There was no place to sit and talk so we had continued to stand there inside the entrance. I then went behind the counter to grab a bottle of water for each of my guests. When I returned, I caught something familiar in the eyes of these women. A glimpse of how my longtime lovers used to look at me. They either found me attractive or were simply pleased to have a man in their life. Even as just a friend.
"So, tell me, Mason," Alexa said to me. "Do you know Jada's body as well as you know mine?"
"Excuse me?" Jada's eyes got big.
I hesitated long enough that I knew a lie would no longer be convincing. However, Jada was not ready to hear about that. She had not yet left behind the married part of her personality. Events in our lives shape us all. Jada hadn’t experienced the things that would fuel her more independent and sultry side.
"That's not important," I answered, thinking for sure that was the appropriate response. But, once again, I wasn’t seeing the full picture.
"Oh, my God!" Alexa exclaimed. "You were married to me but had sex with her. You didn't meet her until after we got together, right? Unless she jumped you the moment that she saw you, we were already in a relationship, correct? Tell us!"
I shook my head. I couldn't believe how poorly things were going. That short time alone after arriving here all that I hoped for was to get my wives back. But these were not my women anymore. I mean, they seemed to be the same people, just not my lovers. Not yet. Maybe never, the way things were looking.
"Those were different times," I offered as an explanation. It certainly wasn't a denial.
"Are you going to tell me that I was okay with it?" Alexa demanded to know. She had gone from being a complete stranger to a jealous mate so quickly. And we hadn't even become friends, yet.
"No," replied. I didn't see any point in creating a web of lives to get caught in later. My preference was to only reveal what information that was required. However, I couldn’t just refuse to answer. That would surely make things worse. "You were very jealous of the other women."
"Women?" Alexa asked, smiling, but not in a good way. "There are going to be more lovers? This Riley girl, was she one of them?"
"It doesn't matter..." I tried to get her under control. Her emotional response was taking our conversation off the rails. How could I find a balance between answering her questions and keeping her from viewing me as a bad guy? Was I going to have to develop false story just to hold on to these women? Then I would need to keep track of three worlds: the real one where I was happier than I realized; this one which appeared to be an alternate reality with significant differences; then the false one that I created. No, that would be too much for me. I could never pull that off. Nor did I want to try.
"Well, your story is starting to sound a lot more realistic at least," Jada said with a disapproving expression. "Men do cheat."
"It wasn't cheating!" I blurted out. "I never had sex with another woman without permission first. I swear!"
Alexa just shook her head. I could clearly see that she doubted that another version of her would ever give her husband the okay to bed another woman. And I fully understood why. Her personality at this point wouldn’t have. She had not yet experienced the things that would make her more receptive to the idea.
"Just tell me this," Jada replied. "Get this right, and I'm all in with this elaborate story. Neither of you have met Riley yet. Describe her for me."
I nodded with wide eyes. Hopefully this would get us back on track. Put the unapproved harem talk behind us. Or somewhere safely in the future. "Riley is quiet and unselfish. A very giving person. Eager to help others."
"Physically," Jada clarified. "You might be right about her personality, but I wasn't with her that long. Describe what she looks like."
"Oh, she has black hair and a thin pale skinned body. And an angelic face with gorgeous blue eyes that transports you to the clouds."
"I'll be damned," Jada responded with wide eyes of her own. "That is her alright. So, do we have to go get her right away, or can we sleep here tonight first? I mean, is there a possibility that waiting another day will ruin this reunion of ours?"
"I don't know for sure," I answered. "Things are happening much differently this time around. And faster, too. But it seems like I am meant to get back together with all of you. If it is meant to be then it will be, whether or not race forward."
"Then I vote for tomorrow," Alexa said. Most of the jealousy had faded from her expression, but there was still an edge to her voice. "Are we voting? Or do we let Mason tell us what to do?"
"He's not telling me what do," Jada replied with a bit of attitude. "Even if he were my man, which he ain't."
"I'm fine with tomorrow," I said. It seemed like this conversation was destined to go out-of-bounds. Or into the wrong team’s sports goal. I was like a frantic goalie facing an endless two attackers versus no defenders. My job was to keep the ball or puck in play and out of the goal. If felt like if I got scored on my career would be over.
Surely things would be better tomorrow, I thought.
Both Jada and Alexa slept behind the counter, but I had to sleep directly on the sales floor with no padding. I barely had enough blankets back there to be acceptable for them. I slowly fell asleep listening to the two of them talking about how they would much prefer to take over an abandoned house instead of living in this store. I tried to figure out how much I should actually tell them about how things went before. How we did indeed move into a house. When the military started taking over New Hampshire Avenue.
The military! I almost forgot. Would they be rolling in soon? Everything was happening so fast. I finally decided to just handle things as they came to me the next day. At least I was getting my friends back, even if they weren't quite the same as before. They were still a joy to be with and to look at, as long as I didn't let them catch me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
I found the absence of other people and animals in the neighborhood extremely disturbing. It shouldn't be like that. Even if the series of events that ended the world that we knew were somehow different in this timeline, we all survived. The chances that only people that I knew made it through a worldwide catastrophe seemed infinitesimally small. Ridiculously so. But where were the other people? And the animals? I hadn’t even seen a bug since I had arrived here. With all the garbage there should be a shitload of flies.
And why was there so much garbage? I mean, it looked pretty much like it did in my original reality. But that should only be the case if there were people and animals creating the mess. Those questions would have to remain unanswered until after I did what I could to recollect my women.
I had assumed that Riley would be hiding out in the same home as when I first met her. That infamous day that she knocked me out with a baseball bat. I remembered that house being southwest, at least a mile away from the store, and very close to the river. But Jada led us due west, back the way I had come the night before.
"How far away is Riley?" I asked. I found it best not to reveal everything that I knew about the other women. It was often making them uncomfortable. Also, certain assumptions didn't turn out to be true anymore. So, I tested my knowledge with questions instead. It was best that they thought I knew completely what I was talking about.
"She's close," the thirty something hottie replied as she led the way. Her full round buttock was an easy beacon to follow. Her saunter was not as prominent as I remembered, but she maintained a certain natural sexiness to her walk. Her strong tapered legs were hidden beneath her sweatpants, though.
"Really?" I asked, caught off guard by her reply. We shouldn’t be close at all.
"Yeah, I left her over here on this street. Norcross Way."
"Wait," I said as I stopped walking. "I was just here last night. Did you follow me back to my place?"
Jada turned and placed her hands on her hips. "No, I did not. Are you suggesting that I am lying to you?"
"No," I retreated, confused but trying not to show it.
"Better don't," she followed up. "Riley should be in that house up there on the right. The one with the stone fireplace."
I was shocked. It was the same exact house that I woke up in last night, after Mister Skull sent me through a time loop. The same house where I had gone looking for a Twinkie or something like it a long time ago. The same damn house that I had come from before Alexa and Jada walked back into my life. I was getting very suspicious, like maybe this whole thing was a big joke on me.
"Is this some kind of trick?" I asked.
Jada was about to give me some more attitude, but Alexa waved her off. So, she gave a little roll of her head and eyes toward my gorgeous blonde companion instead.
"What is going on, Mason?" Alexa asked. "Why would you think that this is a trick?"
"It ain't no trick, I told you," Jada mumbled.
I pointed at the house as I moved toward it. "I was just in that same house yesterday evening right before I came home! I met you immediately after that."
The three of us stood there dumbfounded. This new timeline was very confusing. I had been focusing on reuniting with my women and rebuilding the relationships that only I knew had existed. It took a lot of concentration to do. I just wanted to hug and joke around with them so much, among other things. But they were understandably resistant.
Once again, I related our situation to walking through an unused movie set. If these women were not toying with me, was there someone else messing around with all of us? Was it Mister Skull? Is this how his power worked? Celeste said that he would knock you into last week. Was that a literal time travel reference? Or was he just fucking with our brains to make it seem that way?
If that was the case, were all three of our brains connected in some dreamlike state? Or was I experiencing this all alone? Were Alexa and Jada real people or non-playable characters in my fucked up virtual reality game?
We debated on what might be happening to us. To me the possibilities were almost endless. Of course, their viewpoint was completely different than mine. But there was no doubt that something weird was happening. I didn't have Alexa's special sense to know when someone was lying. Nor did she either, apparently. Yet, it seemed to me like everyone was being honest with each other.
We finally decided that there could be no harm in returning to the house where Jada believed we would find Riley. She knocked on the screen door first, even called out Riley's name. If we were the only ones in this world there was no longer a reason to be quiet or cautious. Unfortunately, there was no answer.
"Maybe she's not here after all," Jada said throwing her hands upward like she was giving up on figuring things out.
"Should we search the house?" Alexa asked like it was a no brainer.
I had no idea. Riley shouldn't even be there. None of these women, formally my women, had ever stepped foot in this residence before. But Jada said that this is where Riley should be. So, of course, we needed to search the house.
"Be careful," I told them. "Last time, when we first met, she hit me in the head with a baseball bat."
"Really?" Jada laughed. Then mockingly added, "You couldn't deflect it?"
"No, I wasn't very good at my skill at that point. Also, she had a speed burst ability."
"Likely story," Alexa smirked. "Do you make up this special powers story for every time you get rejected or beat down by a woman?"
Jada laughed hard, bending over to place her hands on her knees. It briefly brought back the memory of the last conversation that I had with her. The one about anal sex. But instinctively I worried about how much noise we were making. If there was anyone in the house, they should know about us by now.
"Shouldn't I be able to sense if someone else is here?" Alexa asked. "I mean, in this other world where I had superpowers. How did you not know that she was about to hit you with a bat? Did we get separated or something?"
"No, actually," I replied as I continued to sneak down the hallway away from them. "Riley is immune to special powers like yours."
"Yeah, right," Alexa chuckled, shaking her head. "That's convenient for your story."
"I smell bullshit," Jada said. "If you didn't know so much about the two of us, I would completely dismiss this facade that you are erecting. I just can’t figure out why you would come up with such an absurd and unbelievable story if it weren’t true.”
I shook my head as I slowly opened a narrow door. It either had to go to a pantry since it was right beside the kitchen, or a powder room. Two pale skinny feet in sandals, with a pair of pink panties around their ankles, came into view to confirm the latter.
The woman screamed and shoved the door into my head, throwing me backwards. I hit the wall across the hall and slid down into a dazed squat. The confusion of my new life was simply exhausting me. Combined with the blow to the head I was prepared to remain in that position for a while.
"Damn it, Mason!" the woman screamed. It was Riley's voice. "I'm making a poop!"
Jada and Alexa came running to me, looking much more serious than just a moment ago. I wasn't severely injured so their concern over me quickly shifted to an interest in who was in the bathroom.
As the pain faded from my temple I was overwhelmed with questions inside my head. Did Riley just call me by name? How does she remember me when no one else does? Is it because of her immunity? If so, how did she keep her powers when no one else did? Or were we all going to develop ours soon? And why would any of that be the case if the ice never melted to release the deadly viruses that caused the mutations?
The questions didn't stop there, either. I asked myself, is the plumbing still working? Would she take a shit without the ability to flush it? Was Riley the kind of person that would just leave it there to stink up the house? That didn't sound like Riley to me, but everything was so different. Maybe she's real nasty this time around.
Did I even try the pipes since I arrived here? In this house or at the store? No. Why would I? Neither Jada nor Alexa used the plumbing at the store either. I didn't recall them needing to use the bathroom since we met, which is kind of weird. Alexa had to pee every thirty minutes in the other existence.
What the fuck is going on?
"Riley?" Jada asked through the closed door. "Is that you?"
It was indeed. The toilet flushed and a moment later we heard the sounds of a faucet followed by a bathroom spray. When the bathroom door eventually reopened Riley was standing there in a pretty pink lace dress, her underwear back where it belonged. A pair of headphones rested around her neck and a cell phone was clinched in her right hand. Was she listening to music when we called out for her? Was she here last night and I didn't even know it?
"I'm sorry, Mason," Riley said as she squatted down in front of me. Those pink panties came into view behind her feet, but my attention quickly went to those angelic eyes of hers as she spoke to me. "Are you hurt?"
"No..."
"How do you know Mason?" Jada asked her friend. I could see that she was starting to feel like me. Like all of this was a joke on her.
"We met last night," Riley replied. Then turning her attention back to me. "Where did you go?"
"Back to the store," I mumbled as my mind was reeling. Was that the right answer? I had no idea. I did go back to the store, but I had no recollection of meeting Riley in this house. Did we start a new alternate reality when we woke up this morning?
"What store?" Riley asked, tilting her head to the side like she used to do when asking a question. It was comforting to see the small familiar things when nothing else made any sense. "Did you buy the Twinkies that you were looking for here?"
Buy Twinkies in a store? Was she seriously asking me that? Stores hadn't been open for months. Had they? Oh my God! Could I have spent the night in a hotel instead on the fucking cold floor of a messy beer store? Used a shower? I hadn’t showered in months when I met these women before. I took a subtle sniff of my armpit to find it not all that offensive.
"I'm confused," I confessed. The statement was to
tally unnecessary. I was certain that my face was saying the same thing.
"Did the door knock your brain loose?" Riley asked with a thin smile, the kind I used to see on her lovely face every day.
"Maybe," I muttered, almost hoping that it was the case. "No, I don't think so. I've been very confused since I arrived here."
"From where?" Riley asked. "Where did you come from?"
"The store," Alexa reiterated impatiently. "The old beer and wine store."
"Oh," Riley perked up. "Did you buy us some wine?"
What the fuck? my brain was screaming!
I shut up. Nothing I had to say or ask was improving matters. There was no reason to try to figure things out when nothing was going to make any sense. I didn’t even want to try anymore.
When they guided me to the sofa in the living room, I gladly let them. The material on the furniture was bright white with a flower design. I wasn't sure if I noticed that before. There were no dirt smudges at all, which was very weird for anything in our post-apocalyptic world. Also, there did not appear to be an item out of place in the whole room. That was very much unlike the kitchen.
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