Unseen Hands

"I've got a task on my hands selling that place," Keith said, "We should never have taken it on."

I looked across at him as he sat behind his desk. "Why, is there something wrong with it?"

He looked back at me seated at my desk opposite him. He seemed surprised and asked, "Haven't you heard the story, everybody else has?"

We were at work in the offices of Sanders and Myers Land and Housing Agents and were discussing a place that had just come onto the market and into our hands, or more specifically, Keith's hands. It was called "The Dark Elms" and it was his task to market it.

"Well tell me about it," I said impatiently, somewhat annoyed that a story "everybody" knew hadn't come my way.

He sat back smugly as people often do when they are about to enlighten the ignorant. He managed to get a bit more out of his impending ego trip by starting with, "My dear Helen…"

I caught him off balance by snapping, "I'm not your dear Helen; get on with the story."

He looked sulky for a moment as if he was going to refuse to tell me, but his desire to relate it overcame his annoyance and he went on, "It's haunted."

"Rubbish," I retorted, "there's no such things as ghosts."

He shrugged and bent over his work.

That really annoyed me; "Well tell me the story for God's sake."

He looked up at me, a superior smile on his face. "Got you interested have I?" he chortled.

"Yes, all right, you've got me interested, so get on with it."

He sat back and began. "The place was built in 1745 by some guy who made a fortune out of the slave trade to the colonies. The story goes that he took a fancy to a rather attractive housemaid in his employ; he failed to persuade her to let him enjoy her so one night he dragged her into his bedroom and raped her. When he was in a nice state of post-coital relaxation the girl crept down to the kitchen, picked up a knife, went back and stabbed him. There was just time before he died for him to pronounce a curse to the effect that he would haunt the house for ever, and any woman who slept in that bedroom he would rape."

He stopped speaking and I waited for him to go on; the story didn't seem to be complete.

"Well, go on," I said, "that can't be the end surely. What happened to the maid?"

"Oh, well, they hung her for murder."

"Good God, didn't they take into account that she'd been raped?"

"Ha, not in those days; who was she anyway, just a skivvy, he was a man of wealth and she'd probably behaved seductively…led him on trying to get her hands on his money…actually she was pregnant when they hung her."

"God, what a sick story and what a lot of crap; you don't believe it, do you, men coming back as ghosts to rape women?"

He shrugged again; "Whether I believe it or not, there have been some pretty odd things happen there."

"Like what?"

"Well, before the story became well known some of the women who went to live in the house occupied that bedroom, it is after all the main bedroom."

"So?"

"So some of them went mad, others committed suicide, and the last woman who slept there over fifty years ago, and that for only one night, is still alive, but after that night she has never said a word."

"You mean she was struck dumb?"

"Something like that."

I laughed, "What a lot of bosh, Keith, you don't really believe it, do you?"

"I don't know, but what I do know is that The Dark Elms will probably be on our books for a long time unless we can find a buyer who doesn't know the story or at least from whom we can keep it."

"I don't believe a word of it, Keith. It's one of those silly stories people make up to give themselves a thrill."

"And the women who went mad or committed suicide and the one struck dumb?"

"If that's all true it has to be pure chance. This is the twenty first century and we don't believe in ghosts."

"No? I'll bet you wouldn't spend a night in that room."

He bent over his work again, but I took him up; "How much do you bet?"

He looked up and grinned, "Fifty dollars."

I grinned back and said, "Make it a hundred and you're on."

"Done; a lot of the old furniture is still in the place, including a bloody great bed in that room. I don't think it's the one that the housemaid got raped on, but it's pretty ancient."

"I don't care how ancient it is, it won't bother me."

"Brave girl," he quipped, "when's it going to be, then?"

"Any time you like…tonight?"

"No, better make it tomorrow night. I'll even get the bed and room ready for you."

"No silly tricks, Keith, I shall know if you try frightening me with spooky recordings and stuff like that."

"God's honour," he said, "I'll only make sure the room is fit to be lived in and the bed is ready to be slept in…if you do sleep," he added.

"I shall sleep like the dead…"

"I don't think you should have said that."

"I shall sleep like the dead, I always do. I've got nothing on my conscience to keep me awake."

"Lucky you," he said.

I had seen The Dark Elms often as I had to pass it on my way to the office. It was an imposing place; not quite a great manor house, but getting close. I looked up the details on our files. Eight bedrooms, dining room, drawing room, billiard room with servants' dining room and servants' sleeping quarters on the second floor under the roof; kitchen, usual offices and spacious grounds. The grounds were certainly spacious but resembled a jungle, as if they had not been tended for years. I had never seen any sign of elm trees.

To my surprise, given the age of the place, we had some details of occupancy since the place was first built. There had been fifty two different tenants and owners; tenants because the place had often been rented out.

Even for such an old place this was a very high turn over in occupancy, and I noted that a lot of the time there had been no one living there at all. Did this lend credence to Keith's tale?

Next day, and before we went to The Dark Elms, Keith and I had an early evening meal together; it was late summer and the hours of daylight were still long, so it was daylight when we arrived at The Dark Elms.

As we passed though the rooms I could see items of furniture covered by cotton sheets. Keith pointed out that when the place had been sold by the original owner it had been with all the furniture. This seemed to have been the procedure thereafter.

The bedroom I was to occupy was huge and with a bed to match. Keith had been as good as his word, and had somehow found linen to fit this massive bed.

"Don't get lost in there," he grinned.

I spent about an hour with Keith who gave me a guided tour of the place. Like a lot of empty houses, especially large ones like The Dark Elms, it had a spooky atmosphere, but as a thoroughly contemporary woman I shrugged this off.

Had I been feeling nervous, which of course I wasn't, comfort could be drawn from the fact that at some stage electric lighting had been installed. On trying a switch I was surprised that a light came on; it was usual when a place was unoccupied to have the power cut off, the new owner being responsible for having it reconnected.

When I questioned Keith about this he laughed and said, "I thought it might give a prospective client a bit of confidence to see the lights working, you know, in case it was a gloomy day and the place looked haunted."

The daylight was beginning to fade and as Keith left me he asked, "Are you sure you want to go though with this, we can cancel the bet." I thought he looked a bit anxious.

"Of course not, Keith, let all the ghosts in Hades rise up if they want to, they can't frighten me."

I thought I heard a faint rustle. "Did you hear something?" I asked.

"No, only us talking, why?"

"Oh, nothing."

"See you in the morning then, have a good night."

"I will," I replied.

The daylight was now almost gone and as I made my way to the bedroom I left the electric lights burning behind me. I turned the main light on in the bedroom and as there were four wall bracket lights I turned them on as well. I certainly couldn't complain about the illumination.

I had some work I wanted to complete before going to bed, so using a small escritoire set near a window I settled down for a while.

After a short while I began to feel drowsy and my concentration flagged. I decide to give up and get to bed. I undressed, pulled on my nightdress and leaving the lights still burning, settled for sleep.

It usually takes me about fifteen minutes to go to sleep, but that night, even with the glare of the lights to keep me awake, I must have dropped off a soon as my head hit the pillow. How long I slept for I don't know, but it must have been after midnight when I woke up with a start; why I woke I didn't know since I wasn't having a nightmare or anything like that.

The lights were still on and I listened for a few moments to try and discover if it was some noise that had wakened me, and if it was repeated. There was nothing so I settled down to go back to sleep.

I was starting to doze off when one of the wall lights went out. "Bugger," I thought, "a bulb burned out." Another wall light went out, then another and another in quick succession.

"Strange," I thought, all of them burning out like that, one after the other."

The main light was still on, so dismissing the conundrum of the wall lights I settled for sleep again.

Within seconds the main light went out.

My first thought was that a fuse had blown and I had no idea where the fuse box was. Then it occurred to me that this was not possible. Had a fuse blown the lights would all have gone out at once.

I had not bothered to pull the heavy drapes over the windows, and a faint light from a new moon was filtering through them to cast shadows across the room. I lay trying to work out why the lights had gone out the way they had, and it occurred to me that Keith was playing some sort of a trick on me.

Annoyed because he had promised not to do that, I started to sit up, ready to go in search of Keith, or whatever had cause the problem. Then I heard the rustling sound I had detected earlier.

I froze in a sitting position, listening. There it was again, louder and closer. "Mice I thought."

I made a move to get off the bed when the sound came again, much closer. Then to my horror I felt myself born back on the bed, as if by hands grasping me. Yet there were no hands, but the force was there, and struggle against it as I might, it was too strong for me.

I tried to scream, but my vocal chords seemed to be paralysed. I tried to see what it was that had me pinioned, but there was nothing - at least there was nothing visible to the eye - yet the power was there.

I knew I had put my nightdress on, but now I was naked. I had not felt myself being stripped, but there I lay in a state of nudity.

Whatever had me in its grip was forcing my legs apart. I tried to kick out, but I was powerless in its grip. How was it possible for me to be held spreadeagled on the bed? No single rapist could have controlled all my limbs on his own, yet he or it was controlling me. But if a rapist, or more than one, why could I not see them?"

I was well into a state of hysteria but I could neither move nor scream. I was totally open and at the mercy of whatever held me.

Then I felt it, something thick and hot penetrating my vaginal canal…something relentlessly pushing into me, deeper and deeper. I was no virgin and had experienced a number of penises in my vagina, but there had never been anything like this. It pressed against the wall of my canal and in its inexorable penetration it seemed as if it would never stop.

I felt it reach the top of my vagina and I thought for a moment it would burst through, but mercifully it stopped. I felt it being drawn back and then thrust into me again. It might have been a massive dildo, yet it had all the fleshly heat of a real penis, and a penis of a size that I had never experienced before.

I knew it was insane…it as not possible because there was no one there, yet something was penetrating me.

As whatever it was continued its thrusting and withdrawing the feelings of panic and hysteria began to diminish, to be replaced by a desire to yield completely to whatever was penetrating me. I could feel myself lubricating copiously.

Whereas I had wanted to scream and fight against my unknown and invisible assailant, I now wanted to beg it not to stop. Had I been able to give tongue to what I was feeling I would have offered myself as its eternal sex slave if only it would not stop.

Great waves of emotion were building up in me…waves that were jolting and buffeting me, threatening to drown me in a sea of overwhelming sexual exhilaration. Nearer and nearer they came as the unseen penis moved faster and faster in me.

Then it came, the hot and violent ejaculations of the unseen bursting into me, and with it the threatening waves came thundering over me, engulfing me in joyful agony. I wanted to scream, but still no sound would come. I think for a moment I passed out, vanquished by the sheer force of what I was experiencing.

When I became aware again the penis was gone from my vagina, yet I still could not move, and even as I lay there helpless and longing for the return of the penis, I felt it enter me again. It took longer this time to ejaculate, and when it did I had a strange orgasm; no longer violent and agonising, but gentle with a sweet delicacy I had never known before.

Ready as I was to yield myself completely, and needing no force to hold me fast, I was still restrained. How many times I was ejaculated into I don't know; I only know I lay there, no longer having orgasms, but the willing victim of whatever it was that invaded me.

It was beyond all lust, even beyond love as I had known it. I felt that something infinite and eternal had come into me and absorbed me.

Finally it stopped; I was released; there was a faint rustle, and I sank into oblivion.

When I woke in the morning the lights were on and I was wearing my nightdress. The bed was not unusually disturbed as it often is after a night of copulating. It took me some time to come fully awake and aware.

"My God," I thought, "what a dream, or was it a nightmare?"

I showered, half expecting to be removing a mass of sperm from my vagina, but there was nothing.

In the light of day the place did not look anywhere near as spooky as it had the previous night. I dressed and Keith arrived. I am sure he expected to find either that I had fled or that I was would be a gibbering maniac.

Seeing that I had neither fled nor was a maniac he handed over the hundred dollars without demure, and asked, "How did it go, did you see the ghost?"

I wondered if I should tell him about my dream but decided against it. He would probably make fun of me, pointing out that at least I had been influenced by his story.

Over the following days I got back to work and the usual run of my life. Most dreams fade from the memory quickly, but this one persisted with unusual clarity. The fear I had experienced within the dream and before my submission was absent. In truth I longed for a repeat of the experience. I even thought of returning to The Dark Elms and that bedroom to see if I could have a reprise of the dream. But Keith held the keys to the place, and he would consider it very odd if I asked for them with no rational reason that I could give.

It was about two weeks after that night that I had cause to be troubled. I had been due to menstruate, but failed to do so. I was normally regular, but brushed it off as an aberration, thinking it was just delayed.

Weeks passed and nothing happened. When I missed yet another menstrual period I went to the doctor. He examined me and announced, "You're pregnant."

I told him it was not possible since I had not engaged in sexual intercourse weeks before the first time I failed to menstruate.

He smiled as if to say, "I've heard that one before," and said again, "You are pregnant."

When left him I was utterly at a loss. How could I possibly be pregnant? It was crazy, yet the doctor had been so certain. I sought a second opinion, only to be told precisely the same thing.

There was forced in on me what I didn't want to admit, that my dream had been no dream, but a reality that went beyond rational explanation. Who could I tell, who would believe me? The more I contemplated my condition the more I became confused, and it was in the course of that contemplation that a horrific question arose in my mind; "What sort of child am I bearing, to what will I give birth."

I was so disturbed by this thought and it became so insistent, that I underwent tests, and was told that all was normal. Normal, yes, by the standards of the tests, but what would lie within that child? Was I going to give birth to some child that looked normal, yet was in fact some crazy freak, a child conceived in a dream or…or with a spectre?

I would have had it aborted but by the time I reached that decision, it was too late.

Now, as I write, I feel a strange world closing in around me, as if watching me. Not the physical world, but something metaphysical; something around me yet within me; something that says, "With this child I shall find peace at last."

Why have they put me in this place? They are kind, but they will not let me go. I am a prisoner. Will no one ever read my story and believe me?

Epilogue

I found the manuscript of Helen's story among her effects after her death in The City Mental Hospital. It had been my task to clear out her room and the manuscript was tucked away among her underwear.

She gave birth while in the hospital and as was expected it was a normal birth, thus it was a source of mystery why the child died so soon after his birth.

After that Helen, who had come through the birth without any ill effects, seemed to lose the will to live. Despite efforts to keep her alive she died within a week of the birth, having failed to speak a single word after she learned of the child's death.

I do not know the truth or falsity of Helen's story but since she seemed to want it to be read I decided to place it on this site. I leave it to the readers to decide for themselves the truth or otherwise.

Rest in peace, Helen.