Separatrix Pt. 03 Ch. 01

Part Three

Chapter One

"I have a plan."

He was lying face down on her bed, letting her fingers press where they knew to go, right on the muscles in his back that hurt most. Her pressure hurt too, but it was a good hurt. He needed it. They'd been at the pier all day, climbing together over the frame to install the braces that would support the upper coil, an innovation he'd created that enhanced the concentrator's efficiency significantly. He wished he'd tried the climbing walls at his college gym. The experience would have come in handy.

"You can't do this," she continued as her fingers found one knot after another, "not alone. Even with my help." She paused a moment for that to sink in. "I've been thinking."

He tried to raise up. Her "thinking" was a danger signal that he'd better get ready for some radical, probably daunting, scheme she'd concocted. He needed to be on alert. But she was straddling him on his butt, basically riding him. She pushed him back down.

"I have a plan."

"When you say it twice, I get doubly worried." A 'plan' could be wonderful, a new place she wanted him to do her, or a new technique she wanted to try on him. But he didn't think she had anything sexual in mind. In fact, instead of letting suggestive images slip from her mind, she was keeping herself totally closed. He managed to twist around enough that she let him rotate to be lying on his back looking up at her. They were in cowgirl position, one of her favorites. But although he was naked after a post-work shower, she was still fully clothed and he didn't need a connection to see that sex was not part of her plan. At least not immediately.

"You need help."

"I can do it." She gave him her sometimes-you're-such-an-idiot look. "I mean, I know things are going a bit slowly."

"Way too slow. And you're running out of money. And I can feel your body. The treatment improves your stamina and strength, but that process takes months and you're wearing yourself out already. You need help. We need help."

He was able to get her off him and sit up. They sat on her single bed next to each other. He leaned back against the wall. "I agree money is an issue. I tried my old contacts. Everything's dried up. But I don't need that much. I'll get a loan."

"You need a lot. Especially if you want to move fast, which you do. That DOE asshat won't just forget about you." He'd completely avoided any contact with LASSO or the university in the past few weeks and had stayed away from his apartment. Still, he knew she was right.

"But money's not the problem. I can fix that. And you're safe here with me. Tracking will be a concern when you order more material, but I have an LLC we can use."

"You have your own--" He just shook his head.

"A Historian needs to know how the culture she visits operates. And how to operate in in the culture. That's not the problem. The problem is this." She reached across him to the small crate/table near the bed to get her pouch. Out of it she took one of the cylinders. "Can you see this?"

Of course he could. It was gray, about the size and shape of a stack of nickels. He was going to ask her what she meant when he saw it. Or rather a pattern it was projecting. He closed his eyes. It was still there.

"Good. The treatment is progressing. Watch." At a gesture, maybe just made in her imagination, the pattern slowly changed. "See that? That sort of wall? That's the separatrix. It's getting firmer. That's bad. Really bad."

He watched, fascinated as much by how it sat in his vision as by the information.

"We don't have endless time. We don't have much time at all."

"How--" he reached for it. She let him take it from her and hold it. "How does it work?"

"The projection is simple. Oh, I see, you mean how does the monitor sense the separatrix? It's got a reservoir of atoms it brought from my time. It periodically collapses a small quantity. If the time stream is stable, all of the atoms will return to my era, where they came from. If there's interference, such as a separatrix, some won't. It can tell what gets through and what doesn't."

He poked his finger into the pattern at the border of the thing she called the separatrix, which was slowly coalescing, like a time lapse of a weather front, from a wall of fog into a linear thunderhead. He thought he could feel something there. "Why is it happening?"

"We're not sure."

"'We' being you and Secret Agent? And what's it got to do with me?"

"In this case, 'we' is the entire Org. I can't tell you." To his frustrated look she added, "But I'm confident you'll figure it out. But that's not enough. What you're doing is important. You're right at the barycenter. So--" She turned to him and ran her hands over him-- "Pavel, my studly genius, I'm going to help you."

Her touch became firm and pushed him over onto his side, then his back. She spread his legs and took his genitals in her hands. The vision he saw in her mind was oral sex, but the images were multiple and overlapping, different faces, different looks. Her memories from different eras, past and future, seemed to hover around the present moment. More and more he was becoming aware of what an extraordinary being he'd become involved with. She held his testicles, but that was just symbolic of what she was doing to him.

"So, tell me about Sana."

"Sana?" He was trying to make sense of the palimpsest of images while the sexual excitement shot up his spine. That didn't leave much mental room to answer random questions.

"That's her name, right? The Japanese astronomer."

One of the faces in her vision, he saw, was Sana. "You don't have to worry about her. It's over."

She didn't laugh, but he could sense the humor she felt, that she should worry about some historical woman stealing him from her. Her hand went to his hardening cock and stroked him. "No, just tell me. Is she good at what she does?"

"You mean professionally? Yes, very. We're lucky to have her. She's the best statistical expert I've ever met. She's setting up our analysis software. Big job."

"Good." He wondered why she would care. She played with him for a while, but at the same time the sexual part of their connection receded a bit."And why did you break up?"

"Seriously, you don't have to worry."

"Pavel, my stud--" her finger stroked his scrotum, sliding right up between his testicles, which made him harden still more-- "I'm not worried. I need to know."

She glanced briefly at his cock. His hips lifted as his body tensed. He got the message. She could turn him on any time she wanted. No worries. "W-why?"

"I want to recruit her."

"I don't... don't..." He was hard and her tickling along the ridge of his cockhead was making it difficult to keep his mind on the conversation.

"The plan." Somehow the plan, whatever it was, had gone from a new idea to a done deal. "You won't be able to finish the generator alone. Not in time. I showed you. Allison's going to be easy. She worships you anyway and I'll let her know that she'll have access to this--" her whole hand wrapped around his now fully erect cock and stroked him-- "so she'll do anything. I think you'll really enjoy her. And she certainly knows how to build generators."

"Detectors. And I'm building a concentrator."

"Whatever. But Sana sounds like a great fit. I need to know what went wrong between you so I can fix it."

He felt defeated, as often happened with her. He tried to relax and push away any expectations, which never matched what she planned for him anyway. "There's nothing to fix."

"Don't worry." He'd forgotten she could read his mind. Or at least the part directly connected to his genitals. "There's another superb blow job in your immediate future. But first tell me why you and Sana broke up."

He sighed. "We didn't, really. It's just, well, we'd just started our relationship, we were still feeling each other out, if you know what I mean, it was going slowly, and then I got that job offer--"

"The fusion startup?"

"Yes, and that meant I had to move away. She couldn't, so..."

"Hmm." Her head bent down and lips slid lightly over his length, the way that drove him crazy, but only briefly. "Why slowly?" When he didn't answer she added, "You said 'slowly'. Why?"

"Well, she wasn't very experienced."

Her hands cupped his balls. "Tell me." She opened up her mind and focused on him. He gave in.

# # #

Their first time was in a hotel room at a conference they were both attending. They'd had dinner, he remembered, at a Korean place. He'd suggested Japanese but she didn't like most American Japanese restaurants and didn't want to risk an unknown one in a new city. He'd drunk a bit more beer than he should have to encourage her to drink some too. Then they were touching and neither of them wanted to stop and here they were in his room.

She could have gone to her own room in the same hotel, on a different floor, but she wanted to spend the night with him. He was used to having women be attracted to him, so this was not a surprise. But Sana was a different experience.

"I don't know," she said, when he tugged her to the bed and began unbuttoning her blouse. But she didn't resist.

"We won't do anything you don't want."

"Let me take a shower."

He'd turned down the lights and was in bed already when she came out of the bathroom. She was wearing a bathrobe and got into bed still wearing it. They embraced and kissed, but she wouldn't let him undo the robe's belt. It didn't matter. It was a thick, fluffy robe and soon she was roasting under the covers and had to take the robe off herself. He felt over her body, which she let him. She was still wearing her bra and panties.

More necking followed. He started a massage, which got her bra off, but she covered herself with her arms whenever he tried to touch her breasts. They finally settled into a hug and he let her fall asleep in his arms.

# # #

"Wait, no sex?"

"I certainly wasn't going to force her."

She picked up his cock, not quite totally hard anymore, and gave him several affectionate sucks that quickly solved that problem. It was as if she were rewarding him for his gentlemanly behavior that night. "So when did you fuck her? I assumed you did. Did you?"

# # #

Sana and he continued the same way the next two nights at the conference, always in his room, always with her panties on, though she gave him access to the rest of her body, and in return explored his body, including his cock, which she seemed to find new and fascinating, even though she said she'd had a boyfriend or two before him.

It wasn't until they got back home and had a date together that they had sex. She took him to the one Japanese place she approved of, where she taught him about sake. He could tell that she was getting herself drunk. He went along with that idea, drinking more than she did.

He learned about her fear later in bed when, after a long session of necking, massaging, and petting her, he started to pull her panties off.

"Wait, no, I'm not sure." She said this even though she'd been playing with his cock for a while and had let him rub himself against her, through her panties. "You're, you're so big. It's going to hurt."

He pulled her panties all the way off. She let him kneel between her legs. "Don't worry," he said.

# # #

"Nice. I'm sure you did a great job. How was her pussy? As tight as mine?"

"You know, sometimes you are just the crudest woman-- correction, person-- I've ever encountered."

"You're welcome."

"I'm not sure I should be telling you all these details. Would you feel okay if I told another woman about some of the things you do?"

"Go ahead and try. They'd never believe you. They'd claim you were bullshitting." There followed some of her unique, indescribable, next level fellatio that left him doubled over and proved her point. "So you made her come, I hope."

# # #

Yes, he made her come. Of course his cock didn't hurt, just the opposite. Then he made her come again. And again. And again. He finally showed her mercy and pulled out. He lay next to her while she panted and spasmed, petting her body to comfort her. He thought he could have kept going on and on, orgasm after orgasm. She didn't seem to have a limit.

# # #

"Interesting. Just naturally, without a treatment. Did you ever find her limit?"

He shook his head.

"Even when you ate her? That drives me insane after you've fucked me. As you well know."

"I tried. She didn't want me to. And she was way too sensitive. Even a single touch down there was too much."

"Wow. It must have felt incredible coming inside her, with her coming continuously."

"Actually, I never..."

"Really? Not once?"

"She was afraid of getting, you know..."

"Right. Your contraceptive tech is pathetic, onerous for women and nonexistent for men. Shameful, considering your other tech. So she blew you?"

"Um, a little."

"Only a little? Then how did she make you come? Or didn't she?"

"She did, but..." He struggled, partly because she'd resumed her fellating. "It's... embarrassing."

"Ooh, now you have to tell me." More fellating, no mercy. She released him after she'd made him double up again. "Come on. You know I'm going to torture you until you tell. Might as well get it over with."

She gave him a few seconds to get his voice back. When he didn't respond quickly enough to suit her, she bent toward his cock again. "Wai-- wait!" he was able to get out. After a few more seconds and a piercing look accompanied by a strong, compelling urge through their connection, he said, "Facials."

Her look turned quizzical. He realized it was another sex slang she hadn't yet encountered.

"She liked to--" he forced himself to say it-- "to make me come on her face. Jeez, this is so fucking embarrassing." An image leaked out of what he remembered.

"Ah. That's what it's called here. You liked that? You want to do that to me?"

"No. I mean--"

"I know. You like to come in beautiful women's mouths. Very understandable, and as a beautiful woman whose mouth you've come in, I'm well aware of your preference. So why...?"

"Jeez. Okay. She was fine, after a while, licking me, and even sucking a bit. She was really fascinated with cock. I used to watch her just looking and tasting, experimenting. It was really new for her. And she was especially fascinated with, you know, stroking me and watching me..."

"Ejaculate? Spurt your come all over?"

"She would get up really close, and she liked to be kneeling with me standing, you know, so she could see better, and..."

"And she's very pretty, isn't she? So, she made you come and you got to watch yourself do it all over her pretty face. That sounds great."

"The thing is, she was so innocent I don't think she realized what a porn actress sort of scene she was doing."

"That's hilarious. Okay, she has potential. Professionally too. I'll get her to run the generator experiments and then blow you to orgasm. In her pretty mouth. Picture her doing that while I do the same thing to you now."

"How-- how are you going to get her to do-- do--" but he didn't get a chance to finish the sentence.

# # #

"This can't possibly work."

Allison had walked ahead of the rest of them after depositing her bag in the Faraday locker. She scanned the concentrator, looking up, hands on hips, standing too close to it for Jake's comfort.

"Careful, there's a lot of energy running through it."

"Well, yeah, at the focus, sure--"

"All over."

"Didn't we establish-- and what are those... I don't know--" she waved at the brackets he'd attached to the top lobe-- "and you're putting the superconductor up there too? How do you focus?"

He came up to her. "I don't. I collect the flux and concentrate it." He waved across the bottom lobe.

Allison looked at Sana, hoping for some kind of help. Sana just shrugged. "It's just a big Geiger counter to me."

"Wait a minute, do you know--" Jake tried to dispute, but she was already winking at him.

"Allegra?" Allison tried.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"It's fucking ugly. Brutal." Allison turned to survey the whole pier building. He thought she might be trying to peer into the darkness that filled every part of the structure except where he'd set up construction lights. "Really goes with this decrepit pile of soggy wood. Jake, what were you thinking?"

"It's just a prototype," he tried to explain. "Not even that. Proof of concept."

"It's not even made well."

"It will become the generator," Allegra announced. "And you will build it. You'll do it right. The first one."

Allison reached her hand out to touch the superconductor coils.

"Stop!" He took her hand. "There's a lot more power than you think in there. Here." He'd prepared the sampler better than he had for Historian. The vial was now glued to the end of the boat pole. An optical fiber ran from it down the pole's length to a digital thermometer taped to the other end, which he handed to her. He knew she understood without explanation what it was for. "Heavy water," he said pointing to the vial.

She knew where to put the vial, of course, and immediately slipped it underneath into the center. "Whoah." They all watched the temperature climb.

"How much power do you think you can get out of this," asked Sana.

"One this size? Maybe a hundred kilowatts. When it's done."

"Really?"

"Once it's perfected, yes. This one would need a lot-- wait!" He pulled Allison's hand back. "Please don't let it boil. Heavy water's not cheap."

"Sorry. But it's nearly as strong around the perimeter. Surprised me. Is there even a focus?"

"You could look at it as a badly designed detector. I set the field as wide as possible."

She gave the pole back to him. "But then it's miserably inefficient. We looked at that. I remember."

He used the pole to point to a thick plate that stretched across under the coils. "Moderator."

"Oh. Like in a fission reactor? Okay. No, you can't. For muons?"

He just smiled.

"Pavel is a savant."

"Allegra," Sana said, "sometimes you say things that sound just like they make sense. But then I think about the words and it all falls apart."

"Sometimes I call Jake Pavel." She took his arm. "And sometimes Pavel is a savant."

"For the whole concept, I'm adding an upper coil." He pointed up at the top where he'd been bolting on brackets. "See where I widened the frame? It'll pull in a lot more with that installed."

"This is incredible." Allison took a few steps back to take the whole structure in. "Maybe Allegra is right, if savant means genius. So then, what needs to be done?"

Jake liked how she shifted immediately into concrete questions. "Well, the upper coil, what I said. And down here--" he pointed to the space where she'd probed with the vial-- "we'll want a real chamber for the heavy water. Pressurized if we can make it strong enough. And then some way to pull out the thermal energy. There's going to be a lot of that."

"One minute, please." It was Sana's turn. "This--" she waved at it.

"Generator," Allegra said. "It's the first."

"Concentrator," Jake corrected.

"Whatever it is," Sana continued, "that sounds like a lot of power. One of these could power a house, say?"

"Way more than one."

"A neighborhood?"

"I guess so."

"And it just runs? Am I getting that? No input power?"

"Oh, thanks, I almost forgot." He pointed at the top ring. "See those reinforcements?" he said to Allison. "The lid. We're going to need a big, heavy lid, to block the particles and turn it off."

Sana ignored the interruption. "So it's like solar, but runs night and day. And it's like wind, but there's always plenty of muon wind. Am I getting this right?" He shrugged and nodded. "Jake, this is..." She came to him and hugged him, even as Allegra still held him. Feeling that, she pulled away embarrassed.

"Don't worry," Allegra said to her.

"Free power, 24/7. I can't decide," Allison said, "if I'm looking at the next centibillionaire, or the first trillionaire. One of these every ten blocks, every city, all our energy problems go away."

"Ladies," Allegra said. She pulled Allison to her. Sana had backed away but she got her back in and got them to huddle together. "We're going to do this. We're going to make history."

He had to laugh. "A historian making history?"

She ignored him. "I have a plan."

# # #

"Ms. Sanders. Good to meet you in person at last." To their credit, Allison and Sana hardly blinked when the lawyer addressed the woman they knew as Allegra by yet another name.

"It's good to be here." She introduced the rest of the group. Jake took in the over-the-top lobby, like a miniature bank crossed with a boutique hotel. But without tellers or a check-in counter.

"Very happy to meet you all. I'm Joe Fromer, the second Fromer from the name out front." It was obvious from the way Fromer scanned the women up and down that he was especially happy to meet them. Fromer was gray-haired and looked like a sixty-year-old trying to look forty. Jake got mostly ignored.

Allegra had flown them out to Las Vegas together, first class. At the airport a limo met them and took them to the new Four Seasons and in minutes they were in an elegant suite that dwarfed his apartment and was incomparably beyond hers. It featured a vertiginous view of the crazy casino architecture that shamed his apartment's view of other apartments. Later she led them back to the limo and they were driven through a suburb to what could have been a small country club, except it displayed at the front on a discreet bronze plaque, "Fromer, Ames, Parthy, and Fromer".

"Daryna," Fromer said to the young woman who'd met them with him, and who would not have been out of place at one of the high-end clubs, "please show Ms. Sanders and her team to the board room."

"So, Ms. Sanders," Jake said in a low voice as they followed Daryna down the marbled hallway to the board room, "just to avoid, you know, looking dumb: what's your first name?"

She had to think. "Sandy."

"Not very creative."

"You know that names aren't my strong suit. I was really enjoying the era's fast food."

"You can't mean KFC, can you?"

"And you neglected to show up in time to provide something more appropriate to the cultural environment."

"Back in the eighties? I wasn't born yet."

"Not my problem."

They were led to the end of a long table that could have sat a dozen. Daryna took drink orders, hiding a slight surprise that they only wanted coffee and tea. "It was a long time ago, Ms. Sanders," Fromer began, "and I was just an intern working in my father's firm, may God rest his soul, but I swear you are the spitting image of your aunt. How is she, by the way?"

"She is no longer with us, I must tell you."

"So sad to hear that. What an amazing woman. Father called her the best real estate mind he'd ever seen. What vision. Far ahead of her time. What faith in our amazing city."

Jake had to stifle a guffaw. Sana gave her and Jake the strangest look, as if Fromer had just stated that two plus two equals five. And stared at her and Jake as if they'd somehow put him up to it.

Allegra leaned over to him and whispered, "Oops. 'Sandy' was my name back then. Give me a new one."

Fromer was about to continue. Jake held up his hand, producing a useful pause in the conversation. "Thanks, Mr. Fromer--"

"Call me Joe."

"Joe. And Wendy's-- I mean Wendy--" he nodded toward her-- "has told me some great stories about her late aunt. I'd love to reminisce. But I understand we have a lot of business to go over."

"Indeed. Ms. Sanders-- may I call you Wendy?-- said in her call yesterday that she was now representing her aunt." He turned to her. "I'll need to verify your identity, of course. Just a formality, I'm sure."

She brought out from the designer wallet in her designer purse a driver's license. Jake saw that this one was from Nevada.

"Hmm," Fromer said, "you have the same name as your aunt?"

"I took after her from the very beginning. It just happened."

"Hmm."

"But," Jake added, "everyone calls her by her middle name, 'Wendy'."

"I see. Very well. That should work. And, ah, Wendy, you mentioned that you wanted to sell some of the trust fund's property? We can certainly help you do that. You also want to make changes to a corporation. That's not our specialty, but we are closely associated with a firm that can help you out."

The rest of the meeting was educational for Jake, presumably also for Allison and Sana. Allegra/Wendy laid out her plans, which she'd revealed to them only very generally before the trip by saying, "I'll get you the funds you need. And we'll have some fun." The Sanders Trust had several large parcels of undeveloped land right at the edge of the growing Las Vegas suburbs. Fromer was very pleased to hear she was going to sell them. His commission would be substantial, no doubt. And then she revealed her plan to use most of the proceeds to purchase land further out and near other Nevada cities. Fromer was skeptical, but Jake knew the fix was in, as they said in Vegas.

He was further skeptical that most of the remaining proceeds, tens of millions, would be invested in the shell company Jake had set up to rent the pier, Cherenkov Boat Repair, and further that Jake, Allison, and Sana were to be the board of directors. But not her.

At any rate, Fromer said he would do as asked.

"We've just arrived and don't know the city. Could you, as a favor," she asked, "get us reservations at a great restaurant? Steak? Love the cows in this... part of the world."

"Uh," was the best Fromer could respond with.

# # #

Daryna had come through and got them a private room in some celebrity chef's place with some number of Michelin stars. Allegra didn't care about any of that, which impressed the staff somehow, but loved and devoured her rib eye. Jake joined the clean plate club also. The two other women ate their share, and they all enjoyed the very expensive French red that the sommelier recommended.

Over dessert and a fancy port, also sommelier-recommended, Allison asked, "So, Allegra, where are you from?"

Jake wondered how Allegra would evade the question, but she answered simply, "I'm from the future."

Allison's head jumped back as if she were avoiding a punch. Sana scowled and glanced at Jake. Allison recovered and presented a polite smile she might give to a colleague who announced he was a flat-Earther. "Allegra, you really are a fascinating person." Jake sat back and sipped the port. This, he thought, was going to be interesting.

"I'm very attracted to you too, Allison."

"That's, ah, not what I meant. I mean, um, you have such a unique... personality, and perspective. I can't help wondering where it all comes from. If you don't mind telling us."

"I don't mind telling you at all. In fact, I think it's now important to fill you in."

"So then..."

"I come from--" she looked away, thinking for a few seconds-- "by your calendar, the year 3112."

"That's totally impossible." Sana finally spoke up.

"I know it is for you."

"Allegra, you're really twisting my brain." Allison leaned forward, her creme brûlée forgotten. "I thought you were just being, you know, poetic or something. But..."

"Jake," Sana interjected, "did you buy into this bullshit?"

"Jake figured it out on his own," Allegra answered for him. "He really is a savant."

Sana had leaned in aggressively as she'd asked him that question. She leaned back now and folded her arms.

The table fell into silence for a moment, then another. "The port," Jake said, attempting to revive the conversation, "is really tasty. Try it." That got no response.

"So what's your real name?" Sana asked.

He had to stifle a laugh at that question, almost spitting out his drink.

"Names again." Allegra shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You're all so obsessed with the fucking names."

"Are you really that so-called Sandra Sanders? Or Wendy? I don't think that lawyer believed you for a second, by the way."

"Of course he believes. It serves his purpose to believe. He'll make a mountain of dough, as you people like to call money for unknown reasons, by believing. And get that very lucrative, overripe parcel off his books, finally. Doubting my identity would reduce his income."

"By the way," Jake interjected, "for someone from a world without money, you're very good at it."

"There's no money where you come from?" Allison asked.

"Oh, there is, certainly. I understand there are actually hundreds of different kinds, maybe thousands. It's something accounting savants deal with. But for most people, there's no need."

"So," Allison tried again, "so, just hypothetically-- I'm not saying for a second I believe it-- but hypothetically, how does the time travel thing work?" With a glance at Sana as soon as the words left her mouth. She looked apologetic.

Allegra sat up. She focused on Allison in a way Jake was familiar with, when she wanted him. "You already know." She waited a beat, pretending an answer would come from Allison. Then: "You're familiar with the concept of superposition." Another pause. "Schrodinger's cat?"

"Of course."

"Think of me as the cat."

"Well. But. But."

"This is absurd." From Sana. "That's just a thought experiment. It's about quantum level effects."

"The whole Universe is a quantum level effect."

"Sure, I guess, but you're talking about time."

"Your physics already has the concept of space-time. I'm not a physicist, but I did read that your physical laws worked the same backwards and forwards in time. Right?"

Allison rubbed her face as if she were trying to wake up.

"Allison, don't let her trick you. It's all bullshit." Sana again.

"I know, I know, but-- okay, Allegra, was it you that bought the land back then? How?"

"I stopped first in the 80s. We miscalculated the history, came a few decades too early. I saw that, so before I aborted the mission I made some preparations for my return. I knew I'd be back. And we always need dough."

Sana just rolled her eyes.

"Sana," Allison countered, "if she's not telling the truth then she's... what? Seventy? Eighty? And she hasn't aged a day. I mean, something's going on here."

"Something. I'd rather believe she has an identical twin aunt."

"Well," Allegra said, turning to him, "I tried." She stretched in her chair. "I'm going to walk back to the hotel. Anyone want to join me?"

# # #

Of course they all did, although it was a mile through Vegas heat and endless tourists and flashing lights. The two women trailed behind them, not used to her fast pace and talking between themselves in low tones.

"I understood in the Bronze Age," she said to him, "that they just weren't equipped to understand. But here, I thought, your science has the necessary concepts, and you're all scientists."

"Wait, I heard that." Allison caught up to them. "You went to the Bronze Age?"

"Allison," Sana warned, "don't let her do this to you."

Allison took Allegra's arm. "What was that like?"

"Different. Very different. And yet the same. Humans are humans, after all."

"And what did you do there?"

"I was a slave."

Allison opened her mouth to speak, but he could see a hundred questions filling her mind to overflowing. Nothing came out.

"Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime," Allegra continued. They arrived at their hotel. "But now we need to do some planning."

# # #

"I can see, and I agree, that you're an extraordinary person," Sana said when they went up to their suite, "but this whole visitor from the future thing has to be bullshit. Just so you know."

"I appreciate your honesty," she answered, "and I can understand how the concept would be difficult to accept." She shrugged. "But that's neither here nor there. What matters is getting the generator operating."

Her simple, unquestioned confidence in herself and her personal history was enough to silence any question of her veracity. She didn't care what anyone else thought.

The suite included a wet bar and counter, which she led them to. "I'm leaving soon. Whether it's to the future or to Peoria, Texas, is not relevant. I won't be here anymore. I'm depending on you three to keep things going."

"I can't ask them to do that," Jake objected.

"I'm not asking you. I'm informing them." She turned to Allison and Sana. "I can count on you, right?"

They both shrugged. They'd already committed.

"Wait," he said, realizing what she'd said, "you're leaving? Now?"

"Soon. I wish I could stay, but my most important role happens in my era." She returned her attention to the women. "And while I'm away, I don't want you two to fight over him. That won't get the job done. I want you to agree right now to share him."

"Uh, wait," he tried, but she waved him silent.

"Okay?" She pointed back and forth between the women, actually holding her finger out like a pretend gun. Sana looked as shocked as he'd ever seen her. Allison was paying close attention as if trying to figure out a magic trick. "You both want him. Sana, you got to enjoy him once already, I hear. He's even better now."

He caught Sana's eye. She scanned him up and down. He leaned back against the counter. He knew he should play the gentleman and stop Allegra. But no way was he going to. The scene itself was an ego orgasm, and now that she'd put the idea into his head, he had been remembering Sana's ivory legs and-- he had to stop himself and pay attention.

"We need to do some planning now, all of us, so let me just say one more thing for you girls to think about. And that's that this man has always been a horny guy and a great fuck, and I've helped him become even more so. He'll be able to satisfy both of you, don't worry."

The "girls" eyed each other but said nothing. She went around the counter where they stood. She found a hotel brochure and began drawing on it, right over the photo of a handsome couple on a beach. Allison, seeing what she was drawing, got a notepad out of her backpack and offered it. She moved to a blank page in the pad without pause, drawing boxes. She was outlining a schedule that was clearly already fully formed in her head. He could even see it in outline, though vaguely, with his points. He didn't think it was a coincidence that he was surrounded-- that's how it felt-- by the two women, Allison on one side, Sana diagonal at the near corner. He wasn't sure whether they were protecting him from her, keeping him away, or taking over responsibility for him from her. He became very aware of their bodies, as if their clothes had become transparent. Allison's runner's body was a delight to be near. He had to hold himself back from touching her. He knew Sana's, of course, and was pleased he could still visualize her slim hips and apple-sized breasts in such detail.

Then Allegra glanced at him, even as she was still drawing boxes, labelling and connecting them, and he realized that many of his perceptions were hers, seeing these two women from the mind of a woman, a woman who had intimately known many women, probably more than even he had known. He didn't feel desire for these women from her. He felt desire, certainly, growing as the three women discussed the plans that she was sketching out, but it all came from him. What he got from her was an appreciation of the women as perfect examples of the women of his era, as that princess and her servants had been of theirs, and even her Martian lover was of her time and place. He was her, in her mind, seeing herself as the princess here. And her hierarchy. He was hers the way Dagan and the Nubian soldier were, but like Dagan and his concubines the women were his. That's how she saw it all, and her reality was taking over.

"Jake, I was asking-- Jake?"

He pulled his mind back to the discussion. Allison put her hand on his shoulder, which didn't help him concentrate on the matters before him. "Um. I'm sorry. What?"

Allison kept her hand on him. "We were wondering about those simulations you were running on the generator." She had to take her hand off him to point to an hourglass-shaped polygon Allegra had drawn that had to be the concentrator. "We'll want them for the verification."

He switched into academic mode. "The sims are running. Taking a while."

"Buy some time on a big cloud server," Sana said.

"Spend whatever you need," Allegra agreed. "That goes for everyone. Assume the funds are unlimited."

Allison tore a sheet out of the pad and began redoing the box diagram as a rough Gantt chart. Eventually they agreed on a basic plan and had their tasks, mostly self-assigned.

"Okay, good," Allegra said, looking at each of them for confirmation. "So, Allison, you're building the generator, with help as needed from the rest of us. Sana, you'll be doing the experiments. And of course our resident inventor-slash-genius will be finishing his mathematical models or whatever he calls them. As for me--" She paused to make sure she had their attention-- "I'm just a historian, so I'm useless for the technical work. But I can order equipment and dog the details while I'm here. And I'll need to set up the supply of funds. Give me a rough estimate soon. Now," she said, nodding toward double doors at one end, "you need to see this."

She led them to the master bedroom and opened the drapes and sliding doors to show a balcony with a gorgeous nighttime view and an equally gorgeous hot tub. "We have to try this."

She undressed in front of them, tossing her business attire on the bed, and in seconds was totally naked in front of them. "Come on," she said, "everyone. Pavel." She turned to him and began unbuttoning his shirt. He let her and enjoyed the looks on the two women's faces: Allison shocked but captivated, Sana disapproving but intrigued. He helped get his pants off and let her lead him into the water. She looked back at them. "Not as hot as I'd like it, but good enough. Come on."

Allison got undressed and Jake got to see her whole body for the first time. Allegra spoke the words he was thinking: "Allison, you are really beautiful."

Allison seemed pleased and joined them in the tub. Sana joined them soon after, but kept her underwear on.

They sat together in the tub for a while, relaxing and enjoying the view. Pop music wafted faintly from below. Allegra put a hand on him. "Let's discuss personal plans." She ran her hands over his chest, spreading warm water over him. "First, while I'm around I get Pavel."

"Pavel?" Sana asked. Allison had sat down next to him opposite Allegra. Sana sat opposite them all at the other side of the tub.

"That was his first name. Still my favorite. He's been getting leaner. Really nice. I also call him Rod sometimes, for obvious reasons. You can call him whatever you want when you have him. But I get him now."

Sana looked uncomfortable. "Maybe it's time for bed. Long day. Allison?"

Allison didn't look ready to go, but she nodded. He didn't need point-connected perceptions to see how turned on Allison was getting.

"I know it's late," Allegra said, "but wait. One little thing. Actually it's not so little. Sit up." She patted the wood deck. He was getting a bit warm anyway so he pulled himself up onto the ledge. "Pavel, please get hard for us."

He saw what she was thinking. Those thoughts would have been enough to get him erect in themselves, her images of what she'd done to him and for him, and what she was thinking of doing to him soon. Of course he cooperated and within seconds was totally hard, his cock pointing straight out and up.

"Isn't he beautiful?" she said. She reached a hand to his cock and stroked the underside of his balls, which made him hiss through his teeth and clenched his thighs together. His cock bounced up and down a little, seeming to nod in eager agreement on its own. "I've been well fucked by a number of good men. He's the best. You're going to love him." Her hand moved to lightly stroke along his length with the tip of a single finger. "Oh--" she got that particular smile, which he thought of as her "evil smile"-- "he loves his blow jobs. Be sure to do that for him."

She understood Sana's reaction. "Don't worry, Sana, maybe you didn't do that before, but once he's done with you, you will. Guaranteed." She turned to Allison. At first he thought he was seeing a fantasy she had of Allison and him, but then he saw Allison's face and knew she was just reading her. Allison had a look of defeat. Or not so much defeat as a giving up on the friendly mask she wore when she was with him, and he saw her simple, basic longing for him. He felt bad that he'd refused her for so long.

But then a new expression appeared on Allison, like the friendly smile she always wore for him, but now her eyes didn't try to smile, they just peered into him. He felt a hand on his cock and looked down. Allison's hand went over him while Allegra's retreated, touching all over before withdrawing. The agreement could not have been more certain if it had been signed in blood and witnessed by a judge and priest: he could and would have every kind of sex possible with Allison. And she wanted it at least as much as he did.

That was too much for Sana. She got out and dried off quickly. But Allegra wasn't done with her. She jumped out also, took Sana by the arm, and walked her out to the living area, still dripping and leaving a wet trail, talking the whole time.

Allison stroked him and gave him a wide smile, smiling with her eyes also, and looking straight at him continuing to peer into him.

And then she bent down quickly to kiss him on his tip. She stood up straight in the water, her blonde bush close to his face, taking in his surprise, then climbed out and trotted to catch up with them, her trim butt bouncing. He heard talk and laughter, doors opening and closing. He settled back into the water and waited.

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My thanks to my beta readers, @AlexFourways, @MormonJack, and @shelleycat1.