Time Warp Read online

  TIME WARP

  A Phaze Fury HeatSheet by

  Alessia Brio

  Phaze 6470A Glenway Avenue, #109 Cincinnati, OH 45211-5222

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN1-59426-522-4

  Time Warp © 2006 by Alessia Brio

  A Phaze UMBRA Release

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Cover art © 2006by Kathryn Lively

  Phaze is an imprint of Mundania Press, LLC.

  www.Phaze.com

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  A lex bounced down the stairs and into the kitchen just in time to see the final seconds tick off the oven's timer. Hair and make-up were complete, but she still wore her favorite satin bathrobe. She'd get dressed as soon as the dessert was ready rather than risk a spill on her new outfit. Whistling, she donned the oven mitts and extracted the Bundt pan, carefully lowering it into a shallow bowl of cold water. It hissed momentarily as the change in temperature halted the baking process, and Alex jerked her head to the side to avoid the rising steam.

  " It's astounding. Time is fleeting," she sang, marveling at how quickly she'd adapted to domestic bliss. With a nice split-foyer on a culde-sac in the 'burbs, her life had taken the June Cleaver fork in the road. To a certain extent, anyway. Alex was fairly certain that June didn't get freaky with Ward at every opportunity. When Ward helped with the dishes, it didn't result in oral sex on the butcher block kitchen island.

  Dan would be home in about an hour, and she still had much to do. Determined to make their first anniversary celebration extra special, Alex threw herself into the preparations. She couldn't wait to surprise him.

  He pulled into the driveway just as she again descended the stairs, dressed to the nines and ready for the evening ahead. Using the cake knife as a mirror, she checked her lipstick before leaning against the counter and striking a nonchalant pose.

  His eyes never left her as he approached. When he got within arm's length, he swallowed hard. Alex could see the pulse in his neck. She could hear his breath as it whistled past his parted lips, and she lifted her arm to lay a hand against his cheek.

  He grabbed her wrist before she could touch his face and pulled her body against his, growling into her neck. "You look good enough to eat, 'Lex!" * * * * Alex bounced down the stairs and into the kitchen just in time to see the final seconds tick off the oven's timer. Hair and make-up were complete, but she still wore her old fuzzy bathrobe. She'd get dressed as soon as the meal preparations were complete rather than risk a spill on her new outfit. Whistling, she donned the oven mitts and extracted the Bundt pan, carefully lowering it into a shallow bowl of cold water. It hissed momentarily as the change in temperature halted the baking process, and Alex jerked her head to the side to avoid the rising steam. "It's astounding. Time is fleeting," she sang. Dan would be home in about an hour, and she still had much to do. Their third anniversary celebration was going to be extra special: traditional, yet new and exciting.

  As Alex began to prepare the cake's black icing, the Rocky Horror DVD on the kitchen table caught her eye. Pity that none of the nearby cinemas were playing the classic film at midnight. She recalled the first time she'd laid eyes on Dan as he did the Time Warp in the aisle of the old Warner Theater downtown. Perhaps "love at first sight" was a bit cliché, but in Dan's case, she believed it. Seven years later, her feelings for him had only deepened.

  He'd had to extricate himself from his first marriage before they could be together openly, and that took considerable time and energy. It wasn't easy on either of them. Fortunately, the ex-Mrs. Goody-TwoShoes, Beth, didn't make much of a fuss. Alex despised her graciousness while at the same time appreciating the qualities that made her such a sweet little doormat. "Madness...takes its toll." Halloween became "their" holiday. So much so, that they even married at the stroke of midnight on November first after a night of revelry, with the reception preceding, rather than following, the ceremony. Friends loved it. Family thought it way weird. Neither Alex nor Dan cared.

  This year, rather than pass out candy to the trick-or-treaters then hit a rowdy costume party, Alex planned a much quieter anniversary celebration at home. A shiver passed through her as she anticipated Dan's surprise. Her outfit alone would shock him to the core. The third was traditionally the leather anniversary, after all. "But listen closely...not for very much longer..." Alex spread the thick, black icing over the cake and topped it with a few dozen orange candied spiders. Setting the dessert aside, she turned her attention to the rest of the meal. Nothing fancy, just their favorites. Once everything was ready, she dashed up the stairs to finish her preparations, still singing.

  The black leather corset and miniskirt cost a small fortune, but Alex splurged anyway. They'd only ever have one leather anniversary, and she wanted to make sure Dan never forgot it. Even her lace undergarments were trimmed in leather, although red rather than black. She was nothing if not thorough. The matching fingerless opera gloves topped her ensemble, and Alex paused before the mirror only long enough to make sure her décolletage was evenly overflowing. "I've got to...keep control." Descending the stairs—slower this time due to the spike-heeled Morgan black victoriana lace-up leather boots—she saw the splash of headlights across the window as Dan's car pulled into the driveway. With a grin, she lit the black pillar candles on the dining room table and dimmed the lights. She waited until she heard him come in the side door and put his briefcase on the counter before moving toward the kitchen.

  Dan didn't even look up. With one hand, he tugged at his tie— loosening it. With the other, he flipped through the mail, separating the junk. He turned, bent from the waist, and extracted a Michelob from the door of the refrigerator. Only when he straightened up did he notice her standing in the doorway.

  To say his jaw dropped would be an understatement. The unopened bottle of beer hit the linoleum with a thunk and rolled across the floor, forgotten. It'd been far too long since Alex had rendered her husband speechless, and she thoroughly enjoyed the moment.

  His eyes never left her as she approached. When she got within arm's length, he swallowed hard. Alex could see the pulse in his neck. She could hear his breath as it whistled past his parted lips, and she lifted her arm to lay a hand against his cheek.

  He grabbed her wrist before she could touch his face and sighed, "What the fuck do you think you're doing, Alex? You can't honestly think we have anything left to celebrate. I'll be out of here as soon as my new place is painted."

  "One last time, Dan." Alex struggled to keep the whine out of her voice. "For old time's sake, okay?" "I have plans with Beth." At the mention of his first wife's name, an unintentional whimper escaped. "Just dinner, then. Please, Dan. Surely you can't hate me that much.What did I do to deserve this? All I did was love you."

  He looked at his watch and rolled his eyes. "Half an hour. Tops. Then, I've got to go."

  Relieved, Alex smiled. "Everything's ready. Have a seat in the dining room, and I'll serve."

  For the next twenty minutes, they ate in silence. Each clink of silverware seemed monstrously loud against the back
drop of their dead marriage. Alex just picked at her food. She was far too excited to eat much.

  "It's good," Dan grudgingly admitted. "Really. Everything is excellent." "Save room for dessert. I made your favorite." "Alex..." "Don't say it, Dan." She stood and collected their plates. "I know it's

  over. I just need this...for...for closure. Humor me." He didn't speak, but his expression softened. Determined to make the most of what would be their last anniversary together, Alex disappeared into the kitchen and returned with coffee and cake on a large serving tray. She watched, holding her breath, as Dan tasted it and enthusiastically nodded his approval.

  Dan dove into the sinfully rich dessert, eating with great gusto. "Mrmph," he mumbled, finally pausing for a sip of coffee. "Alex, this is incredible." Alex grinned. "I'm so glad you like it." The tone of her voice caused Dan to pause, fork midway to his mouth. His expression shifted to one of wariness as just his gaze dipped to look at the last bite of cake hovering before his lips. Then the tizanidine hit him. The tizanidine that Alex had so carefully dissolved in the icing. The tizanidine she'd carefully hoarded for the past two months. A couple pills here and a couple pills there. Never enough to require her to file a report of missing drugs from the pharmacy where she worked. "I think you're going to miss your date, Dan." He tried to stand, but his muscles wouldn't cooperate. "What was in that cake, you filthy bitch? I'll destroy you over this. The gloves come off...right...NOW."

  "Temper! Temper!" Alex circled his chair, wondering if she should bind him to it before he slid out of it onto the floor. The powerful muscle relaxant reduced her powerful husband to the equivalent of fettuccini—al dente. If he slipped out of the chair, she'd have to work on the floor, and that just wasn't what she had in mind.

  "In the eyes of the law, darling, you are the guilty party." Alex removed the necktie that hung loosely from Dan's collar and used it to tie his hands behind the chair. "You are the adulterer...and not only that, it's a pattern of practice for you. Your little princess didn't take you for alimony, but I can guarantee you that I will...and it'll hurt, Dan. A lot. You sure you wanna divorce me?" "Cunt." The word didn't carry nearly as much venom when slurred. "Aw, Dan. Is that the best you can do?" She paused to watch a trickle of saliva achieve enough mass to drip from his chin onto the tablecloth. The only thing preventing his head from hitting the table was the tension in his shoulders caused by having his hands tied behind the chair. "It won't make a damned bit of difference to the judge that she's your ex-wife and the mother of your little darlings, either. You cheated on her to be with me, and now you're cheating on me to be with her. You are—not to put too fine a point on it, Dan—quite fucked."

  He tried to respond, but his lips refused to cooperate. The sound that emerged reminded Alex of Chewbacca the Wookiee in a rage. She knelt alongside the chair so she could look up and see his eyes. The fear-tinged anger that had been in them just a few moments earlier was gradually giving way to an unfocused somnolence. Soon, sleep would overtake him. Dan's cell phone vibrated in the pocket of his slacks, and he groaned with his inability to answer it.

  "There's your sweet Beth. She's predictable; I'll give her that much. Bet she's predictable in bed, too. I believe the words you once used to describe her in bed were: like watching paint dry. But," Alex stood, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and jerked his head back, "that was when I was your everything. Oh, Dan," Alex sighed, "if I wasn't such a vindictive bitch, I just might be inclined to feel sorry for you."

  Alex extracted Dan's cell phone from his pants pocket and placed it on the deep sill of the room's only window. It vibrated for a few more seconds, then played a ring tone version of Three Times a Lady before being routed to his voice mail.

  "Aw. Now isn't that the sweetest thing? So touching! I think, perhaps, I'll answer it the next time it rings. I'm guessing that'll be about...oh, fifteen or twenty minutes...give or take." Releasing his hair, she allowed his head to fall forward. Dan did not—could not—respond. Voluntary muscle control eluded him.

  Alex continued her song as she danced around the room, cleaning up the dinner dishes and setting the stage for the next act in her retributive play.

  " I remember...doing the time warp; drinking...those moments when...the blackness would hit me...and the void would be calling: let's do the time warp a-ga-in." She pulled the assorted props from the hall closet and tossed them on the floor near Dan's chair, singing all the while. He, unfortunately, was not awake to appreciate the entertainment. He'd sleep for about an hour, Alex figured, maybe a little less. Just enough time for her to clean up the dinner dishes and prepare Dan for the next scene. Tizanidine was a short-acting muscle relaxant, and he couldn't have ingested more than two doses. Three tops. The whole batch of icing only contained thirty tablets.

  Alex knew how the drug affected her, having taken it for physical therapy sessions after her hip injury on the ski slopes the winter before last. She extrapolated Dan's normal dosage based on the difference in their weights, then doubled it. Multiplying that by the number of slices of cake, she arrived at the total number of pills needed for her icing. That was three months ago—which was right after learning that her husband was "courting" his ex-wife. What a waste, she thought as she fed the remainder of the cake to the garbage disposal.

  Returning to the dining room, she found Dan leaning precariously, about to fall sideways out of his chair. "Daniel Gallagher, what are you doing? You'll bust your head, and where'll I be then? Answer me that! Oh," she snickered, "silly me. I forgot; you can't answer me."

  Alex straightened Dan in his chair and moved down one side of the table, pulling the chairs away and placing them against the wall. "It's just a jump to the left." Rounding the far end, she kicked its lone chair—the one she'd been

  using—out of the way. "And then a step to the ri-i-i-i-i-ight." She continued to circumnavigate the table, moving chairs until she reached the last unoccupied chair still at the table. Alex used it as a step stool as she climbed onto the table and inched toward Dan on her knees. When her torso bumped into the top of his head, she continued. "With your hands on your hips...you bring your knees in ti-i-ight." In an enthusiastic pantomime, Alex reared back and thrust her crotch at Dan's forehead as she sang the next line. Although their dining room wasn't exactly small, the gorgeous Thomasville Felicity table— with its two twenty-inch expansion leaves in place—nearly filled its length. Thus, when the force of her pelvic thru-u-u-ust snapped Dan's head backward and his body weight followed, he didn't end up on the floor. His head hit the wall with a thunk, and the chair balanced on its rear legs with its back resting against the wall. He didn't, however, wake. "Goodness!" she giggled. "That's some serious thrusting." Alex climbed off the table and returned Dan's chair to all four legs. Untying his wrists, she brought his arms around in front of him and placed them—extended—on the table. His body slumped, and his head and chest rested on the table's surface. Carefully, lest he slide onto the floor, Alex straddled the chair between Dan and its backrest and grabbed him in a bear hug around the lower abdomen. With a heave, she lifted and pushed his body onto the table, wincing at the sound of his belt buckle as it gouged the finish on the table's solid cherry surface.

  She flipped him over to remove the offending belt before maneuvering his legs onto the table and centering him. By the time she raised his arms over his head, his frame filled the table's entire length. Since she'd already started the process of undressing him, she decided she might as well finish now rather than having to cut his clothes off him after binding him to the table. Shoes went first, followed by pants, socks, and boxers.

  Alex paused to lift Dan's flaccid cock and drop it. "Such a sleepy little dick," she chuckled. "We're gonna fix that, though. Just you wait, Danny-boy."

  His shirt gave her a little bit of trouble, and she ripped the shoulder seam of one of the sleeves in her haste to get him naked and bound before the drug wore off. He groaned softly on the last tug, which prompted her to reach for the brand new sturdy lea
ther cuffs. She'd spent more time in the kitchen than she'd realized, and sedation was only a side-effect of tizanidine, not its primary action.

  Alex and Dan had played bondage games before, but never with the serious gear. This time, however, she meant business. Buckling the cuffs around each wrist and each ankle, she stretched Dan's arms and legs to each corner of the table. Alex threaded the skein of silky nylon rope through the D-ring on one of the cuffs and wound it several times around the table leg before moving to the next limb and repeating the process. She finished her circuit with just enough rope left to join with the opposite end using a knot she'd perfected thanks to the resources available via the Boy Scouts of America website. "So helpful, those Scouts," she purred. "I really must drop them a note of thanks."

  Now that Dan was safely secured to the table, she poured herself a glass of wine and waited for him to wake. His phone rang again, and she debated with herself about answering it. Before she reached a decision, though, it stopped. Rather than deal with its annoying ring tones again, Alex typed a quick text message in response:

  Got tied up. Sorry! Pick me up at 8, please.

  Beth might wonder why Dan needed picked up, but she'd do as she was told. The dopey little bitch with her perfect cheerleader smile and polished penny loafers was so predictably cooperative. As she clicked send, Alex noticed Dan beginning to stir. Perfect! That should give her just enough time for what she had planned. If not, she'd simply send another text to delay Beth's arrival. First, though, there were a couple more preparations to effect. Best to get the unpleasant part out of the way before starting on the pleasant.

  Alex stripped off the opera gloves and replaced them with a pair of vinyl gloves. Opening the catheter's package and attaching one end of it to a collection bag, she coated the other with KY-jelly and eased it into Dan's urethra. His eyes shot open, and he tugged weakly at his bonds. Even lifting his head to see his urine draining into the bag was beyond his abilities for the time being. "What the fuck are you doing, woman?" he rasped. "You're insane!" He tried to shout, but it resulted in a fit of coughing. Alex waited until the coughing subsided before using a straw to wet his lips with a few drops of water. When he swallowed that successfully, she transferred another straw-full to his mouth.