He hated Halloween anyway. Just as well that he had to work that day, although the flashy dancers on the subway to the office didn't help; but he was used to putting a stop to those desires whenever they bubbled up. With the trip to work over, so was that particular crisis, and with any luck, so was his worrying about Halloween. No need to worry about handing out candy, no costume parties to agonize over, and most of all, no risk of reliving the fantasies his mother had taken such pleasure in punishing him over.
Those were an issue all year long, of course, with the consequences ranging from the mildly humiliating ("Leave your penis alone, dear") to the outrageous punishments he managed to no longer dwell on. But it was those few days in October, when women traipsed about dressed as witches and nurses and princesses and ballerinas, which had always brought out the nastiest of thoughts. They had also carried the worst risk of getting caught, since he'd gone at it rather more often then, with all that temptation. He could still feel the sting on his buttocks and thighs if he thought too long about it all, which fortunately he rarely did. Even now that he was a man, living safely on his own where he could cope with the guilt on his own terms on those occasions when he couldn't resist, the nasty memories were enough to make him break out in a cold sweat on a bad day. But today, in his button-down office with the ladies all in professional businesswear, would not be a bad day. It would just be another day.
The fire bell rang just after ten o'clock, clanging just a bit faster than it had last week, and the hammer went crashing through the window as they all filed down the stairway. Joe-Bob, the bouncer from the club downstairs, was looking tired but alert as he herded them all out to the sidewalk, where the gang of jazz dancers he'd seen before were still prancing noisily up the way while he and his officemates cooled their heels in the October sunshine. The women in their leotards had nearly driven his blood pressure through the roof the first time, and once again he felt the unwanted titillation even as he couldn't tear his eyes away. Perhaps the sight could inoculate him for the remainder of Halloween, and he'd make it through without any further guilt.
Or so he thought.
"Fall in!" came the voice of old Coach Jamison for the first time since eighth grade gym class, and he wondered where on earth that could have come from. But when he looked around there was only Joe-Bob directing everyone into two lines to go back inside. Dutifully he got in the queue and waited.
Joe-Bob opened the door, and the two lines started to move -- then came to an abrupt stop. "Hold it, everyone!" came a cheerful female voice from behind him -- Sally from Accounting. "I'm naked! It's best you let a vulnerable lady go first!" His head whipped around, and sure enough, Sally was striding up the walk between the two lines. She was smiling, confident, and clothed from the waist up in her usual blouse and sweater while her leather pumps clicked smartly against the cement. But she wore no pants or panties, and her bush was as readily visible as her face. It was trimmed but lush, just as well-groomed as Sally always looked fully clothed.
He gaped shamelessly as Sally climbed up the steps and walked casually inside. Just as the lines were about to move, he heard it again, this time in a different voice -- Carol from provider credentials. "Hold it, everyone! I'm naked! It's best you let a vulnerable lady go first!" Like Sally before her, Carol was only partially naked -- the same part -- and he gawked in amazement as she strode by without a care in the world. Her bush was smaller and blonder than Sally's, and her face was just as lacking in embarrassment at her unorthodox state of undress. Sally and Carol opened the door together and meandered in side by side, laughing together from the looks of it, their naked white buttocks shameless in the bright October sun.
The bizarre sight had an odd ring of familiarity to it -- where had he heard that line about vulnerable ladies before? -- but there was no time to ponder that matter. Before he knew just what had transpired, he felt himself borne forcefully off the ground. "Enjoying the show, pal?!" came Coach Jamison's voice, accompanied by Joe-Bob's harsh grip. "You don't respect the ladies' privacy, let's just give you a front row seat, huh?"
"But, I...!" He tried to protest but the words wouldn't form, as it occurred to him now that he didn't even understand what he'd just seen. A horrible sense of guilt washed over him; he
had
somehow violated the ladies' privacy even if they had sauntered right past him with their pants off, and somehow he knew he deserved whatever pummeling Joe-Bob was now going to inflict upon him. Or if it was Coach Jamison's voice, maybe it would be his mother's hands thrashing him?
No one else looked up from the queue, and his arms and legs were flailing uselessly as Joe-Bob had him off the ground. Then he found himself sailing through the broken window as if he were light as a doll.
He held out both arms to cushion the blow and wondered if there might at least be another glimpse of Carol and Sally's bushes and behinds. Maybe they would come to his rescue, even? Then it wouldn't be so bad for him to look at them. But on crossing the threshold he found he wasn't in the office at all, nor did he land face-first as he had anticipated. Rather he floated harmlessly down into a waiting chair in the storeroom at his old elementary school, also remembered for the band practices where he had played the saxophone decades before.
Instinctively he imagined himself a child again, but on feeling himself up and down -- and struggling to fit into the little chair -- he realized he was still very much the adult he had been minutes before. The room, though, was just as he remembered it. Whatever year it was, evidently it was still Halloween, for the paper ghosts and goblins and witches adorned nearly every inch of the wall and the doorways were hung with cotton that was pulled apart to resemble spider webs. The sun was shining through the grungy windows along the ceiling just as it always had way back when, and for once the light was on in the supply closet behind the room, strictly off-limits to the kids with the never-used shower that he and his friends had always wondered about. With an awful stab of guilt, he recalled many late afternoons imagining his favorite teachers getting caught out in that very shower, usually by him. How horribly guilty he had always felt after getting off on that image...
As he gathered his wits about him, he realized the never-used shower was in fact being used now, and slowly a middle-aged woman's body came into focus. Mrs. LeBrun, the prim and grim school librarian who had scowled so at every overdue book and every child speaking above a whisper, now naked and wet and soapy and grinning at him. "Oh, don't mind me," she told him as he stood up and was acutely aware of his pants bulging at the sight. "I'm just having a shower. Of course, you're welcome to join me. Also, Happy Halloween and welcome home!"
He wasn't sure how he'd recognized her, for her grayish hair was down instead of wrapped up in the tight bun she had usually worn, and it clung to her head and bare shoulders, and in the steamy water it seemed a few shades darker, and she was smiling instead of scowling, and it had been all those years...but it was definitely Mrs. LeBrun. Her heavy breasts hung down well onto her plump belly and her bush grew wild and dark, yet he was somehow wonderfully attracted to her. But it wasn't right to gawk at her body while he stood there fully clothed, after all.
He remembered his manners and turned away. "I shouldn't --"
"Nonsense!" she insisted, and with a sopping wet hand she reached out and grabbed his tie, pulling him under the spray with her. "I'm delighted to have your company, dear! You know you always wanted this, and so naturally I'm pleased to share it with you. You look like you could use a bit of fun just now, actually. That's usually why guys like you get sent here on Halloween, after all." Before he could protest further, she had clasped both his hands in hers and placed them on her breasts. "You know you always wanted to play with these," she admonished him. "And it's been far too long since anyone has, too. Please, don't be shy."
"How did you know?" Still fully clothed in the hot water, he'd stopped trying to make any sense of the situation. Instead, strangely devoid of his usual guilt in the unlikely surroundings, he enjoyed tickling her nipples. How he had imagined that so many years before! Her breasts felt supple and soft, belying their evident age, and she clearly enjoyed his caresses even more than he did.
"A woman can tell, my dear," she said. "Now then..." She undid his belt buckle and unzipped his pants, and his hard cock burst out as if it were on springs. But he had scarcely felt her hand taking its grip when a sensation of fluidity washed upward from his soaked shoes to his legs, midsection and all the way out to his fingertips. Last of all he felt his face liquefying.
He said it out loud as he realized it: "I'm melting. Into the drain!"
"Don't be absurd," she teased him. "Didn't Mister Rogers tell you, you can never go down the drain?"
