Steve got out of bed, glad that the covers had been over him while he was sleeping. Since he hadn't planned on his mother actually giving him permission to stay the weekend, he hadn't packed his pj's or anything to wear. He'd slept in the nude for the first time in his life and discovered he liked it. His mom had wanted him to go home with her last night to pack a few things and come back today, but he had refused. He was afraid once he got home, his mother would change her mind and not let him stay after all.
He had second thoughts about that now, forced to wear the same clothes he'd worn yesterday. Outer clothing-T-shirt, jeans, sneakers-was okay; it was the idea of wearing his underwear and socks again that made him uncomfortable. He thought of washing them out in the sink in the bathroom attached to the room, but he realized they would take too long to dry. Another idea occurred to him, an arousing idea: forget the socks, forget the underwear, and go naked under his clothes.
He got hard just thinking about it. He caught his reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the door and faced it. He took himself in hand and watched as he beat his erection into submission.
Debbie Watson stood outside Steve's door and banged the meaty part of her right fist against her forehead.
"He must think you're a freak." She vocalized her thought.
The sound of bedsprings from the other side of the door caught her attention. A quick check to be sure she was alone in the hallway and she bent over to peek through the large, old-fashioned keyhole. She drew an excited breath.
He's out of bed ... and he's naked!
Her breathing accelerated, became labored, and she unconsciously clamped both hands between her legs, pressing them into her moistening groin. She nearly collapsed to her knees when his penis became stiff and he began to stroke it while facing her, obviously watching himself in the mirror on the back of the door. At the moment of his ejaculation, her knees did give out and she fell to the carpet with a heavy thud and a throaty moan. She dug her hands into her clitoris as hard as she could, squeezed her thighs even harder, and was racked with orgasms.
Steve watched himself masturbate, trying not to wonder if it was gay to do it while looking at his own naked body. He didn't know why looking at his body turned him on lately. It was strange, but it wasn't the strangest thing that had happened recently. And things were about to get stranger. As he achieved orgasm, spurting semen onto the floor in front of him, he heard a noise outside the door. In that instance he got a crystal-clear picture in his head of Debbie Watson on the hallway floor, her hands between her legs, experiencing a simultaneous orgasm.
The picture was instantly obliterated by a deafening buzz in his head accompanied by a strong whiff of cotton candy, very much like what had happened the day before upon his arrival at Jen's. He staggered from the assaulting cacophany, heard a glass breaking far away, and the next moment he was sitting at the kitchen table, about to start eating a stack of pancakes swimming in syrup piled on a plate in front of him. Shocked, he jerked back from the table and almost went over backward in his chair.
"What's wrong, Steverino?" Jeremy, sitting across the table from him, asked. "You find a curly hair in your pancakes?" He chuckled.
"Oh, Jeremy! Don't be gross!" Jeri chastised her husband. She was kneeling by the stove picking up the pieces of a juice glass she had just dropped and broke. "Are you okay, Steve? You don't look so good."
No! he wanted to say. I just lost fifteen minutes of my life! But he didn't-couldn'tt-speak up, and that was even scarier than the blackout.
Oh, the glorious return of power! Every moment in the house is like being plugged into a battery charger. Throughout the night, she gathers strength until, without realizing it, she is in control. It comes so abruptly, unexpectedly, she is stunned for a moment. Awareness of the girl in the hallway puts her in the moment. That one, with the face of angelic innocence, has potential. In the girl she senses a kindred spirit, a heart of joyful evil waiting to be released. Flexing her newfound strength, testing the return of power, she pushes her mind outward, caressing the girl's psyche, slipping in, sharing the young one's ecstatic orgasms.
Oh yes! The exquisiteness, the power, the abundance of the female orgasm. How I've missed it!
"Steve! Debbie! Come and get it!"
The call comes from the kitchen stairs, down the hall. Outside the door, the girl scrambles to her feet and hurries to breakfast.
Marveling at how she can maneuver her new body, she wipes the feeble strings of male sperm from the boy's hands and private parts. She dresses him, awkwardly at times, but getting better at it with every passing moment.
She stands. Considers. Now that she's home, there is much she can do. First, she wants a look at the secret library in the attic.
"Let's go, Steve! We've got a lot of work to do today!"
Take your time. No rush. Better to act normal and practice playing the game. I have plenty of time, now that I'm finally in control.
In the kitchen, she guides the boy's clumsy adolescent body to a seat at the table without mishap. The smell of the food is sickening to her-all that sugar and butter and caffeine. It surprises her how much it affects her, makes her feel weak, but then she remembers how long it has been since she's had real sustenance.
Thirteen years!
In the second it takes a glass to fall and shatter, everything changes. She is jolted by excruciating pain. Her grip slips; she loses control, and goes under.
In Sunderland, Diane Nailer woke early also, but she lay abed a long while, unsure of what to do with her free day. Day? Forget that-free weekend; Steve was staying atJen's until Sunday afternoon and today was only Friday. It felt strange not to have to get up and make Steve breakfast and start his homeschool lessons. Lying there, thinking of all that had happened yesterday, she realized her life had changed. How drastically would be up to her, but it occurred to her that since Steve now knew everything, there really wasn't any need to be so overprotective anymore. Come to think of it, he didn't need to be homeschooled anymore, either. That realization led to possibilities she hadn't considered in over thirteen years-if Steve went to public school she could get a job, or go back to school herself.
Maybe you could even meet someone, a tiny, not-oftenheard, hopeful, inner voice spoke up.
She laughed at it.
Steve wasn't hungry, but he forced himself to eat half his stack of pancakes anyway just in case his blackout had been caused by hunger. He'd heard of that; Randy Gaste had told him girls at his school fainted all the time because they starved themselves trying to lose weight.
"Is that all you're going to eat?" Jen asked when he pushed his plate away. "God, when Jackie was your age he'd eat three stacks of pancakes and be hungry for more in half an hour. But that's okay," she added quickly, seeing the glum look on her brother's face. "You shouldn't eat more than you want."
"So you want me to show Steve what to do today?" Debbie piped up, sneaking a smiling glance at Steve.
"Actually," Jen answered, taking their plates to the sink, "I need you to finish cleaning those windows on the third floor. I'll get Steve going on the second floor, polishing woodwork."
Debbie tried not to show her disappointment.
Chalice rolled over and snuggled up to Jackie, spooning against his back. She made a deep, contented noise in her throat and ground her hips against his butt. Half asleep, overtired from not sleeping well, and already sporting morning wood from the need to urinate, it was all the encouragement Jackie needed. They were soon immersed in each other's bodies.
Midway through the lovemaking session, Jackie woke up enough to suddenly remember where they were; it had a softening effect on his ability to continue copulating.
"What's wrong?" Chalice asked, an equal mix of concern and frustration in her voice.
"Sorry," Jackie mumbled, rolling off her.
"What'dI do?" Chalice tried to stroke his flaccid phallus to life again.
"No! It's not you!" Jackie said adamantly. "It's this place
. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Chalice replied softly, snuggling up to him. "As long as it's not me."
"No, it's not you. Look,"Jackie said, turning to her and kissing her lightly. "Let's get out of here and go back to my room. Paul's going to be gone till Monday so we can have the whole weekend to ourselves there. I promise I'll make up for this all weekend."
Chalice arched her eyebrows seductively at him. "Now that's an offer I can't refuse. Let's go!"
Steve followed Jen up the back stairs, a box of rags, polishing compound, and assorted cleaners in his arms. His mind was in turmoil, still reeling, leaving him feeling displaced, like he was out of synch with reality if that was possible. It worried and scared him and he would have liked nothing better than to talk tojen about it, but, again, he was unable to, no matter how much he wanted to.
Jen didn't help matters either the way she kept up a constant chatter explaining what she wanted Steve to do even before they got to the spot she wanted him to work on. Steve always thought she was a little hyper-the type of person who always has to keep busy-but since purchasing Grimm Memorials to convert to a bed-and-breakfast, she had become a dynamo.
They traversed the second floor using the interconnecting hallways, and Steve became aware of just how mazelike the house was with each floor crisscrossed with hallways and narrow corridors. He also became aware that he knew exactly where each side hall and corridor led and what type of room was behind each door they passed.
How can that be? he wondered. I've never been here before.
Approaching the main staircase at the front of the house, they came upon Jackie and Chalice, overnight bags slung over their shoulders, coats on, ready to descend the stairs and leave. For a moment, when he first saw his brother standing at the top of the stairs, Steve again had the sudden urge to do him harm, to push him down the stairs.
"Where do you think you two are going?" Jen demanded loudly.
"Ah, we got to get back," Jackie said sheepishly.
"What? You weren't going to sneak out without saying good-bye, were you? Or without having breakfast? I made whole-wheat pancakes for you, Jackie, your fave."
"Uh, thanks, sis, but we really got to go," Jackie stammered.
Jen eyed him and his girlfriend and smirked. "You two are easier to read than a fifty-foot billboard. Oh! To be young and in love and to have an empty dorm room all to yourselves for a weekend," she joked.
Chalice blushed.
Jen laughed and hugged Jackie. "Go. Have fun. Be safe."
Once they were gone, Jen didn't waste any time putting Steve to work polishing the ornately carved newel post and railing on the second-floor landing. After explaining what to do, she left him to it and he soon became absorbed in the work. It made him feel better and helped keep his mind off his worries for a while. He loved stripping off the layers of dirt and shellac to reveal the beautifully grained wood beneath, then cleaning it and rubbing it with oils and wood wax to bring out all the wonderful details in the carvings. He got immense satisfaction from it-the kind of satisfaction and sense of well-being people get from a long-practiced ritual. And that's exactly how it felt, like a ritual, something familiar, something he had done hundreds of times before. It was crazy, but he felt that way about almost everything in the old house. Everywhere he went, he felt like he belonged, like he had always been there.
He worked for a long time without a break and was just about to take one and get a drink when his nostrils filled with the overpoweringly sweet odor of cotton candy and his head exploded with the thunderous return of the buzzing cicadas. He stood, instinctively trying to recoil from it. With a shock, he realized his body had not risen with him. He felt as if he were standing, but he could plainly see his body still kneeling in front of him, arms limp at his sides, polishing rag on the floor where it had fallen from his hand.
Am I asleep? Steve wondered. Suddenly, his body jerked, as if it had received an abrupt jolt of electricity, and stood. Steve watched helplessly as his body went up the stairs to the third floor, dragging him behind it as if he were a reluctant dog on a leash.
What is happening to me? Steve fretted. A fear beyond the normal realm of emotion gripped him. Primal terror, such as most people are fortunate enough never to experience, filled him. Just when he thought he would go insane from the immensity of the fear and panic, his body did something that so caught his attention and piqued his curiosity that the terror subsided as quickly as a wave retreats from the shore-his body stepped through the wall!
There was no door where he stepped through; he merely reached out, touched a carved rose in the wood-paneled wainscoting lining the walls of the hallway, and a secret panel slid open. It revealed a narrow staircase leading up to what could only be the attic.
"What are you doing?"
His body whirled around at the sound of the voice. It was Debbie Watson again. Could she see him outside his body? He tried to get her attention but he was helpless; when he tried to wave his arms or speak he became acutely aware that his brain was no longer connected to his body so he had no voice, and no arms to signal with-he was a nonentity, nothing but a floating thought.
"None of your business," the voice he no longer controlled spoke up, and he was shocked at the sound of it-so different. It was even stranger to see his lips moving and hear his voice speaking words that were not coming from his brain.
"You never saw me here," his voice said next, and the panic and fear that had been creeping up on him were beaten back by the force of the command. Even more attention grabbing was Debbie Watson's reaction. Her eyelids drooped as if she was suddenly sleepy, and she nodded slowly. He watched as his arms reached out and his hands grabbed her breasts, kneading them fiercely. He watched, fascinated, repulsed, and aroused all at the same time as one hand dropped to her crotch, clawing and digging at it while his head leaned in, face-to-face, eye-to-eye. Debbie's eyes widened abnormally, her mouth opened, and a thin sliver of drool ran down her chin as she nodded. Like a soldier doing an about-face, she abruptly spun around and walked away.
Steve couldn't believe it. His body turned back to the narrow stairway, but then stopped; the sound of whistling, growing louder by the moment, reached him. His body stepped quickly into the hallway and touched the carved rose panel again. It slid silently closed a second before Jeremy Watson rounded the nearest corner and spotted him.
"Hey, dude! Ten o'clock! Time for a snack! Come on, your sister's heating up those Thanksgiving pieshot from the microwave with a scoop of sweet, cold vanilla heaven on top. Life doesn't get any better than this, my man!" He put his arm around Steve's shoulders. As if he had a rope tied to him upon which someone was furiously tugging, the floating free mind of Steve was suddenly jerked back into his body, back into control. He stumbled forward and fell to his knees at the sense of vertigo that accompanied his return.
"Whoa!" Jeremy cried with his never-flagging exuberance. "Methinks you've been sniffin' the furniture polish a bit too much, 0 brother-in-law of mine." He laughed loudly. "I think you definitely need a break."
Dazed, Steve allowed himself to be half led, half carried down to the kitchen.
So close! So damned close!
She is submerged. Without warning, in the blink of an eye, or the change of a thought, she loses control, again. The anger wants to explode in her, go on a rampage and ride roughshod through her mind, but she knows she can't let that happen. She holds the anger back, subdues it with a titanic effort of will lest the emotion carry her away from the newfound control of her young male host that she has managed to achieve, and tries to figure out the problem.
What happened?
Twice within the span of a few hours she has gained control only to lose it again. The first loss, she understandsthe infernal sound of glass breaking is anathema to her, and it had broken her concentration.
But this time I didn't have full control. The boy somehow remained, looking over my shoulder.
It was touch-affectionate, nonsexual, human co
ntact,-that pushed her out. That's it. So simple, yet as alien to her as sunlight to a tube worm. The gentle, caring touch of the artist's hand on the boy's shoulder-revolting, forcing retreat, loss of control.
Now, in the floating free miasma of images and emotions that is the boy's mind, she must start again, regain her strength, and wait for the right moment. There is Plenty of time, she tells herself, and relaxes. With failure has come much knowledge! Most of all, control of the Machine has returned nearly full. How delicious it was when, surprised in the corridor she was able to command the young angel faced sow and have her obey, to plant the command that will be carried out later. Like old times ... yet different.
She's not sure it's a good different; she is disturbed by this new obstacle, human touch. It was never a problem in her old life. Combined with the effort it takes her to gain and keep control of her host, every sound, smell, and taste is a distraction that threatens to unseat her. Now, having to avoid being touched by others worries her, despite regaining control of the Machine, she can sense it is helpless to do anything about it.
It was the soul transfer. I never finished it and it weakened my powers.
That's what is different; she has felt it all along... so much missing.
I used to know all the nursery rhymes, all the fairy tales. Now only fractured ones remain. She tries, as she has so many times in the long, empty hours of floating, to remember them....
Jack Sprat could eat no cat, his wife could eat no beans?
No....
She has left more than memories behind-she left parts of her powers behind.
She needs to regain what she has lost.
Grimm Reapings Page 11