Things That Go Hump in the Night

The laughter and enjoyment of the neighborhood children was rubbing off on me, sending a low voltage tingle over my skin as I watched them embrace the holiday with an innocence they will someday shed. Their giddy rapture was so infectious that it made me lightheaded, injecting me with a natural high that alcohol and drugs could never simulate.

My neighborhood was soon left in my wake, and as I neared the town's outskirts I couldn't shake the notion that I was being guided by an unseen hand.

I'm an agnostic, therefore I don't believe or disbelieve in a divine creator, but I could've sworn that I was being directed by someone or something – and I'm not talking about Steven Spielberg. Each step taken tightened the stranglehold of whatever had me in its clutches; yet in spite of this I was surprisingly calm and collected.

I knew where I was headed. There was nothing else out here but vacant acres of farmland that were either filled with cows or flooded with irrigated water, leaving only one place for me to go.

Out here, on the borders of our town, streetlamps were few and far between and I had to rely on the three-quarter moon as my only source of light. Every exposed surface took on a milky luminescence, giving the road an icy appearance that directly contradicted the warm wind blowing in from the north.

The motor supplying energy to my feet conked out and I coasted to a gentle stop, kicking up a small puff of dirt when I came to a total standstill.

The entrance to the town's cemetery loomed a couple of yards in front of me, its rusty cast-iron gates creaking eerily in the breeze. Both were spread apart to reveal a bitumen road leading inside – a one lane highway for hearses, visitors and maintenance crews to travel upon.

"What the fuck am I doing here?" I muttered. I half expected someone to answer. No one did.

Four years ago, on this very night, a drunken posse of teenagers stole into the cemetery under the cover darkness, unearthed a decade-old coffin and then proceeded to carry it through the center of town. Although trick or treating had ended hours beforehand, there were still many partygoers to witness the five pallbearers as they carted the casket down the middle of the road. Everyone figured that it was simply an elaborate Halloween prank, only to be proven wrong when one of the young chaps tripped and the coffin fell from their tenuous grasps, splintering apart on the tarmac and revealing its genuine payload for all to see.

It was entirely plausible that, considering the ghoulish nature of Halloween, people may give in to temptation and journey out here, so I would also have to keep a keen lookout for law enforcement officers who wish to police such activity.

I leaned forward and strained my ears, but not a single decibel of sound came from within the cemetery. I was aware that on some level the stony silence should unsettle me, that my nerves should be as frayed as a piece of rope from the nineteenth century.

It was disturbing that I wasn't in the least bit disturbed.

Over the next half an hour I toured the cemetery via the service roads, feeling every bit like a rent-a-cop who must walk the empty corridors of the building he's paid to guard. It was peaceful in a way that can't be described, only felt.

Some of the gravestones dated back to the late 1800s, many of which were deteriorating at an exponential rate and were missing large chunks that looked as if they'd been bitten out. Other headstones from more contemporary times merely had hairline fissures and chips, but in another fifty years they would more than likely succumb to the similar fate that befell their neighbors.

And then I stopped for the longest of moments, hypnotized by the heart-wrenching beauty towering over me. More of a statue than a headstone, a large angel carved from marble sat on a pedestal with its wings spread in mid-flight, its downcast gaze frozen on the grassy plot below.

"It's very beautiful, isn't it?" came a soft, feminine voice.

Goosebumps annihilated my arms, legs and torso while my heart simultaneously lurched in my chest. I swiveled around on the balls of my feet, my body shifting into auto-pilot as my brain's involuntary fight/flight response prepared itself for either eventuality.

Illuminated in the pale moonlight was a girl no older than I, standing approximately five feet away from me in a pose that was about as threatening as a newborn kitten. Cute wasn't an apt enough word to describe this girl. Her face was the embodiment of innocence, yet her sparkling eyes and relaxed body language projected a sexy playfulness that suggested her sweet appearance was but an illusion grander than any the masterful magician David Copperfield could conduct.

She was dressed in the same ordinary, everyday manner as me: white sneakers, dark blue jeans that hugged her trim legs and a tight canary-yellow t-shirt that appeared a size too small, accentuating her curvaceous chest with mouth-watering results.

"Hi," she said, offering me a radiant smile. Nothing but air escaped my mouth, too stunned and lost for words by the presence of such a ravishing creature. "This is the part where you say 'hi' back," she added, taking a step in my direction.

I flinched away from her, countering her step forward by taking one of my own in the opposite direction.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she said quickly, holding out her empty hands for me to inspect. "See, no weapons. I'm as harmless as a little puppy dog."

Talking to girls, particularly as pretty as this one, had always been an impossible task. My psychological development usually regresses to an infant's and my tongue ties itself up into knots, which could explain why I haven't even kissed a girl before.

"What're you doing here?" I blurted, attempting to overcome my inadequacies regarding my interaction – or lack thereof – with the opposite sex.

"Just going for a walk. It's so peaceful here at night, and the atmosphere is not at all the same as during the day. I tend to find it bleak during daylight hours, although at night, underneath the stars and the moon, this place takes on a strange beauty. Do you think I'm crazy?"

"No, I absolutely agree with you."

"I was just about to take a seat," she said, indicating a bench that could be fuzzily made out in the distance. "Care to join me?"

"Uh..."

"C'mon, I promise that I won't bite. Much."

Her remark carried with it a sexual frequency that even my inexperienced ears could tune in to. My suspicious nature prepared me for the possibility that she was mocking me, but that same guiding force that had lead me to the cemetery clouded my mind, purging any cynicism that I might act foolishly upon.

My cheeks burned with embarrassment. "Okay," I conceded.

We trekked a few hundred feet in a stony, uncomfortable silence. I was well aware that, in order to break the ice, I was supposed to chat to her about something inane, small talk or the like, unfortunately my consciousness was doing a perfect imitation of a black hole – sucking everything in but spitting nothing out.

"You don't talk much, do you?" she said, parking her shapely butt on the bench.

I followed her cue and sat down, leaving a sizable gap between us.

"No, not really. I guess it depends on the person I'm speaking to."

Our bodies were facing the rising moon but our faces were turned towards one another, throwing one side into complete darkness. I had trouble keeping my eyes locked on hers, not only because I itched to tear my gaze away and focus it on her lush body, but also due to my many insecurities when confronted by such a pretty girl.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Mary. Mary Watts. And you are...?"

"Peter Parker."

Despite my growing suspicion that my namesake has cursed me since birth, I must admit that I love saying it out loud. It rolls off the tongue with a degree of panache, quite often inducing a double-take from people who hear it for the first time.

Mary didn't so much as bat an eyelid with surprise. "I guess that explains your lack of costume; you are your costume."

"I never really thought of it like that," I laughed. "What about you, where's your costume?"

"I've always thought that Halloween is terribly overrated. Dressing up as someone else is fine for some people, but I like who I am and prefer not to hide behind some silly mask."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. We already walk around with too many masks as it is, adding another one just makes things worse."

"We all hide things," she said. "Sometimes it's essential to keep things from people in order to save yourself and others from experiencing pain. Other times...we keep things from people for misguided reasons."

"We're certainly a complex machine, alright."

"That's why I try to keep things as simple as possible. Complications only arise when you let them."

"If only it were that easy," I sighed.

It amazed me how easy a person Mary was to talk to. Making a connection, particularly a rapid one, with other people is not one of my specialties. This girl was able to coax me out of my shell with the finesse of a veterinarian doing likewise with an injured tortoise, and I was immensely pleased to discover that she possessed a personality as beautiful as her face and body.

"Okay, if you could simplify just one thing about yourself that you make complicated, what would it be?" she asked.

"I don't know," I lied.

"Go on, you can tell me." She scooted closer until our knees touched, and then, incredibly, she laid her left hand on my thigh and rubbed back and forth soothingly. "I'm not going to tell a soul."

Sweat formed at my brow and under my armpits, and I felt dizzy, on the verge of fainting. My eyes fell away from hers and dropped to her caressing hand. The moonlight lit up my tan trousers like a spotlight, making the massive bulge protruding from my crotch embarrassingly visible.

"What would you change?" she persisted.

"Um..."

My mind was as blank as a formatted hard drive, unable to compute any data at all.

"It would be your shyness around girls, wouldn't it?"

"Pr-probably," I managed to spit out.

"Would you like me to help you out in that department?"

"I...I don't know what you mean."

Mary leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. "Sure you do, tiger. You should try to stick with the truth, because you sure do make a terrible liar."

What the hell was happening? Guys like me barely show up on a girl's radar, especially one in Mary's league. Perhaps I'd entered through a vortex that lead into some kind of alternate Earth, where geeks like me are held in the highest regard.

I courageously raised my eyes to meet hers and I found her face so close to mine that I almost kissed her on the lips. Her glossy black hair fell around her shoulders in shimmering cascades, taking on a slight grey tinge courtesy of the moon's albino rays. Up this close and personal, I could also make out a tiny scar above her left eyebrow, which only added to her beauty instead of detracting from it.

"I have to be dreaming," I said.

"Nope. I'm one hundred percent real."

"Then I'm being set up for an elaborate prank," I stated, realizing that Tommy Montague or one of the other assholes at school had probably orchestrated this entire 'chance encounter.'

"Wrong again."

For some reason I believed her. Faith in God, others and myself had long since departed on a one way train, yet I saw something in Mary's eyes that threatened to disrupt my cynical equilibrium; it was pure, old fashioned honesty.

"Then...why?"

She frowned and gave me a cute little pout. "Why what?"

"What could a girl like you possibly see in a geek like me?"

"You know, you should really change your approach to giving a girl a compliment," she said, her mouth curling into a playful smirk. "You're just lucky that I don't get insulted very easily."

"Girls like you don't like guys like me," I insisted.

"Are you saying that I shouldn't like cute, shy guys? Did you ever think that you're the perfect kinda guy? You're smart, humble, funny – not a whiff on all those arrogant bastards who think that all women should drop to their knees and kiss the ground they walk on."

"But–"

"Shut up," she interjected, her voice as soft as silk and filled with a truckload of affection.

Mary tilted her face and our foreheads touched. Long tendrils of dark hair brushed against my cheeks, the warm wind blowing the soft strands against my face, tickling my skin as if she were using a feather. I could feel her warm breath on my lips, and I ached to bridge the gulf between our mouths.

Still stroking my thigh with her left hand, she cupped the back of my neck with her right and worked the tension out of my muscles by kneading my flesh with her dexterous fingers. All traces of my anxiety disappeared as if Mary had temporarily harnessed the awesome vanishing powers of Sue Storm – also known as The Invisible Girl – who was the lone female superhero in the Marvel comic book entitled The Fantastic Four.

"Have you ever kissed a girl?" she asked. "Be honest, I promise I won't laugh."

"...No."

"Close your eyes."

I obediently eased them shut, immediately heightening my sense of hearing as I stared at the backs of my eyelids. The gentle wind was rustling the leaves on a nearby tree, Mary's breathing quickened in pace, an owl hooted somewhere in the night and soft music could be heard playing from the town's direction.

My hands searched blindly for her waist, and upon finding it they honed in on her hips. The cotton fabric of her t-shirt drifted past the waist of her jeans, but unlike my fingers, which were stroking stiff denim, my thumbs could feel warm flesh underneath the soft, yellow material.

You wouldn't believe how hard I was. Mere seconds away from being kissed by a gorgeous girl, touching her and being touched in return, smelling the sweet aroma of her apricot scented shampoo – it was all making my cock stand up like a puppy begging for table scraps. Not that I was equating Mary to table scraps; she was more like a fine cuisine that I yearned to taste.

And then she kissed me. At first she started out with light pecks, caressing her soft, velvety lips against mine with an uncanny amount of tenderness. But then her lips started attacking mine with an air of urgency, and her hands rubbed and squeezed at my body with a similar display of desperation. I tried to contain my excitement as best I could, but when her tongue shot between my lips and sucked hungrily on mine, it was more than I could handle.

A long, satisfied moan clawed its way up from my voice box and vibrated between our lips. Mary's tongue jerked around inside my mouth when she let fly a few giggles, forcing me to play the aggressor for the first time by holding her head steady with my hands. I combed my fingers through her soft, silky hair while my tongue flicked against hers, our kiss becoming wetter with each passing second.

I knew that this moment would be forever embossed into my memory, easily surpassing the one in which I finally acquired a mint copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, which was the first comic book to ever feature Spider-Man.

Our lips, slick with saliva, finally broke apart and we stared deeply into one another's eyes. Mary's were murky brown pools, shimmering with a peculiar light that could be a combination of mischief and lust.

"Wow," I whispered, filled with disbelief and child-like wonder. I felt the way Clark Kent must have after stealing Lois Lane's heart from his alter ego, he of the blue tights and red cape.

Although I've been an ardent comic book collector since I can remember, it never truly sank in that the girl inevitably falls in love with the superhero's real-life identity regardless of how mild-mannered or geeky they are. Maybe being baptized Peter Benjamin Parker wasn't such a curse after all.

"You can say that again."

"Wow."

Mary let loose a killer smile that, had I not been sitting down, would've reduced my legs to a jelly-like substance and in turn caused me to plummet to the ground like a falling anvil.

"Do you hear that?" she asked, cocking her head.

"Hear what?"

"I hear a voice chanting 'encore' over and over again."

Deciding not to let Mary's imaginary fan down, our parted mouths came together again and we shared another steamy kiss. In fact, our make out session sizzled with such a burning heat that, if fallen into the wrong hands, our kissing could be used to melt the polar icecaps and flood the world.

Our tongues, lips and saliva became unified, creating a conduit which enabled our souls to temporary intertwine as one. There was something otherworldly about the girl in my arms. It was as if her origins were celestial in nature, having once been an angel in God's kingdom but for reasons unknown had been banished to Earth.

I had no prior experience for which to draw an accurate comparison, but making out in a cemetery seemed sexier than it could ever feel anywhere else. It felt extra naughty, as if we were breaking some kind of sacred unwritten law.

Reared by parents who etched the word 'ethics' into my brain, I'd never even so much as committed the crime of stealing a candy bar from the local convenience store, always finding those who did rather childish and immature, but perhaps the rush of kissing Mary in such a taboo place emulated the petty thievery which many teenagers often submit to.

"Mary, who are you?" I whispered, breaking the kiss. "Why do I feel so...just, unlike me?"

"What feels different?"

"Everything. I used to be so afraid of...of this, you know, being with a girl. But I don't feel threatened by you at all."

"Good, then you won't mind if I do this," she stated, leapfrogging her hand from my thigh and landing it squarely on the obscene bulge between my legs. Not stopping to take a whiff of the roses, Mary immediately started fondling me through my tan slacks, apparently undeterred by the fact that we were essentially complete strangers.

"Mary, wh-what the hell are you doing?" I blustered.

A devilish grin erased over the top of her sweet smile, shattering any illusion that she was as innocent as her angelic appearance suggested. "You mean you don't know? Jeez, Peter, you had me fooled into believing you were a pretty perceptive guy. If you really must know, I'm squeezing your cock."

"Jesus."

"Nope, my name is Mary."

My hands busied themselves by roaming her warm back, savoring the sensation of running my palms over every glorious curve that her tight t-shirt was molded to. I wanted to touch her everywhere, leave no stone unturned.

"Do you think we should be doing this?" I groaned.

"You don't like what I'm doing with my hand?"

"I love what you're doing with your hand. It's just, well, we hardly know each other."

Mary melted against my body and delivered a series of light kisses to my lips and cheeks, which spurred her on to grope me with a newfound enthusiasm. She planted a pathway of kisses down the side of my face, throwing on the handbrake when she traveled past my jaw and arrived at my neck. Once there, her slick lips nuzzled the tender part of my throat, alternating between kissing, licking and sucking on my tingling skin.

"The way we kissed each other just now was as intimate, if not slightly more, than touching each other's bodies," she whispered, sliding her mouth up my neck until it made contact with my ear. "Anyone can fuck like a champ, but great kissing requires chemistry, passion and a good measure of animal attraction; all three of which exist between us in droves."

Was she implying that...?

"What're you saying?"

"I'm saying that you have something I want."

I started to tremble uncontrollably, my wild imagination running rampant with hundreds of images of Mary and me in the throes of humping each other's brains out. "What do you want?"