Time to Control (23 page)

“See?
 
You did it again.”
 
I pounded his chest lightly and found
the energy to get up, remembering there was ice cream in the freezer.
 
I left him reaching his outstretched
arms after me; he didn't have any strength left.
 
He didn't know the power of brownie
batter ice cream.
 
I grabbed the box
of cookies on the way back, and tossed them on his bare chest.
 
“Sit up, otherwise you're going to get
crumbs all over you.”

“Nicknames,” he reminded me, trying
a sugar cookie.

“Mmmm,” I moaned in pleasure, the
coolness of the ice cream cooling my body down after the strenuous exercise.

“Don't do that unless you want to
go again,” he warned.
 
I looked at
him oddly, but went on.

“The nicknames you use have their
own personalities.
 
When you're
being normal and conversationally, you'll call me sweetheart.
 
When you're emotional – concerned,
worried, that kind of thing – you'll call me baby.
 
When you're aroused or coming down, it's
babe.
 
I still haven't figured out
hon and honey yet.
 
And Schroeder
you save for when you want to get my attention.”

“I use that many?”
 
He stole the spoon from me and took a
bite.

“Yep.
 
Stop, please.”
 
I grinned to take the sting out.

“But I like them.
 
Otherwise I wouldn't use them,” he
protested.

“Cut two,” I compromised.
 
“Get rid of hon and honey.
 
You don't use them much,
 
anyway.”

“Fine,” he grumbled.
 
“I didn't think you were all that sweet
anyway.”

“Thanks, hon.”
 
I gave him a loud smack on the cheek.

“Hey!”

“I just said you can't use
them.
 
Not that I can't.”
 
The ice cream container sat on the
coffeetable and melted while Eddie took his revenge on my body.
 
I didn't protest.

"What did Roger do?"
Eddie asked some time later.

Politely but firmly, I told him it
was none of his business.

"It is, baby.
 
I need to know."

I shifted on the couch so I was on
my side between his legs, both leaning against the arm of the couch, so I could
look at him.
 
"No, you
don't.
 
There's no good reason for
you to have to know."

Eddie stroked my face.
 
"I don't want to inadvertently do
the same thing.
 
If he touched you a
certain way, I don't want to touch you that way and trigger a panic attack or
anything.
 
If I don't know, I can't
plan for it.
 
We were going to avoid
the bombshells, remember?
 
This is a
timebomb just waiting to go off."

I flopped back over on my back so I
wouldn't have to look at his face and see his reaction.
 
"I was coming home from work.
 
Roger was waiting for me around the
corner of my apartment, and startled me when I was opening my door.
 
I had left my laundry basket right
inside the door from doing it the night before, and tripped right over it.
 
Hit my head on the floor, and when I
woke up he had pulled my underwear off and my skirt up.
 
I punched him in the nuts and screamed
bloody murder, and luckily enough the apartment manager was showing an
apartment nearby, and came running.
 
Roger tried to claim that my skirt had rode up when I fell, and he was
trying to wake me up, and I had just gone commando that day.
 
The pile of obviously clean laundry
disproved that.
 
He didn't actually
do anything, so there's nothing you need to be wary of."

Eddie didn't say anything, just
kept hugging me.
 
Part of me wanted
to turn around and see his reaction, but I couldn't bear it if he thought less
of me because of it.

"What are the chances he's going
to come back for revenge?
 
Could all
this be from him, and not Alan?"
 
Eddie asked in a steady voice.

"Good question.
 
Unlikely.
 
He had to move back home with his
parents in Omaha.
 
He didn't have
health insurance, and moving home was a condition of them paying for his
medical expenses."

"Do I want to know?"

"He lost a testicle," I
said promptly and smugly, and felt him flinch.
 
He kissed my head.

"That's my girl.
 
See?
 
You stand up for yourself more than you
think."

"So you're not mad?"
 
I ventured tentatively.

"What?
 
Sweetheart, why would I be mad?
 
No, look at me."
 
I turned over and raised my eyes to his.
  
“We just talked about this.
 
No, I'm not mad.
 
I'm not going to be mad.
 
Your parents and Roger and the company
were wrong to make you feel like everyone should be mad at you.
 
Okay?
 
Do you understand me?”

“I can't change in five minutes,
Eddie.”

“I'm not asking you to change in
five minutes.
 
I just want to you
start to understand that not everyone is thinking the worst of you.
 
Some of us think you're pretty damn
awesome.”

I wanted to believe him, but it was
so hard.
 
“How long are you
staying?” I asked, changing the subject away from me.

Eddie recognized the question for
what it was, but allowed the discussion to change.
 
He had pushed enough for the night.
 
“Probably until Monday.
 
Unless you want to go to Connecticut
this weekend?”

“Um.”
 
My brain whirled to catch up.
 
“That's awfully last minute.
 
And I really just want a weekend to
relax.
 
Can't we just stay here?
Spend time with each other?
 
Maybe
test some traveling?”

“I thought you wanted to stay
here?
 
Teasing, just teasing!”
 
He grabbed the hand that was headed
towards a nipple and kissed it.
 
“I
know what you mean, and yes, we can stay in.
 
Do you want to travel tonight?”

I considered.
 
“If you're up for it.
 
If we can only go once a day, I want to
milk it for all its worth.”

“It's probably safer.
 
I can't believe I'm about to say this,
but don't we have a house to furnish?”

*******

Elizabethan London had an honest to
God shopping mall.
 
I wasn't much of
a fashion girl, and never liked going to the mall to hang out or shop.
 
I generally shopped more like a man
– go in directly to what I needed, get it, and go.
 
No browsing or wandering aimlessly.

In the Royal Exchange, I
wandered.
 
I browsed.
 
I bought.
 
A lot.

It was a good thing Eddie had
gotten more gems.
 
For as much as I
didn't spend in the future, I spent here.
 
Fancy clean mattress, extra stuffed with fluffed cotton.
 
Fit for the Queen herself, the
shopkeeper said.
 
The lack of
creepy-crawlies made the sale for me.

The finest linens, imported from
Egypt.
 
I now owned a higher thread
count in the past than I do in the future.
 
Bolts and bolts of exquisite velvet and silk – I planned on
draping them around the cottage, rather like Inara did in her shuttle in
Firefly's Serenity.
 

The smells of the spices were
intoxicating, and wafted throughout the three story structure.
 
This was definitely the best smelling
place we'd found in the past.
 
Eddie
politely asked the merchant the price for some peppercorns, and managed not to
flinch at the exorbitant amount.
 
I
wasn't as schooled with my expression, and Eddie hurried me out of the stall.

“Holy crap!” I obediently let Eddie
drag me towards some pottery.
 
“I
could buy out Kroger's for that amount.
 
Not just of pepper, of everything!”

“You can negotiate, you know,” he
told me, amused.

“Gee, it'd then just cost the same
as a house to fill my pepper grinder.
 
No thanks.”
 
I smiled to
lessen the impact, and promised myself to bring some pepper back next time we
traveled.
 
Heck, forget gems –
pepper might be a better currency.

When we returned to the cottage, a
few of the delivery boys were waiting for us.
 
Eddie the directed the setup of the bed
and various pieces of furniture, as we quickly found they would not listen to
me.
 
A few hours later our home was
set up, and I flopped on the soft bed.
 

This was the life.
 
I hated that I had to go back to my
“real” life in the future.
 
Yeah,
London smelled, and I was pretty sure that a plague outbreak was likely to
happen in the next dozen or so years.
 
But, I didn't have to deal with Alan and his harassment.
 
I didn't have to go to work each day,
and expect to be on-call each night.
 
I could stay here, with my husband.

Eddie sat down on the bed next to
me, and I pulled him down on top of me.
 
“Let's stay,” I told him impulsively.
 
“Here, in this time.”

He considered.
 
“Even though we've traveled a dozen
times, we always went back to the future that day.
 
We don't even know if we can stay, do
we?”

“We didn't know we could travel,
for that matter.
 
Why, are you
scared?”

My husband looked bemused.
 
“Look at my bold wife.
 
I thought you were the conservative
one?”

“We could get hit by a bus –
or carriage – tomorrow.
 
We're
taking massive chances time traveling to begin with.
 
I mean, what's the worst that can happen
if we stay?
 
I can take the ring off
at any point if things start to get out of hand.”

He shrugged.
 
“I'm fine staying if you want to.
 
You're the one wearing the ring –
you're the one in control.”

I considered that.
 
I was the one in control, for once.
 
Maybe that was why I liked traveling
through time so much.
 
In the future,
things were out of my hands.
 
I did
what others wanted me to do.
 
Here,
I could dictate what we did (between ourselves, at least), and had the power to
take us back to the future whenever I wanted to.
 
I had control.

Since I had control, I did what I
wanted.
 
I rolled us over so I was
on top, and lifted my skirts.
 
One
nice thing about the fashion of the time, once I got over my initial
apprehension, is the lack of undies.
 
It made access easier.
 
I
ground my lady bits against Eddie's man bits, and sighed with pleasure.

He rolled us back over, and dropped
trou.
 

The sex was unlike any we had
before.
 
Sparkles danced in my vision
in the last rays of sunlight streaming through the cracks in the wooden
shutters.
 
The world seemed to spin,
and I hadn't even hit the big O yet.

Our horizontal gymnastics had ended
up with me on top again.
 
Eddie's
strong, calloused hands gripped my buttocks, sometimes pushing me down to meet
his thrusting, sometimes giving me a nice erotic smack.
 
I was loving life.

Then the world disappeared.

We both regained consciousness at
the same time.
 
Our bodies were in a
heap on the floor in the Dallas townhome, limbs tangled not in a good way.

We had to have been unconsciousness
for a while, since my right arm, which ended up under Eddie's back, was fast
asleep.
 
We crawled over to the
couch, me because I doubted my legs would hold me, Eddie because his velvet
hose was around his knees hindering movement.

“Well that wasn't fun.”

I considered.
 
The sex was nice, but yeah, whatever
caused the abrupt time travel wasn't.
 
Also, it had terrible timing.
 
“What do you think happened?”

My husband scrubbed a hand over his
face.
 
“You know, one of these days
you're going to ask me that, and I won't have an answer,” he answered lightly.
“That time is now.
 
How would I
know?”

He was out of arm's reach, so I
couldn't thwap him.
 
I settled for a
soft kick, more like a tickle, with my foot.
 
He grabbed it and started massaging it.