My Melancholy Ghost

Overcast and autumn air. I breathe deep, leaning on the stone bridge that holds me high over the canal. Wood-smoke scents waft across the river. Cloudy days like these let me look with wide eyes over the city vistas.

My melancholy ghost puts his hand on mine. His touch has no flesh, no blood, no heat... but it is still his touch. I smile, keeping my gaze northward.

“I missed you,” my ghost’s voice is in my ear, his phantom cheek disturbs my hair.

“I always miss you,” I answer. He feels along my hip with his other hand.

“I wish...” his whisper trails off, buried in all the things he desires.

“I know,” I say softly.

Time whirls around this moment like scattered dust. I never count the days as they pass. I never know if the next day will hold one of these moments.

His hand slides along my neck and over my shoulder. He places a kiss on this angle of skin, close to my spine.

“Let’s go home,” he says. It doesn’t have to be a question. It’s what we both want.

Does it matter who we are? I haven’t decided yet. Spending time wondering how he can be formless and still tactile would corrode the moment. To be present even through absence is his power, his magic.

With my melancholy ghost I turn my back on the canal, leaving the bridge to descend the hill. We are tethered together by intertwined fingers, wandering away from the tourists, walking under golden, garnet, amber leaves.

I wonder where his mind goes, when the quiet lingers between us. Right now I feel calm and centered because even without our words we are in tune. Two minds that echo ardent knells over the silence.

I don’t want to think ahead. Beyond our steps, beyond the next few streets, there is home and only home. The shelter of our needs, the ones waiting for us to give them life.

Alone with my ghost, he lifts my shirt away and is transfixed as though he has never seen this pale expanse of skin. He sees my steady breaths gently giving my breasts movement. He leans to me, placing kisses on my neck, tasting a path down to my breast. He sucks against the tender tip while his hands slide over my sides, down my back, to clutch at my plump backside.

He pauses in relishing my flesh to breathe a single word. “Delicious.” It chills the wet skin before his face and pleasure springs from that point out along my nerves.

His hands ease me out of the rest of my clothes. Our minds are free-floating in passion. Nothing is beyond our world. He presses his lips to my thigh, draws his tongue along me towards my hip, kissing and tasting up my body until our lips meet at last.

We kiss in a rhythm drawn from instinct. Our hands explore one another as we are swept along in sensation. When he breaks the kiss he leans away to murmur the words that have stirred in his mind for some time.

“Your body doesn’t draw me to you, it’s you that draws me to your body.”

Does it matter who we are? It’s a question that begs centuries for an answer. I don’t have centuries to spare. I have cast it aside, shed as easily as my clothes.

My melancholy ghost lowers me to bed. My legs spread for him and he lingers just beyond contact with my glistening sex. He leans forward, his hold at my waist keeps me still beneath him. He enters me as slow as possible, filling me, completing us.

“Yes...” my voice airy, filled with need.

He maintains his hold, allowing me no motion against his gentle thrusts. The teasing of sweet friction inside me slowly builds up my pleasure. Eventually the heat in my blood begins searing my desire and a moan escapes me.

“More?” He asks in a hushed voice.

“Please,” I reply eagerly.

He shifts his grip to aid my motions instead of stopping them. We move in a flow of rapture and our tempo builds. His contact with my most sensitive places gets me lost in sighs and moans and quivering joy.

We are only this feeling, present in what we give to each other. My arousal darts along the edge of ecstasy, toying with the idea of release. My eyes hold contact with those of my ghost as his expression flares with emotion. He groans as he continues to press deep.

My body gives in to climax and my voice is gasping out noises of pure lust. I am bucking, clenching muscles, the nectar of my sex flows and my ghost is swept over his own precipice. He thrusts in a final jagged staccato, with trembling limbs and panting breaths.

Time is flickering in and out of being again. We lie, wrapped together in a satisfied haze. He wants this hold for as long as he can have it. I want his presence to stay with me until I forget my life without it.

“You’re perfect,” says my ghost.

“You’re everything,” I say to him.

Does it matter who we are? I can’t see how. He has never cared, beyond the truth that we are together.