Mortician Law

          Graham saw Elizabeth after her aunt’s sepulture.  Elizabeth wore makeup that ran in ravines, in black lateral lines.  The injury, by this death, to her life was superficial, a tearful pretense. 
          Graham had prepared the body.
          He brushed her elbow as he passed, and she followed him until the carpeted stairs turned to concrete.  He turned then, told her to turn back.
          Graham was a small man, narrow shouldered.  His skin thin enough to expose the mandibular workings of his protests.
          “Morgue?” she asked, eyes on stairs, on cellar halogens refracting along Graham’s black cap shoes. He shrugged, his words ignored, shoulders hung hopeless.
          He eyed the ventral bones exposed by her mourning.  Veins in her neck, pewter chain and charm. “I’ll take you back to the service.”
          “I know the way.”
          Graham nodded. He wasn’t supposed to say sorry.  Service rule, mortician rule.  Graham still fought this reflex of apology.
          “You?”  A girl’s syllable, imagining.  Still understood.
          “I, yes.”  Shyness at this approach.  A discomfort with chatter.  His teeth on edge. “Embalmed.”  Words allowed to vanish in his sigh.
          “Elizabeth,” she replied, extending for his hand.
          Graham returned the gesture, unused to offering exposed flesh.  His elbows and shoulders could nudge and point.  Most were hesitant of touch. Of fingers from flagitious inferior cavities.
          Her number, scrawled across a gum wrapper, left him anxious about her youth.  About mortician laws, simple standards.  He crept around the idea of her advantage being taken.  He carried the scrap, crinkled anxiety in his pocket.  He checked frequently, a thumb to paper, that it didn’t fall from the slippery satin lining of his trousers.
          He called later, tactfully acting appropriately sincere, offering compliments.  Expecting less than her immediate exuberance.  Asking if dinner in his company was of interest.  His voice planned, unhesitant, insincere.
          She laughed at his formalities, and offered an address.  A restaurant.
          They ate a meal. Elizabeth checking enthusiasm, demurring to Graham’s hesitations.  He invited her to tea at his apartment.
          She found his home woefully cozy. Warm woods, counterpanes, cedar smells.  Auroral lamps fastened in place of revealing halogen.  He’d rewired the bathroom.  Elizabeth had remarked on empty plastic casings adhered atop the mirror, meant for high watt bulbs.
          Graham pulled two cups chosen from cabinets chocked with mismatched china.  Pulled herbs, orbed, from tins.
          She watched over his shoulder.  A flower effloresced inside each cup.  The water darkened.  She clapped, delighted.
          “Make them myself.”
His smile reflected hers, head tilted to shrugged shoulders, hands grasping a cup.  Clutching it.  “Teas?  Your hobby?”
          Graham nodded.  “One.”
          “And you,” she shook her head.
          He understood her.  The word of occupation she used to occlude his possibilities.  Not an inquiring, now, a knowing.
          She drank her tea, seated, feeling velvet selvage on an eiderdown.  “Have you always known you could do it?”
          “Hoped I couldn’t, Elizabeth.”  He sipped his drink.  Apprehension entered the muscles of his mouth.  “Once.  I suppose.”  He exhaled, gestured dismissal.  “Enough work?”
          He leant in to kiss her. 
          She envisioned every dead thing he may have held.  Things ignored in his mind’s recesses. 
          Tongues together, she thought of this.
          Of stories of embalmers asking girls to be cold, to be still.  Elizabeth would do that if asked.
          “Don’t even suggest,” he responded.  Dorsal of his hand wiped his mouth
          She admired his detachment.  “You could kill someone.”  With his separation.  His disengage.
          He’d hoped for more.  Soft skin, telephone calls.  Naiveté.  “What?”
          “Kill.  I think.”  It eradicated the promise of phone numbers on gum wrappers.  Simplicity of youth.
          “No.”  He felt his knuckles white. His jaw on edge.
          Shrug, smile.  “Why not?” 
          She’d ignored the shutter behind his eyes. Taken for granted control.
          Graham hurled his cup across the room, shattering it in the corner.  Scabs of porcelain skittered towards Elizabeth’s shoes.
          The creak of his teeth, then.
          “Not in my home.”  More molar on molar.  “That stays out.”