I got to my desk to find a bright orange donut and a small gourd on my desk. Next to it was a note. I opened it.
"Halloween Masquerade Ball" and the date on the weekend. I pushed it aside. I hadn't had a date in months and wasn't planning on going alone. I'd stay home and on the real Halloween, hand out cavity causing candy to the urchins on the street. Later in the day Noah from accounting walked by my desk. Then he walked back the other direction. A few minutes later back and forth again. I'm in marketing, the accounting people are never in our space. I stopped him on the fifth trip.
"Hey, Noah. Lose your way back to your cubicle?"
"Um, no, I was just, well, I ..."
I've known Noah since he joined the company. He's sweet, in a nerdy kind of way. He spends way too much time by himself and playing video games. When he has to talk to someone, especially women, it is a painful experience for everyone.
"Did you get the donut?" He gestured towards the not found in nature orange donut.
I nodded yes. Then he did it.
"You want to go to the Halloween Party in two weeks?"
I have a weakness for strong, confident men, men that are bad for me, and men with blue eyes. Noah did not fit any of those categories.
I also have a weakness for sad faces, and geeks. Not really a weakness, but I have a real hard time saying no. Noah fits in both categories.
"It'll be really fun. The couple throwing the party is a lot of fun. It'll be fun to get dressed up."
The key theme of the party was clearly going to be fun. He looked pitiful, I did try to say no three different times and three different ways and still got nowhere with him. When I agreed, he gave out a happy yelp and I swear he skipped back to his cubicle.
That night I got online and started looking at costumes for the party. It is both easy and hard to come up with a costume when the theme is "fun". I saw the usual ones of devils and Playboy bunnies. Then I looked at adult costume sites. They tended to be sexy nurses and school girls and pirates. Somehow I clicked on a site and it took me to a porn site and the sexy pirate was being fucked by a well hug guy wearing no costume. Somehow, I've gotten to where I am in life without ever seeing a porn video, but I sat glued to the screen watching the same clip over and over of the couple fucking. I clicked on anther link and then another, each showing me clips of other couples, not necessarily in costumes, but all having sex in a variety of places and poses. One particular blond was riding a tattooed guy and just having a grand time. Tell me that I have lived a sheltered life, I have, because I had never seen other people fucking. I always had thought of sex as a participating sport, not an observational one. But watching the videos was really getting me horny. I closed my eyes and slid my hand in my panties and touched my clit. Watching the videos had made it very sensitive, the feeling was wonderful, my pussy felt like it was on fire, and after a short time a moan rose in my throat and as I watched the clip again a rush of warmth gushed from my pussy and into my legs.
I decided that I was going to be a pirate.
That weekend, I had to do yard work around my house. Fall came early, the leaves were down, and my yard was covered by them. I was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and working on filling the bags. I was carrying some to the street.
"Hey Sunshine, let me give you a hand." It was Paul, my new neighbor. He had moved into the neighborhood about six months earlier after his wife died. He had said that the old house, old neighborhood had too many memories and needed to start over. I'm not sure when he started calling me Sunshine, it started as a joke, but he kept with it.
Paul picked up two bags in each hand and took them to the curb and had another load before I got to the curb once. Tall, thin, muscular he really looks younger than 50 and he is nearly twenty years older than me. I stared at him as he walked by me. I thought about Noah, then Paul.
"Give me those bags," Paul said, his laugh lines crinkled around his dark blue eyes. "Let me finish this, the beers are on you." He started work on the yard before I had time to answer him.
I had the beers out and ready to pour when he got into the house. I had pulled together some items from my nearly bare refrigerator and threw together a spinach dip and had toasted garlic bread to eat with it. Paul sat down and an hour later we were laughing and working on the second six pack. He told me about his wife, who had died nearly two years earlier, and his kids who lived out of state. He showed me pictures of his grandchildren.
"No way are they your grand kids."
"Flattery will get you everywhere," he said as he put away the pictures.
"You're too young for grandkids!"
He had gotten married at 18 and his son was born 2 years later.
"And why are you hanging out with some old guy instead of hanging with a guy your age?"
If I had known the answer, I wouldn't be there in a pair of ratty sweats, drinking beer, with my AARP card carrying neighbor.
I told him about Noah and the party the next weekend.
"Sounds," he paused for a moment, trying to choose the right word. "Hopeful." He laughed. I swatted his arm as I went to get another beer.
"Tell you what. It's late, I'm hungry, I'm a lousy cook, so let's go out to eat. My treat," he said.
"You did the yard, I should be buying."
"I carried six bags of leaves. You bought beer. I'll get dinner."