I was ambivalent about going to the party on Saturday night. First of all it was a Halloween party and I wasn't much up for that this year for some reason and second of all my wife had invited her sister to go with us and then got sick and she couldn't go. She insisted that her sister and I go anyway and all in all I really just wasn't up for it.
I did a half-assed attempt as dressing up as Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. Patti, my sister-in-law, showed up at the house about 7:00 and I have to say was absolutely decked out dressed up as Brittany Spears. It was an uncanny likeness and to put it mildly she was smoking hot. My wife saw the look on my face and cautioned us tongue in cheek not to do anything that she wouldn't do. She really didn't look well and brushed us off with the back of her hand as she went upstairs to go back to bed.
Patti and I headed out into a very cool October night on our way to what was promoted as the party of the year. The harvest moon was glowing with an orange color over the horizon. I wasn't convinced, but was trying to keep an open mind about the whole thing.
The party was at a friend of a friend's house in a nicer section of town. When we arrived the outside of the house was adorned with ghoulish decorations and shadowy lighting, which actually started to make me smile a bit reminding of when I was a kid. I finally felt like maybe the evening wasn't going to be a complete waste.
The inside of the house was decorated from top to bottom in Halloween dΓ©cor and it was obvious that the party had been going for a while for some of the guests. The music was playing on the loud side, the drinks were flowing freely and a good number of people were dancing as others were just mingling around the grounds enjoying each other's company. There were a few people in regular dress, but most everyone had done a good job of getting costumes that were great for the occasion.
Patti and I got a few drinks and I started to loosen up a bit -- as did she. I started to notice again how hot she looked and asked her if she wanted to dance. We hit the dance floor for a while and were really getting into it for a bit just having a good time. A few drinks and dances later my attitude had finally worn off and I was having a great time with Patti and some other friends we knew that were there. We wandered back and forth from the patio by the pool to the bar to the dance floor just enjoying the evening.
It was some time later that I noticed you walking on the other side of the room. You were dressed up as Cat Woman with that smooth, shiny, soft-leather, skin-tight outfit. Sleek with the full mask -- only your eyes and your chin showing. You were slowly moving from one person to another, gently rubbing up against them as you moved along as though your were hoping to get petted on the way. It struck me as a rather odd and curious way to be. You didn't seem to be paying much serious attention to anyone, just walking up, stopping, leaning into them and then slowly rubbing yourself up their body; well, like a cat, before moving on to the next person. I remember thinking you were very hot, moving with some deliberate objective that was not obvious to the rest of us. I recall being attracted to the way you moved your body and the look about you.
I glanced back and forth over the course of the next 30 minutes or so sometimes catching a glimpse of you and sometimes not seeing you at all. While I was talking to a few friends I suddenly felt someone rubbing up against me and as I turned your face rose up along side the left of my body...your index finger rubbing up the inside of my left leg and up my butt to the lower side of my back. You turned to face directly toward me and I noticed how red the lipstick that you were wearing was. I couldn't help but think that your lips surrounded by the black leather looked eerily like the lips on the opening scene of the Rocky Horror Picture Show...how wonderful I thought to have that look on Halloween night. You sauntered off as quickly as you had arrived to apparently work some other part of the room. I'm not sure anyone else was watching you as intently as I was, but I have to say that I was completely intrigued. Patti noticed my interest and gently gave me a look of don't even go there big boy.
I'm not sure how much time had passed. Patti was off enjoying herself and I was watching the crowd as I saw you walking toward me. This time you walked directly up to me with a completely different, confident cadence and stopped about six inches from my face. You took my hand in yours, placed a small envelope in my hand and proceeded to walk away, gently tilting your head downward and back toward me as you disappeared this time with purpose. I put down my drink and looked in my hand and saw a small black envelop about two inches by two inches. I opened it and pulled out the card inside. In script lettering all it said was -- "In Heat." On the back side of the note there was a key taped to it.
I couldn't resist trying to figure out what the key was for, but thought I better go tell Patti that I was going for a walk so she wouldn't be worried about where I was. I ran into her about ten minutes later talking with a guy on the side lawn and told her that I would met her out back in about an hour. I was on a quest to see if I could find you and see what you had in mind. I walked the house and was checking doors to see if they were locked, but none of them were. I probably spent 30 minutes checking doors with no luck. I decided to get another drink and stop looking and just sort of smiled because I had gotten so worked up wondering if it was all just for naught. Was your act and the note just part of the party? If it was it was a great idea and had me going! I noticed I had a wet spot on my pants and laughed at the thoughts that had been running through my mind and the possibility that I had been lured in by the possibilities.
It wasn't until I walked back out by the pool about 10 minutes later that I noticed the pool house off toward the back of the yard. There were two gas lamps burning on each side of the door and I thought to myself, "could this be real? Is the key for that door?" I was feeling half stupid for trying another door and half excited wanting to know. I wandered over that way and with a bit of trepidation tried to turn the handle. It was locked. I felt my heartbeat pick up a bit as I inserted the key and turned the handle to the right as it opened up in front of me. I wasn't quite prepared for what I walked into.
It was dark inside and I could only see some of the decorations that filled the room. It was humid; there were flickers of candlelight, and soft sounds of moaning and groaning. I thought I had just walked into a haunted house. As I closed the door behind me and walked ahead toward the sounds I was brushing off the cobwebs that were dangling from the ceiling and instinctively looked around. Two coffins were on either side of me and I could see the corpses that were lying inside. After a few minutes my eyes started to adjust and I could make out blurred edges of pumpkins, headstones, the fog in the room and a menagerie of assorted items reminiscent of the haunted houses I used to visit as a child. Someone had gone to great lengths to set up this room and it was absolutely awesome.
As I rounded the next corner I came upon a skull sitting in a lighted recess and then a ghost that jumped out at me from the corner. A bit startled I recoiled without thought and smiled all about the same time. My eyes opened wider in response and it was then that I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be several people in front of me about 15 feet away. As I approached I saw two people standing in the twilight facing each other about three feet apart. I then noticed a third sitting in a chair off to my right. It wasn't for another several seconds that I noticed a silhouette on the floor directly in front of me. It was just then that I started to differentiate some of the moans coming from the people in front of me from the background noises coming from the props that surrounded us.