Horny Ghost

Disclaimer: All sexual activity depicted here is between fictional characters over the age of 18.

~~~~~

After almost six years of waiting, our wedding night was everything we could have hoped for. Seeing Mari step out of the hotel bathroom in a pink negligee, no panties underneath, grinning from ear to ear, would have made me hard in seconds, had I not already been erect, waiting for her on the bed.

She had gotten her gynecologist to eliminate her hymen as a teen because she'd had trouble with inserting tampons, so we didn't have bleeding to worry about. We warmed up with some oral to make sure she was extra wet, then I lay back and had Mari crouch over me, line me up and lower herself at her own pace. With no experience with other women, I didn't know whether Mari was particularly tight and I never want to have another lover to compare to her. Still, tight is the only word I have for the sensation of her pussy walls squeezing around my cock, as she slowly took in inch after inch until all seven were inside her.

As she came to a rest, a tear rolled down Mari's cheek. "Gawd, Joe, I can't describe how fantastic you feel inside me. Why did I make us wait for this, again?"

I wiped that tear away before saying, "Because you wanted tonight, our wedding night, to be special. It is special, baby. I don't regret a thing. So, we've got two years of abstinence and almost four of only-oral to make up for. I'm looking forward to it, not looking backward. We ought to be caught up around the time of our 50th anniversary, don't you think?"

Mari began moving up and down on me, slowly at first, savoring the sensations as she continued stretching. I had one hand flicking across her clitoris, and the other tweaking her sensitive nipples. Soon she had her first orgasm with me inside her, screaming my name. Then she really let loose, leaning forward to put her hands on my chest, thrusting back onto me as quickly as she could. I thrust up into her down-strokes and the slapping sound of my groin hitting hers filled the room, soon drowned out by our grunts and moans as we both tried to time our orgasm to the other's.

"Fuck, Mari, here it comes!" I shouted, my cock shooting my semen into her. Her orgasm only lagged mine by five seconds as I thrust harder throughout.

That was the start of a long night of exploring each other's pleasure, in as many positions as we could manage, before we flew off on a one week honeymoon, before returning home to start our jobs.

~~~~~

Officially, my name is Joseph Gamble Darby, the Gamble being my mom's maiden name. I grew up being called Joey. Mari was the first to call me Joe. I'm the third Joseph Darby in my family. The first was my grandfather's half-brother Joseph Stanbridge Darby, son of Howard and Rebecca (Stanbridge) Darby, Howard's first wife. The second was my father's brother, Joseph Whiting Darby, named for his uncle. Joseph W. Darby died of leukemia before my dad was born.

Then there's me, named for them both. All three of us bore our mother's maiden names as our middle names. Our own little uncle-nephew tradition.

Once I was born, there were seven living Darbys in the immediate family, around Kansas City. My great-uncle Joseph, my great-grandmother Martha (Porter), Howard Sr.'s 2nd wife, who lived with my grandparents, Howard Jr. and Karen (Whiting), then my parents John and Kelly (Gamble) and me.

Mom couldn't have more kids after me, so I also grew up an only child like my dad had. Great-Grandma Martha Darby died in 1995 when I was five and the number of Darbys dropped to six.

I met Mari Stone in 2006 when I was in High School. It was the beginning of my Junior year and she was a Freshman. I was smitten immediately. Her mother's ancestry is Irish and Chinese, her father's English and African. The combination gave her the most beautiful brown eyes and smile. Wavy black hair and a light brown complexion completed the picture.

She was a slender 14-year-old when I met her, but gained a bit more curve every year, until she reached a tasty 36C-30-34 figure in college that she has maintained since.

I asked her out the second day of the school year and she said yes. On our very first date, she told me that she wanted to wait until marriage to have sex and I agreed to honor that.

By our fourth date, I was convinced I was going to be the man to marry her and knew without a doubt that I was willing to wait to lose my own virginity if that was what it took to win her hand. I wasn't going to lose Mari by seeking out a hookup with someone else just to get my prick wet.

In May 2008, my grandpa Howard died, bringing the number of Darbys down to five. I met my great-uncle Joseph for the first time at his half-brother's funeral. He was quiet and withdrawn, unused to social interaction and I felt sorry for him as I realized that my parents had never once taken me to visit him. We only lived 40 miles away on the other side of the city. When I asked, my parents related his history and reputation.

Rebecca Stanbridge married my great-grandfather, Howard Sr., in 1935, taking residence in a two-story, five-bedroom house Howard built just for her. She then died in 1937 giving birth to her son Joseph. My great-grandfather quickly remarried to Martha Porter, who gave birth to Howard Jr. In 1940.

During his childhood, Joseph took to saying that he could hear his mother talking to him. While initially thought to be an imaginary friend, his parents eventually had him see a psychiatrist, who found nothing wrong with him except for the insistence that he heard his mother's voice. Although he soon stopped saying that, it was enough to earn him a reputation as "Crazy Joe" around town. In response, he became shy and withdrawn.

He inherited $2.2 million from his mother's grandparents in 1951 when he was 14, put into a trust that only gave him full access to that money at age 21, except for his education. He went east to college, then came home in 1959, not needing to work, since he had access to the inheritance. Great-grandfather Howard died the following year, leaving a will that granted Martha the right to continue living in the home, but dividing the ownership of it between his two sons.

Joseph wanted to live in the family house badly enough that he paid Howard Jr. twice what his half was worth as well as enough money to attend college, if Martha would surrender her rights to live in the house. Except for the period where Howard went away for college, Martha lived with her son the rest of her life, in the house Howard bought with the money Joseph had given him.

Uncle Joseph then turned into a recluse, living off of the inheritance, rarely venturing from the home he thought of as his mother's, even keeping his relatives away from the home. He had attended my parents' wedding, then his step-mother's funeral a few years later, but more than a dozen years had passed since my parents had seen him at all.

They had never stepped foot in his house. Except for Uncle Joseph, no member of the Darby family who had ever been inside it was still alive.

Mari and I graduated high school the next month, after she was named Queen of the Prom. After that night, she was one of the few virgin girls left in our graduating class. I was perhaps the only virgin male, except for a couple of nerdy guys we expected would never get a girl interested in them. We later learned that they were more interested in each other. So, I turned out to be the last heterosexual virgin in my graduating class.

At my 18th birthday party that July, Grandma Karen gave me her engagement ring and her and Howard's wedding bands, for 'whenever I might need them', in front of Mari. I immediately dropped to my knee in front of her and asked, "Will you make me the happiest man on the planet and marry me?"

She grinned and exclaimed, "Yes! Oh, yes, Joe. Just... not right away. After we finish college, you're all mine, Joe Darby. For the rest of our lives."

The prospect of another four years of celibacy did not exactly thrill me, but I knew I was balancing that against the rest of our lives together. The fact was, we had fun together without having to be in bed. I couldn't imagine marrying anyone else.

Thankfully, Mari started to allow oral sex into our make-out sessions once we were engaged and in college. She still drew the line at intercourse and we also decided together that we were going to wait for a few years after marriage before having kids.

Our wedding date was scheduled for June 2nd, 2012, after graduation. My parents both died in a car crash a month before it. The Darbys at the funeral were down to three - my grandmother Karen, who did not plan to remarry, my great uncle Joseph, looking quite frail and using a cane, and me.

Mari and I had jobs lined up in the city, but even with my parents' life insurance, we could not financially swing keeping my parents' house. So, it was put on the market, selling quickly, while we looked to buy a condo with the proceeds. All while we still had to study for finals. Thankfully, we managed to maintain our grades and graduated.

By coincidence, the condo we found was just 5 miles from Uncle Joseph's house, as the small town had been swallowed up over the years by suburbia and his house was now surrounded by newer developments. We would be able to move in after our honeymoon.

I tried to call Uncle Joseph to see if he needed any help around his house or even just a visitor, but he always said no, that he had staff which took care of things, and I soon stopped trying. Although he accepted our wedding invitation, he did not show up. Combined with the absence of my parents, I felt the family shrinking, when we'd been hoping for it to grow. At least Mari was the fourth Darby now. I've already recounted part of our wedding night. All of that as background for the real story. Our ghost story.

~~~~~

Flash forward to June, 2017. We had just celebrated our fifth anniversary, still fucking like newlyweds, taking joy in our promise to each other to make up for the years of abstinence. We decided on the night of the anniversary to start trying to conceive. It was time to expand the Darbys again.

Then, Uncle Joseph died of a stroke on June 15th. He had been found by his housekeeper, dead in his bed, clutching a frame with his mother Rebecca's picture in it. By coincidence, perhaps, it was his 80th birthday. The Darbys were back down to three again, Grandma, Mari and Me. I was the only male Darby left. I'd be the last, if I didn't have a son.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when Uncle Joseph's attorney informed me that his estate, including the house and an investment portfolio dating back to the original trust, was now worth roughly $195 million. An exact accounting would be part of the probate process. Given a straightforward will, the attorney estimated three months for the it to complete.

Uncle Joseph had been living off of the investment income generated by his original $2.2 million inheritance for all those years. I was at first amazed that he hadn't drained it away, then greedily wished he'd grown it bigger or done better estate planning. There was a provision in his will giving $25 million to my grandmother Karen, who had been his sister—in-law. The rest was left to me, his only biological heir. There were no heirs on the Stanbridge side of the family.

Federal estate taxes were due, though, requiring a lot of the investments to be liquidated, as Joseph had done nothing at all to protect any of the estate from taxes. The first $5.49 million was exempt but the rest would be taxed at 40%. So, about $75 million in taxes would reduce the estate to $120 million. Grandma's share was then about $15 million. The rest, about $100 million, would be mine. And Mari's.

Mari and I considered quitting our jobs now that we wouldn't need the income, but we actually love the work we do, so we decided to keep working. We just didn't have to worry about raises or bonuses or balancing the household budget.

Without having seen it, at first I wanted to sell the old house to help meet the taxes. It had been built by Great-Grandpa for Rebecca in 1935 and we imagined it must be in horrible shape.

How wrong we were, when we drove onto the property on July 10th to visit for the first time and were taken on a tour by the housekeeper. Her name is Irene Johnson. She was then an employee of the estate, while it was still being probated. She was in her mid-forties and had been working for Uncle Joseph for twenty years.

The staffs that Uncle Joseph hired had done a top-notch job maintaining and even upgrading the house. It looked great on the outside and even better on the inside. Its roof was only five years old, with solar panels installed. Its electrical system inside had been upgraded at the same time, along with a security system. WiFi throughout, with some top-notch computer equipment in an office that had been one of the unused bedrooms on the ground floor.

A second bedroom adjacent to the office had exercise equipment that looked about two decades old, but was clean and Irene said it was fully functional, even though Joseph had stopped using it when he first started needing a cane. The two normal bedrooms upstairs were vacant, also spotless. The master bedroom had all brand new furniture and drapes in it, the removal of Joseph's bedding and clothing being stipulated in the will and already executed by Irene.

What resulted was a modern looking bedroom, with an entertainment center on the wall facing the bed. The high-def television was the same size as the one in the living room downstairs.

Remaining on the wall over one dresser was a collection of family photos, some a hundred years old. I was surprised to see a photo of my wedding day, of Mari and I flanking Grandma Karen, in a large frame. It was in our wedding album, but not framed at the condo.

I asked, "Irene, how did my great-uncle get a copy of this wedding photo?"

She said, "Mister Darby helped finance a lot of local businesses over the years, usually only taking a 25% stake and then maintaining it when he could. Those companies which got bought out made him a lot of his gains and he'd repeat the cycle. Being an owner often allowed him the ability to get businesses that would not otherwise deliver to do so just for him. Hayward Photography was one of those businesses, although delivery was probably not his purpose. Still, when he could not attend your wedding, he contacted Mr. Hayward directly, got him to come out with another set of proofs, reviewed the pictures that had been taken and selected that one. Hayward printed it and framed it for free. Mister Darby made a point of saying that the three of you were his heirs and that you were his namesake."

Mari's eyes were glued to another picture in particular, a black and white photo of a slender woman in a wedding dress, with a 1930s hairstyle. The ornate copper frame was dulled by age. I asked Irene, "Was that the picture of his mother Uncle Joseph was holding when he passed? That's Rebecca?"

"Yes," she answered. "It usually hung in that spot, so I returned it to the wall once the police declared the scene clear. I assume he took it down that night because it was both his 80th birthday and his mother's 100th. He never celebrated his birthday, because it was also the day he lost his mother, something he blamed himself for causing. His mood was always darkest at that time. It's also when he was most likely to be overheard holding a conversation with her."

"That wasn't just a childhood thing, after all?" I asked.

"No. He was a recluse mainly because he felt everyone he knew thought he was crazy. My dad went to high school with him, and told me what he remembered when I said I was going to start working here twenty years ago. He said Joseph was teased, called "Crazy Joe" mercilessly throughout his school years and could never gather the courage to ask a girl out. Your grandfather tried to defend him when he could, but he was three years younger than those in Joseph's age group, so there wasn't much he could do."

"You've been around him far more than he let any members of my family be. Was he crazy?" I asked.

Irene shook her head no. "In my experience, Joseph was entirely sane, except for firmly believing that his mother was haunting this house. Only he could hear her speak and he felt a duty to her to stay here with her. I personally never saw or heard anything, even when I overheard him talking to her. There were no other signs of this house being haunted. No other strange sounds, no flickering lights, nothing getting knocked off of a shelf or counter."

"I don't want us to sell this house, Joe," Mari said. "This feels like home, already. I know it doesn't make much sense. Call it a gut feeling."

I said, "You got it, babe. We'll find different investments to sell. Irene, are you willing to continue working for us, after probate closes, at least until we figure out whether we can handle this much house by ourselves?"

Irene responded, "I would be honored. You'll need me or someone like me, at least part-time, if you're both still holding down jobs. There is also a grounds-keeping service that comes out once or twice per week, depending on the season. They are already paid through year's end. It's about 100 acres between the lawns and gardens."

"What have your duties been?" Mari asked. "I've never had a full-time housekeeper before."

Irene answered, "In addition to keeping the house clean and cooking meals Mondays through Fridays, I also manage the household account, making sure that utilities and taxes get paid on time, handling the mail and all deliveries. I took care of all Mister Darby's grocery and other shopping, until the Internet made it possible for him to place many of those orders himself, but I was the one who accepted the deliveries and put everything away. I then kept Mister Darby apprised of our inventory levels as I prepared his meals and so forth. He lived frugally, for a rich man. Which I suppose benefits you, now."

"Were there any parts of the housekeeping role that you did not perform, because Joseph was a recluse?" Mari asked.

Irene answered, "Normally, a housekeeper's duties in the absence of a butler would also include organizing any dinner parties the family wanted to throw, but Mister Darby never did. Just so you know, all of his e-commerce accounts have been closed, by order of his executor. A list of his recurring orders, things that he had shipped every week, is downstairs beside the office computer. There are also two relatively new Android tablets there, which have been reset to factory defaults. I suppose those will be yours, once probate closes."

~~~~~

After a summer spent making decisions of which investments should be liquidated by the estate in order to pay the estate taxes and which would be part of Grandma Karen's share, the relevant tax filing and payment was sent to the IRS, and probate closed on October 10th.

Many of the local companies that Uncle Joseph invested in were hardest to divest, compared to publicly traded securities, so we retained most of those. Grandma was particularly interested in the two flower shops among the portfolio, so took both of those and befriended both of the majority owners. She even took a job with one, just to get out of her house more. Mari thinks she's sweet on the owner.

Mari and I made visits to Uncle Joseph's house several times over the summer, making preliminary decisions about how we wanted to redecorate the other rooms in the house and where our existing possessions would fit. Mari and I put our condo onto the market and started packing our things, planning to move into "The Darby House", as we'd begun calling it, on October 21st.

The day of the move arrived. Movers handled everything flawlessly. Our condo's bedroom set went into one of the empty bedrooms, to make a guest room. Irene took charge of unpacking our condo's kitchen equipment and food, then prepared the first meal in our home. She then bid us a welcome home, before heading to her home for the rest of the weekend.