Work Text:
Lacy Gleeson had lived in—or, well, inhabited—the same little Colonial style house just outside of Salem for the past hundred and nineteen years. Haunting the place had been a much more pleasant experience than burning to death in the cottage that had previously resided on the same lot.
Lacy had watched two different couples grow old in the house, the first dying there and the second being toted off to something called a “long term care facility”.
She’d mostly kept to herself those years. Lacy had died just before her twentieth birthday, and all the town boys had been afraid of her—she was a witch, after all. So she had never known love. And it was all a bit lonesome to watch those couples coo over each other for fifty years each. So, Lacy hid in the attic between the upper bedrooms and the roof, conjuring chill winds to knock over stacks of books and flip the pages.
The house changed hands a couple of times since then.
The most recent owners were also a couple. At least, at first. Lacy was impressed with the woman—she seemed to aspire to poltergeist-hood, doing enough screaming and throwing of things for the both of them.
Still, when Lacy would knock over a stack of books to read, the woman would hear the thud and insist that the man go up to check.
The first few times, he’d righted the stack.
Lacy had fretted—for the past forty years, nobody had bothered with the attic. The elderly couple had been too stiff, the intervening owners attributing the sounds to their children or their dogs.
But this couple had neither children nor dogs nor, apparently, any chill whatsoever. (Lacy had learned some new phrases from the graphic novels that said children had left around.)
After the third or fourth time, the man had realized that if he didn’t right the stack, there’d be nothing to knock over, so he’d come up the ladder, walked in a circle so that the woman would hear the rafters creaking, and then headed back down. He paused on the ladder and looked back to say, “Hey so… if there’s a raccoon or something living up here… try to only poop on her stuff, okay?”
Lacy had stifled a giggle. She liked him—he wore glasses and read about astrophysics for fun. She was already learning a lot from the books and magazines he left around. Humanity had discovered so much in the years since she’d died.
She was trying to keep to herself, she really was. She knocked over another stack because she’d run out of things to read, not because she meant to cause trouble. But apparently, the woman was at a breaking point, and the man was at a breaking point, and they ended their relationship right there in the foyer.
Lacy thought the man might move out soon, too, but he stayed. For a week, he seemed sad. Then after that, he seemed happier. Where before he’d only read a few pages at a time, now he sat on the couch with a book for hours and hours.
Lacy ventured cautiously down from the attic and peeked over his shoulder, reading with him. There were the books on astrophysics—but also super hero comics. Spy mysteries. Romance novels.
Seeing when he cried, hearing when he laughed—Lacy really felt like she was getting to know him. His name was ChrisToffer. The woman had called him Chris, but his friends called him Toff.
Toff had grown up in Vermont and moved to Salem for work. He took his coffee with cream and extra sugar. He was very bad at a game called “Fort Knight” but he still played it with his kid nephew anyway.
It didn’t take long at all for Lacy to start feeling that warm, floaty feeling that the romance novels talked about.
“Weird,” Toff had remarked. “I thought it would be colder here with just one person…”
But that was not the only strange new feeling that Toff inspired.
Lacy knew what sex was, of course, even before she became a ghost. Abstractly, anyway. As she’d haunted the house, she’d tried to keep to herself. But she hadn’t really had to worry about it for half a century. The couple had been elderly, and then for the rest, with the kids, then the dog, then the fighting… their engagements had been brief. Easy to ignore.
Lacy had hovered over Toff’s shoulder as he watched dozens of movies, but then he put on a kind of movie that Lacy had never seen before.
It was graphic. Sexual. It made Lacy feel so warm that she could hardly stand it. Was she supposed to turn away? It was a movie, though. And movies were made to be watched, weren’t they? Toff was watching them.
Toff was watching them and then… rubbing the bulge in his pants. And sighing in a strange sort of way.
And then he unzipped his pants.
Lacy covered her eyes with her hands, but her fingers were transparent, so she watched anyway.
Watched as he stroked his cock, watched as the woman in the movie gasped with pleasure, and then Toff was gasping and panting, and Lacy felt so hot she might explode and—
With a low moan, Toff came, spurting on his shirt and hand, making more than Lacy had expected—not that she had thought much about what to expect under such circumstances.
With his clean hand, Toff grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.
“Fuck, I needed that,” he murmured. “It’s been a while…”
Though Lacy didn’t really need to breathe, her incorporeal body still emoted in natural ways, and her chest rose and fell so quickly she thought she might faint. She zipped away, unsure of what to do with all the heat that buzzed through her.
It was harder than usual to stay invisible, and the house’s beams creaked as she rose to the attic.
And she didn’t know what to do, but she couldn’t stay like this. She couldn’t help but think about what she’d seen, and it made her feel like she was going to burst, like she couldn’t contain all the heat anymore, and—
Something like a convulsion rippled through Lacy’s incorporeal form, like she really was exploding, but it felt so good.
When it finally stopped, she drifted woozily through the air. Though, she came down a bit when she saw the mess she’d made—a thin layer of ectoplasm coating the wood near her. Lacy’s cheeks heated. She didn’t even know she could do that.
***
The next day seemed normal enough, and Lacy was pretty sure that Toff hadn’t noticed the creaking. She tried to put the strange event behind her, assuring herself that it was a fluke.
But Toff put on another movie that night. Lacy thought about leaving, but—what if she made the creaking noise again? It was probably better to wait until he’d gone to sleep, anyway. And… it was just a movie. It had surprised her before. She could handle herself this time.
In retrospect, it was probably the decision to “handle” herself that was the mistake. A woman in the movie worked her hand between her legs, did all sorts of things with the anatomy there that Lacy had never thought to try.
And just like she could feel her cheeks warm or her chest heave, she could feel her hand against herself there.
And it felt good.
Really good.
Lacy only barely made it through the door to the basement before she burst.
The next day, while Toff was at work, Lacy rifled through his books to see if she could get any clues as to what was happening, but there was precious little to be found. Men could spill their seed, she knew, but she’d thought women found sex merely pleasant—nothing like this. Even his romance novels said nothing about it—there was kissing and petting and then they “went to bed” or “lay together” but there was no mention of such an ecstatic pleasure.
Lacy floated over to the house’s strange little box that Toff sat and typed at sometimes. She’d peered over his shoulder to get a general sense of how it worked. It seemed to be a question-answering machine, called a “computer”, and he’d asked it things like “how to cook chicken” and “how to return an engagement ring”, whatever that was.
It took considerable effort to push the machine’s buttons, but Lacy was determined. She entered into the white box, “what is a burst of amazing pleasure?”
Nudging the machine’s tiny round friend was easier than hitting the other buttons, and Lacy navigated her way through first one article, then another. She seemed to be experiencing “female orgasm”, or at least the ghost version of it. The… ectoplasm production did not seem to be something humans experienced—at least not in the same volume.
And then Lacy saw a little picture like the movies Toff had watched, so she clicked on it. It was another smaller movie. And then she watched another, and another, heat slowly building as she did.
Just when Lacy was squirming with the pleasure of it, the front door clicked. Toff was home.
Something moving very close to her startled her—her own hand, no longer invisible.
Lacy squeaked with panic and tried to melt down through the floor—but the planks groaned angrily and resisted her. She pushed back from the desk, sending the chair spinning, and floated around and up the stairs, hiding in a shadow.
Toff carried a bag in towards the kitchen, almost not noticing that the strange box was glowing…
Until it let out a sultry moan.
Lacy winced.
“What the…” Toff murmured, setting down the bag and approaching the glowing box.
Lacy felt her heart thundering, even though she didn’t have one anymore.
“Stupid viruses,” Toff muttered, as if that was enough of an explanation. He sat at the box for a few minutes and when he left, the screen was blank except for a gray box that read “Ahoy Antivirus”.
So Lucy was undiscovered for the moment, but not out of the woods yet. She still felt close to bursting, and without being able to pass through walls, she had no idea what to do.
And then she saw it—the spare bedroom that Toff used for storage was open just a crack. Lacy summoned a chill wind to push it the rest of the way open and floated inside, scurrying behind a stack of boxes before finally pressing a hand between her legs.
It felt so, so good—she was aching for it. And it didn’t take long. With her own exultant moan, she shuddered, spraying ectoplasm against the walls and the boxes.
Wait, a moan? Lacy slapped an invisible-again hand over her mouth. In a hundred and twenty years, she’d never moaned aloud.
The bottom stair squeaked. “Is someone there?” Toff called.
Lacy winced and shot up through the ceiling into the safety of the attic. Confident she was invisible, she chanced sticking her head back down in time to see Toff flick on the light in the room.
“Hello?” he said. “T-that you, raccoon?”
Toff looked close enough to confirm that there were no humans hiding in the room, but not so close as to see the ectoplasm, and then he shut the door behind him.
***
Lacy was more careful after that. If Toff started one of those movies, Lacy watched but didn’t “handle” herself. That way, she could still phase through the ceiling or the floor—even if the beams of the house creaked as she did.
She supposed she could have stopped watching the movies with Toff, but it just… it just felt so good. And it made her feel… even fonder of Toff.
In the mornings, she sat across from him at the little breakfast table as he drank his coffee.
In the evenings, she curled up next to him on the couch as he watched the news or a cooking show.
Lacy had never felt happier.
She’d never felt more alive.
She hardly even thought to fret as Toff went into the spare bedroom and dug around in the boxes for something or other.
But when he hissed, “What the fuck is this?”, Lacy—and the house—went cold.
With a horrified expression, Toff regarded the still-gelatinous ectoplasm that coated the back of a stack of boxes and the wall.
“I’ve got that mold killer somewhere,” he muttered, heading down towards the basement.
No no no no, Lacy thought.
Toff descended the basement stairs for the first time in weeks, and as he flicked on the light, his eyes immediately went to the corner which was slick with an even thicker coating of the stuff. Looking even more disturbed, he gingerly searched the basement, not finding the mold killer he was looking for.
Lacy bit her invisible lip. At least he wouldn’t see the—
“Must have left it in the attic,” Toff said.
Lacy watched with horror as Toff put on a hoodie to ward off the sudden chill and ascended to the attic.
It would be fine as long as he didn’t turn around…
Toff turned around.
And gagged.
A whole half of the attic was coated with a two inch layer of the stuff. He didn’t even bother looking for the mold killer as he hurried back down the ladder and let the door slam shut.
Lacy hovered nervously over his shoulder as he went to the glowing question box.
He asked it, “types of slime mold” and then “how to remove mold” and then “cost of mold remediation”.
So he could fix it, right? Maybe she could help clean it up? It wasn’t mold after all…
Then he asked it, “condos for sale in my area”.
Lacy watched pictures of beautiful new homes flash by. Ones with gorgeous entry ways and giant picture windows, ones without peeling paint or creaky floors, ones without any bent radiators and no gouges in the floor from dogs, no dents in the wall from children—and probably no ghosts.
A furious jealous overcame her, and Lacy did to the computer what she’d seen the previous owners do—she grabbed where its tail connected to the wall and tugged.
The box went black, and Toff sat there, stunned. He wiggled the little oval, then pushed the buttons, and Lacy felt smug—until Toff leaned around and saw the tail not connected to the wall.
“M-must’ve caught on something…” he muttered.
Toff plugged it in but didn’t turn it back on, and instead headed to the kitchen to make dinner. Lacy sat across from him, feeling better that he was no longer looking at other houses, but he seemed to be in a strange mood.
That night, he called one of his friends. It had taken Lacy years to understand what a phone was—for a while, she’d thought there was another ghost inside the box, and kept trying to coax it out so that she wasn’t so lonely.
“I don’t know how much longer I can live here,” he said.
“Too many memories with Barb?” the friend asked.
“It’s not that,” Toff said. “Really. It’s just… so okay, you know how I told you my heating bill’s been weirdly low this winter?”
“Yeah?”
“I thought before that maybe Barb had been leaving windows open, and so it was high before. But it’ll get these really weird drafts, hot spots and cold spots, but not near the radiators.”
“Okay, still sounds like old house shit to me.”
“And there’s… creaking at odd times… And my books keep getting scattered, or they’re not open to the page I remember…”
“The raccoon, right?”
“Yeah. Probably. Except now there’s also this massive slime mold colony. In the attic and the basement and the spare bedroom.”
“Shit. That’s serious. It’s not black mold, is it?”
“No, that’s the weirdest thing. It’s clear and… and bluish. If it wasn’t covering everything, I’d think someone had just spilled a bottle of hair gel.”
“Huh. Weird. Maybe that means you can clean it up?”
“Maybe. But I dunno… it is a lot of house for one person…”
“And that is why you’ve gotta keep coming out with us!”
“Yeah. I guess. But it’s weird, it’s… despite everything I… I’m happy. Alone here. I think. It doesn’t feel as… as lonely as I expected.”
Something soft and warm glowed inside Lacy. It also made her want to burst, but in a totally different way than before.
***
The next day while Toff was out, Lacy got to work.
She had never tried to become more corporeal, since it always meant becoming visible, but she found that when she focused on grounding herself in space, her transparency turned to translucency and it became easier to interact with physical objects.
She thought back to anything that anyone had ever complained about in the house, and she fixed it as best she could. She tightened the loose screws on the door hinges, and frightened off the family of mice that chewed at the wires.
She closed and locked the windows that had been stuck partly open for years, and she cleared out all the cobwebs from the ceiling corners.
Lastly, she stole a rag and a bucket from the basement and managed to get most of the ectoplasm cleaned up. Luckily, it rinsed down the drain with hot water.
When Lacy was done, the whole house was brighter and tidier than it had been in months. She even lit the candle in the kitchen so that it would smell nice when Toff got home.
Just as his car pulled into the driveway, she extinguished the flame and turned invisible again so that she could see if her plan had worked. If Toff didn’t feel like it was too much house to manage, then he’d stay.
Toff stepped in the front door, smelled the candle, smiled—then panicked.
He dashed into the kitchen, swearing, and found the candle extinguished but the wax still melted.
“What the…”
He scurried up to his bedroom, easily pulling the door open—and then stopped short, testing the swing of the door, finding that it no longer dragged across the floor.
While Lacy had hoped that Toff would notice the improvements slowly and with growing happiness—he noticed them immediately and with mounting horror.
He dialed his friend from before.
“Yo, bro—”
“The house is haunted. That’s why I can’t stay. It’s haunted.”
“Whoah, dude, slow down. What are you saying?”
“I think it doesn’t want me to leave. My computer blacked out when I was looking at condos yesterday.”
“You were looking at condos yesterday?”
“Just browsing. Y’know. I don’t know.”
“Okay so it was like a power surge or something? Old houses do that.”
“No, it was unplugged. From the wall.”
“So you kicked it?”
“That’s what I thought but… I don’t know. And then I come back today, and a candle’s been burning recently. And everything’s clean. And the broken door is fixed. And—”
Something occurred to Toff and he ducked into the spare bedroom, then thunders down two flights of stairs to the basement and flipped the light on.
“Dude, what is happening over there,” the friend said.
“All the mold is gone,” Toff said.
“You didn’t fall asleep watching a horror movie again, did you?”
“No, I’m serious.”
“I know you said you were enjoying being alone, but maybe it is getting to your head…”
“M-maybe,” Toff said, shoulders slumped, tromping up to the main floor. He sighed and fell back into the couch. “Is it weird if… if I wouldn’t mind if the house were haunted? Like if the ghost is fixing things, that makes them a nice ghost, right?”
The friend snickered. “Yeah maybe it’s a hot ghost. Totally a thing. And not a sign that you should come out with us bro.”
Toff rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Maybe I should… stay out for a few nights. Clear my head. Can’t mold cause hallucinations or something?”
“Oh shit, yeah. You know you’re always welcome on my couch, buddy.”
“Thanks.”
They chatted through a few more pleasantries, then Toff hung up—and shivered.
Lacy frowned, realizing then that she was bringing the temperature of the room down. Her plan had failed. He was going to move out even sooner.
Not wanting to make Toff any more uncomfortable, Lacy swept up into the attic. She flipped open a book and tried to lose herself in it, like she’d always been able to, but her feelings were not so easily dissipated.
She cried, horrified as she realized that she was making a sound and powerless to stop it, and frozen tears tinked onto the wood below.
A few minutes later, the attic door creaked, and Lacy gasped and hid behind the rafters.
Toff muttered to himself as he climbed. “You really are insane, going towards the crying sound in the attic.”
He stopped with just his head poking up, and swept a flashlight through the space—lingering on the little pile of frozen tears. He reached over and picked one up, and it melted on his fingers.
Toff gulped.
“O-okay…” he said. “W-whatever you are—a sentient raccoon, a ghost, a squatter… I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I—I really appreciate what you tried to do—what you did—with the house. I think we could, um… probably keep getting along. But I… I need to know what I’m dealing with. I need to know if I’m crazy… A-and to be clear, I don’t need anyone else to know. If you need to stay secret, I get that. I just need to make sure I’m not going… insane.”
Toff heaved a sigh. “Toff, you’re attempting to negotiate with a ghost in your attic, of course you’re insane.”
As Toff descended, Lacy reached out a hand—but she remained invisible.
***
Lacy had precious little time to figure out what to do, and no chance to ask the question box. That left only one tactic, and even though it had gotten her mentor burned at the stake, she was done letting life pass her by.
Seduction it was, then.
Fortunately, Toff’s friend had planted in his mind the idea that he was perhaps just too pent up again, and Toff put on one of the movies of his own accord.
“Here’s to hoping for some post nut clarity,” he murmured to himself as he slumped into the couch, glass of wine in-hand, still wearing his clothes from the day.
As he watched pawing hands and flesh on flesh, his cock slowly tented his jeans.
Lacy reached out with an invisible hand and gently brushed a finger along the fabric.
Toff twitched and then moaned, attributing the sensation to the tug of his jeans.
With Lacy’s excitement, the room heated five degrees.
Toff tugged at the collar of his sweater, then stripped it off.
Lacy didn’t back off this time—she stayed right next to Toff, radiating heat.
The woman in the movie let out a cry of pleasure, and the room heated five more degrees.
Toff stripped off his shirt, then his pants, until he sat there in just his boxers.
“Thought I could still handle my wine,” he sighed.
Lacy let herself really notice his body for the first time. She’d done her best to ignore his showers and the times he stood naked in his room, debating what to wear.
Now, she thought about what it would be like to watch, to touch herself while she did.
Sweat glistened on Toff’s skin, beading as the room turned into a sauna. His brushed his cock through his boxers and groaned.
“Guess I really did let myself get too pent up,” he muttered.
As Toff stroked his tip through the fabric, Lacy held her hand near his cock and just the heat of it made him tremble.
Finally, Toff slipped out of his boxers too. He grabbed his cock and stroked along to the rhythm of the movie, starting slow.
Lacy waited until his eyes fluttered shut, then traced a finger along his inner thigh.
Toff’s eyes blinked open, but Lacy was still invisible.
He settled back again, and this time, Lacy cupped his balls.
Toff moaned, back arching, too captivated by the sensation to try to make sense of it.
His breathing quickened, but instead of bursting, he dropped his cock.
“Easy, Toff,” he muttered. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”
Lacy released him before Toff opened his eyes and regained his bearings. He forced his hand to stay draped over the arm of his couch while he watched more of the movie.
Lacy stared at his cock as it throbbed, begging for attention.
She licked her lips. This was a golden opportunity. She waited until the movie reached a peak, until Toff’s hand lifted from the arm of the couch, willpower giving out—
And she plunged his cock down her throat.
His hips bucked instinctively as he moaned, suddenly wrapped by a slippery heat.
He tasted so good—like salt and life. It was all too much for Lacy—containing the heat and the pleasure and the desire—and her body faded into view.
“Oh my god,” Toff gasped, somewhere between horror and ecstasy.
Lacy bobbed on his cock, pushing him towards the latter.
He moaned again as his eyes lost focus. He gasped and tried to orient.
“I k-knew it… a-all this time it’s been you…” His hand lifted gently towards her cheek.
Much to their mutual surprise, his hand stopped on her translucent skin. It was a strange tingling sensation for Lacy—and likely for him as well. And it felt so good.
Lacy moaned aloud, the vibrations surrounding Toff’s cock.
“H-have you watched me… d-do this before?” he asked.
Lacy blushed and nodded around his cock.
“Fuck, that’s hot…” he murmured. “A-and are you doing this to get me to s-stay? Or are you just as horny as I am?”
As soon as he said it, Lacy knew the truth, and she squirmed with heat. She had longed to touch him since the first romance novel she’d read over his shoulder. Her body burned and her hand pressed between her legs and she relished the feeling of his cock in her throat, worrying neither about a gag reflex nor oxygen.
Her enthusiasm seemed to be enough of an answer for Toff.
“Y-you feel so good… I don’t think I’m gonna last much longer… S-sorry I’m not—Oh god, I—Fuck.”
Toff poured down her throat, and it didn’t fall to the carpet as Lacy had expected. Her body was solid enough to hold it, to draw it into her core where it diffused into an even more urgent kind of heat.
As Toff trembled with sensitivity, he gently pushed her mouth off of his cock, but kept her cheek cradled in his hand.
No longer muffled, Lacy moaned so loudly she startled a mouse in the rafters.
Everything just felt so unbelievably, incomprehensible, uncontainably good…
Lacy burst harder than she ever had before, spattering everything—the TV, the coffee table, the couch, and Toff—with ectoplasm.
Then Lacy floated, dizzy, tingling all over—and literally glowing.
Toff looked up at her with wide eyes.
She worried he was afraid, but he reached out towards her hand.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured.
Lacy regarded herself. It had been so long since she’d been corporeal, she’d forgotten what she looked like. Long white hair floated around her shoulders and breasts as she drifted naked in the air.
She put her hand in Toff’s and he pulled her down into his, lap, their skin tingling where it touched.
“So let me get this straight,” Toff said. “I’ve had this weird feeling these past few months that I haven’t really been alone… and that’s been you?”
Lacy nodded sheepishly.
“And you fixed up the house?”
She nodded.
“And this…” he seemed to notice the mess of the living room. “Isn’t mold it’s… ghost girl cum?”
Lacy winced and nodded.
“So you’ve been… watching me masturbate and then sneaking off and finishing?”
Lacy covered her face with her hands. If only she could explain—but then again, couldn’t she? She had a voice, didn’t she?
Hesitantly, Lacy tried it out. “It w-wasn’t my intention… a-at first… I didn’t quite know what was happening, but… I’m so sorry…”
Toff gently pulled her hand from her face. “It might just be the incredible amount of endorphins in my system right now, but… I don’t mind. It was an honest mistake, and… um… I think I’m into it.”
Lacy’s ass tingled as Toff’s cock throbbed erect again.
“That’s a relief,” Lacy said.
“So, um… I think, I should ask… what’s your name?”
“Oh! Lacy.”
“I’m—”
“Toff. I, um, I know. I’ve been… watching.”
“R-right. So I guess you know a lot more about me than I know about you. Where—and, um, when—are you from?”
“It’s a long story,” Lacy said.
“We have all night,” Toff offered.
“In that case… there’s something I’d like to try first…” Lacy floated up out of Toff’s arms and shifted so that she straddled him like she’d seen in the movies. His cock centered in her like a magnet, right in the place that felt the best.
“Oh,” Toff said. “S-sure, happy to assist.”
Lacy rode him and it felt even better than she’d imagined. She chased the sparks of pleasure through another climax, and Toff was close behind, which pushed her over the edge again as his cum had that strange ecstatic interaction with her ghostly form.
It wasn’t until the sun peeked through the curtains and they’d tried out three more positions that Toff said, “Oh shoot, I did really mean to ask you more about yourself…”
Pleasantly exhausted, Lacy was finding it harder and harder to stay visible.
“It’s alright,” she replied. “It’s not a very interesting story, anyway.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Toff said. “And besides, we have all week. And all month. And all year.”
Excitement kept Lacy visible just a little bit longer. “Does that mean… you’re staying?”
Toff nodded with a warm smile. “Until you get sick of me, but… I think I’d like to stay here. A very long time.”
“I’d like that,” Lacy murmured as her body finally faded out of sight.
As Toff left for work, she didn’t float up to the rafters, but rather found a beam of sunlight and curled up in the warmth, content as a cat.
For the first time in a hundred and twenty years, Lacy no longer felt like she haunted a house.
Now, she haunted a home.