Sexorcism

She finished the last lift on her last windmill of the afternoon. God, those felt good. She was up to 50 pounds, and she could feel them stretching and compressing her muscles from heel to head with each twist. She passed the weight to Nick with a smile.

He grinned back at her. "You are such a masochist."

"But it hurts so good," she replied.

She watched him as he racked the weight and led her over to the chin-up machine. "You look good. Less grey," she said, letting him see her eye him up and down. It didn't hurt that he had been lifting every day to knock off the blues after his divorce.

"Thanks. Maybe it's just the weather breaking, but I finally feel . . ."

"Normal?"

"Not normal, exactly, but like normal might be something I can recognize again."

He watched her as she did a set of negative chin-ups. "You're looking good too."

She felt her expression go blank at the compliment and then forced it to relax into something like a smile. Her therapist recommended she connect with people, and the more she pretended to emote, the more she felt something like emotions resurface. "Nothing like loss to drive one to the gym, right?"

He nodded, expression turned inward.

They had developed an easy camaraderie over the last few months. She had collapsed after her husband's death and left the gym for a time. He had texted her every few weeks to see how she was doing, despite how messy his own life had turned. She appreciated it even more after she heard that he had dropped all but two of his clients; his new job and his three young kids absorbed most of his time. He and Jim had been close, and glancing at his face, she finally realized how hard he had been trying not to let his own grief spill onto her.

She realized she had spaced out when he punched her lightly on the arm. "Come on, young lady, time for some squats."

She followed obediently, trying to remember what she had been like when Jim was alive. She had been cocky, right? Striding instead of following. Poking fun and sharing dumb jokes instead of offering wan smiles and commenting on the weather.

Maybe it was time to find some of that old self again. She trotted after Nick and surprised a laugh out of him when he turned to find her inches behind him. "You practicing your ninja moves?"

The comment elicited a minor ache. Her husband had been a hell of a martial artist, but she buried the pain in a grin and said, "Hey, did you hear what the baby porcupine said to the cactus?"

He gave her skeptical look and said, "No?"

"Mommy!"

He laughed louder than the joke warranted but gave her a real smile when he recovered and said, "You seem better too. Maybe we're both a little less grey this week."

"It comes in waves, doesn't it? The pain."

"I'm learning to appreciate the happy while it's here."

She felt the heat of his body as he spotted her, his arms reaching around her to grab the bar. Did he pause a little longer than necessary after returning it to the rack in front of them? She took a deep breath, seeking the scent she remembered as his and drawing it out from the plethora of gym smells to let it curl in her hind brain, which started to purr. She gave a little shake.

He snapped his fingers in front of her nose and tapped his watch. "Come on, mind in the game. Twenty seconds."

She got back into position and lifted the bar.

Maybe it was the sun shining through the gym doors that did it. The beam made the concrete sparkle, and she was distracted enough that she grabbed his hand when he gave her a high-five instead of letting it bounce off so that she could run away. When she didn't let go, he gripped hers in return, and followed her gaze. "Pretty," he said, but when she looked at him, he was looking at her rather than the sunlight.

Startled, she tried to free her hand, but he held it tight. "I'm done for the day. Lindsey's got the kids. Would you like to go somewhere?"

She gave his face an appraising look. He was being carefully neutral, but she saw something in his warm, brown eyes that she hadn't looked for from anyone since she buried Jim. He desired her.

"Ok," she replied.

He suggested a restaurant and then a bar, but she didn't respond beyond a cocked eyebrow and a, "Really? We can do better than that." She winced; that was the line she had used on Jim when he asked her out for the first time. But Nick's invitation flipped a switch in her, and she decided to chase the feeling of control.

He regarded her with surprised amusement. Maybe he sensed what she was feeling; he certainly didn't complain. Five minutes in the dressing room, and she had set up everything she wanted.

She drove him down the street to The Domain, a European-style mixed use community, which had a fancy new Westin anchoring the north end. She left the car with the valet, and led him straight to the suite. "God bless online check in and digital keys," she said, letting them into their room. As ordered, a bottle of red wine and charcuterie board was arranged on the coffee table in the living room. It was nice having money to splurge sometimes.

He hesitated at the door and looked at her with a slightly lost expression, dropping his gym bag by the door. She remembered that look. She used to inspire it daily by taking people's lives on a slight tangent from what they had expected.

"Are you sure?" He reached out and ran his fingers along her lips, along her jaw. Cupped her cheek in his strong, calloused fingers.

She pushed him against the door and felt it click behind him. She reached up and flipped the deadbolt. Then, she kissed him like she hadn't kissed anyone since Jim. Since before the accident. She felt the sting of tears and rejected them fiercely. She had cried enough. She poured all the anger and sadness and love and lust into the kiss and felt Nick's pants harden against her crotch.

And when she let him up to breath, she replied, "I've wanted to do that for years. Not . . . these past months. But before, when we were both tied up in Jim and Lindsey and we played our game of chicken and kept ourselves polite and loyal. I loved him. I never would have betrayed him. But, now? Yes, I'm sure. I want you. I want you very much."

He looked into her face and nodded slowly then pulled her back to him and kissed her just as thoroughly. When he finally let her go, he replied, "I wanted you too."

They stumbled through the living room to the bedroom, still kissing and trying to pull each other's clothes off without tripping over each other or releasing contact. A few split seams later, they were naked on the bed, and Nick was buried inside her.

It felt so good. So easy. Like embracing a long-lost friend, familiar and sweet and new.

And that was when they felt the chill.

It started as goosebumps but intensified until they both froze with more than cold.

"Did you feel that?" he asked.

"Yes. And . . ." she licked her lips. "It feels like someone just . . . kissed me?"

Nick pulled out of her slowly and she twitched, moaning imploringly. "Don't leave me now!"

"I don't know about this. It doesn't feel right."

The lightweight privacy curtains rustled along the length of the windows. They watched the progress of the fabric and then saw the tassels of the lamp shades shake in sequence, as if a child was making a lap of the room, running his fingers over the furniture.

Then she felt another cold pressure on her lips and the strange sensation of an invisible finger stroking her jaw and a hand cupping her cheek. She looked up at Nick, wide eyed.

"Nick, I think he just copied you." She reached up and touched her lips, her jaw, her cheek.

"Who?"

"Unless you know someone else who's died recently, I think it must be Jim."

He scooted to the edge of the bed, but she sat up and grabbed his arm before he could rise. "Wait. I don't think he means us any harm. He was always a gentle guy. And even if he was jealous, I don't think he would be now. Maybe he just wants to join us?"

They looked at each other, and she saw his hesitation. "I haven't even played with myself since he left. And he was always so physical. So passionate. He will have been gone a year this week. If what the priests say is true, maybe this is his last chance. Would you . . . would you stay and play with us?"

Nick covered his face with both hands and rubbed as if trying to remove a mask, then he ran them over his head, spiking his wiry, black hair. He looked at a point halfway between them and said, "You sure you're ok with this, dude?" He felt a cold slap on his shoulder in response. His eyes moved to her naked breasts, and he smiled. "I guess we're doing this then."

He stretched her out beneath him again, but this time, instead of plunging in, he kissed the length of her body, feeling a trail of cold air follow behind. She didn't seem to mind; each of the double kisses brought a shudder from her, and by the time he reached her toes, she had slipped her finger between her legs and was stroking rapidly.

He smiled up at her and replaced her finger with his mouth, licking and kissing and probing deep between the folds of her labia. And then he felt her shudder beneath him as the air above her clit chilled. He watched the little knob engorge and vibrate as something hazy moved back and forth across it. She shuddered harder and faster beneath him until he felt a wash of fluid and heard a soft cry reward their efforts.

He slipped up beside her, and wrapped his limbs around hers. "Cold?"

"Just a bit."

"This is odd. But watching your clit like that was fascinating."

"It felt amazing. You doing ok?"

He nodded, and she leaned in and kissed him, wrapping her arm under his shoulders. Then he found himself on his back, and she was straddling him, sliding his still-hard erection between her legs. He bucked against her, and then she was riding him, grinding against him, clawing his chest and licking his nipples. She nibbled on his ear and asked, "Do you like this?"

"Oh yeah," he replied, running his nails down her back. She arched against them, and when he dug them in harder, he was rewarded by the feeling of her muscles clenching around his cock.

Then her eyes went wide, and he felt a chill between them. Her nipples went hard, and he saw her pupils dilate. He felt her thrust hard against him, almost as if pushed.

"He . . . that brat. He always did want more anal than I was willing to give!"

Nick barely kept himself from laughing, but she saw the corner of his smirk and wacked his chest. Then whatever Jim was doing grabbed her attention once more, and Nick started to feel it too. A cold line was running up his dick inside her. His eyes widened. "This is . . . amazing? Scary? Amazing."

He shuddered, feeling the warm grasp of her muscles on one side and the creeping cold on the other. He met her wide eyes with his own, and pulled her down to him. As he did, she shuddered, and he felt her frigid nipples against this chest.

"You ok?"

"Yeah . . . I think. I think I like this. It feels . . . not full, exactly. Not like I've felt before, but the sensation is . . . more than full? I think. I think I want you to move. You hear that, Jim? If you're going to fuck me, now's the time!" She had a wild-eyed grin on her face now. It was almost a grimace, but as she lifted away from Nick again, and he started to move against her, he saw her face relax with pleasure. Her nipples perked up again as the invisible fingers regained their hold, and he moved his hands up to cup her breasts from underneath. Out of curiosity, he ran his thumbs over her nipples and felt them dip through something like icy water.

He reached around her waist, grasping her hips with his hands as she slid up and down him and felt a cool breeze against his skin where some other man's arms might wrap around her.

He looked up and saw her head thrown back to the ceiling, her fingers on her own clit, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders. It seemed to twine around invisible fingers.

He felt the icicle inside her move against him, sometimes in harmony and sometimes not. He rocked against it; trying sometimes to banish it and sometimes to chase it to his own release. The pursuit became the center of his world. The heat of her and cold of him would not let Nick go.

Finally, something changed. The angle of the shadows became acute, and he saw the lightning of a gathering storm flash in the distance. The cold began to loosen its grip, and the fucking returned to the dance of heat and tension he knew so well. She fell forward against him again, not trying to escape this time but grabbing at him as if for a reminder of the steps. He wrapped his arms around her and heard a distant chime, as if from a church bell. They rocked together and after a few minutes, found release.

Nick must have fallen asleep, because when he next looked up, the storm was raging outside their windows. He saw that she was awake too, watching the display from within his arms.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I think he wanted to say goodbye," she replied.

"Hell of a way to do it."

She looked up at him, her eyes full of lightning, "He was always very physical. You know that."

"Still." He shifted uncomfortably. "He didn't have a . . . thing for me, did he?"

"Nope. Straight as an arrow. I think this may have been his way of telling me that this was ok." She lay her hand against his chest. "He was always pretty possessive. Nice of him to let go so . . . explicitly."

He buried his nose in her hair. Head and Shoulders with a hint of chocolate. "I didn't imagine us ever getting together. Hooking up, sure. But is this more than that?"

She smirked at him. "Let's just say that we have a bond and leave it at that, ok? I don't much feel like washing your dirty socks."

He relaxed, tightening his arms around her. "I don't suppose we could ever get him back?"

"We could check google. Seances for ghost hookups? Could be a thing."

"Maybe." The word came out muffled, as he kissed her neck. She felt his dick stiffen against her thigh, and she smiled.