Timestitch Ch. 05-06

Chapter 5 is short on sex but 6 makes up for it.

CHAPTER 5

4:21 PM Sunday on a high ridge overlooking U.S. Rte. 6

Mmrrrrowwww. The noise the ground vehicles' wheels made on the hardened pavement below dopplered in and then out again as they passed—overwhelming all other sounds. Processing it out to collect useful data on other vibration sources would take cycles the alien did not care to devote just now.

Other inputs had priority just now from the top of the bluff.

It was wonderful.

The wind blew across its naked upper surface in a steady stream, bringing a cacophony of chemical noise to its sensor arrays. The scents ranged from simple burnt hydrocarbons to what could only be sophisticated chemical messengers. It already recognized some of them from its decade spent in the forest floor. Many more were brand new. It set a sub-array to cataloging them for future reference, possibly to replicate useful ones at need. It rippled in anticipation of all the future fun that might bring.

But the view, oh, the view.

Even with the precipitation it could see farther and wider than ever before. It could not possibly take it all in at once. After a quick scan for danger the alien deliberately gave its light sensors a restricted aperture to stop sensory overload. Near at hand it studied the the sandstone bluff and came to the conclusion it was artificial. The regularly spaced grooves that appeared to be the remnants of bore holes was pretty convincing. This told it things about the local sapients. Just what it could spend a lovely time at some later point deducing. Another shiver.

Below the bluff, between it and the pavement, was a plant choked drainage ditch. This would be a wonderful place to more closely observe the passing vehicles. Getting down there was was going to be a bit of a problem it hadn't figured out yet.

The pavement itself appeared to have multiple vehicle lanes, two for ascending but only one descending. It wondered at this until it saw small vehicles passing a larger, obviously laboring one, on the ascending side. Ah, very practical these sapients. It also explained the patterns in stripes dividing the lanes one from another.

On the other side of the pavement was something so interesting the alien deliberately looked away and saved it for last.

To the left, high in the air, long cables descended into the valley below. The gave off an electromagnetic hum bespeaking great power. Power transmission lines, obviously. Curiously there were red balls on each line midway on the descent into the valley. It wondered if that was to prevent small creatures from using the cables as a path. If so, why not put them closer to the endpoints? Were they that cruel to frustrate or even kill small creatures by causing them to fall from the greatest height? This bore some thought cycles. A shiver of an entirely different kind.

Ahead and to the right, in the distance was a great green valley. Wending through it was a giant stream that appeared to meander naturally. Superimposed on the landscape was a geometric pattern of shorter vegetation and paved pathways obviously arranged by he sapients. There were also a great many artificial structures each individually distinct within a limited number of broad categories. More cataloging fun. Yum.

Through gaps in the traffic noise it heard a buzzing noise in the sky. Somewhere above the clouds something was moving and having various electromagnetic conversations with more than one ground station. The inhabitants here had flying vehicles.

Finally the alien allowed itself to concentrate on the most interesting thing in sight. In the wide space between the pavement and the precipice was a disabled vehicle. Its front cover was open and its symmetry was seriously compromised.

The swarm saw great promise in the situation. Obviously the ones who had left it there, or others acting as their agents, would have to come and repair it or haul it away. This was such a ready made opportunity to interact with a host it spent many thought cycles on the possibility it was a trap. It concluded this was unlikely but decided to observe for a while to catalog the dangers.

Another vehicle pulled up to the disabled one. It was of a neutral color with broad markings and flashing lights on top. The flashing lights, of two different colors, caused interesting conjecture about the visible spectrum of the the sapients. One of these got out of the left side of the vehicle. The swarm studied it closely.

They were upright bipeds, bilaterally symmetrical like their vehicles. The upper and lower limbs moved at distinct joints implying some form of endoskeleton since the surface layers seemed soft and pliable. The movement of the upper limbs seemed restricted to the anterior. From this it hypothesized that they were evolved from quadrupeds. The surface layers of this particular creature were obviously arranged to shed the precipitation. Was this a permanent feature? Particularly fascinating was the round disk on the upper sensory pod that kept water out of its eyes.

The biped surveyed the disabled vehicle from both ends and then placed a brightly colored rectangle on the side window where it adhered. The creature then re-boarded its own carrier and sped away.

Fascinating. But there was no time for contemplation. Marking the disabled vehicle like that meant others might soon come to deal with it. It had to move now or risk losing this wonderful opportunity. The swarm devoted its thought cycles entirely to just how to get to the disabled vehicle to await its first host.

Besides the obvious need to avoid discovery until it could choose and enter a host, there was the significant danger of the descent from the bluff itself and then the terrifying prospect of trying to cross the pavement.

The drainage ditch below was obviously there to keep water cascading off the bluff from flowing across the pavement, interfering with vehicle traction. Logically, that meant there had to be some other way for the liquid to escape. The alien searched and spotted what looked the opening of a culvert. Just the thing. Now how to get down?

The swarm was a pretty rugged assembly. By its nature it could deal with amazing amounts of compression and shear forces—as long as its parts were not separated by too great a distance it could survive as a coherent group being. But it also lacked tensile strength, its pieces, its mites, could only cling together with so much strength. They could not pull or be pulled at very hard without being separated. Against sheering force it was even weaker.

Flattening out and going down would bring certain exposure. Thinning itself out into a long string would create coordination issues from end to end. Staying bunched up would expose it's outer layers to gravitational shearing of a disconcerting sort. Gobs of it would drop off to splatter on the pavement below. Besides the chance of exposure that way, if too much broke lose it might lose coherence.

In the forest it had observed many small creatures generated fibers from within their own bodies for their own purposes. These were quite efficient and fascinating. It particularly liked watching as the eight legged ones used their fibers to create open nets to snare other creatures. It wondered for the thousandth time why only the eight legged ones did this then forced itself back to the problem at hand.

A close knit mesh might be just the thing. Spinning its own fibers would be no problem given a sufficient supply of carbon. But would the principle scale up? It did not see any large scale nets about unless... could the power cables double as such? Could those red balls be bait for the fliers? Curiouser and curiouser.

Focus.

Back to the problem of descending the bluff. Not far off was a fallen tree trunk. That should provide sufficient carbon. Oozing over and sampling the log revealed the wood actually consisted of ready made fibers glued together. With something approaching glee the swarm began rearranging these into a ladder-like mesh it envisioned as optimal to its needs.

In no time at all it was easing down the bluff in a giant rock colored version of the yummy worms it had occasionally amused itself by hunting them in the forest floor.

The swarm hurried, hardly bothering to catalog the various materials and microscopic biology it encountered in its trek. Down the face of the stone it went, along the ditch to the culvert, ooze through the iron mesh cover, down the pipe and out the other end, back up the slope and through a drain hole in the low stone wall.

The swarm halted under a shrubbery, merging as quickly as possible with its shadow. It had moved none too soon.

5:10 PM Sunday

Soon after passing the Omni and the cop car, Dave pulled off to a side road and turned around. He was prepared to wait thirty minutes for the county mounty to leave but was rewarded for his internal commitment by the cop car passing him not more than five minutes later.

He drove back to the girls' car and pulled up beside it, blocking it as much as possible from view.

His goal here was to frustrate the Omni's easy repair and the girl's return to their journey. He couldn't have Janice and Holly back on the road too quickly. That was not the plan.

But he also couldn't be obvious about it. The plan called for the girls to think locals, and not he, had further compromised their transport.

First he removed the battery and put it in the cargo bed of the Camino. He left the distributor cap and rotor because that would be too obvious an act of sabotage.

Using a tool he had fashioned from a band of steel, he unlocked the door and rooted around in the girls things. Anything that looked like it had the remotest value was tossed after the battery. It took him less than two minutes to pull the stereo cassette player. This was all purely for verisimilitude. Dave had no time to find a fence and it collectively wasn't worth a fart in a hurricane anyway. The rest of their stuff he dumped on the ground with glee.

It was then he had an inspiration. The one thing he could take away that would be hardest to replace was the plates! They couldn't drive anywhere without them and wouldn't likely even try. He grinned as he got out a ratchet and set to work. Best of all, they'd think some local kids had taken them for souvenirs!

Dave tossed the plates onto the seat and climbed in behind the wheel. He stopped. Something black and fuzzy was watching him from under a bush, probably a cat. He shrugged, closed the door and drove away. Dave had graduated from torturing kitties long ago.

~~~*~~~

CHAPTER 6

7:02 PM Sunday, The Pink Apple Cafe along U.S. Rte. 6, near Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania.

Katherine "Kitty" Ford was getting near the end of her shift at the Pink Apple diner when Deputy Titus walked in and took his usual seat. She saw he was not in uniform and was glad he was off shift. Maybe tonight he'd take the hints she'd been dropping like anvils.

Kit was thirty-two and a widow. She was attracted to Titus' solid good looks, his gentlemanly demeanor over his worldly confidence and the fact that he didn't smell like cow manure. She knew she was attractive to him but sensed the deputy had commitment issues. Kit had no such issues, she just wanted to get her ashes hauled in the worst way. She'd been trying to think of a ladylike way to let him know that ever since he had first walked into the rundown old diner in those tight khaki pants.

As she brought over the coffee urn she could see something was different tonight. This boy is vibrating like a bull with his dick caught in the electric fence. "What can I get you tonight Deputy?"

When he smiled up at Kit his whole face lit up like he was damn glad to see her. "A million dollars and the love of a good woman?"

Kit's stomach flopped over. Holding the coffee urn high she reached into the pocket of her apron with her free hand and pulled out some loose change. She made a show of counting it and did some addition in her head. "How about thirty-seven dollars,m seventy-five cents and the love of a kinky old broad?"

Jim Titus looked at her with those knowing baby blues and said "deal."

The cook yelled "order up!"

Kit set up Jim's coffee and dropped three creamers on the table. "Back in a minute."

The restaurant was frustratingly busy for the rest of her shift. Jim was obviously lingering over his meal but things were getting awkward. The other waitresses were starting to smirk at Kit. Finally she grabbed one of he business cards on display at the register and wrote her address on the back. She slipped it to Jim with his check. "Pull into the garage and close the door. I'll be there soon."

Jim left a two dollar tip, which was a bit high for his bill, but not embarrassingly so. He already had a rep in the apple as a decent tipper.

When Kit pulled into the drive of her ranch style house, the right hand garage door was closed as it always was and the left hand door was stuck half way down. It always did that, which was why Kit always left it open and always locked her kitchen door. Kit pulled her pickup close to the half closed door and got out. "Jim?"

She heard a muffled "in here!"

Ducking under the stuck door she found a cute little Japanese car parked in her garage. Jim was sitting on the weight bench in the otherwise empty parking space idly lifting one of the hand weights up and down as if testing it. Kit felt both a surge of lust at the sight and a pang of loss for the muscle bound moron who had gotten himself killed in a trucking accident halfway across the country.

"That was all Johnny's," Kit said, her voice odd even to her own ear. "I've been thinking of selling it all."

Jim said "if anyone asks, you can say I expressed an interest in buying it."

Kit jingled her keys. "Come inside, I have beer in the fridge."

As he followed her up the steps to the kitchen Jim said "of course I wouldn't have anyplace to put them. But I'm thinking of getting a bigger place."

Kit turned quickly to put herself face to face, eye to eye with him. "Well maybe we can work something out about that."

His baby blues looked at her. She gazed back at him.

Kit reached up and stroked Jim's full mustache, tracing the neatly trimmed line along his upper lip. "Don't rip my uniform off Deputy, this girl needs it for work."

An irresistible force pressed Kit up against Jim. His lips were on hers. The plastic zipper at the back of the ugly pink uniform smoothly descended seemingly on its own volition. Hands, Kit thought, those are his hands on my body... oh sweet heaven is that his cock?

Jim backed off and, with his eyes still on hers, took the keys from her hand and tossed them into the kitchen sink with a clatter. Then he took the purse from her shoulder and tossed it in after the keys. The tips of his fingers caressed her jaw and traced down her neck to part the uniform and pull it off her shoulders. Kit pulled her arms loose and placed her hands on his shoulders. She jiggled her hips to let the pink atrocity fall to the kitchen floor. She pulled one foot out and had to step on the cloth to extract the other. Now she was clad only in white bra, panties, socks and shoes—conscious of every fray and droop.

Jim grasped her upper arms. He kissed her again. "Are you okay? Do you have any... do you want me..."

"Pill," Kit said. "You're safe. I'm assuming..."

"Yeah, I'm clean. Physical two months ago, blood tests and everything... been nobody since."

Of course he could be lying but Kit didn't think so. If there had been anyone else he'd be with her right now. She moved in and pressed her breasts against his wide chest. "Now that we got through the awkward part, why don't you pick me up and carry me into the other room?"

Jim obliged by swooping her up and turning to carefully ease her through the narrow doorway to the dining room. Jim eyed the wide table with its bowl of potpourri and gave Kit a questioning look. She shook her head. "Couch in the living room."

Jim nodded and navigated them through the next doorway and gently lowered her to the overstuffed green sofa. He pulled off one of her sneakers and then stripped off the sock. He kissed her ankle. He repeated the process with her other foot.

Kit started working at the buttons of his shirt while he was pulling off his own shoes and socks. Jim efficiently extracted her from her panties but ran into trouble with the clasp of her bra.

"I hate these damn things," he said, tugging at it behind her back.

Kit pulled the straps off her shoulder and pushed the cups down and turned the bra around so the clasp was in front. She grinned at Jim. "Try now."

Then Kit was kneeling like a harem girl on her big sofa staring at Jim who was sprawled barefoot and naked to the waist. She felt her nipples harden as she stared at how the sun through the big bay window played across his muscular chest and made a tiny dark well of his navel. Kit studied him. He had a solid muscularity with a tiny paunch like she had seen on a Renaissance painting of some biblical patriarch. A line of fine, lovely brown hairs led down into his jeans.

Movement caught her eye and she saw a white Fort Pinto with a blue stripe pull up to her mailbox at the end of her drive. She froze.

Jim's own gaze also shifted as they both silently watched the mailman put what looked like a Publishers Clearinghouse packet into the box and raise the flag. Without ever glancing at the house he drove away.

Jim's face squished up and his eyes shown with suppressed laughter.

"Don't say it," Kit said.

"Gotta..." Jim said.

"I already may be a winner?"

They both laughed. Jim grabbed her and pulled her into his lap. He began tickling her but she pushed his hand away. "Don't, you'll make me pee."

"Okay," he said. They snuggled and kissed. Kit kept glancing out the window until Jim said "relax, it's darker in here and nobody can see in unless they get close."

"I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about you," Kit said. She got up and closed the curtains. "The Sheriff is a bit of a prude."

"Don't I know it," Jim said. "He keeps us after that porn place on six."

"The Route Six News? My cousin works there." And I'm one of their best customers she thought. For sex toys anyway. She returned to the couch and started unbuckling his belt. "But we're getting off the subject at hand."

Kit grabbed the legs of Jim's jeans and pulled them off. He was wearing boxer shorts. His semi-erect uncircumcised penis, of a decent length but a pronominal thickness, stuck right out of the fly. The sight of the solid reality of it twanged at her clit.

She stepped back and made an imperious gesture with her finger. He pulled the shorts off.

So now she could see all of him. The line of fine, lovely brown hairs led to a voluminous pubic tangle. Below his thick cock hung an equally massive sack with it's two humongous stones.

As she looked at him he was looking back at her through lidded eyes, his cock twitching. His pecker was stiffening as she watched, the head emerging from its foreskin. It glistened.

I want him, Kit thought. I want to fuck this beautiful man. My cunt aches for him. And he wants to fuck me too, that's pretty obvious. But I want him to take me, master me, like he did in kitchen. I want that back.

Staring straight at Jim, Kit pinched her nipples. She pulled up one breast and tried to lick at it without losing eye contact. Not quite succeeding at either, she let it drop and winked at him.

Jim had begun to stroke himself. "You are so gorgeous..."

"Don't touch that. Don't you jiz all over my carpet!" He hastily withdrew his hand. Kit put a foot up on the coffee table, letting herself open toward him. Giving a little bump and grind she began rubbing at her slit. "Oh look... I'm so wet..."