1. Saxon

1

SAXON

"Sax, hurry up! Your demon cat keeps looking at me funny!" My best friend, Brendon, calls from my living room. I roll my eyes, willing him to feel my annoyance even if he can't see it. Dusty might be a beautiful empty void of a black cat with her classic yellow eyes and perfectly timed attack pounces, but she's anything but a demon. She's my fluffy dark angel and my good luck charm. Though, to Brendon, she'll always be the animal who bites his ankles and then demands head pets.

"Five minutes!" I holler back from my bedroom, where I'm sitting in front of my vanity mirror. I've wiped off the Raggedy Ann freckles that complimented the costume I wore to school today— an appropriate and adorable go—to of mine every year. It's perfect for the pizza and cake party I throw for my first grade students before we parade around the playground to show their costumes off to their friends and parents. I apply a thick layer of black eyeliner, winging it out and then accentuating the underline with a swipe of bright red lip liner. I don't typically cake on my eye makeup this heavy, but it's Halloween and I want to look the part, even if this night isn't going exactly as I planned.

Typically, Brendon and I spend Halloween night noshing on caramel popcorn and fun sized candy while marathoning the Scream movies and ignoring any trick or treaters who dare knock on my door.

This year, I found myself ready to do something different. Something that I've been thinking about, fantasizing, craving for years. Something that I used to think made me wrong.

Dirty. Fucked in the head.

Especially when I told my ex-boyfriend about my fantasy, and he promptly dumped me, but not before berating me for my ‘sinful depravity'. He made me feel like I was bad and disgusting for yearning for something outside of the perceived norm and daring to voice those desires. I spent weeks doing my research after that douche left. I read up on my kink. I watched videos— both staged, scripted pornographic videos and the strictly educational ones. I chatted on message boards with like-minded people. When I found out about the annual haunted house slash kink experience right here in my nowhere town in rural Pennsylvania, I knew I was ready.

Screw my ex. Screw the boring, unfulfilling, passionless sex I've experienced in my life. Screw what people think is ‘normal' or not. I bought a ticket and was ready to finally experience what I've only thought about alone with my hand between my legs.

Unfortunately, my best friend is not one to take ‘no' for an answer. When I tried to tell him earlier this week that I wasn't in for our annual Halloween tradition, he would not give in until I told him what I was up to. I tried my best to skirt the subject, saying I just wasn't up for it, I wasn't feeling great, I was more in a "Sex and the City" than a Scream mood, but he wasn't having it. He pushed and pushed until I finally told him the truth.

Well, part of it. I told him I had heard of a new haunted experience and didn't think he'd be into it. Brendon loves scary movies, but real life jump scares aren't usually his jam. He, of course, insisted that not only was he totally down to check out the adults only Eastern State Mystery House, he was absolutely not going to let me go alone.

To be fair, I didn't fight him hard on it. It would have been pointless, because once Brendon puts his mind to something, he's relentless in his pursuits. The Mystery House is an "if you know, you know" kind of situation. If you know, you give the bouncer a passcode at the door, and then you're given a bracelet that indicates you're open to partners initiating play time with you in the rooms separate from the rest of the haunted house. If you don't know, you go in, enjoy the scares, and go home, none the wiser to some of the kinky sex acts going on behind the walls and loud, creepy music. Besides, what was I supposed to say?

"No, Brendon. I know we've spent every Halloween night together since we were toddling trick or treaters, but this year I want to explore my primal kink with a stranger or two. Catch ya in November, bud."

Not that Brendon would judge me. I know he wouldn't. He'd likely encourage me, because that's just who he is as a person. He's unflinchingly loyal, always on my side. But that doesn't mean he'd get it, and I don't know that I have it in me to explain myself.

I mean what kind of self—respecting elementary school teacher dreams of being chased through the woods, tackled to the ground, and taken like an animal running on instinct alone ?

This one.

But Brendon doesn't need to know that. The man still calls me 'bunny' for fuck's sake, all because I went through a pigtail phase in third grade, and he said it made my hair look like floppy rabbit ears. He's too pure for this world.

So, I will not be giving the bouncer a passcode tonight. I will be making the best of my situation, enjoying a spooky night with my best friend and then putting myself to sleep with my vibrator and some smutty, kinky novellas on my e-reader. Sighing, I affix a black and gold metallic spider barrette right above my ear, pushing back my pin straight raven locks. Pushing away from my vanity, I slide my feet into a pair of Doc Martens and stomp my way out of my bedroom, trying to tamp down the lingering disappointment of losing my chance to explore my wildest fantasies.

I find Brendon sitting on my couch, knees spread so wide that his thighs strain against the light wash denim of his jeans, the sleeves of his hunter green flannel rolled up to his elbows. His forearms rest on his thighs and he's scrolling through his phone while Dusty eyes him wearily from her perch on the back of the couch. I take a moment to look at him while he's preoccupied by what I'm sure is a reel of soccer highlights he's watching with the volume low. His golden-brown hair still has a brush of light highlights, a natural occurrence that happens every year after he spends three straight months working the fields on his families' four-hundred-acre dairy farm.

From June through November, his mousy brown locks turn practically blonde from his time in the sun. Under his flannel, a black tee shirt stretches across his ample chest. A chest that I know is built of muscles a person can only gain from the hands-on labor he does daily on the farm. I've spent many days since we were kids sitting on barn rafters, watching as he heaves hales of bay, milks cows, and harvests crops year-round. Even now, I bring my first graders to the farm twice a year on field trips so they can learn how an organic farm runs, and I know I can count on Brendon to give them the full experience, as well as a good time. I especially love watching him lead them around on the backs of his family's horses.

The corded sinew in his forearms, though? I like to think that that definition comes from the summer evenings spent in the general store, scooping ice cream for the families in town trying to escape the sweltering heat. The toned muscles on his right arm are highlighted by black ink, a field of sunflowers stretching up to his elbow, identical to the art on my left arm. We had the tattoos done together when we were nineteen to pay homage to the sunflower fields on the farm where we used to spend hours playing tag and hide and seek in when we were kids.

There's no denying it. Brendon is stunning. He's got the perfect, family man, small town boy, ‘aw shucks, ma'am' demeanor that women in this town go nuts for, plus a body that could bring any person with an appreciation of the male form to their knees.

But he's my best friend, has been since we were in diapers, destined to grow up together when our mothers— also best friends— found themselves pregnant at the same time and due within two weeks of each other and decided to give us cutesy, almost rhyming names. Golden Boy Brendon came first, in early November. Stubborn, Goth Girl Saxon, stuck around in her mother's womb a few extra weeks, deciding to make her appearance during Thanksgiving dinner. And since Brendon is my best friend, as sexy as I might find him— and I do find him mouth-wateringly gorgeous— I could never go there. I've never so much as risked a peck on the lips.

So, I take one last long glance while he's distracted, drinking him in from top to bottom, then quickly tamping down the funny feelings brewing in my chest. I'll go enjoy some good old fashioned jump scares with him, and later when I'm alone, I'll make sure the mystery man in my fantasies resembles more of the skinny, dark haired emo guys I tend to go for and not the Hemsworth lookalike currently taking up residence on my couch.