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Decades Ch. 01

By: YDB95



Doug had a photograph of Grandma and Aunt Doro on the beach, which he had kept on his desk throughout his four years at Columbia. Snapshots of various buddies and girlfriends had come and gone, and for appearance's sake he had occasionally also displayed a picture of his mother when he could stand to; but Grandma and Aunt Doro were there with him throughout the four years. "That's my grandmother and my great aunt," he would explain to anyone who asked. "I lived with them in high school because I wasn't getting along with my mom and my sister, and I think of them as more like my real parents." That photo was now in storage at his mother's place back in New Jersey along with most of his other belongings, and all spring he'd been missing it nearly as much as he missed New York. As he stared dreamily out at the beach, he once again wished he'd brought that photo up to display on his desk – the perfect contrast of past to present in his beloved Pascatawa Beach. As it was, he had only the present to admire out the window in the hot sunshine and cool waves. 

No one needed to know what he had learned from his pissed-off mother that day when he was twelve – that "Aunt" Doro was not really his great aunt, that they weren't blood relatives at all. Doug had opted to keep that to himself as long as he did not know for sure about the true nature of her relationship with his grandmother. Grandma had passed while Doug was halfway through high school and he'd never had the nerve to ask Aunt Doro about it, so it was to remain a mystery. But the photograph – taken shortly after the end of World War II when they were both in their twenties – certainly offered its share of clues. Though it was in black and white, both young women seemed to be bursting with radiance through the tired old paper, the color in their cheeks and eyes and clothes as clear as the joy in their faces as they held each other close and posed for the camera. In the background, out of focus but recognizable to anyone who had been there, was Doug's beloved beach strip at Pascatawa. Probably including the exact spot in which he now sat in his air-conditioned office and admired the women out on the beach. 

It was Monday. But it was also a week past Memorial Day, which meant summer had finally arrived on Pascatawa Beach, and Doug was happy. Though he had dreaded the feeling of being cooped up in his beachside office while the bathing beauties frolicked on the beach he had so loved as a teenager, Doug was pleasantly surprised at how much he was now enjoying the view from his tiny office. The first-floor window provided a lovely view of the bikini-clad frolics in the waves, complete with air conditioning and no sunburn. And he got paid for it all, which meant each week brought him closer to having the budget he needed to move back to New York to stay. Doug could hardly wait for that. Though he loved Pascatawa – which had provided a refuge for him when living with his mother and sister had spun out of control back in high school – one couldn't go home again and Doug knew it. 

Forced to move back up north at the advanced age of twenty-three last winter when the exorbitant New York rents had proven to be too much for his just-out-of-Columbia resume, Doug had swallowed his pride and let Aunt Doro – he still called her that despite knowing the truth, and always would – pull her strings to land him a plum job in marketing for the new high-end resort that was finally opening. Somewhat less reluctantly, he had moved back in with Aunt Doro on the third floor of her mansion three blocks from the beach, known throughout town as "the old school" because decades' worth of locals had been educated there, ending just around the time Doug had been born. Doug had lived there with his grandmother and Aunt Doro while he was in high school: he'd had the run of the entire third floor as Grandma and Aunt Doro had moved to the second floor after the school had closed down. And for all his teenage angst in those days, he now had fond memories of it all. 

He had no such memories of the unwelcome news that the resort would be built. For one thing, he had long been counting the birthdays until he would be able to go have a beer at Bob's By the Bay, the lowbrow but swinging bar that had once stood where the five star hotel and restaurant did now. That day had never come, as he had been just eighteen when it had been torn down. For another, Doug had always treasured the idea that Pascatawa had not changed all that much since Grandma and Aunt Doro had moved into the school mansion back in the forties and started teaching there, and now the real world had begun swallowing up his childhood stomping grounds. 

But a job was a job. And, he admitted as he took a break from his latest marketing presentation to admire a couple of young women tossing a beach ball around outside, this was proving to be a good one. 

"Enjoying the view?" came the vaguely disapproving voice he had come to enjoy so much.

Kelly, the attractive Greek-American gal from Smith who was also stuck at the club for the summer, was a plus as well. A hectoring, teasing pain in the ass, yes, but a plus nonetheless, for their debates were mostly cordial and fun. Doug turned to see her in his office doorway, dressed as usual in her tight black uniform slacks and crisp white blouse. Pleasantly plump with chestnut curls and a crooked smile, she was a relief to chat with and a joy to look at among their rich and snooty clientele. In the first week of their friendship she had tossed out every subtle warning he knew of that they would never be more than friends, but Doug didn't mind much. Having grown up in two otherwise all-female households, he knew his way around platonic relationships with women. But she did have a lovely figure, and Doug had vowed to at least get a look at her curvy body in a swimsuit before the summer was out. 

"Yes," Doug admitted with a sheepish grin. "Yes, I definitely am enjoying the view. Chauvinist pig that I am."

"I never actually said you were," she needled him, "Only that I didn't know you weren't. You know that."

Doug laughed, enjoying as usual her good-natured teasing. "Yes, and I never said you were a hypersensitive politically correct brat either."

"Well, I am, after all." Now they were both laughing comfortably. "Ready to come out and do the final walkthrough on the dining room?"

"Perfect time for that," Doug said, standing up. "And hey, sorry about that," he added, pointing out the window. 

"It's perfectly okay to look," Kelly said, though she had needled him several times by then about thinking with his dick. "You think I don't check out the guys out there?"

"Hadn't thought of that," Doug admitted. For all his experience with women and interest in them, his knowledge still consisted mostly of what he knew he didn't know. That, in a way, was what made Kelly's occasional feminist ribbing all the more welcome. "I learn something new from you every day."

"Something your Aunt Darlene never taught you?" Kelly shot back, not sure if he was sincere or not.

"Aunt Doro," he corrected her. "Don't get her name wrong, she's a legend in Pascatawa." 

"And she's not really your great aunt, is that what you said?"

"That's right," Doug confirmed as he flipped through his clipboard for the dining room checklist. "I found out when I was about twelve, we're not related at all. She and Grandma were just old friends from way back."

"Just friends?" Kelly asked.

"Probably not," Doug said with a conspiratorial grin. "They lived together for fifty years or so before Grandma died, but no one ever said anything about...you know."

"Of course not, back in the bad old days," Kelly said as she made her last-minute checks on the silverware. 

"Not again with the 'bad old days'!" Doug grumbled. "You should have seen Pascatawa back in the fifties, the sixties...I've seen pictures and it was gorgeous."

"You and your nostalgia!" Kelly said. "I've only known you a few weeks, and already I always know when you're going to say a thing like that."

"What can I say?" Doug asked, checking off the table placement on his list. "I'm a cynical child of my own generation, maybe. But yeah, I feel like we missed out on the golden era."

"What golden era?" Kelly asked. "Maybe you should ask your Aunt Doro about that. Heck, Doug, I'd love to hear some of her stories about you when you were younger."

"You're welcome to come over for dinner any night you want," Doug suggested, having hoped for just such an opening for at least a week by then. "You'd love Aunt Doro." 

"Yo, college boy," broke in a too-familiar voice, and Doug turned to see Mr. Sanborn standing in the kitchen doorway. Doug still barely recognized him in his oxford shirt and black slacks, replacing the tie-dyed shirt and raggedy khakis that had been his trademark all those years before. His gray ponytail was disheveled as ever, but at least he'd given up on the comb-over. "Less reminiscing, more working, huh?"

"Yes sir," Doug managed to say politely. As soon as Mr. Sanborn had returned to the kitchen, Doug grunted "Asshole" under his breath. "Always was. Used to hassle us kids about not being so apathetic back in high school, and he knew nothing about what we believed in!"

"Is it true what they say about his wife?" Kelly asked, just above a whisper.

"Meg? I mean, Mrs. Sanborn, but she always let us call her Meg. She works at the gift shop just across from the lighthouse," Doug told her. "I used to buy gifts there at Christmas and sometimes she slipped me a candy bar for free when he wasn't looking. She's a sweetheart, nothing like him. But I don't know what 'they' say about her."

"Maybe it's only the women who talk about it, then," Kelly mused. "That makes sense, sort of, in a town like this. Rumor is he beats her."

"Aw, Christ," Doug said as a memory flashed before his eyes: Mrs. Sanborn on his last trip to the shop before he graduated from Janice Payne, to buy a t-shirt for his sister. She'd had a black eye, and told Doug it was a mishap with a box of souvenirs falling off the shelf. "Aw, I can't imagine he'd do that," Doug said now. "Yeah, he's a jerk, but he and Meg were all into the peace and love stuff back in the sixties. Guys like that wouldn't beat their wives, not like what you get today."

"There you go again, Doug!" Kelly snapped. "That's not what I've heard about those days. I'll bet your Aunt Doro will tell you that, too." 

She was right. "Jimmy Sanborn?" Aunt Doro recalled that evening over dinner. Kelly listened raptly as the older woman unfurled her tale of their hated supervisor. "Yes," she continued crisply, setting her teacup down. "Class of sixty-one, I think, and he was an arrogant little so-and-so even back then. Yes, I'm sure, sixty-one. Complete smarm, that was Jimmy. I'm not surprised he's no fun to work for, not surprised at all."

"And Mrs. Sanborn?" Kelly asked, sounding unsure if she really wanted to know.

"Meg was a year behind him, so class of sixty-two, and I can remember them flirting even then. This kitchen was the school canteen, and they used to sit over in that corner" – she pointed to where Doug had always known the dishwasher to be – "every chance they got. She was full of ideas about getting out there to change the world, very idealistic. I think Jimmy picked that up from her, really. They got married when he got out of the service and ran off to California somewhere. Gone for three or four years, and when they got back they both looked like something the cat dragged in. Didn't know what he'd done to the poor girl, didn't want to know, but she looked more strung out and depressed every time your grandmother and I saw her at the market. Even then she was still talking about sailing away to see the world on her own. We were always after her to do it, but of course she never did." 

"Wow, that's sad," Kelly said, at a loss for anything more profound. Turning to Doug, she added, "So you see, it's true. The good old days aren't always what you think."

"Oh heavens, Kelly," Aunt Doro interjected, "Has he been starting in on that nostalgia crap with you too?"

"Aunt Doro!" Doug protested. "What's wrong with admiring the good things about the past?"

"Absolutely nothing, Douglas," Aunt Doro said. "But that's not what you do, dear. You romanticize the past. You think everything was peaches and cream back in the day, and I'm here to tell you it wasn't." Turning to Kelly, she added, "I've been telling him this since he moved up here when he was fourteen – you've got to take the good with the bad in any era, including your own. There are stories I could tell you both...this house is full of ghosts, actually. I've been hoping Doug would explore them a bit more as long as he's stuck here with me again. But I don't wish to bore you with that, dear."

"Ghosts?" Kelly suppressed a laugh, not wanting to offend the old woman. "I'd like to see Doug talk to some of them too!"

"Well, dear, teaching was my life. Doug's grandmother and me, that was all we did for a long, long time, right in this house. We used to say the lifeblood of Pascatawa ran through our home. Right up until they merged the schools in eighty-six. We could have gotten jobs at Payne High then, Grandma and I, but we agreed it just wouldn't be the same. We'd earned our retirement by then anyway. And some of that lifeblood stayed right here. You can still find it if you're curious."

"So you went to Payne High?" Kelly asked Doug.

"Janice Payne High School," Doug confirmed. 

"Class of seventy-five," piped up Aunt Doro. "Lovely girl, but awfully wild."

"The first known AIDS victim from this county," Doug explained to Kelly. "Naming the school after her was supposed to scare us into being responsible, I guess. And it worked!"

"That's morbid," Kelly said. "But yeah, I'll bet it worked."

"Definitely a precautionary tale," Aunt Doro said, pouring herself some more tea. "And Doug, there are many more of those to be found if you need more appreciation of why you shouldn't live in the past."

"Your great aunt is really something else!" Kelly told Doug as the pair settled in his third floor lair for wine and weed, once they were done washing the dishes. "So many great stories! Even if she isn't really your great aunt."

"She sure is," Doug agreed, pouring Kelly some wine from his secret stash in the bookcase in the last bedroom down the hall, which had once ostensibly been Aunt Doro's. He had used the same hiding place back in high school, and had picked up his old habit even though Aunt Doro wouldn't have objected to his drinking now that he was of age. He half-expected Aunt Doro wouldn't care about the marijuana either, but of course that stayed hidden as well. 

"So how sure are you really that they were lovers?"

"Can't prove it, but I think so," Doug said. "It wasn't something you ever said out loud back in the fifties, especially if you were a teacher of all things. But they probably were."

"Come on!" Kelly said. "Just because a woman didn't want to get married back then?"

"I know, I know," Doug said. "But...well, you know what they say about the fifties being so repressed, and I'm sure some of that was true. Kind of embarrassed I'd forgotten that. I guess feminism didn't really start until the sixties, with Woodstock and everything."

"Later than that," Kelly said. "You'd be surprised."

"Not that again!" Doug took another drag. "Anyway. I had this picture of them, still do have it actually, taken on the beach right near where the resort is now, back in the forties sometime, and you should see the way they're looking at each other." He paused, then turned back to the bookcase that housed the illicit wine. "In fact," he continued, "I found it in this bookcase. Stuck between a couple of books that probably hadn't been moved in decades before I needed a place to hide my booze. That was the summer after Grandma died. I don't think Aunt Doro even knows I ever found it. This was supposed to be her room back when the school was here, but I've never even seen her come in to get anything."

"Cool," Kelly said dreamily, "A romantic mystery. Yeah, okay, it makes sense they'd want to keep it a secret back then," she admitted. "Hey, speaking of secrets, what did she mean about wishing you'd explore the ghosts more?"

"Oh," Doug sighed. "The reason I moved up here in high school was that I wasn't getting along with my mother or my sister. Those two were pretty close, and Dad was gone just like Mom's father had, and I think they were just conditioned to hate men. At least that's how I looked at it at the time. So I guess I did do a lot of whining at Grandma and Aunt Doro back then about how much better life must have been back when this was a school."

"So you're one of those guys who pines for the nuclear, touchy-feely Father Knows Best type family because you never had one," Kelly said knowingly. "I read all about you guys in Sociology 101. Obviously she did something right for you, though, Doug, since you have a pretty good attitude about women from where I stand."

"So I get the politically correct women's college seal of approval?" Doug made sure she saw he was grinning as he said it.

"That's right, we always pat our pet men on the head before we castrate them," Kelly shot back. "You don't think I hate men just because I go to a school that doesn't have them, do you?"

"No," Doug reassured her. "Just that you seem to think you know a lot about men when by definition you don't spend a lot of time with us."

"Men fascinate me," Kelly admitted. "Especially men who were raised only by women. It makes me wonder just how much you'd understand if you tried. Probably more than most."

"Well, don't quiz me on brands of tampons or anything," Doug said. "They were old women, after all."

It took several minutes for their laughter to die down. When things were once again growing serious, Kelly asked, "So, just where would Aunt Doro have us look for these ghosts of hers?"

"In the cellar," Doug said.

"What a cliché, Doug, in a house this big?"

"I know the whole third floor like the back of my hand," Doug explained. "Remember, I lived on this floor in high school. I only slept in the one room, but I used to come in all the others all the time, to study. Whenever one room got too boring, I'd go to the next. The second floor, that's Aunt Doro's lair. No one else has been there since Grandma died, so she wouldn't tell us to look for anything there. And the first floor, that was totally redone when they closed the school down, that's why it doesn't look anything like a school."

"Which leaves the cellar," Kelly mused. 

"Yes, and there's a room down there that I've never set foot in. Grandma and Aunt Doro wouldn't allow us kids anywhere near it, so even when I was older I stayed away just out of habit. My sister got in there once when I was really young, and that didn't go well. They were furious at her, and she would never talk about it afterward."

"Sounds dangerous," Kelly added. "I love it!" She stood up. "I know you're going to drag me down there to look at this door, Doug."

Doug laughed. "Yeah, who could resist?" 

They could hear Aunt Doro's television down the hall as they passed the second floor landing, but she either didn't hear them or didn't care what they were up to. The first floor was dark now, and the cellar door creaked as loudly as Doug always remembered. He flipped on the light and gingerly they walked down the wooden steps. "It's over here on the right, he said as their feet touched the safety of the cement floor. "Behind these bookshelves." Kelly was greeted with decades worth of textbooks piled on the shelves along the wall, and she longed to flip through a few to see the lessons of yesteryear. But there was a mystery to unravel first. 


Decades Ch. 01



Doug pushed through a narrow gap between the last bookcase and a stack of boxes with more books in them, nearly knocking it over. "Careful!" Kelly called out under her breath. She squeezed past just behind him and they found themselves facing a blue wooden door, barely visible in the pale light. 

"Here it is," Doug said. "Of course it's locked, but if Aunt Doro wants us to explore, I'm sure there's a way to get it open." He leaned on the door handle to ponder what to do next. To Doug's shock, the knob slipped under his palm and the door swung open. 

"Some secret, Doug," Kelly teased.

"I can't believe it!" Doug said. "All those years it was always locked tight!"

"How many times did you even try to open it?"

"Well, none," Doug admitted. "Not after the way my sister looked when she got back from here." His surprise now ebbing, Doug turned his attention to the crack in the doorway and the still-mysterious space beyond. A faint red glow emanated onto their faces. "Looks like there's a light on."

"A red one?" Kelly asked skeptically. Growing impatient, she reached around Doug and pulled the door wide open for a wider look.

"Holy...!" Doug started, and was aware of a gasp from Kelly. The dim red light pervaded the room, seeming to seep out of the walls, which were clean and decorated elegantly with photographs of teenagers Doug didn't recognize – former students of the old school, he guessed. The edges of the room were further lined with couches and easy chairs, and just across the threshold from the dusty cellar floor he felt his feet sink into a clean thick carpet. He couldn't tell the carpet's color thanks to the colored light – but neither Doug nor Kelly paid the carpet any mind once they were aware of it. Their eyes were on the far end of the room, across the way from the door. The garish monstrosity sat majestically with its bubbling amber lights glowing against the red, a faint hum emanating from somewhere inside it.

"What is that thing?" Kelly asked.

"It's a jukebox," Doug couldn't help sounding incredulous. "You know, an old one, with records. Haven't you ever seen one in the movies or anything?"

"So sue me," grumbled Kelly. "And you never knew this was in your home?"

"It wasn't," Doug insisted, even as he set his hands on the chrome and began reading the song selections. "I would have heard it for sure."

"Mm-hmm," Kelly said. "All the way up on the third floor?"

"Good point." Doug was lost in name-that-tune land by then, reading the selections on the sign overhanging the turntable. "Everything from Glenn Miller to Madonna," he whispered. "What a bizarre selection."

"You just discovered this thing in your home for the first time and you're surprised at the songs on it?" Kelly asked. 

"I think..." Doug mused. "Nah, ridiculous."

"You think what?"

"It looks like the songs cover the time Aunt Doro and Grandma were teaching here," Doug said. "The forties to the eighties."

"Oh, that's sweet," Kelly said. "So it's like a time capsule for them." Feeling more relaxed now, she helped herself to a seat on the couch nearest the jukebox. "Play it, Sam," she teased. 

Doug turned back to her to offer up a choice from the late end of the era, and spotted a pair of bottles on the table before Kelly. "Hey, where'd you find those?" he asked her.

"Find what?" Kelly asked. Following his gaze, she saw the two bottles for the first time. "Huh..." she said. Reaching out to touch one, she found it was still cold. She took a sniff. "Root beer," she said, and gingerly she took a sip. "Still fizzy and everything."

"No kidding." Doug, forgetting for the moment about the jukebox, stepped over and tried the other bottle. "It's like she wanted us to come here tonight."

"Of course she did," Kelly said, standing up. "Didn't you hear her at dinner? And what about some music anyway, Doug?" She sauntered over to the jukebox and, after reading through the song titles, let out a squeal. "Oh my god, Doug, Billy Vera and the Beaters!"

"Not 'At This Moment,'" Doug groaned, having seen that selection and opted to ignore it. 

"Soooo romantic," Kelly gushed. 

"Have you ever really listened to the words, Kelly? 'If you'd stay I'd subtract twenty years from my life'?! The guy is obsessed! No wonder she's leaving him."

"Geez, Mister Sensitive, it's only a song!" With that Kelly pushed three buttons and the thing began to whirl, and soon the room was flooded with the inevitable piano chords Doug loved to hate. Giving in to the inevitable, he stood up and hoped his friend would at least be in a mood to slow-dance to the schmaltzy mess. 

To his delight, she opened her arms. "Might as well enjoy the moment, Doug."

"Couldn't agree more." He slipped his arms around his friend and overcame his shyness to look in her eyes as they swayed gently around. Still dressed in her work clothes, she at least felt pleasant in his embrace. Closing his eyes, Doug imagined her in a prom-dress instead, and his face broke into a wistful smile. 

"There's the Doug we wanted," Kelly said. "But what are you imagining?"

"Who says I'm imagining anything?" Doug asked, opening his eyes. 

"That dreamy look has me thinking your mind is running wild."

"Over you, of course," Doug needled. 

"Naturally," Kelly said. "Hey, just because I'll never sleep with you doesn't mean you can't fantasize about me."

"Ouch!" But Doug laughed and squeezed Kelly just a bit more tightly. With their mutual teasing having reached a lull, he leaned his head back a bit to look in her eyes, only to find they were closed. He followed suit. As the lovely sax solo – the only part of the song Doug cared for – finally arrived, Doug allowed himself to imagine the two of them on a crowded dance floor somewhere far away in a more grown-up situation than he was ever going to feel in the old school. The details were fuzzy beyond Kelly's lovely silhouette in the darkened wherever, but he sensed an opulent ballroom and a bed waiting not far away. The sensation was magnificent. 

Inevitably the dying strains of the record shook Doug out of his reverie, and he opened his eyes to find the mysterious room gone and himself in the middle of a seedy barroom dancefloor. Other couples, his age or a bit older, were packed tightly on the floor and enjoying the moment just as he and Kelly had been, and no one looked surprised to see them appear there. Kelly still had her head on his shoulder, but she was looking dramatically different as well: the prim-and-plain waitress uniform was gone in favor of a tight leather skirt and a baggy off-the-shoulder top in a shade of greenish-yellow that was bright enough to light up their corner of the floor, and her hair was longer and teased high and wide and frizzy. 

"What the..." Doug said, loudly enough to be overheard over the music.

"What the what?" Kelly asked. She finally opened her eyes, and Doug was treated to a repeat of his own disbelief. "Huh, where are we?! What is this?" Then, focusing on Doug, she burst into nervous laughter. "Great outfit! How'd you change your clothes?"

"Same way you did, I guess," Doug replied. While Kelly was looking down at herself and screeching about how hideous her legs looked and feeling at her hair to sense how big it was, Doug looked down to see himself in a ridiculous black and gray patterned designer shirt and tight black jeans. To his mild relief, everyone else in the room had clothes that were just as outdated as his and Kelly's. With that out of the way, Doug was free to focus on just where they had found themselves...or was it when they had found themselves?

Kelly said it first, while Doug was still coming to the realization. "It's the eighties," she said. 

"Of course it is!" said another woman who slid past them and spun around as a faster song that Doug knew but couldn't name kicked in on the jukebox. "Has been for a few years now! Were you expecting disco?"

Then it was Doug's turn to have a revelation. "We're in Bob's By the Bay," he told Kelly.

"Bob's By the Bay," Kelly repeated. "The place they tore down to build the club? I hear the locals talk about it all the time! But it's been torn down!"

"Not yet, it hasn't," Doug said. "Like you said, it's the eighties."

"Right, your great aunt has a time machine in the cellar," Kelly said incredulously.

"Have you got a better explanation?" Doug asked.

Kelly looked around the room full of big hair and loud clothes, and had to admit that she didn't. "We might not even be born yet," she realized out loud. 

"I know it!" Doug said. Then he thought of the Pascatawa Beach of his youth. "C'mon, let's go outside!" he said, taking Kelly's hand. "You can see what the beach looked like when I was a kid! Or before that, even." 

Kelly resisted, though she didn't let go of his hand. When they'd gotten as far as the bar, she pulled back. "You sure it's a good idea to go out there, Doug? How do we know we can get back?"

Doug stopped cold. "We don't, do we?" 

"We sure don't," groused a woman sitting just past them at the bar. "With Reagan playing Rambo all over the world, could be over any day now, couldn't it?"

Doug turned to face the woman, a lithe Asian in black floral pants, as she swiveled on her bar stool to look at them both. "I'm sorry to bring you guys down," she added quickly. "Couldn't help overhearing you, is all. I haven't been out drinking in a while because I have a baby girl at home, and I guess this" – she shook her mixed drink and the melting ice tinkled in the glass – "hit me pretty hard."

"It's okay," Doug said. 

"Yeah, we feel like we've been hit pretty hard lately too," Kelly said. She and Doug looked at one another, still in disbelief. 

"Yeah, I don't know about you," the woman went on, "But when I was a kid I figured this cold war mess would be over when I grew up, and we could stop worrying about nukes. Now instead they're opening nuclear plants on the beach and we have a president who thinks it's all a joke."

"Well," Doug said, suppressing a smirk, "They say the USSR is going to collapse any day now."

"Do they?" the woman asked. 

"Sure," Kelly added. "Maybe a few more years." She and Doug looked at one another again, and panic had given way to amusement. 

"I sure hope you're right," their new friend continued. "Like I said, I have a little baby girl at home. Laura is her name. I want Laura to grow up safe, you know?" She extended her hand. "My name is Jennifer, by the way."

Doug and Kelly returned the introduction, and Jennifer insisted on buying them a round of drinks "for listening to me whine." Doug started to protest, until he realized he wasn't sure if he had his wallet in his new clothes or if that wallet had money from the right period anyway. 

"So are you just up for the summer?" asked Doug as they clinked glasses. 

"No, I'm a townie," Jennifer told him. "You should see this place out of season – no one here! That's what I love about the summer, so many new faces."

"Yeah," Doug said, "but the beach is so much more peaceful out of season. I love those few weeks just before the tourists come and after they leave and the water's warm enough to play in."

"You're a townie too?" Jennifer asked. "That's funny, why don't I know you?"

Doug was still groping for a way to undo his mistake when a crashing thud on the back sent him sprawling into the bar. "Who the fuck are you?" came a male voice with a thick local accent. Doug spun around to see Kelly looking terrified off to the side while a bearded man in a t-shirt made a second lunge at him.

"Rick!" Jennifer snapped. "Back off!" She pulled at the man's sleeve but was no match for him. He had his fist cocked and ready to smash into Doug's face, when Doug saw another hand grasp the crook of his arm. 

"C'mon, Rick, I'm callin' you a cab and then I don't want to see your ugly face in here again this week," said the bouncer, whom Doug recognized after a moment as the security guard at the bank – just a younger version of him. Doug exhaled in relief as Rick was dragged kicking and cursing off into the dark noise. 

"I am so sorry!" Jennifer said, grabbing at a napkin from the bar do blot at the splash Doug's drink had made on his shirt. "My ex fiancé, and you see why he's my ex. I kicked him out of the house a few weeks ago but he hasn't gotten the message yet. I don't know what I was thinking with him in the first place."

"Thanks," Doug said. "You okay?" he asked Kelly, secretly pleased to see her a bit shaken for once.

"Oh, yeah, of course," Kelly said. "Just didn't want you to get hurt, Doug."

Jennifer laughed. "You two are perfect for one another, I can tell."

Kelly was just about to tell Jennifer that it wasn't what she thought at all when the bouncer reappeared. "Folks, you're all welcome to stay here to closing if you want, but if I know Rick he might try to sneak back in. You might want to go outside for a bit just to stay out of sight."

"Good idea," said Jennifer. "I know the drill. Sorry about that."

"Not your fault," the man assured her. "You know what he's like. Everyone knows what he's like."

"Join me out on the beach?" Jennifer asked Doug and Kelly. Doug eagerly agreed, longing to see the beach as he could barely remember it, and Kelly had forgotten her reservations.

The sun was gone and there were few beachgoers left, but what Doug could see in the pale outdoor lights of the bar was much like his earliest memories. "I always did wonder what that bar looked like inside," he mused, recalling how desperately he'd wanted to go inside every time he'd walked past it back in the day.

"Never been in before?" Jennifer asked. "I can't say I blame you, really. Always a troublemaker like Rick in there. There's some rumor Donald Trump wants to come to town and build a high-rise hotel here. Gross, but I almost wish he would."

"Nah, I can't see that happening," Kelly quipped. 

Jennifer said something in response and the two women were soon talking up a storm about everything and nothing, while Doug drank in the sights of the long-gone coastline he recalled. The funnelcake stand, the old movie theater across the beach road, and off just past the bar there was the turnoff for Lighthouse Avenue. Grandma was still alive, and probably just up the street correcting homework right then...or maybe not, since it was summer. What would she and Aunt Doro be up to just now? What was he up to, if he was born yet? What year was it exactly anyhow? Not wanting to get wrapped up in the melancholy of all that, Doug turned his attention to the waves and the few tourists still on the beach. Most of the women were in one-piece swimsuits, delightfully retro, he thought.

"Earth to Doug!" he heard Jennifer call out.

"Sorry?" he said. Jennifer and Kelly were both laughing, and he realized he'd been ignoring them a bit too long. "Sorry," he repeated. "I haven't seen this scene in a while, and I'm just enjoying the view. 

"Mm, I can see the view you're enjoying," Jennifer said knowingly. "Want to go for a swim?"

"Haven't got a swimsuit," Doug said.

"I meant up the cove," Jennifer said with a grin. "If you're not shy."

Doug broke into a salacious laugh. Kelly was alarmed. "Up the cove? That doesn't mean what I think it does?"

"Not quite," Doug said. "Most people don't skinnydip there, we just swim in our underwear."

"It's a local thing," Jennifer confirmed, having concluded Kelly was from out of town. "We get off work and we're not dressed for the beach, but the water is irresistible and it's almost like being in a swimsuit once you're used to it. People have done it for generations."

"You never told me about that," Kelly told Doug.

"Would it be gentlemanly if I had invited you there for a swim?" Doug asked. 

"Good point," Kelly admitted. "Doug may be clueless," she told Jennifer, "But I have to admit he is a gentleman. Speaking of which, is it okay if I just sit on the beach and wait for you guys?" They were now on their way up past the bar and away from the tourists.

"Of course!" Jennifer said. To Doug she added, "I'm sorry if it was inappropriate to invite the both of you up the cove. I just figured you both seemed like the type."

"No problem," Doug said, though privately he wasn't crazy about Kelly seeing him in his boxers. But as long as they were stuck at least twenty years from home with no clue how to get back, he was ready for some naughty fun. He allowed another smile, which he flashed at Kelly. From a few steps behind him and Jennifer, Kelly returned the grin. Doug knew she was looking forward to the show. 

The cove was secluded behind three huge boulders, and with the tide being in they had to walk through the water to get to the private area. Kelly took her wet sandals off and scampered up the rock to sit and watch. Doug, refusing to be shy, pulled off his shirt and jeans and left them folded neatly on the rock near Kelly's perch. He turned around to see Jennifer already stripped down to her bra and panties, which were a matching peach color with a floral mesh pattern. Doug was sure he'd be able to see Jennifer's bush through her panties if he looked closely enough, but his boxers were already bulging enough as it was. He didn't need to look up at Kelly to know that was what she was laughing at, so instead he took Jennifer's hand and they frolicked into the waves. 

"No offence," Jennifer said as they splashed around together up to their necks in the salty water, "But I think your girlfriend needs to chill out a bit."

Doug very nearly told her Kelly wasn't his girlfriend – maybe then she would play a bit with him – but for some reason he found he couldn't. Instead he told Jennifer, "She comes from a stuffy background. They'd never do this back home."

"I wonder can we get her out of her shell tonight?" Jennifer said. "Maybe show her all the fun she's missing?" With that she flung herself at Doug and they splashed together into the water. As their legs entwined while coming back up for air, Doug felt Jennifer reach into his boxers and take a hold of his hard cock. She cooed approvingly at its rigidity. "She doesn't need to know," she whispered to him.

"I'll bet she'll want to find out, though," Doug said, returning the favor by cupping Jennifer's breasts with both hands, underwater and out of sight. 

He was right, for within a few minutes they were aware of Kelly swimming out towards them. He hadn't seen her undress on the rock and, with the water so deep, he could see only her face when she surfaced alongside them. It would have been so easy to stick his head underwater and take a gander...but he didn't. Kelly laughed as if she knew just what he was thinking. 

"Glad you could join us," he said.

"Just looked like too much fun to skip," Kelly said. 

"Doesn't it feel great now that you've done it?" Jennifer asked. "I've been doing this since high school, and –" Her voice broke off abruptly as a loud noise and a flash of light appeared from the road just beyond the rocks. All three of them jumped, and Doug was aware of one or the other of the women grabbing his hand under the water in shock. 

"Good heavens, what was that?!" Kelly asked.

"It's from the road," Doug said. "Must be a car accident. A bad one, from the sound of it."

"Son of a bitch," Jennifer muttered. "It couldn't be...shit, it could be."

"Could be what?" Doug asked.

Jennifer shook her head. "Sorry, guys, I need to get my clothes back on and go back inside. I think that might have been Rick."

"Oh my..." Kelly started, her voice trailing away.

"I'll be fine," she assured them. "But I should check on it. I hope I see you at the bar next time."

"Yeah, you too," Doug said, as they both watched their new friend slog back to the shore in her drenched underwear. Then, as if struck by lightning, he swore under his breath, too softly for Jennifer to hear him. 




Decades Ch. 01



"I know," Kelly said. "What an awful shock, even if the guy was a pig."

"No," Doug said. "This is great. Holy shit, this is great!"

"Doug!" Kelly punched him on the arm. "How can you say that about a car wreck? The guy's a jerk, but he's still a human being!"

"No, you don't understand!" Doug turned and grabbed Kelly gently by both arms, looking her in the eye and forgetting all about the chance to sneak a look beneath the surface. "I just figured out who Jennifer was. Laura's mother."

"Yeah, she said that," Kelly said. "What do you mean you figured it out?"

"I know Laura! Laura Warren, I went to high school with her. We were friends because she was also being raised by her grandparents like I was. Because her parents were killed in a car accident when she was a baby!"

"You mean...?" Kelly looked up in the direction of the sirens and flashing lights beyond the rocks.

"Yes!" Doug said. "It was a drunk-driving accident. I remember Aunt Doro telling me all about it. Laura's father was a...well, he was Rick! Her mother was at the bar and he got pissed off at her about something and made a big scene, so he got thrown out. Then he came back with his car and as soon as Jennifer came out of the bar he grabbed her and they think he was going to take her home and do who knows what to her, only they never got home."

"But now Jennifer was with us," Kelly said, her face breaking into a relieved smile. 

"So Rick didn't kill anybody except his worthless self," Doug exulted. "Wow!"

"We saved her life!" Kelly leapt at Doug and threw her arms around him. Only then, when he felt her breasts up against him, did he realize she wasn't wearing a bra. In the heat of that realization, he felt further downward on her body and found she wasn't wearing panties either. Now more tempted than ever to look at her body, he instead looked in her eyes and they shared a salacious laugh. 

"I told you you didn't need to take everything off," he reminded her.

"I know," she said. "But I wanted to. It's not every day you time-travel. Might as well make it as memorable as you can."

They stayed in the water for a while longer, Doug telling Kelly all he could recall about Laura and the stories he'd heard of her parents. Though he longed to see Kelly's body in all its natural beauty, he resisted stubbornly the temptation to look down under the water, as if just to prove he could resist. I'll show you I'm no sex-freak with a one track mind! With the ice broken, Kelly let him hold her as they talked, impressed with his self-control in never looking at her body; but after a while she began to wish he would admire her. Finally she'd had enough of his resistance, and set off for the beach. "Feel free to come join me if you want," she said over her shoulder as her bare back emerged from the water, her now-long hair streaking down it. "Haven't worn my hair this long since high school," she said, gathering it up to wring it out. "This could take some getting used to."

"So could this," Doug said, following her out of the water.

"So could what?"

"This," Doug said, gesturing at Kelly as she turned around and stood nude on the sand. Her body was much as he had imagined – luscious breasts that sagged a bit against her curvy abdomen, and a full bush that reminded him of old porn magazines he'd seen. He was tempted to ask Kelly if that was a surprise to her like her long hair had been, but Kelly looked down first and Doug could see from the look on her face that the answer was yes. "I take it you shave that normally?"

"Of course," Kelly said. "I'd, um, forgotten how bushy it gets when I don't, too."

"When in Rome," Doug reminded her. Whatever year it was, they were definitely well before the shaving trend.

"It doesn't look like you mind," Kelly teased, pointing at Doug's sopping boxers, which were bulging. "But you think it could take some getting used to?" She didn't show any sign of wanting Doug to look away, so he didn't. Her body was magnificent against the cold gray rocks and the world just beyond, and for once her smile was welcoming. 

"Well, of course. Friends don't usually see each other dressed like this, do they? Nice view, though. Very nice. Nothing is half as beautiful as a woman's body, really."

"Why thank you," Kelly said. Doug hoped she would return the compliment, but she didn't. He reasoned that he wasn't quite naked whereas she was, and put the matter from his mind. "So is there a place we can stay the night?" she asked. "I don't think my building has even been built yet!"

"I know a way to sneak into Grandma and Aunt Doro's place," Doug said, "Whatever they're up to, they'll never know we were there. But let's wait a while until we can be sure they're asleep." He pulled off his boxers and stood as naked as she was in the warm night air. "Meantime, we'll be perfectly safe here. We can just nap here if you want."

Kelly gasped in mock horror. "Oh, Doug, I did not need to see that!"

"But it's okay for you to get naked, is it?"

"Of course it is! You just said yourself, women are beautiful! Men aren't."

"Gee, thanks," Doug said, now reconsidering his invitation to nap together – but they had no place else to go, at least not until their clothes were dry. 

"Okay, okay, sorry. Joke. In any case, are you sure we can stay here and sleep, especially with nothing on?" Kelly was skeptical, though she did sit down on the sand beside him.

"Yeah," Doug said. "Anybody else coming back here will just be here to swim, also with hardly anything on. They're not going to give us a hard time. It could be them next time."

Kelly didn't believe him. But she was tired and the salty air felt lovely on her bare skin, as did Doug's bare skin against hers, and now that the ice was broken she was delighted with the intimacy, though she wasn't about to give Doug the satisfaction of saying so. Doug set aside his irritation with her comments in favor of the longed-for chance to hold her. She willed herself to relax in his waiting embrace on the sand, and in a matter of minutes they were asleep. 

They both awoke fully clothed on the bed in Aunt Doro's old room, the empty wine glasses and full ashtray still on the floor beside them. Doug raised his head and gently removed Kelly's arm from around him. "Whoa..." he moaned.

"Mmm?" Kelly mumbled. "What? Good morning! What time is it?"

Doug looked at the clock on the bedside table. "Couple of hours yet until work, it's okay. I guess you need to go get a change of clothes though."

"Yeah, I do," Kelly said, sitting up. "Wow. Looks like I wore out my welcome after dinner. Sorry about that."

"It's fine," Doug said. "Did you sleep well?"

"I think so."

"You think so?" Doug repeated.

"I had very vivid dreams," Kelly said, running her hands through her hair to confirm it was once again only down to the nape of her neck. She also tried to sense if she was once again groomed down below, but could only guess without touching. 

"Me too," Doug said. "Could have sworn we had some adventures last night."

"Well, that must be a dream, mustn't it?" Kelly said with her usual teasing grin. "You know that's the only way I'd let you near, dear. Well, I'll see you at the club?"

"Of course."

"Where's the back door?" 

"Can't get there from this floor," Doug said. "Just take the front door. Aunt Doro won't mind."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Kelly admitted. "Who knows what she thinks we were up to last night."

"She wouldn't be the only one wondering," Doug said, rubbing his head. "And she wouldn't care."

Kelly gaped at him. "What – Oh, I get it, joke, right?"

"Oh, of course," Doug said, forcing a smile. "Yeah, a joke." No need to tell Kelly how Aunt Doro had been perfectly aware that he'd lost his virginity in that very bed on prom night, among other things. Kelly would never understand, and she'd probably get another insult or two in to boot. 

"Good, then," Kelly said in the most formal tone she could muster. "I'll see you at work."

On her way downstairs, though, Kelly could feel her face blushing. She cared little if Aunt Doro saw her and what she might think of the matter, really, and far more about whether she really had lost her mind and given Doug a full look at her body and then snuggled naked with him on the beach last night, or 20-odd years ago, or both. Was it real? And just why had the moment called out to her to do that, if it was? Doug was a nice boy, but not the type she would deign to get involved with like that, to be sure!

Couldn't be, Doug told himself as he undressed for the shower. Just a really intense dream thanks to the pot, and a trip to the cellar would prove it – no secret room with a jukebox, if he could get that door unlocked at all. No heroics on the beach, no changing the history of Pascatawa, and certainly no way snobby Kelly had taken all her clothes off for him – not in any decade!

But he couldn't resist confirming the matter with Aunt Doro before he left for work later that morning. "Aunt Doro, do you remember Laura Warren?" he asked as they enjoyed their coffee a bit later. 

"Jennifer Warren's little girl?" Aunt Doro asked him. "Of course I do! You had her over here for lunch once, didn't you? I think she went to college somewhere up in Maine."

"Maine?" Doug probed, knowing full well Laura had gone to state school – her grandparents couldn't afford private tuition. 

"Yes, Doug, don't you remember? Her mother wanted her to go out of state for school because of the memories of what happened to her father. Of course you're too young to remember the accident."

"Yeah, I've heard of the accident," Doug said. 

"I think Jennifer is still secretly glad Rick killed himself," Aunt Doro said. "I still see her now and again, and of course she's too polite to say that, but who wouldn't be? Rick was a rotten excuse for a man. Class of '81, if he'd ever bothered to come to class."

"Wow, that's a shame." Doug's head was swimming. "Well, I have to get to work."

So it had happened. How long before Kelly realized the same, he wondered, as he walked down to the beach. Would she be uncomfortable with him now? He knew perfectly well she would, at least at first. But he also knew he had to have more of the past. If they had already saved one life, just imagine what else they could fix! And, Doug admitted to himself at long last as he reached the resort, maybe he'd be able to learn whatever he needed to learn about the harsh realities of the past.

Maybe he could even brush that chip off Kelly's shoulder. That moment had seemed so tender, surely there was more of that available under her standoffish exterior. All he had to do was wait for her to let him in again. But in what decade, he wondered, might that happen?



Decades Ch. 02



By the time he got to the resort, Doug was full of plans for their future in the past. But he hadn't yet settled on how to confront Kelly. He suspected she somehow knew it wasn't a dream, but without knowing for sure he concluded it was best to let her address the matter. With that settled, Doug busied himself with his office duties until she arrived just before the restaurant opened for lunch. Though he did his best to concentrate on work, the memory of Kelly's beautiful body and the brief welcome she had given him last night made for a constant presence alone with him in the office. 

Kelly was at her post just inside the dining room when Doug went out for the walkthrough. She gave him a cordial smile and was all business as they prepared for opening. Just before the doors were to open, he finally gave in and broke the ice. "I'm planning on another trip tonight," he said.

"Where?" Kelly asked innocently.

"To the jukebox."

Kelly looked at him in shock. "No! Oh my God..." She crossed one leg behind the other as if to hide something.

"Don't tell me you didn't know it was real," Doug said. 

"You guys on an acid trip last night or something?" Mr. Sanborn demanded, appearing out of nowhere in the kitchen doorway. Doug turned around and opened his mouth to reply, but Mr. Sanborn beat him to the punch. "I don't know what the fuck you guys are talking about, but it sounds totally inappropriate for our dining room, okay? Keep it in private."

"It's not --" Doug began.

"I don't want to hear it, Doug. And Kelly, if you're going to mess around, you should stick to an old hand like me. Let me know if you're interested, I'll show you a lot more than a prep like Doug could."

"You bastard!" Kelly snapped.

"Any more of that and you're fired," Mr. Sanborn said with a sugary smile. "Doug, I want you to put that comment on her file, got that?"

"Yes sir." But of course Doug had no intention of doing any such thing. He hoped for the chance to tell Kelly as much, but she turned defiantly and opened the dining room door to the first waiting customers before Mr. Sanborn disappeared back into the kitchen. Doug had no choice but to retreat to his office. 

Kelly banged into his office without knocking three hours later. "You didn't really write me up, did you?" she demanded.

"How could you even ask me that?!" Doug replied. He realized an instant too late that her attitude deserved "yes" for an answer, but lying never came naturally to Doug. 

"That doesn't answer my question," Kelly said, near tears of rage. "That man is a pig, and he deserved what I said! You know that!" 

"Haven't denied that, have I?" Doug reminded her. 

Kelly took a deep breath. "You also haven't answered my question."

"And I won't," Doug said. "You ought to know the answer. Or else what kind of bastard do you think I am?"

"The kind I made a fool of myself for last night," Kelly whined, flopping down now in the chair before his desk. "Doug, I'm so embarrassed about that, now that I know it really happened. I'm not that kind of woman."

"What kind? The kind who would date a working class kid like me?"

"No!" Kelly replied a bit too vehemently, and Doug could read the truth all too well between the lines. She continued, "the kind who..." she looked behind her to be sure his office door was closed. "...goes around naked outside with a platonic male friend! I take my body seriously and I don't act like a sex object! Usually."

"Did I treat you like a sex object?" Doug asked.

"No," Kelly admitted. "And thank you. But still, Doug, you're not really my type. You're just not. You're the goofy cousin who can make me laugh type, not the one I'm going to fall in love with and definitely not the type I'm going to just fool around with, if I were ever going to do that."

"I'd noticed," Doug said.

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It's supposed to mean every time things start feeling like we're really close, you always have to say something nasty just to remind me that we're just buddies, and not even really very close buddies. I can't exactly not notice that."

"Then we're clear," Kelly announced, standing up.

"Not entirely," Doug admitted. "Let's face it, last night you did let your guard down for once and it was really sweet. The way you hugged me in the water was...I don't know, delicious. And remember, I didn't even know you were naked until you did that."

"Maybe I was just testing you," Kelly said. "Just seeing if you were a typical guy who turns into a drooling idiot every time he sees a vagina."

"There you go again with the nasty comments." Doug forced his voice to sound calm.

Kelly took a deep breath. "Look, we went too far. Don't expect me to let that happen again."

"I already didn't," Doug reassured her. "So do you want to visit the jukebox again tonight?"

"Dream on, lover boy." And she nearly tore the office door off its hinges letting herself out. 

Though he was hurt, Doug found the image of Kelly on the beach far less troublesome for the afternoon. When he left shortly before six, there was no sign of her, but he had convinced himself by then that she would apologize soon enough. On the walk home, he wondered was there anything he should apologize for? He felt he had handled the situation in the water like a gentleman, but perhaps there was something he was missing due to the "male privilege" Kelly was always reminding him of. It was entirely possible, but he could think of nothing he should have changed. Unless Kelly had been expecting him to proclaim his love for her that morning or some such. That was beginning to sound like a chance he should have taken after all. 

He was still lost in thought on the matter when he arrived at the old school. Absentmindedly he cut across the yard rather than taking the sidewalk, and the matter of Kelly was so heavy on his mind that he failed to notice he was next door in Mrs. Kittredge's yard -- until her cigarette-soaked voice roared at him from the porch. "All right, Douglas, that's enough!"

Doug's head snapped to attention. "Mrs. Kittredge?"

There she was on her porch, and she had managed to get to her feet although she was tethered to her oxygen tank as usual. "You get off my lawn! Only my cats get to walk there! You know that."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Kittredge."

"You should be. No manners at all. Dyke grandmothers can't raise a boy worth a damn."

"Excuse me?"

Aunt Doro saved him with a call from the kitchen window. "Doug! Come help me with the trash here! We've got a mess."

"Ok, Aunt Doro!" Doug knew the kitchen would really be spotless as usual, but he was grateful for the rescue. 

Sure enough, there was no trash problem. "Didn't we always tell you to steer clear of her?" Aunt Doro asked as soon as Doug had let himself in the back door. 

"Yeah. Yeah, of course you did. I'm sorry. Had a lot on my mind and I wasn't paying attention." Then a crazy idea occurred to him. "So, Aunt Doro, I don't think I ever asked, what's the story with Mrs. Kittredge anyway?"

Aunt Doro set down her wooden spoon and gestured for Doug to carry the stew pot to the table, which he did. "Irene Kittredge, class of fifty-seven and her name was Irene James back then," she recited. "Lovely girl, if you can believe it, Miss Popularity and she knew it, but she was gorgeous, Doug. And she looked adorable in her sweaters and poodle skirts. But she smoked a lot, even back then. Came to class sometimes with brandy on her breath as well, but I could never prove anything. Married Roy Kittredge, class of fifty-two, when he got back from the service, and she convinced him to buy the house next door on the GI Bill because she never wanted high school to end."

"Man, that's sad," Doug said.

"It certainly is, but it's not as sad as the way Roy treated her," Aunt Doro continued. "I'm sure you can recall hearing him scream at her when you lived here before. Your grandmother and I lived with that for years and years. He drank, a lot, and so did she, and I'm pretty sure he beat her up a few times. I won't even start on the attitude their kids gave us -- James, class of seventy-eight and Sally, class of eighty. They were at least smart enough to get away from their parents. And she's probably still reliving the glory days every night over there." Aunt Doro gave Doug a meaningful look.

"Still doesn't want to let go of high school at that age?" Doug asked. "Pathetic."

"Yes, Douglas, but she's only making the same mistake you tend to make. You ought to think about that."

"Hey, I've never wished I were back at Janice Payne!" Doug protested. "I mean, maybe a few times freshman year at Columbia when I was having a hard time adjusting, but that's it. You certainly won't find me living next door to the place fifty years from now!"

"That's not quite what I meant," Aunt Doro said. "My point is, Irene has wasted a great deal of her life pining for the past that probably wasn't as wonderful as she remembers it being."

Doug wanted to steer the conversation elsewhere. "Mr. Kittredge died while I was in New York, did he?" Doug recalled his howling all too well, but now it occurred to him that it had been absent since his return.

"Lung cancer, three years ago. And she's got emphysema. I'm sure you've noticed the oxygen tank."

"Everybody smoked in the fifties," Doug said, "As you always say. Too bad, it sounds like such a wonderful time besides that."

"If you were a man," Aunt Doro confirmed. "Doug, there's a reason why Irene Kittredge submitted to all those years of abuse. Back then nobody told girls they didn't have to put up with being treated that way. In fact, a lot of them really did have to put up with it; there was no other choice! And they were led to believe being on your own was worse. You can't know what it was like. But you can get it through your head that the fifties were much more than sock-hops and root beer, you know."

An argument rose up in Doug's throat. But then he recalled what Aunt Doro and Kelly had both been telling him lately about living in the past, and he swallowed his objection. Aunt Doro had sat down and was ladling stew into her bowl. Doug stood up and leaned over to hug her from behind. "I'm sorry, Aunt Doro. You're right, I don't get it and I need to think about it a lot more."

Aunt Doro smiled and nodded at him as he retook his seat. "I'm impressed," she admitted. 

Doug was certain he had noticed a twinkle in her eye at the mention of root beer. But he didn't comment on the matter.

An hour and a half later, the dishes were washed and Aunt Doro had retired to her room to watch television. Doug, armed with a swig of liquid courage and a 1957 yearbook he had dug out of the closet in the smallest bedroom (the one he had usually reserved for his science homework in high school, thus he'd studied the books on the shelves there at great length), tiptoed downstairs to the cellar door. The cellar light was still on from when he and Kelly had come in the night before; Doug turned it out and held carefully to the railing as he shuffled down the steps. He knew the way through the maze of bookcases in the dark and soon had his hand on the doorknob. Once again it opened easily, still to Doug's astonishment. He would have to find a way to get Aunt Doro to explain just what had happened on his sister's visit to the room all those years before. But only when he was up to the challenge of talking about his sister, which wasn't often. 

The room was once again pristine and lit with the same eerie red glow, and this time there was only one glass on the table. Doug sat down on the couch and took a sip from the glass -- lemon tea this time, cold and crisp -- and opened the yearbook. There were pages upon pages of adorable looking girls in poodle skirts and guys trying much too hard to look tough in their t-shirts with cigarette packs rolled up in their sleeves, but Doug was in a hurry. He could admire the photographs later. For now, he flipped through the seniors to the J's. Molly Jackson...Benjamin Jalon...Irene James. The lovely, innocent face that grinned at him across the decades, framed by perfect dark rolled curls, bore no resemblance to his decrepit neighbor that he could detect. But there, below the Shakespeare quote he didn't bother to decipher, was proof: "My heart belongs to Roy!"

Doug took a long look at the photograph, until he was sure he would know the face, and then snapped the book shut and set it on the table. After a long sip of tea, he strode to the jukebox and set about guessing at what could get him to the late fifties. Oldies weren't Doug's strong point. Rolling Stones? He was pretty sure they weren't that old. Perry Como? A bit too old, he guessed. Buddy Holly was probably about right. Doug punched in his selection and sat back down, and closed his eyes as soon as "Rave On" crackled to life in the old speakers. 

"Where the hell is Lebanon anyway?" snapped a male voice over the tinny speakers. Doug opened his eyes to find himself behind the wheel of a car he didn't believe he'd ever seen before. It was nighttime, but bright lights from outside were reflecting every which way off the chrome-laden dashboard. Doug looked down to see he was dressed just like the boys in the yearbook: tight jeans, white t-shirt. Peering down to see his shoes, which looked like beat-up wingtips, he saw the name of the car scrawled in cursive on the foot-mat. Studebaker? Doug had never heard of it. 

A similarly attired young man was browsing through a Life magazine in the passenger seat. He must have been the one asking about Lebanon, Doug realized, for the cover photo caption read "Marines Move into Lebanon".

"Lebanon?" Doug repeated. "It's in the Middle East. Always seems to be a war there."

"I know where it is, bud!" the other guy replied. "I just meant, where is it for us, that we've got to send the Marines there. Remember, I'm joining up at the end of the summer. What do I want with Lebanon?"

Before Doug could answer, a girl rolled up on skates outside the driver's side window and set two ice cream sodas on a tray. "Seventy-five cents, please!" she said, leaning in. "Hi, Andy!" she said to Doug's passenger. "Who's your friend?"

"My cousin Doug, up from New York for a few days," said Andy. "The drinks are on him, ain't that right, Doug?"

"You bet," Doug said, as much in awe of the cheap desserts as of the girl and the car. He reached into his pocket and pulled out three quarters, wishing there was time to check the dates before he handed them over. 

In any event, the girl didn't look at them either before depositing them in her change pouch. "Thanks, Doug," she said. "Going to see you guys in the dance later? It's reunion night!"

"We'll be in," Andy promised. As soon as she was gone, Andy threw down the magazine in frustration, though he took the soda gently from Doug, adding that he didn't want to mess up Doug's upholstery. 

Doug took a closer look at the magazine cover as he started in on his soda. July 28, 1958. "Oh good, she's at least nineteen now, if she graduated last year," he said, realizing a moment too late that he'd said it out loud.

"Yeah, we all are," Andy said. "That's how first-year reunions work, don't they? All the pretty boys and preppy girls back from college, and the rest of us here to show them what ain't changed in a year. Who're you talking about, anyway?"

"Irene James," Doug replied nonchalantly. 

Andy nearly spat out a mouthful of ice cream. "Aw, hell, buddy, you don't want to mess with her!"

"Mess with who, Andy?" asked another girl, dressed much like the waitress, who had been walking by the Studebaker at the opportune moment and was now resting her arms on the open window. "Not me, I hope!"

"Course not, Sally," Andy reassured her. "No, my cousin Doug here wants to meet Irene!"

"Irene!" repeated Sally. Looking over at Doug now, she told him, "Forget it! If you're not one of her little circle, you don't want anything to do with her. Ask any girl, she gets really nasty really fast. Even worse if you're a guy, now that Sarge is back in town."

"Sarge," Doug repeated. "Is that Mister Kittredge?"

"Mister Kittredge!" Andy burst into laughter. "Boy, he's gonna love you if you call him that. Legend in his own mind, that guy is, just 'cause he's a few years older and he was in Korea. His first name's Roy, but I wouldn't call him that unless you want a punch in the mouth. He made Sargent in Korea, and now he expects everyone to call him that. Only Irene can call him Roy. But he'd probably love 'Mister Kittredge'."

"And trust me, Doug, you don't want to talk to Irene when he's around," Sally added. "Last time he was here, Johnny Becker asked Irene to dance and his buddies had to carry him out of the hall."

"How do you know about Irene anyway?" Andy asked. "I sure as heck didn't tell you about her."

"I guess everyone knows about Irene," Doug said. 

"It's okay, Doug, I can find you a date for tonight," Sally told him, standing up. "One of my best friends is here on her own, she'd love to meet you after you guys finish eating."

"Not Pauline!" Andy snapped. "Sally, you know she's always trouble."

"Sounds like your cousin likes trouble," Sally told him with a saucy grin, and then sauntered off to the dance hall where another jukebox was blasting.

"What's wrong with Pauline?" Doug asked as soon as they were alone again.

"I think you might need to see that for yourself," Andy said. "I just sure hope you can run fast."

"Those are just the odds I like," Doug quipped.

"I guess so, if you want to mess with Irene," Andy said. "Trust me, though, don't do that."

As soon as they were done with the sodas, Andy handed his glass back to Doug to put back on the tray. "Little Eddie will take it from there," he said.

"Little Eddie?"

"The dancehall owner's son. He's only twelve but his dad lets him work here, bussing the dishes. You should see the way the girls coo over him! He really wants to be one of the tough guys here. It's hilarious."

Even as Andy spoke, Doug turned to see a fair-haired pre-teen collecting up the empty glasses and wiping off the tray. "Eddie?" Doug asked.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," Eddie growled in a squeaky voice that hadn't dropped yet. 

"Told you not to mess with him, Doug!" Andy said with a laugh. 

"Yeah, and who're you laughin' at?" Eddie added.

"Not you, Eddie, I don't want no trouble!" Andy stifled his chuckles and swung open the huge Studebaker door. "C'mon, Doug, let's go meet your date." And Doug got a fleeting look at the beach road looking almost as rustic as in his photo of Grandma and Aunt Doro, quaint gift shops and tourist traps everywhere, mostly closed for the night. 

The dancehall was awash in bright colors and full skirts, and Doug quickly decided when it came to fashion he preferred the fifties to the eighties. One couldn't mistake the scene for a fifties movie, as the cars and clothes looked worn rather than fresh out of a museum; but it had a charm all its own. A rockabilly tune that sounded vaguely familiar wafted out of the speakers in each corner of the room, and the floor was pleasantly crowded with dancing couples. Doug wondered how many of the youthful faces he'd have recognized if he'd studied the yearbook more closely, and how many much-older ones were still to be found around Pascatawa in his own time. With Kelly and Aunt Doro's admonishments in his mind, he also noted that everyone in the room was white -- that had at least begun to change nowadays. But Doug quickly concluded that he had no means to do anything about diversity at that point. How many years was it until the civil rights act and all that? Doug promised himself he'd look it up when he got home. 

"We all used to come here every weekend," Andy told him. "There was nothing else to do in the winter." Looking around the crowded dancefloor now at all the friends he hadn't seen in a year, he added, "This might be the last time we're all together. Or really it's not even all of us, since some of the guys already joined the army or navy, and a couple of the gals are married with babies now. So I guess it's our last chance to just dance all night."




Decades Ch. 02



"Man, that's heavy," Doug said. "The last party!"

"Hey, it's an excuse to get crazy," Andy said. 

In one corner of the room, Doug spotted a young man with a crewcut who looked several years older than most of the others, regaling half a dozen gals with a story that looked violent judging from his hand motions. "That guy doesn't look like he's worried about this being his last time," Doug said. "Was he in your class?"

"Hell, no, Doug, that's Sarge! He graduated a year before we even started." Then Andy turned to Doug and lowered his voice. "Tell you the truth, seeing how pathetic he looks with all those younger girls makes me glad this scene is almost over for me. Who wants to end up hanging out in a place like this when you're twenty-five, or whatever he is, and everyone else isn't even twenty yet?"

"Couldn't agree more," Doug said with a twinge of self-consciousness. While regarding Sarge -- Mr. Kittredge -- from a safe distance, he tried to spot Irene among his harem, but couldn't. He did see Andy's friend Sally, and she spotted him as well. Another young woman, bigger and taller than the others, stood close at her side. When Andy waved at Sally, they both responded. "Is that Pauline?" Doug asked Andy.

"Yeah. Don't say I didn't warn you about her."

Doug watched as Sally took Pauline by the arm and led her off towards him and Andy. Sarge looked his way just long enough to see for whom the girls were leaving him, and he made eye contact with Doug briefly -- but not too briefly for Doug to sense that they were now enemies. "Doug," Sally announced with the flair he now guessed she always had, "This is Pauline!"

"Well hello there!" Pauline said in a booming voice that was just as big as she was. "Sally tells me you're up from New York? What a town that is! I was there once. I know you're going to give a girl a dance, aren't you?" Before Doug could reply, she turned to Andy and asked, "Well, isn't he?"

"Up to him, Pauline," Andy muttered, turning away and putting his arm around Sally, who also then led him to the dancefloor. 

"Well, of course I am," Doug said, still wondering what Andy had been so concerned about. She seemed nice enough so far, a bit loud but so what? 

He did, however, get the sense that he was probably better off not searching for Irene while he was dancing with Pauline. And so he didn't. As the swinging music from the scratchy records filled the hall, Doug lost himself in the moment and enjoyed the feel of Pauline (and occasionally others in the crowd) bopping up against him as they danced. This was just what he had always imagined the fifties to be all about. All that was missing was an air-raid drill, he thought with a chuckle as the room spun around. 

They had danced through two songs when he turned up out of the crowd. Sarge. Doug noticed him out of the corner of his eye as the last record died away, but resolved to ignore him. Sarge was having nothing of it: he sauntered up to Doug and Pauline just as the next song kicked in. "Get lost, pal," he said, shoving Doug aside. Doug fell sprawling into another couple, but neither of them paid him any mind as they had seen what had happened. 

Doug regained his balance and stepped back up to Sarge. "Excuse me, sir, I don't want any trouble, but we were only dancing is all. If you want to cut in, all you had to do was ask."

"Is that so, boy?" Sarge sneered at him. "This is my girl and I don't want you touchin' her!"

Doug threw up his hands -- Pauline wasn't worth getting in a fight over. "Hey, we were only dancing," he said.

"That right?" Sarge asked Pauline, who was looking bewildered at the both of them.

"Well, no, Sarge," Pauline chirped. "I was just chatting with the girls, and this guy -- I don't even know his name, Sarge -- he grabs me out of nowhere and drags me over here! Thanks for coming to my rescue!"

"What?!" Doug looked around for help from Andy or anyone else, but no one was about to stand up to Sarge. 

"You'd better get lost, kiddo," Sarge said, taking a smug-looking Pauline in his arms, "And don't let me catch you touchin' her again, you hear?"

Doug turned around and vanished into the crowd as quickly as he could. A few others jeered at him a bit, and even little Eddie had seen the whole thing while collecting soda bottles from a nearby table, though he had the manners to look away before he snickered at Doug. But most of the partiers hadn't seen the altercation at all. Thanking heavens for that, Doug made his way to the sidelines to continue the search for Irene. Before he could find her, he heard his name from somewhere in the crowd behind him. "Doug!"

He turned around to see Sally emerging from the dancing couples. "Doug," she repeated. "I am so very sorry! I know Pauline likes her fun, but I never imagined she would pull a thing like that." She took Doug's arm and squeezed it affectionately. "Otherwise I never would have introduced you."

"It's okay," Doug said. "It actually gave me a pretty good idea."

"An idea about what?" asked Sally as they made their way around the periphery of the dancefloor. 

"Irene," Doug said. "Maybe she just needs to see Sarge's true colors."

"Doug!" Sally snapped. "Seriously, you do not want to mess with Irene! Back at school she ran the place, and if anybody crossed her path their life was over!"

"You're not at school anymore," Doug reminded her, "And I won't be for a long time yet."

"What do you mean you won't be?"

"Nothing. It's my private joke with myself." He paused a few yards short of the corner of the room, where they saw a clutch of young women gathered around someone. They couldn't see the someone, but Doug had little doubt it was Irene. All the well-coiffed young women with their very superior expressions were a hint; the puff of smoke arising from the center of their circle was a dead giveaway. He turned to Sally now. "Seriously," he said. "This is for her own good, and I think anyone who ever suffered because of her will enjoy the show."

"Doug, I just don't want you to get hurt!" Sally told him. "You're a guest here, shouldn't you just enjoy your vacation?"

"Oh, I'm going to enjoy this all right," Doug reassured her. 

Drawing as near as he could persuade Sally to get, he set eyes on her at last. Though barely visible through the wall of her admirers, it was that same face with that same perfect hair. She was swathed in a flashy blue dress with crinolines peering out from below, and was prattling enthusiastically about something or other -- Doug soon realized she was discussing wedding plans. The ubiquitous cigarette was in her right hand, of course, though it hadn't yet ravaged her voice. If he looked closely enough, Doug was sure he could see the resemblance to his decrepit neighbor. 

"So, Roy wanted the wedding at the VFW hall," she was saying. "And I told him no way, not ever, daddy!" Her minions laughed in agreement. "I said, 'No no no, sir! You might be running the show from now on, but the wedding is for me and my girls!' And he gave up! So we will be doing it at St. Catherine's after all. And I'll expect you all to wear the royal blue gowns with no complaints, of course."

"It won't be at the school?" asked one particularly devoted-looking friend, who Doug thought might be Mrs. Perkins from the library. To his dismay, she was also smoking. 

"Well, I wanted to," Irene said. "I was the queen of the place and all that. But my mother asked Miss Collison and Miss Smith, and they said no."

"They never did respect all you did for our class' morale, you know," piped up another admirer.

"Well, it wasn't that," Irene said. "At least not officially. They said it was because Miss Collison's little brat wouldn't do well with so many strangers in the house. Honestly, that poor little girl is going to grow up to be one miserable lady, living with those two!"

Doug was torn between irritation at hearing his mother described in such terms, and a reluctant realization that Irene had a point -- she had grown up to be a miserable lady -- and he never was sure just what audible reaction he had to the comment. He must have made some noise, though, because the two nearest of Irene's minions turned aside to eye Doug and Sally at that point.

"Oh dear, look what the cat dragged in," Irene cooed. "Sally, dear, haven't you got some toys to clean up before your mother will let you in here or something?"

Sally turned to huff off in disgust, but Doug grabbed her arm and shot her a sympathetic look. "I cleaned up her toys for her, thanks," he said with a grin. "I just had to come meet the legendary Irene." He extended his hand to shake, but Irene ignored it.

"And you are?" Irene asked coldly.

"A boy who doesn't know his place!" called out the friend Doug thought was Mrs. Perkins. 

"It sure looks that way," Irene said. "And if you're palling around with Sally, I doubt you're our type of people...what's your name, anyway?"

"Doug. I'm a family friend of Miss Smith and Miss Collison."

"Oh, then that is how you've heard of me," Irene said. "I hope they don't miss my crew and me too terribly, the school must be absolutely dead without us."

"You can't imagine," Doug quipped. "But that's why I insisted Sally bring me to the reunion tonight. They don't have great dances like this where I come from to begin with -- no one likes rock and roll there, not like the great stuff they play here -- and of course it wouldn't be complete without Irene, would it?"

Doug's flattery made most of the women laugh, including Sally; but Irene looked on cooly. "At least you know what's what," she conceded, "Wherever Sally dragged you in from. But I'm warning you, you don't want to be talking to me while my Roy is here."

"He's already met Sarge!" called out little Eddie, who was once again making the rounds to clear off the snack tables. All Irene's friends laughed adoringly at him, though some looked nervous. 

"You have?" Irene asked. "You've met him, and you've got the nerve to come chat me up now?"

"I have," Doug confirmed. "I was dancing with a friend of Sally's, and he nearly chased me off from her at gunpoint. So I thought I might as well come ask you for a dance while he's busy elsewhere." 

Irene's friends gasped. Sally let go of Doug's arm and backed off. "Doug, don't be stupid!" she whispered.

"Your little friend is right," warned the nearest of Irene's friends. "If you've already crossed Sarge once, that's bad enough."

Fortuitously, a slow song kicked in just after Doug presented the invitation. He held out his arm again for Irene. With a cold smile she crushed out her cigarette against the wall and tossed the butt on the floor, and stood up. "I guess I'll have to teach him a lesson, girls," she said, taking Doug's hand. 

Doug knew the time would be short, and he was aware of the astonished looks on the couples around them as they saw the stranger leading Irene onto the floor. Most of all he was aware of the decrepit, cantankerous neighbor of his future...but for all that, Irene was lovely in his arms. She looked and felt radiant, and she glided effortlessly along with the music. Doug even allowed himself to believe he detected a softening in her eyes as they lost themselves in the dance -- for just a moment, she was just a vibrant young woman enjoying his company. Aside from the stink of tobacco, she was magnificent. 

Word travels fast in a crowded room. Doug knew the magic would be fleeting. He did not know right away that little Eddie was yelling at him when he called out, "Run! Get lost!" from the corner where Irene's friends were still looking on nervously. Looking over at the boy, Doug realized he was talking to him when he saw little Eddie try to make a dash in his direction; two of Irene's friends held him back and whispered something Doug couldn't hear. He turned back to Irene to see if she was concerned, but she looked more smug than ever. 

It was in that same moment that he felt Sarge's gruff hands on his shoulders from behind. Though the song wasn't even halfway through, nearby couples scattered off to the sidelines, and soon no one was dancing. Doug felt himself borne up by his armpits and swung around involuntarily to face his nemesis. "Some guys never learn, do they?" he grumbled at Doug. "You give me one good reason why I shouldn't throw you out in the street, boy."

"It was only a dance, sir," Doug said, forcing himself to reply calmly and even managing a polite smile. "And I did leave you alone with Pauline, didn't I?"

Sarge let go and Doug dropped to the floor, his knees buckling. While Doug was regaining his balance, Sarge addressed him in a low rumbling voice: "Nobody touches Irene but me, you got that?"

"And you can grab any girl you want for a dance, can you?" Doug asked. "Sounds like a raw deal for Irene, doesn't it?"

"I don't hear her complaining," Sarge spat out at him. "She's my girl and she knows her place. And," he added with a menacing look in Irene's direction, "she knows she should've said no when you asked her. Or did you drag her out here without permission like you did with Pauline?"

"Well now, I don't see how anybody could have done that to Irene, do you?" Doug was sweating bullets, but his voice remained defiant. "Seems to me she can take care of herself. Or is that what bothers you so much?"

"Doug!" called Andy from just behind him. "Shut up and let's get out of here. We don't want any trouble!"

"He's right!" Sally called. "We told you this wouldn't end well!"

Sarge grabbed Doug by his lapels. "Maybe you ought to listen to your friends. If I even let you leave with them. If I want to kick your ass right here, though, what are they gonna do about it?"

At that, Irene swept forward. "Roy, honey, please no violence here, okay?"

"I'll deal with you later!" he snapped at Irene. "Could've skipped this whole ugly thing if you'd told this jerk where to go the way you know you're supposed to."

"Roy, it was only a dance!" Irene said. "And we did warn him! Look, it's the last party for the girls and me before the wedding, some of us might not even ever see each other again, can't we just enjoy ourselves and you and I can settle this later?"

"Oh, we'll settle it all right," Sarge sneered at her. With that he let go of Doug with one hand and gave Irene a shove that sent her sprawling back into the arms of her friends. Gasps of outrage arose from throughout the now-quiet hall -- even the music had stopped when the last record had ended -- but no one dared stand up to Sarge. 

No one, that was, except for little Eddie. In the chaos of falling bodies and lost balance that ensued when Irene fell back into the crowd, her friends had lost their protective grip on the boy, and he charged forward at Sarge. "You never hit girls!" he screeched, his little fists flailing. 

He managed to land one blow on Sarge's hip. Sarge responded by smacking Eddie on the mouth and sending him sprawling to the floor in tears. That proved to be too much for a young woman standing just behind Sarge, and with a screech of outrage she clocked him on the head with her soda bottle. As Sarge turned around to see who had hit him, two guys followed her lead and jumped him from behind. His fists flailing now at boys and girls alike, Sarge was soon wrestled to the floor and a near-riot ensued. In the confusion, Doug felt someone -- perhaps Andy, grab at his shoulder and order him to get out while the getting was good. He followed the order, but not before he saw Irene out of the corner of his eye, standing on the sidelines in tears while everyone else egged the fight on. Doug leapt at her and grabbed her by the hand, and to his surprise she didn't resist his pull as they escaped into the parking lot. 

"I'd better get you out of here," Irene said as soon as they were out in the salty night air. "I don't want Roy to know where you are once he gets out from under those guys." Her crying had stopped, though her face was still streaked with runny makeup. "And thank you." She directed him to her car, a read '53 Mercury, and unlocked the passenger door for him.

"Thank you for what?" Doug asked as soon as Irene had rushed around to the driver's side and let herself in. 

"Waking me up, that's what," Irene said, fumbling to get her keys in the ignition. She got the motor running just in time for them to pull out onto the beach road as the first police cars arrived in the parking lot. "He's a pig, and I've always known it. But I told myself it was just life and just the way men are, for the longest time. But to see him smack that poor little boy, and also to shove me around like that in public! I mean, it's one thing to do that in private, but --"

"It's not okay in private either!" Doug replied, still disbelieving that his ploy appeared to have worked. "You deserve better than that!"

"Do I?" Irene asked sarcastically. "Look, I don't need Superman for a husband, and I know how men are. But you should keep it in private."

"You don't have to!" Doug insisted. "No one deserves to be treated like that!"

They were stopped at a red light. Doug looked around and realized it was the corner of High Street, leading either to the beach or out of town. Irene let go of the steering wheel and burst into tears again. 

"Want to go someplace to talk about this?" Doug asked. 

"I'm not going to go to bed with you if that's what you're thinking," Irene said defiantly through her tears.

"You sure aren't," Doug said. "I have no interest in kissing an ashtray."

"How dare you!" Irene shrieked, barely noticing the light had turned green. She turned onto the mostly-empty parking lot for the beach -- always jammed in Doug's own time, even at night -- and pulled the Mercury across three parking places before killing the engine. "How can you talk to me like...like..."

"Like you talk to everybody?" Doug demanded, his voice defiantly calm once again.

Irene killed the engine and took a deep breath. "Yes, like that. What can I say? I ran the school. I'm used to being able to talk to people any old way I want, especially boys."

"I can tell," Doug said. He turned in the seat to face her, but made no move to touch her. "And I know how that works in high school, but it's not going to get you anywhere in real life."

"Where am I supposed to go in real life?" Irene demanded, sniffling again. "I can get married, or I can become a teacher or a nurse. And I don't really want any of those, but what choice do I have?"

"I don't know," Doug admitted. "I don't know anything about being a girl, especially in 1958. But if nothing else, surely you can hold out for a guy who'll respect you. A beautiful girl like you can find that, at least if you don't act so haughty with everyone."

"But I can't!" Irene moaned. "I'm Roy's girl, only now I really don't want to be, not after what he did to poor little Eddie. I'll bet he'll be scarred for life, nightmares and everything."

"If he's lucky, Sarge might have just kept him out of Vietnam," Doug mused. 

"What?!"

"Nothing." Doug reminded himself he had to stop tossing out comments like that. "I hope he hasn't done that to you, Irene."

"That and worse," Irene admitted. "That's why I'd let him go if I could, but I can't."

"Why not?" Doug asked.

"A man wouldn't understand," Irene said. "Well, maybe you would, I get a sense that you're different." She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. "Want one?"

"You really shouldn't smoke," Doug said. "It can kill you."

"Yeah, right," Irene said. "Everybody smokes, I don't see them all dying in the street, do you? And it's my car."

"Okay, okay," Doug said. "But no, I don't want one. Now what wouldn't a man understand?"

"I shouldn't be talking about this with a man," Irene said, the cigarette pursed in her lips as she lit it. "But I guess I've already opened the door to all this." She took a deep puff and took the cigarette out of her mouth, turning to Doug. "I gave him my virginity," she said finally. 




Decades Ch. 02



"That's it?" Doug asked. "So what?"

"So what!" Irene repeated. "So now no other boy will marry me! Why would he when I'm damaged goods?"

"You're not damaged goods, you're an adult and you can do what you want with your own body!" 

"Maybe where you come from," Irene said. 

Doug thought now about all Aunt Doro and Kelly had told him about this subject, and he was beginning to see their point. "Okay," he confessed, "I'm sorry. I guess I don't know what it's like. But I do know one mistake, even if it gets you a reputation, shouldn't mean you have to spend your life with someone who hates you. Even never getting married beats that."

"Easy for you to say," Irene said. "Besides, it wasn't just one mistake. It started out as just one time, just so he'd get off my back about it. But once I let him do it to me once, I found out...oh, geez, Doug, I found out I liked it."

"Most people do like it," Doug said. "Nothing wrong with that."

"But a woman isn't supposed to," Irene said. "At least not except with her husband. That's what my mother always said. God, if only she knew what I did with Roy! But honestly, I think I can live with that if word gets out. What do I care if some loser calls me a slut? No, what kills me is...I liked it. I mean, I really, really liked it. And if I dump Roy, who knows if I'll ever be able to get it again with some other guy?"

"You can always take care of things yourself until you do," Doug pointed out. 

"Ew!" snapped Irene, "That's...for boys!"

"Is it really?" Doug encouraged. "Why shouldn't you be able to enjoy yourself too? It beats sex with a jerk like Sarge, I'm sure of that."

Irene let her outrage turn to bemusement, and laughed. "Oh, Doug, I can't. It would be nice if I could let go like that, but I can't."

"Anyone can. It just takes some getting used to." He recalled his own shame of masturbating all too well, and could only wish he'd gotten over it more quickly. 

"I just can't imagine myself, touching myself down there with my hands...it's not what ladies do!"

"Well, you don't really have to use your hands, you know," Doug said with a grin. He kicked at the transmission hump.

Irene looked down at it. "What do you mean?"

"You can use that instead of your hands." Realizing the implications of his suggestion, he quickly added, "When you're alone, of course."

"Of course," Irene repeated with a saucy grin, though she still looked a bit mystified. "Or if you're such an expert, you could show me."

"Well, it wouldn't really work with guys," Doug said, "But I can show you what I mean." He slid over to the middle of the seat and then twisted himself around to straddle the hump facing Irene. Finally he slid off the seat and gripped the hump between his knees, and rocked back and forth. Though he felt like a fool, he could feel himself getting hard as he imagined Irene in his place and the sensations she would be feeling. 

Irene smiled, and the smile slowly grew into a laugh. "Okay, now I think I see what you mean." With a deep breath she added, "Now let me try."

"With me here?" Doug asked, climbing back into his seat. "I can get out of the car..." He put his hand on the door handle.

"What fun would that be?" she asked. "The more the merrier." With Doug now out of the way, she twisted around and set her left foot between Doug's feet on the passenger side, and settled onto the hump. She began rocking her hips back and forth, tentatively at first but soon wonderfully aware. "Oooh!" she squeaked as the first rush of sensation flew outward from her nether-regions. "Ohhhhhhh," she added more gently, her eyes closed. She then stopped and opened her eyes to see Doug adoring her from a distance, his jeans tight as a drum.

"Unzip," she commanded him, resuming her thrusting along the hump.

"What?"

"You heard me," she said in a breathless lather as the sensation took over once again. "I told you, the more the merrier!"

"Are you sure?" Doug asked.

In response, Irene yanked up her skirt and afforded Doug a long look at her panties, which were already growing wet; her young, hungry bush was clearly visible through them. "Yes, I'm sure! And now you've got to show me yours! Fair's fair!" She resumed rocking harder than ever, but didn't close her eyes this time.

Doug, conceding she had a point, slid to the middle of the seat so he was facing her directly, and opened his jeans. It was a bit of a trick to get his rigid cock out of its hiding place, but soon he was stroking along as well. Irene took his free hand in hers and held it tight as they looked in one another's eyes. Doug was gratified to note that her cigarette was now burning away harmlessly in the ashtray. 

"Like that?" he grunted as they approached orgasm together.

"Love it!" she said. "Thank you!"

"Still feel unladylike?"

"Wonderfully so! Forget Roy!" She reached down and caressed Doug's hand as it went to town on his cock, and the added sensation put him over the edge. "Oh!" he grunted, feeling himself squirt into her hand.

"Oh my dear!" Irene shrieked, then dissolved into laughter as she realized what it was. The knowledge seemed to inspire her to hump the hump even harder, and soon she was lost in her own climax. She squeezed Doug's hand and his cock affectionately as she came. "Ohmigod..." she said sleepily as the final sensations washed over her and the rocking came to a stop. 

Doug looked around for a tissue to wipe her hand clean, and found some napkins from the drive-in. "Here you go," he said, gently drying off each finger."

"Thank you," Irene said in her old prim voice, climbing back into the driver's seat. Then she exhaled deeply. "I'm such a bad girl," she said wearily, though the tears stayed away this time.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Doug reassured her. "No one even needs to know."

"Not if you're a guy there isn't," Irene said. "It's not like that with us."

"Someday it will be."

"Someday," Irene repeated sarcastically. "What am I supposed to do until then?"

"Refuse to accept people treating you differently because you're a woman who likes sex?"

Irene looked at him thoughtfully. She said nothing, but snuggled up against him and closed her eyes. 

This time the morning found Doug in his old bed in what he called "the blue room", the same one he'd usually slept in back in high school. He had been avoiding it this time around, to preserve his denial about having had to move back home after college; but now here he was. He was naked beneath the sheets, and sitting up he found no sign of last night's attire anywhere. Getting up to look in the mirror, he saw his hairstyle was back to modern as well. He was energized, though, and could hardly wait to catch a glimpse next door and see if any change had been wrought. 

Downstairs, he found Aunt Doro had left a note for him -- she was off to a breakfast meeting with some friends -- so he had a quiet breakfast on his own before heading off to work. Mrs. Kittredge's house looked the same from what he could see of it out the window -- no sign of her on the porch, but it was early yet. 

After breakfast, Doug locked the front door and made his way up to the sidewalk. The thought of crossing Mrs. Kittredge's yard to smoke her out and get a look at her crossed his mind, but he decided against it. As it turned out, he did not have to wait long for a sign of his success: as he passed her house on the sidewalk, a young mother came bustling out of the front door with two young children, obviously on the way to some summer-school event somewhere. "Hi, Doug!" she called out cheerfully.

"Hi!" Doug called back, his heart flying high inside. He didn't know her name, but he did know she was not Mrs. Kittredge's daughter or her son's wife, both of whom he had seen on occasion over the years. So at least she hadn't settled down near the school for its own sake now. 

Work was uneventful at first. Kelly was off duty that day so there was no further drama with her. Late in the afternoon, though, Doug heard a familiar voice out in the dining room while he was working. "Have to drag this thing everywhere, but it's better than not breathing," followed by a weak but sincere laugh. 

Doug jumped up and flung open his office door. There she was, easing her way into a chair for afternoon tea, her oxygen tank in a cart beside her. A waiter was helping her with her seat and agreeing that he was sure breathing was worth any price.

"Mrs. Kittredge," Doug said in a hushed tone, making his way around the table to face her. His earlier sense of triumph now gave way to regret as he saw she was just as frail and unhealthy as ever. 

"Mrs. Kittredge?!" she asked with a laugh that quickly turned into a cough. "Did your Aunt Dorothy put you up to that one, Douglas?"

"Put me up to what?" Doug asked.

"Calling me that! Hardly anyone else is left in town who knows about Roy and me. You'd think Dorothy would be satisfied that I came to my senses and didn't marry him!"

"You didn't!" Doug said. "I mean, yeah, I'm sorry. I don't know what Aunt Doro was thinking."

"Oh, I do," she told him. "I was a pain in her bottom when I was at school, and I'm sure she hasn't forgiven me completely. I can understand that, though. Roy Kittredge was the worst of it. That man was a first-class bully, Douglas, and I nearly married him. Thought I had no choice, because back in the fifties that's what they always told us girls. But somebody wonderful showed me I did have a choice, even if I had to pay dearly for it at the time."

"Pay dearly," Doug repeated. "I hope it wasn't too bad, whatever it was."

"A boy your age wouldn't understand," she told him. "But you know, it wasn't too bad. Not compared to marrying a man who would have beat me, anyway. That's why I stayed Miss James instead of Mrs. Kittredge. I realized I had to be me first, and I should wait for a man who would respect that. Never did find one who could be all I wanted him to be, but that's okay. You're better off on your own than settling for second best, Doug, always remember that. Don't trust anyone else with things you know you can best handle yourself."

"I will, definitely," Doug said. "Thanks."

"And always remember, don't smoke," she added, tapping her oxygen tank. "Someone told me that once, too, and I sure do wish I had listened."

It was a warm evening, and Doug found himself out on the front porch after dinner, trying to read a book but mostly thinking about Irene. He was once again lost in thought when he heard Kelly's footfall on the steps. "Hi," she said gingerly.

"Hey!" Doug sat up. "How are you?"

"Better," she said. "And I'm sorry I was so standoffish. I was just...embarrassed."

"I get it," Doug said. "I understand. But I meant what I said, you're beautiful."

Kelly looked at the floor and grinned. "Thank you! That means a lot. I'm still, just, you know, working out what this all means for us, you know?"

"No," Doug admitted, "I don't think I do know. But I'm trying."

Kelly looked frustrated. "What I mean is, we're friends! Beyond that, I don't know what to think, and I guess I can't help sending mixed signals. I'm going to try to stop that and be more respectful, okay?"

Doug couldn't help laughing. He held up one hand and thwacked it with the other. "It can't be right, Sam, it can't! Ziggy still says there's a 99% chance she's going to keep on making passive-aggressive comments every time you get close!"

Kelly laughed along with him. "Okay, okay, I deserved that." When the moment had passed, she asked, "So, did you go back again last night?"

"Yes," Doug said, "And I discovered you can't save everybody. Not completely at least."

Kelly nodded. "I'm sorry. Want to talk about it?"

Doug nodded and stood up. "Yes. Shall we go have a drink by the jukebox?"

Kelly allowed him to take her by the hand, and they went inside.



Decades Ch. 03



Aunt Doro greeted Doug and Kelly in the front room. "Welcome back, Kelly," she said. "I've made some fruit salad if the two of you would like some dessert before you disappear upstairs."

Doug was used to the mischievous gleam in the old woman's eyes, but Kelly was taken aback. "Oh, Aunt Doro, I wasn't – sorry, I guess I shouldn't call you that, but –"

"Nonsense, darling, any friend of Doug's is welcome to call me Aunt Doro," she reassured Kelly. "In any event, I certainly didn't wish to make you uncomfortable. I hope Doug has let you know that you are welcome to stay the night here if you wish. I shouldn't want him to get lonely here now that all his friends from high school have gone."

"I hadn't told her yet, Aunt Doro," Doug said. "It hadn't come up."

"Always the gentleman, that's my Doug," Aunt Doro said to Kelly with an approving nod at Doug. 

"I'm coming to appreciate that," Kelly admitted. "Thank you, Aunt Doro. And I'd love some of that fruit cocktail if it's okay with Doug?"

Doug had no objection, and they were soon seated at the kitchen table while Aunt Doro ladled out the diced fruit. "So how has your week been at the restaurant, Kelly?" she asked as she worked. 

"Had today off, thank heavens," Kelly said. "I got to spend the day on the beach instead of just looking at it, that was great. Yesterday was rough, though. Doug, have you told her?" 

"No," Doug said. "We had a really nasty altercation with Mr. Sanborn," he told Aunt Doro.

"No surprise there," Aunt Doro said. "Guess I've told you both already, that man never had any respect for anyone. Always very self-important, even when he was screaming about peace and love all the time." A pause, and then she looked at Kelly. "I always used him as an example when Doug got to pining for the sixties and feeling like he missed out on the age of love. It wasn't always like what you young kids hear."

"I get that, Aunt Doro, I promise," Doug said.

"Do you really?" she asked him.

"I think he's learning, Aunt Doro," Kelly piped up. "We've been talking about some...things, and I think he's learned a lot."

"Good for you, then," Aunt Doro replied, now sitting down with her share of the dessert.

"And he went to bat for me with Mr. Sanborn yesterday, too," Kelly continued. "He ordered Doug to write me up for a comment I made that he really deserved, and Doug handled it perfectly."

"Good for you, Doug!" Aunt Doro exclaimed. "His heart usually is in the right place," she told Kelly. "Always has been. Living with his grandmother and me, he never did want for strong women in his life, after all. It's just that he had some very unrealistic ideas of what life was like in the past. Honestly, Kelly, you probably do too. I doubt any girl your age really knows what it was like for women back then."

"I'm trying to learn too," Kelly said, flashing a knowing grin at Doug. 

"Now, your friend Mr. Sanborn," Aunt Doro continued. "I don't suppose I even want to know what he said. But whatever it was, dear, I know exactly why he felt entitled to say it. So many years back in the day he was surrounded by women who put up with him because that's what they'd been taught to do, and it certainly went to his head. Back when he was a student here, class of sixty-one, you remember, that was before the boys wore their hair long, and he was clean cut and all but he had a big mouth even then. Always taking charge in the classroom like he owned the place, talking about the downtrodden and disenfranchised and about going down South to do his part. The girls loved it of course, and they used to follow him around like puppies even then. His wife, Meg, she was the most enamored of all, naturally. Hung on his every word."

"And I'm sure by the hippie days he was practically a cult leader," Kelly said. 

"It looked that way sometimes," Aunt Doro said. "He and Meg were married by then, and they'd had their adventures out in California – Meg still won't talk much about what happened out there – and they lived in the old Templeton mansion up at the far end of the beach. It's a bunch of condos now. Back then the place was a wreck and they lived like a bunch of pigs. Doug's grandmother and I used to see Meg on the street and she just looked dead inside from living in that hovel, but Jimmy was always on about how they were living like the kings of the disenfranchised, finding the one true answer and all that hippie garbage. He even used to harangue people about it on the beach, especially the young ladies."

"Even though he was married?" Doug said. "I mean, that doesn't surprise me much, but..."

"Yes, Doug, even though he was married," Aunt Doro confirmed. "Mary Aston, class of sixty-four, she lived with them for a time, and she told me once how Jimmy would sweet-talk the naïve young college girls here for the summer that they were selling out to the oppressive imperialist government if they didn't sleep with him."

"And that worked?!" Kelly said.

"More often than you might think," Aunt Doro told her. "You can't know, because you weren't around back then, just how backwards a lot of men still were. Freedom and equality was all great for men, but the women were still expected to do the cooking and cleaning. And Meg did, at the Templeton place. Mary as well, she told me. The whole lot of them waited on their men hand and foot even as the men talked about the coming revolution and setting people free, if you can imagine that."

"Geez," grumbled Doug. 

"I told you feminism started later than you think," Kelly said.

"She's right, Doug, it did," Aunt Doro confirmed. "Mary and some of the other women there, they did see the light after a while, and most of the other hippies went off to find other things to do with their lives after a few years. But not Jimmy and Meg. He stuck with his long hair and beard and his larger than life attitude for years, and he never left town and she never worked up the courage to leave him."

"Didn't you say she wanted to go off and see the world?" Doug asked.

"I did, and she did want to," Aunt Doro confirmed. "But Doug, I think she was so used to being under his thumb, she never really tried to make her own way. Jimmy was perfectly content to hang around the beach for most of his life, tossing off his opinions to anyone who would listen, and there's always an impressionable young woman somewhere who will listen, and I think Meg was afraid to go off on her own because then she would lose him for good, and even sharing him was better than being on her own, that's what she thought. They've been together since she was fifteen, after all."

"That's so sad," Kelly said. 

"Well, Kelly," Aunt Doro said with a twinkle in her eye, "Now you see why I'm more than happy to have you here. You and Doug are good for one another in a world that can really mess up a young person who ends up in the wrong crowd."

Kelly blushed. "Aunt Doro! I..."

"Oh, Kelly, it's none of my business, of course," Aunt Doro reassured her. "You and Doug don't owe me an explanation. I just want you to understand I approve of whatever might develop, and you're welcome in our home."

Kelly blushed but allowed a smile all the same, and Doug took it upon himself to change the subject while she finished her fruit cocktail in silence.

"Has she pulled that one on any of your other girlfriends?" Kelly demanded of Doug once they had made their escape upstairs. 

"My other girlfriends?" Doug teased, brushing her hand with his as he closed the door of the red room – Doug's favorite bedroom for reading novels for English class back in high school, with the softest mattress on the third floor – behind them. He had picked up a bottle of merlot that afternoon in hope that Kelly would turn up, and it was waiting for them on the bedside table. 

"Oh, don't even!" Kelly exclaimed. "I mean, Doug, I'm not saying no, but...I'm torn. You know that."

"Yes, I do," Doug admitted as he went about opening the wine. "Heck, I don't know what to make of us right now either. But to answer your question, yes. I think it has to do with, you know, what I suspect about her and Grandma. After what they must have gone through hiding their secret from the world, she just didn't want me or anyone I cared about to have to do the same."

"That's sweet," Kelly admitted. "But still, welcoming girls to spend the night?"

"Well, she didn't make a point of it pre-emptively like she did with you," Doug said. "But after the senior prom, my date – Sarah was her name – she spent the night here, and Aunt Doro brought us breakfast in bed the next morning, and –"

"What?!" Kelly interjected. "Doug, that's just creepy!"

"Yeah, a little," Doug admitted. "But like I said, she just wanted us both to know there was nothing to be ashamed of. I guess she figured it was better than having us sneak around behind her back, which it probably was. Anyway, I had told Sarah it would be no big deal if Aunt Doro knew she was here, so at least it wasn't a complete shock."

"Oh, I'll bet it was," Kelly said.

"Well, she was definitely embarrassed," Doug admitted. "But Aunt Doro could see she was uncomfortable, and she told her, look, it's fine. You're both eighteen years old and there's no shame in what you've done, and I just want you both to know you've got a safe place here."

"What you've done," Kelly repeated. "Did she know you'd been having sex?"

"We hadn't, before that night. It was the first time for both of us."

"Losing your virginity on prom night? Doug, that's so clichéd!" Kelly said with a laugh.

"Had to happen sometime," Doug said, handing Kelly a glass. "It wasn't great, but for a first time it wasn't bad. Most of the stories I've heard from my friends about the first time make me think I was lucky to have it happen here. Creepy or not, at least we didn't have to sneak around in a car or behind a barn or something."

"Wow," Kelly said thoughtfully between sips of wine. "Your Aunt Doro is either really creepy or the coolest mom ever. Or both." She paused and when Doug said nothing she continued. "You're right, though, having your first time in a comfortable bed where you don't have to worry about getting caught, that would've been nice."

"So your first time was worse, was it?" Doug asked.

"Yes, and that's all I've got to say about it for now!" Kelly said. "That and I wish I hadn't even given the guy my phone number if I could do it over again. Now I want to hear all about your adventure from last night. I'm sorry I missed it, Doug."

"I'm sorry too, but I have to admit it probably couldn't have happened with both of us there." Doug paused for his first sip of the wine. "Then again, you probably would have made a better teacher than I did," he mused.

"A better teacher?" Kelly asked. "So just what did you teach?"

And so Doug told Kelly all about Mrs. Kittredge, beginning with the horror stories he recalled from high school of the fights with her late husband and the perils of walking on her lawn, continuing through his own altercation with her the afternoon before, and through the dance and their encounter in the parking lot afterward. He wrapped up the tale with their conversation at the restaurant just a few hours before. "So I couldn't save her from killing herself with cigarettes, but at least she didn't marry the creep," Doug concluded.

Kelly set her wine glass down and laughed. "So let me get this straight. You saved Mrs. Kitt...I mean Miss James, Ms. James, you saved her from an abusive marriage by teaching her to masturbate? Really?!"

"I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't been there," Doug admitted. "But I was there. It sort of makes sense if you think about it, teaching a person to learn to love herself in the most basic way." Kelly laughed, so Doug continued. "I'm serious. You should have seen the change that came over her. It was beautiful. She was beautiful."

"So you're one of..." Kelly paused. "I'm sorry, Doug, I did promise I would try to stop putting you down every time we got close, didn't I?"

"Yes," Doug said. "Are you saying we're getting close?"

"Well, I'm...comfortable," Kelly said the last word with a relieved smile, almost as if it were a revelation to her. "Your story about Mrs. Kittredge is, well, it has a sweet ending. I guess I'm a bit surprised at your reaction, if you don't mind my saying so."

"You expect a man to feel threatened when a woman masturbates, because it means she doesn't need him."

"I didn't say that!" Kelly protested.

"You didn't say it, or you didn't mean it?" Doug probed. 

"Well, Doug, I read all about it in Human Sexuality, and it made a lot of sense!"

"I'm sure it did," Doug said. "But think about it, you're hearing this from me in person, and you'd prefer to believe something you read in a book at a school that doesn't even have any men."

Kelly thought for a moment, then announced, "I hate it when you do that. You're right."

Doug let out a relieved laugh as he sipped his wine. Kelly looked adorable curled up on the bed, and he longed to do more than just chat. "So tell me, then," he said. "And please, forget what you read in some textbook and tell me based on what you know about me personally, what makes you think I would feel threatened by watching Irene masturbate?"

Kelly thought for a moment. "I guess I was expecting you to push for more," she said. "Nothing personal, it just seems kind of funny to stop there."

"Not if you could smell her breath," Doug reassured Kelly, and they laughed. "But even more than that, it just didn't feel right to do it knowing I'd never see her again – at least not until she was old and sick."

"You and your ethics of sex, Doug, it's so frustrating!" Kelly laughed harder now, but with a note of frustration in her voice. 

"Why do you say that?"

"It's just that I don't know what to make of it all," Kelly said, and in the heat of the moment she stood up and began pacing back and forth before the bed. "I mean, I'm sorry I started off with so many preconceived notions about you – although you realize they weren't all wrong, don't you?"

"Yes," Doug admitted. "I get that I don't always appreciate male privilege."

"Thank you." Kelly got up and began pacing before the bed, her wine glass held firmly and never sloshing a drop. "I guess it's just now I see you're more enlightened than I had thought, and getting more so, and that's great, but as I'm getting to know you better and feel closer to you, I really don't know how to handle things because I've never had to deal with a guy like you. I started off thinking, right, he's your manager, forget it, but there's always been this little reminder about how he's cute, he's smart, and maybe he knows how to treat a lady –"

"A lady or a woman?" Doug asked. "Or a womyn with a Y?"

"Right, right, I needed that," Kelly said. "See, that you would even bring that up, it's just what I mean. I'm conflicted."

"About how you feel about me," Doug said – it was a statement rather than a question.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Kelly said. "There's still a lot you don't know about me, and some of your issues with women that I don't know about either, remember. It was easy enough at first when I really thought it was just friends, period, to just sass you when things were getting too intimate – I'm sorry about that, too, Doug, I'm afraid you hit the nail on the head with that. But since we've been talking, and then the big adventure the other night, now I'm not so sure what I want. I guess that's why I did what I did at the beach, with you and Jennifer."

"You got naked because you were jealous of Jennifer?" Doug asked.

"I wouldn't put it that way, but...well, maybe I should," Kelly admitted. "Yeah. I have to admit, there I was sitting on the rocks and the two of you seemed to be having such a great time splashing around in your underwear, and just for a moment I set all my doubts aside and I really wanted you. And I thought, well, I know how I can top this Jennifer gal, so I went ahead and took all my clothes off without even thinking much about it. And then after we woke up, I thought, whoa, better pull back there, girl, you don't know him that well yet. Plus, I was embarrassed." She took a swig of wine. "To be completely honest, Doug, I still am."

"The first time usually is embarrassing," Doug agreed. "That night with Sarah that I told you about certainly was. Took us ten minutes to get naked, and then we both had to undress ourselves with our backs turned and then turn around on the count of three, that's how shy we were."

"That's cute!" Kelly said. "I don't usually find that myself, though, actually. Once I'm ready to go all the way with someone it's just, go for it. It felt different with you for some reason. Not that I didn't enjoy it, I mean, you've got a lovely body too, Doug..."

"Thanks." He was mollified, recalling how she had avoided saying it the other night.

"Just that it was unexpected, and I'd been telling myself I didn't want that with you, and suddenly there we were in the water."

"I see," Doug said.

"Do you really?" Kelly probed.

"I think so."

"So what are we going to do about all this uncertainty?" Kelly set down her wine glass and smiled at Doug. For a wonderful moment he thought she was going to undress again. But she didn't. 

"How about we continue on the adventures and let things develop naturally?" Doug asked.

"You want to travel through the ages teaching women to masturbate, do you?" Kelly teased.

"Or better yet, watch you do it," Doug shot back. 

"Dream on!" Kelly hooted. "But yeah, I'd love to go on some more journeys and see what we can both learn."

"Sounds like a plan," Doug said. "I'd love to exact some rough justice on Mr. Sanborn, wouldn't you?"

"Heavens, yes!" Kelly agreed. "Should've quit after what he said the other day, but that would've been letting him win."

"Maybe if we go back to the sixties, we can change his attitude," Doug mused.

"I doubt that," Kelly said. "But maybe we can at least save Meg from him and that might change something."

"I'd love to do that," Doug agreed, recalling his beloved Mrs. Sanborn and the occasional bruises he saw when shopping at her store when he was younger.

"Great, then it's a plan," Kelly said. "Let's just finish our wine, and go."

"And if we find ourselves in more intimate situations with people back then?" Doug asked. 

"Remember we're going to wake up together back here," Kelly said. "Just the two of us. Whatever happens in the past stays there."

"So we're only sleeping with others for the good of the future," Doug said. "Got it, and I like it."

Kelly looked at Doug like she wanted to smack him, but she gulped down her wine and held out her hand. "On to the sixties, then," she said. "But first, can we have some more of Aunt Doro's fruit cocktail?"

"Now that you've said that, there'll be some waiting for us in the jukebox room," Doug said.

"How do you know?"

"Just trust me."

Doug was correct: two bowls of fruit were waiting for them when they arrived in the room. "I don't suppose I should even ask about this," Kelly said as they sat down to eat.

"I don't know how she knows," Doug said, "But she does. She mentioned the root beer last night too." Doug was surprised to hear himself say 'last night', as it felt more like fifty years ago. Then he remembered that in a way, it was. 

After they finished off the second helping of fruit, Kelly stepped up to the jukebox and set about searching for the right era. "This is my dad's era for music, big time," she said. "He was too young to go to Woodstock, and he's still bitter about it. Here we go, Canned Heat. Right style, right time."

"What a strange name for a song," Doug mused.

"It's the name of the band, silly, although they were named after a song," Kelly replied, turning back to join Doug on the couch as "Going Up the Country" kicked in on the jukebox. 




Decades Ch. 03



"Sounds like Kermit the Frog," Doug announced.

"Don't you ever let my father hear you say that!" Kelly warned him as she sat beside him on the couch, put her arms around him and closed her eyes. 

"Don't you want to take your bra off, so you fit in better back then?" Doug teased.

"Dream on, and close your eyes already!" But Doug surmised there were no truly hard feelings, for she only clung harder to him after the reprimand. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the music and the hug, and waited. 

"They're in the way!"

"Leave 'em alone, man, you'll get your turn with her."

"Not that, man, they're in the way!"

"In the way of what?"

"You know! My aura! I told you last night!"

"Man, I don't know what you've been smoking, but don't do it again in my house. Had it with this shit already."

"Your house? Who the fuck are you?"

"You want to put that to a vote? You'd lose and you know it, man."

Doug opened one eye, just enough to see where they had landed and whose conversation they were crashing. Something told him he and Kelly would be better off if the others didn't know they were awake. A darting glance revealed two shadows on the other side of a dim room, now firmly engaged in an argument with one another and paying no attention to him. So Doug felt safe in opening his eyes. He did so to find Kelly had done the same. They were lying side by side on a narrow bed in a room strewn with ancient furniture and discarded clothing, and the late afternoon sun struggled to find its way inside the filthy windows above them. The room was cold. Doug concluded that they had not landed in summer this time. 

"The old Templeton place," Doug said, recalling Aunt Doro's remark earlier that evening.

"That's where you are, all right," came one of the voices. "But apparently this fellow's decided it's the old Sanborn place. Man, it's supposed to be all about sharing and love, remember?"

"Don't hassle our new friends with your bullshit, man," came the more dominant voice, which Doug now realized, without surprise, belonged to Jimmy Sanborn. "They've had a rough week." In a slightly more conciliatory tone, he addressed Doug and Kelly. "You two want to get up now? Dinner'll be pretty soon."

Doug and Kelly sat up, and looked at one another uncertainly. "Thanks, but I'm not really hungry," Kelly said. Doug could tell it was a struggle to remain polite with her nemesis, even all these years before their paths were to cross. 

"Yeah, well, you can still do your share with making dinner, though," Jimmy said. Their eyes adjusting to the light, Doug and Kelly now saw he looked younger with fuller and even longer hair, but with the same perpetual scowl. He also sported an unruly beard, leading Doug to touch his hand to his face and realize he was also unshaven. 

"Excuse me?" Kelly asked.

"All the girls help with dinner," Jimmy said, as if reminding her of something he had said before. "Told you when we took you in, and we did give you last night off since you were still all shook up by the pigs and all that. But you're safe here, you're not gonna get run out of town and threatened, not unless you hassle the squares on the beach too much, and that means you can help your sisters with the work." He pointed out the bedroom door to the stairway just beyond. "We'll see you downstairs."

Kelly looked at Doug, an uncharacteristically defeated look in her eyes, and Doug knew what he needed to do. He took her hand and stood up with her. "Okay, then, let's go help with dinner," he said.

"That a joke, man?" Jimmy asked. "I said the girls make dinner. Besides, you and me, we got business to talk about."

"What if I want to help them?" Doug asked, chancing another look at Kelly. She was delightfully attired in a peasant-dress of a dozen colors or more, which was swirling around her legs as she fidgeted angrily beside him. Her hair was even longer than it had been that night in the bar, straight now and parted down the middle. As if in keeping with his request, she did not appear to be wearing a bra, and Doug rather suspected she blamed him for that. 

"Man, you better not argue with him," said the other man, who was blond and clean-shaven. "The way the two of you looked yesterday, I wouldn't want to be back out on the road just yet. And he will throw you out if you give him a hard time. I've seen it happen."

"That's right," Jimmy said smugly, "And sometimes I wonder why I let Mikey here stick around. It's not like he hasn't got anywhere else to go."

"I ain't been called Mikey since I was ten, man!" 

"You shut up, and you get down and help your sisters with dinner!" Jimmy snapped at Mikey and Kelly in succession. 

Kelly reluctantly stomped out of the room, her humiliation subsiding only when she reached the top of the stairs as she realized now she could chat with the other women of the house, unencumbered by Jimmy or the other guys, who she was sure were just as chauvinistic as he was. Maybe that was just what they needed. One thing was sure: they had definitely found the right place. The dilapidated mansion whose main staircase she found herself descending was surely Mr. Sanborn's old stomping grounds. The huge living room was strewn with beer cans and ashtrays all over the beat up furniture and the floors. An old teacher's desk sat in one corner, laden with books and scraps of paper and a manual typewriter. Kelly felt like she was stepping into a museum exhibit. 

She followed the sound of a few female voices through the empty living room to the kitchen. It proved to be just as dingy and outdated as the living room, but at least the lights cast some badly needed cheer against the gray day outside. There were four women in the kitchen, all of them busy with preparing dinner, and all but one of them turned to greet Kelly when she stepped in. "Hi! Kelly, isn't it?" asked a redhead who had been chopping vegetables by the sink. She came around the table, and before Kelly knew what was even happening, she found herself wrapped in the stranger's arms. "I hope Jimmy and the boys let you get some rest before they sent you down here."

"Uh...yeah," Kelly said. "Yeah, I'm fine. But I've got to say, I didn't appreciate Jimmy ordering me around like that." 

"My husband orders us all around like that," said the redhead, who Kelly now realized must be Meg. "It's just the way of the world, though, isn't it? Boys will be boys and all that, and it's really all about love in the end."

"You've got to pick your battles, Kelly," said one of the other women, who was busying herself with washing dishes. "And speaking of battles, how are you coping?"

"Coping?" Kelly asked.

"She means about the mess with the pigs yesterday," Meg told her. "I don't know what your man was thinking, bringing you to Bob's by the Bay. That place is square territory, and they'd never serve us if they even let us stay in the first place." Kelly regarded Meg while she listened, and Aunt Doro's unpleasant recollections of her condition rang out in her memory. Those recollections had been on the mark: Meg looked haggard and older than her years despite her brightly colored clothes and beads. At least Kelly couldn't detect any bruises. 

Kelly could only guess what had come before. "Oh, yeah, well, Doug loves Bob's by the Bay. He always used to talk about that place. I'd only been there once before but it was a memorable visit."

"You've been in Pascatawa before?" Meg asked. "You guys aren't townies. I'd have remembered you from prison."

"Prison?!" Kelly asked – Aunt Doro hadn't said anything about that!

"She means school," said the third of the women who had greeted Kelly, who was busy mashing potatoes. "Meg and Jimmy always called it prison, they couldn't wait to get out of there and run off to California. And they did, only now they're back here and they'll never even tell us why."

"You don't need to know why!" Meg snapped. Turning back to Kelly, she said, "Sorry. Aurora over there knows everybody else's business, or thinks she does. Anyways, I don't know what your man looked like the last time he got into Bob's, but we're definitely not welcome there now. Even guys who went over there to fight the war aren't welcome if they're in with us now. You can ask Eddie about that."

"Eddie?"

"Another townie," said the woman by the sink, whose name Kelly hadn't learned yet. "He joined up right out of high school and did his year over there, and he doesn't want anybody else to have to go through the horrors he saw. And for that, the squares hate him. Even his father kicked him out. So he lives here now."

"You'll meet him at dinner," said Meg. "But I wouldn't bring up what happened to you last night around him. That stuff can really set him off."

"He's not the only one," grumbled the one woman who had not greeted Kelly when she came in. She was seated at the table, kneading dough from the look of it, and Kelly looked down at her for the first time. While the other four had long hair just like Kelly's, their taciturn friend's hair was cropped closer than a crewcut and her scalp showed signs of barely-healed cuts. A bruise was visible on her temple as well. Jimmy's handiwork, Kelly wondered?

"I'm sorry, Muffin," Meg said. "You don't need to hear about all this yet again." To Kelly, she said, "Let me show you around the downstairs while we have a few minutes." Before Kelly could say a word, she had taken her hand and guided her back out into the living room. 

"Muffin?" Kelly asked as soon as the kitchen door had swung shut behind them.

"That's the name she gave us when we took her in," Meg said. "What's in a name your parents gave you anyway?" She pointed Kelly to the least-dirty couch in the room and both women sat down. "Now, about Muffin, I am sorry but we shouldn't have talked about what happened to you in front of her."

"Did Jimmy do that to her?" Kelly demanded.

"No!" Meg snapped – Kelly could see she had touched a raw nerve, but Meg did not elaborate. Instead, once she had calmed down, she explained, "Muffin is what you could have been if you hadn't been so close by here when you got in trouble with the squares. She and her man were hitchhiking up in the mountains and they got a little out of their patch. They wandered into some town that had nothing but squares, and the sheriff there took one look at his long hair and beard and her hairy legs and he flipped out. He and a couple of his pig buddies dragged them into jail, didn't even bother with pretending they'd done anything wrong. They tore off her clothes and shaved off all her hair, on her head and her legs, and did God-knows-what else to her – she won't talk about it much except to say they humiliated her, and then the next morning the sheriff dressed her in a man's t-shirt and jeans and drove her to the town line and ordered her out of the car. She ended up on the beach here a couple of days later and Jimmy took her in. We don't know what happened to her man."

"Wow...I wish Doug were down here to hear that," Kelly said. 

"Why would you want that?"

"He has this thing about idealizing the sixties, all peace and love."

"Well, it is about peace and love. And freedom and equality too. That's what we're all about here," Meg protested. 

"Is that why the guys can order us to make their dinner?" Kelly demanded. 

"Don't hassle me about that!" Meg said angrily. "Jimmy takes good care of us all, and we've got to do our part while he's doing his part to fight against the war and the man. If you don't like it, you can go back out and take your chances on the man treating you like Muffin!" She got up and stormed back to the kitchen, and held the door open. "If you want to eat tonight, Kelly, I suggest you help us."

Upstairs, Doug was sitting through a lengthy treatise on freedom and morality from Jimmy. "You want to stay here, man, you've got to have some respect," Jimmy said while his wife could be overheard yelling at Kelly downstairs. "Your lady should know her place and you ought to know yours. Your job is to help us with the war against the war, you got that. You don't do your part, you're out of here."

"And I wouldn't suggest going to Bob's again," Mikey piped up. "Our friend Eddie could tell you about that place."

"Eddie?" Doug asked. "Not little Eddie from the drive-in?"

Jimmy grabbed Doug by his collar. "Don't you ever bring up the drive-in when he's around, you got that?! His old man threw him out in the street because Eddie hated what was wrong. That drive in – we burned it down last year, by the way, but they could never prove it was us – that place is everything that's wrong with this right-wing Nixon-loving town, and Eddie's history there is all about his Ozzie-and-Harriet past. We don't talk about that here. The past is dead, period."

"You get your hands off me," Doug said evenly. After standing up to Sarge, nothing much scared him now.

"What if I don't want to?" Jimmy taunted. "My house, my rules."

"Maybe that's your problem," Doug said. "Now get your hands off me."

"When I'm good and ready." 

They were still engaged in their standoff when the door opened and a young man in an old Army jacket stepped in. Doug looked up. Older and much more world-weary, but it was unmistakably the same face. Little Eddie.

"Speak of the devil," grumbled Jimmy, and with a final flair he shoved Doug back onto the bed as he let him go. "Eddie, this is our new brother...what's your name again?"

Rather than answering Jimmy directly, Doug stood up and shook Eddie's hand. "Hi, I'm Doug."

"Welcome, Doug," said Eddie. After an awkward pause, he added, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"Yeah," Doug said. "A long time ago, and you probably don't want to talk about it."

"Man, I told you not to bring that up!" Jimmy said. 

"And I didn't bring it up," Doug teased. 

"Sure you did, man. I don't want no more of that!"

"Jimmy, knock it off!" Eddie said. "If I have a problem with Doug I'll take care of it myself."

"What can you take care of without me?" Jimmy said. "If we hadn't taken you in you'd be just another drunken babykiller vet in the street."

Eddie had Jimmy pinned to the wall in no time, hand at his throat, while Jimmy gasped for breath. Mikey and Doug both jumped up and tried to pull Eddie off him, but they were no match. "Man, he's not the trouble you'd get in!" Mikey reminded Eddie when it became clear they couldn't pull him away.

"You're right, he ain't." Eddie backed off and Jimmy sank to the floor, sucking in his breath at last. 

"If it were anybody but you, man, you'd be out in the street right now," Jimmy whined. "We need vets in the movement, that's the only reason you've got a place to sleep tonight."

"Dinner!" Meg called from downstairs.

"Fuck you, Jimmy, and let's go eat," Eddie said. 

The kitchen table was set, and the women were lined up behind it as the men filed in while the food waited on the counter. Jimmy, Mikey and Eddie sat down and looked expectantly at the women. Doug, the last of the men to come in, stood uncertainly in the doorway as he realized what was to happen next. He looked at the women, all of whom looked back as if expecting him to sit down and be served first along with the others – all except Kelly, who was glaring at him. 

His friend's look sealed it for him, and the consequence be damned. "Let me help you serve," he said, and he joined the women at the counter.

"Doug, sit down!" Meg said with a nervous grin, but none of the other women protested. Instead they looked impressed with him; even Kelly looked begrudgingly appreciative. 

"Do you not know your place at all, man?" Jimmy snapped. "Are you even a man at all?"

Doug forced a smile at Jimmy. "Potatoes?" he offered. 

"Sit down or we don't eat!" Jimmy ordered, banging his fist against the table. 

Meg, standing between Kelly and Doug, had had enough. "Jimmy," she said. "Our guest wants to help, and you can show a bit of appreciation for a change or maybe you won't get to eat!"

"Amen," said Aurora. "Jimmy, grow up, the man just wants to be a gentleman."

"Where's the rest of your gentlemanly manners?" mumbled Muffin, who had stood silently off to the side up to that moment. 

"You," Jimmy said to her, standing up. "Only you can get away with that, 'cause of what the man did to you. You're damaged goods and you need your time to heal. I get that. But one of these days you're gonna be over your bad trip and then I ain't gonna stand for that. You got that?!" He grabbed up a hunk of bread off the counter, and turned to Doug. "I will deal with you later!" The others were all silent as they watched him bang the kitchen door nearly off its hinges and then listened to him stomp off upstairs. 

None of the other men volunteered to help serve dinner, but neither did they object as Doug helped transfer the food to the table. Kelly and Muffin sat down without helping, while the other women assisted Doug.

With Jimmy out of the way, dinner was pleasant and lively. Meg regaled them with tales of San Francisco and the road trips from coast to coast, though details of just what had gone wrong remained elusive. All the others knew not to ask, so Doug and Kelly followed their lead. Eddie tried a few times to guess where he and Doug had crossed paths before, but that night a decade before at the drive-in never came to his mind and Doug knew better than to bring it up himself. Luckily, Aurora steered the conversation into safer waters. "So where did the two of you come from?" she asked. 

"Iowa," Doug answered off the top of his head. "Our family farms were just a few miles apart and we grew up together. Real square place."

"Ain't it the truth," Kelly added. "Church every Sunday and honor your father and mother and all that garbage. We both knew we had to get out of there all the way back in high school."

"Just like me," Meg said wistfully. "Only you did get out."

"You did too, didn't you?" Kelly asked, though she was worried about stepping on toes again.

"For a while, yeah," Meg said. "God, I loved California so much. And there was talk of going to India, Morocco, so many great places. But it wasn't to be."

Doug managed to keep his mouth shut, but for Kelly the temptation was too great. "It's none of our business what happened, but you know you could always go back," she said as gently as she could. 

"No I can't," Meg said with some finality. Kelly took the hint and said no more, and in the awkward silence that followed, no one else could think of anything to say either. Finally, after an uncomfortably long silence, Meg spoke up. "I mean..." she said tentatively. "Oh, hell, we're all sisters and brothers here and there ought to be no secrets." She looked at the door and then the ceiling for signs that Jimmy might return. "I don't want him knowing I told anybody anything," she said, looking around the table.

"No one wants to cross him, Meg," Eddie said. "Trust me."

"Okay," Meg said, and she took a deep breath. "You'll all see why I've never talked about it before. We were out there, staying in a place like this only even more raw and close to the land, and they were really ahead of the curve with their love and openness, and Jimmy is who he is. He was always hiding his wedding ring when some new girl washed up on our couch, and convincing them that they'd be handing victory to the military industrial complex if they didn't sleep with him, and –" She paused as Mikey burst out laughing, and a stern look from her silenced him. "Mike, you know Jimmy. You know how he can pull off a line like that with the right kind of girl. Remember Star, from last spring?"

"Yeah, I remember her," Mikey said in a repentant tone. "She just disappeared that weekend in June, too."

"And now you know why she disappeared," Meg said. "Anyway. Jimmy was having his way with any girl he wanted, even though we were already married, and he didn't even care if I knew. Just the way of the world, you know, and guys are like that and blah blah blah. Well, one day a clean cut guy showed up, fresh out of college and trying to figure out how to stay out of Vietnam. Roger was his name. A real boy-next-door type, and of course Jimmy didn't trust him. Said nobody got turned away on his watch, but he'd better not turn out to be the square he looked like, or something like that."




Decades Ch. 03



"And was he a square after all?" Aurora asked.

"Depends on what you mean by square," Meg said. "He was a bit like you, Doug, a real gentleman. All the girls in the place loved him for that, he was the only one who would go get his own beer instead of telling us to do it, that kind of thing. And of course that just made Jimmy hate him – hate him! Well, I'd had about enough of Jimmy's messing around by then, and one day...one really rainy day, when most of the others were downtown and up to heaven-knew-what, Roger and I ended up alone in the kitchen and we got to talking. We talked all afternoon, and drank a lot and smoked up a little – not enough for Jimmy to notice I'd dipped into his stash, but enough for me to feel it – and the conversation moved from the kitchen to the living room. And then to our bedroom. Jimmy wasn't in it for once, and..." Meg's voice trailed away as she began to sound weepy.

"Sorry, Meg," Eddie said. "Want to change the subject?"

"I'm not done," Meg said in a gentle but persistent tone. "And I'm not sorry either, not for anything I did with Roger. At least he knew I was married, none of Jimmy's girls ever did. He also knew what Jimmy was up to behind my back, so there was no hesitating for either of us. And God, he was...Jimmy's the only other man I've ever been with, and what Roger could teach him! Most beautiful afternoon of my life. And we had our clothes on and the bed made long before he got back."

"But then Roger ratted to his friends, I'll bet," Aurora said. "Men always do."

"No!" Meg said. "He didn't! He really was the perfect gentleman. No, I'm the one who spilled the beans. That bastard Jimmy figured out for himself that I was late that month, I don't know how but he did, and he confronted me about it. He knew it wasn't his fault because he hadn't bothered with me all summer, if you can believe that! I tried to lie about it, but he's known me since we were kids, he knows when I'm lying. I didn't...I wouldn't tell him who it was at first, but he got so worked up I was sure he was going to hit me, I mean he had me pinned to the bed and everything, and all I could think of was what if I am pregnant, what's he going to do to the baby? If I were smart, I would've named some guy who'd already come and gone, but I didn't think of that until too late."

"So you told him about Roger," Kelly said.

Meg nodded and sniffled. "I've been telling myself ever since then, he probably would've figured it out anyway. He knew how all us girls loved Roger. But I'll never know for sure. Then as soon as he'd gotten it out of me, he's off down the hall to round up a couple of his buddies – his minions – and they coax Roger out of the house. They came back a few hours later without Roger and Jimmy tells me we've got to pack up and leave tonight."

Meg paused for a sip of beer, and waited for someone to ask her just what they had done to Roger. When no one dared ask, she continued. "I demanded to know what had happened, but Jimmy smacked me on the mouth and told me he'd hit me harder if I asked again. So we hit the road, with his two buddies in the backseat, and drove nonstop to Denver, all night and all day the next day, and we dropped his friends off there. Never heard from either of them again. Next day, somewhere in Nebraska, he tells me how they told Roger they wanted to show him a great secluded spot by the bay they'd found where we could all go skinnydipping, and as soon as it was dark they held him underwater and drowned him." Meg dissolved into tears, but continued talking through them. "He also said now that I knew I could never tell, or I'd be in trouble too for not reporting them when I could have stopped them. 'You knew I was in a rage over him, and you gave me his name,' is what he said. That's why I don't dare go back there, who knows if they've figured out who killed Roger?"

"I'm so sorry," Doug said, the many fleeting images of his beloved gift shop friend now racing through his mind.

"I'm sorry too," Kelly added. 

"And I wasn't even pregnant, as it turned out," Meg added, having now regained some composure. "I was just late. Could have happened anytime."

"And we're all sleeping in his house?" Muffin spoke up. "Does anybody feel safe now?"

Aurora turned to Kelly. "You know, you especially might want to find someplace else to crash now. Jimmy has certain rituals with new girls in the house."

Doug stood up. "I agree. What do you say we all get the heck out of here?" He still longed for a chance to put some things right like he had done with Irene, but it wasn't worth sleeping under a murderer's roof or letting Kelly sleep in his bed. 

To his shock – and everyone else's – Kelly did not agree. "Actually," she said, "I have an idea." She looked nervous, but defiantly non-frightened. 

"Kelly," Meg said, "I don't want to get you into any trouble with Jimmy. I'm stuck with him, but you don't have to be."

"Neither do you!" Kelly insisted. "That's part of my idea."

Doug nodded approvingly at his friend – this, after all, was why they had come back – but the others had looks of disbelief or fright or both. "Are you going to tell us your idea?" Eddie finally asked. 

"I will if you men wash the dishes," Kelly proclaimed. "Meanwhile, I'd like all the women to join me in the living room, provided Jimmy won't hear us from there."

"He won't, as long as you keep your voice down," Aurora said, standing up. 

"You've been in his room to learn that, have you?" Meg asked.

"Meg, I'm sorry –"

"Relax, Aurora, I know all about who and what my husband is." Meg stood up and followed Kelly and Aurora into the living room; the other two women followed silently behind. Without another word, Doug got up and began clearing the dishes. Eddie followed suit a minute or so later, and finally Mikey also got up to do his part. 

After a few minutes of cleaning up in silence, Eddie spoke up. "Is your girl always that crazy? I mean it in a good way," he added hastily.

Doug took a moment to think of the right response. "She comes from a background where women don't let men push them around like Jimmy does," he finally explained. "And she cares a lot about injustice."

"Jimmy will tell you he does too," Mikey warned. 

"Fuck that!" Eddie snapped, throwing the dishrag hard into the sink in frustration. "Sorry," he added a moment later after composing himself. "Listen, Mike," he said, staring into the soapy water. "I was standing outside your room before. I heard Jimmy yelling at Doug here and when I realized they were talking about me, I didn't want to walk in on any bad scene. So I stayed out in the hall."

"Aw, no," Mikey said. "You heard what he said about the drive-in. Man, I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Eddie said. "Right."

"You didn't know what they did?" Doug asked.

"I knew the place burned down, sure," Eddie said. "But I didn't know Jimmy did it. I never would have allowed that, and Jimmy knew it. I mean, my dad may be a fascist and an asshole who disowned me, but he's still my dad. Besides, that drive-in was a local legend, a piece of my childhood. When you've been to war, you cling to those innocent memories, and I had tons of them from that place. Used to work there when I was a kid, and all the girls doted on me. You should've seen the nice ruffly dresses they used to wear, and when they used to hug me..." Eddie placed both his fists on the rim of the sink and stifled a sob. 

"Eddie was a legend at that place," Mikey explained to Doug. "This one time when he was only about twelve, he started a riot there!"

"I didn't start a riot!" Eddie protested. "Some scumbag there hit a girl, and all the older boys were afraid of him. I figured he wouldn't hit a kid, so I lunged at him. Turns out I was wrong, he did hit me, but then the older kids had my back and they knocked him down. But it wasn't a riot!"

"I heard the cops came," Mikey insisted.

"They did. But it wasn't a riot!" Turning to Doug, he asked, "You ever notice how people think they know everything about incidents like that when they weren't there?"

"Hm? Yeah," Doug said. "Yeah, I have seen that." He'd been deathly afraid that Eddie would put two and two together and realize where he'd seen Doug before, but it apparently didn't register with Eddie. "That drive-in sounds like it must've been a wonderful place all right," Doug added. 

"Never was the same after all the crazy stuff that's happened the past few years," Eddie admitted. "Nothing was that innocent anymore. But it still didn't deserve what Jimmy did to it."

"So I take it you're in on Kelly's idea?" Doug asked warily.

"I want to hear what the hell it is first," Eddie said. "But if it involves taking that bastard down a few notches, sure I'm in."

"Me too," Mikey volunteered. 

When the men were done cleaning up, they filed into the living room to see the women sitting in a tight circle before Kelly holding court on the couch. "Thanks, guys," Aurora piped up.

"Do they say that to you when you clean up?" Kelly asked. 

"No."

"Imagine my surprise. Anyway, ladies, are you game for the plan?"

"I sure am," Meg said, giving Doug a welcoming grin as he took his seat beside Kelly. 

"Thought you might like that part," Kelly teased.

"What part?" Doug asked. 

"I'll tell you as soon as all the women are on board," Kelly said. Muffin and the quiet fourth one, whose name had finally emerged was Ruth, both nodded. Aurora was the last holdout. Kelly looked expectantly at her.

"It sounds awfully dangerous," Aurora said. 

"Not with the guys right there," Kelly said. "Besides, you don't have to be in his room."

"With us right where?" Eddie demanded. "Look, I'm up for anything that will get that bastard in his place, but what the hell is the plan?"

"Kelly says –" Aurora began.

Kelly cut her off. "Not another word until you say yes!" 

Muffin prodded Aurora. "For us," she said. "For all of us."

"For Roger, Aurora," Meg pleaded. 

Aurora thought in silence, all eyes on her. Finally she said, "If I can join Doug and Meg."

"I don't know..." Kelly said. "The whole point is to make Jimmy jealous."

"I think she's right," Meg said. "The more of us, the more jealous."

"Join Meg and me for what?" Doug asked. 

"Okay, fine!" Kelly said to Aurora, though she didn't look happy about it. "Now are you in?"

Aurora's face broke into a naughty grin. "Yes."

"You just want a little fun before we disappear, don't you?" Kelly teased.

"Disappear?" Mikey asked. 

"So what if I do?" Aurora asked, smiling shyly with a gaze out the window. 

"Well..." Kelly began.

"Kelly, she said yes!" Doug reminded her. "Now you've got to tell us the plan!" 

Kelly took a deep breath, and finally spilled the beans for the men. She had anticipated some objections from Eddie and Mikey, but they proved to be more than happy with their role. Ruth had the crucial yet simple job of driving the getaway car (which, deliciously, belonged to Jimmy; but Kelly had the keys at the ready). Kelly saved the dirtiest work for herself, while Muffin would be able to watch from an almost-safe distance with the guys out of sight but close by. Doug had the gentlemanly decency to pretend he had reservations about the part Kelly had him set to play; but she could tell from the way he looked at Meg and Aurora that he would be perfectly happy to make the sacrifice she asked. 

"So when do we begin?" Eddie asked once the explanation was done. "I'm ready to do my part right this minute!"

"Something else is eating you about him, isn't it?" Kelly asked.

"Sure is," Eddie said, remembering that the women hadn't heard his tirade about the drive-in. He did not elaborate, except to add, "I can't wait."

Meg stood up and retrieved her car keys from the folds of an armchair by the kitchen door. "Here you are, Ruth," she said. "Just make sure you have the car running once everyone else is upstairs."

"You're sure Jimmy will be expecting me?" Kelly asked Meg.

"Not exactly expecting you," Meg said. "But if you don't volunteer, he'll be out soon enough to try to coax you in there. So he won't argue the point if you do show up on your own. Especially if you bring Muffin along."

"That pig is after Muffin too. Really?" Kelly still couldn't quite believe it.

"By now you ought to see what kind of a guy he really is," Eddie said. "Yeah, he's been tossing out hints that she can't hide away from him forever. For days now."

Ruth volunteered to run outside and make sure Jimmy's car would start, and Eddie and Mikey went upstairs to await their cue in Mikey's room. Doug and Kelly regarded one another uncomfortably as they stood up – no use in putting off the inevitable.

"You sure you're okay with this?" Doug asked.

"A few nasty minutes and we get that jerk off everyone's back forever," Kelly reminded him. "Yeah, I'm okay with it."

"Well, that too, but I meant –"

"Doug," Kelly interrupted. "What did we say back before the jukebox?"

"The jukebox?" Meg asked. 

"Inside joke," Kelly said. "Sorry. Are you three ready?"

Doug looked at Meg and Aurora, who were also looking back and forth between him and one another, and they all burst into embarrassed laughter. 

"That's what I thought," Kelly said. "Get upstairs! Go!" That left only herself and Muffin. "Are you sure you want to be in the room?" she asked Muffin. "I'm fine with you waiting out in the car if you'd be more comfortable with that."

"I've got to stop being afraid sometime," Muffin said. "And after what he did to Meg..."

"That's what's giving me the stomach for it too," Kelly said. Holding her hand out to help Muffin stand up, she added, "Let's get upstairs!"

At the top of the stairs, Muffin pointed Kelly down the hall to Jimmy's door. "The bastard took the master bedroom for himself, of course," she explained to Kelly as they tiptoed to the closed door at the end of the hall. 

"You haven't been in there, is that right?" Kelly asked.

"I've been in to clean it while he was out organizing," Muffin said. "It was one more way to keep him out of my pants."

Kelly was too nervous to be outraged yet again on Muffin's behalf, as she swallowed hard and knocked on Jimmy's door. 

"Kelly?" came a voice from inside.

"Yes. And Muffin."

"Muffin?!" A quiet moment, and then Jimmy opened the door. Seeing Muffin was indeed there, he said, "Kelly, you're a better catch than I thought."

"How did you know it was me?" Kelly couldn't help asking.

"I figured the other girls would've told you what was what by now. So. Ready to do your part to stick it to the military industrial complex?"

"You're not serious about that stuff, are you, Jimmy?" Kelly asked as he stepped aside and ushered them both into the room, which was just as shabbily decorated as the rest of the house. 

"Free love is what the squares hate the most, Kelly. When we do it, we're showing them just what we think of them sending all our boys over there to die. When you fuck me, you're saying 'fuck you' to the man. Don't you want to do that?" He looked at Muffin. "And you too?"

"Just how did you stay out of Vietnam anyway?" Kelly asked as she began undressing – no sense in being demure with the pig, she just wanted to get her part out of the way. 

"Went to my physical wearing Meg's underwear. The soldier took one look at me and told me to get the hell out." 

Kelly was grateful she had her top pulled halfway over her head at that point, so Jimmy couldn't see the look of disgust on her face. Once she had it off, she forced a smile as he ogled her breasts, and awaited his hateful touch upon them. It didn't come right away, though, as he tore his gaze away long enough to look at Muffin and demand, "Why aren't you getting naked as well? Got to happen one of these days, and you are here after all."

"Let her take her time, Jimmy," Kelly said. To deflect his attention from Muffin, she gathered up her skirt and gave him an unimpeded look below. "Now, are you going to keep a lady waiting?"

"Take the skirt all the way off, too," he ordered, and at last he set about undressing as well. Soon he had his shirt unbuttoned. As he took it off, he glared at Muffin, who looked to Kelly for moral support. Seeing Kelly had followed his order and was now naked, Muffin took a deep breath and followed suit. A deal was a deal. As she undressed, Muffin looked beyond Jimmy and out the window, feeling more dead inside than she had felt since the altercation with the police that horrible day. 

If Jimmy sensed the hate and resentment both women were feeling as they stood naked before him, he showed no sign of it. Neither did his erection, which stood at full force as he collapsed back on his bed and awaited their favors. "Have at, girls," he purred. "I trust you know what to do."

Muffin, grateful that Kelly had volunteered for the worst of it, climbed onto the bed and began rubbing Jimmy's chest lightly. Kelly noticed the poor thing closed her eyes, perhaps imagining it was her lost boyfriend rather than Jimmy. Not a bad idea given what she now had to do, she admitted, so she tried to imagine Jimmy was another man as well. As she sauntered teasingly to the bed, though, she found herself running into a mental block as to whom to picture instead. Doug? That didn't feel right. And yet there was no other man who came to mind...but there was no time to lose worrying about that. 

Jimmy was enjoying Muffin's caresses, and he returned the favor by reaching up to tweak her breasts. He pinched her nipple too hard, Kelly could tell from the way Muffin flinched; but she kept to the script and went on rubbing his upper body. 

"Going to work your way down a bit there, Muffin?" Jimmy asked finally.

"Why, that's my job, isn't it?" Kelly said, finally climbing onto the bed. Muffin looked like she was going to be sick. Kelly strained to listen for Doug and the other women next door, but she heard nothing yet. Bowing to the inevitable, she leaned down over Jimmy and gave his cock a tentative lick. 

She hesitated for a moment, waiting for an appreciative groan, but there was none. Instead he raised his head to look down at her, and said, "Why'd you stop? Keep going!" And so she did, taking him further into her mouth this time, rubbing his head against the roof of her mouth, never licking too hard or too fast as she did not want him to come anytime soon. 

Aurora's room, spare but equipped with a king-sized mattress, was next to Jimmy's. "He'll hear everything," Aurora whispered as she shut the door behind herself, Meg and Doug. "I promise."

"So, as soon as we can hear him fooling around with Kelly, we make all the noise we want," Meg said. 

"If you want, we can just pretend," Doug offered. "I don't want to push anything on you, you know." He stepped over to the window to look out at his beloved beach across the road.

"Very funny!" Meg replied. "Free love is what it's all about anyway, Doug, and we haven't had a gentleman like you in the house since..."

"Since Roger?" Doug asked, still not turning around.

"At least," Meg said. "Really, don't hold back for my sake, Doug. I want to."

"Me too!" Aurora said, and to prove it she joined Doug at the window and slipped her arm around his back. "Why shouldn't we all have some fun like he can have?"

"Well said!" Doug admitted. He turned around to see Meg already in her underwear. "Wow!" he said, barely remembering to keep his voice down – they did not want Jimmy to hear them just yet. "You don't waste any time."

"And neither should you," Aurora told him. Matter-of-factly she set about unbuttoning his shirt. Doug was no longer inclined to complain, all the less so when Meg sauntered over – now fully nude – and followed suit with his jeans. Any lingering reservations Doug had were overcome now as he admired the woman he would know decades later in her young and uninhibited state. Her tragic tale and Jimmy's abuse notwithstanding, Meg was lovely and open and showing every sign of eagerness for a bit of fun. 




Decades Ch. 03



Soon the two women had Doug as joyfully nude as Meg, and they each took turns stroking his hard cock. Doug let out one yelp of pleasure before remembering he needed to stay quiet, and the trio all burst into quiet giggles as he barely regained control. "You two going to help me off with my clothes now?" asked Aurora, holding her arms up.

Doug and Meg lost no time in gathering up her dress and pulling it over her head. Aurora wasn't wearing a bra; Doug eagerly slid her panties down and ran his fingers gently through her pubic hair. "Always loved the way this felt," he cooed. He was beginning to believe the best thing about time travel was visiting an era when women weren't always bald down below.

"Feels good from where I stand too," Aurora said, wiggling with pleasure as Doug worked his way down a bit further and brushed her clit gently. 

Doug looked back and forth between Aurora and Meg. "Are you to going to...you know..."

The two women looked at one another with wry smiles. "Men always want to see that, don't they?" Aurora asked. 

"So let's show him," Meg replied. 

Delighted, Doug, withdrew his finger from Aurora's vagina and stood back to watch them embrace tenderly, their breasts touching just as supply as their lips did. He lost no time in taking his hard cock in his right hand as the fantasy he had imagined hundreds of times unfolded before him for the first time. It was nearly dark outside now, and the lamp on Aurora's dresser cast the only light in the room. From behind them, it cast a wonderful glow. 

Meg and Aurora kissed for no more than a minute or so, though time seemed to stand still for Doug. Inevitably, one of them – it happened to be Aurora – opened her eyes to see Doug stroking himself. She managed to remember not to laugh loudly, but did gesture to Meg to have a look. Both women laughed silently and then attacked Doug with hands all over his body and kisses all over his face. One of them – Doug couldn't see which – took his erection firmly in her hand and guided him to the bed. It turned out to be Meg, as Doug realized when he raised his head from the pillow and looked down to see the woman who would one day sell his candy bars and cheap Christmas presents, now taking him in her mouth. 

Any inappropriateness he felt was soon overwhelmed by the magic of Meg's tongue, as she proved to be very good at what she was up to. In no time he was gasping for breath and grabbing at the sheets, fighting a losing battle to avoid making noise – he remained silent, but it was a wonderfully frustrating feat. Remembering Aurora, he reached over to find her sitting alongside him and stroking his belly. He pulled at her hand and guided her closer so he could reach her breasts easily, and was soon working her into a lather with both hands. 

"Meg!" he whispered huskily as he felt himself getting close. "If you don't want it in your mouth...ohhhhhhhhhh."

Meg didn't appear to mind, although she did stand up and grab up a towel off the floor as soon as Doug was done coming. While Meg was off in a corner spitting into the towel, Doug was able to turn his attention to Aurora. Now free to sit up, he prodded her gently onto her back, and then followed Meg's lead. Doug had never gone down on a woman before, but he figured fair was fair. He found the taste was much more pleasant than he had imagined it, and the ecstatic wiggling of Aurora's legs as he teased her was better still. 

From behind came a gentle slap on his shoulders. "Don't forget about me!" It was Meg, and she took her place expectantly on the mattress alongside Aurora. Coming up for air, Doug got a wonderful idea. He straightened up and positioned himself in between the two women. Slowly and gently, he placed his left hand in Aurora's bush and his right in Meg's, and was rewarded with a stifled disbelieving laugh from each of them as he curled both middle fingers and slid them inside. 

Meg looked at Aurora beside her on the mattress. "He's not going to..."

"I think he is!" Aurora replied. 

A moment later, she found herself proven right. Doug eased his way into Aurora on the left and Meg on the right, and with the same rhythm he rubbed them both in tandem. He was rewarded with gasps and giggles and plenty of writhing as his caresses worked them both into a tizzy. They each looked adoringly at him and back at each other as the air grew thicker with their eager moans. There was little doubt that Jimmy could hear them by now, but there was no sign of him. Kelly must be playing her part well, Doug thought. He only hoped he could give them both an orgasm in time: it would be cruel to have to stop and grab up their clothes to run when the time came. 

Next door, Kelly was still teasing Jimmy while Muffin had moved on to rubbing his shoulders – perched behind him where he couldn't see her – when at last Kelly heard Aurora and Meg. They both sounded passionate and happy, and Kelly felt more than a bit of jealousy as she wondered what Doug might be doing to them. But there would be time for her turn later. Jimmy had still made barely a whimper, and had said little but to encourage Kelly to suck harder now and then. So a particularly shrill moan from one or the other of the women next door caught his attention. "Is that Meg?!" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows. 

"What do you care?" Muffin asked. "You've got us, haven't you?"

"But Meg's my wife. Who's she fooling around with? Not that Doug jerk? That namby pamby square?! What the fuck?"

Kelly slipped him out of her mouth. "Never mind Meg, honey," she cooed. "That's what I'm here for."

"But..." Jimmy began. Before he could finish, Kelly went to town on him harder than before and finally got a rise out of him. "Yessss!" he said. "Oh yeah! Keep at that!" Kelly could only hope he'd been loud enough for the other guys to hear him; she listened for the door to open. When it didn't, she went at him even harder, flicking her tongue about as she sucked. That got what she wanted: a louder yelp from Jimmy. She looked up just long enough to see if his eyes were closed, and they were. Perfect. 

Doug had Meg and Aurora both moaning loudly in shameless pleasure, and his own arousal was through the roof as he enjoyed the warm wetness of them both at one delightful time. Given how well they were both playing their part, he knew it couldn't be much longer before something would happen with Jimmy. If he wanted to give each of them an orgasm, the time was now. 

"Ready for the grand finale?" he teased.

"God, yes!" said Aurora.

"Better believe it!" agreed Meg. 

Doug sped up his inner rubbing, and also began probing around with his thumbs on the outside. He'd never been any better at finding the magic button than most men were, but now it occurred to him that some practice would be nice before he and Kelly got together. Surely they would, he now thought, trying not to think of what she was up to with Jimmy at that very moment. In any event, Meg's intensified reaction soon made it clear that he had found her clit, for she let out a joyful roar and thrust her hips up off the mattress. Doug slowed down his rubbing, the way he preferred for himself at that moment, but Meg screeched "Don't stop!" And so he didn't. 

Aurora was proving more of a challenge, probably because Doug wasn't nearly as dexterous with his left hand. When Meg had finally come down from her cloud, she rolled over and helped out by kissing and rubbing Aurora's breasts. "Come on, you can do it too," she purred. 

"Oh, guys..." Aurora moaned. "Faster please!" Doug did as he was told, and also flitted his wet right fingers up and down her belly and sides while Meg was still busy with her breasts. His titillation now tempered by fear that Jimmy could burst in at any time, Doug rubbed harder than ever with his thumb on the outside. At last he hit paydirt, as Aurora let out an uninhibited scream that would surely be heard loud and clear next door.

Indeed, it was heard next door. Jimmy's eyes flew open and he sat up. "What the fuck is my wife up to without me?!"

"Are you sure that was Meg, honey?" Kelly asked, still stroking his erection. 

"It sounded like Aurora to me," Muffin said from her perch above Jimmy's shoulders. 

"You bitches think I don't know my own wife, do you?" Jimmy demanded. "Come on, I want to see what's going on in there. 

He started to get up from the bed, but Muffin pulled him back down. "Jimmy, we're not done pleasuring you yet, are we, Kelly?"

"Sure doesn't look like it from where I sit," Kelly teased, tickling Jimmy's still-rigid cock. "Jimmy, why don't you at least let me finish you off and then you can deal with Meg?"

"Hurry it up then!" Jimmy whined.

Doug and the ladies had gone silent next door; Kelly figured they'd had the time to get their clothes back on by now. She could only hope Eddie and Mike were at the ready in the hall. A few more gentle sucks and licks, and she once again had Jimmy right where she wanted him. Looking up momentarily, she could see Muffin rubbing his shoulders passionately while he was mumbling appreciatively at both sensations. Perfect. 

One last long, deep envelopment that had Jimmy moaning louder and happier than ever, and Kelly slowly released him bit by bit, until the tip was just inside her mouth. Then, gripping at his legs to keep him as immobile as possible, she bit down as hard as she could. 

"AAACCCCKKKK! You bitch, what the fuck was that?!" Jimmy lunged at her, but Muffin threw her arms around him from behind and wrestled him back onto the mattress. He managed to land a couple of kicks on Kelly's back, but she avoided the worst of his blows as she slid off the mattress and retreated to the corner to grab up her clothes. "You fucking cunt, I'm gonna hurt you twice as bad!" Jimmy bellowed, still trying to shake Muffin off his back. Though he managed to hit and scratch her arms, she held on and he was unable to get up off the bed. 

Right on cue, Eddie and Mikey burst into the room. Muffin finally let go and slid off to the side of the bed to make way for them. Neither one taking any notice of Kelly and Muffin still being naked, they set about their part of the job. 

Jimmy had the wrong idea. "Get them, guys! You see what Kelly just did to me?"

"I see what you did to my dad's drive-in, asshole," Eddie growled, grabbing at Jimmy by his armpits and pulling him up to eye-level. 

"And what you did to Meg's friend in California," Mike added. "Peace and love my ass." With that he socked Jimmy in the gut while Eddie pinned his arms so he couldn't hit back. 

"Had it with you, man!" Eddie added before taking his turn. 

The violence showed no sign of letting up by the time Kelly and Muffin were able to pull their clothes back on. They retreated into the hallway to find Meg, Aurora and Doug looking on at the fight from a safe distance. Meg stood squarely in the center of the doorway; it had been agreed that everyone wanted Jimmy to get one last look at her while the guys were beating him to a pulp. "Feel the love, Jimmy!" she teased. 

And then there was no time to lose. Aurora led the rush down the stairs. Ruth had cleverly left the front door ajar to save a few precious seconds, and Doug and the women burst out into the late summer drizzle while the noises from the fight upstairs were still echoing down. Outside, Doug and Kelly saw several pairs of headlights in the dark – most of them probably teenagers cruising the beach road – but seeing Meg, Muffin and Aurora run for one pair, they followed the lead. The headlights belonged to a Ford van like some ancient ones Doug could recall seeing around town as a kid, only now he remembered it wasn't ancient in this case. 

Ruth was waiting in the driver's seat. Seeing her friends barreling across the lawn, she reached back and opened the sliding door. In no time at all, they were all jumbled into the back seats. "Everybody in?" Ruth asked.

"All but the guys," Meg said.

"Thanks a lot!" Doug teased as Ruth gunned the van across the lawn toward the house. The sliding door was still open and the drizzle was blowing in their faces, but they were free.

"Doug, you're not a guy, you're a man," Kelly reassured him, and Doug's heart skipped a beat. 

Eddie and Mikey burst out of the house just as Ruth got the van alongside the front door, and triumphantly they jumped into the waiting backseat. Ruth was burning rubber for the street even before Mikey could get the door shut, but shut it he did. 

"Is he going to be down anytime soon?" Meg asked from the front seat, which she had purloined for herself in the scuffle. 

"Doubt it," Eddie said. "He was pretty groggy when we got done with him, and Mike tied his legs and arms."

"He'll be able to untie himself once he wakes up," Mikey offered. "But we've got plenty of time to get the hell out of here."

"It's about time we do, too," Meg said. "I would've never come back here in the first place if it wasn't for him."

"Want to head back to California?" asked Ruth, her eyes intent on the wet beach road.

"What do you all think?" Meg asked the others. 

"Anywhere but here," Eddie said. 

"Seconded," added Aurora. 

"Kelly? Doug? Are you in?" Meg asked. 

They looked at one another and shrugged, knowing they would likely be sent back home as soon as they fell asleep no matter where they went now. "Sure," Kelly said. "We'll ride with you now, anyway, and let's see where things lead."

Ruth turned west on Route 4 once they were out of town – Doug guessed the expressway he knew probably wasn't there yet – and they drove deep into the night, outrunning the rain before long. There was talk of what Jimmy might do next. "Head for Canada maybe," Meg suggested. "At least we know he won't go back to San Francisco."

"And what will you do next, Meg?" Kelly asked. 

"Always wanted to sail around the world, working my way along," Meg said. "Teaching English, working on communes or some such...Doug would never hear anything of it, he said we had a war to fight right here. But I'm done fighting!"

"Good for you, Meg," Doug said.

They drove until nearly midnight, when the rain was long gone and the consensus was they had gone far enough for Jimmy to have no idea where they were, before thoughts turned to stopping for the night. Kelly and Doug were a bit melancholy at that, for they knew it would be time for them to say goodbye to their new friends, but there was no fighting the inevitable. Ruth spotted a sign for a campground, and announced that she was done. "Definitely time to stop," she said, "and we don't want to be in the van in case Jimmy called the cops. Okay with you all?"

Among the chorus of "yes'", Doug and Kelly looked silently at one another and realized they had been holding hands for some time, with neither of them having taken direct notice. Doug loosened his grasp in case Kelly wanted to let go, but she didn't. 

A supply of blankets under the far backseat proved to be enough to go around, and the friends left the car parked just off the road and followed the noise and glow from a campfire into the woods. A dozen or so other campers there bade them welcome, and Meg, Eddie and Mikey opted to join them around the fire while the others preferred to bed down right away. 

"You want to stay up a while yet?" Kelly whispered to Doug.

"No point," Doug said. "Our job is done and I hate long goodbyes."

"Me too," Kelly agreed, and they followed Aurora, Ruth and Muffin to an unclaimed corner of the meadow. 

As each of the other women had her own blanket and her own space on the ground, Doug set about looking for a plot of his own. But Kelly had other ideas. "Don't even think you're going to sleep alone tonight, dear," she teased him, unfurling her blanket on the ground. "Let's use yours as a cover, okay?"

Doug's face broke into a shy grin, and without further ado he kicked his shoes off and lay down in Kelly's waiting embrace. The din from the distant chatting around the fire was the last thing they were aware of before both drifted off to sleep. 

A knock at the door awakened them both to the morning light streaming in the windows of the red room. "Doug? Kelly?"

They looked at one another and sat bolt upright, still dressed in yesterday's clothes, just in time for Aunt Doro to open the door. She held a tray of coffee and bread in one hand, which she set on the bedside table. "Good morning," she said cheerfully, a knowing twinkle in her eye. "I have a committee meeting to run off to, and I didn't want either of you to go hungry."

"Th...thanks, Aunt Doro," Kelly said. 

"Anytime, dear. Will you be joining us for dinner tonight?"

"We hadn't talked about it," Doug said. "We'll see."

"Lovely," Aunt Doro said. "Just let me know if I should expect you both." And she vanished down the hall.

"See?" Doug asked as soon as the coast was clear. "She's perfectly fine with you spending the night."

"She doesn't think we...does she?" Kelly was still feeling unsettled. 

"Why would she?" Doug asked. "We're fully clothed, aren't we?"

"Good point." Kelly got up and poured herself some coffee. "Speaking of which, do we need to talk about what either of us did back there?"

"Only if you want to," Doug reassured her. "What a filthy job you had to do...but obviously you nailed it. I'm really proud of you."

"Well, it was my idea," Kelly mused. "Only fair that I do the worst of it. Sounds like you had a great time next door, though."

"Well...yeah, I did," Doug admitted. "In spite of all the nastiness back there, it was a lot of fun."

"For Meg and Aurora too, it sounded like!" Kelly grinned through her envy. 

Doug set his cup down and took Kelly's hand in both of his. He set about to say something diplomatic or romantic or both, but the words wouldn't come. "Uh-oh, here's where I say something tender to you and you push back on me."

"I won't do that again!" Kelly snapped, withdrawing her hand. "Didn't I tell you I would stop that?! And I invited you to snuggle with me last night, didn't I?"

"Felt beautiful," Doug admitted. "I'm sorry."

"Does this mean you don't want us to get together?"

"I do," Doug said. "I just don't know if the time is right yet."

"Fair enough," Kelly conceded. "Just promise me, whatever you did to Meg the other night, when the time is right you can do that to me too."

They shared a laugh, and then it was time to head for the resort. 

"I guess it goes without saying Jimmy won't be our boss anymore," Doug said.

"Heavens I hope not!" Kelly said. "Imagine how nasty he is now, wherever he is."

"God, you're right, he still might have never left Pascatawa," Doug said. 

Their fears were alleviated when they arrived in the dining room for duty, and found a middle-aged woman who looked vaguely familiar addressing the other waitstaff. Though neither recognized her right away, at least Jimmy Sanborn was nowhere to be seen. 

"Doug, Kelly, good morning," she said, turning to greet them with a smile. "You're just in time."

Doug's heart leapt. With his first good look at her face, he now saw it was Aurora. "Good morning, Aurora," he stammered, tamping down his nerves as best he could.

"You okay, Doug?" she asked. "You know I always tell everyone to stay home if they're not feeling well. The last thing we want is sick guests, after all."

"No, I'm fine!" Doug reassured her. "Just tired, I guess. Had some bad dreams last night. But I'm fine."

"Oh, good," she said. She had aged quite well, though Doug suspected her dark hair was dyed, and her welcoming smile showed no sign of recognition of the young man who had finger-fucked her decades before. Once Doug realized that, he started feeling better. Aurora, meanwhile, turned to Kelly. "And how are you today?" 

"Great, thanks," Kelly said. "Glad to be back at work."




Decades Ch. 03



"There's something we don't hear often enough," Aurora said. "So, Doug, I'll bring the numbers by your office as soon as they're set?"

"Sure," Doug said. And he was off to read his e-mail and wonder about what had landed Aurora here.

He would spend the morning and early afternoon mooting ways to ask Aurora without arousing suspicion, but in the end it fell into his lap and Kelly's too. Kelly came by for a coffee break shortly after the lunch rush was over, and they were still chatting when Aurora appeared in the doorway. 

"Hi," Doug said. "Care to join us for a cup?"

"Don't mind if I do," Aurora said, pulling up a spare chair. "You and your coffee, Doug, always at the ready. Kelly, I don't know if Doug's told you, but when he was a little boy he couldn't even stand the smell of the stuff! What a change!"

"Wow, you've known Doug that long, have you?" Kelly asked innocently, sensing an opening. 

"It's a small town nine months out of the year," Aurora told her. "Besides, I was a teacher's aide for his grandmother and aunt for a while before I finished my degree, then I was a teacher at his high school. So I've known him all his life. Doug, you're probably too young to remember, but I even used to give lectures at the old school, the last few years before it closed down, about my trip around the world."

"Right," Doug said. "I am too young, but Aunt Doro has mentioned it a couple of times. Your big trip with...what was your friend's name?"

"Meg," Aurora said with a wistful grin. "Meg Sanborn. Kelly, I wish you could have met her. An amazing woman, back in the days when it was really hard to be a woman on your own. She escaped from an abusive husband and followed her dreams, and she's still off seeing the world. Married to a Swedish guy now, actually, and they live somewhere in Europe."

"I'm glad she escaped from the husband, then," Kelly said. "Mind if I ask what happened?"

"Oh, I don't want to depress you with that," Aurora said. "The guy was mixed up in all sorts of ugly stuff, and he was really manipulating her too. He had some ugly secrets and he convinced her they could get her in trouble too. But one night...actually just up the road from here, the Templeton condos? You know that place?"

Doug and Kelly both nodded. "Right. Back then it was a beat up old mansion and a bunch of us were living there. And it was the strangest thing, a hippie couple showed up out of nowhere and we took them in, and they...well, they got a very clever idea for how to fight back against that jerk. It was really a pretty dramatic escape. We did some stuff to him that I'm not very proud of, but the important thing was we got Meg out of there, and she and I and a few others drove off to California. And from there, the world."

"Did that couple join you too? The ones who helped you out?" Doug asked.

"No, they disappeared early on. We never saw them again. Happened all the time back in those days, actually. People really were just living out of one another's back pockets, and when the fancy struck them, off they went. I still miss it sometimes, to tell you the truth."

"But you came home, obviously," Kelly said.

"The time was right," Aurora explained. "Traveling all over the world isn't right for everyone. But it sure was right for Meg."

"I wonder what happened to her husband," Doug said. 

"Oh, that's the best part!" Aurora said. "He had actually gotten away with a murder out in California, if you can believe that. But years later, I heard someone had tipped off the cops. Could've been anyone who'd been living in our house, actually, because we all had reasons to hate him, but I don't know which one it was. I lost touch with all of them but Meg as soon as we got to San Francisco. In any case, he ended up in prison. I think he's out now, but I don't know where he is and I don't care."

"No kidding," Doug said. "Just like Aunt Doro always tells me, the sixties weren't all peace and love."

"They sure weren't," Aurora said, polishing off her coffee. As she stood to leave, she added, "You're both old enough to know by now, every era has its good and bad. There were some good times back then, but I wouldn't go back!"

"I don't think I would either," Kelly agreed. "How about you, Doug?"

"Me neither," Doug said. "The more I learn about the past, the luckier I feel to be living when I am."