Sex With a Ghost

We all have dreams about sex---whether we remember them or not---but last night was the first time I had sex with a ghost, more precisely with my husband’s ghost. We were both wearing L.L.Bean nightgowns that I doubt has changed in style since they first opened their store 101 years ago. I wear that style in the winters but Don wouldn’t have been caught dead in a nightgown or anything resembling pajamas when he was alive so I’m guessing my subconscious mind found it quite amusing to dress his ghost that way. Those L.L. Bean nightgowns are floor length and heavy flannel and this morning I woke up believing that back in the days when men wore them to bed as well as their wives they must have found them to be an effect form of birth control. They aren’t easy to manage in a dream; it must be twice as hard to do when you’re fully awake. Not to mention they do nothing for the seduction portion of the program. In my dream we kept getting them tangled up and twisted and it was nearly impossible to find the bottoms and buttons. We laughed as much as we made love.

I woke up briefly part way through that seduction phase of my dream and I remember thinking I’d better make this the best damn sex we ever had so Don would decide to stay here on earth rather than go back to where ever ghosts go when they aren’t haunting their widows. I also remember thinking that I’d damn well better fall back to sleep because that dream was too good to let go. Two hours later I woke up again with a smile on my face. I like the word 'damn.' Can you tell?

As fun as it might be to write about some of our most memorable intimate encounters while Don was still alive, I’ll resist the temptation. But I already did share the memory of getting poison ivy in my “Blue Berry Hill” entry and in my dog’s blog I may have already shared the story about the time he thought we were having so much fun he got out his rubber ring toy and looped it over my foot that was hanging off the bed. Don and I got to laughing so hard that all thoughts of romance went out the window. Jeez, I think I may have even written about the time we made love then slept overnight in the bed of the pick up truck. Unbeknownst to us we had parked right in front of a police station. In our defense it as late at night and foggy and the town was so small it didn’t even have a stoplight. What a surprise we had in the morning, people walking by and smiling down on us.

At one point in my distant past I entertained the idea of writing a romance novel and when I’m dead and gone my nieces will probably run across a notebook I kept back then of euphemisms. I hope they’ll find it parked next to the book, How to Write a Romance Novel, and will put two and two together before making any judgments. Back in those days of my Great Writing Obsession I had read a physiology-based article about how certain kinds of sex preformed in a certain order causes couples to imprint them selves on each for life. Chemical changes in the body and brain were involved, yada, yada, yada. I know I had one of those all consuming love scenes with Don but I’ve forgotten the technical terms for the different kinds of sex that has to occur over a short period of time for that imprinting for life to happen. In non-technical terms two of those encounters could be labeled ‘hot and wild’ followed closely by ‘slow and tender’ and ending in a flood of emotions that washes over the couple to the point of bringing tears. One or two additional kinds of pairing are thrown in there, too, but they escape my mind at the moment. I’m thinking they involve laughter and all five of our senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

We widows all miss the arms that held us, the words of love spoken and the tender smiles of caring so we dream about them, wish for them and cry over their absence. Unfortunately, I have no clever or logical way to end this the blog entry so I’ll just say this instead: I sincerely wish all of my widowed friends will soon have sex with their spouse’s ghost and more importantly I hope they’ll wake remembering all the details the way I did this morning. ©