Spooky...!

Spooky…!

She was a real ‘looker’ for sure! Lovely features in every way... real and imagined! She was unbelievably pleasant to chat with, too, and why she had chosen this ‘over-the-hill’ poser was perhaps the biggest mystery of all. Younger women usually look at this road-weary trekker as if I were some kindly, harmless, grandfather type, but not this raven-haired beauty… “Never look a gift horse in the mouth,” it’s been said; so, who am I to challenge traditional wisdom…?

Her clear, blue eyes were absolutely spell-binding, her supple lips were warm, inviting, almost electric. She felt as though she belonged in my arms, her taught thighs pressed tightly against mine, her heaving breasts so tempting… I just didn’t get it!

"I should have bought a lottery ticket that day," I’d thought to myself, as she took me by the hand and led me upstairs to her bed chamber… This was just too amazing!

The lights were dim, the music soft and slow, and the air smelled of jasmine and some other fragrance I couldn’t quite make out… but it was powerfully seductive. Her warm embrace told me the time was right, and soon enough we were horizontal on that sumptuously soft bed, our clothes on the floor where they'd fallen… and then it happened!

She reached across me and down into the drawer of a nightstand and came out with a pair of handcuffs. Then, in a most convincing voice and with such a reassuring look on her face… she almost had me persuaded… but, I just couldn’t go there… Ever since I’d first heard of that bizarre practice, I’ve lived in fear of some gal attaching my wrists to a headboard, then leaving me there…

It is hard to imagine the agony of lying naked on a bed unable to get up, unable to even scratch, and unable to summon help… worrying about what the ‘help’ might do when you were eventually discovered! Trying to live with the stories sure to come out and follow you for the remainder of your life!!! I had sworn an oath to myself that I would never, ever allow that!

Thoughts like those apparently elevated my stress level to the point my pulse was pounding, my head was throbbing, and my fear factor was pegging the needle on my ‘scared meter’… and, apparently, that’s what had caused me to wake up… I was in a cold sweat, my hands were jittery, and my mind was trying to sort out all that I had just experienced… It was so life-like, and it had seemed so very real! Was that a dream, or… what the heck had just happened?!

After regaining my bearings, I realized I was in a bed at one of those upscale Bed & Breakfast places I almost never stay in… Pricy and inconvenient for the sort of lodging I normally seek, and the nicer ones usually require reservations well in advance… something else I also almost never do. This one was different, however…

It was one of those old Victorian mansion houses in a very surreal setting… a step back in time, if you will… My host was the grandson of the stunningly beautiful lady in the portrait hung on the wall in the foyer, and she had been the daughter of the folks who had originally built the house. Some say that house is haunted, too…

My host and his wife had invited their sole guest that evening to join them for dinner. I had accepted, of course, and the large, well-appointed dining room had been quite impressive, although it did seem a bit of over-kill for just the three of us. Still, we had a delightful chat, and a surprisingly good meal… Well, except for the boiled cabbage…

I don’t particularly care for that vegetable, but I can usually tolerate smallish amounts reasonably well; and, I was raised to be polite… I had taken a modest, courtesy-sized portion. We even had wine… I wouldn’t have a clue as to vintage or type, since I am by no means a connoisseur, but my hosts obviously are, and their judgement in such matters was good enough for me… A very nice evening, then I had gone up to bed.

The following morning, as we sat on the porch and took our early morning coffee, he told of the legend surrounding the ‘haunted’ reputation of that old house… According to him, the lady in the portrait, his grandmother, had been a young widow, her beloved husband having been killed fighting in the trenches of northern France… She had turned the old home into a boarding house, and she had frequently entertained veterans there…

One night she had taken her own life as the sheriff and three brawny deputies were walking up the sidewalk to investigate the horrific screams reported by the neighbors. Beside the chair she had overturned in order to hang herself with a noose attached to the overhead light fixture, was the body of a former soldier… naked and hand-cuffed to the headboard of her bed… a bloody butcher knife on the floor nearby. His genitals had been removed, and he’d been allowed to scream hysterically as he bleed to death…

Her sad, restless soul was never reconciled to the life fate had given her, and her ghost still haunts that old mansion even now... according to that legend. "No one has ever reported any encounters with that infamous lady, though, but that story just will not die," my host continued. I listened intently, but I never let on what had happened to me the night before...

The loud bang outside my room had been the dumpster being emptied and not a cannon being fired, as I’d at first suspected, and it had caused me to bolt upright! Startled, I had awakened in a regular, run of the mill motel room… What had just happened? I got my bearings and slowly began to stitch the pieces together…

I’d gone out for dinner the evening before following a good day of riding through the 'low country' of southeastern Georgia. My meal at that quaint family style restaurant had been served with some boiled cabbage included… I ordinarily wouldn’t have eaten that, but for some inexplicable reason I did this time…

I swore another oath to myself right then… no more boiled cabbage! Ever!!! No more 'Mr. Polite', and the starving children overseas will just have to live with that… Cabbage apparently doesn’t agree with me after all… Could that really be responsible for me dreaming about dreaming? Either that, or I had just paid a visit to the ‘Twilight Zone’!

DDT