Phantom Yearning

Charles Taylor. Born 1856. Died 1881. Murdered. If Charles was dead, who had I made love to last night in the haunted house?

This was going to be a night to remember. Staying overnight in a haunted house was a dream come true for me. When the owner of the Taylor-Right mansion contacted our paranormal investigation group to ask if we would like to investigate there, we jumped at the opportunity. The preliminary meeting was today, during the day, so we could get a feel for the place in the daylight. Tomorrow night would be lights out. Us alone in the dark of the great house.

The walk-through went great. We had a group of five attend. Our paranormal group was on Facebook, so aside from the three core members, we never knew for sure who would turn up.

Besides myself, David Concord, and the core members, who consisted of my sister, Courtney, and her boyfriend, Sam. The additional two that joined us were somewhat regulars. We had completed about fourteen investigations with them out of the fifty-three we had undergone.

When we arrived the following night, a sixth person was waiting for us inside the house. He introduced himself as Charles, and I was immediately enamored by him. Sleek black hair, crystal blue eyes, and full lips. My gaze wandered over the rest of him. He was lean but muscular.

My type.

When it came to splitting everyone into groups, I chose Charles to go with me. I wanted to get to know him better. We started in the basement. Courtney and Sam took the upstairs bedrooms; the other two took the main floor, which consisted of the main parlor, dining room, kitchen, and library.

Charles led the way down the stairs into the dark basement. I had given him an EMF detector. We immediately started getting spikes, the needle bouncing into the red.

“What do you think it means?” Charles asked.

“Either the unit is broken, or something is causing the needle to jump. Keep your eyes and ears open for anything unusual.” I ducked beneath an overhead beam. A rustle in the corner attracted my attention. Probably mice. I headed that way to check it out. Charles was right behind me. I directed my thermal camera into the dark. I was right. Mice.

“Let’s head back this way.” Charles pointed to an opening in the brick wall encasing the main part of the basement. “I thought I saw some shadows moving in there.”

The space behind the opening was pitch black. I shone my flashlight into it. The floor was dirt, and the floor joists were covered in spider webs. “Kind of dingy in there.”

“Yes, it is.” Charles touched my shoulder. “I don’t like it. Can we go somewhere else?”

I nodded. “Let’s check out those rooms over there.” At the far end of the basement were two doors. One contained a storage room. Old paint, jars of nails, and an assortment of broken pottery. I opened the other door. The room was full of dusty, old furniture and personal items.

Charles headed for a bedframe, running his fingers along the headboard. Next to it was a desk. He slid open one of the drawers and rummaged through it. All the items, old pens, ink pots, and paper, were still contained within. Charles removed a stack of paper and flipped through it. Halfway through the stack, a letter presented itself.

I peered over Charles’s shoulder to get a better look. My chest pressed against his back. I might have been mistaken, but it felt like Charles leaned into the contact.

It was a love letter; unsigned

“Sounds like someone’s love was destined to be unrequited,” I said. The tone of the letter was one of love and passion for someone the writer thought unattainable.

Charles sighed and placed the stack of papers, including the letter, back into the drawer.

“He was heartbroken.” Charles turned to face me. I was already so close, our noses almost brushed against one another. His breath was soft and subtle on my lips. In an instant, I reacted. I pushed Charles back against the desk and enveloped his mouth with my own.

Against all odds, Charles responded favorably, reaching up to wrap his arms around me. We sank into the depths of each other’s desire. Lips—tongues, mingling—sharing. The taste of him was pure—clean, without the hint of anything—he tasted like fresh water from a spring.

Charles moaned softly against my lips, his fingers raking into my hair. I clung to him, pulling at the bottom of his white button-up shirt, freeing it from the waistband of his tweed pants.

He released my hair and dug around at the front of his pants, unfastening them. He spun in my arms and dropped his pants to the dirt floor. He leaned over the desk.

As chance would have it, I had some condoms in my wallet. Charles gazed over his shoulder at me as I released my cock from my jeans and rolled a condom into place. His brow was furrowed, quizzical as he watched me. Maybe he was used to guys fucking him raw.

Not going to happen.

I pressed my cockhead against his hole. The lubricated condom was going to have to do the trick. My need for someone’s ass had never been this great before. I tempered my urge to thrust into him, slipping in as delicately as I could manage.

Charles reached back for my hip as I closed in against his ass. He was mewling, sweet as honey. He clawed at my skin and panted my name. I slipped out, then in again.

The sound that erupted from his throat made my heart stammer.

I reached up under his shirt, toying with his nipple, my other hand on his hip, my cock pumping into him. I rocked him time and again against the hard, wooden desk, his soft grunts filling the small room. He gripped the far side of the desk and lowered his head onto its surface.

Taking the hint, I increased my pace, pounding him harder. Each thrust escalated my lust for the guy who had so readily offered himself to me. It was not the way I had expected the night to go. No complaints from me. We could go back to ghost hunting soon.

I was close.

I reached around his thigh, taking his cock into my hand. It was semi-hard, its substantial length knocking against the desk drawer. My gut churned, desire cycling through it. Maybe I would have the chance to feel it inside me, caressing my hole.

My attention snapped back. Charles was pushing back against me, angling his hips, sinking me deeper, jostling his insides. He was crying out, frantic, wanting more. I gripped his shoulders and drove into him hard. The desk rattled and creaked with every frenzied thrust.

Hammering into him, I climaxed, releasing shot after shot of cum into the condom, blackness, and sparks of light alternating behind my eyes. It was the release I had been craving for a while. Hookups had been few and far between in the past weeks. And this one was special.

As I slipped my cock from him, a gust of cold air rushed past my cheek, infiltrating my ear. It almost sounded like a voice.

Charles stood up and turned toward me, his features pensive. “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah.” I looked around the room. There was no window in the room. There was nothing to explain where the rush of air had come from. Nothing to produce that sound. If I had to guess, the sound had been very like a man’s voice saying, “Charles.”

“It said my name.”

I disposed of the condom and refastened my jeans. “That’s what I heard, too.” I gazed down at Charles’s cock. It had waned; his body’s response of desire replaced by goosebumps.

Charles pulled up his pants. It was bittersweet seeing that gorgeous cock disappear. I longed for it—in my mouth—in my ass. Anywhere. But we had encountered a ghostly voice. I wanted to continue investigating. We left the room, scanning the rest of the basement. Charles stayed behind me, commenting about how the readings were still high.

Out of the corner of my eye, I was sure I saw a shadow. A shadow person—in the shape of a man. I aimed my thermal in the direction I had seen him. Sure enough, there was a human-shaped cold spot motionless in the corner of the basement behind the furnace.

“Charles … look at this.”

Charles crowded in against me, looking at the thermal reading. “Is that a ghost?”

“Might be. Could just be a cold spot in the basement.” As I said that, the shape disappeared, and the door of the room we had come from creaked closed.

I spun to look in the direction of the door, frantically searching the area with my flashlight. There had to be an explanation. I scanned around the basement. No open windows. Nothing to cause a draft. I approached the door and swung it back and forth on its frame. It would take a fair amount of effort to shift the door. The hinges were rusted and tight.

The word “Charles” echoed throughout the basement.

Charles gripped my arm. “Let’s get out of here. Switch with a different team.”

“Sure.” I headed for the stairs. I took one last look around before we ascended to the main floor. I unclipped my walkie-talkie from my belt and called for the other teams to meet us back in the front entry. Once together, we all outlined what, if anything, we had experienced in each part of the house, then went our separate ways. Charles and I took the top floor.

He lingered near the bedroom door at the top of the stairs, then followed me down the hall toward the bedroom I would be staying in tonight. I wanted to check it out first. Check for any paranormal activity. My sister said they hadn’t picked up on anything.

Charles busied himself looking in the closet, through the dresser, and in the bedside tables. He had turned the malfunctioning EMF detector off and tossed it back in my bag in the front hall. It was obviously on the blink. Either that or every place we went was rife with spirits who were choosing not to make themselves known to us.

“Hello,” I started. “My name is David … and this is Charles. We aren’t here to hurt you or interfere in any way. We just want to know who you are.”

I knocked on the wall beside me. “Can you copy that?”

Charles gazed around the room as if anticipating a response. He went over to the door and closed it. “You can knock on the door.”

Sure enough, a light knock could be heard coming from the door. When the handle rotated and rattled, I nearly leaped through the window. Slowing my breathing, I raced over to the door and flung it open. There was no one there. “Thank you,” I said while closing the door.

As soon as it was closed, the knocking started again. This time, Charles opened it. A blast of air swept over us. Charles took a step back. “It followed us up here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you not hear that?” Charles stared at me. “It said my name again.”

“I didn’t hear it.” I sat on the edge of the bed. “Let’s try the spirit box. Maybe this spirit has more it wants to say to us.”

I switched on the box. The sound of static filled the room. The concept was that the rapid-cycling radio stations could be manipulated by spirits so they could form words or phrases.

Charles’s name was the first word to come through. Then love, then forbidden. All in a man’s voice. Then a woman laughed. A girl’s voice, brother. After that, it was gibberish. I switched the unit off, and we left the room. I followed Charles as he led me to the door at the top of the stairs. He hesitated, then opened the door. It was a creepy feeling that crawled out of that room.

“I’ll sleep in here tonight,” Charles said.

“Are you sure?” I stepped into the room. It was icy cold. I scanned the room with my flashlight. The bedding was indented as if someone had been lying there. A perfect outline of a human; the pillow compressed. I would have to ask my sister if one of them had done it. Laid down on the bed. Yesterday, during the walkthrough, the bedding had been impeccable.

Sam’s voice crackled through the walkie. “We’re not getting anything. I think we should set up the static cameras and get some sleep.”

I was tired, but not entirely wiped out. I looked at Charles. I could be persuaded to exert a bit more energy before I fell asleep. Instead, Charles waited for me to leave the room, then shut the door. I would have preferred to set up a camera in his room to record while he slept in case something happened, but I intended to visit him later once everyone was asleep.

I didn’t need what I wanted him to do to me recorded.

Once the cameras were set up, I climbed into bed. I set my alarm for an hour, giving the rest of our team plenty of time to fall asleep. I must have drifted off to sleep because I awoke to the feel of someone sitting on the edge of my bed. For a brief moment, I panicked until I realized it was Charles. He was wearing the funniest blue-and-white striped pajamas I had ever seen.

I rolled toward him and tugged on them. “Take these off.”

Charles rose to his feet and stripped off the bizarre clothing. I held back the bedding, and he climbed in beside me. I had shed my clothes for bed, except for a pair of boxers. Charles tugged on their waistband. I shimmied them off my hips and discarded them at the foot of the bed.

His hands were immediately on me, touching every bit of my skin. My face, my shoulders, my chest down to my abs, my hips—my cock.

He wrapped his hand around my girth. His skin was cool, sending shivers down my spine. He kissed me, and I palmed his fiercely hard cock, stroking it—needing it. “I want this in me,” I whispered against his lips.