Hopeless for You

I woke up after approximately 2 hours of deep sleep and Fun Ghoul was gone. I felt a little disappointed and empty. I balled the sheets in my fist and sighed heavily. After using the bathroom, I left my room and quietly entered the living room. Everyone was watching some black and white, grainy cartoon called Mousekat.

"Hey, Mortician." Lucky said when she saw me enter. Everyone else kept quiet.

I sat at the kitchen table myself and stared at the black granite of the table that matched the counter tops. I felt a pang of loneliness, wishing Grace was here to entertain me. Her smile brightened my day better than any sun or star in this universe. And then my thoughts drifted to my daughter, the daughter I gave birth to and lost; either to death or BLI. She had thick, black curls, green eyes, and porcelain skin she inherited from her father. She'd smile up at me everyday I came home from the mortuary, smelling like chemicals and death. Blair didn't mind. She grinned at me, showing her rows of small teeth.

"Mommy, Mommy, who did you meet today?" she'd ask just as the babysitter was leaving.

"I met a girl your age named Vanessa Burton." I answered one night.

"And how did she die?" Blair would press.

"Well, she was riding her bike out in the street and a car hit her." I explained. Blair wasn't afraid of death, which surprised me and everyone who knew her. It was good that she understood death because we're surrounded by it and it can happen to us at anytime, no matter what our age or condition we're in. She was learning from people's mistakes and actions that lead to their death. Or if it were natural, bodily causes of death, she knew there were and weren't ways to treat some of these.

Blair liked to smile and liked to see other people smile. If she saw you were unhappy, she'd do everything in her power to get you to smile and forget your worries, which didn't take much. Her youth and knowledge astonished and amused everyone who knew her.

Just then I was snapped from my thoughts when a cabinet slammed shut. I looked up and saw Poison holding a can and facing me.

"Mortician, I'm really sorry." he spoke in a low, apologetic tone. I just nodded. "I was being a total prick and had no right to invade your personal space and push you."

"It's okay, dude. I'm not mad anymore." I replied.

"Yeah, Fun Ghoul made it pretty clear that he didn't want me to touch you like that again."

"What?"

"He...uh, never mind." Poison turned to look for a can opener. I stood and approached him.

"What did he say to you and how did he say it?" I asked, keeping my voice hushed.

"He just locked me in my bathroom, got in my face and laid it all out on the table." Poison said carefully.

"Laid what out? What are you not telling me...?"

Poison raised an eyebrow and smirked, sending me a silent message. I slowly shook my head, finally understanding.

He likes you, I imagined him saying to me.

"No..." I said in disbelief. Poison nodded, grinning wide at the can as he cut it open with the can opener. "What did he say? Like, what were his exact words?"

Poison looked over his shoulder quickly before leaning closer to me and whispering animatedly, "'Look, dude, I don't appreciate the way you put your hands on Mortician today and if I ever see you do it again, I'm gonna cut your fucking balls off.'"

I gasped and pinched Poison's arm.

"He really said that!" Poison whisper-yelled.

"Doesn't mean he said he-"

"'I really fucking like her and I want to be the one to protect her. If that means I have to protect her from you shoving her, then that's what I'll do, eve if that means I have to kill you. I don't take orders from you anymore and neither does she, the others can make their own decisions. I'm with her.'"

"Those...those were his exact words?" I asked after a minute of silence.

"Right from the horse's mouth." he replied, turning back to his can.

I stood there and watched him spoon the moistened kibble into a bowl and heat it in the microwave oven.

"So, how did you take that?" I asked him.

Poison leaned against the counter, licking the spoon and shrugged. "I'm not gonna be a cock blocker. I told him to go for it, if that's what he really wants. We're all adults here."

"You're such a good friend." I said, smiling up at him and lightly tickling his sides. Then I retreated to the living room and joined the others in front of the television. At that same time, Fun Ghoul stepped in, fresh out of the shower and sat next to me on one of the couches.

"How did you sleep?" he asked shyly, running his fingers through his wet hair. He smelled so god damn good. I wanted to crawl across the couch and inhale his musk forever.

"I..." I trailed off, lost in my fantasy. Ghoul giggled and propped his feet up on the white couch. "Pretty good. I slept pretty good."

"That's good." he replied, resting his head against the arm of the couch and looking over at the flat screen television in the wall.

I was nervous to say anything further.

Later that night, I showered and dressed for bed. In my room, I laid in the dark, alone; staring at the wall beside me. I heard a soft knock at the door. I rolled on my back and stage whispered, "Come in!"

The door opened and Fun Ghoul entered. My heart beat cranked up a few notches and I wasn't going to ignore what I felt.

"Hey," he whispered as he closed the door behind him. "Mind if I join?"

"Why?" I asked playfully.

"Scared of the dark, monsters under my bed, PTSD." he listed.

"Get over here." I giggled.

Ghoul slipped underneath the comforter and I nearly jerked away when I felt his arm secure around me. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach so violently, I was afraid I was going to vomit all over us both. I looked up into his eyes and remembered another time I'd felt this way.

His name was Jefferson Grove. He fathered Blair, but left me to raise her. He'd been my high school sweetheart, my everything. After I told him the news of my pregnancy, his parent's pulled him out of school, and I never heard from him again.

"I'm gonna be honest," Ghoul said abruptly. "I really fucking like you."

I smiled because I knew it must have taken him a lot of courage to say that. "I really fucking like you too."

"Really? That's radical."

"Mmm, yeah."

"Like, I may like you more than that, but, I'm trying to take this slowly." His hand rested behind my head. "I know you're baby's daddy dumped you a few years ago and you're still pretty torn up over that."

"He was a loser anyway, I was just too starstruck to see it." I admitted. "But, it's cute that you're trying."

"Cool." he sighed. We were silent for a few minutes, staring quietly at each other. "I feel really stupid and idiotic for asking this, but...do you feel it?"

"Feel what?" I asked, propping myself up on my elbow.

"The sexual tension between us?"

"Oh."

"Wow, that was a really stupid question." Ghoul scolded himself, rolling off the bed.

"No, come back." I begged.

He stood still and turned to me. I scrambled out of the bed and jumped on him, wrapping my legs around his waist and kissing him. He held me there, pressing my back against the wall and kissing me back.

I pulled away and said, "Don't treat me like a precious flower. I lost my virginity at 15."

"All the more reason to treat you delicately." he replied before lightly kissing me again.

I crossed my arms across his back and pulled his hips against me. I unwrapped my legs from around him and ground my hips against his.

"Mortician.." he moaned. "Let's take this slowly, please."

"Sure, sure. I'm sorry. It's this whole war is stressing me out and I've been really lonely lately. I haven't had sex since I was 15 and-" I was cut off by his mouth on mine. His hands explored the curves and angles of my body.

His lips touched my neck and that was it for me. We were going to have sex. I slipped away from him and jumped on the bed, smiling teasingly at him. Ghoul crawled next to on top of me and continued to ravage my neck with kisses and delicate nips with his teeth. My hands found the zipper of his jeans and went for it. At the same time, his hand slipped under my pajama shorts, past my panties and-

"Frank!" I gasped and then moaned loudly.

"Jordan.." he sighed in my ear and dove two fingers inside of me.