The Portillo - A Halloween Story

This story asks-- and answers-- that age old dilemma about what came first? Only it is not the chicken or the egg. It is the Portillo or the Time Traveler.

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WARNING! This warning is possibly not needed for this particular story, but I am including it because it is needed for most of my stories. If you decide to read other of my stories make sure that you read the disclosures and warnings at the beginning of each story.

All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.

All characters involved in sexual activity in this story are over the age of 18. If you are under the age of 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality, or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.

Archiving and reposting of this story is permitted, but only if acknowledgment of copyright and statement of limitation of use is included with the article. This story is copyright (c) 2026 by The Technician.

Individual readers may archive and/or print single copies of this story for personal, non-commercial use. Production of multiple copies of this story on paper, disk, or other fixed formats is expressly forbidden.

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I first saw the portillo when we were getting ready for a Halloween party on my eighteenth birthday. Yes, my birthday is October 31st. In some ways, that sucks because as a kid your birthday gets lost with trick-or-treating and all that stuff. But in other ways, it was neat because I knew that my birthday parties would always be Halloween parties. As a little kid, that meant cupcakes that looked like ghosts or goblins, and all sorts of monster-themed candy. As I got a little older, the parties were us kids trying to outdo each other for the best costumes. Then it became teenagers dancing and making out in various costumes. The boys were almost always heros while the girls were moving steadily toward being sexy.

My mother and I were getting the old garage ready for my eighteenth birthday party. I know that's kind of weird, having my mom help me get ready for a Halloween party when I'm a senior in high school; but she is great at decorations and snacks and all that. And I would still have plenty of time to sneak some... adult beverages... out to the garage before party time.

I know, I know, that's not legal, but we live waaay out in the country and as long as we make sure there are designated drivers, nobody really cares. My parents don't really mind either. They gave me the "You have to have designated drivers in case someone sneaks in some booze" speech, but at any party I've had, they basically look the other way unless someone is getting REALLY drunk.

Mom has the ability to look the other way and let you get away with a lot. But she also has this ability to pop up like a ghost in the night if one of the girls screams... or moans really loud. Sharon, one of the girls at last year's party, asked me, "Does your mother have some sort of magic door that she walks through? I swear she wasn't even here in the barn and then Dottie screamed and suddenly she was standing there asking us if everything was alright."

I answered, "It's Halloween. All sorts of spooky things happen around here on Halloween."

Everyone laughed, but I hadn't really meant it as a joke. Growing up, I always knew that weird things happened around my house. Sometimes I hear my mom talking to someone in the other room, but when I go in there, the room is empty. Then, when I walk back into the room I was originally in, Mom is standing there as if nothing had happened. After Sharon's comment last year, I just stood there shaking my head and wondering if Mom maybe does have a magic door that she can walk through.

Weird things happen all the time around here, but even more so at Halloween... and even more, more so out in the garage at Halloween. I call it a garage-- we all do-- but it is actually too big to be called a garage. It's not really a barn either. It's not built like a barn. It is more like what used to be called a carriage house. And it is huge.

As the name implies, it had originally been intended to keep horses and carriages... lots of carriages. There are four huge doors along the front with matching doors along the back. The two middle ones in front have been converted to regular garage doors, but those doors were built to match the original doors. The other two doors, along with the two smaller doors-- one on each side of the big ones-- and all of the matching doors in back-- could be swung open. However, that was almost never done. The only time I saw one of those doors opened, the hinges creaked and squealed like they hadn't moved for centuries. Maybe they hadn't. There is a loft all the way around the top for storing hay or whatever with a staircase in the corner that sort of blocks one of the small front doors. The steps look relatively new, but from below, the bottom of the steps and the floor of the loft look like really, really old wood. When you walk up there, however, everything is carpeted in a thick brown carpet that looks like a heavy blanket of some sort.

Mom always says, "Stay out of the loft," but everyone goes up there anyway-- even when we were little kids. She never checks during the parties-- except that one time last year that Lucinda started moaning really loud. Mom was suddenly standing next to her and her boyfriend saying loudly, "I told you to stay out of the loft." They both screamed and came running down the stairway. Lucinda hadn't buttoned her blouse all of the way back closed and was wailing, "That wasn't your mom! That wasn't your mom!"

I asked her what she meant and she said, "It looked almost like her, but the hair was wrong and she was wearing this really strange dress with puffy sleeves and a white apron."

I was trying to think of what to say when Mom was suddenly standing next to me. "They used to store bales of hemp up there before and during World War Two," she said with a smile. "If you lay down on the carpet, you might be inhaling dust and fumes and whatever from that rope weed." She then turned to me and said brightly, "We really should get that carpet in the loft deep cleaned."

I just nodded my head and mumbled, "Yup." Mom smiled at me and then walked out the small door and back to the house.

The carriage house was probably part of the original farmhouse that had been here way, way back. I used to think that the family back then had to have been really well-off to have so many carriages. But then Mom explained that great-great-whatever grandpa was a blacksmith, and he stored carriages in the carriage house in the wintertime for people in the area... and sleds up in the loft in the summertime. Blacksmithing and the large carriage house were a source of extra income for the farm that kept it going even in really hard times.

The farm has been in my mom's family for many generations. She even has pictures of her great-great-great-grandmother sitting on the porch of the original house. It looked old even when that picture was taken, so who knows when it was actually built. It was torn down about eighty years ago. That's when they built the "new house" that I grew up in. The family story is that great-whatever grandmother suddenly decided that the house was unsafe and had to be rebuilt. Then, while they were getting ready to tear down the house, the foundation suddenly gave way and everything collapsed into the basement. Luckily, no one was in the house and all of the furnishings had been temporarily moved to the barn. The new house looks almost exactly like the old house, except that the windows are slightly smaller and the roof doesn't have fake gable windows in it... and it has a really, really massive foundation. The basement walls are stone and must be well over two feet thick.

I think I was thirteen when my mother first mentioned the portillo. Yes, it was thirteen. I was coming up on my thirteenth birthday when she said, "If you see the portillo during your party, don't walk through it. You are close to becoming a man, but you still aren't old enough yet for the portillos."

I probably should have asked, "When will I be old enough?" or better yet, "What is a portillo?" I really had no idea what she meant. To me, Portillo's was a restaurant in the Chicago area that was famous for deep-dish pizza and other Italian foods. I went to the internet to see what other meanings there were for portillo and found out that it is a Spanish word that means gap or opening or narrow passageway, like a narrow pass in the mountains. The AI even included a cute little picture of a really big fence with a small gate through it that it called a wicket. I have no idea if any of my family are Hispanic, but my grandmother used to make a really mean chili.

I promised my mom that I wouldn't go through the portillo if I saw it-- whatever it is-- and that was that. She never mentioned it again. But this year, while I was putting some Halloween tablecloths on the round tables we had set up under the loft on three sides, I heard her calling to me... from nowhere. She had gone into the house to get something. I heard her clearly calling my name. It sounded like she was in pain. Then she said, "I need you to help me."

Suddenly there was this white shimmering thing that was sort of in the shape of a doorway floating in the air in front of me. Can you call it floating when the bottom of the doorway is sitting on the ground? It was sort of fluttering or waving so I guess floating is the right word.

"My son, I need you," a voice said very clearly. The voice was hers, yet it somehow wasn't hers. And it was coming from the other side of the white doorway.

I stepped toward the white curtain and leaned toward it to listen. I reached up and tried to touch it. As soon as I touched it, I was on the other side of the curtain... and I was in the kitchen. Mom was in the pantry. She was partially off the small ladder which she uses to reach the upper shelves. There was a big-- apparently heavy-- box pinning her against the opposite wall. She called out in pain, "My son, I need you," and I rushed into the pantry and lifted the box off her shoulders.

I helped her over to the table, and she sat there taking deep breaths. After a few moments, she looked up at me and said, "That was the portillo. It has been in my family for many generations. No one knows who first saw it, but there are family legends of someone stepping through the portillo and warning them of wars, drought, accidents, and economic disasters. That is how the farm grew so large."

"How does it work?" I asked, hoping that was the right question.

Mom smiled at me and said, "If you say-- or think-- 'Portillo,' it will appear. But you have to have a destination in mind... VERY clearly. It is a doorway, and you need to know-- and be sure of-- where it leads."

She then held up her hands and moved them as if shooing me away. "I'm OK now," she said with a slight chuckle. "I need to finish baking cookies. And you need to go back to the garage and finish covering the tables and getting ready for the party."

I turned to go out the door, but then stopped. I thought, "Portillo," and the white doorway suddenly was there. I thought "garage," and stepped through. I was back in the garage, but something was wrong. The floor wasn't concrete. It was wood. There was a heavy smell of hay and horses and horse excrement. I looked around. The carriage house looked almost new. The air was crisp, and looking out the back doors, I could see that the crops were already in.

As I stood there, I heard a very faint voice crying out, "Help me... Help me... Help me."

It was coming from the loft. I ran toward the stairs, but there were no steps. Instead, on either side of the doorways, both in front and in the back, a wooden ladder was built into the wall that went up through a trapdoor into the loft. I quickly climbed up one of the ladders and ran to where a young woman was lying on the floor, buried under a pile of small hay bales. She was wearing a light blue dress with puffy sleeves.

I started to lift one of the bales when she cried out in pain. "My back! My back!" she cried out loudly, almost sobbing. I reached down and pinched one of her Pantaloon-covered legs... really hard.

"Do you feel that?" I asked.

"Feel what?" she replied.

I stood up, trying to decide what to do. Then it hit me. I hadn't specified a time, and the Portillo had brought me way back here. Maybe if I just said, "Twenty minutes ago," it would move me to before this young girl was injured.

I stood up and said aloud, "Portillo, carriage house, twenty minutes before now." The white doorway appeared. I walked through just as a young woman in a blue dress and a white apron began climbing up the ladder into the loft.

She was muttering loudly to herself, "They told me they would push down two dozen bales so I could arrange them for the party tonight." She paused her ascent and then said loudly and angrily, "Brothers!"

When she reached the top of the ladder, she pulled herself through the opening and stepped onto the loft floor. As she turned around, she startled when she saw me. "Who are you?" she demanded firmly. "And what are you doing in our carriage house?"

"I am a traveler from the future," I answered, knowing how ridiculous I must sound. "I have a doorway... a Portillo... " I continued, "that allows me to move through time. If you attempt to move the bales, they will collapse on you and break your back."

I quickly stepped over to the stack of bales and pushed slightly against it. She yelped, and we both jumped back. There was now a jumble of hay bales on the floor of the loft at our feet. It was exactly as I had seen it before... except she wasn't crushed beneath the bales.

"I will throw them down," I said calmly. "How many do you need?"

"We will be dancing in the center," she said softly. "I wanted a circle of hay bales so people can sit down and talk or drink cider or things like that. My brothers promised me they would push down two dozen bales."

"Two dozen bales, coming right up," I said brightly. Then I scrunched up my eyebrows and said, "Or maybe that should be coming right down."

"Let me get down the ladder and out of the way," she said quickly as she hurried to go back down the ladder.

I threw down twenty-four bales and then went down and arranged them as she directed. She had several quilts and comforters, which she arranged on the bales. In the back, near the doors, a table had been set up. There were plates and cups and cloth napkins. At one end of the table was a decently-sized pumpkin carved as a scary jack-o-lantern. Inside was a rather thick, black candle sitting on a plate of some sort.

She lifted the lid on the pumpkin and said with a sly smile, "I know these are Irish things, but they are scary-cute when the candles burn within them." She set the lid back and looked directly at me. Then she said brightly, "Soon they will be all the rage for Witches' Night parties."

"Is that what you are having?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "I thought you were from the future and would know all that."

"I am from the future," I said slowly, "but I am but a traveler in your time."

"Then you don't know my name?" she asked with a strange look on her face.

"No," I replied. "Evidently your cries for help when you were crushed by the hay bales brought me here. I couldn't do anything, so I moved a little farther back in time and stopped you from disturbing the stack of bales."

She looked directly into my eyes for several long moments and then said, "My name is Katrina. I was preparing things down here for the dance and was preparing the loft for Witches' Night. My brothers had stacked some of the bales to form a wall for some Witches' Night privacy up in the loft."

When I remained silent, she made a strange face and said, "You don't know about Witches' Night, do you?"

"No, I don't," I replied, shaking my head.

"I have been engaged for six years now," she said flatly. "Every Witches' Night, Gerald and I couple in the loft." Perhaps I looked surprised because she quickly added, "Many of the commandments do not apply as midnight approaches on Witches' Night. And how else can you prove fertility?"

"I don't understand," I said. That was absolutely true. She had lost me. I thought the 1800s were almost Puritanical, and she was nonchalantly talking about her and her fiancé doing it in the loft on Halloween night.

"Why?" I almost stuttered.

"Oh," she said with wide-open eyes. "The future must be very different."

"Yes... and no," I replied. "In my time, I am preparing this carriage house for a dance. There are no bales of hay because in my time carriages pull themselves without horses. And there are stairs-- over there-- to the loft." I looked up at the hay-filled loft and said, "In my time, the loft is covered in thick carpet. Some of the couples sneak up to the loft to... couple, even if they are not engaged to each other."

"They are not proving fertility so they may be married?" she asked, obviously having trouble understanding what I was saying.

"Do you mean to say that you have to be pregnant before you can get married?" Now it was I who was having trouble understanding.

Katrina looked very shocked. "I... I... I wouldn't use that word," she replied, "but yes, you must show that you will be a fertile couple before you can be joined in marriage."

She started trembling. Tears and sobs were shaking her body. "We keep trying," she sobbed. "We even couple more than once during the night." She was now almost falling to the floor. "But nothing happens," she wailed. "I love Gerald, and I think that if there wasn't so much pressure we could... we could do it right."

She now had her face buried in my shoulder. I held her and let her cry it out. She raised her head and said softly, "I've even thought about coupling with another man. The first child often doesn't survive anyway, so no one would ever know."

Her body suddenly shook as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. She looked up at me. "You are from the future," she said firmly. "If we coupled, no one would ever know."

She turned and almost ran to the ladder and began ascending to the loft. "Follow me," she called, and I started up the ladder close behind her.

I got a little too close, and as she started through the trap opening, several layers of skirt slapped me in the face. I looked upward and discovered that evidently women of this era did not wear underwear. At least there was nothing covering her sex. There were several slips, and her legs were covered with thin white cloth Pantaloons that seemed to tie to her waist, but in the middle she was totally commando.

There were several thick blankets spread behind walls of hay bales all around the loft. She pulled me towards one blanket and then pulled me down as she almost fell on her back.

"We haven't much time," she said hurriedly. "My brothers will be coming back soon."

She reached up and began unbuckling my belt. "What odd clothing you have in your time," she said as she pulled down my pants and exposed my boxer briefs."

"Yours seem just as odd to me," I said as I lifted her skirt and three more layers of cloth so I could gently rub her stomach.

She was already very excited. I could smell her and when I moved my hand down to her sex, it slid across the opening as if she had smeared lubricant of some sort on herself. Maybe she had. After all it was Witches' Night and she and Gerald had to couple and make a baby so that they could get married.

"I'm not a virgin," she said softly, "but please be gentle."

"I will try," I answered as I slowly settled in between her legs.

I moved my head toward hers and she said firmly, "No kissing. I will keep my lips pure for Gerald."

Luckily, I didn't dwell on that strange paradox, and even more luckily, with her bare legs and the heavy smell of arousal, my prick needed no further encouragement. I slid in almost effortlessly and could feel her cunt walls twitching and seeming to tighten on my shaft.

I didn't know if she wanted me to go really fast or really slow or whatever. I settled on steady, strong, continuous thrusts. After about a minute, she began grunting loudly and ramming herself up on me with each stroke. I really don't know how long it was after that. Her grunting got louder and was joined by a continuous low moan. Then it was as if my prick was caught in a steel trap. Her cunt had tightened around me and was milking me. Then she exploded into a tremendous orgasm.

I lay flat upon her as her breathing slowly returned to normal. "My, my," she said. "I suppose that is what the midwives call an episode of hysteria."

I chuckled slightly and said, "In my time it is called an orgasm. It is a woman's natural response to sexual arousal."

"What interesting times you must live in!" she said. Then after a pause, she pushed slightly against my chest and said, "But in my time you need to get off me so I can make myself look proper."

Suddenly, one of the doors below us screamed as it was opened and a man's voice called out, "Katrina! Kat! Are you in here?"

Her eyes became wide with fear. "They cannot catch us here," she said. The tremble in her voice carried her fear of being caught.

I quickly pulled her dress and all the under layers back into proper place. Then I said softly, "Katrina, roll over onto your stomach."

The look of fear that remained on her face and the wide stare from her eyes told me that she didn't know what I was planning, but she quickly arranged herself face down on the blanket. I grabbed one of the bales from the bale wall and carefully laid it over her legs. Then I leaned another bale against the first one and another against that. Then I carefully set a bale on the small of her back.

"The stack of bales fell over on you," I whispered. "After I am gone, call for help. No one but you need ever know I was here."

I stood up and said, "Portillo, carriage house, in my proper time." The white curtain shimmered before me. I stepped through into exactly where I was, but in my present time. I was standing in the loft on the brown carpet. I looked around at the very thick, padded carpet that covered the entire loft and wondered when it had been put in... and how often it had been used on Witches' Night to prove fertility in preparation for marriage.

My Mom's voice broke my reverie. She was just coming in through the front doors and could see me standing in the loft. "What are you doing up there?" she asked almost angrily. "Didn't I tell you to stay out of the loft?" She paused and then said, still somewhat angrily, "I wanted you to carry my platter of homemade cookies out here from the house."

"I was just picturing the loft on Witches' Night," I said softly as I was descending the stairs. Then I added, "... and dreaming of a young woman named Katrina."

Mom laughed in a strange, stilted sort of way and sat down at one of the tables. She almost dropped into one of the chairs. She lifted her hand and pointed repeatedly to one of the other chairs. I hurried down from the loft and sat down across from her.

She looked at me like she wasn't sure where... or if... to begin. Then she said, "Witches' Night was what the family called Halloween many generations ago." Then she held up her left hand with the fingers spread and said, "Katrina was your great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great-grandmother." As she spoke, she used her right hand to count to nine on her left hand.

"On her deathbed," Mom continued, "Katrina confessed to her eldest son, Edward, that his father was not her husband, Gerald, but rather a traveler from the future. She said she only told him because The Portillo was starting to appear to him and he didn't know what to do."

Mom took a deep breath and continued almost flatly, "All of Edward's descendants, male or female, can see The Portillo. But no one can control it completely." She shrugged and made an expression like an exaggerated swallowing. Then she continued, "Some cannot control it at all. All any of us understand is that it is a doorway to everywhere... and nowhere."

I held up my hand to gently silence Mom and said, "I think I should show you something."

I stood and said, "Portillo, kitchen, present time." A white shimmering doorway appeared. I stepped through and found myself in the kitchen. A huge platter of homemade cookies sat on the table, carefully wrapped for tonight. I picked it up and said, "Portillo, carriage house, present time."

I stepped back through the white, shimmering doorway and was once again standing in the carriage house next to my mother. I set the cookies on the table and said, "I am The Traveler."

I let her gasping look of shock fade slightly before I said firmly, "The Portillo totally obeys me." I shrugged and turned slightly red as I said, "And I think I am my own great-whatever grandfather."

"But where did the Portillo originally come from?" Mom almost sputtered.

"From where else," I said as I spread my arms to the party preparations all around us. "It came from Halloween."

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END OF STORY

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