by Lisa Freed
I moved on to check in the kitchen and spied a few more long-time tenants enjoying their food. A quick glance at the medicine schedule taped to the fridge showed that everyone had received their afternoon meds.
Parker, a sweet shy volunteer, was loading the washing machines with cat bed covers and gave me a tiny finger wiggle wave as I passed through.
Bounding up the stairs, I heard the cat cries before I entered the first room. The top level had four bedrooms, three of which were now cat rooms for the new arrivals. One room housed cages similar to the ones at kennels and while we wished we didn't have to contain the cats, for their safety and the safety of the resident cats we had to. All cats were to be checked out by either Ashley or another vet if she was unavailable before we released them to the free-roaming room. Many of the cats came to us already cleared, but I liked to have everything rechecked to ensure we weren't bringing diseases in to the others.
The second room, which had been the master bedroom allowed the cats more freedom to explore and play, with floor to ceiling cat condos, toys, cat shelves that wrapped around the room, and a huge walk-in closet that housed a dozen litter pans. For the more modest felines, we had enclosed litter boxes in the master bathroom.
The third bedroom was similarly equipped but was slightly smaller and the cats had open access to the hallway and fourth bedroom as well as downstairs if they chose. Being moved to this room meant they had been waiting longer than six months for adoption.
The fourth bedroom was still a bedroom and used by workers and volunteers so that there was always someone here for night time medicines and emergencies as well as just so the house was never empty.
A spacious room with a tray ceiling that made it feel light and airy, when I first started Whisker Kisses it was my home away from home so I decorated it to my taste. Done in soft greens, both full beds sported fur-resistant comforters as well as a mountain of pillows. The built-in bookcase had a revolving collection of books and magazines that showcased everyone's varied interests.
The window seat, in my opinion, was what made the room. It was perfect for curling up with a book and a cat or two. I had custom ordered the seat cushion and it was a magical seafoam green damask fabric that enticed you to sit and stay. I loved it so much I had the same one installed in my house, but it just didn't have the same feel. Maybe I needed half a dozen behinds to soften it up over a few months to get it to the perfect level of comfort.
Sadly, I had no time to lounge in the seat with the sun streaming invitingly on it. I bypassed all the open rooms and headed for the closed one to check on the newer cats. The small kittens I picked up this morning were already placed in a larger kennel that had a food and water dish, cat bed and small litter pan. A few toys had been given as well, but the little ones were ignoring them in favor of wrestling with each other. I doubted they would even be here a week before being adopted.
Parker brought Maxine, the Siamese, in and she greeted me like an old friend, yowling and making ikking sounds. With great gentleness, she lifted the old cat out of the carrier and placed her in her temporary cage. Maxine, obviously disappointed to find herself in another enclosure, sat down and cried piteously. Parker stuck a slim pink nailed finger through the cage and stroked the old girl's cheek. Maxine pressed into the tender touch, completely stealing and breaking my heart. I knew the perfect person for Maxine, now I just needed to make a hair appointment and convince her.
Another few minutes spent watching the new arrivals getting settled in and I left. I only had a few hours before Ashley would arrive and so much still to do. There went my plans for a relaxing soak in the tub.
I could grumble all I wanted, but my life was pretty blessed. I had time to run home, collect my laundry from all over the floor of the bedroom and bathroom, toss it in the hamper, feed and love on my trio of furry roommates and even grab a quick sandwich before hightailing it back to Whisker Kisses.
Ashley had nothing but love for the new arrivals and surprised me by claiming Mr. Orange as her own.
I was further amazed when she cuddled him like a baby and they exchanged Eskimo kisses. It's rare to be in the presence of true love and also slightly awkward. Completely uncharacteristic of me, but I rushed Ashley and the newly christened Gideon out. It had been a long, eventful day, and I was more than ready for some much-needed home time. Unfortunately, I still needed to wait for Gwennie and Dana to show up.
Gwennie and Dana were a retired couple from Boston who had moved to the Delaware shore to escape the brutal winters and enjoy a slower pace. Finding life too slow they threw themselves into volunteer work, and Whisker Kisses was blessed by their commitment.
When the two ladies showed up at ten minutes to eight, I startled them by giving a whirlwind rundown of the new cats, minus the former Mr. Orange, a big hug and a hurried goodbye as I was dashing out the door. That was completely unlike me, but the feeling that some force was at work urged me on.
Yet when I arrived home, everything was fine. Relief flooded through me and I staggered around the lower level double checking every inch. It wasn't the first time my sixth sense had been wrong, yet the awareness had been so strong that to be mistaken seemed erroneous.
Mentally sapped, I clicked on the TV, curling up with Agnes and Daisy while Maverick lounged on the cushion above my head.
CHAPTER FIVE
The horrible pounding at the front door echoed through the house, startling all three cats who zoomed up the stairs to hide in one of the bedrooms. Thankfully I hadn't been watching a Stephen King movie or I would have been hot on their tails to reach the safety of my bedroom. I wasn’t thinking about safety or a home invasion when I foolishly walked to the door and opened it without even attempting to find out who was on the other side. Unlocking and opening it, Lance Hamilton rushed inside without a word. His long strong arms wrapping around me before he planted the most soul-sucking kiss I have ever experienced in my twenty-four years. I felt my toes curl inside my socks as I literally melted into his embrace.
Coming up for air, both of us breathing heavy, I finally had the sense to push the creep away from me. In the past two years of us being neighbors, the only words we had ever exchanged had been heated ones, though not quite as hot as that kiss.
Lance was an annoying middle-aged, golf playing, back-slapping, cigar smoking, just one of the good old boys. lawyer. He was one of the many that lived in our gated community. My cats were too loud- they tended to yowl loudly when I left. I kept odd hours that disturbed him- sorry that my comings and goings bothered his weekend hangovers, though I never quite understood that one since we lived three houses apart. And worse of all, I had the audacity to be a twenty-something homeowner in the private community that he had worked so hard for years to attain a home in.
If that wasn't enough to burgeon his ire, the fact that I had rebuffed his gross advances when I had first moved in cemented his dislike. Despite my insane attraction to Victor, older men just didn't do it for me.
Lance stood staring at me like a loon, a large grin plastered on his granite rough face.
“Lance, what the fuck do you think you're doing?” Yes, I shrieked a little, but I was seriously unnerved. Something was off with him, why else would a man that went out of his way to harass me over trivial things be banging on my door at ten at night to kiss me? Unless….
“Lance, are you drunk?” I took a suspicious sniff in his direction, smelling nothing but expensive cologne. And his mouth had tasted like heaven, not booze. His normally icy blue eyes were dilated so much that they appeared black, though a warm black that pulsated with life.
He took a step toward me, I backed up, and he kept coming until the back of my legs hit the sofa table with a soft thud. I had nowhere to go but around him.
As if reading my mind, his manicured hands came to rest heavily on my shoulders, effectively holding me captive.
“Teresa, you have no idea how long I have wanted to kiss you, really kiss you.” As if to demonstrate, his mouth swooped toward mine,
this time I was prepared and kept my lips firmly shut.
Wedging my hands between us on his chest I pushed, which was like pushing against a wall, I got nowhere. Lance was in better shape than I gave him credit for.
“Teresa, look at me.”
And I did. Lance's hard-planed face was peppered with patches of golden stubble, his wide grin charming and full of seductive pull, or that could have just been my hormones imagining things, but most of all his eyes. His eyes were so different, almost like that of another person.
“Victor?” I gasped.
Picking me up, he spun us while laughing wildly. This time when his lips recaptured mine I let madness take over and enjoyed the velvet caress of his tongue on mine. All the times I had imagined kissing Victor, or even more daring, having that sexy body cover mine and do delicious things, I had never dreamed that one day it would happen.
But it wasn't happening, this was Lance's body that Victor had somehow taken over.
“No! Put me down!”
Lance/Victor complied, though I could feel his reluctance. Hell, maybe it was my reluctance as well. I was horny.
“We have to talk.” I dragged him over to the plush couch, trying not to think about how it was perfectly wide enough for one body on top of the other. “Now what did you do?”
“Several months ago, I saw the most insightful movie on television and I thought if that dead man could do it why not me. So, I practiced a few times on random people, but didn't have great long-term success.”
“What movie?” My mind raced, thinking of body snatching movies.
“Ghost, I believe it was titled. Though in that movie the people could see the spirit person, not the person whose body the spirit had inhabited. That took me a little off guard when it didn't work that way.” He frowned, clearly perplexed that I saw him as middle aged yuppy/muppie Lance, not as the drop dead gorgeous Greek male that he had been.
“You watched Ghost and thought it was about taking over a body?!” I was pissed that one of the most romantic movies I had ever seen had been reduced to sci-fi. Irrational of me at that moment I knew, but things were currently so messed up that I didn't know how to get my emotions in check.
“It was about a man trying to reclaim his life, his woman, and get revenge. This spoke to me!” He pounded a closed fist onto a spot around where his heart would be.
I bet it did. For the first few months that Victor had contacted me on the Ouija Board he had cursed and been violent. His violence had shaken the board. I could feel the ugliness of his anger, it had vibrated up my body, clouding my mind in darkness, leaving me confused and shaking. Slowly his story had unfolded, in single words drenched with pain and fury or in a rush of words so brutal that my teenage self had been deeply scarred.
Victor had been the younger of two Greek playboy brothers, Andre the eldest. The family fortune was immense, the brothers had wanted for nothing, drink, women, drugs, cars, all at their fingertips. Victor, falsely believing the power of his family name was absolute, pushed every limit he could.
Until on a gorgeous summer afternoon aboard one of his family’s yachts, Victor had had his head bashed in with a hard, blunt object. Andre had done the bashing, while Brianna, Victor's American actress girlfriend, had gleefully watched.
Victor had witnessed them dumping his body overboard. He had jumped in and clung to his damaged body as it drifted under the water, slowly, very slowly. After several terrifying minutes, he had let go to return to the water's surface. As he watched his brother and Brianna sharing kisses and laughing, he had understood everything. They had plotted his demise and were celebrating his death.
For months after, Victor had stayed with them, attacking them with his fists, feet, and teeth, unable to even stir the air. Finally, exhausted, he had given up and had listened.
His fast and loose drug deals, that he had believed were genius, had been annoying his brother's business partners. His attempts at forging his own territory were laughable, tolerated only due to his brother Andre's good graces. Brianna, the actress that Victor had been toying with and fully intending to break up with, Andre had been sleeping with for months. Victor having gotten there first and his casual disregard for the six-foot American beauty twisted in Andre's gut in ways Victor never would have guessed. Every sloppy kiss or ass grab made Andre's blood boil.
Dismemberment, torture, those had all been voiced by Andre but rebuffed by Brianna. Not out of love or even pity, but due to the greater chance of evidence and discovery of the murder by their father Andre Senior.
The murder that was classified as accidental death thanks to some of Andre's friends' influence on the police. A few questions, a grudgingly brief search for the body, and case closed. Victor's father grieved but accepted his son's death as a tragedy wrought by Victor's drug use and foolishness. When Andre Senior died, his fortune went to his only surviving child, Andre, and his son's wife Brianna.
It was years after Victor first contacted me before he admitted he had deserved punishment for his sins but not death at his brother's hands. Over thirty years later and revenge continued to eat at him. His brother and Brianna still lived and as long as they breathed he wanted them to pay for taking his life.
Victor had gained strength over the years, but he had never taken over a body. As a spirit, though strong, he was limited, but as a man, he could have the revenge he had long desired. I had to somehow get him to release Lance.
“Victor, you can't get your life back, you're dead, this is Lance's body, it's his life.”
“Lovely Teresa, I'm only going to borrow his body for a while.” His fingers tangled in my hair, pulling me closer until our mouths were but a whisper apart.
“Do you have any idea how much I've wanted you? To be near you, to watch and love you, but unable to have you? It's worse than death, that helpless frustration. And I know you have felt the same desires as I have.” Victor captured my hand and lowered it to his crotch, where I felt him straining at the fabric of his pants.
“Victor, we can't….”
His lips pressed gently against mine, “We can.”
And we did. Knowing it was wrong, knowing I should stop didn't make it any easier. Giving in to all the lustful thoughts, the dreams and fantasies that had haunted me, that was much simpler. Later I would deal with the repercussions, but for now I wanted to make love to the man that had somehow taken my heart prisoner. All I had to do was close my eyes and let Victor love me as I had always wanted.
CHAPTER SIX
“My dick was bigger.”
We were snuggled under the fluffy down comforter, after round two of the most satisfying sex of my life, when Victor made that pronouncement. Men!
“I just wanted you to know that.”
“Didn't you ever hear that size doesn't matter?”
“Size always matters, and my dick was rather impressive. Sorry we had to make do with this one.”
The one in question had performed wonderfully, so much so that I would forever blush and drool a tad when Lance was around.
Ugh! Lance! Could this be considered rape? It wasn't consensual, but I know the real Lance would have enjoyed every minute of. That had to take guilty points away from what Victor and I had done to Lance's body without his permission.
I shoved at Victor's shoulder, hard. “Why did you have to bring Lance up?!”
He shoved back and rolled me under him. “I didn't say a word about him.”
“No, but you brought up his dick size, making me remember that there are two people in bed with me right now!”
“Ahh…some ménages à trois action? That would be a first for me as well, but Lance is here in body only, not spirit, that's where I come in. Speaking of coming….”
The next ten minutes left me breathless and slightly sore, I hadn't seen this much action in... well I had never seen this much action.
Edging over to Victor's side of the bed to avoid the wet spot, I cuddled up to his shoulder, his relaxed breathing somehow annoyin
g me. How could Lance's middle-aged body be in better shape than my twenty-four-year-old one? Time to finally join that gym.
“So, if Lance isn't here, where is he?”
“I don't really know.”
“What do you mean you don't know?”
“When I stepped into his body he just went away. Perhaps he's sleeping?” Victor yawned loudly and inched the covers more to his side.
“Have you left his body yet to see what happens? What if he is gone and can't reclaim his body?” I yanked the covers over my shoulders, taking back my fair share. I didn't like Lance, but I couldn't help feeling sorry for the guy. What if he was out there completely bewildered wondering what happened and how to fix it. And here we were in bed.
Time to face reality! I reached under the covers and slapped at Victor's ass. “Okay, we have to get you back to Lance's and you need to leave his body.”
“No way, first I plan to have a nap, you wore me out, then I want to go for a jog and get the biggest messiest pizza and beer for lunch. A shower would be nice too.”
This time I pinched his ass before using my feet to give him a not so gentle boot closer to the edge of the bed. “Victor! What if Lance can't reclaim his body? What if the longer you're in there the real Lance is dying? You need to give it back to him.”
Victor slid out of bed and out of range before giving me a smirk. “I'll give him back his body, but not before I shower and get lunch. I deserve that much don't I?”
He picked up his boxer shorts, smiling slightly and shaking his head at the tiny martini glasses all over them. “Fashion for men stinks!”
“No, Lance's fashion sense stinks. Now please, please get back to Lance's house and let his body go!”
“Very well, but only because you threw in the extra please.” He leaned over and smacked my rump soundly. “And because you have a hot ass.”
I was tempted to follow Victor out the door and watch him shower, umm...make certain he released Lance's body, but I was half afraid of what I might see and how would I explain to Lance what I was doing in his house?