Timelooper - Doc’s Story

"'I accept you as slave roni,' Deb said. Then she said, 'You may pleasure yourself as much as you want.'"

"Ms Veronica Harrison, now slave roni, rolled over onto her back with her legs spread and attacked her cunt with her fingers. She must have taken herself over the top seven or eight times before she finally just lay there quivering as that butt plug shocked her. Deb rolled her over on her stomach, reached down, and pulled the plug from her ass. There was a recessed button of the side that finally shut it all down. She wrapped it in my handkerchief and then wiped her hands on roni's blouse."

"After a while, slave roni recovered and Deb instructed her to dress. Then we sat at the table and Ms Harrison told us how to avoid triggering another SEC investigation. You just had to lose once in a while and not be the first one to jump onto a rising stock or bail on a dropping one. Deb and I made millions and millions in the stock market and the SEC was never again interested in us."

"Ms Harrison would come down to our place every two months and spend a week as slave roni. She was the first of Deb's slaves and when she retired, she came down to live with us as a permanent slave. She and Deb are both buried in the Marsden Mausoleum. Some day I will be buried there. But that's for the future.

***

Doc tapped David on the shoulder and said, "If you want to place any bets on the races, there are windows down below the grandstand."

David asked, "Who are you betting on?"

Doc laughed and said, "The timelooper works both directions. I could just pop forward and see who won before placing a bet. But being able to know who is going to win sort of takes the fun out of betting. Besides, I think some of my friends would start getting suspicious if I won all the time."

***

Doc suddenly turned to David and said, "What have you learned about the Timelooper?"

David's eyes went wide, then he sputtered, "Well... Well... Well, it's alien."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Doc said sarcastically. "What have you learned about how it works?"

"You just think about where you want to go, touch it, and it takes you there-- either in the past or in the future," David said. "You can talk to yourself, but if you grab your hand, you replace your old self with your future self... or maybe your future self with your old self." He now had a very confused look on his face.

Doc laughed. "You might be wondering what happens if I bump into someone while I am invisible," he said, shaking his head. "The answer is, 'Nothing.' I can walk right through people... though it feels weird as hell for both of us."

"What happens if you touch someone else's hand?" David asked, "Do you become them?"

"That's a good question," Doc said, "and luckily the answer is 'No.'" He laughed and said, "But I do become visible. Early on I was still playing with my powers and decided to drop in on one of Deb's girlfriends in the shower. Deb and I were at this really boring dinner theater thing that she thought was fabulous. I decided to go back about a half hour and see what I could see over at the sorority house. Deb didn't live there anymore, but she still kept real close to her friends there. Deb had said that Julena, the little black girl, had a date as soon as her boyfriend got off work. So I thought about Julena and her getting ready for her date and suddenly I was in a shower room at the sorority."

"It was all steamy and Julena was singing to herself as she soaped herself up and then rinsed herself off. She had a really nice body. I stepped into the shower with her and stood behind her. I reached around and fondled her breasts. I could tell that she felt that... or felt something. She looked bewildered and looked around. Then she started shaving her legs. I stood behind her while she bent over and reached her calves and stared at her perfect slit and little puckered asshole. I even pushed against her-- just to see what would happen. What happened was that she screeched and spun around."

"She was acting on instinct and thought someone-- or something-- was behind her. She turned swinging her hand, open palmed, as if she were going to really smack someone. I knew she couldn't hurt me. I knew that her hand would go right through my head, but I still automatically raised my hand to stop her. As soon as our hands touched, I became visible. That's when she really started screaming. I immediately tapped the crystal and returned to the dinner theater."

"About five minutes after that, two uniformed policemen and a tough-looking man in a trench coat walked up to our table at the theater. They said they needed to talk to me so I accompanied them out into the lobby. Deb trailed along after us."

"As soon as we got into the lobby, the tough one-- a detective-- spun me around and said, 'Can you account for your whereabouts approximately forty-five minutes ago?'"

"'He was sitting at the dinner table with me watching the play,' Deb said firmly. 'I am sure the waiters and other staff will vouch for that.'"

"'You didn't leave for a few minutes, did you?' he asked."

"'No,' I answered, 'I was sitting there the whole boring time.'"

"Deb smiled at me and said sweetly, 'And he had just decided to buy season tickets, didn't you, darling?'"

"I just smiled at her and nodded. Then Julena showed up with her date. He was ready to fight, but the officers kept him away from me. 'He was here all night,' the detective said as he stepped between us. Julena, meanwhile, got right up in my face and said, 'I know it was you... or your ghost... or your astral projection... or whatever you use to guess astral colors. And if you ever show up in my shower naked again, I will turn you into a permanent ghost.'"

"'You won't have to,' I replied. 'If it happens again, Mistress Deborah will do it for you.' Deb just laughed in that slow, low-pitched, scary way that she could do."

"'Officer,' Julena said, calming down considerably, 'it appears that I must have had some sort of awake dream... or something. It won't happen again.'"

"We stood and talked for a while longer and then they all left. The play, thankfully, was over, but Deb still made me buy season tickets and I had to promise her that I would never spy on her girlfriends again."

"The next morning she said that we had to test what happened when I went back. So she told me to go back to when she was alone in the bathroom the night before and to be visible. That must have been when she got the idea to do this. I appeared to her and she said, 'You're naked. Come back in ten minutes.'"

"I touched the jewel and was once again sitting with her at the breakfast table. I thought of the same time and place, but imagined myself in my pajamas. 'Try for something you aren't wearing,' she said and I was back at the kitchen table. On the next try I imagined myself in a full, white-tie tuxedo. When I appeared, she whistled softly and said, 'Now you've got it.' After that, if I was going to be visible when I went somewhere, I always made sure I imagined myself in the proper attire."

"I figured we were done testing, but Deb had another thought. She wanted to know how far back I could go. So I imagined her as a small child, and went back invisible. I must have picked up on one of her happy memories, because she was playing in the back yard with a puppy. Then I tried to see her as a baby but I couldn't. I could get back to when she was a toddler, but for some reason I couldn't go back farther than that. I had no idea why, but Deb did. She was good at figuring out things like that. She said, 'It's because I'm older than you are. I'm a year and a half older than you. Whatever that thing is, it must be locked to your lifetime. You can't go back before you were born, you didn't exist then.'

***

Doc got real quiet for a while and then said, "Having more money than you can imagine carries with it a lot of responsibility," he began. "I started to buy up some of the older buildings in Pattersonville and in other towns and fixed them up. I kept the rents low so people could still afford to live there. And I hired good managers to make sure that things stayed nice, but not so nice that poor people would feel strange living in them. Some of them were pretty stark, but every ladder has to have a bottom rung."

"Everything was going great and I was helping a lot of people. Then-- about twenty-six years ago-- one of my buildings blew up. It killed a lot of people when it collapsed and the press was hinting that corners had been cut when the building was remodeled. I looped back to see what had caused the explosion. I knew that if I stayed invisible, I could be there even at the point of the explosion and not get hurt."

"I looped into the hallway of the building a few minutes before the explosion. The smell of gas on the second floor was overpowering. There was only one apartment occupied on that floor. I went in there to warn Gloria. She was the only tenant. I figured I would start with her and get her out and then start warning everyone else."

"Gloria was lying on her bed in a long white nightie that looked almost like a wedding dress except it was so sheer that it was almost like she was naked. She was already dead. All of the burners on the stove were on full, but not lit. There was a gas water heater in a utility closet that opened into the bedroom. She had disconnected it and opened the gas valve there, too. The explosion was an accident, but her death wasn't. She had committed suicide."

"I looped further back hoping to convince her not to take her own life, but I misjudged it. She was already unconscious on the bed. I decided that I would materialize, shut off the gas, and open the windows so she would survive and the building wouldn't blow up. I stepped up to the bed and carefully grabbed one of her hands."

"To my surprise, she wasn't totally unconscious. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward her. 'Who are you?' she said harshly. 'And why are you naked?'"

"'I have come to save your life and the lives of all the people in this building who will die when the gas explodes,' I said softly. Then I added, 'Let me shut off the gas.'"

"She remained on the bed as I closed the valve on the connection to the water heater and then shut off the burners on the stove. I opened one of the kitchen windows and both bedroom windows, which opened into an interior air shaft."

"'I can't even do this right,' she said glumly, sitting up and looking at me. 'Next time I'll make sure no one else gets hurt.'"

"I sat on the bed and took her hand. 'Why do you want to kill yourself?' I asked."

"'Because I'm ugly and everyone hates me!' she blurted out and then started to sob."

"'I don't think you're ugly,' I told her. Then I asked, 'Why do you think that people hate you?'"

"'Do you know who the Glory Girls are?' she asked."

"When I shook my head, she continued, 'They are a bunch of the women in this neighborhood-- mostly from where I work. They think they are better than anyone else. I kept trying to join their group but they said I was too clumsy and too ugly to hang around with them.'"

"'And you believed them?' I asked softly."

"She started crying again and sobbed out, 'It's more than that. Their boyfriends... all eight of them... came up to me after work Friday night and said that if I would fuck them all, I could join the Glory Girls.'"

"'Did you?' I asked very softly."

"'I really didn't want to,' she blubbered, 'but if it meant I could be a Glory Girl, I would do it. They took me to a place they called their clubhouse. It was an abandoned building about five blocks from here. Once we were inside, they told me to get naked. I did. Then they said I needed to get them turned on by dancing for them. I didn't want to, but I did. I bounced around to the music from a small player. I tried to make it as sexy as I could. Then they told me that they wanted to see what I was like when I was really turned on. I lay on my back on a thin mattress on the floor where they told me to and started masturbating while they yelled at me to take myself higher.'"

"She took a deep breath and looked around the room like she was unsure whether or not to tell the rest. Then she continued, 'They all stripped down and stood around me while I pushed myself over the top. After I finished, I lay there on that mattress waiting for the first one to start, but instead they all just started laughing and one of them shook his head and said, 'Still too ugly.'"

"Her voice got really harsh and angry as she said, 'The Glory Girls were suddenly there standing with their guys. One of them laughed and said that because of me they were going to have to take care of things. She pointed at me and said, 'Even an ugly pig can get a man turned on if she looks and smells like a slut... like you do... but it takes a real woman to satisfy a man.'"

"She started crying really hard, and between sobs she said, 'They threw me out of the clubhouse naked. I had to walk the five blocks home ducking behind garbage cans whenever I heard a car coming. I didn't have my keys and had to go downstairs to the super's apartment and have him let me in. He threw a blanket over me and asked if I wanted him to call the police. I told him I just wanted to get back into my apartment.'"

"She leaned against me and cried softly for several minutes. I just waited her out. Finally, she continued, 'I cleaned up in the shower and dried my hair. I put on my dream negligee that I've been saving for my wedding night, if I ever have one. Then I turned on all the gas, and lay down to die.'"

"She looked me in the eyes and said, 'You have to believe me. I didn't want to hurt anyone else.' Then she moved closer to me and said, 'Do you really think I'm beautiful... or at least not ugly?'"

"I said, 'Yes.'"

"She said, 'Prove it!' and lay back on the bed. My mind was telling me not to take advantage of a very fragile girl in a very bad time, but my body was already responding. I couldn't let this happen so I tapped out and returned to my office."

Doc got very quiet at that point. He shook his head and then said in a voice heavy with emotion, "I have to leave it there for now."

***

Doc leaned back in his wheelchair and said, "I think it's time to finish my story. I had just left Gloria rather than make love to her in her very fragile and upset frame of mind. "When I got back to my office, the newspaper was still on my desk. It no longer had a huge headline about the building exploding, but near the back of the paper there was a short article saying that the body of a young woman had been discovered in the building. The super was worried about her and went up to check. She had slashed her wrists and bled out on the bed. I immediately went back to the point where I had left."

Doc laughed slightly. "I know that some guys talk about getting a mercy fuck, but I've never heard it applied the other way around. She was attractive, and my body had no problem responding, but my mind really wasn't into it. I was only doing it so she wouldn't kill herself."

"My mind not being into it didn't make any difference to my body once we got started. She reached orgasm just as I spurted into her. I stayed with her for another hour or so and before I left, I made her promise that she wouldn't do anything stupid. I promised that I would stop in to see her the next day. And I did. I arrived invisible so I could check on how she was doing. She was cleaning up the apartment... and was totally naked. I walked up behind her and grabbed her hand."

He took a deep breath. "I appeared and she said, 'Welcome, my angel, I have been waiting for you.' Then she started rubbing up against me and pushing me toward her bedroom."

"I told her, 'I saved you so you could get on with your life, not for my pleasure.' She smiled and responded, 'What about my pleasure?'"

"'What about getting on with your life?' I answered, and she said flatly, 'What life?'"

"I had given it a lot of thought, so I answered, 'The life you could have if you wanted it. If you could do anything with your life, what would you do?'"

"She didn't even have to think about it. She answered immediately and emphatically, 'I'd become a nurse!'" That's when the Victor Marsden Medical Scholarship Program was born. Gloria was the first recipient. But after her first semester, she had to take some time off to have a baby. I arranged for everything she needed on the grounds that the Marsden Foundation couldn't let its first scholarship recipient wash out just because she had become a mother. I even stopped by to see her as my future self... well, as myself as I was then. I was afraid that she would recognize me, and she did look at me a little strangely at first. I asked her about it and she said I reminded her of someone. She looked down like she was embarrassed or maybe thought that I wouldn't believe her. Then she said, 'The baby's father. He looks a lot like you, only younger... a lot younger.' She paused and smiled at me in a real funny way, then she added, '... and he's an angel.'"

"I hadn't realized it until that very moment. But whenever I go back, I am exactly like I was when I first put on the necklace. Gloria's angel was a forty-year younger me. She was sort of surprised that I didn't question that the father was an angel. I could see it in her face, but she didn't say anything. We talked a little about her plans for the future and then I left her."

"The angel me checked in on her regularly, but we never had sex again. Maybe that was because I started showing up in angel robes... and then in regular clothes. I was there for all the important events in the boy's life, but I remained invisible... most of the time. Gloria thought that only she could see me, but it was really that I was very careful about when I appeared and when I bounced back."

David looked at Doc Martin very carefully for several minutes with his face very tense. "You are describing my mother," he finally said as he threw his dinner napkin onto the table and started to rise. "Please stay," Doc said, making a motion with his hands, "there is a very important part of this story that you have to hear."

"What I want to hear," David said angrily through clenched teeth, "is why you didn't save her when her Medivac flight crashed. If you could do all these things, why didn't you just go back and tell her not to go to work that day."

Doc stared blankly at something over David's right shoulder. His eyes welled up with tears. He opened and closed his mouth several times before he finally spoke. "I did," he said flatly. Then he continued in a voice hoarse with grief, "I went back and told her that she had to call in sick that day. When she asked why, I couldn't bring myself to tell her, but she knew. What other reason could there be."

"'Mediflight One is going to crash, isn't it?' she finally said. Then she asked if I could stop the crash."

"I told her that the cause of the crash wasn't known, so there was nothing I could do. They called it pilot error, but I went back and watched the pilot from the time he got up in the morning. There were no pills... no drugs... no booze... nothing that I could change to prevent the crash. I told her that I couldn't bring myself to actually be there at the time of the crash because it would mean watching her die."

"She took my hand and said very softly, 'If I don't go, someone else will die in my place won't they?'"

When I didn't answer, she knew that the answer was yes. We sat there in silence for a long time, then she finally spoke. 'Can you be with me?' she asked. "

"'I will be there,' I promised, and I was. I was visible for a second or two so she would know I was there and then bounced back and came back invisible. I held her arm above her wrist so I wouldn't touch her hand. She could feel me and knew I was there."