Page 21 of Grave Love
“Can I help you?” she asks.
If the rumors are true, then shecanhelp me in a more humane way than Blaze. She can put an end to my life in an illegal—butclinical—way. There will be no embarrassment. No pain. No memory of my life whatsoever. She can help me achieve the death Ishouldwant. It won’t be scary. It’ll be peaceful. Most people want that easy kind of end.
It’s never been only about dying for me though. It’s about that journeyintothe void. Being torn from my own skin. Seeing my soul fucked outside of my body. Giving myself to someone.
Someone like Blaze.
A stack of blank forms lies on the counter in front of the receptionist. A paper trail that could lead back to me.
If Mrs. Richmond followed those clues and found out that I had ended my life here, she’d always be the woman with the daughter who committed suicide. With the granddaughter who killed herself too. A matriarch that causes her followers to lose hope.
Doing it like this—the right way—doesn’t seem fair to her.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice faltering. “I thought this was a salon.”
The receptionist nods with a sad smile, reading my lies. “We get that a lot. This is actually a medical—”
I don’t let her finish her sentence. The door jingles shut behind me.
The next morning, I go to work. I stay in the crematory, skipping my usual lunch in the garden. Ash coats my skin, and I think of my own body burning into chunks of bone in the retort.
If Blaze put me into the retort, there would be no record of my death. All that would be left is extra cremains for another family, and that dead person would have company in the afterlife.
Mrs. Richmond would never know. No one would. The only person who would know what had happened to me would be Blaze.
This should bemychoice, my end, my decision. Somehow, Mrs. Richmond is still affecting my thoughts. Determining how I end my life.
I don’t want to be that person anymore. I want to do something I want for once.
And deep down, I know what I want. It isn’t what society wants.
Another day passes. Then more.
On the fifth day, my missing clothes are stacked in a folded pile on the side table in the crematory. A metallic and earthy odor fumes from the fabric, as if Blaze bathed in my clothes. Tucked into the folds of the shirt, there’s a note in scrawled handwriting. A phone number and an address. The only sign that he’s still waiting for my answer.
This time, on my lunch break, I take my place outside again, staring out at the cemetery and the ocean waves beyond it. To the side—past the gravesites—a family of four builds a sandcastle near the water, far enough away that it’s hard to see the details of the structure. No one—not even the tourists—want to enjoy the beach in front of the cemetery. It’s as if they know that the invisible dead are sitting on the grassy hill, waiting to drag them down too.
They don’t have to worry about the dead. They have to worry about people like Blaze.
People like me.
That night, as I lie in bed, Blaze’s blunt cheekbones fill my mind and transform into a charred skull. I shake my head, internally enraged at myself for fantasizing about a man who wants myconsentto kill me. As ifthatwill make a difference in court. As if he has an actual moral conscience that needs stroking.
He has a motive; I’m not sure what it is. It seems too simple for this arrangement to be exactly what he claims it is.
Would a killerasksomeone to be his victim?
More importantly, would I like being under his control again?
During the day, I imagine taking a handful of pills, slipping into a bath, and never waking up. But at night, with a hand on my pussy, those thoughts are different.
What if Ifeelsomething when I die? What if I come like I did the other night, right as it all ends? If I feel somethingrealfor once?
What if I let Blaze take my life?
I imagine him fucking me. Choking me. Impaling me. Slitting my throat. Shooting me with a gun. If he has killed women before, then he probably has a gun.
