Unwelcome Bodies by Jennifer Pelland Read Free Book Online Page A

pound right through his chest.
    “I can’t do that.”
    “What? But you’re a priest! If you don’t give me penance and forgive me, I’ll go to Hell!” The palpitations quickened, and Alex found himself automatically checking to see if the beats were rhythmic, attempting to diagnose how God was trying to kill him.
    There was silence from the other side of the screen. Finally, the priest said, “I can only absolve you of your sin if you’re truly penitent.”
    “I am. I’m very, very sorry.”
    “Sorry that you killed her, or sorry that your soul is in danger of eternal damnation?”
    Alex froze, handkerchief clutched tightly in ever-whitening fingers. “Does it matter?” he whispered.
    “God can see into your heart. He knows if you’re truly sorry.”
    “But she—”
    “God knows.”
    Alex sank to the floor of the small booth. God had never cared if he was truly sorry before. Why did He care now? Why didn’t He play by the rules like He always did? Why was God siding with that bitch?
    “If you’re truly penitent,” the priest said, “you should start your penance by going to the authorities and confessing.”
    “You mean prison? I can’t go to prison.”
    “My son, there’s no other way. You killed a woman. There’ll be an investigation whether or not you confess. Better to do the right thing and step forward.”
    “But the body. I destroyed it. They’ll…they’ll never find it. I don’t—”
    “Her family should know what happened to her. It’s not fair to them to let them live with false hopes. They need to grieve. You must turn yourself in. If you’re truly sorry, there’s no other course.”
    Alex stumbled from the confessional, through the church, all the way to the curb. He had to get out of there. He couldn’t sit in the house of God anymore. God didn’t want him there. That was abundantly clear. Forty-one years of perfect mass attendance. Six years as an altar boy. A childhood spent praying for his grandmother’s soul to hasten her time through Purgatory. A spotless record of weekly confessions for the past twelve years. He’d even stopped having sex with Alison two years ago after she’d gotten a tubal ligation so he wouldn’t be committing fornication. He’d followed the rules when he could, and asked for forgiveness when he couldn’t. But none of it mattered. He would die unshriven.
    He crumpled onto the sidewalk, a sinner, the damned. God knew he wasn’t sorry. The little bitch deserved what she got. God was going to send him to Hell. There was no way around it.
    Unless he didn’t die.
    His head snapped up. That was it. He didn’t have to die. Some of his colleagues at the school were doing promising research in human longevity by working with telomeres. Some even speculated that with constant extension of telomeres—the tips on the ends of chromosomes that wore down with age—immortality might be clinically possible.
    It was time to jettison his own research and get in on their project. And he needed to get out of the OR. It was too risky there. Too many chances of accidental needle sticks, or dangerous infections, or even emergency patients brandishing knives. No, if this was going to work, he’d need to remove as many risk factors as possible from his life. No more surgery. No more alcohol. No more driving over the speed limit. No more cholesterol. No more slippery bath mats. No more long-term sun exposure. No more sugar. No more anything. These were the new rules. His rules, not God’s rules.
    He was going to crack the secret of medical immortality. God wasn’t going to damn him that easily.
     
    * * * *
     
    It took some convincing, and a glowing recommendation from the team leader, his former med school classmate Dr. Brenda Burkehart, but the college eventually let him join the telomere project and pull out of the OR. “Glad to have you on the team,” Brenda said, tucking a stray lock of ash-blonde hair behind her ear. “The work’s a little dry, but