Beyond Secret Worlds: Ten Stories of Paranormal Fantasy and Romance

by Aimee Easterling

  Mother fills her lungs with air, not something she needs to do, but it keeps the cadaver she's wearing fresh. "That is how we survive—from one body to the next—you know the rules. Doubling up is strongly discouraged."

  Slathering coconut-smelling oil over CeCe's legs and firm flat belly, I ignore the bulbous woman with gray, freshly permed hair, flowered dress and rolled down support hose my mother is dressed in and speak directly to the monster underneath. "We have no right to play God, to take a perfectly healthy human that suits our needs, wants, or curiosities, and suck the life out of her or him just to exist for another few days, weeks, whatever. You could find someone dying in a hospital, or an automobile accident or something, and slip in five minutes before the light winks out. Or you could just double up on a human, like I prefer to do—like our ancestors did—and then whoosh, shed it like a snakeskin when there's a threat of discovery—all's good with the human world."

  "Borrowing leaves a trail and we stopped doing that hundreds of years ago for that very reason." The eyes of the poor woman she wears are stretch wide and beginning to milk over; the veins in her neck near to bursting. It saddens me, but I guess that really doesn't matter. My mother has already killed her.

  I put the lotion down and settle back, sliding my sunglasses on as my mother moves up beside me and blocks the damn sun on the upper part of CeCe's body. Crap, I need a distraction, and it isn't even lunchtime.

  "What if someone recognized that—" Mother points at my new body and glares with the old lady's face wrinkled in disgust. "—immature, yet sexually promiscuous billboard you've draped yourself with fornicating with that young man in the alley, and tells someone the girl knows? Or worse yet, the young man in question confronts the owner when it gets back?"

  CeCe's perfectly manicured acrylics wave the question away. "But she wasn't in the alley, I was. The real CeCe'll say so, should anyone ask, and all will be well with the world." I fan my fingers. "You're blocking my sun."

  When Mother slides a bit to her right, I continue. "We may not be using the same methods we used 'hundreds of years ago'—" use two fingers on each hand to accentuate the quote. "—but the humans are still using the phrase 'everyone has a double,' labeling our kind politically incorrect by plastering pictures up on the Internet to back up this idiocy. Nicolas Cage's double is some guy from before the dinosaurs—humans have no clue—and the same with Justin Timberlake, and a plethora of other examples under the heading of doppelgangers—sheesh—more like reincarnation. But hey, it helps to have some idiot tell anyone that will listen that truth is weirder than fiction and doppelgangers do exist. Nobody really believes it—it's a perfect setup."

  My host's delicate fingers slide her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose, and rich brown eyes twinkle at my guardian. "Besides, what's so much better about walking around in broad daylight dressed in a dead chick? Like no one notices that?"

  "You know perfectly well, that seeing a ghost is much more acceptable," Mother says. "And that is the perfect setup."

  I slide the glasses back up over my eyes and point CeCe's nose into the sun. "Anyway, I always tell my...conquests that I'm new in town. I always make sure the body I borrow is indisposed or miles away. And I always skip out before we find ourselves in the same breathing space. So chill."

  "For the love of a ripe cadaver, you're in the girl's home!"

  "And she's in Europe! Your point?"

  My mother stands speechless, dressed in some woman's body that would've had a good twenty years left on it had it been allowed to carry on. "What are you talking about? What does this Nicolas person in a cage have to do with anything? And I have no idea where Timber Lake is?"

  She's holier than Swiss. "What a waste of a perfectly good human ride. You could at least try to spend a few hours a body to understand the humans you are murdering, and the world they thrive in. What the heck do you do in there?" I point CeCe's disciplining finger at my guardian. "Tell me you at least mix and mingle? Surf the net? Surely you know what Facebook is?" The eyes Mother is wearing look gobsmacked.

  "Do you even try to be human?" I taunt.

  My mother ruffles the old lady's brows, tightens parched lips, and spits, "I'm going home. Don't call me during your descent into hell."

  "I won't be the first, and surely, not the last of our kind to find themselves there," I yell at her swiftly moving human form. I can tell Mom is really pissed, because just before the old lady winks out I get a good look at the dark creature that is doppelganger as it slides into a drain on the other side of the pool.

  I'm restless now, and all I can think about is the release I felt with Blue Eyes the other night in the alley behind the bar. The three after were a total disappointment. Crap. I wish I'd gotten his cell number. But catch and release has been my motto, like forever, because until I find the right one, I will never hit them twice.

  I remove CeCe's sunglasses, spring from the chair, and make a running dive into the pool. When I surface, I feel a bit better, but it doesn't discourage me from considering another night out—a long night out.

  TWO

  "Damn it! This body has a burning desire to take in nourishment way too often. What an annoyingly gross necessity," I mutter as CeCe's need carries me into a small eating establishment on the side of the highway. It's only six-forty-five in the morning, barely daylight. I guess this is what I get for staying out all night—I'd barely showered and dressed before my host's stomach started growling.

  The place I enter has only three booths and five tables scattered around a twenty by twenty room, one-third of which is the kitchen. The overwhelming tension in the air makes it hard to breathe.

  My head is spinning with boisterous chatter and clatter. To my right, a massive woman dressed in a muumuu of riotous flora is shouting for immediate service. Yeah, like the whale is in danger of starving to death. Given her girth, she should be able to feed on her fat stores for a month before those brightly colored flowers on her tent-of-a-dress wither and die.

  I look around, no waitress or waiter, but a deep masculine voice fights for top billing over the crowd. "Sorry folks, I'm on my own today. Help yourself to coffee, it's on me. Orders will be up shortly."

  Prickling curiosity and a heady feeling of hopeful possibilities push me to walk across the room, lean over the counter and take a look. The guy with the voice causing such an unusual reaction in me is hidden by a stainless steel cook-grill, hanging pots and pans, and a cloud of steam coming off the grill.

  Strong arms and thick fingers pull clothes-pinned tickets across a line of monofilament attached to the bottom of a head-high shelf over the grill. The movement thrusts a rush through my being—not CeCe's—and an unfamiliar flush of warmth; both of which my doppelganger has never experienced. Heat radiates to my temples. I feel my life force push and swell under CeCe's skin.

  When the man leans out and we make eye contact, the room fades around us. I watch him freeze, mouth open; intense gray-green eyes sparkle like the light captured on the surface of the stainless steel grill.

  For the first time in my life, I wish I didn't always have to be someone I'm not. CeCe? What a stupid name! I guess I can call myself Echo—not like doppelgangers have names—because, after all, I am only a reflection of a real human. The weight of sadness taints my throbbing bulk sheathed in a Florida tan, brown hair and big almond eyes. Will I ever find a body I can share for a human lifetime?—or at least the portion of a human lifetime I'd care to take part in?

  Roiling under CeCe's façade, I swell and shrink rapidly like a fast beating heart. CeCe's voice sounds breathless as she asks, "Need some help?"

  "And you are?" he asks with a voice so rich it encourages gooseflesh.

  Absorbed in his killer eyes and auburn hair, I hear my carbon-copy's voice squeak, "CeCe?"

  Gaire

  The desire I have for the woman in front of me is shocking. Blinking away the uninvited feelings, I flip a spatula laden with bacon and pick up an aluminum steak-weight to press t
hem to the grill.

  "Are you asking me, or telling me...CeCe?" I say and can't hold back a throaty chuckle.

  The cute little brunette—all bare tummy and energetic tits—curls the corner of her lip in a half smile that makes my stomach clench.

  My nostrils flare with a strange scent underlying coconut oil on her skin—damp, dark, musky, and cold—one I am not familiar with. Red flags may be waving all over the place, but my body sure as hell isn't acknowledging them.

  "I guess I'm telling you," she says, and then adds, "I didn't pick the name, or the parents."

  This time, I can't temper my amusement. It burbles from deep inside my stomach and comes out in a loud, boisterous laugh. The sound of my own laughter brings back memories of high school, a bell-like a giggle, and a wisp of a relationship filled with curiosity and adolescent desire. It also brings back the smell of death, savage and cruel.

  CeCe plants her fists on curvy hips under a waist I could easily circle with my hands, and before she can cut loose with the temper I see lighting her eyes and rising on her cheeks, I say, "Yeah, well, I won't be giving you my full name either. It sounds like a hair rejuvenating product off an infomercial. You can call me Gaire." My full name is Rogaire. It sounds like my parents expected big things from me.

  The pucker on her full lips blossoms into a Colgate grin and my knees almost buckle; past mistakes conveniently forgotten. Nothing else exists around me. My eyes focus on hers. She moves her mouth to form words, and...

  "Gaire! Man! You're killin' me! I got a clock to punch in thirty-seven minutes!" One of my regular's huffs and puffs and blows down the four walls we've put up around us.

  "Just slapped 'em on a plate, buddy!" I yell—all of my senses fighting to stay focused on the girl in front of me—and slide four slices of bacon next to a stack of pancakes on a plate in the window.

  "Well, how about you trot 'em on out here?" Gary's demand ratchets up the rest of the patrons.

  "Not like I'm not wasting away here, either!" Henrietta's excitement distracts with a mix of days-old-sweat and stale perfume on the muumuu she's worn the last three mornings in a row.

  I wipe my hands, rip off my apron, reach for the plate, and freeze.

  CeCe saunters over, unburdened breasts bouncing and beckoning, and she snags a dish towel off the counter. I watch her tuck it into low-riding, Levi cutoffs under a navel ring I'd kill to run my tongue over.

  What the hell? I don't do this kind of shit. I try to shake away the fog between my ears. You can't do this kind of shit; my brain tries to argue with my fast beating heart and the tightness forming under the belt of my jeans.

  "So," CeCe says, and rich brown eyes twinkle with naughty. I swallow hard. She's circling hair into a knot at the back of her neck, and cinches it with a red pencil she plucks off the counter. "You wanna point me in the direction of the man at the other end of that very loud and very obnoxious voice." She grabs the plate of pancakes in one hand, a pot of coffee with the other, and cocks out a hip and waits.

  I must have stood there too long—have no idea what I was thinking—because her shoulders bounce, and she struts around the counter into the dining room all long tanned legs, and strappy sandals clicking. I'm dying here.

  "Sorry, I'm late," I hear her purr, and just about burn the heel of my hand as I lean over the grill to catch sight of her, as she adds, "I passed the place two times—damned road construction." The whole dining room grumbles a shared mawkishness.

  "So, who ordered the pancakes?" CeCe asks.

  Nostrils flaring, I take in the remnants of her scent and lean around the order tickets to find the dining area dead quiet, all eyes directed on the chick with the coffee pot.

  Mesmerized, my regular, Gary, has his hand raised shoulder level, fingers wiggling. A shy smile spreads under pink cheeks.

  CeCe places the plate in front of him, turns his coffee cup over and pours. I watch in awe as Gary empties a creamer into the cup.

  CeCe shouts, "Who needs coffee?"

  Hands shoot up, and she uses every inch of her five-feet-six-inch body to get everyone's attention as she bends and pours her way around the room.

  As she comes full circle I notice Gary, mouth full of pancake, gulps his coffee, gives her a nod and holds out the cup. Gary doesn't drink coffee.

  ***

  For the umpteenth time in the last hour and twenty minutes, I ladle out a measuring cup full of scrambled egg mixture from a metal container sitting by the grill, listen to the sizzle, and pop six slices of bread into the toaster. I study the woman working the breakfast crowd with more experience than she should have, if I'm correct about her age. Her looks tell me late teens, no older than twenty-one. Her demeanor, conversations with my customers, and the skill with which she uses her body to incite the reactions she needs from both the men and women tell me to add another five years. That may be because I'd like to drag her all the way out of puberty and a hell of a lot closer to my age, thirty-one.

  One minute she smells sweet, ripe, all coconut oil and youth, and then I catch that special scent, the one that's deep, dark, and cold. I've been rolling it around on my tongue all day, but can't place it.

  I can smell it now as she packages a slice of apple pie for a customer standing in front of the register to pay. It reminds me of a smell from my childhood; the basement of one of my high school neighbors. His father owned a crematory furnace. That one second when the body is quickly inserted into the retort and the heat ripens it before the door closes and takes the scent to the bitterness of ashes.

  When she's not close, I wonder why she's still here. Why I allowed her to be here. Why I don't want her to leave. When she's close, all I can think about is devouring her.

  ***

  Two hours later, I'm once again contemplating the young woman filling salt shakers and chatting with the two remaining customers and realize it's been several hours since CeCe walked into my establishment and stirred the beast in me. I can't shake the feeling this is going to be a day I will live to relish and regret. Something is not right with this chick. But then, something is not right with me, either.

  THREE

  CeCe

  "Who are you?" Gaire asks me as he flips the open sign on the door to closed. "And how old are you?"

  "Aren't your customers going to wonder what happened to you?" I flash him a smile.

  Gaire raises a brow. "I'm only open for breakfast. Don't avoid my question. Who are you?"

  "It's such an open-ended question. Obviously I'm a woman, and someone's daughter, sister—I have a few friends—but I'm definitely not someone's wife, significant other, or parolee."

  "You want to expand on that a bit? Maybe your full name, address, what the hell you're doing here?"

  "I believe I was giving a very attractive man a hand, and I realize we haven't had time to do the, I ask/you ask, stuff people do when they're interested in each other. I mean, clearly there's chemistry going down. But jeez, you just flipped the door sign. I'd like to take a breath, have a cup of coffee, and, Oh, I don't know, talk?"

  Gaire puffs out his cheeks and blows air.

  Did he just puff frustration at me? And his damn eyebrows are all bunched up over his nose. So why am I concerned about that? "Look, I'm over nineteen, legal, and where's your sense of adventure?" My eyelashes fan CeCe's tan cheeks.

  "Are you telling me you want a date before you explain your behavior today?"

  "Well, no; of course I'm not." Sh-yeah, right? I'm jaking for a date. I can't even flirt properly with the guy. This is definitely going to turn out badly, but...cold rotted flesh be damned, his smile stirs something deliciously dark in me, the doppelganger, under human flesh. "I simply walked in your diner to feed my starving body—don't want CeCe carbon-copy to start looking 'Night of the Living Dead'(ish)—and found you in a bad situation. Being the girl daddy loves, I stepped in." For the first time ever, I wonder if I'm going to really feel something for this guy when we touch. Crap! I didn't sign up for emotions. In the
human world, emotions always end up misplaced, trashed or trampled on.

  He opens his mouth to speak. I toss up a hand, snort indignantly, and snap, "What's up with the lack of help, Gaire? Did your wife get sick or a girlfriend not show up?" Did his name just dribble off my lips like slow moving honey? Why am I using his name? And was that a question about relationship commitments? Who the hell cares what they do beyond my reach? This is absolutely not me, Miss-No-Name, Miss-Who-Gives-A-crap. "Oh, and how old are you?" I add before I analyze myself right out the front door—so not going to happen.

  I'm not acting like the body I've doubled up on, either; the snotty little rich bitch probably wouldn't give this guy a second glance. Oh, cold, cruel, and blessed darkness, look at him. My heartless body melts when Gaire's smile shows me an amazing set of straight white teeth. When have I ever cared about teeth?

  "Thirty-two, never been married; I don't stay in one place long enough to establish a relationship." His brow furrowed, an abrupt but quickly retrieved tell—a slight regret. "And my waitress quit, doesn't plan on coming back."

  "Why is that? Do you kill things? Would I find you on America's Most Wanted?" Now that's a hoot. My whole family kills things—human things.

  Gaire laughed out loud. "Other than hunting season," he waggles his brows, "I take no trophies. I move because I have a...family that, let's just say, a family that believes I should be living with them for the rest of my life. I don't do family well. And you still haven't answered my main question, but you have managed to get three answers out of me. Quid-pro-quo, girl. You're wrapped in a pretty package, CeCe, but something is hiding inside. Who are you?"

  Under CeCe's skin, my body-mass trembles. I want this guy, but not like the others. I really want this guy—long term. That is not a possibility, merely a frequent desire. "Careful, Gaire. Digging too deep on a first...whatever this is is a dating faux pas."