Ship Trap. Chapter 7: Sleeping In

As the sunlight streamed in through his window, his eyes kept shifting from the brick wall just below his window, to his bathroom door, and then back to her. The sunshine, oh the sunshine, he loved watching it dance in her hair. Though naturally it was near his time when he would normally get up, he didn’t want to disturb this moment. Yet, as much as he didn’t want to interrupt this moment, his biological functions had other priorities.

“Damn, I gotta piss.” He thought to himself. He could feel his bladder pounding against the wall of his stomach. A constant pulse, just as consistent, if not even more than that of his own heartbeat. “Ugh, I gotta get up.”

Looking at her, and how her breath was moving the strands of her hair ever so slightly, his thoughts could only think back of the evening before this morning. Reminiscing on the time they shared, all he wanted to do was caress her even more as he had previously before.

The feelings from then, the warmth, the connection, the togetherness of them enjoying themselves didn’t just linger, but now they were also being replaced with similar feelings as of now. The sense of urgency last night, now translated into the sense of urgency within his bladder. The feeling of warmth last night, he still felt beneath the bed sheets, along with the slight cold from sweating due to their combined body heat.

He could barely move. Like the grains of sand stuck in the pinch of an hourglass, he was currently trapped by her hourglass figure. He couldn’t shift his body weight too much without barely waking her, if at all. Just as they had connected last night and stuck together, it was that same feeling of stickiness that kept their flesh almost glued together, along with the bed sheets that remained adhered to their skin. It was as if that the bedsheets were no longer bedsheets on their own, but they now have become part of the two’s skin. The stickiness that had glued them together last night, was now keeping them confined to the bed today.

“I need to go,” his thoughts pressed him urgently. It was few and far in between when he allowed his body to think for him, let alone speak for him. Being that every part of him had its needs for the rest properly function, he feared of not attending to it in proper time. “If I don’t end up moving now, I’ll never end up moving at all.”

As he tried to silently roll out by leaning towards the right side of the bed, as soon as his right leg had moved from atop of him to the side, she shifted her leg to the inside of his thighs, and she had now clutched him by the arm. Smacking her lips, she kept her eyes shut as she had readjusted her head, nuzzling herself against his shoulder. David was not almost permanently stuck there, ever the more prisoner grain of sand within the hourglass, but now even more so of her figure. He was trapped beneath the stickiness of the sheets, and also that of her own weight.

“Oh, God damn it!” The pounding of his bladder was imminent. “Why didn’t I get up earlier? I should have foreseen this happening.”

Slowly as he had started trying to pull himself away from her, she gripped him even tighter than before. Confined to urgent bliss, a small scream rang out inside of his head. Not being able to leave upon his own wish, like how he normally would, David tried meditating on pulling the stress elsewhere. In the hopes of calming his muscles he focused on his breathing.

Letting out a deep sigh, he tried to confine himself to sleep by closing his eyes, desperately trying to shut out thinking about the current time. “Guess I’m stuck here. Well, I guess I might as well make the most of it.” Scooping her in his arm ever so gently, he wrapped his arm around her placing his hand beneath her thighs, as if he were lifting her up by her rear.

“Mmm…” she moaned with a smile.

David’s head turned towards her, worried he had just shook her awake.

Keeping her eyes closed, she nuzzled his chest and started kissing from his ribcage up to his neck. “Morning David.”

“My bad Mallory,” his voice was a bit shaky, “I didn’t mean to wake you there.”

“Nonsense,” she said, “the more time we spend asleep, the less time we spend together.” She went back to kissing his neck.

“Well, as nice as it is, I think I got a bit of a pressing matter at hand right now.”

“Oh, really?” She started moving her hand in a circular motion on his chest, yet it was growing from more of a circle to an ellipse. “Well, now do tell David. Do tell.”

“I guess now that you’re awake, I can get up and-,” she gripped him even tighter, keeping him hostage.

“Get up?” She said in a long-drawn-out tone, “Do we have to get up? Can’t we just stay here a little bit longer?”

“Naturally, I’d like to, but there’s also a few other natural things I need to tend to.”

“Such as?”

“Well, it’s just that it’s morning, and I drank a lot of water last night, and-,” he inhaled a deep breath quickly.

“Oh, what do we have here?” She smiled deviously, knowing exactly what she was doing with her hand. “Is this for me?”

“Uh, well, I-,” he started to stammer, and she startled to chuckle. “Goodness Mallory, can you stop please?”

“David, you had this for how long and weren’t thinking about sharing it with me? Come on now,” she nuzzled her head upon his chest, “didn’t you learn that sharing is caring.”

“Yeah well, there’s something there right now that I’d rather share elsewhere,” he let out a raspy cough as she continued to play.

“Ooo, somebody’s sensitive,” she opened her eyes at him, kissing his chest again. “I’m impressed David.”

“Mallory, come on now. I gotta get up, and eventually I gotta get going.”

She stopped toying with him, and crawled overtop of him, pinning him down with the entire weight of her body. Placing her arms on his chest, she laid on top of him, keeping one eye closed, but squinting out of the other.

“I can feel it, David. I can sense the urgency.”

“You know?”

She sighed a bit, “I do,” her hand trickled up and down the center of his chest. “I know you have to get going, as do I, but do we have to leave so soon? Can’t we stay just a little bit longer?”

“I guess, but I was told to be there no later than five o’clock.”

“And you’re always an early riser,” she opened both eyes just to wink at him, “but it’s not like the past is going anywhere.”

“Or more like any when,” David thought.

“1912 is still going to be there, whether you leave for it today, tomorrow, or next week.”

“What about the time stream? What about Déjà vu?”

“Well, remember last night,” she kissed his chest.

“Yeah, how could I?” He laid his head back on the pillow smiling, “It was amazing, and I’m glad we got to enjoy it.”

“Hm hmmm.” She laughed, “When it comes to it, what if Déjà vu is just like an instinct, or a gut feeling? David, what if the reason why it feels like it’s happened before, because it should be happening, and the current of time is just guiding us along its way.” She started walking his fingers up to his nose, “We’re only fish in the stream, and sometimes swimming backwards is more treacherous than swimming in the moment right now.”

“Heh, since when did you start to give philosophical bs?”

“Oh, right about the same time you started spewing it out of both ends.”

“Sounds like one hell of a purge.”

“David,” she pushed herself forward, placing her nose right on his Adam’s apple, “what if the reason why we feel such strong feelings is because the time stream isn’t being jammed, but because we’re supposed to be in those moments together and make the most of them?”

“Like how things felt like hours, though they were less than a few minutes?”

“Yeah, it’s like we’re propelling ourselves faster within the stream because we’re meant to swim together. It’s like, we’re not letting time pass us by, but we’re making the most of it that we possibly can.”

He sighed, “I remember what a running coach tell me something one time.”

“What was it?”

“There’s going to be tons of people that are going to come into your life. Some are going to be there for a reason, some for a season.”

“And some for a lifetime,” she finished his sentence.

“Exactly.”

Her hand found his, she rolled to part of her side, interlocking fingers with him, “David, I just, I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to leave just yet.”

“This isn’t normally like you Mal? What’s got you upset?”

“Well, it’s just- I know that Peterson said that they’ve never lost an agent before, but-.”

“But?”

“I don’t want you to be the first one,” She started to slightly shed a tear from her eye. David could feel it once it trickled off her face, and onto his neck. She nuzzled him, her locks of hair tickling his skin.

“Oh, Mal,” his arm scooped her up from beneath her rear, and he started to jostle her softly as a parent does to a child, “shhh, shhh, shhh, shh, shhhh.” He rubbed his nose into the side of her temple, kissing her head, “I don’t want to lose you either. Trust me, every time you’ve traveled, I was worried as all hell for you.”

“Really?” Her voice started to crack, “I always thought you had disdain for me.”

“Mal, if I had disdain for you, I wouldn’t care about you so much.” He lifted her chin and tucking his own, he arched his neck down for a kiss. After pulling apart, he said, “I’ve always cared for you. Sometimes I was more worried, other times I was more ambivalent, and I’ve even experienced times when I was angry with you, but I had to learn to progress pass anger to indifference. In the end, the only reason why I was angry, was because I cared about you so much.”

“So, do you have to leave? If you did, wouldn’t time be forcing us apart more vehemently than it is right now?”

“I’m not leaving, Mal. I’m going.”

“Well, please don’t go. At least, please don’t go just yet.”

He chuckled lightly, “Okay, he said, I won’t go. I’ll take you with me.”

“For a reason,” she said.

“For a season,” he answered back.

“And for a lifetime,” they both recited.