Here are the memories of Elizabeth [surname deleted], who had a boyfriend she did never kiss, but after his demise she wildly copulated with his five ghosts, even after her getting married and bearing children, until she died at 102.
*
It all began the evening in which I heard a rifle crack. After a few minutes, dad went in and told me, "Don't worry, darling, I've just shot dead a wild boar which was getting near the poultry pen. I'm taking a spade and bury it."
"Why don't we dress and eat it, dad?"
"There is an Echinococcus outbreak among the animals in the wood. Eating their flesh would be very risky. The best solution would be burning the carrion, but we're going to face a harsh winter, and we cannot squander firewood."
Dad went out with the spade, and I went to my bedroom; I took out a letter from my bosom, written by my boyfriend Paul, who wrote that he was going to work in a shipyard as an accountant, and was going to meet me that night, in my bedroom, before catching the train to London.
I was nearly aroused by his letter, and wildly fantasized about what we would do together that night. Paul was a young man who studied in an Edinburgh boarding school while I was growing up, and when he ended it and came back to town -- I was smitten by him.
He was tall, learned, polite and sturdy, as his boarding school required both learning and strength. Hadn't his family gone bankrupt, he would have soon joined a good university, but his current priority was finding a job.
Dad hired him for a few months; he reorganized our accounts, and inventoried all our property. When he was done, Dad fired him.
Dad was kind of a gentleman: he simply stated that Paul had worked very well, and he just dismissed him because his task was completed.
But the real reason is that he became suspicious of us, and when he knew I was smitten with him, he kept reminding me that his family was brought to bankruptcy by Paul's father's alcoholism.
"His father's problem, not Paul's", I replied, but he rejoined, "Alcohol dependency runs in families, and I'm not going to take the risk. Please, ask his mother's neighbors what are they forced to witness each night. I want a healthy, not an abusive husband for my daughter."
I didn't listen to him -- while he was working in our house he could have drunk either our beer or our whisky, but he didn't, so I assumed that he was clean.
But that night, in which the rifle cracked, Paul didn't materialize. I thought that he either couldn't evade my father's watch, or that he was forced to take an earlier train than anticipated, so I didn't worry about him.
But a few nights later, I saw the semblance of Paul in my bedroom, as I went to bed. I tried to hug him, but I felt that he lacked his body -- he was just a ghost!
"What has happened, Paul?"
"The hog dangerously nearing the poultry pen that your father shot dead a few nights ago -- it was me."
"I'll kill him."
"Sorry, but revenge won't help me now. By the way, your father was genuinely worried about your health."
"I don't think you've inherited alcoholism from your father."
"It isn't just an alcohol-related problem. I've caught syphilis."
"The venereal disease?"
"Which is up to now, Anno Domini 1894, incurable? Yes. Had you become my wife, you would certainly have caught it. So would have our children."
"Did Dad know that?"
"He saw me getting out from the practice of a venereologist -- a specialist in such diseases."
"What did Dad do of your body?"
"He didn't use the spade he had taken - he dragged my body to the manhole of an old cistern, and dumped me into it."
"And you'll keep haunting my house until you'll be removed from the cistern and properly buried and mourned, won't you?"
"Yes, Liz. Although I haven't been fully honest with you, I still deserve a proper burial."
"Paul ... could you still infect me with the disease?"
"No. Not in my ghostly form."
"Paul ... my life has ended the very evening Dad shot you dead. I swore I would never love anybody but you, and I'll keep the promise.
You concealed your illness from me, exposing me to grave danger; I won't remove your body from the cistern."
"Why?"
"Because I'll never have anybody or anything sweeter in my life than your ghostly presence."
"You're crazy. You can't deprive anybody of his grave!
Jews -- I met some in Edinburgh -- say that burial is the charitable act par excellence, since the dead may not even know what is being done to him, let alone reciprocate!"
"Jews are right, but look at my neck. What you see encircling it?"
"A necklace -- made up of pearls."
"Pearls are secreted by oysters when a foreign body enters them. What is an illness for the oyster is beauty incarnate for a woman.
You are my favorite pearl, Paul. I won't lose it."
"Measure for measure, as the Bard put it. My illness could have caused you lifelong pain, so you now want my pain to be your solace."
"Not just solace, not just pain. Couldn't you become somewhat denser?"
"What you mean?"