My Dream Girl at the Funeral Home
by Elephant List
Mark abruptly opened the door of the preparation room.
“Hey, Evan. The detectives are back. They need to talk to you.”
Two hours earlier...
I arrived at the funeral home a little before eight, carrying a coffee in one hand and expecting another ordinary day.
Most mornings started the same way. I would check the preparation schedule, see who had come in overnight, and figure out what needed to be done before the first family arrived.
I had been working there for a little over two years. At twenty-six, I was still the youngest person on the preparation staff, which usually meant I got whatever jobs nobody else was particularly excited about.
I set my coffee beside the computer and picked up the worksheet sitting on the counter.
There were three names on it.
The first two meant nothing to me.
The third made me stop.
Bianca Lane.
I stared at the name for several seconds.
Then I actually laughed.
Not because anything was funny. I simply assumed there had to be another Bianca Lane.
The Bianca Lane I knew was an actress.
A famous actress.
The kind of woman whose face had been on movie posters, magazine covers, perfume advertisements, and television commercials for as long as I could remember.
And when I was sixteen, she had been on the cover of Playboy.
That particular issue had spent almost two years hidden underneath a stack of old video-game magazines in my bedroom.
I looked at the worksheet again.
Bianca Lane.
Age: 31.
My smile disappeared.
I sat down at the computer and typed her name into Google.
I didn't even have to finish.
The news results filled the screen.
ACTRESS BIANCA LANE DEAD AT 31
BOYFRIEND ARRESTED AFTER SHOOTING DEATH OF HOLLYWOOD STAR
BIANCA LANE KILLED IN LOS ANGELES HOME
For a moment I forgot about my coffee.
I clicked the first article.
There was a photograph of Bianca walking a red carpet less than a week earlier. She was smiling at the cameras in a black evening dress, one hand resting against her hip.
Below it was another photograph.
Her boyfriend.
According to police, the two had argued at her home late Sunday night. Neighbors reported hearing shouting, followed by a single gunshot.
Bianca had been shot once in the chest.
Paramedics pronounced her dead shortly afterward.
Her boyfriend had been arrested at the scene.
I leaned back in the chair.
Thirty-one.
That was the part that bothered me most.
She was only five years older than I was.
When I had first discovered her, that difference had seemed enormous. I had been a sixteen-year-old kid staring at a twenty-one-year-old actress who seemed to belong to another universe.
She had been beautiful, famous, rich, and completely unattainable.
My dream girl.
Now her name was printed on a worksheet at the funeral home where I worked.
I scrolled farther down the article.
There were more photographs.
Bianca at premieres.
Bianca on vacation.
Bianca laughing during some late-night television interview.
And then there was an older picture from early in her career.
I recognized it immediately.
Same blonde hair.
Same smile.
Same year as the Playboy issue.
I stared at it longer than I should have.
Then I looked toward the hallway leading to the preparation rooms.
The worksheet was still in my hand.
There was a room number beside her name.
Room Three.
I folded the paper once and stood up.
For the first time since I had started working at the funeral home, I was nervous about meeting someone who was already dead.
Room Three was at the end of the hallway.
I had walked through that door hundreds of times before.
That morning, I stopped with my hand on the handle.
It was ridiculous.
She was a client.
Nothing more.
I opened the door.
The preparation room looked exactly as it always did. Stainless-steel counters. Bright overhead lights. Cabinets filled with supplies. The faint mechanical hum of the ventilation system.
And Bianca Lane.
She was lying beneath a white sheet on the preparation table.
For several seconds, I stayed near the door.
Seeing a famous person on a computer screen was one thing.
Seeing her there was something else entirely.
I had expected death to make her unrecognizable somehow.
It hadn't.
Her face was pale, of course, and her blonde hair had not yet been styled, but there was no mistaking her.
It was Bianca.
The same woman whose photograph had once been taped inside my high-school locker.
The same woman whose Playboy issue I had guarded like classified information.
I moved closer.
“Jesus,” I whispered.
I immediately felt stupid for saying anything.
People sometimes talked to the dead while they worked. I had seen coworkers do it. Usually it was something harmless.
“Let's fix your hair.”
“Your daughter picked a beautiful suit.”
“We're almost finished.”
I had never done it much myself.
But this felt different.
I checked the paperwork clipped beside the table.
The difficult work had already been completed during the night shift. The embalming was finished, and the gunshot wound had been repaired and covered with a small protective pad.
She had not been dressed yet.
That was part of my job.
Hair.
Cosmetics.
Clothing.
Jewelry.
The little details families noticed when they came in for the first viewing.
There was a garment bag hanging from a hook on the wall.
A note attached to it read:
Family requested this dress. Please use the enclosed jewelry and perfume.
Perfume.
That was unusual.
Not unheard of, but unusual.
I opened the garment bag.
Inside was a dark blue evening dress.
I recognized that too.
Not the exact dress, obviously, but the style.
Bianca had worn things like it constantly when she first became famous. Simple, elegant, designed to make photographers look twice.
There was a small velvet box in the bottom of the bag containing earrings and a necklace.
Beside it was a bottle of perfume.
I picked it up.
The name was familiar.
She had once been the face of the brand.
Of course she had.
I almost laughed again.
Instead, I set everything carefully on the counter and began working.
Professional routine helped.
Once my hands were busy, my nerves faded.
I brushed her hair slowly, working out the tangles left from transport. I checked an old publicity photograph provided by the family and tried to match the way she usually wore it.
After a few minutes, something changed.
Not in her.
In me.
The more I worked, the less she looked like the woman who had arrived at a funeral home.
She started looking like Bianca Lane again.
I applied the cosmetics carefully.
A little color returned to her face.
Then the lipstick.
That was when I had to stop.
I knew that shade.
Or at least I thought I did.
There had been a photograph in that Playboy issue.
Bianca sitting beside a swimming pool, looking directly into the camera.
Blonde hair over one shoulder.
The same color on her lips.
I could still remember the photograph after ten years.
Apparently some things stayed filed away in a man's brain forever.
I stared at her face.
For a moment, I wasn't twenty-six anymore.
I was sixteen.
Sitting on the floor of my bedroom with that magazine open in front of me, wondering what it would be like to meet a woman like Bianca Lane.
Not even sleep with her.
At sixteen, simply having her look at me would probably have stopped my heart.
I smiled at the memory.
Then I caught myself.
“This is getting weird, Evan.”
I said it quietly, but hearing my own voice in the room made me straighten up.
I turned away and walked to the sink.
Cold water helped.
So did reminding myself where I was.
This wasn't some fantasy.
It was work.
I dried my hands, put on a fresh pair of gloves, and went back to the table.
I carefully pulled the sheet away.
For the first time, I really looked at her.
Not at Bianca Lane the actress.
Not at the woman from the magazine hidden under my bed when I was sixteen.
At the person in front of me.
She was still undressed, her body resting beneath the hard white light of the preparation room.
And suddenly I recognized details I had seen before.
The curve of her waist. The shape of her hips. The fullness of her breasts.
There was even an angle to the way her upper body rested that reminded me of one of the photographs from that Playboy spread.
For a second, the memory came back with uncomfortable clarity.
Same woman.
Same body.
But not the same moment.
Then my eyes fell on the small protective pad over the repaired wound.
The memory disappeared.
She wasn't posing.
She wasn't sleeping.
She was dead.
I looked away for a moment, then forced myself back to the work.
When I looked at her again, she seemed different.
Almost familiar.
Almost peaceful.
And with the makeup, the hair, and the familiar features coming back together, almost alive.
That last thought stayed with me longer than it should have.
I reached for the perfume bottle.
One light spray.
The fragrance drifted through the room.
I froze.
Suddenly the preparation room didn't smell like disinfectant and chemicals anymore.
It smelled expensive.
Warm.
Feminine.
Like a hotel lobby before a premiere.
Like someone had just walked past me wearing an evening dress.
I looked at Bianca.
And the strangest thought entered my head.
What if she wasn't dead?
I knew she was.
Of course I knew.
But standing there, looking at the face I had known since I was a teenager, my imagination filled in everything reality had taken away.
Warm skin.
Breathing.
Movement.
Her eyes opening.
I imagined them opening slowly.
Blue eyes looking straight at me.
Then I imagined her smiling.
“You know who I am, don't you?”
The voice existed only inside my head.
I knew that too.
Still, I answered her.
“Everybody knows who you are.”
In my imagination, Bianca's smile widened.
“That isn't what I asked.”
I swallowed.
The room suddenly felt warmer.
Maybe it was the lights.
Maybe it was the chemicals. The fumes in the preparation room were starting to make me feel lightheaded and slightly detached from everything around me.
Maybe it was simply my brain doing something it had absolutely no business doing.
Imaginary Bianca tilted her head.
“You had my Playboy, didn't you, Evan?”
I stared at her.
Even in my own fantasy, I couldn't lie.
“Yeah.”
She laughed.
And for one impossible second, I could almost hear it.
“What did you do with it?”
I felt my face getting warm.
“You already know.”
“Maybe I want to hear you say it.”
In my imagination, she wasn't lying on the preparation table anymore.
She was standing beside it.
Alive.
Warm.
Watching me with that same confident smile I remembered from photographs.
She stepped closer.
“So I really was your dream girl?”
“For years.”
“Since you were sixteen?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled.
“What did sixteen-year-old Evan imagine?”
I laughed nervously.
“Mostly that you'd notice me.”
“That innocent?”
“I was sixteen.”
She moved closer.
Then she put one hand against my chest.
“And later?”
I didn't answer.
Her smile changed.
“Come on, Evan.”
I swallowed.
By eighteen, I had left home and started a two-year mortuary science program at a technical college.
Bianca was still everywhere then.
Movies.
Magazine covers.
Interviews.
Advertisements.
And by then, what I imagined about her had changed.
Imaginary Bianca seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.
“So what did eighteen-year-old Evan want?”
I looked at her.
There were plenty of answers.
None of them were things I should have been thinking about in that room.
And definitely none of them were things I should have been saying out loud.
But apparently I had stopped remembering that part.
“I imagined you wanting me.”
Bianca smiled.
“That's all?”
“No.”
Her hand slid slowly up my chest in the fantasy.
“Then tell me the rest.”
I could almost feel her standing there.
Almost feel the warmth of her body near mine.
Almost smell the perfume on her skin instead of drifting through a preparation room.
And suddenly I remembered nights at technical college when I had imagined meeting her somewhere completely ordinary.
A hotel bar.
A restaurant.
An elevator after midnight.
Some impossible coincidence where Bianca Lane looked at me and decided that, for once, she wanted the unknown guy instead of another actor or millionaire.
In those fantasies, she always made the first move.
Maybe because even at eighteen I couldn't imagine having the nerve.
Imaginary Bianca leaned closer.
“So that's what you wanted?”
“You choosing me?”
“Yeah.”
Her lips were suddenly inches from mine.
“And if I had?”
For several seconds, I forgot about the fluorescent lights.
Forgot about the stainless steel.
Forgot about the paperwork sitting beside the table.
There was only Bianca Lane standing in front of me, alive in my head and asking a question I had spent years answering in fantasies.
Then something slammed in the hallway.
I jumped.
The room came back all at once.
Bianca wasn't standing in front of me.
She had never moved.
I looked toward the door.
No one came in.
Still, my heart was racing.
Then another thought hit me.
I suddenly wondered how much of that conversation had actually stayed inside my head.
I told myself to stop.
For maybe thirty seconds, it worked.
Then I looked at her again.
And Bianca was standing in front of me.
Alive.
Smiling.
“You didn't answer me,” she said.
“Answer what?”
“What would you have done if I had chosen you?”
I tried to laugh it off.
“You really want to know?”
“I think you want to tell me.”
She stepped closer.
In my imagination, she was wearing nothing but that perfume.
I could almost feel the warmth coming from her skin.
She reached up and touched my face.
“Would you have been nervous?”
“Terrified.”
She smiled.
“Would you have kissed me?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I stared at her.
“You're enjoying this.”
“Maybe.”
Her hand moved slowly down my chest.
“What else did you imagine?”
I didn't answer.
Her hand kept moving.
Lower.
She watched my face the entire time.
“Still too embarrassed to tell me?”
“Bianca...”
“What?”
“You know what.”
She smiled again.
Then, in the fantasy, her hand settled between my legs.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Is this what eighteen-year-old Evan imagined?”
I could barely answer.
“Something like that.”
“Something like that?”
She leaned close enough that her lips almost touched my ear.
“You've had ten years to improve the fantasy.”
I laughed under my breath.
Even my imagination knew exactly how to embarrass me.
“What did you want me to do?” she whispered.
That question hit harder than the others.
Because I had answers.
Her hand came up to my face.
I didn't move away.
"You're scared," she said.
"No."
"Liar."
Her thumb traced my jaw.
Slow and light.
I could feel my heartbeat in my throat.
"This is just a room," she said. "And I'm just a thought. Nothing real can hurt you in a thought."
I looked at her.
Blonde hair over one shoulder.
Red lips.
The same face I'd stared at for hours on my bedroom floor.
Her fingers moved to the collar of my shirt.
She undid the first button.
Then the second.
I let her.
"Tell me what you want, Evan."
I swallowed.
"I want you."
"You have me."
Her hands kept working.
Button by button.
The room was silent except for the hum of the ventilation system and my own breathing.
"I want to touch you," I said.
"You can."
My hands found her waist.
She was warm.
I knew she wasn't real.
I didn't care.
I pulled her closer and kissed her.
Her lips were soft.
She kissed me back like she meant it, like she'd been waiting ten years too.
My hands moved up her back.
Down her sides.
She made a sound against my mouth, soft and low.
Then she pulled back.
Her eyes were bright.
"You're thinking too much," she said.
"I know."
"Stop thinking."
She stepped back and stood there in the dim light of the preparation room.
Pale skin.
Full breasts.
The curve of her hips.
I'd imagined this a hundred times.
It was different now.
Better.
Not just an image.
Almost like a memory.
Like something that had already happened and was happening at the same time.
She lay back on the preparation table.
The steel was cold against her skin.
She shivered.
"Come here."
I moved between her legs.
She was already bare.
Already wet.
In my mind, she had known this was coming.
"Touch me," she said.
I did.
My fingers traced her inner thigh first.
Slow.
She watched me.
Her lips parted.
Lower.
My thumb found her clit.
She let out a breath.
"That's good."
I kept going.
Slow circles.
Her hips shifted on the steel table.
I lowered my head.
The first taste of her was salt and warmth.
She moaned.
Not loud.
Quiet.
Like she was trying to hold it in and failing.
I spread her with my fingers.
She was pink and swollen.
I licked her from bottom to top.
Her hand found my hair.
Not pushing.
Just holding.
"Evan."
My name.
In her voice.
Like she knew me.
I kept my mouth on her.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Every time I found her clit, her thigh tensed against my shoulder.
"You're good at that," she breathed.
I didn't answer.
I just kept going.
The preparation table under her was cold and hard.
None of that mattered.
She was warm above it.
I could feel her getting closer.
Her stomach was tightening.
Her breathing was shorter.
"I'm going to—"
She didn't finish.
Her body arched.
Her fingers tightened in my hair.
She came with a sound that was almost a sob.
I stayed where I was.
Gentle now.
Soft.
Until she pushed my head away.
She was breathing hard.
Her skin was flushed.
Her eyes found mine.
"Stand up."
I did.
She reached for my belt.
Her fingers worked the buckle.
Then the zipper.
She pulled my jeans down.
My cock was already hard.
She wrapped her hand around it.
"God," she said.
She looked at me.
"This part, I used to imagine a lot."
"It was the main part."
She laughed.
Low and warm.
"I know."
She leaned forward.
Her lips brushed the head.
Her tongue circled it.
I had to grip the edge of the table.
She took me in her mouth.
Slow.
Deep.
Her lips were wet and soft.
Her tongue moved along the underside.
I watched her.
Blonde hair falling across her face.
Her eyes looking up at me.
This wasn't a fantasy anymore.
This was a memory I was inventing in real time.
She moved her mouth over me.
Slow and rhythmic.
Not rushed.
Like she had all the time in the world.
Maybe in my head, she did.
"I want to be inside you," I said.
She pulled off slowly.
Her lips were red and slick.
"Then get on top of me."
She lay back on the table.
Spread her legs.
I moved over her.
My weight on my forearms.
The tip of my cock pressed against her.
She was wet.
I pushed inside.
Slow.
Just the head.
She closed her eyes.
"More."
I pushed deeper.
She was tight.
Hot.
Her hands came up to my shoulders.
Her nails pressed into my skin.
"God," she whispered.
I pushed all the way in.
Her legs wrapped around my waist.
We stayed like that for a moment.
Just breathing.
Then I started to move.
Slow.
Long strokes.
Pulling almost all the way out before pushing back in.
Her head tilted back.
Her mouth opened.
"Don't stop."
I didn't.
The table creaked under us.
Steel and flesh.
Cold air and warm breath.
I moved faster.
Her hips met mine.
The sound of our bodies was wet and rhythmic.
Not mechanical.
Just natural.
Like this was always how it was supposed to happen.
“I used to imagine this,” she said.
Her voice was breathy.
“Every night.”
“When?”
“All the time.”
I knew that made no sense.
She had never known I existed.
But in my head, she had been waiting for me too.
I kissed her neck.
Her jaw.
Her mouth.
She tasted like herself and like me.
"So did I," I said.
"Show me."
I did.
I drove into her.
Harder.
The table slid an inch against the floor.
She moaned.
Her legs tightened around me.
"You're going to come inside me," she said.
It wasn't a question.
Either she knew.
Or she was telling me what she wanted.
"Tell me when," she said.
Her eyes locked on mine.
Her body moved with mine.
Every thrust pushed her a little higher on the table.
Her hair spread out beneath her.
Blonde against steel.
"Evan."
Her voice broke.
She came again.
Her body clenching around me.
That was enough.
"Bianca."
I pushed one last time.
Deep.
I came inside her.
Hot and pulsing.
Her arms held me tight.
Her legs kept me inside her.
I stayed there.
Breathing into her shoulder.
She was warm.
I could feel her heart.
Or maybe that was mine.
We lay still.
The hum of the ventilation.
The cold air on my damp skin.
Her fingers traced shapes on my back.
"You shouldn't feel guilty," she said.
I hadn't said anything.
But she knew.
She always knew.
"This was just a thought."
I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, Bianca was gone.
Not the real Bianca.
She was still exactly where she had been.
The woman who had been standing in front of me, touching me, kissing me, whispering my name—that Bianca was gone.
The lights buzzed overhead.
The chemicals hung in the air.
I stood beside the table, fully dressed, my hands shaking slightly.
For a few seconds, I just stared at her.
She hadn't moved.
Of course she hadn't.
The door opened abruptly behind me.
I spun around.
Mark, one of the other employees, stood in the doorway.
“Hey, Evan. The detectives are back. They need to talk to you.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“The detectives.”
“I heard you.”
Mark looked at me strangely.
“You okay?”
I looked back at Bianca.
For one insane second, I expected her to open her eyes.
Maybe smile.
Maybe tell them everything.
Then my brain started replaying the last few minutes.
Her voice.
My answers.
The things I had imagined.
The things I might have said out loud.
Had someone been outside the door?
Had there been a camera?
Had I touched her that way?
No.
I hadn't.
I knew I hadn't.
But the memory of the fantasy was so vivid that for a few terrifying seconds, knowing wasn't enough.
“What do they want?” I asked.
Mark shrugged.
“They said they have a couple of questions about Bianca.”
Of course they did.
She had been murdered.
That was why detectives were here.
Not because of me.
Not because of anything I had imagined.
Still, when I followed Mark into the hallway and saw the two detectives waiting near the office, my mouth went dry.
One of them stood when he saw me.
“Evan?”
“Yes.”
“You worked on Ms. Lane this morning?”
I hesitated.
“Yes.”
“We just need to know whether you noticed anything unusual during the preparation.”
I stared at him.
Anything unusual.
I almost laughed.
Instead, I answered their questions.
No, I hadn't noticed any additional injuries.
No, nothing appeared inconsistent with the paperwork.
No, I hadn't found anything that seemed important to the investigation.
The detective wrote something in his notebook.
Then he closed it.
“That's all we needed. Thank you.”
They left.
I stood there watching the front door close behind them.
My heart was still pounding.
Mark looked at me.
“Seriously, man. You look like you thought they were here to arrest you.”
I forced a laugh.
“Long morning.”
He walked away.
I stayed where I was for another few seconds.
Then, somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard Bianca's voice one last time.
You shouldn't feel guilty. This was just a thought.
I looked toward Room Three.
For the first time that morning, I was grateful thoughts left no fingerprints.
The End.