Charlotte came over, dressed to the nines. She looked gorgeous. She was a beautiful woman and I was feeling excited but also nervous. I have never been with a woman before. And here I was fulfilling both Josh and I’s fantasy. We hung out for a while, having a few drinks and shooting the shit. Charlotte reminded me of Chloe, sweet and pure but a little devil hiding underneath. But a good devil, a bad girl streak. Which was a total turn on.
I leaned over to her, brushing her hair away from her eyes. Our eyes locked and we shared a shy, sexy smile. I knew this was Charlotte’s first time too. She took over then and pushed her lips against mine, making me pull back slightly in surprise. But not for long. I kissed her back, slipping my tongue in her mouth. It was like kissing a man but softer. She kissed perfectly, her lips lush and soft, and we melded together. I slipped my hands around her waist, pulling her closer.
I could feel Josh’s hot gaze on my back as he watched me make out with Charlotte. I knew he must be getting as turned on as I was. I was loving making out with Charlotte and feeling Josh getting turned on from watching us was making me even more turned on. We slipped each other’s tops off, both of us immediately going for the other’s breasts. She caressed mine so tenderly, I arched my back so that my breasts would fill her hands even more.
She took my bra off in one quick sweep, my now bare breasts being sensually caressed by her amazing little hands. I then took her bra off, desperately wanting to feel her bare skin. Our kissing intensified as did our massages on each other, our hands hot and searching.
Joshua started rubbing my back, his fingers brushing the top of my ass. I was in heaven, all of these sensations overloading me. Charlotte pushed me forward gently and I laid back on Josh’s lap. His cock was hard and pressing into the back of my head. He was watching me intensely, staring down into my eyes.
Charlotte slid down my body her mouth moving down my stomach to the hem of my pants. She undid my button and slid my pants off. She ran her fingers over my panties, feeling the wetness of my pussy. I was squirming, the pleasure overwhelming. She took my panties off, then slid her fingers into my folds, rubbing through the wetness. Then she dipped her tongue down, running it along my clit. I trembled, her tongue felt amazing.
She started her oral assault on my clit, licking and sucking. Pleasure was spiking through me, my orgasm starting to build. Josh was kissing me, leaning down into me, while his hands caressed my breasts. This was absolutely mind blowing, all of the sensations coming from so many places.
I was so ready to explode; I didn’t think I could hold on much longer. Josh knew I was ready, I felt him smile against my lips. Then he whispered, “Let go baby.” And I did, my orgasm spiraling through me over and over again.
Charlotte lifted up, smiling, feeling proud of herself. I knew it was my time to return the pleasure. I sat up myself and pushed Charlotte down now. I slipped her pants off along with her panties and kissed her inner thighs. I lifted my ass in the air for a nice view for Josh. He grabbed it while getting up and pulling his erection out of his pants. He slid his cock into me from behind and I jerked in surprise.
I started going down on Charlotte as Joshua pumped away inside me. It felt fucking amazing. All three of us were starting to build to an orgasm. I kept licking and sucking as Josh kept going in and out, pounding me relentlessly. Suddenly, Charlotte called out, her orgasm overtaking her. I then began coming next, Josh finishing himself. He collapsed against the back of the couch, pulling himself out of me. I sat back against him and let Charlotte scoot herself up.
After getting dressed, we hung out for the rest of the night, sharing more drinks and shooting the shit. I knew this night was going to happen again.
Hey, maybe we could even include Cole one time…
Epilogue
Josh moved in with me six months later. He found me the space I needed for my business and it was just perfect. My sales tripled due to being able to keep up with the orders. We took it slow at first, going on dates, catching up, falling in love all over again. I had always loved him as he had always loved me. But a lot of time had passed. So we got to know each other again, minds and bodies. The sex was amazing as it always had been. Liz and Chloe loved hearing the stories.
I wondered what would have happened if I had just listened to Joshua all those years ago. He wanted to talk to me but I shut him out. I had been blinded by pain and a broken heart. But I still think fate has a way of playing out the way it should. We grew up and developed our lives, experienced other people while apart, and now we came back together to spend our lives together.
Things with Josh were perfect. Just like in high school but even better. And Emily? She spent her nights cleaning school toilets, divorced and miserable. Karma always wins in the end.
The End
Ghosts Inside
Chapter 1
Rita stormed into her editor’s office and threw down the e-mail she had printed out.
“Let me call you back,” he said, and placed the phone down. He made a steeple with his hands and sighed, looking at her wearily. It wasn’t the first time she had made a gesture like this and he was sure that it wouldn’t be the last. Rita was glowering at him and refused to sit down when he offered. She had her hands on her hips and her flaming hair accentuated her anger. Her heart-shaped face was screwed up and her eyes shot daggers at him.
“You can’t keep giving me this crap,” she said. Steve leaned forward and picked up the paper she had thrown down straightening it out and then laying it flat on his desk so that it was in line with everything else. Everything in the office had its proper place and he hated chaos, and Rita was chaos personified.
“What’s wrong now Rita? I give you these assignments because I think you’re capable of doing them. Why are you never happy with the work I give you?”
“Because it’s all crap! You never give me the good stuff. What about that exposé on the charity using profits to go and gamble in Vegas? Of course Rick gets that yet again.” As she mentioned Rick she rolled her eyes. He always got the best assignments.
“Rick has a proven track record at these sorts of things. I trust him with them.”
“That’s because you always give them to him! How am I ever going to get a proven track record if I never get a chance?”
“I did give you a chance, with the pet grooming service that were using drugs to make the pets appear to be in better condition, and look how that turned out,” he calmly reminded her. Rita’s furious temper calmed somewhat as she was reminded of this and she slumped down into the chair. She pushed her hair back away from her forehead and tapped her fingers against the armrest. Steve clenched his jaw and tried not to say anything, but the noise was irking him yet he knew if he said anything it would only provoke her, and she was in a bad enough mood already.
“Yes, well, that wasn’t really my fault I was just trying to reveal the truth.”
“You are a journalist, not a cop. You’re job isn’t to capture these people, it’s to write articles about them so we can inform our readers. It’s not difficult. I don’t know why you always want to make it so complicated.”
“I’m just trying to make a difference here. And we all make mistakes. I don’t think I deserve to be benched with all this stuff just because I messed up once.” She stopped tapping and Steve breathed a sigh of relief, but then she started playing with the things on Steve’s desk, rearranging them in small ways.
“Would you mind not doing that,” he said, reaching over and placing a hand on hers. She made an apologetic face.
“Look,” he continued, “you’re a good reporter and I’m glad you’re a part of this team but sometimes you can get a little too…enthusiastic. I simply can’t trust you with the big stories because you want to become the story but you can’t do that. You have to remain objective and separate. Once you can prove to me you can do that then I’ll start giving you more serious work. At the moment though, this is the way it has to be. You’ve got the talent but you have to back that
up and show me what you’re made of. Do a good job on this and we can talk about things. That’s the best I can do.”
Rita scowled but she had no way to retort. She rose and grabbed the e-mail from his hands.
“I’m going to do the best damn job on this and you’re going to see what I’m capable of,” she growled.
“I hope you do, all I want is your best work,” he said, and raised his eyebrows. After she left he breathed a sigh of relief and shook his head, then picked up his phone and resumed the call that had been interrupted.
Meanwhile, Rita slammed the door behind her and stormed through the office. People stood aside as they saw that she was on the warpath. She had been working there long enough for them to know when to avoid her. She sat down at her desk and slammed her palms on the desk, causing it to jump, and some coffee spilled. It scalded her thigh and she cursed before taking a deep breath in an effort to calm herself down.
“Went well then?” Marie said. She was sitting at the desk opposite Rita.
“Oh yeah, swell,” Rita said.
“I’m guess you couldn’t switch the assignments.”
“Nope. Rick gets all the best ones because he’s the best apparently. Even though his writing sends me to sleep. I think I’m in the wrong place. Nobody here wants to take any risks it’s all just writing the same thing day after day. Now I’m stuck interviewing ghost hunters. I mean what kind of crap is that?! Do people still believe in this stuff?”
“You know you shouldn’t be so dismissive. There are things out there that we can’t understand.”
“Only for the naïve and delusional people. I’m sure ghosts have better things to do than wander around abandoned houses scaring people. Sheesh, if I was a ghost that would be the last thing I would want to do.”
“What would you do then?”
“I have no idea. I wouldn’t be a ghost in the first place. They don’t exist!” She threw her hands up and angrily tapped at the keyboard, the keys clacking in machine gunfire staccato. Marie smirked and shook her head in amusement.
“But if you were Rita, just humor me.” Rita exhaled and took a break from typing.
“I don’t know, presumably if I was a ghost I’d be caught between worlds so there would have to be another world for me to explore. I’d probably go there. It would have to be more exciting than hanging around the same old places. But if I was stuck here then I don’t know, I’d go sneak into some movies, or Ryan Gosling’s house. Yeah, actually, that’s a place I think I could haunt for a while.” Both women had far-off looks in their eyes as they thought about the gorgeous movie star. They sighed, and smiled at each other.
“One day I’ll meet him and have his babies,” Marie said.
“You’ll have to fight me off first,” Rita playfully teased, before furrowing her brow as she looked at her assignment once more. “I don’t know how I’m going to write this seriously. I can’t believe he wants me to write it as if these people really are hunting ghosts. I am not in the mood to have to listen to their lies. Do you think they actually believe in what they’re doing?”
Marie shrugged. “I have no idea. I guess it’s like psychics, a lot of them are con artists but I’m sure there are many of them who actually believe in what they do. People enjoy it though, it’s not like anyone is forced to watch the show.”
“No, but if it’s fake they should admit it. Too many people take it at face value and the people they get on there, I mean, they make a lot of money off this I think it is bad form to lie to their fans.”
“Welcome to showbiz, what do you expect? That’s the nature of the beast. Please don’t go on a crusade this time. It’s not going to do you any good, and you’re not going to uncover some grand conspiracy here. Even if you do prove them as frauds people aren’t going to stop believing in ghosts, and ten other shows about ghost hunters are going to replace it. Just do yourself a favor and do what Steve asked. You know he’s right. If you just did the stuff he assigned and didn’t put your own…unique spin on it you’d be getting to do the things you want to do. I just think he wants to know that you can actually tow the line and not go off and do your own thing.”
“You’re probably right,” Rita admitted, “I suppose it can’t hurt. At least if I do this I’ll be able to find out for sure what these people use to make all the different effects. Guess we all have to pay our dues. If I get through this I can write proper stories. And it’s not like I’ll have to actually meet a ghost.”
Chapter 2
Rita still wasn’t enthused by the assignment but she was more at peace with it. It meant that she was out of the office for a while, which was always a good thing as she hated the office life. When she had initially tried being a writer she wanted to be a novelist, traveling around the world and writing about her experiences but that hadn’t worked out and she’d fallen into journalism, which was fine but it meant that she was often stuck behind a desk. This assignment required her to go to the outskirts of the state to the small town of August Cove. She had never heard of it before and she didn’t expect much, but her face still fell when she reached it because it looked like an abandoned, well, she hated to use this word to describe it but it looked like a ghost town. She drove her car though the main street and peered out of the windshield to try and see any signs of life. Doors hung off buildings, signs were askew, paint had faded off the storefronts and it all looked incredibly sad.
She looked down and glanced at the address she had been given. It wasn’t easy to figure out given that she couldn’t even figure out which street she was on, so she ended up pulling over at the gas station. The tires crunched gravel as it slowed to a halt and she shut the door with a dull thud as she went up and banged on the door. She peered through the dusty window but couldn’t see anything, and was about to give up when a face appeared, making her jump back in shock. The door opened and a small man with a gaunt face peered at her through dull, lifeless blue eyes. He scratched his head and looked at her, almost in complete surprise that anyone was passing through the town.
“Ya?” he asked. Rita pursed her lips.
“I’m trying to find this place. Can you help me get there?” she thrust the piece of paper in front of him and he looked at it carefully, bringing it right up to his nose. For a moment Rita almost wondered if he could read at all. Eventually he shook his head.
“No, don’t go there,” he said.
“But I have to.”
He shook his head again.
“Look, you don’t understand. I’m a reporter. It’s my job. I have to go there.
“Night terrors live there. Everyone else left. Bad news up there. Lots of bad things.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed heavily. Then an idea came to her.
“Okay, listen. I’m here to get rid of the night terrors, okay? I’m going up there to get rid of them. Then all the people will come back. But I need your help to get there. Can you please just tell me which road I need to take?”
The man’s face lit up as she mentioned that she was going to save him. He took the paper again and then told her to follow the main road around, then once she reached the old treehouse to take the left fork and that would lead her to where she wanted to go. She thanked him and he went back into the dank and dingy shop. She wondered how he managed to survive in that place, and whether he was the only person there for it seemed like the rest of the town was deserted. Still, that wasn’t any of her concern. She got back in the car and drove through, going slowly so that she could keep an eye out for the old treehouse. She passed through the edge of town and then came upon a fork in the road. She assumed that must be the place even though there wasn’t a treehouse, but then she looked to one side and saw that some debris was scattered around the trunk of the tree. She naturally assumed that the treehouse had been wrecked in the storm, and it illustrated the state of the town, devastated. She hated the idea that people had left this place because of some ridiculous notion of ghosts for it seemed a shame, but sh
e had to temper her ire and remind herself that she wasn’t there to prove that these ghost hunters were frauds, she was only there to write a story about them.
She took the winding road up and it led through a corpse of trees. The thick branches weaved together like intertwining fingers, blotting out the sun and casting an eerie shadow over the car. Rita felt an unsettling feeling come over her. A chill ran down her spine and she tried not to gaze for too long in the shadows, for the darkness danced and it gave rise to unnatural fears that had resided in her subconscious ever since childhood. She found herself pressing down on the accelerator and the car zoomed through the passage, until daylight broke through. When it did she gasped for the road opened on a stately mansion that loomed against the sky. Its foreboding towers looked gothic and the sharp spikes pierced the sky. Gargoyles perched on the edges of the high towers and the black bricks looked like oblivion. Rita gulped as she passed through the mangled metal gates. The mansion had evidently been in disrepair for a long time for tall wispy grass had curled around the fallen metal gates and claimed them as their own. In the wide driveway were a number of other cars, and although she didn’t hold a high opinion of them, Rita was glad to see other signs of life. She parked and looked around at the grounds. Weeds and long grass rose from the ground. In the distance she could see the black forest that she had just passed through, and it felt like it was cutting her off from the rest of the world. Her ordinary life seemed so distant and for once she was almost envious of the people sitting in the safety of the office…almost.
“You the reporter?” A loud voice cried out. Her heart raced at the sudden noise. Her eyes searched the immediate surroundings and she almost jumped again when she saw what looked like a ghostly figure in the doorway beckoning her. He moved closer though, and she saw that he was merely wearing black clothes, which faded into the aesthetic of the house. He ran down and wore a wide smile.
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