Nancy saw his shock and laughed lightly. Then she said, “Ghosts have no need of clothes. Most of the others I have met are also naked. Some want clothes and so they have them. Whatever their mind wants, they have.” She paused and added, “I didn’t see the need.”
David had to force himself to talk. “Are you… are you… are you trapped here too?” he asked fearfully.
“I’m not trapped anywhere,” Nancy said softly. “And nothing is trapping you here either. It is just your guilt that keeps you from moving on.”
“If you’re not trapped, then why are you here?” David said incredulously.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she replied. She gave him a withering smile and said, “It’s been a really long, really boring search.” She held up her nearly transparent arm. “Being a ghost is terrible,” she said glumly, “You can’t feel. You can’t touch others. It took me the longest time to figure out how to possess someone, but that isn’t really feeling or touching. It’s more like watching.”
David looked into her eyes. “Believe me,” he said, “sometimes you can feel. What I felt tonight was… unbelievable.”
“That was me,” Nancy said slowly. “I was inside of her with you. What she could feel, I could feel even though I was only watching from inside her. But because we were… overlapped… you could feel what I was feeling.”
“Oh,” David said, looking down at the ground, “I’ve never possessed a girl before. And I didn’t intend to tonight. I just suddenly got pulled into her.”
Nancy laughed. “That was me, too. I found you at the party. And I knew that she was going to have sex tonight. So I sort of directed you to them. I wanted you to experience her mind before… and during… and afterwards.”
“How did you know that she was going to have sex?” David asked incredulously. “Can you read minds? Can you travel in time? … Or have you been in her for a long time?”
“I can’t read minds,” Nancy said. “And I can’t travel in time. But I can see through clothing… as can you.”
“Yeah, well,” David said, blushing and looking down at the ground. “I don’t do that… … very much.”
“I do it all the time,” Nancy said. “You’d be amazed what is under some people’s clothes.”
“OK,” David said, turning once again to face Nancy, “but how does looking under her clothes tell you that Wendy was going to have sex?”
“Silly boy,” Nancy said, “didn’t anyone ever tell you that when a girl’s bra and panties are new and match exactly on a date, it’s not the boy who decided that they were going to have sex that night.”
“Oh,” David said, wrinkling up his face as he tried to remember, “that’s right. Her bra and panties were the same color and they did look pretty new.”
He stood perfectly still with a very strange expression on his face. Then he looked away from Nancy and then looked back to face her. He repeated that several times before finally speaking. “That night…” he began. “That night we died… That Halloween when we had sex for the first time… for the only time… on that night, your bra and panties matched. And they were new and soft and shiny. Does that mean?…”
“It means that you have nothing to feel guilty about,” Nancy said softly but firmly.
“I think maybe it’s time we moved on,” David said, taking Nancy’s hand.
“There’s something I want to do first,” Nancy said, “… something we both need to do first.”
“What’s that?” David replied.
“Have you realized yet that you are holding my hand?” Nancy asked. “We can touch each other. You can feel my hand in yours. And I can feel your hand in mine. And…”
“And what?” David said, again turning to fully face Nancy.
“Notice anything?” Nancy asked, giving David a slight smile.
David looked around. “Uh,” he said. “Nothing seems to have changed. We’re in the same place. We’re standing next to each other. Both of us are still…” His mouth suddenly opened into a perfect circle and his eyes opened very, very wide. “You… uh… are…” He stammered out. “You are… uh… wearing a bra and panties.”
“They’re new,” Nancy said. “I just thought them up.”
“And they match,” she said with a smile as she pulled David deeper into the darkness alongside the woods.
***
As Walter and Wendy were walking back to the house, there was a sudden bright flash of light as if lightning had struck one of the trees in the woods. They both cringed slightly and braced for the blast of pressure and sound that was sure to follow. But there was no sound. No wave of thunder accompanied the lightning.
“What in the hell was that?” Walter exclaimed.
“That must have been ghost lightning,” Wendy said breathlessly. “My grandmother told me about it. She said that if you see a light like that on Halloween, it means that two ghosts were making love. She said that the light is caused by both of them having an orgasm and then moving on.”
Walter started laughing. “You mean that two ghosts were out in the woods getting it on while we were out there?”
“Only after they came out of me,” Wendy said very softly as they walked back up onto the deck. “I’ll definitely have to tell grandma about this,” she added with a smile as she pulled Walter back into the party.
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END OF STORY
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