"Yes, he said his name is Jimmy." Encouraged by Ray"s response, she added, "And he told the clairvoyant during that first reading to tell me that you weren"t the right guy for me."
Ray"s eyes moved sideways as he absorbed this. Sara watched him. His expression of disbelief was being replaced with something else. He seemed to be considering what she said.
"Do you know someone named Jimmy?" she whispered hopefully.
He was silent for a long time, as if weighing the possibility of something. He seemed reluctant to speak. "I knew a Jimmy," he said finally. There was another pause. "Once," he added.
"Was he...alive?"
Ray was starting to pale. "Yes," he said. "He was...someone I knew. But then he died."
"Someone you knew?" she repeated. "You knew a Jimmy? How did you know him? How did he die?" She was suddenly filled with hope-and questions.
"We grew up together. He was...Jeez! This is ridiculous!" he yelled, getting up off the couch suddenly and walking toward the window. "This is not possible."
"He was what?" she encouraged. "Please, Ray, I know this seems crazy but let"s just pretend for a minute that it"s really happening. Please, please..." She sighed, so tired of begging all of a sudden. "Please just tell me how you knew him."
"He lived next door to me and we grew up together," Ray began in a strange voice. He didn"t turn to face Sara as he spoke, but just continued to stare out the window. "He made a big show of being my friend all those years but he was really just a pain in my a.s.s." Ray appeared to be getting agitated just from talking about it.
"A pain in your a.s.s...how?" Sara asked.
"He was always getting me into trouble, for one thing," he said. He turned and looked at her. "Or trying to take what was mine."
Sara stared at him. "What did he try to take from you?"
"He wanted everything I had, whether it was a toy, an answer on a test, a friend." He met her eyes. "My girlfriend." She wasn"t sure if this last referred to her.
"Had he taken a girlfriend from you?" she asked.
"Yes."
After a moment"s silence, she decided to go in another direction. "What was he like?"
Ray thought about this. "He was charismatic, but mean underneath. He loved to play pranks on people. And he was tough to shake. He"d get under your skin. I spent most of my years growing up trying to ditch him."
"That sounds like him, all right," Sara whispered suddenly, without even thinking.
They looked at each other. "Hold on a minute!" he said, rushing from the room. When he came back, he was holding a pile of books. "Yearbooks," he told her.
Sara was excited, in spite of herself. She couldn"t help but be curious about the being who had so completely infiltrated her life in this short span of time.
"Here we go," Ray said as he flipped through the pages. "There!" And he tapped his finger on one of the pictures. "Is that him?" he asked her.
Sara looked at the picture. Smiling up at her was a handsome young man with that mixture of curiosity and self-a.s.surance in his expression that gives adults cause for hope. On the surface, he looked like he was fun, perhaps even impish. But upon closer inspection, his eyes had the look of a much more sophisticated being, and his smile, at the right angle, appeared almost menacing. She had no doubt that she was looking at the young man whose spirit now haunted her.
"Is it him?" Ray asked her again, and she suddenly realized that he thought she had seen Jimmy.
"I haven"t actually ever seen him, Ray," she said. "But I think this is him."
"You"ve never seen him?" he asked, surprised.
"No, never. He"s always completely invisible." Sara flipped through the pages of the yearbook until she found Ray. He, too, had that look of optimism characteristic of youth, but Sara noticed that there was also anxiety in his eyes. She wondered what he was thinking about the moment that picture was taken. Was it Jimmy?
"Is the girlfriend he took from you in here?" she asked.
He pointed out the girl and Sara carefully examined her picture. She searched for something extraordinary in her look or expression but found nothing.
"She"s pretty," she remarked.
"If you"ve never seen this ghost, how can you be sure it"s him?" Ray asked, bringing her back to the subject at hand.
"Well, I can"t," she admitted. "But I just feel like it must be him. It all makes sense. Look, why don"t you just tell me the rest of the story. What happened to him?"
"He drowned."
"How?"
Ray sighed, obviously not comfortable discussing it. "Jimmy was always showing off. He wasn"t even invited the day it happened but sure enough, he turned up. We were all swimming in this little alcove, one of those little private spots where just us kids went sometimes. We were having a good time, but then Jimmy had to stir it up." He laughed humorlessly. "He would just go around looking for ways to start trouble, goading everyone into these dangerous exploits. He"d do them himself, too, which is why it was so hard to say no. He was getting everybody riled up to the point where it wasn"t even fun anymore. Then he found this one spot way up high, a kind of ledge in the side of the mountain, and he dared me to jump. When I wouldn"t do it, he got up there himself. It was way up, and the water wasn"t that deep. Sure enough, just as we all knew he would, Jimmy jumped." Ray shook his head in disgust. "When he didn"t come up right away, it didn"t really surprise anyone. That was another prank he loved to play...pretending to drown. We"d all seen it before, and some of us had even fallen for it, searching the water for fifteen, twenty minutes just to find him watching us, laughing, from behind a tree somewhere." He met her eyes again. "By the time we actually started looking for him...and found him...it was too late."
"Do you think maybe he blames you?" Sara asked.
"I don"t really care," he said coldly. "I"m finished feeling bad for him."
"Well, the clairvoyant says you"re the only one who can help me get over this. You can keep him away from me when this...thing comes over me-it"s his influence, Maggie said-and I suddenly get this need. Like a drug. I"ve never felt anything like it before. It"s like I have no control when it comes over me." Sara reached out to touch him and, although he brushed her away at first, she managed to get her arms around him. "I don"t know how or why this happened but I love you," she told him. "I love you and I need your help."
She kissed his lips and looked into his eyes.
"How am I supposed to help get you over it?" he asked finally.
"When it happens, I get unbelievably...aroused," she said, blushing. "I"ll need you to be there in that way, and for a long time...until it"s over." She was suddenly afraid. Here she was discussing her addiction to s.e.x with a ghost and she couldn"t seem to address the issue between her and Ray. Perhaps it was time to be completely honest with him. But the last thing she wanted to do was to cause him even more pain. She sighed in frustration, searching for the right words. "I think he...he...got to me because he found a weakness." She paused. "With us."
"I"m listening."
"That first night when he came to me, we had just made love. I was...frustrated because you finished before I did." Ray didn"t respond, so she went on. "He got me excited again while I was sleeping, but when I woke up and screamed, he left. This left me s.e.xually frustrated for the second time that night. When I woke up the third time, it was like I just wanted to get off, you know? I half thought it was probably all just a wet dream. But then, afterwards, it was like he owned me, and then I couldn"t stop."
She had expected her words to upset him, but he appeared to be considering what she said.
"I thought you had gotten off that night," he said. "But I"ll admit, it"s really hard for me to tell. You seem to get these little spurts of...something, and then you slow down. I"m not always sure what"s going on."
"Well, I guess I could be more expressive."
"So...has that been happening often, me leaving you in the lurch, so to speak?"
Sara blushed and shrugged. "I don"t know...sort of...sometimes."
"How often?" he asked. His manner made it hard to be completely honest. If he had gotten angry or defensive, she might have found this conversation easier. As it was, he seemed genuinely sorry to learn that she was not being satisfied and interested to know how he could prevent it from happening again.
"I don"t know," she said defensively. She bit her lip.
His expression suddenly grew alarmed. "You have gotten off with me, right?"
Sara looked away. To lie now, at this crucial point, would be terminal.
"But you acted like you did," he said, suddenly bewildered.
"I know, I know," Sara tried to explain. "I was so excited when I was with you at first that I just couldn"t relax enough to...get off so I...faked it. And then, from that point, it just seemed like we got into this pattern where you finished before I could get there."
Ray just stood there, amazed.
"I"m really sorry. I know this is my fault."
"It"s not all your fault," he said quietly. He sighed and shook his head. "But I really don"t see how I"m going to be able to help you, considering this."
"The thing is, I know that you can get me there," Sara told him. "I"ve actually gotten pretty close a time or two. I"m just going to need you to hold back for as long as you possibly can. That"s the only way I"m going to get through this. You"re going to have to keep going and going and...going."
He thought about this and then nodded. "Okay."
"Okay?" Sara smiled. "Just like that, okay?" She laughed in spite of the fear and embarra.s.sment and everything else that tormented her. Ray"s manner, so all at once strong and steady and loyal and calm, made her believe in the impossible. She rushed into his arms. "I love you so much," she said, suddenly crying.
When she had recovered from this little outburst, she pulled away, wiping her eyes. "So what"s next?" she asked, sniffing. "I guess we wait for it to happen again?"
"Wait for it?" Ray repeated, shaking his head. "No! We"re not just going to wait for it. We"re going to head it off at the pa.s.s."
"What?" Sara looked at him in surprise. "But..."
"Get your clothes off," he told her.
"But..."
"Now, or I"m gonna tear them off." He was unb.u.t.toning his shirt while simultaneously kicking off his shoes.
"Shouldn"t we wait until the desire hits me?" she asked. "I mean, if we wear ourselves out now, I don"t know..."
"I know I"ve let you down in the past," he said, removing his pants. "But I"m not going let you down this time. You"re not taking your clothes off-why?" He waited for her to start removing her clothes before he went on. "And you"re going to tell me everything you"re feeling as we go, so I"ll know if I"m on track. Think of this as practice. When we"re done, I"m going to know everything there is to know about making you happy."
Sara shivered, although she wasn"t in the least bit cold. As she undressed, she looked up at Ray in amazement, wondering that she had never trusted him enough to confide in him before. To her surprise, the old, familiar, comfortable desire, desire born out of genuine attraction and l.u.s.t, curled up in her.
Ray proceeded to make love to Sara in half a dozen or more different ways, switching positions and techniques as he found it necessary in order to keep himself going. And he did keep going, even after he was certain that Sara had been satisfied repeatedly, and until she literally begged him to stop. And even then, he refused to allow himself to be satisfied, knowing good and well that if he did, that would be the moment that Jimmy would pounce. And Sara felt so satiated and content that she imagined that perhaps it was all over, that it had been that easy.
Hours went by. Ray and Sara had gone to bed and they even made love again.
"I think I"m past it, Ray," she told him. "I"ve never gone this long without it happening before."
But Ray doubted that Jimmy would give up that easily, and he continued to avoid his own o.r.g.a.s.m so that he would remain rock-hard and ready. The painful frustration he must have been feeling seemed to make him more sensitive to what Sara had suffered, and he held and kissed and comforted her more compa.s.sionately than he had ever done before.
It was several hours later, while they were both lying naked together in bed, sleeping, when the feeling came over her and Sara began to shake with her growing need.
"Ray!"
"I"m here, Sara," he told her. He immediately took her in his arms and held her there. "What do you need?"
"Love me."
"I"m gonna love you. I"m gonna love you all night." He grasped her face in his hands. "And you"re gonna talk to me. Whatever you want-anything-you open your mouth and you tell me, do you hear?"
"Yes, yes, oh, Ray, please!"
Ray flung the covers down from over her body and moved in between her open legs. Sara was hot all over and soaking wet. He began by using his tongue on her, groaning miserably with his pent-up desire. She knew that it must be torture for him. She had felt his body growing hard the minute she first called out to him.
Even after having pleasured Sara so many times already that night, Ray attacked her c.l.i.toris with vigor, pleasing her in all the ways he knew she liked best. He was an extremely quick study, she discovered, practicing on her with the enthusiasm of an accomplished musician. His ministrations at first acted like an alternate drug to an addict, only just holding her desire at bay, but she relished what relief she could get. Her first o.r.g.a.s.m shook her, but it did not entirely hit the mark. She looked at Ray in dismay.
"It"s still there," she cried.
"Don"t worry," he said. "I"m on it."
It was easy to see that she was in distress. Her entire body shook and she was flushed and hot, as if with fever. Ray used his hands this time, inserting three fingers inside her while using his thumb to stimulate her on the outside. He knew that she loved that. Meanwhile he used his other hand to stimulate other parts of her body. And he moved in close to kiss her lips.
"I love you, Ray," she whispered.
"I love you, too, Sara," he replied.
And this was what was different, she realized. It was not just the s.e.xual release that she needed, but the real genuine feeling that exists between lovers.
Ray was able to get Sara through several more o.r.g.a.s.ms before he was obliged to finally enter her. When the time came, Sara noticed that he seemed reluctant. And yet she needed him inside her so badly. Each little o.r.g.a.s.m had knocked away at the terrible hunger, but she felt that there was still so much left inside her. She craved the feeling of having him inside her. But she also knew that, in her present condition, she was far more sensual than she normally was. She was like something out of the wild. How would Ray be able to withstand the temptation and not give in to the pleasure? She knew that this was what was worrying him, as well.
"I"m sorry," she murmured as he drew up over her. "I know...Oh!" she cried out as he pushed himself into her. Her body instantly went wild. She bucked and thrashed against him, oblivious to everything but the intense pleasure building up in her. She tried to control it but she could not. She heard Ray"s long, agonized groan and saw his pained expression but even this couldn"t stop her. She wished fervently that her release would come and prayed that it would be the last one she would need this time around.
But before it was over, she ended up getting that o.r.g.a.s.m and several more before the craving settled down and she once again felt sated and calm.
"Now you must let me satisfy you!" she insisted, but Ray was adamant that he continue to hold off for at least another day or so, until they were absolutely certain that Jimmy was gone for good. And Sara was once again impressed by the man that Ray was, and amazed and humbled by his love for her. She felt as if she were wrapped in a blanket of well-being when she was with him, where no harm could touch her. Everything that happened was behind her. Why should Ray continue to suffer so?
"I can"t stand it for you," Sara said, seeing the discomfort and frustration in his expression.
"And yet you could stand it for yourself," he reminded her.
"I should have told you," she said. "I should have trusted you. To be perfectly honest, I was a little ashamed, as well. I felt that there must be something wrong with me that it took so long. I didn"t want to ruin it for you."
"Then maybe this is a good thing," he said, with his usual positive, no-nonsense approach to things, which left Sara feeling safe and sound. "It"s shown us that we can get through literally anything-even supernatural stuff-as long as we are honest with each other and work together."
And in that moment Sara knew without a doubt that she had found the man she would spend the rest of her life with.
The Incetive program.