She stopped talking and gazed off into space for a split second. “Your aunt used to love my baking.” She got teary eyed and I got to my feet and walked around the desk to hug her.
“Aw, you’re missing your friend aren’t you?” She nodded her head as I patted her shoulder before drying her eyes and straightening up again. “Well I have to be going. I still have a few errands to run.” She turned and headed for the door before I could ask her how she got here with all the snow on the ground outside.
I soon forgot about the cupcakes and got down to business inputting returns that had been left on the desk two days ago into the computer that had to be at least twenty years old. I looked up almost an hour later, surprised that no one else had shown up yet.
My eyes fell on the box again and I got up to make some coffee in the little back office thinking how great it would taste with my cupcake. Once again my mouth watered in anticipation of my first taste of the sweet concoction.
I hummed as I moved around the room straightening things here and there as I waited for the slow drip coffee to start. I’d only grabbed a granola bar before leaving the house again this morning, which could be partly responsible for my sudden hankering for the sweet this early in the day. Whatever, I was suddenly ravenous and couldn’t wait to dig in, so I left the office and went back to my desk to dig in.
I took my time untying the ribbon from around the box, pulling the lid open and peered down at the four perfectly made cupcakes with the icing on top. I wish I could be half as creative as she is, they looked almost too good to eat.
As I lifted the first one to my lips I got that same feeling I’d had the first time she brought some by the house, like I’d had them before, although I know I’ve never had any this good. My eyes closed in ecstasy as I took my first bite and felt the soft creamy buttercream icing melt around my lips.
I made a humming sound of pleasure deep in my throat as the taste ignited my senses. I didn’t hear the door open but I felt a presence as if someone were standing over me, watching, and turned as I opened my eyes to see ‘him’ standing there, watching me as if transfixed.
My heartbeat accelerated and my breath hitched in my lungs as a weird sensation hit me in the gut. I felt as if I were going in and out of time and place as if I weren’t myself. And when he started walking wordlessly towards me I felt my nipples harden beneath the bulky sweater I’d found in my aunt’s closet.
Garrett
I somehow found my way into the old man’s library, one of the many places in the house I had yet to touch. For some odd reason, after spending the last twenty-years surrounded by computers and other elements of technology, I now find myself finding comfort between these walls. I get the feeling when I’m here that I’m very fond of books, and have been for some time.
I ran my finger along the spines of some of the classics he had there when all of a sudden out of nowhere I got the urge to learn more about the town I now called home. I know all the basics of course and had heard countless stories from the people who’d lived here most of their lives, but I wanted to know more.
But the thought of doing so from behind the cold impersonal screen of a computer did not appeal. I want to turn the pages of a book and see the history unfold. To smell the old familiar scent of pages that had aged with time. I stepped out of the room after fifteen minutes of looking without any luck. Something I found odd since grandpa seems to have been a history buff.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and called up, sure that Edie would hear me now that the vacuum was turned off. “Edie, do you know where the nearest bookstore is?” She came out of the room where she was busy dusting, a stout middle-aged woman in her late sixties who didn’t look a day over fifty.
I’d been shocked to learn she came with the house and had been my grandfather’s housekeeper for more than half her life. She no longer lived at the residence as she had in the early days, but wasn’t far and was always here like clockwork everyday rain or shine.
“That’ll be a ways away, why can’t you find what you’re looking for at the library?” As soon as she mentioned the place I got a quick vision of ‘her’. It’s not just my general disinterest in books that keeps me away from one of the oldest buildings in town, but knowing that she’s there means I won’t be caught dead stepping foot in the place.