Danny was attracted to this girl. This female, he reiterated in his head. She was young, perhaps too young, and he knew that it was wrong to be attracted to her if she were too young, but damn, she was a beautiful specimen. He felt a flutter of agreement at his groin, and then looked around, trying to think of a way to change the subject to something much more important.
"What's happening to me?"
The girl smiled gingerly. She moved her long fringe out from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear, and then her smile shifted into something else, something much serious, much more business-like. "You were shot in the back of the head, after an hour's worth of torture. You should be glad you only remember the snap crackle pop of the gun shot, else you wouldn't be as upright and forthright as you are right now. Speaking of upright..."
Danny blushed, and grabbed a cloth from another autopsy table. It did little to hide anything. "I'm dead? How can I be dead?"
"Try surviving a head shot, and then tell me, yes?" she laughed, low and throaty. The laugh made her sound old, older than her years, like she'd been smoking since she was conceived, but when she wasn't laughing her voice was like sweet honey, and god, if Danny wasn't dead right now-- "But I'm afraid you are dead, Danny. Deader than disco. I mean, the rules aren't what they were, and you're double yourself, a bit of a hollow, but alive is alive, if you're talking."
"You're talking in riddles, and I don't like that, and I keep..." He dropped the sheet, and moved over to her. Modesty was forgotten. If he was dead then what was the point? "I can feel you fumbling around inside my head. That's you, isn't it? You're making me think things I don't normally think, and I can't say--" He sniffed, a hard inhale, and the smell of chemicals and preservatives diced hard in his nostrils. "--I can't say I like it."
"Those thoughts? Oh, don't think that's me, don't make assumptions, because you make an ass out of you, and you alone. What else kind of thoughts do you think you're going to have, Danny? You're dead now. Normal rules don't apply. You're free to think however you want to, without boundaries." Her smile grew larger, dimples at her cheeks, and he felt her hand wander down. "Do what you want." Her head leaned back, and she grabbed his hand, and moved it between her thighs. "To who you want."
Danny pulled his hand back in abject horror, hesitated a moment, and then took a step back, his now erect penis just out of reach from the woman. "This isn't me, this isn't happening, I can't, I won't--"
"You've lived a short life of celibacy and politeness, Danny. Or, perhaps, do you prefer Father? Father Clark? You lived a devout life and you found out the truth in the gutter, that man isn't good and a bullet in the brain-pan is as good a way out as any. You're dead, and you're here, and aren't you wondering why?"
"That's all I'm doing!" hissed Danny, as he looked around. "Where are my clothes...?"
The girl held up a clear plastic bag containing all his personal effects, and waved them about from side to side. "Come on, padre, lighten up."
"I'm dead! I died! I was shot in the back of-- of the head--" He looked down at his corpse, the hole in his head and the crevice in his throat, and then shuddered. "And you're here-- mocking me-- and I don't--" He snatched the bag away from her hands. "Who are you?"
"I'm your guardian devil, Danny," she grabbed him by the hips and hitched herself forward. "Here to tell you about the world, and where you stand in it."
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