Double Time
Part V: Reincarnation
Chapter 48
“Dying was never as hard as having to live again.”
—Lynn Vroman, Energy Reborn
RACHEL PULLED UP at a quarter till eight and I got in her car to go to school. Another day of Algebra II awaited us. I leaned across the seat to give her a quick kiss and then leaned back and closed my eyes. She didn’t say anything—just reached across and took my hand as she drove to school.
“When you’re ready, we can talk. If you want to. I’m here and I love you, Jacob,” she said as we walked into class. I smiled and squeezed her hand. There was no time to wallow in self-pity. We were caught up in hyperbolas, transverse and conjugate axes, asymptotes, and equations. We had our lunch period and an hour after class before I went to drivers’ ed but we were pressed to study and work out the practice sheets. I left that class at five and found my sweet Rachel waiting for me.
“Can we go to Red Robin for food tonight?” I asked. “I’m not ready to face either of our families. I just want to be with you.”
“Yes, let’s. I’ll text Mom,” she said.
“I’d better text my mom, too,” I sighed.
For the first time since V3 turned fifteen, I wished I could drink a good dark beer with my burger and fries. V1 wasn’t much of a beer drinker, preferring dark smooth red wines. But the more I thought about it, beer had been the beverage of choice in my late teens and college years. I went straight from that to single malt scotch and didn’t start drinking wine until I was in my thirties. I suppose my juvenile taste buds were egging me on. I slurped on my Dr Pepper and put my burger down.
“I slept with my sister this weekend,” I whispered.
“I hope you mean Em and not Peyton,” Rachel said. I just nodded. Of course. “I sort of thought you already had.”
“Not exactly. I mean, we’ve fooled around. A lot. But we weren’t going to cross that line. It’s incest, Rachel. I’ve committed incest.”
“I looked it up,” she said. “When I started dating you and met Emily for the first time, I wasn’t sure what I thought about it. I mean, I’m not opposed to sharing you with our girlfriends. I just needed to know if I could accept Emily as one of them. The answer was yes.”
“What you call my old-fashioned sense of morals has me spinning. I shouldn’t have done that. But I remembered, Rachel. I remembered why we were so close. I remembered what happened and I accepted her for the bond that we made years ago.”
“Can you tell me? I won’t pry.”
“I was buried alive,” I said. I tried to keep it as simple as possible so I wouldn’t get too caught up in what I felt. And I wasn’t going to tell her about the experience in the other dimension. “She caught my hand as the sand covered me and wouldn’t let go until rescuers dug me out. Even after I died, she wouldn’t let go.”
“Died?”
“Yeah. I died. I was buried for at least ten minutes. And all I knew was that an angel held my hand and wouldn’t let go. Can you imagine, Rache? Can you imagine what she must have felt—feeling the life escape from my body while she held my hand and refused to let me go?”
Rachel scooted around the booth to sit next to me instead of across and wrap me in her arms. She was crying. I was crying. The server paused before continuing past our table without saying anything.
“For seven years, I’ve been having nightmares. Em always knew and came to wake me, telling me it was all a dream. I didn’t remember being buried. I didn’t remember dying. All I remembered—dreamed about—was the unending pressure closing in on my body, the inability to breathe, to feel anything, to hear anything. It kept getting worse as I got older and I decided the only way I could stop the dreams was to walk in front of a bus,” I said.
“Oh, Jacob. No wonder. No wonder you love her so much and she loves you. She brought you back to life.” So true. “Jacob… now…”
“Now I know what really happened, and I’m older. I think I can cope. I might still have some nightmares. And if you want us to go swimming, I’d prefer a pool to the beach,” I said, trying to laugh a little and discovering the ability was lying just beneath my tears. “I told Em and I’ll tell you and all our girlfriends. I’ve decided to live. I won’t let go.”
“I love you, Jacob. I’m sure we can all accept Emily when the time comes.”
We both heaved a deep breath and reached for our soft drinks. The server came by and we ordered more fries. Rachel stayed on my side of the booth and just pulled her basket toward her across the table.
“I said I did some reading. We’re all taught not to mess around with close relatives, but a huge number of siblings who are near the same age still do. The wider the age-gap, the more severe the legal penalties. When there is a sufficient gap, especially if one is a minor, the law considers it coercive and abusive, even if it’s consensual. Some religions try to paint it as sinful, but there are others that are quite open to it. With birth control, the risk of deformed babies is lowered and even if there is a pregnancy, it usually takes two or three generations of incest for recessive genes to flourish. The most cogent argument against incest is that it breaks down the normative function of a family. Roles get confused. You can’t divorce your sister. She’s still your sister. But you are choosing to redefine that relationship to one that can be broken. I’m not saying it will be, just that it can be. So psychologically, you go from an immutable, eternal relationship to a changeable, temporal relationship. If you and Emily ‘break up’ you can avoid each other and pretend you don’t exist. Your parents and little sister can’t do that. To them, you are still their children and older siblings. That’s where things get mucked up and difficult. But I believe in you, Jacob, and I believe in the kind of relationship you have with Emily. I, too, won’t let go.”
“I love you, Rachel. I could never ask for a better girlfriend. And I never will.”
“Then let’s pay the check and go somewhere we can make love. I’ve missed you.”
9 July 2019
I’ve died three times. I find even saying that is strange. I mean even to me and I lived through it. I mean… sort of.
The new-found memories of dying when I was eight and my sister holding me and not letting me go—that’s pretty powerful stuff. If I had been able to remember it earlier, I wonder if that would have stopped me from trying to kill myself. But neither Em nor I knew what to do with the feeling we had back then. It only looked bleak and hopeless.
And then I killed myself. I know the doctors say I was in a coma, but when I woke up, I was a different person. I had a different attitude toward life—and toward my sister. My head held an entire lifetime of experience that I hadn’t had time to live. I was more mature… I hope. And with that range of experience I was better equipped to deal with the nightmares and the memories.
That brought me to the point where my sister had to leave for Service and threw caution to the wind to make love to me. My heart stopped. I had a traumatic seizure and life escaped from my body. What brought me back? I’d like to thank a higher power, but I think it or they would have been just as satisfied to let me die. No, like the first time I died, my sister would not let go. And I promised her I would live.
How many times can a man die and return to life? It’s a question I hope never to have answered. Every day is precious to me and I will live it to the max.
I got back in my routine as quickly as possible. Up at five and go for a run. Only Em and I had been driving to a park to run and now I had to run from the house. By the time I got to the park, I had to turn around and run home. It wasn’t as nice a run but I was determined to keep getting better and stronger. I still had a bit of a catch in my right leg.
So, Thursday, I was surprised when a VW Beetle pulled up alongside me about a block from my house. The window was down and a woman I vaguely recognized as also being a runner in the park stuck her head out.
“Hey! Where’s your running partner?” she asked.
“She had to start National Service,” I said. “Now I have to run from home instead of going to the park to run.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. I go over every morning. Want a lift?”
“I… uh… have to be back in time to get ready for summer school.”
“No problem. I never spend more than an hour on workdays. Now, weekends are a different matter. Come on. I’ll get you home in plenty of time.”
Never get in a car with a stranger. Hah! What was she going to do, rape me?
“I’m Jacob Hopkins,” I said when I was buckled in.
“That sounds familiar. You live close?”
“You picked me up just a block from my house.” I looked at her, assessing her fit trim body. She was definitely in her forties but I’d seen her stretching for her runs in the park and knew she was powerful.
“Nanette Schwartz,” she said. “I’ve seen you running all summer. If you want to continue to run in the park, I don’t mind taking you over and back.”
“That would be great, Nanette. I know I’ve seen you. You look really familiar.”
“Yeah. Probably just from passing on the trails. If you don’t mind me being bold, I’d like to give you some running tips,” she said when we got to the parking lot. I started stretching, keeping in mind being gentle with the stretches like Jock told me to do before I was warmed up.
“That would be great,” I said. “I’m pretty new at it. Still recovering from an accident.”
“That’s why the limp. I see.”
“I thought I was getting past limping,” I said. I needed to work on that some more.
“It’s noticeable in the jog. That’s what alerted me. Jogging is harder on the knees than either walking or running. What I’m going to suggest is that you lengthen your stride. Don’t speed up, but stretch your leg in front of you so you are running and not pounding straight down at a jog. It will take a little getting used to, but it will improve your stride and get rid of the limp,” she said.
“Wow! You know a lot about this,” I said as we headed to the trail.
“I’m a physical therapist and a marathon runner. It’s my business to know about this.”
“That’s it!” I said. “You helped me when I was in the hospital, back in September and October.”
“Really? I’m sorry, but I see a lot of clients each day in the hospital and they aren’t usually there long enough for me to really get to know them.”
“Me especially, since I couldn’t move anything. I was pretty banged up with two broken arms and a broken leg. It’s taken me this long to feel like I’m almost all healthy again.”
“Oh! I remember. Tangled with a bus. No one expected you to live. Now you’re running? Way to go.”
“Thanks. It’s nice to meet you again, Nanette.”
“Well, I need to get my five miles in. You watch your stride and work on stretching out into a run. I’ll see you back here in an hour.”
That was my first introduction to my new daily running partner and the first day I started to actually run.
At last we were in the final four days of Algebra II. Ms. Stierwalt had kept a steady pace throughout the summer and we were going to finish the entire course on Thursday. If I never saw another math book, it would be fine with me. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen. I was trying to pack five years of high school math into three years. If we held things together, Rachel and I would enter Pre-Calc/Trig in the fall.
I continued my morning runs with Nanette picking me up, giving me some training tips, and then taking off on her own hour-long workout. And my mileage was increasing along with my stride. Nanette was training for a big Labor Day race and was pushing me to run it as well. There was a 5k race in addition to the longer one that she’d run. I could run the distance now. She was a good coach and I didn’t mind watching her backside as she ran past me.
And then there was Friday. No more classes. Rachel and I didn’t make a big deal about it to our families. We somehow forgot to mention that we no longer had class. Friday morning, she picked me up at seven-forty-five just like always. And then we headed straight back to her house and to her bed.
“We survived,” she said. “I’m not happy to have spent my entire summer in a classroom instead of lying out getting a tan, but we survived.”
“You know, I’d hate for this pretty skin to get damaged by the sun. If you were lying out, I’d probably have to stand where I’d cast a shadow and just look at you,” I laughed. The caress of that skin did as much for my senses as for hers. “You aren’t mad at me for doing summer school, are you?”
“No. We have managed to see each other every day all summer long,” she said. “I’ve just missed this.” She stroked my cock and pulled me down to kiss her as she swept it though her juices.
“This has missed you,” I said. “Quickies in the back seat aren’t my idea of great sex.”
“It has shown us that we can do more than sex together,” she sighed as I pressed into her. “But doing sex together is just as important. Hold there deep inside for a minute. Is it too difficult to lie still when you’re in me?”
“Do you realize what you’re asking?” I whispered giving her little kisses as I stayed lodged as deep in her as I could press. The heat of her pussy pulsed around my cock. “Is it too difficult for me to rest in my favorite place in the world? Too difficult for me to take the time to adore my lover? Too difficult to soak up the love I feel from you? Rachel, the day it is too difficult for me to love you, they should finally bury me.”
“I like where you’re buried right now. Slow. Out. In. Like the first time.” I slid back as she guided me, feeling the delicious sucking at my cock as I withdrew and then pressed back into her. It had been like that the first time and we’d seldom had the time and opportunity to make love in such a long leisurely fashion since then. My teen body wanted to jackhammer to climax but the slow strokes would build us both to an earthshaking orgasm when it came. And this was Rachel. As I looked into her green eyes, I fell ever more deeply in love with her. It was easy for my eighty-year-old inner self to imagine being with her for a lifetime. Or more.
The intensity built and Rachel found her release point before I did this time. I kept the even strokes, even though torturous, through her orgasm and she began to mount again. This time I was with her and felt a flood pour out of my body through my cock. But like the first time, I kept stroking at that infuriatingly slow pace through the hypersensitivity in my genitals. My cock wasn’t going down as long as I kept sliding it into my lover and we both mounted again.
“I love you, Rachel. I love you forever.”
“I love you, Jacob. You are my heart’s desire.”
After that climax, we slowed. I stayed still inside her for as long as I could but nature had its way and I softened. I rolled to her side and we held each other as we slipped off to sleep. Six weeks of Algebra, seven hours a day, plus driver’s ed, plus another two hours of studying together. We were exhausted.
We woke up in time for a late lunch and giggled about having spent a day in bed sleeping.
“That time is as precious to me as the time we spend making love,” I said. “Rachel, I’m happy when I’m with you, no matter what we’re doing. When I’m with you and you’re naked, though, I admit being even happier.”
“Come back to bed, Jacob. We have time for more.”
Nanette picked me up Saturday morning a little later than usual—except she didn’t usually pick me up on Saturdays. They were her days for a ‘long run’, which meant she’d be out for three hours or so. Nonetheless, she’d told me to be ready to go at seven for a real treat.
“Don’t you need to do long runs more often than once a week to prepare for your race?” I asked.
“Yeah. Working sucks. I have to train and still be at the hospital by eight,” she said. “Twice a week, I do a second run in the evening, usually a good ten miles. Saturdays I focus on the real distance.” Real distance, to Nanette, was fifteen to twenty miles. But she had something special in mind for this morning.
“Thanks for bringing me out for a Saturday morning run. Where are we headed?”
“We’re headed to one of the great joys of running. A cross-country course.”
“Cool.” I looked out the window as she hit I-69 headed south. “Uh… Where are we going?”
“Nervous?”
“Just realized I got in a car with a strange woman who is taking me off to the woods to have her wicked way with me,” I laughed. “I hope.”
“My wicked way, my friend, is to make you run a full 5k through the country. It’s a running club event, so we won’t have the privacy for anything more wicked than running.”
Hope springs eternal.
We got to a church out between Ossian and Uniondale where a bunch of cars had pulled in, both there and across the road at the cemetery. The area was beautiful with rolling hills, planted fields, and woodlands. Before I got out of the car, Nanette handed me a packet.
“Get your number and your transceiver out. As soon as we have our bibs on, we’ll go sign in.”
“Number? Bib? What is this?”
“A race,” she laughed. “I belong to a private running club and we sponsor races all over the state. Some of them are road races, some trail races, and a few like this one are true cross-country races. You’ve been working hard and stretching your gait. You need to feel what it’s like to let go and fly through the fields.”
“I don’t think I’m going to win any races.”
“That’s not what it’s about, Jacob. It’s about feeling the wind, breathing the country air, and connecting with the ground beneath your feet. Come on. Let’s sign in. The race begins in fifteen minutes.”
It wasn’t a huge event. There were probably thirty or forty runners and I was welcomed as Nanette’s protégé.
“Jacob, I didn’t expect to see you before school starts,” a voice said from behind me. I turned.
“Jock! Are you a member of this running club?”
“Yes. When cross-country season starts, I like to be able to push my guys by running with them. Can’t do that if I don’t keep in shape.”
“That’s great. Nanette has been working with me a little and thinks I’m ready to join in a race. I’ll probably be last, but it looks like fun.”
“Don’t worry about the places. Just get on the trail and watch for flags. If you see a red flag, follow the trail to the left. If you see a yellow flag, the trail goes right. Blue flags mean to keep going straight. You’ll enjoy this.”
“Yes, sir. Okay.” I was in a race. We lined up three deep and across a space of fifty yards. I was in the last row and off to the right. Nanette had checked to make sure I was good and then lined up two rows ahead of me. And then the starter fired a pistol and everyone started running toward the trail a hundred yards ahead of us. I just followed along and tried not to step on anyone or get stepped on.
And then I was running. It was awesome. I just lifted my head, focused on keeping my stride even, and ran. It was over before I knew it. Three miles and I did it in thirty-five minutes. Wow! Of course, Nanette and Jock were both waiting at the finish line and had been for fifteen minutes, but I’d run a race!
“That’s great, Jacob,” Jock said. “Cross country practice starts next Saturday at nine in the morning at the school track. I expect to see you there.”
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