She was ethereal as moonlight as the apparition appeared at the end of the darkened hallway. Her form was lithe, and her clothing was little more than a thin nightgown, almost sheer with translucence, giving her more of the look of a sexy nymph or forest sylph.

Tugging gently on her long locks, she pulled the white gold curls away from her face and looked with eyes of emeralds at the young man, barely two decades in age, who was startled exiting from the shared bathroom of the B&B and frozen in place. A dark mop of disheveled hair, the beginnings of an ambitious goatee, the teenager stared at her with sudden awe.

The two stared at each other in shock. With great hesitation, she took a step forward and spoke with a whisper which sounded like a breeze flowing in the night. “Can you really see me?”

It was for the young man a surprising question, for as much as she was most surely a specter with her semitransparent state, he most certainly could see her. The apparition of a young maiden was so well formed, indeed so beautifully shaped, that he had no choice but to answer in kind.

“Uhh ... Yeah.” It was all the response the young man felt capable of giving and even then, it was a struggle.

It was then that the beautiful young spirit smiled. “Oh, this is amazing. It’s been so long ... Do you live in the building, or are you a guest?”

“Um, guest. This place is a bed and breakfast now. It was some family’s mansion, I guess before. Your place? Or are you a guest too?” He stopped, realized he was rambling.

A soft and gentle feminine giggle came from the apparition, a laugh which seemed so joyful that the sound itself. “Do I look like I’m a guest?”

“Well, I mean ... you know...” He waved his arm up and down at the specter indicating the obvious unsolidity of the figure. At his motion, though, the figure giggled all the louder and it was like music to the boy’s ears as she covered her lips with a dainty feminine hand.

“Then yes, in that regard, we are both guests.” Her gentle smile was the most disconcerting, for it felt like the smile of a lover. Her face held a beauty familiar yet alien. Entranced, he took a step closer towards this creature from beyond, and she took a half-step back to maintain distance.

“Oh no, please, don’t leave!”

There was the ghost of a frown on her angelic face, but it was gone before he could even realize its meaning.

“You wish me to stay?” Again, the voice of a summer evening’s zephyr danced through his ears as his eyes stayed on the pale and ghostly blue eyes looking into his.

“Yeah, I do...” With an impish smile, the specter gave the hint of a playful nod as the young man turned to look down both sides of the empty and dark hallway before speaking again. “What’s your name? Mine’s Brian.”

There was another moment of uncertainty, but again it was fleeting before she replied. “M ... Melinda,” and she held out her hand, waiting.

The young man hesitated; the offer seemed odd considering her obvious intangible nature, so he hesitated and looked back to her.

“Go ahead.” She smiled, waiting. A step forward, Brian reached with his own hand to take the delicate limb in his own. He was not sure what to expect. To pass right through the offered hand. To feel something dead? But instead, her hand was cold to the touch, but not so much as a recently exhumed body. More shocking than that, however, he was touching it! The skin felt soft and delicate, a hand that looked carved from the whitest ivory, and the texture came through despite their obvious differences in ... corporeality.

Brian was in shock as his fingers gently closed around her hand, and they just held their touch for a moment, a smile gracing each face as they held on.

It was almost impossible not to recognize his look of surprise. She too smiled, pleased with the young man’s reaction.

“How ... How can I touch you?”

“With the right people, and the right time, I can make myself quite physical. But it’s been so long...” The grip became firmer, and the boy’s eyes went wide with amazement at her growing strength and ability to make contact.

“That’s just wild...”

“You feel so warm,” whispered Melinda as she closed the distance between the two, pressing her ghostly figure against the body of her guest. With a soft squeak of surprise, the young man held still; the feel of her body on him was so soft and light that his first reaction had been a surprised intake of air, and the cool breeze of her body seemed to blow through him, making the young man shiver just a bit.

“Ah, yes, I had forgotten how it was. Your warmth against my skin.” Her cheek rubbed against the shoulder of the young man, and she sighed in happiness as the coolness of the spirit’s body and her breath blew across the man.

He didn’t know what to say to her; this was just way too odd to even consider. Without knowing what else he should do, he brought the spectral woman close to him, feeling the coolness of her body seeping through to him as if he was embracing the mist itself, her arms wrapped around her living counterpart and held tight.

It was a surreal moment of a lifetime as his eyes looked over the pale blonde hair that cascaded down the shoulders of this young ghost, his hands moving up to stroke at the silky-smooth tresses, and her head came back, and a sigh left her.

“You feel so cold, Melinda, why are you here?”

It was the oldest cliché of ghosts, to have them haunting the living until they accomplish a final goal, or to warn of a future catastrophe, but to have a reason. The response he got wasn’t a warning, nor a dire prediction, but the press of soft lips to his cheek.

“You ask a great deal for so soon of a meeting, I think...” She kissed his neck, just below his ear, and her body pulled him down closer to her. “Perhaps a kiss to savor this moment?”

Their kiss, at first, was his warm lips against the near ice of hers. But moment by moment there was warmth to be shared between them as she opened herself more to him. It felt so real. The taste, the touch, all of it was unlike the feel of a ghost. As a moan was heard, Brian’s eyes opened to realize his own throat had released it, and the spirit of this woman felt the difference between their bodies start to melt. His hands pulled her close, and with a deep yearning breath, the ghost took in a gasping lungful of his own air from the kiss and let that desire give form and function to a body long since bereft of it.

“To feel a real breath! The beat of a heart! The touch of skin ... it is all too wonderful.”

For Brian to know what that was, to feel those changes happen, was stunning beyond imagination. He wanted to pull back, ask questions, and to figure things out, but her kisses felt far too real to have himself let go so soon.

When the kisses broke, the young man was in shock, and his lips were tingling with cold as she pressed herself firmly to his chest and her hands were all but feeling up and groping across his body, the young man shuddering and breathing harder from her explorations. Her hands slid along his, and her fingers curled into his hair as he stared back to those ice-blue orbs.

“Why, Melinda, I can’t imagine ... what...”

“To love again, Brian. To live once more. Even if for just one night...”

A living soul of the past and a man of today were kissing again, their lips were parted as tongues sought their mate within, and her hand was drifting downward, stroking at the young man through the material of his briefs.

“Ah!” That was as much the sound of pleasure as surprise, his own hand sliding down to hers.

“Do not say no to us tonight.” The apparition’s voice seemed to be even clearer than it had moments earlier. She was feeling more solid, more real, and most certainly warmer and alive. Then, the thin fabric of her nightgown made it easy for him to see her excitement pebbling her delicate nipples through her flimsy material.

“Oh yeah ... Oh Melinda...” His hands moved down her sides and the curves of her hips. Their bodies pressed tightly, the young woman’s body molding itself to the man’s. She felt his cock straining the thin cloth between his excitement and her teasing touch. They shared the smoldering gaze of growing desire in their eyes.

“My room,” he offered as he kissed her neck to her obvious enjoyment. The young girl’s body arched itself to his, her hands pressing on his shoulder and down his arm while his lips played on her flesh. He would never forget how her skin changed under his caresses.

“I can only go so far,” she whispered huskily. “Where’s your room?”

Brian broke away from their clinch and led Melinda down the hallway with urgency.

It felt like an eternity had passed, a millennium since the young ghost’s desire had known such joy. It had been centuries since such an opportunity presented itself and it was a feeling the spirit couldn’t bear to lose a second of it, nor was the young man about to complain in any way to this. She held to his fingers, following quickly behind as they came closer to the door.

She paused. Staring at the doorway and the threshold beyond, there was a sad look on her face as her hand reached up to hold onto the doorway, the look of a soul not in full understanding of what lay ahead. Brian looked at her face and knew her concern and fear immediately, taking her into his arms and with a warm embrace pulled the young spirit into his room and she smiled.

The young woman stepped into his room. He saw that in the darkness she shone with an inner radiance, her green eyes shimmering brightly as they stared back to him.

“You were so worried you wouldn’t make it...” his words spoke softly of the look he had seen on the woman’s face just a few moments before. But her smile, her smile was anything but worry at that point.

The spirit turned and pulled herself to the young man, their bodies touching and their lips meeting once again in the softness and heat of desire. Their hands began exploring again as they stood just inside the entry. His went to her nightgown, lifting the thin fabric straps off her shoulders. Hers going to his trousers, unbuttoning the fastens with impressive speed. Her lips kissed his cheeks, and her fingers were making his zipper slide open as the nightie fell to the floor in a silent pile of cotton.

“Ohh,” came her moaning sigh of approval at the sight of his stiffening manhood. “I had almost forgotten what that looked like.”

A soft and delicate hand wrapped itself gently around him. Her cool, ghostly touch was thrilling and erotic. Her smile was one of delight, but also of devilish glee and teasing humor.

“So big ... And hard...” came her sweet whisper into his ears. Her hands took his length between them as her fingers caressed the underside of his cock, feeling the soft skin, the tightness of it all, and then stroking up and down on him as she squeezed with gentle loving motions on Brian’s member.

He groaned, his mind reeling from her touch, from the sheer madness of his situation, but most of all from the sheer pleasure of the beautiful young woman stroking and coaxing on him as she looked to him in pleasure and delight.

“Oh that’s just ... lovely!”

Melinda smiled even wider.

His hands found face, and he cupped it, pulling her to him to kiss her passionately. Their lips touched with fire between them. As her tongue sought to dance within his mouth so did his hands seek out the feel of this ghost in the night.

Awkwardly he pulled her towards the bed, their hands going back and forth from her breasts and his cock, her hands stroking his member gently, yet with passion.

As he sat down onto the bed, she knelt beside him and then pushed him backwards.

It wasn’t a forceful shove, nor did it need to be. He fell willingly back into his own bedding. His own hands reached down as the beautiful woman’s face came close to his rigid erection, smiling with devilish glee at what she saw.

The ghost licked her lips and let her mouth come near his organ, teasing it by taking in the scent and letting her warm breath play on his flesh, making him harder than ever. His hips pressed upward, his fingers now stroking through Melinda’s long hair, wanting so desperately to make contact and to feel the moist warmth of her mouth. But as much as she wanted that contact as well, the ghost made it a moment to savor.

There was no denying the heat of the woman’s body now. He knew that this was no trick. No dream. There really was a ghost, and a very solid and warm ghost at that, here with him that wanted his body as badly as he wanted hers.

With agonizing slowness, Melinda split her lips open and let them come to the head of his cock, and the feel of her mouth, warm and wet, was almost more than his senses could bear.

She moaned in pleasure as she tasted the flesh, and her head began to bob up and down, her tongue playing along him from tip to tip. She took him within her mouth several times before she released him with a hard pop from her suction.

“Oh, Brian ... So long. It’s been so long since I could do that,” came the husky whisper from this creature from the next life, her words of hot air blowing across his wet flesh, making him tingle all the more. “Please, let me keep this going...”

“No arguments from me,” he groaned as his hands went to the sides of Melinda’s face, guiding her to take him once again as his body yearned to have the heat of that mouth back onto his erection and not wanting to lose that feeling at any cost!

With the practiced ease and skill that she had learned and taken to her death, the woman’s mouth wrapped itself once again over the young man, and he moaned as her head and his fingers kept up their pace.

Up and down, he felt the young woman’s lips as her tongue swirled in a dance that was more remembered reflex than desire, the moans from the pair mingling together as his hands tried to pull the beauty deeper on him. Her tongue and her lips worked magic on the sensitive head as the rest was taken to her hand, which stroked him as the flesh of her cheek was filled outward by the head of his shaft and its throbbing beat.

In mere minutes, he was gasping and grunting, unable to hold back. He tried to give a note of warning to Melinda, but her mouth just kept at his throbbing length. With a groan, he erupted, and she swallowed him in.

The ghost’s hands reached around and held to his butt, squeezing the muscles there, her fingernails pressing hard into his flesh as she held him there. Her mouth worked, swallowing and gulping as quickly as he was squirting, as Brian gave everything into her waiting and thirsty mouth. Her hands milked the young man for all of his orgasm until he was finished, and she pulled her head back with a loud gasp.

“Oh, Brian,” she whimpered in pleasure as the heat of the young man’s orgasm spread from her stomach and warmed her further. “So warm ... So hot inside me...” Her eyes met his, and with almost inhuman speed, she leapt onto the bed, her body crawling up the length of him, and the soft weight of the ghost pressing down on top of the young man as she sought out a passionate kiss of thanks.

She kissed his neck, his lips, and face with abandon. His hand went down to the globes of her ass as it lay so invitingly in front of his crotch, her hips undulating slowly as her body still tingled with the heat and passion.

He decided to use his mouth as she used hers. Bringing his head down to her bare breast, he saw the milky white breast had the palest pink nipple, perched upon it with a fully erect point, and it called for him in a voiceless call to have it suckled.

With an eager mouth, he did so as Melinda giggled with delight and ran her hands through his messy hair.

“Mmmm,” she moaned. “I haven’t felt a man’s lips on my breast in ages!” Her fingers squeezed on him, making a seal of suction between his lips and the flesh which he sucked on. “Please, oh please, don’t stop that. I need it so much, Brian!”

He nibbled on the sensitive skin there, feeling a soft gasp from the ghostly being in his bed, and his hands gripped at Melinda’s ass cheeks and stroked along the thighs of his beautiful ghost. As much as he was enjoying her beautiful bosom, he had other ideas.

Starting to kiss down her body, first at her chest, then her stomach, then lower until he kissed down to her pelvis and mons, he heard a squeal of pleasure, and her body moved itself in position as she offered herself.

“Oh ... I’ve never been...” breathlessly gasped Melinda.

“Then get ready,” came Brian’s own husky reply as the girl moved up on her back, and her hand moved to her sex, fingers spreading apart her dewy and moist flesh for his hungry mouth to devour, and the young man took full advantage as she moaned in pleasure, his tongue digging deep within her to feel her velvety depths.

Her sex wasn’t as chilly as he might have expected. He felt the cool moistness within the heated folds. His mouth began to work in earnest. His tongue lashing, and then darting in and out. He swiftly drove out what coldness there was. Pouring heat in with his tongue.

“Brian,” gasped the girl. “Brian ... I ... Ohhh ... The heat!”

With his fingers and mouth working on Melinda’s sex, the young woman was arching her body in response and gasping loudly with pleasure as the young man worked and felt the warming heat of the young spirit come back to her as his lips and tongue devoured the sweet taste of the woman’s core.

Her hips began bucking against his chin, and the stubble of his own growing facial hair rasping against her sensitive skin was driving Melinda wild with the heat. The room itself was getting warmer, or was it her? Either way, Brian didn’t stop.

His mouth moved upwards, and a sudden cry came from Melinda as his tongue danced on her clit and then was captured and sucked on with his eager and hungry mouth. She arched her hips forward as the wave began to crest within the ghost, his own fingers moving deeper within as she wriggled in passion, and her voice cried out for release!

That release hit Melinda hard, and with a shriek, she arched her back as a flash of white-hot energy flowed through the ghost, making her hips buck with pleasure and her breath rush into the young woman. For her, this moment was what had been denied for more years than she had the power to count, but for Brian, this was a moment he knew to savor.

His mouth and fingers were flooded. Her whole body seemed to be hot and alive, and her cries echoed in the room for many minutes, the young man doing his best to keep this climax from ever fading for his lovely young friend as he licked at the gushing fluid from the ghost and let himself swallow down her sweet, cool elixir of bliss, and her moans echoed in his own ears like the voice of an angel calling to him for his worship.

There were tears sprawling down her cheeks, her eyes closed, and a soft smile etched upon the spirit’s face as she felt Brian climb up and cuddle to Melinda, the ghost turning over and holding him closely.

“That ... That was amazing,” she sighed with relief.

“You are amazing,” he told her as he crawled into the bedding beside his beautiful ghost. Their legs tangled under the covers. She continued to tremble, her arms holding onto her human lover and her face nuzzling against him. He could feel the energy of her orgasm flowing through Melinda as the heat was absorbed by the beautiful ghost and an energy began flowing through them.

Her mouth began to hungrily nibble and kiss at the flesh of her neck and ears. His hand pulled at the blankets, wrapping around both lovers, and she pulled him onto her.

“More,” she whispered as he stared down at Melinda, her eyes glowing with a passion that no earthly creature could hold in such icy-blue orbs.

With the grace of a true angel, Melinda opened up her legs under the bedding, and he sank into her sex in a swift and smooth plunge of his cock to her velvet-soaked flesh.

“I feel you through me ... Your whole body!” cried the ghost. His body was on top of the specter’s form. The ethereal flesh, now very solid and warm, welcomed the hardness of his rigid erection, and the soft folds spread themselves wide apart to allow his entry.

He was thrusting hard, her body so alive and hot beneath his own that he almost thought he had imagined she was anything but human, and the young ghost was bucking back under the powerful and needy motions of her human stud’s plunges. The feel of him in and within her made her mind spin.

His cock went deeply in and within the young spirit. The young woman, crying out for even greater pleasures, as her hands pulled the living body into her.

“Inside me, so much life inside me,” she squealed with the feel of the living man within her core. Her hands held on tight to the muscular back of him as her body was penetrated by that shaft of pleasure, and the warmth that spread out through her being was a bliss unlike anything that she could recall in ages.

“Dear God, you feel so good,” moaned Brian as her arms held on tight and her voice encouraged his hard and deep thrusts, which she responded with her own movements as the feel of his thickness filled and spread apart the ghost of this hotel.

“So real. You’re making me real,” she sobbed in pleasure, and Brian saw the tears flowing down the woman’s face.

As her sex held tight on him, Brian kissed and suckled at Melinda’s breasts. This brought another loud moan from the ghost as the pair ground together in an orgy of lust.

As Melinda reached another climax, her sex pulsed with heat. The surge of her sex’s muscles made his own body begin the climb to that glorious plateau of release, and he gasped as his balls churned and began their own eruption.

“So hot, Brian! So hot inside me!” Melinda was shouting with pleasure.

“Melinda! Melinda, I’m gonna-”

“Yes! Yes!” cried Melinda to his unfinished statement.

His cock, deep in the woman’s cunt, began shooting. Spasms wracked his frame, and she clutched him tightly to her as his shaft sent jets of warm, living seed into the ghost. She shuddered repeatedly in a series of orgasms that washed through them as her sex kept on pulsating.

Brian was trembling like never before, and as Melinda was filled so completely, something more occurred that neither of them expected. Melinda felt herself ... change.

The cold of her ghostly existence for centuries had been her lot. The heat from their lovemaking changed things. Brian was left feeling the energy draining from his body and into hers, but she held tight. Her body was warm and flushed, and there was no way for her to explain, but there were other ways in which the change could be noticed. The ghost’s body had become completely solid.

“Something has changed,” moaned Melinda as they held on to each other, her body shaking from a change unlike anything either had known before. The pair of lovers could only look into the face of one another as the power that was their shared energies surged from one body to the next.

The spirit felt something was wrong. Something that wasn’t bad, but something that had to end, yet she fought it with all her will and spirit to try and hold on.

“No!” cried the young woman. “I won’t leave!”

“What ... what do you...?” Brian started. He was confused beyond anything else. Their bodies were locked in passion, her sex pulsating from a powerful and earth-moving climax that the ghost and living lover had shared.

“It’s not over!” she whimpered. “I can feel my time fading away...”

Brian felt her body and in that same instance felt her fear. The passion and love that his own heart had felt in that short time, he too knew that he wanted, he needed more. And with that, he tried to pour himself into her sex.

“Let me finish this then,” he whispered into Melinda’s ear. The heat of his breath making the young woman shudder as she tried to hang on, the young man working himself deeper within the ghost as she clutched her legs and her body in desperation around Brian as her voice rang out.

“Don’t leave!” Her cry rang in Brian’s ears. Her hands and nails were scratching down his back. Their sexes were a heated mass of pulsing need. They rocked and bucked against each other as the pair fought a losing battle to stay within each other. With a final kiss to Brian’s cheek, the young woman gave her lover one final look.

“Oh, Brian ... Thank you. I love you!”

As his lips moved to hers, she was gone and the heat of his ghost was fading, her final words ringing in his mind, his heart, and his body as the man was left in an empty bed. Her final goodbye echoed in the bedroom for what seemed like forever. But then he fell down, feeling the chill in the sheets, he fell into sleep, feeling drained of all energy.

Waking in a tangle of sheets and with a cool breeze, Brian sat up and felt a mixture of both regret and happiness, the feelings of the young woman’s arms holding to him still on his body and her smell clinging to the bed and to him.

The young man pulled on clothing with a smile as the memory of their moment together came rushing to his memory. But as he grabbed up the shorts, he also found a slip of white fabric that was unmistakably Melinda’s. His fingers moved and brought to his face the sheer cotton nightgown. A scent clung to the material ... her scent ... a woman’s scent, and his mind and nose remembered.

There could be no doubt in his mind. It all had been for real. She’d been very real for him last night.

Brian held out hope he would see Melinda again the following night, but there would be nothing. He researched the history of the mansion, and there were stories of a young maiden who died tragically within, but never any proof, and it didn’t tell of when or how, only rumors. Perhaps it was better that way.

For three days, the young man wandered and dreamed in that state of half reality. His body seemed to move by some will beyond his, and the ghost, the lovely and lonely ghost, seemed to fill Brian’s every thought, and even if he felt that she could never truly return, the thoughts of his young spirit filled the dreams and his mind, and he never could regret his actions that night with Melinda. He had given a gift to her that she cherished, and he loved for the fact that it meant so much to her.

But soon he had to return to his regular life. And time moved on. Brian went off to university and then found his own life progressing in his career as an engineer. The days of Melinda’s presence seemed like an impossible memory as his own time and existence went forward. From time to time, he would recall her with a warm, wistful feeling of happiness, knowing in the briefest of moments he had brought someone out of their loneliness and sadness and filled their spirit and soul.

His junior year, a mix-up at the dry cleaners had his clothes exchanged for a different student. A hassle and a bother to be certain, but his own name was misspelled and was B. Lipton rather than Leighton, and when the mistake was discovered, a series of phone tag started, ending with him having to drive across to town and with a number to a dorm room to collect the clothing.

There he met Bethany. A willowy brunette, glasses, cute, very smart, and from her open blouse, a clear look to her ample bosom. As their eyes met, he couldn’t help but notice her green eyes, and he had a quick remembrance of Melinda. But the thought quickly passed, and they laughed over the silliness of their names and clothing mix-up. From their meeting, she came back to his dorm, they met at a coffee shop, the quad, and finally had a date, a movie, then another. And another. Soon, he fell deeply for her with a desire that he thought he had left in the past. A ghost in the past.

More time passed. Bethany and Brian grew closer. They met each other’s families, and to each the surprise of both, they actually could stand the relatives of each other. Graduation approached, and Brian and Bethany had their lives beginning. The job for him had him starting the next week after he was done, and Bethany’s school would have her studying to be a teacher, and the first steps were taken. He had a ring, and he went down on one knee. She cried and said, “Yes.”

The wedding was planned for late August at Bethany’s home church, and his parents and family would all be invited. His soon-to-be wife wanted this wedding to be a special occasion and the honeymoon a time never to be forgotten. She was abuzz with her plans and the honeymoon a wasme never to let his future bride have her fun. She was abuzz with her plans and details he let go over him like a soft spring rain. He was busy with starting his new job and settling in for his new life.

But fate had a way of intervening...

“It’s Jeff and Samantha. They’re having that big weekend party up by the lake in two weeks,” explained Bethany from their bedroom. Their mutual friends were always in a celebratory mood, and they had rented a lake house at one of the larger inland lakes. The place itself sounded huge enough to fit everyone that the happy-go-lucky couple of Sam and Jeff had planned for. A whole four days of partying and relaxation was the goal.