The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women Part 18

"What? No, of course not! I said, I'm on my way home. There's the tunnel."

"Catch up tomorrow?" She was talking to a dead phone.

The abrupt end to that unsatisfactory conversation left Imogen feeling on edge, but she went through her usual routines, tidying the already tidy flat, and put herself to bed before eleven o'clock.

She was tired, and her thoughts soon drifted into the surreal jumble that presaged sleep. Turning on to her left side, she snuggled deeper into her pillow, and caught a faint whiff of Jo Malone's Pomegranate Noir Rachel's signature scent.

By now her own body-heat had warmed the s.p.a.ce between the sheets, and with that warmth, other smells were released from the bedding: body odours that were not her own, sweat and musk and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, the unmistakable smells of s.e.x.

And then she could hear them laboured breathing, low grunts, the slap of flesh against flesh and feel them, too, a woman and a man in bed with her, one on either side of her- It wasn't real, of course. It couldn't be. If she'd suddenly found herself in bed with two other naked people she would have been repulsed by it, felt disgust, or fear. But instead, half-asleep and knowing she must be dreaming, it was safe to become aroused. These two people, so focused on their own s.e.xual pleasure, stirred desires she kept buried, hidden from her conscious mind. The man behind her was a stranger it didn't matter who he was. The woman whose soft large b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against her own was Rachel.

This was Rachel as she'd scarcely dared to imagine her, yet knew she must be, powerfully erotic, s.e.xually voracious. As Imogen allowed herself to be overwhelmed by the power of the fantasy, she heard her friend whispering to her, words she'd actually said once when talking about masturbation.

"You shouldn't feel guilty. That's crazy! It doesn't matter what you think about while you're doing it whatever gets you off is fine; it doesn't matter what crazy, sick thing turns you on, so long as it stays inside your own head. n.o.body ever got hurt by a private fantasy. It's the safest s.e.x there is."

In the morning, though, Imogen was not so relaxed. The first sip of coffee seemed to curdle in her stomach, and she felt sickened by herself, and then angry with Rachel. Why couldn't her friend have followed her own advice, and kept her fantasies locked inside her own head? Why did she have to soil Imogen's bed with them?

She poured the rest of her coffee down the sink and, although there was scarcely time for it, hurried back to the bedroom, intending to strip off the dirty sheets, rather than leave them festering with their alien stains and smells for another day. But as soon as she saw her bed she realized it wasn't necessary. Rachel had changed the bed after using it. The dirty sheets and pillowcases were in the was.h.i.+ng machine in the kitchen a fact she had noticed before going to bed, and then forgotten.

She leaned down and sniffed the pillow. She could just about pick up traces of herself skin oil, face cream, shampoo but nothing remotely like Rachel's perfume. When she put her head under the covers she smelled the lavender scent of her fabric conditioner, and nothing else.

Those smells that she thought had triggered an erotic fantasy had been part of the fantasy part of the dream. It had been a dream, of course, with no conscious desires behind it at all. The knots in her stomach loosened. Dreams were n.o.body's fault. You couldn't blame yourself for what your unconscious got up to while you slept.

Text messages flew back and forth between Imogen and Rachel over the next few days, but despite reiterated declarations that they must meet, or at least talk, their busy schedules made it impossible before Thursday came around again.

There had been no repeat of that disturbingly erotic dream, and Imogen had almost managed to repress the memory of it until that morning, when she woke up thinking about Rachel and her faceless, nameless lover, who would soon be going at it like knives in this very bed, between her own, used sheets.

She didn't know if knowing his name or what he looked like would have made it better, or worse, but she was tormented by the sense of being unfairly used. Maybe she had no right to judge Rachel for the betrayal of her marriage vows, but wasn't more respect due to their friends.h.i.+p? Changing the sheets was the merest gesture; all that frenzied pa.s.sion must leave traces that could not be easily washed away, a charge in the atmosphere, a kind of miasma in the bedroom that affected Imogen's sleep and gave her bad dreams. She wished she had made more of an effort to talk to Rachel; she should have insisted on seeing her. It was too late now, of course, but she decided tonight was the last time. She would ask Rachel to give her back the key.

Mounting the deserted concrete stairs that rose through the large, quiet building, at a quarter to ten, Imogen tingled with anxiety, again plagued by the feeling that someone was waiting for her inside. Not even the sight of the clear, empty vista of the main room was enough to calm her nerves, and she was obliged to check out the bathroom and empty bedroom thoroughly before she could relax.

This time, she did not miss the fact of clean sheets on her bed, and deliberately took several deep, calming breaths of the soothing scent of lavender as she settled down to sleep.

But it happened again. As her own body heat raised the temperature within the warm coc.o.o.n of the bed, something else was released, as if memories of what had taken place in that s.p.a.ce a few hours earlier had left spores ready to blossom into life under the right conditions. All the smells of s.e.x wafted over her and she heard the animal sounds of vigorous f.u.c.king, and while a small, civilized part of her was repulsed, and a little frightened, by this activity going on in her own bed, her body was melting, yearning, opening with the longing desire to be a part of it.

They were so close, so close, but at the same time impossibly distant, their desires never meeting hers, so completely focused on each other that they didn't even know she was there. They were all in the same s.p.a.ce, but separated by time. And so, although she found herself between them, they were blissfully unaware of any impediment, intent only on satisfying themselves through each other, as if Imogen did not exist, as if she were of less substance than a ghost.

Maybe she was only a fleeting thought pa.s.sing through Rachel's mind, a weightless fragment of grat.i.tude and guilt, gone before it could be acknowledged, as the other woman hurtled, with single-minded intensity, towards her own satisfaction.

Imogen could not connect. The other two made love through her, without her, and although she was unbearably close to them, forced to witness their coupling, to smell and hear and almost feel their moving bodies on either side of her own, she could not make them feel her. She could only join in, steal a share of their pleasure, by pretending. This was no guilt-free dream, no dream at all. They were in her bed, but she was alone, tensing her muscles, arching her back, opening her mouth wide, nothing to fill it, nothing to a.s.suage her emptiness and bring satisfaction but the quick, impatient movements of her own fingers, angry and dissatisfied with her own, too-familiar flesh, but still practised enough to know what they must do.

She made herself come again and again until at last her bed was empty and she could fall asleep.

She didn't want to see Rachel again. But they were going to have to meet. Rachel had the key to Imogen's flat. Even more importantly, she thought she had permission to use it. Imogen could not be like the evil landlord who changes the locks without warning. Even if she couldn't tell her the real reason, she was going to ban her friend from using it, and demand the key back. She didn't care if they fell out over it and never spoke again; that would only prove that Rachel had never been such a good friend as Imogen had thought.

They met on Sat.u.r.day morning, at a Starbucks in a mall, in the middle of a heaving ma.s.s of shoppers hunting for a bargain.

"I have to meet Andrew at Ikea in thirty-five minutes, but that should be plenty of time for a coffee," Rachel said, with a hug and kiss Imogen was not quick enough to avoid. She was as beautiful and bouncy as ever, and Imogen felt like a coward, evading her direct and happy gaze. She ordered a skinny vanilla latte for the look of the thing, but knew by the roiling in her stomach that she would not be able to drink it.

"What's up? Your text was so-"

No point wasting time. She blurted it out: "I want my key back."

"Oh." Rachel's shoulders slumped. She stared down at her hands. Her wedding band made its own comment. "Well. Of course. In fact, I'd already decided . . . decided to end it. It's crazy I love Andy, we have a good marriage, I don't want to risk everything for a bit of . . . well, sport."

Imogen's tension began to ease as she realized she wouldn't have to argue. "Good sense wins the day. Did you bring it?"

"Bring what?"

"My key."

"Oh! G.o.d, no, I didn't think that's not important, is it? I mean, it is a spare, right? And somebody ought to have it, in case you lock yourself out or something happens while you're away you shouldn't have both keys yourself."

Imogen recognized the wide-eyed, honest gaze that went with the perfectly logical argument. She'd seen her friend use it on others to get something she wanted. When she was hiding a lie. Her stomach clenched again.

"Ray, this is not about a stupid key. I don't want that man in my flat again."

"What happened? Did he do something? What did he do? Have you talked to him?"

Imogen felt her ears get hot and prayed she wasn't blus.h.i.+ng. "Talk to him? Of course not! I don't know who he is. You won't even tell me his name."

"Only because I don't want you involved in this."

"But I am involved. You involved me, by using my flat. You've done it in my bed! You can't do that any more."

Something flared in her friend's eyes and for a moment Imogen thought she'd guessed; somehow Rachel knew exactly what she'd experienced- "Just once more. Please, darling. I'll finish with him this week. I promise."

"Good. Break up with him in a pub. Or have your final fling in the Travelodge."

Rachel shook her head. "It's not that easy. I can't get in touch with him before Thursday. But this Thursday will be the last, I promise. And then, if you really insist I give your key back-"

"I do."

Rachel made a dramatic gesture. "Next week, same time, same place. I promise I will bring it. And I can provide all the sordid details you like."

The following Thursday night, at 9.47 precisely, Imogen turned the key and stepped inside. Refusing to let herself be driven again by the now-expected impression that there was someone else in her flat, she did not waste time looking around, but went straight to the bedroom to put away her gym gear.

The light was on and there was a man there, kneeling on the floor. He had been crouching, apparently examining the carpet, but when she opened the door he straightened, although still on his knees.

Her mouth dried. She looked past him, to the bed, which had been roughly re-made, but Rachel was not there.

He was not someone she would have picked out as the hottest guy in any pub. He had a muscular upper body, but his face was forgettable, and his thinning grey hair straggled down as if length could make up for what was missing on top. He was older than she had expected, a forty-something clinging rather foolishly to the style of his youth. Most surprisingly, he didn't look surprised to see her, but smiled seductively.

"What are you doing?" She spoke sharply, annoyed with Rachel for leaving this strange man alone in her flat.

He looked down at the carpet again. "She lost her necklace chain broke. Gold chain. Had to leave . . . couldn't miss her train . . . but so upset, I said I'd find the missing bit."

Imogen peered down at the thick pile of the carpet, knowing immediately what necklace it must be, a diamond and amethyst pendant on the finest of thin gold chains, a twenty-first birthday present from Rachel's grandmother.

"She could have asked me to find it," Imogen muttered, and then was startled to notice the man, still on his knees, had moved closer.

He pushed up her s.h.i.+rt and rubbed his face against the bare skin of her midriff. The shock of it froze her in place. She caught a familiar whiff of dried sweat and hair grease at the very moment that his wet, warm tongue darted into her navel.

She opened her mouth to protest, but the incoherent sound emerged sounding more like encouragement. Her arms did not want to push him away. Her muscles seemed to have turned to jelly, and she might have collapsed entirely without his support. She seemed to have fallen into a helpless dream as he touched and rubbed and kissed her from the waist down. When he unhooked and unzipped and pulled down her trousers, she did nothing to help or hinder, and they fell to her ankles, followed soon by her pants, and hobbled her. He carried on with his more intimate explorations as she closed her eyes and surrendered to whatever he would do to her with his hands or his mouth. He sucked and licked, rubbed and poked and prodded, sometimes hurting her with a rough touch, but generally skilful, increasing her arousal to an incredible pitch.

This was no dream. He was doing it all. Doing everything to her that he had previously done to Rachel, things she could only imagine before now. Her own hands, unoccupied, hung at her sides, now loose, now clenched. Her breath sighed and whistled and caught in her throat. She moaned softly and tried to open her legs wider, wanting more, but she was trapped by her own clothes. As she tried to kick free of them, her knees buckled and she almost fell, but he caught her, and lifted her so easily; his arms were even more powerful than she had guessed. He quickly and efficiently freed her from shoes, pants and trousers, and dropped her on to the bed.

Remembering Rachel's description of how he'd looked into her eyes the whole time he'd caressed her to o.r.g.a.s.m that first time in the pub, Imogen waited for him to look at her, but he was absorbed in the task of removing his own shoes and socks and jeans, and when he came back, wearing only his s.h.i.+rt, he stared at only one part of her, so fixedly that she wondered uneasily if he found her hairy p.u.b.es disgusting. (Rachel was religious about depilating, but Imogen could not be bothered.) She was disturbed to notice his p.e.n.i.s was flaccid, not even half-erect, but that changed as he pulled it, still staring, so it was obviously not a turn-off.

With unexpected suddenness, still without a word or even an affectionate look, he plunged inside her and began thrusting away with an odd, jerky rhythm. She was just starting to get comfortable with it when he suddenly withdrew and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed on her s.h.i.+rt.

She gave a startled, disappointed cry.

He stood up and backed away, looking at her now with a smile that was more of a sneer. "You s.l.u.t," he said, without heat. "You didn't think I'd let you have my baby?"

He began putting his clothes on. She lay where he'd put her, afraid to say or do anything that might provoke him, and wondering what had been going on inside his head while she'd been caught in her own fantasy. She was grateful when he left without another word, and sat up when she heard the definitive closing snick of the lock on the front door.

She felt sick, and desperate for a wash. She wanted to wash away every trace of that awful man. She stood up. About to cross the room, she saw something glinting on the floor, and bent down to find two gold links, snapped from a chain.

Holding them, looking at the miniscule circles lying in the palm of her hand, she had an image of Rachel's necklace, broken as it was brutally yanked from her neck, and s.h.i.+vered as she touched the skin across her own collar-bone. Then, closing her hand on the tiny bits of gold, she went through to the main room, where she stopped just short of colliding with Rachel.

She only just managed not to scream. Rachel had been in the flat the whole time. She must have been in the bathroom at first she should have realized her friend wouldn't have left that man here alone but when she returned to the bedroom had she seen them? Looked in, and seen Imogen standing with her trousers around her ankles? And said nothing? Was it a total shock, or something she had suggested or engineered, perhaps pursuing her own fantasy of a threesome- If so, it clearly had not turned out as she'd dreamed. She had not interrupted them or tried to join in, and her continued silence now, and the expression on her face, frightened Imogen. She had never seen Rachel with such a terrible, staring face, and such a murderous look in her eye.

"Hey, Ray," Imogen said softly, her heart in her throat. "We need to talk."

Rachel's fixed, hideous glare did not soften, and Imogen saw something that froze her heart. Yes, that was murder in her eyes. In one hand, half-hidden by her side, Rachel held the longest, sharpest knife from Imogen's kitchen.

"Don't." The word jumped out, hot and urgent, forced through the lump of ice in Imogen's chest, and then she ran for the safety of the bathroom. She slammed the door and locked it; then, leaning her head against the cool tiled wall, she began to cry.

But she soon regained control. She wouldn't risk opening the door, but she spoke through it, yelling at Rachel that she was sorry, but that jerk wasn't worth it, and couldn't they please at least try to have a civilized conversation? Nothing at all in reply from Rachel, so Imogen took her time about having a shower. She knew her friend was no killer. Give her a few minutes to calm down, and then they'd talk.

When she came out of the bathroom, reeking of strawberry shower gel, the flat was empty. She knew it instantly, could tell from the atmosphere that she was alone, but went through the motions of searching, just in case. The long, sharp knife was back in the wooden block where it belonged. Rachel had gone without leaving a note.

She slept that night on the couch. It was not very comfortable, but she preferred a broken night of restless dozing to the company of the ghosts in her bed. When she woke at three, four, five and six, she phoned Rachel, and left humble, apologetic messages begging her to call back, regardless of the time.

At seven-thirty, as she dressed for work, Rachel's phone was still switched off. At eight, she rang the landline number, and Andrew picked up.

"Andy, I need to talk to Rachel."

There was a silence. "Imogen? I thought she was with you."

She swallowed hard. "She left last night. It was after ten, after her usual train, but there's a later one, isn't there? She didn't say, but I a.s.sumed she was going home."

"What do you mean, she didn't say?"

"She she was upset when she left."

"What was she upset about?"

Her eyes fell on the tiny gold links she'd brought through from the bathroom. "You know her gold necklace? From her nan? It broke."

"She stormed out because she broke her necklace?"

"There was more to it than that, but it was my fault. I couldn't get her to stay and talk about it." Imogen touched one of the links with the tip of a finger, staring across the counter to the wooden knife-block on the far wall of the kitchen, all four black handles sticking out. "She was pretty mad I was sure she'd go home, but maybe she has another friend she stays with sometimes."

He didn't reply.

"Look, if you see her . . . I mean, when she comes in, or calls, would you please ask her to call me?"

"I was going to say the same to you."

She said a rather awkward goodbye, and then, as she broke the connection, felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck, and knew she was no longer alone.

There had been no sound, and the door had not opened, but even before she turned she knew who was there.

Rachel, looking just as she had the night before: same clothes, same ghastly expression, even the knife in her hand, although there had been no time for her to take it from the kitchen. She could only be a ghost.

Then the small, metallic click of a key in the lock, and the door opened. He came in and shut the door behind him, glaring, holding Rachel's black-and-silver Nokia, which looked ridiculously tiny in his large hand.

"Why'd you keep calling?" he asked. "You think she'll forgive you for what you did with me last night?"

She realized then that the murderous look in Rachel's eyes, and the knife in her hand, had never been meant for her. She could only hope, as she sprinted for the kitchen, that her own attempt at self-defence would be more successful.

Freeze Out.

Nancy Holder.

Ghosts moved up and down the aisles of the funeral home chapel. Ghosts of grief, anger, despair.

The ghosts didn't touch Cody.

What touched him was the cold smell of roses, icy and strangely fleshy. A spray of white roses lay like a sleeping ghost on his mother's closed casket. Florists chilled their flowers so they wouldn't rot as fast. It was minus seven degrees outside on the prairie of Minnesota. They should have kept the roses in the graveyard; their outer petals were beginning to brown.

Florists made funeral sprays out of the oldest flowers, the ones that were going to wilt the soonest. Those flowers didn't have to endure until the last dance. The last dance was already over.

Cody sat with his father in the first pew of the funeral home's non-confrontational, non-denominational chapel. The pew was cordoned off; there was a golden braided rope connected to a hook at either end, and in addition a rectangular ivory cardboard sign with ''family'' written in silver capital letters. The family was tiny, just three Magnusens or there would be three, when Cody's sister, Elle, got back from talking to the funeral director.

Cody sat beside his father, nervously watching him out of the corner of his eye. His father was very tall and thin, with taut, tanned skin good Scandinavian genes and rheumy blue eyes. Cody and Elle were afraid Kenneth Magnusen was going to make a scene. Kenneth had dementia; he wasn't in his right mind. He did things now he would never have believed himself capable of. Sometimes he yelled. He lost control. But today there was no expression on their father's face. No tears of grief. Or of anything else.

He was frozen.

Cody's sister, Elle, had picked the funeral home because it was reasonably priced, there was no flas.h.i.+ness, and the director didn't try to talk them into extras. "Mom wouldn't have wanted frills," Elle had said. Cody had said nothing, although he suspected that his mother would have wanted something more than the basics a wooden coffin, a few flowers, a service. It was the way of their family not to argue or disagree.