by Ellee Hill
“I did ask them. They said no way could it happen. But it did, Jamie. We both saw it. And what about the laundry? I know everyone has a sock go missing now and then, but half our wardrobe is gone! I put in a full load, and when the cycle is finished, there’s only half left. We’re down six shirts, a dozen pairs of underwear, and we don’t have a matching set of socks between us!”
Jamison dropped his fork on his plate, where it clattered loudly. “Look, I don’t know what happened to our fucking laundry! Okay? All I do know is that this gremlin theory of yours is nuts. They don’t exist, Kevin! They’re fairytales for gullible children. Nothing more.”
“Yeah, well, my Irish granddad didn’t think so. He used to tell my sister and me stories of the little people all the time. Every culture has tales of them. Leprechauns, imps, fairies, brownies, gnomes, pixies, gremlins….”
“Is this the same grandfather who thought aliens were sending us subliminal messages through cable television infomercials? The one who was convinced he was the reincarnation of St. Patrick and kept trying to beat the imaginary snakes out of your grandmother’s settee with a golf club? That grandfather? The next thing I know, you’ll be trying to convince me Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are real too.” Jamison wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood up.
“Maybe. How do we know they’re not?”
“Don’t you think someone, somewhere would’ve caught one by now? Or at least produced a quality photograph or video of it?”
“We can’t photograph the air, can’t see it or smell it or taste it or touch it, but we still know it’s there.”
“Your logic is flawed, and this is fucking ridiculous. What’s next, Kev? Mermaids in the bathtub? Unicorns under the porch? Look, if you want to believe in gremlins, fine. I’m not arguing anymore, okay? I’m tired, and I have another interview tomorrow. I just want to go to bed.” He picked up his plate and carried it to the sink, rinsing it off and sticking it in the dishwasher.
Kevin sighed and joined Jamison at the sink, adding his plate to the dishwasher. He grabbed the dishwashing liquid and poured a measured amount into the appropriate receptacle on the door, then shut it and turned the machine on. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue either. I guess the idea of gremlins does sound a little nutty. I’m just on edge because of all the crap that’s been going wrong lately.” He slipped his arms around Jamison’s narrow waist and couldn’t resist rubbing himself against the body he loved so much. Desire began to warm his belly as he felt their pricks begin to fill in unison. “Mmm. I have an idea. How about we go upstairs and have dirty, sweaty makeup sex? Or, we can take a nice hot shower together and have dirty, wet, soapy makeup sex.”
Jamison laughed, but there was nothing funny about his hard, eager kiss or his throaty moan. “Yeah, that gets my vote too.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
Dishwasher, argument, and remnants of dinner forgotten, it was a race to see who could get upstairs and stripped naked first. They bumped elbows and hips on the staircase in their haste. Shrugging out of their shirts and kicking off their shoes on the run, they nearly ended up in a tangle of limbs on the floor. Jamison managed to squeeze through the bedroom door first, declaring himself the winner.
Not that Kevin minded. The view of Jamison’s naked ass jiggling in front of him, bubble-round, high, and tight, was enough for him to accept second place without a fuss.
“Shower?”
“Let me think…. Wet? Naked? Soapy? Uh, that’d be a hell, yeah.”
Kevin followed Jamison into the bathroom and waited for him to reach into the shower and adjust the water temperature before backing him up against the cool tile wall. Dropping to his knees, he took Jamison’s fledgling hard-on into his mouth.
“Oh sweet fuck! You’re so fucking good at this. You’re like, gold medal good. Nobel Prize good.”
Kevin choked back a laugh. He let go of Jamison’s dick long enough to reply. “I don’t think there’s a Nobel category for blowjobs.”
“No? Well, there should be.”
“No argument there.” Kevin gave Jamison’s cock another long, slow suck, then mouthed his balls. Sitting back, Kevin admired the now fully-hard length before standing and sliding the shower door open. “After you.”
The water was the perfect temperature. It beaded on Jamison’s shoulders and ran in rivulets between his pecs, following the curve of his abdomen to where his cock stood at full attention.
Kevin followed the trail of water with his tongue, starting at Jamison’s throat and slowly licking his way down over Jamison’s broad chest. He took one nipple in his mouth, teasing it with his teeth and lips until it hardened, then left it for its twin.
Jamison groaned, his fingers twisting in Kevin’s hair, urging him down to his knees again. “Finish what you started.”
“And what’s that?”
“You know what. Fucking suck me!” Jamison rubbed his erection against Kevin’s.
“Pushy bastard.” Kevin moaned but refused to be hurried. Despite Jamison’s graphic and somewhat desperate urgings and the ache of his own heavy cock, he took his time, licking and nibbling every inch of skin between Jamison’s pectorals and the thatch of pubic hair framing Jamison’s prick.
Jamison tasted of water, male, and a favored almond skin cream, and Kevin never tired of the flavor. His fingers dug into the meat of Jamison’s thighs as he hungrily licked slick skin and tongued heavy balls. Above him, he could hear Jamison’s throaty groans.
“Jesus, Kev! Give me your mouth. I’m going to shoot!”
He needed no further urging. Sucking Jamison in deep, he rolled his tongue over Jamison’s hot, smooth skin until he tasted a rush of bitter salt. He took all Jamison had to give him, then licked his lips as he stood up and kissed Jamison deep, sharing the salty goodness. “My turn,” he whispered, and rubbed his dick along the shallow trench between Jamison’s hipbone and belly.
Jamison, breathing hard, his eyes still sparkling with the last flickering light of his orgasm, turned to face the wall. He leaned forward, bracing his arms against the cool, wet tile, his back arching his fine ass in Kevin’s direction.
Kevin found the bottle of lube they kept in the shower for just such occasions and squirted a large dollop into the palm of his hand. After slicking himself, he spread the remainder between Jamison’s ass cheeks and slipped one finger deep inside.
Jamison’s body squeezed around Kevin’s finger, making him moan and his cock twitch with jealousy. “Shit. I hope you’re ready for me.”
“Able and willing. I want to feel you inside me. Now, Kev!”
Kevin removed his finger and pressed the head of his cock against Jamison’s hole. Kevin’s dick wasn’t the biggest dog in the yard, but it was fat and could make for an uncomfortable ride if he wasn’t careful. Some men liked that, but he knew Jamison wasn’t one of them. He bit the inside of his cheek hard, trying to hold himself in check.
To his surprise, Jamison pushed back, burying Kevin in deep. “Oh sweet fuck!” He threw caution to the wind and began to pump, swiftly losing himself in the waves of delicious pleasure washing through him. “Jamie, gonna….”
“Give it to me, Kev. Right now. I want it!”
He could see Jamison’s arm working, and knew Jamie was stroking his dick into fullness again. “You, too. Want to feel your ass squeeze the come out of me.”
Jamison’s cry was throaty and rich, and the way his ass clenched around Kevin’s cock sent a shiver rocketing through Kevin’s body. Kevin came hard, fingers squeezing Jamison’s hips.
The water was beginning to run cool by the time Kevin’s cock softened and slid out of Jamison’s body, but he couldn’t care less. For sex like that, he’d gladly bathe in the Arctic Ocean after an ice enema.
“Who won the race?” Jamison’s voice sounded breathless and sexy.
Kevin picked up a washcloth and soaped it up, then began running it over the strong muscles of Jamison’s back. “Oh, I did. Defini
tely.”
“I would dispute that, but I’m too fucking boneless to argue.”
“Yeah. By the way, what were we bickering about earlier?”
“I don’t remember.”
Suddenly, a blurpy rattle sound floated up from downstairs. They both froze, cocking their ears.
“What was that?”
Kevin shook his head. “Sounds like the dishwasher.”
“Well, whatever it is, it can wait. How about we finish showering, then hit the sheets for Round Two?”
“You’re on.”
II.
KEVIN tried to forget his cockamamie idea about gremlins. He really did, and he almost succeeded…until the dishwasher tried to drown the kitchen. Then, as he stood ankle-deep in soapsuds with a seemingly unending stream of foam burbling out of the machine, he decided all bets were off.
He’d spent all morning the following day calling every pest control company listed in the phonebook, nearly fifty in all. Pests B Gone, Bug Zappers, Verminators, all the big names in the industry, plus a slew of mom-and-pop companies like Moe’s Bug Catchers and Dead Pests Society. Not one of them handled gremlin problems and, he decided, most of them needed a refresher course in customer service. The conversations were all eerily similar.
“Hello? Yes, I was wondering what you charge to remove gremlins from a home.”
“Did you say ‘geckos’?”
“No, no. Gremlins.”
Click.
Most of them called him crazy, and all of them hung up on him without giving the requested price quote. Rude little pricks.
That’s when he decided to take matters into his own hands. First, he went to the library and did a little research. Gremlins, he found out, have a particular affinity for sabotaging aircraft, not houses. Perhaps the creature plaguing his and Jamison’s home was an imp, not a gremlin. Not that it mattered. Either way, the result was the same: inexplicable accidents and malfunctioning equipment resulting in the destruction of property, just as it said in the books.
Of course, none of the literature he read claimed gremlins were living creatures. The books referred to them as manifestations of the all-too-human need to shirk blame and pass the buck. One such tome said the only way to defeat gremlins was “naming and claiming” the gremlin. Once you did, you owned it, and thus defeated it.
Kevin didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth a shot. Besides, he had nothing else, no other plan. Nada. Zilch. Bupkis. It was this or nothing, so he stuck a colander on his head just in case gremlins were averse to the process and tried to smack him over the head with something heavy.
Standing in the middle of the kitchen, his hands on his hips, the colander giving him helmet hair, he felt more than a little foolish, but pressed on anyway. “Hey, you! Gremlin! I name you… er, Lloyd!”
He’d decided to name the gremlin after his cousin Lloyd, who’d smashed Kevin’s mom’s antique punch bowl when they were children, then turned around and tried to blame Kevin for it. Kevin spent an entire month that summer weeding his mother’s garden to make restitution for a crime he didn’t commit.
Lloyd was a rotten kid. Still was rotten, which was why Lloyd was currently serving seven-to-ten at Joliet for felony assault and destruction of property. Kevin figured the name was appropriate for a gremlin.
The cat was staring at him with that haughty expression only cats could manage, the arrogant one that said cats knew a fool when they saw one, and there was a prime, Grade A example standing right smack in the middle of the kitchen, wearing a strainer on his head.
He frowned at Mr. Peepers. “Don’t give me that look. I’m not crazy. I know what I’m doing.”
The cat didn’t look convinced.
Anyway, he’d named the thing. The next step was to claim it, although he wasn’t exactly sure how to go about that part. Maybe just saying it would be enough. “I claim you, Lloyd, in the name of… er, 733 Cherry Blossom Lane.”
That, according to the book, was that, but he wasn’t sure what should happen next. Would the gremlin come out of hiding, kowtowing and salaaming in supplication to Kevin, its new master? Perhaps it would spontaneously combust, leaving nothing behind as evidence of its existence except for a vaguely gremlin-shaped smear on the floor. On the other hand, maybe it would simply dissipate into magical nothingness.
He was hoping for the last one, since he’d just finished mopping up the dishwasher mess that morning and really didn’t look forward to scrubbing gremlin bits out of the grout to round out his afternoon.
He waited, holding his breath, his gaze repeatedly sweeping the kitchen for movement, listening hard for the sound of something going “pop” or “splat.”
There was nothing–no sounds of exploding gremlins, no sparks or hellfire, no smell or sulfur or burning imps. Nada.
Well, either the charm worked like a, well… charm, or somewhere in the house, a gremlin was laughing its little green ass off.
Kevin got the distinct impression the cat was sneering at him.
III.
AS IT turned out, there was a third option Kevin had never even considered.
“I just wanted to apologize again, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Evans.” The realtor fiddled with her pearls, her slender fingers fluttering over her necklace like nervous butterflies. Clack, clack, clack. “I really don’t know how this could have happened. We’re always so careful when signing clients, you understand.”
Kevin and Jamison exchanged knowing looks, then both turned to stare at the realtor again. “The police were already here. The detective explained everything.”
“Y-yes, I know, but I felt I owed you a personal apology, anyway. Not that we were to blame, of course!”
“Oh, of course not.” Kevin wondered whether the sarcasm in their voices could possibly get any thicker, and decided it couldn’t without choking them like one of Mr. Peeper’s hairballs.
The realtor didn’t seem to notice, though. Perhaps she was just too intent on getting out her apology and passing the blame elsewhere. For a moment, Kevin was tempted to share the “name and claim” process with her. It sounded to him like she had a few gremlins of her own.
“You see, we can’t possibly be held responsible. They were professionals who had their scam down pat. Perfectly awful people, really. They put the house on the market at a price that was sure to sell quickly. Any realtor would’ve been happy to snap it up. Then, after the house sold, they… well, the only way to describe it is that they haunted the place. They broke in when the new owners weren’t home and sabotaged the appliances, the wiring, the plumbing, the cable, the roof… you name it.
“When one thing after another started going wrong with the house, the new owners panicked, thinking they’d bought a real lemon. Of course, everything had just passed inspection, so they couldn’t back out on the contract. They were stuck, right? Then, just when the new owners were at wit’s end, the previous owners showed up, were very sympathetic and offered to buy the place back… for much less than the new owners paid, of course. The new owners were so anxious to get rid of the place that they sold.
“Then original owners resold the home again, listing with a different realtor, and the whole mess started all over.” By now, the realtor was tugging on her pearls in earnest. Clack, clackity clack clack. “By the time realtors started catching on to the scam, the con artists sold the house a final time and moved to a new area. It turns out they’d done this six or seven times in as many on states, using different aliases.” She twittered a nervous laugh. “Believe it or not, one of the victims in another state was convinced the problems in her new home were caused by gremlins! Can you believe it?”
Jamison turned and frowned at Kevin, who choked but covered it with a cough. “Imagine that.”
“Now, the police have the criminals in custody, and I would suggest seeing an attorney to file for the damage they did to your home. You could possibly recover money from the amounts seized in their various bank accounts. I do hope this won’t reflect negati
vely on your opinion of our realty services. We really aren’t to blame, you see.”
“No, of course not. You didn’t know you were representing a pair of thieves, did you? I’m sure you did thorough background checks before signing them, right?” Kevin began the process of shooing the nervous realtor out the door. They’d heard the story before from the police and really didn’t want to rehash the whole thing again with the realtor.
“I assure you, we didn’t know a thing!”
“We believe you. Of course we do. Not. But all’s well that ends well, yes? Okay. Bye bye, now. Thanks for stopping. Have a nice afternoon. Ciao. Adiós. Aloha. Sayonara. Auf Wiedersehen. “
Kevin closed the door even as she continued to sputter apologies laced with denials, her fingers still plucking at her pearls. He leaned his forehead against the cool wood and could hear the clack, clackity, clack coming from the other side. He sighed, then frowned, turned around, and pointed a finger at Jamison. “You are so not going to say it.”
Jamison’s answering grin was both sexy and infuriating. “Say what?”
“You know what.”
“Oh, that. I told you so.”
“I just told you not to say it!”
Jamison laughed. “Gremlins. I can’t believe you actually thought our house was infested with gremlins!”
Kevin felt his cheeks burn. “I didn’t! I mean, I did, but I had good reason. At least, I thought I did.”
“I was ready to have you committed.”
“You wouldn’t have dared!”
“Well, perhaps not. Maybe I was just going to hold an intervention for you.”
“Jamie, come on. Knock it off.”
“I could have Facebooked our friends and family to come. I would’ve served cocktail weenies and sherbet punch.”
Kevin snickered and gave him a little punch on the shoulder. “Jamie!”
“Ow! No? Would you believe an exorcism, then? The power of Christ compels you. No? Prayer Circle? Neighborhood Watch?”
Kevin snorted and laughed. “Okay, okay. I guess I deserve some ribbing. I went a little crazy, huh?”