Yours for Eternity: A Love Story on Death Row (22 page)

I feel so much different this night than I did last night. It is amazing, these extremes that you take me to, you magickal creature. I feel very happy and close to you now. Earlier, before we talked, I felt so irritated, but once you made me start to giggle, I found even my own irritation to be humorous. I love you so much. You are pure magick, like a beautiful little unicorn.

Love, this hair business is driving me insane. It’s almost to the point of wanting to claw it off. It will be a huge relief to just get rid of it all and start over. And then it will grow back even thicker, darker, and more beautiful than even before. It will just take a few months, but you will be pleased with the end result. I would like to
get it done before that photographer gets here, because I want to get copies of the pictures for you, and I would like you to have pictures of the two extremes—long hair and no hair.

I am yours for eternity, beautiful one,

D.

May 6, 1998

My Beautiful One:

Damien . . . everything about the last two days—I feel I have either learned so much, or it has just been confirmed in me—things I have always known. I am so in love with you and before I can write anything else . . . I am completely intoxicated by your smell—I waited an hour for those clothes—but I would’ve waited forever—they smell like you and it’s the smell I know so well now—it makes me crazy—it makes me want you so badly. Even when I’m sitting in that stupid courtroom . . . I look at you and feel everything fall out of me and I feel that oh-so-familiar feeling that only you can make happen. But when you stood up—near the end and I was looking at you—when you first stood up I felt I was going to faint—I have never seen you like that—in those kinds of clothes, with a belt (!), but just seeing you standing there, looking at me—every time I think of it I can’t breathe. You are so incredible, Damien, you are so beautiful and you are so poised and graceful and dignified—even around all of those idiots and it is so apparent. I look at you and I feel so proud and I feel that I want to hold you so close. Being in that room with all of those people, I still felt it was just us. There is no one else. I feel it so much right now. I can’t even begin to tell you and I am exhausted—

But I want to tell you so much more. Tomorrow. And I am going crazy to talk to you.

I’m going to sleep, my love.

Your mom hugged me. And I want to tell you things Ron said. Sweet.

Damien, I am at work, now, and I am almost ready to die, it feels—but it’s wonderful. I love you so much and I miss you so much. I didn’t realize what the repercussions would be from spending a whole day in the same room with you, looking at you—I only know that my whole body hurts with wanting you.

I saved your letters to read this morning—and I sat here crying when I read the letter you wrote on Sunday—I have so much to say about it, Damien, I will bring the two parts of you together—and you aren’t becoming like me—we are becoming one thing. We have always been heading towards that. Yesterday, when I was looking at you—I would at times be so overcome with what you are to me. I am looking at my entire life—right there before me is everything. And no one even knows how much is between you and me and I am so happy for that—and you made me so proud and you made me so strong.

What I was going to tell you about Ron—when he first got there, I think he felt strange and I was sitting by myself (as I wanted) and then Ron asked if he could sit by me—which seemed somehow right. Later on he said the reporters asked him who I was . . . was I “Damien’s girlfriend” and Ron said “no”—then he came over to me and said, “Lorri, they’re asking about you—you shouldn’t get messed up in them. I don’t want them to touch you—so be careful—if anyone asks, you work for me.”

So I just stayed in the courtroom the whole time . . . Damien, I got there at 7:30!! And I stayed through lunch except to make a call to Susan and except for that one recess when I went to get an apple because I hadn’t eaten since noon on Monday. At that point Ron stopped me outside. I thanked him for being so kind to me and he said, “Lorri, I just want to thank you for what you’ve become to
Damien, living the way you two do, your life together, it has to be very strong, very special—if you ever need anything you call me because I love Damien to death”—I couldn’t take it anymore and then I had to go to the bathroom and sob. But it wasn’t sad. It was a relief. Then I came back upstairs and it seemed I had been gone for hours. I cannot stop thinking of how beautiful you were standing there—you had to roll up the pants?! Those little legs of yours. Maybe I should get more pants for the next time. In another shade of gray perhaps? (Not that I have a whole lot to work with!)

Something changed in me yesterday. Something very, very deep and important. The only thing that matters is you. And getting you with me. And I know it’s going to happen. But it’s a feeling of strength. And fearlessness and even a place that no one can touch. We are above it all, yet we are right there in it . . . and I can do
anything
. I know I can—with you. We both can, and we will. Damien, I didn’t even mind any of it, it just felt like another place with you, and everything swirls around us. I love you so much—and yes—everything would be better if we were together, but the thing is—even though we’re not yet—look at what we’ve done.

You have a sweetness in you that I cannot begin to explain—but it is so pure and I can see it and I feel it. It is the color of honey and when light touches it, it is gold and dazzling—but when it is in the shadow you cannot even see the depth of it. This is what I feel. Damien, I exist only to love you. And I know I will be here for a long, long time because of you.

Damien, I love you more than I could ever say and I feel more a part of you than I ever have.

Soon, I will have you, I can feel it.

I am so in love with you.

Lorri

May 9, 1998

My Damien,

Congratulations! Our phone bill was only $500! It’s an improvement! And that included other calls, $90. So ours was $410!! Oh, I hope that other number works! We will soon know.
*

Your beloved,

Lorri

June 2, 1998

My love,

They will probably be here to pick me up for court one week from today. I’m not even “fretting” over it anymore. It will be nothing. Except I get to see you for two days!!

*

Love, this part of Arkansas is nothing like West Memphis. Everything is different. They don’t even have winter here. If you remember, last year they had 3 feet of snow in Memphis and W. Memphis, yet there was not even so much as a single flake here. The entire feel is different. Everything here is base, disgusting, pathetic. Nothing of me.

I belong to you,

D.

August 3, 1998

My Damien:

Today was sublime. The last two messages you left for me—how painful it was not to answer the call—both times it hurt so badly, for all I want is you. When you said, “This is the last message, love,” I felt my knees go weak. You are so, so romantic and you make me so happy—I want so much to be with you, to touch you, to make love with you. I want so much to have your child, to wake up with you every morning or every night. You fill my thoughts constantly. You are my everything and yes, my love, this weekend was wonderful with you.

*

Maybe with the letter thing, occasionally you send me one or some. You don’t have to send me all of them, or read all of them, just some of them. So at least I will know what is coming in the mail from you. I do want to know these things, Damien, and I’ll behave myself. What is her name again, the one who lives in Michigan? Do you write back to her most of the time? Does the other one write?

It was nice of her to offer those books to you. You seem to like the books they send you, you’ve read a lot of them.

I should leave you alone about them, because it seems they really do care for you and are devoted in some way and you have built a relationship with them and I should be supportive of it. So I will. One of their names is Helen, right? It seems they had kind of old-fashioned names.

I really am trying, my love. I don’t want to cause you any distress (unnecessary distress).

*

I ordered
Lolita
for you from the bookstore and I asked the woman who took my order if she needed me to spell your name and she said, “No, I know how to spell his name.” I almost hung up on her. The fact that she even said “his name” was enough to send me over the edge. And I hate to admit this, my lover, but it makes me jealous that you are going to read that book. Even though I read it, still, it’s going to make me jealous.

*

I am having one of those times when I can feel you so close and I know I will have you with me. Damien—you will be with me. All we have to do is be patient. But on a day like today, it’s the hardest thing in the world to ask of me, because I need you so badly. I need your body and your breath and your touch, I need to feel you take me completely—just hold me, make love to me until I have not an ounce of energy left and then don’t even stop. Crumble me up in a small round thing and hold me until I can’t breathe. Pull my hair and hold my hands and put yourself into every part of me so you mark me as yours.

I love you, Damien. It hurts, but it’s exquisite.

L.

August 3, 1998

My lover,

I cannot wait to get all of those college books. I feel as if I am undertaking a huge task. I’m very excited about it, too. By the time I do get to school, I won’t even have to open a single book. I’ll finish all my work in a matter of minutes, make perfect grades, and have plenty of time to look around and examine everyone and everything else. I cannot stop thinking about those books. I can hardly wait for this.

*

You’ll not be getting any of those letters that people send, because when I sent them to you a long time ago, it hurt you very badly, and you made me promise that I would look out for you, and not let you have anything that would harm you, no matter how hard you begged. You made me promise you that. So I cannot let you have them. I’m just looking out for your best interests, and my sanity.

*

I do not understand why you say you liked New York so much, if it’s as disgusting as you say. But I cannot wait to go there with you. I think of going places with you all the time now. I want to go everywhere with you and do everything with your beautiful little self.

*

I just watched a National Geographic show about sperm whales. Lorri, I cannot get in the ocean. It terrifies me. It’s a nightmare. It’s
not even the creatures I’m thinking of, it’s all that water. I would lose my mind in it, I would not be able to stop screaming. I can’t do it, Lorri, I’m just too scared. I don’t want you trying to make me do it, either. There are things in there, Lorri. I can feel them. I can’t even look at pictures of it without getting chills, and my stomach feels like it’s falling. I can handle a swimming pool, and the river won’t bother me. I don’t know about a lake. It depends on what it looks like. In my dreams I’m always flying, and it seems to be the most natural thing in the world, I don’t even think about it. And I would love to be fire. I would swim in it. But I cannot take the big waters.

I love you,

D.

August 4, 1998

My beloved:

I know when I am so intensely sad at being apart from you, I know it makes it very hard on you—but there are times in this life with you that it becomes . . . not unbearable, for it is a pain I accept—it is almost “home” to me or at least it is something I understand completely—but I want to be happy for all of this love I feel—not sad.

But it is during these times when it is so intense that I feel myself falling deeper—it’s been like this for a while and I love it—oh, I love you more, more with each passing minute, but these passages of time that I feel myself in at the moment . . .

It is like falling down a very, very long flight of stone steps—it hurts so much, but not enough to kill me, or even scar me, yet I want to keep falling for it is taking me to a much deeper place in the house—that’s just what it seems like. My love for you has always been this way, it affects me physically—it manifests itself in my body—as well as my heart and soul. I wish you could feel how strong it is within me—how it will accomplish what it needs to bring you to me.

Today, when I was walking from my car to my house, a voice sprung out of nowhere, it was kind of amused, but it said, “Aren’t you amazed at how fast everything is happening—you are now living in Arkansas and you were sent here to receive him!” That’s
what I mean—the magick is very strong now, I can feel it—the magick that has brought us together.

*

Did you watch
Rebecca
? I am trying to listen or watch every little thing that you do, even more than ever—’cause it does something to me—but sometimes watching TV hurts too much. I don’t want you to see that stuff. I know that sounds awful. But I don’t. I don’t want you to see any of it. I’m in a very, very possessive way right now . . . And yet, none of it can touch you or touch me.

Yours forever,

L.

August 6, 1998

My Dearest One,

I feel a little hurt tonight, wounded. It’s because I keep thinking of the things you were saying, about how you feel alone, because you are going through something right now that is not the same as I feel. And you say, “You sound good,” as if it’s an accusation. It makes me feel as if I am the one who is alone. You always act as if you are the only one who ever has to feel some things, as if I am completely exempt from any suffering or pain. Well, I am not. And it makes me feel as if the things I say to you never penetrate very deeply, they only float on the surface. Or maybe only select things. You seem to pick the things you want to penetrate and those you do not. I say that because I’ve told you a thousand times before when I was feeling as you now are. Yet now you still feel as if you’re the only one. I’m really, really trying not to sound bitter or mean, because I know it’s just my hurt feelings that are talking right now. I’ll deal with it and all will be well.