The Phantom (3 page)

“Th-thanks.”

His belt buckle jingled behind me as he undid it. I just leaned against the wall and waited for him to get his pants open.

He still wasn’t hard. I wasn’t surprised. Frankly, Geoff was impotent more than he wasn’t. Honestly, I think sometimes he really didn’t have the interest he liked to boast he did. Maybe if I looked like the girls in his games it wouldn’t be a problem. Yes, he was able to get the occasional erection, but tonight just wasn’t one of those times. He brushed his penis up and down my skin, even in the split of that part of my body he said he so loved. Geoff tried and tried and tried, but it just didn’t work.

I sighed when he finally gave up and pulled my panties back into place. “We’ll try again later,” he said when he kissed me.

“Okay,” I replied, but I knew we wouldn’t. I could hear the noise of his new game before I even lowered my dress.

It was all right though, a relief honestly. As dry as I was, I certainly wasn’t excited at the thought of him inside me like that.

Chapter Five

I was up until almost 2:30 in the morning searching for just the right place to post my ad. The only sites I found that might work were the ones where people shared their ghost and haunting stories. I must have spent another hour just trying to figure out exactly what to say. The Phantom’s name would have to be left out of whatever I posted. A woman knowing his name might be the only way to know if her story was the one I wanted, instead of one made up for the money. In the end, I kept it simple.

Ladies, has a ghost snuck into your bedroom to seduce you? Has a shadow fulfilled your fantasies? I am a journalist willing to pay for your story.

I read over it one more time to make sure it was perfect, added my email, and crossed my fingers that it would be enough.

***

I checked my email as soon as I woke up, even before I showered or did anything at all to get ready for work. It had only been a few hours, but I still hoped.

There it was; a reply. I was so nervous that I had to take a deep breath before I opened the message from a woman named Amy. It was even simpler than my ad, just an address and the words, “He came to me.”

A shiver went through me even to read that tiny bit. There was only one “He” that she could be talking about. Before, even for all my obsessing, he really was just a legend I believed in without any actual proof. Now, here was a woman who
was
the proof. She’d had an encounter. I didn’t know if I was more jealous or excited to hear about what he had done with her.

Chapter Six

Amy lived in a suburb just outside the city in one of those practically
Brady Bunch
neighborhoods. Three boys were riding their bikes up and down the street, and two little girls were playing in a little pink and white plastic house in a yard. I checked to make sure I had the right address, and then had the cabbie drop me off in front of a two story yellow house with a blue minivan in the driveway. “Thanks,” I said as I paid her.

I had to ring the bell twice before a woman came to the door. In a simple cotton dress and slightly messy dark blonde hair, she was the cliché housewife. “Are you Sasha?” she asked as she wiped her hands on her apron.

“Yes. Do you still want to talk?”

“Please, come in. I’m sorry about the mess.”

She led me into the living room where naked Barbies and their clothes littered the floor along with those giant Legos made for toddlers. Hot Wheels were under each couch side table. I couldn’t help but smile. On the wall, a young girl and her baby brother grinned at everyone who came into the house. “How old are your kids?” I asked.

“Ally’s six and little Alex just turned four yesterday.”

“Aww,” I said. “They’re cute. Are they here?”

Amy shook her head. “No, they’re visiting their nana. I didn’t want them to be here and accidentally hear this. They’re not old enough to learn about such things yet.”

“Yeah, I understand.”

She motioned for me to sit on the slightly stained sofa. “Would you like something to drink?” she offered. “I have diet coke and the kids’ fruit punch.”

I laughed a little. “Diet coke is fine, thank you.”

Amy disappeared for a second, and I pulled out my digital recorder. She came back just a second later with two iced glasses of soda and sat down in the rocking chair across from me.

“Where do you want me to start?” she asked as I set my recorder on the coffee table and turned it on.

“Wherever you like,” I said.

There was a long pause as she thought about where to begin. When she finally spoke, I listened with all the fascination of a little girl hearing a ghost story around the campfire.

“My husband is in the army. It was a couple of years ago and he had been overseas for almost eight months when it happened. Little Alex was going through his terrible twos and in one day, the boy had pulled every pot and pan out from under the cabinet, unraveled the toilet paper roll, and tried to eat the dog food. All his sister did was laugh, and encourage him. By the time bedtime came, I was so exhausted that I didn’t even get under the covers. I just adjusted my old Care Bears sleep shirt from where it had ridden under my butt when I plopped down, turned off the light
,
and fell asleep.

“A few hours later, something woke me up. I don’t know what it was, I just had this sudden feeling I was being watched. Slowly, my eyes opened and adjusted to the dark. At first, I didn’t see anything but our dresser with all my angel knick
-
knacks on top. Then, I turned over and there he was, just a man shaped silhouette against the window that let in the light from the streetlamp outside.

“I opened my mouth to scream but before I could make any noise, the shadow said ‘Shh…’ and whatever fear I may have felt disappeared.

“I remember asking him, ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

“There was a deep chuckle before he spoke. I’m The Phantom of course, and what I want is you Amy.”’

“Wow,” I couldn’t help but say.

“A shiver went through me when he said my name,” Amy went on.

“The silhouette moved forward. I was just able to make out a hand when he braced himself to lean over the bed. His other hand lifted my chin. I couldn’t make out the features of his face as it came closer, but firm lips definitely pressed against mine.

“Oh, I had never in my life been kissed like that! Not when Jason Walsh had taken my virginity, not the first time my husband and I made love. Not even on my wedding day! The Phantom’s tongue was insistent as it pushed into my mouth, but gentle when it wrapped around my own. It squeezed and stroked. A hand reached behind my neck and pulled me closer. Our kiss lasted so long I lost my breath, but I didn’t care. When he broke it, I gasped for air. ‘Again,’ I begged him.

“’Later,’ was his answer.

“He kissed my chin, then down my throat until he reached the neck of my sleep shirt. It didn’t stop him. He kept kissing me through that thin faded pink cotton while his hands began to push it up.

“I never imagined such a tease. Hands grazed my bare flesh, up my outer thighs, the briefly exposed skin just below the leg of my panties that wasn’t quite hip... There was a small interruption as they passed over the top of my underwear but then they were on my waist. All the while his kisses continued south through the valley of my cleavage hidden under my sleep shirt. The very fact that his mouth seemed to ignore my breasts made my nipples stand. Another kiss was pressed just below my ribs. God, he did both so slowly that when my shirt was lifted enough for his mouth to finally meet his hands at my navel, I almost drenched my panties!

“I remember biting my lip and choking on a scream when the sensual torture continued. His lips and hands traded places. My sleep shirt was lifted higher until his hands had to slide up the mounds of my breasts to keep it going. When he reached my painfully hard nipples, his fingers gave them a twist. It was exactly at the same moment his mouth reached the place where skin bordered panties and we were right back to where we started. Hands on flesh... Kisses through cotton.

“I couldn’t hold back anymore when he reached the crotch of my underwear with another kiss. My entire body arched and I cried out. There is no doubt in my mind that he could taste my sudden cum through that cotton!

“I want you to know that I have never cheated on my husband. I have never had sex dreams about anyone else, but as I came down from that orgasm, I couldn’t even remember the name of the man with whom I shared the bed that all this was happening on. In fact, there were only two words in my brain.

“’Fuck me.”’

I opened my mouth to say wow again, but the word didn’t come out.

“If he would have told me no, I swear I would have found a way to kill a ghost. It felt like a mercy when he grabbed the waistband of my panties. As he slipped them off, I practically ripped off my shirt. Just like that, I was naked.

“His fingers traced my slit. If he was testing to see how ready I was, it was pointless. The smell of an excited woman hung in the darkness of my bedroom like a perfume. One finger slipped inside me. Immediately my body clung to it as if my life depended on it. I raised my hips and started to twist and growl. A second finger pushed inside, then a third. He began to move them in and out and added a little twist until he churned my pussy and my cream dripped from around his fingers onto the quilt beneath me.

“My back arched again. I tried to scream but no sound came out. Wave after wave of incredible pleasure rippled through me, and it felt like an eternity before it stopped.

“I could feel him watching me come down. Finally, my breath began to even out and I was able to wipe the sweat from my forehead.

“And then he laughed and asked, ‘Are you ready?’

“Ready? I didn’t think I could take anymore!

“He must have been naked from the start. When he crawled over my still shaking body, I felt the spongy tip of his cock brush against my skin. It took all the strength I had left just to open my legs wide enough for him.

“The two orgasms he had already given me had left my pussy incredibly sensitive. When his cock pushed into my body, my walls immediately began to tremble around him. He penetrated deeper and deeper until finally his hips crushed mine.

“Then, there was that damn chuckle again. ‘And now, that kissed you asked for,’ he said.

“My toes curled when his mouth touched mine. Oh God, it was even better than the first! His lips and tongue were flavored with the juices from my body. Believe me, if I knew I tasted like vanilla, I would have been licking my fingers after I touched myself long ago.

“His penis began to move, slow and steady, in and out. He would pull back almost to his tip before pushing forward again. Inside my mouth, his tongue matched his rhythm down there. It was like being fucked above and below all at once.

“I couldn’t believe it when I felt that special building again. My hips began to rock up to meet his thrusts. Faster and faster I bucked against him until he actually had to hold me down.

“I screamed into his mouth when a third orgasm in a single night hit me. I had read about such things in my romance novels, but I never believed it was actually possible.

“Through it all, The Phantom never came. I never felt that hot gush that meant a man had finished. Our kiss broke, his cock slipped out of my aching pussy and the weight above me disappeared.

“It took a long time for my body’s strength to come back. Even then, my hands were still shaking when I was finally able to reach for my bedside lamp. When I turned on the light, I was the only one in the room. The only proof he had ever been there at all was my exhausted body, wet sheets, and the open window with the blowing curtains.”

I don’t know who was shivering more when her story finally stopped, her from reliving it all in her mind, or me for imagining it.

“C-can you show me where it happened?” I had to ask.

“Ok,” she said, still a bit lost in her memory.

Amy led me up the hardwood stairs and to the first door on the left. She opened it and I couldn’t stop myself. My nervous feet stepped inside and went straight to the bed. I touched that quilt, and a shiver ran through me.

It was almost hard to believe. The room was so normal. There was the average cream carpet and the average dresser. There was the average bed and the average bedside tables. Probably every single bedroom in the neighborhood was exactly like this one and still,
this
was the one The Phantom had chosen to enter and give the woman he found pleasure I could only imagine.

He had been here. He was real and this simple housewife was proof.

I could only wonder. What made him choose her?

Chapter Seven

I sighed and opened my closet doors. Finally, it was girl’s night, something I had looked forward to since Beth got the tickets, but now I had no idea what to wear. Geoff had ruined my new dress when he tore it, so that was out. If that wasn’t bad enough, I was running behind. Beth was going to be here any minute and I was still in my bra and panties.

Then, the doorbell rang.

“Geoff, can you get that?” I called.

“I’m a little busy right now, babe!” He shouted back.

I rolled my eyes. Busy my ass; I could hear the gunfire of his video game.

I ran from the bedroom to the front door. When I opened it, I almost died of embarrassment.

“Whoo-hoo!” One of Geoff’s idiot friends cheered as he hefted up two cases of Budweiser. “Now this is a party! Beer and strippers!”

“Oh, God!” I ran back to the bedroom as fast as possible with my hands trying to cover my body. Behind me, all I could hear were hoots and hollers. Geoff, of course, didn’t say a thing.

I had to sit on the bed and take a breath to stop my tears of shame before they started. The last thing I wanted to do was go out for our monthly girl’s night with streaked makeup.

It was maybe two minutes later that the bell rang again. “Please be Beth,” I quietly prayed.

“Whoa!” I heard Geoff’s friend say. “Is this one going to take her clothes off, too? The glasses give her kind of a schoolgirl thing, but she isn’t much to look at other than that.”