Another Time, Another Place

Virgil kissed her behind the ear, and then whispered something nasty that prompted a swat on his leg from April. She watched him crawl into the bed with the reflection from the surrounding windowpanes. In a short time, Virgil was snoring. The louder Virgil snored, the closer the violent storm came. Brilliant flashes danced across the sky and brightened the darkness like fluorescent eels deep under the sea. Virgil was in full snore mode. His thunderous sounds competed with nature’s voice, but ultimately became nothing more than a whisper compared to the howling winds that stirred outside. With each flash of light, April could see the trees take their bows as they conceded to the will of the wind. Paper and other debris floated in all directions, reminiscent of an unsteady, unworldly storm.

The lightning was plentiful. It complemented the roar of thunder waving through the air, seemingly making the Earth move. April was fascinated and frightened at the same time. She had never seen such chaos in a thunderstorm. Her eyes widened, and her heart raced when two streaks of lightning thrown from the heavens approached each other from different directions and then seemed to collide and sprint toward her like a three-dimensional object. She let out a slight scream, stepped out of the bow window, and Virgil’s words popped in her mind. She shot a glance at Virgil. He was dead to the world, oblivious to all noises around him.

April watched a foray of lightning engage in what could be considered a sword fight. It was magical, it lured her back to the bow-window seat, but she stopped short of planting her butt on the platform because of the surprise she felt between her legs. She sensed moistness while she stepped toward the window. As the flashes of light continued to flicker, she backed away with a hand already down her pants. She rubbed three fingers across her jewel and stopped at the juices. She curled her middle finger inside the wetness, tilted her head back because of the instant pleasure. She became excited about what she would do, thus seconds later, the bathroom door closed behind her.

April created an identical effect from the previous night by leaving the bathroom light off. It was eerie how different the nights were. The howling wind seemed to echo throughout the bathroom. The bass cymbal-like, thunder sound appeared as if a giant stood over their home and banged the two metal objects over the house. The flashes of electricity peering through the window made the bathroom appear like a disco.

She had no real reason why she approached the mirror so slowly and tentatively. She was in search of something, but she couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Nevertheless, a middle finger worked her clitoris like a compass needle caught in a continuous circle. She elected not to straddle the sink; instead April placed a support palm on the medicine cabinet’s mirror for the inevitable weakness in the knees. The muscles in the stretched arm grew tired. She bent her elbow and rested her forehead on the arm. She could almost kiss herself because of the proximity to the mirror.

April’s climax was near, she was hot, and her body radiated steam that fogged the mirror like teenagers making out in a car. She was one step away from exploding juices all over her hand, yet she accomplished a difficult task; she prolonged the moment and wiped the condensation from the mirror with a series of “S” strokes to view her intense facial expressions. The continued flashes of light sparkling through the bathroom window made each sensual expression seem like varying degrees of eroticism. Each erotic view brought on a tingly sensation that radiated from her toes, up her legs and made her quiver as if she was cold. April began to pinch her jewel between her thumb and index finger. First gently, then gradually harder until it seemed to swell. She wiped the mirror once more and supported herself with the right hand. Her fingers clawed into the mirrored surface. She studied the extremely passionate reflection and knew in a matter of seconds no matter how hard she’d try to sustain the magic moment, she’d explode with vigor. She was so entranced, seduced by the ultimate orgasm, she cared little about the mole under her right eye.

“Oh,” softly left her lips.

She repeated the phrase several times in succession. Each time, the word increased in volume.

EIGHT

Ariel had been watching a storm that was three times as bad as the previous night. She now sat in the bow window and got more turned on by the minute with the belief that lightning storms were sexy. She confirmed her thoughts when a hand slid into her panties discovered juices grander than on the chicken she had eaten. When her finger curled up into her wetness a sense of having already completed the task swept over her. She tasted her marinated finger and grabbed a toy before hiding in the bathroom. Behind closed doors, she inserted a pocket rocket deep that vibrated at the highest setting deep up her womanhood. Every pore on her body was electrified.

Tonight, she closed and locked the bathroom door to prevent the angry-husband syndrome. Steven was snoring, aided by a half-bottle of wine and four scotch on the rocks that he had consumed with dinner. Ariel drank the other half bottle of wine. Together with a slight buzz and the raging storm outside, her body yearned to be fulfilled.

The vibrations from the miniature vibrator hummed in her ears. It was a tune that gave her the rhythm for the circular waltz around her clitoris. She actually hummed the count one, two, and three in her head. The thunderous sounds outside orchestrated a different tune. The graceful glide of the waltz transformed itself into the electric energy of a rumba, illustrated by pinching that began on her girl toy. Her knees weakened nearly instantly.

Ariel braced herself with the left hand on the mirror, inserted her middle finger deep inside the wetness and rotated it around the vibrating object. She cleared a windshield wiper blade-like area on the mirror to view the climactic moment and then resupported her weakened body. The reflection was everything she’d hoped for: sensual, erotic and intensely sexciting. The image of her was the same, yet it differed. She observed a mole under her right eye that she didn’t recall having. It didn’t matter; she was far too gone to be concerned with something so trivial when the flashing light illuminating through the bathroom’s window might have tricked her eyes. Yet, she stared intently at the image.

April glazed back. For a brief moment both women thought they had lost their minds. Their moaned words were on a time delay. Ariel’s passion cry was “Shit,” but even under the heavy seduction of a near orgasm, the image in the mirror seemed to recite, “Oh.” Nevertheless, both Ariel and April were lost to a beast-like passion. They ignored reality and con

tinued to completion their “Oh” and “Shit” bellows. Suddenly, for each woman it became a race to the climactic finish. Both women exploded violently, roared and held a synchronized note.

The sound of thunder lasted longer than each woman’s lungs sustained the note. The rumble seemed as though it was vibrating the room. They hadn’t finished squirting juices onto their fingers when lightning struck both houses simultaneously. A one-halfinch crack on both bathroom walls traveled from the window, turned the corner and headed horizontally across the wall toward them. When the jagged crack reached their respective medicine cabinets, the mirrored glass shattered underneath their hands. Both women jumped back and screamed for the first time out of fear. Both women suffered a cut on their palms—April’s right hand and Ariel’s left hand, respectively. They managed to pull up their panties with a lone hand and they stepped toward the sink holding their damaged hand at the wrist. They placed a face cloth in the hand containing the cut and clutched a fist around it. They looked into the mirror timidly, fearful of what they might see. To their surprise, they saw themselves as they were. Identical in every way except, Ariel saw a mole under her right eye and April now viewed a scar over the left eyebrow. April and Ariel were each in utter shock. Their minds raced a thousand miles a minute as they tried to rationalize what happened. The two women knew for the first time that they were seeing someone different. They simply stared at each other in silence, awed by the phenomenon. They both touched the broken glass with the fingertips of the uncut hand.

Virgil turned on the bathroom light just as glass from the shattered mirror fell into the sink.

“Honey,” Virgil said. “What’s going on in here?”

April was too startled by the glass and Virgil’s sudden intrusion to respond. She slowly turned toward the voice and saw a man that she was vaguely familiar with.

Something’s out of sync, April thought.

“April, are you okay?” Virgil asked based on the puzzled expression on his wife’s face.

“I’m fine, other than my hand,” April said as she extended the cut hand to him.

“How did that happen?”

“I was looking at myself in the mirror, and then all of a sudden, it shattered beneath my hand.”

Virgil’s eyes followed the crack in the wall from the medicine cabinet to the window.

“The house must have been struck by lightning to cause this much damage,” Virgil said in awe.

April saw Virgil’s head still locked on the window and for the first time she looked at the bathroom’s destruction. Her eyes followed the crack back around the wall to the mirror. The odd thing was the bathroom wasn’t exactly how she remembered it.

NINE

“Honey, are you okay?” Steven asked Ariel.

Ariel shook her head as if she was disillusioned.