Remembered (Erotic Romance) (Bound By Time)

by Jade, Victoria

  That's when I realized I was alone on my chaise, with one hand down the front of my jeans and one arm thrown over the back of the chaise.

  With a wry shake of my head, I got up and headed for the shower.

  Past Perfect

  The postcard from Mac arrived several days later. I was so busy trying to get a last minute job finished, that I almost forgot about our phone conversation.

  The odd thing about the postcard was that it was inside an envelope so I had to open it before I could actually see it. It seemed to me like overkill, but I was used to that sort of meticulousness from Mac. He was nitpicky without being anal. I liked that about him as I was sort of the same way, but to a lesser degree.

  When I ran out to my mailbox to retrieve it, I didn't open it right away because I still had to finish up a resource-intensive article, and if I stopped now to look at Mac's postcard, I was sure it would prove to be too potent a distraction.

  I put the envelope to the side and finished my assignment. Once I hit send, I sat down with a soda and Mac's envelope.

  From the second I pulled the postcard out of the envelope, all I could do was stare at it. And it wasn't because of his trademark elegant, spidery penmanship at the corner. He'd inscribed only one word there: Us.

  I leaned back and stared at the picture. I couldn't be seeing what I was seeing, yet I was.

  It was a photo of me at my current age -- the picture could have been taken yesterday. That's how up to date it was. I mean it was so current that I was wearing the jeans I'd been wearing a few days ago.

  When Mac called.

  I frowned. Odd coincidence. I quickly grabbed the envelope and looked at the postmark. It had been mailed more than a week ago. From Conwy.

  Next to me in the photo postcard was Mac. As I gave it a closer look, it appeared as though the photo had been taken years ago and the angle suggested that Mac took the picture himself from an arm's length away.

  Mac was younger than he was now by at least a decade or two. I've never seen him in person, yet I was certain it was Mac. I was also positive the female in the photo was me. Or my Doppelganger.

  It didn't seem like something Mac would do, but maybe he'd had a trick photo created to get a chuckle out of me. Still, wouldn't he have put us together at our current ages?

  About the only thing I was sure of was the scenery behind the couple on the postcard. It looked like the countryside near Conwy. I'd done enough research on the area after I first talked to Mac, that I was reasonably sure it was the Conwy Suspension Bridge in the distant background.

  That in itself was strange, as he'd already sent me postcards of all the great and unique bridges in Wales, including the Conwy Suspension Bridge. There had to be something I was missing. But what?

  Unable to glean anything else from the front of the photo, I turned it over. When I did, I was confounded even further.

  It read:

  Remember.

  love, Mac

  Mac was a wordsmith, though he wasn't a man who used words for filler. He said what he needed to say. No more, no less. Still, the abruptness of his message, front and back of the card, was a bit alarming. Maybe Mac's son was getting to him, and he was beginning to unravel from the stress.

  I analyzed the words. First off, I knew Mac wrote it because of the small letter in the word love. He must have sensed my American reserve when we initially began corresponding. He'd write love, Mac, in closing, but I wouldn't respond in kind because it would have felt a bit like I was leading him on if I used the word love, too. So I had just signed off with Penny.

  After a half dozen missives, he assured me that using the word love with a small letter l was a general way to say farewell. He assured me that he wasn't flirting with me, so I started doing the same as we became better acquainted.

  However, not long after I began finishing my notes to him with love, Penny, I began to feel like I should capitalize the l. The bond between us was much stronger than boss and employee. Even stronger than lifelong friends.

  But then I wondered if I did use the word Love, would he rebuff me? Maybe Mac's charming words to me were just that -- charming words. If his feelings for me weren't growing as mine were for him, I'd be devastated.

  I didn't care about losing work. I just didn't want to lose a friend I was beginning to feel more than comfortable with, despite the thousands of miles that separated us.

  Because the message was so brief, I picked up the envelope to look for more clues, not that I expected any. Then I found a light pencil inscription beneath the stamp that said very succinctly:

  Beneath Stamp

  The words "Beneath Stamp" were written directly under the stamp he'd used to post the letter/postcard to me. Was he trying to be clever?

  I opened the envelope and looked inside. Behind the stamp, I saw the faint stain of ink that had bled through. It looked as though he had written something behind the stamp!

  Placing the envelope on my desk, I turned on my lamp, leaned in, and carefully used my fingernail to begin peeling the stamp off the envelope. The envelope itself had the familiar "BY AIR MAIL par avion Royal Mail" stamped on it, but this particular piece of post had a Jubilee stamp on it that I told him I thought was really cool.

  I smiled at his thoughtfulness and began carefully removing the stamp. First off, I'm not a stamp collector. At least not a true stamp collector. I only hang on to those that remind me of something that interests me. Like wolfhounds, or the Jubilee, or the Olympics, or pretty flora or fauna from a distant land. I'd be irritated if one of my favorite stamps disappeared. Not devastated.

  Even so, I was quite happy to see the Jubilee stamp. Following Mac's instructions to remove the stamp along its bottom edge, it came up much easier than I thought it would.

  I was so pleased that he'd gone out of his way to send me the Jubilee stamp, that I temporarily forgot about the odd postcard ... until I got the stamp all the way off and saw his tiny little message in impossibly small spidery handwriting. It read:

  Contents of next envelope will reunite.

  Jeez, Louise! A cryptic message could be mysterious and even sexy. Mac's cryptic message, however, was frustrating and confusing.

  About the only thing I did know for sure what that he was most likely sending another envelope. He probably sent two so I'd have another version of the Jubilee stamp.

  That made me smile, so I gave the postcard and the woman that looked just like me and a man that looked just like Mac, except way younger, another good look, then put everything back in the envelope.

  A sudden flash -- so vivid it was almost like a memory -- of the river near Conwy, hit me like a freight train. I saw the trees, the tall rods of flowers, and a young Mac looking at me with a teasing smile.

  I shook my head and grinned to myself at my odd flight of fancy, though I did decide then and there, to take on extra writing in order to pay for a ticket to Wales.

  There was nothing more in this world that I wanted at this point in time than to see Mac in person.

  Pieces of a Puzzle

  Two 2,000 word articles later, I made myself a sandwich and did a load of laundry. Just another day, right? It would have been, except for a blouse I just bought at a discount boutique. It was new and I had room in the washer, so I thought I'd wash it.

  But when I pulled the blouse out of the delicates bag, I was shocked to see that it had a V of fabric torn out of it. Like it had gotten hooked on something. The bag was intact, so how on earth could the shirt have gotten torn?

  I went through the rest of the load of laundry looking for any more laundry mishaps, but everything else was in one piece. Odd. Odder still: Where did the V of material go? It was about 4 inches long and two inches long at the base, tapering to a quarter inch at the top, yet it was nowhere to be found.

  I tossed everything in the dryer on the delicate cycle and tidied up a bit. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the torn blouse in the condition it was in, but I wasn't about to toss it. Fruga
l was my middle name.

  Once I finished all the writing I planned to do for the day, I decided on a walk to clear my head. There were lots of old Native American trails in the area that were beyond beautiful. To top it off, they were safe and provided the natural solitude I had come to enjoy since moving out West.

  On the way to my bathroom to take a shower, I stopped near my desk. The sight of Mac's postcard, propped up against the base of my lamp, caught my attention. When I was writing, I'd almost put it out of my mind. But now something compelled me to take a closer look.

  The pair still looked eerily like me and Mac when he was 30 years old. If Mac was trying to make some sort of statement, I still wasn't sure what it was.

  I sighed. All I knew was that Mac was a handsome man at any age, a man any woman would be proud to know. At the thought, I felt warmth spread throughout my body as I remembered my "encounter" with him on the chaise.

  I looked at the word Remember that he'd written on the postcard.

  No chance of forgetting last night, I thought with grin.

  A sudden bolt of heat lightning streaked across the sky outside my house. Any other time of year it would have been strange, but it was summer, and a pretty ordinary occurrence. I guessed I wouldn't be taking a walk after all. The sound of a thunderclap followed a couple of seconds later.

  Another horizontal bolt of lightning split up and shot across the sky like a ball of fireworks. I'd never seen a bolt of lightning do anything so strange. A chill ran down my spine.

  This time no sound of thunder followed the lightshow. The sky went calm. Deciding against a walk, I impulsively kissed Mac's face on the postcard and replaced it against the base of the lamp.

  Sleep was a long time coming that night. And when I did finally dream, I spent all night trying to reach Mac's hand from across the ocean.

  Present Perfect

  The mail came as I was on my way out the door to drive to a trail outside of town. As I passed the mailbox, I grabbed the several envelopes inside it, tossed them on the seat of my car and headed away from Sioux Falls.

  Located on the northwest side of town, the trail was a winding, sandy path carved into a rocky hillside. I wore a tank top underneath the shirt that had a tear in it. I figured the blouse, even though it was ripped, was good enough for hiking. No one but me would probably see it anyway. And if someone did, they would assume I'd torn it on the trail.

  Once I parked my car, I shoved the envelopes inside my backpack. I'd go through my mail when I stopped for a rest, midway up the hill.

  When I say rest, I actually mean taking a moment to take in the beauty of the area. While I rarely needed to catch my breath -- I was in good physical shape -- I did like to listen to the sounds of nature and try to locate the source.

  I wasn't a tree hugger, but I truly was happiest when I was in the open air, smelling, seeing, and hearing nature.

  When I reached the summit of trail, with an incredible panoramic view, I hydrated with a bottle of water I'd brought along, then pulled out the three envelopes I'd received in the mail.

  One was an electric bill, one was actually a flyer for a dollar store, and the final envelope was an odd-shaped plain envelope with the familiar blue air mail logo on it. Oddly, this envelope didn't bear a fancy Jubilee stamp. It had only one ordinary "queen" stamp on it.

  Even so, my heart skipped a beat because I knew it was from Mac. And this envelope, though light, felt like it had another envelope inside.

  After I opened the outer envelope, I carefully opened the taped flap of the inside envelope. Whatever was inside, Mac wasn't taking any chances of it falling out.

  Inside was small clear sandwich bag with something folded inside.

  I nearly dropped it when I realized that the "something" was a piece of cloth that looked nearly identical to the material of the blouse I was wearing.

  My fingers started shaking so hard I could barely hold the envelope. If I hadn't been leaning against a boulder, I was certain I would have collapsed.

  I looked more closely at the cloth. It still looked like it was the same material as my torn shirt, but the material Mac sent looked aged somehow. Almost faded.

  It didn't make sense. Why would Mac send me such a thing?

  Weirder still was my reaction. I was almost afraid to touch the bit of cloth with my fingers, so I handled the bag instead, looking at it from every angle, but never making contact with the material.

  My heart constricted painfully. What was going on? Had Mac hired someone to watch me? Even if someone had seen me purchase the blouse, there wouldn't have been time to send a piece of it to Wales and back again in the time since I'd brought it home.

  I licked my lips and nervously looked all around me. Though I hadn't passed any hikers on the way up, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath and calm down. Here I was, my imagination beginning to get the better of me -- and I dealt with only facts for most of my waking hours.

  Must be the Native American spirits that watched over the area, I reasoned, and managed a shaky chuckle.

  Feeling a little silly about my overactive imagination, I peeled back the stamp to see if there was another cryptic message behind it, but there was none. No message of any kind anywhere. There was only my name and address and Mac's name and return address.

  I'm guessing the cloth had to have some meaning to Mac, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it could be. Because it was so odd, I wondered once again if Mac was beginning to crack under the pressure of what his son was putting him through.

  "What are you trying to tell me, Mac?" I asked out loud.

  Of course there was no answer. I'd have to wait until I got home to either send him an email or call him. To soften things, I'd just tell him I wasn't clever enough to figure out his mysterious envelopes.

  Mac would chuckle and there'd be no hard feelings. The mystery would be solved.

  Despite deciding on a course of action, I still couldn't quite bring myself to open the little plastic bag, so I slipped it into my pocket instead. Once I slung my backpack over my shoulder, I began my descent.

  Within a few seconds, a pervasive warmth suffused me -- especially my heart and the lower half of my body. Unsure why, I immediately looked at my shirt. Nothing had changed, yet an odd feeling made my heart speed up.

  I've read that you should heed those odd feelings because they almost always signal that something isn't right, or is about to go wrong. Instantly I was on edge, but what good did it do? There was nothing but me and Mother Nature on a very safe trail. A moment later, I had my answer.

  Lightning began streaking through the sky, close enough to cause me concern. It didn't make sense. But at least I didn't hear thunder, so the lightning was probably miles and miles away. I had plenty of time to reach my car before a storm would hit.

  Taking one last look at the panoramic beauty of the area, I hurried back toward my car. I hadn't gone more than a tenth of a mile when I was overcome by a feeling I'd never had before. Tears began running down my cheeks.

  What on earth was going on? The only other time in my life where I had such an inexplicable urge to weep was when I was in my senior year of high school and I was on vacation in Ireland with my parents. We were in a church that was 900 years old.

  As I listened to the church's history, I was overcome by such a strong feeling, it felt as if someone was crushing my chest. I could scarcely breathe and tears began running down my cheeks.

  I saw flashes of things that seemed so real that it felt like I was experiencing them -- or had experienced them -- long, long ago. I saw a man watching my reaction from the back of the group, but then he was gone. I never forgot his face. He was lean, and looked like a Native American, though I supposed he was more likely from India or perhaps even Asia.

  For a long time after my emotion-filled experience inside the famous church's walls, I wondered what had really happened that day. Had my imagination simply
gotten the better of me? Or had I experienced a vision of the past that I had been a part of?

  It made me wonder about the reality of past lives. When our bodies die physically, do our souls take on another body? If so, is our new life similar to, or very different than, our previous one? Do our values stay the same? Do we seek the same things we sought in our former life?

  Eventually I stopped obsessing over trying to find the answers to my questions, mainly because I didn't think they had answers.

  So when I reached in my pocket for my handkerchief, I guess I still must have been a bit muddled because I blindly pulled out the sandwich bag which now was open. As I touched it, my fingers made contact with the bit of cloth that Mac sent in the envelope.

  My feet suddenly felt made of lead. I stopped in my tracks and was instantly assailed by the oppressive feeling that had me in its clutches so many years earlier in Ireland.

  The sandwich bag stayed in my pocket, but the cloth was now open in my hands as a long triangle. As I suspected and dreaded, it was the same size as the piece missing from my blouse -- though it was faded and perhaps a bit thinner, as if it had aged.

  Lightning sizzled across the sky. A gust of wind came up from the side of the bluff and ruffled my shirt, though I was only aware of the wind and lightning as nuisances. I couldn't seem to tear my gaze from the cloth.

  As tears continued to fall for a reason I was unable to fathom, I placed my hand on my shirt. The piece of fabric I had in my hand began to pull away from me as if trying to become one with its bigger piece.

  "Mac!" I cried as a bolt of lightning scorched the air in front of me, blinding me. I don't know why I called for him and not my mom or dad. All I knew in that instant, was that Mac was the reason this moment was happening.

  Before I Was Born

  I'm not sure how long darkness kept me in its embrace. I only know it had to be a long time because it was nearing sunset when I opened my eyes. At the same time, I heard someone speaking to me in a language I was unfamiliar with, though syllables of it sounded lyrical and pleasant in my ears.