“Toby. I’m gonna keep my finger in your ass while laying you flat on the floor. Stay on your back and let me do the work. I want you to blow it inside me, while my finger is fucking your asshole.”
“A capital idea me thinks!”
Toby slid gently from the desk. His balls were resting on my wrists, my middle finger in his rectum, gently piercing his body for pleasure. I got on my knees, let him lay down, spreading his knees like he was birthing. I reversed my squat, threw my leg over and he was now staring at my ass. Flat footed I had the balance I needed and could continue to fingerfuck his anus while his dick pumped in and out.
“Toby, hold your cock stock straight. Put it on the mouth of my pussy.”
He did as I asked and I sunk to his nuts while I fucked his asshole repetitively.
“Laney, shit, I won’t last.”
“Don’t last! Dump it all inside me!”
I squat thrusted on his cock, both of us moaning and I knew he was close and volcanic, his asshole grabbing at the tip of my finger every time my pussy ate his dick. I couldn’t pound down on Toby and keep my finger fucking his ass. I had a better idea.
“Tell me when it’s coming and I’ll surprise you.”
“Laney! Now! Now! Okay!”
I took his length into my womb and kept it there without moving an inch. When I dropped down I gently fingered his prostate and he screamed “motherfucker! Motherfucker!” The load that came from his sex would’ve filled a small sand bucket. As it painted my insides I came on his dick, shivering and overwhelmed by what we could do with our bodies.
“Laney, please slide up and down.”
“Finger in the ass?”
“Pull it out.”
I did as he asked, turned my body to him, and commenced to fuck him to his face. Toby stayed hard, got harder again and wanted my hands on his thighs. He liked for me to pop my hips while leaning back and staring in his eyes.
“Laney, come again. Let me watch you.”
“Yessir. Would you like that in a large?”
“And extra spicy with a side of convulsions.”
“I’ll be right there with your order.”
Toby was inside me and we were connecting on that level where you can see your future with another. I saw jobs and houses and babies. Yard sales and runs to the grocery. Trips to school to see our children’s plays and then I saw sickness and layoff’s; money short, but time growing shorter. Then we were old but there wasn’t any silence in front of television sets and in restaurants. I saw two senior citizens that seemed to live on as if we were indestructible. Grandchildren were born and they came to our house and Toby told them nasty stories. Smacked my old saggy ass and said “I used to spank your granny and the Lord, she couldn’t get enough! Tanned her hide good I did!” Our grown daughter would reply “daddy! We attend church in the city!” Toby would then add “well honey, do they fuck in the city or just kiss?” In anger our daughter would hide, making herself the victim, while her husband laughed in the floor. I didn’t see any death, see me digging our graves, as Toby’s manhood throbbed inside me. That bothered me some, but he felt so good, that I closed it from my mind and thoughts.
“We look like we’re making a porno.”
“Toby, you know, we do.”
I then overtly overperformed. Machining my hips, licking my lips, saying “thank you Mr. Naughty Plumber. Thank you kindly for servicing my sink.”
“We aim to please ‘lonely woman in the country’ who’s never seen a penis before.”
“I think I’ll get a nightly visit to make sure my wet sink isn’t rusting.”
“You’ll have to sign a ‘cock’tract.”
“I’ll sign whatever you want.”
When I came my eyes rolled back in my head and for a moment, though I know I looked possessed, Toby had to hold me in place. Keep me from falling from the saddle. It shot through me, the spanking and the sodomy, the fucking and the sucking and the entire afternoon since he’d pinned me beneath the backhoe. All the pain and the pleasure and the abuse and the language was there in one large slice.
It was a hell of an orgasm to boot. Not a bad afternoon for my business.
2.
Toby was hired the next day. A warehouse east of Tishomingo on the Alabama/Mississippi border. He’d start at $15 an hour driving a forklift at night. From eleven to seven was a pretty rough shift but he could sleep at my house when he wanted. It was always quiet there. Toby didn’t want to take it. He wanted to wait on a Union job, but waiting didn’t pay a dime. The man felt terrible about not being employed and to be honest I hadn’t helped. Though I’d eased off some I’d pushed him, and pushed him until he took something. And in the long run I would regret it…
The dream that I had was two nights after Toby pinned me beneath the backhoe. He’d begun his new job and wasn’t at my house when I fell asleep on the couch. In the dream I was digging a series of graves in a graveyard without any tombstones. Hole after hole, dipping and dumping, and in a place where there weren’t any trees. Definitely not Alabama. It was cloudy and in the west the sky was black and there was thunder and lightning and Toby. He was walking towards me in front of the storm, waving and smiling and I waved back to signal him to me from the distance. Though he never managed to arrive. Not then. He seemed to stall. The storm raged on with Toby in its center waving like he had no choice. Like someone was behind him in the middle of the storm saying “Toby, continue to wave. You’ll not get any nearer and this she’ll remember so wave and keep her there.” For some odd reason I then ignored him and again began digging my graves. Grave after grave, into the thousands, and the line was so long that it pushed the storm away, though in the storm was Toby still waving, backing off now and innocent there and he was screaming “Laney! Laney! They want to take me with them!” I replied “Toby, I got graves to dig because I’m burying the world today!” I then came to the end of the row. There was a black man there with grey curly hair dressed in a homespun coat, with those tough, heavy fabric, nankeen pants that the railroad workers used to wear. He asked who I was and I replied “Laney” and he said “you’re my gravedigger?” My response: “I was hired by God to bury the world.” He said “okay. I’m him. I generally delegate to angels and such, but I thought since I had me a girl gravedigger that I’d come have a look myself.” I said “nice to meet you God” and then asked about his human form. He replied “this isn’t a form. I’m from Remount, Alabama.” God is from Remount, Alabama. No wonder the world is screwed. “Hey, excuse me God, I know you’re busy with miracles and floods and fires and healing the sick and whatnot, but I was wondering if Toby could help me? Toby Fume over yonder in the storm?” God looked to the storm, clapped his hands, and it all dissipated to clarity. The sun shone bright and the clouds were white and Toby was standing there. He came to us, stopped, shook God’s hand and said “ah, you’re the boss now aren’t you?” God said that he was and then he apologized because he knew about Toby’s new job. God said “that’s a good business. And I like those people who run it. He started out repairing fork lifts and then eventually opened that parts place.” God knew, of course, where Toby was working, because God knows all and that includes employment, idle hands being those of the devil. And just as soon as I thought about the devil, from the east came Reginald Fulhiggins. Reggy Fulhiggins was our quarterback in high school and was as complete as an asshole could get. Now Reggy Fulhiggins was Satan. At least in my dream he’d become so. As he walked up, and yes Reggy was handsome, he said “Laney, good to see you. I see you’re still a piece of ass.” God apparently thought that the comment was offensive and suddenly there was thunder and lightning. Reggy said “old man, calm down. I’m here to deliver my damned. That’s all. Are these their graves?” God replied “yes they are.” Reggy gazed at Toby and asked “does he come with me?” God shook his head and said “no, Toby Fume is with me, going back the other way, he’s done well enough.” Reggy eyed my boobs, licked his lips and said “Toby, Toby, Toby. Yo
u got off because of Laney. She happened to be God’s gravedigger. If not for her vouching for you, well, it was going to get pretty damn hot…” then God interrupted and asked “Laney, are you through?” I replied “I don’t know.” God then looked at my backhoe: “you dig ‘em all with that?” I replied “yep, can’t even maintenance the new ones. I stayed with this ’92. Easy to find parts, change the oil, and do what I have to do.” God intoned “I understand. You weld that bucket yourself?” and “yessir God, I did.” It then became really quiet. There was me, Toby, God and Satan and my backhoe, which I adored. Satan was looking at the weld I’d made and commenting that it could’ve been cleaner. God replied “you’re an idiot” and then Satan was no longer there. “Okay Toby, are you ready?” Toby looked at me and then at God and asked “can I return with Laney?” God sighed with exhaustion, patted Toby on the back, and replied “Toby, she finds out now…” and the knock on the door woke me up. It was daylight, the sun streaming through. I’d overslept but had no work. It was time for me to grieve.
“Laney, darlin’, it’s the Sheriff. May I speak to you for a minute?”
I opened the door and his hat was in his hand. My Sheriff. Seventy years old. In the office for forty-eight years. Elected young, Toby’s age. A war hero, where Toby was not. I knew the information he carried to impart and that he was known for his angst. Dead people in his county really hurt him. I’d talked to ten different people with ten different stories about what he was here to say. He never repeated word one. And now that he’d come to share Toby’s death I expected a unique explanation that would scaffold my empty heart. I knew he’d been killed when I awoke from the dream. Even knew he was dead while I dreamed it. Talk, Sheriff, talk. This one is for me.
“I’m sorry dear. I had to go and find his people first. Search every flop house within my own damned county…but you know, your face says you do. He loved you more than any member of his family and I can tell you they didn’t shed a tear. Toby hadn’t seen them face to face for hell, I don’t know, six months, a year, maybe two. He was excited about having that job and told me he wanted to marry you. The military thing, I don’t fucking believe it, they railroad a lot of good soldiers. In Vietnam I received so many medals that my goddamned shirt wouldn’t hold ‘em. Before Martha died she told me to be proud, but all I remember are my friends. Them coffins. Rows of coffins. Like a natural disaster, the ones you see on the news, where they line caskets up like cars. But my friends, they were drafted, or chose to go enlist. Out of my junket only eight came back. Forty men, all Special Forces, and thirty-two died in combat.”
And here it comes. The particulars of Toby Fume’s death. My Toby. The Toby that I loved. The only man that knew my body. Thank you Sheriff. That was beautiful. Go on. I’m waiting for the horror. As if there isn’t already enough. Right now this room is so pregnant with horror that it barely fits you and me. Tell me. Go ahead. I’m listening. Say it the way you want to. I’ll remember every word for eternity.
“I hate this part of the job. I ask people for their votes. Say they’re under my protection. And then I come to your house…”
“You couldn’t stop it Sheriff. You can’t really block what happens. Hard is too big and mean. The world doesn’t know we’re here.”
My words shook him. Shut the man down. He turned them over and over in the abundance of his mind and through a lens I couldn’t imagine. What he’d seen in his time and then I said that: the world doesn’t know we’re here. I was a nothing gravedigger from Remount. I shouldn’t have such thoughts.
“Laney dear, sweetheart, that’s the most profound thing I’ve ever heard in my sorry ass life.”
“You’re not sorry to me. Come in. I’d like details. We can’t act like it hasn’t happened.”
The Sheriff came in, in this house a thousand times, through two generations and now me. I asked if he’d like coffee. He said that he would and I made us a pot while he waited, thumbing through his memory. When I came back in I had to touch his arm and he sprang awake and said “Martha?” The man knew loss at an unimaginable level. He’d watched his wife die of cancer. I almost let him sleep.
“Laney, would I lose your vote if you saw me put whiskey in this?”
“You’ll lose it if you don’t.”
“Thank you girl. Whew. Lordamighty.”
From amongst his clothes the flask emerged and quietly glugged in his cup. His arm held it out to me.
“I will,” I said. “I will. Thank you kindly.”
“Dear. You’re welcomed.”
I poured the whiskey into the hot steaming black. When I gave it back it was there. The photo of Toby and myself. On the wall behind the Sheriff. We’re in the snow and we look like pros. It was natural to Toby and I. Athletic, no, maybe. We simply wanted to be there together. He took the whiskey and the Sheriff proceeded: “his neck was broken. No pain there. Toby flipped his car in the middle of the night on his way to get a hamburger for lunch. There were only three men on his shift. He didn’t know the area, that there was no place to go, to get a goddamned meal at that hour in the middle of the damndable night. Shit. Fuck. Laney. Flipped it in a gorge for no other reason but a tire and a growling stomach. Some motherfucker at that goddamned warehouse should’ve told ‘em nothing was open. A doctor at the clinic saw ‘em wreck. He got out of his car, climbed into the ravine. Tried to save him but it just didn’t matter. He was on his way back from an ER shift at some hospital up near Sheffield.”
“His name? The doctor’s name?”
The Sheriff pulled out his notebook. He didn’t have a cell phone. The man didn’t even carry a firearm. Said he didn’t want or need one. Vietnam had cured his shooting. I don’t know how he defended himself. Did a job that might include his death while on duty and him without even a Taser. And for forty-eight years he’d done that. His face was so scarred it softened him. And it’s usually the other way around.
“Laney, his name is Dr. Flain Youngman. Forty-seven and he’s a widower. He does General Practice and is an OBGYN, but he tends to stay in the clinics. Away from the big city lights.”
“Does he rotate here in Remount?”
“Monday through Wednesday and on call.”
The Sherriff hugged me and said “I need to quit this” and I asked “retire and relax?” He responded “the whole damn thing. This world doesn’t even know I’m here.”
3.
There’s no money to bury Toby. His new employer deposited what Toby earned but did nothing else after that. Maybe God missed the mark on that fella. There’s no family plot for the Fume’s because they’ve generally been deposited in ditches. Or disappear to never be found. I decided I’d go to a small cemetery behind an old fundamentalist church. Snake charmers. Kinda off the grid. They only had ten or fifteen members. The minister said I could bury him there but he couldn’t do the service because Toby was regarded as a “non-believer in Christian circles” and was definitely “roasting in hell.” He said those very words. I’d have to dig the grave myself. No funeral home service. No family that cared. There was me, alone with Toby, the same as when he was living.
I put the backhoe on the trailer, hooked the trailer to the truck and drove to the small cemetery. An old stone building, Civil War era, and behind it a forty plot graveyard. The oldest marker read 1803 and the latest 1969. I hadn’t ordered Toby’s headstone yet. I had nothing to order it with. Truth be told, running a business solo, without any dependents, I should have $450. I help too many people out. They never pay me back.
“Are you Laney? Sorry. Excuse me.”
There’s a man behind me watching me unload and I didn’t hear his door shut.
“That’s an ’85 Dodge Prospector.” That’s what I said. Why’d I say that?
He looked at his truck to make sure. It was in great shape to be so old and he nodded his head to confirm this.
“It was my dad’s. He took great care of it. He liked the bench seat for his dogs.”
“How many miles?”
>
“Only two hundred thousand. Not bad for three decades.”
“Did you need a grave dug somewhere? Most folks go through the directors. Then they call me to schedule it.”
“I didn’t. I wanted to meet you. The Sheriff said I could find you here. I may’ve stepped out of bounds with you, so I wanted to tell you in person. I’ve done things like this before. My wife Rita used to tell me that I was quietly nosey, but still nosey with my deeds and interference.”
“Well, sir, I’m sure it’s not all that bad, so go ahead and give it to me. Let’s see if Rita’s on the money. If she is, you can tell her tonight.”
He got quiet. Looked at his feet. While pigeon toeing the gravel he uncomfortably grunted and I saw him for who he was. Pleasant, outside and in. A very attractive man in his forties whose hands had done manual labor. Around six foot three, two hundred and thirty pounds, with lightly greying hair that was blonde years ago but the stresses of life had taken that. His beard was black and the grey that streaked it raised his IQ fifty points. He knew how to look like he did. Some men don’t know the best way to appear because their cues come from other males. This man appeared as he wished. He wasn’t a copy of anything at all.
When he didn’t answer I respectfully waited. His face rose and his eyes were red. Tears in that heat from the thought of his submission, his wife not spared by her disease, and what he did was remember her.
“I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Rita’s been dead for two years and I still crumble like a child.”
“No, I’m the one that’s sorry. I’ve no idea what I was thinking.”
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