Page 35 of Melt With You

‘I’m impressed,’ he said, ‘so many people are only in it for the surface. But you went all the way.’

All the way.

Like in high school. Of course, back then she wouldn’t go all the way. And now look at her. She stared at her reflection in the mirror as Van pressed against her, so that she could feel how hard he was. He let her feel his cock through the white cotton BVDs, and then he slid those down, too. She realized that anyone walking into the bathroom would find them, and that didn’t bother her. Amazingly, it didn’t bother her. How many times had she and her friends interrupted some randy couple shagging in the bathroom? More times than she could remember. Christ, she’d walked in on Violet more than once.

And just as she had that thought, the door pushed open and Violet stumbled in, clad in her Columbia glory, from the glittery gold top hat to the multi-colored short-shorts. Just like Bette, she even had on short socks and Mary Janes.

‘Oh, Jesus. Sorry,’ she giggled, then hesitated just long enough to lock eyes with Dori, before saying to whoever was behind her, ‘This one’s full. Let’s use the little boys’ room.’ And out the girl went. How funny that Dori had only recently interrupted Violet and Jackson – in the future and at the reunion. Bathrooms were known places for public activity, weren’t they? George Michael had written a song about that – although, Dori thought to herself, he hadn’t written the song yet.

Van didn’t say a word, didn’t seem to have even noticed the interruption at all.

He pushed her down to the floor. The bathroom tile was like ice against her bare knees, but she didn’t care. She drew him into her mouth, sucking his cock, loving the way he looked all dolled up as Frank-N-Furter. There was something deliciously twisted to her about blowing a man who was dressed in ladies’ clothes. Even if he were dressed as a man who was playing a man. For an instant she tried to imagine this same scene with Bryce in Van’s place and almost choked on the giggles that threatened to spill out. Bryce would have been horrified if she’d suggested something as twisted as this. But then she had to stop thinking, had to pay attention, because Van was getting more turned on by the moment. She didn’t want to let him down.

‘Oh, God, you’re good,’ he crooned at her, running his hands over her hair, finding the ponytail holder and pulling it free. The lines were blurring now. She was dressed in a suit, but with her hair long and loose, she felt like a woman once more. How odd that a simple motion like feeling the wave of her hair flow down her back could undo the magic of her transformation.

But she wasn’t ready for the magic to end. Not yet.

Dori shut her eyes, noticing the way Van’s breathing had speeded up as she worked him, the way his skin smelled of ivory soap and cigarette smoke. And then suddenly he was moving her again. Standing her up and flipping her around, slamming into her as she braced herself with palms flat on the mirror.

She set her face against the glistening glass, loving the way the silver felt against her hot cheeks, the way Van’s body felt behind her. There was something so unbelievably hot about being taken by a guy wearing lingerie, while she was dressed head-to-toe as a man. Who would have thought?

‘You’re the best Brad I ever fucked …’ Van whispered darkly to her, and Dori shuddered as she came.

Chapter Fourteen

At home that night, Dori’s head was spinning. She looked at the clock. 2:30. Why couldn’t she sleep? Because she was still all riled up from being taken in the bathroom at The Majestic. Taken. That was the perfect word to describe the type of sex they’d had. Van had worked her over so well that her body still hummed from the pleasure. But that wasn’t the real reason she couldn’t sleep. After fucking like that, she would have thought dreams would come easily.

She showered and slid into her nightgown, then began to wander through the house she’d grown up in. She still paced when she was bothered by something. After her break-up with Bryce, she thought she’d have worn a tread into the hardwood floors in her apartment. But now, there was more space to cover. She did a circuit, finally stopping by her older brother’s bedroom. He was off at college by now. The room had been converted into a guest room/office. She sat on the leather loveseat and kicked up her feet on the arm rest. She preferred hanging out in Miles’ room. Hers had too much baggage. Not good memories versus bad memories. Just memories in general.

She felt embarrassed by the things she’d read in her diary, mortified by some of the fantasies and desires she’d penned as a youth. Her whole room seemed to mock her, while this one was neutral territory. Besides that, she had begun to really worry about Gael. And that knowledge hurt her head.

How could she help him?

How could she stop him from being arrested?

And should she even try?

He was guilty, after all, of dealing cocaine. But he wasn’t an evil man. He was Bette’s boyfriend – or the closest thing she had to a steady one. Because Will didn’t treat her right. Not by a long shot.

She squinted around the room, at the framed movie posters on the wall. Posters from films the whole family had liked: The Godfather, RoboCop, The Terminator. A row of bookcases stood under the window and an entertainment center held centerstage along the far wall. Dori stood up and randomly began to look at the books on the shelves, and then slowly turned back to look at the poster of The Terminator. And suddenly she had an idea. Why had she just given in to her circumstances? Because that’s what she always did. Right?

Miles wouldn’t have. That’s what she suddenly thought as she looked around his former bedroom. His gilded trophies were displayed in various nooks – up on the top row of the bookshelf, standing on top of the TV. Miles never gave up. ‘He was determined,’ her mother liked to say. ‘He had drive,’ her father always added. While Dori was more the type to move along with the tide. Dori was the one to hear ‘If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you follow?’ But Miles was the one who would have come up with the idea to jump off in the first place, she always wanted to say. Leader or follower. Both could get into trouble.

If Miles found himself thrust back in time twenty years for no apparent reason, what would he do? Dori continued to look at the book shelves. He would try to find a solution. That’s why he had been in charge of his own internet company at the age of thirty, why he was retired by forty, able now to devote himself fully to his number one passion, flying, having sold his company to his partner.

Dori’s fingers stopped on the title Hangiri’ out with Cici by Francine Pascal. The book was battered. It had been one of her favorites, one of the first teen novels she’d read. She remembered the plot easily. A girl goes back in time from the 40s. How had it happened? She sat back down on the sofa and thumbed through the novel, remembering different parts so well, rereading her favorite passages.

Victoria had gone back in time after hitting her head on the window of a train. And the whole thing had seemed like a dream. Until the very end, when she found evidence that she’d really been in the past. The happily ever after of the story was that although she does come back to the future, her world is altered ever so slightly in a positive manner – the strained relationship she’s had with her mother is changed for the better.

What other books held similar themes? Dori wondered. She tried to think. Wasn’t there generally something in these types of stories about what would happen if she ran into herself? She had that thought constantly in the back of her mind. What if she didn’t fix the situation before her family returned from London? What if she ran into her eighteen-year-old self? Would she actually end up in a loony bin?

The thought worried her, and she pushed it from her mind. What she really needed was to fix the problem. And there just might be an answer in one of the movies that would help her get back to her normal time. She scanned the shelf once more, but found nothing. What about movies? There were rows of VHS tapes on the lower shelves of the entertainment center, her brother’s neat handwriting on the spine of each one. Jesus, they were in alphabetical order. She thought of the way people rented movies these days – Netflix – or simply downloaded shows onto their X-pods. Her brother would have been in awe if he could see something like that in 1988.

She looked over the ugly rows of tapes. They seemed hideous and bulky compared to the clean lines of CDs. Nothing. Nothing. Oh, wow. Back to the Future.

What about that? Would that one hold any answer?

She tried to remember the storyline. All she needed was some mad scientist to create a time travel device to bring her back to the future. What had it taken in the film? A skateboard? A DeLorean?

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