There were so many options open to us – we'd done this before. I liked singing because people would search for me, unable to see me slip by them but hearing my voice so close and clearly. I liked laughing too. It helped to think about Thadeus chasing a pen-light for eruptions of laughter. Tate, on the other hand liked showing up and appearing normal, telling horror stories and encouraging people into the basement or any room we could paint a bloody scene. We had fought before, crashing into new ornaments and being hauled out of the front of the house by force, only to be at the back of the house again, invisible.
Once, Ben and Vivien turned up at the door to apologise for us as though we were their kids. I don't know why they bothered; they partook in the ejection of those tenants too. So this time we made sure they knew we were not somebody's kids.
The Kitchen, with the biggest knife, the second day of their arrival.
"Don't do this to me!" I shrieked, backing up from him in a panic. It wasn't hard to act out – nobody likes dying.
"Stop running away from me! You'll pay for what you did!" he growled.
"Don't do this! I didn't do anything wrong!"
"You bastardized everything that means something to me!"
"You're sick! You don't know what you're talking about."
And then the audience arrived. The wife, the husband, the readiness to tell us both to get out of their house until they saw the knife and tried to protect me. I ran to them for defence like they could provide it.
"I'm calling the cops." Husband says.
"Take it easy." Says the wife.
Then Tate breaks down and leans on the kitchen counter, knife resting limp under his palm. They approach cautiously and take the knife from him, comforting him. I wait until he's exposed and thrust my arm between the gap in the homeowners, my own knife in my hand, and plunge it into Tate's guts.
I've never done that before: driven a blade into him... or anyone else. Even dead I felt every sinew of his being tear and part. I got excited. So much so I had to laugh it out. There was no other choice. They turned to me and I backed to the hall, hand over my hysterical mouth. They ran for the phone. Tate appeared before them and the blood disappeared from their faces.
"Who are you trying to call?" he asked menacingly. Even I was a little scared.
She screamed: he froze. They left in an hour, Tate remained by the phone in case they tried to go near it, my laughter accompanied by nothing, but getting louder when they tried to use their mobile phones. They put them down obediently. We had the place to ourselves furnished. In our joy we decided to party, drinking her wine, smoking his cigars, playing their crap music loud and waiting to see who would appear from our miserable ghost family. No one did and for the first time I felt like we were really alone.
In what was once Tate's room, a bed was ready for guests that were now never to visit. We sat on it, drunk and giggling madly.
"I died in here." He said soberly.
"You did?" He had never shared that with me.
"For the life of me I can't remember it."
Ah, bad puns. I grinned amusedly and carried on the conversation,
"Why not?"
"I think I was high."
"Were you into that?"
"I think so. It's all pretty shit when I think back so I don't really do it. I like to think about Violet and you."
"Me? I thought you were too hung up on Violet to see past her."
"I miss her. A lot."
"I can see why; she's pretty cool."
"Does she ever talk about me?"
"I'm too afraid to ask. She's cagey about it now."
"What do you mean now?"
"She might have told me, had I not told her I'm not really interested in shunning people for eternity. We've got a long time ahead of us and I don't want to make it harder on myself."
"I hate that you do that."
"Do what?"
"That you're so cool."
"Cool?"
" You just... you make everything seem... weightless. Like it doesn't really matter if you don't want it to."
"What don't you want to matter?" I asked, drinking more, feeling it warm my insides as he ventured deeper into the truth with his words. I was savouring it before Christmas.
"Right now I wish I was okay with kissing you. But I love Violet."
I went cold fast. With fear or anticipation, I'm not sure, but I was struck in any case. I couldn't remain in denial. I tried, believe me, but so many things happened to me after he said those words – physically and emotionally – I was pretty helpless.
"I know." I added coolly, hiding my flood of reality well, "So be okay with it."
"What?"
"It won't stop you loving her, will it?"
"I don't know if I'm okay with this."
"Okay: I'm backing off now. Offer's there though."
He stood up and fidgeted. "How do you do that?"
He tried to sound angry but smiled.
"Shut up Tate and pick a path. Kiss me now, kiss me later, or kiss me never. Just stop fucking me about."
Surprised by my emotional outburst, I poured the last of the wine down my neck. I had to tilt my head back for a distance that cut him from my sight. When I returned my chin to a relaxed angle he was leaning over me, his lips parted as if waiting instruction, his legs astride mine and his arms around me in an arch, holding him up.
I didn't wait. I tested the water and pressed my lips gently to his. I groped with my heightened senses for the presence of others in the house but I found none. Maybe my drunk brain was killing my abilities. Still, I felt secure and secluded and forgot about everyone else as Tate's mouth moved with mine.
I dropped the bottle and he had already set the cigar aside. The smoke had filled the air and I felt comforted by the scent it carried. My hands moved over Tate's neck, across his back, as his moved over my chest, my waist, my legs. I obeyed as his knees moved between mine, moving forward forcefully so I straddled him where I lay. His hands fumbled with my jeans button for only a moment and his hand slipped expertly behind all garments. I sighed contentedly.
His lips made a trail of soft kisses over my neck until I couldn't contain the shivers of pleasure any longer. I tugged at his shirt and he sat up to pull it from himself.
Nom.
I straightened my back and lifted myself from the bed, still straddled around his legs. He reached for my top, pulling it from me and casting it aside. I couldn't feel cold in death so it wasn't the temperature that brought tips to my breasts through my bra. Thank God I died in a good bra. Once that was cast off as well, he leaned down to kiss me, and I arched my back like I was some kind of offering.
There was certain sense of detachment from it all. His hands firmly but gracefully moved over my skin and I reacted physically to it but emotionally... Well I felt different. I felt more like a smug predator than a lover.
Moreover I liked it.
Tate sighed as I pushed him back, neither of us dressed any longer, onto the bad and lowered myself on top of him. He couldn't wait until I was all the way down and thrust his hips up at me, his hands almost clawing my thighs and forcing me onto him. I moaned; a low rumbling sound that vibrated in my belly comfortingly. I moved against him, absently gracing my own skin, feeling how sensitive I was to touch alone with a tentative curiosity.
We picked up the pace and I leaned over him now, my breath in his ear making him writhe and sigh. He pressed his cheek against my neck and sucked my shoulder, nipping and biting devilishly. Heat rose within me, catching me off-guard and my muscles began to shudder. I knew Tate felt it too and he increased our pace slightly. I struggled to move with him, and he held me against him, in place as I gasped and he moaned until I pressed my fingers into his shoulders. I held on to him as I was wracked with pleasure. Time seemed to stand still.
I wondered if things would change afterwards. Of course, they did not. In that house, life is not fluid and unpredictable. It is rigid and repetitive. I remained a spectator, suspected by all those around me for it got harder to care about them knowing my power. As a ghost, though, power is only as frightening as pain. Some of them, like Tate and Boh, respected and disregarded my power. We got along. Others shied away from me. The cycles repeated, and I began to think we were in fact shades of our living selves; I was my murderous self, I realised. Such violence and horror filled my ghostly veins as it had filled my living veins. I had forgotten my rage. Hidden it. Now it was free, and yet trapped in that damn house for eternity. It's the only ending we, the ghosts of Murder House, had.