Writing For G.O.T

The Uninvited -- Dark Story #6

“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
Mahatma Gandhi

When the doorbell of her apartment rang, Lorraine didn’t rush to open it, since she had only dried her tears seconds ago. It was her thirtieth birthday and she was alone.

Yet, whoever it was had to be an insistent sales person because the ringing didn’t stop.

At the fourth ring, Lorraine folded away the birthday card she received from her mother who was attending a gala in Manhattan and the one from her father who was in Malaysia, or was it Brunei, speaking at the yearly conference of The Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

As she walked to the door without haste, she kicked away a child’s ball that had appeared out of nowhere on the hallway. Probably the next-door neighbor canvassing for Cancer Care with her little boy in tow had to have dropped it.

Unwillingly, she undid the three locks and opened it. Seeing no one, she leaned back and looked around again, then looked up scanning around and overhead what her gaze could reach, the deep blue sky for a wispy cloud, her calm and muted neighborhood, the tips of trees in the distance…but nothing.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in, Lorrie?”

What? Nobody ever called her Lorrie. She was Lorraine to the whole world, thanks to her parents’ insistence. The only one who called her Lorrie was…the one who…the one whom she once imagined into existence inside her mind?

Yet, the young man suddenly standing in front of her was…Could this be possible?

“Lorrie, it’s only been 12 years since our last meeting, and you forgot about me? I refuse to believe that.”


Lorraine’s imagination had taken flight even before she had learned to speak fully, using more than three-word sentences. Her parents, one away touring the world after his questionable business ventures and the other involved in charity organizations and societal concerns, were not present in her life very much, except for her nanny, and even she spent most of her time on the phone chatting with her ever-changing series of boyfriends.

In such an atmosphere, like all lonely kids, Lorraine, too, had imagined a friend who lived with her, and she had given him a name, Paul. While most kids escaped into fairy tales or team sports, Lorraine had escaped into the idea of Paul.

When her parents took her to a rare vacation with them on the French Riviera, Paul had accompanied her to her parents’ chagrin, and to the degree that her mother had fibbed to Monsieur Aguillard that Lorraine, in fact, had such a friend back at home. At the time, in Lorraine’s imagination, Paul was a straggly boy, but tall, who could reach heights Lorraine couldn’t.

While most children who enjoy the grandeur of imaginary friends let their memories blur and diminish over time, Paul didn’t fade into the repository of Lorraine’s childhood, but he grew up with her and somewhat changed his role, and quite snugly, fit into the teenager’s best-friend-lover daydreams. Paul, then, turned into a hero of dreams, glorified and adored by all Lorraine’s school friends and he excelled in the realms of athletics and became distinguished in other endeavors, and because Lorraine was attached to Paul, she too was adored, admired, and envied. Still, that was all make-believe, to ease out a life that was lacking in attention and support by those who had the job of supplying her with that attention and support.

Yet, here he was all six-foot two of him with that accusatory smirk on his face, acting like he had a good reason to be calling on Lorraine.

“Did the cat get your tongue, Lorrie, you who used to be so loquacious and detailed, if you know what I mean, Darlin’!” He lifted and moved his eyebrows up and down as if daring her and implying all the hot stuff she used to dream of. And of course, he was wearing blue jeans and a denim shirt to go with his violet-blue eyes and dark hair.

When Lorraine still didn’t, couldn’t, answer, he rushed past by her into the apartment as if he was in dire need to use the bathroom.

“The bathroom is at the other hand,” stammered Lorraine.

“Darlin’, I don’t have to go, but I just had to get inside before I would evaporate again. Now, where’s the bedroom?”

“I…I don’t understand. How could this be?”

“You didn’t ask how, way back when, and you’re asking now? Tsk, tsk, Lorraine! Didn’t you realize the mind is not a dumpster? What you create there has to take shape or form, one way or another? And your mind, Darlin’, was a palace. I loved living in it, but you wandered away, and I had to find my way back to you, somehow.”

“It was a long time ago. I was growing up. I needed you, then.”

“Fact is, Lorraine, when your heart spoke, it would have been indecent for your mind to object, and you really, truly, unequivocally wanted me, then. You can’t take back that full-hearted wanting, now.”

I shouldn’t have opened that damn door! Oh, well, what did she have to lose! She recalled all the unfortunate endings with her string of boyfriends, most of them pushed on her by Mama Dearest. At least, this one was her own creation. Although, she might have gone overboard by dreaming of him as six feet two. She’d now hate having to look up to him, to his at least 6 inches higher head, but his eyes were gorgeous and they sparkled. Oh, what the heck!

“Okay,” she said. “But strategically speaking, we’d have to be careful. I am sure you don’t want to spend your time with my friends too much.”

“Now you have friends? You call them friends? Whatever! I can fit into any role. As long as it is not under the sun. Then I tend to evaporate, just like a while ago when you took your sweet time opening that door.”

“Sorry about that, but there are things I don’t know about you and it is possible your details have changed.”

“Well, we can remedy that. Now, where’s your bedroom?”

“Why do you keep asking that?”

“Because that’s where the action is. Remember? Although you found some action without me…but never mind that. I’m dying to get back into where we left off.”

“That can wait,” she said. “Do you want coffee or tea, first?”

Paul was silent for a minute, staring at her with a disappointed face. “No,” he said softly. “I don’t want coffee or tea. I want to taste you.”

In the bedroom, she slipped off her dress and stopped. Then, when she looked at Paul, she saw that he had been studying her. He didn’t glance away.

“Nice!” he said. “Your skin is pinkish white. You remind me of a unicorn. Magical, right?”

She blushed. His words were more than a small pleasure. No one ever had complimented her before on the condition of her skin. She looked at his eyes and seeing the desire in them, she felt excessively feminine. Other men had told her she was handsome and strong, but those were not necessarily female qualities.

She turned her back to him and took off her underwear, wishing the room was dark, and reached for her peach silk robe.

“You don’t need to cover up the good stuff,” Paul said. “You never did with other men, right?” She was startled for a second or two, then she dropped the robe and turned around like a person who prepares a long speech but drops it hastily in the first mid-sentence. How fast had he undressed! He was sitting on the bed on top of the sheets.

As soon as she turned to him, she spotted the relief overtaking his face and flattering his chiseled features.

Afterward, he asked, “Are you happy?”

“Of course,” she said, her palm smoothing his hair, “but as to what just happened, I don’t think I could create that.”

“That one was on me,” he winced slightly. “As the first part…until…”

Lorraine shivered, only because she couldn’t guess what he meant, then comforted herself Oh, well, he might have taken further interest in the stuff. And who knows…

In the bathroom, she turned the shower on with the water hot and watched the steam roll upward against the walls and the ceiling, wondering where her life was about to go. She still felt lightheaded from his touch, but she wasn’t a little girl or a teen anymore.

He was all dressed up and sitting on the bed when she walked in. “Paul,” she said. “This was nice, but maybe you should leave now. I am not used to living with another person.”

“No, Lorrie. I am not leaving. I’ll probably never leave until…”

“But…but…”

“No buts about it. You belong to me, now.”

She didn’t think she liked this, but she decided to put this discussion off for the time being and handle it later since impatience wasn’t one of her vices.


Later, when she attempted to set the table, Paul stopped her. “Tonight is on me!”

She didn’t know he could cook because she hadn’t imagined that. Not only he could cook but he did it like a chef. Roasted Brioche and Rhubarb, Beef tenderloin with mushrooms, and fresh berries with a touch of powdered sugar.

In candlelight, he set the food out together with a bottle of Dom Perignon, rosé, vintage. From where he had conjured all that up, Lorraine didn’t even want to guess. A simple salad and canned fish were what she could have come up with in her kitchen.

“You go sit in the living room, Lorrie. I’ll take care of the cleaning.”

“Thank you,” Lorraine smiled. She was feeling warm, giddy, and cozy. “I guess, I’ll check the data I’ll have to enter tomorrow at work.”

“Yes, Darlin’. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Lorraine opened the door to the smallest room in the apartment she used as her office. She sat down at the desk and slowly, carefully, and with studied precision, she shifted her attention to her work.

“Lorrie, get out of that room!”

What the…

“What is it, Paul?”

He squinted into the room. “Someone died in there. Someone killed. A five-year old! He’s now running in there, back and forth. Get out of that room, Lorrie, now!”

“But my work is here. Come off it, Paul! I always work here.”

“I’m telling you, get out, now. You don’t want him to hitch on to you and invade the rest of the place. Not that it wouldn’t be a good punishment…”

Oh, no! What a terrifying thought! But just what did he mean? Punishment?

Lorrie arose unwillingly gathering her work and carried it out to the living room. Paul closed the door and locked it from the outside, as Lorrie watched him from the living room, her eyes riveted on that door inside which a child had died. Such a terrible end to a life so new!

“It took him three hours to die. He was knifed by his own father who had lost it. It was a very painful death. Now, he is insisting on not leaving.”

Paul’s words were leaving reverberations rippling through her nerves like an earthquake. She shook her head to get rid of her horror.

“How do you know?”

“You of all people, Lorrie! Never ask me that question, again!” There was something slightly off in his tone, as if there was something he didn’t wish to face, and she had hit at his sore spot. He walked past her into the kitchen again.

She paused, frowning. Why hadn’t the rental agency mentioned about the little boy’s death? There had been a murder in there, for Heaven’s sakes!

Paul showed up five minutes later, carrying two glasses half-filled with an after-dinner drink. They sat together on the sofa, sipping the liquor. It was semi-sweet and warming, but she didn’t ask where it came from. Judging from the dinner he cooked up, it had to be an expensive distillation. She thought of asking him the label, though.

So, leaning back against him, she lifted her face and kissed him. He kissed back and whispered, “Please, don’t ask me again what I get from where. You’ve got to have faith in me on this one, Lorrie, because you’re my fallen angel.” And he began raking her hair with his fingers.

They kissed passionately then. He said, “Let’s go into the bedroom.” She nodded willingly.

Later, she woke up in the night, to a whimpering. Paul seemed to be sleeping peacefully, his back turned to her. She put on her robe and walked into the hallway. She suddenly paused at the sight of the small ball that she had seen just before she had opened the door to Paul. The ball seemed half-deflated now, but it was rolling on its own.

Was the boy who was murdered playing with this ball? But it had been a year and a half since she had moved into this apartment.

The ball, the murdered boy, Paul’s showing up couldn’t they be stringed together as being of the same source, maybe an evil source?

Fear grew deeper and deeper inside her. All of a sudden, she heard the creaking of his footsteps behind her. But when she turned around, she stopped and gasped.

The man, the thing, behind her wasn’t Paul, at least the Paul she had dreamed of.

“I told you not to question everything!”

The thing that looked like a man but wasn’t had missing ears. His eyes were small and not lined up. He had the same height and weight as Paul, but he had scales on his bare arms.

A searing wave of panic raced through her and churned in her belly. She had never been so frightened in her life.

The door to outside was right by her. She couldn’t waste time with inane speculations. She had to escape, Now!

But she slipped as she took a step and froze. That thing which probably was Paul was standing above her. In his hand, he held a sharp spear.

“What? You are Paul, right?”

“Why did you betray me with others through the years? Did you think I wouldn’t see them? You made me fall for you with all your imagination. You deserve to die! Just like that little boy.”

“Paul? It wasn’t like…”

“How could you question everything now!”

He lifted his hand holding the spear higher.

“God, no! Please!” She arose and backed away, her bare feet stinging on the cold parquet.

“I was never your plaything. I was your mate through it all. And you betrayed me!”

Suddenly the lights went off in the apartment.

Where was he? Where was the door? She couldn’t hear him.

But she felt his hot breath on her neck. He was growling. She heard the spear hit the wall. Something cracked and fell on the floor with a shattering sound.

She screamed and reached for the locks on the door, but it was dark and her hands shook. She almost collapsed, but she pulled herself together.

The locks opened. She ran outside, screaming.

Her next-door neighbors came out, he with his cell in his hand. He had dialed 9-1-1.

“What’s wrong, Lorraine? What was all that ruckus?”

“Someone’s in my apartment, trying to kill me!” She sobbed, tearful and quivering.

His neighbor’s wife pulled her by the hand and took her inside their apartment.

Outside in the corridor, footsteps rushed, receded, and rushed again.

Several minutes later, one of the policemen who had searched through her place said, “There was some damage to the wall in the hallway and broken glass. And we saw some blood stains on the wall. Can you give us a description?”

The other policeman said, “When we first pulled up, I thought I saw a tall man and a little boy running out of the gate, but it was dark and they were like shadows.”

“Yes, that’s what I remember, too,” said Lorraine. A tall man and shadows…”


2689 words
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Prompt
6.On the morning of her 30th birthday a single woman answers the door to her childhood imaginary friend. Only he's not imaginary anymore, and he's not leaving any time soon.