Spinster's Nest

Ilusha didn't know why her divorcing cousin decided to sign over the house to her. There was that saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth, so she hadn't asked any questions, but her cousin did look her in the eye and say it was good riddance once the house was legally in Ilusha's name.

"At least you have no marriage for that house to ruin," the cousin had remarked cryptically.

Ilusha didn't see how a house could cause a divorce, but she developed something of a pet theory that the cause of her cousin's marriage falling apart might have been some protracted arguments about renovations. She had heard things like that could cause upheaval in relationships, and the house was indeed old and needed a bit of work.

(Though, maybe arguments over renovations weren't all there was to that story, since Ilusha's aunt had revealed, while tipsy, that infidelity had been what led to that divorce. Strange that Ilusha's cousin would blame the house, then.)

When Ilusha arrived to the small town where the house was located, she began to reinterpret the cousin's comment as more of a jab at her expense. Though the house had a formal address, in those parts it also had a name: Spinster's Nest. Apparently it was named for the fact that it had been inhabited by a series of unmarried women over the decades.

Ilusha took it in stride, since spinsterhood was not nearly so frightening a concept to her as it was to other people in her family. She arrived there at the tail end of summer, ready to make any repairs before winter, so that she might settle in and work unimpeded throughout the cold months. To her surprise, the renovations the house had undergone were not nearly as extensive as she had expected.

The house had perhaps once had a garden, but grass mostly grew wild along the fence. Inside, it was halfway furnished. Ilusha's cousin and the husband had taken with them their own heirloom furniture, but had left everything else, so it was livable, even if not all rooms were usable: the main bedroom was an empty room; the second bedroom was still fully furnished. The kitchen and parlor were intact, the bathroom still had all its fixtures, but the living room had nothing but a grand piano. Ilusha thought she might like the parlor more than the living room anyway: it had a fireplace, and a comfortable sofa and armchair set, not to mention a large desk perfectly suitable to work at.

Luckily, she had brought with herself some of the accoutrements of daily living: linens and towels, dishes and pots, just enough for one person living alone, and for anything else, there was a town nearby to shop in. She had stopped along the way in that town to buy some groceries for the week. After going through the house, she would make another shopping list for anything else she'd need.

Mostly, she spent the first day walking through the house, becoming acquainted with it. As any house did, it had its own quirks. One door slightly stuck when opened, certain floorboards were uneven. Ilusha liked the gently curving stairs, and the old floral wallpaper. She liked the slightly jutting angle of the hallway that led to the kitchen, and the bronze faucets that must have been as old as the house but worked just as well as new.

She kept adding things to her mental list; furnishings for the living room, rugs for just about everywhere in the house. They'd only left behind the maroon runner rug on the stairs, perhaps because the slippery stairs would have been unsafe otherwise, or maybe because they did not want to remove each iron rod that kept the rug in place.

At the end of the day, she went to sleep on new linens in an unfamiliar bed, and thought about this place becoming familiar to her. The room was tight, only a bed, a wardrobe and an end table fitting in the place, but that was sufficient for Ilusha. It didn't feel small so much as cozy. Protective, even, like the massive furniture was a barricade against the intrusion of the world.

She fell asleep easily enough, for all her excitement about this place.

*

If anything unusual was said to begin at any point, it probably started about two weeks after Ilusha moved in.

The thing was, she had never cared all that much about masturbating, other using it more as a tool for relaxation when she felt too wound-up to sleep. That night however...

She had fallen asleep to the now-familiar creaks and groans of the house settling. Or, at least, she thought she was asleep, but if she was sleeping, then the dream she was having was a strange, in-between thing drawing on her senses, because in this dream she was in bed, trying to fall asleep.

In that numb place of semi-consciousness, her limbs were completely immobile but her mind had a spark of awareness. With that small bit of awareness, she felt cold touches flit over her skin, like the barest brush of fingertips even through her night gown. The cold little touches were brief at first; innocent. Skimming over a shoulder, over the outside of her knee. A chilly line down across her ribs. Random, and barely worth remarking upon. Easy to dismiss as the breeze, or flights of imagination. She thought maybe this wasn't even the first night she'd felt these incidental little sensations.

But then the cold touches began to linger. Ilusha tracked the slow drag down over her chest, all the was down to her navel, then back up again, over a breast, circling a nipple. Goosebumps rose in the wake of that touch, and shivers followed. She became hyperaware of the brush of her nipples against the fabric of her nightgown.

The touches turned into caresses, slightly more firm as they explored her body, and growing bolder. Something like the cold press of a palm cupped a breast, while gentle, chilly tendrils snaked up the insides of her thighs--the slightest feeling of something cold snaking its way between her legs. She barely would have noticed, except that same barely-there touch repeated. It was more like a tickle, sending a fine spiderweb of sensations lighting up the nerves along her abdomen. When cold lines began to be traced down from her navel and back up again, the sensation doubled with the delicate touches against her center.

Everything else melted away from her attention as the light, shivery touches teased but did not press against her clit properly. She wanted to arch into this touch, press against it in one satisfying, hard roll of the hips, but it eluded her, and it was never quite hard enough. Her toes curled, and her back tensed, but she was still paralyzed by sleep, so she could not move the way she meant to. Instead, her thighs pressed together harder, against some cold, hard shapeless presence--like a hand or a--

She flinched awake suddenly, which was the only way she knew she'd been dreaming. Her clit tingled, an electric sensation that she had never experienced so strongly before. But when her hand reached down under her nightgown and between her legs, the heat of her own fingers seemed to chase away that enticing cold touch she couldn't understand. Arousal was melting away from her without those strange feelings to sustain it.

Ilusha turned on her back, kicked away the blanket and spread her legs for easier access. She rubbed circles around her own clit, dry at first. She dipped a finger inside, and found herself wetter than she expected--when she smeared the wetness over her clit, it felt just as unexpectedly good. She rolled her clit between two fingers and pressed hard, and felt the throb of arousal as she did, hungrier than she'd ever experienced during her perfunctory masturbation sessions. She eased off again, however, rubbing gently over the slickened, soft flesh.

It was very strange, but as she spread her legs wider, she felt the arousal deeper, set somewhere higher inside her, and she thought maybe she wanted something inside. This wasn't something she'd tried before, at first out of shyness and later because she had no interest in it, but now the idea had a strange appeal. She dipped one finger inside, unsure how deep to sink it to feel pleasure. It went easily enough up to the first knuckle, but it didn't quite feel like anything other than a foreign object--maybe one finger was too little for what she wanted. She moved it slowly in and out, curled it a little, but she wasn't sure this was what she was seeking.

She dragged the finger out again, circling over her clit before running it back down and inside her again. That was better. Maybe--

She curled the finger inside herself, and brought her other hand to her clit instead, rubbing it while slowly thrusting her finger just a bit deeper. This was finally starting to feel a little like what she was hungry for. The sensations from her clit seemed amplified the deeper inside she thrust: something heavy, and heady and hotter than she expected.

Her hips twitched of their own accord when she rolled and thrust just right to hit upon some vein of pleasure. Her arousal, which had been flagging before, now stoked higher and higher. She slipped in another finger, and pressed down harder, more deliberately on her clit, rolling it slowly and mercilessly. Arousal became a live wire between the movement of her fingers outside, and the curl of her fingers inside, burning and burning like something that would scald if it was touched directly.

The stretch of her cunt around her fingers offered a counterpoint to the pleasure, an urgent heat and diffuse, distant pain that grounded her in her body, made her be all the more aware that she was doing this to herself.

She looked down at the working of her hand, and past that to one of the decorative posts of the bed. In her state of arousal, she suddenly had the mad thought of sinking down onto that decorative post. It was a phallic shape, and the top knob was not so big. Surely she could-- surely it would fit if she--

Of course, she hadn't the nerve to do something quite so shameless, it was only the heated thoughts coming from sexual stimulation. Intellectually she knew this. But nonetheless, she imagined fucking herself on that decorative post anyway, sinking on it slowly as she groaned and rubbed her clit, going up and down on it again, feeling the unyielding wood split her flesh apart with pleasure, and the way the stretch would burn and ache and feel good regardless--hard uncaring wood inside her--

Her orgasm rolled over her as that mental image reeled through her mind over and over, fucking herself like a wild thing on some indifferent piece of furniture, and her hand sped up over her clit, quicker and quicker as she shuddered, back arching, breaths coming quick and sharp, each wave building on the last, hand going faster, hips stuttering out of rhythm.

She finally slumped to lie motionless on the bed, fingers still inside herself as her breath evened out, palm over her clit lazily rubbing a few last circles at the tail end, before she became too overstimulated.

It was strange, but hadn't she dreamed something about being chilly? The room wasn't cold at all. The summer breeze was barely lukewarm as it came through the window.

*

The next few weeks were unseasonably warm for late summer, but not unpleasantly so. The house was changing under her touch as Ilusha slowly cleaned, moved things about, and settled in. She went to town to order new furniture, and learned it could be delivered within a month.

The time Ilusha didn't spend working on the house, she spent relaxing, mostly by reading in the parlor. The two bedrooms upstairs were usually the hottest rooms in the house, so she avoided going there before bedtime, when it was still fairly hot but at least the open window allowed some breeze in.

When she wasn't reading, she found other things to entertain herself, like walking around the back of the house, where a copse of woods and a small pond offered some point of interest, or sometimes even practicing the piano, which she had not done since she was a child, and thus she was grateful the house was too far away from neighbors for her awful playing to be a nuisance.

She set the desk up in the parlor in case she wanted to work, but mostly she refrained. If she did any writing, it was only fiction, and for her own amusement. She hadn't tried poetry since she'd been a teenager, but she became briefly obsessed with quatrains in that period.

Ilusha didn't give much thought to her suddenly awakened libido until bedtime, when she was reminded of the strange dreams as she fell asleep. Sometimes she woke up from them, wound up and having to work herself up to orgasm the rest of the way. But after the first few nights, she didn't find the dreams as startling, and didn't try to wake from them. When she simply sat back and allowed them to happen, she would feel the imprints of hands, pleasantly cool in the summer heat, touch her body all over. She would feel the distinct glide of that firm touch between her legs as well, cast against the building knot of heat low in her belly.

Sometimes she was worked over all night long, touches that dragged against every inch of oversensitive skin, making her come twice, three times. She would wake in the early morning pleasantly exhausted, drenched in sweat and still wetter between her legs. Often, her nightgown would be rucked up all the way to her breasts, and her legs would be spread open, as if she had experienced all of the nightly debaucheries in reality, and not just dreams. She'd simply go to sleep and not wake until noon, when the bedroom got too hot for comfort, so she would go and have a lukewarm bath before getting any food.

It didn't even occur to her to think these occurrences were anything but dreams, until she fell asleep during the day once. It was a warm afternoon after she had spent the morning dusting and mopping. She'd exhausted herself in the heat, so she pulled down all the shades and, unwilling to go upstairs where it was hotter, she went to the parlor to lay on the sofa for a nap. It was cooler in the parlor than in any other place in the house, since it only had one exterior wall.

She wasn't the type to usually sleep during the day, but it was too warm for anything else, so she fell into a light doze. She wasn't sure if she was awake when she felt that first lingering caress trace a cooling path from her collarbone, between her breasts, over her belly, below her navel--

When that cold, wide touch cupped her mound, she might have let out a long groan. Her back arched, and the touch retreated, but then it returned, petting her in a long, slow strokes.

She remained suspended in that sensation for some unknown length of time, feeling the slow drag back and forth, light and pleasantly cool, and she was only distantly aware of anything else: her fingers curling and grabbing onto the tassels of a decorative pillow, the tickle on her leg as the hem of her light cotton dress slipped further up her thigh, the small noises she made in her throat now and then.

She floated in this pleasant lull, eyes closed and senses attuned to nothing but the tingle of pleasure, until she woke from her light doze and became more aware of the physicality of the sensation. While she was mostly asleep, she wasn't aware if she was dreaming, but now that she was awake she knew for sure that she was awake, and as awareness settled in firmly, the cold, rhythmic petting did not stop.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked down the length of her body, to her exposed thighs and the panties bunched around her knees. That was when the warm tingle of pleasure turned into a lightning bolt, and she came hard, thighs pressing together and back arching off the sofa.

She reached down between her legs and rubbed hard circles around her clit to wring out the last wave of her orgasm, and even after she had finally come down from it, she remained like that, slowly, idly rubbing at sensitive skin as she became lost in thought.

*

Ilusha wasn't the type to fret over strange sounds in the night--or indeed, even during the day. Her childhood had been split between roaming the woods near her family home, hearing an abundance of strange and inexplicable sounds--cracks and thuds and groans, shrill bird calls and animal noises--and living in an old house, where settling wood, old pipes and oddly-angled hallways with strange acoustics were just common everyday experiences.

So, ghosts had never been the first thing on her mind whenever she heard or felt something strange. Her family home still had a little cemetery around the back, and despite the extremely haunted nature of that patch of woods, nothing strange she'd ever experienced up to this point in her life had ever frightened her.

Still, as an odd child who used to stay out late trying to spot some of the hauntings that neighbors often reported, she couldn't help but feel this was... an opportunity.

She took a bath after her nap, not only to scrub off the sweat of the day, but to cool down as well. Afterwards, she pulled on a bathrobe, but she did not dress yet.

Instead, after drying herself off, she left the bathroom and headed up for the house's staircase. It was a nice staircase, with a smooth banister. It was slightly wider at the top and the bottom, giving it an organic, concave shape.

At the top of the staircase, there was always a sensation of being watched. There were a few other places in the house that gave Ilusha that feeling, but it was stronger here, at the top of these stairs. She had even paused the first time she climbed these stairs, and looked behind herself like she expected to find the gaze that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, but there was nothing other than a circular little window near the ceiling, like a single open eye, peering out towards the blue sky.

Ilusha took off the bathrobe and set it down on the top steps, before sitting down on it. She leaned back on her elbows in naked repose, lounging as if her entire body were on display. Unhurried, she sat, one leg crossed over the other and ankle idly swinging in the air.

Perhaps she was getting excited over nothing, but even if she was not a natural born temptress, she suspected this was giving the fellow inhabitant of the house quite what it wanted. So she continued to sit, and eventually tilted her head back, eyes closing in expectation.

She was not disappointed, because soon enough she felt it: the lightest, briefest touch along a calf. She nearly froze in place, waiting for more. After a few breaths, she felt something like cool fingertips along the pulse of her neck, and the peppering of little touches down to her collarbone.

In truth, the touches weren't as cold as during the night, but against her exposed skin, they felt like the relief of a pleasant breeze. She shivered as the touches became more firm, and lingering. Not just longer, but more--there was a firm grasp against one of her breasts, kneading slowly, continuously, and it was so distinct, it was like she felt each individual finger. Her other breast soon began receiving the same treatment, and the slow massage felt so real, that she was sure if she opened her eyes she would see hands cupping her.

At the same time, she felt slide of palms along her hips--another pair of hands, maybe more--the strength of fingers grabbing her thighs, digging into the muscles of her thighs as her legs were pulled apart, spread wide and held. Firm grip around her ankles, too-many fingers along her inner thighs, glancing caresses along her calves, holding her shoulders, exploring the expanse of her abdomen. And the feeling of being watched pressing down harder, with the weight of eyes over every inch of her even though she was the only living thing in this house.

Her attention flitted, taking in everything at once but being tugged by particular touches as they sparked along her skin more distinctly: fingertips digging into her inner thighs, just short of where she wanted them-- hands still kneading her breasts, and pinching her nipples at irregular intervals, sending stinging little bolt of pleasure through her. Pleasure buzzed under her skin and all over her body, spread out and unfocused and thoroughly distracting.