The boy stood at the foot of my bed. He was not more than eighteen, pale and lush, soft with youth and lean without effort. His hair was a nightmare shade of black with one striking blue highlight and the most soulful eyes that ever looked at me. He had been dead for at least three days but it didn't show in those big dark eyes.
"What do you want?" I demanded of him curling up against my headboard confused and terrified by the lovely man. The room was freezing cold.
He was silent either unable to speak or simply unwilling to answer. The figure that only I could see sat down at the end of my bed. If Jordan decided to come home, he would not see the spirit, only the indent on the bed.
I was scared of him but I did not tell him to stop when he began to crawl over me on the bed, sliding his non-existent body up until his hands where beside my head and his legs were spread across my waist and his eyes were staring into mine.
I gulped and I knew what he wanted.

When I first met the boy, he was alive. I bumped into him outside of a salon as we were both leaving. Jordan often sent me there when he was having 'guests' over. He liked me to look my best and ordered the works on those days. It usually took me about three hours but that day I had made certain to do most of my waxing ahead of time. I would have half an hour to go to the coffee shop and wait for Jordan. So, I was on my way to the coffee shop when I bumped into him. For a moment, we both just stared at each other. He was beautiful: white and fragile. Even without the salon, I think he would have been glowing. Something held the world still until I managed to squeak. "Hi."

He smiled shyly. "Hi."
His perfect blue eyes absorbed the moment of silence. Then I dared to say. "I'm Brian Kwon."
He licked his lips and his eyes darted. "I'm Codie Hatcher."
He was smaller than me so fragile and lovely. "Will you walk to the coffee shop with me?"
"I. I have a boyfriend." He glanced to the ground the eyes moving like tears, the words a sad melody.
The words sobered by sun-struck mind. "Me too."
He glanced down and bit his red lips, then smiled and looked backup. "Just a walk won't hurt us."
I smiled and we walked to the coffee shop. When Jordan came to pick me up and bring me home, Codie was gone. He was very pleased with how I looked. Said I would make all his guests very happy. I remembered when they used to be our guests.
I could not stop thinking about Codie and the way he had fled the coffee shop when he heard the clock in the centre of the mall chime.

I gulped and I knew what he wanted but I did not think I could give it to him. He did not give me time to think, leaning down and kissing me. His mouth was warm and moist, his tongue flicking over my open mouth, kissing my breath away. He had no breath.
Ghosts are supposed to make you cold but he was so warm. warm like the spring, new and soft, the sun peaking through the pink blossoms of the trees. His eyes were like ice melting into tears. His hands bloomed over me touching my bruised flesh. My skin looked purple and red against his glowing whiteness. For once, I'm being literal. He glowed.

Jordan had kick-ass parties. That's what first drew me to him. Everyone on our side of the bridge knew about Jordan and his parties. The rumour was that he only bothered to deal so he could spend money on his parties. It wasn't true, of course. All the money he spent on the parties came from his wins in gambling on the rigged games. Sometimes the money came from the account he kept from his robberies but never from his dealing money. The money was for the clothes and the mortgages for he had many houses.
The night I met him at his party was electric. Every one was dancing. For a while, I was just enjoying myself and dancing with everyone. I didn't even take the time to ask who he was.
Jordan was also beautiful. His hair was a golden blonde not like my white hair, and his skin was as luscious as moon-ripened olives. He took control of me immediately, snaring an arm around my waist and pressing me against him at once. In a few moments, his hips were bludgeoning into my pelvis and I could hardly stand against his assault. He teased me for half an hour before he brought me to one of the rooms in the back. I don't remember ever having a lover so passionate. I hardly missed living on my own when he invited me to leave my apartment and go live with him in one of his.
I was during one of Jordan's party when I found out that Codie was dead. I don't remember why. I went back upstairs to our apartment and I was. looking in the mirror. I heard the door open and close and there he was, sad and sombre, his lips curling just a little like he wanted to smile but was afraid. "Codie! I didn't know you would be here."
I glanced back to the mirror and I was surprised to notice I was alone in the room. My breath froze in my chest and thudded into my heart. It took me a long moment to turn my eyes back to the thin shape that was in the room with me. There he was soft and pale staring at me. begging for my help.
I closed my eyes unable to deal with the inconsistency of vision when his hand touched my shoulder but there was no one behind me in the mirror. A strange cold rumbled through me, poking through my bone and shivering down my spine. I collapsed in terror, cold, weak, and more afraid than I had been in a long time.
It. He knelt down with me; his hand lightly caressed my cheek. The coldness became more intense until it passed the mysterious level where cold became numbly warm. He leaned neared and kissed me. His lips were full and tender on mine, and they tasted like raspberry lip-gloss.
My fear began to slip away replaced by a more powerful tremor but I did not dare touch the body that the mirror could not see. I was still as death. still as the ghost before me should have been. He stayed with me on the floor, stroking my face and kissing my lips, until there was a rumble on the stairway and Jordan came into our room.
The ghost vanished when Jordan threw open the door to the bathroom, seething as usual. He tore me to my feet and pulled me into the other room where his special guests were waiting for me.
Okay so I remembered why I had gone to the room. I had been dancing a little too close to one of Jordan's guests, one of the rich powerful ones, and that had really upset Jordan. He told me to go upstairs until the cut his ring had made in my cheek when he struck me stopped bleeding.
But I guess Jordan didn't want to wait for the wound to clot. It would seem like a waste of time considering all the other wounds that would need to clot that night.

He glowed, a soft, unprepossessing glow. and his hands shivered over my body. He looked the colour of my nightshirt, soft light blue silk, as he drew it away from me. My clothes loosened beneath his faint touch fell away like leaves trembling towards the ground. I was sighing and writhing too much with desire to realize the chill of the night air breaking through the heated mist that surrounded my lover and I. The cold that came from him had turned into a frenzied heat. His lips kissed me all over until I was naked on the bed and then continued until I was writhing in my nakedness.

I reached out daring to touch him, frightened but aroused. I wanted to take his clothes off but somehow I could not touch them as if they were part of his being and only he could chose to unclothe himself. His skin was smooth as the face of a grave and I shivered remembering where my new lover belonged.
But his lips were so warm, his hand so convincing, his skin so beautiful as he glided out of his clothing.

One of the really great things about being so close to one of the wealthiest men on our side of the bridge is that the doctors come to you. The next morning, when it hurt to breath. I didn't even have to leave the building to have the doctor tell Jordan and I that nothing was broken. In the special office that Jordan had built into the lowest level of the building, I was able to get the stitches I needed and everything. I begged the doctor to make them tiny.
Jordan was so sweet to me that day. He made me soup and we sat together and watched some shows on TV. I didn't really like the shows we were watching but leaning back into Jordan as he spoon-fed me the soup was a nice romantic feeling. It's hard to stay mad at Jordan.
Later on when Jordan was gone again, I hobbled over to the computer chair. It was hard to walk but the doctor can't really do anything about the area that made it hard for me to walk.
I sat down intending to find more about Codie. All last night, I'd been thinking about him, and when I was flickering in and out of consciousness in the doctor's office, I thought I had seen him, smiling sadly, holding my hand, and petting my arm.
The Internet surprised me by opening to a site other than my homepage a news article. It was a story about a young man someone had found dying in the streets. They guessed about 18. They could not identify him but they knew he had been beaten and that it was unlikely he would survive.
They had a picture of what was left of his face. I called the number at the bottom of the page and said that his name was Codie Hatcher and that he was dead. I hung up before they could ask me any more questions.

He glided out of his clothing, revealing a beautiful body. His muscles were soft and shaped like he had tried to define them but he been too skinny to succeed. He was terribly thin, but somehow the thin lines of his ribcage were arousing. His shirt melted down his arms and disappeared. He rolled out of his pants and they too were gone.
Seeing him naked before me, I could not think of what had happened to the clothes that had only seemed to cover him. His form filled the mind and prevented any other thought.
He melted back over me the warmth rising into a burning heat with his kisses. I wrapped my arms about him, closing my eyes and imagining that he was real. His skin was as smooth as a newborn and his kiss sweet as rain. He rocked his body over me and I sighed, leaning back and loosing control.

When I was looking for Codie's story in the newspaper, which is why I was reading the paper that morning as I drank my morning coffee, I saw the ghost the second time. Jordan was usually the only one who bothered with the morning paper; I usually read the comics or a magazine with my coffee. I had just found the article when I felt something move against my leg. I shivered thinking at first it was a rat or something horrible like that, but then I felt he sensation divide into hands and when I looked down I was the ghost on his knees before me under the table.
"I was just looking for something in the paper about how you died. " I gasped my mouth dry with fear, looking down at his pale face.
He said nothing and I shivered at the chill that raced through my body when he tilted his head nearer and nuzzled sweetly into my groin. I hadn't had anyone touch me like that since I graduated from high school and the sensation made me quiver with desire. It was insane that I desired this creature. Codie was dead. My boyfriend was in the other room sleeping. I felt the sweatpants I slept in pulled down and gasped as I felt his warm wet mouth surround me.
There was a dead man giving me a blowjob. How fucked up is that?
It felt good though, and I could think of no way to resist him. I put my hands on his shoulders maybe to push him away but the jolts of pleasure flooding through my system turned the gesture into one of encouragement. I tilted my head back and sighed at the overwhelming sexuality of the moment, petting his soft hair beneath the table and begging him to take more of me into his mouth.
His tongue curled around me, igniting passions I had forgotten I had. His teeth were delicate when he toyed with my head and his lips were loving when he lightly began to kiss and tease. I groaned, squeezing his shoulders thrusting up towards him. I could almost feel the phenomenal release coming and then. he stopped.
"Brian, what are you doing?" I gasped up at Jordan as he yawned at me in the doorway already glaring.
I glanced down to see that Codie had vanished entirely, not that Jordan would have seen him underneath the table. seen him at all for that matter. I blushed, not certain what to say. "I. just was reading the paper."
One of his eyebrows lifted disdainfully at me and I furtively reached down to pull my sweatpants back up. He thought I was masturbating. there was a time when he would have grinned and told me to keep going, or god forbid even join me.
He turned to get his own coffee and asked with a condescending tone. "Since when do you read the paper?"
"Since there's a story that interests me." I replied, the same catty tone. I don't remember if he ever talked to me like that before, but I know I had never responded that way.
Jordan half turned to snarl at me. "What's gotten into you?"
I had no reply and I turned back to the paper to the article I had found. I don't recall that I ever ignored Jordan either. If he noticed, he didn't say taking his coffee and sitting in the dinning room.
The boy had been positively identified as Codie Hatcher, due in part to an anonymous tip. They had arrested the man who kept Codie Hatcher, his boyfriend. The man was almost as rich as Jordan and they had lived together in one of his apartments for several years. The police said his motivation to kill might have been jealousy; that Codie was leaving him. I read their scenario and I thought maybe Codie just had a boyfriend like me and had done something that really displeased him.
Like being late when his owner came to pick him up from the beauty salon.

I sighed, leaning back and loosing control, as his soft hands settled around my throbbing erection. He continued to kiss my lips, drawing at my breath as if to make it his own. I was panting into him, breathing hard and fast enough for the both of us as he continued to torture my erection. His soft pale hand slid up and down my length, just tight enough to torment, but not hurt. His pace was what was painful as if he meant to bring me to climax as late as possible. I didn't stand much chance in the face of his sweet attentions and I exploded suddenly and powerfully into release. He only smiled and kissed my cheek, then slithered against my body to lie besides me, his dead head on my shoulder.

Jordan left early that morning, going to. where ever he went during the day. I went to my station down stairs and painted my pictures. I was well aware he used them to smuggle drugs to rich families but it was still nice to be able to paint all day. I felt happiest when I was painting.
Before Jordan, I had worked in a portrait shop on the other side of the bridge. I had loved that job, but I had to leave. Jordan didn't like me to leave the building without him.
I painted all day. It wasn't until Jordan came to get me at dinnertime that I realized the three pictures I had a common subject, Codie. Jordan looked at them coldly and then turned to me. "I don't really like them. Did you have a model?"
I shook my head, thinking of the figure of my dreams. "Not really."
"Well, once you finish these three don't use that kid again." He sneered at my painting. Looks like he's dead in that one. "
I didn't say anything in reply. I didn't say much during dinner either. He seemed unhappy about my quiet. Usually I loved to hear about the daring and dangerous things he had done while I painted a way for him to kill upper class children. That night had other things on my mind though. I was distracted. If he noticed, he didn't care. He abandoned his dinner and went to the door. "I won't be back until tomorrow. Fix your attitude by then and take a shower."
I glared at the door when he closed it.
But after I cleared off the table and threw out the leftovers, I headed to the shower. As I was standing under the water, I wondered what Jordan would do if I was dead when he returned. If I fell and hit my head against the wall then drown in the running water. If I sat down and let myself drown in the running water.
Everything was suddenly very cold and I knew Codie was near me again. I felt his arms slip around me and his head rested on my shoulder. I smiled as the chill turned into warmth and he began to kiss my ear. Everything felt better when the ghost was near me. strange most people don't like to be haunted.
Codie just held me for along time as if to try and make me stop thinking about drowning. I wondered what it was like to be dead. What it must be like to realize that the newspaper had never run your obituary only the story of your murder. Where Codie went when he was not with me. If it was not more pleasant that being alive.
He shook his head into my shoulder as if he could hear my thoughts and was answering the question.
When the phone rang, Codie was suddenly gone. I began to cry and begged him to come back, unable to stand the cold air without him.

My ghostly lover lay besides me, his dead head on my shoulder and I could barely breath for the contentment beating through me. He simply looked at me that mouth trying to lift into a smile. I reached up and caressed his cheek.
I wondered why he had come to me. If he had to haunt someone, why not haunt his old boyfriend. Terrify him and punish him for leading to his death. Maybe he wasn't that spiteful, maybe that's where he was when he wasn't with me. Maybe being with me was a way to punish me for leading to his death.
His hand slid up and down my chest and I glanced down his long slender body. He was still aroused and his pale glowing skin shivered as I brushed my hand down his thigh. I kissed him and his eyes closed, sinking beneath the weight of desire.
I continued to kiss his sweet lips as I stroked his body, lovingly touching him the way he had touched me. I wondered if ghosts came the same way the living did. If I would know.
He was silent, of course. But his body as real as mind bucked and thrust into my hand. His lips were passionate against mine even though the breath pushing back to me was my own. Before he came, he grabbed me with both his hands and gripped me with such terror that I thought I was hurting him. I wondered if Codie had died without ever experiencing and orgasm and that his was afraid of the power surging from his unreal body.
I kissed his cheek and chuckled, mimicking his action and curling into his chest. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed into my body. I was colder than him.

When I woke the next morning, Codie was not with me. Jordan had not come either. When I left the apartment, I took nothing that I had not brought when I moved in. I did steal the money that Jordan kept in the drawer by the bed. It was his pocket change really, but I figured the few thousand dollars there would be fair compensation for all the paintings I had made for him. I took the three pictures I had painted.
The portrait shop gave me my job back the moment I walked through the door and the owner offered me a place to stay. Apparently, they were still seeking talented people. I left everything there except my art folder.
That had the newspaper in it and I needed that for the address.

I don't know why I went to the hospital. Perhaps it was because I had never seen the obituary. Perhaps it was because they said he had gone to the emergency room but they had never said he was dead.

The front desk nurse didn't believe me when I said I was his cousin. But the other woman besides her had noticed the pictures that fell out of my folio when I got the newspaper out to tell them how I had found out. She nodded her head, thinking she understood our relationship and why I was trembling.
I waited for her to tell me the address to the morgue he had gone too. But instead, she pointed to the elevator and said B 212. I'm sure my heart stopped beating. "B 212?"
The woman smiled. "That's the room he's in, Sweetheart."
"He's alive?" I was stunned.
"He's in a coma." The nurse who did not believe my lie was filing her nails.
The kind one glared at her and put her hands on her wide hips. "And he could use a visitor."
She turned back to me and smiled, broadly. "Go right on up, dear."
I raced up the stairs; the elevator would have been too slow. It took me a few nurses and too many minutes to find the right room. Then I just stood there terrified to enter.
Eventually, I took a deep breath and opened the door. The room smelled like the flowers wilting on the table by the door. They were donated by some unknown church and had been left there because Codie was the new darling of the nurses on the coma floor. Whoever had beaten him had not touched his beautiful face.
I began to cry when I noticed that beneath the sound of the steady beep of the heart monitor, I could hear him breath. I sat down in the chair by the bed and took his soft hand into mine. I did not expect him to feel him stir.
When I looked up to his pale hand his fingers were around mine and then I turned my face to the pillow, where he had turned and was looking at me with those huge eyes. His sombre mouth curled a moment, trying to smile then his mouth burst the restraints of his sadness and beamed into a grin. "You're Brian Kwon."
I nodded. "And you're Codie Hatcher."
"Yeah." He nodded, amazed, and then shook his head. "Something weird has happened here."
I don't think either of us ever really figured out what.