Double Time
Chapter 79
“Love is the net profit on life.”
—Sharon L. Reddy, Paradox Equation: Parts 1 & 2
22 DECEMBER 2019
I am so glad to be out of school for a couple of weeks. As drained as I feel today, I can’t imagine taking summer school again. I feel like I haven’t had a break since I woke up. I know that’s not true, but something inside me just wants to have time to get in a puppy-pile with my girlfriends and stay there a few weeks.
I got home from my run yesterday and found Beca at the kitchen table in intense negotiations with Pey while Mom watched in amusement. She motioned me to be quiet and I went to get a shower. The upshot of the whole thing was that Beca could sit with me while I play for my recording this morning, ‘because, after all, she is your girlfriend,’ as Pey reminded me. But the trade-off was that we would take her to the mall in the afternoon and then to a movie. Mom had to approve, of course, since she’d have to drive. My probationary license only allowed me one underage passenger so I couldn’t take them both.
I’m a little nervous. Beca and I spent a little while together after the negotiations before I took her over to Joan’s house. She gave me a very sweet kiss before she ran in to be with our girlfriend. “We’re going to have another nice study break,” Beca said. “Maybe sometime you could join us for one.” I could only imagine! I don’t know why I should be so nervous over such a little thing as playing my guitar with her as an audience. I played the day before in the cafeteria. It just seems like such an intimate thing to do in my bedroom.
The powers that be, whoever the hell they are, warned me before they sent V1 to inhabit V2’s body that part of memory was habit and I’d have to work on breaking some of them. Like the slouch when V2 walked. Months of physical therapy helped me get past that and now I even run with my head up instead of my chin against my chest. Managing the dreams was another thing I had to get through.
On the other hand, tapping into what had been years of practice on the guitar and regaining the muscle memory for my fingers was a habit I embraced.
What I didn’t realize was that V1 had habits, too. And V3 was susceptible to them. Before Renie and I moved to the assisted living home, I’d been fond of saying that I got up when I woke up, went to bed when I was tired, ate when I was hungry, and drank when I was thirsty. At seventy-five years old, I was just a big baby. I didn’t realize how true that would be until the staff started insisting I wear an adult diaper to bed.
I thought it would only be V2’s bad habits I had to overcome. But V1 had become lazy. I was retired. My mental processes had slowed and things like playing pinochle had become the important focus of my life. I was certainly not in the habit of going to classes seven hours a day, running two hours a day, studying three hours a day, or practicing three hours a day. I was not in the habit of going out on dates and finding fun—often physically taxing—things to do on them. My girlfriends were usually happy to make out and some to make love. But not all the time. They wanted to go bowling, to movies, to the amusement park, to sports events, to plays, to concerts, to dance. The old man in me was having trouble keeping up with all those activities, let alone thinking them up.
And school wasn’t easy. I won’t say I’d forgotten everything I knew, but it was two generations old. Maybe three. I’d misplaced a lot of my knowledge. When I studied it, I would remember it, like trigonometry and pre-calc. The knowledge was back there but I had to drag it out of a locked storage cabinet in my head to get it where I could use it. And subjects like US History had all those subtle differences to the history I had lived previously.
Granted, slavery had been a huge issue in the Civil War but Ms. Renault, our history teacher, had stressed the fact that a root cause was antidisestablishmentarianism. V1 remembered that as nothing more than the longest word in the English language until Mary Poppins came up with supercalifragilisticexpialadocious. But the South was really pushing for an elitist society in which the church functioned as a kind of royalty and slaves were non-people. Enforcement of constitutional law forbidding establishment of a privileged class met with stiff resistance and ultimately war.
In many areas of the South, the officials of large churches and the officials of large corporations still walked around with a sense of privilege that was missing through most of the North. Human nature, I guess.
Where was I? Studying. It was easier for me to learn a completely new subject like Latin or Music Theory than it was to remember calculus or revise US History. But there were still a lot of times that V1 in my head wanted to just take a nap and skip the term paper that was due the next day. There were times when he was more of a distraction from succeeding in this life than he was a benefactor.
Beca curled up in almost the same position as Pey had been in the week before. In fact, I think Pey coached her on how to lean against me without affecting my playing. In a way, playing with her cuddled to me changed my playing. I’d chosen music composed and played by two of the great classical guitarists of the twentieth century, Julian Bream and Andrés Segovia. Guitar Sonata, Op. 15 by Bream and Lieder Ohne Worte, Op 19 by Segovia were fantastic classical pieces. But I ended the program by mixing in Mason Williams’ Classical Gas. I was sure that would get a rise out of Beca, but when I hit the remote to turn off the recording, she was fast asleep on my shoulder.
That presented a bit of a problem. When Pey went to sleep on my shoulder, I carried her into her room and tucked her in bed. I set my guitar aside and picked up my sleeping girlfriend. I lay down beside her on my bed and she pulled my arm around her. It wasn’t sexual. I wasn’t groping her breasts or humping her ass. We just spooned together holding hands and went to sleep.
“I love you, boyfriend,” she whispered as we woke up and she kissed my fingers. “I feel so safe in your arms.”
“I love you, Rebeca. You will always be safe with me. I promise.”
“You called me Rebeca,” she said, turning toward me. “I still don’t know who she was or why she was so important to you, but I feel so honored that you would call me by her name.”
“One day I’ll be able to tell you. But the name is all yours. I spelled it with one ‘c’.” We giggled, had a little wake-up kiss and I went to my desk to edit the recording and upload it. “People are going to wonder why it’s so late going up today,” I laughed.
“Maybe before they see it they will. When they see me asleep on your shoulder they’ll understand,” she said as she watched. “Thank you, Jacob. I feel… I feel like you made love to me.”
“I did, sweetheart. I did.”
I suddenly wanted to share that experience with my other girlfriends. They didn’t all need to go to sleep on me. I’d be known as the lullaby king. But I wanted the experience of playing my guitar for them. Touching them or they me while I played something that came from my heart. As much as I wanted to become a writer, I found it so difficult to express those intimate thoughts in words. If Beca could feel like I’d made love to her when I played the guitar, my other girlfriends might also.
Of course, the person I was spending most time with as I played wasn’t one of my girlfriends at all. Cindy and I had two lessons together on Monday. Mrs. Marvel picked me up. She wanted it to be clear to me that we were not dating but this was an important rehearsal for the recital. She hadn’t been entirely in favor of Cindy asking me to perform with her, but was convinced when she saw us working together on the play.
Jannie, Cindy’s flute teacher, was enthused. She’d attended the play as well but hadn’t heard us play the recital pieces yet. She focused on Cindy’s playing, occasionally complimenting my accompaniment or making a suggestion about interpretation that would bring the flute out more. She was very good and even gave a little background on the role of an accompanist in a recital. There would never be a question about whose recital this was. Cindy would play from a position in front of me and do no more than acknowledge me for my contribution to her performance.
We had a light lunch after the lesson and Mrs. Marvel was a lot friendlier. She admitted she’d had misgivings about our working together but was glad Cindy had found an accompanist with an equal passion for the music—and not for her daughter. Cindy blushed.
The lesson with Vinnie was much different. I’d been working with him on my interpretations of the music when I could squeeze a lesson in and he understood my role in the performance. He listened to the opening movement and criticized me for an awkward fingering at one point. Then he simply asked us if there were any spots we thought we were having difficulty with. We shook our heads and he just said that he expected me to have the entire concert memorized, whether I had music in front of me or not.
Then he asked what we had planned for the future. He had some suggestions, of course, of things we could play together. And the pieces he suggested weren’t just me accompanying the flute. He saw us doing duets in which we played to and off of each other. The first piece he had us try was Mozart in Hell, Gambetta and Crary. These two guys were a great dual guitar combo and I’d tried out both parts at different times with Vinnie. It was a fun and lively piece. He had an arrangement for guitar and flute that I think he wrote himself.
He gave us a few minutes to read the music and try some sample pieces. Then he had us get ready to start and made us face each other as we played. It was a long way from a perfect run-through, but did we have fun playing it! Cindy is really hot on her flute and she could read music in a flash. I was lucky I’d read and played the piece before. We had a lot of eye contact and just felt the music as it welled up inside us and burst out. When we finished, Vinnie just said if we wanted more material like that to let him know.
I wasn’t sure what Mrs. Marvel thought about us playing the way we did during that piece. She was used to her daughter being the star and others taking the back seat—unless it was a full orchestra. But what I saw in Cindy’s eyes when we finished that practice reminded me of what Beca had said Sunday morning.
25 December 2019
For some reason, Christmas always makes me sentimental. It was especially hard since Em wasn’t with us when we went to Christmas Eve service at church. It was a beautiful service and I cried through most of it. Pey held my hand.
It’s not so much the religious value of the service that gets me. It’s the pageantry, the candles, and the time sitting with all those beautiful decorations around me, thinking of family and friends. And the music. I could sing “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” all night—even with as poor as my voice is for singing. I managed the bass line pretty well.
When I got home a little after midnight, I called Em. She’s three hours behind me, so it was only a little after nine her time. We talked for a long time. She was really struggling with being away from the family—and me—on the holiday. I didn’t want to let her go and we talked for about three hours. All I could say at the end was “I love you.” I know people have been separated from their families by military service and for other reasons at the holiday for hundreds of years. It was no wonder that for some of us, the holiday is the most depressing time of the year.
Knowing the time is coming when I’ll be forced away from my family, my girlfriends, and everything I know doesn’t help my spirits at all. I’m going to drive around to my girlfriends’ houses this afternoon and give each of them a special hug and kiss.
Pey and I got up way before Mom and Dad, so we couldn’t open gifts. That’s a no-no. I poured us each a bowl of cereal to hold us until Mom got up to fix the traditional scones for Christmas breakfast.
“Play,” Pey said simply.
“Okay. Why don’t we do a special broadcast of Christmas songs?” I said.
“Yeah. I like Christmas, J. I just wish Em were here.”
“Me, too. We’ll record our favorite carols and send them to her. ’K?”
We went to my room and after we were settled in the beanbag, I turned the recorder on. We played and sang all the Christmas carols we knew. I’d long since rearranged my bedroom so the bed was against the wall opposite the painted mural and the beanbag was in front of the graffiti art. It had kind of grown on me. By the time we were done, Mom and Dad had come in to join us and we all wished Em a Merry Christmas. I packaged the file and sent it to her.
Riley was serious about helping facilitate Desi and me getting together. What kind of father arranges a dirty weekend for his daughter and her boyfriend? He’d gone so far as to arrange it with my parents, saying the convention started on Friday and it would be easiest if we checked into the convention hotel Thursday night and just stayed there for the weekend. He promised I’d be home on Monday. WTF? The con didn’t start until five Friday night. He and Desi picked me up at one, Thursday afternoon. We checked into the hotel and carted racks of clothing up to the two rooms. There was no connecting door this time. We had a nice room on the eighth floor with a king bed and room for all our clothes.
“I feel a little embarrassed that your parents are paying for our weekend together,” I said. “Are we going to…?”
“Do you still want me, Jacob? You said either of us could back out right up to the last second. Are you backing out?”
“Desiree Whitcomb, I’m in love with you. I’m glad we didn’t rush into things right on your birthday because over the past two months, I’ve fallen more deeply in love. If you want to wait longer, I’ll do it for you. But if you’re okay with it, we’ve got twenty-four hours before we need to even consider getting out of bed. Or getting me out of you.”
“Oh, Jacob. I love you, too. Um… Dinner with Mom and Dad first. And stuff. Can you wait another few hours?”
“Let’s just relax and enjoy ourselves then.”
“There’s a big tub with jets. Let’s take a bath.”
I ran water in the tub and when I turned toward the bathroom door, Desi was standing there in all her glory. Oh, God! She’s beautiful. Is that the way this all works? The naked woman you are with is always the most beautiful woman in the world. That’s my experience anyway.
She got in the tub and watched as I got out of my clothes. My cock sprang up ready for action as I slipped in behind her.
“I’m not going to take care of that before we make love,” Desi laughed. “I’m just going to lie back against it and enjoy the feeling until the water gets cold.”
“You might not need to do anything,” I said. “It kind of has a will of its own.”
“Just as long as it will stay outside for a while longer.”
She leaned back and we kissed and petted. Just having naked Desi in the hot water of the tub with me was almost all the stimulation I needed.
“Who was I?” she asked.
“What?”
“I know you have that past life memory,” she continued. “It might surprise you to find that all of us girls talk about what it must have been like for you before. We have bets that we were all in your life in the past. Who was I?”
“Des, I’m not sure…”
“Just tell me a story. Make it up if you need to. Just tell me that sometime in some other form we were in love and lived happily ever after.”
“You know, not all the stories end happily ever after,” I said.
“I’m promising you a happy ending,” she answered.
My memories of Desiree Whitcomb were of the college professor dominatrix who captivated me. She had gone a step too far when she started abusing and humiliating me and I retaliated by fucking her and leaving her. But Desi wanted a happy ending, so I altered the story.
“Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away…”
“I like this already. Are we aliens?”
“We lived in a different world.”
“Okay.” She pulled my hands firmly to her breasts and settled in to listen.
The story I wove included a daring rescue of a stranded princess on a planet designed to link the royal lines of two different planets. I got a distress signal and went to rescue her from the crash site, not knowing the environment had been created to link the two families by giving them shared sight. When the princess returned to her world, she would know and see everything her prince saw in his world. And vice versa. In this way, neither planet could ever attack the other.
I upset the applecart when I showed up instead of the prince. I was firmly linked to the princess and from that point on, we shared each other’s vision whether we were together or apart.
“Did you mess around with other girls so I could see them through your eyes?” she asked.
“I think we shared a few adventures like that. I certainly remember seeing you go down on a couple of girls through your eyes. I could almost taste them.”
“You already have, you know. I kind of like messing around with Rachel and Livy and Joan. And Emily. And I know you’ve tasted each of them, just like you’ve tasted me.”
The water cooled and we got out. I gave Desi a gentle massage but if she wasn’t getting me off before we consummated our love, I was only going to tease her. Eventually, we got dressed and joined her parents for dinner.
Awkward.
They kept looking at Desi as if they were going to see something different about her. She finally said, “We’re not rushing just because we have a bed. I’ll let you know tomorrow.” Riko blushed.
“Kids these days. Leave them alone for a few hours and nothing happens,” Riley muttered.
We managed to have a pleasant meal, after which Riko and Riley decided to go to the lounge for a drink, “since nothing else is happening.” Desi and I went up to our room giggling as if we’d been drinking. I waved my keycard at the lock and it clicked. Opening the door, I saw candles. And…
“Rachel? Livy? Beca? What…?”
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