“What if… what if I… put the tip inside?”
“Inside what?” Alyson’s eyes went wide. She held her breath.
“It felt so natural. We were slapping together. And… I angled up.” Nick waited, but she didn’t say anything. “It was just the head. She was too tight for anything more, I think.”
“Holy… fuckballs… Nicky.” Alyson stared at her brother.
“Yeah, holy fuckballs.” Nick nodded in agreement.
“Well… that could… complete some circles… I guess.” She thought through the situation. “But you’re probably okay. I mean… you’re not okay. I mean, I don’t know.”
“I shouldn’t have done it. I just couldn’t help myself.” Nick sighed.
“Yeah.” Alyson nodded. “You shouldn’t put your dick in Mom’s pussy. It goes without saying. That’s sort of a last resort kind of thing. Not a third time through the loop kind of thing.”
“So, what should I do?” Nick was terrified he’d ruined it with his mother, and that she would end it just as he moved past the puzzle. That was just the sort of twisted shit he’d expect from Enki.
“Go to your room. Don’t come out. That way you can’t do anything that completes any circles. And hopefully, you’ll wake up on the next today.” Alyson got up.
“What are you going to do?” Nick got up too and moved to the doorway.
“I brought the puzzle back with me, so we’ll have it here just in case.” Alyson looked out the kitchen window and saw their mother’s car pulling in. “I’ll talk to Mom. I’ll try and calm her down.” She caught the look in her brother’s eye. “Without actually talking about what happened, of course. Now go to your room. Pretend you’re sick. Don’t come out until tomorrow. I mean, the next today.”
Nick followed his sister’s directions perfectly.
~~
The sweet, two-toned song of a chickadee woke Nick at dawn’s first light. He blinked his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. “Thank God, it’s Thursday again.” He checked his phone. It was indeed Thursday. He sighed and dropped his head back on his pillow. “We get to start over.”
It wasn’t elation that seized him like he was expecting. As he rose from bed and dressed, he felt the horror of having pushed his mother away. He promised himself he would be more careful. When he finally made it into the future, it would be with a mother who could trust him. He said goodbye to Chirpee and went to wake up his sister.
He shook Alyson’s shoulder when he reached her bed. “It’s still Thursday.”
“Hooray for you and Mom.” Her voice was muffled by the pillow. She didn’t roll over. “Poking her in the holiest of holies didn’t complete the circle, it seems.”
“It did not.” Nick slumped down on the bed, sitting by Alyson’s hip. He was drained and exhausted. He knew his mother would be ready for another fun day of bonding, but as amazing as it was, the thought exhausted him further. He could screw it up at any moment, and the consequences could be permanent. “I don’t have any idea how we complete the circle. Maybe it’s better if we just stay in Thursday.”
“Don’t be stupid, Nicky.” Alyson turned over and put a hand on his thigh. “We would go crazy looping forever. Anyway, the last today gave me an idea about the riddle.”
“Yeah?” He thought she looked a mess. Her face was lined by her pillowcase, and her hair went every which way. He raised his eyebrows. “What idea?”
“I promised I’d talk to Mom. And I did. She was needy. We didn’t talk about what happened, of course. But I just sort of… comforted her.” Alyson wanted to burst out with her big idea, but she knew she needed to lay the groundwork. She wasn’t sure how Nick would take it. “We cuddled in the basement and watched a movie after dinner. She noticed my boobs, so I told her the same lie about birth control from before. She was really handsy with me, Nick. I think when you messed things up with her, she came to me as sort of your replacement. She didn’t go to Dad. He was upstairs watching the game on his phone.”
“Okay…” Nick didn’t know where she was going with this. “What’s your point?”
“Here, it’ll help if I show you.” Alyson got out of bed and went to her desk. She wrote on a piece of paper: 1 2 3. She showed it to Nick. “Mom’s one, you’re two, and I’m three. So, I’ve been thinking about this logically. One and two have traded… um… drinks as the riddle put it. The same with two and three. That forms a straight line, right?”
“Yeah, it’s a line.” Nick thought about it. “So, how do you make it into a circle. I’m always in the middle. There’s no middle in a circle.”
“Exactly.” Alyson drew a circle with 1, 2, and 3 at equidistant points around the edge.
“You and Mom…?”
“It’s gross, but that’s what Enki wants.” Alyson certainly would have thought it was disgusting not long ago, but that was before her mom had turned her on like crazy. Now she could picture herself kissing her mom with a mixture of excitement, aversion, and yearning.
“So, Enki doesn’t want me to have sex with her.” Nick sighed. He wasn’t sure how he felt about any of these revelations.
“Not so fast.”
“But I thought you said it was up to you now?” Nick scratched his head.
“Mom was so open with me because you messed up.” Alyson screwed up her face like she was about to deliver bad news. She was. “You have to mess up again. And then I think I can close the deal.”
“That sucks, Alyson.” Nick fell onto his back and looked at the ceiling. “More days like the last today?”