The Flame (5 page)

He had trouble putting a name to it, which was a shame, because he knew if he could name it, he’d be able to dismiss it, and if he could dismiss it, everything would be simpler. But there was no forgetting the way it made him feel; rock hard in his briefs, so hard he wanted to reach down and adjust himself—he couldn’t; the back of his neck so hot suddenly he thought he might have moved into direct sunlight without realizing it—he hadn’t. And then there was that delicious, anticipatory pressure in his temples, like a head massage from a guardian angel, the same anticipatory pressure he feels whenever Cassidy whispers something naughty in his ear during a stolen moment at dinner with his colleagues.

Sometimes he compares it to that scene in
Ghostbusters
when they all crossed the streams of their ray guns to defeat the evil spirit living atop that old New York apartment building. Only he was no monster, and the raw hunger their combined gaze filled him with was nothing like defeat. It made him feel powerless, for sure, and helpless before a desire he couldn’t name. But not defeated.

Defeated is how he feels now, as he drip-dries in the cooling air outside the shower stall, willing his cock to go down.

He’s not gay. There's no doubt about that. Sure, there’d been those late nights of sleepover experimentation with Danny Sullivan back in high school. But that was different. They’d been best friends since they were kids. And yes, parts of it had been fun, even hot. Mostly the parts where Danny’s racing heart and shivering body made it clear he’d always wanted to explore Andrew’s body more than he’d let on. In those moments, making Danny happy had made
him
happy, happy enough to get him hard. And keep him hard. And really, how hard was it to get a man hard anyway?

He’d shared all of this with Cassidy during the full-disclosure period of their engagement. When she wasn’t shocked, he was shocked. He was even more shocked when she told him every guy she’d been serious with had eventually admitted to fooling around with another guy at some point in his life. But none of that mattered now. What mattered was that nothing about his late nights with Danny Sullivan had left Andrew with a burning desire for other men. In fact, he couldn’t remember a single moment when he’d laid eyes on a strange man and thought,
Damn, I’d hit that
. But just to be sure, he’s checked out some gay porn sites, studied a few hardcore photos to see if any of them trigger a part of him that’s blossomed over the past few years. Everything he sees there leaves him cold. For starters, there are no women at all, and that’s a big problem, and secondly, none of the guys are Shane. None of the rutting, passionless couples he studied have the combined charge of his wife and her best friend.

It’s simple, really. Or at least it should be.

Shane is the other half of the woman he loves more than anything in the world. When he was younger, this fact used to make him insanely jealous. Now it fills him with hunger. Because now he’s almost as close with Shane as he is with his own wife, except for the part where they…

How could he
not
feel something for the—

Andrew slams both palms down on the side of the counter, hard enough to knock a bottle of contact lens solution onto its side.

Get in the goddamn pool before you rub one out in the bathroom like some horny teenager.

4

CASSIDY

The bench looks the same, perhaps a bit lonelier given there isn’t a party in full swing nearby.

Cassidy is surprised her fevered memories didn’t exaggerate its slender design or its cast-iron frame. It’s in the same spot, beneath the spreading branches of a massive oak, hemmed in by a small perimeter of banana trees sprinkled with uplights. String lights from the party still wrap the oak tree’s branches overhead, but they’re turned off and probably have been since the event.

The few floors she can see of the condo high-rise next door are dark. A streetcar lumbers by on St. Charles Avenue, its clatter muffled by curtains of foliage. There are scrapes and rustles from the plants nearby, but the loudest sound she hears is the sound of her own breathing as she tugs a matchbook from her pocket.

The candle rests on the flagstones at her feet. She’s taken care to stuff the tissue paper back inside the bag and set it aside. She’s about to light the match when another thought hits her and suddenly she’s pulling her phone from her pocket and setting it on the bench beside her. Now that she’s done it, she’s not exactly sure why. Maybe she fears the candle will poison her; a few less inches between her and 911 might mean the difference between life and death. It did nothing of the kind while it burned inside Bastian Drake’s shop. But this is different. Now she’s poised to obey the instructions written on the candle’s tiny card; she’s going to light the thing at the scene of her greatest desire. Who knows what will follow? The whole thing could be a terrible trick.

Maybe, but how much help could dialing 911 be if it is?

Enough stalling.

The match doesn’t light after three strikes.

A little act of self-sabotage, she thinks, bringing a matchbook instead of a cigarette lighter. Then the match lights suddenly. Before she realizes what she’s done, she’s brought the flame to the candle’s wick and shaken the match out with one hand.

She sits back, preparing herself for—she’s not sure what exactly. Perhaps a stronger tide of the candle’s intoxicating scents?

But what comes next is something else entirely.

At first, she assumes a cloud of delicate, luminescent insects have flown into the halo of the candle’s growing flame, circling like lazy moths. But the candle’s surface also glitters and glows. The wax looks like a piece of thin mesh stretched over a puddle of hot lava. And the swirl of particles above are fed by little sparkling flecks that drift up into the air, determined embers driven by an impossible, upward wind.

The smell hits her next, far more powerfully than what she experienced in Bastian Drake’s shop. She is instantly, fiercely moist. A great wave of pressure has forced her back against the bench. But with this pressure comes pleasure as well, coursing through her with such intensity—it feels as if several sets of hands are caressing her, massaging her body from head to toe. Her nipples are aflame. She can hear herself laughing, the kind of high-pitched, nervous laughter that usually rips from her when Andrew surprises her in the shower with a forceful tongue and a throbbing erection.

As she catches her breath, she sees the golden column above the candle’s flame. It towers over her now, at least seven or eight feet tall. Its celestial light bathes the undersides of the thick oak branches above. The glittering particles swirling madly through the body of the column take on distinct shapes.

Bare shoulders, the napes of necks, faces turned away from her—three apparitions appear inside the candle’s impossible golden halo, each one worshiping the tiny flame below. As they gain definition, they rise higher toward the branches above, sloughing off more sparkling tendrils.

Their naked backs are turned to her as they spin. Cassidy sees a woman and two men, their heads bowed, their foreheads practically touching, as if they’re all staring down at the candle that gave them impossible life. It looks as if they’ve been placed on a hovering, spinning dais composed of the candle’s smoke and light. They rise higher into the air, growing in size beyond any proportion that could be called human.

Then, some threshold is crossed. Suddenly all three figures lift their heads and gaze into each other’s eyes. But there is only a deeper shade of gold beneath their eyelids. And while their expressions are serene, the display should be terrifying, this sudden life force that courses through figures that were mere silhouettes just seconds before. But the woman in the trio doesn’t look like Cassidy at all, and for some reason Cassidy is too startled by this fact to be afraid. The two men don’t look like Andrew and Shane either. She doesn’t recognize their faces at all.

Both men peel away from the column before Cassidy can study them further. They lose their human shape, columns of glittering gold, rocketing skyward, the branches slicing through them as they ascend.

Cassidy is alone with the remaining sprit. Almost as tall as the oak branches overhead now, the woman has tuned her placid smile and glittering gold eyes on the bench—and on Cassidy. If it wasn’t for that peaceful, welcoming expression, if it wasn’t for the warm and welcoming color of her impossible form, Cassidy would be terrified of this…
ghost? Spirit? Angel? What is it?
Who
is it?

Cassidy has no time to decide. Suddenly, the ghostly woman’s face collapses. Her body becomes a single sheet of glittering gold that crashes silently over Cassidy’s body like snow in a downdraft. A shuddering orgasm that’s been building in her since she first lit the candle explodes inside of Cassidy. She hears her ecstatic cries as if from a distance.

When the darkness returns, it feels as if a blanket has been drawn around her. In contrast to the blinding wash of gold, the garden’s ordinary shadows suddenly feel like a jarring supernatural event.

Cassidy shudders and gasps. It feels as if the woman’s spirit moved right through Cassidy from her toes to her head, gently dragging her fingertips along every pleasure center in Cassidy’s body during the trip.

A stab of guilt tries to pierce the layers of bliss, but fails. An orgasm without her husband? It’s not like she was truly alone. Not really. Two other spirits just rocketed skyward, very much like the one that has left her thighs in spasms. But she knows right where they’re headed; she’s sure. Or
who
they’re headed for. The idea that Shane and Andrew may soon share in this intense, ethereal delight fills her with joy. Not just joy, but also a wild and unrestrained hunger for them both.

5

ANDREW

With each stroke, Andrew hopes Cassidy will return home before he exhausts himself. When she does, he’ll pull her into the pool by one arm, peel her wet blouse from her breasts with his teeth, grip her hips and squeeze just a little so that her back will arch and her sex will rise up toward him through the bathtub warm water.

In the meantime, he risks temptation swimming in the nude like this. Each time his bare ass breaks the surface, each time water rushes across his cock and balls when he turns off one wall, he’s tempted to seize his erection in one iron-fisted grip and finish himself off. But he’s saved himself for his wife every night since the incident. It feels like the right thing to do. But it wasn’t easy. Especially during long days at the office, when the memory of her gasps as Shane devoured her neck would have him eyeing the only private bathroom at the office to see if he could steal a few minutes of self-release.

Not then, not now.
Save it up, mister. Stroke. Breathe. Stroke. Breathe. Find another word for stroke. Breathe. Find another word for stroke, seriously. Now.

 Their swimming pool is a long, slender rectangle that takes up most of their backyard. To keep the neighbors from getting an eyeful, he left the pool light off. Same story with the row of gas lanterns along the brick wall that hides the neighbor’s house.

He installed the lanterns himself, which required him to learn more about gas-powered fixtures than he thought it was possible to know. So when the lantern closest to him pops to life like a miniature Olympic torch, the wrongness of the sound halts Andrew in mid-stroke.

They don’t come on one at a time. That’s not how they work. You hit the switch, and then you wait a few seconds while clicking sounds indicate that gas is being fed down the length of the line. Then all four lanterns flicker to life, gently, sometimes so weakly it looks like they’re not going to catch. Never one by one, never with a loud, obtrusive
pop
.

But it happens again. And again. And again, until all four lanterns are lit. An impenetrable radiance fills the glass chambers of each lantern. He can’t see the tiny gas flames anymore, just a bright halo of yellow. Fingers of bright gold have emerged from each lantern. They rise snakelike through the night air before converging at the end of the swimming pool, just above the steps to the shallow end. Their movement is steady, determined, unswayed by the humid breezes rippling the pool’s surface. Treading water, his rasping breaths the loudest sound in the entire yard, Andrew watches as the glistening, gold tendrils of material he doesn’t have a name for form the vague outline of a…
ghost
?

But ghosts are not made of gold.

They’re also not real, jackass.

Then the smell hits him and Andrew Burke thinks,
I’m dying. That’s it.
And then he thinks,
Dying smells incredible, like every delicious scent I’ve ever discovered on my wife’s body, the floral notes of her perfume mingling with the scent of her juices, a combination of lilac—and candle wax.

The figure standing at the edge of the swimming pool is not human. Human beings aren’t hollow. When they open their eyes, you see pupils and irises, not golden sclera. It’s a
he
, for sure, with handsome, defined facial features, but the rest of his identity is a mystery, and wondering about his identity seems insane given that he doesn’t have a real body, just a glittering, shifting suggestion of one.

The figure goes down on one knee, lowers one glittering finger toward the surface of the water. But his face is angled upward. Andrew realizes this spirit, this golden ghost, is staring at him expectantly.

“What are you?” Andrew whispers.

He’s answered by another burst of intoxicating scents. Only now there’s a new smell—it’s vaguely sandalwood, earthy. It’s Shane. It’s both of them, essences of Cassidy and Shane entwined in this impossible bouquet. It washes over him with invisible, overpowering force. The shimmering figure is still down on one knee. One glittering finger, shedding tiny particles of bright gold like delicate embers, still hovers just above the pool’s surface.