“Drunk?” Kayla slurred as she closed her eyes to try to keep the room from spinning. “I’m not drunk, Steve…,” she said making a concerted effort to enunciate her words to prove just how drunk she wasn’t, “just a little…d…dizzy from the jump.”
Steve chuckled at the sight despite the churning he felt in his own stomach. Standing there in her slip and blouse with her eyes closed tight and a deep furrow gracing her brow, she had to be the cutest thing he’d ever seen.
“Open your eyes, Sweetness … take a look around,” he said as he stepped forward and took her hand.
Her eyes fluttered open and she looked around the room. “We’re still in the loft. I don’unerstand, I could have sworn we jumped,” she said as she swayed and stumbled into him.
“Whoa, there baby. How about we sit?” he said as he guided her to the edge of the bed then sat beside her.
“I know what you’re doing, Steve,” she said with a smile as she leaned into him and inhaled his scent. “You just want to get me in bed. But, let me tell you a secret,” she whispered as she leaned up to his ear. “I’m a sure thing, big boy.”
Steve laughed out loud and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to hold her up. He could smell the alcohol on her breath and the scent brought a rush of memories back to his mind. A vision of Kayla summoning him to the bed. Her falling asleep in his arms. Her curled up under the covers. Clear as day, the visions flooded his mind’s eye and his heart tightened at the love he felt for her.
The feel of her tongue snaking around his ear quickly drew him back to the present. He knew her actions were fueled by alcohol, but despite that, he couldn’t help that they were sending a jolt of excitement straight to his groin.
“Baby, do you know where we are?” he asked in hopes that she might be distracted from the glorious torture her tongue was now performing.
“I do,” she whispered as she trailed her lips down his neck. “We’re in our bed.” She fumbled with the buttons on her blouse not quite getting them to cooperate.
“No, I mean do you know when we are?”
Kayla’s mind was racing against the alcohol that was slowing it down. She knew they had just jumped, but the concept that there was a “when” involved was completely lost on her as her libido driven by both the lust in her consciousness and the drunkenness of this body dominated all thought. “We are about to make love,” she replied as her hand made its way up his thigh and to his groin.
At that moment, Steve wanted nothing more than to cover her body with his and rock them both into oblivion. But, he knew it wasn’t right. Not only had they not made love yet in this time, but also she was drunk.
“Kayla. Baby, stop and look at me,” he said his voice a little more stern than he intended.
“I’m looking,” she said with heavy-lidded eyes and that sexy smile he just couldn’t resist. “An’ I’m loving what I see.” She’d gotten through all of her buttons now and shimmied out of the blouse as it pooled behind her on the bed.
Steve’s control was starting to falter, but her drunken state sent alarm bells ringing in his head. So he tried desperately to focus her. “Sweetness,” he said firmly as he grabbed her under the chin sending her mouth into an adorable little squish. She was so dammed cute coming on to me that night. “Now, we’ve got to have a real conversation, here, baby, don’t you think? Listen, your body might be drunk, but focus your mind, this is kind of a big thing we’ve discovered.”
“So serious,” Kayla replied with a deep set look of humoring him.
“Oh, baby,” he sighed, starting to get frustrated in more ways than one. “You jumped into a drunk body, Kayla. And now you are, too. Can you see that?” Kayla tried to wade through the intoxication and listen to his words as Steve valiantly plowed on. “Because this body you leaped into is drunk, the 2009 Kayla is, too. I know it’s hard, but doesn’t that strike you as a little unsettling?”
Kayla’s mind made a very real effort to process what Steve was saying. And somewhere inside her a red flag did go off that her body could control her consciousness. But the effect of the alcohol was making it a very real struggle to focus. She knew he was right, she knew it was important, but her body wanted what it wanted. And right now, it wanted him inside her. It wanted to feel his hardness between her legs. It wanted her breasts in his mouth. It wanted hot sex. And it wanted it now.
Steve was fascinated by this internal struggle he saw shine in her eyes as she tried to be sober, but when she licked her lips he saw the attempt at sobriety step aside for all the lust she was feeling.
“Make love to me,” Kayla said.
Steve felt himself slipping over the edge as she leaned in to to press her lips to his. He knew in that moment that if he didn’t get up then, he wouldn’t be getting up for some time. “Nope, Kayla, we’re not going to do this,” he blurted out as he dodged her lips and quickly rose from the bed. She attempted to follow, but he stopped her with a hand. “No, baby, you stay right there.”
“But Steve, I wanna come with you,” she pouted.
“I know, he said with patronizing frustration, “but right now I think it’s best if you stay right there.”
“Right here?” she asked with a sly tone to her voice. She scooted up on the bed and leaned back into the headboard. His eye followed her motion, and he couldn’t help but notice how it caused her slip to rise up on her bare legs.
Seeing the effect she was having on him, Kayla continued. “You know what, Steve?”
“What baby?” he asked as he shifted nervously from left to right and looked at anything but her.
“I’m cold all by myself in this big ol’ bed. I think you should strip off that sexy duster. I think you should come sit right here with me … and keep me warm,” she sing-songed, patting the spot beside her.
“No-ooo,” he sing-songed back, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think I should, uh, go downstairs and uh … check things out.” We would have made love that night. We didn’t, but we would have. Why can’t we do it now?
Kayla lowered her eyes and stared at him as she seductively bit her lower lip. Then, as she shook her head, she whispered “I don’t want you to go.”
She held out her hand to him, and it was as if the earth was propelling him forward … he couldn’t help but take it.
“Now, get over here,” she said giving him a firm tug. He stumbled forward, onto the bed and on top of her, and as her lips found his all thought of leaving was lost. His mouth covered hers and he groaned as her tongue made its way into his mouth.
Kayla’s hands reached under his duster, wound their way around his shoulders and down his back, and slipped the coat off his shoulders before softly gripping the curve of his rear. He moaned as she pulled his hips into her and began grinding herself against his expanding crotch.
“Steve,” she whimpered as she began to rock rhythmically against him. “Please make love to me. I want to feel you inside of me. I want to feel you come inside of me.”
While Steve’s mind fought for control, his hands and hips moved of their own accord. His right hand moved up her body and across her soft, silk-covered breast before making its way to the strap that held the skimpy fabric place.
“Oh baby,” he moaned as he pushed the strap down her shoulder and trailed hot kisses across her neck. “I want you so bad, Kayla.”
He moaned again and pressed his denim-clad flesh into her. Her breath quickened and she pushed her core against him more urgently. He knew then that the battle was lost. “That’s it, Kayla…I can’t take it anymore. I want you too bad,” he said as he gave over to the inevitable outcome.
He reached between them to his jeans. “Baby, are you wet for me?”
Silence.
“Kayla,” he started as he broke away and pressed up to see her face. His balls screamed for release even as he let out a genuine laugh of amusement when he saw his wife’s head loll to the side with the sleep that had overtaken her. “Baby, baby, baby,” he chuckled as he gently cupped her head and laid her down on the bed. “Again you’re doin’ this to me. What am I gonna do with you, Sweetness?”
Steve had half a mind to get himself off, but instead he layed there next to her sleeping form and for the millionth time since this whole fiasco started let himself calm down. It took a little while, but eventually the ache in his groin subsided.
“’You wanna bone me?’ That’s a new one, baby,” he softly laughed to himself as he turned his head to look at her. “Ooooh, man, we’ve gotta get you drunk more often.”
Steve got up, went to the bathroom, and looked at his slicked back poof of hair at the front of his head. “This was not a good hair day for you, dude,” he muttered to himself as he turned off the light and left the bathroom. When he came back, he picked up the discarded clothing that had accumulated on the floor and hung everything up nicely. It was something he did a lot of, even to this day. Kayla would leave clothes on the floor, and Steve would pick them up. It was a leftover behavior from the orphanage; there was never enough space to have the few things you owned laying about, so he was forced to be tidy. The small spaces of the merchant marine ships, not to mention his tiny apartments, only reinforced this behavior. Kayla, on the other hand, left stuff all over the place. He ribbed her about it, but the truth was that he enjoyed it more than he admitted to her. As he found a hanger for the black and white blouse that had been kicked off the bed, he inhaled her lavender scent and felt another surge of love for her.
Finally, Steve took off his boots and slipped back into the bed with her. I like a man who sleeps with his boots on, he remembered. This time she was dead to the world and didn’t so much as stir as he leaned back against the pillows. As Steve laid in the silence, he was alone with his thoughts. And if he was being honest with himself, those thoughts weren’t very comforting.
Why is this happening to us? What is going on? It was a question Kayla had asked many times since they’d started jumping. Steve had put the question off every time. What could they do about it? But the truth was that he was completely unnerved by what was happening to them. He was worried all the time. If he wasn’t worried about where they had just jumped from then he was worried about where they might jump next. And if he wasn’t worried about that, then he was worried about who was taking care of Joe back home and if their bodies went on business as usual to take care of Stephanie after they’d left those bodies. He worried about when they’d be jumping and how long they had till it inevitably happened. And beneath all that, was the secret concern that he did his best to ignore …
That he was crazy, after all.
Now, lying here in their bed, feeling alone for the first time since he’d gone to sleep with his wife in his arms in a late evening in 2009, he had no choice but to face these questions, face these fears. Steve broke out in a cold sweat and sat up to take off his grey button-down shirt. Underneath was the same sleeveless green t-shirt that he’d worn (would wear again?) in the elevator. As he layed back down, the fear drove him to instinctively reach out for Kayla’s hand that rested peacefully beside her.
“This time jumping … it has to be man-made …” Steve remembered Kayla’s words. Was it man-made? “Who are you, Dr. Samuel Beckett? Who does that make me, Al?” No, he re-thought, that makes us both Dr. Samuel Beckett, Sweetness. It makes the person pulling the strings Al. Steve dragged his hand down his face with a deep breath. This isn’t a TV show, man. Maybe we’re stuck in a time loop or something. Steve thought about that with serious consideration. Are we travelling through time? Is there some wormhole we got sucked into after we fell asleep? Steve didn’t know the laws of physics past E=MC2, and he didn’t even know what the E, M, or C stood for. Still, he tried to find some kind of scientific explanation on this absurd thing that has happening to them. Something in motion tends to stay in motion … friction stops it. Or something like that. Maybe some kind of friction is stopping our jumps.
Steve rolled his eyes. He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
His brief trip into junior high school science ended when he noticed the feel of Kayla’s hand in his. Her empty hand. There was no ring on it. Steve immediately felt up to his chest with his free hand. “Shit” he whispered. He had nothing to put on her finger. It upset him. And that anger fueled more anger at the fact that he didn’t know if he thought this was man-made or some kind of scientific blip, which brought him right back to crazy.
He glanced over at the clock and saw that it was 8:02pm. Then he looked over at Kayla’s still sleeping form. He really wanted to wake her. He knew it was the alcohol and that she didn’t really need the sleep like she had at his apartment on their previous jump. And he just needed her awake with him. He was also afraid to jump with only one of them awake. It wasn’t really a rational fear, their first jump happened when they were both asleep. But he was suspicious of everything and just wanted her alert. He looked back at the clock and decided to give her five more minutes. Meanwhile, his heart raced with uncertainty and fear as he laid there alone with his fears.
Steve brought Kayla’s hand to his face and held it there. “I’m not crazy, baby,” he said as he closed his eyes to the feel of her hand. “I’m going to get you home. I’m not going to let you down, Kayla, I’ll get our family back.” An image of Kayla’s haunted face looking back at him from the front seat of a car right after Adrienne had broken him out of the sanitarium came to him unbidden. Steve pushed it away. “I’m not crazy, Sweetness. I promise you I’m not,” he whispered.
“Of course, you’re not.” Steve turned his head to see Kayla looking up at him with sleepy blue eyes.
“Baby …”
“You’re not crazy,” she said again with clear-sounding sobriety. “I love you.” Her half-lidded gaze made him think twice about that sobriety. “Or if you are, at least this time I get to come along with you.”
This made Steve laugh as she snuggled up against him. “Well, I know you’re sane, Sweetness, so I guess I’m safe, then.”
Kayla lifted her head and looked him square in the eye. She was feeling strange. A little euphoric, a little dizzy, and a little sick all at the same time. I think I’m still just a little drunk. But her husband’s obvious war with himself shoved past the alcohol. “Don’t ever doubt yourself again, Steve. Promise me that you won’t ever think that again. Please,” she said with a gravity that made clear that this was to be the last they spoke of it.
Steve swallowed a lump in his throat. “I’m … afraid, Kayla,” he whispered as his voice broke. “I’m afraid that I’m not right. That I’m letting you down somewhere …”
She palmed his face in her right hand. “You could never let me down. Unless you give up on me and decide you’re crazy. You aren’t. We’re in this together. And I need you.”
Steve nodded as Kayla caressed his face. She reached up to his neck and kissed him. He relished the feel of her soft lips on his skin and didn’t want her to stop.
“I love you. I love you so much, baby.”
Kayla nuzzled into the crook of his neck and said, “I think I fell asleep.”
“You think so, huh? Yeah, you might have fallen asleep on me, baby.”
“Sorry. It was the alcohol.”
“I know. You were adorable. It was a lot like it went the first time, I think.”
“Well, I have to rely on you to do the remembering on that one, because I don’t recall any of that at all.”
“I was ready to have my way with you. Both times,” Steve said. Kayla laughed. “But I guess fate stepped in both times and said no.”
Kayla looked up at him with longing. “Well, I’m saying yes.”
In answer, Steve reached over and fondled her breast through the silky slip. She whimpered as her core ached with wetness. “Does it count if we didn’t make love but we wanted to? Because I know I wanted to.”
“You’re asking me? I don’t know, baby, that was your rule, remember?” He grabbed her rear and pushed her into him as he ground his new erection into her. “The problem is that you got me believing it, and I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“He says as he starts to impale me.”
“Oh … God,” he moaned as he quickly flipped her over to her back and roughly thrusted against her as he sucked on her neck. “Your words drive me crazy, Kayla. I don’t think I can stop, baby.”
Just then, Kayla felt a wave of nausea. It did not, however, come with any other signs of an impending jump. “Steve …” She instinctively pushed him away from her and sat up quickly. “Ooohh … I feel sick.”
“Well, I guess I’m stopping,” he groaned and he laid on his back with his erection straining against his jeans.
“I’m sorry! I think I’m hung over.”
“Oh, I don’t think, baby. Let me get you some water, it’ll help.”
“Don’t leave me!”
“I’m just getting you some water from the bathroom, Kayla. It’s ok.”
She nodded and slowly dropped her head into her hands, gratefully downing the water when Steve returned with it. The nausea subsided a bit, but the headache had now arrived full force. He pulled her into an embrace as she rested her head against her husband’s chest.
“I’m glad you woke up, baby. I missed you.”
“Mm. I was here the whole time.”
“Yeah, well, it’s just as well that you did. I think sex would have been the wrong thing to do on this one.”
“Didn’t want to take advantage of me, huh?”
“Well, that was the first time. This time I was perfectly willing to take full advantage of you, baby. You just fell asleep before I could get inside you.”
A thrill worked its way through Kayla’s hungover body. “My turn to be driven crazy by your words.” She giggled, and her head didn’t like being jostled. “Ugh … I need out of this body.”
That reminded Steve of what he’d been trying to tell her. “Baby, that’s what I meant before. You weren’t drunk when you got here, but your body was, and your body won.” Kayla had a vague recollection of this conversation, but this time the meaning of this instilled a cold fear in her. “That means we can’t control what’s going on in our bodies when we get into them, Kayla.”
Kayla thought of all the places they could jump that would be less than stellar. “I’m not sure if my head hurts more from the hangover or this little nugget,” she said.
Steve kissed the top of her head. “We need to be prepared for whatever body we get.”
“Like when I was … deaf?”
“I’ve got to admit, I’m rusty, Sweetness.”
Kayla sat up and looked at her husband. She didn’t need words. He knew she was as scared of losing control of her body as he was of being crazy. He looked at her with all the love he had in his heart and made the sign for courage. She repeated the sign. Then he leaned over and gently kissed her. They embraced, and he whispered, “courage, baby” softly into her ear.
The tug at Kayla’s diaphragm nearly made Kayla throw up right there. She pulled away and barely got out, “do you … mmf …”
“Yeah, that’s not the hangover.” They held tightly to each others’ hands as the jump took them.
Kayla arrived into inky darkness that smelled of motor oil and exhaust. She knew right away that she was in a vehicle of some kind, and between the hangover of the jump before and the winding roads they were driving down, the jump effect was harsher than usual. Kayla sank her head into Steve’s chest as she grabbed for him with a moan. Only instead of her head meeting the firm body of her husband, it met the cold, hard exterior of a cardboard box while her hands came up empty.
The hairs immediately rose on the back of Kayla’s neck.
“Steve?” she whispered, with wide, searching eyes that couldn’t be seen. When no reply came, she skipped right past “more loudly” and went straight on to desperate shout, whipping her head around trying to see something, anything in the shadows. “Steve!” The sounds that met her were not those she wanted to hear, of her husband telling her he was there with her; they were only the sounds of this lone vehicle’s tires driving down the road. It took a few moments for her to take it in, but she eventually let herself admit that Steve wasn’t there. And this time, unlike on the pier, he really, really wasn’t there.