HauntMe (2 page)

“You would get me so hard,” she said. This should be an easy
one—imagine the best blowjob she’d ever given, and put it in Thomas’s words. “I
thought my cock might snap in two. I was dizzy from it. The way your tongue
whirled around the tip before pulling me deeper. You’d make those little
swallowing noises, as if you were sucking me in as far as you could take me.
When my head hit the roof of your mouth I almost came right then. Your mouth
was so hot. So slick and wet. It was as if I had my cock buried between your
legs, but softer. Watching your head bobbing up and down drove me to near
insanity. Do you remember the first time I came in your mouth? It felt as if my
spirit would float right out of my body. My semen gushing out of me, the most
incredible release—”

Minerva moaned deep in her throat as if she’d reached
orgasm. She watched the audience through half-lidded eyes. They were
enraptured—the men particularly.

“You were always the one for me. I’m so sorry I fucked up.
I’d give anything to be there with you again.”

Pirette had her hands pressed tightly against her mouth. Her
eyes were wide and shining with happiness.

Minerva finished it off. “I love you, Pirette. I wish I
could stay, but I have to go.”

Pirette rose to her feet. “No, Tom, please…” Thomas’ sister
clutched at her hand, urging her to sit down again.

Minerva allowed her body to shudder again. She stood on her
toes, letting her head snap back quickly on her neck—ouch, a little too
quickly, that was going to hurt later—as the “spirit” left her body. She closed
her eyes and breathed deeply, pretending to be rattled by the experience.

“Thomas!” Pirette cried.

Minerva calmed the shaking in her arms. She lowered her
head, keeping her eyes closed. She could hear the audience chattering amongst
themselves. She let the sound rise like a wave cresting on the ocean, waiting
for that perfect white cap before she suddenly opened her eyes, staring out at
them.

There were a few audible inhalations then silence.

“He’s gone now, Pirette. He wanted to stay with you, but he
had to move on. It was already using so much of his spiritual energy to remain
behind and give you this last message. Tom made a mistake. One he would regret
for the rest of his life and beyond. That regret, and his love for you, is so
strong that it’s keeping him from his afterlife. Can you forgive him? Will you
let him go and reach his final resting place?”

Pirette was nodding.

“He needs to hear the words. Can you say them?” Minerva
smiled warmly and gestured for the show’s host and producer, her friend Rachel,
to hand Pirette the microphone.

Pirette cleared her throat, heaving back happy sobs. “I
forgive you, Tom. I love you.”

The audience burst into riotous applause.

“Pirette?” Minerva interrupted.

“Yes?” Pirette eagerly leaned forward, tilting her
scarf-wrapped head. Minerva smiled at her. These were her favorite guests. They
wouldn’t get her rich, but those seeking comfort from lost relatives gave her
steady work that paid the bills, and it warmed her heart every time to know
she’d helped with their grief even a little bit. Surely the deception was in
the name of good? At least this time?

Would she want someone to lie to her about Bram?

“He is moving safely to the other side now. His face is
filled with joy. I see the light now—it’s enveloping him. Pirette, it’s time to
say your final goodbye and wish him peace on his journey.”

Rachel held the microphone out to Pirette again and the
woman stuttered through her tears, “G-goodbye Thomas. I love you.”

The woman beside her leaned forward and spoke. “We both love
you. So much.”

As she spoke the words, the studio lights faded, slowly,
almost imperceptibly—Minerva’s crew was experienced and knew their cues down
cold.

She watched the faces of the audience members, some
peaceful, with eyes closed, some weeping openly, a few still skeptical. Many
stared at Pirette or the empty spot in front of Minerva where the ghosts
supposedly stood.

The man with glasses watched Minerva. He wasn’t clapping. He
was in the sixth row now, no longer at the back. When had he moved?

The audience continued to applaud. The noise bounced off the
walls, filling the studio. Minerva’s head throbbed with the echo.

The man in the sixth row had something in his hands. She
couldn’t see what it was…but then, as the cameras moved and the lighting angle
changed, she saw a deep-red wetness covering his hands, coating the sharpened
nails of his pale fingers. It shone in the light.

Was it blood?

How the hell had a man gotten past security covered in
blood?

She aimed for her mark but her feet wouldn’t move. Her knees
buckled and she stumbled, looking down at the stage below her.

When she raised her eyes again the seat in the sixth row was
empty.

Minerva swiveled to look for him, staggering in her heels.
Where had he gone? Every instinct in her body screamed that something was
wrong. Icicles stabbed at her gut, warning her. And then she saw him, between
the cameras at stage left, nearly hidden in the blind spot between the stage
lights. He was holding something in his hands, something more than blood. It
looked slick and dark. About the size of a fist. Applause thundered and Minerva
felt her heartbeat rattle in her chest.

The
thing
in his hands moved in time with her
heartbeat. It glistened, red-black and moist. The beat of her pulse grew
louder.

The man was holding a human heart.

She tried to gesture at Rachel to call security, but the
host was comforting Pirette, holding out the mic, seeking more response. The
stage lights flickered off glass in front of the stage—the man’s spectacles,
right beneath her. He reached up to her and in the yellow light she finally saw
his hands stained crimson, covered in blood, holding the heart up toward her,
the bloody organ pulsing, moving, beating in time with her own.

Minerva collapsed.

Bram

What had she seen?

The spirit hovered several feet above Minerva’s silent body,
cursing his impotence. From his place between the world of the dead and the
living, he was aware of the commotion around him. Cameras flashed. Rachel
sprinted to Minerva’s side, her blonde bun weaving through the crowd. A grip
dropped a camera, swearing. The dark-haired man who had spooked Minerva simply
walked away unnoticed. Only the spirit saw and recognized the man. Victor
Grayson.

Three security guards surrounded the TV star, their uniforms
lending authority, and asked the audience to remain seated. Chatter filled the
air, echoing off the walls like a thousand ping-pong balls.
What happened?
Is this part of the show? Is she okay? Grab a video for YouTube!

The spirit ignored them, his ghostly vision fixed on his
wife. Even unconscious she sparkled, lights reflecting off the sequins on her
dress, the red in her curls lapping up attention like flames. He wanted to
reach down and touch that hair, breathe air into her mouth, but he no longer
had hands or lungs.

His wife was a brave woman. What could she have seen that
had caused her to faint?

He knew the dark-haired man. It had been seven years, but
Bram would recognize him anywhere. The sunken cheekbones and dark, empty eyes
brought back a rush of memories. The shock of steel sliding beneath his ribs, a
cold invader thrusting deep into his viscera. Shooting pain echoing from his
stomach up through his nerves to his brain. Hearing himself scream. The copper
stink of his own blood. Terror, regret, longing. The heaviness of his limbs as
life slipped away from him.

And then the agony, indescribable agony, as the man had cut
Bram’s heart from his chest while he still lived.

But Minerva, surely, had never even seen a photo of her
husband’s murderer. The police had no leads.

To her, the man standing at the edge of the stage, his
empty, pale hands reaching up toward her, was a stranger. Harmless. Why had her
gorgeous green eyes fixated on his hands as they had? Grayson couldn’t have
reached her from there. She had to have known that.

Had she sensed danger? Bram knew it couldn’t be a
coincidence that Grayson was there. Was he planning to harm Minerva? At the
thought, rage filled him and static electricity in the air shuddered around the
ghost’s non-corporeal form.

The anger made him lose concentration and the scene around
him blurred and shifted. He forced it back into a proper semblance of vision.
Bram had worked for seven years on his senses to get closer to his wife,
refusing the white light calling him to the afterlife. At first the world had
been a blank canvass, darkness in tones of gray, except that he could sense her
near, her warmth and life holding him steady.

Over seven years he’d focused his soul and become aware of
the sound of her voice, smoky but soothing, full of charisma, and the scent of
her, morphing over the years from a girlish rose to mature sandalwood.

When last winter his vision had coalesced, he’d spent months
of his afterlife just staring at her. She was the woman he loved, but she had
changed—her breasts were fuller now and her hips and ass had curves he’d never
known. More than anything, he wanted hands and the ability to reach out and
touch her, tangling his fingers in the silky curls of her hair, his palms caressing
her smooth skin. He wanted to pull the sequined dress above her waist and tear
her panties to the side, plunging his fingers into her warmth.

Though he watched her every minute of every day, he missed
her more than life itself. Bram knew he would never move on, not until he’d had
to chance to speak to her, to hold her. To apologize for how badly he’d fucked
up.

It had broken his heart watching her act out an apology from
an imaginary husband tonight. Was that what she wanted to hear from him? That
he loved her, how sorry he was and how much he still missed and desired her?

He wished his sin had only been an affair. That he hadn’t
left her destitute, alone, forcing her to give up on her dreams of film acting
and twist her gifts into this deception. Yes, she was rich, but her eyes no
longer sparkled the way they had when taking her bows in the theater after
playing Juliet or Eponine.

Was her show really all a lie?

Sometimes he thought she could hear him. She would speak to
him out loud, as if he were there, but chattering to herself, supplying answers
that he wouldn’t have chosen. He replied anyway, knowing it was futile. But
then, every so often, it wasn’t. She’d ask a question and he’d state the
response and she’d smile a little wider, her perfect, white actress teeth
shining out between red lips, and he felt that somehow, miraculously, he’d
gotten through to her.

Maybe this fake psychic nonsense she’d taken up after his
death wasn’t so phony after all, he’d think.

Then she’d laugh about something else, a comment from her
own mind, not his, and the moment would be over.

He must make her hear him. He would use every bit of
strength he had to reach out to her and warn her about the man who had cut out
her husband’s heart while it still beat in his chest.

Haunted

Minerva woke in her dressing room to a nasty headache and
blurred vision. She was lying awkwardly on a chaise longue, Rachel’s concerned
face staring down at her. Blonde strands had escaped from the younger woman’s
bun and she looked more stressed out than Minerva had ever seen her.

“Oh thank God,” Rachel spluttered.

Minerva wetted her lips. She struggled to sit up. She shook
her head and the world seemed to move with it. “Did they get him?”

Rachel’s brow wrinkled. “Who?”

“The guy—the one with the blood on his hands.” The image was
burned into her retinas, the dark-haired man with glasses, holding the heart
high, red meat slippery and wet between his pasty fingers.

“Blood? What are you talking about?” Rachel’s voice rose
with concern.

“You didn’t see him? He was right there.” She remembered him
standing at the edge of the stage staring up at her, pink tongue pressed
between his lips, dark eyes fixed on hers behind the frames of his glasses,
blood dripping from his hands onto the white studio floor. “Security didn’t
notice him?”

Confusion filled Rachel’s face then settled into
understanding. “Nerv, an ambulance is on its way, just stay calm.”

She thinks I’m seeing things.

Was she seeing things? How could security have missed a man
in the front row holding a human heart?

How do I know it was human?

She wasn’t going to get anywhere trying to convince Rachel.
“No ambulance, please. I fainted, that’s all. I got mixed-up.”

“What happened, Nerv? I’ve never seen you lose it like that.
Not since…” Rachel’s voice trailed off. Minerva knew the unspoken ending—not
since Bram’s murder. And the aftermath, finding out he’d gambled away their
savings.

But she had no answer to what had happened. And she wouldn’t
get one from Rachel. She steadied her voice, playing a character, the calm,
unperturbed psychic. “I don’t know. Weird guy gave me the creeps, I guess.”

Rachel’s voice was filled with worry. “Weirder than usual?”
They’d encountered trouble in the audience before. It came with the
Sex
Psychic
territory—stalkers who thought Minerva’s erotic persona was solely
for them, abusive exes who wanted her to find their girlfriends, and generic
creeps who wanted her body and didn’t understand that the entertainment had
finished when the cameras stopped rolling.

Minerva had handled them all with aplomb and no fainting.
She could understand Rachel’s worry—she was worried too. But she didn’t want to
scare her friend until she knew what was going on. It might yet be nothing.

Minerva let the unruffled psychic come to the surface again.
“Maybe. Nothing obvious though.” She shrugged casually.

“You want me to have security check into him? They evacuated
the audience. We’re done taping for the day.”

Minerva bit her lip. Should she? She was a good judge of
character—it was what allowed the psychic gig to work even without her
assistants helping her to cheat. Reading people was her job. She’d sniffed out
potential stalkers before.

But that had been noticing when someone didn’t make eye
contact or spotting the bulky shape of a knife in a pocket. This was blood on a
man’s hands that hadn’t been there minutes before or minutes after. A
throbbing, still-living heart between his fingers. An hallucination.

Or simple exhaustion, most likely.

“Nah, it’s cool, Rache. Just keep them on alert, ask if they
saw anything strange. Thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Actually I could use some time alone. Gonna take a
power nap before we plot out tomorrow’s show.”

“I’m not going to leave you.”

“Please, I feel silly. And I need you to cancel that
ambulance when it shows up.” Minerva could only imagine the chaos outside if
the three hundred-member audience had been evacuated. She wished the EMTs luck
getting in.

Rachel’s face was conflicted. She pursed her lips and tucked
a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “You’re sure?”

“I’m exhausted, Rache. Trust me, a siesta will do wonders.”
She infused her voice with humor and conviction.

The producer nodded. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Rachel
knocked twice on the counter, quietly, her way of saying goodnight before
Minerva’s naps—Minerva was infamous in the studio for her endless capacity for
sleep. She never let it get in the way of work, but hot damn did she love naps.
She closed her eyes, faking it, and listened to the door shut and Rachel’s footfalls
moving away.

Minerva had no desire for sleep now.

She rose, swaying unsteadily on her feet, and opened the
door. She peeked out into the hallway. The long red carpet stretched past her
door, an unraveled tongue spilling no secrets, and Minerva could see people
moving at the end of the hallway—grips, technicians and other crew shifting
cables and cameras. Their quiet, steady conversation echoed down the hallway to
her. It was normal and safe. But she still noticed her heart beating too
quickly in her chest and her skin felt cold.

Minerva slammed the dressing room door. It created a gust of
wind that set off the jewelry hanging by the mirror, multicolored crystal beads
clinking together in eerie harmony. Her trembling fingers found the deadbolt.
It stuck as her fingers slipped. She pried at it with red nails, cursing. It
snapped into place.

Where had the man gone and how had he gotten past security
and the audience?

Had he escaped? Had he merely been a hallucination?

It would be easy enough to dismiss it as an overactive
imagination to the rest of the crew—even Rachel, her best friend, had bought
it. Actresses weren’t exactly known for their stability, and when you added the
TV psychic bit to her portfolio? Yeah, a bit of diva behavior wasn’t going to
stress anyone out.

But Minerva couldn’t explain it to herself. How could a man
covered in blood have left the studio through that much security? Had he really
vanished into thin air?

What had he done with the heart?

With the door locked and security on alert, she was as safe
as she could be. Minerva willed herself to relax.

She scanned the long, narrow room. Everything appeared as
usual—bedazzled gowns hanging in the closet, makeup jars open on the narrow
counter beside her full-length mirror. There was a basket of cookies brought in
by the new assistant, and her photos of friends—Rachel and other
Sex Psychic
staffers—and a portrait of Bram, her late husband. It was a silly shot, his
dark hair soaped into a Mohawk, taken in the tub on their last anniversary.
Minerva loved to remember his playful side. The strong muscles in his
shoulders, soap bubbles sticking to them, were visible at the bottom of the
photograph.

How she missed those comforting arms now. What the fuck had
transpired out there?

She threw herself down on the plush chaise against the far
wall, the only furniture in the room, and pulled her knees to her chest. The
seams in her dress made small popping sounds. She shivered and rubbed at her
bare arms, tracing goose bumps along her skin. Her stomach felt full of ice.
She sucked in a lungful of air. It was cold too. She pulled a fleece afghan
from the back of the chaise and cocooned herself in it.

“What the hell just happened?” she asked herself again,
speaking aloud now as she always did when alone and working something out.

Fuck if I know.

She smiled as she imagined the reply in Bram’s warm
baritone, with a slight British tinge that slipped through even though he’d
been Americanized for most of his life.

Her husband had been dead for seven years, but conjuring up
his voice every day kept him fresh in her heart. It sounded weird, sure, but as
she’d told her last therapist before firing the woman, the peculiar is par for
the course when you’re a TV psychic.

And now her life was getting even stranger. “Unless that guy
ate a bowl of strawberries during break, that was blood on his hands.” She
couldn’t speak the rest out loud, couldn’t give voice to her feeling that the
man had been holding a human heart.

Maybe he ate them bear-style, grasping them in his paws, slobbering
juice all over the studio chairs.

“Rachel would have thrown him out for sure. This is a
classy
fake psychic sex show. No
Maury
-style parentage-guessing for us.”

Dead Aunt Mildred says that Bachelor #2 is the father!

“How would Mildred know? Was she witness to the conception
from beyond the veil of life?”

You know that’s how we ghosts get our jollies, luv.

“Minerva Silence—Postmortem Paternity Tests.”

You should pitch that. It’d be a ratings hit for sure.

“Rache would quit but I’d be able to build another pool.
Maybe a pool-sized Jacuzzi.” It might be silly laughing with herself, but
Minerva was starting to relax.

His “voice” darkened, took on a heavier accent.
It’s not
about that, though, is it, luv? Ratings?

Huh. Fake Bram of her fantasy was reminding her a little too
much of real Bram. “Of course not. The security is nice, but we’re helping
people. Right?”

The voice in her head was silent. She sighed. Sometimes she
couldn’t make him talk and at other times he talked too much. But remembering
her husband had Minerva feeling warmer at least. She pulled the afghan up to
her face and rubbed a cheek against it. The cream fabric picked up some blusher
from her cheeks, staining pink. “Who do you think he was?”

Something dangerous.

The ice in Minerva’s stomach rose again.

“That’s not funny, Bram.” She frowned. Now even the voices
in her head were misbehaving. “You’re supposed to calm me down.” She ran a hand
through her hair, tousling the curls. She let her lashes fall, taking in a deep
breath as her eyes closed. “Remember when you’d pull me into your lap if I was
nervous before an audition?” After they’d married, Minerva had been a young,
struggling actress. They’d been fine on Bram’s teacher wages but it hadn’t been
about the money for her. She’d craved artistic success. She’d wanted
interesting roles, when all directors had seen had been the ingénue with sultry
dark curls and shapely curves.

Bram had always seen more.

After his murder, after finding their account drained dry by
his gambling debts, she’d had to take what roles she could get. Discovering a
talent for cold reading, plucking personal details from the mouths of strangers
seeking the other side, had kept her from the casting couch. She would never
fuck for a part. Even after his death, even after his betrayal, she’d remained
loyal to Bram.

I remember
,she heard his voice say. She felt
the chaise warm against her back. Minerva pressed her back against it as if it
were Bram’s firm chest. The leather was supple and soft. She let her head tilt
back and felt her hair stir against her cheeks, sliding backward. The sweet,
woody scent of it reached her nose and she reveled in it, remembering how Bram
had loved to smell her hair and the flowery powder of her stage makeup after a
show.

I’m going to rub this off you
, he’d say, running a
finger down her cheek.
Lick you clean.
His tongue would brush her bottom
lip.
Make you my girl again.

“I’m always yours.”

’Til death do us part.

“And beyond,” she said aloud, mimicking their modified
wedding vows. They’d added it as a joke at the rehearsal but said it solemnly
on the actual day.

Minerva ran her tongue across her lips, remembering his. She
wished she could taste him the way she had each morning, plunging her tongue
teasingly into his mouth before she left their apartment for an audition or he
packed his bag, getting ready to teach a class. She’d drink her coffee and Bram
his Earl Grey and they’d swap flavors with each other. When she inhaled she
could almost smell him here in her dressing room.

She sank her ass into the chaise, treasuring the warmth of
the leather. The afghan had gathered between her legs. She pressed her thighs
together, holding it between them, grinding herself on the blanket. Sex had
always calmed her.

“Though it’s not the same without you.” She ran a hand
across her left breast, tracing the nipple, which had pebbled in the cold. Her
other hand slid up her thigh, gliding over her skin, up under the hem of her
short, sequined gown. She sighed as it moved higher, as the other hands
massaged her breasts, pulling and caressing, and a finger began to slip under
the hem of her satin panties as she ground her ass into his lap…

Wait a minute, three hands?

Minerva gasped and her eyes flew open.

She was alone. She saw only her reflection in the dressing
room mirror, her curls mussed, her face flushed. Minerva’s chest rose and fell
quickly as she panted with excitement.

It should be fear. What she’d just felt was anatomically
impossible.

There’s nothing to be afraid of.

Bram?

She didn’t say it out loud this time. Speaking out loud
would seem too…real?

It’s okay, luv. It’s me. I’m here.

The deep citrus scent of Earl Grey filled her nostrils. She
inhaled. It mixed with sweat—a man’s musk, not her own. Her imagination,
surely. They’d sat together so many mornings, him with his tea and milk, her
with her coffee, black. Teasing each other over their choice of beverages.

Yankee.

Limey.

She felt a chill pass over her breasts, but this time it
wasn’t the ice of dread—more like the cool of a fresh dip in the lake on a hot
summer day. Tantalizing, refreshing, delicious. Minerva closed her eyes and
leaned in to it. Her nipples hardened, pressing forward against her bra.
Ghostly thumbs flicked them softly. She let her head fall back against the
chaise, sighing an exhalation of thanks. Bram always knew how to relax her and
right now she needed it, even if he was a figment of her imagination.