Ancestral

An Experiment

The two of us sat on the sofa to consider her question. “Well,” I started, “It seems I was correct in my interpretation of the sounds I heard. They are fucking down there. We got confirmation of that tonight.”

“And they’ve been at it for over a hundred years,” Ben added. He chuckled, “Can you imagine?”

“I know! I think the longest I’ve lasted has been about an hour, two if you count the foreplay.” I leaned back and tried to remember the details. “He was a massage therapist, and did he know his way around a man’s body! I learned a lot from him. Too bad it didn’t work out. How about you?”

“Me what?” he asked a little awkwardly.

“What’s the longest you’ve lasted?”

“oh…I…I’m not sure. I’ve never timed it.” He was rubbing his hands on his knees nervously as I questioned him. Then he added, “So what else did we learn? Fucking, a hundred years, what else?”

It was an obvious attempt to move the conversation in a direction that was less uncomfortable for him. I made note of it but followed his lead. “They died fucking. That seems like our big take away tonight.”

He agreed, “Yeah, but I doubt you’re going to find a headline from a hundred years ago that reads ‘Two men found dead while fucking’. You wouldn’t even find that today.”

“True, but for two men to die on the same day in a small town like this would probably stand out, even if it doesn’t specify where the bodies were found or how they died.” Remembering what Andi said, I added, “Maybe that’s something I can hand off to Heather.”

“What? What’s she got to do with it?”

“Oh, just something Andi suggested.” I thought about the logistics for a moment. “I think I can offer her a small stipend for a summer internship at the museum, I’ll check in the morning. I’ll also have to check with her to see if she has a summer job yet and she would like to do it.”

“Oh, because of her minor in history, I get it.”

“Yeah, rub it in. Obvious to you.” I kicked myself a little for being so dense.

“What?”

“But here’s my next question. If they only make themselves known to men, and you’ve been around them for so long, why haven’t you heard them?” I looked at him quizzically.

He met my gaze and waited for a moment, then, “What? You’re asking me? How should I know? Maybe some people just can’t see or hear ghosts. I don’t know.”

I was beginning to have some thoughts about this, but I wasn’t ready to discuss them with him yet, so I said, “How about this? Let’s go down to the basement right now. We can just listen and see if we hear anything.”

“I guess, if you want to, but I don’t think I’ll hear anything, I never have.”

We each grabbed a chair from the breakfast table and headed for the cellar stairs at the back of the kitchen. The stairs descended into a small room, not much larger than the kitchen. At one end was a cluster of eight cages built from basic lumber and covered with wire mesh. There were four on each side with a kind of hallway running down the middle. At the end of this hall was a door that lead into the rest of the basement. As always, this door was locked. We set up in the middle of the room and looked at each other. “Now what?” Ben asked after a moment.

“I don’t know, I guess we just listen.” I was at a loss too. “Maybe we should turn off the …”

“What’s that?” Ben interrupted, pointing to the dark space under the stairs.

I turned quickly, thinking he had seen something move. “What?”

“I’ve never noticed that door before,” he explained. “I wonder where it goes.”

We got up and went over to it. If my sense of the house’s layout was correct there should not be a door there. That should be a foundation wall with just dirt behind it. It was less of a door, and more of an old arch that had been bricked up sometime after it was built. “Well, we’re not going through there anytime soon,” I said, slapping my hand against the brickwork.

As I did that, I thought I heard a faint echo of laughter. “Did you…” I wasn’t sure, it was very faint. “Let’s try turning off the lights and see if we hear anything.” Ben returned to his chair as I climbed the stairs to turn off the switch at the top.

It was really dark once the lights were out. I stumbled around, looking for my chair, until I felt my hand touch something warm. “That’s my face, dude.”

“Oh, sorry.” I moved my hand to his shoulder to keep my bearings while I searched for the empty chair. He reached out, trying to guide me toward the place where he thought it was, and fumbled around my belly and hips. Finally, his hand found my ass and it was my turn. “umm…are you trying to cop a feel? ‘cause if you are…”

Like lightning his other hand shot out and grabbed my other hip. He pulled me onto his lap and began grinding my butt against his crotch. “Maybe that’s just what I’m doing,” he said with a chuckle. I once again heard the echoing laughter, a sound distinct and different from his chuckle.

“There it is again. Did you hear it?”

“All I hear is your dick getting hard,” he joked.

“I’m serious! I heard them again.” I wrenched myself from his grasp and stood where he couldn’t reach me.

“You’re no fun.” He whined. I remained silent. After a moment he said, “Wait, I do hear something. It’s a voice. It’s saying…wait…it wants you to sit on my lap again.”

I could hear him groping in the darkness to try to find me. “I think we’ve done all we can here for now.” Ben was acting weird and there was no indication that he had heard the laughter I had. I found my way to the stairs and turned the lights back on.

We both blinked as he handed me my chair and we entered the kitchen. Once we had beverages, we sat at the breakfast table and I asked, “Did you hear the laughter?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” he said flatly. “But of course, we were only down there for a minute.”

“Not long, no, but more like fifteen or so,” I corrected him.

“No, just long enough to set up and then…somehow you were on the stairs and we were done.’

“But the lights were out for at least seven or eight minutes,” I insisted.

“The lights?” He looked puzzled. “We never turned the lights out.”

“We did. Are you saying you don’t remember? It was right after we found the bricked-up arch under the stairs.”

“What arch?” He began to get agitated. There’s no arch there. What are you playing at?”

“There was a bricked-up arch under the stairs.” I insisted, “We both looked at it.”

“Show me!” he jumped up abruptly and strode to the cellar door. Before I could catch him, he had turned on the lights and descended into the basement. “Where?!”

I followed him down, turning at the foot of the stairs, but the space that had held an arch was covered over with drywall and there were storage shelves hanging there. “Right…here.” I looked at him and back at the shelves. “It was right here, a bricked-up arch. I don’t…”

“Maybe the new job is getting to you.” He looked at me with pity, “Could you be imagining things?”

I began to doubt myself, but then I remembered, “But you said I was suddenly at the top of the stairs. How’d I get there? And why would I be there except to turn the lights back on?”

He thought for a minute and to his credit, he admitted, “I don’t know. Maybe your job is getting to me too.” He grinned, “Or maybe I just need to get off. I haven’t had a boner like this since I was a teenager.”

Sure enough, he had a massive erection that was quite visible through his pants. Then I realized I did too. I grinned back at him. “Probably that lap dance you wanted in the dark.”

“Lap dance? What lap dance?!”

“You don’t even remember that?”

“I wish I did,” he said, “Or maybe you just imagined it.” He drew a little closer and leaned forward as if he were going to kiss me. That was fine with me, so I leaned forward as well, but before our lips could meet, I heard the laughter again. I saw his eyes grow wide and realized that this time he heard it too.

“What the…!” He turned and ran up the stairs.