Waltz Through the Corridors of Time

The first time I met Vani, she reminded me of a bird of paradise wearing a chicken suit. The chicken suit in this case was a frumpy charcoal gray business jacket worn over a long sleeve white blouse and matching skirt. She looked like a fifty year old with no figure at all. Only after close inspection did I determine that it was camouflage. She was, in fact, a south Asian beauty. It didn't help that she was out of place sitting at rickety old table in an old harvest gold kitchen in a rundown house in a down on its heels neighborhood. She was a bird of paradise wearing a chicken suit while living in a junk yard.

"I need a house-mate who will help me upgrade and remodel this house. I'm proposing that based on the work you do, I drop your rent on a monthly basis. The work, as you can see, is extensive." She gestured at the chaos around her looking for a moment like a TV spokes-model if only she hadn't brushed up against something dusty during our tour. She now had a dust streak across her nicely shaped bottom.

"Exactly how would that work?" I challenged her, "I have no problem with mowing the lawn and shoveling the snow at fifteen bucks an hour, but make remodeling worth my time. Nobody I know will climb on a roof or remodel a house for fifteen bucks an hour."

"I'll deduct any construction work you do from your rent at the rate of fifteen dollars an hour."

She sat back and looked me in the eye. Someone had told her, I'm guessing her father, that it was important to look a person in the eye when striking a deal. She looked more like she was giving me the fish eye. She did have big soft brown eyes that I could get lost looking into, but not lost enough to slog away for unending hours at fifteen bucks an hour.

She pulled at the collar on her blouse every few seconds as if she wanted to get out of that silly outfit. I couldn't blame her. It was too hot to be wearing that many layers of clothing.

"You don't need a handyman. You need a general contractor to turn this run down four bedroom house into student housing; and fifteen dollars an hour for a contractor is a joke. The foundation is in good shape, but not much else is. Your plumbing leaks, your windows need replacing, that ancient furnace in the basement has a hole in the heat exchanger the size of my fist, the roof has to be replaced before winter, your electrical box needs upgrading, and your entire house needs siding and blown in insulation."

Her face registered something between anger and desperation. I didn't want to crush her so I backed off.

"None of that scares me. If you have the money, I can fix it. I want to live here for the summer rent free while I fix the major stuff. We split the utilities. I'll oversee the contractors I bring in for free, but the repairs I make myself, you'll pay me for at the rate of thirty dollars an hour. Fifteen an hour is fine for shoveling snow and mowing the lawn though."

"That's unreasonable."

This time her eyes flashed unadulterated anger. She had fire in her, I liked that.

Vani pulled herself up to her full height of five feet five inches and ground her sensible heels into the gritty linoleum. She stood undaunted even though I towered over her by the better part of a foot. Her pluckiness made me smile. My bird of paradise showed her beak and talons.

"You need to interview a lot more people before you realize the deal that I'm offering you. Have a good evening, Miss Sauri. We'll talk again."

I stood, walked out the side door and climbed into my truck. Hell, a part of me wanted to stay. She was a maiden in distress, and I wanted to help her, but not at fifteen dollars an hour. You don't build respect by starting out as a doormat. The money was immaterial, I knew I was going to rebuild the house. I had dreamed about her and this house three times which pretty much meant our relationship was written in stone, but she needed to respect me. Remodeling is hard, fussy work.

Still, I was drawn to her like a roofing nail to a rare earth magnet, and I liked the way she looked at me. Shaking hands with her had been a shock. If I shook hands with anyone else, I got a sense of who they were and who they were going to be. With Vani I got nothing at all. That alone sparked my curiosity about her.

On my way home, I stopped at my favorite Chinese restaurant and got an egg roll and a quart of egg drop soup for dinner. When I turned the corner on my block I heard the music emanating from the house where I rented my room. The nineteen year olds were blasting their music again, and I was sure the police would visit us. I couldn't wait to get out of the place.

The following morning, I savored my coffee in the sunlight on the porch of my house. The day promised to be a hot one, but for now a touch of flower scented coolness hung in the air. University classes had ended the week before, and I wasn't taking summer classes. It was nice not having anywhere to go and no assignments or tests to worry about. For the moment, the dewy steps I sat upon were the perfect place to contemplate my world.

Try as I might to think of other things, my mind returned to Vani. How could it not when I had dreamed about her and her house before I met her? She had a smile so breathtaking that I almost forgot that what she proposed was ridiculous. She was so unlike my volatile, over-dramatic, former girlfriend Amy who dragged chaos with her wherever she went. Amy who proved that no good deed goes unpunished. I had seen her yellow VW beetle driving past the house several times.

Still, Vani amazed me, I had touched her and had seen nothing of her future. The first touch of stranger released a torrent of information about them. Some was flattering, some not so much. The more I touched them, the more information I got. It made dating almost impossible. Imagine knowing that the lovely woman you were attracted to will cheat on you every chance she gets. Even worse, what if you knew every disgusting habit your date had before you established any sort of relationship.

I checked my watch, it was still too early to call Dr. Rita Summers. She was a psychologist who was familiar with my peculiar abilities. Her summer office hours began at ten. She had asked me to keep her updated on anything that happened of an unusual nature; meeting Vani qualified.

I would write when I was done with the coffee. My nineteen year old house-mates had stayed up late last night which meant they would be slow getting up. I didn't hate the lazy dolts. One would die of a narcotics overdose in two years, two would drop out of school at the end of next year because of their drinking, and one would graduate and spend his life in a loveless marriage. It's hard to hate anyone once you know what fate has in store for them.

The nineteen year olds wouldn't get up until one or two in the afternoon, and that's when their endless high volume head-banger music would fire up again.

One day I would be a successful author. I had no control of these flashes of the future and so I had no idea of when I would become a successful author or how. That wasn't how my foresight worked. The only thing I could do for now was to keep practicing.

The flashes of the future come when they come. It's like I was given a house full of IKEA furniture, but none of the assembly instructions.

My thoughts circled back to Vani again. She had given herself a problem she couldn't solve without major help. Who thought it was a good idea to drop a twenty-one year old woman without tools or skills deep into a whole house renovation project during the twelve weeks of summer between her sophomore and her junior year? She was pretty opinionated for a person who knew little about building restoration. She would not be easy to deal with.

As I walked into the house to grab another cup of coffee and remembered another problem. While surfing through an investment site on my laptop, I my gift told me that GIMC would enjoy spectacular growth over the next five years. The problem was investment houses were getting wise to me. One of my brokers had joked during my last transaction that the entire office had benefited from my last buy order. I dreaded the idea that I might be targeted as an investment genius. People might begin looking too closely at me, and I did not want to spend my life as a government or corporate asset. I needed a proxy to buy for me. My problem was that I had no one I could trust.

I met Dr. Summers at a coney island that evening. Over a gyro and small Greek salad I told her of my meeting with Vani.

"You got no reading on her at all?" she asked.

"Nothing beyond recognizing her from my dreams."

Sometimes, Rita looked at me like I was a frog she was getting ready to dissect. This was one of those times, and that look made me nervous.

"Would you object to a hypnotic regression?"

She watched my face intently. Being a psychologist, she could read me like I was a tweet in Twitter. I, being a man, couldn't read her at all.

"I don't mind. I'm curious about how Vani fits into my life. Is your boyfriend still on a dig in Ethiopia?"

She nodded.

"I won't see him until classes start up in the fall," she wiped her lips on the napkin,"when we finish up here, why don't we go back to my apartment?" she sipped her iced tea, "I want to tape you if you don't mind. You've convinced me that reincarnation is real."

Her apartment was books and the bookcases needed to house them. There was the required arm chair and couch and the reading lamp, but the rest was books. The titles of the books made me approach them with the same caution as a non-swimmer might approach the deep end of the pool. I mean who wouldn't want to cuddle up with a monograph titled, "Less Sex but More Sexual Diversity: Changes in Sexual Behavior during the Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic"?

She pointed at the couch.

"Make yourself comfortable while I get things set up."

I removed my clothing and was sitting on the couch when she returned with her recorder in hand.

When she saw me nude, she laughed.

"Why do you get nude for these sessions?"

"Anything like clothes, the furniture, and the apartment that draws me to a particular time or place makes it difficult to recall any other. That's why I need you nude in a darkened room lit only be a candle."

Without saying a word, Dr. Rita disappeared for a few moments and returned delightfully nude with lighted candle in hand. She turned out the lights, placed the candle on the floor between us, settled in sitting cross-legged, and turned on the recorder.

"Have any of your powers changed?" she asked when she looked up.

I shook my head while admiring her lithe form. She had let her chestnut hair down and it curled around her creamy shoulders.

"Did you pick up anymore information when we hugged?"

"I did and it makes me sad."

"Nothing horrible, I hope," she grimaced.

"Nothing tragic, I learned that this is the last time we'll be alone, together."

She bit her lower lip.

"I was going to tell you that. I can't shake the feeling that I'm cheating on my boyfriend even though he encouraged me to see other men while he was gone," she glanced up at me all business, "are you ready?"

"I am."

"Relax," she said in a soft sing-song voice, "imagine yourself floating naked in a warm sea. You only feel bliss. Now when I say the key word I want Artorix to appear. 'Intercalate'. Are you there Artorix?"

Artorix, an ancient presence stirred from his hiding place deep within my mind. While he contained all of me, I wasn't all of him. His presence raised no fear in me. He was not here to take over my mind. My body was his vessel while he awaited ascendance.

"I am here," he said in a wizened voice that was not my voice in the same way I knew that my face was no longer my face. The weight of thousands of years stooped my shoulders and bent my back.

"Who is Vani, and what is her role to be in Alan's life?" Rita asked.

"I have known Vani in her many lives throughout the ages. She was my lover in Doggerland before the great flood, we met and loved again in the ancient city of Sumer, she was my Scythian mother on the steppes when I died too young from anthrax, we were lovers again in Carthage when Queen Dido ruled, and I was her father when you gave birth to her in France during the Hundred Years War."

"What is her role in this life?" Rita asked.

"Her role is undefined. While the rest of humanity plods along in the roles laid out for us, Vani is free to do as she chooses. With great freedom comes great peril, and Vani's death is also undefined."

"Why are some given the freedom to act as they choose?" Rita probed further.

"The grand plan that guides humanity gets pulled off track from time to time. Vani and others like her must set things aright."

"What is my role with Alan and Vani in this life?"

"Your part in their lives ends shortly, but you and I and Vani will meet again and again down through the ages ahead," the ancient one in my body wheezed, "we are bound together until ascendence."

"Thank you, Artorix," Dr. Rita took his hand and squeezed it, "could you please allow Alan come to the fore."

Artorix withdrew into a hidden corner of my mind. I remained asleep with my eyes closed yet still alert.

"Alan I want you to remember everything that Artorix and I talked about," Dr. Rita reached out and stroked the side of my face, "on the count of three, open your eyes and awake. One, two, three."

I awoke to Rita kissing me. I reached up and pulled to me. Her small firm breasts crushed against my chest as I ran my hand up and down her willowy back. When we pulled apart to breathe, I reached up and rubbed a tear from her cheek with my thumb.

"Why the tear?" I asked.

"Because I'm missing you already," she confessed, "I've never known anyone like you, Alan, and there'll be no replacing you. You don't love me, nor do I love you, but you've been such an intimate caring friend who I'm sorry to see go."

With that she stood, and pulled me into a standing position. Then holding my hand, she led me to her bedroom. I grabbed the candle. While Rita appreciated making love in the dark, I preferred enough light to watch my lover by. A candle was a nice compromise.

"I remember stumbling into your Psychology 101 class expecting to see a fifty year old balding professor leading the class," I said as I embraced her, "instead I was greeted by a tall, willowy blue eyed brunette whose love of psychology bubbled over during her lectures. I was drawn to you at once and thunderstruck when I shook hands with you during your office hours later that week."

"I sensed something too," she whispered following a kiss, "when I looked across the lecture hall, it was like there was a spotlight on you."

"In your office I told you that your boyfriend's name was Trey. You missed him dearly because he spent long months on the road every year in Ethiopia looking for early hominid fossils. You wanted to marry him, but you didn't know if you can continue to love him when he's gone all the time. You thought the head of the psychology department was an old fossil who hadn't read any psychological literature since the 1970's. You're not sure he even knew you exist, and if he did, he cared nothing about you."

"I was amazed by that, but there wasn't anything there that you couldn't have gleaned by asking around, so I chose to look unimpressed," Rita said as she rubbed her silky smooth body against mine.

I smiled at her. She sucked on my nipple sending pleasant sensations through my body.

"You were even less impressed with me when I told you to stay away from Dr. Farrell until he was led away in handcuffs a few weeks later for being a serial rapist."

"Are you going to talk or are you going to make love to me?" she whispered as she grabbed my cock and pulled me toward the bed.

"We can do both, besides I never know whether you're screwing me or Artorix."

She gave me a tiny smile.

"What does it matter, you both use the same equipment."

Rita pushed me down on the bed and climbed atop me.

"I want to take charge tonight if you don't mind," she whispered into my ear before nibbling on my ear lobe, "you like it and so does Artorix."

She sat up straddling my thighs as she stroked my hardening cock.

She leaned over to suck and nibble my nipples while I did the only thing could. I stroked her back and sides while kissing the top of her head anytime it came near.

When she sat up and gathered her hair using both hands, she gave me a magnificent view of her breasts and her lithe torso. She was a beauty.

"I've loved this moment in our waltz through the corridors of time, Alan. We both know that in this lifetime we are not destined to wed, but we can still be intimate friends while we're waiting for this life to pull us apart."

"I've enjoyed every moment of our time together," I added looking up into her eyes; they were the infinite blue of the sky in the west at sunrise, "we get each other. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever made love to. I look forward to our next dance together in future lives."

She slid down further on my legs until she could take my cock into her mouth when she leaned forward. When she engulfed me, she attacked with zeal. All I could do was moan and stroke her hair. There was no teasing this time. She wanted me to cum and I did as the combination of her lips on my cock, her hand stroking my nut sack and her pebbly nipples rubbing my thighs pushed me over the top.

"I'm going to cum," I squeaked out before I throbbed into her mouth and Rita took every spurt.

"I'm going to miss that," I said as she slid off me and rested her head on my shoulder.

"That's why I did it," she revealed with a sad smile, "Think of me when you think of the best blow job you've ever had."

I rolled over and pulled her rabbit out of the drawer and flicked it on holding it first to her nipples and then her navel and her mons veneris. She warmed to the idea of having a man and a vibrator at the same time. I inserted it into her vulva and watched her hips writhe in response to the stimulation. When I touched her clit, she grabbed my hand and held it to her groin as she bucked beneath me.

While she recovered, she stroked her breasts, and I watched her pleasuring herself. A while back I discovered that watching Rita jill herself while I took her from behind made a better experience for both of us. There was an honesty to it.

"Please take me now," she whispered pulling me into position atop her, "I want to look in your eyes as we make love."

She was so slender that when we made love, I worried about putting my full weight upon her. I'm a big guy with parts in proportion on my big body as are hers on her petite frame, and I took my time slipping into her. She bit her lower lip as I slid into her, and smiled when we met hip to hip. I stroked into her concentrating on sensation rather than speed. When we made love. Her lips where fuller, more cushiony; her voice was lower and a little hoarse; and a lovely blush covered her cheeks, throat and breasts.

"You're not going to break me, Alan. Pound me like you mean it."

I picked up the pace watching her pull herself to me in her need by wrapping her arms around my neck.

"Kiss me," she demanded.

I stopped pumping and resisted a surge of desire as she surrendered her mouth to me the way she had surrendered her body. We had passed beyond making love to completing each other. Our mutual need to push back the world drove us together. I stroked into her ramping up the tempo until we hit a perfect rhythm where she tipped her hips up to me as I thrust down into her. As she neared orgasm again, she wrapped her long legs around my waist and her arms around my neck and held on.

"I'm cumming," she screamed as her nails dug into my shoulder blades. That finished me too, and I orgasmed pumping deep into her.