Hi! Today's my first paywall! Also, another ghost story.

Kathleen Turner, weird art and bikes. Well, hello.

Provincetown Massachusetts is on the farthest tip of Cape Cod. 

It’s a gay haven….well, now queer haven.

I have been to such places in my lifetime but never Ptown.  Friends had asked me there many times but something always came up.

About 5 years ago my dearest friends, Marc and Joey said that I “Just had to go” and it “must be with them”. I ignored my distain for Massachusetts and their heralded history of burning witches and packed my car.

It’s not so much Massachusetts as anything colonial.  Which is tough having lived most of my life in the original 13 states but New York City remains feeling different than Massachusetts, Connecticut and those other areas that have embraced their colonial roots and whatever pilgrim chic might be.

So there we were. A perfect sunny warm October weekend. You know everybody gets around Provincetown on bikes.  I don’t like bikes. My crotch doesn’t like bikes. Since a motorcycle accident at age 19 where I suffered amnesia I stay away from things with wheels and no doors.

But this was a “when in Rome” weekend and I promised myself I would find that joy.

Immediately after checking into the hotel it came to our attention that this weekend was the Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival. Every venue had a production of one of his works for the entire weekend.

The only available tickets were at the theatre in the Provincetown Inn.

Marc squealed:

“Oh my god I can’t wait to take YOU there”

“Aaron stayed there 5 years ago and woke up to a ghost of a woman standing over his bed with a string of pearls!!!”

I hear these kinds of things a lot. As a psychic medium, everybody wants to take me somewhere grim.

Joey looked at me.

“Girl. You’ve got to see the murals they have hanging in there. Fucking weird.”

We purchased the tickets, got on our bikes and rode all the way to the end of the cape to the inn. It sits right where the Pilgrims first landed.

So we went inside and Joey grabbed my arm to run through the lobby and down the hall before the Great Room to see all the murals.

There must have been 10 of them depicting different scenes.

Weird it was.  One was called Pilgrims first Laundry.

There were pilgrims standing knee deep in the ocean fully dressed with blank looks on their faces just holding old clothing.

On the next panel—seemingly in the same scene---there were 1920’s sun bathers in their tank suits with stereotypically dressed Native Americans waving to them from the shore.

Then a group of children playing in the middle of the street. One child had his entire fist in his mouth. Among my friends he has come to be known as the bulimic child. Each mural possessed an image that made you say “What were they thinking?”

The closer to the great room we got the warmer and more flush I got.  I turned to look into it and I felt full on nausea.  I saw visions of nooses and torture and blood shed in pleasure.

I felt hot and cold at the same time. I sensed moans and screaming.  Pasty bodies on top of each other.  I couldn’t tell if it was an orgy or a killing spree. I surmised both.

We heard a womans voice call for everyone to be seated in the theatre.

I looked at my friends and said “You mean we’re still staying for the show?”

They looked at me and rolled their eyes.

The show added to all this discomfort as it was a 45 minute tribute to domestic abuse.

A show called Death of Drag Queens or something uplifting like that.

The actress Kathleen Turner was in the front row and even that didn’t warm our queer hearts enough to take the edge off.

During the show I kept feeling the scratching of what felt like two finger nails on my left hand.

It was quick and I brushed it off. It continued through the second act and then the show was over.

I ran out of that Provincetown Inn.  We rode back to the hotel, had a night cap and went back to our rooms.

At 3:30am I woke up from scratching on my arm. That same scratching. The two fingers.

I looked up and saw a clear vision of a woman in the bathroom mirror.

“Take me back”

She spoke! I heard her voice not just in my head as I do with my usual clairaudience but it felt loud as if we were sharing the same space.

I laid down and tried to close my eyes but her presence in the room felt like a living human.

“Please take me back!”

She sounded both desperate and threatening.

I sat up, collected myself, threw on a sweater and got on that god damned bike again.

She was with me. Attached to me.

We rode the two miles back to the Provincetown Inn. I could feel the flush to my face again. Like I did when I saw the great room. 

I saw the trees rustling but I couldn’t feel any wind on my body as I rode down Commercial Street. It was like being suspended in time. The scratching on my hand non-stop.

I felt like I was in the presence of a hundred people but I was alone on the dark streets.

My head was burning hot from the neck up.

I rode into the front driveway of the hotel, struggling to maintain my balance as the bike hit the gravel.

Suddenly I felt the heat from my face lift up and off. And the scratching finally stopped.

And then I was alone and I could feel the wind whipping around me again.

I felt the intensity of her relief.

I rode slowly back to my hotel. Wondering why she attached herself to me as I struggled up the steep Cape Cod hills.

And drove my car everywhere for the rest of the weekend.