Out of Focus Pt. 04

Me: dnt care imprtnt PLS!!!
Alicia: k mpls

I was expecting another message, but instead I heard the guest room door click open and it got slightly brighter as the night light from the bathroom across the hall silhouetted a female form in my doorway. I tensed, expecting it to be Francine.

"Lou," came the whispered voice of Alicia. Thank God!

"Oh, Sweetie, thank God it's you!" I said softly as I held her to me as she came into my arms. Even in my state of worry, I could not keep my body from reacting to the scantily-clad angel in my arms. Little Lou was starting to make his presence known.

"Baby, what is so important that you need me here and now?" I could barely make out her features, but I got the distinct impression that Alicia was smiling at me. "Are you that horny?"

I was still too nervous about the situation to respond with any levity. "No; but I need for you to trust me and follow my instructions on something."

"What are you talking about, Lou?" Alicia asked. She was still young enough and headstrong enough that she was simply not used to taking directions or going along with anything blindly or without asking a load of questions or arguing sufficiently until she was completely convinced of something.

I tried to emphasize the urgency by asking point blank, "Do ... you ... trust ... me?"

Alicia was frowning now, I could tell in the glow of my phone's screen. But I could tell by her body's reaction and her short sigh that she was going to go along ... at least conditionally, for now. "Okay, Honey. Yes. I trust you, but you are really beginning to freak me out. Just what do you want from me?"

At last!

"Sweetheart, I know all this is strange, but I need for you to get into the closet over there and stay as quiet as you can." I could feel her tense, as if to object or begin asking another series of questions, so I forged ahead. "We don't have very much time, so I really need for you to trust me on this. You will see, hopefully in short order, just what I believe is going on tonight."

Alicia did not say anything, but if I were in her position, I would believe that my boyfriend had lost his mind. But--bless her heart--she moved close and hugged me and said, "Louis Chandler, you have to be the craziest boyfriend a girl could have." Then she sighed and said, "But I love you enough to let you show me what you want me to see; even if it seems completely off the wall."

I led her over to the closet and opened the door. Before letting her go in, I moved along the wall and took one of the side chairs in the room and moved it into the closet. "Here, this will give you a place to sit so that you won't get too tired if this takes longer than I expect it to."

"Are you sure about all of this, Lou?" Alicia asked as one more effort to resist.

"Honey, believe me; within a period starting from a few minutes from now and going as long as a couple of hours, you are going to see something play out in this room that will more than likely surprise you beyond what you would ever imagine." Alicia started to say something, but I continued. "But it will also reveal to you the truth about something that could have otherwise caused us to be apart forever after this weekend. Would you want that to happen?"

"No, Sweetie, I don't want anything to keep us apart. And you know that," Alicia confirmed to me with another short hug.

"Then, please trust me, sit here, and remain completely quiet. When what I suspect will happen, actually does, I want you to remain quiet--no matter what! You will need to see the whole event in order to understand what has me going right now. Can I count on you to keep quiet until I personally ask you to come out?" I looked at her in the gloom; my phone's screen had blanked out now, so there was very little illumination. I felt her nod and then she sat down as I closed the closet door on her.

The louvered openings of the top half of the door would have let some light into the closet if there had been any lamps on. As it was, if there were to be any light coming on in the room, Alicia would be able to see partially through the slats of the louvers. And she would hear what went on regardless of the light situation.

I got back into bed and pulled up the covers as I began what I hoped would be a short wait. Needless to say, the inactivity in the house and the silence was a bit eerie to me as I waited for what I knew was likely to happen. I mean ... it had happened before, and all the indicators were there for it to happen the same way.

But, I was determined that the outcome would be very different this time around!

The silent wait had been ongoing for almost forty minutes, when I felt my phone vibrate. Not wanting the glow of the screen to give anything away to anyone entering the room, I ducked under the covers.

Alicia: how long need 2 p b4 2 long
Me: can U hold on
Alicia: ill try

It turned out to be five of the longest minutes of the night after that last text. The screen had dimmed out after about fifteen seconds following Alicia's last response, leaving us both in the dark and the quiet. The tension had my guts in turmoil.

Then I heard the knob rattle and the guest room door clicked softly as it opened. I had my head turned so that I could see what might be transpiring at the doorway without giving away the fact that I was actually awake and alert.

I was expecting Francine to enter. What I did not expect was someone else to be with her!

I could not make out the form initially, except that its silhouette was larger than that of Francine. When they began to speak softly, believing me to be out of things and under the influence of whatever had been in the drink, I was startled to realize just who it was. I silently prayed that Alicia, despite her own likely shock as she sat in the closet and witnessed what was happening, would stay quiet for just a bit longer.

"Are you sure he's out?" asked J. Carter Thompson of his daughter. I thought I might have heard Alicia gasp behind the concealing louver door, but it may have been my imagination, hearing things in my heightened state of anxiety that were not actually there.

"Yes, Daddy; I put enough in his drink to keep him out for hours. By the time he finally does stir in a few hours, I may have even gotten a couple of hours of sleep myself," replied Francine, causing them both to chuckle. "We just have to time things right so that Alicia is the one to wake him and discover us together after a 'night of passion.'" I could just imagine Francine doing finger quotes in the air, but it was still too dark in the room to tell.

'Please, please, Alicia ... Stay in place and stay quiet for just a bit longer,' I prayed silently. Either Alicia heard me through ESP or else 'Someone' was hearing my prayers.

"You know that this is not my first choice of how to solve our little dilemma," said Thompson.

"I know, Daddy," Francine answered in her half-whisper, "but Steadman hasn't been around since he left for Cambridge over two-and-a-half months ago. And I will be showing soon enough. We have to get this settled now."

It took me a second to register exactly what she had said. Steadman Carstairs, the guy who had evidently knocked up Francine, had been away from the area for well over two months now. As I quickly ran the math, remembering when Chelsea had been born in that 'other' time line, I realized that the dates did not match up somehow; they were off by about a month. What was different this time? I did not have more than a few seconds to think about that before they spoke again.

"Well, just remember to play the adoring lover until the wedding; and then play the loving wife until we can settle back into our routine, Frankie. And maybe we can even bring your sister on board with you and me eventually," said Thompson. 'Just what did that mean?' I thought.

"Don't worry; I am a pretty good actress," Francine responded. "After all, I fooled everyone at his old business for several months before you bought them out. Remember?"

"Yeah," her father answered softly, adding a quiet chuckle, "I remember it well. Just be careful. That's all I ask, Sweetie; okay?"

"Don't worry," Francine answered with what sounded like pride, "I will. And after I have Louis here snagged and tagged, you and I can get back to being ... Frankie and her Stud Man."

What!

I may have only thought it; or I may have said it out loud. But, it did not matter either way, because I suddenly sat upright in the bed, throwing off all vestiges of subterfuge, along with my covers. My shock had caused me to react without thinking, as I shouted at them both.

"YOU'RE HER STUD MAN!"

When the lights came on, temporarily dazzling all of us, I could see Francine's hand on the switch. J. Carter Thompson was standing there momentarily startled by my outburst.

"Louis!" said Francine, haltingly, and then she paused for a second ... evidently attempting to think of some way out of her predicament ... and that of her father.

In that pause, my mind wrapped itself around the truth of the matter!

J. Carter Thompson had evidently entered into a forbidden, incestuous relationship with his own daughter, Francine!

Not only that; he had evidently impregnated said daughter! The horror of this was huge in my mind!

Francine, while she was actually attracted to and had wanted to be with Steadman Carstairs, was having to entrap me as a simple matter of timing in all of this!

But, worst of all, Thompson was even envisioning going after his other daughter, Alicia, the love of my life, in an attempt to expand his evil web!

Not in my lifetime!

"Give it up, Francine!" I said with all the anger I could muster. "You bitch! How could you stoop so low as to fuck your own father?"

Francine suddenly had a panicked, little-girl-who-was-terrified-of-monsters expression.

"And then to get pregnant by him?" I continued. "And you! You sanctimonious bastard!"

Thompson was uncharacteristically quiet at the moment as he evidently tried to think his way out of this one. But that did not last long.

"Now, see her, Chandler...," he began.

"Oh," I interrupted, "I see, all right! You finagled your way into the bed of one of your daughters; you got her pregnant; you could not get her married off to the guy that both she and you want her married to; so you went to Plan B and tried to trap me!" I was hurling saliva with almost every word I spoke. And then I added the part that really tore at me.

"And, you were even planning to try to worm your way into Alicia's bed!"

Both Francine and Thompson knew that they were screwed now. But I knew that J. Carter Thompson, mighty mover and shaker in business and in upper-middle-class society in the Atlanta area, would launch into the offensive once he had a moment to think.

Alicia did not give him that moment!

"YOU BASTARD!" Alicia had finally had enough and burst forth from her hiding place in the closet, causing the door to slam into the wall loudly. I could not image that anyone in this house was still asleep with all the racket going on--and I was correct.

I saw Mrs. Thompson move to a spot in the hallway just outside the guest room. All the players were now here.

Alicia continued her tirade. "You actually fucked my sister, your own daughter, and got her pregnant?" Tears were starting to roll down her cheeks as her own little-girl love and respect for her father dissolved within her. "And you planned to try to fuck me too? Daddy, how could you even think it; much less do it? What kind of monster are you, anyway?"

As I got off the bed to stand next to Alicia and perhaps restrain her from lashing out physically, I noticed two things. First, Mrs. Thompson was no longer in the doorway. Second, Alicia was wearing the pendant that she had brought back from Kenya--that Bahati stone, she had called it.

And she was holding it and actually fingering it nervously as she shouted out her frustration and anger.

"And you," Alicia now shouted at Francine, "My own sister is trying to break me up with the man I love and trap him into a loveless marriage to hide what you have been doing ... and with our own father!"

I moved closer and wrapped my arms around her midsection to let her know I was there for her and to restrain her if necessary.

The two shots that we heard caused all of us to jump!

It appeared as if J. Carter Thompson had simply flopped over stiffly from where he stood. He was thrown down as if his feet had been fixed in place and his body had been hinged at his feet. Francine was standing next to her father's fallen body in shock with her hands against her mouth.

Alicia was fingering her Bahati stone more anxiously and I had raised my left hand to hold her up as I felt her body begin to sag with what I assumed was resignation, shock, or simply the failure of her strength following the expenditure of her adrenaline. I was only peripherally aware of Mrs. Thompson entering the room with her arm extended as she held what looked like a revolver.

'Shit! She just shot her husband!' my mind said to me.

"I have had enough of all this, you bastard!" I heard Mrs. Thompson shout as I tried to turn Alicia to face me, as a way of shielding her from having to witness her father bleeding out on the floor of the guest room; and her mother holding the murder weapon with which she had assured both her daughters that they would soon no longer have either parent in their lives.

As I turned Alicia toward me, I could see that the pupils of her eyes were reacting in a manner with which I was VERY familiar recently. The iris of her right eye was almost entirely obliterated by the expanded pupil, while her left eye was almost entirely blue due to the smallness of its pupil. Then the two eyes began to alternate in that shape and manner.

With my arms wrapped tightly around my one and only love, and a sudden foreboding, I began to rub my own Nasiib stone with the thumb of my right hand.

I heard two things, one after another. The first was Francine, calling out, "Momma, no!" The second thing was Alicia; asking me a question.

"Louis, what is happening to your eyes?"

****

Chapter 8

"Louis," Alicia insisted, "What is happening to your eyes?"

My arms were still around Alicia, yet several things were different about the situation. First, it was the middle of the afternoon, rather than the dead of night. Second, I was in business casual clothing with a sports jacket instead of just boxers, and Alicia was wearing a very familiar pink high-low sweetheart chiffon cocktail dress rather than just her Shorty nightgown. Third, we were no longer upstairs in the guest bedroom, but were standing with our arms around each other next to a very familiar potted plant just off the front hallway on the ground floor.

I felt my wrist and the Nasiib stone bracelet was still there!

My heart jumped when I noticed that Alicia was still wearing the Bahati stone pendant. Yes! It had come back with her to a time and place where we were together, so 'this Alicia' was more than likely 'my Alicia'! But I wasn't one-hundred-percent sure just yet.

All around us, there were people moving around and chatting as they shared hors d'oeuvres and cocktails. This was a party!

But not just any party ... This was THE party ... at which Alicia and I had first met!

And yet, I had distinctly heard her call me by name, as if she already knew me. I tried to clear my head and my vision as I remembered very well the effects that the Nasiib stone could have on my vision for a few moments after it did its thing. As I looked into Alicia's eyes I saw her pupils beginning to stabilize in the same manner I had witnessed mine doing in that mirror the first time this phenomenon had happened to me.

"Alicia?" I asked tentatively as I loosened what must have appeared to be an intimate embrace of the young lady in my arms. "Is it you? Or ..." I halted, fearful that I might have somehow lost contact with 'my' Alicia; my love.

"Lou," Alicia answered. "Of course it's me, Sugah. Who else would it be, Silly?" Then, as her vision cleared, I could detect the beginning of panic in her eyes at what she was seeing ... and remembering about the horrors we had just experienced together in the other time line right before we showed up here. Before she could say anything, I had to act.

"Don't say a word," I ordered her softly and firmly. I offered her a smile in an attempt to calm her. "Just come with me to the patio and I will explain these strange things to you."

Alicia was still shocked at the unusual nature of what she was experiencing, but she evidently recognized me and trusted me; and she nodded, following me without a word as I held her hand and led her out the French doors to the patio beyond. There, I had her sit down and went over to one of the bartenders to get her a Manhattan, just a bit extra strong, and a CC and ginger for me. I felt the need for a bit of fortification, and I was sure that it would help to steady Alicia's nerves, and ... what the hell, the booze was free at Thompson's party.

I had her take her Bahati stone pendant in her hand as I spoke to her. I quickly, yet quietly gave her the short version of just what type of power her pendant apparently possessed. When she asked how I knew that, I showed her my Nasiib stone bracelet and explained that it had been given to me with an explanation of its power; and that I had doubted the story I had been told as simple superstition ... until I had needed to use it. I told Alicia that my stone had saved me from difficult situations on more than one occasion and I promised to tell her more about the current situation in which we now found ourselves once we could get away from the crowd and her family to talk at length.

That was when Francine stepped out onto the patio and made a bee line toward us.

"Alicia, what do you think you are doing?" Alicia's older sister scolded. "Don't think that I will not mention to Daddy that you are doing more underage drinking in public."

Before Francine could say another word, and before Alicia could respond to her sister in anger, I interjected, "I got it for her, Francine. After all, she's eighteen, in her own house, and handling herself as a responsible adult so far. What's got your panties in such a twist?"

Francine Thompson--this one--had obviously never had anyone challenge her in a manner such as this. And by one of Daddy's underlings, no less!

"Mr. Chandler," Francine said frostily, "I would recommend that you make your respects to my mother and father and leave the premises immediately."

This all sounded familiar, and rightly so. What happened next in no way resembled what I remembered from the first time.

"Francine," I told her with a snort and a shake of my head, "I will be glad to leave the premises. But when I do, Alicia is coming with me." Francine and Alicia both turned to look at me in surprise.

Francine reacted first. "You, Sir, are sadly mistaken. My little sister is going nowhere with the likes of you ..."

"Blow it out-cher ass, Francine!" Alicia said to her older sister. Then turning toward me, she said, "Lou, you wait out front, Sugah! I'm goin' upstayuhs to pack a few things and then you can git me the hell outta heah."

Francine came out of her surprised stupor, put a superior expression on her face, and said, "Alicia, you have absolutely no right ..."

Alicia cut her off with, "Look, Bitch! Get out of my way and let me get my things and get out of here, or I will make sure that everyone here knows that you've been fucking your daddy!"

Francine's face completely drained of color. She did not say anything, but I heard her try to make vocal sounds as Alicia stormed off toward the stairs.

I went over to where Mrs. Thompson was standing after just finishing a conversation with an older couple who had just walked off. "Mrs. Thompson, you probably do not remember me, but I am Louis Chandler. I am afraid that I must leave a bit earlier than I had planned. But I want to thank you for hosting me here at your lovely house."