Decades Ch. 05

"Always wanted a male friend I felt that comfortable with." Kelly thought wistfully of Doug as she said it. "But you're right, I've never had one. Not who was just a friend anyway."

"Yeah, well, speaking of Aurora...Listen, Mary, if we do it, you won't be my first, okay? But I don't ever want Aurora to know that!"

"I'd never kiss and tell!" Kelly protested. "But what do you care if Aurora knows? Not that I'd tell her, but if she's just a friend anyway..."

"Well, I'm hoping she won't be that forever." Bobby flopped down on the bed, looking depressed. "It's just that we've been friends for so long, it doesn't feel right to ask anymore."

"Sure it is!" Kelly said, sitting down close beside him and clutching his knee in her hand. "She thinks the world of you, you know! And even if she said no, would you want to go through life wondering what if?" Exactly like she did for you?, Kelly added silently, her heart bursting with what she hoped she might have just sown.

"So you think I should ask her?" Bobby asked.

"Absolutely!"

"But you also want to..."

"Just once, Bobby. Aurora is your best friend. I'm a bad girl!" And before he could argue the point further, she leaned in for a kiss.

Bobby's lips met hers, warm and alive, nearly an hour on borrowed time now and with a lifetime to do good once again ahead of him. His strong young arms found their way around her back, and lost little time in undoing the clasp of her dress. Kelly took the hint and returned the hint on his shirt, which she soon had out of the way. He was wearing a sleeveless undershirt, just like in the movies, and she pulled it playfully bit by bit out of the waistband of his pants, before unbuttoning them, while he went to town on her breasts with both hands.

Once Kelly had his undershirt off, Bobby drew her back to her feet and went to work on undressing her as his pants slipped down to his ankles on their own. When he had her dress out of the way, Kelly looked down to see herself swathed in a girdle she couldn't guess how to take off. Fortunately, Bobby did know.

"So you are experienced," she teased as he got it undone and Kelly enjoyed her first deep breath in what felt like forever.

"It's not sending a man to the moon or anything," Bobby said, now repeating the trick on Kelly's rather uncomfortable bra.

"You're well on your way to sending this woman there!" she joked, planting a kiss on his lips as the last of her archaic underwear slipped blissfully away. Drawing his body against hers now, she enjoyed the skin-on-skin sensation as she pushed his underwear down and took his hardness in her hand. "If I don't get you there first!" She knelt down.

"You're not going to..."

"Oh, but I am!" she cooed, and she took him into her mouth.

At least she'd be able to tell Doug his moans were a lot more passionate than Bobby's. Not that she begrudged Bobby that, growing up such an oppressed time. She did enjoy his fingers in her hair as she licked him into a joyful bundle of desire.

It took a while, but she did get a screech of anticipation out of him. Then he pulled out and leapt back onto the bed. "I want you now, Mary!" he nearly begged. "Come here!"

Kelly did come here, but not before sneaking a discreet look at the clock. Forty-four minutes.

For the next five of those minutes, Kelly lay back and made enough noise for both of them as Bobby flailed away at her. She'd had worse, and she wasn't sure if she'd ever had anyone more earnest. Not even Doug, if only because that was so sincere on his part. The way Bobby thrusted straight and true again and again, taking turns with flicks and rubs on each of her breasts in a cycle that almost felt like clockwork, never breaking eye contact with her except when she closed hers in an intense moment here and there...it was all adorably well meaning.

And it did get her off, three times. "That sounds as lovely as it looks!" he declared after the first.

"Feels that way too!" she grunted, smacking him playfully on his hip.

After the third, Kelly whispered, "Come for me! Faster! Do it for you!"

"You sure?"

"I want to see you come!" she ordered, gripping his face in his hands so he stopped his thrusts for the first time. I'm not selfish! Have at!"

Bobby followed her order, pounding harder than ever at her for another minute or two. She was delighted to hear his breathing turn to grunting and then to beautiful moans that didn't nearly rival her own, but were impressive compared to his earlier stoicism. "Ack!" he screeched when he finally came, followed by a long exhalation as he collapsed happily onto her chest.

"Beautiful, Bobby," she said, stroking his hair as he kissed her left breast sleepily.

"Thank you." He began to pull out.

"Oh no you don't!" Kelly closed her legs firmly around him, and kept him inside her. "Keep that right where it is!"

"Girls like that?"

"Women like that. Or at least I do. When in doubt, ask."

"Of course." He resumed kissing her nipple, and she held him tightly in her arms. When she was sure he wasn't going to try to break the afterglow again, she looked at the clock. Thirty-six minutes.

"Spend the afternoon?" he murmured a minute or two later.

"Right here," she said. "Yes please."

"No where else I'd rather be!" He slid off her but kept his arms around her.

Kelly opened her eyes and took care to remain alert until she was sure he was asleep. When she was sure, she looked out the window -- careful not to look at the clock this time -- and gazed out the window at the sky. Funny how that didn't seem any different. She closed her eyes.

"Did you sleep here last night?"

"Here? Where?" Kelly opened her eyes and looked up to see Doug standing over her in the green room, his suitcase in one hand and something smaller in the other...the coveted photograph, she realized after a moment. She sat up with a start, only then realizing that she was once again wearing the dress that had been stolen from the cove. Her purse, also recovered, lay safe on the dresser behind Doug. Clutching at her skirt with both hands, she said, "Thank God. But how?"

"How what?" Doug asked. Then he laughed. "Oh, you've been in the jukebox, haven't you?"

"I'm sorry, Doug."

"Don't be! I went there without you that one time, too. But what was it that you were just thanking God for?"

"My dress. It's a long story."

"I'll bet it is. Let's go get dinner somewhere and you can tell me all about it. There's a new Italian place on Corey Square I've been wanting to try."

"Corey Square?!" Kelly buried her face in her hands. "So he still died. How?"

"Who?"

"Bobby -- I mean Robert Corey."

"Robert Corey, dead?! Kelly, you just met him the other day, don't you remember? Aurora's husband?"

"Oh, that's great! He did ask!"

"Ask what?" Doug asked. "Never mind, I'm sure you'll get to that. Are you saying you met Robert Corey in the past?"

"Yes, but if he's alive, why is the square named after him?"

"I told you the other day...but I didn't in the original timeline, did I?" Doug laughed and sat on the edge of the bed, and rubbed Kelly's shoulders affectionately. "Okay, whatever you did last night, Robert Corey is a local hero. He was a leader in the antiwar movement in the sixties, and anti-apartheid in the eighties, and he's founded after-school programs for at-risk youth, remedial classes and learning skills -- I volunteered at some of them in high school, and he wrote a recommendation for me for Columbia, you know. Corey Square is named in his honor because of all that. It's on the spot where there was a riot the day President Kennedy was assassinated, some asshole said something about him deserving it and a bunch of kids ended up beating the hell out of each other, and Robert Corey said that was the perfect place for a monument to peace and justice, and he's done a lot for both. And why do I have a feeling we have you to thank for that, Kelly?"

"Because you do." Kelly swung around and was pleased to find her "stolen" shoes at the foot of the bed. She slipped her feet into them and stood up. "I take it these after-school programs, they're the kind of thing that might help set a kid straight who would otherwise hang around the cove and steal people's clothes while they're skinnydipping?"

"That's pretty specific, but I guess," Doug said. "What's that got to do with...wait a minute, is that why you were surprised to still have your dress?!"

Kelly nodded. "And you'll never, ever guess who else I met, you dummydumb you."