Take Me To Church (A John Lennon Story)

Chapter Eight: If I Fell

"But I don't want you to go," John said.  "Let me help you.  Really help you.  If you tell the police everything they will have no choice but to protect you and keep you from him."

I looked down at the ground.  "You might not be able to understand...but I still love him somehow.  I think...he's just a hurt person."  

"A person doesn't show love through violence."

"He's trying to be protective!"

I turned away from him once more.  "We've been arguing a lot...and I'm just afraid that....whatever we are...isn't going to work out.  I think I should return.  For his sake."  But John took my hand.  "Love, he won't let you go.  I'll never be able to see you again.  I can't lose you.  I don't think you realize how much I love you."  I looked up at him with wide eyes.  I still wasn't used to hearing him say such things.  It was so unlike him.  

John hugged me gently and kissed my forehead.  "I know I've only known you for a couple of days...but I don't ever want to see you hurt.  And I know I've got a temper...it drives people away.  I never mean to hurt you if I say something.  I get angry too easily.  But there's a difference between me and your father...I would be protective of you, but I would never punish you for doing something I didn't like." 

He kissed me, but I looked down.  "I have to go home.  If I stay here any longer...he'll think you kidnapped me.  I have to go home."

"Then I will go with you.  We can't lie to him.  I will tell him the truth, and make sure he doesn't hurt you."

What a mistake we made.

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When we arrived at the door, I clutched John's arms.  My father's eyes were bloodshot; he hadn't sleep in several days...and he had been drinking.  He snatched my arm, but John still held my other one firmly.  "Let go of her." Father growled.  

John shook his head.  

"Well...come inside then." his eyes flicked to the neighbor's yard, where a few people were staring.  

But as soon as the door was shut, he grabbed me by the neck.

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John ran forward, but her father told him not to move.  This had nothing to do with him.  He was to punish his daughter for being disobidient...but John was welcome to watch.  In fact, he advised it.  Ariel's father shoved her to the ground and grappled with John, and won.  The young man's hands were tied behind his back.  Ariel screamed for him to leave, but he wouldn't.  Not without her.  

Father prodded them both down to the basement.  Even though Ariel was screaming and kicking in protest, he tied her down to one of the chairs.  And even though John struggled, he bound his legs and shoved him to the floor.  He was unable to help his girlfriend.  "You'll be thrown in jail for this!  You can't hurt her!" 

"I own her!" he bellowed.  "You tainted her!  I will make an example out of her, even if it means I will be persecuted!  I will be a martyr!"  He hit John across the face.  Ariel shouted for him to leave the boy alone.  "It wasn't his fault!"

John shook his head.  "No!  It was mine!  Don't hurt her for what I did!  I kissed her, touched her and wrote letters to her!  I love her!"

The two teenagers watched in horror as he produced a small knife from his pocket.  "You don't love her.  You lust for my daughter.  You taught her that such a feeling was love."  But then he turned to Ariel, who was shaking with fear and crying.  "But you should have been strong enough to avoid him, deny him.  You have ruined your innocence!"  He slapped her.  "And you will pay."  The man took his knife and cut down the entire front of Ariel's blouse.  She screamed and tried to wiggle away, but both of her hands and legs were tied down.  

John tried his best to get up.  "Leave her alone!  She's your daughter!"

Ariel's father just smirked.  He was punishing the boy.  Who would want to see their lover violated?  And by their own father?  

He slid a hand up his daughter's chest.  She begged him to stop.  "Did you like this when he did this?  Did his sin feel pleasurable?"  But then he held the knife above her head.  Both she and John screamed.  "With my help you will never want to be touched again."  He dragged the blade across her chest, cutting fabric and skin.  She cried out in pain.  "Please...I'll do anything else..."

"It's too late for apologies."  

And with that, she screamed and cried as he attempted to take off her skirt.

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They were locked together in the basement, but after what happened, they had never been so distant.  It was as though she had never met him.  

Ariel sat in the corner, knees to her chest, crying.  She was covered in her own blood, and her tattered skirt smelled of urine, because in her father's torturing she was so frightened and had lost control of herself.  

But her father was right.  She did not want John to touch her.  And he was worried that she would never be able to be touched after what her father did to her with his knife.  

She didn't know how to feel.  John was right; they should not have gone back.  She was  humiliated.  Mortified.  Of what John had seen, and what her father had done.  She didn't want to leave the basement.  Ariel was terrified of what she would see in the mirror when she returned to the light of day.  

John once more tried to hold her, but she cried in protest.  "No!  No!  Stay away from me!  Don't hurt me!"

"I'm not going to hurt you, love...please..."  He wanted to help stop the bleeding.  She was bleeding everywhere, and in places where her boyfriend never wanted to see her bleed.  

As she fell asleep that night, he took her in his arms.  She was shaking, but he didn't know if it was out of cold or fear.  

"I'll get you out of here," he whispered.  "I'll get that son-of-a-bitch locked up.  I'll make sure he can never get to you again.  He's right to say I'm a sinner.  I'll commit one of the deadliest if it means he won't ever be able to touch you again."