Taboo (Merle Dixon x OFC)

Chapter 35

Merle was already a rough and tough man, but my death hardened him even more. He became more of an asshole than ever before. He went back to his old ways of fucking whores and drinking until he blacked out. His drug use skyrocketed. Instead of experimenting, or being a 'weekend warrior', he did drugs every day. He ended up becoming a full-blown addict. He made plenty of money from selling the drugs he got from Paulie, so he never had to worry about any kind of debts. There were plenty of drugs and money to go around.

Merle discovered a new kind of love in a drug called crystal meth, and he used that new love frequently to relieve his misery. Being high on crystal meth was the closest feeling he would ever get to how he felt when he was with me. He chased that feeling as much as he could, and he used whores to try to satisfy his sexual urges, but those whores could never satisfy him in the same way that I could. He would utter my name sometimes when he fucked them, but they never said anything because they were paid to do whatever he wanted. If he wanted to pretend they were someone else, then so be it. My name and who I was were none of their business and they knew it.

Those were the kinds of things my Daddy was talking about when he mentioned Merle would do things I wouldn't approve of. However, there was one thing Merle did that made me very happy. Not long after my death, Mama's suicide, and all the killing he did with Paulie, Merle texted my friend Rayne anonymously. He said in the texts that he missed me. She had no idea who was texting her. She asked who in the fuck was texting her, and wanted to know where me and Mama were. No one ever told her what had happened to us. She just thought we all disappeared off the face of the earth, but she figured out from words Merle used in the texts he sent that it was him. After all, she wasn't stupid. She had gotten to know him well over the years.

Rayne wanted to see Merle, so he met her in another town in a public place. They left together, and they both got shitfaced while Merle told her what had really happened to us. He even told her what had really happened to Daddy. Rayne was angry and heartbroken over what Merle told her, but she promised to keep her mouth shut. She was just happy to know the truth. Even though Rayne had teased me about Merle being older than us, she ended up fucking him while they were reminiscing about me. They needed comfort in that moment and they helped each other. I couldn't be angry at Rayne for fucking him. I couldn't be mad at Merle, either. I was dead, and he gave her something she needed; peace of mind and the best orgasm she'd ever had while he fucked her from behind. They didn't regret sleeping together, but they never saw each other again after that, and Rayne kept her mouth shut like she promised she would.

Merle's involvement with whores ended up giving him STD's. Most of them he could cure with medication, but he ended up catching genital herpes. He had to live with that for the rest of his life, but he never told anyone he had the disease. He just took antivirals to keep the disease dormant in his body. The only one who knew he had it was Daryl, and he only figured it out from an empty pill bottle he found in the trash without Merle's knowledge.

I continued to visit Merle in his dreams on a regular basis. We fucked quite often in his dreams. Being with me in his dreams was the only time he was truly happy. He confessed to me he used drugs to squash his misery. He apologized profusely for fucking whores, even for what he did with Rayne, but I told him it was okay. I told him I understood why he did the things he did, but he still continued to hold a massive amount of guilt anyway.

Daryl spent most of his time over the next ten years watching over Merle and taking care of him when he was really fucked up or withdrawing from drugs. They needed each other, but Daryl was aware that Merle was broken inside. He knew Merle never got over my death. He wondered sometimes if Merle had completely lost his mind when he would hear him talking to me. He wasn't sensitive to spirits like Merle was, but he believed anything was possible, so he left Merle alone. Daryl never said a word to him about talking to me when he thought he was alone. He never said anything to him about moaning my name in his sleep, either. He just let Merle do what he thought Merle needed to do to cope. Merle aged considerably from all the drinking and drugs he did, but I still thought he was sexy anyway. If I had lived, his aging process would have meant nothing to me. I would have still fucked him like he was the man I was born to love because I did love him. I loved him with every fiber of my soul.