The Haunted Harlot

On a Saturday in the middle of New England leaf-peeping madness, an unusually warm sun clashed cheerfully with the pumpkins and skeletons that dotted the lawns. Tourists wandered through the village's Revolutionary-era park, mopping their brows and slurping iced coffee between selfies with statues. Chris Baxter, standing in front of a mildly run-down old house on a side street, wished she had one herself (an iced coffee, not a statue), sighed, and re-read the note in her hand.

"I pray that you attend with all due haste. The lewd boldness of these appalling modern miscreants exceeds my ingenuity so far as the stars in the sky exceed the fingers of my hand."

She looked up from her papers to find the man who must surely be the letter's author on the porch. He was broad-chested and muscular, dressed in a waistcoat and knee breeches that reminded Chris of a trip to Colonial Williamsburg back in fifth grade. He had dark hair in a ponytail. She could see triceps flexing under his coat as he raised a hand to shade his eyes from the sun, and powerful quadriceps bulging against the breeches. Something else obviously bulged in there too. Hot damn, she thought. This could turn out to be a fun evening. The only unfortunate element was the sneering disapproval radiating from him as he glared at the tourists wandering along the sidewalk -- but then, who liked tourists?

"Mr. Jonathan Allyn?" She waved up at him. "I'm Chris. Here about the issue with your tenants."

"Who are -- ah." The surliness was replaced by momentary confusion; of course, he hadn't expected a woman. "Yes, do come in, Mistress -- or Miss? -- Baxter." He recovered a look of superior boredom, cold blue eyes sauntering over her athletic form with disdain. He looked, Chris decided, like the real live version of Gaston from the animated Beauty and the Beast: powerful, handsome, and cruel.

Well, not exactly the live version. Allyn, like herself, was a ghost.

Chris had woken a little more than three years ago, after an overdose of she-never-knew-what at a music festival, to find that she had 26 years of life now permanently behind her (no partner, kids, or parents to haunt) and an infinity of afterlife ahead. Freed from the tyranny of rent, she had drifted happily around California for months, meeting colonial Spaniards and Chinese gold miners along with the recent dead of her own era. Sometimes these encounters turned into one-night stands or one-week affairs, though they never lasted much longer than that. Ghosts didn't have pregnancy or STIs to worry about -- but they also couldn't form strong attachments to one another. Without a living body for an anchor, it turned out, love was ephemeral. She didn't mind. In her first year of being dead, she had enjoyed lovers from five different centuries. Between dalliances she haunted music clubs in LA and SF and wished daily that her friends had put a vibrator into her coffin so that she didn't have to expend spectral energy to conjure one. At least they had chosen a cute burial outfit for her. So many poor shades wandered the world looking as if they had died working on their discount online MBAs.

After the excitement of permanent vacation began to fade, Chris had found her way to Aftercare, one of the largest dead community-outreach organizations. (The founders were all hippies who had died in the 1970s. She still struggled to say the name with a straight face.) Now she took on a few cases a month, traveling around the country, helping out ghosts who were having trouble with their afterlives, and -- as often as not -- adding them to her tally of spectral lovers.

She climbed the porch stairs quickly and stuck out her hand before Allyn could bow. "Nice to meet you. So what's the problem?"

"This tawdriness is rather unseemly for a decent lady. You are a lady, aren't you?" he added dubiously, eyeing her form-fitting cropped tank and flowing palazzo pants. "I find the fashions of this time a detestable affront to piety."

Chris kept her face serene and inwardly downgraded his desirability while noting the wolfishness of his gaze. "You've only been awake for a few months, correct? But you must have been dead for centuries before then." He nodded. "Do you know what happened to restore you?"

He grimaced. "These lascivious tenants. Here I was, peacefully dead since 1738, in the Dreamland -- have you been yet?" Chris shook her head. He gestured at the doorway and they both passed through the closed door. "Well, suddenly, I awaken in what was once my God-fearing, righteous home -- and find it a disgusting harbor of iniquity!"

Glancing around, Chris took in the entry hall with its narrow staircase and the front rooms to each side. The walls were painted charcoal gray, the wooden floors stained dark walnut; heavy blackout curtains covered every window. Couches and benches in black leather, with magenta faux fur and tiger-striped velvet throw pillows, lined the edges of the rooms, leaving the center spaces empty. One

corner of the room to their right featured a DJ booth, with a rubberized dance floor in the middle of the room. The room to their left had a beautifully stocked bar along one wall, a sex swing hanging from the ceiling, and a padded leather spanking bench in the back corner. Black-and-white photography in stainless steel frames decorated the walls; on closer inspection, all the subjects of the photos were nude, and most were copulating. A pink neon sign over the staircase read: "The Haunted Harlot."

Chris had visited a few sex clubs before her death -- enough to understand what she saw. She smiled. This place looked fun.

Two living people, a lithe dark-skinned man and a petite, curvy woman with ivory skin and rainbow-streaked black hair, entered the hall at that moment from the doorway at the opposite end of the hall, which Chris guessed led to the kitchen and back door. The woman had a 3-ring binder full of papers under one arm, while the man had a laptop, and each carried an open can of soda. Both wore t-shirts and pajama pants, the woman very obviously without a bra underneath.

They passed Chris and Allyn obliviously, as the living usually did, and plopped down on the floor of the room with the DJ booth. The man opened his laptop and the woman her binder. "Okay, do you wanna start with the new membership applications or the November purchase orders?" asked the man. He grinned at the woman, his warm brown eyes trailing down the V neck of her shirt.

"POs are set already," the woman answered. "Condoms, lube, cleaning wipes -- check; bathroom crap, soap, toilet paper, paper towels, check; soda, cups, plates, napkins, check---" she scanned the paper. "Honestly, I think we're good. Let's look at applications." She scooched around until they were side by side, her round breasts jiggling appealingly as she did so. The man kissed the top of her head. Chris, intrigued by them both, glided into the room and crouched behind them so that she could see the screen. The man opened a series of pop-up windows, each featuring a well-dressed or else half-dressed couple, along with text boxes framing their usernames, birth years, and thoughts on play styles, consent, and substance use.

"Damn, they're cute," said the woman, biting the tip of a forefinger as she looked over his shoulder at the screen. "Good answers too. Approve for sure." He nodded and tapped a few keys, and they moved on to the next window. Over the next half-hour, they examined a dozen or so applications, approving some immediately, rejecting others -- not usually for looks, but for answers that gave one or the other of them bad vibes -- and tabling a few for further discussion. From their chatter Chris learned that his name was Theo, hers Katrina, and that they had bought the house two years ago and had been running this place for just over six months. From their body language she learned that they were joyfully in love.

Chris grinned mischievously up at Allyn. "So, what's the problem exactly? Seems like they're running quite the successful small business here."

"Fornicators and witches!" he snarled. "The debauchery and blasphemy under this roof at night is scarcely to be believed! I want these idolators gone!"

Chris sighed. No way would she be hooking up with a bad-tempered puritan with a grudge against two happy, sex-positive lovers, no matter how enticing his muscles. "Well, what have you tried in the way of haunting so far? My case notes weren't very specific." She leaned in closer to the couple to catch the warm scents of the living. To her spectral senses, Theo smelled of cumin and wood smoke, Katrina of apple and vanilla. A shiver ran through her: ghostly or not, her body responded as well as ever to sensory pleasures. Impulsively, she kissed the nape of Katrina's neck.

"Ooh!" squealed Katrina. "I felt something!" Chris sat back quickly: she hadn't meant to summon enough energy to make her touch felt. But Katrina looked thrilled, not scared.

"Did you feel that cold little wind on your neck just then?" Theo shook his head. "I know I felt something just then," she insisted. "I think -- I think our ghost might be back!" She pulled her phone from her pocket and began texting. Chris read over her shoulder: "Sexy Seance. HH. Now."

Chris looked up at Allyn. "Sexy seance? Sounds fun. I'm in."

Allyn just glared.

Forty-five minutes later, Theo, Katrina, Chris, Allyn, and three new living mortals were gathered in an upstairs bedroom. Crystal balls, tarot cards, and astrological signs decorated the space, which bore the label "Sexy Seance Room" over the doorway. Soothing rhythmic music played from a portable speaker, and battery-operated candles flickered safely on tiny wall mounts.

The friends who had joined them, Chris had picked up from Theo and Katrina's conversation, were called Esme, Travis, and Rain. The five living lounged on a king-sized mattress covered in a black fitted sheet and set directly on the floor. They had all either stripped down to or changed into lingerie, and they leaned and tangled their bodies carelessly against each other with casual affection. The dead watched from opposite corners: one curious, the other disgusted.

Esme and Katrina sat cross-legged on either side of a Ouija board, fingertips on the planchette. "Okay, everyone shut up now," giggled Esme. She was rail-thin, tan, and fully topless, with a mop of dark brown curls held back by a rolled-up pink bandana that matched her cute-but-comfy jersey thong. Katrina, opposite her, wore a green satin bra and panty set.

"Yeah, yeah, fine," said Theo.

Travis, bearded and redheaded and nearly as muscular as Allyn, pulled Rain onto his lap. "I'm all set," he grinned. "Ready for some prime seancing." Rain, who had long blonde hair, a midnight blue bodysuit, and an impressive patchwork of tattoos adorning a runner's physique, kissed him, then reached out and tweaked Esme's left nipple playfully.

"Oy!" Esme slapped her hand away.

"Now I'm ready," said Rain, settling back into Travis's arms.

Esme rolled her eyes and then took a deep breath. "Spirits," she called, "are you with us?"

Chris knelt by the board, and, by exerting some of her spectral energy, moved the planchette to "Yes."

Katrina gasped. "You guys, I swear that wasn't me! Um, okay, spirit, do you have anything to show us or say to us today?"

Chris looked at Allyn. "Why don't you show me some of the haunting tricks you've tried so far?"

"Very well," he growled. He closed his eyes and raised both hands like an orchestra conductor. A cool breeze swirled up from nowhere inside the room.

The living squealed with wide-eyed, jittery delight. Cries of "Oh my god!" and "It's touching me!" broke out everywhere. Esme and Katrina both dropped the planchette, their concentration on the board forgotten. "Shit, this is amazing!" Travis exclaimed. "We've got to get on The History Channel."

"I see," Chris said thoughtfully as the living bubbled with excitement around them. "They're ghost enthusiasts as well as sex fiends. What else have you got?"

Allyn scowled and raised his hands again. Spectral chains, glowing green, slowly appeared on the walls, overlaying the fortunetelling motif with the look of a dungeon. The living fell silent in awe.

"Holy shit," whispered Rain. "Not gonna lie, Kat, I never really believed you until now. Your ghost is real... and -- kinky?"

Travis got to the wall first and poked at a chain with one finger. "Dude! It's like if your vibrators were made of Icy-Hot." All three women rolled their eyes at him simultaneously.

Katrina rose, stepped over Theo, and reached out gingerly to touch the chains. "Oh, wow. Wow. You guys. Come feel this!"

"Oh my god," Esme exclaimed, "You're not wrong, it's cold and warm and tingly all at the same time!" Then all five of them were pulling the ghostly chains off the walls, petting them like snakes, draping them around their shoulders like feather boas -- they seemed to weigh almost nothing to the living. Chris picked up a length, from curiosity: for her, the spectral iron was so heavy she could hardly lift it.

Esme took a length of chain in both hands and trailed it across Rain's breasts. Rain pulled her bodysuit off at once and jutted her chest out, fully nude, writhing delightedly and letting out a little shriek each time it passed over her erect nipples. She grabbed the loose end of the chain and rubbed it between Esme's legs. Esme first yelped and then moaned with pleasure, leaning her head forward against Rain's shoulder. The two of them sank back down onto the mattress, kissing and fondling one another, teasing each other's vulvas with the glowing green links. Rain reached around Esme's back to catch one end, then held it taut and motionless against Esme's thong, making her do the work of squirming against it for satisfaction. Esme, on the other hand, let a loose end dangle lightly against Rain's exposed labia, edging her with unpredictable touches as the chain swung freely.

Theo wrapped loops of chain around Katrina, pinning her arms to her sides, and pushed downwards on her shoulders. She knelt, laughing, and happily opened her mouth. Theo pulled a fully hard cock from inside his boxers, and she took it greedily, swallowing the full length. Travis joined them. The two men took turns holding her head in place for one another with a hand wrapped firmly around her long hair. They switched every dozen thrusts or so, first the cocoa-brown cock, then the cherry-pink one driving down her throat. Katrina panted for air whenever they changed, but she opened her mouth wide for more each time. Her stifled moans and gurgles revealed her pleasure in taking them, even when she sputtered from the intensity of the face-fucking. Her hips wriggled and bucked as if she were riding a third cock, though nothing was touching her.

Chris, watching all of this, was irresistibly aroused. She crouched down and crept close to Katrina. Mustering spectral energy -- much more than had gone into the kiss earlier -- she reached out and stroked the living woman's labia through her panties with two fingers.

"Mmph---aaaieeh!" Katrina jolted so hard at Chris's unexpected touch that she nearly bit Travis. "Holy shit, I think the ghost just touched my pussy!" she gasped. "Ghost-- ghost, if that was you, oh my god, please don't stop!"

"ENOUGH!" shouted Allyn. The chains vanished, to the vocal disappointment of the living. "I will not allow this harlotry beneath my roof!" he thundered, though only Chris heard. "I will teach them to fear the torment that awaits the wicked!" He raised his powerful arms once more. Slowly, he shimmered into visibility, a glowing green tower of wrath. His dark eyes shone with ghostly fire. The five living beings stopped their exclamations, terrified by the apparition.

"Spawn of witches and blasphemers!" he boomed, and they could hear him now. "Your destruction is at hand! No longer will you desecrate my house with your lust!" Rain, Katrina, and Esme clung together in fear. Esme was crying openly. Travis and Theo, though clearly afraid, stood in front of the women, fists balled. They were both glancing frantically around the room for a weapon, but how could they fight a ghost?

Chris could see the immense bulge of Jonathan Allyn's hard cock in his breeches. He's enjoying this, she thought. He's just a bully at heart. But she could see something else as well: the strain in his muscles as he held his visible and audible form. He had been tearing through spectral energy for the past half hour, and appearing for the living was especially taxing. She knew that behind Allyn's bluster he must be growing weary.

"Your earthly punishment comes now!" he roared as the living cowered. And with the word "punishment," Chris remembered something else from that family vacation to Williamsburg when she was a kid: an interactive exhibit that she had found so compelling, she had made her parents return to it every day of their visit so that she could experience it again and again.

It wasn't at all how Aftercare expected her to handle the situation. At the moment, she didn't care.

"Mr. Allyn!" she said. "Can you conjure a pillory?"

"Ha! A worthy punishment," Allyn crowed. "These feeble modern souls will be begging for my mercy in mere minutes." He pointed to an empty corner. At first, nothing happened. Chris stared at the space intently. Then a green, glowing specter of a wooden pillar appeared, growing upwards from the floor, setting off fresh wails of fear from the living. When it reached chest height, it branched out horizontally, forming a pair of cross beams stacked edgewise. Three cutout holes appeared -- ready for a neck and two wrists -- and finally padlocks materialized at either end.

Allyn laughed triumphantly and cruelly. "Who shall suffer first?" He removed the top beam and sneered around the room. Chris could see the beads of sweat on his dark brow and trembling biceps, the exertion barely hidden.

She sprang. Sweeping his ankles with a nasty slide tackle, she threw him off balance. He fell forward into the pillory. Willing herself into visibility and audibility, she shouted, "Help me! Get the top beam!" The three living women, for whom the spectral wood weighed almost nothing, slammed it into place and were snapping the padlocks closed before Theo and Travis had even registered what they were seeing. Allyn was trapped.

"What?" he shouted. "Stupid harlot, I will dissolve this illusion and then teach you the meaning of fear!" He closed his eyes to release the spectral projection of the pillory and free himself.

Nothing happened.

"Oh, you thought YOU did that?" she asked coolly. She turned to the living. "Hi. Your ghost's name is Jonathan Allyn and he's an eighteenth century asshole. I made the pillory, so my power is holding him there. I reckon we've got about ten more minutes until his spectral battery, if you will, is completely exhausted, and then he'll go bye-bye back to the Dreamland for a few more centuries and won't bother you adorable freaks any more."

"How dare you?" Allyn roared. "I am one of the saints! These sinners will be cast into the lake of fire on Judgement Day! The house of John Allyn will never be stained with MMMMFFFF---" Here ended his threats, as Chris stuffed the pocket handkerchief she had been buried with -- no additional spectral energy required -- deep into his mouth and secured it with her belt.

"Wow, hot," whistled Travis. "Theo, you should build one of these for the club."

"Thank you for saving us, ghost lady," said Katrina shyly.

"It's Chris. And you're welcome, cutie." She wished she had the energy left to kiss Katrina, but holding the pillory in existence needed all her focus.

Theo pulled a heavy wooden paddle from a bag. "If we try to spank him, will it connect?"

Chris raised an eyebrow. "I... don't know." Then she grinned. She was definitely losing her job at Aftercare when word of this adventure got back to them. Might as well make the most of it.

She undid the lacing on Allyn's breeches and pulled them down around his ankles, ignoring his outraged but thoroughly muffled protests. "Give it a shot?"

Theo stood behind and to the right of Allyn. "Here goes nothing," he said, taking a powerful back swing.

CRACK! "MMMFFFFMMMMFFF!" Allyn's gagged cry of pain left no doubt as to their success. The living laughed gleefully. Theo took several more fierce swings with the paddle, each landing with a painful-sounding impact and a loud moan from the spirit.

"Wow," Esme said when Theo paused, eyeing Allyn's fully exposed cock. It was the size of a porn star's and still rock-hard. "Guess he's enjoying this."

She reached out to grasp it, but Katrina stopped her. "Nuh-uh, girl. That sonofabitch gets no fun from us. Not even for revenge."

"Agreed," said Chris. "Listen, um, I'm going to vanish now so I don't waste my energy and can keep projecting the pillory until Allyn vanishes for good. But if you want--I mean, if you liked having a ghost around--" She suddenly felt shy, as if a swarm of little ghostly butterflies were playing in her insides.

"Were you the one who touched me earlier?" Chris nodded.

"I thought so. And also the one who kissed me on the neck?"

Theo ceased paddling Allyn. "Kissed?" he laughed with mock outrage. "You said it was a cold wind!"

"Yeah. I know I shouldn't have," Chris began to apologize, but then Katrina kissed her on the lips -- and to her surprise, even as her visible form was fading, she could feel every bit of it.

Theo came around from behind the pillory and put an arm around Katrina. She whispered something in his ear. He nodded enthusiastically.

The living woman smiled. "Come back soon, Chris. You can haunt us again any time."