Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter (5 page)

He pulled her
into another kiss. Time was passing, but she made no note of it as their kiss
went on. She moved her tongue over his and briefly sucked on his lip, before
opening her mouth to welcome his tongue in. His fingers were gripping at her
hips helping to rock her faster over him. He broke away as the actor who played
a poor imitation of Marley began to speak to Ebenezer Scrooge.

"It is
required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within
him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if
that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death."

“But, that is
all wrong then?” she asked.

“Yes, it is. They
come into a different kind of penance altogether.”

“Do you hate
this movie?”

“Movie? What? I
want to take you into your bed and make love to you until I have to go.” With
that he lifted her up like she weighed nothing. She nuzzled her face into his
thick neck as he carried her into the bedroom.

Once he laid her
out on the bed, he straightened his back and looked at her as if she were going
to disappear. Then, he crawled over her till his breath was on her breasts. He
let his tongue circle around one supple nipple and then the other shooting tiny
electrodes down through her stomach.

His lead wet
kisses trailed the same path. As his mouth kissed just above her pubic bone,
she arched up with desire pushing her small patch of hair into his face. Then
she grabbed his hair, opened her legs as wide as they would go and slid his
mouth into her shuddering pussy.

She felt his
broad tongue run over her opening just before he grabbed onto her clit. He
suckled the tiny nub until it was swollen and throbbing. Just as her contractions
climaxed out of control, he slid two fingers into her. As her clit twitched
post-orgasm, the contractions inside of her began. A few times he let his
tongue dart at her clit again, which by now was so sensitive she cried out
raising her hips again pushing his fingers inside of her so far that she could
feel his knuckles at her entrance. He slid in a third finger and continued
working her intermittently pulling her clit to his mouth until the room blurred
and her entire pussy pulsed in ecstasy.

She was still
riding out the waves of pleasure when he laid his entire weight on top of her. With
his hand he guided his cock into the dripping wetness. She liked the feel of
his hand pushing her lips open as he pumped his erection in and out of her. Finally,
he let go to encircle her back with one arm and bring her fully up against him.
She felt she couldn’t get close enough, that not enough of their bodies were
touching each other. She felt she would melt into him if possible.

The jerking of
his body and the release of his hot seed into her sent her into another orgasm
more profound than the prior ones. She felt the blissful waves of contractions
throughout her body, until she lay beneath him limp. He brushed over her face
many kisses.

“How much longer
do you have?”

“Not long.” His
voice sounded angry or rushed as he pushed the words out while still
frantically touching her skin again and again with his lips.

“You can’t
leave. I can’t let go of you now! I won’t allow you to go. I won’t let go!” She
cried out grabbing him and pulling him even tighter to her.

“Janie…” his
voice was muffled by her hair.

“No, I need you
to be real. I need you to stay with me,” she cried out with the whole of her
being.

Then, he was
gone.

Chapter 5

The Spirit of
Christmas Future knew not what had happened to him. She had cried out, and he
had been transported to another place. Only, it was too soon. He knew he had
broken many unspoken laws of his realm, but he had never had cause before to
question the why of it all.

His cloak covered
him again and he fell to the hard ground beneath him. He heard the two ghosts
he had sent away earlier call to him. He couldn’t pick his body up confused as
to even why he was still in it. It hurt as if having her ripped out of his arms
had taken physical parts of his form. His skin burned.

“We witnessed
what you did tonight, once you shooed us away,” one of the spirits said as they
both floated to him. He couldn’t even respond. The way a body felt in shock as
it eased into death came back to him despite the centuries since his passing. He
felt as if he were dying all over again. In his past life, his body had been
brought down by the bullet of a white man. What he couldn’t understand was why
he felt the same now. He shouldn’t even still have this body if his time with
her was over.

“I still had an
hour left!” His words, tight and angry, he couldn’t stop.

“Now, you have
the rest of her life left.”

“What?”

“Given the
unethical relationship you formed with her, your work is now compromised. Without
you, she will not fulfill her destiny. You have altered her life path
irrevocably. Yet, with consideration to the work you have done over these past
centuries and the heroic death of your first life, you have been granted a
second one. You became a spirit of Christmas because you lost your life early
trying to save another. You have fulfilled many centuries of duty. You lived in
death as you lived in life, sacrificing yourself for the good of others. Because
of this you have been given a Christmas gift. You will return to earth with the
knowledge of where you have been retained. It will be a secret you will have to
keep to remain. You have been granted an identity. Live your lives together as
best you can keeping the secret you share of this night between you.”

Just as quickly
as he left, he was back. From the living room where he stood, a man’s silly
cries to the spirit world mixed with the ominous sound of Janie’s weeping. Running
to her, he didn’t even pause with the thought of frightening her. He pulled her
curled form to him. Her cries were as ragged as his breaths as he tried to
explain what the Spirits had told him.

As they rejoiced
against each other not needing words that would only fall short of their
feelings anyway, the voice of Ebenezer Scrooge rang out clearly from the TV.

“Ghost of the
Future," he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any specter I have seen.
But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be
another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with
a thankful heart.”

To this the
Spirit, now a man, quoted "Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to
which, if persevered in, they must lead…but if the courses be departed from,
the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"

Epilogue

It was a
Christmas gift neither would ever forget. It was a gift of love given
unconditionally and without judgment of any kind once again by the Creator to
two souls in need. The spirit of Christmas Future became her present. With that
gift she learned to live true to her self, as he lived grateful for each moment
he had with her.

About Kiki
Howell

Ever since
she was young, Kiki Howell loved to listen to a well-woven tale with real
characters, inspired plots, and delightful resolutions. Kiki could spend hours
lost in a book, and soon she knew that creating lives, loves, and losses with
just words had to be the greatest thing that she could do.

To that end,
she pursued her study of literature and writing, earning a bachelor’s degree in
English. She then followed in a Master’s program in Creative Writing.

“After a long
break having my boys, I finally just had to write again. And, as soon as I gave
the stories the space, they entered it. It’s both awesome and humbling to find
the words in my mind become characters on a page and create their lives.”

Kiki resides
in the Midwest with her incredibly handsome and talented, singer/songwriter
husband and two children. When she is not writing, she is spending time with
her family, reading, baking or knitting.

Visit
her site here
!

ALLISON

By Mallory
Path

Thursday.
Spencer lies on his back for a while, as he does every Thursday afternoon. It's
not until he moves to his desk and turns on the computer monitor that he notices
the day on the menu bar—Tuesday. He's not sure if he is two days ahead or
five days behind. He isn't sure what there is to be ahead of or behind, so he
lets it alone and clicks over to check on the latest available torrents.

Once he has the
new downloads going and has watched a few things that finished overnight, he
goes to the fridge. It's not empty, but the cartons in it are. The cans and
bottles on the counter are empty, too.

"Where ya
been keeping yourself, Allison?" the homeless man on the corner calls out
as he does every time Spencer walks by, even when he's on the opposite side of
the street. There is probably a real Allison. Spencer thinks she must be the
homeless man's lost love. He used to think so, that is; now he tries not to think
about it.

He used to
answer the homeless guy. "Around," he would say, deepening his voice
as much as he could in hopes the homeless guy would recognize his masculinity.
The homeless guy just kept calling him Allison, though, so Spencer gave up. Now
he tries to get from his apartment to the convenience store as quickly as
possible, with a minimum of interaction. He shoves his hands into his pockets
and keeps his head down as he walks. There don't seem to be many people out
today, so he decides to go the extra few blocks and try for the grocery store.

There are a lot
more people in the store than there are on the sidewalk, but Spencer is here
already, so he picks up a shopping basket and starts down the least-crowded
aisle. After collecting a few bottles of water and some instant noodles, he
finds himself standing in front of cheeses. Cheeses from all over the world,
cheeses from cows and goats and sheep. He wonders what other animals you can
make cheese from. If all it requires is the ability to produce milk, why isn't
there human cheese?

"Are you
finding everything today, sir?"

Spencer looks up
at the too-bright voice into a too-bright smile. "Yes," he says
rather too loudly himself.

"Well, let
me know if I can help you find anything!" the young woman says. She's
nothing like the girl at the convenience store, Spencer thinks as he edges
away. He leaves his half-full basket at the end of the next aisle.

He likes the
surly teenage girl at the convenience store because she doesn't say anything
and rarely bothers to look at him anymore. Unfortunately, though, it's the old
lady today. Spencer takes a deep, wishful breath as he puts his things on the
counter, but as she rings him up, she says it anyhow, like always: "Nice
day for a race."

Spencer has
tried different responses, including no response at all, but he has learned
that the old lady cannot be dissuaded. The best thing to do is to play along
with her and get through it quickly. "What race is that," he says
without inflection as he counts out the exact change.

She answers like
he has truly asked, showing off a full set of teeth, or maybe they're dentures,
as she beams: "Why, the human race, of course!"

Spencer takes
one last look at her teeth. "Okay." He drags the plastic bag off the
counter by the handles, the fingers of his other hand still hooked into the six
pack.

"Hey,
Allison!" the homeless guy shouts from across the street.

Around, Spencer
thinks but doesn't say. Around, around, around.

There's a box
outside his door when he gets back, and he can tell from the return address
that it holds the Man's Art DVDs he ordered last week. He doesn't feel like
taking them out just yet, so he leaves the package unopened, though he at least
brings it inside.

He decides to
watch an old favorite instead. It's the one he used two years ago when the
classical music blasting through the thin walls from next door got to be too
much for him, and he was forced to counterattack with high-decibel pornography.
He hadn't noticed that the music had stopped until he heard a knocking on his
door. He had pressed the pause button, but hadn't answered the door. "Hey,
man," a male voice from the other side had called, "mind if I join
you? Whatever you're watching sounds a hell of a lot more fun than what I have
going on." When Spencer ventured to open the door, he'd been met with a
toothsome grin between a once-fashionable fauxhawk and a thin chain, at the end
of which a set of military dog tags rested against a bare, hairless chest. That
was how he met Ronnie Dodd.

They started
hanging out after that, watching porn, drinking beer, kind of like friends.
Then one time, Ronnie reached over and took Spencer's cock in his hand and
Spencer was so startled he didn't do anything. Didn't do anything but let
Ronnie jerk him off until he came. Ronnie did it for him the next time as well;
the time after, Ronnie grinned and said, "You know, you can help me out,
too." It didn't seem like a big deal, so Spencer reached over, and that's
how mutual masturbation became an occasional part of their hanging out.

The unmistakable
tread of Ronnie's boots comes up the stairs now. Spencer zips up but doesn't
bother with shirt or shoes. "Hey, you feel like—" he says as he
leans out of his door, "—oh."

"Hey, man,
what's up?" Ronnie turns to the young man beside him and explains,
"This is my neighbor."

"The one
who doesn't like the violin," the young man says. Blue-eyed and
tousled-blond, cherubic dimples become angelic, horrifyingly All-American, more
Boy-Next-Door than the actual boy next door; more everything, certainly, than
Spencer. "Hello, Spencer. It's you, isn't it?"

Spencer's tongue
swells, thickening in his mouth as if it will fill the whole thing.

Ronnie looks
between them. "You two know each other?"

His
violin-playing friend nods. "We were at the Conservatory together."
He turns and looks at Spencer again. "But maybe you don't
remember—"

"I remember
you, Brad," Spencer says. Now that his tongue is working again, it's his
lips that seem to be having the problem; he isn't sure if he has managed a
reasonable facsimile of a smile or not, but between them Brad and Ronnie seem
to have the smiling situation covered. "Well," Spencer says, "I
won't keep you. Sorry to interrupt."

He ducks back
inside but doesn't manage to get the door shut before Ronnie says, "You're
not interrupting, we're just hanging out. Why don't you hang with us?"
When Spencer hesitates, Ronnie says, "Come on, buddy. You can stroke off
any time. Come drink with us."

Spencer feels
the fury of his blush, but he doesn't say anything. He glances at Brad, who
senses the gaze and turns to meet it. Just before Spencer looks away, he sees
that Brad is smiling—which doesn't necessarily mean anything, good or
bad; it doesn't mean Brad is smiling at him or Brad is laughing at him because,
as Spencer recalls, Brad used to smile an awful lot. He probably still does.

"Okay,"
Spencer says, because Ronnie has already countered the only excuse that comes
to him.

They sit in
Ronnie's apartment, drinking and talking. Ronnie and Brad are doing most of the
talking, but Spencer doesn't mind sitting there listening to them.

Then Brad turns
to him and says, "So what happened to you, Spencer?"

Spencer has been
expecting this. He has had over an hour to think of what he'll say, and he has
his response clearly thought out and at the ready: "I dropped out."
There seemed to be more to it when the words were in his head; when he hears
them aloud, he sighs inwardly and braces for awkwardness, for awkward silence
or awkward questioning. But Brad nods and says he figured it was something like
that. Spencer isn't sure what to make of the response, but Brad smiles and
eases the conversation back to Ronnie, who takes over like it's nothing to
talk.

The evening
wears on and Ronnie's alcohol supply is exhausted, even though the boys
themselves are not. Ronnie suggests going on a run to get more, but Spencer
remembers the six-pack he bought today. As he's opening his own door, Ronnie
and Brad appear behind him. "Oh," Spencer says, but doesn't get
further because Ronnie leans heavily against him as the door opens fully, and
they tumble inside.

Spencer
apologizes as he tries hastily to clear space for them. He glances at Brad, who
was always so proper and orderly: Brad is standing there looking at it, and the
immensity of the mess starts to sink into Spencer, weighting his arms and his
fingers—it's harder to move them now, and he can't hold onto anything; he
feels the magazines and clothing and whatnot he'd picked up slip through his
hands to spill on the floor once more. He bends down, but his damnable fingers
won't work; the towel he's reaching for won't stick to them, and gravity
reclaims it. He tries again, his face hot with the blood rushed to his head
from having to stay bent over, from being like
this
, and he wants
nothing more than to get away, except they're at his place and it's only one
room and he has nowhere to go...and then fingers brush his, curling into
terrycloth as the towel lets itself be picked up.

Spencer unbends.
Towel in hand, Brad smiles. "Why don't you get the beer?" Brad
suggests. "We'll keep straightening up in here."

In the
kitchenette, Spencer stays with his head in the fridge until the blood has
calmed from the surface of his skin. By the time he gets back, Brad and Ronnie
are sitting on the sofa they've uncovered. Spencer folds himself onto the
floor. "There's space with us," Brad says, but Spencer says he likes
it down here and Brad doesn't insist. Spencer hands each of them a can, which
they clink in toast before taking the first sips—and then, just as
Spencer has been fearing, nothing happens.

Then it's worse
than silence, as conversation so often is. It's bad in a way Spencer forgot to
anticipate, because now Brad is holding up the cover of the DVD in the player
and saying, "I love their stuff. Have you seen the
Personal Trainers
series?"

"Seen
it?" Ronnie says. "He owns every volume." Ronnie grins
unabashedly, and Spencer is afraid he is going to suggest they watch one right
now.

To forestall
such a disaster, Spencer finds himself blurting, "So you play in the
Symphony."

Brad turns to
him. "That's right." Silence looms threateningly, but Brad steps into
it with ease, dispersing it as he talks about the piece they've started
rehearsing for the winter season opening, what Brad loves about Tchaikovsky and
what he doesn't. He talks about music for a while, and Spencer listens.

Then Brad says,
"Do you still play?" He slides off the sofa onto his knees, reaching
to hover at the edge of the oboe case half-buried beneath a pile of miscellany.
"I'm sorry," Brad says as he brings his hand back to himself. "I
just happened across it while we were picking things up. I didn't touch it,
though."

"No,"
Spencer says. "I mean, I don't play anymore." He waits for Brad to
say the same thing everyone does, about what a shame, a
shame
that
is—but Brad only nods.

"What do
you do?" Brad asks conversationally. Just casual, polite conversation, but
Spencer realizes there's no way to avoid the shame.

"I sleep,
mostly," he confesses. "And go to the convenience store."

"And watch
porn," Ronnie chimes in.

Brad nods again
without taking his eyes off Spencer. "So are you." He hesitates,
curiosity and gentility seeming to war in him until he comes to a compromise of
discretion: "A recluse?"

"Sort of,
yeah." If there's a word for what he is, Spencer doesn't know it. He means
to leave it at that, but finds himself going on, describing the nuances of his
situation, telling Brad things like how he pays his bills by pirating porn and
anime, and which brand of instant noodles he prefers, simply talking to him.
It's always been easy to talk to Brad, easy to say things to Brad. Well, easy
to say some things, if impossible to say others.

They've been
talking for a while when a stuttered snore reminds them of Ronnie's presence.
They turn to see him sprawled on the sofa, one foot draped over the back, the
other dangling off the armrest, a hand reaching down to curl even in sleep
around the beer can sitting on the floor.

As Spencer
slides the can from Ronnie's loose grip, Brad says he should probably be going
himself: "I have an early rehearsal tomorrow." Spencer looks up and
opens his mouth, then shuts it again wordlessly. "I'll help you bring him
back to his place," Brad offers with a grin.

"No, it's
okay." Spencer moves around to the armrest by Ronnie's head and reaches
under his shoulders to slide him into a more comfortable position. "I
don't mind him crashing here."

"Let me
help with this, at least," Brad says, bringing Ronnie's foot over from the
back of the sofa and untying his shoelaces.

At the door,
Brad thanks Spencer for his hospitality and bids him good night.

"Good
night," Spencer returns. Then as Brad is turning in the doorway, Spencer
says, "I don't dislike the violin." Brad turns back. "I just
asked him to keep the music down because it reminded me." He stops. Feels
himself breathe. Goes on: "Of you."

"So it's me
you don't like." There's sadness in Brad's eyes, though he's still trying
to smile. "I see."

No
,
Spencer wants to say, but once again his thickened tongue obscures that and
half the other words in his mouth, and the only ones that make it out are,
"Things lost."

Brad looks at
him again. Really looks at him, and Spencer wants to look away so badly that he
does—but then he somehow manages to look back. He knows the fragment
wasn't enough, but all the other words have been swallowed. Those words, still
thick, are now in his throat; he's lucky he can breathe.