Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter Read Online Free PDF Page B

the direction of the words
but still saw nothing. “I get to use my old body once a year to complete my
mission. You were not supposed to touch me. No, I was not supposed to touch
you. It is my fault. I should never have touched you. I have been following you
for so long that… even though I thought after four hundred years of being dead
that I… I should have… I mean I never have before…”
    “You have
never…what?” The tears started to flow again fueling the beginnings of a
headache.
    “I have never
before touched one of my charges. I have been watching you for most of this
year. Somehow over that period of time I fell in love with you. Pardon my
honesty, it is easy to tell the truth when my time here is limited to only a
few more hours. I didn’t even know it was possible to feel as I do in the state
I am in. I am sorry for all of the times this year that my ghost invaded your
privacy and touched you. I have never done that before either, I swear it. I
swear I won’t hurt you…” He materialized again at the edge of her couch having
left a distance between them.
    “It was you? You
are the ghost in this apartment. I had wondered if I had finally gone crazy
when I felt your cold touches. No, this can’t be…” she stopped speaking and
blinked her eyes twice before they narrowed.
    “You are not
crazy. I touched you several times this year. I couldn’t help myself. The first
time I didn’t leave the room when I should have and you took off your clothes
for a shower, I touched your breast. You screamed. Only, you eventually stopped
screaming when I touched you. The last time I touched you was two nights ago. You
were wearing only that purple robe of yours, and I touched your face and then
your neck before you fell asleep.”
    She didn’t say
anything this time. How he could know all of that was the question occupying
her mind. Her moments of insanity were being told to her by a hallucination. She
had been so desperately alone she had imagined her own intimate ghost who
provided her with phantom caresses. She walked to him and touched his hood. When
she made contact with physical matter, her hands froze. He groaned under her
fingers.
    She gave into
her insanity because it sure beat reality and confessed, “I had come to welcome
your touches, even if I thought I might just be imagining them. I have for so
long wanted to be touched and loved that way.”
    When she moved
her body up against his again, the night seemed to stop except for the voice of
the small girl from Miracle on 34th Street talking about not believing in
Santa. Time was being marked by the only true illumination in the room. He
wrapped his arms around her rubbing them down her back, quickly over the soft roll
of her ass, around to her stomach and up upon her breasts. Her skin tingled
where he had touched. Their connection was savage and needy for a few seconds,
until he pushed her away.
    “I don’t think I
should be doing this. I don’t want to jeopardize your future.”
    “What future?”
    “That is what I
have come here to show you. You could have a wonderful future, if you will just
change your ways. Let the world see the real Janie, the one who only reveals
herself when she is alone in this apartment.”
    “I don’t want to
think now. I want you to touch me. I had hoped in my crazy mind for the ghostly
touches to continue. Now they can.”
    “No,” he said
abruptly putting his hand out to stop her and having it land between her
breasts. “I will not jeopardize your future for needs that I shouldn’t even
have.”
    “I want you to
touch me, please.”
    “We have to go
so I can show you your possible future. That is supposed to be my only purpose
for being here.”
    “You mean leap
out the window like in the movies. Then, all my neighbors will find is the
splatter of my body on the ground because I committed suicide following some
hallucination. No, I want to stay here and be touched by you now. I don’t care
what you are