I knew that Jack couldn’t hide himself forever. It went against his very nature to do so.

It had not even been a day since my visit with Jack, for the next morning, on his bike, he showed up in his usual leather jacket, a cotton pad over his bad eye and bandages haphazardly covering his face’s scaly growths. If one hadn’t known any better, they’d assume he was in a bad accident - but what if they decided to look too closely at what they thought to be road rash and instead find an iridescence possessed only by scales? 

When he saw me through the window and brandished a smile, one that showed that the thing budding from his gums was, in fact, a fang, pointed and thin like that of a viper’s.

He came into the shop with his usual swagger, nothing hindering it whatsoever, and he came up to rest against the counter. I gawked at him. Just yesterday he had been wallowing in self-loathing and fear, afraid of being perceived, paranoia that he was somehow contagious. What caused such a change in heart?

He said in a voice that was so relaxed and smooth and normal it made my skin prickle, “How’s it hangin’, Temp?” 

“I-I-I…” I balked, “Jack, what are you-”

His nonchalant shrug gave me pause.

“You coming to see me made me realize that whatever this disease is cannot stop me from doin’ what I’m doin.’ I won’t stop until it takes me!” Something about him faltered and his brow pinched. “This past week… I haven’t felt that miserable in a long time, and I refuse to go out like that, y’know? -You helped me realize that Temperance, and I thought I’d say thank you.”

Something about what he said made my heart twitch and I pursed my lips. I didn’t know how else to describe it other than scary hearing him be so sincere. It almost frightened me more than the vulnerability that’d left him looking so broken yesterday. It was everything that Jack wasn’t supposed to be, it went against everything I had known about him previously, of the persona he’d let me grow to care for. It felt wrong seeing him as anything but exuberant and extroverted, and for that I was terrified.

That soft glance returned to something mischievous as he slipped back on his usual smirk and leaned in closer. He tapped a long, claw-shaped nail against the countertop. It had been painted black to try and hide the fact that it was a mutation splitting his nail bed. “So, it seems dead around here…” he trailed off, as if he were to stumble into saying something else or I continued his sentence for him.

“It is, yes… It’ll probably pick up in the afternoon, I hope.” I said, wary. “Fridays are usually very mellow - but then I feel as though every day has come to feel mellow and dead.”

“Is it dead enough for you to come out with me?” He arched his good brow high, lips puckering into as much of a pout as he could muster.

“Well, I mean, someone should look after the store-” Why was this such an issue now? I’d no issue leaving yesterday, and I’d managed to get back home before Mom would have the chance to discover my absence. 

He must’ve caught my glance upward, where we could hear Mom and Grandma walking around and chatting, because he continued, “We can always tell them. You sure you can take one teensy-weensy break? Please, Temp, I’ll get lost in a crowd if I don’t got you around to keep an eye on me! Come with me, just this once, and I swear - I swear - I will make it up to you!” His hands were held together before his chin, as if in prayer, and his good eye offered me a pleading stare. “It’s not like you’re gonna be skippin’ school or somethin,’ you deserve a break for once! Please, Temp, please! Please, please, pleeeease?” he begged and begged, continuing that desperate, praying mantra.

An unseen pressure weighed down on my shoulders, increasing in how it threatened to slouch my shoulders every passing moment. And it wasn’t because of Jack. All of the previous day’s anxiety had come crashing down on me. I’d been lucky yesterday, but I couldn’t bet on being as lucky today.

But this store wasn’t my store - the responsibility over it wasn’t mine to uphold. It was merely a forced obligation, one I’d been devoted to for the sole reason that I was terrified of because I didn’t know what would happen to Mom without it. If it truly meant so much to her, it’d be her behind this counter, wasting away every moment of her day. 

A guilt began to riddle me after yesterday, and it returned to me as I listened to Jack’s plea. Instantly, I tried to shoot that idea down immediately. I was nearly thirty years old. I was old enough to do what I wished, when I wish, with who I wish. I had free will! I was twenty years too old to ask for my mother's permission.

I nodded, curt and lips tight despite the tickling urge they felt to curve into a wicked, defiant smirk. “Sure. Let’s go.” Now, before my mind changes my heart’s decision on its behalf.

Jack’s face brightened and within a hair of a second he grabbed my wrist and pulled me outside, where the air was sharp with autumn cold and slightly damp with the scent of not-so-distant Lake Michigan. His grip was hot, and I was unsure if this was because of the infection boiling his flesh or of the affections that boiled in my lower abdomen.

I pulled away for just a second to lock the front door and turn on the closed sign, but when I turned back my stomach dropped as Jack approached his idle bike. I had forgotten that ‘going somewhere’ with Jack entailed the potential of riding a motorbike. The idea of the loud noises, the sharpness of wind against my face… my heart was pounding, and Jack must’ve noticed because he grabbed at my hand, thumb rubbing over my knuckles.

“Everything ok, Temp?”

“Do… do I need to ride that?” I whisper, pointing to the bike.

He suddenly appeared proud, hands on his hips and chest puffed outward. “Don’t worry, I got you.” He started to dig around his pockets, which I now realized were overstuffed, and he pulled out a Walkman from a pocket on his jacket’s interior. From it dangled a knotted pair of headphones, one of the ears missing half of its foam cushioning. He held them up. “You dig music?”

I nodded, and I couldn’t stop staring at the Walkman. Had this been a thing he’d stolen, too? And from whom did he steal?

He fumbled with it for several moments, rewinding the cassette, before reaching towards my face to slip the headphones on me. My breath hitched when his thumb whispered a caress against my cheek as he held the headphones over my ears. 

“I hope you don’t mind Pat Benatar, she’s one of the only cassettes I got. But you listen to this, turn it up as loud as you need to, rewind it as much as you want, do whatever! Now,” he stepped back, suddenly adopting a somber expression, and opened the motorcycle’s leather tail bag to rifle through it. “If you're gonna ride with me, you need the right gear, y’know? Just one moment… aaaaannndddd Bam!”

With abrupt flourish he held up a large jacket made of brown, buffeted faux leather much like his own, only much more broad, and almost over half his size. He brandished it with a wide smile. 

“I found it on the way over in a thrift store window. Here, try it on.” He stood on the balls of his feet as he helped fit it on me, and it felt like being embraced as I slipped my arms into the sleeves. And that was the thing: it fit well, and it fit comfortably. The shoulders were broad and loose, obviously meant for a man with a large stature, and the material of its lining was a threadbare, comfortable blue flannel.

“How does it feel?”

I turned until I saw my reflection in the store’s window. For a moment, I didn’t recognize myself, a strange woman wearing strange clothes standing beside a strange man. This wasn’t how Temperance Cavell was supposed to dress, this wasn’t how she was supposed to be acting. She was meant to be obedient, caged on the other side of those windows - Florence’s good girl, her selfless daughter that stepped up after her husband’s tragic passing. I rolled my shoulders to test how comfortable the jacket was, and the reflection moved along with me. This was me, not an imposter. I smiled. “Great. This feels great. Thank you, Jack.” Something started to gnaw in my belly when I thought about my suspicions regarding the Walkman and asked, “Please be honest with me. Did you happen to, uhm-”

“No,” he said abruptly, in a way that made me flinch. “I… I’m not really about that, now. I promise you, I paid for this with my earned cash! Gotta get gifts for the gals you fancy, right?” His hands braced on either shoulder gave a gentle squeeze. The heat from his touch intensified, traversing across my shoulders, up my neck before settling in my cheeks and the tips of my ears. “Now, come on. You’re ready to ride!”

He got on the bike and gestured for me to sit behind him. And I tried to sit behind him. My knees stuck out at awkward angles and I sat straight-backed, unsure of how to balance myself on a seat that was clearly too small for the both of us. I wished I was off the bike, just so that I didn’t look like a joke. And when I caught our reflection in the store’s windows, my face flushed. If the woman I saw there before was a stranger, the one I now saw was utterly alien. Temperance Cavell didn’t belong on the back of a motorcycle!

Now what? Was I supposed to hold onto him? Or was I just supposed to let the bike launch me off when it lurched forward? I think my body knew the answer for me because my arms found themselves wrapping around his midsection without my brain realizing what they were doing until I was pressed against Jack’s back, and instantly my cheeks went aflame as I leaned forward to rest them against his shoulders. I wish I knew what I was doing in that moment, and why it filled me with a burning want that wracked my nerves. 

My hands clasped themselves tightly over his midsection, and I felt him suck in his belly ever so slightly. When I inhaled his scent, there was the horribly familiar stank of his diseased apartment, but there was still his pine cologne that made me want to nuzzle my nose into and consume entirely.

A hand closed over mine, and he looked at me over his shoulder. “Now you hold tight, let me know if you need me to stop - just try to relax.” He lowered his aviators back over his eyes and raised his good brow, “Ready?”

Hurriedly, I start the cassette and Love is a Battlefield blared into my ears. When the music was loud enough that the sounds of the world around me became nonexistent, I nodded to him. My arms tightened their grip as he revved the bike to life. The harsh rumble reverberated through my whole body before settling in my gut, and I couldn’t stop myself from pressing my eyes shut and buried myself back in the comfort of his cologne.

As we rode, from the city’s underbelly, through Brady Street and down side streets until we came to Lincoln Memorial Drive so we could cruise alongside the yawning lake, I felt myself loosen. With silken teeth drenched in the smell of Lake Michigan, wind glided through my hair, against my cheeks, and it felt so cool - so freeing. 

When we came to a stoplight, my fingers tapped as the bike’s growl started to tickle my neck and gut, fighting the urge to bite them once I remembered that I was still on a motorcycle. There was a sudden warmth as Jack covered them with his palm. My breath hitched when his thumb lightly traced up and down my knuckles once again. It was a touch soft despite the calloused, scaly skin ruining the pad. I tingled all over, and I felt so foolish in believing that I’d fall apart beneath a touch so small. I wanted him to touch me more, but the thought of asking for such or seeking such touch gripped my throat in terror, so I kept my lips sealed and contented myself with pressing myself tightly against him, straddling him between my legs.

We rode on along Lake Michigan, and I was coming undone. Every fiber of my being was becoming unwound, all without me even noticing. I do not know how to explain it other than it just sort of happened. It started by unlatching from Jack, allowing myself to straighten my posture. A panic gripped my heart, but it only took seconds for the sensation to pass. Once I grew comfortable with sitting up, I raised one hand, letting my hand tickle through the air, the wind slicing between them and giving my palm cool kisses. Then, I raised both arms, outstretched and soaring as though they were my wings. My thighs were what kept me tethered to Jack and the bike, and the fear of that inherent danger had vanished only for that one moment. The wind whipped through my hair, and I deeply inhaled this scent, this freedom. How could I have felt fear when I felt so liberated?

How could I have denied myself this? Why did I allow myself to remain bound for so long when it was this easy, and intoxicating, to unthread myself?

I only returned to holding onto Jack when we veered away from the lake and back into the depths of the city.