24. Love Me to Death
twenty-four
Love Me to Death
“Yeeew, Gary, where did you go?”
It’s still dark out, but the Taurus constellation is visible, so I know daylight isn’t far away. The hut has an eerie stillness, like a snow globe that’s been violently shaken and then frozen in time.
Trystan pushes himself up on the sofa. He stretches, tosses the ghost surfboard aside, and glances at the clock. “Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting that’s broken. Kai needs to put new batteries in it.” His eyebrows knot together when he looks at me. “Are you okay? What’s up?”
I sit beside him and try to figure out how I’m going to word this, but my brain has stalled. Why does he make it so hard to think?
“Yeeeww, you’re sitting, dude.”
I glance down. So I am. “Um . . .” Fuck, okay, here goes. Just spit it out, Gary. “Trystan . . . shit, um . . . don’t listen to my next show.”
His face falls. Whatever he’d been expecting me to say, it obviously wasn’t that. “Do you know who our killer is?”
“No,” I say truthfully. “But I don’t think it’ll be long before I figure it out and . . .” Breathe, Gary. You can do this. You can tell him how you feel. “And I’m not ready to lose you yet.”
He freezes. Just stares at me like he’s trying to work out if he heard different words from the ones I said.
My heart is beating too quickly to leave the silence hanging there. “I mean . . . please? Fuck, okay, I know it’s your choice. You can move on if that’s what you really want, but I could save that information for a future date, and in the meantime, we could . . . hang out?”
Still, he says nothing. He continues frowning, but now his lips part, just a fraction, and my eyes are drawn to the movement.
“There are so many movies I need to show you before you leave this realm, and . . . I still don’t know how to surf, and .
. . I haven’t watched the sunset yet, and .
. . I’m really enjoying spending time with you.
We could draw dicks on mirrors, and experience tepid orgasms crossing boundary lines, and . . .”
I have less than a second to process what happens next. Trystan scoots closer to me on the sofa, his hand shoots up and slots itself under my left ear, and then he’s pressing his lips to mine.
I’m pretty sure I whimper before kissing him back.
His lips are pillowy soft and moist, and I’m so glad death hasn’t stolen the pleasure of a decent snog from me.
Suddenly, Trystan stops, pulls away, his chest heaving. “Sorry. I . . .”
“Don’t apologise for kissing me,” I pant. “That was also on my list of stuff I’d quite like to do.”
Trystan smiles, takes my face in both of his hands, and kisses me again. This time as my lips part, he brushes his tongue against mine. Our teeth knock together, our breaths mingle, and things get uncomfortably tight in the lower half of my ExorSquad overalls.
My glasses are squished between us. Trystan whips them off my head and tosses them across the hut, and then he’s on top of me, the delicious weight of him pressing down upon me—sort of but not really—into the mouldy couch.
“Gary,” he says, breathless.
It will never be enough, I realise. I’ll need a millennium just to appreciate the sound of my name in his mouth. I could live a thousand lifetimes and still this moment, right now in death, would trounce them all.
“Gary, tell me if you want me to stop.”
I laugh because I’ve honestly never heard anything so ridiculous in the entirety of human history.
“Can I?” he says, fingers poised above my overall zipper at my throat. I nod, it’s about all I can manage, and he unwraps me like a gift on Christmas morning. Slowly, savouringly, as though I’m something special.
I sit up and Trystan rolls my uniform over my shoulders. He pauses, grabs the hem of my vest, and tugs it upwards until I’m sitting in front of him bare chested. Big, hairy belly hanging out for the world to see.
And when I say the world, I mean my world.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, his hands landing squarely on my tummy, his fingertips disappearing under my fuzz.
Me of a few years ago would’ve argued with him, would have said, “Don’t be stupid, I’m not beautiful.” Hell, even me of a few weeks ago might have, but as it turns out, souls and spirits are so much more than the bodies that house them.
And if Trystan Retallack thinks my fat belly is beautiful, who the fuck am I to disagree with that?
He kisses me again. This time taking his gentle, butterfly movements down my throat, along my collarbone. He cups my chest and takes my nipple between his lips, then his teeth, and the noise that escapes me is borderline feral, a zoo animal escaping its enclosure.
“Ohhh,” Trystan whines. “Shit, that’s so hot.” He idly rubs a hand over the bulge in his board shorts and moves his kisses lower.
A very real and terrifying thought pops into my head. What if this is my unfinished business? What if we fuck right here, and I just float away afterwards?
Yeah, even so, I’m willing to take that risk.
“I want to . . .” Trystan says, breathless. “I want to do things to you. Is that okay?”
“Yes,” I say, equally breathless. “Anything you want.” Everything you want.
He swallows. Drags his thumb along the stubble on my jaw. “I want to fuck you under the stars. And then I want you to fuck me, and we’ll just keep switching until the dog walkers turn up.”
“That sounds like the best plan I’ve ever heard.” I stand up and step out of my overalls, kicking them aside. Now I’m only wearing my pants and socks, which looks weird, so I quickly lose the socks.
Trystan shucks his shirt, tears off his racer-back, and grabs my hand, pulling me through the hut’s wall. The beach is blissfully devoid of living people, and it’s dark and sheltered enough by the cliff that if any ghosts looked out of the hotel windows, they wouldn’t see us.
Not that I’d care even if they did.
I can almost feel the sand below my bare soles. It’s cool, and a little damp. Trystan runs towards the ocean, and stops directly opposite me. He lets go of my hand, and without taking his eyes off mine, he drops his shorts and his boxers to the ground.
Trystan Retallack is standing in front of me, naked and bathed in moonlight. His cock sits flush against his belly, and it’s all absolutely fucking glorious.
I drop to my knees.
“Oh my god, Gary,” he says as I take him into my mouth.
Trystan cries out into the night as I work my lips and tongue over him, taking him deep into my throat, and then bringing it out to the tip.
For once, I’m grateful I’m so short, because now I get to glance up at this perfect man, moonlight glittering off his muscles, and drink in every single curve, every peak and valley of his body, whilst making him whine to the heavens.
“Gary, oh fuck, Gary. I’m gonna come,” he says, his fingers knotted in my hair as he rocks into my mouth.
I don’t pull away. I take his load and swallow it, and it’s reassuring, if not a little tragic, that ghost cum still tastes like cum.
Seconds after I stand up, Trystan pulls me down to the sand again, until I’m lying on my back with him above me. If I weren’t already dead, I could die the happiest man on earth.
“Let’s get these off.” He tugs my pants down. I briefly wish I’d chosen a less decrepit pair to don before I’d died, but Trystan balls them up in his hands and yeets them towards the sea. He cages me again and sucks in a breath. “Question, do ghosts need lube?”
I open my mouth to answer, but realise I have no idea. “Uh . . . I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
“Yeah,” he breathes, and a millisecond later his fingers nudge at my entrance.
His fingertip circles my hole. I bring my knees up so he has better access, and he slips his finger inside me, brushing against my P-spot.
I’m cursing the fact that my eyes want to roll themselves closed, but I can’t look at him when that happens.
He’s not even fucking me, and I’m already dangerously close to a hands-free completion.
Trystan presses another finger inside me. It glides in, no resistance, so I guess that answers the lube question.
“Are you ready for me? Can I finish inside you?”
I whine. “God, don’t say shit like that yet. I’ll come. You have no idea how close this is to being over.”
He palms my face. Good lord, he is so fucking beautiful. “No refractory period, remember?”
Okay, I actually love being a ghost.
“Fuck me,” I whisper.
He says nothing else, simply lines himself up and pushes in, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes shut as his cock slides against my prostate.
I count the freckles on his face as he slowly starts thrusting. I drag my thumbs over his biceps as he props himself up. I whine his name over and over because this is no longer happening inside my head.
“Can we just do this? Can we stay like this? Forever,” he says.
Now I try not to cry. Try not to think about this whole murder mystery that needs solving. In fact, fuck it, what if I never figure out who did it? What if I stopped investigating right now and we just unlive happily ever after?
“Gary?” Trystan says, pausing his motions and whining through a particularly delicious moment of friction.
“Yeah?”
“When you do your next show . . . I won’t listen. I’m just going to stay here on the beach and wait for you to come back and . . .”
Oh, shit. Oh, no. I’m right there.
“I’m gonna . . . I’m gonna . . .” I throw my head back, slam my eyes shut, and cry out as my orgasm splashes across my belly.
“Oh, baby,” Trystan whimpers, watching me. Suddenly, he stills, and inside me, his cock twitches, spilling his second load.
When we’ve both floated down from our highs, Trystan pulls out of me and flips me over.
“Fuck me, please,” he says, and honestly, what idiot would argue with that?
The sky grows pinker and pinker. Dog walkers magically appear on the horizon, and still we keep fucking, neither of us tiring, neither needing to rest or recuperate. It’s only when the families begin unpacking their beach bags that we take things back inside the hut.
Trystan’s going down on me, my cock in his mouth, when a head appears in the middle of the wall.
It’s Stove.
“Agghhh, my eyes!” he screams and disappears again.
“Fucking knock next time!” Trystan yells.
“This is payback for the other day,” Stove’s disembodied voice calls out. “I’ll give you ten seconds to get dressed.”
“How about go fuck yourself?” I shout.
“This is important,” he says back. “Also, I already did that.”
I turn to Trystan. “I don’t even know where my clothes are. Or my glasses.”
“Let me show you this little trick I learned.” Trystan stands tall, straightens his spine, and places his hands over his chest, like a vampire in a coffin. He closes his eyes, and a second later his clothes magically appear on his body and a surfboard under his feet.
“What the . . . How did you do that?”
“Remember when I said you can go into stasis standing up? It’s the quickest way to get dressed.”
“I’m coming in!” Stove yells.
“NO!” both Trystan and I shout.
“Gary’s still naked.”
“So what?” Stove calls back.
“So, I’d rather you didn’t cop an eyeful of my bollocks again,” I say.
Stove sighs. “Well, hurry! I’ve got something really important to tell you.”
“It’s okay, I’ll just get dressed the old-fashioned way,” I say, pulling on my ExorSquad overalls. Trystan finds my glasses and brings them to me. For now, I forgo the socks and pants.
Seconds later, Stove floats back through the wall. He looks me up and down, then raises an eyebrow. “Um . . . what was it again? Oh, yeah, Angel’s been arrested for Jeanie’s murder.”