JunoRain

He thinks me his prisoner.

It's true that, when he and his fellows came upon our party camped at the edge of the forest, we were travelling with purpose. It's true, also, that I was meant to be somewhere else when he pulled the sack from over my eyes and I found myself instead in his little cabin deep in the forest, and it is true that he has kept me from fulfilling my purpose.

But I suspect he has no idea that I am grateful to him; that every minute he keeps me tied to his bed is a minute I never expected to live for.

They were taking me to the mountain, to sacrifice to some god I never believed in. If the satyrs hadn't found us that morning, as the sun rose and my village leaders were beginning to break camp, I would have been dead before the sun set that same day.

So each time he approaches the bed with that glint in his goat-eye, that tells me what he hungers for, I don't complain. When the tethers bite at my wrists and ankles, I don't wince, because it's a sensation I never expected to feel. I will let him shove his huge, hairy prick wherever he likes, whenever he chooses, even if it stretches my body to its limits, because it is all a reminder that my body still lives.

Of course, he keeps me fed, and untethers me when I need to void my body – he is no savage, and he has not beaten me. He takes care of his play-thing, and I take from this that he intends to keep me around for some time to come.

On the third morning, he even took me outside and allowed me to feel the sun on my face as he walked me around the perimeter of his home, a tether around my neck. That was when I wept for the first time, at the warmth of the sun on skin that should have been cold by then. I wept at the thought of a life I never expected to live; at the escape from a village which had marked me for death since before I could understand what death meant.

Perhaps he thought I wept for my family, or for my capture and imprisonment; perhaps he thought I might try to escape if I tasted freedom for too long. Either way, he carried me back to his bed, brought me milk and honeyed bread, and waited until I had calmed before he stuck his snout between my legs and lapped at my sex until he could drink my release. His long tongue found places to tease where I had never been touched before, and made me cry out without shame at the pleasure that flooded through my body. When I was done, his cock stood so thick and heavy that it must have been painful for him, and I could not resist as he stuffed it inside me, my body already accustomed to his invasions. Still riding on waves of bliss from his mouth, I arched into his touch, a willing poppet for the lustful magic of his prick. I found a second release as he spilled himself inside me, my body taut with pleasure before it was drained of all energy and fell limp, exhausted, under the bulk of my loving captor.

I awoke to his snout under my arm, his prick hard once again as he lay curled around me, exploring my sleep-softened body with his nose and tongue. I couldn't resist him even if I'd wanted to, and I lay there as he lapped sweat and cum from my warm skin. So deft was his touch that I almost didn't notice his cock until it was already nudging its way inside me. He fucked me slower that time, unhurried, and I might almost have thought him tender if not for the grunts and snorts in my ear as he neared his release, snapping his hips against my arse to get himself off. I was, once again, tethered to the bed, but with a little more slack in my bindings. I thought I had shown him how much I desired him, that I did not intend to flee, but he still felt some need to keep me captive.

Maybe one day I will reach the limit of what I can stand as he fucks me tied down, and I will try to make my escape while his guard is down. Or maybe he will grow tired of me and turn me out into the forest, to satiate the wild beasts that roam there. Maybe he'll even end my life with his own hands, if he finds some other play-thing to amuse him.

I can't find it in me to care. I am living on borrowed time as it is, and every rake of his claws over my skin, every burst of his sweat-stink in my nostrils, every shove of his gargantuan prick into my unresisting body, is a pleasure I can only savour because he chose to keep me alive.

...

I don't know who, exactly, the ghost is. They came with the house I inherited, and since no one else in the family has ever mentioned spirits or strange happenings when they've stayed here, I've decided to assume they're not some ancestor of mine.

That had been my first thought, since every time I've noticed their presence, it's come with a sense of comfort. The spirit definitely seems to care for me. It straightens the bedsheets while I'm in the shower, helps me find lost things, and I'll often feel its arm around me when I settle on to the couch in the evening, like an invisible hug to remind me that I'm not totally alone.

It's sweet.

Which is why the first time I felt its ghostly hand dip lower than my shoulder, I ran away from it. Jumped up off the couch and headed straight upstairs, shutting my bedroom door loudly and firmly, even though a ghost could go anywhere it wanted to and a door would be no barrier at all. I was acting more from instinct than logic – how do you even act logically anyway when there's an honest-to-goodness ghost in your home?

It didn't follow me, though. I didn't see, or hear, or feel it for the rest of the day. Perhaps it realised it had scared me, since the next time it showed itself it had straightened up the living room and set my favourite mug on the counter next to a box of tea, the most it could move around. Not knowing how else to react, I thanked it, brewed some tea, and took it to the couch to try to relax. After I'd been sitting there a while, enjoying some cheesy daytime TV, I felt its weight, or its presence or whatever, settle into the space next to me. A respectful distance away, and without touching me the way it had always done before.

Comfortable. Comforting. A reminder that I wasn't alone.

“I was just surprised,” I told it, when I was sure it had settled in, as comfortable as a ghost could be. “I didn't think we had that kind of relationship.” Could you have any kind of relationship with a ghost? It had become as much a part of my daily life as anything else in the house, and I probably encountered it as much as any living, breathing, solid person outside of my home.

Since I couldn't see or hear it, I couldn't say for certain how it reacted. All I could tell, from the vague psychic sense of its presence that I'd learned to pick up on, was that it seemed to spread a little, like it had been holding itself in up to that point and suddenly let out one huge, long sigh.

So we've been back to our version of normal for a while. It straightens things around the house, rattles drawers when I can't find a key or a phone charger or some other trifle, and sits with me on the couch at the end of a long day. And occasionally, I will feel it brush up against me. A ghostly arm around my shoulder, comforting and safe, just like before. But now, it'll brush my hair back when it falls in my face, or pat my hand when something has me upset. And if the cheesy drama we're watching on TV gets a little steamy, as they sometimes do, I'll feel a pressure against the outside of my leg, like it's shuffling closer. Like it's testing, to see what it can get away with.

I like the comfort, and the help around the house, and the reassuring presence of someone who wants to be around me. But I also, in a weird and thrilling kind of way, like the hesitant touches. The slow progress of pressure from my knee, up my thigh, towards my hip. The naughtiness of it all, like it shouldn't be doing that and I shouldn't let it. The house has been in our family for about four generations, but the building itself is older than that, so who know what this disembodied spirit is to me? I can't see it, and it can't (or won't) speak to me, so there's no way to know for sure.

Then again, no one else can see it, and I'm certain no one would believe me if I told them. So there's no reason for me to stop when ghostly fingers slide up my thigh as I'm lounging on the couch. There's no one else in the house to see the way I arch up into its touch as it reaches my sex, and no one to hear the embarrassing moan I let out as it presses itself against me. The house doesn't connect to either of its neighbours, and the TV is on, so any noise I do make can't be heard by anyone else anyway.

It's been years since anyone touched me like this, and in the privacy of my own home, with no one to tell me it's wrong, who am I to pass up an opportunity like this? I know I'm not much to look at, so if a ghost wants to feel me up, I'd be stupid to tell it to stop.

My sex is already throbbing when it presses against me, riled up from the teasing and the cautious touching. What's truly astounding, though, is the way my clothes don't seem to be any barrier to it. Although my underwear is still firmly in place, I can feel the chill of its ghostly fingers directly against my heated flesh, as if it's inside my clothes.

Its touch is still tentative, like it thinks I still might pull away, and I can't deny a frisson of fear, as if someone is going to walk in at any moment and catch me – us – in the act. I try to fight down the urge to go check that the door is locked; it's always locked when I'm at home. I guess living with a ghost has accustomed me to the idea that I'm not truly alone, so it makes sense that this feels way different than just touching myself under the bedsheets. But I try to fight through the fear, to let my spirit housemate know that it's okay, that I want it to keep going.

So I lay back on the couch, letting my legs fall open, a clear invitation that I want more. It doesn't disappoint, and as one unseen hand continues to tease my sex, I feel a second slide from my stomach up to my chest, finding my most sensitive places and fluttering across my skin as if it knows me like a lover already. With a flesh and blood human, I'd be anxious about being touched there, even over my clothes, but the spirit has been around long enough that it likely knows what I look like under them. And as my body responds to its practised touch, my insides fizz like ice cold beer at the realisation that the comforting presence that's been taking care of me when I've been down is suddenly bringing me pleasure I haven't known in ages.

I have no idea what it looks like – how tall, how old – but it's definitely a hand stroking my sex, fingers curled around me until I'm achingly hard and needy. And most definitely a second hand plucking at my nipple, teasing it stiff under my shirt. When I feel the couch shift beneath me, I can envisage the shape of thighs between mine, nudging my legs wider so it can reach past my hardness to the needy entrance further back. The light doesn't dim, but I can feel its unseen body lean over me, feel the weight of another person covering me, and when something brushes against my neck, although it's cool and dry, it's definitely a mouth pressed against my skin.

I want to touch – to return its caresses, to hold it in my arms and press its body against mine – but I have no idea where to put my hands. Indeed, when I try to wrap my legs around it, I can move as freely as if there's no one there. I still feel the pressure of it against my inner thighs, but it seems I can't touch it the way it touches me. The thought of this genuinely saddens me, and I hear a pained sob infiltrate the stream of moans and sighs it's been pulling from my mouth. But from the way it kisses down my neck, I get the sense that it's okay with this arrangement. It's happy enough to give pleasure that it can't receive.

Since I still have my clothes on, I'm entirely unprepared to feel its ghostly touch penetrate my hole. For one brief second, I panic at the thought of being fucked without any lube, without any kind of prep at all. But for whatever reason, a ghost doesn't seem to need any of that. In one easy, fluid motion, it fills me up like it belongs there, and I feel like I've just sunk into a hot bath, my skin on fire with pleasure at the same time that I feel fully relaxed and content.

My ghostly lover is everywhere at once, surrounding me and filling my insides with a love that's both familiar and wickedly new, pleasuring me like it knows precisely what I need. I feel its unseen form undulating between my spread thighs, whatever appendage it has inside me thrusting with a determination that seems born almost from panic, as if it fears that it might be caught before it can finish. Since I can't see it, and I can't touch it, all I can do is sink into the plush couch cushions and let it have its way with me.

Thank goodness the TV is still on, because I'm moaning and cursing up a storm, calling out to my unseen lover to keep touching me, to fill me up, to give me everything it can. As its pace becomes frantic, I start to sense that it's losing its vaguely human form; the touch against my chest feels less like hands and more like an all-consuming pressure, a force enveloping my body. It's no less pleasurable, but it confirms my suspicion that its time with me is limited. I don't know if will ever return after this one encounter, so I resolve to enjoy it as much as I can.

I widen my legs, arch my back into its ghostly touch, and let it fill me, let it press at my outer parts where I'm throbbing so much it's almost painful. I plead with it to make me come, to fill me completely, to not hold back. Even if it might hurt, I want my comforting spirit to love me with everything it has.

As I feel my climax begin to build, I'm simultaneously ecstatic and regretful. My body needs release, my sex pulsing with need and my skin singing with delight after so long untouched. But if my ghostly lover truly is using the last of its power to pleasure me, then our time together is almost at an end. I hear my moans turn to sobs, bliss and fear and grief all at once as my orgasm swells, crests, and breaks, flooding my body with wave after wave of white-hot foam that fizzes and bursts under my skin. My back arches as my stomach convulses, and I feel the spirit's shapeless form pulsing and rippling over me, the last of its ghostly power seeming to flow through me before evaporating in mere seconds. The pressure between my thighs dissipates, and as the last waves of release trickle out to my fingertips, I feel the sudden absence of the other form in the space beside me.

I think I pass out. Or doze off. I just know that, the next time I open my eyes, the TV is playing adverts and the light from the windows has faded. For the first time in a while, I feel alone in my own home. No presence to keep me company.

“Thank you,” I call out, all the same. It sounds stupid, but I can't leave it unacknowledged. I hope, with what barely-functioning brain power I have, that it's only temporary. I've always assumed that the spirit has been in the house for longer than I've been alive, so surely one night of pleasure isn't enough to wear it out completely. “You'll come back, right?”

There's no answer. There's never been an answer, any of the times I've tried to speak to it. It doesn't work like that.

So I drag myself off the couch. Head up the stairs, where I shower and change and head to my bedroom. I've spent every night alone since I moved here, and for a while before that, but for the first time, it actually feels a little sad to know there's no one else there with me.

I open the bedroom door, and think, perhaps, that I see the bedsheets twitch. They're pulled down at one side, ready for me to slip in and get comfortable.

I don't usually leave the bedsheets like that.

“I'll see you in the morning?” I call out. I hope so. I'm not ready to go back to living alone just yet.