House of the Depraved

Eventually her eyes came open, at first attempting to focus and then she was looking at him in a way he'd never seen her look before. There was wonder in her pretty eyes. "Where'd you learn to do that?" She whispered leaning over to touch my cheek.

"I'm half-latino," he said with a smooth smile. "It's in the gene pool, baby."

She trailed a couple fingers along the line of his jaw, and then lips. "It was amazing, Jayce."

He kissed those trailing fingers. "Not bad yourself...for a white girl." She slapped him, rolling her eyes as he laughed. He reached out and cupped her cheek, holding her gaze intently in his passionate pools of grey. "Lane, I'm crazy about you. I've always been crazy about you. I wanted to be sure you knew that."

A soft smile spread across her lips, her cheeks just a little flushed, from the compliment or the heat he couldn't say. "I do...now."

He idly grazed his fingertips down the smooth line of her arm and shoulder as he watched her, drinking in her body, never thinking he would've ever had a chance to see this girl naked; she always seemed so demure, so out of his league. He exulted at the opportunity. The girl's body was the best of everything feminine and he couldn't help feeling intensely protective of this girl he just had. This wasn't a meaningless one night deal, not to him anyway. He couldn't ever recall feeling this way.

"It's sexually based, isn't it?" Her words broke him from his reverie.

"What is?" Jayce was thrown by that aside.

"The House of the Depraved."

"I guess. I dunno, I assume it's just one of those haunted houses that use the fetish angle and focus on naughty nurses and temptresses and that kind of thing, mixed in with the generic horror." He was thrown off by the subject change. He searched her eyes but only found uncertainty.

"I think it's different than that," She said, shaking her head a little. She sat up, and grabbed a hair-tie from her bedside table, tying back her loose chestnut-brown strands. "Something seemed off about how Cam explained it."

"You jumping at ghosts, Laney?" Jayce asked, giving her knee a little a squeeze. "I think it's just another haunted house. A little better, a little scarier than your average mom and pop but just cheap thrills all the same."

"Just the way that Logan described the freakshow, and that they used to live there." She crossed her arms over her breasts, stifling a shiver. "And now I'm going to have to wear this humiliating outfit. God Jayce, you have to see it. I wouldn't be caught dead in this thing, and yet now I'll have to. And they can touch us? I don't see anyway I'm going to be comfortable doing this."

"Ah, so that's it," he said with a slow smile.

"You don't want to wear the outfit. Lane you're absolutely gorgeous. I think that's the part I'm most excited about, right there."

She gave him a withering look, like he wasn't getting her at all. Sighing, she rose pulling out a pair of pajama bottoms from her dresser and a sports bra. Without a single word or glance she put them on with her back to him. He never understood how girls could be so carnal and wild one moment and then self-conscious in their nakedness the next. She threw him his boxers. "I can't talk about this naked. Can't believe you can. At least put those on."

Jayce complied. "Y'alright Laney?"

She sat back down on the bed by him, eyes riveted to his own, desperate to make him understand. "I just have a weird feeling about it. I think there's a lot that's not being said."

He could see she wasn't kidding. And thinking about it in retrospect, the rules did seem completely bizarre. He had just assumed it was all part of the scare tactics. But what if the rules were real? Rule 3: The House of Depraved cannot be found liable for what occurs to the solitary soul found within. What the hell did that mean? What happens to them? The touching rule he understood and was completely behind. And as far as being manipulated; well isn't that what haunted houses do? They manipulate you into fear, indecision, panic. But that third rule can't really mean what it says, can it? People get separated all the time in the dark. Are they...preyed upon? No that's ridiculous. He pushed the more sensationalist thoughts from his mind.

He leaned in and kissed her chastely on the lips. "I guess there's only one way to find out."

She paused before nodding and smiled faintly. "I'm glad you'll be there Jayce. You will keep 'em at bay, wontcha?" Clearly Lane hadn't wanted to be reassured. She just wanted to be heard and was satisfied at least someone understood.

"Of course, Laney," Jayce whispered, lifting her chin to kiss her again, more deeply. "I'll be right there with you...the whole night if I have to."

***

Nine days later it would be Halloween. Jayce had no way of knowing what he would be in for.

***