Work Text:
It should have been obvious from the start. The house was too quiet, maybe, and too big, but it never felt too empty. It never felt empty at all.
Job one was to go over the place from top to bottom, making a note of everything that needed doing; no subsidence, and no damp, thank goodness, but a good deal of replastering and painting, and repairs to a lot of the older furniture. That was good, the kind of work he most enjoyed. So easy, to throw everything out and start over; but so much more satisfying to treat these old pieces with sensitivity and respect, and watch them come back to life under your hands.
It was in a cramped little attic room that he’d felt it first, the sense of not being alone. He was on his knees, scrubbing at a stubborn stain he’d spotted on the wood flooring, and someone was behind him, watching with quiet approval. He’d been so certain of it that he hadn’t got up, hadn’t even turned around; just called out, “That you, David? Thought you were giving me a week before you made your first inspection.”
No reply. He did look round, then, and found the place empty, and laughed at himself. His laughter filled the little room up, reverberating strangely, almost echoing. He stopped still for a second, to listen; but he didn’t hear anything else.
After that, he rather got used to the sense that there was someone with him. Not all the time; but more often than not. These old houses had character, it was why people wanted them, and what was character if not a feeling unique to the place? He’d known houses that felt cold even when you heated them, houses that felt quiet even when you sang in them, houses where you’d get into some pointless fight with whoever you brought with you five minutes after you came through the door. This was only a house that stared at you, and smiled when it thought you weren’t looking; and he was happy to find it companionable.
On the third day, it stayed away for most of the morning. It was nearly noon by the time he felt the familiar prickle of eyes on the back of his neck, as he bent over the desk he was restoring.
“Took you long enough,” he said, not bothering to look around. “I was beginning to wonder where you were,” and then he shrieked as he felt a small, cold hand lay itself gently over his, and squeeze.
He hadn’t been thinking of it as a ghost. He hadn’t really been thinking of it as anything.
By the time the stab of panic subsided, he was outside on the street, leaning against the front garden wall and breathing heavily. He hoped he hadn’t kept screaming all the way there. He... he didn’t think he had. The one elderly dog walker at the other end of the road hadn’t turned to look at him. It was probably fine.
It was probably all fine. Most likely it had been nothing. A draft, a trick of the light, a momentary hallucination brought on by hyper focus. Nothing at all. And if it was a ghost... well, who was to say it wasn’t a nice ghost? All it had done was smile at him sometimes and then touch his hand. Probably it thought he was being very impolite, up and leaving like that. Maybe he’d hurt its feelings.
He was being ridiculous, of course. But he’d found over the years that being ridiculous was a pretty good antidote to irrational terror. He went back into the house.
“Sorry,” he called out in the hallway. “Didn’t mean to be rude. You just startled me.”
Nothing stirred and nothing answered. He told himself he hadn’t expected otherwise, and got back to work.
At about two that morning, he got out of his camp bed in the living room, and climbed the three flights of stairs to the attic. He was dreaming, he thought; moving with that sense of knowing exactly where you were going that you only got in dreams. There was a light coming from under the door of the small room, and he pushed it open. David was standing with his back to him, looking up through the skylight at the patch of faintly visible stars overhead. At least, he thought it was David. When he turned round, his features were vague; like the memory of a face you’d loved as a child but hadn’t seen since.
“You came back,” maybe-David said, in a soft, low alto. “People don’t normally come back.”
“Well, I had a job to do. Besides, I felt rather silly, running away like that. It’s not as though you’d done anything to me. It was you, I assume?”
Maybe-David sat down on the bed; and suddenly had on an old-fashioned, high necked dress, with a couple of stray curls falling down around her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I always want to touch people. I miss it so much. I can never seem to remember how scared they get.”
“It’s alright.” The dress was Victorian, he thought, or maybe a little later; he wasn’t as good with clothes as he was with furniture. “Is that what you really look like, by the way?”
She met his eyes. Hers were a warm brown; eyes to get lost in. “More or less. It’s to do with memory. This is what I think I look like, anyway.”
“And the other?”
Her mouth twisted, wry. “If you want information, it helps to be an authority figure. Sometimes, at least. But working out of your memories is harder than working out of mine. So, what exactly is your job here?”
He started to explain; but as he talked the room was beginning to waver, and he had the familiar feeling of drifting from one dream into another.
“I think I’m going,” he said. “But - you can touch me, if you want to. I don’t mind.”
He thought she said something; but unconsciousness pulled him under, and he didn’t hear it.
He woke up in the bed in the small attic room, with a blanket tucked firmly around him. He could have told himself that it was all a dream. That he’d had a bout of sleepwalking, and that his unconscious mind had come up with some explanation for yesterday’s fright which, in the cold light of morning, was obviously nonsense. But he wouldn’t have believed himself, so he didn’t bother to try. And later, when he was working on the desk again, he didn’t flinch when he felt her fingertips on the back of his neck, only shivered a little.
She stroked gently down his nape, twice, and he felt himself still under her touch, holding his breath. Then suddenly the whole length of her body was pressed to him from behind, an arm wrapped possessively around him. Her voice was soft in his ear, warmly amused.
“You really don’t mind me touching you.”
He was dizzyingly hard; he hadn’t even noticed it happening. Her other hand gripped his thigh, her thumb rubbing small circles a teasing few inches away. He looked down, and nothing visible seemed to be touching him; but when he raised his head again and stared at the wall he had the sense of her, on the edges of his vision.
“Does this fall under your job description, do you think?” she purred. “Look after the contents of the house, make sure it’s all carefully tended to? I’ve been here longer than most of the furniture, if it helps.”
“It’s - ah - never come up before,” he managed. “But you make a convincing argument.”
“Mmm.” She bit the back of his neck gently, experimentally, then harder as he gasped. Her fingers circled his wrists. She pulled him back from the desk, walked him a few paces to the wall, and pressed his palms against it.
“You can stay there, I think.”
Her teeth found his neck again as her hands stroked over him, down his arms, across his chest, and then slid under his shirt and across his bare belly. He rested his forehead against the wall and shook under her touch. She gripped him through his trousers, just for a moment, then hummed thoughtfully and stepped away.
“Strip, then back where you were.”
He fumbled to comply, nearly tripping over his clothes in his haste to get out of them.
“Very good.” She was pressed against him again, and she was naked too, now; he could feel the peaks of her nipples against his back. She wrapped a hand around his erection and worked him slowly, with a vicious little twist towards the tip that made him gasp every time. Her skin was cold, not heating up no matter how much she touched him; he felt almost unbearably sensitised. Her other hand roamed across him, pinching his nipples lightly, dipping a finger into his belly button, gripping his hip - and she paused.
“Ooh. That’s an interesting memory.” She pulled him backwards, kicked one ankle gently so he spread his legs for her. She took her hand off his cock; a moment later, he felt her fingers at his entrance, slick with something.
“Hmm?” she said, interrogatively, rubbing little circles around his hole.
“Yes, do it, please fuck me, please - ah!” She pushed in with two fingers at once, slow but firm, not stopping until she was buried in him. There, she curled and uncurled them a few times, pressing down, rocking back and forth a little but barely pulling out at all.
“Please, more, please -”
“Impatient,” she said, raking the fingernails of her other hand down his back and making him arch up, gasping. “But very pretty, so I’ll forgive you,” and she pulled her fingers out sharply, replacing them with something larger, more soft and blunt, grabbing his hips with both hands and pulling him to her as she slowly pressed it into him.
“I had something like this,” she said, almost conversationally, though there was a tinge of effort in her voice. “Mine was ivory and leather. Very beautiful. But I thought you might appreciate something more - ah! - familiar,” and as she began to fuck him harder he realised it was his favourite toy, or one exactly like it, and then she pressed a hand to his back to bend him further down and began to hit his prostate with every stroke, and he lost the ability to form coherent thoughts at all. It might have been minutes or hours later when she said, “Yes, now , I think,” and gripped his cock, and he came before she even moved her hand.
She pulled out slowly, and stroked his sweat-slick back; he stood up shakily, and turned around to reach for her, but there was nothing there, and he stumbled backwards.
“Easy,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. Close your eyes, it will help.” He did, taking a deep breath, and knew where she was again. She twined her fingers through his, and leaned in to kiss him gently. He kissed her back, darting his tongue into her mouth, and felt her smile against his lips.
“Do you -” he began. “I mean, is there anything I can do to -”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and laid him down on the floor, straddling his face and threading her hands through his hair so she could guide his tongue exactly where she wanted it.
~
The next morning, as he sat up in the attic room’s bed, a drawer in the bedside table slid open and, with a creak, its false bottom opened up. He peered inside.
The ivory toy really was very beautiful.
“You are going to put me so far behind schedule,” he said, grinning, and rolled onto his stomach.