by Eve Langlais
The back of his hand touched her forehead lightly. “Maybe you’re remembering.”
“What am I supposed to remember?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “I tried once. It didn’t end well. It has to be this way.”
“But we just met. I don’t know you.” She swayed again. His fingers felt familiar against her skin. The caress stirred a deep longing inside of her and it became hard to concentrate.
“Sure you do.” His lips brushed hers softly. “Everlastingly.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” She didn’t pull away from his kiss. Nothing about this night made sense, but at least his touch didn’t feel treacherous. Being next to him was the safest she’d felt all night. “Who are you, Jack?”
Instead of answering, he kissed her again. Or perhaps that was his answer–a gentle kiss.
Maura didn’t move, just let it happen. Exhaustion made her limbs heavy. Her feet stung, a cold contrast to his touch. His fingers slid over her cheek and neck to cup her face. She felt him shake violently.
“Maura, please, find it,” he whispered against her mouth. “I don’t know how much time there is left. I fear all we have are these stolen moments.”
Her lips moved along his and she didn’t want to think about anything else. She pressed against his warmth, sensing that he might let her go soon. Needing to feel something other than cold, she desperately held him tighter. The firm press of his body molded against her. His desire was evident in the lift of his arousal, in the fevered exploration of his hands.
When she touched him, her hands knew how he liked to be caressed. Maura did not know this man, she was sure of it, but her body responded as if it remembered the taste of his mouth and the lines of his chest. Her finger remembered the indent of his spine under his shirt.
She wished he would just tell her what was happening. He clearly knew the answer. What was she supposed to remember? Why the doorless room and tunnel? Why such a place between seasons existed? How could he be laying her down in a spring–filled valley next to the wintery forest?
The soft petals of the field cushioned her. Maura refused to open her eyes, scared if she did she’d be trapped barefoot in the snow again. If this was her dying hallucination, then she wanted to take it. She hooked her thumbs into his waistline and pushed. With a little of his help, she managed to free his erection. The rest of his clothing seemed to melt from his skin to reveal the hot flesh beneath.
Emotion poured out of him in tiny bursts, pulsating into her nerve endings as if his desire for her was a tangible thing to be passed between them. The sound of his moan begged her for more. When he pulled up her skirt to tenderly grab her ass, she didn’t fight it. This is what she wanted, an end to the torturous ache in her skin, to the uncertainty of her mind. Nothing made sense in this world but Jack.
Jack pulled at the bodice of her gown to expose a breast. His lips left hers only to find hold over an aching nipple. He tugged at her hose and she heard them rip open. The eagerness of his desire was in that very action, as if he couldn’t wait to undress her fully. Seconds later his hips borrowed between her thighs.
They made love on the valley floor, bodies entwined, gentle but desperate. There was no hesitation as he entered her and in that second she knew him, and the feelings he stirred within her were familiar. Though she wanted the moment to last forever–as she tried to filter the pleasure of his lovemaking from the tease of her memories–their climax built to such a pitch that they had no choice but to fall over the edge. He stiffened over her and his breath caught.
Maura gasped and finally opened her eyes. A tear slid over her cheek. “Jack? It’s you. I remember. Everlastingly.” The cold came back with a fierceness, starting at her prickling feet. The pain of it would not be denied as the threat of death pulled her into its heartless arms.
“Listen to me, Maura. The magic is waning. You must break the loop or we lose–”
“Oh, no, I feel it. No, no, no, not yet. Jack, not yet. Just one more minute.”
“Remember me,” he whispered as his body faded from above hers. Tears stained his cheeks in his desperation. “Remember Jack. Everlas–”
Chapter Five
Maura pressed her face to the glass window of the doorless room, trying to see through the falling snow. Someone had dug into the large yard, clearing the white away so that mud poked through to spell out the words, “Remember Jack Everlas”.
The words were facing her window, as if they had been left for her to find. But who was Jack Everlas and why was she to remember him?
If someone wrote that on the lawn and it was still visible in the snow storm, then they had to be nearby. Perhaps below in the house? The room was high off the ground so maybe this was an attic and she just wasn’t finding the right latch to get out. Taking the skeleton key off the wall, she used it to scrape at the window sill. It had been painted shut and it took a little effort to break the seal.
When she managed to push it open wide enough to crawl out, she hooked her feet onto the lattice and tried to close it once more, so the heat would not escape. The lantern from within the room cast light onto the snow. She made her way down the side of the house and then jogged to the porch. Peeking in the window, she tried to see if anyone was home. The house was dark.
Maura tried the knob. The door was unlocked so she let herself in. “Hello?”
No answer came beyond the flickering glow of Christmas lights on an otherwise bare tree. It actually looked sad, alone and musty, a half–hearted attempt at decorating for the holidays.
“My name is Maura. You helped me. I know it’s silly, but I couldn’t find a way out of the attic room so I climbed down.”
Still, no answer.
It didn’t look as if anyone lived here. The furniture was old and had been undisturbed for decades. Maybe the tree lights were the only ones that worked. It would explain why they were on, but no others. Just to be sure, she tried the light switch. Nothing happened. At least the house was warm. That was something.
Tracks formed a trail down the dusty hallway. Someone had been here recently. She followed them cautiously. Glancing, she saw a clean swipe in the dust on an old picture frame that revealed a handsome face. The eyes were kind. Perhaps the owner of the farm in his boyhood days? She lightly touched the scar on his temple, wondering where she had seen him before.
“I wish men like you still existed,” she whispered. “The dating pool is a sad thing these day–” A strong sensation filled her and stopped her words. What was she forgetting? Who was she forgetting?
The tracks led upstairs, probably to where they’d carried her to the doorless room. Maybe the note in the snow was their way of letting her know they’d be back. If they went for help it was possible their tracks leading away were lost in the snow, unlike the deep grooves they’d carved for their message. The old pickup outside hardly looked like it would run.
Instead of going upstairs, she explored the main level of the home. Most of the rooms were empty except for a few odd pieces of abandoned furniture. The kitchen had antique tins in the cupboard that read “Jackrabbit Tobacco” and “Jack–o–Lantern Pie Filling”. A newspaper clipping with yellowed tape that no longer stuck to anything lay on the floor. It was a picture of an abandoned car alongside the road with the headline, “Mysterious Disappearance of Two Locals”. The fragile paper crumbled to dust when she tried to lift it up to read the article.
Long ago someone had pasted colorful butterflies, now dulled with dust, onto a small door. Maura peeked within, only to find old wooden steps leading to a cellar. She felt around on the wall and found an old push button light switch. The lights flickered when she turned them on.
“Hello?” she called. No one answered, not that she expected them to.
Maura did not like the general feel of basements on a good day. Telling herself she’d just take a quick look, she tested each step to make sure it would hold her weight. Old limestone block foundation leaned inward and hard dirt made
for an uneven floor. Cobwebs hung in dirty strings, abandoned by their spider makers. The lights flickered violently, threatening to go out. She began to retreat, only to stop when she saw a small chest on the floor beneath the stairs. It was tucked away and easy to miss.
The closer Maura moved to retrieve the chest, the faster the lights flickered. She grabbed it and darted for the stairs. The lights went out completely and she was left stumbling her way back to the kitchen. Finding a seat on the old couch near the blinking tree lights, she placed the chest on her knees and dusted it off. The word “Everlastingly” was carved on the top.
A howl sounded outside and she jumped, dropping the chest to look out of the window. She pressed her face to the glass. The snowfall had begun to fill in Jack’s name.
“Remember Jack,” she whispered. A lost thought nagged at her brain. Who was Jack?
Maura turned to the chest. Pictures had spilled onto the floor like hidden memories–her memories. A Christmas Eve party in the dress she now wore, smiling and raising a glass of champagne. What was a picture from earlier in the night doing in an old box in an abandoned house?
Her hands shook as she reached for it. Tinsel sprinkled her hair in the photo, and she was smiling. Something small had sunk down into her glass, but she couldn’t make it out. Shaking, she kneeled to the floor. The images didn’t make sense. They were out of order–her car keys in her hand, her coat sleeve with fat snowflakes, tracks in the snow, a blurry face, a cracked stone, a creepy yard gnome.
And then blood–red crimson staining the ground, a destroyed snow angel, a lost shoe.
These were her memories, but she couldn’t put them into order or context. She grabbed the chest, tempted to shove them all back inside as if they didn’t exist. A dull ache formed behind her eye. Tree lights blinked over her photo’s smiling face, an image that seemed to say, “Begin here”, and so she did.
Chapter Six
“Maura, a toast,” a man said, the distant voice echoing through her mind. “I met you a year ago when you quite literally fell into my arms and gave me third degree burns with your ridiculously large coffee. But even as my face blistered, I knew I couldn’t go to the emergency room until I got your number.”
Maura gave a small laugh. Her lips moved, as they had when that picture was taken, and she answered, “At most I stained your shirt.” The picture changed, as if the camera panned down her purple satin dress. “I only gave you my number because you made me feel guilty.”
Laughter sounded, the tipsy happiness of a party. The ghostly echo seemed to come from within the farmhouse, from a room she couldn’t see. She slowly pushed up from the floor and sat on the couch.
The man continued, “Would you be quiet. This is my proposal.”
Maura made a weak noise. Proposal?
“I had a lot of clever things lined up to say to you,” he had said, “a lot of reasons why you should say yes, why we’re perfect, but the truth is, when I look at you I forget everything logical. So, Maura Caroline O’Brian, say you’ll marry me and make me everlastingly yours.”
“Yes, Jack, yes,” Maura told the memory. Jack’s blurry photographic face came into focus. She remembered his smile and how happy she was whenever he walked into a room. She remembered their first fight, first kiss, and first date. So many tiny moments that created a relationship. She remembered what it felt like to be held, how her nerves would jump with awareness when he touched her. Whenever he was gone overnight on a work trip, she longed for him terribly. The desire to hold him seemed to choke her even now. From that first moment, she’d known he was her forever.
The ring had been in the champagne glass, not that she’d noticed the lovely square diamond at first. Their friends had surrounded them in love. It was the perfect night, the happiness so intense that she feared it couldn’t last. She drank too much and Jack had to help her to the car because she stumbled on a broken piece of sidewalk and snagged her pantyhose on a lawn gnome’s pitchfork. She’d always hated that creepy gnome.
Maura looked at the picture of the keys.
“Give me those,” Jack had said, snatching the keys from her hand.
“I wish it would snow forever,” Maura had yelled, spinning in drunken circles into the street. Flakes fell upon her coat as she danced.
“Come here,” Jack said. “You’re covered in snow.”
“It’s not snow. They’re tiny perfect ice kingdoms doomed to melt!” At the time it had made perfect sense.
“You are perfectly crazy, my love,” he’d answered.
She wanted to spend her life with Jack. So much lay ahead of them that her heart had practically burst with the anticipation of their lives together. Getting to the car was a blur, as was the long stretch of wet pavement on a dark road, and the many signs advertising a local Renaissance Faire.
“We should go to that,” she’d said with a laugh. “I would love to see you in tight leather, my lord.”
“As you wish, my lady,” Jack had answered. “But only if you wear tight leather, too.”
Maura had chuckled as she watched streetlights glint off her ring until they disappeared, and then night swallowed the old highway. She stared at Jack’s face cast in the soft lights coming from the car’s dashboard controls. Big band music blared from the car radio. He loved that kind of thing and was always trying to drag her to revivals and jazz clubs.
“Did you look inside the ring before you put it on to show it off to the girls?” he’d asked, rocking in the driver’s seat.
Maura laughed and slipped it off her finger. She opened the glove box for a light to read the engraving aloud, “Everlastingly.”
“Everlastingly yours,” was how they said, “I love you”. It was special because it was theirs, unused in the centuries before, a new love, their love.
“Aw,” she said, smiling at the sweetness of it. “Right back at you, baby, forever and ever everlastingly yours.”
The memory became real, pulling Maura into it. Jack slowed the car and pulled to the side of the road. He unbuckled his seat belt and turned a very alluring smile to her.
“What? Here?” Maura laughed, even as she felt her willingness.
“I have been wanting go get you out of that dress all night.” He slid his seat back all the way and reclined it. “What do you say?”
Maura glanced around.
“No one drives down here,” he assured her, his tone dripping with honeyed persuasion. Jack reached for his belt buckle and unzipped his pants. His cock sprang free and he stroked it.
“We should wait until we get home.” The words were unconvincing as she unbuckled her seat belt.
He took his hand from his shaft and reached for her thigh to push up her skirt. “It’ll be like our first date.”
Maura dropped her head back and laughed. “I did not sleep with you on our first date.”
“But I thought about you straddling me in this car the entire first date.” Damn, he had a persuasive smile when he wanted her. It worked every time.
Maura reached for her shoe.
“Leave them on.” He pulled her toward his lap.
“But I’m wearing hose.” She slid closer to him on the seat.
“Just rip them open with your nail and push your panties aside.” He again stroked his cock and teased, “You better hurry. It’s started to get cold.”
“Let me judge.” Maura leaned over to kiss his erection and he jerked as her lips wrapped the tip. She started to pull away when he pushed the back of her head gently and thrust up a few times. The firm pressure automatically caused her to suck him.
“As much as I enjoy coming in your mouth, I really want your pussy.” He let go of her hair. “I’ll buy you new hose.”
Maura chuckled and reached between her legs to rip the delicate material.
“Oh, yeah,” he breathed eagerly. “Now straddle me.”
Cars were never an ideal fit, but it still excited her. As she straddled him in that tight space, she let her sex dance over the tip
of his shaft. His eyes focused on her breasts as he took her by the hips.
“I don’t know, Jack,” she whispered, playing with him. “What if we someone comes to check on us?”
The idea excited him more and he moaned. “I’ll tell them you were a bad girl and I had to pull the car over.”
“You like it when I’m bad, don’t you?” She pushed down on him, letting him fill her.
“Fuck,” was all he managed as she moved on top of him.
The position didn’t let them get as deep as she wanted, but the physical contact was enough to stir her body toward a climax. Pleasure racked through her, and Jack’s orgasm joined hers. Outside the snowy night was so quiet and peaceful, as if trapping them inside the interior of their own private snow globe.
Maura was pulled from the pleasure of the memory and her consciousness was once again in the farmhouse. She felt a tear slip down her face as she looked up from the picture–induced recollection to the actual tree lights before her, not really seeing them. She touched her ring finger, trying to slide the jewelry back on, and at the same time not finding the ring on her hand. Memories combined with the present in a chaotic symphony of blurred images and sounds. Wallpaper curled along the seams, held down by dusty pictures. A horn honked. The Christmas lights blinked, morphing into headlights and then changing back again. Her body swayed violently though the couch didn’t budge. She struck her head against an invisible barrier. Blood trickled down her face from where she’d hit it.
“Jack?” Maura moaned, holding her head. Her body stung as she tried to push up. The tree lights disappeared, replaced by the bright flecks of snow falling in front of their headlights. They had just made love and had parted so they could finish the drive home. Jack made a weak noise. Blood streamed down his face, coming from his left temple.
Maura blinked heavily before struggling with her seat belt. Grabbing her coat from the seat, she’d pressed it to the side of his face to get the bleeding to stop. “Jack, baby, it’s ok. It’s ok. I’m here.”