Night after night, I started to forget that I’d died. We were all so alive while dancing, so many lifetimes at my fingertips as I swung from partner to partner. My body opened to theirs, my legs and arms and hands moving to the memories of dances long dead, not long enough to linger on anything else. It shook awake my every numb limb until they began to ache, and even then, I couldn’t stop. It hurt too good. The pulse beat harder through my blood than my own heart ever had.
Once the sun rose, I couldn’t help but hit the bed with some of my dance partners. We couldn’t keep up that rhythm without the pulse, touching too long to keep memories from spilling. I saw too many wives and husbands and sweethearts, some of them long dead, others lingering on, sometimes fresh in their memories, other times gray and wrinkled, like they’d gone back to visit. It gave a bitter aftertaste to every brush of skin and lips. But my mouth got so sick of its own taste. I had nothing else to put in it. So I kept taking in strangers, until I’d long passed the number of partners I’d had in life, no risk of catching anything aside from melancholy.
I’d never had so many nonverbal, usually drunk encounters when I was alive. Most of my old one-night stands had been much more romantic. I liked to banter, from the bar to the bed. It smoothed over the awkwardness of clothes catching on limbs, nakedness failing expectations, sneaking off into the sunrise with no intention of spoiling the near-perfect little love affair with an unnecessary lifespan. Even if I didn’t remember many names, I’d never forget those nights.
I rarely ever learned names at the Haunt. I hardly even noticed what era their clothes revealed before they came off. If my walls slipped, as I waved my hands looking for sheets to clutch, their memories often spanned so many generations they didn’t seem real, worn and blurry as old photographs, like I’d fallen asleep to a documentary. Even without reaching old age, it got harder and harder for them to get their lives straight. What dress did I wear that night? Did she have brown eyes? What year was it, before the fire? After the march, or the shooting, or the war? Was I really there, or had I only seen it on TV?
My memories were probably much sharper, unbearably so. More often than not, they had to ask for me to try harder shutting them out. Though they weren’t all memories. Just wistful fantasies I couldn’t help but indulge. It felt even more embarrassing than calling out the wrong name.
Though I did that too, sometimes. Thankfully, nobody cared enough to bother asking, “Who is Ren?”
After we’d finished, I usually tried my best to sleep in on a threadbare velvet loveseat in one of the parlors, even if I didn’t need sleep, just to pass the afternoon. I never did anything until five o’clock, when they opened the doors at Clementine’s. We didn’t need to get tipsy to dance, but it gave us something to do, woke us up, like coffee and a cigarette at the start of the day.
As slow as they were going, all my days were blurring together. I had nothing to distinguish them. No particularly good breakfast or lunch or dinner. No classes or work or any other responsibility. It felt like a weekend that would never end, losing the meaning of a weekend in the first place when I didn’t look forward to it, or dread its coming to an end. Not unlike my last few weeks of life, wallowing in unemployment, and haunting my apartment afterwards. At least this time instead of lying around at home, I’d been getting laid. This place definitely beat my last.
* * *
One night at Clementine’s, I found myself getting closer to all my predecessors when I saw a head I didn’t recognize, modern enough to be living if she hadn’t just passed through a table. I almost jumped right on her, eager to take in a new face, chew on some new conversation, maybe explore a new body. Then I recognized her. It had been a hot minute.
Danny looked lost, like she hadn’t meant to spirit in. Not to mention, I could’ve sworn she wouldn’t be caught dead here, literally.
I hadn’t seen any of the wallflowers since I’d come to stay, aside from Carlos. But he hadn’t talked to me. We glided coolly past each other on the dance floor, and I didn’t see him often at Clementine’s. He must’ve really taken me seriously when I’d told them to fuck off.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Before she could answer, someone passed through her. I reached out, but couldn’t find the words to warn her in time. She blinked wildly, wobbling.
Suddenly, she gave a whoop, not just flapping but throwing her arms fully up and down. I burst out laughing.
“That’s tequila!” she said.
Remembering I didn’t need to catch my breath, I wheezed. “You drink?”
“Wait!” Her shoulders drooped. “Aww, no, I hate tequila.”
“Why—”
She cut me off, like she’d registered my last question a little late, shuffling around in a full body wiggle. “I used to, with my friends. Just not to—to—what’s it called? Bach—back in—oh, you know, the god, like the one they have at Mardi Gras.”
“Bacchanalian?”
“Right, we didn’t go that far.” She attempted to sit, falling through the bar stool. I caught her elbow, hoping I wouldn’t add too much to her drunkenness. Judging from my own near loss of balance, she was a lightweight.
“Oh, right,” she said, staying put in midair. “Thanks! So my friends, we’d make some tasty cocktails—stuff like berry wine or approx—approx—what we think ancient beer would taste like, y’know anthropology grads—pair it with dinner and cuddle up with a good—or really not very good—movie. Then we’d all go to bed.”
That sounded nice. I couldn’t help but picture the scene in my apartment—or the apartment in my head, with the lights and plants and pictures.
“But isn’t it fun to go out and get trashed every once in a while?”
“Going out, sure, sometimes, but why getting trashed?” she asked. “Do you have to go so hard? That’s why I hate tequila. Don’t you want to have a good time you’ll actually remember?”
I could barely get my lips to lift. “I don’t have time to reminisce if I never stop.”
She peered at me, pressing her fingers to her lips. “So that’s why you haven’t you been around?”
Evie must not have mentioned anything. Of course she wouldn’t, if she wanted to keep her secret.
I lied. “Why would I want to hang around and do nothing when I could be out living it up?”
She didn’t seem too offended by my implication that she did nothing all day, just a square compared to me. I wondered if she agreed. Maybe she only needed a nudge to give my lifestyle a try.
I put my hand on her knee, nearing her thigh.
“Care to dance?” I asked.
Her eyes widened as she tried to put her walls up, but I could feel her repulsion.
“Um,” she said.
I withdrew immediately. “Sorry, I must be rusty,” I said. “I could’ve sworn you’re not straight.”
“I’m not,” she said. “But I’m ace. My sexuality is… no thanks.”
“Oh.”
No wonder she didn’t dance—on this side, it must’ve been way too sensual for her, all that writhing and throbbing and unspoken beckoning in the blood. Though at least she had one less hunger to try and fail sating on this side.
“That must be nice,” I said, completely serious. “But how do you even keep busy? If not that kind of busy.”
“I’ve got my work, mostly,” she said. “And friends—”
“Who’s your friend?” asked Wilhelmina, the corseted lady.
Flo, the flapper girl, looked up and down at Danny. “Well, we can’t all kick the bucket on our way to a party, dressed to the nines.” She smiled, fingers creeping along in the air. “But we could get you out of those pajamas.”
I swatted her away. “Hands off.”
Danny surely wouldn’t appreciate her lack of walls.
“Oh, we’re respecting prior claims now?” asked Wilhelmina.
I pinched my brow. “Not this again.”
She’d pestered me every other night since I’d started sleeping with Alastair. If she hadn’t played the harp for the band, I had to wonder whether he’d put up with her at all, or if she’d be the one ghost he wouldn’t mind kicking out on her own to go geist.
“That’s fine by me.” Flo flashed her starlet grin. “I’ll keep you company, and your little friend. The more the merrier.”
At least I knew what to expect when she draped an arm over my shoulder. She had a fun catalogue of memories in bed, even if they’d begun to fade and blur together.
Danny raised her eyebrows, her wide eyes glazing. “Right, that’s my cue.”
I shrugged in apology, before she spirited off.
“How rude,” said Flo. Before withdrawing her arm, I caught her disappointment sinking in my own stomach. I hadn’t thought she’d get so bored of me already. Just another blurry face in her memory.
They fluttered back to a newer arrival, leaving me alone again.
* * *
I hadn’t completely abandoned Ren. Once or twice, at night while he was out driving, I’d spirited to his place to check for geists. There weren’t many new ones, but I didn’t know how long it took for them to accumulate. I would circle the apartment a couple of times to be sure. It hadn’t changed at all, aside from a new coffeemaker. He hadn’t put any locks back on.
I always spirited onto his fire escape, in case he turned out to be home. This time, I had good reason. There were voices coming through the window. At first, I thought he must’ve been watching something, staying in for a weekend I hadn’t noticed coming and going. It sounded like porn, judging from the heavy breathing and soft moans. I covered my laugh.
Then it got louder, too loud to be his laptop speakers. And the voices were familiar, one of them really familiar, even if I’d never gotten to hear it like this, draw those kinds of noises from his lips.
I ought to have gotten the fuck out of there. Instead, my knees buckled. I slid down with my back to the wall, my hand still over my mouth. My limbs seemed to think they couldn’t move, let alone disappear, no matter how badly I wanted to. I didn’t expect it to ache this much. And, even worse, in the wrong places. Even as my chest caved, and my stomach turned, I had to cross my legs.
Through the wall came a crash. For a moment, I’d thought they’d just gotten more intense in there, as if he had a bedframe to bang against the wall, hanging pictures to knock down. But they went quiet.
His partner sounded scared. “What’s that?”
“It’s a ghost,” said Ren.
So that had been me.
“That’s not funny.”
Her curled-up little voice reminded me of the ragdoll from Halloween. If he’d gotten a second chance with her, I ought to be happy for them. After all, I’d set them up.
This didn’t change anything. He’d already been unavailable, off the menu, out of the question.
“I’m not joking,” said Ren. “That’s my old roommate—she died.”
I nearly gasped out loud. If he could tell my presence apart from any other visitor, I really shouldn’t have come. Yet I still couldn’t move. I couldn’t think of anywhere else I really wanted to be, aside from that mattress.
“You really believe that?” she asked. “Are you, like, self-aware about your hallucinations, or are you having some kind of not-so-lucid moment right now?”
“Take your pick.”
He did sound mad, but not at her.
“Look,” she snapped. “Just because you’re sick, that doesn’t give you an excuse to be an asshole.”
His voice softened, more like himself. “I’m sorry. I really am having a moment. Next time I’ll say so. I mean—if there even is a next time?”
She gave the kind of slightly exasperated sigh that made my heart sink. I’d kind of figured, or maybe hoped, that it might be only a hookup. Even if it should make no difference to me.
The affectionate groan escaping her mouth hinted otherwise. “I don’t scare easy.”
At that, my feet remembered their skittishness, always ready for an exit. I spirited still sitting down, sprawled on the floor of the upstairs saloon at Clementine’s, as if I were already beyond shitfaced.
“Mal?” said Alastair.
He shrugged off the arms wrapped around him, rushing to kneel before me.
Wilhelmina gave an indignant scoff. “Beg pardon? How dare you pipe off—”
“Not now.”
For once, his chilly tone shut her up.
Alastair swept me onto my feet. I barely got my walls up in time, brick by brick, but by now he knew not to peek over. He pushed me into the bathroom, then spun me around to grip my wrists, so much harder and hotter than the hospital restraints.
“She’s going to be sulking for ages,” said Alastair. “You wouldn’t happen to play the harp?”
I leaned up to catch his lip in my teeth, too hard. He pulled my hands over my head, even if he couldn’t actually pin me against the wall. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t fully anchor me with no earth to ground us. Wrapping my legs around his waist came close enough.
“How do you do it?” I asked, as his mouth trailed down my neck. “How come you’re different from the other ghosts, not stuck repeating yourself?”
His laugh tickled my collarbone. “Sweetling, the number of times you’ve forced me to repeat myself—”
He pinned both my wrists in one hand, freeing the other to snake under my skirt.
I writhed against him, although I enjoyed being trapped, the simmer of annoyance yet more heat under my skin. “You know what I mean.”
“Since you insist on wandering where you shouldn’t, anyway—” His fingers distracted me from the gravity of his words, but not entirely. “I might not be a part of the world anymore, but I keep up with it—read, watch, travel—and it brings me down sometimes, which is why I caution against it—”
My voice ran ragged. “That’s why you don’t wanna be followed in the day.”
Wherever he went, whatever he witnessed, he didn’t want to share. And then, when he came back in the evenings, he kept acting like he didn’t have a care in the world, boozing and fucking and dancing it all off.
“That’s right,” he said, even as a flick of his wrist sent me over the edge. I buried my gasp in his shoulder for a moment of blissful forgetfulness. But only a moment.
He pressed a kiss in my hair. “I whet my memory on the sharp edges of the world, at risk of dashing myself against the rocks.”
As I tried on instinct to catch my breath, I laughed. “I’ve been bashing my head and I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“Just don’t get cocky.”
Still one-handed, he unbuttoned his pants, barely getting started. He sighed as I tightened my thighs around him.
His lips brushed my ear. “Who’s the girl?”
My nails dug into my palms. He’d peeked through the cracks in my walls, after all. Even if I hadn’t seen it, I couldn’t stop thinking about the ragdoll, lying on the mattress I used to share, her hair spilling over the pillows like mine never could. Meat on her bones, blood under her skin, breath in her lungs.
“Forget it.”