A Ghost Story 7
Time, an almost forgotten concept for him, hauled and pummelled his mind, pushed him to seek out places she would not be.
He lingered in workshops, inspecting the greasy engines that powered the noxious smelling vehicles so beloved of men.
He watched an elderly gardener trim and weed, lavish loving care his plants. Then listened to the same man bark and bellow at his spouse. True she barked and bellowed back, but still no picture of contentment there.
He stayed a while in a glass blowers workshop and remembered straying in to such a place as a child, loitering till the kindly workmen allowed him to try to blow life into the glass as they did. But his child's lungs were not big enough, and he failed.
He saw now how little the art had changed.
It soothed him to observe such things, but when his mind lost its discipline, he moved on.
Wandering into the law courts he chanced upon a churlish lout who was pushing a young, slight girl, holding her arm in a vicelike grip.
"You say, wot I say," the youth hissed at the lass.
"But I was at me mum's, the neighbours saw me," she whined.
"Me brief says we stick-to-the-story, understand."
She stood back sullenly, shook off his hold and sucked at the thick gold chain that hung about her neck.
"Lonnie, good lad, you're on time. They'll like that." The fresh, open face, with its clear blue eyes and fashionably sculpted beard, grinned at the pimply felon. "Oh, and this must be the lovely Chantal?" The approaching barrister knew well who she was.
The 'lovely Chantal' blushed as the suave, streetwise lawyer smiled his most winning smile...all just for her. She was lost, for him she would tell any story he wanted in a shit load of courtrooms.
The watcher closed his eyes and swore an oath so awful, that if a prince of darkness had existed it surely would have called him up.
In his stead a slinking shadow circled the little group, chortling in delight. "Oh, what justice is this? Is he still fighting the battles of the poor and down trodden?" The shade sniffed. "Not that she looks downtrodden enough." It leered and passed over the girl causing her to shiver and grow pale.
"Lonnie I'm cold." She bit on her chain, and looked sulky.
Stubby fingers stoked the air a nanometre from her skin, she squirmed and whined. "Can we go yet?"
"Shut-the-f'in-'ell-up" Lonnie didn't even look at her. "So, I just get the community service stuff then?"
Robert Locke smiled confidently. "Nope, no way they can make the charges stick now. Once the Police Complaints Authority lost its case, it made the charges against you unsafe. The delightful Chantal here gives you an alibi, they won't bother to check. It's all too embarrassing for the CPS. And you walk, my son. Simple as!"
The watcher could not believe the face he saw...his brother by twisted circumstance, his nemesis by fortune, stood before him in flesh, blood and arrogance, it was almost more than he could tolerate.
"Well, the boy looks well on it, whatever 'it' is..." the dark spirit chortled.
A jangling tune sounded, the bright eyed barrister pulled his phone from his pocket and held up his hand to the impatient Lonnie. "Justa mo, gotta take this." Turning away from his client, he tightened his professional smile. "Hi, George, good to hear from you. Any news for me?" The smile vanished, but the voice was still all charm and care. "Well, it's understandable really. But you know I was under considerable strain at the time. It was all really just a huge misunderstanding. Lots of crossed wires. I never intended for..."
A surge of activity, a flurry of black court robes, and the call was being cut short. "I'll talk to her, no point hedging around this. What's her new number?"
Urgent chattering conversation began to fill the hallways. Lonnie looked unimpressed and bored.
"OK, I'll keep you posted. Don't you worry George, she's a bright girl, she'll see sense, after all there's so much more I can offer Letty and the child now."
The watcher left, the sniggering shadows words echoing in his head, what justice indeed.
Thundering through busy streets, along empty alley ways. Looking neither left nor right. His only purpose, to put distance between himself and the image of the man who had been his enemy and rival, then his brother in arms. At his death he had believed the man to be redemption itself. But that proved false, a misplaced fancy of his death.
How could he be condemned to watch again as his love was taken from him? This time not by sickness but by his brothers image, a man who had bested him before.
This could not be...
Letty slumped against the door frame as she fumbled with her keys. She desperately needed sleep. She was more tired than she thought possible.
Inside the flat was cold and quiet. This was Sofia's week with her grandparents, leaving Letty to complete her rota of night shifts.
She hated the feel of the empty rooms. It was as tidy as she had left it. Soso's toys were neatly in her room, no stray sock or forgotten book. All was orderly, almost anonymous.
Glancing in the kitchen the thought of making a hot drink crossed her mind, but as swiftly as it came, it went.
Instead she pulled off her clothes and crawled into bed.
Standing below he saw the light high above him flick off.
Was this his true punishment, to follow his reborn love, observe as her life carries her further from him, that he should struggle more without hope?
Watch his failures again and again?
'For good or ill, 'tis nearly over.'
The old woman's words sounded in his head. He had thought she'd meant her own life was nearly over, but something in her voice had left the meaning ambiguous. Had it been his lot she had spoken of? Had that been the purpose of the encounter, to warn him in some way? Could that be the reason he felt things he thought lost to him, saw the faces of his forfeit little bird and his brother?
Was his trial coming to an end, this the presage of his final judgement?
Would oblivion be his rest, or the pit of eternal damnation?
No!
He would not accept this. One brief glancing blow of happiness, then all was forbidden to him? He would not let this be so.
A thing, not rage, not anger, but a keener passion took him.
Sleep came easy; Letty had sunk into a deep dreamless limbo. Profound, dark and restful. Muscles relaxing, regaining energy.
A soft sigh escaped her, enclosing warmth soothed her tired limbs, causing her to stretch and spread her arms loosening the sheet that covered her.
A tiny trickling thirst radiated from a small point low in her. She moved again, smoothly languid, rolling onto her belly. Her sleep no longer dreamless.
A gentle pressure on her hip made her groan; the pressure became a stoking massage of her full flesh. She squirmed at the arousing curl in her centre. Turning onto her back, the loving warmth moving with her, the feeling of another's breath at her throat caused more teasing heat to lap at her core.
She wanted...even in her dreams she knew it had been too long, and this was so real to her.
She felt buffeted by soft caresses, but untouched, no hands in evidence. Kissed, but no mouth made contact with her skin. Shifting in that wanting but empty embrace, she instinctively moved her hand down, but halted as she felt a soft exhalation on her thigh.
Her breath caught in her throat, she whimpered at the firm, slick, hot feel of a tongue against her desperate, secret flesh.
Letty bit hard on her lip, no longer certain this was a dream. Writhing, arching back, her leg parted in natural invitation to her imagined lover. Her sleep-muzzed mind reeled with long missed sensations, breath came quicker, limbs tensed, nerve ending exquisitely raw, and still the phantom lover went on with able fingers, flickering tongue and soft lips.
And there it was, all nerves crashing simultaneously, but each ringing with the tortuously divine pain of orgasm.
Letty slumped, the breath gone from her, limbs weak. Hesitantly opening her eyes...he was there, a dark shadow was above her...
No, he was gone, never truly there.
Nothing, she was alone.
Just a dream. The fantasy of a lonely, tired woman.
She cried softly till sleep took her.
Once again he chose the highest point of the city. Looking down he knew all he wanted was to be a man again. To be the husband he should have been, the father he never was.
He had given her all he could, how he was unsure. He had rested at her side, needing only her closeness to soothe him, but his thoughts turned to the newly discovered smell of her skin, the temptation to kiss that skin.
Then it was made real, she could feel him, and he her. She had given herself to him and he was lost, gave her heaven with his tongue... felt her rise and plummet in her desire and joy.
"Humph...pleased are we?" That loathed voice pierced the watchers thoughts. "Tell me, did you spend?"
"Be gone, slimy fiend," the watcher growled. "Are you so still so feeble in your own feelings that you needs must taste those of others?"
"Oh, ewww, very delicate flower are you not." The scorn still seeped. "I remember when you were not so circumspect about your coupling..."
The watcher turned as if to strike.
"You are still the sad, unfulfilled specimen you always were. You are dead. She will never see you, let alone love you, give you anything, and you deserve nothing."
The spite that spewed forth sounded strangely hollow.
Something had changed.
