Shudder - The College Years Ch. 07

This prospect terrified Bethany. She pointed to herself and asked, "Have you ever...have you...been inside me and I don't remember?"

Martha approached her. It was the first time Nevyn had been in a female body and so far he did not care for it but he pushed any other curiosity aside. Martha dropped to her knees in front of Beth, something that Nevyn regretted because Martha's knees apparently did not like that position. "No! I have not possessed anyone since I met you and fell in love with you. Now that we are to have a child together, I want you to know the truth about who I really am and, maybe one day, you can forgive me."

He tried to take her hand with Martha's, but she recoiled at the potential contact. Coldly, she said, "Put them back how they were."

Martha hung her head, then walked over to Ned and touched his arm. It shuddered, and a few seconds later, Ned was telling Martha and Henry that they had just popped over to tell them the good news that they were with child. The old couple absorbed this information wordlessly and just stood there as Nevyn and Bethany saw themselves out.

This time, Bethany led the way. She walked quickly and purposefully. She was first through their door and slammed it behind her. As Nevyn saw the door slam in his face, he ran the last few steps and twisted the knob. He pushed forward, but Bethany had engaged the dead bolt and the door held fast. He pounded on the door and tried to keep his voice calm. "Bethany, open the door! We can talk about this. It's going to be alright. We're still married. Nothing has changed."

He heard her scream her response, "Everything has changed! And we are not married because you are not my husband!"

Nevyn went into a blind panic mixed with a bit of rage. He had made a horrible mistake. He should have never told her. He needed to fix it. He needed to take it all back. But how could he? But he knew how. He just needed to touch her and he could make it right. He kicked the door. It creaked, but nothing else. He kicked it again and again but it would not open. She had begun to scream each time his foot connected with the door. She was wailing hysterically. Nevyn needed to fix this, fix her. He had not wanted to upset her or bring this misery upon her. He had been so foolish.

He ran to his shed and retrieved a large ax. He returned and swung it expertly at the door. The first hit left a large dent. The second created a hole big enough for him to reach his hand through. He disengaged the dead bolt and let himself inside. She saw the ax and her screaming reached another octave of distress. The neighbors would come. He dropped the ax and ran towards her. He didn't see the knife she had until it was too late. She tried to stab it deep into his heart, but missed and it entered his shoulder. He cried out in pain but his hands were on her now. She looked at him, eyes wide with fear as one of her arms he clenched began to shudder.

"No, damn you! Stay out of me!" she had yelled. Then an eerie silence settled over the house.

Nevyn looked out from Bethany's eyes. He looked at the knife that protruded from the body he had been in for two years. It had not been one of their sharper blades and so it had not gone deep. Still, the wound would need to be cleaned and dressed, and quickly. Nevyn's mind raced as he thought of everything that must be done to cover up the mistake that had been this night. He took Ned's hand and led him into the kitchen and carefully extracted the knife. As he did, he was aware of a host of new sensations. It was the second time in his life he had known what it was to have breasts. But that first experience had been mixed with the unpleasant nature of feeling very old. In Beth's youthful body, he was able to appreciate the not so subtle differences of the female form. He did his best to ignore the pleasant sensations as he carefully put on a pot of water to boil in their fireplace. He told a suggestible Ned there had been an accident. He had gone out to collect firewood, and upon his return, Bethany had stabbed him, thinking him an intruder.

As Nevyn had resided in him for two years, Ned did not come out of his stupor for a full fifteen minutes. When he did, he saw his wife tending to his wound. "I...what happened?" he began.

She shushed him and kept cleaning the area carefully with a wet cloth. When Nevyn spoke in Beth's voice, it was easy for him to convey the dismay she should fee. "You fainted there for a minute after I attacked you. Honey, I'm so sorry! Can you ever forgive me?"

Ned shook his head. He felt like he had been sleeping for a very long time. But he recalled what was important as he answered, "Of course darling. You're the mother of my child." And he carefully leaned forward to kiss her.

She leaned away from the oncoming lips. Nevyn did not particularly want to kiss a man, not then, and he thought probably not ever. What he wanted was to get out of Beth's body, but he needed to fix the damage he had done. He was already thinking on how to do that. He would need to experiment with creating new memories, fabrications that would replace the last few hours.

Ned thought his wife pulled away because of the shame she felt for hurting him. He used his good arm to pull her close anyway, and kissed her passionately on the mouth. To him, it felt amazing, almost new, and it excited him. In his state, he should have stayed still and let his wife try to bandage him and stop the blood flow. But he also wanted her in the worst way for some reason, even though he could recall bedding her many times before.

Beth's body squirmed briefly against Ned's strong arm, and then seemed to relent and return the kiss. Nevyn quickly drew deeper into Beth's psyche to better emulate her responses to her husband's affection. Her hands groped for the bandage she had prepared, while her kisses increased in passion. She stopped briefly to gingerly place the bandage on Ned's shoulder, and then resumed kissing him with vigor. Nevyn didn't understand all the sensations he was feeling, but they all felt good. Ned was pawing at the breasts Nevyn possessed and each squeeze and caress conveyed a burning desire.

As Nevyn let Ned undress Beth's body, it wouldn't stop shaking, as if about to be taken for the first time. Ned marveled at his wife's body and he moved slowly, methodically, as he drank in the sight of her. She blushed at his attentive gaze. He led her to their bed and she momentarily tried to discourage anything further, claiming his wound would bleed. But his grip on her, both emotional and physical, was a powerful force that saw them both give in to a need they struggled to understand. Ned positioned himself atop her clumsily. He struggled to gain entrance, but enjoyed the sensation of his cock sliding up and down on her slit that was becoming increasingly slippery.

Beth did not help him, but seemed transfixed on what he was doing. She was doing her best to look down, her eyes darting to her large breasts, and down at her husband's erection that kept missing the mark. Her reaction to him as he finally inserted himself was one of lust, then a fluctuation of horror, then lust again. Nevyn had never known anything like this before. It was a new way to have sex, and it felt amazing. Instinctively, Beth's arms wrapped around her husband and tried to pull him deeper into her.

Ned watched as his wife seemed to come alive beneath him. She was all movement now, not in the squirming way that she had tried to extricate herself from him earlier, but her hips bucked upwards with a frenzy. One her hands was groping her own breast, squeezing it passionately and then pinching the nipple. She was becoming very loud, moaning with every thrust. Ned's eyes tracked her other hand as it reached down her stomach. It moved slowly but steadily but with a certain trepidation. Ned was enjoying the show up top, never remembering his wife behave so provocatively in bed, but he was curious where that other hand had ended up. He looked down and saw his dick going in and out of his wife's warm folds. Her hand was just above that and her finger seemed to be rubbing an itch. The more she did, the louder and more frenzied she became.

Beth came loudly and for a brief second her husband looked at her in a panic. He stopped thrusting, and she looked at him as if trying to work out a complicated math problem in her head. Something was dawning on her as she smiled wide for her husband. "I can...I can keep going. I didn't know that I could keep going. This is wonderful. Keep...keep doing that husband. Keep going into me."

Ned did not understand all her words, but got the important ones. He resumed plowing his wife with renewed vigor, and she came once more, followed by him shortly after. They both lay there panting in the bed. She looked over at him and sat upright. The bandage was completely soaked with blood and he looked a little pale. Beth moved quickly to retrieve more water. "I told you not to exert yourself so much. I will get you a new bandage. You rest."

Ned obeyed his wife, and she rewashed and patched him up again. He loved her so much. The time they'd spent together seemed to be flying by. He swore it was like they just got married yesterday.

The couple made love more than they usually did over the course of the next month. It seemed like Beth's body was insatiable, something Nevyn attributed to her never having had an orgasm before. Her body's reaction during his first time of having sex as a woman had greatly surprised him, and he had examined her memories for a clue to this new behavior. It turned out she had always like sex, had felt good during it, but had never achieved a proper climax. He resolved to do better when he had restored everything to normal.

At the end of thirty days, Nevyn felt like he was ready to make the switch back to Ned. He had thoroughly erased his confession in Beth's mind about who he really was and their visit to the neighbors, and of course her unfortunate response. In its place were carefully crafted and mundane memories that he left in their stead. He discovered creating new memories during times they had been outside his control was far more tedious. The new memories themselves seemed to have a fragility to them, but he chalked that up to his anxiety and paranoia.

When Ned came home from work that day, Nevyn let him kiss his bride. As he did so, his lips began to shudder. He tried to jerk away, but Beth's hands kept his lips pressed to hers, enjoying the point of view one last time. A few seconds later, Nevyn looked through his eyes at Beth. He caressed her face with both hands and stared at her vacant expression. He dearly hoped this would work. He held her face in his hands until her eyelids finally fluttered and she smiled up at him. "Oh my, sorry. I seem to have been daydreaming there. Welcome home." And she kissed him again. All seemed well.

All was well for three days. During each of those days, Beth behaved as she did normally. She visited neighbors, kept up their home, and doted on her husband who seemed eager to bed her more than usual. That wasn't so bad though, as she experienced a pleasant new sensation during their lovemaking. Her husband had touched her in places he hadn't before, at least not with his hand, and it had felt exquisite. But on the third day, a wall of suspicion seemed to spring up in her mind.

Beth made her husband breakfast and found herself staring at him angrily. She couldn't remember why she should feel such animosity towards him. When she pecked him on the cheek as he left for work, it seemed wrong somehow, like this was not the man she should be kissing. At first she blamed pregnancy hormones, but as the day progressed, they increased. For reasons she couldn't recall, she very strongly felt that in some way, Ned was not her husband. She wrestled with the idea of telling him this. She wanted his support, to be open and honest with him, but her mind was telling her that he could not be trusted.

When Ned came through the door many hours later, she took a leap of faith. She set him down at the table and held his hands. "Ned, something is wrong and I don't know what to make of it."

"What?" Ned asked with genuine concern. "Whatever it is we'll get through it together."

Beth looked at him and knew the love she'd always seemed to have for him, while simultaneously experiencing a deep distrust. "I don't know where to begin. It's just, when I awoke this morning, I felt...different about you?"

Ned's hands tightened ever so slightly around hers and his expression grew grim. "How so?"

She shook her head, not understanding her own feelings. "It's hard to put into words. It feels like I've forgotten something about you. Something that you've hidden from me and I..." She stopped as her hands began to shudder. In those precious few seconds, she didn't remember everything, but remembered enough. She stared horrified into her husband's eyes and asked, "What have you done?"

Nevyn regained control of Beth and immediately began a thorough examination of her mind to see where he had gone wrong. The memories he had created were still there, but they now seemed off. He could not describe how he knew. It is like looking at a picket fence where each slat is painted the same color except one, which is only the slightest different shade. At first, it all appears the same, but upon further inspection, the difference becomes glaringly obvious. When held up against other memories, the new ones he had fabricated wreaked of falsehood. And worse were the memories he had wanted her to forget had begun to take shape again as if he had never erased them at all. Given enough time, everything he had said and done that night would return.

He fought panic for a moment as he inspected other things he had edited or done while inside her last time. Everything he wanted her to remember the way he wanted her to remember it appeared normal. What he had made her do while he had been controlling her, she accepted as reality. What she didn't accept was the new information he had placed during a time he was outside her body. He reasoned he hadn't made the memories strong enough. It was a learning experience. He would try again. He was determined to make it work.

Over the course of the next two months, Nevyn played the part of dutiful young bride and expectant mother. For reasons unknown, Beth's libido was even stronger now, and Nevyn would drag Ned onto the bed the second he came home every day. Ned didn't complain. He took care of her needs in the bedroom, and doted on her and surprised her with gifts he had made for the baby. Nevyn spent every moment possible creating great detail to every memory he supplanted. He would think about them so often that even he could almost imagine they were real.

Nevyn could have left Beth's body earlier. He was much more confident this time that the memories would hold, but he was thoroughly enjoying the pleasures of her body. He wondered if all pregnant women felt this way. As Beth's breasts began to swell, Ned became enamored more than ever with them. They were often tender, and didn't always like to be touched, but sometimes Beth could almost orgasm as Ned lightly caressed them.

At last though, after they had just made love, Nevyn hopped back into Ned's body. He waited for his bride to stir. When she did, she gave a contented sigh. Nevyn asked, "Is there anything I can get you my love?"

"I've think you've given me quite enough for now. Good night. I love you."

Nevyn looked at her as she breathed softly, slowly slipping into sleep. He hoped he would never have to possess her again. That's what he told himself, but another part of him wanted to feel what a woman felt as a finger touched her erogenous zones. He tried to shake that out of his mind, but couldn't. Why was he so horny all the damned time? He supposed it was okay to try to get it all out of their system before the baby arrived. They'd probably never have time to do it again after that.

Nevyn watched Beth closely every morning and every evening. She was in full nesting mode and was knitting things the child could wear or moving furniture around. Nevyn did whatever she wanted without complaint. On the third day, he watched her more closely than ever. If they got past this day, maybe the memories would hold indefinitely. In the morning before he left, she kissed him and told him of her plans to go to the market. He told her that if she should feel odd in any way to come to him immediately. She gave him an odd look, but told him she would.

Nevyn could barely keep his eyes on his projects that day. Instead of eating during lunch, he raced home to check on Beth, but she was not there. He cursed himself as he thought that maybe she had come to his work while he was gone. He finished out his day, and raced home again. She was still not there. He began pacing. He was terribly worried and frustrated by the lack of control he had. It was nearing dark and he was about to go searching for her when he heard footsteps outside. He tried to calm his breathing, but his anxiety was written on his face as Beth opened the door to their home. His eyes quickly snapped to the ax she carried in her hand.

Beth saw her husband's eyes on the ax and began to laugh, "I'm sorry if I scared you husband. I know you've been nervous around me ever since the incident with the knife. If I'm to make your favorite stew tonight, you'll need to bring me some more firewood. Hurry before it's too dark."

Nevyn approached her cautiously. Her eyes followed his hesitant movements, and right before he was in front of her, she lifted her arm up. He jumped back and she broke into a fit of laughter. "I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. You seem as nervous as a frightened rabbit. Here, take it, I promise I won't come at you, silly husband."

Nevyn tried to shake it off with nervous laughter. He snatched the ax and walked outside. He quickly chopped a small pile of wood they had stored and brought it inside for the hearth. He saw his wife cutting vegetables on their table with a knife. His breath quickened again. The whole night he waited for the other shoe to drop, but it did not. The only thing he noticed was a concerned look she seemed to have as they crawled into bed at the end of the night. But she seemed to shrug it off and kissed him, letting her hand explore beneath his britches. After they made love, Nevyn continued to watch her as she slept. He held on for as long as he could, but soon his eyes were too heavy, and he joined her.

Nevyn awoke to the feeling of something heavy on his chest. He couldn't see anything. There was something soft pressed against his face, restricting his breathing. As his strong arms reached upwards to discover the source of this attack, he thought he heard crying. His hands felt the soft, supple skin of his wife. She was still naked, and she was pressing what must be her pillow over his face. She was trying to suffocate him. He frantically tried to push her off, but she clenched her knees to his sides and refused to budge. Her strength seemed almost supernatural. As a lack of oxygen started to dull his senses, he thought of becoming her as his hand touched her shoulder.

As Beth's shoulder began to shudder, her grip on the pillow slackened and she cried out, "No! You monster! Leave me be!" And then all was quiet in the house.

Beth removed the pillow of Ned's face and his body started gasping for air as his face maintained a stony expression. Beth began to sob. Nevyn could not control the hormones racing through this body, and didn't seem to be able to control memories outside of the window of possession. He would try again though. He would not give up. He loved her enough to never give up. But as the months stretched on, her attempts to kill him did not cease. Every third and fourth day, she would slowly question her husband's identity, until it was too much for her and she had to defend herself and her unborn child through whatever means necessary.