Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman

‘phantom hitchhiker,’ only our town ghost never stops or speaks to anyone. Just keeps walking until he disappears.”
“Have you ever seen him?” My voice had dropped low, like a conspiratorial whisper.
My aunt laughed and blushed. “Well, when I was your age, some friends and I went out to 47 real late at night, hoping to see the ghost. It was a warm summer night. We hid in the bushes along the roadside. Your grandmother gave me no end of grief when she found twigs and dirt all over my clothes the next morning.”
“And?”
My aunt shook her head. “We never saw anything other than a couple of deer. All that happened was we smoked a few cigarettes and finished off a bottle of Scotch Sheila Michaels swiped from her father’s stash.”
“Heh. Never thought of you as a wild one.”
Aunt Jan gave me a little smile. “I wasn’t always the upstanding citizen you know now.”
“So what was the craziest thing you ever did?”
“Sounds like the truth or dare games I played as a kid. I guess the worst thing I ever did was steal a car.” Her eyes looked out toward the bay window.
“Grand theft?”
From her unfocused gaze, I imagined she was seeing the past. “Not really. I was twenty and met this boy one summer at the shore while visiting friends. He lived in the next county and I wanted to see him after we both went home. So I borrowed your grandmother’s car.”
“Let me guess. This was not your normal borrowing?”
She chuckled. “Your aunt Becky was the responsible one. Your mother was the favorite. Me… your grandmother called the police when she woke and found both the car and that troublesome middle child of hers gone. I didn’t even reach the county line when the police pulled me over.”
“Damn.” What a bitch I had for a grandmother. I didn’t remember her at all; she had died when I turned four. Still, I could see where my mother’s moods came from.
“Your turn. What’s the worst thing you ever did?”
That was easy. But I couldn’t tell her.
    There was this boy who lived a block away from my folks’ house. We were in the same grade and not really friends, but I hung out with him now and then. Mostly because he wasn’t bad looking and had a ton of underground music burnt on CDs.
    We cut school one afternoon late last spring and were hanging out in his bedroom when he pulled a few magazines out from under the cushion of a chair. I had never seen porn before. The boy tossed me one then began leafing through another. I opened the magazine. The naked women spread wide on the page looked as though they had been airbrushed, their skin too tan, too glossy.
    The other boy started talking about girls. He did that a lot. This time though he was explicit, telling me what he wanted to do with the ones in his lap. I glanced up to see him rubbing the crotch of his jeans. I blushed and looked back to the magazine, but kept on sneaking peeks at him squeezing the outline of his dick. He asked me what I thought of the girls. I shrugged and stupidly told him, “Okay, but not really my thing.” He laughed at me, asking if I got off on kinky stuff. He mentioned pictures of women in high heels and shiny vinyl corsets leading men around on leashes he found online. He wondered if I wanted some girl at school to spank me and make me bark like a dog.
    “No,” I said, “not that.” In my head, I told myself to shut the hell up.
But he went on, mentioning really demented things. Stomping mice, being swallowed by gigantic women, and even eating shit and I kept on shaking my head, totally amazed he knew about such things. Finally, he flat out asked me what I wanted.
I don’t know why I told him. Maybe years of desire, feeling the need to touch and taste another boy had driven me so much to the edge that I lost all control. Or maybe I was just stupid. Without even thinking, I said, “I want to give you a blowjob.”
His face fell, the skin turning gray. I knew I had made a mistake, had let my disguise fall. I stood