Adam Lacombe sat back in the deep leather seat and frowned. This was bat crazy. He grinned, he had to. In life there are always those moments when you have to laugh or cry and this had to be one of them.

Caitlin Trance didn’t blink; she was well used to this response from first timers. In fact as such situations went, Adam was taking it rather well. The cool immaculate blonde appraised the dark-haired and somewhat rugged leather jacketed man in front of her with less than a professional eye. Damn, this is not the time she berated herself.

Adam didn’t like the over-sharp officious woman that much and wondered if she were mocking him. He hated her superior smile and her airline hostess hair piled carefully and tightly on her head. There was not a smudge on her oh so subtle make-up dressed face, and he distrusted such perfection.

“So you are saying that because Charlotte Dane, the First lady had some kind of domestic argument with her about to be ex-husband, World President, Mark Levingston-Khan, we are about to go to war?” Adam said lightly as if he heard such claims every day.

“Essentially yes,” Caitlin answered.

“And…” a smile broke onto his face as it could no longer contain the laughter, “You are saying that the only way the Time Corp has devised to prevent this war from happening, is for me to go back in time and give the said Ms Dane a personal attitude adjustment…?”

“Yes,” Caitlin said sharply. Her gaze was now fixed on the man as if all things hung on his understanding.

Adam opened his mouth and sucked in air.

“I thought… I mean,” he slapped the air and then seized at it with his large powerful hands as if clarity of thought could be captured too. “I thought that you people didn’t interfere in major events.”

“That’s right and we rarely, if ever try and change things, but this war… Mr Lacombe… oh God, we don’t have time for this. The Neutrino weapon has already been armed… there will be no more future if we don’t act.” Caitlin looked desperate.

“And the only way, of all the things… of all history to influence… the exact and only way is to go back into Charlotte Dane’s life and spank her?” Adam was incredulous, then because the idea was too big or too trivial he blurted out another thought, “And anyway… why me?”

“For the sake of all things holy…” Caitlin groaned. “I don’t have time to explain any of this.”

“Try,” Adam snarled.

“Okay…” Caitlin sighed as she gathered her patience. The clock was ticking but once he made a temporal exit, she supposed it wouldn’t matter. “We can’t change big things… that would be… look, just believe me, we can’t. We have determined that the pivotal moment, the one pivotal moment was when the President was late for a meeting at the end of last week. If the events of three days ago could have been delayed… for God’s sake we almost had it… the commandoes got there too late and now those damn maniacs have armed the…” Breathe, Caitlin, breathe, she told herself.

“And if Charlotte hadn’t picked that minute, if she hadn’t worn her estranged husband down to such an extent, then the great diplomat of the 23^rd century wouldn’t have been distracted at a crucial moment?” Adam put in.

“Exactly,” Caitlin said urgently.

“And one spanking will, what? Make her a nice person? Save their marriage…?” Adam frowned.

“Wwwwelll,” Caitlin drawled, “I estimate it will take at least three, maybe more… look here is a personal history. It’s a kind of itinerary. Key moments that will change her but have a negligible effect on our known history.”

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Adam asked suspiciously.

Of course she wasn’t, Caitlin thought bitterly, but they had only had hours to work out all the permutations. Hell, she hadn’t even consulted the Director or the President. But she was certain that all the other options they had considered had suggested somewhat negative outcomes.

“Yes,” Caitlin said emphatically.

“What if…?” Adam began.

Caitlin had no more patience. “Look Mr Lacombe, you are here. You are in the loop with regards to what we do, and you fit the profile. We have no more time,” she urged him. She held out the itinerary, her face dripping with exasperation.

“Fine,” he sighed, “What do I do?”

*

Charlotte Dane hadn’t been too sure how much laxolite to put in Lacy Jones’s coffee and at the last minute a small shred of decency had led her to only empty half a packet into the beverage. It hadn’t been her fault that Lacy had shared some with several other girls. Maybe if they hadn’t been such pains then the routine wouldn’t have been messed up. How was she to take over the squad from Lacy with half the girls either vomiting or otherwise in the locker rooms?

At least no one had suspected her intervention, she thought with a shrug. Well that debacle is down to Lacy now, after all she was the head of the cheerleading squad. Maybe now Charlotte finally had a shot.

Charlotte was still deep in thought when she noticed the large dark-clad man watching her from the corner in the shadows.

“Hey creep, this is the girl’s locker room,” she sneered, but she was rather hoping he was an admirer; he looked quite the hunk, even if he was a little old.

The man narrowed his eyes for a moment and then tossed something onto the bench beside her. Charlotte gulped nervously. The laxolite box landed with an accusatory clack.

“I-it wasn’t me,” she blurted.

“What wasn’t you?” Adam asked as he stepped forward.

God this was strange, it was less than 20 years in the past but already it seemed like a foreign land. He had eyed the motion ads and vid-news headlines with a sense of overwhelming nostalgia. Seeing the future president talk about the need for better healthcare had been spooky as hell. Had anyone ever looked so young?

He turned his full attention on the president’s future wife and frowned. Jesus, what a brat, he thought sourly.

“Um…” Charlotte eyed the packet on the bench and flushed, “It was just a… eh… a um…” she winced and ended feebly and an upwardly inflected tone with, “… a joke.”

“You… you bitch,” someone hissed from the stalls, “You did it.”

Kathy Martinez emerged gaping at the transfixed cheerleader vice-captain.

“No I…” Charlotte wailed and looked around in panic for the exit.

The door was already blocked by a rather green looking Lacy and some of the others. Besides, she didn’t think she would get past the hunk standing unchallenged in the girls’ locker room. Then in a sheer act of desperation bolstered by years of getting away with it and a good dose of entitlement she made a try for it anyway.

Adam caught her easily and hefted her dangling and kicking under his arm.

“Get off me you creep, you bastard, you… you…” Charlotte blustered as the man sat where she had been and hauled her across his lap. Then with a vague inkling pushing into her mind, tentatively and in a strained voice she added, “Hey come on, what are you doing? It was a joke okay.”

The cheerleader skirt was short and lifted off the red cotton encased hills of her bottom easily. So easily that Charlotte found the decorum to blush as she squirmed her body and mind. Her mind because she was certain that one vicious quip or a catty put down would undo the embarrassment and save the day. After all, she always got her own way.

Then the unthinkable happened. Drawing heavily on Caitlin’s earlier read notes Adam made a gentle tug on the waist band of Charlotte’s cheerleader panties. Then after only a hint of resistance from the garment, he slid them down over the naked white domes of her bare bottom and onto the dusky tanned thighs on their way south.

“Nooo get off me,” she squealed.

But not one her friends came indignantly to her aid and most of them began to laugh.

Adam’s hand landed firmly and sharply with a stinging swat that echoed back at him off the low ceiling. It was a satisfying crisp sound that left his palm tingling and a bright red hand print on Charlotte’s bottom.

The hapless cheerleader yelped ostentatiously and kicked out. It was a martyred sound designed for sympathy and not yet in earnest.

Adam spanked her thrice more and with intent, and this time he was rewarded with a grunt from Charlotte and a small ripple of applause form the onlookers.

“Come on please, not here, I mean… don’t I…” Charlotte wailed incoherently, torn between denial and mitigating her doom.

Adam spanked her two or three times more and then shook the tang out of his hand. The girl’s naked red bottom was firm to hard under his assault.

“Here Sir,” said Kathy said breezily, and handed him a sports pump from off the opposite bench.

“Oh noooo come on, not that,” Charlotte protested.

But after a brief test of its weight Adam applied the spanking shoe with gusto.

Charlotte’s cried and protests were dynamic and in less than a minute she was panting harder than she ever had after a dance off.

“No more, please no more, I’m sorry… shiiiit, noooooooo… aah,” she squealed in anguish well on her way to tears.

The spanking lasted a good while, well beyond the powers of her bottom to stay either white or unbruised and she was a pile of sobs long before Adam dropped her to the floor.

“Hey is there any of that laxative left?” one of the girls shouted with glee and seized up the packet off the bench.

As Adam left there was veritable scrum of 18-year-old girls behind him, all fixing to share their displeasure with the future first lady. Spank the cheerleader and save the world, he thought as he left and then laughed. No one would ever believe this.

*

The small familiar dorm room looked strange to Charlotte now. It was like an enemy or a hated thing pressing down on her. She couldn’t shake the sense of inactive nausea, which manifested itself in a need to endlessly vomit the unphysical clawing at her belly. It was an invasive feeling that made her feel more unclean than at any time in her life and she had only herself to blame.

A former version of Charlotte would have been mad at the world that she had been caught and would have viewed her family’s intervention to hush up her crime as only her due. Now she felt something else… distaste, embarrassment, no not quite that. At least she had been caught cheating on the exam. What if she hadn’t? Wouldn’t she have felt worse?

Again if she had been but aware of it, in another time she would have been angry and smug by turns at dodging this bullet. After all she might have been ruined for life. It was amazing what money and a donation to the school could do. But at 21 she should know better. No that was the problem at 21 she did.

She thought about all the other times she had nearly got away with it; twice in high school, and twice, no three times since starting college. Each time he had been there, resented, hateful and… she heaved a sob… and finally somehow comforting. Well after the second time anyway, she didn’t want to think about the first time.

Well she was 21 now and knew better, such childish rescues from herself were behind her. She sighed. A sigh that became a sob and violently she hugged herself. I won’t cry, I won’t, she demanded inwardly.

The knock at the door made her wince. She couldn’t see anyone now, not now.

“Who is it?” she groaned.

But already she was standing and moving to the door. She was done running away, done with… well almost, she decided.

It should have been a surprise to see his frown glowering at her, but somehow it wasn’t.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“One day I’ll tell you,” Adam said darkly as he pushed into her room.

She yielded with polite token resistance and then backed all the way up.

“I’m too old for that,” she protested.

“You think,” Adam replied.

“Oh come on… I… I mean you can’t, you just….” she did a furious little dance of frustration and punched at him, before she spat, “can’t.”

“You have a hairbrush,” he stated simply.

“Oh no,” she shook her head in denial.

She had of course. A large flat sided one that she had seen in a market. Strangely she never used it and had only bought it on a whim. He found it where she had left it, unused and in plain sight.

The motion that placed her over his knee was a smooth one. So was the act of lifting her skirts and sliding her white cotton panties right down to her ankles.

“Someone will hear,” she muttered softly.

“Then let them hear,” he said dismissively, “It won’t be the first time and besides, afterwards I am going to put you in the corner downstairs in the senior student’s lounge. Bare bottom displayed of course,” he added, unsure if he meant it.

“You wouldn’t,” she gasped.

But not only did she know for certain that he would, she knew that this time she deserved it. A sentiment he put to the test with the first spank.

“Omigaaaaaah,” she howled.

This spanking was like no other. The hairbrush slammed down on her exposed bottom like to do so would save the world and blast after blast it left Charlotte breathless between howling. It was a cinch her backside was spent now, useless and beyond sitting forever she shouldn’t wonder, a detached part of her brain pondered. The same judgemental soul also considered if he was serious about his threat to have her stand public corner time. The embarrassment would kill her obviously and render all other matters redundant, but if it didn’t she would never cheat anyone again. Boy to see her mother’s face once it came out that her precious daughter had been spanked, and after all her twisted scheming. Maybe she needs a spanking too… this thought might have ended in a giggle but the ongoing onslaught began to really burn now and no one on her corridor could have doubts about the current activity within her room.

Okay, you can stop now, she thought as she began to really struggle. No really, nooo… but for Charlotte it had only really begun.

*

The spanking finally over Charlotte clawed her way sobbing into Adam’s chest and bawled herself clean. His arms were a cave and she never ever wanted to leave them.

“I’m sorry, so sorry,” she wept as she hugged him.

“Feeling better?” he whispered.

She found a secret smile as her head rubbing his chest signalled assent.

“Then it is time for that corner,” he said sternly.

Her breath raced in her chest again and she choked back a sob. She was never going to live this down, never… but deep in her heart she knew she deserved it and the organ pounded in her chest at the presence of his vengeful and determined strength. But as she tentatively stumbled to her feet and on to the door and her utter shaming, he held her.

“That corner will do,” he said gently pointing to the empty space next to her dresser.

The relief shattered her and she broke to fresh sobs.

“You won’t leave me this time, will you?” she sniffed as almost meekly she obeyed his finger.

“I think you’ll stay put without supervision,” he chuckled.

“Yes Sir, but I don’t mind if you… you know, watch me for a while,” she said shyly, her hand stealing a rub of her throbbing tender bottom.

He nodded.

*

Mark Levingston-Khan was going places, that was true enough, but somehow Charlotte wasn’t convinced. Once upon a time marriage to an important politician like Mark would have been all she could ask, but now… she sighed. So what if Mark would one day be president like everyone said he would; was that what she wanted?

She thought about her dark stranger and the kick up the pants he had provided over the years as she had matured into a woman. Never changing and always omnisciently turning up when she most needed him. Now at 28 she hadn’t seen the man in almost seven years, but she had never forgotten him or his rather firm hand. Could someone fall in love with a man one didn’t know? It was a childish question, not to say a moot point, but then again in a way she knew him and he her more than anyone ever would.

She looked at the dress in the wardrobe and thought about the party and all those famous people and panic gripped her. No, she wouldn’t do it. Mark and his world was not for her. For one thing he was a good man and loaded with integrity. She on the other hand had cheated and bribed her way through life.

True enough she had come to regret those lapses and had learned her lesson well, but that line of thinking only took her back to the dark stranger and all that that had entailed… No, for once the family and their expectations could go hang.

Charlotte reached the transit in less than eight minutes from making-up her mind. She had one bag and only 17,786 credits in the bank, but it would be enough, they would never find her and Mark could forget her.

Happy at her resolve, she sighed and looked about. The transit station was empty now and a cold wind blew from the north. Mark had gushed about weather control, but for him it was about food for the poor, not for rich little girls who didn’t want to be uncomfortable. See, too good for her, and she smiled. Still it would be sheer stubbornness and way too hair-shirt not to use the waiting room so she headed that way.

Each heavy step echoed down the platform and as she walked the lights slowly came up to linger only long enough to illuminate her passing. Damn, so few people tonight. No correction, none, she sighed, no send-off then. It was a bitter thought. Would she be missed, she wondered?

“Charlotte Dane,” said a voice.

She knew it at once and her heart skipped a beat. Not that she dared turn around.

“What have I done now?” she asked softly as she stood transfixed half looking back over her shoulder. There was the desolation of dying hope in her tone. She wanted to ask, to know… but somehow she knew she would hate the answers.

“It’s not what you’ve done, but what you are about to,” he said gently.

I don’t want him, I want you, she wanted to scream. This was insane, beyond insane even. So out of fear she became angry and rounded on the dark stranger.

“Who are you or more to the point, who do you think you are?” she challenged him.

“I am Adam Lacombe,” he said simply, “Think of me as your guardian angel.”

“Adam?” her voice softened and she saw affection in his eyes, affection or perhaps something else.

“Are you going to spank me?” she said ruefully, but this time she hoped it was true.

“Probably,” he chuckled, “I certainly am if you try to duck out on your…”

“Duty?” she sneered, again remembering her anger.

“Destiny,” he said firmly. “I am from the future, almost eight years from this time,” he added.

She looked down, suddenly afraid, afraid to even look up at him. Ten years was a long time, even with modern creams and surgery… well something would show in his eyes. Hadn’t Mark had hinted at such things. He was now party to such information, but she didn’t need him to tell her it was true. Then she looked up and saw Adam for the first time. He was at most 40, the same age he had been 10 years before when he had turned up after the cheerleading debacle and spanked her.

He had spanked her again a month later after she had snuck off and indulged in… she smiled. That had been embarrassing, but thinking back so was nearly fellating a boy she didn’t know while drunk on stolen booze. She had been grateful to the man after that, well almost. It had been another year and another spanking before she had really begun to get it.

“Why did you do that?” she had sobbed back then.

“Because you’re worth it, because one day you need to be better than you are,” he had answered cryptically. That was the first time she had realised she had had a crush on him.

She thought about the last time and the hug. An afternoon spent silently facing the corner while he had watched her. She had never felt so close to anyone as on that day.

“Why me?” she said so softly that she thought the words might shatter.

Adam laughed a gentle dismissive laugh. Not at her question, but because he had asked Caitlin much the same thing.

“You’re the future president’s wife,” he said, “And something is going to happen.”

“This is crap,” she groaned, “No really, there is no way I can be that important, not in what eight years you say. What could I possibly do that will…?”

“You already did it, you already had your little tantrum,” he said sadly, they were both trapped, he could see that now. “It wasn’t really your fault, not really but you… you kind of destroyed the world.”

“I wouldn’t, I couldn’t, what are you talking about?” she felt tears prick her eyes, but she trusted this man, and why else would he bother with her? It was true.

“No you couldn’t and you won’t, not now,” he said quickly, his smile reassuring. “But I changed not only you, but potentially the future too. If you don’t marry Mark Khan…”

“What will happen?” she gasped in horror.

He rocked back and let his head tip so that he looked up at the stars. Then came the world’s longest sigh of regret.

“I don’t know,” he said wearily, “I truly don’t, but with what is at stake…”

“Eight years, after that then the world will be… what saved, will I be free?” she said urgently.

He shrugged.

The wind blew then and an empty paper packet drifted along at their feet. She thought of the air like sand slipping through her fingers… like time. She needed something, a catalyst, anything; after all she couldn’t just… submit like this.

“Make me,” she challenged.

He looked down and frowned. “What?” he said quizzically.

“I said, I won’t marry Mark unless you make me,” she allowed herself a smile.

“This is not a…” he began. He was angry now. Maybe this brat hadn’t changed.

“A game?” she finished for him, sadness had crept into her voice. “Please… give me something, let me have…” She didn’t know why she needed what she did.

“Alright,” he barked, returning to his old demeanour.

He took her by the arm and set off towards the waiting room with her tottering in tow.

Charlotte protested even as she thrilled inside. God was it going to happen?

They reached the door and he led her inside. Caitlin had given him a security bracelet with an open access code for any time that the system had been in use. Adam hit a generic and silently cut any nascent or active surveillance. Then still dragging Charlotte he sat down heavily on the bench seat and tumbled her across his lap.

He was well practiced with her now and it didn’t take long for her pants and then panties to slide down sporty tanned legs to her ankles.

“What if someone comes?” she wailed.

“You should have thought of that,” he snapped and then in genuine anger he brought his hand down sharply on her bare bottom.

“Going soft old man,” she spat at him in mock anger.

“Good job I brought this then isn’t it?” he growled as he produced a hairbrush from his leather coat pocket.

“Oh Christ,” she gasped and added a genuine shriek as he spanked her with it hard.

“I don’t think he is going to help you today,” Adam rasped as he landed a biting volley.

Charlotte gasped more earnestly and slapped her hands out in front as she grabbed at anything to gain a supporting purchase; it helped sometimes just to hold on.

“You’re such a smart Alec aren’t you?” she groaned through clenched teeth.

“It’s Adam, remember, smart Adam, only it’s you who is smarting,” he chuckled.

“Bastard,” she hissed through a grimace.

“So they say,” he snorted and settled in for an epic round of spanking.

The long flow of thwacking and squeals would have been almost comedic to an outside listener, but there were none. This party was just about a man, a woman and a hairbrush, oh and one sore and ever redder bottom. It was a long party.

Finally after Charlotte had been sobbing hard for several minutes he felt her collapse into herself and he pulled her up into a hug. There she clung on for an age, great heaving tears soaking his shoulder as he gently rocked her.

“Do I have to marry Mark?” she whispered at last.

He sighed heavily and squeezed her tight. “Yes,” he said with a deadly finality.

Charlotte nodded and squeezed back. “Not yet, I can’t go yet,” she wailed in panic.

“Not yet,” he cooed. “Besides I want to explain.”

*

Objectively Adam Lacombe had only been away for a few days and as he stepped through the portal into the antechamber back at the Time Corp he was shaking. A side effect or just an emotional response, he pondered? Maybe it was just lack of sleep. Oh well it was over.

He was wondering this time whether Charlotte and Mark were happy and whether the commandoes had got to the bomb in time. Maybe there had never even been the prospect of a war? He laughed, God what if half a dozen spankings really had stopped a war? He could form a spanking corps and rewrite history.

“Stop,” someone yelled.

He froze and looked around. The female voice had screamed from the speakers.

“Hey up,” he called back.

“Don’t leave the machine, for God’s sake,” said the now less shrill woman.

He recognised her this time and then he saw her through the view plate. Caitlin Trance looked badly shaken.

“Oh shit, what’s happened?” Adam felt sick. They had meddled with time; it had been crazy to begin with. What had he done to the world?

“It’s alright Adam,” said another voice.

His heart skipped and he felt his heart lurch. Damn foolery, he cursed himself. But it was Charlotte, the world was ending and all his thoughts were of her.

“Adam we have a problem,” Caitlin was saying. “I… I think I may have screwed up.”

The outer door opened and the two women entered the chamber extension. Then once totally within the device they came on through.

“As long as we are in here we are isolated… I think,” Caitlin said in a brittle cautious voice. Her full immaculate mouth made pensive wincing movements as she spoke.

“So…. What happened? Is it alright or not? Did it even work?” he said trying to sound calm.

“Oh it worked, one cured brat, a half successful if loveless marriage and Mr President saves the world… tat da!” Charlotte said ruefully.

She was older, but no less beautiful. She had that mature gravitas that many women get when their youthful softness firms up and they gain poise and confidence. She was better groomed too, styling her formerly wayward red hair into a well-crafted auburn. Her eyes smiled at him.

He smiled back more openly.

“You don’t have time for that,” Caitlin growled, “You have to go back.”

Adam whirled on her and snorted derisively. “What the hell?”

“She’s right Adam,” Charlotte said now nervous. It showed as she licked her lips and in the return of her more girlish stance.

“Okay, what did I do wrong?” Adam said wearily.

“Nothing, it all worked, only…” Caitlin looked embarrassed.

“You only went back to change time, to change me because the world was about to end,” Charlotte said wistfully. “Thank you. I didn’t thank you,” she added affectionately.

“Well yes,” Adam said exasperatedly, and made an impatient gesture. Women… grrrr!

“But well… the end isn’t ending because… well you fixed it… I mean I was right about that. I mean I can’t know how the world you remember differs from the one we have now but not by a lot I suspect – all except the last few days. The days when I got you to go back as you remember it.”

“As I remember it, you were there?” Adam accused her.

“No I wasn’t. I was at a party celebrating the end of the crisis. You are probably there too or somewhere. So you see I had no reason to send you on your mission,” Caitlin winced.

Adam made to answer and then stopped. Shit. He got it now.

“But that’s obvious, isn’t it, why didn’t you…?” he yelled, “Why didn’t you know?”

“I don’t know, it was another me, all I know is that if you leave the chamber then we have a paradox, the wrong loop will be… oh shit I don’t even fully comprehend.” Caitlin’s former cool was thoroughly breached now.

“So how… how do you even know all this if you don’t remember?” Adam asked, his brain now fully on the matter in hand.

“A chance meeting with Ms Dane,” Caitlin said eagerly, “I mean it all made sense… I mean… I knew it was possible and I looked you up. Everything fitted even the totally secret details. I must work out some protocols for this,” she added distractedly.

“But if you go back and do it again, this time because we sent you… perhaps you don’t even have to complete the mission if you go back to a point after it was completed…” Caitlin was sad now.

“Adam you can’t ever come back as you,” Charlotte blurted.

Adam had already guessed that and he nodded.

“Then there is just one more thing I have to do,” he said in a deadpan voice.

He was calm and efficient, but without stopping for breath he grabbed the cool blonde Caitlin and upended her across his crouching knee. Then from his leather coat pocket he retrieved the hairbrush once used on Charlotte and he began to apply it to the seat of her oh so superior little problem.

“Mr Lacombe,” Caitlin shrieked as she kicked her heels. “You can’t do this.”

“She’s right,” Charlotte said, now rather amused.

With that she stepped forward and yanked the time scientist’s skirt down so that the zip burst in back. Then with another tug she added the panties to the mess of material now bunched around the lower thighs.

“I might have deserved the half dozen spankings she arranged me to have but she oh so deserves this one,” Charlotte said with relish.

“Oh no, no, no, no, noooo,” Caitlin wailed.

But Adam was an expert now and besides he had absolutely nothing to lose. He might not be able to transcend time and ensure that Caitlin remembered this, but he was sure going to give it a try.

Fifteen minutes later the bawling woman was sporting two purplish red pads of leathery pain on both cheeks and Adam began to slow the pace.

“Oh, are you sure that’s enough?” Charlotte cooed and smirked.

“Yes, oh God yes,” Caitlin sobbed, her face was a mess of running make-up and snot.

“What she really needs is a couple of long hours in the corner, somewhere public,” Charlotte giggled.

“Oh please,” a heavily breathing Caitlin pleaded.

“Now I would love to see that, but it’s time to go,” Adam said quietly.

“We could go back to yesterday or a thousand years,” Charlotte said huskily. “As long as we don’t come back… the world will include us in history and what we did. Two… people who just disappeared one day.”

“We? You can’t go. I have to or… anyway there is still a me out there. But you’re the first lady…” Adam said sharply.

“Just one more mystery,” Charlotte shrugged.

“I warn you if you even think of going with me I will spank your bare bottom raw until you can’t sit down for…” Adam urged as he shook her shoulders.

“I guess I will have to just put up with that,” Charlotte grinned.

He made to push her away but instead they kissed. They were still kissing as they backed into the portal.

“I love you,” he said in a thick voice.

“I have always loved you, ever since I was a cheerleader,” she giggled.

“We don’t have…” Adam began his protest.

“Time?” she finished for him, then she laughed adding,“But we have all the time in the world. Certainly time enough for love.”