Jennifer Owens (A Strange Place IP)

The graveyard beckoned, but I refused. It swung a creaky gate and asked if I was alright, would I care to rest a while? I told it no, but it turned a deaf ear and enticed me with the crackling of dead leaves blown along a crumbling brick walk.

I heard and I entered, following the golden leaves as they tumbled and fell at the headstone of

Jennifer Owens
Born 1890
Died 1920
Beloved Wife
Devoted Daughter and Sister

“May she know a better life in the hereafter,” I read off the stone.

“What would you know about it?” came a voice.

“Beg your pardon,” I said, but there didn’t seem to be anyone to say it to.

All right, I said to myself. You’re in a graveyard. Strange things are to be expected. You’ve had a lifetime full of horror stories read to you, viewed by you in movies and on television. You’re mind has been manipulated into being frightened at graveyards, churches, castles, dark, creepy forests, echoing tunnels and such.

I’ve simply been wired to hear voices at a grave. React any other way and you might as well be at the park playing Frisbee with the dog.

“Cat got your tongue?” came that voice again.

“Hello!” I said. “Nothing like a mysterious voice at a graveyard to get the imagination going! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance!”

“Why are you shouting?” came the voice.

“Sorry. I didn’t know I was. It’s like whistling in the dark, I suppose. Trying to take my mind off the possibility that you may be more than something out of my imagination.”

“Oh, I’m more than something,” came the voice. “Much more.”

“What’s your name?” I casually offered.

“Can’t you read? It’s right at the top of the stone for heaven’s sake. Jennifer Owens. What might yours be?”

“Roland,” I said. “Roland Huskey.”

“Roland Huskey!” she laughs. “Sounds like some sort of carnival barker. ‘Step right up! Ladies and gentlemen! You have never seen anything till you’ve seen the Octopus Man! Twelve arms has he! A nickel will gain you admittance! Two nickels and you may get a hug from the man of many limbs himself! Step right up!’ You in show business?” she asked.

“I don’t know if I care to talk to you now,” I said. “making fun of a man’s name is usually grounds for ignoring people.”

“Oh, I’m not people anymore,” Jennifer said. “Or haven’t you noticed, or not noticed would be more apt. Boo, you silly man.”

As she spoke a soft wind blew across the graveyard and it was then I noticed the fragrance.

“Lilacs?” I said. “This time of year?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Jennifer. “It’s my perfume. You like it?”

“I do, but why is it I can smell you, yet I can’t see you?”

“You’re simply not looking in the right place,” said Jennifer.

“Where should I be looking?” I said.

“Down here, Mr. Roland Huskey, down here.”

I looked down and there lay Jennifer Owens. In a wedding dress no less.

“You’re very lovely,” I said. “You getting married?”

“Not anymore,” she said. “I died in my wedding bed waiting for my husband to return with the candles. He wanted to undress me himself. It was a fantasy of his. But before he was able to return I tried to find my way to the bathroom in the dark.

“I managed to get to the toilet, but on my return trip to bed I slipped and fell in the tub. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history. After that I was only spoke of in hushed whispers, ‘And on her wedding night, too,’ they would say. ‘The poor dear never did get a taste of what a man has to offer. Thirty years she waits and then this. It’s a pity, is what it is.’ Ninety one years later and I‘m still wondering what I missed that night.”

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Owens,” I said.

“Oh, for cripes sake! Don’t be so formal,” she said. “Jennifer will do just fine.”

“I’m sure you would have made a great mate for someone,” I said. “You seem like a lot of fun.”

“I was a lot more fun when I was alive, I can assure you that, she said. “You married Roland?”

“No, young lady, I am not.”

“Roland, I’m a hundred and twenty one today," she said. “Oldest virgin in the graveyard, you know. They all talk about me.”

“They?” I said.

“The other tenants, if you will," she said. “They like to gossip. Just as they did in life. The only difference is you can’t kill them for it.”

“I thought the afterlife would have more to offer,” I said.

“Nope. Just more of the same,” she said. “Only now you don’t get so worked up over it.”

She paused for a moment and gave me an affectionate glance.

“You ever know a woman, Roland?” she said. “I mean in a wedding night sort of way?”

I blushed a little and told her I had yet to have the pleasure. She’s the only soul living or dead that I ever said that to. Twenty five year old virgins are a rare species these days.

“Well,” she said. “Maybe we could strike a deal.”

“Deal?”

“I have a fantasy,” she cooed. “Pretty similar to my husbands.”

I don’t believe I could have turned any redder than I was at that moment. But my arousal level was such that I let it pass and refused to run away as I have in the past.

“I very much like your fantasy, Jennifer,” I said. “But I don’t know how that would be possible.”

“You scared,” she said.

“Of you? No,” I said. “I just don’t know how sex between the living and dead is supposed to work.”

“You leave that to me, Roland. Just lay down beside me, close your eyes and use your imagination. We’ll soon see if you’re able to give me what they tell me I’ve been missing all these years.”

As I lay there I felt myself fall out of my clothes and into the loving soul of Jennifer Owen. How I removed the dress is beyond me, but there it was, draped over the headstone.

The howls heard that night were nothing to be afraid of. Just two soul-mates finding each other in the strangest of all places.”