Spirit



I awoke in the Master bedroom. I was lying on top of the covers, naked. I suddenly remembered the ordeal that Rosa and Caribou had put me through the night before. I was going to have to say something about that. I did not feel safe with their prank. I wriggled around a little. My hands were cuffed somehow behind my back. Annoying, but typically no big deal. I could easily move cuffed hands from back to front. However, when I started to try, I felt a yanking feeling on my neck.

I was wearing some kind of collar. A chain from the back of the collar was keeping my restrained hands locked in the middle of my back!

I climbed out of bed, shaking my shoulders. I didn’t really feel the urge to go to the bathroom, but I know that my body works like clockwork. I needed to find Rosa so she could unlock the buttplug and get me out of these chains.

I looked around the room. She had already moved all our bags out. What the hell was I supposed to wear? I got up and walked to the door, my bare feet chilled by the cold, hardwood floors. I reached for the door knob with my right foot, but somehow missed it. I tried again…

My foot passed right through the door knob. What the fuck?!

I heard voices outside the house in the driveway.

I ran to the window.

Caribou and Rosa were talking by the rental car. Rosa was closing the trunk, which was filled with all our luggage. All my luggage!

I tried to bang on the window to get their attention. My foot passed right through the window pane. Fuck!! I pressed my cheek against the window. I could feel the surface of the pane, but when I pushed a little harder, my face slipped right through.

It felt like pressing my face on the surface of the water in a calm bathtub. I could feel the surface, but there was no substance to it.

Rosa glanced up at the house. She looked haggard. I had to get out there and get her attention. I pushed my shoulder through the window pane - then my head. Then I jumped through. I landed on the cold gravel of the driveway.

“Wait!” I shouted. Neither Caribou, nor Rosa seemed to hear me.

“... and don’t worry,” Caribou was saying to Rosa. “Call me after New Year’s and we’ll see how things are going. And, please, enjoy yourself. You are free!”

Rosa gave a brief thin smile then turned and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Wait!” I screamed.

I ran to the passenger door and tried to open the handle with my toes. My foot passed right through, of course.

Rosa started the engine and shifted into gear. I ran to the front of the car and tried to kick the hood. The car advanced, passing straight through me. “Hey!”

Next I was running down the driveway trying to catch up to Rosa as she drove away. “Stop! Come back!”

As I ran, I noticed that the world around me was becoming more and more fuzzy. Gray spots were beginning to fill my vision. I looked forward desperately watching Rosa’s car drive further away. I ducked my head and tried to run even faster.

Soon my vision faltered, graying out completely. I felt like I was falling forward.

I opened my eyes and I was lying on the bed in the Master bedroom again. I jumped up to the window. Caribou was walking up to the front door. I noticed that the bitch was wearing my bathrobe.

“Fuck!”

My arms were still locked behind my back. I shook my shoulders violently, cursing.

I pushed my head through the window again.

Slowly the realization settled around me like a heavy stone. I’m a ghost. Something went wrong with Caribou’s little isolation tank. They put me in, but I must have died. They fucking murdered me. Now, I’m just a ghost!

<>--+-

I ran through the house to find the secret door standing wide open. I started to run down the long flight of stairs to the underground cavern with all the fancy machines. As I descended, I started to imagine what I was going to find. Did I want to actually find my dead, lifeless body? By the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, I was barely moving at all.

There was no metal framework with a large, metal spinning sphere, no large steel cylinder, no round steel plate, and the thick stone plug was now flush with the floor of the cave - put back in its place! Of course it was. My dead body was deep underneath all that… Locked far, far away.

I walked out onto the stone plug. If I concentrated, I could push my foot into the stone. Since I’m a ghost, I thought I could probably descend into that deep tight hole, down to the spinning sphere. I could look inside. What would I do then? If I could re-enter my body somehow, what would I do? If I was not a ghost, there is no way I’d be able to travel back up that shaft on my own. I’d just have to wait around to die again.

As I stood there in the cavern, suddenly all the lights shut down. It was pitch dark. I turned and started running up the stairs. Even though there was absolutely no light, I could still make out the contours of the world around me. I guess that is a benefit of having ghostly vision.

When I got to the top of the stairs, I found the secret door closed. I passed through it just as Caribou was sliding the bookcase along the rail to hide the door’s existence.

“You fucking bitch!” I shouted at her. I kicked at her as hard as I could, but it just passed through her face. I tried to head-butt as she made her way to the kitchen and opened the door of the refrigerator, sniffing through some containers of food that Rosa and I had made. “Murderer!”

<>--+-

I woke up on the bed in the Master bedroom - naked as always. Actually, I wasn’t completely naked. I still wore my large nipple rings and the buttplug was still firmly lodged in my backside. Of course, there were the chains and cuffs and collar that forced me to keep my hands in the middle of my back. I guess that this is the fate of ghosts to eternally wear the apparel they died in.

Time passed. I don’t know how time moves when you are a ghost, but, for me it skipped forward in small jumps. I think I was nowhere for some forgotten chunks of time.

I could feel the cold outside, but it did not bother me. I could walk along the snow-covered drive barefoot. Of course, I left no footprints. I could sit on the roof in a howling storm. I knew the wind was blowing. My hair would even flap in the breeze. Regardless, it did not affect me at all.

I watched as Caribou had people install fiber optics lines to the house. She bought a fancy computer and a large TV. A new Subaru appeared in the driveway. Her wardrobe seemed to expand. She spent a lot of time searching the web.

She seemed to have a thing for missing women. I’m not exactly sure. Missing persons reports just have a certain look. And that was the look of the things she was researching. Maybe she was looking for information about her own disappearance.

I was always extremely aroused. For a weightless, ghostly buttplug, the thing shoved in my ass certainly wiggled around a lot. When I moved, it moved inside me. I tried desperately to twist my arms around so I could put a finger on my sex - to touch myself. Unfortunately, my ghostly chains had the property of impermeability that everything else did not.

I was going crazy with arousal. How could they have chained me like this? Did Caribou know how to make me suffer the most?

I straddled the backs of couches. I aligned myself with broom handles. Of course, my body passed right through with no friction.

Finally, I was at a breaking point and I screamed, “Fucking bitches!! I’m a fucking contortionist so fuck you!”

I lay on the bed on my chest, and bent my back, lifting my legs over my head. I dropped my knees towards my head and raised my head. “Ha!” The top of my head provided all the surface that I needed. I pressed my sex lips to the crown of my head. When I rolled up even further I could actually press against my clit. The orgasm I had was so mindblowing that an effluence of lubrication sprayed over my head and ran down my face, soon evaporating into nothing as it cooled.

After finding the appropriate means, I masturbated all the time. I let the arousal take me away. Otherwise, my thoughts would begin to revolve in tortured impossible loops - trying to understand how Rosa could betray me, certain that Caribou had tricked her into thinking I wouldn’t die in the bottom of the shaft - my own little oubliette.

Before I knew it, I was watching Caribou watch the ball drop in Times Square on TV. A few days later I found Caribou talking on my cell phone.

“Things are going well?” she asked into the phone. “Yeah?... And the business?... Awesome!... I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure she’s fine. She wanted this for you. She said so… Yeah, well if you change your mind, we can always… Sure, not yet, though… She’s good!”

I knew she was talking to Rosa. “She’s lying!” I screamed.

“Hey! I’m going to need to do some repairs on the house this Spring… Is there any chance that you could put a little more money in Ana’s account?... Awesome! I’ll keep you updated! Bye.”

<>--+-

One day in late winter, Caribou went to the sliding bookshelf and pushed it to the side to reveal the hidden door. She had a hand drill and some hardware. She pulled some books from the shelves and drilled a pair of holes in the back - one on the top shelf, one on the bottom. She drilled holes in the wall next to the hidden door. She closed the bookshelf and pushed long bars through the holes in the back on the bookshelf into the wall behind. She used padlocks to lock the bars in place and hid her work with the books.

Now someone would need an additional two keys, even if they knew the door existed to find my body.

Caribou moved into the Master bedroom, which really sucked. Everytime I awoke from periods of nonexistence, I awoke in that bed. So, now I sometimes woke up next to Caribou’s nasty body.

Caribou masturbates a lot too. Who can blame her? She lived a solitary existence with snow and wilderness all around. But, I suppose I can now confirm that age-old question… Yes! Ghosts are watching when you think you are having a private moment with your hand.

What sickened me the most is that watching her made me horny, too. It was a different kind of longing, though. I could (thanks to my flexibility) soothe my arousal, but I never could assuage the desire for physical connection with another woman. Even with Caribou, I was utterly alone. Even if I wanted to snuggle up against Caribou, I couldn’t. I’d just pass right through.

In the Spring, Caribou began to venture out into the world more. One night, Caribou brought home another woman. I watched them fuck for over an hour. Caribou seemed to know how to satisfy her partner.

In the middle of the night, when her lover was fast asleep (in my bed!), Caribou got up. When she returned she had some kind of strange gun in her hand.

Even after all this time as a ghost, I still followed my reflexes and started poking the woman trying to wake her up - trying to warn her that she was in the lair of a murderess. For a fleeting moment, I thought that maybe it would be OK. I’d finally have ghostly company. Still, all my screaming did nothing.

Caribou pressed the nozzle of the gun directly on the woman’s back near her shoulder. When she pulled the trigger there was a muffled pop. The woman sleepily slapped at her shoulder like she had been bitten by a mosquito, then she settled into sleep once again. Caribou snuck back out of the room with the gun.

The next day after Caribou had pushed her overly affectionate one night stand out the door, I found Caribou sitting at her computer looking at an interactive map. There was a marker on the map that moved every once in a while. A popup containing a collection of numbers would appear every time she hovered the mouse over the marker.

The bitch had chipped her one night stand.

<>--+-

I actually found some enjoyment watching Spring blossom. I could approach momma deer with their babies. I could comfortably lie in a patch of stinging nettles and watch the clouds slip by. I found a stream, not too far from the house that I could sit in and lose myself in the burbling sound of the water. If I positioned myself correctly, I could actually feel the water tumble through my sex, which provided a pleasant feeling that I enjoyed for hours at a time.

I explored the limits of my ghostly range and became familiar with the entire expanse. If I went too far, I grayed out and awoke later in the Master bed.

<>--+-

Summer came and went with its long days and majestic thunderclouds. Caribou hired workers to install a cooling system in part of the house. Of course, this did not include the wing with the old library where the bookshelf concealed the hidden door to my tomb.

Caribou’s computer map had more than ten markers with id’s, when, one night, she brought home Cecilia. Cecilia was a bubbly girl, I guess. She laughed too much and I don’t think it was because she was nervous.

They had been at a bar together, obviously, and Cecilia was hopping from one foot to the other as Caribou unlocked the front door.

“Bathroom! I have to pee!” Cecilia squeaked.

Caribou pointed her towards the bathroom off the ballroom and I followed Cecilia in - just to check her out. After she peed, she was looking in the mirror, adjusting her makeup. I was looking over her shoulder as she was touching up her eyeliner. Of course, I had no reflection.

Suddenly, though, our eyes met. I thought it had to be an illusion… a wish… on my part. But then, Cecilia said, “Hello!” and she turned away from the mirror towards me. She looked confused and said, “Oh!” Then quickly looked back in the mirror.

After a moment she threw her brushes back in her bag and slipped out of the bathroom with a bit of haste. “Goddess?” she called out. (Goddess?)

“Ceecee?” Caribou replied. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Cecilia giggled a little. “I think I did! At first I thought that you had snuck into the bathroom, naked, but I turned and there was no one there.”

“Naked?” Caribou smiled. “I like that you are envisioning me naked.”

“No really,” Cecilia continued. “I saw a woman, plain as day, in the mirror, but when I turned, she had disappeared.”

“And she was naked?” Caribou asked.

“She had large, golden rings pierced in her nipples,” Cecilia said.

Caribou’s eyebrows raised up, momentarily startled.

Holy shit! This woman had actually seen me. Me! The ghost!

Caribou recovered quickly. She pulled the hem of her shirt up to reveal her naked breast. “Nope. Not me, then. No nipple rings. See?”

“Well,” Cecilia said, shaking her head. “It has to have been a ghost!” She looked around the ballroom for a moment. “How fucking cool is that?”

“Well, the house IS haunted,” Caribou explained. “So, I’m not surprised, at all.”

“Maybe she was some Abenaki girl…” Cecilia said as Caribou led her out of the ballroom and back towards the bedrooms. “You know, an Indian girl. Native American. Did they pierce their nipples?”

“There is an old story that has been passed down from generation to generation in my family,” Caribou said, looping her arm in Cecilia’s. “When the house was first being built in the late 1600’s by my ancestors, one of their daughters was discovered kissing another local girl by the matriarch of the family. Of course, that was a serious crime back then. Well, the mother accused the neighbor girl of being a witch in league with the devil. The community eventually had her burned at the stake. And the daughter? They pushed her in a hollow space under the foundation of this house and bricked her in with only a small hole to feed her.”

“Ooo!” Cecilia said, with a shiver.

“She lived the rest of her life in that small dark space, basically buried alive,” Caribou looked around the hall we were walking down as though trying to find the ghost. “Apparently, the girl put a curse on the family, such that the oldest girl in each generation from that day on was condemned to be a lesbian. And guess what?” Caribou said, smiling.

“What?” Cecilia said nervously.

“I’m my mother’s only daughter!”

Cecilia laughed, “Her curse is my blessing, I guess. Oh, lesbian Goddess!” And she kissed Caribou deeply. She sighed when they finally broke for a breath of air. “I love stories like that… I mean, not the burning and burying, but, you know… the peril… It’s kind of exciting. It’s kind of hot!”

Caribou had been standing at the door to the Master bedroom. She stopped before she opened the door. “You know? I think there is a better room to show you on the West wing of the house.”

They headed back down the hall.

“Maybe they pierced her nipples to mark her as a lesbian,” Cecilia was saying. “Kind of like the scarlet letter story and the adulteress.”

We arrived at one of the bedrooms I rarely visited in my wanderings. Caribou opened the door and walked to the bedside drawer. “I thought maybe this bedroom is better suited for our evening’s entertainment,” she said as she pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

“Ooo!” Cecilia giggled. “If you keep on teasing me, I WILL need to be restrained.”

One thing that I have noticed about Caribou… She can read her girl-of-the-night pets. Most women would have run, I’d think, but Cecilia unbuttoned her blouse and shucked out of her bra like they were on fire. She turned her back and looked over her shoulder at Caribou, slowly slipping her arms behind her back, crossing her wrists.

Caribou locked the handcuffs on Cecilia’s wrists, dramatically testing them to prove how stuck Cecilia’s wrists were. Caribou roughly pushed the woman onto the bed. “Stay!”

“Yes, Goddess,” Cecilia moaned.

Caribou dug through a drawer until she found a roll of elastic bandages and a hair tie. She held them up for Cecilia to see. “You look like a wily one. I wouldn’t want to underestimate your powers. I think that I might need to keep you. I think that I might need you to commune with my ghost!”

Cecilia giggled and squirmed on the bed. Caribou grabbed her by the hair, quickly twisting her locks into a ponytail. She applied the hairband, securing all Cecilia’s hair so it seemed to fountain from the top of her head. Next she picked up the elastic bandages, unwrapping about two feet worth. Cecilia remained on the bed, watching Caribou expectantly. Caribou approached and started wrapping the bandage around Cecilia’s head, covering her eyes first. “I can’t let that naked ghost seduce you, can I?”

“Mmm… Never, Goddess!”

Caribou must have had some practice at wrapping bandages. In no time, Cecilia’s head was tightly wrapped. The bandages covered her entire head and under her chin. Only her mouth and nose and the fountain of hair at the top remained.

“What sort of penance will you pay, you ungrateful slut?” Caribou asked.

“I’ll do anything you ask, Goddess! Just please take pity on my worthless soul!” Cecilia said. She was smiling, enjoying this role-playing.

Caribou rolled Cecilia onto her stomach and snatched her skirt and panties down to her ankles. Caribou pushed down on Cecilia’s back, crushing her to the bed with her butt raised up in the air. “Don’t move an inch, slut!” Caribou said, stepping away, opening another drawer, pulling out a web of straps and a wobbly dildo.

Cecilia seemed to be listening intently as Caribou tightened the strap-on around her waist. Her breathing was erratic and excited. “Do you deserve the attention of your Goddess?” Caribou said as she applied some lubrication to the business end of the device.

“I’ll suffer any punishment to prove my worth,” Cecilia giggled. “Ohhh! Ohhhhh! Mmmmm!”

Caribou impaled Cecilia, who seemed completely ready to receive. Slowly Caribou picked up her speed and force. Soon, Cecilia was screaming in ecstasy. She was very loud. “Oh, Goddess! I love you! I love you!”

I should have been sickened to watch all this occur. Not because of the sex act I was secretly observing, but rather, just because it was Caribou. Still, I found myself completely aroused.

“Well, we’ll see!” Caribou screamed. “Now it’s time for your offering!” She pulled Cecilia off the bed, forcing her to her knees. She pushed the cum-coated strap-on into Cecilia’s mouth, forcing her to suck on it and clean it with her tongue. Then she shucked the belt and her own panties and pulled Cecilia’s gaping mouth to her pussy. “I expect the utmost enthusiasm!”

Indeed, Cecilia was quite enthusiastic.

It is embarrassing to admit, but unless you are a ghost you might not understand. I was so horny watching all this physical activity that I could not help, but to attempt to insert myself.

When I touch a living being, my hand passes through like every other physical object. But, I can feel a tingle - a whisper, perhaps - maybe it is the blood flowing or the life force within. As much as Caribou disgusted me, it was not enough to dissuade me from slipping into her space, just to feel the motion of Cecilia’s tongue. The stimulation would likely never be enough to push me to climax, but would a starving woman turn down a single grape when she would require a bunch to get her fill?

Unfortunately for me, Cecilia was quite adept at the uses of her tongue and Caribou was elevated to a screaming, shivering mess with surprising efficiency. She pushed Cecilia away, and with her arms still shackled behind her, Cecilia fell to the floor with a heavy thump. Cecilia was not hurt at all. In fact, she was giggling again, both confident and proud of her achievement.

“Woo!” Caribou sighed. “You have proven your worth, my beautiful acolyte. And for this I will allow you a special place to rest and recover. An honor rarely bestowed upon any living human being.”

“It was an honor, Goddess,” Cecilia giggled from the floor.

Caribou slipped off the bed and went to the foot of the bed frame. She twisted a latch and rolled out a trundle bed from underneath. The trundle bed was basically an open-topped, heavy wooden box, about two and a half feet wide with two foot high walls and almost as long as the bed. Caribou helped Cecilia stand up, and then with a surprising display of strength, lifted Cecilia (who gave an excited yelp) and deposited her onto the pad in the bottom of the box.

“This coffin shall be your resting place tonight,” Caribou said, and she pushed the giggling girl under the bed, effectively locking the trundle back underneath.

Caribou climbed back up on the bed. Near the headboard there was a brass funnel which acted as a channel for transporting voices from the mistress to the captive inside the bed. Caribou’s voice was almost gentle when she next spoke. “Are you OK, CeeCee? Do you like your little sleeping space?”

Cecilia responded, “Yes, my Goddess. I feel so safe and warm.”

Caribou recovered her Goddess voice. “Then you shall stay locked inside for the night while I decide whether to release you in the morning or keep you forever and allow you to join my harem of ghosts!”

My stomach churned (if that is even possible for a ghost). I wanted to throw up. I jumped up on the bed and kicked at Caribou’s body (to no effect at all, of course).

Caribou and Cecilia whispered through the tube, until Cecilia’s voice sounded full of sleep and Caribou let her drift into the arms of Morpheus.

The sun had risen by the time Caribou unlatched the trundle and awoken Cecilia. She unwrapped the bandages from Cecilia’s head and removed the handcuffs. She even spent some time lovingly massaging Cecilia’s shoulders.

“It was so nice of you to join me for a little while in my coffin, Goddess,” Cecilia said. She looked at the open trundle. “...though I have no idea how we both fit inside…”

“You must have been dreaming,” Caribou said.

“But I felt you so distinctly grinding your butt into my crotch. What was that? Some kind of buttplug you were wearing?”

Caribou stopped massaging Cecilia and looked vaguely around the room. “I don’t have any buttplugs, CeeCee. You must have been with the household ghost again.”

“Oooo! Cool!” Cecilia shivered.

It is true. It was I who slipped into the box under the bed while Cecilia was sleeping. I had to know to what extent Cecilia could detect me. I found that grinding my butt against her caused the plug to move in a pleasurable manner.

Even as I sat there hoping that Cecilia would be a frequent guest, I saw Caribou slip her microchipping gun from under the covers and press the end to the soft skin of Cecilia’s shoulder which she had just been massaging.

There was a click and Cecilia yelped. But by the time she had moved her hand to the shoulder, Caribou had already hidden the gun away. “What was that?”

“A Goddess marks her favorite acolytes,” Caribou said in her theatrical voice. “This way I will be able to find you again, my love.” Caribou rubbed her hand over Cecilia’s shoulder in a soothing manner.

“I hope that you summon me again, Goddess,” Cecilia giggled. “And soon!”

Within an hour, Caribou had pushed Cecilia out the door and waved good-bye as her one night stand drove away. She returned to the house and once she closed the door, she yelled, “Well, Ana! Aren’t you a horny little bitch!”

I kicked Caribou as hard as I could, right in the crotch. Of course, it had no effect at all.

<>--+-

The next day, I noticed that Caribou had installed a whiteboard. She had clearly written a message on the whiteboard directed to me. I know this because the message clearly started, “Ana, …”

After the first bit, unfortunately, my dyslexia kicked in and caused the letters to spin and morph…

I have sort of been lying to you, dear reader, this entire time. Well, perhaps it has been a lie by omission… I probably hoped that you thought better of me, since you are actively reading a first person account which logically would infer a certain assumption about the author. Well, the fact is… And, it’s kind of embarrassing… I never learned how to read.

When I was a child, I was such a pain in the ass to my carny tutors, that they gave up trying to teach me. I guess that they decided that my superior contortion skills and the sorority of the Mujeres Curiosas would help me survive life. (How wrong they were…)

I know the alphabet and all that. I can identify my name. But, all the other words…

I have no idea what Caribou was trying to tell me.

<>--+-

One day I woke up in the bed in the Master bedroom. I looked out the window to see the early buds of Spring just beginning to open. I was shocked, because it seemed like yesterday was a hot, summer’s day. Had I slipped from existence for nine months?

I was shocked to discover that Caribou was directing some carpenters to do some work on the West Wing of the house. I ran to the door of the small library. From the hallway the door looked like the standard antique door that had always been there, but when I passed through it, I could tell that it was now reinforced by a thick layer of steel and a number of high security locks.

The library itself had been rearranged. In addition to shelves of old books, there was also a rack of expensive looking computer hardware, quietly humming. I almost was unable to determine where the old secret, hidden door was. I found it though, and slipped through to the top of the long dark stairwell leading to the underground cave.

Suddenly, I had to know… Was my body still down at the bottom of that subterranean shaft? Was my body still alive? Was there any chance that I would ever be revived, like Caribou was, or am I doomed to haunt this place forevermore?

I drifted down the dark stairwell to the huge room with winches and machines. I found the large capstone that covered my grave. It only takes a little shift in conceived perspective, then it is easy to drop through the stone. After the cap stone, I passed through the thick steel plate. I dropped a long way into the earth, drifting along a thick steel cable down a lightless, narrow shaft.

I landed on the steel plug at the bottom of the pit. I paused. What if I found my body, dead and lifeless? Would I pass into some afterlife? Would I quietly vanish from existence? What would it do to my mental state? Would I become a mindless haunt like the millions of folktales describe? Wronged in life and eternally neurotically seeking revenge on individuals who have long passed away as well?

I took a deep breath (or at least went through the motions of taking a deep breath), and I slipped down through the steel plug into the hollow space underneath. There was a larger cavern below and the metal framework was suspended here, with the metal sphere, constantly slowly spinning.

I first stuck a toe through the sphere like I was testing the temperature of the water of a chilly swimming pool.

I felt it!

It was warm and moving. It felt like blood flowing or a life force or whatever. I was alive!

I slipped completely into the sphere. There I was. Still bent in an extreme bow with my back bent and my bare feet pointed on each side of my head. My long black hair was flopping up and down as the sphere spun. And there were the fucking chains that locked my hands in the center of my back. And there is the jewel at the end of the buttplug locked in my ass.

My first thought was to try to curl up inside myself. But then I worried that I might actually lock in to my physical body… Then how would I ever get out?

I had to somehow communicate with the outside world. I had to get someone down here to extricate my body and bring me back to life. Maybe Caribou had planned to pull me out after a time after all. Maybe I could communicate to someone sensitive to the presence of ghosts like Cecilia.

For the first time in a long time… years, I suppose… I felt a sense of hope.

<>--+-

One late summer day, a very expensive looking vehicle hummed its way down the driveway. I assumed it was an electric vehicle. There was no one driving it. The back opened and three women climbed out. I drifted out of the house to get a better look.

Oh, my god! It was Rosa!

She was more beautiful than ever. She looked so sophisticated. So elegant. She was a woman who was in command! Her face, her hair, her clothing… Everything was perfect. Perfect and very expensive looking.

I looked at another one of the women. It was Mariana. She was more gorgeous as well. Mature. Beautiful. She raised her hand, “Hi, Ana!”

Oh, my god! They can see me?

I looked down at my naked body, my arms locked behind my back, my nipple rings and sex on full and prominent display. I was about to say something…

“Hello! I’m so happy you are here!” came a voice from behind me. Caribou!

“God! It’s been, what? Seven years since I’ve seen you,” Mariana continued. “I swear! You haven’t aged a single day!”

Mariana and Caribou hugged. Then Caribou took Rosa’s hand. “It’s so good to see you again.”

Rosa smiled a thin smile. “You look gorgeous… Ana…” she said quietly. “She’s right… you look young, as ever…”

Mariana wrapped her arm possessively around Rosa, kissing her quickly on the cheek. Then pointed to the third woman. “This is my niece, Velouria…”

My head was spinning! I couldn’t even concentrate on the words being said! Mariana and Rosa were holding hands. I saw matching rings on their fingers. The rings were stacked with expensive rocks.

“I can’t wait to see your new place in Maine,” Caribou was saying.

“It’s just a summer home, but it’s got a great view of the ocean,” Mariana said. “Velouria will help you with your bags. She’s going to be traveling with us! She broke up with her girlfriend two months ago…”

“‘Just a summer home’? Wow, is that what you call them when your net worth passes nine figures?” Caribou teased.

“Well, let’s hit the road. Self driving cars make me nervous at night in the country,” Rosa said. She definitely seemed uncomfortable.

A fucking good thing too! She should feel uncomfortable! Bitch! I ran at her, ducking my head straight into her stomach, passing through, and falling on the ground on the other side of her. “Arrgghh!” I screamed.

“Oh! I forgot one thing,” Caribou said, turning back toward the house.

“Ana’s cute,” Velouria whispered to Mariana.

I ran after Caribou, cursing at her, trying desperately to body check her.

She went into the house, stepped into the Master bedroom and quickly examined the contents of a small, hard carrying case. It contained the microchip gun with a collection of chips. She closed it and locked it and headed back out of the house.

“When we come back in two weeks, I’ll have to give you a tour of all my renovations,” Caribou was saying as she got in the car.

I stood, trembling, watching the car hum off down the driveway.

Leaving me alone in my accursed, haunted mansion.

Rosa buried me so she could be free to succeed in her business and with Mariana. Caribou had buried me so she could steal my identity.

And it was true. Apparently, I’ve been buried for seven years and Caribou hadn’t aged a single day. Was she immortal?

Why would she ever want to pull me back out from the bottom of that forsaken shaft?