Be Careful What You Wish For

"...My wife Brenda and our kids," he said proudly. "I know to most people she's not nearly as beautiful as Aida, but I love her so much it's crazy." I could tell that he was telling me the truth.

"Then what..." I began.

"It was all an act for your benefit," he said again. "She said that she needed to make you get your head out of your ass. She said you were living in the past and spending all of your time reading some book in your study instead of concentrating on the life you had right in front of you. Believe me, there were any number of guys who'd have given their left nut for a chance at her. But that woman loves you far too much to ever cheat on you." Ace didn't know it but his words had nearly killed me. I'd destroyed my life for a fantasy.

"Ace, you can have whatever job you wanted," I said. "You can start tomorrow. I'll call HR and arrange it."

"Thanks Wayne," he said. "Wait until I tell the wife and kids. Say hi to Aida for me." After Ace left the office, I locked the door and just started crying. I know that big tough strong men don't do that but I had royally fucked up my life. I needed to get a grip. Whatever had been done could be undone. There had to be a way to get Aida back.

I left the office and drove around for a while in my new Mustang. The car had over five hundred horsepower and a lot of custom features and options. Driving had always let me relax and concentrate on my problems. I pulled into a park and thought about it. It didn't take me long to realize that I wanted Aida back. I wanted her back far more than I'd ever wanted Maria. And if Maria couldn't or wouldn't help me, I just didn't want her around me. Me being close to Maria made me feel as if I was cheating on my wife. If it was the last thing I did, if it cost me the company and every dollar I could scrape together, I'd get my wife back. There's nothing that can be done that can't be undone. I was sure of it. I was also sure that Maria simply didn't want to help me.

I went home several hours later than normal. Maria was waiting for me when I got there. "Where were you?" she asked. "We have something to discuss."

"Maria, you can have whatever you want," I said. "You're alive again and you have my wife's body. You can have all of my money. I can't give you the company since it has to stay in the family. And I've realized that I can't give you my heart either."

She didn't start screaming or acting crazy like I thought she would, she just listened to me.

"Maria, I did love you with all of my heart. But I was a kid then. I've grown up and now I know what real love is and that wasn't what I felt for you. I had it all along and I just let it slip away," I said.

"But that whore cheated on you," she spat.

"Don't ever call her that again," I said, standing up. "And she never cheated on me. All she did was try to make me pull my head out of my ass and realize what I had going for me. Actually it was me who cheated on her, with you. Although since you're...Is it really cheating if it's with a ghost?"

"You didn't cheat idiot," she said. "And she wasn't a ghost really. She was a succubus. She'd haunted her sister's family for years. Finally, she gave her sister that fucking diary to give to you so she'd have a way to move to our house. Once in our house, she made a connection to you through the book. She drained your energy and grew stronger as you grew weaker."

"She got even more energy when she started jacking you off and..."

"Ai," I said.

"Took you long enough genius," she said.

"But how?" I asked. "How did you get your body back?"

"I never lost it," she smiled. "It's been me all along. I just acted like her to see if you really wanted her instead of me. Now you've had your shot at her, so in the future I'm hoping you'll keep her in the past where she belongs."

"But you acted so much like her," I said.

"That was easy," she said. "I watched her with you for years. All I had to do was act pissed off at everyone except you and never let you out of my sight."

"But all the things..."I began.

"Look Dummy," she said. "I love you. I always have. And until she came along, you and I had a pretty rambunctious sex life. Then all of a sudden, you cut me off so you could shoot your sperm into the redhead from hell. So yeah, I needed it badly. And letting you fuck my ass a few times was definitely worth it if it got me back in your arms. I would do literally anything for you, Wayne. And you really couldn't help it. She had you under a spell. She was also the woman of your dreams..."

"No Ai," I said. "You're the woman of my dreams."

"And don't you forget it," she smirked.

"So how did you...And where is she?" I asked.

"I looked in the den about a week after this had all started," she said. "I saw you humping the air and I got pissed. I thought, why is he jacking off, when I would lie down in the middle of the street during rush hour and let him fuck me if he asked me to? Then I saw her. Maybe it was my anger at that moment or maybe it was the fact that I love you so much and the danger to you let me, but I saw her."

"I also noticed that she was somehow sucking the life out of you. So I went to New Orleans to visit a gypsy who is an expert at this sort of thing. She told me what Maria had become and told me how to protect myself against her. She told me that in most cases a succubus is content to simply feed off of their victims until the victim dies. But very powerful ones sometimes take over the bodies of someone very close to their victim. And say what you will about Maria, but she loved you Wayne. Even the gypsy figured that her spirit had remained here on earth because you and she had unfinished business."

"We figured that her unfinished business had to be having sex with the man she loved. If you and she had ever had sex, I'd have been done for. So the gypsy gave me a trap necklace and a spell to capture Maria's spirit. It worked. Instead of her spirit inhabiting my body, it went into the necklace and I pretended to be her."

"You have no idea, how good it felt to see you come to terms with the fact that you love me, Wayne. I've always been afraid of her. I was always sure that I was in second place in your heart. I was willing to pretend to be her for the rest of my life if it kept us close to you."

"Sometime soon we'll go to see the gypsy and let her help Maria's spirit move on," she said smiling at me.

"Ai, I love you so much," I said. "Please forgive me. I will never ever take you for granted again. No one in my life will ever come close to having even a part of my heart. I've always loved you Ai, but there was just that small part of my heart that..."

"Wayne, your heart is far bigger than you think, Honey and it's going to have to stretch a little bit..." I looked at her and I was puzzled.

"Can we talk about this in bed?" I asked. Instantly her face lit up and I knew that everything was going to be fine.

"Okay," she said. "But it's going to have to be gentle and loving until I get used to this. None of that pounding and wild stuff until my body adjusts."

"But I thought that Maria never took over your body. Was there a period of time when both of you were in there?" I asked.

"Funny that you mention periods," she said. "...Because mine is really, really, really late. So I went to the doctor and there are two of us in here. But it's not me and your high school sweetheart. It's me and your baby."

I took her into my arms and carried her up the stairs. We made slow but passionate love and then lay there in each other's arms.

"That's the way this is supposed to be Wayne," she said kissing me.

"Wayne, we have to start thinking about names. If it's a boy, we're naming him after my grandfather," she said. "His name was Gumford. We'll call him Gum for short."

"Well if it's a girl..." I began.

"We're not naming her Maria," she spat.

I laughed. "I was thinking about naming her after your mother," I said. "I like the name Penelope. We can call her Penny for short."

Over the next two years we ended up having two kids. A girl and a boy and we did use those names. Our family prospered and we loved each other very much. We all lived happily ever after especially at Halloween when we were very popular. After all it wouldn't be Halloween without trick or treating and all that goes with it including Wayne Dwapps, Ai Dwapps, Penny Dwapps and especially Gum Dwapps.