The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women (Mammoth Books)

“We never did, and I don’t recall any complaints in the past, so long as there was plenty of this.” With a wicked grin, she produced a bottle of wine from her capacious shoulder- bag.

Every remnant of ill-feeling vanished as she whipped up a quick supper. It was like old times again. She phoned Andrew to warn him she’d be home late, and put him on speaker so Imogen could hear and join in a joking, friendly, three-way conversation. When they were doing the washing-up, Imogen said wistfully, “We should do this more often.”

“I don’t know about you, sweetheart, but I wash up after every meal.”

Imogen laughed. “Idiot. I’ve missed you. Missed us.”

“Me, too.”

Walking through her front door on Thursday night (9.56 by her phone), although it was dark and still, Imogen felt another presence there.

“Ray?” she called sharply. “Hello?” Her skin prickled; what if it was him?

With the light on, she could see into every corner of the sparsely furnished, open-plan living room and kitchen. There was nowhere to hide, unless – looking one way – behind the half-open door of the bathroom – or, at the other end, in the bedroom. She scarcely breathed until she had checked both rooms thoroughly, even peering inside the built-in wardrobe in the bedroom, and the narrow airing-cupboard in the kitchen. But she remained tense, even knowing she was alone, so she phoned Rachel.

“How’d it go?”

“I’m on the train.”

“I wasn’t expecting the porno version.” At the familiar sound of her friend’s snorting laugh, Imogen relaxed at last. “I just wanted to check that everything was, you know, all right.”

“Mmm, good question. Not sure what to say.”

Suddenly suspicious, she demanded, “Is he with you?”

“What? No, of course not! I said, I’m on my way home. There’s the tunnel.”

“Catch up tomorrow?” She was talking to a dead phone.

The abrupt end to that unsatisfactory conversation left Imogen feeling on edge, but she went through her usual routines, tidying the already tidy flat, and put herself to bed before eleven o’clock.

She was tired, and her thoughts soon drifted into the surreal jumble that presaged sleep. Turning on to her left side, she snuggled deeper into her pillow, and caught a faint whiff of Jo Malone’s Pomegranate Noir – Rachel’s signature scent.

By now her own body-heat had warmed the space between the sheets, and with that warmth, other smells were released from the bedding: body odours that were not her own, sweat and musk and ejaculate, the unmistakable smells of sex.

And then she could hear them – laboured breathing, low grunts, the slap of flesh against flesh – and feel them, too, a woman and a man in bed with her, one on either side of her—

It wasn’t real, of course. It couldn’t be. If she’d suddenly found herself in bed with two other naked people she would have been repulsed by it, felt disgust, or fear. But instead, half-asleep and knowing she must be dreaming, it was safe to become aroused. These two people, so focused on their own sexual pleasure, stirred desires she kept buried, hidden from her conscious mind. The man behind her was a stranger – it didn’t matter who he was. The woman whose soft large breasts pressed against her own was Rachel.

This was Rachel as she’d scarcely dared to imagine her, yet knew she must be, powerfully erotic, sexually voracious. As Imogen allowed herself to be overwhelmed by the power of the fantasy, she heard her friend whispering to her, words she’d actually said once when talking about masturbation.

“You shouldn’t feel guilty. That’s crazy! It doesn’t matter what you think about while you’re doing it – whatever gets you off is fine; it doesn’t matter what crazy, sick thing turns you on, so long as it stays inside your own head. Nobody ever got hurt by a private fantasy. It’s the safest sex there is.”

In the morning, though, Imogen was not so relaxed. The first sip of coffee seemed to curdle in her stomach, and she felt sickened by herself, and then angry with Rachel. Why couldn’t her friend have followed her own advice, and kept her fantasies locked inside her own head? Why did she have to soil Imogen’s bed with them?

She poured the rest of her coffee down the sink and, although there was scarcely time for it, hurried back to the bedroom, intending to strip off the dirty sheets, rather than leave them festering with their alien stains and smells for another day. But as soon as she saw her bed she realized it wasn’t necessary. Rachel had changed the bed after using it. The dirty sheets and pillowcases were in the washing machine in the kitchen – a fact she had noticed before going to bed, and then forgotten.

She leaned down and sniffed the pillow. She could just about pick up traces of herself – skin oil, face cream, shampoo – but nothing remotely like Rachel’s perfume. When she put her head under the covers she smelled the lavender scent of her fabric conditioner, and nothing else.

Those smells that she thought had triggered an erotic fantasy had been part of the fantasy – part of the dream. It had been a dream, of course, with no conscious desires behind it at all. The knots in her stomach loosened. Dreams were nobody’s fault. You couldn’t blame yourself for what your unconscious got up to while you slept.

Text messages flew back and forth between Imogen and Rachel over the next few days, but despite reiterated declarations that they must meet, or at least talk, their busy schedules made it impossible before Thursday came around again.

There had been no repeat of that disturbingly erotic dream, and Imogen had almost managed to repress the memory of it until that morning, when she woke up thinking about Rachel and her faceless, nameless lover, who would soon be going at it like knives in this very bed, between her own, used sheets.

She didn’t know if knowing his name or what he looked like would have made it better, or worse, but she was tormented by the sense of being unfairly used. Maybe she had no right to judge Rachel for the betrayal of her marriage vows, but wasn’t more respect due to their friendship? Changing the sheets was the merest gesture; all that frenzied passion must leave traces that could not be easily washed away, a charge in the atmosphere, a kind of miasma in the bedroom that affected Imogen’s sleep and gave her bad dreams. She wished she had made more of an effort to talk to Rachel; she should have insisted on seeing her. It was too late now, of course, but she decided tonight was the last time. She would ask Rachel to give her back the key.

Mounting the deserted concrete stairs that rose through the large, quiet building, at a quarter to ten, Imogen tingled with anxiety, again plagued by the feeling that someone was waiting for her inside. Not even the sight of the clear, empty vista of the main room was enough to calm her nerves, and she was obliged to check out the bathroom and empty bedroom thoroughly before she could relax.

This time, she did not miss the fact of clean sheets on her bed, and deliberately took several deep, calming breaths of the soothing scent of lavender as she settled down to sleep.

But it happened again. As her own body heat raised the temperature within the warm cocoon of the bed, something else was released, as if memories of what had taken place in that space a few hours earlier had left spores ready to blossom into life under the right conditions. All the smells of sex wafted over her and she heard the animal sounds of vigorous fucking, and while a small, civilized part of her was repulsed, and a little frightened, by this activity going on in her own bed, her body was melting, yearning, opening with the longing desire to be a part of it.

They were so close, so close, but at the same time impossibly distant, their desires never meeting hers, so completely focused on each other that they didn’t even know she was there. They were all in the same space, but separated by time. And so, although she found herself between them, they were blissfully unaware of any impediment, intent only on satisfying themselves through each other, as if Imogen did not exist, as if she were of less substance than a ghost.

Maybe she was only a fleeting thought passing through Rachel’s mind, a weightless fragment of gratitude and guilt, gone before it could be acknowledged, as the other woman hurtled, with single-minded intensity, towards her own satisfaction.

Imogen could not connect. The other two made love through her, without her, and although she was unbearably close to them, forced to witness their coupling, to smell and hear and almost feel their moving bodies on either side of her own, she could not make them feel her. She could only join in, steal a share of their pleasure, by pretending. This was no guilt-free dream, no dream at all. They were in her bed, but she