New Year’s Eve, 1987
The luminous moonlight set off the thicket of clouds in pink tones making the night shine in an unsettling eeriness. As they ran from the Deveraux estate and into the next, they felt relatively safe from the immediate threat of being found by Jack. But the real danger of being seen by the wrong person in this time that they weren’t sure exactly how to navigate yet still hung over them.
They stopped to catch their breath in the shadows of a lawn several acres down from where they’d started. Steve saw how much Kayla was sticking out in that shimmering, creamy dress and knew she was going to attract attention. “You’re going to get noticed in that dress, Kayla. I’m not sure you’re gonna make it on foot, anyway, those shoes weren’t exactly made for walkin’,” Steve said.
“Yeah,” Kayla smiled wryly, “well how about by car?” Steve looked at her quizzically, and she held out a set of car keys. “Look what I found in your pocket,” she said full of triumph.
“The bluesmobile! Oh, baby, did I drive that thing here that night?” he thought back. “Yeah, I must have. That was a long line of cars all the way down the block, I think I remember that. No way I would have parked it close. Where’d I leave it?”
They chanced heading out to the street where the handsome estates each began with a gate at the mouth of each driveway and snuck out through a pedestrian door that locked from the inside. Kayla hid behind a bush as Steve took a hard look down the street. There he saw it, a lone black car at least three more acres down. That’s got to be it, he thought. Man, I didn’t take any chances, did I? He looked back at Kayla. “Found it! Come on, let’s run, baby!”
Not only did they successfully find, unlock, and drive away in the car, but they made it all the way back to Steve’s apartment without being seen. It would have taken hours on foot tonight, but it only took ten minutes by car.
Once in the alley, Kayla’s anticipation to be in Steve’s apartment was almost physical. She could barely contain her nervous energy as Steve fumbled with keys he hadn’t used in 21 years. When they finally walked through the door and locked it behind them, they were both stunned at the sight of it.
“Am I dreaming,” Kayla asked with a shaky voice?
“Don’t start that, again, Sweetness, you know we’re not.”
Kayla wasn’t expecting nostalgia to hit her quite so hard, but she couldn’t help a strangled cry from escaping her. She didn’t remember taking off Steve’s jacket or stumbling down the concrete stairs, but the next thing she knew she was making her way toward Steve’s bed. She stood over it and just stared at it with a sort of amazement.
Still unmoved from the front door, Steve raked his eye over his old apartment. It wasn’t the first time he found himself in this situation, but still, it took him a moment to get past the emotions the place evoked. When his eye finally rested on his wife, he watched as her face took on a look of hunger at his bed. Then she looked up at him and beckoned. “Come here,” she demanded.
He ran down the stairs and into her arms like a thirsty man in a desert. They were here in his apartment in a time that was dangerous and exciting, and he was fast becoming crazy with need for her.
As they kissed with delirious sexuality they pawed at each other’s clothes in an effort to rid themselves of them. Steve’s actions defending her honor against that horrible reporter made her weak in the knees for him. She was heady thinking of how Steve told the creep not to look at her then beat him up when he looked anyway. The way he protected her tonight from something that would ultimately lead to one of the most traumatic experiences of her life aroused her so strongly that she wanted to devour every inch of him. She unbuttoned Steve’s shirt anxiously, her long nails making her fingers feel clumsy and slow. Then she kissed Steve’s tattoo and traced his nipple with the tip of her tongue. Steve sucked in his breath and felt himself immediately get hard.
Kayla moaned indulgently when she thought of the sound of the film being unspooled from the camera … that was the sound of a changed future. That was the sound of a whole new outcome in their lives. It was a sound that made her yearn for his touch on her body.
Steve placed a wet kiss on the tender flesh joining her neck to her shoulder. “I love you, Sweetness. God, I want you so bad.”
Kayla reached down to stroke his rock hard penis, the thoughts of Steve’s actions driving her mad with desire. He reacted by nipping at her tender skin then bathing each bite with the warm wetness of his tongue.
“Steve, you what you did tonight … I … it was so incredible,” she panted. She undid the top button of his jeans and shoved her hand down to grip his naked length. The feel of her fingers around him drove him wild. “You’ve mellowed, but I’m glad your temper ran so hot tonight,” Kayla said, her voice sultry and low. ‘Cause what you did to him, Steve … to protect me … it …”
“It what?” Steve was breathing hard as Kayla stroked him.
“It turned me on,” she said. “So much.”
“It did, huh?” Steve smiled as he held on to her hand from outside his jeans and guided her ministrations.
“Mm-hmm,” she nodded. Kayla moved her head to offer up her neck to him. He licked the curve of her ear and sucked on her lobe. Kayla moaned as she thought more about what their future could be like now that were together so much sooner. No more lying. No more sneaking around. No more Jack in my bed. No more rape. No more …”
“Oh, baby,” Steve moaned as he unzipped her dress and slipped it off her shoulders so that it hung at her waist.
No more …
“I’ve missed these,” he said while cupping her breasts and squeezing them.
What else is there going to be no more of? What if we did too much? What if it was the wrong thing?
Kayla was suddenly terrified of what they’d just done, the gravity of it making the hairs stand up at the back of her neck. It was a weird limbo to be in, fear gripping her while remaining incredibly turned on. She wanted him to keep doing what he was doing to her, but the other thoughts were slowly taking over, making her fearful of every new minute of unknown.
Kayla felt her control start to slip. She kissed her husband, desperately trying to shake off this dampening line of thought, then laced both hands through his hair with a wicked voracity. He moaned in pleasure as she ground her hot center against the thigh he’d shoved between her legs. He knew she was wet and wanted to reach into her underwear and slip his finger inside her. Kayla wished he would, as she was feeling more and more unstable with this change to the future and grasped at anything she could to not fall down this sudden rabbit hole.
“I need to feel you, Steve. I need to feel that you’re real. That this is all real.”
“It is!” he said, grabbing her shoulders. “It’s real. I’m real, Kayla!” Then he crushed his lips upon hers and kissed her hard. “We’re real! I promise we’re real, Sweetness.”
“I know we are! But I need to feel you!” she raised her voice, feeling desperate for reasons she couldn’t put into words yet. He reached behind her and started to shove her dress down over her hips. Kayla kicked off her shoes and finished the job, ridding herself of the dress and her nylons. Steve sat on the edge of the bed and didn’t wait for her to take off her bra and underwear before roughly yanking her toward him to straddle his lap. She was glad he wasn’t gentle. She needed to feel the force of his physical power to stay sane.
Steve placed kisses up her sternum to the hollow of her neck as he slipped his left hand into her bra and ran his thumb over her nipple. When he felt her peak beneath him Steve couldn’t contain himself and became nearly crazed. He lifted her breast out of the bra and sucked it aggressively it into his mouth, running his tongue around her with selfish need.
“You taste sweet, baby, you know that?”
Kayla whimpered, then Steve placed his hands under her bottom and pulled her toward him in a consistent rhythm. He was intoxicated with the feel of his erection against the roughness of his jeans and craved the tight warmth of being inside her.
“I feel you Steve!” she moaned. But she was losing the war with the fear that had taken hold of her. She tried to hold on, to make her love for him and her sexual desire for him push it away. But the fear weeded its tendrils through her brain and slowly won the war. “Oh, I … I feel … I …,” her rhythm slowed, and her voice had a quality Steve recognized with alarm. Her thrusts had all but stopped, and she now sat still atop Steve’s throbbing bulge. Then she looked him in the eye and gasped for air. “Steve …?”
His sexual need burned hot as he ached to impale himself inside of her. But Steve knew his wife in any time. He knew every intonation of her voice. He knew that face looking back at him. And he knew with absolute certainty that she was about to cry. And despite how much his body wanted her, his concern for her overcame throb in his groin.
“Sweetness,” he said gently. Kayla looked back at him, her beseeching eyes quickly filling with tears. He raked the back of his hand over her cheek as his other arm encircled her waist. “Baby, you do what you’ve got to do. I’m right here.” She bit her bottom lip as it began to quiver. “Come on, now. It’s ok.” Steve’s eye was so gentle as she collapsed in his arms and began to sob.
“That’s it, baby, let it out. Shh,” he soothed as he rubbed his hand over her back while threading his other hand through her hair. Steve didn’t know why she was crying, but it didn’t matter right at that moment. He just wanted to hold her and wait till she calmed. She hadn’t moved from her straddled position with her legs wrapped around his waist, but his hardness had abated, and she felt light in his arms as he gently rocked her. He loosened the butterfly pins that were in Kayla’s hair and brushed it out with his fingers so he could stroke it softly.
Soon Kayla’s weeping calmed. Steve guided her lips to his and tenderly kissed her while wiping away her tears with his thumbs. “You want to tell me what that was all about, Sweetness?”
Kayla ran her fingers over Steve’s lips and untangled herself from his lap. She knew how aroused she’d made him when she abruptly stopped what she was doing and started bawling instead. “I’m sorry,” she said glancing meaningfully at the lap she’d just been in feeling guilty for the selfishness.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Sweetness. Just forget that and tell me what just happened to you here.”
“I’m not sure,” she said very softly. “I … I think I’m scared.”
“What are you scared of, Sweetness?”
“I’m scared of what we did out there. Of what’s happening.” Kayla ran her hands up and down Steve’s thigh as she spoke, needing to have physical contact with him. At the Deveraux house, with that reporter … what you did.”
“Yeah, baby?”
“It was amazing what you did for me. To protect me and defend me. It turned me on.”
“Ok,” he smiled, “so far so good, right?”
“And when we got here,” she continued, “it was just so … so real. Then I saw you up there, and I wanted you so bad. But then I couldn’t help but think … that’s not how it happened. That’s not how any of it happened. Don’t you see, we did something that we didn’t do the first time, and it hit me that I don’t know what to do now. I started to lose track of reality in my head and I got scared. Kayla started to cry again, “and I tried to make it go away … with you. I tried to make the sex make it go away.”
“Oh, baby.”
“I couldn’t help it,” she cried. “I just needed to be with you, to feel you making love to me.”
“Don’t apologize for that, baby.”
“But then I made it worse, because I just couldn’t stop wondering if what we did was a good idea.”
“The reporter, you mean? Beating him up?”
Kayla grinned through her tears and shrugged a nod. “It was more than that, though. It was about what it would mean in the future. I mean, yes, I ran away and didn’t go back in the house, but the big change is that film. Steve, it’s never going to be developed. It’s never going to go to Jack.”
“That’s a good thing! Look at all the things that aren’t going to happen now.”
“Exactly! There’s so much I’d wished I could change over the years. Being raped, being deaf, losing you. But, Steve,” she was crying harder now. “I don’t want to change a minute of us. Of who we are to each other and what we have together.”
“Baby, please—“
“Listen to me!” Being raped … was a horrible thing. I couldn’t go through that again. But, it did make me a stronger person. And more importantly, it made us stronger as a couple. And if that hadn’t happened then Jack wouldn’t have done all the things he did after that, and then Harper wouldn’t have had a reason to hate me and plan that attack. I wouldn’t have been deaf. Look how much that helped define us. How would we have had this?” as she made the sign for courage.
Steve’s eyes started to mist as his wife’s words sank in. He hadn’t considered that there could be negative consequences. He was just focusing on preventing those photos from flying Jack into the rage that resulted in him raping his wife.
“You told me that when you were in the coma after you donated your kidney to Jack that you knew we were soulmates. There won’t be any kidney transplant now. How does what we did tonight with that film risk what we have now,” she said. “What does it mean down the road?”
“We are soulmates, Kayla. We’re meant to be together, nothing can change that. All this means is that we’ll be together quicker. We’ll be married quicker. We’ll have Stephanie quicker.”
“Stephanie! How do we know we’d even have her? How do we recreate a life that one instant brings? That instant is supposed to happen in 1990.”
“But weren’t we going to change the future back in 1990?” That jump was only a couple short hours ago in real time, but it felt a lot longer to Steve with his head swimming in sudden uncertainty. “When we were going to prevent me from being taken and get our 16 years back? Weren’t we gonna do it then?”
“But we jumped first and didn’t get the chance. This time we really did. We’ve changed the future. And I don’t know what comes next!”
“No, Kayla. Baby, we can’t think that way. Look, whatever’s happening to us, here—“
“What is happening to us, Steve? What?! How many places have we been now, four? Five?”
He grabbed Kayla hard and gave her a shake. “Stop it!” he hissed. “You’ve gotta stay with me, Sweetness, ‘cause I can’t do this by myself!” Kayla stilled and looked him in the eye, searching for something to ground her. “You’re right, we made a change. But what if that was how it was supposed to happen back then? What if Jack was never supposed to see those pictures? And you were never supposed to go back in the house? And now we’re able to do it the right way?”
There was a brief but fully charged silence between them.
“The road not taken,” Kayla said.
“That’s right, Sweetness. We took a chance back on that hayride. Now, what if we’re finally on the right road? Did you ever think of that?” Kayla looked around the basement apartment and found peace in his words, and Steve was relieved when he felt her body ease up. “I don’t know if we did the right thing or not, but it’s done, and we can’t go backwards. I stopped you from being raped.” He paused a minute and let her take that in. “Kayla, I’m nervous, too, but if we sit here in fear, then we’re not going to get anywhere. Let’s just do the best we can on these jumps and hope we’re doing the right thing.”
“You think we’re going to jump again?”
“I don’t know what to think, Sweetness. Maybe we got it right here and we won’t jump anymore and reboot ourselves. Or maybe we’ll jump again. I don’t know.
Kayla wiped the last of her tears away and crawled into Steve’s arms. He held her like that for several minutes thinking about what she said. The truth was she was right. This change might mean disaster. But it also might not. Maybe we put it right. Then he thought of Canby laying on the ground holding his meager manhood in his hands. “You know what, baby?”
“What?” she asked.
“I’m glad I kicked that guy’s ass. He deserved it. I’m not sorry for that.”
“I’m not either,” she said with satisfaction. “It was hot, and I was proud.” He held her tighter. “I’m just scared of what it means.”
Kayla took a deep breath and realized she was still in her bra and underwear and chuckled. “Well,” she shrugged as she pulled back from him, “The first problem we’ve got is that I don’t have any clothes here,” she said gesturing to herself.
Steve leered tentatively at her. “Well, baby, “he grinned, “I’m thinkin’ you’re not gonna need any.”
She smiled, then let her eye wander to the silver chain around his neck, following it down to what dangled at the end.
“My ring,” she whispered.
It was surreal to see it there.
“I remember this getting me through months of being apart from you,” Steve said, hooking it onto his pinky. He took the chain off his neck and opened the clasp. “I think it’s time it went back to its rightful owner, don’t you?”
Kayla nodded, “Yes.”
“That’s the first thing this change can mean,” Steve said as he slipped it onto her finger and kissed her hand. “I do,” he said with a smile.
Kayla laughed and said, “I do, too.”
“Feel better, baby? I know I do,” he said placing her palm on his cheek.
Kayla nodded. “I don’t feel so naked now.”
“What’s wrong with naked?”
Kayla laughed and put her arms around his neck.
“How about we seal this with a kiss, here?”
“Well, it is New Year’s Eve,” she said. “Then maybe we can finish what I started?”
“I like that idea, Sweetness.”
They shared a long lingering kiss in the first morning hours of 1988 hoping they wouldn’t jump in the middle of it. And they didn’t. They did jump out of their skin, however, when a pounding at the door startled them half to death.
“Steve, open up, it’s me. I need to talk to you!”
Steve was shocked at the voice outside the door. “It’s Jo,” Kayla whispered. They didn’t move. It was like at the loft with Caroline, only this time the stakes seemed a lot higher.
After the heavy conversation and tears and finally calming her down only to be left with his own misgivings amidst the newfound stirring in his groin, Steve was not emotionally ready to see his mother.
“I’m not in the mood for being ignored right now, Stephen Earl, now open up this door!”
“Uh … Jo, now is not a good time,” he called up.
“I’m not leaving ‘till you open this door!”
“I think you should let her in,” Kayla said.”
Steve felt very out of sorts with the prospect of seeing her in this time but he didn’t know how to get out of it. “Ok, uh, hide in the bathroom,” he said as his mother continued to pound on the door.
“This is feeling awfully familiar,” Kayla said as she scooped up her clothes and threw them in the bathroom.
“Yeah hold on!” Steve yelled.
“Wait, I don’t want to be naked in there.”
Steve slipped off his shirt and gave it to her.
“Stephen!”
“I’m, uh … I’m comin’, Ma– Jo!”
Steve kissed her and then pushed her toward the bathroom before he bounded up the steps two at a time.
“Where’s Kayla?” Jo hollered when Steve opened the door.
Steve had spent a lifetime separated from his mother. First he was separated by an orphanage, then by a madman. In 2009 she’d gotten so much older, and he’d just tried his best to be a good son to her since he’d come back. But here in this time, he saw a woman that was young and every bit the spitfire that he remembered. And like Kayla with her mother at the loft, Steve had a bit of an emotional moment. He knew he had to control it, though, and he wished Kayla was by his side right now and not hiding in the bathroom. All of this registered on his face as something that looked very strange to Jo.
“Don’t look at me like that, ‘cause I know she’s here.”
Why are we hiding? Everything is different now. Steve didn’t want to lie to his mother, and honestly he was kind of exhausted.
“Kayla,” he called to her sullenly.
Kayla came out of the bathroom in Steve’s buttoned shirt with bare legs beneath. “Hello Jo,” she said feeling a little exposed. “It’s … wonderful to see you.”
“Don’t give me that. What in the devil’s name do the two of you think you’re doing?
Kayla tried gamely to cover their tracks. “I came by to—“
“Don’t, Kayla, I know better,” Jo cut her off.
“Jo,” Steve said in a tired voice that Jo, frankly, didn’t recognize on him, “whatever it is, can it wait till tomorrow? Kayla and I are beat and just wanna go to sleep.
“I’m not exactly fresh as a daisy myself,” Jo snapped. “All I wanna know is why you snuck out with Kayla tonight.”
Steve sighed heavily. “I’ve got everything under control, can we please just talk in the morning?”
Kayla could see that Steve was having a hard time but wasn’t sure what to say. So, she waited it out another minute to see how it would play out.
“Oh come on, Steve, I saw you. Now I know how much this has cost you to lose Kayla, but if you go chasing after her in the middle of the night and Bil–. Steve, she’s somebody else’swife.”
“No, Mama, she’s my wife,” he said finally raising his voice.
Jo was a bit stunned at the use of the word “Mama,” which always made her heart melt no matter how angry he may have been when he used it, and she didn’t say anything for a moment.
Kayla decided now was the right time to interject. “Jo,” she said, “I know.”
“You know …?
“About Jack. I know Jack is Billy.”
Jo looked at her son with questioning eyes not sure just what she should say.
“I told her the whole story,” Steve confirmed.
“Steve,” she whined, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Steve took his mother’s hands in his own and looked at her. Jo was shocked at the gesture and momentarily forgot why she’d come. “Mama,” he said. “This whole thing is done now. It’s time we tell Jack the truth.”
“No,” she said somewhat detached as she felt her hands tenderly in those of her son. “Y-y-you can’t do that, son.”
“I’ve got everything under control, Mama,” he said, again, starting to lead her toward the stairs. “End of discussion. Over. We’re telling him. But not tonight. Tonight, Kayla and I need to be alone. You come back in the morning, and we’ll all do it together. Tell him you’re his mama, too.”
“What? No! It’ll kill him!”
“No, it won’t, trust me, I know. Now you go back to the Deveraux house and tell Jack that you found Kayla safe and sound and that she’ll be at the house first thing in the morning to explain everything. Then tomorrow the three of us will go over there and make this whole thing right, ok? Please, Mama,” his voice was starting to falter slightly, but only Kayla noticed.
Jo started to walk up the stairs in a haze of confusion still holding on to her son’s hands.
“Wait!” Kayla stopped them. Then she walked over, half naked and all, and hugged Jo. “I love you,” she said.
“Kayla,” Jo gasped with emotion. “Well, I – I love you, too.”
“See you in the morning,” she said as she physically removed Jo’s hand from Steve’s, as they were both unconsciously hanging on.
Right before Jo was out the door she whirled back around. “I forgot to tell you!” she said. “The police came in the middle of the party and arrested Melissa. They think she’s responsible for poisoning you, Kayla.”
“Oh crap,” Steve groaned.
“I forgot about that,” Kayla said.
“This is a gonna be a bigger mess than I thought,” Steve replied.
“What?” Jo asked.
“Nothing,” Steve and Kayla said in unison.
“What are you kids up to, here?”
“Please, Jo—Mama,” he said and hugged her. “Tomorrow. See you tomorrow right here. We’ll all go together. Everything’s gonna work out fine, ok?”
“O—Ok.” She mumbled.
“’Night, Mama.”
After Steve gently closed the door and locked it behind her, Jo stood there for a full minute with no idea what really just happened in there. But she trusted her son and decided that if what’s done is done, then she’d better just minimize the damage as best she could and go off to do what they asked her to.
On the other side of the door Kayla led Steve silently back down into the room. She sat down on the bed, then Steve sank down to his knees and looked at her. “That was my mama.”
Kayla cupped his face in her hand. She comfortingly ran her thumb over the scar below his patch and asked, “Are you ok?” Steve smiled sadly at her and nodded. Then changed his mind and shook his head. Then he laid his head in his wife’s lap, and cried.