Free Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance by Lori Perkins

with Mark? How would I explain that? And if I didn’t tell him and he somehow found out, would he make me choose between the two of them?
    If I covered my tracks carefully enough, I thought, Brody need never know. I could keep on seeing Mark whenever he was away and it would just be our dirty little secret. But Brody and I had built a relationship on being honest with each other, and in the end I just couldn’t lie to him. When he got back from Chicago, I sat him down and told him I’d been for dinner with Mark. The expression on my face let him fill in the blanks.
    Strangely, he didn’t react the way I’d expected. There was no row like the one I’d witnessed between the couple in the restaurant, no threats to leave or flat-out declaration that everything was over between us. Instead, he asked me to invite Mark over to our apartment one evening. “I want to meet him,” Brody declared. “I want to see what a dead guy could possibly have that I don’t. God, talk about the living envying the dead.”
    What could I do but agree to his request? Brody could tell I was upset by everything that had happened, and he took me in his arms, kissing my tears away.
    Gradually, the kisses grew more intense, until we were peeling off our clothes, suddenly hungry for each other. Brody threw me down on the bed and buried his head between my 71
    legs, licking the petals of my sex until they blossomed, allowing him to enter me with his strong, hard cock.
    As he fucked me with long, powerful strokes, my legs wrapped tightly around the small of his back so I could pull him further into me, I knew I couldn’t break up with him. What we had was just too good to throw away. I needed Brody, but I was sure I needed Mark, too. Maybe a meeting between the two men would be for the best; it might help to clear up some of the confusion I felt.
    Mark came over to our apartment a couple of nights later, bringing a bottle of red wine. He had on the same grey suit I’d seen him wearing at each of our previous meetings; like all zombies, he didn’t seem to be comfortable in anything other than the clothes he’d been buried in. I introduced Brody to Mark, then went to the kitchen to find glasses and put the kettle on. I’d left a jug of milk out overnight to go sour, just in case Mark fancied a cup of coffee.
    The three of us sat a little awkwardly making small talk in the living room, Brody and Mark eyeing each other up like a couple of prize fighters.
    When Brody started talking about the latest manuscript he was editing, Mark chipped in, “So how much do you enjoy your job then, Brody?”
    “Well, obviously it’s not as satisfying as working on my own book would be, but...”
    “You see,” Mark said, “this is why you and I, and Millie, too, for that matter, really aren’t so different from each other. I serve people in the shop every day, people who look down on me because they’re alive and I’m—I’m like this. But all those people who aren’t really doing the job they love, or work for a boss they can’t stand or are stuck 72
    in a relationship that’s gone sour—well, every day they die a little bit more on the inside.
    And in the end, they aren’t any better off than me, after all.”
    Brody looked at Mark with something approaching respect. “You know, I think I’m beginning to realize what Millie sees in you. And it’s obvious you’re in love with him, Millie. Just the way you look at him tells me that. But I have no intention of giving you up without a fight. I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you, so what the hell do we do to sort this out?”
    I looked at Brody, then Mark. How could I choose between the living and the dead? I loved Brody’s passion and vitality, but I had tasted dark, forbidden pleasures with Mark and I didn’t want to give them up. If there was only some way I could walk on the dark side with Brody—and that’s when the answer hit me, elegant in its simplicity.
    Brody died a week ago