[The Shifters Committee 01.0] Time Shifters

by Rebecca Foxx

  She loved all foods, from simple wine and cheese pairings to more complicated heavy liquor, beef, and fish. Her father was a chef, though he didn’t work at the vineyard. His restaurant was on the other side of town, and it was enormous.

  Lisa loved that he’d installed French doors both inside and outside of the restaurant. Though her mother frowned upon her profession, Lisa didn’t care. She knew that it was a good job, and it gave her a confidence boost. Besides, if she hadn’t started working at the Vineyard, she would have never run into Blake.

  Chapter 4

  The night of Blake and Lisa’s graduation from high school had been charged with emotions. It had rained during the ceremony, and everyone ran into the gymnasium to keep warm.

  Lisa and Blake were each surrounded by their friend groups, which had meshed for the most part, though it was difficult. They each had such warring personalities and they were either team Lisa or team Blake.

  Though Lisa’s friends didn’t say it out loud, they thought that she could do much better than Blake. Blake’s friends thought he could do better than Lisa, and were constantly coaxing him into cheating on her.

  He had, once, with a girl named Mikayla. It had been kept a secret for a long time, as Mikayla wasn’t on the popular kid’s radar and was pretty nerdy.

  Lisa was fairly popular because she was an outcast, and that made her into an untouchable. Everyone wanted to get to know the girl behind the dirty converse sneakers and smooth black dresses.

  They wanted to know if it was all an act or if she really was a genuine and unique person. Lisa had no idea who Mikayla was, and if she did, they probably would have been friends.

  When Lisa was deemed cool and popular, she shed a lot of her old friends and embraced the circle of popularity. It meant more late nights, expensive clothes, and visited to Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons.

  She constantly felt like the spotlight was trained on her, and everything she did was a deciding factor in whether or not she remained one of the cool girls. To Lisa, it was all worth it because she had Blake. If they hadn’t been such a powerful couple, they wouldn’t have survived. Blake himself came from a lot of money and wealth.

  Every kid in town knew the Rhodes family, and they knew his father. Back then, Blake’s dad was the owner of the town. He was barely around, and spent most of his time on vacation with Blake’s mother.

  When they were gone, Blake would throw extravagant parties at his parent’s mansion, coating the walls in black-light paint that would be scrubbed off by the maids the very next day. He somehow had his own little black market of alcohol going on, and college students were constantly shipping him cases of beer and wine for low prices.

  Once when Lisa had asked him about it, he told her he had friends in high places. She hadn’t questioned him since then.

  It wouldn’t have made any sense to ask Blake why he did anything. In Lisa’s mind, Blake’s actions were all contingent upon the fact that he was rich and he had an important future ahead of him.

  Just like Atlas held up the earth on his shoulders, so too would Blake hold Sun Peaks on his bare and tawny shoulders. Lisa often joked about becoming the first lady, as it felt like Blake was next in line for the presidency, what with the way his father talked about his future.

  The other kids were all dying to be Blake’s best friends, and they formed a tight-lipped community in their suburban home. Lisa always thought the suburbs were strange and creepy, especially because everyone seemed to know everyone else so well.

  They were too close, as if they all existed on an incestuous level, and it both terrified and thrilled Lisa. It wasn’t that she was poor, but she definitely wasn’t a billionaire like Blake was. Now that they were together again, and flirting with each other in the wine cellar, all her negative thoughts about the past came flooding back.

  She remembered that after the graduation ceremony, she headed straight over to Blake’s house. One of the punks from school was at the front door, acting like a bouncer.

  He knew Lisa from English class, and let her glide through without an invitation. She remembered thinking at the time that she shouldn’t have needed an invitation, as she was Blake’s girlfriend and everyone knew that.

  When she first stepped foot in the mansion, her ears were assaulted by the loud music and laughter. There were groups of kids all over the place, taking shots of alcohol and telling jokes to each other.

  She heard Blake’s voice coming from a nearby room, accompanied by a few of his friends. To her surprise, they were all talking behind her back. His friends were trying to convince Blake to break up with her because they’d just graduated, and he needed to enter college as a single man.

  She heard him protest a few times, telling his friends that Lisa was the one and they were going to get married someday. Then Lisa heard another voice joining in the party.

  It was a female voice, and one that she didn’t recognize. She later found out that it belonged to a girl named Jenny, a cheerleader who had her sights set on Blake from day one.

  Lisa listened just long enough to hear Jenny trying to proposition Blake before she decided she’d had enough. It was too painful to hear Blake as he slightly flirted back with Jenny. Lisa had rushed out of the room and disappeared, ignoring all of Blake’s letters and phone calls.

  Now here they were, all those years later, and things were definitely different between them.

  “Another glass of wine?” Blake asked, cocking an eyebrow at he.

  “You know me so well,” Lisa said, holding out her empty glass.

  “Do I now? Or are you just like everyone else—complex and hard to read?”

  “Now you know I’m not hard to read,” Lisa said.

  “Oh of course not. I can see your emotions written all over your face.”

  “And what are my emotions saying?” she asked.

  “That you want to eat some more cheese and crackers.”

  Lisa tossed her head back and laughed. Even when he wasn’t trying, Blake was always able to make her laugh out loud.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “Just high school stuff,” she said. “Don’t worry, it’s not important. It might spoil the cheese if we talk about it.”

  “The cheese is fine; tell me what you were thinking. Or will I have to tickle it out of you?”

  She laughed and shifted away from him. Her entire body was ticklish at all times, and Blake knew where her sweet spots were. Once when they were trying to take a nap on senior skip day, they’d been spooning in Blake’s bed and he’d “accidentally” bitten her neck.

  This had led to some seriously heavy petting between the two of them, as the nape of the neck was Lisa’s weak spot.

  “So are you going to tell me?” he asked, running the tips of his fingers up and down her exposed thigh. “Or are we resorting back to desperate measures?”

  She rolled her eyes and bit her lip. Telling Blake what she’d been thinking meant exposing herself to extreme emotional vulnerability. As it was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with that. Upstairs, the fire raged on without them.

  The firefighters were now focusing on the building, and it was only a matter of time before they came crashing into the basement in order to save Blake and Lisa.

  “I was just thinking about how we broke up,” she said.

  Now it was Blake’s turn to bite his lip, which was something he did whenever he was nervous.

  “I always felt really bad about that,” he said.

  “I know; I got your letters.”

  “No, I mean I felt truly awful. My friends had gotten me drunk and I was really distracted. I knew you’d be coming over at any second, but they just kept telling me to take shots of vodka. Before I knew it, I was six-shots deep and I had no idea what was going on.”

  “Did Jenny factor into any of this?” she asked pointedly.

  Blake sighed and leaned back on the bed. “Sort of. She kept trying to ask me to sleep with her but
I didn’t really want to. Even after I heard that you’d come over and then slammed out the front door, all I wanted to do was run after you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Immediately afterwards, I threw up all over my parent’s carpet. You know how most parents have that room you’re not supposed to go in? The one with all the glass and fine China? That’s the room I’d been drinking in.

  I became sick all over the white carpet, and my father tore me a new one for it. After that, he started bringing me to business meetings with him so he could shape me to be the next heir to Sun Peaks. And now here we are today.”

  “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Lisa said. She knew she would regret not picking up the phone when Blake called, but she hadn’t want to hear a forced apology. She figured he’d slept with Jenny, and that was one of the main reasons she’d ignored him.

  If only she knew how wrong she’d been; maybe they could have dated a bit longer.

  Chapter 5

  After the discussion about high school, Lisa and Blake were lying on the bed and staring up at the ceiling. Most of the curtains on the bed were opened, and they fell in dark red swaths around them.

  The lights had been flickering on and off the entire time, until they finally went out with a hiss. Now that Lisa and Blake were left in almost darkness, he turned towards her and took her into his arms.

  “Maybe it’s the wine talking, but I just wanted you to know that I still have feelings for you,” Blake said. Lisa tensed up, for he was whispering in her ear and it tickled. “I still have feelings for you, too,” she admitted.

  She began to think that it was time to forgive Blake for the past. She thought about why people cheated, and how their past relationship had gone through so many hoops. After all this time, he was still charismatic as all hell, and he was good at turning her on. Without thinking, she moved her hips so they were resting closer against Blake’s groin.

  He took that as a good sign, tugging her towards him and biting her neck. She tasted sweet, like wine and fruit. When he bit her neck she moaned loudly, loving the feeling of pain and pleasure. He raked his teeth down her spine and ran his hands across her collarbone and breasts.

  She rose beneath him like a loaf of bread, her soft skin unfolding and sighing every time he touched her. Biting her was like realizing he hadn’t truly understood fulfillment until that moment. He slipped her out of her dress, tossed her bra on the floor, and began to fumble with his own clothes. It was practically pitch black, except for a candle or two lying around.

  Above them, they thought they heard angry flames engulfing everything. It was as if they were the last two people on earth, the next Adam and Eve and they needed to sleep together in order to repopulate the earth.

  Instead of entering her right away, he pushed her legs up and began to lick and suck at her wet mound. She was making cooing noises that were so loud they could be heard several floors up by the firemen.

  Later on, when they told the story to their close friends, they would recall how their passion was so strong that it practically brought the whole burning building down on top of them. It had been a long time since Blake had had sex with another woman and actually felt good about himself. Touching Lisa reminded him about what it meant to be a human being and to feel true pleasure.

  “This is amazing,” he whispered into her.

  “Stop it, you’re tickling me,” she said, messing up his hair. “It’s distracting.”

  “Oh is it now?” he asked, running his hands over her stomach and thighs, which were her most ticklish spots. He knew she was just teasing, and that the only way she could achieve climax was if she were being heavily stimulated.

  “You like that, don’t you?” he asked before submerging his tongue inside her.

  He placed his hand on her chest to feel the beating of her heart, which seemed to turn her on like crazy. The only sound he could hear was that of her voice and his tongue when it touched flesh.

  She tasted like a pomegranate, the forbidden seed that would destine him to a life in the fiery underworld. Blake never understood people’s aversions to the devil—he always thought the figure of the devil was the sexiest thing anyone could imagine. He pictured Lisa with liquid red skin and spiraling horns, like seashells, that created their own intricate patterns.

  If it weren’t for Lisa’s hands digging into his skull, he would have never noticed that she’d had an orgasm. The way her body moved when she came and the way her body moved when she was turned on were exactly the same—she was a choppy wave in the ocean that had no hope of calming down.

  “Blake, Blake stop it tickles so much—“ she cried out.

  “Oh yeah? I bet it does,” he crooned into her. She laughed and tossed her head back.

  Though he wanted to continue pleasing her until she had orgasm after orgasm, he was also turned on and wanted to get his fill. He climbed on top of he and slid inside, amazed at how wet she already was. He had to hold himself back, otherwise he would finish too quickly and that would be quite disappointing.

  Lisa wrapped her legs around his back and brought him closer. She dragged her nails down his back, hoping that she could somehow leave her mark on this world on the back of a boy she once loved.

  And do I love him still? She thought to herself. Have I finally let go? If this night has taught me anything, it’s that I am able to easily forgive. I suppose it doesn’t matter—we might never make it out of here alive. I should just tell him I still have feelings for him while I still have the breath and courage left.

  “Blake,” she whispered in his ear. He moaned at the sound of his name on her tongue, every limb in his body electrified like an eel.

  “I love you,” he said without thinking. “Oh god,” he breathed. “I’m sorry I said that. I mean, I think I—“

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I love you, too.”

  He grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the bed with his muscular hands.

  “Say it again. Tell me how you feel about me.”

  She struggled against his hold, happy that he couldn’t see her flushed neck in all that darkness.

  “I love you,” she said again.

  “Oh…God…” he groaned, pushing into her one more time before spilling his warm juices inside of her.

  Though they could barely see each other, she grabbed his cheeks and they looked into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, breathing the same oxygen in and out of one another’s mouths.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “That sound…it sounds like something falling down. Oh my god, do you think the roof is falling down on us?”

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s going to be fine, we’re going to be fine.”

  It was, in fact, quite the opposite of what Lisa thought. Suddenly, the room was flooded with light as three firemen rushed into the room with flashlights and axes. They’d managed to quell the flames outside, though majority of the Vineyard building was burnt to a crisp.

  Surprisingly, the basement was intact. No one knew that the owner had paid handsomely to have the basement created out of a fireproof material in order to preserve the wines he’d been collecting for years.

  “Quick,” Lisa hissed. “Before they notice what we’ve been doing.”

  She tugged on her dress and fixed her hair, making sure she didn’t look too chaotic.

  Blake was already tugging on his pants and shirt, though he looked incredibly guilty while he was buttoning up his dress shirt. The firemen inspected the room for a few seconds before shining their lights on Lisa and Blake.

  They told them to come out quickly, as the building was still unstable and wreckage was prone to falling. Lisa and Blake obliged, following the group of men in metallic black and yellow out of the basement.

  Lisa felt like she was being led towards her death by a bunch of demons clad in rubber. She still had yet to understand the fact that they were being saved. Though it had remai
ned at the back of her mind, there had been a nagging feeling the whole time that told her they wouldn’t be getting out of there alive.

  For the next hour, Lisa and Blake were checked up on in order to make sure they hadn’t swallowed any smoke. They were first inspected inside of an ambulance but were later taken to the hospital, just to make sure there was no residue in their lungs.

  Lisa hated hospitals, and kept he head down the entire time, refusing to look at the other sick patients and the nurses. When they finished checking Blake’s heartbeat and lungs, he walked over to Lisa and held her hand through the procedure.