A Ghost's Story for Halloween

P_l_e_a_s_e _ d_o_n_'_t _ s_h_u_t _ m_e _ o_f__f_.

I_'_m _ n_o_t _ a _ v_i_r_u_s_. _ I_'_m _ a _ g_h_o_s_t_.

L_o_o_k _ a_t _ t_h_e _ k_e_y_b_o_a_r_d_. _ _ T_h_e _ k_e_y_s _ a_r_e _ m_o_v_i_n_g_.

C_o_u_l_d _ a _ c_o_m_p_u_t_e_r _ v_i_r_u_s _ m_o_v_e _ t_h_e _ k_e_y_s _ o_n _ y_o_u_r _ k_e_y_b_o_a_r_d_?_"

Good, you believe me. That makes things a lot easier. And, no, you don't have to type, I can hear your thoughts.

That would be a dog. As I said, I am a ghost.

I know that, for the past several weeks, you have been trying to write a really good ghost story for that Halloween contest. I know that you are sitting at your computer at 3:00 am because you have one of your migraines - a really bad one - and you can't sleep anyway. And I know that after deleting - I think that was your fourteenth attempt at a story - you just said, "If I could just meet a ghost and interview him, the story would write itself."

So, here I am.

No, you aren't crazy, and no, you don't have to speak or ask questions or anything, and yes, I can hear your thoughts.

You wanted a ghost story for Halloween with erotic overtones that you could enter in the contest? I'll give you something better than that. I will give you "A Ghost's Story for Halloween."

My story definitely has erotic overtones, undertones, and highlighting, but let's start with a little bit about me. I've been here in the in-between for about 150 years. That's sort of middle-aged for a ghost. You people on the first-life side have all sorts of weird notions about us, so let me set you straight. I'm not trapped here. I can "go on" anytime I want. And I can come back to the in-between anytime I want. I just can't cross back over into the first-life side - except as kind of a shadowy mist that not everyone can see.

Most people go right on through from first-life to the other side and don't even pay any attention to the in-between, but some of us hang around here for a little while. We are actually a pretty nice bunch once you get to know us. Oh yes, there are some crazies and weirdos who give us a bad reputation with blood and gore and all that, but mostly people hang around here to watch over loved ones or wait for a spouse or child. Once in a while they stay in the in-between to try to seek revenge for wrongs done. And some of the time it's just the newness of it all and they really enjoy "misting in" every so often and scaring the piss out of someone they knew on the first-life side.

Actually, we really can't do much more than that. It takes a lot of effort just to mist in and as far as moving things, that really requires a lot of work and concentration or just the right circumstances. So for most people the in-between gets really boring... really fast. After a few months or years they go on to the other side and stay there.

So why am I here after 150 years?

To put it simply, I'm a pervert.

What does being a pervert have to do with me wanting to stay as a ghost in the in-between?

Again, it's simple. I am a voyeur. I like to watch things - sexual things - and that is the one thing that I can do better here than I could do when I was in first-life. Maybe someday I will get bored and move on and stay on the other side with the sunny days and clear skies and perfect people behaving perfectly, but for now, I enjoy watching imperfect people behave badly - sometimes very badly.

How am I able to write this story on your computer?

Like I said, it takes a lot of work or someone nearby has to really believe that I can do it. When you said you wanted to interview a ghost, you thinned the veil from your side for just a few moments, and since you had taken a break from writing to look at one of my favorite porn site, I was watching over your shoulder right when you said it. I was there when the veil thinned so I immediately took advantage of that little space of thin time and started typing.

Once you believed that I could do it, you supplied the energy of belief and it became a lot easier. You probably noticed that my typing sped up. That's the power of belief.

I'll let you in on a little secret. It ALL has to do with belief. If you believe in ghosts, ghosts can appear around you or even do more than that. If nobody there believes, we can't do squat - except watch, which, most of the time is OK with me.

Another little secret. There is nothing special about Halloween. Sorry to ruin all your ghoulish fantasies, but Halloween isn't a special time when the planets align or the sun and moon do weird things to the veil. Halloween is just like any other day... except that on Halloween, people believe in us more than at any other time of the year. It is that belief that enables so many of us to mist in or move things or in general have fun and cause havoc on Halloween.

There is something else we can do at lot easier on days like Halloween when so many people really believe in us. We can affect a person's actions. It takes a lot of power, but on Halloween there is a lot of belief power available to us.

No, we don't control people in a zombie-robot kind of way, but more like a "greatly influenced" kind of way. We push someone to become more of what they already are. We can make someone who is usually just an annoying jerk into a real asshole for the night, or we can make an angry person so angry that they will hurt someone, or we can make a lonely person so horny that they will screw anything they can catch. It's not that hard on Halloween. Just mist in at a party and get everyone to believe that a ghost appeared, and with that power surge you can do almost anything.

That's why Halloween parties are my favorites, especially now that Halloween seems to have become a time for nubile young girls to let their inner slut run free.

I used to have to go down to Mamma Mable's Whorehouse to see a woman dressed like most girls dress for Halloween. And you had to pay double to get one of Mamma Mable's girls to do half of what these girls will do on the first date. Believe me, I thought I had seen it all, but every year I see something that I had never seen before and some things that I didn't think were even possible. Ahh, I died many years too soon.

But enough about me. Let me tell you how I spent last Halloween. You know part of this, because you were there. I am the reason that Darla's party was so great. And you are the reason I was there.

I was actually on my way to a different party a little ways up the street when I saw you in your costume. I don't know where you got that antique scythe, but I know that you had to have made the rest of that costume yourself. No one sells a death costume that good. You had layers and layers of black gauze hand sewn over the velvet of the black cape and cloak. Then you had a couple of layers of the gauze over some black material covering your face so it looked like the hood was empty. Your hands had those tight fitting long, black gloves with some latex smears and gray and green spray paint lightly misted over everything so your arms and hands looked like dead flesh.

It was fantastic. It was one of the best Halloween costumes I have ever seen. But who in the hell wears that kind of a costume to a party!? That's a contest costume, not a party costume!

Come on, you can't dance. You can't eat. People can't really interact with you. Hell, with that voice changer you had under the face gauze, people couldn't even tell if you were a woman or a man. The only person who would ever wear something like that to a party would be.... Me! ... or someone just like me who goes to a party to watch, not to participate.

As soon as I saw you in that costume, I knew that you were a kindred spirit. So, I decided to go along with you to wherever you were going and see if I could cook up something worth watching for both of us. I also figured that if we were both trying to see something happen, I might be able to leverage your energy and really get something going.

Boy did I figure right on that one!

Do you remember when you first walked in and half of the girls there totally freaked out? You thought it was because your costume was so great. That was part of it. Don't get me wrong, you made a great costume, but I added just a little special effects to your entrance and that was what enabled you to really scare the crap out of them.

What I did was mist in just enough to hide the bottom of your robe. It looked like the robe ended short of the floor and people couldn't see your feet beneath the robe so people thought you were floating several inches in the air. Death herself couldn't have made a better entrance.

Shit, she is going to be pissed that I let that secret slip! Don't tell anyone that death is a woman. That gets her really upset and Death can be a real bitch when she is pissed at you. Somehow I manage to get her really ripped at me about every ten years or so. She's got a screaming yell that can break a mirror a mile away.

But back to the story... You made a great entrance and half the females there screamed their lungs out and two actually peed themselves. I heard you laughing at the one in the filmy ghost outfit that turned almost transparent with the flood of wet down the front. She really should have mowed the lawn or worn thicker panties under that white gauze.

They all had terrific screams, but it wasn't the scream I was trying for, it was the belief. When you came floating in, not only was there a huge scream, there was a tremendous spike in belief. For just a moment they believed that you were death, and that gave me all the energy I would need to make that party a night to remember. The fear was a bonus. All that fear pushed the energy spike even higher. I guess fear works a lot like belief, but the power from belief is much stronger than the power from fear.

With that energy spike, I could read your thoughts very clearly and I could hear enough of the thoughts of the others at the party that I knew as much as I needed to know about everyone who was there. And like I said, I can greatly influence someone to go just a little farther than they ever would go before, especially if I know their inner drives and weaknesses.

Your thoughts when you saw Debbie walk through the room told me that she likes to strut her stuff in her back yard in a very small bikini every summer. You liked to sneak around to peek over the fence at her in the late afternoon when she would loosen or even remove her top to try to get an all-over tan.

With a little peeking into her subconscious on my part, I knew for certain that she was a closet exhibitionist and, surprisingly, even deeper in the closet as a lesbian.

Because it was Halloween, she felt she was safe wearing something really daring to a Halloween party - sort of like she felt safe when she wore her small bikinis sunning in her own back yard.

Ah, you remember her outfit now, don't you. I can understand why the images of her from later crowded the memory of her outfit out of your memory. Remember, when you first saw her, she was wearing that she devil's outfit with a really cute, really short, red skirt with red satin panties under it. She had little red horns that clipped to her head with a red plastic headband thing, and she had her hair dyed a bright red to match the outfit. She had even used glitter hair spray so her hair glittered just like the horns and the skirt.

I did a quick scan of the room and found Tom. Tom wasn't hard to find. He is a real loud-mouthed lech, and his thoughts aren't any quieter than his mouth. It only took a little boost for me to get him to shout across the room, "Hey Debbie, bet you fifty dollars the collar and cuffs don't match."

Debbie later accused someone of spiking the punch, but that wasn't alcohol, that was me influencing her when she yelled back, "There's no cuff muff to match!"

The room was already dead quiet when Tom yelled louder than before, "Prove it!"

Everyone laughed as Debbie calmly walked over to Tom expecting her to say something to him or slap him, but then everyone gasped as she slid her bright red costume panties down her legs, stood in front of him with her feet placed well apart, and said, "See, no cuff, no muff, nothing to match. Pay up, loser!"

She stood their naked from the waist down holding her hand out while Tom fumbled to fish a couple of twenties and a ten out of his billfold. Staring at her now slightly shiny slit, he laughed and said, "I'll double it if you let me keep the panties."

The look on his face was priceless as Debbie took the money and his billfold out of his hand and calmly took out another fifty. She then handed Tom back his billfold and draped her panties over it. "They're all yours," she said brightly as she turned and began to walk into the other room oblivious of the multitude of soft clicks from cellphone cameras.

I don't know if anyone else saw you standing there in the corner in your death outfit. You had pretty much merged into the background by then, which is what you intended to do, but I saw you and I saw your hand go inside the robes. You were definitely enjoying my work. You enjoyed what happened next even more so. So did I.

Just as Debbie reached the door to the kitchen, I found another closet lesbian in the crowd. Marlys was a neighbor of Debbie's who secretly had the hots for Debbie and also used to spy on her in her back yard when she lay there in her almost a bikini. I gave Marlys a mental nudge and she yelled "Hey Debbie, I'll give you another hundred for the rest of that outfit and a chance to dance with you." Debbie paused in the doorway for just a moment and then sauntered back into the room and took Marlys up on her offer.

I don't use the word saunter very often, but that is the only way to describe how Debbie walked across that room. She was definitely strutting her stuff with each swing of her hips as she walked up to Marlys. She looked straight into Marlys' eyes as she stripped off the red blouse, skirt, and the thigh-high red stockings with the pitchforks on them and handed them to her. She then took the money from Marlys' hand and slid it and the hundred from Tom under the clip that held her horns.

Debbie was now standing there totally naked, looking like a stripper with her evening's tips tucked into a headband. No one said anything. A couple of flashes indicated that regular cameras had joined the cellphones.

Marlys just stared at her and drooled. Then shaking her head like she was coming out of a trance, she threw the red skirt and top over the back of the couch and stripped off her own naughty policewoman costume and added it to the pile. With both of them totally naked, she dragged Debbie into the middle of the dance area and pulled her into her arms.

I had nothing to do with that, but it was really something to watch as they both danced naked in the center of the room. When the music was fast, they really put on a show, and when the music was slow they clung to each other like a couple on their honeymoon. Debbie was so far gone with lust and exhibitionist excitement that all I had to do was to keep her from thinking too much about what she was doing. That wasn't hard at all since she had really wanted to do it all along, but just needed an excuse.

By letting herself feel that she was too drunk or something to notice or care she was able to stay naked except for her little red horns for the rest of the party. As a matter of fact, she walked home naked around 2:00 am. I followed her the four blocks to her house and let her get into front door before I fully released her as she was standing right in front of the floor length mirror in the entry hallway. I think that you could have heard her scream five blocks away when she looked at herself in the mirror and it sank in what she had just done.

What really upset her was not that she had stripped naked in front of all of her friends, or thrown herself at a neighbor she secretly lusted after. What upset her is that she had enjoyed it so much while it was happening and wouldn't have the guts to do it again. At least now, she could no longer deny that she was a true exhibitionist, not to mention the fact that she had significant lesbian tendencies.

Did you know that ever since that party, on Tuesday nights she waits until after midnight and then takes her garbage out to the curb naked - even in the dead of winter? I think she hopes that someone will catch her - especially Marlys. She always pauses and looks over at Marlys' house to see if there are any lights on. There never are because Marlys has watched her every single night and is sitting in the dark in the living room waiting for her to take out her trash.

In a way, I feel sorry for Debbie. She really wants to do something wild like she did at the party again, but doesn't have the nerve - unless maybe I catch her at another party. For now it remains a fantasy to which she get off almost every night while thinking that people are lusting over her like they were at the party.

Now that I think about it, lust must also give me some power. And we had it all, belief, fear and lust all on the same night - no wonder I was really on a roll.

What happened next? Ah, yes, James and Sierra.

You knew that James was really a wimp and had always seemed to do things to get picked on ever since he was in grade school. Even people who normally didn't bully someone would find themselves picking on James and wondering why they did. Most people didn't recognize the James was manipulating them into picking on him.

He had some sort of tunic on over jeans and a T-shirt that was probably supposed to be something out of some science fiction movie, but it was so badly done it could have been anything. He was capable of making a really great costume, but he intentionally chose to wear that and have people make derisive comments about it.

When he first caught your attention - and mine, he was over in the corner talking a little too noisily to Sierra, a mousy little girl in a pirate outfit who looked as much a looser as he did. Her outfit was also terrible. It was probably intended for a man because it had long, loose pantaloon legs with gold and black stripes on them and a vest that didn't work at all over her rather large breasts. She had probably worn sandals to the party, but was currently barefoot.

When I realized that several people were thinking the same thing about Sierra as you were thinking about James, I had a brainstorm. People who manipulate things to get picked on like James and Sierra had done, often do so because they actually like getting picked on. I could use that. James and Sierra probably had enough masochistic tendencies that all I had to do was push them a little and they would do something really stupid to humiliate themselves terribly and publicly.

They were arguing about a Star Wars movie of all things. She was saying that Darth Vader never told Luke that he was his father. He was almost yelling that Darth said "Luke, I am your father," right after he cut off Luke's hand in the light saber duel on Cloud City. It didn't take much at all for me to influence both of them so that they would get louder and more out of control. It was really easy. These two aren't attached very tightly to reality.

The argument kept getting louder and louder until Sierra finally screeched, "I'll bet you anything that you are wrong!"

James screamed back, "I would win. I know every line in that movie. I will bet you that I have the exact quote. Darth Vader says, 'Luke, I am your father.' What do you want to bet that I am right?"

People couldn't help but notice when Sierra got loud, but James yelled back loud enough that almost everyone in the room stopped their conversations and turned and look at both of them.

"I don't have any money on me," huffed Sierra.