Another Time, Another Place

by Zane

  April listened to the rain increase its dance on the windowpanes. It soothed and relaxed her more than her husband could understand. The sound of the rain coupled with the visual splatter of each raindrop on the panes was downright hypnotic. As she’d done many times before, she sat in the bow window with her knees pulled to her breasts. Her arms were wrapped around her legs holding them in place. She stared at the storm intently. Each flash of lightning was followed by a clap of thunder that increased in volume. April became lost inside a place only a lucky few can find. The flashes of light were like exploding bombs that streaked across the sky. Each burst of light gave her a multi-paneled view of her reflection. Oddly, she thought about the thunder from down under, but she knew it wasn’t the answer to her being satisfied.

  “Are you going to storm gaze all night again?” she vaguely heard but didn’t respond.

  April jumped; she was startled when Virgil placed his arms around her from the rear. She was mildly disappointed that he disturbed her solitude.

  “Your butt is going to fall asleep if you sit here too long,” Virgil joked. “You should come to bed early,” he said with a devilish tone.

  “Not tonight, honey,” April responded without removing her gaze from the bow window. “The storm will help me relax and have a comfortable sleep. It worked last night. I slept soundly once I did fall asleep. I just want to watch it until my eyes get heavy.”

  “Okay, don’t come running to bed scared when the storm gets closer to us. I’m not going to be used as your pillar of strength,” Virgil joked.

  “I’ll be fine, dear.”

  Virgil kissed her behind the ear, and then whispered something nasty that prompted a swat on his leg from April. She watched him crawl into the bed with the reflection from the surrounding windowpanes. In a short time, Virgil was snoring. The louder Virgil snored, the closer the violent storm came. Brilliant flashes danced across the sky and brightened the darkness like fluorescent eels deep under the sea. Virgil was in full snore mode. His thunderous sounds competed with nature’s voice, but ultimately became nothing more than a whisper compared to the howling winds that stirred outside. With each flash of light, April could see the trees take their bows as they conceded to the will of the wind. Paper and other debris floated in all directions, reminiscent of an unsteady, unworldly storm.

  The lightning was plentiful. It complemented the roar of thunder waving through the air, seemingly making the Earth move. April was fascinated and frightened at the same time. She had never seen such chaos in a thunderstorm. Her eyes widened, and her heart raced when two streaks of lightning thrown from the heavens approached each other from different directions and then seemed to collide and sprint toward her like a three-dimensional object. She let out a slight scream, stepped out of the bow window, and Virgil’s words popped in her mind. She shot a glance at Virgil. He was dead to the world, oblivious to all noises around him.

  April watched a foray of lightning engage in what could be considered a sword fight. It was magical, it lured her back to the bow-window seat, but she stopped short of planting her butt on the platform because of the surprise she felt between her legs. She sensed moistness while she stepped toward the window. As the flashes of light continued to flicker, she backed away with a hand already down her pants. She rubbed three fingers across her jewel and stopped at the juices. She curled her middle finger inside the wetness, tilted her head back because of the instant pleasure. She became excited about what she would do, thus seconds later, the bathroom door closed behind her.

  April created an identical effect from the previous night by leaving the bathroom light off. It was eerie how different the nights were. The howling wind seemed to echo throughout the bathroom. The bass cymbal-like, thunder sound appeared as if a giant stood over their home and banged the two metal objects over the house. The flashes of electricity peering through the window made the bathroom appear like a disco.

  She had no real reason why she approached the mirror so slowly and tentatively. She was in search of something, but she couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Nevertheless, a middle finger worked her clitoris like a compass needle caught in a continuous circle. She elected not to straddle the sink; instead April placed a support palm on the medicine cabinet’s mirror for the inevitable weakness in the knees. The muscles in the stretched arm grew tired. She bent her elbow and rested her forehead on the arm. She could almost kiss herself because of the proximity to the mirror.

  April’s climax was near, she was hot, and her body radiated steam that fogged the mirror like teenagers making out in a car. She was one step away from exploding juices all over her hand, yet she accomplished a difficult task; she prolonged the moment and wiped the condensation from the mirror with a series of “S” strokes to view her intense facial expressions. The continued flashes of light sparkling through the bathroom window made each sensual expression seem like varying degrees of eroticism. Each erotic view brought on a tingly sensation that radiated from her toes, up her legs and made her quiver as if she was cold. April began to pinch her jewel between her thumb and index finger. First gently, then gradually harder until it seemed to swell. She wiped the mirror once more and supported herself with the right hand. Her fingers clawed into the mirrored surface. She studied the extremely passionate reflection and knew in a matter of seconds no matter how hard she’d try to sustain the magic moment, she’d explode with vigor. She was so entranced, seduced by the ultimate orgasm, she cared little about the mole under her right eye.

  “Oh,” softly left her lips.

  She repeated the phrase several times in succession. Each time, the word increased in volume.

  EIGHT

  Ariel had been watching a storm that was three times as bad as the previous night. She now sat in the bow window and got more turned on by the minute with the belief that lightning storms were sexy. She confirmed her thoughts when a hand slid into her panties discovered juices grander than on the chicken she had eaten. When her finger curled up into her wetness a sense of having already completed the task swept over her. She tasted her marinated finger and grabbed a toy before hiding in the bathroom. Behind closed doors, she inserted a pocket rocket deep that vibrated at the highest setting deep up her womanhood. Every pore on her body was electrified.

  Tonight, she closed and locked the bathroom door to prevent the angry-husband syndrome. Steven was snoring, aided by a half-bottle of wine and four scotch on the rocks that he had consumed with dinner. Ariel drank the other half bottle of wine. Together with a slight buzz and the raging storm outside, her body yearned to be fulfilled.

  The vibrations from the miniature vibrator hummed in her ears. It was a tune that gave her the rhythm for the circular waltz around her clitoris. She actually hummed the count one, two, and three in her head. The thunderous sounds outside orchestrated a different tune. The graceful glide of the waltz transformed itself into the electric energy of a rumba, illustrated by pinching that began on her girl toy. Her knees weakened nearly instantly.

  Ariel braced herself with the left hand on the mirror, inserted her middle finger deep inside the wetness and rotated it around the vibrating object. She cleared a windshield wiper blade-like area on the mirror to view the climactic moment and then resupported her weakened body. The reflection was everything she’d hoped for: sensual, erotic and intensely sexciting. The image of her was the same, yet it differed. She observed a mole under her right eye that she didn’t recall having. It didn’t matter; she was far too gone to be concerned with something so trivial when the flashing light illuminating through the bathroom’s window might have tricked her eyes. Yet, she stared intently at the image.

  April glazed back. For a brief moment both women thought they had lost their minds. Their moaned words were on a time delay. Ariel’s passion cry was “Shit,” but even under the heavy seduction of a near orgasm, the image in the mirror seemed to recite, “Oh.” Nevertheless, both Ariel and April were lost to a beast-like passion. They ignored reality and con
tinued to completion their “Oh” and “Shit” bellows. Suddenly, for each woman it became a race to the climactic finish. Both women exploded violently, roared and held a synchronized note.

  The sound of thunder lasted longer than each woman’s lungs sustained the note. The rumble seemed as though it was vibrating the room. They hadn’t finished squirting juices onto their fingers when lightning struck both houses simultaneously. A one-halfinch crack on both bathroom walls traveled from the window, turned the corner and headed horizontally across the wall toward them. When the jagged crack reached their respective medicine cabinets, the mirrored glass shattered underneath their hands. Both women jumped back and screamed for the first time out of fear. Both women suffered a cut on their palms—April’s right hand and Ariel’s left hand, respectively. They managed to pull up their panties with a lone hand and they stepped toward the sink holding their damaged hand at the wrist. They placed a face cloth in the hand containing the cut and clutched a fist around it. They looked into the mirror timidly, fearful of what they might see. To their surprise, they saw themselves as they were. Identical in every way except, Ariel saw a mole under her right eye and April now viewed a scar over the left eyebrow. April and Ariel were each in utter shock. Their minds raced a thousand miles a minute as they tried to rationalize what happened. The two women knew for the first time that they were seeing someone different. They simply stared at each other in silence, awed by the phenomenon. They both touched the broken glass with the fingertips of the uncut hand.

  Virgil turned on the bathroom light just as glass from the shattered mirror fell into the sink.

  “Honey,” Virgil said. “What’s going on in here?”

  April was too startled by the glass and Virgil’s sudden intrusion to respond. She slowly turned toward the voice and saw a man that she was vaguely familiar with.

  Something’s out of sync, April thought.

  “April, are you okay?” Virgil asked based on the puzzled expression on his wife’s face.

  “I’m fine, other than my hand,” April said as she extended the cut hand to him.

  “How did that happen?”

  “I was looking at myself in the mirror, and then all of a sudden, it shattered beneath my hand.”

  Virgil’s eyes followed the crack in the wall from the medicine cabinet to the window.

  “The house must have been struck by lightning to cause this much damage,” Virgil said in awe.

  April saw Virgil’s head still locked on the window and for the first time she looked at the bathroom’s destruction. Her eyes followed the crack back around the wall to the mirror. The odd thing was the bathroom wasn’t exactly how she remembered it.

  NINE

  “Honey, are you okay?” Steven asked Ariel.

  Ariel shook her head as if she was disillusioned.

  “Open the door, Ariel,” Steven spoke. “Why is the bathroom door locked?” she heard.

  “Just one second,” Ariel responded.

  The vibrations within her reminded her of something. She used two fingers to dig into her haven and pull out the miniature vibrator that had all but run out of steam.

  What the fuck? she thought.

  Ariel panicked. She wrapped the device in toilet paper and threw it into the wastebasket. The louder bang on the door grabbed her attention. Tentatively, she headed for the door. She was slightly fearful without a total understanding of why. Steven immediately turned on the light.

  “The house was hit by lightning,” Steven stated excitedly. “Are you okay?”

  “I was looking at myself in the mirror, and then all of a sudden, it shattered beneath my hand.”

  Ariel was dumbfounded. It appeared as though the words magically appeared into her thoughts for the first time and at the same time the words felt familiar to her.

  “What in the hell happened to the wall?” Steven asked before he realized that he was asking the obvious. “The lightning strike did that?”

  “I believe so.”

  Steven lifted the bloody face cloth from her hand, gazed at the quarter-inch deep cut and then closed his fingers around hers.

  “It’s a good thing only your palm was cut. Hell, glass from the mirror could have exploded and cut you in all sorts of places… something wrong?” Steven asked.

  “Uh, nothing,” Ariel lied.

  She was stunned. The man before her she’d never seen before, yet he was so familiar to her. His look, the walk and the sound of his voice was as comfortable as a broken-in pair of shoes. Yet, she seemed to be living through a déjà vu moment. She looked around the bathroom, then the bedroom; all of the surroundings were different. Yet, certain details down to the pattern on the bed’s comforter were part of her conscious memory. She didn’t understand why and the fact scared her. Everything had a familiar feel and everything was new. She felt displaced, in a new reality, seemingly in another place and another time.

  “Can I have a moment?” Ariel asked Steven.

  She didn’t wait for an answer. She walked out of the bedroom down the hall to the guest bathroom, closed the door behind her and sat on the toilet with her head between her hands.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Ariel whispered as if Steven was standing outside of the door. “None of it. My name is…”

  Ariel could visualize a name, feel that she’d been called something different, but the name could not be spoken. She stood, examining herself in the mirror. What Ariel saw was a carbon copy of herself. She had longer hair than she remembered, yet the length was familiar to her. But, for the life of her, she couldn’t recall growing it that length. She leaned closer to the mirror, and then her heart pounded deep within her. It vibrated like a bass drum.

  Since the lightning strike many things were memorable, yet most felt like a distant memory. The one thing she was certain of was that she never had a mole under her right eye. With an unconscious move she touched the area above her right eye, positive that a scar from a childhood injury had been there.

  I’ve seen you before, she thought.

  “I’ve seen you in the mirror just before the lightning strike,” she stated aloud with nervous tension. “Am I you now? My name is…”

  Ariel thought long and hard about it. She searched for an answer that eluded her.

  “Ariel Jonston,” she spoke to the reflection in the mirror. She somehow believed that personalities of two people were within her.

  TEN

  April watched her lips closely in the powder room’s mirror. Her lips formed words that confused her. She spoke the name April Jonston. It stirred confusion within her that combined certainty with uncertainty. Deep down she felt the essence of another. She snapped her fingers as in “eureka.”

  “The woman in the mirror,” she spoke aloud.

  She instinctively went to rub a thumb over the mole under her right eye, but this time the familiar beauty mark was absent. Her thumb actually landed on the scar above the left eye.

  “I didn’t have this before the lightning strike,” she spoke to her reflection. “Who am I now?”

  “April?” Virgil said. “Are you okay in there?”

  The question bothered her to some degree, but since the surroundings, the man, and the name she was called felt like a warm snuggly comforter, she answered him with less concern than before she entered the half-bath.

  “Yes, honey,” April said. “I’m fine. My nerves are much better now. I’ll be out in a sec.”

  April intently looked at her reflection in the mirror for no reason other than to see if she could view her alternate self. Moments into the hypnotic gaze, a sense of peace overcame her. She didn’t understand why, nor did she question it. She simply felt that a buried desire was about to be answered. As April exited the powder room, Virgil grabbed her cut hand by the wrist, swabbed the cut with peroxide and bandaged the hand.

  “Your cut doesn’t look deep,” Virgil said. “It looks to be about a quarter-inch deep. However, it will take a few days before it heals, but you’ll
be fine. And, if I were you, I wouldn’t plan on doing your aerobics class tomorrow,” Virgil suggested.

  April regarded her husband’s caring in the same way that his words made her feel. It was a warm sensation already known, yet it felt new as it swept through her. She smiled.

  “What?” he said. “The way you’re looking at me, I’d swear you were seeing me for the first time.”

  “No. I’m looking at you like I have a husband that adores me,” April responded.

  “That I do. You are the core of my universe,” Virgil replied. “And to prove it,” he continued, knowing what he was about to say would please her, “if you really want to work, then by all means make yourself happy.”

  April regarded him strangely without an understanding why the statement baffled her. It just did. She stood, walked toward the bedroom and stopped when she saw the bow window. The deadliest part of the storm had subsided and passed over their area just after lightning struck their house. She walked toward the bow window hopeful that the remaining rain dancing on the panes like individual splashes of memory would add clarity to the confusion. She sat in the seating area of the bow window, pulled her knees toward her breasts and watched the rain. After a short moment all of their possessions came into view—the in-ground pool, tennis court and an exercise track. Suddenly, a good part of her felt blessed. Everything that she’d always wanted was before her. She sensed that all the hard work of her life had paid off…and couldn’t understand why Virgil’s comment about working made her feel as though she’d missed something. Virgil approached her from behind, started rubbing her tense shoulders.