They kissed for about fifteen seconds. It was a pure,wonderful kiss, the sort that harkened back to times when a kiss wasn’t merelythe prelude to sex but enjoyable merely in itself. She had forgotten howamazing that felt.
Despite the purity of the moment, it could easily have ledon to more if she had wanted it to. She was sure he wouldn’t resist if she tookhis hand right there and then and led him up the stairs, but she wanted morefrom the day than just sex. She wanted to spend the whole day getting to knowthis younger him, savouring the anticipation, before she seduced him at the endof the evening.
She broke off the kiss and jumped up. “Come on,” she said.“If you’re going to be my boyfriend, you can take me out for the day. Let’smake it one to remember.”
A day to remember it certainly was. They took the bus intoOxford, bought sandwiches from the M&S Foodhall, and had a picnic in ChristChurch Meadow. They walked through the parks, holding hands, chatting andkissing in the sunshine. Then they hired a punt, something Kay had always wantedto do, and spent a lazy couple of hours on the River Cherwell. That was anotherbox ticked off under things she had always meant to do but never got round to.
Later they went into town and browsed around some long-goneand fondly remembered shops. Cornmarket Street had never been the same for hersince the day HMV had closed. Browsing through the racks of records and CDsthey discovered that they had more than a few artists in common.
When the store started playing a recent Saint Etienne singleand he remarked how much he liked them, she felt a rush of happiness at findingsuch a kindred spirit. He was everything she had hoped he would be and more.She would even go so far as to say she had found her soulmate. It waspotentially heartbreaking that she had found him in the wrong universe and inthe wrong time zone, but she tried not to think about that.
Before they got the bus home, they went to Old Orleans,Kay’s all-time favourite restaurant in Oxford. It had stood on the corner ofGeorge Street just down from The Apollo for decades when Kay was growing up.She had been gutted when it had closed down in the late noughties.
As with HMV, she relished the opportunity to visit this oldhaunt one final time. Drawing fifty quid out of the cashpoint, she treated himto a meal. He was flattered, and wanted to pay half, but she insisted. Themoney was of no future use to her in this world, so she may as well make use ofit. And fifty quid went a long way in 1994.
She ordered a rib and wing combo, while Kent chose a steak.As they ate, they chatted away about every subject under the sun. The more theytalked, the more she felt her affinity with him grow.
Smitten as she was, there was an unpleasant flip side to allof this that she was trying not to think about. Was she merely making thingsworse for herself by acting out this fantasy of what might have been? Wasliving this romantic dream right now going to make the pain of going home thatmuch more unbearable when the time came?
Her feelings for him were being magnified with every passingmoment. She couldn’t remember feeling this intensely about anyone for a longtime, but then, her feelings could be being enhanced by teenage hormones,something over which she had no control, even if her thoughts were those of a forty-three-year-old.
She had just about accepted that Kent couldn’t be hers inthe future before she had come here, but she knew that she was going to have todeal with those feelings all over again when she got back to 2018. No matter,she would just have to live with it. She remembered that old phrase: it wasbetter to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Well, she wasjust going to have to give him his whole lifetime of loving in this one day.
Catching the bus home, they reluctantly parted for a coupleof hours at teatime, returning home to get into their costumes. This gave herthe opportunity to spend a little time with her parents. Her mother had madeone of the gorgeous beef casseroles that had been Kay’s favourite meal when shewas growing up.
It was a serious case of pigging out on top of the meal shehad eaten only an hour or so before in the restaurant, but there was no way shewas missing the opportunity to enjoy her mother’s cooking. It wasn’t as if shehad to worry about the extra calories either. Just like with spending all hermoney, she wouldn’t have to worry about it later.
A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips, her motherused to say. Not today it wouldn’t be. Kay hadn’t eaten so well for months,living primarily off junk food since she had split with Alan. As long as shecould still fit into her Catwoman costume after eating two dinners, she wouldbe fine.
She enjoyed a great chat with her mum and dad over the meal,reminiscing about some of the holidays they had had when she was a kid. Shewished she could have spent more time with them, but tonight was all about herand Kent. There would be more opportunities for family time later. In fact, shealready had an idea in mind.
As soon as she had eaten, she headed upstairs to makeherself look beautiful – not that she really needed to. Looking at herself inthe mirror, she had to admit that she looked amazing. She was a flower in fullbloom, before the inevitably of aging had made that flower begin to wither.There was no going back for most people, just a long, slow decline into death.But Kay briefly had been given the chance to bloom afresh, and here she wasnow, dressed to kill in her Catwoman outfit.
Almost ready to go, she checked her handbag, making sure shehad stowed the pack
