80 - The Case of the Grandmother's Love

"Many people need help in their marriages," Roberta said, a hint of tiredness in her voice. She rose and found the shortest candle, the one nearest to going out. "And they do not always appreciate that help, but may benefit from it anyway. Such a thing happened in this very town. In what I call

THE CASE OF THE GRANDMOTHER'S LOVE

The St. Louis Tribune reported the **** of Ann Henshaw, dead of a **** overdose. Her husband had disappeared long ago, down in Mexico. The son, John Henshaw, went to live with his grandmother, Catherine Grumman, in Dagon's Hollow. A skeleton of a life can be pieced together from census records, school yearbooks, listings in the Hollow Herald. For years, it was just the two of them in the house on Second Street, on the Eastside. Catherine told fortunes and made investments.

I suspect so many things about what happened in that house as young John Henshaw grew up. Nothing I or anyone else can prove. What happens behind closed doors. Families keep many things among themselves.

He graduated high school. Then university. A master's degree in history. A first book on the history of fortune-telling. Dedicated to his grandmother.

It was she who put out the lonely hearts ad in the Hollow Herald. The one that brought Ann Blaisedell into his life. The newspaper reports Catherine Grumman's **** the day after the ad was answered.

A brief courtship. The couple were well-matched. She had studied finance, helped manage Catherine's investments. By the time they celebrated the first anniversary of their relationship, one year to the day after Catherine Grumman had died, their future was set.

Which is when John Henshaw came to me.

"Ann, my wife, has been acting strange. We both stay at home, most days, in different parts of the house. Her doing finance, I at my research. Yet ever since the anniversary, she has been acting strangely. Nothing I would go to a doctor over, you understand, there is nothing wrong with her health. Only there are times during the day or night when she suddenly—her expression changes. She rises from whatever she is doing and begins to shed her clothes. Ann walked naked into my office, and—"

I had seen Mrs. Henshaw. She was not unattractive. Short, with a tendency to plumpness; with large breasts and a larger ass; long, dark brown hair, and fair skin, freckled where the sun kissed it, and an easy smile on a generous mouth. She rarely wore makeup or dressed well, but was warm and genuine. In body shape, I must say, she very much resembled Mrs. Grumman, in her younger days.

John Henshaw's face contorted as he struggled with something he would not tell me.

"—I've always been the proactive one in our sexual relationship. It was the first time she had initiated things. She was...very demanding. I wasn't upset, really. I've always found Ann sexy, but the way she...it wasn't like her at all. It reminded me of someone else."

"A past lover?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, with evident relief. I asked no more questions on that score.

"Ann sank onto me, just as she once had. Memories assailed me of how she would come into my room, after I graduated high school. Always naked. Stroking me until I was hard. Sinking onto me, pressing her breasts into my face. It was like reliving that all over again. The way her muscles would flex to milk me. How her heavy body would rock back and forth in my lap. It was intense. I couldn't hold it any longer—and then she said—then she said: 'Do it, my little man. Go ahead. I want to feel it inside me. Give me everything you want. Don't you want to put a baby in me?' And I erupted. 'Little man' was—it was what my—former lover used to call me. Her little man."

"And this has happened often?" I asked.

"Two, sometimes three times a day. Even when I thought I was spent, she would coax it out of me. And yet every time, afterwards, she would sort of blink and look down at herself and—she didn't accuse me with words, but her eyes were hurt, like she didn't understand. Like I was the one who had stripped and made love to her!"

I agreed to look into things. So I spoke to Ann, his wife.

"I don't know what comes over me," she said. "One minute I'll be checking our investments and the next—it's like I'm in a waking dream. I know I'm dreaming, yet my body moves on its own. I can feel everything. I've seen the strange mix of fear and lust that comes over John's eyes when he sesees me. Hear the words that come from his mouth. I know that he married me, but sometimes I feel that—shadow—over both of us. Someone he won't talk to me about."

To this, I could only nod. I am only a researcher of the paranormal, not a marriage counselor. In truth, I might have said more, but it hardly mattered. Within a few weeks, the episodes stopped. Their normal married life resumed—with one exception. The couple were now expecting a child. A girl. They named her Catherine, after her great-grandmother."

It was Latoya who spoke, a gleam in her eye.

"And is there a sequel to that story?" she asked.

Roberta did not meet her gaze.

"Not yet. Perhaps when the daughter comes of age—well. I won't speculate. Only wait, and watch."

So saying, Roberta blew out the candle.