Eddie didn't say anything, just kept hugging me. Part of me wanted to turn around and see his reaction, but I couldn't bear it if he thought less of me because of it.
"What are the chances he's going to come back for revenge? Could all this be from him, and not Alan?" Eddie asked in a steady voice.
"Good question. Unlikely. He had to move back home with his parents in Omaha. He didn't have health insurance, and moving home was a condition of them paying for his medical expenses."
"Do I want to know?"
"He lost a testicle," I said promptly and smugly, and felt him flinch. He kissed my head.
"That's my girl. See? You stand up for yourself more than you think."
"So you're not mad?" I ventured tentatively.
"What? Sweetheart, why would I be mad? No, look at me." I turned over and raised my eyes to his. “We just talked about this. No, I'm not mad. I'm not going to be mad. Your parents and Roger and the company were wrong to make you feel like everyone should be mad at you. Okay? Do you understand me?”
“I can't change in five minutes, Eddie.”
“I'm not asking you to change in five minutes. I just want to you start to understand that not everyone is thinking the worst of you. Some of us think you're pretty damn awesome.”
I wanted to believe him, but it was so hard. “How long are you staying?” I asked, changing the subject away from me.
Eddie recognized the question for what it was, but allowed the discussion to change. He had pushed enough for the night. “Probably until Monday. Unless you want to go to Connecticut this weekend?”
“Um.” My brain whirled to catch up. “That's awfully last minute. And I really just want a weekend to relax. Can't we just stay here? Spend time with each other? Maybe test some traveling?”
“I thought you wanted to stay here? Teasing, just teasing!” He grabbed the hand that was headed towards a nipple and kissed it. “I know what you mean, and yes, we can stay in. Do you want to travel tonight?”
I considered. “If you're up for it. If we can only go once a day, I want to milk it for all its worth.”
“It's probably safer. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but don't we have a house to furnish?”
*******
Elizabethan London had an honest to God shopping mall. I wasn't much of a fashion girl, and never liked going to the mall to hang out or shop. I generally shopped more like a man – go in directly to what I needed, get it, and go. No browsing or wandering aimlessly.
In the Royal Exchange, I wandered. I browsed. I bought. A lot.
It was a good thing Eddie had gotten more gems. For as much as I didn't spend in the future, I spent here. Fancy clean mattress, extra stuffed with fluffed cotton. Fit for the Queen herself, the shopkeeper said. The lack of creepy-crawlies made the sale for me.
The finest linens, imported from Egypt. I now owned a higher thread count in the past than I do in the future. Bolts and bolts of exquisite velvet and silk – I planned on draping them around the cottage, rather like Inara did in her shuttle in Firefly's Serenity.
The smells of the spices were intoxicating, and wafted throughout the three story structure. This was definitely the best smelling place we'd found in the past. Eddie politely asked the merchant the price for some peppercorns, and managed not to flinch at the exorbitant amount. I wasn't as schooled with my expression, and Eddie hurried me out of the stall.
“Holy crap!” I obediently let Eddie drag me towards some pottery. “I could buy out Kroger's for that amount. Not just of pepper, of everything!”
“You can negotiate, you know,” he told me, amused.
“Gee, it'd then just cost the same as a house to fill my pepper grinder. No thanks.” I smiled to lessen the impact, and promised myself to bring some pepper back next time we traveled. Heck, forget gems – pepper might be a better currency.
When we returned to the cottage, a few of the delivery boys were waiting for us. Eddie the directed the setup of the bed and various pieces of furniture, as we quickly found they would not listen to me. A few hours later our home was set up, and I flopped on the soft bed.
This was the life. I hated that I had to go back to my “real” life in the future. Yeah, London smelled, and I was pretty sure that a plague outbreak was likely to happen in the next dozen or so years. But, I didn't have to deal with Alan and his harassment. I didn't have to go to work each day, and expect to be on-call each night. I could stay here, with my husband.
Eddie sat down on the bed next to me, and I pulled him down on top of me. “Let's stay,” I told him impulsively. “Here, in this time.”
He considered. “Even though we've traveled a dozen times, we always went back to the future that day. We don't even know if we can stay, do we?”
“We didn't know we could travel, for that matter. Why, are you scared?”
My husband looked bemused. “Look at my bold wife. I thought you were the conservative one?”
“We could get hit by a bus – or carriage – tomorrow. We're taking massive chances time traveling to begin with. I mean, what's the worst that can happen if we stay? I can take the ring off at any point if things start to get out of hand.”
He shrugged. “I'm fine staying if you want to. You're the one wearing the ring – you're the one in control.”
I considered that. I was the one in control, for once. Maybe that was why I liked traveling through time so much. In the future, things were out of my hands. I did what others wanted me to do. Here, I could dictate what we did (between ourselves, at least), and had the power to take us back to the future whenever I wanted to. I had control.
Since I had control, I did what I wanted. I rolled us over so I was on top, and lifted my skirts. One nice thing about the fashion of the time, once I got over my initial apprehension, is the lack of undies. It made access easier. I ground my lady bits against Eddie's man bits, and sighed with pleasure.
He rolled us back over, and dropped trou.
The sex was unlike any we had before. Sparkles danced in my vision in the last rays of sunlight streaming through the cracks in the wooden shutters. The world seemed to spin, and I hadn't even hit the big O yet.
Our horizontal gymnastics had ended up with me on top again. Eddie's strong, calloused hands gripped my buttocks, sometimes pushing me down to meet his thrusting, sometimes giving me a nice erotic smack. I was loving life.
Then the world disappeared.
We both regained consciousness at the same time. Our bodies were in a heap on the floor in the Dallas townhome, limbs tangled not in a good way.
We had to have been unconsciousness for a while, since my right arm, which ended up under Eddie's back, was fast asleep. We crawled over to the couch, me because I doubted my legs would hold me, Eddie because his velvet hose was around his knees hindering movement.
“Well that wasn't fun.”
I considered. The sex was nice, but yeah, whatever caused the abrupt time travel wasn't. Also, it had terrible timing. “What do you think happened?”
My husband scrubbed a hand over his face. “You know, one of these days you're going to ask me that, and I won't have an answer,” he answered lightly. “That time is now. How would I know?”
He was out of arm's reach, so I couldn't thwap him. I settled for a soft kick, more like a tickle, with my foot. He grabbed it and started massaging it.
“I was looking for speculation,” I responded, leaning my head back against the couch arm to enjoy the attention, and thought. What had occurred before the travel happened? Yes, we were making love, and it was awesome. The spinning and sparkles now made a bit more sense, as possible side effects of the rip through time. “Maybe they were a warning.”
“Which they?”
“Sorry. The world was spinning and there was glitter in the air.”
He nodded slowly, accepting the proposition. “I was chalking that up to the intimacy, but that could make sense.”
I sat up, continuing my line of thought. “Sunlig
ht. We hadn't stayed this late before – we had just been talking about that. What if we have to travel back, that there's a limit of one day back there at a time? The spinning and sparkles could have been a warning to leave on our own terms.”
“They would have been very evident if we weren't otherwise engaged. It would have given us just enough time to find a safe place and leave.”
Disappointed clouded my features as I realized the implications. I was starting to like the idea of living in the past. Now I was stuck living in the here and now, with just visiting history.
“Since we have that mystery figured out, there's something we left unfinished...” Eddie said teasingly, and came over to settle on top of me on the couch. We picked up where we left off.
Chapter Nine
When I got home from work the next day, I went into the bedroom to change and stopped short. Laid out on the bed was a classic little black dress, with a new bra and panty set sitting next to it. The black lace bra was adorned with embroidered hot pink roses and lime green ivy leaves, and the straps repeated the motif along their length. The matching thong had a few strategically placed roses, and the ivy crept along the waistband. A pair of strappy black stilettos were on the floor at the end of the bed, and I gasped when I saw the brand name -- they had to cost more than my monthly rent had.
The shower turned off, and I entered the bathroom to find out what the occasion was. Eddie had already gotten out of the tub, and was standing on the bathmat, one foot up on the tub, drying his leg off.
"Mmmm, yummy," I blurted out, and immediately went to squeeze the firm butt displayed for me. I didn't care that he was wet and I was still in my work attire; I wrapped my arms around him from behind and hugged my curves into him, wandering a hand southwards. "When do we have to leave?"
Eddie drew in a shuddering breath as I found the treasure I was looking for. "Six," he croaked out.
I counted that number out by pressing that many fingertips against him. "And it's five-fifteen now, so that leaves us...." The makeshift slide rule obligingly extended to its full length as I did the calculations. "Plenty of time," I breathed into his ear, causing his spine to shiver underneath my body.
The next thing I knew, my skirt was up around my waist, my panties were around my knees, and I was leaned over the vanity, Eddie pressing into me from behind. A button went flying off of my blouse as he hurried to get access to my breasts hanging down below me. I gasped at the sensations of Eddie rubbing my nipples through the lace of my bra while thrusting deep. It didn't take long before he was satisfied. "So much for needing time," I chuckled, knowing only a few minutes had passed.
"Who said we were done?" He asked, lust making his tenor a baritone. He spun me around in his arms, then scooped me up and strolled into the bedroom.
"Not on the bed! The dress!" I shrieked before he tossed me down. He glanced around the room and spotted the changing bench against one wall. He pushed it away from the wall with his foot, and deposited me on my back on the padded surface. Eddie leisurely undressed and pleasured me, then entered me so we could come in unison this time.
"Plenty of time," Eddie mocked, undoing the knot and redoing his tie.
"You're the one who took his sweet time. And really, my bra shouldn't have been that hard to unclasp." I wiggled into the thong. "Man, could you have gotten one any smaller?"
"It doesn't fit?" He asked, looking away from the mirror. "Looks fine."
"It fits, I guess." I moved over to join him in front of the mirror, and cringed. "It just doesn't cover anything. You can see two of the freckles!"
A gleam reentered his eyes. "I sure can. Maybe I can find number three," he said, abandoning the tie and wrapping his hands around my waist.
I slapped at them. "We don't have time, hon. You can save hunting for later," I promised, feeling heat rising near the errant freckle, and wished we had time for another go. My hair was still wet from the shower, and I didn't have time to dry it. I quickly tied it into a tight bun at the nape of my neck. Eddie looked at me curiously.
"Anyone ever tell you that you look like Lillith from Cheers?"
"It's just the hair. She's a lot prettier than me."
"Not to me she's not," Eddie told me, giving me a quick kiss.
I blushed. "So where are we going? What's the occasion?"
"No reason. I just wanted to have a nice dinner with my wife." I looked at him suspiciously. A nice dinner didn't require thousand dollar shoes. "We're going to a Brazilian steakhouse."
"And that differs from an American steakhouse how?"
"You see." He grinned at my reflection, crinkling the skin around his eyes. I rolled mine and slid into the dress, and Eddie helped me zip it. He straightened it out for me, running his hands along the soft fabric closely so he could feel the curves underneath.
"Eddie--"
"I know," he sighed, and swatted my butt before releasing me completely. "Come on, slow poke. Time to go."
"I feel overdressed," I complained as we waited in the valet parking line behind some cowboys getting out of their pickup truck in their ironed jeans.
"You look beautiful," Eddie assured me.
"Which is a completely separate thing," I muttered under my breath as I let the valet help me out of the car. I tottered on the high heels until Eddie took my elbow. "And this is before I have any alcohol," I whispered to him, and he chuckled.
When we got inside and were seated, I had to admit Eddie was right. Dressy clothes were much better suited for the restaurant. The lights were dim, but not too dark so that you couldn't see your plate. The handsome Maitre D held out my chair for me and pushed me in, something I had never experienced before. Noticing that I was wearing a black dress, he politely removed the white napkin from the table and excused himself to get me a black one.
I leaned across the table to whisper to Eddie, one hand holding the low cut dress to my chest so I didn't flash him. "Why is he getting me a different napkin?"
"You're fine, you're not showing too much. And you wouldn't want white string or fuzz from the napkin on your dress, so he's getting you a matching color."
I sat back, impressed. If this was how fancy restaurants worked, I'd eat there more often. On Eddie's dime, of course. Their waiter appeared, and explained how the meal worked to me. The meal was prix-fixe, offering unlimited amounts of the salad bar, dozen meats, and sides. There was a paper coaster for each of us, and the green side meant bring by the different cuts of meat, and the red side meant hold off. My mouth watered as I saw one of the gauchos bring a large skewer of top round to a neighboring table and cut off a slice for them. Eddie ordered a bottle of wine, and we headed over to the salad bar.
_Are there any unattractive waiters here?_ I let my gaze linger on the handsome gentleman that handed me a plate at the salad bar. I thanked him and took my place in line, hoping I didn't look as uncultured as I felt surveying the delicacies.
"Here, let me load your plate," Eddie said with a smile in his eyes, seeing my discomfort. "Panchetta? I believe I saw some asparagus on the other side that you can wrap."
"Um, no thanks," I said, then realized he was helping me by identifying the objects. I had him grab some familiar items, as well as things I'd always wanted to try -- artichoke hearts, tomatillos, roasted red peppers, and Waldorf salad.
Another waiter dived to push in my chair before I could sit back down. Yes, I could really grow to like this kind of service.
The salad bar was great, but I found that the meats were simply amazing. They would slice off a piece of meat to the exact level of doneness that I liked, and the food so was flavorful I couldn't help but let out a moan of pleasure when I tried a new selection.
At first, Eddie found that intriguing and humorous. But the more wine I had, the more those moans were like other little moans I would do for him, in a more private setting. "Will you quit that?" He finally hissed in a low voice.
My gaze flew to meet his, tearing away from the delicate lamb. "What's wrong? You
should try the leg of lamb. The char on it is simply delicious."
"The--" He broke off when a waiter appeared to refill our wineglasses. When the gaucho left, my gaze followed him, watching how the cut of the pants emphasized the trim waist and legs on the man. "That too. Stop ogling the meat, and for the love of God, quit moaning like that."
Understanding hit me immediately. I took a sip of wine and peered at him coquettishly over the rim of the glass. "Jealous?" The tablecloth was floor length, so I had no qualms against slipping off a shoe and running my toes up his calf. I giggled when Eddie jumped, almost spilling his wineglass. He grabbed my foot and gave it a warning squeeze.
“What has gotten into you tonight?” He asked, exasperated.
“You. Oh wait, you haven't yet. Wanna hit the ladies room?”
He pushed my foot back down to the ground. “Behave. No more wine for you.”
I wrinkled my nose at him, thinking that sticking my tongue out would be misconstrued. But then again, I might have meant that meaning. I wasn't quite sure. The mashed potatoes and fried bananas were calling my attention anyway, and ooh-there went the filet minon again.
There was still half a glass of wine left in the bottle when our shared dessert came. “I'm drinking it if you're not,” I challenged him.
“I'm driving. You don't need to drink it.”
“That's alcohol abuse. I always hated that on tv and movies,” I commented, sloshing the wine into my glass. “A man would walk into a bar, order a drink, and either never touch it, or have just a sip before he leaves. It's a waste. Why buy something if you're not going to drink it? If I'm paying this much, I'm going to enjoy it and get my money's worth, damn it.”
Eddie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Schroeder, it's just money. It's no big deal.”
Time to Control Page 16