Alice

Here comes Alice, foot in front of foot, her hands in the warm confines of her jacket pockets, her hair carelessly tied back with a scrunchie, her eyes determinedly staring down at her black Doc Martens, step after step after step. She is not thinking. She is trying not to think. Her mind, one of the most powerful in this part of the galaxy, must be crowded with repetitive noise, white noise, random junk, in case it remembers. Left boot, black leather, scuffed, yellow stitching. Right boot, much the same. When she was a girl she couldn't remember which was right and the teacher laughed at her in front of the class. Of course her boots will be the same every step, but so will the paving slabs. When she was a toddler she peed in her wellies and she didn't tell her mum, and she walked around all day with wet feet too embarrassed to talk about it. She will keep walking this street and pretend it's Perivale until it ends, and then, well, she will take another corner and walk down that one. When she was a kid the boys threw her trainers over the school wall, and Manisha knocked their teeth out. I miss Manisha, she thinks. I miss Perivale.

Fuck it, I'm making this up, this isn't Perivale. She stops. She feels the thoughts she's trying to hold back, malevolent thunderclouds at the edges of her mind. Perivale has grey streets, it has shops, it has houses that look like houses. Maybe these would look like houses, if you were colour blind. Except that they're kind of transparent. Alice is autonomous, but even though most of the time she knows what to do in a crisis, there are moments when she wants to ask for help. The thoughts edge closer. Maybe the long walk isn't working. Maybe it has to be vodka and an hour of full volume on the stereo she got from... Oh, maybe it has to be the explosives, she's sure she has some left. Maybe it has to be razor blades.

The thought slipped in, and the sound of its footfall hummed in her head a moment, the memory of how she'd dealt with the pain rippling through her from head to fingertips. Sometimes you can see the pain coming and you can't turn yourself away, and you keep walking, just as she'd kept walking. At least she wouldn't have to hide it from her mum these days. Alice takes a long, slow breath through her nose, and closes her eyes, and breathes it out, and tells herself she is sane.

For a moment her brain is as quiet as the streets.

Actually, that's an oddity too: Perivale isn't deserted, any more than it looks like a rainbow exploded on it. Where is everyone? She peers at the shop beside her, which is orange. None of the buildings seem to be more than one colour; it's like being in a plastic model town for an enormous child. In the silence, she finds herself reading the sign aloud: "Early closing Wednesday". Is it Wednesday? Alice can't remember, but the shop is closed anyway. She shakes the door, and is surprised to find that the door is part of the building; shaking it has no effect, except that the shop turns through a murky brown colour into royal blue. Alice sits down on the pavement, head in hands, and sighs.

But she's not as depressed as she might be. The interruption has changed her mind around a little, the feeling of hanging over an abyss within herself has passed, and she's feeling a little less unstable. She wonders briefly whether her situation can be used as an opportunity for something useful or fun, but after some consideration all she can think of is streaking, and though it's safer when the town is completely empty, it has a fair amount less of a point behind it.

It's as well she didn't, because at that moment she hears footsteps. There doesn't seem to be anyone around, but in an empty town, sounds carry further. After a few minutes she sees a woman approaching, and scrambling to her feet gets ready at last to greet a fellow human; she is almost hungry for conversation. A moment later she is a little surprised to see it's a man she's never met before, wearing a skirt, and becomes rather more surprised when he says, "Oh, hello. It's you."

"You know me?", she says.

He is a short man, clean-shaven, with trusting eyes. By his voice he's from Perthshire, though to Alice all Scottish accents are indistinguishable, and he looks by his muscles as though he often handles something heavy. Alice supposes he seems friendly, and might be kind of fit if she went for blokes.

"I've seen you around," he says. "You know the Dominie? Are you looking for him?"

"You know the Dominie? Wait a minute," she says, and hoists herself onto a transparent aquamarine bench, sitting on the back with her feet on the seat. With a little more reserve, the stranger sits on the seat and looks up at her. She suddenly hopes he doesn't start hitting on her or something. "See," she says, "I came here with the Dominie. I knew I shouldn't have left him."

"Aye, he usually knows best," grins the stranger.

"No, I mean I don't know how he'll manage without me. I'm trying to watch his back," says Alice. The bench hums very softly, and turns magenta as they speak. "I went off because I come from Perivale, right, and this place looks so much like it. Then I couldn't find him again. So I've been walking around since..."

The stranger interrupts, with some excitement. "Yes! When I saw it out the window, I had to leave and explore. This doesn't look like wherever you said to me-- around me, I see the MacLaren lands. And high above it all the Creag an Tuirc-- you see?"

"That?" says Alice. "That's Horsenden Hill."

"Everyone sees what's in their heart."

"Actually, that makes a lot of sense," she says. "The Dominie said he wanted to come here because this whole thing is part of how his people control time and space. But he says it's as much part of the universe inside you as the universe outside you. He says a lot of stuff like that."

"That's so," says the boy. "They call it the Matrix of the Other. Where were you trying to go through it?"

She is wondering where this conversation is going. "I was pretty much walking how I liked-- why?"

"The route that people take when they walk through here, or drive, determines how space and time turn out. There's a million different worlds that are and could be. Look, where I'm from," he is getting excited about his subject and drawing diagrams in the air, "where I'm from near Stirling there's a river called the Forth, and as it flows you can walk across it. But a way to the east it opens out and splits Scotland, and keeps Fife from being Lothian. Suppose we made it flow a different way. There'd be a whole new Scotland."

"Oh, I never saw that before," she says. "Thanks. I knew what it did, but I never saw how you use it."

"The Dominie's people all talk big about being lairds of space and time, but this is what it all comes down to," he said. "But I'll away now to the Creag, or whatever hill you thought it was, away up there; you have to end there wherever you're going. Nice meeting you," and he proffers a hand; Alice shakes it and he continues on his way. The bench is sky-blue now. She jumps down.

"That's all very interesting," she says aloud once he's out of earshot, "but it's not helping me find the Dominie. I need to get out of this place, or I don't know when I'm going to eat again."

She sets off walking in the direction the Scotsman had gone, up towards Horsenden Hill. You can see it from everywhere in the town, and all the paths slope gently up to it; she is no longer watching her boots. As she walks, she realises something practical that the boy's words mean for her: when she gets out of this place, the universe will have changed depending on the paths she takes, and she's been taking fairly random paths up until now. She pauses for a moment beside a lavender pillar box and considers her options. She can simply put the universe back together so she found the Dominie, if she could work out how to do that. Then again, if the Matrix of the Other was as powerful as she had heard, she can change the past to give herself a happier childhood and a sober mother. Perhaps that isn't the best idea even so, because it might mean she was a different person now; maybe what she should do is make sure she found the Dominie first, then do what she almost never does and ask his advice. But it's only because of him that she was here at all, and perhaps she wouldn't be able to find her own way back.

She begins walking, watching for signs. Here was a puce hairdresser's; one of the models in the window had the Dominie's face. She takes that corner. There was a mauve street sign with the name of the world he came from on it. She takes that corner, always working higher and higher until she finds herself at Horsenden Hill. Beneath her lay the town, a long diamond lying spread out before her, its buildings jewels of coloured glass catching the sun in a thousand hues.

It was only as she stands there, feet apart and arms folded, looking down on the town that feels like a solved puzzle, that she realises she could have used the Matrix of the Other to save Manisha. Manisha could have been with her still-- she could have come with the Dominie and explored the galaxy. More so, Alice could have made sure that the fascist little shits who threw the petrol bombs into Manisha's flat had spilt the fuel on themselves and set themselves on fire instead. She could have added a traffic jam to a street or two, and held up the ambulances from a vantage point five years ahead. She could have made sure the bastards burned themselves to death, or better still, condemned themselves to a long, long life of helpless pain. For that she would have trod the Matrix of the Other a thousand times over until its streets were worn thin. Hell, if she could rid the universe of them and everyone like them, she'd stay here a million years, and wear it away with her feet or find a way to break it up with an earthquake. But she hadn't. Still, she has no idea how to start treading the Matrix of the Other over again, once you'd reached the end. She sinks down to the grass and looks up at the sky, and everything becomes bright...

And it was the light in her room being suddenly snapped on, back in the Dominie's ship. She sat up suddenly and in alarm.

"Alice? Are you in here?" It was the Dominie's voice, and his hand on the switch, though the rest of him was behind the door. "I'm not coming in, I just wanted to make sure you were all right. I was getting worried."

His voice did sound worried, and strangely different, though her brain was whirling enough not to be able to analyse it straight away. "It's okay, I'm here," she said. She always slept naked, and had pulled the bedclothes over her breasts; her leather jacket with the badges and her boots and black skirt from the day before were piled on the floor. "I'm right here."

"It's okay, I didn't mean to interrupt. It's just that I lost you earlier and I was looking for you," said the Dominie from the other side of the door.

"No worries," said Alice. "Actually," and she lay down and carefully tucked the duvet around her body, "could you come in? I want a word with you. I'm decent."

The Dominie pushed the door open and came in. "I like to give my friends their privacy, but even so I was... Alice, what's the matter?"

Alice was staring at the Dominie, her eyes wide and her hand abandoning the clutched duvet to cover her amazed mouth. This was and was not the Dominie she knew. True, the lowland Scots accent was the same, the hat and umbrella incongruously carried indoors, and the crazily patterned sweater that surely nobody else in the Universe could wear; but the accent was a different pitch, the neat trousers were a neat skirt, and before, beneath that sweater, there had not been breasts. "Dominie?"

Then she remembered what the boy had said, and how her walk had charmed her back into the universe where she and the Dominie were together once more. Clearly this was that universe, or one such universe. She'd just made a small miscalculation-- and really, she wasn't complaining.

"It's okay," she said, "it's all okay." Her last hold on the edge of the duvet fell away along with her stresses.

"I worry about you," said the Dominie, venturing over to sit on the edge of her bed. "I was walking through the Matrix of the Other with you and then I couldn't find you. I searched about as much as I could. I put the universe in some danger, you know. All that searching for you down side streets might have made it so the dinosaurs had never become extinct, or that Hitler had won the war, or that Kennedy had been assassinated. You have to be careful."

"Thank you," said Alice, and looked into the Dominie's eyes, and meant it. In their relationship, as she had always thought, the Dominie believed he was teaching Alice, and Alice believed she was protecting the Dominie. Now she came to think about it, he... she... the Dominie had always had another note in the chord that she'd never let herself notice. Why was it so much easier to notice now?

Alice put one hand over the Dominie's and softly squeezed it, an act she'd never have allowed herself in her own world-- nor usually in this one, judging by the Dominie's startled reaction. Alice began to apologise and realised the Dominie was not shocked but merely startled, and that her touch was not unwelcome. "I just," she said, "I just never realised before how much when you've killed monsters with me and blown shit up with me and saved the galaxy with me that it wasn't just because you were protecting me because you thought I needed protecting but because you actually cared and, shit, I'm babbling, I'm, I'm sorry, I'll shut up now," and gulped in a great sob of air, her heart racing, wondering if she'd thrown away in a moment not just their friendship but all their adventuring.

"It's okay, it's okay, love," said the Dominie. "It's okay. It's because I cared. I care. I do. I l...", and suddenly for the first time she seemed truly at a loss to Alice. Alice sat up in bed, letting the duvet fall from her, and wrapped her arms around the Dominie. The Dominie held her close, and for minutes on end words passed away unmourned. Only their breathing and heartbeat were needed. Yet in Alice's head were words: now is the middle time, the last and loved and passing moment. Our old lives together are ended by this. What the future holds, I cannot tell.

And she knew, suddenly and surely, that it would all be good and perfect; there were no guarantees that nobody would be hurt, but this was an end to hiding, and that in itself was a beautiful thing. And now it was up to her to bring the future forward.

With her arm still tight around the Dominie, she fell backwards; with joy that Alice had never heard from her, the Dominie fell onto her lips, grabbing her hair and kissing her hungrily. Alice laughed and kicked the duvet away, and as they kissed she fumbled at the Dominie's shirt and bra and threw them to the ground. Her hands filled with the thrill of the Dominie's breasts; the roundness of them, the pliability. Alice's hands were not large and the Dominie's breasts were just slightly more than could fit in each handful; she flicked at each nipple with her thumbnail and then sat up again. The Dominie looked startled once more and then, as Alice held her close so that she didn't fall back, smiled at her. Their eyes locked for a moment, and for a moment they were quiet; then, with her help, Alice unbuttoned the Dominie's skirt and took off her shoes and socks; as the two of them slowly sank back down to the bed she slid the Dominie's knickers down to her ankles, passing to stroke her cunt for the first time as she did so; soft and wet it was, and even her thighs were damp. The Dominie kicked her underwear from her feet across the room. Alice wrapped her legs around the Dominie's thighs and they were still once more.

"So, um." said the Dominie, and then laughs. "Hello, I'm the Dominie, I believe you want to fuck me?"

Alice laughed. "How did you get that impression?"

"Well, um, you were certainly giving that impression." The Dominie ran a finger slowly over Alice's labia. "In a number of ways."

Alice shivered in deep places: she had not realised quite how eaten up with desire she was. She pulled the Dominie towards her. The Dominie ground her cunt against her, grabbing Alice's hair again, beginning to kiss her in an almost savage way, a way that hid her gasp, a way that seemed to have been learned before Alice's world came to be. Slowly at first and now faster the Dominie fucked her, her wetness and her sweat fusing them together, and Alice's nails dug deep into the Dominie's back, and she was coming, she was coming. Surely it was her nails which were drawing blood and her screaming into the Dominie's mouth, but she was in deep space, she was a star exploding and dying, she was when the universe began and she couldn't breathe...

Very slowly her eyes began working again and she saw the smiling eyes of the Dominie above her, and she smelled her body and felt the touch of her breasts, so close, so intimate. She tried to say something, but nothing in her worked for the moment, and then managed to stammer out something about love and thanks and... The Dominie kissed her again, holding her close as she pushed forward to rub her thigh over the slipperiness of Alice's cunt. Alice let her body fall back against the bed and wrapped her legs around the Dominie's back. I was, I was going to ask you questions about stuff from earlier!" she said. "I've forgotten most of what I was going to ask." The fireworks were there, still, but after the sudden explosion of the first orgasm they were biding their time for the moment.

"It's all right, love," said the Dominie with a smile, kissing her unexpectedly on the eyes and the lips, and slipping one finger down to slide inside her, fucking her with it as she continued to slide against her clit.

"I was..." said Alice. "I don't remember. Not that I care... right now," and she squeezed the Dominie's body closer to hers and gasped. "Oh, God. I, I love you."

"I love you too," said the Dominie, and suddenly she gave a face-splitting grin. "You were wonderful. You are wonderful. You're wonderful. You're always wonderful..." and Alice was coming again, not as hard as before, but for longer; screwing up her face, arching back her neck, the little bones at the base of her skull cracking. It seemed minutes before she could breathe again, and the Dominie was still lying on top of her, kissing her slowly.

"Oh, that was... but... you didn't come!" said Alice, "did you?"

"It's all right, love," said the Dominie, and kissed her nose again.

"It's not all right!" Alice was smaller than the Dominie, but strong, and decided that she had enjoyed the post-orgasmic moment for long enough. She held the Dominie and turned her over onto the bed, scrambling up and astride her chest as she did so. She squeezed the Dominie's nipples between finger and thumb. "How's this, then?"

She was expecting the Dominie to chuckle and give some flippant answer, but was rewarded instead with a gutteral gasp. The Dominie, swallowing, attempted to speak with her characteristic flippancy, but all she said was, "I... want you."

Alice leaned forward and kissed her. "May I eat you?" The Dominie nodded but did not speak. Alice trailed backwards, so that her breasts dragged slowly over the Dominie's chest and belly, until she began kissing her belly-button and making her slow way down to her cunt. She parted it with her fingers and kissed the Dominie's clit; the Dominie squealed and wriggled. She bent forward and kissed it again, then flicked her tongue against it. The Dominie sighed and entwined her fingers in Alice's hair once more. "Lick it," she said, "lick it, please."

The Dominie bent her legs back and up, showing more flexibility than Alice had imagined she possessed, so that she was presented with her cunt and thighs and little else, as if it had been the fascinating control system on the console of the Dominie's ship. Alice kissed the Dominie's labia, and then began to lick her clit in earnest. After a while, she began a trick an old girlfriend had taught her, of writing the alphabet so that the motion would not be too repetetive. Every so often she would stop and kiss the Dominie's inner thighs and labia, but the Dominie's hands on her hair were telling her that the clit was getting results.