Outcasts

by Nick Wisseman

He did, focusing on her eyes and how like Laura Dangles she looked from this angle.

  And then he was inside her…

  …and then he was inside Laura.

  On her basement couch. Surrounded by her awful ‘70’s style wallpaper, lava-lamp, and shag-carpet that reeked of dog.

  Jesus.

  Christ.

  Almighty.

  Claudia was gone, Laura was here, and he was sixteen.

  This wasn’t a flashback: he was back. But that was impossible, he—

  He was going too fast. As disoriented and disconcerted as he was, Jim could tell. He hadn’t known then—now?—but later experiences with other girls had made him realize how badly he’d botched this first time. Laura never told him…but now that he actually looked, her blue eyes were clearly trying to.

  Latching on to the one thing that made sense, Jim eased up…and felt Laura relax in response. He took the time to touch her, caress her back and her sides…then resumed, slower and more sensually. She seemed like she was enjoying it now. And he was starting to as well, losing himself in a bad memory turning good…

  Within a few minutes, he was close to finishing, but he didn’t want to pull out. This would be the one thing he didn’t fix. Nothing had come of it anyway. He’d always wanted to breathe her name, though, just as he came: “Rachel…”

  Jim knew the name was wrong even as it left his lips, the name of a girl he hadn’t known existed when he was sixteen. But when he opened his mouth to apologize, he was forming the words to Claudia…

  …Jim pulled into his garage and killed the engine, vaguely aware that his bare feet were speckled with grit from working the pedals so hard. But instead of standing up and getting out of the car, he stared at the cluttered shelf his front fender was all but touching; Claudia’s “Good, wasn’t it?”—her only comment as he’d readjusted to the present—was still ringing through his ears.

  That flashback hadn’t just been his imagination: the scene had been too vivid, too clear. Nothing like the projections he’d long been guilty of with Rachel, his wife of ten years. He didn’t do drugs, hadn’t touched them since college…So what the hell had just happened? He was a little less terrified now that he was safely home, but his limbs were still heavy, his head light, his heart racing.

  And yet…part of him was starting to feel rejuvenated. The part that refused to think rationally and was now strangely eager to see Rachel.

  Moving as if he’d just awakened from a coma, Jim tentatively reached into the backseat and found his gym bag. His running shoes were still moist with sweat…But if he didn’t put them back on, he couldn’t pretend nothing had happened.

  Rachel had been away on business for the weekend. They’d talked twice on the phone, but it had been as formulaic as everything else these days: their vacations, their dinners, their sex. But now…Now he was more excited than he’d been in a long, long time.

  Finally opening the car door, Jim hurried to unload his briefcase and the doggy-bag from lunch. Rachel should have been home for a few hours now, maybe bored and looking for something to do…

  Maybe willing to help him work out the images of those other women.

  Practically bursting through the door into the kitchen, he started to announce his presence like he hadn’t for years: “Honey, I’m—”

  Her hair (red instead of brown) and skirt (instead of khakis) cut his words and motion short. Rachel was standing at the island with her back to him, a knife in one hand and a green pepper in the other. “Home?” she finished for him.

  “Yeah…I like your hair.”

  She turned towards him, the blade and vegetable still in her hands. “What about it?” She sounded…not angry, but definitely exasperated. And tired.

  “Sorry, should have started by asking about your trip.” He was extremely confused now, even more so than he’d been in the car. But he tried not to show it, setting his things on the island and moving to embrace her.

  Rachel didn’t resist, but she didn’t return the hug either.

  Disturbed but determined, he ran one hand through her hair while the other crept towards her breast. “I didn’t mean to be rude—and your hair looks great—but it’s…different, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the same as it’s always been since I’ve dated you, dear. Since you told me how much you like red-heads.” It was hard to tell whether Rachel was playing a game or not; her voice was that flat.

  “I did?” Jim began caressing her nipple through her shirt, sure at least (about this, if nothing else) that he loved when she went braless.

  Today’s lack of lingerie was apparently about comfort and not seduction, however: with a perfunctory “Not now, Jim,” Rachel moved away and resumed chopping. “Dinner’s in half an hour.”

  Even though he didn’t want to take the dismissal for what it clearly was, he acquiesced after watching how much more interested she was in the pepper. What made Jim actually leave the kitchen, though, was the realization that, with the skirt and hair, Rachel looked vaguely like an older Claudia.

  * * *

  She wasn’t on the same corner as the day before.

  Part of him was glad—the part that had managed to resurrect the guilt he once felt for adultery—but most of him felt disappointed.

  And desperate.

  Not for Claudia, though. Or at least, not for her body; he only wanted the experience being between her legs had somehow provided, the impossible experience of flashing back to a better memory. A memory where relationships were exciting, sex was good, and life wasn’t a bunch of tedium and routine yet…

  Jim turned left when the light changed, crossing over from the right lane to do so. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt correct. The whore wasn’t on this street either, though.

  And that flashback…that flashback had happened. He could still see every detail, feel every point of contact. Memories weren’t that vivid; this had been reality. A reliving that didn’t make any sense, that he couldn’t explain or share with anyone else…So why not sidestep the search for answers he’d never find and concentrate on doing it again? On repeating the past, a past more pleasant than the—

  But it hadn’t been a total repeat.

  Jim slammed on the brakes, maintaining just enough control to pull into an empty parking space as the car behind him honked furiously.

  He’d slowed down for Laura. Because he knew, from hindsight, that he’d been going too fast. That she was hurting, but because it was her first time too, she hadn’t wanted to say anything.

  He’d made a change…and then come home to Rachel’s Claudia-style hair? What kind of dumbass, twilight zone-logic was that?

  Jim ran his hands threw his own hair, noting absently that it needed a wash. Nothing else had changed, right? Or not that he knew of…So what was the connection? There had to be one, but how—

  Claudia walked by on the sidewalk, the sway of her impossibly short skirt demanding attention.

  * * *

  Rachel looked up at him hopefully, the quiver in her eyes asking for reassurance. Jim groaned appreciatively in response, marveling at how instantaneously the transition had taken place: just like that, he was with his wife and not the whore, in the first bedroom he and Rachel had lived in together.

  It was the view of Syracuse from the sixth-floor window that had cinched it: this was somewhere during the period when he was getting his masters and she her MBA. The time he’d idealized as their happiest together.

  Probably because their sex had been great. Memory hadn’t exaggerated that, at least.

  This particular session was so good, in fact, that he began to forget how Claudia had been able to forestall all his questions with a kiss and a tug at his belt-buckle. But…

  “Rachel?”

  She looked up at him again, slowing but not stopping.

  “Can…can I kiss you?”

  Rachel paused for a second, withdrew her mouth, and stood up.

  Annoyed by his timidity, Jim did his best to French her pass
ionately. It took a moment, but soon enough she returned the kiss just as forcefully.

  Closing his eyes, he let his hands navigate her body—her younger body—from memory. Slower was better. It would last longer, maybe even give him time to sort some of this out…

  But then she started sinking again, floating back down to waist level. Somehow he’d forgotten how much she (and he) used to enjoy oral sex.

  If he was right, though, he needed to last. Needed to stop her again so he could investigate. But Rachel seemed determined to finish what she’d started, and if he deflected her again…he might change something else.

  And it felt too good. This, right now, made sense, even if nothing else did.

  Which meant he was weak. He’d known that for a while, though. Letting himself be sent back sooner than intended was just more proof.

  * * *

  Jim slammed the living room door in frustration.

  Three loveless weeks since he’d returned. Three weeks with cold goodnight kisses and little else. Either Rachel had guessed part of the truth…or he’d changed something again. Maybe both, but like everything else right now, it was impossible to tell.

  Stalking to the kitchen, he grabbed a beer out of the fridge and took it down the back steps and out to the porch.

  At least he’d finally figured out the consequence of that first slip: Laura had apparently dumped him on the spot after he’d called her Rachel. Instead of a senior year romance with her, he’d ended up going to prom with Mary Anderson. They’d kept dating through freshman year of college, but fallen apart when the distance became too much. And then he’d met Rachel halfway through sophomore year—instead of at the beginning—and things had evolved pretty much as they did before.

  Except that he’d supposedly hinted that he wanted her to look like Claudia—the whore he’d yet to cheat with—and Rachel had dyed her hair ever since. Even more disturbingly, he had no memories of this. Or of any of the slightly altered history he now belonged to. Somehow, in some logic-defying way, he’d (at least for himself), erased both the old past and the new.

  But he and Rachel were still together. That fact, amidst all the uncertainty, had become Jim’s greatest comfort: they were meant for each other, a perfect match in multiple realities. Repeating this mantra to himself had made him love Rachel more than any time since…the Syracuse era he’d flashed back to. Even if almost a month’s drought of passion had him thinking of Claudia again, and how maybe another visit might help him really rekindle things with—

  “Who was she?”

  He spewed out the beer in his mouth, coating the potted tulips directly in front of the swing he’d been rocking in. His weak “What?” as he turned to face his wife only made his reaction feel even more conspicuous.

  Rachel was standing in the porch doorway in her pajamas, arms crossed under her breasts, eyes dry but cheeks wet. “I take it you know who I’m talking about.”

  “Honey—”

  “Don’t call me that.” Her voice was as swift and sharp as the switches his dad used to hit him with.

  Wincing inwardly, Jim corrected himself. “Rachel, I actually don’t know who you’re talking about, but—”

  “I smelled her on you…” Her voice broke, and she had to gulp twice to bring it back. “That night three weeks ago…You cheated on me. Don’t deny it, just tell me who she was.”

  Something compelled him to speak honestly, as perverse and unbelievable as he knew it would sound: “It was you.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. Then they narrowed. And then she slapped him. “I’m not joking around, you fucking bast—”

  “Neither am I!” he roared, swinging back with the force of three weeks of frustration.

  Jim felt her jaw break on impact. And from the sound of it, so did her neck when she fell onto the stairs behind her.

  * * *

  Get hard, god dammit. Hard enough to go back, go back and never leave…

  It had taken forty frantic minutes of driving to find Claudia. She’d looked tired, but seeing his expression, she’d nodded knowingly, not even protesting when he pulled into the nearby park instead of trying to find a hotel.

  Please…He had to get it up so he could get inside…But the sound Rachel’s jaw had made…Jesus, no, concentrate, God dammit. Focus on that good period seven years ago. The fun they’d had, the regular sex…Being in the car felt like high school…No! Concentrate: seven years ago, with Rachel. With RACHEL!

  For some reason, it was the flash of sirens reflecting off the front mirror that did the trick; just in time, he went back to his young wife.

  * * *

  Rachel was clearly frustrated. And understandably so (he could empathize from future experience); he’d rejected her advances three times in the last week, the most awkward being when they were already in the act…when he’d flashed back.

  But he couldn’t let himself finish, couldn’t let pleasure return him to…to before. Or after, or whatever the hell it was. He had to stay celibate…for both of them.

  Jim kicked off against the balcony railing, using it to rock the swing, the same swing they’d keep for years and eventually install on their first porch…This was madness. He had to figure this out, figure out what to do.

  It would be easier if Rachel didn’t already know something was wrong. Through the years, she’d told him he was tough to read, but she managed to divine most of his moods anyway. And it probably wasn’t that difficult to sense something was off right now: besides his unwillingness to have sex, he’d been skittish around her in general.

  It was too hard not to be, though, not when he kept hearing his fist hit her jaw and seeing her eyes as she fell…He’d also stayed home from his internship since he came back, barely putting any effort into maintaining the pretense of being sick. So what could he do without putting her on even higher alert?

  Jim kicked off from the balcony again. He’d intended to stay here, to relive the last ten years…even improve them. No affairs, no complaining at her father’s funeral, no bad financial decisions: a better decade. Rescripting the past to rewrite the future (or the present?).

  But he couldn’t go without sex for that long. Or anything close…And even if he could, he couldn’t expect Rachel not to get fed up and leave.

  He stopped rocking.

  That was it: he had to make her go, to leave him now so she could live later.

  It would have been such a noble gesture if he wasn’t doing it to save her from himself.

  Whatever. Rachel came home in two hours…He had two hours to figure out how.

  * * *

  “Who…who was she?” Minus a few crow’s feet, Rachel’s pained expression looked exactly the same.

  Jim couldn’t meet her gaze this time, though. Looking down at his feet instead, he focused on the darkened big toenail poking out of a tear in his left shoe. The basketball-induced bruise had been there when he’d flashed back, and he was suddenly struck by the memory of how ridiculously long it would take for the mark to go away. “Just a girl from the office. But it didn’t mean anything. I’m…I’m really sorry.”

  He could still see her face out of the corner of his eyes, and it defined betrayal. And hurt, and loss…This was the coward’s way, but he hadn’t thought he could stand anything that might drag out longer. He’d also considered just disappearing, but for some reason confessing to sins he had yet to commit was more appealing…in his head.

  “Who?” Rachel whispered, clearly fighting back sobs.

  He took a deep breath for effect. “Janet, in shipping.” It wasn’t really a lie. Or at least, it wouldn’t be in about a year. And Janet had probably already started dropping hints.

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed in familiar fashion, and right on cue, her arm raised and her hand advanced.

  Jim let the slap come without doing anything to stop it…and more importantly, without doing anything in response. Still as a statue, he watched Rachel turn, open the door into the hallway, and run toward the stairs.r />
  * * *

  He’d thought a lot about how he wanted to go back. To the point of obsessing about it: outlining different scenarios, creating different fantasies…Could Rachel be enticed into one more romp?

  But that would probably contradict a lot of what he’d set in motion. And it would be too much to expect whatever self replaced him to be any more faithful than the original version…It might be easier just to round things out and give in to Janet.

  Rachel hadn’t moved out yet, though. Or demanded he move out, or really talked to him at all since he’d admitted to an affair he’d yet to have. But the damage was probably done: like all relationships, theirs had been built on an illusion of trust, and with that dispelled, he doubted they’d last one year, much less seven.

  Jim shook his head. He hadn’t done any real work yet today; the office’s old computers were too limited. Mostly he’d just played Solitaire (which, thankfully, was about the same). His boss—who he’d always remembered as extremely laidback—had given him a skeptical look when she walked by at 10:00, however…

  It wouldn’t do to lose a wife and a job in the same flashback.

  Standing up, he headed for the hallway. Okay, he’d take a quick bathroom break and then go hard until 5:00. Skip lunch like he used to. Push his body so he could push all these thoughts out of his head…about what type of sex to go back with.

  He had no willpower.

  Tugging open the door to the single occupancy unisex unit, Jim sat down on a toilet that wouldn’t flush automatically for at least another two years. What would the future be like when he went back? The times before, the differences had been minor, but so had the changes he’d made. Did the two points stay more or less fixed while the interim adjusted to fit them? Or had he opened an entirely new branch? How did…