The Haunted

Claire laughed. A party did sound like fun, and for the next twenty minutes, they discussed the prospect, bouncing ideas off each other until Claire was so enthusiastic that she had no choice but to announce that she’d do it. She set a tentative date of next Saturday for the party, but told Pam not to say anything to anyone else until she talked to Julian and everything was finalized.

Through the window behind Pam, the door to David’s shop opened, and a top-heavy blonde Claire would not have pegged as a reader walked out of the bookstore onto the sidewalk, smiling happily. Seeing where Claire was looking, Pam turned around. “That’s her,” she confirmed. “A little out of David’s league, isn’t she?”

They looked at each other. And laughed.

That night, both of the kids were gone—James to Robbie’s house and Megan to Zoe’s—and for the first time in a very long while, Claire and Julian had an evening to themselves. They could have gone to a movie, could have gone out to eat, but domesticity had made them lazy, and they decided to stay in, eat leftovers and watch HBO, which was showing a big movie from last fall that they’d missed in theaters.

The movie was good but not as great as the hype and box-office receipts would have suggested, and afterward Julian turned off the lights and closed up the house while she went into the bedroom. She hadn’t done laundry for a while and this morning had found herself without fresh underwear, so she’d continued to wear yesterday’s panties. It made her feel dirty, which made her feel sexy, and she took off her clothes and sat down on the edge of the bed, waiting for Julian.

Their sex life had definitely gotten better since they’d moved to the new house. She wasn’t quite sure why, although she’d read somewhere that a new environment often acted as an aphrodisiac. While that probably was the reason, emotionally it didn’t feel quite right. There’d been an electricity to their encounters since moving here, an almost newlywedlike hunger and excitement that being in a new location could neither explain nor account for.

Seconds later, Julian walked through the door and stopped, surprised that she was naked, though he’d no doubt assumed they’d be having sex tonight.

She spread her legs wide. “Taste it,” she ordered. “Taste my dirty pussy.”

He did, and she held his head hard against her until she was finished, grinding into his face until his cheeks and nose and chin were glistening.

He was hard, she saw when he stood, but she wanted him harder, and she knelt down and sucked until his erection was quivering and she could taste the first salty drops of semen. Pulling her mouth away, she got on her hands and knees.

“I want it in my ass,” she said.

He was too rough and it hurt, but she liked it, and when he reached around the front and cupped her crotch in his hand, rubbing it with his palm, the pain and pleasure mingled in an exhilarating crescendo that erupted in one of the strongest orgasms she’d ever had.

Afterward, she felt guilty and ashamed, embarrassed, though those were not the emotions she usually experienced after sex. Of course, this was not the type of sex she usually had, and unfamiliar feelings were probably to be expected. Still …

Going to the bathroom, there was blood, and she grimaced in pain, wondering what had come over her, what had come over them, feeling slightly uneasy about the way she’d been carried away. She spent too much time on the toilet, then too much time in the shower, and when she came out of the bathroom, Julian was dead asleep, the TV on and turned to an old Clint Eastwood movie. She switched it to the Travel Channel and got into bed beside him, making it only until the first commercial before falling asleep herself.

She dreamed of meeting a man in a basement dance club. She was younger, a teenager, and she danced with him but didn’t like him, and eventually ended up giving him her cell phone number just to get him to go away. Seconds later, in that compressed time so characteristic of dreams, she was in the basement of her own house, this house, only she was still a teenager and she lived here with her parents. The basement was empty save for a tree stump with an ax in it.

A sudden ringing startled her, and she realized that she was carrying her cell phone. She turned her palm up, looked down and saw a text message.

Take off your pants.

Startled, frightened, she looked up from the screen.

And saw a tall, creepy man standing in the corner, grinning at her.