Timestitch Ch. 10-12

"So cute!" the elven blonde who must be Holly said. "Interesting color. What was it before it faded?"

"Teal?" the redhead—Janice—said.

Taylor and Jim exchanged that look men get when "their women folk" spoke of esoteric colors.

"Oh no dear," Kit said. She stepped off the front porch. "Teal has more blue in it. That's just some carmaker color with some fancy name they made up."

The two girls both suddenly looked shy. Kit stuck out her hand at the redhead. "I'm Kit, you must be Janice?"

"Yes Ma'am" Janice said and shook.

"Don't call me ma'am, I work for a living." Her mock gruffness got a weak smile from the girl.

"Hi, I'm Holly" Holly said. When Kit offered her hand the smaller girl went in for the hug. "You're so sweet to invite us!"

"Yes, well—"

"Hello Katherine is it?" A big brown hand took hers. "I'm Taylor."

He held onto her hand and Kit felt her insides turning to jelly. "Uh... Kit, please."

"Kit then." He smiled, which was almost compensation for letting her hand go. "Thank you for having us."

"Come inside everyone before it starts to rain again." Kit held the storm door open for her guests. "It will never make Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous but it's paid for."

Silently she added thanks to Johnny's life insurance.

They all trooped in past scavenged packing boxes, many overflowing with paperback books, stacked in the front hallway. Jim added his latest to the pile. "Jim is just moving in, please don't mind the boxes."

"I'm renting her spare room," Jim said. "I needed more room and it helps her make ends meet."

Holly snorted. "I'm all for ends meeting."

Janice elbowed her friend. "I like a man who reads."

"I should think it depended on what he reads," Taylor said. He picked up To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer. "Like the Riverworld series, the books are so much better than the—"

He stopped and suddenly put the book back on the stack. "So many strong visuals in this, it should be a movie."

"All those naked people?" Janice asked. "Won't happen. The Seventies are over."

"Ooh... Love this book." Holly picked up a copy of Jack Vance's The Languages of Pao. It was dogeared and yellow. She noticed it was autographed. "Omigosh!"

"I picked it up used," Jim admitted.

"What dork would sell an autographed copy?"

"The vendor said Vance just walked by one day and signed it off the shelf."

"Neat! Can I borrow it?"

"Holly..." there was a warning tone in Janice's voice.

"Sure" Jim said. "Just be careful with it, okay?"

"Oh I will." She placed it back on the pile and gave it a little pat.

"Where should I put this?" Taylor brandished a covered bowl of pasta salad.

"Picnic table on the patio," Kit said. She led them through the dining room to the sliding glass doors. When she pulled one open the room filled with the sound of rain pattering on the vinyl canopy. Cool wet air wafted in. "I hate this fucking rain."

The walked out onto the brick patio. Surveying the meager picnic fair on the red checkered vinyl table cloth, Kit felt her hostess nerves rising back up. Chips, condiments, pickles, paper plates and plastic ware. "Beer and pop in the cooler. Chicken is on the grill. It will be ready in a bit."

"You threw all this together on such short notice?" Janice asked.

Kit felt the a surge of gratitude toward her. "It's nothing, we used to host all the time."

Holly grabbed a fist full of potato chips and started munching.

"Tropical storm heading north of Bermuda pushing rain off the Gulf Stream," Taylor said.

"Like a fucking freight train," Jim said. "Excuse my French."

Kit laughed. She patted Jim's cheek. "We've all heard that word before sweety. But yeah, it's almost as bad as Agnes. We'll be in for some flooding on the river sure enough."

In the summer of 1972, even though it was downgraded to a tropical storm, Agnes wreaked havoc in the Susquehanna river valley by squatting over upstate New York and dropping a deluge there.

"Surprised I haven't been called in for overtime already," Jim said.

"That would suck," Holly said.

"But good money," Taylor said.

"Not until my hours go over forty for the week," Jim said.

"You said you work 'four by fours?'" Janice asked. "I should think you already have forty-eight hours in."

"Not if you straddle a weekend," Jim said.

Janice did the sums in her head. Yeah that would suck. She nodded understanding.

Kit said "Jim, why don't you start a fire in the pit while I give our guests the fifty cent tour?"

"Good luck with that," Taylor said.

Jim picked up a can of starter fluid. He grinned. "I don't anticipate any problem."

"Be careful," Kit said. She felt a whole new set of nerves now.

Jim leaned over and kissed the side of Kit's head. He murmured "Don't worry, I got this."

Kit took a moment to look him in the eyes, then she gave him a quick kiss. "Okay."

Kit led the others inside. She showed the master bedroom an the one that was nominally to be Jim's for appearances sake. The third bedroom, the smallest, had been her and Johnny's play space. Now it was cluttered space for everything she didn't know where else to put. Kit almost passed over it with a dismissive gesture but something made her walk right in and sweep her arms around. "This used to be the playroom."

"Wow, what's that?" Holly asked.

That was a giant X made from wrought iron. The cross's outline was of heavy stock and filled in with lighter stock curved into a Celtic pattern. At each extremity of the X dangled a heavy metal ring. The whole thing was painted gold with black accents. Johnny had been very good with metal.

"That is a St. Anthony's cross," Taylor said. "And quite an extraordinary one at that."

"Thank you, my Johnny made it."

"What's it for?" Holly asked. "Oh! I know!"

The smaller girl extended her arms up the arms of the X. She wiggled her backside. "You're kinky!"

The way she said it was more of a glad revelation than an accusation.

"Who flogged whom?" Janice asked.

"Would you believe we took turns?" Kit asked.

"You were switches?" Taylor asked. Janice looked up at him curiosity and a bit of fear.

Kit looked out the window. She could see Jim leaning over with a lit fireplace match. There was a quite "foom" and Jim jumped back. Flame licked up between the logs in the fire pit. Jim grinned and yelled "bwah ha ha!"

She turned to look Taylor in the eyes. "Jim doesn't know—yet."

"I sense he will be okay with a little kink," Taylor said. "It must be hard, the hunger."

"Hunger?" Janice asked.

Taylor took her hand, placed it on cross. "I'll explain later."

She began to lovingly trace the sensual curves of the cold iron.

As the four of them stood there admiring Johnny's handiwork, all Kit could do was nod. Maybe, just maybe...

That last sweet time, when Johnny had snapped the cuffs' links she wore to the rings on the cross. She was facing out so her naked tits and cunt would be exposed directly to his ministrations. And his hands, which he demonstrated by pinching her nipples hard, just the way she liked. Then his work roughened paws had slid down the skin of her belly and a fat finger intruded on her slit, testing her wetness.

Johnny had grunted with satisfaction as he wiped his finger on her cheek. Kit had turned her head, trying to capture the glistening digit with her lips but he dodged it away.

Neither spoke. They rarely did as they played. Both of them found that words only inhibited the physical conversation of the scene.

She watched as Johnny picked up his prized elk skin floggers and gave them tentative swings, warming up like an anxious batter in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, growing in confidence as his muscles remembered the familiar weight of the swinging leather falls.

Without a pause, Johnny reached out casually and flicked one flogger lightly across her belly. Kit sucked in her abs not from the pain, she hardly felt the softest of touche from the tips, but from anticipation there would be more. Much more.

And so it began.

First the slow and gentle warm-up caresses of the leather on her skin. Playing first across her thighs and then her breasts. Faster and faster, harder and harder. The sweet thumping pain getting better and better with each skilled stroke from her Top.

Johnny was sweating, it glistened on his wide chest and dripped from his hairy belly. He was working hard, slamming the leather against her skin with the precision of a virtuoso. Kit was certain she glistened too, but not just from sweat. Her inner thighs were cooled by her dripping sex.

Johnny paused. He ran his calloused hand from the crook of her neck down across her body to cup her mound while his blue eyes met hers, cocking his head, questioning.

Kit had nodded slowly, not wanting to seem too eager.

Her Top quirked an eyebrow and his eyes sparkled. He knew.

The flogging began anew, accelerating quickly from whispering stings to slapping wet thuds against her reddening skin. Kit leaned into it, spreading her thighs, aiming her cunt at Johnny as if to say "Here! Hit me here!"

Johnny did. He reversed the direction of his swings from downwards across her body so that the falls licked upwards and inwards between her thighs, catching the swollen flesh of Kit's cunt in all its most delicate places. It hurt so good. She was going to come so hard. She was—

"Anyways," Holly said. "Let's all go out and see if Jim still has his eyebrows!"

Kit almost fainted from crashing out of her memories. Taylor's big hands grabbed her arms and steadied her. Big but soft, not hard like Johnny's. Oh Johnny...

Taylor wiped a tear from her cheek with his broad brown thumb. "I understand."

"Right... sorry..." Kit choked out. "Eyebrows? Yes... let's go see.."

Jim did indeed still have his eyebrows. He was happily poking the wood in the pit with an iron. The flames soared upwards oblivious to the rain.

"Not too high Jim," Kit said. "If the wind shifts it will catch the canopy."

Jim looked around. "Okay."

Kit lifted the lid on the barbecue. The smell of roasting chicken on the edge of burning wafted forth. "These are done, I think. Who wants to be the guinea pig?"

"Me!" Holly and Jim said together. They looked at each other and grinned.

Janice opened the cooler and called "Okay, who wants what?"

They all got down to the serious business of eating. Kit was glad she had Jim precook the chicken. It would never have been ready otherwise. The rain came and went, as did the conversation. Kit felt herself relaxing until the sound of the water dripping off the canopy made her want to pee.

Kit came from the bathroom and went looking for her guests. The girls were sitting by the fire pit talking about something. Holly's hands were making motions like a swooping airplane. The men were not in sight. She heard a clank from the garage. She went through the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. Taylor lying on the weight bench. Jim was spotting him. Both men had their shirts off. Pectorals glistened not from sweat but from the rain. Kit leaned against the door frame and watched.

They were talking quietly as Taylor pushed the bar up and lowered it slowly. The roof or the garage wasn't insulated. You could hear the rain nattered insistently on the shingles above. All Kit could hear of their conversation was the tone and a word or two. Kit caught Holly's name. Jim's tone was tentative. Taylor's tone was casual, almost too casual. Reassuring.

Jim said something self deprecating.

Taylor said something reassuring ending in "do the rest."

Kit noticed Jim's khakis bulged in the front. So did Taylor's black jeans.

A homoerotic vision began filling her head. In her mind Taylor finished his set and set the bar on its rest. He reached up and unzipped Jim's trousers. Jim's fat white cock flopped out. Taylor took it in his hand and stroked it. "You can fuck my face if you want."

Jim bent his knees and presented the head of his cock to Taylor's lips. Taylor reached out with an impossibly long tongue—longer even than that of Gene Simmons—pulling the pink head of Jim's cock into his mouth and began to—

The phone rang.

Kit's reverie popped like a balloon in her mind. She crossed the kitchen to the bar separating it from the dining room. She picked up the clunky beige receiver. "Katherine, it's your Uncle Bill."

"Hi Uncle Bill," Kit felt a lump in her stomach but she forced a smile into her voice. "What's up?"

"Nan is back in the hospital, we don't think she'll be much longer." Nan was Bill's aunt and Kit's great aunt. She had filled the role of mother to Bill and his two siblings for decades after his own mother had died and grandmother to Kit and her swarm of cousins.

"Oh dear." Kit sat. "Well she's been suffering a long time."

"I know," Bill said. "It's been hard..."

"How about you?" Kit asked.

"I'll manage." He sounded like he would—barely.

"Hold on Uncle Bill." Someone had touched Kit's shoulder. She turned to see Jim with a questioning look on his face. He'd put his shirt back on but it was damp and clung to his broad chest. Kit covered the phone with her hand. "My great aunt. They think she's dying."

Back to her uncle on the phone she said "I'll take the first flight down in the morning."

"That would be good," Bill said. "I tried Judy but got her machine."

"She's probably at work, I'll call her. Let me do that now."

"Call from the airport and I'll send Tommy out."

Tommy was her uncle's youngest of three. "Is he driving now?"

"Yeah, got his license in May."

"They grow up so fast," Kit said. "Let me call Judy."

"Bye Kitty Kat."

"G'bye." To Jim she said. "I need to tell my cousin Judy."

Jim sat in a stool across the bar. He took her free hand.

She dialed her cousin's home number.

"Judy's not here. There's a beep coming. You know what to do."

"Shit. Shit. Shit." Kit said. When the phone beeped she said "Judy, pick up, it's important... Judy?... Listen, call Uncle Bill right away."

Kit dialed the Route Six News from memory. The phone rang and rang at the other end. The store had no answering machine because the only messages ever left were exhortations to cease pandering to the lustful. It was Monday, so the store wouldn't be open, but Judy might be "working inventory." Fucking her boss.

Kit hung up the phone and pulled out the slim local phone book. "I have to book a flight. Jim, can you run me down to Avoca tomorrow?"

The Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport was in the town of Avoca down in Luzern County. Jim nodded. Kit was vaguely aware of bustle around her in the kitchen as her three guests brought in the food and cleaned up with minimum talk. While Kit was pulling out her credit card from her purse she was aware of Jim explaining the situation in low murmurs.

They gathered around Kit. Taylor sat in the stool next to Kit. Janice climbed into his lap. Holly sat next to Jim across the way. It was so very odd. All of them, every one, seemed to radiate comfort and care. Instant family, just add sex.

"I'm on the Eastern flight at ten tomorrow," Kit finally said.

"Can I come with?" Holly asked. "For the ride down and back?"

"Sure," Jim said. "Is that okay Kit?"

"I'll be glad of the company," Kit said.

~~~*~~~

7:02 PM Monday, Janice's Omni in the lot at Gilbert Thomas and Sons Auto Body

The alien finished processing the tire into microscopic loops. It found that these increased its mass by half and nearly doubled its volume. The rings were a big success. Among other things, not only could it create much larger free standing appendages, it could also now launch portions of its own mass with considerable force.

Throwing bits of itself from one appendage to another—playing catch—was both fun and challenging.

This led to discovering another, unexpected, benefit of the rings. The loops wicked up liquids, greatly aiding the transport and digestion of nutrients. It found this out when one of its flying balls of nannites missed and bounced off the front dashboard to fall into a puddle on the floor of vehicle. When the alien flowed into the front seat to recover the ball it found the little glob all squishy with an interesting soup of dust, dirt and food crumbs.

The alien proceeded to roll around the floor of the vehicle absorbing the useful detritus and exuding unwanted stuff from within its mass.

This was significant. It now had much better mobility. It was now much more efficient at taking nutrition from its environment. It could even deal with local organisms by other means than just hiding and fleeing. It rippled with wonder at the implication:

Having a host organism went from being a need to just a want.

But it was still a want. An aching want.

~~~*~~~

CHAPTER 12

6:45 AM Tuesday, the cabin

Holly was waiting on the steps huddled under an umbrella when Jim pulled into the drive at the cabin. She noticed that his tire just missed crushing something square on the drive. She got up and went over to look. It was Taylor's calculator, the one that had buzzed Sunday night.

"We're running late." Kit jumped out of the passenger seat and pulled it forward. She crawled into the back seat.

Holly picked up Taylor's calculator. It must have dropped out of his clothes when she undressed him Sunday night. She looked at it idly, it was one of those Japanese models with lots of extra buttons some of whose labels she recognized from trigonometry but many for which she didn't have a clue. "You take the front Kit, you may have to rush when we get there."

"Are you sure?"

"Besides, I'm smaller."

"Okay" Kit crawled back out of the car.

Holly wondered if she should take Taylor's calculator into the house. He was probably looking for it. She took a step in that direction.

"Ladies?" Jim called. "We are seriously going to be late."

Holly stuffed the calculator into her purse and crawled into the back seat.

Jim's respect for the law did not seem to include speed limits.

On the way down Route Six towards the east, the rising sun was just a bright patch in the clouds. Along the way the trio had a lively discussion of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis—that language affects the way people think—as demonstrated in Jack Vance's The Languages of Pao versus Samuel R. Delaney's Babel-17. Holly favored Vance's novel as a better exemplar and Jim favored that of Delaney. Kit brought up Orwell's 1984 which she had read after seeing the CBS News special 1984 Revisited in June of '83. This led to a heated discussion of the politics of Walter Cronkite, who had narrated the special. Kit short circuited the argument by starting a new one about which novel had the most romantic subplot. Holly won this handily with the final rejoinder "She freaking died for him, you can't get more romantic than that."

Kit then asked what they thought was the sexiest line they read that wasn't supposed to be sexy. Jim said he remembered a woman checking a watch on her ankle in Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy.

The miles sped by.

~~~*~~~

9:01 AM Tuesday, the cabin

After a nice late breakfast with Janice, Taylor called the garage to check on Janice's car. The owner said the parts were on back order and would take several weeks. He then brought up the matter of storage fee. A single week's fees was more than a towing fee so Taylor said to bring the car to the cabin. He pondered the risk and decided it was acceptable. He gave the address.

He considered finding Janice and fucking her again this morning. If she wasn't ready again, or even a little sore, she would likely revel in the hedonistic spontaneity.

They had all been tired and a little down after returning from Kit's house night before. So they had merely stripped, showered and cuddled until falling asleep in the big bed. In the morning he had been roused from sleep by Holly getting out. She had gone to pee and then returned to the other side, crawling in next to Janice. Murmuring had ensued. Taylor followed the conversation with interest since he seemed to be the topic. A hand reached around Taylor and checked the status of his penis. He was only semi-erect. More murmuring. Then a giggle and someone slapped the other's butt.