Soldier of Love

by Gabrielle Holly

  Mike stepped aside and Thomas peered into the camera that the stand-in A/V guy had set up.

  Thomas clasped Mike’s shoulder. “Nice.”

  Thomas walked to the sink and stood beside Toni. Mike was peering through the viewfinder. He motioned for Thomas to move left. Thomas advanced an inch at a time until Mike held up his palm then gave a thumbs up.

  “Camera,” Thomas said.

  “Rolling,” Mike answered.

  Thomas’ voice took on a sombre tone when he said, “Toni, you’ve had some unusual encounters in this room—the kitchen. You’ve told us about the television turning on and switching channels of its own accord, and the telephone dialling itself. But, there’s more. Isn’t there?”

  Toni could only nod.

  Thomas placed his hand—the one away from the camera—on Toni’s shoulder. “Toni, there’s no shame here. You didn’t choose these encounters. They chose you. Please, tell us what happened.”

  Toni closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath through her nose. “Just minutes before the Paranormal Research Team pulled into the driveway, I was standing right here, doing dishes. I’d just finished and I was about to go into the parlour to watch for you when I felt something…someone…come up behind me and push me down over the sink.”

  Toni paused when she heard a soft moan. No one else seemed to notice, so she continued.

  “I felt hands on my waist and…on my breasts.”

  Toni heard the moan again. It was hard to tell in the dimmed room, but it appeared that Thomas squinted ever so slightly. He didn’t tell her to stop, so she went on.

  “I was afraid but intrigued. I turned and saw my reflection in the blank television screen. I clearly saw myself, I was alone, and then I saw my dress lift up from the hem, over my ankles, up my thighs and…”

  “Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.”

  This time there was no denying the moan. Toni stopped and peered into the darkness.

  “Oh, God!”

  There was a split second that Toni thought she’d turned on some voyeuristic ghost with her hot story. In an instant the overhead lights were blazing and Thomas and Mike were kneeling beside Bridget’s chair.

  “Can you stand?” Mike asked.

  Bridget looped one arm around Mike’s shoulder and stood. It was clear she couldn’t straighten up.

  “Where does it hurt?” Mike asked.

  “What the hell? Are you a doctor now too?” Thomas asked.

  “EMT,” Mike answered. “The real estate market’s been down so I drive ambulance a few nights a week.” He turned his attention back to Bridget. “Where does it hurt?”

  She weakly raised her right hand and laid her palm above her right abdomen.

  Mike looked up at Thomas. “I’m guessing appendicitis.” He turned to Toni. “Is there a hospital in town?”

  “Turn right at the corner and it’s four blocks up on your left,” Toni said. She was shaking as if she’d seen a ghost.

  Chapter Five

  Mike had insisted on driving Bridget to the hospital and Bridget had insisted in turn that Thomas stay behind and get what footage he could. Thomas reluctantly agreed and completed his kitchen-sink interview with Toni, speaking into an unmanned camera on a tripod.

  His phone buzzed against the table and Thomas dragged his finger across the screen to answer the call. He switched to speaker and held out the phone towards the camera’s condenser microphone.

  “Bridget?” Thomas asked.

  “No, it’s Mike. They rushed Bridget into surgery. It was her appendix. The doc just came out and said it went well and she’s going to be fine.”

  “Thanks, Mike. Keep us posted.”

  Thomas ended the connection, then stared into the camera. He looked like he was trying to formulate something pithy to say. After a moment, he simply reached out and switched off the power.

  Toni stepped beside him.

  Thomas bent to lay his head on her shoulder. “She’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “What a fucking night!”

  Toni hugged him and he slumped against her. She had to step one foot backward to steady herself under his weight.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. In an instant Toni went from being bone-weary to hyper-aware. The warmth of Thomas’ body radiated through the calico cotton of her dress. She turned her nose towards his neck. His skin smelt clean and masculine. He must have felt her breathe in his scent, because he did the same. He inhaled deeply, then let out a deep groan. A ball of energy spun at the base of her spine. He turned his head until his lips touched her neck. He kissed the smooth flesh and the ball of energy that had gathered at her tailbone zipped through her body and hovered between her legs. He flexed his arms and drew her into him. When he pulled his lips from her neck, she turned to meet them with her own. Their kiss was long and deep and seemed to release them both from the coiled energy of stress the evening had wrought.

  Thomas drew her into his arms and Toni was raised to her tiptoes, her breath nearly stolen away by his crushing embrace. She dropped back her head to fill her lungs and he pressed his mouth to the front of her throat. He guided her back to the sink and lifted her onto the countertop. She grasped the back of his head and pulled his mouth against hers. Their lips opened in unison and their tongues tumbled over one another. Toni was fuelled by the surge of emotions the night’s events had evoked.

  Thomas worked his fingers along the front of her bodice and with a confident yank sent a half-dozen buttons clattering to the kitchen floor. Toni’s pussy throbbed and grew wet at the promise his action made. She felt pinned by the yards of fabric that made up her skirt and she reached down and began hoisting up the hem. As soon as it cleared her knees, Thomas pushed between her legs and began grinding into her. Dropping her hands between them, she tugged at the brass closure, freed the button, then groped for the tongue of his zipper. Before she could pull it down and free his erection, he jerked away from her. Toni was instantly mortified by her behaviour and wondered if she’d done something wrong.

  She forced herself to look up at him. His head was turned and his chin was tucked. His eyes were fixed on her as if he were a lion and she a gazelle. This did not look like a man who didn’t want her to free his raging hard-on from its confines.

  Thomas was panting. He held up one finger, as if to tell her to hang on for just a moment. He reached behind his back and pulled his vibrating cell phone from his pocket. He blindly slid his finger across the screen, then glanced long enough to hit the speaker button.

  “Mike?” he said, still panting.

  “No, this is Brad. Are you all right, man? You sound like you just ran a marathon.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. What’s up?”

  “What’s up? It’s a boy, man! I’m a freakin’ daddy!”

  Mike called moments after Thomas had congratulated his cameraman and hung up. Thomas left the phone on speaker and laid it on the kitchen table. He and Toni leaned in for the update. Bridget was in the recovery room. She was still groggy, but she’d come through with flying colours. She’d spend the night at the hospital then be off work for at least a week. Mike planned to stay with her.

  Thomas thanked Mike for the update, then sat down hard on a kitchen chair. He rested his forehead in his hands.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  Toni tilted the phone towards her. “Four-seventeen. We should go to bed.”

  Thomas looked up at her. “Listen, I’m sure that would be amazing, but I’m exhausted.”

  “To sleep. We should go to our separate beds, to sleep.”

  Thomas shook his head. “Sorry. I’m just punchy, I guess. Yeah, sleep sounds like a great idea.”

  Thomas slung his carryon bag over one shoulder and gathered up the infrared and night-vision cameras—both still mounted to their tripods. Toni was exhausted when she led him upstairs. She stumbled on the bottom step and righted herself against the loose banister. She showed him one of the guestrooms at the top of the stairs.
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br />   “They all have private baths,” she said, “and this one is actually working.”

  Thomas dropped his carryon inside the guestroom door, but remained standing in the hallway, cameras and tripods in hand.

  Toni paused. “Did you need something?”

  “Where’s your room?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  Thomas held out the equipment. “I need to set these up in your room. Buckman is obviously drawn to you. The theory is that ghosts do their thing when the subject is most receptive, either during a heightened emotional state, or in a deep sleep. I’ll set up the cameras and see if we can catch Mr Tall, Dark and Transparent on the thermal-imager or on night vision.”

  “No,” Toni said.

  “No?” Thomas asked, raising his eyebrows and locking her in a disbelieving stare.

  “That’s right, I said, ‘No’,” Toni confirmed. “I’m not comfortable with that.”

  Thomas leant back hard against his guestroom doorjamb.

  “Let me get this straight. You’re okay with calling complete strangers and telling them that you’ve been seeing ghosts. And you’re fine with inviting those strangers into your home and going on camera to recount the thrilling tale of how said ghost dry humped you doggie-style over your kitchen sink. And, presumably—since you signed a release—you don’t mind if any of that information is recorded for posterity and broadcast over international basic cable. However, you’re ‘not comfortable’ with me setting up a thermal imaging camera in your bedroom to record you while you sleep. Which, can I just say, is evidently the only time you’re not going to make some psychotic claim about your close, personal relationship with a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old ghost. Does that about sum it up, Miss Bianchi?”

  Toni took a step back as if Thomas’ words had dealt her a physical blow. A sudden, terrible realisation dawned on her. He doesn’t believe it. Not any of it. He doesn’t believe in what he’s been selling the public for the past four seasons. Her stomach knotted. Her eyes and nose stung with the cresting tears as she realised the worst of it. And, he doesn’t believe me.

  “Fine! Set up your damned cameras!” she said, then turned and stormed down the hallway.

  She wondered how he’d feel when he reviewed the tapes and found out that what she’d been experiencing was real. She also wondered how she would feel if it weren’t.

  Thomas followed her into the master suite where he set up the cameras to the left of the bathroom door on the wall opposite the bed. While he made adjustments to the setup, Toni went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. She slipped into her standard bedtime ensemble—an oversized T-shirt—washed her face, brushed her teeth and looked at herself in the mirror. Free from the confines of a bra, her breasts seemed freakishly large. She yanked her robe from a hook on the back of the heavy oak bathroom door, pulled it on and tied the belt tight. She drew in a deep breath. I’ll get through this. She’d brought the entire thing on herself. If she’d just thought things through and hadn’t been such a reactionary hothead, she’d still be back in the city with a lux condo and a fat bank account…and a raging case of stress-induced acid reflux, a ninety-hour work week, and a bum of a boyfriend whose only talent was spending her money.

  Toni looked at her reflection in the mirror. You chose this path, now you’ve got to make it work.

  When she stepped out into the bedroom she saw Thomas looking through the viewfinder of one of the two cameras. He heard her and straightened. He seemed to be concentrating on keeping his voice even.

  “Okay, so this is a thermal imager camera and that one is just standard night vision. I’m running them both directly into ginormous hard drives, so they can go all night without having any storage issues.”

  Toni crossed her arms under her breasts and glanced at the tripods standing sentry across the room from the foot of her bed. The cameras were pointing to where she would try to sleep.

  She kicked out one hip and raised her eyebrows. “Anything else?”

  “Nope, that should do it,” Thomas answered.

  She glared at him until he finally asked, “Problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem,” Toni replied.

  “Are you insinuating that I have a problem?” Thomas shot back.

  “Well, if the insinuation fits.”

  “Lady, you don’t even know me!”

  “I know that you’re a phony. You prey on people who believe in the supernatural and you just pretend to believe in all this stuff so you can collect a pay cheque!”

  “Yeah, a big, fat pay cheque. And those naïve idiots are going to believe in this stuff anyway. I used to. I wanted it to be true more than anyone. But I’ve been at this for years now. I’ve travelled all over the world, investigating the most credible reports with the most advanced equipment available. And you know what we found? Nothing! Nothing that couldn’t be explained away by a gust of wind or uneven floorboards or mice in the walls or lonely people with overactive imaginations!”

  Toni shook her head as if she’d been slapped. “‘Overactive imaginations?’ Was that directed at me? Is that some kind of euphemism for ‘nuts’?”

  Thomas held out his hands. “If the euphemism fits.”

  Toni balled up her fists. Her eyes stung with tears of frustration. She felt a scream boiling up in her chest.

  “Get out!” she shouted as she uncrossed her arms, flattened her hands and thrust her palms against Thomas’ chest.

  The instant Toni’s hands made contact with Thomas’ body, a deafening crack caused them both to duck. Thomas wrapped his arms around Toni with such spontaneity that she allowed herself to be pulled in against him. They both turned towards the sound of the crack. The bathroom door had slammed shut and the thick oak was split down the centre and splintered away from the hinges. The halves teetered for a moment before falling into the bathroom and crashing onto the tiled floor.

  Still clinging to one another, Toni and Thomas backed up until they were stopped by end of the bed. They untwined until each had an arm behind the other’s back, then they slowly sat on the mattress.

  “Gun smoke,” Thomas whispered.

  Toni could smell it too.

  “I can hear his boots and the jangle of metal—like brass buttons and spurs. Do you hear that?” Thomas asked.

  Toni shook her head. “No.”

  Toni watched wordlessly as the bathroom began to glow and a thick fog rolled out through the doorway.

  “Amazing,” she said.

  “What do you see?” Thomas asked.

  Toni wrinkled her forehead. She turned to face Thomas. He was staring into the bathroom as if searching for anything unusual. She noticed that his eyelids were half closed. He looked like he was struggling to stay awake.

  Toni glanced at the cameras. They were between the bathroom door and Toni’s bed, trained on where Toni and Thomas sat, not on the spectacle she saw unfolding in the bathroom. Toni noted that a tiny red light glowed on each of the cameras. She found herself at once dreading what would emerge from the bathroom and wishing that whatever it was would get on with it already and walk into the frame.

  “Aren’t you seeing this?” she whispered without taking her attention away from the bathroom.

  Thomas didn’t speak. He answered her by stroking her back. His hand swept a lazy figure-of-eight from her tailbone to the base of her neck. Toni felt her shoulders relax and she realised that she’d been shrugging them up around her ears. Thomas continued the slow, sensual pattern over her back and she began to sway under his touch.

  Toni kept her gaze on the bathroom door but was struck by the thought that this was like watching a movie. But, no, it was more intimate, more immersive. This is like watching a stage play. Her body felt heavy and deliciously warm. Her eyelids dropped to half-mast and she felt a gentle smile draw up her cheeks. She slid her arm from behind Thomas’ back and laid her hand on his thigh. The warmth of his skin radiated through the denim. A soft sigh escaped with her next outward breath, as if
she’d tasted something heavenly.

  Thomas didn’t stop his rhythmic backrub when the soldier stepped into the bedroom. Toni realised that only she could see the ghost. She felt no fear. She somehow knew that John Buckman meant her no harm. She stole a glance at Thomas and saw only intoxicated bliss on his face. The soldier strode from across the room and stopped in front of them. He removed his hat and flung it on the wingchair near the bedroom window. The hat passed through the seat and disappeared into the shadows beneath.

  John Buckman fixed his stare on Toni and never wavered as he began undressing. He let his weapons drop to the floor. He worked open his brass buttons and shrugged free of his shirt. He stood naked to the waist at the foot of the bed. Toni reached out towards his flat belly and expected her hand to pass through him, just as his hat had passed through the wingchair. Instead, she felt flesh so warm and solid, she wondered if a living, breathing stranger had entered her home. John Buckman disabused her of that notion by stepping back and outstretching his hands. Toni had an irresistible urge to take off her clothing. She wriggled out of her robe and pulled her T-shirt over her head. She wore nothing underneath. She ran her hands over her breasts, pausing to roll her nipples between her fingertips. Every movement was slower, more deliberate, but her sense of touch seemed magnified tenfold.

  Beside her, Thomas kicked off the last of his clothes. Toni was unashamed as she looked down into his lap. She licked her lips at the sight of his thick cock standing up against his flat belly. She slowly swivelled her head and found John Buckman standing directly in front of her. He was now completely naked and his erect shaft was just inches from her face. Toni slid her hands from her breasts and slowly filled each with hard cock. She leant forward and took John Buckman’s rod into her mouth while stroking Thomas.

  Thomas moaned, then asked, “Are you sucking his cock?”

  Toni nodded and murmured, “Mm hmm,” through a full mouth.