Rachel Graham s Precious Little Life Chapter 1
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Rachel Graham's Precious Little Life - Chapter 8 free porn video
"Projekt Katgut, Rachel speaking." It was Monday, 15 minutes before I
was due to get out of there. I really didn't want to deal with the
phone.
"Rachel, it's me, I need a huge favor." Brittany had this habit of
assuming my availability was a given. She wasn't used to me having a
life. Fortunately for her, I didn't.
"Hey Britt. What do you need?" I cradled the phone in my shoulder while
I started finishing up for the day. With her taking up the line, nobody
else could call in, meaning I didn't need to do any actual work.
"Can you give me a ride up to Santa Clarita? I bought something online
and have to pick it up there."
I grinned. If we were going to be in Santa Clarita, I'd figure out an
excuse to see Sarah again. We'd been texting all day. "I think I can
manage that. What'd you buy, anyway?"
"Someone was unloading a big collection of Super Nintendo games, I'm
picking up a few. Did you ever play the original Mario Kart?"
"Nah, that was before my time. I get off in 15 though, I can pick you up
at 7:30. You wanna grab a bite, or do we need to rush?"
"I'm not hungry. Maybe on the way back." That was fine. We chatted a
little longer, and didn't get off the phone until after I'd clocked out.
I said good-bye to the guys, and let David know he needed to take over up
front, then I was out of there.
At home, I checked my email. Too many from Sulyn. I wasn't feeling any
better about what I'd done, but she was bordering on the obsessed. I
read a couple, but they started making me tear up. I deleted the rest.
On to the spam. "Armand" wanted to give me access to local sluts, and
"Nigel" was challenging me to a duel to the death. That was a new one.
The only emails worth keeping were my bank statement and someone emailing
me about starting a band. I had to get out and go get Brittany, though,
so I couldn't respond to him.
"So, how'd it go with your internet girlfriend? You did break up with
her, right?" Brittany got right down to business.
"Yeah. I talked to her as soon as I got home. It was rough."
"Whatever. You should've done it the second you made plans with what's-
her-face."
"Sarah."
"Whatever!" She rolled her eyes. I couldn't see it, since I was driving,
but I knew it.
"She's actually really fun. You're probably going to meet her tonight,
since we're gonna be out where she lives."
"Oh, that's cool. Do you know exactly where?"
"Uhh, roughly. I can find it."
We got to the guy's place Brittany was buying her games from. When we
left, the man was $40 richer and Brittany was a nice stack of retro
gaming wealthier. She was happy. I was lost.
Turns out, dropping out of subspace right on someone's doorstep does not
automatically grant you the navigation skills necessary to find said
doorstep. It didn't help that every apartment building looks pretty much
the same in the dark. Eventually, though, we found it. More
specifically, we found her motorcycle in the parking lot.
I knocked on the door, Brittany almost hiding behind me. I could hear
her cursing inside. "Who the fuck is at my door at 9:45 at night" or
something like that. She yanked the door open frantically a minute and a
half later, and I could smell the beer on her breath. She was wearing a
black and grey hoodie and a pair of track pants; it looked like she'd
gotten dressed in a hurry. "Oh, it's you. What's up?" She asked.
"We were up here, figured I'd surprise you. The cowering lady behind me
is Brittany. She's easily intimidated." I dragged Brittany out from
behind me, and Sarah waved casually.
"Well, come in, I wasn't expecting anyone, but whatever." We stepped
inside, Brittany practically squealing as I pulled her across the
threshold. It opened into a combination living room and workroom, where
Sarah had her computer, a big corkboard, and a bunch of tools strewn
about on a work bench. I hadn't paid it much attention the other night,
but it was obvious Sarah liked to work on things here.
"So, what have you been up to?" I asked, following her into the kitchen.
She grabbed three beers from the fridge, offering each of us one.
"Not a lot, really. I mean, I texted you when I got off work. Just
sitting around here, mostly."
"Do you always wear those funky-ass boots all over the place?" Brittany
asked. "Seems like they'd be uncomfortable for sitting around in.
Sarah looked at her deadpan. "Yeah, they're really not that
uncomfortable. I'm pretty attached to them, though." She turned and
stared at me. 'Don't tell her a thing' was written on her eyes.
"So, Sarah, do you wanna come to this concert we're going to on Friday?"
I asked.
"Maybe. Anyone good playing?"
"Oh, god no. But it's at the CAG. Rachel always wants to go to any show
there," Brittany interjected.
"Hey, I happen to like the place. It's got atmosphere." I took a draw on
the beer. I wasn't used to drinking, but I wasn't going to turn it down.
"So does McLaren's, you never wanna go there." Brittany quipped back.
"Cause I'm underage? And besides, that place is a toilet."
"And the CAG isn't?" Sarah said, smirking.
"It's only slightly toilet-like. But yeah, a guy I used to work with has
a show there, he's opening for N-5 Fury."
"Never heard of them. They new?" Sarah asked.
"No idea, but they're headlining. You down?"
"Sure. Why not?" She finished her beer and got herself another, while
Brittany and I were still nursing our own. I wondered how drunk she was.
The three of us sat there in silence, Sarah and I smiling whenever we
caught the other's eye.
"Listen, it's been great meeting you, but I have to work in the morning,
and Rachel's kinda my ride, so..." Brittany piped up after a while.
"Oh, yeah, I'm sorry Britt. We really should be going," I said, standing
and grabbing my bag from the back of the chair.
"It's fine. But yeah, if I can't make it Friday, I'll swing by your
place this weekend." Sarah stood as well, showing us out.
We kissed our goodbyes, and Brittany and I headed back to my car. "She
seems nice. Kind of."
"Oh, she's fine. You'll get used to her. So what's this about you
having to work in the morning? Did you somehow find gainful employment?"
I asked as we sat in the parking lot.
"Sort of. I have an interview. And I was kinda feeling awkward in
there."
"I could tell." We headed home.
The next day was Tuesday. I was off work, an arrangement I'd made with
David for all the Tuesdays for the next two months. I was hoping to have
this intruder in my brain dealt with by then. I slept until 8:45, fixed
a nice breakfast, and threw it into a tupperware box. Eat after travel.
That's the rule. Or guideline, whatever.
At around 9:30, the headache started. It eased in gradually, and by 9:45
the door was standing there in my living room. I slung my purse over my
shoulder, and clutching my breakfast near me like a newborn babe, I
jumped into the open pathway, unsure where I'd end up.
Turns out, I ended up somewhere familiar: My apartment. It wasn't quite
right, more of a stylized, abstract looking place. This was the
apartment Steve Stills had imagined for me. He was laying in my bed,
asleep. I kicked him.
"What? Who's there?" He jerked awake, and we locked eyes. "Oh, it's
you. Back so soon?"
"It's been a week. I'd think it'd feel like even longer for you, since
time passes slower in here," I responded.
"It feels like you just left, and when you did everything kind of shifted
around. I figured where I was, and then, bam, here you are again.
Couldn't have been more than an hour since you left last." he sat on the
edge of the bed, and I fished around the kitchen. In my grand wisdom,
I'd packed food but no silverware. Finding a fork, unlike any I'd ever
owned, I sat on the other side of the bed and ate.
"That doesn't make sense to me. Like I said, it's been a week, and time
moves slower here. I figured it'd feel like at least a month for you."
I looked around the room. Posters for bands I'd never heard of, but
looked like they were part of the indie scene where he was from.
"Well, I'm telling you, you and I talked an hour ago."
"Whatever. It doesn't matter. I talked to my therapist, and she wants
us to try to sync ourselves or something."
"Sounds exciting." He leered at me. I felt sick. "Don't suppose it
involves any...intimate contact?"
"You wish. You do know that I'm a lesbian, right? Why don't you tell me
exactly how I'd feel about that?"
"Oh, it wouldn't be so bad. But I'm kidding, trust me. I may be a
pervert, but I'd never touch another woman. I am married, after all."
"And that makes this so much less creepy." I shuddered. "You know, you
were kind of getting on my good side last time, but here you go ruining
it." I put the tupperware away and grabbed my purse. I pulled out a
tuning fork I'd swiped from the shop. "She thinks something like this is
going to do the trick. Only, y'know, she's full of shit."
"So, seriously, what do we have to do?" He laid back. There was a man in
my bed. My mother would be thrilled.
"Well, basically we have two options. First, we try the tuning fork
thing, see if that makes any progress. If it does, well, anything, then
we look at more advanced options."
"By advanced, I guess you mean expensive, and your pockets aren't too
deep, are they?" He was right, of course. I was struggling to pay rent
pretty much every month. "So what's the other option?"
"Basically, do nothing. I stop coming in here and keep shooting up my
drugs every week and you live in solitary for the rest of, well, however
long we live." I looked him dead in the eye. He was scared, but
powerless.
"I'm liking that option a lot less."
"Yeah, but see, insurance covers Phazblox. It even covers the compound
prescription I'm on, that I could stay on for the next 20 years. I'd
have to dig up a few hundred grand to even think about the alternatives."
I put the tuning fork away.
"If we do that, though...what happens?" The gravity of the situation was
not lost on him.
"To be honest, nobody knows. There's only a handful of people that have
done this before successfully. A few dozen more have had enough success
that they just deal with the headaches. But that ain't me."
"You said it yourself though, the drug will only work for what, 20 years?
You're barely an adult, what happens then?"
"If I'm lucky? Science and medicine keep advancing, and we can extract
you from me. But...there's another thing."
"What's that?"
"I kind of have a theory. I don't like it, but I've been mulling it over
all week. You said where you're from is a world where spacetime didn't
rip, right?"
"If it did, I never heard of such a thing."
"Trust me, you'd know. Thing is, the rip in spacetime was supposed to
happen to all connected worlds simultaneously. It happened ages ago,
though. There's no way it'd be a surprise to you, unless..."
"Unless what?" He got up and got a bottle of water from the fridge. I
never kept bottled water. I followed him, and we continued the
conversation in the kitchen.
"Unless...you did this. All of it. You did something that created a
pocket universe. You ever hear of those? They're big in sci-fi
theories, or they were back in the 70's."
"Oh, uh, yeah. Entire worlds centered around a specific event, or
something. Quantum theory, right?"
"Yeah, something like that. When were you born, Stills?"
"Oh, uh...1982. October 9th, why?"
"There goes that theory. Our rip happened in May 1981, 32 years ago a
couple months back. Big explosion destroyed two-thirds of Tokyo, took
ten years to lock it down."
"1981? That was before my time. I bet Reagan had a field day with that
though, huh?"
"Who? Anyway, it doesn't matter. If the dates had matched up, it'd be
one thing. But now I'm not sure."
"Well, would you like to hear my theory? I haven't had as much time to
mull it over, but hear me out."
"Shoot." I opened the fridge. Empty. Maybe only he could get stuff
here. It seemed fitting, sort of.
"See, I got really emotionally invested in being 'you' online. I let it
take over my life, to the point that I almost lost my job on more than
one occasion. I won't pretend that what I was doing was a good thing. I
know I'm the bad guy here. But I wanted, so badly, to be you for real.
I wished on every shooting star, prayed to every god known to man and
then made up a few more, and nothing."
"Yeah, you mentioned something like that last week. I don't see what
that has to do with anything."
"Let me finish. Maybe, just maybe, I died. Maybe, I prayed to the one
god who was paying attention, and he put me in this specially made hell.
Not like I don't deserve it."
"You're right, you would deserve it, but I really don't think that's
what's going on here. There has to be some science behind it. There are
no gods, no magic fairies granting wishes. My life ain't that great, you
know. Why did you even want to be me in the first place?"
"Oh, come on. You have it all. You're gorgeous, you're talented, you're
smart, you have a sexy asian girlfriend..."
"Yeah, about that...we broke up. Just a few days ago." I looked down.
I still felt like shit.
"That's a shame. Mind if I ask what happened?"
"I do mind, actually." I wasn't in the mood to discuss my life.
"That's your prerogative, I suppose. Mind if I venture a guess? You
stopped 'feeling it' click with her. You've kept it going with her for a
long time, but your heart wasn't in it anymore, was it?"
"That couldn't be further off-base. I guess you don't really know me.
Not anymore." I looked down, sadly. Truth was, I did still love Sulyn,
but there wasn't any way we could make it work.
"I guess there are extenuating circumstances. Besides, all this crap
doesn't exist in my world. It's really like you're from the future
instead of 2013."
"Fair enough. It's not like it matters, anyway. What we need to do,
though," I held up the tuning fork, "is see if this does anything at
all."
"So, what do you propose?" He leaned against the refrigerator door. I
stood back from the counter.
"Hold on to your shorts, I really have no idea what's going to happen!" I
swung my arm back and brought the fork down toward the counter.
"Wait!" he shouted. I caught myself, inches away from striking the
countertop.
"What?!" I exclaimed.
"You shouldn't be here when it happens. What if it collapses reality or
whatever?"
"It's not going to collapse reality. It's going to make a loud
resonating middle C. That's all that's going to happen." I lowered my
arm.
"If you're sure of that, why'd you even bring it with you?"
"Because...I don't know. Part of me is curious. I mean, it's just a
tuning fork. It can't do anything."
"I'm no expert, but if your therapist says it helps, it might be worth it
to try."
"I think she's full of shit, though."
"I think this whole situation is a big pile of shit, to be honest.
You're talking about making our brains harmonize or something, which
sounds dangerous to begin with. Now you're talking about doing it while
you're in here, which definitely doesn't sound like a good idea. I may
not be a good guy, but I'm not going to let you get all self-destructive
on me." He took the fork from my hand. I flinched, but didn't resist.
"I'm not self destructive," I pleaded, "I just...there's no nice way to
put it, I don't want you in my life. Your presence makes me
uncomfortable, the weird dreams I have, the fact that I've basically
turned my life upside down because of you, and the fact that my life
seems to have been playing out like you would want it to. Maybe I'm a
little bit suicidal, but if I am it's because of you."
He blanched. I knew exactly what it meant to be responsible for someone
else's death, and he obviously didn't. I could see it on his face.
"I...I'm sorry. Again. I didn't want...this. I didn't want to actually
affect someone like this."
I twinged, and lashed out at him, my eyes burning, "You did, though! You
affected dozens of people, not just in my reality but in your own! You
broke hearts all over the country pretending to be me, and you fucked
with people's emotions so you could have fun! That's not something you
can do! You don't get to just say 'I'm sorry' and make it go away. You
don't get to do anything of the sort. You deserve this shit, I don't!"
He backed away from me. I could feel my blood boiling, but I didn't
relent. "You say you're married, that you love your wife, right?" He
nodded. "Now, what if, before you'd met, I'd been pretending to be some
guy that looked a damn sight better than you do? What if I'd done the
same thing to her, and got her caught up in a fake relationship right
before you two would've met? You'd miss out on her, forever."
"I realize that. I tried to quit...I just couldn't. Call it an
addiction." He slumped against the wall.
I glanced out the window. The constructed LA I could see outside was
obviously made by someone who'd never been here. Both the Hollywood sign
and Chinatown were visible from the window. It was an overly idealized
version of the city, which upset me for some reason. The streets were
deserted, obviously.
"It's not an addiction. An addiction you'd get help for. This...this is
just sick."
I gathered my things, wondering if I'd be able to take anything from the
construct back into reality. I doubted it, but decided to take the fork
with me, just in case.
"So, you're leaving again, I take it?" he asked, standing by the door.
"Yeah. I'm leaving the tuning fork here. I have one just like it at my
apartment. After I'm gone, count to sixty and bang it
against...anything, I don't care. Then put it to your head. I'm gonna
do the same thing, and with any luck, something weird will happen, but
maybe it'll shut you up." I put the tuning fork on the countertop, and
walked through the door. Surprisingly, the front door of the apartment
was not the exit to reality I'd hoped it would be. I looked around, I
was outside in the fake Los Angeles. At the end of the block was a door
standing all by itself, which was my real destination. I looked behind
me, and saw Stills wave at me.
As I walked toward the door, I could make out something in the distance.
Zipping down one of the streets, the same figure I'd captured in my
pictures before. I lost sight of them, but as I reached the door, they
came around another corner, and I saw them clearly. Both of them.
Sarah's black, clunky rollerblades, with a Sarah firmly attached to them,
gripping a package to her chest. She made eye contact with me, but I
didn't have time to react before she sped away, and I fell into the door
I'd left standing open.
Then I was back in my real apartment, with a Steve-brand headache gnawing
at my skull. I grabbed the other tuning fork from my computer desk,
smacked it hard against my coffee table, and put it to my head. Nothing.
No headache. For six seconds. It returned, though, and fiercely. I
wondered briefly what had happened inside my head, with Steve Stills the
monster.
I laid on the couch, filled a syringe from the mason-jar sized vial of
Phazblox, hooked the syringe into the port on the back of my neck, and
plunged the green-purple-silver liquid into the back of my neck. I
barely had time to put the syringe down before that foggy, artificial
sleep enveloped me.
I didn't dream this time. I was too angry to dream. I woke up with a
loud banging at my door. I checked the clock. It was only half past
noon, I'd barely been asleep for three hours. I staggered to the door,
still groggy, and opened it to find Sarah standing there.
"I uh...I saw you, while I was at work. Just wanted to make sure you got
home okay." She stepped in, dropping her bag by the door and hugging me.
"Yeah, what were you doing in my head?" I asked, once we'd pulled
ourselves apart.
"Well...I guess, if you want to get technical about it...you're my
Tuesday special. When your path pops open, I can go like 20 miles in 15
seconds. I didn't know it was your head, though. Sorry for that, if it
freaked you out."
"No, I guess it's fine. It was just weird, I thought my hitchhiker and I
would be the only ones there." She slumped on the couch, where I'd been
sleeping moments earlier. The dirty syringe and Phazblox vial was still
sitting on the table. I cleared them away before sitting next to her.
"Normally, yeah. Since it's not a permanent path, nobody takes it. Too
dangerous."
"But not for you, huh?" I patter her knee.
"Yeah. The real danger is getting dumped out somewhere you can't get
back, but that's not that big of a deal if you've got a good map."
"Which, I'm guessing, you have?" I asked.
She pulled out her phone and opened up a custom app. I didn't have time
to see the name of it. "This is how I get around. This thing tracks
every subspace door that pops up, all over the world." On her screen was
a map, centered on my apartment, with dozens of dots, most of them
blinking, in the small radius of West Hollywood. "The green ones are the
normal everyday routes that everyone takes." Those were the ones I
always saw the urban techie types crowding into when I went out. "The
solid yellow ones are vehicle traffic only, but I can slide into them on
occasion if I need to go cross-country." That was the type I'd been
through. They were different than normal subspace highways, and had been
around longer. "The blinking red ones are unstable, generally only
lasting a few minutes. Long enough for you to get from one end to
another, but only if you're there when they pop up. Fortunately," she
said, closing that app and opening another, "This right here is a
scheduler. If a path opens up at a set time, it gets logged with its
duration and locations."
"That's great and all, but...still seems like it'd be dangerous."
"The worst problem is getting dumped out somewhere else, because when a
path closes it ejects everyone. But take a look here." She pulled her
map back up and took it over to somewhere in the middle of Russia. "See
here? There's all kinds of paths even in the most remote location."
I had to admit, she knew what she was talking about better than I did.
"You're pretty smart, you know that?" I laid my head on her shoulder.
"Yeah, I know." She smiled at me, and we kissed.
We sat there for a while before I said anything else. "So are you done
for the day, or what?"
"Eh, I have a package pickup in Van Nuys but it's just a 'by end of day'
run. It was a light day, and I work fast."
"Apparently. Does your boss know all the shortcuts you take?"
"Nah. I get paid by the delivery and I'm pretty much left to my devices.
Barring a last minute run, I can knock out the whole day by lunchtime."
"Must be nice."
"It has its advantages. You off today I'm guessing?"
"Yeah. The drugs I have to take every week knock me out. I was dead to
the world when you came banging on my door like the cops. Were you
worried about me or something?"
"No, I just didn't think you'd be there, in an unstable subspace
construct. Nice rendition of the skyline, by the way."
"I didn't do it. My hitchhiker did. That's why I was there, to talk to
him."
"And did the talking do any good?"
"No, I don't think so. Mostly it just makes me hate him that much more."
"Hey, it's not his fault he got caught in it. Could happen to anyone."
"Yeah but...this is different. We can talk about it, just not right now.
Okay?"
"That's fine. Wanna go out somewhere?" She stood up, grabbing my hands
to help me stand.
"Yeah, sure," I said, smiling. "Got anywhere in mind?"
"I'm thinking J-town. You ever go out there? It's where my last pickup
is and I wanna check out the shops."
I hadn't been to Little Tokyo in months. "That's definitely fine. I'm
gonna guess you know a shortcut?"
She said nothing, just winked at me and dragged me outside.
Uma
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Rachel Graham s Precious Little Life Prologue
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