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Reversion

a Novel by Varkel
Summer, 2001



Chapter 5:  Clara


A police car stood in front of the house.  Mom met us at the
backdoor.  "You're just in time, Frank.  They returned only a
couple of minutes ago."

We found two policemen in the living room, one in uniform and the
other in mufti, who was the only one of the two to speak.  His
manner was that of an owner, as if we were the supplicants.  I
resented that automatically, as I always have.  Dad's expression
was neutral.

"Sit here, please," said the plain-clothes cop in a commanding
tone of voice and pointed to an armchair.

My small boy was tempted to defy the cop's smug authority, but my
old man restrained him.  I sat as he indicated.

"You are Timothy Kimball?"

I nodded.

He looked at Dad.  "Your son?"  Dad nodded.

Again he addressed me.  "How old are you?"

"Twelve."

"Do you know a girl named Alice Colsen?"

"I don't know her, but I sent her a letter and she sent one
back."

"Why did you correspond with Alice Colsen?"

"We're supposed to be pen pals.  It was a school project."

"Do you have the letter she sent you?"

"Sure.  It's upstairs in my room."

"Would you please get it?"

I dashed upstairs, retrieved the letter from under the bed,
performed a little sleight of hand and clattered back downstairs.
This time the boy overcame the old man's desire for a measured
tread.  I handed the letter to the cop, who read it with a frown
on his face.


Dear Tim,

Thank you very much for write to me.  My teacher sayed you would.
I am glad you did.  It is hot in Chicago now.  Is it hot in
Hightower too?  I do not know what else to say.  You are the
first boy I ever writed to.  Please write back to me again.  It
sure is more fun than talking to my crazy mom.

Your new friend, Alice M. Colsen


"Well," he said turning to my parents, "this certainly helps the
investigation.  I won't need to ask your son any more questions."

Mamma looked startled.  She extended her hand to the policeman.
"May I see the letter, please?"

His eyebrows rose but he passed the folded paper across.  She
scanned it and turned her gaze upon me.  Her eyes were marbles of
astonishment.  She opened her mouth to speak but the officer was
first.

"Do you have any other correspondence with this girl?" he asked
me.

"No, sir."

Dad asked, "Does the girl have a problem at home?"

The cop looked pointedly from Dad to me.

"Excuse me," I said and went into the kitchen, where I strained
to hear their conversation, the most important part of which was
the cop's concluding statement.

"The girl's mother is batty.  She was committed this morning.
She claims her daughter is an alien and two other aliens came to
the house and took her off to their UFO.  We suspected this crazy
woman was somehow responsible for the girl's disappearance, but
the letter suggests she was aware of her mother's illusions.  She
has probably run away."

I breathed a sigh of relief and fixed myself a sandwich.

Mom saw the cops out the front door as Dad came into the kitchen.

"The letter worked," he said.  "I don't think they'll bother us
again."  He smiled.  "You're a cool one.  Where's the original
letter?'

"Yes," Mamma interjected at the kitchen door, "I'd like to hear
your answer to that."

"Right here."  I pulled it out of my shirt and passed it to her.
"Did they take the new one?"

"Yes, they did."  Her eyes verified the original.  "What if they
show your fake to her teacher?"

I responded around my mouthful of peanut butter and jelly --
surprisingly tasty on a young tongue, "You mean, will the
handwriting match?  It will match.  Alice wrote the second one
too."

"Oh."  Her gaze turned to Dad.  "Frank, when do you think you
might recall that Tim is my son, too, and that I am your trusted
wife?"

Dad sighed and put his arm around her.  "Come on into the living
room, Pattie."

She allowed him to pull her.  "What's going on, Frank?  Isn't it
enough that our son has gone weird?  Now we have the police
poking into our lives.  And what I find hardest to believe, you
seem to be cooperating with Tim to fool the police!"

I stood in the kitchen eating my sandwich, straining to hear
their conversation.  My mother was clearly upset, judging by her
tone of voice, which was uneven and trembling.

"I'm afraid we'll have to get used to this, Pattie," my father
said.  "Things will never be as they were before."

Mamma was almost sobbing in frustration.  "Before?  Before what?
What's happened to him?  You seem to know."

"He's a very unusual boy, more than just precocious.  I suppose
he possesses a genius that has suddenly overwhelmed him."

Mamma didn't buy that one.  "Frank, there's something wrong with
him.  It started when he fell off his bike a while back and
landed on his head.  We should really take him to the doctor."

"And get his head examined?"  My father snorted, dismissing the
notion.  "That's not the problem, Pattie.  There's nothing
physically wrong with the boy.  It's just that he's revealed
himself to be a true genius."

"All of a sudden?  It doesn't happen that way, Frank, and you
know it!"

"Maybe it has to do with his sexual awakening.  He's at that
age."

What a lame argument! I thought.  Dad was floundering.

"Sex!" my mother exclaimed in disgust.  "I know it can drive some
boys to stupidity, but it doesn't cause this sort of craziness."

"He's not crazy, Pattie.  He's probably more rational than the
two of us.  He's certainly brighter than we are."

"All of a sudden!  All of a sudden!"  Mom was nearly screaming.
"I feel I've lost him, Frank.  He frightens me at times."

The last words were muffled as if spoken into my father's
shoulder.  Silence ensued briefly.

"Clara ... understands the boy."  My father spoke hesitantly.
"She's told me she'll take care of him if we'll let her.  Perhaps
that would be best."

"Well, I can understand that."  Mamma's voice contained a tinge
of sarcasm.  "Clara has always wanted him and she's rather
strange herself.  But are you suggesting we give up our son?"

"Not give him up.  Not that!  He would just live with her and she
would tutor him.  We would see him regularly, maybe every
weekend."

There was another pause in the conversation.

"So it's Clara again."  Now Mamma's voice was bitter.  "This time
she wants my son!"

"But Clara's our friend, Pattie.  She has nothing but the best
intentions."

"I know about you and her, Frank.  I've known it for years.  Do
you plan to settle Tim with her and then move in yourself?"

"Good god, no, Pattie!  I would never leave you.  Now _you're_
talking crazy."

"But you don't deny whatever it is, or was, between you and her.
You can't hide that sort of thing from a wife, certainly not from
me.  I've noticed the way she avoids looking at your face.  I
recognize the guilt."

"That was years ago, Pattie."  I could scarcely hear my father's
voice.  "It just _happened_, and we never really enjoyed it
because we both love you.  We gave it up after a few weeks
because we felt so awful."

"You've always said she looks like a young girl, Frank.  Is that
what you want?  Am I getting too dumpy for you in my middle age?"

"It's over, Pattie!  It's been over for years!  I don't want
anyone but you.  Please, let's not talk about it."

"Not talk about it!  Yes, that would suit you fine!  And don't
tell me you didn't enjoy fondling her body and squirting into
her.  I'm not stupid, Frank."  Mom was ranting.

Again it was quiet except for some muffled sniffling.

"Darling," my dad almost whispered, "of course you're right.  I
can't deny that when Clara and I first made love we became
extremely aroused.  But surely you don't want to know the
details.  Please forgive me if you think I want to change the
subject.  I do, actually, but not to escape my guilt.  I must
confess there is something you should know about Tim.  You may
not believe it, but the boy has convinced me it's true."

"Something I should know?"  Mom's voice was tremulous.  "That
sounds ominous.  You're frightening me, Frank.  Is it something
awful?"

"No, nothing like that, nothing reprehensible.  I don't know how
to begin except to say that we've already lost him, Pattie.  He's
a grown man.  He only looks like a twelve year old."

"You're talking nonsense, Frank!  He's still a young boy, but he
has some kind of sickness that makes him weird."

"Tim is from the future, Pat.  You've got to believe it.  He's
older than I am."

Mom emitted a brief, screechy laugh, a derisive hoot.  "Are you
both crazy?  Or are you, he and Clara trying to pull something on
me?  I won't stand still for this, Frank!"

"Pattie!  No one is plotting against you.  What I say about Tim
is all true, and I can prove it.  He's a very famous scientist, a
Noble Prize winner, at least he was where he came from."

"Where he _came_ from?"

"Yes.  Tim is from another universe, from a future one or
something like that.  I don't really understand it either.  But
it explains why he knows so much.  He came here on purpose and
took over our Timmy's body."

"You mean he's a stranger from another world?  A body snatcher?
Do you realize how ridiculous you sound, Frank?  You of all
people!"

"Perhaps I do sound ridiculous.  No, I'll go further.  This story
does seem ridiculous.  But it isn't, Pattie.  You yourself have
contributed to the proof of it."

"_I_?"

"Yes.  Do you recall telling us at breakfast that some friend of
Tim's fell off his bike in front of our house and broke his
ankle?"

"Yes, but --"

"Tim predicted it the day before."

"He ... he ..."  She was obviously thinking it over.

"But that is the least of it.  I have interrogated him at length.
He exhibits the judgment and the knowledge that only a mature
mind might contain.  But he's still Tim.  You must accept this,
Pattie.  He's the same person except for the addition of an adult
inside who is also Tim as he became in another world."

"Frank ..."  Mom paused for a moment.  "This is too much for me
to grasp, even though I'm an educated woman.  It confounds
everything I've ever learned."

"That statement applies to us both, my dear.  But he has
convinced me.  I have a suggestion.  I'll call him in here and
you interrogate him in _your_ specialty."

She sighed deeply.  "No, dear.  I won't suggest to my son that I
distrust him."  She sighed again.  "I can't say I believe you.  I
just can't.  But I certainly won't challenge my husband in so
serious a matter when he is clearly convinced.  If you think it's
the right thing to do, I'll let him go live with Clara.  At least
she can afford the doctor bills he's certain to run up."

I did not want to hear any more, and I dreaded confronting my
mother.  So I scooted out the back door, letting the screen bang
loudly behind me.  My throat ached at the certain loss of Mom.
We would never be the same together.  But I was elated at gaining
Clara all for myself.

* * *

Clara, standing in my father's living room, wore a light,
early-fall shift that clung to her torso most provocatively,
suggesting the rest of her to be as succulent as the exposed
limbs.  She shimmered in youth, fully mature, fully adult, thirty
years old.

"Are you ready to leave?" she asked with a smile and a two-finger
touch to my cheek.  "Do you have your stuff packed?"

"Yes. It's all here," I replied, waving my hand at a large
suitcase near the door, but I looked at Alice, who stood next to
the woman.

Clara noticed the direction of my gaze and grinned.  "I suppose
I'll have to play chaperone for you two."

"Don't guard us too closely," I remarked seriously.

"Timmy," Clara leaned close to me and whispered,  "she's scarcely
ten."

"And I'm scarcely twelve," I replied softly.

Clara made a face, then turned to my mom.  The two of them went
off to the kitchen chatting about my new status as Clara's
charge.  I heard Mamma insist that I visit at least twice a week.

Alice said quietly, "There's something weird about that woman,
Timmy, besides her Mandelbrot paintings.  I've lived with her two
days now.  She has the latest _Physical Review_ and _Chemical
Journal_ in her magazine rack, would you believe?  And though she
has no servant, her place is absolutely spotless."

"Weird, eh?  Did she come on to you?"  I grinned and pulled the
girl to me with one arm.

"Do you realize how far you've fallen, Timmy?" she sputtered in
exasperation.  "You were once a great man, and now all you can
think about is sex."

"I'm just a twelve year old boy, Alice, and I'm more inclined to
focus on shapely thighs than barren physics."

"Well," she scolded me, "I wish you would concentrate more on my
thighs than hers."

"I also like tits," I said playfully.

"You don't have to be so cruel.  I'll have them in two or three
years.  I developed early, as I recall.  But you're just playing
with me, aren't you?  As you always did.  Word games."

"I love you, Alice, as I always have," I said and gave her a
small kiss.

"But you want to fondle Clara's pretty thighs."

"Much more than that, Alice.  I want to taste them -- and her
small titties as well.

"You're a disgusting pervert!"

"Come now, hardly that!" I responded deviously, adding in my
soprano voice, "I'm just a little boy," and cupping my palm to
her groin.

"Not now!" She barked.

"Later perhaps?"

"Yes, Timmy.  Later and later and later."

Alice clung to me and kissed my face with an intense passion.

"Well, what do we have here?" Clara said, interrupting us.  Mom
stood behind her frowning.  Clara added, "Aren't they cute at
that age?"

"Birds and bees," I replied cheerfully.  "It's as natural as
that."

"But it's unnatural until you're eighteen, according to the
American public," she teased.  "You're too young for that even in
France."

"You can't be serious," Alice declared indignantly, sounding like
an adult despite her high pitched voice.

"Can't I?"  Clara regarded the girl with a strange look on her
face.

Mamma was studying me intently.  Abruptly she turned and hurried
upstairs, almost as if she were fleeing the scene.  Clara looked
from her to me and made motions with her hands towards the porch.

"We're going now, Pat," she called upstairs.  "I'll bring Tim to
visit in a couple of days."

I heard a muffled response above the hurrying footsteps.  Perhaps
it was a sob.  I knew that Mamma would not see me off.

"Come," Clara said, leading us out the front door.  She carried
the suitcase for me, shoving it into the backseat of the new
Packard.

Alice insisted on sitting between Clara and me in the front.

The woman looked around her at me before starting the car.  "Your
mother is very sad about this, Timmy.  We'll wait if you want to
run and kiss her good-bye."

The old man wanted to do it, but the little boy's squeamishness
won out.  "I'll see her in a couple of days," I responded.

Clara put the car in motion without another word.

As we proceeded down the tree-lined streets, foliage now in
beautiful reds and yellows after the first frost, Alice leaned
her head on my shoulder and whispered, "Clara feels guilty for
stealing you."

"For _what_?" I whispered back in astonishment, adding, "Mamma
agreed to it."

"Even so.  Clara's in love with you, Timmy."

I had to chuckle aloud.  "You're crazy, you know!  She likes me,
yeah, and I like her.  We've been meeting 'Aunt' Clara ever since
I can remember.  Where did you get such an idea?"

"When a woman loves a man, as I love one, she notices how other
women feel towards him.  She loves you, Timmy, and has for a long
time.  If you think about it you'll know it too."

Indeed Clara had most readily and deliberately exposed her
breasts when I asked.  Sure, she was fond of me.  Might not a
woman do such a thing to satisfy a boy's natural curiosity, if
she looked upon him fondly?

"I've studied her Mandelbrot paintings again," Alice continued,
her lips hardly an inch from my ear.  She paused as the car
swerved perhaps for a squirrel.  "I tell you, they're accurate.
I recall the one from the butt crack that hung in my office.
Hers is identical with my memory.  This woman is a creature of
mystery, Timmy, a creature of contradiction.  I wonder if we are
in danger."

"From Clara?  Don't be any more ridiculous than you must," I
scoffed.

* * *

The blow-off was not long delayed.  Clara showed me to her second
guest room and helped me unpack.  She seemed rather cold,
speaking very little.  At last she asked Alice and myself to
attend her in the living room.

We filed in and took seats side-by-side on the couch.  She stood
with her back to us in front of the "butt-crack" scene, which
actually resembles a fairy-tale slipper with a curled up toe.
She turned around and looked directly at Alice.  Her voice
betrayed a certain tension.  "I keep asking myself, where could
you have heard the word _Mandelbrot_?  But Benoit Mandelbrot is
alive now, pursuing his M. S. at Cal Tech, as a matter of fact.
The far more important question is, how could you possibly know
that _Aladdin's Foot_ is located near the major cycloid vertex of
the Mandelbrot Set?"

I felt turned to stone.

Alice's eyes widened only slightly.  The little girl's face
smiled incongruously, clearly one mature woman sparring with
another, and said confidently, "That statement raises a host of
corollary questions.  But first I'd like to ask you where you
heard me mention that word."

"In the car, of course, along with your characterization of this
scene's location in the 'butt crack.'"

Now Alice's eyes glinted.  "Then you must have the keenest
hearing of anyone alive."

Clara smiled slightly.  "I do have preternatural hearing when I
care to exercise it.  I overheard you whisper about guilt and
wondered if you meant Timmy's mother, so I exercised it."  She
took a deep breath.  "And nearly wrecked the car."

Alice looked at me searchingly.  I knew what was on her mind.
This woman had obviously _reverted_, whether by my technique or
some other, yet she must have done so before I had.  How was
_that_ possible?  I could only shrug.  My theory didn't prevent
someone from reverting earlier than I, if they started from an
older body.  Clara must have truly been elderly, I thought -- if
she used my technique.  How had an octogenarian learned of the
procedure?

Alice approached it cautiously.  "Tim claims that _you_ painted
that scene.  Perhaps you would care to tell us, Miss Edgeworth,
how you were able to do that almost 30 years before Mandelbrot
himself could have seen it."

Clara shrugged more gracefully than I.  "You know how, Miss
Colsen."  Her face became thoughtful.  "Colsen?"

"Does Alice Farnsworth ring a bell?" asked the girl sweetly.

Clara's eyes widened.  "The master's assistant!"

Alice giggled, looking at me.  "The _master_!"

Clara also looked at me.  Her expression of cold enmity softened
to a smile.  "Timmy, perhaps you'd do me a favor.  Would you go
into the study and let Alice and me talk privately?"

I shook my head and sighed.  "To what point, Clara?"

Her face blanked.  "Do you mean to say you have understood this
conversation?"

"Just a moment!" Alice interjected sharply before I could answer.
"We need to check a bit further before admitting anything.  Do
you want us to believe you made that painting only from your own
memory?"

But Clara was staring at me.  "Timmy ...  Professor Kimball ...
when did you" -- she gulped -- "win the Nobel in Physics?"

"In 1988."

"You ... you have rever--"  She gaped at me, eyes and mouth open
wide.  "Of course!  That explains everything."  She shook her
head.  "What I don't understand is why I didn't realize it!
Excuse me, Timmy -- professor -- but I find that my legs are weak."

She sat down abruptly in the chair that matched the couch.  She
stared at me and laughed ironically.  "I suppose you have been
wondering about my paintings.  I did them a few years ago, while
life was suspended for the war, partly to catch reverters."  She
glanced at Alice.  "And they worked, didn't they?"

The girl tossed her head.  "Which raises the question, _how_ did
you paint them?  The one you call _Aladdin's Foot_ is one that I
named _Aladdin's Slipper_.  I stared at a printout of it on my
office wall for ten years or more.  How could you have painted
one so accurately?"

The woman shrugged.  "It is indeed accurate!  Only one
explanation is possible: I have what you would call an eidetic
memory for certain things."

"Permit me to ask a better question," I said in the voice of a
young boy but with the commanding tone of an adult.  "Who are you
really, Aunt Clara?"

"Timmy -- professor ..."  Her voice wavered.

"I'll always be _Timmy_ to you, Clara.  But your arrival well in
advance of me stretches my understanding of the theory.  I ask
again, who are you?"

Her eyes fell.  When she looked up, again she laughed ironically.
"I didn't expect this.  It's ... it's so wildly improbable.  I
thought I would just watch you grow up.  B-but you're already
here."  Her eyes were suddenly brighter.

I extended my hand to her.  She rose and came to me, taking her
seat at my side opposite Alice.

"Who are you?" I asked more softly.

"Originally I was Ellen Lundquist," she said softly with head
bowed.

"From how far in the future?  You must have been of advanced age
to revert so soon before me."

"We've made improvements on your procedure, Professor Kimball,
since your time.  You required a full DNA match.  Because of
better sensitivity in the scan a person can now arrive in
another's mind well before her own birth, usually the mind of an
ancestor, someone with at least a 30 per-cent correspondence in
DNA sequences."

She managed to get that out, but she then began to shiver as
though it were chill.

This was incredible, only a 30 per-cent match!  But yes, I saw
that scanners with adequate sensitivity might --  "How did you
overcome the noise problem?"

"I don't have all the technical details in mind," she murmured,
"but I believe success was obtained with artificial DNA and a
statistical sampling technique."

Artificial DNA!  I stood and paced slowly back and forth in front
of the couch.  Her eyes followed me, hands twisting, one within
the other.  She seemed too affected by a merely technical
explanation.  Another implication of her reversion occurred to
me.  I demanded, "You came to be with me, didn't you?"

She shivered again.  "I wanted to be ... your contemporary, but I
overshot by eighteen years.  I wanted to grow up with you.  I
wanted ..."  She blushed deeply and didn't finish.

Alice jumped to her feet, livid with sudden anger.  She shouted,
"He's mine!"

Clara turned her face away, but not before I saw a tear roll down
her cheek.

"Alice, sit down!" I barked and the girl obeyed but continued to
scowl.

I sat next to Clara again.  She grasped my shoulder and thrust a
wet face into my neck.  Alice seemed about to erupt once more but
I glared her to inaction.

"Clara," I asked gently, stroking her raven hair.  "When did you
depart?"

She sniffled.  "By your reckoning it was the twenty-fourth
century."

"By _our_ reckoning?"

"Yes.  After the Calamity what was left of the human race began a
new calendar."

"What calamity?" Alice shrieked.

I waved her quiet.

"Why did you want to be with me, Clara?"

She sat upright and took a deep breath.  "As a teenager in the
twenty-third century I came across a scan of you as a young man,
taken well before your fame was assured."  She laughed
self-consciously.  "I fell in love with that picture.  For the
rest of my life I compared every man with that one -- with you --
and your accomplishments.  When it came time to revert, I chose
your era, prof-- Timmy.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a
compatible ancestor so close in time and space, even though a bit
too early."

"You're the Master, Timmy, the discoverer of Reversion.  Many
people depart in search of you.  They hope to share your life
from the periphery, to understand the forces that focused you on
your wonderful discoveries.  I'll confess I wanted more than
that.

"But I can hardly believe I've actually found _you_:  not merely
the lad destined to become you, but the reverted Master himself.
There are uncounted possible universes.  It's just so
improbable."

"So you won the lottery," Alice commented snidely.  "What's this
business about the Master?"

"You have assumed god-like stature in the minds of many, although
no one presumed you were anything but mortal."  She gazed into my
face with love.  "At least educated people didn't.  You're the
emotional, spiritual focus of the human race.  You freed us from
lingering, painful death, from death itself except for
accidents."

"There is a logical flaw here," I mused aloud.

"Every religion has one, Timmy," Alice giggled and came to sit
next to me.

Clara stood and looked down at me with a weak smile.  Her cheeks
were wet with tears.

"I feel blessed to be in your presence," she managed to say, "but
I'm overwhelmed.  I need to lie down for awhile.

She turned to leave but then stopped abruptly.

"You won't go away?" she asked anxiously.

"No, Aunt Clara.  We'll be here when you awake from your nap."

* * *

"The Calamity began in 2138 by your reckoning, two hundred years
before I was born, and within a month life on Earth was gone.
Human civilization still continued on the Moon, Mars and the
O'Neills, but there weren't even ten million people out there."

"What was it, the Calamity?" I demanded to know.

"Runaway nanotech.  Drexler warned of it as early as 1988.  You
_do_ know about nanotechnology, don't you?"

"Yes: molecular engineering, heavy on promise, light on
delivery."

"Well, in 2138 it delivered.  A genius named George Harvey
Stringer finally made the first nanoassembler.  Like many
geniuses he was careless of the details.  As a result  ten
billion people were destroyed along with most life on earth.
Stringer lost control of his machines and Drexler's "gray goo"
resulted -- except that it was actually green, because it depended
on photosynthesis for its driving energy."

"'Gray goo?'" Alice repeated in wonder.

"Almost everything organic on earth was converted to green goo.
The process was very fast, needing only days to spread across a
continent.  Still the South Island of New Zealand had time to get
many of its people into caves prepared much earlier in
expectation of World War Three.  In a month, when the
nanomachines had exhausted the readily available carbon and thus
lost their vigor, they and a few other protected survivors
emerged to an unrecognizable land.

"New Zealand became the center from which the human race rebuilt
itself.  It was a tremendous effort that lasted generations.
Every healthy woman was expected to have at least ten children.
Science and culture were largely saved, but the first century of
the new era was a dark age."

I had been an enthusiastic advocate of Drexler's proposals, as I
revealed by observing, "But you still had nanotech to help you
recover!"

Her face took on an expression of sick disgust.  "We did not!
Certain of Stringer's inventions, particularly his electrostatic
method of observation on the nanoscale, were retained, but the
death penalty was prescribed by law in all human jurisdictions
for anyone attempting thereafter to build any machine capable of
molecular assembly from elemental materials."

The three of us sat around the dining room table that afternoon
drinking coffee after Clara got up from her nap, perhaps awakened
by the frolicking noise of two naked children.

"You're very human, Timmy," she had said with a smile after she
came into the living room and found Alice and me fucking on the
floor.  "You seem to be more a young boy than the Master."

She still exhibited a nervousness regarding me.  I could sense
that she wanted to touch me, wanted me to touch her in a intimate
ways.  I could not understand how a mature woman could lust for a
pubescent boy.  She avoided looking at my face, but her desire
was unambiguous.

* * *

When I kissed Clara before she went off to bed, she quivered at
my touch.

I asked, "What is it?"

"A kiss from ... the Master makes my knees weak."  She smiled
tremulously.  "To have a truly impossible yearning satisfied is
..."  She took a breath.  "Perhaps unprecedented."  Her eyes
narrowed on mine.  "I can deny you nothing, as perhaps you have
already noticed."

The boy had not yet thought of her personal favors but the old
man had.  I asked with a leer, "What if I should need comforting
in the night?"

"Then you must come to my bed."  She said it matter-of-factly but
my hand, lingering on her shoulder, felt her quiver again.

"I'd hate to wake you unnecessarily," I demurred.

She stared into my eyes.  "I'll lie awake until you come."

"If not I'll kiss you awake.  If I can get away."

Alice, whom I truly loved, did not inspire me sexually that
evening.  She was too obviously only a little girl.  I could not
get it up as we lay naked together in bed.  I was embarrassed to
discover such variability in a twelve year-old's gallant reflex.

She grasped my flaccid organ and asked in undisguised
exasperation, "Do you need me to suck on you?"  Her tone was
suddenly acid.  "Perhaps you should go to Clara for inspiration."

"Do you really need me to fuck you, Alice?  You don't enjoy it
yet."

"You're an ignorant old man, Professor Kimball.  I want your
little cock inside of me just to know that it's mine."

She leaned down and sucked me to tumescence.

"Come now, do it," she urged me, pulling on my body.

She had lovely, young thighs, I noticed not for the first time as
I climbed atop her.  I pushed into her and she gasped loudly.  I
began to fuck the girl, relishing her warm tightness, but I was
soon put off by her false responses.

"You're faking it," I said angrily, ready to pull out of her.

"Take your pleasure, Timmy," she exclaimed crossly.  "I'll be
your receptacle."

There was no way to stop.  The orgasm was already half way up my
shaft.  I kissed the little girl and squeaked into her mouth as I
concluded.  She held to me tightly, cooing into my ear and
petting my back.  Afterwards, we snuggled together in great
contentment.

Alice yawned and sighed in resignation.  "Don't go to Clara until
I fall asleep."

I awoke in the middle of the night, slipped quietly from the bed
where Alice lay on her side with a thumb in her mouth and went to
Clara's room.  The woman was awake, waiting for me.  I turned on
a lamp which glowed dimly.

"I want to see you," I explained in a low voice and pulled the
sheet from her naked body.

She also studied me.  "You still don't have any hair, Timmy, but
I can see you've been growing."  She uttered a nervous laugh.  "I
feel so guilty."

"Do you feel guilty about before," I replied, guessing, "when I
was a younger boy and you wanted to lick on me?"

"I've always wanted you.  I was tempted to suck on you when you
were only five.  If I had, would you remember it as a
perversion?"

"Why did you want it?  Surely a five year-old is not stimulating
to a woman!"

"Of course that's true for most women.  But the psychologists of
my time have proven that a man's creative powers are driven by
the same neural circuitry that erects his penis.  By sucking you
I would have worshipped the symbol of your greatness."  She
seemed to blush.  "I still desire you, Timmy, but it's not sex,
not really.  I want to serve you and bask in your greatness.
You're a male, and a proven progenitor.  Is it not reasonable for
me to adore you physically despite your present young age?  You
obviously have sexual urges, and I want to assuage them."

I laid beside the lovely woman, took a soft tit in one hand and
pressed my lips on her cheek.  I nuzzled my face to her neck.
"You smell faintly of flowers," I murmured.  "I very much desire
you sexually, but please don't be slavish about it.  I want you
as a lover.  You may be the most sexually desirable woman I have
touched in all my 67 years."

She held my half-erect penis lightly in her hand and kissed the
top of my head as I snuggled to her. There was no hurry, we both
knew.

"At what age did you arrive?" I asked.

"I was fourteen.  I awoke one morning and discovered myself to be
another person.  From that moment my only goal was to come here,
where you weren't yet born.  I fantasized about how I could
become your mother.  It was so silly.  When I matriculated at the
university, you were already almost a year old.  I flirted with
your father, but when he proved to be incorruptible, I married
his best friend."

"Dad told me about the later affair.  Did you still think you
could capture him?"

"No, Timmy.  I was just lonely.  I missed my husband, and I
wanted to feel a man again."

"Do you need a man, Clara?  I don't have much to offer.  I'm just
a boy."

"You'll grow, darling," she replied with her hand stroking my
modest equipment. "Before long you'll take me as a man, as the
Master."

"I don't want to be 'the Master.'"

"It's not up to you, sweetest.  Let me lick on you."

I had never imagined being adored by another person, certainly
not by a beautiful woman whose only seeming purpose was to give
me ecstatic pleasure with her hands and lips.  She dwelt with her
mouth pressed to my right thigh, whimpering in sexual excitement.
Then I felt a warm moistness surround my hard cock.  She wanted
to consume my seed, I knew, so I did not warn her when it was
imminent except to place my hand gently upon her head.  I spewed
grandly, and she emitted a rapturous sound as if it were her
orgasm rather than mine.  When I was thoroughly finished, she
snuggled to me.  We were about the same size, although she was
fully mature.  Physically, we seemed to be a perfect match.

"Don't," she protested, when after a few minutes I began to
explore her body with my mouth. "Come on top of me now."

We coupled, and with her knees raised high she pressed her thighs
against my waist.

"Oh, yes, oh, yes," she murmured into my ear, holding me tightly
to her body without moving.

Then she uttered a choking gasp and began to fuck me wildly.  I
matched her thrusts and eventually set the rhythm.  I was
astounded by her orgasm, or perhaps several strung together.  She
screamed without inhibition for what I thought was a long time.
I was conscious of Alice bursting through the door, but I ignored
her and cried out in the most spectacular climax of my life.

"You stay away from him, you old witch!" Alice yelled in outrage
even before I had caught my breath.  She fell upon the bed to
pummel Clara who was scarcely conscious.

"She didn't hurt me!" I screamed, then realized that the harm in
question was not mine.  I threw the girl aside violently and she
thumped onto the floor.

"I died for you!" she screamed at me as I looked down on her from
atop the mattress.  She began to wail piteously.

Clara pressed on me from behind.  "Go to her," she urged
insistently, pushing with her hands and feet until I fell onto
the floor next to Alice.

I took the distraught girl into my arms and quieted her with
gentle kisses and love words.  "Clara is not your rival," I said
softly as I cuddled her.  "You have no rival.  Sleep with her
tonight and do girl things together.  I know you'll come to love
her."

Alice did not protest my suggestion.  I helped her stand and she
climbed willingly onto the bed where she laid herself close to
Clara.  The woman ran her fingers lightly over the girl's
immature body.

"I've never had a girl before," Clara said shyly.  "Have you?"

Alice nodded affirmatively just as I turned off the lamp.

"Teach me." I heard Clara's voice in the dark as I left the room.

* * *

The next morning we sat on the spacious back porch with our
coffee.

I had to ask, "Is my theory well known in the future?"

Clara smiled at me and nodded.  "From the middle of the
twenty-first century it became generally known that one could
travel into the past of an alternate universe, but only a few
facilities existed to apply the process, because, as you know,
everything about it was incredibly expensive."

"Let me guess," Alice commented.  "Only the rich and well
connected were able to revert."

"Quite right, Alice.  And that's the way it remained for almost a
century.  Organized religion was extremely hostile to what was
popularly called 'The Kimball Leap', except for the Hindus, who
found it consistent with their notion of rebirth.  Eventually the
medical profession came to accept it as a legitimate procedure
for terminally ill patients.  Until then doctors scorned the
practice, because it involved killing the patient, a violation of
the Hippocratic oath.  Your elegant theory, Timmy, was not enough
to convince them that the ill person would actually revert to a
healthy body."

"What caused them to change their minds?" I asked in fascination.

"It was inevitable," Clara continued.  "A young man who had
reverted from an alternate universe revealed himself.  Of course
your theory was already widely accepted, so he was not met with
incredulity.  He only had to demonstrate his knowledge of the
future.  That's why the medical profession accepted your
procedure as a legitimate therapy.  It became hugely popular, and
the general population clamored for it to such an extent that
governments had to include the procedure in their health care
schemes, at least the governments of the wealthier countries.
The practice was narrowly limited to terminally ill persons and
to anyone over 85 years old.  Some hard line conservatives wanted
to use it to empty prisons of criminals serving life terms, but
that proposal was soundly rejected as being grossly immoral."

"That's a good point," said Alice.  "What about the morality of
it?  What about Timmy here tricking young girls and boys into his
bed?  What about what we intend to do: to get rich by exploiting
our foreknowledge?"

Clara grinned at the girl and then at me.

"Is that true, Tim?  Have you been seducing your playmates?"

I said nothing, but I wanted to kick Alice in the shin.

"Well," Clara continued with a chuckle, "don't worry about it.
Have fun.  It was decided legally and by popular consensus that a
person who reverted was only as old as his body, that his
previous memories did not disqualify him from interactions with
his contemporaries, even sexual ones.  Actually it was never a
serious issue.  Less than 100 cases of arriving reverters were
recorded in over two centuries, perhaps because people wanted to
avoid the notoriety or because such a multitude of universes
exists.  The number of them has been heatedly debated for
hundreds of years.  Some argue that there is an infinity of
them."

"I favor that view," I said.  "People keep trying to find limits
in space-time and consciousness, but no intrinsic reason is
evident."

"The conservation of energy?" she suggested.

I grinned, "Which may easily be only a local phenomenon."

She grinned back.  Her hand snaked out and tousled my hair.  Her
eyes widened.  "Oh!  Sorry!"

"Don't apologize.  You may touch me anytime and anywhere."  I had
to chuckle.  "To you I must represent the perfect example of
mixed emotions."

She took a deep breath, smiled and continued.  "Since the
Calamity anyone who reverts has a weighty moral obligation to
warn about the Calamity and its cause.  We need to save as many
universes as possible from that unspeakable horror."

"There's a logical flaw here, Clara," I protested.  "If your
universe were warned, you would not be here."

She shook her head.  "But we _were_ warned!  The records were
there in the archive computers that survived on the moon.  It's
just that no one took the warnings seriously.  We must find a way
to make the lesson more effective."

"But ..." I sputtered, recalling my glib response to Dad's
concerns about a deterministic future.  "If it hasn't happened to
us yet, we can change it.  Is that your conclusion?"

"Yes, of course."

"Doesn't that smack of the _creation_ of a universe with every
different decision?  Talk about violating Conservation of
Energy!"

Alice grinned.  "Let's talk about sex instead, Timmy."

"Yes, indeed," Clara agreed.  "I've heard such arguments about
reversion _ad infinitum_.  But the twenty-fourth century is
almost as prudish as the nineteenth.  Alice and I had a most
remarkably wonderful time together last night.  The only thing
lacking was you."

Alice leered at me and placed her hand high up on my bare thigh,
touching the hem of my shorts.

"So, you two ladies want to do it three way.  I've never
experienced that," I lied.

"I haven't either," Clara replied breathlessly, obviously excited
by the prospect.

"I have," Alice said smugly, "but not with another girl."

"You did two guys at the same time?" I exclaimed in astonishment.

"Timmy, you lived such a sheltered life.  Even before the sixties
I was a flower child who learned sex early and well.  I can't
imagine how you ever got laid."

"I was raped," I replied in assumed indignation.  "I was twenty
and she was twenty four."

"Tell me about it," Clara asked eagerly and leaned toward me.  "I
was also a late bloomer.  As Clara I didn't do it until my
wedding night with Clifford."

"Were you still pretty, Tim?" Alice asked.

"I suppose, but in a more grown up way, although I didn't have
much body hair."

"Tell me!" Clara insisted and took off her sheer nightie to
expose a lovely body.

Alice was already naked.

I shrugged.  "Why not?  It was at camp on a late summer day.  I
was a junior counselor and Esther was my supervisor.  She'd been
ogling me since camp began, always nearby pretending to instruct
me.  She never lacked an excuse to touch me.  She had large
bones.  She was heavy but not fat.  She weighed more than I, and
her powerful legs made mine seem almost girlish."

"They look girlish now, Timmy," Clara panted and pulled on my
shorts.

I raised my buttocks and allowed the woman to take them off.

"After midnight on the third day she came into my cabin where I
was in charge of eight young boys, eleven and twelve year olds
who were all fast asleep after a strenuous morning and afternoon
of swimming and running.  She awakened me with a hand on my
stomach.  'Come outside,' she whispered.  I was reluctant because
I was wearing only underpants and my cock was half hard.  'Come,'
she insisted and twisted my arm.

"I didn't want any of the boys to awaken, so I obeyed, gritting
my teeth.

"'It's a lovely night for a swim, Timmy,' she said and dragged me
toward the small lake nearby."

Clara grasped my hard cock as she listened with rapt attention.
Alice moved her chair close to us and placed her hands on each of
our nearest thighs, leaning forward expectantly.

"How did she rape you, Timmy?" Clara asked, pumping my cock with
her fingers.  I was surprised at her obvious excitement.  She
giggled.  "Can one rape a man?"

"Some would claim you are doing so now," I pointed out, hastily
adding, "but don't stop!

"Esther insisted that I take off my underpants.  I refused,
frankly because I was frightened.  She was a large, homely woman
whom from our first meeting I had perceived as threatening.  She
pushed me to the sand, leaned down and ripped off my underpants.
I was petrified, although my cock hardened fully when she took
off her clothes as she stood above me.  Her breasts were
enormous.  Her thighs were like those of a wrestler.  She had a
thick, dark patch of pubic hair that completely covered her
groin.  She reached down and pulled me forcefully to my feet.

"'Let's go swimming,' she said, leering at me in the moonlight
and dragging me into the water.  When we were chest deep, almost
to our shoulders, she jumped on me, wrapped her legs around my
body and squirmed herself onto me with such deft skill that I
imagined she might have done it a thousand times before.

"I had never anticipated the absolutely marvelous feel of
fucking.  She insisted on kissing me as she wriggled on my cock,
which was completely hard, although I was too terrified to be
aroused emotionally.

"She used me for her pleasure.  She became very excited and
sucked a hickey on my neck as she fucked me in that awkward
position.  She soon gasped and muffled a cry against my lips.  I
suddenly came.  My cock had been too challenged, although I had
no feeling for the woman.  I grasped her ample buttocks with my
right hand and pushed a finger all the way into her ass.  'Do you
want me there too?' she --"

"Timmy!" Alice yelled.  "You're making all this up.  You're
playing games again."

"I want to believe it, Alice," Clara gasped in arousal.  "I
really do.  I want you to do me in the behind, Timmy.  I never
felt that before -- and you're still slender."

Clara spat into her hand, moistened me and got onto her hands and
knees.

"Wait," Alice insisted.  "I've done it before and I know you'll
need more lubrication than that."

The girl returned immediately from the bathroom with a glob of
clear grease in her hand.  As she slimed my member, I commented,
"How fortunate we are to have the benefit of your wide
experience!"

"Yes, you are," she agreed flatly.  "I've done it often, as
recently in fact as ..."

When her voice petered out, I suggested, "Another of Tonio's
talents?"

She giggled.  "In fact he had a long, very slender cock, much
like a young eel.  It was too long for cervical comfort but just
right in the rectum."

"Good god!  And to think he was always such a self-effacing
little man!"

"Around _you_!" the girl agreed.

"Tonio Amorosanto?" asked Clara surprisingly as the girl
slathered her anus.

I had to chuckle.  "You know of _him_?"

"As your lab assistant.  Your life became my hobby once I saw
that scan of you.  He reverted too, you know."

"Did he!"

"Who cares?" asked Clara indifferently, a tone I was not
displeased to hear.  "Now do it," she commanded, kneeling on the
bed with her head close to our ready bodies.

I spread Clara's buttocks and positioned myself at her pucker.  I
pushed forward and she moved back.  The woman sighed as I
penetrated but she displayed no distress.  Alice, close upon us,
reached with her two hands under Clara's body to diddle the
woman's clit.  Clara was moderately quiet as I thrust into her,
but she suddenly cried out "Oh, God!" and collapsed onto the bed,
leaving me unfinished.

Alice regarded me with great amusement.  "You look like a puppy
who didn't get its dinner.  Let's go take a shower and wash your
shitty cock, then I want us to get in the tub and show me how to
do Esther's water trick."

It went on like that for the rest of the day, one thing after
another.  Dusk fell with me lying utterly wasted on the bed as
Clara ate out Alice's hairless pudendum for at least the third
time.

I thought about it.  In my first go-around as an adolescent I had
enjoyed no sexual opportunity whatsoever -- at least if I did I
didn't notice it -- whereas now it seemed likely that I would
never have to masturbate again for the rest of my life!  Without
sublimation of my sex drive into the pursuit of physics, would I
ever invent the techniques that made possible such uninhibited
indulgence?  Here was another argument for Clara's implication of
the created universes.  But was it a serious one?

* * *

"An automatic dishwasher?" I asked incredulously when I realized
what it was.  My little boy had visited Aunt Clara's kitchen many
times without noticing its peculiarity of everything boxed in:
electric stove at one end of a line of cabinets with the sink at
the other, refrigerator inset into its line of cabinets on the
adjacent wall, with high cabinets built onto the walls above it --
in other words, a typical kitchen of 1980 or later, except that
the appliances were white.  I guess white appliances were the
only color available in the Nineteen-forties.  But for the first
time I noticed the white enameled box on the end beside the sink,
brand name "Kitchenaid."

Clara smiled at me.  "Yes, of course.  Just now they're common
only in hotels and restaurants, and the detergents are hard to
find, but I'm only slightly ahead of the curve."

I shook my head.  "This kitchen would give you away to a reverter
even more reliably than your Mandelbrot paintings."

"Do you think so?"  She chuckled.  "I'm informed that the
Rockefeller mansion has one very similar to it."

"Including a microwave oven?"

"Well, no," she admitted, eyes twinkling.

"I don't see a brand name."

"It was homemade."

"You made it?"

She sighed.  "I grew impatient for the convenience.  A friend of
my husband delivered the klystron without knowing my use for it."

"They have millimeter radar in 1947?"

"Well, no, I don't think so.  But a little careful machining let
me emphasize a high harmonic."

"On the power output side?  Aha!  You invented feedback plumbing,
didn't you!  Have you considered a patent?"

She shook her head.  "That technique will be patented in 1958.  I
don't need to steal the money too."

I went to her and put my hands inside her robe to caress her soft
breasts.  "Clara, you are a most remarkable woman."

She kissed my cheek.  "Timmy, you shouldn't be surprised that the
twenty-fourth century knows the accomplishments of the twentieth.
And compared to you I am nothing.  You took a hodge-podge of
half-baked ideas in Quantum Mechanics and produced the Thorn
Equation.  Oh-h-h!  That they are _your_ hands on my breasts
makes my knees weak!"

I fully opened both our robes and pulled her naked body against
mine.  We indulged in a languorous, very wet kiss.  Her hand
gripping my erection finally made me back away.  I laughed
self-consciously.  "Would you believe it's sore?"

"There!" she cried, eyes lighting.  "I've finally caught you in
an anachronism."

"Oh?  You can't mean that.  We're nothing else but!"

"I mean in mundane speech.  'Would you believe' to introduce a
trial balloon became idiomatic only after the _Get Smart_
television series of 1965."

I stared at her incredulously.  "What a mass of trivia you've
packed into that pretty head!"

Her laughter died.  "I'm sorry.  Did you actually mean that your
penis is painful to the touch?"

"A little," I admitted, "when bent."  I leered at her.  "A sore
twelve year-old dick has got to be most uncommon."

"I suppose," she agreed.  Her eyebrows rose inquisitively.  "But
why is it sore?"

That question astonished me -- which must have been only too
plain.  She laughed a little.  "What did I say?"

She had told us practically nothing about her prior life.
"Clara, how old were you when you reverted."

Her eyes twinkled.  "112."

"One hundred -- my god!"

"A long life by present standards.  But not long enough."

"I just realized you've said nothing really about Ellen
Lundquist.  How about telling us about yourself?"

She sighed.  "I can deny nothing to the greatest man who ever
lived."  Her voice held no trace of sarcasm.

I squirmed.  "What are you trying to do, embarrass me?"

Her hand touched my cheek.  "Timmy, please believe me: I shall
never knowingly do _anything_ to discomfort you!"

I turned away.  "Well, then, you've discovered a fine way to
avoid questions."  At the refrigerator, much larger than my
mother's, I took out the coke that was my present reason for
entering the kitchen.

She frowned.  "Sometimes you can be quite exasperating, you know!
What have I done now?  You _are_ the greatest man who ever lived!
Millions of people think so."

Opening the drink at the bottle opener mounted on the side of the
sink, a fixture in kitchens of that era, I remarked dryly, "Who
was it said, 'If a hundred people believe it, it may be true, if
a million it is certainly wrong?'"

Her eyes widened.  "How could anyone know _that_?"

I had to chuckle.  "Sometimes you take things much too seriously,
Clara."

"Perhaps we are both guilty of that.  Is your penis truly sore?"

I sniffed.  "Just when it's erect."

She studied me.  "I can only characterize that expression as a
_leer_!  What have I failed to note about your penis?"

I laughed.  "That it can wear out."

"It can _what_?"

Taking a slug of the sweet, peppery drink, I asked her with a
grin, "How many men have you ... known sexually, Clara?"

"Three now."  She grinned.  "Unless you qualify as two, in which
case, four."

"_Four_?  I mean, as Ellen Lundquist."

"None."

"You lived ... _112 years_ without sex?"

"I didn't say that."

"But, but you told Alice you had no experience with girls!  Oh, I
see.  You wanted to give her confidence."

"I told her the truth."

I stared.  "What's left?  I don't count masturbation."

She hesitated, finally responding, "My lover was man-shaped, but
of course he was different from a natural man in important
respects.  Is your soreness caused by the attention Alice and I
have shown you?"

"Attention!  Alice has pursued what she calls 'the big one'
diligently for the last three days, every time she found me apart
from you and sometimes under your nose.  How many three-ways have
we tried: three, four?  But don't get me wrong, I'm not
complaining.  I just need a few hours' break, is all.  But this
is fascinating.  For 112 years your lover was only a _machine_?"

She smiled slowly.  "You want to know about Ellen's life?  It was
much as I imagine Alice's to have been in many respects.  She
ought to hear my recital too.  Is she asleep?"

"Yes.  I left her curled on the big bed."

"Then let's wait for her to awaken.  In the meantime do you want
a snack?"

"No, I'll wait for dinner.  What are we having?"

"Roast beef.  _I_ want a snack, Timmy."  She patted the edge of
the dinette table.  "Sit here, please."

I took the indicated seat.  She maneuvered a chair to face me and
sat down, leaning forward to part my robe and my legs.  Her face
sank into my groin.  Her lips enclosed me as her hands came up
inside my robe to clasp my hips.

I noted, "If we did this on the couch, I could lick you too."

She did not respond and I refrained from repeating the
suggestion.  Females, even my two, are not so often careless of
their own pleasure that I could afford to pass up this
opportunity.  But a snack?

"Sweet Clara," I mentioned with a sigh, "Alice finished me off.
I hate to disappoint you if seminal fluid is your objective."

She made no reply, but I noticed something different.  Instead of
bobbing her head in the usual way, she was content to hold the
pitifully small shaft fully behind her lips.  Her tongue seemed
to be probing in the eye -- the urethral opening.  It felt strange
though not unpleasant.  I could almost believe it was penetrating
some little distance up the urethra!

The novelty was stimulating.  In its twitchy way the organ began
to swell.  As it grew she backed away, though her tongue
continued to work in the same odd manner.  Her hands tightened on
my hips.  Did she fear I would try to get away?  Hardly!

But even this novelty was insufficient.  Though half one's dick
stuck into a pretty woman's face is a compelling sight, the
thrilling pangs never arose, even after a few minutes' work.  If
she would _lower_ her tongue, perhaps, and lap the underside of
the head, _that_ would probably --

She released my hips and backed completely away to grin at me,
taking my wet dick in one hand.  "How does it feel now?"

"Huh?"

"Look."  Using both hands she bent the middle of the stiff shaft
about 30 degrees.  "Does that hurt?"

"No!" I declared in amazement.  "What did you do?"

Her eyes sparkled.  "I merely eased one of the differences
between my natural and mechanical lovers.  Shall I resume?  I
still want a snack."

This time one arm encircled my hips while the other's fingertips
massaged my little scrotum.  She slobbered and sucked me noisily,
head bobbing madly, to freeze at the first seminal spurt -- which
appeared in about 15 seconds.  When she had drained me, she
leaned back and stuck out her long tongue with sides curled up to
cup a whitish puddle.  Her eyes twinkled.  The tongue withdrew.
"Kiss me," she murmured, opening her mouth.

Clara certainly knew how to shut off my questions!

* * *

Ellen's history was simple.  She was born on "Zeroday," the first
day, of Year 148 AC -- After Calamity, which corresponded to July
12, 2286, on our calendar.  She trained to be a "biotechnician,"
apparently an amalgam of present-day Chemistry and Biology, and
was employed most of her life in a research house.  In her time
it was possible to restore one's youth.  A thicket of laws and
customs had grown up around those techniques, however, that
limited such "refitting" to twice at age 50 and above.  Ellen had
undergone her first at age 50 and her second at age 79.  33 years
later she directed her own reversion, using the new long range
techniques.

"I recalled my early infatuation with you, Timmy," she remarked
with love in her eyes.  "Your era was my target."  She grinned at
Alice.  "And as you noted, I hit the jackpot."

Alice raised her head to respond.  "Did you ever!"  We were
entangled on the big bed in Clara's room.  Alice lay full length
upon me, legs spread over my hips to maintain my penetration.
She had been languidly tonguing Clara's clit during the woman's
recital.  "Tell us about your robot lover."

Clara chuckled.  "He was inexhaustible and totally undemanding,
both qualities touted by his makers."  She touched my cheek.
"Until I became Clara I had no idea that a woman needs a man to
need _her_!"

* * *

My sexual indulgence actually increased after Clara sucked me off
in the kitchen, but my dick was never sore again.  One does not
miss pain, but I thought of its absence in connection with
another curiosity of life at Clara's.  We waited from the middle
of October nearly to the end of November in her house for our
first interview with her friend at the University of Chicago,
indulging in all manner of sex several times daily.  I realized
suddenly that Clara had shown no evidence of menstruation, yet by
her own account Clara Pelham Edgeworth was only 30 years old.  I
supposed that I might have impregnated her, and she might even
desire such a result, but foolishly I couldn't believe she would
fail to consult on it.  I thought about discussing it with Alice
but something -- peace in the family? -- held me back.

Alice found another mystery.  Towards the end of our month she
led me to a nondescript door in the upstairs hall.  "Open it."

I tried.  "It's locked."

"Think you can pick it?"

This was a far better lock than one expected to find on a closet
door.  It was at least as formidable as a car's ignition.  "Not a
chance," I retorted.  "What do you think it is -- her cash
reserve?"

"A cash reserve that hums?"

"Hums?"

She put her ear against the door.  "It doesn't always do it, but
it's humming now.  Take a listen."

Indeed with my ear against it I heard a low buzzing, varying
slowly in pitch both above and below that of the standard
electrical power hum with which our lives are permeated and
everyone ignores.

"What do you think it is?"

I listened for a while and stepped away, shaking my head.  "I
never heard the like.  Some kind of audio equipment?"

"Huh!  Well, Dr. Kimball, as a girl I lived on a farm.  I've
heard it before.  It sounds like a beehive to me."

"A beehive in a closet?" I scoffed.  "Why don't you ask Clara?"

"Maybe I will."

But we never did.  When we went downstairs, Clara was on the
telephone and her facial expression was clearly apprehensive.

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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