HONORABLE MENTION, Spring 2025
The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award
BY CHRISTINE GRIFFITHS
Snigger all you like; I’ve met a man online. He’s my delicious secret; I’ve not told anyone yet. My friends would take the mickey relentlessly.
He swiped right on me. Me.
I’m not a tragic figure desperate for love, ready to give my heart, soul, and bank account details to the first exotic voice on the computer who shows some interest. There were no requests for urgent injections of cash so he could flee Lithuania, or some other suitably distant locale, and rush to his new darling’s side. I’m aware of these scams. It’s nothing like that.
We’ve already met. I’m relieved to report he’s not a sweaty, out of work troll living in his mother’s house, preying on middle-aged ladies. He’s a good-looking guy, a very good-looking guy, about the same vintage as me, and he lives locally. He’s real.
I can’t believe my luck.
I’m old enough to still think internet dating has a slight stigma to it, but the seventy-five million plus (SEVENTY-FIVE MILLION!) users on Tinder can’t all be weirdos. My niece dated a guy she swiped on who she eventually married, so it’s the new normal, I guess.
But I’m near 60, divorced, and entirely without illusions. I don’t want another husband; they’re all looking for a maid or a nurse at this point, if they’re out of the dolly-bird market. Bugger that, I was those two things and more for years of child rearing and home making. And I kept down a good job. Now it’s me time.
Not ‘me too’ time, though; I’ll not have any funny stuff. Any signs of lies and playing around, of pressure or manipulation, of requests to perform sex acts I’m not comfortable with, and I’m outa there.
Bradley. We’ve been meeting in arty little cafes all over town. When we do go public he will cause a sensation within my group, cos despite my being known as the “Showgirl,” they’ll look at him, then look at me—and conclude that there’s clearly a Pierce-Brosnan-and-his-less-than-Hollywood-wife situation going on here. He is a silver fox, still taut—he must have been a stunner when younger— and is now more of a supermarket-brand George Clooney, if you will. He could easily get a much younger woman, but he’s chosen someone his own age, imperfectly shaped, not to say downright tubby, with what I like to call oyster-coloured hair (grey). How did this happen?
Well, he says he doesn’t want a woman who’s still fertile and will sooner or later, inevitably, want children. He’s done with all that. I’m a teeny bit offended, if I’m honest, that I am so clearly no longer fertile, but who am I kidding? I know a woman, long past menopause, who keeps sanitary products prominently displayed on her bathroom shelf, to give the impression she’s still impregnable, but how stupid does she think men are? Give me a break. I love that the drama and pain of menstruation, and the inconvenience of contraception, are over. Hallelujah.
There is a little voice inside me that says this is too good to be true. I can see Bradley with a bottle blonde, tall and elegantly thin, heavy gold jewellery clashing a bit with the over-golden spray tan, her clothes a little too young, a little too gauche, for the loose neck and mottled hands she can’t hide. I feel for that woman, I really do; she is fighting old age, fighting to stay visible. I get it. She’s the one I would expect to be on his arm. Not a no-makeup, no-manicure, no-bull old hippy like me.
I will not listen to that little voice. I will enjoy the crap out of this while it lasts.
Maybe you think I’m a fantasist. What is he doing with her? She’s dreaming. But I shouldn’t give the impression I’m a completely inexplicable choice. I’ve had an exciting, unconventional life. Amidst the child-rearing and the housekeeping, I’ve lived all over the world. I’m financially independent and have been since I was 30. I’m lively, funny, and curious. My name is Lola, ergo the Showgirl nickname (yes, Mum was a Barry Manilow fan), and that’s a name you just have to live up to, a name that’s probably been the catalyst behind a lot of my whackier life choices. Luckily, they’ve worked out, mostly. I’m interesting; Bradley must like that.
He doesn’t talk on and on about himself, which is unusual amongst men. I think he’s mentioned a career in finance, a house near the beach, grown up sons . . . or has he? Did I read it on his profile? Strange, I can’t quite remember. But he asks me constant questions and seems genuinely interested in what I say. It is intoxicating. I don’t know that much about him, I suppose. Should I worry?
I’m seeing him tonight. After several dates I feel comfortable enough to ask him over to my place, to reveal my whereabouts, as it were. If things take a turn for the crazy, he now knows where I live. But no one called Lola would stress about such things.
I dress more carefully than usual. I’ve decided on a simple Italian meal of fresh pasta and a zingy, orange-based salad. I’ve absolutely pushed the boat out with the wine. What a price it was! By the time the doorbell rings at seven, I’ve had a wee glass already. I reckon it’s allowed.
When I open the door and see him standing there with a bunch of peonies, a cheeky New Zealand pinot gris, and a hesitant smile, something goes loose inside me, something that feels like joy. I take a deep breath and pull him inside, place his offerings on the console and, well, throw myself at him.
His mouth is wide, mobile, and clean, a moist but not wet kiss, my favourite. His face is so freshly shaven that it feels like a teenager’s; there’ll be no rash for me tonight, and the way he smells, oh, it’s divine, hand soap and fresh linen, a hint of rosemary and mint, like a summer drink. I haven’t felt such desire in years, decades—my ex-husband’s indifference as great a barrier to intimacy between us as his gigantic beer belly.
Bradley pulls away, smiling a little uncertainly, his eyes drill mine, and I take his hand and lead him upstairs to the bedroom. He removes my clothes, hurriedly, inexpertly, and we fall onto the bed entwined like young lovers, without self-consciousness.
Without much self-consciousness.
The lovemaking is long and strange and beautiful. He gently pushes my questing hands aside and concentrates on my own body, and I see his eyes flash glacier-blue in the dim light from the open curtain. He says over and over, tell me what you want. And I do. I never have before, but I do.
When he subsides onto the bed next to me his face slides across my neck and I can feel it is wet. Is he crying? I don’t understand, but I’m beyond questioning it. I’m 59 years old and I have never had a night like it in my life.
At about four a.m. I jerk awake to see him staring at me. For a horrible moment his features are all jumbled and indistinct, but my vision clears, and his face resumes its normal parameters. He reaches to stroke my cheek, brushes back my hair. “Are you happy with the way you look?” he says.
Is he saying there’s something wrong with me? My inhibitions and self-consciousness pour back inside me in a deluge. He obviously thinks I’m past it after all. I could cry.
“I suppose I’m okay for my age,” I say. “Nothing that turning the clock back twenty-five years wouldn’t fix.” A flippant answer but my voice is small. I’m hurt, even though he seemed simply curious. But I fight the hurt; it comes from that old place of self-hatred inside and I should be over that by now. We never are, though.
I realise I’m very hungry, the pasta uncooked and the salad blackened and limp with oil, abandoned in the kitchen. But it is way too glorious in bed with this surprising Adonis to get up. Don’t spoil it.
I wake again two hours later, the room forming its familiar angles and colours in the dawn light. Bradley is not in bed. I listen—he’s in the ensuite. I hear grunting, a single low moan, and suddenly I am wide awake. Slipping out of bed and into my dressing gown, I tiptoe round his clothes on the floor and approach the bathroom door, put my ear to it; it seems a shabby thing to do, but I’m two-parts perplexed and one-part frightened, if I’m honest.
Silence, then tiny moans, a whisper: no, no, and the kind of moist, repeated slapping noise that is hard to misinterpret. I pull away from the door in surprise. Cringing with discomfort, I think, does it matter, though, is it my business? But I’m annoyed too, and a little repulsed. So, without overthinking it, I knock on the door. The noises cease.
“Bradley? I can hear you. I think you’d better leave now.”
More grunting and what sounds like small high voices. Jesus, is someone else in there?
Bradley clears his throat. “Lola. I, I’m having a little trouble. I’ll be out in a moment.”
I stand and wait for him, well away from the door, and in those few moments I become convinced that something monstrous will emerge from the bathroom. Why else would I be so chilled, so breathless?
Everything was going so well!
The toilet flushes, the water runs, but I hear no footsteps. The door opens abruptly and Bradley emerges. He’s got his underwear on and he’s smiling apologetically. I realise I am as far away from the door as it’s possible to get and still be in the room.
“Sorry Lola. It’s my knees. Erthritis.” And he reaches down, grimacing, to rub and slap them; they’re meaty red. He was massaging his knees? I am so embarrassed. I don’t remember ever being so embarrassed, and I’m renowned for saying the wrong thing.
And yet . . . erthritis? I misheard obviously. But I don’t entirely believe him. Chalk it up.
He had said last night that he needed to be home early, so he begins to gather his things and dress, and we say a lingering farewell at the front door. I watch him walk, a little stiffly, down the drive, thankful I have no neighbours to see him on this side of the house, and he turns and disappears up the road. He didn’t even bring his car.
It’s only half six; I go back to bed. But there’s something gritty on the sheets. Sighing, I put on the lamp and find a small amount of gravelly soil; I rub it between my fingers, trying to think where it came from. And there’s a root-cellar smell too, like the scent of freshly dug carrots. I am mystified.
He must have had dirt on his socks. Was he still wearing his socks?
I brush the stuff from the bed. But the last hour has been too unsettling to go back to sleep, so I decide to get in the shower. There’s more grit on the ensuite floor. But on the pale tile it isn’t the colour of dirt; it sparkles a little, as if it contains quartz. Curioser and curioser.
The hot water stings my overly stimulated parts; I haven’t felt that in a while. Nor the ache in my lower back and hip joints that have been rotated rather more than a life of office work requires. After my shower, when I’m slapping on some moisturiser (or anointing the leather with dubbin, as I think of it), something about my reflection gives me pause. I look closely in the mirror. Yes, the blemishes, the sun damage, the spider veins, have all faded. There’s a new density to my hair, even the extra neck I have on my neck seems tighter. I look amazing!
If that is what a night of good sex does for you, then give me more.
I have a cruisy day at work. Several colleagues comment on how well I look. It’s like that old sexist joke about needing a good rogering to glow you up. That’s me. I smile enigmatically; none of their business.
But by late afternoon I’m exhausted. I am too old for new love and late nights. Luckily, there’s an enquiry for a house viewing, and I can leave.
After that I see Bradley often. We always return to my place; he tells me his teenage sons are at home and their ears will bleed if they hear a woman in his bed. However, I don’t care anymore if there is a home he goes to or if there are sons; I don’t care if what he says he does for a living is true, because our nights together are fueling an astonishing rejuvenation in me, every day better, my gloss is back, the dark chestnut hair I had as a girl is growing in, even my weight is dropping. I’m filled with energy. And lust.
As I grow fresher, Bradley diminishes. His hair is thinning in unattractive patches, there are sallow lines pulling his mouth down, his body has become more scrawny than lean. He doesn’t stand so straight, so tall, and his knees pain him horribly. He still retreats into the ensuite and I hear the groaning and rubbing, the high pitched whimpers. But I don’t care what he’s doing.
We no longer look bafflingly ill-matched like Pierce Brosnan and his wife—unless I’m now the Pierce figure in this equation.
The sex has become fierce. I ride him mercilessly, lovelessly. I have started to scratch and bite him, and I taste not coppery bright blood but something sweeter, the organic herbal essence of him, like a green homegrown apple or the first tiny new potato of the season; the vitality of the very earth seems to flow through his veins. But when I clasp the newly sharp wings of his shoulder blades, I feel the hot guilt of the addict and I cry out: what are you, what are you?
I know I am extracting the life from him one orgasm at a time, his seed blossoming in me, feeding my skin, my bones. I know it. But I’m ravaged with a selfish, terrible greed even as he shrivels under me, and I can’t stop now.
It makes no sense, and if I let myself dwell on it I am terrified. So I don’t.
I will never introduce him to my friends or mention him to my family. I will not share him, risk another woman taking him. He is my fountain of youth. My work colleagues look astounded at the sight of me, especially the women; I must look like I’ve had Cher-levels of cosmetic interventions—but when? I haven’t missed a day of work. I’m avoiding my friends—I look 20 years younger and I cannot explain it; I have acquired a kind of beauty that I never had. Heads actually turn in the street as I pass. Soon I think I will have to move cities, change jobs, so I can continue my rebirth anonymously, eliminate the risk of those who know me asking unanswerable questions.
And I have unanswerable questions, too. Will Bradly be sucked dry, become as flat and desiccated as week-old road kill, blow away in the wind? Will my youthful beauty blow away with him?
I can’t let that happen.
I’ve always been handy with tools. Stupid not to learn to use them when you own as many houses as I do. I buy an expensive lock and deadbolt at the DIY store and install them on my bedroom door. I drill steel plates into the wooden floor around my bed—two at the head and two at the foot. I buy metres and metres of chain to thread through the rings on the plates and two sets of handcuffs. These I have to acquire online, as the flimsy tie-me-up-honey kind from Peaches & Cream just won’t do.
The next time Bradley comes round I chain him to the bed. I expect him to put up a fight after the first cuff clicks on one wrist, but he doesn’t. To be honest, I think he’s too frail. And maybe, this is what he wants.
He swiped right on me.
No teenage sons come round seeking their dad. No work colleagues or friends enquire, as far as I know. I suspect that’s because they don’t exist. I’ve come to think of him as a being of the natural world—a gourd, a turnip, a moss—but other, from the natural world that is a mile, god, three thousand miles, beyond what our science has gleaned so far—we ignorant humans, still in the stone age of knowledge. We understand next to nothing of the universe, even our planet. Nothing.
But why does he feed me youthful beauty? At the expense of his own life?
After several days I abandon the chains. Bradley can no longer lift himself from the bed. I clean more and more of that eerie, crystalline soil from the sheets. His body grows light, has taken on the look, and smell, of a root vegetable softening and drying in the fridge. A six-foot parsnip, long hairs sprouting on his pale orangey skin, a dusting of grey mildew forming in the deeper folds. I can barely discern a breath. If I continue to suckle from this creature I’m going to kill the golden goose dead. Hell, he looks dead already.
He barely speaks anymore. Even as I lie next to him and plead for him to tell me how to keep him alive, how to keep him with me. A week of silence is broken by only one utterance, a dry whisper: “I don’t know what I am. The reason I exist has been lost over millennia.”
But he looks serene; it is like he welcomes the rot, welcomes the earth. I stroke his rough skin and cry, cry to lose this astounding being, but mostly I cry for myself and my ferocious new vanity.
On the last morning he does speak. He opens his eyes with difficulty; only the palest sky remains from the astounding glacial blue of before. He takes one of my hands, so beautifully plumped: “Lola. Pass it on. We are the last.”
Then he goes still and I watch in horror as the strange vegetable matter that his body has become sags and sinks and crumbles to dust. And I wail, in grief, in rage.
Eventually I tip the glittery loam into a jar. I cannot bear to throw it on the compost. I clean the room, trash the bedding, remove all trace of the restraints. It’s over.
The first thing I notice is the scent. I think it is something going bad in the veggie drawer. But it’s me. I suppose I knew this would happen, knew it from the moment I started to change. When I stare into the ten-times-magnification mirror I see tiny hairs beginning to sprout on my skin, and my olive eyes are turning a deep-in-the-ice blue. I think I can hear tiny voices chattering, but can’t make out what they say. There’s a sickening sponginess to my joints. My knees ache.
I must hurry.
I update my will, clear out the house and write letters to each of my children. It is goodbye, but I won’t think of it. I can’t. I pack a bag and fly to Australia, settle into a very good hotel on the Sydney waterfront where the Opera House fills every window.
My online dating profile no longer fits so I create a new one. My image still makes me gasp and I have to invent many details for my backstory. Only then can I start to search.
It takes four hours to find him. He’s in his mid-fifties, without dependents. He’s taken early retirement and has money to burn. His faded allure makes me sure he will appreciate a glorious last blast of perfect beauty. And some excellent sex.
Dennis.
I swipe right.
Christine Griffiths is an award-winning writer of speculative fiction, mystery thrillers, and horror. Her work has been been published nationally and internationally, both in print and online. She lives in Dunedin, New Zealand, with her husband and son. More details about her can be found on her website: www.christine-griffiths.com