"I might want a square one," I interjected.
Penny looked at me incredulously. "What could you possibly want with that?"
"You can name it SpongeBob," Henry said.
"Yeah, Penny," I said.
"Fine, I guess Garrett can have a square one, but it's not going to be at the party."
"I want a pumpkin so big I can carve it and live in it," Henry said as Ernest put stickers on the large pumpkins Penny wanted to purchase.
"No one is living in a pumpkin." I told them.
"So are we done?" I asked when Penny put her phone away.
"Uh, no. I'm here to work. If you want to go hang out with the kids, you are free to do so. I need hay bales and corn husks and leaves to make wreaths and fall brooms."
"Fall broom?"
"It's a decorative, nice-smelling broom. It makes the place seem cozy."
"We have bamboo, too," Ernest said. "Lots of bamboo. My dad brought some back with him from the war. Thought it would be nice to have and a cool thing to show his wife. Figured since it was a tropical plant, it would die out in the winter, but that never happened. Now," he pointed to the bamboo, bright green and waving in the wind at the edge of the property, "it's like a weed. Do you need any of that? It's free."
"Not that I can think of," Penny replied.
* * *
Penny spentthe next hour picking through the various leaves and twigs she needed to make the brooms. The kids had already escaped to go run through the corn maze. I shifted my weight and looked up at the sky.
"All right, I think I have what I need," she announced.
I grabbed the handle of the cart and towed it to the house, where Ernest had a small store.
"Oof," Penny said when Ernest gave us the total. "Maybe we shouldn't buy so many pumpkins."
"I cannot go through that again," I said, brushing her hand away when she tried to stop me from handing over my credit card. "I spent valuable time picking them out. They are all coming home with us."
"We'll have all these pumpkins and hay bales delivered in the next few days," Ernest promised as I signed the receipt.
"I want to go through the corn maze," Penny said when we walked out of the little store. She grabbed my hand. "I love corn mazes, but I'm not that good at them. Though I think they’re more fun to do when you're drunk and it's dark."
We wandered through the maze arm in arm. I wasn't even paying attention to where we were going. I was too absorbed in Penny. The red tendrils of her hair had escaped from the bun and blew around her face in the breeze.
"Um," Penny said after we had turned down one path. "I think I'm lost."
"If you touch a wall of the maze and start walking counterclockwise without removing your hand, eventually you'll find your way out of the maze," I told her.
"I don’t want to be here all day."
"I thought you loved Halloween," I teased. We were in a dead end of the maze and finally alone. I pulled her to me, kissing her. My hand crept under her shirt, cupping her soft tits.
"If you didn't have those tights on," I whispered in her ear, "I'd make you come right now."
"For someone who doesn't want to have sex in a hearse, you sure seem okay with doing it in other places," she whispered.
I kissed her to slake some of the sudden desire I had to push her down and fuck her right there.
"Maybe spending an obscene amount of money on pumpkins has inspired me to live dangerously."
