Candy in the Sack Read online

  “No,” said Sherri from behind a green, warted and hook-nosed witch’s mask. “I put a spell on them. Frogs don’t look at the clock.”

  The drizzling rain had stopped a while ago. Moonlight, falling past fragmented clouds, silvered the empty wet street. “I thought,” said Bryan, “that you were supposed to be in Milwaukee by now.” He set the poker down in the corner beside the door.

  “That’s somebody else you’re talking about.” A few last drops of rain spotted the shoulders of the black cloak the witch wore. “While she’s away, I’m here on an errand of occult importance.”

  “Really?” Bryan raised an eyebrow. “Sounds heavy. Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”

  “All depends, pal.”

  “On what?”

  The grinning green mask didn’t change expression as the witch shrugged. “On your definition of good and bad. When I’m a good witch, I’m very, very good; but when I’m a bad witch, I’m even better.”

  “Har har. I’ve heard that one before.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll just have to show you.” The black cloak rustled and parted. “How’s that for starters?”

  “Not bad.” Seeing his wife stark naked, except for a pair of black pumps with three-inch heels, was always a pleasure.

  The dark backdrop of the cloak made her skin seem luminous, as though lit from within. “That’s the kind of thing that could bring witchcraft back into style.”

  “It’s never gone out,” said the witch with Sherri’s voice. “Give a witch a little privacy, and I’ll show you.”

  Bryan reached beside the door and turned off the porch light. “How’s that?”

  “You won’t be sorry.” The witch knelt down in front of him. “That’s a promise.”

  He could still hear the television murmuring from somewhere far behind him, as though the house’s living room had been picked up and relocated to another time zone. The little noises of the night outside, an almost imperceptible wind sighing past leafless branches, seemed realer and closer to him. He rested his hands on the witch’s bare shoulders and tilted his head back. From underneath his partially lowered eyelids, he could see that the cloak had slipped away and lay in an even darker shape around her like the petals of a night-blooming flower. Her nakedness was the center of that blossom.

  A grinning face looked up at him. The green mask lay on the folds of the cloak, where the witch had tossed it. Now, the mask’s eyes were empty and just as dark, no longer colored blue the way Sherri’s eyes were.

  The night air touched the base of his stomach as the witch undid the fly of his trousers. Her hands rounded Bryan’s hips on either side, fingers sliding first beneath the waistband and then the elastic of Bryan’s shorts. The sharper edges of her fingernails drew a line down the exact center of each buttock, as she used the lower edges of her wrists to drag down his clothing.

  Once past his butt, his trousers and under shorts fell easily past his knees, landing around his ankles. On the front porch, now lit only by moonlight and a few bright points of stars, the witch drew her right hand back, with her other hand still holding from behind and pulling him closer to herself. She slid her hand between his legs, palm upward, cupping the blood-hot and tightening sac of his flesh.

  “Does that feel good?” The teasing laughter ebbed from her voice leaving only a whisper.

  “Very.” His hands had moved upward from her naked shoulders to the sides of her head, fingers running through the silk of her hair. “You know it does . . .”

  “How about this?” The edges of her fingernails slid along his groin as she drew her hand back once more.

  He said nothing; he couldn’t. Through his clenched teeth, he drew a deep breath, turning his head to one side. A couple of houses down the street, the last light in any of the windows disappeared. He and Sherri were alone out here, as though the entire world had gone to bed and fallen asleep.

  Her words stopped for the moment as well, though her tongue still had more to say. Her hand settled around the base of his erect flesh, circling the rigid shaft and holding it tight. She didn’t need to lift it toward her parted lips; it seemed to strain of its accord toward that opening. Bryan could look down and see the fringe of her lashes against her cheeks, her eyes closed, her breath coming faster to match her pulse. The wet red tip of her tongue ran a couple of inches along the underside of the hard flesh that she grasped, then circled along the curved crest of its head.

  “You see?” She had pulled away from him for a moment, while still holding on to him with one hand. “I do have occult powers . . .” She nuzzled the captive flesh with the side of her face, while gazing up at him through her lowered eyelashes. “Don’t I?”

  “I knew that . . . already . . .”

  “It gets better.”

  He closed his eyes and felt the warm, wet sensation of her taking him inside her mouth. The underside of the shaft slid along the softly textured velvet of her tongue. The head, swollen and almost painful now, touched the roof of her mouth, just behind her teeth; the taut skin’s contact with those edges was like invisible electricity sparking through the clenched muscles of his buttocks and into the base of his spine. Between his shoulder blades and up into his skull, the hot charge rolled, blanking out every conscious thought.

  Even with his eyes closed, he could see the night s stars and the shadowed horizon. Nothing spoke inside his head all words were gone but memory opened relentless. There had been another time when Sherri had taken him like this, deep inside her mouth, her skin and his exposed to the night. On a camping trip in the Sierras, far away and secluded from anyone else, with the dying embers of their fire the only illumination and warmth. And now as before, thinking was replaced with pure sensation and a jumble of images inside his head. He held her close against himself, his hands tangled now in her hair, feeling as if the earth’s equator had somehow shifted to the ground between her knees. The stars wheeled above his head, useless night clouds scattering behind the earth’s relentless forward motion, guided by the merest touch of his fingertips at the back of his wife’s neck.

  Crazy things; but he didn’t care. She drew him farther into her mouth, the point of her tongue curling beneath the flesh thrusting toward her throat. Another image welled up into his mind that he recognized from before; not imagination, but memory, from when he had been a kid. He had wandered away from his family — they had been on vacation far from home—at a zoo that had seemed as big as a city, smelling of hot Californian sunshine beating down on dusty eucalyptus leaves. He had found himself at the enclosure for the Indian tigers, gazing across a concrete moat and into the gem-like golden eyes of the alpha male, draped regally along a stone ledge, its tail lazily thrashing the air. The tiger had gazed back at him in haughty supremacy until it had yawned and gathered itself to its feet, then dove with huge paws outstretched, the impact of its chest sending water surging up and beyond the basin’s limit, like some tidal surge . . .

  The remembered image brought the contact between himself and Sherri perilously close to the finish from which he had been restraining himself, his buttocks clenched hard, enough to begin dully aching from the tension. She might not have complained if that had happenedit might even be what she wanted — but he didn’t want the action to stop. Not until other things happened, where he would be in control and she would be as helpless beneath a pleasuring onslaught as she had made him now.

  He brought his hands down to her shoulders, but he didn’t need to push her away from himself. A small startled gasp escaped her and she jerked back as two beams of light quickly swept across her and Bryan.

  The night’s darkness returned as quickly. With Sherri clinging around his legs, he looked out past the slop of the leaf-strewn yard and sidewalk; a car he didn’t recognize completed its turn in the cul-de-sac and continued on, down the way it had come. The sound of its engine disappeared somewhere beyond the silhouettes of unlit houses.

  “Who did you think it was?” Bryan smiled as he stroked his wif
e’s hair. “Witch hunters?”

  “Kinda startled me.” Chagrin tinged Sherri’s voice. She laid the side of her face against his thigh. “That’s all.”

  “Just somebody who got lost. No big deal.” He reached down and too her by the elbows, and raised her up to her feet. “Then again, if a house goes up for a sale on this block, they might come back and buy it. They’ll probably think it’s a friendly neighborhood.”

  “I’m freezing my ass off out here,” announced Sherri.

  He had to disentangle his own feet from his underwear and trousers, before he could lead her inside the house. She caught his hand as he reached to close the door behind them.

  “No . . . don’t,” she said. “Leave it open. I like to have the moon watching us.” She nodded toward the couch. “Just bring me the comforter.”

  “Sure.” He padded over to the couch and brought back the small blanket-like item, for which she had crocheted the squares, years ago when they first moved into the house. He draped it about her shoulders. “You look good in moonlight.”

  “Good enough to finish what we got started?”

  He didn t have to answer her not in words at least. In the open doorway, with the moon watching, he laid her down upon her back. She brought her knees up and pressed them tight against his hips; her arms reached up and around his neck, and he set to work.

  A clockless time later, with the comforter wrapped around both of them, they gazed out the open doorway at the stars that had moved above the horizon, to replace the ones that had been there when they had started. “You know,” said Bryan, “I really did think you were supposed to be in Milwaukee right now.”

  Sherri lazily opened her eyes. “I have other occult powers.” She smiled. “Like the mystic ability to call up the rest of the marketing committee and shift the meeting to next weekend.” She moved closer to his side, reaching up and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Just for you.”

  He didn’t say anything. A crick was starting to set into his lower back, courtesy of the hardwood floor. Outside on the front porch, the empty witch mask continued to turn its gap-toothed grin toward the night sky.

  “Though I suppose,” said Sherri, “this really doesn’t help. I mean, about there not being any trick-or-treaters anymore. Real trick-or-treaters, that is.”

  “Maybe.” His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Maybe not.” He felt calm and philosophical, no longer troubled by the world’s inadequacies. “You know, when things die out . . . like traditions and stuff . . . like kids going out trick-or-treating . . . sometimes they come back.” He nodded slowly, his stubbly chin catching at his wife’s golden hair. “We could bring it back. You know, raise a new breed of trick-or-treaters. Send ’em out into the world in their cut-up bed sheets and ballerina costumes. Ringing doorbells and demanding candy or else.” His nod became more decisive. “It’s worth a shot.”

  “A new breed, huh?” She turned toward him, breasts against his chest. She touched the tip of his nose with one finger. “Now that,” said Sherri, “is a project worth working on.”

  “I thought you’d like it,” said Bryan. “We’d better get to bed then, and get some sleep.” He raised his head to kiss her, then regarded her with a smile. “We’ll start in the morning.”

  Also by K. W. Jeter

  The Kingdom of Shadows

  The Kim Oh Thrillers:

  Kim Oh 1: Real Dangerous Girl

  Kim Oh 2: Real Dangerous Job

  Kim Oh 3: Real Dangerous People

  . . . and more to come

  Farewell Horizontal

  Noir

  Wolf Flow

  The Night Man

  In the Land of the Dead

  Death Arms

  Mantis

  Dark Seeker

  Infernal Devices

  The Glass Hammer

  Dr. Adder

  Soul Eater

  Morlock Night

  The Dreamfields

  Seeklight

  Please visit the Author’s website at www.kwjeter.com.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Start

  Note

  Candy in the Sack

  Also by K. W. Jeter