He put his arms around me. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes.”
I had to do no more than think myself into the tree for the task to be accomplished. In a flash we were nestled in a small hollow where the three main branches met. We were lying back against the broadest branch, Reginald’s arm around me and my head resting gently on his chest. It was soft, and comforting. I snuggled in closer to him and closed my eyes. In a moment I was asleep.
Chapter 5
“You have a choice to make today,” said Reginald. “We’ll get to do both, for one of them we have to do. We’ve given our word.”
We were back on terra firma and Reginald was stroking Duchess’s long neck.
“We can continue our search for Rosamond immediately, or, and this is just a suggestion, we can pay your mother a visit.”
I’d woken up feeling more contented than I could ever remember feeling before. I was beginning to care a lot for Reginald. He was the best friend I’d ever had, but there was more there. At least for me. He was like the father I never had. He cared for me, and about me. He was genuinely interested in who I was as a person. But there was more to it than even that. I suspected that not only did I love him, but that I was falling in love with him. Nevertheless, at the mention of my mother the smile evaporated from my face.
I focused on a small pebble by my feet.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Morgan.” And he did sound truly sorry. Then more brightly, “It was only a suggestion. Let’s forget it. Let’s go and find Helen’s missing sister.”
But my curiosity had been piqued. I hadn’t fostered any previous desire to return to the scene of my murder, or to visit either my murderer or his accomplice. But I’d become more acquainted with the facts and was curious to see how my mother was coping after my premature demise. She had, after all, made a last ditch attempt to save me from Dennis. She had not, however, done much else to make my life easier. I didn’t know what else she could have done, short of divorcing Dennis. All I knew was it should have been more.
“No, let’s go and see her,” I said.
Reginald looked surprised. “Are you certain you really want to? It wasn’t a very bright thing to suggest. I really am very sorry.”
“No, it was a good suggestion. I’d like to see how she’s managing without me. It could decide how I think about her for the rest of eternity. ”
After mounting Duchess, Reginald whispered something in her ear and we were instantly galloping down a highway, weaving our way amongst cars and trucks. In one car there was a German Shepherd who saw us and began barking. His owners looked in the direction of his gaze and seeing nothing, told him to shut up. The poor dog had to watch us pass by in silence. I could feel him suppressing his desire to bark and even felt a little sorry for him.
We arrived in Napier’s Valley late in the afternoon. From the lack of activity I guessed it must have either been a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday. Those were the two days Napier’s Valley became a ghost town. All that was missing were the tumbleweeds.
We came to an intersection with the bakery on one corner and the supermarket on the other.
“Turn here,” I said.
We galloped up Rawson Street and under direction from me we turned into Rhodes Street, cutting through Mrs Trelow’s yard and Mr and Mrs McBride’s yard before coming out on Yarwood Street.
“Almost to the end,” I said. “On the left.”
The home I’d spent most of my life in was a brick and tile construction with a few native plants comprising the garden. The lawn was in need of a good watering and the mailbox was overflowing with catalogues and mail.
We dismounted on the front lawn and left Duchess to sniff the grass, which I knew she was fond of, while Reginald and I approached the house; Reginald following a respectful distance behind. When I got to the front door, I paused and glanced over my shoulder. Reginald nodded and motioned for me to keep walking.
I’d forgotten I could walk through solid objects when I set my mind to it.
Inside, the house was a mess. My mother had always kept our home tidy, but now it looked as though it had been abandoned. I went straight from the living area to my mother’s bedroom and found it empty. The bed was made, but there were clothes strewn all over the floor. Mystified, I walked across the hallway to my old room. I passed easily through the door and discovered my mother asleep in my bed, hugging a bottle of wine.
I felt a combination of pity, guilt and sadness. Whatever my mother’s crimes—her dressing me as a girl for all those years, for subjecting me to Dennis, for no doubt helping him to dispose of my body—she had a vulnerability I saw for the first time at that very moment. More than that, it was clear that the loss of her only child had devastated her.
I felt Reginald approach me from behind, felt his hand on my shoulder. I smiled, though I was facing away from him, and walked towards my bed.
“Hello, Mum,” I said as I knelt down beside her. “It’s me, Morgan.”
She stirred in her sleep, but did not wake.
“I want you to know I’m okay. Reginald here is looking after me.” I kissed her on the forehead. “I forgive you, Mum. I want you to be happy. Please…be happy.” I kissed her a second time, on the cheek, and brushed a lock of hair from her face. “Just…please be happy.”
I sat back on my heels and was glad to see a small smile appear on her lips.
“Do you think she heard me?” I asked Reginald.
“You can see for yourself she did,” he replied.
“I love you, Mum,” I said as I got to my feet, and I really meant it. In fact, I felt bad for all the negative thoughts I’d had about her. She was my mother, but she wasn’t perfect. Who was? Whether I agreed with her decision to dress me as a girl or not, I knew now it was only because of a need in her, an absence of something in her life she was compensating for in order to continue being able to live it. And she had loved me, in her way. “Goodbye, Mum.”
We left the house via the lounge room wall. We walked into the garden, to the lawn where Duchess was laying down. When she saw us she stood up.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” I asked.
“She will now,” Reginald said, kissing me quickly on the cheek.
And since Reginald knew everything, I believed him.
* * * *
Between them Reginald and Duchess got us back to the highway and we were soon riding away into the approaching evening.
“Where to now?” I asked.
“Just wait and see,” Reginald replied. “We’re closer than I expected.”
Phantoms had no need to bother with fences and gates. We passed right through Farmer Hammet’s boundary fence and several more before coming out onto a dirt road. We passed through Farmer Tenterton’s fences, Farmer Thompson’s fences and barn, and continued on.
“Tell me where we’re going,” I asked, giving Reginald a squeeze.
I heard him laugh. “You’ll see when we get there, which will be very soon.”
The landscape began to change in subtle ways. The trees began to look more knotted, their trunks twisted so their bark grew in wavy lines up the entire length. There was no grass and the dirt was darker. I spotted a lamb and smiled.
Poor little thing, I thought. It’s lost its mother.
But my sympathy soon turned to disgust, for as we rode by I could see the little creature eating something dead; its white face stained red with the blood of whatever it was devouring.
As we went further, the black dirt seemed to glisten beneath the setting sun. Upon closer inspection I could see the ground alive with eels and Duchess couldn’t take a single step without squishing at least one or two into the ground.
The horror of that scene was only matched by the setting sun, which, as it drew closer and closer to the horizon, seemed to have turned the sky to lava. Never had I seen such a brilliant gold and orange, nor such a deep red, in the sky. What made it seem more like lava was the occasional small ball of molten sky fallin
g to the ground in the distance, smouldering in the dirt as its brilliance died.
Such were the things of nightmares and I could no longer restrain my curiosity. “Where are we?” I asked.
“I’m going to ask you, as always, to search your instincts and guess,” Reginald replied.
Since I’d been in spirit I’d seen many things I would never have believed had I still been in my physical body. I therefore had no hesitation in saying what I really thought. “It looks like Hell,” I said.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Reginald, twisting around in the saddle to glimpse me. “For that’s exactly where we are.”
I felt something icy cold slither down my spine, and shuddered.
Duchess whinnied and baulked at crossing a small stream so thick with eels that the water had stopped flowing. Reginald flicked the reigns and dug his heels in deeper so that the poor creature had no choice but to advance over the slithering, slimy mass. Even though we were safe from their glistening bodies, I kept imagining I felt one sliding over my foot and I’d kick it away only to realise I couldn’t have possibly felt it for real.
Finally we came to the gaping mouth of a cave, which I hadn’t noticed from the other side of the river. The banks on this side of the river appeared eel-free—a fact I’m sure Duchess was happy about. As was I. Just inside the cave, Duchess baulked again, but this time no amount of coaxing from Reginald was going to make her advance one step further.
“We’ll walk,” said Reginald.
He climbed out of the saddle and, as had become the habit, helped me down.
“What about Duchess?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder as we walked deeper into the cave.
Reginald grinned. “She’ll be okay. Don’t worry about her.”
Hell was only a little like what I was expecting. Certainly it was hot. The heat passed through us in waves and had I not been in spirit I would have been sweating like a fireman’s testicles. There were pools of lava, steaming and red hot, but what I wasn’t expecting were the spirits sitting around in them with glasses of a whisky-coloured liquid, drinking and chatting as though they were in nothing warmer than a spa. There were no tortured expressions. In fact, there were more smiles and laughter here than in Heaven.
There was a party atmosphere. As we walked further into Hell, spirits raised their glasses and called out to us. “Hello”. “Welcome”. “Come and join us”.
Spirits were coupling in the lava pools and on the rocks surrounding them. One male spirit was sitting on the edge of a large pool having his enormous cock sucked by a woman, who was getting a good seeing to from behind. On a rock to one side of us three female spirits had formed a triangle of flesh, each with their heads hidden between the legs of the other; their tongues, no doubt, busy. I saw another male spirit with his hand at work between the legs of a buxom female spirit. When he removed it, his fingers were glistening with something that dripped from his fingers in thin strands. He turned and pushed his fingers into the mouth of a second man, who was standing, pleasuring himself beside him. Yet that was only the introduction to my education. When I spied a man coupling with a bull, I had to turn away.
A young man ran past, laughing, as three older men with erections chased after him. Other, quieter members of this population sat atop rocks higher up, drinking and chatting in the shadows, their faces lit by the flicker of unseen flames.
“Would you like to try the lava?” asked Reginald.
I thought he’d gone mad. My expression must have told him as much.
He laughed. “It actually feels good. It relaxes the body. You must know by now that spirits don’t feel things the same way people do.”
Before he’d finished speaking, he was removing his clothing and without answering him I began to remove mine. As I undressed I couldn’t help but steal surreptitious glances at Reginald. Since I’d been travelling with him I’d been wondering what he looked like naked and now I had my chance. He, like me, was no Vin Diesel. His body was lean and wiry. I could see his ribs, literally, through his spirit skin, which appeared to have thinned in the heat. His cock was as impressive as I’d predicted and hung down over the lowest-hanging set of balls I’d ever seen. As he stepped into the pool, one leg up and one leg down, I could see them swinging between his legs. They were mesmerising and it wasn’t until he said, “You coming in?” that I realised I’d been staring and blushed.
I stepped into the lava pool hesitantly. I expected to feel searing heat, for my foot to be burnt from my body, but the opposite was true. I felt something creeping into my body, not just heat, but an energy. It was like a drug. As I slipped down into the pool, finding a rocky ledge to sit on, I felt light-headed, as though I were floating. It made me grin.
“What did I tell you?” said Reginald, who was likewise beaming.
Only then did I see the line around Reginald’s neck and guess it was the mark left by the hangman’s noose.
“You’ve spotted it,” he said.
“Spotted what?” I asked, averting my eyes.
“It’s alright,” he said, rubbing the side of his neck. “You had to see it sooner or later.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, not really sure why I was apologising. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
“Think nothing more of it. I don’t.” He paused then a devilish grin spread over his face. “Besides,” he said standing up, “most people are more captivated by my big cock.”
Again, my eyes almost bulged from my head. I was aghast. I looked at Reginald’s face then at his cock then back at his face, by which time he was howling with laughter.
“Your face,” he said, pointing. “It’s priceless.”
He sat down again.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve embarrassed you and I shouldn’t have.”
I shrugged. “It’s alright. It’s just…I guess, I’ve never seen someone show off their…” I lowered my voice. “…penis like that before.”
He scooted around until he was beside me. “I keep forgetting how young you are.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and I let my head rest against his chest, just as I had in the broad branches of the tree a night or two earlier. It sure made me feel good. For several minutes we sat in silence, absorbing all the goodness the lava had to offer. Then I noticed the head of Reginald’s cock poking up through the lava. It looked like a serpent’s head.
As I gazed at the pale head, staring up at me with one eye, I felt my own cock become erect. Until that point I hadn’t had an erection since the day before I died. In fact, up till then, I was unaware I could even get an erection since all my other normal bodily functions had ceased.
“You can touch it if you like,” said Reginald, rubbing my shoulder.
The invitation sounded so strange to me, and his voice was so uncharacteristically low and gentle that I looked up to check whether some interloper hadn’t replaced him when I wasn’t looking.
He remained silent. He smiled at me and kissed the top of my head.
As I stared into his eyes, I felt about for his erection and took it in my hand. When I closed my fingers around it, Reginald closed his eyes and a small gasp escaped his throat. I began to do what I’d only ever done to my own cock—stroke it. At first I moved my hand slowly up and down, my eyes staying fixed to the expression of delight on Reginald’s face. Then I moved my hand a little faster, then faster still.
Reginald opened his eyes and looked down into mine. Our lips came together and while my hand continued to work his cock, we kissed. I felt him reach under my leg. I felt his fingers at my arsehole. I lifted one buttock off the rocky ledge to give him greater access and was rewarded by his middle digit penetrating my virgin hole.
It felt as though electricity was passing through my body. His finger inside me did more for me than touching his cock had. Suddenly I felt connected to this man, as though we were one entity. He pushed his finger deeper in until it would go no further and then he began to finger fuck me. At the sam
e time, I felt his tongue pass into my mouth. At first it felt strange. I gave it a little suck and then it slid back out. Trying to pass myself off as more experienced than I was, I pushed my tongue into this mouth and immediately felt his tongue moving against it.
With his arm around my shoulders, he pulled me in closer and as our kissing became more passionate, my hand on his cock went faster and faster until Reginald began grunting into my mouth.
“That’s it,” he kept saying. “Don’t stop. Keep going. Like that.”
His arm tightened around my shoulders, squeezing me so tight I felt sure it would pass right through me. But it didn’t. I felt him buck his hips once, felt his whole body tense. He let out an almighty grunt, held his breath and tensed some more. I took my lips from his and looked down to see what was happening, expecting to see a streak of white shoot from his cock. All I saw was the head of his cock swell and the eye of his cock open ever-so-slightly.
He shuddered and slumped against the side of the lava pool, panting. But only for a second or two. Having had his own desires satisfied, he renewed afresh his effort to satisfy mine.
“Grab your cock,” he said, while his finger continued at my arsehole.
I did as I’d been instructed and intuitively began rocking back and forth on his finger. I’d never felt anything so mind-blowingly wonderful in all my life and it wasn’t long before I climaxed. Yet, just like Reginald, there was no physical evidence, just a cascade of euphoria.
“Thank you,” he said, before kissing me tenderly on the lips.
I felt as though fireworks were going off inside my chest. I was grinning, almost to the point of laughing out loud, and I had no idea why. All I knew, as I let my head rest against his chest once more, was that I was the happiest I could ever remember being.
Not long afterwards, I became aware of someone approaching us from the side.
“Aha!” said a girl’s voice and when I looked up I saw a face I recognised.
“Helen!” said Reginald. “What are you doing here?”
Paranormal Lovers Box Set Page 14
