If I Could Turn Back Time

by Beth Harbison

  I flattened my palms on his abdomen and worked him, pleased at the way he responded to every stroke.

  “Babe.” He put his hand on mine and curled his fingers to hold me tight. “Get on the bed.”

  “Not yet.” I kept going, enjoying the power of controlling his desire. He couldn’t stop if he wanted to, and part of me wanted to just finish him off against his will. Why not? He’d be able to get it up in another ten minutes anyway.

  It had been so long since I’d felt quite so desirable.

  But this was my virginity we were talking about. I wanted to get it right this time. Originally, he’d tried to get me into the backseat tonight after dinner, but I was too scared. Not that I remembered that specifically, mind you; that’s just pretty much how all of our dates ended. It had originally taken me another two months after my eighteenth birthday to give in to him.

  Not this time. As long as I was here, I was going to enjoy every minute of this that I could.

  I stepped out of my shorts and pulled my tube top up over my head easily. It was nice to be able to take off anything easily; there was so much binding and securing these days. I don’t know if that came from age or garment technology, but I do know that I couldn’t simply slip out of my clothes like I used to. And I definitely couldn’t get away with putting my T-shirt on without a bra after Brendan and I were done, as the sagging today would be all too apparent, and the tightness then was as taut as could be.

  Brendan kicked his shoes off and reached down to pull his pants off over his feet. Normally he laid them across the back of my dressing table chair, so he’d be able to find them and put them on quickly in case of parental interruption, but he didn’t take the time for that tonight. In my current mind-set, I took that as another badge of honor.

  I lay back on the bed and pulled him onto me.

  Every woman knows that is one of her better angles, lying on her back with her skin smoothing back over her bone structure, but it is ten times better when the face in question is only eighteen. To say nothing of the body—stomach and hips without stretch marks; a neck that bears no resemblance to a turkey in any way, shape, or form; arms that are tight and strong but still look like pipe cleaners.… I couldn’t help but feel great about myself. I had confidence that was brand-new to me, as I had not had it at the time, and it took the cruelties of age to make these simple pleasures obvious.

  He eased onto me in a way I could tell was more practiced for him, as we were in his “now,” than for me. But I still yielded to him. Just as I always had.

  I was coming to find that my consciousness wasn’t purely the disembodied future mind to this body of the past, but a combination of my teenage thoughts and reactions and my older self’s thoughts and knowledge that came with experience.

  Honestly, it didn’t leave a lot of room for thought in my brain, since I was playing so many subconscious roles, but, in this moment with Brendan, I decided to let go of all thought and logic and anything like it. Because the truth was, I didn’t have any control over the situation anyway. I could have the most salient, logical thoughts anyone had had since Einstein, but I couldn’t do a thing to understand or change these strange circumstances I was living in.

  So instead I went with the flow.

  And I liked it.

  Actually, no, I relished it. I relished the feel of his body on mine, his mouth hungrily working mine, his cheek, smooth to my touch, save for a little bit of youthful stubble. No errant ear hairs, no stray nose hairs, no gray in the beard (or, god forbid, dyed beard!), just maleness in what must have been its purest and, in our basest history, most masculine form.

  So there was nothing wrong with this.

  Everything felt right about this.

  And I told myself that several times as he kissed me, then worked his hand under the waistband of my underwear and straight on down to the hot spot, where I was dying to feel him.

  He moved his hand down in a way I remembered as he went along. I remembered those fingers and the way it felt when he got what he was reaching for.

  It was good.

  Really good.

  I knew it wasn’t skill or experience as much as love. His love for me and—harder to define—my love for him. I don’t know that it was pure and meaningful love, in the The One sense. But it was the pure, untarnished affection between two people who hadn’t yet had time to go out in the world and figure out how hard it was to find love and, more, real self-acceptance over time.

  This was just uncomplicated. And that made it hot.

  I was responding to him on every level, attracted to him on multiple levels, feeling the physical sensation, yet much more turned on by the timbre of his voice or the little things he said that showed he knew who I was, knew, apparently, who I’d always be.

  This wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t exactly making love either, a term I’d always hated. But there was a subtle level of connection that I didn’t even remember ever having had with another person.

  Had I misunderstood its value because I never knew I’d already experienced it? Because nothing else had ever felt quite like this to me, regardless of all the other perks of subsequent relationships?

  I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. I may never know.

  But what I did know was that this was perfectly all right for me to do, because I’d already done it with no ill effects, and it was perfectly all right for me to explore it and feel it and dive straight into it.

  It’s hard to describe what it felt like to get a second chance at first love. But the main thing I can tell you is that it wasn’t dirty, like me hitting on a kid in a bar, and it wasn’t beautiful, like I’d found my way into my own personal heaven.

  It was raw. It was honest.

  It was cathartic.

  And on top of all of that, it was delicious. No wonder I’d spent such a huge percentage of my teenage days thinking about this guy: the chemistry was amazing. It would have been harder to ignore the thoughts than to just let them run in the background, like some slightly annoying sound track, and go ahead and muddle through school and classes and chores and regular home life despite them.

  But I remembered that I filled every spare moment I possibly could with him; I tapped my toes impatiently when he was at work, waiting for him to check out and come over; I saw him in the morning before school, in the afternoon when I got out of school, and on weekends in between his work shifts. And most of the time we were together, we were together like this; touching, kissing, exploring, even just hugging.

  I hadn’t had that with Jeffrey. I didn’t even have to think about that juxtaposition to realize it. Jeffrey had been handsome and interesting, if only because of his position with Deutsche Bank (perhaps more than for any in-depth conversations we’d had), and our sex had felt movie-worthy. Not porn, mind you, just two people with specific looks and specific proportions joining together in a sort of dance that would have looked pretty with hazy lighting and a soft-focus lens.

  No passion, I realized, feeling the light graze of Brendan’s teeth on my neck. No words said that could not leave the moment, yet could not leave my mind either, making me tremble later in memory. There had not even been the wet results, inside of me and spilling slightly beneath me, with Jeffrey. He always had a dry washcloth at the ready. With Jeffrey everything had been NASCAR-fast and whip-clean.

  No evidence.

  In a way that was lucky for me, because it gave me absolute clarity about the breakup. Wherever I was, past or present, in my mind I was very clearly at the end of yet another failed relationship, and I had no sadness or regret whatsoever about walking away.

  Here, in my eighteen-year-old self, I felt like I had nothing to lose. I was reclaiming a small feeling of confidence and optimism, thanks to the echoes of thoughts from long ago.

  Losing my virginity was painful, just as it had been the first time around. Another advantage of my strange vantage point, however, was that I knew and understood the mechanics of it; I knew the pain would stop soon
and I remembered the rewards that lay in store.

  I wanted to do this. I wanted to experience this again, consciously. I wanted to enjoy every lingering moment of it, because this time I had the chance to commit it to memory forever.

  So I did.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Dinner with Brendan and his parents was seriously weird. They were not much older than I really was, yet I still felt like such a child in their presence. I guess it’s true that you react to the way people treat you and, naturally, they treated me like an eighteen-year-old girl. Of course, why wouldn’t they? I was just an eighteen-year-old girl to them. Fresh-faced, a bit immature, optimistic, more than a little foolish (though I’d only add that in retrospect, and I know it wasn’t what they were thinking).

  And I slipped comfortably into that role.

  I’ve got to say, one thing that isn’t normally mentioned in the conversation about time travel, quantum metaphysics, psychosis, or whatever this was, is food. The Kona Kai Restaurant had been closed for years in real time—I think it went under shortly after this graduation/birthday dinner, in fact—but it was incredible to be sitting here, eating the pu pu platter again, leaning my back against the elaborate peacock chair.

  “So what do you see yourself doing in college?” Brendan’s father asked me.

  Easy question, right? I could literally recall everything I did in college. Well, except for those nights I couldn’t recall. Everyone has a few of those.

  “I’m going to study finance,” I said, though I realized this wasn’t a decision I had made by this point. Still, it was easy to recall and recite the blueprint. “And then do a year at the LSE before becoming a broker.”

  “LSE?” Suzanne, Brendan’s mother, echoed, then glanced at her husband. “Is that down in Louisiana?”

  “Oh, no, that’s LSU,” I said, “Louisiana State University. I’m going to the London School of Economics. LSE.” I could feel Brendan’s eyes on me and I knew this was not a decision I’d made or declared before our breakup. I glanced at him. “Mick Jagger went there.”

  Like that explained it. If Mick Jagger went there, I was obviously going to go. Even though, if forced to pick, I’d go Beatles over Rolling Stones any day.

  “I actually know that,” he said, his expression inscrutable. “Weirdly enough.”

  “You want to be a musician?” Suzanne asked. “I can see you fronting a band in town.”

  Brendan laughed. “Have you heard her sing?”

  I shot him a look, though he was right, and said, “I’m not very musically inclined.” I loved listening to the car radio—I was a total fanatic about finding my favorite songs and driving Brendan absolutely crazy by cranking them up—but I wasn’t exactly great at singing along. “I’m better with numbers than with notes.”

  “Sooo.” Mike, Brendan’s father, leaned back in his chair. “Where should I be investing right now?” He asked me that now and then, and I could never tell for sure if he was patronizing me or not. I always answered seriously, but there was no way for me to ever know if he followed any of my advice.

  “Well, you should always invest in companies and products you believe in,” I said, giving my usual disclaimer. Probably quaint coming from a kid, in retrospect, but it was how I began every consult with a new client. “Don’t invest in something just because you think it’s going to ‘take off’ because other people like it. When you invest in a product or company you yourself enjoy, you’re much more likely to hold on and have faith in its resurrection.”

  Everyone looked at me silently.

  “I mean, obviously, right?” I went on. I couldn’t tell why no one else was talking. Mike, at least, nodded and looked more interested than usual. Suzanne looked straight-up puzzled. And Brendan just looked like he always did: sort of bemused and besotted at the same time. He probably hadn’t really heard anything I said.

  “Good advice,” Brendan said, then picked up a chicken wing and gnawed on it thoughtfully. “Sound.”

  “But what are you thinking is a good investment right now?” Mike persisted, and suddenly I knew he was taking this more seriously than usual. Had they been having money troubles? I’d never noticed back then. If so, I don’t think they lasted long. Last I’d heard, the family was still living in the same house in the same neighborhood and Mike was still working for the same company.

  “Microsoft,” I told him. It was a sure thing. I couldn’t feel bad about recommending it.

  Mike furrowed his brow. “There are so many computer systems out now, how do you know which one is going to stick? It’s like Betamax versus VHS. Which one will win in the end? Why Microsoft instead of, say, Atari, or Commodore?”

  Atari or Commodore! They were so popular at one moment in time, but if he were to invest heavily in those companies, he would drown. “They all work on similar platforms,” I told him, though I had absolutely no idea what I was saying. I didn’t know squat about computer systems or programming; all I know is who ended up on top when all was said and done.

  “Then why that one?”

  “Because Microsoft has more versatility and room to grow.” I was floundering. My father had told me a long time ago to speak with confidence even if I had none, and people would believe me. I was giving that my very best attempt right now. “Trust me, that is the direction that businesses all over the world are going.” And that much, I knew, was true. “My dad told me that,” I added, since he’d take me more seriously if I’d heard it from a grown man.

  “You and your dad have really been working on the old portfolios, huh?” Brendan took my hand in his. “Pretty impressive.”

  I felt my face grow warm, though he’d given me the perfect excuse. “You know Dad.”

  “He’s really into this stuff.” Brendan looked at his own father earnestly. “He really does know what he’s talking about. You should take it seriously.”

  “I will, I will,” Mike agreed. He looked thoughtful. “Thanks for the advice, Ramie.”

  Our waiter came over with our entrées and set them down in front of us, and we were, mercifully, allowed to stop talking for a bit while the sweet scents of coconut and chicken and grilled pineapple filled the air between us.

  Still, this whole experience was just too weird. People were looking at me in a way that I’d never even noticed, and therefore that I’d never noticed had stopped. I felt as self-conscious as if I were wearing a rubber Reagan mask. How could anyone be fooled into thinking I was really eighteen when it seemed so obvious, to me, that I was a fraud?

  The answer was obvious, of course. How could they believe anything but? That was the part that sounded so patently unbelievable.

  I was still having trouble believing it myself.

  We made it through dinner with small talk, and I tried to let everyone else lead so I could just follow lightly and not say too much or have my behavior stand out as odd. Every word I said sounded self-conscious to my ear, but listening to these voices I’d once thought I knew by heart was like a whole new experience for me.

  It was really nice. That’s the part I haven’t really pointed out yet. We were in a great restaurant with great atmosphere, and everyone around us was dressed like they were auditioning for a bit part in Magnum, P.I. The only worry I had, apart from the small matter of what had happened to the whole rest of my life, was whether or not I’d get home in time for my curfew. I had two days of school left, which would probably be pretty cool to revisit, and then, if I was still here, I was going to be a jobless, responsibility-free teenager in summer.

  This wasn’t really that bad.

  We plowed our way through dinner, and then, because it was my birthday tomorrow, Suzanne had asked the waiter to do something special, so he brought over a sliced pineapple and a bowl of dipping caramel, and presented it to me while he and the rest of the servers sang “Happy Birthday.” I always hated that, by the way. Still hate it. Hate being the center of attention like that. It’s so embarrassing.

  However, it’s a litt
le less embarrassing when you’re getting your eighteenth birthday celebration. Particularly when you’re thirty-eight and getting your second eighteenth birthday celebration. Basically I got to sit there and know I looked super-young for my age.

  So it ended up being pretty fun, and I was growing more and more at ease with my youthful self-identity until the check came. That’s when years of reflex took over.

  “I’ll get that,” I said, putting my hand over the little book with the gilded palm trees on the outside.

  Mike had reached for it at the same time, and withdrew his hand when it touched mine, as if he’d touched a snake.

  “What are you doing?” Brendan whispered urgently. “Stop it. Come on.” It looked like I was making a joke of their generosity, I guess. As soon as I realized my mistake, I took my hand off the check and put it, shamefully, in my lap.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It was just such a wonderful dinner, I didn’t want you to have to…” I searched for an explanation, but nothing came to me. “I didn’t want you to have to pay for my portion.”

  “Ramie, we asked you to come and celebrate your birthday and graduation!” Suzanne said, and it was clear that she didn’t think anything more of my gesture than that. The self-conscious action of a girl. It was obnoxious of me, but at least it wasn’t revealing of anything. “We are delighted to be able to treat you. I can’t imagine why you’d think we expected you to pay.”

  I’d really insulted them. I’d taken an ordinary situation that would have been—and once was—completely forgotten, and made it into something hideously awkward for all of us.

  Further explanations were only going to go badly so I gave up. “I just really, really appreciate all you do for me,” I said honestly.

  “We are happy to have you!” Suzanne cried.

  “This celebration was for you,” Mike added. “You and Brendan. What a milestone, getting out of high school.”

  That returned the point where it needed to go. This happened to be my birthday, but soon Brendan and I would graduate, and that was a big deal at this time.