Loose Ends

Mildred’s Ghost.

Word Count = 1,641

         She kneels at Mildred’s headstone, that same hat and veil over her eyes; this time she is wearing a short dark red leather jacket, long black skirt with black stockings and low-heeled shoes.

         The car accident was two years ago, I visit the grave every so often, always on a Sunday; this woman is here every time that I am.  She told me her name is Bethany; that she used to work with Millie.  But why does she visit her grave so often, this Sunday I want to find out.

         As I come abreast of her she looks up at me with big, clear brown eyes.  She has a pretty face and her makeup is perfect.  Every time I see her my interest peaks a bit more into the mystery. 

         She reaches a gloved hand up to me.  “Would you help me up please?”

         “We meet again!”  She is very light; if she weighs more than a hundred pounds I would be surprised.  Yet, she is almost my height. “You visit Millie quite a bit?”  I pose it more as a question than a statement.

“Millie and I were very close…at work.”  She does not look me in the eyes; she looks down at my feet.

         “Over the past two years, we have met here every time I come.  Could I ask you a personal question?”  I can see uneasiness in her demeanor.  The wind is picking up and it blows her vale off her face, she is very young, twenties I guess.

         “I don’t know…what I could…tell you.”  Still her eyes flicker away from my gaze.

         The cold wind whips about now, a cloud covers the sun and it looks like it would rain any second.  “Maybe we should get out of this, could we talk in my car?” 

         She shakes her head in agreement, I put my arm around her to protect her from the wind and we walk down to the car.  I can smell her perfume, the same brand Mildred wore.

         The engine is still warm from the trip up here and the heat makes the front seat cozy.  “Do you smoke?”  She shakes her head and pulls a pack of menthol's out of her purse, Millie’s favorite brand.  She offers me one, and we both light up.  Like a cloak, the rain starts to engulf the car, one minute the windows are clear the next we can not see two inches.

         “She said you were great at predicting bad situations, lucky thing we are in here.”

         “Too bad I couldn’t predict that bus blowing through that stop sign.  She’d be alive today.”

         “She loved you very much!

         “I don’t know…Things were not the same toward the end…before the crash.”  This is a perfect stranger to me, but somehow I feel she cares.  “I suspected she was getting involved with someone else.”

         “She wasn’t going to leave, she loved you very much.” There is firmness in her voice that is reassuring.

         “How can you be so sure?”

         She removes her gloves, reaches over and takes my hand with hers. “Because…I was the other person in her life.”  My gaze drifts from her and I look at the rain pouring down over the windshield.  A woman, she was having an affair with a woman?

         Beth absentmindedly unzips her jacket exposing a low cut pink teddy, frilled and very revealing.  I realize it is getting very hot, but I leave the heater setting the way it is, full on.  She takes a deep drag and stamps the half smoked cigarette out in the ashtray.  “I am not a gay person!  It was just something, call it chemistry, that happened between us.”

         She still holds my hand.  “Just chemistry?  I loved her!  Till death do us part!” I can feel tears welling up in the corners of my eyes.  I look over at her; the mascara is running down her cheeks, she is in a full cry.  Suddenly I realize that she loves Mildred as much as I do.  Her pain is as mine. 

         “Please hold me, I need…” She leans in towards me and I put my arm around her shoulders.  She nuzzles my neck with her face and holds my hand.  The rain continues to pour; nothing is visible outside of the car. 

         She breaks the silence in that car.  “I think we both loved her in our own ways.”

         The aroma of her perfume, the touch of her body is bringing back memories of Mildred and I, passionate, deeply moving images.  She lets go of my hand and places it on my thigh.  I move my free hand over to her waist, inside her now open jacket.  I move my thumb up against her breast, she responds by kissing my neck.  Gently rubbing her nipple through the thin material, I can feel it become ridged.

         She begins to move her hand up and down my inner thigh.  Not having sex in two years, I immediately become aroused.  She pulls away from me quickly, I can see the fire in her eyes.  Seeing my passion, she shimmies out of her jacket and pulls the straps of her teddy off her shoulders, letting it fall off exposing her small breasts.  I unbuckle and unzip my pants pushing them down to my knees.  She is pulling and crumpling her long black skirt up around her waist.  I reach over and pull her panties down.

         She flops down in the seat next to me and puts her head in my lap exposing her beautiful bare butt to me.  This is something that Mildred also did to me; Beth must have taken lessons from the same teacher.  As she works her oral magic, I place my hand down between those marvelous mounds and find her center, that moist slit of pleasure.

         My arousal is complete; any further stimulation will bring me to conclusion and she seems to be at the same point.  She sits up and throws her leg over me, facing me; she lowers herself into my lap.  I feel myself enter her; she is devouring me an inch at a time, slowly raising and lowering herself until we are finally and completely one.

         I gently cup her small breasts and massage her nipples with the palms of my hands.  Pushing the fleshy mounds in circles and up, and down, as she rotates her hips and I feel my member moving about inside her from left to right.  Then she starts to rise and fall upon me.  I look up at her, her head pinned against the roof of the car.  Her eyes closed, her makeup smeared and running down her face, her mouth open, a harsh and rasping groan emanating from deep inside her. 

         I can feel the whole car rhythmically rocking with her every thrust upon me.  At this point I can hold out no longer and can feel the electric sensations of my conclusion rack my body, my muscles convulsing, driving my essence deep inside her.  I try and hold her but she is still riding me and I don’t believe she even knows that I have finished. 

         Then she pushes herself down on me and I know she is done.  It was that same feeling I had experienced with Mildred.  Her muscles grip me and release, then do it again and again until she is complete also.  She lays down on me, her body saturated with sweat and tears.  I kiss her neck, sucking on the soft flesh, drawing it into my mouth, she grabs my face between her hands and we share a long and passionate kiss. 

         She breaks the moment with. “Do you think Mildred would approve?”  She is running her finger over my lips.

         “I think Millie was here in the car with us!  The way you went down on me, that was just the same thing Millie always did.”

         Her expression became serious, dismounts me and sits quietly for a second, then pulls her straps up onto her shoulders.  “I never in my life had ever given oral sex to anyone but you...right now.”  Her expression is one of wonder and puzzlement.  “It was something that just came over me to do, but I had never done this before to any other man.”

         “You were perfect, I thought you were her for a while there.”

         “When we made love, Millie finally convinced me to do that to her.”  She is blushing.  “Never thought I would admit this to anyone.  I let her do it to me, and I never had experienced anything like those feelings in my life.”  Beth pulls her skirt down and straitens her teddy.  “I only felt I needed to give back to her what she gave to me.  I really did love her, it tore out my heart when she died.”

         We sit there; the rain is beginning to slacken.  “We both loved her!  I believe she loved both of us.”

         “Do you believe in fate?  Maybe she knew something was going to happen to her...maybe she wanted the two of us to meet?”

         I thought that amusing and snicker.  “Replacements.  You for me and me for you?”  I look over at her and see that I have raised a bright raspberry on her neck, “Sorry, I gave you a hickie.  Never did that to anyone before.”

         She smiles, “Yep, she did that to me all the time.”  Then looks seriously at me and quickly ripped her teddy down again; there are three small red marks around each nipple.  “She did it…” she is almost in shock “to my breasts all the time…” We both knew that I had not suckled her breasts, just caressed them.

         The sun shone in through the windshield, it is just setting, we both knew it must be Mildred tying up loose ends.