Sinning Again

by Heidi Lowe

  But even their embrace was tainted.

  The sharp smell of paint couldn't mask the smell of betrayal. And betrayal had a distinct odor this time. She couldn't hold her for long, and let go moments later, unable to look at her. Jean was never the first to pull away – but she couldn't bear it. This was the third time she'd smelled that grotesque scent. There would be more, she was certain of that.

  "Are you staying for dinner?" she asked. Dinner, in a sense, was a euphemism for sex, seeing as that was what usually transpired after Lissa had eaten.

  "Not tonight. Tomorrow, maybe." She put on her jacket. A leather number, an aviator-style monstrosity with fake fur around the collar. Something that she'd never seen her wear before. A new jacket to go with a new attitude. She would have appreciated it more if she knew the whole look didn't belong to someone else.

  "Okay, honey. See you tomorrow." They kissed, but it felt hollow. Jean suspected this was all in her head, that the kiss was no different from the hundreds that had come before it. That betrayal distorted everything.

  As she opened the door for her, Robyn was just stepping out of her car. Her phone pressed to her ear, her laugh echoed across the drive. It was genuine, Jean knew it. Up until a few weeks ago, she'd only ever heard Robyn laugh like that out of spite, at someone's downfall. But she'd been hearing this a lot lately. And it only exacerbated her growing misery.

  The two most important women in her life passed each other, and for the first time, didn't exchange any nasty words. She should have been happy to see them being civil, but she didn't like what it meant. It meant they were both moving on – that she wasn't the center of their universe anymore. A hard pill to swallow.

  "I'll see you tomorrow, Nadine. Oh, and don't forget to DVR the show tonight. It's so much funnier watching it with someone else." Robyn's smile remained on her face as she rung off and slipped her cell into her purse. It was only when she noticed her boss's longing, wistful look at her departing lover that the smile faded. More out of respect than because she was done with it.

  "What has she done this time?"

  Jean shook out of her reverie, and let Robyn inside.

  "She still hasn't come clean?" Robyn added.

  Jean shook her head, wearing an agonizing expression, as though she had been physically stabbed in the back. The feeling came as close to that as anything could.

  "She looks right at me and lies. Even though I've seen the damn painting, even though I can smell the filthy dog on her!" With one swoop of the hand, she knocked over the coat stand. When Robyn went to pick it up, she shouted, "Just leave it."

  "Fine." Robyn stared at her, concerned, but also furious. Furious that Jean had allowed the little hussy to unravel her. She couldn't make her see sense when it came to Lissa, though she'd been trying for a long time. "You need to keep it together, Jean. This isn't good for anyone."

  "Don't tell me what I need." If there had been another coat stand, it would have gone down in her rage, too. "Why don't you tell me to hunt that piece of crap down that she's hanging around with, and tear her face off? Huh? Tell me to do that."

  "What will that solve? If she wants to be with her, attacking a Were isn't going to do anything but bring trouble to your door. They're a protected class, Jean. And you can't just go around killing people because your girlfriend is sleeping with them."

  To hear it said by another made the possibility all too real. While she had no proof that Lissa had been unfaithful, her hope was fading fast. She desperately wanted to believe that it wasn't in her.

  "How could she do this? Go this far? Does she hate me that much?"

  "This is what girls like her always do. You were new and dangerous once; now she's moved on to something else, something newer, in search of bigger thrills." Robyn could never allow for another explanation. She saw the worst in people when everyone else wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.

  "I can't accept that. Why does she still come here, why do we still make love? Why does she tell me she loves me?" The anger gradually transformed into anguish, despite her best efforts to hold on to the former. Being angry distracted her from her sorrow.

  Robyn shrugged. "Maybe in her own messed up way she does love you. I don't know." For those words to come from her own mouth demonstrated how much she'd progressed. But also what her state of mind was. Unrequited love had forever been her song, until recently. Her new-found infatuation with Nadine had changed her perspective. Now she saw that love had many faces, came in all shapes and sizes, and was never black and white. The romantic in her – the part she'd only just tapped into – wanted to give Jean hope. Even if it did shine a positive light on Lissa.

  "What do you propose I do?"

  Robyn sighed. "If she really loves you, she'll come back to you. But there's no reason why you shouldn't let her work for your love. Don't make it so easy for her to come and go. Don't show her you care."

  "I don't want to do that to her; I don't want to play games."

  "It's the only thing someone like Lissa will respond to. If she thinks you don't care what she does, she'll come running back."

  Jean contemplated this for a moment, and it didn't sit right with her. She was too old to play silly games, especially with the woman she loved. But Robyn was right about one thing: if Lissa really did love her as much as she claimed, if they were meant to be together, she would find her own way back.

  If. If. If. There was a lot riding on ifs.

  "I'm happy for you, I truly am," she said after a while, and so randomly that Robyn was taken aback.

  "For what?"

  Jean forced a smile. "Nadine's a wonderful woman. I'm glad you've found each other."

  Robyn's cheeks grew scarlet. "We're just...it's not...I don't know if that's what she wants from me. We've been spending a lot of time together, but she's hard to read."

  Jean squeezed her arm affectionately. "I was skeptical myself in the beginning. But I think she likes you."

  A little smile crept to Robyn's lips, disappeared, then returned, as she allowed herself to dream of a future beside someone who could actually return her love. It made her dizzy with delirium.

  Everything around Jean was changing, and she could do nothing to stop it.

  TWENTY

  I shook the can of air freshener and sprayed it generously in a circle all around my little apartment. I didn't stop until the fumes were choking me, and the room was momentarily covered in a cloud of blossomy freshness.

  I stuffed the black bag of dirty laundry into a corner, tied it tightly. I laid new sheets. Not because I planned on sharing my mattress with her, beyond just sitting on it. Then I worried that the change of sheets would send the wrong message. Not having furniture was such a drag sometimes.

  The intercom went off at fifteen minutes past the hour we'd agreed, but I was used to that by now: her not turning up on time, keeping me waiting just to make some kind of statement about how cool she was.

  I buzzed her up then made a mad dash for the chips in the cupboard, and the dip in the refrigerator. I emptied the former hastily and messily into a bowl. We were going to order Indian or something, so these were just an easy snack.

  "Hey," she said when I opened the door. She kissed me on the cheek, smelling of leather and pine. I kinda loved that leathery smell now. It had also become my new scent, thanks to the jacket she'd helped me pick out. "I brought beer." She held up the brown bag, that looked and sounded like she'd come here with half a liquor store. How much did she plan on drinking tonight? Didn't she think she would have to ride home afterward?

  She shrugged off her jacket and dropped it to the floor beside her helmet.

  "So, I borrowed an old TV/DVD player from my neighbor for tonight's entertainment." I pointed to the sad little machine that had seen better days, all of which were about a million years ago.

  She snorted. "Do people still watch DVDs? I thought we were just going to browse Netflix for something."

  "My laptop's been playing up. I think
there's something wrong with the registry. So we'll have to go full caveman and use this primitive machinery," I said with a smile.

  "Cool. Whatever. What DVDs do you have?"

  I picked up the three that my neighbor had loaned me. "There's a choice of three. Dirty Harry. Million Dollar Baby...and Gran Torino."

  "Do you maybe have anything that doesn't star Clint Eastwood?"

  Yikes, I hadn't even noticed. The neighbor must have had a woman boner for Mr. Eastwood.

  "This is all I've got, sorry."

  We settled on Gran Torino as our first pick, and got comfortable on the mattress. Not once did my insecurity about my apartment come into play with her. Not just because, on first sight, she'd called it "a neat little cubbyhole", which I took as a compliment, but she seemed so unfazed by the area, or the people in it. I didn't know much about her family situation – well, besides the whole Kumbaya-we're-all-related-let's-sleep-together weirdness. But it seemed like she was grounded in the real world. Down to Earth. Not a doctor, nor a member of the English aristocracy who had money pouring out of her ears. In other words, she was nothing like Jean.

  As we lay on our stomachs, staring at the small screen and listening to the foul language, my mind wandered to thoughts of Jean. As it often did when I was with Dallas. Just this innocent evening in front of the box would have been met with disapproval. And she probably never would have allowed me to explain myself, to tell her why these rendezvouses were so important to me. She would just see a werewolf, the werewolf, and lose her shit. That was why I could never tell her.

  Dallas sat up suddenly. "You know what this party needs?" We were about halfway through the movie. She crawled over to her jacket, fumbled around in the pockets, then crawled back, looking like the cat that caught the cream.

  "What's that?" I asked, eying the little plastic bag in her hand suspiciously.

  She removed a fat joint, put it in her mouth, lit it with a colorful lighter, then took a long drag. Even if I'd been naive enough to think it was just a normal cigarette, there was no hiding that smell. It had always been foul to me. Tonight was no different.

  "Why did you bring that here?" I asked, fanning smoke out of my face. "I don't smoke that stuff. I've tried it once, and I said I'd never do it again."

  "You need to let loose a bit more, Liz. Let your hair down, you know."

  My hair was already down...

  I shook my head when she offered me some. "That stuff doesn't agree with me. I get super paranoid, thinking I'm being watched."

  "Not with this strain. It's not like some of that street crap that's been diluted. This is home-grown, the purest kind. Here, try some." She pushed it in my face again, eyes wide and keen for me to break the law, and worst of all, to do so in my own home.

  I don't know what compelled me to take it from her, nor what I was thinking when I stuck it in my mouth and inhaled some of the rancid fumes. But it made me feel adventurous, intrepid. Not the pot itself, just the act of smoking it. Then before I knew it, one drag became two, then three, then four. Until, laughing, she snatched it from me.

  "Whoa, leave some for me, all right."

  It didn't take long for the drug's effects to kick in, and I felt like I was floating. Levitating. My body felt as light as the air. And as we continued passing the joint between us, watching Clint Eastwood kick ass had never been funnier. Soon I was laughing at everything: the bloodshed; the accents of some of the characters; Dallas's own laughter. I even laughed when Dallas kissed me and tried to lay me down and pull my T-shirt off. An attempt which failed miserably, because even as high as a kite, I knew I didn't want her like that.

  None of it would have been funny without the weed. I began to wonder if I would ever stop laughing. My stomach hurt, my mouth ached, my throat became sore. This was definitely a different strain to Petr's stuff, but in its own way it was worse.

  "Water," I said after a while, stumbled to my feet, and staggered to the kitchen sink. "I need water." I twisted the faucet on and let it run, before dipping my head in the sink and opening my mouth around the nozzle. It was like I was watching myself do these crazy things, and couldn't stop myself.

  "You'll finish all the water if you do that," Dallas snickered in the background.

  Perhaps if I'd managed an eighth drag I would have been oblivious to the fact that she was talking nonsense. But I continued drinking from the tap, like a dog, until I couldn't take any more, then faltered back to the mattress and collapsed on it. It didn't take long for that feeling of weighing nothing to return.

  I just lay there, ignoring the world around me, ignoring Dallas, who'd let the joint burn out and hadn't bothered to relight it. Then she lay beside me, and we stared up at the ceiling, saying and doing nothing, every now and then giggling about something unsaid.

  We fell asleep like that.

  Dallas shook me awake.

  "Huh?" I blinked her into view. She'd already put on her jacket and boots. "W–what's going on?"

  "I'm heading out."

  "What time is it?"

  She checked her phone. "A little after eleven."

  "In the morning?"

  She laughed. "No, silly. We weren't sleeping that long."

  I still felt stoned. Not overcome with the urge to laugh, but still light-headed; still not myself.

  "All right, let me walk you out."

  "You don't have to."

  I was already getting up, reaching for my sneakers. "I'm starving. Aren't you? We didn't even get to order dinner."

  "I'll grab something on the way home." I heard her chuckle, and realized she was watching me attempt to tie my laces. My coordination was way off. "You should stay, Liz, seriously. I'm not going to get lost on the way down."

  "It's probably for the best," I admitted. "But how are you so sober?"

  "Because I'm not a beginner. We didn't even manage half of the joint. I'll save it for next time, huh?"

  I shook my head, which felt as though it would fly off my neck! "No way. I'm out, for good. That stuff is lethal. Never, ever again." I didn't care what strain it was or wasn't, or where it was grown, my pot-smoking days were over.

  "What a shame. You're so funny when you're high."

  I opened the door for her. And then we both froze. That was the point when that breezy, trance-like feeling of floating on a cloud ended, and I came crashing back to Earth. Because seeing my girlfriend standing right in front of me while I said goodbye to the woman I'd been seeing behind her back, was enough to ground anyone.

  "Fuck," I mumbled to myself.

  It happened just as it had at the restaurant, only this time I was right up close to see the frightening transformation with terrifying clarity. She'd once looked so serene, so regal in her baby-blue cashmere sweater and black pants, ebony hair falling past her pert breasts. But now it was like looking into a pit of flames, as Jean's pupils blackened, and around them the whites filled with blood. Her fangs sprung out, sharp and pointy, and thirsting for blood. This time, I feared it would be for my own.

  But something else was happening beside me, something I hadn't noticed the first time round, because I'd been too focused on Jean. There was a growling sound coming from Dallas. And when I turned to look at her, into her eyes, I saw that the color had changed completely. Once a striking blue-gray, now they'd took on the hue of wolf eyes – a yellowy-gold. Her lip had curled up slightly at one corner.

  "If you value your worthless life at all, you'll leave this place and never come back," Jean boomed. I felt the darkness in her voice through my body. It was hard to believe it came from her, from the woman I loved.

  "You're the only one who wants that, vampire bitch. Liz wants me to stick around."

  "Lissa! Her name's Lissa," Jean snarled, baring her fangs. "And there's only one reason why you're still alive now. I don't want to rip you to shreds in front of her. But I will, if you make me."

  "No one's ripping anyone to shreds," I said. It could have been the pot in my system making me courageou
s, or perhaps I was sick of these women fighting over me, making threats. However, just because I managed to find a voice, didn't mean I wasn't crapping my pants.

  "You don't scare us, you know. You can only walk during the night. You can't sleep with one eye open. Who knows what could happen during the day?"

  I didn't like the sound of that. With all the platting attacks going on in the city, Jean already had enough to worry about.

  She stepped closer, so that only a few inches separated the two of them. "Is that a threat, dog?"

  "No, just some friendly advice for you to watch your back."

  "Stop it! Please, just stop. Both of you. Dallas, you should go."

  "You sure you don't want me to stay? These bloodsuckers are dangerous, Liz." She put stress on my name, and never took her eyes off Jean.

  "Yes, I'll be fine. Please, just...go."

  Jean didn't immediately step out of the way, and Dallas didn't immediately move. Whatever natural instincts had been activated upon seeing each other had obviously made it difficult for them to stand down. But she did step aside, and Dallas did eventually walk out.

  "I'll see you soon, Liz. And maybe you, too." She winked at Jean with a wicked smirk, then disappeared down the stairs, whistling as she went.

  "Before you say anything," I started, when Jean had slammed the door shut behind us, "this isn't what it looks like." She hadn't turned around to face me, was still facing the door. I heard her heavy breathing, saw her shoulders rising and falling.

  "How could you?" was all she said, in a low, pained voice.

  "I didn't, if that's what you're implying–"

  She cut me off. "I kept saying to myself, "No, Lissa wouldn't do this. Not my Lissa. Not the person I fell in love with. And not with a wolf."

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, I haven't done anything–"

  "But then I remembered how eager you were to sleep with me when you were still with Hilarie. Foolishly, I thought we were different."