Sort of Dead

by Rob Rosen

  My password had been qwerty. I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Plus, I had a feeling tonight would be anything but fun, so I let him bask in the moment as we drove home.

  * * * *

  “Max!” I shouted to the ceiling after we’d eaten dinner and I’d showered. “Come in, Max!”

  Clark and I were sitting on the couch. “You think it works that way?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “No clue. Worth a shot.” And then I waited, and then, “They’re here.” I lit up. I could feel it again, the joy, the happiness. I could feel him, too. Max. The body stains the soul, but another soul could stain you, too. In life, we build up barriers, barriers that prevent such a stain. At least I’d come to that realization about myself. Better late than never, I figured. Clark, too, had probably done the same. But in death, barriers seemed to be nonexistent. “Max,” I said, my heart madly thumping.

  A light flicked on and off in reply.

  “Voltan,” Clark said.

  Another light flicked on and off.

  I felt a poke. I grinned. “Sorry, Bruce. Nice to see you, too.”

  Another light flicked on and off.

  I told them the story. I told them my plan. I could feel Voltan whoosh inside me. In fact, it felt like a wrecking ball had walloped me in the chest. “Are you fucking kidding me?!” he shouted in our tight confines. “You want me to go on a date with your boss, who might be your killer, and who definitely is an asshole?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a date so much as said asshole wants to suck your dick.”

  “Oh, well, sure then. You just want me to get my dick sucked by a potential killer, alone, in his house. Why didn’t you just say so.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “Duh,” he said. “I like Clark. When this is all over with, I want to date Clark. And getting my dick sucked by your ex-boss isn’t a great way to start a relationship.”

  “All you need to do is show up and stall, give us some time to go search the house for clues,” I told him. “Hopefully, we’ll all be together at the time.”

  “What do you mean hopefully?”

  Yeah, see, that part was still iffy. It seemed we could travel from Arby’s with each other to places that we were still tethered to. But I had never been to Chaz’s house before and didn’t know if the others could come along for the ride, or even go beyond Clark’s place. I knew there was room for two of us in Voltan’s body, but two seemed to be the absolute limit.

  “I think, so long as we’re all touching or at least in close proximity, we can travel together. That seems to work to get to Clark’s house, to get to my office,” I told him. “Stands to reason, that should also get us to Chaz’s.”

  Voltan didn’t reply right away. His soul simply shoved against mine. A minute or so later, he said, “Go back to Arby’s. Let me and Clark talk it over.”

  “Just talk?”

  “You’re pushing your luck here, Nord.”

  I’d been shot in the back at work. I was stuck in a sort of purgatory. I think my luck had been more than pushed. Stomped would’ve been a better word for it. Trampled, yep. Still, I didn’t reply. Instead, I let him have his body back and I joined my friends out there in the ether.

  I whooshed to Max. Max whooshed to me. Bruce whooshed to the two of us, clearly not reading the signs that Max and I wanted our grand reunion to be thirdless. I turned and watched as Clark and Voltan hugged it out.

  Voltan looked my way. “Come back in thirty; we’ll give you our decision then.”

  Thirty, he said. As if I had a watch or a clock. What did he want me to do, count to eighteen hundred? Yeah, good luck with that. Either way, we were back in Arby’s in a flash.

  “What was it like?” asked Bruce as the three of us untangled.

  “Life,” I replied. “It was like life. Good and bad. Heavy on the soul.”

  “Wonderful, you mean,” he said.

  I nodded, shrugged, tilted my palms upward. “Yeah, pretty much.”

  I filled them in on the rest of it. They reacted about as well as Voltan had. Which is to say, badly.

  “You want to send him into the belly of the beast?” said Max.

  “I said he’s an asshole, not a beast. And we’ll be with him the whole time,” I replied.

  “What can we do to help?” asked Bruce. “If this guy has a gun, then a bunch of lights flicking on and off won’t do us much good.”

  My nod returned, as did the shrug. They were right. Then again, so was I. This was a perfect chance, perhaps our only one, to get inside his house, to look for clues or evidence. Had the police been there yet? Was he even a suspect? What if he wasn’t and my killer got away? But what if he was the killer and what if we were sending Voltan right to him? I couldn’t live with myself if that happened, despite how impossible that statement was to pull off—the living part, that is.

  I held up my hands in truce. “Let’s just let Voltan decide. I’ll be fine with whatever he wants to do.” I looked to the two of them. “Has it been thirty minutes yet?”

  They both shrugged in unison. “Feels like it,” Bruce said.

  “Uh huh,” said Max, his hand held out so we could cover it. “Maybe even longer.”

  We were back in the apartment a second later. “Nope,” I said. “Not thirty minutes.”

  They were naked, making out, jacking each other off. Took two hands for Voltan. I looked at the clock. It had been ten minutes. Oops, our bad.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” shouted Voltan. “Turn around! Turn around!”

  I flicked a light on and off to indicate we’d turn around. Of course, we hadn’t turned around. “Free show,” I said to Max.

  He grinned. “Too bad, no popcorn.”

  “I bet the short guy shoots first,” said Bruce.

  I shook my head. “The tall guy looks closer, balls a bit higher.”

  Max nodded. “Yeah, I’m betting on the taller one.”

  We lost the bet. They came together. Voltan shot like a geyser. I’d have to make sure to eat a lot of protein-rich food when I was back in his body, to replenish the old storage tanks. Clark was more a dribbler than a shooter. Probably because all that come had such a long way to travel before it made it to its destination. We three watched them, perhaps with a bit of jealousy, as both cocks spewed. Life really was a bitch, but that spooging part generally made up for it. Made you want to believe in a higher—and/or hornier—power.

  “Think they watched?” panted Clark.

  Voltan smirked. “Oh, they watched, alright. They’re only sort of dead. And they’re still very much gay, sort of dead or not.” He looked up at us. “We’re going to Chaz’s house. Nord was right; this might put a quicker end to all this.”

  “Woohoo!” I said.

  Max floated to my side. “He said we.”

  “Woohuh?” I amended with.

  Voltan must’ve sensed our confusion. “Clark is coming, too. Safety in numbers.”

  Clark had already come, too. This other kind of coming made me uneasy. It was bad enough to have to send Voltan there, but why risk both their lives? And Chaz had only invited me; would he let us both inside his house? Then again, judging by the resolute looks on their faces, what choice did we have? Or maybe, then again, those were post-come looks which simply resembled resolute ones. In either case, no, we had no choice.

  Which is how Clark wound up driving, with Voltan and I crammed and jammed inside his body, my friends in the back seat. Seemed like, so long as we were in sight of each other, our souls were sort of like magnets, all of us connected, three peas in a Prius hybrid. I mean, none of us were heading back to Arby’s, and we were all heading to Chaz’s, so my seemed like seemed likely so.

  “How was death?” I said to my body-mate.

  “Not at all what I expected.”

  “Uh huh,” I replied knowingly. “Join the club.”

  “How was living with Clark?”

  “Not at all what I expected.”

  “Uh huh,�
� he replied. “Join the club.”

  “Speaking of Clark,” I said. “Why exactly is he here? All we needed was you.”

  He paused before answering. One of us craned the neck we were sharing and aimed it Clark’s way. Clark quickly looked back and said, “That old saying, true? Are two heads really better than one?” He grinned, all adorable-like.

  Our shared neck turned back at the road. “There,” said Voltan, matter-of-factly. “That’s why.”

  I knew what he was getting at. “Too cute to leave behind?” I asked.

  The pause repeated. “You asked me, how was death? It was unexpected because I unexpectedly missed Clark. I don’t even know him, and, yet, it feels like I’ve always known him. That make any sense?”

  It did. It’s how I felt about Max. I felt a similar connection to all of them, in fact. I chalked it up to a shared experience, namely my murder, but who knew what forces were at play here. “He feels the same about you,” I told him.

  I could feel Voltan suddenly glow from within. It was a nice feeling, as feelings went. It felt a bit like Arby’s. “Another reason to take him along. Keep an eye on each other. Make sure the other is safe while you three go gallivanting.”

  “We don’t gallivant so much as float.”

  “Still.”

  The shared neck shrugged. It was hard to tell who was doing what anymore. I’d grown accustomed to his body in the short while I inhabited it. It made me miss my own, all the more. I felt Max’s hand touch my shoulder. I felt the same glow from a minute earlier.

  “Nice,” said Voltan.

  “Understatement,” replied I.

  And then we were there, the address Chaz had emailed me. The house was large, two stories, two wings. One of those McMansions that sprung up in new neighborhoods that had also sprung up out of nowhere. Business must have been good. Or he was evil enough to turn lemons into mini-estates.

  “What do I say to him?” Voltan asked. “I don’t even know him, never met him before?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I replied. “You just started working for him. You don’t know him. He doesn’t know you. Think of this like a Grindr hook-up.”

  “I’ve never used Grindr.”

  God, we were so unlike each other. Weird to share a body with one’s polar opposite. Or, you know, just weird to share a body, period. “You’re an actor, Voltan. I’ve seen your act.”

  “So I should just wing it?”

  “Wing and a prayer it, but yeah.” Minus the turban. Which, I figured, wouldn’t be much of a turn-on.

  We walked up to the door, the five of us that appeared like two. Chaz answered the door, the smile quickly replaced by a squint. He was in a robe. Ten to one, there was nothing on underneath. I knew my boss for too many years to count; turned out, I didn’t know him at all. So much can be taken for granted in life; here was just another example.

  “Oh,” said the Azz. “Was I supposed to bring a guest, too?”

  I controlled the mouth of the body I possessed, which sounded strange, even to me, even though I was the one doing the possessing. “I don’t own a robe; I brought my friend here instead.”

  Voltan controlled the hand and pointed at Clark, who, in turn, nodded at our host/possible murderer, then surprised us, mostly me, by lifting out a pair of folded-up handcuffs from his front pocket. “If you’re game.”

  Chaz eyed the two men, then the dangling metal, then the obvious lump in Clark’s jeans, which seemed to always be there, very lumpy-like.

  I whispered to my soul-mate, “Where did he get those?”

  “Why are you whispering?” came the reply. “No one can here you in here. In any case, never judge a book by its cover would be an obvious answer, I suppose.”

  Case in point: the diminutive medium with two souls standing there with two dead guys behind him and a well-hung computer geek with a surprise penchant for bondage. And, no, wonders would never cease.

  In any case, “Please,” said Chaz, “do come in.”

  I cringed. The shoulders went along for the ride. Thankfully, Chaz didn’t notice. Hard to, what with his eyes glued to Clark’s crotch. And so, we were in, and I suddenly knew what Jonah felt like. What a whale of a time we were sure to have, I figured.

  “Okay,” I said to Voltan, “here is where we part.”

  “Sweet sorrow. As in parting is,” Voltan smart-ass replied. “Anyway, we’ll be fine. He’s horny. Horny guys generally don’t think with the big head so much as the little one.”

  “The little one ain’t so little.”

  He started to push me out. “Just go. And good luck.”

  I was out. I could see Max and Bruce again. They were smiling my way. Sucks that the dead told no tales because this one was a doozy. If this shit ever got made into a movie, I was hoping Sigourney Weaver would play me. She’s got just the right amount of butch to pull me off. Though, sure, that amount is minimal at best. In any case, I turned to them as the door closed behind us. I jumped at the sound that echoed out in all directions.

  “I’ll go to the left,” said Bruce.

  “I’ll take the right,” said Max.

  “I’ll go up,” said I. “We’re looking for a gun, but anything suspicious would be fine. Search for a safe, either in a wall or a floor.” I did a quick poking around in Chaz’s robe, just in case. “Thankfully, he’s not packing, so to speak.”

  Bruce also poked. “Just in case.”

  I rolled my eyes. It seemed the ghostly thing to do. “Just go already.” I pointed at Clark and Voltan, who were now being shown around. That is to say, heading for what I assumed was a bedroom. “I’ll keep an eye on them.” Little good it would do me. An eye, after all, does nothing against a hidden weapon, especially a ghostly eye, rolling or otherwise.

  Still, there was work to be done. Like I’d said, this might’ve been our only chance. So I floated this way and that, keeping the living in sight as I did so. I searched through desk drawers, peeked behind frames, under lamps, beneath the floorboards. I found nothing but dust-bunnies, which sounded far cuter in an abstract sort of way than in real-life—had I had a real life, that is.

  All the while, Chaz served drinks. Chaz served snacks. Chaz served fetching views of his privates as he sat on an armchair, legs wide. As for my friends, they flirted and played along, stretching out the time by asking questions about Chaz’s home, his work, affording us the ability to snoop.

  My boss, of course, had better things to discuss, namely their close proximity to that aforementioned bedroom. He upped the ante by parting his robe, revealing a dick that could give a tree limb a run for its money. And though my friends might’ve been on a diet, they didn’t mind looking at the menu. And though, I might’ve been sort of dead, I looked as well. And because Chaz was an egotistical asshole, he looked down, too.

  Chaz smiled at his prodigious prick. “The cock doth crow.”

  Voltan looked to Clark. Clark looked at Voltan. The handcuffs were again lifted up. “And what else can the cock do?” asked the medium with a slight smirk, which appeared to the untrained eye as sexy, but was more than likely a nervous tic.

  “Come,” said Chaz, in both a command and a reply as he rose, and his dick rose, and all our rapturous, if not entirely terrified, stares rose.

  And so come we did, and go we did, following my boss to the bedroom. Chaz jumped on the bed, flipped over onto his back, and shucked the robe before patting the empty spaces on either side of him. Had the circumstances been different, it would’ve been an enticing scene. Then again, had the circumstances been different, I’d be alive and the only place I’d see my boss was behind his desk. Dressed. Presumably.

  I could see a gulp rise and fall down Voltan’s neck, its partner doing the same down Clark’s. Still, we had the upper hand. Or soon would.

  “Wrists above your head, sir,” said Voltan to his boss.

  Chaz wriggled atop the sheets and nodded, eyes wide, cock-head wider. The wrists lifted, pressing to the slatted headboard behind. Cl
ark jumped on the bed, straddled the schmuck beneath. He smiled as he chained said schmuck to said slatted headboard. At last, we could breathe easy. Or at least they could.

  “Nice,” purred Chaz.

  Voltan shrugged, then reached for his cellphone. “Agreed. Nice. Nice enough to want to save the memory.” Snap, snap, snap, we heard from his phone. “Nice,” he then echoed, also in a purr.

  “Nice,” I also echoed.

  Only, Chaz seemed less than inclined to agree with his original sentiment. Probably with good reason. “Are you fucking kidding me with that?” he said, the purr turned ferocious growl. “Fucking delete those or you are so fucking fired.”

  Voltan grinned and climbed into bed, Clark on one side of the writhing asshole, him on the other. The two kissed above the withering prick. When the kiss was broken—and it took a while—Voltan leaned down to the quite molten face below, and replied, “Too bad, already in the cloud.” He looked up and over at me and winked. “And lord only knows how all that works.” The double meaning of all that wasn’t lost on any of us, namely the cloud reference, as in where I was, it seemed, sort of residing. Or at least it wasn’t lost on most of us. Well, it was lost on one of us, but fuck that one, anyway.

  In any case, now was my chance to search the bedroom, while my boss was chained and struggling and thrashing about like a fish desperate for a bowl of H2O. As for my friends, they continued their heavy petting, what with them already on a bed, and all.

  Around and around I went, zooming through every stick of everything, above and below, behind any item I could find, but there was nothing.

  Until, thank goodness, there was something.

  No, I didn’t find a gun, but there were other hidden things to be found. If you knew where to look. Or weren’t encumbered by gravity.

  I stuck my head into Voltan’s head. “Above you, in the light fixture.”

  “You know,” he replied to himself, ergo to me, “it’s polite to knock first. Give a guy some warning that you’re about to come in.”

  I popped my head out of his head, then knocked on it. “Better?”

  He sighed. “You’d think so, right?”