"Good. It remains to evaluate the third and final method I have been restructuring," she commented, adopting the analytical countenance of a scientist whose results have yielded a margin of error, rather than manifesting emotional frustration.
I nodded, giving her the green light to proceed while I treated the aftermath of the previous moment. Helena floated at ground level until locating a specific coordinate and, with a sudden, vertical movement, executed a leap, introducing herself directly beneath the cemetery earth.
The next second, the ground experienced a localized tremor. A skeletal hand broke through the surface layer, clawing its way through the clumps of dead earth. From the subsoil emerged a corpse in the middle of a process of anatomical restructuring—a skeleton whose biological profiles were being forced to regenerate bundles of muscle fibers and tendons through the sorceress's will.
Erected before me was an extremely precarious version of a zombie, though aesthetically optimized to avoid the exposure of visible entrails or tissue in a state of decay. The silhouette presented an arched spine due to the dead weight of the skull, severely atrophied musculature, a thinness index bordering on extreme anorexia, and dehydrated lips that retracted to reveal the teeth. The hair looked damaged, matted by the sepulcher mud. It was the perfect hybrid between a zombie and a desert-desiccated corpse. It also had some clothes... or an attempt at them; they were simply rags that hadn't fully formed, as if the magic had run out.
"Well then... does this come closer to your preferences? It is the highest degree of physical density I have managed to consolidate, but it demands the sacrifice of a corpse," Helena commented, articulating the words with a sibilant, parched voice that denoted the absolute absence of fluids or moisture in her vocal cords.
I sat up slightly on the grass to evaluate the panorama. The bust was practically nonexistent, but the consistency of the flesh denoted firmness; it possessed a pale, jaundiced hue, but was exempt from active putrefaction... though rigor mortis was an evident variable in the rigidity of its joints. As for genitals... it was present and functional in terms of orifices, although it was a fact that it would lack any lubrication or pleasant moisture. But the real dilemma was something else.
"It's great, Helena... But... the smell..." I commented, covering my nostrils with two fingers, yet unable to eradicate a wide smile from my face, fascinated by the levels of bizarreness and amusement my life possessed.
Despite the obvious limitations, I decided not to dismiss Helena's effort. After all, my track record included considerably more disturbing things; adding coitus with a zombie shell to my logbook of experiences was not going to break my moral compass, and it certainly constituted another exotic achievement acquired for the collection.
The process did not exactly classify as an idyllic experience. Just as I had foreseen, the internal channels lacked proper thermoregulation, oscillating between a scratchy dryness and a somewhat unpleasant condensation moisture. For her part, Helena had not yet cracked the engineering necessary to endow this avatar with complex sensory receptors, so the strictly physical pleasure was entirely on my end. She, however, considered herself satisfied by absorbing the intellectual and emotional delight that this partial success and our union conferred upon her.
I kept her pinned against the gnarled trunk of the willow, holding one of her lower limbs over my shoulder: a leg of almost skeletal consistency, barely covered by a thin, dry layer of epidermis. A bit of lubricant would have significantly optimized things, but given my experimental temperament and her analytical obsession with gathering field data under pure conditions, we ended up executing the maneuver dry, just as it presented itself.
Helena attempted to modulate a series of conceptual moans, seeking to transcend the simple dry grunts that the impact of my body provoked in the corpse's fragile framework. Surprisingly, although this shell lacked the density of her legendary spectral manifestation, it demonstrated a structural resistance equivalent to that of an average human organism, albeit distributed irregularly due to the anomalies of necrosis. The grip of her rigid muscle bundles transmitted a highly bizarre sensation, and the contact of her freezing phalanges against the skin of my neck sent more than one involuntary shiver down my spine.
All in all, the trial went smoothly. Physically divergent, but the intimacy of the Ravenclaw date remained intact. We avoided kissing for elementary technical reasons: the retraction of the tissues prevented her from shaping actual lips, and the interior of her oral cavity carried sediments of sepulcher dirt with a distinct crypt aftertaste. Despite those details... could it be cataloged as a romantic moment in our own way? Definitely.
In the end, bypassing the friction of a narrow, rough, and apparently fragile channel, I ended up releasing my load directly into the depths of her dying sex. There was no uterus inside her—everything was withered, which represented a relief; with how strange my offspring were, the last thing I needed was a lineage of undead heirs. Had gestation been possible under those conditions, it would have ended up turning Lavender's twisted fantasies into a literal prophecy.
We briefly evaluated the possibility of a second round, considering that this was our baptism of fire on the plane of real physical interaction; however, we opted to end the session at that point. The "prototype" demanded severe upgrades. Helena commanded unquestionable erudition, but this methodology was barely beginning to be investigated. Given the proper margin of time, her genius would polish it until every imperfection was eradicated. This had been nothing more than an initial testing.
We separated and, while I was using some magical fluids to sanitize the residues of dirt and remnants of necrotic tissue from my member, Helena immediately adopted her researcher posture, examining the condition of the corpse and the consequences of our act, determining with precision what to optimize for the next encounter.
"Was it to your liking?" she inquired, although the question constituted a mere formality of courtesy; she was fully aware of the experience for both of us.
"Yes... it was certainly something different, but it felt strange. I think we could repeat it... but only when I manage to forget the disgust," I replied with absolute frankness. "Though, who knows... Perhaps you've just awakened an unprecedented fetish in me. Let the maidens of the afterlife beware from this day on," I concluded jokingly.
Helena attempted to roll her eyes in response to my cynicism; however, the zombie shell carried severe motor limitations and one of her eyeballs became temporarily jammed in the upper socket.
"A technical question... Who exactly did I just fuck? Did the receptacle correspond to a woman? Because under no circumstances would I tolerate discovering that you used a man's corpse for the experiment. That really would cross the boundaries of my indulgence," I commented, feigning melodramatic mortification.
"It is irrelevant. The fact that I employ a specimen from the cemetery does not imply that you are possessing the identity of that corpse," she explained, shaking her head while making the creature's joints crack, worn out after the effort of the act. "The need for a biological substrate is strictly for channeling the essence of death, operating as a focus for partial undead resurrection. The original tissue is entirely consumed during the process, while my magic recreates a body from scratch. In short: you have just copulated with a physiognomy that is authentically mine... though, due to the current precarious development of this counter-spell, the final design turned out somewhat generic."
"Oh... Excellent. So, in the short term, I will enjoy the privilege of getting intimate with a version of you that is legitimately of flesh and bone," I replied mockingly. "It would only remain for me to have sex in your dreams to be able to boast of having fucked you in body, mind, and soul."
"Technically correct," she agreed, sketching what I intuied was a smile; the rigidity of the cadaveric face prevented a clear reading of her features. Immediately afterward, adopting a posture of evident mischief, she added: "Before I proceed to dissolve this avatar... would you be interested in me giving you a blowjob?" she insinuated, tracing a gesture with her hand in front of her exposed teeth.
A legitimate shiver ran down my spine. I was not only perturbed by the absolute lack of a functional tongue or her near-null lips in this prototype; the simple sight of those yellowish teeth, covered in mud and worthy of a horror movie production, crushed any shred of confidence in my mind.
"No, I thank you for the deference, but I prefer to decline. I am a gentleman of firm moral principles; such practices border on the obscene by my standards," I lied, imbuing my words with theatrical drama.
Helena merely shook her head at my performance. Instantly, her spectral silhouette emerged from the shell, floating in the air with her habitual weightlessness, while the zombie's body collapsed onto the grass. The necrotic matter began to transmute into a dense, blackish ash at an incredible speed; in a matter of seconds, the bone fragments and shreds of putrid fabric disintegrated until being absorbed by the fief's earth.
"You are definitely still infinitely sexier like this," I declared, contemplating her phantasmal physiognomy, enhanced by the period dress and that aura of intellectual melancholy.
"Give me time," she sentenced with poise, fully confident in her ability to optimize the reanimation counter-spell. The longing to restore her life in a normal fashion had mitigated considerably after her exhaustive studies of applied necromancy, though it remained cataloged as a pending matter on her personal agenda.
"Very well, I'm heading out... Let me know if you need anything. I'm needed on other fronts," I said goodbye, preparing to activate the translocation.
"Hmm... The usual. Men get what they want and simply leave..." she joked, crossing her arms. "A woman can't show signs of reviving before they come for her putrid body and leave her withered heart broken in pieces... all of you are the same, Mother was right."
I was the one who rolled my eyes on this occasion, though I couldn't suppress a laugh at the prospect of this incipient role-playing. My mind even began to sketch future erotic scenarios now that Helena was mastering the zombie aspect... though that creative labor should be delegated directly to Lavender; with absolute certainty, she possessed the ideal profile to operate as my adult content scriptwriter in the coming years.
"See you, Lena."
"See you soon, Red." The lady turned in the air, heading back toward the facilities of her runic laboratory.
"Ah! By the way..." I stopped abruptly in my tracks, pinning her with a look heavy with serious warning. "Under no circumstances are you to leak a single detail of what we just did here. You have no idea the complexity it will involve for me to reintroduce my penis into the others if they happen to find out I've been having sex with a corpse," I added, nodding with wide eyes, anticipating the disaster and imagining the logical reaction of each of my women.
"All right... I will evaluate whether I decide to keep the secret," she replied with a tone laden with intellectual malice before floating away into the distance, on her way to her laboratory. She now had her own wizard's tower in this dying wasteland.
And so we parted. My agenda remained saturated with matters to finish, but I could not deny that that date with my favorite ghost had constituted an excellent and highly comforting interlude from my activities for my real body.