Public Display

I took Giggles hand and we quickly exited the Concert Hall. Three more bands were still lining up, about to perform, and though it was a really fun night, we had to go now. We didn't want to watch Aerosmith and Metallica anyway.

The clock was to strike midnight and we still had a curfew to keep. Since we already watched the three bands we were excited to see, we might as well go now, before the crowd rushes towards the exit, and risk getting me and Giggles suffocating ourselves just squeezing through the crowd on our way out. Besides, I had other plans.

Her hand in mine, we leisurely walked around the parking lot looking for my car. Everyone was inside the hall, including Petunia and Handy, whom I invited earlier to go with us for a double date, was still at the concert, so the lot was empty as a ghost town. What's weird about the location is that, at the back of the concert hall was an old cemetery that was mysteriously condemned years ago. From what me and my friends know, it's being scheduled to be demolished in a few weeks to make way for a new mall to take its place.

All of a sudden, the wind started to howl and I felt a little rush of nervousness. Of course, I couldn't let my girlfriend notice that. And in order to reduce my fears, I tried to scare Giggles a little bit.

"There are ghosts here right?" I said to her with a wink.

"Baby, there's no need to fear. I'll leave you here"

"What? You'll leave me here?" Giggles nervously asks

"Yes, I will really run Giggles" I said

I laughed. "It was just a joke. After all, there are no reported sightings of any type of ghosts in this vicinity, there are guards everywhere. This place is free of spirits and no one here has ever been reportedly killed. Trust me" I joked. As I leaned closer, I gave her a small kiss on the cheek; it then went on to flush into a light red rose colour.

"You are so annoying Cuddles" Giggles said, playfully hitting him on the arm.

Then something moved from behind one of the bushes in front of us. This startled us both. We ran like little kids, holding hands and laughing, which was obviously to disguise our fright. Both of us didn't want to look back and investigate what that was.

But then it made a sound. "Meow"

I looked back and saw that it was a cat. This made me laugh harder. And that's when I tripped on a big rock. I fell down hard and because it was on cement, I immediately had small cuts and bruises. Despite the pain, I was still laughing. A friggin' cat scared us silly.

Giggles and I decided to rest awhile because of what happened to me. My arms hit the pavement hard and it really hurt. Thank God I wasn't bleeding profusely. It wasn't really that bad but I wanted some attention so I overacted a little.

"Baby, are you okay?" she asked, sitting beside me on the sidewalk.

"I'm just fine; it only hurts on this part." I was pointing to one of my bruised arms.

"Here? It's because you were scaring me. There, karma got the best of you."

"What? I only tripped Giggles."

"Because of you—"And before she could continue what she was trying to say. I planted another kiss on her lips. Since no one was around, this was the perfect time, I thought to myself. I was just all too glad that Giggles would agree into a public display of affection with me.

"Cuddles, what the heck?, Alright, fine!" she agreed, finally getting into the PDA mode.

Then I kissed her more. I forgot all about my bruises though they hurt like heck. Because no one was there, things started to get hot and heavy. We were kissing each other like we invented the art of kissing. All that steamy action we are doing, felt so good. I was just hoping that we wouldn't get caught by anyone. Because it would be very embarrassing if everyone found out.

My girl being a little wild, started getting frisky. She liked it rough with a hint of pain. She bit my lip so I bit hers. Then I stroked her hair and pulled it slightly. I felt that she liked it. She responded by pulling my ears hard.

"Ouch! You… that was a bit too much." I said.

"What? I didn't even do anything yet," she said, then continued kissing me.

"Whatever you say Giggles" I said in a very mischievous tone.

And just like that, we were back where we stopped; petting heavily on the sidewalk, in front of concert hall, partially hidden by bushes and conveniently parked cars. It was a very steamy moment. I mean, we did this before but this felt like something else. Her hands were moving all over me. I was moving all over her. Then she pulled my ears again, it was even harder than before.

"Giggles, don't start pulling all my fur out, it really hurts." I told her

"What are you talking about?, I wasn't pulling hard," She said

"It's not that strong Cuddles, I'm being gentle. I'll show you," she said, pulling my fur a bit to show what she was doing.

"Yeah, just like that. It's better if it's th—" I was saying before me and my ears were pulled to the ground. "I already told you, it hurts Giggles!" Cuddles said in an angry tone.

"What?" Giggles appeared to be baffled by what I said.

"Enough Giggles enough!, no more of that fur pulling." I was telling her as I got up. I kissed her on the cheek to show her that I wasn't angry. Then someone behind us caught our attention. "Giggles, look at that," I was pointing to something behind her.

"It's our refection Cuddles, nice…" Giggles said, insinuating that we watch ourselves while we were getting hot and heavy; the very reflective glass panels of the concert hall never looked so excitingly nice than it did that night. It was ten times more exciting. We were seeing all our movements. Every move of the hand, every twist of the hip. It was crazy. But then, I felt it. Giggle's hand pulling my hair again.

"Why do you keep insisting?" Cuddles said, fuming mad. "What should I do to make you stop?"

"I caught you Giggles, I can see you are doing it again. You know I don't like that, remember?"

"Cuddles, my hands are right here." She showed her hands which were both lying on my chest.

"Wha?" I was dumbfounded.

I looked at the reflection again to check what I saw. But then someone pulled my fur again. I fell to the pavement. It was definitely not Giggles; it has too much force to have come from her. I grabbed Giggle's hand as she helped me sit up. That's when I clearly saw the hand.

It was a hand floating independently in the air. It only appeared for a couple of seconds but it was the longest and scariest couple of seconds.

Scared and shaking vigorously, I told Giggles to get up. She asked why but I just told her to do it. We had to leave quickly. But as we were turning the nearest gate, someone was suddenly blocking our path. A priest was blocking our way! "Oh man, were caught," I thought, nearly forgetting about what I saw seconds ago. But was we looked at the face of the priest, we saw nothing. Inside his ancient black robe, we just saw blackness. We started getting dizzy. I turned my head down but then I saw blood dripping from his arm. He was actually the owner of the missing hand.

"Oh my God!, he's the owner the floating hand Giggles!" Cuddles said

My body turned to panic mode and I remember doing at that moment was pulling Giggle's hand as we ran as fast as we could. If this was a fictional tale then I could probably tell you that what I was pulling was not Giggle's hand, but the priest's. But this is not a fictional tale.

I was tightly holding my girl's hand as we fled from the priest. We ran and screamed until we reached Lumpy, the security guard, at one of the buildings. He asked us why we were running but we couldn't tell him because we were too embarrassed to talk about it. So we just told him we ran into a little bit of trouble.

But then he saw some blood on my shoulder and some dirt on my back. "Oh you silly kids, you know the priest doesn't like that!" he said, smiling as though he knew what happened to us.

He then proceeds to tell us the ghost of the priest who was buried in the nearby cemetery, haunts this place, not because he wants scare people away, but because he just wants to teach naughty youngsters like us, how to behave like normal citizens in public places. I shuddered upon hearing that, and I certainly have learned my lesson.

At that point I was just relieved to see another person aside from two of us. And whatever the ghost priest's agenda is, one thing is for certain. This night is the most frightening night that I will never, ever forget in my entire life.