In a complete contrast of mood, Katie and Sarah emerged naked from the shower/locker room, bubbly and giggling.

"Okay, Jimmy," Katie laughed, "as soon as Sarah and I get ourselves arranged in the toy box, you can turn us off." Noticing Jayne and Mavis, she said, "Oh, we thought you two would have gone to take the pizza to be tested."

"Oh!" Sarah gasped, seeing the half pizza Mavis was holding. She grabbed Katie's arm and pointed.

"What the...???" Katie was stunned.

"I'm afraid," Jayne sighed, "that Suzy has already tested the pizza and her results were ... conclusive."

"You m-m-mean," stammered Katie, "she ate it and she's...."

"Dead," Jayne nodded.

"Oh, my God! I . . . I . . . it should have been me!" Katie moved quickly toward the door of Room Two. Sarah followed.

"Girls! Stop!" Jayne ordered.

"Can't we go in? Please, it should be me in there," Katie pleaded.

Jayne relented. "Okay, but just don't, well, disturb the evidence."

"What do you mean?" Sara asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Jayne groaned. "I guess I mean don't brush her teeth or anything. Go on in."

Sarah and Katie went in to see Suzy for themselves.

Katie and Sara entered the room very tentatively.

Suzy lay stretched out on the bed, looking peaceful, content, and frankly satisfied.

"She looks so pretty," Sarah said softly, "like she's sleeping."

"Well, she isn't. S-she's dead. Like I'm supposed to be." Katie's lips trembled as she spoke, then she took Sarah's hand and together they moved toward the bed.

Katie sat on Suzy's right, Sarah her left. For all of their necrobabery, neither one had ever touched a dead person before.

Katie put out her hand and brushed Suzy's soft blonde hair, saying, "I'm sorry, Suzy. This should have happened to me instead of to you. I'm not sorry that I'm alive. I can't be. But I am sorry you're dead. I don't know what I did that caused this to happen, but whatever it is, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Katie grabbed a tissue from a box on a table beside the bed and dried her teary eyes.

"I'm sorry, too." Sarah laid a hand on Suzy's slightly cool shoulder. "I saved Katie's life. I didn't even know I was doing it. I'm sorry that you're dead, but I'm not sorry that Katie's alive and I'm not sorry that I did what I did, even though you're dead because of what I did. And I think I should admit that if this had been a matter of choice rather than accident -- like deciding who to carry out of a burning building or who to throw a life preserver to -- I would have decided in Katie's favor. I hope that if you're someplace where you know what's happened and how I feel, you've loved someone enough to know why I feel the way I do and I hope you can forgive me."

By the time Sarah finished speaking, she was sobbing so much that she gratefully accepted the tissue Katie offered her.

Katie moved her hand down Suzy's cheek, saying, "Suzy, we didn't know you very well, but I'll always remember you as the woman who died instead of me. I know that it wasn't your choice and I doubt that you would have made the choice if you could have. Honestly, I wouldn't have, in your position." Katie's hand slid down Suzy's neck and rested on her shoulder. "But because you didn't know, maybe that makes what happened to you all that much sadder."

Sarah leaned closer to Suzy's face and began to stroke the dead girl's arm. "Suzy, I love you. I hardly knew you, but I love you. Katie's alive and you're dead and nobody meant for it to be that way, but I'll love you forever because of what happened to you and what didn't happen to Katie." Sarah kissed Suzy's cheek.

Katie began to knead the flesh of Suzy's shoulder. "I love you, too, Suzy. When somebody dies in your place, you can't help but love that person. But I think that if we could have gotten to know each other better, then we would have learned to care about each other for different reasons. I'm sure of it." And Katie kissed Suzy's other cheek.

"I hope you know somehow," Sarah said, "that you are just as pretty a dead girl as any of us ever fantasize about being. I hope you know what a great time Justin had with your body. I hope you know that you're as tempting a sight as any of us ever imagine being." Sarah's hand wandered over the dead girl's breast. "You're pretty and pale and your skin feels so nice and smooth and cool."

Katie slid her hand down Suzy's abdomen until it rested on her lower tummy. "You are, Suzy, you are just what Sara said. You are so attractive, so vulnerable, so inviting, What you always fantasized about being, you've become. The desires that led you to get the implant and to come to work here -- those desires would be so satisfied if you could see yourself through our eyes right this minute. Maybe you can." Katie's hand went further until she touched Suzy's pussy lips.

"Is she wet?" Sarah asked.

"Yes," said Katie. "If she was awake for any of her time with Justin, she was enjoying it. Here. Feel for yourself."

Sarah's fingers joined Katie's. "You're right. She was having a good time."

Katie and Sarah looked at each other. Then each woman began to kiss the dead girl's breast that was nearest her. Together, their fingers began to explore Suzy.

After a moment, Sarah stopped. "Katie, I don't know if we should be touching her like this."

"I don't know if we should be, either. But I do know this: Suzy would want us to. She would want us to prove that we mean what we are saying about her. I don't think we should do much more than we are doing now, because of what Jayne said about disturbing the evidence, but I do think that we owe to Suzy to prove that we're sincere."

"Yes," said Sarah. "I think we also owe it to ourselves to confirm that we really feel this way about death and sex."

"And not just to ourselves, but to each other." Katie looked into Sarah's eyes. "When two people love each other, if this sort of thing is a part of them, then they should let each other know."

"Yes," Sarah agreed, "when two people love each other -- like you and I do."

The two necrobabes continued to kiss and fondle Suzy until Jayne called them from the room.

Jayne, Mavis, and Jimmy all sat in silence for a few moments, experiencing shock and grief for the girl they had known for such a short time and contemplating what this could mean for the future of the bordello and feeling guilty that those thoughts even entered their minds at a time like this.

Jayne knew she had nothing to blame herself for. When she had touched Suzy's body, it was obvious that Suzy had been dead for more than a few minutes. Her heart might have still been beating when Jayne and the others first started watching Justin make love to her, but the effects of the poison would probably have been irreversible at that time. Nevertheless, Jayne felt that a nurse is supposed to have a sixth sense about some things; her professional intuition, if not her training, might have told her that Suzy was really in trouble. There certainly was nothing she could have done -- even if the partially eaten pizza had been discovered the moment she knew Jimmy had eaten a different pizza, it probably would have been too late. Still, even though she had no idea what was happening, she felt odd about having perhaps watched a woman die before her eyes and having become aroused at the same time.

Jimmy also knew that he had nothing to feel guilty about. Of course, Suzy could have asked before she helped herself to the pizza, but, even if she had, he wouldn't have refused it to her: there was a general understanding that anything in the fridge that didn't have somebody's name on it was there to be shared by whoever wanted some, True, he might have wondered why there was a pizza in the fridge while another had been delivered to the door, but it wouldn't have made him suspicious. He would have offered to share the freshly delivered pizza with her and that might have saved her, but he thought she could probably smell it and that she should have known that she would be welcome to have some -- shit, she had no compunctions about helping herself to the one in the fridge. Besides, she has probably already eaten her fill by the time the second pizza arrived. No, none of this was his fault, but, still, he had always been able to say that nothing bad had ever happened to any of the girls at the Club while he was on the job -- from now on, he would have to qualify that statement.

Mavis was having the hardest time convincing herself that she was entirely blameless. After all, she was the big classic movie aficionado who had seen mystery-thrillers from LAURA to NORTH BY NORTHWEST to DIRTY HARRY in which the wrong person opened the door, uncorked the wine, answered the phone, checked mail, or ate the cookie. The moment she learned that someone else was on the premises, she should have run to make sure the pizza had not been touched. But she was so relieved to find that Jimmy was okay and so anxious to show how domestic she was by cleaning his shirt, that her cinematic imagination, which had helped save Jayne's life a year ago, had not done a thing for Suzy.

"Well," said Jayne, when she had decided that enough brooding had gone on. "We have to get the place ready for company. A lot of company."

Mavis went to work on the computer and the telephone, trying to cancel the appointments scheduled for the night. In all cases, she wound up leaving messages that she was sure would not be read or heard in time. She also left a message for Dwight Sellers, the attorney who had been so helpful in negotiating the settlement at led to Jayne's partial ownership of the Club, alerting him that his skills might be required soon in order to keep the Club open.

Jayne and Jimmy began collecting and taking to their vehicles the most obvious clues as to the true nature of the Club: the supply of condoms, the various sexual lubricants, the bondage equipment (why so many men wanted the girls in bondage when they were already in necro mode had always puzzled Jayne), and the feathers and other props used to test the girls. The rooms that had been set up for special scenarios (the funeral parlor, the morgue/science lab, and the car wreck set) would be unlocked if the crime scene investigators asked, but Jayne really hoped they wouldn't.

With about five minutes left until Rick and Christopho were due to arrive, Jayne told Katie and Sara to leave Room Two and go get dressed.

"Come on, Mavis. Let's see if there is any housekeeping that we can do in Room Two."

Mavis gulped but did not refuse Jayne's invitation.

Upon entering the room, Jayne said, "It would be nice if we could change the sheets on the bed, but would be too obvious, I'm afraid. From the looks of things, it would be pretty hard to explain why the sheets under her were completely dry while she isn't. I'm just glad that Justin used a condom and did not decide to cum all over her. I think, though, we probably can arrange her so that she looks a little more like a sleeping woman and less like a recently used sex toy. Justin moved her around plenty after she was dead. A little more won't hurt. Let's at least put her legs together and maybe make her arms look more natural."

Jayne moved to Suzy's right side and began to lift the dead girl's leg. Seeing that Mavis had not moved from the door, Jayne asked, "Are you going to help?"

"S-sure." Mavis moved to left side of the bed but hesitated before putting her hands under Suzy's leg.

"Come on, Mavis. If I would have died last year, I hope you wouldn't have minded touching my body."

"No, of course not. But that would have been you."

"Well, this is Suzy. You knew her, too."

Mavis swallowed, put her hands under Suzy's leg, lifted, and moved so that it touched the other.

"There. That wasn't so hard, was it? Now, her arms. You lay her left hand on her stomach and I'll lift her so that you can slide a pillow under her head."

Mavis picked up Suzy's left arm and noticed that her fingers remained curled. "Should I straighten her fingers?"

Jayne could tell what answer Mavis was hoping for, but didn't give it to her. "Yes. Try and make her hand look like it has been flat on her stomach since she died. She won't bite you."

With reluctance, Mavis began to uncurl Suzy's fingers. Finding that it wasn't as disturbing as she expected it to be, she held Suzy's hand for a moment before laying it down. "You do this kind of thing at the hospital all the time, I suppose."

"You mean touch dead people? No, not all the time. But, yes, I do touch them. It would be nice if that didn't happen as often as it does. Now, you get the pillow and put it under her head while I hold her up."

"I... I could hold her up, if you want," Mavis offered.

"No," Jayne laughed gently. "You're doing fine for a first timer. You don't have to prove anything."

Once they had Suzy looking as though she had just laid down for a nap, Jayne looked a little more carefully and said, "Oh, if I'm not mistaken, that's a trace of Katie's lipstick on her breast. Just a second. I'll go get a damp cloth."

Mavis was about to say that she would go instead, but decided to remain with Suzy. Nothing wrong with being alone with a corpse, she thought. After a few seconds, Mavis reached down and brushed her hand over Suzy's cool forehead, then traced the line of Suzy's jaw with a finger.

Jayne returned with a wet hand towel, took hold of Suzy's right breast, and began to gently wipe it clean. "You know, she is pretty, isn't she? At the hospital, I don't dare let myself think about patients in those terms, but, well, this is Suzy and she is, or was, a necrobabe. Well, I think all traces of Katie's lipstick have been removed and Sarah wasn't wearing any." After a pause, she added, "Neither am I."

Jayne bent down and kissed Suzy very lightly on the lips, then stood up and looked at Mavis.

Mavis hesitated, but realized that this was an opportunity to find out something about herself. She also bent down and kissed Suzy's lips. She stood up more slowly than Jayne had.

"How do you feel?" Jayne asked.

After a moment, Mavis said quietly, "Like I would like to do it some more."

"That's the same way I feel," Jayne said. "Well, now I know that if I had died last year, I wouldn't have gone unattended."

"Did you ever think that you would?"

"No, not really." Jayne took Mavis's hand, led her to the foot of the bed, put her arms around her and kissed her passionately until they heard the voice of Jimmy over the intercom.

"Jayne, Rick and somebody else are here. I can see on the monitor that Rick is entering his code into keyboard. He seems to be having a problem, though."

"He's probably a little nervous. Just a second. I'll be right out."

Followed closely by Mavis, Jayne hurried to look at the monitor and saw her lover Rick frantically trying to punch his entry code into the numeric keyboard of the electric lock while the Christopho stood calmly behind him. Rick was so upset that he misentered his code on the first several tries.

"Never mind, Rick," Jayne said, speaking over the intercom. "I'll just open the door for you from here."

Rick seemed greatly relieved at the sound of her voice.

Katie and Sarah stepped out of the locker room fully clothed just in time to see Rick burst through the lobby door and rush to embrace both Jayne and Mavis, saying, "I'm so glad you're okay. Lieutenant Christopho seems to think you're in some sort of danger."

"What?" Jimmy was instantly concerned. "You mean somebody is after Jayne and Mavis, too?" Jimmy's eyes fell upon Christopho, who had casually stepped through the lobby door and who looked just a bit to scruffy to be a cop.

"Lieutenant Christopho, this is our security man, Jimmy. Jimmy, Lieutenant Christopho of the police department." As the two men shook hands, Jayne asked, "What's this about danger?"

"Nothing to be alarmed about, Ma'am, unless the people who tried to kill Katie -- and, yes, I believe her story now -- find out that they've failed," Christopho assured her and the rest of the group. "When I said earlier that there was a development in a case I've been working on, I was referring to this case. The other driver who was involved in the collision with the pizza truck has been arrested and there is every reason to believe that it was no accident."

"You mean you now believe the collision was planned?" Mavis asked.

"Yes, ma'am, I do. I'm certain of that. And," Christopho added, "I also -- and this is more like a feeling at this point -- believe that there may be some involvement of organized crime."

Those words stunned Jayne a little and she gulped before she said, "Well, there has been a further development here, I'm afraid. Lieutenant Christopho, I think you should call for a crime scene investigation team. We'll also need an ambulance. Things have gotten much more serious."