It’s a Brave New World Ch. 04

"What..." began Abby but got no further when a set of stifled moans started which quickly climbed into a high pitch squeal. Our shower mate had apparently reached her own peak. Her quivering limbs developed into a full blown shuddering. Still wailing, her knees buckled and she also slid to the floor of the shower.

I could see her face again as she joined us on the floor. Her eyes were tightly closed while a blissful smile was on her face. Her hand was still stuck between her legs. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and looked over to where Abby and I sat watching her. She puffed out a few deep breaths and then said with an embarrassed grimace, "Hi, Abby."

Abby blinked a few times in surprise. "Mandy? Umm..." began Abby hesitantly. She seemed just as stymied as I was to the whole situation. Finally, she gave up and continued with a forced breath, "Are you having a good time?"

"Oh, yes, I am," said the girl named Mandy. She bit her lower lip and then made a weak gesture with her hand towards us. "Uhh...Abby," she began, "Hon, you've...got some..." Abby looked down and saw the globs of cum on her chest, her face turning as red as her hair.

****

I finished toweling off and pulled my shirt back on. It was wrinkled and I would have preferred something fresh. But seeing as it was the only shirt I had right now I was going to have to make do. I was going to have to figure out how I was going to survive in this world. I wasn't going to be able to rely on Abby forever.

I let out a tight sigh. It seemed every time I started to think about my situation I would get inevitably interrupted by thoughts of Abigail McGillen. And she had said she couldn't think straight. The more than pleasant afternoon of distraction was giving away to evening and I was no closer to figuring out what had happened. As much as I didn't want to, I might need to put some distance between myself and Abby if I was going to have a chance to get my head on straight.

I looked over to Abby, she was busy using a hair dryer on her long locks of auburn hair. She seemed in a hurry to leave the washroom. She was already completely dressed in a fresh pair of jean with a dark blue long sleeved blouse. After quickly cleaning up in the shower, she had practically shoved me out while Mandy remained to finish showering. I wasn't sure if this was from embarrassment of getting caught or discovering Mandy, or something else altogether.

Abby finished with the hand dryer and switched it off. "Do you need the hair dryer?" she asked quietly.

Running a hand through my hair, I decided I would just let it dry on its own. "No, I'm good," I replied. Then feeling a little awkward, and not sure why, I asked softly in return, "Umm, so are you okay?"

She looked down at the ground and let out a sigh of her own. Looking back up, she answered, "Can we talk about it later?"

"Sure," I said. I didn't want to press her.

From behind us I heard a rustling and the sound of someone walking from the showers back to this side of the bathroom. I turned to see Mandy walk into view, with only a thin towel covering her still damp body. Now that she was out of the misty shower room I got a good look at her. She was only 5'5 or so, with a slim athletic body. Her skin was a light brown, giving her what I would guess was either a Latino or Indian ancestry.

Both she and Abby exchanged meaningful looks as Mandy came to a stop before us. "So," began Mandy with a shy smile to me, "I guess we both got caught in compromising situations. But watching you two..." She drifted off as she stared at me. Mandy then took a deep breath and gave out a pleasant sigh, as if she was smelling something wonderful. I, in turn, began to pick up the faint spice-sweat aroma that I had come to associate with Abby's sexual pheromones.

Mandy stepped closer to me and her eyes fluttered. With a warm smile growing on her face, she said, "Hi, I'm Mandy Persaud and you are?" The spicy odor only increased as Mandy stood smiling at me.

"Leaving," said Abby from behind me in a very icy tone. She grabbed my hand and began pulling me towards the exit.

"Abby, wait," said Mandy with regret in her voice. "I didn't mean to interfere..."

"Not right now," snapped Abby as she continued to pull me towards the bathroom's door. I was surprised by Abby's vehemence towards this woman, but I didn't want to argue with Abby right now. Clearly there was some past bad blood between the two.

We were through the door before Mandy could say anything else. Back in the dorm hallway I was going to turn towards Abby and ask what her problem with Mandy was when I saw a familiar figure standing waiting for us. But the stocky, dark skin man, with an annoyed expression on his face couldn't possibly be here.

"Lawrence?" I gasped out, startled at seeing my floor's RA here on this other Earth. "What are doing here? How did you get here?"

Lawrence looked me up and down slowly, as if trying to figure me out. I wasn't particularly close to the guy, but he had seemed like a generally decent man who cared about helping the students on the second floor of Anderson Hall. I was ecstatic that someone else from my world was here with me. I wondered just how he had spent his time on this strange little planet.

With an exasperated sigh Lawrence turned towards Abby, who was giving me an odd look. Hands on his hips, Lawrence spoke to her in a tired tone. "Look Abby, I know you girls can get worked up and need to relieve some stress." He pointed at me and continued, "But keep it in your room and to a manageable volume. I don't need the dorm advisory committee all worked up with complaints. Or God help me, someone getting the M.H.S. involved."

Looking quite chastised, Abby looked down at the ground and mumbled out, "Sorry Lawrence, it won't happen again."

My mind was doing some extreme gear shifting as I tried to understand what Lawrence and Abby were talking about. More importantly they both seemed to know each other. How? Then suddenly it hit me as hard as a punch to the gut, I realized that this Lawrence wasn't from my world after all. He was this world's Lawrence.

Looking this Lawrence over I realized there were subtle difference between the man I knew and the one before me. The Lawrence in my world always kept his hair very short, his wiry hair got curly quickly as it grew. This Lawrence had allowed his hair to grow out and slicked his wavy hair into a hair style I wasn't familiar with. I realized I must be looking like quite the idiot as I stood gaping at him and I forced my mouth closed.

A new voice sounded in the hallway, it was also familiar to me. "Oh Lawrence, nobody on this floor is that much of a prude," said Cindy walking up. "Abby and her new boy just got themselves attached at the hip. They've been celebrating all afternoon."

Lawrence looked at Cindy and Abby and me. He just shook his head at the three of us. "Oh, yeah, I've heard them," he responded wryly.

"Well then give them a break," replied Cindy as she flashed us both a playful grin.

"Fine, whatever," said Lawrence with a roll of his eyes.

I was going to ask this Lawrence about himself, to see if he really was a doppelganger for the man I knew. But the expression on his face left me thinking that wasn't such a great idea. It mattered little, because Cindy then hooked both Abby and my arms and began to pull us down the hall.

"Abby and Jason, let's go get something to eat," said Cindy as she pulled us along.

Shooting a helpless gesture to me, Abby replied to her friend, "Sure, why not."

"Great!" came Cindy's enthusiastic response. She turned me and said, "And Jason, you can tell me all about yourself."

"Oh, lucky me," I deadpanned.

****

"Die, piggy, die," snarled Abby in mock anger as she prepared to attack the fortified position of the little round green hogs. She launched a red bird and it flew across the small screen of my phone. With a smash, it collided with a wall which then set off a slow chain reaction as the support structure protecting the pigs collapsed. Within seconds, the animated chaos had devastated the level. Abby looked up from the screen to me and grinned triumphantly.

I had quickly grown tired of Angry Birds and hadn't played it for quite a while. Like a dozen or so other apps I had it had been forgotten, left to collect metaphorical dust in the back of my iPhone. While examining it, Abby had noticed the icon and I had showed her how to play. She, of course, had been fascinated by the simple game and had been playing for the last twenty minutes or so while I read from one of her history books.

Dinner with Cindy really hadn't been that bad. She did ask me a lot about myself, but most of the questions I could answer without having to outright lie. I just left out a few minor detail that would have only caused the inquisitive Cindy to ask questions I wasn't prepared to answer. I also learned a bit more about Abby, much to the beautiful redhead's embarrassment.

After dinner, we had returned to her room, putting off Cindy's offer to go out to the local mall. She had only shaken her head at the two of us. "Can't wait to go at it again, huh?" The blond had asked with a knowing smile.

"I still have my paper to finish." Abby had defended with a slight blush.

"Uh right," replied Cindy with the same shake of her head. But she had not pressed further nor continue to lightly tease us. She and several others from the dorm had taken off a little more than two hours ago. Like most Saturday nights on either Earth, the second floor of Anderson Hall was mostly deserted, it residents out for any number recreations or distractions. We once again seemed to have the run of the place.

Cindy had been wrong, neither Abby nor I felt like tearing each other clothes off once we got back to her room. It seemed we were both sated, at least for now, and we did indeed work on Abby's repeatedly delayed history paper. She wrote while I looked up sources in her history book. It was useful for me as it gave me a chance to familiarize myself with this world's history. Now she was taking a break on her paper while I continued to read.

I was learning a great deal about the alternative 20th century of Abby's world. The kaleidoscope of different actions in this world had twisted history in ways that was truly bizarre to me. Here the Soviet Union had collapsed in 1952, decades earlier than in my world. Now much of the splintered territories were involved in low-level wars with most of central Europe. Hit hard by the plague and unable to support itself in the aftermath, Great Britain was shadow of the country I knew. London wasn't a massive metropolis, but a run down and decaying city. The Empire of Japan, never having been defeated in World War Two was still going strong. The Empire and the USA were apparently on pretty good terms with each other. Possibly allies out of necessity with the ever growing power of the Kingdom of China in the Pacific.

I put the history book down and rubbed my forehead in an attempt to fight off a building headache. More to myself than anyone else I said out loud, "Harry Turtledove would flip out if he were here."

Abby looked up from her game with a quizzical expression, "Who?"

"He's an author, wrote speculative fiction about alternative histories on my version of Earth." I turned towards Abby and elaborated. "Stuff like if the South won the Civil War or if Japan had successfully won the battle for the Pacific."

Abby put down my iPhone and her face took on a thoughtful expression. "Fighting with the Empire of Japan? You said something about that before, about a big war that your world had that ours didn't."

"Yeah, World War Two. It was a pretty big and nasty fight," I said.

"And now Japan and America are enemies?" a bit confused Abby asked.

"Not really," I answered, not sure how to explain the geopolitical realities of my Earth. Hell, I did n't know if I even understood it that well. Giving up, I shrugged. "The war was seventy years ago, so we've made up more or less." I paused as I thought about my readings. "It's strange, some places in your world are almost the same as mine. Your Middle East countries and all their craziness isn't all that different from ours. And other things are so different I can't get my head wrapped around it."

"Like Lawrence being the RA in both our worlds," said Abby.

I grimaced and nodded my head. "Yeah, that one is still throwing me for a loop."

Abby was quiet for a few minutes, lost in thought. I picked up her history book and was about to suggest we start back on her paper when she lightly touched my arm. I looked up to see her giving me a sad little smile. "I was thinking," she began, "how hard this must be for you. You're cut off from everyone you know, your friends, and your family."

I swallowed hard and nodded. Then Abby surprised me with what she said next, "But I was thinking, if Lawrence exists in both worlds, why couldn't there be a version of you? What if there is a version of you and your family in this world?"

I sat there stunned, I hadn't even thought of that possibility. "I don't know," I said slowly. "I guess it's possible." Another me and another copy of my parents. So strange. I thought it over for a moment and then picked up my phone. My iPhone was in the fact my own real link to the world I had left. Randomly I opened up my messages and scrolled through them, I was looking for a letter from mom. She had written me a massive email, telling me about a million random things going on back home. At the time, I hadn't bothered to read it, just another annoying letter from my parents. Now I wanted to see it more than anything.

As I looked for her message, Abby watched me deftly scroll through my email. She shook her head, "Your phone takes pictures, sends and receives messages, and plays games. Does anyone actually talk on these things?"

"Not really," I said looking up with a grin.

"Then why call them phones?" asked a bewildered Abby.

I laughed but didn't have a decent answer for Abby. I looked back down to my phone and froze. There was a new message from my dad's work email address. I hadn't noticed it before as I had been looking for past email from parents. This email had arrived at 2:16 am the night before, right in the middle of the time that was a complete blank for me. But what really drew my attention was the subject of the message -- "URGENT Read right away"

Abby noticed the expression on my face and asked with a hint of alarm in her voice, "Jason, what's wrong?"

"I've got a message from my dad," I said as I stared at the unread email.

Abby blinked, "Just now?"

"No, last night, but during the time I can't account for," I explained as I showed her the time of the message. For some reason, I felt extremely uneasy about dad's last email, as if I didn't want to know what he was going to say. My finger trembled a bit as I pressed to open the message. It seemed like it took an eternity to open, but then the message opened and I began to read:

###############################################

"Son, I don't have much time. I can't even begin to explain. But somehow I've been found. And if they could find me, then they can find you. I'm so sorry I never told you the truth about myself. Never spoke about where I actually come from.

The honest truth is I don't really understand myself, all I can say is, I'm not from Earth. Or at least the Earth you grew up on. I'm from what I think would best be called a parallel time line. A world very similar to this world, but different.

I know this sounds like I've gone crazy and rambling, but it's all true.

Now this is important. If you get taken you're going to wake up confused and feeling like you've got the worst hangover. It will pass. What's important is you get "

##############################################

I stared dumbly at the message for a long minute and then reread it. And then reread it again. My dad's message had stopped abruptly, either the email sent prematurely or the message truncated by some method. My hands were shaking badly as I handed the phone over to Abby for her to read the letter. Even her milky white skin paled further as she read the message.

Finally, she looked up, he eyes wide. "Jason, what does it mean?"

But I had no answer for Abby. I was rocked to my very core. "I don't know..."