Lovers From Beyond Ep. 01

The following stories are from my collection Lovers From Beyond 1. About this novel: Allusion and innuendo, who needs them? These ghosts go all the way! This daring collection features three sets of short stories. Haunted La Jolla involves amateur ghost hunters with a Victorian flair. Ghost Bustin' focuses on a popular TV show. Cynthia's Many Lovers stars a young woman and the ghost of her watchful father. Ghost hunting has never been this much fun!

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Haunted La Jolla

Episode 1

The Ghost In Apartment 13

While the sun was out and appeared somewhat robust and able to take on the morning landscape, the crisp breeze had contrary ideas. It was doing it's best to bring shivers to the numerous pedestrians at the immense and grassy park in La Jolla.

Among the many visitors that morning, most were gawking and taking pictures of the small herd of sea lions that squawked or flopped about on their bellies on the nearby rocks. Another portion of the crowd perched precariously on the edges of the unstable sandstone cliffs to have their pictures taken. Lastly, we come across a pair of the affluent area's longtime residents.

These were Eleanor and Victoria, both several years past the half-century mark, and both in desperate need of male company. Eleanor's husband had abandoned her for a younger woman some years before. Victoria's spouse would have done the same, save that she found out about her mate's affair ahead of schedule. With the help of her maid and butler, Victoria then had her husband's personal items waiting for him on the driveway upon his return from the office. This turbulence had taken place some time ago.

Eleanor had classic movie star looks, with rich blonde hair, full natural lips and handsome cheekbones. She also displayed a busty front, an ample rear, and a general air of aloofness. Her beauty and demeanor prompted observers to question whether she was some type of celebrity, the wife of a politician, or some other sort of important woman. Victoria, on the other hand, had her lush red hair pulled back into a knot, to show off her beautifully rosy cheeks. Her breasts were even more delicious than Eleanor's, but she kept them more conservatively concealed. Although Victoria's robustness gave her an approachable and warm demeanor, she could also act quite queenly when and if she chose to do so.

Knowing full well the capriciousness of the weather, the two wealthy women had smartly thought ahead and worn sweaters that morning. Suitably warmed, they took their customary weekend walk around the beautiful park. Victoria enjoyed the serenity of the palm trees and grass, and if tempered, the sounds of small children playing gaily with their parents. Eleanor, on the other hand, preferred to witness the tumult and clamor of the ocean waves crashing on the beachside rocks, just a short distance from the edge of the park.

They'd spotted a small pack of male surfers, or more accurately, boogie boarders, floating out among the waves. Warmer weather might have raised the two women's expectations of seeing chiseled chests and washboard abdomens on bronzed skin. The cold truth was that such inclement temperatures as were common that morning invariably led to these younger men being covered from neck to ankles in rubber bodysuits. Both women frowned at their misfortune and quietly moved on.

They next came across a short, stout Mexican woman, who had a sizable collection of hand-fashioned bracelets and anklets made of cheap metals or beads. All of these trinkets were for sale and sprawled across a park bench. This common jewelry held the interest of the two rich socialites only briefly.

When the two bored women observed half a dozen artists standing before their easels and contemplating the cove, they flocked over to critique their handiwork. The pair of old hens had attended numerous art shows together in the past, as wealthy and uninspired older women are prone to attend. Both Eleanor and Victoria soon classified the amateur artists' skills as being well below their level of enjoyment. They were at the point of detaching themselves from the tiny gaggle of spectators when yet another of their usual partners in crime could be see waving and power walking in their direction.

"Katherine, dear, where have you been?" Eleanor greeted.

Eleanor used that exuberant and somewhat snobby voice that guaranteed drawing the attention of several of the people standing around her. She played the part well, as her arms were outstretched wide to gather in the new arrival. Her illustrious embrace, of course, was more for show than it was from genuine joy.

Obligingly, Katherine withstood the kisses to either cheek, returned the same, and went on to repeat the greeting with Victoria. Katherine's hair was a more mundane color of brown, streaked with gray, and cut short and sassy. Her figure was decidedly lean. While Katherine's curves were not as pronounced as that of the other two women, she was unquestionably athletic and muscularly toned. Therefore, she could still be viewed as an attractive woman, if one were attracted to such a type.

After their salutations, the three women formed a compact and more or less confidential triangle between themselves.

"I've been so busy." Katherine started off, widening her eyes a moment later. "And you wouldn't believe some of the things that have happened to me!"

"Let's have a chat, shall we?" The ever-pompous Eleanor suggested.

In a royal manner, Eleanor led the other two women toward a nearby, and pleasantly vacant, green-roofed little structure. This was a spot where park visitors could sit and contemplate the ocean, or the park, or whatever it was that their hearts were so inclined to contemplate.

"We haven't seen you in over two weeks!" Victoria squealed, as the three of them took their seats.

"I know, I know." Katherine nodded. "I've been so busy!"

The more regal Eleanor placed herself across from the other two women, as if she were part of their trio, or perhaps wasn't, in the eyes of a casual observer. A moment later, she crossed one leg over the other and struck what might be deemed to be arrogant or elegant pose, once again depending on the observer.

"Yes, tell us what you've been doing with yourself, Katherine." Eleanor spoke. "Victoria and I were about to start a rumor about you running away with one of your landscaping people. We thought that perhaps you'd headed off to Cancun or some other such sun-drenched place."

"An adventure!" Victoria giggled. "Just like Eleanor and her valet!"

"What valet?" Katherine asked, looking suspiciously and directly at Eleanor.

Not expecting Victoria to have blurted out a secret as intimate as that one, Eleanor's cheeks understandably flushed.

"Oh, come on!" Katherine insisted. "Spill the beans, or I'll have to get Victoria's second-hand version. I'd much rather hear it straight from the horse's mouth!"

Eleanor sighed. "Fine, I'll admit it. I went through a particularly dry spell a few years ago. I was forty-five, if I remember the year correctly. I'd gone up to the Pacifica in Del Mar for their happy hour. I may have had one drink too many, because I ended up making a proposition to one of the valets that was working that night."

"You didn't!" Katherine gaped back.

"I offered a young man five hundred dollars a week, plus the conditional use of my BMW," Eleanor set her next two words up perfectly, like a studied actress. "For sex."

Victoria squealed.

Katherine covered her mouth in disbelief. "You didn't!"

Having heard the story before, Victoria recovered from the shock first. "Tell her what the valet was like. Describe him for us!"

"His name was Gregory." Eleanor thought back wistfully. "He had the long, lean body of an athlete. He was a long distance runner, I believe, and he was nearly six feet tall. And his endurance, my darlings, was to die for..."

"What happened to him?"

"Oh, he was guilty of being of the temperament of a typical young man in his early twenties." Eleanor shook her head, just slightly and not upsetting her lady-like demeanor. "Gregory decided one night that he was going to show my car off to his friends. He ended up trying to scale a center divider with it and somehow managed to destroy both the front and rear axles in one fell swoop. The insurance company covered the loss, so it wasn't a complete disaster. But alas, I had to let my poor little valet go."

Katherine considered Eleanor's beauty and figure. By far, Eleanor was the most attractive of the three. For the life of her, Katherine could not see Eleanor at a loss for male companionship, at any point in the past, ever. There was one question about Eleanor, which had been nagging her for some time now. Before she could consider the tactfulness of it, she went ahead and voiced it. "Eleanor, have you ever had plastic surgery?"

"Good heavens, no!" Eleanor balked. "Have you seen recent pictures of Donatella Versace or Jocelyn Wildenstein? They both look like something out of The Island of Doctor Moreau! Why would you even ask that?"

Katherine shrugged. "It's just that your boobs look so perfect."

"You wouldn't think so if you saw me taking my bra off." Eleanor joked. "But they are all natural. Why are we getting so far off the subject, anyway? We were about to find out where you've been hiding yourself for the last two weeks."

Katherine smiled.

It must be mentioned here, that Eleanor had inherited her wealth through her family. By contrast, Victoria had attained hers from marriage. Katherine, on the other hand, had earned her money the old fashioned way: through hard work, much perseverance and the shrewd manipulation of real estate.

Several of Katherine's holdings had made a tremendous amount of money for her. The most lucrative of these holdings were located in the outlying and low-income districts, near the metro area of San Diego. The savvy businesswoman had been in possession of such real estate at a ripe and opportune moment; right before the announcement of a new downtown ballpark skyrocketed home prices through the roof. Wisely, Katherine held on to these properties until the market peaked, at which point she sold them all off. In layman's terms, she made bank. Or alternately, she made a grip of money. Or something to that effect, you get the picture.

"Well," Katherine began her explanation. "I told you both that I'd purchased an apartment complex that was in default, in one of the bad parts of town, right?"

Both Eleanor and Victoria confirmed this.

"I went down there, and I took my small army of landscapers, general contractors and clean-up people with me." Katherine boasted. "Because I got the complex for such a good price, I gave the place a facelift worthy of a prime-time reality show. I kicked out the criminal element, which opened up a handful of apartments. I didn't even have to raise the rent after the make-over, which made my current tenants that much happier."

"But how are you going to pay for all of those renovations?" The always practical Eleanor asked.

"Oh, that was easy." Katherine replied, waving offhandedly. "The new tenants moving in are going to pick up the tab over the long term. I'll still make a handsome profit off the complex if I decide to sell early. However, I think I may hold on to the property a bit longer, in light of what's happened there recently."

The look that appeared in Katherine's eyes was clearly coquettish.

"Well, go on with it." Victoria urged, having little patience for the droll financial details.

"I had my property management people take over to fill up the vacant apartments." Katherine continued. "That's when all the trouble started. There is one apartment in particular, in that entire complex of twenty-six units, which simply no one wanted to rent. It's a really nice place, too, with two levels and two bedrooms. It was renovated as nicely as the rest of the complex. Believe it or not, that unit is number Thirteen."

The occult number drew Victoria in closer. "You don't say?"

Eleanor's brow creased. "Why would no one want to rent it?"

"I asked myself that very same question." Katherine stated. "My property manager told me that prospective renters didn't feel comfortable in that apartment. She even had a couple of her agents that refused to take a single step past the threshold. I didn't know what to make of the story, at first."

"What happened next?" Victoria asked, knowing well of Katherine's proclivity toward bull-headedness. When Katherine wanted something done, she hounded her people until it got done, or else heads would roll.

"I went down there to see for myself." Katherine answered. "I did a walk-through and I didn't find anything out of the ordinary. Afterwards, I ran into the woman that rents the apartment next door. When I asked this woman about it, that's when I found out that number thirteen is haunted."

"Haunted?" Eleanor cried out. "You can't be serious! You're not seriously entertaining the notion of there being actual ghosts floating around and giving people the willies?"

"She said willies!" Victoria chuckled. "I can't believe it! She actually said willies!"

Eleanor rolled her eyes at Victoria, but in a most dignified way.

"The first thing that ran through my mind was, these people have got to be pulling my leg." Katherine said. "As for myself, I didn't believe the rumor for a second. I asked Orlando, my head landscaper, if he wouldn't mind spending the night in the apartment just to prove everyone wrong."

"And Orlando did it?" Victoria asked, growing more engrossed by the tale. "He really went ahead and did it?"

"Orlando agreed to it, yes." Katherine nodded. "But he called me that same night, at about one o'clock in the morning, to tell me that he couldn't stand being in the apartment one moment longer. He claimed that he heard voices, and heavy steps going up and down the stairs. What really set him on edge was when he saw a shadowy man walking into the bedroom he was sleeping in. Orlando freaked out! He begged me not to fire him, because he thought he was letting me down by not keeping his promise to stay the entire night."

"I would have fired him." Eleanor crossed her arms, and uncrossed her legs. "For being an incompetent, superstitious man."

"So there really is a ghost in number thirteen?" Victoria asked.

"I still didn't believe there was." Katherine went on. "And I was even more adamant about proving it! So I decided that I was going to drive down there with my sleeping bag, and I was going to spend the entire night in that apartment by myself!"

Victoria gasped.

"You didn't." Eleanor made an incredulous face.

"Oh, I most certainly did." Katherine countered. "I found out which bedroom it was that Orlando had gone into. I marched right up there and threw my sleeping bag down on the floor. I yelled out loud and dared the ghost to show its frightful face to me!"

Victoria shivered. She looked about ready to stand up and start running off through the park in a panic.

The more hard-nosed Eleanor wasn't as easily spooked. "So you spent the night there, nothing happened, and that was that. Correct?"

Grimly, Katherine gazed back at her. "Not quite."

"Tell us what happened!" Victoria urged. She looked very similar to a small girl hiding scared under the covers, but asking for a scary story anyway.

Katherine took her time in relating her answer. "I left a hallway light on, and I tried to go to sleep right away, but..."

"Oh, don't tell me you got the willies just because somebody else did." Eleanor made a face at her.

"No, I didn't get the willies." Katherine countered impatiently. "I had all of these bills to take care of, and I'd forgotten to upload the figures onto my laptop before I left the house. I was trying to estimate all these numbers in my head while I was trying to go to sleep at the same time. I don't think I dozed off until half past ten."

"And nothing happened." Eleanor concluded.

"Shhh!" Victoria shushed her. "Will you stop interrupting and let her tell the story!"

"Nothing happened." Eleanor shrugged. Even though she was pretending not to be, she was just as fascinated as Victoria to hear what took place. "Do go on, dear."

Katherine leaned forward and dropped her voice by a couple of notches. Beside her, Victoria leaned in as well.

"I may not have told you this before, but I'm a very light sleeper." Katherine said. "I don't know how many times I've been woken up when I hear a dog barking outside my house, or a car rushing by on the street. I have a lot of trouble going back to sleep afterward.

"It must have been a little past one in the morning, but I'm not one hundred percent sure because I was too scared to check the time. I woke up the moment I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I was absolutely sure I'd locked the door downstairs earlier. I couldn't imagine who it might have been, unless the security guard from the complex had let himself inside and was coming upstairs to check on me. So I sat up, in the near dark, and I waited for whoever it was. I swear to the both of you, that I was looking right into the hallway, where I'd left a single light on. I heard the steps going all the way to the top of the stairs. Then the steps turned and started toward the bedroom I was in. I swear to you both; there was nobody visible in the hallway the entire time."

Victoria now looked ready to jump out of the little gazebo in fright. She might have very well run right into the ocean, if she could avoid the sandstone crest and the smooth boulders between her and the beach.

"Darling, you were hallucinating." Eleanor refused to believe her.

"How do you hallucinate something you can't even see?" Victoria grimaced. It was a very unladylike gesture.

"I was so terrified that I couldn't move." Katherine went on. "I couldn't even open my mouth to scream. These heavy footsteps continued. They walked right into the bedroom I'd been sleeping in! Whatever it was, whoever it was, I felt it pause and take a long look at me lying there on the floor. I didn't know if it was going to try to kill me or what. I couldn't even lift a finger to defend myself, because I was so scared!"

Victoria stood up again, wide-eyed and ready to run away screaming.

"Will you please sit down?" An irritated Eleanor scolded her. "You're making a spectacle of yourself!"

Trembling, Victoria complied.

"What happened next, dear?" Eleanor prodded.

"This... This thing was just standing there staring at me." Katherine replied. "It might have stared at me for five full minutes. At the end of it, the thing started to walk in my direction. Suddenly, the top half of my sleeping bag was thrown aside. I could sense this thing, this ghost, dropping down onto its knees right in front of me."

Eleanor leaned closer. "Now this is getting interesting. Go on, dear."

"I wore a long sleeping shirt that night." Katherine admitted. "Although I don't like advertising this, I usually go to sleep without wearing any underwear."

She clammed up a moment later.

"Come, come, don't you know it's not polite to keep us in suspense like this?" Eleanor said.

Victoria went one step further and nudged the storyteller's shoulder. "Well? What of it?"

Katherine gulped. After taking one quick glance around to make sure no person was eavesdropping on the private conversation, she leaned forward a little more. Apparently, she was still having trouble making the words come out.

"Well?" Victoria urged.

"It licked my pussy."

Victoria squealed.

"Must you always be so crass?" Eleanor shook her head in disgust.

"Vagina, vulva, clitoris, whatever you want to call it." Katherine visibly blushed. "The ghost licked my pussy. It licked it so long and so well, that eventually I stopped being afraid of it. I started to respond to the licking like any normal woman would. I moaned so loud that I woke up the neighbor next door. She thought I was being murdered or something. The next thing I know, the security guard is downstairs pounding on the door. I'm barely able to get up and make it down the stairs, because my legs were feeling all wobbly by then. To top things off, I have to open the door and tell this man standing outside that everything is all right, and that I was only having a bad nightmare. Mind you, I'm doing this while I've got all this cum running down my legs."