Dreamscape

by Rose Anderson

  He rationalized, What does it matter if I watch with cock in hand? I’m invisible. There was no one to judge this harmless action, but Jason knew himself well. He’d see to his own self-recrimination later, but not now. Not while she stood like Aphrodite rising from the foam. Stepping out of the tub, she turned and bent to pull the plug on the drain. Acquiescing to the view that angle afforded, Jason unbuttoned his trousers. He couldn’t help himself.

  She whirled to stare at the closed toilet seat as if struck by a sensation she couldn’t identify. Does she sense the man I once was? Those endless blue eyes seemed to scan his face, though he knew that to be impossible. Nevertheless, Jason felt his cheeks warm as if she’d caught him in this very private act. Embarrassment stilled his hand. With no outward awareness of his presence showing, she left him there holding himself.

  In the next room he watched her dress in a loose white shirt and no pantalets. The idea she would walk through the house with a bare bottom had him rushing to follow, his cock still in hand. And sure enough, as she walked down the stairs, the rounded curves flashed as did the pink bottoms of her bare feet. He focused his mind and was instantly at the bottom of the staircase, watching the descent of shapely bare legs and the shadowed peach of her sex. He gripped his balls. They actually felt heavy.

  He stood a moment in the hall, stroking like a madman. He could smell her soap as she passed him on her way to the kitchen, and he wondered briefly how that was possible. He hadn’t smelled so much as a flower all the while he’d been dead. A moment later, the familiar sound of cupboards opening and the kettle filling reached him. He rightfully presumed she was making tea.

  The thought made him frown. It had been ages since he’d enjoyed a hot cup of tea and good conversation. He’d love to sit over their steaming cups and learn all about this ethereal beauty. Buttoning up, he followed. On the table before her sat Margaret’s bread-toasting device. She sat with one leg tucked under, and for the first time, he noticed her toenails had been painted pink. He found it quite pretty on her adorable little toes.

  Having had her tea, she returned to his bedroom and stood there a moment obviously contemplating what to do next. After testing the fireplace flue, she set about opening and closing each drawer in the room. Startling him, she broke the silence when she said out loud, “Nope, no more for tonight. I’ll clean these tomorrow.”

  The curtains waved wildly as the wind picked up. Lanie closed the window all the way then appeared to have a second thought and left it open a little. Thunder in the distance declared there was a storm coming. Pulling off her shirt, she turned out the bedside lamp and slid naked between the sheets. Again she spoke to the quiet house, “Well, I’ll find out if the roof of my haunted house leaks, won’t I?”

  Jason smiled. To his knowledge the roof didn’t leak, but the house was haunted.

  Chapter 3

  Jason sat on the bed watching her settle, her body occasionally twitching as her muscles relaxed. Before long her regular breathing signaled sleep had come at last. Only then did he materialize, his ghostly blue-edged form softly lighting the room. Helpless to do otherwise, he focused his thoughts to create enough substance to be able to slowly lift the thin blanket and sheet. She slept on her side with one leg drawn up and bent at the knee. Her bare bottom and creamy thighs were positioned just so, beautifully lit by his ethereal light.

  Against his better judgment, he reached out and touched her hip. Unbelievably, he found her silky soft and very warm. His hand glided up her bare leg. It had been ages since he’d touched anything warm, and frankly he was surprised that he could, for he never could touch Margaret. Not even on the night she passed when he tried to hold her hand to bring her comfort. Whispering to Lanie’s mind, he suggested, “Roll over, lovely lady, let me see you fully.”

  She stirred slightly, and a moment later rolled onto her back.

  He waited for her to settle again before his ghostly hands once more swept along her leg from calf to hip. His baser instinct got the better of him again. Filling his palm with her beautiful pale breast, he was thrilled to experience the warm beat of her heart under his hand. Gliding down, he came to the juncture of her thighs and paused at her mound. With his hand upon her, he stared at her a long while, deliberating. Being able to touch her like this was akin to being alive again, but he didn’t dismiss the fact the act also made him a cad. Replacing that uncomfortable thought with another, he wondered if his touch might affect her as it was most certainly affecting him. Testing his theory, he gently caressed along the split with his thumb, finding her flesh soft like velvet and warm there, so very warm.

  Lanie moaned softly

  You can feel me! The inconceivable thought made his cock surge to fullness. He released his hard cock from his trousers again and stroked as his thumb circled and lingered intimately.

  Just then a bolt of lightning lit the sky, and two seconds later the subsequent thunder crashed overhead. Yanked from her enjoyable dream, Lanie sat bolt upright in bed. To her shock and disbelief she found a man beside her. No more than a blue shadow of light, he disappeared! Rubbing her eyes, she stared at the spot. Talk about wishful thinking. “You’re losing your mind, Lanie old girl.” With that, she laughed at herself, rolled over, and fell back to sleep.

  Chapter 4

  Lanie yawned again. She’d be completely useless when the cleaning crew came today. Last night she woke to discover a phantasm sitting on her bed. She smiled and shook her head. Her imagination got the better of her last night. Lately, everyone she talked to had made one comment or another about her house being haunted. Some joked about it and a few were unbelievably concerned. Small wonder she was seeing things.

  Wiping off the funky old toaster she found in the uppermost shelf the night before, she turned it upside down and gave it a little shake. Nothing dropped out. Good—no spiders, no crumbs, no mouse skeletons. Plugging it in, she carefully pushed the lever down and peered inside. A few seconds later, the wire filaments turned red, burning off any dust inside. With no flames or sparks declaring her newfound toaster a fire hazard, she dropped the two halves of her bagel in the slots and pressed the lever again.

  Checking the time on her cell phone, she added honey to her tea and reviewed her list out loud to herself. “The internet provider opens at eight o’clock.” She checked the time on her cell phone. “Okay, that’s five minutes from now. The cleaners should be here at eight-thirty.” She’d have them clean in here first, that way when the movers brought her boxes, she could spend the rest of the morning organizing her kitchen. “The movers should be here by ten o’clock.” She let out long a breath, glad she’d taken the time to pack and label carefully.

  She’d have them put the majority of the kitchen boxes right in the pantry to be sorted box by box later. Then she’d pack up the Mason stuff she didn’t plan on keeping. Her first run-through last night suggested more than half the stuff in the kitchen would be going to Goodwill. Her bagel popped up golden brown. “Wow, that works better than my modern one.” Lanie scribbled a quick note to see if an appliance repair place might be able to replace the cloth-wrapped cord so she could continue to use it without being afraid of starting a fire.

  When she was finished with her breakfast, she assessed the walk-in pantry. She planned to tackle the pantry after she called to get the internet up and running. Ancient boxes of Jell-O and several tinned spices she knew were now sold in plastic containers sat alongside a tin of eighteen-year old crackers and four crocks in graduated sizes that might have once held flour, sugar, coffee, and loose tea. Alongside sat a large, cylindrical Quaker Oats box that mice had gotten into only God knew how many years before, and an empty two-pound Chase and Sanborn coffee can. She’d brought new shelf liners and scissors with her.

  Determining if she should run out to the car for the shelf paper and scissors now or later, she looked at the clock on her cell phone again. “Later.” Ben’s brother Wally was coming to get the hot water heater up and running soon, but she’d sti
ll have to heat water on the stove for the cleaning crew. If she were lucky, there’d be a bath tonight without having to lug hot pots up the stairs. A slight frown furrowed her brows. No, he’d have to flush the tank and refill it. There wouldn’t be hot tap water for at least another day.

  Marveling at his being able to touch her and elicit a response, Jason sat across from Lanie as she ate her toasted bread and sipped her tea. Good Lord, with the morning sun lighting her like a pre-Raphaelite painting, alive or dead she had to be the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. His appreciative eyes watched as she stood before her mirror and plaited her long raven hair into a thick and lustrous braid left to run down the center of her back.

  When she dressed for the day’s work in lilac pantalets and small white stockings, torn blue trousers and an overlarge man’s shirt, with no brassiere, he found himself getting hard again for the third time in one hundred and twenty years. The third time in less than twenty-four hours, as a matter of fact. Imagine that.

  * * * *

  Everything was falling into place. By three o’clock in the afternoon, the cleaners had finished the entire main floor and planned to return the following morning to do the upper floors. The internet would be on by Friday, as would her landline. The new appliances would be delivered as soon as the plumbing in the small room off the kitchen was done. Lanie sat on the bottom step with her legs resting against the banister, her steno pad filled with projects already scratched off the list. Her well-marked crates and boxes had been divided up and stacked in their designated rooms, and the kitchen was clean and sparkling.

  Last on the list—the cellar. Ben’s preliminary run-through showed a monumental task ahead, one that was better-served when more hands freed up. It wasn’t a livable space, so there was no real hurry. His crew had been at it all day, clearing trash hidden in the grass and mowing with saw blade weed-whackers that made the first pass before the lawn mowers came. With plans to reseed the grass the next day, they were now hosing off and packing their tools. She’d met the brother-in-law plumbers Wally and Kenny, and Kenny’s brother Al who’d worked most of the day glazing new windows in the front parlor and would return on Monday to do the windows in the study and dining room.

  That morning, they came upon the two cedar chests filled with intricate handiwork. Ben mentioned the doily board he’d made for Janice and called his wife to tell her and she generously offered to wash and starch the lot.

  All in all it had been a very productive day.

  Jason had become obsessed by the black-haired beauty. By her side throughout the day, he’d followed her every move and listened in on every conversation she had with the workers and on the amazingly small gadget that could only be her telephone. He found her charming and quite competent overall with a ready wit and keen intelligence. When she put her hands on her hips and arched backwards, he recognized her back strain and fatigue. Poor little sweetheart. He recalled how Margaret’s mind was receptive to his thoughts when she was tired. So, partly for her own sake, and a partly because he so desired to feel her warmth again, he whispered to Lanie’s subconscious, “Rest, you should rest.”

  Lanie suddenly found herself just too tired to make dinner. Leafing through the ancient yellowed phone book, she knew the odds were slim she’d find anything listed there to still be in business. Giving up, she put the useless Yellow Pages in a box full of recyclables. Flexing her sore back, she tried to decide if she was too tired to even bother going to a drive-through for a burger. Noticing her pad of paper with the next day’s itinerary, an idea came to her. She dialed Ben. “Hey there, Ben, sorry to bother you...”

  “Hey, Lanie, what’s up?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone. “Did we leave the hose on?”

  “No, everything’s fine. The reason I’m calling… I don’t have a new phone book yet and I’m too tired to drive to McDonalds. You get around this part of town more than I do so I figured you might know where all the good delivery food is.”

  Ben chuckled. “Sure, hang on. Janice keeps a folder with takeout menus. Chinese okay? Peking House over on Center Street delivers. There’s pizza over at Brandino’s on Madison, that’s a good one. They do deep dish.”

  “Chinese sounds good. I’ll take the pizza number, too. I have the feeling I’ll be doing this again over the next few days.”

  “Brandino’s puts a menu in the bag with every order. Keep one, they have a lot more than pizza.” Ben gave her three more numbers then said, “As long as I have you on the phone…” He went on to explain that he’d placed an order for the plants and trees he needed. Familiar with other Victorian atriums in the area, he was pretty confident about what should be in there. The Victorians with their fancy roses and their gardening clubs often shared stock and cuttings. “I’ll be putting those in then flushing the entire thing with growth hormone. It’ll smell for a day, but that boost will get everything up and growing again.”

  “I leave it in your capable hands.” She smiled. “I can treat illnesses, but when it comes to plants, forget it.” She held up her thumb as if he could see the act on his end of the line. “A green thumb I do not have.”

  An hour later, comfortably full of chicken lo mein, she put her leftovers away and lugged several pots of hot water upstairs for a tepid bath.

  And so it went for several days. The ghost of Jason Bowen dogged her every step and fed his nightly compulsion to touch her warm skin while she slept.

  Feeling somewhat guilty for using his particular advantage as a spirit, he resolved not to repeat the inappropriate intimacy he’d subjected her to that first night in his bed. But he did surrender to a lesser debauchery—the urge to feel her living warmth. After the first contact with her skin, he could no more help himself from running his hands over her body from shoulder to knee than he could cease haunting his house. He hoped she found his touch as soothing to her body as he found touching her soothing to his soul.

  Lanie’s dreams took on a surreal quality like never before. Interacting with the house and grounds, her nightly excursions became as real as her days. She searched for the dark-haired man with eyes the color of aged whiskey. She’d been dreaming of him since she’d turned eighteen. This was the man she longed to see each time she closed her eyes to sleep.

  Chapter 5

  “Lanie?”

  “I’m in the dining room, Ben.”

  He found her behind a mountain of folded linens. “Oh boy, you’ve been busy today. I see Al finally got the new washer and dryer in.”

  Adding another folded pillowcase to the neatly embroidered stack, Lanie asked happily, “What tipped you off, the fabric softener wafting through the house or the added heat from the dryer?”

  He chuckled. “Both, actually.” In short order spring had turned into summer and added heat and humidity to everything they did. Just looking at her flushed cheeks, he could tell this monumental task was taking the wind out of her sails, and it was only nine o’clock in the morning.

  “Al surprised me by coming over yesterday to hook them up.”

  He wasn’t surprised. His little brother was sweet on her.

  Lanie pushed a damp lock of hair from her eyes with the back of her hand. All the linens were washed—no small task that. Seven bedrooms and five cupboards with their seven mountains of blankets and sheets had her washing and drying for two days. A full third of it was being donated to charity. She turned and saw the three large flat boxes he set on the table.

  “What are those?”

  “I’ve a present for you, kiddo.” He lifted the lid off one and showed her the washed and starched doilies. “I thought you could dress up this plain décor you got goin’.”

  With its over-abundance of gingerbread and hand-painted walls, the décor in her Victorian mansion could hardly be called plain. Lanie laughed. “This was so nice of Janice to do. I don’t know the first thing about doily care.” She lifted a few up. Fully starched, they were as stiff as the proverbial board. “They look so much better.” Choosing
three of the nicest, she said, “Do you think Janice would like to have these? As her thank-you?”

  “She’s gonna love ’em. So Kenny tells me you have a little request?”

  She gave him her brightest smile. “How’d you like to hang a clothesline for me?”

  “Funny you should ask. I was going to as you if you’d like me to restring the pulleys off the back porch today.”

  “Great minds think alike!” they said at once.

  * * * *

  The day had gone pretty much as the day before and the day before that. By the end of her third week there the house was coming along splendidly. Finally, his other commitments winding down to completion, Ben’s oldest brother, Zack the contactor, had come. After the walkthrough, he determined work on the carriage house would begin the following Thursday as rain was expected early in the week.

  Though the hard-packed dirt cellar remained untouched, the livable parts of the house were shining from top to bottom with only servant’s quarters and the topmost bedrooms left to see to. The wood paneling had been polished with lemon oil, the draperies re-hung after their return from the dry cleaner, and the oriental carpets and assorted upholstery steam cleaned. The cluttered mix of eras and décor styles were sorted through and choices made as to what would be kept and what would go to charity. She’d only be keeping the best so that task wasn’t difficult. She’d happily discovered most of the furniture of her dreams was still in the house, even if it wasn’t in the same rooms as it was when her dream-self walked the halls in the 1800s.

  Ben’s brother Tommy had rented a floor polisher so the parquet floors had a nice sheen of wax, and the vintage wallpaper had all been carefully cleaned with the exception of one bedroom upstairs. Apparently the window had been broken and rain and irreparable damage followed to both sill and wall below. Just that morning Lanie went online and ordered several rolls of pre-pasted wallpaper in a similar pattern. It was the best she could do. With the help of Ben’s sister Katie, she made repairs and paste-downs where needed and washed the preponderance of knickknacks. With the decorations in place, the house was looking wonderful.