The Michelin Man

The M.E. was wearing some kind of white rubber suit. The rubber was thick. His body was thick. He resembled the Michelin Man a little. Just not quite as puffy. He wore thick glasses with black rectangular frames. He was bald, I think. Or balding.

He pulled the white plastic sheet back a foot. It was Karla all right. Her face was blue. Greyish blue. Curiously, though, her lips were painted a bright crimson. Had the M.E. done this? Applied the lipstick? Was he preparing her body for—what was the word—viewing? Did he double as an undertaker?

Far more curious, however, was the fact that Karla's eyes were open. And moving. Her head remained perfectly still but her brown eyes, rimmed red, were flitting around in their sockets like trapped birds. This evidence of life seemed to bother me and the Medical Examiner not one bit.

"That's her," I said, with a self-conscious nod.

He pulled the sheeting the rest of the way back. He pulled the grey-white sheeting the rest of the way back and I got an instant boner. Karla's naked body, though blueish, was beautiful. I say Karla's body. It was in fact a version of her body. A previous model, so to speak. An idealized replica of Karla when she was, say, 25? When we first met? Before childbirth and the approach of middle age had thickened her up some? Like her lips, her toenails were fresh-painted a bright cherry red. But the center point of her body, literally and figuratively, was the thick black triangle of untrimmed pubic hair. It must've been an inch high. It was practically an afro!

Karla's naked body lay on a concrete slab. The concrete appeared to be wet, as if it had absorbed, and still visibly held, a recent dousing of water. Water or some kind of clear fluid. Did they rinse the slab off before laying the body on it? The perimeter of the slab was decorated with mismatched pieces of embedded, colorful tile. It reminded me of a bench in my grandmother's backyard when I was a child. Pieces of fruit—apples, oranges, bananas—also littered the slab perimeter. As if my wife's—now my former wife's—body were an offering to some sort of cannibalistic tribe.

The M.E. had a boner now as well. I couldn't see it, in all that rolly-polly white rubber, but I could certainly surmise it. As he climbed on the slab between my wife's legs (they were vividly flesh-colored now) they rose and encircled his back, ankles crossing. I thought: How many times in our so-called open marriage had I seen her in this position with another man. Whether a friend of mine like Trey or some complete stranger she'd hooked up with on Deanslist. And how many times during our marriage had she been in this position, or others, when I wasn't watching?

The M.E., who still appeared to be fully dressed, grunted fat-man-style with each violent thrust. I wondered if he was thick or thin? Long or short? (I had a feeling, based on my own experiences with fat guys, it was the latter.) I wondered if there were health consequences to fucking a corpse? Was he wearing a rubber? I mean aside from his white suit?

And was this standard practice? Did he fuck all the attractive women who ended up on his tile-and-fruit-rimmed concrete slab? Was he some kind of pervert? Couldn't he lose his job or be arrested for committing this kind of act? How did he know I wouldn't report him?

I noticed, suddenly, that Karla's lips were moving (they were naturally blue now, devoid of lipstick). I leaned closer. I leaned in until my right ear was nearly touching her lips. It was as if her head and my head were isolated from the bucking bronco overhead. It was as if, aside from the audible grunting, we were in an isolation chamber together. But no matter how close I got I could not hear the words—the sounds—she was emitting. Perhaps there was no sound, I speculated. Perhaps this is the curse of the dead: eyes that move but can't see, lips that move but can't—

"Jesus!" I said, my left hand flinching. It had gone all wet and sticky. The Michelin Man must've pulled out (I couldn't see to my left anymore) and launched a cumshot. (Were we being filmed? Was this a porno?) I looked at my hand. It was nothing but articulated grey bone. Dripping bright-white semen. I looked down at Karla. Her face was nothing but empty skull. Fresh semen oozing into a hollow eye socket. A bony grin. I screamed.

My scream awoke me. My chest heaving a sigh. Jesus! My left hand was sticky-damp. I touched myself. The front of the lace microfiber panties I'd worn to bed was sopping wet. Sticky-wet. I'd had a wet dream! A wet...nightmare! What was I, like, 13? I hadn't had a wet dream in I don't know how long! I reached for the bedside Kleenex box...

The next morning I came downstairs and found my wife Karla, very much alive thank you, standing at the stove pouring boiling water into the coffee press. She was wearing one of the many flowery silk kimonos I'd bought for her over the years. This one hugged her thick shape and barely covered her to mid-thigh. I could tell she was naked underneath.

I came up behind her and gave her firm right butt-cheek a squeeze and kissed the nape of her neck. Then I caressed her surgically-enhanced left breast, which no longer sagged. She threw a hip into me.

"Stop it this is hot!" referring to the water. Then, over her left shoulder: "What's with all the early morning affection?"

"I love you?"

"And?"

I bowed my head. "I had a bad dream about you last night."

"Not the one," she replied, "where Trey fucks me again was it?"

"That's not a dream," I said, "that's reality."

"Not anymore it ain't," she said dismissively, setting the emptied kettle down. "That prick."

That prick, my old friend Trey, after openly fucking my wife for over a year, had abruptly turned his affections on our adult daughter Brittany. In fact the two of them, both being late risers, and this being a Saturday, were probably in bed together in Britt's apartment as we spoke.

"Good riddance," Karla added, taking a couple of mugs down from the kitchen cabinet. Her face suddenly brightened. "I do have a new friend, however!" she boasted.

"Yeah?" I said warily, taking a seat on a kitchen stool.

"I met him last night. On Deanslist."

Oh great, I thought. Deanslist. A mass murderer for all we know...

"Very good-looking 30-something guy," she said, setting the mugs down. "And a gorgeous cock," she added, holding her hands out an exaggerated foot apart. "Assuming it's his."

Yes, assuming. She'd—we'd—been fooled before.

"But guess what he does for a living? We spent a lot of time chatting late last night."

I watched Karla pour the rich black coffee into the mugs. "I couldn't say," I said.

"No, guess."

"Porn star."

"Be serious!"

"How would I possibly know, dear? I was asleep in the guest bedroom. Where you've exiled me to."

Karla, unfazed and beaming, and with a brimming cup of coffee in each hand, said: "You've heard of Wholesome's Funeral Home?"

"Whole Foods?"

"Wholesome's."

I'd seen the ads. "So?"

"It's a family name. Wholesome. He's like the son of the founder. Or the grandson, I forget. He's a...," setting my coffee cup down in front me, "a funeral home director."

I looked at Karla's smiling face. We were that close. "He's a fucking undertaker."

"No he's not. They call 'em funeral home directors now in case you hadn't noticed. He doesn't, like, shoot 'em full of chemicals and stuff. He has employees who do that."

Or fuck them, I thought, remembering my vivid dream. "Good for him."

With that Karla planted a rare kiss on my left ear. A juicy, near-deafening one. Then she whispered:

"And I'm gonna fuck his brains out tonight in our bed!"