12a Archdeacon Street

"Well, sort of. Prince Philip. And they had these kids, Princes and a Princess. And they've had kids, too."

"That's a funny word! Kids." She tried the word, wonderingly, as if tasting it. "There's so much I don't know. What about the War? Was it the same as the War?"

"The same as World War One? Sort of. The same teams playing." They were strolling beneath the trees in Archdeacon Park, which stretched out on the opposite side of the street from Number 12a. From here, on the grassy slope, you could see clear across the fields to the railway viaduct. It was all houses now, down there. Now, but not now.

A train was pulling away from Staunchbury station, piling mounds of clean white steam into the crisp still air. It clanked on to the viaduct, its motion gleaming and sparkling in the sunshine, a shining green engine, weeping wisps of steam; a pounding monster hauling a brief train of four carriages and a small black van like a full stop at the end. Ethel appeared not to notice it at all.

"They say a bomb blew a blooming great hole in it. Just about where the train is now. It's closed now, the railway."

"The trains come out of the station, turn left and go the long way round. But most people go by car, of course. Everybody's got a car."

The steam drifted across the face of the sun and Ethel shuddered. "Let's walk again."

"Jeans, yes. They're in the shop. I left them there. I didn't want Sally to see I'd brought you a prezzie."

"A prezzie? Present? You've got all these silly little words. Like baby talk. Can I try them on when we get back? Dare I?"

"I can't imagine what I'd look like. I never saw a woman in trousers like that. Are they tight round the bottom like yours?"

"Probably tighter!" He patted her gently, bringing a little gasp and a furtive glance round the park. There was hardly anyone in sight, only a man in a flat cap with two gambolling dogs in the distance. Warm bottom. Russ allowed his hand to rest there for a moment. She clutched his arm urgently.

"I can let Herbert go home. He said he would wait until we got back. Sally called him Herbie! Nobody ever called him that before, he said."

"She made an impression on him! I don't know what she said to him, but he was shaking like a leaf after you took her back. I told him you'd taken her back to school! He just gave a kind of groan. Poor Herbert! I don't think he's ever been courting. Must be the first time a tart's ever spoken to him!"

"Tart? Sally? She may look extreme, but she's a nice girl. I wouldn't be surprised if she was still a virgin. Maybe the last survivor in her class. You won't catch her admitting it, though."

They paused to scrape the mud and leaves from their shoes, then crossed Archdeacon Street, as a navy-blue-uniformed nanny trundled a large-wheeled pram up the street. It bounced over the cobbles: the nanny pushing wearily against the gradient.

"That's the first time I've ever seen anyone around here. It's always been deserted. I wonder what it would be like if anyone was watching at the moment I did my disappearing act."

"I could watch you go, and let you know?" She laughed up at him and pushed open the door.

"I'm shy!" But she edged out from behind the table. "I put the jumper on as well. You didn't say you'd brought one of these. It was for me, wasn't it?"

"Of course. It's a sweater, by the way. I had to guess at the size." A reasonable guess, he had to admit. She stood beneath the lamp, holding her knees together, shoulders drooping slightly. "Come on, dear! Stand up straight. Shoulders back!"

Ethel obeyed, then performed a slow turn. She had a waist, he realised. And a bottom to die for. He had to reassess his first impression of her bust. Now, gathered in by the sweater and with her waist pulled in tight, Ethel's breasts swelled out most interestingly, actually overhanging her waist by three or four inches. No wonder she was shy. And blushing like a beacon. "What do you think?" A tiny voice.

"You look stunning! Come here." She did, stopping about a foot short. "Closer. That's better." Much better.

"I know. Ooh! What will we do if Herbert comes in?" Despite her question, Ethel snuggled closer and wriggled against his body. So soft and big, those breasts. Where had they been until now? Obviously she just let them dangle, and they reached down to ... God knows where! Russ held her bottom, crushing her to him: the globes of her buttocks deliciously plump and rounded in the unyielding denim. "I can feel you," she gasped softly. Ah, so!

Her lips were so soft, moist and slightly parted, and she shuddered as his tongue probed into her mouth. She seemed oddly unsure of the technique, but soon picked it up and experimented with some little tricks of her own. Delightfully.

She broke the kiss and leaned back in his arms. "What's the word you use? Wow?"

"It seems to sum things up fairly well, I think. Modern clothes suit you. You're a sexy little nineties girl."

"Nineties girl? You make me sound like my grandmother!" She hung her head and looked up under her eyelashes. "She was big. Around here!" She indicated her bosom with an uncertain little circular motion of her hand.

"I've never asked her! I suppose she gets them from a special shop, or by mail order. They might even be specially made for her."

"That settles it, then, doesn't it? You will have to find out where Sally gets her bras, then take me back with you so I can get one. How much will it cost? I've got some money." She slipped away and picked up her purse. "Oh, I've got pounds and simply pounds!"

"At least fifteen. Pounds! Maybe thirty or forty. I don't know. I've never bought a custom bra before."

"Custom. Another one of your silly words. I suppose it means ridiculously expensive."

"To put my dress back on. If anyone sees me like this, I don't know what I'll do. I would have to join a nunnery." Her face clouded. "And I don't think they'd have me."

She nodded, then turned and hurried into the kitchen. She was upset about something. Women's stuff. So she wasn't a virgin. No big deal, Russ thought. It wasn't really expected, after all. An image of Claire suddenly flashed into his mind. Could he be unfaithful to Claire? Would it be unfaithfulness in fact, if it took place in 1928, half a century before Claire was born? Hardly! Although the circumstances were a little unusual, he had to admit.

"I can't undo this..." She was trying to unhook the waistband of the jeans, twisting from the waist, straining to see. Her task wasn't being made any easier by her having taken her sweater off. "It's stuck," she almost whispered, looking up into his face. Her blush was spreading down her neck and shoulders, suffusing her upper chest. Not as far as her breasts, as he could now see. They hung well past her waist, getting in the way of her hands. They were heavy and appallingly pendulous. There was barely any discernible swelling until almost the level of her navel, just a mass of stretch marks. These were the breasts of a woman — a very large breasted woman — who had never known a bra in her life.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Could you help? I'll hold myself out of the way." She scooped her breasts up from underneath and held them up and to one side. They hung over her slender forearm. Fat, crinkled nipples were surrounded by richly-textured dark-hued areolae.

Spellbound, Russ hung back, until Ethel gave a little squeak to urge him to action. He almost dived in. It was really stuck. The zipper had become entangled with a bunch of threads. She had tried to jerk it free, but it was completely jammed. "I can't get at it," he complained, tugging at it. Her nakedness was inhibiting, intimidating. "Come out into the light, where I can see." She followed him out into the work room. "Sit up there, then lie back."

Obediently, she perched her rump on the table and lay back beside the horn of the gramophone, allowing her breasts to rest on the table to each side of her body. "Spread your legs a bit. That's better. I can see now! Hold tight. Got it!"

He swallowed, but began to work the jeans down her hips. She raised her bottom slightly, wriggling first one way then the other. They slid off at last and he dropped them on the chair. Her knickers were silky — probably pure silk — and voluminous, gathered at the thighs with elastic. Russ found his hand caressing the cool, pink fabric covering Ethel's softly mounded tummy. She squirmed luxuriously, moaning.

Russ could smell her arousal, could see the spreading moistness round the juncture of her thighs. "I need you, Russ. Please," she whispered urgently. "Now?" Again, she raised her bottom from the table, two or three times, then faster, bucking as if they were already coupled. Her fat breasts rolled squishily to and fro on the table top as he waited for her buttocks to clear the table and pulled the silk panties down to her knees. She kicked frantically to get them off, her moans increasing in pitch.

Her extreme hairiness surprised him. It extended upward from her crotch and sideways across her front, reaching to the peaks of her pelvic bone. Then his face was upon her, tasting her pungent, heavy aroma, seeking the pink wetness gleaming through the dense bush. For a moment, she stiffened, as if trying to pull back, then she surrendered to her surging feelings, relaxing her loins.

The tinkle of the doorbell was followed almost instantly by a protracted salvo from the bell on the counter.

"Hello? Anyone at home? Shop!" A heavy thumping suggested that a fist was being pounded on the counter.

"Oh, no! A customer. Where's my dress? Oh, help!" She sat up, showering prints on to the floor, and scampered into the kitchen. She came back in her shapeless under-vest, struggling into her grey woollen dress, dragging it down over her breasts and hips. For the first time, Russ had became aware of the true reason for her unusually dumpy shape. No time for her knickers: she couldn't find her shoes. She headed for the steps as the bell clanged again, fastening her buttons, calling, "Coming, coming!" in response to the hollering coming from the shop.

Faintly through the door to the shop, Russ could hear her quavering, stammering explanation that she had been in the darkroom. Some minutes passed before she came back in, holding on to the handrail as she slowly descended the steps. She clung to Russ and burst into tears.

The moment had passed, as moments do. Ethel was trying to find words, but nothing would come out. It was time to go. Russ already had his coat on, turning Herbert's cap between his hands like a steering wheel. She picked up her panties — they had draped themselves over the horn of the gramophone — and balled them up in her fist as if afraid that Russ would see the appalling wet patch. She found her shoes, stepped into them and retreated to the kitchen, emerging moments later with the jeans and sweater.

"My brother. He's away on his ship at the moment. Normally he leaves his car near the docks, but he's left it here this time and gone down to Southampton by train. He wouldn't mind. We could borrow it and go for a drive, couldn't we!"

"It won't matter. Nobody would know. He won't be back for ten days at least. Come on, Russ!"

"I can't wait. Sunday at twelve. You come and meet me here, and we'll walk over and get the car, drive to my place — I'll have a picnic ready..."

"It's a saloon car. It will be warm and dry inside. We could have a picnic in the back. Up on the Downs. Please, Russ! Say you'll come. What do you want in your sandwiches? I don't know anything about you: what you like to eat or anything. Apart from meat and potato pie, of course."

She was warm and incredibly soft against him, her bottom soft and fluid in the dress. She smelled of woman, and abandoned sex. Match abandoned due to unusual wetness. "Sunday!"

He had gone, marching down the street. If he had looked back at the moment he reached the end of Archdeacon Street and adjusted the fit of his underpants before clutching at the card in his right hand pocket, he would have seen the spill of yellow light from the open doorway of Number 12a.

Sally greeted him like a conspirator. "Come in," she whispered. Her lips almost seemed to brush his cheek as he slipped in through the door.

"Come upstairs." He followed her wonderful twitching bottom up into her bedroom. "You got back all right, then. How'd you get on?"

Sally shrugged. "Is that all that was stopping you? So what, anyway? They'd never believe it was you. What would she tell them? 'Hey, this hunky Time Traveller came into the shop and shagged me on the table in the work room!'"

Sally squealed with joy. "So you did! Good old Russ! How was it for you? Is she as good as she looks?"

"Oh, come on! If ever a girl was gagging for it, it was your Ethel. She reeked of sex."

"She wanted your manly body, of course. Was it good? Did you hear sky-rockets, stuff like that?"

"You would say that, though, wouldn't you! Did she strip off for you? She's got a huge pair under that dress."

"Of course! I notice the size of other girls' bosoms. I bet if you got a decent bra on her, she'd be nearly as big as me. Well, maybe not that big..."

"Of course it's not. She's a special size, like me. She could have one of my old ones."

"I take a thirty-six. But I didn't always. I was a thirty-two when I was twelve. About the same as Ethel. She could try one of my old thirty-two's."

"But that's just the bra size, thirty-two. She's bound to be bigger than you were when you were twelve. Her ... breasts, I mean."

"How do you know? You've only known me a couple of years." She opened a drawer in her dressing table. "Here, take her this one to try. It's a thirty-two. I bet it will fit her."

"Christ, how big's this thing?" Russ felt a flush rising in his cheeks as he plunged a fist into one of the bra cups. It disappeared.

"I already said you can. If it fits, I've got some more. Bigger round the body, same size cups. My cup size now isn't all that much bigger than when I was twelve." It was her turn to flush. "I was about an N-cup." Sally chewed at a fingernail. "I wasn't quite a Q-cup then."

"Of course! Easily. Hey, I'd love to see Ethel with it on. Can I go back with you?"

He cleared his throat. These were dangerous waters. Here be tygers. "What were you doing to Herbert?" he said in an attempt at lightness.

"Herbie?" Sally giggled infectiously. Actually, it was contagiously: she laid a hand on Russ's arm at the same time. "I was only talking to him."

"Well, I may have let my boobies touch him a little bit. Like this." She demonstrated. "There's no harm in that, is there? I probably got a bit too close. It's not all that easy to judge."

Russ couldn't even back away, Sally had him between the door and the bookcase. She glided backwards out of reach. Russ found his voice. "The poor boy was struck dumb for the rest of the afternoon. If you were thinking of going back to torment Herbert some more..."

"We'll see about taking you back some time, when we know what's happening. Next time, I've got to try an experiment. It might be dangerous. That's why I came to see you. If I don't get back, I'll need you to explain."

"Exactly. But you know all about this thing. And you know I'd be doing my best to get back, don't you?"

"I don't think you could get stuck, Russ. If you did, you wouldn't be here now, talking to me, would you?"

"You might not be from the nineties, paying occasional visits to the twenties. You might be from the twenties, paying occasional visits to us now!"

Chapter 6:— Girls Just Wanna Have Sex

ETHEL WAS WAITING behind the counter for him. She was bright-eyed and animated. Bright-eyed and quite literally bushy-tailed.

She almost fell into his arms. Her kiss seemed to have been undergoing some training since last time. There was a lot more tongue in it now. "Come out the back. I made the picnic here, to save time. What's this?" She looked curiously at the paper bag he had handed her.

She tore it open. "What is it?" She held the bra up, turned it over, this way and that. "A bra?"

"You'll soon work it out." They went down the steps into the back room of the shop. She was already unbuttoning her dress. "You can show me how it works!"

"It's quite easy. Go into the kitchen and work it out. If Sally could put on a bra when she was twelve, I'm sure a big grown-up girl like you can manage it on your own."

She smiled. "I'll try. What do you say? I'll give it a try?" She started slipping the dress off her shoulders as she went into the kitchen.

The little box of business cards was still on the shelf. Quickly! He helped himself to one, slipping it into his right hand coat pocket. Then he changed his mind. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

He sighed theatrically. There were things he would rather be doing than helping a busty girl into an N-cup bra, but right now, he wasn't sure what they were.

She nearly had it right, but the shoulder straps needed adjustment. Sally at twelve hadn't been as tall as Ethel. He slid the adjustment buckles down and studied the problem. "You'll have to bend forward and lower your breasts into the cups."

She bit her lip at his brutally frank language. "Like this?" Giggle. "I can only get one in at a time."

There was nothing else for it. He lent a helping hand, then positioned the broad shoulder straps, fastened the six hooks. One was starting to pull away from the body band, but it wasn't too tight round Ethel's chest. And the cups were only a little too big for her.

"It feels really odd! How does it look?" She turned to see the mirror, which wasn't big enough to show the whole picture at once. "Goodness me!" Ethel stood with her arms dangling by her sides. She had taken her undervest off, and had lowered the top of her dress so it hung from her hips. Russ helped her get her arms into the short sleeves. It was a much tighter dress now. She could fasten the buttons, but only just. "Oh, my! Look at me!"

"Dare I go out looking like this? I look like ... I don't know what! Like Sally!"

She went out into the work room and walked up and down, getting used to the feeling. It couldn't have been easy for her. "I can't see my feet! And this picnic hamper, I can't pick it up with my chest in the way."

"Wait!" She kissed him again in a decidedly friendly manner. "Now, take your coat off. It's not as cold as all that, and you can't drive a car with a great big coat on. Come on, off with it!"

"Off!" She was tugging at the collar insistently. "You can leave it here at the shop, we'll come back for it before you go. There, that's better. We both look really modern now. You in Jean's trousers, me in my bra. Put your cap back on. That's nice!"

"Edward always turns that handle on the front. Are you sure you can drive a car?"

The hamper was securely on the back seat. The car, a black Humber saloon, was parked on the road outside Ethel's parents' house. She had explained that they were away, to his intense relief. Russ hadn't been relishing the prospect of an interview with Ethel's father.

"Maybe if I just turn the wheels straight so they're not pointing into the curb, it will roll downhill. I'll only need to push it a yard or two."

"Push? Edward never pushes it. He just swings the handle. He fiddles around inside first. And under the bonnet thing up at the front."

Things shouldn't be as complicated as this. Russ climbed out reluctantly and wrestled with the bonnet catches. It hinged up from the side. Whatever was underneath bore no more relationship to a car than it did to a grand piano. The first impression was one of an immense empty space. There was presumably an engine, that rusty iron thing down at the bottom, and a big tall radiator with a long, fat rubber hose leading down to the front of the engine. He recognised a fan, some spark plugs, what he assumed was the ignition coil. Which meant this thing here was the carburettor. And this brass thing must be the petrol pump. It had a small lever at the bottom, bright metal as if it was used regularly for some purpose. He gave it a prod, pumped it up and down, and was rewarded by gurgling noises, rather as if a small pigeon had become trapped inside.

Back in the driver's seat, there were levers around the middle of the steering wheel. One of them even said 'Start' on it. Too much to expect. The engine didn't start, but he turned a few knobs in an expert manner, scrambled out and went round to the front. The handle had a nice shiny brass grip to it. It was stiff to turn; heavy, like lumpy treacle, as if heavy bodies inside the engine were getting in the way of the handle.

The engine had made an encouraging noise, like a polite cough in church, and his wrist ached where the handle had flown back the other way. Sod this for a game of soldiers. One more try.

"There, I told you Edward never pushed it," she said as he slumped behind the wheel in astonishment, nursing his injured wrist. "Why didn't you just start it in the first place, instead of making all that to-do about it?"

The car was running smoothly now, and even smoother when he fiddled professionally with the controls, got out and closed the bonnet, climbed aboard, and selected a gear.

Not twenty minutes later they were purring satisfactorily down the road at twenty miles per hour. His wrist was on fire from the fourth or fifth attempt at starting the beast, but it seemed on the whole to have forgiven him. In fact, the car seemed almost to be enjoying it, skittering along the bumpy lanes in the general direction of the Downs. It was a fearsome climb, but they chuntered over the summit in top gear, and came to a sighing halt where the countryside spread out in front like a patchwork quilt. Obligingly, the sun came out. All was right with the world so — one imagined — God must be somewhere in His heaven.

A fine winter's day; a gleaming vintage car; a pretty girl with improbably large breasts who was keen to oblige him in any ways she could think of and — with any luck — some he couldn't; and a picnic hamper full of delights. Russ tried not to think of the next few years and what they had in store. For now, he had more than enough to occupy his mind and body.

Ethel might not be quite big enough to overstuff Sally's outsized Junior Miss bra, but Russ's cup was certainly running over.

"Have this last salmon and cucumber sandwich. It will only go to waste." Ethel held the sandwich for him until it disappeared and her fingers followed it into his mouth. "You did that before, remember?"

She took her finger back, kissed it and applied it to his lips again. "I wish I could come with you. You brought Sally, so you're allowed to bring a passenger."

"I'd be frightened of you getting stuck. How would you manage in 1999, not knowing anything?"

"Well, that's all right, then. Morale, I mean. You don't need a sex substitute. I'm here."

"Coke's not as good as coal. It burns hotter, so they say, but it's not so cosy."

"The car. The starting handle bit me. It did it again when we were up on the hill."

"I don't know why the policeman didn't offer to help you start it. He could tell you were having difficulties. I shall write and complain to his superior officer. As a prominent local businesswoman..."

"As manager of a photographer's shop. This shop. Number 12a, Archdeacon Street."

"Breasts." She savoured the word. "Breasts. It's so rude, that word. It makes me feel all melty, like hot chocolate."

Ethel unlocked the door of the shop and they went in. The bell tinkled until he stilled it with his hand.

"I'll work it out. I've learned how to start a car today. Eventually." Russ went into the kitchen and filled the kettle. The music started up. One of the early Wolverines recordings. He came out, to find Ethel holding his coat. She put it down next to the gramophone, jarring against it. The needle jumped in the groove and the musicians went back eight bars without missing a beat.

"They will miss me. I've been gone all afternoon. I only went out to buy the Sunday Times."

"Without customers coming in, or policemen poking their heads through the window and asking if we've broken down?"

"I think I will carry on wearing a bra if it makes policemen look at me like that!"

She held his coat for him. He pulled it on and fastened the buttons, checked the pockets. The card was still there.

If Russ had looked back just before he stepped into the 1990s, he would have seen the splash of gaslight from the shop doorway. He would have seen Ethel watching again: seen her puzzled expression as he stepped into the shadows ... and disappeared.

"The cups were a bit big, but it fitted fine. She looks really different in it."

"I want to see her. Can I come next time? It's only fair. You're having my old bras, after all."

"Not this time, Sal. Lunchtime's not long enough. I'll take you real soon. Hang in there, babe."

"I only nipped out for the paper. I've got to see Claire. She'll have got dinner ready, and I've already had a huge picnic this afternoon."

If Russ had looked up at Sally's bedroom window, he would have seen her pull apart the curtains and press her face against the glass to watch him get into his car. He might even have seen her holding the business card. Slowly, she raised the card to her lips, and smiled.

Russ lowered his book — Sally's book — and looked sideways at Claire. She was leaning back against the pillows pulling faces at a small hand mirror, one of those that makes everything look huge. "How do you mean, feeling okay?"

"I just wondered," she said, not looking at him. She had found a tiny spot beside her nose. Her mouth slid up the side of her face. "You seem to keep forgetting things. The other day you forgot to bring anything home for dinner. Today, you nipped out for the paper at half past eleven and you didn't get back until half past six. Without the paper."

"I got side-tracked. Something came up. I met somebody in town and he had trouble starting his car. That's how I hurt my wrist," he elaborated. If in doubt, try telling the truth.

"How what?" He lowered the book again. "The wrist? Starting handle kicked back. Like a mule, it was."

"I didn't think cars had starting handles these days. Where could you stick them? Don't they all have engines that go sideways? Isn't that why they don't have starting handles, because you'd have to stick them into the side of the engine?"

"Probably," he said uncomfortably. "This was an old car. The engine went the other way."

She put the mirror down on the bedside table and began examining the upper surfaces of her breasts for minor blemishes. It didn't take long. "So, how did you get on? Successfully?"

"It's all in the timing, dear. But you've always been very good at timing." Claire was obviously satisfied with the condition of her skin and had turned her attention to sex. She began doing interesting things with her fingers. Russ put the book down. It had been a long, hard day, and not entirely fulfilling.

You had to hand it to Claire. No, correction, on the contrary, you didn't: she just came and grabbed hold of it without any prompting. Gently, and with both tiny hands...

Hardening rapidly, he cupped Claire's tasty buttocks. She climbed aboard joyously and with immense enthusiasm. She was leaking like a sieve already, and whimpering like a small affectionate animal.

Not ten minutes later, he hastily abandoned his fantasies of Ethel and (to his shame) Sally, and switched in desperation to thoughts of food and football. He still finished first, by a short head.

"I want to come with you. You said I could. I didn't push it at the weekend when you were getting laid, but this is different. It's only a lunchtime quickie. I want to come along and see Herbie. And see how Ethel looks in my training bras."

"You can imagine how she looks. And I don't think Herbert could stand another of your visits. And I wasn't getting laid, as you so crudely put it."

Sally studied her fingernails minutely, then spread her fingers wide. "What does Claire think of your trips back in time?" She polished her knuckles on the side of her breast and looked up at him with a puppy-dog expression.

He blinked in sudden alarm. "I haven't mentioned ... you wouldn't! Sal, you wouldn't dare ...!"

"No, of course not. It would mess things up for me, too, wouldn't it? If I spilled the beans to my big sister, I wouldn't get to go on any of these trips, either. Would I?" Butter wouldn't have melted in her mouth.

Sally bounced up and down on her bed, her face lighting up like a beacon. She took advantage of an upward bounce to spring to her feet and wrap her arms round Russ's neck and plant an excessively wet kiss squarely on his lips. What felt convincingly like forty pounds of hot tit squooshed between them. "Darling Russie!" She kissed him again, more dangerously, hungrily, getting a taste for it. One long leg came up and wrapped itself behind his knee. She manoeuvred him in a half circle. She was remarkably strong for a mere schoolgirl. A schoolgirl who knew more or less what she wanted.

The bed groaned in protest as Russ struggled from beneath the pressing weight of Sally's bust. He sat up, panting. "Your Mum will hear you, moaning like that. She knows I'm up here."

"Of course she knows. She won't mind. I'll let her have her turn as well. She fancies you, you know!"

Russ's head spun. It was one of those eternal male fantasies, having a mother and daughter at the same time. Having a mother and two daughters was probably pushing the envelope a bit too far. Sally squirmed herself against him again. "But you will take me with you this time, won't you?" As if by accident, her roaming hands found themselves more or less at Position A. She jumped back as if shot. "Gosh!" she gasped, blushing furiously, "you've got a ... you're all ... your thingie is...!"

"What do you bloody expect?" Feeling unaccountably guilty, Russ took advantage of the respite to wriggle free and stand up. Bad move, Russell! He made hasty and not entirely successful adjustments to the unruly, throbbing bulge in his trousers as Sally watched with mingled horror and delight.

"So you'll take that book, then?" Sally blurted loudly, plonking a book in his hand. "Yeah, Mum, come on in. We're decent!"

Why did Sally's mother have to look immediately at his crotch? Was she going to accuse him of ravishing her beloved daughter? In the event, she seemed remarkably unconcerned by what she saw there: in fact, she licked her lips.

"When you've finished with Russell, young lady, I'd like a word with him downstairs. Before you go, Russ," she said to him with a lewd little smirk. Then she backed out and closed the door with exaggerated silence.

"It wasn't my fault! You were the one leaping around the room with a fucking great hard-on!"

"I think your getting an enormous, stonking great hard-on..." —among her other talents, Sally was exceedingly good for a chap's morale— "...a huge, steaming, throbbing, mighty, massive erection, is a sign that you want my pure little-girlie body as much as I want yours. But for now, I'll settle for another trip back to 1928. So! On Wednesday, right?"

Chapter 7:— A-Level Biology

"NOT THURSDAY night, Russ. I go out on Thursdays. How about Friday? Sally will be round at her girlfriend's place doing their A-Level Biology Project. I'm free on Fridays. Come round then, all right?"

Sally's mother looked different, somehow. Younger, or something. Something you couldn't quite put your finger on.

"Just a bit of maintenance in the bedroom. It needn't take you long. You can take a look at it and see how long it will take you."

Sally's mother spluttered and almost choked on her coffee. "Oh, just the usual. If you need anything special, my husband left all his tools here when he disappeared. But I'm sure you'd prefer your own. I know which I'd prefer."

Just the undersides of the cups. The tops seemed to be just soft, wobbling flesh. She was nearly as big as Sally up top. What was she wearing, some kind of push-up bra? Around the house? Strange woman.

"W-what time on Friday? I'll need to tell Claire. She might have arranged something else."

"Claire will understand, don't worry. Half past seven? It's not too early is it? How about seven o' clock?"

Her nipples didn't seem to fit in the bra, whatever design it was. Surely those weren't her nipples! Not sticking right out there? And her areolae. Like beer mats. You could see them right through her blouse.

"Make it half past six, if you like! I'll be in all afternoon. Just drop in as soon as you're ready. Young Sal won't be coming home from school, she goes straight to her girlfriend's. So we won't be interrupted."

"But you said short skirts were all the rage in the Twenties," Sally pouted. Passers-by were staring at her, stepping off the footpath into the busy street, unable to take their eyes off the improbable vision in the caricature of the local girls' school uniform.

Russ grasped her arm and led her away into a side alley beside a greengrocer's. She smiled to herself as he backed her against the wall and looked her up and down.

"Look at you! How can you go travelling through time dressed like that? Do your teachers let you girls walk around like women of the streets?"

She giggled. "Of course not! I had to go into the public loo to put the finishing touches to this lot. What do you think of it?"

"Yes," she admitted, pulling her blazer aside and thrusting her chest out even further. "It is a bit uncomfortable with the straps pulled up tight like this. But it looks pretty spectacular, doesn't it! It makes me wonder if I've started growing again. That would be really embarrassing...!"

"Russ! I'm surprised at you. Here, in the middle of Staunchbury?" She hooked her thumbs in the sides of her skirt and gave a preliminary wiggle of her hips. Devastating things began happening up above the waist.

"'Scuse me, guv, lady!" A hulking youth came round the corner with a pile of empty boxes and dropped them on the ground. He grinned salaciously at Sally, who looked uncomfortable, then he made off to fetch another load.

"I'm coming! There's no need to pull my arm off." She was keeping up with him in a series of leaps which were causing passing drivers to pay insufficient attention to the task in hand. Horns sounded and squeals of tortured rubber echoed around the crowded market place. Russ slowed down and Sally immediately clutched his arm and fell in alongside so their thighs moulded together like lovers. He could feel the heat of the girl's immense breast even through great-grandpop's overcoat. "I knew you'd see sense, Russie. Are we going to Archdeacon Street now?"

Outflanked at every turn, he headed for the churchyard. Sally's arm went round his back. If she got any closer, she'd be inside the coat with him. He felt in his pocket for the card, and realised with a sickening lurch that it wasn't there.

"In your pocket? Ah, you mean the card that lets you in to the Twenties? A business card from the photographer's shop...?"

"Yeah. It was in my..." A thought came to him. "Ah, no. I remember. I took my coat off and transferred the card to my back pocket. Safer in there. Here it is!"

He felt Sally release her grip around his waist. She walked by his side with a certain stiffness. Russ didn't notice. It was a relief that Sally wasn't wrapping herself around him any more. A man's not made of stone, after all. Although part of him was certainly doing its best to prove that it was.

Russ was relieved that things were starting to return to normal down below. It was going to be difficult enough explaining Sally's presence to Ethel without having to wrestle with his cock at the same time. The girl seemed perplexed about something. She still held his hand after stepping through the gateway into the Twenties, but her fingers weren't entwining with his in that intimate way of hers.

That's teenage girls for you, he mused. Always blowing hot and cold. Blowing! A thought sprang unbidden into his head, triggering a wholly unwelcome resurgence of interest from his loins.

"Sally! You look stunning!" Ethel leapt on the girl as if they had been parted at birth. There was a great coming-together of bosoms on a scale rarely seen. Herbert cowered behind the counter, his face the colour of freshly boiled beetroot. "And Russ, darling! You brought Sally. How thoughtful of you!"

Meanwhile, Sally was greeting Herbert in similar vein. Russ exchanged sympathetic glances with him over Ethel's shoulder. Ethel, meanwhile, had made a little discovery. Not so little. She began rubbing herself slowly up and down against him as they hugged each other. It was fairly distracting, and the effect was predictable. Ethel clenched her fingers behind Russ's waist, and leaned back, biting her lip and fluttering her eyelashes. Her well-supported breasts were still substantially in contact with him, as was her over-heated lower half.

Sally came out of her friendly clinch with Herbert. The poor boy was shuddering, and he stood with his bottom thrust out in a clearly unsuccessful attempt to conceal his condition from Sally. She worked her hips against him before cupping Herbert's backside and slamming him against her. His expression of horror turned to resignation.

"Your bra looks amazing, Eth!" Sally looked back over her shoulder. It had the effect of thrusting her boobs into Herbert's face. She shuffled him round so she could continue her conversation in a more comfortable position. "It's one of my old ones, did Russie tell you? When I was twelve."

Sally wriggled her devastatingly well-filled school blouse under Herbert's chin. "I've brought you some more. Different colours. There's a really sexy black lacy one there. Mum nearly had a fit when I came home with that from the bra shop. She doesn't mind what I wear now I'm seventeen and legal." She grinned down at where Herbert was trying to breathe through the mountains of flesh. Considerately, she moved her tie out of his face and tossed it over her shoulder.

"Oooh, gosh, Sally! Can we go and try them on? Herbert can look after the shop." Ethel let go and stood back, giving Russ a moment to adjust his aching manhood.

Sally bent to kiss Herbert once more, almost suffocating him, then she disengaged herself and patted her blazer pocket. "They're in here," she confided. "The other girls in my class wanted to try them on this morning, but none of them are anywhere near big enough to fill the cups. I bet you can, though." Sally was evidently in a state of high arousal, her lips full and glistening, her nipples poking out through her reinforced bra cups, as fat as hot-house strawberries.

"Wow!" Russ staggered to the counter and leaned on it with both hands. Poor Herbert was bent almost double in his agony. "Sorry about that, mate. Young Sal's a bit over-enthusiastic. If I were you I should sort yourself out down below before she comes back and snaps it off."

Herbert uttered a grating sound and clutched at his groin with deep embarrassment. He sneaked away into the corner by the door and began extensive rearrangements to his underwear.

It wasn't the most opportune moment for customers to come into the shop, especially ones as attractive as the woman and her teenaged daughter who wanted to arrange a sitting for a portrait. The daughter tried not to make eye-contact with Herbert, while the mother seemed to be about to climb over the counter in an effort to see what the shop assistant was doing with the front of his trousers all the time she was talking.

Herbert's voice plunged from treble to baritone as he tried to recite the prices for studio work while attempting to persuade his throbbing prong out of his trouser leg and into a less agonising vertical position. Russ decided to leave them to it, and slipped out through the door to the back room. As he closed the door behind him, he heard a strangled sound from Herbert's throat.

"What do you think, Russ?" Ethel twirled before him like a remarkably top-heavy ballerina. She was wearing a skirt today, and had discarded her blouse to model Sally's range of awe-inspiring foundation garments for the fuller bosom. She staggered slightly and clutched at the table.

"You'd better not talk, young lady! Thanks to your efforts out there, your Herbert has just shot his load in his pants."

"Oh, goodness me!" Ethel blushed. She seemed unfamiliar with the term, but was in no doubt at all what it meant.

"That's a waste," Sally said in disappointment. "Never mind. He probably enjoyed it." She considered for a moment. "How long will it be before he's ready again?"

"We can't have you missing Biology, of all things. You still have a few things to learn, my girl."

"I'm a fast learner. Didn't you know? Never mind. Trying on bras is fun, too." She picked up a pale blue one and waved it at Ethel, whose eyes lit up. "Come on, Eth. Try this one. I wore this for my first heavy date!"

"Big snog. He took me to see Jaws — at the Classic, that place that shows all the old pictures? When that body comes up out of the wrecked boat, I nearly shat myself, and he grabbed my tits. I don't think he really meant to, but they were in the way. I nearly pissed myself then, and I nearly came when he got the hooks undone with one hand and got my tits out in the back row."

Ethel listened open-mouthed to this cautionary tale of unscheduled bodily functions in a public place. She took the blue bra and dropped it on the table in front of her. Reaching behind her, she released the hooks of her bra and unslung her breasts. She seemed to be getting the hang of it now. They swung heavily against her skirt as she got the blue bra the right way up and loaded herself into it.

Sally watched her, enthralled, wetting her lips. And probably wetting her drawers as well. And there was still the lacy black number to go.

The shop doorbell tinkled distantly and Herbert's anguished face appeared at the top of the steps. "C'n I have five minutes off to go to the lav, ma'am?" he pleaded. Ethel turned to face him, her breasts bouncing against each other like gambolling hippopotami. Herbert went scarlet. "Oh, ma'am, I'm so sorry." He froze at the top of the steps, unable to drag himself away.

Sally volunteered. "I'll look after the shop!" She flounced up the steps and squeezed through the doorway past Herbert, apparently fondling him intimately on the way. "Herbie!" she cried in shocked tones. "You've wet your trousers!"

Appalled by this living nightmare, Herbert gasped and stumbled down the steps on his way to the toilet, while Sally giggled and went out to mind the shop.

"I hope she'll be all right up there." Ethel had got the blue bra on and hefted her breasts experimentally. "Perhaps I ought to go up in case a customer comes."

"He might come literally if he sees you like that. You'd better put a blouse on, at least."

The doorbell tinkled again, and Sally's voice came faintly to them, brightly informing the customer that she was Sally and enquiring how might she help. Three minutes later, she appeared in the doorway, jubilant. "I sold a roll of film," she announced.

"I couldn't work out the old money at first, and I couldn't find the price on the box, so I made up a price in my head. I think I got it about right."

"What?" Ethel straightened up, her breasts almost bouncing out of her cups. "How much?"

"He paid up. I just wobbled my knockers at him and he paid up without a murmur. He gave me one of those big white five pound notes. I think he must've liked me too, he wrote his name and address on the back for me. I don't know, though. I mean, I like older men, but he was about forty..."

"Well, there's one customer we won't be seeing again. The prices are stuck to the side of the till. It should have been one and threepence. You just overcharged him by sixty times. We might as well close the shop for the rest of the day, you've made a whole day's profit."

"Yeah, come on, Russie. We've still got twenty minutes. And seventy years. And you want to see Eth in this one, don't you!"

Ethel herself was in no doubt. She dumped herself out of the blue bra and flopped her whoppers into the black lacy cups. She blushed as she hauled them up into position. "Oh, my goodness, Sally! It's disgraceful!"

"I know! Mum went mad when I showed her. Mind you, your nips really show through the lace. Those big round bits of yours are so dark. Mine are pale pink. When I was twelve, you could hardly see them. Look!" And without hesitation, Sally swiftly unbuttoned her school blouse, reached inside and hauled out an enormously fat breast. "What do you think you're looking at, Russie?" she accused, turning herself away to hide the awful sight. She succeeded, but her action coincided with Herbert coming out of the toilet. He staggered back, scandalised, as Sally gasped in mock horror and shovelled the pale flesh out of sight. "Sorry, Herbie," she called, as he closed the toilet door behind him again.

"At a rough guess, I think your poor Herbie was ready again," Russ surmised. "Another wasted load."

"I'd better put my blouse on in case we get any more customers." Ethel struggled into her blouse and tried to make the buttons reach their holes. "This one makes me even bigger, Sal!"

"It did me, too. I think that's why Mum didn't like me wearing it. I looked bigger than her in it. She likes to be biggest."

Russ looked distinctly uncomfortable. He shuffled his feet, anxious to get away.

"Anyway, Eth. My bloke wants to get back to the future. Hey, Back To The Future, how about that?"

"Wouldn't miss it! What else do you want, besides bigger shirts? I've got some T-shirts you can have. What size shoes do you take? Ah, no. Mine would be like boats on you. Never mind. Anything else? Magazines? CDs? Have you got a Walkman? I've got loads of stuff ... how about games?"

"Oh, yeah. Just clothes, then. Hey, maybe Russie will let me come back on my own one day." She nudged Ethel familiarly in the ribs and patted her bottom as she passed. "I'll work on him. I s'pose you'll be seeing him at the weekend again?"

"I won't cramp your style, Russie, baby! Just let me borrow your card one day during the week. I'll come down here and Eth and me can have a nice girls' day. Just us. And Herbie, of course."

Russ took Sally by the hand and towed her away, still chattering. Ethel followed. She had succeeded in getting four of her buttons done up, but the top three were gaping apart, revealing a deep and creamy cleavage with just a hint of black lace. Make that the top four buttons. Oops! Five.

"I'll see you on Sunday. Edward will be back so we can't use the car. Perhaps we can have a day indoors. At my place?"

"That would be nice, yes." Russ could see a fiendishly grinning Sally making lewd gestures with her raised forearm.

Chapter 8:— A Lewd Interlude

RUSS KNOCKED tentatively on the front door. Sally's mother opened it, looked furtively up and down the road and hustled him in. "You've brought your toolbag!" She giggled girlishly and hurried through into the living room. A wave of musky perfume followed in her wake. You could certainly see where young Sally got her figure from. Top and bottom. In fact, how old was her mother? Forty? Well-preserved. No, that didn't even begin to do her justice. "The kettle just boiled. You'll have a cup? Or something stronger?"

"And we can't have that, can we?" She undulated heavily into the kitchen. "Come and keep me company in here," she purred from the doorway. Why not? Don't fight it, Russell! She's calling the shots here.

"Never mind that for now. And you can't really call me Mother, can you? It makes me feel like an ancient monument. I don't look like one, do I?"

"Delia! You hadn't forgotten had you? Funny boy." Delia mixed a mug of instant coffee and uncapped a cold beer for herself. Obviously she didn't have a problem of falling asleep. "Now, drink your coffee then come and have a look in the bedroom." She glugged her beer, belched slightly, wide-eyed: her hand across her mouth. "Oops! This is my fourth Bud. You'll have to make sure I don't lose control, Russell!" She moved sensuously across the kitchen floor and twirled a coquettish twirl, holding her bottle out at arms' length for balance. Her skirt floated up around her thighs. "You like my frock? It's not too summery, is it?"

"It doesn't show too much of my boobs, does it?" She leaned forward precariously, revealing an expanse of bottomless cleavage. It was even deeper than Sally's. And about fifty times as deep as Claire's. Russ felt a pang of guilt. "I bought it in the sales. Claire made me get it. She said it's a sure-fire man-catcher. Has she shown you hers yet?"

"I made her buy a sure-fire man-catcher herself. Hers is cut down to here." Delia indicated her navel or perhaps slightly below. "And it's really short, too, to show off her legs. I don't know why I made her buy it, come to think of it. She's got a good man already, hasn't she?"

Delia moved over and stood close behind him. Russ could feel the heat of her. "So maybe she needs a sure-fire man-catcher frock so she can hang on to him." 'Yield not to temptation. For yielding is Sin.'

She turned him round. "I don't often see you with a jacket and tie on. You look dishy." She shook herself like a dog and put down her beer bottle. "Come on, then. Upstairs. I'll show you what I need doing."

He followed her upstairs. He seemed to spend his whole life lately following buxom women up these stairs. "This way! We're not going into Sally's room. Lots more room in mine!" She flung the door wide. The curtains were drawn, the bedside lamp turned down to little more than a warm glow, the bed covers were turned back. Crimson silk sheets. Sheer decadence.

Delia turned on the main light. "I need a shelf in this corner. Just a small one, for my books and things."

"I'll get my tools..." He set off for the door, but found himself being dragged back as if he was attached to her by an elastic band.

"I've got one here. In my bedside drawer. Look!" She opened the drawer and took out a dressmaker's tape, ran it between her fingers, then draped it round her neck. "Always have a tape measure handy in the bedroom. You never know when something might need measuring, do you?" She loosened his top button, eased the jacket off his shoulders. "There, that's better. You can't work with a jacket on, can you?" She draped the jacket on a hanger and, disturbingly, hung it in the wardrobe. "And a tie?" It disappeared into the wardrobe as well. "And a shirt..."

"You don't want to get your nice white shirt all hot and sweaty, do you?" Her fingers whisked down the row of buttons with practised ease, slipped inside and caressed his nipples. "Hmm, nice!" She moved with startling suddenness, yanking the shirt out of his pants and whipping it off in about a second and a half. "Oooh, look! I've found something to measure." She encircled his chest with the tape, her hands cool and frighteningly competent. "I love measuring things," she confided. "Do you? You can measure something, if you like. Would you like? I've got lots of things to measure. There, I've done your chest. It's your turn now. What do you want to measure first?"

"Well, for starters, how about Delia's big bottom? It's nice and big, isn't it? Bigger than Sally's. Lots bigger than Claire's. Here you are, it's all yours!" She handed him the tape and turned round, hanging her head compliantly. No option, really, Russell!

"Don't pull it too tight, Russ. I've got such a soft bottom, the tape just sinks into it. You'll get a false reading, and we don't want that. That's it. Slip your fingers inside. Inside the tape. That's a good boy. How big is it?"

"That's better. Don't try buttering me up, boyo. Sally's bum is only thirty-nine. She'll catch up, though, the way she's going. Now do my middle. I'll turn round."

She did, getting closer as she did so. Much closer. Russ had to step back as Delia's breasts rubbed against his bare chest, just above his pants. Stepping back was unsuccessful. She followed him. "Don't run away! Wrap it round me! There, that didn't hurt a bit, did it? Now then. How big's that?"

Delia's chest swelled with pride. "Sounds too small, doesn't it? It's right, though. It really makes Sally mad that my waist is so much smaller than hers!" She slipped her arms around him and pulled him close. "That's enough measuring for now. Too much measuring makes you tired. You can do some more later, if you're good." Her breath was hot on his cheek. "And Claire says you're very good!"

"Of course. Claire and her mummy don't have secrets. She tells me everything. Sally doesn't. Awful girl. Now then. We'll find something else to measure later, won't we. In fact, I think I've already found something!" A wonder Sally hadn't worn it out at lunchtime, and Ethel, too. Delia employed the same technique, proving that not all that much had changed in seventy years. Delia, though, was evidently in more urgent need. She was beginning to pant, and one hand was feeling behind her for the hook at the back of her frock, then the zipper...

It's more erotic when lovers take each other's clothes off, but time was of the essence in this case. Delia got her dress off without ripping it asunder, while Russ was out of his trousers in seconds. Reassuringly, Delia didn't hang them in the wardrobe. She was too busy dragging him back on top of her, flinging aside the bed-covers, her breath steaming on his face and neck. She still wore her bra, a businesslike garment — at least, the lower half of it was — and her panties, presumably so that Russ wouldn't feel too overdressed in his boxer shorts. Their bodies moulded together.

Seconds later, she squirmed out from underneath him, shot across the room and turned out the main light, locked the door and hurtled back to the bed again. Where were we?

This was not a time for thinking of Ethel, or Sally, or food or football. They achieved a commendably simultaneous climax. The editors of the women's magazines would have approved.

Russ lay shuddering inside her, giggling stupidly. They both giggled. He felt like rushing downstairs and down the road, giggling, but it would have meant taking it out, and he didn't want to take it out. Delia was doing some most interesting things to it, without using so much as a finger.

"You don't need to bullshit me. She's my daughter. Isn't that one of those famous fantasies, fucking a mother and her daughter? Or both her daughters, in this case?"

"Honestly! She's touched me a few times, but not down there, except by accident."

Delia propped herself on an elbow and looked into his earnest face. "Bloody hell, you really haven't, have you? Well, bugger me!"

Delia lay down again and a slow smile spread over her face. "Now, then, that was a quickie. Just a taster." She concentrated on internal matters and was rewarded almost instantly. "That's a good boy! Now, then, lover. Real slow!"

"You'll have to come back, won't you! You didn't even start on that shelf of mine. And what about this shelf, too?" Delia took a deep breath. Her breasts wobbled on the platform bra and the nipples, already extended, began to stiffen even further. She looked smaller and more vulnerable down here, just inside the front door. Russ cupped her bottom, his fingers digging into the softness. Her panties were soaked right up the back where she had been lying in a puddle of juices. She squirmed against him and laced her fingers behind his neck. "Forty-two inches, remember? Bigger than Sally's bum!"

She read his thoughts. "You can measure these things next time. What are you doing tomorrow night?"

"Good. Sally will be going out. Doing the usual things. I'll think of something to keep your Claire occupied for the evening. Come round and see me. As soon as you like. I'll be ready for you. We'll do some unusual things!"

"What's the matter, darling? You can't be too tired, surely?" Claire bunny-hopped a few times without noticeable response. "Have you got a headache, sweetie?" She placed a wet kiss on his unresponding lips.

"You don't use your wrist for sex! Not real sex, anyway. Come on, shag me. I need it. I haven't had it since this morning!" Claire squirmed, trying to impale herself. She began introducing fingers, but it obviously wasn't as good as the real thing. Not even Claire's considerable repertoire could get him going. Russ tried thinking of Ethel in Sally's black bra, trying to fasten her blouse buttons. Her buttons popping open as she breathed in and out. He thought of Sally dragging her fat breast out to show Ethel her nipple. He thought of Delia's soft yielding bottom...

"That's better, love! I knew you had it in you. You were holding out on me, weren't you!"

"You can come twice a day, can't you? I've got an itch and it needs scratching badly. In fact, it needs scratching properly, and I can't scratch it myself. Just a quickie. Please, Russell!"

"I can't speak for Him. I came twice. I lost count of Claire. She sort of merges after a while."

"Tell me about it! Get your sexy arse round here, quick! As soon as she goes shopping. I want that stiffie of yours inside me, now!"

"It's not a stiffie! It's shagged out. I said, I've come twice already, and we didn't start until eight."

"Lazy sods. I'd done a day's work by then. And had a wank in the shower. So did our Sally by the sound of it. She's gone off singing, anyway. I'll tidy up the bedroom, make myself beautiful and see you in ten minutes."

"Make it twenty!" He clattered the phone down as Claire came out of the bathroom towelling her hair.

"What did she want?" Claire rubbed herself gently against him. "Oooh, look what I've found! Mmm-hmm. Have we got time for another quickie?"

"I know. But a quickie would be nice. You'd slip straight in without touching the sides, I'm so wet!" Her hand explored further. "God, you're rock hard again already, and I've only been touching you up for five seconds."

"I shan't wear any panties," she pouted. "I'll go to Tesco's and get laid by twenty men between dog food and fishmongery."

"I thought she'd never go," he panted, slipping in the door. It closed immediately behind him. "Dee, you'll catch your death of cold!"

Unbelievable tits! Bigger than Ethel's. As big as Sally's? Forty years old. What on earth held them up like that?

Delia shook her torso, then steadied it all with both hands. "No I won't. The electric blanket's been on for half an hour. You're late!"

She dragged him upstairs, relieving him of his track suit on the way. "Good thinking. Ready for action in ten seconds. Extremely ready!"

Wearing nothing but her musky perfume, Delia lay back with a sigh and parted her soft upper thighs. Her majestic breasts flattened only slightly as they slipped down the sides of her chest. He glided in without touching the sides. Seconds later, the sides touched him.

"Mum? You there?" Claire's voice from the kitchen. "Oh, there you are. Look what I found in the sale. Russ will go crazy when I ... Oops! Hi, darling!"

Delia was still panting slightly from the panic-stricken flight down the stairs after Claire's car pulled up outside. She improvised. "Russ was helping me out in the bedroom. I'd tried doing it myself but it was no good. I don't miss your father at all, but for some things he had his uses."

"It's a bigger job than we thought. I'll need to come back and finish it later."

"Oh, that's good. I was wondering how to tell you. I ran into some of the girls from the office in Staunchbury, and they're going to see this bunch of male strippers. Rhonda had to drop out, so they had a spare ticket. I said I'd go."

"That's all right, then!" Delia sounded a little too pleased, and her elder daughter looked at her sharply.

"I suppose you'll be late back." Russ did his best to appear put out by Claire's news.

"It's in London. We'll be back by two or three in the morning. Janet said I could stay at her place to save having to come all the way out here."

"Excellent!" Delia recovered her composure with an effort. "I mean, how good of Janet to offer."

"Yes, it was. So, darling, since we won't be seeing each other tonight, you'd better come home with me and I can show you this nightie I bought. Only nine-ninety-nine in the sale." She was already dragging Russ to the back door with a damp little hand. "Come on!"

"You'd better go and see to her, Russell. I'll see you later. What time are you going out, Claire?"

Claire rubbed against him. "It's so soft, isn't it. Feel. All silky around my nipples!"

"Is that it? You could show a bit of enthusiasm. I bought this nightie specially for you. I thought our sex life needed a bit of spice."

Russ choked on his coffee. She patted his back and wiped his eyes with a tiny lace hankie, then slid on to his knee. He was wearing his tracksuit, rescued from the stairs at Delia's.

"Only, you see. When I called at Mum's and found you both standing in the living room: her arranging flowers, you reading last week's Hello! magazine, and the whole house stinking, reeking of sex — and Mum looking as if she'd just been seen to, I wondered. And, darling?"

Russ hesitated to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate him. Delia repeated the question. He was standing on a chair and as she was lending him support by hugging him round the thighs, he decided it would be safer if he made some sort of reply.

Russ felt a light-headedness coming on. He looked down, but whatever Delia was doing, it was hidden somewhere beneath her bust. He made a pencil mark on the wall, checked the measurement from the ceiling, and snapped the tape measure shut.

Delia did, somehow succeeding in making contact with every square inch of him with both hands and her thrusting breasts. "Good! That will be enough home handiwork for today. You don't want to tire yourself out." She reached up and kissed him, her tongue leading the way by about half a yard. "Hold my bottom," she suggested, in tones that brooked no argument. "Oh, yes. Like that. Do you like the feel of hot, tight, leather trousers?"

Russ considered for a while, during which time his loins made the decision for him. Their bodies moulded closer together.

"Good. And do you like Dee's little tiny twenty-five inch waist, and her bare tummy?"

Easier said than done. Even as firm as Delia's bust was, it was big enough to cast a considerable shadow over her bare tummy. Russ did his best. His best was evidently good enough.

"Take my top off, quickly!" Delia was starting to pant. Her top was a cropped T-shirt that hung from the peaks of her breasts, revealing their plump lower curves, especially from below, where Russ was at that moment. It came off without any trouble at all, Delia standing with her arms above her head. She left them in that position as he dropped the shirt and stared at her incredible body. Her breasts incorporated the best aspects of the family trademark: much of the size of Sally's, the protrusion of Claire's nipples. Delia added extra features entirely her own: areolae like well-browned pancakes, wholly improbable firmness.

"I think you ought to be allowed to measure me now." She shook her head as Russ began hunting for his builder's tape measure. "No, that steel thing's got sharp edges. And it's too cold. Use the tape in the top drawer."

He could scarcely stop his fingers trembling. "Stand still!" he said, "I can't keep it on your nipples."

"Stand behind me, then. Closer." Even through the leather trousers, he could feel himself fitting neatly into the cleft of Delia's buttocks. "No, I'll hold it on my nipples, you read out the numbers."

Russell read them out, trying to hold the tape steady enough to see what it said. There was so much soft flesh, so much Delia to touch. He concentrated hard.

"I'd have thought you could see that much without measuring them." She turned, taking the tape and dropping it on the floor. "So whose do you prefer, Sally's or mine?"

"Hers are bigger, of course, but they dangle more." She laughed and gently thrust her pelvis against him. "Do you know, when young Sal started developing, I was really jealous of her. So was our Claire. Claire was about nineteen, and fully developed: as big as she is now. Then along came her little sister, and bam!"

"She woke up one morning and she had these walnuts! Three weeks later, she was bigger up top than Claire. Not very big, of course, but Claire certainly thought so. She was hopping mad at this eleven-year-old getting tits bigger than her. Of course, by the time Sal was twelve, she had a pair of forty-fours. She looked enormously top-heavy, 'cos she wasn't anywhere near as grown-up then. Hey, I bet she's still got her old bras in her chest of drawers, come on!"

Delia led the way into Sally's bedroom, Russ following behind, mesmerised by the bobbing breasts, wider than the woman's chest, the broad hips creaking in their sheathing of taut black leather.

"In this drawer ... funny. I swear they were in here." Delia opened a few more drawers, no success. "She must have thrown them away. I used to kid her that she never threw anything away, but she always said she was keeping them in case Claire ever started developing!" Delia took his hand and squeezed it. "I'm getting horny, talking about our Sal's lovely big boobs. Come along. Back to the bedroom. "It's just as well Sal stopped growing after her growth spurt or she'd have got ridiculous." Delia flushed and bit her lip. "She's still bigger than me, though." As she talked, Delia unzipped her trousers, worked them down her hips and sat on the bed. She extended her legs forward. "Pull them off, lover!"

Russ obeyed, his head spinning from the combined scent of hot leather and even hotter, wetter woman. It was clearly time to get naked himself. Undressing — even only the removal of a tracksuit — would waste valuable time later.

Chapter 9:— Out Of Time

RUSS LET HIMSELF back into the house and crept to the foot of the stairs. Time for an hour's blessed rest before going to meet Ethel again. He was absolutely shattered. Delia had been virtually insatiable. How insatiable, he didn't know: he had lost count after seven times.

Without even removing his tracksuit, he rolled into bed and fell asleep instantly.

He sat up, disoriented. Silence. That was it. The church bells had stopped suddenly and woken him. Peace, perfect peace. Sunday morning.

He was late for Ethel. Already an hour late, and counting. Seventy-something years and an hour late. He blundered out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Even a shower failed to revive him, although it removed most of the sensory reminders of the night before. Out into the bedroom, clothes, jeans, sweater. The bed reeked of Delia — at second hand. His track suit smelled like the morning after an orgy. Reasonably enough.

He grabbed great-grandpop's coat, let himself out and roared away up the road in his car.

There was a card pinned to the shop door. One of the shop's business cards, a message from Ethel scrawled on the back:

You remember my address? You know the name of the street, it is number 23. See you there.

Love — E

So she had been here, and waited as long as she could, then gone home to wait there. He knew how to find the street, by retracing the route they had taken the previous weekend after the car trip. Clever girl, she had realised that her entire street was made up of identical little houses. He would never have remembered the number. Imagine knocking on every door in the street, asking for Ethel. Bad idea, Russell.

He unpinned the card and set off down the sloping cobbles. The nanny was plodding up the middle of the street, without her pram this time. She half smiled at him, shyly, when he wished her good-day.

At the bottom of the street he had to turn left and go through the market. Past the church, along an alley, turn right and Bob's your uncle. He glanced back up Archdeacon Street. The nanny was just disappearing into a house at the the top, and looking back over her shoulder at him.

Feeling a little pleased but a little foolish, Russ looked at the number on Ethel's card, Number 23, same as Claire's age, then tucked it into his coat pocket and swung left down the narrow passage leading to the market square. It was a tight squeeze: there was a van parked at the end of the passage. Probably not too many people came this way at the weekend, so the van wasn't really causing an obstruction. He squeezed past it, brushed the dust off his coat ... and froze in his tracks.

An ordinary unlettered white Ford Transit panel van, long wheelbase, twin rear wheels.

The two cards were still in his coat pocket. He dragged them out. The original one, with a few pencil figures in one corner. The second one with Ethel's writing and a pinhole at the top.

Back past the van, and up the alley to the bottom end of Archdeacon Street. Russ pulled out the two cards and held them in his hand, gazing up at the cast-iron street sign. Or where it ought to be. Nothing happened. He tried again, clutching his original card between shaking fingers. Again with Ethel's card. His heart was thumping in his chest, there was a sour taste in his throat as he retraced his steps along the alley between the leaning red brick walls to the street where his car was parked.

The phone box in the market square had been out of order. The one by the station worked, but the number just rang and rang. Claire still not back from her girlfriend's? Surely, it must be nearly one o' clock! There was still credit on the pay-phone. Quickly, fingers trembling, he tapped out Delia's number.

"My car's been stolen. I was on my way back to see Ethel, but something's gone wrong with ... with the gateway or whatever you call it...?"

"And I found myself back where I started. So I went back to the car, and it was gone."

"At the station. I haven't called the police yet. I tried Claire. No answer. Isn't she back yet?"

"It's here. The police brought it back on Friday! After they'd finished all their forensic stuff."

"Don't go away. I'll get Mum to come and pick you up. I'm coming too. And Claire, I suppose," she added very much as an afterthought.

He stopped dead. Sally was almost sobbing on the other end of the phone. She took a deep breath and carried on.

"You can't go back, not until we've sorted out what's happened. I'll help you work it out. Trust me..."

"I have to try again. I've got my card. I'll just walk up there and try again as if nothing had happened."

"Russie, darling!" Sally's voice was urgent, pleading. "You've been away three weeks!"

"I'm not. I wish I was. Russie. Wait there. Do not call the police. We'll collect you. Please. I love..."

The wavering tone cut her off, mocking him as he rapped at the receiver rest and pushed every button in sight. Then he slammed the phone down with unnecessary force and blundered out of the phone box into the chill wind. He had no more change for another call.

Sobbing, he turned away and stumbled drunkenly up the steep roadway from the station. It took half an hour of aimless and frantic searching of the unfamiliar streets just to find the alleyway. And although he approached it half a dozen times, clutching one card or the other or both at the same time. He remained stubbornly where he was. Or when.

Russ turned, saw for the first time the police car. A police woman was sitting inside, talking on the phone. The policeman was young, not confident, out of his depth.

"You'd better come down to the car for a moment, sir. If you don't mind. We just need to make a quick call. Come along, sir. It's warm in the car." He held out a hand to take Russ's arm.

Feeling hopeless, Russ accompanied him down the damp street. A few minutes later, with the surprised police woman comforting him in the back seat as he broke down completely, the car delivered him to the police station.

They found him, of course. Led by Delia, three of the women in Russell's life stormed into the police station to rescue their man. Only Sally knew more than the bare bones of the story, and she was unable to tell what she knew. She stood close by his side while Claire and Delia negotiated the release of the prisoner.

It was dark outside when the formalities were completed to anyone's partial satisfaction.

"You can take him home, but we will be making further enquiries over the next few days."

"We've made up a bed in the spare room for you. The doctor said it's probably best if you don't ... well, if we don't do it for a day or two." Claire fussed around him while Delia made endless cups of coffee for anyone who stood still for more than ten seconds.

"Bugger the doctor! I don't know why I had to see him. And I'm not tired. Why should I want to go to bed at half past five in the evening?"

Russ looked helplessly at Sally, who shook her head quickly and pointed at her watch. There was no way out of it. He had to allow himself to be escorted upstairs to the poky little back bedroom, undressed and put to bed like a toddler.

"You must have been somewhere. You haven't been wandering the streets for three weeks." Claire ran her fingers through his hair. "You must have been washing your hair regularly. It feels soft and clean."

"Of course it is. I washed it this morning at home. Before you came home from what's-her-name's place."

"Silly! That was weeks ago. I've been here at Mum's ever since you went missing. Can't you remember anything about it?"

"I can remember everything as if it were yesterday. It was yesterday, that's why!"

"Now, don't get excited, love. You need rest. Maybe it will all come back to you when you wake up. Now, one of us will be here with you in case you wake up and want anything, so you needn't worry about a thing. Just sleep. Sleep."

He sighed hopelessly and closed his eyes. The bed was warm and comfortable. He was tired. Last night had been almost entirely sleepless, thanks to Delia's attentions. Delia had the most amazing powers of recovery for a middle-aged woman. Rushing around like a two-year-old.

Claire had settled down in the chair by the bed, engrossed in the fashion pages of her Sunday magazine. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them, seconds later, it was Sally sitting there. She had a book with her, but she wasn't reading. As soon as he opened his eyes, she leaned forward and placed a cool hand on his forehead.

"Mum's going to call them in the morning. I insisted on taking my turn sitting with you. We're doing two hours on and four off."

Her fingers twined with his as he reached out. She already had a hankie in her other hand to dry his tears.

"I want to talk about it before I forget." He struggled to sit up, and Sally placed a pillow behind his head and carefully closed the door.

"My original one, the one that we've always used. And the one Ethel pinned to the door of the shop."

"Wait a minute. Start again from the beginning. She pinned a card to the shop door? When was this?"

"This morning? You mean three weeks ago?" She hurriedly corrected herself as he began to object. "Okay, love. This morning."

"I was knackered. You were doing a Biology project with your girlfriend, and I spent the night here."

"There are some questions which ought to remain unasked, dear. Especially about your own mother."

"That's all right. If you stayed all night, she must have been pretty good. She's got great tits, too. Pity about her fat arse, but she's no spring chicken any more. Hey, you won't tell her I said that about her tits. She'd never let me hear the last of it. Anyway, get on with the story, I haven't got all night."

"I was about an hour late when I woke up. The church bells woke me. I had a quick shower and got dressed, then parked the car in the usual place."

"I told the police where to find it," Sally said proudly. "I couldn't tell them how I knew you left it there. Did you know, that's the area where the naughty girls hang out!"

"I believe they do, now. Those coppers thought I was looking for a pro. Anyway, I went to the shop, and Ethel had gone home. She left a card pinned to the door with a message on it. Her house number. As far as I remember, I was looking at that card when I passed the bottom of the street, you know, where it all happens?"

"In my pocket, I suppose. If I had taken it out just there, I would have been dumped back in 1999."

"I turned down towards the market and there was a van parked there. A nearly new one. I realised something was wrong and went back up, but I couldn't make the card work. Neither of the cards."

"I tried them again after I spoke to you this afternoon. They'll be in my overcoat pocket."

"Okay. They'll be safe in there. I'll check when Claire comes in to take over at one." She stroked his forehead, her hand cool. "Can you sleep again now?"

"And she'll be worried about you, too. She loves you, Russie. She told me she creams herself the whole time. Oops! Sorry. Girl talk! She'll be worrying, too. But we'll get you back to her. Soon. Come on, don't cry again. Just lie down. Relax. I'll be here if you want anything." Sally's lips were so soft on his eyelids. He opened them again and intercepted her mouth. For a moment, their lips met, full, wet and open. "Russie. If you do that again, I'll have to disobey Mum's direct orders and climb in there with you!" She leaned closer, her massive young breasts heavy and full against his chest. "We'll have to leave it a couple of days, 'til you've seen the doctor again. Then we'll go and find her for you."

In the event, it was almost a week before the doctor examined Russ and found him apparently normal. Fit enough to drive, at least. Sally helped him into his coat.

"It's okay, Mum. I just need to get a few things from the market. Anything else you need, too. And Russ needs to go, too, to sort out the business about the car. We'll be back before dark. I can take good care of him."

"Yes, you probably could," said Delia darkly. "Just don't let him out of your sight. If Claire comes home from work and finds him missing again, she'll go spare."

"It used to be all right. Nothing went wrong until four weeks ago. Or one week. If you ask me, it was only a glitch. You have to try it again. There has to be a first time. I'll be with you. I'll hold your hand."

Like you're holding it now. It's all right, officer, she's my girlfriend's kid sister.

Once out of the car, it was slightly easier. The girl's presence lent a slight feeling of normality, familiarity, to the act of walking up to the end of the street and clutching the card.

Back in the car, the atmosphere was leaden. "I told you it wouldn't work. It's broken. Apart from which, I've lost three weeks out of my life."

"Look, what's changed?" Sally clenched her fist and pressed it against her forehead. "Think back. You got in okay, you unpinned the card from the door, you came back down the street. Was the street still there at that stage?"

"I saw someone. A nanny. A young girl. We've seen her before. I said good day and she smiled."

"You randy bugger! But that's something, anyway. It was still 1928 as you came down the street. Then what?"

"I got to the bottom and turned left, you know, past the place where the gateway is..."

"In my pocket. I had the other card in my hand, reading what Ethel had written on it."

Sally looked at him, her mouth open. "Give me that card. The one with the pinhole."

"Before you go. Good luck!" And her kiss practically scorched his underpants off. Claire was a tremendous enthusiast, Delia a consummate expert, Sally could probably turn out to be the most accomplished lover of all time.

A minute later, on winged feet, he was walking up Archdeacon Street towards Number 12a.

The shop was almost dark inside, despite the brightness of the day. Nobody had lit the gas lamps. Herbert was nowhere to be seen. He would surely have appeared by now. Faintly, from somewhere came a scratchy jazz tune, a ponderous blues theme. Down in the back room, the music would effectively drown out the sound of the doorbell. The bell on the counter was much louder. He raised his fist to give it a sharp rap.

But he didn't ring the bell. Instead, he went around the side of the counter. The door at the top of the steps opened silently and the music poured out up the steps, a howling lament of forlornness and despair.

She was sitting with her back to the door, a slumped little figure in a grey woollen dress, her head cradled on her arms on the plain wooden table. The sheer, black hopelessness of her attitude brought a lump to his throat. The record stopped but she didn't move. No doubt, she would eventually. In ten minutes or so, after the clockwork had run down and the turntable had grumbled to a halt, she would bestir herself and wind it up again for another three minutes of collectively improvised misery.

His footsteps carried him unheeded to the gramophone. He found what he sought, on top of a pile of discs. Removing the dirge-like platter from the still spinning turntable, he replaced it with his own choice. The handle turned easily, it had almost run down. He lowered the needle into the groove.

Russ felt his scalp tingle as never before. Ethel seemed to stiffen. Her head moved and she seemed to focus on the table top, trying to absorb what was happening. She looked sharply at the gramophone, then sat upright and stared wildly around the room.

Her eyes were fiery red and puffy. How long had she been sitting here crying her eyes out? Her gaze settled on him, not believing. He nodded. She shook her head, looked away, looked back again. The music confused her. If Russ was not in fact here, standing there by the table, how had the music changed? She got up slowly and stumbled into his arms as the record played on around them.

"With whatever it is that brings me here. I came on the Sunday. I was late. You'd pinned a card to the door? I took it ... and everything went wrong from there. Somehow, I got back home three weeks late, three hours after I had left. My car had gone, I got arrested. And I couldn't get back to you."

"I don't know what went wrong. Sally's been brilliant. I think she's worked out what went wrong, but I won't know until I get back to her. I can't stop long, I left her in the car. It's not a very salubrious area."

"Weeks," she wailed, her tears welling down her cheeks again. "Three weeks? A month. It could be. I've lost all sense of time. It has been so long."

"A month? Oh, God! It's only been five or six days for me. I lost three weeks of my life somewhere. I can't explain it at all. The whole thing is ridiculous. But I've got to go now. I can't leave Sally sitting there. I'll be back. It is Saturday today?"

She nodded, and he carried on, the words tumbling out. "Tomorrow? Will you be here tomorrow? Can Herbert come in?"

"No. Not now. Later, I promise. But not now. It's all been too much. Do you have to go?" She clung to his sleeve.

"Please, Ethel! It's too dangerous. Anything might go wrong. We've seen what can happen. Look here." Ethel looked at him expectantly. "I'll come back tomorrow lunchtime. I promise."

"Good. Give you something to do." She followed him up into the shop. "I'll tell Sally. Where's your bra?"

"You'll wear it tomorrow! You will be dressed up to the nines for me, and Sally? Should I bring her? If I don't, she'll make my life a misery."

Ethel laughed for the first time, a shaky mixture of laugh and sob. "Bring her! She can always mind the store if we're otherwise occupied!"

Chapter 10:— Three Short Weeks

THE CAR WAS still there, reassuringly. At least, the police hadn't taken it away this time.

The car was locked, the keys missing from the ignition. She had got bored and gone for a walk. Not Sally, not round here, not looking the way Sally looked. The engine was still warm, and peering through the driver's window, he could see the clock. He had been gone half an hour. That figured, it seemed about right. Long enough for Sally to get bored with the inactivity. Where would she go? The market would be the best bet, any other direction would be to take her into less and less desirable areas.

At least, if she had been seized and dragged away, she wouldn't have taken the keys out and locked up after her. Russ looked around. Head for the market square and hope to meet her on her way back. Give her a good telling-off. She'd probably be contrite, although she might come over like a teenager and sulk for a while. Not that Sally's sulks ever lasted long.

The sun came out as he set off. The little minx, taking the car keys with her. It was cold out here. The sun had no warmth to it, it just added a bit of sparkle to things. And cast a different light on them.

Something was written on the roof of the car. A moistened finger had left the faintest traces in the dust. The pale sunshine brought it into stark relief.

Three kisses! It would take more than three bloody kisses, girl. Exploring, for Chrissakes! On a Saturday night in what was practically the red light district of Staunchbury. Where?

The sudden thought chilled him. Was it possible? She had asked him for the other card. Left him with just the original, the card that worked. And it had worked, on its own. But Sally had another card, and it certainly did something! But what?

Surely not! Not even Sally would do that, on her own. It occurred to him then. She wouldn't try it with him. She would only try it on her own.

With sinking heart, he set off up the alley. An hour later, he returned. The engine was now cold, the car doors still locked. The walk down to the station and the nearest working public phone was numbingly familiar. And this time, when he called her number, the voice that answered would not be Sally's.

It wasn't Sally's voice. It wasn't really anybody's. Russ tried to leave a message after the beep, but the words weren't there. There was still no reply half an hour later after he had sat on an unyielding plastic bench in the station, watching commuting passengers go in and out, watching and seeing nothing. Thoughts refused to marshal themselves in his whirling brain.

He set off up the hill again. She wouldn't be there. His car would be inaccessible, useless and empty. And somewhere, Sally — wonderful, infuriating girl — was wandering around with a business card in her hand, trying to get back to where she belonged. Who could he turn to?

No other logical choice presented itself. Only Ethel could help now. If nothing else, she represented warmth and comfort. Evening was closing in. The choice was to walk home, ten miles; catch a bus, God knows when; or go back seventy years and try to explain everything to Ethel.

He walked past the car — the dewy rime on the roof still bore evidence of Sally's last message: 'S. xxx' it said — and strode off up the alley.

It must have been closing time, but the lights were on inside the shop. He pushed at the door, but it was locked. A blind had been pulled down over the glass. She must be still here. She must.

He beat on the glass with his fist. And again. He was about to admit cruel defeat, when he heard steps on the other side of the door. "We're closed. I'm sorry!"

"Russ?" The blind was pulled aside and a face stared out into the blackness. He would be no more than a silhouette against the darkening sky. But there was a scrabbling at the bolts and a rattling of keys, and the door was flung open. "Russ!"

"Thank God you're still here." For a while, they said nothing. Ethel bolted the door again, then hugged him tight and made little comforting noises, for she could see he was in a state, and it was probably something to do with 1999, a world over which she had no control.

"Now, what is it, darling? You weren't coming back until tomorrow, you know. Too much excitement in one day isn't good for a girl."

"Well, that's something, at least. I went back to the car. Remember, I left Sally there on her own?"

"Said she'd gone exploring, whatever that means. I think she's gone wandering off into another time."

"I tried. She'd locked the car and taken the keys with her. I tried phoning home, but only got the machine."

"The answering machine. I didn't leave a message; I was too upset to say anything."

"Poor dear." Machines answering the phone were beyond her ken, but being too upset to speak was familiar enough.

"Where would she go? She had the other card with her. We had an idea that using the other card was what dumped me back in 1999 three weeks late. If Sally used that card to get back here. She wouldn't necessarily turn up straight away. She might not arrive until three weeks later."

"No, if she was here three weeks earlier, she'd already have been. You'd have seen her here on her own, three weeks ago."

Russ ground his fists into his eyes. "I can't think straight. She left an hour and a half ago. Let's say she arrives in three weeks' time..."

"No, darling. That won't work. It would mean she'd have been flying around somewhere for three weeks. Or nowhere. If she wasn't anywhere during that time, how would she eat?"

"Say she's here in three weeks time. If we could jump forward three weeks, we'd find her there?"

"Sounds ridiculous enough to be true. But if she went back through the gateway again, she'd be back at the car tonight, waiting for me?"

"Right, let's go home. We can't think on an empty stomach. And from what you say, your house is full of machines tonight. Spend the night at my place."

"I don't think she will. She knows what time we shut. If she can't find us at the shop, she'll go back to your car. She's got the key, you said."

"It's no good worrying any more. Come to bed. Do you want the double bed, or the single in the other room?"

Ethel looked at Russ's crestfallen face and laughed. "Surely you're not thinking what I think you're thinking?"

"I do. You must get some sleep. If I slept with you, I'm afraid neither of us would sleep at all, would we?"

"Then you have my double bed. I'll sleep in the other room. If I get lonely, I might come and visit you. But you have to go to sleep first. On your own. You can wear a nightgown."

"All right. Freeze to death, see if I care. You should have brought your pyjamas."

Seconds later, blinking at the light, Sally was in the narrow hall, hugging Ethel, the two of them pouring kisses on each other.

"Come into the living room. I've got a surprise for you." And she dragged Sally by the hand into the living room where Russ was behind the settee, with just his head peering over the top.

But she had arrived, embarrassing Ethel with the abandonment of her greeting, kissing, kissing, holding his head, kissing his face all over. "Come out from there and let me get at you properly!"

"Why not?" Sally kneeled upright on the settee and looked over the back. Russ cringed and curled up like a great big foetus. "What are you wearing?"

Sally, realising that Russ wasn't coming out, decided to go in and fetch him. A few well-placed pokes and prods brought him forth and he stood half-bowed, with his hairy legs protruding and his toes turned inwards.

"Come on, then. You'd better have the last of this soup. Then you can tell Russ what you've been getting up to."

Sally wiped her bowl with a crust of bread. "And I tried just about every Number 23 in town before I arrived here. I ruled some of them out, but I did knock on about half a dozen front doors."

Sally nodded. "I got some dirty looks. But once I saw it wasn't you, I ran off."

"A few days after you came back. Remember how you lost three weeks? We put you to bed for a few days, then the doctor let you get up and said you could drive again, and you said the first thing you were going to do was to go and get a spare set of car keys, so if ever you got lost again, somebody could bring your car back."

"You didn't believe me either, at first. You see now, though, don't you? Please, Sally, say you believe me? You came to Staunchbury today with me. I came to see Ethel — right, Ethel? — and left you in the car. When I got back, you'd gone exploring."

"But it's three whole weeks since the doctor said you were okay. I did go through the gateway with a card. That was three weeks ago."

"I certainly haven't been back to 1999. Bor-ing! I've been staying with Herbie. I had a hell of a job tracking him down. Luckily there aren't too many Chamberses around Staunchbury."

"Yes, he told me all about it. He's with his mum and dad. I think I finally persuaded him not to worry, but it wasn't easy. I told him it happens all the time. I said if he sees the boss tomorrow, and explains everything, they'll let him have his job back. A good boy like him is hard to find. Anyway, his parents have gone up North — they left today — so I couldn't stay there any more. So I dug out Ethel's card, and here I am."

"Wait a minute," Russ had been staring from one to the other of the two women. "What's all this Herbie business about?"

"Only once, he said, and only because she was so cut up about you going off and not coming back. But when the boss caught them at it, he sent Herbie away. Not very fair, really. What's the matter? Eth? Russie? What's the matter with everyone? It was only a bit of sex."

Russ looked up, his face haggard. Ethel was staring at the pattern on the carpet. Sally was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

"Like what? I'd better go to bed." Russ got up abruptly. "I'll take the little bed. You two can share the big one."

A clock was striking somewhere. Four … five, at least. It was still dark outside the drawn curtains. An unfamiliar clock, which Russ's mind half acknowledged was Staunchbury church.

"Russ?" It was a whisper, unrecognisable from one word. The narrow bed creaked behind him, then a chill as the blanket and sheet were pulled back. He froze, unmoving. It was one of the two women, God alone knew which one.

A very large and very warm pair of breasts spread themselves across his back. That wasn't much help at identifying which girl. No help at all. He was uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was still wearing Ethel's spare nightdress. Moist lips brushed his shoulder through the lace. It had to be Ethel: Sally would have been doubled up with giggles by now.

"Of course it's me," she whispered indignantly. "Who were you expecting? Sally sent me. She's going to get up and make us some breakfast."

"Sally's going to get up?" Russ turned on to his back and peered into the darkness where he knew Ethel must be.

"At seven o' clock. We've got an hour. To talk, if you like. Or anything…" Her voice tailed off.

The silence lengthened. Somewhere in the street, a horse clopped slowly, steel-shod wheels grinding on the cobblestones. There was a comforting clink of milk bottles. A cat yowled. There were chickens out there, not far away, perhaps at any moment a cockerel would let rip…

The noise was a deafening blast, rattling the windows in their frames, a thunderous blaring banshee howl that went on and on and on in the night. It finally ended, echoing around the rooftops, leaving half a dozen distant dogs barking in protest.

"Six o' clock," said Ethel comfortably snuggling down beneath the covers. "The factory hooter."

"But it's … it's deafening. You shouldn't have to put up with that! On a Sunday morning, too."

"They work shifts seven days. It's just down the end of the street. It goes again at seven, then twice at dinner time and again at six in the evening. Lie down, Russie! We have to talk."

Russ supposed they did. There was a lot to discuss, after all. As a time traveller, he'd made an inauspicious start, knocking up one of the local inhabitants. That was simply not done. These rules were laid down for everyone's protection.

"Sally told me to come in and talk everything over with you. We stayed up for hours last night. She's brilliant, isn't she? She worked out everything that could go wrong when I have your baby."

"I want him to be yours," said Ethel firmly. "A little boy to remind me … after you've…"

"We only did it once, Herbert and me. Out in the back room, on the work table. It wasn't even very good. He took about thirty seconds. He didn't even take his boots off. We had an argument afterwards and he ran off. And later, when he came back to say sorry, I wouldn't let him apologise. That's when Mr Spreadbury came in and found us. The stupid thing is, we weren't doing anything, not then, but Herbert had his hand on my … my chest."

Ethel thought about it and decided he probably had. "He shouted at Herbert to get out. I tried to explain, but it all came out wrong. Poor Herbert."

"You went off and didn't show up the next day, even when I left you a note. The next day, I went into the shop, of course. And I was sitting there in the work room when Herbert came in. One of Sally's bras was on the table. I'd been going to ask you to help me put it on when you arrived, but you didn't come. Anyway, I was sort of holding it in my hands when Herbert appeared. And he made a funny kind of noise and started crying. That made two of us. And one thing kind of led to another."

"I didn't mean to, Russ! I wasn't thinking clearly. You'd gone, and for all I knew, you weren't ever coming back. I suppose Herbert felt the same way about Sally, in a way. And when we stopped comforting each other, we just automatically did it. We were holding on to each other and he was sort of sticking out! I don't know how we ended up on the table, but once we were on there, it didn't take long. And I got angry and said he'd taken advantage of me. It was horrible of me, I know. Poor Herbert!"

12a Archdeacon Street

A x o l o t l

Part 2

Chapter 5:— Interruptus

Chapter 6:— Girls Just Wanna Have Sex

Chapter 7:— A-Level Biology

Chapter 8:— A Lewd Interlude

Chapter 9:— Out Of Time

Chapter 10:— Three Short Weeks

End of Part 2