Beyond the Pale

One hour later I was sitting at a table in the Hot Spot. I had taken a bath, showers being a rarity in the 1940s, except in a barracks. I shaved and dressed in another one of my new shirts. I felt like a new man.

I said to Dot, "Can you bring two coffees over here," and sat down as far away from everybody else as I could get.

Mavis walked in a few minutes later. She was heartrendingly beautiful and obviously pissed.

She was in a light cashmere Betty and Veronica sweater with a pleated skirt, knee socks and a pair of saddle shoes. It showcased her slim, beautiful legs and her amazing rack. She had a little silk scarf tied jauntily around her neck.

Mavis plopped down across from me. Dot put a cup of coffee in front of her. Dot, being Dot, said cheekily, "Did Jimmy give you those?" Mavis's two shiners did nothing to mar her beauty.

Mavis laughed and said, "No, I ran into a door, clumsy me."

Dot looked at me and said sincerely, "I hope you evened the score Sheriff. Can you arrest him?"

I laughed heartily and said, "I think he's in the hospital now, and nowhere near as pretty as he was yesterday. Accidents will happen, you know how it is."

That was also a test for Mavis. Prior to this, she had been living with and obviously fucking the guy. I wondered how she would react to her lover's "accident."

Mavis got a beatific look, it was like she had suddenly realized there WAS a God, and said with considerable self-satisfaction, "Good!!"

Dot nodded emphatically and laughed. She had a couple of menus under her arm. She handed them to us, spun on her heel and walked away still chuckling. Jimmy clearly didn't have many friends.

I glanced at the menu and then looked up into a pair of china blue eyes. They were busily boring into my brain. Mavis is a highly intelligent and very strong-minded woman. Last night, she had been beaten, drugged and raped. A lot of women would be destroyed; unable to cope. Mavis wanted answers.

I looked at her flawless face, every feature perfectly proportioned and aligned under her mass of curly black hair; and the sense of relief washed over me. If I was dead than so-be-it. This was where I wanted to be.

I said, "You graduated from the Normal School in Eau Claire, and you taught English Lit at the high school, so you've probably read H. G. Welles, right?"

Mavis looked astounded. She said outraged, "How did you know THAT? Have you been prying into my personal life? I have rights you know!" Beaten, raped and feisty. That was the Mavis I loved.

I laughed and said, "Relax, it's part of the story. But you are going to have to open your mind. You know Welles, "The Time Machine?"

She nodded her head in assent and said, "I assigned it to my students."

I said, "Do you believe any of that could happen?"

She laughed and said, "That's silly! OF COURSE, it couldn't happen! Where are you going with this?"

I sensed that the discussion wasn't proceeding the way I wanted it to. Mavis was likely to walk out if I told her the real story. So, I laughed and said, "I just wanted to find out how open minded you are."

I knew how weak that sounded the minute I said it.

She said, grim as an Inquisitor, "You called me your wife last night."

I could see that I was not going to wiggle out of THAT. So, I said, "Sorry, figure of speech; what I meant to say was my FUTURE wife." I grinned disarmingly and said, "I would have added and mother-of-my-children, but I thought that was getting ahead of myself."

She grinned back seductively and said, "Oh-ho!! Aren't YOU the bold one. What makes you think I'd even give you the time of day?"

I looked at her with serious eyes and said, "You felt the attraction. Hell, even Jimmy saw it. I don't know what's come over me. But I can't see living my life without you."

That was way too far over the line, and there was too much sincerity in my words. Losing Mavis had been so awful that I couldn't even talk about it without emotion creeping into my voice.

It bothered Mavis a lot. I quickly shut up. Mavis said angrily, "How could you say something like that? I don't even know you."

I said jokingly, "Maybe we WERE married in another life? Maybe THAT explains it?"

She did that fidgeting thing that women do when their emotions get too riled up. I was counting on the love we had shared to move this to its inevitable destination, and that clearly wasn't going to happen.

She said with annoyance in her voice, "I don't know who you are or why you are messing with me. But, YES, I have sensed that there has been something significant between us."

She was getting angrier by the second, as she said, "I can't figure out what's causing it, and it bothers me. I remember most of what happened last night, including the unwilling sex, and I know that you saved me. But, unless you can explain what you just said; you need to shove off."

Alright, it was down to the nut cutting. I tried my most convincing voice, "Let's go somewhere private. You aren't going to believe what I have to tell you. But, I'm counting on the fact that you trusted me in the past, to help you to trust me now."

*****

We walked into her little apartment. It was a cozy place. She had a living room with a couple of upholstered chairs, a table in front of the window, with a little lamp on it, and a floor lamp next to one chair. It was the chair that I had slept in last night.

There was a cheap, but clean, hooked-rug covering the painted wood floor. There were racks of books in a couple of bookcases. Mavis saw where I was looking and said self-effacingly, "I like to read." I knew that because she had lived in the library when we were married.

There was a bed against the wall, neatly made. There was one other room and that was the bathroom. It looked like Mavis cooked on a hotplate.

I sat in one chair. She sat in the other. I noticed how well-ordered everything was. There was no clutter, no pots in the little sink. Mavis had been a great homemaker and it was clear that neatness was a deep-seated part of her personality.

She was looking at me intently. The two bruises were disturbing but they didn't detract from her porcelain skin, or the natural shape and deep intelligence of her eyes. Her thick black eyebrows were arched. She was waiting for me to tell my story.

Oh well, as the Brits say; "In for a penny, in for a pound." I said, "Everything I am about to tell you is true. I have no way of proving it. But I want you to trust your feelings. They will help you see that I am being honest."

I sighed and began, "We were married for nine years. We were very much in love. We have a beautiful daughter named Ava. This is the only proof that I have that this happened."

I fished in my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. It was turned off. I needed to preserve the battery for this very moment.

I could see that Mavis was about to erupt. Then, she was distracted by the phone. She looked puzzled. She said, "What's that?"

I said, "It's my telephone. This is how we make phone calls in the Twenty-First Century."

Mavis let that pass. Then it hit her. She said astounded, "Wait!!! Did you say Twenty-First Century??!!" She looked incredulous.

I said lightly, "Close your mouth, or you'll catch flies."

As the phone booted-up, I said, "I can't use it to make phone calls here. Because, it depends on other technologies to do that. But, it will confirm what I'm going to say."

Mavis looked unconvinced. Anybody would react that way if a total stranger showed up in their living room and spun an utterly preposterous tale like mine.

I looked her in the eyes, willing her to believe what I was about to say. I said, "I know that what I'm saying sounds nuts and I'm probably frightening you. But I think you can see that my phone is not from this era."

She nodded hesitantly.

At that point, the desktop of the phone came up. It showed a recent picture of Ava in her Badgers cheerleading uniform. She was heartstoppingly beautiful, the spitting image of her mother.

Mavis said dazed, "Where did you get that picture of me?"

I said, "It isn't you, it's our daughter Ava. She's twenty-one and until three days ago she was my sole memento of our life together."

I said, "I know that your history with men tells you that you would be a fool to trust me. But, let me assure you, our love was real, and this young woman is the product of it."

Mavis looked like she was suffering from sensory overload. That was understandable. Any normal person would react that way. I said pleading, "I am staking my life and happiness on one throw of the dice, and I will do whatever it takes to help you believe that what I say is true."

I added resignedly, "But, we are past the event that brought us together. So, I will honor your decision if you choose to live your life without me.

I looked at her trying to convey my sincerity. I said, "I was a pretty good lawman in this town, in the future, and they have already offered me the Sheriff's position for the duration. If I'm stuck in the 1940s, I'm going to take them up on their offer." Then, I sat back and waited for her to react.

Mavis is a very strong minded and practical woman. When I first met her, she had eventually come to accept her new reality and she dealt with it bravely. Most people couldn't make the adjustment.

I was counting on her agile mind to accept that we had loved each other in the future, even if my only proof was a picture, recorded on a piece of technology she would never understand.

So I sat there, with my raw feelings hanging out. The person I had built my life around was a total stranger. But we had loved each other once and it was clear in our interactions, that the magic was working across the decades.

Mavis was looking at me with her face screwed into a mask of concentration.

I said as kindly and gently as I could, "You just appeared out of nowhere one night. You thought it was today, August 1st, 1946. I was the Sheriff and I took care of you while we tried to find out who you were and where you had come from."

Mavis looked disbelieving. I hastily continued with, "We investigated, and we eventually concluded that you had been murdered by Felix Wynn."

Mavis looked absolutely stunned. She knew I was talking about last night. I added mildly, "We closed the case, even though the premise that you'd solved your own murder was crazy."

Mavis laughed. She said, "That's the most ridiculous story I've ever heard."

I rushed to finish. I said, "By that time we were very much in love and we eventually married. We had conceived Ava before the wedding. But, the timing was immaterial.

I could see that Mavis was getting fidgety again, so I pulled out my second-best card. I said, "We led a happy life in our house. Do you know where that house was located?"

She shook her head, "no," mystified. She had no idea why I had even asked that question. I said with increasing confidence, "It's where we had the picnic. I know you got the vibe. I could see it'

For the first time Mavis looked at me like she might be beginning to believe me.

I said, "After nine years of wedded bliss, they dug up a body. You disappeared, at the exact same instant; leaving me and Ava to cope."

Mavis was looking even more thoughtful. So, I played my hole card. I said, "I'm a simple guy and a practical man. I wasn't sure that anything supernatural had happened. But I buried the body that they'd dug up, on my property."

I added with grim emphasis, "You were standing on your own grave when you fainted!"

Mavis looked aghast. It was like, her perceptions in that instant, cemented her acceptance of the truth. The feeling overwhelmed her.

Some women might cry. Some would freak out. Others would get angry. Mavis is wired differently. I discovered that the night she had the first inkling of her murder.

She might be smart and practical. But, Mavis is a deeply intuitive person. How she feels, and how she reacts, are the best indicators of truth for her.

She isn't wanton in any way. It's just that she trusts her profound instincts. In essence, Mavis listens to what her heart is telling her. Hence, it was almost inevitable that she would seek to verify what I had just told her by doing what she did next.

Mavis rose from the chair, in all her self-confident female glory. She was very sure of her own sexuality. She took me by the hand and guided me wordlessly to the bed. She pushed me to a sitting position. The look she gave me was smoldering.

She sat next to me and turned to face me, lips not six inches from mine. She said, breathing heavily, "Let's try a little experiment to find out if the preposterous tale you just told me is true?" Then, she threw one arm around my neck, grabbed the back of my head with the other, and we kissed for the first time in ten years.

It was like touching a live wire. A thunderbolt of emotion arced across time and obliterated all the dire regret and misery; and every hesitation. She drew her head back stunned by the sensation. Then her eyes clouded with lust and she dragged me backward on the bed.

Her mouth opened wide in greeting. She was making frantic little moans as her tongue searched for mine. She started scrambling backward, without letting go of me, until she was lying back fully, completely on the bed. We were both clothed.

I kissed her avidly, while I played with one of her gorgeous breasts. She moaned and thrashed. I grabbed and rolled one of her prominent nipples. It was sticking out like the Empire State Building over Midtown, even though it was covered by a 1940s bra.

Her movements immediately became agitated. Then, she threw her had back, mouth wide open and began to hyperventilate loudly through her nose. This was followed by a moaning, kicking quivering orgasm that nearly knocked us both off the bed.

I knew that Mavis was erotically sensitive. But I had NEVER seen an exhibition like THAT. She finally calmed down enough to open her eyes. Her beautiful chest was heaving like the Atlantic in a Nor'easter, and she was still panting like a bloodhound on a hot Georgia porch.

I was staring at her wonderingly thinking, "What a woman!!!"

She murmured, "What happened to me? I haven't had an orgasm like that in my life? Then she looked puzzled and said to herself, "We didn't do anything but kiss."

Then, she grinned and said seductively, "It'll probably kill me. But you need to fuck me now."

Her skirt, panties and sweater flew off like magic. I had seen her gorgeous body with its hard curves and its soft promontories many times over the years. But, revealing it is still like watching a gorgeous sunset. You may have seen it a million times. But you'll never see it enough.

I assumed there would be some foreplay. I particularly wanted to fondle those round, full breasts. But, she rolled me on top of her as soon as we got back to grips.

Then, she elevated her legs, grabbed my already rock-hard cock with obvious desperation and inserted it into a vat of boiling honey.

She shrieked in sensation. I looked toward the windows. They were thrown wide open to catch the refreshing morning breeze. And, Mavis was already getting so noisy that I was afraid that people walking down the street would think that I was up here killing her.

It was a conventional missionary fuck. Mavis had pulled her beautiful slim legs back so far that they were jammed against her arms. I thought to myself, "Women! The flexible sex!" And, she was enthusiastically meeting my every thrust as she grunted, "Ungh, ungh, ahhh, ahhh." There was a lot of wet slapping noise and the smell of aroused woman was driving me nuts.

All of that was erotically motivating. But, the thing that made this so incredibly special was the fact that I was fucking HER.

I had NOT asked to come back to this place. I had never imagined that this COULD happen. I had longed for Mavis for almost eleven long years. And now; call it fate, or call it the last thoughts of a dead man. But, as improbable as it may seem, I was making love to my dearly departed wife

Mavis wasn't having any of those kinds of abstract musings. Because, she had not experienced our life together. Instead, she was winding up to the-mother-of-all-orgasms.

I could feel her little ring of muscles frantically pulse. Her body became rock hard, every inch clenched. She crushed me to her chest, her legs grabbed me in an iron grip, and she threw her head back, eyes wide and staring with nothing but the whites showing.

Then she began to yell, "Ahhhh Yesssss!!! Fuck me Erick. Give it to me. It's been so long!! I loooove you!!" She let out one final shriek and collapsed boneless on the bed.

Meanwhile, I was in the process of cumming in ways that cannot be described. Imagine how you would feel; if you had just climaxed with a woman who you had ached for, for almost eleven desperate years.

I finally got some of my senses and a little bit of my breath back. My heart rate was finally under 200 and the goosebumps had disappeared. I looked down at her beloved face. She was lying limply underneath me barely breathing, little aftershocks were still rocking her.

Then it hit me. Mavis had called me by my first name!! She didn't know my name, only "Sheriff."

She was coming back to me slowly, making little yips and moans. Finally, she opened those glorious eyes and looked at me. It was like dawn over the Garden of Eden. Her marvelously deep and intelligent face transfixed me. There was devotion there.

I couldn't even presume to guess the explanation for it. But, this had happened before.

Call it psychic, call it religious, call it delusional; but the first time we had been together, fate had given Mavis a vision of her own death. Understandably, she was in a mindless state of panic when she fled to my bed.

After I had calmed her down, we made love for the first time.

I said wonderingly, "You remembered."

She said, "I don't recall many of the details. But I know I loved you with all my heart and that our marriage was one of joy and contentment. More important, I know that I will always love you."

Her face darkened as she said, "I was preparing a snack for Ava before picking her up at school. Then I felt dizzy and sick. It was like I was about to pass out. I remember an overwhelming feeling of regret. Then there was nothing but blackness."

That reminded her. She gasped loudly and said, "My God, what will happen to Ava? Will I ever see her again?"

I tried the same explanation I had used on myself. I said, "The future is our past. So, that's seventy years from now. When I left, our little girl was a strong and capable young woman." I also pointed out that Ava had an entire town behind her including the Doc and his wife and the Jensens.

I finished with, "She has a bright future whatever timeline she is in. Maybe we'll even live long enough to meet her. But, right now, let's just spend our life together."

I took the Town up on his offer. I had been the Sheriff there for years. But that was seven decades in the future. Now, I had to provide for a wife and the child who was growing in her womb. Being the Sheriff seemed like a splendid way to do that.

I knew that I was a visitor in Mavis's time, just as she had been in mine. I was also painfully aware of the fact that Mavis had vanished the moment we dug up her murdered body.

It was a classic paradox of being; she couldn't be both dead and alive at the same time. So, the earlier state would take precedence over the latter

I was now in the same situation. I knew that I would disappear the moment I was born, which would be 27 years in the future. I didn't want to EVER leave Mavis. I wanted to die in her arms. But, my departure was foreordained. I couldn't be both a new-born and ready for retirement. So, my disappearance was inevitable.