Aching for Always

by Gwyn Cready

  “Only a week more.”

  “No.”

  “You’ve waited this long. What’s a week more?”

  “About seventeen cold showers.” He gave her a long, deep kiss.

  With a brush of a finger, the blouse fell off her shoulders and he unclasped the bra. He brought his mouth low and suckled. Her breath caught. He had an amazing tongue. When he lifted his head to admire his work, the air stiffened her flesh. He winced with desire.

  “Twenty minutes? Good Lord, I hope I can last two,” he said, and his words lit a lightbulb in her head. She could preserve their wedding night and satisfy his desire. What did Mick Jagger say? “You can’t always get what you want?” Poor Rogan; at least he’d get what he needed.

  She unbuckled his belt and reached for his fly. His pants dropped to the floor, followed by his shorts and his fiancée.

  “Let me check that order,” she said.

  He groaned. “No.”

  “There might be a problem, of course, but if I give you a hand with it . . .”

  “No, please. No hand—Oh, God!” His eyes fluttered shut.

  “Are you sure Pat’s going to obey your ‘no interruptions’ request?”

  “Please don’t mention Pat now.”

  She pressed herself against him and let her hand find the right rhythm. It was like hypnotizing a chicken, only without drawing a line. The trick would be keeping any thinking he’d be doing down in the hormone-laden brain stem and out of that logical, reasoning cerebral cortex. He needed to stay hypnotized, happy and dumb.

  Somewhere on his desk, a speaker squawked to life. “Mr. Reynolds?”

  Crap with a capital K!

  “Y-yes, Pat?”

  Brain stem, here I come! She brought her mouth to where her hand had been.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Pat said, “but Marketing called. Do you remember the Mitchell acquisition?”

  “Um . . . um . . . vaguely.” He had his palms over his eyes, pressing hard, like he was fighting a brain freeze.

  “Midsize asset? Closely held?”

  “Closely held.” His hands moved haltingly from his head to Joss’s hair as he fought to clear the fog.

  “Marketing wants to know if you want to use a push-pull on this one.”

  “Oh, God, yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “No. I mean yes. I mean I don’t know yet.”

  “Oh, and Vince thinks we should have received a one-time benefit to GAAP income of seventy-eight million after the acquisition because the previous accrual exceeded our current estimate of liability. Is that right and should I let Finance know?”

  At this point, Rogan had about as much chance of being able to answer that as he did of landing a space shuttle. His response was a dry gurgle.

  “Mr. Reynolds?”

  “Can you”—he sucked in a lungful of air—“handle it?”

  “No problem,” Joss said, and added a brisk trombone motion.

  Rogan grabbed the wall for support. “No, don’t handle it!”

  “Don’t handle it, sir?” Pat said. “Or handle it? I’m confused.”

  “Uh . . . uh . . .”

  “I’ve got the report right here. I could show you—”

  “No! Just . . . take . . . to . . . Finance . . . report . . . GAAP . . . handle.” The effort was clearly overwhelming. He looked like he might begin to cry.

  “You want me to handle it with Finance?” Pat said, clearly befuddled.

  “Yes, please!”

  “Do you mind if I just head home from there?”

  “No. No. Go.”

  Joss, who had no real musical ability, found herself moving easily from trombone to harmonica.

  Pat said, “You’re all taken care of?”

  He let out a long, strangled cry that ended in an affirmative squeak.

  Pat clicked off.

  “No, no, no,” he croaked, but he was clawing at the air like a lobster in a tank. “Not like this.”

  “Li’ wha’?” Joss gazed up innocently.

  He scrunched his face and curled his arms, as if he were summoning the spirit of the Hulk or perhaps pulling himself inside out face-first. With a grunt worthy of a lumberjack, he pushed her shoulders back and freed himself.

  “Tchhhhhhhhhhhhk-k-k-k.” He gasped.

  Oh, God, the cerebral cortex has risen from the dead! She was in big trouble.

  He swung in a circle, dazed, making him look a little bit like a Geiger counter having a run-in with high-grade uranium.

  She considered making a dash for it and hiding out until Tuesday, but it would only delay the inevitable; and, in any case, she didn’t see her bra or blouse anymore, which would make for an awkward interlude on the elevator.

  He swept her off the floor and into his arms. “Desk,” he demanded hoarsely.

  Your own fault, sister, she thought, clinging tightly as he hobbled wildly across the room. Supercharge him like that, and who knows what’s going to strike his fancy. She was lucky she wasn’t going to be smooshed against his window, performing an unorthodox game of office charades for the accountants across the across.

  Rogan dropped her in front of the monitor. She shifted her hips to get them off what had to be either a torturer’s mace or Brand Industries’ famed Innovation Star award. This was going to be a pretty innovative initiative.

  Somewhere, maybe next to the cash flow statement, wherever that was, her phone vibrated with an incoming text. Rogan didn’t seem to be inclined to let her get it. He lifted her legs and repositioned her closer to him, knocking a stack of annual reports and the clock to the floor with a crash.

  “Condom,” she commanded.

  “Not likely.” Reaching around her skirt, he found her zipper and undid it. The skirt went the way of the reports. Only a thin pair of panties stood between her and the red zone.

  He gazed at his handiwork. “Oh my God. This is the most awe-inspiring sight. Like Angkor Wat and Megan Fox rolled into one.” He grabbed his iPhone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” He held the phone at arm’s length and pointed it at her.

  “Rogan.” She flung her arms across her chest.

  “Just checking my call log. I think I might have missed something.”

  “You know how I feel about photos.”

  “You’re right.” He lowered the phone, contrite. “I shouldn’t expect you to be as adventurous as Daphne. It’s unfair to you and unfair to her.”

  “Daphne did this?” Daphne had breasts the size of Strawberry Whoppers and a chin that receded so far, it had to follow her in a cab.

  “Everyone’s different, of course. I respect your boundaries.”

  Joss hoisted herself up on her elbows, twisted one hip toward him and thrust her shoulders back. “Did she look like this?”

  “Jesus.” His mouth fell so far open, it looked like he was prepping for a root canal.

  “That’s it,” she declared after he had come to and snapped. “And no transmissions.”

  “Well, maybe just the one. Small but, oh, so powerful.” He reached for the panties.

  Every touch reminded Joss how long she’d waited for this and how much she wanted it. “If we do this now, how can I be sure you’ll still be interested on our wedding night?”

  “Make it good.”

  A commotion rose on the other side of the door, and Joss immediately recognized the voice.

  “Peter!” Diane shouted. “Don’t open that without—”

  The door banged open. “Aunt Joss is still here. There’s her shirt.”

  “—knocking.”

  Joss did a barrel roll and dove under the desk. Rogan, attempting both to protect Joss and cover himself, took a step and caught his pants-hobbled feet in the cord for the clock, which he managed to kick into the wall, where it exploded into a constellation of gears and wood. Then he spun in a circle and landed flat on his back, shirttails over his face, with a thud that rocked the room.

  Peter,
unfazed, said, “I told you I left my saber here, Mommy. And look. I think Uncle Rogan needs a Band-Aid, too.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  One day, an old man came to the shop of the beautiful mapmaker. He did not try to court her. He was in love with a widow in the town. He had brought many baskets of gold with him so that he could convince the widow to marry him. The mapmaker told him love cannot be bought. She said he needed to make the widow love him for himself. If he couldn’t, money wouldn’t matter. The old man didn’t believe her. He told her he would hide his gold to keep it safe until he was ready for it, and he wanted her to make a map so that he would not forget where he’d hidden it.

  —The Tale of the Beautiful Mapmaker

  That was certainly a close one.

  Joss giggled. But it all turned out in the end, just like it did for the heroines in fairy tales—well, slightly adult fairy tales. She buttoned her collar higher and hurried through the brisk November night across the crosswalk at Grant and Seventh, feeling the joyous warmth of lasciviousness on her cheeks. Rogan hadn’t gotten what he wanted, nor even exactly what he needed, but she could rectify that tonight with something from her bag of tricks, and he had agreed—reluctantly—to wait until their wedding night for the rest.

  She needed to grab a bite before heading back for a slog through next year’s product plans. Rogan was off to dinner with the owner of another potential acquisition. She hoped whoever it was had taken a negotiation class.

  She had taken only a few steps south when she remembered the weather beacon. She was just about to turn back toward Seventh when a trail of sparks, like the final embers of fireworks, rained down over her head. Unlike fireworks, however, there was no heat or sizzle, and they were every color of the rainbow. When they hit the ground, they bounced like jacks, skittering over the sidewalk and street, scattering their tiny specks of luminescence.

  Craning her head in both directions, Joss looked to see if anyone else was seeing this, but none of the other evening commuters seemed to care or even notice. One spark hit her, and she jumped, but it didn’t hurt or burn. It sort of hummed, like a vibrating raindrop.

  This is weird. She wondered if it was a chemical leak of some sort, but it was just so . . . pretty.

  The majority of the sparks seemed to be falling farther down Grant. Curious, she followed them, and as she passed a narrow alleyway that angled off the main street, hardly wide enough to hold a car, she saw the sparks were at least twice as thick there.

  She gazed down the two-block-long passageway. She’d never really paid it much attention before. It ran from the old Bell of Pennsylvania building past a handful of ancient buildings that faced the alley, ending at a church. The alley was deserted but lit, and the lights of the buildings spilled onto the pavement. As soon as she turned, the sounds of traffic faded. There was a quaint simplicity to the passageway—the lack of cars, she supposed, although the old buildings on it and the openwork metal spire that rose above it like a silent guardian gave it a sort of urban Currier & Ives feel.

  The humming grew louder. Not electric. Beelike. A happy, inviting hum.

  She reached William Penn Place, the first street the alley intersected, and the sparks and humming stopped. She could see them behind her, where she’d already walked, and farther on, where the alley picked up again across the road.

  Even more curious, she crossed William Penn and continued. As soon as she stepped into the alley again, the sparks rained down, only so thick it was as bright as a spring afternoon. Then she noticed the sparks weren’t falling to the ground here. They were accumulating like snow on a huge domelike thing that curved over the buildings along this block. Only the dome couldn’t be seen, or, rather, it could be seen, but only because the sparks piled on top of it outlined its shape, which otherwise would have been invisible to her.

  Her curiosity turned to stunned amazement. This was beyond out of the ordinary. This was—

  All at once, the dome stretched like an enormous lens, turning her view of the building behind it, a little shop with a sign that read TOM JAMES, TAILOR, into something you’d see in a fun house mirror. Then, as fast as the dome had stretched, it snapped back, and Joss jumped, her heart thumping.

  The thing seemed to be breathing—or seething. She didn’t know which.

  The sparks fell faster and glowed brighter. There was the smell of something—the ocean?—in the air. She looked at the building within the dome’s confines.

  Redbrick and black-shuttered with a peaked-roof, the three-storey shop was definitely from another time. It looked like it should be the home of Arthur Clennam or Scrooge or some other Dickens character. She’d heard Di talk about it before. It was one of the oldest buildings in Pittsburgh. It looked totally out of place in the middle of a downtown full of skyscrapers.

  She took a step closer and then another, as close as she dared to the dome’s edge. At the third step, the road jerked under her feet, and her head—or was it her whole body?—started to spin. She saw snatches of things she didn’t understand—a stormy sea, a captain on an ancient sailing ship, a woman with her back to Joss poring over a map and even Joss herself, just a moment earlier, standing at the head of alley, before she’d entered.

  Terrified, she struggled to find her footing, but just as she found a steady surface the world exploded into crushing supernova of light and noise, and she was flung backward.

  The next thing she sensed, though barely, was her head smacking the cold street and the noise that hammered at her ears in the middle of this spinning, swirling storm. A pair of strong arms lifted her. She fought them, but they were unconquerable. They pulled her out of the swirling chaos, and a voice, deep and steady, said, “Spirit. I like that. A bit knocked about, but you’ll be fine.” With those words in her head and those arms around her, she stopped the fight and let the thickness fall over her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PITTSBURGH, PRESENT DAY

  “Is she a spy?” Fiona, ever ready for a scrap, stumbled to her feet amid the fading sparks and reached for her dagger. “Belkin and his foolish assurances. Of course, there are going to be others after the map.”

  Hugh Hawksmoor, who was shaking off his own confusion from the jarring arrival in the future, examined the slim, fine-boned young woman in his arms with her simple wool coat, unadorned gray skirts and clean but modest bodice. He pushed a lock of chestnut hair from her face. “For God’s sake, Fiona. She looks like a parson’s wife. I hardly think we need to worry.” Nonetheless, there was something intriguing about the spots of color on those aristocratic cheeks and the scent of plum and cloves on her flushed skin. At what had she been laboring? he wondered.

  A horn tooted, and Hugh turned to see not a man with an instrument but metal conveyances with no horses racing to and fro on the cross street below. But before Hugh had time to digest this, Nathaniel called, “Look, it’s a shop of some sort.” He stood at the closest doorway, pointing to the GOING OUT OF BUSINESS sign in the dusty window of the redbrick building. “Abandoned, by the look of it.” He met Hugh’s eye. After a decade in his captain’s service, Nathaniel Fallon knew his thoughts well. Hugh nodded, and Nathaniel lifted his beefy leg and kicked open the door.

  “Leave her.” Fiona resheathed her weapon.

  Hugh carried the dazed woman from under the covered walkway and leaned her carefully against an alley wall. “I realize you are funding this expedition,” he said, unfolding himself with a growl, “but I handle strategy and logistics. If there are commands to be given, ’tis my job, not yours. That’s the deal we made.”

  Fiona buried her look of pique in a forced smile and gathered her skirts. “There may be a time when your thinking will not be so clear, my friend. We both have something at stake in this place, you know.”

  He damned his foolishness for sharing the story of his brother with her. That’s what comes of too much brandy and loneliness. He prayed his crew would be able to maintain their station off the islet without being chased away or capture
d by a French ship. If he, Nathaniel and Fiona returned and there was no ship, they would die.

  Nathaniel stuck his head out of the door. “By God, it’s a tailor shop.” He gestured for them to follow him inside. Hugh lifted his eyes beyond the rooftop, beyond the spire, to the monoliths of iron and brick rising ten times higher than a mainmast over his head. It was enough to make a man dizzy, though he remembered all too well Belkin’s warning. “Stay focused,” he’d said. “If you lose yourself in the changes the future has wrought, you’ll turn in circles until you drop.”

  He pulled his attention away from the barreling vehicles on the road below, the cacophony of unrecognizable noises and especially the alluring young woman resting peacefully in the corner, and followed his companions through the door.

  “This is the passage Brand used to return, then,” Fiona said.

  “I told you it was. There was never a doubt.” Hugh drew back the curtains and looked out. By the time they’d satisfied their initial objective of ensuring that the shop was both abandoned and able to be secured, the woman with the intriguing cheekbones was gone. He wondered what if anything she would make of her near brush with the side effects of time travel. A few more steps and she might have found herself transported back to his time and to that unfriendly islet.

  “We know there may be more men—”

  “Brand is the only important one,” Hugh said. “If we find him, we find the map.”

  Fiona gave him a look, which he ignored, turning his gaze back to the street.

  “For now, let’s concentrate on our immediate next steps, shall we? We need to find out what we can about Alfred Brand—his business, his life, his habits and, most important, his whereabouts.”

  She said, “’Twould be good to know if we’ve landed in the right time to find him.”

  Nathaniel, who had been examining the space behind the establishment’s little counter, unpinned a calendar from the side of a cabinet and held it for the other two to see.

  Hugh gazed at the curious combination of the days of the month and a picture. The picture was odd: a woman in an ornate cream dress—a bride, it seemed—with a cascade of flowers in her hands, standing on the steps of a church, holding the hand of a somberly dressed man. But the far more important information the calendar held was the year. If the calendar was current, and, given its relatively pristine state, there was no reason not to believe it was, they were in the year of Alfred Brand’s fifty-eighth birthday.