Flights of Fancy (4.70)	If you met your mother when she was young. Would you?  Hot	 Incest/Taboo 	11/22/22



time machinemomsisterromancetime travel



Flights of Fancy
by miss_D_mena





If you met your mother when she was young. Would you?





What would you do if you had a way of being able to travel, a kind of conduit, if you will, between the past, present, and future? Imagine how much fun you could have. What would you do, and where would you go? Of course, in your initial excitement, would you consider the consequences of any jaunt that you made? Probably not. Maybe, if you sat and thought about it, perhaps caution would be a good byword. Nothing outlandish to begin with. A day forwards or backwards into one or the other realms?

Remember! Before you get carried away, you have to make sure that you can get back. It's all very well going adventuring, but what if you get stuck, with no way of returning to your present time? What then? And so, you maybe take the chance, one day forward or backwards, what could go wrong? It is only one day. In the grand scheme of things, you have gained an extra day in your life, or you have lost one. No major adjustments need to be made; you would be able to slip back into your present life with ease, or so you would hope.

Where would your first foray be? Into the future, the ability to know what tomorrow would bring and manipulate it to your advantage. Or into the past, reliving those joyous moments, meeting the people you knew you would never see again.

Pause for a moment and take a step back from the excitement and anticipation. The future, in a way, could perhaps be the scariest; the chance of discovering your own mortality, a month, a year, twenty years? Longer, shorter? Is it something you would want to know, something that with the knowledge of its coming, you would try and avoid? And for how long could you delay it, is it already foretold, just a futile exercise, your existence continually taken up with trying to cheat death?

The majority of people would maybe choose to visit the past because that is where our memories spring from. But, without giving it considerable thought, it is also the most dangerous destination to visit. You have to understand that you are an anomaly, an object that shouldn't be there. In both the past, present, and future, your presence sends out minute ripples, tiny waves which affect everything and everyone around you.

The ripples in the past, though, multiply faster, becoming larger; their influence is far-reaching. Every meeting, every interaction, is minutely changing something. The future has a way of absorbing and making right those small ripples you cause, as does the present. But it is those larger ripples in the past, the ones that seemed innocuous; that become the problem. You see, they are the ones that affect the present and the future, not only for you but for everyone with whom you come into contact.

Mark's father was an architect, and their home was a mixture of ancient and modern. Originally, it had been a country hall, but as with any building of that size and age, as times changed, its owners and occupants found the upkeep harder and harder to afford. Over the years it had first fallen into disrepair and then eventually, partial collapse. The new main building, which Mark called the "upside-down house" was modern; the lounge, reception rooms, kitchen, and ablutions were on the first floor; its large plate glass windows giving views across the rolling countryside and distant hills at the front, and across the huge gardens at the rear. His parent's bedroom and the guest rooms were on the ground floor along with another shower room and toilet.

A corridor, which his father called "the long gallery," led to a section of the old house which he had been able to salvage. This was where Mark's bedroom, along with that of his older sister, was located. On the ground floor were a large playroom, his father's study, and a storage room full of unused furniture, clothes, and other items the family didn't have the heart to discard. The first floor contained their two bedrooms plus a spare, as well as another bathroom, and toilet. Along the gallery and into the old section of the house, his father had retained the oak beams and the panelling which clad a lot of the bottom half of the walls.

Mark had no memory of what it looked like on the day they moved here, simply because he had not been born at the time. To help finance the rebuild, the family had sold their home and lived on-site in an old static caravan. All he knew about those times were what his parents told him and the many photographs they had taken. This was where he was born, in this new house, years after they had moved here. As he got older, his father explained that back in the day, well over a hundred years previously, it had probably belonged to a wealthy landowner or perhaps a titled family. But by the time he bought the land and the ruins, very little of the main house remained. The roof had started to collapse and then someone had started a fire in the main section. The hall itself was gutted, and after the fire was extinguished, it was just left to collapse in its own good time.

Slowly, the land and fields had been sold off to developers, new houses springing up all around as the place fell into further disrepair. All that was left was an acre or two of land and a pile of crumbling brickwork when his father had snapped it up; a vision in his head of the home he wanted to build for his still-to-be-born family.

Elizabeth had come along, first, her infant years spent in the caravan on the site until a section of the house was completed and which they could move into; and then as she approached her tenth birthday, he had appeared, a complete surprise to his parents, who had accepted that they may never have another child.

There were always going to be problems when one sibling was so much older than the next. Lizbet was ten when he was born, twenty by the time he reached his tenth birthday. They had nothing in common; she saw him as a nuisance, who took attention away from herself and then as an annoying child who was always making noise, getting into mischief, and was, as she put it when their parents were not around. 'A pain in the arse.'

For a young child growing up, the house and gardens were a magical playground. It was the place he had his adventures. He fought off pirates and Indians, battled enemy troops who tried to invade, and searched for buried treasure, though his dad wasn't impressed with him digging holes. The huge garden was where he and his friends would camp out in the summer; a tent on one of the rear lawns. The trees at the far end of the garden were where he would go as a hunter, foraging for food, and gorging himself on the fallen apples, pears, or blackberries. On the other side of the trees, a gate led down a slight incline to a stream at the bottom, Mark once or twice spotting the odd fish in there as the water meandered its way down towards the town.

Overall, it was the perfect place to grow up, as a toddler, as a child, and then as a teenager. Between the ages of eight and fourteen, the house and grounds were large enough for friends to stay over at weekends, or during summer breaks without disturbing the rest of the family. As he got older and when Lizbet left home, he and his mates could play their music as loud as they wanted and do all the things that teenagers are renowned for. When he eventually got his first girlfriend, they would go to his part of the house, allowing them privacy away from the prying eyes of his parents.

Mark's first discovery about his home came when he was aged eight. The long gallery with its smooth polished wooden floor was the ideal spot to practice on his skateboard because of the inclement weather outdoors. He had been scolded before about using it as such, but with his father at work and his mother doing housework, he took the chance to practice without anyone disturbing him.

Trundling along at speed, he'd tried to flip the board around, ready to go back in the opposite direction. But it had gotten away from him, shooting up and off at an angle before crashing into the dado rail and wooden panelling as he tumbled across the floor and scuffed his knees.

'Damn!' When he looked, it seemed a piece of panelling had come adrift; his father was going to go ape shit unless he could push it back into place and disguise the damage. It was only when he got closer that he realised that the panel was actually a door with a large dark space behind it. He examined the opening and the surrounding area, suddenly noticing that one of the carved flower stamens on the dado rail above seemed to be slightly depressed compared to the others.

Mark pushed the panel flush and heard a near-silent "click," the centre of the flower above it now sitting flush with its companions. Gingerly, with one of his small fingers, he pressed the centre, hearing the same soft click as the panel popped open once more. Consumed with excitement, he closed the panel and rushed to his bedroom, searching for his torch, only to find that the batteries were flat.

'Mum! Mum, have we any batteries?' She'd asked what he wanted them for when it was still broad daylight.

'I'm a famous explorer and I'm going on an adventure. I need a torch just in case.'

Her son spent hours in those mysterious realms that his mind inhabited, and if it kept him quiet and from under her feet, she would find him some batteries.

Armed with the torch, he returned to his section of the house, and when he was certain there would be no interruption, pressed the flower and swung the panel open. The torch illuminated the stone steps and the wall on either side of them. 'One, two, three, four.' He counted each one as he descended, twenty-two in all. It smelt musty; cobwebs hanging from above brushed across his face. He rubbed them away as he advanced, only covering about twenty feet before he came to an abrupt stop. The short passage came to an end, and his way forward was blocked by a wall of solid rock.

Mark shone his torch and placed his hand on it. The blockage looked like a rock face, and although it looked to have been chiselled as smooth as possible, beneath his hand, it felt more like metal. Mark was disappointed, he banged his hand against it, but there was no hollow reverberation to suggest there was a space beyond, just a dull thud.

Playing the beam from his torch over the obstruction, there was absolutely nothing to see, the rock reaching from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall. Perhaps the steps and this small passage were the complete construction that the panel hid, somewhere for two or three people to hide. The torch swung left and right, above, and then back to the blockage, the beam suddenly picking out a small spot that seemed darker than the surrounding rock. Studying it closer, it appeared to be an indentation about eighteen inches above his head. It was an odd shape, not round, but with six sides, a hexagon he later discovered, perfectly cut into the rock face. By standing on his tiptoes and stretching, he could just about reach the indentation, or the hole, as it turned out to be. But he discovered nothing, other than it was as smooth as the rock face. It reminded him of something, perhaps a fifty pence coin, somewhere in the back of his mind; he had seen something shaped like that before.

With the adventure brought to an end abruptly, he ascended the steps, playing the torch beam over the panel. On the side where the hinges were placed was a small lever. Hesitantly, he pulled the panel closed until he heard it click and then pushed the lever down, another click, and it popped open once more. Back in the corridor, he closed it again, it would be his secret; and if nothing else, when his friends stayed over and they played hide and seek, he would be able to flummox them by disappearing completely.

When his father arrived home that evening, he was met by his son, full of questions. 'When you bought the house Dad, did you find any secret passages?'

His father laughed, 'Why do you ask Mark?'

'I was reading a book about smugglers, and it said old houses had secret passages. Ours was an old house, wasn't it, dad?'

His father explained that originally, they had been called priest holes and that years later they had been used by smugglers and the like to hide their contraband.

'We did come across a couple, but they were in the main part of the building that we couldn't save and so they were all demolished. I'm afraid there are no more, or not, as I've found.'

With his questions answered and his knowledge improved, Mark disappeared. Tony looked across at his wife preparing their evening meal. 'That lad,' he laughed, 'one day he is going to have to live in the real world.'

And so, for the present, that was the end of the adventure for Mark. He went down the steps and into the dark, often, standing in front of the wall and just staring at it, as though it had somehow, summoned him. The secret place was also used as he imagined, his friends were never able to work out how he could disappear and then reappear, as though by magic.

Nearly three years later, Mark's eleventh birthday was approaching. His parents had arranged a party for the coming weekend and all of his friends were invited. There was to be a bouncy castle, trampolines, and laser tag out in the gardens and grounds, but presently, he stared out of his bedroom window as the heavens opened and thunder boomed overhead. Suddenly the sky lit up and then a bang as his bedroom seemed to vibrate and the windows shook. Mark left his bed in a panic as he dashed down the stairs, along the corridor and into the main house; a look of fear on his face as he explained to his father what had happened.

When his dad returned from outside, soaked through to the bone, he reassured his son, 'it's ok, the lighting must have struck the lightning rod on your end of the house and run to ground. I've had a quick look and there is no damage that I can see, nothing to be worried about.'

Mark wasn't worried, but it did take him a while before he was confident enough to return to his room. The following morning the sun was out, and it stayed like that until the weekend and the day of his party.

Some of his friends had slept over and were not collected until late morning on Sunday, and then there was school on Monday, so he was only allowed an afternoon of freedom before he got stuff ready for the next day. He'd had his bath and was in his pyjamas, allowed to watch a couple of hours of television before bedtime. 'Is it all right if I read for an hour if I go up now?' He asked his mother.

He'd been given her consent and blessing to disappear as he headed for his bedroom; his sister Elizabeth was on her way down as he tried to take the steps two at a time.

'Mark! Can you not do anything slowly and quietly? Let me pass before you bowl me over and cause an accident.' She humphed as he stopped for a second and let her pass before bolting up the final steps once more.

Elizabeth married and moved out of the family home when she was twenty-six. Mark was then sixteen and growing swiftly. 'At last,' she told him on her wedding day. 'The only way I can escape you is by marrying someone.' She had meant it as a joke, but he had just shrugged his shoulders and pulled a face. Mark was immersed in his teenage years and for him, wearing a suit and attending a wedding was just so boring, especially as his parents would be on hand to limit how much he was allowed to drink. He hadn't even been allowed to invite any of his friends and couldn't wait for the day to be over.

His sister was still on her honeymoon when he decided that with her leaving home, there were benefits to be had from the situation. Her bedroom had been vacated, and it was twice the size of his own.

'Mum, can I have Elizabeth's bedroom now that she's gone?'

His mother paused from what she was doing. 'Does it really matter; a bedroom is a bedroom?'

'Yes, but I've got all this studying to do now, and her room has a bigger desk......' Mark ran through all the reasons why it was imperative that he now got his sister's room.

'Ask your father. If he says yes......'

That was exactly what Mark did, trotting out the same excuses and eventually being given permission. 'You'll have to move the stuff yourself, though,' his father had called after him as he darted off. The excuses he'd given were just that, excuses. The main reason, as he saw it, was that people got married and then often, divorced, and if Elizabeth thought she was coming back here, she could have the smaller bedroom. Never in her life had she been considerate to him, no reason now why he shouldn't be the same with her.

His mother hadn't been impressed, because he had taken any clothes or items Elizabeth had left, thrown them into dustbin liners, and then put them in his old room after he had moved furniture around and transferred everything he owned, leaving his mum to sort through the dumped material. His sister had transferred most of her belongings to the house she and her new husband had bought, leaving behind items she didn't want anymore and clothes which she had outgrown.

The only thing of hers that he had kept, was a prism, a large lump of glass which gave off all the colours of the rainbow when sunlight struck it. It stood on her windowsill, and Mark had recollections of playing with it occasionally when he was a toddler, and his mother was tidying the bedrooms. He had forgotten about it for the simple reason that as he got older, he wasn't allowed in Elizabeth's room, and when she wasn't there, she would lock it.

Summer was gone, and the landscape was now in the depths of winter. Mark had just finished for his Christmas break, his schoolwork had been completed, and hopefully, a couple of friends would be coming over later. Sat at his bedroom window looking out at the windswept garden, he twizzled the glass prism between his fingers. It was what only could be described as a lightbulb moment, as he looked at the piece of glass and suddenly remembered the secret passage.

Taking the stairs three at a time with his torch in hand, he pressed the wooden flower and heard the soft click as the panel opened. Twenty-two steps, and then Mark approached the rock face. The hole wasn't way above his head anymore, now no more than shoulder height. Under the beam of light, he looked at the piece of glass and then the hole; they were both the same shape. Slowly and cautiously, he lined the two up and slid the glass into the hole, the prism a perfectly snug fit with just an inch of it now showing.

Mark felt it through the soles of his feet rather than hearing any noise. A faint vibration, and then seconds later, and much to his astonishment, the outline of a door seemed to appear on the face of the rock. There was a few seconds of delay as that section moved backwards several inches and then slid sideways. He stood transfixed, bringing the torch up and shining it inside the room that was now in front of him.

On the one hand, he was elated, and on the other, disappointed. The room was circular, about twelve feet in diameter, and empty except for a chair in its centre. It was made of metal, the size of an armchair, with a footrest extending from its base. The seat was padded, as were the back and headrest. Attached to each arm were screens; all Mark could liken them to were android tablets with blank glass screens.

Gingerly, he took a step forward, the room suddenly coming alive as the ceiling lit up. It wasn't a bright light, but enough for him to walk around it and the chair without the aid of his torch.

On closer inspection, the walls were of the same material as the door and covered by what he could only describe as engravings. Circles that overlapped, wheels and cogs, like those of a watch or clock, and others that reminded him of a circuit board, the lines of the circuits embossed with what appeared to be gold. Walking back to the door, he stepped out, the room going dark as the lights went out. 'That's neat,' he thought, stepping back inside as the lights came to life once more.

On the inside of the room and next to the door was an identical hole to the one outside. Switching on his torch and stepping out, he withdrew the prism and stepped back into the room; within seconds, the door slid smoothly sideways and back into position sealing the room off completely. That was when Mark had his first panic attack. 'What the fuck had he just done? What if this didn't work?' He was thinking. Just like the outside, there was no lock, no handle. How did he get out of there? No one was going to hear him if he shouted and without the prism, they couldn't open the door anyway.

It was with trembling fingers that he placed the glass ornament in the internal hole and cried out in relief as the door slid silently open. 'Shit! Don't be so fucking stupid next time,' he scolded himself.

Glancing at his watch, he had been down here longer than he'd anticipated; his friends would be here shortly, and his mother would come and shout for him when they arrived. Retrieving the prism, he stepped smartly through the door and watched as the lights went out and it closed. 'Plenty of time to explore again tomorrow,' he thought to himself.

Snow had fallen that night, the gardens covered in a blanket of white. His father was at work and his mother was going out for last-minute essentials. Taking his torch and the prism, Mark made his way down to the secret room ensuring this time that when he stepped inside, he had the glass crystal in his pocket. He had pondered it in bed last night; what would happen if the door closed and the prism was still outside, the prospect of being entombed, chilling him to the bone?

He inspected the walls again, unable to make head or tail of what the engravings meant, and then inspected the chair. In essence, it was just a seat, albeit a fancy one with a seatbelt system. It was a puzzle. Who had built the room? And what was it for? He took a seat, surprised at how comfortable the chair was as he relaxed back into it. Part of the arm was padded, but where his hands rested, there was a metal plate on each one. He had been so busy looking around him that he hadn't noticed the hole in front of the right-hand plate. It was the same shape as the external and internal entrance holes; the prism was still in the internal one, keeping the door open. He had learned that after his last visit.

Standing, he went over to the door and looked back at the chair. Did he dare take the chance? His imagination had given him nightmares, fears of being entombed in this room with no way of escaping.

Mark took a breath and steadied himself before slowly extracting the glass prism, watching as the door slid back into position and closed firmly. His hands and legs shook as he reinserted it, letting out a huge sigh of relief as the door opened. He did it several more times until he was convinced that so long as he had this key in his possession, he could re-open the door.

Sitting back in the chair, he stared at the hole, the glass key grasped firmly in his hand. Mark had to use his left hand to steady his right, as he lined the two up and slid the prism into the hole. It only went in an inch and then stopped. He could feel a faint vibration; the key seemed to want to go in further as he exerted a bit more force. Suddenly, it slid home and several things happened all at once. The engravings on the wall seemed to get brighter before starting to pulse with light, flickering as they strobed from one element to another. The two tablets came to life, some kind of program on each showing numbers, graphs, and pulsing power meters.

The chair began to move, slowly at first, turning right to left through three hundred and sixty degrees, and then just to confuse his eyes, the room itself began to turn, but it moved left to right. Mark felt queasy and light-headed as the wall speeded up, wondering if he was going to be sick and not sure now which direction he was facing when the motion finally slowed and stopped. But at least the door managed to line up with the chair again.

It was just a primal instinct, as he grabbed the prism and extracted it, clambering to his feet on legs which felt like jelly and were refusing to support him. He jammed it into the slot by the door, waited for it to open, and then rushed through. As the door closed behind him, everything went dark, and for a second he felt his fear rise as he fumbled for his torch. The beam lit up the passage and the stone steps; the door in the panelling was closed. Mark was convinced he had left it open.

He tried to dash up the steps, but his head and legs wouldn't allow it, and he had to stop halfway until the world stopped spinning. At the top, he pushed the lever, hearing the soft click as the panel door popped open, and then he was in the long gallery. Closing it behind him, he dashed for the main house and the front door. It felt like he was going to be sick, and he needed fresh air.

At the end of the gallery, he opened the door and came to an abrupt stop. He was in a large room with lofty ceilings from which hung huge chandeliers. The fancy coving and corniches looked old and dull, the wood panelling which ran at waist height all around it was marked in places, and the wallpaper, if that was what it was, had faded to the extent that barely any pattern remained.

There was another door opposite, and that was where Mark headed, throwing it open to be confronted by a large hallway, an ornate staircase, and the main entrance. He just kept going, feeling the bile start to rise. He managed to get out of the door, down the front steps, and onto a gravel driveway with massive lawns on either side before he collapsed on the grass and closed his eyes.

He could feel the sun on his face warming him, but that was impossible. Minutes earlier, everything in sight had been covered by snow and a chilling wind was blowing; now, it felt like late spring or the start of summer.

When Mark's equilibrium returned, he opened his eyes and sat up. He felt queasy all over again. He was staring at a house, not his house, some kind of old stately home, the stonework now badly discoloured. He found that he was talking to himself.

'Where the fuck am I, and what has happened?' He remembered the room spinning and then dashing out. The stone steps and the panel door had been there; the long gallery had been there. But where was the rest of his house, and what was this place?

The sound of a girl's laughter and then voices, carried on the slight breeze as he hoisted himself to his feet and followed them, along the front of the house and down the side. As he reached the corner, he started to recognise elements that he knew, this was the rear of his home. On one of the lawns, a table was set up beneath the shade of a tree, and a lone man sat there, sipping from a glass.

Mark stepped onto the grass.

'Hello. Are you lost?'

He turned at the sound of the young girl's voice, staring at her like a madman for a second before his legs went again, refusing to support him any longer as his body hit the ground with a thud. He never heard her shriek, or the call for her grandfather as she rushed towards him. When he opened his eyes, a wizened, kindly-faced old gentleman was kneeling on one side of him and the young girl on the other.

'Help me get him up Beatrice, and then go and ask Cook for a pot of tea.'

Mark managed to make it across the lawn and into the shade of the old tree. 'Sit down, sit down, my boy.' He plonked himself into one of the chairs.

He was having trouble speaking because, firstly, his mind was refusing to process this reality, and secondly, looking at the man and the young girl, and the way they were dressed, he didn't trust himself to say anything without every other word being an expletive.

While they waited for the tea to arrive, the old gentleman spoke. 'Who are you? Where did you come from? I don't recognise your mode of dress; have you been in foreign parts?'

Mark just gave him a puzzled look and reached across to the table for a glass and the jug of water. His mouth and throat were parched, and what he needed was a drink. Emptying the glass in one fell swoop, he placed it back on the table and felt something fall from his trouser pocket. Looking down, by his side, the prism sparkled in the light.

'Ah,' the old man said, 'you must be the new pilot.'

Mark looked at him, puzzled. 'Pilot? No! I'm still at school.' At last, he had found his voice.

The old chap pointed to the prism as Mark picked it up. 'You're the pilot; you have the key.' With that, he reached into his own pocket and produced an identical one.

'You have one as well?' Mark asked. The old chap shook his head. 'No, this is the same one; the only one; there is no other, which is how I know you must be the pilot. And judging by the way you are dressed; you must be from the future.'

The tea arrived, which was a perfect interruption because Mark did not have a clue what the old chap was rambling on about; his mind was numb and currently unable to accept that this wasn't some kind of joke or that he was dreaming.

With the cup of tea inside him and feeling slightly better, the old man asked a question. 'What is your year?'

'Twenty-sixteen' Mark replied. 'Why, what year is this?'

The old chap looked astonished. 'This is the year of our Lord, eighteen sixty-five.'

'How the hell did I get here?' The words had just slipped out and he put his hand over his mouth as he apologised.

''In the time machine, young fella, you must have used the time machine.'

Mark was panicking now, 'What time machine, I haven't got a time machine. They don't exist, only in films and comics and on television. I was in this secret room in my house, and then suddenly I was here.'

The old chap nodded sagely. 'That isn't a room; it is a time machine. It has been there for many hundreds of years and each pilot trains and hands the key on to the next one; that's how it's always been as far as I know.

Mark quickly explained how no one had trained him, how he had discovered the room, and how the prism had been an ornament in his sister's bedroom. The old chap looked troubled. 'You have been extremely fortunate, you could have ended up anywhere, in the past, in the future, and with no idea how to get back.'

It might have been a summer's day, but an icy chill ran up and down Mark's spine. 'Then how the "blooming heck" am I supposed to get back to my family?' He'd managed at the last moment, not to swear.

The two of them were deep in conversation, Beatrice sitting quietly as she listened to what her grandfather and this young man spoke of. Truth be told, she was quite enamoured of him and especially his strange garb.

'If you say that each pilot trains the next, why haven't you done so as yet?' Mark asked.

'There has been no opportunity,' the old man explained. 'I only had a daughter. Beatrice's mother. I thought there was lots of time; sadly, there was not. Both she and her husband were taken by the flu, and so I have brought Beatrice up, but she is too young yet to be trusted with something as powerful as the machine.'

Mark looked at the young girl; she must have been about twelve or thirteen years old, a few years younger than he was, and a strikingly beautiful child.

As the afternoon wore on, Mark was still at a loss as to how he was to return to his own time. The old chap, who he now knew was called Mr Blandford explained. 'Please call me Isaac. It is easy, I will take you back and explain how the machine works. It would be sensible if you visited some more because it is impossible to show you everything at once. I will show you how to do that.'

When Mark was eventually ready, Isaac escorted him back to the house. 'You must excuse my home. But I haven't the money anymore to try and keep it going. So many things need doing, it is never ending.'

Indoors, the disrepair was even more evident now that Mark had the time to look properly. They retraced his steps until they reached the corridor he instantly recognised. Pushing the flower, the panel opened, Mark switching on his torch and ready to descend only for Isaac to grab it from him to inspect, his face filled with amazement.

He did exactly what Mark had previously done, using his prism to open the door, extracting it from the hole, and entering the room. It looked no different to the room in his house, which in effect, it was. Isaac sat in the chair and dropped the crystal into the hole.

'You put the key in the slot, but only until you feel the first resistance, this activates the machine.' Mark watched as the screens came alive.

Isaac pointed to the right-hand panel. 'I realise it may seem odd to you, but all you have to do is touch the glass; there are no mechanical parts. I've no idea how it does that, very strange. Now here, you input where you are at the moment, and then below, where you wish to go. So, time, day, month, and year. What are the settings for where you came from?'

'Twenty-second of December, twenty-sixteen,' Mark told him, 'about ten-thirty in the morning.

'Good, I put in my settings, first of June, eighteen sixty-five, and the time is,' Isaac pulled a fob watch from his pocket and checked the time. 'Ah, three-fifteen in the PM.'

'Now, here, my young friend,' he said, turning to the left-hand panel, which was divided into four segments. 'This is the longitude and latitude of this room, and if we were going somewhere else in the world, we would change the one next to it to that location. But as we are going and returning to the same spot, both of those can be left identical.'

Mark asked what the lower two segments were for, surprised when Isaac told him he was not sure.

'I've studied it over the years and as far as I can fathom, the bottom left is the position of the Earth in space. I presume if we had the coordinates of another inhabitable planet, we could perhaps go there. I have never messed with that, and the pilot who trained me advised that I leave it well alone.'

'Who was your trainer?' Mark asked.

'My uncle, the man who owned this house before me. He started me quite young when I was no more than ten. Of course, he would not let me go off on my own; he kept the key well hidden. When he died, I inherited the house and the key.'

Mark didn't have the heart to tell the old chap that in the present, nearly everything worked by touchscreen.

'Once it is all set and you are ready, you can slide the crystal in the rest of the way. Ready? Hold on to the back of the chair tightly.'

Mark watched fascinated as the prism slid completely home and the seat started to move, the walls completing their merry dance in the opposite direction. He closed his eyes because he felt nauseous, mere seconds passing.

'Here we are. You can use your key to open the door and step out. Wait a few seconds, and then I will have returned to my own time. It has been nice meeting you, Mark. I hope we speak again.'

The door opened, and the beam of his torch lit the steps leading back up to the corridor above and the house. He withdrew the key and exited as the door closed behind him, and through the soles of his feet felt the faintest of vibrations. Reinserting the key into the mechanism, the door opened once more, the room now dark, quiet, and empty.

In his bedroom, Mark pondered what had happened; it was only fifteen minutes later than when he had headed downstairs, and yet, he had been at the original house for hours. What he had discovered felt exciting but scared the hell out of him. He had been lucky, from what Isaac had told him, he could have ended up anywhere, never to return. What would his parents have thought, they would have been destroyed, their only son disappearing and never seen again.

As it was, two years passed before he ventured down to the room once more. That one journey he had accidentally made, scared him. Yes! The promise of being able to travel through time excited him, but the prospect of becoming stuck made him fearful. He had considered just trying to go back in time by one day but suddenly realised there could be implications. It was something that had never entered his head previously, and he'd missed the chance to ask Isaac. If he went back to yesterday, was there a possibility of meeting himself?

When he finally ventured forth once more, he took his time. Familiarising himself by bringing the screens to life, but never fully inserting the key. His idea was to revisit the old man and his granddaughter. Carefully, he set his current date and time, and then advanced Isaac's date by one day.

With everything set, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and slid the key completely home. He kept them closed until he sensed that the chair had finally stopped moving. The door opened and closed as Mark climbed the stone steps and then opened the panelling door. It seemed no different than the last time he had been here. In a way, if he had gotten everything correct, it shouldn't be. For Isaac and his granddaughter, it would be one day; for him, it would be two years.

Along the gallery, into the large room and then onto the hallway. Mark opened the main entrance and went outside, walking around to the back of the house. There was no one out on the lawn today as he poked his head into an open doorway. He didn't want to shout, it felt right, but at the moment he had no idea if he had returned at the correct date and time.

The house was quiet as he wandered around, one empty room after another. And then he heard voices, convinced that one of them was Beatrice. Putting his ear to the door, he listened before turning the knob and entering. She was up and out of her chair with a beaming smile as he entered, her grandfather turning his head to stare at him.

'Ah, you visit us again. But for you, I think it has been quite a while.'

'Yeah, after my first trip here, it took a while to summon the courage again. I listened to what you told me and was afraid of making a mistake. If I've got it correct, for you, I was here yesterday, for me, it has been two years and I am now eighteen.

The old man nodded proudly. 'Tea?' He asked. When Mark nodded, he turned to Beatrice. 'Would you be so kind, my dear, as to ask Cook for a pot of tea?'

Mark spent hours with them discussing the machine, with Isaac answering his questions to the best of his ability, and he also did a tour of the gardens with Beatrice hanging off his arm. When he left them, he felt sad, but it was with the promise of a return before too long.

Back in the present and as time passed, the urge to try and go somewhere different intensified. Mark had not got a clue where to pick; he just needed somewhere that felt comfortable and safe.

It was an overheard conversation that tempted him. His sister Elizabeth had been visiting and she and their mother had been talking. Mark had been about to enter the room but held back as he listened to them.

'I'd have been about the same age as Mark, and it was the annual fair and fete in town. It was before I met your father and there was this rather dishy boy there that I met.' Both women laughed as his mother lowered her voice and whispered something to his sister.

'Anyway, if it hadn't been for the fact that he had to move away, I might never have met your father and got married.'

Mark wondered; did he dare? The annual club day was held on the same weekend each year, and Mark knew his mother's birthday, which made it easy to work out a date when the incident she spoke of may have happened.

Remembering what Isaac had told him, he waited until an opportunity arose before making his way down to the room. 'First things first,' he thought to himself, inserting the prism partway into its slot after sitting in the chair and waiting for the instrumentation to come to life. Today's date and time were inserted, and then the date and year that the fair would be in town and his mother would be eighteen. He could walk into town from here and so left everything else as it was, no need to change any coordinates.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the crystal firmly home and closed his eyes until he felt the motion stop, not feeling nearly as sick this time. It had not been as straightforward as he had imagined. When he tried to exit the corridor, the door refused to open, and no matter what he did, it would not budge. It was dark and musty, as though something had crawled into here and died.

He eventually found a way out by opening and climbing through a window at the far end of the building, staring at the main house in amazement. The roof had collapsed along with some of the walls. Rubble lay everywhere, and the gardens at the rear were completely overgrown. Perhaps it was the collapsed walls that barred entry into the gallery which had saved that part of the house.

He headed for the treeline and down the incline to the stream. He didn't feel confident anymore, but at least from there, he could follow it down towards town. It had felt strange, his present-day home wasn't even there yet, but at least no one would see him coming and going.

Many of the features on his trek into town were still recognisable. Once there, though, the shops looked completely different, as did the vehicles that were around, and some of the housing estates that he knew were still open fields. He was not as conspicuous as he thought he may have been, his modern clothing, although different, did not stand out as much as he had dreaded.

Making his way to the recreational park, he wandered around the rides, only then realising that he had no idea what his mother looked like when she was young, other than the odd photo or two, he had found in her albums. The park was extremely busy, music blaring and competing with the sound of machinery as rides whirled around at speed and girls screamed. 'Abby, over here,' a voice shrilled. Mark turned around and noticed a group of girls heading in his direction and toward the Cyclone ride.

She was hard to miss, her eyes catching his for a second as she passed. 'Bloody hell, his mother had been stunning when she was young.' Mark had difficulty contrasting the image of her as a young woman and his middle-aged mother. She was still attractive, but in a mature way now. He watched the group as they clambered onto the ride, standing at the safety railings as it set off slowly and began to gain speed.

Strangely, each time their carriage came in his direction, he locked eyes with hers, as though there was a bond between them, which plainly there was because she was his mom. When it slowed and stopped, he turned away, deciding to melt into the background and see who this young man was that his mother had met.

Unfortunately, before he could disappear, someone tugged at his arm. 'Would you take a picture of us?' His mother asked, thrusting an old-style camera in his direction. The four girls huddled together, grinning at him as he aimed it and pressed the button, the camera making a loud click.

'I hope it turns out ok.' Mark told her, 'I've never used one of these before.' It was a stupid thing to say and do, he later thought, but it was just one of those spur-of-the-moment, instinctive actions. 'Let me just try another one and make sure.'

Without a second thought, he whipped his mobile phone out of his pocket, grouped the girls around him, and fired off several selfies. They crowded around him because they had never seen a camera like that, astonished when they could view the pictures of themselves instantaneously.

'Where did you get that?' Abby asked. Mark mumbled that he had got it abroad and it was still experimental. Better not let them see that besides being a camera, it could take videos and make phone calls, not that it would work like that at this point in time.

As much as he tried to disentangle himself from the group, it appeared he had made four new friends as they accompanied him around the fairground for the rest of the afternoon. When evening approached and they began to disperse, he found himself alone with his mother as they walked through town, Mark looking for any opportunity to get back to the house. He had chanced his luck enough for one day and still had to work out the return to his own time.

'This is me,' she said. Mark had been too engrossed in their conversation to notice; of course, it was. This had been or currently was his grandparent's house, and as a youngster, he had visited many times until they retired and decided to move and live in Spain.

He had been about to say goodbye when she suddenly closed the gap, stood on tiptoes, and kissed him. Mark was so startled that he forgot to respond. His mother stepped back and looked worried. 'Should I not have done that?' She asked.

He quickly gathered his thoughts, 'I'm sorry, you just took me by surprise.' Her face brightened; 'Well, I could try it again if you like?'

As strange as it felt, it was also tantalising. She tasted sweet, her aroma catching his nostrils and the fact that she was pressed tightly against him ignited a reaction down below which embarrassed him and made her giggle. 'Will I see you again?' She asked, 'I'm usually in town most evenings.'

Mark made a promise even though he had no idea if he would keep it. His main objective now was to get home, back to his own time. Retracing his steps, he returned to the abandoned and collapsing building, entering the way he had exited and closing and locking the window. Sitting in the chair, he rechecked the inputs, added an hour to the time he had left, and gingerly pressed the prism fully home.

It seemed like seconds only before he was opening the room door once more and thankfully staring at the steps in front of him. With the panelling closed, Mark found he was covered in sweat despite the elation he felt. He had done it; he had made his first proper journey unaided and got back in one piece. And to cap it all, and which in the circumstances felt strange; he had kissed his mother, a most unmotherly kiss, which had caused him to become partially erect much to her delight, and his dismay, it seemed.

Temptation is a terrible thing, and Mark was unable to resist. All he had to do was reset the date and time and he could visit his young mother with ease. It helped boost his confidence, going back and forth to a time fourteen years before he was born. Also, it eliminated a problem, something Mr Blandford had mentioned.

'Try and avoid travelling to your own timeline, if possible,' he advised. 'It can cause lots of problems if ever the two of you should meet.'

'Has it happened to you?' Mark had asked. Isaac shook his head. 'No. I'm simply passing on the instructions I received. I've always avoided going somewhere I could encounter myself.'

The thought of the old chap and his granddaughter tugged at Mark's heartstrings. He had been invited to return but was still to do so; they must think him rather rude. 'Tomorrow,' he promised himself. It was still several weeks before he would start college and the adventure with his mum was presently keeping him occupied.

What was happening with his mother did not feel unnatural, in a way, she was not his mother yet, and he was finding that he enjoyed her company and that of her friends. Other than the kisses she would give him when they parted, nothing had happened.

The following day he was preparing to go back to the mid-eighties again when he stopped and made a correction to his destination. He was going to visit Isaac and his granddaughter, but at a date of Mark's own choosing. He felt apprehensive as he altered the controls. 'It was June, eighteen sixty-five,' he was saying to himself. 'Let's try, three years later.' He made the necessary adjustments and inserted the prism as the chair and room began to spin. No longer did he feel sick when he travelled, his body becoming accustomed to jumping through time.

If anything, the house looked a little more dilapidated, but at least it was still there, unlike the ruins he found when he visited his young mother. This time, he worked his way to the back of the house after checking out different rooms. In what he took to be a drawing room, French windows were open; the slight breeze making the lace curtains billow from time to time. He could hear a young woman's voice calling.

'Grandfather, your tea has been poured.'

Stopping in the open doorway, he watched Beatrice for a moment, noting that she had grown since he had last seen her.

She had her back to him as he stealthily moved closer, stopping about six feet away. 'Hello Trixie, I thought it was about time I visited again.'

At first, she jumped, spinning around to stare at him, and then a huge smile broke over her face as she covered the distance and threw her arms around him. Mark getting the biggest hug ever.

When at last she released him, her grandfather was just crossing the lawn. 'You look more confident, my boy, have you been travelling?' Mark explained how he had been cautious, picking a period before he was born so as not to meet himself.

'I've been practising, nothing silly, just back and forward to the same period, advancing the input one day at a time and getting used to it. This is the furthest I've travelled back in time; there is so much I don't know yet, and I fear making a mistake with no one to advise me.'

'Very wise my boy. Better to be cautious than stranded.'

He spent the afternoon with them, and when Isaac dozed off for a while, he strolled around the grounds with Beatrice. 'Do you mind me asking, how old are you, Beatrice?'

'Sixteen. And you Mark?' He told her he was eighteen, now only two years older than she was. She was full of questions. Was the house still there? What would it be like in the future? Did everyone dress like him? It must be very strange, he thought, comparing her dress, which reached below her knees and was all frills, compared to the jeans, t-shirt, and short jacket he wore. Surely it couldn't do any damage, he thought as he asked if he could take a picture.

Taking his mobile from his pocket, he asked her to pose and clicked off several pictures, allowing Beatrice to look at the image of herself and in colour, a look of amazement on her face.

'You must be extraordinarily rich to own something like that,' she exclaimed. Mark laughed, 'No! Everyone has one of these in my time; it's how we communicate when we are out and about.'

'What? A kind of telephone? But where are the wires?'

Mark suddenly realised that he had said more than enough. It was something her grandfather had said about being careful, the past affecting the future. Subtly changing the subject, they continued with the stroll arriving back as Isaac awoke from his slumbers.

'I had better go.' Mark said, he had been going to visit his mother and he had been here longer than he anticipated.

Isaac was laughing, 'You still haven't worked this out properly, have you, Mark?' Taking a notebook and pencil from his pocket, he opened it to a blank page. 'Let's say you leave home at ten o'clock and arrive here a few minutes later. You spend the morning with us and then return home, setting the machine for five minutes past ten. Once you are there, you have some lunch, go out for a stroll, and then decide to return and spend all afternoon and evening here. When you return home once more, you set the machine for ten minutes past ten. In our time, you have been here all day. In your time, you have only been away ten minutes. You see Mark, you, and the machine, control time!'

Mark was astounded he hadn't connected the dots, of course, it was simple. He could return to his own time and then go to his mother's timeline and spend the day with her and still be back before she and Elizabeth returned from shopping. A complete day in the eighteen hundreds, and then a day in the eighties and home to find he had only been gone for five minutes.

'You can visit this exact point in time on as many occasions as you like; but on each one, you will find that we have no recollection of our conversation, because, in effect, it has not happened yet. That is why you advance the timeline; so that we remember you from the previous occasion.

There was so much that Mark did not understand, which was why he made Isaac a promise to visit regularly and learn about all the possibilities.

When he returned home, he dashed for a shower and, with Isaac's conversation in mind, went straight to the room and reset the dates and times as he travelled to meet his mother Abby, once more. It was great fun being in her company; Mark was finding his mother was a scream, and her friends, pretty much the same. Within what felt like a brief period, he had become one of their group, all of the girls drooling over him but his mother making it clear she had got there first.

As far as he was concerned, it was a bit of fun; yes, he had kissed her several times. But they were both eighteen; she would not meet his father for nearly another three years, and at the end of the day, she was a young woman, and an extremely attractive one to boot. They had spent all afternoon together and he was walking her home when she suddenly stopped in her tracks.

'I'm not trying to be presumptuous, Mark, but my parents are away. Would you like to stay for tea?'

Previously he may have panicked, thinking he needed to get back. Now he understood he could spend hours with her and still go back to five minutes after he had left his actual time.

Abby had cooked, nothing adventurous, and then they had retired to the lounge. After a brief period of watching television, viewing programs he had never heard of and others that he had seen repeated hundreds of times, they got down to what all teenagers get up to when parents are not around.

Mark found it both shocking and erotic in equal measure. His mother's hands were all over him, her mouth glued to his. When she took his hand and placed it on her breast, he nearly jumped a mile. When she unbuttoned and slid down the zip of his pants, her hand quickly disappearing inside as she teased and manhandled his erection, Mark knew he was in trouble.

He was aroused, the desire for sex overcoming any objections he should have had as his hand disappeared beneath her skirt, his fingers brushing against the front of her panties as he softly stroked her pussy.

'Do you want to go upstairs?' She asked breathlessly.

'Lead the way,' Mark told her, even though he knew where to go.

Naked, Abby was absolutely gorgeous he realised as she pulled him on top of her, his knob pressing against her pussy lips. He moved imperceptibly and teased. 'Please, Mark, fuck me,' she pleaded.

Suddenly things felt strange. This was his mom, who he was rolling around with on the bed and hearing her asking him to fuck her, shocked him for a moment. Naked, there was no denying she had a great body, slim, nice tits, great legs, and a perfectly rounded bum. His father had been a lucky man.

Arousal overcame any objections he may have raised as she opened her legs and displayed her female centre.

Abby sighed loudly when his shaft penetrated and expanded her passage, pausing for several seconds before he began moving, easing his cock in and out of her cunt. Dipping his head, his mouth found her nipples; his lips encircling first one and then the other, the tip of his tongue tracing patterns over and around her areola before nipping each bud between his teeth as she moaned continuously.

She hoisted her legs higher, wrapping them around him as his hips increased momentum, his shaft sending sensations through her pussy to her body as he fucked her a little quicker. 'God, he was a tease,' she was thinking, taking her up to the point she was sure she was going to climax and then easing her down slowly, his hands and mouth assaulting her lips and body as her arousal escalated.

When Mark was sure she was pumped enough, he speeded up, ploughing her cunt rapidly as she wailed and bucked beneath him. As much as Abbey wanted to watch him, it felt like a supreme effort to keep her eyes open as she bent her head back as far as it would go and thrust her tits towards him so that he could caress and fondle them. When he pushed her over the edge and she orgasmed, it was heaven, shooting stars in front of her eyes and a warm sense of fulfilment washing over her as nerve endings exploded.

'Wow, that, was fucking awesome,' she had told him afterwards as he wrapped his arm around her and cuddled her against his body.

At one point she had made a suggestion. 'My parents won't be back until tomorrow afternoon; why don't you stay the night?'

With limbs entangled, they lay facing each other, Mark's cock back inside his mother's cunt. It was difficult, he found, due to her age, to see Abby as his mother. She was an attractive young woman, the same age as himself and an absolute delight to fuck. He eased out and back in, watching her face as he fucked and teased her, his hand going to her breast as he cupped it and felt the weight, her nipple erect and standing proud. Their mouths came together, his finger and thumb rolling the teat and making her gasp and mumble something incoherent.

His movement got faster, hands now gripping her buttocks as he dragged her into his groin and pounded her cunt. Abby shrieked with delight, turning the air blue with her coarse language, a turn-on in itself as he listened to the crudities that his mother bombarded him with. Then she was climaxing once again, swearing loudly as she felt Mark's shaft jerk inside her pussy and then the blast of cum which filled her cunt.

Mark had spent the night with her, leaving the next morning before her parents, his grandparents, returned. As he walked toward his yet-to-be-built home, the whole episode felt surreal. He had spent hours with Isaac and Beatrice; spent the afternoon, evening, and night with Abby, and would shortly be back in his house, yesterday and before anyone had realised that he had been away. It was so convoluted that it was difficult to get his head around it.

That evening, sitting around the dinner table as they ate their evening meal, Mark was finding it difficult to look at his mother without seeing her naked. She was a mature woman now but had kept her figure, and Mark could not get out of his mind what he had been doing to her body several hours earlier.

In the time he had left before college, and with the ability to, in a way, bend time, it was surprising how much of it he spent with Beatrice and Isaac as well as with his mother. Mark was becoming exhausted; sometimes it felt as though he had been on the go for days without rest.

Even when he started college, the ability of the machine to bend time did not deter him. He could complete his assignments and then disappear into the past, spend all day there, and then return ten minutes after he had departed.

Mark had aged by two years; his mother by only one, and Beatrice by three years. When he went on one of his regular visits to the eighteen hundreds, he suddenly realised how beautiful she was. It felt strange to have met her as a young girl and to now see her as a young woman. There were differences, he realised, in the way they lived, instinctively knowing that she was attracted to him. While his mother, now of a similar age, was free to jump his bones and drag him into bed at any opportunity, Beatrice wasn't.

There were certain customs and etiquette to observe., always someone there as a chaperone, even if it were her grandfather, and he would often have a snooze. Over the times he had visited, Mark had learned a great deal. He had taken several trips, with Isaac, being shown how other programs allowed the pilot, in a way, to finesse his destination more precisely.

'The machine has been attached to the house throughout my lifetime, and that of my uncle. It can move, he told me, but you need precise coordinates because you don't want it to be seen appearing or disappearing. I've never tried that myself, and neither had he. It's just information that has been passed down over time. It is probably capable of so much more; but as one person trains another, I suppose some things have been lost.' Isaac told him.

Mark knew that the time was drawing closer when he would have to bid his mother farewell. Yes, he could continue to visit her within the same timeline, but she would forget all that they had done; plus, it didn't seem fair to continue having sex with her once his father was on the scene.

There was a danger, he knew, if he left things too long. He had discussed it with Isaac, but without going into any details. If his father did not meet his mother because Mark was on the scene, then importantly, he would cease to exist because he would never be born. 'Now that was scary.' He thought.

There had been tears, of course, and not only his mother's, when he explained that his parents were moving and that unfortunately, at the moment he had no option other than to go with them. He promised to stay in contact with her. 'I'm sure we will meet again in the future,' he had said as they parted for the last time.

It was with a heavy heart that he returned to the present. At least he hadn't lost Abigail; she was still with him, only now much older and only as his mother. For a while, it felt like withdrawal symptoms, finding it difficult to summon the energy and only making infrequent visits to Isaac and Beatrice.

Having reached twenty-one, he was in the third year of his course and had come downstairs to take a break from studying and to grab a sandwich. Elizabeth was in the kitchen, talking with his mother, and though they no longer inhabited the same house, she could not refrain from her catty remarks. Mark did his best to ignore her, but she got under his skin, which was why as he headed back towards his room, he decided that teaching her a lesson may be appropriate.

He had met his mother as a teenager and ended up in bed with her; could, or would he have the same effect on Elizabeth? 'Let's face it,' he thought, 'I know all of her likes and dislikes, in a way I know her nearly as well as she knows herself.'

A warning bell went off in the back of his mind; to return to a time when she was eighteen meant that he would be infringing on his timeline. All right, he would only be eight, and so every chance they would not meet; nevertheless, he remembered the warning Isaac had given.

Two thousand and eight was not that long ago, and he could still remember the things he had done as an eight-year-old, especially in the gardens around the property. The day he selected was Elizabeth's birthday; the day she had turned eighteen. Mark was still able to remember her returning home worse for wear. He chose the evening because there was far less chance of meeting himself when he emerged from the room and headed towards town.

It was dangerous, he knew, and full of complications. The first of those was getting out of the house without being seen. He tried to pick a time when he thought Elizabeth would be in town, his younger self would be in bed, and his parents would be relaxing in the main part. The downstairs storage room had two windows, and that was his means of getting out unseen. That part went to plan, as he kept away from the main house until he reached the treeline and disappeared into it. The window had been left unlocked but closed so as not to arouse attention. With any luck, that would be his way back in, it was just a question of when, too early and his sister would be about, which might mean a wait until everyone was in bed.

Strolling along, he thought about the fact that though he now owned a time machine, he hadn't used it fully. Back in time to Isaac and Beatrice. Back to see his mother, and now, to antagonise his sister. Nothing exciting or extraordinary, he thought, rather more or less, a little mundane; but then he was young and there was plenty of time for the bigger adventures.

Touring several public houses in town, it took a while to locate her, Mark, content to get himself a drink as he propped up the bar and observed his sister from a distance. There were quite a few girls and two or three lads, one of whom he presumed was Elizabeth's boyfriend; she'd had several before meeting her husband at the age of twenty-two.

He hadn't planned anything as yet, not even to introduce himself under a fictitious name; tonight, was hopefully more about catching her eye and making her wonder who he was. When her current beau disappeared to the toilet, Mark took his chance, ordering her favourite drink and taking it over to the table and placing it in front of her. 'Happy birthday, Lizbet.'

Mark swivelled on his heel and without looking back, returned to the bar and his drink. He could feel their eyes on him and dismissed the urge to turn and look at them, instead, concentrating on staring at the bottles lining the shelves behind the bar. He stayed like that until he knew someone was standing next to him, turning slowly to find his sister. 'Hello, Elizabeth.'

She stared at him intently. 'Do I know you? You somehow look familiar.'

He gave her a cheeky smile, 'Maybe, maybe not.'

'How did you know it was my birthday?'

'Just a guess,' Mark said, indicating her group of friends. 'Eighteen today, how does it feel?'

He could see that she was puzzled and that his answers so far had her intrigued.

'But what about the drink? How did you know that was my favourite drink and why Lizbet?'

'Well, you look like a Lizbet, and I'm telepathic.' Mark was enjoying himself and could tell that his sister hated not knowing who he was.

'In that case, what am I thinking?'

Mark did not have a clue but knew his sister well enough. 'You are thinking, who is this good-looking young man who seems to know you when you haven't got a clue who he is.'

Her face broke into a smile. 'Close enough. What's your name?'

'I'm Andrew.' Yes, it was dangerous, it was his middle name, but he knew there was no way she would associate him with her younger brother. He held out his hand and shook hers, his sister's face one of suspicion. 'That's my brother's name,' she told him.

'Hmmm, maybe more than a coincidence,' he replied.

'I'd better let you get back, is that the boyfriend giving me the evil eye?' Elizabeth turned and looked. 'Yeah, that's Simon,' she said with a laugh.

'Oh, that's ok then,' Mark replied. He'll be gone in a few weeks, definitely not the right one.'

Elizabeth was gobsmacked. She had been thinking of breaking up with Simon; how did this stranger know? It was as though this person, Andrew, could read her mind. As he finished his drink, he tapped his temple and said, 'Telepathic. Perhaps I'll see you around.'

He left her, staring at his back as he retraced his steps, heading for home and his own time.

In the present, Mark gave it a couple of days; in Elizabeth's past; it was nearly two weeks before he put in another appearance.

He had caught up to her in the same public house, noting her presence, but then standing at the bar, and ignoring everyone as though he had no idea she was there. Again, she was with friends, but this time Mark did not notice Simon among the sea of faces. Refusing to make eye contact with anyone, he stayed in the same position until he was certain that his sister was standing by his side.

'Hello: Lizbet,' he said, and only then did he turn to face her. It seemed to put her off balance, adding to the mystery he already exuded.

'What brought you here?' She asked.

'I've had an exam at college today, so I thought I'd just grab a drink and then maybe get something to eat before heading home. Fancy joining me?'

They settled on an Indian, Mark ordering a lamb Jalfrezi. 'The lady will have Chicken Tikka, onion bhaji, and a Peshwari naan.'

'How did you know?' She asked, looking puzzled.

Of course, he knew, it was what his sister always ordered; she never tried anything else.

As they waited for their food, she just had to ask, 'What else do you know about me?'

Mark paused for a moment. 'Do you mind?' He asked as he reached across the table and placed a couple of fingers on her temple, looking at her intently for a moment.

'Let's see, Elizabeth Duncan, age eighteen, born twenty-second of May nineteen-ninety. Lives up on the hill in......' at this point he pulled a face, 'some kind of funny upside-down house. St Mary's high school and going to college later this year to hopefully study languages. Oh, and before I forget, thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-five.'

He was sure at that very moment, that if he blew on her, she would have fallen over, whatever he said or did now, she was hooked.

Elizabeth was shocked beyond the point where any of this made sense. She was half believing that he could read her mind. She was confident she had never met him; but how did he know so much about her, even down to her measurements, which she had never told anyone?

They chatted as they ate, Mark telling her lie after lie but continually dropping small pieces of information about things that Elizabeth may have thought were secrets.

'What are you doing next week?' He asked.

'Nothing, why?

'Well, there's a concert in the city. I thought you might like to go and see it.' He knew she had originally gone with her friends and that it was one of her favourite groups. He told her who it was and offered the invite again. It was changing the past, he thought, but not in a big way.

Within a week, they had kissed, a strange feeling, the same as he had experienced with his mother the first few times, only more intense. He never knew his mum as a young woman, only ever as his mother, whereas he could remember his sister being eighteen, even though he had only been eight at the time.

It was only time before sex reared its head, but unfortunately, there was a giant hurdle in the way. Mark couldn't exactly invite Lizbet back to his home, especially as it was the same as hers, but in the future. Likewise, with her parents around, Elizabeth wasn't confident about inviting him back to her house.

Back in the present, he had been chatting with his mother when she mentioned the trips to the seaside they used to have as a family. Mark's memories of them were vague, one visit merging into another.

'I remember the visits, but I don't remember Elizabeth being there once I was eight or nine.'

'No, dear, once she turned eighteen, she considered herself too old to be building sandcastles.'

Mark had an idea and with his mother occupied he got out some of the photo albums and looked through them. Below each picture, his mum would add a note of where it was taken, the people in the photo and the date. All he had to do was find some for that particular year to guarantee that he and his parents would be away all day.

On a trip to the past, he had made arrangements to meet Lizbet on that particular morning. She would not know yet, but with any luck, he would have plenty of time to bed her while their parents were away. Would it feel strange, he wondered, entering his own home with his sister, 'I must remember not to know where I am going,' he thought as he set off to meet her.

It was another one of those instances that Mark had never appreciated. When he'd ended up having sex with his mother, he had never realised how attractive she was and how good her body was until the point of their encounter. Elizabeth naked was just like a variation of his mum; she was gorgeous, her pert tits digging into his bare chest as they kissed.

With her parents out of the way, she had smuggled him in, the pair of them now ensconced in her bedroom in their section of the house. After teasing and tantalising her for so long, Elizabeth was desperate to get Andrew naked and into her bed; would she have been as keen if she had realised that he was her brother, that, was anyone's guess.

With his head nestled between her thighs, his tongue poked out, flicking at the lips of her pussy as she tried to grind it against his mouth. His hands cupped her breasts, fingers tweaking her nipples, twisting, and pinching as she howled with delight. 'Oh fuck,' she cried when his tongue finally penetrated her passage, swirling around inside her moist hot centre as he licked and sucked her extremely sensitive flesh.

Elizabeth knew little more about Andrew now than she did at the beginning. He was an enigma, a man of mystery; while to him, it seemed her life was an open book, continually astounded as to how it was that he knew so much about her. What she did know, was that she had become desperate for his cock, their meeting today a godsend as her parents were away, and yet she had an inkling that Andrew somehow knew they would be alone.

Pulling himself up the bed, Mark shuffled between his sister's thighs, teasing her by rubbing his throbbing shaft against her cunt and clit, building her to the point where she begged him to fuck her. After years of being the butt of her jokes, it felt satisfying to hear Elizabeth pleading with him to shag her.

She had thought it would never happen, the air whistling from her lungs when he had suddenly rammed his cock into her, her fanny expanding rapidly as his pulsating length of meat, filled her hot wet quim. She screeched, probably loud enough to have been heard in the other parts of the house if their parents had been at home. 'Thank fuck they were away,' she thought.

Her arousal was building; her lust for his body had her hands gripping his buttocks, her legs open as wide as they would go as she pulled him in with each thrust, loudly moaning each time his cock slammed deep into her cunt. Arching her back slightly, she thrust her tits upwards, offering them to be abused; a mouth now latching onto each nipple in turn as he suckled on her teats.

He was young, maybe a year or two older than she was. But his lovemaking was like nothing she had experienced before, as though he'd had years of practice and knew exactly what to do and where to touch to elicit the greatest of sensations.

And when she thought it couldn't get any better, he increased his momentum, fucking her rapidly, his hips piston-like as he ploughed her furrow, his cock hammering her cunt as she reached her threshold and plummeted, her orgasm twisting her body as she panted and screamed, his pounding incessant and never-ending as her first climax was superseded by a second and then much to her disbelief and even though she was nearly delirious by that point, a third as at last she felt his shaft judder inside her and the torrent of cum that filled her pussy.

She had died, and gone to heaven; if not, surely, she would never walk again. Her body and mind were exhausted, and yet already, his hands were exploring once more, his mouth raining kisses over her breasts and teats as that sense of new arousal ignited in her belly.

This time he took her from behind, Elizabeth up on all fours, her tits swinging as his groin slammed against her buttocks; his hands reaching under her as he fondled her breast and rubbed teasingly at her clitoris. Her legs felt like jelly, her outstretched arm just managing to support her as his momentum increased. She closed her eyes, her mouth hanging open as she struggled to draw in enough oxygen between her bouts of moaning, and crying her appreciation of what he was doing to her.

When her fourth orgasm took her by the throat, shaking her like a rag doll, she collapsed, his shaft still penetrating her cunt until she felt it seed her a second time, and then darkness plucked her away.

'You fucking bastard.' Elizabeth purred, 'Oh my god, what have you done to me? I fucking love you!'

When she had surfaced, he was cradling her in his arms, warm and protective, and her words had just come out unbidden. At that moment, it was what she felt, loving this young man who had made her soar to unbelievable heights.

Before any more could be said, the sound of a car pulling up outside the house disturbed them; Elizabeth and Mark, looked at each other before she leapt from the bed and dashed to the window. 'Shit, mum and dad are back.'

He was already on his feet and getting dressed, Elizabeth following suit as she hurriedly pulled on her clothes. There was a nagging memory in Mark's head, of an occasion when they had gone to the coast and he hadn't felt well; the family returning early, trust him to have picked one of the few occasions that happened.

'I'll meet you in town,' he'd told Elizabeth, giving her a quick kiss as he fled from her room and nearly jumped from the top of the stairs to the bottom. 'The storage room,' he was thinking, if he could get in there, he could leave by one of the windows again, and then when the coast was clear, make his escape across the gardens.

As the family entered, he gave them a moment and then sprinted across the lawn, looking back as he approached the treeline and sighing with relief that he had made it. 'That was a close thing,' he was thinking. 'Next time, check the bloody dates before properly,' shocked at how close he had come to bumping into himself.

His other thought was why he had told his sister he would meet her in town. All he'd had to do was make it to the long gallery, and then into the secret room, able to return to his own time with ease. Now, he was going to have to sneak back in once he escorted Elizabeth home.

Up in the lounge, Abigail glanced out of the window. A young man hesitated at the end of the garden, and she was convinced he had come from the house. When he looked back, her heart skipped a beat, her hand going to her throat. It was Mark, her Mark, but that was impossible. This was a young man about her daughter's age; her first love would now be in his forties.

Elizabeth, when questioned, had, of course, denied that anyone had been in the house with her, but she looked hot and flustered, and her mother concluded that she was being lied to.

He and his sister had spent the afternoon together, laughing about their close encounter before he had walked her home, and then once she had gone indoors, he had returned and awaited an opportune moment to sneak back in and access the secret panel before returning to the present.

He had enjoyed having sex with his sister, but compared to his mother, it was a far riskier enterprise. What would happen if he were caught sneaking in or out of the house, there was no way he could tell them his true identity.

Isaac had explained to him with each visit, the consequences of time travel, but Mark was convinced that the excursions with his mother and sister would amount to little in the future. They had both met him in their teenage years; there was no way that they would associate someone from their pasts with their son and brother in the present.

The ripples he had sent out in the past, kept expanding, and soon they became waves, ready to crash into the present. Before that first wave properly rushed ashore, there was another event to distract him.

There were a few weeks before he started his next year of law at college, and he had been taken on by a local firm on a training contract. With his father at work, his mother out and about, and the glorious weather outdoors, Mark had taken the opportunity to don shorts, apply sunscreen and do nothing but stretch out on the lounger, which he had placed on the lawn.

The warmth had caused him to doze, that state of being half awake and half asleep. He had no idea what made him open his eyes, shading them from the sun nearly directly overhead as he gazed blearily at a figure in a long white dress coming towards him from the house. His eyes closed again for a second, convinced he was in the middle of a dream; but when he opened them again, the figure was still advancing.

Sitting upright, he wondered who it was, that was a hell of a dress to be wearing in this kind of heat, he was thinking.

As the woman drew closer still, Mark sprang to his feet, suddenly recognising who it was. 'Beatrice? Is that you? What are you doing here, has something happened?'

She ran the final few yards, throwing her arms around his neck, and, to his surprise, kissing him.

'Hello, Mark.' She giggled self-consciously as she took a step back and looked at him, Mark suddenly realising that she had probably never seen a man in his state of undress.

'How did you get here?' He asked, 'Is your grandfather here as well?' He looked back towards the house to see if Isaac was on his way.

Beatrice gave the sweetest of laughs as she shook her head. 'No. He has been teaching me how to use the machine and I'm pretty confident now. He's having his snooze, so I thought that I would visit you and be back before he awakes.'

Mark was speechless at first, finally finding his voice. 'But how did you know the right year to come to?'

'I remembered what you told grandpapa on your first visit, plus he had also written it in his notebook. I added a few years and voila, here I am. How old are you now, Mark?'

He told her he was twenty-one. 'That is good because I am now twenty-two.'

Again, Mark was surprised; in the five years since he had discovered the time machine, Beatrice had gone from a young girl of twelve to a beautiful young woman of twenty-two.

She wafted a hand in front of her face, 'It is very warm, is it not, and I did not think to bring my parasol.'

Grabbing her hand, Mark dragged her indoors. Beatrice was both amazed and excited as she got a tour and saw how her home now looked. The first stop was the kitchen upstairs, where he grabbed a couple of cokes from the fridge and popped the tabs. 'Try that,' he said, handing her a can. She laughed at the temperature of the container before putting it to her lips and tasting the sweet cold liquid. Taking a large gulp, it made her burp, Beatrice looking surprised and unladylike for a moment.

'I love it, Mark, it's delicious.'

'Right, let's get you out of those clothes, shall we?' Beatrice looked perturbed. Mark laughed, 'Sorry. It's just the way we speak now. I mean, we will find you something else to wear.

She followed him downstairs, through the house and into the corridor, her hand running over the dado rail. 'I know this part; this is in my home.' He nodded his head, explaining that this was part of the old house. In the storage room, he rummaged through bags, items of clothing his mother no longer wore, plus the clothes his sister had left behind.

In a cupboard, he found items that had never been used looking at Beatrice as he estimated her size, before hoisting the bundle and grabbing her hand again as she followed him up to his bedroom.

Opening the package, he tried to explain, feeling embarrassed. 'This is for up here,' he said, pointing to his chest, 'and these are down here, just like my shorts. Try some of the clothes on and see what fits.'

He went to leave the room, but she stopped him. 'Perhaps you can just turn around. I'm not sure what to do with these items. Taking the bra, he showed her how to hook it in front and then twist it around and pull it into place before turning his back to her.

When she spoke next, asking him to turn around, she was dressed in a summer frock which ended just above her knees and showed her gorgeous legs. 'This is what ladies wear now?' She asked. Mark nodded and opened his wardrobe door so that she could look at herself in the mirror.

Beatrice twisted one way and then the other, finally giving a twirl as she studied her reflection. 'Do I look suitably dressed?' She asked, the words out of Mark's mouth before he realised, 'You look beautiful, Beatrice.'

His face immediately coloured. They came from contrasting times, and while his words and behaviour were acceptable in the present, it wasn't necessarily so in her time. As it was, his reward was a huge hug and then another kiss, this one embarrassingly igniting movement down below as she stepped back and looked at him shyly.

'Give me two minutes to get dressed and I'll show you around,' he promised.

For Beatrice, the short walk into town was one surprise after another, things that she had never dreamt of, appearing around every corner. Cars raced past and aircraft flew high overhead. In town, music came from shops with their doors open and the items they were selling; items that she could never have imagined. Dragging his phone from his pocket, Mark plugged in the earphones and indicated she should do the same as he placed one in his ear and played her some pop music.

It was too much for Beatrice to take in, Mark leading her towards the park where he bought them both an ice cream. Such a simple treat for him, for her, it was as though he had just showered her with diamonds. With the warmth of the day, the park was busy; several young girls in bikinis lay on towels as they sunbathed. She looked at them and then at Mark. 'Is that acceptable?' She asked.

He laughed and nodded his head. 'The world has changed quite a bit Beatrice, beyond all recognition.' As he was speaking, she noticed a young couple kissing, the people walking past, taking no notice of what they were doing. She took Mark by surprise again as she leant forward and kissed him, this time more enthralling and enthusiastic than her previous one.

When he came up for air, he kissed the tip of her nose. 'Well Trixie, we'll make a twenty-first-century woman of you yet.'

Walking through town, hand in hand, Beatrice was floating on air when a strange honking sound interrupted her thoughts, and a car pulled into the side of the road.

'Hi Mark, are you heading home? Fancy a lift?' He bent down by the car window, 'No, it's ok, mum. We are just having a stroll.'

'Are you not going to introduce me?'

'Mum, this is Beatrice, Beatrice, my mum.' The two women said hello. 'Why don't you invite Beatrice to tea? Right, I'll let you get on, see you later, Beatrice.' And with that, she was gone as the car roared away.

Mark rolled his eyes. 'Mothers! Would you like to come for tea, or dinner, as you may say, we call it our tea?'

Beatrice took a moment and then grinned as she nodded her head.

'You realise that you are going to get interrogated, so we had better get our stories straight. You live with your grandfather on the other side of town, and we met at college.' They discussed other things; she may be asked as they strolled towards his home.

As he had predicted, his mother posed question after question; most answered easily with a harmless lie or some simple fabrication. It was only when she asked what Beatrice was studying at college that Mark was stumped, he hadn't a clue if she had even received any schooling.

"The Classics," Beatrice said. 'Many of the famous poets at the moment.' And without any effort, recited a poem by Byron

Mark exhaled slowly; it was something he had never considered. He knew extraordinarily little of her life and what it may have been like for her growing up, and she knew nothing of the modern world. On the face of it, Beatrice was nearly a hundred and fifty years old. He chuckled silently, 'she looked bloody good for an old woman.'

They sat with his parents long enough to be polite before finally disappearing up to his room as Beatrice looked and touched all of the items and gadgets which were strewn around.

'It's about time I returned home, Mark.' He understood completely, as much as he enjoyed the time with her and her grandfather, with his mother, and with his sister, he was always glad to be back in his own time and with his family. Taking her clothes, he folded them neatly and placed them in a bag. 'You can change when you are home. Keep those clothes in case you want to visit again,'

'Would you like me to?' She asked shyly

This time it was Mark's turn to wrap his arms around her as they kissed. 'I promise to visit more, but anytime to want to come here, just appear like today, but be careful.'

He went up to tell his parents that he was walking Beatrice home, and then together they opened the panel and disappeared down the steps. It was only moments before she was gone, Mark coming back up to the corridor and then jumping out of the storage room window.

Hanging around, he was lost in thought, needing to stay out long enough to have walked her home. Stupidly, his life had become an impossibility; the three women he now cared about were products of another time, and while he could see and visit them, he could never have a proper relationship with them in that sense.

Several months had passed, and Mark was now dividing his time, between college and the solicitors he was working at. He was still seeing his sister in the same way as he had with his mother, advancing the days slowly. Sex with her wasn't as easy; he was nervous about chancing his arm by allowing her to use their home, but he had nowhere of his own to take her. Thankfully, when the weather was nice, she was not averse to sex outdoors and they had indulged themselves on many occasions.

With the summer over, however, that slowly started to diminish, and he was considering that the time may be ripe for him to use the same excuse that he had with his mother and tell her he had to move away. He would have liked a longer time with both of them, but they already had predestined futures, and he was scared of doing something that may change that.

For a period, the machine was forgotten, Mark concentrating on his work and studies instead of flitting through time, little knowing that a tsunami was incoming.

Growing up locally, Abigail had stayed in contact with her friends from her teenage years and tonight, as her husband was away for a couple of days, and they hadn't seen each other for nearly ten years, they were meeting up at her home for drinks and nibbles. Mark was giving her a hand when the first one arrived, Maisie being introduced to him as he poured her a drink. There was something odd about her, he was thinking, because every time he glanced in her direction, she was staring at him intently. What was even more puzzling was that when Laura arrived, she did the same, the two women whispering to each other. Mark opened the door to the last of his mother's guests. Sandra stood with a gaping mouth as she stared at him. 'Holy shit!'

For a moment, he was taken aback. 'Sorry,' she said. 'Who are you?'

Mark looked at her, puzzled. 'Mark, Abigail's son. I think the last time you saw me I was maybe twelve or thirteen. I've grown a bit since then.'

Taking her coat, he showed her through to the lounge. His mother was in the kitchen finishing bits and pieces, and the room went quiet as he entered with Sandra, all three women exchanging glances as though there was something about him that disturbed them.

And then the realisation hit him. He had got to know them all reasonably well, and they had all been the same age of eighteen. Just like his mother, they were now approaching or had reached fifty, while he must look almost identical, only three years older than when he had become part of their group for a while.

'Right, they are all here and everything is done. I'm going to disappear, enjoy yourself.'

He noticed the look from all three as he went back through the lounge and then bolted for his section of the house.

'Shit! Shit! Shit!' His mother had never noticed, and neither had his sister, and so Mark had given it no thought, but her friends it seemed, had recognised him. He had gone back into the past and intermingled with them, and although it had not been within his timeline, the three women had still recognised him after all those years.

All evening there had been whispers, Abigail noticing it eventually because they were getting drunk, and the cryptic questions were getting nearer to the bone.

It was Sandra that came to the point 'Remember that lad you went out with for a while, Abigail, what was his name?'

'Mark. Why?'

'The same name as your son? Did you ever see him again after you were married?'

'No! I've never seen him since the day he left. My god, how many years ago was that? What were we, eighteen, nineteen? Why do you ask.'

It was Maisie who jumped in. 'Because your son is the perfect likeness to Mark back then...... identical in fact...... enough to be the same person, and you gave him the same name.'

Abigail looked at the faces of her three friends, each of them confirming that they thought the same.

'You didn't have an affair with him after you married Anthony, did you? Honestly, Abby, he looks exactly as I remember him.' It was Laura, this time, confirming what each of them was thinking.

'Rubbish, he doesn't look anything like him. I'll prove it. I have an old picture somewhere.'

Abigail was a little unsteady on her feet when she got up to fetch the photo albums; all of them had been hitting the bottle regularly since they arrived.

Plonking several of them next to her, she began to leaf through them. 'No, it was before that,' she put the album to one side and picked up another. 'Here, give me a hand.'

It was Abigail that eventually found it as the girls crowded around. 'This is the one that he took of the four of us near the Cyclone ride, do you remember that? When he wasn't aware, I snapped......'

Her voice suddenly trailed off as she stared at the picture. There he was, her Mark, back then, thirty-five years ago. She struggled to breathe and despite having consumed plenty, she felt sober. She was staring at a picture of the boy she first fell in love with. Looking roughly in her direction, she could have sworn it was her son Mark.

She had tried to laugh it off, telling them she must have got the pictures mixed up, but she could tell that they didn't believe her. In a way, it soured the evening, and her little soirée broke up soon afterwards.

Alone she poured another glass of wine and studied the photograph. It was the boy she had first loved and then lost. 'What was it he had said, maybe we will meet again someday?' The face in the picture was of Mark, her son; she even recognised some of his clothes from a few years back, convinced that he still had that same t-shirt.

'That's impossible; her Mark from back then would be fifty now, Mark, her son, was twenty-one.' It was an impossibility, and yet she couldn't shake the feeling that back then, she had somehow had sex with her son.

Uncertain of what she should do, she put the photo albums to one side. It didn't make sense and simply wasn't possible; her son wasn't born until long after that. 'It must just be a coincidence.' She thought, 'They do say that everyone has a doppelganger somewhere in the world.'

The following day, things only got worse. Elizabeth had popped in and was leafing through the top photo album while her mother was in the bathroom. Coming across a picture, she waited for her return.

'How come you have a picture of Andrew?' She asked.

Abigail looked at her daughter, unsure of what she was asking. 'Who is Andrew?'

'Oh, just a lad I went out with for a while, there is a picture of him in this photo album. I didn't think you'd ever met him.'

She held the album open so that her mother could see the picture to which she was pointing. Abigail felt weak at the knees, her voice tight in her throat and the words struggling to come out.

'That's Mark, from when I was eighteen; remember me telling you about him a while back.'

'That's strange,' Elizabeth remarked, I wonder if they were twins because he is the perfect likeness to Andrew.'

It was only then that the realisation struck Elizabeth. Of course, they couldn't be twins; this person her mother had known, was four or five years before she was even born. She was now experiencing the same sickening feeling, watching as her mother fumbled with another photo album, leafing through it until she found what she wanted.

Turning it around so that her daughter could see. 'That's Mark, my son, your brother, a few years ago.' The two women stared incredulously at the picture; they were the same person. 'Years ago, when I asked if you'd had someone here one time, it was him, wasn't it, that was Andrew, or Mark or whoever he is.

Elizabeth nodded, 'He was always mysterious. He seemed to know so much about me, trivial things that I wouldn't have told anyone. When I met him, he said his name was the same as Mark's middle name, Andrew.'

Both women were shaking. 'So, to me, he was Mark; to you he was Andrew. Did you sleep with him?'

Her daughter bashfully nodded her head. 'Did you mum?' This time it was Abigail's turn to nod and turn red. 'This is ridiculous.' Elizabeth said, there is no way that either of us has slept with our Mark in the past; that's impossible, it couldn't happen; it must be a coincidence that they look similar.

'That's the point.' Abigail said, starting to get upset. 'They don't look similar; they look identical, even down to the clothes they are wearing.' Elizabeth stared at the picture; sure enough, the person in both pictures was wearing the same t-shirt.

Neither of the women could say anything; it was too outlandish, but in the run-up to Christmas that year, tensions bubbled beneath the surface.

After the new year and with his father back at work, both women summoned him to a sit down one morning. Elizabeth was there early, and the two of them had been whispering to each other before he was told to take a seat. Neither of them knew how to start the conversation, so his mother had simply produced two photographs. 'This is nineteen eighty-six, and this is twenty-twenty-one. Notice anything?'

Mark stared at the two prints; they were both pictures of him, years apart as he steeled himself for what was coming but tried to appear nonchalant.

'Would you agree that they are the same person?' His mother asked.

Before he could answer, the doorbell rang, Abigail going to answer it. She was confronted by a young woman, wearing nothing but a summer dress, one Abigail had seen previously, and frozen to the bone as her teeth chattered. 'Is Mark here?' She asked.

Ushering Beatrice inside, she took her up to the lounge. 'Mark, it's your friend and she's frozen. I'll get her a blanket.' She disappeared and returned with one, draping it around the young woman's shoulders.

'I need to speak to you, it's important.' Beatrice said, looking fearfully at the two women, unsure because it looked like she had interrupted something.

'Give me five minutes,' he said to his mother and sister, taking Beatrice by the hand and leading her to his bedroom.

She was warming up but appeared upset. What's wrong,' he asked.

Slowly and with many tears, she explained what had happened. 'My grandfather has passed away and now I am alone. There is no money, and I can't afford to keep living in the house, so I will have to move out. I've found lodgings in town, but it means I can no longer visit you and I won't be there if you try and visit me. I will hide the crystal in this room so that in the future, you will find it. So, I have come to say goodbye to you, my Mark.' Her hand went to his cheek as she caressed his face, tears streaming down her cheeks.

'Stay here,' he said, 'there are some things I need to sort out, and then I will return.'

Returning to the lounge, he took a seat. 'What is it you want to ask?'

'Is Beatrice, ok?' His mother asked, Mark, nodding his head.

'You were asking about the pictures. It looks like the same person in both.'

Have you an explanation?' His mother asked.

'Not one you are going to believe.'

Try us,' this time it was his sister.

Taking a deep breath, Mark began his story. 'Beatrice and I have a time machine, well, really, her grandfather and I have a time machine, but now, I suppose it is Beatrice and me because her grandfather has passed away.' He was rambling and both women were looking at him in disbelief.

'Many years after I found it, I managed to end up in the past and I met Beatrice and her grandfather Isaac. He taught me how to use the machine, but it was scary, so I practised, taking short jumps in time. I heard a conversation between you two, about someone you had met, mom, and decided to take a look for myself. I had no idea that something was going to happen, even when you asked me to take a picture of you and the girls. One thing led to another, and yes, we did, though if I remember rightly, you couldn't wait to get me into bed.'

His mother was blushing profusely, Elizabeth staring at her.

'As for you,' staring at his sister, 'You have been a bitch to me for most of my life, I'm sorry if I was an inconvenience, but I didn't have a lot of choice as to when I came along. I knew it was wrong, but I wanted to teach you a lesson. You were easy Lizbet. I'm sure half of the time you believed I could read your mind. I didn't have to. I grew up with you and knew everything about you; you're my big sister, and I looked up to you and adored you. And just like mum, you couldn't wait to jump my bones. So yes, I was at fault, but neither of you was innocent.'

Both women looked at each other and then back at Mark. 'That is the most ridiculous story I have ever heard,' his sister said.

'Maybe,' Mark said. 'But I remember on that first occasion, up in your room here, while mum and dad were out, you were begging me for it. And then they came back early because as a child, I hadn't felt well.'

'That was when I saw you,' his mother interjected.

'I didn't know that.' He replied, 'I tried to be incredibly careful.'

'So, Beatrice was born when?'

'Eighteen fifty-two,' a voice said, three faces swivelling to look at her. She had heard the tail end of their conversation. 'This was my home once upon a time, but now my grandfather has gone. I will have to move out when I return.' She moved into the room, sitting on the arm of Mark's chair, and taking his hand.

The tale was too fanciful, neither woman really wanting to believe it, but how did they explain that they had managed to sleep with someone who looked exactly like Mark?

Pulling his phone from his pocket, 'I have a picture here that you have never seen mum.' He held it out so she could see it, a picture of her aged eighteen, surrounded by her friends, and with Mark in the middle of the group.

'And another, look at the background.' Both women stared at the picture of a young woman wearing a dress from the mid-nineteenth century, a large house in the background as she smiled at the camera.

'That is Beatrice, standing outside a house that had not existed since before I was born.

At last, he saw a flicker of belief on the faces of his mother and sister. 'Where is it?' Elizabeth asked.

'What?'

'The machine.'

'I'm not going to tell you because, as we have all just learned, it is far too dangerous. I never meant for any of this to happen; it just did. But I have a proposition. Beatrice has the key that makes it work. I will take that key and destroy it so that the machine can never be used again, but on condition that she be allowed to stay here, with us.

Beatrice gasped, 'You would do that for me?' Mark nodded his head. 'Remember, I have an advantage. I know what happens to you without travelling to the future; it is all in the records. I want you to have a better life than what is coming.'

'And you will do that if I allow her to stay?' His mother asked, 'no more jumping about in time?'

'If you say yes, and Beatrice is happy to stay, then I will destroy it now. The machine will stay hidden, and no one will ever use it again.'

She nodded her head imperceptibly, Mark standing, and asking Beatrice for the key, Elizabeth recognising it immediately. 'You mean it was in my bedroom all the time.'

'Yeah, it took me a long time to recognise what it was.'

Together, they trouped downstairs, Mark going into the garage and returning with a hammer. He placed the crystal on a stone, raised his arm, and brought it down, shattering the prism into a hundred pieces. 'No more time travel,' he said.

Well? Could you have done the same for someone you had fallen in love with? Imagine you had a time machine; would you have given it up so easily?

No?

But then neither did Mark. What he destroyed was a piece of the past. He still had his key in the present; Beatrice's key, in a way, was a ghost. When he shattered it, her life in the past ceased as she began a new life in the here and now.

Did they remain together? Yes. Did they use the machine again? Yes. They did not use it for fame or fortune, to alter the future, or to make themselves wealthy. Neither did they use it just for fun. Mark knew that it was not of this world, and so their first trip together had been to see her grandfather one more time; after Mark had made sure that the past Beatrice was not around and explained what the future held.

They left, with the old man's blessing.

Together, they travelled further and further back in time, seeking out each pilot and whatever information they could garner, continually searching for that very first one, the pilot who had brought the machine to this world.

Did Mark sleep with his sister again? Yes, one final time. Their relationship had subtly changed; no longer was she a bitch with him, and Elizabeth had wanted to see if what she had experienced as a teenager could be recreated. It had been as good as their previous encounters, but her life had changed, and she was happy enough with what she had, not wanting to jeopardise her marriage and future.

And so, we come to Abigail. She had fallen in love with her "Mark" and if he had stayed, she would not have met Anthony, they would never have married, and Mark would never have been born. The very thought of it was a conundrum with no logical outcome.

It wasn't immediate, actually, nearly a year later. She hadn't been able to get the thought of the past out of her mind. His father was away, and Beatrice was out with his sister; the two of them had become quite close. With the nice weather, he and his mother had walked across the gardens, down the incline, and crossed over the stream and into the fields beyond. They were laughing and joking as mothers and sons do, Abigail taking his arm as they strolled.

It hadn't been a great leap for her mind to make; suddenly she was Abby, on the arm of her first love as she stopped abruptly and kissed him without thinking. Jerking away, her face was horror-stricken, what had she just done?

Mark just smiled, 'Hello Abby. Look at you, you are all grown up.'

They had kissed again, and no longer was he, her son. He was her "Mark," the one from her past, and it hadn't taken either of them long to undress. She had initially been shy; her body had aged, but he was still the same.

To Mark, her body looked no different, maybe a little more of it, as he helped her down onto the soft warm grass and then shuffled between her thighs. When his shaft penetrated her pussy, she was eighteen again, responding to his kisses and his hand exploring her now, fuller figure. They went to her breasts, cupping both as he squeezed and made them bulge, her erect nipples standing upright as his tongue swirled and licked her teats and areola, all the time his cock expanding and contracting her cunt as he fucked her.

Abigail wrapped her legs around him, her fingers, and nails digging into his buttocks as she pulled him deeper with each thrust. At that moment she could not distinguish between her son and her young lover; her arousal soaring and her body heading towards its culmination as her climax approached.

When he made her cum, she bucked beneath him, the same crudities and pleadings now coming from older lips, but still sounding just as intense and exciting to his ears.

When he pushed her over the edge and she orgasmed, his cock spewing spunk inside her fanny, she knew at that moment that she couldn't give him up, not a second time.

It wasn't often, but when the yearning took them, Mark would make love to his mother.

Throughout her life, Mark participated in two relationships, one with Beatrice, who later became his wife, and one with Abby, the girl who had grown up to become his mother.





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