Author's Note: I'd like to thank the many people who've commented both privately and publicly- ALL of the statements have been supportive and inspiring. Now a word to the wise: this particular chapter doesn't have any actual sex scenes in it, but it opens the doors for something entirely new to happen. So those of you who simply enjoy a story for the sake of a story, I hope this one will keep you coming back for more. And for those of you who eagerly anticipate some erotica, I promise that the next chapter will please you in spades.
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Weeks had gone by after that incident with Kelly and I still hadn't repeated the experience I had with her while I was Between. I just couldn't seem to catch her in a position that would allow for easy entry without having to damn near jump through hoops. And then there was the guilt of it all. She is my daughter and I do love her very much. What I did was, no matter how I slice it, wrong. I wouldn't have done that kind of thing in Normal Time to her and doing it while I was Between felt just as wrong. Thrilling, yes, but still wrong. It was like I was living two separate lives. In Normal Time, I was a kind, generous, loving father and husband who went to work like any normal guy would. But there was my Between self, the version of me who was able to do anything I wanted at any given moment. And don't think that, just because I didn't repeat my experience with Kelly that I didn't go Between again. I most certainly did, and often. At least twice a day. Sometimes it would be just for a few moments, to satisfy a curiosity of mine and other times it was for hours on end, just to learn what I could about the people around me. Primarily, I found myself fascinated with my co-workers and neighbors and the things they did when they thought no one else was looking.
For instance, I learned that Frank DiCappo, who ran the advertising department at the radio station I worked at, liked to go to the bathroom every day at two o'clock. I could practically set my clock by it and it wasn't a big secret amongst the rest of the staff. We all knew that, when the clock struck 2, Frank would disappear into the Men's room for anywhere between ten and twenty minutes. Always the same stall, too. But none of us could ever figure out exactly what it was he did in there every day. Some of us speculated that he had Irritable Bowel Syndrome and was just taking a bathroom break longer than most. Others thought that perhaps he was a cocaine addict who got his fix in the bathroom stalls. But none of us ever had the courage (or lack of decorum) to pointedly ask him and, frankly, we all rather enjoyed the mystery of it- it gave us something to talk about during our slow times in the office. But one day I just got fed up with the not-knowing and, about five minutes after he'd gone into the Men's room, I went Between to go and investigate. Come to find out that he masturbated to porn videos on his iPod. The truth was, to be honest, far more mundane and considerably more pathetic than our idle imaginings. I didn't have the heart to tell anyone else what I'd learned mostly because I couldn't figure out how to explain my method of discovering the truth but also because I really didn't want to spoil it for everyone else. Besides, some secrets are best kept in the dark, y'know?
But then there was Francine Cower, the hot trophy wife who lived two houses down from us. For years Sarah and I wondered what that woman did in her house all day, every day while her husband Joe was out at work or playing golf. We'd been inside the house once or twice just to be neighborly, but nothing there ever seemed out of sorts. Actually, the Cowers seemed to have quite a nice and well-kept abode. It wasn't gradiose or anything- pretty normal, really. But there was a very noticeable diffidence and affability between Francine and Joe, like they were feeding off of each other in something like love, but less so. Sarah and I figured that she was involved in some long-term but very discrete love affair, despite us never seeing any strange men hanging about the Cower residence. All we ever saw was Francine and her sister-in-law Delilah over there while Joe was out, not including the postman who was in his sixties, not at all attractive and never went inside their house. But on a sojourn to the Land in Between, I found out that Francine was indeed having an affair- with Delilah, of all people. Apparently Delilah and Francine carried quite a torch for each other and had kept up their affair for years without anyone suspecting. And it helped that Joe Cower was fully aware of the lesbian love-affair. In fact, he was more than just aware of it, he was involved in it, too. While in Between one boring Wednesday when I had gotten home from work early, I snuck into their house and discovered Francine and Delilah frozen in the 69 position on the living room floor. I hid myself in the hallway, just out of sight from the living room, and listened in on their torid sex for several long minutes. Those two women, it seems, like to talk during sex. A lot. And the most exciting topic of their sexual conversations center almost exclusively on what Joe will do to either of them when he gets home. Will he force his wife to suck his cum from his sister's just-sodomized asshole or will he indulge in a double-header blowjob from both ladies while he tells them what sluts they are? Ah, yes. The Cowers are an amazing couple indeed and, clearly, there is more to them than meets the eye. Sadly, as juicy as the truth about what those two ladies do in the privacy of their own home is, I can't ever tell a soul about it. At least, not without giving away how I knew.
So many people in this world carry so many dirty little secrets. The guy sitting in the car next to you might have a dead body in the trunk. The woman behind you in the theater might be hiding there to avoid her abusive husband. The boy playing on the swings in the park may have just shop-lifted a small bag of candy from the local convenience store. Or the young teenaged girl next door might be six months pregnant. You never really do know what's going on around you because, frankly, hardly anyone ever puts their dirty laundry out on the street for all to gaze upon. But I'm learning. I'm learning all that I can, taking what I can and going into places where angels fear to tread. And I'm loving it.
It's not all about my own selfish desires, though. I do perform the occasional act of grace and kindness when I go Between. Once I stopped a child from getting hit by car whose driver wasn't paying attention. Another time I deflated the tires and removed the spark plug cables of a burglar's getaway car and called the cops. Yet another time I managed to save the life of a telephone repair man who had accidentally fallen from a telephone pole by cushioning his fall with a shitload of pillows- almost as soon as he was safely down, I went Between and removed the pillows then reinserted myself into Normal Time to watch him literally get down on his knees and thank God for breaking his fall (I feel that this gift, for whatever reason, was bestowed upon me by God, so I believe that the guy was thanking the proper entity, even though I was the one who had physically intervened). I won't say that I've been Superman or anything, but I've definitely tried to use my gift for good, as a sort of balance to my selfish uses for it. And when I did those deeds, I didn't do them with any sense of premeditation, like looking for people to rescue or save, but saw the need for my services and did what was necessary when I was able. I know what you're thinking, though: why didn't I just spend my entire day helping people out? The answer is simple and perhaps difficult to accept: sometimes people need their pain. I can't be everywhere at once and really don't want to be. If I tried, I'd never get anything in my own life done and I'd end up resenting Humanity in general. Then there's the fact that someone out there would notice that all these crimes were being stopped mysteriously and they would start to figure out how... and possibly discover my secret or get me arrested for vigilantism. I am, by and large, a relatively good guy, but I'm no superhero and have no desire or intention to be.
That said, there was a pivotal and extraordinary incident, like my first experience with Kelly, that will stay with me until the day I die. A week before Kelly was to start her senior year in high school, Sarah and I decided to treat our daughter to a night out on the town. It was basically a date with the parents which included dinner and a movie. The dinner was good and the movie was entertaining, but both were merely incidental to the night's big events. On the way home we stopped at a convenience store to get some gas and cold drinks. We've done this a thousand times before, with each trip being as uneventful as ever, until this night. My two ladies went into the station to get their drinks while they waited for me to pump the gas, which was our normal routine. A few minutes later I joined them inside. Sarah was looking at some sodas and Kelly was eyeballing the energy drinks (always the athlete, looking for the next trend in "pick-me-up" drinks). I walked up to my wife and planted a loving kiss on her cheek as I pulled open a cooler door, reaching my hand inside to withdraw a bottle of Coke.
Suddenly three masked men rushed into the store, all holding guns and wearing black, and started to shout at everyone. From their accents I could tell that they were hispanic. One man, the tallest of the three, approached the clerk, pointed his gun in the poor boy's face and demanded that he be given the money inside the register. The boy immediately popped the drawer open and started tossing money into a plastic bag. One of the other gunmen, though, wasn't apparently content with having just the money- he felt like striking some fear into the hearts of innocent people, starting with my daughter Kelly. He stomped towards her intently, his eyes set dead on her, and said, "You! You wanna live? Show me your tits!" Just like that. This asshole could get on the 'net any day of the week and see some young woman's breasts or even go to a strip club, but here he was, demanding to see my daughter's charms. Intellectually I knew that his true intent was to feed off of her fear, but the irrationality of the demand completely baffled me. That is not to say, however, that it didn't enrage me.
