Page 106 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
‘You know your tombstone is going to list your terrible sense of humour as your cause of death.’
‘I can think of worse ways to go out.’ Lily climbed into the back of the hearse, musing, ‘I like the sunroof up the top. You can see the stars from here. All of them. No wonder Desdemona was all about this thing. Come have a look.’
Mort grumblingly followed after her, crawling across the thick mountain of velvet blankets and pillows. He lay down on his back next to her, taking in the starry night sky.
‘All right, that’s a solid view,’ he said. He turned to face her, his dark eyes boring into hers. ‘We should eat the picnic stuff while the salmonella risk is low …’
‘Oh shut up and kiss me,’ said Lily.
‘But there’s soft cheese,’ protested Mort.
‘Nope. No food poisoning talk. Only kissing.’
Begrudgingly setting aside his safe food storage concerns, Mort leaned in, the faint hint of cedar that always followed him enveloping her. His lips were gentle against hers, then firm as she pulled him in, knotting her fingers in his dark, messy hair. Their timing was mismatched at first – it always was when youwere learning someone new – but there was something about that slight clumsiness that made Lily’s heart swell. There was no erasing their respective oddnesses, their imperfections, and frankly she had no desire to.
All right, so they were an unusual combination, but they … gelled. And for all the weirdness that the past few months had thrown at them, they’d somehow only grown closer. Under all those doom-and-gloom trappings, Mort was as sunny as she was: always willing to help out or lend a hand. He was funny, in his sharp, dark way, and something about him made Lily feel … at rest. (Not in a dead way.)
‘Earth to Lily,’ said Mort, pulling back to regard her. There was a flush to his usually fair cheeks, and Lily momentarily felt all-powerful – there was something to be said for being able to affect another human in such a way.
Well and in other ways, too, she thought, as she scooted backwards onto the plush softness of the coffin’s interior, pulling him towards her.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just thinking about furniture definitions. Does this really count as a coffin? It’s more of a sectional, if you ask me.’
Mort shook his head. ‘Oh to be so poorly versed in basic furniture types. Did you not read the IKEA catalogue as a kid?’
‘Of course!’ Lily pretended to be offended. She raised an eyebrow and sucked suggestively on her finger. ‘I had two Billys in my room. Scandalous.’
Mort, to his credit, did not roll his eyes. ‘All right, all of your sins are absolved.’
‘I thought you were a funeral planner, not a priest?’
‘It’s a multifaceted role.’
‘How multifaceted are we talking?’ murmured Lily, drawing him close and drinking in the scent of him, the heat of him. Sheloosened his already shambolic tie, then set to work on the stiff buttons of his black shirt.
Mort let her work, watching her from beneath heavy eyelids. His hands slid the length of her body, catching on her waist, then holding there for a moment as though in awe of her form. The feeling went both ways: she was fascinated by the strength that hid beneath his trim, formal clothes – the bulge of his forearms that occasionally peeked out from behind his rolled-up sleeves, the shape of his chest. In his lifelong effort to outrun death, Mort had become quite the gymbro. But in a Mort way, not in a posing on the internet way.
His shirt finally unbuttoned, the black fabric sliding aside to reveal a taut stomach and well-muscled obliques, Mort was the sexiest harbinger of death Lily had ever seen (and she’d watchedMeet Joe Blackseveral times). She pushed him back onto the silken lining of the coffin, pinning him there with the palm of her hand as she straddled him. The moonlight streamed in through the sunroof of the hearse, cloaking her in a gentle white light that ran the length of her arms, hands, fingers, drawing a connecting line between the bright pink of her fingernails and Mort’s skin.
‘I think that’s the sexiest anyone has ever looked,’ Mort breathed, his eyes shining from where the moonlight struck them.
Lily grinned. ‘The sexiest anyone has ever lookedyet.’
She drew her shirt over her head, dropping it in a puddle of pink lace to Mort’s left.
Abdominal muscles straining, he rose up to cup his hands around the frills of her bra – the one with the layers of varyingly pink satin, the one with the straps so thin she feared doing any kind of energetic movement in them. The one that had made the woman in the bra shop nod approvingly and say, ‘Yes, yes,that’s the one.’ (Then, in an undertone, ‘lucky bitch.’) The one that she’d almost tossed aside this morning in favour of her less sexy but more comfy grandma bra.Good job, past Lily. Your pride continues to treat you well.
Mort’s thumbs traced her bra, then the soft skin of the tops of her breasts. Lily fought the urge to swoon.
‘May I?’ he whispered, his breath hot against her neck as he reached behind her back to unhook the bra. His fingers were electric against her skin … for what felt like several minutes. ‘Holy fuck, did you get this from the straitjacket department of the upstairs section of the local hospital?’
Lily grinned. ‘Behold, a deep, feminine magic.’
Returning Mort’s hands to her breasts, she reached a hand behind her back, then with a quick pinch of thumb and forefinger released the lacy fabric. The bra dropped, and Mort’s hands caught the softness of her breasts, holding them gently as he devoured her, his mouth exploring one nipple, then the other.
Her body pressed close to his, she leaned forward, pushing him back down on his back, where he lay, his eyes drinking her in. Lily had never felt so beautiful, sowanted.
‘You’re stunning,’ whispered Mort. ‘The kind of woman I’d write poems about.’
