Things That Go Hump in the Night

Time developed wings and flew from my grasp, soaring as high into the sky as an eagle in full flight. The distance it had flown hadn't occurred to me until I realized that Earth's personal satellite, Luna, had repositioned itself far away from its last checkpoint.

Some people live a whole lifetime in a single moment, and for me, however long we spent tanning ourselves under the moon's milky glow, that one moment with Mary snuggled up to me would continue to live on in my mind until the day I drew my last breath.

And then Mary's lips brushed against mine and our tongues melted together. It was different from any other kiss we'd shared: filled with longing, sadness and a strange form of melancholic passion. Her cascading hair provided a silky canopy which threw us into darkness, but I didn't need eyes to see that this was a goodbye kiss.

"Don't go," I whispered.

Our cheeks caressed, her smooth, hot skin reducing me to jittery mess. "I have to," she said softly. "C'mon, get dressed. Showing you will be a lot easier than telling you."

We ascended from the makeshift mattress of grass, breaking contact with each other to slip into our clothes. I threw mine on in such haste that I accidentally put my t-shirt on backwards, blushing with embarrassment as Mary, smiling the warmest of smiles, watched me correct this common fashion mistake.

Once completely dressed, Mary slipped her hand into mine and led me away from the bizarre patch of earth where I lost my virginity. We walked back into the cemetery, which was a veritable ghost town. Nothing moved. No sounds, other than the empty echoes of our footfalls, resided within. I half expected to see a tumbleweed blow across the service road we ventured down – none did.

Entering the cemetery made me queasy. For some reason I was gripped by an apprehension that had previously eluded me. Maybe I was simply transferring my feelings of loss concerning Mary, and that being unsettled in a place such as this made more sense than the circumstances surrounding her departure.

"I'm sorry about before," I said, breaking the silence.

"Sorry?"

"Yeah, for...you know, having a hair trigger."

"Are you serious?" she gaped, and then playfully slapped my chest when she saw that I was. "You are such a bird brain."

"I am?"

"Yes, you are. You did incredibly well for your first time," and then she added in a matter-of-fact, totally frivolous voice, "which is definitely what you come to expect from The Amazing Spider-Man."

I cracked up with laughter. "I knew you were going to make fun of my name," I accused, still laughing.

"Who said I was being a wiseass? It's not every day that a girl gets to make love to her very own superhero," Mary said affectionately. She slipped her arm around my waist, holding me close to her body as we made our way into the contemporary section of the cemetery.

Not only had she catered for my love of comics – Spider-Man being my favorite flavor – she had also made a passing reference which hinted that what we shared was more than just good sex.

Can that happen in a few brief hours? Is it possible to fall for a girl you know nothing about, and who is subsequently going to exit stage left from your life? I couldn't decide whether it was idiocy or romanticism seated behind the wheel that drives me.

"Do you have any idea how adorable you are?"

A sly grin slid across her lips. "Yup. Pretty darn adorable if I don't say so myself."

"And modest, you can't forget that."

"Of course not!"

Without even noticing, Mary had directed me away from the service road and we were walking between rows of evenly spaced, three feet wide slabs of concrete, which gradually sloped down from a peak and featured bronze plaques on either side. Many of them came accommodated with a small oval-shaped photograph of the deceased, more often than not they were smiling or in the throes of happiness when the camera had been aimed at them.

Gripped by an inexplicable case of unease, my footsteps began to shorten along with my breaths. I started to lag, but Mary dragged me along behind her like a speed boat towing a floundering water-skier.

"Wh-where are we going?" I asked.

"I have to show you something."

After a dozen more steps Mary came to such a sudden stop that I, immersed in my jagged thoughts and not concentrating on my surroundings, banged into her shapely body and brushed my arm against her soft, curvy breasts. This limited amount of contact flooded my stream of consciousness with a barrage of visuals depicting what we'd just shared together, and I was somewhat amazed that I wasn't awkward or self-conscious in the slightest.

A grave rested at our feet, its bronze plaque lit up like a beacon due to the lunar surface's unflinching gaze. The embossed letters, which verified the occupant and their birth/death dates, glinted at me like a winking eye, almost as if daylight itself was streaming down from the heavens.

"No," I whispered.

"Yes."

I released Mary's hand and slowly edged away from her, attempting to make sense of the fantastic and rationalize the impossible, but no catharsis presented itself. She slipped her hands into mine and squeezed with the grip of a squirrel, drawing me back into her orbit.

"This is a joke, right? Yeah, some kind of elaborate Halloween prank that you like to play on unsuspecting guys."

"You know that's not true. You can try to tell yourself that, but you know it just isn't true."

She eased into my arms and hugged me fiercely. The pleasant aroma of apricots filled my nostrils, subduing the extreme anxiety which had momentarily afflicted me. Hypnotized by this sweet fragrance, I wrapped my arms around her waist and returned her hug, reveling in the feel of her soft, warm form pressed to mine.

It turned out that Mary wasn't quite the stranger I had assumed she was. But perhaps, as I've come to suspect over the years since that fated night, I always new deep down whom she really was.

Each year when Halloween rolls around with its pumpkins, frights and outlandish costumes, the teachers at our Green Hills High remind us of the senior student who lost their life due to an easily averted Halloween-related accident. Another senior student, whose name eludes me, had dressed up like one of the ghostly killers from the movie Scream, and in his infinite wisdom had secured a hunting knife to add that extra spice of realism to his costume. Hopped up on drugs or drunk on life, the teenager in question had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, having dashed around a blind corner and accidentally plunged his knife into a female student's chest.

That had been eight years ago today.

Many students had passed away while attending Green Hills High and each had been memorialized in our library with a special plaque and photograph hung on the wall. I had passed Mary Watts' name and face every day, yet it was only now, at this very moment in time, that I ever recalled having seen either.

I pulled my chin out of the crook of her shoulder and met her unblinking gaze. "This is impossible," I said.

"Nothing is impossible."

"But you're...I mean...are you an angel?"

"No, I'm not an angel," she laughed, giving me a quick kiss on the lips. "With my foul mouth, I don't think that winged mob would take me. Think of me as...more like a courier. I'm someone who delivers messages."

This was certainly the most bizarre conversation I'd ever had the privilege to be a part of. It felt as if I should've been dreaming, but having Mary's body snuggling against mine felt as real as any other sensation ever experienced.

"So you've been sent to me as a charity case, have you?"

Mary pouted at me. "You know, I'd be quite insulted if I didn't like you so damn much. I didn't have sex with you because it was my job. In fact, I'll probably lose my jobbecause I had sex with you. All I was supposed to do was come down here and relay a message, but I've been following your case for a while and I just knew I had to have you."

Although I always claim to be an agnostic, the notion of God and an afterlife has always appealed to me, possibly for no better reason than for fear of my existence lacking any meaning or purpose. I can't accept that everything we do is pointless.

"So if you'd planned this all along, why didn't God just stop you?"

"Ever heard of free will? Well, He grants it no matter what, even when He knows you're going to get up to mischief."

I kissed Mary's neck and stroked her back through her t-shirt, my fingers also detecting her bra's straps underneath the yellow fabric. "I'm glad He didn't stop you."

"So am I," she sighed. "Although I do feel kind of guilty."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Because I'm a thief. I stole your virginity when it was meant for another girl."

"I forgive you," I whispered.

Mary grinned. "I'm sure that you do."

There were so many questions that begged answering – where was she from, what was it like, what does she do, who does she see, and a million other variations – but I knew that Mary would be unwilling to serve them up to me, or that if she did, each response would probably be alien and beyond my comprehension.

Besides, what's the point of knowing the ending to the story when you're basically still exploring the beginning?

There was, however, one question that I would be permitted to ask. "So what was this message you had for me?"

"Well, it isn't so much a message as it is a shove in the right direction. See, sometimes things don't turn out the way they're supposed to, so we, that being myself and others like me, come down and reassert destiny onto its proper pathway. But I'm probably out of a job now, seeing as how I've broken all the rules. After what we just did, what I tell you might not fix what's broken, or it will be fixed but fate will carry you down a separate path than was intended."

"So what do you have to tell me?"

"Anna Jones is in love with you."

I blinked with shock, totally unprepared for this news. "You're kidding?"

Anna Jones, the cute little brunette who always cruised by my desk for a chat during our art class, was in love with me? If Mary had informed me of this before our sexual exploits, I might not have believed her. But now, after having a girl like Mary Watts gaze so affectionately into my eyes and share herself so completely with me, my initial inclination was to believe her.

"Nope, she's had a crush on you for about a year. Anna is an old-fashioned girl, and no matter how much she likes you, she will never make the first move. She was the one you were supposed to lose your virginity to."

Being inundated by so much new information – not to mention purging a lot of nasty character traits, such as my issues with self-confidence and introversion – made my head spin like a turbo-charged carousel, minus the calliope music.

"I wish I could stay," she said softly, stroking my face.

"I wish you could, too."

"Maybe some day, tiger. Maybe some day..."

Mary pressed something soft into my hand and then kissed me, sharing our lips, tongues and breathless sighs for an epic goodbye kiss. Its duration was incalculable, our passion unsurpassed. So scintillating was our kiss that we couldn't keep our hands stationary, caressing each other's hair, necks, faces and backs as our tongues melted into one. Her lips were tender, the inside of her mouth so warm and moist, playing the perfect host to my flicking tongue.

I should've been disgusted that I was making out with a girl who was essentially no longer a member of the living, but no one had ever felt more alive than Mary did while being held in my arms.

"I'd love to fuck you again," she murmured, massaging her breasts against my chest.

"And I would love to let you," I whimpered in return.

"Unfortunately, I have to make like a tree, tiger."

"And leave," I sighed.

And then, when I pulled my mouth away and opened my eyes, Mary was gone. My arms were draped around thin air, holding nothing but millions of particles that were invisible to the naked eye.

I got down on my haunches, kissed the tips of my fingers on my left hand and brushed them against Mary's photograph. It was a shot of her angelic face, which was lit up by such a dazzling smile that no flash would have been necessary.

"You're one in a million, Mary," I whispered.

The object she'd pushed into my hand was her wadded up pair of panties; too lime to be called yellow but too yellow to be called lime. I graciously tucked the gift into my pocket, relieved to have something tangible to not only remember Mary by but also the pivotal moment in which my life had changed forever.

I rose from my crouch and my legs carried me back to the maintenance road. From there, I walked towards the exit of the cemetery feeling strangely jubilant. Sadness should've been today's special, but buoyancy had replaced it as the chef's choice.

Beyond the rusty front gates was a life waiting for me, ripe for the plucking, and with the knowledge I now possessed, I could finally break apart my shackles and face the real world for the first time.

Comics, movies, books – all of these things were still important to me, but asking a certain cute brunette out on a date would take precedence over all else.

But know this. No matter what happens in my life, who I'm with, what I'm doing or where I'm doing it; one thing will always remain certain: I will never speak ill of Halloween ever again.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

First of all, I'd just like to extend a big thank you to Tracey, a good friend who had some valuable input to this story. Secondly, if you've come this far, please don't forget to vote and/or leave feedback, either is much appreciated.

I had a great amount of difficulty choosing a category for this story, because while it has an element of the supernatural, it wasn't essentially a horror story nor was it sci-fi. At its heart, it's a First Time story, so that's why it's in this category.