6 comments/ 52602 views/ 6 favorites Rewind By: juanwildone “What could I do?” “I don’t know – something anything but, but – how could you have done that?” “Tommy, I was drunk. I was handcuffed and tied to a chair. I didn’t have much of a choice.” “You certainly looked like you were enjoying it.” “In the context of the situation – I suppose I was.” “In the context of the…we were getting married the next day.” “Actually, given when that happened it was our wedding day.” “Jeezzasfucking…! What am I supposed to do Brittany? Just laugh this off like it’s no big deal.” Tom looked down at his wife. She sat primly with her hands in her lap. Despite the obvious expression of contrition on her face and in her body language there was a certain light in her eyes that said quite the opposite. Tom walked behind his wife slowly easing his belt out of its loops. He moved quickly and decisively. “What are you doing? Tommy, stop this right now!’ Tom watched as his wife struggled against his belt. She was now secured with her arms pined to her sides. He walked to the VCR and rewound the tape. He slowly removed every stitch of his clothing. He pressed play. Tom’s wife watched as he approached her – he was fiercely erect. Behind him the videotape of her bachelorette party began to play. Tom slowly unbuttoned her blouse in much the same way that the stripper had, rubbing her tits and then unbuttoning a button. Tom removed her bra similarly. Tom kissed and pulled on her nipples in a way that he had never done before. But it was the way the stripper had kissed and pulled on Brittany’s nipples that night. Tom did everything to her that the stripper had done, with one noteworthy exception. Tom looked down at his wife, as a slight trickle of his cum dripped from the corner of her mouth. “Don’t you dare spit it out! From here forward if I come in your mouth you will swallow it– is that clear?” Brittany swallowed noisily. “Yes Tom.” She hadn’t swallowed the stripper’s cum and she wouldn’t have even if he had cum in her mouth, which he didn’t, because she had told him that if he did she’d bite his cock off. The stripper did cum all over Brittany’s perfect breasts. On the videotape there were catcalls, cheers and randy comments from her friends. Then above it all clear as could be, Jan her best friend and Maid of Honor could be heard saying, “Don’t wash that off Brit. Make it a special treat for your husband to be.” Tom’s wife-to-be Brittany had smiled drunkenly at the camera. “Tommy. You know I didn’t do that to you. I did shower, you know I did. I’m sorry you had to see this. I can’t imagine what you must think of…what are you doing?” Tom straddled Brittany’s legs and reached behind her to loosen the belt. He made a loop in it and placed her hands inside the loop drawing it snug. He pulled her to her feet and walked her to the front door. He made a knot in the other end of the belt and opened the door enough to slide the belt over the transom. He closed the door. “Tommy…Tom? Please don’t do this. Someone could see me here.” The front door was half beveled glass panels and anybody looking in would be able to see her. The thought both appalled and excited her. Tom pushed her forward so that her naked breasts were flattened against the cool glass. She couldn’t help think that if her nipples got any harder they might actually scratch the glass. He moved around behind her and finished undressing her until she stood naked, her arms overhead. He slid his hand slowly up the inside of her thigh. He was shocked at how aroused she was - she was literally dripping wet. Her scent was frighteningly powerful and his head spun with desire. He pushed two fingers into her and slowly worked them back and forth. With his other hand he reached around and diddled her clit. Her head swung side to side as her husband…was this her husband? What had happened to her sweet Tommy? Tommy treated her like a queen. Tommy was concerned about her every need. Tommy was always kind and considerate. Tommy was a perfect gentleman. This man didn’t care about her concerns. This man ignored her needs. This man ignored her complaints and threats. This man was using her and she could hardly imagine enjoying it more. She began to buck her hips against his hands she could feel a tremendous orgasm coming. He stopped! He simple stopped stimulating her clit and pulled his fingers from her cunt. “NO! Oh God Tommy, please! I’m so close. Tommy!” She was desperate for stimulation. She would do anything for stimulation. She pulled against the belt with no success. She tried to rub her thighs together but without effect. The fingers returned to her cunt and resumed their rhythmic movement. The wet sound of her cunt was deliciously obscene. “Listen carefully can you hear it?” Tommy’s face was next to hers as his fingers continued. “Listen to the sound your wet hungry cunt is making, can you hear it? I can hear it loud and clear…slut…slut…slut…slut…slut. You’re a slut aren’t you? You’ve always been a slut, haven’t you? Slut…slut…slut…slut…Say it. Say it…” “No Tommy…please don’t.” “Say it Brittany!” Tom stopped again as Brittany teetered on the edge of orgasm. “What if I never make you cum again? How would you like that?” “AHHHHH!” The frustration Brittany struggled against with was maddening. She had certainly been wild before marriage. She’d enjoyed more then her fair her share of men. Yet she had never loved any man before she met Tom. She knew from the first time they kissed that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. And in the one year of their married life she had been 100% completely faithful. Yet she knew, by Tommy’s definition, probably by most people’s definition, she had been a slut; she was a slut who desperately loved her husband. Tommy took her to the edge again and again. “Say what you are, say the word, say it!” “I am a…I’m Tommy’s slut.” It just popped into her mind and suddenly everything was so clear. “Yes, I’m Tommy’s slut. I belong to Tommy. I’m his slut. I’m your slut Tommy. I belong to you. Your slut needs fucking Tommy…your slut needs to be fucked real real bad.” Tommy spun her around and thrust into her so hard that he lifted her feet off the floor. Again and again he thrust into her. He was fucking her hard; harder then he ever had. He was fucking her hard like she needed. Even as he came he continued to thrust into her until she came too. She hung against the belt as her orgasm continued to echo through her. She whimpered pleadingly as her husband removed his softening cock from her. Tommy leaned against the door and sank down to the floor, breathing heavily. Brittany hung limp from the belt, her legs splayed wide. “Tommy…sweetie, I’m making a mess here. Tommy…Tommy!” He was standing beside her – he was smiling. She loved him so much. She loved the way he listened to her, talked to her, touched her and loved her. She loved the way that he kissed her nipples, the way he licked and suckled her cunt. She loved the way he held her. She loved the way he would bring her a warm washcloth and clean her. But this – today. She loved this most of all. She had turned Tommy’s down request for oral sex countless times. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy it, she did. It was simply the expression of her power to dominate him. To have her way with him. Tommy had forced his cock into her mouth, compelled her to take it into her throat, to swallow his cum. Tommy had fucked her, slammed his cock into her – until her knees had buckled in orgasm. Tommy brushed her damp hair from her face. He leaned his head against the door and gazed into her eyes. “I’m so sorry Tom. I love you so much. You know I do – you know that.” Her eyes welled with tears. “I love you Tommy, I love you with all my heart.” “I know Brit. I love you too. But this…what am I supposed to do about this?” He nodded his head in the direction of the TV. “You realize there are going to be some changes around here.” Brittany nodded her head as Tom helped her to her feet. He turned her to face the door again and reached up to release the belt. In reaching up his cock pressed against the crack of her ass. He paused, and then stepped back. Her cunt was messy with cum. He rubbed his finger along the open seam of her cunt until it was slick with their juice. “I’ve never had your ass have I?” “Tommy, please don’t. I know we need to talk about a lot of things, but...” He circled her anus with his finger and pushed it slowly inside. He smiled as Brittany stiffened her legs. “Please Tommy, let me down and we’ll talk.” She was starting to squirm. “I’ve never had anal sex Brittany.” He slowly worked a second finger into her ass. “No Tommy, please.” “Now, now Brit… I’m sure it’s more a question of when last you had your ass fucked…not if. I’m gonna fuck your ass dear. You can coach me or I can learn by trail and error.” Tommy slid his hard cock into Brittany cunt. “Should I just cram it in, sweetie?” Brittany hung her head in defeat. “Go slowly. Put your cock right against my butt hole and press gently forward.” Tommy pushed his cock against her ass. He felt resistance at first. Then he felt Brittany push against him and her ass yielded to his cock and he watched it slowly disappear inside her. “Slowly…slow…oh…oh….” Brittany felt a small surge of guilt as her rectum easily relaxed around her husbands cock. It had been a long time since she had a cock in her ass. This was something that she had decided to deny her husband. Not that she didn’t like an occasional ass fucking, she actually did. She also knew from experience that just like swallowing a guy’s cum, if you enjoyed getting anal sex, guys figured you were pretty much open for anything. This was why she was feeling that surge of guilt. She had been open for pretty much anything. Tommy didn’t know the half of it, not by a long shot. Tommy began his thrusts, slow at first…growing faster…harder. His hands returned to his wife’s breasts and rolled her hard nipples between her fingers…rolled her nipples hard, really hard. “Fuck me Tommy, fuck my ass hard.” Tommy was slamming into her ass so hard that the door was shaking under the impact. Brittany had always felt a wonderful comforting and steady warmth with Tommy. That was a part of her love for him. He was so steady, so sure – he was her rock. But her rock was turning her to molten lava. She felt a growing heat within her, a familiar fire. She really had no choice as she surrendered willingly to the flame. Brittany eased her sore body into the hot water of the tub. She soaked in blissful afterglow. She smiled as she thought of a new nickname for her beloved husband, “The Tominator.” He had been like a fucking machine, a fucking fuck machine. “Wine?” Tommy offered her a glass of perfectly chilled chardonnay. Brittany nodded, this was more like it. As much as she had enjoyed being thoroughly fucked and used, she couldn’t let Tommy think he was now in charge. That just wouldn’t do at all. “Sweetheart, I’m going out for about an hour and then I’ll be right home. How about we go out someplace special tonight – drinks, dinner, dancing?” Brittany smiled. Tommy was quickly returning to his proper role. Brittany pulled her thong into place. She had almost decided not to where it as she was concerned it might irritate her tender ass. Tommy would be very solicitous when she murmured her discomfort later tonight. Oh yes, by tomorrow morning all would be as it should be. “I’m back honey. Wow! You look incredible, unbelievable. You know what that black dress does to me. Are you wearing the lingerie too?” Tom’s voice nearly cracked as Brittany lifted the back of her dress to show her thong split ass to him. “I wore this just for you, because I know that it’s your favorite.” Brittany wondered if she was laying it on a little to thick. “I got something for you. A present, for you - tonight.” Tommy pulled a shallow black velvet covered case from his jacket. “Turn around and close your eyes.” Brittany gasped as she felt the full weight of the cold metal against her bare skin. He heart pounded. He bought it, ohmygod he bought it. She had pointed out the gold necklace to Tommy many a time. A necklace that cost a month of Tommy’s salary. She let him walk her to the mirror. Okay, I’ll let you come in my mouth on special occasions. “Open your eyes.” Brittany gasped. It wasn’t the gold necklace. It wasn’t gold. It wasn’t really a necklace. It was a choke chain, a dog’s choke chain, with a shield at the bottom that said “Tommy’s SLUT!” in very clear letters. “Tommy, I am not going to wear…” “Any panties tonight! Take them off Brittany. Take them off now. When my slut wears a dress she doesn’t need panties.” Tommy reacted instantly at Brittany’s hesitation. He pulled her over his lap, pulled up her dress and pulled down her thong. He gave a hard slap on her butt before pulling her dress back down. A ferocious fire flared in her eyes and Brittany raised her hand. In a voice so calm and cool that she practically peed where she stood Tommy spoke to his wife on this their first anniversary. “Better learn to turn the other cheek Brit or I’ll fuck you here and now and let you drip all night long.” “I was a fool Brittany, I knew what you were. You wouldn’t believe the number of people that have told me stories about you. But I was so in love with you, I just let you call the tune, I just let you…” Tom shook his head at his own foolishness. “Brit, you can either suck my cock or I can eat you out before we go, it’s your choice. You can be angry and pissed off all night, and then I’ll fuck you when we get home. Or, you can be all warm and sexy and horny and then I’ll fuck you when we get home.” Brittany brought her hand down to the metal shield of her necklace. Her fingers rubbed across the fresh engraving. Someone had easily cut hard metal with a harder knife. She let her fingers trace across “Tommy’s SLUT!” The change to the cold metal was permanent, it had been changed, could Brittany be changed too?. Brittany knelt before her husband and unzipped his pants. She pulled his hardening cock out and stroked it slowly. When it was fully erect she lifted the metal shield and placed it on the top of Tommy’s hard shaft, letter side up. “If I could offer a suggestion. Maybe we could do both, I’ll suck you and then you go down on me, and then when we get home tonight, we make love to each other?” Tommy smiled and nodded as Brittany’s mouth engulfed his cock. She never lost eye contact. She didn’t miss a drop. For his part, Tommy made sure that Brittany came so many times that night that she slept the entire night with a smile on her face. The next morning he woke her the same way. Rewind I hate dinner parties. But my estranged wife invited me to attend this one with her. I thought it provided an opportunity to reestablish our relationship, so I readily agreed. When I rang our apartment's door bell that Friday night, she answered the door with a small, knowing smile on her sweet face and looked better than I had ever seen her. In comparison, I had lost weight, was pale and drawn, my ancient and somewhat crumpled tuxedo, despite my Mum's best ironing efforts, was loose-fitting and hanging off my shoulders. But she looked amazing and was dressed to kill in a new sparkly black dress, cut strikingly low at the top and hitched mouth-wateringly high at the hem, with sheer black stockings and glossy black high heels, which meant she towered a good inch or so above me. Her hair was thick, healthy and shiny, falling onto her bare shoulders and she looked absolutely gorgeous. She didn't invite me in to what once was our flat, just accepted the bunch of flowers coldly and chucked them on the hall table, rather unceremoniously I thought, before she grabbed her coat to wrap around her shoulders and came out without even offering me a kiss on the cheek. Damn, that didn't go well. That was not how I planned the start of the evening at all. You just know the instant that things have gone to shit, or have taken a turn for the worse. Maybe it is down to something you've said or omitted to say. Perhaps you've done something thoughtless or stupid that has ruined the moment. It may be a small thing that has upset or ruined the mood; it could be a large one, a mistake that has life-changing incident written all over it. Whatever it is, you know instantly, don't you? But however instantly you recognise the error, it is too late, the error is out there, the opportunity to do the right thing, whatever that is, has gone. Life is not like a game, they often come with an 'undo' option, or restart at the last 'save' function. And those times that you've fucked up, don't you wish there was a rewind button on your life so you could do that awkward sticky bit all over again and make it right the second time around? Or the third or fourth try? Don't you just wish you could rewind to where everything was sweetness and right and start again, this time avoiding the slip or the trip on the redo? I do. Yeah. All the time. I was one of those guys who regularly cocked my life up, that is, until I met Theresa Buck and finally found I had a singular purpose in life. Living with Terry became my life. Things were fine, we were going from strength to strength. Then suddenly, everything went wrong, it all turned to shit. I wished I could just click a button, rewind a few moments or an hour, or a day, a year, and do it all over again, but do it right this time. But that was impossible wasn't it? *** My invitation was at short notice, just two days earlier, by my estranged wife, Theresa Donaldson, but you almost certainly know her as the celebrated Terry Buck. I'm Bobby Donaldson, by the way, although it is amazing how many times I am addressed as 'Mr Buck'. But I never mind that, ever, it comes with the territory of living with everybody's favourite cerebral crumpet. I just smile happily and get on with it. At the time I want to tell you about, though, I didn't smile much. Terry and I had separated two months earlier and we hadn't spoken one word in the meantime, until two evenings before that Friday night. It was completely out of the blue when Terry phoned me at my parents' house to ask me to accompany her, to a dinner party hosted by a faculty colleague. This turn of events rather threw me, although I had been considering getting back in contact with her for a day or two and her call provided a perfect opportunity. I thought perhaps it a portent of hope for our future. Our separation had been an informal one, I had stormed out following an argument and we both became intransigent about speaking to one another. Neither had petitioned for legal separation or divorce, however, and I couldn't understand why she hadn't got the ball rolling already if she seriously considered our relationship at an end. I couldn't afford the luxury of legal proceedings anyway as I had lost my low-paid job as a laboratory assistant five months earlier, hence forcing me back to my parents, home once I stormed out of my own. Besides, despite being too damn stubborn to speak to my wife through any kind of media open to us, I really didn't want a divorce, I still loved the beautiful miserable bitch. At the time of that dinner party Theresa was 27, while I was 32, and we'd been married just over three years. We lived in the famous university city of Oxford, where we both worked. Academically gifted, I definitely am not, so I didn't attend any of the colleges as a student, but straight from school I had secured a position setting up experiments, cleaning and clearing stuff away afterwards in one of the education and research laboratories of a college, that will remain nameless. My wife Terry, on the other hand, is extremely academically gifted, a genius and acknowledged expert in her chosen field. She is a history professor specialising in the medieval period, fluent in both written and spoken Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and Norman French and had published a number of manuscript translations and articles which had the world of academia buzzing, well, as excited as those dry old sticks ever get, anyway. We met (I know, you are miles ahead of me), at a dinner party about five years before our separation. Oxford academic social life seems to exist on dinner parties. I had only just saved the arse, literally, of an absent-minded chemistry professor who had set me instructions to assemble a number of chemicals to measure out for a class demonstration and student exercise that afternoon. I am not a chemical expert but not a complete ignoramus either, and the combination of the basic ingredients set off alarm bells ringing in my head. In the quadrangle outside I mixed 10% of the quantities specified for each student and heated them to the required temperature and caused an explosion that blew in virtually every window in the block. The intended experiment, times ten to the power of ten, would have wiped Oxford off the atlas. As it was, it completely removed my eyebrows, for good, which my safety glasses and helmet failed to cover. My reward for discovering the error was the promise of a job for life, which turned out to be a joke by the way, plus an invitation to the professor's home a few days later to an intimate dinner party of eight guests, one of whom was a rather frumpy young post-grad starting her PhD in ancient languages. My first meeting with my future wife. Terry had lost her mother as a baby and was mainly raised by her grandmother. She had been cursed with excessive puppy fat as a teenager, and wore very loose unfashionable clothing that looked like her grandmother's cast-offs destined for the charity shop. She tied her long, split-ended fair hair in an untidy bun, she bite her fingernails to the quick and wore thick black spectacle frames. She stuttered when she spoke and I think she wished every moment that she would rather be in the library than anywhere else. She knew absolutely nothing about anything other than her specialist subject, which no-one outside her field even remotely understood. The other guests at the dinner party were a couple of chemists, a biologist, an expert in Tudor musical instruments, another expert on French Romantic Literature, plus their spouses who were well-versed in the underlying gossip of the cloistered world in which we lived, studied or worked. Other than the pair of us, everyone else was in their fifties or sixties. Terry and I were both shy but were sort of thrown together that evening. The academics recognised her professorial potential, while I saw her as a potential butterfly which had to be coaxed out of her stultifying chrysalis. I asked her out and, after a stunned hesitation, she accepted. I think at first Terry was bewildered that I was showing any kind of interest in her but she was ill-equipped socially to resist my attentions, which I assure you were always honourable. My elder sister Karen advised her on make-up and hair care, persuading her to have her hair cut, shaped by layers, with added curling and the colour lightened with highlights. Together, we helped her with her diet, to eat properly and take exercise, we walked for miles talking and getting the fresh air she had been deprived of with her excessive library time. I persuaded her to put a preparation on her fingers to stop her biting her nails, while complimenting her at every turn, building up her self-esteem, then gently asked her to try contact lenses. Once she got used to losing the glasses, she actually looked into arranged laser eye surgery herself. We joined a social club, a sports club, the local gymnasium, ramblers' and runners' groups. We took part in dancing lessons, pub quizzes, went to concerts, plays and films, enlarging her range of conversational subjects. Once we were completely comfortable together and she felt able to trust me completely, I awakened her interest in love-making. We clicked. We filled our spare time with each other's company and then we fell in love. Before long we became engaged, a couple of years later wr married and set up home in a small apartment close to the different colleges where we worked. I continued working routinely, happily stagnant in the lab, but devoting all my spare time caring for her as she blossomed as a woman, became a respected author and won on her own merits a distinguished professorial chair at an unprecedented young age. Terry had in the meantime been transformed from the frump she was when we met. Now she was slim, fit, toned and tanned. She wore fashionable clothes which showed off how stunning she really was, that I recognised all along. Her hair was styled and highlighted, healthy, tumbling loosely over her shoulders, her make-up lightly accentuating her natural glowing beauty, her skin healthy and taut. She had become a babe. She was now confident dealing with people, her knowledge of the world around her much more broadly based; she developed a wickedly cute sense of humour and fun, and had everyone eating out of her hand. Of course she had done well career wise, and she was still ambitious, while my only ambition was to make her happy and look after all the household details which, quite frankly, were beneath her soaring intellect. I was delighted with what she had achieved while we were together and loved our courtship of two years plus the first two years of our marriage. Then it seemed everything changed. It was as if she had suddenly outgrown me. I was the same individual, where my work was of secondary importance to me. Terry was my whole life, I did everything from managing the finances, insurances, organising our lives, while she concentrated on her life's work, the furtherance of mankind's knowledge of our history and enthusing her students. But despite my striving to hold our family of two together, gradually within a matter of months, we went from making love at every opportunity, down to barely a session a week, and even then it was a single token quickie and over as swiftly as she could make possible. With government grants for education being reduced, Colleges are always looking to cut costs and a couple of months after things were becoming lukewarm in our marriage I unexpectedly became a victim of the economic downturn and joined millions of other untrained and unskilled workers on the dole. The job-security assurances of the absent-minded professor were worthless, he could barely remember to clean his teeth in the mornings. It was frustrating, sending off a dozen job applications every day, going down the job centre and getting absolutely nowhere. I became depressed, without Terry actively helping me cope. It was a damaging time for our relationship and Terry and I rowed. We had never had any arguments before. Lovemaking dropped off to once in a while, then stopped altogether. We had a final row, with both saying things that should remain unsaid between a couple. My beautiful butterfly declared I had become a pathetic parasite hanging onto her soaring wings, that I meant less than nothing to her any more and so I stormed out, vowing never to return. That brings us back to me thinking about the rewind button, giving a chance to unsay the never-should-have-been-said, or the unfortunate action, to undo the final straw. One of my favourite films is Groundhog Day, where the hero is forced to replay a single day in his life over and over again until he gets it right. He appears to control events but he is really not in control at all. He just relives that same seemingly pointless day, able to change events as the day unfolds but the outcome is always the same and he finds himself back to square one, alone. Until, one day, everything works out perfectly for both him and the heroine and his life finally proceeds onto a new path, as it should have in the perfect world. The film producers had a great idea but their theory of the science of time line practicalities is imperfect. Time is immutable, but the Groundhog Day hero lived each day regardless of how many times he went back and started again. If he relived ten thousand of those days he should have aged twenty-seven years or more, even though everyone else remained the same, because each time he started that day he was continuing his own timeline, while the others were only experiencing one day in his timeline before their lives carried on in theirs. You see, time can be made up of an infinite number of timelines. Every decision is a variable, splitting your timeline into the direction you have decided to go, but leaving the possibility that the old timeline also continues following the path you decided not to take. In theory, you cannot change time itself, you can only change the timeline you are currently on. You may be able to switch to a different position on a timeline to achieve a more favourable outcome but the time you spend is your time used up. The passage of time irrefutable, you can mess with the order in which you use time but time eventually messes you up. So, if you have twenty minutes of your precious time spare to use up, then I'll go back to the beginning of my story. Well, I did manage to find that rewind button. I found out, quite by accident, that I could rewind life backwards to a point just before a painful incident and alter my actions and change the course of my history for the better. Hard to believe, huh? Think about the possibilities though! Wouldn't it be great if you could rewind your life, just a little bit? I bet if you try hard enough, you might even find that you can do it just like I could too. However, there is one caveat when it comes to playing with time. I did it and then I found I still couldn't quite change things enough. I found out the hard way that while I thought I could change events, I really couldn't affect the outcome in the long run. A sorry tale, huh? Still got those twenty minutes? I'll tell you everything then, but before we start just remember that I warned you that you'll never get those twenty minutes back. I told you I could rewind time and I did. I did it more that once but I won't ever do it again, the risks are too great. You might be able to do so yourself, I know there are others out there who can, but if you find you can do it, heed my warning, you really, really shouldn't. I first realised I could do it about two months after I left my wife. At the time I was drunk and violently sick on a new cream-coloured carpet at my parents' chalet bungalow ... and the whole degrading passage happened in the presence of those said parents. I mean, this was projectile vomiting of the worst kind, from a man so drunk that I wasn't even able to put a hand to my mouth in time or make any attempt to run to the toilet. Of course both my parents were entirely disgusted with me. I had been hitting the bottle ever since I had moved back in with them and had just cleaned them out of every bottle of liquor they had. I think that last bottle was 'off'. That's my excuse and I stuck with it for an hour or so. Not only did my parents refuse to accept any conversation with me or an apology, they actually gave me 24 hours' notice to leave their lovely home for good. My own parents had allied themselves to my estranged wife and were prepared to wash their hands of me! I had a shower and changed, sobered up quite a bit and was back sitting on the sofa in the lounge, feeling extremely sorry for myself. Dad wasn't speaking to me at all and Mum, god bless her cotton socks, had cleaned up the mess as best she could and opened all the windows, but it still smelled horrible in there. They were in the kitchen talking in hushed voices, no doubt about me, while I sat in my own stink, fiddling with the remote to find something on daytime television to occupy the time. Out on the streets without a job, I'd have to live in a cardboard box with definitely no cable. There was nothing on live TV, so I clicked on a familiar stored movie and played it for a while after fast forwarding through the preamble to the action scenes. And the thought just hit me, what if I could press a rewind button on my life and go back to just before I was sick and make sure this time I ran out and made it to the loo in time? What about if I went back even further and didn't drink that last bottle of whatever rubbish liquor it was that was left in Dad's now empty drinks cabinet? It was just a thought. We all have them. I was at the lowest point in my thirty-two years of existence and I just thought, bugger, why can't something good like that happen and rescue me from a mess of my own making? I noticed the movie on the TV running backwards first of all, and assumed I must've pressed the rewind button on the remote in error before dropping it somewhere. I searched around for it, but stopped what I was doing in shock. My Mum walked into the room backwards carrying her mop and bucket. Dad walked in backwards too. Their speech sounded foreign. That was weird. The mop and bucket were then carried away backwards full of clean water and the pair of them walked in backwards again and sat down with a sudden plonk, which they never do on their decent furniture. Then they quietly watched the telly, showing the start of the grand prix race we watched earlier in the afternoon. Meanwhile I just sat there watching them. I found and pressed the remote control device for play, and everything, telly and life, started moving forward again. I had that deja vu feeling as my parents spoke the same comments on the grand prix race as they had two hours or so before. It was all so strange that I was speechless for a while just listening to them rabbit on as if nothing had happened. And for them, nothing happened. For a start they were still speaking to me, no mention of packing my bags and there was no stink of vomit or disinfectant in the room. Even more amazing, I was not as drunk as I was back then an hour or two earlier, in fact I felt great as though a load was lifted off my shoulders and I didn't need the drink any more. I was in the fresh clothes that I had changed into after showering. Somehow, and I had more than a suspicion that I had some control over it, a part of my actual existence had rewound and corrected a momentary lapse I had made, without anyone being any the wiser. It was as if my embarrassing sickness episode had never happened. I needed to sleep on this, get my head around it and try again in the morning. Mum and Dad normally go off to work in the morning, and I had got up, shaved and showered and joined them for breakfast for five minutes or so before they left together at a quarter to nine. Neither of them had said anything about yesterday's events. I checked the recycle bin, there was no empty bottle of booze; there it was, back in the drinks cabinet, unopened. I emptied it into the sink, it smelled foul; it wasn't off, it was me, I was off the demon drink. I had definitely drunk it the previous day but by the time I had wound my life back to before I was affected by it, my body had virtually recovered from its effects. That was strange, but it indicated to me that my body and my memory was not wound back like everyone and everything else. Rewind I picked up the remote control in the lounge. At that time I believed I still needed it to effect whatever unknown influence I discovered I had on the passage of time. I thought about going back to a couple of hours earlier this morning to when Mum got up first, while I had still been in bed asleep. It started to get a little darker and I noticed the clock was running back to seven o'clock when I clicked on the play button. I was still standing in the lounge when I heard Mum come down as quietly as she could on the creaky stairs. I went out into the hallway to meet her. She was still in curlers and wearing a dressing gown. I made her jump! She wondered why I was already up and dressed, as she hadn't heard the shower and besides I rarely got up before mid-morning nowadays and I hadn't shaved for days at a time, until now. She was impressed. I felt my chin, I had shaved, of course I had, but that was in my timeline, about half-past eight in the morning. In this new timeline that I had somehow shifted to, it was only five past seven. I had some thinking and figuring out to do to get my head around this weird rewind stuff. I told Mum I had just had a quick flannel wash and shave and that this morning I had decided to turn over a new leaf and try and get my life back together. She hugged me and cried with joy, admitting that she had been very worried about me, and Dad got up to see what the commotion was about and he hugged me too. I declined breakfast, how could I explain that I had already eaten? I explained my lack of appetite away, saying that I was watching my waistline. More thumbs up from a relieved Dad, although Mum tut-tutted that I was too thin. I waved them both off to work at their normal time and then sat down to look at my past and my future. Things were looking up, for the first time in several months I felt positive about my future. Also, after being apart from my wife for two months I felt optimistic about starting to get Terry back into my life. I wondered if I could arrange a meeting with her and, if it all started to go badly, maybe I could rewind it a couple of sentences or so and by trial and error manage to steer my way through and say all the right things, like in Groundhog Day, and win back the heroine's heart. Was it worth a try? Well, what did I have to lose? I played around with rewinding time on that magic Monday and, through trial and error at an employment agency, managed to get an interview for a job on Wednesday. I found I didn't actually need the remote, I just allowed myself to relax and focus my mind on rewinding my life. That interview on Wednesday afternoon, at a commercial medical research facility, went like a dream. I played the interviewer like a violin, rewinding every time his body language looked unpromising, a couple of minutes here, half a sentence there, telling him everything he wanted to hear, half of which he had hinted at after I had given him wrong answers. I simply rewound and put every mistake right. He was impressed, I was everything he was looking for in a laboratory technician. Of course I was! We shook hands in the reception at the end of the interview, after he assured me that, if I accepted the job that he was prepared to offer me right there and then, I could start Monday morning. I left it with him that I would consider it for one day. I lied that I had other offers to consider and he immediately offered a significant signing on bonus, as well as expenses as an incentive. Apparently he regarded me as perfect for the job, so it was no surprise to him that I would be in demand by rival companies. Of course I was perfect for the job, I knew that I would never make a mistake that I couldn't put right, I was going to be the best damn research lab technician he'd ever had. So I accepted on a handshake and he filled out a petty cash slip for my expenses and bonus there and then. The pretty receptionist looked at me differently to how she had when I had first turned up. In her eyes I was no longer a no-hope loser, as she handed me the petty cash I was claiming. As I returned the visitor pass, she smiled very sweetly, saying she was quite impressed, their Mr Johnston was usually quite severe with candidates, apparently. She fluttered her eyelids as she looked forward to the pleasure of seeing me sign in every morning and evening in the near future. She then noticed with a frown of disappointment that I had a wedding band on the hand that offered her back the visitors pass. I held my hand up and said we had been separated for two months and had had no contact since, so my marriage looked pretty terminal. She brightened, and told that a bunch of my new colleagues went for drinks after work on Mondays, perhaps she would see me there next week? I cheerfully grinned, perhaps, I said. That evening, glowing in the praise of my parents' congratulations for getting a job so quickly, came the call out of the blue from Theresa. My Mum took it in the hallway and frantically waved me through while she regaled Terry with my job hunting success. Both my parents love Terry, and she looks upon then as the parents she never had. When I picked up the phone Terry said she was pleased about the job and said she was delighted that I sounded cheerful, confident and positive, like I used to be. She told me she was happy for me. Finally Terry informed me of the purpose for her call, the dinner party and that she wanted us both to go, together. Apparently Terry had just been pestered about accepting the dinner invite and wanted to check if I was available. This was not really an olive branch, she said, we had been invited as a couple several weeks before and she had stalled accepting. She hadn't told anyone in the faculty yet that we were living apart. Although academia is rife with rumours of indiscretions and worse, on the surface a genteel veneer is generally maintained. Terry said that although she didn't want a divorce at least for the moment, she wasn't ready for us to get back together until we had talked frankly about our issues and cleared the air, perhaps through some professional counselling. It was difficult to talk to Terry frankly in Mum's hallway and I had given up my mobile phone months before, so I couldn't talk to her outside the confines of the house. I made a mental note to buy a top of the range phone with my signing on bonus. I asked Terry if I could meet her for a coffee on Thursday lunchtime or evening to discuss our marriage. I had already decided on Monday morning that I would give up alcohol for good. No, she was busy all day apparently and had a lecture in the evening, so would be too exhausted afterwards. We could meet on Saturday lunchtime, but that would be after the dinner party. I agreed to both dates and said I would see her Friday night at what she called "my flat", which pissed me off a little. From there we would walk around to the party venue which was just ten minutes away. Everything in Oxford is just ten minutes' walk away. I thought about rewinding and getting in first with something like "pick you up at our place", but decided against it. At least seeing her again, spending time in her company, even though it was shared with a dry bunch of her college lecturer and professor friends, was a starting point to us getting back together. *** That brings us to the point where I rang our apartment's door bell that Friday night, and she chucked the flowers on the hall table. I wasn't going to stand for that, not now! I rewound five minutes, composed myself outside the door, and rang the bell again. As soon as she answered the door and, before she could say anything, I boldly said "hi". I held up the flowers and asked, "These are for you, Terry, have you got a vase for them?" Taken aback as she was with my taking charge of the situation, she allowed me to enter, march to the kitchen and run the cold tap while she automatically dug out a vase from under the sink. She unknowingly rewarded me with a very nice view of those twin assets I discovered I had missed so much. As soon as she was upright I hugged her briefly and kissed her lightly on both cheeks, not giving her an opportunity to object, complimenting her quite truthfully on her attractive appearance. I unwrapped the fragrant blooms and arranged them tastefully in the vase. I suggested, as she didn't want to alarm her hosts about our current marital difficulties, that we should hold hands when we got there and therefore ought to start off holding hands as soon as we started to walk, so we would be more comfortable touching one another after such a long period apart. Terry conceded hesitantly, "That makes sense, I suppose." "Good girl," I said confidently and kissed her lightly on the lips, this time. She bit her lip uncertainly, regarding me as some alien who had body snatched her former recalcitrant mate. "Come on," I said to her, "grab your coat, or we'll be late!" I was enjoying this and felt supremely confident of success this evening. Terry remarked on how upbeat I was, I think she was rather unnerved and uncomfortable, unbalanced, which at the time I was totally happy about. When we arrived and was greeted at the door by Gwendoline, a feisty grey-haired history professor I had met a dozen times before, I began to slip off Terry's coat and lightly kissed the point where her bare neck and shoulder met, before removing the coat and handing it to our host. I then proceeded to clutch Gwendoline to me and kissed her two cheeks confidently, much to her surprise. We walked into the lounge to meet and be introduced to the already assembled guests, apparently we were the last pair to arrive. We were then herded by Gwendoline's partner Charles into the dining room where the rest of the guests stood around chattering, we were individually cut out of the herd and sat at our assigned places. To my chagrin, the couples which had stood together for the original quick intro, were separated into singles at the table, an oft-experienced phenomenon of dinner parties, which I had hoped would be otherwise on this occasion. I found myself sat between host Gwendoline on one side and some fat tart who had come with this flash American math professor on exchange from Yale. He was positioned opposite us next to Terry, with a ginger-haired long-faced Doctor of Divinity on her other side. The other participants, Charles, the good Doctor's horse-faced wife, a buck-toothed microbiologist and his man-friend, Manuel, who seemed to be a house husband, completed the tableau extraordinaire. I thought about rewinding at that point, especially when Clinton, from Yale, who was about 40 to 45 and tall, dark, thin, with a world-weary face, sneered at me as he moved his chair round about 45 degrees to virtually face Terry and engage her in conversation. His fat girlfriend spilled over her chair to similarly invade my space and, having heard I was about to start working in a medical research laboratory, she began to jabber away at me about chemical experimentation, particularly where the resultant precipitates could be taken orally. Something didn't smell right, it might have been Blubber-Hips' body odour, but the whole contrived scenario in front of me had my nasal hairs twitching. However, of anyone here, I could afford to be patient and see how things developed. Intervention, even after the event, was now always an option for me. I couldn't lose, could I? Who was holding all the cards? Who was in control over my, and Terry's, bright future, hopefully reunited as a loving couple? Moi, naturellement. Gwendoline and Charles served the starters, some chilli-flavoured seafood and tuna mush on toast and the first round of thin, dry wine splashed into the outer of four different cut glass goblets at each place setting. I declined the wine, thank you, wanting a clear head, after all my evening might be several times longer than theirs, depending on the number and extent of replays I was forced to induce. I settled for the jug of iced water as I announced to all my recent elevation onto the wagon of sobriety, as Theresa glared at my boorish manners in the exalted level of present company. "It is alright," I assured Gwendoline, "I'd also given up chewing baccy and spitting, as well as sniffing glue for Lent and would, just this once, refrain from lighting my farts this evening." Clinton guffawed, I appear to have hit his funny bone, well, I thought at least one guest appreciated my presence. I thought the Doctor of Divinity was going to choke on his fish slush butty. In response to my vulgarity, Terry moved her chair 45 degrees towards Clinton who took the opportunity to laugh in my face. Rewind time, I thought. As I played the scene back to where we were all standing, immediately before sitting precisely where Charles had dictated, a shocking thing happened. It was completely unexpected. All but one of the other players acted normally, if you call acting out actions in reverse, normal. The exception was Clinton, who sat in his seat staring at me, his eyebrows lifted and a look of amazement on his face, which was mirrored on my own face. At the point where all the guests were standing by the doorway, except the pair of us, I got up quickly, grabbed Terry and sat us down where Bubble Buttocks and I had sat earlier. I looked defiantly at Clinton, who grinned back at me, and muttered, "Nice one, Bob", in his American accent, and shuffled round to sit the other side of Terry. Charles and Gwendoline were a little confused, as was Terry, who tried to get up after sitting and before Clinton reseated himself. That was when I smelled the rat. The seating arrangements were clearly known by Terry, perhaps even organised by her with Charles and Gwendoline's connivance. This was a bloody set up and I got a really bad feeling about it, not helped by the phenomenon of Clinton not rewinding as expected like everyone else. What was going on? Something wasn't right and I started to feel uncertain of the positive outcome this evening had once promised. The toasted tuna titbits did the rounds, again, in my new rewound version of the world and I suspected Clinton's world also and once more I eschewed the offered wine and filled my glass with iced water. Clinton joined me on the wagon this time, I think we both realised this could be a long old night. I wished I'd brought a change of underwear and shaving kit. I wondered what Terry and Clinton's agendas were and suspected to my dismay that they were one and the same. The second course was a monkfish fillet smothered in white sauce. Gwendoline kept me engrossed in conversation during the course and I turned back to see Terry accepting a forked morsel from Clinton like they were old lovers. That definitely wasn't right. Rewind time? You betcha! But that didn't go right either, I wanted to rewind a minute, but I immediately lost control of the 'remote' (what else could a layman call it?) to Clinton. Time slowed to virtually a stop. A slice of fish clearly too big for the implement fell off Miss Piggy's fork and was suspended in mid-air, a gobbet of saliva expelled in agony at the one that got away was frozen millimetres from her open maw. Clinton and I were still active in our own shared timeline, each wrestling for control of the 'remote control' and Clinton was winning hands down. Damn, it was no contest, I was toast. Clinton sneered again, it was definitely a look that he had made his own. "Give it up, Bobby, you haven't a hope in hell of beating me, I can tell by your grip on the timeline that you're a rank beginner. I am a master and you'll never beat me. I've been the master of my timeline for over thirty-five years. How long have you been rewinding, a coupla months I guess?" "So?" I retorted truculently, "This is about my wife and I, not you and me, I need to get my life together and my life consists of me and Terry together. No other scenario is remotely acceptable. So get out of my timeline!" "Never gonna happen, I want Terry more than you and it's a given already, my friend, she's not just mine for the taking, she's already mine. Give it up or it'll end bad for you, and it'll be even worse for her, believe me," Clinton smiled evilly. I wanted to get that smug bastard, I wanted it bad, but not as much as I wanted Terry. I knew I'd have to have my wits about me if we were to come out of this with some chance of a future. "OK," Clinton spat, his ugly face cruel, vindictive, "we are going back to real-time again now. Behave yourself Bud, or you'll be screwed even more than you are already. Don't mess with me. I mean it!" We were back in play, Jelly Tits' fish course hit the deck in a spray of bread sauce. Terry accepted the offered morsel from Clinton and held it in her teeth as she turned to me, smiling as she chewed it. They were lovers already, I realised, probably had been for months, long before she had picked the argument that drove me to storm out of her life, it now seemed forever. I had lost her long ago and she had set me up this evening to rub it in. I couldn't understand how 'my' Theresa had become so vindictive, it was completely out of character. I had that sinking feeling, without any lifeline within my reach. "Hey, Bobby," Clinton's ugly thin face appeared in my field of vision from behind my ex-lover, smirking at me, mirroring my wife's self-satisfied smile. "Like the fish course, Bud? I love it, so does Terry here, don't you my sweet?" "Love it, darling," Terry said, filling my nightmare with despair, she fluttered her eyelids downward, as did Clinton. I followed with my eyes to where their eyes focussed. There, she was sitting on his lap and between her legs I saw a sight which drew out the breath from my lungs like a solid punch to my solar plexus. Clint's hand was under the hem of her short dress, thrusting his finger or fingers furiously in and out of Terry's honey pot. He withdrew his hand and held up a glistening finger. "Wanna lick, Bud?" Clinton laughed. "I do!" Terry grabbed his wrist and ran her tongue along the length of his finger. "Mmmm! Nice!" "Tell Bob here what's it tastes like, baby," Clinton said as he drew the finger completely into his own mouth and sucked. "Like you and me, darling," said Terry, smiling beatifically, holding my gaze fearlessly, defiantly, daring any response from me. "Oh, yes, it tastes like both you and me, baby!" Clinton added, "Looks like we've been makin' babies here and you, Buddy Bob, are outta the game for good!" I had tears in my eyes, powerless to do anything about what was going on. I had gone to that dinner party thinking I could save her, perhaps a little selfishly for myself, but I had always felt that we were good for each other, that my efforts would be for the benefit of both of us. Now she seemed to be in the power of this monster and needed saving from herself. Clinton wanted to rub in the advantage that he had over me. "Whatever you try to do, fast forward or wind back, you cannot change the outcome," he hissed at me. I must've looked puzzled. Go forward? In my ignorance I had thought you could only rewind, go back. Forward was something I hadn't even considered. Clinton picked up what I was thinking straight away. Stupid, I may be, but he wasn't. "You've never been forward have you?" he sneered, it seemed to be his permanent look. "No." I replied quietly, my heart broken. Terry's eyes were closed and she was out of it as Clinton resumed his finger's ministrations. "Let me show you how it all pans out, Bobby boy." Suddenly everyone in the room became super animated, moving around quickly, blurring head and hand movements, everyone except Clinton and myself, still in real time. "I'm an expert at this time manipulation so you can never beat me, Bob. I've been winding back and forth for thirty years of my time. That's why I came across the pond to Cambridge a year or so back and then Oxford six months ago. I have to keep on the move because however much you play with time you only have the time you are allotted. My parents think I am only just 13! I was very conservative with these powers at first, just jumping forward to discover exam questions and back again to study and pass them. Everybody thought I was a boy genius and was admitted to Yale age 11, although body wise by then I was already a mid-teenager. I discovered beautiful babes and that I could use the winding back to guarantee having any babe I wanted, just by rewinding and getting my seduction perfectly right the second time around. No-one was out of my league! I bet that's what you was hoping to do tonight, wasn't it Bob Lad? I know because I've done the same thing. I need to tell you, Bob that I have lived 30 years of my timeline in the last two calendar years, and I am totally invincible at this game." Rewind "You are certainly 'something'," I snapped. "What I cannot understand is why everyone else is fast forwarding and you and I are not. I can understand that you are controlling the 'remote', so to speak, but why am I unaffected when you are winding?" "That's because you also have the ability to change timelines, even though your level of control is pretty damn pathetic. It is like when you rewound the party earlier to change the seating arrangements, you noticed that I did not rewind with the others, did I? I was tied into your timeline because I was in line of sight with you and we were so close together. You and I are not the only ones who can do this rewinding time, you know." "There are others?" "Sure. I've meet several with the ability. We tend to try and avoid each other, it messes things up and we all have our own agendas, don't we Bob? Maybe everyone has the potential to do it, or perhaps only those who have the right genes? Who knows, there's been no research that I know of, and I have looked." "I wish I had never got involved, it seemed so simple a couple of days ago," I moaned. "You poor sap, you need to get with the plan and exploit the potential of this thing." "All I ever wanted was to get Terry back." "It'll never happen. She's mine. Give it up. I brought Chantelle along just for you. And I think Manuel has had his eye on you all evening, he likes his men thin and pale and especially enjoys it if they are particularly uncooperative." "You're a monster." He laughed, it was a cruel laugh, without humour, holding only the promise of pain. He had manipulated time for his own gains since he was 10. They say power corrupts, whoever said it had a point. "Terry's mine Bob, and there's no turning her back. I've spent longer working on her than any other woman, turning her onto me completely. I've worked her for six months, turning her against you and getting her to agree to having our children. With her brilliant mind and sexy looks and my skills, we will make a beautiful child, maybe several. I feel I need to leave a legacy behind me, time is so fleeting, you know. Terry tells me that at the moment she is at her most fertile point in this cycle and I'm going to take her again on this table in front of these people and especially in front of you. I have already impregnated her earlier today, and I've played the timeline through, it's a lovely bouncing baby boy, he's got my mother's eyes. But that rehearsal was without you, without the one man she used to love. I wanted to play it again with you watching and participating and Terry was, shall we say 'persuaded' that she wanted it too." "Never, you won't get me to take part in your sick game. I'll take Terry away from you, if it's the last thing I do." Clinton laughed out loud, as the action of the figures around us slowed to almost a stop, time was virtually at a standstill again. Terry was no longer between us, she was now lying naked on the table, the horrendous Baby Elephant I now knew as Chantelle was also hideously naked and was smearing tiramisu on Terry's flat stomach and rounded breasts, her nibbles standing proud in her excitement. It was like a nightmare. Looking around all the other guests were similarly naked, Manuel was smearing whipped cream on his rampant member, the horse-faced Doctor of Divinity defrocked and on his knees in front of him, licking his lips. "The wonder of chemistry," Clinton interrupted my thoughts and I snapped my head back to his chair. We appeared to be the only ones still clothed, although he was now standing and had already unbuttoned his shirt and in the process of removing it. "What's chemistry got to do with these sick goings on?" "Everything Bob, I couldn't have got Terry to give you up without some chemicals to kill her feelings for you, to alienate you and drive you away; then new chemicals to make her want me instead of you and put her completely in my control. Then a further combination of ingredients to make her want anyone I chose her to be with. All thanks to Chantelle, the large lady there preparing Terry for our pleasure. Chantelle is a mistress of the art of chemical preparations, it was after all the only way she could get men to have anything to do with her." "The pair of you deserve each other, you are both sick. I won't take any drugs, you can't force me." "You've already taken them Bobby Boy, not as much as the others I'll grant you, as you didn't touch the wine, but it was in the starter and the fish course, all the courses the other guests have consumed. It just takes away the checks on your libido and makes you super horny. It'll be fun to see how you react to the stimuli. Chantelle is high on it too! She thinks you are so hot, lucky you!" By now, Clinton had dropped his trousers and was completely naked, primed for action, and moving round the table to where Chantelle was finishing her preparatory ministrations to my eagerly waiting, furiously masterbating wife. The figures were almost moving normally, but rather like a slow motion replay, so we were still held in slow forward motion controlled by Clinton. No doubt Clinton wanted to get himself finally into position before restoring normal time and enjoying pleasuring my wife in front of my eyes. "Wait!" I said firmly, moving around the table, the opposite way round to Clinton, carefully squeezing past the slow-motion movements of the over-excited Doctor and rampant Manuel. "Of course you are right! We are like gods with skills like these and we should make the most of them, no point in competing with each other and wasting rewind time. Why can't we be partners?" "Glad to see you come on board, Bob Buddy," Clinton had that horrible sneer again. We reached the position just behind Chantelle at the same time. I smiled at Clinton and held out my arms in friendship. "OK, Buddy," as he stepped forward, holding out his arms. I put my hands on either side of his face and kissed him on the lips. He was shocked at my action to say the least. Still gripping his head, I grinned as I kneed him as hard as I could in the balls. He gasped as all the air was driven from his lungs. Then I pulled his head down and kneed him hard in the face. I think I was smiling but could you blame me if it veered towards a sneer? I let him go and he arched over onto his back. I shoved the Fat Elephant out of my way. With tears in my eyes I kissed my index and middle fingertips and pressed them gently onto my lost wife's lips. This Terry, lying here drugged to the eyeballs was no longer my pure baby. She belonged in Clinton's timeline, not mine, she was already carrying his baby, but at least I could take Clinton out of the equation and perhaps give her a chance to rebuild an independent life for herself. I thought hard about fast forwarding myself 10,000 years. The characters about me came out of the slow motion state that Clinton had produced and started speeding up slowly, within seconds everyone in the room was a blur, then furniture in the room changed sporadically, before the room itself disappeared and became a different building. Soon that building disappeared altogether and Clinton and I stopped going forward in a barren concrete-floored wasteland, with tall elegant towers in the distance reaching up into the slow-moving reddish clouds. We fell three or four feet, clearly the floor level had changed over the millennia. I banged my knee and Clinton fell heavily and lay still. I was still dressed in my DJs and Clinton lay totally naked at my feet, completely out of it, his nose covered in blood. I thought about another 10,000 years further on and this time the landscape changed dramatically again, now almost instantly, my skills at fast forwarding clearly improving. Now we stood on a grassy hillock, surrounded by tall trees. It was warm and sunny, about mid-morning or afternoon, the sunlight rays slanting through the thick canopy. This wouldn't do, I thought. I fast forwarded a further 10,000 years. I blinked and my legs stood knee deep in snow, the wind was ferocious, a blizzard raged about us, it was absolutely freezing! Clinton moaned at my feet, lying deep in the snow. I ran away from him struggling through the deep snow before entering the shelter of the trees, where the snow covering was thinner and the going was easier, except it was dark in there and branches whipped at my head and face and tore at my thin clothing. Once I had estimated I had gone 100 yards or so I thought about rewinding thirty thousand and one year. Everything around me changed in a blur, the Arctic landscape disappeared to be replaced by the interior of a shopping mall. I could hear piped music. I was sweating in the heated environment, with sunlight streaming through the glass roof, and due to my exertions running through the tundra and the woods, but I was still chilled to the bone and puffed out, dressed in my wringing wet and decidedly distressed tuxedo. I was shivering uncontrollably. I was cold, wet and could hardly feel my fingers. I looked behind me and there was no sign of Clinton. However, was he transported back in time and presently laying 100 yards behind me? That would put him in the car park. I ran down the corridor and out into the warm summer morning sunshine. There were only cars in that car park, no sign of my adversary. I knew where I would find him, or an earlier version of him. One that wouldn't know me from Adam. He would be a fairly new arrival in Cambridge, late of Yale University. I walked back into the mall. There in front of me was Terry, who was clearly concerned at my distressed appearance, and grasped my cold, clammy hand. "Are you alright, honey?" Terry asked thinking I was ill. "What brought this on, sweetheart?" She helped me sit down in the seat of a fast food area of the shopping mall. "You were fine a half-hour ago and now you are hot and cold, you must be running a fever. And why did you go home and changed into your tux? And you're soaking wet, is that ice on your trousers? And you have cut your head!" I put my hand to my head and there was blood on my fingers. "Honey, I need to find a toilet and get cleaned up. Can you quickly buy me a change of clothing? Some cheap jeans, tee-shirt and a jacket or top?" "Sure, I can get some sale stuff from Sports Direct that will do for now. The toilets are over there, I'll meet you out in front of the loos in ten minutes. Honestly, honey, I leave you in the café for thirty minutes while I shop for underwear and you go crazy on me!" I checked my wallet while I walked to the toilets, trying to ignore the looks I was getting from passers-by, and noticed that my credit card was not going to be valid for another seven months, in fact the account in my own name was created after we separated and therefore would not be created for another seven months or so. Fortunately, I had an old debit card in both our names that was current. My finances are always up to date, I am rather anal about it. I check it on-line every couple of days, so I always know exactly how much we have in our (or more recently my) current account at any time, but that running total in my head was a year into the future and I had no idea how much we had available. I remembered that money was pretty tight for a couple of years or so before, due to the mortgage on the apartment. I would have to get to an ATM from my own bank soon and run out a mini statement. My face and head had been whipped by frozen fir tree branches and my temple was cut within the hairline above and slightly in front of the right ear. I couldn't quite see it and didn't think it was too deep but there was some blood seepage. There were no paper towels, only automatic hand driers. I used some wetted toilet paper to clean up the blood. My tux was pretty well ruined. My court shoes had lost their shine and the leather somewhat crusted and would never again be much good, but they would do for now. Outside, Terry provided me with a carrier bag of clothing. In one of the toilet kiosks I changed my ruined jacket, dress shirt and trousers and stuffed them into the now empty bag. I put on the new clothes, noting that I was a lot thinner then I had been a year in the past. I had difficulty saying 'then' about a time and events in my immediate 'past' yet happened a year into the future. Crazy? That's what Terry had just suggested I was, and if she knew what I was anticipating doing later that day she would know I was. Terry and I sat in the coffee bar area and I told her not to ask any questions but to simply trust me. Once she assured me that she would both trust me and in whatever I felt I needed to do, I told her I wasn't crazy but I had something vital that I had to put into action and I couldn't delay because two people had planned to hurt both of us, I had to stop them and had to do it now. I told Terry that I couldn't reveal the source of my information, nor could I tell her what I was going to do. I added that I was probably not coming back for a couple of weeks or so, that I would almost certainly be arrested and serve some time in prison, but what I had to do was for both of us, for our future. What I was going to do was not legal, but not a crime under current legislation. I said that once I had done what I had to do and we were in the clear, I would tell her everything, if she really wanted to know, but until then it was essential that she had to know nothing. We kissed and embraced and I walked to the station, via the bank where I was able to withdraw sufficient resources for that day. I caught the train to London and through the underground to Liverpool Street station before I boarded the next train to Cambridge, arriving there just after lunch. During the journey I searched for 'Clinton, Cambridge and maths' on Google through my mobile phone and found his details and his lecture itinerary. That was almost a problem, as the phone wouldn't activate at first. I had to call the mobile phone provider and activate the sim card, which meant another hit on my debit card. Fortunately, most of the functionality of the phone was restored, at least accessing the Internet was simple. The search revealed that Dr Clinton Curtis was considered a boy genius, with knowledge of mathematics and experienced in life way beyond his years. Yes, right! I could understand now how that had come about. He was lecturing that afternoon in Cambridge. I caught a cab to the lecture venue and made my way inside the auditorium. He was standing on the stage at a lectern, lording it over the audience. He looked a whole ten years younger than I had seen him four or five hours earlier but it was him all right, I recognised the sneer for a start. I approached the stage at the end of question time, smiling and holding out my hand to shake his. As he held his own hand out I punched him as hard as I could and flattened his nose, for the second time in my life, with a straight right and fast forwarded thirty thousand years. He came with me, he had no say in the matter, this was science dictating that he was tied by proximity and sightline to my timeline. It was still bitterly cold, but no blizzard here, miles from Oxford, the snow covering was light on the ground and there were no trees close by, the vista was reminiscent of an arctic tundra. We were on a flat plain, where I would have to go a considerable distance to escape his sightline. Listening carefully, I could hear running water nearby. I dragged the unconscious body towards the sound of running water, and about to push him over the edge of the bank into the stream. He woke up in a daze then. That wouldn't do. If he was conscious he could travel through time. With his experience, he'd regain the advantage. I struck Clinton hard once again and he fell dazed down the bank. I ran away from his position just as fast as I could, back the way I had dragged him, to get out of his line of sight. I could hear the howls of wolves on the wind. I hoped they had the scent of blood, his blood, rather than my own scent of fear. I carried on running. The sound of wolves was louder and I hurried on. Then I fancied I heard a high pitched scream, but whether it was human or animal I knew not and cared less. I thought hard then of rewinding those thirty thousand years exactly. The lecture hall was in uproar, as I fully hoped it would be. I knew there was a strong chance that I would go back on a completely different timeline and find that I hadn't removed Clinton from the equation in that world. I feared I might go back to a timeline where Terry didn't even exist or didn't know me. As soon as I arrived in modern Cambridge I was arrested by security, so I thought with some satisfaction that even simple fact in itself was promising. There was no sign of Clinton, in fact there was never any sign of Clinton ever again. Scotland Yard detectives did pull extra time from the courts in their questioning and kept it up for for nearly two weeks. The security cameras and video images taken of Clinton's lecture did show someone that looked the spitting image of me, wearing my new bright, cheap and cheerful clothing. They also showed Clinton being punched by me and that we both suddenly disappeared, which was eventually attributed to a glitch in the digital recording, with no evidence of tampering. Then, ten minutes later, I emerged from within a crowd of security men, students and organisers near the entrance to the hall. I was severely chilled, my lips were badly chapped, my fingertips tingling painfully with the near onset of frostbite. The bottom half of my trousers were soaking wet and freezing cold. I shivered uncontrollably for quite some time. I was breathing hard as if I had indulged in extreme physical activity, but the evidence from onlookers was that I must have just been quietly milling about in the crowd since the incident, avoiding drawing attention to myself. There was no possibility that I had left the hall in the ten minutes since Clinton disappeared and I was discovered. The medical evidence said I was borderline hyperthermic, with no explanation for such a state. Forensic evidence of my clothing proved even more of a mystery as a number of the isotopes contained within the water soaked into my clothes were unidentifiable. My knuckles were bruised, proving that I had struck Clinton, but that was not in dispute. The only answer I gave was that I never left the geographic area of that lecture hall, that I had met Clinton only once before, merely hours before I struck him, but was unable or unprepared to identify where I saw him previously. My unshakeable contention was that I was somehow in the control of Clinton, possibly through hypnosis or drugs, and was angry at him. I said that I had an overwhelming impression that he wanted to hurt my family and myself and so I felt compelled to strike him in self defence. I maintained that I could only assume that Clinton was still in the hall as I had never removed him from the area where the stage was. A blood sample showed that I had traces of an unknown drug, that fell into the category of date-rape scenarios, matched by a worrying number of recent cases in the Cambridge area, restricted to male victims. The verdict of the Crown Prosecution Service was that I was a victim rather than a perpetrator. The police never did discover where Dr Clinton Curtis disappeared to and the disappearance of someone who was described as potentially one of the mathematic geniuses of all time was a mystery that would be much speculated on but never solved. When his parents became involved, they had lots of evidence showing that their child was only 13 years and a few months old and the person shown on the stage must have been at least 30 and therefore an imposter who couldn't possibly be their son. Cambridge University must have been a victim of a con artist who had made good his escape during the confusion. The big question is, what happened to Clinton the boy genius? Further fuel for the overriding mystery of the 21st century, many books would be written on the subject but I never bothered to read any of them.