Page 79 of Unalive On Air

Stove glances at Trystan, then looks at me. “You’re a peculiar little man, aren’t you?”

I’m not even offended by his statement. Every single word of it was accurate.

“Have you told him about ghost wanking yet?” Stove asks Trystan.

Trystan startles. “Oh, um . . .”

“My god!” Stove has just about got the button on his shorts done up. He drapes his arm over my shoulder, and I lean my head as far away from his fist as my neck will allow. “Mate. Oh, mate. Ghost wanking is the best thing about being a ghost.”

I open my mouth to tell him to shut his, but . . . curiosity gets the better of me. “Why?”

Both Stove and Trystan laugh, and both my heartbeat and thoughts shoot into overdrive.

“Don’t say anything,” Stove implores Trystan. “Let him find out on his own. Gary, d’you wanna use my cave? It’s great. No electrical devices around. You can go nuts. Literally.” He raises an expectant brow.

“Yeah, no thank you.” I look at Trystan, who’s doing his absolute best to keep his face neutral. “I actually came to ask you a few questions about the night of your death.”

Stove tilts his head back and makes the loudest fake snore sound. “Cave wank or solving murders? I know which I’d choose. Fine then, you little freak, I’ll answer your questions and then you’ll piss off, yeah? I have an important matter at hand that I need to urgently deal with,” he says with an exaggerated wink.

“First of all, ew,” I say. “Secondly, when you came here as a boom operator, what production company were you working for?”

Stove frowns at me. It obviously wasn’t a question he was prepared for, and in all honesty, it’s not an answer I’m particularly interested in, but should I need a contact in the living world, it might help me out.

“It was a small indie team based in the midlands called . . . called . . . I can’t remember now. Huh, funny that. Let me think on it.”

“It’s alright. It’s probably not too important to the investigation. I just wanted to know how many of you were down in Helzephron Bay and what you were doing at the time,” I say.

“It was a docuseries we were working on about Jeanie’s disappearance. Back then, the overriding belief was that she either fell or was pushed from the cliff. So we were filming some interviews and B roll around the hotel grounds and the beach.”

“And the caves?”

“No, they didn’t want us to film inside the caves, even though I thought it’d be really cool.”

“Is that why you were here alone, not with the rest of the crew on the beach?” I ask.

Stove laughs. “Well, sort of. I came in here for a . . . tinkle. But the acoustics are amazing, so I set my mic up to record some sounds and explore a little. That’s when Franny hit me over the head with a stony ceiling club.”

“Still sticking with that story?” Trystan asks.

“Why not?” Stove replies.

“Okay, thanks,” I say, once again seizing Trystan’s forearm and turning away.

“Can I get back to my hot date now?” Stove says.

“Sure,” I call out over my shoulder. “But I want to inspect your cave tomorrow in the daylight.”

“That’s what she said!” he yells in reply.

I wait until we’re too far for Stove to hear us. “That guy is infuriating.” But another thought becomes snagged in my brain, and I can’t seem to unhook it. “What did he mean about . . . you know . . . the old five knuckle shuffle?”

Trystan laughs, and my innards flip themselves inside out at the sound. “Okay, so . . . the main thing is that when you’re a ghost, there’s no . . . refractory period.”

“Oh. Ohh!” I swallow. “So . . .”

“Yep . . . multiple orgasms. One after another after another until . . . you get bored or pass out or someone interrupts you.”

I don’t dare look at Trystan, but I know he’s grinning his head off. I can hear his smile in his voice.