After Dark

“Good morning,” I say, scaring her awake. I know I have a melancholy look on my face as I approach her. I am sad. I’m sad that I got angry with her yesterday and I’m sad that I didn’t get a chance to see Bodhi last night.

“I was angry last night.” I sit on the ground next to her and lean back against the pipes, mimicking her position. “See, I met someone the night I brought you here. To say I am enamored with him would be an understatement. All I wanted was to see him again last night, but he didn’t show up. I took it out on you,” I made sure not to admit it was the wrong thing to do; I didn’t want her thinking I was soft.

“But that doesn’t change how I feel about your progress yesterday. I hope you understand how important this is now; and that you’re ready to take it seriously.”

Chapter 4

I light a cigarette before I pull my gloves on. I always had a fascination with the dead and when the opportunity presented itself, I signed up for a few forensic courses and managed to land a job in the local hospital.

My shop, as I like to refer to it as, is in the basement of the building, down the end of a hallway with a room that requires clearance to get into, and it’s all mine. Well, I like to think it is even though it belongs to the city but I get to be myself in this quiet space and spend time with people that won’t judge me based on what I look like.

Sometimes, it’s a curse while other times it’s a blessing. Curiosity can get the better of strangers that haven’t seen someone quite like me before and it’ll lead to a conversation or two, and once in a great while, I’ll indulge them.

I don’t really care for talking to strangers since I’m happy being alone, but …

Knox is fucking beautiful, I think with a sigh as I take a drag from my smoke then secure it between my teeth as I get to work. I have to clean the corpse first, the problem is this is an MVA—a motor vehicle accident—and wherever this particular person sat in the car rendered them into a pretty, mangled mess.

Kind of like me, I muse with a smile as I allow a billow of smoke to escape from the corner of my mouth. I begin to hose the body down, cleaning as many of the creases and crevices as I can. I know I’ll have to find a way to untangle the body without destroying it, but that’s something I’ve become quite good at.

I’d like to think I’m the best in the city, and if given the chance, I’d like to try my hand at reconstruction; however, I know that’s something that has to be left for the undertaker when he comes to collect his latest and greatest paycheck.

I set the hose down on the side of the slab, wiping my sweaty brow with my forearm before I walk over to my desk and turn the radio

on. I remove one of the gloves to make it easier to tune the stations, then smile when a Lynyrd Skynyrd song comes on. I make my way to the sink, scrub myself clean from my fingertips to my elbows before I slide a new pair of gloves and go back to my work.

Cracking my neck to the right, I let another puff of smoke escape from my partially open mouth as I continue washing away as much of the debris as I can. Once I’m fairly certain I’ve done a good enough job, I turn the hose off and let it rest on the side-hook of the slab before I step back and give my work a critical once over.

I walk past my desk and make my way toward the table where I keep my tools, pristine and shining, and retrieve my favorite pair of forceps. This is going to take some serious elbow grease and precision to not break anymore bones will I begin to straighten out this body, but I have no doubt that I can get it done.

I begin at the neck.

The body always reacts to what’s done to the spinal cord, and while this one has lost its sense of feel, I know it’ll be easiest to start at the top and work my way down.

Once I’ve managed to straighten the head and neck out, the hard part begins. I step away from the corpse, take a drag of my smoke, then pull my gloves off. I won’t need them for this and they’ll only get in my way if I keep them on. I’d rather not make this any more difficult than it needs to be.

The shoulders are broken—I can see the bones sticking through the charred flesh, but again, that’s something the undertaker will have to work for.

It takes me about two hours and forty-five minutes to straighten out … Justin, according to the file I have out on my desk. When I’m finally done, I let out a sigh of relief and toss my tools onto my desk.

I’ll clean up all that tomorrow night, I decide as I sit down in front of my computer and bring the screen to life. Another cigarette, another few moments of waiting, another random thought of Knox floating through my mind before I let out a sigh and open my email application.

I send an email off to the funeral home coming to claim the body tomorrow to let them know he’ll be ready for transport before shutting the computer off and getting to my feet.

While I like to keep a meticulously clean workspace when able, I’ve done far too much heavy lifting tonight to give a fuck until I clock back in tomorrow night.

As I pull my heavy apron off, and toss the butt of my now smoked cigarette into the trash can, I also realize that I may have to find a new place to have my midnight snacks.

The last thing I need is to find myself attracted to someone that could easily be my next plaything—no matter how desperately I want to hear him squeal.

Chapter 5

The next few nights, again Bodhi didn’t show up at the diner. That was when I decided to stake out his apartment. The act of spying on someone, following them, learning their every move, isn’t new to me. I couldn’t help thinking that if Bodhi didn’t want me to find him, then he wouldn’t have shown me his ID. It was practically an invitation.

I wait in the ally across the street from his apartment building, the only sign of my presence is the orange glow at the end of my Marlboro Red. Several times this week I’ve seen him in his window at night. Staring at himself in the mirror of his bathroom. I want to know what he sees in his reflection. I wonder if he knows how beautiful he is. I don’t know that I am ready to approach him again. What would I say to him? The last time we spoke, the conversation was light with a lot of awkward silence laced throughout.

I check my watch. It’s almost 10:30, just about the time that I normally see him in the window. The thought of seeing him has my cock hard and I reach down to readjust myself. My draw to him has become stronger than the night we met. It’s more than the desire to have him run his fingers over my body. I don’t want to bring him harm, I only want to possess him. I want to own his touch.

The light flicks on right at 10:32 and he steps up to the sink, just like each night before this one. His hair is a mess as if he’s just woken up. Staring in the mirror, he brings his hands to his face. He runs slender fingers over his feline features, which pulled me in just as much as his hands did the other night. He splashes water over his face and dries it off before grabbing his toothbrush.