A Dark and Horny Night

This is my Halloween 2026 story. It's a little bit different from what I usually write. I guess that with ghost stories, you have to simply accept the supernatural and not worry too much about "the rules." Anyway, this is one of those stories where it's necessary to suspend disbelief, although I guess that could be said about most of what I write. This is also a little on the short side, at least for me.

All characters -- living or dead -- are over the age of 18.

1.

It was a dark and stormy night...

Okay, it was actually still morning, but the "stormy" part was at least right. I was sitting in front of my computer racing to finish the coding job I was getting paid by the hour for before the inevitable loss of power. The small, out-of-the-way place that I called "home" was always the first to lose electricity during a storm and the last to get it restored. Add to that the nearly non-existent cell service and it wasn't a place to live if you couldn't stand spending significant time off-grid. Thankfully, even though my job and a good portion of my leisure activities revolved around screens, I also happened to love a good book or two or three.

Today was Halloween. It was also likely to be a complete washout, the wettest and windiest All Hallows Eve since the so-called Great Ghost blew into town and smashed things 50 years ago. While the Great Ghost had caused considerable property damage, there had only been two recorded deaths: Old Mr. Wabush, who got electrocuted trying to hook up his faulty generator, and an unknown young woman who drowned and whose body wasn't discovered until days later when the flood waters receded. To this day, her identity remained a mystery. Every once in a while, an amateur detective with a podcast to record would knock on my door thinking that I would know something about a tragedy that happened 21 years before I was born, even though my house had been built within 25 feet of where her body had been found.

A DM flashed across my screen: Jack, you going to be able to get this done with the storm moving in? If not, I can hand it off to someone else.

Fucking Adam. He'd just love that. I glanced out the window. It was already blowing a gale out there but the rain hadn't started falling. Black clouds on the horizon were headed in this direction. I pulled up the radar app. Blobs of red and orange were encroaching. I figured I had about an hour before things started to look bad. Maybe three before the lights went out. The work I was doing was normally a four-hour job. I'd just have to do it in two.

I typed: Thanks for your concern, Adam, but I think I've got enough time.

As it turned out, the storm's progression was slower and the power grid more resilient. By noon, I was done with the job and the electricity was still humming. By 2 p. m., the Internet had become unreliable and cell service was fucked. Zero bars. I started the familiar task of stacking firewood next to the fireplace and getting all the flashlights and battery-operated lanterns set up and in order. It would get chilly enough tonight that a nice fire would do more than provide a nostalgic comfort. With a nice little blaze going, I could sit for hours in my overstuffed recliner next to the fireplace, turning pages and sipping on cider.

I had treats already but there wouldn't be any trick-or-treaters. Even had the weather been great, only the heartiest of souls would make it out this far. That's why I always bought premium stuff: the really big chocolate bars that cost $5 at the grocery store. Tonight, I wouldn't get anyone. That meant I'd have a dozen of those Hershey bars to eat. Another benefit to the storm.

A loud crash outside caused me to glance out the window. I was fast enough to see a smoking tree across the road finish its collapse after being struck by lightning. Like clockwork, the lights flickered then gave up the ghost. I glanced at the windup wall clock and made note of the time: 3:22 p. m. I might have power back by tomorrow night. I had already done most of the mundane work necessary to survive a late October Nor'easter. I had filled several pots with potable water. Buckets were ready and waiting by the toilet to do flushing duties. And I could light the fire and use it to cook canned soup. I always kept a large and varied stock for times like this.

I lit the fire a little after four. The temperature inside had already dropped a few degrees and I wanted a good bed of coals established before dark. I set up two battery lanterns, one in the living room and one in the kitchen, and put a flashlight on the bathroom counter. Experience had taught me that nothing was worse than fumbling around a dark bathroom in the middle of an outage.

By five, I had a can of chicken noodle going in the small cast iron pot I kept for exactly this purpose. I ate it straight out of the pot with a sleeve of saltines, then opened one of the big Hershey bars for dessert. For my reading pleasure, I put aside the 1000-page fantasy novel I had been plowing through and instead opted for something holiday-appropriate: a paperback collection of ghost stories I'd picked up at a library sale years ago. What better way to spend Halloween night than reading ghost stories by firelight while the wind whistled and moaned outside and the rain beat an eerie, staccato rhythm on my windows.

Around six or seven, with the "dark and stormy night" in full effect, I dozed off, something that wasn't all that unusual for me when reading--I was chronically sleep-deprived so any chance to wind down inevitably led to an unplanned nap. I was startled out of my slumber by some kind of sound outside the front door. As I struggled to wakefulness, I heard it again--what sounded like people coming up the front walk. This was followed by three sharp knocks on the front door. Trick-or-treaters on a night like this?

I got out of my recliner and shuffled over to the door, still shaking off the vestiges of sleep. When I opened it, the sight that greeted me was surprising even for Halloween night.

2.

Two young women stood on my porch, both soaked from the storm and dressed like they had gotten lost on their way to a Halloween party. Definitely not just adventuresome kids saying "fuck you" to a hurricane-level storm and restocking their candy stash. The portable battery-powered lantern I was carrying illuminated their costumes.

The woman standing closest to me looked like she belonged in a goth club. She had black hair cut in messy layers around her face, dark eye makeup that had run slightly in the rain, and three piercings in each ear to go with one small stud in her nose. Her clothes were almost entirely black--tight jeans, heavy boots, and a fitted top under a soaked jacket. She clearly wasn't wearing a bra--something that would have been evident even if the rain hadn't plastered the shirt to her impressively large tits.

The other woman looked like she'd taken Halloween considerably more seriously. She couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty, with long dark blonde hair hanging loosely around her pale, fine-featured face. She wore an embroidered blouse, several necklaces, and a long floral skirt that looked like it had been inspired by an old photograph of Woodstock. She was barefoot, which struck me as a particularly stupid commitment to authenticity considering the temperature and unfriendliness of the terrain.

I looked from one to the other and waited, hoping they would sense my displeasure at the intrusion from the scowl on my face, and turn around and leave.

"Hi," said Goth Girl, forcing a smile.

"Hi." I wished she would hurry up. The heat I was carefully bottling up inside was being sucked out into the storm.

"I'm Sam. This is Violet."

Oh no. Were we doing introductions? I said nothing, allowing my scowl to deepen.

Behind them, the storm was still ramping up to maximum intensity. Rain blew sideways and flashes of lightning gave me brief but clear glimpses of my visitors. Whatever car these two had arrived in wasn't visible from the doorway, which meant either they'd parked somewhere down the road or they'd walked here.

Sam brushed a wet strand of hair away from her face. "We were wondering if we could come in for a few minutes."

I was shocked by the request even though I'd been half expecting it. "No," I responded. I'd seen enough horror movies and read enough news stories to know that letting strangers into your house, especially on a night like this, was the kind of mistake people only got to make once.

Her eyebrows went up at the bluntness of my refusal.

"Sorry," I added. "But I don't know you."

"We're stranded. The car died up the road, there's no cell signal, and you're the first person who's actually opened their door."

My neighbors were smarter than I typically gave them credit for. Would that I had shown the same degree of intelligence. Then I would have been spared the indignity of sending two soaked women back out into a gale. Pragmatism went to war with my conscience, which I liked to keep hidden.

I glanced at Violet, who remained quiet. She met my eyes without difficulty, dispelling the notion that she was shy. She stood a little behind Sam and didn't seem to be shivering at all.

"Look," I said, "if your car's stuck, I can give you a flashlight and--"

Sam leaned forward slightly, presumably to hear me over a gust of wind. The neck of her wet shirt fell away from her chest, giving me a brief but unimpeded glimpse of the largest breasts I had ever seen in real life. I mean, they were spectacular: large and round. I looked away faster than I meant to.

Then she straightened, apparently unaware of what had just happened. Either that, or fully aware and pretending not to be.

I sighed. I was probably going to regret this. "Come in."

After shutting the door behind them, I asked them to remain where they were while I retrieved two bath towels. I didn't want them dripping all over my living room floor. Sam took the one I offered her gratefully, slipped off her sodden jacket and toweled off vigorously. Violet merely wrapped it around her. I noticed that, unlike Sam, who had created a small puddle on the hardwood floor, she didn't seem soaked through. In fact, her getup seemed almost waterproof. That was odd, but not odd enough to spend much time thinking about. Maybe the blouse and skirt were made out of some synthetic material designed to look old. Halloween costumes had come a long way since the plastic masks and cheap capes I remembered from childhood.

"Shoes," I said to Sam, pointing toward the small mat beside the door.

She looked down at her boots. "Seriously?"

"They're covered in mud."

She sighed but sat to unlace her boots. Violet, already barefoot, just stood there. I glanced down at her feet, expecting them to be caked in mud. They weren't. They were clean--impossibly clean, like she'd just stepped out of a shower. The slop in my yard should have covered her to the ankles. My brain flagged it as wrong, another detail that didn't fit.

"What happened to your shoes?"

Violet glanced down as though she'd forgotten she wasn't wearing any. "Oh. They got wet so I took them off and left them in the car."

That didn't sound entirely plausible. "And walked around barefoot in the middle of a storm?"

"Feet prune in wet shoes. And I grew up going barefoot." There was something odd about her voice. I guess it was the intonation. Expressionless. No rise and fall. It was the kind of voice that would put me to sleep if I listened to her giving a speech or a lecture.

Sam finished pulling off her boots and peeled away wet socks. She wiggled her toes. "Where can we put these?"

"Leave them there."

Unlike Violet, she was visibly cold. Her lips had a blue tint and her wet shirt clung to her. I found my eyes straying to her chest more often than her eyes. But if it made me seem like a lecher, that didn't bother me. This was my fucking house and they had shown up uninvited, not the other way around. If her tits were going to be on display, I damn well was going to look.

"You have power?" Sam asked, her eyes scanning the parts of the house she could see from the entrance, living room to the left, kitchen straight ahead, and hallway leading off to the right.

"No."

"We saw the light from outside. Through the window. All the other houses were dark."

"Battery lanterns and the fireplace." But I thought the assertion about the other houses being dark rang false. Mr. Button up the street had a whole-house generator that he ran whenever the power went out. Ditto for Mrs. Black three doors down. In fact, generators were pretty common around here because the power grid wasn't exactly reliable. The propane companies made a lot of money keeping the tanks full.

I sighed. Having let these two weirdos in, I supposed I was now stuck with them. Well, at least they were hot. Or Sam was. Tough to say about Violet. The hippie costume was sexy but I had no idea about the body underneath it.

"You can warm up in the living room," I said. If they were here for the duration of the storm, that would probably mean I'd be stuck with them all night. I found it necessary to add, "I'm not running a hotel, though."

"Understood," Sam said. Violet merely nodded.

They followed me into the living room. I turned up the lantern and set it on the coffee table. Sam headed over to the fireplace and held out her hands. Violet stopped several feet short of it and sat down on the floor, arranging her skirts around herself almost like it was a ritual.

"You can sit in a chair," I said. She didn't seem worried about getting it wet, and I realized why. Her clothes looked perfectly dry. Her hair, too. And it wasn't just the firelight playing tricks.

Violet didn't move to get up. Her attention raked around the room, taking in the bookshelves, the recliner, the lifeless computer and desk, and the ghost-story collection I'd left open on the little table next to my chair.

"You were reading ghost stories?" she asked.

I shrugged. "It's Halloween."

"Do you believe them?"

That was a fucking weird thing to ask. I laughed. "About as much as I believe in God or UFOs."

"Not sure about the first one," said Sam, who was using Violet's dry towel on her hair. "But UFOs probably exist. And don't discount the supernatural. The dead don't always find their path to the next world. And Halloween is a special night for them."

Now she was freaking me out.

"Do you have anything dry I could borrow? I don't need anything fancy. Sweatpants. T-shirt. Whatever."

I belatedly realized that a good host would have already offered. Then again, I had neither expected nor wanted guests. Especially weird ones. Then again, what other kind would there be in the middle of a storm like this?

"And Violet?"

Violet shook her head, capturing me with her startlingly blue eyes. "I'm fine."

Sam looked at her. "You're not fine."

"I don't feel cold."

"I'll find something for both of you," I said.

Sam's voice stopped me as I headed toward the hallway. "Jack?"

A jolt of panic went through me. I hadn't told them my name. Every muscle in my body tensed, ready for a fight or flight I hadn't anticipated needing inside my own home.

Sam was looking at me, puzzled by my shocked expression. "What?"

"How do you know my name?"

Sam glanced at Violet and Violet looked back at her. Every suspicion I'd had about letting strangers into the house came rushing back to me. How badly had I fucked up? I took a deep breath to calm myself. "Okay. Let's try this again. Who the hell are you?"

Sam held up both hands. "Okay. Before you freak out, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation."

"I'm already freaking out. You know my name."

"You're Jack Mercer. We looked you up."

I stared at her, the anxiety growing. "Why?"

"We're ghost hunters. We came out here because of the woman who died during the Great Ghost. 50 years ago tonight."

"The unidentified one?"

"Yes. We've been researching her for a while."

I looked between them. Sam's attention was focused on me but Violet seemed unaware of any tension. Not for the first time, I wondered if she was on something. "And somehow your research included me."

"Your house. It's basically on the spot where they found the body."

"I know that and so does everyone with a podcast and too much free time."

Sam looked embarrassed. "We found an old article that gave the location. Then we checked the property records. Your name came up."

That was plausible enough to lower my anxiety level. It was weird but it seemed to fit the facts, at least as I had them. "So you knew who lived here before you knocked, but you neglected to mention that."

"We weren't planning to bother you. Or even let you know that we were here."

"Then why are you in my living room?"

"Our car died and the storm got way worse than we expected."

I replayed her answers in my head. Car died, storm got bad, they're ghost hunters, they looked me up. Each piece, on its own, was credible. But stitched together so conveniently?

Sam continued, "Look, we came out here because tonight matters. Fifty years to the day, same kind of storm, Halloween. If there was ever going to be a chance to make contact, this seemed like it."

"Make contact?"

"With the girl."

"The dead one? You can't be serious."

"We are. We're invested in her story. We think she might be trapped and we want to help her find her way home. So we thought we'd walk the area, take some readings, maybe try a séance if we found the right spot."

"A séance. Seriously? In my front yard?" What would the neighbors have thought? Probably not much, given that it was Halloween.

"Don't say it like that."

"How else should I say it?"

"Without making it sound ridiculous."

"And you think it's not? Put yourself in my position."

"Point taken," she said. "Anyway, we weren't planning to knock on your door. After the car quit, I thought maybe we could hang out until there was a break in the weather and then figure out what to do, but then I started to worry that a tree might fall on the car. So when we saw the light in your living room..."

It all sounded too neat. She was a good liar, I'd give her that. But I didn't believe the story, not fully. It felt cobbled together, a mix of truth and fiction designed to disarm me. I still couldn't shake the feeling that I was being played, but for what? Still, the immediate threat of violence seemed to have passed, replaced by a deep, unsettling weirdness.

"What kind of ghost hunters go out in a storm like this without telling the homeowner whose property they're snooping around?"

"We thought we could do this without anyone knowing. Because when you're hunting ghosts, people generally aren't supportive unless they can get a reality show out of it."

That's when Violet made her first contribution to the conversation. "We were hoping to find her."

The phrasing was odd. "Find her" not "make contact" or something similar.

Sam added, "If she's still here."

"And now?" I asked.

Sam looked me in the eye. "Well, we're here. And maybe she is too."

I couldn't suppress a shiver at that. Whatever they were up to, I didn't want any part in it. Ghosts? Utter bullshit. One thing I knew, though. I wasn't going to get a wink of sleep with these two around.

3.

An hour later, not much had changed. I had gotten them both dry clothing, which Sam had accepted but Violet had not. After slipping into the darkened hallway to change into a white t-shirt and sweatpants, Sam returned looking somehow less fearsome without all that black. The shirt was large enough that it didn't call quite the same attention to her tits that her previous outfit had.

I stoked the fire a couple of times and got them cans of Coke. Sam accepted hers greedily. Violet looked at it like I had offered her poison. I guessed she was some kind of health-freak.

There wasn't a lot of conversation, although at one point Violet made a really weird statement, directed at Sam. "I'm naked under here." I had by this time decided that they were both at least a little nuts. I went back into the kitchen and hid the knives.

With midnight only a few hours away, I decided to poke the bear. "Shouldn't you two be getting ready or something? Did you plan to do the séance in here or out there?"

"We don't need a séance," said Violet.

"It's more of a ritual than a séance. We don't need to be outside, which is a relief. The weather doesn't bother Violet, but I'm freezing." She rubbed her arms, then let her gaze linger on me, her tone shifting entirely. "Which brings me to your hospitality. It was very generous. I'd like to find a way to pay you back."

I caught the suggestiveness of her tone and blinked because I thought I had misheard. My cock, however, definitely took notice. When a sexy woman makes an offer like that, it's hard not to be interested. And Sam was a very sexy woman.

"What exactly does that mean?" I asked.

Sam took another sip of Coke before answering. "It means you've given us shelter when we were in a bad situation and I don't particularly like being in debt."

"You don't owe me anything. I let you in because sending you back out there would have made me an asshole."

"I know. That doesn't mean I can't be grateful."

I glanced at Violet. She was still sitting on the floor near the fireplace, her skirt arranged around her and her untouched Coke beside her. She seemed to be gazing at her hands as if they were foreign to her.

"So what did you have in mind?" I asked.

Sam chuckled. "I thought I was being fairly obvious." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. The motion pulled the borrowed t-shirt taut across her chest, a calculated gesture that was impossible to ignore.

"A titty show?" I asked. Truth is, if that was all she was offering, I was still very interested. Seeing her naked boobs would be well worth sharing my house with these two, even as weird as Violet was.

Violet looked down.

Sam smiled. "Sure. If that's what you want. But... maybe something more? I mean, you're a good-looking guy and I can tell by what's going on in your pants that you're attracted to me."

I glanced down. She wasn't wrong about the tent. But although my body was pushing me in one direction, my mind wouldn't let go of my misgivings. And the weirdest part wasn't Sam propositioning me; it was Violet just sitting there, completely ignoring us.

"There's a difference between attraction and offering to fuck someone you met a couple of hours ago," I said, ignoring the inner voice that was saying, You're blowing it!

"I know."

"Then why are we having this conversation?"

Sam looked at Violet. "Because we don't have a lot of time."

"Time for what?"

The question made Sam uncomfortable. I could see it in her eyes. Now I sensed I was getting close to whatever these two were hiding. "There's more going on here than you've told me."

"Yes," Sam said. "Look, I haven't lied about everything."

"That's reassuring."

Violet finally spoke. "She's trying to make this easier. Because she's afraid you won't believe the truth. Or that you'll freak if you do."

Sam turned toward her. "I was trying to be subtle."

At that, Violet burst out laughing. It was the first time she had shown real emotion and it transformed her pale features. For the first time, I realized how pretty she was. "You call that subtle?"

Sam sighed, although I couldn't decide whether it was theatrical or a sign of surrender. "Fine. The important part is that we really came here because of the girl who died during the Great Ghost. That much is 100% true. We have been trying to help her and tonight is important."

"Why?"

"Because the conditions are right. Same date, same kind of storm, same area. It's almost like some kind of weird cosmic convergence. We may not get another chance like this."

"What exactly is this ritual? What are you trying to achieve?"

Sam hesitated.

I leaned forward. "If you want my help, you're going to have to tell me."

She glanced toward Violet again. Violet gave a small nod. "Go ahead. Tell him."

Sam looked back at me. "The problem is that once I explain the rest of it, you're going to think we're completely insane."

"I'm already pretty close."

"Yeah," she acknowledged.

"Okay," I said. "Start from the beginning."

"Fifty years ago tonight, a girl came here to meet her lover. Another woman. Her parents wouldn't have approved. They'd met at a festival and wrote letters for months. This was supposed to be their secret meeting."

"So she came all the way out here?" I asked, glancing at the rain-lashed windows.

"Hitchhiked across two states," Sam confirmed. "But when she arrived, no one was here. We don't know why. Maybe her lover got scared, or delayed. The point is, the girl was alone, the storm was rolling in, and she didn't know a soul. She was caught outside when the flooding started. Died alone, terrified, believing she'd been abandoned. They never even found her name."

Sam paused and looked across the room at the girl sitting quietly on the floor, head lowered, hair hiding her expression.

"Her name was Violet."

For several seconds, I just stared at Sam. Then I laughed, not because anything was funny, but because it came out, an involuntary reaction to an impossible claim. "You expect me to believe she died fifty years ago?"

"I know how it sounds."

"It sounds fucking insane."

"I told you that you'd think that. It is insane," Sam said. "That doesn't make it untrue."

I got up and started pacing because sitting still was making me feel trapped. Outside, a gust of wind blew shit up against the front window with a clatter. Thunder boomed in the distance.

There had to be a real explanation for all this, but I couldn't come up with one. This was just too goddamn fucked up. Even as some kind of elaborate Halloween prank, it made no sense. I turned to Violet. "This is your story?"

Her head came up and she looked at me directly with those stunning blue eyes--eyes that were colder than glacial ice. A chill raced up my spine and caused goosebumps to pimple the skin on the back of my neck.

"It is. Or a version of it."

"You're nineteen?" I ran one hand through my short brown hair. "This is some kind of trick."

"It isn't." I saw something in her eyes--perhaps sympathy--that indicated she understood what I was feeling.

"Then prove it."

Sam opened her mouth, but Violet spoke first. "All right."

She reached down and gathered a handful of her skirt. For a second, I thought she was going to stand up, but she just shifted her posture and, with that movement, her clothing disappeared. In an instant, it was all gone--the blouse, the skirt, the necklaces, the bracelets. One moment they were there and the next they weren't. Violet was sitting naked on my living room floor.

It had to be a trick. But even as my mind latched onto the thought, I knew it was false. This was beyond the ability of even a master illusionist. Even David Copperfield couldn't pull this one off. I kept trying to construct an explanation--mirrors, misdirection, some gap in my attention--and each one collapsed before I could finish building it. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Violet looked down at herself, apparently unconcerned by her nudity. In fact, she tossed her golden hair back behind her shoulders, giving me a full view. Then, like a magic trick in reverse, the blouse and skirt reappeared, along with the necklaces and bracelets. She was once again dressed like a '70s hippie chick. "You asked if I was nineteen," she said. "In a way. But I'm also dead."

I wanted to reject it and tell them both to get out, but for the first time since Sam had said the name Violet, I couldn't think of a single explanation that made more sense than the one I refused to accept.

Sam nodded to herself. "So now you know."

4.

The truth is, I wasn't sure what I knew. I wondered if their psychosis had infected me. The rational part of my mind fought against a belief that ghosts could be real. Or, more specifically, that there was one sitting on the floor in my living room.

I looked at Violet for several seconds and she looked back at me. Her expression was calm but she was no longer distant or disinterested. "Do it again," I said.

Her eyebrows lifted. "You just want to see me naked again."

Sam laughed at that. "Violet, he's a guy, and your body is hot. Of course he wants to see you naked again, but there's more to it than that."

I nodded. "I want to watch closely this time. If there's a trick, I want to see how it works."

"Fine. Watch." She stood up and held her arms loosely by her sides, palms open. Her clothing vanished.

This time I was ready for it, which made no difference. There was no movement to follow and no transition I could identify. One instant she was wearing the embroidered blouse, long skirt, necklaces, and bracelets; the next she was standing naked in front of the fire.

I stared harder than was strictly necessary, but there was no evidence of trickery. I was running out of explanations that didn't involve accepting what Sam had told me. With the initial shock gone, I found myself actually seeing her rather than just reacting. She was slight--smaller than I'd registered at first--with compact breasts that sat high and close together and hips that flared just enough to break the line of her narrow waist. The hair between her thighs was thick and ungroomed. She made no move to cover herself and let me look for as long as I wanted.

I tried to ignore the fact that I was getting hard. Not rock hard, but there was a noticeable tightening in my jeans. Part of me was recoiling from the sheer wrongness of it, while another, baser part was undeniably hooked.

"See anything useful?" she asked.

"Depends on what you mean by useful."

"Anything that explains the clothes."

"No," I admitted. That was an admission of defeat, an acceptance of Hamlet's admonition: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Violet held out her hand. "Touch me."

Almost reluctantly, I reached forward and took her hand. Her skin was cool, though not cold enough to feel unnatural. Her fingers were solid in mine. I turned her hand over, pressed my thumb against her palm, then moved two fingers to her wrist. "No pulse," I said.

"I am real. Just not alive in the way you think of it."

After I released her wrist and stepped back, Violet made no move to restore her clothing. A few minutes earlier, she had seemed detached from everything happening around her; now she was watching me closely enough to know exactly where my attention kept going.

"You can put them back on," I said, although a part of me didn't want that.

"Why? You like looking at me and I don't mind being looked at."

I sat back in the chair. "Fine. Let's say I accept that you're dead."

"If you're willing to admit that, I have a chance."

"And Sam isn't dead too, is she?" I didn't think so, but I had to ask.

Sam responded with a full-bellied laugh.

"Sam has a gift," said Violet, her gaze fixing on her companion. "She found me when I was... less than this. A memory. But I can't stay. This place, this body she helped me build, it's a waiting room. I'm stuck."

"So the two of you came here because this is where you died and tonight gives you some kind of chance to break whatever is holding you here? To set you free?"

Sam nodded. "That's basically it."

I looked at her. "And how would that be done?"

"It has to be sex. Or at least that's what we think. It's about energy," Sam said. "Look, we've tried to make this work, just the two of us." She glanced at Violet, a flicker of old frustration crossing her face. "But with us... the energy just goes in circles. It makes things stronger, not freer. There's a bond, but it's not the right one."

"The two of you?"

Sam gave me a look that chastised me for being slow on the uptake. "Meaning Violet and I have already had sex."

"More than once," Violet added helpfully.

"And before you ask the next question, she's fully functional. She can have an orgasm."

"Or two or three or four," Violet giggled. The oddly girlish reaction was strange coming from someone--some thing--who had thus far been so reserved.

"You can feel everything?" I asked. I wanted to adjust my cock in my jeans but I knew they would both notice it.

"Oh yeah," said Violet. Then her voice dropped into a whisper. "Like Sam said, I'm 'fully functional.'"

I cleared my throat. "Then why isn't having sex between you two enough?"

Sam answered. "I wish we knew all the answers but there's no manual to follow. We think it's because I'm her anchor. When we have sex, the energy stabilizes her rather than letting her move on."

Violet finally restored her clothing and I tried not to acknowledge a fleeting sense of disappointment. "It feels good, but it doesn't help. If anything, it makes the bond stronger."

It all sounded like mystical mumbo-jumbo to me, but I wasn't exactly an expert here. I could see where this was headed, though. "You need someone else."

"Yes," Sam said. "Someone who has no existing connection to Violet."

"And you think that someone could be me."

"We're hoping," Violet said. "It's a shot in the dark, really. An educated guess. But Sam believes that all of this--the storm, the location, the date--will stack the deck in our favor. There still aren't any guarantees. But, hey, you'd get to fuck a ghost. How many guys can say that?"

I sat back and tried to make sense of what they were asking me to accept. The ghost part was bad enough, but now they were talking about energy and anchors and a sexual ritual that might allow her to move on to whatever the fuck came next. I had no frame of reference for any of it. Fuck if anything in my life had prepared me for this. I must have been absent when they talked about horny ghosts in sex ed.

"What happens if it works?" I asked. "Does she just disappear?"

Sam shrugged. "Maybe. We don't really know."

"That seems like something you'd want to know before doing it."

"You think we haven't tried?" There was some irritation in Sam's voice, although I didn't think it was directed at me. "I've talked to other mediums, read everything I could find, tried a couple of things that turned out to be completely useless. Most of what people write about ghosts is bullshit, and the stuff that isn't tends to contradict everything else."

Violet added, "Sam spoke with an old woman in New Orleans, someone who dealt with... things like me. She didn't have answers, just stories. One was about a spirit tied to a place, and how a powerful, living connection--an act of creation--was the only thing that could sever the cord. It was vague, but it was all we had."

"We're putting a lot of faith in the words of one stranger, but it's not like we have much choice." Sam didn't hide the hint of bitterness. "All this uncertainty has made the last three years difficult for her. For us."

That was the first time either of them had mentioned how long they had been together. "Three years?"

"Almost," Sam said. "I found her by accident. Or she found me. We still argue about that."

"You always want to take credit. I found you," Violet said.

"You were haunting a cemetery."

"I was buried there in an unmarked grave."

Sam sighed. "Without me, you'd still be there, trapped and unaware. A mindless apparition."

Violet didn't deny it.

I felt like I was still playing catch-up. "So you've been trying to get her to move on for three years?"

"Pretty much," Sam said. "Tonight is the best chance we've had. She's stronger here than I've ever seen her, and the storm seems to be making her stronger still."

"What happens if you don't do anything?"

"Most likely, she'll revert to her previous state and go back to haunting the graveyard. She's stuck here and her current stability isn't sustainable. I'm surprised it's lasted this long."

"That's because we love each other." Violet said softly.

"Yeah. There is that." Sam's voice was thick, and I finally understood what was at stake. Until then, I'd mostly thought of them as two hot lunatics with a ghost problem. Now I understood what Sam had to lose. If this worked, Violet was gone forever. If it failed, Sam would lose her anyway, watching her fade back into that mindless state she'd rescued her from. It was a no-win scenario for the woman who loved a ghost.

"The conditions tonight are perfect. It almost feels like a cosmic setup. To miss the chance... I don't know if there will ever be another opportunity. This might be it and that scares me." Sam was crying now. She wasn't making a big show of it, but there was a tear running down each cheek.

That explained some things, including her attempt to get into my pants almost immediately after meeting me. "So when you offered to pay me back for letting you stay here..."

Sam looked embarrassed for perhaps the first time all night. "That was badly handled."

Violet said, "I told her not to do it that way."

"It got his attention," argued Sam.

"It definitely got my attention," I admitted.

That earned me a grin from Sam, but Violet was studying me more seriously now. She had moved closer at some point and was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, her knees only a couple of feet from mine. Whatever reserve she had shown earlier was gone. "What do you want?" she asked.

"I'm still trying to figure out whether I'm having a psychotic episode."

She waited, and I realized she actually wanted an answer rather than another joke.

The honest answer was obvious: Sam. I had wanted her almost from the moment she had leaned forward on the porch. Violet was more complicated because until an hour ago I had barely understood her at all, and since then I had seen her naked twice, learned that she was dead, and found out that she had been sleeping with Sam.

"I'm willing to experiment," I said at last. I was probably taking a bigger risk than I realized. Having sex with a ghost didn't sound like the safest or sanest way to spend Halloween night, although no one could deny the appropriateness.

Violet nodded. "Fair enough." She reached out and rested her hand lightly on my knee, watching my face to see whether I objected. I didn't.

For the next few minutes, none of us said much. Violet left her hand on my knee, Sam finished her Coke, and I sat there coming to terms with what I had agreed to. Outside, the storm continued to hammer the house.

Finally, Sam rose to her feet. "Let's get started. These freaky vibes are making me horny."

5.

Surprisingly, Violet didn't immediately make her clothing vanish. But she did move toward me, offering a kiss. With Sam watching from just a few feet away, I took the ghostly girl into my arms, being careful, as if she might be easily broken. It was an intensely strange experience because, as I touched her, I could tell the clothes weren't tangible. My hands passed through them like they were sunlight. They had no feel. But her body underneath... that was a different story. In many ways, she felt like any other woman I had held, but her flesh was room-temperature, not warm.

Her lips were soft, her tongue pliant, but there was no saliva, no breath. She kissed with a strange aggression, pressing her mouth to mine without romance or tenderness. Her eyes stayed open, locked on mine. Nothing in my life had prepared me for a kiss that felt so dead, yet so demanding.

I glanced over at Sam, who was watching with a mixture of curiosity, hunger, and something else--perhaps jealousy. One hand was absently playing with a nipple through her shirt. The other was shoved down under the waistband of her pants. She hadn't been kidding about being horny, and she wasn't the only one.

Violet toyed with the button at the top of my jeans, but her fingers kept slipping and she couldn't get it undone. I reached down to give her some help. "I want to see it," she said. "I want to see yours." Her voice had dropped an octave from what it had been the last time she spoke. It was still feminine, but coarser.

She dropped to her knees, still wearing the clothing-that-wasn't-there. She unzipped me then pulled down my jeans. My cock had partially escaped through the fly in my boxers and was pointed directly at her. She wasted no time touching the head. Her face showed an expression of intense fascination, almost like I was a science project. She removed my boxers then went to work on me with her hands, touching and stroking until a tiny bead of moisture blossomed at the tip.

Sam moved closer, her voice a low murmur by my ear. "She can't take you in her mouth. No saliva. But I can help with that, if you want." She brushed a hand against my back. "Don't worry, her pussy gets plenty wet."

Violet's handjob, although clumsy and inexperienced, was having an effect. And the coolness of her fingers, far from causing my erection to retreat, was actually a turn-on. I shifted my gaze to her face, which was screwed up in a look of intense concentration, and voiced my question out loud. "Are you turned on?" Because she didn't really look it. But then, I was comparing her to my more conventional partners.

Violet smiled at me then took my hand and guided it through the illusory skirt and between her legs. Her pubic hair was absolutely soaked.

"Told you," said Sam. Then, to Violet: "You don't need the clothing anymore, Babe."

Just like that, it was gone.

As I was standing there fully erect, with Violet's hand sliding up and down my cock, using precum as lubrication, Sam dropped to her knees and put her mouth on her ghostly girlfriend's pussy. She started gently, her tongue working through the thick curls of hair, searching for the clit. Violet's whole body jerked when Sam found it, her grip on me becoming tighter as she squeezed me almost to the point of pain. Having gotten the reaction she was looking for, Sam went to work in earnest, pushing her nose and mouth hard up against Violet's pussy. The ghostly woman started trembling and moaning and her stroking of me seemed like it was on autopilot.

I was starting to get close when she came, sliding to the ground with a long, wavering moan. She released my cock in the process, causing me to curse in frustration. Sam, however, took pity on me. Still fully clothed, she shifted her oral attention from Violet, who was now curled into a fetal position on the floor, to me. Her face wet from pleasing her friend, she steadied my cock with her hands then wrapped her lips around it.

Sam took me into her mouth with confidence. One hand wrapping around the base, she worked the rest with her lips and tongue, sliding along the sensitive underside with every stroke. There was a lot of saliva, which kept everything nice and slippery. After Violet's cool, clumsy fingers, the heat of Sam's mouth created a sensory overload. My knees started to wobble. On the floor, Violet had recovered and was watching with the same intense, studying expression.

"I'm close," I warned Sam.

She pulled off, apparently so Violet could see me spurt, and finished me with her hands. My ejaculation hit Sam right below her chin, dripping down onto her t-shirt. The rest of it just dribbled out to coat her hand. I took a couple of unsteady steps and practically collapsed into my recliner.

"How's that?" she asked with a smirk. "Payment enough?"

"It's a good start," I said. "How is it that you're still dressed?"

Sam glanced down at herself. A wet spot was spreading on the white cotton just below the collar where she'd taken the first shot. "Fair point," she said.

She pulled the t-shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor. Her tits were as good as I expected: heavy and round with nipples stiff from arousal. Then she pushed the sweatpants down along with her underwear and stepped out of them. Unlike Violet, she was shaved smooth. Where Violet was all curls, she was bare skin.

She sat on the couch across from my recliner and let her legs fall open, completely unselfconscious about it. "I got both you and Violet off. I'm the only one in this room who hasn't come." She looked at me. "Return the favor. Then we'll try to figure out what Violet really needs. Even tonight, it's obviously more than just my mouth."

Violet had shifted around on the floor so she was facing us, chin resting on her drawn-up knees. She watched Sam's bare pussy with complete concentration.

"She likes to watch," Sam said. "Don't you, Babe?"

"Yeah," Violet said without a hint of embarrassment. For a ghost, I guess that made sense. Not that Violet was behaving at all what I might have expected from a supernatural spirit.

I got out of the recliner and approached Sam. Her legs were spread obscenely wide, her feet propped on the edge of the couch cushion. On impulse, instead of going right for her pussy, I lifted her right foot and wrapped my lips around her big toe. She made a small surprised noise when I started to suck. I worked my way across her foot, taking each toe in turn, running my tongue between them. She curled her toes against my tongue and made a delightful little sound every time I hit a sensitive spot.

"This is new," she breathed. "Nobody's ever done that before."

Over the years, I had discovered that even women who weren't necessarily into foot play enjoyed that sort of attention... unless they were ticklish.

I kissed my way up the inside of her calf, then moved to her thigh. Up close, her wetness was obvious, and her smell filled my nose. My only thought was getting her off, paying her back for the pleasure she'd given me.

I started tentatively, licking along her outer lips before pushing my tongue between them. I gave her a moment to get acclimated before I moved to her clit. Some women liked variety; some were content with just tongue action there. It didn't take long before I discovered which type Sam was.

"Right there," she said. "Don't get fancy. Just stay right there."

So I did. I kept going, holding the same rhythm even as my tongue grew clumsy and my neck started to ache. I hoped I could outlast her; that she'd come before my jaw locked up. I brought in my fingers to help, two of them plunging in and out of her pussy. That was enough to get things rolling. Her moaning became louder and her legs started shaking. I glanced sideways once and saw Violet, still sitting on the floor, watching us without blinking. Her hands were folded together in her lap. She looked absorbed in the show we were putting on, but she wasn't touching herself at all. That surprised me. If I had been watching this, I'd be jerking my cock for all I was worth.

Sam came with a sharp yelp, pulling my face hard against her and holding me there while her hips bucked. I kept going until she shoved my head away with both hands. "Okay, okay. Stop. Sensitive."

As she lay back on the couch to recover, she looked over to Violet, who was still spectating. "You never touch yourself," Sam said to her.

Violet shrugged. "I never think of it."

"See, that's the thing," Sam said, turning to me. "Three years, and she's never once masturbated. Not a single time. And that's pretty much the same answer she always gives. And when we tried, she not only didn't come but she didn't even get wet."

We took a break. The clock on the wall read nearly eleven. I fed another log to the fire, the crackle and pop filling the silence. On the couch, Violet was a pale shape tucked against Sam's side, the two of them enjoying what might be their final quiet moment together.

The main event awaited.

6.

Sam explained her theory, and it was clear she was relying more on hope than actual knowledge. I didn't contradict her; I was too busy wrestling with my own choices. The line between bizarre adventure and something much darker felt perilously thin.

"Both of you have to come at the same time. That's probably going to be the hardest part, but it's what triggers everything. Jack, how good are you at control?"

I pondered. Normally, I could go twenty or thirty minutes with a woman before having an orgasm, especially if I had already come. But under these circumstances? I had no idea whether fucking Violet would make the experience better or worse. I told the women that.

"Violet has no control," Sam said. "Sometimes, it's like she seems to be ramping up forever and never actually comes. Other times, it happens suddenly with no build-up. So you're going to have to stay on the edge without going over."

Way to ease off on the pressure. "What happens if we miss?"

"Then Violet stays. Stuck until we can try again, which may be never. And she'll eventually slide back to the place where I found her, a lonely spirit wandering a graveyard." She shivered almost as if she was talking about herself. "I'll do what I can to choreograph things. I've gotten used to her inconsistencies and can sort-of read her. When I say slow down, you slow down. When I say stop, you stop. And when I say go, you let go completely. Don't pull out. Come inside of her. I think that's part of what counts."

The whole thing sounded vague, like she was making it up as she went along. This was more about an improbable hope than a detailed and specific ritual. She didn't actually know what was going to happen, and neither did Violet.

Violet sat cross-legged on the rug, still naked, eyes darting back and forth between me and Sam. "I can do it," she said quietly. It wasn't clear which one of us she was reassuring. "I feel more in control of this form here and now than before. Sam, all the times we had sex, I felt like I was fading in and out, but not tonight."

Sam nodded. "Your orgasm was different. I could feel it. More... human."

I stripped off the rest of my clothes. We started on the rug in front of the fire. Violet lay back and pulled me down on top of her, and at first it was the same as before: cool skin, dry lips, that forceful, unpracticed kiss with her eyes open and fixed on mine. No foreplay--I was hard enough that I didn't need it, and she was... well... she was a ghost. I pushed into her slowly. She was wet but cool inside too, and the sensation was so unfamiliar that I had to concentrate just to keep going. After all, hard dicks and cooler temperatures were not necessarily compatible.

Then things started to change. It began with her mouth. On our third or fourth kiss, I noticed saliva where there hadn't been any before. Her lips moistened and softened, and her skin warmed under my hands. I ran my palm up her side and across her small breasts and the flesh there had lost that room-temperature neutrality. Her nipples, slightly inverted every time I'd seen them, tightened and rose under my thumbs. A flush spread across her neck and down her chest, pink in the firelight. It was as if I were fucking her back to life.

"She's climbing," Sam said from beside us. She was sitting close, one hand resting on Violet's hip. I could feel her fingers on every down thrust. "Jack, you're ahead of her. Slow down."

I slowed, fighting against the natural rhythm my body wanted--more shallow strokes and a slower, more controlled thrusting. A bead of sweat that had formed on my forehead dripped onto her face, landing just below her eye. She didn't notice, but I did. It looked like a tear.

The warmth of her now, the way her hips had started rising to meet me on their own, and the tiny grunts she was making--everything conspired to challenge my control. Sam wasn't helping, although I guess she thought she was. Her hand slid between us and moved around, rubbing Violet's clit but inadvertently adding to my own arousal. I could feel Violet getting close, her body tightening around me, but I didn't know if I'd last until she got there. I looked into her eyes and saw that the icy coolness had been replaced by something softer and warmer. There was no doubt that she was changing.

"Jesus," I breathed, fighting against the orgasm that wanted out. Outside, the storm had grown violent, high winds whipping, causing the house to groan. Thunder rolled, one peal overlapping the next. Lightning created a strobe-like effect. It was almost as if the weather was somehow in tune with Violet. Maybe it was. Skeptic by nature, I was out of my depth here.

Violet's arms came around my back. Her fingers pressed into my flesh, nails piercing my skin. Her kisses turned hungry, wet, and messy. Her tiny, restrained noises became loud wails that were almost unnerving in their intensity. I had once had sex with a "screamer." Violet was louder.

"More," Violet cried. "Don't stop, don't stop--"

Her voice suddenly urgent, Sam issued the permission I had been waiting for. "Now, Jack! Do it! Come inside her!" As she said that, she removed her hand from where it was touching Violet.

I let go, driving into her and allowing my orgasm to overtake me. At the same time, Violet came with a scream to rival the roar of the storm outside, her body shuddering under me, her pussy gripping my cock and drawing out every pulse of cum as I buried my face against her neck.

The fire flared without being touched. Every flame in the fireplace stood up straight at once. The thunder quieted and the wind outside cut off mid-gust. Silence fell over the house so completely that I could hear the wall clock ticking.

Under me, Violet shook. I lifted my head to look at her and saw that she was crying, tears sliding her pink cheeks. She was warm all over. Then she spoke, her voice quiet and filled with wonder. "Oh! There it is."

"Violet." Sam's voice reminded me that Violet and I were not alone. "Babe, did it--"

"Yes." Violet smiled, and for the first time, it reached her eyes. It was a young, open smile, free from the haunted weight I'd seen before. "I can feel it. It's right there. Coming for me. Finally."

I was still inside her when she began to dissolve. The solid weight beneath me thinned, and I felt the rough texture of the rug through her skin. Where my hand held her shoulder, I could see the flickering firelight right through her flesh.

"Not yet." Sam's voice was bereft. "Please, not yet, I'm not--"

Violet turned her head toward me. Her eyes were translucent. When she spoke, her voice had become a hollow whisper. "Jack. Thank you. You didn't believe but you saved me. Now I can go where I was meant to be." Then she looked at Sam. "You found me and taught me things about love I never knew when I was alive. I hated being trapped but I cherish the times we were together. You carried me for three years, and you can put me down now."

Sam was openly weeping. "I love you. Violet, I love you."

"I know. I love you too. And maybe that's why it worked. It was more than just the energy. Somebody had to love me enough to let me go."

She reached up and her fingers passed through Sam's cheek with a faint shimmer, then the rest of her went. There was no flash or spectacle; she simply lost definition and dissolved in my arms, leaving me naked and kneeling on the rug. The clock chimed midnight. Halloween was over.

Sam was still there, a wreck of sobs. She collapsed onto the rug where Violet had been moments before, curling into a ball. I'd only seen a loss that deep once in my life, and I knew there were no words for it. All I could do was lie down behind her, pull her to my chest, and hold on. Outside, the storm had broken, leaving a profound and sudden quiet.

Eventually Sam cried herself out. I got her up off the floor and onto the couch, pulled a blanket over her, and added a log to the fire. She watched me do it with red eyes.

"She's really gone," Sam said.

"Yeah." What else was there to say, really?

"Three years of trying. I wanted this." She stared at the ceiling. "But maybe I didn't."

She fell asleep not long after, exhaustion taking her. I put my clothes back on and stayed in the recliner, getting up occasionally to stoke the fire and make sure Sam was okay. Her sleep was deep and restful.

7.

A crick in my neck woke me. Morning light, bright blue after the storm, filled the room. The fire was down to coals and Sam was still asleep on the couch, the blanket tangled around her legs. I rebuilt the fire, then put on coffee using the camping percolator I kept for outages. The smell eventually stirred her. She sat up, blinking, and I saw the night's memories return to her face--the sadness was there, but the raw edge was gone. She even managed a small smile.

"Coffee?" I said.

"God. Yes."

We drank on the couch in a comfortable silence. She'd wrapped the blanket around herself, but it kept slipping. I tried not to stare, but when I glanced over, I found her watching me. Instead of covering up, she shifted, giving me a clearer view. It was a strange, sudden turn from the grief of moments before, but maybe this was her way of fighting it.

"It's weird not having her here. I mean, she was literally with me every moment of every day since I brought her back. Now it's just quiet." She stared into her mug. "I did what had to be done. I keep telling myself that. She's at peace. But, Jack, I didn't think it would hurt this much. The finality... it's so hard." The tears were back again, but not as all-consuming as last night.

"You did the right thing," I said, not only because it was what she needed to hear but because I believed it. I hadn't known Violet long enough to mourn her departure, but I felt the importance of what we had done for her.

"I know," said Sam, smiling sadly through the tears. "But that doesn't help, at least not yet."

We talked for over an hour, letting the morning pull us back to reality. She mentioned the car, which was still dead up the road, and spoke about her life: a rent-by-the-week room two states away, a practice that mostly meant reassuring widows and telling teenagers their grandmothers forgave them. I told her about me, and how my love of solitude was a choice and not some coping mechanism.

At some point she set her mug down and looked at me. "I need to feel something that isn't grief. Wanna help me out?"

"Only too happy."

Our kiss--the first time our lips had met--was unhurried. This was just for us--there was no ghost watching from the floor. Sam let her hands wander under my shirt and my hands combed through her messy hair. She tossed aside the blanket and pressed her tits against my t-shirt. One hand strayed down to the snap of my jeans and popped it open.

She broke our kiss to give instructions, bossy woman that she was. "We're going to fuck. And you're going to come inside me. I'm protected, but I need to feel you. To feel what Violet felt." That sounded a little strange to me but, considering that I had just fucked a ghost into the afterlife, I had left normal behind quite some time ago.

Sam and I worked together to get me out of my clothing as quickly as possible. My cock, attentive to the fact that it was about to get some attention, was making its presence known. "Well, hello again," said Sam, addressing it directly before bending over and giving it an affectionate kiss on the very tip. It bobbed in appreciation and she laughed.

We ended up back on the rug in front of the fireplace. I kissed my way down her neck and spent a while on those soft, gorgeous breasts. I learned quickly that she was very responsive to having her nipples sucked. While my mouth was busy with her tits, she had one hand wrapped around my cock and was stroking it. Although the handjob started out dry, dribbling precum soon provided enough lubrication that she wouldn't rub me raw. Eventually, I had to gently push her away. I was close, maybe too close after everything that had already happened last night. If I was going to last, I couldn't let her keep stroking me like that, no matter how good it felt. So I got to work getting her ready to accept me in her pussy.

I disengaged from her tits and went lower, encountering no resistance as I pushed her thighs apart. I slurped up the fluids that had accumulated there during my nipple sucking and used my tongue to provide her clit with direct stimulation. She groaned and put both hands on the back of my head, forcing my face into her pussy to the point where I could barely breathe. I worked her clit with my tongue, coming up for a hard-earned breath when I needed the air, and slipped two fingers inside her. When she came, her thighs clamped around my head hard enough to muffle everything. I was left wet-faced and slightly dazed, fairly certain she'd wrenched my neck with the force of her hips.

But she was not done and I still hadn't gotten my relief. A glance down revealed that the head of my cock had moved through the stages of red all the way to purple. "Don't stop," Sam said as I reached for my t-shirt to wipe off my face. "I want you in me. Now."

I lay next to her on my back and pulled her on top of me. She straddled me, lined herself up, and then started riding me with a fierce, driving rhythm. I'd never experienced anything like it. Sam's energy and pacing were like she was trying to exorcize something, and maybe she was... I looked up at her, tits bouncing with every thrust, sweat beading on her forehead, eyes squeezed closed, teeth biting her lower lip. She was beautiful in a wild, untamed way.

I was more than happy to let her do all the work; if I had started thrusting back, I would have messed up the pace that she was building. Our coupling was wet and loud - flesh slapping against flesh, sweat dripping, and mingled fluids making a mess of where my cock entered her pussy. She reached down with one hand to stroke her clit with her fingers. That was what she needed to reach her peak.

Watching her come again was a thing of beauty. Her whole body spasmed, her pussy clenching me so hard it was momentarily uncomfortable. She cried out, but the words were gibberish. Then she collapsed atop me. As her release triggered my own, I drove deep inside her one last time.

In the aftermath, we cuddled together, skin-to-skin, making out like teenagers--lips and tongues exploring each other's mouths, hands stroking and caressing without boundaries. I don't know how long we lay together like that: ten minutes, an hour, the rest of the morning. I liked to think I had fucked Violet out of her system, although I knew it wasn't that simple. She would linger, just no longer as a ghost.

Lying there with her, I heard it--the low hum of the refrigerator kicking on in the kitchen. The world was coming back online. I saw the microwave clock blinking 12:00. On the desk, my phone buzzed, a backlog of notifications flooding in from a world I'd completely forgotten.

"So," Sam said eventually, her cheek against my chest. "I guess it's back to reality."

Reality, it turned out, included her Honda Civic a quarter mile up the road. Sam and I walked up there around noon, after eating our fill of Chunky Sirloin Burger soup. (I had a nearly endless supply of those cans.) She'd put her goth outfit back on, dried stiff by the fire. The clothes looked out of place in the bright morning light, like a costume from another life. But I knew the night was one she'd never forget.

The car wasn't as dead as she expected. She sat in the driver's seat, pushed the start button, and was rewarded by the engine coughing then sputtering to life. I felt like a car expert even though I had done nothing.

"So that's it," she said, leaning back in the driver's seat. "Back to my rented room and telling widows their husbands are proud of them."

"Are they? The husbands, I mean."

"Most of the time, they've already passed beyond where I can reach. So I tell the women what they need to hear, and they give me a nice tip."

"You could stay another night," I said, the words surprising me as they left my mouth. Fuck me, did I actually say that? I never had guests, let alone invited them to stay. But I forged ahead, sweetening the offer. "I've got about a dozen king-size Hershey bars that need eating."

She laughed and for a moment I thought she was considering. "Tempting. But I should get back. Figure out what my life looks like without a ghost in it."

I added my number to her contacts (as "Jack the Ghost Dispeller") and she did the same for me ("Sam the Unwanted Halloween Guest"). She tucked her phone into her jacket and promised she'd call. I'm not sure that either of us believed that promise, but we didn't completely shut the door on connecting in more normal circumstances. I leaned in through the open window and gave her a lingering kiss--the kind that lovers give to one another outside the TSA checkpoint at airports. Then, with a wave and a honk, she was gone.

That evening, alone again, the silence of the house felt different, but I relished it nonetheless. I picked up the ghost-story collection from the floor and slid it back onto the shelf, unfinished. I'd had my fill of ghosts.

Outside, I watched the stars appear in the cold, clear sky. I thought of Violet, hoping she'd found her peace. And I couldn't help but wonder whether I'd ever again hear from the Unwanted Halloween Guest.