It Could Have Been Anyone

It Could Have Been Anyone - Her Story

*

"How much longer will you be?" Ben yelled through the door.

"You can't rush perfection!" Alicia answered. Draw an X through the line around her wrist for a stitch, another one, another one, almost finished...

"Can you at least tell me which one you're wearing?"

"I already told you, it's a surprise!" A different, thinner makeup pen, to make an outline around each corner of each X to give them the illusion of depth...

"Honey?" he called. "I thought you were wearing one of the costumes I got, but they're both in here!"

"I never said that!" she replied. "I said I still had to decide, and I decided on something else!"

"But you said we could match!" he jiggled the bathroom doorknob. Good thing she had locked it.

"No, I said it might be nice if we could match! Now leave me alone! I'll be ready when I'm ready!" The thin makeup pen again, making her cheekbones a darker blue...

It was time for the eyes. The white circles around the eyes from her eyebrows to her cheeks were easy. The eyelids themselves would be the hardest part. She used an eyelash plucker to hold her eyelids steady so she could paint them white, one after the other, and then put a black dot in the middle of each, one after the other.

Finally she put the makeup pens down, put the wig on, and studied herself. She was blue everywhere below her panties and above her bra. On her elbows, wrists, collar, cheeks, and legs - basically everywhere that wouldn't be covered by her dress - she had drawn stitches, as if she were Frankenstein's monster sewn together from scraps, or a doll.

She held one eye shut and then the other to check her work on them. She had painted white circles with black outlines around each eye the size of tennis balls, made her eyebrows white as well, and drawn eyelashes on her forehead above the circles. Then she closed her eyes and took a picture of herself with her phone. When her eyes were shut, it was as if the huge, cartoonish white circles were her eyes instead.

She wiggled into her dress very carefully to minimize smudging. Like her skin, it had a patchwork pattern. Unlike her skin, it was four different colors instead of just one: lavender on the left breast, yellow on the right breast and left sleeve, bluish green on the right sleeve and right midsection, and a mix of stripes and spots from the hips down. The dress had pockets, which were hidden by the patchwork pattern.

She shifted her weight and frowned; the skirt was mostly at her knees, but it had a ragged fringe, and she hadn't realized how high some of the fringes ran.

Oh well. It's a costume, after all

.

She stepped back, checked her work out from every angle she could see for one last time, took a deep breath, and called out, "OK, I'm coming." She stepped out of the bathroom and turned right, looking for him in the living room.

"Raggedy Ann?" Ben asked from the bedroom behind her. She heard him and turned, giving him a better look, and he continued, "No, wait... Sally?"

"From

The Nightmare Before Christmas

!" she said nervously. "What do you think?"

"It's cool," he said.

"Thanks. Yours is too," she replied, touching his chest and shoulder armor as she studied it for the first time. She had expected it to be the typical nylon sort of cloth used in cheap Halloween costumes, but it wasn't. Black spandex held together armor that highlighted his pecs, abs, and biceps. The armor plates were rigid plastic of some kind, not cloth padding, and loosely connected. She knew he was lean and wiry, but the armor made him look like a comic book superhero. The bat symbol on his chest helped with that, as did the armored mask.

"I just wanted something a little more unique," she said apologetically. "You know, hand-made."

He scoffed, "You think this isn't unique? Do you know how long it took to 3D print all this?" You know, the utility belt is functional?"

He snapped his fingers. "You can't even see me raising my eyebrows at you because I blacked out my eye holes! Just like in

The Dark Knight

!"

She quirked her lips. "Yes, good job, I'm very impressed by your makeup skill."

She thought he got the message. She took advantage of his silence to get one more barb in. "Anyways, admit it, you just wanted me to dress up as a supervillain to show more skin."

"Hey, that's not fair! I would have been happy if you had gone as Catwoman, Wonder Woman... there are some good Robin costumes you could have worn..." he protested, but he couldn't keep a straight face all the way through that.

"Very funny," she said dryly, one hand on his chest as they spoke. She could almost pretend it was real. She didn't normally like musclebound meatheads, but if it was Ben, it felt different somehow. "Maybe I'll wear a costume in the bedroom with you sometime, but I've always liked this one and I saw a makeup guide I thought I could do really well."

She let him study her for a minute with a nervous smile.

"Mind if I check something?" he asked, and took half a step closer.

"Sure, what?"

He leaned in and gave her his best tender kiss on the lips. Then he laced one hand around her neck, under the wig, gently pulling her to him, and kissed her again, harder, more greedily.

He stepped back, leaving her lips parted, waiting for more. She might have said, "Wow" at that kiss, but he spoke first.

"Nice to know. It's not too smudged."

Alicia's eyes flew open. "Not

too

smudged? It better not be smudged at all!" she pushed past him to the bathroom, turned on the light, checked her makeup. The stitches on her cheeks were indeed smudged.

That jerk

. More blue around the lips, more black to reinforce the stitches and the outline of the lips, one more quick check...

"OK, no more of that until later," she said. She put her hand on his chest as she left the bathroom to keep him a little further away and, she felt guilty admitting, to enjoy his "muscles." She couldn't help smiling when she looked at him. "You might want to clean up too." She wiped her thumb on his lips and showed him a smudge of color.

"Ugh. Sure, I need to use the bathroom anyway."

While he did, she got her purse together and picked out shoes. When he was done, they had the elevator out of their apartment to themselves. He grinned and grabbed her ass at one point, but she swatted his hand away. "You'll smudge it!" she chuckled.

It was a short wait for the Uber. Alicia got in carefully. Her skirt rode up in the process and she hid a smile when she noticed the driver adjusting his mirror.

"So how do you know Gene, anyway?" she asked shortly after they started.

"Well, his younger brother Zach was my best friend growing up, from kindergarten on. I don't even remember not knowing him," Ben began. "Gene's three years older and was always torturing us, or vice versa, it's hard to say at that age. But anyways, I saw less and less of Zach in high school. We grew apart. He got onto the basketball team and I didn't even try out that sort of thing."

"But when I moved down here, my parents told me that Gene had gone to college here and stayed, so I looked him up, and he helped out a ton. I crashed on his couch for a week while I looked for a place of my own. Ever since then we've got together probably more than monthly. Car-pooling home for the holidays, a little actual cooking instead of just eating takeout all week, that sort of thing. We even went on a couple double dates."

"I see," Alicia said. She wondered if it was Sharon, his ex before her, or someone else; he was always cagey talking about her.

"I mean, nothing too interesting. Just very close for a friend of the family, that sort of thing," Ben continued. "I don't know why you haven't met him and Vivian before now, but you'll know a few other people here."

"Well, you invited me to his party last year, didn't you? But I had to work."

"Oh yeah. Sorry. You really missed out," Ben said.

"We had just barely started dating," she said.

"True. Anyways, glad you could make it this time. I think you'll like it."

There wasn't much else to say on the way to Gene's house in the suburbs. "Yeah, I think we'll like it," Ben repeated as they got out of the car. There were skeleton hands reaching out from tree branches and under a bush facing the walkway, a spotlight on the other side of the bush projecting ghosts on the house, and at least two fog machines exuding vapor.

"Okay, wow," Alicia said. She guessed the house would look boring and normal and typically upper-middle-class some other day, but not today. She couldn't even tell what color it was; whatever it would have looked like in the sun or under the wan neutral streetlight was disguised by three spotlights in red, yellow, and orange.

The lurid shadows cast by the spotlights could have come from the bushes or could have come from specters. There were silhouettes in the windows she couldn't quite make out, and dark handprints on the walkway leading to the front door, and fog seeping from several windows.

"Yeah, he goes all out for this," Ben agreed. "Gene worked in theater production in college and for a while after. He got into banking a couple years ago to pay the bills, but I think he uses this sort of thing to indulge his creative side."

Ben led her to the door. It creaked freakishly loudly when he opened it. She reminded herself that you could buy toys for that and the house was a totally normal place, just decorated for the holiday. Probably.

The interior of the house was just as disorienting as the outside. The lighting inside was tinted like the lights outside, but also in greens and purples. In what might have been the living room, they were greeted by a walking skeleton, a wolfman, a demonic clown, a gray alien with an outlandishly bulbous head, and a skinny clownish figure in a top hat. A man and a woman in nondescript black suits and sunglasses were so normal her eyes almost couldn't focus on them.

"Welcome!" someone called. Alicia couldn't tell who until the wolfman squeezed behind the man and woman in suits and approached them.

"Gene?" Ben asked.

"Yes. Wait, don't tell me... Ben?" the wolfman said.

"You got it!"

"Dude! Glad you made it!" Gene said, giving him a one-armed hug.

The skeleton, evil clown, and Willy Wonka turned out to be Corey, Isaac, and Lana, friends of theirs who Alicia already knew, but the Men in Black and alien were new to both of them. Neighbors of Gene and Vivian, apparently.

"And this is Alicia," Ben said.

"Nice to meet you, Alicia," Gene said. "Or should I say 'Sally'?"

Alicia decided to get into the role and curtsied, then extended her hand for Gene to shake. "You too. But... have we really met?" she asked, waving at his mask.

"Oh. Sorry," Gene said. He peeled it off, revealing a square chin and prominent, hawk like nose. He looked so much like Ben they could be related, but Gene was definitely older and bigger. Not fat, but solidly built. His costume probably didn't need padding. He turned his head and grinned wide, and she couldn't help returning it. "So do I get to see you without your costume too?"

She giggled and the onlookers whooped. "All right, all right..." Ben said. "Where's Viv?"

"She's probably in the back garden. She'll be camping out there most of the time," Gene said with a smile. He put his mask back on, and Alicia was a tiny bit disappointed. "It goes with her costume. You'll see."

Ben shrugged. "OK, interesting... I guess I'll drop this off in the kitchen and then say hi?" he said, holding up the six-pack they had brought.

Gene agreed. Ben led Alicia to the kitchen, dropped off the beers, and then through the house of horrors.

"This is amazing," Alicia said after they got to the porch. Someone dressed as a lich king was going in just as they came out.

"What is?" Ben asked.

She waved her hands at the man they had passed. "Did you see that death knight guy? Didn't you see how there are lights in the skulls on his armor? And those runes on his sword - there's no way he bought that in a store! That's amazing! I thought our costumes were good, but that's maybe even better!"

"Oh. Yeah," Ben said.

"I'll tell you one thing, no one here got their costume at Party City," Alicia said. She couldn't resist needling him a little more, so she added, "And you know what else I'm not seeing? Any of those typical 'sexy nurse' or 'sexy cheerleader' costumes. Or 'sexy supervillains.' This is actually Halloween, full of monsters and villains. You're the only person here dressed as a superhero, as far as I can see!"

"Hey, that's not fair. Batman's scary!" Ben said. Then he loomed over her and joked, "I am the night!"

She giggled. "OK, OK, you're scary," she said.

He led her down the porch stairs to a garden just around the corner, apparently an outpost of the party. It too had been transformed to match the house: the trellis had things woven among the vines that were probably bones, the whimsical gnomes had been replaced with gargoyles, and there were four person-sized statues that didn't belong in a backyard garden. Alicia looked closely at one and thought it moved a little.

There were four people hanging out, and Medusa was apparently the hostess. The low cleavage of her dress revealed ample cleavage - Alicia would never dare dress like that! Well, maybe if she had breasts like this woman... and only at a party like this... with a pattern of snake scales on her shoulders and cleavage. The snakes in her hair wiggled as she pointed at a pirate, apparently telling a story about him to the other two, both women with mustaches.

"Hey, Viv, it's..." Ben started.

"Hey! Ben! Welcome!" Medusa said, hugging him.

"And this is Alicia," he said, indicating Sally.

"Ohmigod, that is great!" Vivian gushed, stepping back from Ben to offer her a hug too. "I thought you were wearing, like, a bodysuit, but that's really paint, isn't it? That is amazing!"

"Thank you!" Alicia said to Vivian, and then to Ben, "I like her!"

"That must have taken hours!" Vivian said as the gathering widened to make room for them. It became a little snug between a shoulder-high rosemary bush and one of the gray statues, a sort of Greek warrior.

"Yeah, it took a while - and it was particularly hard with someone beating on the bathroom door..." Alicia said, nudging Ben closer to the statue.

"Oh come on, that's not fair!" he said. "I never beat on the door, and I had no idea how much time you needed, because you didn't tell me what you were doing!"

"Yes, well, I wanted it to be a surprise," Alicia said smugly.

"Should have known better, dude," said the statue at Ben's shoulder, and Ben jumped about a foot in the air in surprise. Alicia flinched, but laughed a little.

I knew one of those moved!

"Jesus Christ," Ben muttered, then asked, "Frank?"

"That's me!" the statue said, and abandoned all pretense of immobility. "What do you think?"

Alicia studied the statue. Or rather, the person who had been turned to stone by Medusa. His hair was curly enough to be truly Greek, and his face was younger than even Ben's, almost boyish. He was gray all over, his exposed skin matching his costume. His cape, leather sandals and bracers, and a belt with a sort of kilt might have come off the shelf at a party store, but the colors were probably customized to make him look like a more convincing statue. He had body paint to match, with cracks drawn here and there, not unlike Alicia's stitches. It looks like it took almost as much work as Alicia's costume.

"Okay, that's cool," Ben said. "Kind of two costumes in one? A costume in a costume?"

"Sure, I guess you could say that," Frank said. "Hey, I'm probably not going to be able to surprise anyone else like that again, so I'm going to go get a drink. You two want anything?"

Ben and Alicia both agreed to try the punch. Vivian introduced Alicia to the other guests. The woman dressed as Groucho Marx was Linda, Frank's cousin, but Alicia already knew Parker, dressed as Mario, and Sarah, dressed as the pirate.

"It's great to finally meet you," Vivian said. "Ben has told us a lot about you."

"Really? Like what?" Alicia asked.

"Well, he said you were cute!" Vivian exclaimed, nudging Alicia's hip with her own, and Alicia blushed. "He said you're smart, so I hope you can be a good influence on him. Not to be all 'big sister,' but he needs a mature woman, you know?"

"I kind of noticed," Alicia said wryly.

Frank returned shortly with three plastic cups in his hands and gave one of each of them to Ben and Alicia. The liquid in the cups was dark purple, bubbling, and oozing steam. "Is it safe?" Alicia asked.

"Well, the guy with the hunchback and lazy eye we bought the keg from assured us that it would have no permanent effects, but drinkers should watch out for irritability, itching, insanity..." Vivian said.

"There's just a chunk of dry ice in the bottom," Ben muttered to Alicia. "Don't drink it before it melts or touch it with your bare skin, but it's fine otherwise."

Alicia took a sip of her own drink and grimaced. "I'm more worried about alcohol poisoning. This is strong."

"Yes, well, we've got one designated driver lined up, and if that's not enough, we have a couple spare beds," Vivian said. "If you don't like it, just dump it out. No hard feelings, there's plenty to go around."

"No, it's fine, I was just surprised." Alicia said. "Vodka and grape juice?"

"Yeah, and a few other things," Vivian said mysteriously.

"This is an amazing house," Alicia said. "I mean, I assume the house is nice, but I can't be sure, because you've really gone all out for the party, haven't you! That's the amazing part!"

"Thank you! Yeah, we go a little nuts this time of year."

"Your neighbors don't mind, do they?" Alicia asked.

"Oh, some did, but we won them over eventually," Vivian said. "And we aren't right next door to any kids who would be scared by the zombies or up past their bedtimes, so that helps."

"Ben, I was planning to hang out here for a while, but why don't you show Alicia around the house?" Vivian asked him.

"Sure!" Ben said.

"Great. The whole house fits the theme and there's something to see in every room, downstairs and up. Just one thing - don't go into the basement!" she added in an ominous voice, holding her arms up like Frankenstein's monster, and the other onlookers laughed.

Ben led Alicia back to the house. As soon as they were out of earshot of the garden group, she asked him, "That's kind of weird, isn't it? Her and Frank's costume?"

"What's weird about it?" Ben asked.

"Well, they match, right? Obviously couples don't have to wear matching costumes - look at us - but it's kind of weird to go to a party, or host one with your spouse, wearing a costume that matches a man you aren't with..."

"How do they match? She's a snake-woman-monster-thing, he's a statue-warrior."

Alicia sighed. "Never mind."

How can he know all about Batman, but not the classics? Wonder Woman is from Greek myths, isn't she?

More guests had arrived while they were out back. The house had become crowded. A cyborg was chatting with a zombie on the way from the kitchen to the living room.

As they walked by the basement door, Ben jiggled the handle, but it was locked.

Why the mystery?

Alicia wondered.

Most basements would be a perfect place for stuff like this.

The décor throughout the house was like what they had already seen. They took a closer look at the kitchen on their way through; while it was functional for drinks and snacks, on scrutiny, the knife next to the butcher's block looked bloodstained (and plastic). There were fingers (rubber) mixed in with the carrots and peppers on a veggie platter.

The living room had been turned into a dance floor. A zombie danced closely with one of the Men in Black while the alien slow-danced with the other.