by Alison Tyler
‘Machine?’ she interrupted.
‘A time-travel device. Like a phone.’ He hit the last word with extra emphasis.
A phone. Her phone. The one that Violet had given her for her birthday. The one that Chelsea had taken by mistake. Did Violet know? Had she been in touch with Rowan? Had he told her exactly what type of phone to buy? She remembered walking out of the B&B, the phone ringing, the series of beeps like a fax machine trying to connect. That’s when the change had taken place, wasn’t it? Her thoughts were whirring, and she didn’t immediately hear what he had to say next. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I tested it over and over to make sure that it worked. And I’ve perfected the different glitches. Most of them anyway. The problem is the wear and tear on the body. You need about twenty-four hours of recovery time after each journey back.’
‘Journey?’
‘Through time. Didn’t you have a headache the next day? Weren’t you dizzy?’
‘Yeah. But I was also seriously hungover. I chalked up the way my head throbbed to the drinks I’d had the night before.’
‘The night Chelsea sent me that picture.’
She tilted her head at him, understanding immediately what he meant, and waiting for his response.
‘I looked for you at the B&B,’ he said. ‘I must have missed you by moments.’
‘Did you mean to send me back when you did?’ Her voice shook as she asked the question. She remembered passing out on the sidewalk, right outside where they were seated now, remembered Gael rushing to her rescue.
‘I was hoping to get you while you were still in bed. You’d wake up in the 80s, and I would be right there, knocking on your door, presenting you with the situation. I had Violet book you in that B&B because it was there in 1988. But I needed to make sure you were by yourself, and that you were in a place that existed back then. It’s not like checking your luggage, you know. What you’re holding onto when the phone rings travels with you.’
‘You mean …’ Her mind started to take her away.
‘Yeah. If you’d been astride Luke when I called, and you happened to reach for the phone, you’d have ended up fucking in the field behind the railroad station.’
‘So, instead, you sent me back the next day, and you lost me.’
‘Look, I knew when you were. I just didn’t know where you were. And then when I finally did find you … well, you were busy.’
She interrupted. ‘So you just left me. Let me fend on my own?’
‘You seemed to be fending just fine.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
No doubt about it, he had been the one at The Majestic.
‘I saw you,’ he said. ‘I saw you with Van in the city. I followed the car with Bette and Gael. And I was going to tell you then, but you were flying high. Weren’t you? You wouldn’t have understood. Or believed. A little ecstasy would have made you blurt out to the world what was going on. And then I tried to get you the next day, and you had your hands full then, too.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Up in the stockroom, wink, wink, says Bette. Unloading a delivery. Or whatever the fuck she called it. Unloading Van, more like.’
‘What did you expect?’ Dori glared at him. ‘That I’d be faithful to you in the past?’
He glared right back at her, but he didn’t say a word. How odd that they’d just fucked the daylights out of one another and now Dori could hardly find the words to express how angry she was.
‘Why didn’t you just come back two hours earlier?’ she asked next.
‘Trust me, Dori. I did what I thought was best.’
‘Best,’ she repeated, saying the’ word bitterly.
‘I wanted to meet you at the reunion, to explain the situation. To go with you. I didn’t want to send you back to prehistoric times. Didn’t want to be off by any more than a day or two. And then my own phone fucked up, batteries low, and I missed you. By minutes. And you were already off with Luke.’
‘So, to punish me, you sent me back by myself?’
His eyes glowed. ‘Not to punish you. Just …’
‘Just what?’
‘I wanted to play with you.’
Dori stared at him fiercely.
‘That first day, after I found out you were with Luke, I decided to scrap the whole thing. I decided that I ought to just leave you alone and go back myself. Forget the big plan.’
‘And then?’
‘And then Chelsea sent me that picture on the Y-Phone, and … Look, I’ll admit it. I got angry.’
Dori leaned forward, listening, and she could tell from the expression on his face that Rowan was having a difficult time explaining. His expression told her that he wished she wasn’t following this line of questioning.
‘Dori, I’m sorry. Okay? I had spent the whole day pacing around town, stomping around. Trying to figure out what to do. I’d put so much effort into this. You can see that, can’t you? I didn’t want to just give up. And then I saw that picture, and I kind of lost it for a moment. I knew I was going to come back, too. But rather than give you a heads up, I wanted to see what you’d do. I thought I’d catch you at the B&B, but you checked out early. I was only a few minutes late, once more, but I couldn’t find you. I had no idea you’d be able to put a life together so quickly. That you would meet and talk to so many people … affecting them and their memories.’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘Well, you know the Prime Directive, right?’
‘I told you before. I was no good in Trig. I never would have passed without your help.’
‘It’s not a math equation, Dori.’ He actually laughed at her, and she grinned back in spite of herself. His laugh took her back. Took her to the first time she’d heard the sound, in her freshman year. That low, infectious rumble coming from behind her, a quick turn of her head to see this cute boy looking at her and smiling. Really, didn’t she travel through time constantly? Memories pulling her backward when she least expected them to. ‘It’s from Star Trek. The Prime Directive is to not interfere with the indigenous culture. But you interfered right away. And then things got a little out of hand.’
Dori drank her coffee, feeling a variety of emotions.
‘This isn’t just about seeing you,’ Rowan said softly. ‘It’s bigger than that. You understand that, don’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re going to save the theater.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘Didn’t you love The Majestic?’
Dori nodded, eyes wide. They were back at her house now, and Rowan was continuing to explain his plan. He’d loved the old movie theater as much as Dori had, and when he’d learnt of its impending sale, he’d decided to step in.
‘Why wouldn’t you just buy it when it went up for sale?’
‘I know you’ve been doing stellar as a make-up artist, but do you happen to have sixteen million dollars hanging out in your bank account after payday?’
She shook her head.
‘Me neither. But I knew how to get it.’
Dori shook the tea can on the top shelf, and Rowan said, ‘I’ve never been a big tea drinker.’
Dori pulled the cap off the English Breakfast tin and showed him what was inside. He took the tin from her and inhaled. ‘Whose is this? Your brother’s?’
She shook her head, unable to hide her smile at his surprise. ‘My mom’s.’
He got an expression on his face that reminded Dori of the high school boy once more. Half devious, half impressed.
‘How’d you find it?’
‘I was looking for extra cash the first day. I hardly had any bills that would work. I never carry much cash, as it is, and most of mine were dated in the 90s. Some were those new tens and twenties that people would have thought were counterfeit. So I tore through all of my mom’s favorite hiding places, and along with the cash, I found grass.’
‘Will your mom notice?’
Dori shrugged. ‘I doub
t it. She’s so scattered.’
That was enough for Rowan. He watched as Dori expertly rolled a joint, and when he raised his eyebrows, she said, ‘Van. He’s taught me a lot, you know?’
‘Yeah,’ Rowan said, his voice slightly colder. ‘I do know,’ and Dori remembered the scene at the theater. She wondered what had made Rowan decide to dress up like Frank-N-Furter, wondered what he’d thought about the way she and Van had acted together.
‘He’s a kid,’ she reminded him. ‘You’re not still jealous. I’m not upset about Mrs Hughes.’ He’d told her about his plan, the thought of fucking his wet dream from high school. But he’d also confessed that he hadn’t gone through with it.
‘Well, you ought to be.’
Dori had the joint lit by now, and she inhaled deeply and then started to laugh. ‘Tell me why.’
‘Why should you be jealous? Because she would have taken me on in a second, those full lips of her wrapped around my –’
She shook her head and then handed him the joint, laughing harder.
‘Why, what, Dori?’
Dori felt as if she might pee from laughing so hard, but finally she managed to speak clearly. ‘Why they all called her Yum-Yum.’
Rowan hesitated for a moment, and then he started to laugh, too. ‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Try me.’
He inhaled the fragrant smoke, held it for a moment, then exhaled. Clearly, he’d done this before. He seemed as anxious to tell her as she was to hear. She felt, for the first time since her adventure had started, that she was with someone who fully understood her. She liked the gang at The Beauty Box, but she had been on edge constantly, worried something that she’d say might give her away. Like her comment about The Rolling Stones staying together. Or The Police splitting up. Or Bono becoming an ambassador for peace. With Rowan, she didn’t have to bite her tongue.
He was thoughtful for a moment, and she didn’t rush him. She waited to see what he would say.
‘I was a kid. You know, a freshman, I think. And Mr Hughes invited me in when it came time to pay for the newspaper subscription. Generally, she was the one who paid me, but this one time, it was him. And he asked me to wait for him in the den. You know, while he got his checkbook.’
Dori nodded, exhaling and handing over the joint. She watched as Rowan inhaled deeply, shutting his eyes for a moment, as if remembering every second of his story.
‘Their den was done in that high-80s fashion, you know? Gray leather sofas, rose-pink carpeting. They had two framed Nagels on either side of the fireplace. I think she considered herself something of an interior decorator.’
‘No, she didn’t.’ Dori was shaking her head. ‘She did people’s colors.’
‘Their what?’
‘Colors. You know, like Color Me Beautiful.’
‘It might be the pot,’ he said, giving her a bemused smile, ‘but you’re speaking Greek to me.’
Dori sighed. Here was something she could explain to him, the way he had explained the Prime Directive to her. ‘She told people what season they Were. My mom took me to her one time as a birthday present. With my dark hair and pale skin, she said I was a Winter and my mom was a Summer, and when we left, my mom was crushed. She’d wanted to be a Winter, she said. I’d tried to change color swatches with her, but she wouldn’t do it.’
‘Can’t believe your mom would go in for that shit. She always seemed so level-headed. I mean, except for smoking pot, which I’d never have guessed.’
‘She’s like that. Half the time, she makes a lot of sense, the rest of the time, she’s spouting Linda Goodman’s Love Signs.’
Rowan rolled his eyes. ‘Anyway, Mr Hughes is taking his time getting his checkbook, and I sit down on the sofa and see this photo album is open on the glass coffee table.’
‘Kidney-shaped, right?’
He grinned. ‘Right. And so I just look, out of curiosity, you know. And the pictures are all of Mrs Hughes. And she’s naked in every single one of them. My eyes, are bugging out of my head by the time her husband comes back in, and I can tell right then that he wanted me to see the pictures. He’s not upset. He’s not even embarrassed. He stands right next to me and points to one of Mrs Hughes with her legs spread wide, all sexy on an American flag, and he says, “Look at that. Yum, yum, right?”’
‘Oh, God, and that’s how she got her name?’
‘Well, when I told the guys –’
‘You told the guys?’ Dori was incredulous.
‘Of course. Come on, I was a kid. I needed a bit of moral support after all I’d been through.’
Dori kicked him. ‘You were bragging that this hot older woman wanted to sleep with you.’
‘The problem wasn’t that she wanted to fuck me. It was that her husband wanted to watch while she fucked me.’
‘So did he?’
‘I thought we weren’t going to talk about the past.’
‘We’re in the past, Rowan. Did he watch?’
Rowan climbed onto the sofa with her. He put his hands on either side of her face and looked down into her eyes.
‘What answer do you want to hear?’
‘The true one.’
He kissed her, softly, then moved down her body, pausing at all of the best spots to linger. The dip of her neck, the flat basin of her belly. ‘What turns you on more? Thinking that he was watching, or thinking that we fucked behind his back?’
She shrugged, but started to pull him after her.
‘Where are we going.’
‘You’ll see.’
His eyebrows raised when she’d brought him to the door, when she’d pulled him through. They were in her parents’ room. She’d never done it here before, although she’d always wanted to. She didn’t know why, but the thought of fucking in her parents’ bed gave her a naughty little thrill, emphasized somehow by the pot.
‘Are you serious?’ Rowan asked, hesitating. He actually looked over his shoulder, as if Dori’s mother and father might burst in at any moment. Might catch them. That had happened only once, Dori’s mother walking in while she and Rowan were watching a movie. Except that they hadn’t been watching. They’d been kissing. Dori’s mom had been as embarrassed as they were.
The pot’s made you paranoid,’ Dori giggled. ‘They’re still in Europe, remember?’
He took a tentative step forward, and she grabbed onto his hand and pulled firmly, so that they tumbled onto the bed together. Rowan let out a gasp. He hadn’t realized the queen-size frame held a waterbed. Together, they rolled on the waves, and then once more they started to kiss.
‘I’ve never done it on a waterbed before,’ Rowan confessed.
‘Me neither.’
He climbed astride her, moving experimentally. ‘It’s sort of nice.’
Dori moaned in agreement. The motion of the bed was rolling, soothing. She could see the appeal of the waterbed as more than a throwback to the seventies. Working together, they took their clothes off, Dori staring hard at Rowan’s body, which was both new to her, and deeply familiar. She’d had her hands all over him, every inch of him, when they were seniors. But there had hardly ever been a time when they were truly alone. When they didn’t have to worry about someone interrupting, someone seeing them.
Now, she could take her time, admiring his body, drinking him in.
He was in good shape, and she found herself growing more aroused by the second. When they were totally naked, they came back together, his hands on her, mouth on her skin. She arched and felt him push forward, pressing against her clit, rubbing against her with the length of his cock. He was clit-fucking her, slipping in her juices, thrusting so that she gained exactly the pressure she craved.
But there was more. Somehow, she knew there would be. Rowan had a handle on what turned her on in a way that was different from her other recent experiences. Yes, she had enjoyed fucking Van, but the whole time, she’d felt as if she might wake up at any moment. As if she should grab that golden ring now, while the car
ousel zoomed past. With Rowan, she felt as if they had all the time in the world.
Rowan seemed to feel the same way. He was in no rush to fuck her. To slip his cock inside of her. Instead, he continued to rock against her, letting the length of his rod press so sweetly to her clit. Dori shut her eyes for a moment, feeling the waves of the bed combining, building, with the waves of pleasure within her.
Why hadn’t she fucked on a waterbed before?
And why hadn’t she stayed with Rowan? Had they needed to part ways in order to come back together? Did she need to see what life was like without him in order to appreciate what the world was like at his side?
Or in this case, not at his side, but underneath him.
And from this vantage point, the world was a lovely place to be.
‘You’re close,’ he said, sensing a change within her, sensing the precise moment when all he had to do was slip against her one more time and she would come.
‘Yes.’ Her voice didn’t sound like her voice at all. Not to her ears. She sounded dusky. Desperate for him to keep going.
‘Tell me.’
‘Oh, God, Rowan,’ she said, gazing into his eyes as she spoke. Seeing the boy and the man, the same way she had with Luke. But with Rowan, it was different because she didn’t think he was any less of a person than he’d been in high school. There didn’t appear to be that film of what-might-have-been across his surface. He had lived up to his potential. He had grown into his skin.
‘Tell me,’ he said again.
‘I’m so close,’ she whispered, digging her fingers into his biceps, holding onto his arms. He was well-built for an engineer, wasn’t he? That thought flickered through her mind before he pushed hard against her one last time, and she came.
So sweet it was, the taste of her pleasure in her mouth, the way he held her against the rocking of the bed, let those brilliant contractions fill her up, take her away, and only when he saw that she was starting to come down did he thrust inside of her. Now, she felt as if she were made of water. Liquid entirely. Because she could hear the wetness as he thrust forward, could feel the slick slippery lubrication of her own juices on her thighs, on Rowan’s skin.