Future of Porn

It was hard raising a teen aged girl without a husband around Marsha Winters thought as she showered. Tom, her husband had been gone much of the past two years, first to Afghanistan, and now to Iraq, the damn State Department, she cursed. Stepping out of the warm shower onto a plush towel, Marsha lifted her thick honey-colored hair from her long delicately arching neck and looked at her youthful reflection in the full length bathroom mirror with an involuntary self-satisfaction.

It was hard not to be proud of the wide-spaced green eyes gazing back at her, slanted slightly above high cheekbones, blinking back at her with a growing amusement; it was exhilarating to be such a beautiful woman and beneath her quiet and modest temperament she enjoyed it. Though she would celebrate her thirty-sixth birthday this very summer, her fully curving voluptuous body was every bit as firm and taut as a teenager’s-high-set round breasts curving down over a slender girlish waist to round luscious hips; a flat smooth stomach and full-swelling thighs; breathtakingly curved calves tapering down to small well-formed ankles.

But a look of pained bewilderment clouded the green eyes and she let the long slightly damp hair fall to her shoulders with an air of weary discouragement. She stepped closer to the mirror, gazing searchingly at the picture of perfection, and almost wished she were not so lovely; in that context she might be able to withstand Tom’s long deployments away from home. It had been over a year now since they had made love and she was willing to accept that as natural after all the years of marriage. But even when he did approach her nowadays, she sensed a certain lack of fire. It was almost as though he were performing a duty.

A high feminine squeal of laughter from the patio interrupted this depressing chain of thought. Marsha wrapped a soft towel around her naked torso and lifted one of the slats in the venetian blinds with a long perfectly manicured fingernail, peeking out at her eighteen year old daughter, Candy, and her new boyfriend who had arrived from out of town just that morning. Her eyes narrowed and focused more sharply on the strange picture confronting her: Jim’s lean and muscular body was spread out on the chaise lounge in white swim trunks that contrasted with his deep tan and set off his silvery blonde hair while the petite dark-haired Candy, in a snug black bikini that was at least two sizes too small for her, was trying to sit in Jim’s lap. Her lushly curving buttocks slid down onto his pelvis and his arms swooped out to grab her by the elbows and cast her off. But she laughed and bounced right back onto the thickly bulging protuberance now fully apparent straining against his swim trunks.

Marsha blushed and stepped away from the window, exiting quickly for the adjoining master bedroom. This wouldn’t do at all her mind raced while she pulled on her slacks and shuffled her feet into sandals. Not in front of their new neighbors! Still zipping up her tight slacks, she hurried to the kitchen for the coffee she had left percolating on the counter.

Another squeal of laughter erupted from the backyard as Marsha set the coffee pot onto the kitchen table. She turned and faced the window, running her fingers nervously through a stray strand of soft blonde hair. She didn’t have the faintest idea how to handle the situation and in a moment she would have to say something! If only Tom was here, she thought.

Although they lived in a secluded area, their nearest neighbors might see the goings-on across the well-trimmed hedges that separated the long spacious back lawns from each other. She had nothing against a little innocent love-play, God knows she and Tom had once done it-but there was something lurid and very unsettling about the way Candy and Jim were pawing each other right out in public.

Candy and Jim had come to stay a few days ago and were planning to move into a place on the other side of town as soon as the apartment was furnished and redecorated. Meanwhile, Marsha was beginning to wonder what she would have to put up with, and she sighed to herself and leaned out the window.

“Hey, Beautiful,” Jim’s low voice echoed across the lawn before she could speak. “C’mon out and join the party!”

Marsha filled her coffee cup, set it in the saucer, and quickly pushed open the screened kitchen door. The late afternoon light cast long cool shadows across the grey flagstone patio, but the sun was still bright enough to be dazzling as it reflected in the kidney-shaped swimming pool behind Jim and Candy.

“Nothing stronger than coffee for you, Marsha?” Jim remarked as she approached the couple.

“I think I’ll wait ’til just before dinner, thanks,” she smiled and relaxed her lithely curving back into a lounge chair in front of them.

Jim smiled at Marsha and raised his Scotch to his lips. “It’s really wonderful to be treated so warmly, Marsha. I almost feel like I was part of the family.”

“God, honey, you almost are,” Candy said, and leaned over to Jim and gave him a soft, brushing kiss. “You have already been introduced, I presume?” She chortled.

Jim was running his fingers under the straps of Candy’s bathing suit that cupped her large smooth up-tilting breasts in little more than a thin strip of black cloth.

Candy swatted him away, but Marsha felt herself blush as she had earlier when watching the couple’s sex play through the window, and forced a laugh to conceal her embarrassment. “I thought we’d put some steaks on the grill tonight. How does that sound?”

Jim stared into his drink for a moment, then lifted his eyes and studied the snug apple-curve of Marsha’s full firm breasts that protruded tightly against her blouse. “I think that sounds delicious. What do you think about that, baby?” he said, turning to Candy. As he did, his leg moved to the side just enough so that Marsha caught a glimpse of his penis as it lay against his leg, exposed from the movement and the position of his swim trunks.

Marsha stiffened in her chair, unable to cope with the sight of his male member. Unable to take her eyes away from his crotch, she blushed, and then felt a faint queasy feeling rush over her. She stood up from her chair on wobbly knees and, looking down at the two of them, smoothed her blouse into the waistline of her tight-fitting slacks.

She excused herself and returned to the house. Lord, he had unsettled her so that she did need a drink, she thought, picking the newspaper off the front porch. She fixed herself a Scotch and soda and sat in the living room, sipping on it and scanning headlines. Later, she noticed that it was getting dark, and she set the steaks out on the backyard grill and rejoined Jim and Candy on the patio.

“I guess it’s time for that drink we were talking about,” she smiled, having regained her composure.

“Now that sounds more like it,” Jim grinned back, and poured a tumbler of Scotch into an ice filled glass. “And while you’re enjoying yourself with it, I’ll keep an eye on the steaks.”

Jim shifted off the chair and strode to the sizzling grill at the edge of the patio. Marsha couldn’t help admiring the sight of Jim’s long sinuous legs and the boyish roundness of his buttocks as he turned his back to Candy and Marsha seated in lounge chairs across from each other. She was just nervous because of Tom not being home. As she sipped from her Scotch, she felt more warmly disposed towards Candy; even though the girl was something of a sex-kitten, she had a rambunctious liveliness to her that she would find quite charming in less tense moments.

“Worried about Dad?” Candy asked in a sure sounding voice.

Marsha laughed and sipped from her drink again. “Was that a statement of fact or a question?”

Candy lifted one delicately curving ankle onto the low-setting cast iron table that separated the two women. Despite herself, Marsha felt slightly astounded at the girl’s brazenness; her tightly fitting bikini panties just covered the sensuous vee of her crotch and the gentle curve of her genital area was clearly evident from beneath the tight press of the cotton material.

“Probably both,” Candy laughed at the question.

“I know how it is when I miss Jim … when he’s been off on a business trip, for example.”

“You kids have been together for less than six months,” Marsha said, her voice rising somewhat. “But I’ll confess that I never get used to it either.”

Candy gave Marsha a warm-eyed smile, and drew her chair up closer to her and leaned across the coffee table. She ran one of her fingers in an almost conscious gesture across the large smoothly uplifting rise of her breasts, finally settling her hand on the tanned flatness of her belly.

“Speaking woman to woman, Mom” Candy said with a candid look. “There are ways of satisfying yourself without hurting yourself or Dad.”

“I - I don’t know what you mean,” Marsha blurted out, feeling herself blush openly for the third time that day. “Tom is a very attentive husband-when he’s home-and I really am quite satisfied with our relationship.”

The conversation was taking an intimate turn that made Marsha uncomfortable again. She took a large gulp from her Scotch and discovered to her surprise that she had finished all of it. Candy must be trying to appear liberal and modern, she concluded, and it rather irritated her to be lectured about sex by her daughter.

Still, she thought she knew what Candy was talking about, and was frankly quite interested in hearing more. Before she had been married, she had given way to her sensual urges by massaging her nipples and touching herself down between her legs, but she had always felt terribly guilty afterwards.

She had never heard any other woman openly admit that she had done it-either before or after marriage, and her own problems with Tom and the needs of her body that she had been made acutely aware of during the last few years were too great for her to deny Candy the opportunity to talk more about it.

“Doesn’t it bother Jim, that you, uh, try to satisfy yourself that way?” she asked obliquely, surprised to find her gaze cast at the crotch of Jim’s swim suit and the bulge next to the muscular stretch of his thighs as he bent over the grill behind Candy.

“Not at all,” Candy said brightly. “As a matter of fact, it’s quite the opposite.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Marsha laughed, almost giddily. “I think I’ll make myself another drink. It looks like Jim will be working over those steaks for a few minutes.”

The sun had set below the gentle rise of hills behind the house by the time the steaks and green salad and potatoes that had been cooked in aluminum foil over the charcoal sat before the three at the dinner table. After her three drinks, Marsha felt considerably more relaxed. It seemed that she had been needlessly uneasy with Jim and Candy earlier, and now that Jim had shown himself quite helpful as chef and Candy had demonstrated a genuine interest in her relationship with Tom, she felt a tingle of warmth for the two lovers. Perhaps their open show of sensual appetite that afternoon merely demonstrated their love. It was dark by the time they had finished eating and the plates had been cleared from the patio. The sky was lit with a sparkling of stars that vaguely illuminated the three faces that were occasionally brightened by the ember of a cigarette.

“Jim,” Candy’s soft voice interrupted a long silence. “I think I’ve got an absolutely gorgeous Mom. You two would make a beautiful couple with your matching blonde hair.”

Through the shadows Marsha could make out Jim pushing forward in his chair. His hand darted to the plane of Candy’s knee, and then his darkened face turned toward Marsha. “No need to break us up, honey. I could handle the both of you,” he chuckled dreamily and sank back in his chair. “A blonde and a brunette, one on each side!”

Then he was silent again. This is so odd, Marsha shivered with fear as she had done earlier. I have known with Jim for six hours and my feelings have already changed towards him twice. She tried to force the next thought out of her mind, fearing that she had let her confidence in Candy go too far; had she put too much trust in her daughter, and had she been wise to express her true feelings about her loneliness honestly? In her preoccupation she hadn’t noticed Candy’s hand move from the upper part of his thigh and play over the again slightly rising bulge of his bathing trunks. Had she seen correctly?

Then she saw the hand move again. Candy shifted her leg slightly and the man’s hand slid across the girl’s hip that was barely visible lying outstretched to the side of the lounge chair. At first, Marsha had thought the hand on Jim’s loins might have been a casual slip, but it remained there, and as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness she could see the fingers squeezing lightly at the bulge as though to provoke him into further hardness.

Marsha lit a cigarette and pulled back in her chair. She could see a repeat of the afternoon’s lewdly playful performance coming on, only this time it looked like the couple were far more serious in their intentions. If she got up now and went into the living room it would be only too obvious why she had left, so she decided to stay for a moment and finish her cigarette. If she could only keep her eyes off the couple who sat just a few feet away from her! Their bodies were like magnets, drawing themselves closer and closer and pulling her eyes to the movement of their thighs and hands as they touched each other.

Despite her resolve, she discovered her own nipples hardening beneath the tightly stretching nylon of the bra that pressed down on her full smoothly rounded breasts. She shifted in her seat, hoping the warming sensation would stop, but a softly tingling quiver of lust rippled lightly through her groin, and she sensed a dampness there that made her increasingly uncomfortable. God, it had to stop! The couple was completely oblivious to anything but themselves, and in a moment, she knew they would be engaged in something far more serious than petting in front of her.

“I think I’ll go inside and make some coffee,” she said lightly and stood up, fluffing back her honey-blonde hair that had fallen loosely across her breasts. “I’ll let you love-birds stay out here until it gets too chilly. The coffee will be perking on the stove when you come in.”

She looked down at Jim and Candy still embraced, their hands continuing to wander in sensuous little circles across one another’s bodies. Their indifference to her seemed total, and she experienced the odd feeling of being a complete stranger in her own backyard. As she turned to leave, she glimpsed Jim press his face against Candy’s cheek. The moon had risen over the trees that rose up behind the swimming pool and a bright arc of light flowed across the gleaming flagstone patio.

Jim’s mouth moved closer to Candy’s moist full lips, and suddenly he kissed her. The wetly sucking sound of the girl receiving his tongue seemed to reverberate across the yard. A kiss, innocent enough between two, Marsha thought to herself as she reentered the kitchen, but somehow it had a deeper significance. What was happening to her? Why did such trivial things make such an impression on her consciousness?

She set the electric coffee percolator on the counter and lit another cigarette. Then she went to the pantry and lifted a cup and saucer from a cupboard. She paused; her mind abstracted again, and set the crockery back on the closet shelf. What she needed now was another drink. Her nerves were on edge, and maybe another glass of Scotch would be helpful. Tom wouldn’t be home for months, and she had to have something to dampen that insatiable burning that seemed to erupt inside her belly from time to time.

During the early years of their marriage Tom had been a tender and attentive lover despite the fact that she had been far from the responsive woman in bed she knew she should have been. But during the last few years he had grown increasingly distracted with his job. At least, she thought it had been his growing responsibilities with the State Department that had forced him to away so.

“Oh, stop it, Jim, not out here,” she heard Candy’s voice ring out from the backyard. “Don’t touch me like that! It drives me crazy.”

She rose from the table again, this time not merely irritated with Jim and Candy, but plainly angry. She could hear the faint creak of lounge chairs as their bodies must have been shifting onto one another. The sound came floating through the thick shrubbery and echoed with astounding clarity in the kitchen. What was he doing to her that she should make such an obviously half-hearted protest?”

“Oh, not again, ooooh, that tickles,” she heard Candy’s voice cry out, deep panting groans accompanying her low guttural cries of pleasure. “Don’t be such an anxious boy … Oh, oh, no, not again!”

Marsha stood up at the window and pulled open the blinds. The oblong light from the kitchen shone out across a line of low trimmed bushes backing the patio and reflected off the coffee table in front of the couple. She could see Candy seated on Jim’s lap and in the half-darkness it looked as though the girl had her bikini top pulled partially down. Yes, there was no doubt about the fact that two white melon shaped mounds of her breasts were exposed, and she could see Jim’s hands running across them, his fingers circling the wide pink aureoles and the stiffly pointing nipples. She pulled away from the window and her shadow cut across the rectangle of light. They were still now. They certainly had seen her and would stop this disgusting exhibition.

“Ohhhhh, God, Jim,” the low groan of pleasure coming from a soft feminine voice continued louder than ever, interrupted by a scraping of the lounge chair against the stones of the patio. “There you go again. Oh, now stop it! We can’t do anything about it ’til after dinner!”

And then the girl broke out into a peal of teasing laughter that sent shivers of revulsion at their brazen actions and, strangely enough, quivers of sympathetic pleasure racing through Marsha’s abdomen and into the soft-downed “V” of her vaginal area. She thought for a moment about how Candy had spoken of the way she satisfied herself when she got into a state similar to the one Marsha was in now. But her anger at the couple for making such a spectacle of themselves squelched any desire to indulge herself in such a way-her guilt would be too great. God, even now she felt ashamed of herself for getting excited over the young couple’s love-play. She heard the clink of glasses and the splash of liquor being carelessly poured; then Jim’s voice rang out: “Marsha, we need a real woman to liven things up. Candy here doesn’t want to put out for me!”

“That’s your problem,” Marsha called out gaily through the back windows but inside she was shuddering. Thank God it was too dark now for the neighbors to see anything, and she doubted if the voice would carry that far.

She pulled down the blinds, shut off the kitchen light and went into the living room. Her uneasiness with the young in-laws had returned, and her fear of them gave her strength in resisting their overly-familiar teasing of her that she didn’t have before. She flicked on the lamp next to the couch and sat down. At least, she had the benefits of Tom’s job which brought in a considerable sum of money, and even though she knew she was being a bit selfish, she felt a sense of pride in the belongings they had acquired through the last few years. The HDTV plasma screen facing her from the dark walnut paneling across the room testified to this, as did the gaily-designed Persian rug, and precious Steuben glass ornaments that adorned their imposing mantle-piece. Some of these things were symbols of their prosperity, such as the swimming pool and the collection of paintings they were beginning to collect-she especially like some of the modern ones-and yet they were comforts, not really to be thought of as luxuries when you came down to it.

“Don’t worry about me. I can’t…I never get ill.”

I felt as if in a strange, mad dream. I had just witnessed an act as close to bestiality as it was to murder…and the two women in front of me were conspiring to make me believe I had imagined it.

“Christine, may I make a request of you?”

“Of course, Edward. What is it?”

“Will you pull down your collar and bare your neck for me?”

“Why should she do that!” my wife shouted. Leasa’s eyes took on the same fury I saw the night I had initially accused her of having an affair with the girl.

I lay stunned again at Leasa’s aberrant behavior. But Christine sat composed and unmoving.

“Edward, of course.”

“No—don’t! This is uncalled for…” Leasa protested.

The young girl then slowly reached to the thin material about her slender throat and peeled it down.

There was no mark.

There was not even a trace of a mark.

I sat stunned and unbelieving of my eyes.

But Leasa seemed even more astonished! She stared at the girl’s tender neckline, then slowly sat down on the bed, still staring at the girl’s throat—obviously bewildered and confused.

“Edward, you’ve had a bad dream,” Christine explained, as if to a child. “I want you to go to sleep and get some rest.”

Then the strange girl looked at Leasa:

“And you too, Leasa. The sun will be up soon. You’ve had a long and upsetting evening. You should rest, too.”

The half-child then rose and seemed to glide slowly from the room.

Leasa sat entranced staring after her until the door closed, leaving us as strangers, alone together in our sleeping chambers.

“Leasa, what’s happening?” I asked.

Leasa just sat on the bed staring dumbly at the door from which the strange visitor had just exited:

“Edward, I don’t know.”

“What is the girl’s story? I understand confidentiality, but you must tell me. Something strange is happening to us.”

Leasa turned to me with a look of bewilderment. I suddenly realized, I’d never seen that look masked across her features before.

“Edward, I have no idea. I cannot fathom this creature.”

Then she added:

“She fascinates me!”

**********

In the following days, Leasa’s health seemed to take a turn for the worse. She appeared to be aging before my eyes.

I tried to insist upon a doctor being summoned to attend her, but she would not hear of it. The more I tried to convince her of the need, the more upset she would become.

Leasa would sleep all day with the curtains tightly drawn, and would have Christine visit and attend to her, in privacy, throughout the night.

Yet her health and appearance worsened, drastically.

After entering the room one morning, I was shocked to see my wife in such a state of what might only be described as decay that I realized death must be near.

I finally called upon a local doctor to visit us, against my wife’s will. He arrived at night, only days before the Lord’s Holiday. A light snow was falling outside and it was cold enough for one to see his own breath in the frosty air. But the snow did not stick, it only wet the piles of dead leaves along the walkway to our home, as if performing Extreme Unction upon them—too late.

He entered the foyer brusquely, pounding the snow from his boots. But the dead leaves clung to them like leeches to a host:

” ‘Evening,” he remarked, without making eye contact. “Where’s the patient?”

I led him upstairs to the bedroom door. I opened it and approached the bed in the darkly lit room.

The air in the room felt as frigid as outside.

“My God, man! Why aren’t you heating the room?”

“The heat is on!” I explained. I myself couldn’t understand the chill in this room.

Then a soft voice spoke from the shadows in a far corner of the room:

“Perhaps we should light the fireplace.”

Christine emerged from the shadows dressed only in her nightgown.

The doctor was confused by Christine’s sudden appearance:

“Who’s this?” he inquired, turning to me.

“Our guest from the local convent, Sister Christine.”

“Good evening, doctor. I hope you can help, but I think Leasa will be best left in my care,” the young girl said, with quiet authority.

The doctor was taken back by all he’d witnessed thus far, but then “harrumphed” with disdain and turned to his patient.

Leasa lay buried in shadows upon the veiled, four-posted bed. The doctor drew the veil and turned on a lamp near the bedside. I could hear a low moan from my wife that seemed to turn to a growl—much like those we had heard on the grounds of the home earlier in the Fall.

The doctor staggered back from the bed, shocked at the sight before him. I stepped up to see my wife lying, almost skeletal in appearance, but with the violent eyes I had seen the night through the keyhole.

“Get him out of here! Get him away from me or I’ll kill him!”

The voice was no longer my wife’s. Indeed, the creature decaying in the bed was no longer my wife. I couldn’t recognize any trace of Leasa save the wedding ring that now appeared oversized on the withered finger of her left hand.

“Good God she needs care immediately!” the doctor exclaimed, his voice high and wheezing.

“Get him out of here!” the half-corpse rasped.

The doctor hurriedly exited the room and I followed him down the stairway.

“What shall you do?” I asked him.

“I will return from the hospital with an ambulance! How long has she been in this state?”

“Perhaps a week or so.” I responded frantically.

“She is near death, you must know that! I am not sure we can save her. Has this disease effected her mind so, or is she insane?”

“No, it’s the illness.”

“Stay here. I’ll return shortly!”

The doctor left hurriedly, but I had seen sheer panic in his eye. When I turned from the doorway, I found Christine standing behind me.

“He will not be back,” she stated, flatly.

“Whatever do you mean? He’s going to get assistance for Leasa!”

“Yes. But unfortunately his heart will not survive his experience tonight. Trust me, Edward. I know these things.”

“How? How do you know?”

“I see things you can’t.”

I just stood in dumb astonishment at the calm command in the young girl’s demeanor.

I believed her. But I had no idea why.

“Are you killing Leasa?” I asked.

“No. I am saving her…and you, too.”

Then the girl added with a slight smile:

“Edward, Leasa will rest tonight.”

“What kind of devotee are you that would seduce a wife and her husband?”

“Edward, I offer my poverty…I have not yet mastered the other two vows.”

Christine left the statement hanging. She looked knowingly at me and left for the staircase. After she had half ascended it she stopped and turned toward me:

“I’ll be in my room,” she said faintly.

Then she continued her ascension until she’d left my sight.

I repaired to the study’s bar and poured a double shot of bourbon. I threw it down. It seemed to steel me.

I wanted to return to Leasa. I feared for my wife’s life. My thoughts ran wild, unbelieving that this strange nightmare was happening.

I returned to the staircase and slowly climbed the stairs. My mind wrestled with care for my wife—and the haunting invitation Christine had proffered on the stairs.

At the apex of the staircase, I had cast out the girl’s advance and decided I would attend to my ailing wife. Perhaps the doctor would return shortly, I thought.

I opened the door to the bedchamber. As I entered, I could see my own breath. The lamp had been thrown to the floor and Leasa had submerged into the shadows of the bed once again.

“Leasa, it’s me. Are you alright?”

“I thirst…” she hissed: “Come closer to me. Edward, I need you.”

I froze in fear…it was not Leasa who was speaking. It was someone or something I didn’t recognize at all.

I backed away from the bed, and as I did a shroud appeared to rise from the shadows behind the bed’s veil. It took form before me and appeared to grow. Then slowly its form became apparent…it had talons and it’s face was masked with ashen, dead skin. The thing’s jaw began to open like that of a viper’s, almost unhinging as if to devour its prey.

The beast’s eyes were wild and alive…as red as I’d witnessed them the night I’d peered through the keyhole to Christine’s room.

As her jaw continued to distend, a string of saliva ran from the corner of her lips. Its breath was putrid.

My heart pounded. My clothing was wet with sweat even within the frigid chamber. But much as in a nightmare, I could not move.

In my mind, I could hear her speaking to me:

“I thirst!”

As the thing floated toward me, I grew numb. I prepared to die and my mind cried out:

“Holy Father, save me!”

Then a warmth seemed to enter the room.

“Leasa, it is not Edward, but I you thirst for,” Christine declared, solemnly:

“You must take me. I will salve your thirst,” the young nun stated, approaching the threatening form.

Christine then slowly peeled the sheer white nightgown from her shoulders and let it glide down her body to the floor. Her white flesh appeared to almost glow in the dark.

The girl then opened her arms to her lover, my wife, and stood in wait. I thought she had the appearance of a human crucifix.

The terror before us seemed confused and paused for a long few seconds, as Christine stood, arms spread in sacrificial surrender.

“You fooled me!” the creature hissed:

“I am starving!”

A light, like sunlight seemed to radiate from beneath the naked flesh of the girl. Leasa, moaned, and then tried to advance upon her.

But then the creature that had been my wife began to dissolve before our eyes.

She hissed:

“Edward, help me…she’s evil.”

But Christine, ignoring me, spoke to the horror:

“Leasa, your ordeal is over. I’ve come to take you home.”

The thing that had been Leasa began to make sounds that seemed to be weeping. It fell prostrate before us, hissing many names, which could have only been the victims of her many sins. Then—her confession seemingly complete—she faded from view, as if she’d never existed.

I felt faint, and once again that black pool of ink began flooding my view.

I allowed myself to drown in it.

**********

When I awoke, sunlight was already streaming into the room from behind the drawn curtains. I arose slowly, clearing the cobwebs from my head and pulled all the curtains wide.

The room was a mess and still retained the foul smell of death.

All was still, silent.

I ran down to Christine’s room and opened the door. I was astonished to find it completely made and empty. I threw open the closets—they were bare! I hurriedly jerked open the bureau drawers—also empty!

There was no sign of Christine at all.

It was as if no one had ever been there.

**********

I drove to the convent that day. I had called ahead to request an appointment with the Mother Superior.

When I got to the convent Mother Superior preferred we speak outside. So we spoke outside in the garden. An old gardener raking the dead leaves in the freezing cold was our only audience.

The old man labored heavily beneath one of the convent’s stained glass windows to clear the grounds of the decaying leaves. But more leaves continued to fall, condemning his efforts to failure.

Behind the older woman and I, the naked trees’ branches appeared to point toward the convent walls—and upward toward the overcast sky—accusingly.

“I’ve come to ask about the young nun whom you sent to stay with my wife and I,” I began. “What can you tell me about her or her past?”

The Mother sat staring vacantly at me:

“Young nun? We have no young nuns here, Mr.—-. I wish we did, but our recruiting for the Order has slowed to almost nothing in the past two decades. Our youngest nun is in her fifties.”

We stared at each other, each trying to figure if the other was in jest:

“I am talking about the young sister you call Christine,” I said, as if it would refresh her memory.

“Christine?” The Mother repeated aloud: “But we have no sister here named Christine. There must be some sort of mistake. I am sorry, but I cannot help you.”

We talked somewhat further on. As I pressed the issue, the woman became more testy in her responses. But as I asked more questions, all ended with the same result. The Mother Superior insisted she had never heard of any ‘Sister Christine.’

When she left and had bid me farewell, I did not thoroughly believe the woman.

I walked out to the car, confused and dejected. I had lost my wife whom I had loved. And I was not sure if she ever really existed in the way I wished to remember her.

Now I was not sure my savior, the young girl, had ever existed either.

As I started to drive away, the old gardener flagged me down. I pulled over and rolled down the window:

“Can I help you,” I asked.

“Nope. But I think I can help you,” he said grimly.

I waited for several seconds; “…yes…” I prodded him.

“The girl, was she young with long black hair?”

“Yes.”

“Large eyes, white skin…but…you know…painted up?”

“Yes. But how do you know?”

He looked both ways, as if wanting to be sure he was not over heard.

“They don’t like to talk about it,” he said, obviously referring to the nuns.

Then he added:

“You saw the ghost.”

I stared at him in silence.

He stared back.

“What do you mean, ‘the ghost’?”

“She was a nun here, early 1800’s. But she died very young—in shame.”

“In shame?”

“The story goes that she got something from one of the young farm hands in the area. The order was so ashamed to admit it to themselves—or to want anyone else to hear of it—that they tried to just treat it as a fever.

“She grew very ill, but lingered for months…lost her mind…they finally turned her out to her own devices. She wandered the area for a while, but was finally found dead, in a bad way. Maybe a wolf got her…but they was still superstitious back then.

“Claims were made it was a vampire or somethin’. She was cremated…supposedly to save her soul.

“Now she walks the convent halls and surroundings, looking over this place, trying to atone for her shame.”

I sat listening in dumb silence:

“What of the Order’s shame,” I whispered aloud. “That poor girl.”

“What do you mean? She was a wicked thing. I know, I seen her myself!”

“You saw her?”

“Once she appeared to me here at night. She was in her habit, but with lipstick and makeup. She smiled at me…but in a sexual way. Ya’ know?

“Another time she was all in white…near the bushes there. Long black hair, white skin…it sorta’ glowed in the dark. But she seemed to call out to me…it…it was seductive, kinda’. She signaled for me…but I wouldn’t go.”

It all sounded so bizarre. But the old man’s description was perfect. It was Christine he’d seen.

“How do you know the girl’s story?”

“After I reported what I’d seen. One of the older nuns told me the story. But she made me swear to secrecy.

“Then I checked some sources in the library. It checked out.”

“I see,” I remarked, dumbly. But I saw nothing.

After thanking the gardener, I pulled away. He began shouting after me:

“I never done nothin’ with her! No sir! Never!”

Leaving the convent, I returned to the mansion.

I found the halls quiet and dark.

I poured a drink and pondered my strange fate. To whom could I ever relate this strange story?

For the time being, I had been spared. But by who—or what—and why? I knew not.

Something compelled me to draw out a deck of cards from the coffee table. I shuffled the deck, and, as in solitaire, began to reveal the cards one-by-one before me on the table.

I found that they were not playing cards. They spoke to me in strange symbols from another world.

First card turned: the Devil.

Second: a man hanging upside down.

Third: a tower destroyed by a thunderbolt.

Next, Death…a hooded skeleton grinned at me.

My final draw: “The Universe.” A circle. It seemed to complete the cryptic message.

I stopped. I had no idea what it meant.

Then I heard Christine’s voice whisper into my ear:

“Edward…the Dead trump the Undead.”