Copyright© 2005 by Kien Reti

The phantom hand was fondling him again.

"Damn it, Dan! Can't you pay attention? Another couple of inches and you would have driven right over me!"

"Sorry, Jeannie. Must have been daydreaming."

It had long since passed the point of being a pleasant distraction. It had become a dangerous nuisance.

A forklift operator can't afford lapses of concentration. They're liable to result in rather unpleasant consequences. Like running over your boss. Who also happened to be a good friend. And a former lover.

It had all started innocently enough.

Dan was in the shower stall that one evening, rinsing off and bending down to adjust the water temperature, when... he felt something goose him right between his buttocks. He must have jumped a foot into the air. But, no, there was no one in there with him. He had broken it off with Jeannie the previous week and he was all alone in the apartment.

All alone. She had been a hot one one, that Jeannie. Insatiable. Couldn't get enough of him. Four times a night on those rare occasions when she could sneak away from her husband to sleep over. And that was the problem. Her husband owned the company. And Jeannie was only the junior partner. The junior partner who'd be totally frozen out in a divorce. Even a divorce based on total absence of marital relations. So, it made sense that she'd choose financial security over sexual satisfaction. Yeah, he could certainly understand that. But, it was poor consolation for being alone.

Must have imagined it. Or maybe bumped into the handle of the sliding glass doors. Yeah, that was it. Bumped into --

Hey! Something was fondling his crotch. Damn it, there was nothing there! Nothing but soap suds and pubic hair, but now he had a raging erection and it sure as hell felt like a hand jerking him off. Damn, that was starting to feel nice! Then, the touch was gone.

It came back in the night. A week later, he awoke from a sound sleep to the feel of something gently stroking his back and buttocks. A hand.

Dan became accustomed to the nightly "visits." The by now familiar feminine touch of the caressing hand took the edge off his terrible loneliness, and relieved the built-up sexual tension. It was infinitely more satisfying than masturbation. When he came in that soft comforting grip, it was as if he were emptying every one of his fears and tensions into the Vagina of the Dark Unknown.

Vagina. He could have sworn that when the hand enveloped his member, it became a vagina. It had the exact same feel as a female vulva lubricated by the juices of sexual excitement. And, in the exact same way that the organ of a woman in heat would, it squeezed and milked his cock.

Cock. He thought for a moment that he might have sensed a warm penis pressing against his buttocks just at the split-second that he shot his wad into the vagina. No! It couldn't be.

But, who could say? This whole damn thing was so fuckin' crazy. Phantoms in the night. Phantom hand. Phantom pussy. Sure, why not phantom cock, too?

Now, would that be so horribly disgusting? What if the Phantom decided to fuck him? Well...

Dan had on occasion entertained fantasies of what it might feel like to... take it in the ass. Hey, it could even be interesting. He dimly recalled what it had felt like when his mom had given him an enema and had taken his temperature rectally. Warm. Cared for. Loved. But, no. That sort of thing was for queers, damn it!

Another night. The hand was caressing him. His cock was hard. Achingly hard. He needed... needed desperately to relieve the pressure, to spill his seed, to come in a gloriously cascading fountain, a triumphant shout of I am! Not yet. No, the hand still stroked, stroked his balls, stroked his shaft, but denied him relief.

Now! Now his cock was moving in the pussy, the mysterious pussy that accompanied the hand, the slick and pulsating pussy, the magic pussy, the pussy that always... But, still he couldn't get relief. Couldn't come. His balls felt like they might explode if they didn't empty. His --

There! Something was gently poking against his... against the entrance to his ass. And he somehow... somehow wanted it. He had a sudden powerful urge to have his ass fucked. And he yielded. He relaxed his sphincter and opened up his ass. And the hard phantom cock entered into him.

What was happening to him? This mysterious phantom was taking him over. It had become something he couldn't live without. And it was even intruding into his waking life. Something had to be done.

Dan came to me in desperation. As a psychologist, I'd thought I was familiar with just about every variety and aberration of human behavior, but this was something new. Of course, I took him on as a client. I even lowered my hourly fee so he could afford my services.

"You don't believe any of this, do you, doc?"

"It's not my function to pass judgment on what you tell me, Dan, just to listen and help you make sense of your experiences. In other words, if it's real for you then we'll treat it as valid."

"But what can I do? This damn thing is taking over my life."

"What would you like to do about it? Rid yourself of the phantom and get on with your life? Sure, but wouldn't that leave a hole there? Loneliness, your need for physical closeness, sexual relief?"

"You're saying that if I get a girlfriend then this hand will just go away? Vanish back into the darkness?"

"Maybe not, Dan, but what I advise clients of mine in a difficult situation is to try altering one of the variables and see what happens. At the very least, it'll be a learning experience. Until our next session, then..."

I don't believe in the objective reality of ghosts and phantoms, of course. Modern psychology is a science, and as such it purports to deal with measurable, reproducible phenomena, things that can be studied under laboratory conditions. But I had read enough about psychic and supernatural happenings to suspect that they couldn't all be dismissed as figments of the imagination.