The morning pond fog wrapped around the dock as it jutted out into it with peaceful serenity. Alicia Faye stood on the end of the dock and felt the pond fog's mist slowly drift around her bare ankles, stinging them with little needle prick droplets. She stood in the cool morning air, draped only in her robe, drinking her black coffee as she watched the sun rise over the top of the loblolly pines surrounding the private pond of her childhood home.

This was all hers now.

But Alicia Faye did not know what to do with it since she was all alone.

She had been all alone her whole life. She should have been used to it. She was to a degree, but alone was the loneliest feeling of all to her. Being an orphan and growing up with an aunt that did not want her after her parents died from a murder/suicide, Alicia Faye basically raised herself.

This was the first time she had been out of the house in years. Yes years. Society had broken her at an early age. Alicia Faye shunned being in it. She looked to the safe haven of the house she inherited instead. It was the one good thing she had received from the aunt that hated her. And when her aunt died, Alicia Faye was surprised her aunt had even willed it to her.

Her aunt had always blamed her for the death of her sister, Alicia Faye's mother. Her aunt always said that it was her that killed her sister and not Alicia Faye's father, as he actually did then turned the gun on himself. Alicia Faye's aunt always told her that they had not wanted her. Since the age of three, Alicia Faye always heard that if she had never been born, her aunt would still have her sister here instead of her.

That's when she took refuge in her room.

Alicia Faye felt her room was her safe haven. To this day, it still was. It was her real home and sanctuary. It was the place she never wanted to leave. It gave her sanity.

Alicia Faye remembered stepping out of her room when she was little and into the hall of the big house, and it never felt like a home at all. It felt like a prison. She always wanted to just run back into the safety of her own home, her room, because she knew herself there. The room knew her. Alicia Faye was never scared there.

Then images of her aunt barreling upstairs only to grab her on the back of the neck and pull her out of the place that meant the most to her came to her. Alicia Faye liked school and going there, but was forced to by her aunt. She would have gone willingly, but that would have never happened. Her aunt still would have treated her like a dog.
So when school was over, Alicia Faye could not wait to run home and into the safe haven of her room. Being there, she knew she was safe. At least until her aunt came running to get her again.

When Alicia Faye reached her teen years, she figured out why there was no man around. Her aunt would have just run over him like she did her. No man in his right mind would ever have had her in the first place. Her aunt had always been in love with herself most and never had any love for other humankind. It was always about herself. Even if a man had wanted to come around, her aunt would have thought it was only because he would have wanted her to spread her legs. Personally, Alicia Faye saw nothing wrong with that, especially since she had discovered the ways of a man behind the school one day, but her aunt was convinced sex was a sin, and those that partook in fornication, had horns coming out of their heads because they were souls of the devil.

It was too bad. Alicia Faye was sure that a good fuck would have changed her aunt. Then again, it may not have done any good since her aunt thought the vagina was a curse from the devil. Her aunt had often said that's why it ran red once a month. It was the devil's fire coming out of them and reminding them they were his souls she would always say.

It's funny to Alicia Faye, now thirty-two and still without horns and pretty sure her soul was her own soul. She felt certain that if it were true, the horns would have speared forth from her skull the time after being behind the school with that one and only guy. While it was true her vagina still ran red once a month, her soul was still intact and her vagina was still her own and not someone else's.

Alicia Faye finally turned and walked towards the big house that was now hers. It had been nice being outside for the first time in years, but she could feel the comforts of her room calling her. Yes, the whole house was hers now, but there was nothing like the room she had called home for several years.

She put the empty coffee mug in the kitchen sink and then headed upstairs to her safe haven. Once there, she disrobed and stood naked in the middle of the room.

Because she could.

Still naked, Alicia Faye walked over to her desk and pulled out the blank paged journal book she had found hiding in the library downstairs. She opened it to the first blank page and then picked up her pencil she had sitting on the desk beside it. Alicia Faye touched the lead to the paper, but right before she started to write, she paused for a minute to collect her thoughts.

When Alicia Faye was ready, the words in her head started to flow and they went like this:

Dear my recently departed Auntie,

I'd love for you to see me right now as I write this letter. But you are gone and never will. If you were still here and walked in, you'd see that I am sitting behind my desk naked. Yes, that's right, naked. You wouldn't even ask why. I know that for certain. You'd pull me up by the back of my neck, drag me downstairs without putting anything on me and out the house to the middle of the yard to put me on display and exclaim, "My niece is naked because the devil is inside her! See how He has made her express her filth that has become her! Take notice at her exploitation of her nudity because the devil controls her!"

Yes, I can hear you saying that now, Auntie. I really can.

And there is a reason I chose to be naked while I write this. I find it symbolic in fact. It's to prove a point.

You hated me all my life, Auntie. You blamed me for everything. Funny thing is, I never really hated you. I hated the things you did to me. Even into my adult years, I loathed what you did to me, but never hated you as much as you hated me.

No matter how much I tried, I never could please you. For that, I felt like a nobody. And feeling like a nobody, I took refuge in my room because it knew me and I knew it. It was my home.

But now, still surprised after months of you being gone, this big house is my home. I still don't know if I should thank you. It is the only thing good you ever gave me. However, I will always look to the safe haven of my room as home too.

Now, after all these years of being with you and now not being with you, I have finally figured out our differences, Auntie.

Oh, you would never admit any. You would think of yourself as perfect. You always did.

It's the main reason why I am naked now. It was God that made me, Auntie. He brought me into this world, and like that day I came out of your sister's, my mother's womb, I am bare. I have been reborn. The symbolism makes it real.

I am a product of God. God has my soul. It has always been Him that is inside me, not the devil. I could always feel Him guiding me, as He is now. You just did not realize it because I never told you. You would have never believed me anyway.

And you know why, Auntie? Because the devil had your soul instead. The devil was always inside you. He controlled you. He controlled your life. And He still is.

And this letter is my last goodbye to you because I know I will never see you again.

I'll be with God in the hereafter.

But you'll forever be burning in Hell with the one that possessed you.

Quite fitting if you ask me.

Your God-filled niece,

Alicia Faye

Alicia Faye put down the pencil then reached into the drawer of her desk for an envelope. Folding it neatly, she stuffed the "Letter to Auntie" inside and sealed it. She picked up the pencil once again and on the outside of the envelope Alicia Faye wrote, "To Auntie."

Alicia Faye sat it perfectly in the center of the top of her desk, leaned back in her chair, stretched, and smiled.

Finally, Alicia Faye stood, walked away from her desk and the letter in the way that God had made her, and smiled once again.

For one of the first times in her life, she felt complete. And there was not a thing her "Auntie" could do about it.