by Mia Archer
Not to mention I had no idea what we were going to do with her giving me eyes like that considering I was pretty sure there wasn’t a bedroom around here for us to disappear into, but if she had some ideas about a secret spot we could find where we were off on our own then I was all ears.
“So, um, what would you say to maybe joining me over in the arcade?” Jenny asked.
I looked over to the arcade. In my dream it was an arcade that looked a lot better than anything that’d been there when we first arrived tonight. Which meant the place was packed with people feeding quarters into the machines to feed their electronic addiction. Not the kind of place that seemed like a great location for a little bit of secret kissing, what I was hoping for, but then again I figured I could trust that Jenny knew what she was doing.
Besides, if the worst thing that happened was we got to spend some time on that awesome Simpson’s arcade that seemed to only manifest in old places like this then I figured that was an evening well spent!
So I smiled at Jenny. Took her hand and let her guide me over towards the exit near the arcade.
I wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but from the way she grinned I really hoped it wasn’t an evening of playing video games!
12
Heavy Petting
“Come over here,” Jenny said. “There’s this awesome new game I want to show you. Like it lets you climb in like you’re in the cockpit of a real fighter jet and everything!”
I smiled, but kept my thoughts to myself. The arcades I’d gone to in the city were full of stuff like that, but something told me the thing I was about to see was going to be a heck of a lot more primitive than any of the huge haptic rigs that were the thing in my day.
Where my day was both the future and the present considering this was all happening in my head, but whatever.
Sure enough we came to an arcade cabinet that was an enclosed thing. And there was no one in said enclosure. There were even curtains on either side for a bit of privacy, and that sent a delicious tingle running down my spine.
“Why isn’t anyone playing the thing if it’s supposed to be so awesome?” I asked.
Jenny pointed to bill collector on the side, but I didn’t know why that would be such a big deal. It was a dollar which seemed pretty cheap compared to the arcades I was used to.
“The thing costs a whole buck to play,” she said. “It took us forever to get people used to the idea of putting dollar bills in the thing, and once they realized how much it cost most people decided it wasn’t worth it when they can make their money go farther one quarter at a time.”
Again I tried very hard not to smile. If this was the world my imagination was serving up for me then it was pretty full of little details.
“Is that funny or something?” Jenny asked, looking at me with a touch of confusion. “I mean I guess it’s a little weird, but my mom is losing money on the thing which sucks. Even if it has been sort of repurposed since then, though she doesn’t make money on that new purpose.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Just thinking about something.”
I wasn’t about to explain to this sexy figment of my imagination that the video games from my time, a good twenty years or so in the future if I didn’t miss my guess, could easily eat up ten to twenty bucks at a time. And there were people who lined up for the privilege of paying that kind of money for what amounted to a few fleeting moments of fun.
It was sort of the geeky gamer equivalent of going to the strip club, I guess. A lot of money spent in a short amount of time for something that ultimately left you a little unsatisfied because it was never like the real thing. Not that I’d ever been to a strip club, but that’s what I imagined it felt like.
“Right,” she said. “Well do you want to see how much fun this thing can be?”
“Are we paying to play?” I asked, licking my lips and thinking about that other use she’d been talking about.
“Actually I was thinking of the other use,” she said with another grin and a blush that confirmed this wasn’t about playing video games. “I was going to show you the other fun thing we can do in there.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to keep my heart rate under control and doing a terrible job of it.
I took her hand and let her lead me into the thing. Jenny pulled the curtains shut like she’d done it plenty of times before.
Which had me wondering how many times she’d been in here with other girls. She hadn’t hesitated at all when she leaned in to lay a kiss on me, after all.
I shivered as she leaned in closer. This little cockpit was clearly designed for one person at a time, which meant that we were getting pretty up close and personal. Not that I minded.
The glow of a cartoonishly realistic jet moving over generic terrain fighting off bad guys played over and over, and the light reflected off of Jenny which made her look beautiful.
Don’t get me wrong. She looked beautiful no matter what. It’s just that the way she stared at me in that moment when I was pretty sure we were about to do some serious face sucking had her going right past eleven on a scale of ten.
“So what were you going to show me that’s so awesome in here?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Come a little closer and you’ll find out,” she said, smiling just a little, but also strangely hesitant all of a sudden. Like she hadn’t done this all that often after all.
So I took command. After all, I was the girl from the far future where this kind of thing wasn’t frowned on nearly as much as it was these days. It was time to show her how we did this in the future.
Even if I didn’t really have all that much experience with the whole sucking face thing. I’d kissed a couple of girls, and I’d liked it to quote a song that wasn’t going to be a hit for another couple of decades, but that was the extent of my experience.
Only when my lips brushed against Jenny it quickly became clear that the extent of my experience was going to get a hell of an upgrade there in that little arcade cabinet where I went on the ride of my life. A ride that went way beyond an arcade game that was a primitive early approximation of the kind of robotic drone war that would become the regular in another decade or so.
It was wonderful, and we very quickly lost track of time.
At least we lost track of time until someone came along and started banging on the side of the thing. There was the distinct sound of a dollar being fed into the side, and the game dinged in front of us and brought up a mission select screen.
Jenny pulled away and looked at me, her eyes wide.
“Shit,” she hissed. “Someone’s out there.”
“Who’s in there?” someone yelled. “I want to play this game, and I don’t need to see whatever the fuck you’re doing in there!”
“We need to go,” Jenny hissed. “My mom will be pissed if she finds me in here. She gets mad enough when she finds other people sucking face in here.”
“How do we get out of here?” I asked, smiling despite everything and moving to block her way out from the other direction.
I mean on the one hand yeah, it kind of sucked that there was someone out there on the other side of the curtain who was kicking us out, but we had been in here for awhile. Plus I got to make out with a totally hot chick which was always good for getting the blood pumping.
“What are you grinning about?” she asked.
“I’m grinning because that guy out there might be an asshole, but I got to make out with you,” I said.
She grinned and blushed. It was a cute blush.
“Come on,” she said.
She opened the curtain on the other side of the cabin and thankfully there wasn’t anyone waiting out there. The only thing to see our shame was an old Donkey Kong cabinet that looked like it still worked. Which was pretty amazing, but then again if I was in the early ‘90s then it’s not like the thing was all that old in this day and age even if it was positively ancient in the world I came from.
“Come on,�
� Jenny said. “We can go to the dance studio. They should be done with their classes by now.”
So I found myself being pulled through the arcade. We made it to the dance studio, and it was as empty in there as it’d been when I visited the place in my own time.
Also? There wasn’t a bitchy woman there ready to kick me out.
“Nice to know I’m not getting run out of the place,” I said.
“Who ran you out of here?” Jenny asked.
“Older woman. Kind of skinny. She was in some sort of aerobics that looked like something ancient from the ‘80s,” I said.
Jenny hit me with a weird look. It took me a moment to realize that of course she’d be hitting me with an odd look because the ‘80s weren’t all that ancient to her. I had to remember that I had to play along here and pretend I wasn’t a visitor from the far future.
“I mean she was wearing some sort of aerobics outfit,” I said.
“That’s okay,” Jenny said. “I never understood that fad either. Glad to see it’s on its way out though.”
I looked around the dance studio. Then out to the arcade. The problem with being in this place versus being out there in that arcade cabinet was anyone could look in from the arcade and see what we were doing.
It wasn’t the best make out spot, is what I was getting at.
Also, there was something that felt off about the place. There was an electric quality to the room. As though there was something weird that was about to happen here.
I thought of what’d happened earlier, and wondered if this was the place where the border between this fantasy and reality happened. If so then I was really sad I came back here, because this was the kind of fantasy life I wouldn’t mind being stuck in for the rest of my life.
Though I did have a thought for poor aunt Olivia being stuck all alone.
Jenny rolled a little closer. I tried to ignore that feeling something was about to happen, but it was getting more and more intense, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen.
Like we didn’t have much time.
13
Back to the… Y’know
“I really had fun tonight,” Jenny said, running her hand up and down my arm and sending little explosions running through me.
“I had fun too,” I said. “I think this is like the most fun I’ve had in like forever.”
It was true. It was the most fun I’d had in like forever. Sure it was a fantasy that was being put together on the fly by my mind so of course it was going to be the perfect night for me, but still.
Jenny surprised me by leaning in and kissing me. It wasn’t a long kiss. It didn’t have anything on some of the heavy petting we’d done in, say, the arcade cabinet.
Though there was something about this kiss that felt just as intense as all the intense making out we’d done. There was something passionate and just a little desperate about it. Like maybe she could sense there was something happening here that was about to pull us apart.
I didn’t want to go, but I something was tugging at me. I got the feeling it wouldn’t be good if Jenny was still in here when whatever was tugging at me finally got its way.
“Look, this has been fun,” I said. “But…”
Jenny surprised me again by leaning in and planting another kiss on me. I closed my eyes and went with it. Maybe we were in danger, but I was a teenager and making out took precedence over potentially time warping danger. So I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against me.
I didn’t care if people out in the arcade might see us sucking face. Fuck them. If something was happening here and I wasn’t going to have my beautiful ‘90s girl in my arms for much longer then I wanted to enjoy what little time I had left with her!
She pulled away and smiled. Giggled just a little. Blushed. She looked like she really wasn’t sure how to react to all of this.
I wasn’t sure either.
“This was fun,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you again?”
I smiled. It was a wistful smile, because I knew if I did come out of this strange whatever the hell it was then there was a good chance I wasn’t going to ever see her again.
Though after everything that’d happened here tonight I wouldn’t mind trying to get a head injury over and over again if it meant I could come back here and spend time with my sweet Jenny.
She turned and walked out into the arcade. I sighed. That strange electric feeling was still all around me. Something was happening. I figured it meant I was probably on the verge of waking up and finding myself in the back of an ambulance or something.
Something twisted around me. I couldn’t really explain it other than there was something that was off about the world, like things went double for just a moment, and everything went dark.
Yup. Definitely waking up from whatever concussion dream had taken hold. I blinked a couple of times and I was still in the dance studio, but it was dark again.
I took a step and stumbled. Of course. I was still wearing roller skates. Also? I was still standing which was a surprise. If I’d passed out in here because that concussion got to me I would’ve figured I’d be on the ground or something.
“What the hell is going on here?” I muttered.
I rolled over to the exit. Surprisingly I felt more at home on the skates now for all that my recent practice had been in that strange dream. I flipped the lights on. When I looked around the dance studio the place was covered in dust. Like no one had used it in ages.
I let out a wistful sigh as I looked around the place. My mind had put together what it figured this place would’ve looked like back in its heyday, and now here I was staring at the sad reality of now where no one had used it in forever.
“Here’s looking at you, Jenny,” I whispered, thinking about that last kiss.
It’d all felt so real. I guess this is what Dorothy felt like when she woke up and found out that the Tin Man and Scarecrow and Lion dude she’d been hanging around with hadn’t been real after all.
Though as far as I knew Dorothy hadn’t gotten busy with any of her friends in the magical land of Oz. I mean I’m sure there was some depraved corner of the Internet where someone got off on creating that exact scenario, but it wasn’t a corner of the Internet I wanted anything to do with.
I rolled through the arcade which looked sad compared to what I’d just seen. Half the machines had been beaten to hell and back by decades of teenagers who didn’t have an appreciation for the classics, and the other half had out of order signs on the front letting the world know that not only had they seen better days, but they were probably one step away from the landfill at this point.
I rolled over to the skating rink proper and let out another wistful sigh as I leaned against the wall. They were doing a couple’s skate again, but this time it was One Direction playing and not Whitesnake.
I also spotted Candace and Felicity out there. I smiled. It looked like they’d found a couple of gentlemen callers to pass the evening with. Good for them.
Though even that made me a little sad as I thought about the dream lover I’d found tonight. I guess at the end of the night I was going to have to dream alone though, to paraphrase the old song.
“Damn I wish you were real Jenny,” I said, glancing over to the skate rental where the older woman who’d probably been the inspiration for Jenny had been earlier.
She wasn’t there now, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t out there somewhere. Though I don’t know what I expected to happen there. It’s not like I could go and tell the lady that she’d been the inspiration for one hell of a teenage hottie version of herself from back in the ‘90s while I was having a sort of fever dream inspired by a concussion I might’ve gotten while I was doing a piss poor job of skating.
It sounded like couple’s skate was going to be going on for just a little while longer, so I decided I’d head over and try one of the arcade machines. Then I stopped as I saw one machine in particular that looked very familiar.
I shook my head. That thing shouldn’t have been there. It’s not like I’d spent all that much time glancing around the arcade to know it was there, and yet as I looked around the place there were a lot of machines that were the same as what I saw in that dream.
The picture of the past my mind painted was way more detailed than I should’ve been able to paint considering I hadn’t gotten a good look at the arcade earlier. It was impossible that my brain could’ve rendered this level of detail, right?
I sighed and shook my head. I had to have a closer look at the thing.
The curtain was a lot more ratty than I remembered. Then again if the game was brand new when I’d used it back in the ‘90s then that made sense. Especially if they hadn’t replaced the curtains in the years since. There was still a dollar feed on the side, but something told me people were a lot more chill about pumping dollars into a game now than they’d been back when this was shiny and new.
“Okay,” I told myself. “This is okay. You aren’t going crazy Liv. You must’ve just seen this thing on the outside and your brain filled in the blank spots. That’s all.”
I pulled the curtain aside. Stepped into it. It was just a touch awkward stepping into the thing because I had my skates on, and clearly this had been designed for people with shoes. Then again it was a little easier than climbing in with Jenny considering the thing was designed to only hold one person and it was just me by my lonesome.
I sat in there and looked around. My mouth hung open. Because everything in there was exactly the same as I remembered it even though I definitely hadn’t looked inside this arcade cabinet earlier.
