Nick Kelly woke up alone after enjoying a night of amazing sex. The disturbing thing about it was that he had gone to bed alone. His wet and sticky sheets could be explained easily enough by any guy over the age of about eleven. The bite marks on his torso were not so easily explained.
The first time it happened, it scared the crap out of him. He woke up confused, the memory of the beautiful woman with long red hair still fresh in his mind. He could picture her vivid green eyes and the dusting of freckles that covered her nose. That was innocent enough. Where he got uncomfortable was remembering her full white breasts with the large, rose-colored nipples. He remembered feeling the weight of them in his hands and, okay, if he was truthful, he remembered the taste of them. The small triangle of red hair between her legs covered its own treasure, and he remembered the taste of it as well.
She was an incredibly skilled lover, doing a few things Nick had never actually done in real life. That was part of the reason for his discomfort the morning after— where had those ideas come from? Details were crystal clear—unlike dreams a person couldn’t quite remember, Nick remembered every moment of making love with his dream woman. His uneasiness increased when he realized that not only was he sticky, but also physically exhausted and strangely satisfied. And terrified that he was losing his mind.
The first time it happened, nearly a week ago, was the first night he spent in his new home in West Seattle. At first, he thought the dream was stress related to his cross-country move, leaving the East Coast, where he had grown up and moving to the city he had always wanted to live in. Then he figured it was his overly active writer’s imagination going crazy. The muses certainly weren’t with him during the daylight hours—ever since he moved, he hadn’t added a single word to his current work in progress, a contracted manuscript for which he had already been paid a hefty advance. He sat at the computer in his new home office with the breathtaking view of Puget Sound, and ended up staring out the window. The writing just wasn’t happening.
But something was happening at night. The second night he attempted to ward off sleep— and whatever —by sitting up in his chair watching TV. In his dream, they made love in the chair with I Love Lucy playing in the background. The third night, he fell asleep at his computer and his dream involved a particularly raucous round of desktop sex. He woke up with a stapler imprint on his ass, for God’s sake.
It shouldn’t have been so upsetting to him, because Nick was a paranormal writer. His first novel, Demon Death , stayed on the USA Today’s bestseller list for twenty weeks. He was working on the sequel, Demon Life , and had just a few chapters to go, but the big finish eluded him. There was a lot of research involved with his books, and he felt comfortable and somewhat knowledgeable about the supernatural aspects. But what was happening to him personally was blowing his fucking mind, and he wasn’t sure how to handle it.
The fourth night, he was tired and cranky from lack of sleep, and went to bed figuring whatever will be, will be. He still had to wash his sheets the next day (apparently his ghost’s vagina wasn’t a real receptacle) but at least there were no imprints on his backside.
But there were bite marks. First on his thighs, and then last night, all over his stomach and back. Could a ghost with no vagina possess such sharp teeth? Nick wasn’t sure how he was going to do it, but he had to get to the bottom of this thing.
He studied himself in the mirror until he couldn’t stand looking anymore, then stepped into jeans and pulled a sweatshirt over his head. Running his hands through his short dark hair would have to do for now. He hadn’t shaved in a week, but it wasn’t high on his list of things to do today either. Nick wanted answers, and he had an idea where to
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