The Hungry Ghost

by Dalena Storm

  They were seated at a two-top, separated by two half-empty glasses of wine. The atmosphere was bustling and the conversation had continued at a fast clip. They’d lost track of time.

  Madeline had just finished telling Sam how she’d started a new job as a barista that freed up plenty of time for her to write, and how she was as spiritual as ever, involved in a Buddhist meditation group and working on a new story about some kind of ghost.

  “It sounds like you’re doing really well,” Sam told Madeline, then waited for Madeline to return the compliment. Sam never felt like she was doing well, even though she should have. A lot had happened to her in the last year: a promotion, a new class to teach. She was the same as ever in most ways, but better, she hoped. Peter was still in her life. She hadn’t been able to change that, even though she had finally—only six months earlier—gone through with the divorce.

  And there had been no boyfriends in the meantime, even after the separation was final. “No girlfriends?” Madeline had asked, and while Sam hadn’t liked the implication she’d had to admit that no, there had been no girlfriends either. Madeline had seemed pleased about that.

  Sam was still waiting for Madeline to tell her it sounded like she was doing well too, but she didn't. She wasn't going to. Instead, she smiled and was silent, looking at her drink instead of at Sam. Her nails were painted red and she had rubies in her ears. Madeline was self-satisfied, Sam thought. She was used to being adored.

  Sam tipped back what was left in her wine glass. This was her signal to leave, to make a quick getaway. They’d already had two glasses of wine each. Sam needed to eat. She needed to grade. Most of all, she needed to escape Madeline.

  “Can I get you another?” the waitress asked, appearing out of nowhere.

  Sam started to decline, but Madeline interrupted her.

  “Just one more?” Madeline pleaded, fixing Sam with her eyes. Sam hid her sigh behind an automatic smile. It was the least she owed Madeline. Probably. One more drink, after a year of avoiding her.

  “All right, ladybug,” Sam consented, “but this is the last one. I really have to get home.”

  “I know,” Madeline said, and she seemed about to say more, but whatever it was she swallowed it.

  The waitress left, and the silence grew in her wake.

  “I feel like there’s so much I want to say to you,” Madeline said, looking at Sam intently.

  Then say it, Sam thought, but didn’t let the words out. She didn’t want to hurt the girl’s feelings, but she was frustrated by everything Madeline wouldn’t say.

  “Or maybe it’s not what I want to say to you,” Madeline continued, more slowly this time, her voice lowering seductively, “but what I want to do to you.”

  At that, Sam’s breath caught and she felt herself flushing. Here Madeline went again, being so inappropriate! The girl’s arousal, like the time she’d kissed her during the after-party, seemed to come on fast and overbearing—out of fucking nowhere—though Sam couldn’t deny that it excited her.

  “Is that right?” she asked. She’d meant it to sound coy, but it came out more than a little encouraging.

  The waitress arrived with their third glasses of wine. Madeline glanced at her in thanks and then waited for her to leave before taking a drink, as if she was considering what she wanted to say. Sam’s heart was pounding. She should shut this down. She shouldn’t lead Madeline on. But she could feel Madeline’s eyes running over her face and her shoulders, pausing at her chest—not that Madeline’s gaze would be rewarded there, considering the baggy fit of this damn dress—but still she looked anyway, perhaps imaging the shape of Sam’s breasts under the cloth. Sam could feel her skin reacting, her nipples puckering through her plain cotton bra. What would it feel like, to have Madeline touch her? Would Madeline like her nipples or no? They weren't to everyone's taste.

  “I’d like…” Madeline started, and Sam watched her search for the words, her lips parted as if in deep thought. Madeline set her wine down and leaned forward, one of her hands stretching across the table for Sam.

  Sam kept her own hands safely out of reach, though the skin on the back of her neck prickled. “Well, I’d start by kissing you,” Madeline decided. “Your lips, then your neck.” Madeline’s eyes continued to trace their way over Sam’s body as she spoke, lowering in tandem with her voice, which had grown heavy with want. “Your shoulder. Your arm. The palm of your hand.” Madeline reached for Sam’s hand, and Sam let her catch it this time, let her bring it to her mouth, where the girl’s lips kissed her palm. Madeline’s tongue touched her skin and her eyes rolled up to ensnare Sam’s. Sam felt an unbidden shiver tremble down her spine as warmth seeped from her belly to between her legs. She pulled her hand back, suddenly shy. “The skin between your breasts,” Madeline continued, and there was something very naughty about this sweet young girl speaking as she did, her lips curling lustily.

  It made Sam not care that she was older, with graying hair and rough patches of skin. She wanted to take this girl between her legs and hold her there, to ride her nose and the tongue that had brushed her skin. She could imagine Madeline’s face covered in her wetness.

  She would lick it off. She would eat her up.

  Chapter Three

  Peter was drunk again, but who the fuck cared? Sam obviously didn’t, or she wouldn’t have left. Wasn’t a man who’d been kicked out on his ass with nothing but the clothes on his back allowed to blow off some steam by having a little drink? Peter thought so.

  He had the very irritating urge to cry yet again and so he swallowed more down from the bottle of Jack Daniels that was lying beside him on the couch. Fuck crying. Peter had to toughen up; he had to be a man. He had to be strong, unaffected, emotionally lobotomized. These were all things he wasn’t, which was why Sam had left, wasn’t it?

  Desperate to avoid his own nagging thoughts, Peter jumped up from the couch and turned on some music. Guns N’ Roses. He played it loud, singing along until his lungs ached from the strain of it. His rent was overdue. The landlord would come down in a minute, maybe less, and bang on his door—harass him, the dick—but before he showed up Peter was going to suck up every second he could of this moment of liberation.

  Peter pulled his phone from his pocket and took an awkward, fumbling selfie of his gruff, gray-whiskered face. Tattoos showed on his arms, including the one that had been their version of wedding rings. That kind of thing was permanent. You couldn’t just take it off and throw it away. But Sam had thrown it all away, including Peter. She’d thrown him out with the fucking garbage.

  Peter thumbed open the social media app. He meant to post the selfie, maybe it would garner a scrap of sympathy—of recognition—but instead he got sucked into the world of Facebook memories. There was their wedding. There was her dress. He remembered her underwear. He remembered the sex. Fuck, he missed the sex.

  “I still care about you,” Sam had informed him on the day she left, “but I can’t pretend that I’m still in love with you. That’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to me.”

  But Sammy, baby, I’ll love you forever, was what Peter should have said. Instead, he’d said, “Fine. Whatever. Do what you want” and she had. She’d left him, and made him sign the papers, too. Not that his saying anything different would have changed things. Sam always did what she wanted. It was part of who she was.

  Ah, shit. Peter’s eyes were watering. It was all over now. It was done!

  He collapsed back on the couch and drank more of the whiskey straight from the bottle, enjoying the sensation of darkness overtaking over him, still and black and sweetly quiet. The numbness consumed him and he floated weightlessly in it, but soon the water became a whirlpool. Peter felt his body being sucked down into a drowning darkness, felt his thoughts begin to go blank. He was going to die without ever seeing Sam again. Of course, she’d remember that the last time they’d talked he’d been a jerk.

  Why did he have to be so self-pitying? Why did he have to be so grote
sque?

  Once, when Sam had still been his wife, she’d touched him with real affection—attraction, even. Yes, he could remember. He’d been skinny back then. He hadn’t been so old. He hadn’t let the drinking ruin him yet. Peter knew what he looked like now. He was ugly. No, he was repulsive—might as well face up to it—and Sam had every right to push him away, to try and find someone else. To be happy without him, since she couldn’t be happy with him.

  But now, if the drink was killing him—

  Peter reached for his phone again and found Sam’s name in his contacts. It had been two days since he’d called her. She hadn’t returned his last call or the one before it. Peter’s heart clenched and it hurt. He doubled over. Was this what a heart attack felt like?

  He knew she wouldn’t answer, but he tried anyway. The phone rang and rang, until finally the beep instructed him to leave a message. Peter pressed the phone to his ear, imagining Sam on the other end of the line as he babbled incoherently. “Sammy, I’m sorry, but I’m dying. I drank too much. This time I really did it. You don’t have to save me, but if you’d just come and see me. I want to see you one last time before I go…”

  Peter sobbed into the phone and ended the call, then clutched it to his chest like a lifeline. He was sprawled out on the couch, but it might as well have been a ship afloat at sea. He was completely alone. Sam was the last person who cared what became of him. If she didn’t show up, he really would die.

  What reason was there left for him to live?

  Madeline could feel the tide turning as things began, finally, to fall into place. She’d gained confidence; she was no longer tentative, afraid of overstepping a line of authority she shouldn’t cross as a student. They were on equal footing this time, and she wasn’t letting Sam get away. As Madeline spoke, she saw Sam’s face filling with an emotion Madeline recognized: lust. It made Madeline want to tie Sam up, to hold her down, to make her scream.

  “Hey,” said Sam, and she seemed like she was about to suggest something (Do you want to get out of here? Madeline completed in her head) but Sam stopped mid-sentence and, looking annoyed, pulled something out of her bag. She glanced at it beneath the table while Madeline strained to get a look. Sam was looking at her phone.

  “What is it? Did someone call?”

  “It’s nothing,” Sam said, but it didn’t sound like nothing. It looked like it took serious effort for Sam to force her eyes back to Madeline’s and attempt a smile. “I’m just going to run to the restroom, okay? I’ll be right back, and then you can finish telling me about everything you want to do to me.”

  Madeline could tell Sam’s smile was meant to be reassuring, so she tried to feel reassured as she sat there, alone again, at the empty table. The waitress stopped by, hesitated, and asked Madeline if they’d have another round, or if they were ready for the check.

  “Just the check, I guess,” said Madeline, hoping they could take the conversation somewhere more private—Sam’s place, preferably, which Madeline had never seen but which she’d heard about and fantasized to be a romantic setting. Sam’s address was in Lakeville, Madeline knew, because she’d sent her a Christmas card last year. Sam had been just about to offer to take her there. Madeline was sure she had.

  The waitress brought the check and Madeline paid, knowing Sam would have insisted otherwise. Tonight she wanted to take control, and she was sure Sam had said she liked a dominant partner. As Madeline signed the restaurant copy of the receipt, she heard a sudden rush of water on the roof, a deluge from above. The din of the bar muffled the noise, but it sounded like a downpour. Madeline rose from her seat and walked to the entryway, watching the rainfall on the other side of the window. She was still standing there when Sam returned from the bathroom and joined her. Lightning flashed in the distance beyond the city skyline. Thunder crackled and boomed overhead.

  It felt like something was coming. A storm, maybe, or something worse.

  “It looks like a real summer storm,” Madeline mused.

  “I love thunderstorms,” Sam said, and her voice was such a perfect mix of sad and sensual that it made Madeline grab her hand again. “What are you doing?” Sam asked, protesting, but not very hard, as Madeline pulled her toward the door.

  “Come on.”

  A moment later, they were standing in the rain, getting drenched. Madeline’s tank top clung to her skin, and her jeans stuck heavily to her legs. Beside her the flimsiness of Sam’s dress seemed to dissolve and Madeline could finally feel her, the real her—the warmth of her arms, her ribs, her waist. She pulled Sam into her and for once Sam didn’t resist. Her wet kiss pressed soft and hungrily against Madeline’s mouth, slippery and sweet.

  “I can’t,” Sam whispered suddenly. She tried to pull away, but Madeline held on.

  “Shut up,” Madeline hissed, sliding her lips across Sam’s cheek to flick her tongue over the wet shell of Sam’s ear. Her fingers tangled in Sam’s hair, her body going as electric as the sky. Their skin was humming, their heartbeats syncopated, and everything was as it should be. Everything was coming together, everything was so perfect that it took Madeline a minute to process what Sam was whispering between kisses. “I’ve got to go.” Why would she say that? Why now? What could possibly—

  “I’m sorry, ladybug,” Sam said, breaking the kiss. The expression on her face was quite sorry indeed. “I really have to go, but let’s do this again soon, okay? Next week, maybe? It was so good to see you.”

  Next week?

  Madeline had lost count of how many times Sam had dangled promises of connection in front of her only to snatch them away. It was part of why Madeline had stopped calling—because of how many times Sam had said to her, “Maybe next week you can come and visit me?” Inevitably something would come up at the very last minute and she’d cancel and it would be up to Madeline to try and reschedule, which never happened. Sam always seemed willing. She’d let Madeline get so close she would really believe it was happening…

  Madeline wasn’t sure she could take that anymore.

  “It was good to see you, too,” Madeline said. “Why do you have to go?”

  Sam was looking at her, holding her at arm’s length, beautiful and regretful but immovably firm.

  “It’s Peter,” she explained. “The fucker. He’s trying to drink himself to death again. I’ve got to get him checked into a hospital before he dies, and then it’s going to be rehab again… Fuck… I’m so sorry to ruin your night.”

  “It’s okay,” said Madeline, not knowing what else to say. It wasn’t okay. Sam’s excuse made sense, but then again it always did. There had to be a way they could still be together. “Let me come with you.”

  “No, ladybug. Not tonight.”

  “Then when?”

  Sam ignored her. She had pulled away and was already splashing down the street to her car, going around to the driver’s side door, opening it, and getting in. Madeline hurried after her as Sam cranked the engine to life and rolled down the side window, peering back at Madeline from the other side. Just like that, Madeline was once again looking at Sam through a barrier, stuck on the outside of the other woman’s life.

  Madeline knew she should say something—she should say a million things—but it would have taken too long and there was only a second and then the second was over and Sam was saying, with finality, “Well, bye, ladybug,” and Madeline was saying, “Bye” because there was nothing else to say.

  Then Sam rolled up her window and drove away as Madeline’s life became liquid, spilling away with the rain as it merged with the thousand disparate scattered reflections that shimmered around her in the street.

  Chapter Four

  In another part of Harvard Square, Jimmy had closed up shop for the night, flipping the sign from open to closed. His store was full of cats still waiting for their forever homes, and he’d just finished feeding the lot of them. Now, he was upstairs in the living quarters above, measuring a piece of lumber he planned to fashion into a cat tree. Jimmy’s ap
artment had a second bedroom that he used as a workshop where he made cat furniture, and he thought he was quite good at it. The patter of the rain on the window soothed away the long day as Jimmy turned on the table saw and passed a piece of lumber through, slicing the wood with a straight cut. Next, he trimmed a piece of base wood to size, a nice big block. Jimmy turned off the saw and began examining leftovers from other projects when a distant and faint meowing cut through the sound of the rain. He paused and listened.

  It was the cry of a cat in distress. Now, who’s making a fuss this time? Jimmy wondered as he ran through the list of usual suspects. There were over two-dozen cats at Jimmy’s Used Cat Emporium, and he knew them all personally. It could have been Diana, except he’d sent her home with a new family the week before. It could have been Britney or Paul McCartney, and if so, it was probably nothing—just one of them blowing off steam. But the call had a hint of desperation to it and Jimmy couldn’t place the voice. Not only that, the sound seemed as though it were located…

  He glanced toward the window. The meow was coming from outside the shop.

  Jimmy dusted off his hands and went downstairs, where he noticed the rest of the cats were listening to the cry, too. Some of them had gone to sit in the storefront window displays, while others were paused mid-motion, halted in the process of licking, or playing, or sleeping, their ears tipped toward the sound—cautious, curious.