Time + Magic + Love = Mom

Since I was a teenager, I've loved Robert Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love" and have always wanted to do a incest time travel story. Here is mine. Any mistakes I've made about Woodstock are mine own...I wasn't there, alas, to make that part more factual. Likewise, all the psuedoscience is pure hokum, necessary to move the story along. I think you're going to like it and I look hearing back from y'all on this, be it positive or negative. Enjoy

As always, all characters within the story are part of my imagination and exist solely within the confines of the story and my mind.

*

Maybe it was the fact that it was the waning of the Age of Reagan with all its conservative values and button-down, uber-yuppie pervasiveness that made me decide to volunteer for the experiment with the mad scientist. Maybe it was that I was nineteen and homesick and suddenly unsure that I wanted to be at MIT or if I was even smart enough to be there. Its one thing to be the smartest kid in your high school class in Podunk, Tennessee, and another to discover that you're slightly below average when compared to your classmates at the nation's best engineering school.

The 1988 Spring semester was over and I was subletting a rathole from a grad student who was doing a summer seminar at Berlin Polytechnic, working two crummy jobs as a dishwasher and a short-order fry cook and regretting not going home for the summer, but I was trying to be independent and not rely on Mom for any expenses not already covered by my scholarship. Living in my little hovel on ramen noodles and oxygen, by my figuring would leave me just enough for books come Autumn.

Mom was back in East Tennessee, working as a registered nurse and doing her hippie-dippie health food business on the side -- growing and selling herbs out of a little shed next to our home back, situated in an isolated hollow that only the most dedicated health nuts and aging hippies bothered to truck out to. I missed her terribly -- Mom being the only parent I'd ever had -- she not having a clue who my father was other than that his name was John (she'd named me after him), and that they'd met and loved a lifetime's worth at Woodstock...yeah, that Woodstock. There was no one on the face of the Earth I was closer to.

So anyway, on a rare day off, I was wandering around the student center at MIT, checking my mail and the bulletin board for any extra work when I saw a notice that read:

WANTED!

ENGINEERING STUDENT W/ HISTORY MINOR

FOR

TEMPORAL PHYSICS WORK.

PAYS WELL

INQUIRE AT 555-4356

ASK FOR DOCTOR CRAIG

I raised my eyes at the term temporal physics until I saw who one had to contact. Doctor Craig...Crazy Craig as he was mostly known around campus. Professor Craig, possessor of doctorates in astrophysics and quantum physics and who had lost his tenure and his position after he began mixing physics and mysticism in his lectures.

I started to walk away, but turned around and looked at it again, the words "PAYS WELL," burning into my brain. There had been rumors that Crazy Craig was still around, that he'd used family money to set up an independent laboratory in an old milk pasteurizing plant outside town. I was hesitant, but then there was the thought of a summer doing nothing but washing dishes and singing out, "Order up!" I fished around in my pockets for a dime and went in search of a pay phone.

After a brief interview with the mad scientist himself, I found myself making five hundred bucks a week working with a deranged mind who thought he could build a time machine. In a way, it was a hoot. Craig was brilliant in his own hysterical way...just bullshitting about quantum mechanics during work breaks taught me more about the subject than a years worth of lectures by drier and more unimaginative folk.

My primary job was to construct a machine from his unorthodox diagrams. Construction wasn't hard considering I had no clue as to his power source and that the layout of the construct followed no discernable pattern. It appeared to me that the thing which was a huge circular tube chamber made out of titanium cocooned within an elaborate web of fiber optic cable serving as power couplings, would simply feed back on itself if it was ever hooked up to an actual power source.

Whatever the power source would be, Crazy Craig was distinctly vague about, although he did have me built a hollow container of titanium to hold the power source that was maybe the size of a cigar box. He claimed the entire thing was based on an ancient diagram of "ley lines" of earthpower shared with him by an ancient holy man while traveling in Nepal in the late 1950s and that in ancient times they -- not really sure who "they" were, had used it to time travel.

Okay, he was absolutely nuts, but he paid in cash, including overtime when he had his serious 'mad-on' periods when we'd work around the clock while he spouted gibberish about time being like a river with all of us simply riding the currents and that his machine would allow one to row back upstream against those currents.

It was certainly the most fun I'd ever had since I'd started college. It also wasn't like I had a whole lot else going on. There was no girlfriend. I'm not all that bad looking a guy -- five foot, eleven and one hundred and seventy pounds, a shock of black hair that was unfashionably long in those awfully conservative Reagan days, and in pretty good shape from all the work I'd been doing, but I was as socially awkward as I approached my twentieth birthday as I'd been the first time I had frozen up trying to ask a girl to dance at the Seventh Grade Valentine Social.

The only female...in truth, the only other human I really had any contact with that summer was Mom who I always called (collect, of course), every Sunday afternoon. I made her laugh as I described my work with Crazy Craig, although she admonished me when I would tell her that his time machine would never work.

With the always cheerful optimism that she always possessed -- what I always referred to as her 'Hippy-dippy disposition,' she told me one Sunday in late July, "John, there are mysteries of the universe that are always out there just waiting to be unlocked. Magic and science might simply be the same thing from different points of view!"

I laughed and said, "Sounds deep, Mom. Maybe you can knit a little sampler with that on it...put it right next to the one about "Love is a warm puppy."

Mom chuckled back with better humor than I deserved. "Love is a lot of things, sweetie. Just don't judge him too harshly. You never know...he might be right about all of this."

"Right," I said sarcastically. "Tell you what, Mom, if he lets me take a joyride back in time, I'll look your younger self up and say, 'Hi!'"

There was a long pause and then Mom said in a funny voice, "I think I'd like that."

Mom seemed a bit awkward after that and we finally said goodbye to each other and I walked back to my little roach hotel of an apartment wondering what was up with her. Mom rarely seemed off her game. She was a bright spirit who met each day with enthusiasm...still seeming like the young hippie chick I'd seen pictures of when I was young.

In truth, Mom was a very good looking woman, even now at the ripe old age of forty-one. She still wore her dark brown hair long, often in long braids that hung down her back. She had always fought a close to losing battle with her weight, looking a bit meaty on her five foot, eight foot frame, joking that "I was all tits and ass at eighteen and I'm all tits and ass now!" My friends had always kidded me about my sexy Hippie mom and I knew they were right. Despite favoring old tie-dyed T-shirts and blue jeans whenever she was out of her nurse smocks, she was a good looking woman, breasts often bouncing all over the place, sagging some from going braless as much of the time as possible, but still triggering responses in me that I knew one wasn't supposed to have about one's mom.

I often wondered why she hadn't gotten married, but when I would ask she would just shrug and say that she was waiting for my father to resurface. I sometimes thought she was kidding, but as I got older, the response also seemed to be a little more seriously made. I felt bad for her. I had no particular desire to meet my father other than to get the opportunity to tell him what an asshole he'd been for leaving Mom, even if he'd had no clue that I'd been conceived.

Mom was soon out of my thoughts as Crazy Craig's work kicked into high gear -- I was working twelve and sometimes fourteen hours a day, especially after he'd taken a trip to London towards the end of July. I had no idea how this was going to turn out, but I could sense that I was reaching the end of the construction of his 'time portal' as he called it. He had even started joking about how much he would have to pay me to be his first chrononaut, as he put it. I would just laugh and tell him he didn't have that much money.

As insane as he was, I never expected he would force the issue until the moment that I realized he'd dosed my coffee with something. I'd taken a break when he'd brought in coffee and donuts from the local bakery and had just downed the last of my coffee-heavy on the sugar. My hair started to tingle and then it spread until the weird sensations surrounded my head and then closed in on my brain. I remember standing up and looking at Crazy Craig who looked back at me sheepishly. I managed to say, "What the fuck di..." and everything went black.

I woke up inside the titanium tube chamber, barely able to raise my head, the world appearing to me like I was gazing into one of those carnival mirrors. Beyond my feet, a distorted Craig was attaching power couplings to the small titanium box. "Whazzz the fukkk d-d-did youz dooo?" I said in a slur, somehow proud I finished my last sentence.

Craig looked up from his work and gave me a grin that chilled me to my very core. He looked happy...really happy. "You're going to make history, John!" he exclaimed. "The first chrononaut of the modern age...the first man to time travel in fifteen thousand years!"

"Urrr, not thunk soooo," I groaned. I tried to sit up, but everything below my neck wasn't cooperating.

Craig finished his work and then dug a hand deep into his pants pocket. He pulled out what seemed to be a polished oval stone of some bluish material...jade maybe. I tried to focus my vision and was pleased when the distortion seemed to diminish a little. Simultaneously, I felt my right big toe wiggle and I was able to discern marks etched on the stone.

Craig held it out for my closer observation, seeming to be very pleased with himself. "A Lemurian rune stone...the source of power that probably built the pyramids, man," he cackled. "The very thing the ancients used to power their jaunts through time! It finally came into my hands in London. You wouldn't believe how much it cost me!" He set the stone down carefully into the hollow container. "Allow me to set your destination in the controls and you can be off on the greatest adventure in millennia."

Craig disappeared from my sight and I managed to raise my torso a little, holding out my hand imploringly as I croaked, "Craig, noooo. Izzz d-don't wan' to!"

He reappeared and to my sudden serious fright was carrying a big knife like the ones my childhood friends' fathers would carry when going deer hunting with blades that were long and sharp and fucking scary. Craig grinned at me as he said, "Blood's the key, John. It's what powers the runes. Now just relax. I'm just going to let you take a little trip backwards...not too far. I'm guessing the mid 1950s. If my calculations are correct, you should be gone about six hours."

I managed to pull one knee up and then used my hand to support me as I rose up to a sitting position -- brushing the ceiling of the tube. "Wait, Craig!" I said, my tongue thick in my mouth. What do you mean...if?"

Craig grinned at me, his madness in full glory as he shouted, "Good luck!" and slashed the knife down on his open palm.

Blood gushed out of the nasty wound, falling into the hollow container as I opened my mouth to scream, "Stop!" but I never got the word out as the machine that I had helped build began to thrum as the first drops of blood fell into the container, presumably onto the rune stone and then the whole machine glowed and my vision was fried as everything turned a brilliant white and then...

My body was gone and I simply consciousness floating in a void and then pain seemed to wrack my bodiless mind, tearing apart my very thoughts until for a brief moment or maybe for all of eternity I was simply one infinitesimal speck within all existence, yet fully aware of the entire universe, seeing and comprehending all only to have all but the frail knowledge of my own meager existence ripped away and I was again a mind joined to my body and there was great pain and a brilliant burst of light and...

I was drowning and rain splashed down on my freezing body, steam rising off me in a suddenly humid world and I swallowed muddy water and choked and pushed myself up out of the water, finding my feet on a muddy surface as my senses screamed at me with all the sudden sensory input, making me stagger and fall to my knees, still in water, but sitting above its surface.

I could hear voices...untold masses -- singing and talking and over that din was the sound of a young woman singing a familiar tune...something from out of the past and then it tumbled into place..."Mister Tambourine Man," and with the noise came the stink, the funk of those untold masses and then beyond me spanning towards a strange structure festooned with lights and speakers and then above me on a gently rising hill and beyond were those masses, tens, maybe hundreds of thousands strong.

I pressed my hands to my ears, trying to drown out the noise that kept shifting on me, feeling as if my ears had to pop due to a change in air pressure and then I staggered to my feet. I sensed movement and saw four people moving towards me -- primitive in appearance, covered in mud, approaching me from a crudely constructed tent on the hillside

Two were men, both shirtless, mud splashed over either cut off blue jeans or khakis. One was tall and lean and the other was short and squat, his chest sporting the hairiest pelt I'd ever seen on a human before. Both had hair down below their shoulders and the tall guy had a beard that anyone in ZZ-Top would have envied.

The other two were women, a short slender woman wearing a mud splattered dress that dragged along the ground despite her best efforts to hold it up over the muck above her shit-kicker boots. Her hair was whitish blonde and hung down her back in a long ponytail. The other woman was short too and naked above the waist -- huge, but firm breasts bouncing as she ran towards me, dark hair in a long, unraveling braid. She wasn't fat, but she was full bodied. A slight roll of youthful fat spilled over her blue jeans. She seemed to be barefoot.

They all approached me, all a little wide-eyed with surprised expressions.

The short, hairy man held out his hands and yelled above the music, "Fuck, Dude -- did you get hit by that bolt of lightning!"

The taller guy grinned at me and said, "Where are your fucking threads, man, or do you always go au' natural?"

I looked down at myself, stunned to see mud and dirty water running down and off my naked body. What the hell had happened to my clothes? The girl with the big breasts came closer and took my hands and I looked into her big, brown eyes that were filled with concern as she said, "Baby, you having a bad trip or what? Are you okay?"

I stared at her for a moment as the crowd roared its approval and the singer's name slipped into my mind...her name was Melanie something and I realized that I knew where I was and who this woman holding my hands was. I wasn't sure if it was shock or an after affect of whatever Crazy Craig had dosed me with, but the world started to slither away again, the only thing anchoring me to reality was the woman's firm grip on my hands. As the world started to go away, I stared into the face of the woman I knew better than anyone in the world, even though it seemed far younger than I could ever remember and said, "Hi, Mom," before everything went black.

#

I'm doubt there are many better ways than to wake up nuzzling a large, soft, pillow-like breast. Images of Crazy Craig and Woodstock and Melanie singing "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)," rocketed through my mind, dismissed by a vision of my mother, stark naked and beautiful in all her Reubenesque beauty smiling at me and saying, "No, she wrote that song afterwards, honey."

I was suddenly conscious of my face resting against warm, heavenly softness and a woman humming a song that after a minute or two I recognized as "Coming Back to Me," one of her favorite Jefferson Airplane songs. Arms were holding me firmly and for a moment I had sweet memories of Mom holding me like this when I was sick or feeling blue back when I was little. I felt safe and happy.

"Hey, babe, you're back in the land of the living." It was Mom's voice, sure enough and I opened my eyes and looked into her lovely brown eyes set in a face that was so young, not yet lined with the trials and work of years of parenthood and life's usual trials. I struggled to make sense of it, memories of Crazy Craig drugging me, of his time machine and my journey in it.

I closed my eyes and whispered, "This can't be happening."

Mom giggled and replied, "Well, something's happening. We're here, babe -- the real happening. They say there's half a million people here and more coming every hour. Maybe it's the new Eden and you and me and all the rest are witnesses to the birth of a new age." Her face was glowing with pleasure and hope. She stroked my hair out of my eyes, triggering memories of my mother doing the very same thing a thousand times in my life. "Are you feeling better? You want a drink?" She reached down beside her and brought up a small bottle of Coke. "Not good for you, but it's all I got."

I realized that I was indeed parched and nodded. Mom held the bottle to my lips and I drank, starting at its taste...you forget how things used to taste -- how Coke used to taste...cane sugar having giving way to corn syrup. I choked a little and coughed before wheezing out, "Thanks."

Mom smiled down at me. "My pleasure," she replied before her eyes slid downwards. "Or maybe it's your pleasure. You popping wood for me or for the Coke?"

I glanced downwards, realizing I was absolutely naked and currently sporting an erection. I murmured, "Sorry 'bout that," and I tried to get up, but it felt like all the strings had been cut and I could barely move my arm or shift my leg.

Mom put down the Coke bottle and tightened her grip around me, pressing me closer to her semi-naked body...the realization that I resting my head on her bare pendulous breast making my hard-on throb. "Just relax. You've been on a really bad trip I think...rumor is there's some really ugly acid being passed around. Rest, baby and listen to the music. Sleep peaceful and know you're safe in Momma Chloe's arms." She moved one hand downwards and I felt a finger slightly trail over my hard cock. "This I'll just consider a compliment."

I sighed, suddenly overwhelmed again by exhaustion and even though I fought it, I couldn't keep my eyes open, my last conscious sight being Mom's loving eyes, my last sensation being my lips brushing her soft breast and nuzzling a hard swollen nub while someone sang "Amazing Grace."

#

I awoke to the din of a great crowd roaring underneath the louder reedy voice of someone singing the song "Tennessee Stud." I was alone in the makeshift tent but streamers of sunlight were coming through rents in the canvas. I sat up and yawned. I comprehended for the third time that I was naked and then it all came back to me and sat there for a moment not knowing what to do. Then I noticed a neatly folded pair of the ugliest Bermuda shorts I'd ever seen and beneath them a dingy, but clean T-shirt, lying next to me.