The Yellow Dress

“Today is clear with sunny skies; the highs are at eighty-five and the lows are at seventy-five with slight humidity. Tomorrow is cloudy with sixty-five percent chance of thunderstorms. That’s all for today’s forecast folks,” the Meteorologist said. He turned off the old television-set and finished his beer and put out his cigarette in a glass ashtray. He went outside the trailer into the sunny weather and thought to himself:
You’re a lonely man Ted. You’re a very lonely man…
He left the home and headed for the thrift-store at four. He rarely got out of his home before the afternoon except for Sundays when he went to church. The thrift-store that he went to belonged to the church he attended; he belonged to ‘Christ’s First Baptist Church’. Practically everything he owned he bought from the thrift-store, from furniture to kitchen utensils. He was well known at the store for he wore an awkward mullet and a long mustache. He usually randomly browsed for anything to buy, but he mainly tried to start conversations with random strangers to pass the time. There he met, Joan Peters, who attended his church at the store. He starkly eyed her from a distance while she was shopping for a dress. He tried to friendlily chat with her…
He purchased a red and black plaid button-down and a pair of light blue jeans and a vase and a stainless-steel food-tray and he offered to buy her a chaste long yellow polkadot dress she had picked out; she was hesitant but he insisted and took the chance to ask her if he could spend time with her after church. She agreed and thanked him for the dress….
***
He got out of church at twelve and the sky was cloudy, the clouds dimmed the sun like some vindictive outcast abhorred life; he was one of the last people to leave the church because he stayed behind to seek the Reverend’s advice about a disturbing habit of his; he was addicted to masturbation and pornography:
“I can’t help it,” he said in a miserable tone, “it’s taken a wicked hold of me.”
“That’s alright son, just recite the Lord’s ‘Thou shalt not do lechery’ when you get the urge to do the ill deed and may God be with you,” the Reverend put his hand on the troubled man’s shoulder.
“Thank you Reverend,” he said with a hopeless look of agony on his face.
He left the church and headed towards the emptying parking-lot waiting on his date. He found Joan wearing the humble dress that gracefully covered her right to the ankle; she was known to be a virtuous young lady among the community. He called her out then got into his eighty-five Chevrolet Caprice-Classic and tried to start the ancient hermit. She waited in front of the church and sort of felt sorry for him while he tried to revive his vehicle. The preacher was the last man to see her get into the car with the uneven man and the holy-man was dubious and wanted to warn her after hearing the confession of the afflicted man….
The estranged man lived forty-five minutes away from the church but he took her around the city and they had some iced-cream at a local shop and he bought her some bright yellow flowers; it was her favorite color. She found him slightly awkward but also found a troubled and sensitive man within him. She asked him about his past and parents and he said that they both died when he was eighteen; he was a bit silent when she pressed the wound of his parents’ death:
“So what happened to your Mamma and Daddy? How’d they die, if you don’t mind me askin?” she curiously asked.
“Well, I don’t like to talk about it much, but my Daddy killed her then took his own life,” he said.
“Oh Lord! I’m sorry Teddy,” she apologized.
“That’s alright,” he sighed and started to tear up and his cone started to melt in his hand:
“My Daddy used to drink a lot and Mamma used to always talk about how broke we was. She never picked the right time to talk to him. His drinkin got worse and eventually got him fired from his job and on that day Mamma confronted him about it, and she toldem that he was a good for nothin sorry fool,” he wiped his tears with his clean hand. “My Daddy went inside the bedroom and took-out his revolver and told her that he hated her and shot her straight in the-head; right in front of me. Then he sat down and finished his bottle of Jack then he shot hisself too,” he sniffled, with tears running down his face and moaned like a child….
“It’s alright Teddy; it’s over and done with now; don’t let it get to you. You’re a good man,” she tried comforting him.
They both got into the car and he told her that he would take her home to watch a movie and have some pizza. She was hesitant and tried urging him to take her home but he persisted. He took her to his trailer-home, which was on the outskirts of Mobile, Alabama, with other trailers scattered at a distance. She got out of the car and followed him into the worn trailer. He sat her at a couch in front of the television and went into the kitchen and opened two bottles of Budweiser. He offered her the beer but she apologized and said that she did not drink, so he went back to the kitchen and took out a cold glass bottle of Coca-Cola.
He played Silence of The Lambs on an old VHS set and sat eating the greasy pepperoni pizza. She didn’t eat swine for she thought it was a foul creature and said that Christ did not eat it. She nervously sat on the couch, watching the disturbing film, with both legs tightly closed beneath the long chaste dress, as if sensing something cynical was about to unfold; she started feeling unsteady and foreign and realized that she had made a grave mistake by involving herself with the man….
He lustfully gazed into her hazel eyes and licked his greasy lips. He placed his hand on her lap but she politely removed it:
“What are you doin Ted? I thought you was a God-fearin man; the Lord is watchin us, you know,” she uncomfortably said.
“I really like you Joan. I’ve liked you for so long,” he fiddled with her long blonde hair with the tips of his fingers and started caressing her neck.
“Please stop. I have to go home. Please take me home.”
She shoved his head backwards when he tried kissing her on the neck and shoulders. He attempted to climb over her like some possessed cur, but she fiercely clenched her thumb and index into both of his eyes and he cried out-loud. He slapped her across the face making her splatter blood from her mouth. She screamed and started crying as he began to uncover her long dress, revealing her bashful legs. She snatched the unfinished Coke bottle and smashed it over his head and his forehead started drawing blood:
“You *****!” He yelled.
She helplessly kept resisting and kicking him with her legs and forcefully slapping him on face and chest. She was like an untamed mare searching for freedom; a drowning gazelle clinging onto life. He grew frustrated and gripped the beer bottle in return and bashed her over the head with it; her vision blurred then she fainted….
He uncovered her dress and removed her under garments and unbuttoned her dress from the top revealing her bare breasts, with a small cross hanging from her neck. He undid his trousers and lecherously raped her. She drew a mixture of secretions and blood when he penetrated deeply into her vaginal canal. When the ill-deed was finished he breathlessly lied on the couch next to her with his undone trousers and bare crotch smeared with semen as well as her private and groin….
***
She started coming-to while he was in the kitchen and started breathlessly exhaling in disbelief with tears pouring down her tender cheeks:
“Damn you! Damn you to hell!” she cried in overwhelming shock, then started screaming loud enough for angels and demons to hear her alike:
“Shhh, Shhh, I’m sorry Joan, I really am, I don’t know what came over me,” he bitterly apologized with no avail; she would not desist then he forcefully tried pinning her against the couch, putting his hand over her mouth to silence her but she ferociously and relentlessly resisted….
Unable to subdue her vigorous rebellion he took hold of the vase that he had bought the previous day from the thrift-store and he started pounding over her head with it and pounding until her bare skull was visible and his button-down that he bought on the same day and the same dress he had bought were soaked in blood and covered with bone fragments. Shocked he withdrew himself from on-top of her with his eyes wide-open in clouded stupefaction. He got-up from the couch. Flabbergasted, stood next to the coffee table where their tainted beverages lay, His eyes filled with sour tears:
“O **** … I’m sorry Joan … damned devils possessed me; you’re such a beautiful creature, I never meant to do this. You don’t deserve this … I’m a damned man,” he unfathomed into reality.
***
He went into the bedroom and opened a jammed drawer that had not been opened in ages and took-out a mediocre revolver. He eyed the pistol with a certain cursed wanton and unlatched the barrel and negligently emptied countless bullets from a worn container and depressingly loaded the chamber then drove the cylinder back home then went back to the living-room….
He sat on the couch opposing the one the young virgin was slain upon and pointed the pistol toward his penis and closed his eyes and took a deep breath; he fired; the roaring pistol was deafened by the clap of thunder and the pouring rain. He screamed in agony, as he saw his private and testicles strewn onto his jeans; he loudly cried from the pain, but mostly from self-pity, from remorse and regret. He silently lied on the couch with both legs wide-open and the blood gushing from his crotch….
Realizing that he had come at a crossroads and had to make a fatal decision, he decided to paint his end in purple. He recollected himself and sat upright; forbearing the pain he pointed the pistol to his temple and sadistically said:
“You’re a piece of ****; a damned pervert that ain’t worth livin. Go to hell you sorry son of a ***** …” then he pitifully pulled the trigger with a dull senseless lame expression in his eyes….
His body flung backwards then awkwardly dwindled down the couch onto the floor like some flimsy rag only to wipe the pale white excrements falling from his engraved skull….
***
The Reverend felt uneasy and doubtful seeing the young lady get into the car with the morally disturbed man. He decided to call the police…. The man got the atrocious news of Joan’s murder two hours later and he wasn’t sure how to deliver the grievous news to her parents but all he could do was try to convince the captain, whom he personally knew, and ask him not to dissect the corps of the young lady and for her to be handed-over to the parents for cleansing and burial and the force agreed after retracing the crime trail and reaffirming the solid conviction against the deceased criminal from the evidence….
***
Joan’s funeral was held a week after the murder on a calm and clear Sunday. The sun peacefully gazed upon the brown coffin. All of the mourners wore black and her parents and relatives stood grieving while the Reverend concluded:
“Adam is from dust and unto dust we shall return then we meet our maker on a day of reckoning and mercy alike. May the Lord bless her and have mercy upon her beloved pure soul and welcome her with wide arms into eternal paradise. Amen.”
“Amen,” they all piously prayed.
When the service was complete the mourners slowly left the site, with precious tears on cheeks, each placing their flowers on her coffin in different colors; red and white but mostly yellow….

*R.I.P to all deceased rape victims.