The Undertaker's Secret

Chapter 1

Like most of the best stories, this one involves a dead body, and since I own a funeral home, dead bodies are not a problem for me. Certainly not as big a problem as Charlie Soder. How do I explain Charlie? And how do I solve this Charlie-shaped problem that fell into my lap?

Charlie. Charlie. Charlie.

Charlie!

I was smitten. Okay, there’s that. Let’s be honest, shall we? Let’s tell the truth. Let’s put it out there in words that even I can understand. My new funeral home embalmer and all-round assistant is a looker, a piece of eye candy so sweet I’m afraid my eyes will get diabetes just from looking at him. All the standard things: blond hair, silky and soft, courtesy of Nordic ancestors. Oddly dark eyes that can only be described as soulful and penetrating. Pale skin, fine muscles, a lithe, athletic frame—when God handed out the good stuff, Charlie Soder was standing first in line and clearly got more than his share.

It was distracting, how good looking this young man was. And oh, the raunchy, lusty thoughts he engendered in the back of my mind as I, his new boss and the owner of the business, tried my damnedest to be professional and detached!

I had been in love a time or two in my twenty-nine years of existence (or at least thought I had) but was no longer sure. Maybe age was a factor. The clock was ticking. Maybe my genes and hormones were telling me to get on with it. Whatever the cause, my life had not been the same since Charlie Soder had walked through the front doors of my funeral home and said he wanted to apply for the job of embalmer, which I had listed in the local newspaper the week before. Since he was only the second applicant and likely the last—embalmers are hard to come by, just so you know, in case you ever want to try to hire one—and since the first applicant had been a crotchety bastard old enough to my father, I had gratefully said yes on the spot. While doing so, I told myself it was not because he was cute. I was not that shallow.

But as one week turned into two, I was beginning to have doubts. I’m a big bullshitter. Have to be, in my life of work. Every day I tell people everything’s going to be all right when clearly it’s not going to be. Their lives will never be the same. But I have to gently persuade them that death is a process and it takes time and we’ll walk through it and it’s going to be fine. Fine, fine, fine. I know it’s far more complicated, but what can I say? It does take time and people do get through it, but the whole business is so ghastly and horrendous and so horribly final that one is reduced, in the heat of the moment, to pious, easily-digested platitudes.

On the evening this story begins—well, middle of the night—I was returning from a death call in the company van. Old Man Hankins on Maple Drive had finally given up the ghost, something he had been trying to do for the last five years but just couldn’t seem to get around to. I think his wife was relieved, to tell the truth. It was our third body this week—and it was only Wednesday. But that was the onset of winter; one day the bodies just start piling up.

I pulled into the back of Port Moss Mortuary and Funeral Home and hit the button on the remote for the garage door opener. It was just after two in the morning and I needed to deposit Hankins into the cooler and see if I could get some shut eye before the day began in earnest.

I had grown up in this funeral home; it had belonged to my father, and my father’s father before him, going back to the late 1800s. Death care was what we do, Daddy used to say. Death care was in our blood. Once an undertaker, always an undertaker.

As I waited for the bay door to rise, I noticed it was dark in the apartment where Charlie was staying until he could find himself a decent place. We called it “the apartment,” but originally it had been living quarters for the small kitchen staff in the old days when the home had first been built.

Was Charlie alone in bed? What was he wearing? Underwear? Nothing?

Blushing, I pushed the thought aside. Not that I didn’t want to know what he might look like naked and in bed, but…

I had never lusted after an employee. Honestly, I had never really lusted after anyone like this—not since I had been a teenager, at any rate. My pecker seemed to have a mind of its own and it was embarrassing.

I pulled into the garage and cut the engine. A door to the left went into the funeral home itself. The door to the right led to the cooler, the crematory, and the embalming room. I situated Mr. Hankins on the gurney, wheeled him to the cooler, and deposited him safely inside where Charlie could fetch him in the morning for embalming.

As the light was on the embalming room, I went to the door and opened it, thinking Charlie might have left it on accidentally.

Inside the embalming room was a shower my father had installed in days gone by. Early on in their marriage, Mama had told Daddy not to be tracking “God knows what” through the house, so he had the shower put in so he could do his work, shower, change into fresh clothes, and be done with it—and not have to deal with Mama’s fussing. I can tell you from experience that Mama fusses with the best of them. She can fuss you right into a nervous breakdown, and the easiest thing to do is just let her have her way. She’ll worry you like a dog worries a bone.

The shower Daddy had installed was in the corner off to the right, and currently water was splashing down on the tiled floor. Standing beneath the shower, buck naked and beautiful, was my new embalmer, Charlie.

I tried to withdraw as quickly and quietly as I could, my face suddenly hot, my hormones raging, but Charlie called out to me.

“Hey, boss!” he said.

I hesitantly moved into the embalming room, pretending to look around while Charlie Soder stood there, naked and lithe and glorious, water dripping down his pale skin, a fog of steam surrounding him.

“It’s pretty late,” I offered.

“I wanted to get Miss Sheba done,” he said, nodding at the woman on the embalming table. “I know the family will be coming in the afternoon for a private viewing.”

I couldn’t fault him for diligence. I had made it clear to him that as long as his work was done, I wasn’t going to be looking over his shoulder and keeping track of every minute of his time. If he wanted to stay up late embalming, he was welcome to it.

He turned around to switch off the water. With his back to me, I couldn’t help but stare. And lust. There was no nice word for it.

I was reminded I have a thing for butts. Charlie’s ass was…

Stop it! I told myself.

Thing is, Charlie is a nice guy. He’s only twenty-three and I guess he feels like a little brother to me. He’s earnest. He worked hard to get himself through school and earn his degree. When I interviewed him, I could tell he was serious-minded and willing to work hard to make a life for himself. I did not want to cross any lines or get involved in some way or other that would mess up his life, and bosses who dip their pens in company ink have a way of doing that.

He walked slowly to the bench to fetch his towel. He spent a rather long time drying his hair and face, and all the while I stared at his body, feeling like a disgusting old pervert, but unable to tear my eyes away. He was pretty. A stupid word, pretty, but it was the right word. He had a runner’s body, and a graceful way about himself. He wasn’t just pretty. He was God-like. Young, in his prime, and oh, so fine.

“It gets quiet in that apartment,” he said at length, pausing to dry off his chest. He seemed unaware of his nudity. Unconcerned.

“There’s a shower in the apartment,” I pointed out.

“It’s not as fun as this one,” he said, lips curling into a small smile as he looked at me. “And it’s certainly not as fun as watching you turn all red and shit.”

“Me?”

“I saw you looking.”

“I was not!”

He smiled as if to suggest the matter made little difference to him. His face was wonderfully expressive, seemed capable of suggesting a half dozen different motives and emotions with a raising of an eyebrow.

“So what do you do for fun in this town?” he asked, setting the towel aside and staring at me in a frank, unembarrassed fashion.

I tried to answer, but my mouth was suddenly dry.

“You’ve probably got somebody,” he offered after a moment. Was that a hint of disappointment in his voice?

“No,” I blurted out. “I—”

And then I said nothing.

“Maybe I should get dressed,” he said. “Boss, you all right?”

“You don’t have to call me boss,” I said. “Yeah, maybe you should get dressed because you’re an employee and…”

“And?”

“Okay,” I said, finding my courage, “you’re a very attractive employee, but you’re still an employee and it wouldn’t be fair to you if we—”

“It’s not like we’re getting married, boss,” he replied easily.

“I like you,” I said. “And I don’t want to mess anything up. When you start crossing lines…”

“I’m just playing,” he said in that easy way of his. “And anyway, I’m as horny as a corn dog. Port Moss is a pretty little town and all, but it’s not exactly bursting at the seams with handsome guys to meet.”

“There’s a few, here and there,” I offered, feeling defensive.

“Not as good looking as you.”

“I don’t know about that.” My face felt suddenly flush with embarrassment.

“I like older guys,” he said. “Can’t help it. I like guys who know what they’re doing. Guys who got their s**t together. Ain’t got time for kids and players. And besides, I would have never taken this job if not for you.”

“Really?”

“Well, it’s not every day you get to work for a cute boss. And you are cute.”

“You are so full of it.” I smiled to ease the seriousness of my words.

“Just being honest,” he said. He held the towel loosely, covering his gorgeous c**k but leaving the rest of his bare flesh revealed. “I guess the one thing you ought to know about me is I’m not very good at lying or hiding my feelings. I try. I mean, I really try. But if you have to call a spade a spade, hey, I’m your man, and I’ve been kind of lusting after you for about a week now. Waiting to see if you’d make a move. And, right about now, I could use…something.”

“Oh?”

“You know what I mean.”

Boy, did I ever.

“So, what do you think the chances are?” he asked.

“The chances?”

“You and me,” he said, “getting it on.”

“Well, you know, winter’s kicking in, and Christmas is right around the corner, and we’re going to be really, really busy, and I can’t afford to lose a good employee—”

“You have no idea how good I can be.”

“And you can’t tell Mama because she’d pop a vein or something, and I just can’t deal with that right now.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“And I’m afraid maybe it would just get weird and—”

“When was the last time you went on a date?”

“I’ve been busy,” I said.

“When?” he pressed.

“It’s been a while.”

“And the reason for that is…?”

“I haven’t seen anyone I wanted to be with.”

“And what do you see now? It doesn’t have to be a quickie, you know. It could be a lot more, if you’d give it a chance. It’s not like I come on to every boss I meet.”

I fell silent. I was genuinely flummoxed. Which doesn’t happen to me very often. That I can tell you.

“Okay,” he said, adjusting his towel, this time covering his private parts properly, “there’s another thing about me—I can be really pushy. Sorry. Sometimes I just want what I want and I don’t think, but I can be patient, too. Maybe we should go on a date?”

I stared at him, my mouth open to say something. Nothing came out. He was running circles around me.

“Let’s,” he said, walking over to me.

“Let’s what?”

“Go on a date,” he said. “If it doesn’t work out, that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be weird or anything. I’m not like that. But I have to admit…I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t at least try.”

He stopped about two paces away. He was my height, but slender, his wet hair dark, his eyes clear, the oddest expression on his face.

“You’re asking me on a date?” I said.

“Sure. You’ve been on dates before? They had those back in the 1900s when you were born, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And?”

I did not answer.

He moved a step closer, looked me up and down. He had a confidence about himself that I admired.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to do,” he said quietly, pausing to gaze at me.

“What?” I asked, rather stupidly. I was in some sort of daze. He was a snake charmer and I was hapless cobra.

“If nothing else, I want to do this one thing,” he said. He bent forward, put his lips close to mine.

I did not resist.

His lips met mine and his arms went around my shoulders; mine fell across his back. I could feel his hardness pushing at me through the towel. My heart raced.

I don’t know whether he did it on purpose or not, but his towel fell away, and my hands slid down his bare back to his buttocks, and I pulled him closer. His skin was soft and velvety. I breathed in the smell of him and trembled. I had never wanted anyone so badly.

I pulled away, tried to catch my breath.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“We’ll go on a date.”

He smiled, reached out, grasped my c**k through the fabric of my khakis, felt its hardness and need. Without a word, he knelt, undid my belt and pants, unzipped the zipper. I did not protest when my pants and boxers slid down around my ankles and my erection was revealed. He stared at it for a long moment, then gently grasped it and began to stroke it.

“Oh God,” I whispered. “I didn’t know you meant going on a date right now.”

“Boss?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

He licked at the tip of my c**k, looked up at me, and beamed a perfect, happy smile.

In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. I removed my shirt and stepped out of my pants. Nude, I allowed him to take my hardness into his mouth and suck.

He was good. Honest to Christmas.

It had been so long since I’d had s*x, I’d forgotten how good it could be, how aroused I could get, how wild with passion and excitement. Although my c**k was fat and long, he swallowed it down and did not complain.

After a few minutes of this, he pulled away, stood, took my hand, led me to bench by the shower. I sat. He knelt again, putting his arms around my waist, taking my c**k eagerly, pausing now and again to kiss at my belly. He produced a condom from the pocket of his own pants, which sat on the bench beside me, and expertly put it on my raging hard-on. Then he sucked in earnest and quickly I was exploding and gasping and feeling like a teenager again.

Now he sat on the bench himself, and I eagerly knelt before him, and for long moments I simply admired his beauty. His c**k was thick and not quite as long as mine, but still quite large. His pubic hairs were blond and hard to see. His belly was flat. He was like an archangel, sitting there.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long time,” I admitted.

He put his fingers in my hair and smiled.

I took the hardness of him into my mouth, relishing the feeling of it, the taste of it, the pure maleness of it.

I love butts, but I love c***s, too. God, how I love c***s. I love to suck them, kiss them, lick them, hold them. And there’s something uniquely intimate and tender in taking another man’s c**k into your own mouth and pleasuring him, some sort of connection that is unlike anything else in the world. He has to trust you. After all, you could bite down and his world would forever be different. Just ask any man if he wants to go through the world with a c**k that has been half-bitten off, and you’ll find there’s universal agreement on the matter. So there’s a sort of genuine trust involved. He is giving you his most intimate, his most personal body part, and trusting you with it, and he’s depending on you for a release that only you, in that moment, can give him.

I swallowed his large c**k, pushed my nose into his pubic hairs. My right hand slid around to his ass cheeks. My left hand cupped his balls. I drank, long and deep and earnestly.

He stopped me at one point so he could put on a condom.

When we had finished, we looked at each other sheepishly, and I began to come back to myself.

I looked around. Sheba Felderhoff was on the embalming table behind me, her fluids now drained away.

“Did we just make out in the embalming room?” I asked, slightly horrified.

He laughed.

“You still want that date?” I said.

“Damn straight,” he replied. “More than anything now. A proper date, too, not just a quickie in the back room.”

“What are we doing here?” I asked, still dazed, still surprised at myself. I felt like a man standing on the proverbial slippery slope—and gravity had caught me and was pulling me inexorably downwards to whatever waited at the end of this turn of events.

“Falling in love?” he suggested with a bit of cheek.

Were we?

Feeling suddenly exposed, I fetched my clothes and began to put them on. Charlie did the same.

“Look,” I said as I took my leave. “Don’t tell my mother. She doesn’t understand these kinds of things.”

“I won’t say anything,” he promised. “I know how it is. But just for the record, I am going to tell my mom.”

“Why?”

“Because she’ll be thrilled. You’re quite the catch, Mr. Dual Hood, sexy undertaker and funeral-home owner. A fella could do worse.”

“You’d actually tell your mom?”

“Sure. Why not?”

That was a concept I could not fathom.

“She’s Presbyterian,” he said, as if this explained. “Mama’s cool. It’s been me and her since I was six years old and Daddy went to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras and never came back. She just wants me to be happy.”

“She sounds pretty cool.”

“She is.”

“See you in the morning?”

He nodded.