Visiting Hours

by Tagan Shepard

  Jess waved her hand and took another drink. “Nothing big, just…You know, I don’t really want to talk about it. Tell me about your day instead.”

  “Okay.” Alison let the bottle hang from the end of her fingers, swinging in the air between them. “Let’s see, my morning class was non-majors, and they actually seem to be interested. I just can’t quite maintain a good balance between lecture and discussion with them. It’s like they think they signed up for one of those intro level classes with a few hundred students in a big, theater-style lecture hall. The ones where the teacher drones on endlessly with a slide show in the background. They just want to sit back and take notes, but that’s not how my classes are.”

  “Really? I thought most history classes were like that. I remember having to take one of those my freshman year.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “It was at eight a.m. and I was allowed processed foods and canned beer for the first time in my life. I slept through every class.”

  “Exactly why I hate them! You probably don’t remember a thing from the class, do you?”

  “All I remember from that class was Megan Collins.”

  “Megan Collins?”

  Jess set her bottle down on the roof and put her hands behind her head. Alison was so intent on the way her delicate fingers intertwined that she nearly missed her words.

  “She was another pre-med and very…distracting. Long blond hair, ripped jeans, punk band T-shirts. The whole nine. I crushed on her almost my entire freshman year.”

  “Mmm hmmm,” Alison purred, sitting forward. “Typical freshman lesbian. What changed?”

  “She invited me to a party.” The sun had sunk lower in the sky, and Jess kept her eyes on the orange undersides of the clouds. “I thought she was asking me out. She may have been. I never found out. She dragged me to one of the bedrooms in the back of this house. I thought ‘This is it!’ She sat down on a beanbag chair and dragged me onto the carpet next to her. Then she dropped some acid and went into her own little world. After a half hour of watching her talk to shadows, I got up and left the party. She had no idea. The next day she didn’t even remember inviting me. Kind of a turnoff.”

  “Weren’t your parents hippies? I didn’t think drugs would bother you.”

  “They don’t. As long as the people doing them can handle it, which most can’t. My folks smoked their fair share of weed. I did, too, when I was a kid, but never enough to affect my life. This girl was super smart and still got terrible grades. She let the drugs ruin her life. I see a big difference between weed and hard-core drugs. I don’t know if that makes me a hypocrite or pretentious or what, but I know that Megan Collins came back from spring break with track marks and the clap, and she didn’t come back for sophomore year at all.”

  “Yeah,” Alison replied, looking at her feet. “I see that more than I like to admit in my own students.”

  “I brought the energy down. Sorry. Tell me about the rest of your classes.”

  “Only two today. That one and a graduate level seminar. I have a good set of grads this semester. Not as good as my doctoral candidate, but they have some lively discussions.” She spun the bottle in her hands. “You met my doctoral candidate, actually. She was at Babe’s that night. Jennifer.”

  “The couple playing volleyball, right?” Jess leaned back in her chair, the front two legs lifting off the roof with a crunch of gravel. “The one who tackled her girlfriend right there in front of the whole crowd.”

  Alison laughed, nodding. “Yeah. Jennifer and Courtney. They appreciate an audience. Courtney is an artist. She does this really amazing mixed media stuff. Mainly…”

  Her words trailed off as a shrill electronic beeping cut the evening air. Jess scowled at her beeper for a moment and then turned back to Alison. “You were saying?”

  “Nothing.” Alison stood, starting to gather her things. “I should let you go.”

  “No!” Jess shot to her feet, her chair wobbling unsteadily behind her. “I’ve got time.”

  She reached out and took Alison’s hand. Her fingertips traveled the length of her palm up to her wrist. They lay lightly against the skin there and Alison wondered if Jess could feel how her pulse had picked up at the touch.

  “Don’t go yet.” Jess looked around, her gaze falling where slashes of salmon, orange and red twilight were reflecting on the buildings all around them. She pointed off toward a hill in the distance with a neat line of row houses climbing up it. “Tell me something about Richmond that’ll make me like it here more. What’s that part of town over there?”

  Alison followed her pointing finger, trying to focus on the skyline rather than Jess’s touch on her skin. “That’s Church Hill.”

  “That’s right. I’ve heard people talk about it. Tell me about it?”

  Jess leaned back against the railing, holding onto Alison’s hand.

  “So it’s kind of a mix of neighborhoods really. There are some very nice areas with rich people and nice restaurants. Then there are some terrible parts with historically high crime and low-income residents. Also, one of the best bakeries in Richmond.”

  Jess slid along the railing, wedging her body in between the barrier and the soft curves of Alison’s form. “Why’s it called Church Hill?”

  “Because of Patrick Henry.” She leaned into Jess, wrapping her arms around her neck. “You can’t really see it from here, but right off in that direction is St. John’s Episcopal Church, the spot where Patrick Henry gave his ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ speech.”

  Jess dipped her head, her lips dancing along Alison’s throat. “Which speech?”

  Alison closed her eyes, relishing the feel of Jess’s kisses. “What? They don’t teach you American history in Portland?”

  “American history, yes.”

  Alison leaned further in, letting her full weight settle against Jess’s lean body, pinning her to the railing.

  “Virginia history, not really. Other than, you know, slaughtered Native Americans, lots of slaves, bad side of the Civil War, lots of coal.”

  Jess’s lips trailed back down to Alison’s shoulder, making her voice came out in a breathy whisper. “The coal is West Virginia.”

  “They aren’t part of regular Virginia? Hmm, good to know.”

  As Alison laughed, Jess’s hand strayed to the hem of her shirt, pausing for a heartbeat before slipping under the fabric. Alison gasped when Jess’s fingers, chilled by the air on the windy rooftop, touched her side. A wave of gooseflesh radiated out over her abdomen. She finally pulled Jess’s lips up to meet her own and they kissed deeply while the light from the setting sun dimmed.

  She pulled back and spoke low, making sure that her lips brushed against Jess’s ear when she said, “You’re a real jerk about my home state.”

  “This would be a good time to admit that you find it charming.”

  She turned her face into Jess’s neck. The hand on her side slid slowly up, dancing over her ribs one at a time. Alison dipped her head to press a kiss against Jess’s collarbone. Just as her lips were about to meet skin, the electronic chirp chimed again from Jess’s waist. She let her hand slip from under Alison’s shirt as she reached for it. Alison’s breath came out as a sigh.

  The light was fading precipitously now, the sun slipping behind a building off to her right, and the salmon and pink in the sky had coalesced into a blood red tinged with deepest purple. Jess scowled at the pager in her hand, silencing it with an unnecessarily firm stab at the button. Alison started to move away, but Jess gripped her waist and held their bodies locked together.

  The smile returned to Alison’s lips and she said, “You know the most interesting story about Church Hill?”

  Jess’s voice was alluringly low when she replied, “What’s that?”

  “There was a railroad tunnel that cut through it. Carved out under the hill itself.”

  Jess’s hand slid back up her side, the heat of her skin registering in the cool night air so high up a
bove the streets.

  “One day the tunnel collapsed on a work train that was inside doing repairs. There were a handful of people on the train. Railroad employees. The rescuers tried to burrow in to save them, but it just collapsed even more around them. In the end they had to seal off the tunnel with the train and some of the workers inside.”

  Jess’s lips found her neck again and a flood of longing coursed through her. She squeezed her eyes shut against the intimacy that kept her teetering on the edge of madness. She had longed for this moment, dreamed of it nearly every night since they had shared coffee on that moonlit patio.

  Now, finally, Jess’s hand slipped over the lightly padded cotton of her bra to cup her breast. She used the most delicate, teasing touch and Alison worried she would crumble apart and be swept away by the sharp breeze. She held Jess’s shoulders as much to hold herself up as anything else. Her mind slipped from the story, settling instead on the far more intriguing question of how far Jess would be willing to go this time.

  Jess’s mouth left her skin. “You were saying?”

  “I…What?”

  Jess’s body was barely visible in the darkness, but the teasing smile in her voice was unmistakable.

  “The story?” Her hand caressed Alison beneath her shirt. “The tunnel?”

  She swallowed hard and forced herself to continue.

  “Right. There’s an urban legend about it. Some people saw a hideous creature run away from the collapse.”

  She took another breath. It didn’t do much to settle her.

  “A huge figure. Taller than any man. With jagged teeth and torn skin. Covered in blood and wailing this inhuman shriek.”

  Jess slid her other hand under Alison’s shirt, cupping Alison’s other breast.

  “He ran from the tunnel and toward the river, but he was chased by a pack of men. The creature hid in one of the mausoleums in a cemetery overlooking the river.”

  Jess teased her though the fabric of her bra, and she couldn’t hold back a quiet moan. The light from the dying sun reflecting off Jess’s teeth as her lip stretched in that crooked smile.

  “They…They say it was a vampire who attacked the men. That he caused the collapse to cover his frenzied feeding. That he roams all over the streets of Richmond. Usually he’s seen lurking around the two sealed entrances to the tunnel.”

  Alison struggled to keep hold of her story, but Jess’s nimble fingers were fast becoming her sole focus.

  “People have quietly gone missing from the area for decades. Victims of the vampire.”

  Jess’s hand left her breast and slid down, over the dips and swells of her chest and stomach. She spoke just as her fingers caught the waistband of Alison’s skirt. “A vampire? How interesting…”

  Jess tugged lightly on her skirt, drawing the waistband away from her body millimeter by agonizing millimeter. The heat coming off her was mesmerizing. The right side of her lab coat slipped forward, brushing against the exposed surface of Alison’s stomach and her breath caught.

  Jess’s pager went off for a third time. She groaned and her body slumped under Alison, falling back against the ice-cold railing. She released the tension on Alison’s skirt, placing it carefully back against her body and withdrew her wandering hands.

  “I’m sorry. I really have to go.”

  All the air went out of Alison’s lungs, her whole body sagging. Opening her eyes reluctantly, she saw the reflection of her own disappointment in Jess’s features.

  “I understand. I’ve been keeping you from your work.”

  “I really am sorry.”

  She forced a smile and tried desperately to rein in her desire. “I know.”

  The metal door clanged shut behind them. Alison pressed her palms against each other, pushing away the need that still gripped her. They went back down the stairs and out into the halls of the hospital in silence. Before they could say a proper good-bye when they got back to the unit, Nancy grabbed Jess and started chattering at her about some missed phone calls. Alison slipped past the two without a word and hurried on to Beth’s room. She thought she could feel Jess’s eyes on her as she walked away, but it may have been wishful thinking. Still, she put a little extra sway in her hips, just in case.

  She knocked on the doorframe of Beth’s room and silently counted to five before rounding the corner. Stephen was bent over the bed, his face suggestively close to his wife. He turned to Alison with a smile that was all broad teeth and waggling eyebrows. She leaned against the doorframe and rolled her eyes hoping that the evidence of her own encounter wasn’t as obvious on her features as they were on Beth’s. Miraculously, the two seemed too focused on each other to notice her jerky movements and labored breathing.

  “You two need to get a room.”

  “We have one,” Stephen said, pointing at the walls around them. “The problem is that people keep walking into it.”

  Beth scooted up the bed, wincing slightly as her back creaked. “This is the most privacy we’ve had since Rachel was born. You have no idea how difficult it is to get a little alone time with a two-year-old in the house.”

  “Speaking of our two-year-old…” Stephen stood and grabbed his jacket off the back of the visitor’s chair. “I should go pick her up. When I’m late your parents stuff her full of soda and chocolate and leave her so wired she won’t go to bed. It’s sneaky, their payback, but very, very effective.”

  He leaned over Beth and kissed her on the forehead. She closed her eyes and smiled at the touch of his lips, and Alison turned to look out the door. Jess hadn’t kissed her good-bye before they left the roof. Suddenly it felt like a torturous oversight. She felt Stephen’s hand on her shoulder. He pulled her into a hug as usual, but she wasn’t in the frame of mind to appreciate his affection. Her body was still buzzing from Jess’s touch, and she didn’t want to feel anyone else’s until it settled down. He pulled back quickly and gave her a smile before leaving. Jess was standing at the nurses station, pretending not to be spying into the room. Stephen stopped to say a few quick words to her on his way out.

  When Alison spent a little too long watching the exchange, Beth clucked. “If you want to make me jealous, you’re doing a great job.”

  “What?” Alison turned back to the room. Her best friend’s left eyebrow arched up in a graceful curve. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “You’re so not sorry.”

  Her smile was so wide it made her cheeks ache. “No. I’m not sorry at all.”

  Beth patted the armrest of the visitor’s chair, and barely waited for Alison to sit before she started in. “So let’s just skip the part where I pretend not to know that you came here over an hour ago and ran off with my doctor somewhere to hook up. Okay? Instead we’re going to start with all the details.”

  “Do you have spies following me? How did you know I was here?”

  “Ali, sweetheart, you know I can see the nurses station from here, don’t you?”

  “Right.” She pulled her knees up to her chest. Jess was still within sight, but focused on her phone call, looking down as she scribbled notes. “We were texting. She said she’d had a bad day and I decided to come cheer her up.”

  Beth turned awkwardly on the bed, resting her chin in her hand. “Uh-huh.”

  “She said she wanted a drink, so I smuggled in some root beer.” Beth giggled and she shrugged. Outside the room, Jess’s brow furrowed. She spoke quickly into the phone, clicking her pen on the counter in a silent staccato. “We went up to the roof and watched the sun set.”

  Beth let out a noise somewhere between a whimper and a sigh. “What’d you talk about?”

  “She asked about my day. I told her about my classes.”

  “She asked you about your day and actually listened to the answer? I’ll need her to teach Stephen that trick. What else?”

  Jess hung up, but kept writing. Alison decided she wanted to keep their moment to herself for a while. She wasn’t sure what prompted the reluctance to share, since she never had kept anyt
hing from Beth before, but she followed the instinct.

  “Nothing really.”

  Beth followed her eyes out into the hallway. “How much groping was there this time with the kissing?”

  The smile slid off her face as she tried hard to sell the lie. “None.”

  “What?”

  Jess flipped shut the pastel green cover on the chart she had been working on and handed it to Nancy across the counter. Alison swatted at Beth’s arm but missed by a mile. “Shh! God, you are the worst! She’s going to hear you!”

  “She needs to hear me! This qualifies as torture.”

  “I think I’ll survive.”

  “I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about me. She needs to get a move on.”

  “Sorry to interrupt, ladies.” Jess tapped lightly on the door, her eyes fixed on Alison. “I won’t take more than a minute of your time. Beth, there are a few tests I want to run in the morning if you’re up for it?”

  Even when she felt Beth’s mood shift, Alison couldn’t keep herself from staring back into those green eyes. They were sparkling tonight and Alison hoped she was the reason.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. No. Just a little spike in your labs that I want to follow up on.” Her voice wavered just for an instant, as if she really had no interest in the discussion. “I just thought you might want to fill Stephen in is all.”

  “Nice of you to take a break from your work and come in here just for my husband’s sake.”

  Jess blushed and finally tore her eyes away from Alison to stare at the floor. “I just want to keep you informed.”

  “That’s so kind of you, Jess. Thank you.” After a pause during which she shot Alison a conspiratorial look she said with a purr, “You’re here awfully late tonight.”

  “I got a little behind.” She moved farther into the room and her eyes were back on Alison. “I have the weekend off. Just wanted to make sure to get in a checkup with some of my trouble cases before I disappear for a few days.”

  Beth tried to catch Alison’s eye, but she was too busy staring at Jess. “You have the weekend off? Any plans?”