15. Spooky Season #4
“Please don’t talk about the weather,” S says.
“You’re harshing my buzz.” She pulls open the shed doors and flicks on the lights.
Rhode double-takes: At least a dozen hairy tarantulas dangle from the chandelier.
They’re Halloween decorations—but unsettling nonetheless.
The bed is dressed in bridal white with the same white sheers, the same grim portraits stare down from the ceiling—but tonight, the pillar candles on the console tables are black.
Rhode wishes he’d had two or three more shots of whiskey.
“You got new candles,” he says.
“Yes,” S says. “It’s spooky season.” She closes the doors and turns on music, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” which Rhode finds disappointing if only because it’s so obvious.
But what’s not disappointing is the way S unzips her dress so that it falls to the ground in one liquid movement, becoming a silk puddle at her feet. She’s completely naked underneath.
Rhode takes a step toward her and lifts a piece of her hair. “Do you want to take your wig off?” It’s so long, Rhode can only imagine it will get in the way.
“Wig stays on,” S says. “And I want you to wear this.” From the drawer of a console table, she produces a black mask, reminiscent of the one Batman’s Robin wears.
Rhode realizes she isn’t kidding. He places the elastic around his head, then adjusts it so he can see. S slips his vest off, then yanks at his sweater and T-shirt, which skews his mask. He adjusts it again. This is so weird, but what did he expect? She’s been acting weird all night.
He unbuttons his jeans while S lights the black candles. She pushes him back onto the bed, and they get after it.
Is it Rhode’s imagination, or is the sex hotter because he’s wearing a mask?
He’s a big one for consent, but when he asks S if she’s comfortable trying a new position, maybe reverse… she snaps at him. “Anything is fine, just don’t piss on the moment by asking for permission.”
Okay then—Paul Revere rides again! It’s erotic as hell, even when S claws her fingernails down his back so fiercely she draws blood, even when she stuffs the ends of her wig into his mouth until he gags.
They go for a long time, longer than Rhode thought he was capable of, frankly, but S is a master at taking him right to the edge of climax, then easing back in a way that doubles, triples, quadruples his desire.
Finally, she locks her legs around his back and starts moaning, and he takes this as his cue that he should finish.
What an explosive, mind-melting finish it is! They both fall back, gasping for air. That, Rhode thinks, was the best sex of his life. As Billie Eilish starts singing “Bad Guy,” S reaches into the drawer of a console table and pulls out a joint.
They each take a hit, and Rhode removes his mask. He kind of wishes they could be done with the wig as well; it’s like having an animal in bed with them.
They pass the joint back and forth without speaking. What is there to say? S sinks her head into the pillows and rubs her hand over her hip bone. “I wanted you to bite me here.”
“You wanted me to bite your hip?”
“I wanted you to gnaw on it like a wolf.” She starts cackling.
He leans over to kiss her tenderly on the mouth. “Next time.”
“Next time?”
Is he being too presumptuous? After what just transpired, he can’t imagine not seeing her again.
It’s a little strange, a little twisted, like what’s up with the mask just waiting there in the drawer, and the dozens of fresh black candles?
S knew she was bringing someone home tonight, but there’s no way she could have known it would be him.
This leads Rhode to wonder who else has been in this bed since he was last here.
He wants to believe it’s been only him, but he isn’t na?ve.
He isn’t sure if it’s the afterglow or the weed, but he suddenly makes the decision to come clean.
“I’m not a lawyer from out of town,” he says. “I’d like to tell you who I really am.” Blood rushes his ears. Is he crazy? He won’t tell her he’s a teacher, he decides. Just a published writer.
S curls up, resting her shins against his outstretched body. She lays a tender hand on his chest. “Please don’t,” she says.
A few moments later, she’s asleep. Rhode studies her face. Her fake eyelashes are askew, but that’s her only imperfection.
He thinks about how Taylor Wilson handed in her poetry assignment a couple weeks ago, asking if anything she wrote for class could get her in trouble. Rhode assured her the answer was no, as long as it didn’t indicate she would harm herself or someone else.
“It’s nothing like that,” she said, and she turned in the poem, “Harkness Society.”
Rhode admired the whole poem, but his favorite lines came in the last stanza, “Mine for tonight / Member for life.” That’s him right now, he thinks. He’s a member of the She-Shed Society.
He gets dressed quietly, checking for his keys, his lanyard, his phone, his wallet.
He opens the guest book with trepidation, certain that he’ll see the names of all the men S has seduced in the weeks since Rhode’s last visit—but it’s empty.
Rhode carefully tears out a page and writes: Another fantabulous evening. Here’s to spooky season! x R.
Then he pulls a stray wig hair from his mouth (Ew!) and steps out into the dark Hallowed eve.