"From dust we came, from dust we return," said the balding man with the black shirt and the turnaround collar. "But we are more than dust. There is something in us that is eternal, and we have faith that part of Alicia is now with our heavenly Father."
Brent wanted to believe, so for that moment, he did. It was an eight-five degree day in early November, and the people in their suits were sweating.
Not far from him, Alice stood with her husband and her two daughters, now in their twenties. Two lovely young ladies, who thought they were Bob's kids, but they had Brent's eyes. Bob knew better, of course. But the young women would never become dragons, so there was no need to tell them the truth.
Brenna wore glasses, and no one could tell whether she was paying attention to the funeral or watching a movie playing out in front of her.
The left side of Brenda's head was still shaved, where she had recently had a chip installed. He wondered what sort of programming she had put on it, but it was rude to ask. Her belly bulged with Brent's granddaughter. Her husband Tom's arm was around her.
Alice had covered up her few gray strands with dye; Brent had applied more than a little gray to his hair the same way. She strove to look young, and he strove to look older. She was still, even in austere mourning clothes and with a somber face, sexy to him. Brenda and Brenna, her daughters, looked uncertain how to behave, having been dragged to a stranger's funeral and unaware that the woman inside the dark maple coffin being lowered to the earth was, in fact, their grandmother. Brent's mother.
It was hard for Brent to look at Alice without thinking of making love to her. In this setting, it was also hard looking at Alice without thinking that someday it would be her in the box, and he would be standing, watching, not appreciably older than he was now, unless he used more gray dye and perhaps added some artificial wrinkles.
On the other side of the hole stood Gardner, Brent's father, watching. He looked like a man in his late forties, although he was in fact hundreds of years old. Alicia's husband, Pete, the man who raised Brent, had passed on two years previous, and Gardner had taken good care of his mother since, even as her mind started going. In many ways, this ending was a merciful one. She would not have wanted to linger like that.
Next to Gardner stood a gray-haired woman, with hints of the red she'd once had. She put her arm around him. Brent remembered when the reminder that Chloe had been intimate with his father would have annoyed him. He had felt odd sharing "his" women with anyone, but especially with his father. But now, at this time, he could not begrudge Gardner her comfort.
He remembered his mother smiling at him and telling him, in one of her last lucid moments, that she'd had a good life. Sometimes she'd tell him that Gardner was the best thing that had ever happened to her, or that Pete was; more often, that Brent himself was. She'd loved and been loved.
And now it was time to say goodbye, and Brent tried to choke back tears.
Alice saw and came to him. The girls might have wondered at that, but they did not follow her, gathering around Bob, instead. She took Brent's hand, unable to hold back merely because there was an audience, and gave it a squeeze. "Every moment is precious," Alice said. "This moment is precious, too."
"I loved my Mom," Brent said, and the flow of wet tears started down his cheek.
"I know. And you love me. And love makes it all harder, doesn't it? But it makes it worthwhile, too."
Brent nodded.
"I love you," Alice said.
Her words were a balm and a rusty knife, all at the same time. She knew it, and no doubt hoped the balm would mean more than the other.
"Do you want me to sleep with you tonight?" she asked.
Brent nodded.
She smiled. "I'll let Bob know."
"I don't want him to watch, tonight."
She nodded. "He'll do something with the girls, I imagine. Take them to a movie, or something."
"How does it feel to be about to be a grandparent?"
"Amazing," she said. "I could - no. Are you okay?"
"Okay enough. Go ahead." What did it feel like to be about to be a grandparent, himself? Different, totally. He wasn't really part of Brenda's life, and he doubted he'd have too much contact with the child as a result. He wanted to be more involved, but that would mean watching his grandchild grow old, and die, and stand like he was standing now, at her funeral. And it would require a lot of messy explanations, or a lot of lies.
The cycle of life.
"See you tonight," Alice said, and slipped back to her own family.
Gardner was walking around the big hole in the ground, headed Brent's way.
"Son," he said, putting out his arms.
Brent hugged him. "Father." He had rarely called him that. It got easier, now that Pete was dead. "Dad," He said, trying it on for size.
"You okay?"
"Yep," Brent lied. "You?"
"I've been here before. You haven't. Although this time isn't the same as every other time, either."
"Isn't it?"
"No. It's all different, each wound is fresh, the same as each joy."
"Huh."
"She was a good woman. The best. And she produced a fine son. She lives on through us and especially through you. And you know she'd want you to live your best life."
I nodded. "And she'd want the same for you." It wasn't as easy to say, I thought, for me as for him.
Shovels piled dirt on top of the lowered coffin. The assemblage slowly broke up.
"Darling," said Alice. "What are you thinking about?"
It was morning, and Alice was by his side. She rarely slept over these days, although now that the kids were grown it might happen more frequently. He considered lying.
"That someday, it will be you."
She smiled. "Well, no. I'm going to be recycled. It's more eco-friendly, as my daughters always tell me. No moldering in the grave for me."
"You know what I mean."
"I know what you mean," Alice said. "And thank you for having me in your life, anyway. I'm the luckiest of women. But you - I warned you, of the sadness you would face." She scrunched up her face. "Now that's not supportive. I didn't mean to say I told you so. I'm reminding you that you made your decisions for reasons."
He smiled. "What's the saying? Attachment brings suffering. But a life without love is empty."
"I do not want you to ever experience that emptiness."
He let his hand wander, idly, over her body. It was not as taut as it had once been, and her breasts were softer and less perky. She was still beautiful.
"You see Kirsten much these days?"
He smiled. "Now and then. Chloe, too. And Rosita, and Lynn."
"Sally?"
He shook his head. "It's been ages."
"And how often do you go to the club?"
"That's been ages, too. Years."
"You should go tonight."
He blinked. "Why?"
"Because sex is fun?"
He laughed. "I noticed." He pulled her to him.
She squirmed out of his grasp. "I'm serious, Brent. I want you to go. There's probably lots of girls there you've never even met. Young, luscious girls."
"Perhaps I've developed a taste for older women." He grabbed her ass, and gave it a happy squeeze.
"You can say that now," Alice said. "But will you say it in twenty more years? And you won't have anyone to say it to in forty. It's time for you to stop living in the past, Brent, and prepare for the future."
"You want me to find another girlfriend."
"Yes. But not tonight. Tonight I just want you to have fun. If not tonight, then very soon."
"Maybe I don't want to."
Alice smiled. "You've always trusted me. Trust me again?"
Brent couldn't resist that smile. "Fine. Soon."
She grinned. "Good boy. Now you get a reward."
Good boy? She'd never have been so bold, in the old days. But they had an easy familiarity now, and she could say it and have him shrug. He knew she'd do whatever he asked of her.
She slid down his body to take his cock in her mouth. He let her suck it for less than a minute, before rolling her over and fucking her hard.
It was not that night, but a few nights later, that Brent walked down the familiar alley. The neighborhood had changed, but the alley was still there. The old bouncer had died and gone to bouncer heaven, and he had not been replaced. The new door responded to his presence, detected that he was a dragon, and opened for him automatically.
He wondered how much longer the secret of the dragons could last, given that they could be detected by electronics now. As long as the governments didn't know what to look for, he supposed.
Inside, the place hadn't changed much. The same bar, the same style of couches. They'd been replaced a few times. The girls were different, of course. Twenty somethings, the age of Brenna and Brenda. He did a quick scan to assure himself that they were not there. That would be awkward, to say the least; also highly improbable.
He recognized a few of the men. Marco, and Gray. Neither had changed a bit.
He scanned the panoply of pulchritude. The girls were as pretty as ever, and he thought there was a bit more ethnic diversity as well. Had breasts gotten bigger over the years, and perkier? And some of the girls were very tall, over six feet in their heels. He looked for the dragon tattoos, and that had not changed. Almost all of them were on breasts or thighs now, requiring the girls who had them to wear revealing outfits. Many of the girls had a small, metallic looking square beneath the little dragon that proclaimed them free for dragon use. One of the girls had little cat ears; another, a fox ears and a tail.
