Lust Meter System: Conquering Beauties

Tasha grabbed his arm and started walking.

Not suggesting it. Actually walking, her hand already through his elbow, pulling him with the specific energy of someone who had made a decision and was now executing it while the other person caught up.

"We’re going," she said.

"I didn’t agree to that," he said, being pulled.

"You didn’t disagree fast enough," she said.

They moved along the path toward the haunted house, the sounds of the rest of the park behind them, the building getting closer and more committed in its aesthetic the nearer they got.

The cobwebs along the roofline were dense and deliberate, the paint on the exterior specifically chosen to look like something had been wrong with it for a long time, the sign above the door flickering slightly even in daylight.

They were about ten steps from the entrance when the door opened.

A figure stepped out.

Full ghostface costume, the white mask with the pulled expression, a long dark robe, and a prop knife held loosely in one hand.

The figure just stood there in the doorway looking at them, doing nothing except existing in the space between them and the entrance.

Tasha’s hand found Liam’s.

Then her face found his arm.

She pressed her face into his bicep, her grip on his hand going from normal to significant in about half a second, her whole body pulling slightly behind him.

Liam looked down at her.

"You’re already scared," he said.

"Protect me inside," she said into his arm, slightly muffled.

The ghostface figure tilted its head and then raised one hand. "Hey, hey, it’s all good." The voice from behind the mask was young and slightly apologetic. "Everything in there is completely fake. It’s all designed. You’re totally safe, I promise."

Liam looked at the figure. "Thanks, I think we’re good actually."

Tasha’s hand tugged at his sleeve. "I’m fine," she said, lifting her face from his arm, her expression rearranged into something that was attempting composure. "We’re going in."

Liam looked at her face. At the composure that was doing a partial job at best.

He exhaled slowly.

He looked at the ghostface figure. "Looks like we’re going in," he said.

The figure let out a laugh from behind the mask, short and genuine, and stepped to the side with a theatrical sweep of one arm, clearing the way to the entrance.

They walked through the door.

Inside was dark in the way these places managed dark, not completely black but low and directional, the light coming from sources designed to make specific things visible and everything else less so.

It entrance corridor was wide enough for two people comfortably and stretched ahead of them with the first wave of decoration already doing its work.

Cobwebs thick and layered across the ceiling and upper walls, not the sparse decorative kind but the committed kind that someone had spent real time on.

Skeletons arranged in poses along the sides, some standing, some slumped, some doing things that skeletons had no business doing, all of them positioned with enough attention to detail that a second look was more unsettling than the first.

Liam looked around.

"It’s not that bad," he said, turning to look at Tasha.

She was holding his hand.

She had done it at some point between the door and where they were standing now without either of them making a thing of it, her fingers through his, her grip settled and present.

He looked at their hands.

He looked at her face.

She was looking ahead with her chin slightly up, the specific posture of someone making a point of not being scared in a place specifically designed to scare them.

He smiled and faced forward and they kept walking.

The corridor turned and opened into a wider space, more elaborately designed, the walls painted to look like stone, a low sound effect running underneath everything, something between a wind and something else that wasn’t quite wind.

Then something dropped from the ceiling directly above them.

A spider. Large and plastic and dangling on a thin wire that had delivered it at speed to approximately face level, swinging there between them.

Tasha made a sound.

Then she made a much louder sound and both hands came up immediately, one batting at the spider and one finding Liam’s jacket and gripping it, and then she was pressed against his side with her face in his shoulder making a sound that was somewhere between a shriek and a whimper.

"Okay, okay," Liam said, putting his arm around her. "It’s plastic. It’s fine. Look, it’s just—"

"I don’t care what it is," she said into his shoulder, her voice muffled. "I don’t like spiders. I don’t like anything about spiders. The legs. The whole thing."

"All spiders or just surprise ceiling spiders."

"All of them," she said. "Every single one."

He kept his arm around her while she collected herself, her hands gripping his jacket, her whole frame slightly tense against his side.

He looked at the spider still swinging gently on its wire and then at the top of her head pressed into his shoulder.

’This is the most scared I’ve seen her,’ he thought. ’And I’ve seen her in some situations.’

He thought about that for a second. About what it took to make her feel something this immediately, this unguarded. About the fact that a plastic spider on a wire had done what a lot of other things hadn’t.

’Maybe that’s just how it works,’ he thought. ’When you live the kind of life that makes the big things manageable you stop having defenses for the small ones.’

She straightened up.

She let go of his jacket and smoothed it where she had been gripping it, looked at the spider now hanging still above them, looked at Liam.

"Don’t say anything," she said.

"I wasn’t going to," he said.

They kept walking.

The next space had a different design, taller ceilings, the walls done to look like a medieval hall, suits of armour standing at intervals along the sides, shields mounted between them, a long table with candles running down the center.

At the far end a large figure stood behind the table, designed to look like something between a man and something that wasn’t, elaborate costume work, detailed enough that the first second of looking at it produced something before the brain caught up with what it actually was.

They moved through it slowly, Tasha’s hand back in his, looking at the armour and the details.

"Okay," she said, her voice recovering its normal quality. "This part is actually kind of cool."

"Yeah," Liam said. "So let’s just keep moving."

They passed the last suit of armour.

Behind them, a sound.

The figure from the end of the table was behind them. Moving. Its head turning toward them with the slow mechanical quality of something that had been waiting for them to pass before following.

"You should not have picked this place," Liam said, facing forward and walking slightly faster, "if you’re going to get scared every thirty seconds."

"Shut up," she said, walking faster too. "You’re scared as well. I felt you shaking."

"That was you," he said.

"It was not—"

Behind them, close, very close, a sound arrived that started somewhere in the chest of whatever was behind them and came out as something between a roar and a word that hadn’t quite made it to either.

"HAAAAAAAA—"

Liam’s fist moved before the rest of him had any input on the matter, turning and swinging with the specific reflexive commitment of someone whose body had made a security decision without consulting anyone.

His knuckles connected with the nose area of the mask.

The figure stumbled back.

"What the— ow. What the actual— my nose, man. My nose."

The voice was entirely human and entirely pained.

Liam stood there with his fist still raised looking at the figure now holding the front of its mask with both hands.

"I’m so sorry," Liam said immediately. "Are you okay? I’m really sorry."

The figure straightened up slowly, one hand still at its face. "It’s fine," it said, the voice slightly nasal now. "It’s fine. Occupational hazard." It paused. "At least I got a reaction."

"I wasn’t scared," Liam said. "It was reflex."

"Man, why did you punch me if you weren’t scared."

"Reflex is different from scared," Liam said.

"Whatever helps you sleep," the figure said. It lowered its hand from the mask. "At least I definitely got your girlfriend."

"Got my—" Liam turned.

The space beside him was empty.

He looked behind him. Empty corridor.

He looked at the figure.

The figure pointed toward a small door at the far end of the corridor. "She went through there," it said. "Last room."

"Right," Liam said. "Sorry again about the nose."

"Go get your girlfriend man," the figure said.

Liam was already moving.

He went through the small door and into the last room, which was designed differently from everything before it.

A bedroom, of sorts, the kind that existed in the specific imagination of haunted house designers, dark furniture and a wardrobe against one wall and a cradle in the corner with a mobile above it turning slowly.

The sound effect here was a baby crying, low and continuous, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

He stood in the doorway and looked at the room.

Then something grabbed him from behind and pulled.

He was inside the wardrobe before he had finished processing what had happened, the door closing behind him, the darkness complete, and then arms were around him and someone was pressed against his chest and making small sounds that were not the fake baby crying from outside.

"Tasha," he said.

"Don’t talk," she said, her voice slightly unsteady. "Just. Don’t talk for a second."

He put his arms around her.

She pressed into him and held on, her hands gripping the back of his jacket, her breathing coming in and out against his chest.

He stood in the dark of the wardrobe with his arms around her and said nothing and let her breathe.

After a while the sounds settled.

Her grip on his jacket loosened slightly.

He felt her lift her head.

Then she kissed him.

He didn’t see it coming and it landed anyway, her mouth on his in the dark of the wardrobe, soft and present, not asking anything just doing it.

He was still for a second.

Then he kissed her back.

She made a small sound against his mouth and pressed closer and he kissed her properly now, one hand moving from her back to the back of her head, and she kissed him back with everything she had apparently been sitting on for however long she had been sitting on it.

His other hand found her waist and then moved to her butt and she made a sharp sound and pulled back.

She looked at him in the dark. He could feel her looking even without seeing it.

Then she pushed him gently against the back of the wardrobe and sank to her knees.

"We should go," he said.

"Not yet," she said.

He heard his button. Then his zip.

She reached in and freed him and then her hands were on him and she looked at him for a moment from below, her hands wrapped around him.

’I missed this,’ she thought, her hands moving slowly. ’The weight of it. The thickness of it. I thought about this more than I should have and now it’s right here and I genuinely cannot help myself.’

She took him in her mouth.

She started slow, her lips sealing around him, her tongue pressing flat, her head moving in a rhythm she had chosen and was going to stay on. Her hands worked at the base while her mouth covered everything above them, the coordination between the two immediate and deliberate.

He put his hand on the back of her head.