Tom petted her until she quieted down, yawning as he started to drift off. For better or worse, today had been pretty damn fantastic.
Mister Doodles snuggled higher and higher until she could press her cold nose right up against Tom’s cheek. Tom felt her tiny little teeth digging in, very gently, as if testing whether or not she could take a nibble.
“Still alive,” Tom mumbled, sleepily reaching up to pry her away.
Mister Doodles huffed in what Tom could assume was intense disappointment.
“Sorry. Try again in the morning, Mister Doodles.”
The days leading up to Saturday were busy, and time passed by quickly.
Mister Doodles seemed to accept Tom was planning to stay alive for the foreseeable future and didn’t try to chew on him again. She still turned her nose up at the kibble, though.
Mrs. Hun did turn out to be an embalming, and it was a disaster. The family was delaying services while they waited for relatives from out of the country to arrive, and of course, Tom had to raise almost every artery in her tiny body to ensure she got a good distribution of fluid.
What normally took two hours ended up taking five. He was proud of how she looked when he was finally done but coming home late earned him a nice big poop on the carpet from Mister Doodles.
Mr. Delaney was buried promptly as per Jewish tradition, Mr. Hewitt’s burial was the very next day, and Mrs. Winslow’s visitation was packed the night after that. Tom had expected Mr. Dresser’s services to be crowded considering how young he was, but it only appeared to be a small group of immediate family.
Tom tried not to let it bother him.
He stayed focused on work and looked forward to his date with Cypress. Tom only got to see him in passing when he was dropping off flowers and being able to text was sporadic. There was one night where Tom didn’t hear anything back from him until the next morning.
Cypress apologized for the lack of replies, saying he was busy working late.
Tom had never thought that a florist would keep such hectic hours, but it made the anticipation leading up to their date even more delicious.
He did as Cypress had asked, thinking only of their intimate time together whenever he touched himself. It was no longer a quick drill in the shower to get out of the way but something he enjoyed and planned for. He started bringing lube with him to press his fingers inside of himself while he imagined Cypress’s hands smacking his ass and came so hard his vision went white.
It didn’t compare to having Cypress in the flesh, but it was better than nothing. Tom couldn’t imagine coming any other way now. He wanted to be spanked, ordered around, to let his mind slip away as it only could when Cypress was taking control of him.
He wanted to be a good boy.
Good boys didn’t have to worry about people screaming at them, how sad they were deep inside, or fight the exhaustion that was making their very bones feel too heavy.
They also didn’t have to fret about assholes like Junior and what they might be up to.
Since their confrontation, Tom hadn’t seen much of Junior, and he was perfectly fine with that. Tom kept to himself in the prep room, did his work, and he hadn’t heard a peep from Gerald or Mr. Crosby about the formaldehyde. His threat had worked for the time being, but he couldn’t shake the foreboding that it wouldn’t last.
Saturday finally arrived, and Tom was practically bouncing off the walls all day. Every passing hour brought him closer to clocking out and going out with Cypress on their date.
The details of said date were still a mystery since Cypress had neglected to share with him what they were going to do, but Tom didn’t really care. As long as they were together, the rest didn’t matter. He was dying to taste those sweet lips again, and he was so ready for his brain to switch off for a few hours.
Tom needed a break from all this death, from his turbulent thoughts, and as five o’clock approached, he was ready to bolt.
They’d only had one new call today, an elderly man named Mr. Lopez, who had passed away in a rehab facility. Junior was waiting on the family, but Tom wasn’t expecting to embalm. It was already so close to five, and he quickly finished mopping up the prep room.
Aaron was keeping him company, noting, “You’re in a good mood.”
“Oh?” Tom smiled. “No more than usual, I guess.”
“No. You’ve been grinning all damn day. I’ve never seen you look this happy before.”
Tom frowned. “What? I’m always happy, aren’t I?”
“Not like this.” Aaron chuckled. “I’ve only seen you floating around like this when HFG pops in.” He held up his hand. “Sorry, when ‘Cypress’ pops in.”
Tom smirked and went back to mopping.
