I have written the following story to help myself and my friends, both men AND women, deal with our fantasies of erotic demise. This story is ONLY A FANTASY. I would rather die myself than have real harm done to a real human being in any attempt to make this fantasy a reality.

George Clarke glanced up from reading that month’s issue of Casket and Sunnyside magazine. He stepped out from behind his desk to answer the knock at the door of his studio workshop. He opened the door. There she was.

"Hi! I’m Guin. You must be George."

George sucked in his breath and stood staring at her in rapt awe. She was exactly as she appeared in her photograph in the catalog for the modeling agency. Guinevere Jones, world class fashion model--here now in front of him to do as he asked. She was tall, slender, lithe, and attractively muscled. She made herself seem even taller, the way she carried her shoulders proudly up and back and her head erect. Her austerely beautiful facial features added to her regal look. Her cheekbones were high and sharp, her jaw clean and firm, her nose long, narrow, and straight. Her lips were sensually full, but without exaggeration. And her eyes--her eyes were dark and deep, yet, when the light caught them, they seemed to radiate a shower of sparkles from where they were set in her fair-complexioned face. Her hair seemed to be any shade between medium brown and ash blonde depending on how each long lock lay beneath the light. She wore it long, simple, and straight, parted down the middle. It fell past her shoulders in a natural mane and went down her back outside the collar of her shirt.

Like her facial features, Guinevere’s clothes were simple and sharp yet consummately elegant. She wore a plain but crisp looking shirt, light blue in color, with French cuffs fastened with silver cuff links. Her shirt had three buttons down the front, plus two more at the collar. The lower button was at her navel and the middle button was at her heart and she wore these fastened. The upper button and the ones at her collar she left undone, revealing the smooth flesh of her upper chest in a plunging "vee" neckline. Her wide, long, pointy shirt collar formed angular planes that complemented the angularities of her facial features. About her neck was a choker necklace of dark blue and dark red American Indian beadwork. She wore her shirt tucked into a slim, simple, dark blue miniskirt. The skirt did not have a belt, per se--rather, it had a broad, snug-fitting waistband that laced up in front in the peasant style. The waistband of her skirt snugly gathered in her shirt, accentuating the contours of her ample but firm breasts. And her high heels--her dark blue high-heeled sandals gave her an added few inches that made her an imposing tower of beauty.

"Uh, George . . . Are you going to ask me in?"

"Oh--sorry--I was just amazed at how well you match your picture in the catalog, everyone’s description of you . . . yes, please, do come in."

"Don’t worry about it," she smiled at him as she breezed in, the deep, rich resonance of her voice making his knees go wobbly. "I get that reaction from guys all the time."

George closed the door and in another moment, he and Guinevere stood facing each other in the middle of the large open area in the middle of his workshop. By now, he had recovered himself sufficiently to initiate conversation.

"Guin, I’m glad that you decided to accept my commission for this job. You were my first choice of all the models who announced their decision to die for this year’s competition."

"George, believe me, your reputation as one of the best morticians in the business is well known. I know that we’ll win first prize together."

On the backside of his brain, George felt renewed gratefulness that he lived in a historical period when the necrophiliac arts had finally won public acceptance. Tomorrow would be the tenth annual national Beauty In Death Competition, sponsored by the Fraternal Order of Morticians. The best morticians in the country would be displaying their best corpses laid out in splendor--each corpse belonging to a beautiful young woman who, for whatever reason, had decided that she wanted to die and who had signed the appropriate legal release forms.

George gazed admiringly at Guinevere and spoke. "Guin, it’s the greatest honor I can imagine that a beautiful woman of your fame would agree to work with me on this. I am so grateful to you. It’s just . . . I just have to ask. We both know what I will get out of this in terms of professional recognition. But what’s your motivation? Why are you doing this? Do you have a terminal illness?

Guinevere laughed as she tossed her head, making her glorious mane of hair swish about. "No George, nothing so melodramatic as that. It’s really very simple. Getting old is hell on a model. Right now, I’m at the top of my form--but in too few years people will begin to notice the lines starting on my face, and as the lines start, people will start to ignore me--until, an old crone, I die in oblivion. No. I want to die young and beautiful and go out in glory--a beautiful dead body that people will always remember. I’m not the only beauty who feels this way. My friends at the modeling agency, Linda and Ruth, are dying today too for the competition."

She gave a half-laugh. "All of our friends are making bets on where the three of us will place." Now a chilling grin crossed Guinevere’s face and George felt himself cringe a little. "Besides, George, like they always say: 'Death is the best orgasm of all. That’s why they save it for last.'"

Guinevere sensed that she had struck George momentarily dumb, so she continued nonchalantly. "So, George . . . How are we going to do this?"

George cleared his throat. "Well, I’ve got two cyanide capsules that will make your death instantaneous and painless. Also, the cyanide will leave the exterior of your body intact so that--"

Guinevere cut him off with a dismissive wave of her hand. "George, that’s all very nice, but I want a more dramatic exit than that--"

"Like what?" interjected George, his concern aroused.

Guinevere just looked at him as a sly grin came to her face. Then George’s eyes widened as he saw Guinevere hike up her skirt and draw out the long, slender dagger from the sheath that was strapped to her upper leg. She held the dagger gingerly by the blade in her right hand. She took his right hand with her left hand, uncurled his fingers, laid the hilt of the dagger in his palm, and closed his fingers on it. She let her hands return to her sides. She spoke.

"When the time comes, I want you to drive this dagger into my chest, straight through my heart--to the hilt."

"Uh. . . ."

"I’m only going to have the strength of my legs to hold me in place to take the thrust. You’ll have to make sure you line up the point of the dagger with a gap between two of my ribs just to one side of my breastbone. If you get it right, the blade will slide into my heart smooth and easy. If you miss, if you hit bone, you’ll just push me backwards."

George was looking down at the dagger in his hand, his mind distended. "Okay. . . ."

Guinevere spoke up again to jolt George back to the moment at hand. "Is that my casket over there?" She tossed her head in the direction of the far end of the shop.

"Yes."

"Cool. I want to try it out."

Without waiting for a word from George, Guinevere pivoted on a spike heel and strode over to the casket. Stepping up on a chair, she stepped onto the workbench and then into the casket. Moving her hands to keep her skirt smooth and her hair together, she daintily laid herself out in the casket full length. She laid her hands down along her sides and closed her eyes.

"Mmmmm, comfy!" she smiled with her eyes closed. She opened her eyes and looked up at George who was leaning over the edge of the casket, looking down at her. "I like the way this light blue lining color-coordinates with my shirt."

"Yeah, I planned it that way," said George, half swallowing his words as he absentmindedly fiddled with the dagger in his hand. "Listen, Guin, we have to decide what to do about the bloodstain that will be left on your shirt after I pull the dagger out. We could fold one or both of your hands on your chest to hide it, or, we could lay a bouquet of flowers on your chest, but then--"

"Or," blurted Guinevere as she lay in the casket, "we could make a real fashion statement. Just place my arms down along my sides like they are now and forget the flowers--and leave the dagger embedded in my chest up to the hilt as I lie on display dead in here. The judges will be impressed just by the audacity of it. Let the dagger in my chest stand for the flowers on my chest."

George was silent. He stood motionless for a moment. Then he gave a half-nod of assent. He realized that the beautiful woman, playfully lying before him as she planned her own death and funeral, was an inspired genius.

"Good! It’s settled!" exclaimed Guinevere as she suddenly sat up in the casket. With the assistance of the gentlemanly hand offered by George, she got out of the casket, alighted from the bench, and stood before him once more. "Now let’s do this, shall we?"

"This way," said George, a certain glumness coming to his voice. The dagger in one hand, he took hold of Guinevere’s hand with the other. He led Guinevere back to the open area in the middle of the shop. When they were back in the middle of the open area, George released her hand and turned to face her. She drew herself up tall and proud and calm. She stood with her feet and legs tightly together. She let her arms hang naturally at her sides. She held her regal shoulders up and back, pushing her willing chest forward to receive the dagger. She gave him a faint, serene smile of expectation.

Once more, George looked down at the dagger in his hand. He looked up and found Guinevere’s eyes gazing peacefully into his. He brought the point of the dagger up to just touch the cloth of her shirt. He put the point to the light blue cloth two inches up and two inches to his right from her middle button. He held the dagger so that the crosspiece of the hilt, and the blade, were oriented horizontally--as was necessary to ensure that the blade passed easily between Guinevere’s ribs. The cloth of Guinevere’s shirt was stretched taught between her breasts. Ever so delicately, George pushed the dagger in until he felt the point just incise the cloth and meet the first resistance from her flesh. He placed the point to her skin to find the fatal soft spot immediately to the right of her sternum and between her ribs. This was the place he had to find with the dagger if he was to pierce Guinevere’s heart where it tilted to her left within her chest.

A momentary wince traversed Guinevere’s face as she felt George make his initial prick in her flesh with the dagger. But she was quick to show him a warm smile again as he found the fatal spot he was looking for. George felt through the point of the dagger that he had found the soft spot in Guinevere’s chest that he needed to find, and at that instant, his hand froze.

George and Guinevere stared into each other’s eyes. His eyes were in turmoil. Her eyes radiated happy anticipation.

He spoke.

"Are you ready, Guin?"

She closed her eyes and took a not very deep breath. She opened her eyes and locked him in her gaze.

"I’m ready."

He pushed.

It all happened in slow motion for him. He felt a squishiness as the point broke her skin, through his hand on the hilt, he felt the dagger go sliding into the depth of Guinevere’s chest . . . he saw the shiny steel blade disappear as it sank through the light blue cloth of her shirt, he felt the blade pick up speed as it sank into the soft tissue of her heart, he saw a small, round, red, wet stain appear on the light blue cloth around the blade. . . .

"Uuunnnnnnhhhhhh!"

George gazed amazed at Guinevere as she closed her eyes and lay back her head, raising her face toward the sky. Through his hand on the dagger’s hilt, he felt her whole body become a mass of tension. He saw how her arms suddenly bent at the elbows and how her hands jerked open, spreading her fingers wide.

He saw and he felt the crosspiece of the hilt come to rest against the cloth of Guinevere’s shirt and stop. He let go of the dagger where it stood buried in her chest and his hand flopped to his side.

She felt it all.

She felt the little prick on the skin in front her heart become a hurtful tear, she felt that hurtfulness immediately overwhelmed by a shudder of pain that went to her toes as she felt cold steel slice deep into her warm flesh, she felt the tension in her body build as she felt the point sink deeper into her chest--she felt the widening edges of the blade coming behind the point and slicing her flesh east and west from where the point first pierced her. She felt the blade come sinking and ripping into her heart. She felt the maelstrom of raging pain that shot through her entire body as she felt her heart muscles being cut asunder. She felt the crosspiece of the hilt come to rest against the front of her chest at the same instant that she felt the point come to a stop at the back wall of her heart. She felt her heart shredding itself on the steel as it frantically tried to beat around the blade.

Guinevere stood, eyes closed, head laid back, body rigid, for what seemed the better part of Eternity to George. Then her facial expression relaxed. She slowly brought her head forward again, opening her eyes. Her eyes found his eyes. He saw the sweet tiredness in her eyes.

A wry grin played across Guinevere’s dying lips as she held George in her dying gaze.

"Nice thrust, George . . . thanks."

She closed her eyes for the last time. Once more, she lay back her head, raising her face toward heaven. With glacial deliberation she raised her right hand to her chest. She placed her thumb above the dagger’s hilt and the main part of her hand below it. She pressed her open palm flat against her chest, putting the protruding hilt firmly in the notch between her thumb and her hand. Now she raised her left hand. She pressed the palm of her left hand against the back of her right hand. She put her left thumb crosswise on her right one. She notched the hilt between her left thumb and the main part of her left hand as she had already done with her right, overlapping her hands. She stood there rigidly, the image of neat control.

She murmured. "I’m dead."

She gently let her chin drop to her chest. The rigidity fled from her body. She bent at the ankles, her knees buckled, she bent forward at her waist, with a half-turning motion of her whole body, she let herself sink down. . . .

She laid herself out flat on her back on the floor in the middle of George’s shop. She released her grip on the dagger’s hilt and slowly spread her arms wide on the floor to each side. Her palms faced up at the ceiling, her fingers lightly curled. Her legs were gracefully together. They were both slightly bent at the knee, though one knee was bent upwards a little higher than the other. Her chest arced upwards toward the heavens, the hilt of the dagger protruding skyward from where it rested between her sternum and left breast. The little red circle staining the light blue cloth around the blade stopped growing.

But. . . .

Guinevere was not yet still. George gaped at her in astonishment. Her chest pumped, her chest heaved, up and down in great slow waves of sweet agony. With each heave of her chest, a long low moan passed from between her lips. With each heave of her chest, the dagger’s hilt that rose up from her chest swayed in the air.

Guinevere was beyond pain and she reveled in it. The nerve endings of her severed heart muscles kissed the steel in her chest and sent shock waves of ecstasy surging to the tips of her toes, the tips of her fingers, the ends of her hair. With every heave of her chest she felt herself falling deeper into her death orgasm. Through her closed eyelids, the light became concentrated and deliciously blinding . . . she felt herself become one with the Universe and she felt the Universe slide out and away. . . .

She lay still.

Her long hair lay all about her head like a halo. Her eyes were lightly closed and her lips just oh-so-slightly parted in the most serene expression of welcome sleep that George had ever seen.

His head was canted forward to look down at her as she lay gloriously spread on the floor before him. His arms hung slack at his sides. Then he rubbed his face with his hands. He let out a big exhalation. He took a few steps to stand at her side. He knelt beside her. He slowly worked his left arm under her back and his right arm under her knees. He lifted her up, cradling her in his arms.

He carried her over to the embalming table that was directly adjacent to the workbench on which the casket rested. Guinevere’s wide-spread arms flopped a little with each step he took, her downward-hanging head bobbed lightly, her long-hanging hair swished gracefully--the upward thrust of her chest was exaggerated as her back lay across George’s left arm. The hilt of the dagger in her chest bobbed in the air with a rhythm of its own.

George brought Guinevere to the marble-topped embalming table and laid her upon it. He methodically aligned her arms and legs, and patiently arranged her long tresses to form the halo around her face that he found so arresting to admire. Then he stood back a step from the table, and for long moments he contemplated the composition he had formed of Guinevere’s glorious dead clay.

He felt himself become light-headed with awe as he stared at her. She was flat on her back with her body laid out in a neat, straight line from the part in her hair to the tips of her high heels. Her arms and hands lay comfortably along her sides. Her long, smooth legs extended full length and lay tightly together. Her feet were tightly together as well. Her firm bosoms were now lovely mounds that pointed toward heaven. The flesh of the middle of her upper chest curved smoothly where the deep "vee" neckline of her not quite halfway opened shirt revealed it to view. And Guinevere’s face--her face bore an expression of calmness that betokened serenity and peace in her final sleep. Her handsomely formed cheeks still had the glow of the life that had been in her.

Guinevere’s simple but elegant clothing helped Death seem a lovely thing indeed. Her light blue shirt still looked crisp and sharp, even though it had been rent by the dagger beside the middle button. The points of her shirt collar lay straight and even. The fabric of her shirt lay smooth and taut over her flesh, flattering the curves of her body. Her dark blue miniskirt lay smooth over her upper legs and lay evenly on either side of her thighs. George noted with pleasure that the spikes of her high heels were beautifully parallel--and that her parallel heel spikes were now horizontal and pointing out into the air. He remembered with admiration how tall Guinevere’s high heels had made her seem when she was alive, when those high heels were vertical and pointing down into the floor. But now she was laid out dead and the sight of her horizontal high heels pointing out into thin air made him smile his first smile since he had answered her knock on his door.

But the incongruity of it all was what most struck George as he gazed down at Guinevere laid out dead before him. Her face and her form were all elegant composure--but there, assaulting his eyes, the hilt of the dagger rose into the air like a tower from her chest. He knew that where the hilt of the dagger rose into the air, the blade of the dagger was sunk full length in the depths of Guinevere’s heart. And where the blade of the dagger disappeared into Guinevere’s chest, a small, neat, round red stain stood out on the light blue cloth of her shirt in shocking contrast.

With a sad and tired sigh, George set to work to embalm Guinevere with greater care then he had ever taken for any other client. As George and Guinevere had agreed in their first exchange of e-mail messages, she had worn her favorite clothes to meet her death and it was in those same favorite clothes that she wanted to be laid out in her casket. And now, in addition, a dagger pinned Guinevere’s favorite shirt to her body. Fortunately, the embalming technique that George intended to use did not require removing Guinevere’s clothes and then re-clothing her. Moving deliberately, and with a sense of melancholy weighing down on him, George undid both cuffs of her shirt. Then, he made an incision in her right wrist and quickly and expertly secured a length of plastic tubing to the incision. He repeated the procedure on her left wrist. Now, he could begin the tedious and delicate procedure of slowly pumping blood out and slowly pumping embalming fluid in at the same time. With another sigh, he began the next step of preserving the dead body of the woman with whom he could feel himself falling in love. . . .

And then . . . as he had been secretly dreading for days and weeks leading up to this moment . . . George felt his whole body involuntarily shudder with a spasm of morbid desire. The body of the woman he considered to be the most beautiful in the world was laid out before him, completely receptive to any imposition he might dare to make. The way in which the dagger had penetrated--the way in which the dagger was still penetrating Guinevere--became an obscene suggestion . . . an obscene suggestion that George strove to choke back, to throw back down into the dark underside of his soul. Then, as if a dam in his mind had burst open, he started thinking at a staccato pace about how he could satisfy his morbid lust. His thoughts came to him with the words all strung together in a barely coherent stream. He didn’t have to undress her, he could just hike up her skirt, no, that would be too gross, he could carefully pull out the dagger, undress her, do her, re-dress her and re-insert the dagger, no, he could never get everything perfectly aligned again, but maybe he could . . . no, no, NO! George stood there shaking, drenched in his own sweat. He could not do it and he would not do it. He was a gentleman. He was a gentleman in whom Guinevere had placed her total trust. He would honor that trust. He would do the job that Guinevere had entrusted to him and he would do it in such a way as to keep her respect as she looked down on him from whatever better part of the Universe she now called home.

And then a moment of epiphany illuminated George’s mind and soul. When Guinevere had allowed him to pierce her heart with her own dagger that she had given to him, she had, at that very moment, allowed him to make love to her in the way she had yearned for most. "All right, Guinevere," murmured George as he gazed into her eternally sleeping face. "I understand now."

George collected himself and got on with the job. Calmly, confidently, professionally. When the fluid exchange was complete, he carefully removed the tubing, sealed the incisions in Guinevere’s wrists, and re-fastened the cuffs of her shirt. Gathering himself, George eased his arms under Guinevere’s prostrate form and lifted her off the embalming table. Turning on his heels ninety degrees, he cradled her in his arms and took two steps to bring her to the workbench on which her casket rested.

He brought her to the side of the casket. He paused to gather himself once more as she lay in his arms. He gave a bit of a grunt as he stood up on his toes and lifted her over the side of the casket to lay her inside. He tried to be as graceful as possible, he tried to keep her as graceful as possible, but he could not avoid a few awkward moments as he got arms, legs, head, long hair, and torso all aligned in Guinevere’s final resting place.

George established the basic alignment of Guinevere’s body in the casket and then worked on the details of her supine posture. He started at her feet. He straightened her legs to bring her knees and her ankles neatly and tightly together. Sliding his hands up her long, smooth legs, he confirmed the straight position of her knees. His hands came to the lower hem of her dark blue miniskirt. He raised his hands and placed them at her waist. Sliding his hands down along her skirt, he smoothed it out and ensured it lay evenly on either side of her thighs.

Now he moved to the upper end of the casket. He made her shoulders foursquare. The hilt of the dagger thus assumed a nearly vertical position, rising into the air from next to her middle shirt button, while the blade slept deep in her heart. He gently ran his hands down along each of her arms to align them along her sides as she had wanted. Her hands now rested palms down with her fingers slightly curled. He gently, oh-so-gently, aligned her head. Finally, he patiently arrayed her long flowing mane to form a halo around her face.

George stood at the side of the casket to admire the vision of still beauty that he and Guinevere had created together. It seemed to him as if her facial expression had become one of beatific bliss now that she was finally all laid out in her casket. George was joyfully amazed as he contemplated how Guinevere projected an air of serene, lovely--elegant--self-possession, even when she was laid out flat on her back, dead, with a dagger embedded in her heart. He knew that the judges for the competition would be just as impressed, and in just the same way.

George thought to himself how right Guinevere had been about leaving the dagger standing in her heart for all the world to contemplate. Her face was at peace and the dagger’s hilt rising from her upward curving chest proclaimed how she had achieved that peace.

And then, suddenly, his need to give some physical expression to his feelings could no longer be denied. The torrent of feelings that had been dammed up inside him burst free and forced his hand to move. While his mind pleaded with Guinevere to understand, George reached inside the casket and laid the palm of his hand on her cheek. It seemed to him that her sleeping smile became even sweeter as he did so. He slid his hand from her cheek down along her throat. He ran his fingertips over the smooth expanse of her upper chest that was left bare by the deep "vee" neckline of her almost half open shirt. The sensation of cool smoothness that transmitted itself from her bare flesh through his coursing fingertips gave him a sudden frisson of delight. It seemed to him that Guinevere shared fully in enjoying this tactile pleasure. He lifted his hand. He cupped his hand on her breast. He could feel the firmness and perfect form of her breast through the cloth layers of shirt and brassiere.

He brought both his hands to rest on the edge of the casket. He gazed with longing joy into the still loveliness of her face. He bent forward into the casket as far as he could. His lips found her cheek--smooth and pleasantly cool. He kissed her.

George and Guinevere took first place that year. Guinevere’s friends also did well. Linda took third and Ruth received an honorable mention.

After the competition was over and the prizes were awarded, it occurred to George that he could do something to protect the feelings of Guinevere’s family when they came to view her at her funeral the next day. He walked over to her casket yet one more time and took a long, pensive look at her as she lay in lovely display. Then he reached inside, and, with great deliberation, he grasped the hilt of the dagger where it rose from Guinevere’s chest. With a slow but steady upward motion, he pulled the dagger straight up and out of her chest and into the open air. He laid the dagger aside on a small table that held several floral arrangements. Reaching into the casket again, he gently took hold of her right hand. He delicately lifted her hand and laid the palm of her hand on her heart to conceal the bloodstain on her shirt. Then, he reached across the casket, took hold of her left hand, and neatly crossed the palm of her left hand on the back of her right hand. He hoped she wouldn’t mind.