#ghost mike

‘Murder House’ was the unofficial name of the building at the end of Cherrywood street. For centuries it stood unyielding in the face of many harsh winters, its clay-brick exterior pitted and worn by the solitude of the city’s suburbia. And like most old houses, it festered with ghost stories: more specifically, the mystery about the premature death of a handsome young man, the details groomed and begrimed over the years, deeming the abandoned home haunted with myths.  

One would argue that the place had a certain charm to it; the tall saplings and vine-stalks that covered the walls gave it an enchanted rustic atmosphere, though the house’s true beauty laid in its attractive auctionable price. 

A bid so tempting none could refuse—especially not a single young woman, looking to start a life of her own.

Spirits and ghouls would have to excuse her inability to reject such a heady offer. It’s not like she believed in them anyway, and in the three days of arranging and redecorating her new home, no dead frat boy came to greet or tried to cast her away. If anything, the house’s peeling walls radiated with strange tepid hospitality, and a sweet fruity scent permeated through its corridors.  

Stranded between two worlds, Mike could not help himself; it was a pleasant surprise to see life spring through the house once again. Fifteen years in purgatory felt like thousands. Oftentimes he found himself embroiled with ferocious envy aimed toward the living, thinking of all the beautiful women he didn’t get to enjoy, the warmth of skin, bare, soft to touch—all robbed from him before he witnessed 22 summers.

But the thick veil of spite lifted from his chest the day she stepped foot into his house, and the last thing he wanted to do was frighten her away.

Drenched with sweat, the young woman huffed with ardour, taking another pause and a long whiff of air as she strained to reposition the modern-looking sofa she ordered from IKEA. The couch was twice her size, and Mike couldn’t help but chuckle at her quirky little grunts and glares of determination as she struggled to reposition it in the spacious living room. 

“Aren’t you a fierce little babe, sweetcheeks,” he uttered loudly and strode to lean against the other corner of the wall with an amused smirk cresting his face.

His pretty little guest said nothing in response. But of course, she couldn’t hear him; though sharing the same space, they were divided between contradicting realms. 

The very sight of her exertion reminded him of... things he didn’t experience in quite some time. Opaline pearls of effort painted her heaving chest, her eyes glossed with mild despair, and a peal of breathless gasps emitted from her parted lips. Despite being dead, a thick dribble of temptation still wove in his gut, inviting him to run a curious hand over her delicious rump. 

‘It would be oh so very wrong.’ 

‘However…’

‘Would she even feel it?’ Mike pondered while his covetous eyes glazed over her curves. While he was contemplating the idea, she sighed and abruptly fell onto the pillowy sofa with a vocal defeat. 

Staring onto the ceiling, she tried to regain her forces, sinking into brusque daydreams of what life may become one day when a sudden chill crawled her skin. Something was not quite right in the room—a shadow, quiet and obscure, loomed over her when she was, in fact, alone.

Briefly, she inspected the room with a leery eye, detecting no movement and no sound. 

“Silly superstitious townsfolks,” she muttered and brushed these thoughts away, convinced that the stupid urban legends of ‘might-have-been-murdered-Mike’ had subconsciously rooted themselves in her mind. 

It made much more sense than assuming there was an envious ghost ogling her while she rested in the living room. 

Soon, the house began to take a comely shape. 

For days she laboured in making their home inhabitable; framed prints of woodland critters and green plants hung onto freshly painted walls while the kitchen eddied with the delicious scent of home cooking. Ever the silent voyeur, Mike followed her around like a devoted puppy, relishing the warm light that showered the once gloomy halls. It was her presence that vanquished the miasmic cloud of death that engulfed him for over a decade, replacing it with the silky touch of a woman. 

He wished he could feel that softness on his skin, even for a split second. 

“If only you knew how wonderful you are, baby,” Mike uttered as he stood beside her, watching her dip the thick bristly brush into a can of wood varnish to coat over the old pantry cabinet in the dining room. 

Painting the vitrine door, her gaze was vacant; fleeting thoughts floated away from the path, lost to a ravine. She was happy here, of course, but then a lurching longing crept into her heart, accompanied by the odd lingering sensation of being watched. Some days were worse than others; her lungs sometimes shrivelled as if a large man towered behind with the ill will to squeeze her breasts.    

“This is stupid. Get a hold of yourself...” she whispered and shook her head, dipping the brush into the can.

Hearing her pleasant voice, Mike smiled with a flash of pearly whites, his cobalt orbs sparkling with admiration. 

He leaned close enough to smell her skin. “Don’t be afraid, sweetcheeks, as long as I am here, they can’t harm you.” 

A hiss sliced through the air, followed by a clatter as the can slipped between her quivering fingers and landed on the floor. Heart racing, she stood frozen, convinced that she felt the caress of air against her temple and heard a soft whisper.

But again, there was nothing around her—just her mind playing tricks, succumbing to the stupid myths told by the neighbours. 

“Fucking hell!” she bellowed and crouched to pick up the can, muttering profanities as the viscid lacquer stained the floor and her socks.   

“Get it the fuck together,” she grunted, trying to clean up the mess, “if this ghost dude is watching, he must think I am an idiot…” 

But Mike only beamed, utterly surprised and amazed that he managed to make contact. Perhaps there was a unique bond between them. Maybe his death meant something, and they were destined to find one another. Looking at her attempt to collect the liquid back into the can, he combed his fingers through his black curls, thinking of how he would tell her he thinks the world of her. 

But as she lifted her head and glared right through him with irritation burning through her eyes, he felt hollow once again.   

In a way, Mike believed that he knew his little tenant better than she knew herself. A strong-willed, independent girl on the surface, one to claim she doesn’t need a man, who endured by a mantra that she was happy alone. But he could smell the sheen mist of solitude that wafted around her like an aura of regret. 

On weekends she would light the bedroom up with musky candles- by god, she spent so much money on those—and a generous glass of rosé. She’d sit on the bed with a laptop perched on her thighs, reading scandalous erotic tales. Now and then, she would put up a little show that entices him more and more. 

It felt wrong to watch her at first. But Mike, all fascinated, could never really look away; the only time he ever saw a woman do something like that was when he watched porn in his college dorm, and that always seemed outrageously fake. Trusting in the solitude of her bedroom, she was natural, tender, and true when she touched herself, taking the sweet time to explore and please herself for her and not for some male observer.

‘Or did she?’ 

Suspicion arose the evening she decided to chase one of her fantasies in the bath. Thick mist and mellow tones hung over her naked body, heady steam soared from her glowing skin while the light remnants of foam that glazed her breasts reminded Mike of a sea nymph rising from the tides. 

Struck with awe, he circled the antique tub, enthralled by the spectacle of her ‘self-care’. 

A peal of gentle hums left her lips. Body possessed by wicked impulses, she swayed in a salacious rhythm and guided her fingers between her swollen lips. Back and forth, she pumped in languid thrusts, desire given to the strange man who only existed in the surreal realm of her dreams: tall with shoulders of sturdy mountain, eyes of hydrogen flames, and his hair was an onyx mane of luscious curls.  

She had no recollection of ever seeing him outside her fantasies, and yet his image kept recurring in the hazy veil of midnight. Smooth touches like tongues of silk, yet firm and commanding—he would bend her over the bed, his thick veiny arm holding at her nape, and like a good little whore she would throb for his cock. 

The memory of a dream made her delve knuckle-deep, and she came with a hoarse moan, throwing her head back with the heaving exhaustion of climax.

Enamoured with the beauty of her post-orgasmic lustre, Mike sauntered to crouched beside his secret love. His pale cerulean orbs traced the rivulets of sweat that glistened on her skin while he clutched the edge of the tub. The water was tainted opaline with soap and whatever drenched from her flawless hide. Playfully, he mused of bathing himself in those waters.

If only he could feel. 

Taken by a sudden sadness, he casually dipped a finger into the tepid bath when a huff of bewilderment exclaimed from his gaping lips. Currents of bliss thrummed through his tendons, wet, hot, and mildly oily—the water kissed his lifeless skin. 

How could it be?

Overwhelmed, Mike twirled the water with his long digit, creating a small vortex that kept dancing on its own once he withdrew his hand. Toying with the fluidity on his pads, a thought began to form in his head: perhaps the love he felt was so intense it granted him the power to touch, to sense, to whisper words of praise.

A poltergeist.  

They were fated to be. He knew that now and his gaze averted to his girl, suffused with worship and longing. Still crouched over the porcelain tub, he reached the back of his knuckles to graze her damp cheek.  

“Do you think of me, beautiful? When you touch yourself?” 

A shy simper crept onto her face. 

“Sometimes…” she answered absentmindedly, nearly drifting away, but then a chilling liquid seeped through her bones, and her lungs lurched. Eyes wide open and glossy with panic, she looked around to find the man who spoke to her.

But there was no one in the room, no one other than herself. 

The existence of the supernatural plagued her mind as the days grew thick with bizarre occurrences. First, it was the creaks and squeaks of phantom steps on the old wooden boards, then the whispers: soft, dainty like feathers in the wind. And each night, when she laid in bed, she could have sworn a shadowy figure loomed by the door. 

Sitting on the cot, surrounded by books of the occult and elaborated notes, she scoured the web for ghost sightings and haunted houses, trying to find any resemblance to the experiences she experienced. The information ranged from stories that crawled beneath her flesh to such ‘bullshit’ her eyes rolled to the back of her skull. 

“This is stupid,” she intoned with a frustrated sigh and shook her head. She reminded herself that she was a reasonable woman, that these wild ideas of being haunted by ghosts were nothing more but a by-product induced by solitude. Huffing with the relief brought by the stroke of rationality, she began collecting the books and notes in a pile and shoved them into the nightstand. 

Paranoia had her running in the labyrinth of her own mind, attempting to make logic out of something that had no roots in the ground of reality. So unbearably exhausted, she collapsed onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling with heavy lids. A blink and two and then another, and the tentacles of sleep pulled her under.   

Mike eyed the sleeping beauty sprawled on the bed. Even in her worn, oversized t-shirt, she was a deity. An iridescent aura encircled her slumbering form, a thing that only a man who dwelled between two worlds could discern. Divine and warm, her chest rose and sank with the omen of a menstruating heart. A hint of celestial blue and delicate lace peeked between her thighs and the same blessing that made his touch solid had also fortified his sense of smell.

One profuse intake of air and her scent pervaded the depth of his soul—a most pleasant aroma: fresh and wispy, resembling pale winter-flowers blooming in the rain. 

Death could no longer keep them apart—tonight, under the cracked ceiling, amongst the enchanted walls of the haunted Cherrywood residence, Mike vowed to make love to his dreamgirl for the first time.

He stood naked at the fore of the large bed. A beam of moonlight cascaded a pale penumbra over her resting figure like theatre lights, fixing the viewer’s eye on the main star sleeping deeply, awaiting the kiss of the charming prince. Spellbound, Mike never broke sight, the fear that she would whisk herself away made imminent. His touch seemed to be the only way to be sure she would remain ensnared in his grasp. His hands were tender moss hugging an ancient tree bark, becoming one out of love, out of desire to be a single entity. 

“I love you,” he whispered and kissed each leg above her knees. 

The eruption of stars besieged his cold lips, her flesh riddled with the electric flow of deceit that was life. A taste so sugary, so addictive, he immediately came to understand vampires. He kissed again, his mouth spectering her inner thighs. In his amorous damnation, he spoke her name.  

There was a voice in her head, the soft murmur of morning tides kissing the shore. Swept into a lascivious delirium, the corners of her lips twitched into a smile and Mike revelled as the scent of dew drifted from the guarded heat between her thighs. Praising her skin with winged kisses, he ascended further and reached a daring hand to tug her underwear and expose her mound.

Solitude never seemed so graceful, glistening-hot and gaping with a maw of anticipation to be filled by a man who could never fulfil any biological fancy her body may yearn for. And yet, he would be the ultimate spouse... 

“I will never leave,” Mike promised and laid a chaste kiss to her pillowy, succulent petals, “never let you out of my sight.” His vows led to a tongued exploration of her drenched crease. Slow and languid, he tasted the saccharine valley. And in her slumber, she squirmed and smiled further, emitting soft hums of satisfaction.

A mirthful stream of blood fell to her loins. Still laced in the silk ribbons of slumber, her body roused to the feast of his savouring suckles and the tidal change that streamed through her muscles further fueled Mike’s excitement. Zealously, he lapped the waves that rapidly stormed and crushed at the base of her core, her juices simmered with glee at the tip of his tongue the deeper he plunged. Even though her climax drew near, and he wanted nothing more than to undo her with a kiss, to experience her moment of complete bliss while tucked in the warmth of her cunt seemed more appropriate.

With one final lick, he lifted his head from her groin and climbed forward between her welcoming thighs, his wide waist pressing her open while he folded her knees to assure a smoother entry. It was paradoxical that his cock would stand so ardent to fill her as the purpose of copulation was life, yet love triumphed logic and hard and dripping lust. He was ready to fulfil every inch of her unwitted whims. 

Peering down one last time, Mike admired his woman the way he would worship a virgin, and in a way, she was pure, she never had death inside her before. 

But the tangible laws of life and death were soon to be undone. Who made those anyway?

Unable to hold back, Mike gripped his length tautly and breached into her defenceless cunt with a husky groan. 

Her mouth tore open with a cry of surprise, and her eyes first screwed with the awkward pang of forced entry before flaring open with shock. Above her, inside her, laid the same haunting beauty who visited her every night, the one with flaming blue orbs and a tussle of black locks. It was another dream—it had to be, one so real she could feel the weight of a man crushing her down and the undeniable pressure of penetration, first cold and then blazing hot and hard like a thick sword fresh from the forge. It split her in half and only stalled as he sheathed in the embrace of her choking walls. 

And though terrified, though shaken - she did not think of fighting him, nor did she want to wake up. The chains of fervour lulled her to surrender to the curious, mesmerising pulse of pleasure that shot through her tendons. The phantom of her fantasies, so handsome, so pallid, brushed his knuckles against her cheeks and whispered in a velvety timbre that made her heart exhilarate.

“Let me possess your body.”

Shrouded by the force of wanton, she nodded at his request and arched against the stranger. Her legs entangled his own, and she undulated her pelvis to further swallow his cock and squeeze him within her hollow. 

More. She wanted more.

Impassioned yet careful, Mike pulled himself almost entirely out, leaving only the heart-shaped head to stuff her gaping hole. Both of them gasped in ardour, holding their mouths open against one another, sharing one shuddering breath as the slow, tortuous drag of his cock amidst her walls left them in a rage that only the reclamation of her weeping slit by his manhood could undo.

Not willing to spare another second, Mike snapped his hips, plunging his cock into a whimsical harmony of juices and veils of wet livid flesh. Whatever thrummed in his veins was overrun by jolts of electricity. 

Inside her, he became alive. 

Earnestly, she bucked to meet his strokes, rolling her waist to claim him further to herself. Their rhythm was similar to silken drapes blowing in the wind, but as the vortex of rapture began to pull them deeper, they quickly became erratic and unhinged as the ocean itself.

And indeed, she felt as if she was drowning, although on solid ground. Currents of burning water gushed through her lungs and womb. The man of her dreams, who continually stuffed her, felt more true and real than any man she had before. 

“Oh god! Who are you?” she gaped at him with disbelief and reached her hands to his bare behind, forcing him to delve harder and deeper. 

“Fill me! Please!”

Mike graced her face with feverish kisses in response, inching toward her mouth with each spur of his groin. Complying to her demand, he impaled through her with the same envious zeal he felt toward the living, though this time it wasn’t hatred but his own lust for life that drove him into a frenzy. Pressing his arms to the sides of her head, he lifted his upper body and railed his sweet girl into the mattress, abandoning whatever remains of tenderness he had left. The old wooden pegs of the bed screeched beneath them, crumbling dust fell upon their naked bodies as the headboard slammed into the wall. 

Caged beneath him, she thrashed and cried out helplessly. The same cuffs of ecstasy crashed at her core like violent oceans splashing against the dock, each wave more vigorous and destructive as Mike slammed harder into her. Molten heat gushed and filled and drowned her womb until the pressure became too painful and unbearable to resist. Shutting her eyes, she shattered into millions of pieces, breaking like a crystal statue furiously crashing onto the floor. 

Utterly consumed by the way she held him, Mike smirked down upon his sweet girl and cradled her face, delving deeper in search of unloading the strain that took over him. The same decades of anger, yearning, and lust set loose in an instant. With a shuddering shout, he unleashed himself inside her burning womb, breaching into the heaven he was denied. A tingling stream ran through his bones, his muscles, his arteries, warming his blood. For a split second, his heart beat again. For a sliver of a second, blinding lights abruptly bathed his sight. Brighter than sunshower, it danced across the room before vanishing away. 

Mike had his fingers etched about her temples, his thumbs grazing the apples of her cheeks. The pale sea in his marine-blue orbs roared with astonishment, an abundance of emotions and reveries danced on the glassy surface. But his girl was already fading into unconsciousness, returning into the traitorous world of sleep that robbed her away from him.

A maw of anguish soon filled his tender heart, and a quiver parted his pillowy lips. But their separation was only temporary until another night would come, and he would unit the realm of the living with the realm of the dead again…

“Don’t worry, sweetcheeks,” Mike pressed a kiss on each of her eyelids. “I will never let you go.”

Never in her life did she wake into such excruciating exhaustion. Every cell in her body was wrapped in a burning flame and the bones of her limbs felt as if someone squeezed them in their grip. Groaning, she sat up and scanned the room as if looking for a presence, but alas, she was alone save for the dust and the mice who probably scampered through the hollow walls.

Her chest sunk into slight relief, and she threw the blanket away, ready to start her day when a pang shot through her core. 

Abruptly, she became aware to the stickiness that dribbled from her raw sex. 

“What?...” she shivered momentarily and reached her fingers to her mound. A glistening layer of sheen excrement coated her pads. 

It was just a dream, she convinced herself, an eerily, realistic dream. In her sleep, she must have thrashed and squirmed, which would of course, explain the strain in her muscle, while the wetness between her legs was merely her own arousal. Shaking her head at the onslaught of nonsense that assailed her musings, she climbed out of bed and grabbed her laptop, ready to begin the day.

The crispy aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the air while she placed some milk in the frother. Waiting for the milk to boil within the device, she opened her laptop to check her mail. For a shy moment, she stilled at her thoughts as the browser was open on a silly urban legends site, displaying different mystery houses. It was then when she recognised her own home in one of the photos. 

“Heh…” she huffed, only a tad impressed, though still curious and amused at the situation.

Not paying too much of a thought, she clicked the link and turned around to grab a large mug and fill it with coffee. Humming a soft tune, she turned back toward the monitor when a crippling frost took over her spine.  

The mug slipped from her fingers, shattering on the floor and splashing boiling coffee on her bare toes. 

Though in her distraught, she barely even felt the heat; too stunned as she faced the familiar blue flames, the curls of onyx black and the dimpled chin of the man who haunted her dreams and claimed her in her sleep.

His name was Mike.

Credit: Pretty dividers by @firefly-graphics​