"I'll have you know that was state of the art when I had it put in," said the sculptor.
"The owner thinks so," I told him.
Jacob peered around the wall. "You see him?"
"Her," I corrected.
"And, what? You're not dragging me back to the car because the place is haunted."
I wasn't, was I? "It's not haunted," I said. "Not like that.
She's not a repeater or anything." Repeaters really creeped me out, saying the same sentence or doing the same motions over and over, like never ending instant replay.
"The plumbing's all updated," said the ghost. "All you need to do is have the shower and toilet installed." She sighed. "It really would've been beautiful."
"Who owns this place now?" asked Jacob.
He'd been talking to me, but the sculptor answered. "The city. They're doing their best to offload it to the most horrible developers they can find."
"The city," I said. I omitted the part about the developers, in the interest of staying neutral. "Why?"
Jacob ran his fingers over the bare brick wall, pressing his fingertips into the grooves of the mortar. "Couldn't you see it?"
"What?"
"Living. Here." He walked faster, palm skimming over the brick, enjoying the huge expanse of empty space. "I've always wanted to live in a loft."
The sculptor watched Jacob closely. Either she wanted his autograph, too, or she'd found the perfect buyer for her converted cannery with its Egyptian revival bricks. "You sure you can't hear her?" I asked Jacob. "'Cos it looks to me like she's got you wrapped around her callused little ghost finger."
Jacob turned to face me, placing his other hand on the wall, like he didn't want to let go of it. "Do you hate it?"
I shone my flashlight toward the ceiling. Twenty, twenty-five feet high in the open part of the building, fifteen feet where the loft extended over the main floor. The place was huge. Cavernous. And I had a sneaking suspicion that, as indulgent as Jacob was, he wasn't going to let me paint everything white and light it up like a baseball stadium so that I could make sure there wasn't anyone around but him and me.
And yet, if I emptied my mind and just stood there, still, it felt ... okay. There I was, in the dark, my breath streaming in white clouds through the flashlight beams, and I didn't feel that panicky edge that compelled me to turn on all the lights.
"I don't hate it," I admitted.
Jacob pocketed his flashlight and pulled out his cell phone.
The lit keypad threw a greenish light over his features. He was smiling to himself as he dialed. "Hello. Stan? Change of plans. I need you pull some paperwork for a city-owned property on West Loughton."
Jacob went back outside to get the address, leaving me alone with my flashlight and the sculptor. "I know you'll love it as much as I did," she said.
"You're gonna move out if we move in," I said. "No offense."
"Are you kidding? I thought I'd find a decent buyer years ago. I'll be out of here before the ink's dry on the deed."
Jacob's flashlight preceded him as he came back in. It bounced from corner to corner. "Look at that," he said, lighting up a doorway. "There's a basement."
"How creepy is it?" I muttered as Jacob pulled the door open and fearlessly stuck his head in.
"It's fine," said the sculptor. "There was a spot that was just perfect for my kiln. And, of course, the freight elevator.
That doesn't work anymore, but I think a good electrician could get it going again."
Jacob turned away from the basement door and headed toward me, taking long strides across the industrial wooden floor, boot heels ringing; a man on a mission. He pocketed his flashlight again and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me against him. "I'm not gonna lie to you," he said. "I really like this place."
Judging by the bulge that he pressed against my hipbone, I'd say the word "like" was an understatement. And then there was the look on his face, that intense, hungry look that he flashes my way that tells me he wants something, and damn it, nothing's going to stand in his way. That look he gave me the day we met at Maurice's retirement party.
I cleared my throat. "We're not alone," I mumbled.
"Don't worry about me," said the sculptor, her voice retreating towards the front door. "I'll give you some privacy.
I can see the two of you need to talk." She'd managed to say "talk" without any trace of sarcasm. Even with Jacob breathing hard against my cheek and grinding the bulge in his pants into my hip.
"All this space," Jacob said, dragging his mouth over my cheekbone, down my jaw. "We can park in the back—no more circling the block looking for a space." Actually, I usually parked in front of the hydrant. Though I suspected that wouldn't be a good thing if the fire department ever needed to use it.
He shuffled his feet, one between my shoes, the other outside my right foot, and walked me backward until my shoulder blades bumped the ten-foot wall that divided the kitchen area from the main room. "We could get a pool table," he said, covering my mouth with his before I could mention that I hadn't played pool since I'd lived at the Cook County Mental Health Center, where Big Martha, the scourge of the rec room, routinely cornered me into games in which I was sure to lose my every last cigarette to her. Which was fine, since I'd never really gotten the hang of smoking.
Jacob's hand worked its way inside my coat, his thumb brushing my nipple through my shirt. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his breath hot under my ear, and when he talked, his voice was low and hypnotic.
"We'll clean it up, finish the remodeling that was started. I can just see it. Our stuff will look great with the bricks and the wood floors. And it is on the first floor."
I'll admit, Jacob did paint a very nice picture of his fantasy loft. Especially in his sexiest voice, rolling my nipple through my shirt. It was stiff and tingly, pulsing in time with his insistent squeezes. I shifted my hips and my balls settled on his thigh. I tilted my pelvis, enjoying the feel of him, his body pinning me there while he talked all low and sultry against the side of my throat.
"I dunno," I teased. Because, of course, I'd already decided that if he liked the cannery that much, what the hell.
It wasn't haunted. That's what mattered. "Maybe it's not white enough."
Jacob's tongue was hot against my neck, and his free hand was busy at the fly of my jeans. He was willing to do whatever it was going to take to convince me. I leaned against the wall and shone my flashlight on him while he sank down to his knees—and damn, maybe I wanted his autograph, too, that movie star face peering up at me, watching me watching him.
And that was unusual, because I was usually the one to ambush him, but it felt right. It was good that each of us pushed the other one's buttons. That kept things a little more even. "C'mon, mister," I said, "you want this building so bad? Earn it."
Jacob pinched my nipple and arousal zinged down my spine to my groin. "Tell me," he said, his voice excited and low.
If I gave it too much thought, I'd come up with nothing. So I just went with whatever popped into my head. "Lick my balls," I told him, flashlight in one hand, handful of his hair, however much I could grab, in the other.
He needed both hands to ease my jeans down over my hips, and I focused on the sweet pain that followed the release of my tightly pinched nipple. I felt my cock swell, twitching as Jacob pressed it up against my stomach, his breath hot and moist on the skin of my scrotum.
"Lick them," I said, and it was so incredibly quiet behind the wide stone walls of the old cannery, the rest of the city felt like it was miles and miles away. "Slide your tongue in there, all over. Suck them into your hot mouth."
My voice went a little wobbly toward the end there, because Jacob had been busy following orders, his tongue snaking between my balls, cupping around them, wetting them with his spit.
I let go of his hair, which was too short to get a good hold on anyway, and took my cock in hand, rubbing it against his cheekbone. He rumbled something against my balls, and I was hard, good and hard now. I pumped my cock slowly, jerking myself off against his face while he sucked on my nuts.
He slipped a finger behind my balls, teasing the taint, promising my ass a little action, but not until I asked for it. I gave my cock a few more pulls and the pressed it against Jacob's temple, his hair tickling the shaft.
"That's right," I told him. "Keep going."
He slurped my testicles into his mouth shamelessly, encouraging groans muffled between my legs, first one nut, then the other.
"Work your finger," I said. Because he wasn't going to until I told him.
He slid it higher, spit-wet, and I shivered as he pressed it in, feeling his sigh against my damp balls as he inched it up my ass.
He finger-fucked me, working some kind of magic with the flat of his tongue, and I sighed, long and loud, pumping my cock lazily against his face. There was some sense of urgency, sure. For all I knew, Stan's office was right around the corner and he was a computer wizard who could pull paperwork in the blink of an eye. But I felt no anxiety about anything paranormal. I didn't sense anyone in the bushes, or the loft, or the basement. Just me and Jacob, and his mind-blowing tongue.
I'd double check the basement to be sure, of course. Oh God. I'd get right on it, once Jacob brought me off doing tongue-dances against the underside of my cock.
"Suck it," I growled, shoving my cock against his face.
Jacob rocked back on his heels and opened wide, sliding his hot, wet mouth all the way down. I pocketed my lit flashlight, which threw a single, jittery beam at the ceiling, and held on to Jacob's head with both hands. My fingers found the bony ridge at the back of his skull and I pressed my fingertips into the hollow.
"I'm so close," I said—I mean, I think he can tell by now, but it just seemed like it was the polite thing to do, to let him know I was going to shoot in his mouth. But Jacob didn't back off. He never does. He went at it even harder, which I suppose I could also liken to the rest of our relationship.
His finger slid in and out, in and out, and he swallowed my cock down as deep as he could take it, his lips pressing into the root at the downstroke, and if I listened closely, I heard a tiny grunt each time he'd taken my cock all the way in. So wet. So incredibly hot. And then he sealed his lips around my shaft and he sucked.
"Please...."
My whole body arched against Jacob's face, his head in my hands, and everything clenched tight while my cock spurted its blessed release. His sucking grew gentle while I shuddered, gritting my teeth and trying to wring one more twitch, one more spasm, out of the orgasm, though the intensity had grown uncomfortable, almost painful. But I couldn't help it. I'm greedy that way.
I think Jacob likes that, too. He goes all gentle after I've come, tries to see if he can milk just a little more pleasure out of me. I pushed him off when I couldn't stand any more, and he stood up and pressed himself into me, nuzzling me with his forehead. He smelled like earthy sweet semen.
"I really do want this place," he said, smiling, "but I don't think I've made a good enough case for it. After we talk to Stan, I plan on spending the rest of the night convincing you."
I cleared my throat. My mouth was dry from panting. "I see."
Jacob licked his lips while I buttoned my jeans and wrapped my winter coat tight around me. I felt like Stan would be able to spot something in my expression that would give away the fact that I'd just come really hard, but there wasn't much I could do about it. At least it was dark out.
Eventually, Stan joined us at the cannery, a sheaf of paper fresh from his laser printer in hand. "So," he said with false brightness. His flashlight beam trembled on the wall. "This is it."
He and Jacob went outside to look at the property lines while I sidled over toward the door to the basement, sneaky, so it couldn't get any nasty surprises ready for me.
I didn't go all the way down, not by the light of a flashlight, but I did descend a few steps and have a look. I figured that any remnant worth its salt wouldn't be able to resist flickering to life inside the flashlight beam.
The basement was still. Not empty, though, not at all.
There were big, industrial troughs of sinks, and machine parts, and even the rusty cage of an elevator. But nothing that would go bump in the night without being activated by someone corporeal.
I'd make sure to check the place out thoroughly before we started the process of buying the building, but for now, I was reasonably sure that it would just be Jacob and me hanging around, assuming the sculptor kept her promise.
I heard Stan's voice, and then Jacob's, the two of them squabbling, as I came up from the basement. They stood outside on the stoop, the front door—the one with the word "fuck" painted on it—slightly open. I shuffled over to see if I could accidentally overhear what the problem was.
"...don't know if you can even afford it."
"Vic's going in on it with me. Between the two of us? We'll see what the bank says."
"And you realize the amount of work it's going to take to bring it into a livable condition?"
"I can see that."
"And here you busted my balls over a few roaches."
"Stan ... don't push your luck."
My flashlight had been going for quite a while and was starting to dim. I shone it on the wall Jacob had been caressing while he was looking at me with his big, earnest eyes and asking me if we could keep the place. "Think Smart—Think Safe!" said a jaunty poster in turquoise script letters.
"The thing I don't get," said Stan, his raised voice filtering in through the open door, "is that of all the available properties on the north side, you end up asking me for the place that no one can sell, on account of its reputation for being haunted."
END