Time Differences

Part 5: Epilogue

At least what happened on the bridge

made sense

. There was the realisation that the hurricane had arrived in full force, and then the feeling of the whole structure bucking and swinging underneath the car, throwing them around, and the moment of anger that the damn thing was even worse maintained than everyone said, and the wrenching moment when the car skidded sideways and off, and the cold knowledge that they were both going to die as they both screamed...

But then came the black tunnel, and the car dissolving away from them, and the incomprehensible shapes, and the plunge into unconsciousness. Those made no sense at all, but at least they were quick.

Real insanity turned out to mean quiet and light; a blue sky overhead, cluttered with glittering sunlit shapes, and soft earth and long grass under her back, and looking round to see that Dwight was lying next to her -- naked, far as she could see, and come to that so was she, but that was just a detail.

"Mom? Where the fuck are we?"

Okay, so he was awake too, and just as puzzled. She shook her head, then raised it to look around.

"Darned if I know, Dwight..."

"Over there!"

Okay, so there was someone else around. Ellie twisted up onto hands and knees, hunched protectively in on herself, and looked where the call had come from. It turned out that it was a white guy, late thirties or early forties perhaps, wearing a baggy mid-blue suit -- overalls? pyjamas? -- trotting their way, hands open and empty like he wanted to look harmless. There were a bunch of girls behind him, younger than him, all white, all in long baggy dresses of various colours, all staring; two of them had bundles of some kind in their arms.

"What?" Dwight was beside her, kneeling, staring confused and suspicious.

The guy stopped sharply, ten or fifteen yards from her. "It's okay," he said carefully. "Uh, sorry -- do you speak English?"

"Course I speak English, fella. Who the blazes are you?"

"Thank god for that... Oh, sorry. My name's Simon Evans. I'll... Ah, sorry." He turned away from them slightly, apparently trying to show that he wasn't staring at their nakedness. "Augusta, Jemima, give these two people some clothes."

"But Simon -- they're ni..."

"

Don't say anything!

" The guy shook his head. "Whatever you were about to say, it was probably tactless. We'll sort out about what words aren't going to annoy anyone later, but for now ... look, just give them the clothes, okay?"

The two girls with bundles looked at each other, then stepped forward nervously and proffered what turned out to be white gowns not unlike the dresses they themselves were wearing. Dwight scowled at his, but stood up, turning his back in the process, and pulled it on; Ellie did the same, except that she didn't turn around. The guy was avoiding staring at her, and she didn't want to let him or the girls out of her sight at this point.

"Sorry -- what are you names?" the guy asked.

"I'm Ellie, this is my son Dwight. And you are?"

"Simon."

"You English?" she demanded of him. His accent was pretty unmistakeable, actually, and the girls even more so -- they sounded like something off a PBS costume drama.

"Yeah. You're American, I gather?"

"Yes, I damn well am. So where the hell is this place?" She was slipping, she realised; she tried to keep a decent tongue in her head in front of Dwight. For that matter, she'd let his F-bomb pass.

"That's kind of a long story. Look, I'm sorry, that must sound stupid -- but believe me, if I could give you easy answers, I would. Anyway, look, first thing I've got to ask -- what year do you think this is?"

"What

year

?"

"Yeah. Please, bear with me."

"It's nineteen eighty-seven. Or are you saying we've been out for a while or something?"

"You could say that..."

"Mom?" Dwight sounded as confused as she felt, and when she looked at him, she saw he was staring off to the side. She followed his gaze, and saw why he was puzzled.

"Okay," she said, "what on earth is that?"

"That? Oh, it's a dodo. We've got a few of them wandering around here now."

"Don't treat me like I'm dumb, mister," she snapped. "I know that there ain't any dodos. They're all dead."

"Yes. So should we all be, actually. Look, we've got a lot to talk about, but you may want to eat or something; we've got rooms sorted out for you. Please, come along with us and we'll try and explain when you've got your breath back."

Dwight and Ellie looked at each other and shrugged. This didn't make sense, but the weird English folks didn't seem hostile, and going with them seemed like the only game in town.

The weird sort of building they were taken towards was odd enough, but getting there involved a couple of meetings that seemed to prove that this was a crazy place. First, they saw a couple of white-clad figures walking towards them arm in arm from the place they were going, and the English guy said something that sounded like swearing under his breath. The figures turned out to be two more women, one of them another teenager or thereabouts, the other maybe thirty-something. Both were wearing toga sort of dresses, which left both of them showing a breast each. Ellie glanced at Dwight, who goggled and then tried to look like he wasn't looking.

"Jane," said the guy to the older woman, "we have new arrivals, but please, we're dealing..."

"Simon," said the woman, "I have told you -- Jane Halstead is dead, and so is poor young Georgiana."

"As you wish... Jezebel, Bethsheba. But please -- we're taking care of Ellie and Dwight here."

The woman -- Jane or Jezebel or whatever -- turned a gentle but crazy smile on Ellie and Dwight. "Welcome," she said. "You have a new life. I wish you good fortune with it."

"Uh, thanks..." said Ellie as Dwight gawped and tried not to stare at the two women's tits. But at that they just turned and walked away.

"Sorry about them," said Simon. "Different people handle this situation in different ways. I guess they're not as crazy as they seem, really."

Then, outside the building, there were two more odd folks -- men, this time, both in plain white tunics and pants, sitting on the ground and looking like they were happy. One was an older sort of guy, grey-haired, while the second was younger and dark and kind of wiry. Both had wild, unkempt hair and beards, although neither seemed threatening. They looked at Ellie and Dwight for long moments, then fell back into what looked like a slow conversation.

"That's Mr Frake and Michel," said Simon. "They were both sailors -- seems to give them something in common, though they're still learning to talk to each other."

Then he led them indoors, showed them to plain but comfortable rooms, said something about the House adjusting the light and stuff if you just spoke a word, and offered them food. But Ellie sat down on a stool and stared at him.

"Okay," she said, "enough crazy stuff. Start talking."

So Simon talked. It took him a while to finish his explaining. Ellie and Dwight had refused to believe him for a lot of the time, but then came the moment when he shrugged, led them outside again, and said "House, please screen out the sun..." And the sky went dark and crazy, and the shapes up there became clearer, and eventually Ellie and Dwight had to accept what he was saying as some kind of truth.

"So how long you been here? Who else is here?" Dwight asked.

"I've been here a couple of months -- the girls and Frake a bit longer," he replied. "Michel turned up a few days after me. After that, we thought for a while that the ...

superminds,

we call them now, had finished their little project. But these few days, things have started again."

"So who else is here?"

"Two others from the last few days, but we've got both of them -- sedated, I guess you'd say. Neither of them are easy to deal with. Kurt's a pilot from World War Two -- a

German

pilot. Shot down, we assume, but he doesn't speak English. Far as we can make out, he thinks he's a prisoner of war and we're running some kind of mental torture scheme."

"Poor bastard."

"Yeah, quite. He took swings at some of us, so we're having to talk him through things slowly. Then there's Chen. Far as we can tell, he's a medieval Chinese peasant."

"Jeez," said Dwight.

"Quite. God knows where he thinks he is or what we are. I think that the House has persuaded the superminds to focus its grabs on our part of the world and time period again, at least for a while -- we can't handle stuff like that. You've no idea how pleased I was to find that you spoke English."

"Right." Ellie stared at Simon. "So what do we do now?" she asked.

"What the rest of us have done," he said. "Try to fit in, find ways not to go crazy."

***

Four Days Later...

"Ah, shoot, really? Y'know, I keep forgetting that you girls have never been in a car or stuff."

"We have seen a few pictures that the house has -- captured, I suppose -- from your time. But you and Simon talk about so much that is strange." Augusta shook her head sadly. "We must seem terribly ignorant."

"Hey, you're cool, really." Dwight scrabbled for a way to make Augusta smile again. "I mean, I've never ridden a horse."

"Neither have I," said Augusta.

"Really? Oh, no, you have said before. You poor thing," said Jemima.

"No," said Augusta. "My parents would have considered it unladylike."

"My people were farmers, or near enough," Jemima explained to Dwight. "In truth, they sent me to the school that I might become a little more ladylike than I was becoming at home."

"Hey, you girls are more ladies than I've ever met before!"

Augusta and Jemima both giggled. "We

were

ladies," Augusta said, "but it seems we are becoming barbarians and hoydens in this new life."

"How'd you mean?"

"A lady," said Augusta, adopting a lecturing tone as they walked side by side through the meadows outside the House, "is delicate, and blushes at the merest hint of indelicacy. And a lady would not spend time unchaperoned in the company of a man to whom she has hardly been properly introduced."

"No kiddin'? So you girls shouldn't be talking to me?"

"No," said Jemima. "Nor should a lady do ... such things as this." She turned to face Dwight, put her hands on his shoulders, and then leaned forward and kissed him briefly on the lips.

Dwight took a deep breath. "Wow," he said, "I get it -- you've changed."

"More than you may guess," said Augusta. "Perhaps we may show you how much more."

At that same moment, meanwhile, Ellie was looking for Simon. When she found him, she asked to talk to him; her expression was serious, and he nodded and told her to go ahead.

"It's about my son, and the girls," she said. "When we first arrived here, they were jumpy and careful and treated us like we're dangerous or somethin' -- and don't think I didn't notice that you stopped 'em from using bad sorta words about what we are..."

"They're from long ago and far away, by our standards," Simon pointed out. "Please don't blame them."

"Ah, heck, no, I get the idea -- and they got the message soon enough. But that's kinda the point; they've turned right round, and now they're being quite pally with Dwight."

"Good. They're young; that makes them adaptable. And Dwight's very close to their age."

"Sure, maybe. But, well -- Dwight's a good boy, Mr Evans, and I brought him up right. But he's a modern boy, even so, and he's surely got his young man's urges. Whereas those girls are different, I'm sure. I'd hate for him to do or try anything that'd make for trouble between 'em, or for them to do anything that might seem like leading him on..."

"Oh, that. No, don't worry, Ellie; despite where they came from, the girls understand enough about that sort of thing. Like I said, they're young and adaptable, and they learn fast."

"Still, they're proper Victorian ladies..."

"They

were

. Like I said, they're able and willing to learn."

Ellie gave him a sharp look. "Mr Evans," she said, suddenly cold, "have you been takin'

advantage

of those poor girls?"

Simon laughed shortly. "I guess that calling it

taking advantage

is an improvement on the words Clarissa or Miss Halstead used -- which was usually

ravishing.

But no one ever wonders if it might have been completely voluntary, or even their idea."

"I

thought

they were supposed to be proper ladies!"

"And I said -- that was then, but this is now. But anyway, you needn't worry about what they might happen to get up to with Dwight. The House and the bigger minds that grabbed us all are very tidy-minded. They not only got rid of any diseases any of us were carrying -- they temporarily sterilised us all, just in case."

"Hey -- what? You're kidding!"

"No, I'm not. It's reversible, and I think that the House was just being tidy-minded, but it promised us that it'd done the job."

"Huh. Still -- maybe we oughta talk to Dwight and the girls about taking care and showing respect."

"Maybe. If they'll listen."

Actually, at that moment, Dwight was feeling emotions towards two of the girls that weren't quite what his mother would have called

respect

, although he liked them well enough. He was in his room; specifically, he was on his back on the bed, and he was naked, as were Augusta and Jemima, who were with him. Jemima was astride him, and his cock was deep inside her. She was rocking back and forth, moaning horsely, driving herself to orgasm. Augusta, meanwhile, was kneeling upright, facing Jemima, her knees either side of Dwight's head. She was watching Jemima with a slightly amused expression.

"Hey," said Dwight, "betcha never thought you'd find yourselves like this."

"Oh -- you mean being fucked by a black man?" Augusta replied.

"Woo," said Dwight, "even where I come from, nice girls don't use the f-word too often."

"Oh, really," said Augusta, "it is merely another word. Not one I had heard before I came here, I confess, but Simon looked so amused every time that Jemima spoke of being

tupped

by him that I insisted he tell us what word he would use for the act."

"Hah," said Dwight, and then "mmmm," as he careful moved his hips, taking advantage of the effect that Jemima's increasingly vigorous activity was having on his cock. "Anyhow, yeah, I don't suppose that this was the kinda thing you ever expected to have happen to you."

"Probably not," said Augusta over Jemima's distracted moans, "although there were some very strange things muttered about my cousin Margaret, who had married a missionary who was sent to Africa. I never understood them at the time."

"Nothin' wrong with the missionary position," said Dwight, although he couldn't see Augusta's puzzled look at that phrase. "Anyway," he said, "you bring that cute blonde bush down here -- cause there's somethin' else that I betcha never reckoned on having done to you..."

Augusta obeyed, not bothering to tell Dwight that she'd had a male mouth -- Simon's -- on her pussy more than once before this day, but she did gasp happily and enthusiastically as his tongue set to work with energy and enthusiasm. The sounds she began making mixed with Jemima's orgasmic moans, which culminated in a great gasp only a few seconds later. Jemima smirked, her eyes still closed, and shook herself slightly, then opened her eyes to see Augusta's face, now close to hers, locked in a look of happy concentration.

"Lord, Augusta," she said, "but it seems that Simon is not the only fair hand at tupping here now."

"

Fucking

," Augusta repeated, pressing her cunt down onto Dwight's mouth. Dwight grunted softly and reached up with both hands to cup and caress her breasts, and she clasped his hands with her own, pressing them to her. Jemima, pleased to discover that Dwight was still hard, sat back a little and began gently rocking her hips again, smiling as she watched Augusta being driven towards orgasm by Dwight's tongue.

All this together pushed Dwight to the brink, and he began thrusting upwards into Jemima harder and harder, groaning softly in the back of his throat even as he used his tongue on Augusta. This helped Jemima to find another surge of libido, and she was soon gasping softly. Augusta came first, suddenly emitting a squeal of pleasure, and seconds later, Dwight convulsed into Jemima, who in turn gave a long gasp. She slumped forward and found herself pressed against Augusta. The two women shifted and embraced each other, then both sat back slightly. They looked each other in the eyes, and then burst into giggles.

"Lord..." Jemima repeated.

Augusta lifted herself away so that she could look down at Dwight's broad smile. "Now," she said to him, "as I said, we have changed somewhat since our arrival here..."

Ellie was still in thoughtful conversation with Simon at this point; she didn't go looking for Dwight until some minutes later. Arriving at his room, she discovered the door slightly ajar and Sarah standing in the corridor outside, looking oddly distracted.

"D'you know if Dwight's in there?" she asked the girl.

"He is," said Sarah, sounding dreamy, then added as an afterthought, "and he is..."

By Ellie, disinclined to wait for vague teenage girls to finish rambling, had walked through the doorway. Then she stopped dead, staring at the sight of her son lying naked and spent on his bed, a naked girl pressed either side of him.

"I am sorry," said Sarah from behind her. "I was about to say, however, that your son is quite beautiful."

Dwight looked at his mother with a sheepish grin, while Augusta and Jemima recovered their senses enough to look at the new intrusion, at which they froze, trying to decide how to act.

"Hell," said Ellie, standing in the doorway, "ain't you got..."

She fell silent, lost for words. Then she shook her head. "Ah, screw it," she muttered, and turned and walked away.

***

Four Days After That...

"I guess that this was kinda inevitable, in the end," said Ellie.

"I wish that people would stop saying things like that," Simon said. "Nobody makes us do anything here -- it's all our own choices."

"Yeah, yeah. But I'm a grown woman, an' I got my own needs. I need someone to hang onto and make this crazy stuff seem something like bearable, help me forget that I'm dead to everyone who knew me 'cept Dwight. And it looks like the only choice I get to hold me is the smug limey."

"Not the only choice."

"Oh, sure -- I could help stop some poor crazy sailor or Chinese peasant from going crazier. But I ain't a teenage Victorian girl who gets hot pants over every man going. I need someone who knows what he's doing, and who can talk sense before and after."

"I'm honoured, I guess."

"Don't get difficult." Ellie looked sad, although she continued pulling her dress off over her head.

"Sorry. But I thought that you were the respectable, controlled one round here."

"Hey, I can be wild. Where d'you think that little Dwight came from? I just wanted to try an' be a decent mother to him. Much good that did."

"Don't do yourself down." Simon moved sideways on the bed where he was lying, making space, but the naked Ellie just stood beside it, looking him in the eye. "He's a nice lad, and he's behaved fine since he got here. He's just fitting in with the world where he finds himself."

"Yeah, fitting in real good with those hot little girlies."

"Mmm-hmm. Where is he at the moment?"

"With that Clarissa, last I saw."

"Hah. I hope that she doesn't do him any permanent damage."

"He can look after himself. He's a big boy."

"So I gather... Sorry."

(In fact, at that moment, Clarissa had a firm but not damaging hold on Dwight, her arms wrapped around his torso, her legs clamped around his thighs. She had discovered that if she addressed him as "boy," this made him just annoyed enough for her to enjoy the results, so she had done so three times in the last two minutes. He was now pounding into her frenetically, battering her against his bed as her moans changed to yells of pleasure. She would reach her first orgasm thirty seconds later; he would follow within a minute.)