lucy

Magdalena couldn’t walk in those shoes.

That was the point, really; dead women aren’t supposed to be able to walk anyway – it’s generally frowned upon for a decedent to get up and walk around at their own funeral.

It’s rather rude, actually. The family pays all this money to send their loved one off to the heavens (or hell, probably, for the sluts like her and the killers and the dats analysts, because no one, NO one, has ever met a pleasant data analyst) and if they don’t go, why, that’s a lot of money wasted on a fancy mahogany box lined with satin and a church rental and boxes upon boxes of tissues.

The problem was, she wasn’t dead. Well, she WAS, sort of, in that her heart had stopped beating, and that the rhythm of her breath had ceased – a song stopped shortly after the first verse – but she didn’t need such things anymore. When they’d plunged the ceremonial dagger into her chest, the men had read the incantation wrong. Instead of giving them eternal life, the demon they’d summoned gifted it to her. It was unfortunate for the men who kidnapped her, because the demon needed to be paid, and they’d accidentally made their sacrifice immortal, so he took his tithe in their lives. Dragged all three of them back to hell with him, earthly bodies and all, kicking and screaming and protesting. There’s a lesson there in not calling demons using ancient Sumerian if you aren’t fluent in ancient Sumerian.

It takes three days for the demon’s gift to kick in, so when the woman out walking her pomeranian found her in the early hours of the morning, she was really dead. Dead-dead, nothing in the head, white eyes and blue skin and an awfully large hole in her chest.

She stayed dead through the police and the paramedics showing up to take her, through the cold of the freezer. She even stayed mercifully gone during the autopsy, when they stripped her and bisected her beautiful tits and took stomach samples and made her more naked, more exposed, than she’d ever been.

She woke up midway through the embalming. God, it hurt, the fluid replacing her blood and the giant screw in her ass. Terrified and confused, at first, she lay there quietly trying to asses the situation. Though her eyes had clouded over, she could see the funeral director working on her. They were beautiful - a well defined jaw, high cheekbones, full lips, and deep blue eyes. Their hair was thick and luscious, chocolate brown and shiny, and they looked almost ethereal, like an angel or a character out of an Anne Rice novel. At first, she thought it was an angel come to take her to heaven, all her sins forgiven, but then she noticed the wax in their hands. As they worked to cover her wounds and make her body loon whole again, untouched by the scalpel and the knife and the opportunistic coyote that had found her before the dog walker had, they spoke to her almost reverently.

“My god, you are beautiful”, they said to what they thought was a corpse who couldn’t hear, “you are perfect, it’s such a shame you’re gone.”

Magdalena knew she should say something, anything, like “hey, I’m not dead”, or “could you please remove this screw from my ass it’s incredibly uncomfortable”, but she didn’t was enjoying the attention from the funeral director and didn’t want to ruin the moment, so she stayed still.

Once the reconstruction was finished, The funeral director dressed her gently, in the frilly black dress the family provided, being careful not to ruin their work. They pulled out the shoes and didn’t bother stifling a giggle.

“Fetish ballet shoes? For a FUNERAL? Well, at least they aren’t crocs, I suppose.”

They fastened the buckles on the impractical heels and admired their work, staring at the stunning corpse in front of them. This was their best work yet.

My god, she looked almost alive. Her eyes even seemed less milky. The funeral director hadn’t put the eye caps in yet. They were fresh out, and the delivery wouldn’t come until tomorrow. The funeral was in three days, and no one had asked to see the body before that.

The funeral director should probably go upstairs. But they couldn’t bring themselves to leave the body. They stroked Magdalena’s face.

Ah, hell. Decedents aren’t terribly judgy. So the funeral director pulled up a chair and sat next to the body.

They introduced themselves.

“Hi, Magdalena. It’s nice to meet you. My name is River, my pronouns are they and them, and I’ll be your mortician for today”, they said. They chuckled and Magdalena had to work to stop herself from smiling. River wasn’t just beautiful, they were charming.

As the night wore on, River told Magdalena everything about themself - their childhood as a latchkey kid, how they were a huge fan of Otis Redding albums and old kung fu movies, how they got into trouble with drugs at a very young age, how when their best friend died of an overdose in high school it made them straighten out, how when they saw the body in the coffin it made them confront mortality and want to be a funeral director. They talked about how they graduated top of their class, how after their father died they sold his classic car collection and used the proceeds to fund their own funeral home.

They told Magdalena how their partner left them when they came out and cut their hair and started microdosing t, how they’d been alone for the last two years.

“Clearly I’ve been alone TOO long”, they said, “I’m having the best first date I’ve ever been on in the basement of a funeral home with a corpse wearing the second most ridiculous shoes I’ve ever had to slip onto a person’s feet.”

Magdalena realized this was the best date she’d ever been on, too. River was warm and funny and gentler with her than anyone had ever been. When people found out Magdalena was a stripper, there were no gentle touches. It was only roughness, and fetishization, and eventual repulsion and regret.

River knew about Magdalena’s career path. Everyone did, in the most lurid way possible. The papers had a field day with her murder. “STRIPPER FOUND STABBED TO DEATH IN THE WOODS, SUSPECTS UNKNOWN”, the headlines read. There were op ed articles detailing all the darkest parts of her past, almost inferring she’d deserved a violent end for being such a whore.

River had read them. They were disgusted — not by Magdalena’s history, but by the way the media spoke of her.

They told her so that night, catching her up on what had happened to her, holding her icy hand, reassuring her they didn’t judge, that they’d also “done what they’d had to do” to get drugs or later, pay tuition in the past.

River knew they should stop this, that this was a corpse, that this was teetering on the edge of being very unethical. But instead, they climbed up on the hydraulic embalming table and held Magdalena carefully, falling asleep with the body in their arms.

Magdalena had never felt so comfortable with someone. She should come clean, but how? She didn’t want to scare River, or worse, make them uncomfortable. They didn’t know she could hear them when they poured their heart out to her. This was going to be an awkward conversation. So Magdalena continued to play possum.

She still pretended to be dead the next day, when after getting back from another body retrieval River just held Magdalena’s hand and stared at her lovingly.

The ruse continued until that night, after more long, one sided conversations, River finally gave into the very unethical urge they’d had since the medical examiner had delivered Magdalena’s body and, with the sigh of a person who knows they’re doomed, kissed her.

It was then that Magdalena couldn’t help herself. River’s lips were electric. The warmth of the kiss felt like heaven and she felt it in her toes.

Magdalena kissed back.

At first, River was so wrapped up in the excitement of the kiss that they didn’t register that the dead woman was actively participating in the makeout session.

Then Magdalena’s arm reached up to do what she’d wanted to do since she saw the heavenly creature kissing her and caressed River’s hair.

River finally noticed that maybe the dead woman wasn’t dead.

They jumped back and screamed.

Then they came back to Earth and started apologizing profusely.

“I’m not a necrophiliac, I swear! And I’m usually WAY better with consent. Oh god, uh, how long have you been awake?”

“I came to while you were putting wax on the hole in my chest.”

“Okay, I have so many questions. One, why didn’t you say something earlier? And two, HOW ARE YOU SPEAKING TO ME? I’ve been doing this a while. I know when people are dead. You are embalmed now. You are definitely dead.”

Magdalena sat up on the embalming table. “It’s a whole thing. Do you speak ancient Sumerian?”

River blinked. “…no?”

“Good”, Magdalena said, “don’t.”

Magdalena then explained the last moments of her living life, the dagger, the demon, the men dragged to hell, the pain of dying and trying to shoo away the coyote with her last breath.

River kept frantically apologizing for the kiss, for the spooning, for trauma dumping their whole history on them.

Magdalena smiled. “I have two ways you can make this up to me”, she said.

River looked nervous. “Anything.”

“First,” Magdalena replied, “kindly remove this screw thing from my butt. It is VERY uncomfortable.”

River stifled a grin. “Absolutely. Uh, sorry about that. Standard embalming procedure. And what else?”

Magdalena brushed a stray lock of River’s hair out of their face.

“Kiss me again.”

River’s face lit up. They pressed their soft lips to hers, exploring her mouth with their tongue. The kiss on the lips turned into kisses on the neck, and after the offending screw was removed, River took off her ballet heels and led her upstairs, where, careful not to disturb the work they’d done to repair the damage to her abdomen, they fucked until dawn.

It’d never been like this for Magdalena, gentle and slow and focused on her pleasure, and she’d never felt this carnal hunger before, this need, as wave after wave of pleasure washed over her and her pussy lips, swollen and wet, pulsed with pleasure. She responded in kind, drunk on arousal, as her mouth went to work on River’s secret bits until they came hard and loud enough to wake the dead.

Afterwards, Magdalena snuggled into River’s arms. Their queen bed was much more comfortable than the autopsy table.

Magdalena giggled. “You have wax on your face.”

River frowned slightly. “Ah fuck. I’m going to have to fix your chest. Ugh, that’s two hours of work down the drain.”

Then reality hit the mortician.

“Oh fuck. Your funeral is today. What are we going to do?”

“Well, you aren’t putting those caps under my eyes, that’s for sure.” Magdalena giggled.

River’s frown got deeper.

“Magdalena, I’m serious. You’re alive, sort of, but you’re dead, sort of, and your family is coming tomorrow. They’ve already paid for the funeral.”

Magdalena thought for a moment.

“Then let me stay dead”, she said.

“What?”

“Let me stay dead. Put me in the coffin. I’m done with that life anyway. None of those people really love me. We’ll go through with the funeral, and afterwards I’ll just change my hair a bit and become someone new.”

“What will you do after, though?” River asked.

“Can I stay with you for a bit? I could help out around here. Just until I get back on my feet.”

River thought for a moment. “I COULD use a hand with a lot of the housekeeping and admin stuff”, they said. “Some people get weird, dealing with a nonbinary funeral director. It’d be a huge weight if someone could handle the bereaved families while I just handle the decedents.”

She smiled. “I’m a stripper, honey. I’m excellent at handling people.”

So that morning, they put the dress and the heels back on her, and Magdalena quietly lay in her coffin as she listened to people talk about her like she wasn’t there. t least her aunt got her a nice coffin, an antique looking toe pincher with red satin. She was going out in style. It took effort not to roll her eyes when her sister eulogized her, sobbing, crying over the coffin and petting her hair. Her sister hadn’t spoken to her in ten years, ever since she started working at the club.

After the service, River closed the coffin. Luckily for them, no one wanted to follow them to the crematorium. When they got to the crematorium, River took off Magdalena’s shoes and helped the dead woman out off the beautiful box she was meant to be burned in. He loaded the box onto the incinerator. “Say goodbye to your former life”, he said.

“Wait”, she said, and threw her shoes into the box.

River smiled and pushed the box into the incinerator. He nodded to Magdalena. “Want to do the honours?”

Magdalena flipped the switch.

Once the coffin was ash, the two new lovers left.

“We’re going to get you hair dye and new shoes”, River said in the hearse.

“Great. Love this for me.” Magdalena suddenly had a wicked grin.

“How do you feel about crocs?”

“Don’t even joke about that or I’ll tell the government I’m harbouring a zombie”, they responded.

“Oh please. Zombies are brainless. I’m more of a lich or a revenant.”

They both laughed as Magdalena reached for River’s hand. Her mortal life was over, but her real life was just beginning.

——————-

Two weeks later, Magdalena’s sister came by to pick up the ashes. The bleached blonde woman working at the funeral home looked so familiar.

Magdalena’s sister was transfixed.

“My gosh, you look so much like a blonde version of my sister. It’s uncanny.”

The blonde woman smiled.

“I get that a lot. It’s common for the bereaved to see resemblance in strangers to their loved ones after they pass.”

This made sense. After all, her sister was dead, and she hadn’t really spoken to her in the years before her funeral.

Regret washed over her.

“Thank you so much. I didn’t catch your name.”

The blonde handed her a small satin bag filled with the last remains of Magdalena.

“I’m Helena. You take care, now.”