Laurel King - The Matchmaker's Medium

We just huddled in the fort, me with knees to my chin and my arms wrapped around my legs, Chris sitting there staring at nothing. Sitting like that for a few minutes, we listened to mom go back in the kitchen, banging and clanging dishes and cupboard doors, mumbling to herself about what awful kids we were.

“What do we do now, Chris?” I asked him.

He looked over at me like I was just invented. “Huh?”

“We have to tell somebody,” I said.

“Okay. Who?” he asked, looking at me with dead eyes. “Who’s gonna believe we just saw a dead kid in my scout leader’s shed?”

“I—I dunno, Chris, but we have to tell somebody . We can’t just let the kid stay there.”

“Was that—did the dead kid look like your invisible kid?”

I didn’t answer. Just nodded my head.

He thought about that for a second, then tilted his head down, chin touching his chest.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s call Chief Bennett.”

My eyes got really big, when I thought about the last time I saw Chief Bennett. “No way , Chris! He’ll never believe me! Mom told him I was a liar back in Kindergarten when I saw Isabella in the bathroom!”

“Crap, I forgot all about that,” he said. Then he lifted his head and looked at me really funny, like he just saw me for the first time in his life. “Can you see ghosts, Stinky?”

I lowered my head and nodded, tears filling my eyes.

“No way ,” he whispered, shocked. We sat like that for a while, him quiet, me crying. Then, “Okay, we’ll call Chief Bennett, but we won’t say who it is.”

He reached his hand out to me, tilted his head a little, and cracked a half-smile. “C’mon, Stinky, stop bein’ such a cry baby.”

I took his hand and he pulled me to my feet, real quick, like he always did. He pulled the door open, and led me down the stairs, out the front door, and into the garage, where dad’s “private line” was.

He pulled the grease-stained phone off its wall cradle, pushed “0” for operator, and waited.

“Don’t worry, Amber, I’ll keep your secret,” he said, then asked the operator for the number to the police station.

“Wow, that’s some story, Amber,” Esteban said.

“I know, it’s insane, right?” I asked, feeling more self-conscious than I wanted to admit.

“No, not insane, just—unreal, I guess. I mean, you really must have some kind of serious connection with ghosts, to keep seeing all these dead kids.”

“Well, I think I saw them because they were around my age. I don’t know for sure, but now that I’m a grown woman, I get the sense that older ghosts wouldn’t come to me when I was that young because there wasn’t really much I could do for them. You know, to fix whatever situation they had going on at the time.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he said, rising slowly from the couch. I was still sitting in the recliner, tilted back a ways, trying to look comfortable but not quite pulling it off, somehow.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked, standing just in front of my feet, kicked up on the foot rest.

“Um, I guess some sweet tea, if you have any.”

He laughed, “We’re in the south; of course I have sweet tea. That’s like being in Puerto Rico and asking if someone has rum in the cupboard.” He laughed again, a rich, full-sounding ha-ha-ha! She hated to admit it, but she was really starting to like the sound of his laugh.

I decided to sit up, instead of half-laying there on the recliner like some awkward couch potato in the middle of his living room. Hearing him clink, clank and bang in the kitchen, I figured it was safe to move. Struggling to sit up, I flopped and squirmed, but ended up doing nothing more than flailing my arms and legs, trying to grab for the handle at the side of the chair, finding nothing.

“It’s on the inside,” he said, his deep voice rumbling just behind me, as he slid his hand down the outside of my thigh. I thought my heart would literally explode when his hand met my skin, electric shockwaves of desire shooting up and down my body, my groin throbbing in anticipation.

He pulled his hand upwards, the chair righting itself as I heard a metallic clunk!

“There you go; good as new.”

I turned to look up at him, this tall, shining, golden drink of sexual maleness, as he met me with his own lustful gaze, the glasses of sweet tea in his hands suddenly forgotten. He leaned down, hands with tea glasses out to the sides like he was doing a very fancy curtsy for the queen, and kissed me. His breath was sweet, tasting of sugar and lemon-flavored tea, his lips slightly cold from the ice. I shivered with pleasure as he ran his tongue over my bottom lip, then softly plunged his tongue in to find mine. I responded with a quiet moan, powerless to keep it from escaping, my body moving closer to feel his touch.

He fumbled the glasses onto the coffee table, refusing to break the connection, some ice tinkling onto the floor as it sloshed out. Finally freed of the glasses, he gently pulled me out of the chair, taking me in his arms as he explored my face, neck, and collarbone with his lips. I could hear his breath quicken, smell his cologne and soap on freshly-shaved skin, as he pulled me over to the couch. Slowly, he lowered me onto the soft fabric, his powerful arms and hands stopping her just above the surface, pressing his body onto mine as I sank into the cushions.

He pushed his hands under me until his arms were encircling my body, as I reached up and touched his shoulders, chest, back, pulling at his clothes, trying to free him from the material. He obliged, slipping his head down, so the shirt would slide free of his head. I tossed the shirt to the floor, and stared at his body: a newly-exposed, soft layer of dark, curly chest hair over powerfully-toned muscles, earned during thousands of hours working with wrenches and heavy engine parts.

“You’re beautiful,” I said, my amber eyes wide and shining. He responded with a deep, passionate kiss, cupping my face in one hand as he slid the other one under my blouse. I felt my heart skip, felt a pleasant pounding in my neck, as blood rushed to more sensitive spots. He ran his fingers through my hair, then unbuttoned my blouse with his free hand, still kissing and licking me, dipping his head to my cleavage and lightly darting his tongue in and out.

I sat up slightly, reaching behind me with one hand, popping my bra strap apart in one liquid movement, releasing my breasts for him. He gasped, an automatic response, his lips moist as he bent to take my nipples in his mouth, one by one. I moaned, pulling his head closer, as he ran his tongue over the sensitive skin, teasing with his teeth.

Finally, he reached for my pants, and I scrambled to undo his belt. Suddenly, he was picking me up—like I weighed nothing—carrying me down the hall, as he quickly tore at a condom wrapper with his teeth, pulled out the slippery rubber circle and put it on, before we even made it to the bedroom. Just before he gently slid me to the bed, he slid himself inside of me, rock hard to my warm softness, and I felt the comforting memory of thoughtless physical ecstasy envelope me in its forgiving embrace.

“Okay, confess, where did you learn that nifty trick with the condom wrapper?” I asked, trailing a finger down the middle of his soft-fur chest hairs.

“Hmm?” he asked, in fake-confusion.

I smacked him lightly on his chest, “You know what I mean, you big faker. Which saucy coed taught you that in college?”

“Ha. No college, mechanics’ school. And the sauciest classmate there was this big, fat hairy guy who always had Big Mac sauce stuck on his beard.”