Today, Daniel. I Love you.

Today what? And how did she know he loved blueberry, hated maple syrup? And what was with the "I love you?" He sat down and ate. The pancakes were light and fluffy; they melted in his mouth.
"She knows my name!" he said aloud. He re-read the card. This was getting really creepy. Today, the card said. Good--maybe the mystery would be over. He was anxious to meet her, if it was a her.
He heard a loud thump at the door; he jumped--she was back! He sprang to his feet and jerked the front door open. It was a newspaper.
"Damn!" he exclaimed, scooping up the paper. On impulse he walked down the sidewalk, peering up at the window, and there she was, staring down at him. She flashed him a smile and vanished. Just simply vanished.
"How do you do that?" he called up to her. But she didn't answer--she was gone.
He poured another mug of coffee and scanned the newspaper, then he began the chore of moving boxes and furniture from the garage into the house and placing them in their perspective rooms. He had a two-wheeler, which helped, but by noon his back was aching. At this point he would have paid anyone fifty dollars an hour to finish the job.
Apparently basket deliveries didn't include lunch, so he hopped in his car and drove to the Safeway, purchasing some sandwich components, some TV dinners, a big bag of Skittles, a pint of Bacardi Light, and a two-liter bottle of cola. On the way back he noticed the engine was running rough--he had put off changing the spark plugs, and the injectors were probably filthy.
After lunch and a thirty-minute rest, he arose, put his bed frame together and started unpacking his clothes. By mid-afternoon he was sick of being indoors. He changed into his swim trunks, opened his garage door and pulled out a new set of six Bosch spark plugs. With the warm sun caressing his back, he leaned into the engine compartment and began changing the plugs.

He was wiping oil off his hands when he was startled by a quiet cough behind him. Turning, he saw her sitting on the rock retaining wall which bordered one side of his driveway. She was barefoot, wearing an old faded pair of cutoff Levi's and a very short red tank top; the soles of her feet were stained green from walking through freshly-cut grass. Now he recognized her: she was the girl who had been watching him from her window as he moved into his house.
"You startled me," he said to her, laying his shop rag on the fender. She stared into his eyes; he found it difficult to look away. "I'm Daniel Ross," he stammered. Do you live in the neighborhood?"
"I'm sorry," she replied, smiling. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm Jane--I live next door." She held out her hand to him; it was very small but she had a firm grip, like that of a man. She was a tiny pixie of a girl, slender without being skinny; delicate without appearing fragile. Long chestnut hair tumbled halfway down her back and shoulders in waves, framing her oval face. Judging from her elfin size, Daniel guessed her to be about fourteen or fifteen years old.
"Jane," he said, releasing her hand, "it's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you, too, Daniel," she replied. Her voice was soft, low, and musical--a mature, adult voice. She laid back on the grass, propping her head up on one elbow. Her tank top rode up, revealing her hip and the sharp curve of her waist. "So are you all moved in?" she asked, studying him.
"Pretty much," he said, trying not to stare at her but not having much luck. "I have a few things in storage, but I've run out of time--I have to start back to work tomorrow."
"What are you doing to your car?"
Daniel glanced around at his car, then back at her. "Oh, nothing, really--just messing around. I should be inside unpacking boxes, but I've been doing that for two days now and I'm tired of it. This is my 'play' car."
"It's pretty," she said. "Would you take me for a ride? We could play in your play car."
"Uh," he replied stupidly, not knowing what to say, "I guess so, as long as it's okay with your parents." He wondered what she meant by "play."
Jane frowned. "My parents are both dead," she said softly. "I live with my sister Ellen."
Daniel looked at her lying there on the grass, one leg dangling off the retaining wall. Her cutoffs were slit up the sides clear to the waistband and were laced very loosely with leather thong; there was no hint of an undergarment. She sat up and patted the top of the wall next to her.
"Come sit by me," she said. "You don't have to stand there, I don't bite--not hard, anyway." She smiled at him and clicked her teeth together.
She sat up; he turned around and sat beside her. The top of her head barely came up to his shoulders. She scootched over until their legs were touching. "There," she breathed. "Isn't this nice?"
Daniel could feel her smooth leg against his and her arm pressing against his back.
"Yes," he admitted, "it's very nice." He turned his head and looked down at her; she smiled, her large brown eyes lifted to his. Her smile was very warm, her cheeks dimpled.
Jane snuggled up against him; despite the warm temperature, he could feel her body heat against his side. She shifted against him; he could feel her tank top sliding against his skin.
This isn't right, he thought to himself --I'm a thirty-year-old man snuggled up against a little girl. Daniel corrected himself: little she might be, but definitely not a girl; she had none of the gangly awkwardness of an adolescent, she was shaped perfectly and she moved with grace, every muscle under smooth control like a ballerina.
"Jane," he said, "I don't think we should be sitting this close--we don't even know each other. What if your sister saw us?"
"Ellen's at work," Jane replied. "And what's the big deal? We're just sitting here talking." She gave him a crooked smile, then she took a deep breath. "Now it would be a big deal if you did this..." She grabbed his hand and jammed it up the inside of her thigh under her cutoffs.
"Hey!" Daniel gasped, jerking his hand away. "Why did you do that?"
"Because I want you," she said, staring into his eyes. "And you want me; you know you do. It's inevitable, Daniel. It will happen--it did happen."
"Huh? What do you mean, 'it did happen?'"
"I meant...I meant it almost happened."
Daniel sighed; he put his arm around her shoulders. "Listen to me, Jane. You have your whole life ahead of you; you shouldn't even be thinking about these kinds of things yet--you're not old enough."
"Just how old do you think I am?"
"I have no idea, Jane. Suppose you tell me."
Jane smiled. "I'm old enough to be your lover, Daniel. And your wife."
She reached up, put her hand behind his neck and pulled his face down to hers, putting her lips over his mouth. He could feel her tongue sliding back and forth across his lips; he parted them and she pushed her tongue inside his mouth, exploring.
Abruptly, she released him and hopped down off the retaining wall, pulling him upright, then her arms were around him, her lips were over his again; she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach him.
Across the street, a door banged shut; a man came out of a house, carrying a rake and a bag of fertilizer. Jane glanced at him, then she put her arms around Daniel's waist and turned him around so that she was hidden from the man's view. She hooked her fingers in the waistband of his swim trunks, tugging him into his garage, then she leaned around him and looked at the man across the street; he was frankly staring at them, although she was hidden from his view by Daniel's backside.
"Damn!" she said. "Nosy bastard. Okay, I give up--for now."
She kissed him one last time, then she climbed the retaining wall and walked slowly across the grass toward her house, very reluctant to leave. Daniel was just as reluctant to see her go. She glanced back over her shoulder at him several times, her long hair swirling around her, finally waving at him as she opened her door. Her cutoffs were so short he could see the bottom of her buttocks below them; he wanted to call her back.
"Wait a minute!" he called. "When will I see you again?"
"Soon," Jane answered. "Very soon." She kissed her fingertips and threw the kiss to Daniel; he caught it and put it against his lips. She grinned, then she quickly entered her house, shut the door, and was gone.

Daniel stood there, staring at the door for a minute. Good grief, he thought. I damned near had a sexual encounter with a teenage girl in my driveway. He looked across the street. The man waved at him and grinned; he waved back feebly. He wondered if the man knew Jane; probably so, if she had lived here any length of time. He wished he could go ask him about her, but he knew that wouldn't do at all--grown men don't go around asking questions about teenage girls.
He thought about ringing Jane's doorbell, but not with the man across the street watching. He wondered how much the man had seen, and decided he didn't care. He also wondered if Jane's encounter with him was the first one she'd had with men in the neighborhood. For all he knew, she was a nymphomaniac or the neighborhood prostitute who went door-to-door on a routine basis.
Or maybe the whole encounter had been taped and the police were on their way to arrest him as a pedophile. All he knew was, he had to meet Ellen as quickly as possible, and he had to see Jane again.
Shaking his head in disbelief at the whole thing, he quickly finished up his car, then he threw his tools into his toolbox and carried it into the garage, shutting the overhead door behind him.

He spent the next two hours unpacking his computer and stereo system in the great room, setting the components in their appropriate places and plugging everything together. Finally satisfied, he mixed up a rum and cola, moved several small boxes out of his easy chair, and sat down heavily in the midst of his packing crates. He stared at the fireplace, then he opened the patio doors; there was a stack of wood outside. He carried three logs in, put them in the fireplace and lit the gas, pulling his chair up close to the fire despite the heat.
Daniel sipped on his drink, listening to the crackling fire. Jane. He'd never personally known any girl by that name. "Jane," he said out loud, listening to her name bounce off the walls. He tried to think of Janes. Jane March, Jane Fonda, Jane Seymour, Dick and Jane, Dick does Jane, Daniel does Jane... Who are you, Jane? he asked her image. What's your last name? How old are you? Old enough to be your lover, she replied. And your wife. Why did you do this to me, Jane? Now I can't get you out of my mind. What a fantastic little body you have. What a sweet voice you have.
He shook off the thoughts and put in a CD of Karl Jenkin's Adiemus, turning it up loud. Roaming aimlessly through the house, he finally stuck his head outside his front door--no basket. He rummaged around in some boxes, found a can of Campbell's clam chowder and poured it into a pan as he listened to the music. Adiemus was a series of choral pieces, but the words were in no particular language--they had been put together as nonsense syllables so as not to distract the listener from the instrumental portion of the music, and now, every tenth syllable was "Jane."
He talked to his reflection in the pan lid. "Stop it, you idiot--she was just teasing you. She's nothing but a temptress. She'll probably seduce you and call the cops, crying, "He raped me!" There is no way a young woman like that--my god she is beautiful-- is going to want to have anything to do with you; she probably did it on a dare or something--she's on the phone right now, telling her friends all about it.
He sighed to himself. Oh, well--eat your chowder, check your e-mail, move some boxes around and go to bed. But--save a couple for Jane, just in case she's sincere--we'll unpack them together, and then...
There you go again. He sidled over to the kitchen window and looked across at the house next door--Jane's house. There was a window directly facing his--probably her kitchen--but the curtains were drawn. He found a plastic spoon and stood over the sink, eating the chowder out of the pan and washing it down with his rum and cola, then he rinsed out the pan and took one last look at the window across the way. The curtains hadn't budged. He poked his head out his front door, but there was no car in Jane's driveway; either her sister Ellen hadn't arrived home yet or she had driven her car into the garage. Maybe tomorrow he would meet her--and see Jane again.

Daniel mixed another rum and cola and sat at his computer, drumming his fingers as his e-mail inbox came up. The cable guy was supposed to come tomorrow to hook up his TV and his high-speed Internet connection, so dial-up would have to do for tonight.

"Dear Jane," he typed, then he backspaced, e-n-a-J. "Shiri," he continued. "Well, I've finally got everything moved in the house, except for the stuff from my storage locker in Colorado Springs. I've spent most of my time unloading so I haven't had much time to look around the town, but from what I've seen, Anchorage is a fantastically beautiful city. I think they call it the 'city of flowers,' and there are flowers--they're everywhere. It's one of the cleanest cities I've ever seen."
I talked to some local guys yesterday at the grocery store. During the winter they do oil exploration up on the North Slope, and during the summer they just hike around, doing glacier and rock climbing, or putting together rafting or kayacking trips down some of the rivers. I've been invited to do a five-day float down the Copper River, but I doubt if I'll get the chance before next summer. I've already met one of my neighbors--a nice little girl named Jane, she lives with her sister." Nice little girl is an understatement, he thought.
"I can't wait to see our new laboratory at Elmendorf Air Force Base. They told me that everything from our lab at NORAD has been moved; Sophie and Carl are anxious to get back to work. I faxed them my latest equations and they've recalibrated the containment field accordingly. Our last attempt at generating a time portal before we moved was only partially successful, so let's hope I've finally got the math correct. I keep thinking about Doc Brown's flux capacitor' and how he built it into a DeLorean. I know we're on the right track now, and when we're successful, we'll have the world's first time machine."
As you know, right now it takes a huge amount of equipment and energy to generate a time portal, but soon we'll be able to make a device small enough to fit in my Lamborghini, then we can take off for the Old West like we joked about. Who knows--maybe we'll get to meet 'Mad Dog' Tanner. Anyway, we'll know by the time you get here next week with the government brass."
I guess I'd better send this message before I fall asleep; I'm really tired and I have to be at the lab at eight. I hope you haven't forgotten the encryption key for this e-mail; otherwise by the time I re-send you the key you'll already be here. Good luck, and I'll send you another e-mail tomorrow night."

Daniel re-read the message, then he pressed the key that would encrypt it and send it to Shiri Newman, his on-again, off-again lover--he stopped short of considering her to be his girlfriend. The e-mail was more personal than he would have liked, but Daniel believed strongly in the old saying, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Shiri could very well turn out to be his worst enemy.
They had met at Stanford; both of them were physicists engaged in temporal, or time research. Stanford's 3.2-kilometer long Linear Accelerator Collider was capable of accelerating electrons and positrons (the antimatter version of the electron), smashing them together inside a large detector. Thanks to Daniel's expertise in aligning the spins of the particles, the collisions now were much more powerful, and they began to reveal the specifics of particles called Higgs bosons (particles that imbue all other particles with mass) and light supersymmetric particles (shadowy particles such as the neutralino, which, it was speculated, accounted for the dark, invisible matter that constitutes 23 percent of the universe).
That knowledge, Daniel and his team hoped, would in turn open the door to parallel universes, of which, it was theorized, there were eleven. And short-circuiting the space-time continuum through these parallel universes was the key to achieving time travel--at least Daniel's math said it was the key. Their research uncovered the existence of a new particle, duly dubbed the "Ross Particle" in honor of Daniel. This particle did not require a huge accelerator; it could short-circuit the continuum using barely any energy. Whereas Doc Brown's DeLorean required 18 gigawatts of power to trigger the portal, Daniel's math predicted it could eventually be done with a 12-volt car battery.
The only problem was that the continuum had to be short-ciruited in a containment field, and creating a field large enough to shape a time portal through which men and equipment (such as a Lamborghini?) could pass required tremendous amounts of ordinary electricity. While others of his team were working on the containment problem, Daniel was feverishly developing the equipment necessary to calibrate the time portal so that it could be set to a particular time and place.
When it appeared that the research team was about to achieve a breakthrough, the military immediately slapped a "top secret" classification on the project and moved it to a more secure facility adjacent to NORAD in Colorado Springs. Now it had been moved again, this time to Elmendorf Air Force Base, just north of Anchorage, Alaska.
Because Shiri was an Air Force officer, she had remained behind to escort the top military brass on their first visit to Alaska. Daniel knew that if his team didn't have something positive to show them next week when they arrived, there'd be hell to pay and Shiri would be angry--as usual.
Shiri was an angry person, given to violence when she didn't get her way, and especially if she wasn't satisfied sexually. And it was Shiri's decision, as the military head of the project, whether the research should continue to be funded. So unless he wanted to be out of a job--and a lover--he had damned well better make sure the experiments went off without a hitch.
Daniel sighed, logged off the Internet, and turned off the computer. He stood and stretched, then he gathered his toiletries and took a hot shower. Slipping on a pair of gym shorts, he laid on his bed and tried to read a few pages in a technical journal; the words blurred together and he tossed the journal aside and turned off the light, staring into the darkness.
The image of Jane was immediately in his mind, and the same questions began to haunt him. She was so small; probably four-foot ten or so, but her body was not that of a little girl; it was proportioned perfectly, at least in his opinion. He wondered what would have happened if he had left his hand on her thigh as they had sat there on the retaining wall. She had been trying to get his fingers under her cutoffs, and she had tried to pull him into the garage; it was obvious what she had in mind. Perhaps he should have let it play out.

There had not been that many women in Daniel's life: advanced "fast-track" high school subjects, five years at Cornell, another four at MIT for his masters and doctorate, and then immediately swallowed up by the U.S. government to do temporal research.
There weren't that many women interested in physics, and the ones that were, were as busy as he was. Especially quantum mechanics, which was his specialty--mostly math, math, and more math, cloistered away with a computer and a marker board. Dates with women in his field usually turned into professional discussions, all thoughts of sex forgotten, or foreshadowed by arguments about string theory.
Shiri Newman had been different. Unlike the majority of scientists, she was not a left-brained analytical; she was a control freak who had fought her way to the rank of Air Force Captain, using whatever means necessary to achieve promotion.
When he had met her for the first time, she had not been in uniform; she had been wearing the traditional white lab coat, her blonde hair up in a tight bun and horrible black-framed glasses perched on her nose. Typical bitch, he had thought; then he had admonished himself for having chauvinistic thoughts. But as it turned out, he had been correct in his initial assessment: Shiri was a bitch. She had once confessed to him that she hated her name because it sounded too chic and feminine; she had tried to change it to some unisex name--she had picked "Chelsea"--but the Air Force wouldn't hear of it.
She preferred her military uniform because it made her look more masculine and gave her the authority to snap orders without being questioned. But underneath the uniform--or lab coat--Shiri was all woman, and she knew when and how to use her body to advantage.
She had been cold and aloof toward him at first, even when working alone and closely with him, putting in long hours at the lab. She was an adequate physicist, uninspired but good enough to recognize Daniel for the mathematical genius that he was. When she realized that Daniel might be successful, she attached herself to him, riding his brilliance and receiving credit along with him. In turn, Daniel realized that Shiri would make a better proponent than an opponent, so he allowed her all the credit she wanted. He didn't care; he couldn't publish so he would never be well known, and he had a very substantial paycheck for his efforts. If Shiri got the credit, fine; and if the project failed, the failure would be on her head, not his.
They had been working around the clock, trying to generate the containment field large enough to create a useable time portal. The rest of the team had left for the night, leaving Daniel and Shiri alone in the lab. The huge room was dark, the only illumination coming from a workbench light. Their heads were together, peering at a printed circuit board through a magnifying lens. Shiri had removed her glasses to see better, then she had put her lips against his ear as he was trying to solder a tiny connection.
He felt her tongue on his earlobe and he jerked, causing the soldering iron to slide across several solder joints. Putting the soldering iron in its cradle, he straightened up; she straightened up with him, facing him and licking her lips. Gingerly, he reached behind her and unpinned her hair, letting it fall down around her shoulders, neither of them saying a word. She smiled and unbuttoned his lab coat; he did the same with hers, pulling it off over her shoulders and letting it drop to the floor. They had sex on the nearest lab table, scattering equipment to the floor.
"Now what do we do?" he asked her afterwards.
Shiri smiled up at him. "Now we finish the circuit board and get out of here. It's a good thing I declared this lab off limits to security tonight."
"You had this planned?"
"Of course--I've wanted you for a long time, Doctor Daniel Ross, and I am a scientist, whether you men think so or not. I plan everything in advance." She kissed him soundly.
"So this is not the end of your Daniel Ross study?"
"Oh, the study is just underway," she said, grinning. "There is much more to come."

And that was how it had started with Captain Shiri Newman--they had met as often as they could. There were strict rules about her fraternizing with her civilian staff, so they were discreet. They discovered a small unused physical examination room one flight down and invented reasons for being absent from the lab for an hour--an hour spent on the examination table.
Only once had anyone suspected: they had returned--by different routes--from the little exam room, and it was noted that Shiri was wearing Daniel's lab coat, and vice versa. They explained jokingly that they had switched name tags just to see if anyone had noticed; obviously, someone had. Rumors started circulating about Daniel and Shiri, but they didn't care, rumors routinely circulated about various personnel. They continued to meet, often two or three times a day, not counting their evenings together.
They spent most of their time involved in various extracurricular sexual activities and little time working on the project. As a result, the project began to suffer, and experiments began to fail or achieve only partial success. Deadlines came and went, budgets were blown, and Shiri began to feel the heat from her superiors--heat which she passed along to Daniel. It was his job, she had said, to keep her satisfied and devote as much time as necessary to ensure the success of the project.
It was becoming more difficult to keep her satisfied, however; she began to have trouble achieving an orgasm, no matter what he tried--he stopped short of anything involving BSMD or other kinkiness. "If that's what you want," he had told her, "then you can go elsewhere."
Whether she had become bored with him or whether the pressure was taking its toll on her, he didn't know, but Shiri became petulant and whiny when they were together. And angry--she begged him to hurt her; he refused and she exploded.
That was the first time she had walked out on him, but each time she eventually came back, begging his forgiveness and giving him little presents. She would buy new clothes, expensive ones, and parade around in front of him, stripping and tossing the clothes aside. For awhile, she would be her old self, but it would quickly fade; she would blow up again and walk out. The last time, he had told her either to stay or leave forever. She climbed into his arms, vowed to stay with him, and that's where they had left it when they got orders to move the project.

Now, Daniel wondered what the new research facilities at Elmendorf would be like. They would have to find secret, out-of-the-way places, and that would take time. Shiri could come to his house in the evenings, but for some strange reason, he was uncomfortable with that option, not wanting Jane to see her.
Jane again, back to haunt him. He pictured Jane in his mind: her soft, silky skin--deeply tanned, although there was no hint of a tan line--her smooth, glossy legs, the rise and fall of her chest as she gently breathed. He liked the way she had looked up at him, with her head down and her big brown eyes turned up to his, a little smile on her lips.
He thought again of Shiri and tried to compare the two girls in his analytical way, although he admitted that at least for him, women in general defied any kind of analysis. Shiri was very attractive--Daniel stopped short of calling her "beautiful"--once she shed her atrocious glasses and let her hair down. She was sexy, he supposed, and insatiable, he knew--almost a nymphomaniac. But where Shiri was sexy, she didn't compare with Jane--Jane just exuded sex; her smell, her taste, her touch--Jane assaulted all his senses; it was as if she had a whole set of pheromones just for him. He could look at Shiri and admire her, but he couldn't do that with Jane--he had to have his hands on her; she was like a magnet.
For shame, Danny, he said to himself. If she were fourteen, that would put her in the ninth grade--just barely in high school. Even worse if she were just thirteen. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Regardless, she was very much a woman, and it was obvious she knew the effect her body was having on him. Jane was a woman, he was a man, and that's all there was to it. And maybe she is older than she looks, he rationalized. She could easily be in her early twenties; he had judged her age based on her size, and that could easily be an incorrect judgement.
He rolled over and finally put her out of his conscious thoughts as concerns about Shiri and the new lab at Elmendorf flooded his mind. His last thought before drifting off was that of Jane, her fingers setting the dials on the flux capacitor which would plunge them back to the future.
"Eighty-eight miles an hour," she screamed, flooring the DeLorean.

END OF CHAPTER TWO