Nurse Wendy wheeled the gurney into the ward. He had been the only man left in there. She drew the partitions around for privacy anyway. The life support machine had been wheeled away and she had been asked by the young man's doctor to wheel him down to the morgue as the other assistants were busy or had left the hospital, but she stood there for a while. Was it his silence that made her stay and draw the partitions? Was it him not knowing of her presence anymore? She could not wheel him away just yet.

She gazed at his still face and the eyes that the doctor had closed. She noticed bodily contours from beneath the sheet and her heart was beating fast. She occasionally made nocturnal visits of this kind, but most of the deceased patients she attended to were much older. He was young, early twenties and the admin staff were having difficulty locating relatives. The life support was needed elsewhere.

She moved around to the side of the bed and paused. She sat beside him and looked at his pale face. His eyes were closed. He no longer breathed. She removed the covers that kept her image of him imaginary. Peeling the layers back gave her a brief twinge of excitement. This was not a work act, a 'clean him up' act. This was something else. Something exciting – something naughty.

She moved closer to him and felt herself tremble. A slight scuffling could be heard as her shoes found a resting place beneath the bed. Her hands began to unbutton his cotton top. The top button first, of course. The one nearest his pale neck. She unbuttoned it and hesitated, before leaning forward to kiss the area of exposed skin. Did her lips detect a lingering remnant of body heat? Her heart began to pound. He had expired only recently.

The next button revealed his upper chest. She kissed the small patch of hair over his sternum. Her hands paid a visit to each of his nipples and pinched them in turn. They had been warm once but now they were cool. Her pinching made the tiny nipples hard.

Nurse Wendy looked at his unmoving chest. His ribs were now locked and silent. She knew death would start work on him shortly. To her, a good-looking man when alive is considered handsome. A good-looking man when dead is beautiful. She knew that his beauty was now limited before it would be torn apart in a furnace or by worms...

The young man had an entire temporary landscape that demanded exploration, a landscape that would soon be deforested and destroyed by impending erosion. She stroked his face and the small patches of stubble that signified early manhood. Unbuttoning the rest of his top, she traced the fine hairs downwards from his chest to his navel and kissed his smooth, flat belly.

Whilst attending to his belly, one of her hands strayed, grew adventurous, and followed the path of increasingly dark hair southwards. It was brought to a halt by the cord that kept his pants close to his waist. Her hand hesitated at the silly obstruction, and then began to work its own way past the now loosened cord towards his lower torso and into the patch of fur that lay concealed beneath.

She lay her head on his flat belly while her hand played amongst the soft curls. The palm of her hand brushing across the patch, her fingers isolating some of his hairs, twisting them around and around. One finger stretched out and brushed the padded base of his cock, slowly tracking its contour and flaccid length until arriving at his exposed tip.

Nurse Wendy stood up and moved around to the foot of the bed. She reached out and pulled his pajama trousers down to his upper thighs. In the semi-darkness his shy manhood lay foundering on its side, and like its owner – both were caught in a slumber of no return. She shivered at the sight and felt the beginning of a slow, deep, delicious ache between her legs. An ache she'd only felt with men in this state and in no other - the unending silence and stillness.

The perfect juxtaposition that made her few moments with them delicious: her self-awareness, her body warm and receptive to touch, their loss of awareness, their bodies cold and numb, her body capable of movement and manipulation, their bodies compliant, immobile and vulnerable. Vulnerable as calves caught in deep mud.

She learned from their bodies and explored their bodies, grew familiar, kissing them, handling and playing with them, toying with them, pleasuring herself with them. She imagined herself as their goddess, their creator and that she created them for her pleasure. She wanted to spend hours with many male bodies without being labelled or criminalised or deprived of them in a cell.

She knew the dead would never share her secrets with the living. It was the living she had to worry about. She knew that dead men would never betray her, never talk behind her back. They would silently obey her, fulfill her wish and carry her sweet secrets away with them before they could grow bitter on the wagging tongues of the living.

Dead men would not remember what she said or did to them. They faithfully held on to secrets. Dead men selflessly gave their bodies to her without judgment or expectation or demand. Their staring eyes were incapable of recording image or curve. Their mouths would not utter insult or biting sarcasm, instead they would provide her with a receptacle for her kisses. Her memories and moments of passion would remain safe with her. And this newly deceased man before her would respect her wish and follow those who obeyed her before him...