Chances Aren't (16 page)

I look to my left and see it, The Rendezvous Inn is, or was, its full name. It closed at some point after I left campus, either for repeated underage drinking violations or because a bouncer kicked a little too much of the shit out of some asshole who probably deserved it.

I met a few girls there over the years, but I was by no means a ladies man. I did, however, get lucky a handful of times over my college career and mostly in my junior year.

"Ben," the guy behind the counter calls out, pulling me from my walk down beer—spattered memory lane. My eyes brighten as I head to pick up my golden brown treat and side of dipping sauce.

After returning to the table, I open the steaming pocket up and cut a few bites, allowing them to cool slightly before devouring them. I burn my mouth a little, but it's worth it; it's amazing. Just like I remembered it was. Looking out the window, I wonder if everything I came back for is as amazing as I remember.

When the calzone has sufficiently cooled, I abandon eating it with a fork and take to dipping what's left of both halves into the dipping sauce, this time enjoying huge bites. I'm sure I look pretty pathetic going to town on it, but I don't care. Traveling back in time makes you a bit hungrier than you might imagine.

Once I'm sufficiently stuffed, my thoughts return to more important matters, like how William could have left out the all too important detail that there would be another me running around as I try to relive this, the best freaking day of my life. Nothing throws a wrench in the works like a third wheel and I suppose I'm the third wheel. As I think about strategies that allow me to experience in one way or another what's destined to happen tonight, I come up with several possibilities that I plan to explore over the next few hours.

After returning to my room at the frat house, I crack open a beer and down half of it standing in front of the mini fridge. I kneel down and peer under the bed frame discovering there is clearly not enough room under it for me to hide while things are going on up above. Plus if memory serves, some time is logged on the beanbag and floor by the horny couple and I'm sure to be caught. Grinning, I imagine that conversation with Laura, that is, after she finishes screaming, of course.
Oh, don't mind him under the bed, he's just my future self who's come back in time to have sex with you. If you're interested in a threesome, we're here to help.

No, that's not the way to do this. I wander over to Alan's side of the room. As I mentioned the room is unusually shaped. The wall separating the two sides must have been added at some point when this house was turned into a frat. I'd imagine it was simply a way to turn this large room into a double, and at the same time give each tenant a bit of privacy. The wall separating the two sides is constructed of regular solid drywall, which extends from floor to ceiling. Originally I described the room as "U" shaped, but a better explanation is that inside this large square space there is a "T" shaped wall separating both sides. At the top of the "T" is where the entry door is located. So in effect to travel from Alan's side to young Ben's side you need to walk to the far right corner, then turn left, walk past the door, then turn left again.

I knock on the wall in a location that's in line with where I figure the bed is located on the other side, and hear the hollow sounds of a drywall cavity. Returning to Ben's side, I examine it from this perspective then look around the room. My eyes widen and I head back to Alan's side. I spot a poster on the wall next to the window tacked up with push pins and the gears in my head start spinning. The poster has a large black section that I think I might just be able to take advantage of after a little light remodeling.

After gulping down the rest of the beer, I search the room for tools and can find none. It's too late to try to find a hardware store so I explore my other options. This house must have a basement, and inside that basement there must be something I can use.

Checking the time, I see it's just after nine and he and Laura are still working. I've got plenty of time. I grab another beer and sneak down two flights of stairs. I return with a small rusty drywall saw and screwdriver. Sitting on young Ben's bed I decide where the best place would be to cut my viewing hole. Okay, so I'm a bit of a pervert, but I came all this way, all these years back just to get cock blocked by my younger more inexperienced self. So if I'm not even going to get to participate, at the very least I should get a front row seat. I mean, this is not voyeurism; this is more like simply looking at yourself in the mirror. At least that's my mantra as I pop open my third beer and get to work.

Twenty minutes later, with the one inch holes cut on each side of the drywall and the poster positioned correctly with a carefully cut same-sized hole in the black section, I nod my head satisfied. I can see the light shining in from the other side, but this is easily fixed. I run over to Alan's side and flip the switch returning to study my work.

I'm convinced that without looking closely and knowing what you are looking for, you can't really tell that anything is out of the ordinary. I'm sure a couple of horny twenty year-olds who've had a few beers each and are so hot for each other that they're about to explode aren't going to be paying that close of attention to the, let's call them, flaws in the walls of the room.

After returning the tools, I clean up the drywall dust from my project and return to Alan's side of the room laying in his bed. I figure he won't mind. We are, or at least we were, sorta close. We roomed together for a whole year on campus and then decided to share this dump for the entire summer. We lost touch after college. I did reach out to him at one point when I knew I was going to be in Boston on business and that's where he was living at the time. He turned me down, so this can just be his little way to make that up to me. The beer is really starting to kick in as I feel dizzy and good and happy all at the same time. I smile thinking about Laura as I drift off to sleep.

I'm jolted back to semi-consciousness when I hear the door open then close. I rub my eyes and look toward the door, but don't see anything except the light shining from the hallway between the two sections of this shared room. I hear footsteps approach and there he is, young Ben standing before me, grimacing and mouthing a few obscenities before saying, "You're still here."

"Don't tell me you screwed it up." Sitting up in bed, I shake my head in an attempt to wake more fully.

He whispers, "Keep it down, she's outside. I told her I had to clean up."

"Oh." I smile. "Good work."

Rushing over to me, he gets on his knees and takes hold of my chin directing my gaze to his. "Don't make a sound. I told her my roommate is gone for the night and I certainly didn't tell her about you, you time traveling, freaking... just, just, stay over here and that's it."

He puts his hand near my face and I swat it away. "Okay, geez. Go get her before she comes to her senses and runs away."

"Screw you."

"I'm kidding. Now go," I say with a crooked grin.

He heads for the door and opens it. Slipping off Alan's bed, I cock my head toward the hall with my eyes widened.

"Sorry," I hear him say. "I had to make sure... I was late for work and..."

"It's ok," I hear Laura say.

It's the first words I've heard her utter in twenty five years and they are beautiful. I sigh and press my ear to the paper I have temporarily covering the peep hole on my side.

"Your room is nice," she says.

"Thanks," young Ben replies and I roll my eyes wishing I had developed some actual conversational skills with girls back when I was twenty.
Tell her she looks amazing. Tell her you've been thinking about her all day. Tell her something, anything you idiot.

"So you're not a brother here?"

"No, I'm just renting the room for the summer while I take this Business Law class."

Fascinating, you douche bag.

"Oh," she replies.

I hear the mattress squeak and I assume someone is sitting on it. I'm sure it's her. Peeling the paper back for a moment I look through the hole and I confirm it— she's on the bed. She's waiting for him, for me. My lips part and my breathing is shallow, she looks incredible. I so want to be over there. I wonder why I didn’t choose to kill him when I had the chance. It might have worked out okay. Hell, it couldn't be any worse than this torture.
Get over there and sit next to her, genius.

"So, when do you work next?" Casanova asks.

I roll my eyes. I can't listen to any more of this.

"Not till next Tuesday."

"Oh, I have to work tomorrow early."

Yeah, that's it, that's exactly what you tell a girl when you want her to spend the night with you. Tell her you have to get up early. Now I know why I wanted to kill myself in high school.

"Yeah, that's right. Do you want me to go?" She says.

"No, no, I don’t," he replies quickly.

It's the first intelligent thing he's said.

I see her bat her eyes as he makes his way to sit next to her on the bed. Plopping down, he places his hands on his knees making no attempt to kiss her. I watch painfully being reminded that this is pretty much how it went when I was the star of this show. But in my defense, I didn't have my future self dropping in for a pep talk and to lay out how this would all go down. It's like having a copy of the test including all the right answers before you sit down to take it and still failing miserably. He should be acing this one. Any way you slice it, he's pretty pathetic.

"I had a—" she begins, but before letting her finish that though, his lips are on hers.

That-a-boy. Maybe there's hope for you.

Instantly my blood is pumping and I'm breathing heavily as I watch them kiss. I was a horrible kisser and this is an awful reminder of that. I can't put my finger on what exactly it is that I'm doing wrong, but I'm definitely in need of a lot of practice. Although I'm ten feet or so away, looking through a one inch hole in the wall, I'm picking up some occasional discomfort in her facial expressions as they make out, but that might simply be passion or maybe not. Over the years, I have improved a bit, but it certainly isn't anything I claim to have mastered.

If my recollection is accurate, she should be pulling away from him and slipping down to the floor any second now. I always believed that happened because she was so hot for me that she couldn't wait to get into my pants, but I'm thinking more and more now that it's her escaping my kiss.

As if on cue, Laura moves her hands up to his shoulders and pulls her lips from his. Looking him in the eye, she slips off the bed down to her knees and takes hold of his waistband. I can see the effect she's having on him and once again I wish I was on the other side of the wall. I swallow hard, pressing my eye closer to the hole in the wall for a better view.

She unbuttons his black pants, then pulls the two sides apart, letting the teeth of the zipper slowly peel apart before taking hold of them along with those lame white briefs and pulling them down off his hips. His hard-on pops out from its confines, pointing straight up to the ceiling. Again, the equipment doesn't look too shabby from this vantage point and in this condition. Smiling, I find myself feeling a little pride.

As she works the pants down his legs and off of him, he's staring right at her, just waiting with his hands pressing down on both sides of the mattress. He should be doing something else like touching her hair or her breasts, anything really— I'll have to talk to him later about that.

She licks her lips before taking a gentle hold of his erection with both hands. He appears to be holding his breath. Then she takes him into her mouth and he gasps and his head flops back like he's been shot. I'm not worried about him finishing too quickly, because even back then I never finished quickly with oral sex. There's just something about it. I mean, don't get me wrong, it feels amazing, but there's simply not enough pressure in the right spots to bring on a quick orgasm. Although if a girl used only her hand on me, I'd blow my load after a few minutes if I didn't stop her when I got close. But with oral sex, I never had that problem and this at times was an asset and at other times a curse because the term "quick blow job" was never in my vocabulary and let's face it, jaws do get tired pretty quickly.

In my opinion it seems that Laura is the exception to that rule and she does not get tired. She works over him like she's loving it and desperate to please him, yet not rushing him at all. God, she's the perfect girl. I want to see her body again and I wish young Ben would at least unbutton her shirt. I'm now hard as a rock and stretching the fabric of these boxer shorts I borrowed.

When she finally pulls away from him, she unbuttons her shirt and lets it fall from her body. Next she removes her bra and her perfect little breasts are unveiled. God, she's hot. He's just sitting there like an idiot, but what do I expect because that's exactly what I did twenty five years ago.

Standing up, she unbuttons and pulls down her pants then strips off her panties. I'm the one dying now, watching him have what I've been fantasizing about for such a long time. He finally gets the hint and removes his own shirt. Laura lays down on the bed and he moves over her, pausing a moment before sliding down her body.

Oh shit, he's not, is he?