Ghost Pains

Listen to how it drums.

"It's unusual to rain this steadily this time of year."

The drumming comforts.

"Such a homey sound. Love your music."

The bed rocked like water. Greta must have climbed onto it behind me. It seemed marvelous to converse by telepathy alone.

"I expect you don't mind a bit of company."

I wanted to ask you in.

She touched my arm, fingertips to bare skin. The unexpected sensation astonished me and became the focus of all my attention. We seemed to merge, like bodies of water, she and I, with concentric rings of pleasure flowing from the point of our merger.

She shifted, the mattress rocked again. I felt her touch even after she broke contact.

Greta reached over and picked up the needle and pipe.

"I'll prepare you another," she said.

Not yet. Later, please. One for you.

"Not for me. Are you frightened, Miss?"

No.

"Aroused?"

Yes.

"Even though I'm here?"

More that you're here.

"Oh my. You fancy me?"

Oh, yes.

"I saw that right off, Miss."

I rolled onto my back, needing to look at her. It seemed to take ages.

What brought you here, Greta? You have the advantage of me.

She hovered over me and smiled.

"I'm here to do you some good."

All at once, she dropped close. Her hair fell, forming a tunnel between us.

"Shall I stay and do you some good?"

Yes.

She bent closer, brushed noses, brushed lips. She breathed cloves.

"I'll have my way with you."

Uhhh— -

"It's a wicked way."

She pressed her weight upon me, then intertwined her fingers with mine and fixed my hands on the pillow above my head. The thrill of being pinned pushed me beyond caring.

"Your cousin knew you would like this."

What do you mean?

"She read your books. It shows."

Shows in my books?

"Mrs. Lear read one too."

Uhhh— -

She pressed me, groin to groin, while raising herself on her arms.

"I've got a little specialty in mind."

Oh, my god. -

"By the way you were playing with that excited teat of yours, I'll bet you're going to like this."

She sprang away all at once, like a bird taking flight, leaving me unpinned, gazing without focus at the ceiling.

The mattress rocked again. The ivory sphere of lapping women floated into the frame.

"I'll bet you wondered what these are for."

She twisted the lapping women apart, then raised the lower half and poured the three beaded cords onto my stomach. They landed like stones.

Uhhh— -

In the cheerful tone of a sales girl she said, "I'm about to show you, Miss."

/ / /

She repositioned me on the bed. Efforts to cooperate were useless, my dulled reactions lagging so far behind her intent. Pillows and cushions were piled behind my head. Standing on the mattress and straddling me, Greta reached down, gripped me under the armpits and hauled me to a half-seated position, the pillows and cushions propping me in place.

Then her face filled my vision again, nose to nose, her eyes bright.

"Comfy, are we? Good."

She sidled back, straddling me in a kneeling position, and slid her fingernails down my chest.

She unbuttoned the silk night dress to the waist and opened it. "There we go, Miss."

I looked down at my exposed breasts, sloping to erect nipples.

"It's as if they know what I'm about to do," Greta said, picking up the first cord.

She held it suspended between the index fingers and thumbs of each hand, brought it up to one nipple, and began to play lightly, as if experimenting, lifting, sawing gently, dragging it up and down, over the eager tip. The sensations, momentarily delayed, resonated a thousand times. Greta used the cord to tie the nipple erect, one beaded end wound clockwise, the other wound counter. She let the beads dangle to either side. The tip of my nipple had become an engorged bud.

"My, you're breathing heavy," Greta said. "It excites you."

Yes.

"Good. I'll do the other."

The sensations intensified, doubled, became deranging.

"Feel them," she said.

I can't feel anything else.

"I mean touch them."

It took all the motor coordination I could manage. My fingertips ranged minutely over her handiwork and the fleshbuds it created. A thousand charged ripples flowed down to my soles.

Greta?

She held up the remaining cord.

"I have a third one, Miss," she said.

\ \ \

Greta unstraddled my legs and fully unbuttoned the night dress.

She spread my legs wide.

"I'll fix another pipe before we go on," Greta said, "so you don't come down in the middle of things."

I already lay in a delirium, with my breasts on fire.

The rain drummed on. The end of the pipe pressed at my lips.

"Suck," Greta said.

An opium teat.

She tilted her face and leaned close, her mouth open to receive as I exhaled, and with a long, steady draw, she sucked in a stream of smoke.

She smiled and said, "Ummmm, yummm," as if entering a dream of her own. She took the pipe away and returned with the last cord jingling from her fingertips. "Know where it goes?"

Yes. Down there. Where I'm as hot as embers.

Greta sidled back, kneeling between my feet, then leaning forward on her elbows, her hands above my puss, the cord strung across her spread fingers. She touched, teased, layered sensation on sensation, working the nub of my clit as she had my nipples before.

"Your hips are moving all on their own, you know, and, well, your arousal is quite aromatic," she said. Her pronunciation changed as she spoke.

Speak to me dirty, Greta.

She looped the cord around the base, tightening and loosening with micro movements.

"Ow, you 'ave a big 'un," she said. "Stands out, like your nips."

My heartbeat went there, to that urgent swelling.

Uh.

She began to wrap.

"You 'ad better wait to cli-max, Miss."

Oh, my god . . .

Minute tugs . . . sensations amplifying as they spread. . . . She added an element of cruelty.

Oh, my fucking god . . .

She pulled me into my pussy gut, lines of current leading to climax, a blood pulse in my clit. She took hold of the jesses on my teats and lifted them in waves of fire.

"If you cli-max . . ." she threatened.

Too late, too late. All of the currents blazed and merged into one searing light. The light collapsed into a ball and the ball into a nothing-point that exploded like a star inside my head. All consuming. A radiant bliss.

From beyond this nova, Greta's parting words came through as a vaguely transmitted message, a garbled signal from the dark of space beyond the light. She might have said, "M'dear, will kiss it" or "Mrs. Lear will visit."

/ / /

I slept late. The rain had stopped, though the cloud cover remained. I woke with a dull headache and a stiffness in my neck. Greta had left the house. I sensed it.

The room smelled thick and stale until I was able to stumble to the window and throw the casement open, letting in a damp breeze that smelled, unaccountably, of sage. My nipples felt tender, but were unmarked. All of the opium accoutrements lay on the tray by the bedside.

Before dressing, I put each artifact in its proper place, feeling decadent and uneasy. The headache - something I knew no aspirin would cure - grew worse after I put the journal away and closed the lacquer box in its drawer. The dull pain forced me to move slowly, sometimes with deliberate steps, holding onto a bedpost or night stand for stability. My mouth stayed dry despite drinking water.

The cream silk nightgown went back into the closet, and I shut the panels on all of it.

The breeze became chilly, calling up pebbly skin. My poor nips hurt when stiffened by the cold air.

After dressing, I went downstairs to make tea and toast, hoping to find a note from Greta on the table. Finding none - finding no evidence of her presence at all - I was glad at least to have the house entirely to myself. Perhaps she would ring later, or I could ring her. My stomach wouldn't settle, my nerves wouldn't calm, I felt so ambivalently about our relationship after the events of last night. No doubt a walk would do me good. I had to try to sort myself out.

\ \ \

An afternoon rain caught me mid-walk, near the top of the second hill. A misty fog closed in shortly after I left the house, softening the shapes of trees and rocks, eliminating visual depth. A darker shadow loomed over the next hill, and I heard the rain's rapid approach, sounding like chatter and wind. Without expecting to out race it, I turned back to the house.

I shook myself off in the foyer, hoping with mixed excitement and trepidation for Greta to appear. The kettle whistled from the kitchen, then whirred down as it was removed from the fire. I hadn't a clue as to anyone's presence, until now.

"Greta?"

Perhaps she didn't hear me. I slipped off the walking boots and set them by the rack, then hung my coat and scarf. Turning the corner, I called her name again. An unfamiliar voice, formal and self-assured, answered.

"It's Mrs. Lear," the woman said.

Two sets of saucers and cups had been placed at the table, two napkins, two spoons. Mrs. Lear extended her hand as I entered. She was my own height, taller and thinner than Greta, and probably my own age. Her hair was a mix of steely gray and white, cut functionally short, flat at the top and razored along the edge. A crisp handshake. A long face, somewhat hard. She smiled without parting her lips.

"Greta asked me to look in on you. I thought some tea would warm your bones after a walk in the rain."

I thanked her as we sat and asked if she'd seen Greta.

"Briefly," was all she replied. After stirring her tea, she set down her spoon and asked, "Did you wake with a headache?"

"Yes," I said cautiously, wondering how much she knew.

"The tea should help that too."

It was bitter, and after a few sips produced a tingling numbness on my tongue.

"You do look a bit piqued. Are you sure you're feeling well?"

At the moment, I was not.

"Why did you ask about the headache?" I said.

"This damp, chill weather of ours sometimes takes a newcomer strangely. It often starts with a headache. Allow me."

She rose and stood beside me, laying a cool hand across my forehead. The backs of my eyes felt as hot as blue flame.

"You're burning."

Her hands squeezed me at the shoulders and urged me to my feet.

"Upstairs," she ordered.

She lent support and firm direction while guiding me up the staircase to my room. The climb left me winded and light headed. She sat me on the bed, then drew the curtains to darken the room. She opened the closet panels and returned with the nightgown that Greta had presented the night before.

Quite professionally, she began to undress me. "You don't mind, do you? This way we can put you to bed properly."

"Are you a nurse?" I said, meaning to comment on her competent manner.

"I have administered to many," she said.

Through the haze of fever I felt her remove my brassiere, then have me stand, inexplicably taking my knickers down.

"Raise your arms," she said.

The creamy silk gown flowed down my arms and down my naked self to mid thigh, as cooling as a breeze off of snow.

"Now lay down, flat on your tummy, please." Once I did, she said, "We'll take your temp, shall we? Mind your bum."

Before my torpid mind could figure what she meant, I felt the hem lifted and a cold smear across my sphincter. The stem of the thermometer slipped through my tightened little anus ring, and to my unease Mrs. Lear worked it in and out, in and out again.

"Hold still a few moments more," she said. When the time elapsed, she withdrew the stem abruptly.

"Sixty-eight," she announced. "Try to rest while I ready the cart."

With that she draped a knitted afghan over my body and left me alone to doze. Through the rest of the afternoon I drifted in and out of a mildly feverish dream that seemed to pick up from each point it left off. It consisted of the sense that some one, or several different some ones, were poring over my body, examining my skin minutely. They remarked on the rings left by Greta's cord play the night before, evident to their eyes, if not to mine. And they remarked on the florid excitement in my puss, running wet at the memory of the girl's exquisitely cruel touch.

/ / /

I woke up still feverish, listless, but incongruously aroused. A vague desire crept into my thoughts, a palpable, undefined craving that seemed a part of the fever, yet independently libidinous. The window framed a gorgeous twilight; the day was gone. I couldn't sleep anymore and yet I didn't want to get out bed.

The journal had been left open on top of the dresser. I rose to retrieve it. The antique drawer, and the lacquer box, were also open. Strange how one perceives things in the haze of sustained fever. The oil lamp, the pipe, the copper treasury of raw opium, all seemed ready to jump out on their own. The lapping women, rolled tightly, might spring apart and fling their cords. Everything seemed immanently animate, loaded with portent.

I brought the journal back to bed with me and read the open pages.

My first opium experience mixed pain and
pleasure in a dream trance so vivid that I mistook it
for reality. The hallucinations - visual, auditory
and tactile all at once - possessed me bodily, so
that I believed I was dealing with an actual person,
and, what is more, a person who manifested a dark-
er spirit of the house itself. Only in the morning, by
the light of a new day, with fresh air breezing through
the open window, did I realize I had been imagining
a phantom, nothing more.
The events that took place in the dream trance
were unlike any I would ever experience in waking
sobriety, a roil of perverse fantasies in which I was
not so much the victim, as a reluctantly willing
participant.

I shut the journal, feeling dizzy. My cousin had described my experience as precisely as her own, except that Greta undoubtedly was real. The pipe, the needle and the tin of opium pulled at me then. It seemed natural and necessary to smoke, as if reinducing the trance would cause Greta to return.

A crisp knocking at the door startled me. Mrs. Lear entered the room, wheeling with her a small cart that clinked rhythmically with the sound of glass.

"You're awake and up, Ms. Jory, that's a good sign," Mrs. Lear said, parking the cart near the bed and patting the covers. "Please come back now. I stopped in while you were sleeping, and I know that you are not quite out of it yet."

I crossed the room back to bed, my heart racing, still unsure whether or not I'd been 'caught.' On the upper shelf of the cart I could see a dozen or more glass globes, all of a uniform size, thickly rimmed, with wide mouths.

Mrs. Lear crossed the room to the dresser.

"I'll need the little lamp," she said, opening the drawer and pausing to examine its contents. She turned to me sternly, "Do you really think it was a good idea to indulge, given your condition? Will I have to be firm with you?"

"Have you read any of her journal?"

"Extraordinary, yes," she replied.

"My cousin has aspects of character I never suspected."

"Indeed," Mrs. Lear said. She removed the lamp from the drawer and carried it to the cart. Striking a match and holding the flame to the wick, she said, "I'll have your temperature again in a moment. I've got something to help draw that nasty fever out of you."

"Those bottles?"

"Can you roll onto your tummy as you did before?"

I asked what she meant to do.

"Apply the heated cups to your back, of course. They form a seal with the skin. Haven't you ever had the experience of cupping? It's quite annealing."

She indicated I should remove the nightgown. Seeing my reluctance, she pulled the bed sheets back and waited for me to settle myself face down, with my head resting on my crossed forearms. Only then did she gather the nightgown at the hem and work it up toward my head. An aroma of oil and incense, not quite medicinal, emanated from the cart.

"Did you say "annealing?" I said. "It's an arcane word."

"Healing," Mrs. Lear replied, "a divine feeling, very therapeutic."

She began, inverting one of the globes and heating the air inside of it with the flame of the lamp.

"This technique descends from an ancient art," she said.

When the inside of the globe was sufficiently heated, she applied the rim to the right side of the small of my back. Instantly, I felt the local, penetrating heat, and the draw on my skin.

Mrs. Lear applied the second globe on the left side and said, "Oh dear, I almost forgot."

A moment passed, and then with professional efficiency she slipped her hands beneath the blanket to part my cheeks, daubed the puckered ring of my anus, and inserted the thermometer.

"Please," I said, tightening involuntarily as she worked it in and out, a little deeper each time.

Mrs. Lear let go and returned to heating the globes.

"We'll leave it in for a moment, if you don't mind," she told me, applying the third globe, "to insure a true reading."

The heat sank like a column down to my kidneys. Each successive globe melted through tense muscle and touched an organ with moist heat. It warmed the bones.

When the last cup was in place, a series of twelve, six pairs running down my spine, Mrs. Lear removed the thermometer, read it, then reinserted it again. Now that I was warmed and relaxed, the in and out motion began to push a more dangerous level of stimulation. Only a slender tube, it felt as filling as a phallus, sliding deep and shallow, shallow and deep, without pain. My bottom began to rock with a compulsion of its own, meeting the inward glide.

"You're aroused," Mrs. Lear said, maintaining her rhythm.

"I ... I can't help it."

Moments later she planted the thermometer at precisely the right depth, so the muscle-ring involuntarily clinched and held it. The bulb in my bowel felt as warming as the cups, as seductive as the heat of glowing embers.

A voice in my head spoke. You should feel shame. You're aroused. She despises you. But my awareness was already slipping and the voice dropped away. Sleep came like a steep staircase. My feet couldn't quite catch the steps and I grabbed for the rail, only to find it missing. Intuition told me to fall face downward, so as not to land on the bulbs, as they would shatter on impact and drive glass shards through my ribs like a thousand shark teeth. No, I thought, no no no. I stopped falling and began to float, float gently through open space into a softer world. What did it matter that my long, boney feet were thrown wide in the air above me?

A slender tube slid effortlessly through the tightened ring of my displayed anus, catching me off guard and meaning to snake its way to the undiscovered veins of desire at my core.

\ \ \

I half-woke, with my face mashed into the pillow. Something tugged at the skin on my back: Mrs. Lear removing the cups. Each of them reluctantly let go with a dull sucking sound. Her fingertips ran lightly over the raised disks along my back. If the glass rod of the thermometer was still in place, I couldn't feel it.

The last cup made its audible departure. Mrs. Lear patted my bottom lightly. "Awake, Mrs. Jory?"

I spoke to her from a half sleep, detached from the words I spoke.

"Can't I just lay still?"

"I recommend that you do."

"I had a disturbing dream."

She drew the sheet over me and then a light blanket, covering me to the shoulders.

"Perhaps it was brought on by the release of poisons drawn by the cups," she said.

"It frightened me."

Mrs. Lear left the bed side and placed the last of the cups on the cart with a glassy clink. She struck a match and the whiff of sulfur became distinct.