A note to the reader. Categorizing this story as Erotic Horror is going to piss off some category purists. Elements of the story include lesbian sex, ghosts that might not exist, bdsm, a medical / milk fetish and drugs. I don't know how to fit my stories neatly into categories.
Regarding format, Literotica formatting eliminates extra spacing. As a marker between scenes, / / / and \ \ \ appear, usually signifying a jump in time. Thanks for giving it a go. All the best.
Ghost Pains
My divorce came through - a formality, since Harry and I had been estranged, contentiously, for more than a year. My cousin Clara's unexpected invitation arrived by post the very next day. She owned a country house an hour and fifteen minutes north of London, and offered it to me as a refuge, a place tucked between hedges and rolling hills, out of the way and out of sight of neighbors. A way station, she called it in her note. A chance for me to soak in the English countryside, and bask in blessed solitude, before returning to the States, unentangled, husband free, and bound for a new publisher. The last paragraph of the note inside the padded envelope read:
Finally, please accept my invitation as a divorce present,
from one disappointed woman to another. Please don't
think me presumptuous in offering the house to you, or
find it odd that the offer comes so belatedly in our
relationship. I have been a distant cousin in many ways,
it is true. Call this my way of making it up to you. Please,
do accept. Stay as long as you like.
A heavy key slid from the envelope and rang on the tile floor, an antique skeleton key made of brass, designed artfully, with heft. Clara wrote that everything was ready: all that I had to do was arrive and I would find the house irresistible. My lease in London was up; most of my worldly possessions were already packed and en route overseas to an apartment that wouldn't be fit to occupy for another few weeks. Clara's invitation came like a god send. Eden's call. My situation must have stirred her sympathy. A divorce present, one disappointed woman to another.
Until the past six months or so Clara had been a very distant cousin. When we first met, the year before I moved to London to be with Harry, she seemed discreetly reclusive in the English way. After she declined my invitations to dinner, to tea, to a flick, to a night at a favorite pub, to anything, I thought her downright cold and at times even creepy, morose. It seemed odd even now, that she hadn't rung me up to extend the invitation, but had sent it by post, out of the blue. My attempts to ring her in response went unreturned, though I left several messages.
With the note and the key, the envelope contained one last item, a page of directions that took me through a village a few kilometers from the house, recommending that I visit The Kelsea, a pub, for final directions, a local clarification of the way. I arrived on a drizzly afternoon, and found the pub all but empty. Something by Ravel was playing. A quizzical look passed between the two women behind the bar as I introduced myself, and asked about the road to Clara's home.
The younger of the two, a pale and slight woman, said, "Do you mean the Hoyle House?"
"A cousin owns it. I haven't heard it referred to by that name."
The older woman had an interesting face, ruddy, with intelligent, blue eyes. "Are you Mrs. Jory, the author?"
"I am."
"Very pleased to meet you. I'm Anna.
We shook hands. I liked her touch.
"You do know that the weather's changing?" said the younger. I thought it an odd question. Something about her overall appearance was odd too, though I wasn't sure what.
"What have you heard?" I asked.
"Rain storms. Thunder."
"Then I shall have to hurry," I said.
That quizzical look returned.
"What is it?" I said.
"Well, it's a tricky way, miss. Easy to get turned around, especially in nasty weather."
Anna said, "I can offer you a room."
"I plan to stay at the house. I'm visiting for a fortnight or so."
Their looks became doubtful. Anna wrote her name and number on a card and slid it across the counter.
"Take this, please. You have a mobile? Ring me, if you must."
"But why?" I asked.
She seemed to hesitate. The younger said, "Should you get lost, miss. It is a tricky way, as I said, and some people get nervous in the strange weather."
Nervous in the weather? I thanked them and left, taking the card more for courtesy than concern. There was nothing frightening to me about lightening and thunder, or about mysterious landscapes, or for that matter, mist on the moors or baying hounds or slavering werewolves - or any such fantasy their evident misgivings were meant to evoke.
Anna followed me as far as the door of the pub, as though she had something further to say, but then she raised her hand, signifying a change of mind, and went back inside. It was then I realized what had caught my attention about the younger one's appearance. While we were talking, a small wet spot had blossomed on the fabric of her blouse over one nipple.
At least their directions were sound. After fifteen minutes of left and right turns, along narrow lanes, lined with hedges, seeming like a maze, I passed through a stone and iron gate, then drove the winding road another quarter-kilometer uphill to the house.
It was somewhat larger than I had expected, tucked between low hummocks. Smoke curled from both chimneys, but a ring of the bell when I arrived brought no one to the door.
The skeleton key let me in. A typed note propped on the kitchen table bid me welcome and told me to make myself entirely at home. It promised that Greta, a member of the domestic staff, would stop by in the evening to see that I was properly settled.
/ / /
The grey sky opened briefly before twilight and brought some color to the day. I took a brisk tour of the grounds and found the grass high and the garden shed listing. Across a field, under some wide trees, stood a small house, all shuttered up. The estate was going to seed. Within half an hour, the sky closed again and brought the night on quickly. I went inside, anticipating rain, and was surprised, though pleased, to find a young woman waiting for me in the kitchen.
"You must be Greta."
"I am."
I introduced myself, shaking her hand. She wanted to call me 'Mum," her version of "Ma'am," while I preferred that she use my first name. We settled, as a joke, on "Miss."
"I didn't hear a car," I said. "Did you come by foot?"
"I did."
"In the rain?"
"Between drops."
She was blonde and pretty, with a heart shaped face and hair worn up in back. Young enough to seem girlish, though mature and witty in manner. I liked her immediately. We toured the house first, then she showed me the maintenance features: the fuse box, water heater, the pump, the location of the furnace, all the basics. Half of the house was closed and draped against dust, but the active rooms had character and comfort.
"It's rather old, I'm afraid," she said, "but we do love it."
"Greta, was this estate once called Hoyle House, or such?"
