2 comments/ 12180 views/ 0 favorites The Bucks Mansion By: YDB95 "You took him past the Bucks place on the way here, didn't you, Mike?" Tim asked between gulps of beer. "It ain't Halloween without that." "The Bucks place?" Jesse asked, looking back and forth between Mike -- his college buddy -- and Mike's old high school friends. "What's that, the local haunted mansion?" "Dammit, Tim! Don't give him any more big ideas!" Mike slammed his beer mug down on the table loud enough to be heard throughout the mostly-empty barroom. It was early afternoon, and though the bar was decked out in cheesy orange and black decorations and cotton strung out to look like spiderwebs, only a few early revelers had begun the holiday festivities. Most of the other adults, Mike figured, were busy supervising the trick-or-treating kids they'd seen everywhere on the walk over. "Chill out, man," said Christian, Mike's other old friend, who had in fact mellowed out a lot since high school now that he had a steady job at some insurance office downtown. "He's just enjoying his first real Halloween, isn't that right, Jesse? It ain't like you do it out in the suburbs, is it?" "Sure isn't," Jesse said, once again casting a ridiculous -- Mike thought -- wide-eyed glance around the seedy bar where his friends were enjoying their first legal drinks together, having all turned twenty-one that spring and summer. "Anyway, the Bucks place, is that the local haunted mansion or something?" "Jesse!" Mike snapped. "Yeah," Tim said. "That's exactly what it is. And you don't want to get too close on this day of all times. People always have to go poke around in there just to say they were in the spookiest place in town on Halloween, and they come out all fucked up, seriously, talking about heaven and paradise and how they've got to get back in there, only you can't just go back in, they say. God only knows what happened to them, they can never really explain it. That's if they come out at all. Every now and then somebody doesn't." Mike tried a new tactic now. "Dude, you don't believe that crap, do you?" "Your own mother does, Mike, remember?" Christian piped up. "She does?" Jesse was more interested than ever now. "Yeah," Christian said. "You see, Mike had --" "That's enough!" Mike snapped. "You know I don't talk about that on Halloween, man!" "Dude, we're your friends," Christian said, his inhibitions lowered by the beer. "Nah, he's right," Tim said. "We never go there, especially not on Halloween. Sorry, Mike." Mike sighed and nodded his thanks, and wished he could make use of the holiday's supposed magic and make himself and Jesse disappear. It was his and Jesse's senior year in college, and fall break was late that year so it overlapped with Halloween. In years to follow, Mike would never be able to recall just why the holiday had been late, though he would remember nearly every other moment of the several days he'd spent back in his hometown with Jesse. By that afternoon several days into the visit, Mike knew inviting Jesse home with him was a mistake. Jesse was his best friend at their elite, exclusive college; but like most of their classmates, he was from a much ritzier background than Mike was. Mike had never actually seen where Jesse had grown up, but he gathered it must have been awfully deep in the leafy green suburbs. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and Jesse was anything but a snob. No, Jesse's problem was the exact opposite of snobbery. He romanticized the relative poverty he saw everywhere in Mike's working class hometown. "Man, just like in a Springsteen song!" he'd said, again and again, through those first few days. "This is something else!" "Not if you had to grow up seeing it every day it isn't," Mike replied, a bit less patiently every time. "Man, it's just...poetic!" "Poetic?" "I can't explain," Jesse said. "You either get it or you don't, I guess." "My thoughts exactly," Mike had finally said out loud the night before. Poetic. That had been the last straw, and in that moment Mike had made a decision. He had already accepted an invitation from Tim and Christian to meet at Kelly's Pub, just over on the wrong side of the tracks, for some beers on the big afternoon. "Our first legal drinks together with my oldest friends," Mike had explained to Jesse. "You're going to love Tim and Christian, and they'll probably bring a girl or two along as well." Jesse had eagerly agreed, naturally, no doubt imagining some sordid fling with a girl from the slums or something. But there was one thing Mike had not shared with him. Though Kelly's was in a rough neighborhood, there was a circuitous route through downtown by which they could get there fairly safely from Mike's house. But Mike would not be bringing Jesse via that route. He would take the direct route, straight down Hall Street, through some of the worst slums of their city, and see if Jesse liked it so much getting a close-up look of what he was so quick to romanticize. Naturally, and much to Mike's frustration, he had loved it. All the way down to the bar just after noon, he had ogled the weatherbeaten storefronts and run down houses. "So earthy and real, man," he'd pronounced it all. "I'm warning you, don't say things like that in front of Christian and Tim," Mike had told him. "They're not like us, they haven't been to college, and they still have to live with this shit every day. They're not going to like your attitude at all, man." "Understood," Jesse said. "I'll keep it on the down low." "On the down low?!" Mike snapped. "You're going to get us mugged or worse." Miraculously, he hadn't. Even more surprisingly, Jesse had hit it off fine with Tim and Christian, although the promised girls had not appeared. Through their hour and a half and the accompanying legal pints, Jesse had been remarkably well behaved. He and Mike had to cut off fairly early in the game, as they had agreed to chaperone Mike's brother's Halloween party that evening. "We don't want to be wasted for that," Mike had explained. "Yeah, your mom wouldn't be too happy," Tim had agreed. He had matured more than Mike had expected as well. But if there was one topic Mike did not want to broach, it was the Bucks mansion. An irresistibly dangerous novelty this time of year for most locals, a source of real pain and horrible memories for a few including Mike's family, it was not something he cared to explain to a starry-eyed romantic like Jesse. But now the secret was out. Leave it to Tim to spill the beans on that of all things, just when they were about to make their escape! Mike was livid, but at least Tim had made it clear the place really was dangerous. Surely even Jesse would know to draw the line there. Mike tapped at his watch and stood up. "Time to go, guys," he said. "Sorry." Jesse shook hands with Tim and Christian and said it was nice meeting them, and soon they were back out in the hazy October sunlight. "Feels so strange to be leaving a bar in daylight," Mike said. "I know, man," Jesse agreed. "Say, are we going to pass that Bucks place on the walk home?" "Christ, not that!" As they were a bit tipsy now, Mike had already given serious thought to taking the safe walk home, and Jesse's curiosity about the Bucks mansion sealed it -- they would indeed have to walk right past it, and Mike did not want that. But Jesse wouldn't hear of it. "I want to drink in more of the ambiance," he insisted, starting up Hall Street. "And I've just got to see that mansion they were talking about." Mike was frustrated, but he gave in. As it was still broad daylight and there were children out trick or treating, even this neighborhood was fairly safe, he concluded. As long as he could keep Jesse away from that house. And safe it was for the time being. Children everywhere, dressed up as witches and ghosts and angels and all sorts of creatures, delighted with their wares and dragging tired but happy looking parents and older siblings up and down Hall Street, where a few of the old houses even had some jack-o-lanterns and other decorations on display. It could be worse, Mike admitted silently as Jesse prattled on about how magical he found the working-class charm he saw everywhere. "Nothing back home with this much character!" he gushed. "This is so real!" "Too real," Mike agreed. "You have no idea." "Yeah, I probably don't, man," Jesse admitted. "That's why I want to drink it all in now." Mike gave up. Jesse would get over it sooner or later, or he'd see some shit go down and get over his romanticism just as quickly as Mike had back in junior high when he'd seen a kid get busted for drugs for the first time. He walked on in silence, no longer protesting Jesse's constant fascination with everything, until they came to the block where the old Bucks place sat decaying. Please, God, don't let him get any more fascinated with that! Mike thought to himself as they came up on the abandoned-looking mansion he had learned to hate all those years ago. Maybe if he didn't make a big deal of it to Jesse, they could get past it without incident. With that thought in mind, he didn't even point out the place to his friend. His prayers were of no avail. "Wow!" Jesse exclaimed, drinking in the once-magnificent house that now stood tumbledown before them, hints of pink paint streaked among the weatherbeaten gray shingles. "This must be the place! I can see why people get scared of it." While Mike was still groping for a suitable response, Jesse made an important discovery that renewed Mike's hope a bit. "Hey, none of the kids are going anywhere near there. Is it abandoned? No way that stuff Tim was saying is true, is it, about people disappearing in there?" "No one knows for sure," Mike managed to say in an even tone. "I mean, yeah, Tim was blowing smoke..." A lie, but Mike felt it necessary. "Everyone knows to stay the hell away from there either way, though, because something really horrible happened there once upon a time, long before we were born. I don't know what and I don't want to know. And neither do you, Jesse, seriously!" He could tell Jesse about his cousin -- that surely would knock some sense into Jesse -- and he nearly did. But that was a topic Mike found it physically painful to talk about, and the words wouldn't form. Not in time anyway. "What, you believe in ghosts?" Jesse asked incredulously. "All this stuff about how dangerous this neighborhood is and you're worried about a haunted house? On Halloween, even." "You don't want anything to do with that place, Jesse." Mike grabbed his friend's arm and tried to hold on to it. "No, man, you don't want anything to do with that place!" Jesse wriggled out of his friend's grasp. "Me, I at least want to sneak a peek in the window." He started up the crumbling steps. "Jesse! No!" Mike yelled it loud enough for the trick-or-treaters to take notice, and several of them then saw where Jesse was going and gasped in fright. "You're crazy, man!" Mike warned, and a few of the kids out in the street echoed his sentiments. But Mike did not start up the steps after his friend -- no use in endangering himself on top of everything else; and he knew better than most how hazardous the place could be. "It's okay, you can be the head pallbearer at my funeral," Jesse cracked as he strode fearlessly up to the solid oak door. Seeing nothing in the windows because the curtains were drawn, he rang the doorbell and was rewarded with a deep, loud gong from far within the big house. "I'm going for help!" Mike called out. It was the last thing Jesse heard as the heavy door swung open and he felt a pull to walk in. He did not look back to see the numerous children staring at him from the street in fascinated horror. Eagerly anticipating a horror show of dusty, broken furniture and maybe even a dead animal or two, Jesse was instead rewarded with a brightly lit, stylishly decorated living room full of well-kept retro furniture. A huge wood-framed television set like he recalled from his grandparents' house stood just before the picture window, beyond which he saw a serene sunlit meadow rather than Hall Street, a console record player sat majestically beside it, and the walls on the other side of the room were lined with well-stocked bookcases. Jesse, a bookworm beneath his devil-may-care exterior, was as delighted as he was bewildered. The scene looked vaguely familiar to Jesse, but he couldn't quite place it. It reminded him of something he'd seen in a photograph -- not a terribly old one, but something from at least a few years before he was born. Then suddenly he placed it. A photograph of the living room of his mother's house from her childhood. Jesse had seen it in a photo album somewhere and the bright, sunny view and quaint looking furniture had been love at first sight. In his days of teenage angst when he wanted to be anywhere but he was, Jesse had often found himself gazing at the picture -- snapped on some nondescript long-ago afternoon, for reasons he had never determined -- and wishing he could climb inside somehow. "It's Grandma's place," he whispered reverently to himself. "Well, I'm nobody's grandmother, but welcome," came a woman's voice from the far end of the room. Jesse looked up in shock. There she stood, tall and well-fed but not fat, swathed in a vivid floral print sundress, her long brown hair falling neatly down her shoulders and back. "I'm sorry!" he said. "The door opened, and..." "The door opened because I opened it," the woman explained. "I have this handy remote control for that." She held up the device. "And don't be sorry. I haven't had a visitor in far too long. But this is the time of year when they're most likely to turn up, so I was hoping you would drop by." "Hoping I would drop by?" Jesse asked. "But you don't even know me!" "No, but I know you're brave to come here, and you have a love of learning just like I do, I can tell from the way you admired my books. You also share some of the same yearnings I do for some idyllic place and time. That's why my living room reminds you of your grandmother's, whoever she is." She toned down her smile in a shy fashion. "And from what I see, I'd like to get to know you." She walked gracefully out into the room and extended her hand. "I'm Penny," she said. "I'm Jesse," he said, his fear somewhat tempered by her beauty and grace. Though he was now painfully aware of Mike's numerous warnings, he found himself compelled to stay. He shook her hand, and it was warm and firm to the touch. Penny, he now saw, was slightly taller and heavier than he was, and despite her gentle feminine appearance he felt a bit more intimidated as he drank in the scene. Intimidated, but also tremendously attracted to her big, beautiful, vivacious presence. Their introductory moment over, he looked out the window again. "How..." he began to ask, but the words wouldn't come. "All will be revealed in good time," Penny assured him. "All you need to know now is, you're safe. I can just imagine what you've heard about my house, but you're safe here with me, I assure you." "Well, that's good," Jesse said. "But, I mean...what's the story? For that matter, who are you? I know you're Penny, but who are you?" "I'm a woman who loves a book and a glass of wine and a beautiful day," she said. "Nothing diabolical, just that I have a few talents you weren't expecting." "I'll say I wasn't." Penny laughed. "I was just going to settle down for an afternoon in the backyard. Care to join me? You won't need that heavy coat, though." "It's pretty cold out there," Jesse protested. "Only where you came from," Penny said. "Come on, I'll show you." She took his hand and led him out into the back hallway, down a well-kept stairwell to a finished basement where a king-sized bed with a red canopy sat majestically at one end of the room. More laden bookcases stood guard on each side of the bed. "My bedroom," she explained, pointing him towards the sliding door across from the bottom of the stairs. "I like being close to the backyard. The upstairs gets so lonely, but here it's more like a peaceful solitude than loneliness." A beautiful garden beckoned just beyond the door, alive with flowers of every hue. As Penny slid the door open and stepped out on the patio, a warm fragrant breeze greeted Jesse. It also blew Penny's dress enticingly around her bare legs as she turned and smiled a welcome into the garden. "Heavenly," Jesse said, more confused than ever. "You're getting warmer," Penny said. "The weather got a lot warmer all of a sudden," Jesse said, having missed her point in his foggy amazement. "Oh, it didn't just get warmer. I've been on a summer kick for a few weeks now," Penny explained. "Goes well with the novel I've been reading." "You control the weather, do you?" Jesse said. Absurd as it sounded, it made as much sense as anything he could think of. "In here, I do," Penny said. "That's the way it works in my situation." She did not elaborate, as though expecting Jesse to understand perfectly. He was silent, so she went on. "To tell you the truth, I'm always in a summer mood when Halloween comes around. Such a creepy time, and when you've been through the things I went through, you don't want to celebrate that sort of thing. I'd rather celebrate summer. The peak of life and all that." "The things you went through?" Jesse asked. Penny looked uncomfortable for the first time since he'd seen her. "You're not from here, are you?" she asked, a slightly wary tone in her voice now. "No," Jesse confirmed. "I'm just visiting a friend from college." "I see." Penny looked slightly relieved now, but her smile had not returned. "College. I enjoyed that for the brief time I was there before...well, Jesse, let's talk." She stepped back inside the room, leaving the sliding door open, and sat demurely on the bed, spreading her skirt out enticingly on both sides. "You've probably heard my house was dangerous." "Yes," Jesse said. "Well, I can assure you it's not dangerous for you. You're free to leave anytime you want, Jesse. I can tell from your aura that it's not your time yet, unless you want it to be, and that would not be wise of you. Take it from one who knows, life is not a gift to be given up." "My aura? Giving up life?" Jesse was once again getting scared, though he was still mesmerized by Penny's gentle beauty. "When you go back out in the world -- not if, but when, Jesse, for we both know you must -- I have no doubt you will hear a great deal about me," Penny said. "I can only urge you to recall what you have actually seen and heard here, and what I told you: I am a woman who loves a book and a glass of wine and a beautiful day. I'm not a witch or a monster, Jesse. What I am, is lonely, and I would love some company for now. I know you can't stay indefinitely for now, but I'd like very much for you to stay a while and get to know me before you go back out in the cold." "Just what am I going to hear about you when I do?" "I don't know exactly what they will tell you, or what they believe about my family and me," Penny said. "I'm not going to tell you. There are things you must learn on your own, and for me to tell you anything just now would only scare you. I will tell you this: you've come into my home and seen me, so please remember the truth no matter what you hear." She stood up and sauntered to the bookcase between her bed and the door to the garden. "I don't know how long we have," she said. "My last visitor was here for less than an hour before the...before he had to leave. But he was spooked anyway, and I think he just wanted to jump in bed with me." "Jump in bed with you..." Jesse repeated. "When you'd just met?" "Thank you, Jesse!" Penny said with a grin just before turning her attention to her books. "There is a time and place for that, and it had not arrived just then. But it would have." Shamelessly she took both her breasts in her hands and rubbed them playfully. "I assure you, it would have." The Bucks Mansion "I'm glad to hear that," Jesse let slip, then burst into nervous laughter. "I'm sorry!" he said. "That was inappropriate!" "No, Jesse, it was very funny!" Penny reassured him. "And if you do have the time and the patience, our time for that may well come. As I told you, I do get lonely in here on my own with so few visitors, and a nice young man like yourself is rarer still. I've waited a long, long time for a mate, though I'm confident it is written down somewhere that one day I will have one to share my home and my garden and, yes, my body." Seeing Jesse growing tense and clearly aroused at her words, Penny allowed a nervous laugh of her own. "Jesse, I believe my world is only open to those who are on the same wavelength as me. Mother and Father always told me I lived in my own little bubble, nothing like my sister who was always so concerned with everybody else's business -- most of all mine -- and since I ended up here I've had all the time in the world to create my own corner of heaven. If you're here, you must have seen the same glimpse into heaven that I did." Jesse was now thinking afresh of the tales from the bar. Just what had he stumbled into? And was it dangerous? It didn't look that way from Penny's beautiful bedroom and the colorful growing garden just beyond. He was feeling as much drawn to the wonderful landscape as he was to Penny. "Would you like to take a stroll outside?" Penny invited. "I feel like I could spend all day out there," Jesse replied. Stepping to the door, he asked, "May I?" "I've said you may, haven't I?" Penny asked. She hooked her arm through his, a strong but gentle hold, and they emerged into the warm sunshine. A stone path lined with flowers on either side led deep into a clutch of robust trees and bushes, and wordlessly Jesse admired the incongruous summer foliage as they walked. He craned his neck to see where the property ended and what might be visible of the chilly weather he'd left just outside Penny's front door; but there was no sign of a boundary. No fence, no driveway, and certainly no sign of the busted down houses of Hall Street. "You can't see next door from here," Penny told him, having easily deduced what he was looking for. "It's our world, or at least mine and maybe yours as well one day." "How is that possible?" Jesse asked. "How is any of this possible? October out there, June over here, ugly out there, beautiful in here -- what gives?" He asked it, then realized he didn't necessarily want to know...what if understanding it would burst the bubble and cause him to waken from his dream? "In fifty-five years of decorating one's own purgatory, Jesse, nearly anything is possible." "Purgatory?!" "It may look like heaven to you," Penny said, "But you haven't had to spend fifty-five years alone in here." "You can't be fifty-five!" Jesse exclaimed. They had come to a clearing beyond the trees, and a beautiful pond lay before them. Jesse stopped to admire it and try to guess what Penny was really saying. "I'm not," Penny said, now with a twinge of sadness in her lively voice. "I'm twenty-one, but I've been twenty-one for fifty-five years." "What?!" Jesse paused. "I take it this is part of what you're not going to tell me because I need to learn it myself." "You'll be better off if you do," Penny agreed. "Then if you're still willing and able to come back here, we'll know you're right for my world and we'll be free." "Free?" Jesse asked. "You can create anything you want out here, any kind of weather, and you don't feel free?" "I've told you I'm stranded here alone, haven't I?" Penny reminded him. "And although I can create my own wonderland here in my back yard, there is a limit to just how far I can go in my imagination and the landscape it creates." She kicked off her sandals and stepped up to the edge of the pond, and dipped one foot in the water. It was warm and clear and the ripples made a lovely pattern. "I've always envisioned teaching my children to swim here," she said. "It looks like just the sort of place I'd have loved to ride my bike to and then gone for a dip," Jesse said. "Maybe even the kind of place you'd try to talk a girl into skinnydipping." "You wouldn't have to talk me into it," Penny said. "That sounds wonderful." "But the time isn't right," Jesse guessed. "When I've allowed myself to get that close to a visitor before, that's what I've always discovered," Penny confirmed. Jesse looked up above the trees beyond the clearing. "What's over there?" he asked. "Or is that beyond your limits?" "Depends on what I'm reading," Penny said. "What you're reading?" "I can go beyond the trees in my imagination," she said. "For a while. I just can't stay, not until I'm freed. When I am, then I'll be free to travel the world, with whomever I want to join me." She slipped her hand into Jesse's as she said it. "But for now, we can only visit." Jesse knew by then not to ask for clarification. Besides, it all made some sense to him anyway. "I feel that way too sometimes when I read. I'll be working on some old French novel for class, and imagine I'm in Paris, but as soon as I close the book I'm back in my little dorm room. It's frustrating, isn't it?" "Yes," Penny nodded, "But it's a gift that we've both got, if we're able to imagine ourselves into the places we want to go. And in life, that's only the beginning." Penny held Jesse's hand tighter, and gazed serenely into his eyes. He saw intense longing in her eyes and was sure it was reflected in his own, and he ached to hold her. But somehow he knew she would only say the time wasn't right -- or worse, she would disappear. Jesse would not risk that. Not now. "How would you like to join me for a journey now?" Penny asked. "Anything to stay together," Jesse replied with a nervous grin. "My thoughts exactly." Still holding his hand, Penny started back for the house. "Now, what would you like to read?" she asked in an almost businesslike tone. "Would you rather have autumn out there, since that's what you're used to?" "You can really just change it," Jesse said incredulously. Penny turned and faced him, hands on her hips, and all at once the summer scene outdoors vanished in favor of a mosaic of flaming leaves on the trees. She slid the door shut against a brisk chill that only just reached Jesse, and her dress was now a warm-looking dark green one. "Beautiful," Jesse admitted. "Me or the garden?" Penny teased. "Both," Jesse said. Looking around the room, he now saw that the decorations had changed as well, to a more autumn-oriented look. The bed and chairs were swathed in darker colors, and suddenly there was a brisk fire in the fireplace he hadn't even noticed before. "Want a drink?" Penny asked. "I have warm apple cider waiting over by the fire." Jesse looked, and sure enough, there were two steaming mugs on a small table next to the fireplace, which was now hosting a roaring fire that hadn't been present a moment before. Penny walked past him to the table and picked one up to hand to him. "Thank you," he said. "This...is beautiful, both the summer and all this. How do you do it?" He couldn't believe the absurdity of the question, but neither could he deny his curiosity. "I've told you everything will be revealed, Jesse." "And in the meantime you've got me more confused than ever," Jesse confessed, though he was now comfortable enough to sit down on the sofa beside the fireplace. Penny sat down as well and snuggled up beside him. "For now, let's just enjoy the time we have together. As I've said, I fear it's not your time yet. But I hope one day it shall be." She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, and Jesse gave up his defenses, for her touch was warm and welcoming. From the floor beside the sofa, she picked up a Patrick O'Brian paperback. "Do you like adventure?" she asked. "I love to go to sea myself now and then, probably because girls weren't supposed to think like that when I was a kid." "I love adventure," Jesse confessed. "Growing up in a dull suburb, it was a great way to make a slow day go by." "Don't I know it!" Penny concurred. She opened the book and began to read, and soon Jesse found the bedroom and the view of the garden fading away in favor of with the HMS Surprise being tossed on some distant sea, with Penny and himself aboard and experiencing all the joys and sorrows of the crew. The scene did snap back to the bucolic clutch of trees outside and the warm bedroom inside whenever Penny set the book down on her knee to talk of other matters, but Jesse had no complaint. By then it all felt like one wonderful fantasy to him, and he could only hope that wasn't all it was. Hours passed, or so it seemed to Jesse, and when their interest in the novel faded they were left with nothing to do but talk. And talk they did, about nearly everything except just who Penny was and where her bizarre lifestyle and powers had originated. Jesse didn't dare ask; and recalling Mike's warnings, he wasn't sure he even wanted to know. As the time passed, Jesse noticed that Mike and all his other ties to the outside world seemed to be fading as quickly as a dream at morning. Penny was magnificent, perched humbly at his side on the sofa with her arm around his back. She wanted to know all about Jesse's life, good and bad, and she was sympathetic to both. However much time may have passed, the conversation never hit a lull. They were still lost in deep conversation when the doorbell gong echoed from upstairs. Jesse was jerked back into reality. Penny remained calm, but Jesse was sure he saw a bit of concern in her eyes as they made contact with his. "Mike," Jesse said under his breath. "He said something about going to get help. "You don't have to go just because of that," Penny said. "You can stay as long as you want, as long as your imagination is open to it. Honest, Jesse, if you put your mind to it you can keep those thoughts at bay! Believe me, I know." "Oh, I want to," Jesse said. "But..." Penny could see his resolve was wavering. Suppressing her concern beneath a smile, she stood up before him. She knew there was at least one surefire way to keep his attention focused on her rather than the invasion upstairs. "How'd you like to go for a swim?" "In this cold weather?" "Very funny, silly," she said, and the scene outside instantly snapped back to summer. In the silence of the moment while he regarded the garden door, he heard footsteps approaching their lair. In a panic, he turned to see Penny in the midst of doing the one thing that was guaranteed to make his attention to her overcome the encroaching reality: taking her dress off. A gentleman even in the midst of his panic, Jesse turned his head aside. "Oh, Penny, I'm sorry. I can leave the room while you change." "Oh, I don't mind," Penny said with a faux-innocence as she pulled the dress over her head. "Life's too short to hide in one's clothes all the time. I learned that a long, long time ago." She stood before Jesse in her underwear and smiled at him, even as she could see he was struggling to avoid looking at her. The footsteps outside the door were getting louder and they could both hear the noise, but Penny wasn't giving up. She took his hand and he stood up, and finally gave into the temptation to admire her body. As he did, the noise from outside receded for the moment. "They're fading away," he said. "Of course they are," Penny said. "As long as you're happy here, what's going on outside doesn't matter." "And I am happy here," Jesse admitted, longing to help Penny off with the last of her clothes although she looked wonderfully elegant in the matching pale green bra and panties. Penny laughed and put her arms around him. "Of course you are, Jesse, and so am I." Drawing back, she saw his eyes once again revert downward. She drew both his hands up in hers and placed them on her breasts. "Don't be shy!" she ordered. "I've longed for this touch for ages, and I hardly would have undressed in front of you if I hadn't wanted you to join me for a bit of fun." Jesse's inexperienced hands fumbled a bit with her satin-clad flesh, but he soon found just the right caress and amount of pressure for them both to enjoy. "You are a fast learner, Jesse," she said. "That feels wonderful." For both of them, the noises from upstairs had receded back to nothing now. Feeling emboldened, she reached down and untucked his shirt from his pants. "Now let's get you off with your clothes too and then we can enjoy a swim." "Certainly!" Jesse said eagerly, and he began to pull his sweater off. But as he drew it over his head and Penny was temporarily out of his sight, his concentration slipped and he was excruciatingly aware of the door bursting open. "There he is, guys, c'mon!" came an unfamiliar male voice. "What the hell..." Jesse began, looking around toward the source of the voice as he pulled his sweater the rest of the way off. As he did, he saw three policemen walking gingerly but quickly towards him across the floor, which he suddenly realized was no longer carpeted but strewn with dusty refuse. Instinctively he threw his sweater over Penny to provide her with some modesty against the new audience, only to whip around and realize she was gone along with all the other wonderful elements of her room. He was in a ruined, unfinished basement and the tiny window across the room afforded only a view of a bleak, overgrown backyard. The warm dryness offered by the fire was now a perverse memory, and in his t-shirt Jesse found himself shivering in a cold sweat. As for his sweater, it was now draped over a dresser dummy. "I don't think that thing minds if we see it naked," teased the lead cop as he grabbed Jesse by the arm. "Come on, you're trespassing and I want to get the fuck out of here!" Jesse had no clue how much time might have passed, but as he was escorted outside to the waiting police car, he found it was still broad daylight and there were still kids out and about in their costumes. Had time stood still for all those hours? He had little time to wonder, for he soon found himself stuffed in the backseat of the cruiser and racing to the police station. He was brought straight to a spare, miserable waiting room where Mike was waiting for him. "You moron," Mike said in lieu of a hello. "I told you not to go in there." Jesse was silent, still processing the awful awareness of all the beauty he had enjoyed and then lost just as quickly. "What have you got to say for yourself, man?" Mike snapped. "I bring you home and have my parents put you up, introduce you to my friends, put up with your warbling about how wonderful a shitty neighborhood is, and you repay me by scaring the hell out of me and getting arrested?!" "She held me." "What?" Mike demanded. "Not for long, but she did. Just before the cops busted in, she held me in her arms. Mostly naked, too, and I'm sure she was going to take the rest off. So was I. we were going to go skinnydipping in her private pond." "Oh fuck, not you too?" Mike was more frightened than angry now, though he sounded more the latter. "I wouldn't bother trying to make sense of it, Mike," said a young cop who had appeared in the door. Still feeling woozy from the adventure, Jesse only looked dully up at him. "Same thing happened with your cousin when he went in that house. You're probably too young to remember that, but..." "Don't be a moron, of course I remember it!" Mike said. "That's why I flew over here for help! Jesse, this is Officer Preston -- Jimmy Preston, he was a few years ahead of me in school -- and he knows what happens when you go messing around in the old Bucks mansion." "The place is haunted," Jimmy told Jesse. "I guess you see that now, but you probably don't know how lucky you are that we got you out as quickly as we did." "Lucky?!" Jesse snapped, standing up and shoving the chair away. "I was in heaven, and you snatched it all away from me!" "No, we got you out before you could get totally brainwashed by whatever's in there!" Jimmy insisted. "Didn't you hear Mike? I'm surprised he didn't tell you, actually. His cousin, about ten years ago, he wandered in there on Halloween just like you, he just had to visit the spookiest place in town, and his friends were too scared to report him. He was in there for a day or more, and when he came out he was just like you, only worse. Constantly moaning about how he had to go back there and life could never be the same now that he'd had so much joy in that hellhole! And you know what? He tried to go back in, the fool. Again and again. His folks finally had to move him out of town and as far as I know, he's never been the same. Never. You want that for yourself?" "No," Jesse whispered. "I just want to be with Penny again." Jimmy grabbed Jesse by the shirt and looked him in the eye. "Don't you ever say that name in public in this town! That's taboo! You got that? Nobody ever talks about her. Especially not when Mike's around, since we know what that thing did to his cousin! Do I make myself clear?" Jesse started to cry, but managed an answer. "Yes, officer." "People never even name their daughters that here, that's how dangerous that name is! Understood?" "I said I did!" Jesse howled, now crying uncontrollably. Jimmy threw him back down in his seat. "Now, the only reason why we're not pressing charges, is no one wants to have to go back there to take a statement from Lydia Bucks. No one ever goes near that old hag if we can help it, and she won't come out and complain now that we got you out of her house. But if you try to go back there, the gloves come off. You got that?" "Yeah," Jesse whimpered, clinging desperately to images of Penny and barely stopping to wonder who Lydia was. "Mike, get him out of here, please," Jimmy said. "Happy Halloween." And he banged out the door. There was a taxi waiting by the time Mike coaxed Jesse out into the lobby, still looking haunted and not appearing to care that he'd nearly been arrested. The first few minutes of the ride were passed in stony silence, as Jesse slowly adjusted to the chilly reality of the October afternoon. Finally, he spoke up. "Mike, what is it --" "Man, shut up!" Mike snapped. "You think I'm in the mood to talk?" "I have to know!" Jesse shot back. "What is it about she who must not be named anyway? And who is this Lydia Bucks?" "Okay, fine," Mike relented. "Lydia Bucks was -- is, I guess -- the last member of the Bucks family to live in that house. She was an old hermit, never came out in daylight, and really I thought she was dead by now. The other woman, I don't know, related to Lydia somehow, and something horrible happened to her a long, long time ago. My mother was just a little kid when it happened, whatever it was, and she still won't talk about it. That's why no one ever goes near that house. It's fucked up. I tried to warn you!" "Something horrible may have happened to her, but she's fine now," Jesse said sadly. "Stop thinking about it, you'll probably be fine in a few days," Mike advised. "That's what the cops always tell the latest stupid kid who stumbles into that place. I just never imagined it'd be you, Jesse." "But you should've seen..." "Stop it!" Mike snapped. "That's also what the cops told my cousin, and he wouldn't listen, and now he's messed up for life! Let's go get ready for the party, and then I never want to hear you mention this again! Just shut up about it!" And for the time being, Jesse did. He knew when he was outgunned. Jesse was still feeling woozy and disoriented when they got back to Mike's house, which was decked out for the party with paper spiders and bats and pumpkins everywhere. Mike's brother, Joe, was busy taping up a few more black and orange streamers when they came in. "Hey guys," he said with a quick look at Mike and Jesse...and then did a prompt double take. "Jesse!" he exclaimed. "You look like you've been hit by a train! Mike, you didn't let him get drunk or anything, did you?" The Bucks Mansion "Course not, man," Mike said. "You know I wouldn't do that for your party. No, Jesse here stumbled into the Bucks mansion." "Mike! How the hell could you let that happen to your guest?" Joe was dumbfounded. "Can't always save people from themselves, Joe," Mike said. "Haven't you ever heard Dad say that?" "Yeah, yeah, and I don't need to hear it from you, man," Joe grumbled. "Jesse, I think you ought to get some sleep before the party. And do me a favor, don't tell any of my friends you were in that place. Half of them are gonna want to hear all about it, and everyone's parents'll be furious with our whole family." "He's right, Jesse," Mike added. "I told you, it's seriously taboo, especially in our family. Whatever you think you saw in that place, forget it. Or at least pretend you forgot it." "Tell me one thing," Jesse said, collapsing on the couch. "Why does everybody want to forget something that beautiful?" "Beautiful?" Joe snapped. "Hasn't Mike told you --" "I've told him all he needs to know," Mike interrupted. "Jesse, he's right, you do look like shit and you do need some sleep. Go lie down, and then I don't want to hear another word about where you've been today. Seriously, man, just trust me on that." "Yeah, whatever," Jesse grumbled, and he heeded the order to go up to Mike's room and lie down -- not because he agreed with Mike but because he wanted to be alone with his memories of Penny while they were still fresh. As soon as he was off upstairs, Joe turned on Mike. "You didn't tell him about the sisters? How else is he gonna know how dangerous that place is?!" "I don't know about the sisters, any more than you do, Joe!" Mike replied. "You don't know what actually happened, do you? No one our age does! You know how Mom and her friends won't even talk about it!" "You still could've told him what we've heard! Some of it must be true!" "What, about an unsolved murder and living the afterlife in the cellar? And Lydia still being alive up there and keeping her sister in limbo by some crazy bond? You don't believe that shit, do you?" "Not all of it, but some of it must be true. Where there's smoke, there's fire, man." "I'm pretty sure Jesse knows that, whatever he saw," Mike said. "Didn't you hear what he said just now? About how beautiful it was?" "The cops got him out in time. He'll sleep it off. And don't worry, I yelled at him." Upstairs, Jesse had found his way into a restless sleep. But he was in no danger of forgetting Penny. All the pieces of the puzzle floated around in his mind -- fifty five years without aging, changing the weather at will, the comments about it not being his time yet...none of it made any more sense as the hours of dreaming went by. But Jesse didn't care about that. He cared about beautiful Penny and her equally beautiful surroundings and the sense that her home was just what he'd always envisioned the most for himself, a land of peace and contentment and joy and one wonderful woman to share it all with. Time and again, he tried to pick up where the reverie had left off, with him undressing for Penny. After he got his sweater off and kept the evil outsiders at bay this time, he saw her pushing his t-shirt off after it and grazing his chest playfully as he went back to doing with hers, and he saw Penny guiding his hands to her back now so he could remove her bra, gently and reverently, and he leaned down to kiss and caress her beautiful breasts while she undid his jeans and he soon found himself naked before her, and with a knowing smile she beckoned him back onto her bed. "A little fun before our swim, perhaps," she cooed. And she lay back enticingly and began to slide her panties off. Time and again he tried...but he failed. Every time Penny reached for her panties to remove them and reveal all to him, a noise burst their bubble and he found himself shivering in the dilapidated basement he'd seen so briefly before being carted off. Sometimes he was naked when the cops arrived. Every time, he somehow escaped and made his way back to Penny's sanctuary, and every time she was waiting for him, fully clothed once again but ready to talk or dance or frolic in the sunny backyard or just snuggle with him on the couch or even the bed. Sooner or later things would begin to get more intimate, and before long Jesse had all the outlines of her body -- every curve, every beauty mark -- memorized. But every time they came within an inch of making love, the moment was shattered. "Why?" he asked her finally. "Perhaps it's not our time," she replied with a sad smile. "I know all too well how these things go. Someone wonderful finds his way to me, only to be dragged back to the real world because it's not his time yet. It's not my time yet." "How can it not be your time after fifty-five years?" "My time was not fifty five years ago. I have no clue when it really should have been. My life was cut much too short," Penny said, her radiant disposition now giving way to an ashen longing gaze into Jesse's eyes. "And she who was responsible, still survives. As long as that remains the case, I fear I can never be truly free. I have literally had all the time in the world to imagine all that I wanted in life, and to create it right here. I can create a heavenly wonderland for myself and my special one, whomever he may be. But the hate that caused my demise is a powerful one indeed, and as long as it still lives and breathes, the true joy I long for can never be mine. And it cannot be yours either, should you be the one for me." "Then how do I know if I am?" "When at last my time arrives, Jesse, we both shall know. I don't know how, but we will." On that optimistic note, Penny appeared to cheer up again. She stood up and, with a bounce in her step, bounded around the room which was now decorated in warm colors against the winter outside. "Just imagine how lovely that will be, too! Home at last, and free to do as we like!" "I'm sure it will be worth the wait," Jesse said with a longing gaze at Penny in her latest winter dress, a lovely dark blue one. "How could it not be?" "How indeed," Penny agreed, standing at the foot of the bed. "How I long for that day, Jesse. To be together, and home!" The tension being palpable once again, Penny broke into a hungry grin and reached down to begin pulling her dress over her head. "Don't!" Jesse exclaimed. "You don't want me?!" Penny was shocked and saddened. "I do! More than you can imagine. But every time you undress, that's when I get called back to reality!" "If you are the one, then one of these times you won't be called back," Penny reassured him, and ignoring his continued warnings she lifted her skirt up around her hips. "Oh God, not again..." Jesse whimpered. But as usual he was too taken with her beauty to go on complaining once she had the dress off. "Fifty five years is a long time to be alone, my friend," Penny said, now pushing down her stockings one by one. "I want so to make love to you, it scarcely matters to me if it's but once for now." "But it won't even be the once!" Jesse warned. "You always disappear as soon as you're about to take off the last of your clothes!" "Perhaps it's only in your mind," Penny teased, now removing her bra once again. "Have you considered that the fantasy might go on in my case?" Jesse had to admit he hadn't thought of that. He made no further complaint as Penny hooked her fingers into her panties and pushed down, though he was not at all surprised that he got only the tiniest glimpse at the first wisps of her golden-brown pubic hair before yet another flashing light brought him crashing back into Jesse's dim room. "Suppertime, dear, if you're feeling up to it," came Mike's mother's voice. If I'm feeling up to it? Had Mike told her? Somehow Jesse knew he'd better not ask. He sat up and focused, and recalled what he could of the precious dream. She who was responsible still survives... What did that mean? As the warm smells of dinner and the sound of everyone clambering to the dining room table made their way upstairs, Jesse began, for the first time, to think perhaps Mike was right, and he should try to forget about Penny. Right. Focus on real life and not your silly dreams. Starting with dinner and then admiring the girls in their Halloween costumes, he told himself as he descended the stairs to the dining room. You can do it, he told himself halfheartedly. But even halfheartedly was optimistic by the time Mike's family was gathered around the table. Mike and Joe were abuzz with plans for the party, their kid sister Lexie was bubbling over with energy from the candy she'd collected that afternoon (remnants of face paint from her costume were still visible, and she was wonderfully indifferent to it), and their parents were looking all too content with the chaos. "There's Jesse!" their mother announced cheerfully as he arrived. "Mike told us you had a busy afternoon watching out for the trick or treaters downtown. Good for you! Glad you got some sleep too." So she didn't know. What a relief! "Um. Yeah!" Jesse said. "I just remember all the warnings about safety when I was a kid, and I figured anything we can do to help, you know." "Mike, you ought to invite more friends like him home," their father added from his end of the table. Mike and Joe exchanged knowing glances, but spared Jesse any dirty looks. They were a close family, Jesse had been aware of as much ever since the day he and Mike had arrived, and through the meal Jesse felt his own warm and fuzzy memories of the afternoon bubbling to the surface again. Every adorably precocious comment from Lexie, every pleasant rejoinder from Mom to any of the brood including Jesse, the sense of home and safe and warm -- even with a paper skeleton and a half-dozen spiders hanging from the chandelier at the ready for the party -- wore down his resistance to keep the memory of Penny at arm's length. He wanted that bond and that safety they'd shared, that he'd never felt anytime or anywhere before. That feeling of living in a safe place with those closest to you, even in a town like this -- Jesse wanted all that afresh. He had to get back to Penny. And he would. Lexie and her parents were off to a kids' party somewhere after dinner, so it was left to Jesse and the brothers to wash the dishes before the party started. Jesse knew, of course, that he was better off not broaching the matter of Penny or the Bucks mansion with Mike again. But he did feel it necessary to thank him for the cover story. "Helping with the trick-or-treaters, Mike, that was brilliant," he said as they carried the dishes out to the kitchen. "You've been through a lot today," Mike said. "You didn't need my parents getting all upset on top of that." Mike then answered Jesse's next question before he had a chance to ask it. "And yes, they would have been really upset. Remember what I said about my cousin. That's my mom's big brother's kid, and she still feels guilty she couldn't put a stop to it all somehow. If she knew her own kids couldn't even keep their friends safe? You don't want to go there, dude." Jesse mumbled another round of thanks and dropped the subject. Or at least let Mike think he had. Joe's friends started showing up not long after they'd loaded the dishwasher. By then Jesse was already planning on an escape route back to the Bucks place. But there was plenty of time and he did have a job to do first, so Jesse cooled his heels in his post by the stairs. His job was to keep the guests on the first floor -- "My mom would freak if she even suspected anybody was sneaking up to my room to mess around," Joe explained -- and the vantage point was perfect for Jesse to admire the girls in their many and varied costumes. Initially Jesse felt a bit perverted for admiring them, for three years in college made them look awfully young by comparison; but once the sugar and caffeine started flowing, their youthful shrieking and carrying on meant Jesse wasn't the least bit attracted to any of them anyway. Joe was, Jesse could see that, but he and his buddies kept them appropriately busy on the makeshift living room dancefloor. So Jesse was free to daydream of Penny and his triumphant return. And daydream he did, through an hour and a half of bad music and sugary snacks, from his safe perch on the stairs. Mike was tasked with keeping the music playing and the snacks replenished, so he was in and out of the living room throughout the night. Joe pitched in now and then, usually, Jesse noticed, as an excuse to jump from one clutch of girls to another. It didn't take long for Jesse to settle on his plan: just wait for Mike and Joe to both be out in the kitchen at the same time. No one else in the room even knew who he was, much less why he shouldn't be allowed to leave the house. But for the occasional lame flirting from some girl or other, Jesse was free to watch and wait. It was just past ten o'clock when the big chance came. One of the guys spilled his drink on the living room floor, luckily just missing the rug. Mike jumped out from behind the snack table with a paper towel, but he was clearly going to need more. Joe saw the same and, not wanting to incur the wrath of his parents if the cola should reach the rug, went running for the kitchen as well. Jesse had little time to think, but he needed even less. As soon as both brothers were out of sight, he jumped up and made a beeline for the door, neatly stepping around the spilled drink. None of the kids even seemed to notice him. Jesse was free. He took off running down the block, trying to retrace the steps he and Mike had taken to Hall Street earlier that day. Though he couldn't recall it with any real certainty, he felt a certain pull across a few blocks, right at one corner, left at the next, and to his great surprise, he soon found himself standing beneath the coveted green HALL ST sign. Then it was just a jog down to the seedy end; he had little trouble determining which way that was. All through the trek, he had no sense of how he knew where to go. Maybe, just maybe, Penny was calling out to him! Jesse hoped so. Though the streets were seething with drunken early-evening revelers and loud music and the occasional menacing-looking Halloween display, Jesse knew no fear. Penny would be worth whatever happened next. Jesse would soon find himself having second thoughts about that. But as he arrived on Penny's block, the bond was unstoppable. Partiers were out and about among the rowhouses across the street, but given the dark and the occasion and the house's reputation, everyone was steering clear of the side of the street where the mansion waited. Everyone except Jesse, in any case, and fearlessly he started up the steps. Once again, this did not go unnoticed. He heard cries of terror and warning -- "Oh my god, look at that guy!" "Hey, what are you thinking?!" "Get the hell out of there!" -- but he ignored each and every one, and he knew no fear as he bounded up the walk to the front door where that serene setting from his childhood awaited him. With fearless anticipation, he flung the door open and leapt inside. It was dark. Jesse tripped over something, perhaps an old cinderblock, and landed face down on a dusty hardwood floor. The living room was empty and lit only by the streetlight filtering through the dirty windowpanes, and the floor and stray bits of furniture were coated with an inch of dust. Picking himself up off the floor, he found himself at the foot of a rickety old stairwell. Through his disappointment and fright, it now occurred to him that Penny had never mentioned a second floor. Penny. Where was she? What had happened to her living room? Jesse straightened up and stepped into the living room. Still empty. "Penny?" he called out warily. "She couldn't be here tonight." Jesse whipped around. An old woman in a flannel nightgown stood glowering at him from the landing above. "Wh...who are you?" he whimpered. "Who am I?!" the woman snapped. "This is my house, I shall ask the questions! But I know who you are. The latest sucker Penny has seduced. I hate so to disappoint you, dearie, but you shan't be seeing Penny again. No one of this earth shall." Tears came to Jesse's eyes, equal part despair and terror. "What do you mean? Have you...?" "I have told you, I shall ask the questions!" The old lady started down the steps. Jesse leapt for the front door and tried to let himself out, but the knob came off in his hands. While he was still flailing about for another escape option, the old woman swept down upon him with agility belying her apparent age, and soon had him pinned against the door with what felt like a knife lodged between his shoulder blades. "Now then, Jesse, let's get you upstairs." Feeling like his heart was going to leap out of his throat, Jesse allowed himself to be guided up the steps from behind, as if in a daze. "You know my name..." he mused while praying he would wake up in Mike's bedroom any minute now. "I know all your names," she told him as she nudged him up the stairs. "Every gullible young man Penny lures into her little limbo warp down there. For fifty-five years now, it's always the same. In death as in life, it's her gentle beauty they crave -- if only they knew what a conniving little wretch she was in life. But none ever did see her true colors. That's why I had to kill her, but even that didn't put a stop to it all." "You bitch!" Jesse heard himself snap, though he knew it was a foolish thing to say with her knife at his back. His eyes welling with tears of rage, though, Jesse was not in control. The old woman spun him around and pinned him against the wall, and grazed the knife across his chest. He felt his shirt fall open and a trickle of blood drip down across what was left of it. "Any more of that, and your fate will be even worse than it already is, I assure you!" she yelled. Not waiting for a response, she grabbed Jesse again by the collar and dragged him down the darkened hallway to the door at the very end. Her bedroom, Jesse gathered, as soon as she had him inside. She gave him a final shove and he sprawled out on the ancient brass bed. Weakened from his injury and despairing from the news about Penny -- but was it really news, he mused now? Surely he'd gathered that Penny was dead, or at least somewhere between life and death -- Jesse was too disoriented to fight back when the old lady cut away the remainder of his shirt, and made equally fast work of his jeans and boxers. Before Jesse could even gain control of his thoughts, the old woman had him naked and tied to the bedposts, his arms and legs spread helplessly to each corner. He yanked at the ropes that held him, but that only strengthened the knots she had tied. "Go ahead, Jesse, wriggle all you want. But you shall never be free while I have anything to say about it." Setting down the knife on her dresser, she turned on a lamp and turned to admire his body, now rigid with fear. "I suggest you relax and accept the inevitable. It's too bad Penny didn't, really. Imagine you're with her on that ship again if that will make you feel better." "You saw us," Jesse seethed. "I guess you saw everything." "I saw everything," she confirmed. "I see everything. All these years, I've had to sit through it all with that bitch, all her sweetness and light and big adventures and lovely afternoons in the garden, and the visits from a lovely boy like you. Every bit of it!" What had started in a whisper grew to a shriek by the time she was done. "I gave my goody goody sister what she so richly deserved, and I've been cursed with watching her make an almost-happy life out of the hell where I tried to cast her!" "You're Lydia Bucks," Jesse realized out loud. "The one they thought was dead." The Bucks Mansion "Dead inside, yes," Lydia said. "Yes indeed. But very much alive through these fifty-five years that found me here in the wake of the foul deed I had to do. Very much alive and forced to wait out my sister's rightful fate while I continued to live in her shadow." "You had to do," Jesse repeated, more outraged than terrified now, as he was feeling resigned to whatever evil Lydia had planned for him. "Oh, I had to, all right," Lydia said. She lit a candle on her bedside table to add to the glow of the lamp, then walked around the bed to a waiting candle on the other side. They cast a ghastly yellow glow against the yellowed walls of the musty old bedroom. "Penny was my twin sister, Jesse," she explained as she did it. "She was all right as a child, I suppose, a ready playmate whenever I wanted one. But I suppose every pair of twins must have one who is a bit naughty and one who is nice. Penny always was the nice one, the one who preferred to curl up in a chair and read and never give the grown-ups any trouble while I'd be running wild in the garden, and then of course which of us got whipped by Father's belt if I should happen to knock over a flowerpot out there or some such?" "Why shouldn't it be you, then?!" Jesse demanded. "A loyal sister would offer to share in the blame," Lydia argued. "I would have done the same for her, but oho! Of course there was never any need for that on her part! She was much too busy being Little Miss Goody Two Shoes, from the very beginning. All the way up through school and our debut and even off to college, always there was the good child and then Lydia. Lydia Leftovers, that was me! "So you killed her for it?!" "Of course not, you silly boy!" Lydia was smiling through her painful memories now, and she sat before Jesse on the bed and opened her robe. She was naked beneath it, her body a train-wreck of morbid fascination for Jesse, whose leg she started rubbing as she continued. "No, I was far more reasonable and forgiving than all that, Jesse. Up until the day Wally came between us, that is. There's always a man, honestly, at the root of these things, and it happened to be Wally who caused our undoing." "Wally," Jesse repeated, doing his best to ignore her unwelcome caresses that reached a bit further up his leg every time. "Wally," Lydia confirmed. "A lovely young man if ever there was one, so handsome in his Army uniform when he arrived on our campus on his leave. We had a dance, Wally and I, and his touch was delightful. He came calling the next weekend, too, and I spent a day with him on the beach. Too cold to swim that time of year, of course, but it was so delightful just to sit and have a chat. Oh, Jesse, dear, I wanted to give myself to Wally." "I'm not your dear," Jesse said defiantly. "Could have fooled me," Lydia teased, grabbing at Jesse's hard cock. "Just what does this mean, if not that?" "Ungh..." Jesse winced at the pain and disgust as she squeezed it, and closed his eyes. "In any case, dear," Lydia continued. "I wanted to give myself to Wally. Truly I did. In those days, of course, a girl did not just sleep with a fellow -- certainly not a girl of my status, in any case. But I've told you I was the rebellious sort, now, haven't I? That being the case, Jesse dear, I had every intention of giving myself to lovely Wally. But first I had to learn just what to do, if you will. There were no books for that sort of thing in those days. Not for girls anyway. So I arranged with Father for Wally to join us for Thanksgiving, and of course he had a room of his own far from where Penny and I slept. But I vowed to join him in his bed once I had the experience I felt he deserved. But where to get that experience, you might be asking?" On that note she stood up and shrugged off her robe, now standing before Jesse just as naked as he was. "You told me not to ask anything." Jesse was shaking in outrage. Lydia laughed, and ran her right hand playfully through her gray pubes. She let her hand stray momentarily against herself as if she intended to masturbate. Then she turned and walked to the foot of the bed and around it. She continued her story as she went: "I wasn't just the bad girl, I was also the enterprising one, Jesse. If I wanted to learn about sex, there were ways to do it. Father had a stableboy in those days, I can't recall his name to tell you the truth, big and dumb as an ox, but handsome. Oh, so handsome!" On that note, she resumed fingering herself. "I hope you are enjoying the show, incidentally, but if you're trying to imagine Penny doing this for you, dream on, dear. You're never going to enjoy her favors again, my dear. In any case, the stableboy, he'd have loved to get me alone anyway, but he was just smart enough to know Father would fire him or worse if he ever touched either of his daughters. So when I approached him, he said no. of course. At first. That's why I had to sneak into his quarters that night and take off my dress, and threaten to run out in the hall in the nude and tell everybody he had had his way with me unless he actually did." She paused to stroke herself a bit harder with the erotic memory. "It worked!" she went on. "That man taught me all a girl needs to know that night. Wally would have been putty in my hands, without a doubt." "What's that got to do with Penny?" Jesse demanded, still struggling to look away or look only at Lydia's face, yet morbidly drawn to her body. "What, indeed?" Lydia grumbled. "Remember what I said about how stupid the stable-boy was. You would think, a nice smart boy like you surely would, that since he was stupid, you wouldn't find his room next to the library of all places. Leave that space to someone who would appreciate it, you would think. But that is where Father, in his infinite wisdom, did indeed have the imbecile staying. Right next door to the library. Now, the stable boy, he may have been stupid, but he taught me well. And when a woman is good at sex, Jesse, she makes noise. Lots of it. In my careless abandon that night, I thought I was safe in making so much noise when my family was so far away in another part of the house. I thought, but I had forgotten the library and my darling sister's affinity for it. So it was, then, that while the stable boy was making passionate love to me, I shrieked in careless joy and was overheard by Penny while she was browsing for some bedtime reading. Upon hearing my lusty yells, she came barging into the stableboy's quarters without so much as a knock, and found me there on his floor with him in my thighs. "Oh, time stood still, Jesse, I can tell you that. Finally, she spoke, in that whiny little goody goody voice of hers...'Oh, Lydia, forgive me, I thought you were having a fit of breathing trouble!' Breathing trouble!" Vexed across the decades by the hateful memory, Lydia pounded the mattress perilously close to Jesse's mercilessly exposed balls. "Breathing trouble!" She was now crying in frustration and outrage, and then she flopped down on the bed beside Jesse. "Well, you can surely guess what I had to do then. Recall, I knew from our childhood that I could never trust Penny to cover for me on anything. As long as she lived and she knew, I'd have been a ruined woman and certainly Wally would have never looked at me again. And in that instant I knew it all too clearly. So as soon as the stable boy had the sense to get off me -- he was cowering in the corner, actually, shielding his cock and balls from Penny as if they might make her go blind -- I leapt up and grabbed the heaviest of Father's horse trophies from the case by the door and chased her out in the hallway, and cornered Penny and bludgeoned her with the trophy until she was dead on the floor." Jesse was weeping softly. Lydia wasn't. "It could have ended there. It should have ended there. Of course Father never imagined I could have done such an evil deed. The stable-boy, he went to the electric chair for it, actually, and none suspected the truth at first. But Wally was spooked by the entire matter and never wrote me again. That was but the least of my worries, though, for Penny wasn't dead. Not completely." "She still isn't," Jesse declared defiantly. "Indeed," Lydia agreed. "I don't know how, but she clung to some slim reed of connection to our world, and still does, as you know. She maintains just enough contact with our life to continue ruining mine. People knew, Jesse, even after that silly stable boy went to the chair, somehow they knew what had really happened in the hallway." "Why shouldn't they?" Jesse demanded. "I have told you not to ask any questions!" Lydia took a deep breath and stood up again, her naked body looking oddly dignified in spite of everything. Jesse had to admit through his fright and repulsion that she must have been a beautiful woman once. "The servants knew. They got word to their friends, who got word to our friends, whom they worked for. Mother and Father didn't believe it at first, but somehow they were ultimately persuaded. Even the other girls at college learned about it. I was the outcast even when I was the sole surviving daughter. I was disowned! Mother and Father moved permanently to their beach house, and I was left to go stark raving mad in this house while the neighborhood went to hell all around me. Alone." "Not quite alone," Jesse reminded her. "Oh, yes, of course!" Lydia snapped. "Penny and her heavenly wonderland, where even to this day the worthy young men flock when they can. She cost me my Wally in life, and in death she has cost me any hope I have had with any man I might have loved, from that day to this." On that somber note, she climbed onto the bed and once again took Jesse's hard cock in both her hands. "Until now," she said. Now Jesse's fear had returned with a vengeance, and he did his best to kick Lydia off the bed. The best he could do was wiggle his knees a bit, and Lydia didn't seem to mind at all as she began to straddle him. Jesse at least managed to keep Lydia off balance so that she couldn't keep still enough to draw him inside her, but Lydia wasn't giving up. "No!" Jesse called out. "No, no no!" "No one can hear you," Lydia teased. "Except maybe Penny, but she knows better than to tangle with me, now doesn't she?" Lydia squeezed him as hard as her old hands could, and Jesse shrieked in pain. "Stop!" "She cost me my true love, my reputation and my family," Lydia continued. "Tonight I shall return the favor, and at last I shall know passion as well." She broke into a shameless cackle, and reached up to dabble in the blood from Jesse's wound. "Why, it's as good as fingerpaint," she teased, and began writing her name in blood across his belly. "L-Y-D-I-A. Now you're mine, dear." Jesse reached desperately with both hands to wrench free of his bonds, but the knots held. He flailed at the wall, at both bedside tables, at anything within reach of his fingers that might at least fall over and make a noise. Just as Lydia was about to complete the rape at last, Jesse's left hand made contact with something -- he couldn't tell what -- on the table. He heard a wonderful sliding noise as something fell into something else, and looked over just in time to see the candlestick falling off the table. Jesse couldn't see from where he was pinned under Lydia, but the candle landed in a basket of yarn. He could and did see the resulting blaze that kicked up in no time. Lydia noticed it a moment later, having been distracted by her efforts to draw Jesse into her. She looked in horror at the spreading fire, then back at Jesse, and broke into a triumphant laugh. "Now it's me versus the fire, Jesse!" she chortled. "Which do you prefer, a consummation before death or after?" "It's my time," Jesse replied serenely. He had stopped putting up a fight, for now he recalled Penny's words and he was quite sure he understood them. "Your time?" Lydia asked. "Your time for what?" "Why should I answer your questions either?" Jesse asked, smiling through his uncertainty and fear. The room was now thoroughly ablaze, the bedsheets were smoldering, and it was merely a matter of whether the smoke would kill him before falling through the floor would do the trick. Outside on Hall Street, they both heard sirens. Lydia heard them too. "They'll never get upstairs in time," she gloated. "No one else has been in this house in fifty years. They have no idea where my bedroom is." She was coughing with the smoke, more so than Jesse who was lower down, but that didn't stop her from doing her best to pin Jesse's wiggling hips down so she could have her way with him. Jesse did his best to keep bouncing back and forth on the mattress, and as fear overtook him, he shut his eyes tightly and thought of Penny. One of the floorboards gave way, and the bed tilted heavily to the left. Lydia was then able to wedge herself atop Jesse, who could no longer wiggle. Somewhere in the distance, Jesse thought he heard the firefighters making their way up the stairs, but a crash somewhere below put a stop to their progress. He could feel Lydia gaining her advantage over him from above, but from below he was sure he felt the foundation falling away. Giving up the fight, he held his breath and hoped the floor would give way first. "I shall live at least once before I die," Lydia said triumphantly, grasping Jesse in both her hands and mounting him again. Once she had a foothold against what was left of the floor, she spread her legs and began lowering herself onto Jesse. Just as she had him at her nonexistent mercy, the hole in the floor ripped open wider. Jesse felt the bed tipping further, but resigned himself to the moment coming just a bit late and braced himself for the indignity and pain that awaited him. He held his breath and waited, and sure enough he felt his rigid cock being enveloped just as he'd feared...only it wasn't the nasty sensation he'd been expecting, but rather a warm welcome in a comfortable bed with no smell of smoke anywhere and no triumphant cackling but rather a gentle, passionate, feminine sigh. Jesse's eyes flew open. Penny was gazing down at him with a joyful look on her face. "You came back," she said between lusty moans. "And you freed us both!" "I did?" Laughing, she dropped down atop him so her breasts mashed wonderfully into his chest, on which he now noticed his knife-wound had vanished, and kissed him deeply. "Yes, Jesse, you did. Now you can stay here forever, and we can go anywhere we like together. Beyond the borders to the wonderful beyond, anywhere!" Jesse sucked in his breath. "You mean I'm..." "Liberated!" Penny sat back up and took both his hands in hers. "That's what we call it on this side of the great beyond. Not dead, liberated. You'll be amazed at how soon that stops being of any consequence." "I will." He wasn't convinced. "You will, Jesse. I promise." "We can go to heaven, then." "We're already there, silly," Penny teased him. "That means we can go anywhere you ever cared to go in your mind. But not until I let you out of bed, and I warn you, that won't be for some time!" Jesse lay back and exulted in the sensation of her body enveloping him so warmly. "I think I can live with that," he said. "Poor choice of words, dear," Penny said, and she set about rocking them both into an orgasm fifty-five years in the making.