“Oh, it’s just swell here, Joey!” crooned Lydia, sunlight in her platinum hair. Cupid’s bow lips parted as she looked at her ghost writer.
Joe was deeply in love with the woman, with her sing-song voice and eyes like Theda Bara. He’d been helping her work on the book for nearly a year, helplessly drawing out the task just to spend time with her. He realized that it was a false hope, working as he was on her beloved late husband’s memoires.
Little kitten heels clattered on the steps as she ran back downstairs in the renovated lighthouse. Since Robert’s death, she hadn’t been to their beautiful vacation house by the sea. Joe admired her vigor, surviving Robert’s sudden death and recovering quickly.
“Come on, Joey!” she called. “Let’s go out to the cliff!”
The cliff didn’t encourage the writer. He was afraid of heights and the lighthouse was hundreds of feet above the crashing surf. Still, he followed his angel, her summer dress nearly transparent under the sun, chiffon trailing behind like wings.
She stood near the very edge, making his heart race in more ways than one. He stayed back. Seeing his discomfort, Lydia danced back to him. Planting a playful kiss on his cheek, she smiled. Still standing close, her smile faded as she saw the look in his eyes. “Joey?” she said softly.
After months of pining for her, Joe grabbed moment and Lydia, kissing her deeply. Hand sliding down to her tiny waist, he bent her back in his ardor. Unseen, one little knee bent as Lydia submitted to his passion. As he broke the kiss, she looked back at him with wide eyes.
With this new thing between them, Lydia and Joe were quiet as they finished dinner. A fire crackled in the little iron fireplace as Joe sat before the black enamel Royal, typing out the story as Lydia dreamily remembered her fairytale marriage. She didn’t look at him as she told intimate details of her life with Robert. To his embarrassment, Joe found himself a bit…aroused.
She must have known, smiling in that secret way as they parted that night. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she whispered, kissing him sweetly before leaving the room. Her perfume lingered long after Lydia had gone upstairs.
Lydia couldn’t sleep, tossing back and forth. She was excited that Joe had finally made the move, knowing that she loved him as well as they kissed at the cliff’s edge. Robert had been dead almost two years now. Surely he would want her to find love again.
The floor boards creaked and Lydia froze, listening in the darkness. To her thrill and consternation, the bed moved slightly under her visitor’s weight. Before she could say a word, arms embraced her, pulling her close. Knowing that she shouldn’t, Lydia didn’t care. It had been so long. She swooned in her lover’s arms, opening like a night-blooming flower.
He was gone when morning light awakened Lydia. The rest of the day, neither of them spoke about what had happened during the night. Joe went out to do research, interviewing Robert’s old friends and a cousin in the next town. Lydia sat in an Adirondack chair overlooking the sea, listening to Helen Kane’s latest hit He’s So Unusual on a hand-cranked Gramophone.
The sun set before Joe returned, only worrying Lydia a little, knowing he must have been roped into dinner with one of his contacts. As she started down the stairs, Lydia heard the tapping of the typewriter keys and smiled, hurrying into the study.
“Joey?” Her voice faded as she found an empty room. She glanced back into the main room. “Joe?”
There was no one else in the lighthouse. She frowned, feeling cold seep into her limbs as she went to look at the curl of paper in the Royal. Lifting one edge, she saw a new line: I am here. As she stared at it, the return carriage slammed across the machine, ringing the bell. Lydia screamed and fainted dead to the floor.
Joe found her there later, lifting her gently. “Lydia! What happened? Are you alright?”
Her trembling finger pointed towards the typewriter. “Robert is here!“
Joey scowled as he got up to look at the page, reading the words he had not written. He spun around. “What’s this? A joke?”
“No!” she whispered. “Joey, take me upstairs!”
She was weak with shock and he carried her up to bed. As he turned to leave, she caught his hand. “Don’t leave me!”
To his surprise and delight, Lydia kissed him deeply, lips parting. She hurriedly started to undress him. He didn’t waste time with objections, tossing off his clothes and rolling her over in the bed. She gasped in his arms, whispering, ”Robert!”
For a moment, Joe stalled, but decided that it wasn’t worth stopping, not buried in her loveliness as he was at that moment. It was the other voice in his ear that threw a wrench into the entire effort: “Lydia!”
Scrambling away, he stared in horror as Lydia continued to move beneath an unseen lover. Terrified, he fled.
When Lydia awoke, she thought Joe was beside her, feeling his strong body against hers. Rolling, she discovered that no one was there. Going downstairs, she found Joe nursing not a cuppa, but a highball of gin. The haggard face he raised made her gasp. “What is it, Joey?”
“Lydia,” he whispered in a voice as dry as onion skin. “Robert is here, isn’t he?”
“Yes!” she breathed after a moment of hesitation.
“I’m not the ghost writer. He is, isn’t he?” he asked, reluctant.
“Yes,” she said. She looked at him with those great big eyes, making his heart melt. “Can you do it, Joey? Can you share me with him?”
“I don’t know, Lydia,” he said, but knew that he would. He loved her enough to be part of such an insane ménage a trois. Besides, with Robert’s help, they would be able to finish the book in no time at all.
Becoming Writer 2016 Anniversary Contest 