When I opened the letter, to say I was shocked would have been an understatement.  My aunt Cecilia, who I hardly knew, had died and left me her house!  I remember visiting often when I was a little girl, intimidated by the woman who was my late mother’s older sister, as well as the house that seemed to be an imposing castle to someone as young as I was.  My mom and Aunt Cecilia had a falling out over something, I don’t remember what, but the effect was I hadn’t seen my aunt in years and thus my surprise.

I called the lawyer who sent me the letter.  He filled me in on the details.  It seemed the house was mine as long as I chose to live there.  He explained how the small staff and all the upkeep were budgeted, set aside by a provision in my aunt’s will.  All I had to pay for were utilities and any redecorating I wished to do.

After hanging up, I pondered the logistics.  What would I do, a single woman in such a large house?  It was in the next county, so my commute would be longer though still manageable.  Overall, plusses outweighed the minuses, so I agreed.

Before moving in, I visited what would now be my home.  I was introduced to the staff—my staff.  Matilda was the domestic, responsible for the inside of the house.  Ferguson was the caretaker; an ancient handyman who I was assured was very capable of maintaining the house and grounds.  The lawyer explained that a local chef came in several days of the week to prepare dinner.  This must have been mundane stuff to my Aunt Cecilia, but the whole idea of a staff seemed decadent to me.

Matilda gave me a tour.  “This will be your bedroom, I assume, Miss Linda.  It was your aunt’s,” she said, showing me a huge, luxuriously appointed bedroom.

“Are there others?” I asked, “I’d feel funny sleeping in my aunt’s bed.”

She made a scoffing sound, and then said, “It would be silly for you to sleep anywhere else, Miss.  This is by far the nicest bedroom in the whole house.”

I noticed a large oil portrait of a young man hanging above the bed.  The man’s clothes appeared to be modern, so I asked who it was.

Matilda smiled, and said, “That’s Jonathan. He was a good friend of your Aunt Cecilia.  He used to live in the cottage down the road.”

I studied the portrait.  “He looks rather young there.  Seems interesting that my aunt had a friend his age; or was the picture painted years ago?”

“No, Miss Linda, the portrait was painted a month or so before he passed.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yes, Miss, he died right here in this house.  The doctors said something burst in his brain, I think.  Your aunt found him.”

“That’s so sad.  And you say they were friends?”

With another wistful smile, she answered, “Indeed, the best of friends.”

Throughout the rest of the tour, I pondered her cryptic words.  Was Matilda suggesting they were something more than friends, perhaps something sexual?  I rather doubted that, given the obvious age difference, but she was being reticent for a reason.  Was this Jonathan a secret relative of hers?  Was that it?  Oh, well, maybe Jonathan would remain simply a portrait—and a mystery.

Before leaving, I explained my moving-in timeline to Matilda.  My plan was to move some essential clothes and such immediately then decide what else to bring or put into storage.  Tomorrow I would be living in my new house.

 

I arrived after work with a carful.  Ferguson helped me bring things in.  In fact, Ferguson brought almost everything in, which made me feel guilty since the man looked so old and frail.  I thanked him profusely then set to work putting things away.

Matilda let me know that this was one of the evenings the chef would be in, so I had a fantastic roast duck dinner, again feeling guilty about all this extravagance and not sharing it.  While eating, I noticed another portrait of Jonathan in the dining room.  Though smaller, this one appeared more vivid, almost lifelike.  He looked to be thirty or so, exceedingly handsome, maybe even beautiful, which is not to say that he wasn’t a virile man, one who would take a woman to new heights of sexual fulfillment.

Wow, how did I know that? I thought, as I sat in stunned silence.  Somehow the essence of this stranger was known to me.  The experience felt creepy, so I quickly drained my wine glass and went in search of a television, more as a distraction than entertainment.

Later while getting ready for bed, I once again contemplated my dinnertime intrusion, for that’s how I thought of it, an intrusion of memories truly not my own.  A shiver ran up my spine.  I hoped this would not be a precursor to some haunted house mumbo-jumbo.  I tried reading in bed, but soon gave up, unable to concentrate, wondering what my first night in this big house would be like.  I was tired, yet the old house’s creaks and groans prevented me from falling right to sleep.  I glanced up at the young man’s portrait, highlighted by a shaft of moonlight.  For some reason it looked different, as if the man’s clothing had changed.  Must be a trick of light, I thought.

After an indeterminate time I fell asleep.  Sleep turned out to be more than the restful interlude I so greatly desired. 

I dreamed I was on horseback, riding up to my Aunt Cecilia’s house, when my summer dress simply blew away.  Now naked, I felt the powerful muscles of the horse (bareback?) ripple beneath me, radiating up through my groin.  I grew warmer and felt (?) moisture seep from me onto the horse’s back.  When I arrived at the house, a handsome young man helped me dismount; cupping a breast while commenting on what a beautiful day it was for a ride in the country.  I looked at him and now his clothes were gone, revealing a remarkable physique and an equally remarkable erection.  I climbed back onto the horse and rode some more.  Wildly through the countryside I rode until the horse became the man.  My body bounded up and down, up and down until the stallion (?) snorted, and I climaxed all over him.

I awoke with a start.  The dream, as they so often do, began fading immediately, but the image of the man lingered.  I gazed up at the moonlit portrait and confirmed the match.  I then realized I had no panties on.  I’d gone to bed with them on, and now I was naked from the waist down.  They were not in the bed, nor on the floor next to the bed.  As I was groping around the bed looking for them, I realized one spot on the bed was extremely wet.  Had the dream made me orgasm?  If yes, that was definitely a first for me.

I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay in bed, wondering where my panties were and wondering how the man in the portrait made it into my dream.

I didn’t need the alarm clock that morning.  I dragged myself out of bed, tired, grumpy, and still panty-less.  Before I went into the shower, I looked at myself in the large mirror.  My vulva appeared swollen, as it can get only after an extremely vigorous orgasm.  My clitoris was similarly swollen.  I still felt wet as I washed myself in the shower.  The fuzzy memory of my dream still intruded, first making me want to learn more of the dashing young man in the portraits—the mysterious Jonathan—and then whether any horses were kept in the area.  The estate lawyer hadn’t mentioned horses, but the dream…

 

I was late for work, hardly able to concentrate all day, and eventually said ‘fuck it’ and left early.  Matilda was surprised to see me and questioned my health.

“Are you feeling well, Miss Linda?  You look peaked.  May I get you something, maybe aspirin?” she asked, her concern genuine.  My Aunt Cecilia used the word peaked—pronouncing it ‘peek-id’ as Matilda just did—like I might use the phrase ‘under the weather.’  I’d never heard anyone else use that word in my entire life.

“Thank you, Matilda.  I’ll be fine.  I didn’t sleep well last night.  A glass of wine, dinner, and a good night’s sleep should do the trick.”

“Very well, Miss Linda.  I’ll get a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the cellar, one that will go well with the poached salmon.”

I swear she glanced sidelong at the room’s picture of Jonathan when I told her I hadn’t slept well.  The woman certainly was hiding something from me.  Who had this Jonathan been anyway?

The white wine was excellent.  I made a mental note to scout out the wine cellar over the weekend.  After dinner, I walked outside and toured the grounds.  I’d been quoted acreage, but the number failed to reveal to me just how huge the property really was.  A large copse of trees stood at one end, which is where I headed first.

 The sheer magnificence and old-world feel of the place was overwhelming.  As I entered the thicket, I grew surprised at the silence, with nary a bird chirp or squirrel rustle to be heard.  I came across a small concrete bench in a clearing, so I sat down and luxuriated in the woodsy solitude.

About five minutes into my reverie, a chill wind coursed around me while an incongruous hot flash coursed within.  I had difficulty breathing, panting like a winded sprinter.  Or panting like a pre-orgasmic lover, I thought.  I’d unconsciously spread my legs, taxing my skirt’s seams.  Suddenly, I felt it; I’d been penetrated by something, though looking down I only saw my skirt hem tremble.

I was cumming, and I had no explanation for it whatsoever!

Orgasmic wave after orgasmic wave swept over me as I sat on that bench.  I willed my hand to reach down, pull up my skirt, and feel myself, to somehow confirm what was or was not happening to me.

I had no panties on.

The morning’s awakening discovery may have had a logical, though elusive explanation, but this had none.  I had not been without panties, and yet now I wore nothing, soiling the skirt and bench with my juices of unexplainable arousal and climax.  I stood on wobbly legs and searched the area for my missing underwear, convinced the only credible conclusion was that I’d taken my panties off to masturbate and tossed them aside.  Yet I hadn’t masturbated, I was sure of it.  I hadn’t entered some erotic fugue state either.  I had been finger-fucked by someone or something, which was clear enough, though nothing else made sense.

I ran back to the house, distancing myself from what I now believed to be a haunted wood.  I ran into Ferguson—almost physically running into him.

“Are you okay, Miss?  You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m…I’m okay, Ferguson.  I…I thought I heard a noise among the trees and it scared me, that’s all.”

“Usually t’ain’t much noise comin’ from them woods, at least until you get to the property line next to the old Fitzhugh place.  I wonder what you heard.”

“Probably an animal, that’s all.  Maybe I just have too much city girl in me for those woods.” I said.

“Whatever scared you sure left you a-flustered.  You got what my dear mom used to call the “beet flush.”  He stared off, like he was searching for a memory.  “Weren’t no wild animal that put the beet flush on momma’s face after Pa died.  Mostly the young bucks that came a-courting did that.”  Then he laughed, saying, “Though some of them might’ve been wild animals if you went by the sounds coming out of her bedroom at times.”

I laughed with him, but hoped it didn’t sound hollow after my experience in the woods.  Mostly to change the subject, I asked him about what he called the Fitzhugh place.

“I don’t rightly know who lives there now.  I’ve completely lost track of things since Master Jonathan…” he paused as if choking on his words.  “…since he passed on.”

“Jonathan, the man in all the portraits lived there?”

“Yes, Miss Linda.  Your Aunt Cecilia thought very highly of him, as he felt about her.”

The question almost escaped my lips, yet I couldn’t bring myself to ask if they were lovers, and not sure if Ferguson would acknowledge anything anyway.  Instead, I asked another question that somehow popped into my head.  “By any chance did my aunt and Jonathan meet in the woods by that concrete bench, perhaps take walks together?”

He had another of those faraway moments before answering, then said, “Miss Linda, I don’t know what possessed you to ask, but yes, that was their favorite place in all the world.  Most of the time they’d ride, not walk.”

“Ride, like on horseback?”

“Yes Miss.  We used to have horses here but when Master Jonathan...when…he was gone, your Aunt Cecilia couldn’t even stand to see them around anymore, and then the barn fire…”

“Where were they kept?  I haven’t seen a barn or stable?”

“You were close to it, Miss Linda.  Just t’other side of them woods, sort of opposite that cement bench you found,” he said, pointing in what I took to be a northwest direction.  He actually pronounced it “ceee-ment” and I enjoyed his rustic twang.

“I’ll have to check it out.  Thank you, Ferguson.  It’s too bad there’re no more horses here.  Riding would be fun.”  A memory of my dream—riding bareback and feeling the horse’s vibrations traveling up through my groin—made me feel warm inside.

“Yes, Miss, it would.”  He hesitated, perhaps weighing his words.  “Miss Linda, you may not be aware but you look much like Cecilia, especially when she got all excited ‘bout things like you just did.”

The warmth within must have produced a flush without.  I thanked Ferguson again and began walking back to the house.  I wanted so much to explore the rest of the estate, though it was getting dark and I still felt spooked about what had happened.  Two thoughts intruded above all others: I had a great orgasm even though I knew not how, and I’d have to shop for new panties, seeing that I’ve ‘lost’ two so far.

“So far;” I said aloud, realizing I had every expectation that the eerie episodes would happen again.

I approached bedtime with so much trepidation I wondered if I could sleep at all.  Remembering the wreck I’d been at work I couldn’t stand a repeat performance.  Unlike my usual custom, I wore full pajamas.  Would they disappear?  Normally the idea would have made me laugh but these occurrences were no laughing matter.  Lying in bed, I stared at the portrait of Jonathan and cursed, “Dammit, it’s all your fault!” though why I believed that I had no idea.

I eventually did fall asleep.  No horse appeared, but that didn’t mean I didn’t dream.

I heard the whisper at my ear without seeing him.  “Have you missed me?” he asked, his lips lightly brushing my earlobe as he spoke.  I croaked “Yes,” as his hand went to a breast and caressed its areola and nipple.  His hand wasted no time with the other breast, thought it too ached for his touch.  Instead his fingers moved downward, past my navel to my waist and beyond.  He swirled a finger through my pubic hair as if he were curling it more than it already curled.  Tantalizingly, his fingers remained so close yet so far.  I croaked again, “Please.”  Finally his fingertips found my dampness, lazily stroking my clit.  Stroking.  Stroking.  The wave was about ready to crash against the shoreline.  Closer. Closer.

I awoke with the scream still on my lips.  The orgasm (and there was no doubt now that’s what it was) had overwhelmed me, both body and soul.  I still trembled from its aftershocks, thrusting a pillow between my legs as if to smother that which could not be smothered.  The pillow turned out to have the opposite effect, as its pressure caused me to orgasm again.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Godddddddddddddddddddddddddd!” I cried as this second convulsion shook me to the bone.

When I was able to organize my thoughts following the orgasms, I jumped from the bed in horror.  Once more I awoke from a dream naked from the waist down!  No pajama bottoms, no panties.  I found the pajama pants balled up on the floor near the foot of the bed, but my panties were gone.  Again.

I cried.  What was happening to me?  Had I gone too long without sex and this was the result?  Was someone, somehow molesting me while I slept?  That idea was scary; however I rejected it right away.  No, they were dreams and I’ve been masturbating in my sleep.  That had to be it.  Except, where had my panties gone?

I looked up to see Jonathan looking back at me.  “Fuck you, Master Jonathan,” I yelled at the portrait.  Thankfully, he didn’t yell back.  I didn’t sleep any more.

 

I called in sick, unable to think straight, never mind doing some work.  I didn’t know how I could continue to function without proper sleep.  Matilda fussed over me, offering dozens of folk remedies for my feigned illness.  After some breakfast, I wandered the grounds.  I walked in the direction Ferguson had pointed, determined to find the horse barn.  He’d mentioned a fire, however he hadn’t elaborated.  I’d see for myself.

When I eventually came upon the structure, I saw evidence of a fire though the barn was remarkably in good shape.  I walked into the barn.  The smell of hay and horses was still evident.  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how it must have been when horses were kept here.  I noticed a ladder that went up to a hay loft, and decided to climb up, testing it first.  It seemed sturdy enough, so up I went.

The hay up there still smelled surprisingly fresh.  I lay down on one pile, placing a piece of straw between my teeth.  There, I thought, now I’m really a farmer’s daughter, so where’s the proverbial travelling salesman?

Since I’d been without much sleep, I immediately dozed off.

“That tickles!” I said to the person who was running a piece of straw up and down between my spread thighs.  “Don’t be like that, you love to be tickled there,” came the unseen man’s voice.  “Maybe I’m not using the correct implement.”  My head was back, eyes closed, so I didn’t see him go down on me, using his tongue like a sword to cut me to my core.  “Mmmmmm, that’s much better,” I muttered.  His tongue and lips grew more insistent, more forceful, and so did my response.  “I’m cumming already!” I cried.

I forgot where I was, looking around at the hay loft, lost and afraid.  As the dream faded, my whereabouts came back to me. 

The barn. 

The loft. 

Falling asleep. 

That’s when I realized I was naked, my clothes in a heap near the hay pile I was lying on.  A hand instinctively went to my crotch and found all the tell-tale signs of sexual climax.

Suddenly I felt hot breath at my neck as something brushed against me there.  I jumped up and spun around in horror.  My startled leap sent me over the edge of the loft and I fell to the hard barn floor.  The last I remember was my thought that no one had been there with me.

 

“Oh Lord, Miss Linda…Miss Linda…you’re coming to.  Girl, I don’t rightly know what you were doin’ up there but at least you don’t seem to have no broken bones…though I’m ashamed to be lookin’ at you t’all.”  My eyes fluttered open to see Ferguson’s lined face looking down at me with concern.

“I…I…I…”

“Don’t you move.  Just stay there for a minute whilst you get your wits about you.”

“I fell.”

“Yes, miss, you most certainly must have.  What you were doin’ up there with your clothes off is none of my business, so when you feel like it, I’ll go fetch ’em so you can be dressed proper again.”

I was too damned sore to let my nakedness bother me as much as it seemed to bother poor Ferguson.  My head was cleared enough by then to ask him to get my clothes.  As he climbed the ladder, I took stock of my battered body.  It didn’t feel like anything was broken.

Ferguson, God bless him, was torn as any man would between modesty, averting his eyes, and ogling my exposed body.  I was grateful he did more averting than staring, as he handed my clothes to me and helped me get into a sitting position.

“I’ll be outside while you get yourself dressed.  If you’re having trouble, call out and I’ll come help.”  He nearly choked on the last part.

I managed to get into my clothes, surprised my panties were among them.  At least that result of my orgasmic dreaming hadn’t repeated itself.  I managed to walk out of the barn, though my stiff-legged gait produced pain in places I didn’t know I had.  Ferguson took an arm and together we walked the distance back to the big house.

Matilda fussed over me, heating me up some soup that soothed my insides.  I wasn’t sure if anything then could’ve soothed my outsides.  I needed sleep so badly, but I didn’t think I could take more of the dreams.  As I remembered the scraps of my most recent one, something made my mind place Jonathan into it, making him the man who had worked cunnilingus magic on me.  I laughed at myself.  The portraits around the house were beginning to play tricks on me.  The ghost-lover Jonathan, indeed!  How silly was that.

The day went by in a daze.  I tried to nap but couldn’t—or wouldn’t—fall asleep.  For the third time today, I took the hottest shower I could stand.  The heat eased my aches and pains though it did nothing for the fear welling within me.  I either believed in an incubus, or I was going mad.  Neither option appealed to me.

At night, fitful sleep seemed better than no sleep.  I didn’t dream, at least about sex, and when I awoke, my mind was more at ease though my body still rebelled because of my fall.  I went to work and tried not to think of dreams, non-existent horses, spooky haylofts, and Jonathan.

 

No sex dreams for a few nights, and I was feeling better.

Bright and early Saturday morning I set off walking back toward the old horse barn.  Maybe my motivation was much like an exorcism, to expel the demon that was invading my dreams, and invading me.  Nothing had changed.  I saw the spot where I’d landed, thankful I hadn’t broken any bones, or worse.  Before I had a chance to chicken out, I climbed the ladder to the hay loft.  “My” hay pile still showed the impression of my body.

Like a silly fool, I shouted, “IF YOU WANT ME, COME AND GET ME.  DON’T WAIT UNTIL I SLEEP, FUCK ME NOW!”

Thankfully, no voice answered.  I climbed back down from the loft and walked toward the woods.  The bench was easy to find.  I sat down and once more chided my elusive spirit, “I had a good orgasm here.  How about another one?  I’ve got new panties on…”

Nothing.

Like a miracle cure, I hopped up from the bench; my light, summer dress billowing in the breeze.  Whatever it was, it’s over, I thought, as I took a step to return to the house.  Suddenly, I felt the same breath at my ear, then a voice, “You do have the sweetest climaxes,” as my dress hiked up much like Marylyn Monroe’s did over the steam grate in that old movie.  My heart pounded in my chest, but I couldn’t move.  My dress kept rising until it went over my head and floated away.  It felt like lips faintly kissing the nape of my neck as my bra came unclasped and fell to the ground.  There was NOBODY THERE, yet I felt hands caressing my body, down, down, until my panties began slipping downward.  I was powerless to move.

My inability to bolt the clearing could have been hypnotic suggestion, but I doubted that.  Something else was at play here, and maybe that something else was my latent sexual needs.  I remained rooted to the spot, like the trees surrounding me, and let whatever force it was take me.  I gasped when unseen hands bent me forward and an unseen cock poked between my thighs and found what it was looking for.

The grip on my hips was unmistakable.  The penetration was equally unmistakable.  I was being fucked by a spirit, and this surely was not a dream.  I should have been petrified, but instead I was amazingly aroused.  ‘He’ pounded into me, and I took it, and I wasn’t quiet about it either.  My voice echoed among the trees, and I wondered if it would carry to the house.  What would Matilda or Ferguson think if they heard me?  That I was hurt?  Did I sound like that, or what I truly was: pre-orgasmic and getting there fast?

When I climaxed, the tremor swept over my entire body as I cried out, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

My spirit lover—for how else could I describe him?—must have cum too, for he (it?) pulled out and released my hips.  Again, invisible lips brushed my neck and cheek.

I heard a voice.  It sounded something like “…love you” whispered at my ear.  I was so dazed from my orgasm and the shock, I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a trick of the wind.

I knew, nonetheless.  I’d been fucked by a ghost.  And I’d loved it.

Like déjà vu, my panties were nowhere to be found.  My bra was nearby, though I had to search for my dress, eventually finding it stuck on a tree branch where it had been deposited by the wind.  Slipping it back over my head, I felt a trickle of something on my thigh.  When I felt it, my hand came away sticky.  I looked at my gooey fingertips and realized it was semen.

That’s when I fainted.

Like one more eerie déjà vu, Ferguson hovered above me as I regained consciousness.

“Don’t look like you fell again, Miss Linda, though the result looks the same to me.”

His use of “result” didn’t register, until I realized I hadn’t completely got back into my dress when I passed out, so I was panty-less and exposed.  What did he think of me now?

“I don’t know what happened, Ferguson.  I fainted for some reason,” I said while trying to lower my dress to cover myself and sit up at the same time.  I saw him take in one last, long look at my nakedness below, and I said in jest, trying to deflect my embarrassment, “Now, you won’t tell anyone I don’t like to wear panties, will you?”

I thought he’d die, but he coughed and eventually said, “No, Miss, what you do is your own business.”  Then he chuckled and added, “But your business looks mighty fine to these old eyes.”

I chuckled with him, kissed him on the cheek, and said, “Thank you, Ferguson.  I’m glad you’re honest about looking, and I didn’t mind it at all.”  He helped me the rest of the way to my feet.  Curious, I asked him, “How did you find me anyway?”

“I heard some caterwaulin’ going on out here, and I remember you sayin’ last time about a noise that scared you, and so I came out here to investigate.”

“I’m glad you did.”

I took his arm as we walked out of the woods.

The remainder of the day was spent exploring the estate, though I stayed closer to the house.  I didn’t know how I ended up as a player in a gothic romance; perhaps more Jane Eyre than Emma Woodhouse, though my Rochester was a ghost.

I supposed Ferguson had told Matilda at least some of what happened to me, because the rest of the day I caught her looking strangely at me, like I was the ghost, not my spirit sex partner.  There it is again, I thought, ‘spirit lover’—I must have gone completely mad.

 

Saturday night, the old saying “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” came to mind when I decided to sleep in the nude.  The decision felt so much like surrender, but since it seemed as if I couldn’t do a damned thing about these “invasions” (and losing panties,) then why not acquiesce?

Before I fell asleep, I glanced at the portrait of Jonathan, sensing something there in his knowing smile.

“You’re awake.  Here, I brought you your morning tea.”

“Why, thank you, dear Jonathan.  I’d rather have you again instead of the tea.”

“Cee-Cee…I think that can be arranged,” he said as he disrobed standing over me while I remained in bed.  I can’t get enough of him; so handsome and so virile.  Why does he care for an old lady like me, I wondered for the millionth time? 

He slowly pulled up my nightdress, and proceeded to nibble on my nether regions.  I cried out, “Oh yes!  Like that!  Yes!” as I felt another exquisite climax approaching at the high velocity only Jonathan had been able to attain. 

I was balanced on the precipice, and Jonathan knew it, for he took that moment to climb atop me and make love to me, his strong arms holding him up as he plunged…

“I’m cummmmming, oh God I’m cummmmming!” I heard myself screaming.

Was I awake or still dreaming?  My legs were spread, my cunt was squishy wet, my stomach fluttered; I’d most certainly just had an orgasm.  I had been dreaming, that was for sure, remnants still there, not having drifted away just yet.

Cee-Cee?

‘Cee-Cee’ had to be my Aunt Cecilia. 

Jonathan?

Unlike before, these names WERE in my dream.  Was the idea of the dream as real as my response to it?  Jonathan had to have been my aunt’s lover, as incomprehensible as that’d seemed to me earlier.

I should have been deathly afraid, but my orgasm had been so intense—ALL of my orgasms here have been intense—that I wanted to believe, accepting the idea that Jonathan’s spirit was fucking me as a way of reliving his time with my aunt.

Or maybe I have gone mad.

Eventually I managed to get back to sleep, and another dream…

“Where are you?”

“Over here, my love.”

I felt the bed move as he crawled up between my splayed legs.  Before his hands touched any part of me, his tongue flicked against my most sensitive place.  “Oh Jonathan, dear, you’re so good to me.  You make me feel so very young again.”

His hands lightly caressed my bottom as his tongue dipped and delved.  He didn’t answer me, but I didn’t want him to answer anyway; I wanted him to keep going.  “Yes, oh yes…dear, yes, yes,” I moaned in approval.

My legs were spread and my feet were in the air, and I felt a tongue lick and probe as no man had ever so expertly done before.  Yes, I was awake.  I knew I was awake.  Hands were at my ass and tongue and lips were at my clit yet no one else was visible in the bed with me.  I felt him—I actually did—as he climbed up on top of me and slowly eased into my vagina.  Strong arms that weren’t there held me.  A tumescent cock that wasn’t there was fucking me.  My legs automatically wrapped around the ass that wasn’t there, urging him on, urging him faster, harder.  I felt hot breath at my neck, felt a throbbing deep within me, and heard my name on the wind.

My eyes found the eyes of the portrait, reflected in moonlight, and I screamed and screamed, with no one in the main house there to hear me.

 

By morning, the face that stared back at me from the mirror WAS that of a madwoman; hair sweaty and matted, eyes red, their orbits puffy and swollen, and lips parted in a rictus of ancient suffering, though my trauma was perhaps neither ancient nor suffering.  How I got to this confluence of time and space was beyond my comprehension.  I was having the best sex of my life and yet my lover appeared to be a specter, an incubus, invading my sleep and driving me crazy.

Matilda prepared some breakfast, fussing over me, saying how ill I looked.  Tell me about it, I thought.  I wanted so badly to escape the house, but where would I go?  Surely not the woods, and certainly not the old barn either.  Instead, I took a longer walk.

The Fitzhugh place looked run-down and uninhabited as I approached from the road, though there was a late model car in the driveway.  As I stopped, deciding my next more, a woman walked out onto the porch.  My presence appeared to startle her, as if no visitors ever came.

Regaining her composure, she said, “Hello.  Can I help you?”

As I walked toward her, I saw that she was somewhat frightened by me for some reason.  I introduced myself and explained to her that I was the new mistress of the estate next door.  Her apparent fear seemed to change into an amorphous sort of anger.

“I’m busy.  Please leave me be, Miss, and return to your big house.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.  Now that I was closer, I realized that she was years younger than I originally surmised.  Her slovenly dress couldn’t quite hide the woman underneath.

Finally, I said, “All I wanted was to find out more about Jonathan.  Did he live here?”

She gasped, began crying, and charged back into the house.

I stood there in the driveway for a long while, but she never reemerged, and so I began walking home.  Perplexed by her strange reaction to me, and what I said, I almost didn’t see the path that ran toward my aunt’s property.  Someday I’ll think of it as mine but not yet.  I instinctively knew the path was a shortcut between the two properties though I had no idea where it led.  I decided to take it, momentarily forgetting about ghostly sexual invasions.

Through the woods I walked until I came to a breach in a stone wall, one that I assumed was there to demarcate the properties.  As I was about to walk through the gap unseen hands pulled me backwards.  The nightmare that had invaded my nights was now freely invading my days.

“Please don’t go.  I want you,” whispered the disembodied voice at my ear.

“Who are you?” I cried, as invisible hands began to tug at my clothes.  “Please don’t, Jonathan, don’t.”

Whether my ‘ghost’ was Jonathan, Rochester, or Casper for heaven’s sake, it didn’t matter—and he didn’t stop.  I was powerless as every piece of clothing was removed until my panties were left.  When they slid down my parted legs, I no longer was being raped, I was a willing participant.  He draped me over the stone wall and fucked me from behind.  Before I knew it I was cumming, and cumming hard.  My vagina contracted upon a very rigid—and very real—penis.  I heard the grunt of a man ejaculating.  I overcame the fear that suddenly enveloped my post-orgasmic mind, and glanced backward over my shoulder.  Of course, no one was there to stake physical claim to that penis which was now coating my vagina and cervix with ejaculate.

I fainted.

When I came to, I was on the ground, still alone, still naked, still fucked.  I gathered my discarded clothing, and remained nonchalant while once again failing to locate my panties.  I began walking back to the house and soon came upon the bench and clearing.  Ignoring my fears, I sat down.

“Can you get it up again so soon, you bastard?” I yelled through gritted teeth. “Here I am.  Bring it on.”

No answer.

A revelation came to me, making a connection between this path, the opening in the wall through which it passed, and the so-called Fitzhugh house.  If my ghostly rapist was Jonathan, then these places, especially the path between the properties, had significance, and therefore the woman I’d spoken with did also.  Against every good sense I had, I turned back and retraced my steps to the neighboring house, and the woman.

I banged on the door several times before she shouted, “What do you want?  You want to ruin my life too?”

“I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life,” I shouted back through the door.  Then I took a chance.  “It’s Jonathan that’s ruining lives.”  I heard a sharp cry as something broke inside; she’d probably dropped whatever she was holding.

I waited, not knowing what else to say.  Just as I was turning around to leave, the door creaked open.  “You know, don’t you?” she asked, holding the door open to invite me inside.  After she closed the door behind me, she added, “And if you know, then he’s been doing it to you too.”

I was stunned speechless.  She introduced herself as Sherrie.  I reassessed my initial notion of her; she wasn’t the haggard woman I thought I’d seen on the porch earlier.  In fact, she was younger and prettier (and now much more serene) than my preconception-colored first impression.

She offered me coffee and I accepted.  Once we were both seated at her kitchen table, she began to unweave the mystery that was Jonathan.  “He was my husband.  I don’t know if you knew that.  Your aunt—”

A choking sob overcame her, and she stopped.  I let her regain composure before returning to the story.  She told me about the first time my Aunt Cecilia asked her husband to teach her to ride.  Then he spent more and more time “over there” as she put it, before he confessed. 

“She was an old lady.  How could he even want to…have sex…with her?” she said, the hurt still apparent.

“It was her money, wasn’t it?” I asked.  I didn’t remember my aunt as a sensual, caring, loving person, so something else had to be the draw.

Sherrie said, “No, it wasn’t just the money, though we barely scraped by.  I think your aunt made him feel important, like the damned Lord of the manor, or something like it.  The whole thing—money, privilege, even the sex—made him feel special.  He even told me she was better than me in bed.  I never met the woman, but really, at her age?  How do you think that made me feel?”

Tears were once more flowing freely, but she continued to school me.  “I still loved him even though he’d spend many nights over there.  Is that stupid, or what?  I don’t know what good it’ll do now, but I still believe his death wasn’t natural.  I think she killed him, and they all covered it up.”

When she saw my expression, she said, “I know she was your aunt but I can’t help it.  That woman stole my life from me.”  More tears. 

I let her run down again, and then asked, “You said I knew, and then you said he was doing me.  You can’t mean Jonathan, can you?”

“I see it on your face.  You know he’s back.  A spirit.  A ghost.  What do they call them when they fuck you in your dreams at night?”

“An incubus.  You really think Jonathan is one of those?”

“He started fucking me first.  Then he rejected me for the new resident of that house.”

“I’m so sorry, Sherrie.  I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?  He left me for you—again.”

I chose not to argue the “again” part.  I wasn’t my aunt.  I didn’t invite anyone into my bed.  I was simply the bed’s newest occupant.  “Yes, he…or what…has taken me in the woods, in my bed, in the old barn on the property, even on the damn stone wall.”

Her expression was strange and difficult to place.  She said, “Did you…did it…was it good?”  I was appalled by her question, and she recognized it.  “I had to ask,” she said, “because Jonathan was such a fantastic lover that I’ve never had an orgasm any better than with him, and I haven’t had one since.  I tried to meet new men, get on with my life, but the sex wasn’t any good.  Before I met Jonathan I thought I was frigid.  Now I know better.”

I thought about my own relative celibacy, and how at times I questioned my feelings toward sex.  I couldn’t admit it to her—or to myself for that matter—that the spectral sex has been the best of my life too, if the explosive orgasms were any measure. 

I said, “So, here we are.  What do we do?”

“Do?  I don’t understand.  What can we do?”

“Let me put it another way, what do you want to happen?”

“I want my old life back.”

“But Jonathan is dead and nothing can change that,” I said.  “Do you want him to go away?  Move on to the afterlife, or whatever?”

She began crying again, sobbing “I don’t know” over and over.

“Was he a jealous man?” I asked, starting to formulate an idea.

Through tear-induced sniffles, she said, “Yes, he was.  He would go crazy if another man even smiled at me.  And the bastard leaves me for an old lady.”

“I’m going to ask again, what do you want?”

“I WANT HIM BACK!  I WANT TO FEEL LOVE AGAIN!” she yelled.

“Even if he’s a ghost?”

“Yes!”

“Sherrie, have you ever been with another woman?” I asked.

“Once…when I was a teenager.  We experimented, that’s all.  No big deal.  What does that have to do with Jonathan?”

“You’re a pretty girl…and…” I moved to be next to her chair, and whispered the rest in her ear.

Her eyes widened.  “I can’t,” she cried.

“If you want him back, you will.”  Eventually she agreed.

 

Matilda was a little put off by the extra person for dinner, but I figured it had more to do with who it was rather than just the extra mouth to feed.   Sherrie had been nervous, and more than a little angry to finally see the house which enticed her dead husband.  I saw a few tears fall when she noticed the succession of portraits.  She relaxed a bit during dinner and from the bottle of Cabernet we polished off.  Through our small talk, I wanted her to accept me as a friend, not as a rival.

When Matilda asked where Sherrie would be sleeping, I dismissed her, saying that I would take care of her sleeping arrangements.  She didn’t like that but what could she say?

Later, I coaxed her into the shower.  When she emerged, I sat her down at the vanity and primped her like no one else had ever done.  She didn’t seem anxious to be naked in front of me.  I brushed her hair, gave her a manicure and pedicure, put on some make-up, all the while exhorting her to look into the mirror, to see how beautiful she was.

She whispered, “Thank you.”

I kissed the nape of her neck, and she said, “You don’t have to.”

“You think I don’t want you?  That it’s all—”

She turned around and kissed me.  She’d told me how long she’d been without sex, and it showed in her kiss.  She helped me out of my pajamas and into bed.  Touching, kissing, loving each other’s body from head to curling toes, breathless in eager anticipation, she surrendered to me.  My tongue went where it’d never been—inside a woman.  I licked, nibbled and kissed her clit, probed her vulva until she was writhing and mewling like a kitten.  I worked on her until I was rewarded with warbled cries of climax.

When she wanted to reciprocate, I whispered to her while pointing to Jonathan’s portrait.  “Let’s wait,” I said.

I thought we’d have to fall asleep for it all to start but I was wrong.  While we lay there together in bed, strong invisible hands pulled me away from Sherrie’s embrace and pulled my legs apart.  When I felt the unseen Jonathan climb between my thighs and try to penetrate me I hollered “NO!”  I had to fight his spectral power, a power that permeated every cell of my body, aching to consummate that which he was starting.

I don’t know where the strength came from, but I pushed his ghost away and pulled Sherrie to me in its place.  “Now, make love to me now.  I want you!” I cried, and Sherrie responded.

Sherrie buried her face between my now dribbling-wet thighs, and began to eat me, while simultaneously keeping Jonathan away, as we’d planned.  She obviously had made love to a woman before since she expertly drove me straight to the fissure that would be my orgasm, and I giddily fell into it.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh Sherrrrrrrrrrrrrieeeeee!” I screamed.  “Goddddddd you’rrrrrrrrrrrre the besssssssssssst!”

I pulled her up on top of me and I held her as closely as I could.  “Do you feel him?” I whispered to her.

“Yes,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“Do you still want this?”

“Yes,” she again hissed.

I felt the tug, trying to separate us; invisible, strong arms.  I yelled, “SHE’S MINE, YOU BASTARD!  YOU GAVE HER UP FOR CECILIA AND YOUR SELFISH DREAMS.  YOU CAN’T HAVE HER NOW!”

Whether the sound I heard was real or imagined, it was still there; “She’s not yours, I had her first.”

I looked into Sherrie’s eyes.  She nodded.  I hoped she knew what she was doing, and I said a silent prayer before releasing the hold I had on her.  “You win, but she’ll always want me.  Always.”

A wind that wasn’t whispered “No.”

Sherrie’s eyes shone in the dim bedroom light.  Her husband, the spirit that was Jonathan, was climbing atop her, and her legs spread and arose to take him.  Reduced to the role of spectator, I watched the one view of intercourse I could actually see.  Sherrie was penetrated, and her breathing kicked up a notch.  Her arms entwined around air as she urged her ghostly lover deeper.  The bed rocked to their motion.  Sherrie grew more animated—and noisier—as the otherworldly sex act continued.  A strange rustle of air told me that Jonathan was climaxing.

Sherrie let out a wail that made my orgasms sound tame by comparison.  Afterwards, I heard her whisper, “I love you Jonathan.  Don’t leave me again.  Please don’t leave me.”

 

I walked her back to her home in the dark, with only a small flashlight to guide us, though neither one of us felt we had anything to fear any more.  At her doorstep, I kissed her, a kiss much more chaste than the one earlier, and asked her if she would be alright.

“I think I will.  I’ll have him with me always.”

I left her, hoping once more that she had her husband back, and that she could handle it.  Sadly, upon reflection I realized she was already basically mad, so continuing life with a ghost husband couldn’t make her any worse.  Of course I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that Jonathan had regained his desire for his pretty wife, so as I walked back to the estate, through the opening in the wall, past the concrete bench, and within range of the barn, I kept waiting for invisible arms to grab me, invisible hands to grope me, pull me down.

Instead as I cleared the trees, I came upon Ferguson, as if he’d been waiting for me.  “Are you out here keeping an eye on me?” I asked.

“I reckon, Miss Linda.  I know you had some strange things happen to you out this way, and I couldn’t help seeing you escorting the young lady you invited for dinner back to her house and all.  Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine, Ferguson.  Thanks for caring.”

“You’re welcome, Miss.  I care ‘bout you like I cared about Miss Cecilia, maybe more.”

“Why more?”

“Because, pardon me sayin’ so, but Miss Cecilia was a silly old lady who couldn’t see what was going on right in front of her, pretending things were different than they were.”

Suddenly, I understood everything.  “You did it, didn’t you?  It wasn’t something natural.  You killed him to protect my aunt.”

For a while he said nothing, his pained expression saying it all.  He wouldn’t even look at me.  Eventually the anguished words spilled forth.  “You may think I’m a bad person, but I couldn’t let him fool her like he was doin’.  And I ended up makin’ everything worse.”

“Worse?”

“I made him a haunting spirit and I know what he’s been doin’ to you all along.”

I blushed, remembering the times he found me naked.  “Let’s go back to the house, okay?” I said, and we headed back.  On the way I explained in less than sordid detail what I’d just done with Sherrie—and hopefully Jonathan’s ghost.  He shared my hope.

“What now, Miss Linda?” he asked.

“You mean will I tell anyone?  No.  I don’t know anything about it, do I?  What’s done is done.”

He thanked me, and that’s when he broached the subject of his age and asked if I would interview his son to take his place.  He spoke of his medical issues in a blunt fashion, and then proceeded to extol the hard-working nature of his “boy.”

I gave him a hug, and said, “Ferguson, if your son is half the man you are, I’d hire him sight unseen, though if you want me to, I’ll interview him as a formality.”

“Oh, Miss, Jake is twice the man I am.  At least twice,” he said, and then chuckled softly, leaving me to ponder what the joke was.

 

Jake turned out to be a hunk. Over six feet tall, with hard muscles fused to a sleek physique, and a congenial way about him that melted me instantly.  I hired him on the spot.

One day while wandering the estate, I came across Jake in an outdoor shower we’d installed after rebuilding the barn.  I stood transfixed, for not only did he have the finest male body I’d ever seen, but now I knew the meaning of his father’s double entendre.  ‘Twice the man’ was right on target!

I thought about how the father had seen me naked.  Did he set this up, getting his son here, with me?   If yes, Ferguson certainly always did the right thing, unlike Jonathan.

Except for the invasion of a spirit, I hadn’t had a man in my bed for a long time.  Maybe I’ll get to know Jake a bit better, I thought, as I slinked away before he could see me staring.  I walked back to the house, my panties wet, wondering if Sherrie was as happy as I was.

 

 

 

Originally published as part of a Kamilla Murphy book "Spirit Lovers"

Copyright 2010, 2014

 

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