Ridiculust

Meanwhile, Roger had been having a wonderful nap. The mattress was supremely comfortable and he idly wondered how Sarah was able to get out of it in the morning. He finally thought that he wasn't going to fall asleep again and sat up, yawning and stretching with a popping of joints. He looked over to the clock and saw that about half an hour had passed since he'd been bundled into bed by his newly-found, and re-found, sweethearts.

"It's about time you woke up, sleepyhead," said a familiar feminine voice. He turned his attention to the foot of the bed, where Jeannie's ghost was sitting, watching him. She was smiling, and her silvery glow showed that she was in a modest T-shirt and jeans. Her past shoulder-length hair had that feathered look that he knew so well. "All that activity you've been up to must have made you very tired." He shook his head ruefully and got out of the bed. He suddenly realized that he had the same silver glow that she had, and quickly looked back at the bed to see his body lying there, still breathing slowly and regularly.

"So that's what I look like when I'm sleeping," he said. "I'm not dead, am I? I look alive there."

"Your body is getting the rest it needs, but your spirit is up for a little walk," she replied. "Come with me." She led him out the door and down the stairs. He could still feel the sensation of the stairs under his feet, even though he wasn't sure if he had any mass that gravity could act on.

"Is it necessary to walk around like we do in real life, or can you blip from one place to another or float around at will?" he asked curiously. "I never imagined doing this." When they got to the bottom of the stairs and turned right to cross the hallway and go into the living room, he saw two male figures sitting on the three-seater couch. They weren't making an impression on it, he noted. Despite the light coming in from the picture window in front and the kitchen window from the rear, he could make out their silvery glows clearly. They stood up as Roger and Jeannie approached.

"Roger Matheson, I believe you remember John Burns from last night." Roger nodded and they smiled and shook hands. His hand felt cool, but firm. "The other gentleman is Joe MacInnes."

"I'm Debbie's late husband," he said in a deeper voice than Roger was expecting as they shook hands. He looked like he'd been black, not quite six feet tall, with a fit and toned body. He'd been handsome with an easygoing smile and a short afro. Strangely, Roger felt totally at ease with all of them.

"It is my pleasure to meet you both," he replied. "Shall we sit, or do we float around the room going 'wooo wooo'?" That got a laugh, and they all sat, with Jeannie between the other two and Roger on the love seat. "This is my first out-of-body experience, so please forgive me if I'm a bit awkward."

"No worries," said John in a clear, well-modulated tenor, well-suited to teaching Roger thought. "We don't have much time until the ladies return, so I'll be brief. All three of us were blessed by having partners who loved us and stood by us, through thick and thin."

"Just in the same way that you loved and stood by us," Roger returned. "I haven't had the chance to ask Debbie about you, but I know that both Sarah and I were devastated when you," he looked at Jeannie, "and John died. I don't think we ever stopped loving you," he said sadly.

"And that's the heart of the problem," said Joe. "You haven't let go of us emotionally, and we've finally figured out that it's what's keeping us here and preventing us from moving on."

"I am really sorry to hear that," replied Roger sincerely. "I'm confused though because I'm sure that lots of other people have left behind grieving spouses but have still managed to, um, move on?"

"There must be something special about you guys," said John. "Beyond what we knew when we met you, but it's getting kind of depressing being stuck here in limbo while the world goes on without us. Only a few seem to have the ability to see us, and we can't otherwise interact with the world."

"You have to figure out how to get yourselves to let go of us," said Joe. He looked out the window. "They're almost home. You have to go back upstairs and return to your body now."

"Sarah has already interacted with you, John. But Debbie won't believe me when I say I talked to you, Joe. Tell me something she'd recognize."

"Play 'Hey, Jude' on your phone. She'll know. But expect some crying." He smiled sadly.

"I'm the healer, so it's my job, isn't it?" They all got up. "I think I know the solution. The three of us are in the first stages of love, but it's only been about a day since I even got here. I think that once we're fully committed and realize that it's for real and forever, then we'll be ready to let go. I have an idea, and I'll work on it, but I think you guys will have a role in it." Roger felt himself drifting out of the room towards the stairs. "Dammit, I must be waking up!"

"Will it involve puns?" Jeannie asked in a resigned tone.

"My magic seems to depend on them," he replied as he drifted up the stairs, accelerating. "Sorry. Maybe the Other Side doesn't have them..." The sounds of car doors closing were audible through the open front ventilation windows below the picture window.

"Even after death I can't get away from his puns," she muttered darkly as Sarah put her key in the lock and turned it. The three ghosts vanished just as the door was opened.

"I hope Roger is still asleep," said Sarah quietly as she and Debbie came in with their bags of groceries. "I want to wake him up the fun way." They kicked off their sneakers, went into the kitchen, put the meat into the fridge and the bags on the counter, and then quickly tiptoed up the stairs and into the bedroom. It looked like Roger had hardly moved at all since he fell asleep, as he was still lying on his left side, facing away from them and towards the window, whose green curtains had been drawn when they first came upstairs. The head of the bed was against the far wall, with a dresser to its right and a night table on its left. They moved silently to stand on the near side, where he was.

"Which fun way did you have in mind?" Debbie whispered. "His underwear is still on, and they're those damn tighty-whities."

"Then we'll just have to yank them down, expose Little Lazarus, and do what we can before he wakes up," Sarah smirked. "I'll lift, you yank. One, two, ... three." Sarah lifted his body just enough so that Debbie, working around her, was able to grab the waistband and pull the offending undergarment down to his knees. He grunted and stirred, muttering, and his eyes opened.

"Huh, whaa? Whoa!" The two women had rolled him onto his back and Sarah had leaned over and put his soft, flabby cock into her mouth and begun licking and sucking on it while fondling his balls gently. Debbie had gone around and planted her lips on his for a lingering, sizzling kiss.

"What's happening down there?" she finally asked, breaking the kiss to look down at Sarah, who slowly and deliberately pulled away from his noticeably larger penis, which finally came out with a pop and flopped on his belly.

"I'm detecting some signs of life on this planet," she responded with a wicked grin. "But it needs some more time before it's ready for action."

"That was totally amazing! Any more of that and I'm not sure how much longer I'd survive. How did I ever get to be so lucky as to wake up to the two most beautiful women in the world doing naughty things to me?" Debbie grabbed the cock and flopped it around.

"Next time, we are going to take our time, nice and slow," she purred. "And when we are done with you, and each other," she added with a smoldering look at Sarah, "we will all sleep better than we have in years."

"What did you do while I was asleep?" Roger asked, sitting up and pulling his briefs back up where they belonged. "I had a most interesting dream that I think you should know about." He got up and quickly put on his shirt and shorts.

"Well, we got stuff to make hamburgers for dinner," said Debbie as they filed out of the room and headed for the stairs. "But before that we somehow managed to save an ash tree from the ash borers and restore the damage." His eyebrows elevated with surprise. They explained what had happened as they stood around the kitchen, unpacking the shopping bags. "Sarah scared the crap out of me when she went on the warpath and blew those bugs out of the tree. I'd never seen her so furious."

"I don't know what came over me," she replied, plopping the bag of buns on the counter. "I'm normally meek and mild-mannered..." Debbie snorted and giggled at the withering glare, while Roger carefully maintained a neutral expression. "But there was something about seeing that lovely tree being killed by a bunch of fucking bugs that just set me off!" She looked down and saw that her hands were glowing brightly. "And it still does," she added quietly. "If there's one good thing that's come out of this Magic Plague thing, it's that we were able to save that tree."

"And I was somehow able to hear the tree crying out, and then was able to fix the damage that the bugs had made so that it could recover," said Debbie.

"Debbie, I haven't had the chance to ask you about your life since we parted," said Roger. "Did you wind up becoming an engineer?"

"I wound up in architecture, Roger," she replied. "I helped to design houses and office buildings all over Alberta, especially focusing on energy efficiency. I also got into ... woodworking ..." she paused. "Interesting. I've always liked working with wood in all sorts of ways, and people always told me I was a natural." Sarah had busied herself with the coffee maker as they were talking, and it had just declared its job done. Sarah poured them each a mug and they went back out to the deck and sat. "So what I did with the tree earlier was almost a natural extension to what I've been doing for most of my life."

"I've been practicing T'ai Chi and a couple of other martial arts for many years, to help keep me fit and centred," said Sarah thoughtfully. "And I enjoy watching football and hockey, combat sports. Maybe I'm a warrior." Roger scratched his head, looking confused.

"You guys make sense. I have no connection to healing, medicine, or whatever. I was a computer programmer and analyst, and did what I could to avoid the medical professionals."

"Maybe you have been in previous lives," suggested Debbie. "Even when I first met you, I could see that you were a kind, compassionate, caring person, despite the puns," she added with a mock scowl. "You even offered the occasional bit of sensible medical advice to my friends."

"Which was mostly eat healthy, avoid fad diets, and go ask your doctor," he replied with a smile. "They were a bunch of airheads. But I'll admit that there have been a lot of occasions when I've seen people and wished with all my heart that I could reach out and heal them. So maybe that's where it comes from." They quietly sipped their coffee and thought.

"So what was this dream you wanted to tell us about, Roger?" Sarah asked.

"I'm honestly not sure it was a dream," he replied. "Basically, in the time just before you two came home, I was in the living room chatting with the ghosts of Jeannie, John, and," he looked at Debbie, "Joe MacInnes." Her eyes grew wide and her hand started shaking so much that she had to plunk her half-empty mug on the table. He continued in a shaky voice. "They told me, in no uncertain terms, that we are preventing them from passing on to whatever the next stage is because we haven't emotionally let them go. They think that we are at the stage now that we can." Roger found that he had to put his mug on the table so he could put his face in his hands and try to compose himself.

"You ... you saw Joe?" asked Debbie in a rough voice, clearly a hair's breadth from losing it.

"He seemed like a nice guy. I really wish that I could have known him, and John, in real life. He told me that this would prove to you that I'd met him." He pulled out his phone, opened a music app, and selected The Beatles' "Hey Jude". As soon as it began, she broke down and began crying as hard as Roger had ever seen anyone cry. Both he and Sarah squeezed into the two-seater couch where she was sitting and wrapped their arms around her to try to comfort her as much as they could, given that they were also crying, feeling the pain of their lost spouses. By the time the song had finished, with all the "na na na na's" and "hey Judes", they were all gently swaying back and forth to it.

"Oh, oh I had no idea it hurt so bad," Sarah choked out as the song ended. "Look at us, total mess times three."

"I can see that the ghosts have a point about our not having let them go," said Roger, snuffling loudly to keep a load of crud from pouring from his nose. "Strangely, I feel a lot better now."

"I'll feel a lot better once I blow my nose and clean up a bit," sniffled Debbie, and they got up. "Dear Goddess, I feel like a volcano that just had a total blowout." They went inside and spent the next several minutes blowing their noses, washing their faces and hands and trying to compose themselves.

"I've been operating on an emotional hair trigger ever since John died," said Sarah after they'd gone back outside and reseated themselves, all three cuddled in the large couch. "Even some small sentimental thing would set me off. I thought I'd gotten better over the years, but I guess not."

"So we need to let them go, but how?" asked Debbie. "Any ideas, mister healer?"

"It's here. It's us," Roger replied with a sad smile. "We've held onto them and their memories because we haven't found anyone to fill the holes that they left in us when they died. At least, until now. Sarah, our relationship is only a day old," he said, checking his watch. "So far, the sex has been amazing and the companionship wonderful, but we haven't had the time to get to know each other much, and maybe we're both wondering if it's too good to be true. Debbie, our relationship was strong and deep while it lasted, but it's been more than forty years since we've even seen each other, and neither of us knows if we'll be able to reconnect on the same level that we had."

"I moved here about five and half years ago, a few months after Joe had died. We'd been living in Calgary for about 20 years, with him doing landscaping work and me doing design of swanky houses, so we covered both inside and out," said Debbie haltingly. "I found him sitting out in the back patio one evening after coming home from the office. It looked like he'd ... he'd fallen asleep, but when he didn't respond to my question about how his day had gone, I went outside to see that he had died there." She gratefully accepted Kleenexes from Roger and Sarah, who were holding her tightly from either side. "He'd been struck in the leg by a concrete patio stone earlier in the week. It left a nasty bruise and scrape, but the injury must have been enough to make a blood clot that had broken loose and made its way to his brain. Poof. Just like that."

"I am so sorry," Roger sympathized, wiping his own leaky eyes.

"I can't recall how it came to be that I wound up here," she continued. "A real estate agent must have told me about the good deal on the house, quiet life in a relatively inexpensive small town, yadda yadda. I sold the business, a lot of the stuff in the house, and the house, and moved here. It needed a lot of work, but I had the time and the money."

"And the talent," said Sarah admiringly. "You should see the place, Roger."

"Oh, he will," she replied, managing a tear-streaked leer that got a snicker from Sarah and a look of almost mock fear from Roger that got smiles from both of them. "The first few months were spent as a one-woman wrecking and rebuilding crew, but I got to know Sarah and John from casual encounters, and they even came over and helped on some of the things that needed more than one person."

"Getting a bathtub up the stairs is something I never want to do again," shuddered Sarah. "Even with the delivery guys and us, it was a struggle. That damned thing weighs a ton!"

"But it looks perfect in the room." Sarah grudgingly agreed, while Roger carefully maintained a poker face. "So anyway, you're probably wondering how I got involved with them," she said to him.

"Nope, I'm wondering what's for dinner! Hey!" The last was a response to a quick grope.

"We got used to going over to each others' houses for visits, usually unannounced," Sarah continued as Roger took Debbie's groping hand, gave it a kiss, and put it on her lap. "We knew that she was hurting from the loss of Joe and didn't want her to be too lonely. Then one day in early summer about four years ago, she walked in on us while we were having sex in the living room."

"She was on top of him, riding him slowly, and they were both enjoying it," said Debbie wickedly as Sarah, even now, blushed. Even Debbie was a little pink and Roger looked amused. "We were all there with our mouths hanging open, not knowing what to say. 'The open door policy finally got us,' said John, and he laughed. 'Well, you can either come back in a few minutes, stand there and watch, or come join us.' Joe and I had never done anything outlandish like this, but I thought what the hell, took off my clothes and went and sat on his face. From the way he ate me out, I knew he'd had lots of experience."

"Neither of us had done anything with a woman before," Sarah continued. "But it didn't take long to realize that it was pretty good. A day later, John bought us a couple of toys from Trina's and left us alone for a couple of hours. As he'd expected, he came back to find us on the bed, barely conscious, and he dropped his pants and had his way with Debbie, while all I could do was watch. He pounded her hard and they both came like an express train. After they were finished, he crawled over to me, shoved a pillow under my ass, put his still dripping cock into my mouth and sixty-nined me into an orgasm that nearly ripped me apart, and all she could do was watch. After that, there was no turning back."

"Hmm, looks like someone finds the story interesting," giggled Debbie, who'd been massaging Roger's cock through his shorts, despite his efforts at hand control, creating a glowing tent.

"So after John died, we kept going, even through the pain. Sometimes we spent nights together, sometimes alone, but we've been there for each other all this time."

"Would you ever want to live without each other?" asked Roger as hands continued to massage him. "Do you think that you are ready to let Joe and John go and move on with each other?" As he'd hoped, the question made them stop and look at each other as if seeing the other for the first time.

"No," said Sarah softly, "I do not want to live without you, Debbie. I couldn't do it."

"Sarah, you mean the world to me," replied Debbie. "We've seen the good and the bad, the happy and the sad. When that demon Mandy got its claws into you, I was afraid I'd lost you forever. Roger, you saved not just her, but me too."

"That was only a day ago," he said, almost incredulously. "It feels like so much longer. I had no idea what I was doing or how I did it, only that there was no way that I could allow that foul thing to keep its hold on you, no matter how awkward or unusual the method." They all chuckled. "Debbie, I should tell you about what happened with me and Jeannie." He explained the cancer diagnosis and car crash ten days later as he'd told Sarah last night.

"Oh, how terrible!" cried Debbie. "No time to say goodbye!"

"None of us had time to say goodbye," replied Roger. "We all lost our loves suddenly. Bang." That made them pause to think.

"Those 'ghosts' you saw in your dream - how ghostly were they?" Sarah wondered.