Summary: A funeral brings them together if just for a moment. A mysterious man surrounded by death and a young girl with no name. In vein of a gothic romance.

Sweetness

Chapter 1

He calls her Sweetness. Sweetness. Sweetness. Like the blush on her cheeks as he mispronounced her name the first time they met. The pink flush of color suddenly bringing life to her dull face. The kind of face no one really sees, and if they do, they don't think much of. Who was she before that moment? Did it really matter. She had the kind of face without any story or character. No plot twists lurking in the eyes, or scandal in the brow. The first time he called her Sweetness, she buzzed like a story that hadn't begun. A book just started. She wasn't a story at all before he called her Sweetness. ||Sweetness, he calls her. We know it's not her real name. ||

She checked her watch again out of habit, though she hadn't missed any texts or calls. An odd thing, to not be needed. Everything was going as planned. Her boss will be buried before noon and refreshments will be served afterwards. Black dots of people milled about the receiving area. They were looking for food. Like scavengers all of them. Ants searching for sugar at the picnic. The burden of being alive, I suppose. Funerals, like weddings, brought people together. And wherever people gathered, food appeared. Typically. Perhaps, at normal functions. However, Mrs. Crown would not allow people to eat finger sandwiches at her open casket funeral. It's somewhere about here where I'd like to say something something "over her dead body," but that's the point. Not even over her dead body. Especially not over her dead body. She didn't want to be rotting away underground with Nancy from accounting's crumbs in the crick of her embalmed elbows. Really, Nancy. Use a napkin, for god's sake.

Mrs. Crown's autopsy report revealed that she had died of cardiac arrest. But in the papers it read "Mrs. Crown age 34 died from a drug overdose in boyfriend's uptown apartment." The only true thing about that sentence was that Mrs. Crown had died. Heart attacks weren't "attractive." No, Mrs. Crown didn't want to walk into death's embrace, she wanted to seduce death with a strip tease and a black leather belt. At least, that's how she wanted it to appear in the papers. In reality, she was 52 years old, asleep visiting her granddaughter in New Jersey on a pull out couch from Ikea. How's that for sexy?

Mrs. Crown had everything planned out. Her personal assistant had a list of instructions to carry out upon her death, one of which included the modified obituary. Wages were squared away to pay her until her service was complete, which her attorney took control over now. She'd been in Mrs. Crown's service for three years. Let's call her The Assistant here, because she has no name. Like an extra in a film, or Woman #3 in the end credits; she has no name. Not yet, anyways. The Assistant lasted longer under Mrs. Crown than any of her predecessors could bare it. Now standing over her casket The Assistant held in a bout of laughter. She was still serving her dead master. What was this dead body going to do if she didn't complete her duties now? Mrs. Crown couldn't do anything from the grave. The Assistant could lean over right now with a bag of Cheetos in her hand if she wanted. And there was nothing and no one to stop her. No reprimand would await her. Not even that slight frown that set her blood cold. Mrs. Crown couldn't make her do anything now.

Sighing a long breath out, she tapped the edge of the casket. Idle thoughts grow wild in the space where no one's looking. She wasn't one for revolution. She was always a yes ma'am, no ma'am kind of gal. She liked following orders. I'm serious. She liked the safety in the organized boxes. A home in her head to live under, with walls and everything. So until she found something else, she was quite alright following her dead employer's.

She turned to see a full room, which caught her off guard. Mrs. Crown didn't have family except for an estranged sister living on the other side of the country, who, The Assistant knew, was too ill herself to make a dramatic appearance if she were so inclined, and her granddaughter currently weeping about her grandmother's death and meeting with her lawyers to go over her last will and testament. It should be noted, her granddaughter was not invited to the funeral.

No. The first two rows reserved for family were empty, but the remaining seats were full up with "suits." Tradesmen. Businessmen. Lawyers. Bankers. Real Estate brokers. The senator even made an appearance. The Assistant knew it was him because of a billboard advertising his removal sat right outside her apartment. He was better looking in person, without the enlarged cartoon teeth. This wasn't a funeral. This was bumping elbows in black, exactly as Mrs. Crown had wanted it.

The pew up front remained empty except for the black clutch sitting next to the complementary box of Kleenex. It suddenly dawned on The Assistant that she was the closest thing Mrs. Crown had to a friend. Long nights spent trying to find the mouse that the old lady swore she kept hearing, keeping her up at night. Coffee runs in between meetings and Mrs. Crown would mention a famous actor she met that one time while mixing in her creamer. Going shopping for a new suit, taking her with her for her opinion. The job of friendship.

Even now, making sure the funeral arrangements went smoothly. Organizing the event as someone close would. Because she was the closest thing Mrs. Crown had.

Staring now at the highly cosmetic corpse, Mrs. Crown's assistant felt a small bit of pity. To her, Mrs. Crown was never more than a paycheck. Was this life what she wanted? If it were her, in the casket with her hands placed carefully by her side, her head tilted up at a precise angle, her lips glued together. . . who would be sitting in the first two pews?

Would anyone even notice? At least Mrs. Crown had connections. She had bodies at her funeral, if not close connections. If somehow in another universe, where the assistant was full up with formaldehyde with nice pressed clothes covering up her autopsy scar, would Mrs. Crown be sitting in her pew?

She shut her eyes and turned away. It wasn't likely. Mrs. Crown lived the life she wanted and died the way she wanted. That was something her assistant had always admired. Knowing what you wanted and not caring what you had to do to get it. If their roles were reversed, there wouldn't be but two people come to the ceremony. Her landlord and the minister.

As she took her seat at the front, she couldn't help but think about what she wanted. She folded her legs together and knew exactly what she wanted. What she really wanted was to be anywhere but here.

A short man came up to the podium and the room quieted down into restless murmurs. At no point during the ceremony did the room become quiet. They were all still chatting about their business with little to no respect for the dead in front of them. After all, it wasn't really a funeral, was it? Though a very real corpse, with very fake prosthetics was slowly rotting away in front of them.

Anger welled inside of The Assistant and she could feel it like boiled water leaching down to her shoes. While the man droned on about Mrs. Crown's accomplishments in her lifetime, winning a few nods from the crowd, her assistant grabbed a tissue. There were no tears. No sadness. The room's energy felt more like the last ten minutes of a meeting, and everyone was on edge to move on and try the new Poke Bowl place that had opened up down the street.

No, she wasn't close to Mrs. Crown, but didn't everyone deserve respect? She felt a pull on her stomach. Superstition rising it's dragon head in the pit of her stomach. Death was not some concept to brush aside. Her heels tapped together nervously and she was brought back that day ten or so years ago. The memories clouded with time, cracked at the edges like an old photo. A memory captured like a lightening bug in a mason jar by a 5 year old zooming through the yard. That lightening bug glowed and suddenly she was back there, sitting like she was now, but her feet couldn't touch the ground. Two caskets at the front of the room. A lady in dark pinstripe suit and a briefcase sat next to her.

"Where did they go?" She asked loudly and the lady responded with a commanding, "Hush, child. We show our respect with silence."

She wished that lady were with her now-wished she could have her voice with so much solid steel behind it that would make even the wind settle down.

Then as if summoned by the anxiety in her mind, a man walked with heavy feet slowly up to the podium. The room in a wave stopped their chatter to look at him. And who could blame them. What an entrance. What a man. Just by the way he walked, you knew that he smelled good. Who gave him the right to have those broad shoulders sculpted out so perfectly with a bespoke suit that slimmed in at his waist. He patted the minister on his back and whispered a word into his ear before grabbing the microphone. He cast his woeful puppy dog eyes on the crowd, the kind that makes you want to rub your cheek against his and do anything to make him feel better. The microphone crackled like the embers of a fire under his lips."For God's sake. This is a funeral. You're all acting like children." The room went quiet. Every head turned forward. Awkward shuffling of bodies as they returned towards normal sitting postures on the pews. "Thank you." The man bowed his head. "Go on." He patted the minister's back again, like a strange game of tag. As he walked to his seat, The Assistant stared up at him, nearly bursting into applaud.

I wonder if that's when she fell in love with him. Or if it was the next part. After the ceremony. After the casket closed, and lowered into the soft dirt. A simple moment that cascaded into the demise of the best laid plans.

She must have dropped phone, or wallet. Something important. He picked it up for her, like the good little boy he is. Or maybe it was something else just as nauseating, like her heel got stuck in the moist graveyard dirt and he held out his arm just in the nick of time like a knight in shining armor. It doesn't really matter what all the nitty gritty details were. In that moment, he was a rock of salvation sent from above. Call the trumpeteers, get someone with a big fan, we need a spot light, and a great camera zoom that goes all the way into her chest to see an x-ray of her heart fluttering.

In that same moment, he barely noticed her at all. "Sorry, I didn't see you there." The first words from our leading man. Isn't he romantic?

Giddy and nervous she introduced herself, stumbling over her words and thanking him for his intervention earlier. "I really do appreciate it." She looked down at her feet, probably thinking about how this would be a nice plot of land for her own grave. The Assistant in her natural state had no idea how to talk to men she fancied, mostly because she only fancied men she never had a chance with, like Robert Downey Jr. She felt safe in her attraction there, in a man that couldn't talk back to her. This was uncharted territory, but not because she had a chance with him, because, let's face it, she didn't, but that she breathed the same air as him.

"Sweetness?" He asked for clarification.

"What?" Big eyes blinked up at him. The kind of eyes all shiny with an unspoiled outlook of the universe. The kind of eyes that are doomed to dim.

"Your name." He clarified and perhaps it was those eyes that made him almost smile. Just for a second. Then he saw his own sad eyes still as lost and lonesome as ever.

"Oh!" She beamed. No one had ever thought her name was pretty. No one ever really had the patience to pronounce it. "You think?"

"Sweetness." He nodded, confident like only a man with wealth like him could be. "I like it. What a wonderful name."

It was then that she realized he had misheard her. Of course her name wasn't Sweetness, but she wasn't about to correct him. No one had ever called her lovely before or beautiful or pretty or all the things lonely women whisper to themselves into their pillow at night. She kept it, like a secret to herself.

And so, with one death Sweetness's story begins, but this story isn't about the death of Mrs. Crown. It's not about the sly glances, or betrayal. You see, Sweetness didn't know that he was married at this juncture. She didn't notice the wedding band on his finger though he subconsciously tried to hide it, not from her, but himself. The next time they'd meet, it wouldn't matter. I'd be dead.

AN: hi friends. so I'm actually working on my own novel. ^^^ is actually my WIP. But I like getting regular feedback. Is this cheating? Yes. Do I care? Maybe. Let me know what you guys think if you take the time to read this. Sorry it's not my regular fan fiction. I'm normally very careful in fan fiction about keeping true to the characters. But these are. . . my own. Sorry.

xoxo Goldie