1 comments/  15180 views/  1 favorites

Ep. 05 Time Cannot Erase

By: Curse_Of_Undeath



[AUTHOR'S NOTE: This takes place after the events in "A Desperate Caress" and "Rolling Shadows of Night". (2008) After re-reading this, and after much rumination, I felt that I needed to re-edit this story. While I appreciated, and still very much appreciate, StogieMon's help in developing the story, I felt it had gotten too far away from what I initially intended it to be. Moreover, I plan to go back and re-edit all of the stories, up to and including 'Ep 06 Misled By Beauty'.

Besides, the sequel ended up taking a bit of a left turn, now didn't it?

Anyways, italicized dialog preceded with an asterisk denotes subtitled speech.]

*

"He's been seeing someone else, Rachel," Rosanna Tarunen put as much sympathy as she could muster into the words. It was all an act, but she was a consummate performer, as her high school and college drama accolades testified. "I'm so sorry you had to hear it from me…"

Rosanna held her breath, waiting to see if her daughter took the bait properly. The response wasn't long in coming.

"WHAT?!" Rachel's roar assaulted her eardrums over the connection. "You better be fucking kidding me, Mother."

"I wish I were, sweetie," her mother said with a sigh, trying her best to ignore her daughter's language, as any loving, caring mother would, given the 'situation'. "I wish I were."

"Are you sure it was him?" Rachel asked, desperation creeping in her voice.

"I . . . " her mother's voice trailed off. "I found a picture . . . I sent it to your email."

A long pause followed, a silence through which Rosanna could hear the 'beep' of her daughter's laptop computer booting up, followed by the rapid clicking of keys as Rachel accessed her campus e-mail account. Then, dead silence, followed by the hiss of an indrawn breath.

'Good!' Rosanna thought to herself with a wicked smile. 'Whoever said that one picture is worth a thousand words had nailed it, right on the money!'

"I'm so sorry, Rachel," she spoke the words and sounded so sincere, but her heart was leaping for joy at the despondent note she heard in her daughter's voice.

"I've gotta go, Mom," Rachel said flatly. "Love you."

[CLICK!]

Rosanna Tarunen pressed the disconnect button on the phone and breathed a heavy sigh. 

'The deed is done,' she thought to herself. The tone of her daughter's voice upset her slightly - more a result of the girl's choice of vocabulary and the slight disrespect than anything - but Rosanna was confident that she had done the right thing.

Placing the handset back in its cradle, she crossed the kitchen to the sink and shoved the freshly sliced onion down the garbage disposal. It had served its purpose well, as it had given her watery eyes and a runny nose, the combination making it sound as though she'd actually been crying in sympathy for her daughter. 

Then, taking up the container of soap from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, she washed her hands. Three long washings failed to fully remove the onion-smell from her flesh and, as she lathered her hands for the fourth time with the vanilla-scented soap, a line from her high school portrayal of Lady Macbeth suddenly popped into her mind.

Out, out, damned spot!

She ceased all movement for an instant, wondering where the thought had come from, and why. Then, shaking her head, she dismissed it as a mere flashback brought on by the repeated washing motions. She hadn't washed her hands that many times in a row since she'd done the play.

Satisfied at last that her hands smelled as befitted a lady of her station, she walked into the living room and sat on the recliner. Her husband, Joe, was lying on the couch across the room, reading a well-worn paperback copy of The Naked Lunch. Lifting her pack of cigarettes from the side-table at her elbow, she shook the last one loose from it. Putting it to her lips, she lit it and drew a deep, satisfied puff on it. Inhaling the first drag, she followed it immediately with another, exhaling the tremendous cloud of smoke with a long sigh. 

"Do you think what we did was right?" she asked her husband.

"'We'? It was your idea, Rosie," Joe said without looking up. "The whole twisted scheme was your idea, from start to finish. Bribing those girls to get the picture at one of the boy's gigs was your idea. Sending the boy that e-mail, using Rachel's AOL log-on, telling him that she never really loved him, and that she wanted someone more like Scott, the boy who humiliated her at the prom; that was also your idea. Putting that block on Rachel's incoming AOL e-mail, so it would bounce any messages from Randy was your idea. Calling the dean's office at USM, and feeding him that story about Randy stalking Rachel, and getting them to put the same block on Rachel's campus e-mail -- as well as putting Randy's vehicle on the Campus Security 'watch list' was your idea. It was all your idea, and the only part I played in any of it was that I haven't told Rachel what you've done!"

"Oh, come off it, Joe!" Rosanna roared. "You didn't like that little punk either! What was it you said? 'I'd rather have my daughter marry a fuckin' nigger than that god-damned gook?' That about get it right?"

Joe sat up and threw his book down. He glared at his wife hatefully from across the room, but she didn't notice.

"Yeah, I'm against my daughter associating with that slant-eyed yellow bastard," he countered, muttering under his breath, "but I'm against lying to her even more."

Even if Rosanna had heard him, it wouldn't have mattered. Her question of whether they'd done the right thing, in lying to Rachel about the boy, was purely rhetorical -- her desire to hear some voice other than her own, praising her twisted little scheme.

This whole deal had made Joe very uncomfortable from the moment his wife had laid it out to him. For perhaps the thousandth time -- or was it the ten-thousandth? -- Joe questioned his decision to stay with his social-climbing bitch of a wife. He thought seriously, again, about leaving her. All the other times -- at least, the times when he'd actually broached the subject to her -- Rosanna had always convinced him that they should stay together for Rachel's sake, but hearing his daughter cry herself to sleep every night for all those years tore him apart. 

Joe always felt that that cool evening in March of 1985, when Rachel was born, was the happiest night of his life. As much as he hated his wife, he loved his daughter even more, and he was fanatically protective of her. Her simple presence in his life was often the only thing that enabled him to get through days filled with waking nightmares, and nights filled with horrors that stalked his attempts at sleep. Had it not been for his darling daughter, he'd have succumbed to the urge to swallow his pistol long years ago.

And then that kid came into her life. Even though he didn't like him, Joe couldn't help but notice that -- for the first time since she was a child -- Rachel was smiling. It was true that he'd made that racial-epithet-laden comment about the boy, just as Rosanna had repeated it to him only moments ago. Moreover, he'd meant every word of it. Still, he knew that when Rachel found out what her mother did -- and learned that he had done nothing to halt the plan -- she would never forgive him. 

'No, I don't want my daughter being with that kid,' he thought to himself, 'but, goddammit, I wouldn't have stopped her. When she gets an idea in her head, she's just like me. She sticks with it, no matter what.'

Joe knew that Rosanna had her own interests in mind, as far as their daughter was concerned, and that such had been the case since day one. He knew that Scott Lister treated his daughter badly -- he'd found out, through sources at work, about Scott's humiliation of Rachel, at the prom, a few months back -- and he knew that she would never be happy with a man who could treat any woman that way. Rosanna didn't seem too concerned about that sort of thing, not even when he'd told her about the prom incident.

"He's just a boy," she told him. "He's popular, now, and that means going out with those girls on the cheerleading squad. Not one of them can cook, run a house, or do the things a woman needs to do, for her man. He'll see that, in time, and then he'll be apologizing to her, and asking you for her hand. You'll see!"

Joe hadn't bothered to mention that -- of the girls on the cheerleading squad -- three had already been accepted to pre-med curriculums at Ivy League colleges, and a fourth had been nominated to the Naval Academy, at Annapolis. He'd already fired that round in a half-dozen previous talks with his wife, and it hadn't put a dent in her armor plate. No, when Rosanna set her mind on a thing, you couldn't change it. No power in the world could. All she cared about was keeping up appearances and climbing the social ladder. 

Joe knew that it would be futile to argue with Rosanna further. When she had her mind made up about something, she'd never budge, and fighting her on it was as useless as the fighting he'd done back in Vietnam -- and with the same result: she always won. She had him whipped, and they both knew it.

Rosanna stormed off as Joe picked up his book and resumed reading. She didn't know, or care, that he was once more seriously contemplating putting his .357 in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

* * * * * *

Randy was deep in thought, as he drove his van home from the Tae Kwon Do tournament. He had to admit that overall, 2005 had been good to him. He remembered the smiles on his family's faces as he accepted his diploma upon his graduation from Miskatonic, and his joy that his grandfather, as ill and frail as he was, had been able to attend. 

In the early days of May 1953, a full battalion of North Korean troops and tanks just north of a place called Kwang-non-do ambushed a unit of South Korean soldiers, of which his grandfather was a member. Cho Chang-Hong, like the rest of his unit, was pinned down under a withering hail of enemy fire. Late that night, when clouds moved in and blanketed the area -- cutting off the moonlight -- Cho and two other soldiers were dispatched to take out three of the tanks, which hemmed them in. Shortly after 2:30 in the morning, local time, when - psychological studies show - humans are at their weakest point of vigilance and most fearful, the three soldiers struck their targets. Chang-Hong crept forward and climbed the side of the tank, dropping two grenades down the open hatch. As he turned to make a hasty retreat, a section of his web belt snagged on a protrusion on the tank's surface. The thick Soviet armor had shielded him from most of the blast-force, but he had sustained some shrapnel injuries, including some tiny fragments that entered the rear of his skull near the base of the brain and slipped inward.

It took the unit three days to make its way safely out of North Korean-held territory and back to a rear area and an American M*A*S*H unit. Cho spent five hours in surgery, but the medics were combat surgeons, not neurosurgeons. They were unable to remove the tiny fragments lodged inside his skull. Two weeks later, Cho was transported to a hospital in Seoul - and from there to the major US Army facility outside Tokyo. By then, the fragments had drifted far enough into his brain that the best medical technology of the day was unable to remove them without risking damage to surrounding brain tissue. The doctors told Cho that he probably shouldn't plan on a long life, but the wiry soldier had outlived every last one of the specialists who looked at his cranial x-rays, shook their heads, and sighed.

Yet now, at the time when Randy felt he needed him the most, Chang-Hong was slowly slipping away. The fragments had begun to enter the more critical areas of his brain, and their affect on his health -- so very long delayed -- was now beginning to accelerate. The specialists at Mass Gen, and at the Harvard Medical Center, gave him anywhere from three months to three years, but suggested that the former was a more accurate estimate.

Randy had always known that this would be something he'd have to face, eventually, but he loathed the fact that it had begun to happen now, of all times. His grandfather had been unable to officiate at the ceremony when Randy had been awarded his First Dan - first-degree - Black Belt, because of his weakening health. This had hurt Randy, but he had stoically accepted the fact. As much as it hurt him, not to have his grandfather even present at the ceremony, he knew that it pained the elder Cho even more.

And today - he'd won his fifth straight tournament, but this time, his grandfather had been unable to attend, even to watch. His former band mate, Mark Sinclair, had shown up with a video camera, so at least Chang-Hong could get to see his grandson's latest triumph, but the horrible realization was finally sinking in: his grandfather was dying, and it would probably be only a matter of time before the elder Cho would be absent from his life forever. Three years? Three months? One of the doctors had even hinted that it could happen in as little as one month.

Randy's brooding came to an abrupt end as he pulled in at the curb in front of his family's house. Stuffing his worry into a pocket he'd carved out in the deepest part of his brain, he grabbed the big trophy from the seat behind him, slung his equipment bag over one shoulder, and tried to put a little 'triumph' in his step as he walked up to the front porch -- just in case somebody chanced to be looking out the front window, watching for his arrival. Opening the door, he stepped into the living room and greeted his mother and grandparents, who were all gathered there waiting for him.

"*Where's Mi Na?" he asked.

"*Practicing with her band," Ji-Won, his mother, answered. "You remember that her school's talent show is in two months, right?"

"*Oh yeah, duh!" Randy muttered, clapping a hand to his forehead. How could he forget? It wasn't like he had much on his mind…

He had been quite proud, a few months back, when Mi Na had announced to her family that she wanted to form her own band over the summer vacation, and maybe compete in the school's annual talent show. 

"You're getting more like your brother every day," their mother had chided.

"Thank you, honorable mother," Mi Na had responded, executing a perfect Korean bow.

"But you're only twelve, young lady," Ji-Won had added, with a wry grin that was aimed at both her children. "I'm drawing the line this side of the smoking, drinking, cursing, and coming in at all hours of the early morning. Understood?"

"Yes, mother," Mi Na gave an elfin chuckle and bowed respectfully, again.

Randy had blushed, given his mother an embarrassed grin, and found something interesting on the linoleum floor to observe.

"At least I'm not doing that any more," he offered.

"Which is something I'm grateful to see," Ji-Won nodded, touching her fingertips to her son's cheek in understanding.

Ji-Won had left the kitchen, then, and Randy sat his sister down and explained both the positive and negative sides of being in a band.

"There's a lot of factors involved that you don't always think of at first," he told her. "You need good musicians, true. But, if you're going to do more than just be a 'cover band' - playing other bands' music at parties and dances, you're going to need someone who can compose new music, and someone who can put the right words to it. You need to have a group of people with one vision of where the band wants to go, and who are all willing to put in the long, hard hours of practice that it takes to get you where you want to be."

"That's why you left Bloody Solstice, right, Randy?" she interrupted him at that point. "You had differences of opinion with some of the guys in the band, about the sort of music you wanted to do, right?"

"That was part of it, sis," he nodded. "But part of it had to do with Grandfather's health, and his needing me to spend more time at the dojo, taking over some of his classes."

There was more to it than that, really. But the 'more' was an area he chose not to go into with his sister. Part of that area was his brief relationship with Rachel, and also part of the reason for the rift that grew between himself and Rick, the vocalist. And it all traced a path back to his growing dissatisfaction with the music. His heart just wasn't in it any longer - at least, as far as death-metal was concerned. He'd already made his decision to leave, and was only hanging on because of the number of gigs they'd booked, and the contract for the last of the band's albums. He realized that his logic was sound when Mark Sinclair, the bassist, told him that Rick wanted to change the band's musical direction, and felt that Randy had no place in the band's new focus and style.

Being part of a successful band wasn't easy, so it concerned him slightly that Mi Na - at only twelve years of age - wanted to form her own band. Still, he was also very proud of her, and wanted to help her in any way he could. He remembered - with great pleasure - the expression on her face when he gave her the seven-stringed Jackson guitar he'd had custom made for himself. He even had Jon airbrush a Goth version of "Hello Kitty", raising the 'horns' salute, on the lower wing.

"May it serve you as well as it served me," he told her, as he placed the expensive instrument into her hands. "Take good care of it, and it'll make sweet music for you until the day you're too old to play it."

Her jaw had dropped, her breath had caught in her throat, and then she had burst into tears as she embraced him. For the last four years, she had considered herself quite fortunate that he occasionally allowed her to use his B.C. Rich. He'd barely let her even LOOK at the Jackson, let alone touch it, and now he was simply handing it to her!

"Thank you so much, Randy," Mi Na said, as she hugged her brother tightly. "I don't know what to say! I can't tell you how much this means to me! I'll always treasure it!"

"The rest of my rig is yours, too," he informed her. "The amp, effects box and pedals, the works. I'm just gonna keep my practice amp, and my Warlock."

"Are you sure, Randy?" Mi Na said, worry creeping in her voice.

"I'm not in a band anymore, so I don't need all that crap. And you're in no position to buy new gear. You need it more than I do. I just ask that you take care of that stuff. Care for your arsenal, and it will care for you for years to come."

Mi Na knew that Randy's setup wasn't cheap, so she knew the magnitude of the gift he was giving her. The guitar alone cost over $4,000, and the rest of the stuff wasn't exactly bottom of the line either. She had always envied her brother's sound, and she knew it would help her a great deal as she formed her new band. 

"*Thank you, Ran-Jong," she whispered through her tears. "*If you ever need to use any of it, go ahead. I wouldn't have it, if it weren't for you."

"*You're welcome, Mi Na," he smiled back at her and ruffled her hair a bit. "*But, don't worry; if I decide I want to form another band, I can always buy new gear."

Over the summer, she already had two members for her band -- her best friend, Cassie Lombardo and Cassie's older sister, Danielle. Cassie had gotten numerous solos in their chorus class at school, so she was an ideal pick for lead vocalist. Danielle - Dani, as her friends called her - had always admired bands with female bassists, like White Zombie, Sonic Youth or Smashing Pumpkins and this inspired her to take up the instrument herself. Later, after spending some time listening to bands like Rush and Dream Theater, she realized how inferior a lot of those other bassists were. Part of that lower skill level was, of course, due to the age of those bassists. Still, the sort of music those bands played didn't really require intricate bass-work. Dani wanted better, though, and strove to reach a level of musicianship the likes of some bassists a friend had turned her onto. She had become really talented, and was beginning to compose some original music built around intricate, driving, bass riffs.


Ep. 05 Time Cannot Erase



When the school year began, Mi Na had recruited two other girls for her band. Lisa Sinclair had just transferred to Carter Middle School, but she was already acquainted to Mi Na through her father. Her father was Randy's old band mate and friend, Mark Sinclair - "Uncle Mark", as far as Mi Na was concerned. When Lisa learned that Mi Na was forming a band, she immediately offered her services as the drummer. When she shared stories of how she'd jam with her father to Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse albums, and gave the other girls a sampling of her talents on the drums, she was hired immediately. The lineup was rounded out with the addition of Jessica Bernier on keyboards and rhythm guitar. After much discussion, and after a marathon of old samurai movies, the girls decided on "Snowblood" as the name for their band.

Randy chatted with his mother and grandparents for a while, and then went to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. He was putting the jars of condiments back into the refrigerator when he glanced at the calendar hanging on its door. Today was the seventh of September; it was exactly two years, to the day, since he'd received that gut-wrenching email from Rachel.

Rachel.

He hadn't been with any woman, not since the night he and his band-mates from Bloody Solstice went to Emergence, in Providence, and he'd wound up in a drunken one-night-stand with Daria Fulci. He had done a lot of soul searching, since then, and reached a number of conclusions.

He had been perfectly happy and content, before Rachel entered his life. He had given her something that he could never give anyone else - his heart, and his body for the first time - and she had ground it into the dirt beneath her feet. Well, if that was what you got for risking your heart in a relationship, he didn't need it. He didn't need a woman in his life to be happy, and he wasn't even sure that he wanted one.

Still, there were moments when he found himself thinking of her. He would be going for a stroll and he'd see someone walk by and, for a split second, he'd think it was her. Sometimes, he'd hear a woman's voice or a laugh and he'd remember Rachel. As always, he'd find himself missing her after such moments. It was at times like those that he understood the lyrics to an old Fleetwood Mac song; one he had heard many times from his mother's bedroom after his father abandoned them.

Time casts a spell on you, but you wont forget me

I know I could have loved you, but you would not let me

I'll follow you down 'til the sound of my voice will haunt you

You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you

During the really bad nights, he'd set his feelings down in song, and some of those songs ended up on the last Bloody Solstice album. Ironically, a lot of women approached Randy and offered to help heal his broken heart after hearing those songs. In the end, he'd turn them all down. Mark, Jon, and Krista respected Randy's decision to stay single. In fact, Mark recommended it.

"You've got to get back in touch with yourself, bro," he advised. "Right now, you don't even seem to like yourself. If you don't like you, how can you ever expect anyone else to like you?"

Rick, of course, was all for exactly the opposite.

"You don't need to relate to women, dude," the vocalist had laughed, "in order to get yourself a good piece of ass! There's plenty of babes out there who'd love to wind up in the sack with you, no strings attached, and ball your brains out. Take your pick, man! Get out there, and have some fun! Bang as many babes as you can! 'Love' is highly overrated!"

That was the start of the rift between Randy and Rick. Though it was true that his father had left his mother for a younger woman, Randy knew that 'love' was not as overblown a concept as Rick believed. He had the loving relationship of his grandparents, Chang-Hong and Hye-Ju, to serve him as a daily example of what a lifetime love could be.

The rift had grown as Randy's music changed. The usual imagery of 'death-metal' music faded from his original compositions, to be replaced by intricate melancholy riffs and emotionally charged lyrics, as he poured his broken heart and his anger at Rachel into song after song -- to Rick's steady objections and ridicule.

"I told you that love was overrated," Rick reminded him one night, in a break between rehearsal sessions. "You want proof? Take a good, long look in a mirror, sometime. It's taken a really great musician and turned him into a spineless, yellow queer who - "

Randy was never too clear on what had happened next. He only remembered Mark and Jon each grabbing him by an arm, and the sight of Rick picking himself off the floor and grabbing a towel to staunch the flow of blood from his broken nose. Jon and Krista had taken Rick to get the nose looked at, and Randy had packed his gear and loaded it in the van.

"I'm outta here," he'd said to Mark. "I'm sorry for what it may do to the band, but I gotta get my head on straight, and it can't happen here."

"I'll keep in touch, bro," Mark smiled. "It's not like I didn't see this coming."

Rachel.

Her name kept repeating and repeating in his head. Like an old fashioned vinyl LP with a bad spot in its grooves. Like one of his early attempts at computer programs, caught in an endless loop. He swore, at times, that he could still feel her deep brown eyes burning into his skull. 

'Not again, god dammit,' he thought to himself. 

He looked around for something to distract himself and found the clock. It read "8:45 P.M."; it was almost time to start getting ready for work. He finished his sandwich, grabbed a change of clothes, and took a shower. He had gotten a job as a night stocker at the new Hannaford that opened in Arkham. The pay was alright; it was enough to supplement the income he got as an instructor at his grandfather's dojo. An hour later, he was in his van, driving to work.

Rachel.

He needed to do something, if he was going to get completely over her. The hurt hadn't gone away, not even after two years. When was he ever going to get some closure - and how? He needed to see Rachel again, to confront her and let her know jut what she'd done to his heart and his soul, but he had absolutely no idea what he'd say to her if he found himself face-to-face with her again. Still, the catharsis of a confrontation was probably the only way he was going to be able to move on and find any sort of peace.

Rachel.

* * * * * *

Rachel stood in the aisle at Bullmoose Music in Portland, browsing through the CD racks. She was really stalling for time, putting off the inevitable. Her stuff was all packed in the car, out in the parking lot, and all that was left was for her to get in, turn the key, and start the drive back to Arkham. Over the summer, she made the decision to move back to Massachusetts. Arkham winters were cold and snowy, but Portland's version was far worse. Plus, she had to admit to herself that she had been homesick ever since she left Arkham to attend school in Maine. The fact that she had spent her Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring breaks in New Orleans with La'Tonya and her family was just her avoidance of her mother's attempts to push her back into the arms of Scott Lister. 

Having La'Tonya as a roommate and lover had gone a long way to eliminating most of the ache of missing home, but La'Tonya had entered USM on an accelerated program, and had been a couple years ahead of her, as far as college went. At the end of the coming fall semester, she'd be graduating and moving on with her life, and Rachel would be looking at a new roommate.

Her faculty advisor, Professor Emmett Callahan, had informed her that there was a student-teaching position open at Carter Middle School - the school that she, herself, had attended. Callahan had already taken the liberty of contacting the school and pitching Rachel for the slot, and she'd been preliminarily accepted. The interview had turned out to be more a matter of the formalities being observed.

She had the University transfer her credits to Miskatonic, so she could finish her degree there, and found herself an apartment in Dunwich. During vacation, she moved all her belongings down to her new home. She was on her last trip, so she decided to take a souvenir in the form of some local music. She would've met up with her friend La'Tonya for a little 'send-off', but the charming Creole was apparently still home in New Orleans.

She flipped through the CDs and found something wholly unexpected: a new release from Bloody Solstice. Rachel still had the CD that Randy had given her two years ago; she didn't have the heart to get rid of it, even after what he had done to her. She picked up the album, entitled Drown, and checked out the back cover. Several of the song-titles sounded intriguing, so she walked over to the cashier to purchase it. 

"You like those guys?" the dreadlocked cashier, whose nametag identified him as 'Matt', asked her.

"Sort of," Rachel gave him a somewhat embarrassed grin. "I used to date the lead guitarist."

"Oh?" Matt raised an eyebrow. "Cool! It's a shame, though; this album is even more brutal than Remember the Dead! They were this close - " he held a thumb and forefinger about a quarter of an inch apart, to illustrate, "to getting a contract with Nuclear Blast, when they broke up!"

"What?" Rachel asked, incredulously. "When did this happen?"

"Last year," Matt told her. "I guess your ex quit, and the rest of the band soon followed. It's too bad too, 'cause that dude was downright sick on the guitar. I guess they just couldn't find a guy to replace him."

Randy quit. The two words bounced like a pinball in her brain. She tried to appear nonplussed, but figured it probably wasn't working too well.

"How come he quit?" she asked.

"I dunno," Matt said, "the rumor is that he just lost heart. That, and he and the lead singer weren't getting along."

"Huh," Rachel said, "well, okay. Thank you."

Matt bagged the CD and wished Rachel well, but she didn't hear him. She walked to her car in a daze. The thing that Matt had told her seemed unreal, impossible.

Randy quit. Randy quit!

As much as she knew -- or thought she knew -- about Randy, she knew that musicians as talented as he was didn't just quit, especially when they're at the top of their game. Bands could - and often did - break up, when members couldn't resolve 'creative differences' regarding the type of music the band would focus on, but the members would always move on to form other bands. They didn't just put their instruments on a shelf and walk away forever. Paul McCartney didn't quit when the Beatles broke up, and he didn't even quit - years later - when his wife, Linda, had died from cancer! Something had to have set Randy off, to make him just walk away from his music like that. Rachel opened the door and sat in her car for a moment, eyes closed, lost in her musings. Then, she ripped the plastic wrapping from the disc and pulled the booklet out, searching for a clue.

The first thing she noticed was that Randy didn't look too happy in the photo of him that accompanied the disc. On Remember the Dead, his photo had captured him looking serious, but serene and thoughtful. Here, he looked angry and hateful. She pored through the lyrics and noticed that Randy only had credits on four songs: "Inner Putrefaction", "Ripped to Shreds", "Soulsucked", and "Festering Decayed". She noted the common themes of heartbreak, despair, betrayal, and numbness that ran through all four pieces like a river. One particular verse, in Ripped to Shreds, caught her eye:

"My heart impaled on your poisoned blade.

My innards strewn, ripped to shreds,

Helplessly watching you feast on the tender flesh.

Are you satisfied now, bitch?"*

The asterisk, she found, referenced a footnote at the end of the song's lyrics: ". . . you know who you are! -- R. C."

Upon reading that footnote, Rachel knew deep down that those songs were meant for her. The thing that puzzled her was why. 

"What did I do?" Rachel asked aloud. "He's the one who betrayed me!"

It didn't make any sense to her at that moment, and she completed the drive south on the Maine Turnpike without making sense of the riddle. She listened to the CD over and over, on her trip back to Massachusetts, trying to find a clue in the music itself. The cashier was right; this album was far more brutal than Remember the Dead, but not as intricate. It was the musical equivalent of a fist, repeatedly beating the listener into submission - especially the four songs that Randy had authored. Rachel asked herself, over and over, why Randy would write such songs about her, but only could come up with more questions. When she arrived in Massachusetts, she was left with more questions than when she started.

* * * * * *

She took a few days to paint the apartment, hang some things on the walls, and get the rest of her things moved in and squared away. Another couple days were spent in shopping for a couple pieces of additional furniture that she needed, and getting phone service and cable set up. At length, she met with Katherine Romero at Carter Middle School. Mrs. Romero looked a bit older than Rachel remembered, but the school itself hadn't changed a bit in the six years that she had been away. Katherine led her on an orientation tour of the school, but it was really unnecessary; she still remembered how to get around. Most of the orientation consisted of a run-down on what had changed since she'd actually been in classes there, who the new teachers were, and the inner workings of the school -- who reported to whom, and how, and so-on. By the time the dismissal bell was releasing the students for the afternoon, they were strolling around the school, just 'catching up'. That conversation was more gossip than anything else: which of her former teachers had been caught after hours in the copier room, with her skirt around her waist and her fingers 'stuck' in her panties. How one of her old science teachers was caught, in the girls' locker room during a Saturday night school dance, with one of his prettier students on her knees in front of him. How Don Coddinger, the man who led the school chorus classes, had finally come out of the closet. The two women were just passing the gymnasium, discussing that last item, when Rachel heard the sounds of loud rock music coming from inside. She looked at Mrs. Romero quizzically. 

"The school's talent show is in two months," Katherine said. "That would be Cassandra Lombardo's band, Snowblood."

Rachel paused outside the closed doors of the gym, recognizing the song as a note-perfect rendition of Iron Maiden's "The Trooper" - she'd heard it countless times while cruising with Randy - except with a young girl's voice belting out the lyrics. 

"Can we pop in for a few minutes? Rachel asked. "Music's kind of a 'hobby', with me, and these kids sound pretty good. I'd like to hear a bit more." 

"All right," Mrs. Romero replied. "I'll admit that the band is quite good, even though it's not my type of music, per se."

"So what style of music do you prefer?" Rachel asked, smiling. "Classic rock or soft ballads? Or, did you go the other way, and get into 'country'?"

Katherine looked up and down the hallway, and then leaned closer to her.

"Personally, I prefer disco," she admitted with a deep blush. "But if you ever mention that fact to anyone, I'll deny it to the heavens and put you in the unemployment line!"

"Your secret is safe, with me, Katherine," Rachel giggled.

"'Kathy,' please. 'Katherine' is too formal for a working relationship. Let's go inside, shall we?"

The two women entered the gymnasium as the quintet finished the current song. 

"Girls," Mrs. Romero called out, "would you please play your set for our new student teacher?"

"You got it," one of the girls - apparently the lead vocalist, because she was holding only a microphone - answered, with a 'thumbs-up' gesture.

The vocalist was tall and somewhat swarthy, with long, black curly hair, and Rachel noted that the bass player looked a lot like the vocalist; very likely an older sibling. The keyboardist had shoulder-length brown hair, and was somewhat pale. She quickly ran through several scales on her keyboard, and then made sure her guitar was in tune. The drummer was barely visible behind her kit, but she was obviously not intimidated by its size; it was apparent that she had already gained mastery of the percussion array. 

It was when Rachel took a good look at the lead guitarist that her jaw dropped. She recognized the guitar, even before she recognized the girl; a custom black seven-stringed Jackson guitar shaped like an offset 'V', with a yin-yang symbol below one of the twin pick-ups. The only difference was a 'Hello Kitty' painted on the shorter, lower wing of the 'V'. Rachel remembered someone else playing that guitar, someone else of half-Korean, half-Swedish descent.

Snowblood's lead guitarist was Mi Na Cho! Her breath caught in her throat and her heart sank into the pit of her stomach as she gazed at the girl who - once upon a time - she had hoped would one day become her sister.

Mi Na had changed a lot in two years. Her long, straight black hair was streaked with fluorescent blue, and she was dressed in skin-tight black jeans and a black tee shirt with the sleeves cut off. She had gained some weight, and a couple inches in height, and it appeared as though she was in the midst of that painfully awkward stage of growth that Rachel remembered all too well. 

Mi Na said something to Cassie, in a voice that was too quiet for Rachel to hear, and Cassie nodded.

"Yo, Jess: take it from the top," she yelled. "One. Two. One - two - three - four!"

Behind her massive kit, the diminutive drummer clicked the suggested tempo off with her sticks, and then Jess -- the keyboardist -- started playing a piano introduction. Rachel recognized the piece immediately as a rendition of Queen's "Death on Two Legs". She remembered listening to her father's vinyl copy of A Night at the Opera, when she was a little girl. Though, back then, her favorite cuts had been "Bohemian Rhapsody" (didn't everybody love that one?), "39" and "Sweet Lady".

With an ear trained by a lifetime of listening to music and the private study she'd done to further her own compositions, and an eye to performance styles sharpened by her time spent watching Randy's band, she appraised the performance. To say these girls were doing the song justice was a gross understatement. Cassie sang the lyrics with the appropriate venom, and the band was as tight as one composed of musicians more than twice their ages. She watched and she listened, giving the girls some positive feedback through her approving smile.

Then Mi Na began her guitar solo; Rachel's prediction of the girl's musical growth was ahead of schedule by two years. At age…twelve, she'd be, by now…she was already playing as well as her older brother had, at seventeen and eighteen. The instrument was nearly as big as she was, and yet her blurring fingers seemed to barely caress the fret board as she made it scream and wail like a pro -- like Eddie Van Halen, someone her father had always praised. She remembered another guitarist she'd heard Randy rave about; his last name was barely pronounceable, but his first name was 'Trey', and he played for a band called Morbid Angel.

As quickly as the song began, it ended, immediately followed by a slower, but much heavier song. Rachel remembered hearing Bloody Solstice playing it, during one of the gigs she had attended. Her head nodded to the beat through the entire song, and her eyes never left Mi Na. She could've sworn that, occasionally, Mi Na would glare back at her balefully, mouthing a few words to the song, which sounded like 'you snap your neck', then she'd resume her assault on the guitar. Snowblood's three-song set ended with "The Trooper", and their rendition of the Iron Maiden classic literally blew Rachel away. She knew, at that moment, that the only reason Snowblood wouldn't have the whole contest in the bag was if they were competing against an act composed of a student or students more 'popular' than they were; Rachel knew too well what middle-school 'popularity politics' was like.




Ep. 05 Time Cannot Erase



Rachel was so entranced by the performance that she didn't notice that Mrs. Romero had left the gym until she turned to comment on the performance and saw that she was standing by herself.

'Oh well,' she thought, 'the orientation was pretty much over, anyway.' 

The band members began putting away their instruments, talking to each other as they wound up the cords and stowed them away. Rachel started walking toward the stage as Mi Na picked up the Jackson's anvil-case and began walking toward the exit. She pushed past Rachel, brushing hard against her almost as if intent upon knocking her over. Rachel thought she heard the muttered word, 'bitch', as Mi Na moved on past her. The keyboardist and vocalist were speaking to each other in hushed tones, and the other two were too busy dismantling the drum kit to notice the exchange. 

Rachel followed Mi Na out of the gym to find the girls' room door close. She waited for ten minutes when Mi Na came out. 

"Hold it right there, young lady," she said, grabbing Mi Na's arm.

"I have nothing to say to you, Ms. Tarunen," Mi Na said, almost spitting the name in Rachel's face. "Or is it 'Mrs. Lister', now? That's what you really wanted all along, isn't it?"

"What?!" Rachel said, flabbergasted. "Scott Lister was nothing but a dim, rather unpleasant memory the morning after your brother came into my life!"

"Don't lie to me," Mi Na said, struggling to remain calm. "Do you think I'm stupid? I read that email you sent to my brother, so you better steer clear of me. I told you that you better be good to him, remember?"

"What email?" Rachel asked, confused.

"The one where you told him that you realized you still loved Scott and that you needed someone more like him, and that you never loved my brother."

"Believe me, Mi Na, I never sent anything like that."

"Liar!" Mi Na shouted, tears beginning to form. "I read it with my own two eyes."

Rachel felt her own anger boiling up inside her, and dug in her purse for her cell phone. Opening it, she called up the photo-album utility, and clicked on the name of a picture. She'd transferred it from her laptop to the phone the day after her mother sent it to her, as a reminder never to trust men implicitly ever again. In the two years since, she'd scarcely glanced at it, but at least it was here and ready for use in rebutting Mi Na's accusations.

"Speaking of your own two eyes, maybe you should take a look at this, young lady!" she spat, turning the phone so that its screen faced the girl.

"Take a look at what?" a voice behind them asked.

Rachel turned around and saw a tall, lanky figure with long brown hair. She recognized him as Mark Sinclair, Randy's old friend and former band-mate. He looked at Rachel, then at Mi Na.

"Hello, Rachel," he greeted her brusquely. Then, "Hey, Mini-Cho, what's wrong?" 

Looking back at Rachel, Mark noticed the photo displayed on the phone's screen. 

"Hey wait, I remember that!" he said, and grabbed the phone out of Rachel's hand before she could protest. 

"Oh, really?" Rachel snapped, sensing that her vindication was forthcoming.

"Yeah!" Mark nodded, sighing. "This photo was taken about a week or so before you left for Maine. In fact, you couldn't come to the gig that night because you and your folks had gone up for student orientation and to haul the first load of your stuff up to your dorm. Randy was pretty broken up about having to be apart from you, so he kinda hit the 'sauce' a bit hard."

"Yeah, I can see that!" Rachel said, sarcastically. "He really looks like he's in a lot of pain!"

"No, you don't get it," Mark said, getting angry. "I remember this girl, too; a really annoying little bitch who couldn't take a hint. She and her friend were fawning over Randy, saying how cute he was on stage, and how they'd love for him to touch them with his hands like he did with his guitar."

"Get to your fucking point, Mark," Rachel growled.

"Please, no swearing in front of the children," Mark asked.

"Yeah, what Uncle Mark said," Mi Na laughed, "no swearing in front of the fuckin' children."

His back to Mi Na, Mark allowed a small grin to briefly wrinkle his lips as he rolled his eyes upward in their sockets. 

"Children!" he sighed. "Ya can't live with 'em, and shooting 'em is against the law, so what are ya gonna do?"

"Sometimes they grow up okay, Mark," Rachel empathized with both sides of the coin. "We did, you know."

"Yeah; right. Well, like I was saying, those two girls were on Randy all night, like white on rice. Wouldn't leave him alone. Every time the band took a break, they were there to fawn all over him. They wanted to get a photo with him, wanted to…" he jerked his head briefly in Mi Na's direction and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you know… they wanted to leave the club with him…"

"I get the picture," Rachel said. "And you're holding it in your hand."

"Yeah, but you're not in possession of the whole story, so let me finish, will you?"

"Go on."

"Well, Randy finally agreed to take a picture with each of them if they'd get off his back. They only got one picture." Mark gestured to the photo on Rachel's phone. "This one. I took the girl's phone to take the picture, and she leans in close and then licks his ear. Randy flipped out at her and started screaming at her in Korean for a minute, then heads for the restroom. I followed him in, and he was leaned over one of the sinks, washing his ear like a leper had licked him. I asked him what was wrong, 'cause I'd never seen him act that way, and he goes off in Korean for a minute or two before punching the mirror and then lapsing into English. I think he even broke the mirror; I hadn't seen him that mad until he punched Rick out. But his rant was all about the girls - the two that night, and the ones who showed up at other gigs - and couldn't they just leave him alone, couldn't they get the hint that he wasn't interested in them?"

Rachel's jaw dropped. "You mean-"

"Yeah, your man was totally loyal to you - right up until the day you dumped him. He tried finding someone else after that -- gave it at least a half-hearted effort - but he ended up even more miserable. He was still too hung up on you! I mean, if you don't believe me, ask Krista! After the gig that night, he got even more drunk, and wound up passing out on the couch at her and Jon's place! Say -- where'd you get this picture, anyway?"

Rachel couldn't answer; she was dumbfounded. "I got it from my mother," she said through a lump in her throat.

"Interesting," Mi Na said, a hint of sarcasm still lining her voice, "considering that your parents never liked Randy."

"I asked her about it, a week or so later," Rachel told him. "She said Scott Lister brought her a copy of it, when he to the house to apologize for his stunt on Prom night, and that he wanted a second chance with me."

"That's strange," Mark commented, "Scott was there at the gig, the same night. Randy pointed him out to me, and asked me to make sure that the two of them didn't get within ten feet of each other, although apparently Scott gave no indication that he even recognized him. Apparently, he was still pretty pissed about what that dude did to you at your prom. But Scott was there, that night, with a leggy blonde on his arm."

"Leggy blonde?" Rachel asked him. "Big boobs? Hair down to her waist?"

"As I recall," Mark nodded.

"That was probably Jessica Davis, the head cheerleader. I caught him with her on prom night, with his head between her thighs."

"Whatever." Mark shrugged. "The funny thing is, now that I think about it, we never really had that sort of problem, before that night. I mean, we'd have 'fans' come up and tell us how much they liked the music, maybe ask us to autograph their copy of Remember the Dead -- that sort of thing. And yeah, chicks would come up to us, but most of the time they were pretty respectful and were able take 'no' for answer. Then again, groupies usually only go after the lead singer, right? Usually, they were happy just to hang out and have a drink with us."

"Now that is really curious!" Rachel mused, gazing with unfocused eyes at the gym's far wall. "You only ever had problems with groupies - or, Randy only ever had them - one night, in the band's whole career?"

"That's about the size of it," Mark nodded.

"And on that night, it just so happened that this photo gets taken, and - somehow - my mom gets a copy of it and sends it to me. I never really bought that story about Scott giving her the copy because he wanted another chance with me. I wonder…my mother had access to my email for a while, when I was getting set up in Maine. Mi Na, when did Randy get that email?"

"Two years ago, today," Mi Na replied curtly, still glaring.

Rachel closed her eyes while she did the calendar-math, then got down on both knees and looked Mi Na in the eyes. 

"I swear to you, Mi Na, that I never sent that email. I told you that I would be good to your big brother, and I meant every word of it! I didn't hear anything from him, the first week at college. No phone calls to my cell, no emails, nothing. Then, I get this photo in an email from my mother. I think, somehow, my mother sent Randy that email from my account and then blocked his email address from sending anything to me. I don't know how she did it, but I can't figure any other way it could have happened."

"Is it your cellular phone?" Mark interrupted.

"Not really," Rachel shook her head. "Or, at least, that phone wasn't. I've got my own account, now that I'm working and earning money, but that one was an add-on to my mom's cellular plan."

"Any way your mother would have known Randy's cell number?"

"It was in my address book, in the drawer of the night table, next to my bed," Rachel answered, a look of concern growing on her face. "Before I left for Maine, I copied all the important stuff out of it into Outlook, on my new laptop. Why?"

"If your mother owned the account, and knew his cell number, she could have had the phone company block your phone against receiving calls from Randy's phone. It's legal. All she'd have had to do was tell the phone company that the number belonged to someone that was stalking her young daughter…"

"Is all that stuff really possible, Uncle Mark?" Mi Na turned to him, the glare beginning to soften on her face.

"Every last bit of it, kiddo," he nodded. "From what your brother told me, about how much Rachel's mother hated him, I wouldn't put it past her."

"Oh…" the expression on Mi Na's face went from 'confrontation' to 'contrite' in an instant. 

"Neither would I," Rachel agreed. "She could never see anything other than my getting married to Scott Lister, whose parents are loaded and are big-shots in society."

"Umm," Mark said, handing the phone back to Rachel, "if I'm no longer needed here, I better take my daughter and get on home. Bye, Mini-Cho! Say hi to your brother for me!"

"I will, Uncle Mark! Bye!"

"See you tomorrow!" Lisa waved, as she followed after her father. A few seconds later, the doors clanged shut behind them, and the silence in the nearly empty gym was almost deafening in its intensity.

Rachel cast an eye around the gym and realized that she and Mi Na were alone.

"Please, Mi Na," she pleaded, tears rimming her eyelids, "you must believe me. I would never, ever, have done anything to hurt your brother."

"I believe you now," Mi Na nodded, moving closer, her expression serious and concerned. "I'm glad Uncle Mark showed up when he did, to ask the right questions and make me listen instead of shooting off my big fat mouth at you, like I wanted to." 

"Honey, we all make mistakes," Rachel said softly, putting an arm around the young girl's shoulder. "I made one, too, back then. A big one. I believed what my mother said, and what that picture showed, and stayed in Maine. What I should have done was pack a bag, get in my car, and drive down here that night -- camp out in my car in your driveway until your brother came home and we could talk this thing out."

"Grandfather always says that we can't undo the past," Mi Na told her. "All we can do is know that we made mistakes, and move on - learn from experience and try not to make the same mistake a second time." Mi Na then looked at Rachel seriously. "Do you still love my brother?" she asked flatly.

"Yes, I do!" Rachel answered without hesitation. "Deep down, I never stopped loving him. You'd think two years would be enough time to get over a guy, wouldn't you? But I didn't. I should have been outraged, angry as all hell, but I wasn't. Instead, I ached and ached for him. Why do you think I was so hurt when I got that photo, and thought he betrayed me, if I didn't love him?"

She paused for a moment, watching the play of emotions flicker across the young girl's face.

"Mi Na," Rachel said, her eyes boring into Mi Na's, "I still love your brother, and I need to see him. I need to find out if there's still a chance for us to work this out. The happiest times I ever had in my life were the times spent with him, and with you and the rest of your family. Will you help me?"

Mi Na thought for a moment, then set the Jackson's case on the floor and nodded. "Okay, Rachel," she said in a conspiratorial tone, taking a step forward and putting her arms around Rachel's neck, "here's what we'll do… "

"Honey," Rachel smiled, "if we're going to plot an 'evil scheme' of our own, I need a cigarette! Can you hold off until I get my purse and briefcase from the principal's office, and we can go outside to the parking lot?"

"Sure."

They left the gym, stopping briefly at Katherine's office for Rachel to retrieve her things, and then left the building, heading out to the parking lot. Rachel opened both the front doors of her car, to let the inside temperature cool off, and they stood beside the vehicle, chatting. As soon as the car had cooled off sufficiently, Rachel slipped into the driver's seat and Mi Na crawled into the passenger side.

"Technically, I'm 'faculty' here, now, even though I don't start officially until next Monday," Rachel commented as she pulled the pack of Jades from her purse, shook one out, and lit up. "So I'm gonna be breaking a rule by smoking in front of a student. Don't snitch on me, okay?"

"Give me one, and you've got a deal," Mi Na replied.

"Mi Na Cho!" Rachel exclaimed, a look of shock and surprise on her face. "Don't tell me you've started smoking already! You're only twelve!"

"Nah," the younger girl laughed. "I'm just yanking your chain is all. I dress the way I do 'cause I'm in this band, and maybe I've got a bit of what Randy calls 'potty-mouth', but I don't have any plans to start smoking."

"That's good to hear!" Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. "So, what was this wicked little plan you had in mind?" she asked aloud.

"Well, I was thinking that…if you…"

* * * * * *

"I'm gonna have to keep a good eye on you, Mi Na Cho," Rachel giggled, as the two stood beside her car in the parking lot. "That's about the most devious plan I ever heard, short of the one my mother cooked up that started this whole mess!"

"What can I say?" Mi Na shrugged. "Desperate situations call for desperate moves. I'm pretty sure he's still got it bad for you. Since he dropped out of Bloody Solstice, he hasn't done much more than work and sleep. He finished his college, got this night-shift job at Hannaford, and teaches some at Grandfather's dojo. The only time I've seen him pick up a guitar - since he left the band - was to help me figure out the harmony parts in "The Trooper", 'cause I was slightly stumped on it."

"Well, I'm glad you believe me, and I'm even more glad that you want to help," Rachel smiled.

"I've got personal motives at stake, Rachel," Mi Na admitted. She was still mildly suspicious, but given the circumstances of what happened, she was willing to give Rachel another chance. "I want my old brother back again," she continued, "and I've kinda always wanted a big sister."

"I've always wanted a 'little sister', Mi Na," Rachel confided. "A couple years back, I was figuring you'd be perfect for the part. Maybe it's not too late… "

She held her arms out and Mi Na stepped between them, hugging her tightly and beginning to sob.

"Mi Na!" a strident female voice called, from off to one side. Both women turned their heads to see the Cho family sedan sitting not fifteen feet away, Ji-Won Cho glaring angrily from behind the steering wheel.

"How could you possibly stand to talk to this woman?" Ji-Won demanded, her voice still at peak volume and maximum rage, as she jammed the gearshift lever into 'Park' and got out of the car. "Is the pain that her simply being alive has cost our family so little, that you have to associate with her and open us up to more?"

"Mother," Mi Na held up a cautioning hand. "It's not what it looks like. Well, actually, I guess it is what it looks like, but there's a whole lot of really important shit you don't know about!"

"Don't curse at your mother, honey," Rachel instructed. "It's disrespectful, at best, and from her point of view - not knowing what you and I have just spent the last hour figuring out - her anger is justified."

"Figured out what?" Ji-Won had advanced to an arm's length away from the two, and she stood there - arms crossed defiantly over her chest - tapping a foot impatiently.

"It's not a thirty second explanation, Mom," Mi Na cautioned. "Go get your coffee and your smokes out of the car. You're gonna need both."

J-Won fumed and bristled but, deep down, she trusted her daughter. Mi Na was, in many ways, wise beyond her mere twelve years of physical age. She had been far more angry at the break-up than Randy had ever allowed himself to appear, constantly commenting on all manner of tortures and cruel punishments which would all be far too kind for Rachel. If Mi Na could manage to put away that sort of hostility, there had to be a rational explanation for it. She'd at least give it a good listen, before making any further judgment.

It took the better part of half an hour - plus one five-minute cell-phone call to Mark Sinclair for verification of a couple points, before the elder Cho was convinced.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to hear all of this," she told Rachel as she stepped forward and hugged her. "Even in the short time that you and my son were together, I became very fond of you - fond enough that I found myself thinking about how nice it would be to have you as a daughter. When Randy got that email - even then, I really didn't want to hate you. I'm glad that's all in the past."

"Thank you, Ji-Won, for believing me," Rachel smiled, wiping the tears from her eyes. "And for what you just told me. Trust me, there were plenty of times I thought about what a wonderful mother you'd make, if Randy and I decided to go the distance together."

The two women pulled apart, and Rachel leaned into her car to grab a Jade and light up. When she turned back, she saw Ji-Won in the process of lighting a Salem Black Label. Mi Na was several yards away, heading toward the school building.

"All this talking made me thirsty," she called out. "You two have your coffee, so I'm gonna go grab a soda out of the machine in the cafeteria. Be right back!"

"I didn't know you smoked," Rachel commented, exhaling. "I mean, Mi Na said something about it a little while ago, but I never saw you smoking while I was dating Randy."

"I don't do it in front of my parents," Jennifer admitted, blushing. "Most Asian women smoke, at least occasionally, but my mother turned out to be one of the few who don't, and she wasn't too happy when I started at seventeen. She never outright forbade my doing it, but she did manage to express her displeasure enough that - to this day - I can't bring myself to light up in front of her. It's a 'respect' thing, I guess."




Ep. 05 Time Cannot Erase



She paused, taking another drag and giving herself time to consider her words before going on. When Mi Na returned, Ji-Won continued, "Now, my devious child, tell me how you were planning on getting our two 'star-crossed lovers' back together again."

Mi Na cleared her throat, took a sip of her soda, and spent the next five minutes outlining her plan while Rachel waited and Ji-Won stood patiently, smoking and listening.

"That's a fairly good plan, honey," she agreed. "But it requires that your brother is in the mood to actually meet her."

"He will be," Mi Na smiled, "when I get through with him. One of grandfather's favorite little sayings is that one about how nobody can ever overcome their 'demons' unless they confront them face to face."

"That would do," Ji-Won nodded. "But, if you'll permit me to become a part of this - after all, I believe I have a vested interest in several aspects of the desired outcome - I think a change of venue might help."

"Whattaya mean, Mom?"

"It's simple, really," Ji-Won chuckled, and explained her thought.

"I'm glad that the two of you are on MY side!" Rachel exclaimed, after hearing the new details. "You two could give my mother a run for her money!"

* * * * * *

Randy walked to the refrigerator in the kitchen and got himself a Pepsi, greeting his sister as she devoured a bowl of Cheerios. "*How was work, Brother?" she asked.

"*It was work," he said. "You'll never guess who messaged my cell."

"*I don't know, who?" Mi Na said.

"*Remember Rachel? Well, I got a message from her, today."

Mi Na did her best to look surprised. "*What did she have to say?"

"*'Meet me where it all began, Friday night at 8 PM. We need to talk'. Ha!"

"*You should go," she replied, "and really tell her what for. Get her out of your system for good."

"*I'm planning on it," he said. "I think it's something that I've been needing to do. I really need to show her just where the bear shit in the briar patch."

A voice from the living room said, "*Watch your mouth, Ran-Jong."

"*Yeah, Ran-Jong," Mi Na said, slapping her brother's shoulder playfully. "Watch your fucking mouth! I'm a little girl, here!"

"*That goes for you, too, Mi Na!" their mother called from the living room. "You better go if you don't want to be late to school again."

"*Shit, that's right," Mi Na exclaimed, glancing at the clock. "Love you, Big Brother! Bye!"

Mi Na kissed her brother on the cheek, then ran into the living room and kissed her mother. She grabbed her backpack and ran out the door. Randy finished his soda, grabbed a bag of chips, and walked into the living room. He glanced at the calendar as he passed the refrigerator; it was already Friday. 

His mother was sitting in her chair, knitting, and looked up as he came into the room. Randy noted the expression on her face, and it puzzled him, but he didn't bring it up.

"*I'm going to bed, Mother," he told her, leaning down to kiss her. "I've got a big night tonight."

"*Sleep well, Ran-Jong," she said, kissing him on the cheek.

Randy went into his bedroom and closed the door. 

"*And good luck, my son," she said, with a sigh and a soft smile.

* * * * * *

Rachel finished her shower, dried off, and slipped into the outfit she had purchased at Torrid the previous night. She felt she knew Randy's tastes well enough that he'd like what he saw when he picked her up for their 'talk'. She dabbed the perfume that she'd worn, the night she and Randy first made love, on all the right spots on her body, and put on a little makeup. She turned toward the full-length mirror and assessed her image. 

"Goddamn, girl!" she said to her reflection, "You do look hot, tonight!"

She had changed so much, in the two years she had been away from Arkham. Gone was the timid fat girl who desperately wanted boys to like her. In her place was a self-assured young woman who knew that she could get any man - or woman - she wanted. She wasn't sure if she wanted Randy to know about her bisexuality just yet, but she knew that when the time was right, she'd tell him. She just wasn't sure how at this time. 

"Shit, I'm not even sure what I'm going to say to him," she said aloud.

She had noticed, during her shopping trip to Torrid, that she had lost some weight. She'd known that her older clothing was fitting her more loosely, these days but had been pleasantly surprised at being able to select an outfit three sizes smaller than any she'd bought in the past. She still wasn't skinny by any stretch of the imagination, but her belly had diminished considerably. For the first time in her memory, her hips and bust were both larger than her waistline. She found herself getting a trifle aroused as she took stock of her reflection.

"No, he won't be able to resist you," she chuckled, giving her reflection a wink and a wicked grin..

She pulled out the slip of paper that Mi Na had given her and rehearsed the English-phonetic representation of the Korean phrases one last time, making sure she didn't trip on any of the unfamiliar words. A car horn honked outside, bringing an abrupt end to the rehearsal. The taxi she'd summoned had arrived.

She stepped out onto the small front porch of her apartment and walked toward the cab waiting at the curb, just as the first droplets of rain began to fall. 

'Hmm, how appropriate,' she thought to herself, remembering that long-ago fateful night. At least, this time, she'd had the warning of the weather forecast and the forethought to take a collapsible umbrella. She gave the driver her destination, and he pulled out into the street.

* * * * * *

Randy's van sped down the street through the pouring rain. A glance at the clock on his stereo told him that he had twelve minutes yet, if he wanted to make the eight o'clock rendezvous on time. It had been years since he'd driven down this road, but he remembered it like the back of his hand. He passed by the banquet hall where the Arkham High School prom had been held, two years ago, remembering what Rachel had told him had happened to her. 

'What really happened to you that night, Rachel?' he wondered bitterly.

He came to the intersection almost before he realized it. A lone female figure stood there, silhouetted under the streetlamp, standing in the shelter of a white umbrella.

'It's her,' he thought. 

Slowing, he eased the van to the curb at the corner and reached across the seat to unlock the passenger door. The woman closed her umbrella, opened the door, and slid inside.

"Hi Randy," she said with a smile. "You're early."

"Hello Rachel," Randy said, not smiling.

'Well, I guess I should have expected that,' she thought. 'He hasn't heard the full story, yet.'

Randy drove the van to a nearby parking lot, and pulled into one of the rear slots. Leaving the engine running to provide power for the vent fans, he shut off the headlights, turned on the dome light, and lit a cigarette. Rachel turned to face him and lit one of her Turkish Jades, giving herself the chance to look her former boyfriend over. 

Randy had been wiry, with a nice musculature, when they'd been a couple. He had toned up even more in the two years since their parting. Now, he looked more like a fighter than a musician. However, she noticed the dark circles under his eyes, and the lines on his face that hadn't been there the last time she'd kissed him. He hadn't been sleeping well. 

"You look well," she lied.

Randy had looked her over, too. She was sitting, not standing, but it was obvious that she had toned up a bit since he'd last seen her, so he led with that. 

"You've lost weight," he said.

"You sound almost disappointed," Rachel shrugged.

Randy couldn't deny that he was somewhat disappointed but still, she looked damned good.. But they weren't here to chat about those things.

"You wanted to talk," Randy said with a scowl. "Well?"

Rachel closed her eyes for a moment, drew a deep breath, and crossed her fingers.

"I didn't send you that email," she blurted.

"What?" Randy asked, wide-eyed. Of everything she could have possibly said, to start the 'talk' she'd asked for, this one caught him off-guard.

"Mi Na told me that you got an email from me saying that you and I were through, but I didn't send it. I'm not sure how, but I think my mother did it."

"Why would your mother do something like that?" Randy asked.

"Because she doesn't like you," Rachel said with a straight face, "and didn't think you'd be good enough for me. Randy, I told you that my parents wouldn't like you, but you're the one who insisted on meeting them."

"Oh, so it's my fault that your mother interfered?" Randy said, becoming more angry. "I thought it was only right, and only fair that I meet your parents. What were you going to do, hide me? Was I to be your 'dirty yellow secret' that no one was supposed to know about? Well, you know what? Fuck you. Fuck you, and your bigot parents. I deserved better than that! I deserved to be with someone who won't be too embarrassed to be seen with me in the company of her family!"

Rachel was flustered. "Randy, listen-"

"No, YOU listen, bitch!" Randy shouted. "I loved you. I loved you with every ounce of me, and because of that love, I gave away a gift I can never give again! And you know what? I didn't care that some of my friends and a couple of my band-mates made fun of me because I was dating a fat girl. Yeah, that's right. I got crap, too. I never said anything because it didn't matter what they thought. I thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world, and I was ready to scream it out from the highest rooftop. But that was before I could see you for what you really are."

"*Shut the fuck up and listen to me, Ran-Jong!" Rachel screamed in halting Korean, tears flowing freely now.

Randy's jaw snapped shut and he sat bold upright in the seat, his mouth gaping again, in utter astonishment. 

'Where the hell did she learn that? And why?'

"Don't you DARE accuse me of being embarrassed of you," Rachel continued, her wet eyes narrowed to slits. "Before you came into my life, I thought I was fat, dumpy, ugly, and that no man would ever love me or want to be with me. Then you came along and completely messed up that way of thinking. You turned my life upside-down, Randy! I never did get a chance to thank you for that! You made me feel beautiful, and sexy, and loved, and wanted for the first fucking time in my life, Randy! Tell me something: how the fuck can a woman be embarrassed to be seen with a man who'd do that?! Huh? Answer me, goddammit!"

Randy started to speak, but Rachel cut him off. 

"I was scared, Randy!" she sobbed. "I was scared of losing you. I was scared that my parents would do something to prevent me from being with you. I was scared of THIS happening to us, Randy!"

"Rachel, I-"

"Now, I don't care what my mother does. I'm out on my own, and I'll do what I want, because she can't stop me. That brings me - and this 'talk' - back to you. I realized something during our time apart: I don't need anyone to make me happy. I'm perfectly happy being single, Randy. I don't need you anymore."

Randy sank back into his seat, struggling to come up with words. He wasn't sure what to think. First, she had been all apologetic, sounding like maybe she was trying to get back together with him. Then, there was the venting at him...well, he could deal with that, because he'd gone there specifically to vent at her. But this last? Telling him that she didn't need him anymore? That was straight out of fucking left field!

Or, was it, really? Hadn't he begun to reach similar conclusions, with regard to his own life, and those people in it, in the last few weeks?

"Okay, I can accept that," he sighed. "To tell you the truth, I came to the same conclusion. So is this how it's going to end?"

"Did I say anything about ending?" Rachel asked.

Randy's confusion showed plainly on his face. 

"You just got through telling me that you didn't need me anymore and that you were perfectly happy without me," he said.

Rachel sighed and wiped her eyes, a soft smile coming to her lips. 

"That's true, I did say that," she said. "But I didn't say that I didn't want to be with you, nor did I say that I didn't still love you."

She reached across the van and took his hand in a gentle grasp.

"Randy, someday I'm going to get even with my parents, for the tricks they pulled to tear us apart, but there's a silver lining to every cloud. Some good things happened, over the last two years, too. I learned how to love myself, for who and what I am. I discovered that happiness really starts when you accept yourself just as you are. It's not supposed to be dependent on someone else's idea of your worth. I needed to understand that. I needed to learn how to be happy without you, so that I could be even happier with you. I just hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me for all of this stuff happening."

"No, Rachel, I can't forgive you," Randy said.

Tears again started flowing from Rachel's eyes. 

"Randy," she sobbed, "I-"

Randy put a finger to her lips, hushing her. 

"There's nothing to forgive you for, Rachel," he told her. "It's not your fault that your folks are the way they are. I just hope you can forgive me for the things I said to you just now."

"I could," she smiled, "if you'd kiss me."

Randy put his finger under Rachel's chin and kissed her lips gently. Rachel put her hand behind Randy's head and pressed her mouth against his, kissing him hard and nearly knocking him backwards. Tears streamed steadily down their cheeks, mixing together. Randy broke the kiss, and collapsed in Rachel's arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Rachel stroked his black hair between her fingers, rocking him slightly. 

"I still love you, Randy," she soothed him. "Through everything that happened, I never really stopped."

"Neither did I," Randy rasped through his tears.

The newly reborn couple held each other close, but in the embrace, each realized that something had changed between them. Before, they had been two incomplete puzzles looking for the missing piece. Now, in the midst of the two years of trouble, turmoil, and anguish, they had grown into two whole people capable giving each other strength, but not relying on the other to complete them. 

"I've got to ask you something," Randy said. "That phrase in Korean - who taught you to say that?"

"Your sister," Rachel answered. "Why? Didn't I say it right?"

"What were you trying to say?"

"She told me it meant 'shut up and listen to me, Ran-Jong'. Why? What did I really say?"

"More like 'shut the fuck up and listen to me, Ran-Jong'," Randy said, laughing. "That sneaky little brat set this all up, didn't she?"

"In part," Rachel nodded. "I met at her school, the other day -- I'm doing my student teaching there, now. At first, it was pretty intense, but I managed, with some help from your friend, Mark, to convince her that I wasn't the heartless bitch my mother made her think I was."

She pause, pitching her spent cigarette out the window and grabbing for another from the pack. By the time she brought it to her lips, Randy's hand was there - just like old times - with a light for her.

"Anyway," she continued, "Mi Na and I were still hashing out the details of her scheme, when your mother showed up to give her a ride home. At first, she was angry, justifiably so, from her point of view. She didn't know the whole truth. After we managed to explain things to her, well, it was her idea for us to meet at that intersection, where it all began for us. She said the night and the place -- and the fact that it was going to rain, just like that first time -- would bring back pleasant memories, which would help diffuse some of the tension that the painful memories brought to both of us. Pretty smart lady, your mom. I'm gonna love having her as my mother!"

She took a long drag from her Jade, wet her mouth with the soda she'd carried along, and began the detailed explanation.

"You need the details, honey. It all went down like this..." 

Rachel recounted her confrontation with Mi Na, showed Randy the picture on her phone, and then explained how Mark had arrived just in time to clear the matter up. 

"So your mom sent that slut to the gig on the one night she knew that you wouldn't be able to attend?"

"Yeah. I don't know how she managed to arrange it, but it's the only way she could have gotten that picture, to send to me."

"Would you hold it against me if I told you that I hated your mother and thought she was a bitch?"

"Not at all; in fact I'm ashamed that I came out of her womb," Rachel said. "I'm just glad that Mark showed up when he did!"

"Yeah, that's Mark, alright," Randy laughed. "He's a good friend."

"We'll have to thank him for that friendship by making him your Best Man when we get married, don't you think?"

"What?" Randy shook his head, trying to rid his face of the dazed expression. "Best man? And what was that you said, about having my mom for a mother?"

"Baby," she smiled, putting her arm around him and drawing him close enough that he could taste her breath, "We were discussing the possibility of marriage, after we both finished school, before my parents engineered the stunt that caused us to break up. Do you honestly think I'd even look at us getting back together, if I hadn't contemplated going all the way to the altar with you and found it the only path I want to take? Trust me, darling; if we do this thing - get back together, again - ain't no way I'm ever gonna let you go! I don't care if I have to chain you to me, and throw away the key!"

"I guess, since you've known all of this stuff for a day or so, you've had time to adjust and do all that thinking. It's all catching me blind-side, so it's gonna take me some time to digest it," he smiled. "As far as that 'chain' bit goes, I guess I could live with it, provided you don't own any whips to go along with that chain."

"Mmm…whips and chains. Sounds delightful, sweetie. And you can spank my ass, for being a bad girl and not trusting you at least enough to get an explanation for that photo before I jumped to conclusions."

"We can save that stuff for later, Rach; right now, all I want to do is hold you."

She let him. It was what she wanted, too. Randy still wasn't sure if he could trust Rachel. However, given how much Mi Na hated her and how she was able to put it aside, he felt it was the least he could do to give her the benefit of the doubt. Still, he couldn't deny that it felt good to be in her arms again, and he told her so.

"That's a good thing to know, darling," she told him.

"Do you also remember, a couple minutes back, that I told you I plan on getting even with my parents, for what they did to us?" she asked aloud.

"Yeah," Randy nodded his head in the curve between her shoulder and neck.

"Well, can you think of any better way to punish them, than by the two of us getting married, and then saddling them with an armload of grand-children who are one-quarter Korean and all play musical instruments?" Rachel giggled.

"I don't want to marry you to punish your parents," Randy shook his head.

Rachel's expression saddened, and he hastened to clarify his point.

"If the only reason you want to marry me is for revenge, we should just stop right here. If we do get married, it'll be because the new Rachel-and-Randy couple are much more strongly and deeply in love with each other than the old Rachel-and-Randy ever imagined was possible. That's going to take a bit of time to establish, I figure."




Ep. 05 Time Cannot Erase



"Like, how long?" she asked him.

"Like, however long it takes," he shrugged.

Rachel took a deep breath and sat back up, wiping her eyes again. "I'm probably a mess, now," she said with a laugh. "I got myself all pretty for you, and look what happened!"

"You're beautiful, Rach," Randy said.

"Thank you. You did seem disappointed that I had lost weight, though," Rachel chuckled.

"I was, a little," Randy admitted with a laugh.

"I'm still pretty chubby, though," Rachel said with a smile, her dimples showing through her streaked mascara. "I'm never going to be thin, nor am I sure I really want to be. I didn't get the 'skinny' gene, when I climbed out of the family gene pool. Frankly, I find skinny women quite repulsive. I'm happy the way I am now."

"I think I can live with that!" Randy grinned. "You've changed in other ways, though. You've become more assured and more confident, Rachel, and I like that. I'm glad you're finally seeing that you're beautiful."

"Someone helped me see that while I was away," Rachel said. "You'll probably be meeting her pretty soon. I'm thinking you two will get along quite well."

Randy wasn't sure why, but he felt relieved when Rachel referred to that 'someone' as a 'her'. 

"So," Randy began after a period of silence, "where do we go from here?"

"I was thinking we'd go back to my place and catch up on lost time," Rachel said with a wink and a sly grin.

"Remind me to call home when we get to your place," he suggested. "I should thank the twerp and let my mother know she needn't worry about where I am."

"All taken care of, darling," Rachel chuckled. "Your mother knew where you were headed tonight, remember?"

Randy guided the van out of the parking lot and onto the street. "So you live in Dunwich, now. You're not so far from me!" he commented

"I'm on the other end, near the old farmhouse," she replied. "and I'm never going to be very far from you, ever again!"

Stoplights were blinking overhead as the van took a left turn. "You mean you're near the old Whateley place?" Randy asked, as her description of her apartment's location sank home. "Holy crap."

"It's not true what happened there, is it?" Rachel said, becoming nervous.

"I doubt it," Randy said. "It is pretty spooky, though, isn't it?"

"Yeah it is, but it's kind of pretty in a way," she said. "Still, some nights I could swear I hear something - noises - coming from that direction."

"It's probably some nut-case who's heard one too many weird tales," Randy said with a chuckle.

"No wonder the rent was so cheap," Rachel said. "Especially for a place in Dunwich! Oh, well; the only screams anyone is going to hear, in that neighborhood, tonight, will be mine when you fuck my brains out!"

Soon, the van pulled in front of a rather small and unremarkable brick apartment building. Randy and Rachel got out of the van and walked hand in hand up the stairs, stopping at the door to apartment two-seventeen. The two newly reunited lovers stepped inside, and Rachel gave Randy a guided tour of the small, three-room apartment. 

"You need to know where everything is," she told him. "I plan on you spending lots and lots of time here."

As she gave him the 'nickel tour', Randy noticed that the kitchen was fairly tiny, but a stacked washer and dryer was tucked into a closet behind a set of bi-fold doors. The living room barely allowed for her loveseat, a couple chairs, coffee table, computer desk, and her small entertainment center. The bathroom was cramped, with only a toilet, sink, and shower stall. Though, the shower stall was one of the extra-large ones, apparently to make up for lack of a bathtub, Randy noted, with approval. There hadn't been all that many times, in the past, where he and Rachel had had the chance to shower together, but he had thoroughly enjoyed every last one of them. Only the bedroom seemed adequate, with plenty of room for her queen-sized bed, bureau and nightstands. Nevertheless, Randy could see that Rachel made the most of the tiny space to allow for maximum airflow and still look cozy and inviting. 

"The closet is pretty roomy, at least," she pointed out, opening the door to the tiny walk-in space that was only half-filled with her wardrobe. "I was thinking there's plenty of room, here, if you wanna stash a few outfits here…"

It was a nice apartment. Not terribly roomy, but then Randy was beginning to doubt that she would be living there for a long time. The building housing his grandfather's dojo was owned free and clear, and Chang-Hong had been hinting for quite some time that Randy was welcome to fix up the big open loft-space on the upper floor - an area at least three times the size of this tiny apartment -- if he wanted a place of his own. Well, he figured he might spring that on Rachel somewhere down the road.

"I like what you've done with the place," Randy said earnestly.

"Thanks, baby," Rachel said. "Honestly, this was the only place I could find in my price range that wasn't a rat-hole. It's still mine, though, which makes it that much better."

She paused for a moment, flinging some stray locks of her long, brown hair back over her shoulder, and cocked a hip at him in a sexy pose.

"Now are we gonna stand here, flapping our gums, or are you gonna get over here and gimme some sugar?"

Randy pulled the smirking Rachel to him, wrapping his arm around her and crushed her lips against his. Rachel moaned into his mouth and writhed her body against his. With his free hand, he tugged on the lower hem of Rachel's blouse, breaking contact with her mouth long enough to pull it over her head and onto the floor. Deftly, he unhooked her bra, and that landed not too far from her blouse. Randy put his fingers through Rachel's brown locks and tugged gently, exposing her milk-white throat. Using his tongue, he traced a line slowly along her jaw and down the sensitive skin of her throat, biting gently. 

'My god, how I've missed him,' Rachel thought to herself as she moaned and whimpered.

She wrapped Randy's own black hair around her fist and gently pulled him away, licking and biting his neck while unbuttoning his shirt. She released his hair and yanked his shirt off, revealing that he finally finished the elaborate art on his skin, as well as adding some more. "I want you, Randy," she gasped as she unbuttoned his jeans, "take me now."

Rachel unzipped his jeans, and soon they fell to the floor. Randy cradled the back of her head, kissing and licking along her collarbone. He cupped his hands on the sides of both of Rachel's massive breasts, nibbling on them and pulling the nipples gently with his teeth. Rachel ground her crotch against Randy's chest as he crouched down on both knees, licking along her belly on the way. Her hip-hugging skirt was soon pulled down, revealing a lacy black thong. Randy took a deep breath of the heady fumes coming from between Rachel's thighs, then licked the already damp fabric covering her mound. Rachel then turned around, her hips seemingly on a swivel as she slinked over to the loveseat. The fleshy globes of his lover's ass entranced Randy; the fabric separating them was like a hypnotist's pendulum. She bent over and peeled the thong off, then sat down on the loveseat with her legs splayed and her fingers thrust deep inside herself. 

"Randy...please come to me...lick me, baby..." she moaned.

Randy didn't need to be told twice. Still on his knees, he crawled to the loveseat and gently moved her hand out of the way. As she stared lovingly down at him - at her man, with her again at last, his face paused above the aching wetness between her thighs - Rachel remembered something that La'Tonya, her female lover, had often done to her. Touching her dripping fingertips to his mouth, she spread her slick juices on Randy's lips until they glistened in the dim light. 

Randy clasped her wrist gently and pulled her fingers into his mouth, sucking on them and licking them clean. 

'I can't believe I'd almost forgotten how sweet her pussy tastes,' he thought to himself. 

Face paused above her mound, he gazed lovingly up into her eyes. So much had happened, both ill and good. In truth, there was no real blame, on either side. Rachel had lovingly tried to make him see that there was no blame, no foul - that, at the very worst, there was blame enough to rest on both of them. Still, he knew that he could have done things differently, yet he hadn't. But as his grandfather had told him many times before; there's nothing you can do about the past except learn from it.

He began down on her calf, licking and gently biting his way up her leg up to her inner thigh, eyes held open wide to watch the play of expressions on her face. The leg twitched involuntarily under his ministrations, and he felt her wriggle her ass to move her heated gash out to the edge of the seat cushion. The scent was driving him crazy, now, making it increasingly more difficult for him to keep his focus, to maintain the slow pace of his teasing. Through all that they'd been through, she hadn't stopped loving him. She'd told him that and, because of it, he wanted her first climax with him now to be one she would remember for the rest of her life.

"Lick me...please lick me," a distant voice called to him, and he winced, closing his eyes for a brief second, at the sheer passion, the want and need, that echoed in the sound of her voice. He'd forgotten how she could send chills sparking up and down his spine, when she got that way, and he never wanted to ever forget ever again. Slowly, he built up the pace of his torture.

Rachel twisted one nipple, then the other, between her thumb and forefinger, pulling on her breasts as Randy teased the soft flesh of her inner thigh. She, too, had almost forgotten what it was like when he made love to her. She spread her legs wider, tried to move her pussy closer to his face. The teasing was becoming unbearable, yet she wanted it never to end. She felt his smooth cheek against her mound as he licked her thigh. In vain, she moved her hips, seeking to rub her aching clit against his cheekbones. The slightest brushing of it against that nub of enraged flesh, she knew, would be enough. But he knew that, too, and he was making certain that she couldn't make the brief needed connection. In the deep recesses of her mind, she wailed. It was no use; her climax would come in his timing, not hers, now that she had surrendered herself into his hands.

He was kissing up over the smooth skin of her mound, now, moving toward the other thigh and deliberately avoiding her open, weeping slit. She whimpered in response, wordlessly begging her lover for release.

'Damn,' Rachel thought to herself, 'I'd forgotten how much he loves teasing me...'

The memory of earlier times, times when he had teased her for seemingly endless hours before granting her the release she craved, spun up out of the depths of her memory, then, and she remembered how much she really loved it - adored it, even - when he was like this with her.

Still, she had been without this man for far too fucking long. She wanted him, wanted this first release so that he'd finally move up and impale her on his lance. It was where she belonged, and she needed that feeling of him inside her like she needed the air she was sucking into her lungs in tortured, ragged gasps. She grabbed his head, turned it, and - grasping his ponytail as a convenient handle - dragged his face to where it needed to be, and ground it into her dripping pussy. He stuck his tongue out in response, sliding it inside her to strafe her slick inner walls and bring his mouth more of the sweet nectar that flowed like a river from her. Rachel groaned in ecstasy, her voice rising in both pitch and volume.

"Oh, fuck, yeah! That's so good, baby!" she moaned. "Eat my juicy cunt, you beautiful man!"

Randy found himself growing harder at the sound of Rachel's obscene command. He'd forgotten how easily she could get to him, with her nasty verbal goads. She was starting to remember, though, and he knew that his power to resist her was fast waning. He needed to speed things up, if he wanted to bring her off before she succeeded in her effort. He slid his tongue as deeply as he could inside his plump lover's pussy, letting it linger for a second before lashing its way up to her throbbing clit. 

Rachel clutched his head harder, pulling hard on his ponytail and almost digging into his scalp with her fingernails. Her groans and cries took an almost primal tone when his tongue finally made contact with her clit; this was what she had wanted, and what Randy had been denying her until then. She howled with joy and bliss as he latched onto the nub of engorged flesh with his lips and tongue, gently gripping it with his teeth. With the sweet bud held in place, his lover suddenly powerless to move, he gave it rapid flicks with his tongue. Rachel's voice went higher, still, in pitch, quavering as her orgasm intensified. Knowing what to do then, Randy slid two fingers inside her, seeking that special bit of rough, spongy tissue and strumming it as though it was one of his guitars. 

Rachel's climax came to her like a bomb going off in the room, and her sweet liquid shrapnel exploded in Randy's face. Desperately, she grabbed for her discarded thong and stuffed it into her mouth to partially stifle her pleasured scream…and to taste the dampness her earlier arousal had left behind in the wispy fabric.

Randy licked her clean, momentarily teasing her rosebud with his tongue as he slurped up the tangy juices that flowed across it out of her dripping snatch. Rachel shuddered and heaved as the last of her orgasm subsided, then collapsed in a heap on the loveseat with a tortured groan that trailed off slowly, then went silent. 

He looked up from between her thighs, his tongue still gently sweeping her flesh as it collected more of her delicious juices and brought them to his mouth, and met her eyes. A contented smile curled her lips sweetly, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. For a moment, he panicked, but then he realized that the tear was one of joy. Breaking briefly from his licking, he flashed her a soft smile.

"I've missed you so much, Randy," she whispered.

"I've missed you too, Rach" he told her, as he moved up onto the loveseat beside her and pulled her naked flesh tightly against his own.

"You just made that fact abundantly clear, baby," Rachel smiled at him wickedly. "Now it's my turn to show you how much I've missed you."

She gently pushed him back into the loveseat, kissing down his chest. Randy relaxed and closed his eyes, taking in the sensations. He felt her hands move up his thighs to his scrotum, felt the tips of her fingers tickling his pubic hair. He smiled as he felt her tongue graze his nipple and her hand gently grasp his throbbing cock. 

"Your teeth, baby," he moaned in a voice that was close to a whisper as an image from his one night with Daria Fulci came unbidden into his mind. "Use your teeth…"

"Oh, baby," she moaned, shivering, as the realization of what he wanted her to do hit her. Gently, she placed her lips around his nipple, sucking on it until she had enough flesh that she could clamp her teeth softly around it. She bit down gently, her whole being waiting to sense his response. She needn't have worried; the way he arched his back as she chewed gently at his nipple told her what pleasure she was giving him.

She teased him like that for a few minutes, gently stroking his cock all the while, before breaking off. She could feel him tensing and, though she wanted his cum desperately, she wanted to pay him back for the wonderful torture he had just given her.  

"Mmm," she grinned, pulling back to look him in the eyes. "Somebody's learned a few kinky things over the last two years, has he?"

Randy blushed and grinned, nodding.

"Well, I've learned a few things, too, baby. I won't show you all of them tonight - a girl's gotta keep a few tricks up her sleeve, in reserve, you know - but I promise you, you're gonna love it!"

He moaned softly as she stroked him with a firm hand, and she kissed further down his body, licking his navel before moving on down to her favorite portion of his anatomy. The mushroom-shaped head of his cock was thickly coated with pre-cum, and she took her sweet time licking it all into her mouth. Her eyes rolled upward in their sockets and her head tilted backward as the first taste of his essence touched her tongue. 

"Oh yeah, baby," he whispered, as his lover licked him clean. "That's so nice... "

The tip of Rachel's tongue lightly drew a line of saliva up and down the vein under his cock, licking and sucking his balls when she was close enough. Finally, she licked up his shaft very slowly, following it with a ring made with thumb and forefinger. The ring didn't completely surround his cock; her fingers were too short or he was too thick. It didn't matter, though. Her thumb rode along the bottom of his rod, forcing another rivulet of pre-cum to the tip as she dragged her hand upward. When she got to the hole in the tip, she pursed her lips and kissed it, sucking away all of his sweet nectar before engulfing the entire rod in her mouth. Randy gasped a ragged breath and clutched the seat cushions as his hips bucked involuntarily, groaning with pleasure in reply. He opened his eyes and looked down at her, touching her face adoringly. She opened her eyes and gazed into his, smiling as she sucked on his cock. She took it out and began flicking the tip with her tongue, stroking it with her hand as she did so. She smirked a little bit and sucked on just the head of his cock in short intervals, occasionally grazing it lightly with her teeth. 

"You like this, baby?" Rachel cooed, looking up at her lover. It was a rhetorical question; she knew damned good and well he loved it.

Randy nodded, a huge smile splitting his face. 

"I'll give you until forever to stop it," he told her.

Rachel smiled at him and closed her eyes, remembered back to her first night with La'Tonya. 

"Do to me what you like when it's done to you," La'Tonya had told her, in the midst of instructing her on the art of pleasuring a woman.

Rachel had always liked having her asshole licked. Randy had driven her mad with passion, so many times, as his tongue stroked her rosebud. She had decided that she'd try doing it to La'Tonya. Of course, La'Tonya enjoyed it greatly and - for her part - Rachel was more than slightly surprised at how much she enjoyed doing the licking. She enjoyed the feel, the scent, and even the earthy taste as she'd curled her tongue into a hollow tube and burrowed it into La'Tonya's anus. Most of all, however, she'd enjoyed the way it made her lover squirm and thrash on the bed, and the way it made her lover moan.

Now, as the memory faded, a deliciously naughty thought occurred to her: maybe Randy would like it being done to him. She took his cock deep into her throat again, clasped him by the hips with her hands, and pulled slightly. Randy got the message and scooted toward the edge of the cushion. 

She sucked and stroked his cock for a few minutes, opening her lips and letting the build-up of her saliva bubble out and cascade down along his length as she pulled it out of her mouth. She licked back down the underside of his shaft, taking a moment to take his balls into her mouth and roll them around, eliciting another delighted moan from him. Placing his feet squarely on her shoulders, she lifted his scrotum and pulled gently upwards, elbowing his legs wider open in order to gain better access to his puckered anus. 

Randy's breath caught in his throat as his lover continued to lick lower and lower on him. Another flickering memory flashed before his eyes.