Jennifer's Wraiths

Note: My thanks to the works of John Karefa Smart for new background information pertaining to the authenticity of this work.

The American woman who'd just entered the International Conference Centre of the Nile Hotel in Kampala, Uganda, had brought a bevy of ghostly wraiths in with her. Granted not everyone could see them, but the white woman was counting on one person in this ballroom to recognize the significance of their presence.

Wrapped in a dramatic pour of dark silk and lit by a thousand glistening emerald sequin mirrors which seemed to flash under the festive New Year's Eve lighting, she would have been stunning even without her ghostly entourage. Haloed by the subtle glow of her long brunette locks, that emerald sparkle brought out mischievous green flecks in her hazel eyes. Her gown was a shimmering second skin suspended by two of the slimmest of straps, which barely held her stark plunging neckline in place. Every man in the room debated emitting a tiny puff of air at those straps to see if they'd continue contain her bountiful cleavage after the fact. An off-center slit in the gown swept well up her thigh and made her look like perfection which had been gift wrapped for the holiday season.

Still, those who sensed that hauntingly atmospheric play of mists around this young woman found the experience rather unsettling.

Of course, the real New Year's Eve surprise for Doctor Desmond Kinfu Annan, Ph.D., lay in the fascinatingly familiar features of her face and figure. "Oh my God, it's Jennifer Delano. What is she doing here in Kampala?"

Desmond's eyes lit up with vivid aches of memories from thousands of miles away and not so long ago. He held his breath when she turned toward him and looked up into his own dark eyes, but Dr Kinfu Annan saw that Jennifer's smile was genuinely happy, even relieved, when she recognized him.

One of the that night's most unexpected pleasures was the eager hug of delight she gave to him when Jennifer finally reached his side. She kissed him on the cheek. "Desmond? I am so glad to see you!"

"As always you are the vision which lights up any room," the doctor replied. "What are you doing here in Uganda?"

"I asked for assignment here. My family pulled a few strings, and here I am."

As her eyes smiled into his, something nearly tangible swirled around Jennifer like a wispy ripple of steam. Although this strange phenomenon had caught Desmond up inside of it when they'd first met months ago in Washington DC, he'd found it curiously disrupting to his psyche here in his native land.

Just what the hell was it?

"Please dance with me, Desmond." Jennifer took his arm, and he lead her out onto the dance floor.

At first, Desmond, a thin and appealing bachelor doctor in his middle thirties, felt a bit awkward, although apparently young Jennifer didn't, but when he took her hand and put his arm around her waist, she moved further into his clasp and most of their awkwardness subsided. The black African and white American danced slowly, not moving especially far in any one direction. Since she wore four inch heels which matched the color of her evening gown, Jennifer was tall enough that he felt her hips brush up against his front every now and then. He also noted that her large, full breasts also found nice invitingly warm spots when she could nestled snugly against his chest. The solid reality of Desmond's involuntary response to her pure femininity began to be rigidly distracting under the binding of his tuxedo. Obviously, Jennifer noticed that too. When the song ended, she held tightly onto him, holding him out on the dance floor until the music started up again.

However, a few people watching the mixed couple standing still on the dance floor might have noticed an odd shimmering in the air surrounding them.

"I have a message for you from Mother Horne," Jennifer smiled. Like most women of her class, her teeth were cosmetically perfect. "She told me to tell you that no matter what your intuition tells you, there's no need for you to run from them."

"I see." As always Dr. Kinfu Annan noted that the rippling distortion which emanated from Jennifer continued to swirl around them. She seemed to pay the phenomenon little or no attention, but it unnerved him none the less. "And did she tell you what that means?"

"No."

Both Jennifer and Desmond laughed.

"Believe not in the devil, Dr. Annan," Mother Horne had told him. "But in the reality of demons. We cannot say that these spirits are the Krifi of your Temne heritage. But I see a striking family resemblence. The ghosts have no messages to give, no desire to be appeased."

Then Mother Horne went on to say. "However possession by ghostly spirits is wholly undesireable."

Desmond smiled at his memory of his meeting with the strange old conjure woman. Living as close to nature as they did, no African nor descendant of Africans doubts the reality or the persistant power of the demonic. But then, his people liked to say, The Devil doesn't have as many technological devices to mask his presence.

Jennifer moved closer into his arms. "My dear Desmond, you're even more handsome than I remembered." What Ms. Delano didn't have to say was that she found him just as compelling as ever. Their chemistry was still vital and alive. To Jennifer, Desmond Kinfu Annan smelled clean and civilized like soap and after shave. "I'd forgotten how much fun it is to dance with you," she murmured.

"Thank you, Jennifer, I've missed you too." That was it. The Ugandan man and the American woman had moved into each other's personal spheres of influence, and both their plans for the night had changed radically. Half way around the world, over eighteen hours away from her home by even the fastest jet plane, in a land where she'd requested a diplomatic posting, Jennifer Delano allowed an old feeling to rekindle. A tiny twister formed just under her belly button, causing her skin to flush and her panties to capture a damp flow from within. Thinking thoughts which she had expected never to dwell upon again, she remembered the Kennedy Center celebration where she'd met Dr. Desmond Kinfu Annan for the very first time.

Five weeks earlier--Washington DC

Senator Joseph Delano had dragged his twenty year old grandaughter, Jennifer, to one of those endless black tie affairs of state. "This is Doctor Desmond, Jennifer. He represents some of the major public health and medical interests for the country of Uganda." Then as always Grandpa beamed when he introduced her. "Doctor Desmond, this is my granddaughter, Jennifer Delano."

"Umm...Desmond Kinfu Annan at your service, Miss Delano." He smiled, extended his hand and bowed ever so politely. "However, good friends, such as your grandfather, call me Doctor Desmond."

Jennifer reached out to take the doctor's hand. At his touch, she felt a jolt of both sheer energy and spiritual well being. Sensing a sort of electro/chemical reaction between them, Jennifer blushed. Suddenly a flock of ethereal wisps of cloudy mists literally poured out from the center of her being, surrounding her and startling the doctor's composure for a moment.

"Great merciful heavens," Desmond had responded. "What is that?"

"What's what?" Senator Delano asked.

Shocked by Desmond's statement, Jennifer cocked her head at him, studying him in wide-eyed amazement. "Did you see something, doctor?"

"I-I'm not sure," he answered. Then with the cautious political savvy of a black African politician mingling in a white world, he covered himself gracefully. "I think maybe I'd better eat some food to buffer my stomach against those last two martinis."

"Grandfather, you go make your rounds," Jennifer patted the senator's arm. "I'll make sure the doctor gets over to the buffet tables." She extended her arm. "Doctor?"

As the two of them walked slowly toward the appetizer trays set out to the side of the cash bar, Doctor Kinfu Annan began to apologize. "Believe me, Miss Delano, I'll be--"

"Are you psychic, Doctor Desmond?" she whispered.

"What?" Desmond looked over at Miss Delano to see if she was teasing him. But he could see from the expression on her face that she wasn't. "No. Not to my knowledge."

"I can count on three fingers the number of people who have seen what you saw tonight," she continued in a soft voice. "One of them is family, and the other was a psychic."

"And the third?" he asked.

Jennifer smiled. "She--she's dead."

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry." Desmond paused, then he continued. "Well, what exactly was it?"

"The real question is what are they?" Jennifer explained that there were eight wraiths coexisting in the aura of her psyche. "My sister has seen them. We're sure my mother may have known about them before she died."

"Oh, I am very sorry about your mother."

"It's been three years now," she replied. "My grandfather, the Senator, was her father-in-law, so I doubt that he's ever glimpsed these creatures."

Jennifer looked at the doctor's face to see if he was taking any of her story seriously. "The last person to actually see them was a sixty-six year old black woman, a psychic that my sister and I go to see periodically."

"It was most...unexpected," he said.

Jennifer stopped for a moment and then turned toward the Ugandan minister. "You don't really like being called Doctor Desmond do you?"

Desmond laughed. "Your grandfather means well, I think. But he has some difficulty remembering my name. You must be rather psychic, as well."

The young woman chuckled. "Maybe. Mother Horne's doing what she can to learn about my wraiths for me." Jennifer explained to Desmond that these curious ghosts had materialized for her once she'd reached puberty. "I know that in European occult tradition, all of that has a notoriously sexual connotation, but I can't help that. Please, Doctor Kinfu Annan, would you tell me what you saw. I'm dying to know."

Desmond told her that he'd seen an atmospheric ripple like the vibration of heat waves rising up from hot pavement, when they first shook hands. Then the ripples gathered like foggy wraiths around her and suddenly a number of childlike faces seemed to hover between the two of them. "Th-they must haunt you for a reason, Miss Delano. What brought them to you?"

"I don't know for certain," she replied. "Ahh, here's the buffet."

Once they'd reached the buffet table, Miss Delano graciously handed Doctor Kinfu Annan an appetizer plate. They tried quietly to speak as if they'd been discussing nothing more alarming than the cool November weather outside the Kennedy Center.

"I first saw them when I was eleven going on twelve years old. They frightened me terribly," Jennifer told him. "I tried to push them out of my mind for months, but every time I opened my eyes, they seemed to circle my field of vision."

Eight surreal faces and bodies faded or materialized within a radius of six to eight feet around her. "In the months before my thirteenth birthday, I learned to distinguish that octet of assorted faces which attended me whenever I became upset. Later, as I learned to control my feelings, they seemed to come out less often."

"Still, it is not right for a young woman to have to learn to stifle her emotions so early--so completely."

Jennifer looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.

"Did you know that's what Mother Horne said to me." She continued to lightly fill her plate as the two of them moved down the buffet line. "Although their faces all seem youthful and innocent, like elementary school children, the feelings which accompany these beings appear to be timeless--almost ageless."

Doctor Desmond Kinfu Annan listened totally engrossed by her story of all those years of dealing with her wraiths. "It must be very disconcerting for you."

"I saw your face, Doctor," she replied. "And I'd say it was pretty disconcerting for you."

He chuckled politely.

As they moved toward the general seating area, Jennifer replied that she'd shared the spirits' presences within her mind for nearly ten years now, and that the eight faces--five boys and three girls--felt very familiar to her after all these years together.

Now like hungry orphans begging for a scrap of sustenance, Jennifer's wraiths gathered around her and Desmond Kinfu Annan. Crawling covetously around her, they eyed Desmond with a mixture of jealousy and encouragement. Their terribly concentrated scrutiny became unsettling to him. A transparent face gestured as if speaking directly to him.

They know I can see them, he thought. "I don't understand," he told a boyish looking face which seemed to rush forward to fill his field of vision.

Jennifer looked up at him. "What don't you understand, Doctor?"

"I think they're trying to communicate. But what do these wraiths want from you?" He explained to her what he was seeing.

"I too am looking for that answer."

"Then, forgive me for stating the obvious, Ms. Delano, but what could these apparitions possibly want from me?"

Jennifer looked at him with concern. "I don't know, doctor? They're rather fond of my sister, but they always act like that to family. They don't like Mother Horne. They see her as a threat to their existance." Jennifer seemed to space out for a moment looking everywhere at once. "My wraiths seem to react favorably to you?"

"But why should they?"

Jennifer had no answer. She continued to walk closely to Desmond Kinfu Annan as they exited the embassy affair. Then, before the minister's limo arrived, Jennifer stopped him to bring her lips up to confront his. She had dozens of questions for him, and probably he had just as many for her. As it turned out, she didn't have to say anything. They were able to communicate profusely with the touch of their lips, telling each other why each wanted to experience the other so much.

She asked him to hold her without articulating a single sentence. My God, she realized, some very special chemistry existed between them.

One hour and twenty-five minutes later, the floor of Jennifer's bedroom was strewn with clothes--her dress, underwear, stockings, and heels, all in haphazard piles. Yet, carefully laid out upon a chair was a man's tuxedo.

Now totally naked, the doctor padded toward the twin sized bed, his feet making nearly no sound on the hardwood flooring. He could hear Jennifer's rapid breathing as she reached outward with her pale hand stretching toward his. Desmond came closer and leaned down to kiss her. His scent, warm and dark and dusky, clouded her senses, just as the spirits clouded the aura around them.

Within those clouds, those wisps, those ethereal wafts of light and dark seemed to writhe and whirl as his arms touched her. Jennifer put her hand on his bare chest and urged him to come close to her on the bed. Putting her fingers on his closed eyelids, she kissed him softly on the lips and chin then moved down to his chest, licking and nibbling between more kisses. Then she reached down and grasped his erection taking his firmness with a surprising vigor, and her tongue slowly dipped down to test his dark presence in a wholely different fashion.

But Doctor Kinfu Annen would have nothing to do with the subtle playfulness of Jennifer's tongue and mouth. His need had become much more primal, much more insistant.

Dispite her initial resistance, Jennifer soon became moist and ready for intromission, and their world went hazy with pleasure. Eight faces shot back and forth trying to catch his gaze--to distract him. Desmond closed his eyes to shut them out. Each time he shut his eyes, he felt himself drawn deeply into her--into the thrilling warmth and moistness of sinking luxuriently into this voluptuous young woman's body.

Still the flashing of those eight faces came to him in bursts of light just beyond his protective eyelids.

Did Jennifer sense their presence that way as well? Desmond wondered.

He knew she was excited. Her legs rigidly clamped against his hips, as if she might be fighting him, while all the while, she shifted her abdomen forward, letting Desmond slip inside of her to fill her young loins to the hilt. Something in Jennifer's demands now matched Desmond's needs.

It had been many months since Desmond had had a woman at all, and never an American. Never one so young or so white, yet so willing a partner as Jennifer Delano had become.

"Jennifer," he said softly and then repeated her name as if in a chant. "Oh, Jennifer, you feel wonderful."

He sensed that they were truly partners in lust, and yet, they were much more than that. Her coveted warmth enclasped him as her body accepted his tumescent presence. The flurry of wraith visuals surrounding them had become a kalidescope of passion, desire, and incredible floating, wet sensations.

He shouldn't do this, Desmond thought. They were from totally different worlds. But he couldn't help himself. Bursting forth from his testicles, the Ugandan minister's excitement transformed into pure liquid reality. From the aperture, the eyelet, the small opening at the very tip of his long black erection, his living sperm spurted free from his body spewing outward--seeking out its ultimate purpose.

Squirming with genuine surprise under the hot, streaming flow of her lover's thick semen, Jennifer's anxiety flushed with the streaming pools of hot sticky gravy which he'd loosed inside of her. Both she and her partner shuddered. The sensations that swept them both up were overwhelming. And, God help her, she loved it.

Ringed around both of their conjoined bodies, eight faces also seemed to be riveted to the moment.

A zoom forward to the present--Five weeks later, Kampala, Uganda. New Year's Eve.

Desmond Kinfu Annan gave Jennifer Delano a ride back to her quarters at the embassy grounds in his private car. As a reward, Jennifer boldly suggested that he send his driver home for the night. Miss Jennifer Delano invited him up to her flat for a nightcap. But the two companions never really got to those drinks. As before, their intoxication proved to be far more personal than mere alcohol.

At first the doctor's kisses were light and coaxing. His mouth shaped itself carefully onto hers, delicately exploring the contours of her lips with an unhurried thoroughness. Then Desmond's hands shifted. One of them drifted down her spine pulling her even closer, while the other slid behind the nape of her neck. Jennifer let him cover her mouth in an electrifying kiss that seemed to discharge sparks through her entire being. As Jennifer carefully wrapped her arms around his neck, Desmond's mouth cautiously opened over hers. The minute she molded her own mouth against his in compliance, his tongue traced hotly across her lips, urging them to part.

Instinctively she knew that should she allow her lips to be broached by his kiss, there'd be no telling what else might open up under his ministrations. Demanding that she acquiesce to his kiss, his tongue plunged into her mouth and their kiss erupted into raw sensual fire.

Jennifer's wraiths whirled around the two lovers, circling them both, yet they also watched what was happening between them with rapt attention.

His hand covered her breast, caressing it through the bodice of her evening gown. His other hand restlessly swept behind her, cupping her buttocks through the silken dress material, pulling her tightly against him. Desmond expected her to stiffen involuntarily at their forced intimacy, but Jennifer surprised him by not backing away from him at all.

"You devil, you." Jennifer laughed, totally aware of the taut arousal straining at the forefront of Desmond's trousers.

"Jennifer," he whispered, but never completed the thought. How could he say out loud what was so obvious from his body language? His need for her was more than just lust.