I’d only been living in my new house for about a month when it all began. It started with subtle things; such as a coffee mug going missing only to be found in another part of the house or a t-shirt somehow ending up on my bed even though I’d clearly remember putting it away in a dresser just moments before. And then the major things began to happen; like doors closing on their own and the sound of a man crying coming from my closet. I never believed in ghosts or haunted houses before I moved into that house. Something just wasn’t right and even though a part of me wanted to just pack up and move, a bigger part wanted me to stay and find out what was going on.
“I know you think I’m crazy,” I said to my best friend Natasha, “but I think my house really is haunted.”
“Or you’re still stressing over the breakup,” she countered. “Brandon, I honestly think you’re letting your breakup with Shawn mess with your head.”
“This isn’t about the breakup. I’m over Shawn.”
“Then how come you still wear that?” She pointed to the engagement ring on my finger.
“I’m not giving away a valuable ring.”
“See, that’s what this whole thing is about. You need to move on, Brandon. There is no sense in holding on to all of that unnecessary baggage.”
“Okay, so I do miss Shawn sometimes. But I promise that me missing him has nothing to do with what’s been going on in this house. Natasha, I think…” I had to collect myself to admit a theory I’d come up with. “I think someone may have died here and the realtor didn’t tell me.”
“A few nights ago, I heard the sound of a man crying coming from my closet. I didn’t imagine it and I wasn’t dreaming.”
“I’ve been in this house plenty of times and I’ve never noticed anything out of the ordinary.” The moment she said that, something made a loud clanging noise in the living room. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” I stood up from the table and left the kitchen with her following me. When we made it into the living room, we noticed her purse was hanging on the front doorknob and all of its contents were scattered across the living room floor.
“How the hell did this happen? I sat my purse down on your sofa when I first came in.”
“There are many logical explanations for how this happened.”
“Well…um…maybe there’s a cat in here that you don’t know about.”
“How would it have gotten in? And how could a cat hang a purse on a doorknob that high up? Natasha, you have to believe me. There’s something wrong with this house.”
“If someone died here, wouldn’t the realtor have told you? Isn’t there a law about things like that?”
“I’m not sure. All I know is that I need to figure out what’s going on in this house because I’m losing sleep over it and that’s not good for my health or my business.”
“Alright, maybe we can…” She was interrupted by my bedroom door opening and slamming on its own. “Oh hell no! I am getting the fuck out of here!” She bent down and quickly picked up her belongings and shoved them back into her purse.
“No, I don’t know if you’re playing around to try to scare me or what but I am out of here!” She opened the door and ran out of the house as quickly as she could.
I stepped out on the porch and called out to her, “Natasha, come back!” I watched as she climbed into her car and sped off down the street. “Damn.” I stepped back into the house and closed the door.
As usual, everything calmed down. That’s how it always was. The strange stuff would happen for a period of time and then it would all stop. I didn’t know how much more of it I could take. I really loved the house because it was perfect for me in many different ways. It wasn’t too big or too small. I was able to buy it with the money I’d saved up because it was the least expensive house in the neighborhood. The best thing about the house was that it was located conveniently close to my photography business. I wouldn’t have known about the house if the realtor hadn’t come to my business to have some professional shots taken for the realty company she worked for.
“How can I help you today, Mr. Stokes?” Janice, my realtor, asked me over the phone.
“Janice, I’m having a problem with the house. I’m not going to cause you any trouble or demand my money back but I need you to be straightforward with me.”
“Did someone die here?” The moment I asked that, I heard her sigh and that was followed by silence. “Janice?”
“It’s not clear if someone died there but there was an incident.”
“What kind of an incident?”
“Mr. Stokes, it’s really not that big of a deal. That’s why I didn’t tell you. There is nothing wrong with the house.”
“I need to know what happened here, Janice. I have tried looking it up online but I can’t find anything.”
“And you’re sure you won’t try to take me to court over this? Like I said, it’s not even clear that someone died in the house.”
She sighed again before explaining, “Two years ago, one of the previous occupants of the house disappeared. His name was Caleb Hughes.”
“Does anyone know what happened to him?”
“No. He and his lover Tory Benton lived in that house together for five years. Tory went out of town on a business trip one weekend and when he returned, there was no sign of Caleb anywhere. He called the police after twenty-four hours and there was an extensive search all over the city and county. They never found Caleb.”
“Is there a way I can get in touch with Tory Benton?”
“I haven’t seen him since he put the house up for sale. It remained on sale until you purchased it. I tried contacting him through a number he left with the realty company around the time you were purchasing the house because I wanted to know if he’d made any significant changes to the house before he moved out. However, the number he’d left with the company was out of service. I’m not sure where he resides now. He may not even be in the country anymore.”
“Well, thank you for finally telling me all you know about this house. I wish you would’ve told me sooner but I understand how businesses work. After all, I own one.”
“I hope you get to the bottom of your troubles, Mr. Stokes.”
“I hope so, too, Janice. Goodbye.” I ended the call and tossed my phone on the sofa.
Since it was a Sunday and I had laundry to do, I headed into my bedroom to change out of my clothes. Now naked, I went into my bathroom to take a shower. While I was in the shower, I thought about what Janice had told me. I couldn’t help but compare the couple that used to live in the house to my former relationship with Shawn, my ex-fiancée. I’d broken up with Shawn because I found out he’d been having sex with this guy he’d met at the gym. Shawn and I became engaged on the day same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in the U.S. I always thought he’d be the man I’d spend the rest of my life with. I’d believed that ever since we met in college. But I was so wrong. Shawn wasn’t my soulmate. Someone else was.
After my shower, I was in my bedroom putting on lotion when I got the strangest feeling. I felt like someone was watching me. It was as if they were standing right behind me. I quickly turned around to see no one was there. I finished putting on the lotion and then I put on my last clean pair of pants, socks and a tank top. I put all of my dirty clothes into my hamper and carried it out of the room and up the hall to my laundry room. I put the clothes into the washing machine, added detergent and started it up. What happened next will forever be in my mind.
I stepped out of the laundry room and immediately heard the sound of birds chirping. It was coming from the empty second bedroom across the hall from my bedroom. The door to the room was wide open which was crazy because I distinctly remembered that door being closed. I always kept it closed. So I made my way to the room and looked inside, and that’s when I saw him. He was lying on the floor just below the opened window. He was shirtless and was only wearing a pair of Jordan brand basketball shorts. He noticed me standing in the doorway and smiled.
“I’m calling the police,” I told him.
“No,” he said, sitting up on his left arm. “Don’t do that. At least don’t do it yet.”
“Who are you and how did you get in here?”
“Man, I am not playing with you. What are you doing in my house?”
“Your house? I’m sorry.” He seemed to be processing something in his head for a short while. “I have to remember.”
“Who the hell are you? How did you get in here? Did you get in here through the window?”
“No, I opened the window to get some fresh air. I haven’t had fresh air in so long. I haven’t felt this way in so long. You can actually see me and talk to me.”
“That’s it, I’m calling the police.”
“You can’t do that yet. I need you, Brandon.”
Hearing him say my name sent a chill up my spine. I backed away a little and asked, “How do you know my name?”
“I know a lot about you. You see, you and me are a lot alike. We both got our hearts broken. We both were betrayed. I need you, Brandon. I need you and you need me.” He stood up and I was immediately taken aback by how statuesque he was. “Please, come into the room. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
As frightened as I was by this stranger, I couldn’t help but find myself enchanted by him. There was something about him that spoke to me on a level that I simply cannot explain. A strange man was in my house wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts and instead of running to call the police, I was standing there debating whether or not I should trust him. Realizing I needed to get to the bottom of the situation, I stepped into the room. The closer I got to him the more enchanted I became by him. He had such a masculine yet gentle presence. And his eyes were beautiful. They had a ton of sorrow in them but they were beautiful.
“My name is Caleb,” he told me. “Caleb Hughes.”
“You’re the missing guy?” I asked, not believing my own senses.
“I’m not missing. I just haven’t been found.” He looked away from me for a second. “Brandon, tell me something. How did you feel when you discovered that Shawn was having an affair?”
“How do you know about that?”
“I told you that I know everything about you.”
“I felt terrible. In the back of my mind, I guess I knew he was cheating. I just didn’t want to face it. I was a coward.”
“No, you were in love. Love is blind and it sometimes blinds us. It blinded me. I had no idea that…” He stopped.
“That what? What is going on, Caleb? You have to tell me.”
“I will. I promise you I will. But I have to first do something with you that’s difficult for me to ask of you. I’m a stranger to you and someone with your amount of self-respect would never do what I’m about to ask.”
“I’ll try to help you in any way I can.”
“For the month that you’ve been living here, I’ve fallen in love with you. Brandon, you’re the man I believe I was supposed to fall in love with.”
“No, you were with that person. Janice told me his name was…” He put his finger up to my lips to silence me.
“He wasn’t my soulmate. He kept me from meeting my soulmate. I understand that now and I have accepted my fate. However, I need to feel it one last time before I move on.”
“Love. Passionate and undeniable love. This is your first time seeing me so I know that you couldn’t possibly love me. But I have to at least make an attempt.”
“Caleb, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
He looked directly into my eyes, took a deep breath, and requested, “Let me make love to you, Brandon.”
My initial reaction was to turn and leave, but my feet wouldn’t move. His eyes were so shiny that they glistened whenever the sunlight hit them. Those eyes had me somewhat hypnotized. I knew the entire situation was surreal but I wasn’t willing to let my mind slip back into reality. Or was this reality? Before I could make that distinction, I found myself taking steps towards him. I gave in to his one and only demand. After placing my hands on his strong chest, I arched my feet and pressed my lips against his lips.
“Do you want me to make love to you?” he asked me in between kisses.
“Tell me you want me to make love to you.”
“Caleb, I want you to make love to me. Let’s go to my bed.”
“No, it must be in here. I cannot leave this room.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me close to his strong body.
We got down on the floor and I climbed on top of him. I pulled my tank top off and tossed it over by the door. I then leaned down and kissed him again, this time inserting my tongue into his mouth. Kissing him felt so right. Our mouths were complete counterparts of each other and fit together like pieces of a puzzle. When he kissed me back passionately and stared into my eyes, goose bumps formed all over my body. Suddenly, he grabbed me and flipped me over on my back. My heart skipped a beat and I truly realized how strong and powerful he was physically.
“I’ve been longing for this,” he whispered as he kissed down my abdomen towards my navel. “Your body is my salvation. And your love will set me free, Brandon. You have to believe it with me, baby.”
He untied the string on my pants and loosened them before pulling them down and off of me. Since I didn’t have any underwear on underneath, I was now naked with the exception of socks. He then pulled off my socks and began to kiss my feet. There was something about how gentle he was with my body that put my mind into another world. I could not remember the last time someone was so caring about me or wanted to see me experience immense and intense pleasure.
After spending time massaging and kissing my feet, he began to kiss up my legs to my thighs. He placed his hands on each thigh and then spread them apart and pushed my legs up so that my ass was exposed to him. The moment he began to pleasure me with his mouth, I entered a state of pure bliss. I felt like a virgin being pleasured for the very first time all over again. And there was such a virginal beauty to the whole situation that I couldn’t understand. What we were doing was deeply sinful yet it felt as if we were supposed to be doing it. We were supposed to be in that moment, and I was slowly beginning to realize we truly were supposed to be one.
With his tongue tasting me and his lips sucking up the nectar, I felt a warm sensation coming over me. I reached down and caressed the top of his head as I began to gyrate and thrust my lower body to match his powerful tongue strokes. I was fully erect but refused to touch myself until he instructed me to do so. I soon found out that he wouldn’t have to instruct me and that I wouldn’t even have to touch myself. His tongue became more powerful, and the strong grip he had on my thighs brought me to the most unbelievable orgasm I’d ever had in my entire life. I tried to pull away from him but that strong grip he had on me kept me in place. My body convulsed and jerked forward as he continued licking and tasting me. After a few more seconds, he stopped and finally let me relax.
“That felt amazing,” I confessed with a laugh.
“That’s just the beginning, my love,” he said with a big smile. “Unwrap me.”
He leaned back and I sat up on my knees. I untied the strings on his basketball shorts to loosen them and then pulled them off of him. The moment I laid eyes on his beautiful and fully erect uncircumcised penis, I almost cried. He was clean shaven and it made the beauty of his genitals seem that much more noticeable. Without any hesitation, I kneeled before him and began to kiss and lick it. When I began to suck on the head of what had to be over nine inches, he moaned in pleasure. I slowly worked my way down the shaft of it and that’s when I got the full flavor of it. He tasted and smelled so good, as if he’d just taken a very thorough bath. I wanted to taste him for hours but the sun was beginning to go down and he seemed to be ready to take it to the next level.
“I haven’t done this in nearly a year,” I told him. “I may have to stop if the pain is too much for me to handle.”
“I promised you I wouldn’t hurt you,” he assured. “You have my word, Brandon.” He lied completely on his back and motioned for me to get on top of him.
I climbed up on his strong body and reached in between us to position him to enter me. Carefully, I began to slide down onto him. Just like he promised, he didn’t hurt me. For the first time ever, I didn’t feel pain while being penetrated. The more I took him inside of me, the more intense the pleasure became. I tightened up on him and he released a roaring moan. It took little time for me to adjust to his girth, which surprised me. I began to ride him faster and harder with each passing second. He caught my rhythm and matched it, thrusting his lower body upward to push into me deeper and deeper.
“Kiss me, baby,” he demanded.
I continued to ride him fast and hard as I bent down to kiss his magnificent lips. My dick rubbed against his chiseled abs and the friction was bringing me close to another orgasm. As if he knew I was about to reach another climax, he held me in place and wrapped his arms around me. Keeping his lips pressed against mine, he sat up and quickly had me on my back again. Now in the missionary position, he began a slow but determined rhythm. He was going very deep into me, reaching places that had never been reached before within me.
With my legs wrapped around his waist and my hands gripping his muscular ass, I had a lock on him that I hoped would be strong enough to prove to him that I was falling for him. But I knew gestures weren’t enough for a man like Caleb. No, I had to say those words to him. I had to say them and I had to mean them. I let him enjoy the fruits of my being for a little while longer. He moaned and sucked on my neck each time I tightened up on his dick. When I felt my body giving in to the eternal pleasure he was forcing me to experience, I positioned his head up and stared into those beautiful eyes.
“I love you, Caleb,” I claimed almost in a whisper. “I love you.”
“Oh, Brandon,” he moaned. “Say it to me again.”
“I love you, Caleb Hughes. I love you!”
“I love you, Brandon! Ah!”
He pushed deep inside of me and held it as he reached his climax. Feeling his warm seed being released within me drove me into that much deserved second orgasm. I could feel my own seed being released in between us, mixing with our sweat. As our bodies counteracted each other, we shared the kiss of life. It was in that moment that I felt the closest to him. His breath was my breath. His skin was my skin. His heart was my heart. We were one, body and soul.
“The sun is setting,” he said while we were now lying side by side on the floor. “I was only guaranteed the time before dusk.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, glancing over at him.
“Brandon, I…” He paused and grabbed my hand, interlocking his fingers with mine. “I have to go away. That means no more door slamming or moving your stuff around the house.”
“Yes. I had to get you to a place where you believed I was real.”
“But you are real, aren’t you?”
“For this brief time that we’ve shared, yes. But now I’m going away forever.” He finally looked into my eyes again. “I need you to do what you said you were going to do before we made love.”
“Yes. Call them and tell them you heard a strange noise in the basement behind the water heater. Tell them it sounded like scratching. And Brandon, this is the most important part so listen carefully.” He leaned in closer to me. “Tell them to let the service dog search the backyard.”
“What if they don’t have a service dog with them?”
“They will have one. I promise. Everything they will need is buried in the backyard.”
“I don’t understand, Caleb.”
“You will. You’ll understand it all, Brandon. I promise you’ll understand it all. It was you, Brandon. It was always supposed to be you. I love you.” He kissed me one last time and then stood up.
“Wait, you can’t leave me.”
“This isn’t a goodbye, Brandon. Somehow and someway, we’ll end up together again. And when we do it will be for an eternity.”
I heard something turn over in the kitchen so I turned towards the doorway for a split second. When I heard Caleb let out a longwinded sigh, I turned back towards him only to see that he was gone. The window was still open and the birds were still chirping. I was still completely naked and the Jordan brand basketball shorts he’d been wearing were still on the floor. His masculine and divine scent still filled the room and was all over me. I could still feel his warmness. It took me a few minutes to snap back into reality and when I did, I put my clothes back on and hurried to my phone. I called the police and told them everything Caleb had told me to tell them.
When the police arrived, they first let the K-9 search the backyard. He first ran to me and sniffed around me. He immediately picked up on a scent and then ran to a spot in the backyard and began digging. An officer grabbed my shovel and began to dig where the dog had begun digging. He stopped when he noticed something sticking out of the dirt. He put on a pair of gloves and pulled what looked like a white towel covered in dark brown stains. He reached into the dirt and pulled out more things; including a kitchen knife, stained clothing, and a rug.
I let the officers into the house so they could inspect the scratching noises Caleb told me to tell them I’d heard coming from the basement. Behind the water heater was a faulty wall made up of freestanding bricks. When the officers removed enough of the bricks, we all noticed a figure wrapped in heavy plastic standing up against the original basement wall. The officers grabbed the wrapped figure and lied it down on the cement floor. They unwrapped the heavy plastic and revealed that the figure was actually the remains of a man. I didn’t realize it was Caleb until I noticed the heavily stained pair of Jordan basketball shorts. I immediately went back up to my guest room only to find the clean pair of basketball shorts were gone. And little by little, Caleb’s scent began to wear off inside the room.
“We’re gonna need you to come down to the precinct,” an officer told me. “You’re not under arrest but we need to ask you some questions.”
“Of course,” I said back.
While I was being questioned at the police department, a forensics team was analyzing the evidence found at my house. It would be weeks before everything was finally put together. It turned out that Caleb’s lover Tory was having an affair with a very dangerous ex-con named Curtis Powell. Tory and Curtis plotted to kill Caleb so that they could be together without having any problems. Since Caleb and Tory shared a joint bank account and Caleb had recently received a two million dollar inheritance from his deceased grandparents’ estate, Tory was able to keep all of the money in the joint account following Caleb’s disappearance. Fingerprints on the kitchen knife belonged to Curtis Powell, linking him to the stabbing death of Caleb. After the two of them were arrested and charged, they refused to confess and trial dates were soon set. They would eventually be convicted of their charges, capital murder for Curtis and conspiracy to commit murder and accessory after the fact for Tory. Curtis was sentenced to death and Tory was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. I attended both of their trials and sentencing hearings.
I never did see Caleb again. He never appeared to me in a dream or vision. After the authorities removed his remains from my house, there were no more strange occurrences. I used to get scared when he would move my coffee mug or slam a door but now I missed him doing those things. I now understood why he cried in the closet and why he was so frustrated. His soul wasn’t at peace. He needed me to set him free, and I needed him to help me restart my life. My breakup with Shawn had driven me into a depression. The depression was effecting my photography business and my mental health, not Caleb’s restless spirit. Caleb saved me in so many ways. For that brief moment in time, he showed me what real love meant and what it meant to make love with your soulmate. Sometimes I feel like it was all in my head and that I just imagined the whole thing. I’d go weeks and months without thinking about him. However, on quiet and lonely nights, I longed for him. I longed for him and I hoped that his presence would someday haunt me again.
[Disclaimer]: Pictures used do not reflect the sexuality or personality of people in the pictures. They only serve as visual examples of the characters.
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