Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC.
CHAPTER 8
THE DEVIL ... OR THE SAVIOR?
Eric stepped inside Greenquist Hall a little after. 8:00 p.m. Red-tinged fog, like a lake of ghostly blood, submerged his legs up to the calves. Crimson light shone on him from the ceiling, and mutilated mannequins were chained to the walls. The ambiance matched his mood, especially with Alice Cooper blasting through the PA system. Donna and her fellow student journalists had done a great job with the place, far better than The Hub's cartoon cutouts of pumpkins.
Yet the Halloween spirit still evaded him.
He'd committed a horrible crime back at his apartment. Unforgivable. He'd destroyed Donna's sexy Leia photo. She'd obviously put a lot of work into it, and he'd probably never see the like of it again.
But what was done was done, and he approached the admission table. It was manned by Attila the Hun, who kept sighing and smacking a plastic sword against his palm. Eric pulled five bucks from his jumpsuit. When that didn't get Attila's attention, he waved the money in Attila's face.
"Who're you supposed to be," Attila said and snatched Eric's fiver, "Elroy Jetson?" His fake beard twitched as he spoke, and Eric's fingers itched to rip it off him.
"No, I'm only the greatest race-car driver Wisconsin's ever produced. Dick Trickle. Ever heard of him?"
Attila pointed his sword at Eric's helmet. "What's with all the holes?"
"They're for accuracy—whatever. Have you seen Donna?"
"Yeah, she had the primo-shift, and I relieved her." Attila turned in his chair, and Eric followed his gaze. Costumed guests packed the sprawling concourse. Finding Donna and their friends in this crowd was going to be tough. He didn't even know what they were wearing tonight. "Do you know how much fun it is to sit at a table by yourself when you've got a killer party like this going on?" Attila said and faced him again. "It's hell, man."
Eric scoffed. "You have no idea what hell is. So what's she wearing?"
"Toilet paper."
"What?"
Attila shrugged and yawned. He was clearly over their conversation, and Eric moved past him into the concourse. Several kegs stood against the wall. Drunken Nixons cackled around them, holding plastic red cups, but nearby Han Solo and Darth Vader were groping each other. Eric flinched at both sights, but someone had to keep Han off Leia. The Dark Lord of the Sith was a fine option, and Eric nodded his approval.
In the middle of the concourse, a velvet-draped stage had been set up. Beyond that was a line of cafeteria tables buried in macabre food. Blood bubbled in champagne flutes. Slime-covered eyeballs filled glass bowls, and a pile of brains sat in a serving pan. Eric considered finding a camera and taking a picture. The Hub's manager needed a lesson in what Halloween food should be. Calling a hot dog haunted didn't cut it.
On the last table was the candy, and a fight broke out over a bowl of chocolate bats. Frankenstein's monster tried to grab a handful, and Willy Wonka shoved him back, shouting, "What do you need with candy? You are made of dead body parts sewn together. Go find a rat to chew on."
"Dude, I'm not really Frankenstein."
"I know that. I am not an idiot. You are his monster. Frankenstein is your creator." Wonka pinched a metal bolt glued to Frankenstein monster's neck. "He put these in you to catch life-giving lightning ... ai!" The bolt came off in Wonka's hand.
"Nice work, dickhead!" Frankenstein's monster snatched back the bolt. "I had to sit for twenty minutes while the glue on this thing set." He grabbed the bowl of chocolate-covered bats. "I'm taking these."
"You do, and I'll set you on fire, you sonuvabitch! Where are my matches?" Wonka patted down his purple suit, and Eric spotted the man inside that get-up: Fez. His face was puffy and sweaty, and Eric stepped in front of him.
"All right, buddy, you've made your point," Eric said, clasping Fez's shoulder. "We don't want Franken-asshole rampaging all over your face."
"There are so many monsters trying to steal my candy." Fez looked at Eric strangely. "But most of our Earth women are very attractive. Welcome to our planet, Mr. Spaceman."
He extended his hand for Eric to shake, but Eric said, "Fez, it's me. It's Eric."
"Eric?" Fez reached toward Eric's helmet. "No! You've been transformed into an orange Martian!"
"Not a Martian. I'm Dick Trickle—"
"But you just said you were Eric."
Eric took off his helmet and touched Fez's forehead. "I am Eric. I'm only dressed up as Dick Trickle—and you're burning up!"
"Yes, there is a fever deep inside my loins..."
He yanked his hand from Fez. "You're not out? Damn! We've got to find Kelso, and he's got to take you home—"
"No!" Fez leaned over the table, and his arms encircled bowls of gummy worms, marshmallow bones, and "snot"-filled lollipops. "I can't leave my children."
"Oh, boy..." Eric scanned the crowd of partiers, trying to catch any hint of his friends or a toilet-papered Donna. He found none. "Fez," he said, "what's Kelso wearing?"
"I don't know."
"Didn't you come with him?"
"I haven't come in weeks!"
Eric understood the feeling, but ... "What I mean is, didn't you go to the party with him?"
"No." Fez stood up straight and popped a gummy worm into his mouth. "I must eat you to protect you, my babies..."
"Fez—"
"Hyde drove me, Cleopatra, and Don Quixote in the El Camino. Then a mummy with Donna's face took their money and bragged about her haunted orgasms."
"Haunted orgasms … okay." Eric scanned the concourse again. A lanky knight darted past the stage, glancing over his shoulder as if he were avoiding someone. He dashed by the cafeteria tables, and Eric grabbed his arm. "Kelso?"
"Whoa, Eric. Hey." Kelso stopped running. He was panting, and his plastic chest plate bounced with his breath. "Where have you been?"
"I got caught up. Listen..." Eric pointed to Fez, who was whispering to a jar of jellybeans. "Our friend over there is kind of sick."
"So? We've always known that. He's the sick one. I'm the hot one. You're the screw-up—"
"I am not the screw-up! And he's physically sick. You know, feverish. Delusional. He won't leave the party, but he shouldn't be alone, and I've got to find Donna."
"Cool, yeah," Kelso said, flicking his eyes to the left and right. "I'll hang out with him. Maybe he'll say something I can blackmail him with later."
"Make sure he gets to a doctor tomorrow." Eric stuck his racing helmet under his arm and backed off toward the crowd. "Oh, and do you have any idea where Donna is?"
"The last time I tried to pull off her wrappings was by the stage. I'd check there."
"Thanks ... and quit mauling my girlfriend!
"I am who I am, Eric!" Kelso shouted, but Eric headed for the stage.
People in elaborate costumes acknowledged him as he approached. They were lined up in front of the contest sign-up table, and he wove through them. One woman had come dressed as an iridescent peacock, with thousands of feathers sewn onto a bodystocking. A Batman-and-Robin duo flirted with the Charlie's Angels, and a red-haired mummy was in conversation with a grizzled cowboy.
"Donna?" Eric tapped the mummy's shoulder, and she turned around.
"Eric?" Donna went in for a hug but stopped herself. "What happened? You're, like, an hour late."
She couldn't have chosen a less flattering costume to wear, but calling her masterpiece toilet paper was an injustice. She'd taken great care to make the gauze appear aged, to wrap it thickly in the right places, obscuring her shapely curves. She'd done that last bit for him, and he was grateful.
"Is there somewhere private we could talk?" he said.
"There's a space behind the curtains," she said and led Eric onto the stage. They pushed through the heavy velvet drapes, which blocked out the concourse's light. He and Donna became effectively invisible, and he couldn't see if anyone else was backstage, either.
"Hey, how's everybody doing?" he said into the darkness but received no answer. "Stix is better than Zeppelin! … I've got a ton of pot on me—"
"Eric, we're alone," Donna said. "Is everything okay?"
His throat tightened, and his heart pulsed in his fingers. The surrounding darkness felt as heavy as the velvet drapes, but he forced himself to talk. "I discovered one of your Christmas gifts."
"Oh, no..."
"It flew out of your magazine."
"I am so sorry!" Her palm cupped his cheek, but she withdrew it after a breath. "I swear I wasn't trying to sabotage you. I didn't think you'd—"
"Oh, I know. You've been so great this week." His gaze dropped to the floor, but it was as unseeable as the space in front of him. "I couldn't help it, Donna. I was sitting on the edge of our bed with your picture in one hand and myself in the other, and then I committed one of the worst acts man has ever committed.
"What?" The heat of her body warmed his arm. She must have moved closer to him. "What did you do?"
"I tore it up. I just ripped it into teeny, tiny pieces."
"Your penis?"
"Your picture, you goon! Your naughty, naughty Leia picture."
"Oh," she said with giggle. "I still have the negatives."
"You do? The Force is with me!"
Her giggle turned into laughter, easing the tension in his body. "What about your other hand?" she said. "Did you, um ... battle with your lightsaber?"
"Couldn't. The act of destroying such beauty drained the power cell. I also realized that ever since we started college, the gang hasn't been the same—"
"The gang?" she said, and he imagined her incredulous, raised eyebrows.
"We're sort of like a gang."
"You sound like Archie Andrews."
"Okay, fine. Our friends." He put his replica of Dick Trickle's helmet back on his head. His arm had grown tired from carrying it. "Anyway, growing up sometimes means growing apart, you know? At least a little. And I realized that this contest has kept us all in each other's lives more than usual, just like Halloween did when we were kids."
His voice hitched, but he continued talking. "Remember how, in the weeks leading up to Halloween, you, me, Hyde, and Kelso would try to out-spook each other? Especially during the campouts in your father's yard. And how you and I banded together while trick-or-treating to make sure Hyde got his fair share of candy? Of all nights, his mom had forced him to stay home—until he was old enough to sneak out."
"Yeah..." Donna's body pushed against him, but she bumped into his helmet. "Ouch! Eric, what the hell?"
"Safety helmet," he said. "You weren't just trying to kiss me, were you?"
"No."
His fingers curled and flexed. They were hot from the strength of his heartbeat. "Well, good. Because despite Fez's growing insanity, I plan on seeing this competition through to the end. Our friends are kind of like family—"
"I know."
"And I'll be sad when we don't have the contest gluing us together anymore."
"That's really sweet," she said and patted the side of his helmet. "And a little pathetic. Maybe next time we should write a collective story or something. Like, I'd write the first part. You'd write the second and mail it off to Hyde, who'd write the third—"
"Now that is pathetic," he said and hoped she heard his smile. "Would you really want to read what twisted things Fez would come up with?"
"Good point." Her finger slipped into one of the helmet's access holes and poked his cheek. "Hyde and Kelso have a side-bet on whether you or Fez will win "
"What? Which of those bastards put money on me?"
"Hyde."
He smirked. So Hyde had faith in the Kid, after all.
From the candy table, Fez stared at a sleek brown horse. It was standing by the stage, body draped in white cloth, and wearing golden sandals. He couldn't understand, though, why it had only two hooves. Horses normally had four, but it was also talking to Superman. Nothing tonight was making any sense.
"Damn, I can't believe she's here!" Don Quixote said next to him. He was sucking on a lollipop, which Fez had allowed him to have. The monsters were relentless tonight, skulking around the candy table, attempting to kidnap Fez's tasty children. But Quixote had pledged his protection, and the lollipop was safe in his mouth. "Fez, you know how I'm, like, the best rider there is?"
"You are a noble knight," Fez said.
"Yeah, well, I met a horse I couldn't break. She didn't even let me put a saddle on her. I couldn't let you guys know 'cause I've got a reputation to maintain … but, man, once it gets out that a horse bucked me off, other horses might get the idea to do that, too."
"Some horses are just untamable, my friend. Have you ever tried to ride a hippopotamus? In my country, we use them as transportation. Now they are hard to break."
Quixote touched the back of his fingers to Fez's forehead. "I think Eric's right. I gotta take you home."
"No!" Fez slapped Quixote's hand away. "My duty here isn't finished. Of all people, you should understand. You carry a lance and wear armor and fight windmills."
"Fez..." Quixote tucked his beard beneath his chin, and his features transformed into Kelso's.
Fez jumped backward. "Sorcery!"
"No, it's a—"
"You are one of them. You are a monster!" Fez stuffed caramel fangs into his pockets. "I'll save you!" he shouted and fled into the concourse, searching for escape.
Jackie made her rounds at the party, charming everyone she met with flattery and her natural charisma. Losing Snow Queen two years ago had taught her the importance of schmoozing, and she wasn't about to leave the costume contest up to chance. But after a half-hour of idle chit-chat, she missed Steven. She sought him out by the kegs and found him there, talking to Donna.
"Hey." He gestured for her to join them, and he repeated what Donna had apparently just shared with him.
"Are you serious?" Jackie said. "Eric hasn't given in yet?"
"Unfortunately." Donna twisted a piece of gauze off her wrist. "Part of me wishes he had, just so it could be over with. I'm starting to feel guilty about all this."
"Oh, please." Jackie flipped her hair, knowing that her golden headdress would catch the red light of the concourse. No one could miss the vibrancy of her Cleopatra costume. "He's lucky to have a girlfriend as tolerant as you are."
"Yeah, man. He asked for this." Steven clasped Jackie's hand and began to pull her away. "And he found that picture all on his own."
"But I put it there," Donna said.
"And he put himself in the position he's in," Steven said. "Typical Forman. But I still think he'll stick it out longer than Fez."
Donna glanced down at her gauze wrappings, and Jackie used her most authoritative voice. "Finish what you started. You're giving him what he wants."
Donna met her gaze. "You're right."
"I'm always right," Jackie said. "If you'd realized this when you first met me, you—"
Steven tugged on her arm, and she didn't resist as he brought her to the end of the concourse. They ducked into a quiet, isolated area beneath a wide staircase. She was happy for the privacy, and he wasted no time. His hands gripped her waist. His lips swept over the ridge of her ear, and he whispered, "Who knew deprivation could be so freakin' hot?"
His touch sent electric charges deep into her body, but doubt acted like Faraday cage on her heart.
"Well, you'll get to enjoy it a little longer," she said and pried his fingers off her waist. "The costume contest is about to start, and I don't want you wrinkling my dress."
He took the hint, maybe too strongly. He backed off, allowing red fog to billow between them. "You're pissed."
"I'm not pissed, Steven. I just want to win."
"This was your idea, man. I was good to go all week."
"I know, and I'm not pissed. I'm..." She closed the distance between them and pressed herself against his chest. "I'm sorry."
"Jackie—" He held her loosely. "I'm over it, okay? Thought you were, too."
She nodded beneath his chin, shutting down the tears threatening her perfect makeup. He meant what happened between them before Chicago—and what almost happened between her and Michael in that motel room. "But I don't want you to be over me."
"You shouldn't be thinking about that shit." His fingertips brushed the exposed nape of her neck, and she shivered with too many kinds of longing. "You've got to remember one thing," he said, and his tone became playful. "Forman's got no clue."
He was grinning, and it disarmed her. Over time, he'd learned when to stay focused and serious and when to change the subject with humor. He was trying to make her feel better, and she licked her lips. Nothing got her hotter than him being a good boyfriend to her.
"Eric's so gullible and Eric-y," she said, voice thick with lust. "When he finally understands what's really been going on—"
"Will the female contestants for the costume contest please line up backstage?" someone said over the PA system. "Will the female contestants for the costume contest please line up backstage?"
"Damn. I gotta go, baby." She kissed him softly, a brief taste of what she was unwilling to lose. "Beat up anyone who doesn't vote for me."
He chuckled and gave her wrist a tender squeeze. "Sure."
Eric stood among the crowd waiting for the costume contest to begin. Spotlights without colored gels lit the stage, and the M.C. was dressed as Mr. Spock. He spoke into a microphone connected to the PA system, welcoming the audience, but a cacophony of screams backstage cut him off.
The heavy drapes rippled, and Fez stumbled through them. He breathed heavily, like he'd just run a marathon. His top hat was missing. His hair stuck out at odd angles, and candy spilled from the pockets of his purple suit.
People in the crowd booed. Fez's appearance was delaying the contest, but he remained onstage, shouting,."Don't you boo me, you child-eating monsters! I boo you. BOO!"
"The men's competition is after the ladies'," the M.C. said into the microphone, "and if you come back then, you might get a better reception."
"No, you won't!" someone yelled from the crowd, and people laughed.
The M.C. tried to usher Fez off stage, but Fez snatched at the microphone. The M.C. didn't let go, and they grappled over its possession. Feedback squawked through the PA system until the M.C. tripped over a wire, causing him to lose his grip.
"Your logic can't help you now, you pointy-eared bastard!" Fez raised the microphone to his lips. "Hello, ladies and gentleman," he said to the crowd, breathing hard. "I would like to discuss an important subject with all of you, a little something called haunted orgasms..."
Eric made his way toward him, pushing past a fat chef and his portly blueberry girlfriend. Fez would be slaughtered, but Hyde leapt onto the stage and yanked Fez backward. The microphone fell with a thud, sending feedback into the concourse. Eric winced, but Hyde dragged Fez offstage and hauled him through the crowd.
The audience clapped, and Eric relaxed. Fez would be safe with Hyde … he hoped.
"Is this a spaceship?" Fez said. Hyde had shoved him inside the men's bathroom. Its lights were flickering, giving the metallic sinks an alien appearance. "Wow..." Fez glided his hand through the air. "Zero-gravity feels so strange … like regular gravity." He looked at Hyde. "Are we really in a spaceship?"
Hyde forced an encouraging smile. His friend had lost it. "Yes, Fez," he said in his best, soothing Mrs. Forman impression, "it's a spaceship." He opened a private stall. "Now get in there and fire your rocket."
"What if I have more than one rocket to fire?"
"Just keep firing, man." Hyde pushed Fez into the stall. "I'll send someone in to bring you back to Earth if you stay here too long."
Fez shut the stall door himself and locked it. "You are a good friend, Hyde."
"Here's hoping you blast off into sanity."
Hyde backed out of the bathroom, satisfied Fez would be all right. He raced up the concourse as wisps of red fog clung to his boots. If he didn't get back to the stage and witness Jackie's performance, he could kiss his 'nads goodbye.
Eric cheered when the M.C. announced the start of the costume competition. The first contestant, a green-skinned zombie, limped onstage. Brown tatters covered half her body, and she groaned into the microphone. The crowd laughed as she sniffed the M.C.'s face and said, "Spock's brain feed family for a month," and she limped offstage to applause.
Next up was the Evil Queen from Disney's Snow White, followed by Charlie's Angels, Annie Hall, Wonder Woman, and a purple octopus. Eric clapped loudest for the octopus. Her eight tentacles glistened like they were underwater, and he appreciated the artistic detail.
Once the octopus floated away, the M.C. read off the next contestant from a blue index card: "Jackie Burkhart as Cleopatra."
Jackie strutted onto the stage—golden dress glittering, jewels of her headdress shining like bright stars—but Eric's gaze was drawn to her cleavage. Most of his cruelest dreams were of Donna, but Jackie had become a guest star. That accidental peek of her breasts last week was haunting him.
He bowed his head as she continued her strut across the stage. Goggling at her was too dangerous. If she caught him, Hyde would find out and kill him.
"I'm the most beautiful queen in all of history," Jackie said into the microphone, "made even more beautiful by your adoration."
The audience hooted as Eric hummed Alice Cooper's "Welcome To My Nightmare" to himself. Jackie's presentation seemed interminable, and he raised his eyes only when the M.C. announced Luise Beckett as Janis Joplin.
An impressive snake-haired Medusa came out afterward, but the acrobatic hand-walker who followed upstaged her. She had overalls on her arms and a shirt on her legs, and the sight was mind-alteringly trippy. Only a circle could've made the performance more entertaining.
"And now for our last female contestant," the M.C. said, and Eric prepared himself to whistle as loudly as possible. Sure, Donna was a frumpy mummy, but she was his frumpy mummy. "Donna Pinciotti..." the M.C. went on, "as Princess Leia!"
"What?" Eric's mouth dried out as a bare leg emerged from the heavy drapes. An identical, equally enticing leg joined the first, and they both ended in silver heels. A short white dress skimmed his favorite set of hips, the fabric covering just enough thigh to keep him from murdering anyone who looked at her.
"Come on over, Princess," the M.C. said, and Donna sashayed across the stage. Unlike that photo of her in the same costume, a bra concealed her nipples beneath the dress, but Eric imagined them anyway.
She leaned toward microphone, blue eyes searching the crowd until they met his. Her smile was as tempting as the Sirens' song. He'd been lost at sea for weeks, surrounded by an endless stretch of water. But he spied the jagged coastline of an island, and she was waiting for him, calling to him. He wanted to swim out to her, to brave the savage water crashing against the rocks even if it meant his death.
"Don't underestimate the Dark Side of the Force," she said into the microphone. Her voice was low and seductive, and it coaxed his budding erection from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON 2. He pulled off his safety helmet and put it in front of his crotch, but DEFCON 1 was fast approaching.
He rushed down the concourse and thrust himself into the men's bathroom. Barring a miracle, he wouldn't escape defeat this time. His hard-on was pressing against his stomach, fueled by fantasies of Donna relieving it, and he dropped his helmet onto a sink.
All but one of the bathroom's stalls were empty. He could've just gone for it, but a man in his darkest hour deserved some privacy, and he banged on the closed stall. "How much longer are you gonna take?" he said. "I can't, um … poo with an audience."
A distinctive groan answered him, and Eric backed up from the stall. "Fez?"
"Eric?"
Eric sniffed the air. Maybe Fez was vomiting or crapping from all the candy he'd eaten, but the bathroom smelled fine. "You okay?" Eric said, and when Fez stayed silent, Eric shut his eyes and prayed that his hunch was right. "Are you … out?"
"Oh, I am out," Fez said. "I am out five times, and ... and … ai—SIX times!"
Eric clenched his fists, simultaneously disgusted and elated. Fez's exclamation had weakened Eric's erection to DEFCON 4, and he performed the slowest, most methodical victory dance ever. "I win," he mouthed silently. "I ... WIN!"
He barreled out of the bathroom, shouting his declaration to the concourse. "I win! The Kid won! I—holy crap. I've gotta find Donna!"
He hurried to the stage, where the men's costume competition was taking place. Kelso stood up there, singing an off-key rendition of "Man of La Mancha" into the microphone. Eric grimaced and searched the audience—which had to be deaf, considering they hadn't booed Kelso offstage yet—and caught a flash of red hair by Frankenstein's monster.
"Donna," Eric said, running up to her. He gripped her arm, and she turned around, startled. "We need a room, a very private room ... now."
She seemed to study his face. "Are you sure?"
"Very."
She led him down the concourse, and they climbed its wide staircase. On the second floor, a hallway of classrooms stretched before them, but she brought him to a set of double doors. "This lecture hall is never locked," she said. "I don't know why."
"And I don't care why," he said, opening the doors.
Inside, she clicked on the lights, revealing the immensity of the lecture hall. Stadium seating filled the space, enough for at least three-hundred people, and Eric ran up the aisles. He had to make sure he and Donna were truly alone. The room was empty, all right, except for the M.C.'s voice. He spoke through the PA system, announcing that the costume contest votes were being tallied.
"Lock the doors, Donna."
She did as Eric said, and his arms snaked around her waist. He pulled her flush against his body, and he kissed her with two weeks' worth of pent-up energy. But the soft, moist feel of her mouth was overwhelming. It stoked emotions he hadn't anticipated, and he withdrew from her lips.
"Eric..." She clutched the professor's podium, as if his kiss had wrecked her balance. "Why now?"
"Your costume switcheroo almost finished me."
"Oh, God, I'm sorry. I just wanted a chance to win something—"
"It's okay. It's okay." He brushed a thick strand of hair from her face. "I ran to the bathroom, and I was about to do the deed. Then I found Fez behind a closed stall. I heard him, Donna. He's done, and I..." He leaned in and kissed her again. " Won. Me, your boyfriend, outlasted everyone."
"Congratulations." Her fingertips caressed the nape of his neck, but something in her tone struck him wrong. Before he could question her, though, she pushed her mouth so thoroughly into his that all doubts were forgotten.
The PA speaker crackled as the very real prospect of sex saturated his thoughts, and the M.C.'s voice burst through the static. "Will all the female contestants please line-up on the stage?"
"Do you want to go?" Eric managed to say against Donna's cheek.
"Hell no."
"Thank God because I am hornier than I've ever been."
"Hearing Fez rub one out turns you on, huh?"
"In this context ... yes. Yes, it does."
He grabbed the hem of her dress, and she let him pull it off her body. She stood before him in a lacy bra and panties, her juiciest parts just waiting to be touched. He unbuttoned the top of his jumpsuit, revealing his undershirt, and her fingers shot out to undo the remaining buttons.
"In third place, please congratulate Jackie Burkhart as Cleopatra!" the M.C. said through the PA system.
"Congrats," Donna said, pressing a kiss into Eric's neck. The jumpsuit was only halfway off his body, and her hands slipped inside his pants and grasped his butt.
The PA speaker crackled again. "Let's have a round of applause for our second-place winner, the glorious peacock, Elise Novak!"
Eric patted Donna's butt as his applause, and she patted his butt in return, laughing. Then she took hold of his jumpsuit and pushed it down to his ankles.
"Huh," she said, eye-level with his underwear, and she brushed her cheek against his bulge. "You are hornier than you've ever been.".
She rose from the floor, and he embraced her. "It's been two lonely weeks," he said "Hard, lonely weeks." His fingertips dipped beneath the band of her bra, but unhooking it was tough. Even after all these years, those fasteners tripped him up.
"In first place," the M.C. said, "and the winner of a gift certificate to Gimbels: Carol Kirkpatrick, the Upside-Down Woman!"
Feedback squealed through the PA speaker, causing Eric and Donna to spring apart. They covered their ears, and Eric shouted,."Damn that Mr. Spock and his microphone mishandling!"
But Donna reached behind herself when sweet silence came over the PA system . Her bra fell to the floor, exposing her breasts.
"Oh, how I've missed the twins." He moved toward them—and her—and stumbled on his jumpsuit. It was bunched around his boots, ensnaring him like a sex-denying net. He frantically kicked himself free, tore off his undershirt, and hurled himself at Donna's body.
She landed on the professor's desk beside the podium. His thumbs eased over her breasts, eliciting gasps from deep inside her, and when his mouth replaced his hands, she pushed her hips against his crotch. But for all his romantic fervor, he wanted to savor this moment.
The desk proved as good a surface as any, allowing them access to each other's most sensitive parts. Donna spared no inch of herself, from the smooth expanse of her skin to the strength of her legs. And when they'd both reached the brink of tolerance, he raised himself on his elbows and looked into her waiting eyes.
"Donna, will you do me the great honor of having sex with me in this classroom?"
She glanced over his shoulder, and he followed gaze to the far red-bricked wall.
"You want to do it there?" he said, and she smiled. "My girl's gotten dirty without me."
They draped their underwear on the podium, which made Donna laugh, and chased each other to the wall. Her back pushed into the bricks. He cushioned her head with his palm, and Alice Cooper's "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" played on the PA system, but Donna's kisses deafened him to all but his heartbeat.
"Are you ready?" he said. His rigid shaft rested against her thigh, throbbing with 1,296,000 seconds' worth of impatience. "Please tell me you're ready." He pulled back his hips. His free hand skimmed her body and settled onto her waist. "Donna?"
"Eric ... wait."
"Shit." He froze in mid-thrust, the tip of his erection achingly close to her entrance. "You didn't stop taking the pill, did you? I don't have my who-am-I-kidding condom on me."
"No. I just..." Her fingertip traced a pattern on his arm, raising gooseflesh. "I have to tell you this."
"Tell me what?" he said, but she didn't speak. "For the love of God, what is it? Things are gonna happen on their own soon."
"There's still someone left in the contest," she said.
"That's impossible. Everyone gave me their money—except for Fez. But his hands were a little busy."
"Someone gave the money to make you think they were out."
His heart was already beating fast, but it pummeled his ribs with newly added dread. "That's—that's cheating."
"It's not," she said. "The honor system was about admitting if you were out. There was no provision for someone saying they were out when they're still in. Whoever did it exploited that loophole."
He backed off from her, eyes focusing on the brick wall. "How do you know?"
She stepped forward, closing the gap between them. "Circumstances were right for them to confess tonight."
"Them? Is it more than one person?" He was gesturing, and his movements grew more frenetic with each word. "Just spit it out. Who's left for me to beat?"
"There's no neutral singular pronoun besides it," she said. "So I have to use them as an alternate. Saying her or him is so clunky—"
"Donna!" His chest hurt, and he tugged on his hair. "Who ... is left ... for me ... to beat?"
She stood only inches away from him now, her body off-limits to him once again. "Isn't it obvious?"
Fez slumped on the open toilet seat, exhausted and sticky from effort. He needed a washcloth—and months to work off the weight he'd gained—but this awful experience had taught him some wisdom: he should never enter contests where masturbation was against the rules.
"It can't be Fez!" Eric said, his voice echoing loudly in the lecture hall.
"No," Donna said, and he shut his eyes. Her naked body was too enticing, and he had to think. "Hyde will be happy about that. You won him forty dollars."
"Hyde..." He closed his eyes tighter. Hyde had claimed he and Jackie were out, that they'd had sex three times last Saturday. But it could've been an elaborate setup. The spilled detergent on the dryer, a ruse. Hyde should've known when Eric would be home that Sunday morning. He would've brought Jackie into his room before then.
Unless they'd planned for Eric to catch them. The condom on the couch had to be part of the ploy.
"That wily, frizzy-haired bastard!" Eric said, opening his eyes. No wonder Hyde had been so hostile toward Kelso last week. His aggression was fueled by abstinent self-denial.
The skirt of Jackie's dress was hiked up past her bellybutton, and her panties were slung over a package of toilet paper. Steven had used his lock pick to open a supply closet. They'd sneaked inside and wasted no time.
Her third-place win in the costume contest was pathetic, but her ire dissolved at the affection Steven gave her body. Her arms had locked around his shoulders, and her thighs were wrapped around his waist as her bare flesh answered his thrusting hips with urgency.
She came fast, cheek nestled in the sweaty crook of his neck. His pounding strokes were losing their rhythm, but his movements coaxed the last remnants of pleasure from her. Her fingers clutched the back of his damp curls. She breathed slow and deep into his skin, but the warmth she usually felt didn't spread from her chest to the rest of her body.
He eased her off his waist but held her close as her feet touched the ground. "I'm starting to think we should do this every week," he said, out of breath and sounding satisfied. "Hell, I'll even go to the damn LOPPS party this Christmas if we—"
"No." She looked up at him and grasped his shirt. It was soaked with both their sweat. "I made a mistake. A big one." The heat between her thighs pulsed from being with him, yet the cold emptiness of their last two breakups seized her heart. "I didn't realize what I was doing, what it would mean."
"Hey, I was kidding about the 'every week' stuff. But you gotta admit what we just did was hot."
She nodded. It was, and if she weren't about to cry, she could've easily done it with him again.
"And last week … man." He was laughing. "We're fuckin' lucky we didn't completely trash Mrs. Forman's laundry shelves."
"I know, baby. I know." Her fingers slid beneath his shirt and splayed on his damp stomach. She found comfort in touching him there, feeling his breath, his laughter. "You seemed to like it so much, and after all the pushing I did before Chicago, I wanted you to remember I could be fun and spontaneous and not serious all the time. Because I'm incredible, Steven—"
"You don't have to tell me." His knuckle caressed her jawline, strengthening the pulse between her thighs—and making the cold hijacking her heart more bitter.
"And you shouldn't need a crutch like these sex games to keep from being bored."
"Who the hell said I was bored?"
"Because if I bore you, this relationship can't work, and I—"
"Jackie, you never bore me, okay?" He cupped her face and drew her in for a kiss. She savored the softness of his lips, the sweetness of his tongue before they left her. "I could keep my dick in you twenty-four hours a day. You think I'd have stuck around for three years if the sex got boring?"
"Then why did you agree to another week of celibacy after we'd lost the contest?"
"'Cause you offered ... crap." His expression grew hard. "Were you testing me? Is that what that shit was?"
"No! It was—" She stared at a fallen mop on the floor. "It was stupid Michael in that towel. It was you and those toys last Christmas. It was me freaking out. I was stupid, Steven." She patted her iced-over heart. "Me."
He raised her chin and pecked her lips. "Happens to the best of us, grasshopper. Including me. You were actin' stupid 'cause I was bein' stupid." He pulled her hand from her chest and rubbed his thumb over her bare ring finger. "Don't think it'll ever get boring with you."
"Steven?"
His thumb stopped moving. He seemed startled by what he'd done, but he clasped her palm to his chest. "When's anything boring with you?" he said.
The warm beating of his heart traveled through her bloodstream. The frost inside her own chest finally thawed, and she giggled. "Even when I talk about my hair?"
"When you're naked and talking about it ... yeah, that works."
He laid thick kisses on her neck and behind her earlobe. Her legs buckled, and a quiet shuddering moan escaped her, but she forced herself into coherent speech."If—if you could be—could be inside me for twenty-four hours a day, does that mean ... oh, God."
His fingertips grazed the skin inside her elbow, one of her most sensitive places. Only he knew about it, and—if fate were kind—only he ever would.
"Steven..." She controlled her breathing. She had to get this question out. "Could you spend time with me that long, too?"
"Can't have one without the other."
"Would you want one without the other?"
He gazed at her, eyes unguarded and piercing. "No."
It wasn't a marriage proposal, but his reassurance was clear: their past wouldn't take him from her. But his next kiss, full of unspoken devotion, promised more.
Their future wouldn't steal him away, either.
Eric crossed his arms over his chest. Without the heat of Donna's body, the lecture hall was quite cold.
"Not Hyde," she said with a smirk. Torturing him like this was apparently fun for her. "Or Jackie. But, backstage, she did tell me they were playing a kinky sex game … which I could've lived without knowing. It was payback, I guess, for telling them about—"
"Kelso?" he said.
"Well..."
"He didn't have sex with that bank teller, did he?"
"He made it up to save face."
"Damn it!" Eric staggered backward, bumping into a student desk. His body was stuck between fight and flight, his desire for Donna and winning the contest. But he couldn't lose to Kelso. Losing to Fez would've been bad enough, and he slammed his fist into the desk.
Kelso sat on the edge of the stage, tugging on his fake beard. The elastic stretched but didn't break, so he let the beard go, and it snapped straight into his eye. "Ow!"
He kept his painful, tearing eye shut and surveyed the concourse with the other. He'd lost the costume contest to a freaking wolfman. Sure, the costume was great with realistic fur and fangs, but the guy inside it was an uggo. Worse, Tilly had walked off with him.
Kelso grasped his beard again and yanked it. "Why won't you come off, you—" It snapped into his other eye, and he yelped. Great. Now people would think he was crying. Tears leaked onto his cheeks, and he kicked the front of the stage with his heels. "This Halloween sucks."
Donna combed her fingers through her hair, and its shiny red ends fell over her breasts. "It wasn't Kelso," she said, cutting Eric's breath short. "He got out the first day of the contest."
"But you just said—"
"It was Karen Christy."
He cupped his forehead. He'd begun to feel dizzy."Karen Christy was in our contest?"
"Eric, focus. Kelso took your Thor comic with the nudie picture in it. He went back home, and you can guess the rest."
"But that only leaves … no." The lecture hall was spinning, and he gripped the student desk for support. "You?"
Her eyebrows rose, and he lumbered toward her.
"But you lay on our bed naked. Your hands were by your ... and sweat was all over your ... and the panting!"
"I knew when you you'd get home from the movie," she said. "You've only seen it, like, ten times."
"What about the candles?"
"I burned them to make you think I'd made a night of it. Believe me, Eric, I almost did. But doing push-ups took the edge off. They also made me look the part." She flexed her too-sexy arm. "You should feel my biceps. I haven't been this jacked-up since JV wrestling."
The room continued to spin, but he found purchase in Donna's hips. His fingers dug into them as his heart throbbed in his throat. "B-b-but you gave me your fifty dollars!"
"Hello, I was trying to convince you I was out."
He swallowed, but his heart refused to sink back down. A breeze swept beneath the double doors, freezing the lecture hall, making him shiver. Or maybe the chill was inside his own mind.
Donna dragged her palms along his arms and over his shoulders, and now he wanted her again. But he'd never have her—oh, God, he'd never have her.
"Are you scared?" she said, and he nodded helplessly. "Happy Halloween."
He mouthed the first word, "Happy..." and swallowed again. This time, his heart sank to its proper place, and fresh lungfuls of air brought clarity. He'd asked for this torment, to be scared shitless for Halloween, and she'd given it to him.
He thanked her with his eyes, and hers invited him to end this contest. Without ceremony, he buried himself deeply, tenderly, inside her. She let out a small gasp, and they clung to each other, rediscovering their specific, special rhythm.
Soon, they were laughing against the brick wall, having both climaxed. Neither admitted who'd come first, and they promised they never would. Because in their mutual secrecy, they'd agreed to lose the contest to each other … and to win it.
