His hand went to the side of her head, his thumb brushing along her cheekbone as he looked into her eyes in the moonlight.
“This time, you can come while I’m kissing you.”
“Prentice –”
“But you’ll be naked,” he went on.
“Prentice –”
“And so will I.”
“Pren –”
She didn’t finish his name because he kissed her quiet. And he remembered he used to do that all the time too. And he remembered how much she liked it when he kissed her.
Because now, immediately, as she had done twenty years ago, the minute his tongue touched hers, her soft body melted into his.
And he kissed her a lot. And he did it everywhere.
And, much, much later, when they were both naked, he was rocking deep inside her tight, wet silkiness, he knew exactly what she looked like with her hair spread across the bed and her body underneath him, Prentice made her come while he was kissing her.
And that, too, was phenomenal.
Fiona
Fiona was back in the place she went to when she died.
She hadn’t been there in ages.
It was nice enough.
Well, actually, it was lovely. With a gently rolling stream, trees in fragrant bloom, abundant wildflowers, the grass so green it nearly hurt her eyes and it was so thick, you could sleep on it.
There was a big tent there, made of silk, next to an apple tree, its blossoms carpeting the roof of the tent and all around. The flaps of the tent were opened wide and inside there were soft rugs, a comfy armchair with ottoman next to which there was a ready supply of the grisly crime novels Fiona liked to read. There was also a lovely guitar she could play and a big bed with a downy mattress, stacks of pillows and a fluffy duvet.
Fiona was real there. She walked with her feet on the ground, she didn’t float. Her body was solid, not see-through. She could feel things and move things without concentrating.
And there was night and day and she slept there.
She went there directly after she died and she thought, at first, it was heaven.
It was heavenly enough but she was alone and she didn’t think heaven would be eternal solitude. That would stink, and heaven, in her mind, didn’t stink.
But she’d been tired back then, tired from fighting the pain and tired from knowing what her body’s weakness was doing to her family.
So, when she first arrived, she slept a lot. And she slept well. And she got used to no pain and tiredness (but not to being dead).
Then one day she was walking along the stream and trying to figure out the different scents of the trees (because what the bloody else was there to do?) and zip, all of a sudden she was a ghost in her great room watching Prentice and Jason, both looking handsome but haggard, in dark suits, and Sally, looking confused and exhausted, in a pretty little black dress, coming through the front door.
At first, she didn’t know she was a ghost and thought she’d been granted a reprieve.
She was back, she was in her home, she had no pain and there was her family.
It didn’t take long to realize they couldn’t see her because, looking down, she could barely see herself and that she was dead, dead, dead because they’d just arrived back from her funeral.
It did take awhile for her to get used to this cruel twist of fate but she did and she’d been with them ever since. She spent her time haunting them (of course), being pissed off (of course) and learning how to materialize and dematerialize, not only in her house, but anywhere in the village.
She tried to go somewhere else, like Los Angeles where she’d always wanted to go but she couldn’t leave the village even in the company of, say, Prentice or her sister Morag when they left town. Any time she’d try, she’d automatically dematerialize and end up back at the house (which also pissed her off).
She hadn’t been able to be seen or heard, not that she tried too hard because she’d involuntarily damaged her family psychologically enough without them hearing her ghostly voice or seeing her ghostly body.
Now, with Bella around, she’d been so excited about her new abilities, she’d spent the last two days testing them.
And she’d spent that time watching Prentice and Bella play their crazy game.
The abilities part was good. She was getting stronger, understanding the focus she needed to manipulate things, happy that her anger, frustration and grief at being dead had some use. She got so good at it, she couldn’t only move things; she could even pick things up and hold them.
She was also able to talk to Bella. Bella definitely heard her. That was why the laundry got done, the ironing got done, the vacuuming and sweeping got done (her house was going to be taken over by dust mites if Bella didn’t do something about it, and she did, without hesitation, after Fiona screamed at her that it had to get done) and Sally got a chocolate cake (her favorite) but only after she ate her broccoli.
Of course, Bella did these things for other reasons too. Fiona knew that. After all she saw and heard these last days; she knew Bella wasn’t what she’d thought Bella was for all those years.
Instead, Fiona knew Bella’s soft heart and unique understanding meant Bella would have taken care with Fiona’s children, even if, perhaps, she wouldn’t have ironed Prentice’s shirts while she was doing it.
And Fiona had to admit, she was grimly fascinated by Prentice and Bella’s game.
They bickered a lot.
And Prentice obviously enjoyed it.
In the time Fiona and Prentice were courting before they married and a few years after, Fiona had worried she’d never live up to all that was Bella.
Prentice and Bella had an obviously passionate relationship. Everyone knew it because they saw it and they were amused by it because, even all that fighting and bickering was somehow sweet especially considering, when they weren’t fighting and bickering, they were clearly deeply in love.
It was something he and Fiona didn’t have.
Prentice and Fiona had a comfortable, easy life filled with laughter.
They had great sex, a lot of closeness and Prentice was affectionate but Fiona wasn’t nearly as passionate as he was so that part stayed only in the bedroom.
It didn’t spill out to life.
It spilled out everywhere with Prentice and Bella.
Bella and Prentice, when they were together, fought and they bickered.
And Bella challenged Prentice in a way Fiona knew she never could. Bella was well-educated, read a great deal and she’d travelled. Prentice, too, got top marks, got into a top university, read any book he could get his hands on and had spent three summers abroad, backpacking on the cheap and with a relentless schedule to see as much of the architecture in Europe as he could.
Fiona liked it in her village and rarely left though she wanted to see Los Angeles, not enough actually to go when Prentice offered it as a family holiday. Fiona said they’d go when Sally was older so Sally could go to Disneyland (what a fool she was). She read her crime novels but she didn’t read anything high-brow and she didn’t read many of her crime novels either.
She was happy with the simple life and, after awhile, Prentice convinced her he was happy with it too.
But the longer Bella remained in the house, the more alive he seemed.
And if she wasn’t already dead, watching that would have killed her.
She was back to hating Bella when, the night of the stag party, even though she knew it wasn’t right, she started to read Bella’s journals.
She floated, cross-legged above the floor by Bella’s bed while Bella slept and Fiona read.