Decades Ch. 04

"Swings?"

"There used to be - or is now, I mean - a playground out back. They tore it down when the school closed because the insurance wouldn't cover it anymore. I've seen pictures."

The playground looked just like it had in those photos, and after Doug assured Kelly that their presence wouldn't raise any red flags ("They used to get teenagers messing here after dark all the time, even Mom herself sometimes"), she relaxed enough to join him on the swings. Soon she was enjoying the graceful swish of her dress in the salty breeze nearly as much as he was, and they exchanged knowing grins as they whipped past each other.

Neither of them knew or cared just how long it went on, but they were both glad when they heard the distant sound of a door slamming. "That must be her!" Doug said in a low voice as he stuck out his feet to drag himself to a stop. While Kelly enjoyed a final swing, Doug tiptoed up alongside the house. Sure enough, he saw the stranger he would nevertheless know anywhere rushing up the walkway to a waiting car, a stuffed backpack slung over her shoulder. He bit his lip and turned back to give Kelly the news.

"Is she gone?" Kelly had come to a stop but was still seated on the swing.

"Yes." Doug tried to smile as he said it, but he could feel tears welling up. They came before he could do anything about them.

"Oh, Doug!" Kelly jumped up and threw her arms around him. "You know she's going to be okay, and

you also know this is the only way you could even be born, remember? "

"I know." He nodded. "It's just...I mean, I had a pretty good life here with Grandma and Aunt Doro, and then I got into Columbia, and that's awesome, but..."

"Your mom and your sister left scars, didn't they?"

"You don't know the half of it, Kelly. I'm sorry, but there are things I still haven't told you."

"Don't be sorry! It's up to you when to share those things!"

"Thank you. It's just, I thought maybe I could stop all that before it started. And then, Janice on top of that..."

"We already knew you can't save everyone. If it weren't her, there'd have been another first AIDS victim from here. And think of all we have accomplished! Just not this trip."

"Yeah. Just not this trip. No more trying to change my own past."

Doug led Kelly to the garden just behind the house, which was in full bloom with rhubarbs and tomatoes, and unscrewed the head of an ancient ceramic gnome. "Grandma locked Aunt Doro out by accident once, back in the fifties or something, and after that they always hid a spare key here," he explained as he fished out said key. He unlocked the back door and ushered Kelly in, explaining along the way that before they renovated the place when he was little - about a decade in the future - the back door led upstairs to the second floor only. "Don't ask me why they used the first and third floors for classrooms and the second for the living quarters," Doug said. "It was like that even before they took over."

Kelly had never been on the second floor, and even Doug had only been there occasionally, so they both had to poke around a bit to find their bearings. The first bedroom Doug found was obviously his mother's, complete with the Led Zeppelin poster and the bed she had made a point of leaving as messy as possible, and his morbid curiosity wouldn't let him tear his eyes away until he'd had a good long look at the whole angst-ridden scene.

"Did you ever see this room when you were a kid?" Kelly asked from the doorway.

"No. After the school shut down and they had the third floor free to make into bedrooms, they tore that wall down to make their bedroom bigger. Or officially Grandma's bedroom, but I knew they both slept here. At least when I was a little older I knew. You should see that bedroom now. It's palatial."

"Their current bedroom looks pretty good to me right now, Doug. Haven't we waited long enough?"

The melancholy on Doug's face faded into an eager grin as he looked Kelly unapologetically up and down. "Entirely too long, wouldn't you say?"

Grandma and Aunt Doro's room - at long last Doug had proof, for the queen-sized bed was flanked by bedside tables that bore their own signs of a unique occupant on that side of the bed - was smaller than he would know it to be twenty years later. But it was cozy and quaint with the ancient-even-in-1978 furniture and wallpaper, and the aura of two middle aged women living there. The only signs of what year it really was were the sheets, a pink and green splash pattern that looked brazen even when bathed in the mellow light from the lamp Kelly had turned on. Doug recalled using scraps in the same pattern as cleaning rags back in high school.

But he wasn't paying much mind to their surroundings. He was admiring Kelly, who had an uncharacteristically shy smile on her face as she turned to watch him close the bedroom door. "I hope you don't mind, I like a little light when I make love," she said, pointing at the lamp. "It's such a thrill to be able to see and be seen!"

"I thought you said men's bodies were ugly?"

"Call it throwing up a wall, Doug," Kelly said, placing her hands on his shoulders and drawing them slowly, lovingly down his chest. "And that wall has come down. But come on, you know that."

"Just want to make sure you really want to do this, I guess," Doug said.

"I've wanted to since that first night!" Kelly said. "It felt so good to hold you, and I felt totally comfortable naked in the water with you - I know I acted all embarrassed about it later on, but really I think I was just afraid. More than ever after this trip, Doug, now that I see a little bit of where you came from and what you've overcome, and..." She dissolved into an uncertain laugh.

"And?" Doug asked; he now had his arms around her and was rubbing her back, teasing the outlines of her bra playfully.

"And whatever you did to make Meg and Aurora squeal like that at the mansion, could you do it to me?"

"I was hoping you'd let me," Doug said. He ended the conversation there with a gentle kiss, which she received just as enthusiastically.

Though his hands were itching to work their way around front, he stuck to rubbing her back as their tongues went to town on one another. It was Kelly who took the next step, unbuckling his pants and unzipping them slowly enough for it to feel like a tease. Doug was nearly as relieved as he was thrilled, as they were awfully tight - especially just now. "Ah, that feels good," he whispered.

"Not as good as this will," Kelly promised, and she slid her fingers inside the waistband of his underwear and pushed them down, meeting some resistance along the way from his hard cock before it bounced out to attention. "Now, then," she cooed, and took it tightly in her right hand. After stroking Doug into a lather while he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off, she pushed him back gently onto the bed.

As Kelly climbed on top of him, Doug reached under her skirt with both hands. Kelly raised her arms in anticipation of him undressing her, but he didn't do it right away. Instead he felt around a bit on her thighs and belly, and teased her bush through her panties, which were damp to the touch. Kelly moaned lightly in anticipation, and raised her arms again. "You don't want to make me beg, Doug!" she warned him.

He also didn't want to wait any longer for another look at her beautiful body, especially not in the warm glow of the bedside lamp. "Good idea with the light," he said as at last he pushed her dress up to her shoulders; she took it from there and tossed it over the foot of the bed.

"Thanks," she said, leaning down now to graze his chest again and give him access to undo her bra, which he did without hesitation. "I never did understand why people always want it dark. Isn't it half the fun to see each other undress?"

"I always thought so," Doug said as he watched Kelly sit back up to remove her bra. She then scooted off the bed to pull her panties off, and at that moment they both discovered yet another seventies relic. "Oh my God, days of the week panties!" he exclaimed.

"Who knew they really made these?" Kelly mused, looking down at herself. "Wait a minute...Thursday?"

"Hmmm...I just assumed it was Saturday," Doug mused. "But I guess it could be any day of the week."

"Or whatever cosmic forces choose our clothes have an interesting sense of humor," Kelly offered. Taking note of the telltale wisps of hair peeking out from behind the black cloth, she flicked at them and was rewarded with a near-catatonic gaze of appreciation from Doug.

"Now who's teasing?" he asked as he anticipated the final revelation.

"Can't help it," Kelly admitted. "I just adore your admiration, Doug."

"What was it you said about guys turning into a drooling idiot every time we see a vagina?" Doug unwrapped the condom Kelly had remembered to set on the bed beside them and, to her titillation, rolled it on while she watched.

Kelly burst into laughs and pulled her panties down. "Maybe I want you to drool a bit over mine," she said, stroking her lush, dark pubic hair invitingly as she drank in Doug's hungry gaze. "It's wet for you, after all."

"Is it, now?"

"Only one way to know for sure," she said, once again climbing onto the bed and straddling him on her knees, an intense look on her face as she anticipated his caresses. With a reverent, gentle touch, Doug reached up to confirm what he already knew: she was deliciously wet to the touch, and her vaginal walls felt absolutely velvety as they clutched his two fingers in their hot, wet embrace. Kelly let out a husky "Ohh!" and nearly lost her balance as Doug rubbed her inner flesh in slow, soft rhythm. "Oh Doug, that's beautiful! Don't stop!"

He didn't, except for a moment when Kelly lay down on her back. Once she was settled, Doug slipped his fingers back in and picked up his pace, while also leaning over her to tease her nipples with his tongue. Topping it all off with a playful thumb dancing around her clit, he was rewarded with a long, inarticulate exhalation of joy from Kelly.

"Is this what you did to..."

"Yes," he purred between kisses on her breasts.

"So worth the wait! Yessss..." Then she slipped back into moans only as Doug's touching and kisses drove her ever further into the throes of pleasure and passion.

With only her to focus on, Doug brought Kelly to orgasm a lot more quickly than he'd been able to do with Meg or Aurora. He couldn't be sure if it was just his imagination, but he thought her screams were louder and more intense as well. The appreciative, deep kiss with which she greeted him as he climbed on top of her definitely was. She still had her lips clamped to his as he pushed his way inside her, so he could feel her throaty response rather than hear it. When at last the kiss was over, he pulled back to see her gazing up at him in happy silence.

With his first thrust, she broke the silence with more breathy nothingness that Doug did his part to join in on, though it didn't come as naturally to him as it seemed to for her. He gave it little thought in the heat of the moment. He gave little thought to anything other than Kelly's beautiful body and the beautiful noises she was making. The shock and disappointment and melancholy of the day gone by roared through his mind and were all easily defeated in the glory of their passion. He was just aware enough of the early tension in their friendship to be overjoyed at how it had evaporated.

Kelly - a lover and a friend now - threw her arms around him and pulled him down upon her as she melted into a second orgasm, this time bringing Doug over the edge with her. Just for that one moment, his voice rang out just as lusty and uninhibited as hers. In the still afterglow, she clamped her legs tightly just in case he got any ideas of pulling out just yet.

"You don't still think this trip was a failure, do you?" she cooed in his ear.

"I think it's our biggest win yet, don't you?"

"Absolutely! I'm so sorry the road here had so many emotional landmines for you, though."

"Worth it all, I think." Doug slid off and out of Kelly and snuggled up beside her, teasing her pubic hair with one hand, a sensation she welcomed. "No, I know. Crazy to think you can ever really change the past."

"But we have!"

"Not our past. But that's what makes us who we are, isn't it?"

"I guess so," Kelly agreed. "But right now it's the future I'm thinking of. With you."

"Me too," Doug said. "No need to get hung up on what's over and done with."

Kelly answered only with a kiss on the cheek and an affectionate arm around him, and soon they were fast asleep.

It was Kelly who awoke first. They were in the blue room, although it took her a few minutes to recognize it as such. It was a rainy morning outside the window, and Kelly recalled with disappointment that she was on duty at the resort that afternoon. A panicked glance at the clock revealed that she still had several hours before her shift began, and she sank back with relief on her pillow. Only then did she take stock of the situation and realize she and Doug were both just as nude as they had been the night before, and her heart sailed with the realization that they really had made love.

That sense of peace and well-being stayed with her through the shower with Doug and their late breakfast, which Aunt Doro walked in on halfway through from a morning meeting ("Wretched day to be out, but we'd never be able to reschedule it in time," she explained as she joined them for a second cup of coffee), and on to the wonderfully comfortable act of changing into her work clothes while Doug looked on from the bed.

"I do hope you don't mind my watching you like this," Doug said.

"I think we've settled on just how much you love my body, haven't we?" Kelly replied. "And no, I don't mind." With her white blouse on but unbuttoned, she paused and looked at Doug. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Doug said. "We didn't say that last night, did we?"

"I think we showed each other we did, don't you?"

"Absolutely," Doug agreed. "So when to next?"

"Don't you think maybe we ought to leave the jukebox alone?" Kelly suggested.

"Probably," Doug conceded. "But do you really have the willpower to do that?"

"I'm pretty sure I don't!" Kelly admitted, and she resumed buttoning up her blouse. "Let's just not bother with your past again. Now, could you just tell me one thing about yesterday?"

"Sure."

"What did you whisper to that woman at the cove?"

"Mrs. Perkins? Well, you didn't know this because it was on the trip you weren't on, but I met her in 1958. What I said to her in 1978 was, 'I saved Irene from Sarge.'"

"No wonder you confused her, you looked much too young to be the same guy."

"Precisely. I had told her she wouldn't believe it." Doug stood up to walk Kelly to the door. "Maybe I'll go for a walk now too now that the rain is done," he said. While waiting for Kelly to put her shoes on, he gathered up his clothes from the floor. "Laundry time, too," he said, checking the pockets of his jeans. To his surprise, he found the secret key to the back door inside. "Oh my," he said.

"Wow," Kelly said. "It's been missing for thirty years, then?"

"Must be," Doug said. "But I might as well put it back where it belongs."

"Kelly certainly looked chipper today," Aunt Doro said with a twinkle in her eye as soon as Doug had seen her off to work.

"She was," Doug said. "She is, I mean."

"Congratulations, Doug," Aunt Doro said.

Doug laughed nervously. "I'm sorry, Aunt Doro, I'm...I mean, am I in trouble?"

"You know me better than that!" she said. "I'm very happy for the both of you. She's a lovely girl and she's a great match for you. After what your mother and grandmother went through with relationships, I've always been a little worried you were going to end up the same way. But I don't get that feeling about Kelly at all."

Doug nodded. "Me neither," he agreed. "It's a relief for me too, after...everything with Mom."

"It's not your fault, Doug, you know that, don't you?"

"I guess," Doug said. "But I always did wonder if I could have done something."

"I think we both know you did your best, Doug," Aunt Doro said.

"What do you mean?"

Aunt Doro stood up. "You know, Doug, I'm healthy for my age, but my hearing is starting to go. In any event, time for a nap. I got up awfully early today, after all."

Doug knew better than to pry further. "Okay, Aunt Doro," he said. "I think I'll take a walk downtown."

"Good time for that, after the rain," she said. Taking note that he was heading for the back door, she said, "Don't bother returning that, Doug."

"Returning what?"

"The key. I had a new one made years ago. Probably before you were born."

"What key?" Doug did his best to play dumb, but as usual he was hopeless at it.

"You know what key. You and Kelly might need it next time. And tell her that dress looked very flattering on her, will you?"