Bianca James spent four years in Japan studying Bishonen in their natural habitat, which makes her uniquely qualified to write Yaoi from an American perspective. In her free time she publishes dirty stories (most recently in Best American Erotica 2006), plays capoeira, and performs as a drag king. She recently appeared on the Tyra Banks show as a "gay man trapped in a woman's body.” Add her myspace profile: www.myspace.com/scandalpants.

Excerpted from The Hungry Ghost by Bianca James

I had been sleeping in that weird attic room for over a month when Max appeared to me for the first time. I was laying awake in the big brass bed, when I noticed a light in the tarnished  silver mirror on the wall opposite the bed. I had already extinguished the candles, but this was different from candle light, soft and diffused like a flashlight shining through mist. The smoky orb of light seemed to float out of the mirror and gather at the foot of the bed, mysterious and indistinct. I sat up in bed, and squinted the

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way one does when a pile of clothes or a chair can mimic something sinister in the dark. The light shivered and I could make out an outline of a person, transparent and glowing like a moth. He was faint as a line drawing, a pale suggestion of cheekbones and glittering eyes and mouth in the shadows of the dark room. Yes, there was definitely someone there, perched on the bars at the foot of the bed. It didn’t occur to me at the time to be scared, I was too much in awe.

“Who are you?” I asked. “And what are you doing in my room?”

“I could ask you the same thing. This has been my room since long before you were born.” I wasn't hearing the voice with my ears, the words just appeared in my mind, but I could hear the person's voice loud and clear regardless.

“That’s strange,” I replied. “Grandmother didn’t say anything about another person living here.” It was a stupid thing to say, it was obvious that the man wasn't a living person.

“Your grandmother pretends she doesn’t see me.” He sighed, and I saw him strike a tragic pose with his wispy ethereal arms. “Her own brother. She didn’t even attend my funeral. Drowned in a swimming pool me, drunk on liquor. She thought I brought it upon myself. She thought it was fair punishment for my…unnatural tendencies,” he finished with an amused smirk.

His outline was growing clearer, shaded smoky dark in places. He climbed down from his perch, crawled onto the bed and came to lay beside me. “Do you mind if I rest a while?” He asked. “It is my bed, after all. And I'm so tired.” He yawned, and moved closer to me. The air around him felt cold.

I didn’t argue, but studied him instead. He reminded me of an image from an old movie, flickering black and white, skin pale against indigo-dark eyes and black hair. His face reminded me of my own, except my hair was auburn and my eyes were green. He was good looking and young, like a 1930's movie star. I remembered that my mother had an uncle who had died before she was born, when he was only nineteen. Suddenly I knew this must be his ghost. I tried to remember the name. Mark or something.

“Max,” he replied, as if he could read my thoughts. I could hear his voice clearly as he was speaking out loud now. “And you must be Mabel’s grandchild.”

“My name is Anthony,” I replied solemnly. “I remember you,” I said suddenly, as the memory came back, a memory I did not realize I had. “You played checkers with me when nobody else would.”

I was only six years old then. The only other time I’d visited this house, a family reunion full of guilt and sighs. Bored, with no one to play with, I’d carried my box of checkers from relative to relative, until they all tired of me and told me to go play with the old toys in the attic. My grandma’s dolls were there, packed in tissue and smelling so old. He had been up there too, just sitting on the bed and smoking a cigarette. He'd talked and played with me, though he never let me win at checkers. I had thought he was just another family member, but nobody knew who I was talking about when I mentioned the “man in the attic”, they had assumed it was a childish folly,  an imaginary friend I had made up.

“I’ve been sleeping all these years,” he said. “Nobody to disturb me. And then you came, and fed me with your dreams night after night, and I found my will to live again.”

“But you're dead! What do you mean?" I asked, incredulously.

“Touch me now,” he said. His face was inches from my own. I reached out to feel his cheek, expecting my hand to pass through air, but there was something there, soft and warm. As my palm met his skin, it glowed with color, as if it were real flesh. 

“How?” I asked, baffled.

“You,” he said. “Your energy, your belief, makes me strong. It’s like an electrical current. As long as you touch me I can absorb your energy and manifest as real. But I cannot keep a form like this for long, it is very taxing.” His color faded a bit, to near transparent.

“Close your eyes,” he said. “Picture me, picture me as being real.” And so I did, and so I saw him come to life on the backs of my eyelids, young and strong and beautiful, my great uncle, not much older than I was.

He kissed me, and I felt lips on my own, and I felt hands- real hands touching my chest through the fabric of my tee shirt. It had been so long, and it felt so good. Just that little bit of physical contact was enough to make my mind race and my cock hard.

No, I thought abruptly, this is my own great uncle, this is family, this is someone who would be old and decrepit if he were still alive. This is not Johnny. And the presence disappeared without a trace. I felt a pang of regret. I realized I was so lonely that I didn't really care about all those other things. Come back, I wished, come back. I don’t mind that you are family. You are just a spirit, a memory. Come back and touch me. And gradually the figure regained color and touched me again. It was a feeling like being half asleep, my mind drowning in sensual fantasies, but my body awake to the mysterious pleasures that were being played upon my flesh. He brought me to orgasm in a way that was not so much the result of being physically touched, but a physical response to the thoughts and feelings that accompany arousal. Max stimulated my sexual responses at their deepest core level, as if I were having a waking wet dream. He made me come, and then I fell into deep dreamless sleep moments later, my thighs stained with phantom semen.

© 2006 Bianca James