Eye Candy by Joe Nazare
   
   

Harold had come here with lofty hopes, but this show outstripped even his wildest expectations.  He could barely believe his goggling eyes as he peered into the upstairs window from his tree-branch perch.

Hard to believe that less than an hour ago, he’d been home suffering his crone of a mother’s bitchcraft.  Listening to her slurred complaints about the jack-o’-lantern he’d carved.  She’d taken no shine to his puking pumpkin, with its squinched expression and its seed-laced guts stringing from its mouth and heaping on the doorstep.  Wasn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery? he was tempted to respond to her ranting, but choked back the wry words, having no interest in prolonging the encounter.  He had places—or rather, one surreptitious place—to be.

The stakeout had been planned for weeks, from the day he decided to follow the coeds home from the parking deck at Montclair State.  They’d been catching his eye since the start of the semester.  A trio of smoking-hot girls always clad in tight, scant clothing, they made the other girls tramping all over campus seem demure by comparison.

A sophomore with no declared major, Harold unfortunately did not share any classes with the threesome.  Intrigued by his glimpses of them, though, Harold had asked around.  Apparently the beauties were sisters, recent transfer students (though from where, no one could say for sure).

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The amazingly stacked blonde was named Maggie.  Her darker haired and sleeker figured siblings, Celine and Cate, were actually fraternal twins.  And that bit of hearsay equaled everything that Harold learned.  He was never formally introduced to the girls themselves, which was ok, since his tongue probably would’ve knotted like a strand of cherry Twizzler.  His usual bit would’ve been useless to him.  Whenever meeting someone for the first time, he loved to extend his hand and casually announce, “Hairy Asshole.”  Then he strained to remain straight-faced while awaiting reaction.  In their embarrassment, most people simply tried to gloss over the remark.  For those who begged his pardon, he seemingly repeated “Harry Antzle,” leaving them to wonder about their own perverted imaginations and the amount of raw sewage that needed to be swabbed out of their ears.

Even Harold knew that you didn’t pull an act like that on girls like these. He also knew that he stod little chance of charming such girls no matter what he said, and thus didn’t see any benefit of dealing on a face-to-face basis.  Indirection always served him better; his best approach, he found, was from afar.  That’s why he tailed the girls home from Red Hawk Deck that afternoon he spotted them lined up at the automated machine waiting to pay their parking fee.   He followed their black Volkswagen Beetle at a discrete distance, and to his pleasant surprise, discovered that they lived at the opposite end of his own hometown.  Once the girls had parked and gone inside, Harold pulled up for a closer look at the house: a boxy, two-story job with weathered gray siding, centered on a wide piece of unfenced property.  “WEIR,” the white stencils spray-painted onto the curbside mailbox divulged the sisters’ surname.

Harold stopped his Geo Tracker in front of the house only for a moment that afternoon, but with the sisters now crowding his thoughts, he returned on foot later that same night for some more detailed reconnaissance.  When he laid eyes on the large tree sprouting from the back yard about twenty feet behind the house, he immediately began to plot his late-October voyeurism.  Something told him that Halloween was tailor-made for these girls, that their costumes would provide a delightful eyeful.

His intuition hadn’t steered him wrong.

He sat there now, legs dangling a good twenty-five feet above the ground.  Dressed in all black, from the Raiders wool cap atop his head down to the steel-toed Lugz anchoring his feet.  Autumn-burnt leaves that had yet to take their suicide dives provided additional camouflage.  From this terrific vantage point, Harold peered through the lit window that framed a full-length mirror on the bedroom’s far wall.  The one called Celine presently stood facing the mirror, examining her own Boxer Babe costume.  She wore a hooded silk robe, black with pink trim, around a black sports bra and matching Spandex short-shorts.  The lettering scripted across the back of the robe redundantly proclaimed “Knockout.”

Harold fancied going toe-to-toe with the brunette pugilist, with them both sprawled out horizontal.   The sweaty bout he envisioned was soon trumped by the sight of Celine’s twin crossing into view.  Stripped down to her lacy bra and thong, Cate held high a sheet of printer paper upon which she’d magic-markered a perfect “10.”  She giggled throughout her mock-ring-girl act, and as she strutted past her sister, Celine turned around and playfully swatted her on her taut, tanned behind.

“Girls, you are killing me,” Harold murmured happily, feeling his jeans tightening at the     crotch.  Glancing down at the distended denim, he recalled the old joke—about the Boy Scout leader who could never camp out with the troop without immediately pitching a tent.

Returning to his bedroom-side vigil, Harold watched Cate don her own costume.  He quickly ID’d her as a female firefighter.  Her uniform consisted of a bright red leather minidress with neon-yellow reflector straps stretched across the bottom, around the wrists, and beneath the breasts.  She completed the ensemble with a plastic helmet and a pair of red stilettos.  She was absolutely stunning.  Harold understood fully the algebra of the adult-female Halloween dress code: basically take any Costume X, tart it up by shrinking it down, and your result was Sexy Costume XXX.  Still, in this case it seemed to be the Weir girls who made the clothes, who rendered the outfits exponentially more titillating by choosing to wear them.

Cate’s firefighter get-up had an adverse, enflaming effect on Harold.  Sensing himself roasting, he rolled back his flannel sleeves and scrunched them at his elbows.  His sweat-sheened forearms glistened in the pale light cast by the night’s sickle moon.  Harold tugged at the collar of shirt and tried to air himself cool.  While doing so, he caught faint whiff of something sweet lingering in the night air.

The next costume unwittingly modeled for him only made him hotter.  Harold sucked air in through his teeth when Maggie entered the scene from stage left.  She was a horn-dog’s dream, naturally voluptuous but without an ounce of fat visible anywhere.  Her French Maid costume looked more likely to have come from a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue than a Spirit Halloween store.  White fishnet stockings stretched high up gartered thighs barely covered by the black satin skirt.  The lace-up corset top put her extensive cleavage on full display. 

Harold had always thought there could never be a more scrumptious looking piece of French cheesecake than Jennifer Love Hewitt in the movie “Heartbreakers,” but Maggie’s turn as a busty maid topped even that.

Celine and Cate eyed their sister in seeming envy as Maggie stood before the mirror, fussing with her frilly apron.  A separate jealousness twinged in Harold as he wondered where the sisters would soon be heading out to.  He wouldn’t be surprised if they were going to Dave Beiderbitt’s annual bash, where everyone who was anyone in this town congregated on Halloween.  Well, everyone except Harold.  He’d earned himself a lifetime ban last year for bringing over a plate of oatmeal cookies whose raisins proved to be baked flies.  His little gag had caused the partygoers to do just that, once the secret ingredient was discovered.  Doubled over, they’d serenaded him with their retching, before chasing him off with their disgusted cries.

Harold’s smirk-inducing reverie scattered when he sensed movement in the bedroom ahead.  He could discern just enough from expressions and gestures to comprehend the pantomime glimpsed through the windowpane.  Apparently Celine and Cate felt outdone by their sister, felt like their own costumes didn’t stack up.  This became quite obvious when the twins began to undress as they headed back to the ol’ bedroom closet.

Harold meanwhile relished their change of heart.  Hell, if the girls wanted to stay home all night playing dress up, he was game.

Celine stepped back into view minutes later, fashioned this time as a belly dancer.  The gaudy, gold-fringed halter top left her midriff wonderfully exposed.  The ruffled green skirt hung low on her hips and was slit high on her right thigh.  The piece was diaphanous—one of Harold’s all-time favorite words—revealing the skimpy bikini bottom underneath.  Celine stood examining herself in the mirror, then delved into character by undulating her muscle-ribbed midsection.  Harold’s own stomach gurgled in instant response, as if actual hunger panged through his hollows.

Scowling, Maggie stalked away even before Cate arrived to elbow Celine aside.  Cate now wore knee-high white boots and a slinky, spaghetti-strapped black dress.  At first Harold couldn’t place the costume, but then Cate darted off for a second and returned with the telltale prop balanced on her palm.  Atop the rounded tray sat a thick dildo complete with scrotum, looking like some mutant, flesh-tone snail.  That’s when Harold got it: she was a “cock”-tail waitress!  He marveled at the crude ingenuity of the costume.  Here was a girl after his own heart.

Harold’s eyes widened even further when the implication of Cate having a dildo handy sank in.  Gulping, he moved to brush the sweat from his brow, and the muscles of his upper-torso screamed their disapproval.  Seemed that his johnson wasn’t the only thing that had stiffened while he sat hunched like a gargoyle ogling the girls.

Once again Harold scented an undeniable sweetness, even stronger this time.  For some reason he associated the smell with stickiness, and thus figured that it must be sap he detected.  Tree-ejaculate, he thought, sniggering.  Maybe anything phallic couldn’t help but drip in the presence of the girls’ risqué masquerade.

Harold, too, oozed excitement as he sat waiting for Maggie to retake center stage.  He could recall only one other time in his life when he’d experienced such illicit thrill.  His older sister Greta still lived at home, and Harold brimmed with inspiration from an old Billy Joel song. Whenever his sister went out on one of her Saturday night dates, Harold promptly snuck into her bedroom and masturbated onto her eggshell-colored pillowcase.  Squeezed out encrypted little love notes that dried safely before Greta came back home.

Maggie returned finally, sporting her latest costume.  Harold recognized it at once: Wet T-Shirt Contest Winner.  He’d seen—okay, leered at—the costume hanging on the rack at Party City.  It featured a white shirt painted to look as if a pair of maroon nipples peeked through wet-down cotton.  Along with a “FIRST PLACE” sash, the package came equipped with a rubber bosom that could be inflated to exaggeration.  In Maggie’s case, the device proved unnecessary.

Grinning lasciviously, Cate and Celine bracketed Maggie and gazed into the mirror.  They seemed as appreciative of Maggie’s suggestive costume as Harold was.  And then, incredibly, the twins proceeded to tug the shirt right up over Maggie’s head.  They unveiled her gloriously sloping breasts, crowned with an authentic pair of DVD-sized nipples.  Even before the onset of nudity, Harold was reaching into his pants, fondling the hardness pocketed there.  He extracted and flipped open his cell phone, expertly activated its video-recording function.  As the phone worked to gather evidence of incestuous lesbianism, Harold remembered the blackmail scheme that redneck guy had worked against Jennifer Connelly’s character in “The Hot Spot.”  Plum visions of coital extortions suddenly danced in Harold’s head.  They were bettered by the sight of the twins twisting around to Maggie’s front and bending to fasten amorous lips to each of her breasts.  Asthmatic with excitement, Harold leaned closer and panted, “God bless this holiday.”

No sooner were the words uttered than Harold heard the crack, sharp as the snap of a giant wishbone.  The violence of the nearby noise seemed to knock him off balance, and next thing he knew he was in freefall.  His whole body clenched.  He wanted to shriek, but never got the chance.

Alerted by the crash, the sisters rushed downstairs and out into the back yard.  They stopped short upon spotting the figure cratering the lawn.

Lying there supine, he looked like a wooden chair that had tipped over backwards.  His rigid forearms stretched straight skyward, curving only at the clawed hands.  Bent at the knees, his raised legs effortlessly modeled a 90-degree angle.

The girls tiptoed over toward where he had landed.  Her apparent uneasiness causing her to lag behind a few steps, Celine called to Cate in front: “Is he…?”

Cate hunched over in inspection, then gingerly prodded him with the toe of her go-go boot.  She looked over to Celine and Maggie, nodding.  A beat later, the utter astonishment on her face morphed into an ecstatic grin.

“It worked!” the sisters exclaimed in unison.  They joined hands and danced giddy circles around their conquest.

“This is incredible, Maggie,” a breathless Cate avowed once they stopped gyrating.

“I can’t believe we ever doubted you,” Celine added.                

“I told you two not to worry.”  Maggie, who had bolted outside topless, cupped and jiggled her massive teats.  “Simple variation on the world’s oldest spell.”

Cate stood rubbing her palms together.  “And so much easier than all that hair-of-black-cat, eye-of-newt hurly-burly.”

Celine meantime stared at the fallen figure, whose clothes and exposed skin bore a sugary gloss.  “I just hope he isn’t tainted.”  But then, after an oh-what-the-hell shrug, she reached down and snapped an index finger off clean.  She lifted the curled, petrified digit to her mouth and lapped at it as if it were a candy cane.  “Mmmm,” she purred as the confection melted onto her tongue.

Encouraged by her sister’s taste test, Cate procured her own sample.  Practically slavering, she peeled off a pair of red licorice lips, exposing in the process a clenched set of albino-Skittle teeth.  Cate moaned as she chewed the male morsels.

Obviously the sister with the healthiest appetite, Maggie helped herself to a more significant portion of the human quarry.  Using her long, lacquered nails to complete the extraction, she made gumballs of his eyes.  Delectable as they were, though, they did not quite satisfy her sweet tooth.  So she bent over and hefted one of the gnarled branches that had splintered off minutes earlier when the voyeur plummeted.        

Celine and Cate both squealed eagerly when they realized what their elder sibling intended to do.  Grunting, Maggie swung the branch into the midsection of the grounded piñata.  His hardshell exterior cracked apart like so much peanut brittle, and the eyes of the three Weir sisters widened in delight at the assorted treats in store.  Patience being yet another virtue lacked, the covetous coven did not wait to drag their Halloween booty indoors.  They pounced right then and there beneath the moonlit ash tree.

And that’s how Harold Antzle, who remained sentient throughout most of the subsequent feasting, found out for the first and last time just what it was like to be in good taste.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Joe Nazare is a former college professor whose work focused on science fiction and Gothic horror.  His fiction, poetry, and genre-related essays appear in such venues as Harvest Hill (Graveside Tales Press), Death in Common (Daverana Enterprises), Butcher Knives & Body Counts (Dark Scribe Press), The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, and The Cultural Influences of William Gibson, The "Father" of Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Mellen Press).
 
     
 
     
   
 

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