Time Master

by Wyatt Kane

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it,” June whispered a few minutes later.

  “Huh? Do what?” I asked.

  “You needed my help. I was there when you found the monster with April, but all I could think about was being eaten by that thing.”

  I pulled her closer. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I pushed too far and attracted the monster’s attention.” I repressed a shudder at the memory. The loathsome insect had nearly dragged me into the pocket dimension with it. “And I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

  June seemed to take some comfort from my words. She relaxed a little. “Thank you for saving my sister, Caleb,” she said.

  “Yes. Thank you,” April agreed. She showed her appreciation by kissing my cheek.

  I breathed a sigh. “At least now we know what we’re up against,” I said.

  “Yes, but what good does that do us?” June asked.

  She was right. “What we really need,” I said, “is the wizard.”

  “The Wise One cannot return until the time lines are corrected,” came Shell’s slightly mechanical voice.

  “Yeah, I know that already,” I said, a little grumpily. “But how are we supposed to do that? That monster barely blinked when I tried to slow it down. How can we defeat it? Can it be defeated at all?”

  Before the AI could answer, April asked another question. “What’s happening now?” she said. “You can monitor things, right? The news, the police radios. What’s going on?”

  Shell chose to answer the blonde twin first. “The immediate panic is over. While there are witness reports of a giant bug-monster, they are not being taken seriously. It appears that this is because the insectoid demon disappeared moments after the three of you left the Excelsior. Likely, it returned to the pocket dimension from which it was controlling candidate Carter.”

  I jumped in. “Speaking of which—is he alive?” I was deeply concerned that he hadn’t survived. He was supposed to be president. It would be a major shift from the established timelines if he died before taking office.

  “Democratic candidate Carter is alive. Officially, the disturbance has been put down to an assassin attempt gone wrong.”

  “Well, that’s something, at least,” June said, sounding grumpy. Then she stretched and stifled a yawn. I couldn’t help but watch the way the fabric of her dress moved over different parts of her body. “I’m beat. Time travel takes it out of me. How about we put all this doom and gloom out of our minds and find something to eat, and then call it a day?”

  The dark-haired twin’s dress had fallen open to expose her entire thigh again, and she hadn’t cared to fix it. I remembered my brief fantasy in the Greek palace, of hopping into bed with both twins. Damn, that was a sexy fantasy, and I thought it was likely to stay in that realm. The twins wouldn’t share me, would they? I imagined one of them straddling my hips while the other straddled my—

  Oh, sweet time traveling gods, please let that happen, I thought.

  “Caleb?” April asked.

  I blinked. She had been speaking.

  “Earth to Caleb,” June said. “Where are we going to sleep tonight?”

  “In a bed,” I said without thinking.

  “Preferably more than one,” June said.

  “Ahem,” Shell said. “Forgive me, but you are still overlooking an obvious reality. Young Caleb asked how or if this insectoid could be defeated. It can be. As for the how...” She paused, maybe for effect, but it only annoyed me.

  I made an impatient noise. “Well, how?” I asked.

  “You need to become more powerful.”

  “Well, shit, of course we do!” I snapped, perhaps a bit rudely. It had been a trying day, and Shell wasn’t telling us anything we didn’t already know. “But how?”

  Even as I asked, I knew what she was going to say.

  “You must become one unit, move together, work together. Bond.”

  “Yeah, that’s old news,” June said, echoing my own thoughts. “But I want to know why it’s even our responsibility to defeat this thing.”

  “You are bitter, young June,” Shell said. “The world has been hard on you, so you want to be hard on the world.”

  June glared at the floating, egg-shaped AI. “Maybe I just don’t want to die. Did you ever think of that?” Apparently, I wasn’t the only one feeling snappy. Maybe surviving a few too many life-and-death situations in too short a time did that to a person. “Anyway, it makes no sense. There must be others who can fight this thing. Why us?”

  “You are the only ones who can do it in time.”

  There wasn’t much any of us could say to that. But June tried anyway. “Of course we are,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Enough,” I said. The atmosphere within the van had changed from pleasant to verging on hostile, and the only way I could see it changing back was to take us away from there. With a sigh, I crawled into the driver’s capsule. “I’ll park us somewhere with more room, the van will transform, and we’ll get a good night’s rest. Shell, plot us a course.”

  With that, I pulled the time lever and we shifted out of the alley, to materialize in a cow pasture, startling the herd of black cows. I pulled the Bedford in under a stand of trees, and we prepared to spend the night.

  But when I asked Shell to transform the van into something more comfortable, with a full pantry and more than one bed, she didn’t respond.

  “Shell?” I said.

  Nothing.

  “Now what?” June said.

  “Shell, what’s wrong?”

  The AI appeared the same as normal. A luminescent, egg-shaped thing floating just behind my seat. Only her silence was unusual.

  “Have we lost her somehow?” April asked. “Is she malfunctioning?”

  But June had a different interpretation. “You have got to be kidding me!” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Shell! There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s just in a snit!”

  I blinked in surprise. “Shell?” I asked.

  Still nothing.

  But June was having none of it. “Shell, I’m hungry, and it’s been a hard day. I am not going to be happy sleeping in these cushions. So, please turn this van into something more comfortable, and make sure the pantry is full.”

  No response.

  “At least tell us what’s wrong,” I said. I still wasn’t convinced that June’s interpretation was right.

  The dark-haired sister grabbed the tire iron from somewhere and stood over the AI. “Listen here, you piece of shit, we’ve done nothing but fly around with you for three days, being attacked by giant fucking bugs, and being thrown around like beans in a can. So you will make something good for us to sleep in, right now, or I’m going to wrap this tire iron around your glowing blue orb. Got it?”

  Shell remained silent a moment. April and I shared a private grin. Damn, June was sexy when she was mad. I just hoped she never turned that anger on me.

  The AI made a noise that sounded like a sigh. “As you wish,” she finally said.

  At once, the van began to expand. The pillows grew into giant mattress-sized cushions piled atop one another. Bamboo sprouted from the floorboards, and the windows disappeared in favor of thin paper screens and wooden walls.

  I had spent some time in Tokyo during my enlistment, and this came close to some of the houses I’d heard about while I was there. The cushions were distinctly not Asian, however, because they were too plush, almost decadent.

  When water began trickling from behind one of the doors, I grinned.

  “Nice,” April said approvingly.

  June sniffed. “It will do.” She kept the tire iron as she slid one of the doors open to explore other parts of the house.

  “Thanks,” I said to Shell.

  “You are welcome,” she replied. “But please remember, I am not just some appliance you can order about. Nor am I an inanimate object fit only for you to snap at. I may be an artificial intelligence, but I al
so have feelings.”

  I stared at the floating AI, surprised. “You do?”

  “Yes, I do. And I do not appreciate being taken for granted or treated with discourtesy.”

  I thought back to the conversation we’d had. “You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  Shell didn’t say anything.

  “Me too,” June added, a little grudgingly. She let the tire iron fall from her hands. “Sorry. It’s been a difficult day.”

  “You are forgiven. But please, do not let it happen again.”

  XXVIII

  The girls and I spent a pleasant evening putting together a decent Japanese-inspired meal, but when that was done, April and June both called it a night.

  I had been thinking about the spells the old man used. Somewhere during the evening, I started to understand that this madness was more than just something I had stumbled into. It was real. A part of my life now. And I needed to start acting accordingly.

  Rushing into battle against giant, powerful insect-creatures with no plan other than hope wasn’t a long-term strategy for survival. So, once the girls had gone to bed, I sat myself down on the large cushion in the middle of the floor and asked Shell to show me what I needed to know to use my talent effectively. The spells I’d glimpsed before. The ones the old man had used.

  She obliged. She showed me screen after screen of different things I could do with my talent, if only I understood how.

  It was too much, too fast, so I asked her to slow it down. To start with the basic stuff I could be expected to do at my present power level.

  Again, she obliged, and I studied what I could before falling asleep where I sat. I hadn’t even taken off my shoes. The last few days had exhausted me, and I hadn’t been that tired since Afghanistan.

  <<<>>>

  I woke to April tickling my ear.

  “Stop,” I mumbled sleepily, batting her hand away.

  “Are you always grumpy in the mornings?” she asked, shifting beside me on the oversized cushion.

  I opened one eye. “There’s only one way I enjoy being woken in the mornings, and tickling my ear isn’t it.”

  “Even if it’s foreplay?”

  I opened my other eye. “Was it foreplay?”

  April smiled. She looked beautiful lying there with her hair splayed out around her face. Light was streaming in from a skylight somewhere, and it fell on her, making her look like a fairy queen or maybe a goddess.

  “Do you know how beautiful you are?” I asked, realizing it wasn’t the first time I had thought of her that way. She could be my goddess. I wouldn’t object.

  “Lots of guys have said so,” she said, trailing her finger over my arm.

  “They were right,” I said. “You are a living work of art.”

  April smiled and sat up, looking down at me. Now, the sunshine shone behind, lighting the sides of her hair like gold. I reached up to touch it, but she moved my hand down to her breast.

  “Eager,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

  April leaned over to kiss me, and I found that I really liked waking up this way. My tongue slid into her mouth, and soon the kissing turned heated, our tongues battling for control. I grabbed her breasts, feeling her nipples through the t-shirt she had found. She moaned and placed her hands on my thighs, shifting up so she could straddle me.

  “Wait,” I said, “I’m still dressed.”

  Despite my plea, April began to roll her hips against mine, stimulating my already rock-hard erection. I bucked against her, cursing the layers of fabric between us. Grabbing the back of her neck, I pulled her toward me for another rough kiss. “You’re a damn tease, April,” I growled. “But if that’s all you ever do to me, I’ll be the happiest man in the universe.”

  April bit her lip and grinned coyly. “Teasing is half the fun.”

  “You think so, huh?” My mind rolled with all of the ways I could return the favor when June appeared from behind a screen. She wore a bathrobe, and her dark hair was tousled as if she had just battled with the wind and lost.

  Still sexy as hell, though. I tried to return my attention back to April, who hadn’t acknowledged June’s presence and had turned her attention to kissing my three-day beard.

  I cleared my throat as June sat on the edge of the cushion and yawned. Was she doing this so April and I couldn’t have any privacy? Did she like to watch? What? I was confused. It must have registered on my face because April pulled back and smirked. She still sat on my lap, straddling my hips, and despite her sister’s presence, continued to grind her hips into me. Glancing at June, I stilled April with my hands.

  “April,” I said.

  April leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “Fuck me, Caleb.”

  “Here? Now?”

  “Yes. Here. Now.”

  I glanced at June, but April grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her. “Don’t worry about her. I want you.”

  “I want you, too.” I grabbed April and rolled her over onto the cushion. Moving down, I pushed up her shirt to see she wasn’t wearing panties, and she was already wet. “But I’m not going to fuck you yet, not until I return some of this teasing.”

  With one more glance at June, I turned all my attention to pleasuring April. She moaned appreciatively as I tasted her, and in a few moments she was panting beneath my lips, tongue, and fingers. I felt the cushion shift, and a quick glance told me that June had left. Without pausing to wonder why, I went back to my fun.

  To further tease April, I slowed time, dragging out her pleasure until she was writhing beneath me, calling my name, and still I kept her on the edge, not allowing her release. She panted, grabbed my hair, even kicked me, but I always stopped just before she came.

  One of my favorite tricks, and an advantage of being able to manipulate time.

  “Please,” she gasped. “Caleb!”

  Finally, I gave her what she wanted, and she yelled as her orgasm wracked her body in wave after wave.

  Pleased with myself, I crawled up her body and lay my head between her heaving breasts. She wove her fingers into my hair, and despite my intentions to turn her over and take her from behind, she fell asleep. Only slightly annoyed, I shifted off of April and pulled her close.

  I needed something else, but instead I wound up watching her sleep. Still, not a bad way to spend a morning.

  After maybe half an hour, I felt the cushion shift again. June had crawled in behind me.

  Surprised, I looked back at her. She smelled good, not much different from her sister.

  “April and I were talking last night,” June whispered. She put her hand under her head as a pillow and lay on her side to look at me.

  Reluctant to let go of April, I turned to June as best I could. “What about?”

  “You.”

  “Oh. Good, I hope?”

  “Yes.” For a moment, she was silent. Then, “We’re supposed to kill that monster,” she said, somewhat incongruously.

  “Yes.”

  “If we do, our world will go back to the way it was, and that old wizard can go back to protecting us. Instead of us having to do it. Right?”

  “That’s how I understand it,” I said, even though I couldn’t imagine going back to my old life either way.

  “Shell has been telling us what to do all along, hasn’t she?” June asked.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Get closer.”

  “Yes. And we all know what that means although we haven’t talked about it. The thing is, Caleb, April is good at showing men how she feels, but I never have been. I always stay closed off, you know? It’s just easier that way, especially with our line of work.”

  “What are you saying, June?” I reached out to take her hand.

  She ran her thumb along mine. “That Shell has been suggesting we need to be physically closer, and while you and April have been getting there, I haven’t. Well, except for in that elevator yesterday.” June smiled, a bit shyly.

  Then she sat up and leaned over me, running her hand
lightly over my chest. My breath hitched. I was already turned on, and having another beautiful woman touch me wasn’t going to make it go away.

  “Do you want to get closer?” I asked, barely daring to hope.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “April is on board with it. I was planning to jump in a little while ago, but I lost my nerve and had to leave.”

  So that’s what that had been about.

  “You mean,” I said slowly, excited that my dreams may have been coming true, “that you want to join in? Not separate?”

  June shook her head. “It makes more sense, doesn’t it? All three of us together would bring us closer than just two at a time. And we need to defeat the bug-monster.”

  “Right.” I frowned. “Because of the bug-monster. Is that your only reason?”

  June turned away. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  While the idea of a threesome excited me more than I could fathom, and little Caleb was straining at my jeans, I didn’t want the girls to sleep with me just because they thought it would make me—or even us—more powerful. That didn’t seem quite right.

  Yet before I could say anything, June leaned down to kiss me, and it wasn’t a chaste kiss, either. I responded, opening my mouth to explore hers with my tongue. We made out for a few minutes, and by then I was so hard, I had to pull away before I took it too far. “Are you sure about this?”

  June frowned. “Are you trying to save me from something?” she asked in return.

  I treaded lightly, not wishing to offend. Really, would I ever figure out what the right answer was? Women were so confusing. “I just don’t want to take advantage.”

  June ran a hand through my beard and then behind my head. “Caleb, maybe we are taking advantage of you.”

  XXIX

  That did it. June pushed me down on the cushion, and I would have been out of my mind to fight her. As she lay on top of me, I wondered how best to wake April, or even if I should.

  I needn’t have worried. The blonde woke to the sound of our passionate kisses, and when she saw what was happening, she smiled broadly.

  I reached over to touch April’s face, looking into her beautiful eyes, then down to her perfect breasts. June opened her robe as if reminding me that she had breasts, too. I reached up to cup one in my hand. It was firm like April’s, and a tad larger. Sitting up, I shifted so June was straddling my hips, and April moved so she was beside me.