Time Master

by Wyatt Kane

  June didn’t say anything. She just stood there, holding me. The disappointment and sadness she projected faded, to be replaced with a feeling of warmth and comfort. Then April said, “Hey, what about me? I get scared too!” But she said it with a smile so broad it made me and June both laugh. Nevertheless, she joined in the hug, and that made me feel better as well.

  We held each other for what felt like a long time. Finally, though, April and June stepped away.

  “So. You spoke with Shell. What do we do now?” April asked.

  I decided not to tell them of the massive impending doom looming over our heads. “She says it’ll take a while to calculate what happened to the timeline, and how to fix it.” I shrugged. “Until then, I guess we’re stuck here.”

  April frowned. “Well, this isn’t exactly my idea of a great place to camp,” she said. “But at least the van can turn into a Greek palace. We might as well be comfortable.”

  Surprisingly, June shook her head. “How about something more normal?” she said. “Can it turn into our home?”

  I understood the dark-haired twin’s desire for normality. I felt it too. “Let’s ask,” I said.

  But, when we got back to the van, the answer wasn’t positive. “Your home doesn’t exist in this timeline, and I currently lack the processing resources required to locate an alternate,” Shell said. “However, young Caleb’s apartment, as it was before the time rift appeared, is a known nexus point.”

  “Meaning?” I asked.

  “If you wish, I can convert the van into your apartment.

  The thought of going home for a bit appealed very strongly. As for the girls, they displayed a combination of disappointment and curiosity.

  “What do you say?” I asked them. “Want to go back to my place?” I said, giving it my broadest possible grin.

  Both of them laughed, and April raised a lascivious eyebrow. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

  Still grinning, I said in my best Picard voice, “Make it so.”

  For the second time, the old Bedford began to change. Just like before, the walls moved outward and the ceiling became higher. This time, the driver’s cockpit became hidden by a door, and the various parts of my old apartment morphed into being.

  Shell did a good job. She got everything right, all the way down to the pizza box I’d left out, and the beer bottles I’d left on the counter instead of in the trash. Fortunately, that was the only evidence of my bachelorhood lying about. Between school and my job at the Club, I wasn’t there enough to make much of a mess.

  “Ladies,” I said. “Welcome to my home.”

  They seemed to approve. June wandered in and assessed the couch, which sank in the middle. She plopped herself down with an expression of relief. Her wraparound dress slid up, and the side fell open to reveal her entire thigh. She didn’t seem to care because she made no attempt to pull it back down.

  I had a thought. “Shell, is this all real? Like, even the food in the fridge?”

  The AI was floating above one of the chairs. “Young Caleb, just as the Greek villa was real, this is your apartment. The food in the fridge is the food in your fridge. As such, it is normal food, as edible and nutritious as it would normally be.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “How?” I asked.

  “Through the use of your power. Just like I can tap into your talent to preserve you, April, and June in this timeline, I can also tap into your talent to bring your apartment through to a given moment in time.”

  Even though the proof of what she could do was all around me, it was still pretty incredible. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend how she did it.

  But then, I didn’t need to. I headed to the kitchen. April followed me as I hunted around in the fridge for more beer. She grinned as she took one, and we stared at each other for a moment. “So,” I said awkwardly.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Don’t know.” I opened my own beer and took a swig. “I need a shower.”

  “Yes.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “That bad?”

  April smiled. “Well, yes, but I meant that I needed a shower, too.”

  My heart raced a little faster, and I took another swig of beer to hide my eagerness. The universe might be coming to an end, but I wasn’t against something happening with April. Or June. Dammit, which one? Both had kissed me, and I felt a connection to both of them, but it would be a bad idea to make one of them jealous.

  I snorted. Down, boy. Women have never fought over you before, I thought, and they weren’t going to start now.

  April frowned. “What’s so funny?”

  I pulled her to me and kissed the tip of her nose. “Nothing. It’s just been one hell of a night.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” April pulled back. “Cheers.” She clinked her bottle against mine and we went back to the living room to give June her drink.

  The rest of the evening was a blur. We just chatted about different things, the three of us telling stories and laughing, pretending that everything was normal. In the end, we didn’t get our showers. It had been a long day, and the three of us were tired. We just kinda dropped off where we sat, with June and April sharing the couch, and me on the chair opposite them.

  I didn’t even think of heading to bed. It didn’t seem right when the twins had to make do squished together on the couch.

  When I woke at dawn, I saw the girls were still asleep. So I tiptoed into the bathroom, shut the door, and finally got my shower, lathering up three times before deeming myself clean enough to emerge. When I pulled the shower curtain away, though, April was standing in the open doorway.

  I reached for the towel, thinking that she wanted to use the bathroom. Instead, she grabbed the towel and held it away from me, teasing.

  I could have covered up with the shower curtain, but hey, I’m a guy, and she was clearly enjoying what she was seeing. Why deny her?

  I nodded toward the door. “Shut it, will you?” I whispered hoarsely.

  April quirked an eyebrow as if considering my request, then she hooked the towel over the rack and closed the door with her still inside with me.

  It’s what I was hoping she would do, but I hadn’t been sure. Even though she clearly enjoyed teasing, I didn’t know her as well as I felt I should have.

  “Help me get washed up?” she asked.

  I turned on the water again and moved aside so she could step into the shower with me. April slowly unbuttoned her flannel shirt, and I felt the water hit my new erection as I watched her shrug off the garment and unhook her bra. Her beautiful, perky breasts popped free, and I longed to touch them. Next, she wriggled out of her slacks, and they fell to the floor along with her lace thong.

  Damn, I was already breathing heavy, and she hadn’t even touched me yet.

  Her hips were perfectly curved, her slit visible below a small strip of hair.

  “You’ve seen me naked before,” she said as she stepped into the shower. “Why are you drooling now?”

  I knew she was talking more about the club than the fun we’d had in the pool when the van had been a Greek palace. I smiled. “You weren’t naked for me before. And I was on duty. I take my job seriously.”

  April put a finger on my chest and traced it down my sternum. “I was naked for everybody and for no one.”

  “Right,” I said. I kissed her then, unable to allow her to tease me any longer.

  Pulling her body to mine, I felt her soft, firm breasts against my chest, her thin waist against my abs, and her thighs against mine. She kissed me back, and I wanted to slow time so this never ended. With a smirk, I realized I could do exactly that, but I was already aware of the water going lukewarm instead of hot, so instead I turned April around and grabbed the shampoo.

  She let the water run over her hair and then let me wash it for her.

  “It smells like a man’s shampoo,” she said.

  “It’s all I have.”

  “I don’t mind. I’ll smell like you.”
She grabbed the bar of soap from the dish to lather up.

  I finished with her hair and then took the soap from her when she needed her back done.

  Her body was perfect, and I knew I’d never get tired of running my hands over it. As she rinsed, I bent down to suck on the place between her neck and collarbone, eliciting a soft moan from her. When my hands moved to her breasts, she arched back, turning her head so the water sprayed between us. I played with her nipples while licking up her neck to her ear. When I nibbled April’s earlobe, she grabbed my shoulders and turned us away from the water.

  “How do you want to do this?” she asked.

  XXII

  I pushed her against the shower wall and smiled. “Any way that will make you come.”

  I lifted her up and pinned her to the wall. She wiggled, seeming eager, but I took a moment to touch between her legs. Unexpectedly, she pushed my hand away and put her feet down. Before I could say please, she had sunk to her knees and taken me in her mouth.

  “This isn’t what I had in mind,” I protested, burying my hands in her hair.

  The sounds of sucking accompanied April’s movements, and I almost groaned in disappointment when she took her mouth off me to say, “I always finish what I start, Caleb.”

  “Good to—ah!”

  For the next few minutes, I tried my damnedest to stay on my feet while April gave me the best blowjob of my life. Maybe the knowledge that the universe might come to an end at any moment actually helped. My knees quite literally buckled when I came, and the sight of her swallowing prolonged the pleasure until I sank down in the tub with her on top of me.

  As we lay panting, the water turned cold, prompting us to get out and towel off. I tried to help April, but she giggled and smacked my hand away. I responded by lightly smacking her ass.

  She arched an eyebrow. “I don’t know if you are up to that challenge.”

  “What challenge?” I grinned. “You like it rough?”

  April smirked and wrapped her hair up in another towel, sticking her rear end out for me to smack it again. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and I was about to see how far she was willing to take this when June pounded on the door.

  “You two done in there? A girl can’t hold it all morning.”

  Still naked, April opened the door. I was naked, too, and I wrapped my own towel around my waist.

  June pursed her lips and ignored our butt nakedness. “Did you leave any hot water?”

  April moved past her sister, pausing at the door so I could get another glorious view of her ass. “Sorry,” she told June. “Wait a few minutes, huh?”

  I didn’t know whether she was speaking to June or to me.

  <<<>>>

  April dressed herself in one of my sweatshirts. It fell to the top of her thighs like a short, fuzzy dress. She didn’t have any panties, and I tried not to slobber thinking about how if she bent over at all, I’d get a nice eyeful.

  To my dismay—and delight—after her shower, June grabbed one of my button-down shirts. I had trouble not fantasizing about her as well. I sat, fully clothed again in t-shirt and jeans, on the end of the couch, watching them put their dirty clothes in the laundry chest, which had once more survived the transition. Despite April’s efforts in the shower, I needed to adjust myself again as the girls walked around my apartment.

  “Right,” said April. “We need to decide what to do next.”

  I winked at her. “I have some ideas.”

  June shook her head in mock-dismay at my words. “First, we need food. I’m hungry. What have you got?”

  I thought Shell could probably conjure whatever we needed out of thin air. But everyone seemed much more relaxed in this pretend-normality than we had been before, and I didn’t want to break the illusion.

  “Bread? Some meat and cheese to go with it?” I suggested.

  “Sandwiches?” June replied.

  I shrugged. “Not much of a cook,” I admitted. “It’s all I usually have.” Yet the girls seemed happy enough as we piled into the kitchen and I grabbed what we needed.

  “Where are the pickles?” April asked.

  “Caleb has all the pickle you need,” June said, smirking.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Damn straight.”

  “It is straight,” April said without missing a beat.

  “Looked kind of shriveled to me,” June answered.

  “That’s because you missed the part where she sucked out all the juices,” I said.

  April gave a laugh that was almost a snort, and even June had to grin. Damn, and now I was hard again.

  “Looks like she missed some,” June said, glancing at my crotch and then winking at her sister.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. April took a moment to lick mayonnaise off her thumb. She did it suggestively, and I wanted to strip that sweatshirt off her and take her there on the kitchen counter.

  If June hadn’t been there, that’s exactly what I would have done. Instead, we finished making our sandwiches and headed into the living room.

  As we ate, Shell started to speak.

  “Calculations complete,” she said. I swallowed the last of my sandwich with a mounting feeling of dread. To me, this was the signal that our pleasant little hiatus was over. Judging by the disappointed looks April and June shared, they thought the same.

  “Okay,” I said. “Hit us with it.”

  “I have extrapolated the locus of the initial disruption back to a single point in 1976. At the time, Jimmy Carter was the Democratic candidate giving a speech to a crowd in Iowa. I can show the footage.”

  I expected Shell to display that footage in the same way she’d shown information before, as a holographic image. Instead, the TV turned itself on, and we found ourselves watching a reporter on a news show from the era.

  “Mr. Carter announced today,” said the reporter, “that he would change his stance on nuclear weapons. He now believes they are the only means to remaining recognized as a global power, and he wants more government funding for the Department of Defense. This has upset his base greatly, as until this morning, Mr. Carter was anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons. What this will mean for voters in a few months, no one can guess, but some are questioning the change. What happened to Mr. Carter to change his mind?”

  We all sat frowning at the screen. Having survived one war, I had no desire to see another, especially if nuclear warheads were involved. The shot changed to a press conference, and Jimmy Carter straightened his neck tie as he fielded questions. I would have thought that was a sign of guilt, but instead, he looked like he was in pain. His eyes didn’t look right, either. They were dull and defeated.

  “Something’s not right.” Even as I said it, I moved closer to the television, watching Jimmy Carter intently.

  “What is it, Caleb?” I felt June’s uncertainty flit about the room.

  Before I could answer, Shell interjected. “Young Caleb is right. Jimmy Carter never made that speech. He never changed his stance on war or nuclear weapons. What you are witnessing is the aberration that spawned the first of the new timelines.”

  “But why?” April asked.

  “Because he is being controlled by the big-ass bug that came out of the time rift outside the Good Times Club,” I said.

  “What? How could you possibly know that?” June asked.

  “I … I just feel it,” I stammered. “The way he looks on screen. It’s not right. You’ve all seen him before, right? The energy he has about him? The sparkle of humanity in his eye? It’s gone. Completely vanished. He’s talking like he’s a robot, like people do when they really don’t want to do what they’re doing. I think it’s the giant bug controlling him.”

  “What, like in that Will Smith movie? You think the giant bug is somehow wearing a fucking Jimmy suit? That’s not possible,” June said.

  “I don’t know how,” I answered. “But I can slow time simply by thinking about it. April is telepathic. You can project your emotions onto others. Why couldn’t the b
ig bug demon control Jimmy Carter somehow? Why is it any different?”

  The dark-haired twin didn’t want to believe it. She shook her head. “No fucking way. Maybe it’s just some sort of ordinary conspiracy, or someone blackmailing him.” She made a face and I could feel her uncertainty. “It could be anything, couldn’t it?”

  Shell interjected. “June, I am sorry, but young Caleb is correct once again. My calculations are conclusive. The large insectoid creature is at the root of Jimmy Carter’s behavior. It is having direct, irrefutable influence over him.”

  June pursed her lips. She may not have wanted to believe it, but Shell had left no room for uncertainty. She uttered a deep sigh and nodded. “Fuck. Okay. What do we have to do?” she asked.

  Before she even finished talking, my comfortable, familiar apartment was morphing back into the van.

  “We have to fix it,” I said.

  XXIII

  We were back in the old Bedford van. As usual, the only things that remained in place were Shell and the laundry chest. The girls were still wearing my shirts, and while it was sexy as hell, it probably wasn’t appropriate attire in which to go up against giant bug-monsters that could control ex-presidents. Future presidents. Whichever.

  So they pulled their usual clothes—magically cleaned and pressed again—from the chest and got dressed as I started the van.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “You’re the genius time wielder,” June said. “Where should we go?”

  “We need to reach Jimmy Carter.”

  April laughed. “Yes, let’s just march up to him and ask if he’s being possessed by a giant bug demon. Brilliant idea.”

  “I’ll think of something, but we’ve got to get there,” I said.

  “Where is there?”

  “Didn’t Shell say he was campaigning in Iowa?”

  “Never been,” June said. She settled onto the cushions behind the front seats and hung on, preparing for the van’s lurch.

  “Me neither,” I said. “But it’s our best shot. Shell, plot a course?”