Fugly (4 page)

“Tyler, take off your wig.”

The request seemed to jolt him. “Why?”

“Just do it. Please. It must be pretty uncomfortable by now anyway.”

Reluctantly, Ty pulled the wig from his head, placed it on his lap, and vigorously stirred his fingers through a shock of shiny black hair. It released the scent of sweat-laced shampoo. Motes of talcum powder drifted through the light.

“Now close your eyes.”

Ty narrowed them but didn’t close them. “You’re starting to scare me.”

“Don’t be silly.” Fallon smiled. “I’m your teacher. You should trust me.”

Laughing quietly, Ty closed his eyes.

Fallon carefully peeled off the false lashes. Feathery black fans lay beneath them—

not as long, of course, but much softer, with a demure curl.

“Now keep them closed.”

Fallon pulled a few towelettes from the pack. He gently scrubbed at the makeup—

eyes first, then blush-on. He was about to clean Ty’s lips when he realized the soap in the cloths would taste like shit. So, instead, he used his fingers and thumbs. He felt Ty’s breath against his skin.

“Wait,” he whispered, enjoying this impromptu cleansing, enjoying it a lot. He seemed to be unwrapping a present.

As he worked on the pancake foundation, Ty’s brows began drawing together. His face began tightening. Within a moment, Fallon knew why.

The livid ridge of a scar ran from the left side of Ty’s mouth almost to his earlobe.

“What happened to you?” Fallon asked, trying not to OMFG in shock.

“Robbery,” Ty said in a flat voice.

He opened his eyes. Their color was even lovelier when it was set off by that natural fringe of dark lashes. His brows had a nice shape too. So did his cheekbones. And his very masculine, not puggy and not bulbous nose. And his clean-lined lips with that slight dip in the upper.

“One of your fares?” Fallon asked, starting to feel the way he did in New Orleans, only stronger.

“Yup. Five years ago.” Ty smiled. “I wasn’t a bad-looking guy until then.”

“You’re not a bad-looking guy now.”

Ty’s gaze moved to one side. He ran the back of his hand over his mouth, one way and then the other. As he grabbed a towelette to wipe off his hand, he checked the wall clock.

Fallon wished he had more water at hand. His throat was dry. “Ty, have you noticed my…skin condition?”

“You mean those inflamed areas?” His gaze went from one to the other, and he frowned slightly. “Yeah. More now than before. Actually, they’ve kind of gotten more noticeable since I came in. It’s probably from you sweating.”

Okay, Tyler definitely saw them, but Fallon was surprised to hear his description. To Fallon, the ick looked blood-red and felt slightly scaly, which was exactly how it looked and felt on Todd and Jake. Other men seemed to see it that way too. But not
all
other men.

“I never made anything of them,” Tyler said. “Why?”

“You don’t think they’re repulsive?”

“No.” With a shy smile, Ty studied Fallon’s face. “Actually, I think you’re pretty damned hot. Even if your hair
does
look like you stuck your head in a badger burrow.”

He grabbed his wig off his lap and stood. “I gotta run. Thanks so much for your help. I mean it. I didn’t think you had any faith in me until today.”

“I didn’t.” Fallon rose and touched Ty’s arm. “Wear your street clothes next time, okay? It would help if I could see you out of drag, get a better sense of your build and your natural way of moving.”

Ty put his hands on his hips and nibbled the inside of his cheek.

“You seem to have a problem with that.”

“I’m just afraid you’re gonna lose faith in me again.”

“Why?”

Self-consciously, Ty shrugged. “Because I’m not exactly built like a ballerina.”

“I can’t wait to see,” Fallon whispered, and then thought,
I’m going to do right by
this man, goddammit, if it takes every last erg of his energy and mine.

Todd glanced up from the stainless steel table where Mrs. Sally Morgan, age 92

forever more, now lay. He’d already snipped the ID tag from her slender wrist, removed her nightgown, and made sure the Grim Reaper had indeed visited her at the Shady Dale nursing home. Rigor, check. Skin lividity, check. Clouded eyes, check. The quick process of death verification wasn’t really necessary—Todd could tell just by looking at a body if the soul was no longer in residence—but he found procedures reassuring. After a quick suctioning and swabbing of Mrs. Morgan’s nose and mouth, he draped a cloth over her face.

As he reached for a spray bottle of germicidal solution, he wondered fleetingly if the stuff would help eliminate the tenacious rash that marred his face and neck and forearms.

Before his desperation overrode his better judgment, the door of the prep room opened and Gabriel walked in. Gabe was the only person at Sudbury-Bischoff who could see those scarlet blotches, or would admit to seeing them, although he claimed they were barely noticeable.

“Good morning,” Gabe said pleasantly. He glanced at Mrs. Morgan as he took off his jacket. “You’re starting to disinfect her?”

“Yup.” Todd sprayed some solution on the old lady’s left foot and calf, gently working it over her skin as he massaged the stiffened muscles into relaxing. “You know, you didn’t have to come in for another hour or so.” Gabriel often arrived early when he was called in to cosmetize a decedent, and Todd knew why. The twenty-three-year-old liked him. A lot.

Gabriel donned a green lab gown then strolled toward the bank of cabinets behind the embalming table. He pulled a pair of latex gloves out of a drawer just beneath the counter and snapped them on. “I didn’t have anything better to do, so I just thought I’d see if you needed a hand.” Grinning, he lifted Mrs. Morgan’s right hand as if offering it to Todd. Its fingers, thin as bird bones, retained their inward curl. “Here you go.”

Todd couldn’t help but smile. In fact, Gabriel made him smile a lot. “
That
one won’t do me much good.”

“Never fear. I brought my own.” Gabe began coaxing Mrs. Morgan’s right side out of rigor.

They worked without talking, carefully kneading muscles, bending and flexing limbs. Occasionally, Todd slid a glance at Gabriel, who’d begun quietly to sing. He often sang as he stood over his clients—sang
to
them, actually—or recited poetry or made up little stories about their lives. In spite of his eccentricities, he was an exceptional cosmetician and hairdresser. He’d abandoned salon work after only a year, because living clients, he’d told Todd, were much harder to please than dead ones.

“Dare I ask you again?” Gabe said in that soft, oddly melodious voice of his.

Todd was pretty sure the question was for him, but it was Mrs. Morgan who answered. She suddenly exhaled through her thin-lipped, toothless mouth. The sound
was
pretty creepy, more like a hiss than a sigh, even with that cloth over her face. So Todd wasn’t surprised when Gabriel jerked back from the table.

“Good thing you weren’t here when she farted,” Todd said with a smile.

One hand to his chest, Gabe released a tense breath. “I’m glad they’re pretty much relaxed and gassed out when I get them.”

“You should be used to it by now.” Todd carefully sponged germicide into a few sores on Mrs. Morgan’s skin. At least they weren’t deep.

“Doubt I’ll ever be. I like to think my clients are at rest, not restless.” Gabe looked at Todd just as Todd looked at him.

It couldn’t have been the light that made his hazel eyes so large and luminous at that moment. The light in the prep room was a flat, fluorescent slap that drained vibrancy from every surface. No, it wasn’t the light. Gabriel just had expressive eyes. Although this wasn’t the first time Todd had met his coworker’s gaze, it was the first time he’d consciously been so struck by it.

He abruptly looked away. “You want to pick the colorant for the solution? I’m about ready to start.”

“Yeah, okay. Let’s see her.”

Gabriel wouldn’t hang around for the embalming. He never did. The process, he’d said, struck him as a violation. But he did like to choose the dye for the embalming solution. He had an uncanny ability to come up with just the right tint based on the decedent’s age and natural coloring and the condition of the body.

Todd removed the cloth from Mrs. Morgan’s slightly elevated head. Gabriel quickly scanned her face. “I wish you’d put in the eye caps and closed the mouth,” he murmured.

“Sorry, but I wanted to get her sponged down as quickly as possible. Nursing home patients aren’t always the cleanest.”

“It’s a damned shame. Makes me sick to think about it.” Gabriel idly stroked Mrs.

Morgan’s arm. “Got a photo?”

And it happened again, that kind of tickle on the inside of Todd’s stomach as his gaze met Gabriel’s. His sudden weakness was unsettling.

The explanation for it was obvious. He hadn’t been able to score recently, and this considerable dent in his sex life was beginning to mess with his standards. Why else would he suddenly be susceptible to his coworker’s modest charms?

“Her picture’s over there,” Todd said, “by your work station.”

Gabe didn’t move. “I never got to finish asking my question earlier. Would you like to go out sometime this week?”

Todd didn’t know what to say. They’d been through this routine before: Gabe would ask him on a date; he’d decline for some flimsy, transparent reason. Now, though, he felt stymied rather than put out. He was almost tempted to accept but felt strange about accepting, for all kinds of reasons.

“Never mind,” Gabe said quietly. His quick, wan smile reflected a depth of insight that left Todd flustered and embarrassed.

Gabe went to get Mrs. Morgan’s photo. Standing behind his porcelain worktable for a moment, he scrutinized the picture. Todd kept glancing at him. Gabriel might’ve only been five-foot-four, but he was kind of cute in a raffish way. His clipped curls, a shade darker than strawberry blond and always in a state of soft riot, matched the sprinkling of freckles on either side of his nose. His generous lips bore a natural, muted blush. And he did have large, arresting eyes.

Todd felt a faint electric shiver in his rib cage. Maybe Gabe’s charms were stronger than Todd had given him credit for. Maybe he’d known that all along but had fought against the realization. Because, damn, he didn’t want to be saddled with
any
guy who might make him feel like Toad again—undeserving of quality attention, the kind that came from beautiful men with beautiful bodies.

He’d been trying to convince himself of that, anyway.

Still holding the photo, Gabe went to a lower cabinet to the left of the large sink directly behind Todd’s embalming table. “Number thirty-two,” he said after eyeing the bottles arrayed there. It was a peachy salmon kind of color. He suggested an amount.

“That’s based on dilution in three gallons,” he said. “In any case, just go easy with it.”

“Thanks.” Impulsively, Todd laid a hand on Gabe’s upper arm.

Gabe nodded. Again, he looked at Mrs. Morgan’s picture. “She’s Manhattan Transfer,” he pronounced, as if it were a ruling. He nodded again. “Definitely. At first I thought she might be Gershwin, but there’s a touch of Swing in her.”

Smiling, Todd shook his head. Now Gabe would sit in the break room and listen to the music he’d assigned to Sally Morgan while he communed with his muse. When the time came for him to work his magic, he’d be ready. Mrs. Morgan would look like a million bucks, at least by cadaver standards, when he was finished with her.

“I’ll come get you when she’s ready,” Todd said as Gabe pulled off his lab gown.

“Good. My psychic powers aren’t fully developed yet.” Gabe wore a simple green T-shirt. It hugged a very nice physique. He’d once told Todd he’d been a gymnast in high school.

Todd watched him leave the room. It was definitely getting more difficult to write Gabriel off as a wacky short guy in whom he had no interest.

He readied the fluid pump, but his mind wasn’t entirely on his work. As he packed the body’s orifices and rubbed cream into its skin and slipped a plastic robe over its withered length; as he opened and intubated the carotid artery and jugular vein, he thought of Gabriel Acker, the young man he’d been taking for granted as well as spurning for the past several months. As a water-based solution of formaldehyde, ethanol, and methanol replaced stagnant blood, and as various buffers, humectants, and plasticizers counteracted the harshness of the primary chemicals, he couldn’t decide if it truly
would
embarrass him to be seen with Gabe in public, or if he truly
would
find it impossible to be excited by what Fallon called a “snack-sized” lover. In fact, he wondered where he’d gotten those notions and why he’d been clinging to them.

What makes me think I’m so fucking special?

He removed Mrs. Morgan’s plastic robe. Vacantly, he watched as a flush of color spread beneath her pallid, wrinkled shell and the surfactant in the solution kissed a little softness into it.

Nothing.

There it was: Nothing had ever made him feel special. So he’d adopted a pretense of superiority anchored in superficial things.

Bloodless and pink as a frozen, cooked shrimp, Mrs. Morgan silently awaited the next phase of her preservation. Todd stood back and regarded her. Thank goodness she wouldn’t require more than a bit of touch-up here and there. Todd was in no mood for a lot of fussing.

He made a small incision between one and two inches above the lady’s navel and inserted a trocar to aspirate her abdominal and thoracic cavities. He could tell just by listening to the fluctuating sounds of the suction how the cleansing was proceeding.

Junk out, eternity juice in. Todd disconnected the trocar’s hose and reattached it to a bottle. As he probed again with the tubular needle, gravity did the work and filled all spoilage-prone organs and areas with full-strength embalming fluid.

In elementary school, Todd’s classmates had called him Toad. It was an apt nickname for a pudgy kid with oily skin. He didn’t mind it too much, until he hit the riptide of puberty and discovered he yearned for other boys the way other boys might yearn for a princess. So, at thirteen, Todd began to insist his name was actually Rock. It only stuck for a while, and only sporadically. The boys didn’t find him any more appealing. Not one of them wanted to bring out the prince in him with a kiss, and his tenacious acne didn’t exactly improve his odds.