The Ex

carpeting, small traditional furniture, and a table with a coffeemaker whose glass pot was half full.

Deirdre was alone in the room, standing next to the coffeepot. She smiled at David.

He felt his anger surge as he entered the room. “Dammit, Deirdre, what are you doing here?”

“Calm down, David. And come here.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

As he stepped closer to her, she suddenly reached out and gripped his left wrist. He heard a distinct click, and was astounded to look down and see that she’d attached one of the bracelets of a bulky set of handcuffs.

He could hardly find words. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I came here to see you,” she said. Without warning she deftly moved behind him, twisting the arm with the cuffed wrist behind his back. She wrenched his free wrist around suddenly and attached the second bracelet so his wrists were cuffed behind him. He’d been paralyzed for a moment by her strength and decisiveness.

He felt an indignation that almost instantly became fear. What if somebody walked in on them? How could he explain? “Jesus, Deirdre, this isn’t the place-”

“Oh, it’s exactly the place,” she said firmly. She shoved him aside and closed the door of the consolation room. “And the time,” she said with a grin. She lifted the green skirt of her dress and he saw she was wearing nothing beneath it.

In a panic, he moved toward the door then stopped.

“You’re not going out there with handcuffs on, are you?” Deirdre asked. “Here. I’ll open the door for you.” She took a step toward it and extended her hand toward the knob.

“Wait!” David said, then lowered his voice. “At least lock it,” he said, motioning with his head toward the lock button centered in the doorknob.

“That would take away most of the fun,” she said.

She knelt before him and reached for his fly. As he tried to turn away, she clutched his testicles. She didn’t squeeze, but he knew she might. He stood still and she worked the zipper, then reached in with her other hand and found what she sought. She took him in her mouth.

“Ah, damn it, Deirdre, don’t.” His gaze darted to the door.

A minute later she stood up, laughing. “Apparently you don’t think this is such a bad idea at that, David.” She stroked his erect penis.

He knew she was determined and the smartest thing now was to get it over with, to let her satisfy herself. As she backed him against a wall, he offered no resistance.

In her spike high heels she was the right height to move in on him, raise herself slightly, then envelope him warmly. He felt a thrill he hadn’t expected as she plunged along the length of his erection, groaning sensuously. She was still for a few seconds, then began to grind her hips.

“You’re harder than I can ever remember, David. It’s sex and death. They go together, don’t they? Bernice is laid out there on her back in her coffin, so beautiful. Almost like a doll. Did you ever have sex with Bernice, David?”

“That’s sick, Deirdre!” He groped with his fingers at the flocked wallpaper behind him, strained against the handcuffs, then gave it up.

“Sex is the opposite of death,” she said, increasing the pumping motion of her hips. “But then heads is the opposite of tails. Sex and death are opposite faces of the same coin.”

“Deirdre!”

She slapped him. Hard. “Quiet, David! You don’t want someone to hear us and come in here, do you? Remember, I left the door unlocked.”

The grinding and thrusting of her hips became harder, violent. The handcuffs were clinking against the wall behind David. A stack of plastic foam cups next to the coffeemaker vibrated to the edge of the table then fell to the floor and rolled in a tight semicircle.

David looked away from the white cups, at the white ceiling, and was suddenly lost in everything but sensation. Deirdre’s hands clutched his upper arms as she lay her cheek against his, expelling short, hard and hot breaths, moaning.

He reached orgasm but she didn’t stop.

“Deirdre…”

“Quiet, quiet!” she whispered, and rested her forefinger across his lips. Its sharp fingernail cut into the tip of his nose.

He felt himself go soft inside her, and finally she pulled away and stepped back, smoothing her dress. She glanced in an oval mirror hanging on a wall and cocked her head to the side, touched a hand to her hair. She might have been alone in the room.

“Deirdre,” David said breathlessly, “unlock the cuffs.” He was desperately afraid again that someone would walk in on them.

Maybe even Molly! Come looking for him!

“The cuffs!”

Deirdre smiled at him in the mirror, then turned around. “I didn’t bring a key, David.”

“Oh, my God!”

Then she came to him and kissed his cheek. “I’m only joking. Do you really think I’d leave you here like this?”

“Yes,” David said.

She frowned and shook a finger at him. “David?”

“All right, no, you wouldn’t leave me like this. Unlock these, Deirdre, please!”

She moved around behind him and he heard the key enter the handcuffs, felt the sudden release of pressure as they clicked open.

He pulled his arms around in front of him and stared at his hands. They were quivering. Guilt tore at him. In a way, he knew, he’d aided her in what had just happened. He didn’t want to do this to himself or to Molly, but he couldn’t help himself.

Deirdre was standing by the door. “Zip your pants, David. And clean yourself up. This is kind of a place of worship, and cleanliness is the next best thing to Godliness.”

Without looking back at him, she walked from the room, leaving the door standing open behind her.

He rushed to the door and closed it.

Then he zipped his fly, straightened his shirt and tie, and opened the door again, slowly.

Deirdre was gone. The entrance area outside the consolation rooms was still deserted.

He managed to make his way to the restroom and followed her advice.

At Glory and Resurrection Cemetery, the morning sun was beginning to make the mourners uncomfortable despite the fact that they were gathered in the shade of a temporary canopy. Molly felt a rivulet of perspiration trickle down her ribs beneath the same navy blue dress she’d worn the previous night to the visitation. She didn’t like the idea of wearing the same dress, but it was the only dark outfit she owned that wouldn’t have been stiflingly hot.

Only a few dozen mourners had made the journey from the mortuary to attend the funeral. A short, gray- haired woman with puffy eyes had introduced herself near the coffin the night before as Bernice’s mother. She seemed to be benefiting from physical as well as psychological support from a lean, dark man with sunglasses, standing next to her and supporting her. Bernice’s uncle, if Molly remembered correctly.

The pallbearers had rested Bernice’s burnished steel casket on a bier. The grave was dug but covered with sagging, impossibly green artificial turf to spare those gathered the trauma of seeing into the yawning cavity in the earth that was about to receive Bernice’s body and claim it for the rest of time.

Molly wiped her eyes and leaned on David as the minister, a young, prematurely bald man with acne, finished the service with a prayer: “…shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

She didn’t remember anything else about the prayer. “Forever,” was all she could think about. Forever.

David hadn’t spoken at all during the drive to the cemetery and was standing motionless, as if lost in his own thoughts. Maybe Bernice’s death had affected him more than Molly had thought. Men were that way, keeping their feelings bottled and corked and then breaking down in private, as if grief and loneliness had to be synonymous. He’d