text: Lisa Angel had a gift. Whenever her gift would activate, she could never remember the day of her birth or major events in her past. Sometimes Lisa’s gift would give her nightmares. She could see into the future, but she could only see people’s deaths. Lisa’s morbid clairvoyance manifested when she was 5 years old. Now Lisa was 37 years old. She was the mother of a tall, dark, and handsome young man named AJ. Lisa’s son didn’t know about his mother’s gift until he experienced it firsthand one night. He went to visit his girlfriend. While kissing his lady friend, he received a text message from his mom which said that him and his girlfriend needed to leave the house and call the police immediately. AJ didn’t understand the text message, but a voice inside him told him not to disregard his mother’s text. AJ and his girlfriend, Chrissy, took shelter in his car, which he parked across the street directly across from her house. As AJ sat in his car, he called his mom before calling the police. Before he heard his mother pick up the phone, he saw a muscle car roaring down the street. It came to a murderous stop in front of his girlfriend’s house. AJ watched as a young man jumped out of the muscle car, brandishing a gun. He remembered his girlfriend telling him that the young man was her ex-boyfriend. Thankfully, Chrissy’s parents weren’t at home when her ex-boyfriend kicked down the front door, preparing to shoot everyone in the house. That night, AJ’s mother saved their lives. The police arrested Chrissy’s ex-boyfriend. AJ walked away with his life and Lisa thanked God that her supernatural gift saved her son. The evening came and Lisa made herself comfortable in her bed beside her husband. While holding her husband’s hand she thought about the night she rescued her son and his girlfriend, who soon became his ex-girlfriend. This incident occurred two years ago. Lisa didn’t want to let go of her son. The last time Lisa saw her son was in his dorm room. She helped him unpack his things. Lisa laughed to herself while thinking about how she hugged and kissed all over her son’s face, not caring about embarrassing him in front of his college roommate. Lisa had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss her son goodbye. She told herself not to cry in front of her son. Lisa couldn’t accept the reality that her baby had become a grown man. She still saw herself coddling a toddler. She saw herself playing hide and seek with her son. She saw herself pushing her son on the playground swing. While Lisa hugged her son, her sadness struck her like a fist after she realized that her days of playing with her son as a baby were over. Lisa had her face buried in her son’s chest with her slender arms locked around his waist. She cried so hard that her tears drenched the front of her son’s Notorious B.I.G t-shirt. Lisa didn’t care about embarrassing herself. She didn’t care about blowing kisses at her son and watching him squirm from his mother’s overstated affection. She didn’t care about her husband taking her by the arm and dragging her out of her son’s dorm room. Lisa knew she looked psychotic in front of her son’s roommate, but she didn’t care. “He’ll be okay,” Lisa’s husband, Harrison, whispered to his wife. He stopped reading his book after he heard his wife release a mournful sigh. Harrison laid the book down on his chest before leaning over to kiss his wife. “I know he’ll be okay, but I can’t stop worrying. Our baby went to college today. He packed all of his things and he moved out. Now he’s fucking gone, living on a college campus that’s forty miles away from us.” Lisa looked away from her husband while wiping a tear off her face. She normally didn’t cuss, but she was so distraught that The F-Word escaped from her lips. She had an upright position in the bed with her back pressed against her pillow and the headboard. Lisa brushed her flowing caramel-brown hair away from her wet face. She forced herself to smile at her husband when he gave her another comforting kiss on her cheek. “Our baby is fine. We’ll see him again,” Harrison reassured his wife through his relaxing, deep voice. “He’s a man now. He’s gonna make new friends. He’ll find his future wife just like his father met his future wife at his college,” Harrison chuckled out his words as he tickled his wife, causing her to giggle. “See! I’m making you feel better already!” Harrison tossed his book to the side. He let the novel fall off the bed as he scooted closer to his wife. Lisa gave her husband an amused stare. She knew what her husband wanted when she felt his hand slide up her stomach before coming to a stop beneath her left breast. “When you look at me, can you still remember your past?” Harrison whispered the question with his mouth hovering over his wife’s full lips. He knew about his wife’s supernatural gift and it would always stimulate him sexually. Lisa knew that her gift aroused her husband, but his question unnerved her. She knew her husband presented his question as a joke, but she didn't find the humor. “What’s the matter?” Harrison looked puzzled after he brought his lips in for a kiss, only to get halted by his wife’s hand. Harrison hated to see his wife turn away from him. “I don’t think you should joke about my gift. It’s too damn serious to joke about.” Lisa gently rebuked her husband while folding her arms and turning her back on him. Harrison laughed nervously. “Look, I’m sorry. It was just a joke.” Harrison’s smirk and his playful attitude didn’t warm his wife’s heart. “I’ve been a clinical psychologist for twenty years, but I feel like a freak.” Lisa rested her hand above her cleavage while turning to look back at her husband. “You have no idea what it feels like to counsel a person, knowing that they’re going to die. I can’t save every client who walks into my office. I dread it when I look into a client’s eyes and I can’t remember my past, but I can see their future death. The premonition of death I see through a client’s eyes erases my childhood. When I see someone’s dark future, it’s like I cease to exist.” Lisa’s whispering became harsh. When her husband nervously dropped his gaze, she clutched her fingers beneath his chin forcing him to look back into her eyes. “Look, forget what I said. My question was a bad joke and I’m sorry,” Harrison profusely apologized, hoping it would stop his wife from discussing her supernatural sight, but she crushed his hopes. “I accept your apology and I pray that I will never forget my past when I look at you.” Lisa stroked her finger beneath her husband’s well-defined chin. “I had a client who came to my office a year ago. He needed treatment. He was psychologically scarred because his mother molested him every night. She was a crackhead and a prostitute. Her pimp would beat her and put her in the hospital sometimes. This young man told me that his mother’s job made her feel powerless and she hated men. So she reinstated her authority by sexually abusing her son. She imposed her hatred for men onto her 4-year-old baby. On some nights, she’d beat her son and strangle him the same way her pimp would do her. On other nights she’d sexually abuse her son the way her male clients would abuse her and treat her like sexual trash. The abuse she received for being a prostitute didn’t give her the right to abuse her son. Her child didn’t deserve to suffer because of his mother’s poor lifestyle choice.” Harrison didn’t want to hear his wife’s story. He wanted to make love to his wife, but he forced himself to listen. Sometimes his mind would drift. He’d try to stop his eyes from admiring his wife’s slender neck, and how it melded perfectly to her shapely body. Harrison tried to keep his eyes off the voluptuous form of his wife’s boobs, concealed beneath her silver negligee. The man fought with his desires as he kept his eyes on the symmetrical beauty in his wife’s face. “I couldn’t help him.” Lisa never broke away from her story even when she could see the disinterest in her husband’s eyes, which disturbed her a little. “He had severe depression. The medication prescribed to treat his bipolar wasn’t helping. I could hear his suicidal thoughts as if they were my own. I’ll never forget the day he came into my office in tears. My past vanished when I looked into his eyes. I knew he was going to do something bad to himself that day. I tried so hard to talk him out of it. As I’m looking at him, I’m seeing a vision of him hanging from his bedroom ceiling and I couldn’t remember my date of birth. I couldn’t remember our wedding. I couldn’t remember giving birth to AJ. When you see someone’s death, it’s like being pushed off the roof of a skyscraper, or drowning in the middle of the ocean. That’s what it feels like for me. Nate was the one client I couldn’t save. Or maybe I could have saved him, but I didn’t try hard enough. I could’ve canceled all of my appointments for that day and just focused on Nate. But I knew that I had other troubled clients like Nate, and I couldn’t cancel their appointments.” Lisa paused, wallowing in her regret. Harrison kept his eyes on Lisa’s face and he had his chin resting in his hand. He had his other hand coasting down the side of his wife’s arm. “I let him walk out of my office after we talked for three hours. I told him he was beautiful and that his life was precious and that he shouldn’t throw his life away.” Lisa bit her bottom lip. “I couldn’t save him. When he walked out of my office, I thought about calling the police. But I didn’t want the police to arrest him or harm him. I just wanted them to protect him. I didn’t see him hanging from the ceiling anymore, which gave me hope. But I still sensed something wrong, and that’s when I heard a loud pop. I heard the gunshot as I was dialing 911, and I knew he had shot himself outside my office. He was 19 years old. He was just a baby who was no older than AJ. He had a bright future. That bright future was ruined because he had a bitch for a mother.” Lisa hated how her tears would make her eyes itch. She wasted no time using her fingers to clean away a few tears that cascaded down her nose. Harrison folded his hands. He had his hands pressed against his lips while staring up at his wife with intensity in his eyes. He kept quiet for a few minutes and he rested his folded hands on his wife’s chest. Lisa took hold of her husband’s hands. She wanted him to say something and she waited to hear her husband’s voice while bringing his hands up to her face. “You need to let go,” Harrison told his wife as he leaned closer to her face with his eyes longing to look down at her neck and cleavage. He only said those five words before bringing his lips to Lisa’s neck. Lisa felt lost. She wanted her husband to say more. Lisa remembered her husband being more supportive and soothing with his words. When he told her she needed to let go, it sounded heartless. Lisa didn’t like her husband’s simple words, although she did like his touch. A few alluring kisses to the side of her neck put Lisa’s mind at ease for a moment. Lisa wanted to force her husband to say more. She wanted to push him away, but she couldn’t. Within a blink of an eye, Harrison had his wife on top of him with his hands going up the bottom of her negligee. “I need to let go? That’s all you’re going to say?” Lisa whispered down to her husband. She waited for Harrison to answer. Instead of an answer, she felt his hands massaging the back of her thighs. Soon she felt her husband’s hands coasting across her butt and coming to a stop on her lower back. Harrison stayed silent as he guided his hands up his wife’s negligee. He held his wife on top of him while bringing his sneaky fingers closer to her breasts. While getting him a handful of boobs with one hand, he forced his wife to bring her face down to his lips with his other hand. Harrison brushed his wife’s hair behind her shoulders before giving her a steamy, enveloping kiss. The kiss triggered every pleasure sensor in Lisa’s body, but there was something unfamiliar about her husband’s kiss. Lisa wanted to withdraw her lips, but the kiss between the wife and her husband remained unbroken. She had her hands massaging his wide muscular chest and she expected to feel her husband’s solid masculinity inserting itself into her vagina. Insertion would come at a price for Lisa. The air in the room became hot. Sweat enveloped Lisa’s skin at an unusual rate. She still had the mountaintop position on her husband. Lisa would always close her eyes while kissing her husband, but something told her to keep her eyes open. Kissing her husband would always put Lisa in the mood, but Lisa discovered that the man she enjoyed kissing was not her husband. She discovered the truth when her husband brought his lips to the side of her neck. Lisa brought her hands down on her husband’s back when he sat up slightly to kiss her neck. This gave Lisa a chance to look down her husband’s back. She finally noticed that her husband wasn’t sweating. He had bone dry skin, but his bone dry skin isn’t what startled Lisa. Her mind went blank when she noticed something growing out of her husband’s back. The growth reminded Lisa of metal spikes. “Baby, what’s wrong with your back?!” Lisa blurted out her question. She screamed when her husband’s massive hand gripped her throat. “Don’t be afraid,” the imposter Harrison hissed in Lisa’s face through gritted teeth. “You sacrificed yourself and now you’re with me.” Harrison’s face morphed into a reptilian-like form as he continued to speak. “I want you. God wants to keep me from having you, but God can’t stop me!” A dark split lizard tongue emerged from the monster's mouth whenever he'd chuckle. Lisa couldn’t talk, mainly because the reptilian man was squeezing her throat. She tried to fight off her otherworldly attacker and as she struggled to breathe, the room became hotter. “I don’t get it. You stopped a gunman from killing a group of college boys. You’re a heroine who took a bullet to the chest, but yet you’re down here with me. I don't think God loves you.” The creature spewed his words in Lisa’s face. He got pleasure out of watching Lisa fight to breathe. Lisa heard a distant voice calling out to her. It sounded like the voice of her son. Hearing her son’s voice gave Lisa the strength to break free from the reptilian man. Lisa slapped the creature across his face. She struck him a second time with her fist. The creature became enraged when Lisa punched him. A guttural, demonic, growl escaped the monster’s throat. In a fit of rage, he hurled Lisa across the bedroom, causing her body to slam into a wall. A fire erupted around the bed. When the reptilian man arose from the bed, the smoldering flames leaped up, kissing his bulky, shirtless, tattooed body. Lisa kept hearing her son calling after her. She had to escape the bedroom and she saw the fire rising from the floor. Lisa bolted toward the bedroom door. The reptilian man tried to grab Lisa around her waist, but the woman’s elbow sent him tumbling to the floor. A white light swallowed Lisa when she opened the bedroom door. The woman followed her son’s voice. She soon heard her husband’s voice calling out to her. When Lisa opened her eyes, she was lying in a hospital bed. There was a bandage below her collarbone. Lisa looked up to see her son sitting at her bedside. Her real husband, Harrison, sat on the opposite side of the bed, holding his wife’s hand. Lisa raised her hand to caress her son’s face when he stood up to kiss her. She placed her eyes on her husband, who had tears of joy in his eyes. Flowers and gift baskets surrounded Lisa’s hospital bed. Harrison kissed his wife’s hand when saw her eyes open. He broke down in tears when his wife caressed his chin. The man thought he had lost his wife. He also thought she'd be in a coma for a long time. “Your supernatural gift made you a hero,” AJ whispered to his mom after kissing her. The young man held his phone up in front of his mother. Lisa read the news headline on her son’s phone, which said; A YOUNG BLACK MOTHER PREVENTED A GUNMAN FROM SHOOTING HER SON AND HIS COLLEGE FRIENDS AT THE MOUNTAIN RIDGE UNIVERSITY. THE MOTHER FOUGHT WITH THE GUNMAN UNTIL POLICE ARRIVED. SHE SURVIVED AFTER SUSTAINING A GUNSHOT WOUND TO HER CHEST. THE GUNMAN WAS A WHITE SUPREMACIST. POLICE ARRESTED THE GUNMAN AFTER USING LETHAL FORCE.