How to Have Sex With Death

How to Have Sex With Death

Copyright Year: 2025

Copyright Notice: by Sergiu Somesan. All rights reserved.

The above information forms this copyright notice:

© 2025 by Sergiu Somesan.

All rights reserved.

ADULT CONTENT - 18+ READERS ONLY!

„This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review."

It was August eighth and the old retired professor was slowly approaching his bench. "His bench" - the word comes "his bench", because at this time of the morning almost all the park benches were free, so any one of them could have been his. Even when he found his bench occupied one morning, he didn't make a crisis of it, but sat down on another nearby for his morning newspaper reading. His favorite bench, however, had one advantage over the others: it was placed about half-way along the main alley, the one that ran through the park from end to end, so that casual passers-by usually sat down to rest toward the edge of the row of benches, making his bench somewhat surrounded by a blessed cone of quiet and solitude. The sun, on the other hand, was hidden in the morning by the thick shade of the lime-tree behind the bench, so that he could read quietly, enveloped in a pleasant gloom. What's more, once, when a brief summer rain caught him in the park, he noticed that the lime tree was a perfect umbrella and not a drop of water fell on the newspapers.

Since he had retired, almost every morning, weather permitting, he bought newspapers from the newsstand at the entrance to the park, then sat on the same bench and quietly perused the news, editorials and sometimes the death column. Sometimes he would come across the name of one of his former high school classmates in the black-bordered column, and all day long he felt haunted by his image. It was quite a long time before he realized that he hadn't encountered any of his former classmates in the death column for a long time. "Maybe the ones that are left are all doing well," he whispered to himself when, on a day that was a little duller than others, he suddenly had a revelation. He didn't collect the newspapers he bought, he usually threw them in the trash at the end of the alley, but his memory was still good, so he recalled all his former colleagues in alphabetical order, as if he were leafing through an imaginary catalog. "It can't be," he whispered again, "I'm the only one left alive out of the whole class!" He went over all the names in his mind and almost photographically recalled the newspaper advertisement, though without the details that usually accompanied such an announcement and without the precise date. He was eighty-eight when he realized this truth, and since then, with each new birthday, he felt more and more isolated and less and less prepared for the lightning changes around him. Although crowds of people passed by him every day, it seemed to him that he was alone in the world.

*

Every day, around ten o'clock, a miniature garbage truck would pass by, seemingly made so small that it could easily fit through the alleys of the park. One of the days, the workers accompanying it stopped for lunch right on the bench next to him, and the professor, still keeping his curiosity intact, approached them and their machine. Clearly proud of it, they presented it to him with so much praise, as if they had built it themselves.

"And that would be nothing, for it is so small and beautiful," laughed one of them. But look, here at the end there's a mixer with blades made of Swedish steel. It shreds all the garbage in the park so finely that twenty-eight trash cans from all over the main alley fit into just two bags. Swedish steel, my word!" he said.

And, to prove his point, he picked up a plank of wood that had somehow wandered into the rubbish and dropped it into the mixer funnel. Within moments, only a handful of sawdust remained.

It was just about the time when the cleaning crew usually appeared at the far end of the park, and he turned his head out of habit to see if they had arrived, but a breeze of cooler wind hit him, making him forget the little machine. A brief shiver ran through him, causing him to look somewhat cautiously left and right, as if expecting some dangerous jivine to approach him, skulking through the bushes. Somewhere in the distance, towards the edge of the park, hidden by the rose bushes, a man was sharpening his scythe, preparing to cut the grass in places that are hard to reach with ordinary lawnmowers. He looked somewhat worriedly at the spot where the sound seemed to be getting louder, and had a tired smile when he realized that only a poor old woman was approaching, perhaps about his own age, at least considering the stumbling, lumbering gait. She walked stooped with age, carrying a bag that seemed too heavy for her strength, and in her other hand she carried a cane that was taller than she was and seemed not only completely useless, but also difficult to use. Apparently her strength had run out just beside his bench, for she stopped and, looking up at him with unexpectedly young blue eyes, asked in a lost voice:

"Permission, good sir, may I sit down? I have a lot of years behind me, and sometimes I can really feel them."

Professor Adamescu would have liked to reply that he understood her perfectly, because he sometimes felt exactly the same way himself, but as he did not want to talk at length, he preferred to show her with his hand the seat next to him and continued his lecture. It seemed to him that the old lady's expression had something of the old-fashioned politeness of other ages. For a while neither of them said another word, then the woman, with slow movements, took out a scrap-book from a shabby bag and began to leaf through it.

After a while, seeing him finished reading the papers and putting them away, she moved closer and showed him the album.

"Won't you be so kind as to look at some photographs together? Sometimes

I feel so lonely..."

"With pleasure," said the professor, sighing slightly exasperated, and bent his gaze on

the first photograph in the album.

It was, as it turned out, a simple family album, beginning with the usual baptism photo. As the old woman turned the pages, more and more photos followed, marking the passing of the years in increasingly clear photographs. The only curious thing was that the album showed the development of a young man from birth and as he went through life, marking special moments. One would have expected the album to be about the life of the old lady next door, but apparently it wasn't. He stared almost obliviously at the pages turned one by one by the woman. At one point, he had an acute sense of déjà vu, but he could not imagine what it was about. "After all, these family albums are all one water and one land," he said to himself, and just then he realized that he was looking at a photograph of a group of soldiers on leave in a mountain town. The group looked terribly familiar to him, and when the woman went to turn the page, he put his hand on the page and stopped her. She adjusted her glasses and leaned in for a closer look. Without a doubt, the man in the center of the photograph was him: he had just grown a mustache, having defeated an entire military bureaucracy and the personal resistance of his company commander after a weeks-long struggle. It was his first time out on leave with a mustache and he was ready to break the hearts of every girl he met, but first he had to give all his comrades a beer and take a group photo with them. Still, he couldn't remember keeping this photo. Who was the old lady and where did she get the photo? Where did he have all his photographs from, in fact, because, seeing him not saying anything, the pages were slowly turned one after the other and there, row by row, he saw the most important moments of his life.

"Where did you get all my photos in this album?" he asked in a muffled voice.

"I don't know if that's the right question to ask, dear Professor," said the woman next to him in a voice that seemed suddenly rejuvenated, and when he turned to look at her, even her wrinkles had vanished, and he saw playful twinkles in her eyes.

He didn't want to participate in the game this woman was trying to draw him into, but if he wanted to know the truth, then no doubt he should have asked.

"And what question should I ask, then, pray?"

The woman looked him sideways and answered as she turned over another sheet of paper:

"Well, you should have asked why I have these photographs and not where I got them from."

"All right," he conceded. Why do you have these photographs?" He asked and shrugged exasperatedly.

The woman pointed to the next photo and told him:

"Maybe you'll see for yourself if you look at the next picture."

The professor lowered his eyes and was astonished: in the album, clear and in vivid color,

the next picture showed him and the old woman next to him looking into the album leaning towards each other, as if in a moment stolen from eternity.

He remained silent, looking at the photo without understanding. Even though the wind was not blowing at all, he felt that thrill from before, stirring his being. Somewhere in the distance he heard again, loud and clear, the man sharpening his scythe.

The woman next door giggled like a little girl.

"You begin to understand, Professor, from what it seems to me..."

He didn't look at her, but just looked more closely at the photograph.

how it could have been taken, since no man had passed in front of them, with or without a camera.

"How did you take this picture?" the professor asked and suddenly felt his mouth go dry.

The woman next to him shook her head.

"Wrong question again, Professor. The question that should concern you is not how I took this photograph, but rather what exactly will we find if we turn another page in the scrapbook?"

She closed the scrapbook and dropped it carelessly between them, then turned to face him fully.

"That's what you tell me: if we turn another page, will we find only a photograph of this empty bench, or the bench and you on it, reading your newspapers as usual?"

The professor slowly put his hand on the album between them and looked at it for a long time, trying to collect his thoughts. Then he looked at the woman beside him, who suddenly seemed young and vigorous. Perhaps a little pale, but considering her occupation, that seemed perfectly excusable. However, she had to admit that it was an extremely polite death. This was not how he had imagined it, though he had often thought of this moment.

He smiled and asked:

"So this is how it ends? With a question?"

The woman next to him smiled, shrugging.

"Or with an answer," she chuckled.

"And, depending on the answer, I get another day's reprieve.... or maybe a year."

"Let'get this straight, Professor. For reasons that should not

I've taken a liking to you. I have followed you for many years and for that reason I have decided to give you preferential treatment, which I certainly do not give to others. Those involved usually barely have time to see me, and sometimes, when I'm not too attentive, those next to them have time to see my silhouette like that, as if in a twinkle, along with my little soul collector."

She pointed to the oversized cane beside her, and when she unfolded it she saw that it could undoubtedly be mistaken, at a hasty glance, for a scythe.

"It is because of this resemblance that I am sometimes referred to as 'The Lady with the Scythe,' but I don't at all like to be called that."

She thought for a moment, her eyes lost in the distance, then looked again at the album and said:

"But let's get back to business: think a moment and answer me this.

do you think on the next page of the album?"

He took the album in his arms and stroked it gently.

"You are among the privileged few who can decide your fate by answering

simple question."

"Have others had the same treatment?" The professor asked, curious.

"There have been," the woman beside him admitted, as if silently, and busied herself with her cane, which now more than ever resembled a scythe.

"And were there any who won this contest? Did any give the right answer? I suppose for each there was another question."

"That's right... every man to his own question. And, yes, there were about three who actually managed to answer. Though they could all have answered correctly... it seems to me sometimes that people are too proud and are often driven more by pride than reason."

He put the scrap-book on the bench and turned fully toward the teacher.

"Look, I know we're not supposed to talk long, but I have so little opportunity to talk to anyone... Not that I don't want to, but in order to do so, those chosen by me must fulfill special conditions. It's about as rare as winning the lottery. To help you, I'll tell you a Zen story that I really liked. And it might help you get the right answer. There was once a scientist who was so proud that it seemed unfair that he should die like all other mortals. So when he felt his time was coming, he went ahead and made ten identical clones, so that when the angel of death came to take his soul, he found himself in big trouble, because indeed all eleven of the men were perfectly identical. But the angel of death was very experienced, and had never failed before, so he took a few steps back and said, "I declare myself defeated, good scholar. Look, I can't tell the copies from the originals, so in order not to make a mistake, I'll have to let you all live." He pretended ready to leave, but from the door he turned and looked again intently at the eleven men, then said, "And yet, with all your knowledge, you have made a great mistake. There is a difference!" "It can't be," burst out the real scientist immediately, proudly. "All ten are perfectly like me." "That's what I thought," said the angel of death and grabbed him."

The professor paused, then lifted the album between them. He looked at it for a long time, as if he could pierce through the thick sheets with his eyes, then asked:

"Am I to understand that if I discover the correct answer I shall be forgiven? This time or... for everything?"

"For everything, of course," said the angel of death. It is my gift, though I might say it is a poisoned gift.... at least in part. But you'll realize that in a few hundred years, but only if you win."

"And there is no trickery involved? The professor asked cautiously. I mean, no

not just changing the content of the photograph, like that, with a hocus-pocus?"

"Alas," said the woman in sorrow, "do you really believe me?"

"I don't know," said the professor suspiciously. I just wanted to make sure."

"No, no such cheap tricks. Look, as a token of my bona

my good faith, keep the album with you to make sure I don't touch or alter it."

The professor took the album in his arms, then looked around. Toward the end of the park came

the garbage truck with the two workers. It was going quite fast, as usual, but stopping at each trash can and carefully pouring the contents into the Swedish steel mixer.

"Perhaps you should go back to your former appearance... that is, that of a modest old lady. Now you look more like Nike, the goddess of victory, and, really, I don't know if you're going to win this time."

"With each new defeat, I've learned something. Enough to hope that I will never be defeated again," the angel of death said proudly.

The professor smiled slightly and said:

"Then perhaps you'd better fold the scythe so it looks like a cane again, and if I'm not mistaken, some wings have appeared. I'm not saying it doesn't suit you, but there's a couple of workmen coming with a garbage truck, and it wouldn't be a good idea for them to see you like this."

The angel of death glanced at the garbage men, who had in the meantime gotten quite close, but didn't bother:

"No problem, I can only be spotted by those for whom I am intended."

"Interesting," said the professor, but it was obvious that his mind was elsewhere.

He hesitated for a few minutes, as if preparing a whole plea, then asked:

"Have you heard of Schrödinger and his mental experiment with the cat?"

"Of course I have heard of Schrödinger and his cat. He tried to

to explain to me that I am merely a natural phenomenon of a quantum nature, and that people in their last moments are trying to give me an anthropoid appearance precisely to make these moments easier for them."

"Interesting," said the professor. So I take it you can follow me if I say that this album is the box in which Schrödinger wanted to conduct his mental experiment. This album is the box, I am the cat, and as long as we don't open this box," the professor pointed to the album, "I am neither alive nor dead. That is, I am alive, but in an uncertain situation that will only become certain when I open the album. A classic situation in quantum physics."

"There's nothing quantum here, Professor. And do you know why? Because in this case I am forced to become either a natural phenomenon or the poison vial in that stupid experiment. And I am the Angel of Death, nothing else."

He rose to his feet, and now he could see himself in all his splendor, his black wings spread and his scythe waving menacingly. It was a little pale in the face, but to the professor it now seemed downright beautiful.

"You know," said the professor wistfully, "as you are now furious and so beautiful, you look exactly like my first high school sweetheart. Her name was Emma. She slapped me in a club when I first tried to kiss her.

For a moment, the Angel of Death looked confused, but he came to his senses.

"Quit fawning and just say what's in the next picture. I'm beginning to lose patience. "

The professor pointed to the garbage car and to his ear, in a sign that he couldn't hear. Even though it was Swedish, the machine was loud enough that he couldn't hear very well only two meters away.

"Choose already!" the angel-woman said in exasperation.

The professor took another step and dropped the photo album into the funnel.

mixing funnel. A slightly silkier squeak than the others was heard and one of the workers said:

"Careful, Professor, or you'll get hurt."

"From now on, there's not much that can happen to me," he said, and turned back to the bench.

-The experiment was terminated because the cat enclosure was destroyed

careless handling of the staff, said the old professor, smiling. It is, after all, a simple quantum experiment. Perhaps we both should have been more careful."

Death was standing slightly perplexed on the edge of the bench, looking dumbfounded

the garbage truck, which howled more faintly as the distance increased. Then she burst into laughter, and her face became quite beautiful, so that it seemed to the professor that she looked more like Emma in her younger years than ever. Or perhaps it only seemed so, for decades had passed since then.

After a while, the young girl stopped laughing, folded her wings, folded her scythe, and transformed in front of him into Emma as she remembered she was in her early twenties.

"Look what you did to me with your experiment?" she teased the old professor, who was also transforming with her eyes into the man she had been decades before.

"I put things in order," he replied and took her by the hand and led her toward the nearby school building where he knew of a hidden little room where he could have sex with Death. Or was it Emma though?

As Death, transformed into Emma, moaned and moaned for the first time, shaken by her first orgasm, a curious transformation was taking place in the world, for since August 8, not a single human has died on Earth.