Reflections

"I'm actually doing ok. But when my baby is born I need to find somewhere suitable."

"If you don't mind me saying…you don't look pregnant. Well, not yet."

"Do you mind if I am?" I asked.

"Why should I mind?"

I took his hand and played gently with his fingers a while. His nails were well manicured. "Good, because at this stage it doesn't prevent me from taking part in certain activities." I stared at him, straight in the eyes. He reacted as I expected. His eyelids flickered nervously. "It's quite safe too."

"Is that so? I think I sort of knew that somehow. If you know what I mean. But may I just say something Karen?" I nodded and listened. "Sex on our first kind of date? Is that what you are suggesting?"

"Well, you said it." I replied. "Is that what you would like?"

"Not sure about this. I hardly know you. But I have to say here and now, I think you are so fucking gorgeous, I've been getting hard all evening just listening and watching you." I was knocked out by what he had just said, but didn't show it. Atleast I hope I didn't. This guy was definitely a wolf in sheep's clothing. I did not regard myself as a slut, but I was so desperate for sex, so long as it was with Jerry.

*****

Chapter Ten

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Back at my apartment I shown Jerry the data block logs. They fascinated him. "Oh wait! This is so fucking incredible. How did you keep these?" I shrugged back at him and explained that someone had sent them to my ex. "How? This isn't possible." He went into one of his deep thoughts as I poured him a glass of wine. "They must be following you. Well, atleast someone is." I handed him the glass.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, how could you get this information from a machine that you used onboard a starship?"

I didn't even think about that before until he mentioned it. He was right. Who did send them to Steve? He smelt the paper and looked at me. "Manila. It's ordinary everyday common paper. Not even alien." He sipped his wine. "Someone on earth. They must know what is going on with you and your abduction. To be able to have these logs, they must have contact with the aliens." It sounded feasible, but who? I listened to him further as he thought and deliberated.

"You are on a different time-line now than when you were abducted, that is obvious. You are living a second alternative life right now, and there could be many others. Which means for you…" he pointed at me. "Things could change for you at anytime. You could be slipped into a third time-line at anytime and our meeting might have never taken place to you. It's crazy."

I realised what he was saying. I had learned from Dalkis that such things are possible. "What would that mean for you?" I asked.

"Well, we will obviously carry on as we mean to go on. Your second time line will continue for as long as you live it. But to you, the conscience I am talking to right now could suddenly find yourself split and shifted onto a third time-line whenever 'they' want. Your past and present will be the same, but a new direction will unfold for the future."

Jerry grabbed a pen and began to draw diagrams on the back of one of the log sheets. I watched as he scribbled and tried to explain it. I understood him, just about. "This was why those other two guys were in such a mess." He said, looking directly at me. "This explains it. Already you must have had a few shifts."

Suddenly, I began to visualise what Jerry was showing me. Time-line one, my life up to meeting Steve on the subway, the dinner dates, taking the pictures for him up to a certain point before he told me about his death threats. Time-line two, up to the actual abduction itself. Time-line three, my seven years in stasis. Time-line four, the one hundred and twenty one days I spent with Dalkis. Then finally time-line five, here and now. Or was it? I was confused. No wonder those two other guys got so confused and frustrated. They must be ending their own lives each time they realised they were drifting from one time-line to another. But then, who or how was this happening? I knew the aliens had the technology to use it, but was there something else in nature that was making it happen to everyone?

"Jerry, can this happen in nature and be manipulated by some alien race?"

He thought deeply and looked at me. "Strings. Time dimensions. You know what I mean?" I didn't exactly and so I got him to explain. "We each have a multiple of probable lives. Alternatives. Our doppelganger lives. We are only conscious of whatever life we are living. The longer you live the more strings or dimensions you have to move along. But, you have the ability to jump or shift from one or another, but not under your control. Something is still controlling it. Which also means, you could…"

"What?"

"Go right back on one line and alter things in the future. Going back is the key to changing things before they happen." I got the gist of what he was saying, but it was still complicated.

Sex was now distant in my mind. I wanted to know more. Understand what all this was about and where it would lead me. Jerry momentarily stopped philosophising and his hand gently touched my thigh, moving upwards until it was on its way towards my groin beneath my dress. I stopped his hand going further by holding his wrist.

"I'm so fucking horny right now. This whole thing is turning me on!" he said.

"Wait! Tell me more."

"That's it. I don't know anymore. Are we going to have sex? I have had sex before."

"I don't doubt that Jerry. But you have just told me something. I need to know more."

"Later. I need to do more research. Right now, I need to make love to you."

There was I, faced with this drop dead gorgeous dork of a scientist, desperate to learn two things, how he played and how he could help me. So, I went with the flow of things. I stood and pulled him up from the couch. Slowly I drew closer to him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and he held my hips gently. The kiss that followed was merely exploration. Infact, the kiss told me straight away he did lack passion, but plenty of enthusiasm. What the hell, this was our first time together and I had only known him less than twenty-four hours.

His nerves had completely evaporated and within seconds he was unbuttoning my dress. I let him have his way, just to see what happened. The dress fell to the floor in a heap and I stepped out of it. His hands soothed over my bra covered breasts. He atleast was tender with his touches and I loved the way he did it. It had been a long time since I had been made love to, and this time atleast, Jerry was one hundred percent human.

Both stripped naked we headed into my bedroom. I lay on the bed with all my limbs spread out. I hid nothing from his view. "Well, like what you see?" I asked, grinning at him. His hard on was ready and waiting, but I just pretended to admire it for now.

"I love what I see. I think today was my lucky day in many ways." He climbed beside me. His fingers found my sex and like all men, he was content in playing a while. "I can't believe this is happening. Would you believe me if I said that, I would not normally take advantage like this so quickly?"

"I'll believe you. Others probably wouldn't." Then his dampened fingers touched the telltale hillock that was my navel. I could see him thinking about it. In there was my child. Nobody knew for sure what it was going to be. Not even me. "What are you thinking Jerry?"

"The child you carry." He went serious on me. "It's alien."

"Wait. I don't think so." I leaned up. "Maybe it is. But, think about it. What you told me about all these time strings and things. The one's who have the power to control. What if we, as humans are really also part alien in origin? That would make junior ok? Wouldn't it?"

"Sure. You certainly have a point."

"So do you." I looked at his hardness poking upwards into the air. "Want to use it?"

I lay back, letting him do whatever he wanted. Felt him kiss and caress my breasts, enter me hastily and then it began. Unlike Dalkis, Jeff was not a love machine. He was like all other men that I had. Over excitable and quick cummers. He lay beside me, catching his breath and told me how wonderful I was and I did nothing really to respond, but smile back at him. I had made him a promise and kept my word, but my mind was elsewhere…

I watched him sleep and thought about what he had told me. Someone was watching me, somewhere. But who? The aliens perhaps? Keeping a close eye on their child I was carrying?

*****

Chapter Eleven

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Childbirth was not the easiest job on earth! I squeezed Jerry's hand tightly and pushed gently. It felt like the whole of my insides were about to burst from me and the pain was pretty bad, but not unbearable due to the drugs they gave me. Within a few minutes of harsh breathing in and out, I felt Tanya part from me, becoming her own individual self, bodily. I held her in my arms has she cried and looked at her. Pure beauty. My very own miracle of life. And, there was nothing alien whatsoever about her. She was mine.

Jerry looked into the crib all evening. "Nothing unusual." He kept on saying it under his breath. "I don't see an alien connection at all." He announced. I smiled at him. I knew what was going on, or so I thought. For the past seven months he had been expecting some creature other than human, despite the tests and scans revealing nothing more than my daughter the way I began to expect her.

"Jerry, stop it. We have discussed things and I have already told you." I pulled him to sit by my side on the bed. "She's beautiful and that's all that matters." I could see that he was forcing himself to agree with me. But his curiosity and scientific mind prevented him from excluding any doubts.

We had become closer the past seven months and I was in love with him. Things began to settle down quickly and I was beginning to feel that everything that had happened to me was melting slowly into the past. A new life. A new human being for us to care for as a couple. But, how wrong I had been.

Jerry was not the kind and considerate man I thought he was. He not only denied Tanya, but me as well. The weeks passed by and Jerry found other things to occupy his mind. Not only his work, but also I discovered that he had been seeing another lover. The letter revealed everything…

It was written in a hand style that was so educated. Whoever had dropped it in the white envelope in my mailbox without a postmark certainly wanted me to know. I wondered who it could be, but the information was enough. Maybe it was the person who sent me the data block logs? Whoever it was, they were human and even possibly female. Could even be Jerry's lover for all I knew.

I very rapidly adapted to the role of single mother as the following months rolled by. Eighteen months since my abduction and Tanya was growing livelier and healthier. She and I bonded without any problems and I loved her to bits. It was just us two, and nobody else mattered.

The hypermarket was almost empty as I pushed the cart around, picking items from the shelves. Tanya was braced into the baby seat napping. Then as I reached for the ketchup, I felt dizzy. My head began to spin and I wanted to throw up…

*****

The next thing I knew, I was lying naked face down on the silk sheets in a strange bedroom. I looked to my right and saw Steve Jacobsen slipping on his expensive designer night robe. "I want to wait a while, you understand." He said, turning and looking at me. "Soon I will be ready, but not yet." I stared back at him and I realised I was on another time-line, but when and how? He smiled, sat beside me and stroked his fingers along my shoulder. "I love you Karen and as long as you stay faithful to me, you can have anything you ever wanted."

"Where's my baby?"

"Pardon my love? What baby?"

I tried not to panic. My mind was confused. I leaned up on my arms and took a deep breath to help me think. He was just as confused as I was has I looked at him. "It's ok. Was I asleep?"

"No. Not unless you fell asleep during the past five minutes." He replied. "You were wonderful as usual my love. The best yet." I suddenly realised the taste in my mouth. That salty bitter taste. And I wanted to throw up, dashing into the bathroom. "Are you ok my love?" he asked. I was emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet basin and at the same time I was missing my baby. The baby I knew, gave birth to and desperately loved. Why did this have to happen?

I learned that I had drifted back this time to another point in another life. We had been married just four days and I was his wife. This time my single conscience was living it. Taken over from the one that had already been me. And everything that Jeff had explained began to make sense. I was now in a time-line that was me without the abduction and this time without my child. This time my mind had been placed into me as I would have been before the abduction took place.

Steve began to realise I had changed. I must have somehow learned to love him up to that point I had consciously arrived. I certainly didn't feel anything for him now and slowly over the following days he grew concerned. It was hard to pretend and I was missing someone special really bad. I became depressed and resorted to wild tantrums whenever he tried to touch me. The confusion and frustration I was feeling made me ill and Steve consulted with his lawyers for a quickened divorce.

Eventually I was free of him. He provided me with an apartment free of rent for the next six months and I went in search of Jeff Blackwell, finding that he had been involved in a vehicle accident and his colleagues consoled me sensitively about his death, as if I had known him. But, in this time-line, we had never met at all.

I withdrew completely and even began to neglect myself. I gave good reasons for my distant family to ignore me as I became distant not only physically, but in mind too. I was becoming desperate and lonely. I assumed that I had no friends in this time-line. But, how wrong I was…

The door chime sounded continuously, waking me from a deep sleep brought on by sleeping pills hours earlier. I dashed down the two flights of stairs and answered the main door to the apartment block. She looked at me in desperation and pushed me in. "There you are Karen! Thank gawd I found you." She was someone I had never even seen before in my…life?

She was about my age, dark cropped hair and quite neat with sapphire blue eyes. "You don't know me do you? I knew it!" she exclaimed. I was stunned and all I could do was look at her as I stood in my pyjamas. "It's ok, I'll explain things…I hope you are the YOU I'm looking for." She grabbed me by the hand and dragged me back to my apartment, locking the door securely behind us. She looked around and sniffed at the stale air. "I think you are the one I'm looking for." She said with a smile.

My sleeping drugs had not only numbed me, but tranquillised me completely. My stranger friend made us both coffee as I watched on. Then she explained…

"I am Pamela. You probably don't know me. I hope not. I am desperately looking for the you that would have gone back to this time? You have a child called Tanya?" she explained and as soon as she mentioned my baby I wanted to know more.

"How is she?" I asked. "How is my baby?"

"Fantastic! She's fine, trust me. I am so glad its you! Oh my gawd!…" I felt her hug and slowly I responded. All I could think about was my Tanya and perhaps maybe someone could atleast help me now. There seemed to be hope, instead of waiting to see if I drifted again into some other life I could atleast identify with. "I brought you here." She said. "Me, your friend." I wondered how on earth she could be my friend? What connection did this person have with me?

"I know you are confused. I will explain. This might be so wild it will blow your mind. But, I lost you at one point. I wasn't too good at knowing that thing…that silly time thing we took. It made a mess of everything. The thing is, I had it and I was able to make things right again for me. But I couldn't leave you drifting. I did everything I could, but the mess just got more and more…well, until now. I seem to have the hang of it. Oh my gawd, you are never going to believe this…"

"I think you had better tell me everything. This is not making any sense to me."

"I intend to. We have both been through a lot since we escaped…you poor thing. Forgive me."

Pamela's arrival was something new and I realised there and then there was going to be some reason for all of this. I was about to learn something important and so incredible.

*****

Chapter Twelve

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Pamela knew everything about me. She even knew about my parents, sister and brothers. And certain things in my life I never knew, because she had hopped from one time-line to another searching for me. Lives I had lived in other dimensions that my own 'me' conscience cannot recall. I discovered that there was only one of me, the person I am, yet other time-line lives had their own separate experiences.

"Can you imagine that Karen? Each time you jump into a different time-line you share that life with other you. And, whatever you change before leaping into another time-line confuses the other you, leaving them the loose ends to tie-up."

That left me thinking about Steve and the other me that I was living now. What if this dimensional me was happy with Steve? I had just created a marriage break-up. I had many questions forming in my mind, but Pamela answered the most important has she continued to explain.

"Abductees are unstable. They hop from one life to another. They leave changes in personalities of those lives they enter and then leave. Can you imagine what that causes? Suicides, mental breakdowns, unexplained changes in behaviour, the list is endless."

"So, what can we do to stop it?" I asked. She took my hand and squeezed it gently.

"To be honest, nothing. But we can do something for 'our' consciences, the you and I we feel and experience. I have worked it all out while I've been leaping around for what seems years now." She was serious and enthusiastic. "It's complicated Karen and you need to be with me on this one all the way. And you have to realise something very important."

"Explain?"

"We have to find a line that is the best for us to continue on. A line that matches who we are. A line that is fresh and un-altered in anyway. Do you get what I'm saying?"

I didn't quite understand, but it sounded freaky and it made sense. "How do we do that?" I asked.

Pamela reached into her purse and produced a strange object that resembled a cell-phone. It was metallic looking and it had an arrangement of buttons that spiralled around a central key. "This is what I stole when we escaped. I could control my leaps, because I had it. Unfortunately, I lost you. The reason why I was able to start looking for you."

"What is it?"

"It's what the aliens use to jump through time. Somekind of time machine device. I can't explain how it works, but it does. I soon began to learn how to use it. That is how I posted the logs and that note I wrote to you. Sometimes it gets unstable and only allows me a few minutes on one time-line. Others, like this one, it allows me to stay for as long as I want."

Once again she mentioned an 'escape' that I knew nothing about as if I was missing something. I realised there and then I had not experienced it yet and if I was the one she was searching for?

"I don't recall any escape. Escape from where? The aliens?"

"Yes. You don't recall the time we were on the alien ship, together?"

"No I don't."

Pamela went into deep thought. "You remember Dalkis, right?"

"Yes I remember those days I was forced to mate with him. And…"