Chapter 18
Perry came around several times in the next week and, besides communicating with Ida through various means, seemed to have hit it off with Gabriel. Unfortunately for Ida’s new-found aiming abilities, Gabriel was adamant not to play any video games, but she thought it was rather sweet of him to take Perry under his wing.
As Ida drifted down to the living room one morning, Perry and Gabriel were already chatting in the kitchen, Gabriel with his back to her, Perry leaning on the counter in a slightly awkward position, as if he didn’t know how to best stretch his arm.
“There it goes,” Gabriel said as the coffee machine beeped. “Now, for the sugar, you have to be very careful with the amount…”
Gabriel turned his attention to coffee, and Perry shifted, revealing the reason for his strange position—he was trying to hide a small box, still marked with shipping labels. Ida gasped, then quickly floated away from the doorway.
Perry was amazing, doing this so fast. She’d asked him to bring her some ingredients—she wanted to try a recipe she’d found in the ghostly book, but also wanted to keep it a surprise from Gabriel.
“So you see her as a normal person?” Perry asked. “Not translucent or anything?”
Ida stilled by the wall.
“No, normal. Most of the time, at least.” Gabriel’s voice was accompanied by a light clanking of a spoon against a coffee mug. “In normal light, like this, you wouldn’t know she’s a ghost. But in direct sunlight, or when she’s in darkness or shadow, and only streams of light reach her, it’s like…” More clanking. “It passes through her, illuminates her from the inside.”
“Like a lamp?”
“No, gentler. It makes her face glow, and usually, her hair is this shade between brown and red, but that light brings out the reddish hues more and…”
And what?
Ida brought a clenched fist to her chest, trying to steady the fluttering feeling inside.
But Gabriel didn’t continue, and instead, after a minute, Perry said, “We should get going, right?”
More clanking and rustling followed, and Ida jumped to the living room window.
“Oh, you’re here,” Gabriel said as they exited the kitchen.
“Just came in from the outside.” She couldn’t help but smile—it had seemed to become her automatic reaction, every time she saw Gabriel lately. “What are you boys doing?”
“Perry had a project due today, but needs a part for his laptop. I’m taking him to a store in town. Hopefully Hansen has it.”
Why on Earth couldn’t she stop smiling?
Gabriel smiled back.
“Uh, that’s nice of you. Good luck,” she finally managed.
Perry looked from Gabriel to two feet left of Ida, eyebrows slightly raised.
“Anyway, I’ll be back soon,” Gabriel said.
“And stuff’s in the kitchen, if you need it,” Perry said.
“It’s called coffee, not ‘stuff’,” Gabriel said, and turned to the hallway before he could see either Perry or Ida snort.
Perry winked at her—well, at the potted plant next to her—and headed after Gabriel. Ida waited until they left and rushed into the kitchen. Hands shaking in excitement, she opened the box, then did a few laps around the room to calm herself down before she dared to handle the fragile ingredients. A vial of rosemary essence; a bottle of clear alcohol, a tiny jar of dried leaves. She rubbed her hands.
Time to get cooking.
One definitely not love potion later
Ida counted to three four times, focusing on keeping the vial steady as drops of oil neatly trickled into the jar. She carefully released the vial and twisted to the counter across to consult the recipe in the book again. Almost done; all she still needed were the herbs, brewing in a pot on the stove, and for the concoction to cool off.
She checked the pot. Boiling too much, perhaps? She could take it off now. She turned the knob left, then right again. Left, right, left…
The front door opened and closed. “I’m back!” Gabriel said. “They had to order the part and it won’t be here for days, so I let Perry borrow my laptop in the meantime. In other news—” He strolled into the kitchen and lowered his eyes to the stove. “Ida. Ida, no.” He came to her and turned the knob off, keeping his hand on it to secure it.
She clenched a fist. Go away, loop.
The knob stilled.
Gabriel gave her an encouraging smile. “So, the Schuyler Sisters want in on the house renovations. In fact, Dina insisted no one else touch the garden without her supervision, and Mark offered to help with the facade. Anyway, why does it smell like a witch’s kitchen in here?” Amused, he stretched his neck and smelled the pot.
“Could you please filter that? And put exactly eight drops in there.” She pointed to the jar.
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Love potion?”
Oh, if she could blush. “I found the recipe in the ghostly book. It’s a perfume of sorts.”
“That book keeps surprising me.”
“It’s not just a perfume. It…” She wrung her hands. “If it works, it’s supposed to stick to the ghost.”
Gabriel’s eyebrow remained raised. “Is that ghostly lingo?”
“No, I think it literally means I can use it. I can smell like something.” Couldn’t he understand how much this would mean? “I haven’t been able to use anything in so long. I’m stuck with this hair, these clothes”—that brown velvet wasn’t fetching on her, she was sure—“with displaying no changes, not tasting, smelling, feeling anything, except some random feelings I may pick up from haunting an object.”
“Then perfume it is.” Gabriel executed a tiny bow of his head. “What do I do?”
She guided him through the rest of the procedure and waited for the mix to cool as Gabriel fetched a spray bottle. “It says it’s ready when it cools down,” she said. “Shall we try it? See if it works?”
“I spray it? On you?”
“Yes, dummy. That’s how perfumes work.”
Gabriel sprayed once, into the approximate direction of her neck.
“Maybe a bit more?”
One, two, three—head, hair, torso. “I can’t tell if it stuck to you, or I’m just smelling the massive cloud of perfume I unleashed,” he said.
“Wait.” She zoomed past him to the other side of the kitchen. “How about here?”
Gabriel approached, sniffing intently. “Maybe. Yes, I think so.”
“Or maybe we’re still too close to ground zero.” She retreated further, into the living room. “Now?”
He followed. “I think I can smell you.”
She glided back once again, ending between the sofa and the bookcase.
“What is this?” Gabriel sniffled more as he drew near. “Sweet, like a flower, but then also like a citrus? And, at the risk of sounding strange—creamy?”
She smiled. “Orange blossom. It’s in the perfume.” She’d never smelled it herself, but it sounded pleasant. “Do you like it?”
Gabriel came even closer, standing just short of colliding with her. “It’s beautiful.”
The way he stared at her, she almost dared to imagine he was talking about her, not the fragrance. She wished he’d have finished that description earlier.
What else did he see when he looked at her?
Her fingers tingled. Wait, tingled? How was that possible? She raised her hand and wiggled them.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Her voice was full of wonder. “I think the perfume might… well, I can feel my fingers. Not properly, but a little.” She laughed. “Wait!”
She popped into the piece of paper with her name on it, and back out.
“Hold that,” she told Gabriel. “And smell it.”
He did so.
“Can you smell the perfume?”
“Yes. How did you…”
It worked!“I haunted it. So that paper… it smells like me.” Did that sound weird? Oh, no, was she being weird?
Gabriel stared at the piece of paper.
Yup, she was weird. “I’m sorry. I wanted to try it, but like you said, it doesn’t have a purpose.”
“It’s not that. It’s the damn smell.” He shut his eyes and wrinkled his nose, like he was… suffering?
“It was too much rosemary, wasn’t it? I thought that one drop was the size of two, and the recipe did say I have to be very precise—”
“It’s not the rosemary, Ida!” Gabriel turned away from her and covered his face. “I need a moment.” He moved to the window.
Ida stayed in place, biting her lip. Maybe the perfume did smell bad, and Gabriel was only trying to be nice. Maybe he hated perfume in general? Back in life, she wasn’t the biggest fan of fragrances, either, but the inability to smell at all made the heart grow fonder.
“Dammit.” Raking his hair, Gabriel turned back. “Do you even know how badly I want to kiss you?”
Her mouth froze in a half-open position.
“Oh, forget just kissing you.” He made a few steps toward her, something intense, burning, unleashing in his eyes. “I want to touch you, everywhere. Feel you. I want to lick this damn thing off you, preferably once you’ve gotten rid of some of those layers and sprayed the perfume—” He stopped, his eyes wide. “I shouldn’t have said that. I—”
“N-no, wait.” Her voice came out weak, trembling.
Gabriel paused in half-turn.
Forget her fingers shivering; it was a miracle she hadn’t dissolved yet, when her whole body was flushed with a tingling wave of anticipation.
He wanted to kiss her.
He actually, truly, wanted to kiss her!
“C-can you continue?” He couldn’t actually kiss her, but solely his words made her feel things—strange, euphoric, sparkling things—nothing she’d ever felt before.
Gabriel stood, unmoving, for a few moments, until he strolled back toward her. He circled her, moves as smooth as a panther’s, until he stopped behind her. “Which part?”
“The bit where you’d…” For god’s sake, get yourself together! “Really, any part would do.” It wasn’t as if she didn’t fall apart at merely a glance.
Especially a glance like he’d given her before—one that could set her on fire, had she been more material.
Maybe it was good she was a ghost. How could a living woman survive him?
“The back of your neck.” His voice was hushed, but silky. He raised his fingers to the spot. One passed through—perhaps accidental, perhaps he couldn’t help. But whereas otherwise, she’d have felt nothing, the slightest sensation spread like a circular wave from his touch. It lasted only a second, but left behind an electric feeling. A spark, trying to ignite her. “Right where your hair meets the skin. It looks so sensitive. I’d kiss you there, first…”
She closed her eyes, her mouth hanging open.
“And when you’d stretch your neck to the side, to offer me more, I’d lay a trail of kisses, around to your jaw, then down your throat…”
Good thing she didn’t need to breathe. She wasn’t sure what that function was at the moment.
“And all the while, I’d put my arms around you… clutch the waist first…” His arms hovered an inch away from her, showing the embrace. “And I’d travel up, and up… until I’d get to the first button…”
Ida glanced down, to the upmost button of her jacket. Of all the clothes to die in, she had to pick this one—a walking dress with long, tight sleeves, that buttoned all the way to her neck. “You know I can’t get rid of these.”
“Yes, but I have a vivid imagination.”
He’d imagined her? With less clothes on?
“I’d pop that button, and the next one, and slide my hand underneath… can you imagine that?”
She remembered how the touch of her own skin felt. Nothing special, nothing exciting—unless you needed to scratch a bad itch—but when she added Gabriel’s voice to that memory, when she imagined his fingers sliding along her collarbone…
Her knees nearly buckled then and there. “Uh-huh.” In her mind, he fired up her every nerve, fingertips leaving behind a scorching trail, one that only his lips would be able to extinguish.
“Now, I couldn’t get further without popping a few more buttons. Would you let me do that?”
She nodded, her thoughts already skipping ahead. That would be enough to reveal her chemise and her corset. Inhibitions flew away; she needed to feel more of that scorching, more sparks, more him—now. “Unhook it.”
“What?”
“You need to unhook my corset.” Her voice came out raspy. “In front. Here.” She laid a hand on her belly, and waited for Gabriel’s hand to hover above it. In her mind, he did it deftly, like he’d been unhooking corsets all of his life, and the garment fell to the ground—the jacket, oh, that one was long since gone.
“What are you wearing under your corset?”
“A chemise. It’s, uh, like a nightshirt.”
“Translucent?”
Hers was a very proper, woolen one—couldn’t be peeked through if you put it in front of a light. “Yes. Silk.”
“Then I’ll slide over it… up, and up…” His hand continued upwards. She closed her eyes, focusing on the occasional sensation from his hand passing through her to guide her in her daydream. She shivered at the smooth sliding of the silk, as, on one side, Gabriel’s fingers glided higher still, and on the other, his voice whispered in her ear, “Until I’ve cupped your breast and squeezed it…”
Oh God oh God oh God.
“And then I’d find that hard peak of your nipple…”
Why could she feel this in her belly? No, lower. Maybe it wasn’t real, but the combination of the perfume, still clinging to her, and the dreams, imprinted over her reality, made her feel so… warm.
No, she remembered warmth. This was better. This made her feel alive.
“But that’s not all of it, yet,” he teased with a husky voice.
What? She was seconds away from imaginary exploding.
“You forgot about my other hand.”
She looked down—his other hand was by her hips.
“Can we say the skirt is gone?”
She nodded weakly.
“Then with my other hand, I’d grab a fistful of that silk…”
Her knees buckled.
“And drag it up, up, up your thigh… pass beneath it…”
“To my drawers?”
He stopped.
“Drawers are gone,” she corrected herself. They blinked out of existence, leaving only the silk chemise, which only half-concealed the shape of her leg.
Gabriel’s hand was halfway up her thigh. She couldn’t see his face, since he was still standing behind her, but she felt his smile.
“I’ll caress your skin, travel up, ever so slowly…”
In her daydream, his fingers pressed onto her skin, marking the area no one had ever touched before.
“And inward…”
He continued across her thigh, toward softer, more sensitive skin.
“Can you feel it?”
He was going right for her core—that bit that was ready to explode. He was so close—inches away from the most sensitive spot between her legs. She wanted to urge him to continue—build that ball inside of her up, and up, and up, until it would release—but words couldn’t find their way out through the fire engulfing her.
“You never had a man touch you there before, did you?”
She managed a half-tortured sound.
“Don’t worry. I’ll go slow and gentle.” He whispered near her ear, “Slow is more fun. Builds the pressure.”
How much more? She wasn’t sure she could take it. “Then what?”
He chuckled softly. “Easy. One finger first. If I’d done my job right—”
Her vote was on yes.
“You’re slick, smooth. Ready.”
She may have moaned, or yelped—she couldn’t tell, because all she could think about was that in some reality—her glorious, perfume-induced reality—his finger was inside her, foreign and strange, but feeling oh-so-good, making her one thrust away from shattering into a thousand sparks.
“Two fingers.”
Forget the fingers.She wanted him. That was what came at the end, wasn’t it? And before she died—again—she wanted to know how he would feel, how she would feel with him inside of her, filling her whole—
Knock, knock.
The front door opened. “So the motel’s wi-fi is down again, go figure,” Perry’s voice came from the hallway. “I can crash here for the afternoon, right?” Based on the rustling sounds, he was taking off his jacket.
Ida gasped, the heat rushing into her head. Oh, no. This was like the time Rhonda had caught Larry watching that movie he claimed wasn’t porn. Ida had laughed then.
Now she was Larry.
She turned around, meeting Gabriel’s wide eyes. “Go,” he whispered, the smooth seducer gone.
She didn’t waste another second, and flicked straight into the deer statue.