A Benevolent Touch

James Price had been a very naughty man up until karma had finally taken it upon itself to collect. He'd spent most of his days working at a minimum wage job, which barely left him with enough money to pay his bills, and at night, that's where his desperation tested his self-control. He tried to tame his criminal nature, tried to progress more than society allowed him to for someone of his skin color. But it seemed everything around him, from the dirty dishes in his sink, to the eviction notices on his door were just reminders of the ropes tied around his wrists and feet keeping him from doing better than he'd ultimately been taught.

Tavis had warned me this man had turned a bit unhinged before we found him wandering about near the run down apartments by the river. He should've known by now restless spirits such as James Price will always be in distress until someone like myself brought his story to life and that's exactly what I was going to do, despite the hairs standing up at the back of my neck when I exited the car, a fair warning of what kind of situation I was walking into.

James sat by the sharp edge on the roof of the abandoned apartment building, his form in a translucent dark mass full of nothing but pain and anger. The roof was caving in where he resided so I kept my distance by the rusting metal door leading up to the roof. Tavis touched my flushed and cold-ridden cheek long enough to provide me with a mental picture of James' biggest regret prior to his death.

Apparently, his defeated soul had been pricked with hope the moment he decided to rob the woman who'd turn out to be the love of his life. He hadn't known it at the time. It wasn't until after he died in her arms that he knew what true helplessness felt like. He felt as though he couldn't escape the confines of his past and everything dark that came with it. He changed enough to make her fall for her him, hard enough to get her to say yes to marrying him, but not enough to keep her from the misery that followed after his death.

Linda was her name. Linda Aguilar. She'd been walking down the sidewalk after a night out with her friends when he chose to pull a gun on her, demanding money and anything valuable from her purse. She took one look at the desperation in his eyes and offered him some hot chocolate instead. He'd been confused, and quite frankly bewildered that this woman had been so kind to him despite him trying to scare her into giving up her possessions.

The sirens nearby had spooked him enough to drag her into an alley and force him to place the barrel of the gun to her forehead. There'd been no fear in her eyes at the time and it intrigued him enough to ask her why. Linda had been a cancer survivor, according to the information Tavis had given me. She was still alive today and still a spokesperson for the breast cancer foundation she started the day she'd been diagnosed. Linda never failed to talk about James during her speeches. Even after his death had caused a permanent strain on her lungs. He'd been there for every single one of them until Linda decided it was time for her to move on and find love in the arms of another stranger.

This is where James' presence became tainted with the darkness he'd grown used to before he met her. He'd taken the opportunity to come out of the spiritual lane and into the human realm when he heard me call out to the other loved ones belonging to my client. I wasn't new to conjuring spirits. I knew all the rules. I was just a bit out of practice after oppressing it for so long. My abilities only expanded when I lost Tavis to the reaper and I still struggled to keep them at bay. This unfortunate mishap hadn't come at a worse time.

"James, you can't stay here hoping she'll forgive you one day. You have to forgive yourself first," I mentioned as I read his consciousness and his dark presence left the edge of the roof to greet me in his death form. His eyes were paper white, with black veins cracking the surface, symbolizing his pain was still eating him alive. Even in his death state.

"Isn't that what your pet ghost is doing to you? You seem fine with it." James' menacing tone echoed inside my head as Tavis tried his best to keep my barrier strong enough to keep James' anger from distracting my focus. I shook his words off and focused on creating a more peaceful picture in my mind, so I could show James what was really waiting for him on the other side. Most troubled souls stayed in their death state only because of the impression that they'd descend straight into Hell for all the harm they'd caused while living. It was my responsibility to show them otherwise.

"Would Linda want you suffering like this?" I asked him and felt the distancing of emotion coming from Tavis. I tried to focus on the spirit before me but Tavis' had conjured up a memory that made me flinch as James slipped inside of me. The night Tavis had died replayed in my thoughts often. The pain of losing someone who was an extension of you was as excruciating as having to cut off a limb without anesthesia. This is what Tavis was trying to get me to understand. James' phantom pain had only gotten worse when Linda lost him because of his stupid mistakes...

He brought me back to the first night he and Linda had gotten intimate. A time in his life where he cared about nothing but repaying her for the kindness she'd shown him by overindulging her with pleasure. They'd come back to her apartment after dinner, tangled in each other's arms, locked in each other's desperate kisses. She smiled in between every peck he gave her and it expanded his heart into massive amounts of jubilant thumps.

There was more to Linda than just the beauty he saw on the exterior. There was a light in her eyes that refused to burn out and it only spread like wildfire when he buried himself inside of her so deep, she was forced to let the world know just how much desire she had for him. She'd been the only person in the world who meant something to him. Not being able to escape his past had not only killed him, but it had changed his favorite person in the process.

Linda still spoke highly of him, but there was no life left in her after she felt his soul leave his body the night he died from a gunshot wound to his chest. They'd been on their way back home from meeting her parents on a perfect spring evening, when they encountered an old enemy of James in the middle of the sidewalk, demanding they give him all of their possessions. Linda had none on her. And the only thing of value to James was standing beside him in a red dress, wearing the engagement ring he'd bought for her with all of his savings. He had stepped in front of her as she began to take the ring off to hand it to the robber and the robber had gotten trigger happy and shot him straight in his chest.

Linda still had that ring. She stared at it every night on her night stand before she let her slumber take over, according to Tavis. It was the only memory she had left of him and it pained James to see her so full of misery because of him.

"She's only miserable because she thinks you're still in pain. And she's not wrong, James," I informed him truthfully as he slipped out of me and reverted back to his solid form, his expression burning with contemplation as he pondered over my words. I had no business lying to the dead. They knew the truth no matter how hard I tried to cover it.

"What if I deserve to be like this?" he asked, his words bouncing off the walls inside my mind and I smiled when I saw how his essence had begun to dissolve into light slowly but surely.

"No one deserves to be like this. Not when they've tried their best to be the best they can be," I answered and the dark smokey clouds surrounding his soul began to dissipate until there was nothing left but a ball of energy, sprouting wings as it turned towards the vortex of light opening for him.

"Watch over her, James. Send her the right kind of blessings and you'll see just how much you can make up for all the things you never got to do with her," I suggested and I could see him smiling brightly in my mind as he descended into the light and planted one last memory in my thoughts of him and Linda together and in bed, staring into each other's souls and making promises he swore he'd keep until the day he died.

"It wasn't your fault, June," Tavis repeated into my thoughts as we made our way back towards my car. It was easy for him say considering I was the reason why he was stuck being a spiritual guide for all of eternity.

"Had I not shown up at your wedding and stopped you from marrying my best friend, you'd still be alive, Tavis," I reminded him and allowed for my words to sink in as I got into my car and brought it back to life. Tavis' cold touch on my hand made me jump slightly in my seat as he flooded my mind with the memories of all the nights we spent together in my bed, his cock buried inside me from behind, my filthy mouth cursing with every thrust he made into my core. Every nerve ending in my body sparked and I swallowed hard as I pushed him out of my thoughts and cleared my throat. I missed him. I missed him so bad, I could barely take a breath without feeling him rotting away inside my spiritual cage. Having him so forbiddingly in life, only made having him so freely in death that much harder.

"Who's our next target?"