I wrote this about a year ago, and due to my serious lack of inspiration, I decided to fine tune it a bit and post it. Nothing really. Fluff if you will.

Of Wives and Necrophilia

It was the turn of the century with steam engines, moving pictures, flying aircrafts, and new neighbors. Unlike him, Victoria always made a point of going about and meeting the newcomers, as they themselves had never moved out as nothing but good had come from the town. At least for them. It was almost as if someone from above was making sure of their happiness in the land of the living.

However, as far as Victor was concerned, one can only do so much for two people for so long.

Lately he felt as if the world were moving much too quickly, leaving him behind, and although he had no fear of death, he was quite sure he did not want to meet it again so soon.

With the new century and the new neighbors, there also came, as he and Victoria came to realize, new manners and a new form of propriety. Or rather, a lack there of.

People had become bolder: making statements and demands, wanting rights, and dear Lord, equality. Victor supposed next they'd be wanting shifting social classes. People nowadays reminded him strongly of, bless her soul, his mother: crude, tactless, arrogant, and full of gossip.

Victor supposed that in any other situation, he would not have minded these changes, especially since he had inherited his dear father's laidback, casual personality. However, there were certain cases in which such was far from the expected.

"My dear Mr. and Mrs. Van Dort," their young new neighbor exclaimed, clasping her hands in her lap as she settled down into their parlor sofa. Victor pulled out a chair for his wife before taking the seat beside her, a small table separating them from their guest. "You are by far the most romantic entity in London I have ever seen."

Victoria smiled lightly, setting the teapot down on the table and relaxing more comfortably in her seat next to Victor after she had handed him and their guest a cup of tea. "You're too kind, Ms. Malory," she responded timidly.

Ms. Malory shook her blond head at Victoria's statement and leaned forward. "Oh, no, Mrs. Van Dort! No kindness intended. Why, you are perhaps the most romantic couple of the modern day and age. Still behaving like newly weds after so many years of marriage? My husband stopped opening doors for me as soon as we were married!"

Victor stilled his hand holding his teacup as it began to rattle against the plate due to some unforeseen fit of anxiety. "Quite" he responded, alarming Ms. Malory with his sudden speech. "We came to appreciate life early on in our marriage."

"Is that so?" the tactless woman inquired. "Were you married before, Mr. Van Dort?"

Victor paused in a very real loss as to what to say. "Excuse me?"

"What I mean is," she lowered her chin to her chest, her eyes downcast as she lowered her voice an octave, "do you—did you have a first wife?"

"Well I—" Victor blinked, lowering the cup in his hands to his lap. "Yes, but—she was dead."

Victoria turned sharply to her husband with a curious gleam in her eye and a nervous twitch to her mouth. "Victor?"

"What you mean," Ms. Malory picked up, "is that you were married before but then she died."

"No," Victor continued, his gaze directed at the ceiling as if trying to work out the facts in his head. "She was dead when I—I was supposed to marry Victoria first, but Emily—"

"Emily?" Ms. Malory interrupted. "Was that her name?"

"Yes. We were married, but death had done us part and—"

"So she died?"

Victor hesitated. "No. She was dead. And I was going to marry her again, but I—

" Victor trailed off, finally looking down and to their guest sitting on the sofa across the table, her mouth visibly open while his wife glanced awkwardly at him. He stood up in a clatter of china, knocking his chair backward and abruptly turned around. "Please excuse me. It's time for my afternoon… walk."

He headed up the stairs to his room as Victoria offered Ms. Malory another cup of tea. At most, he was to be prepared for the scandalous necrophiliac accusations on the morrow and hoped people learned by their gossiping ways even if it was at the expense of his own faulty memory.

And although he couldn't hear it, he was sure that someone way upstairs was laughing at him.