Ghosts and Demons

Author's note: This story starts where Pt. 4 left off. While not required, Pts 1-4 are strongly recommended first, to follow the story, get to know the characters, and understand what's really happening in this chapter. Do enjoy, rate the story on the final page, and keep the comments coming, positive and negative. More story to come soon. I very much appreciate every read, every comment, and every ranking. All copyrights reserved to the original author. - TIB

*****

"RETURN FIRE!!"

Kelly woke with a start, eyes wide, not understanding where she was or what was going on. She was drunk with sleep, waking from a deep, vivid dream. She was in her own bed... wasn't she?

"WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE, MAN!"

What the hell??? ... Something, somebody shoved her side, hard. Kelly slid sideways on the bed. She turned her head, heart pounding in fright, trying to clear her brain, figure out what was going on.

Someone was in bed with her, something she wasn't used to.

...Caelin. The previous night came back to her, at first just remembering a highlight, momentary flashes.

He was next to her, eyes closed, head twisting back and forth, drenched in sweat, moving fitfully as if having a nightmare. Kelly rolled towards him, scared of was what she was seeing. Of what was happening.

His whole body startled and he woke suddenly. Moving at hyper speed, he turned to her with dead eyes, pushed his palm onto her chest and drove her down onto the bed, jumping on top of her with his heavy weight. He pinned her down by her chest and snarled with bloodlust.

"CAELIN!' She yelled. He froze, shaking.

His eyes were wide, nostrils flaring, audibly seething. Then a flicker came into his dead eyes. Slowly, he started tracking on her. His brow furrowed in confusion.

Then he recognized her. His eyes opened wider. Caelin's mouth opened in shock, drawing in a sharp gasp. He sprang up from the bed, naked, reeling backwards, slamming his back against her closet door with a crash of his large frame. Caelin spread his arms to his sides, pressing backwards, terrified, seeking safety with the wall behind him. He looked at her with shock, slowly shaking his head in disbelief, then sank to the floor, sliding his back down the door. He buried his face in his hands, trembling.

Kelly sat up in stunned silence, looking at him, trying to process what the hell just happened. At least a minute passed in the darkness without a word, only secondary light from the kitchen glowing through the bedroom door. Then Kelly got up from the bed and walked to him.

"No!" He spoke loudly, holding up a hand to her, palm out, not looking up. "Stay away from me." Kelly froze. Then she sat down on the floor in front of him, crossing her legs. He kept his head down.

Minutes passed, only the faint ticking of a clock coming from the living room and the soft humming sound of the air conditioning. Kelly's heart curtailed its rapid assault in her chest. Caelin's breathing slowed.

"Are you ok?" He asked, his hand still covering his face.

"Yes, of course. I'm fine," she replied honestly.

"I... I'm so sorry," he spoke with some embarrassment, then looked up at her. "I've never laid a hand on a woman in my life." He paused again. "I would never hurt you. I'm pretty fucked up, through. I don't ever want to lose control."

Kelly thought for a second, still somewhat scared, trying to judge what her heart really told her about this man. "I know that." She deliberated, feeling unsure how to proceed. It was awkward, sitting naked on the floor. She pulled a white terrycloth robe off a side chair and draped it around herself. "You want to tell me what's going on? We can talk if you want."

Caelin drew in a deep breath, blowing it out pursed lips. Lots of delay. Kelly tried an appeasement.

"Would you like a drink?"

Another pause. "Yeah, ok."

Kelly twisted her body, reached under the bed behind her, and pulled out a thin grey blanket. She stood, held the blanket out towards Caelin, and waited. After several seconds, Caelin stood as well, taking the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders, covering most of his large frame. They walked to the living room, where Caelin sat on the couch, grabbing the whiskey tumbler off the coffee table that Kelly had set down the night prior. He took a large gulp, gritted his teeth at the strong liquor, and exhaled, holding the tumbler in his lap with both hands. Kelly turned the armchair towards him and sat, waiting patiently, letting him take the lead. Eventually, he spoke.

"There's a lot to tell. Are you sure you want to hear this?" Kelly nodded. Caelin sighed again. Clearly, this was very difficult for him. "I... haven't ever told this to anyone else. Not a single soul. ... well... I guess parts of it to a counselor." He spoke as if debating whether to speak each and every sentence. "But... given what just happened, perhaps you deserve to know some of it.

I'm fucked up, Kelly. Damned.

I was in the Army, a combat aviator. Retired last year." Not exactly a big surprise there. Most of that was pretty obvious at this point. "Lots of crap happened over the years, mostly during my combat time. I guess it all came to a head on my sixth deployment several years ago. I was in Afghanistan for that one. There was this girl..."

Yeah, there always was a girl. "Her name was Betty. I knew her for years, but things had never allowed us to really be together and make a life. She actually was my first..." His voice trailed off. "I loved her, very, very much, with all my heart. We got together every chance we could, and had an amazing relationship. Then, before I deployed, she didn't want to see me. Just stopped talking to me, no explanation. I went off to war again, doing what needed to be done. That year was pure hell. I lost several buddies that year. ... so many...

Too many."

He looked at Kelly, deep pain in his eyes, then back down to his hands and the glass as he spoke. "About a month in, we had our first big firefight at our FOB. We were taking all sorts of fire. I watched my best friend bleed to death in front of me, just a few yards away, as close as me and you right now. Shot hit him in just the wrong spot. I couldn't even get to him to hold him, so he could be with a human being as he died, because we were pinned down under fire. Tom stared at me as he bled out, terror on his face, mouthing words to me I couldn't make out. I watched the life evaporate from his eyes, helpless to do anything to stop it. I failed him. I failed my brother. He had a wife and two kids, one of them just one year old. Afterwards, I asked to take his body back home and attend his funeral. I got denied.

The next week, my boss was assassinated. One afternoon, we were in a meeting together, planning out an operation. The next morning, he was gone. Just like that. I started thinking I was cursed. Death followed me, striking over and over. But he wouldn't take me. He took those all around me, but wouldn't take me." Caelin looked down at his two big, powerful hands, turned palmed upwards towards himself, as if they and the whiskey glass were covered in dark crimson guilty blood. "I've lost more people, than I can count on these damned hands."

Caelin started tapping his foot as he spoke, leg bouncing, clearly agitated. He spoke as if brutishly scraping open a crusted, scabbed wound, restarting the pain. His voice dripped with guilt. "It should have been me. I wanted it to be me.

I... I needed it to be me."

He paused, tapping his thumb on his leg now. "Other crap happened. I got injured, got sick, had arguments with some people I worked with. Towards the end, we were getting shot at every... damned... day. I was so alone. My friends were dead. The other guys and I would talk about some things, but I was an officer, so it just wasn't the same thing, talking with the guys, if that makes sense. I had to lead them, and even though we could talk about very personal things, there were some things I just couldn't talk with them about. I sent a few messages to Betty, but she wouldn't talk to me. There was nobody else back home that would even come close to understanding. I had nobody to turn to, and held it all inside, trying to handle all of it, this aching, wrenching pain, way down in my gut. I cried out to God, from my seat in hell."

Kelly sat, staring at Caelin with rapt attention as he spoke, truly in awe, not believing what she was hearing. The dam broke now, words pouring out of Caelin, letting it all out.

"I was grieving, but not able to take steps to work through it. All these people gone from my life, these people I led, had trained, had taught, had fought with, flew with, gave my life to. I wasn't there for them. I was failing, but felt powerless to change any of it. So I kept it all inside, and God helped me grow stronger by myself. More self dependent. For that, I'm grateful. Nobody can truly handle all that, all alone, though, and later on had to have help."

Caelin was quivering now as he spoke.

"That was the darkest time of my life. When I got back from that deployment, things didn't get better, if anything they got worse. Everything was different. The world was so different. I can't explain this so you really understand, but I felt so broken, so defective. I missed my friends so terribly, it physically hurt. I missed Betty. And everything around me just seemed so damned petty, that it didn't really matter, whether it was people fighting over parking spots, or buying crappy junk in the store. Nothing had the same importance anymore. Thankfully, I found a group of other vets and met with them regularly, and we've been able to work on things.

But... then there was Betty. Just when I thought I was putting things back together, she sent me a message, like nothing had ever happened, and we started talking again. And then she dropped the bomb. Just after the last time I saw her, she had met this 'hot Italian' accountant at her work, who helped her carry boxes to her office when she hurt her foot. She took him as her lover and made him her fuck buddy, for two years, every chance they could be together. The whole time I was gone off to war, and more."

Kelly's eye widened.

"She told me there was nothing emotional about it, no love. She just needed sex, that it was no big deal, and it was easy for her. She said the thought of me never crossed her mind the whole time I was off at war and she was fucking him-she convinced herself I was back home, happy, and had a perfect life, probably so she wouldn't feel guilty. Not a single thought whether I was alive or dead, even though I thought of her every damned day.

She told me she had been too busy even to send an E-mail, all while spending hundreds of hours fucking this other guy. Then for some reason she went on, telling me how great the sex was, that they taught each other things, and helped each other grow sexually. That they had little code words with each other when she wanted to go fuck. She told me she had no regrets, and was proud that she had taken care of herself. Even went so far as to claim that she had never stopped loving me, the whole time. She couldn't comprehend why I would possibly care about it. To her, the problem wasn't what happened, the problem was only that she decided to tell me about it, and that I wasn't cool with it.

She did what she had to do, and took care of her own needs. It's such a cliche, a soldier going off to war, and the girl he loves that stays behind gets bored and fucks the bad boy down the street. But she didn't even have the courtesy to send me a 'Dear John letter', letting me know, or let me move on with my life. Even when she started fucking him before I ever deployed. Nothing. She just left.

The thought that kills me, more than anything else, is all those times I was crouched in those bunkers, under fire, wondering if that day would be my last. I thought about dying. Even... thought about doing it myself sometimes." His shoulders drooped in resignation, clearly so difficult to admit. "I would try to think of reasons not to do it, and she would come to my mind. She was my world." Caelin's voice quieted a little, as he brought himself to the crux. His voice shook, trying desperately not to lose it.

"In those blackest of times, she was the reason I didn't blow my brains out. But right at those same moments, she was fucking his brains out."

His words hung heavy in the quiet night air like death itself, a thick black cloud.

"It was a lie. It was all a lie. What I was relying on to draw strength, and keep going, stay alive, wasn't real. And I didn't even know it." Caelin sighed, pursed his lips, and shook his head slowly in disgusted thought. "But you know what? ...and I don't expect you to understand this. But as fucked up as I am, even with everything that happened, all the pain, all the death, if today I could go back over there, back into combat, I'd go in a heartbeat. What we did over there, was real. We had a purpose. And my guys and I, we had each other. Everything else was secondary.

Betty... well, she just... broke my heart. Crushed me to pieces and destroyed me, while I was burning in hell. I refuse to be a victim, so I'm taking the pain and moving on." He looked down, sighing deeply, blowing out his breath through puffed cheeks, jaw quivering. Then there was prolonged silence. Kelly wanted to make sure he was finished.

Her turn. Kelly spoke loudly, forceful and angry. Her eyes flashed with lightning, her cheeks flushed with a fiery redheaded temper.

"FUCK.

HER!"

Caelin looked up in surprise, as she continued, furious. "SCREW THAT. She can go fuck herself. There will always be women who will claim to respect and support people in the military, but then when it comes to crunch time, when they're really needed, they run off and show what they're really made of. You can't claim to love someone if you aren't able to show respect."

Kelly moved to him with a purpose, kneeling in front of him, lifting his head with her hand to look him in the eye. "Caelin, you don't need her, or any cunt that like in your life. You, sir, of all people, deserve so much better than that. A real woman doesn't abandon a man like that, no matter how she feels or what's going on."

Moving deliberately, Kelly took the glass out of Caelin's hands and set it back down on the coffee table behind her. She then leaned forward, holding his hands, looking into his hazel brown eyes. She took on a sultry, slutty voice, tantalizingly raising one eyebrow and speaking with a purpose. "Let me show you how a real woman takes care of a man when he's in need."

Kelly sat back onto her heels, and traced her fingers along the lapels of her robe. She pulled it apart ever so slightly, so it fell open down the middle in front, showing her ample freckled cleavage, her soft, pale stomach. As her fingers ran across the edge of the material, it opened further, revealing her navel, her trimmed bush. Kelly slowly leaned back against the coffee table, placing the palm of her right hand on her chest. She then turned her hand so her fingers pointed downwards, and smoothly slid her palm south, through her cleavage, pushing the exposed edges of her breasts apart, over her stomach and navel. Kelly's fingers glided over her exposed sex, and then inside her thigh, putting on a show for Caelin.

You had to give the girl credit. She sure knew how to change the mood. Kelly slowly gyrated her body while kneeling, as if dancing for him. She turned her head to the side, grabbed her robe lapels, and pulled them off her shoulders. Her robe fully opened, revealing her pale, nude body. She let the robe slide down her arms and back, still only on her forearms, the robe dropping behind her onto the coffee table and her heels. Kelly flipped her hair with a flick of her head, letting her long red hair fall on her right shoulder. She tilted her face downwards, to look at her body, and began to rub her own large breasts. Then she lifted only her eyes, to peek at Caelin from below her brow, biting her lower lip in a slutty tease. She was transforming into the object of desire for him.

Kelly arched her back, confidently displaying her naked figure, fondling and squeezing handfuls of fair tit flesh. Her hands explored her own body, caressing and skimming her palms over her fair skin. Her left hand grabbed one breast and pulled it up to her own mouth, where she stuck out her tongue and swirled it around her pert nipple, becoming hard and erect. Then she took the nipple into her mouth, sucking and pulling on it with her red lips. At the same time, her right hand pushed between her knelt and somewhat spread legs, drifting up her thighs and touching herself.

At that moment, she became the most beautiful woman in the world, a confident goddess, seducing with erotic allurement. She moaned, getting wet. Kelly leaned, bending her back over the coffee table to rest her upper body on it, naked tits pointed at the sky, having Caelin watch as she stroked herself, fingers wet with her own lubrication, rubbing over and through her pussy. She swirled her moist fingertips over her clit in circles, pushing through her red pubic hair. Her other delicate fingers pinched a hard nipple. But this was only the introductory warm-up act for him. The full show would have to wait for another time.

Having gotten both of them started, Kelly sat up again on her heels, dropping the robe the rest of the way from her forearms behind her so she was entirely naked, kneeling before Caelin. She used her body as a presented gift, knowing that he would love seeing her like this, no matter what she looked like. She not only felt more self-confident in this knowledge, with her own body image, but enjoyed the insight she saw in his beautiful eyes, that the sight of her pleased him. That she turned him on. The more she gave to him, the better she felt, and the more confident she became, which pleased him even more along with her own bettered state, in a continuous uplifting cycle. This wasn't necessarily typically like her, but with him, she was learning and growing as a person, understanding herself and who she wanted to be.

Kelly reached up and opened the blanket he had wrapped around his body, resting it on his outer arms. Then, as she had done with her own body, she slid her palms down his torso, touching him and caressing him. This was her man, and she was going to show him how a woman truly took care of her master. She felt his chest hair under her hands, his muscles, as she touched and connected with him, giving copious human contact. She could feel his obvious inner pain under her fingers, even if it hadn't been so obviously displayed. Kelly's large, juicy breasts skimmed his knees as he sat still, letting her explore and lavish his body.

Kelly tipped her head to the side, her long red hair falling on her shoulder, and rubbed his upper legs thoughtfully. Then she hooked her hands behind his knees and tugged a bit, for him to slide forward and slouch backwards against the couch, putting his butt closer to the edge. She gently pushed his knees apart, moving her body seductively between his legs and leaned in, noting that he was quite erect. She kissed up his legs, his inner thighs, his stomach, her lips lingering sensuously on his body, worshiping him.

Kelly took his penis into her hands, lovingly stroking him. With one hand, she pulled his cock against her soft tits and slowly stroked him, while she caressed his leg and torso with her other, looking deeply into his eyes with longing. She was so soft and gentle, adoring him as only a woman can.

His tip glistened with precum now, and she tilted his cock to rub the tip on her nipple, moving it slightly to spread his clear cream around her areola, lubricating her breast. Her hand glided up over the tip, feeling the slippery liquid on him and her nipple, the softness of his skin and her breast together.