Storiesonline.net ------- Future Girl by Lubrican Copyright© 2012 by Lubrican ------- Description: What do you do when a woman shows up on your doorstep and tells you something that's completely impossible to believe? Like that she met your great great grandfather one time. You invite her in, of course. Codes: MF het ScFi oral ------- ------- Foreword This is a "Peaches" story. Those of you who follow my writing know what that means. I wrote it for her, for her birthday and she said I could share it with my other readers. ------- Chapter 1 Truth is stranger than fiction. Everybody says so. But some truth seems like it is fiction. So what do you do then? You know what I'm talking about. It's happened to you ... maybe many times. You find yourself in that situation where you're thinking "What the heck is going on here? Can this be real? Is this really happening?" Of course, usually, those are short term situations. You're sliding across the ice toward that semi, anticipating the crunch of metal while you stomp uselessly on the brake pedal. Or maybe you're being robbed, and are looking down the barrel of a gun. Or you're delivering a package and this babe opens the door naked, and pulls you inside demanding to be sexually satisfied. No ... wait ... that's just in a story I read. That's real fiction. Sorry. But you get the drift. Not that I think everybody's been in a crash, or robbed, but something has happened where you've wondered if you were dreaming it or not. Well, you might be interested to find out that sometimes those things aren't just short term, quickie situations. I know, because I'm living one right now. And it's been going on for five years. Or six years. It kind of depends on who you talk to. But you didn't open this file to listen to me (watch me?) babble. You want to hear (see?) the story. So here it is. ------- I'm an author. You know that already. But I was an author eight months ago too, which is why I was sitting at my computer in my house on Elm Street in Brady, Oklahoma. It's a thoroughly ordinary computer in a thoroughly ordinary house in a completely normal town. It's not the kind of place you'd expect magic to take place, or aliens to visit. But that's sort of what happened. Again ... depending on who you talk to. Anyway, I was typing away on the Great American Novel when there was a knock at my door. That was unusual, because hardly anybody comes to visit me. I'm a kind of private fellow. But it isn't unheard of either, so I got up to answer it. It was a girl. Young woman, actually, though she had many girl-like qualities at first glance. I'll just tell you some of the things I noticed, because looking at this young woman sort of took your entire attention to do well, and hardly anybody does anything with their entire attention. This is to say that there is much more to her than I'm going to tell you about. This is just what I remember most vividly. She had smooth, almost perfect skin, which was pale and had a spray of freckles from one cheek across the nose to the other cheek. I know most people think of freckles as a "marring" feature, but in this case that's like saying the stars mar the night sky. That nose was a little crooked, like maybe it had been broken. Her eyes were what is commonly called hazel, but I remember blue and brown and gold and green - all distinct and separate - but all at the same time. Her hair was purple, a deep, rich blue-black shade that I normally associate with black cherry soda in a glass. It wasn't long, or short. It was just there, framing that face. She was slim, and that included her breasts. I don't understand all this bra cup size stuff, but I imagined my hands on them, as if they were the support for me while I was doing a pushup (and yes, I know how weird that is, ) and my hands covered them completely. What made them scream at me for attention was that her nipples were pressing through her T shirt, making it clear she wasn't wearing a bra of any size. I noticed the T shirt had a picture and some writing on it. The picture was of a scowling clown, who looked decidedly unfriendly. The writing said "Breasts are more fun than any clown." "I agree!" I said immediately. "What?" Her voice was one of the things that was girl-like. I must admit that, in the ten seconds that I had been in this young woman's presence, my male body had reacted to her female one. As soon as I heard that voice, though, I felt like a child molester. "I'm sorry," I said, both wondering what I was sorry for ... and knowing ... on some deeper level. "Can I help you?" "I think so," she said. She was staring at me as if I might have sprouted a third eye. "This is unbelievable." Her eyes widened, and I saw her pupils dilate. Having some experience with reading body language, my brain told me that was "interest" in me. Being an author with what I consider to be a firm and loyal following, one which I am very thankful for, I made the connection that this was a fan who had actually found me. That was ridiculous, of course. But I wanted to believe I had been tracked down by a fan, perhaps my very first groupie. I mean if bands can have them, why not authors? We like to party and have sex too, you know. In the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction department, it turns out she had tracked me down. And you could even say she was a fan, but that would be stretching the truth. At least at that point in time. And her interest in me had nothing to do with my books. At least at that point in time. "I can't believe you look so much like him," she said. Her voice had a wondering, sort of awe-filled tone to it. That's important, because it was the last time I ever heard her address me as if she was in awe. And that is because I'm a thoroughly normal, un-exciting kind of guy. "I'd be delighted to try to help you," I said. "But I need some clue as to what you want me to do," I said. It was truth-is-stranger-than-fiction time again, because she flowed toward me and hugged me. She was a very strong girl, for as light as she looked. And those semi-naked breasts felt hot against my chest too. I continued to react to her as a man. I made a conscious decision not to feel bad about it, even though there was a fifteen-year-old sounding voice inside the delightfully soft woman in my arms. "I like trying to help you," I said. "Please feel free to keep asking me to help you." I felt the most gentle, most unsuspecting, most innocent bump of her loins against mine. I describe it that way because it happened while she pushed herself away from me. It was kind of like she used her whole body to push back, rather than just her hands. I was reminded of a dolphin, which uses its entire body to do anything at all. In other words, it wasn't a sexual thing she did. But it was impossible for her to miss how my male body felt about her female one. "You're a dirty old man too!" she said, her voice suddenly huskier than a fifteen-year-old girl's voice had any business being. "I beg your pardon?" I said, playing innocent. I mean I didn't have a leg to stand on. Actually, come to think of it, I suddenly had three legs to stand on, if you get my meaning. But I wasn't going to admit that to a complete stranger, especially one who I wanted desperately to make a good impression on. Why was I desperate to make a good impression on her? That was part of - is part of - her special kind of magic. Her eyes assumed a very wise look for such a young face. "Never mind. It's not important at this point in time. I just needed to meet you and ... make a decision." "I see," I said, not seeing anything at all, but wanting to appear wise. "And, having met me, what is your decision?" "I haven't made it yet. I'm Tuesday, by the way." "Tuesday," I repeated. "Yes, like in Tuesday Weld?" "You're better looking than Tuesday Weld," I said. She gave me another one of those interesting looks, which is to say she looked interested ... in me! It was kind of like getting poked with a cattle prod. And I know, because that's happened to me. Then she kind of ruined it. "I like some of your writing, but not most." "Be still, my beating heart," I said, rather underwhelmed by this "fan" who was so un-effusive. Thoughts of other people who probably didn't like my writing at all entered my mind. What if they found me too? Those were the kinds of people who bombed medical clinics in the name of peace and love. "How did you find me?" I asked. "I'm very clever," she said. "While I don't doubt that," I responded, "that is of little help in determining whether I need to move, or hire a body guard or whatever." "You don't need a bodyguard because of me!" she said, sounding injured. "I believe you," I said. "But your answer was evasive, if not a little proud. See the problem is that if you, who don't like most of my writing, can find me, so too can those people who don't like all of my writing, and might wish to do me harm." "If you're at all like him, I pity those who wish to do you harm," she said, looking around. She appeared to be distracted. "Who is this 'he' you keep speaking of?" I asked. "I can't tell you that right now," she said, evasively. "You wouldn't believe me, and I'm beginning to think I want you to believe me." "I believe that," I said. She turned those gorgeous eyes on me and frowned just enough that I knew she was frowning. "You're not as clever as you think you are. I'm onto you, old man." "How could you possibly be onto me? We just met!" While I had no idea what was going on, here, I was having a pretty good time being involved in it. She was just a pure joy to look at and listen to. "You wouldn't believe that either," she said. "Do you have a spare bedroom?" "Yes," I said. "But it's not for rent." "I don't want to rent it. I just want to stay in it for a night or two ... just until I make up my mind." "Let me guess," I said. "If I ask you what you're going to make your mind up about, you won't tell me." "That's correct," she said. "I will, however, begin to share some things with you if I think it's a good idea." "Well I guess that beats taking a vacation in the Poconos," I said. "What's wrong with the Poconos?" she asked. "I haven't the faintest," I said. "Never been there. It's just spelled funny." "You're so much like him!" she fairly exploded. "At least tell me who 'he' is," I begged. She crossed her arms under those small breasts, with such large nipples. "Do you promise to keep an open mind?" "Of course," I said. "I believe an open mind is one of the most important things to have. You can't put anything into or take anything out of a closed mind. Anyone with a closed mind is just taking up space for no good reason." "All right then," she said. "You're so much like your great-great-grandfather that it's almost creepy!" ------- "My great-great-grandfather," I said. Somewhat patiently, in my own humble opinion. I had asked for a little help, and she was teasing me. "Yes. His name is ... was ... Jonathan Paul Rutledge." "I know that!" I said, a little crossly. "Well, I know his name was John Rutledge." "No, not John," she said. "That drove him crazy when people tried to shorten his name. He preferred Jonathan." "Ahhh," I said, finally understanding. "You found his diary, or journal, or whatever, and you want to sell it to me." She blinked several times. It's the only time I've ever seen her look even vaguely startled. "No," she said, with exaggerated patience. "I've never had to explain something like this before. And I'm still not sure about you. I have pretty good feelings about you, but I need you to be patient with me a little longer. I think it would be to your advantage ... depending on what I decide to do ... to just roll with things, at least for tonight. And if that works out well, I promise I'll answer all your questions tomorrow." "And you want to stay with me tonight," I said. "I want to stay in your spare bedroom tonight," she said, clarifying things that I hadn't even alluded to. She was a very smart girl. Still is, for that matter. "Okay," I said. "Deal." "Just like that?" She seemed about to smile. "Well you showed up out of the blue, apparently ready to ask to stay the night. So if you trust me that much, why can't I trust you too?" "Oh, I don't trust you," she said firmly. "I just think I can handle you." "Even better," I said. "I was so hoping you'd want to handle me." I smiled widely and stood back, sweeping my arm to invite her deeper into my lair. ------- She didn't go out to the car to bring in a suitcase or anything, so I still wasn't sure if this was just some random fan yanking my chain, or if this woman actually had some kind of business she wanted to do with me. She said she didn't, but then nothing she'd done or said thus far had made a lot of sense. So I just went with the flow. Like I said, she was a delight to look at, pretty in an offbeat, Bohemian kind of way. She had several piercings in her ears, and the hair on the sides of her head was Army short, with a shock of longer dark purple that grew from the top to fall and cover one side. Her lips looked delicious. And listening to her talk was a little like ... I don't know ... maybe being in the wave pool at a water park? I mean it relaxed me and excited me, all at the same time. "Want something to eat or drink?" I asked. "Not now," she said. "Maybe later." "Please. Sit down. Tell me about yourself." And damned if she didn't. She told me where she was from and where she had grown up. She talked about her brother and sister, and her parents. There was a lot there, but it isn't germane to this story, and I kind of want to think she shared private things with me anyway, so I'm going to keep them private. Suffice it to say that she was quite open with me, for a stranger, talking to someone she knew to be an author, who might be tempted to use any or all of that information in a book. But then she told me about myself. She knew where I was from, and where I had grown up. She knew I had a brother and sister too, though she admitted she didn't know their names. She knew my parents were deceased, and that I was divorced, and had grown children. She didn't know their names either. It was an odd mix of intimate and casual knowledge. Some of it I expect she gleaned from my books. Most authors put bits and pieces of themselves into their narratives, whether it be in a character's personality, or the places things happen or whatever. And a clever reader (remember she said she was clever) could glean a lot from between the lines of the body of work of an author. Especially an author of erotica, such as myself. This is not to say I had ever been hunted down by a cute, adoring female fan before. I wish. And, come to think of it, she was a little short on the adoring part. But she had some purpose for being here, and had asked me to be patient until she wished to divulge it. And I had nothing better to do anyway ... right? So we talked. It was really kind of nice, because while I was pretty sure she wanted something, I didn't know what it was, so I wasn't worried about whether I could or could not provide it. I didn't think it was a story. Lots of people want me to write stories about them, or for them. They come up with their own favorite fantasy, such as taking a bath in ketchup or something, and then ask me to write that story. But I try to write things that appeal to more than one person, so I usually turn those ideas down. But she hadn't asked for a story, and I didn't think she would. So I just enjoyed eating her up with my eyes. She knew I was doing it. I could tell. I stripped her just as naked as the day she was born, and then imagined walking around her, looking at every inch of her beautiful body. I fantasized that she shaved down there ... and that she didn't. I went through a couple of scenarios involving hair that matched her head hair, or contrasted with it. I imagined tattoos. She had one on her inner wrist of the Rolling Stones tongue, and one of what I suspected was a fairy in a ball of flames on one upper arm. The rest of her was covered, though. I've always wanted to meet a woman who had the tattoo of a dragon's head on her belly, with a long, split tongue reaching down to tickle her labia. I had fun imagining that one on this woman. She seemed to take it in stride, but eventually she threw me another one of those curve balls. "Your great-great-grandfather looked at..." She paused, and her lips were ready to form the word "me." I swear that's what it looked like. But then her lips changed and that 'm' became a 'w' as she said "women the same way you're looking at me." "I can't wait to find out how you know that," I said. "Maybe it's time," she said. "What makes you think so?" I asked. "First you want me to tell you things, and now you want me to delay?" She arched one, perfect eyebrow. "No!" I said. "I just want to know why it's suddenly time." She looked at me for fifteen seconds. Then she said "I think I like you." She didn't sound at all sure about that, but hey, a mangy old dog like me will take just about any bone, you know? "Okay, I'm all ears," I said. But instead of giving me information, she wanted more. "Do you have any of your great-great-grandfather's knives?" ------- I didn't know all that much about my great-great-grandfather "John," who I now knew (?) preferred the full name Jonathan. But I did know he was one of the premier knife makers of his day. My father had received some of his knives from his father, who of course was Jonathan's son, and when he passed them on to me he made me promise I'd never sell them, and that I'd keep them in the family. That turned out to be a big promise, because it turned out that Great-great-grandpa Jonathan's knives were worth a lot of money. I'm talking tens of thousands of dollars here, at least for some of them. And I was given two of them. It suddenly became clear why Tuesday was being so friendly. She wanted my ancestral knives! "They're not for sale," I said, as flatly as I could without being impolite. "Good," she said. I was suddenly confused. "Beg pardon?" "He'd be happy that they're not for sale. He made his knives for individuals, to be used, not as things to be traded as if they meant nothing." "You keep talking about him like you knew him," I said, finally exasperated enough to push things a bit. She ignored me. "May I see your knives please?" "Are you a collector?" I asked. She shook her head and purple hair flew. I wanted to touch it. "No," she said. "Just trust me a little longer. You'll understand everything in a short while." She blinked several times. "Well, you'll know everything. The understanding part may come later." She yawned, of all things. How on earth could anyone be sleepy while this was going on? Whatever "this" was. When she took her hand down, she said "Please, I'd really like to see them." I got up and went to my bedroom, where my weapons safe is. I admit I looked to see if she'd followed me before I spun the dial on the combination. Once open I got the boxes the two knives were in, I closed and locked the safe, and then took the boxes out to the living room. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, her eyes bright, when I walked back in. There was no trace of languor about her now. I sat down with the boxes on my knees. She leaned forward even more and a very strange look came over her face. "The top one. May I see it now, please?" I started to open it but she held up a hand. "No!" She seemed to be flushed. "Hand me the box, please." I did, and watched as she examined it, turning it over and over. "I can't believe this!" she whispered. "What?" I might have said it a little loudly. "This is amazing!" she said, clearly excited now. She finally opened the box, stared at the lid - not the knife - and then seemed almost to faint, leaning back against the back of the chair and going almost limp. The presentation box that my priceless knife was in balanced on her knees for a second, and then slid slowly toward her lap as I got up to grab it. Her hands came forward and caught the box. "What's wrong?" I asked. She looked even paler than usual. "I'm fine. I'm a little freaked out, but I'm fine." "I have to tell you I'm losing my patience, here," I growled. "I know. You've been much better than I could have hoped. That's one reason I'm excited about this now." She sat back up, again on the edge of her seat. This time she looked at the knife. She picked it up as if she knew how to handle a knife, and examined it. "Kennesaw boot dagger," she said. "Black walnut handle, six inch double edged blade." She examined both edges. "Hasn't been used much, for as old as it is." "I guess none of my ancestors had to stab all that many people," I said. I admit I was a little sarcastic about it. "How did the tip get bent?" she asked. "I threw it at a board when I was a kid," I said. She looked at me like I'd kicked a kitten. "When my dad found out, I got the worst beating of my life," I added. "Good!" she said firmly. Then, as if my punishment was complete, she closed the box and set it aside. "The other one now." This one was treated differently. When I handed that one to her, she paid no attention to the box at all. She just opened it and lifted out the Bowie type knife inside. It was beautiful, with a polished bone handle, with bits of lapis lazuli and turquoise inset into the handle. The cross guard was brass. The clip point was undamaged. Not even I had been stupid enough to try to throw this knife, when I found it hidden in my parent's closet. This one had been carried, though, and showed signs of wear. "Wow," she said, seeming to weigh the knife in her hand. Again, she appeared to be familiar with knives and how to handle them. For such a large, heavy knife, she handled it with apparent ease. "Fourteen ounce, Missouri style handle. It's dull as hell, but you could shave with this if it was properly sharpened." "Okay. I give. How do you know so much about my great-great-grandfather's knives?" I asked. "Hold that thought," she said. She put the Bowie back in the box, closed it and handed it to me. Then she jumped up and ran to my front door. For the first time I noticed she was wearing Converse Allstars. They were hightops and looked like they had cartoons on them. She left the front door open when she ran out. Curious, I got up and looked. She was rooting around in the back of her car. She came out with a cloth bag wrapped around a box that was suspiciously sized like the ones we had just been looking at. She ran back to my front door with it, but by then I was again seated, acting like I hadn't been spying on her. She was clearly excited now, flushed and almost wiggling like a puppy. She sat and pulled a presentation box from the cloth bag. Almost reverently she handed it to me. "Look at the box," she said. She got up and reached for my box, the one the Kennesaw was in, and held it beside hers. They looked remarkably alike. Remarkably. Mine had marks and the scars of years of being moved here and there on it, but otherwise they looked like twins. "Open it," she said, her voice just slightly higher than a whisper. As I opened her box, she opened mine. There was a Kennesaw boot dagger in her box too. And it was the virtual twin of mine. Same wood. Same design. Same sheen of carbon steel. Except that hers was mint. There wasn't a scratch on it anywhere. It looked like it had never been out of the box. "This is priceless," I said, reverently. "It's not for sale!" she said, her voice firm. "Good," I sighed. I wanted to grin. "Where did you get this?" She sat down across from me, my knife on her knees. "That's the part that's going to be a little weird," she said. "But stay with me. This is incredibly important." "Okay," I said. "Tell me where you got this knife." She hesitated just for a second. Then, after taking a deep breath, she said "Jonathan gave it to me." ------- "Jonathan," I repeated dully. My dream woman had just suggested she was psycho. "Look at both boxes," she said, calmly. "Look inside the top, on the left side." I did, but I already knew what she was talking about. There was a small brass disk inset into the wood there, with initials inscribed on it, a stylized kind of writing that I'd always thought was a J and an R, which I assumed stood for John Rutledge. His knives were so special that they came with a presentation box. At least that's how most of them had been delivered. That was one of the things that affected value. The knives themselves were worth a lot, but if you had the original presentation box, that almost doubled the value. A lot of people had tried to counterfeit those boxes, but they were made with a special kind of hand-carved dovetail joints that were nearly impossible to fake. That's because there was no glue involved. All his boxes were held together by friction alone. And the other thing was that that little disk wasn't in every single box. It was in some, but not in others. Nobody knew why. That also made a difference in the worth of the set. Boxes that had that disk were worth more than the ones without. "Do you know what that stands for?" she asked, pointing at the little brass oval. "John ... Jonathan Rutledge?" I said. "No. That's not a J. It's a T." She looked at me. "It stands for Tuesday Randolph. I made that box." Her eyes stared straight into mine. She licked those delicious looking lips. "In fact ... I made both of these boxes." ------- Chapter 2 I know what you're thinking. There I was, talking to a girl who had a twenty-five year old body, and a fifteen year old voice, who had just suggested that she was over a hundred years old. You're thinking this girl was a couple of bricks shy of a load ... a joker or two short of a full deck ... that the lights were on, but nobody was home. I know that, because that's what I was thinking. I decided I should humor her. Who knew when these wacko types might go up in flames? "That's nice," I said. "You do good work." She slapped me on the shoulder - hard! "Look at them!" she ordered me. "Look at the two of them side by side, seam by seam." I humored her by examining the workmanship on the boxes. And then I noticed something. They were the same! And I'm not talking about being the same color, or the same design. I mean both pieces of wood on the tops had been split from the same log! The patterns were almost identical in that way that fine furniture, all made from one log is the same. I looked closely at the joints. They were identically made too, and not in a mechanical way. What I mean is I knew mine was hand-made, with no power tools. Hers was too. All the dimensions and techniques used were exactly the same. The authenticity of those joints was unmistakable. My box was more beat up than hers, but they were obviously made by the same person. And her box was obviously brand new! Now I looked at her knife. That was a little harder. Boot daggers look like boot daggers. But the color of the wood was the same, though mine had that patina of age on it that darkened the wood a bit, what with the skin oils that had soaked into it over the generations. But the metal parts were identical! And the rivets that held the handle on were also identically patterned, having little dents in the brass rivets where a tiny ball peen hammer or something had been used to spread them in their holes. It was clear to me that both these knives had been made by the same person too! Except here, the differences were much more stark. My knife had scratches and dings, and had been sharpened with a stone that was too coarse. I hadn't really noticed all that before. And the reason I noticed it now was that her knife was flawless. There were no dents. No scratches. The edge of the blade was razor sharp, but you couldn't see any striations on it from whatever had sharpened it at all. Her knife was obviously brand new. And by brand new ... I mean made within the last month or so. And yet ... I would have bet my last dollar it was a genuine Jonathan Rutledge knife. I looked at her box again. It was brand new too. That's when I freaked out. I would have babbled, except I couldn't think of a single thing to say. I had all kinds of evidence right in front of me, but it was telling me impossible things. She let me wig out for a while, and then touched my face. "Let me tell you what happened," she said. "Then you'll understand why I'm here." ------- We stayed up all night. During that time I took her out to find something to eat. She has an odd diet, meaning it's not traditionally carnivorous, but what she was telling me was so fascinating that I didn't care if she wanted to eat raw milk straight from the cow's teat. But I won't repeat the whole thing. I'll synopsize it, because as fascinating as it all is, she didn't have the technical background to understand what was happening, and it would probably frustrate you as much as it frustrated me. So here's the deal. She was riding her bike, like she does every chance she gets, when the world went all wavy around her and she crashed into the dirt road. That was the first problem, because she hadn't been riding on a dirt road. She'd been riding on a sidewalk. Not only that, but the houses and street and all that were gone as well. She was in the country. There were two men standing there, dressed "retro" as she called it. One of them was a man named Wyndham Foster, who was responsible for her being there. The other was Jonathan Rutledge ... my great-great grandfather. Foster lived with Jonathan, as a boarder. My great-great grandmother had already passed on due to consumption, which we know now as tuberculosis. Mr. Foster, as it turned out, was a self-styled scientist, and in 1915, he developed first a theory, and then a contraption that, when hooked into a source of electrical power - in this case an automotive battery - was supposed to create an impenetrable field of energy. His thought processes were that this process could be generated around a vehicle, making it into a transport for troops that would be invulnerable to known devices of war. Wyndham Foster wanted to make a better tank. But when he tested it on a vehicle out in the countryside, with his landlord there as a witness, what he created was a time warp that sucked Tuesday back into 1915, and left the vehicle sitting on a sidewalk in Perry, Oklahoma. You could check that out yourself. I know for a fact that it was local legend in Perry, about how this old truck just appeared on the sidewalk one day. The stories about how that had happened got wilder and wilder. That old truck got famous for a while, but the mayor decided it was all a scam, and he had the vehicle melted down for scrap so that tourists would stop coming ... and laughing ... at the town. I knew about all that when Tuesday first showed up at my door. Of course her story could have been just another wild story about how that truck got there, except there was actually some empirical evidence that she was telling the truth. I'm telling you, the joints in those presentation boxes couldn't be faked! Anyway, there she was, back in 1915. When that was understood, she naturally freaked out a bit. Who would blame her, right? The two men were even more freaked out, not only by the fact that his truck had turned into a bicycle, but that it came with such an unconventional looking woman to boot. She looked then very much like she looks now. And her clothing was completely foreign. It was the bicycle that established beyond doubt what had happened. There was no bike like that anywhere in the world in 1915. Some of the metals in it hadn't even been invented yet. So both Foster and my grandfather (all those great-greats just clutter things up, so I'm calling him grandfather from now on, okay?) knew that she was from the future, and that time travel had taken place. They had no idea how that had happened. They just knew it had. Of course Tuesday wanted to go home. She had a seven-year-old little boy to take care of, one who needed her and might be looking for her at that very moment. And if they had brought her there ... they could send her back ... right? Well, there was a little complication, it seemed. The whole gizmo Foster had built, which had done something it wasn't supposed to do at all, was now a pile of smoking, molten wreckage. And when she found out she wasn't going anywhere ... well Tuesday can be difficult when she's unhappy. But life goes on, as they say. Grandfather had rooms, so she moved into one of them while she supervised Mr. Foster's replication of his machine. I say "supervised" there, but in all honesty, while her scientific knowledge vastly outpaced theirs in many ways, he still understood his theories and his now defunct machine much better than she did. I was trying to be nice instead of saying she nagged him into building another time machine. But basically, that's what she did. On the other hand, her head really was stuffed full of things that neither man was aware of yet. Wyndham was a smart guy, never mind the fact that his invincibility machine turned out to shift things in time instead. And he was smart enough to understand that all these fascinating things this strange woman from the future was telling him had no place in rebuilding his machine. Not if he wanted it to work the same way it had already worked. Once she was safely back where she belonged (hope! hope! hope!) then he could incorporate his new knowledge into things. Of course Tuesday thought she could help make things better. I'm not banging on her. She's just a very headstrong woman. But I'm very thankful to Wyndham Foster that he was strong enough to resist her. My grandfather, however, was not. Able to resist her, I mean. Tuesday has this mystical ability to ensnare a man in multiple ways. A man can just sit and watch her ... look at her ... for hours and be completely happy. If he gets to listen to her at the same time, he'll probably get an erection. She's smart, sassy, fun to be around, a good conversationalist and good looking to boot. She has no problem telling you what she thinks, even if what she thinks is, that you are an idiot. In short, she wasn't like any woman alive in 1915. She was much more interesting than most of them, not because she was a better human being, but because she was so much more liberated. She had the advantages they were denied, back then. Anyway, suffice it to say that my grandfather was smitten. He had always compared other women to his wife, but this one was impossible to do that with. So this one he evaluated differently. This part of the story is a bit mushy, because she wasn't aware of what was happening between them either. From her viewpoint she had to stay there, so she did. She had to make sure Wyndham built another machine, so she could go back home, so she did. She had to contribute towards her upkeep too, so in the wild spirit that probably let her survive the whole thing in the first place, she became my grandfather's student. Not in making knives (though she eventually helped in that too, ) but by learning how to make the presentation boxes that the knives went into. She earned her keep by becoming a cabinetmaker. It took Wyndham a year to rebuild the machine. She worked with my grandfather every day, all day, for that year. And they fell in love. She tells me it was only two months before she got up one night and went to his room. He was snoring, and she got into bed with him. She slept naked, and that's how she got into his bed. That first night, he didn't wake up when she got into bed with him. And I guess there was some excitement the next morning when he arose and found a deliciously naked woman in bed with him. He basically told her that kind of thing wasn't appropriate. She basically told him she was tired of being lonely and sleeping that way. He basically told her she was being a lewd woman. She decided to see if he was a passable kisser. He resisted for all of ten more minutes, being slowly worn down by her lips, and hands, and body pressing against him, very much like a wind up toy that is running down, until he ran out of energy to fight her off. They both discovered his erection at that point. Apparently he hadn't had one in quite some time, and his moral resistance was replaced with delight. Some time later (she keeps claiming it was hours, but I doubt that very much) he was begging her for mercy. Thus began their upgraded relationship, in which he kept demanding she marry him, and she kept reminding him she was going back to the future someday. He said he could live with that, but not if their amorous activities got her with child. That concept seemed to excite him, she said. Possibly because, when he was excited about something, he was an extra good lover (so she says) she neglected to tell him she had an IUD implant that was going to make sure she left the same way she got there, which was un-pregnant. He probably would have thought an IUD was something from the devil anyway. But the thought that she was fertile kept him excited, which meant she had a really good time in bed. And when you've been hijacked into the past, the least you deserve is a really good time in bed. So most of a year passed and she became an expert woodworker, with antique tools. Apparently she was good enough that my grandfather said he was going to keep one of her boxes to pass down to his descendants. He had a son who was in the Army, and who he hoped would come home someday and take over the family business. He never did, by the way, but at least he kept the knives his father gave him, and passed them down, including the box Tuesday made. Many times, Tuesday has lain her head on my shoulder and mournfully said how much she misses him. But the fact that she loved him did not alter the fact that she had a son who needed her, and that she still wanted to go back to her own time. And, eventually, Wyndham said he was ready. He had rebuilt everything exactly the same way. Everything was exactly like his original drawings, except that the polarity was reversed. It was all he could think of to try. Everyone agreed that the second test of the device had to take place at exactly the same place as the first test. So, on the appointed day, she kissed Jonathan, detected his erection and, as usual, called him a dirty old man. He grinned, and then cried. Wyndham ignored them, as he had ignored what was happening in the house the whole time. She was his friend, and that seemed enough for him. She sat on her bicycle, holding the box she had made, containing the knife Grandfather had made for her, and watched as Wyndham slammed home the lever that completed the circuit. She saw sparks, felt sick at her stomach, and woke up in a hospital. She was found lying next to her bicycle in the street, her antique clothing smoking, clutching a boxed knife wrapped in a gunny sack. She told everyone she remembered nothing. She's a strong woman. Have I mentioned that? Well just imagine waking up in a hospital, not knowing whether it worked or not. You could get some indication of the date by the level of technology around you, but no specific date. And while the hospital room looked 21st century normal, she'd have still been desperate to know the exact date, and what the status of her son was. Wyndham had arranged the test of his second machine to coincide exactly with the lunar date of the first one, and adjusted the time of the experiment to take into account the fact that there was a six hour difference between last year at two P.M. and this year at two P.M. In other words, he was trying to send her back - if that's what actually happened - at exactly the same time and date he had sucked her back in time. And, as truth is stranger than fiction, it had worked. She returned, as best she can estimate, about ten minutes after she left. She and her bike were a year older, and she had a box with a brand new, hundred-year-old knife in it, but she was back where she ... belonged. Except that the man she loved was now dead and buried, somewhere in Oklahoma. It only took her a week to remember that the man she loved ... had descendants. And that was when she decided to look for me. ------- Of course I had a hard time believing all this, as she told me the tale, lying on the bed beside me. Don't get the wrong impression. We were both clothed, and there was nothing romantic going on. We just found that if she told me a chapter, lying in bed that way, in the dark, that it was easier for her to tell, and easier for me to hear. She had a way with words. She could be a master storyteller if she wanted to. And it took a while for her to tell the whole story. That first night turned into three more. In the daytime, we didn't talk about the past. She was a web developer, and had work to do. She'd brought her laptop with her, and she sat and pecked for most of each day. I had my own work to do, and I sat and pecked for most of the day too. We ate separately, fixing whatever each of us felt like eating. But in the evening, if I turned on the television, she'd come take my hand, remind me that TV rots the brain, and pull me to my bed, which was bigger than hers. Then she'd tell me a story, describing what her life was like during the year she spent in Oklahoma in 1915. It was fascinating in ways that are difficult to explain. For example, one day Jonathan asked her if she was pregnant. She laughed (and didn't tell him why) and said she was not. He looked concerned, and then nervous, and acted odd until she made him tell her what was bothering him. He hemmed and hawwed and blushed and flushed, acting more like a little boy than a forty year old man, but eventually she got it out of him. He was baffled, because he was quite sure she hadn't had a menstrual period while she was there. But that wasn't the kind of thing a man discussed with a woman, particularly one he was not married to. She thought that was hilarious. There were a lot of stories about that kind of disconnect, when there was a cultural difference that caused problems. And yet ... she was a product of that culture! And I cannot begin to tell you how entertaining it was to lie there in the dark and listen to the stories that I now believed were absolutely true. It was like listening to J.K. Rowling in the dark, telling about the alternate universe she was sucked into one time, where she met a bunch of students at an academy of magic. It was so detailed, so full of color and emotion ... that it couldn't possibly be fiction. Nobody could make something like that up. It was too strange to be merely a story. It had to be ... true! Plus there were our knives ... in their boxes. I could (and did) stare at them for hours, imagining my grandfather at his forge, shaping the blade, sparks flying in the heat, and then seeing her in my mind, bent over a box, sanding it lovingly. But on the fourth day she said she had to go back home. She'd been away from her son too long. She'd told the people taking care of him that her "business trip" would last, at most, two or three days. "But you can't leave!" I whined. "You're so much like him." She smiled. "You make me want to..." She looked surprised, and then puzzled, before that slight frown came to her brow. She tilted her head, looking at me with those beautiful eyes. Then she sort of flowed forward and I was suddenly paralyzed and her lips were all over mine, and her tongue was in my mouth and it was me being sucked into an alternate existence. Except that wasn't the deal at all. All she did was kiss me. She's done it lots of times since then, and once in a while they come close to feeling like that again, but that time was really weird. Plus she says I wasn't paralyzed at all. She says I kissed her back. She says I was a good kisser. And she says my hands got all naughty. Just like my great-great grandfather. ------- I do remember the paralysis passing ... you know ... the one she says that wasn't there? And I remember opening my eyes to see hers in front of me, looking surprised again. "I have to go," she whispered. "But I'll be back." "You have to come back," I said. "I will," she said. "You have to," I said again. "I can't live without you." Her smile was brilliant. "You are so much like him!" she sighed. ------- It took her a month to come back. I was a wreck the whole time. She hadn't left me a phone number. I had no idea what her address was. But when she showed up, she was driving a U-haul, towing her car, and she had her son with her. And that was fine with me. That's what I mean about her. Everything about her was unconventional. She did things that most people don't do at all, or at least do differently. Like calling ahead and asking "You mind if I move in with you?" But when I saw her get out of that U-Haul I was the one who started wiggling like a puppy. I didn't pee like one, but I'm not taking credit for that. There is a higher power. Her son, Friday (If I'm lyin' I'm dyin') was much like her, except he was pretty much a normal boy in most ways. But he had her same intelligence, and the ability to adapt to odd situations. Say, for instance, moving in with a forty-six-year-old man he'd never seen in his life. He walked up the sidewalk with his pillow in his arms, and said "Hi. I'm Friday. My mom thinks you're special." "Glad to meet you, Friday," I said. "I hope we get to be friends." "Why would I want to be friends with an old guy?" he asked, completely serious. "Aren't there any kids in this neighborhood?" She didn't carry anything in. She came to me empty-handed to get a kiss. I wasn't paralyzed during that one. And my hands got naughty again. The really great part about it was that I remember every bit of that one. It was a really great kiss, by the way. A really great kiss. It was one of those dolphin kisses, where her whole body was involved in it. We came up for air to find her son standing there, examining us. So I offered them some refreshments, since they were coming off the road. Then I took Friday on a tour of the house. When I got to the smaller spare bedroom, the one full of boxes and 'junk' Friday asked "Is this going to be my room?" I was still a bit stunned by events, and just looked across the hall to the larger extra bedroom, which was actually set up as a bedroom. "There's another one over here," I said. "Which one is my mom sleeping in?" he asked. "I'm sleeping in Bob's room," she said, calmly. "Really?" He and I said it at exactly the same time, and in exactly the same voice. Since one of us was on each side of her, it must have sounded like stereo in her ears. "Uh huh," she said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. His adaptability revealed itself. "Okay, I'll take that one," he said, pointing at the actual bedroom. "It wont' take as much to get it ready, and I'm tired." He looked at me. "I can't sleep in the car. I don't know why." Then there was moving in, as I recall, with many trips to the U-Haul, and getting her car off the tow dolly. I noticed that for the last few trips, it was just her and me. I checked, and Friday was sprawled on his new bed, fast asleep. Tuesday showed up beside me and slid her arm through mine. "I want a shower, and then bed," she said. "I understand completely," I said. "Good," she said, pulling me from his doorway. "Let's go." ------- My wife was a conservative woman. In many ways, her view of things was still back in the middle nineteen hundreds. I have some dim memories of us taking showers together, but not many, and only in the very early stages of our marriage. We begat kids, but it was the old fashioned begetting kind of thing. So I wasn't used to a "modern" woman being around. She kept giggling, saying how much like 'him' I was, as she herded me into the bathroom and started baring my pasty white skin. When there's no woman in your life, it's pretty hard to stay committed to keeping in shape, so I was a bit baggy and saggy. That bothered me, because as her skin was exposed, it was all vibrant, and young and toned and smooth and delicious looking. Those nipples were black cherry red too. And there was no hair. I might have been a little embarrassed by my paunch, but I was proud as hell of that boner she was responsible for. But she was all business in the shower, her getting me clean and slapping at my hands as I tried to get her clean. She did it herself and very efficiently, if I may say so. I got to see more tattoos, though, so that was some compensation. But that was just because she wanted to get to bed with as little delay as possible, as it turned out. And yet, once there, she put on the brakes. She lay me down and then sat on my thighs, with my penis straining, a couple of inches from her naked folds. I was fascinated by them. I'd never been that close to an actual, naked pussy. "Look at me," she said. I looked up at her. "I am," I panted. "Look at my face," she amended. "Awww, come on," I whined. "Please," she said softly. I got serious, because she sounded serious. "I'm not like this," she said. That made no sense. She was obviously like this. It must have shown in my eyes. "I had a long term, normal boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with Friday's father," she said. "I don't sleep around." "Okay," I said. I could tell this was important to her. "But there's something about your family that makes me crazy," she sighed. "First it was Jonathan, and now you." "I approve," I said. "Of course you do," she snorted. "You're a man." "When my wife passed, I didn't go on dates. I didn't look for another woman. I jerked off when I needed to, which wasn't all that much." I looked her up and down, quickly, and my penis bobbed its approval. "I don't sleep around either." "I don't want you to think I'm cheap," she said. "I do not think you're cheap," I said firmly. Don't ask me why, but I had to tease her for some reason. Maybe I was beginning to adjust to the situation, which I anticipated was going to be a huge improvement over my previous life. "Easy, maybe ... but not cheap." She stared at me, but didn't rise to the bait. "I miss him so much," she said softly. "I loved him. And he loved me." "I can understand that," I said. "I have a feeling you're kind of easy to love." "And you're like him. That's why I'm here ... because I know you're the kind of man he is ... was. And I liked being around him ... being with him ... in many ways." She actually pinked up a little bit, which is pretty strange when you consider she was buck naked, sitting two inches from the erection that wanted to plunder her, and which she knew she was fully responsible for. I just waited for her to finish her thought. "But you're not him!" "That's true too," I admitted. "I feel like I've fallen in love with two brothers," she said softly. "Except one was a hundred years ago, and the other is now." "Do you want to slow down?" I asked. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, offering her that out. "I can clean out that other room." "No, you're not him, and I know this is very quick, but I also know I can feel what you're like, deep inside, and it feels enough like him that I know I'll want to be here. I wouldn't have come if I didn't feel that way. But I have to know the rest. I know what he was like ... in bed. I was happy with him. He made me feel special." "So, basically, you want to be naughty, but you don't want me to think you're a naughty girl." She nodded. That purple hair floated around her head and I felt a surge of emotion that was both shocking and familiar. It was at that specific moment that I realized there isn't just one special person for you in this world. You can fall genuinely in love with more than one woman. "I would be honored to be your test subject," I said. ------- She was hungry on an emotional level. She had been through so much. There was that year of upset, and wondering if she'd ever get back home. She had missed her child for that year. Then there was the turmoil of the return, and knowing that she couldn't tell anyone what happened, or she'd be separated from her child again when they threw her in the loony bin. And the sweet reunion with her son, who didn't even know she'd been gone. All that was juxtaposed with the longing for the man who she knew was now dead and buried. And I represented the possibility that she might be able to reclaim some small measure of what she had lost. But while she was hungry, I was starving. My loss had taken the love of my life from me. And I had believed there was no possible relief from that pain and suffering. Yes, it had lessened a bit, as the years went by, but I had always felt that I was made to help a woman understand how important she was, at least to me. And that's hard to do when there's no woman in your life. So while I had a very impressive erection when she finally decided we could be naughty together, I didn't use it in the normal way. That is to say I didn't try to coax some semen out of it. Instead, I viewed it as a brush, and her body as hair that needed ... deserved ... a hundred strokes. I gave her five orgasms. I was counting. And I'm convinced I could have gone on to give her more, except that she sat on top of me and cried and said "I'm so glad I decided to do this!" And that was like she threw a switch in me, or turned a lever in my plumbing or something, because without warning my balls were pumping and my prick was jetting. That was when I cried. My tears were ones of happiness too. ------- "You're definitely not him," she panted, lying on my chest. "Is that a good thing?" I panted back. "Ohhhhh yeah," she sighed. "But I thought you wanted me to be like him." "You're enough like him to make me happy," she replied. "But I really like the ways you're not like him too." "Such as?" I wanted to know where I bested my ancestor. "Never mind," she said. "You can't do that!" I complained. "I've been compared to him over and over. How can I compete with a ghost?" "You don't have to compete," she said. "Come one. My poor male psyche needs a stroke. Throw me a bone, here." "You'll just get a big head about it." She snuggled, which was interesting because we were sweaty, and I didn't mind her rubbing those hard breasts on me at all. "So? A man needs to have a big head sometimes. It's what motivates him not to fall down on the job, later." "Okay, but if you get all froggy on me I'm going to have to slap you down. Though I do think it's funny that you told me to throw you a bone," she said. "What?" "You're lots better at throwing the bone to a girl than he was." "Oh!" I said. "Well how about that?" I puffed out my chest. Since she was lying on it, she knew I did it. "Don't get too full of yourself," she said. "Remember, he was from a time where all lovemaking took place in the dark, with clothes on. You should have seen it the first time I got out of the bathtub and walked into the room stark naked. I thought he'd have a heart attack." "Don't you get too full of yourself," I said. "Any man would almost have a heart attack if you popped up in front of him naked." "Thank you," she said. "And how, exactly, is that supposed to remind me not to be too full of myself?" "Because it's a normal condition for all men to go goofy around you," I said. "I see," she said. "I'll try to remain humble." "And I will try to reward you, appropriately," I said. "Oh, is that what that was? A reward?" "It is if you ever want to have me do it again," I said. "I bow to your sage wisdom," she said firmly. "So that means I deserve another reward right now, right?" I was used to having an orgasm, courtesy of Mrs. Palm and her five daughters, after which my little friend wouldn't feel like raising his head again for a long time ... sometimes days. My laugh reflected that. "Good luck," I said. "Ohhh, you should have seen his face the first time I did this!" she cooed. And then she scooted down and enveloped my soft penis in her mouth, sucking strongly. I probably made the same sounds he did. That was something nobody had ever been willing to do for me before. But ... truth being stranger than fiction ... I was amazed, flabbergasted, surprised and ecstatic to see her lips, a few minutes later, slid up the shaft of my renewed battering ram of love, as oaken as it ever was. She squeezed it expertly to maintain its current state, licked her lips and said "He called me a Gypsy after I did that. He said only Gypsy women engaged in such completely unnatural acts as that." "So he thought you were unnatural?" "He changed his mind," she said. She lay down and pulled me over on top of her. "He changed his mind about a lot of things while I was there." I paused, looming over her slim body, looking down at her, unable to believe she was there for me ... that she wanted to be with me. It was almost more than I could believe. "Don't make me wait," she moaned. "Make me feel like that again." You know, it's funny. I don't remember a single detail of that particular joining. That's how wrapped up in things I was. But I got good marks when it was over. And she stayed. Of course she didn't stay just for that. But I didn't analyze things too closely. I know that sometimes I was him, and sometimes I was myself, both in and out of bed. I know she loved us both, just like I loved both women who had come into my life. We've been together for five years now. We get along quite well, considering that I'm a lot more conservative than she is. We don't argue about much. Instead, we just love each other. And her secret is still a secret. Though there was a close call, just the other day. We were with some friends. The kids were all playing in the park, while the parents sat around chatting. It got mentioned that Tuesday's birthday was coming up. "I hate birthdays," moaned a woman named Shirley. "Every birthday I feel ancient." "So how old will you be?" asked a guy named Brad, looking at Tuesday. His wife promptly smacked his arm and said "Brad!" I said "Twenty-eight," at the same exact time Tuesday said "Twenty-nine." Janet laughed. "Isn't that just like a man? How long have you two been together?" She grinned. Everybody looked at us. Christine Johnson fiddled with her smart phone, and then said "Your Facebook page says you were born in 1984." "You mean he's right?" Janet laughed even harder. I looked at Tuesday, who looked chagrined. I knew she'd had a birthday while she was back in 1915, and had then had the same birthday again when she got back home. She had always considered herself a year older than the rest of the world did, but it had never come out in public before. "I can explain that," I said. Everybody listened interestedly. Some of them probably thought I'd dig some kind of hole for myself, and end up in the dog house. "You all know how reflective Tuesday is ... how she is often lost in thought?" I got a nod or two, but the others just waited. "Well, she's not lost. She's just somewhere else, right?" People started looking confused. "And obviously, she feels like all that time she spends somewhere else counts too." I got a lot of groans. But I got away with it. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2012-08-13 ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------