by Mark Eller
Sarah drew back the blankets. Fully clothed, she climbed into bed and patted the mattress. "Coming?"
Aaron fought back a frustrated growl and turned off the lights. Stumbling in the dark, he made his way to the bed and crawled beneath the covers. Sarah instantly wrapped him in her arms and gave him a triple powered kiss, and yes, the kiss was nice. Sarah was warm and soft and hard. She smelled of fresh soap.
Taking his courage in hand, Aaron decided there was no way he would be careful with his hands tonight. He undid the top buttons of her blouse, and his breath caught tight in his throat when his fingers brushed against a small bit of soft cleavage.
Sarah pulled his hands away.
Frustrated, Aaron groaned. "I'm willing to admit that I'm a beginner at this sort of thing, but aren't we supposed to be undressed at this point?"
"Not when company is coming," Sarah said.
A tentative knock sounded at the door. Sarah sighed contentedly. Aaron sighed with exasperation.
"Come in," Sarah called.
The door opened. Blanket clenched tightly around her, appearing slightly hunched and trembling in the light coming from the living room, Miss Hawks stepped hesitantly into the room. She had disarranged hair and haunted eyes.
"M--Miss Townsend. Mister Turner. I--I--could I maybe spend the night here? I think it might help if I were not alone."
"Come in, dear heart," Sarah said gently. "It's a large bed. There's room for all of us if we scrunch tight."
No there isn't, Aaron mentally wailed. No room. Go away. Go back to your own bed. This one belongs to us.
Predictably, Miss Hawks did not listen.
"Thank you, Miss Townsend." Miss Hawks closed the door behind her, once again surrounding them in darkness. Moments later, Aaron heard the rustle of her blanket falling to the floor just before Miss Hawks crawled into bed beside him. She rested her head on his shoulder, placed one leg over his and laid her hand on his chest, right beside Sarah's hand. Their two hands intertwined, and Aaron automatically shifted so he could wrap his arm around Miss Hawks' waist.
It was a bare waist. In fact, he soon discovered that the rest of her was bare too. Sarah had been right. Miss Hawks was going to make his life very difficult.
"Call me Sarah, dear. I think people in bed with the same man should be on a first name basis. Besides, I really like you."
"Promise you won't laugh," Miss Hawks said.
"Laugh at what?"
"At my name. If you laugh, I will hit you."
"Promise," Sarah said, her voice almost too low to be heard.
"Kitty. My name is Kitty."
Aaron felt a brief convulsion run through Sarah. Tremors shook her, and he heard the beginnings of a snort.
"Your parents must have hated you," Sarah finally giggled.
"They weren't normal," Kitty admitted. "I have three sisters, Piglet, Filly and Heifer. My brother is named Pup."
Aaron found that unlikely composition of names somewhat unbelievable. The young Miss Hawks, it seemed, had a talent for fibbing.
"How about if I just call you Kit?" Sarah asked.
"I would love you for it."
"Good. Aaron, I would like you to meet Kit. Kit, this is Aaron." Sarah snuggled tighter to Aaron and kissed his ear. "Kit," she whispered so quietly her voice barely carried. "I wish you had worn clothes to bed. Your being naked makes things awkward."
Kit stirred and pulled slightly away. "Is this a problem for you?"
"No dear," Sarah said in a normal voice, "though I suspect it might be something of a problem for Aaron. Did you know he hasn't been with a woman yet?"
"Really?" Kit snuggled in tighter against Aaron. The hand holding Sarah's moved down his body to stop at his belt buckle.
"Oh don't worry about that right now," Sarah continued. "The thing is, your lack of clothing is soon going to be more of a problem for you than it is for him." She released Kit's hand and moved hers up until it cupped Aaron's chin. Pulling his head around, she kissed him soundly and firm.
"Hey, don't let me stop you," Kit jibbed.
Sarah kissed Aaron again. Her lips moved gently against his. Aaron strained to hear her whisper.
"Darling," she breathed into his mouth, "Get us out of here."
"What?"
Sarah's hand traveled back down Aaron's body. It paused when it met Kit's hand near his belt, and continued its journey until it reached as low as it could travel. Her fingers closed with a grip that threatened to crush cement, or whatever else they managed to get hold of.
"If you want to father children on mine or any other body, you had better transport us out of here now." Sarah emphasized her point by closing her fingers a fraction tighter.
"I can't," Aaron protested. "You heard Mister Aybarra. They took away my ability when they undid the wiring. Do you honestly think they would let us be together if I could just transport us away?"
"Try," Sarah insisted, squeezing her fingers just a little bit more.
Aaron grimaced and fought back a groan. Certain items had become more compact than nature intended. "Okay! Okay!"
She relaxed her grip but did not release it entirely. Aaron tried to concentrate. He pictured the lower cellar in his mind and wrapped his thoughts around the two women. Thinking about them was easy. Concentrating was hard. He almost had the proper feeling twice but each time it slipped out of his grasp. He tried transporting again and nothing happened.
He could not get a grasp on the lower cellar. For some unknown reason the image kept slipping from his mind. He remembered the apartment in Columbia City, wiped the image from his mind, and tried to grasp the lower cellar again. Sarah and Kit almost disappeared from his thoughts.
Sarah got a better hold on what she ought not to hold. Kit teasingly ran her fingers across his chest and flicked a fingernail across his shirt covered nipple.
"Do it," Sarah ordered. She clenched down.
Almost feeling like he was jumping from his skin, Aaron's mind grasped onto something, grabbed hold of both the women and then gave that peculiar twist.
Flicker
Chapter 23
Once he stopped banging into things and managed to turn on the lights, Aaron knew where they were.
That was good.
He wasn't where he wanted to be.
That was bad.
Sarah sat primly on a bed, knees tight together, hands folded in her lap. Kit sat cross-legged on the floor, a sheet wrapped around her and a blanket at her side. Apparently, Aaron had not been too specific when he had transferred them. Once again he had carried along more than he had intended. However, he supposed it wasn't a bad thing this time. At least Kit had a sheet to wear, and the apartment did not have any extra pieces of broken walls lying around on the floor.
"I thought," Kit said pointedly, "that the idea was for us to go back home. Why is it so cold in here?"
Sarah raised an inquiring eyebrow.
"This is an apartment I rented the last time I was in Jefferson," Aaron explained. "And I don't know how I got us here. I've never transferred between points on the same planet before. Let me turn off the air conditioning."
Leaving the room, he entered the main hall and found that the thermostat was set at sixty-two, though why it was set so low he did not know. A brief touch to the keypad changed it to seventy five. When he turned around he found that the women had already moved into the main living area. Motion sensors turned on lights for them.
"Aaron, this is really nice," Sarah exclaimed. "I didn't think you had the sense to decorate so well."
"Me neither," Aaron admitted after giving the place a once over. During his absence the walls had been painted soft beige and several landscape paintings had been placed on his walls. The smell of oranges surrounded him, suggesting that air fresheners had also been added.
Ever curious, Kit started opening doors. She soon found the kitchen, and then she found the bathroom. "Hey, there are two of those showerheads in here."
"So, can you take u
s back home, love?" Sarah asked. "This place is really nice but now that I've seen your first home I've decided I like the one I know better. Let's go. Now."
The furnace blower came on. Kit jumped.
"I don't know if I can," Aaron admitted. "The image I needed kept slipping out of my mind. Absolutely nothing happened when I tried to transport over to Last Chance. Maybe if I had a little more time to rest, or if you weren't playing games I might do better."
Sarah frowned. "There was no more time, and you needed incentive. What do you think would have happened when you refused to be tested?" Rising from the couch, she went to the bedroom, opened the door and went in. "This is one big bed," she called out.
Aaron rose and followed her. "Nothing would have happened to us. We've just proved that they can't hold a person who can just transport out."
"Don't be naive," Kit said from behind him. "They could hold me and Sarah separate from you, and I bet you wouldn't get very far if you had a load of drugs in you." Squeezing past Aaron, she walked over to the bed and then dropped the sheet covering her nakedness. After calmly pulling back the blankets she climbed in.
"Cold." Her voice shivered. "This thing had better warm up soon."
"It will." Sarah began unbuttoning her top. "Bedtime Aaron. Go away."
"There's only one bed," he protested.
"Love, I promised Cathy I wouldn't do anything wicked to you until she was ready to join in."
"Too late," Aaron muttered.
"What was that?"
"I said I need a shower anyway."
"Then go take your shower and get some sleep." She moved closer. "How about a kiss goodnight?"
To hell with it. Aaron leaned forward to gently kiss her, but his hands were much less than polite when they opened her shirt, only then it turned out that she wore one of his damned bras. When did Cathy sell her that?
Sarah pulled herself away. Her smile was soft and wicked and sweet. Tugging her shirt back over her shoulders, she ran the palm of her hand gently across his cheek, not bothering to refasten the shirts buttons. The blush she displayed ran down to her navel, but she did wear a pleased smile on her face.
"That was much better dear. Now go take your shower."
Aaron followed her advice. He took his shower. It was very long and very cold.
* * *
Breakfast was tepid water drunk out of his cupped hands. He groaned with pleasure when the water slid down his throat because the damn stuff was fluorinated. Sometimes a person just missed the small pleasures of home.
Hoping, Aaron tried several times to image the lower cellar in his mind. Each time the image slipped away. He pictured the bus station, the compound and the service station. All three images came cleanly into his mind, and he knew he could easily transport over to them if he tried.
But he could not go back to Isabella. By disconnecting the wiring connected to his spine, the government doctors had changed the focus of his talent. No matter how much he tried, he could not go back to his real home.
Damn.
So they were stuck in Jefferson, without extra clothing and without food. For that matter, Kit actually had no clothes. The entire situation was verging on intolerable, needed to be rectified, and there was only one way Aaron could see to do that.
The card for the cab company sat on the end table near the phone. Picking up the phone, he dialed the number.
"Is Kara available?"
"Which Kara? We got three of them."
"The one with the nose studs. Kara Perkins."
"No," the voice said. "She doesn't report in until noon today."
"Oh." Aaron tapped his fingers impatiently on the phone desk. "Could you have her call this number when she gets in? I want to hire her cab for a few days."
"Sir, a full shift's rental is fifty five dollars. A car rental will only run you five dollars a day." The man sounded quite patient. He spoke as if he were trying to explain something very basic to an idiot.
"I never learned to drive," Aaron told him. "Also, I said I wanted to hire her for a few days. I did not say I wanted to hire only her cab."
"None of our drivers are permitted to prostitute themselves."
Aaron rolled his eyes and wished the women were not in the other room because he really, really felt like cursing. In all, it took him ten minutes to convince the man to tell Kara with the studs to call the apartment's number.
Afterwards he turned on the holovision and watched it for a couple hours. When nine o'clock rolled around he started worrying about whether the women would bother to ever wake up. At ten o'clock he went to the bedroom door and knocked softly.
"Come in."
He found them entangled together, blinking sleep heavy eyes.
"I-um-I wondered if you were okay," Aaron stammered. "I haven't heard a sound out of either of you." Why was it so warm in here?
"We are just fine, love." Sarah rolled onto her back, modestly pulling the covers to her neck. "We'll be out in a few minutes but I want to talk a few things over with Kit first."
"So I see," Aaron said while his belly churned unhappily.
Thirty minutes later Sarah came into the main room. She glowed. "Is there a hair brush around here? Where's the food?" Her walk was panther smooth. She stopped in front of him and languidly stretched. "I've never slept so good. I swear Aaron, you have the most comfortable bed I've ever been in."
"I wouldn't know," Aaron said sourly. "I've never slept in it."
"Really? You are missing out. Where is my brush and what's for breakfast?"
"One brush, no breakfast," Aaron told her. "I need to buy a lot of things, especially for Kit. I won't have her prancing around in the nude like that."
Sarah smiled. "Poor baby. We are mean to you. Still, you more than deserve it. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."
The phone rang, and Aaron rushed to pick it up. Sarah sat down and watched curiously while he talked.
"What were you doing?" she asked when he hung up.
"That thing is called a telephone. It allows people to talk across long distances, and I used it to hire us a cab for the day. The driver will pick me up in twenty minutes, and then we will go shopping for supplies and food, some clothes. Do you know what size Kit wears?"
Sarah chuckled. "Aaron, I don't know what size I wear. This is a totally different place from the one I know. I'll fall down in shock if they size things the same way. Tell you what. I'll take a bath and hand you my clothes. Use them to buy new clothing for both of us. Kit is almost my size. Her legs are a couple inches shorter and her chest is bigger. You'll figure it out."
She went into the bathroom. A minute later the door cracked open. Sarah tossed her clothes out and then a few moments later the shower started. Muttering small curses against women, Aaron collected the clothing and folded it neatly so it would be easier to carry.
The phone rang again. Yes, he told the front desk, he was expecting a cab. He would be right down.
The door guard greeted him cheerfully. "We haven't seen you about, sir. You must do most of your running during the night shift. Have a pleasant day."
Perk held the cab door open for him.
"Poked another hole in your face," Aaron asked. Three tiny pearls lay in a horizontal row along the side of her nose where there had only been two before.
"Just the one," Perk answered. "Been feeling a bit low lately so I went in and got myself jabbed again. So tell me, how come the arm and legs work now?"
"I saw some doctors," Aaron said truthfully after she closed his door and climbed in the other side. "What about yourself?" He gestured at the side of her face. "That is some bruise you have there."
She flashed him a smile in the mirror. "My foot slipped on the mat when I threw a kick. I was so upset about it that I forgot to duck afterwards and got decked. So, Mister Aaron Turner, where are we going today?"
"I want to exchange some more coins."
"Do you want to go someplace different than the last time? I have just th
e place in mind, but he charges an extra five percent, and he isn't bonded."
"I think so," Aaron said. "I'm not into getting beat up today."
The place turned out to be the dojo where she trained. Her trainer turned out to be no humble older man like Aaron had come to expect from the holovids. Instead he was big and loud and exuberant. He also had a very large safe that released several five hundred dollar bills and two single hundreds into Aaron's hands. Aaron handed over three of the coins.
Next on the agenda were clothes. Perkins raised her right eyebrow in surprise when he told her they were buying women's clothing, specifying that he wanted clothes offering free movement without being too baggy, figuring that not only were Sarah and Kit active women, they were also women who might soon need to run or fight.
Perk showed him the best shops and quickly became exasperated by his fumbling. Two hours passed before she was satisfied with his choices, but at the end of it he had two complete sets of clothing for each woman. Since he had absolutely no idea what size shoes they wore he picked two different styles of comfortable looking workout shoes and bought seven different pairs of each. With so many different sizes, he figured one of them had to be right for each woman, unless they both wore the same size. In that case they would just have to agree not to match.
Perk made him buy the undergarments. He moved into the department, bought the first items he saw, and then got out of there.
He even remembered to buy new hair combs and toothbrushes.
Afterward, Aaron let Perk choose his dishes and silverware. By the time the shopping spree was over he had spent well over thirty two hundred dollars, a very small fortune. The clothing he bought for himself was cheap by comparison.
It was five o'clock before he returned to his building. He told Perk exactly where he wanted her to park and then spent the next minute memorizing everything he saw. Afterwards he loaded her down with bags and grabbed the rest for himself.
* * *
"About time you came back," Kit exclaimed when he walked through the door. "Do you realize how much food is in this place? None."