over the years, as my memories of the traumatic events faded and were replaced by better things and more positive experiences, I slowly regained my ability to speak.

Sadly, what was much worse than having a severe speech impediment was how people treated me when having a severe speech impediment. People my age made fun of me. I was constantly and continually teased, ridiculed, laughed at, humiliated, and called names. Preferring to stay to myself, rather than to be made fun of, I had few friends. The adults looked at me as if there was something wrong with me. Some would raise their voices when talking to me as if I couldn't hear them while others looked at me as if I was mentally challenged and couldn't understand them no matter how loud they talked.

Instead of hanging around with the other kids, I went for long walks alone. Fortunately for me, able to walk anywhere from anywhere, I lived in the North End of Boston, the Italian section of the city. My haunting ground was the Boston Commons, the Public Gardens, the Charles River Esplanade, Commonwealth Avenue, and Newbury Street. I used to routinely walk to the Boston Garden or Fenway Park. With Newbury Street crowded with people and lined with shops and boutiques, every day was a celebration of sights and sounds. Every day inspired me to write.

Boston has a history of famous writers who lived in Back Bay and/or on Beacon Hill. Whenever I walked around Boston, I imagined Nathanial Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost, and Louisa May Alcott, Sylvia Plath. Oddly enough, a dream job come true, I ended up working on Newbury Street, first for a furrier as his controller and then for an exclusive modeling agency as her business manager. I met my ex-husband on the corner of Berkley and Newbury Street during the Red Sox World Series parade. He was a Boston cop pulling detail duty as many of the Boston police did that day.

A time before special needs education, because I was unable to verbally communicate, my teachers stuck me in the back of the room. It wasn't until I was given an IQ test and received the second highest score in the school that my teachers gave me special attention. The kid who earned the highest score in the IQ test earned a 4-year scholarship to Harvard University. Alas, later in life, my emotional battles got the better of me and I dropped out of school at 16-years-old and left home to live with a friend at 17-years-old.

Without taking classes in preparation of taking the GED test, it was several years later that I earned my GED, general equivalency degree, by walking in a GED testing site and taking the test. I scored in the top 99%. Having missed the boat with college, paying my way through school while working full-time, I attended night school at Northeastern University in Boston.

Rubbing elbows and receiving educational instruction from the most educated minds in Boston, most all of my professors had Ph. D degrees. My creative writer teachers all had MFA degrees. Suffice to say, I had great professors and teachers.

When most drop out and don't finish night school to earn their degrees, it took me 5, long years of hard work. By going to school through the summer while taking a full course load, four semesters and 16 courses a year, I finished. I graduated suma cum laude with my bachelor's degree in English with Creative Writing and English Literature minors. Most nights I wouldn't arrive home until after 10 pm and had to awaken by 6 am to get ready for work the next morning.

Glad that it was over but prouder of myself for sticking with it, my education was something that no one would take from me. Oddly enough, I always thought that I needed a college degree to be a writer. I didn't. I thought that a college education would make me a better writer. It didn't. Other than term papers, I didn't write a damn thing in college. All I did was read, at least a book a day, sometimes two books a day, just keep up with the program and the course load.

* * * * *

Always reading when I wasn't writing, it was reading what others had written that made me a better writer. I was reading college level literature when I was in junior high school. From an early age, I was a student of the classics, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, James, Woolf, Wharton, Faulkner, Wilde, Morrison, Steinbeck, Twain, Dickens, Vonnegut, Melville, Hawthorne, Salinger, Poe, Lee, King, Chandler, Walker, Capote, Emerson, and others. Without doubt, reading as well as writing made me a better writer.

Virginia Woolf was the first writer to use stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Able to write a multitude of thoughts and feeling which passed through the mind of the reader, used much in the way of interior monologue, streams of consciousness allowed me to take the reader inside the head of my characters. By not having to explain all that I wrote, streams of consciousness as well as interior monologue allowed me to write stories with less narrative and dialogue. Whereas streams of consciousness are better used in first person and best used for a psychological novel, interior monologue is best suited for third person and character development.

Unless I pursued my education and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, it was then that I decided that no one can teach anyone how to write. All that teachers can teach are English grammar and the mechanics of writing. Something that someone is born to do, either you can write or you can't write. Either you want to write or you don't. Writing takes hard work and discipline. It means giving up friends and family to shut yourself out the world to write while alone with your bad self.

Working to earn an MFA degree would have taken me into the real mechanics that writers use to write their stories. A Master of Fine Arts degree would have helped me to interpret stories better and easier. I would have learned not just the terminology of creative writing but all the hidden techniques and stylistic secrets that writers employ and readers never notice. Having an MFA degree was necessary for me not only to be a better writer but also to teach writing to others. Only, the last thing that I wanted to be was a teacher. The last thing that I wanted to do was to stand at the head of a room in front of a class of bored students.

* * * * *

Part of what made me who I am, some of my defining moments, was from my pain and suffering that I endured from being emotionally, physically, and sexually abused. My uncle forced me to give him oral sex because I was blonde, pretty, and had big, blue eyes. I remember him slapping me across my face if I didn't stare up at him as I stroked him and sucked him while looking as if I was enjoying it. Not the only one to sexually abuse me, my piano teacher sexually abused me for five years. Burning me with cigarettes, my cousin, berated me, beat me, tortured me, raped me, and then tried to murder me by drowning me in an icy pond in February.

Even now, so very many years later, never have I ever been as cold. Even today, so very many years later, my fingertips and toes still tingle as if they're still warming after being frostbitten. I thought I was going to die until I saw Mother Mary not floating but hovering beside me under the water. She was dry and I was soaking wet. Mother Mary was my patron saint. I still wear a medallion of Mother Mary around my neck and I silently prayed to her every night and every day whenever I needed help or comfort.

"It will be okay," she said as soon as I saw her and was all that she said.

As soon as she said that, I remember relaxing. Having made my peace with God, I was ready to die. Yet, I remember it as if it was yesterday, as soon as she said that it will be okay, I stopped struggling and relaxed. As soon as she said that it will be okay, my cousin's hand reached down for me and pulled me up to safety.

As if being born again, I was ready to surrender to the suffocation of the water. Yet, once pulled to the surface and feeling alive again, as if being punched in the ribs, that first big breath of air was painful and was like nothing I've ever felt. With everything so still and so quiet when I was drowning, it felt as if I was dead and buried in a coffin before being delivered in the middle of a New Year's Eve crowd in Times Square. Ready to walk into the bright light, yet, as soon as I thought that I don't want to die, I didn't die.

Sadly, once my cousin pulled me to safety, it was then that I discovered that I couldn't utter a word, not even a single sound. Yet, surprisingly enough, not being able to speak turned out to be a blessing. Instead of talking, I observantly watched and I patiently listened.

The funny thing about talking, I missed a lot from the sound of my own voice interrupting my thoughts. Now that I was mutely quiet, I could clearly hear what this one and what that one said. Most of what I heard was nonsense but other times, I heard some interesting things. I still use the conversations that I heard then in my stories and as character development now.

Not surprisingly, I'm a character writer. Having quietly studied people by watching their interactions while listening to them talking, I enjoy writing about people. Oddly enough, I still silently watch and listen to people interact with one another. It doesn't take much to inspire me to write, a word, phrase, the look in someone's eye, a trait, a characteristic, or even a smile.

When writing about someone, when trying to capture them, and when I'm developing a character that suddenly comes to life is when I know that I did my job in my developing their character. Then, once they stand behind my chair to whisper in my ear is when I listen to my characters. They tell me what they need to tell me for me to write their story. It's then that I turn the keyboard over to my characters to allow them to write their own story.

Instead of only writing what I know, it's because of developing characters that I'm able to write about anything and about anyone. I routinely write in most categories on the Literotica site. Being that I write custom and personalized stories for fans for a small fee, most of those fans who want me to write a story for them, want me to write an incest story, specifically a mother and son incest story.

"The Devil made me do it."

With incest and incestuous stories the biggest attraction on the site, most fans want me to write a story about them with their mothers, their sisters, their aunts, their cousins, their mothers-in-law, or their sisters-in-law. Many fans want me to write a story about them meeting me and us having sex. Being that I'm a survivor of incestuous abuse after my four brothers gang raped me, and my uncle and cousin sexually abused me, I'm able to write what I know. Being that I was forced to experience it first hand, incest is what I know and what I write the best.

Yet, once I develop my characters, going against writing what I know, I don't need to know the finer points of anything to write about it. I don't need to know the inherent, personal details of anyone to write about them. Between my development of characters, my creative mind, and my imaginary musings, it is then that I can write about anything because my characters do that for me. With my developed characters experienced in this subject or in that occupation, they tell me what to write. While they whisper what to write in my ears, it's a story of teamwork effort.

I've always had a multitude of people standing behind me and looking over my shoulder while reading as I write. Constantly, they change my story for me to put in their thoughts. Continually, they whisper in my ears to write this or that. At least when I die, I won't be alone. I'll have all those characters that I invented coming along with me.

"I'm going to need a bigger coffin and a bigger plot to fit all my characters that are coming with me. How much for a pyramid?"

* * * * *

The emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that I suffered growing up was much worse than the abuse that I suffered when married. Able to endure anything, once someone has suffered such horrific emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse, there is nothing more that anyone can possibly do to them to hurt them and harm them, other than to torture them and kill them. Had I not experienced as much abuse back then, I never would have survived the abuse from my angry and drunken ex-husband later. He was a man who needed psychological therapy but refused the help. Whenever he came home drunk, which was seemingly all the time, my ex-husband beat me for three years, the length of our abusive marriage.

He knew that I wanted children and we fucked like rabbits night and day trying to get me pregnant. With my mother having five children and being fertile enough to have had several abortions before she was married, I didn't understand why I couldn't get pregnant. Obviously, there was something wrong with him but he refused to be tested. It wasn't until after we signed our divorce papers that he confessed that he didn't want children and had a vasectomy just before we were married. If I had a gun, I would have shot him dead.

An ex-Army Ranger, he served two tours of duty in Afghanistan and two tours of duty in Iraq. A bat shit crazy, mother-fucker, seemingly not caring if he lived or died, and because of that, he was a very dangerous man. Born to it and good at it, he wanted to make a career out of fighting and killing. After being wounded several times, the last time that he was wounded was severe enough for the Army to ship him home for good for rehabilitation.

Able to fluently speak a multitude of different languages and dialects, with him having an ear for it, and with him working in conjunction with the CIA, he wanted to stay in the Middle East and never return home. Wishing I had never met him, I wish he had stayed in the Middle East. Wanting to be a career mercenary soldier, he wanted to work for a private contractor that is until he was severely hurt, nearly died.

"A missionary soldier is where the big money is," he said. "When flying home on a military, cargo plane and not having to deal with TSA or with customs, with no one checking my bags, I can smuggle anything into the country, including money, especially money."

A 5th degree black belt in judo, he was proficient in jujitsu, kickboxing, and aikido. He could do more with one finger than most men could do with their fists. He was the guy who trained Green Berets, Rangers, and Navy Seals how to fight in close, hand-to-hand combat. With every fight a life or death combat, those men didn't fight to win. Kill or be killed, they fought to kill or severely maim.

I saw him in action once when he took on five men. Minding our own business, when he knew it was going to turn ugly, he got up to leave. Then, when one of the men said something about me and actually touched my ass, something out of the movie Equalizer, before the man could pull his hand away, his arm was broken.

The fight scene looked like something from a Jason Borne movie scene but only in fast forward motion. I never saw anyone throw punches and kicks as fast and as deadly accurate. Over in seconds and as quickly as it started, the fight was won as quickly as he could punch, kick, and put down five men. They didn't stand a chance. They had no idea who they were messing with when they started trouble with him over me. When only fighting one man, as if he was an MMA fighter, once he got them in a hold, and once he got them down on the ground, the fight was over.

One would think that someone like him, an ex-Army Ranger of honor, wouldn't hit a woman. Yet, he knew how to hit me without leaving a mark. He knew how to hit me to inflict the most pain. He knew how to hit me so that I wouldn't bleed or bruise as evidence to show the police that I had been beaten.

With no one to call to protect me, not even my brothers, who raped me, I couldn't call the police when he was the police. Brothers in arms, they stood by one another and protected one another and he was one of them. Assuredly, to his defense, it was deemed my fault for upsetting him. Besides, he was the one who trained the police how to fight. He was their teacher. He was their master. He was their sensei

Much later in his career, he was the one putting his life on the line by working undercover as a big, bad biker dude. Playing the role as if he was born on a Harley, no one knew or even suspected that he was a cop and working undercover for the Boston Police. He'd be dead if they suspected. Perfect for that sort of dangerous detail, he enjoyed living on the edge.

He did some things, some very bad things, that he felt compelled to tell me whenever he was drunk, which seemingly was all the time when he wasn't working. Afraid that I'd turn him in, he threatened to kill me if I ever left him. He knew, as his wife, that I couldn't testify against him. Yet, I had to leave him. I figured that I'd die if I stayed with him. The last straw was when he shoved me down a flight of cellar stairs and left me there for dead, unconscious and bleeding, while he was out partying with his friends.

He coerced me to participate in the swinging lifestyle and we did that for two years. He stopped when I received more sexual attention than he did. No woman wanted to be with an angry and violent drunk and he was always drunk, angry, and/or violent. We stopped when he called me a whore even though he was the one who forced me to have sex with other men. Yet, if nothing else, swinging help me to write erotica. What I haven't done, I've either seen it done or have written about doing it.

* * * * *

Just as my much older, four brothers were all bad men, my ex-husband was a bad cop. Back in the late 70's and early 80's, when I was still a child, my brothers worked as collectors, enforcers, and leg breakers for the mob. They were who they called when the boss had a problem with someone. Contract killers, they were the fixers who took care of things. From shooting, knifing, dismembering, burning, and killing, there was nothing violent that they didn't do or wouldn't do.

My eldest brother Freddie, baptized as Federico, the smallest and the meanest of the four, was 6'2" and 230 pounds. Then, there were the twins, affable and always laughing, Vito and Guido, were 6'6" tall and weighed 260 pounds. Even I sometimes had difficulty telling them apart. The baby was Big Louie. He stood 6'9" and admitted to weighing 320 pounds but we all knew that, with the scale only going up to 320 pounds, he weighed closer to 360. Literally, the big, bad bogeymen, these were men that you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.