-1Necrophilia

The smell of rotting flesh hung heavy on his breath. It didn't repulse me; I didn't turn away. I stayed where I was, my back straight in the old wooden chair and my chin tilted upwards. His hands were on my shoulders but he wasn't holding me in place. I could've pushed him off. I could've left. I could've escaped. I didn't want to. I wasn't afraid of him or what he had become. I trusted him with me. I trusted him to die before he was able to do me any harm. Die because he could never do me any harm- even now. The smell of rotting flesh grew closer and closer until I was inhaling it when I breathed. Tasting it. Tasting the hot, heavy taste of death. Tasting what he had become.

"Oh… God…" he choked. His hot, stinking breath assaulting my nostrils with its foulness as he silently sobbed. Or prayed, I supposed. It was hard to tell anything aside from his breath and his hands. It was so dark. He couldn't have been far from my face and yet I couldn't see him. I couldn't see his glittering eyes. I couldn't see his plump cheeks. I couldn't see his cheesy grin. I lowered my head slightly. To see him now would not be the same as seeing the glowing beauty I saw in my head. To see him now would be to see him dying. A monster. His grip on my forearm faltered. My thoughts had been cruel and the realization hurt. I reached up and sought out some part of him to touch, to comfort. "I'm so sorry." He breathed as my hand found its way to his jaw, my fingers caressing his ear lobe and my thumb rubbing his cheek.

"Why? Don't be." My voice was flat. Monotone. I wasn't the least bit convincing. I winced to think how hurtful that attempt at comfort must have sounded to him. I felt him leaning into my hand, his skin no longer soft but feeling like rubber against me. Feeling like one of those cheap Halloween masks. He breathed against my wrist and my body shuddered. In disgust? In arousal? In some sick and twisted combination of the two? It used to be I couldn't even think of him without being assaulted by my over active teenage hormones. I knew this feeling was excitement. A part of me was disgusted in myself.

"I'm a monster," he said, his voice hitching. So he was crying. I didn't feel tears against my hand. He didn't want to cry in front of me. I can understand that. I couldn't imagine crying in front of him. Even now as my chest swelled and throbbed with tears and sorrow and hurt I couldn't imagine letting him know. Letting him know how his situation was effecting me. Letting him know that I probably cared about him more than I had ever cared about anyone before. Letting him know that it had never been just a simple fling to me.

"No," I said, raising myself onto my knees. My head bumped his chin as I grew in height. We sought each others faces in the darkness, my hand moving from his cheek to his neck. Pulling him towards me. Frantic. Desperate. Was it wrong to want to hold him? Was it wrong to want to kiss him? Was it wrong to want to be with him? He was dying. His body was dying anyway. He was decaying as I held him. He was a monster. He was a monster just like any other in a horror film. "If you're a monster what does that make me?"

"What?" I rested my forehead against his. Our breathing was in sync. I breathed life into him and he breathed death into me. I accepted it and inhaled it gratefully. My lips brushed his as I spoke, a smile curving my mouth as old habits took me over. My hand traveled from his neck down his back, twirling circles and patterns on him through his clothes. I cinched my hands together around his waist and held myself tight against him. No hardness, no heat, no pulsing greeted me from his pants. He was limp, cold, lifeless. He was dead.

"If you're a monster," my lips brushing his tainted ones, "and I want to be with you. What does that make me?" He stopped breathing. He stopped moving. He stood still and silent. My hands were moving again, moving to the front of his pants where part of me was angry to find an inactive member. I slipped my hand past the waist band of his pants and boxers with a practiced ease. I kissed him as my hand began its old ritual. His mouth tasted of spoiled meat and my stomach turned and danced as I let my tongue play in that death hole.

It was slow goings at first. Nervous. Anxious. The butterflies I thought had died long ago fluttered around in my churning gut. Our kiss was delicate and soft. Gentle. We were afraid of each other and of what might happen. It was a lot like our first kiss. This time, however, we kept our passion quelled for entirely different reasons. This time I was afraid of his tongue falling out in my mouth, not of his dick falling out of his pants. This time he was afraid of growing a hunger for me, not of falling in love with me. When we parted I pressed myself up against him, my knees off the chair as I leaned forward. I felt him breathing heavily against my ear as I rested my head on his shoulder. My heart ached. He was dying. He was dying. He was already dead. He was dying.

"Baby?" his voice squeaked, breaking the easy silence that had grown. I was crying. My body convulsed with internalized sobs, and small whimpers emanated from my closing throat. My hand was back on his neck, holding me as close to him as I could get. My other hand still worked around in his pants, fervent to make him have some reaction to me.

"What's happening?" I said between sobs. I opened my eyes, not even realizing or remembering when I had closed them. I could see the faintest outline of hair and ear and I pushed my face into it. His hair was greasy and felt slick and wet against my face. It held some rank odor in it. It was the skin beneath his hair I was smelling. The decaying skin. I smiled to force my vomit away. Smiled into his disgusting nest of hair and skin and maggots and truly enjoyed every moment I was allowed to breath those scents in. Those were the scents of what he was and his scents always soothed me. The thing was, it had always been the idea of the person the smell was attached to and not the smell itself that comforted me; I found it easy to enjoy these smells. Too easy. "What's happening to us, Babe?"

"We're dying," he said with a nervous laugh. He put his hands back on my shoulders, moving them from where they had been making little circles in the small of my back. He put his hands on my shoulders and held me at arms distance. Beneath me the chair was slipping. "No. I'm dying. You're OK. You can still live. There's time. Get away from here. Get away from me!"

"You're a fucking idiot." The silence made it seem as it I had physically smacked him. My tone had been enough I guess. My hand still toiled on its labor. Labor of Lust? Labor of Love? It didn't matter at this point. Whatever it was we were too far gone to come back. Finally I began to feel heat against my hand. I smiled. He was shaking. Trying to hold back happy noises and failing. Moaning. Groaning. I leaned in again and he kissed me. This time I was really afraid his tongue would detach in my mouth just from the sheer force of the kiss. He was hungry. But it was more than my flesh he was hungry for. It made me happy to know that.

"Please…" he panted, breathing my bangs out of my face and making my eyes water with his reek. "Please, leave." I pumped away harder, ignoring is pleas. He wanted me to leave so that I would be safe. I suppose that would have been the smart thing to do. It would have been the easy thing to do. It would have been the cowardly thing to do. I kissed the side of his mouth softly and shook my head. Our noses brushed as I answered him with a silent no. He moaned again, throwing his head back and shuddering in my grasp.

"I can't leave," and for the first time I actually believed what I was saying. I couldn't leave. Not now. It was too late. I had resigned myself to being with him- dead or undead. I had resigned myself to be with him. Had it happened when he brought me here and sat me down? Had it happened when I comforted him? Had it happened when I kissed him? No. It had happened when I started enjoying the aspects of where I was and what I was doing. It happened when my mind knew he was dead and only getting deader and my body pushed on with its desire. It happened when I felt the wetness of sperm against my hand and instead of shirking away in disgust I brought my hand to my mouth.

"Don't!" He boomed, grabbing my wrist and stopping me. "You'll get infected that way." I leaned towards where he was holding my hand away from me. The chair slipped a little more under me. I reached up with my mouth until I felt I could almost reach my jizz covered hand. Then the chair slipped out from under me. I fell. My head hit the floor and the sound of the skull crushing crash echoed through my temples. I was dumbfounded. I saw lights sparkle before my eyes as pain reverberated through me. I couldn't breath. It took me a moment but I realized that was because he was on top of me. I had pulled him down with me just like he was pulling me down with him.

"Babe…" I said breathily. He sat up, still holding my hand.

"Are you OK?"

"Lay back down,"

"What?" I pulled him back down. His head smacked mine and the ringing in my ears took up again. He released my hand and moved to rest his head on my chest. His arms holding my shoulders and placing him in what I already knew to be a very child like pose. My arms wrapped around his waist and I placed my face in his nest of hair again. It was tangled and matted. He was dirty. I don't know why any of this shocked me though. I knew he hadn't been bathing. I knew he had been sleeping in strange places. I knew he was dying. I took a deep breath of his repulsive odor and let it fill my lungs. It was like drugs, his smells.

"Babe,"

"Mmm,"

"Fuck me,"

There was silence again. Shocked, stunned silence. I felt him move a little. Position himself. His hips dug into mine. Pelvis to pelvis. He lifted himself off of my chest and held himself over me with his arms on either side of my face. I wish I could have seen the look on his face. I smiled as if I could. His mouth would be open and his eyes wide. I felt him fidget above my hips. Anxious. Unsure. I reached up and caught his ear with my mouth. My teeth gnawed at the lobe as my breath made goose bumps run through him. I felt his eyelashes flutter against my cheek as he entered another stage of pleasure. What's wrong with me? Why am I doing this? He's dead! He's a corpse! This is sick! My mind rattled a barrage of comments at me as I felt him take off his pants. He wiggled out of them and I felt him throb against my stomach as he took mine off as well. He was sitting up, or at least his arms and face weren't directly near mine. I couldn't see him but I knew he was hesitating. Scared. Scared of what might happen. Scared whatever disease he had contracted might be contagious this way. Scared he might kill me.

"Baby… are you sure?"

I knew it.

"It's OK, Babe." The smile on my face couldn't have been one of sanity. Or joy. Or even beauty. It couldn't have been anything more than a smile to signify the descent on to some deep, dark path in my life. "It's only necrophilia."