The Time Spine Complete

Dear Reader: I originally released this story in serial form. I decided to put it all in one volume for convenience sake. I hope you enjoy it. All the characters in this story are 18 or older.

*****

Prologue:

James sighed and looked down at his former best friend. It was hard to believe the end was near, but he could not discount the evidence of his own eyes. Arthur's face was a map of wrinkles. His lips were thin and trembled slightly with each labored breath. What hair was left on his splotchy head was wispy and white.

Arthur was the very image of a dying old man, skeletal chest rising almost imperceptibly with each shallow breath. The room smelled of piss and decay. James could barely stand it. But he was Arthur's only friend left in the world. Although they'd had a falling out a few years ago, he felt he owed it to his old friend to stay on until he'd breathed his last.

Damned fool Arthur, thought James, you never did know when to quit.

He looked around at the lavishly appointed room. The furniture in the bedroom alone was worth more than James' entire home. Arthur had become quite rich in his old age, apparently. Not surprising one bit, all things considered.

The nurse came in and turned Arthur gently on his side, checked his blood pressure, and glanced at his catheter bag. She looked up at James, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

What a handsome young man, she thought. He had dark hair, cut short, and though his face was troubled, there was a calm confidence about him that was both comforting and attractive. She put his age in the early thirties.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said, "Was he your grandfather?"

James was startled out of his reverie. "No, we went to college together," he said with a sigh, looking down at the wasted old man in the bed.

"College?" she said with confusion, "I don't understand, was he a professor?"

He turned to her and seemed to really see her for the first time. "You mean you don't know?" he said softly. "Arthur Ellis is exactly the same age as I am: twenty-six."

She looked at the desiccated old man on the bed and shook her head. "Surely you're joking. This man is in his eighties if he's a day old."

James shook his head gently and told the lie he'd been telling everyone else. "He has a rare genetic disease that accelerated his aging. All we can do now is try to ease his passing."

The nurse put a hand to her generous bosom and looked down at Arthur. "The poor soul! He won't get his fair share of years on this earth." She did a quick sign of the cross; forehead, chest, shoulders.

But James was deep in thought again. Arthur had no rare disease. The truth was much stranger.

It was an unbelievable tale of supernatural forces beyond understanding. A tale of perversion. A tale of utter and naked debauchery. A tale of the corrupting influence of boundless power, of brother against brother.

And, he hoped, perhaps by the end of all this, a tale of redemption.

PART 1:

James and Arthur ran at breakneck speed through the forest. James was lagging behind, as usual. Though he was larger and stronger than his best friend, Arthur was fleeter of foot.

He watched his friend running ahead of him, the rays of the late-afternoon sun slanting in bars through the forest canopy. Arthur's golden hair flashed brightly every time the sun touched it, and James once again felt a surge of love for his good friend. Arthur, the golden boy. Popular and engaging, complexion like warm sunshine, he could have had anyone on campus for a best mate. James often wondered why he'd chosen an introvert like himself.

But not today. Today was not a day for reflection. Spring was in full riotous explosion all around, and their finals were done as of twenty minutes ago. They were free for the summer, having finished their first full year of college. The world was theirs!

He felt the warm burn of muscles worked hard, and his body positively thrummed with youthful health. Blood surged through his veins and his breath came fast and strong in his chest. He felt the soft soil of the forest floor pushing back against his feet, and he knew there would never be a day to match this one.

The boys finally came to their destination. The woods opened up to the blue sky above a deep pond. A waterfall tumbled down from a cliff on one side, and the pool overflowed into a creek bed on the other.

It was idyllic; a perfect, secluded swimming hole.

The boys stripped off their clothes and jumped in the cold water, screaming at the outrage of the shock. They swam around, playing and splashing for a while, and it almost seemed like they were boys again, without a care in the world beyond saving for their next comic.

After a while, they got out of the water and luxuriated in the heat of the sun on their naked bodies. They were not in the least self-conscious around each other. They'd been friends much too long for that. Going out for sports together, learning about girls together, they'd seen each other nude enough to take any novelty out of it.

James looked over at Arthur and felt the old pang of jealousy. Arthur was like a Greek god. Perfectly proportioned, finely muscled, hairless, and completely at ease in his skin.

Not like James. He was dark complected, dark of hair, and dark of mood. His body was hairy where Arthur's was sleek, blocky and blunt-muscled where Arthur's was lithe. He knew he was a handsome man, in his own way, but compared to Arthur, he felt a brutish bear. Even his penis seemed comically large.

They chatted about classes, finals, and various professors for a while, letting the sun and the buzzing of insects calm and soothe them. After a while, Arthur suddenly jumped into the water again.

James just laid back and let the gentle breeze tickle his chest-hair. He looked at a lone cloud, far above, while he waited for the sound of his friend surfacing.

After what seemed like a couple minutes, James sat up and looked around. The pool's surface was placid, and Arthur was nowhere to be seen.

"Arthur!" he shouted, starting to get alarmed. No reply.

He looked around helplessly. The placid, late-spring scene was suddenly mocking.

Another minute passed, with no sign of his friend. He jumped in the water and began swimming around the perimeter of the pool, diving occasionally.

He was starting to grow frantic when Arthur suddenly emerged, next to the waterfall. He gasped hugely upon emerging, and turned a flashing smile to James.

"Jim, you gotta see this. There's a cave behind the waterfall!" With that he turned and dove under the water once again.

James swam over to the same general area, and dove as well. Keeping his eyes open in the clear, clean water, he could see dim shapes below, and when he looked up he saw the driving bubbles where the water was crashing down from above.

Sure enough, the lake bed went beyond and behind the curtain of churning bubbles. He swam back and surfaced on the other side of the waterfall. Indeed, there was a small cave carved out of the living rock. Arthur was just climbing out of the water onto a deep ledge in the back of the cave.

"Can you fucking believe this?" shouted Arthur above the din of the waterfall. "Look, people have been back here."

James swam over and pulled himself out of the water next to his friend. He saw that there were indeed signs of habitation. There was an old fire, now just ashes and blackened sticks. Some old animal skins were piled against the wall, and a pig-iron pot sat half-in the fire pit.

The two young men, flush with the excitement of a new discovery, went about searching the area for interesting relics.

In the end, they amassed a small pile of found items in the middle of the cave ledge. An old spoon that seemed to have one edge sharpened. A handful of leather strips or thongs. Three fine little arrow heads. What appeared to be a very old carved wooden boat. A chipped marble.

And that was it. James felt his shoulders sag. He'd been entertaining the adolescent fantasy of hidden treasure. It seemed there was none to be found.

But Arthur was not to be brought down. "Isn't this the best?" He said, his blue eyes flashing, "We found some old hobo's cave-house."

He looked around, eyes bright, and said, "I wonder if he was an Indian?"

The two young men looked at each other, and suddenly they were twelve year-old boys again, able to dream and believe anything.

Almost perfectly in time, they both began laughing. It was the free, open laugh you have when you realize you're being childish, and you don't give a damn.

They both laughed for quite a while, occasionally breaking into fresh gales. As the giggles finally subsided, James thought again what a good friend he had. He was not one to laugh much, left to his own devices, but Arthur just had a way about him. Good cheer and laughter surrounded him.

They were gathering up their loot and turning to leave when Arthur suddenly stopped and walked over to the moldy old furs against the wall. One of them looked more solid than the others, and sure enough, upon closer inspection, he found it to be a bundle, tied with more of the leather thongs.

This set James' heart beating again, as the child inside dared to dream of hidden treasure.

Arthur laid out the bundle and pulled at the ends of the leather strips, slowly undoing the knots securing them. Finally, he began to unroll the bundle.

After rolling the bundle fully open, they both gazed down at the strangest thing they had ever seen.

It was a human spinal cord, carefully cleaned and preserved. It appeared ancient, yellow-brown with age, and grotesque in its twisting nakedness.

James hated it, just a little, without knowing why.

Arthur and James looked at each other with a strange and unspoken fore-knowledge. They somehow knew their lives would never be the same.

PART 2:

The boys brought their loot back to their dorm room, and spent some time trying to reconstruct what kind of person might have lived under the falls. Possibly some old hermit or Native American holy man. James loved to create interesting imaginary back-stories in the world around him. He wanted to be a writer, and he knew the world was full of interesting tales, if you knew where to look.

Arthur, on the other hand, was not the creative type. He seemed to enjoy his friend's flights of fancy, but his own mind was much more practical. James would dream up an adventure, but Arthur was the one who could actually plan and execute it. It was one of the things about their friendship that made them so well matched. Quite different, but complimentary.

Arthur was sitting on the bed, examining the ancient vertabra, while James was rattling on about a crippled old native shaman and the people from the village who left food beside the waterfall. His attention was more inside his head than out, so what happened next was not clear until later.

Arthur twisted one of the bones of the spine and it popped with a dusty, somehow painful sound. The little pop resounded in their heads and actually caused a bit of physical pain.

But even odder, Arthur was not on the bed any more. James turned around and saw that Arthur was now standing behind him, a stunned look on his face.

He knew his own face must be mirroring his friend's incredulous surprise. What in the hell had just happened? He started to ask, but was interrupted by his friend's excited babble.

"Oh my God!" Arthur said in wonderment, "I don't believe it. I don't fucking believe it." He shook his head as if to clear away cobwebs. "It actually happened. I think it actually happened. Good God..."

Clearly his friend had gone mad. He was not talking sense. And, although James had not been paying close attention, how had Arthur snuck up behind him like that? Odd...

Arthur just kept babbling, obviously in a state of shock.

Finally James stood and took his friend by the shoulders. "Arthur. Calm down." Once he caught the gaze of those blue eyes, he continued to talk soothingly. "Now, listen my friend, talk slowly. Tell me. What happened?"

Arthur drew a deep breath and seemed to calm down. His eyes were filled with wonder still, but the panicked edge seemed to have dimmed. He looked down and saw that he was still holding the old spinal column. He handed it to James dumbly and made a twisting motion with his hands.

"You try," he said, through dry lips. "Give it a twist."

James felt there would be no harm in indulging his shell-shocked friend's odd request. If it helped to calm the old boy, then, what the hell?

He gave the spine a firm twist and heard the same popping sound as before. Again, it seemed much too loud and piercing to be produced by old bones.

And thus, with his mind on the odd sound, he became aware of something quite strange. Perfect silence. Moments before, the world had been filled with sounds of the campus. Birds singing, laughter out on the quad, the sound of a soccer game behind the dorm house.

Now there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. He had never heard silence so complete in his whole life. He turned to comment when he discovered the next oddity.

Arthur was sitting stock still. Not moving one inch. James gasped when he realized his friend was not even breathing! He forced his own breath to remain even, as panic rose in his chest. What the hell was going on?

He glanced out the window and suddenly understood. A soccer ball was frozen mid-air. Two students were running full tilt after it, yet were not moving at all. They were statue-still. He looked around and spotted a bird suspended unmoving in the sky. The whole world was frozen.

Frozen in time.

PART 3:

Once he got a grip on what was happening, as crazy as it seemed, he remembered what had started this all off. Arthur must have had the same experience! He looked down at the spine in his hands and saw that one of the vertebra was out of line. He walked around behind Arthur and popped it back in place.

Sure enough, the world came swimming back to life.

Arthur slowly turned around and the two young men just stood staring at each other with wonder and dawning excitement.

"Did you..." started Arthur.

"Yes, I..." blurted James

They both stammered nonsense for a bit as their minds tried to wrap around the truth. Finally they both gave up and just started laughing hysterically.

After a good cleansing laugh, they both seemed to have calmed down a bit and they sat down together on the edge of Arthur's bed.

Not surprisingly, Arthur was the first to string together a complete sentence. "It bloody stops time, James."

There. It was out there. The impossible truth. James looked his friend in the eye, and they both smiled as the implications seeped in.

"My God," said James, "We can do..."

"Anything we want to do," finished Arthur.

The two best friends looked wonderingly at each other as cheers went up outside. Someone must have scored a goal.

Arthur got a twinkle in his eye and reached out and grasped the spine. "I'm going again."

Before James could say a word, the piercing pop echoed through his head and Arthur was gone.

Or, well, not. He actually just blinked a couple feet away on the bed. He was breathing hard, and his cheeks were flushed. "My God, James, I've just been down to the soccer match." His face was suffused with joy and wonder. "Take a look."

James went to the window. The soccer game had come to an end amid confusion. The players were wandering the field, apparently searching for something.

Arthur giggled and pointed to the sidelines.

A young man was looking down at his belly, where something large bulged under his t-shirt.

By now, some of the players had noticed and they were pointing at him and shouting. The young man reached in and pulled the soccer ball out of his shirt and threw it to the nearest player. Everyone began laughing, thinking it a prank, and play soon resumed. The young man in the t-shirt wasn't laughing.

Arthur was positively glowing with excitement. "James, it was amazing. I snatched the ball out of the air where it stood frozen. Yet when I pulled at it, it came into my hands right away." He barely took time to breathe, he was speaking so fast. "I had to move that fellow's arm to put the ball under his shirt. It moved to exactly where I put it, then froze there."

His eyes blazed. "Do you know what that means, my friend?"

James, who was still processing all of this, shook his head dumbly.

Arthur's smile widened and perfect white teeth flashed. "We can change things, James. We can move things. We can... touch things."

James shook his head, not in refusal but in confusion. "What do you mean touch things? Of course you can."

Arthur's grin became feral. "Do you see that girl on the side line, the one with the perfect tits?"

James nodded. She was quite beautiful.

"I had a right good feel," he said, leering.

"You what?" James yelped. Leave it to his friend to find the perverted side to any situation. And yet... as he thought deeper, he felt a thrill. Now he knew what his friend meant when he said they could do anything they wanted.

"Bloody hell..." he mumbled to himself.

James looked up suddenly through his dark bangs and said, "Let me have another go."

Arthur smiled a wolfish smile and handed the old relic over.

He firmly grasped the worn old spine and gave it a twist. With a painful "pop," the world stopped. He turned past his frozen friend, and opened the door.

PART 4:

Once again, the first thing that struck him was the absolute silence. Not a creak or thud was to be heard in all the dorm house. He walked through the unearthly silence, hearing only his own breathing and footfalls.

He shivered a bit as he stepped out into the day. No wind blowing. No distant shouts. No birds chirping. He felt like the last man alive on the earth.

He took a moment to just look around. It felt as if he had somehow entered a photograph. All around him were unmistakable postures of motion; birds flying, people running, a ball sailing in mid-air. Yet nothing was moving at all. It was downright eerie.

Suddenly, he caught sight of the shapely young woman Arthur had pointed out. He moved to the sidelines and looked closely at her.

She was definitely one of the beautiful people. Every once in a while, God seemed to deem it good to give one person everything. This woman had gorgeous wavy brown hair with copper highlights, a cute little heart-shaped face with a delicate chin, and an absolutely perfect body. Nice, medium-sized tits, a tight waist, and a round little bubble butt.

She was standing, hands clasped in front of her, and she appeared to be yelling something. James moved around behind her and tried to follow her line of sight.

Ah yes, there was a young man about to score a goal. That's who she was clearly cheering for. He wondered... a boyfriend? Or just an admired athlete?

He moved back around in front, and waved his hands in front of her face. He put the spine down, careful not to straighten the kink. Standing back up, he moved closer to the doll-like woman in front of him.

He carefully unclasped her hands. Arthur was right. She moved according to his will, but as soon as he released her, she stayed in that pose.

He took a few moments having a little fun, arranging her in the Nazi salute, putting a finger up her nose, and other childish things. After a while, though, he could not ignore the rush he was getting from having absolute power over such a gorgeous woman.

He put her hands down by her sides and grasped the hem of her sweater. Looking around, he slowly tugged the material upwards, revealing a tan, trim midriff. Finally he rolled the sweater up past her plump titties and just stared at her bra-capped mounds. He ran his hands along her tummy and sides, loving the cool feeling of her soft skin.