The next time Vanessa opened her eyes, she wasn't sure where she was. She tried to sit up and then groaned from the throbbing in her head. Michael was there immediately, brushing the hair back from her face and speaking in a soothing tone.
"It's okay, Van, don't try to get up. You're in the hospital, the ambulance brought you here and I followed in the car. That was a few hours ago. They say you have a concussion and want to keep you overnight for observation."
Vanessa was shocked she didn't remember any of that, but figured the concussion was responsible. She relaxed back into the pillows.
"I really know how to get out of manual labour, don't I?" she chuckled roughly.
"That you do, my love, that you do," Michael agreed, bending to kiss his wife on the forehead.
A thought popped into Vanessa's head.
"Oh, did you figure out who those people were?" she asked.
"Babe, there were no people, it was just you and I."
"Are you sure? There were a few of them, and one of them said--"
"Honestly, love, there were no people. I think maybe the head injury caused you to see something. The doctor said it was possible."
"Oh," Vanessa was so confused, she could have sworn that she saw a group of people in the kitchen, and one of them had leaned in close to her. But if Michael hadn't seen them and she had just hit her head really hard, then they likely were a figment of her imagination. She had probably been so caught up in her voyeuristic fantasy the night before that her injured brain ran with it as soon as it had the chance. "Okay, you're probably right. How strange!"
"Brains do funny things, especially when they've been knocked around a bit!" Michael said. "So you just lie back and rest, so we can get you and your wonky brain back home where they belong!"
Vanessa ended up staying in the hospital for two nights. The doctor was concerned about a little swelling so opted to keep her the extra night. The second morning, however, he said the swelling had subsided and everything else looked good so she could go home. She was relieved; Michael was ecstatic. He was over the moon that his wife wasn't too badly injured, of course, but he was also overjoyed to not have to stay in Bloomington House by himself for another night. Eternal optimist that he was, he couldn't deny that the big, old, rundown house was a bit creepy at night.
Vanessa was a little apprehensive on the way back to Bloomington House. Concussions take ages to heal, and even though the doctor had assured her that she was unlikely to have any further visions of people who were not there, she was still worried that she might. When the car pulled up the long drive and then parked in front of the door, she strained to look up at all the windows she could to see if there were unknown faces staring out of them. Thankfully, they were all empty, and she let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding as she got out of the car.
Inside the entrance hall, she stopped and looked around. It was just as empty of people as the windows suggested, and Vanessa felt relief wash over her. She had never seen anything that wasn't there before. Of course, she'd never fallen off a ladder or had a head injury before, so it was no surprise that she had little experience in that department.
Michael came up behind her and placed a hand on her back.
"Why don't you go and lie down, my love?" he suggested. "I'll make you a cup of tea and a sandwich and bring them up to you in a bit."
The doctor had stressed to both of them that even though she was going home, she needed to take it easy for a while, with lots of resting and as much sleep as possible. Besides, she still had a low level constant headache that exhausted her, so a lie down sounded perfect.
"Thanks, babe, that sounds great." She gave Michael a quick kiss and made her way up the stairs, grateful for the love and care of her husband.
At the top of the stairs, Vanessa was just about to turn right to follow the hall down to their bedroom at the end, when she heard a noise coming from the hallway to the left. Without even thinking about what she was doing, she turned and started walking towards it. The noise was soft, and she couldn't make out what it was. As she made her way down the hall, it got a bit louder, and she could tell it was coming from the second bedroom on the right. She threw the door open before stopping to consider what was behind it, her eyes opening wide when she saw the cause of the noise.
This room was particularly rundown, with the wallpaper peeling off in strips, holes in the plaster and wood lath beneath. The furniture was broken and rotten or full of holes, and there was the overpoweringly unpleasant smell of mold and must and mildew in the air. There was even an actual hole in the floor in one corner.
But, as though unaware of all of that, two people were on the bed, completely naked and fucking each other senseless on the soiled matress.
The man had dark skin and dark hair and a chiseled face and body, and he was on his knees pummelling the woman from behind, his hands on her hips. She was on her hands and knees in front of him, and had long, glossy dark hair and full breasts that swung beneath her every time he plunged into her. Neither of them noticed Vanessa at first; both had their eyes closed and were grunting from the exertion of their activity. Vanessa recognized that the noises she had heard in the hall were the slap of his thighs against hers mingled with their murmurs of pleasure.
As Vanessa watched, the man bent over the woman to grab one of her breasts, his other hand still on her hip. He tweaked her nipple and then traced his hand down her body to her clit, rubbing it with a finger as her groans and his thrusts intensified.
As shocked as she was to find these strangers going at it in her house, she was also most definitely getting wet. These people were hot, and watching them ravage each other was so hot, that she was getting hot as a result. She squeezed her legs together to feel the pressure on her clit and let out a breath of her own pleasure.
It must have been louder than she realised, because at that moment both people on the bed opened their eyes and looked right at her. Funnily enough, they didn't stop or say anything. The man grinned at her; a sexy, self-assured, cocky sort of grin that made Vanessa's toes curl. He stared at her as he continued to pound the woman. The woman just bit her lip and then threw her head back, too engrossed in what she was doing to care about an onlooker.
Vanessa felt glued to the spot, both by the man's eyes and her own fascination with and arousal over what she was seeing. As though encouraged by her eye contact with the man, Vanessa felt emboldened to reach one hand under the waistband of her pants and underwear and start rubbing her clit. She was so wet, she plunged a finger inside of herself and then used her own juices to further torment her clit. It wasn't long before she was coming into her own hand, orgasming in record time for someone who had just gotten out of the hospital. She came while still staring into the eyes of the sexy man on the bed, who was still fucking the sexy woman on the bed while staring at Vanessa; it was like all of her sexy fantasies had come to life. He grinned even wider as he watched Vanessa quiver.
The woman's noises had increased to heavy panting and near shrieks with every push of the man, before she let out a scream and collapsed on the bed in front of her. The man slowed down his movements and then pulled out with a chuckle. He patted his partner on her round behind and then stood up and walked over to Vanessa in the doorway. She took in every naked inch of him as he approached her; he was tall and muscular and very well endowed. Vanessa had to bite her lip when she looked at his cock, all semi-erect and glistening and completely enticing. When she could finally drag her eyes away and back to his handsome face, he was smiling again.
"Well, hello, you," he said, his voice deep, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "All recovered from our tumble off the ladder, are we?"
Vanessa had no idea who this man was, how he knew about her accident or why he was naked and fucking someone in her house, but with him standing right in front of her, in all his masculine glory, she didn't really care.
"I'm feeling a LOT better now," she said through a flirtatious smile. "That was quite a show!"
The man chuckled, a deep rumbling sound that Vanessa could feel in her pussy.
"Well, after the show you put on the other night, I owed you one!"
At that moment, Vanessa recognized his face. He was one of the people she had seen after her fall off the ladder, the one who had leaned in close to her. Her mouth fell open and her hand flew up to cover it. The colour must have drained from her face because the man's expression changed from flirtatious to concerned and he directed her to sit on a chair just inside the room. Vanessa followed his directions without thought, too shocked and unable to make sense of anything to notice what she was doing. She closed her eyes and shook her head, as though to shake it free of any delusions, but when she opened them and looked up, the hot naked man was still there, bending over her with a worried look on his face. There was no way he was a figment of her imagination, he was very much real and standing right in front of her.
"Are you okay?" he asked. "I'm sorry to shock you. I thought you recognized me when you were watching us from the door. I would have gone about this very differently otherwise."
"But wh-who are you?" Vanessa asked. "And what are you doing in my house?"
The man took a breath before answering. "I'm Reggie Munch, and I died at Bloomington House in 2002. I'm a ghost, I thought you knew."
He paused, and Vanessa waited for the punchline. She stared at the man and he stared back at her. When it was clear he wasn't joking or planning to elaborate, she jumped up from the chair and backed away from him.
"What is your deal? You were in my house the other night and you're back now, trying to feed me this bullshit. Complete bullshit. I don't know why you are here, or what you're trying to prove, but you and your friend should leave before I call the police!"
With that, Vanessa turned and ran out of the room and down the hall. She could hear the man say something as she ran away, but couldn't tell what it was through the pounding of her heart.
At the staircase, she met Michael, who adjusted the tea and toast-laden tray he was carrying to touch her arm and stop her midstride.
"Van, are you okay? Don't run, babe, you should be resting. Who were you talking to?" Michael asked, concern etched on his face.