Death & The Single Girl

"Hardly fair," I said. "Tell me something about you. Something real."

He considered. "I liked the tea party," he said. "And the peanut butter."

"And when we were in closet?"

"More so just now in the pool," he said. "The way you held me and the noise you made. Very... visceral. Supremely compelling."

I pushed the cherry down into the glass beneath the ice and set it aside by the pool. "It takes a minute to get properly cold," I said. "Speaking of which... I'm feeling a little chilly."

He looked over at me. "That's not me," he said.

I reached over and took his arm. "Now don't freak out," I said. "This is called 'cuddling.' The girl says she's cold. The guy puts his arm around her. They get warm. The guy maybe makes a move?"

"Oh," he said. "Sorry, most times I see this in people's memories it's at a movie."

I smiled. "Well, they're hardly playing my favorite picture at this particular drive-in."

He laughed as suddenly a light kicked on. There was the sound of film flickering through a projector.

I looked out over the pool to see the Paramount Pictures logo fill a white screen as an orchestra swelled. "Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, 1954. Directed by Billy Wilder."

"If you pull a rabbit out of your ass, I'm leaving."

He smiled, speaking the opening lines along with Audrey. "On the north shore of Long Island, some thirty miles from New York. There was a small girl who lived on a large estate...."

-💀-

"I just realized this movie basically starts with a suicide attempt." She said, tossing one leg over mine idly, munching the popcorn I'd whipped up for her.

"Not a legitimate attempt," I said, accepting a handful to munch.

"How can you say that? She's a silly girl in love with a fantasy. She's not in her right mind."

"She didn't blot the letter," I said.

"What?"

"The moment she folded what she intended to be her 'goodbye note' and put it in the envelope, the ink would have smudged."

"You're a pale horse," she scowled, pelting me with popcorn.

"She also feeds the fish."

"That's it!"

She tackled me and we rolled together on the cold, wet stones a moment until she pinned me and laughed. "If there's one thing that irks a woman, it's a man who is always so sure of himself."

"Well, nothing is sure except Death and Taxes," I said, trying to keep my face even.

"You've been saving that joke."

"Your face lights up when you're not sure if you're laughing or angry."

"Well, I'm a little bit of both. Worst news a girl can get, but it's hard to shoot the messenger when he's been such a perfect gentleman all evening. Tell me, do you often try to get in the pants of dying women?"

"You're the first."

She led me to one of the chaise lounges inside the pool house and lay down upon it. "Not even Helen of Troy? Cleopatra?"

Her hand guided me between her thighs.

"It's not that it never crossed my mind," I said. "It's just usually an awkward moment."

Her eyes widened.

"Oh my," she said. Her brow knit. "So, never?"

"Janis Joplin," I smiled.

"No way!"

"It was 1970," I said, bringing a hand up to tweak one of her small brown nipples. "She was still a little high and drunk when she kissed me. Almost like she was trying to wake herself up from a bad trip. It was all like some simile that someone hasn't bothered writing yet."

Her eyes locked with mine as I felt myself thrusting upward.

"Are you messing with me, Joe?"

"A little bit," I smiled.

Her hand went over her mouth, stifling a heavy moan.

"Afraid someone will hear us?" I asked.

She nodded. "This isn't exactly something I typically do." She whispered around an exhale.

"Look into my eyes and nowhere else."

"Why...?"

My hand clamped down firmly over hers. "The less said, the better."

-M-

The fingernails of my free hand bit into the flesh of his shoulder as I felt my heart racing so fast... I swear I saw white light as my hot sex closed around him. I came, gripping him tightly as he thrust deeply.

My heart. It seemed about to erupt within my chest. And then... It was quiet. Like being submerged once again in the warm water of the pool. Time slowed. And he was there, holding my face in his hands, giving me a long deep kiss that seemed to bring darkness softly from the edges of the universe.

-☠-

Andrew Douglas Tanner, aged 47, known by his friends and family simply as "Drew," entered the master bathroom of his Manhattan townhouse in his shirt-sleeves and trousers. Susan, his wife, was with the girls putting them down for the night. He finished off the last swig of his cognac and set the snifter on the edge of the sink.

"Susan was in love with Quincy Marlow when you met her."

He whipped around, not seeing me. I was seated with my legs crossed on the edge of the cast-iron tub.

"A nice kid, Drew," I said. "On a scholarship, sure. But bright as well as athletic. It was ruled an accidental drowning," I continued. "But, you made it happen."

"What is this?" his eyes searched the room.

"Shut up!" I said, becoming visible to him. "He needed an inhaler before practices and you switched out the stimulant for a paralytic."

"Marley?"

I smiled. "Is that who I look like? Oh, bravo! I couldn't have planned that."

"You're not here!" he checked his wristwatch. "You're dead!"

"Well, I'm never in just one place at one time, Sport." I stood, smiling. "So Quincy dies in a dreadful accident and who is there to comfort little Susie Jacobs after pocketing the inhaler and replacing it with the original?"

"This isn't.... You're not real."

I watched my hand morph from Marley's feminine form to something younger and more masculine. "Well if I'm not, at least your wife and children are far enough off that they can't hear us."

"Quince? What is this?! What are you, some kind of Ghost?"

I smiled, shutting the bathroom door and locking it, pacing around Drew with a hungry smile on my lips. "It's a big townhouse," I continued. "A gift your father-in-law gave you upon your wife's graduation from Vassar. You, of course, graduated bottom of your class at Wharton Business School the same year."

"You're not real!" His eyes darted to the empty glass on the edge of the sink.

"No," I said. "Nobody dosed you. This is quite real, Sport. And you've yet to check your pants pockets before taking them off. You do it every night. Why not do it now, if you please?"

"I... Uh..." His hands went into his trousers. He felt something there. "What are these?"

"Coins," I said, circling. "Two obols, to be exact. One scruple. The fare for passage."

"P-passage?"

"Only those with scruples can pass to the next world, Drew. Souls without them are lost. You're lucky in a way."

"Lucky?"

"You would have ended unscrupulous, you see? Those coins, Marley touched them today. I didn't ask her to. But she touched them. And when she touched them and gave them back, she imbued them. She paid her fare to me."

"Her fare?"

"Well, a fare," I corrected, still circling as he kept his distance. "You're feeling dizzy, Drew?"

"Whoever you are, if this is a joke...."

"We both know I am deadly serious," I smiled. "For most people, Drew, I try to work through the stages, but for you...."

His eyes widened as I thrust my hand into his chest. And then as I squeezed the life out of his heart, he shook, all the bad deeds and sin hitting him like a stroke that lit up his brain with ultimate horror.

"Yes, Drew," I whispered, leaning in. "Rest assured your wife and daughters will get along fine without you. In fact, better than they would, had you lived another decade or so."

"But... It's... Not right," He choked, falling to his knees on the floor. "It's not fair!"

I smiled, squeezing his heart harder, his eyes bulging up at me and then beginning to lose their light. I let the visage he'd imagined melt away entirely. He saw me in his last moments. Empty eyes, teeth bared and sharp like the predator he deserved to see.

"Life isn't fair, Drew," I hissed. "Why should Death be any different?"

-M-

I felt cold and then I gasped awake upon the chaise lounge. It was morning. Fog danced among the carefully manicured trees around the outdoor pool. The sun was just rising.

"Joe?"

I felt for him beside me. But there was nothing. Not even an imprint of where he had slept the night beside me.

"Joe?" I said again, still half asleep.

I sat up in the early October morning, covering myself with a robe someone had left out for me. I shrugged into the dewy sleeves and felt something.

It was a note folded up in the robe.

"Send Della to art school," it read. "Teach Willa how to sail. And when we meet again, you will have hair as white as mountain tops. All my love, Joe."

A sound of twittering caught my ear. I followed it to the back of the boathouse and found my phone in the pocket of my skirt. I accepted the call, recognizing the number.

"Susan? Yes! No, I was sleeping. Drew? Oh my God! No, I'm... No, of course! I'm on my way."

I stumbled, gathering up my clothes, confused. Delirious. Had it all been a dream?

The note was still in my hand. I noticed the little arrow at the bottom corner.

I turned it over.

"Someone had to take the trip, Doc. Live well. -Joe."