When my step mum Janice suggested we have our own Halloween party, just me her and her daughter Fifi, I was initially reluctant. But living in a 3rd floor flat with the two of them, meant there was going to be no Halloween atmosphere unless we made it ourselves, I thought why not?
"Let's make it fancy dress and we can decorate the flat." Said Janice.
I had just started a new job after university and had no money of my own and was still living in, and mostly working from, the family home at twenty two. So alternative activities were not really an option, even though I hate fancy dress.
Fifi was even less keen than I was.
"That's fucking sad!" She said when Janice presented her idea.
Fifi was unemployed, surly and a goth! She had metamorphosed into a goth in her early and mid teens, it became an important part of her identity. To begin with she had a little crew of goth girls and boys she hung out with, but for the last two or three years the crew had dispersed, jobs, universities, they had drifted away. Fifi had been left behind and as a result didn't go out much now. Whatever her needs or demons were, she spent a lot of her time in her gothic boudoir bedroom, I guess she dealt with them there. She certainly never shared them with me.
She also had an obsession with piercings and tattoos. She had piercings in both cheeks, in her eyebrow right side, in her septum, on the side of her nose, in her bottom lip left side, two piercings in the lobes and one each side, left and right, in the tragi of both ears. The most intriguing piercing for me was the one in her tongue, I wondered if it had been painful when she'd had it done, and what it felt like when you kissed someone with pierced tongue? Did a piercing in the tongue enhance blow job technique (although I doubted Fifi gave many blow jobs). I assumed she had more piercings I'd never seen and the same was true, of course, with her tattoos. I thought that she was probably pretty well covered with them but the only ones I saw were above and around the back of her ears, a delicate chain of daisies from the lobes and around the top of her ears. More striking were her sleeve tattoos on both arms, which she mostly kept covered although were sometimes partially exposed when we were all at home. I had seen tattoos on her feet too.
My father had left us well provided for and the insurance paid off the mortgage on our flat. A very nice art deco flat, spacious with three bedrooms, in Wimbledon, South West London. A great party flat, with deep pile carpets and tasteful period decor made contemporary with dark shades of paint on the walls and feature walls with deco inspired patterned wallpaper. My dad and Janice had hosted many parties there when he was still around.
Janice was adamant! "Have you had a better offer Fi? It's not as if you need to decorate your bedroom or go to any trouble with an outfit. You dress for Halloween all year round!"
She continued. "Anyway all drinks, nibbles and entertainment will be on me, if you can do a music playlist for us Jim? Ooh, I haven't organised and party in ages, I'm excited!"
I think both Fifi and I started warming to the idea, although Fifi said rather aggressively "My bedroom is out of bounds!"
"Oh that's why you've got a 'Fuck Off' sign hanging on your door!" I said
"You got it, Sherlock!" She retorted.
Sherlock Holmes, I thought, maybe a a good idea for a fancy dress costume? My mind was formulating a plan.
So the party was agreed and the very next day I set to work on my costume plan. I went on a second hand clothes website and found the perfect three piece suit in more or less my size, I bit big but nothing a belt wouldn't sort out and a bargain at twenty quid! I had shirts and ties and a pair of brogues that would be suitable for the look. A deerstalker hat was easy to find on an auction site, a bargain at a tenner! I even found a smoking pipe, fitted the bill.
I also convinced Janice that we must get a couple of life size posable plastic skeletons to join the party to make up the numbers a bit. She was well up for it, as long as she could dress them. That seemed fair enough as she was the party coordinator and was really creative in that way. So we sat together and purchased a couple online. I suggested that we buy one that was six feet tall and the other five foot six. A man and a woman. Janice thought that was a great idea, I could see her brain was already coming up with ideas.
When all my cosplay items came I had the suit dry cleaned although it was spotless and smelled fresh enough, but it was just something I always did when buying pre-owned. When I picked it up from the dry cleaners I took it home and tried it on again. The fit was actually not that bad and when I fiddled around with the internal waist adjusters, I found I wouldn't need a belt to hold them up. Nevertheless I do like to wear a belt as a matter of detail. The deerstalker fitted fine, I was all set with a couple of days to spare. Time to make a playlist of songs fit for a Halloween party. The usual Halloween tunes from Rocky Horror and the like, a few retro classics and songs from the nineties and 2000s up to the present. I love music and making playlists. My dad used to talk about mix tapes, back in the day, I would have been well into those!
Janice had set a rule that we weren't to reveal are costumes or their theme, so that it would be a surprise for the party. So I didn't mention the outfit at all. Although I wondered what Janice would be wearing, at forty-four she still looked good, I hoped it would be something sexy, I have a bit of a thing for my step mother, the result of a boy of thirteen suddenly having a hot milf for a mum, I have had many fantasies about her since. Fifi, I assumed, would wear her standard goth paraphernalia.
On the day of the party it was agreed we would meet in the living room at 7.30. We decorated the flat in the morning with fake cobwebs, plastic pumpkins with battery tea lights, spider and bats hung on elastic and other tat. But the centre pieces were of course the skeletons. Janice had done a great and they looked brilliant and creepy, one dressed as a vicar in black suit and black shirt and clerical collar, but quite curiously and inexplicably dark burgundy cowboy boots with his trousers tucked into them. The other in full nun's dress, habit and wimple, sitting disturbingly seductively with legs crossed exposing a calf length patent leather boot with heels, the other still partially covered by her habit. They sat opposite each other in our Chesterfield armchairs. The skulls, eyeless of course, gazed at each other. Janet had obviously asked Fifi for some advice and accessories to enhance their costumes and the nun wore a a heavy silver band collar around the neck of the wimple. The vicar wore a couple of large rings in silver and gold with symbols on I didn't recognise, but looked unmistacably gothic. And a long gold pendant with a pentagram depicted on it. Between them they had done a brilliant job.
Janice had a hair appointment in the afternoon. Strangely Fifi hung around in the living room with me after the decs were done, as looked for a movie to stream. I settled on an old Hammer Horror film called 'The Devil Rides Out" and started watching. I thought Fifi would go back to her room, we hardly ever watch telly together. But she stayed. As the movie progressed it's theme, devil worshippers discovered by a handsome hero determined to save an attractive young woman from initiation into the devil cult, unfolded. Fifi came and sat with me on the sofa. When a room with a pentagram drawn on the floor was discovered in the gothic mansion, her interest was definitely piqued. Although it was old it was still quite scary but Fifi lapped it up. I began to think her goth identity had a bit more foundation than I had ever suspected. When the movie was finished I asked her if she enjoyed it she said she had and that she loved pentagrams and devil worship stories.
"I didn't know you liked them too!" She teased.
"I love horror movies of all types." I said, sounding a bit like a nerd!
"We could have had midnight movie club, if I had known!" She said in an uncharacteristically friendly tone.
"What, in your gothic safe room?" I grinned.
She leant into me, her face close to mine. "Or your room." She said a disturbingly coquettish manner.
Then she got up and said she had to get ready for the party, even though it was only four o'clock. She went to her room. I went to my room to think about what had just happened. Fantasies about a surly teenage goth with her either, dull green, or drab purple, or just dyed black hair, to match her signature mostly black shapeless attire (everything hung on her they never fitted), I had not experienced. Also she didn't shave anywhere save the undercut of her otherwise long dyed and rather drab and lifeless hair. I wondered now why she needed so long to get ready? I heard her in the bathroom by 5 o'clock and she was in there over an hour, which was quite unusual. I assumed she was dying her hair.
Janice came home around six and went straight to her bedroom, without looking in to the living room, calling out on the way that she would be getting ready for the party and not to disturb her. Ooh, a new hairstyle, I thought, this might be good! Then I went for my shower snd retired to my own bedroom, put a podcast of scary stories on and lay on the bed, thinking of possible costumes Janice might have chosen.
At 7.30 I was ready, standing in front of the mirror in my Sherlock Holmes cosplay, I was pretty pleased with it. An elegant brown tweed suit, white shirt and black tie and oxblood brogues. Even the deerstalker hat matched okay with the suit and fitted well. I thought I looked cool! I heard Janice summoning us to the living room and I went straight in and was treated with a very agreeable site! Janice was in a Morticia dress, her hair black and straightened to it's maximum length towards the middle of her back. Her dress was complimented with knee high, high heeled black boots and fishnet stockings. The dress showed off her curves and sweet and full cleavage, the dress had to do a lot of work to contain it and it was clear she was not wearing a bra. I could see no panty line so I guessed she didn't have them on either.
"Wow, you look fantastic!" Is all I could say!
"Thank you, handsome!" She replied, looking me up and down with an approving look.
