An Invitation from Beyond

[Ticklish Girl]

Grace Miller

Richard’s admonition to be careful echoed in my brain as I moved closer to the double doors. When I was within an arm’s length of them, I stopped and studied the strange patterns on the lurid red frieze. The angles seemed all wrong in ways that hurt my eyes. It was surprisingly difficult to tear my gaze away from the patterns. I shook my head and focused instead on the brass gargoyle door knocker. “That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” I muttered.

All of a sudden I wasn’t terribly eager to see what was on the other side of those doors. In fact, I wanted to get the hell out of that house as fast as I could. That urge to turn and run had grown stronger with every step I took up the spiral staircase. The only thing keeping me from obeying that impulse was the man standing here with me. I couldn’t run out on Richard now, after the things we had shared. He needed me, but that wasn’t the only reason. No, the real reason was a simple one, yet it came as a surprise: I was growing very fond of him, and I wanted to be with him.

I turned to him and gave him a weak smile. He smiled back and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Ready?” I whispered. He nodded. “Okay.”

Together we reached for the handles and turned them while pushing all our weight against the wood. The hinges squealed in protest, but the doors opened relatively easy. We stood just inside, still holding the doors open, and flashed our lights around the interior of the attic.

It was a huge space, crammed with ancient, ugly furniture, dusty old mirrors, bound stacks of moldering newspapers, and an endless array of cardboard boxes piled on top of each other. I traced my flashlight beam across the opposite wall and saw three windows, all of them tightly shuttered. Dust motes danced in the path of my beam, tickling my nose and making me sneeze a couple of times.

“Storage space,” I finally said, when I had gotten my sneezes under control. “This stuff must’ve been up here for decades. Some of it might be valuable. Guess we ought to have it appraised.” I was rambling, trying to cover my nervousness. Why was I nervous? This was a perfectly ordinary attic, not Narnia.

Just then a floorboard creaked, somewhere to our right. Richard and I caught our breath and simultaneously turned our flashlights in that direction. Both beams flickered, then went out at the same time. We both cried out. A moment later, I felt something yank the door away from me. There was a loud BOOM! as it shut behind us. Beside me, Richard uttered a startled grunt, then I heard a second slam as the other door shut. We were left in total darkness.

I thumbed the flashlight switch, on and off again and again – but the light refused to go on. “Oh shit, oh shit,” I whispered. All around us the air grew cool, then downright chilly. I shivered as the chill touched the perspiration on my forehead and under my arms. Blackness pressed against my eyes as I turned my head this way and that, trying to catch even a sliver of light. I strained my eyes, trying to adjust my vision and make out shapes, but to no avail. It was as if we were in a mineshaft.

“Richard? What’s going on? Let’s try to get out of here.” There was no answer. “Richard?” I held out my left hand, feeling for him, trying so hard not to panic. My own breathing sounded very loud to me.

I heard a small click, and then Richard’s flashlight flicked on. We both grunted with surprise. I pushed the button on mine, and the beam of light appeared once again. The sudden light stung my eyes a little, and it took a moment to adjust. I turned to Richard, opening my mouth to make some sound of relief, but I froze when I saw his tense, frightened face. His eyes were wide and his jaw had dropped open. I heard the tendons creak in my neck as my head reluctantly turned and my eyes followed the twin paths of our flashlight beams.

A young dark-haired man stood on a stool, busily fixing a rope to a hook that hung from the ceiling. He was standing on tiptoe, tugging on the rope to make sure it was taut. His entire body trembled with the tension of standing in that position. He hummed a little tune as he worked. The other end of the rope was fashioned into a noose around his neck. He wore a gray suit that looked about a hundred years old, to my untrained eye. The suit jacket and his white shirt were spattered with blobs of what looked like black ink. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t black ink.

I must have made some sound, because he flinched, then looked down at us. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see us. “I had to do it,” he said. His eyes were wide, earnest. “She wouldn’t go through with the pact. It was her idea, but then she changed her mind at the last minute. All her talk about undying love. She made me believe in it. I loved her enough to set her free. If she loved me, she would have gone through with it, don’t you think?”

Neither of us answered. We were too busy staring at the crumpled, body of the young woman lying on the floor just a few feet away from his stool. She lay in a pool of the same dark stuff that was spattered on the young man’s suit.

“She screamed so much,” the man said. His voice was sad, regretful. “I should have used the pistol. The knife hurt her, and it made a mess.”

The flashlight grew slick in my sweaty palm as the young man tugged on the rope one last time to make sure it was securely fastened to the hook, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. In the next second he was going to jump. I cried out and turned away, blindly reaching out for Richard. I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his chest, needing his solidity, his reality.

 

[afternooner]

Alexis Actions speak louder than words thanks to Stan

OOC: I'll be gone for 10 days keep me in the action if you can Thanks.


Afternooner

 

[ariosto]

Stan new that he wanted to bury his cock inside her but the nectre he was tasting was so delicious that he didn't want to stop. All thoughts of being within anothers body had fled. It was he and Lauren now on the bed in the moonlight.

Slipping his hand between her smooth thighs he parts her legs and his tongue dips deeper into her warm tight pussy. She moans and arches up towards him allowing him to cover her vulva with his mouth and probe into the innermost tissues of her sex.

Lauren's hands have now joined her mouth, stroking his penis, squeezing out beads of pre cum which she tastes for the first time. Her mouth, his mouth , her hands, his tongue moving in rhythym carrying them closer and closer to the brink...

 

[MtnAngelWV]

I had had endless lonely nights to imagine what his love making would feel like. Even these fifty years of fantasizing had not done justice to the actual event. We had been married for half a decade, if only in my mad brain, and yet tonight was our wedding night. A young woman like myself should tremble from fear of the unknown but my body shivers with delight.

Stan's tongue dove in and out of me, going deeper with each thrust. I released his member from my mouth for an instance. The joy was too overwhelming. I stretched my arms out to my sides as I clutched the blanket, my body convulsing with pleasure. My body arches up into his mouth and my head buries itself further into the pillow. I wail and tears stream down my cheeks. My body and soul afire yet aching...aching for him to enter me. To make me complete. The joining of two souls in a dance of ecstacy.

 

[ariosto]

He sees she is close to the brink, she bucks and writhes beneath his mouth and tongue, her fingers rip into the sheets, his cock, hard and throbbing slips in and out of her lips as her being becomes concentrated in the icandescent heat building in her sex.

It is time he knows, yet he wants so much to taste the flowing of her orgasm, to fill his mouth with the juice of her awakening...

No, for this, this time, it must be complete...

Moving between her legs, legs that she opens willingly for him, wanting that which he finally brings her, Stan guides his throbbing penis to her sex. Lauren is wet with the play of his tongue on her, she is swollen with arousal. The lips of her pussy are touched and then parted by the tip of his cock. He moves it up and down, up and down, touching her clitoris, setting her on fire.
Then slowly and relentlesly, piercing finally the virgins veil, Stan enters the white heat of his beloved.

 

[MtnAngelWV]

Stan finally enters me his shaft gently easing into my pussy. I tense for a moment wondering if it will be painful. He must sense my apprehesion for he slows his movements.

"It is ok Stan. I am ready for you," I whipser into his ear.

His undulations were purposeful and arousing to thisbody. I feel our slick juices mingle, lubricating our union. For only an instant I feel a sharp burning sensations as he plucks from me my cherry that had been waiting him for all these years. Once I have been initiated into the erotica, I wrap my legs around his torso pulling his buttocks closer to me with the soles of my feet. My hands grip the headboard as our rytmic movements accelerate. I can feel his taught balls against my ass as he pumps his cock into me over and over and over again. The two of us are finally one, each thrust meeting the others. we recognize our mutual urgency for the release.

As I scream his name, exploding into the heavens, I also hear Tiffany's voice moaning, "Alex!" I can feel her passion as well as my own.

 

[ariosto]

Her arms stretched above her head offering him the ripe temptations of her breasts...
Tongue surrounding nipples, lips sliding over hot curving flesh, long sucking kisses.

Heels dig trenches in Stan's back, he lifts her hips with each deep thrust, feeling his cock parting the hot tight velvet walls of her vagina. When he penetrates as far as he can, when his balls are jammed against her ass, he leans into her for a moment, raises her beautiful legs over his shoulders and lifts her even further off the bed. Lauren feels him slipping in to new and deeper
secrets of her sex in this new position, she feels the tip of his cock touching a part of her she hadn't even known was there.
He ignites her with each deep thrust. He looks at her seeing the crimson flush of arousal spreading across her breast. Her nipples stiff and erect, he engulfs them, as he feels himself shuddering, letting go...
Fire surged in waves from her sex outwards. she began to twist, her vaginal muscles locking down with delicious agony as his throbbing cock exploded.

 

[Stirling]

The Perilous Adventures of Dick & Grace, Continued!

Terror froze me, save for my jaw, which promptly dropped even as my very neck-hairs stood up. I was rooted to the spot, and strangely, inopportunely and quite unexpectedly, I realized that what I'd heard about the physical component of fear from all my years at criminal court was absolutely true, and not much in variance from how it was depicted in popular fiction either.

Evil stood before me, there was no other word for it. A murder-suicide was in progress. A terrible crime of passion usually committed by a scorned lover. The crime had a higher percentage of success than most, given its grim end. Statistically … but no, why am I thinking of statistics at a time like this! Damn desk job, I've lost all my reflexes!

That had occurred in the first three seconds. Then the blood-covered man looked down from us on his high perch and began to speak. "I had to do it," he said listlessly, rambling on and on. Grace cried out and flung her arms around me and I held onto her with all my life. "The knife hurt her," the killer was saying, "and it made a mess."

"Maniac!" I finally broke the spell of his evil words and, reluctantly letting Grace go, flung myself at that broken shadow of a man, my shoulder hitting him square in the chest and knocking him off the chair. Unfortunately the rope was under his neck and there was nothing under his feet when the stool had been knocked free. He coughed, choked, gasped for a moment, kicking so violently I feared to approach. It was the most horrible sound I'd ever heard.

Rationally I thought: let the rope do the work for me. He was too dangerous to approach, but I could still save him. Still, there would probably only be a moment between unconsciousness and death.

I righted the stool near the twisting man but not close enough to wear he could kick it. Then I looked around for a knife. Without one, how was I to cut him free?
Grace divined my purpose at once, and was one step ahead of me. Just as our villain gave a kick to the stool and I scrambled to right it, she ran across the room to the corpse and pulled the knife free. But not without a fight, she had to use two hands to wrench it out. Sweet hell, I thought. This bastard hadn't stop stabbing her until he got it stuck in the bone. I felt queasy. But now Grace was there beside me, slipping off a heel and putting her foot on the stool, grabbing my shoulder to keep herself steady.

"No, wait!" I cried in protest but too late, she clambered atop the wobbly stool.

"I'm lighter," she snapped. "Now make damn sure you hold me!" I did and despite the man's dying kicks she managed to get up on the stool and start hacking at the rope. The man was kicking so much I just grabbed onto his legs and held him away.

"Damn," she swore, throwing her hands to her sides.

"What's wrong?" I asked. The dying man was barely moving now.

"It won't cut!"

"Let me try!" But it was no use. The killer's hunting knife was great for stabbing flesh but wasn't hard or sharp enough to slice through the nylon climbing rope. And now it was too late. The man had stopped kicking. "That's it," I said. "He's dead."


We stood there, staring at the wrecked room. Grace was wiping the blood that had gotten all over her hands from the knife against a window curtain. Window curtain! All the dusty, stacked clutter of the office was gone. We were in a different room, in a different part of the mansion. Sunlight streamed through the window, though the pale white curtains were drawn, illuminating an elegantly appointed drawing room. Big band music poured through a wooden-cabinet shaped like an old-fashioned radio. Surely a rack of receivers and CDs was concealed at this. "I'll be damned," I said, searching for a latch and finding none. It really was an old antique that actually worked.

Grace rushed to the window. "Richard, look at this." I went to her shoulder, looked into the yard. Colored leaves fell off baring trees, but there was sun still, lots of it, streaming across the acres of perfectly-kept gardens and lawns that surrounded this place.

"It's daylight," I said. "Have we been up all night already? My watch says it's only 11:15 PM."

"That's not all," she said. "Clearly out there it's fall, but when we came to Hillcrest it was the third of June."

"I think we better do something about that dead guy." But when I turned to look at him again, I saw he was gone. So was the pool of blood. So was the knife. So was that mutilated corpse and that whole dreary scene. Instead was a well-made bed, the radio -- still playing -- an old-fashioned clothes bureau, and a stack of what looked like leather traveling bags.

Just then there was a knock on the door and we both froze by the window, and I put an arm around Grace reflexively. The door opened, and a man and a woman flowed in. I say flowed because they were both dressed like something out of a Humphrey Bogart movie, him in a double-breasted wool suit like my grandfather use to wear, his black hair slicked back elegantly; while the woman was a vision, her shoulder-length hair elaborately styled and curled, her black evening gown simple yet elegant.

"Dick! Grace! Great to see you!" said the stylish man, firmly shaking my hand. The woman rushed over to hug Grace as if they were old friends. I looked at Grace to see if she knew, but I could tell from her ashen expression she knew, she knew. The woman who was embracing her we had last seen dead on the floor, the man shaking my hand we had last seen hanging on a rope.

"Come on then!" said our host, taking the woman's arm and marching out the room. "Dinner's almost served."

Grace and I looked at each other, locking hands, and knew: this supernatural carnival ride was only beginning, and we had no idea where it would end.

 

[rambling man]

joey

I awoke from a deep sleep and looked at beautiful Cassie. Then I felt the familiar but alien presence.

Cassie, she's back!

 

[MtnAngelWV]

I had had no idea that sex could feel so wonderful. I had fanasized being with Stan for so long that I tought maybe the fantasy would be better. My dreams never could have imagined such glory.

My world was spinning as I exploded in ecstacy. My nails dug into his back as we both had our mutual orgasms. His body stayed on top of me as he stayed nestled inside of me. He began kissing my cheeks and mouth.

I flew out of Tiffany's body, giggling and calling to him. "Catch me if you can...."

I floated down to the basement where I witnessed Cassie and Joey sleeping contentedly. as Joey began stirring I entered his body and awaited my beloved.

 

[rambling man]

I felt her, I knew now it was a her, slide into my body. The feeling was as if I had swallowed a seed and it slowly, gently, painlessly swelled to encompass my entire body from the inside. It absorbed into my bones, my skin, my mind.
I felt a mellowing of myself, a repressing of those forceful moods underneath a hardening shell of sensitivity, softness, femininity. Then I sensed my losing control of my body. My arms instinctively wrapped around my body to cover my chest. Cassie had drifted back to sleep for the moment.
My hands moved onto my nipples where my fingers brushed and moved back and forth over them. She controlled my hands and made them squeeze the tender and now much more sensitive flesh. My fingertips squeezed the tips, my mouth cooed and moaned in a high lustful voice. It sounded nothing like mine. My hand felt my throat where my adam's apple had receded. "She" called out to someone, somewhere, "Are you coming?"
Oh damn! It was my aunt's voice when she was younger, a tone I had not heard since I was a child! I was my aunt!
Other changes occured this time. My body hair receded, leaving my skin smooth and soft. Happily, my cock did not change, if nothing else it grew larger because my aunt had begun to stroke it along with playing with my/her nipples.

What is happening to me? I asked her in my mind.

You like it, I can sense that. Just enjoy yourself. she stated neutrally, within our mind.

How can you change my body? I asked.

I can only change yours because our DNA is so compatible. She said with an inward smile.

What else are you going to do to me, with me? I asked.

Who knows, my aunt said with a laugh, You will fuck a man soon, I know that much.

Horrified, I tried to fight, but I could do nothing.

Stop, you fool, you can do nothing. He will be in Cassie so it will still be a woman, really. Don't worry. If you keep it up I will make you grow breasts. I just may do it anyway.

I stayed quiet within myself wondering what would happen next.

 

[MtnAngelWV]

Joey seems almost frightened my new invasion of his body.

"Suck it up," I say to him. "Relax and enjoy the feeling. I will not hurt you!"

The feelings I had remember come ruching back as I settle into him completely. I want stan to feel as comfortable as possible, which is why I have changed Joey's physical characteristics somewhat.

I reach down with his hand, but my motions, and grab his cock. I stroke it lightly. I had always wondered what it would feel like to have a penis. I giggle as I realize my fantasy. That painful, but pleasurable, feeling resurfaces as his cock begins to harden under my ministrations.

 

[Ticklish Girl]

Grace Miller

"Come on then!" said our host, taking the woman's arm and marching out the room. "Dinner's almost served."

We held each other’s hands tightly as we followed the couple. I couldn’t help marveling at the transformation in the house. Gone was the musty, moldy smell that had teased my allergies when I first entered the house. The air smelled fresh, almost sweet, with a noticeable scent of flowers. Gone were the dusty, sheet-draped pieces of furniture. The rooms we passed actually looked lived in.

“Where are the others?” I whispered.

Richard looked around. His forehead furrowed in a frown. “I think we’ve gotten caught up in some kind of time warp,” he said. “The people we came in with are still here, but they’re on some other plane of existence. If that makes any sense.”

“About as much sense as anything that’s happened so far,” I said.

Richard nodded. “Somehow we’ve entered an episode from this house’s past. Whoever those people are, they lived here before the Hillcrests bought the place.”

“Donald,” I said suddenly. Richard shot me a quizzical look. “That’s his name. Donald Fry. Don’t ask me how I know. The name popped into my head just now. I swear I’ve never heard it before.”

“I believe you,” he said. “The same thing just happened to me. The woman’s name is Nancy, and she’s his wife. They’ve been married less than a year.”

We were on the threshold of the dining room now. I glimpsed a long oak table with four places set. We stopped and looked at each other. Richard’s handsome face was pale and his hand was cold as it clutched mine. My palms felt cold and sweaty, and I wiped my free hand on my skirt. I opened my mouth to ask him how much he knew about the history of this house when the woman – Nancy – walked into the dining room through a side door that most likely led to the kitchen. She carried a huge roast on a silver platter over to the head of the table and set it down, right in front of Donald.

She straightened up and caught sight of us standing in the doorway. “Well, come on, you two lovebirds,” she said with a laugh. “You’ll get the grand tour after we finish dinner, I promise. We don’t want the roast to get cold, do we?”

Before we could answer, Donald stood up and brandished a wicked-looking carving knife. A small cry tore loose from my throat and I squeezed Richard’s hand in a death grip.

Donald gave me a quizzical look, then laughed. It was a perfectly normal laugh, not the kind of sound that would come from the throat of a man who would stab his wife to death and then hang himself. “You silly goose,” he said. He spoke in tones of mock-exasperation, but his eyes crinkled with good humor. “What do you expect me to carve the roast with, a paper knife?” He chuckled again and picked up a carving fork with his other hand. “Now come on in. Let’s not allow Nancy’s considerable cooking skills to go to waste, hm?”

I looked at Richard. Incredibly he managed a smile and made a sweeping gesture with his free arm. “After you, darling,” he said.

 

[rambling man]

Joey

I tried to relax, tried to feel at ease as she appropriated my body and controlled my soul.
I felt rushing of something new flowing through my veins, her presence had upped the level of estrogen in my system, causing these changes. She made my hand start stroking myself, causing my cock to become large and firm, hard and throbbing.
It made me happy that Cassie would finally get to have this new and different lover. The changes in my body frightened me, yet I grew to enjoy the new sensitivity of my nipples, my thighs and elsewhere.
I relaxed within my body, waiting for Cassie to wake up so my aunt could fuck her with my body

 

[Stirling]

Dinner with the Doomed

Donald Fry tore into his roast beef with the frenzy of a cannibal. He slavered, he slobbered, he let thin bits of tendon and muscle string off his teeth down into the meat; bits of red juice congealed on his lower lip. He spoke to us of subdivisions and investments and how we might make a fortune once this war against Hitler and Tito was done with. I found it painful to listen to him.

Grace was the alternative. She was the only other person from my time, my world, my … reality … experiencing this supernaturally ridiculous weirdness with me. To look upon her beauty rather than the ravenous and demon countenance of our host was easy, so I did. She had such inner beauty, such quiet strength. The way her hair fell about just so. I realized she had the power to distract me completely, even in the face of mortal danger, even in the presence of the miraculously impossible.

For no one would believe what we have been through so far. We thought we were staying in an old woman's mansion, only to find ourselves teased by ghosts and spirits then stolen away into some transitory limbo-world of the damned. Damned such as these. Reluctantly I turned my eyes back to the table.

"Let's not allow Nancy’s considerable cooking skills to go to waste, hmm?" said Donald, or as I regarded him, the Undead Thing. That creature stood at the place of honor, wearing the guise of a man and holding a carving knife and fork in each of its cold, reanimated hands. I found it horrible beyond belief, but It only laughed, slicing meat across plates. It proffered up its work to us at the table.

"After you, darling," I said, fearing the thing had poisoned the meat, calling it darling out of sheer bravado. Then Grace reached for the food, thinking by the word 'darling' I had meant her, as if I had intended she should eat the stuff cooked up by some undead thing! Never, though I was touched that she would think by 'darling' I would mean her. "No," I whispered, pulling her hand back. "I meant him."

The Donald-creature shrugged, dumping some of his sliced meat on his plate, and on that of his alleged wife's. They both ate it. Grace looked at me strangely.

Abruptly I realized I was not some ghost myself and that I shouldn't refrain from the feast. The meat was fine, we both ate it. No I shouldn't be thinking about ghosts. We were just two couples sitting down to a pot roast dinner some time back in the 1950s, somewhere some town I don't know where or when.

Fear.

 

[Ticklish Girl]

Grace Miller

The meat was tender, although a little too rare for my liking. The red juice oozing out of its too-pink center reminded me uneasily of the pool of blood that had surrounded Nancy Fry’s lifeless body. Once my mind made that association, my stomach clenched like a fist. I grabbed my glass and gulped some water, trying to stifle the nausea. I didn’t want Donald to notice my discomfort. He might think that I didn’t like his wife’s cooking, and I was sure that he was just demented enough to explode into a towering rage over any perceived slight. I wasn’t sure if these ghosts could hurt us, and I didn’t want to take any chances.

As this bizarre meal went on, one thing was becoming quite clear: Donald Fry was struggling to hold onto his sanity, and he was losing. His bluff, hearty manner was clearly an act, one that he was laboring to keep up. His eyes were just a little too wide, his laughter was just a little too loud, and he spoke just a little too rapidly, as if he were trying to keep up with his racing thoughts. He clutched his knife and fork so tightly his knuckles were white. I could sense violence simmering just beneath the surface of his personality.

I wasn’t the only one who could sense it. Nancy picked at her food and kept darting nervous looks at her husband. As he drank more and more red wine, his speech became louder and faster, and her face grew noticeably paler. She forced a thin smile at his raucous jokes, but said very little. I felt sorry for her. She seemed so lost, so doomed. As looked at her, I was suddenly certain that the death pact Donald had mentioned on his makeshift gallows was only a figment of his diseased imagination. She had an air of sweetness and innocence about her that was incompatible with the idea of a death pact. I pitied her all the more because I knew there was nothing Richard or I could do to help her. We were in the past, and we could do nothing to alter it.

I pushed my food around on the plate to create the illusion that I was eating. Meanwhile my free hand held Richard’s under the table. We had to cling to each other, if only to remind ourselves that we were real, solid, in this world of ghosts and madness. I tuned out Donald’s ramblings and turned to look at Richard. He smiled at me and I felt a rush of tenderness for him.

I leaned toward him and whispered in his ear, “If we make it out of this –”

“If?”

I chuckled. “Okay. When we make it out of this, I want to take you home with me. I want to feel your arms around me all night long. Most of all, I want to wake up next to you. What do you think of that?” I could hardly believe my own boldness.

His smile turned into a grin. “I want those same things,” he whispered. I smiled as my heartbeat quickened, and I wanted to lean in and kiss him on the mouth –

“Hey there, you two!” Donald Fry’s braying voice cut into our moment, wrecking it. We blinked at each other, sat up a little straighter, and turned to look at our host. He was staring at us. His teeth were bared in a grin, but his eyes were not smiling at all. They were as hard and shiny as new dimes, and they were trained on us in a flat, suspicious gaze. He was obviously the type of man who believed that anyone who whispered must be plotting against him, and that anyone who laughed must be laughing at him. “Penny for your thoughts?” he said. There was an edge in his voice. Beside him, Nancy lowered her head and poked her fork at a piece of potato.

Richard cleared his throat. “Oh, we were just talking about how happy we are to be here among such good friends.” His tone was light and friendly, betraying none of the anxiety that he must surely feel. Even more amazing: he smiled as he spoke! I had all I could do not to gawk at him in awe.

The effect upon Donald was immediate. He relaxed noticeably, and even returned Richard’s smile. “Aw, hey, we’re happy to have you,” he said. And with that he picked up his knife and fork and went back to hacking at his roast beef. I let out a long breath and gave Richard a relieved smile. Some kind of disaster had been averted – for now, at least.

A few minutes later, Donald dropped his cutlery on his empty plate and shoved his chair back from the table. “Whoa, that was good,” he grunted.

Nancy evidently took this to mean that dinner was over. She immediately rose and began clearing the table. I also stood up. “Let me help you with that,” I said. That was my mother’s training taking over – she had always taught me to offer my help when I was at somebody’s house.

Nancy smiled at me. “No, no, you sit. You’re our guests. Donald and I have it.”

Donald nodded. “That’s right.” He bounded to his feet so quickly he seemed to have springs in his shoes. “You guys relax. We’ll clear up and then we’ll bring in coffee and cake.” He grinned at us, scooped up his plate and mine, and followed his wife out of the room.

The minute they were gone, I turned to Richard. “That was … odd,” I said.

Richard nodded agreement. “Very odd,” he said. “And I don’t think it’s over.”

“Neither do I. But you know what? I’m glad I’m not alone.” I took his hand again and looked into his eyes, then leaned in and gave him a soft kiss on the lips.