Chapter 3

Contact.

Sometime during the night, the harassment was turned up a notch. No, two notches! I woke up in the early morning light feeling vaguely uncomfortable and realized that I'd had a wet dream. I could feel the evidence on my belly. I threw back the covers to jump into the shower and discovered my boxers were gone. A look over the side of my bed found them on the floor.

What?

I've had a few wet dreams in my life – who hasn't? - but I never managed to take off my underwear during the dream. I suppose it was possible that I whacked off in my sleep, but I'm a light sleeper and I couldn't believe I could do that without waking up. Hell, wet dreams always woke me up! I wondered if this new stress I was dealing with was beginning to mess up my sleep patterns.

Notch number two? I swung my legs over the side of the bed and headed to the bathroom, glancing down at the whiteboard lying on a chair by the door as I went past. New message: "Am I right that moving the message board was an invitation to your bedroom? You know what, Steven, I think you're kind of cute with your glasses off. By the way, I hope you enjoyed the dream."

OK, this was WAY over the top! I stomped into the hallway and shouted down the stairs, "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU AND WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?"

A feeling of desperation was setting in and I'm not the kind of guy who loses his cool easily. I knew damned well I wouldn't be able to concentrate at work, so I called in and said I had some sort of bug, and no, I didn't know if I'd be in the next day. It wasn't a total lie because I was definitely being bugged.

I fueled up with a light breakfast of coffee and a handful of Oreos, then climbed the stairs to the third floor to park my butt in front of my I-mac. The mere fact that I was googling "paranormal phenomena" was antithetical to everything I believed, but since I wasn't coming up with any answers through logic and reasoning, I figured I might as well take a shot at the unbelievable and the illogical.

There were lots of references and claims of contact with otherworldly spirits, and while they couldn't be disproved, not even one of them had ever been substantiated. In my search, I focused on the term poltergeist because that seemed like the brand of mischievous but otherwise (supposedly) harmless spirit that seemed to be plaguing me.

My god, I thought to myself, if anybody at work could see what I'm doing, I'd never live it down!

But my computer search for an answer or even a hint of an answer was a total bust, as I knew it would be. After two hours of clicking, reading, following links, referencing and cross-referencing, I gave up. I laced my fingers behind my head, turned my chair to look out the door over the widow's walk and said out loud, "Why in hell are you doing this? If you want something, you dumb bitch, why can't you just ASK?"

"Now, Steven, that was just rude!"

I jerked upright in my chair. Shit! Now I was having auditory hallucinations! I couldn't tell if it was something I actually heard or if it was totally in my brain, but it was as clear as if she were standing right next to me.

Then, "Hey, smartass, over here!"

I felt my head turning in spite of my ardent desire to ignore what I knew couldn't be real. And there she was! The girl, dressed in jeans, saddle oxfords and an oversized sweater. She was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and a frown on her face.

Now I was down to two possibilities: Either I had flipped and gone over the edge, or I was actually seeing a person who shouldn't even exist. I thought, OK, funny farm, here I come!

Still frowning, she continued, "I don't really want anything but to be friends, and I resent being called a dumb bitch. You owe me an apology?"

A little corner of my mind was pleading, 'A little help here?' I heard my mouth mumble, "Uh, I'm sorry." I remember thinking how embarrassing it would be if I peed my pants.

Her frown immediately flipped to a grin. "Apology accepted. I know this must be very strange to you, Steven. Maybe you should just ask me some questions and I'll try to explain it to you as well as I can."

I'm not much of a drinking man, but at that moment, I'd have given anything for a stiff belt. All I could think to ask was, "Who are you?"

"My real name is Anna Bushkowski, but Madam introduced me to the gentlemen as Annie LaTush." She giggled as she turned and presented a very nicely shaped tush. Then she wiggled it. "I know it's a silly name, but all of us girls had names like that."

I made the connection. Speaking through a very dry mouth, I asked, "You were one of the, um, hostesses when this place was a whorehouse? Like more than sixty years ago?"

She giggled again, "Madam preferred we call it a gentlemen's club. But yes, I was one of the girls. Has it really been that long? I guess I don't have any sense of time since I, uh, changed."