Summer of Love, a Time Travel (5 page)

Sarah
says, “That’s beautiful, Starbright. What do you think of this? I want to do my
thing, too.” She shows Susan more crude drawings. “Mickey wants me to draw
posters for the band, but Stan says no,” she complains. Susan can see why.

Looking
at Sarah and her drawings, Susan is reminded of “The Menagerie” on
Star Trek
.
The bleak landscape of Talos IV, and Vina, the human girl deformed and crippled
in a starship crash. The Talosians make her whole and beautiful, but her beauty
is an illusion. She falls in love with Captain Pike, who was deformed and crippled
in a crash, too, and now is strong and handsome—but only on Talos IV. Given a
choice to leave or stay in an alien world, Vina prefers her illusion.

To
Susan’s luminous, numinous mind, this is another revelation: the saving grace
of illusion.

“That’s
beautiful, Sarah,” Susan says of the drawings. She means it, too.

*  
*   *

Stan
the Man carries her purse and overnight bag in one hand, clasps her hand in the
other, and leads her up three stories of stairs.

Paisley
blankets and old smoke layer his dark little penthouse pad. Susan’s perceptions
ripple and swell. She’s breathing hard from the long climb and aware of not
having bathed since yesterday morning. Of a tart sweat gathering in her armpits
and filming her skin.

He
lights some candles, and they sit on a mattress on the floor. She’s never seen
anyone sleeping on a mattress on the floor—especially a grown man—but it looks
like fun. Like a pajama party. He eases off her jacket, slipping wool off her
shoulders. He pulls her mod ankle boots off her feet and kicks off his own boots.

He
pulls her sweater up over her head, the lavender mohair Granma gave her for her
twelfth birthday, and tosses it on the floor. She follows the trajectory
unhappily. He seizes her chin, ravages her mouth. His kiss, so exciting in the
open meadow, is frightening in his lair.

He
tears at her blouse, at the buttons she denied Bernie MacKenna and Allen
Weisberg. She fights back, clawing at him, clutching herself.

No!

He
backs off at once, turns away.

Now
she’s worried. Is he angry with her? He props pillows against the wall, leans
against them. No, not angry. He’s sad. Melancholy. “I’m not going to hurt you,
Starbright,” he says. His face is extraordinary. He shrugs off his creamy suede
shirt and beckons to her, kindly and inviting.

She
gladly scoots across the mattress and snuggles against him, turning her back to
him, though, her arms wrapped over her chest. She’s gravitating to his heat,
that’s all. His bare skin is so hot, and she’s so cold, she’s shivering.

Shadows
curl and pulse across the room.

Feelings
shift. Thoughts drift.

Susan
is suddenly aware of his living force beside her. He starts to speak, and she
turns to watch him. His eyes are vibrantly alive as he murmurs strange things.
“You’re with me, Starbright, but you’re not with me. You’re not with me.” He
turns away. He won’t look at her. Still his voice rumbles, a thrilling sound
she can almost touch.

She
is part of a huge, complex pattern, a curtain woven of space and time. She’s
with him, but not with him? How did he know she was thinking about separations
and unities? About a new unity she craves?

There
is something she must do. Get up and leave the mountain man’s bedroom? This
occurs to her, but she dismisses the thought. Anyway, she’s not quite sure how
to do it. She cannot get her legs to cooperate and stand. She feels paralyzed.
Is paralysis another word for destiny? She almost laughs out loud.
God,
Susan
, she tells herself.
You are becoming wise.

Mostly
it’s the cold that gets to her. Bone-chill, teeth chattering. Now he turns toward
her, opens his arms, and cuddles her. Gently, they slide down onto the
mattress. Gently, they lie together. He pulls a blanket over them. Dust tickles
her nose.

He
surrounds her, a cocoon of comfort. He strokes her hair, crooning softly. Her
arms loosen and unwind. It’s unnatural to wrap your arms over your chest. It’s
natural to unwrap them. Her shivering eases. It’s natural to hold someone
holding you. She unfolds like a flower, be sure to wear some flowers. She drowses.
He kisses her forehead lightly, lightly. He kisses her eyelids. His lips slide
down the bridge of her nose.

His
lips arrive at her mouth. Sleepy, her lips yield to his gentle kiss. She tastes
his tongue, flesh and tobacco and white Lebanese pollen. Relaxing, her hand
touches his waist. Somehow his jeans have vanished. She feels his flesh, his
rigid cock.

Awake,
awake, awake!

He’s
got her blouse halfway to her elbows before she can fully rouse herself. He
undresses her with ease, overcoming the logistics of buttons, zippers, hooks
and eyes. Her clothes slide off before she can struggle. Red lights literally
flash in her eyes. Every nasty conversation whispered in the girls’ lavatory
jabbers in her ears. Her parents’ faces, stern and pasty, rise up like ruined
moons.

He
suckles her nipples, the left, the right, and she moans in spite of her alarm.
But he’s not finished. Now he trails his tongue lower, between her ribs, to her
navel, to her tummy, to the place where Mr. G pressed his hand.

She
presses her thighs together.
What
is he
doing?

He
scoots lower and kisses her left knee, her right knee, planting kisses all over
her clenched thighs. He wants to kiss her
legs
? How silly! She starts to
giggle. His tongue feels so hot and wet on her skin, in a while her legs relax.

Suddenly
he pushes forward, pushing her thighs apart with his shoulders, wide, wider. He
circles her thighs and rests his hands on her hipbones, kissing her tummy
again. Then he presses his fingers
there
, spreading her open. He dips
his tongue
there
. She falls back, gasping at the exquisite sensation. He
thrusts his tongue until she bursts with another kind of explosion so powerful
her legs shake. She shivers with pleasure so intense, it’s almost painful.

He
lunges up, pushing into her, but she’s tight and unyielding. That doesn’t stop
him. He rams into her as she yelps in pain, rams again and again, thrusting
inside her. He pounds against her until she can’t stand it. Is she screaming?
He slaps her face, covers her mouth with his mouth.

Then
he shudders, his sweat spattering her. His heat shocks her. Is she crying?

He
rolls off her, rolls away. Then rolls back, tickling her ribs, biting her ear,
kissing away her tears. “That was groovy, Starbright,” he says and slaps her
butt.

She’s
astonished. She’s aching deep inside. Blood stains the sheets between her legs.
She stares at him as he hops to his feet and finds his clothes. He grins. He
laughs
.
He doesn’t ache deep inside?

He
zips up his jeans, pulls on his boots, grabs a fresh shirt, and stalks out. She
hears his bootheels clattering downstairs to the party. People laugh and shout.
A glass smashes. A woman shrieks. Motorcycles rumble outside on the street. Someone
turns up the stereo.

Wild
and free, oh take me.

Night
shines through the rain-dappled window. Stars wheel in the heavens, forming
mysterious patterns. She recognizes Orion the Hunter. She glimpses a bridge
made of clouds, a spiral galaxy, a girl dancing in the night sky. And most of
all, the first star of the evening, rising bright and high.

“Star
light,” she sings softly, “star bright. First star I see tonight. Wish I may,
wish I might. Have the wish I wish. Tonight.”

What
does she wish for?

“I
want to be happy,” Susan whispers. “Happy for the first time in my life.”

Then
she dresses and goes downstairs to the party, where she boogies until four in
the morning.

2

Do You Believe in
Magic?

They
never prepare you for the shock of the Event.

Chiron
Cat’s Eye in Draco steps through the Portals of the Past. After the subjective
second it takes to cross over, he proceeds, as required by the Summer of Love
Project, to check for his points of reference:

The
dome;

the
carving;

his
time of arrival.

But
wait, wait. He tries to stand very still as perceptions speed past him in a
rush of images, scents, and sounds. Not dizzy like some, nor nauseated, nor
faint. He just feels. . . .empty. They say you don’t feel the Event, but
they’re wrong.
He
feels it. The pulse of his essence, the sensation of his
physical body translating into pure energy and then transmitting across time
faster than the speed of light. Ah!

Chi
is shaken to his soul. In the flicker of translation-transmission, everything seems
dead. A weight around his neck so vast, he quells the urge to weep.

They
say reality is really only One Day. The same everywhere, everywhen.

Wrong,
again. For a moment, he wonders if he really is dead.

But
he’s not dead, he’s alive, and he’s got work to do. The Summer of Love Project,
Chi. Get moving! He starts again slowly, breathing deeply and checking for his points
of reference.

First,
the dome. The cosmicist dome that’s enclosed New Golden Gate Preserve for nearly
two centuries. Check. The dome is gone. Only the darkening twilight hovers
above him. The sight of a night sky unshielded by PermaPlast sends a jolt of
terror up his spine. Instinctively, he flings his hands over his face.
Now
he’s dizzy.

Damn
it, Chi! This sky is thick and whole, damp with clouds, and untouched by
radiation like the sky ought to be.

Like
it used to be.

Like
it is Now.

Calm
down. Breathe slowly.

Next.
The carving.

He
touches the cool, smooth marble of the Portals of the Past. And with his touch
on that ancient stone comes the second shock:

The
carving near the bottom of Portal’s left pillar:
It’s gone.

He
reviews the drill one more time: the dome
shouldn’t
be there, but the carving
should.

The
carving, an indecipherable set of glyphs carved on the pillar centuries ago, was
discovered only after a massive research effort by the Archivists under the
leadership of Chi’s skipfather. The carving proved to be the final piece of the
puzzle—or so the Archivists said.

When
the evidence supported an Open Time Loop during the Summer of Love, the directors
of the Luxon Institute for Superluminal Applications threw billions of dollars at
the project. Never mind that Chi’s skipfather was himself a LISA tech and a project
director. Or that Chi’s skipmother owned seventy-one percent of the patent on
transmission. If anything, their eminent positions made transmitting their own
skipson to a Hot Dim Spot in the middle of the Crisis all the more compelling.

As
Chi had stood in the Portals of the Past, waiting to translate-transmit, he’d
stooped and pressed his fingers on that cool, smooth marble, learning the shape
of the carving by touch, as well as by sight:

What
did it mean? Who could say?

Chi
knew the theories. The Eye of Horus was a prehistoric charm signifying wisdom,
prescience. The heart symbol was even older, depicting not the organ of
circulation but the buttocks of a beloved as a lover would see them. And the old-fashioned
key? The key was an invention of the first millennium and a powerful symbol. A
key unlocked secrets, secured ownership and possession. There were associations
with music, translations, maps, codes, and ciphers.

As
it turned out, the key could also—at a probability of just over fifty percent--refer
to
him,
Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco. The fanciful, mythological name he
was born with twenty-one years ago. Calliope had chosen it. How Calliope loved
fanciful, mythological things. In myths, Chiron was the centaur, half-man,
half-horse. Chiron’s symbol was the key.

You
are the key
, Chi’s skipfather told him.