I knew I was getting hypnotized. I knew Franz Mesmer’s great grandson had counted from ten and my body was at my engagement party, and I also knew the movie was about to play the part where I lost someone I cared about.
“What the hell did you think you were doing in there?” I growled. Though I felt all the panic and fear I felt that night, I was also my older self, who knew how it all ended.
Calm down. Get control. My older self spoke to my younger self urgently, as if it could change anything.
“What’s going to happen when I go to college? You going to tell me who to talk to from here? Should I keep a log of what I wear? Well I won’t. Nothing. No more.” Rachel’s brown hair was soaked. She’d run out in a light sweater, leaving her jacket and purse behind.
“What were you saying to him?” I yelled.
“You really want to know?”
I stepped forward. I was already six feet tall, an intimidating presence in the class, and in front of a young woman in the rain.
She stepped back. “I’m not going to get enough to go to Penn, so J. Declan Drazen’s coughing it up. Every fucking dime, or I’m telling everyone what a sick bunch of fucks you are.”
She and I were open about what a sick bunch of fucks we were. We even laughed about it sometimes, but I’d always felt like she was talking about my parents. This time, it sounded like I was included. It sounded like she’d be more than happy to take me down as just another sick fuck who bedded her. What had I thought I meant to her? Did she think I’d used her? Or was it the other way around?
“Don’t play with him, Rachel. You can’t win.”
“I’m not playing.” She looked more like a grown woman when she uttered those words than ever before. She really meant to tangle with my father.
I took my car keys out. “I’m taking you home.”
She stepped back, under the edge of the eave, where the water dripped in fatter, condensed streams. One splashed on her shoulder, but she didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked. “Don’t look at me like that. I love you Jay.”
“And I’m just one of the sick fucks? Did I ever treat you with anything but respect?”
“There’s too much baggage, Jonathan. I want a regular boyfriend.”
I froze. What did she mean? Instead of asking her, in my immaturity and drunkenness, I stepped forward again.
You’re being menacing. She’s going to run...she’s going to—
She snapped the car keys from my hand.
“Give me those.” I grabbed for them, but my balance was off, and I was slow.
She ran.
I ran after her, but the images got foggy and indistinct.
I was in the driveway, looking for my car.
I was in the house, searching through coat pockets.
I was driving in a shitstorm of rain.
How? What did I miss?
I felt a pain in my shoulder.
I was in the driver’s side of the car. It was too dark to make out much more than the outline of the keys. They seemed to stand up sideways in the ignition, defying gravity. My vision swam. Then the keys rotated on the ring, pointing toward the ceiling. Odd.
Creak.
Crunch.
I was on the ground. I heard the beep of the warning signal and saw the beam of a single headlight, but all I saw was a car on its side, ready to fall into the whirling floods of the Pacific Ocean.
It rolled and fell. There was no splash. When I scrambled up to the edge of the cliff, a car was floated in the foaming waters.
I heard her scream.
Rachel.
It had to be. She must have been belted into the passenger side?
But how?
“Rachel!” I yelled. What a ridiculous thing to do. I could barely hear myself.
I dove into the water.
Cold.
I became aware of the viola again, just as I gulped water and felt a stabbing pain in my lungs. The real me, the me at my engagement party, the twenty three-year old who had control of his life, gasped real air and felt water. I was coming out of it.
But the sixteen year-old me woke up to grass tickling my nose. The world swam as if I was riding the teacups at Disney. I opened my eyes. Just in front of me, so close I had no context but a few blades of grass, the dark of the rainy night, and my own nausea, was Rachel’s face. She, too had her cheek to the grass. Her eyes glazed over. Her mouth hung open. Her hair stuck to her face in the rain. She blinked, and a tear fell over the bridge of her nose.
Rachel, Rachel, I am sorry.
* * *
The sound of the full quartet sounded like a philharmonic, and I knew I was out of the hypnosis a second before I bolted straight in my chair. Jessica sat on the edge of the chaise in an ecru dress. The orchid in her hand matched the one in her blonde hair. She must have gotten it for my lapel on the way back from the manicurist. She always thought of everything.
“Jon,” she said, taking my hand. “What happened?”
“You have to meet me halfway,” grumbled David Mesmer.
“Jonathan,” Theresa said. “Let me get you a drink, my God.”
The other sister’s voices broke into my consciousness. Jessica and I just looked at each other, barely hearing.
“You look worse.”
“We really need to try the crystal cleansing lady.”
“Have the guy with the wine come this way.”
“Christ, I think half of Stanford just showed up.”
Jessica slipped her hand between mine and tugged. I got up. I pulled her away to a quiet corner between two chest-high planters.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
“I don’t believe in hypnosis,” I said.
“Of course not.” She pressed the orchid to my lapel and wove a three inch straight pin through it, fastening it to my jacket. Her eyes gazed at me suspiciously and with no little concern. “But you look like you just saw a ghost.”
“I remembered that night. Things I hadn’t remembered before.”
“That night? Jon, really. Which night?”
“The night Rachel died.”
She touched my cheek, and I brought my arm around her waist. “Tell me,” she said.
I put my lips close to her ear. “She’s alive.”
“How is that possible?”
“I remember. I woke up in the grass, and she was next to me. Her eyes were open. She blinked.”
Nothing about Jessica’s expression changed for the first second, and I watched her closely. I needed her to tell me something. Maybe comfort me, or tell me I was wrong. Maybe I’d missed a shred of evidence that proved what we’d always known. That Rachel was dead and buried and the family tracks covered with six feet of dirt.
She put her hand on my lapel. “You know, this isn’t a reliable memory, right?”
“Yes. But I also know it’s right. Sure as we’re standing here.”
“Well then, there’s only one way to know for sure.” She squeezed my hand and put her lips to my ear. “We’ll have to find her.”
A streamer floated down from a tree and landed between us, while the sound of the quartet drew my attention back to my engagement party and waiting guests.
END
#
CD Reiss is the author of Songs of Submission, a series about a kinky billionaire, an ingenue singer, art, music and sin in the city of Los Angeles.
Find her at her website cdreiss.com.com or follow her on Facebook
Beg.
If you enjoyed CD’s story, check out her best-selling erotic romance!
My name is Monica. I'm a singer born and raised in Los Angeles.
I've stopped dating. When I cut a record, or win a Grammy, maybe then I'll be with someone, but every man in my past has done everything he could to make me submit myself to him, and it's gotten in the way of my career. I won't do it again.
But there's Jonathan. He owns the high-rise hotel where I work
, and he is gorgeous and charming. I refuse to fall in love with him, even though when he asks me to submit to him, I want nothing more.
And also, there's lots of CURSING and HOT SEX.
The Paradox
Alan Nayes
I wasn’t supposed to die today.
I was supposed to live into my eighties, if actuarial statistics are to be believed. My parents always told me I came from good stock, whatever the hell that meant. My grandmother and grandfather both lived into their eighties and they smoked and drank. My mom and dad are relatively healthy, excepting some minor blood pressure issues and weight concerns. Like they preached—“I come from good stock.”
So why me, at the ripe young age of twenty-six? Why did I get the honor of meeting the Grim Reaper? What the hell happened that changed my life so mind-bendingly abruptly?
Two words—Mia Lingo. I’m going to die today because of a girl named Mia Lingo.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I had a plane to catch.
* * *
The red Ferrari was parked under an overpass on the 405 freeway heading south. I could see the older driver checking under the hood and then slam it shut. He didn’t look too pleased as I whizzed past in my eleven-year-old blue Tundra, never realizing how my life was about to change. I rented a shit pad in Santa Ana with two other poor pricks, and worked my tail off at a local Home Depot selling kitchen appliances to dowdy housewives. Crap, they had more cash than me. Maybe I was destined to remain poor.
I glanced in the rearview. The older driver was waving at me.
“Just keep driving, someone else will stop,” I muttered.
When I checked again, he was still waving.
“Shit.” I checked the time. I guess I could act the Good Samaritan and still make it to Home Depot in time for my shift.
I pulled to the shoulder and maneuvered a long reverse, keeping a keen eye out for cops until I’d braked within a few yards of the Ferrari’s front bumper, which I figured with more than just a little chagrin was probably worth more than my entire truck.
I got out. “Trouble, sir?” I asked.
He approached me in his expensive tie and sports coat and shiny loafers. “Engine died,” he explained. Frustrated he held up his smart phone. “Must be something in the air because my cell phone died, too. All this frickin’ technology and a horse and buggy would do me more good.” He reached out a hand. “Thanks for stopping. I’m Bennett.”
“Michael.” He wasn’t standoffish. While I made a call to AAA, we got to talking.
“Nice car,” I remarked.
“A lot nicer when she runs.” He chuckled and so did I.
It was odd because while I’m normally kind of shy, today a jabberbird had control of my tongue. “How’d you make all you money, Bennett?”
“Got real lucky, son. A hot tip.”
“Tip as in betting?”
“Stocks, Michael. I made a killing in a couple of stocks.”
I must have looked skeptical because he pulled me closer and said, “Honest to God. May lightning strike me dead if I’m lying.” He rubbed his chin a moment. “But it’s not what it seems, Michael. True, the valuation of the commodities made me wealthy, but my luck was how I acquired the knowledge.” He locked onto my gaze. He must have smelled my desire for money because he got real close and asked, “You wish to be rich, son?”
Somber images flashed in my mind—my shabby apartment, clunker truck, mom and dad still working their tails off, crappy future, no girlfriend, my measly few worthless college credits—“Yes,” I blurted. “Yes, I do.”
Bennett pulled a worn card from his wallet and scribbled a number on the back. “Call this man, he’ll help you.”
I was suddenly wary. “I’m not into drugs and don’t want to do anything illegal.”
Bennett laughed out loud. “There’s nothing illegal about being a popper.”
“A what?”
“A popper, Michael.”
“A popper,” I repeated, now skeptical as well as wary. Where the hell was that tow truck?
Bennett didn’t bat an eye. “You wish to be rich, call that number. It worked for me. Ask for Dinjis. It’s been years but if he’s still there, he’ll help you.”
“A popper,” I said, reading the scrawled digits. Didn’t sound so scary.
By the time AAA arrived, I’d already memorized the Los Angeles number.
Dinjis agreed to meet me at four the following afternoon if my background check returned satisfactory. He took my basic information and less than an hour later called back to report I “checked out”. The address was a three-story, red brick building on Sepulveda Blvd. sandwiched between a pair of abandoned warehouses that appeared to be defunct businessesone plumbing supplies, the other, wicker furniture—if the old bankruptcy notices were accurate. I waited outside the nondescript building searching for a sign but there was only the street address. I gazed up at a third floor window. The blinds were down. I looked up and down Sepulveda. Not a bustling beehive of activity for sure, though down the block I watched a couple enter the only nice looking establishment on the street. OPTIONS AND STOCK TRADES emblazoned across one large bay window. I was glad the sun was out and the sky a clear blue which mitigated the smell of car exhaust and the odor of decay. I spotted the road kill, a stray cat, lying next to the curb. At least it wasn’t raining, though I knew the forecast called for thundershowers tomorrow.
“What the hell,” I muttered. If Bennett had steered me here, I’d just have to play the hand out. What did I have to lose, anyway? “Popper,” I chuckled and climbed to the third floor and turned right at the landing. I saw only one office in the corridor. I hadn’t even knocked when a squat, dark-complected man opened the heavy wood door. “I’m Dinjis,” he introduced himself, offering his hand.
I shook it noticing how smooth the skin was. Dinjis had never done much manual labor, I presumed, based on his soft palm. “Michael Jenks,” I said, thinking his skin tone and facial features said “Indian,” as in the continent. “I called yesterday. Bennett referred me.”
“Come in, please.”
The office was two rooms, the outer one small and sparse—only a desk with a chair and a single painting on the wall; a framed oil on canvas of Big Ben smothered in a London fog. He walked me past the vacant desk into the far more spacious room.
“Whoa,” I murmured, “You collect clocks.”
He smiled vaguely and settled behind a desk, a big teakwood that I guessed weighed a ton. “No, Michael, I collect time. Time is a commodity and I trade in it. I’m a time broker and make my commission by how successful you are when you travel.”
He motioned me to a worn cushioned chair and while I made myself comfortable, he pulled open a drawer and passed me a plastic card. He cleared his throat when I didn’t take it.
I shrugged awkwardly. “What do you mean you trade in time?”
“I trade blocks of time. A block today for a block tomorrow.”
I accepted the plastic card, barely glimpsing at it. “Not sure I’m getting it.”
“You will once you see.”
My eyes settled on the largest clock mounted on the wall next to his desk. And I mean large. It had to be at least four feet in diameter. Something was odd about it besides the fact it had too many hands—hours, minutes, seconds, and three others which didn’t seem to move—as well as two digital windows positioned side by side. I noticed all the digital numerals set to zero. A much smaller window near the base also registered zero.
Dinjis cleared his throat again, recapturing my attention. He motioned to my hand. “The card, Michael. Don’t lose it. Each popper gets one.”
“One?”
“Only one.”
I studied the card. Drab gray with no lettering or printing—entirely blank—and about the size of a credit card. “What’s it do?” I asked.
Dinjis gestured to the only window in the entire office. The blinds were down. This was the window I’d viewed from the Sepulv
eda. “It’ll pop you out there,” he said.
“That’s Los Angeles,” I said, getting a little antsy. I’d come here to get rich, not talk about going back outside. “I was just out there.”
He shook his head once. “Not out there, you weren’t.”
I stared at the card in my palm and back at the window. I did a double take. Had that door by the window been there all this time? A strange prickly sensation touched the nape of my neck as I stood and slowly walked across the floor to the plain wood door with a brass door knob. I felt Dinjis’s eyes on me but I didn’t turn. My attention roved to the huge clock on my right with the strange hands that didn’t seem to move, then to the window on my left, and finally back to the door in front of me. I assumed a slot below the doorknob was meant for the card. I reached out and touched the door’s wood panel.
As if reading my mind, Dinjis commented, “It’s real.”
I scratched my head. “I know it is. I’m wondering why I didn’t see it when I came in.”
“You weren’t looking.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.” I stepped to the window and raised the blinds halfway. Three stories down I saw my Tundra—no parking ticket, good—and almost directly below I spotted the dead cat. A pool of dried blood I hadn’t noticed before stained the concrete around its head. I turned suddenly. “Is this how—”
“Bennett did it?” he finished for me.
“How did you know I was going to ask that?”
His reply came back direct. “Michael, I don’t make anyone rich. This meeting won’t make you rich, that little card you hold won’t make you rich. You make what you want for yourself. That’s the way it’s been for poppers, that’s the way it always will be—as long as you follow the rules.”
“Rules?” I swallowed. Dinjis’s eyes had taken on a preternatural sheen as if he were looking straight through me. An unwelcome queasy spot bloomed in my gut.
“Three to be exact,” he said. “Are you listening?”
This was beginning to sound serious. “I’m listening.”
“Really listening?”
I nodded, unable to hold his penetrating gaze, so I glanced down at the card. “I said I was.”
“That’s good, Michael.” Dinjis leaned back in his plush desk chair, watching me. “One—a popper can’t stay. You must return.”
“Stay? Where—”