Chapter 1 Ashes to Ashes

Dead

November 30th, 1979

“Will, Paul here, it’s about Jillian, she’s in the hospital,” Paul said. “It’s not looking good, mate. She had a stroke, and she’s in intensive care at Royal North Shore.” His voice was flat, devoid of all emotion. “Can you get my sister, and come over with Lori? We’re up in the Intensive Care Unit, it’s on the third floor of the main building.”

Megan, Lori and I piled into my car, and we drove as fast as the traffic (and common sense!) would allow. I pulled into the car park at RNS Hospital, and we found our way to the ICU, where Jillian’s room was. Her parents were in the room, along with Allison; Paul and Sally were waiting outside. When we arrived, he looked at me, and shook his head; I pursed my lips, and nodded.

“What can you tell us, Mate, what’s the story?” I asked.

“Well, we were all sitting around in the back yard, talking and laughing and all that, when Jillian said she had a really bad headache. She stood up to go inside, staggered, and fell to the ground. She wasn’t able to speak, or move her arms at all. We called the ambulance, and they rushed her to Mona Vale hospital. I guess we got there a few minutes after the ambulance, and they had already called for the Care Flight chopper to bring her here. Mum, Dad and Allison went in the helicopter with her, with one of the medical specialists; the emergency doc at Mona Vale said it appeared that she had suffered a massive stroke. They’ve had her in there for maybe forty-five minutes; she’s been hooked up to the ventilator and all that; they’re monitoring her heart and brain waves, but it doesn’t look good.”

Megan burst into tears, and wrapped her arms around her brother.

“Fuck, that’s no good; I guess that’s what we’ve all been fearing might happen, but still ... What are they going to do?” I asked.

“They just bought her back from a CAT scan, which should show if there’s been any permanent damage to the brain cells. But the monitors aren’t showing any brain activity at all, so I think it’s just a question of how long do they leave her on the machines,” he said.

There were tears in his eyes; I could feel the warm pricking around my eyes as my own tears started. There really wasn’t much that could be said, or even needed to be said. Not that I felt I could speak; my throat was constricted, and I was struggling to stay upright.

Mrs Winters opened the door, and indicated for Lori, Megan and I to come in. Jillian was lying in the bed; a large plastic tube in her mouth, it seemed to be hooked up to some sort of air supply pump device. She had all sorts of leads connected to her, as well as an IV drip; one monitor showed her heart rhythm; and to my uneducated eye, that looked pretty okay. Another display showed several traces, all were flat; I assumed from what Paul had told me, those was her brain activity. That didn’t look good at all.

“Thanks for coming,” she said. “Did Paul fill you in?”

We nodded,

“I think this is the moment we’ve all been fearing for quite a while; the doctors told us that she suffered a massive stroke; and ... and it caused extensive damage to her brain. They aren’t sure if she will actually regain consciousness, and even if she did, what state she would be in.”

She was barely keeping control; her eyes were all red, and she had some tissues in her hand.

“You can see from that monitor there, she’s ... she’s brain dead,” she said, her voice breaking up. “There’s nothing they can do for her; all we can do now is say goodbye.”

“We know just how special she was to you both, Will and Lori, and we wanted you to have a chance to say goodbye to her,” Mr. Winters said. “I know how much of a difference both of you made in her life, when she moved in with you after high school; she told us how you both accepted her for who she was, and loved her unconditionally. I know you made her last few years very happy. Do you two want to go be alone with her?”

I nodded, and the two of them left the room, to join Paul and Sally. Allison’s eyes were all red, she was still crying. I really had no idea of what to do; if I spoke to Jillian, would she even be able to hear my voice? I felt a little self-conscious; but I bent over the bed, and kissed her on her forehead. With the breathing tube in her mouth, I couldn’t kiss her on her lips, so her forehead would have to suffice.

“Goodbye, sweet Jillian. We didn’t have as much time together as I wished, but what we had was wonderful. You will always have a special place in my heart.”

I kissed each of her cheeks; the tears were streaming from my eyes now. I could hear the others sobbing, as well. I stepped back from Jillian’s bed, to allow Lori to say goodbye as well; Allison wrapped her arms around me, and buried her head in my shoulder.

“Why did this have to happen?” she sobbed. “The world is so unfair! There were so many things we had yet to do. She was the ideal partner for me, Will. What am I going to do with my life?”

I had no idea of what to say to Allison; she was clearly devastated at the impending loss of her lover; and I didn’t have the words in me to say anything. In fact, I was pretty upset myself; I was barely keeping it together as it was. Meanwhile, Lori had bent down over Jillian’s face, and was whispering into her ear. I was pretty sure that Jillian wasn’t capable of hearing us at the moment; I’m sure she probably had no knowledge of anything that was going on right now. If the truth was to be told, I suspected she had already died; it was just the machines that was keeping her heart and breathing going; the life had left her body some time ago. Not that I would be heartless enough to say that to either Lori or Allison that; but inside me, I knew what the score was. Jillian, my special Jillian, was dead.

All three of us had taken the opportunity to say goodbye to Jillian, when one of the doctors motioned for us to come outside. He had all of us sit in one of the waiting rooms, and he wanted to tell us what the prognosis was. He introduced himself as the head of Neurology at the hospital; I gathered he was the expert on all things to do with the brain.

“We’ve done a full cat scan, a brain scan, and we can’t detect any brain activity at all, I’m sorry to say,” he said. “The stroke that Jillian suffered was massive, and it caused extensive damage to her brain, such that if by a miracle she was to come out of her coma, there would be substantial neurological deficits; she would be severely disabled; most likely unable to speak or hear, not able to walk, and unable to perform the most basic of functions.

“Now, I know this is a very difficult decision that has to be made, but at some stage, we will need you to decide if and when we turn off the support machines. There’s no rush, and if you want, we can get a counsellor up to talk with you, or if you want, one of the chaplains. But I can assure you that we’re doing everything we can to make her comfortable as possible. I know how hard this has to be for you; do any of you have any questions at the moment?”

While I didn’t have any questions, some of the others did; Allison asked how they could determine if there wasn’t any brain activity. He explained how there are a number of tests they conduct to determine if there is any brain function; like responses to stimulation, no electrical activity as detected by the EEG, as well as the cat scan that has showed substantial disruption to the blood flow around the brain. It all seemed pretty cut and dried to me; but then again, it wasn’t my family member that I was making a decision to terminate their life. As much as I wished Jillian wasn’t about to be ‘legally dead’; no amount of wishing on my part could change the facts.

I decided to leave any discussion of whether to ‘pull the plug’ to Mr and Mrs Winters, Paul, Megan and Allison. It really wasn’t my role to be part of that discussion; I was happy enough to have been able to say goodbye to Jillian. I whispered to Lori that maybe we should leave Jillian’s family to talk things through. When I suggested that to Mr. Winters, that Lori and I should head back home, he told me that they would like us to stay, if we wanted to.

“Don’t feel like you aren’t part of the family at this moment,” he said. “Both of you were very close to Jillian; you were very important to her, and we don’t want you to feel excluded at this time. I can understand it if you might prefer not to be here, but we would really like it for you to be with us at this time.”

Lori and I remained there with the others, and we talked about the decision to turn the life support machines off. Everyone agreed that at some stage it would have to be done; there was little point hoping against all hope that Jillian would magically spring back to life; and we could see on the x-rays and cat scans the areas that indicated the extent of the damage to her brain. Even if she came out of her coma, she would be so severely disabled, she would be nothing more than a vegetable.

“That’s no way she would want to exist,” Allison said. “That’s not living, not in any sense of the word.”

The decision seemed pretty clear; there was no chance that Jillian was going to come through this; and it was time to remove the life support machines. Mr. Winters found the doctor, and he arranged for one of the hospital chaplains to come up and be with us. We all gathered in her room; the chaplain spoke some words about how she’s going to a better place, an end to suffering and pain; I really didn’t believe his words, but it seemed to provide some comfort to Jillian’s parents, which was all that really mattered, I guessed. We each took our turn to say our final goodbyes to her, again, not that I really thought she would be able to hear us, or was aware of what was going on. But it was important for a sense of closure to all of us. It was pretty distressing; everyone was incredibly sad; we were all crying. Finally, her parents gave the word to the doctors; they turned off the breathing machine; and took the tube from her mouth. We watched the monitors, and it didn’t take long before the trace of the heartbeats flat lined. I guessed that made Jillian legally, officially dead. As Lori and I walked back to the car in silence, I felt empty inside. Allison came back with us; she wanted to make a start on going through all of Jillian’s stuff; plus calling her friends from University and letting them know what had happened. Megan would be going back home with her parents; they had to make arrangements for the funeral.

We drove back home in silence; there really wasn’t anything to say.

Visitation (I)

Evening of November 30th, 1979

The mood at home was very sombre that evening; Megan had returned to her parents’ place; the only people in our terrace were Allison, Mary Beth and Murph, and Lori and me. The others, with the exception of Paul and Sally were at their terrace; that evening Phil called up Alex to let him know about Jillian, and that we wouldn’t be playing that night, the next night, or most likely the following weekend, either. He understood perfectly, and asked if there was anything that he could do for Jillian’s family. None of us really felt all that hungry; I made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for those of us who were interested; then we went to bed.

Both Lori and I had trouble getting to sleep; we tossed and turned for at least an hour. Eventually Lori went downstairs and made herself a cup of chamomile tea; saying that always helped her sleep. She was right, when she returned to our bedroom, it was only a few minutes before I heard her breathing change to a deep, regular rhythm as she fell asleep.

My mind was too active to sleep; this was really the first time I had encountered death so personally. Sure, both of my grandfathers had died in the last ten years, and so had some other elderly relatives; but they were all of a generation where I felt that they were ‘old’. I don’t recall anyone I knew personally around my age, or even around my parent’s age, dying. I guess because it was a heart rhythm problem that led to Jillian’s stroke that made me worry even more. What if my SVT caused a similar stroke for me? I guess if I was to die like that, then I wouldn’t be aware of what was happening. But what if it was Lori, or Megan who was to die? I wouldn’t know how I could even begin to cope with losing one of them. I guessed that was how Allison must be feeling at the moment.

I was pondering these thoughts when I saw some movement to one side of the bed; I rolled over onto my back, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, standing at my side of the bed, was Jillian; completely naked, and looking very much alive. Her body seemed to have a soft glow about it; I was about to call out, when she pressed a finger to my lips to silence me.

“Come with me, quietly,” she whispered. “Don’t ask any questions, just come with me, and I’ll explain.”

This was strange; it was only a few hours ago that I saw the doctors turn off her life support systems, her heart monitor flat lined, and she was pronounced dead. So what the fuck was she doing in my bedroom, talking to me, and now holding my hand and leading me downstairs? She led me out through the front door, across the street to the park opposite the house, and we sat down on the bench.

“Jillian, what the fuck is going on?” I said, once we were sitting. “You were dead, at least I thought so.”

“Just be quiet, and let me talk, okay?” she said. “Look, I know how upset you are, I know you’re thinking just how much you’re going to miss me; and I’m touched with your sadness at my passing. But we both know, I was never the one for you, had my life turned out differently, and had I been able to produce kids, then I would have fought hard to be your wife. But all of those things; a long and happy life together, married with kids of our own, and eventually grandkids, that was never going to be our lot in life.

“The other thing that would have prevented that, you and I would never have been truly happy together; we both know that Lori and my sister are the ideal partners for you, all three of you together. Concentrate on them, and you’ll end up happy. Unless you fuck things up, like you often do...”

“What do you mean ‘fuck things up, like I often do’?” I said.

“Do you want me to list all of the big fuck ups you’ve had?” she said. “We could start with you being unaware of how much Lori loved you, and you going steady with Cathy Parsons back at the start of fifth form. Then you pretty much ignored Cathy, and fooled around with that slag Janelle Ward, so that Cathy dumped you after meeting that guy in Brisbane. More fuck ups? Ignoring Lori yet again around Christmas of that year, and carrying on with Janelle. What’s she got on you, you’re like a moth to her flame, Will. Trust me, that girl will be nothing but trouble and heartache for you. Then you getting all bent out of shape when you discovered Lori taking the pill. Also, not realizing that you and my sister really had a strong, special connection, and coming up with so many piss-weak excuses not to make love with her.

“Then, dumping Lori to take up with Cathy for a second time. At least Lori tried to pound some sense into you when she slapped you across the face. Shall I continue? Having sex with Janelle in the summer of 1976; not realizing that your relationship with Cathy was over when she left for Canberra; and still holding out hope that something would rekindle things with her. At least you did one thing smart, and that was to make love with my sister in her little apartment early in that year.

“Now we get to your biggest fuck up, the absolute mostest, fuckiest-up of all fuck ups that you’ve ever fucked up. You screwing Beth Ward when you were recovering from her running you over. How could you be so fucking DUMB! I can’t believe you were so FUCKING STUPID to let her do that to you. That whole thing’s going to come back and bite you in the arse, and it will be a monumental disaster!”

“How did you know about that?” I said, shocked. I hadn’t told anyone about that.

“We know everything,” she said. “Don’t worry, no one else here knows about it, not yet, at least. And neither Lori nor Megan are likely to find out, unless you tell them. But what possessed you to fuck that woman? Were you just thinking with your dick? Shit, William Turney Morris, I thought you were smarter than that. Anyway, what’s done is done, you can’t unscramble that egg. At least it won’t prevent you from being with Lori and Megan in the long term. But enough of that, I didn’t come back here to berate you for all of the stupid things you’ve fucked up. If I was going to do that, it would take me all night, and I don’t have much time here. You can be a real fucking idiot at times, Will Morris.

“Now, here’s why I’m really here. You were – you still are - really special to me, Will. You, out of all the guys I ever met, you alone treated me as a normal person, you loved me for just who I was. You are the only guy who could make me feel like a real woman, despite all the shitty hormonal stuff that I had to deal with. When I had sex with you, no, when I was making love with you, you and I never ‘just fucked’. Making love with you made me feel like a complete woman; having your dick inside me was perfect, as if we were meant to be together like that. Sure, I screwed other guys at various times, but I never really enjoyed being with them that way, it just felt ‘wrong’.

“You never said I was sick or wrong for being sexually attracted to other women; I still remember the talks we had, before I started Uni, where you explained how being attracted to women was just how I was, and that first week that I stayed with you and Lori, you never pressured me to have sex with you, even though beforehand I had told you that was what I wanted during that week.

“You probably don’t realize this, but I’ve been in love with you ever since third grade, when we were both in the school’s recorder band together. I would look at you, sneaking peeks at you, and I would get the first stages of sexual desire; as an eight year old, I would get wet thinking about you kissing me. But you never noticed me; I guess you thought I was just Paul’s and Megan’s annoying little sister, if you even thought of me at all. But then, a few years back, I finally got the nerve to tell you how much I desired you, and how much I wanted your body. It was only because I love you so much, and I wanted to say goodbye to you properly that I was given permission to come back and see you.

“Now, I don’t have much time left here before I have to leave, so in the short amount of time we have, I want you to make love to me.”

This was really blowing my mind; I KNEW Jillian had to be dead, so what was this that was sitting next to me, talking to me, and holding my prick in her hands? Was it a ghost? Surely, ghosts didn’t exist; and how can anyone make love to a ghost? Was it necrophilia if the dead person wasn’t really there, but you were fucking them in a dream? Was someone playing some sort of sick joke on me? But if it wasn’t Jillian, how come she knew all of those things about my life; including the time with Beth? The only thing that made sense was that I was having a dream; a very vivid, realistic dream, but a dream, nonetheless. Now, if you are dreaming, are you able to realize that you are actually dreaming?

Jillian (or the dream image Jillian) pulled me from the bench to the ground; she lay on her back with her legs spread open. She told me to kneel between her legs, and to lick her pussy.

“Make me come, Will, lick my wet pussy and finger my cunt, please,” she said, her eyes pleading with me.

At least if I did that, I should be able to get hard, I thought to myself. This is just so fucked up, here I am about to have sex, about to make love with the dream image of a dead girl. I guess that it really didn’t count as necrophilia, because I wasn’t doing this to her actual corpse; but it still seemed pretty fucked up.

There was nothing dead about her pussy, she was hot and wet, and as I started licking around her labia, she moaned and squirmed, particularly when I slid a finger deep into her cunt, and rubbed inside her. She came quickly, coating my hand and face with a big gush of her warm, sweet fluids.

“At least in my present state, you won’t have to worry about me peeing all over you when you make me come,” she said, laughing. “That was just a gush of my cunt juices.”

“Heh. You know I never worried if you leaked some pee when I made you come,” I said. “You were always so incredible sexy when you would pee for me; you know I loved rubbing your pussy through your soaked panties, and feeling more hot pee flow as I rubbed you.”

“God, you really know what to say to get me turned on even more,” she groaned. “Damn, if I was able to pee, I would do it right now, just to reward you! Now, get that hard cock of yours in my cunt, and fuck me, Will!”

She pulled me up so that I was lying on top of her, and she reached down, taking my erection in her hand, and rubbing my knob along her slit. When she had my knob aligned against her cunt, she pulled my cock to her, and I pushed inside, feeling her wet walls open up and slide around my knob. She gripped my biceps, and squeezed tightly.

“I want this one to be really hard, fast; I want a rough raw fucking!” she said. “Don’t worry, you can’t hurt me or kill me! Sorry, sick dead person’s humour there!”

With my hands on her shoulders, I pushed her down hard on the ground, and rammed my cock hard into her. With each thrust, she grunted loudly, and she pushed her body up against me. She ground her clit against my shaft, and I could hear the wet squelching sounds as I drove into her sodden cunt.

“Yeah, that’s it! Fuck me! Fuck! ME! F U C K!” she cried out loudly as she came.

I felt a rush of hot fluids around my cock; I was still a long way from reaching my own orgasm, so I didn’t stop my frantic pounding into her. A minute or so later, she came again, this time more powerfully than the first time. She still wanted more fucking, so I kept on going, but now I could feel my own orgasm approaching. I could feel beads of perspiration on my brow and trickling down my face, at least it wasn’t too hot outside tonight.

As I started to come, I groaned deeply, and I could hear Jillian cry out as well. Her hands gripped tightly around my shoulders, and she pulled me down against her body as I pump my hot semen into her.

“Oh, fuck, that was so good!” she cried out. “Now, let me suck that lovely cock of yours!

She pushed me off her, and I lay on my side next to her. She knelt over my waist, and started to suck my cock; running her tongue around my knob, licking up and down my shaft as she caressed my balls. Amazingly enough, I was still hard, and I felt I was close to coming again.

“Jillian, I’m going to come,” I said, warning her of my imminent eruption.

She didn’t stop sucking my cock, and as I was just about to burst, she clamped her lips around my knob, swirling her tongue around my glans. I groaned as I started spurting, and she kept sucking, swallowing each spurt. When I had finished, she sat back on the ground, smiled at me, and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. I pulled her down to me, and kissed her deeply, tasting my salty come in her mouth.

“You don’t mind tasting you own come in my mouth?” she asked

“Why not? I mean, it has never hurt you to swallow, has it?”

“Now, I would like you to fuck me, doggy style,” she said. “I think I can get you hard again.”

I seriously doubted that I would be hard again in anything less than forty-five minutes, but she wrapped her hands around my cock, and I felt a lovely warmth flowing into my dick. In less than a minute, my cock was hard and throbbing, and ready for action again.

“Now, doggy style,” she said. “Not as hard and rough as that first fuck, but I don’t want you pussy-footing around. There’ll be time for gentle and slow love-making a bit later.”

She knelt in front of me, her arse pointing at my cock. I moved in behind her, and rubbed my knob along between her open lips, lining up with her cunt. She pushed back against me when she felt I was in position, and I grabbed her hips, and thrust deeply inside her.

“I love this position,” she moaned. “Your cock really fills me all the way up, right to my cervix! Now fuck me, Will!”

I set up a steady pace; pumping in and out, letting my cock slide the full length of her cunt. As I pushed all the way into her, I felt her arse cheeks banging against my groin, I couldn’t get any deeper into her even if I tried. She moved in sync with me, pushing back as I thrust in; as I pulled back, I made sure just the tip of my knob was inside her. I could feel her fingers rubbing around her pussy as we fucked;

She came several times before I reached my own orgasm, she cried out as I filled her cunt yet again with my hot sperm. I pulled out of her, rolling over to lie on the damp ground, and she quickly moved, positioning herself on top of me in a sixty-nine position.

“You won’t mind licking and sucking my pussy with your come inside me?” she asked.

I answered her by clamping my lips over her pussy, and sticking my tongue deep into her cunt. I could taste the mix of our juices, and I sucked on her big, engorged clit. Meanwhile, she took my prick in her hand, and started licking my shaft.

“Mmmm, you taste nice with my cunt juice all over your cock,” she said. “I’ve always liked tasting myself on your cock, or on your face!”

I concentrated on sucking her clit; I loved how when she was turned on, her clit was quite big, and it was easy to suck. I nibbled it gently, and she moaned loudly.

“Oh, fuck, that’s so good!” she cried out. “You’re going to make me come again, soon!”

I licked around her clit, pushing it from side to side with my tongue, and sucking her nub in between my lips. Her moans grow louder, and she stopped sucking my cock to concentrate on her pleasure. As I bit on her clit, she cried out, and her body shook.

“Oh FUCK! OH MY GOD!”

I felt a hot gush of her fluids over my face; this time I think it was a mix of pee and cunt juice; but I kept licking, not wanting to end her pleasure. About a minute later, she had another orgasm, and more of her fluids gushed out over my face, soaking me and the ground underneath my head. She rolled off me, and lay on her side next to me. I moved around to spoon behind her, and my cock nestled between her thighs against her pussy. Just the touch of her wet pussy against my cock had me hard again.

“Now, before I have to leave, can we do it gentle and slowly; I want you to make love to me, Will. Make love to me one last time,” she pleaded.

I really didn’t understand what she meant by saying she had to leave soon, unless somehow she knew my dream would be ending soon when I woke up? It didn’t make sense, but who was I to complain, this was some of the wildest sex I experienced for a while, certainly since that afternoon’s dalliance with Mary Haggerty in her dorm room. I shifted my position so I had a good angle to slide into her, I felt her fingers pressing against my cock, and once again I was inside her. This time we just gently rocked back and forward; I didn’t try thrusting in and out, rather, I let the movement of our bodies do all the work. I had a hand on her small breast, gently rubbing her erect nipple; and I nuzzled the back of her neck, kissing the soft skin below her ear.

The sensations were incredible; I wasn’t just feeling Jillian’s cunt around my cock; instead I felt as if my body was on fire with desire. As well as feeling my own pleasure, I could somehow feel what Jillian was feeling, as if there was something moving inside me. As well as being in tune with her feelings and emotions, I felt as if a vast crowd was aware of what I was doing; that they were feeling it too, and their sensations were amplifying what I was feeling. The whole world was watching us, experiencing us making love, and sharing their feelings and thoughts with me.

“This is what I really love,” she whispered. “This is truly making love, I feel like we’ve become one person, one body. God, I love you so much, Will Morris. Damn, now I wish I was still alive, and you and I would be planning our life together, with kids, and a house and all that shit.”

She let out a big sob; and I held her body tight against mine as her body shook.

“Life’s so fucking unfair, if there was justice in the world, you and I would be planning on marrying, I wouldn’t have had that stupid Turner’s syndrome, and I’d be a real woman, able to bear your kids, and be a proper wife to you. Fuck it all!”

“Hey, I don’t give a shit about you not being able to have my kids, or any of that stuff. I love you too, Jillian Winters, you are a wonderful person, and I have been privileged to have known you, to have been your friend, and more importantly, your lover. Now stop your snivelling, and enjoy us making love.”

“You’re right, and even if I was still alive, you couldn’t be mine, like I said, Lori and Megan are your true life partners. Concentrate on them, as I said earlier, don’t fuck that up, Will.”

We moved back and forward; I could feel my cock sliding in and out, maybe just an inch or so. She had her fingers pressing against her clit and my shaft, and I could feel them rubbing around in a slow circle. I kept moving as I felt her cunt tighten around my cock as she came; she whimpered softly and pressed her fingers harder against my shaft. As we made love, she came several more times; and eventually I was on the verge of coming.