Bat
sixteen
The cat’s body— my body, currently—froze on the duvet. Charlie stood over me, hands on hips, face flushed with indignation and something else I didn’t dare name.
Choices flickered through my consciousness like a bad slideshow:
Hide under the covers.
Jump out the window.
Roll over and play dead.
No. That last one hit too close to home.
Right. Time to face the music. Or in this case, face the gorgeous, angry man who’d just caught me red-handed. Or red-pawed, I suppose.
Leaving a body wasn’t pleasant. Like peeling off a wetsuit that’s been glued to your skin. The cat’s consciousness pushed back against mine, confused and irritated at the intrusion. I pulled myself free, feeling the awful wrongness of occupying space that wasn’t mine.
The separation happened in stages. First the edges—whiskers, tail, the tips of the ears. Then the core. The cat’s heartbeat faded from my awareness. The scent of salmon treats disappeared. The warm weight of fur and flesh evaporated.
I drifted upward, formless.
The cat shook itself violently, let out a confused meow, and bolted from the room like its tail was on fire.
Charlie’s eyes darted around, searching. Left, right, up toward the ceiling. His breath came faster.
“Where are you? I swear… I swear I can feel you here. But I can’t see you…”
The stress in his tone. The sadness underneath. That got me.
I pulled myself together—literally—forcing the memory of my body back into existence. The familiar weight of my form. The sensation of occupying space. The leather collar around my neck, the fabric of my shirt, the cold press of my smudged eyeliner.
I materialised at the foot of the bed.
Charlie’s eyes locked onto me immediately.
“Nice pyjamas,” I quipped.
He did not look impressed.
“Please don’t be mad,” I said.
“For what, exactly?” he hissed. “Licking me to death? Neglecting to tell me you enjoy possessing furry felines too? Kissing me and then literally ghosting me?”
What? “Um… all of the above?”
“Leaving me alone in that creepy garden to find my way back myself?”
“Okay, okay, I get it. I’m sorry.”
Charlie’s frown deepened behind his glasses. That familiar curl of self-loathing twisted inside me. Did I really have to go and fuck up the one good thing that had happened in my entire afterlife?
Years and years of haunting this manor. An eternity of the same faces, the same rooms, the same endless nothing. And now this beautiful, kind, lovely man had stumbled into my non?existence, played my guitar, fetched me books, danced with me in Thomas’s garden, and I’d gone and ruined it.
Classic Bat. Self-sabotage had been my speciality when I was alive, apparently carried over into death.
“So… what happened?” Charlie asked. His voice dropped lower. Quieter. “You just… left me.”
“I know. I’m so sorry. Really.”
“You know what, Bat?” Charlie shoved his glasses up his nose. “I’m already being treated like crap by Brad here. On top of being terrorised by ghosts—no offence—and stuck in this nightmare of a job. I don’t need you fucking with me on top of that.”
The words hit like a punch to the heart. “That was never my intention.”
I reached out to touch his arm. To offer comfort. To something.
My hand passed straight through him.
Charlie gasped, staring at the space where my fingers had disappeared into his flesh. A shiver racked through him.
“Bat… are you okay?” he asked.
Truthfully? No. I’d burnt through too much energy. Holding Charlie’s hand in the garden for that long. Dancing with him. Keeping myself solid during the kiss—that spectacular, heart?stopping, world-tilting kiss. Then immediately fleeing like a coward and diving into the nearest available cat.
“I just… need a second to recharge. Sorry.”
Charlie looked at me with those sad blue eyes. Eyes that could see straight through me. Literally and figuratively.
“You don’t need to apologise.”
But I did. I absolutely did. Because being dead meant constantly disappointing him. Constantly being less than what he needed. Less solid. Less present. Less real.
I’d been a disappointment when I was alive—to my teachers, to my parents, to myself, to anyone who’d expected something from me. Death hadn’t changed that. Just made it permanent.
“I do,” I said. “And… I need to say sorry for kissing you just now. I… got a bit carried away.”
Charlie’s frown deepened.
“I know it was inappropriate. I… I guess I lost control of myself.” The words tumbled out faster now, desperate.
“I know you didn’t want to kiss me. Obviously.
Because A, I’m dead. B, I’d just unloaded all my shit on you about my mysterious murder and my pathetic afterlife.
And C, I look like this—” I gestured at myself, at my ridiculous emo aesthetic frozen forever.
“And you apparently like men who look like…”
I didn’t finish, because Charlie had moved toward me.
Very close. Very, very close.
So close I could feel the glorious warmth of his breath. Could see his eyelashes flutter with each blink. Could count the faint freckles across his nose.
He lifted his hand. Reached toward my hair.
His fingers passed through the black strands. I hadn’t recharged enough yet. Couldn’t maintain solidity. Charlie was just stroking air. But I closed my eyes anyway. Focused on the intention. The gesture. Pretended I could feel the gentle drag of his fingers through my fringe.
“Bat.” Charlie’s voice, soft. “You know that I very much wanted you to kiss me, right?”
My eyes stayed shut. “You did?”
“I literally kissed you back?”
“You did?”
“You didn’t notice?!”
“I might have been too busy hyperventilating.”
“About?”
“If you wanted to be kissed. If I was even any good at it.” The confession spilled out of me. “I don’t remember if I was good at it when I was alive. And I’m definitely out of practice.”
“Well, I can confirm you were very good at it.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Excellent, in fact. So much so, I felt cheated when you ditched me.”
“Really?”
“Open your eyes.”
I peeled them open slowly. Found Charlie’s face inches from mine. Smiling. Amused. Still stroking the air where my hair would be if I could hold myself together properly.
“Can you feel this?”
“Um… sort of.” A tiny lie. But I didn’t want him to stop, regardless. My imagination filled in the blanks. The weight of his hand. The gentle pressure. The warmth.
Charlie leaned in. Pressed his lips against my cheek.
The sensation flickered. There and not there.
“What about that?”
He pressed his lips against my mouth. I gasped. “I can feel you. Almost.”
Almost wasn’t good enough.
I forced myself to become solid. Dragged energy from somewhere deep, deep inside, and pulled. My body coalesced. Became real. Became touchable.
Charlie grabbed my arm and laughed in relief. “There you are.”
I didn’t waste time. Wasn’t sure how long I could last. Grabbed Charlie’s shoulders and shoved him quite violently onto the bed.
Then froze.
What was I doing?! Was this okay? Had I—
But Charlie grinned up at me. A new kind of smile. A wicked smile. A hungry smile that sent electricity through whatever passed for my nervous system these days.
“Are you actually standing there waiting for my consent? Really?” His eyes sparkled behind his glasses. “Because that usually isn’t a problem with you.”
I launched myself at him.
No hesitation this time. No second-guessing. Just pure want propelling me through the air and onto Charlie’s warm, solid, living body.
The impact drove him deeper into the mattress. Springs protested beneath us. Charlie’s breath rushed out in a surprised gasp that morphed into something lower. Darker. A groan that vibrated through his chest and straight into mine.
His hips bucked up against me.
Stars. Actual stars exploded behind my eyelids. Or maybe that was just my synapses firing for the first time in decades. Hard to tell when every nerve ending I’d forgotten I possessed suddenly screamed back to life.
I ripped Charlie’s glasses off his head, tossing them onto the bedside cabinet as his hand slid up under my T-shirt. Fingers splayed against my ribs. Cold—no, I was the cold one. His touch burned like a brand against incorporeal flesh that had forgotten what warmth meant.
His other hand gripped the back of my thigh. Squeezed. Then slid higher, cupping my ass and pulling me tighter against him with a grip that said come here. A grip that said mine.
My cock pressed hard against his hip. Against actual, physical resistance that wasn’t just my own hand in some lonely corner of this manor at three in the morning.
The sensation hit like a tidal wave. No.
Like a power chord cranked to eleven. Like the bass drop in a song you’ve been waiting your entire life to hear.
Rock hard didn’t begin to cover it.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Charlie breathed against my neck.
I pulled back slightly, dizzy. “What?”
“I didn’t know if ghost dicks still remembered how to have fun.”
Laughter burst out of me. Actual laughter. Was it normal to laugh during sex? From what I could remember, sex had always been desperate and fumbled and tinged with shame—quick hookups in club bathrooms, rushed encounters in someone’s car, always afraid of being caught, of being seen.
But this felt different.
This felt right.
“Mine certainly does,” I managed, rolling my hips against him for emphasis. Friction. Glorious, perfect friction. “Though it could probably use a reminder or ten.”
Charlie groaned again, fingers digging harder into my ass. His other hand traced patterns across my ribs. Abstract art.
“Can I take your clothes off?”
I froze again.
Was he asking permission? Or wondering if it was even possible?
Because technically, yes, someone could undress me.
But also technically, if I wasn’t concentrating, my clothes would just…
reappear. Materialise back onto my body like a factory reset.
One of the many annoying quirks of being incorporeal.
But explaining that right now seemed like a brilliant way to kill the mood.