Imago Arc 1: Lust Chapter 1: The Crush
Why was Mason so cute? I'd been into him for years, and he just gets hotter every year. It didn't help that we were friends...best friends. I even accidentally outed myself to him a little, I think. He either didn't notice or brushed it off. I think he took it in, accepted it, and moved on. He was just that amazing.
He'd always had girlfriends, and part of me understood that I was probably never going to be the one he chose. Then there was the part of me that hoped, that wished. Maybe someday he'd see me in a way he never has before. A boy can dream, right?
I was daydreaming about him when I stumbled upon the place. You know the place. It's the one that seems to be in every tale of modern day magic. It's the store of rarities and antiquities that sells only the very thing you need to make all your wishes come true. And it never ever goes wrong. Not once.
Something sparkly caught my eye in the window and I went inside, but of course I couldn't see it anymore, once I was inside. I browsed, not expecting to see anything I liked, but not really intending to buy anything anyway.
"Allow me to help you find what you need," an old woman croaked behind me.
I jumped.
I may have peed a little.
"You scared me," I told her.
"Yes yes, I do that." The cackle that followed made me want to crawl out of my skin. "Tell me, child, what is it you wish for?"
"I don't know. A million bucks, maybe."
She smacked the back of my hand. For someone of her age, it had a lot of force. "Don't lie to me, boy. You never would have found this place if there wasn't something your heart longed for. What is it you want more than anything else in the world?"
I don't know why I told the truth. Maybe she intimidated me so much I couldn't think of lying any more. "I want the boy I love to feel the same way. You wouldn't happen to sell love potions?"
She cackled again. Still creepy as fuck. "No, but I have the next best thing. Come over here." She led me around a corner and started removing bits of detritus that were draped over an intricately carved wooden box, about midway between the size of a toaster and a microwave. Lifting it without noticeable strain, she carried it to the counter up front. Setting it down, she opened it and pulled out a thick book.
"This is an Imago projector." She turned it so I could see the lens on one side. It was square and flat, unlike a normal camera lens, and sat flush with the side of the box. "Hand me your driver's license, Zac."
Once again, she startled me. "How do you know my name?"
"You're in a magic store that only appears for people who need it. Why would my knowing your name surprise you? No more foolish questions you can answer on your own. Your driver's license?" Her palm was out to me. I handed it over and she placed it inside the box, closing it. She rotated a circle I'd assumed was part of the pattern on the top of the box and pressed another one that was obviously a button. I wondered how many of those intricately designed wooden circles were actually dials and buttons. Maybe all of them?
A light fired from the lens and quickly coalesced into an image of me. Wait, not an image. It was opaque and 3D.
"Whoa! Where am I?" it asked. It wore the same clothes I'd been wearing in the photo, and its hair was freshly cut and styled. My stomach turned a little. I hated looking at myself. I had too much chunk, bad acne, stringy pale brown hair that refused to lie flat, and my mom didn't have the money we needed to get me the clothes the cute guys wore.
"Touch it," the old woman instructed. I did. It was solid.
"Could you not?" it told me. "Why do you look like me? What the actual fuck is going on?"
The woman and I ignored it. "Is that me?" I asked her.
"Not just you, but the version of you from the moment the picture was taken." She turned the dial and pressed the same button. The other me vanished. I let out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding, not suppressing my shudder of revulsion. "Not a fan of how you look, eh?"
"No," I said, my voice low. She pulled my license out and handed it back to me.
"Not everyone can be as beautiful as I am," she said, cackling again. I was getting kinda used to it, now. "That was just a demonstration. Do you see this wedge on the wheel made of the darker wood? That setting, with the same input inside the box, is the delete command. Never forget that. There's a lot of trial and error with this, and you don't want to get burdened with a bunch of rejects."
She picked up the thick book and placed it inside. "That's the manual. Even reading it through a hundred times and experimenting for decades, you're not going to grasp the full power of this thing. The combinations and applications are endless. Start slow and simple, until you get a handle on it. All your problems aren't going to be solved on the first try."
"How much is it?"
"You're going to learn how to use it and become proficient in the controls. I have something I want made, but I don't know how to do it, nor do I have the free time to learn how to master every aspect of the box. You do. Eventually, you'll know how to make what I need. That's when I'll come back for my payment. When I arrive, you will give me what I need with no hesitation. Is that understood?"
"I think so. Maybe. I'm not exactly positive."
"For today," she said as she pulled a blood red gem from a drawer behind the counter, "your price will be implanting that directive." The gem flashed a red so bright that it filled my entire field of vision. When it faded, I didn't feel any different. "Look at your wrist," she instructed. On the inside of my right wrist was a tattoo of a locked padlock, no bigger than a quarter. "You will never forget the price, or that the only way to pay the price is to study and experiment with the projector, so long as that lock exists. Oh, and it also locks the box to your use only, and gives you the ability to understand the language of the manual."
She grinned, showing browned and half missing teeth. "Here. An extra bonus." She waved her hand and a tattoo of barbed wire wrapped around the outside of my wrist, making an intricate woven pattern, with the lock holding it together."
"What does that do?" I asked her.
"It makes it sexy." She cackled again, and I couldn't help but giggle a bit as well. She wasn't wrong. "Now it's time for you to be on your way. I have another customer arriving soon. A girl who wants to turn back time and fix her mistakes." The old woman stood up straight and stretched her arms up like she was in the middle of a giant yawn. As she did, her body grew taller and broader. Her ragged shawl shook out into a sharp tweed suit, and her face became that of a middle aged white man.
"Off you pop,'' he said in a London accent. "Expect a package later tonight: a gift from a time traveling girl as part of her payment to me. It'll help you get started.
I picked up the Imago Projector and hurried out of the store. I heard the door close behind me, but when I turned around I was met with a brick wall.
Getting the box back home was a challenge, since it was heavier than I expected, and I wasn't used to carrying things around in my arms. Plus, the object alongside my backpack took up more space on the bus than I had any right to. The glares people were throwing at me pissed me off. "School project. Back off," I growled at the Karen who tried to physically move the box off the seat next to me.
I was lucky when I got home. Mom wasn't back from work yet. She must have been working overtime at the Coney Island. Good. We needed the money. She thought she was hiding it from me, but I knew. All I had to do was see how my other friends lived: clothes from stores that were the right size instead of whatever we could find at Goodwill, fridges stocked with food instead of a few to-go boxes from the restaurant, family members calling instead of collectors.
Don't get me wrong, there were always to-go containers, and day-old omelets weren't the worst things ever, though I was grudgingly tired of their particular menu. When there were options at goodwill, mom usually had a pretty good eye for things that would look half decent. As for the collectors, I was becoming quite adept at lying to them when I answered the phone.
Mason got me, though. He knew the struggle. He lived three buildings over with his mom and sister. Our moms would sometimes go to Goodwill together but they never fought. They didn't have to. Mason was tall and slender and regular clothes fit him, while I needed husky sizes. I hated that word. It was just another way to say fat kid.
I was in the process of stashing the projector under my bed when there was a knock on my door. Was this the delivery the old lady had promised? I opened the door and tried not to let the disappointment show. "Hey Isaac."
"Hey Zac. You busy?"
"A little," I told him, but I stood aside to let him in anyway. "I just got home and I need to do my homework." I needed to read that manual; the homework was just a speed bump.
"Ah. I was hoping you'd want to hang out for a bit." He was lonely. He was always lonely, among other things. "How long till your mom gets home?"
"No clue. I thought she'd be here before me today." I knew what he wanted. Normally I'd be fine with it, but I had things I wanted to do.
The phone rang, as if on cue, and I picked it up. Mom asked what I wanted for dinner, and said she'd be home in about an hour and a half. I placed my order and hung up. "90 minutes," I told Isaac. I let him push me onto the couch.
Almost faster than I could register, he grabbed my dick through my jeans. I hated that he knew exactly where to grab. He knew it would be hanging in the loose denim, a couple sizes too big just in case I had another growth spurt. He knew I hadn't worn underwear since finishing my P.E. requirements freshman year. He even knew I hung a bit to the right. He deftly opened my belt with the hand he wasn't slowly stroking me with, a practiced movement of his. I shuddered as he made sure the fabric, now fully loosened, slid around over my skin, knowing from way too much experience that the feeling got me worked up. This was why I never stopped letting him touch me, even after the thrill of experimenting had gone and left me with the hollow guilt of stringing along someone I didn't want.
I could feel how much he wanted me in his enthusiasm as he pulled my rock hard dick out. He knew I wasn't into him, but he loved making me cum despite that. Was it pride in his abilities? Did he have a crush on me despite knowing it wasn't mutual? Either way, he was damn good at giving head, and I wasn't about to say no to a free blow job.
I closed my eyes and imagined it was Mason. His was the tongue gracefully tracing a line up my shaft. His was the hand snaking into my jeans, under my balls, teasing my taint and asshole. I pictured looking down and seeing his crystal blue eyes looking into mine. His floppy 90s heartthrob chestnut-brown hair grazing my lower stomach every time he went down for a deep throat. His soft honey voice telling me he loved me.
Wait. What? I stared down into Isaac's mud brown eyes, sweat dripping from the mop of shaggy unkempt curls the color of wet cardboard. Did he just say he loved me? Despite my shock, my load sprayed in his face.
"Please tell me I didn't just hear what I thought I heard," I told him.
He wiped his face on the inside of his raggedy sweatshirt so it wouldn't show on the outside. It would be a sticky crusty mess on his chest later. "Sorry, it slipped out. Heat of the moment thing."
"Well slip it back in. We talked about this."
"I know. It's just some fun, nothing deep," he recited.
"Yeah, so no feelings. If you weren't so good at that, I wouldn't let it happen at all."
I put my dick away and tightened my belt so my pants wouldn't instantly drop to the floor the second I stood up. "I need to do my homework. I'm not kicking you out, but don't distract me." I grabbed my backpack from my room, and got my school books out at the table. Isaac stayed for a few minutes more but excused himself when I showed that I wasn't just making an excuse to get rid of him.
I was still working when mom got home. She set the styrofoam container in front of me and I munched on the fries as I studied. I scanned her when I knew she wasn't looking. Her hair was frizzed out and a bunch had come loose from her bun. Her uniform sat lopsided and wrinkled around her slumped body. If she could have afforded beer, she probably would have cracked one as she kicked her flats off next to the coffee table and rested her feet on the surface, her stockings barely holding together where the shoes would hide them.
I closed my books as she turned the television on. I couldn't study with noise, and she knew it, but she obviously needed to unwind. I slid my books back into my backpack and started eating the reuben from the container. It was fine. It was probably even good, but I'd had the entire menu too many times to actually be impressed.
I sighed, making sure to keep it low enough that she couldn't hear. I filled a glass of water from the tap and checked the Motrin bottle on the sill. Two left. I brought both to the couch and handed them to her.
She shook her head when she opened the bottle and looked inside. "I'm alright. I'll save them for when I really need them, but thanks for the water." I nodded and put the pill bottle back. I blinked back the tears that were trying to fall. I could see by how gingerly she moved that she was hurting, but she couldn't buy a new bottle. It told me just how low we were scraping by. Her stomach gurgled as it processed the water. She hadn't had dinner. Had she eaten at all today?
I took my backpack to my room and set it down. Everything I needed to turn in was done, with some extra studying for good measure. I could study the manual with a clear mind. I was pulling the projector from under my bed when a soft knock sounded from the front door of the apartment.
"I got it," I yelled from my room, hoping it would keep Mom from getting up. I rushed to the door to open it as before she could try to get up, but it didn't matter. She had already dozed off with the television on. I quietly opened the door as far as the chain would let me.
A girl with mousy brown hair looked up at me with eyes like giant pools of chocolate. I motioned with my hand to keep the volume down and asked if I could help her.
She took the hint and whispered back. "The man in the shop told me where to find you." It took me a second to remember that the old woman had changed shape. "I have a couple of things to make your life easier."
"One second," I told her and closed the door to unlatch it, then slipped into the hallway. "Let's go around this corner." I pointed down the hallway to Isaac's door. "Nosy neighbors in that one, and my mom's asleep on the couch in here." I pointed behind me. She nodded. Once we reached a safe place, I let her start. As she spoke, I looked her over. I knew her face somehow, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
She pulled a slim silver camera from her purse. "This one's just like mine, top of the line model from 2047. It's the highest quality that still has a USB port, period. Like, throughout time. Sixteen terabytes of data on this thing. You can store more pics than you have time to sort in your lifetime. And here," she said, handing me a plastic grocery bag with another odd box, `is a special printer with rolls of high-def paper. He said you'd only need one back up roll and you'd be able to make an infinite supply from it." She shrugged. "Not my monkeys, not my circus."
"Interesting," I said. I'd been thinking the projector just made people. Duplicating items created an entirely new set of opportunities. "Yes, I guess I can make more, but I wouldn't have thought of that on my own. I just got my item a couple hours ago and I don't know how it works yet."
"I've had mine for months now," she said. "Well, months of my time. I went in after you, apparently. Time travel can make dealing with the linear world tricky. Anyway, I have one more errand for you and then I'll be free to do what I want. Give me a list of three things you really wish you had pictures of that don't exist anymore. I have to find them, snap them, and give you the pics. I'll come back in two days for the list."
I shook my head. "No need; I already know. There's only one thing that interests me." I motioned for her to follow me back to my apartment. Checking to see if Mom was still asleep, I led the girl to my room as quietly as possible. Inside I took a framed picture off of my desk.
"Him. He's all I'm interested in. This is Mason, and I love him. Two pictures will be from late fall, a few months ago." I described to her the outfits he was wearing, even though I didn't know the specific days he had them on. She'd have to check in briefly each day, but it would literally be only minutes a day, and then she could pop to the next.
"The third is from our beginning Spanish field trip two years ago, and...oh. That's where I recognize you from. You were there. You took our picture. You had him stand in close and put his arm around me. I almost collapsed, I was so happy."
She chuckled. "I haven't done it yet. That's in my future. I'd say this was a bootstrap paradox, but I'm pretty sure that's the picture I would have taken if you hadn't said anything. Anyway, I think I have enough to go by to get your shots."
"Thank you...uh...what's your name?"
"Better if you didn't know it. Just use Time Girl. No one can torture information out of you that you don't have."
"Am I likely to be tortured by people hunting you?" I asked.
She grinned. "Not if you keep your mouth shut, Zac." With that, she tapped her watch twice and popped out of my room.
The British shopkeeper straightened his coat as the girl left the shop. Negotiations with her had taken hours, as had the training. The watch he gave her didn't have a manual like the Imago projectors did, so she was forced to stay until she understood the minute workings of the device.
"I thought she'd never leave," Tormelia's croaking voice said from behind him. He turned on his heel to see the crone staring at him through the ornate golden mirror on the back wall.
"I had to be done," he said. "This was the point in time we pulled her from. If we hadn't gotten her today, the paradoxes would have been astronomical."
The old woman rolled her eyes. "Cut the professor act, Merriwether. You're mansplaining this to me like I haven't known it for millennia. At least it's over now and I won't have to hear about it anymore." Merriweather still chuckled every time Tormelia used modern slang. The most ancient of them all had a weakness for pop culture.
"And yet you still nearly ran over our time with her to give another of your boxes away. How many is this now?"
"That was the thirteenth," Tormelia said. "I have a good feeling about this one. I wouldn't have risked it if I didn't think he was a superb candidate. Shall we report?"
Merriwether nodded and walked through a beaded curtain into the storage room. In the far end, where a normal building would have had a service or delivery entrance, stood a door made of a shining white metal that would have been jarringly out of place to anyone coming across it. No one would, though. Only those humans they called to the shop would ever see the interior, and even they would never reach the back room.
The space beyond the door was a vista of pure white and had no visible walls . Hundreds of panels of glass spun slowly in place, arranged in a circle. Nothing supported the panels as they rotated, and as he passed the first one, Tormelia appeared in it. The back face of the panel mirrored the front, so she would be facing him from both sides. One by one, the panels filled with the rest of his kin. Faces from every race and nation appeared, none of whom could walk the land without taking over the one body they had left -- the one Merriwether was now wore.
"It is done," he told the assembly. "The Time Jumper is in its proper hands." Sighs of relief echoed around the pocket dimension. "I will continue to be our liaison to her as I always have, but the hard part is complete. I gave her the instructions she needed and the world didn't blink out of existence when she left, so she understood them correctly."
Merriwether had one job, and that was the girl. She had been his responsibility since his people had been trapped into their shared existence, and would be until they were freed. Some of the others had multiple tasks, but Merriwther's was full time.
He felt a tug that told him someone else wanted to speak. He was done, so he allowed Tormelia to take control. His vision shifted to the panel she had left, and he watched and listened to the crone speak.
"I have set another Imago projetor into play. There are now thirteen."
"How many will you need?" asked Mara, a beautiful southeast Asian woman with flowing black hair that perpetually blew about, even when she was inside her panel.
"Only time will tell," Tormelia replied. "I don't have a guide for these, as they are a new insertion to the timeline. Many of the humans who look good on paper become problematic in practice. I keep refining my parameters and choosing new owners. I'm watching the ones who fail, and have figured out a way to use them to teach the new ones, so they still have their projectors. As always, I will watch the new one and make sure he remains viable. Some of the others are slipping too far, though, and will only be useful as cautionary tales."
"Merriwether's girl can't jump ahead and see what happens?" Mara asked.
"Alas, no. She can only reach non-magical locations in the future, and we can't watch her or direct her when she's there. Part of the curse that locked us into linear time, also bars any attempt at divination of any means."
Mara growled. "We are forced to work with trial and error where we could once bend the rules of the cosmos. How much longer must we exist in this reduced capacity?"
"Until a human can master the Imago projector," Tormelia said. "It is the best hope of release we have found."
Merriweather listened as more of his people gave report on their various projects, all while maneuvering to gain a spot back at Tormelia's side. "Are the rest of yours too far gone?" he asked her, while they still listened to the speaker.
"Twelve is still viable, though I don't know for how much longer. I think I might have something special with thirteen."
"What is that?" Merriweather asked.
"Empathy."
Author Notes:
"Arc 1: Lust" is completely written. It is 10 chapters long, and I'll release a chapter to Nifty once a week (Wednesdays?).
I have a Discord channel where I post status updates of my writing, and that will serve as a nexus for my other works on Nifty for easy access. Here is the join link: https://discord.gg/kVUrhJ7
I also have a Ko-Fi for TIPS ONLY. None of my work is behind a paywall, and the Ko-Fi is only there for anyone who wants to make my life easier. There is no pressure to donate, and only gratitude in return. The link is in my discord channel, linked above, because it looks like being linked to there directly from Nifty is against Ko-fi's TOS.
A special shout out to Crobin31 and Bakura on my Discord channel, who have hung in there during the long hiatus between stories. Much love!
~Jayce ( jaycemarvel501@gmail.com )