The Haunter Of The Threshold

by Edward Lee

  “Blueberry muffins and, well...” A thought faded. “In that case I envy your beau,” he said and laughed.

  Oh my God, she thought. She noticed the old man’s baggy crotch: a lump was forming it. He can SMELL my pussy...and it’s making him hard... The awareness fascinated her. “Anyway,” she tried to keep on track, “I guess I should’ve called first, so I hope this isn’t an inconvenience—”

  “Not at all, Hazel. Any friend of my son’s is always welcome here, unconditionally.” Another laugh. “Not that here is any great prize.”

  The distraction was cutting into her now. Her sex was seeping, from the simple knowledge that her scent and her presence was giving the infirm man an erection—that, and the knowledge that he couldn’t see...

  Very, very slowly, she hiked her skirt up to her pelvis, then rolled her top up, while saying, “I came here to ask you some questions.”

  “The questions of the young bring only delight to retired academicians, believe me.”

  Now Hazel sat spread-legged on the chair, her skirt peeled all the way back, her bare tits plump as peaches from arousal. I’m exposing myself to a blind man, came the bald and thoroughly unfeeling thought, and with it her own nipples inflamed further and the groove of her sex began to flood. Meanwhile, the “lump” in Thurnston Barlow’s baggy convalescent slacks lengthened. Hazel’s vision grew hazy but she managed to ask, “I’d like to know about the Shining Trapezohedron.”

  Barlow’s eyes, however dead, seemed to darken. The strangely energetic voice seemed to corrode when he replied, “How do you know about– Frank didn’t tell you, did he?”

  “No, sir, but there were some references to it on some letters Henry left on the desk. Sonia and I weren’t exactly prying but we couldn’t help but see them. Henry referred to it as a ‘graven image,’ and a ‘golden calf.’ What on earth did he mean? It’s just a rock, right?”

  The man seemed crestfallen now...and his erection was ebbing. “It would be pointless for me to explain, Hazel. You’d have to be a very deft mathematician with a sound knowledge of physics to even come close to understanding.” The old man seemed to falter through a thought. “You don’t have it, do you? The stone?”

  “No, sir,” she lied. “Henry’s letter said he disposed of it.”

  Barlow’s bony hands rubbed his face. He went silent.

  “Professor Barlow? Are you all right?” Hazel gulped. “If I’ve upset you in some way, I apologize.”

  “No, no, it’s just...My God. You wouldn’t believe what we almost got ourselves into.” He cleared his throat with difficulty; if anything, he looked even more skeletal now that Hazel had raised the topic. “What you have to understand is that Henry Wilmarth was a genius–a genius with the potential of an Edward Teller.”

  “Edward Who? ”

  “Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know that. He’s the man who invented the hydrogen bomb.”

  Hazel struggled with her curiosity and her raging arousal. She couldn’t keep her thoughts straight. What’s he talking about?

  The old man leaned toward an augmented telephone sitting beside him. “Pardon me a moment, but I need to call Frank—”

  Hazel draped her knees over the arms of the chair, baring her furred pubis even more extremely. “You probably won’t be able to get him. Right now, it’s just Hazel and me at Henry’s cabin.”

  Barlow’s face webbed with concern. “So where’s Frank? He’s supposed to be there destroying...”

  “Yes, sir, destroying Henry’s documents and files. He felt it would be deemed quackery and only bring ridicule to his name.”

  “Quackery,” Barlow muttered.

  “This theory the three of you were working on. Non-Euclideanism.”

  Pale white brows popped up. “You’re very resourceful. But do you know what that means? ”

  “Haven’t a clue. Frank tried to explain but it went right over our heads.”

  The old man’s voice sounded guttural. “I’m glad it did. There are some things people don’t need to know, Hazel. It’s better that they never even consider them in the most farfetched fancy. Fortunately Henry Wilmarth realized this before it was too late. I pray God Frank does the same. So...where is he? He’s not at the cabin now, you say?”

  “No, sir, he left right after Henry’s funeral several days ago,” she said while at the same time running the pad of her middle finger up and down the slickened groove of her sex. Pervert, pervert, pervert, she condemned herself but kept doing it nonetheless. The sensation made her want to hiss through her teeth, but she knew she dare not. Not only were the blind known to develop an accelerated sense of smell but an accelerated sense of hearing, too.

  Barlow was about to further his questions but Hazel interrupted. “Would you excuse me a minute, sir? I need to use your bathroom if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, of course.” The crabby hand pointed behind him. “To the right. It may not be the cleanest bathroom—I’ve no way of knowing, of course.” He smiled. “I’m at the mercy of the housekeeping staff.”

  “I’ll be right back,” she said and strode off.

  In the bathroom, she glared at herself in the mirror. What are you DOING? You came here to TALK to the old man, not PLAY WITH YOURSELF in front of him! Fuming, she urinated, flushed, then washed her hands, all of a sudden crawling in prickly heat. It was her sickness, she knew, sinking in like it always did. Whatever perverted brain cells in her head made her like this...they were sparking now with vigor. No, no, no, she groaned to herself and pulled her top over her head. She took off her skirt and now stood naked.

  No, no, no...

  She took care to make no noise when stepping out of the bathroom. She peeked around the hall entrance and, sure enough, Frank’s father was tremble-handedly caressing his crotch. She stepped back to the bathroom, closed the door loud enough for him to hear, then walked back out.

  “I’m back,” she said and gingerly lay her clothes over the chair. She sat back down, prickling all over now by the fact that she was sitting completely nude in front of a blind man. “Where were we? Oh, yes, were we talking about–”

  The old man faltered. “Hazel, I—I’m delighted to talk to you but I’m afraid I’m terribly side-tracked right now. I’ve been blind for almost five years, but—but...”

  Hazel pressed her hand flat against her sex and made slow circular motions. “But what, sir?”

  He seemed hesitant. “Would you mind terribly if I touched your face? I’d really like to see you and, of course, touch is the only way the blind can really see.”

  Careful. Be VERY careful. “Sure,” she said and hopped up. She stood immediately before him, bent over, and took his hands. Then she placed them on her face.

  The fingertips trembled all about, from forehead to throat and back again. “Oh . . . my. You’re so beautiful, so lovely.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  The dead eyes looked up. Now his fingers were trembling at her collar bones, and Hazel’s vision just got hazier and hazier and the sickness sunk deeper, drenching her brain like a sponge.

  Two tears glittered in the old man’s eyes. “Please...,” came the driest peep.

  Hazel grabbed his wrists and pushed his hands down to her breasts.

  “I knew it,” he whispered. Now his entire form trembled in the chair.

  Her own voice parched. “I have some problems, Professor Barlow, and...as I’m sure you’re all too aware of now. I try to think of them as frivolous little fetishes, little kinks, but I guess they’re a lot more than that. I rationalize what I’m driven to do by telling myself that if no one gets hurt, it’s okay. But that’s pretty naive, I suppose...”

  The old man’s hands smoothed over Hazel’s young breasts, then down her waist, over her abdomen. “Blind men dream of this, Hazel. There is no other fantasy for us, really...”

  As the hands tended her breasts, Hazel looked down between his arms, down the flat of her stomach and the formidable puff of dark-red pubic hair; s
he spied the old man’s tented crotch and noticed the dime-sized wet spot there. How long had it been since he’d touched a woman? How long had it been since he’d experienced this proximity and actually gotten an erection? Had climaxed?

  Barlow’s hollow breaths quickened. “What a beautiful moperist you are, Hazel.”

  Her breasts jiggled when she laughed. “Moperist? ”

  “That’s the name of this particular fetish,” his voice rose and fell. “One who commits ‘mopery’ is one who becomes sexually aroused by exposing oneself to the blind.”

  Mopery, huh? “That’s a new one on me,” she said, moving her pubis closer. “I’ll have to put it on my list.”

  Now the old hands were molding her hips, circling her belly, probing her navel. “But certainly you’re not aroused, ” Barlow whispered. “A young, beautiful woman such as you couldn’t possibly be aroused by a blind old man...”

  Hazel took his hand and put it to her sex. She manipulated one of his fingers right into the sopping-wet slit. “So you think I’m not aroused, huh?”

  She drew the trembling finger in and out, tightening herself.

  “Please,” he pleaded. “Let me...taste you...It’s been so long.”

  Hazel needed no time to contemplate, nor weigh the subjectivities of the situation. Most of her conscious thought felt filmed over. She pressed Barlow back in the chair, then effortlessly hopped up, placing each bare foot on a chair-arm. Professor Barlow quivered and moaned, blindly looking up in wait. Only once did Hazel’s conscience ask, What am I doing? Only once.

  She raised her right leg straight up like a punter at the peak of the kick, then pressed the sole of her foot against the wall. From here she merely inclined her pubis, leading it straight to the thin-lipped mouth of Frank’s invalid father. The alignment was perfect.

  Hazel’s pose tensed her back and leg muscles to tight cords when the sexagenarian tongue delved into her folds.

  The old man mewled in something like pleading delight. Hazel urged her clit closer. Soon, though, he got the hang of it, perhaps old memories rekindled, as his tongue movements grew rhythmic.

  Beneath his mewls, she could hear him desperately pawing his crotch with one crabbed hand. Don’t over-excite him...” Just relax,” she whispered, abdominal muscles tightening. “Take your time.”

  Hazel’s sphincter and vulva began to pulse. The inside of her mind felt like a dam, holding back a seamy gulf of deviant images she longed to bathe in. When the damn burst—

  Hazel hissed, her pussy spasming.

  —the images gushed through —men coming in her face, pissing in her face, locking her down bent over in a pillory to be sodomized en masse— and came right in the old man’s face, her sex like a steaming sponge being squashed. She felt her own juices squirt out of her like an overripe fruit being bitten into. She kept her sex pressed to Barlow’s mouth as she continued to come with every flinch of her pelvis.

  Careful, careful, she kept telling herself. He could have a heart attack, but she couldn’t discipline herself one bit. She slithered down to a squat, unbuckled his pants, and took his penis out.

  “Oh, dear,” he wheezed, dead eyes gazing up. “You’re such a lovely, lovely...”

  This is one hard-as-a-rock cock for an old man, she thought. She finessed it in her hand. Bigger than Frank’s too, I think. The pole of aged flesh quivered in her hand. Barlow cringed when her fingertips teased over the slippery glans. The piss-slit looked agape, a tiny, famished mouth hanging open. “Relax,” she whispered, then adroitly fed the tip into her vulva and slowly declined her squat until her sex swallowed the entire thing. The awkward position caused the cock to touch her in areas not typically explored. She slowly began to ride her pelvis up and down. “Don’t move,” came her next whisper. “Just relax and let me do all the work...” She stepped up her rhythm, running her open hands over his sunken chest, thinking, Don’t die, don’t have a coronary, but then the man gasped and went into a series of feeble bucks. Hazel sighed, feeling the hot, gluey threads leap up into her vaginal canal. “There, there, that’s good. Just relax and come...”

  Moments later, the old man lay limp in the chair, a stick-figure in too-big clothes, when Hazel tightened her vaginal muscles to squeeze out the last semen and sensations, then daintily climbed off him.

  I should NOT have done that, she feared, standing now to look at him. “Professor? You’re all right, aren’t you?”

  The gaping-mouthed face nodded. “Yes, yes, I—”

  “Don’t talk just yet. Just rest and get your breath back. We’ll talk in a few minutes. Let me get you a glass of water.”

  He nodded again, mouthed Thank you. Hazel put her clothes back on and went into the kitchen.

  Give yourself a pat on the back, Hazel. You just came close to fucking a poor old blind man to death. You are the pervert’s pervert. Each day you manage to find yet another new low. She poured a glass of water, was about to return to him, but noticed an opened door. Bedroom, she realized. There was almost nothing in it, just a bed and a dresser. Barren walls whose corners were rounded by cobwebs. On the dresser, though, stood a singular oddity: a framed picture. Why would a blind man have a—, but then she figured the picture must have sentimental value, whether he could see it or not. It hadn’t been touched in years, though, as quarter-inch-thick dust proved. Hazel picked it up, wiped it off.

  Three men in hiking gear stood in front of Henry Wilmarth’s cabin, all bearing timid smiles. Frank to the left, looking young, vibrant, eyes burning with a thirst for knowledge. He had to have been in his late-twenties when this was taken. To the right stood Thurnston Barlow, in no way resembling the withered shell in the outer room. Early fifties, Hazel estimated. He stood sturdy, confident, strong, yet radiating the aura of an academician.

  In the middle stood Henry Wilmarth, whose smile seemed less timid and more knowing. Intense-eyed, lips pursed within the scholarly beard. Cupped in his hand at waist-level was the Shining Trapezohedron.

  Interesting...

  Perhaps Professor Barlow put the picture here because it reminded him of better times. Dead eyes notwithstanding, maybe he pictured it here in his mind every day and mused upon what it meant: a part of his life that had purpose.

  The picture seemed sad. Hazel flipped it over, hoping for a date, but found instead a small photo slipped under the frame’s lip. She took it and out stared.

  No human subject stood within the snapshot’s border. Photographed amid brambles, vines, and closely converged trees was a small building made of uneven stones. Unshuttered windows stood in deep embrasures of finely hewn rock; even the meager, slanted roof appeared to be made of sheets of stone, slate, perhaps. Mist clung around the dwelling’s only visible corner. No door of any kind was in evidence.

  The Gray Cottage, Hazel’s thoughts croaked.

  So...it really did exist. For whatever reason, seeing the picture made Hazel’s heart quicken.

  She set all back to rights and returned to Professor Barlow, who’d been able to catch his breath. “Here I am,” she said to alert him, then took his hand and placed the water glass in it.

  He smiled, exhausted. “What an angel you are, Hazel. What a blessing...”

  Hazel wilted. I’m a sex-freak, I’m a deviant, erotomanic paraphiliac. When men rape me and force me to drink their piss, I LIKE it. When they choke me unconscious as they’re fucking me...I come. She could’ve laughed. An angel? A blessing? I don’t think so...

  “I had a pretty good time, too, you know,” she dismissed. But now that her perversions had been slaked, she felt steadfast. “Among other things, we were talking about Frank, Professor.”

  His slack face stilled, then showed recognition. “Oh, yes. And you’d mentioned that he wasn’t at Henry’s cabin yet. So...where is he?”

  Hazel elected not to confess to having seen the snapshot. “He went up to the top of Whipple’s Peak, to a place called the Gray Cottage,” and then she studied Barlow’s face very closely.

&nb
sp; The old man suddenly went rigid with distilled anger. “For God’s sake. He was expressly instructed not to do that.”

  “Is this cottage...still there?”

  “Yes,” the old man croaked. “Henry and I went there several times many years ago.” He made a bony fist. “Damn it!”

  “Sonia’s none too happy about him being up there. She’s due in a few weeks and wanted to spend as much time with Frank as possible.”

  Barlow’s agitation made him visibly shake. “Really, I must call him—”

  “He’s been up there several days, last we heard from him was yesterday.” Hazel sat back in her chair, thinking. “His phone battery’s got to be dead by now.”

  Barlow feebly felt for a button on the phone, pressed it, and said, “Frank,” into a pickup that was undoubtedly connected to a voice-recognition program. The speaker phone began to ring. Frank’s voice-mail came on immediately, and after the beep, Professor Barlow snapped, “Frank, this is your father! You’re not supposed to be at the goddamn cottage; it’s fit to collapse so leave at once! I’m serious, son. I’ve never asked anything of you in my entire life, but I’m asking now. Leave the Gray Cottage and go back to Henry’s cabin. Leave at once! It’s a disgrace for you to be up there when you’ve got a pregnant fiancé waiting for you—you should be ashamed of yourself. And hear this, son: when you’re back, you call me. You and I are going to have a long talk,” then he jabbed his finger into the off button.

  “Wow, looks like I just got Frank in big trouble with his dad.”

  Barlow wrung his old hands. “Frank has an obstinate side, but one thing he’s never been is greedy. That’s why this surprises me.”

  “Greedy? I don’t understand.”

  “Earlier you asked why Henry called the Shining Trapezohedron a golden calf. It’s very much a false icon, Hazel.”

  More perplexity. “So there’s a correlation between the crystal and the Gray Cottage?”

  “Indeed there is.”

  “Frank said he’s been detained there because Henry left a great deal more paperwork in the place, said it’ll take him a while to destroy it all.”