The Ghost of East Hill Bridge

"Mmph!" she grunted, head still bobbing, hand still stroking, but slower, slower as my orgasm continued, my cock pulsing between her lips as I emptied myself into her mouth and waves of sensation rolling out to my toes, fingers, and ears before crashing back to where she surrounded me.

I came back to myself some time later. Maria was still on her knees in front of me, kissing and licking her way around my softening dick, her eyes softer but still watching mine and a smile on her face..

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," I answered.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Uh-huh," I answered.

"La petite mort," she responded, giggling. "You lost a little time. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I responded, which did an awful job of describing exactly how okay I was at that moment but was about all I could manage.

She finished licking and sat back on her heels, a satisfied expression on her face.

"Happy you came out to Blowjob Bridge tonight?" she asked.

I nodded. "I'm really glad I met you, Maria."

She stood, grinning and smoothing out her jeans. "I'm glad I met you, too, Clive."

Then she faded, a little, losing some of her color, and once again I could see the bridge through her.

"Maria?" I asked, glancing up at the sky. The clouds had rolled in, and the moon was starting to disappear behind them.

She shook her head. "I'm not scared."

"But you're leaving."

She shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe I'll be back tomorrow. Or next year. Or maybe I'm going somewhere better. Just... Clive?"

"Yeah?"

"Hug me."

I stepped in, wrapping my arms around Maria, and she wrapped hers around me.

"Get your restaurant," she said.

"What?"

"Live your dream. I couldn't. I probably never would have. But you can. Get your restaurant, if you have to learn to cook or learn accounting so you can hire someone who can do it. Get your restaurant."

"I will."

"And remember me."

"I don't think I could ever forget."

"And I know you're going away but, if you ever come back, will you come back? Here, I mean?"

"Yes."

Then we didn't say anything, I just held her, feeling her breath against my neck. Maria hadn't had breath when we'd first met, had barely had color, but now she had both. I wondered what that meant.

"Goodbye, Maria."

"Goodbye, Clive."

Then she was gone, everything but a lingering warmth in the air. I stood hugging that air for a moment, then opened my eyes and glanced around. No one. Nothing. Just an overcast sky and the glow of two bright white lights at either end of East Hill Bridge. And me, standing in a pool of darkness in the middle of it with my pants around my ankles. The same way the evening had started.

I tugged my pants up, then stood looking up at the sky and out over the bridge, listening to the babble of the water, the chirping of the crickets, and the croaking of one aggressive frog. I looked for long enough that the cold began to seep in through my flannel shirt. I don't know what I was waiting for, or maybe I wasn't waiting for anything, maybe I was just processing, thinking, although I don't remember a single thing that went through my head.

Abigail would tell a story about tonight. I'd have to deal with that come school in the morning, a story about how she'd dragged me out to the bridge and then left me there in the cold with my pants down. I didn't care. The story couldn't hurt me, and she would never know what really happened, that her dragging me out here and leaving me in embarrassment had led me to something that would change me, something I'd never forget. Abigail's story would be for everyone, but the real story of what happened that night on the bridge? That I would never tell. It was for us, Maria and I, but even if it wasn't who would believe me? Who would believe that on Halloween night of 1990 I got my panpipe played by Maria McConnell, the blowjob ghost of East Hill Bridge?

Thunder rolled from somewhere in the distance, echoing up the river valley. I shivered. Then I turned away from the water and back towards my car.

I did come back, although it was five years later. The Army doesn't really let you pick your time off. I waited on the bridge that Halloween night, and the night after, but Maria never came. The next year I did it again, and again she never showed. Around town people didn't talk about the ghost much anymore, like it was a story that had lost its appeal. Or lost its main character. I guess she moved on. I like to think I had something to do with that, and the thought makes me smile every year on Halloween as I stare up at the moon.

Good bye, Maria. I'll never forget you.