How in the hell had I ever let my so-called friends get me into this mess? I guess alcohol might have been a factor. You know how it goes; you're sitting with a few friends munching on enough junk food to put the Budweiser Clydesdales into a diabetic coma and sucking down beer. Do you have any idea how nasty beer and sugarcoated spice gumdrops taste together?
Since it was only two days until Halloween we had been telling ghost stories to see who could tell the scariest story. And as usual, some drunken fool had to make a silly-ass bet about someone spending the night alone in the old Ramsey Mansion on the outskirts of town. Yeah, you guessed it; I was the intoxicated idiot who took them up on the stupid bet.
The old abandon mansion had a reputation of being haunted. I didn't believe in ghosts, goblins, monsters, or any other creature of supernatural origin. I figured what the hell; I could definitely use the hundred bucks I was going to win.
#
The next day we went to the creepy old mansion to make sure there was a way for me to get inside the next night. The house sat nearly a mile off the highway, so we weren't too worried about anyone seeing us trying to break into the place; not that anyone would really care. A set of bolt cutters got us through the chain locking the huge, black iron gates in the high stone wall surrounding the mansion.
Even in daylight, the decrepit mansion looked eerie sitting at the end of the long driveway leading to its entrance. I'm sure, at one time the old place had been a beautiful estate, but now it lay in ruin, obviously having not been maintained over many decades. The massive roof sagged in the middle; many windows had been broken out and covered over with what was now rotting plywood; the grounds were over-grown with waist-high weeds.
Several years ago, the town council had discussed the notion of restoring the rundown mansion as a historical site, but it was decided to leave it to the ghosts, believed by many to be residing in it.
The last human resident of the mansion had been Lady Charlotte Ramsey; the beautiful young widowed bride of Lawrence Ramsey. Our county had been named after Mr. Ramsey's great-grandfather who built the mansion in the late seventeen hundreds. Lawrence Ramsey was rumored to have died after an unexplained fall from a third story window. It was generally believed that the jilted lover of his recent bride had pushed him out the window.
After Lawrence's early death, Charlotte had lived alone in the huge home with only her cook, a butler, and a maid. She never left the house until her sudden death ten years later in 1925. Her ex-lover was found hanging on a rope tied to the stairway railing just outside Charlotte's bedroom. The broken, battered bodies of Lady Charlotte and her maid were found at the foot of the stairway. The whole chain of events was chalked up as a murder-suicide that took ten years to draw to a conclusion. Their four tortured spirits are said to still haunt the mansion.
One would think, when the town council mentioned ghosts living in the old home, even in jest, one would have enough sense to at least
consider
the possibility of their existence.
Walking toward the crumbing old mansion, my three friends and I were very quiet. I think we were all thinking about the scary history of the place. I was beginning to have serious doubts about the intelligence of my bet and the validity of my own non-belief in ghosts. The old place looked as if a host of ghosts could reside there. Crawling through a broken first-floor window I hiked up my spirits and decided a bet was a bet; I would go through with it. Hiked up my
spirits
, a poor word choice under the circumstances.
The four of us stood in a group, dancing flashlight beams around what appeared to be the parlor or sitting room. All the furniture was still in the old place, covered with what looked to have been white bed linens at one time, but now appeared to be a dusty light-brown color.
We roamed around the abandoned house for almost an hour. My
good
friends wanted to be sure the place was safe for me to spend the night in. Even though it was light outside, with most of the windows boarded up, it was dark and dreary inside the musty smelling old mansion. I was glad I was getting a kind of tour of the place while someone else was with me. Had I been required to walk into the house by myself, I'm not so sure I would be able to do so.
I kept a close eye on Brenda's boyfriend, Tommy. He's famous for his pranks and I was sure he was going to leave something behind to scare the fire outta me the next night. Oh yeah, this whole charade had been his idea in the first place.
All the doors inside the house were sitting open except one on the second floor. With some effort and a little help from his pry bar, Tommy finally managed to get the locked door open with surprisingly little damage to the ornate doorframe.
The room had obviously been Lady Charlotte's private sitting room. Even though the room was covered with huge expanses of cobwebs and all the furnishings were covered with filthy bed sheets and nearly an inch of dust, the room still emanated an air of femininity.
I suddenly had the weirdest sensation. It was like a cold chill running up my spine, except it seemed to begin where my thighs met, run up my insides, and out through my suddenly erect nipples.
Oh my God
, what a feeling
that
was! I shivered and uttered a soft moan. It was scary as hell and wonderful at the same time.
"You okay?" Brenda asked, noticing the funny expression on my face.
I started to tell her what had just happened, but quickly decided it was ridiculous. It couldn't have been anything more than my wild imagination working overtime. "Yeah, I'm fine," I lied. "I was just thinking about the lady who must have spent a lot of time in this room."
I experienced mixed emotions when we climbed back out the open window into the bright sunlight of the cool late October afternoon. The curious side of me wanted to stay, while the smart side wanted to get the hell away from there.
#
My little group of friends and I spent the rest of the evening sitting around doing our part to keep Anheuser-Busch in business and talking about the old house and the deaths of the people who had lived, and apparently died, in the mansion. I think it was just Tommy's way of trying to scare the piss outta me so I would simply call it quits and fork over the hundred bucks. I wasn't ready to cry uncle that easily, not yet anyway.
I went to bed rather late; I wanted to talk about the house more. I think I was unconsciously hoping one of my kind-hearted friends would graciously volunteer to stay in the old house with me. But that never happened. It looked like I had gotten myself into this predicament by myself and I was going to have to carry it out the same way.
I tossed and turned fitfully for several hours before sleep finally managed to overcome my busy imagination in its attempt to terrorize me with visions of vampires, werewolves, witches, black cats, flaming-eyed jack-o-lanterns, and ghosts.
#
The cool light of early dawn glowed softly between the curtains drawn across my bedroom window. Resentfully, I allowed myself to be pulled from the wonderful dream I had been having. The images of the vile, evil creatures of the night had been safely shoved out of my dreams by the presence of a lovely lady that I had no idea who she was or where her image had come from. She was certainly no one I had ever met before.
Now let me explain my position. I am not gay. I love men and the wonderful things they can do to a woman and the things a woman can do to a man. But this lady with her sensual aura, I believe, could easily cause me to change my preferences.
In my dream, she was sitting at an antique vanity table, dressed in a pink nightgown, which was barely on her gorgeous body, while she leaned toward the mirror applying her makeup. For some unknown reason, I woke up wanting her so damn bad my heart was aching. I was wet between my thighs. "What the hell?" I yelled to myself, jumping from the bed.
It took me several minutes of pacing around my room to get myself back together. I had never wanted another woman before. Why the hell had I dreamed about this woman, and what's more, what the hell had caused me to wake up wanting her so bad? I could still smell the soft scent of her Jasmine perfume in the air around me.
Damn
