The Haunting of DP Hall

Even as a child, I lacked the imagination for Halloween. In elementary school, my costumes were typically of the boring "ghost in a sheet" variety and had only gotten less imaginative from there before I stopped participating at all in my teens. Suffice to say, this was not my favorite holiday.

I was never one for parties either, not that I was invited to many. I was bookish and introverted from an early age, and even as my teen acne cleared and slight adolescent chub transitioned into womanly curves, not many took notice. I didn't mind the lack of attention; I spent my undergraduate years locked in the library, poring over historical volumes and building the intimate relationships with individuals long passed that I could not with my campus contemporaries.

So, I wasn't enthusiastic when in my first year of graduate school I was invited to a Halloween party at the off-campus residence of a professor in the History Department. When the flyer appeared in my mailbox the second week of October, I trashed it -- Halloween was on a school night! Even if I had felt like socializing, I couldn't attend some wild party with class in the morning!

"But you haaaaave to go!" Mallori, another graduate student in the department, prodded. "Maybe you'll have fun, make some friends- I mean more friends! Maybe you'll even get laid!" I blushed deep red at the last part. I wasn't a virgin, but the idea of intercourse wasn't motivation to go out; and the idea of sex with almost anyone from our department was gag-inducing. However, Mallori was persistent in her nagging, and soon I was scouring websites, trying to find a costume.

I was shocked at the nearly impossible task that my search presented. My costume choices lay at extreme ends of the spectrum: wrap myself in my childhood "ghost" sheet or cover extraordinarily little of myself dressed as the sluttiest nurse/cheerleader/schoolgirl/taco... the sluttiest anything! There was simply no way I could even leave my room in any of these outfits.

Finally, when I was about to give up, I found one that struck my fancy. It was unimaginatively titled "50s Girl" and consisted of a poodle skirt and a checkered top, along with polka dot neckerchief and hair bow, wrist-length satin-like gloves, and fake horn-rimmed glasses. The top was a little low cut with sleeves that sat off the shoulders and the skirt's hem stopped above the knee, but it seemed as "reasonable" as I was likely to find. Plus, since this was a department party and I was writing my thesis the Post-War Era, I thought a costume from my area of study would be fun. Mallori stood behind me at my desk and proudly patted my shoulder as I entered my credit card information and clicked 'Buy'.

"You're coming dangerously close to learning to enjoy yourself, nerd!" she mockingly applauded me.

The afternoon of the party, Mallori burst into the graduate student lounge where I was reading, clutching a long, flat cardboard box.

"Your slutty sock hop outfit arrived! Just in time!" She loudly announced in front of three male graduate students. All eyes in the room turned from Mallori to me. "Try it on! Try it on! Try it on!" Mallori cheered/chanted.

"Stop... Just... Stop it! Not here! Jesus Christ, Mal!" In my surprise I snapped at her a bit sharper than I intended. Her fake expression of hurt softened my annoyance and I smiled at her enthusiasm. "I'll try it on at home, ok?" I thought her head might literally split open from her enormous smile as I packed up my books and grabbed my bag.

As we left, I felt the guys' eyes at my back. "It's really not that slutty, ok?" They smirked in response and pretended to return to their books as I walked out. "Well, I'm certainly not fucking any of you at the party," I muttered under my breath.

My apartment was in a graduate student housing complex in the southeast corner of campus, safely away from the chaos of the undergraduate towers at the school's west end. The aura of my home was somewhere between that of a dreary office and an extended stay motel. I unlocked the door and Mallori burst past me into the sparsely-furnished living room, my package -- which had still not touched my hands -- hoisted above her head like a trophy. Bouncing excitedly, she resumed her chanting.

"Ok, ok just please stop shouting at me!" I pleaded as I took the box from her and walked into the bedroom. Mallori tried to follow me through the door. "What do you think you're doing?" I asked as I stopped her.

"Duh, checking how your costume looks!" She exclaimed with puzzlement.

"You're not watching me change! You're going to wait in the living room like a normal person!" I laughed through my scolding. I loved Mallori and she was my closest friend at school, but she had zero boundaries, not to mention a bit of an indecorous reputation. That she had strongly endorsed my costume struck a cautionary note in the back of my mind.

I opened the box and on top found the accessories: the scarf, glasses, and hair bow, which I laid out on the bed, as well as the gloves, which I impulsively pulled onto my hands. The imitation satin of the gloves shimmered as it stretched over my fingers, giving off an elegant, yet naughty ambiance. The silky material felt startlingly erotic against my skin, sending a chilly rush down my spine. I let my mind wander as I gazed at the fabric catching the light. Spooky thoughts... silly thoughts... sexy thoughts... A startlingly delicious scene flickered behind my eyes. I pictured each of my gloved hands wrapping around a hard cock, stroking the disembodied shafts, cum pouring from the tips and oozing across the silky, black fingers.

The bizarre picture made my stomach twist and leap with the rush of unfamiliar thrilling thoughts. I cackled aloud, shocked at the delectably vulgar thoughts that had popped into my head.

"What's so funny?! What are you doing?! Are you dressed yet?! Let me in!" Mallori - who was not in the living room as I'd instructed and was instead hovering on the other side of my closed door - was getting impatient.

"God, Mal! Just go make yourself a drink or something! I'll be out in just a sec." I caught my breath as my pulse slowed and the wicked rush faded. I picked the costume pieces out of the box. Holding the skirt up to my waist, I could tell that the hemline was not consistent with the online photo; it stopped at upper-mid-thigh rather than just above the knee. "Well, that's not historically accurate." I muttered nerdily.

I sighed and held the top to my torso. The low cut and plunging neckline also left something to be desired if I wanted to be faithful to the supposed era of the costume. My primary concern right now, however, was how much of my chest would show.

"Only one way to find out." I mumbled as I slipped off my hooded sweatshirt and pulled the costume top over my head, adjusting the sleeves on my biceps and zipping the back closure. I unbuttoned my jeans and wiggled them off my ankles, then stepped into the skirt and pulled it to my midriff, tucking the top into the waist before zipping and fastening the skirt at the back. Grabbing the accessories off the bed, I fastened the polka dot bow in my hair, tied the neckerchief in a bow around my throat, and donned the plastic horn rims.

I turned to the mirror and beheld a horror show; I was an utter mess and looked nothing like the cute, sassy image on the packaging. The skirt ballooned outward where it bunched up around my ass in the back. The top's sloped, off-the-shoulder cut left my bargain-bin bra straps and the frumpy top of each cup visible. In addition, the front was clearly not sewn for someone with a bust as large as mine; with every inhale, I worried my boobs would pop the stitches of the constricting top. The hair bow lay lifelessly atop my red, ponytailed mop, and the neckerchief was evocative of a chimpanzee in a tuxedo as it hung limply on my throat. The glasses looked appropriate: big specs on a big messy nerd.

"We can work with this, honey, but you're going to have to trust me." Mallori was standing in the open doorway of my room, having disobediently entered in silence while I was distracted by my disappointment. "Here, drink this." She handed me one of the wine glasses she was clutching and poured a generous serving. Liquid courage decanted, Mallori gave me another once over then pushed my bra straps off my shoulders.

"Hey!" I protested, nearly spilling my wine as I recoiled.

"Sarah, sweetie, you look ridiculous. These straps aren't happening; you need to wear a strapless, obviously. You have one, right? Even a dork like you must own the essentials."

"Yeah, I do... but..."

"But nothing! Oh, here it is!" Mallori was digging through the top drawer of my dresser. "Hey, it's cute! Put it on! I won't peek at the twins!" She tossed me the bra and turned back to the dresser, rooting through pile of frilly fabric searching for who-knows-what.

I sighed, took a mouthful of wine, and unzipped my top. Slipping the sleeves off my arms, I unhooked my comfortable t-shirt bra and tossed it aside. I fastened the clasp of the strapless, then swiveled it around my ribs to align the black, satin underwire cups over my breasts. My boobs lifted in the push-up cups; they felt like they were propped up under my chin. I never wore this bra, not just because I never had occasion to wear an outfit requiring such particular underwear, but also because I was embarrassed by the attention attracted by my boosted tits. I reset the top and looked in the mirror again; without the bra straps and with my breasts pushed up and in, the top fit more as it had looked on the model. My boobs were still larger than the top was designed for, though, to the point that they almost burst out of the deeper-than-expected scoop neck. I took another large sip of wine.

Mallori reappeared at my side, proudly holding a delicate black satin thong that matched my bra, also long buried at the back of my drawer. "Sarah, you little skank! I knew you were hiding a nasty side behind that nerdy facade! Now switch this out for the ones you have on; the skirt is getting all caught up on your granny panties and making the outfit look stupid."

I snatched the wisp of shimmering fabric from Mallori's hand. "You are a pest... and these are not 'granny panties'," I said, but conceded, "but you're probably right." I slid off my boyshorts and stepped into the thong. I looked in the mirror as Mal fluffed the bow and released my rich, auburn hair from its ponytail, then adjusted the scarf into more of a fashionable "choker" arrangement with the tie to the side. I finished the outfit with a pair of checkered black and white high heels that Mal produced from her bag -- anticipating correctly that I owned nothing appropriate -- and I had to admit I looked pretty good (if not totally accurate for the period).

"You look hot! Professor Grantham is going to cream his corduroys when he sees you!" Mallori chortled and dodged my playful swipe. Mallori was dressed in an historically inaccurate "Cleopatra" costume; I'd never seen any hieroglyphs that depicted the Ptolemaic Queen in gilded hotpants and a crop-top. As she applied her generous eye makeup in my bedroom mirror, Mal continued her crude musings. "Seriously, you could fuck William -- using 'Professor' sounds weird outside of school -- you're not even in the same section! It's totally allowed!"

"No. I couldn't. It would be wei- why am I discussing this like it's even a possibility?! No, Mal! Now drop it!" I was flushed, and it wasn't just the wine. As I evaluated my busty, high heeled profile in the mirror, my thoughts did turn to the attractive and startlingly young European History prof. My eyes followed the curve of my hips up to the boosted swell of my breasts, across the exposed valley of pale cleavage to my lightly freckled shoulders, and finally down my arms to my gloved hands. I wondered what his cock might feel like, tightly gripped in the fake satin; whether he might allow me to stroke him to climax; what his cum might look like on the gloves' shiny black fabric. I shook my head to clear away the vivid imagery. "Are you ready to go, Mal?"

As we walked through the north end of campus, populated by older buildings primarily used for administrative offices, Mallori drew close to me in a rare moment of insecurity.

"I don't like that old building." She muttered; her cheek pressed to my bare shoulder. "The way it just sits there empty; I wish they'd tear it down."

"It's a shame that it isn't used. I guess since the fire, they don't know what to do with DP Hall, though."

"Fire? What fire?"

"Oh, yeah. The administration doesn't really volunteer that info. I only found details because it relates to the area of my research." I was excited to share the fruits of my esoteric studies with an interested friend. "The night of Halloween in 1956, the boiler in the basement of Duncan-Patrick Hall exploded under unexplained circumstances. The resulting fire gutted the building, which was a dorm back then. It was tragic, two senior boys who were roommates and teammates on the football team, died in the fire. In the decades since, something -- politics, money, superstition, who knows -- has kept the university from using the building. There's still no plan for it, even though another round of renovations is ongoing. It just sits there, vacant."

"Well, now I like it even less!" Mallori had nearly buried her face in my armpit now. "Those dark windows on each side of the doorway makes the front look like two faces. Dead faces! Is it haunted? Do the spirits of those two boys linger at the site, lamenting their stolen youth? Were they cute?" She was chattering rapidly now out of nerves and excitement.

"Mal! You know that I don't believe in things like ghosts. And good God, woman, control that clown car in your pants! But yes, from what I've read they were both handsome... and from some accounts from the time, seem pretty popular with their female classmates. I shouldn't have said that; it feels wrong to talk about dead people like this."

"So... no ghosts?" Mallori looked remarkably disappointed for someone who was moments ago too scared to look at an old building.

I took a deep breath. The full moon was briefly obscured by trailing wisps of cloud, making it a perfect night for telling ghost stories. "Well, as you might imagine, historic college campuses make for fertile breeding ground for ghost stories. Like-"

"Like what?!" Mallori interrupted in her newly discovered enthusiasm for the paranormal.

Pushing down my annoyance at being interrupted, I continued. "Gettysburg, for example. The college's administrative building served as a hospital during the battle, and the campus is notoriously swarming with Civil War doctors and soldiers. Notre Dame's founder legendarily haunts an old dining hall there. Members of Ohio's basketball team are said to haunt a hall there after dying in a bus crash, among other ghostly specters around the university's campus. Heck, one of the Cal State campuses is a former mental hospital, so you can imagine the stories there."

"And our what about school?" Her eyes widened into comically large, shimmering saucers as Mallori urged me to continue.

I smiled and pulled her tighter to my side as we passed the dark, silent edifice. "Yeah, there are ghost stories on our campus. And that includes Duncan-Patrick Hall and the two boys who died in the fire." I paused for dramatic effect, and Mallori bit impatiently on my silent prompt.

"...and?!"

I waited another agonizing half-beat before I continued. "Well, it's really silly... The story goes that their ghosts emerge on Halloween. Like, they regain physical form and roam campus."

"That doesn't seem 'silly', it sounds spooky!"

"Well, the absurd part is that -- supposedly! -- over the years, numerous female students -- seemingly normal ones, not the kind you'd expect -- have reported going home with them... real 'Twilight Zone' stuff, where everything looked like it would have back in their time. But-" Mallori's attention was stuck earlier in my sentence.

"Wait! 'Going home with them' meaning 'with both of them'?!"

"Yeah, you know, like... both of them."

Mal was visibly amused and intrigued. "Ohmigawd! Are you telling me that there are ghosts in 'DP Hall', and they haunt girls into DP?!?!" I reddened at the notion of a spectral three-way, but her eyes glinted with her deviant delight.

"That interplay between the building's nickname and the shorthand for that, uh, act, is why I'm more than a little skeptical of the idea... you know, besides the obvious reason that ghosts aren't real. I mean, it's all just ridiculous; sexy ghosts roaming the campus, seducing hapless coeds?" I glanced at Mallori, whose expression had shifted to one of intrigued sympathy. "What?"

"I'm sorry but... if those ghosts were real, you might have better luck dating one of them than the boys our age." It was reassuring that she had recovered from her fright to mock my lack of social life. I grabbed her exposed hip bone and gave her a playful pinch.

"Thanks, Mal. It's just an old building; no ghosts." Faintly, beyond the rustling of leaves, my ears caught the tinkling piano of The Penguins' 'Earth Angel.' "Ooh! I love this song!"

"What song? I don't hear anything." Mallori looked around. I cocked my head to listen, but now heard only the wind in the trees.

"Oh... nothing. Forget it. That's the house on the corner, right? Listen, when we get in there, please just promise you'll stick with me. No ditching me in the first five minutes for a boy, right?"

"Jeez! I promise. It's all gross department dweebs anyway, so you have nothing to worry about."

"Yeah, I've heard that one before..."

When we entered the house, the party was wilder than I'd anticipated. My classmates and colleagues had cast aside their stodgy academic manners and were caught up in a drunken frenzy of hysterics and hormones. Looking around, I gathered I was the only one uncomfortable with the oversexualized nature of modern costumes. Across the living room I spotted my advisor's research assistant dressed as a slutty cop enthusiastically grinding between a pirate and a vampire.

I grabbed two glasses of white wine (well, solo cups of wine) from the bar for myself and Mallori, but turned to find that she had predictably disappeared into the writhing mass of dancers, abandoning me exactly as she had promised not to do. Feeling incredibly awkward and lost, I found a spot along the wall, downed one of my cups in only two swallows, then fled the room while fighting off a drunken "Borat" who told my breasts "very niiiice" four times in thirty seconds, but said nothing to my face.

I sipped my drink as I wandered the crowded rooms and cursed Mallori, wondering why I had let her talk me into coming. I finished my second cup too quickly and looked for another, acknowledging to myself that my social anxiety was driving me to atypical drinking behavior.

After accepting a caveman's invitation to join him in some unspecified shot, I got a full glass of wine and walked into a room toward a familiar voice. I turned the corner and was met with a scene of Professor Grantham -- I mean, William -- moderating an animated discussion among several grad students and young professors. He acknowledged my presence with a friendly smile while listening to his young audience. His look was inviting and interested; I took two cautious steps into the room. The loudest speaker, an obnoxious adjunct professor named Roland, turned his head to follow William's gaze. His lips curled into a cruel sneer as he recognized me.

"Hey! Look everybody, Sarah's here! And she finally brought her tits out to play!" he hollered to the crowd as his gaze lowered from my shocked, reddening face to my swollen breasts, straining against their constricting fabric constraint. The room erupted in laughter and hooting, and I even caught William's eyes drink in the rare carnal glimpse of my feminine form.