Smith's Monthly #10 Read online

  “Can I do that in a minute,” he said. “I’m enjoying the show.”

  “Not much to look at,” she said, spreading her arms and giving him a full view of her breasts. Both were wonderful. Pert, and firm, with hard brown nipples.

  “Fantastic to look at,” he said.

  She then worked at getting out of the pants she had had on all day and yesterday. “I’m going to take these,” she said, wadding them into a ball and putting them into her bag. “I figure at some point we’ll either figure out a way to wash clothes, or just get new ones all the time.”

  Tommy only nodded because now she was standing there only in her white underwear. She worked for a few more minutes like that, stuffing ghost clothes into her bag, then finally slipped off her underwear, tossed them into the back of the open closet with other dirty clothes, and picked up the bag.

  She went to hand it to him.

  “You want to put this in the living room with yours?”

  “I’d much rather watch you do it,” he said, moving to one side so she could go past him and out in to the living room.

  She smiled, clearly knowing damn well what kind of impact she was having on him, as she went past him out into the living room and dropped her bag, then headed for the bathroom.

  “What are the odds we can get some ghost hot water running?” she asked.

  “I honestly have no idea,” he said.

  He followed her into the bathroom and she went to the tub with a shower over it and turned the handle.

  He wanted more than anything to just reach forward and touch her, and he was pretty sure she wanted him to do that as well, since how she was acting. But he honestly felt almost paralyzed like a young high school boy.

  So he just watched the fantastic show of the most beautiful woman he had ever known get ready to take a shower.

  The handle actually didn’t turn in Jewel’s hand, but water started flowing, so she must have turned a ghost handle.

  She waited a moment and then made the motion to turn the other handle and smiled. “We have perfect shower water. “Get out of those clothes and come and scrub my back.”

  He didn’t remember shedding his clothes. But somehow he did, never taking his gaze off of the vision of nakedness under the water.

  And in record time he was stepping under the warm shower and washing the back of a dream come true.

  “I’m starting to think old K.J. was wrong,” Tommy said as Jewel sighed and leaned forward, clearly enjoying his touch.

  “Why is that?” Jewel asked.

  “Because I know I’m dead and I’m pretty sure this is heaven.”

  She laughed. “Keep that gentle touch up much longer and I’ll show you the pearly gates.”

  “Promises, promises,” he said.

  She pushed back against his hard penis with her butt. “That’s a promise,” she said.

  There was not a thing he could say to that, so he just kept washing.

  TWENTY

  SHE AWOKE THE next morning to the wonderful smell of eggs and pancakes. Tommy was gone from the big bed and the morning light filtered around the edges of her bedroom curtains.

  She stretched, pushing away the blankets, feeling more relaxed and at ease with the world than she had felt in a very long time. Having a real man make love to her was so much better than Mr. Buzzy. She had almost forgotten.

  After the shower, they had managed to get dried off and to her bed. He had been gentle and passionate both, just as she always hoped a man would be.

  And the sex had been even more intense than anything she had ever remembered. K.J. had made a comment that the sex was good, and wow had he been right.

  Tommy appeared in the bedroom door. He was dressed in jeans and a blue t-shirt that had a Berkeley logo on it. He smiled when he saw her awake and naked, stretched out on top of the bed.

  “Breakfast in five minutes, Doc, so hurry up and get dressed.”

  She laughed and sat up. “I’d suggest another round in the sack, but I just realized I’m famished. How did you manage to cook something.”

  “Seems everything has a ghost element to it,” he said, smiling. “Pans, gas burners, eggs, milk, you name it. Now hurry up. I have a hunch ghost eggs can burn just as easily as anything else.”

  He vanished and she rolled out of bed and slipped on the clean clothes she had left out of her bag for this morning. Then she slipped on her running shoes and headed for the bathroom.

  Five minutes later exactly she had her hair combed and pulled back and her face washed and was being served a plate of eggs and pancakes at her little dining room table.

  “This really is a nice place you had here,” Tommy said as he took another plate, dished up his breakfast, turned off the gas burner, and came over to sit across from her.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I liked it the best of anything here. Every day I looked forward to coming here and just reading and being alone.”

  “You going to miss it?”

  “Honestly, no,” she said, digging into the fantastic-tasting eggs, salted just perfectly. “I’m ready to do some real work and I think this new job is just what I needed.”

  “Too bad we had to die to get it,” Tommy said.

  “Regretting that part of it?” she asked, digging into the pancakes after smothering them in butter and maple syrup.

  “I keep thinking I should, but I sure don’t,” he said, shaking his head and continuing to eat. “I think that’s because for us this feels just like real life, only we have super powers.”

  “Super powers?” she asked. She couldn’t completely grasp what he was saying.

  “Never read comic books?” he asked.

  “Never did,” she said. “I was one of the serious types and just never got started on them.”

  “Well,” he said, “we are invisible, that’s a super power. And we can walk through walls, which is a super power.”

  “We can read minds and control people,” she said.

  “Another super power,” he said, nodding. “And from what K.J. said and did, we might have more if we can figure them out.”

  “So I died and become a comic book heroine,” she said. “Not the afterlife I had expected, I can say for certain.”

  “That happens in comics,” Tommy said, laughing. “I could name some characters if you want.”

  “Thanks,” she said, finishing up her pancakes. “Maybe later.”

  “As foreplay?” he asked, grinning.

  “Agent,” she said, standing and moving over to kiss him. “You make me hot all by yourself.”

  She kissed him long and hard, then moved over and put her plate in the sink and ran some ghost water over it.

  He put his plate on top of hers.

  “I wonder if these ghost plates will be here forever now?” she asked, staring at them in the sink. “Or do they merge back with their real plates at some point or just vanish?”

  “We’ve got a lot to learn about this new state we are in,” Tommy said.

  “We do,” Jewel said.

  She started to turn away, then turned back and keeping the water running, she spent the next minute washing the plates and frying pan while Tommy used the restroom.

  She put them away where they all belonged as Tommy came out and headed for the front door.

  “Ready to go on an adventure?” he asked as he slipped on his heavy coat, picked up his bag, and slung it over his shoulder.

  She looked around the cabin she had enjoyed for a time, then nodded.

  “I am if it’s with you,” she said, pulling on her ski parka and then pulling on her gloves.

  She then picked up her bag.

  Tommy stepped through the big wooden door and outside.

  With one last look at the cabin where she had actually lived, she stepped through the door and out into the cold, fresh, morning air to really start the journey into a new world.

  Section Two

  WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

  TWENTY-ONE

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p; AFTER THEY GOT back to Jay’s Minimart, a middle-aged couple driving a big brown motor home pulled in for gas and some snacks. They were pulling a big new Jeep. Both vehicles had Texas plates on them.

  Tommy was surprised. You didn’t see many big motor homes way up here in winding, mountain roads, let alone ones from Texas. They were a very, very long ways from home, that was for sure.

  Tommy, with Jewel at his side, was just inside the minimart, trying to stay out of Jay’s way, yet stay warm. The day would maybe get up to near fifty and sunny by four in the afternoon, but at nine in the morning it was still just above freezing. After their experience yesterday at the wreck scene, neither of them had much interest in getting that cold again.

  Jay was a skinny little guy, about the size of a small high school kid who hadn’t gotten his growth yet. But he was at least forty, with a face covered in wrinkles and only a wisp of gray hair. The sheriff had told Tommy one day that Jay had been born here and inherited the old Chevron station from his father and turned it into the minimart because he hated working on cars.

  “Let me see where they are heading when the husband comes in,” Tommy said as the woman from the motor home came inside and went into the restroom.

  “That does look comfortable,” Jewel said, nodding, staring out the window of the minimart at the big motor home. “We could spend the trip on the bed.”

  “Now wouldn’t that be fun,” Tommy said.

  “Play your cards right,” she said, giving him that smile that he was coming to love, “you might get lucky.”

  Tommy pointed to some playing cards for sale. “Want me to get a pack?”

  “Not the kind of cards I’m talking about,” she said, laughing.

  It took almost fifteen minutes for the big motor home to fill with gas. Then the guy came in, all talking and happy, one of those kind that loved to talk with anyone along the way. He was about three times Jay’s size and clearly had money and didn’t care if anyone knew. And his accent clearly put him from Texas.

  The woman had come out of the restroom a few minutes before and now stood at her husband’s side, but said nothing. She was dressed like a tourist in very expensive clothes that included more pink than Tommy thought should be allowed inside the borders of Montana.

  “How far do we have to Missoula from here?” the guy asked Jay as he dug into his wallet. Tommy just smiled at Jewel.

  “Two hundred miles,” the clerk said. “In that rig of yours about four hours.”

  “Is it a pretty drive?” the guy asked.

  “Just about as scenic as it gets,” Jay said.

  “Perfect,” the guy said.

  “Perfect for us as well,” Tommy said.

  He grabbed his pack and led the way outside to the motor home. Jewel followed closely and he quickly shut his eyes and went up the step and through the door into the motor home.

  He took two steps and stopped.

  The smoke smell was about as bad as he had ever smelled.

  Jewel came in behind him and then coughed.

  Tommy pointed to the full ashtrays besides both seats. “I don’t think I want to spend four hours in this, do you?”

  “Not a chance,” she said.

  She turned around and went back out and he followed her into the crisp, but fresh mountain air.

  “Wow,” she said, coughing to clear her lungs. “That was something.”

  “Never know on what level a couple will bond,” Tommy said, between taking a few deep breaths of fresh air.

  “Let’s just keep bonding on sex, all right?”

  Tommy laughed. “No argument from me.”

  They were just about to go back inside when a big black Cadillac pulled up to the pump on the other side of the motor home. Tommy watched as Moore Williams climbed out and worked at the pump to fill his car.

  Moore was an accountant from Missoula. He had a big second home on the lake not far from where Tommy had lived in his father’s home. Tommy liked and respected Moore and his wife and kids. His wife was a lawyer in Missoula and the kids went to school there and the entire family spent most of the summer on the lake.

  Moore also played at painting landscapes, and he liked to be up here when he had time to paint and be alone.

  Luckily for them, today was one of the days he had to head back to the big city.

  “That’s our ride,” Tommy said, pointing at the Cadillac.

  “You know him?” Jewel asked, following Tommy.

  “Moore Williams, a friend of the family,” Tommy said. “Moore is headed for Missoula. This is part of his normal routine.”

  Jewel laughed. “Amazing what you learn about the locals when you’re a deputy sheriff.”

  “Sometimes too much,” Tommy said as he moved around to the passenger side and climbed into the back seat. The car smelled fresh and was fairly warm. The seats were dark leather and Moore had his suit jacket draped over the passenger seat.

  Tommy indicated that Jewel should take off her coat before getting in and he worked at doing the same. He could have just stepped back out to do it and should have. The back seat in the Cadillac sedan was big, but not that big.

  Ten minutes later, they were both very comfortable in the back seat of a smooth-running Cadillac, headed out of Buffalo Jump for the last time.

  She was holding his hand and Tommy liked that a lot.

  Even going off into an unknown world on an unknown adventure, he felt right being with her.

  Moore Williams expertly took the smooth-riding car down the highway, staying just over the speed limit, taking the curves with ease. He had soft jazz on the fantastic sound system and the temperature control set perfectly.

  For Tommy, it didn’t get much better than this.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THEY MANAGED TO get out of Moore’s car at a stoplight not more than a mile from the airport. The weather in Missoula was warmer and neither of them needed their coats.

  Jewel had really enjoyed her ride with Tommy from Buffalo Jump. A lot of the time they had just sat silently holding hands, the rest they had talked about their history, mostly about old boyfriends for her and old girlfriends for him.

  It had felt right to tell him some of those things. It felt like he was more than a lover. It felt like he was her friend as well and that felt right.

  After the walk to the airport, they both used the restrooms, then stood off to one side out of the flow of people and studied the flights.

  There was one headed to Las Vegas in thirty minutes, so they decided they’d try to catch that one.

  The airport was fairly modern and had wide, carpeted aisles, so they spent a lot of time walking along the edges where there were pictures of Missoula and different national parks close by on the walls, trying to not walk through anyone.

  But at one spot she failed that, having a guy turn suddenly and walk right into her and through her.

  She caught a glimpse of his life as he went through. Deep in debt, deep in the closet, afraid his wife would find out about both the debt and his male lover.

  “You all right?” Tommy asked after it had happened.

  “I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head. “Just stuff about some stranger I didn’t want to know.”

  “Clearing?” Tommy asked.

  She nodded. The memories and thoughts she had glimpsed from the guy were clearing, quickly as they had before.

  When they finally reached the gate, it looked like the plane was almost finished boarding.

  “What happens if this is a full flight?” she asked, staring at the open door.

  “We stand,” Tommy said. “Or we find a couple sitting together and join them, give them a little nap while we use their bodies.”

  He smiled at her and made her laugh, the worry vanishing. She loved how he could do that for her.

  “Always wanted to see Vegas,” she said, heading for the door.

  “I want to see it and remember it,” Tommy said.

  It felt weird to Jewel to just walk past t
he attendant at the gate. It felt like they needed to pay or something. She had felt the same way when Tommy had gotten them both a couple bottles of water and some candy bars from a newsstand on the way to the gate. Even though the candy bars and water were ghost echoes of their real sides, and he hadn’t stolen anything, it still felt weird to her.

  They headed down the breezeway and into the airplane just as the flight attendant was about to close the door. She had dark brown hair and looked to be around thirty. Both Jewel and Tommy had to brush through the flight attendant to get in.

  Jewel saw instantly that she wanted to have sex with the captain of this flight, had a bad marriage, and wanted to lose ten pounds.

  “After the last two heads I’ve been in,” Tommy said, “that was refreshing.”

  “What? Jewel asked as she turned toward the cabin. “Shallow?”

  “No, not evil.”

  “Yeah, that was nice,” Jewel said, nodding and looking for any empty seats. “I have a hunch there will be far more of that than the evil we encountered before.”

  “I sure hope you are right,” he said.

  As she feared, there were no empty seats. Not one.

  She headed down the aisle, looking for a young and handsome couple sitting together. After a moment she saw some candidates. They both looked to be in college. He had long dark hair and a baby face that was handsome. He had on a button down shirt and jeans. She also had long dark hair and a trim body and wore a thin white blouse, a lace bra under it, and jeans.

  They both looked very nervous, as if this was their first flight.

  They were sitting beside a middle-aged woman in a business suit who had a laptop out and was already working. The woman was in the window seat.

  Tommy looked at them when Jewel pointed the couple out.

  “Eloping,” Tommy said, smiling. “Any bets?”

  She looked back at the young couple and knew he was right. “Shall we see if they are a match for each other?”

  “I sure don’t see any open seats at all,” he said. “So might as well.”