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Copyright Oggbashan September 2019
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
The house seemed like a bargain. It was solid, in our town centre, close to all facilities, with three bedrooms, extensive cellars, a reasonable sized garden and off road parking for about four cars. The obvious downside was that it was in the conservation area and locally listed. Repairing and maintaining it would be more expensive than a modern house outside the conservation area, but I couldn't afford those, not yet. Maybe I might be able to in two or three years if my career progressed, but I needed somewhere to live now.
If I had rented I wouldn't have the money to buy because local rental costs were so high. I had an inheritance from a great-aunt that would just cover the purchase cost which was fortunate because nobody would offer a mortgage on it. I would need a bank loan for the other expenses but could probably pay that off in three years and be a freehold owner of a useful property.
I discounted the other warning against it even though the estate agent was very clear about it, surprisingly direct. The house was supposed to be haunted and several sales had fallen through because of the ghosts.
The owners, who had inherited from an elderly bachelor uncle, had reduced the price significantly because of the haunting. At the reduced price I could just afford it. The old bachelor, the last occupant, had frequently said that he liked having resident ghosts.
I didn't believe in ghosts and I had never met anyone who had actually encountered them but since the old boy hadn't seemed bothered by them, I didn't see that I would be. I hoped that it could be a home for me and my on and off girlfriend, Sasha.
I liked the address: The Nunnery, Nunnery Street. The Nunnery was the only address in the short street, completely occupying one side. The other side was a blank wall, the side of a large store. The Nunnery had double yellow lines allowing free access to my off road parking. The other side was marked parking bays.
It had never been a real Nunnery. It wasn't old enough. What it had been was a brothel until it was struck by lightning in the 1860s. The roof had collapsed, killing the four women who had been sleeping on the upper floor. The roof had been repaired and the building had been used as a clothing factory until the 1940s when the old boy had bought it and converted it into a house. He had installed lightning conductors on the high chimneys and although it had been struck by lightning when he was resident, there had been no damage.
During my first night in the Nunnery I was visited by the four ghosts. Whether I was dreaming or not I don't know, but the four women seemed to sit on the edge of my bed, looking very solid and very attractive. They wanted the house used by a couple who would have sex and that they could join in. I wasn't sure. The four ghosts hugged me to their breasts almost falling out of their Victorian style evening gowns and my doubts disappeared in very desirable flesh swamping me.
The ghosts had revealed that Sasha wanted me as much as I wanted her. She had been doubtful because I had been still living with my parents, Now I had a home of my own she was much more interested and willing. I had asked Sasha to marry me. She accepted promptly. Now, after our honeymoon we have moved into The Nunnery.
Cecily was the most prominent ghost, the most talkative and demonstrative one. One Sunday evening, while Sasha and I had collapsed, exhausted, into bed after a hard day installing kitchen units and appliances, Cecily knocked on the bedroom door before walking through it.
"I can see you are tired," Cecily announced, watching our faces fall because Cecily's appearance usually led to us being persuaded into energetic sex, "and useless for any of my games tonight, so I've come to tell you a bedtime story. It's a ghost story, of course, because all the participants are long dead even if they still visit to haunt The Nunnery from time to time."
Cecily vanished temporarily, re-materialising naked underneath us in the bed. She pulled our bodies so that we were lying face to face on her torso. Her arms wrapped around us.
We relaxed. Resting our heads on Cecily's large breasts was very comfortable even if in our imagination she seemed more like a giantess than human size, and her breasts impossibly large even for a giantess.
"Are you comfortable?"
We were. Cecily's breasts adapted to her mood. Tonight they were soft, warm and cuddly, very suitable resting places for tired humans. Our two heads were both comfortable in her massive cleavage. She waggled a finger. The bedside light switched itself off. We knew that Cecily would no longer be visible. Creating an illusion of solid flesh took effort from her. In the dark we could still feel as if she was solid, but if there was light we wouldn't see anything of her.
"Then I'll begin. As you know, The Nunnery was a gentlemen's club and I was one of the staff. The club members were selected very carefully because the club's activities had to be discreet. In those days it was acceptable for a gentleman to visit a high class bordello, but he should not talk about it. The Nunnery was much more than a brothel. It was a club with political and business connections.
The members had agreed that nothing experienced, seen or talked about here was to be mentioned outside the premises. Remarkably there were very few breaches of that rule and those few were for good reasons.
The existing members were very choosy about who could become a member. One black ball would bar someone. But even that wasn't enough. A member could enjoy the facilities and the attentions of the staff, but they would also discuss private and really secret matters, make deals, plans, even plots. However well a member or members might know a potential member socially, they didn't know how he might react under pressure. Could he keep a secret was the important question.
The owners and staff decided that prospective members would have to pass an initiation test. Tonight's story is about one prospective member's ordeal.
You, Ralph, have the part of the prospective member."
"Me?" I asked. "I'm tired, exhausted, worn out..."
"That won't matter, Ralph" Cecily replied. "All the activity will be in your head, not your body. This is a ghost story, not real life. Sasha will have a role too. I'll use your names, not the names the real people had. Are you ready? Then I'll begin."
I felt myself as a nineteenth century gentleman who had just arrived in his carriage under the portico at the front door of The Nunnery. I was greeted by a formally dressed man who looked like a Butler. I knew that he wasn't. He was Johnson, The Nunnery's resident manager. He was wearing a badge on his chest that read 'Johnson'. He waved a hand. A footman came forward to take my hat, cape, gloves and cane.
"Come this way, Mister Ralph, please," Johnson said.
I followed him through the front door. The large entrance hall was imposing but we turned right through an inconspicuous door set into the wall of the short passage between the door and the hall. Beyond it we descended a short staircase to the basement level and Johnson ushered me into a plainly decorated room. The only furniture was a wooden table and four chairs. Johnson pulled out a chair for me to sit on. He sat down on the other side of the table.
As the modern Ralph this seemed very odd. I was aware of my body resting on Cecily with Sasha snug against me. I was also sitting on a hard chair in a basement room facing someone who had been dead for over one hundred and sixty years. I felt Cecily's hand stroking my hair.
"Live it," Cecily whispered. "Believe you are there, then. You're not and nothing that seems to happen can affect the real you. But if you live it, you'll enjoy yourself -- eventually."
I wasn't sure about that word eventually. But I trusted Cecily. I let myself experience being in that basement room. Johnson reached into a drawer on his side of the table. He produced a wooden label attached to a silver chain.
