UnCatholic Conduct

by Stevie Mikayne

  “No, thanks,” Jil said. “I like to feel the wheel.”

  Jil inched her way down the waterfront road, keeping a good distance behind the car in front of her. It was an older model, and she had her doubts about its driver. Icy patches gleamed, black and hostile, and Jil shifted into four-wheel drive, frowning as she watched the road intensely.

  Jess sat quietly next to her, staring out the window at the snowdrifts building by the minute. At the first stop sign, the car in front tried to brake, and slid the full length of the intersection before recovering. Luckily, there was no opposing traffic.

  Jil stopped, carefully, and waited at the stop sign for a full minute, allowing more distance between herself and that car.

  “Good idea,” Jess murmured.

  When they’d started out only a few minutes ago, she could still see the road. Now, she could barely see past her own front bumper. “It’ll be better once we get past the lake,” Jil said, trying to comfort Jess, whose cheeks looked drawn. She continued forward, at a crawl, ignoring the blinking lights behind her. If that idiot wanted to pass, he could, but it was his funeral. Suddenly, a little Mazda came barreling up beside both her and the impatient guy behind. The driver swerved right around her car and promptly began fishtailing across the road.

  “Moron,” Jil muttered as she braked again, preparing for the consequences of his stupidity. The car behind her backed off, seeing the Mazda’s frenetic jostling.

  The Mazda spun out ten feet in front of her, and with a scrunch, its front bumper collided with a snowdrift, wedging it there. The driver got out, slammed the door, and swore. Jil didn’t stop. Neither did the car behind her. If he wanted to drive like an asshole, he could dig himself out of the drift.

  On the highway, the ploughs had created a clearer path than on the waterfront road, but it was still icy as hell, and the wind blew strong. Jil normally liked driving an SUV, but these trucks were top-heavy—not the greatest thing to drive in gale-force winds. “How far east are you?” she asked.

  “Bates Drive.”

  Jil exhaled slowly. That was at least twenty kilometers. Probably seven more exits after her own. Then she’d have to double back in this.

  Minutes in, freezing rain began to pound the windshield, thicker and heavier than any Jil had ever seen. “What the hell is with this?” She struggled to see the white lines. Cars and tow trucks with flashing lights punctuated the highway lanes like Christmas decorations set out for the occasion.

  Suddenly, the traffic stopped dead. Jil saw the brake lights ahead of her just in time to come to a complete stop—praying the car behind her could do the same. She noticed it was the same car that had been behind her at the waterfront. As the traffic ahead inched forward, she crawled over to the next lane—closer to the off-ramp. The car behind her did not move up to take her place. He moved over too.

  A police officer rapped on the passenger side window. Jess lowered the glass.

  “Road’s closed up ahead,” he said. “Had a bad accident. We’re redirecting traffic off the highway. Are you ladies close to home?”

  “I am,” Jil replied. “She’s not. We still have to get to Bates.”

  The police officer shook his head. “I’d get inside if I were you. Storm watch is in full swing, and this freezing rain is supposed to continue for the next three hours. Combined with the snow we’ve already got, driving’s getting pretty dangerous out there.”

  “Where does the road reopen?” Jil asked.

  “Not until Bay Street.” A three-exit closure. Must have been some accident.

  “Oh—here you go. Your lane’s next, ladies. Keep to the right and follow the car in front.”

  Jil inched her car slowly down the off-ramp. The unfortunate thing about Rockford was the dearth of alternative routes. The main six-lane highway was complemented by three or four major streets, and a whole slew of side streets, but very few connected in any logical grid pattern—mostly due to the lake—and it made traveling from one end of the city to another a bit of a problem.

  “Sorry,” Jess muttered, looking out at the weather. “You can just drop me off at the nearest hotel, and I’ll take a cab back to the SPCA tomorrow to pick up my car.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing you lent it to Henri,” Jil said. “He’d never get into work tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. And it’s a good thing it’s Saturday, and I have all day to try to get downtown in the mess this is going to make.”

  “Now, now…charity begins at home,” Jil teased her.

  Jess smiled.

  “I have an extra bedroom. Why don’t you come home with me?”

  “But I don’t have anything with me,” Jess said.

  “Um, last I checked, hotels didn’t provide PJs either.”

  Jess shook her head and sighed. “I don’t think…I’m not prepared for…”

  “What? Weather in Eastern Ontario?”

  “No. Being…without…you know…”

  “Control?” Jil ventured.

  “Well, I was going to say my stuff.”

  “You like structure. I get it. But what else are you going to do? I’m pretty sure I can find you something to wear. I might even have an extra toothbrush that I haven’t used. Possibly some slippers, though you’d be pushing it.”

  Jess shook her head.

  Jil turned back to the road, though she’d barely moved, and guided the car down the first side street that came available. As she neared the end of the road, she looked in her rearview mirror to see the same car following her. Now she knew she wasn’t being paranoid. Her fingers tensing on the wheel, she sped up as the car behind her sped up. She wasn’t going to be run off the road by this ass-hat in his little car. She had a truck for a reason. Shifting into higher gear, and thankful for her heavy-duty snow tires, she wound through snow-covered roads, crunching through them like they were gravel. If Jess noticed a change, she didn’t comment.

  The car behind swished and swerved, but kept pace with her, until one particularly snowy road slowed him down a few yards. Jil brought the truck out to a main road—a road without lights—and waited only a few seconds before darting across in the first available pocket of space. Cars, bumper to bumper, immediately closed the gap. Right away, Jil turned down a short road, and down another one, doubling back on where she’d just come from.

  “Miss a turn?” Jess asked.

  “Forgot I needed gas,” Jil replied. She still had half a tank. She found a gas station anyway and pulled in, glad for a moment’s rest, and for the bright light of the station. Her heart was beating quickly, and she felt perspiration creeping down her shirt, under the heaviness of her woolen coat. She brushed her hair away from her face, noticing—at this rather inopportune time—that the weather had made it genuinely curly. For once. She scanned the streets—what she could see of them—and took a look in the backseat of the car, for safe measure. It was empty.

  While she pumped, she took out her phone. “Padraig, it’s me,” she whispered. “Someone’s tailing me.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Four-door sedan. Dark blue. Ford.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I pulled into a service station a few blocks away from the loft.”

  “What are you doing out in this weather?”

  “I’m heading home now.”

  “See that you do. And try to lose the tail before you get there. I don’t like the idea of someone following you to your front door.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Chet’s not far from where you are. Park inside tonight, and I’ll get him to sit on your street and keep watch for a few hours.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  To take a little more time, Jil squeegeed the windshield and mirrors, and added some gas line antifreeze. Even though you’re supposed to do it before you pump the gas, she thought, hoping Jess wouldn’t notice. She did.

  “Don’t you usually put that in first?” she asked.

  “Yeah. You’re s
upposed to. I forgot it,” Jil said, sliding back into the car.

  “Distracted?”

  Jil didn’t answer, just started the engine. She was a whole lot more distracted when, as she pulled out of the gas station, she felt Jess’s hand slipping naturally, warmly, into her own. “You’re freezing,” she whispered.

  “Wind chill.”

  “You should wear gloves.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why? You like the dangerous possibility of having your hand freeze to the gas pump?”

  Jil grinned. At the stoplight, while the light was interminably red, she kept her eyes very firmly on the road in front of her, but found it impossible not to be drawn into Jess—the very essence of her, so close and so warm in the car beside her. She smelled of lilac and vanilla, and her hand, so delicate and so strong, was resting comfortably there, in Jil’s own, which was growing less freezing by the minute.

  The light stayed red, and Jess stayed close.

  “Julia,” she whispered.

  Jil turned, her head bowed low, that old unwelcome pricking at the back of her eyes thwarting her efforts to keep her face totally neutral. Jess squeezed her hand lightly and left it there.

  Jil didn’t pull away.

  The light turned.

  “Green light,” Jess said and Jil pulled forward again.

  On her own street, the snow hadn’t been plowed, but a car had already come down this way, its tracks making a nice following point for Jil’s truck. She crunched through the ice and into the narrow passage to the underground parking garage.

  She didn’t need to look twice to know that Chet was parked in a car across the street. But still, her heart rate could not decelerate to normal.

  “It’s nice and warm in here.” Jess smiled as she performed the good old Canadian triple-stomp onto the front mat.

  “Yeah. Perks of being on the top floor. Do you want something to drink?”

  “Um, okay. Maybe some tea.”

  “Herbal?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Jil hung up their coats on the antique coat rack Elise had given her, and stood their boots on the mat by the door to dry. Not something she would normally do, but she wasn’t quite sure where to put herself. Jess, on the other hand, wandered through the open-concept space into the kitchen.

  Jil realized that her chart and notebook were on the living room table. Quickly, she brushed by Jess and veered left, piling the compromising materials together and pushing them far under the couch.

  “Hiding your underwear?” Jess called from behind the butcher block island.

  Jil laughed nervously. “Yeah, I’m not quite ready to show you all my pretty little thongs.”

  Jess stood in the doorway and watched as Jil folded a quilt.

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit late for housekeeping?” she said. “I’ve seen your office at school, remember?”

  She smiled. “Yeah, well, I’ve been a bit busy.”

  In truth, the house was probably the cleanest it had been since she’d moved in. With her cleansing rampage after Tara left, and the fact that she was hardly ever home to befoul the place, there was hardly even a speck of dust.

  “You’re neater than I expected, given your work environment.”

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Spot check,” Jess replied, unfazed, as she tucked her feet up underneath her on Jil’s dark suede couch. “I check everything out from the doorway once a week. When things get out of hand, you’ll find a blue slip of paper in your mailbox with a friendly reminder to ‘keep the workspace clean.’”

  Jil sat next to her, leaning on the opposite armrest. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course,” Jess replied. And she wasn’t kidding. “I don’t like a slovenly school. We’re professionals.”

  “How come I’ve never got a blue slip?”

  “Just lucky, I guess. You’re borderline.”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  “I expect you will.”

  They laughed softly. “I forgot to put your kettle on,” Jil said, rising to go.

  Jess laid a hand on her arm. “It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t need tea anyway.”

  “Oh, wait.” Jil took a remote control from the coffee table and pressed the big red button. A whooshing sound made Jess jump, and a fire roared in the gas fireplace.

  “Nice!”

  “Enjoy it for a sec. I have to go make up your room.”

  She bent down behind the couch and extracted her chart and notebook, which she carried upstairs to her office in the loft.

  In three clicks, she finished the e-mail she had been composing earlier—the latest status report on the St. Marguerite’s staff. Next to Jess’s name, she changed the status from Not Yet Investigated to Investigated: No Violations to Report.

  She filled in details for three other staff members and hit send. With any luck, they wouldn’t ask her to dig deeper. And if they did, well, she’d have to figure it out then.

  Just as she was turning off her computer, something bleeped. A message from FaithConnects. She clicked on it and the picture of a good-looking teenage boy smiled at her from the screen.

  GunSlinger: Hi AlleyCat. Welcome to the fold.

  She stared at it for a moment, trying to place the face, but she didn’t recognize him.

  It would have to wait until later.

  Quietly, she locked her office door and opened the door to the guest room. The bed was made, the sheets were clean, and spare towels were tucked into the closet. She laid them out on the bed and dug around on the shelves for a packaged toothbrush. Bingo.

  When she returned to the main level, she sat back down slowly and pulled a brown knit blanket off the back of the couch, opening it to share with Jess, who helped her arrange it.

  “Soft,” she remarked, fingering the material gently.

  “My mother made it. She knit it from this yarn with a weird name.”

  “Angora?”

  “Yeah! How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “Liar. Do you have a closet hobby besides calculus you’d like to share?”

  “Okay, you’ll think I’m a total loser, but yes, I can knit. I also play the bass.”

  “The bass guitar?”

  “No. The giant bass that looks like an overgrown cello. And that’s all I’m telling you. I’m finished with the embarrassing secrets.”

  “That’s not embarrassing.”

  Jess just smiled and looked down at her hands, still fingering the delicate fabric. The silence stretched on, comfortably, as Jess took Jil’s hands again, and ran her thumb lightly over her cold knuckles. She tilted her head and leaned forward.

  Fuck.

  Jil couldn’t refuse her. Instead, she closed her eyes and met her halfway, kissing gently, running her fingers through Jess’s short hair, stroking her cheek as her lips sought and pressed and found the right place to be. Right. Her lips and her heart knew what to do, even if she’d been battered and bruised and unsure before. She purposely did not think of the investigation or how she was going to explain this to Padraig. She just closed her eyes and jumped.

  Jess kissed her back, and she didn’t kiss gently. She kissed deeply and passionately and sweetly. “Are you sure?” she whispered.

  “It’s you I’m more worried about.”

  “I guess some things are worth going to hell for,” Jess said ruefully.

  “Oh, I don’t think you’re going to hell.”

  “Well, I guess that depends on what we’re going to do next.”

  For a moment, Jil hesitated. She wanted so badly to tell Jess everything—to open the closet on all the lies and all the secrets. But she couldn’t. If she did, she wouldn’t have a job, and she wouldn’t have Jess.

  She didn’t have to think about it long anyway, because Jessica’s fingers were slowly undoing the buttons on her blouse, and she was trying to quell the shivers. Jess’s fingers brushed slowly against Jil’s skin, and rose goose bumps
across her breasts.

  “Cold?” she asked, drawing Jil’s shirt closed again.

  Jil shook her head. “No.”

  They undressed each other piece by piece, kissing and exploring. “You’re, um, more gifted than I thought,” Jil remarked.

  Jess laughed. She shook her head, and guided Jil’s mouth to her breast, her bare pink nipple standing expectantly, waiting for the warmth of lips to embrace it. She gasped when Jil’s tongue made contact with her delicate skin, and she ran her hands over her bare back and shoulders, lightly stroking her with three fingertips.

  Jess’s nipples stood out hard, and she pulled Jil up to her mouth instead. She slid into her lap, straddling her as she kissed down her neck, pushing her into the arm of the couch.

  Jil closed her eyes, letting Jess explore her, not minding that she lay naked under the blanket while Jess lay topless beside her.

  “It’s been a while,” Jess whispered. “I hope I don’t disappoint you.”

  Jil found it hard to talk as Jess’s fingers traced a line down her chest and stopped. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

  Jess touched her lightly, then more firmly, across her chest and waist, and down her thighs.

  Jil lay on her back, propped up on one pillow while Jess’s fingers went to places she’d only dreamed they could go.

  She probed gently, and then more insistently, and Jil let her legs come apart. Jess touched the soft skin of her inner thigh, and worked her way gently inward. When she made contact with the slick wetness there, Jil moaned and closed her eyes as her clit throbbed under Jess’s soft stroking.

  “Is it okay?”

  “God yes.” She hadn’t felt so aroused in years. Jess circled her gently, her mouth and fingers touching every part of her, lighting her skin on a slow, smoldering fire.

  Then her mouth was back on Jil’s mouth, her fingers in one hot place between her legs, propelling her toward the cliff edge.

  *

  For a moment, they lay in a tangle of limbs, with the blanket twisted between them.

  When Jil opened her eyes, Jess was smiling. “Oh, you think you’re so smug? Let me see how you like it.”

  Jess laughed as Jil pulled her into a straddling position over her hips, naked and exposed. “Are your curtains closed?” she asked, looking over her shoulder to make sure.