Got to sober up a little. Can’t be too drunk. Drunk sex only works if you’re at least sober enough to get a hard-on. I throw some cold water over my face, lean in close to the mirror, and I smile to check my teeth. They look okay. Hovering a hand over my mouth, I breathe into my palm, and then wince from the rank stench of puke.
I brush my teeth vigorously and then spit the foamy toothpaste into the sink. “Need a coffee,” I mumble to myself as I check my tongue for fuzz. I wipe my mouth and face with the towel, throwing it onto the side of the bathtub, and not back on the rail. I’m sure Aimee won’t mind. I leave the bathroom and head towards the kitchen. Once inside, I hit the light switch and walk over to the kettle. I see steam coming out from the top. Confused, I touch the sides of the plastic; it’s boiling hot.
“How the fuck…”
Scanning the room and out through the doorway, I look for Aimee again. “Aim? You home?” With no response I venture out into the hallway and living room.
The flat is deserted apart from Luna; he’s fast asleep by the fireplace.
Just as I’m about to leave the living room to check the landing, I hear a glass smash. My heart jolts! I dart into the kitchen to find pieces of broken glass scattered across the floor. “What the hell is this shit?”
The wind? But I can see from here that the window’s closed. It could be slightly ajar. Each footstep makes a crunching noise as I make my way over to the window. Turning my foot over, I look down at my leather shoe; there are small pieces of glass pressed down into the sole. I push them off with my fingers; don’t want to be traipsing it through the rest of the flat. At the window, I see that it’s definitely locked tight.
Something hard shunts the window.
“Fucking hell!” I cry out, hand over my thrashing heart. It sounded like it came from inside.
Impossible.
I grasp the handle and open the window. Poking my head out, I can just about see the front of the building. I don’t see any of the guys, or Aimee. The street seems empty. In the distance, I hear the faint sound of a siren. Not sure what type of siren. Police. Ambulance. Could be either. But that’s it. No people. No cars. Not even a dog barking. No signs of life whatsoever.
The entire street’s asleep.
Closing the window, I feel the dread start to subside, and my rational thoughts begin to seep through the paranoid, drunken haze. The kettle must be faulty, and the glass must have been at the edge of the counter. My heavy, alcohol-fuelled footsteps must have vibrated through the kitchen. And the loud bang on the window must have been a bird, or maybe a kid threw something at it. It couldn’t have come from inside. Impossible.
Aimee’s ghost stories are starting to get to me. That’s all.
There’s nothing here. No ghosts. No monsters. No poltergeists.
Just paranoia.
But what if it’s not? What if Aimee is right and the flat is haunted?
Don’t even think it!
It’s bullshit! It’s all bullshit!
And we’re not selling the flat!
Leaving the kitchen, I avoid the broken glass like land mines, and head for the bedroom. Don’t feel like coffee anymore.
I knock off the lights as I go until the bedroom is the only room that’s lit. Stripping down to nothing, I suddenly feel that icy chill again. There’s a white cloud of cold breath as I exhale, like a puff of smoke from a cigarette. I switch off the light and then climb into bed.
Should I try to stay awake, wait for Aimee to come home? But who knows how long that could be? I glance over at the clock on the bedside table. My vision is still a little blurry, but I think it says 4:31 a.m. Jesus. That’s late for her. Normally she comes stumbling in at around twelve. Should I be worried? Maybe give her a call? No, she’s fine. It is her hen party after all. The taxi’s probably delayed, or maybe she’s crashing at one of her friend’s houses.
Screw waiting for her. I’m sure she’ll wake me when she gets in. She’s not exactly renowned for her stealth-like movements when she’s been drinking. She’ll most likely put every light on in the flat, turn the TV on loud, and cook something in the kitchen.
My eyelids feel heavy. I fight hard to keep them open, to stay awake, but it’s too hard. I feel myself drift off to sleep.
Just hope Aimee wants sex as much as I do.
I’m woken up by the sound of footsteps. Opening my stinging eyes, I can barely see; my vision blurry, half asleep. The hallway light is on.
Aimee is standing in the doorway.
Don’t know if I’m still up for sex. Too tired. Feel like crap. Think my hangover’s kicking in. Aimee’s drunk, I can tell. The way she’s just standing there, staring. Silent. Too hammered even to string a sentence together.
She wants sex. It’s obvious. Otherwise she would’ve just collapsed on the bed, and gone straight to sleep. Closing my eyes, I pray she doesn’t bother me. I hate turning down sex, but the room’s a little too spinny. I might throw up again.
I hear her footsteps coming towards the bed, softly brushing against the carpet. She’s moments from crashing into a piece of furniture. Huddled up on my side, facing my bedside table, I feel the quilt shift. Still with my eyes tightly closed, I feel her weight press down on the mattress. She still hasn’t said a word. Probably waiting for me to make the first move. Or maybe she actually believes that I’m fast asleep. I have just been on my stag party. She knows how much alcohol I’ve probably drunk. But then I flinch as her ice-cold fingers gentle graze my bare-stomach. Her hand starts to move slowly down past my bellybutton, onto the top of my left thigh. The cold sensation is almost unbearable, but I remain still. I resist her lure. Don’t know how long for because I can feel myself getting hard.
She caresses my leg for a minute or two, gradually making her way towards my cock. And then she strokes it and I can no longer keep up the charade. Still too dark to see, I turn to face her. I run my fingers through her hair, kissing her lips, pulling her body against mine. I no longer care about my throbbing head, my tiredness, the room spinning. All I want to do is fuck her. Gently scraping my fingernails over her back, down to her leg, I slip my hand under her dress, cupping her arse over her underwear. “I love you,” I whisper, as I work my mouth down towards her neck.
“I love you too,” she replies softly, barely audible.
She moans gently as my mouth edges closer to her breast. I take my time, teasing her with my tongue, thrusting my hips hard into hers, listening to her—
“You asleep, Matt?” I hear a voice call out from the bedroom doorway.
Suddenly the room fills with blinding light, forcing me to squint my eyes.
A surge of panic and disorientation hits me when I realise that the voice belongs to Aimee. I frantically pull off the quilt, still convinced that Aimee is next to me in bed. But she can’t be. How can she be?
“What the hell is going on?” I blurt out when I find the bed empty. “How did you get over there so fast?”
Aimee staggers drunkenly to the bed and sits on the edge of her side. “What’re you talking about? I’ve only just come home.” She leans in close to me, eyes glazed over. “Are you drunk?”
I sit up in bed, freaked out, unable to fathom what just happened. Aimee reaches out and puts her hand on my thigh. I pull away from her. She throws me one of her she-devil glares and then shakes her head. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” she snaps, standing up from the bed. “Don’t you want sex?” She starts to slip off her dress.
Ignoring her drunken request, I scan the room, eyes focused and wide, stone-cold sober. Not sure what I’m looking for. Someone. Anything to explain what I just witnessed. This wasn’t a dream. Or a hallucination. And I’m pretty sure that I’m not crazy. Someone was in this bed. With me.
I’m certain of it!
“Did anyone come home with you?” I ask, trying to find some logic in all the madness. “Back here? To the flat? One of the girls maybe?”
Shaking her head, Aimee climbs under the quilt. “No
one’s with me. The taxi dropped me off just now. Why are you asking such stupid questions? I thought you’d be begging me for sex, not boring me to death with all these silly questions.” She lies on her back. “Typical man.” And then she closes her eyes.
“Aimee,” I say, nudging her with my knee. “Wake up. I need to talk to you.” Her eyes almost open for a moment, and she mumbles something faintly, but she’s clearly fallen asleep. “Shit.”
I don’t try to wake her, there’s no point. I’ll get no sense out of her tonight. I’ll wait ‘til morning, when she’s sober. When we’re both sober. Maybe in the light of day this’ll all make sense. Maybe I’ll laugh at how ridiculous it is, and how impossible it is to experience something like that. Something so real. So real I could feel it. Taste it.
Smell it.
I climb out of bed, freezing cold, and dart over to the light switch. I knock it off and then close the bedroom door. Racing back into bed, I shudder as the quilt covers my naked body. Before I close my eyes, before I go to sleep, I take one last look at the room. The moonlight has once again painted the furniture in a shadowy gloom, brought to life with silhouettes and false-movement. I try to block out the fear as it creeps over me, trying to burrow its way in through the quilt. But I’ve pulled it too tight. I won’t let it in.
I take one quick glance at the wardrobe and close my eyes tightly, wondering if the figure standing next to it really is just my imagination.
Or something else entirely.
8
I watch as Aimee stirs beside me. I just know she has a hangover waiting behind those blue eyes. I’m tempted to give her a prod to wake her, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
Closing my eyes, I try to fall back to sleep. God knows I need it. Didn’t really get all that much sleep last night. Not after…
For God’s sake! I’m meant to be the logical one. Aimee’s the one with the vivid imagination. Not me. She’s the one who believes in ghosts.
Another twenty minutes pass and I’m still awake. The clock on the bedside table says it’s going on eight. Still too early after the shit we drank last night. Not that I can account for every pint of beer and shot of tequila.
Tequila…
The very notion of it turns my stomach. Although, I’m not as bad as I thought I’d be this morning. Thought I was destined for a day with my head in the toilet, but I’m surprisingly fine. Maybe a little rough ‘round the edges, but pretty good considering.
Aimee’s eyelids slowly part and I get a glimpse of bloodshot eyes. That doesn’t look promising. I almost feel sorry for her. Not that I should. It’s not as if she hasn’t seen me in worse states. Poor girl. Best not laugh. Not yet anyway. It’s still early; my hangover may still be waiting ‘round the corner. Best not tempt fate.
“What time is it?” Aimee mumbles, closing her eyes again.
“About eight,” I reply, stroking her hair gently. “How you feeling? Hungover?”
Aimee doesn’t answer, she just grunts and buries her head under her pillow.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ then?” I say, unsympathetically. “You want some water?” Picking up the half-full glass from my bedside table, I hover it above her. “I got some earlier. It’s still pretty cold.”
She grunts again and attempts to shake her head from beneath the pillow. I chuckle to myself as I return the glass to the table.
Sitting up in bed, silent, I think about last night. I try not to but it’s swirling around in my head, nipping away at my rationality.
Perhaps another ten, fifteen minutes pass and I still haven’t asked Aimee what I’ve been desperate to ask her all morning. I’m starving but I know if I get up, eat something, take a shower, I’ll never get ‘round to it.
“Aimee?” I whisper. “You awake?”
Groaning, she turns onto her side, away from me. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no expert on the female species, but I’m pretty sure that means: piss off.
But I am an expert in persistence. “Aimee,” I lie on my side facing her, “tell me what you know about ghosts.”
Pulling the pillow away from her face, she slowly opens her eyes. “Ghosts?”
I nod. “Yeah. Ghosts.”
Aimee closes her eyes and then pulls the pillow back over her face, and turns away. “Piss off,” she says, her words gagged. “I’m not in the mood.”
“I’m not teasing you. Honestly. I’m being serious.”
“Look, Matt, I’ve got a stinking headache and I feel sick—so leave me alone.”
“Aimee, I’m not playing around. Please…I saw something…last night. In the flat.”
She pauses for a moment, and then removes the pillow from her face and turns to me. “What did you see?”
I shrug my shoulders, still unsure of whether or not I did experience anything at all. “I don’t know. But there was something strange in here last night.”
Clearly intrigued, she sits up in bed. “So what happened?”
“Well, I’ll be the first to admit that I was pretty drunk last night. We must’ve gone through a fair few tequila shots and beer even before we left the flat. I lost the guys somewhere and headed off home. When I got here, the kettle started to boil…on its own. Then a glass smashed in the kitchen. Then I went to bed. No wait! Something hit the window. It sounded like a fist.”
“A fist? Maybe someone threw a stone at it from outside. Or a bird could have flown into it.”
“It sounded like it came from inside the flat.”
“How drunk were you?” Aimee asks, mistrust in her tone. It annoys me because I’m meant to be the bloody sceptic.
“Like I said, I admit I was drunk—but not paralytic. I went to bed, waited up for you—and that’s when it happened.” I stop for a moment, realising how stupid all this sounds spoken aloud, like a dream you’re positive could be the plot of an awesome movie, but then it actually seems God-awful when you tell someone. I mean, am I really going to tell—my future bride—that a ghost tried to have sex with me?
“So what happened?”
“I saw someone—standing in the bedroom doorway. First I thought it was you, but then the figure disappeared.”
Aimee’s reddened eyes are wide with curiosity.
“And you hadn’t fallen asleep?” she asks. “You know, before I got home? You hadn’t just dozed off a little? Dreamt the figure?”
“Well, I suppose I did doze off a little just before. But then I woke when I thought you were home.”
“So how do you know you still weren’t half-asleep? It could’ve easily been a dream.”
“Because it wasn’t. I was wide-awake. And I definitely saw something.”
Definitely?
What the hell am I saying?
Of course I didn’t ‘definitely’ see something. How could I? That would mean that I definitely believe in ghosts—and I don’t. It’s ridiculous. There must be some rational explanation, something obvious that I’ve overlooked.
“Look, you know how I feel about ghosts,” Aimee says, “so there’s not much more I can say on the subject. If you saw something that can’t be explained, then it must be a ghost.”
“What if someone spiked my drink when I was out?”
“With what?”
“I don’t know,” I shrug. “Maybe LSD.”
“Who the hell’s gonna spike your drink?” she asks with pessimism in her voice. “Your friends?”
“Maybe. You know what they’re like.”
“Yeah, I know what they’re like and I know that no one would do something that dangerous—especially on your stag night. And so close to the wedding.”
“Someone else could have slipped it into my drink.”
She chuckles. “With you? As if. I’ve never seen a drink leave your sight in all the time we’ve been together. You take it to the toilet; you take it to the dance floor. There’s no way someone would’ve been able to slip it in without you knowing.”
“Well, I was pretty hammered last night.�
�
“Look, Matt, why are you trying to talk yourself out of seeing something? A minute ago you seemed convinced that you saw a ghost. Why else did you bring it up in the first place? We both know that things have been happening in the flat ever since we moved in. And okay, I’ll admit that some of the things can be explained—but not everything. There’s just been too much unexplained stuff. Glasses smashing. The so-called ‘break in’. The mirror cracking. And now both of us have seen something in the flat. I mean, come on, I know I can get a little obsessive when it comes to ghosts, but even you have to accept that there’s something odd about this place.”
She’s right—I know she is—but it’s too hard to give in. For a moment there I almost convinced myself that the figure by the bedroom doorway was all I actually saw. But it wasn’t. There was something in bed with me. Someone’s cold hands were all over me. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t the alcohol. And it definitely wasn’t LSD. This was something else. Something inexplicable.
“Ok, Aimee,” I say, defeated. “You win. I’ll admit it: I think we have a ghost.”
“Finally!” Aimee screams at the top of her voice, but then places her hand over her forehead and closes her eyes, sinking back down into the pillow. “Shouldn’t have done that,” she says quietly. “Think I’m gonna be sick.”
I spend the next ten minutes sweeping and vacuuming the broken glass from the kitchen floor. I know I should put some shoes on, but I can’t seem to find the energy. I’ll just have to avoid impaling my foot on a piece of shattered glass; keep on the lookout for any stray bits. It’s not exactly the first time I’ve risked it through sheer laziness, and it definitely won’t be the last.
Before I put the vacuum away, I drop to one knee, tilt my head to one side, low to floor, and have one final scan for any wandering shards. When I see that there’re none, I put everything back into the hallway cupboard, and sit on the living-room couch.
Still no sign of any hangover. Can’t say the same for Aimee though. She’s spent the last two hours running back and forth to the bathroom. I feel sorry for her, but rather her than me. Can’t quite believe I threw up last night, haven’t done that for so long. But it’s always easier drunk—less to think about.
Eyes On You: A Ghost Story Page 6
