Free at last

After twenty years, your main character steps out of the prison and takes in a first breath of free air.

As the large iron gates banged shut behind Roma she lay quiet and peaceful in the back of the carriage and allowed herself to be carried slowly away from the hell that had been her home for the last 20 years. It was over, this was the first day of her freedom.

The sound of the horses hooves filled the quiet Victorian London streets. The pace was slow but steady through narrow passageways until finally they joined the main thoroughfare that snaked its way north out of the city and into the leafy suburbs. Roma wished she could see out of the carriage and watch her precious London slip by, but for now she had to make do with her memories.

***

Roma knew it was wrong but she didn’t care. Everything that she and Roswell did together had been wrong, one more thing wasn’t going to make any difference.

Roswell had a temper. Not with her, never with her. With Roma he was loving, passionate and very greedy but if any other man even looked sidewise at her Roswell would invariably take that as a challenge and go about making sure that person never looked at anyone again. Luckily they tended to spend much of their day staying away from people, well not exactly away, they were often close but only so they could reach into people’s pockets or baskets and relieve them of their monetary goods. They saw people all the time but people rarely saw them. They were very good at what they did.

Sometimes, such on this night, they had done their job well enough that they would splash out on food in one of the backstreet pubs that littered London. Roswell had ended up getting into fights before but this one was different. The man who approached Roma at the bar had assumed, wrongly, that she was there looking for business and he was determined to buy. When Roswell returned from emptying his bladder in the back alley he found Roma penned into a dark corner of the tavern spitting and snarling at the little group of men who had joined in with trying to buy her services.

The ensuing brawl had been bloody and fast but had ended abruptly when the landlord and his rather large son had lifted Roswell bodily from the fray and ejected him out of the back door into the piss stained back alley at the rear of the pub.

It had been Roswell’s idea to hide and wait for his enemy to emerge. Roma had wanted to leave and go and patch up his cut and bruised face back at the squalid little room they rented but Roswell was having none of it and batting away her concerned hand he pulled her into the shadows and wrapped one of his large grubby hands over her mouth to silence her protests.

Now, as the rest of London slept in its bed Roma was pressed up against the wall of the tavern with her dress hitched up around her waist, her arms held tight above her head and Roswell’s cock buried deep inside her throbbing cunt. On the ground behind them lay Roswell’s enemy, his eyes staring up into the dark inky sky, lifeless and cold, as blood trickled out of the massive gash in his neck and curled around Roma’s feet. She knew it was all wrong and yet there was something about the danger, the pure heart racing danger that she found so exhilarating. Her orgasm, when it came, was almost painful and her cries filled the night air as Roswell emptied his seed deep inside her belly.

Why the policeman was there Roma never knew but he was, watching them fuck like animals against the wall, his own cock hard inside his woolen black trousers. The sight of these two beastly folk was so delicious that he let them finish their lurid act before moving in and hitting Roswell firmly across the back of the head knocking him out cold.

Roma only saw Roswell once again after that night and that was as she stood next to him in the dock as they were both tried for their crimes. After she was sent to prison she wrote to him often but only ever received one letter back which he had dictated to another prisoner who had briefly shared his cell and was one of the few inmates who could read and write. In that letter he had promised her that they would one day be back together, no matter how long it took they were destined to always be a pair.

***

As the carriage pulled off the road Roma knew they were finally here, and her years without Roswell were about to be over. The men who lifted her from the carriage were silent and respectful which was odd really considering that she was no one to them. As they set her down on the bench which had been placed their especially she heard murmured voices which were followed by bright sunlight streaming into the box. Looking up she saw the men in mourning black, the priest peering in at her and their beyond them all, standing silently among the graves was Roswell.

The priest didn’t believe in ghosts but for a very moment when he looked down at Roma he could have sworn that her eyes briefly moved as though they were focusing on something over his shoulder. When he turned back to look at what might be there he saw what appeared to be a young couple holding hands. He thought nothing of it and looking back at Roma’s body one last time he wondered if maybe the bright sunlight had played tricks on him because the eyes of the woman in the coffin were firmly closed.