The Ghost Slept Over

by Marshall Thornton

  “I think you’re about to find out.” Not that I would have understood if he’d answered my question. Then he slipped his hand over the console and onto my thigh and I stopped worrying about all that. He did a little exploring. I had to push his hand away so that I stayed on the road. “Behave.”

  “It’s hard.”

  We burst out laughing.

  When we stopped I asked, “So, how will we decide whose A goes into whose B? Are we flipping a coin?”

  “I think we should wrestle for it.”

  I hoped he meant that in the sexier, more metaphoric sense of the word. I didn’t care for actual wrestling. When we arrived at Mac’s house, I turned off the car. Cal leaned over the center console and kissed me. His lips were soft and sweetly familiar. I had missed them. The heater was only off for seconds before the chill air began to creep into the car and the windows started to steam. Something I’m sure I would have noticed if I hadn’t been so busy exploring Cal’s mouth. I tried pulling him closer, but that only dragged him across the wide console.

  “We need to go inside,” he said.

  Jumping out of the car, we hurried up to the house. We got through the front door and he grabbed me, pulling me into a kiss. I dropped my winter coat onto the floor and kicked off my boots, still kissing him. We fumbled across the living room to the stairs. Finally we got up the stairs and into Mac’s bedroom. Cal pulled his clothes off quickly. I’d only gotten my shirt and undershirt off and he was naked. His dick was half hard. I wanted to reach out and help it along, but I also wanted to get my pants off. My dilemma was solved when Cal began pulling at my pants, leaving me free to reach out and wrap my hand around the base of his cock. I squeezed gently, feeling the heft of it while Cal undid my belt and opened my pants. Then, as though by magic, my pants were down around my ankles with my boxers. Cal stepped back abruptly and looked around the room suspiciously.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing, I thought I heard something. But I didn’t. I’m pretty sure.”

  Then something else got his attention and he took a good look at me. “Wow. You’re a good-looking guy with your clothes on, but without them you’re amazing.”

  I had no idea what to say to that. And I had no idea if it was true or not. I mean, I wasn’t the kind of guy who spent any time at the gym. I was really just a naturally trim kind of guy. A blush started halfway up my chest and rushed to my face. Cal leaned very close to me and said, “You should never wear clothes.”

  “I think the bar association would object to that.”

  “Then they’d be very foolish.”

  I didn’t have a response to that, so I hid my embarrassment by kissing him and pressing my naked body up against his. He pulled me backward until we fell onto the bed. Almost immediately, he slid down my body and took my cock into his mouth. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the heat of him on me. As he sucked my dick, he ran his hands up each side of my torso. At the same time he tickled my balls with…it took me a while to wonder what he was tickling my balls with. I mean, it all felt good so I really didn’t want to stop and figure it out, but how was he doing that? I opened my eyes and tried to see what he was doing. But all that was visible was the top of his head. Was he somehow tickling my balls with his hair? His chin? It wasn’t making much sense to me. Then he began to tweak my nipples and I shut my eyes, telling myself to just lay back and enjoy it. However it was happening.

  I was a little nervous about what he might want to do. Would he want to fuck me? Would he want me to fuck him? Would we skip that all together the first time? And what did I want to do? What was I in the mood for? Actually, I wasn’t in the mood to decide. I was more interested in seeing what he wanted to do. But what was that? Then Cal was on top of me, spreading my legs. I relaxed. This was what he wanted. And I wanted it too. I wrapped my legs around his back and kept kissing him.

  “Where is the stuff we bought?” I whispered into his ear.

  He looked at me quizzically a moment then said, “Shit. It’s in the car. Where are your keys?”

  “In my pants.” Cal jumped off the bed, pulled on his own pants, grabbed mine and pulled out the keys. He bolted out of the bedroom just as I was yelling, “Put on a shirt at least!”

  I was wondering if he was really going to run out to the car barefoot and shirtless in the snow when a chill seemed to descend upon the room. My first instinct was to pull the blanket over me and huddle there until Cal got back, but then I thought if he’s got a draft I should find out where it’s coming from. There were three small windows in a row on the north side of the room. I walked over and waved a hand in front of each one. Nothing. No moving air. In fact, it seemed warmer there than by the bed. Then I walked over to the door and stood there. Again, nothing. I walked back over to the bed where it was still nippy. It was odd. There was nowhere the chill could be coming from. I was standing on the bed staring at the ceiling when Cal came back into the room.

  “Kinky, but I was thinking we’d start with a little basic missionary,” he said.

  “Sorry, I thought I felt a draft.”

  “If you’re chilly, I’ll warm you up.”

  I got back down onto the bed and he came into my arms. His skin was cold, ice cold. “You’re the one who needs to be warmed up. You went outside without a shirt.”

  “In a hurry, I guess.”

  Cal opened the bottle of lube, dribbled some onto his fingers, and began to suck my cock again while he worked a finger into me. Gradually, he eased in a second. With shocking expertise, he managed to hit my prostate again and again until I was almost ready to pop. I pushed him away and whispered, “Okay, I think I’m ready.”

  Quickly, he slipped a couple pillows under my butt, then rolled a condom onto his dick and spread lube all over it. When he was ready he gently eased into me. It hurt just a little, but even as I thought that the pain faded and the pleasure flooded in. Just after he began though, Cal stopped and said “Oh my God!”

  Unable to help myself, I said “Jesus, don’t stop.”

  “Oh, um—” he said, then, thankfully, he began to move inside me again. After that I hardly had time to think. He seemed to be everywhere at once, which would have been wonderful if I wasn’t also worrying about how I’d compare when I topped him. I mean, I really had no clue how to be that good. Several times he brought me to the brink and then backed off.

  Finally, and for no logical reason, his cock seemed to double in size and that was it, I couldn’t hold it any longer, after a long, suspenseful moment when I knew I was about to come, cum spurted all over my belly. With a deep guttural moan, Cal came as well. He fell onto me for a briefly, very briefly. Then he was up and walking around the room looking for his underwear.

  “Are you going somewhere?” I asked.

  “I think I left the back door unlocked.”

  “Oh. You know a lot of people don’t bother locking their doors around here.”

  “Sorry. City boy. I’ll just be a minute.”

  He zipped out of the bedroom. I was, as they say, spent. In a few seconds, I drifted off into a dream. A dream in which Mac stood at the foot of the bed, naked and better looking than I remembered him. The look on his face was odd, leering and resentful all at once.

  I remember thinking, “Why am I dreaming this?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Back from the Dead, Again

  Trying to keep my voice down, I scream whispered at Mac, “What are you doing here? I saw you disappear. You turned green and disappeared.”

  “It was a neat little trick, wasn’t it?”

  “No it wasn’t. And…how dare you!”

  “How dare I what?”

  “That was practically rape.”

  “Oh please, Dewey wasn’t raping you. Actually, it seemed more the other way around.”

  “Not Dewey. You. Me. The three of us.”

  “Well you didn’t tell me to stop.”

  “I could hardly stop in the middle of sex with Dewey
to talk to you.”

  “Yes, you could have, and certainly if you considered what I was doing rape, you should have.”

  “It was unwelcome.” At first it was, very unwelcome, but it had become a little more welcome as time went on. Of course, I wasn’t admitting that.

  “Unwelcome is rude, not rape,” he said.

  “It didn’t happen to you, it happened to me.”

  He walked up very close to me, and I became very aware that I was just in my underwear. He turned around and rubbed his ass into my crotch. “You can return the favor,” he said in a sexy voice. “I don’t mind.”

  “Mac, I want you to go away.”

  “Oh come on. You had fun. Haven’t you always dreamed of being Lucky Pierre?”

  “No, I have not.”

  “Really? You think you can lie to me?”

  “You’re…you can read my mind? Is that what you’re saying.” A ghost who could read minds was far worse than an ordinary ghost.

  “I don’t need to read your mind,” he said. “I can tell everything I need to know from the look on your face. The look on your face says you had a good time. You can’t deny it.”

  “If I admit it was a little bit fun will you leave?”

  “Absolutely not. I might offer to do it again, though.”

  “Once was enough. Seriously Mac, how do I get you to leave? I’ve tried most everything I can think of. Well, not everything. I suppose I could try a priest. Would you go away if I brought in a priest?”

  “Heavens no! The Catholic Church couldn’t manage to run me out of town when I was alive. Why would you think they can do it now that I’m dead?”

  “I’m just guessing. I’ve never had to get rid of a ghost before. Should I get a psychic? One of those horrible women on cable TV who talk to the dead?”

  “I’m talking to you. I really don’t want to talk to anyone else.” He frowned at me then went on. “And I must say, your single-minded desire to get rid of me is emotionally devastating.” He sounded almost sincere. “Doesn’t it mean anything to you that I’m here? That I’ve refused to pass over or whatever you want to call it, just to be with you?”

  I hadn’t looked at it quite that way. It was romantic, I supposed.

  “I couldn’t possibly leave my soul mate,” he said, in his sweet voice. The one I remembered from when we were together. The one he used on directors and producers, and me on occasion when he really wanted to win an argument.

  I sighed, feeling a little sick to my stomach. “In the whole time we were apart there wasn’t anyone else?”

  “No Cal, you were it for me.”

  “Have you considered the possibility that if you just…crossed over you might meet someone else? Someone more like you…you know, a spirit. For all we know eternity is filled with sexy young guys and you don’t want to tie yourself down.”

  He glared at me.

  “Well, what about reincarnation? Maybe there’s this whole wonderful life waiting for you and you’re…here. Stalling.”

  “Why can’t you accept that we’re meant to be together? Forever.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you that I don’t particularly want to spend forever with you?”

  “Of course it bothers me. Why do you think I’m trying to change your mind?”

  I had a terrible thought. “Oh my God, you’re going to be with me the rest of my life, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “But what about this house? How far away from this house can you go? You were at the spreading of the—”

  “Dumping would be a better word. If I’d known it was going to be like that I would have requested an old fashioned burial.”

  “Whatever, you were there. Now that’s only a few hundred feet from the house. How much further away can you get?”

  He shrugged. “I can probably go anywhere I want to. I think I’m haunting you, not the house.”

  “New York? You can go to New York City?”

  “If you go to New York, I can go to New York. Are you suggesting a romantic getaway?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m hoping that when I go to New York you won’t be able to follow me.”

  “Why are you going to New York?”

  “None of your business.”

  “You’re spending my money to go there, I think that makes it my business.”

  “If you must know…read my mind.”

  “I told you, I don’t read minds.”

  “Well that’s the only way you’ll find out.”

  He squinted at me. Then a look of surprise made him step back.

  “All I’m getting are a lot of nasty images. Are you’re going there to have sex? I mean, you can stay here and have sex. You just had a three-way.”

  “I’m not going to New York to have sex,” I said. Uncomfortable that he’d gotten much closer than I expected him to. I decided to tell him before he plucked it out of my head. “I’m going to open my one man show off-Broadway.”

  “That Rock Hudson show?”

  “Are you reading my mind?”

  “No. I saw it.”

  “You saw it? When did you see it?”

  “When you did it at that gas station in Oakland.”

  “It wasn’t a gas station anymore. It was a theater. And it wasn’t in Oakland it was in Berkeley.”

  “You were very good.”

  That made me nervous. Mac wasn’t free with compliments.

  “But…”

  “Well, the show itself was a little flat.”

  “I wrote it,” I said stubbornly.

  “Yes, I read the program. Maybe I could help you perk it up a little.”

  “It doesn’t need perking up.”

  “It’s really nothing more than a collection of dirty stories, most of which are completely untrue. As entertaining as you are, the show needs more of a point.”

  “I didn’t ask for notes.”

  “I’m just saying if you need help. I mean, since you’re taking the play to off-Broadway.”

  Did I need help? Would he make my show better? I wouldn’t have to pay him. Or even give him credit. He’d literally be a ghostwriter. It was tempting. What about Dewey? I wondered. New York was under five hours away. We really didn’t have to stop seeing each other when I moved to the city. He could visit every weekend. New Yorkers did it. They all had homes upstate. No one just lived in New York City. I imagined myself as one of those New Yorkers who lived here and there. I wondered for a moment about keeping the house in Marlboro. And then I wondered how Dewey would feel about spending half his time in the city? He might like that. On the other hand, I doubted he’d like living with a ghost. A jealous ghost with a flair for dialogue.

  My head had begun to spin.

  “I need to go to bed and think about all this,” I said.

  “Fine, let’s go upstairs. I could use a little shut-eye myself,” Mac replied. “Haunting you is harder work than you’d think.”

  “Oh no. I’m sleeping with Dewey alone.”

  “Didn’t your mother teach you to share?”

  “You can just dematerialize or whatever you do at night.”

  And with that I clomped up the stairs.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Dewey woke me up with take-out coffee and a bag of donuts. “Get dressed,” he whispered. “There’s somewhere I want to take you.” Though it was well past dawn, I was expecting that he’d drive me to some postcard-pretty remote location and we’d stare at the snowy mountains. I wasn’t all that excited. Not that the area wasn’t beautiful, but the spectacular view out Mac’s living room window was more than enough for me. Make that my front window. Well, my front window for now.

  I dressed quickly and put a hat on my head to cover my bed head, and then, with coffee and donut in hand, followed Dewey out to his Land Rover. The air was sharp and icy, and even though it was only a few feet to the car I was shivering by the time we got inside. Of course, it wasn’t much warmer inside than outside. Dewey st
arted the car, then turned heat on full blast. He also clicked the button that made the seats warm. An option that seemed ridiculous in L.A. but was clearly a must-have in Marlboro.

  Soon we were driving toward town. We didn’t say much but Dewey kept smiling. Whatever he was up to, he was enjoying it. The village proper was so quaintly charming it reminded me of a movie set. I fully expected to discover that a crew was coming down to shoot a delightful romantic comedy about a plucky single girl struggling to leave her job at a cannery while falling in love with the mayor’s son, or a horror movie in which all the townies are secretly vampires, or a horror comedy in which our plucky young heroine falls in love with the local bloodsucker. The town was that charming.

  We parked in front of a shop named The Emperor’s Clothes. As we got out of the Land Rover I gave Dewey a look. “Are we buying an imaginary outfit?”

  “No, we’re buying you a very real, very warm winter coat.”

  “Oh, well, thank you.” The part of me who’d lived on very little for a very long time hated the idea of spending money on something I’d wear for just a few weeks. Another part of me wanted to squeal at the idea of shopping.

  The little store was as warm and homey inside as the town was outside, with beat-up wood floors and roughhewn pine boxes used to stack clothes on. Along the sides were coat racks hung with shirts and coats. In the back, two changing booths with a full length mirror between them. In the center of the store sat a cash register on an old, antique sideboard. Behind that stood a short, heavy woman with a beautiful face. Her name was Peggy Ringer and Dewey introduced me as his good friend. Something which made me happier than it should have.

  “Cal needs a winter coat.”

  “Well, I can see that,” Peggy said. “What happened? You leave your coat somewhere and you’re too afraid to go back and get it?”

  “I don’t actually own one,” I said.

  “He’s from Los Angeles,” Dewey explained.

  “Ahhhh,” said Peggy as though that explained a lot more than my lack of a coat. They did actually have coats in L.A.; I just hadn’t bought one. “So, what kind of coat are you looking for?”