I had thought the date went well.
Yet, here I was with an angry ghost glaring up at me from the bottom of my bathtub, daring me to reach in. I took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry I did something to upset you,” I said, putting the toilet seat down and sitting on it. The long t-shirt I’d thrown on before crossing the hall, only shield a tiny bit of my ass from the cold plastic “Can we please talk about it?”
The glare turned into a puzzled frown, the lines between her brows smoothing out.
“I really enjoyed our date,” I continued, scooting back on the toilet lid. “You’re sweet, smart, funny, fucking adorable.” I kept talking, maybe, probably to hear my own voice, partially to try to reach her, and partially to keep my room-mates from panicking that I was being killed and breaking in the door. “I had no idea you were a ghost at all until my room-mates couldn’t see you. But that doesn’t change things, unless you really do want to drown me.”
She sat up, water streaming down her cheeks, out of her hair which immediately dried into the halo of short, brown curls that framed her face.
Possibly a good sign.
“You’d want to date me, knowing I’m dead?” She asked, expression still more puzzled than angry.
Good.
“Um, yeah. I like you, and well, I can see and touch and feel you,” I told her. “It’ll change some of my go-to dates, because I don’t need to get hospitalized for schizophrenia, again, but yeah.”
“You’re a Seer, aren’t you?” The ghost asked, leaning back against the back of the tub, and looking at me as if I’d just changed hair or skin color. “That explains so much! You’re the first woman to ever react to me. At first I thought maybe not a lot of lesbians cheat.”
“They do, and I’m pansexual,” I told her. “All genders.”
“But then you didn’t act like most of the men I get. They just want to rush off to some hotel or something and get in my pants. You talked to me like a person, were fine just walking and talking. But I thought the glove thing was a test of some kind or, you thought I was dirty.” She frowned.
“Oh! Oh, no. A. It’s a safer sex thing. I wear gloves with all my partners male and female, and I ask them to wear them too. B. Like, my hands are really rough, and I have a ton of hangnails, and, um, bodily fluids in hangnails sting.” I knew I was blushing.
She laughed, a clear, delighted laugh. Happy.
A flash of light and she was gone.
“Well, fuck.” I reached over to hit the drain release.
“Hey, you all right?” Julie asked, opening the bathroom door.
“Yeah, just, I broke or fulfilled whatever was holding my date to this plane and she’s gone.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m happy for her, but what’s this? Like the third one this month? I just want to meet a nice person, and date and cuddle and bang like a screen door in a hurricane.”
“Need batteries?” Julie asked.
“Nah, new vibrator’s rechargeable,” I said, rubbing my face with my hands.
“What happened?” Julie leaned against the door jamb.
“I asked her to put on a glove and she thought I thought I was accusing her of being diseased or dirty.” I leaned back against the toilet tank, looking up at Julie. “I really liked her. She was funny, sweet, cute. I didn’t realize she was a ghost until you walked in after the doors slammed.”
“Whoever gave you these powers was an asshole,” Julie told me. “You can’t always tell?”
“Nope. They just seem like people. I mean, sometimes their outfits or speech will tip me off. But if they’re relatively modern, no idea.” I leaned forward prepatory to standing up.
“No luck contacting…?” She offered me a hand to help me up.
“No. City full of ghosts and I can’t find the one I miss the most,” I told her, blinking back tears. She pulled me into a tight hug.
“And just like that, the unexplained bathtub drownings of men in hotels along north Aurora Avenue stopped.” Truly, Madly, Deadly - True Crime Podcast