The Tree Goddess Read online

  Stephanie was very fortunate to have a brick-enclosed office with a door that locked shut. And just like many days at the office, she would often take her frustrations out on the balloon by biting it, sometimes in frenzy, attempting to make it burst. The teleconference call was most boring. Fortunately Stephanie she had a friend to torture.

  “Stephanie, is the cord on your phone making a rubbing sound?” Her manager interrupted the teleconference call as a distracting noise could be heard from his employee's line.

  Oops! Stephanie's frantic biting and chewing of the water-inflated rubber could be heard by coworkers and business associates. “I'll fix that! The cord is loose.”

  It was such a disappointment for Stephanie. She desired so strongly to break that balloon and see the water burst and spray out! Now the only means to nibble and chew was to do so, quietly, with it in her mouth.

  Bursting long water balloons was a pleasure Stephanie learned at a girl's sleepover many years ago. Actually, the pleasure was further developed some nights after the sleepover. But on the night of the party, the pleasure was born as the creative and decorative person that her friend's mother was, used many balloons, some of which were the elongated type. Stephanie grabbed a collection of these and invented a game in which daring girls would take turns biting at the balloon, hoping to be the first to make it pop! Needless to say it was a silly game that caused much laughter and rowdiness among the group of teenage girls.

  Stephanie took the game into her bedroom some nights later where it would be brought to a whole new level. An elongated balloon was filled with water and placed on a towel that sat on her bedside table. She bit in frenzy, each nibble a desperate wish for the water to gush out in an explosion of tragedy. It would no longer be a rigid balloon filled with liquid. It would be an empty shell of a disaster; a poor, sad balloon that lay dead from a violent assault. And when the short-lived burst of pleasure finally happened, the world was so much better for Stephanie. It all went away; her frustrations, disappointments or silly teenage anxieties.

  The game developed into a nightly habit, lasting sometimes an hour past bed time. Realizing the ritual was cutting into her sleep, Stephanie would place a bath towel near the pillow where a long water balloon would lay. She would bite in frenzy, sometimes awakening in the morning to a balloon that had yet to be burst. The survivor was placed under the pillow to be tortured later in the evening.

  * * *

  “Ha! It sounds like someone lost a cup of coffee!” Stephanie finally burst her balloon and the water that gushed into the wastepaper basket could be heard by those in the teleconference call. What could she do now to pass the boredom?

  Chapter 14

  Obsessed with the vastness of deep wilderness and the dangerous seclusion it can bring; Joe laid awake on the night that followed Easter Sunday with his mind in those untamed woods that bordered Creek Highway, wandering and searching through a place of imagination that terrified him.

  Out of that maddening obsession, he drove home from work on Wednesday and turned on the stretch of road commonly known as Creek Highway. He placed awareness somewhere deep in those woods. Things happen out there, terrible things, Joe just knew it! These abominable happenings remain unseen, buried way inside the woods.

  Joe shouldn't have been thinking of these things for it was necessary to pull over at the intersection of Creek Highway and Route 4, overwhelmed with a daydream of blood, terror and desperation. It was like a vision that provided scenery in the seclusion of dense trees where useless screams were muffled. No one cared to venture that far into the forest where the repeated pain inflicted on a helpless woman was enjoyed by the deliverer. Just another story, one of many; this chapter was soon to close. And in the end she hung from a tree, life slowly draining from the wide open slice while growing ever cold, surroundings blackening. Final thoughts were those of loved ones. How she wished for one last sight of someone who cared.

  The vision haunted Joe so deeply that he found it necessary to send his wife an email the following morning.

  “Stephanie,

  I am sending you this email to your JGresky account in case the affair is not over. Some part of me believes that you are still communicating with him, and I believe I sense something not right. I read those emails last Friday, and picked up on a very frightening vibe. What if this man was not who he says he is? What if he convinced you to meet him privately where he killed you?

  Call me crazy, but I had a terrible daydream that seemed so real. It was nearly hallucinatory and almost like a vision. I became so overpowered by the daydream that I needed to pull over on the side of the road until it passed. In the daydream, you were brought deep into the woods where you were tortured and raped for hours. At the end, you were hung, midair, by your wrists with feet bound. He deeply sliced your body open from chest to groin. With the pressure of being hung by your wrists, your organs were exposed. He walked away and left you there to die. As the blood poured from your body, you thought about how you wished you hadn't met this man.

  I hope you are not still communicating with him.

  Love,

  Joe"

  On a Thursday morning, nearly a week after Stephanie's activities had been discovered during that late night purse invasion; Joe sent the email to his wife. And at the same moment the button was pressed, Stephanie pulled her SUV into one of the entryways of untamed forest that hugged along the asphalt of Creek Highway. She took a personal day from work and made plans to finally meet Brad. But she was careful! Although the two agreed on meeting at the first entrance adjacent to Route 4, Stephanie drove two entryways down and parked her SUV. Then she pulled a mountain bike from the back and rode to the entryway where originally planned to meet Brad.

  And she did something else to protect her identity. She wore a baseball cap with sunglasses. Upon reaching the vehicle that Brad described in the email, Stephanie could see him sitting in the driver's seat.

  Brad wasn't expecting the woman to be on a bike and was very surprised. “Julie?”

  She affirmed, “Yes, Hi.”

  Brad emerged from his car and gently shook Stephanie's hand. “It's nice to meet you, finally. You rode your bike here?”

  She nodded and half-heartedly giggled. “I figured it was a chance to get some extra exercise.”

  Brad was a bit disappointed. “What's with the sunglasses? You promised I would have a chance to finally see what you looked like.”

  Stephanie did not smile, but stared at him through her sunglasses. “Patience is a virtue. Let's go for a hike in the woods. I don't want people to see me here. Small world you know?”

  Surely, the woman Brad had come to meet wasn't going to take her bike in the woods. He offered, “You want to put your bike in my trunk?”

  But she remained on the bike while saying, “That little trunk? The bike is too big for your trunk. I'll take it with.”

  Although nearly May, it was still a bit chilly on that Thursday morning, April 27, 2000. Stephanie wondered if it was out of place for her to be riding a bike through the woods on such a day.

  Brad broke the silence by continuing a conversation that was exchanged over email. “So I took your suggestion and got that new computer. I sent you one last email, opened my bedroom window and threw the computer and monitor on the lawn. Then I went outside, threw it in the fire pit and smashed it to pieces with my axe. After that, I doused it with lighter fluid and set it on fire. It was the coolest thing, ever! The cheap plastic melted, all the little components inside bubbled and the hard drive turned all black and warped.”

  Up until the mention of the hard drive, Stephanie remained mostly silent as Brad chatted away, giving the details of the ridiculous execution of his troublesome PC at home. She had to ask, “Did you damage the hard drive?” Being the office champion of proprietary information, Stephanie urged her cyber lover to destroy any possible means of someone rummaging his private life in an evening of dumpster diving.

  “Oh yeah, it got wacked a few
times by the axe and split in half. It's black and warped. No one's gonna be able to use it! No one!”

  There was a note of perked interest in Stephanie's voice, almost a tone of concern. “How's the new computer? You send me an email from it yet?”

  “No, the new one's still in the box. I suppose I should have opened the new one and tried it out first. Oh well…”

  The two ventured into the woods on a narrow, gravel path that eventually turned into a steep hill. Much of the wooded regions of the Mapleview area are hilly as the location was carved by glaciers thousands of years ago.

  Stephanie was in the best shape of her life. Although the hike up the steep hill was a moderate exercise for her, it was a grueling high-impact workout for Brad. Trying to hide his fatigue was useless. Stephanie could sense the urgency to pause. But she coaxed him onward while pointing out a flat area of the trail that was some 100 feet uphill. Brad pushed and pushed with all his might, sweat leaking from every forehead's pore while nearly gasping for air. He collapsed at the well-received flat area, and Stephanie found his lack of endurance amusing. Not only did she climb the hill with ease, but she did so while pushing a bike.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just need to rest. Not in good shape like you.”

  Moments passed as Stephanie watched the stranger regain his breath while calming his body down. And when it looked as though he had stabilized, she wasted not a second in asking, “There's something I've been dying to find out.”

  “What's that?”

  “Your profile pic. Is that thing real?”

  What an unexpected surprise! Brad produced a facial expression of delight. “What, you want to see it?”

  Stephanie nodded.

  Brad pushed himself off the ground so that he now proudly stood atop of the hill as an almighty lord who issued a serious warning to the little lady that was curious of his anatomy. “I'm going to warn you. It might scare you. Let's just say that I'm well-endowed.”

  Only minutes ago of lying on the ground and half in death, he now unbuckled his belt. Mushy blubber hung over his waist as he pulled down the baggy jeans.

  Brad announced in a voice of greatness, “A real man needs to wear boxers to make room for all that meat!”

  And then the meat was fully exposed as Stephanie was welcome to explore in all her satisfaction. More like “dead meat”, the proud display would not do as expected. Maybe he was nervous.

  Stephanie led Brad over to a large, dead tree trunk that had fallen to the ground. She gently coaxed the excited man to lie down and urged him to rest with hands behind his head while enjoying that which was long overdue. Stephanie knelt beside him and amorously worshipped as if it were her own, wishing it belonged to her. Brad could only lay with eyes closed on the greatest day of his life!

  The Ever Sharp Cutlery set boasted a collection of knives that could cut through anything. Stephanie watched one holiday season as a salesperson demonstrated the knives in the Mapleview department store. They were truly amazing as the salesperson sliced through wood, vegetable cans and bones. And no matter what was cut with these knives, they forever retained their sharpness.

  As Brad laid in overwhelming pleasure with eyes closed, Stephanie saw the perfect opportunity to reach in her windbreaker and pull out the Ever Sharp butcher knife that was mounted to her side. She was so mean! In one slice, Brad was abruptly Bobbittized, robbing him of the very thing that made him proud. Blood shot gunned and gurgled in a search of something now missing. He stood up in shock, screamed with trepidation and took sight of the stranger he met online, jump on her bike and race downhill.

  “Julie! Julie! Give it back! Please give it back!” Clearly less than a man, it wasn't unreasonable to cry out of panic. Was she really going to run off with it? Maybe this was a cruel joke in which she would leave it on the side of the trail for him to discover. But what if an animal found it and ran off?

  The Bobbittization was soon the least of Brad's worries as a considerable amount of blood was lost. High up on a steep hill, it was urgent that he reach the bottom and somehow drive to the hospital. Keep in mind that not everyone owned a cell phone in those days to call for help.

  Shock leads us into making strange decisions and following unexpected actions. Brad couldn't make up his mind of how to stop the loss of blood. Pulling up his jeans would only allow the blood to flow out as it was impossible to block the gap with his hand. Leaving them pulled down to his ankles made it difficult to hike down the hill. With no other choice, Brad removed his jeans and hiked down the hill, desperately covering the robbed manhood in an attempt to stop the blood. But he left the car keys and wallet in those jeans! Halfway down the hill, this was realized which left Brad no choice but to hike back to the top. It only increased his heart rate, weakened his body further and placed him into a deeper state of dangerous shock.

  Somehow Brad managed to make it to the top where he grabbed the wallet along with keys. Not sure of how hospitals handled emergencies, Brad could just hear the words, “Sorry Sir; if you don't have an insurance card, we can't treat you here.”

  Shaking, confused, cold and extremely weak; Brad stopped to lie down on top of the hill in a last moment effort to regain some strength and energy. How could she do this to him? It was a lesson well learned; never trust the strangers met on the Internet!

  * * *

  In the dark of the late night hours while her husband slept, or possibly lay awake in stewing suspicion of his wife, Stephanie hid in the darkest, most, isolated corner of the house where she could be alone with her new possession. The closet in the basement, located under the stairs, was an area that she and Joe called the crawlspace. Although a filthy place of cobwebs, mold and dust; this was where Stephanie had the most satisfying balloon session of her life as she nibbled and chewed at the water-inflated rubber, covered by the flesh of a dead man. But she was careful not to be too rough! There could be no damage! The thing now belonged to Stephanie as she merely played in a delightful celebration. Brad's body had yet to be found. But at that very moment, Stephanie knew he was dead. He reached for her leg from around the corner in the crawlspace. It was a cold, angry presence that had come for something taken. But he couldn't have it, never! It was Stephanie's new, cherished treasure.

  Mother took hers away when Stephanie was too young to remember. Oh, she was certainly a woman; but Stephanie knew Mother had taken it the first time she laid eyes on Father's, which proudly hung between his legs. But where was poor Stephanie's? She realized in sadness that Mother, the coldhearted bitch, had taken it away. But anger and resentment would only lead to losing Mommy's love. Mother was forgiven and internalized while Stephanie accepted the fact that it was gone.

  The new one was preserved in such a way that it would never rot. Slipped over an elongated water balloon, Stephanie attached it to herself and proudly let it swing between her legs. It was worn out in public, at work, in the stores and during outings with her husband (behind clothing, of course!). And it was better than any other man's as the technique of preservation made it ever stiff. Joe had no reason to worry. It was only a dead man, a man whom Stephanie murdered, that now made love to his wife.

  But for Joe, there was something not right with his marriage. Initially he felt that Stephanie was being satisfied by another man, but he could not prove this. Thinking that perhaps irreversible damage had been done since discovering the emails, he decided it was best to divorce, leave his son with Stephanie and move out of state.

  Chapter 15

  “Frank, we need to get that furnace fixed.”

  Remarried some years later, Stephanie moved into the Maple Sap subdivision with an arrogant, dominating and sometimes abusive husband. One might say that he was just the man that Stephanie deserved, offering the type of relationship she needed. A man of jerky bullying, Stephanie initially admired his qualities as those belonging to an aggressive manly-man. Stephanie quit her job, had two more children and stayed at home as a wife and mother who devoted her d
ays and nights to ensuring Frank's comfort and happiness. A sudden raised backhand with a threat to strike or even a shove to the wall often inspired Stephanie's devotion of love to Frank. Perhaps Joe should have done these things while married to Stephanie!

  Stephanie now spent her nights in solitude while Frank worked the graveyard shift and the 3 children soundly slept. And certainly not worn all the time, the thing that was robbed from Brad often sat covered in a shoe box, buried in the back of Stephanie's bedroom closet.

  On this particular morning, Stephanie voiced a concern to her husband about getting the furnace fixed. It made the most awful sound when starting up. It was a sound that echoed the ever-angry, tormented cry of Brad who howled for vengeance and the return of something that rightfully belonged to him.

  The previous night was unbearable! Although April, the furnace continued to be used as the temperatures outdoors dropped below 50 degrees. In combination with another night of Brad howling through the furnace, something shocking had visited Stephanie during a heavy rain with, of all things, a rare occurrence of cold weather lighting.

  The house purchased in the Maple Sap neighborhood was an older, sprawling ranch on a slab. Seated on an acre of land with mature trees, a farm field was located directly next door. Spring was in the air, but still cold for Mapleview. The gradual thaw of the distant breath of warm air restored life in trees while softening the ground. It's a rebirth that many of us feel. But for Stephanie, it was always a reliving of days similar to those with Brad. Morbid thoughts often experienced at the decay of autumn while one sits alone with a self conscience of wrongful deeds, are often forgotten by Thanksgiving or Christmas. But for Stephanie, they remained through the birth of spring; year after year, after year.

  Sitting in the dimly lit family room with a cup of coffee was Stephanie's newly found sanctuary of peace and quiet. No TV, no computer; just alone with the sound of rain drops that randomly tapped against the sliding, glass, patio door. It was suddenly joined by the blasted sound of the dreadful furnace. It was another calling and reminder from the grave. As usual, it went away as the mechanical parts began to work. The world outside the glass door was studied in a hope to ignore and forget Brad's cry.