Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman Page A

against mine felt odd. Warm. My limbs shook; Josh had left the cold inside of me. My teeth chattered uncontrollably.
He headed for the shadows and I wanted to cry out for him to wait, to come back and touch me again, but his touch had left me so weak that before I could find my voice again, he had disappeared and left me alone once more.
I managed to bring the blankets over me in the hopes I might get warm but I could barely feel them. The thought of falling asleep frightened me. I might never wake up.

Chapter 7
W EDNESDAY N IGHT /T HURSDAY
    After the knock at the bathroom door, I lifted my head out of the water to catch a breath. “Trace?” I called out.
She opened the door. “Are you okay?”
Another time, I would have laughed. She looked so out of sorts, no makeup, with a dark trench coat over a flimsy cotton nightgown. My phone call at midnight had startled her but I had no choice. With my aunt gone, I needed someone there; I knew I couldn’t last the night on my own.
I lied naked in an overflowing tub. Spilled water was everywhere. Her bare feet splashed on the tile floor.
Trace pulled up the wicker clothes hamper to the edge of the tub and sat down on it. “What happened?”
My arm rose up slightly but the air felt so cold against my wet skin that I quickly let it splash down. I ducked back under the water for a second to clear my thoughts. “Josh came by tonight.”
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    “And?” She went to brush away some of the wet hair from my face but I shook my head.
“Don’t. I’m still not right.” A shudder went through me, spilling some water out of the tub. The last thing I wanted was to be touched.
She dipped a fingertip into the water around my shoulder and quickly pulled it back. “Fuck, that’s hot!”
“It’s not enough.”
“Tell me what happened. Did he hurt you?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” The last words came out with a whine. I ducked my head under again. Trying to tell Trace what happened was hard to explain. How to say that I had lost some integral virginity with my ghost? How to express what it was like to have him inside of me? There was no way I could even come close to describing the sensations.
“Did he hurt you?” she repeated, her voice tinged with frustration.
“We went into the bedroom. He told me how he felt. Then we…” As the water began to turn lukewarm, my arms underneath the water started to shake, sending ripples across the surface. Soon the trembling spread to the rest of me, and I gritted my teeth and clenched every muscle to keep still. “You didn’t?” Her eyebrows rose higher than I’ve ever
seen. “With your ghost?”
I tried a weak grin. “Yeah we did. Sorta.” I clutched my chest beneath the water, which had grown cold again. “And I think it almost killed me. He touched me… it’s like he left ice inside of me.”
“We need to get you warm.”
I nodded as she found some towels. I slid and almost broke my neck. She wrapped me in terrycloth. I shook less than before, but the cold remained inside me. Trace led me into the kitchen looking for something hot for me to drink. She seemed lost looking in the pantry. “Ovaltine, Hamburger Helper, Shake ’n Bake.” Her face was nearly aghast. “Where the hell does your aunt shop? Mayberry?”
“Meals around here can be scary.”
She took a jar to the stovetop and filled the kettle. “Go put clothes on.”
I nodded, my face a rictus with an outburst of chattering teeth. In my room, I stripped off the wet boxers and grabbed whatever clothes were close at hand, trying to cover up as much of me as possible. Two pairs of socks, briefs, sweatpants, T-shirt, and a black-dyed rugby shirt with torn sleeves.
I came out to the song of the kettle, the blanket from my bed wrapped around me. Trace poured what resembled brown chalk dust into a mug while I kept my hands inches above the hot burner. I wondered if my skin would sear if I laid a palm on the glowing coil; Trace would probably have a heart