Double Take
Chapter 7
“A brief life burns brightly.”
—Stephen Baxter, Exultant
I LOOKED FOR FRANCIE to show up every day but, of course, that was ridiculous. She wasn’t going to stop by on the weekend to jack me off. I missed her. And I missed Molly. Even all the pain she put me through. Em didn’t stop by my room Friday night after her date. Or Saturday.
I didn’t sleep well. Every time I closed my eyes, the pressure started to weigh on me. I was trapped. Enclosed. Pressed. Suffocating. I couldn’t wait to get these casts off. Another week at least. I struggled up out of sleep and nightmares in the middle of the night to feel my sister’s hand on my shoulder, gently rocking me.
“It’s okay, J. It was just a dream. You’re okay now. You’re safe at home,” Pey said. What? My baby sister? How did she even know? Had I managed to ring my bell?
“Sorry to wake you up,” I croaked.
“Want a drink of water?” she asked. I nodded. She held my water bottle to my lips so I could sip through the straw. “I just woke up and Em was snoring. I think she got stoned last night. I just thought I’d come check on you.”
“What do you know about being stoned?”
“Puh-leeze, J. I’m eight years old. I’m not a baby. Third grade is a hell-hole. The no-smoking rules only apply to tobacco. Once we get outside for recess, kids bring out the hidden stashes.”
“They smoke dope at school?”
“Mostly they eat cupcakes. That’s why the teacher reads to us after lunch for an hour. I really get into the stories when I’m tripping.”
“Pey, that stuff is bad for you. Don’t get into it. It leads to harder drugs. And it’s illegal.”
“You really hit your head hard, didn’t you? Ganja was proven to be safe in 1999 and legalized in 2002. It is not a gateway drug. I’ve seen you stoned half out of your mind.”
“Maybe that’s what I need to help me sleep,” I sighed. Shit. Legal weed. In my timeline, V1, you needed a prescription from a doctor to keep the cops away and then you were a pariah for using it even though it had been proven to help cancer patients. I couldn’t get it in the home because the staff would steal it. It really made me wonder what else had changed in this timeline. I needed to walk carefully and watch what I said.
“Em said it didn’t help you but I’ll ask. I need to go back to bed. I’m sleepy. ’Night, J.”
“’Night, Pey. Thanks for visiting.”
That was nice. V1 never really connected with his little sister. Now, I regretted it.
Sunday was an ‘adventure.’ That’s how Dad referred to anything that was likely to be a disaster but we were going to do anyway. It was the first time since I got out of the hospital that I left the house. Mom slit the right leg of a pair of jeans and managed to get me into them. Of course, the leg just flapped open. Dad duct taped it to the cast.
“If it moves and shouldn’t, duct tape it.”
“If it doesn’t move and should, WD40,” I answered. Well, some things don’t change. Mom fed my casts through the sleeves of a triple-x-large dress shirt. It was still tight, getting the sleeve holes to reach my fingers, but they were determined. And it was cool. For the first time in weeks, I felt dressed. The special clothes that we ordered always looked extra weird. I was glad Mom got creative. Em even got a sock on my left foot and laced my Keds over it. I had a boot sock over the toes on my right foot so they wouldn’t get cold. Dad got me in my chair and rolled me out the front door and down to his van.
We went to church.
Church was different than I remembered. V1 went to a small conservative church near South Bend. Not, thank God, a radical fundamentalist church, but one that still believed in salvation and public commitment. The church V3 went to in Fort Wayne was a big, mainstream United Methodist church. There were probably 500 people in the congregation, thirty in the choir, and three or four preachers who all took part in the service, one handling announcements and music, one just for children who left with her before the real service began. One was the liturgist and led all the prayers and readings. Then there was one older preacher who just stood up and delivered the message.
I could see why right away. V1 thought of him as a young guy in his late fifties. V2 thought he was ancient, much older than his parents. V3 just sat back and enjoyed the preparation and presentation of the sermon. The guy was a fantastic speaker. He combined motivation and inspiration. Somewhere in there, I suppose there was a hook back to the scripture that had been read from some modern translation of the Bible. It didn’t matter. He just made you feel like you wanted to be a better person.
There was no altar call to come and accept Jesus as your savior. I thought back through the service to see if I could remember Jesus having been mentioned.
“Jacob, we’re glad to see you back with us today,” the younger minister who was liturgist greeted me as we were getting ready to leave. There was a whole row of special ‘seats’ in the front of the church where wheelchairs could park with a single seat beside each one for a caretaker. Em sat next to me. Pey had joined the children who left before the liturgy.
“Thank you, uh…” Pastor Bob, a memory whispered in the back of my brain. “Thank you, Pastor Bob. It’s good to be out, I guess.”
“Jacob, I know you’ve had a rough time lately. I can’t promise it’s going to get better soon. Recovery is a long road. I just want you to know that if you need to talk to someone, I’m available. I’m serious when I say we’ve missed you.”
“Thank you, sir,” I muttered. He seemed really nice, but I’d have to wait and see before I committed any time to counseling.
The crowd cleared out enough so we could maneuver my chair out the side door where Dad was waiting with the van. Then we went on an adventure I could have done without.
We went out for Sunday dinner.
The Pagoda, a Chinese restaurant, wasn’t really equipped to handle oversized wheelchairs. Two waiters and the host combined to move a table so that I could get in a corner where my foot sticking out wouldn’t trip anyone. Then they pushed the table back into place and Em and Pey sat on either side of me to ‘help me eat.’ Mom and Dad ordered a family meal for five without consulting any of the rest of us. Apparently, they knew what everyone liked and wanted.
The food was good. The delivery was difficult. We were at a round table with a lazy susan in the middle. The servers put all the food dishes on the turntable and a plate in front of each of us. I think this table was usually reserved for eight or more but I took up the space of three. Em and Pey were champs at grabbing stuff right off the trays with their chopsticks and shoving it in my mouth. Except that the chair took up so much room that on my right Pey had to stand up and walk around my leg to get every bite to my mouth. Em was operating her sticks right-handed and I was facing slightly away from her so she had to practically bend her arm backward at the elbow to reach my mouth.
All told, I got enough tasty food in my mouth to satisfy my hunger. I kind of thought the new shirt I was wearing might be ruined, though. Em got a wet dishcloth from the server so she could wipe all the spills from my front.
When we finally got home, Dad helped me out of my shirt and jeans, into the bathroom, and through my clean-up. Then it was time for Sunday afternoon football.
That was a men’s activity and as soon as we were in the living room with the TV turned on and afternoon snacks at hand—Dad’s hand—Mom and the girls went to the Mall.
V1 played football back in the fifties. At least I was on the team. There were five hundred in my high school and we were allowed forty plus on the team, so pretty much any guy who wanted to play could be on the team. We didn’t take sports seriously like they do now. There were no professional teams playing on television. No multimillion-dollar three-year contracts being handed out to athletes. College sports were big but you went to see the games, not watch them on TV. I couldn’t remember even having a TV when I was a kid but I did remember Peyton watching Captain Kangaroo in the morning when she was four or five so we must have gotten one about then.
In V3’s life, there was no Captain Kangaroo or Mr. Rogers still on TV. I think Pey’s television influences in this timeline were mostly anime cartoons.
Oh. Playing football. I guess I get as distracted and derailed as any old man.
Being on the team didn’t mean that you played in every game. Or even in some of them. Our coach was Mr… I don’t remember his name. He taught biology, physics, and chemistry. Real science whiz, but got the job of coaching by virtue of the fact that the only other male teacher in our high school taught music and art and wouldn’t be caught dead on a football field unless he was leading the Marching Spartans Band.
So, Coach What-’is-name knew enough to create a playbook of a dozen plays he copied from a college course and to divide the team up into offense and defense. But mostly, he was skilled at identifying the most aggressive and the most talented among us and letting them control everything else. The rest of us sat on the bench until the last quarter when we were already behind by forty points and were then sent onto the field for the last two or three plays.
By the time I graduated in 1956, we had a record of twenty-seven losses and one win. We got a win when the other team didn’t show up. In twenty-eight games, I’d played ‘in’ twenty-eight quarters and was awarded my letter. They didn’t give out jackets or sweaters, just the letter and it was a sign of affluence if you managed to get yours sewn onto a jacket or sweater that resembled the school colors. Or that your mom could knit. Nonetheless, once a week through my senior year, I wore that hand-knitted sweater with the school letter attached.
Dad and I watched precious quarterbacks scramble around behind offensive lines trying not to be touched. Somebody got penalized for tackling the quarterback, I think. At five million or more a year, no one wanted to damage the body. I saw more passes thrown out of bounds than were completed.
And then I went to sleep. The game was just white noise and if I slept, Dad didn’t need to feed me and give me drinks. We could still have our Sunday afternoon bonding time.
Molly was on my case from the minute she walked in the door until she left in the afternoon.
“If you are getting these casts off Friday, we need you strong and able to lift your arms. I can’t do anything about your biceps and triceps, but these delts are going to sing.”
They cried.
Then my abs cried. And that long muscle that lifts your legs. And my neck. And every muscle in my left leg that could actually move a joint. Even my fingers and wrist ached as she gave me rubber balls and had me start squeezing them.
My head ached when she started drilling me on my school work. Math facts were fairly easy. Human Geography was harder and Health and Wellness was boring. Maybe. She didn’t help me with English. At least I could read on my own. I was thinking I might choose a different course for my life this time around. Mechanical engineering had been fine as far as it went. But my later years—about the past twenty—had been spent reading. I wondered whether I could write stories like I’d enjoyed reading.
I was almost relieved when Francie didn’t come home with Em on Monday. I was a little disappointed on Tuesday. But the therapy and study were exhausting me. Wednesday, Molly actually put me to bed before she left and I went straight to sleep.
“Hey, baby. You too sleepy to play?” a voice whispered in my ear. I felt a hand snake beneath the covers and into my diaper to play with my cock. I can’t say I came instantly awake and started humping but I was wrapped in delicious sensations as I lazily came to the surface.
“Francie? God, that feels good.”
“I’m gonna make it feel a lot better,” she said. She leaned forward to kiss me and we both got lost in that sensation. Having her lips against mine and her tongue slipping around my mouth while she stroked my cock was about the best feeling ever. Oh, I knew there were better feelings to be had once I was fully healed and could find someone to fuck but V2’s body had never felt anything that approached this level of sexy goodness.
That was cool. I had all my V1 memories of lovers and sensations but I was experiencing them now as the first-time events they were for this body.
“I’m really happy you came,” I whispered to Francie. “I’ve been incredibly horny since our last time.”
“I haven’t come yet. How would you like to help me along while I help you?”
“You know I would. What can I do?” I half-heartedly lifted one cast. I suppose it would be possible to get in a position where I could use the backs of my fingers on her. Molly’d had me working with a rubber ball to strengthen them and my wrists. She said I’d need them soon. I didn’t need them for what Francie had in mind.
“Start by sucking my little titties,” she whispered as she stripped off her top and bra. As soon as a nipple came within range, I whipped out my tongue to lick it and then sucked it between my teeth while continuing to lash it with my tongue. Francie moaned. “You do that so well. How many little tits have you sucked on Jacob? The girls in your class must be in heaven.”
I had to be careful what I said. V1 had never been a playboy but had sucked on his fair share of willing titties.
“You’re my first, Francie. Do you really like it?”
“I want you to do this after the baby is born. They say nipples become even more sensitive when there’s milk in them. God, Jacob! I love the way you treat them.” I nipped lightly with my teeth, testing. Some girls liked that and some didn’t. Francie moaned and pushed her breast harder into my mouth. She pulled away long enough to push her shorts down her legs and off her feet. Oh, I did like looking at her little slit. She set about loosening my diaper and pulled me down in the bed a little farther. Then she used a washcloth to wipe my member.
“Everything you do feels so fucktastic!” I moaned.
“Today’s going to feel even better,” she said. “Do you like my pussy? I shaved it smooth last night. It feels so silky.”
“I want to touch it.”
“Want to taste it?” she asked. I nodded vigorously. She ran a finger through her slit and held it to my lips. I took a deep breath of that scent and sucked her finger into my mouth.
“I love it.”
“Then lick it,” she said. She got up onto the bed with her knees behind my shoulders and leaned forward until her pussy just barely came in reach. She had to shift position a couple of times before I could really get to her. If I’d had my arms, I’d have wrapped them around her butt and pulled her down. Having my face in a teen pussy was something I hadn’t experienced since… since V1 was a teen. Sometime around 1957. And it had not been shaved for action like this one. I parted the lips and drank her honey, thrusting my tongue into her opening and reaching toward her little nub.
Then the world shifted. I felt her mouth engulf my rampant cock. It was my turn to moan and I let the vibrations run right to her clit.
“Yes! Lick me. Oh, God! I heard this was good but I had no idea.”
“Hasn’t anyone licked you before this?” I asked. Hell, she was pregnant. Didn’t her stupid boyfriend go down on her?
“No. This is my first. Oh, it feels good. Dork-face just felt me up enough to make sure I was slippery and then fucked me. I got preggers and didn’t even come.”
“That’s terrible, Francie. I want you to come. Come on my face, baby. Let me give you pleasure like you’re giving me.”
I pulled out all the stops. I can’t say V1 was an expert on women. In fact, I could never understand why a woman didn’t want oral sex all the time. I’d never been with one that I wasn’t willing to go down on. Still, I’d get the occasional—well, with age, ever-increasing—‘not in the mood.’ I couldn’t remember ever having turned down a blowjob. Francie didn’t squirt, but when she came a flood of additional juices poured out of her vagina. Hell, that would make it so easy to slide a cock into. I went back to work, imagining that the mouth and tongue that were working on me were the pussy I was licking. She ramped up and came again just as I hit my peak and we almost both choked.
“I could seriously get used to that,” she sighed as she cuddled next to me. I turned my head toward her to kiss but she was too far away.
“Kiss me,” I croaked.
“Really? You just came in my mouth.”
“You just came in mine. If you can stand it, so can I. I want to kiss you, Francie.” Her lips mashed against mine and our tongues came out to play. Saliva is an amazing substance. Unless you’ve got come on your lips or are holding it in your mouth, it takes about ten seconds for the taste to dissolve into whatever it was you had for lunch. I think the reason many men won’t kiss a girl after they come in her mouth is homophobic. I was setting this pattern straight for V3 right now. Kissing is never inappropriate. This girl was going to understand how much I appreciated her.
“Oh, Jacob. A girl could really get used to you. I don’t want to fall in love with you, but I really can’t wait to fuck you.”
“Francie, let’s just say we’re friends for now. I’m only fourt… fifteen! I’m fifteen today. Regardless, that’s too young for me to start a family. I wouldn’t be any help to you at all. So, we’re friends who are helping each other out. We’ll be really good friends and I promise not to try to hold you back when Mr. Right comes along.”
“Is that what you’ve named my baby?” she laughed. “Maybe she’s Ms. Right. Mmm. In fact, after that tongue job you just gave me, I might decide to become a lesbian. Think your sister would be interested?”
“God, Francie. Now you’ve got me hard again.”
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