Shifter

SHIFTER (Part 3--final chapter)

By Dolphin Dan

*** WARNING ***

This story contains fairly graphic descriptions of sexual acts between consenting adults of the same gender. If you are under age, or it is illegal for you to view such material, or this theme is objectionable to you, please do not continue.

[OUR STORY: Zack has now shifted back in time 4 times, in each instance going further back in time. First he was fooling around with a guy after a party in 2002; then he was in the house of some rich celebrity in 1988; then he was in a hotel room in New York City in 1975 with a man who was cheating on his wife, and finally, in a disturbing episode, he was an American soldier having a romantic liaison with a young local in Germany shortly after World War II. The last time shift left Zack profoundly shaken and hoping that the phenomenon would stop.]

As months passed without any further time-shifting I wondered if my own attitude toward the phenomenon somehow affected it. Perhaps my negative feelings about the last shift had somehow kept it from happening again. I enjoyed a relatively quiet Christmas, but it emphasized my loneliness. I had never been on a date in my life. I was 18 now. For one thing, people, like my parents and the friends who didn't know I was gay, were going to start wondering why I wasn't more interested in girls. And for another thing it seemed high time for me to finally be with somebody. I was tired of being alone.

In January, when the new semester began, I went to a meeting of the Gay Lesbian & Bisexual Students Alliance. My knees were quaking when I walked up to the little office in the basement of the student center. It turned out I needn't have been worried. All the people there were quite nice. A few of the guys seemed pretty effeminate--which I was not by any stretch of the imagination--but Joshua, the chairman of the club, looked and acted totally straight. You would never know he liked guys. And there was another guy too who spoke up at the meeting several times. His name was Nathan. He was a junior, two years older than me, studying communications. I was attracted to him immediately, but I would never have thought I would be. For one thing, he was black. I certainly don't have anything against black guys, but I never noticed myself attracted to them before. Nathan was of medium build, a bit on the muscular side. His hair was set in dreadlocks that reached to his shoulders when he didn't tie them back. He had dark marble-like eyes and a very smooth and chiseled look to his face. He reminded me of Grecian statues. He and I walked across campus together after the meeting. "Zack? I'm Nate. Nice to meet you, man." We chatted a bit.

"I was a little scared of that meeting at first," I admitted.

"Yeah, so was I, when I started last semester. But it's a good group. We do a fund-raiser, and every semester they get together and have a party somewhere. Nobody's like pushy. I mean, I thought it was going to be like the rainbow mafia or a bunch of bull dykes or something." He chuckled. "It's cool, though. It's no different than any other student group, really." What he said next totally took me off guard even though it sounded very natural. "Hey, you want to go get a piece of pizza or something? You got studying to do tonight?"

It took me several seconds to realize that I may well have been asked out on a date. "Uh...well, I'm not sure...uh..." I told myself I was blowing it. "Um, yeah. Sure. No problem."

One of Nate's eyebrows formed a quizzical tilde. "You sure?"

"Yeah. I'm sure. Let's go."

We went to a little pizzeria in Back Bay. We ended up spending about two hours there, chatting about everything: school, our families, classes, being gay, the whole gambit. I had never had a gay friend before, someone who understood what it was like. Nate was from New York. His parents didn't exactly throw him out of the house, but they weren't too enthusiastic either. He spoke of a love affair in high school that had left him feeling wrung-out and hollow. By the end of the evening I felt so comfortable with him that I almost told him about my time shifting. But I stopped myself. I couldn't even find the words for it. It would sound completely preposterous, bizarre science-fiction type stuff. That was not something to hit a cool guy like Nate with right off the bat. So, I held my tongue. When we finally parted and went back to our own dorms I had the impression that Nate thought I was kind of dull. But, he seemed to be really great. We exchanged phone numbers. "Sure, give me a call if you want to hang out," he said. There was nothing even remotely sexual or flirtatious about the way he said this, and he had not flirted overtly all evening. I thought it safe to regard him as a friend, nothing more. If he was interested in me, he'd say so.

A few days later Nate called me. "Some of my friends are going to a movie tonight," he said. "You want to come with?" I jumped at the chance. We were just hanging out as friends, but the more I saw him, the more I began to really like him. I looked forward eagerly not just to our time together but to the GLBSA meetings. It was natural that my attention would turn to him in a sexual way. In fact, once I caught the fire for Nathan, it became extraordinarily difficult to tamp it down. Here was a guy who was not only cute, but also the correct orientation to be able to actually do something with. Second semester my roommateless masturbation time was at 6:20 in the evening, not 10:30 AM as it had been in the fall; my roommates both had night classes. Sure enough, 6:20 on Mondays and Wednesdays became the "Nate hour." I filled my mind with vivid fantasies of him. They were always tender and loving. In my fantasies Nate was extraordinarily careful, considerate and gentle. He approached me with the lightest of touches. "Are you all right, Zack?" he whispered in my ear, as I imagined him touching me, so softly as to be almost imagined. "You feel good? You comfortable?"

"I'm comfortable with you, Nate." I kissed him harder.

"Well, if I ever do anything you don't like, you just tell me, and I'll stop. I won't do anything you don't feel comfortable with."

I smiled. "OK. You couldn't hurt me, Nate."

"I could. But I won't. You know I won't, and I would never. I would NEVER hurt you, Zack, NEVER."

One day in mid-February I fantasized about him. I had not had a time shift since November, and I was not expecting one today. I crawled under my covers, napkins at the ready. I was relaxed. My body was warm and flushed, my mind at ease. "Nate, I love you," I said aloud, though softly. My eyes were closed. My hands were already on myself. I tried to touch lightly, just the way I knew Nate would if he was really with me. Nate would not handle me forcefully unless I asked him to. I might well ask for that--but he was so sweet and kind and gentle that he wouldn't do it unless he knew it was OK. My dick swelled painfully erect in the light touch of my hand. I had never seen Nate's underwear; he always kept his shirt carefully tucked in. But I imagined he had colorful paisley boxers. I dreamed about him getting in bed with me, and my hands caressing his loins, feeling him through his underwear. In my fantasy he smiled sweetly. "That feels so good, Zack," he said. "You just do what you want to do. I don't care. Whatever you want, it's OK with me. I just want to be with you." My heart swelled. Nate was so perfect, so kind. Leaning in to me to kiss, his mouth was a perfect U, a smile that betrayed how wonderful he felt at this moment. I felt pride. There was nothing on earth I wanted more than to make Nathan happy, physically and emotionally. Every bit of pleasure I gave him I would be giving twice to myself. At that moment I didn't even realize how bad I had it for him--that fantasizing about giving someone else pleasure, as opposed to fantasizing about your own pleasure, signifies a shift of pretty formidable proportions, emotionally speaking. I was too inexperienced to put it all together.

So I imagined giving pleasure to Nate. I imagined being on my knees at his feet, ever so gently stroking his hard dick in my hands, ready to take it in my mouth. "You don't have to do it, Zack," he said. "You don't have to if you don't want to. I want to do what YOU want, what YOU like. Don't you know that's what's going to get me off?"

"But what I want is to make YOU happy, sweetie," I told him. "Seeing you happy is what's going to make me cum harder than anything you could do to me." I gently kissed the tip of his dick. "Is this going to make you happy?"

He did not open his eyes. He just tipped his head back, and he said, "Yes. Do it."

I did it. I closed my eyes. I took Nathan into my mouth. All of him, his whole sweet wonderful length. In real life I had no idea if he was big or small, cut or uncut, curved or straight; it was left entirely up to my imagination. Not that I would have cared. If Nate was the size of a toothpick or an elephant's trunk I wouldn't have cared. If his erection was Grecian perfection chiseled in marble, or a homely smudge of wrinkled flesh, it didn't matter to me. It was him, and he was what I wanted. I began to stroke myself furiously. But never once in my mind did I imagine his hands on me. I was at his feet, giving him pleasure.

"Oh, God, Zack. Do it, yeah, sweetie. Do it, keep doing it...ohhhh Jesus that feels good!"

But when I opened my eyes things were different. I had not expected a shift. In fact I thought they were long since done. But I was elsewhere. I was on my knees, kneeling on a floor made of rough boards. Nathan's pants were undone, but they were not the colorful paisley boxers I imagined he wore. I saw rough blue woolen trousers with brass buttons. I looked up. It was Nate all right, but he was dressed differently. He had on a blue tunic, with the same brass buttons, undone, exposing a stained white shirt. He was wearing boots flecked with mud. I could smell the mud; it had a thick grassy aroma. The room was dark. Candles were the only illumination. I could hear something from below. It sounded like raucous singing, a party that had grown a little too rowdy. There were men's voices singing in a strange language. Somehow I knew it was Russian. I saw a window pane, and snow fluttering down. Wherever I was, it was a very cold country, and it was in the middle of winter.

"Do it!" Nate grunted. With one hand he was gripping my hair. "Do it, faster! Harder!" His tone was completely different now. It was angry and domineering. "Do it, harder! HARDER! You suck like a fucking cow! HARDER, damn you!"

I looked up again. But for a brief split-second I did not see Nathan. The kind sweet chiseled-faced boy with the dreadlocks did not appear in front of me. It was a man I did not recognize. He was perhaps forty-five, with tousled gray hair and a rugged scarred face. He wore the same clothes I had seen Nate wear a moment before--the tunic with brass buttons, the boots, the stained white shirt. I sprang away from him, suddenly fearful. I knew this was not right. I was not here. I had no idea who I was, or where this was, or what was happening. But it was not right.

The face of the strange man grew angry. His mouth opened and he shouted something in some alien language. It too sounded like Russian. For the first time I didn't have to see a newspaper or ask someone where I was. I knew. I was in Russia, and it was the year 1812. I don't know how I knew that, but I did.

The man roared again, shouting in his hateful language. He was really angry. His dick was still erect, poking obscenely out of his undone trousers. His skin was not the gentle chocolate-brown I imagined of Nathan. It was a pale and pasty pink-white. He approached me. I backed away. I clattered backwards over something; a pair of boots, a sword, a satchel of some type. The man roared and blasted, his face turning red. I understood this man had power over me. And I was not going down on him because I loved him. There was some other dynamic at work here.

SNAP. Suddenly I was back. It was different than all the other shifts, because I was conscious at the moment of my orgasm. I shot a wad into the wadded-up napkins, and I cried out because it was almost painful. It was not physically painful, but emotionally. The vision of the mad Russian's face haunted me. A few moments ago that had been Nate, my sweetie, the boy who would never do anything to harm me. And yet I felt fear flooding every pore of my body, fear and disgust and a terrible feeling of violation. I can't describe it. I felt like I had been raped, or like Nate had. I did not know if that was what had happened to whatever unfortunate young man whose life I had just experienced, but I didn't want to know.

My stomach heaved. I dropped the napkins on the bed, bolted to the bathroom and vomited profusely into the toilet. It felt like my guts were coming up. I had a terrible head rush that began to clear as I raised my head and found myself staring only at the light fixture and the medicine cabinet and the other familiar surroundings of my dorm-room bathroom. My heart was pounding. I knew where I was. I was in Boston, at school. It was the year 2005, and my name was Zack. I was alone. No one was here to hurt me. I had to tell myself I was all right. "I'm OK," I whispered. I repeated it. "I'm OK. I'm OK." Another spasm forced itself up my gullet, and I vomited again. There was something basally repulsive about even remembering the time shift. I didn't want to think about it. It was deeply frightening.

I crawled back into bed. My entire body was shaking. I felt cold. I couldn't describe, even to myself, what had happened. I had spent a minimal amount of time in that shift. It was probably thirty seconds, far less time than in any of the previous shifts. Yet it had been like drinking some kind of caustic poison. The emotional dynamic of the scene I'd visited was evil, malevolent. Why had I been transported there? Something about those thirty seconds in another time seemed more terribly real than any of the previous experiences. I had no doubt this time. I had actually been in Russia in 1812. I knew what that time sounded and smelled and felt like. Perhaps the fact that it was so far from my own time and place was part of what frightened me about it. In any event, it totally laid me out.

"Stop it," I said aloud, whoever or whatever was responsible for what was happening. "I don't want this anymore. Please, I don't want it! Make it stop. I don't want this to happen. I'm sorry it ever happened."

I lay there shivering under my covers for half an hour, still reeling from the terrible power of what had happened to me. It felt like I was going crazy, like the walls were closing in. Finally I knew I had no choice. With a quivering hand I reached for the phone. I punched in the number of Nate's room.

"Hello?"

"N-Nate? It's Zack."

"Zack! Just thinking about you. What's up, bro?"

My voice broke. "I'm...I'm not...doing...uh, too well, man."

An edge of panic frosted Nate's voice. "What happened to you?" he demanded. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know, man. I really don't."

"Zack, what happened? Did someone hurt you? Did you get mugged or something? Tell me what happened."

"I can't." I realized what a quandary I was in. What kind of sense would my story make to a rational person?

"You're in your room?" he said.

"Y--yes."

"You stay there." His voice was full of grim determination. "You stay right where you are. Don't move until I get there." CLICK. He was gone.

I hung up the phone. Whenever I closed my eyes I could see the angry stare of that mad Russian. He must have been a military officer of some kind. I had the impression, vague of course, that the place I'd been was an inn of some kind. It was odd. None of the other time shifts had given me nonverbal impressions of that type. Previously I'd had to rely on the literal interpretations of my senses, but this last shift was much more figurative. It was as if I knew what the situation was, not because I interpreted the clues around me, but because I was reading the mind of whatever person I was inhabiting at the time. Yes; it was becoming clearer now. We were in the country. It was an inn. The army would soon be marching out to face the French. I knew from history books that France and Russia had been at war in 1812. I didn't know who the mad officer was or what I had been doing on my knees in front of him, but whatever it was scared the shit out of me. I hoped I would never see that scene again.

There came a pounding at my dorm room door. "Zack? You in there?" It was Nate's voice. I looked at the clock. It had been fifteen minutes since I called.

I was overcome with a wave of panic. I hadn't thought this through. What was I going to do? There was no way Nate would believe my story.

"Uh...yes," I said. I scrambled to draw the covers of my bed around me. My blood ran cold. I was trapped now.

"Is the door unlocked?" he said.

"Yes."

"I'm coming in."

"No!" I cried. I glanced around the cluttered room, trying to see where I'd lain my clothes. "I'm...I'm not dressed."

"Zachary, I'm opening the door in thirty seconds," said Nathan firmly. "You do whatever you have to do, but I AM coming in."

I was still so weak and shaky that I couldn't even grab for my clothes on the floor next to the bed. I curled the comforter around my shoulders, trying to cover as much of my body as I could. I did not want Nate to see me. I was fat and pasty and unattractive, and I was now sorry I'd dragged him into this situation. I almost died of shame when I saw the door open and Nate step inside.

"What's wrong?" he said. "Are you all right?"

"No," I said. It was the most truthful answer I could give him.

Nate slowly approached the bed, his hands open and raised. "Zack, what happened?" he asked. "Are you hurt? Tell me what's wrong."

"I can't tell you," I said.

"You can tell me anything, bro. You know you can trust me. What happened? Where are you hurt? I'll take you to the health center. Just tell me where you're hurt."

"I'm not hurt," I told him. "At least I don't think so." I pulled the covers tighter. "I'm sort of, um, naked though."

Nate looked at me, and then looked around the room. His eyes did not return to me. He bent down and snatched up my jeans and dropped them on the bed. "There, there are your pants. Here, is this your T-shirt? I'll just step into the bathroom, and you can get dressed. Put your clothes on and then you can tell me what happened, all right? I'll just go in here and close the door."

I didn't know what was wrong with me. The man of my dreams was in the bathroom with the door tightly shut, and I was frantically struggling to put my clothes on and cover up my shameful nakedness for fear he would think less of me when he saw me. I was so fat and so unattractive. Why would a boy like Nathan even sully his eyes by looking at me? When I had my shirt on and my jeans zipped up I said, "OK, you can come out now." The bathroom door opened. I slid on my socks and reached for my shoes. I was seized by a sudden desire to get out of this room. "Let's go somewhere else," I said. "I have to leave here. Can we go somewhere?"

"We'll go anywhere you want," said Nate.

"Let's go to your room, is that OK? I'm sorry, I just--I can't be in here right now."

"Let's go."

We walked in silence across the frigid snowbound campus to Nate's dorm. He showed his ID card at the gate and we ascended in the elevator. He unlocked the door to his room. Nate's room was cool. He liked heavy metal music, and there were Judas Priest and Iron Maiden posters tacked to the walls and the ceiling. His bed was a gleeful jumble. A series of plastic action figures representing famous horror movie characters lined his bookshelf. When we got inside, he pulled out the chair for me and he sat down on his bed. "You want to tell me what happened?" he said. "You were frightened. What scared you?"

I was feeling a lot more calm now. My heart wasn't pounding so hard. But still I felt completely nuts, like I was losing my mind. "You won't believe it," I warned him.

Nate stretched out on his bed. "Give me a try," he said.

"I'm telling you, man, you won't believe it."

"Do you really think I'll doubt you?" His dark eyes were staring at me very seriously. "You were pretty unhinged when you called me, Zack. Whatever happened to you must have been pretty bad. I'm your friend, Zack. You know you can trust me. Please, honey. I want to help."

Honey? Did he just call me HONEY?

That one word made it all come spilling out. I told him everything--well, almost everything. Taylor--Jimmy--Dustin--Taylor again. I told him about 2002, 1988, 1975, 1945 and 1812. I described the time shifts in as much detail as I could remember. But when it came time for me to tell him who I was imagining during the last time shift, I couldn't bring myself to do it. "Tonight," I said, "I was thinking about--about someone else. Someone I care about a lot. And then I was in that place, with that horrible man. It really scared me. I can't describe it, it just scared me. It wasn't a dream. I was there, I knew I was. I was in some kind of danger. It frightened me. I can't describe it." Finally I broke down crying. I felt ashamed. I was losing my mind. Just hearing myself say the words seemed to confirm that I was going nuts. No rational people told stories like this. Time travel only happened in movies and stories. Real people didn't believe in it. Nate would never look at me the same way again.

Nate finally got up off the bed. He came over to the chair, and he bent down and hugged me, hard. I couldn't help myself. I melted into his embrace. It felt so wonderful to be in his arms, to have somebody who cared what was happening to me. He hugged me very hard.

"You've been through a lot," he said.

I sniffled, and tried my best to dry my eyes. I was acting completely pathetic. What he must think of me! "You mean you believe me?" I asked him.

"Of course I do."

"But it doesn't make any sense."

"No, it doesn't. But, Zack, if you tell me this is what happened, then I'm absolutely certain it must have happened. I can't explain it, but I know something scared the shit out of you tonight. You know I wouldn't question you."

His understanding meant a lot to me. We hugged for a long time. Finally I asked him, "Um, do you mind if I crash here tonight? I don't think I can go back to my room." I totally did not mean it in any sexual way. I wasn't thinking of sleeping with Nate because I liked him and thought he was hot. I just knew I couldn't go back to my own room, not in darkness.

"Absolutely," he said. "I've got an extra blanket. You can sleep here on the floor. I'm sure my roommate won't mind." Nate had one roommate, Rob. I'd met him before; he was pretty cool.

We went back to the pizza place for dinner. Over dinner he asked me details of the time shifts, and if I had any idea what was causing them. "Not a clue," I shrugged.

Nate worked at his teeth with a toothpick. He said, "It definitely sounds like you're picking up the lives of other people across history. It sounds like, when you fantasize, you tap into some kind of commonality with others, other situations like the ones you're imagining."

I grunted. "There was no commonality in the last shift. I mean, the person I was thinking of was totally different than...well, that man I saw."

"You were frightened because the person you were thinking of suddenly turned into someone you didn't like?"

"I think that was it. But there was more to it than that. It just felt...wrong, somehow."

He nodded. "I think I get it."

"I wish I knew what was causing it."

Nate thought for a moment, and he said simply, "God."

"What?"

"There are many faces of God, Zack. Some frightening, some tender. Whatever it is, it all has a meaning."

I had never heard Nate talk about religion before. "You believe in God?"

"Of course I do. In some form, at least." He put down the toothpick. "It's useless for us to speculate on it. Whatever is happening to you means something, but it may not even be for you to figure out what it is. On some level, though, this was meant to happen. I have no idea, but I believe it's true. You should too."

I slept in a blanket on the floor of his dorm room, next to his bed. It took me a long time to get to sleep. Both Nate and Rob snored slightly, Rob a little worse, but he was farther away. In the darkness I listened to the distant muffled sounds of the dorm--doors closing, and music playing--and the sound of traffic from outside. It was very cold and had snowed recently, and a chilly wind was propelling flakes of snow against the window. But ultimately I began to feel myself at peace. Perhaps Nate was right. The last shift had been pretty scary, but I didn't seem to be harmed by it. And I had seen some pretty amazing things. I had been another person--five other people--and seen through their eyes and experienced what they experienced. To have a window into someone else's soul is a pretty profound thing, and a lesson not easily forgotten. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps God was looking down at me, right now, poor little fat Zachary bundled in a blanket on his friend's floor. I didn't know what it meant but, for a brief time, I allowed myself to feel lucky that I'd had the experiences, however unpleasant some of them had turned out to be.

I eventually fell asleep. In the middle of the night I was awakened by something. It was a soft and gentle touch on the part of the blanket covering my shoulder. I swam back to consciousness. It was still very late and the dorm was quiet. I could hear the even scrape of Rob's breathing across the room, but I could no longer hear Nate's. I realized he was awake.

"Zack," he whispered. "You awake?"

I turned over. "Yeah."

"You must not be very comfortable down there."

"It's all right." In truth my back was beginning to ache.

I think Nate hesitated a moment before the next thing he said. "You can come up here with me if you want." He hastened to add, "You don't have to if you don't want to."

I almost couldn't believe it. Nate was literally inviting me into his bed. At first I was terrified, for largely the same reasons as when he had come into my room earlier. He would feel my chubby stomach and it would underscore how unattractive I was. "It's all right," I whispered back. "I'll be OK here."

"All right," he said. "Good night."

He turned over in bed, and he was quiet. My heart was pounding. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? I screamed at myself, silently. YOU IDIOT! WHY DID YOU SAY THAT? I froze. Now I was in even worse shape. I had already declined the offer and Nate was on his way back to sleep. I damned myself. What was wrong with me?

Something spurred me to action; I wasn't sure what it was. I sat up. I looked around in the darkness. The only light in the room was from a digital clock, and the little red running lights on Nate's computer, and the crack of light under the door. Distantly from outside I heard the sound of a police siren. I kicked off the blanket. Without it I was very cold. I got up and crawled up into Nate's bed. He stirred. He immediately moved over to the left, toward the wall, making room for me, and lifted up the thick quilted comforter so I could get under it. When I was in he drew it around me. My whole body was still, but yet it felt like it was shaking. I was erect, but it was a strangely un-sexual kind of erection, at least on some level. Nate did not put his arms around me, but his forearms were folded up against my chest. The bed was a wonderful cocoon of warmth and peace. Russia in 1812 seemed very far indeed.

A long silence passed. "Are you OK?" he whispered.

"Yes. Better now."

Another long silence. I couldn't gauge Nate's feelings. If he liked me, why didn't he come out and say it? Why didn't he put his arms around me or try to touch me or make some other move? He had to know that even if I didn't like him romantically I wouldn't be offended. Then I realized the exact same thing went for me. I could touch him if I wanted to. But I was terrified. If I tried to and he said, in his quiet gentle whisper, "Zack, I don't really like you like that," I would probably feel smaller and lower than ever before. I didn't want to risk it.

But I felt like I should say something. If I couldn't be explicitly honest about my feelings for him, at least I could hint at them. And he needed to know the whole story of the last time shift.

"Nate," I whispered, "I want to tell you something."

"You can tell me anything," he said.

"The last shift--um, the person I was thinking of--it was you."

He was quiet for a little while, but then he said, "I know."

"You know?"

"I figured there was a reason you didn't tell me who you were thinking about. You did for all the others. But if you were embarrassed I didn't want to dwell on it. It took courage for you to tell me right now."

"You're not...um...it doesn't like creep you out, does it?"

"No, of course not. I'm flattered. But Zack, I want you to know--I would NEVER hurt you. Never in a million years. Whoever you saw, it wasn't me, because I'm not like that. You know that, right?"

My heart melted. He was saying almost the exact words I fantasized about him saying. Only they were real.

"I know that."

"Good."

We lay still for a while. He certainly wasn't making this easy. Finally I decided to go for it. I would hate myself if I didn't, and the opportunity was rapidly slipping away. I wiggled closer to Nate, pressing myself up against him. Suddenly I didn't give a damn if he thought I was fat or unattractive. I put an arm around him. The warmth of his body was tremendously exciting. For a split-second I thought I had lost, because it didn't seem like he was doing anything. But then a strong warm arm came around me. Nate moved into my embrace. Our lips met very tenderly. We kissed.

It was probably the most wonderful moment of my life up until that time. It felt so natural. It was pure and good and tender. The tips of our tongues met. Then we grew more passionate, our tongues thrusting against each other. He gently stroked the skin of my back. I could feel his dick, hard and hot, burning through his boxer shorts pressed against my lap. I knew he could feel me too. Despite our arousal we did not do anything sexual, and I think that was as it should have been. We kissed for a while, and then Nate said softly, "Go to sleep, Zack. It's late. You've had a rough evening."

"Thanks for taking me in."

"It's my pleasure." He hugged me very hard. A few minutes later I heard him start to snore slightly. His arm was still lying across my chest, and I wouldn't move it for the world.

My relationship with Nathan isn't really the focus of this story, so I don't think I need to go deep into detail about it. It should suffice to say that we began going out that very next day, and we found we liked each other--and more. The mood that he set that first night by his casual but heartfelt invitation into his bed remained throughout our entire relationship; Nathan was always calm, subtle, and unfailingly gentle. He was a tremendous sweetheart. He was always there when I needed help or a shoulder to cry on. He would check on me to make sure I was doing all right, that my studying was done, that I called my parents back in Vermont on a regular basis. He was also very old-fashioned. "I don't want to get your hopes up," he told me at dinner on one of our first official dates. "I want to be sure we're right for each other before we sleep together. Not that I don't want it--absolutely I do. But I don't want to rush into anything, all right?" I wasn't about to dispute any conditions that Nate put on our relationship, and in point of fact I thought he was right anyway. I was actually very nervous about the first time we'd be together. I was technically a virgin and wasn't sure how it would go. I didn't want to disappoint him. So in a way, not sleeping together for a while was a kind of reprieve.

In March, just before spring break, we finally got together. We'd been spending a lot of time together that week, and each time was sweeter and more fun than the time before. On the Thursday before spring break we went to a party in Somerville. We both had some beers. Toward the end of the party he found me sitting on the stairs nursing a bottle of Heineken. He sat next to me but didn't touch me. Nate wasn't very big on PDA; he loved kissing and cuddling but preferred to do it in private. Still, he leaned close to me and said, "How are you feeling tonight?"

"I'm great, honey. Just great."

"That's good. Because I was thinking--um, if you agree, of course--that maybe it's time."

I smiled. "It is?"

"Yeah. I think it is." He swigged some of his own beer. "I really like you, Zack. I think we're great together."

"We are, aren't we?"

"Rob is gone tonight. He left for home a day early. We'll have the place to ourselves." He looked at me seriously. "Only if you want to, of course."

"Do you think I'd say no?" I laughed.

"I want YOU to be sure too."

I drank, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "I'm sure."

"OK." Nate looked at his watch. "When do you want to leave?"

"Right now, if you want."

We took the T to Back Bay, and trudged through the freezing wind to our dorm. I remember the buildings of the skyline looking like glittering jewels that night, soaring around us to the chocolate-brown sky. My heart skipped a beat when we got into the elevator on the way up to Nate's floor. There was a girl in the elevator with us that he knew from a class. "How's it going, Nate?" They chit-chatted a while. My heart was pounding. In a few minutes I would have what I'd wanted for a long time: to make love to a sweet and wonderful boy who cared about me. I wondered what life would feel like when I was no longer a virgin. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.

We got to his room. He closed the door behind us and we took off our coats. "Do you want a nightcap?" he said. Nate kept a bottle of brandy in his desk drawer. He poured us each a shot, and we downed them together. We sat down on his bed. Very gently he touched my cheek with his hand. We moved in closer to each other and our lips met. Kissing Nate had rapidly become one of my most loved activities. I savored the feeling of his lips on mine, our tongues brushing together. I touched the fuzzy, knobby texture of his dreadlocks. But beyond that we didn't touch each other for a long time. When the kissing became more intense Nate finally reached forward and put his hand on my stomach under my T-shirt. Even that simple gesture drove me insane with desire. I moaned. He moved upwards. He caressed my stomach and my chest and gently touched my hardening nipples. I think he was trying to tell me subtlely that he wanted me to take my shirt off. I obliged him. He ran his fingers through my hair, spreading it out down my bare shoulders. He smiled.

"Feeling good?" he said.

"Very good, Nate. Very good."

We undressed each other slowly, leisurely. Nate poured us some more brandy. My head was already humming, but it just seemed to enhance the pleasure I was feeling at just being with him. We lay on his bed, on top of his covers, me in my boxer briefs and he in his boxer shorts. He touched me through my underwear so gently I could barely feel it. But it still made me shudder with pleasure.

"I like that you go slow," I told him, after kissing his neck. "I really do."

"So many guys want to just cut to the chase. I mean, come on, it's not a race. I kind of like to string it out for a while. I'm glad you appreciate it." He drank some brandy and continued his caressing. I reached over and touched him too. Nate was almost exactly the same length as me, but he was thicker. I had wondered very often about what it would feel like in my mouth, or other places. Tonight I would find out.

We began kissing again. Eventually we got so involved in each other that we gave up the brandy and put our glasses on the night-table next to the bed. Then we were stroking and playing, very gently, very slowly. I remember Nate was smiling. He looked so happy with me.

"Naked?" he said, sort of half-giggling.

It was a race to see which one of us could get our shorts off quicker. I won, barely. We pressed our hips against each other. Feeling Nate's full length against my leg, unencumbered by clothes or underwear, for the first time, was incredibly exciting. He began to stroke me very gently. We'd been going out for a month but he had never seen me naked. That was by design. He seemed to like what he saw and felt now. If my fat or my out-of-shape body was repulsive to him, he did an excellent job of hiding it.

"Beautiful," he said, still smiling. And I thought he meant it. There's nothing more wonderful than being thought beautiful by another human being, however much you may not believe that you're worthy of it.

SNAP.

My stomach suddenly sank. I wasn't prepared for this. Not a time shift--not now, of all times in my life! I was lying in exactly the same position. Nathan hadn't taken his hands off me but he obviously noticed something had changed with me. "Zack? Are you all right?" he said.

I raised my head. We were very, very far from Boston. The two of us were lying naked on a blanket, in a field somewhere under a large spreading oak tree. An ocean of silky green grass waved in a gentle breeze on all sides of us. Beyond the field I could see a river. There was a boat of some kind drifting down it, with a red sail. Off in the other direction was an imposing stone building. It looked something like a castle, with arched windows and turrets. Was this the Middle Ages?

Near us two horses grazed lazily. Their saddles were very ornate. Next to the blanket was a pile of clothes and boots I took to be ours. They looked like costumes from a Shakespeare play.

Nate hadn't changed, at least physically. I knew it wasn't Nate, but the illusion of him was sweet nonetheless. He still had my throbbing penis in his soft hand. "Are you all right?" he repeated. What was odd was that he spoke with an English accent.

I lay back down. I felt relieved. This wasn't so bad a shift! I brushed his cheek with my hand. "I'm sorry," I said. "It's all right."

"I adore you," said Nate, sounding like Captain Picard. "To think I shall have to share you with Lady Sheffingham."

This time I decided to play along. I smiled, and brushed one of Nate's chocolate-brown nipples. "Lady Sheffingham is no concern of yours," I said.

"Indeed. You and I will be able to enjoy ourselves doubly on her father's dowry!" Nate then roared with laughter. He sat up and reached over to the pile of Shakespeare costumes. From under one of them he took a silver bottle with a strange fluted neck. He uncorked it, drank some, and passed it to me.

I was still aroused, but I felt my curiosity peeking through again. "You know I adore you too," I told Nate, after passing the bottle back up to him. "You mean so much to me."

"I know." He lay back down, staring up at the tree.

As I stroked his stomach--gently dusted with a fine soft line of silky dark hair--I said, "If I were to ask you a few questions, would you answer me truthfully, no matter how strange the questions might seem?"

He looked up at me, first with a quizzical look, and then he smiled. "If his Lordship desires it," he replied, sounding somewhat in jest.

"Can you tell me what today is? I mean, the date."

"It's Midsummer's Eve," he replied.

"What is that, June thirtieth?"

Nate laughed. "June twentieth." He took a drink from the bottle. "It's the twenty-sixth year of Her Majesty's reign."

I didn't have to ask him which majesty. I knew it was Elizabeth. "And what year of our Lord?" I asked.

"Fifteen-hundred and eighty-four," he replied.

1584! I was more than four centuries from home, and more than 200 years prior to the date of the last time shift. But somehow I knew Nate was right. This was Elizabethan England. It just felt different than the modern day. That castle behind us must have been MY castle. I was a nobleman of some kind.

"When am I to marry Lady Sheffingham?" I asked.

"On the morrow," Nate replied. He sounded melancholy.

I decided to cheer him up. "You know I will only ever love you, Nate."

He smiled, and he crawled on top of me. He took me in his arms. Suddenly I felt glad again that these experiences were mine. This one was very pleasant. The sun splashing down on us, mottled through the leaves of the oak tree, was warm and invigorating. And the embrace of Nate's arms, even this facsimile Nate, was still wonderfully sweet.

But then something very strange happened. A voice--disembodied, tinny, like an old loudspeaker--suddenly spoke. At first it shimmered as if from the bottom of a well, but it warbled into something intelligible, and commanded my attention.

"--Zack! Zack! Where are you? Are you all right?"

The voice, though distorted, was Nathan's. The REAL Nathan's.

The faux Nate sat bolt upright, suddenly alarmed. "Mercy!" he shouted. "We've been seen!"

I sat up. "No, it's all right." I called loudly: "Nate! Can you hear me?"

The tinny voice, almost sounding as if it came from the tree, said: "I can hear you. Don't shout."

The faux Nate scrambled for his clothes. "It's the devil!" he cried.

"Shh! Stop! It's not the devil. Calm down."

He did not calm down. He looked around nervously. "Spirits!" he wailed. "Evil spirits!" He held up a small emblem, a silver crucifix on a cowhide thong. I guess he'd been wearing it before he took his clothes off. He waved it in the air. "Spirits, begone! Begone with you, I say!"

"Calm down! Here, sit down. It's all right."

Nate's voice, shimmering from 421 years in the future: "Where are you? Are you all right?"

"I'm all right, Nate." My mind struggled to put together what was happening. "Are you still--are you in your room?"

"Yes!"

"Where am I?"

"You're here. But--something happened. You're...like in a trance or something."

The facsimile Nathan couldn't take it anymore. "Gods and ministers of saints, preserve us!" he shrieked. He grabbed for his clothes and bolted for one of the horses. He did a double-take, then came back and snatched up the bottle we had been drinking. He leaped onto his horse and was gone in a flurry of hoof-falls, off toward the castle.

"Where are you?" said the disembodied voice of the real Nate. "WHEN are you?"

I lay back across the blanket, stretching my arms out, feeling the mottled summer sunlight splashing down on my naked body. Suddenly I was happy. "I'm in England," I said. "In 1584. Oh man, I wish you were here. This is so romantic."

"Did you say FIFTEEN-eighty-four?"

"I'm supposed to marry Lady Sheffingham tomorrow," I said. I laughed. "But fuck her. I doubt she's as hot as you are."

For a while I didn't hear anything. Then Nate's tinny voice spoke again.

"Zack, can you hear me?" he said.

"Yes."

"I love you."

I opened my eyes and stared up at the tree I lay under. There was no mistaking it. This was absolutely real. It wasn't a hallucination. I was completely sane and completely in control of my senses.

"Did you hear me?" he said. "I love you. I absolutely adore you. Come back to me, Zack. Please. Come back to me, sweetie. I need you."

Then a strange thing happened. My dick, which had been at full-staff for several minutes, suddenly began to feel differently. I wasn't touching it--my hands were outstretched on either side of me--but it felt like someone was touching it, stroking me with the gentlest and tenderest of touches. I tipped my head back and gasped. Here I was, lying on a blanket in England, some four hundred years before either Nathan or I were even born. But he was making love to me, and I wanted to be with him, to be in his arms, in the present day.

I did not snap back to the present the way I had done at the end of all the other shifts. This journey was very different. It was like traveling through a whirling tunnel of light and sound and feeling. The world collapsed around me. I moved, but stayed where I was. In a split-second, less than the time it takes for you to blink your eyes, I moved through four centuries of history. I saw Shakespeare produce his plays. I saw the Old Masters paint their masterpiece paintings. I saw armies of samurais clashing on windswept fields in feudal Japan. I saw men throwing tea into Boston Harbor, and rebels and redcoats firing muskets on some distant battlefield. I saw the storming of the Bastille, Napoleon crowning himself Emperor, and the British burning the White House. I saw Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. I watched the Titanic go down. I listened to FDR tell me there was nothing to fear but fear itself. I saw the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, and Huey helicopters in the skies over Vietnam, and the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. I saw you being born. And then I was in bed in Nate's dorm room, my head humming with brandy, feeling his hands on me, his lips caressing mine. I gasped and spasmed and came harder than I had ever cum in my life before then. I seemed to ejaculate forever, spilling my hot wet seed into Nate's loving hands as he stroked and slicked me down with it, using it to lubricate his touch so he could coax more of my loving sperm out of me, exploding into his hands with the vivid power of my love for him until I had none left and I could do nothing except lie gasping in his arms.

"You came back," he said, kissing my neck. "You came back to me. God bless you, sweetie, you came back to me."

"It's closed," I told him, and I wasn't sure why. "The rift, the rift in time--it's closed. I went through--a tunnel of some kind. It closed behind me. I could feel it. There'll be no more shifts. I'm safe." And finally I kissed him too. I put my arms around him and squeezed him so tight that I felt I might have crushed him, except Nate was too strong and too solid for that.

We lay together for a long time. Nate rolled over to his side and snatched several Kleenexes from a box next to his bed, which he used to wipe off his hands, his thigh, and my stomach which were all wet with my cum. Then he snuggled against me and put his arms around me.

"You were really there?" he said.

"I think I was. What happened here?"

"You went blank. It's like you were dead. Your body was alive, but you were gone. But only for a few minutes. When I started making love to you, you came right back. Did that break the shift?"

I smiled. "Not quite." But I did not elaborate. I wasn't going to tell him. I broke the shift--myself--voluntarily. It was the only explanation. I could have stayed in 1584 if I wanted to. And part of me did. But on balance there was no comparison. If I stayed I might have remained unrooted through all of history, wandering the centuries at whim. But I vastly preferred being here. Of all the times and places I had been, there was no place else in history that I would rather have been than in Nate's bed, in his arms.

"I love you too," I told him.

I did not know what had happened to me, and now it seems I will never know. But I wondered if, in the moment of my orgasm, some other random person throughout time might have been experiencing what it was like to be me in that instant, and reeling at the awe and wonder of the inscrutable universe.

THE END