I floored the gas pedal while Jordan played his Game Boy DS; I think he was playing Mega Man 12, or it may have been Final Fantasy Tactics 6, or some Pokemon meets Disney hybrid. Infuriated with the pixilated sound of Japanese music, I popped some melodic power metal into the CD player while swerving through traffic, screaming at the top of my lungs and drumming on the steering wheel. A cloudless day out outside, a very nice day for driving, but an even better day for a funeral. I read somewhere that women are more willing to have funeral-sex on a sunny day.

      Just as my favorite part of the song began—the crazy guitar rift drowning out the singer’s piercing vocals—Jordan turned down the stereo.           

 “You know,” he said. “I was thinking. Really thinking.”

      “Really, is that so?”

      “Oh man. I’ve been thinking.”

      “About what?”           

 “Old dead people dressed up pretty with makeup and suits, lying in their caskets, looking up at the world. They’re attractive in a way, alluring and mysterious.”

      “You were beginning to sound like a poet until you went necro on me. Dead people are attractive in no way or form. They’re dead, Jordan. Dead.”         

 “Of course they’re dead, but in a certain way, they’re attractive. There’s nothing wrong with it admitting it. I mean, if I saw some dead guy without a head or something, just lying there all bloody, I wouldn’t find him very attractive. That, and I’m not gay. But you know how dead people get all dressed up for funerals? They look kind of cute, like they’re waiting for a date.”           

I took a drink of my cola and turned up the music.

--           

We arrived at the funeral fashionably late, almost as fashionable as our blue and silver stripped tuxedos that, I don’t mind saying, attracted the ladies like wet tits attract pubescent boys. Added to the fact that we were at a funeral, we were basically destined for a quick Fudge in a coat closet, or something like that. Despite Jordan’s myriad of flaws, he has a knack for finding ladies at funerals. This knack functions nowhere else.  Everywhere else, even when offering handfuls of cash to prostitutes, he fails miserably. He once accidentally cut a prostitute’s jugular with a hundred dollar bill. I won’t go into the specifics. Just don’t go digging in my backyard.           

 “Wow, this place is full of old people,” Jordan said as we strutted through the foyer. “And they’re crying, too. Must be sad.”           

 “It is a funeral,” I reminded him. “But forget about them. Where’s the food? This better not be one of those New Age funerals that have a reception after. I want food now. Preferably mini sandwiches.”           

We penetrated further into the funeral, pushing through mobs of elderly folk, fighting through swarms of canes, walkers, electrical wheelchairs and prosthetic legs. These were the lucky people. Sitting in a chair that moved for you all day, boy were they blessed. If only I had the cash to buy a wheelchair. Old people receive all the benefits while us young souls are forced move for ourselves, wasting our precious energy on menial tasks.

      In the process of finding hordes of food spread across tables, I may have pushed over one or two elderly women, but it was in the name of hunger. I could not blame them, of course, but getting in the way of a hungry man must be a sin of some kind. While devouring my forth mini-sandwich, I asked Jesus to smite those had blocked my path to the holy food tables. “Please Lord Jesus,” I said, “Send down your fireballs from the Heavens above and torch these old people. Show them your justice and benevolence for your true followers.” Being punished for theirs sins would make them better people.

      Chewing on some ham, I gazed across the room and saw the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, honestly. She looked about twenty, maybe a few years older. Her face was flawless, lips dark red and eyes light green, black hair bundled atop her head with just a few strands falling in front of her face. I think I was in love. She had curves where they were needed and none where they were not, which was good because I insist that all my women are perfect in every. Best of all, she wore this tiny black mini skirt that barely covered her ass, which made me hope she was easy. I prefer my women easy, too. Easy and perfect. Easy girls are a lot less work, and who needs work? If a girl doesn’t give you everything you want the first time you ask for it, then why bother? I don’t have time for nonsense like “I’m waiting for the right time”, or “this is only our first date”, or “who the Fudge are you?” or “there are children around us! No, I won’t give you head on the elementary school swing set.” Some women are so particular.           

 “Wow, she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” Jordan claimed. I glared at him. No one, not even my best friend, could step on my turf. Unless the girl was into that kind of thing. I could be convinced to do almost anything as long as my penis never touched another penis. That’s plain gay.           

 “Yes,” I said, agreeing. “And she’s mine. My territory, Jordan. Back off.”           

 “She must be at least eight-five. God, look at all those wrinkles. I could lose myself within those wrinkles. They’re like ecstasy, but better. Liquid ecstasy shot in my veins.”           

 “Uh…what? Who the hell are you talking about? There are a hundred women here full of wrinkles. Which one?”           

 “That beautiful old lady in the casket. I think I love her. Her eyelids are captivating.” Jordan stared across the crowded room, his eyes lusting over the corpse.           

 “Jordan, that’s Tabitha. Remember whose funeral this is? She’s dead.”           

 “She may be dead, but she’s giving my heart life. I must have her! I want to be her man, forever and always.” A fairly disturbing grin spread across his face. It was then I knew trouble was brewing in the recesses of his mind. I had seen this look before, and the that time it resulted with in his arm inside a cow. I still have the pictures if anyone wants to see them.           

 “Quick, make a distracting while I grab her and run to the car. We can’t leave poor Tabitha here with these heathens. They don’t love her like I do. They don’t understand her. She and I, we connect. We exist on the same plane. We’re destined for each other, man and woman to live and die in love.”           

 “But she’s already dead! Dead people can’t love! Not legally, anyway.”           

 Jordan waved his hand aside. “Living and dead mean little when love is involved. Apparently you haven’t read enough Nicholas Sparks or Vladimir Nabokov. A cultured, well-read man such as myself understands love. This is love.”

      “You’re not making sense! Fudgeing dead people has nothing to do with love.”

      “Just do this for me,” he genuinely pleaded. “I’ll owe you. I can’t live without her, Mike. I just can’t.”           

 Crazy, I know, but I had to help a friend. “Fine, I’ll make a distraction, but you better return the favor. I like disturbing funerals just as much as I like breaking up weddings.” Looking back, I’m a damn good friend.           

Seeing no options, I did the only thing possible. “Fire!” I screamed. “Oh, sweet Jesus! There’s a fire! Run for the hills! Fire!” I hollered while setting the table cloths on fire with my lighter. The flames spread almost immediately, the mini sandwiches melting into liquid puddles of bread, meat, and mayo.           

 Old people started screaming, flying away in their wheelchairs and hobbling through the doors on canes. A stampede of elderly folk and an outwardly easy woman bounced past me; it was hypotonic sight I will never forget.           

Jordan wasted no time. He grabbed the dead women from her casket as I stood amongst the fire, looking at my watch, hoping he would hurry. It was becoming hot and the smell of burning meat made me hungry. If we hurried, we could still grab some food on the way home without missing our favorite reruns.

  Tabitha dangling over Jordan’s shoulder, we escaped through the back door as fire spread through the funeral home. The ride home was pleasant and full of excitement, but it’s kind of difficult to drive when you have a dead body in your backseat. I kept thinking Tabitha was going to come alive and eat me. Too many zombie movies, I suppose, but someday, just you wait, zombies will be a real threat. I kept checking my rearview mirror, making sure Tabitha hadn’t moved.

      I guess I should stop calling her Tabitha. Jordan decided to name the corpse Nancy since he hated the name Tabitha, and I couldn’t blame him. If you saw her corpse, you’d see why she looked more like a Nancy than a Tabitha.           

A few days went by as Jordan and his new dead girlfriend developed a romantic relationship. I saw it in both of their eyes—true love grew between them—though I had to fold up Nancy’s eyelids to see her eyes. At nights I watched the X-Files from the couch while Jordan conversed with his dead girlfriend. She never responded, of course, just sat there stiff as a board as he brushed back her gray hair and kissed her pasty cheek. I was okay with public affection, just as long as Nancy stayed fully clothed around me. Not to sound like a straightedge, but seeing a naked old dead woman turns me off.

      Some nights, as I laid awake in bed listening with a smile on my face, I heard Jordan and Nancy make sweet, blissful love, the kind of love that’s only possible through two soul mates joinining as one. It was a beautiful sound, the kind of sound that makes life worth living.           

A day or two later I answered a knock on our apartment door. Since our door hadn’t been knocked on in a few years, I expected the worst—the police had discovered my pryomatic adventure from the charred rubble of the funeral home, or they learned of Jordan’s stealing and loving of the recently deceased, but much to my surprise, neither of those complications arose.           

I opened the door and standing there was the undoubtedly slutty woman from the funeral parlor. This time her skirt was even shorter, her blouse unbuttoned to reveal a most stimulating array of divine cleavage—surely a sign of easiness.           

 “Hello,” she said, smiling, her breasts heaving with each syllable.

      “Salutations,” I said, doing everything possible not to stare down her shirt. None of it worked.

      “This may sound sort of odd,” she began slowly and uncomfortably. “I saw you and your friend at the funeral a few days ago. I had no idea who either of you were. None of us did. Anyway, my dead grandma was stolen after the fire began.” I raised my eyebrows. Grandma…oh Crap. “Do you have any idea what happened to her? It isn’t common, you know, dead people being stolen from their funerals.”           

 “I suppose it isn’t,” I answered, giving her my seductive grin. “But no, I have no idea where your grandmother could be. No dead people here. My cat, Fred, he might be dead, but as you can see, I’m fully alive and completely functional. Roommate is too. Just me and him, both alive and enjoying life and what not.”           

 “Oh...,” she said. “I really do wish I could find my grandma. The police have no clues. No one does. It’s like she disappeared.”

      Wow, she really had great breasts, the kind that make you salivate all over your shirt, the kind that make jacking-off last just a few seconds. I considered asking her in right there, to dine on some fine flat cola and unsalted breadsticks before the sex began. Then in waltzed Jordan.           

 “Mike!” he yelled. “Nancy’s thirsty and we don’t have any more cola! I had a two liter bottle today. Where’d it go?”           

 “I spilt it on the cat,” I answered. “I’ll get some more tonight.”           

 I somehow let Jordan’s dead girlfriend slip my mind. He walked into the room, holding the rigid body in his arms, kissing her neck and squeezing her buttock. As you can guess, the hot chick freaked out and started screaming. Women are so overly emotional.

  “Grammy Grammy! What are you sick Fudges doing with her! Give me my Fudgeing grandma!”

      “She’s my Fudgeing-grandma now,” Jordan said, winking at her and raising his hand for a high-five. He shrugged when receiving none, hand back to the ass.

      “Everyone calm down!” I shouted after dragging the woman inside and slamming the door shut. “Now there’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Just listen for a second, then you’ll see why we did nothing wrong. You see, my friend Jordan loves your grandma, and well, she loves him. They’re quite smiting. We had to steal her from the funeral. We had no choice. Love, you see, makes fool of us all.” I grinned.           

 “But she’s dead! That’s disgusting! Fudge you freaks, it’s illegal too!”

        “Love has no boundaries,” I said in my most poetic voice. “Like birds in the wind, we soar on the wings of love. We cannot choose where these wings carry us, whether to a perky breasted dark haired woman in short skirt, or to a dead old woman in her casket. We are all subject to love and destiny. Nancy and Jordan love each other. Who are we to deprive them of that? Let your grandma live, or die in peace, by Fudgeing my friend. If she were alive now, I’m sure she would ask the same. She would say, whatever your name is, let me Fudge this man. Let me ride him into the sunset.”           

We all knew it was true, and it helps that sappy poetic bullCrap has its effect on stupid women. Jordan, Nancy, myself, and even my libidinous new friend, we knew my words were true, that love has no boundaries. How could we deny it?           

 She and I fell in love at that moment, and as I guessed, she was easy, very easy. We had sex three times in the next hour. Hot, rough and wild sex full of penetration and sweaty bodies tumbling through sheets, off beds and rolling across the cola canned floor, out the door and down the hallway, finally ending on the living room table, above Fred, who still refused to move.

      We’ll never forget that week, for we all shared something in common. We found love, true love. I found mine in twenty year woman who I soon discovered was also an STD ridden low-rate prostitute, but who was I to judge? I was in love, and even an Easter basket full of STD’s could not change that. Jordan found love in an eighty-eight year old corpse, but truly, there wasn’t a difference between my love and his. Either way, it was love. And together, toasting our stale cokes together, Jordan holding one in each hand for Nancy, the four of us watched the latest X-Files rerun.