Lips, soft hands. Was she remembering it? She would toss and turn in bed, lost between sleep and wakedness. The sensations seemed so real. But when she woke up, she would be alone in bed and all exact memories of the place she had visited in her sleep evaporated.

A body arched on top of hers, tender whispers and the feeling of being loved. She would feel good, but end up awake. She always woke up and got back to reality, to the awful world in which she had to live.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

That morning, he found her much more distracted than usual. Her path crossed Lyle’s in the hallway and she didn’t say anything mean! Sydney thought it was weird. What was it this time? What horrible truth had she recently uncovered?

"Parker? Are you alright?" he asked after following her inside her office.

"Fine, Syd. Don’t you worry for me," she answered with a far from convincing sigh.

"I know you" insisted the shrink, "I know when something is bothering you. Tell me, maybe I can help."

Usually, at this point, she would have lashed out at him already. But for once, things were different. For once, she didn’t know herself what was the matter.

She would wake up every morning after a night of peaceful slumber. But every morning, it was the same. She would feel very reluctant to leave her bed, as if she was abandonning something precious between her silk sheets. She didn’t understand it, had no solid memory of what had inhabited her dreams.

"I’m not feeling well Syd, and I don’t know why!".

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Talking to Sydney had helped, temporarily. She had told him about her uneasiness every morning at waking up without getting into the details of the intense physical sensations that filled her dreams.

But she knew that it would start all over again, that night, as soon as she was in bed. What she dreaded were less the dreams than the awakening.

She spent the day alone in her office, after warning Broots that she wasn’t to be disturbed unless they had a solid lead on the whereabouts of Jarod.

And the day had passed. She was soon to go back home.

But a little before she began gathering her things, she heard a noise coming from the ventilation shaft. Angelo.

She watched calmly as he climbed down the grate and came to stand in front of her, on her side of the desk.

His eyes were neutral. He brought one of his hands from where it was behind his back, producing a shining object, a DSA.

When she lifted her hand to get it, he said : "For you... and Jarod."

Before she could understand the fact that this disc contained information regarding herself AND Jarod, the empath has disappeared behind the grate of the ventilation system.

She hid the object in her pant pocket and decided to watch it at home. She would tell Jarod... or not. It all depended of the information it carried. Nonetheless, she had the feeling that Jarod was going to recieve his own copy. Angelo was a resourceful man.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

The date on the left bottom of the screen was august 24^th 1988.

This meant that Angelo wanted her to know that her father and Raines had... what?

Obviously, something big had occured that year. It involved Jarod and her. But what was it? And Sydney knew nothing about it. And most of all, they didn’t want him to know!

They had already tampered with Jarod’s memories twice, as long as she knew. And if she had correctly interpreted her father’s and Raines’ words, they had done it one more time. Three times all in all. And they had done it to her too!

She got nauseous at the thought that her father had deliberately used such a procedure on his daughter. Erasing memories was okay as long as it was applied to centre projects! One more lie to add to the never ending list.

The question was what horrible thing had she witnessed that her father wanted her to forget it at all costs?

Raines had mentionned recordings. That was it. She had to find these recordings and she knew where to look!

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Tonight, she wasn’t having those dreams, for the mere reason that she wasn’t sleeping at all. Just after watching the DSA Angelo gave her, she had gotten back to the Centre.

Now, she was crawling in the ventilation ducts, around SL 5, looking for her ‘DSA provider’. But Angelo was no where in sight.

When she, at last, gave up, she got out in one of the sim labs and sat down in a chair in the middle of the empty space.

He didn’t make her wait too long. She had her head resting on her arms on top of the table that sat beside the chair. When she lifted her head, Angelo was standing beside her.

"Didn’t share with Jarod!" The sentence was simple and his tone very clear. She wasn’t getting anything new from him before telling Jarod.

Then he was gone.

She got up and violently kicking the chair she had been seated in, she let out a loud scream of frustration.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

The next two days proved exhausting. She had completely shut down to Sydney and every time he tried to get back to their conversation about her uneasy sleep, she would lash out at him, successfully keeping him away. She was impatient to have Jarod call her.

Sydney had even thought about calling Jarod himself to ask him to call the young woman back. But he didn’t have to do it. He was just leaving Miss Parker’s office when her phone rang. She lifted the device to her ear and Sydney saw her face relax. It was obviously Jarod.

A difference Jarod would hear, a difference Sydney had heard.

"Have a good time then." And Jarod hung up.

Sydney’s eyebrows were already lifted in questionning when she told him : "7 p.m. Your House. I’ll bring dinner."

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

"I never stopped trusting you... it’s just that... I was afraid." Hadn’t her father said : ‘Sydney must never learn about it’?

He sat in front of her, on the table, and taking her hands in his, he prodded : "I want to help. Tell me what’s wrong. Is it about your dreams? And what does it have to do with Jarod?" His voice was so soothing, his presence so comforting, she didn’t want to take her hands out of his. But she did it in order to give him the DSA Angelo had given her.

"Don’t keep it from me, please. Syd, if you know what they are talking about, please tell me. If you have discovered something regarding me and Jarod, you have to tell me." And seeing as he shook his head indicating he didn’t know anything, she added : "It was in 1988, Syd, for god’s sake, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with my mother or some secret she would have asked you to keep from me, so please..."

Then, after a heavy sigh : "If they failed, and you discovered the truth, you have to let me know."

She was desperate and Sydney was unable to help her.

"I don’t know anything, I swear... Did Jarod send you the disc?"

"No" she replied, "Angelo gave it to me. He said I should share with Jarod. But I... I couldn’t, I didn’t know what to tell him." And then, with more resolve : "Syd, I need you to hypnotise me. I need to remember what they made me forget."

"What they made US forget." Came a calm voice from the doorway, before Sydney could answer.

Jarod, then, came to sit on the couch, to the left of Sydney, while Parker, dumbfounded, sat still to his right.

Next, he produced a stack of DSA that he threw on the table beside Sydney’s DSA player.

"I found you... wierd... on the phone. I was worried, so I called Angelo and he told me to come..." ‘Ok, I also desperatly needed to see you again.’ But he kept that thought for himself and went on : "He gave me these discs."

Their gazes turned to the four DSAs that were innocently laying on the table. They held no inscription of any kind, apart from four numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Without wasting anymore time, Jarod slid nº1 in the slot, and after typing away Sydney’s password, he pushed the PLAY button.

The date it showed was ‘18^th of July 1988’. The hour ‘22.45’. And Jarod recognized the location. It was his old room at the Centre. The next image was for the least strange, because there, in his room, stood a young Miss Parker.

She couldn’t recall having been to that room at all, at least until october 1996. But then again, there she was. In Jarod’s room.

She was slowly advancing towards his bed where she ended up sitting. She was dressed in a very summerish way. She had a short navy blue skirt, a sky blue tank top and blue sandals too.

He didn’t know what was coming next, but Jarod had already began having problems to breathe. She was there, on the screen, in his room, more than ten years earlier and she was gorgeous. Then he appeared, his young age visible in the slight differences in the lines of his face.

"Where were you?" she asked, irritated. And he answered her with the same smug smile he kept having today but that had a very differect effect on her nerves at the time: "I had to take care of the cameras."

He walked closer and she stood. At this point of the recording, Parker too was beginning to have difficulty to breathe. She saw the younger version of her self wrap her arms around Jarod’s strong torso and claim his lips in a vigourous exchange.

The moans that filled the room pulled the three spectators from their daze and Jarod’s and Parker’s hands collided on the STOP button of the machine.

Obviously, they needed him.

Parker stood, like awakened by Jarod’s movements. She had just understood : "These dreams..." she began, directing her words at Sydney, "I was begining to remember, that’s why Angelo gave us those DSAs!"

"What dreams?" tried Jarod.

"It’s nothing." She answered quickly, remembering his presence.

"No it’s something. And it concerns me. I have the right to know."

"My dreams can not concern you." She answered, angered and chilling.

"Children," intervened the psychatrist, "you have to watch these disc entirely. Both your memories have been tampered with..."

"No..." Parker cut him off, "I’ve already seen enough."

"Why? Are you afraid to discover that once you had feelings? Or just ashamed that these feelings were directed at a worthless labrat?"

"Ha! Who ever said that there were feelings involved?" she replied. Looking him directly in the eyes for the first time since he had entered Sydney’s living room.

Jarod felt maddened by her obstinacy. He looked at her with incredulous eyes for two seconds, ‘how could she be so stubborn, after all we’ve lived through?’, then he threw his arms in the air and turned away from her.

But Jarod didn’t exactly agree, and he didn’t seem able to wait for his turn : "You said you didn’t need to watch them. Maybe I should take them and watch them first."

They had advanced again on one another and now they were standing mere inches apart, fighting the other with dangerous looks and hard words.

"Or maybe were you planning on destroying them if they showed something unworthy of the heiress of the Centre!"

This time it was too much, and without thinking about it, she lifted her hand to his face and struck his jaw with her clenched fist.

It hurt, Sydney could see it in Jarod’s eyes. And with their arguing they were getting nowhere. He had to help.

"You should watch them together."

"What?" they cried in unison.

They were still standing in their close spots but now their hostile looks were directed at the psychatrist.

The house was surrounded by a light wood and pastures. The exterior was calm and the interior pleasant.

He had set his DSA player on the table in front of the couch. She gave him the DSA Angelo had given her and tried to stay unmoved by the hurt and disgust the words of her father brought to his face. Then, he had left her to go fetch them some drinks in the kitchen. She waited for him, impatient and nervous.

He had made the mistake of leaving the discs, his discs, on the table, at her reach. She was unable to resist her curiosity. What had happened next? After their kiss? She wanted to know, but guessed that she would have to wait before they got to the real action. She felt that the younger versions of themselves would talk much before anything happened. With Jarod she had always talked very much. Because he listened, really listened.

In 1988, she was 26. The age when she screwed everything she got her hand on. She remembered those crazy years, just after college and just before she began working for the Centre. Men and sex, many men. She remembered that. But summer of 88? Hadn’t she had a car accident?

They must have somehow made her think that when they had erased her memories. What had really happened? Unable to resist the urge to know, she put the third disc in the player.

She pressed PLAY and had to immediatly lower the volume in order to quiet the wild female moaning that was indecently coming out of the machine.

The image formed and she had to twist her neck in order to correctly distinguish the intertwined bodies on the screen.

Jarod came back from the kitchen then. "What are you...?" he began, mad at her. But he stopped and his jaw dropped when he lay eyes on the screen. He approched and set the glasses on the table, then stared agape as a naked Parker bounced sideways on top of an equally naked Jarod.

Parker was surprised as well. What was that? Then she sobered when she saw Jarod stop the disc. She turned to him, and noted the scarlett red of his cheecks.

His eyes were fixed on an invisible spot in front of him and the redness of his cheecks was rapidly spreading to his neck and ears. She saw his breathing change and wondered wether he was embarassed or aroused!

Even she felt something inside, butterflies in her insides. She remembered that day. Sydney had said that they would remember everything they saw. Unfortunatly there was little chance that they remember anything if they didn’t see it, on the recordings. And now that she had seen that... that joining... between them, she had remembered everything about it. The overwhelming pleasure, the hot and throbbing member inside her, the slick skin, gliding against hers. And something deeper... Stop... she had to think of something else.

"Listen" she began in a weak voice, then higher, "I vaguely remember summer 88. I remember having come back from Boston and ... I remember something about a hospital room and a car accident." Then after a short pause, and seeing that Jarod wasn’t reacting (very likely to have happened, since all the blood must have left his brain for a southern destination), "I have always thought that I had had a car accident. But my memories are hazy. Maybe because they’re fabricated..."

"I have all the DSAs of my simulations of this period. Maybe they only erased my memories of night activities." She could barely hear him, but what he said seemed logical. After all, Sydney would have thouhgt it wierd that his student would forget about recently performed sims. But for her, to forget about a whole, frivolous, summer wouldn’t be a problem. "We must have been meeting at night. The hour on the third disk was 01.46."

‘What?! He had been able to get his eyes off of my ass enough time to notice the hour?’ she thought, hurtfully.

A small silence stretched. They had determined the extent of the intervention on their memories, but for other details about what had really transpired they had to watch the discs.

He had said that he was taking care of the cameras in the first disc, that was one answer. Now to get the rest, she put the first disc in place and hit PLAY.

The scene they had witnessed in Sydney’s house was passed in fast forward until the point where their embrace had changed. Their voracious hunger for the other’s lips soon transformed into something tendre. One of Jarod’s hands had gone up to her hair and was caressing the dark tendrils. He brought up his other hand to her face and leaning back, he said : "I have been thinking about you all day."

They watched, then, as the 88-Parker did something very unlike her : she blushed. The young woman who had been so sure of herself, so bold, the young woman who had ferociously gripped Jarod upon his entering the room had disappeared. In her place, there was a shy little girl.

The 88-Jarod put his hand under her chin and raised her head to look into her eyes : "What is it?" he asked in a whisper.

"I don’t want to cause you any trouble" she answered.

He reacted with force, holding her at arm’s length, his hands squeezing around her arms : "Are you kidding? When I saw you the day before yesterday, it’s like you brought me back to life. You... you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for you to come back to me!" And upon those sweet words, he kissed her mouth with passion.

The nowadays-Parker pressed the PAUSE button and turned to a calmer and very focused Jarod. When he turned his face to her, she asked: "Do you remember when we said goodbye, before I was sent away to boarding school?"

"Yes" he said, "21^st of september 1976."

"I thought we hadn’t seen each other until... 96?"

"Obviously, we have." He answered her a bit irritated, as he restarted the disc. His unprecise movement made his hand inadvertently brush against the angle command. The Centre recording system had indeed this sophisticated function, where every recorded area is filmed from different perspectives. The computer, then, gatheres all the recordings of the same delimited space and stores it on the same digital support. So that when you are watching a scene on a DSA, you can change the angle of vision which is in fact a change of camera. That way, you can view the same scene from various angles of observation.

What had Jarod done now was to give the nowadays Parker and Jarod a view of themselves from behind. Parker could see on the screen her back and one of Jarod’s hands caressing her hair while the other was busy fondling her ass.

Then one of her legs began creeping slowly up his flanck.

Without stopping the image, the nowadays-Parker asked: "I don’t understand. You said you had taken care of the cameras. And all the while they kept recording?"

"Obviously," he answered, fascinated by his moving hands over her body. He saw himself, well... his 1988-self, push his fingers under her light skirt, and observed transfixed how she threw her head back, clearly loving the attention. She was drawing her knee further up his side.

"Stop repeating ‘obviously’ and listen to me." This time, she freezed the image in order to get his full focus.

‘Ok’, he thought, ‘I’m gonna tell you what I remember.’

"I don’t remember our encounter of the 16^th. But I know what I’m talking about regarding the cameras."

‘The 16^th? Ohhh, the day before yesterday!!’ "So?"

"I made the cameras record and send to the central computer images of classical evenings, with me doing a little bit of reading, then washing, then sleeping. But the cameras had to stay on. So I let them, and in the morning, I would go to the command centre and get the real recordings."

"This means," she said, sighing, "that when they found out about us, they didn’t find the recordings..."

"Because Angelo hid them" he finished her sentence.

"Okay" she said, restarting the machine. She still had to understand why. Ok, she had always had this soft spot for Jarod, even when they had asked her to bring him back, and she had to admit that he was... attractive... But why him? When she could have had any guy up there? Why did she have to dive in the bowels of the Centre to find herself a lover? Jarod was right, there were feelings involved. But she still couldn’t figure out which!

Had she been in love with Jarod? Or was she doing it with a purpose? Maybe she was unconsciously wishing her father would discover them? Maybe it was one more twisted attempt to get his attention?

Or maybe it was for the love of risk? What had attracted her was maybe the danger, the secrecy of the situation?

She couldn’t remember her feelings. Not clearly anyway. What she knew was that she had been sincere when telling the 88-Jarod that she didn’t want to cause him trouble. And she also knew that at 01.46, that night, she had felt satisfied, and whole. Yes whole. Parker found herself regretting the fact that they couldn’t watch their first encounter, the one that took place the 16^th, on disc.

For Jarod, everything was a lot less confusing. And while she was wondering if Jarod’s motivations had been love or the fear of loneliness, he knew. He had been outside in the world for five years now and he had stayed alone. He had had the opportunity to get rid of his loneliness. But it wasn’t what he wanted. Because she was the only one who could make him feel less alone. (The Zoe episode didn’t count. Obviously!)

Now, the younger version of himself was sitting on his bed, and holding her hands while she stood in front of him. "Sit beside me. I have something to tell you."

The nowadays Jarod and Parker were more tense than the 88-versions.

She sat beside him. "When we met two days ago..., I was so happy... and you... kissed me... exactly the same way you did yesterday. But... yesterday I... reacted differently." He said with a nervous chuckle.

She smiled and rested her open palm on the bulge in his pants.

Jarod blushed. Both Jarods blushed. The 88-Jarod put his hand above Parker’s and continued : "Well... I told you yesterday that... it was my first time..." (the audience thought simultaneously of Nia) "...uh, you know when... when I felt my... my penis... harden" and he was cut off by the nowadays Jarod who had just stopped the machine.

"Hey... what are you doing?" protested Parker.

"I don’t think you need to hear this, we could skip this." He tried, not daring to look at her.

"You wanted to tell me about it then, I have the right to remember it now." She cried.

His cheecks reddening again, Jarod nodded.

The 88-Jarod was saying : "It was a new experience for me."

The young Parker interrupted him : "Don’t worry Jarod. It’s not your fault that you’re kept here and have never met any girl before me."

Her voice seemed so soft, comprehensive, even if actually she hadn’t understood.

"No... not the intercourse. The... the erection."

The two Parkers were dumbfounded.

"I wondered why I didn’t have an erection the first day," he had begun speeking quickly now, afraid to be unable to finish if he stopped, "I found out... I mean... all day, yesterday, I was so nervous, I couldn’t stop thinking of you, your voice, your scent, your eyes," the 88-Parker was smiling with fondness, "and when they brought me my meals, I couldn’t eat. I didn’t eat all day. And then we met again, yesterday... and my penis reacted. I thought it was normal, you know... I had been stimulated."

"I don’t understand." The two Parkers were lost.

"Well, I thought about it. I mean, why didn’t I react the same the first time we met? I mean... you stimulated me the same then... So I tried to get some information, but all the sexuality related files are unaccessible to me in the computer. And then I had an idea... The difference between the first and the second time we met was the meals!"

He was smiling, proud of his discovery. "I went back to the computer today, and I was able to steal some information, about human reproduction and... Well something seemed out of order, so I tested my meal."

He answered Parker’s interrogative look with enthusiasm : "They put inhibitive substances in my food, so that my penis can’t get erect. But I isolated the molecule. It’s a simple one and I produced a counter-effect substance, without anyone knowing."

He was proud of himself.

The nowadays Jarod was crying.

She stopped the DSA player and turning to him, she asked gently : "How could they have been so cruel?"

And she cried with him.

A minute or two later, he was able to find his voice again : "The irony of it all is that I made the exact same discovery some years later. But then I didn’t produce any ‘antidote’... I thought it better this way.

She understood that SHE was the reason for the antidote production the first time. It was cruel to keep Jarod from his sexuality... from his memories... and his family... from sun and snow...

She had let her thoughts wander. ‘Try to stay focused’.

He seemed to read her mind for he started the disc again. They had to focus on the recordings.

The 26 years old Parker had just embraced Jarod tenderly, and had buried her head in his neck, "I’m sorry, I’m sorry" she was repeating.

"Don’t worry, it’s okay." The young Jarod said. "Now I know why the first night, we couldn’t... be together. And tonight we can."

And that was exactly what they did next. They laid back together on the bed, and began kissing gently. Jarod moved so that he was laying in the middle of the bed and he pulled Parker to him. She was stretched on top of him and her tears had dried. He turned them over so he was on top.

Parker watched him take off his shirt, and then his centre issued shoes and socks. At last, she helped him shed his pants and shorts.

Parker could see the sculpted and nude Jarod, carressed by her 1988-hands. And she slowly began remembering all the sensations. She could almost feel his muscles under her fingers and his hardness pressed against her thigh.

Then she remembered a shy wetness between her legs and actually felt it between her present thighs. For just a second, she thought that Jarod was certainly hard, but she forgot all about his present-presence, when she saw his past version taking off her clothes.

First, he delicately took off her sandals. Then he drew his tongue all the way up her left thigh, and pushed her skirt up with his teeth. She had blue panties. She couldn’t begin to understand how such an unexperimented being could do such things. But then she remembered that when it came to intimacy, Jarod always did what he felt like doing, he had no social inhibitions and no preconcieved ideas, he listened to his body and obeyed his impulses. It felt like heaven.

She watched him catch her undies with his teeth and draw them down. He then threw them to the floor. "Yes... touch me" she whispered. And he obeyed. Sliding one hand under her skirt, he touched her. The panting audience couldn’t see Jarod’s action, but they could see Parker’s eyes!

The young woman lowered her hand to Jarod’s shoulder, "Take it off." He did so and his present-self remembered. He remembered that his heart had stopped beating for a second or two, when he had seen the little triangle of dark hair. His cuurent heart stopped beating too, upon seeing Parker’s sex on the screen.

Then it began beating again when his young self obeyed the whispered order of the beautiful brunette : "Now!"

Now, he was ravaging his friend’s vagina with hardly controlled movements while his mouth sucked at her erect nipples through the fabric of her blue tank top.

She had drawn her knees up, around his hips, and only some short minutes later they came, together.

"Oh yes!" had cried Jarod.

"Wait!" she stopped him, but he didn’t turn around. So adressing his back, she said : "Look at me."

He turned around slowly, his eyes cast to the floor, a bit irritated, and an impressive bulge in his pants clearly visible. "Come back here Jarod!"

He looked at her, still irritated. What did she want?

"Sit down." She said.

"’Touch me, take it off, come back, sit down’! Who do you think you are ordering me around like that?" He shouted.

"I directed your actions then because I had more sexual experience than you. And I’m ‘ordering you around’ now because I have more social experience than you. What do you think Jarod? That my panties are still dry?"

Okay... so she hadn’t really intended on divulging the last bit. But she was mad at him. Why was he reacting like a child? And seeing as he wasn’t moving, she added : "What were you planning? A little hand job in the woods?"

She was right. He had to react in adult mode. He came back to the couch and sat down. He could still overlook his arousal, his penis would end up deflating anyhow. Well... save if they restarted the discs. All these damn recordings contained was sex, and more sex!

She knew exactly what he was feeling. She, herself, was only longing to do one thing : unbutton her pants and dip her hand inside her undies. But they weren’t horny teen-agers anymore and they had to keep their control.

"Listen" she began, "there are four discs and we both know how much information one of these items can contain. We’ll have to watch more or less thirty more scenes like this one! So ok we had sex, but Jarod there’s more. It’s obvious. We have to remember all of it."

"We could view the intercourse sequences in fast forward." He suggested, hopefully.

"I don’t think it’s a good idea. The way we... the way we make love... can give us an indication about what... what was really happening."

"Yeah, and... I want to remember... everything." He admitted.

"Me too."

And after a deep intake of breath, Jarod gathered his courage to tell her : "We should establish a program. How much we watch? When do we stop? And I hope I don’t offend you, but I’ll need various breaks."

When he saw the alarmed expression on her face, he guessed she had misunderstood him. "I mean... for cold showers, a little snack..."

She wondered what she should do. Fight against her own arousal? Take cold showers too? Or let herself go and ‘rape’ Jarod right there and then? Maybe isolate herself in her room and masturbate?

She had to admit that if she wanted, she could overlook that aspect. She could literally freeze her body over. Wasn’t she the Ice Queen? But the key words here were ‘if she wanted’. And she didn’t want it. Jarod would do it too if she asked it of him. But could she be so cruel as to deprive him of some release?

For just a second, she imagined them moaning and writhing, touching themselves on opposite sides of the couch, while watching their past matings. But they wouldn’t go there, no. Before, they had to know what had really transpired that fateful summer. She had to know what was hidden under their couple. Jarod knew of course. He had loved her. He still loved her. He still wanted her. Neither of them doubted that.

And while he was side guessing Parker’s current feelings towards him, she was wondering about her 1988-motivations.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

It was still early in the evening and he decided to prepare something for them to eat before getting back to the recordings. They ate in silence and their libidos deflated as their stomachs were filled.

Then they sat back in front of the screen and he hit PLAY.

The young Jarod had collapsed on top of her, his head buried in her neck. And she was gently stroking his back, eyes closed, and legs spread flat on the bed.

Two or three minutes passed while the 88-couple seemed to be recovering. Then Jarod lifted his head. The DSA showed the bed from the side and the camera must have been high on the wall, because the lovers were filmed from above.

"I’m still inside you!" He exclaimed.

"Yeah," she answered him tenderly, then asked : "At what hour should I leave?"

"I have to get the recording before the shift change, which means before 6:30 A.M. But first I need to record some ten or twenty minutes of sleeping so I can use them to fill the fabricated recording of my night that I’m gonna send to the central computer."

"5:30?"

Again, he had nestled his head in the crook of her neck and he nodded silently, tickling her.

"Stay inside me until 5:30 Jarod?" she asked with a passion filled voice as she confirmed her desire by bringing her hands to his ass and pressing him against her.

The audience observed transfixed as the young versions of themselves slept, joined in the most intimate of ways.

Various minutes passed in silence, and Jarod decided to fast forward the disc until the morning came. The Centre DSA readers had this interesting feature, a movement and sound detector. So the fast forwarding automatically stopped at 05.58, when the 88-Jarod woke up.

He had forgot to set the alarm and the hour was late. They dressed in a hurry and parted with a light kiss and the promise of meeting again at night.

Jarod fast forwarded the minutes where his young self pretended to be asleep in order to record the short sequences he would use to create the fake recordings of his night. Then the minutes when the room stayed empty while he went to the recording lab. And finally he came back just as the hour hit 06.15. and the image changed.

19^th of July, 22.45 again.

Apparently, Parker had been busy that day, because she only appeared on the screen close to midnight. The two spectators watched as Jarod suffered, waiting for her.

First he sat on the bed, then he got up, paced a little, and sat back again. He ended up laying down, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Then he got up again, paced some more, and sat back again.

When his friend appeared, he threw himself at her, hugging her with enthusiasm. Then he let her go and lowered his eyes shamefully : "I thought you weren’t coming." He said.

Parker had a guilty look on her face when she entered the room. She smiled at the childish delight of her lover. She was dressed quite strictly, with a black skirt and a black jacket. She told Jarod that she had been forced to attend an important business dinner with her father. Then she added that it was important only for her father.

She looked somewhat older this time, her clothes closer to the style she wore currently. Her face held a heavy layer of make-up. And with a maternal glow to her, she sat on the bed next to Jarod and took his head in her hands, kissing and caressing his hair.

"I thought it would never end" she sighed, then added : "I’m exhausted."

Raising his head, Jarod asked her if she wanted him to run a bath for her.

Smiling tenderly, she said : "No, it’s okay. I only want to rest a little."

Now, it was Jarod who turned all maternal on her. He slipped up the bed so he was laying down and he pulled her to him. Then he took off her shoes and suit jacket and hugged her to him as she began to drift asleep.

The nowadays Parker was surprised to say the least. She stopped the DSA player and turning to her companion : "You are not human!" she shouted. And when he turned his startled and hurt eyes to her, she added : "You were what? 26, 27 years old. You’ve just discovered sex. You’ve had all in all two intercourses, and there... I say I’m tired and you let it go? You don’t insist?" She was out of her mind.

She couldn’t believe it. And Jarod was proud of himself, "You know me. I’m a perfect gentleman.!"

She restarted the machine, still muttering under her breath, and Jarod thought he heard the word ‘incredible’!

They watched as the young Jarod and Parker went to sleep after setting the alarm clock on 05:30 A.M.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

The 20^th of July, Parker arrived at 22.52. She found Jarod seated on his bed, waiting for her. She had a white cotton tank top too thin to completely conceal the lace and satin black bra she wore underneath.

She walked towards him and when she stopped in front of him, Jarod put his hands on her thigs and began caressing her legs through the denim of her jeans. Present-Jarod felt the urge to change the angle of vision again just to be able to see how the tight jeans molded her beautiful ass.

"I have a little surprise for you" she said with a sweet voice, "to make it up for you for last night."

Jarod set his chin on her belly and lifted his face to her, watching her adoringly, and asked : "Hmm?"

She brought her hands to the buttons of her jeans and openning the first two, she let him have a glimpse of the lace panties matching her bra.

His gaze stayed fixed on the object for a long time before he lifted questionning eyes at her, not really understanding what she meant.

Clearly, the young Jarod knew nothing about the art of seduction through sexy underwear.

"You’ll see" promised Parker huskily just before taking a step back away from him.

"No" he breathed out, when he saw her get farther from him and resume her stripping. "I want to undress you."

It was amazing how this unexperienced, innocent man could say things that could sound so hot. The young version of herself seemed amused but the present-Parker was extremely turned on. She could hear his voice in her head, repeating : "I want to undress you."

She could feel, as if it was happening to her current body, Jarod’s hands on her belly, undoing the buttons of her jeans, then his hands on her thighs as he lowered the garment, slowly uncovering her sexy panties.

She could see her own satisfied smirk on the screen and Jarod’s breath catching in his throat as he examined the piece of black lace covering her pussy. ‘Pussy! Surely a word I taught him later’ she thought.

And smiling to herself, she was surprised to see Jarod stop the recording to tell her : "You know... I didn’t understand at the time. I thought it was beautiful, but...", and with a nervous chuckle, he finished : "I thought it could have other... uses!"

Parker looked at him with a sad smile, for the first time grasping the extent of the damage that had been done to him. She had taught him plenty of things, about sex and women and love. And all this had been wiped away. He had had to learn all that again, with another woman, or alone, with books and movies. It was cruel. They had stolen their memories, they had stolen their relationship, they had stolen their experiences...

Damn the Centre!

"It’s beautiful" the young Jarod had said at last. And leaning forward, he had helped her out of her blue sandals and her jeans while she steadied herself by resting her hands on his strong shoulders.

"Your legs are incredible!" exclaimed Jarod with heat. Only later, were they going to realise it had been a comment made by present-Jarod.

They watched attentively as the 88-Jarod discovered the joys of lacy underwear. He lifted his head, and pushing her away from the bed, he stood in front of her. He glided his warm hands against the silky skin of her belly then lifted her top over her head and gasped when his eyes settled on the black bra.

Now, she was standing in front of him, only clad in black lace and he lifted his hand to cup her left breast. She closed her eyes and the present-Parker realised that soon she would have to change her panties for a drier pair.

Then, lifting hopeful eyes at her, he asked : "Can I take it off you?"

Breathless, she answered ‘yes’. Parker recalled the sensations of Jarod’s fingers on her chest, and she remembered that she had decided to turn around in order to give herself some room to regain her senses and of course, give Jarod better access to the clasp in her back.

Suddenly present-Parker decided to show Jarod the effect he had had on her, and she said : "Look..." just as she attempted to change the angle of vision. But he protested : "Nooo, what are you doing? I want to see your bu..." he stopped censuring himself just before pronouncing the word. And she looked at him with wide eyes and furrowed brows!

Then she decided to discard the matter and pushed the angle-change button just in time to give Jarod a wonderful view of her bra-liberated breasts.

The 88-Jarod approached her back and put his hands on her shoulders, then began nipping at her shoulder blades and neck. She closed her eyes and tipped her head to the side, allowing him better access to the soft skin below her ear.

His hands slid forward to her front and he brushed his fingers against the underside of her breasts. He stroked the sensitive skin there and then took the two rounded weights completely in his palms. Jarod rested his chin on her shoulder and gazed down to the two perfect breasts he held. And he smiled.

He began thumbing her nipples and Parker’s moaning increased. "This sound you’re making...", she opened her eyes at the sound of his voice, "I don’t know if it’s normal, but it makes me even... harder!"

She chuckled, and the audience laughed too.

"I assure you that it’s very normal." She answered him, trying to assess by herself that what he was saying was true. She brought one of her hands back, between them while the other gripped Jarod’s hip. And she introduced it inside his pants and around his hard and hot member.

"Ooh...." cried Jarod, and he briskly turned her around in his arms, claiming her trembling lips with his mouth.

They kissed for several minutes while Jarod’s hands wandered over her back and buttocks and hers were desperatly trying to divest him of his shirt.

When he was naked at last, she pushed him onto the bed and climbed astride him. Present-Jarod was then able to enjoy the sight of her ass, and even the sight of his past hands sliding under her panties and caressing her two ass cheecks sensually.

They kept kissing passionately and when Parker felt Jarod push her underwear down, she straightened and took it off herself then knelt above him and watched him watch her for a couple of seconds.

When he tried to roll her over so he was on top, she stopped him, saying : "Today, we’re gonna try another position!"

"Position?" he asked with a hoarse voice.

The nowadays Parker commented : "I should have said ‘learn another position’!"

But Jarod didn’t react to the mock tone of his former lover, he was entranced by the couples’ actions on the screen. Parker had just grabbed his penis, his 88-penis, and had impaled herself on it with agonizing slowness

Young Jarod’s eyes were wide with wonder at the sensation, and young Parker’s were closed. She lifted herself a little on her kness, only leaving the very tip of Jarod’s erection inside her, and sank down again. The trips up and down his shaft proved surrealisticly orgasmic.

She remembered, she could remember Jarod’s hands, resting lightly on her hips. She could remember his stupified stillness, the heat of him inside her, the roundness of his testicles against her ass.

He was stretching her insides with all his lenghth. And he was letting her have the lead. Was it because of the new position? Or was it because he could sense it would be even more pleasurable to let her be the one to move?

Anyway, she could see herself on the screen, nearing the edge, nearing the delicious abyss of orgasm. And she came. She saw her belly’s muscles contract and guessed it was to accompany her inner muscles, contracting around Jarod. He had no alternative. He came too. In a stony silence, amidst labored shallow breathing!!

Present-Jarod used the silence to suggest they finish the 20^th and go have a cold shower.

She agreed and watched her former lover grab her ass and press her to him, then pull her up the bed with him and lay down ready for sleep.

"Ok" she breathed out, understanding what Jarod was asking of her.

They slept, still joined, like the previous night. She on top of him, her head on his shoulder, her dark hair spread out across his torso.

The nowadays Jarod fast forwarded the disk until the alarm clock sounded and the two watched the tender waking they had shared in the past.

He opened his eyes before her and watched with a loving eye her dark head. Then he saw her lift her face to him, lost. Until she remembered where she was and smiled blissfully. She stretched her neck and lowered her lips to his.

"Sleep well?" she asked.

"Oh yeah" she answered while pushing herself off him, her hands flat on his torso. He slipped out of her and the camera caught a glimpse of Jarod’s flaccid penis.

Then she straddled his hips. Almost a minute passed like that, with their eyes locked on each other, not talking, not touching. Then she leaned forward again, and kissed his eyelids, his nose and mouth and jaw.

He saw himself wrap his arms around her waist and kiss her longingly. Then she stood and dressed while he watched, a little saddened

Fully dressed, she sat back on the bed. She passed her hand through the soft hairs on his chest, then leant forward and dropped a wet kiss to his left nipple, whispering : "Tonight!" And she was gone!

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

‘Oh yeah, yeah, oh god... yeah... oh...yesssss.’ Then suddenly her hand dropped. ‘God, I’m supposed to be taking a cold shower not...’

She opened a little more the cold tap and spread the water on her chest, accidentally brushing a nipple, which sent her again on a path of unextinguishable arousal. Her hand lowered again and she resumed her strokes.

‘God, it’s sooo good. Yeah... I need it,... oh god, yeah... I’m sure he’s doing the same anyway.’ And her hand kept delving and rubbing around on her vulva.

It became even harder to stop when she imagined Jarod, hot and naked, under the shower, hard and...

Resting her back against the cold tiles, legs slightly parted, head tilted to the side, eyes closed, she rubbed her clit while thrusting two fingers inside her burning, dilatated vagina.

Her cry of satisfaction was muffled by her lips which she forced closed and the sound of the running water. She sat down in the tub, trying to regain her breath.

‘I don’t care. It’s his fault anyway. He was the one to make me love sex that much, wanting to stay inside every night! He made me a junkie, I’m addicted to penises.’ And she smiled, because as always, he was reponsible of all her problems!

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Her hair was wet. Why didn’t she dry it? It was irresistible. It made her look very different, so much softer. She was showing herself, in front of him, clad in white jogging pants and a tee-shirt. Her hair was down and wet.

He was cold, he had showered with cold water. He had seen his erection fade progressively under the cold spray. Now he was feeling serene, and her wet hair had left a wet trace on the back of her tee-shirt. But Jarod felt serene. Her wet hair had this effect on him!

There was something else, the rosy color of her cheecks. She had said that they should act like adults and he had taken a freezing shower, but now, he felt like teasing her about the flush in her cheecks.

"You want something to drink? I’m going to get myself an iced tea." And now, he was troubled by the relaxed tone she was using when adressing him, the ease she was showing at being in his company. The white jogging pants, the wet hair and now this!!!!!!

"The same, please."

When she got back from the kitchen, he was sitting on his side of the couch, his head thrown back, eyes closed. Serene. He felt serene.

She walked by him, giving him his glass, and he smelled her, the fresh scent of soap. She was divine. And he had had her. Suddenly his heart began beating wildly fast. He had made love to her, he had made her come...

"Jarod, ... Jarod... Do you hear me?" she called when she saw him lost in a world of his own. ‘What was it with him? He had relieved himself in the shower? Or not?’

Well... not really subsided. She was still extremely aroused. Her panties were still damp. But her fear had grown. She wasn’t afraid of discovering that she had loved Jarod anymore. Now she was afraid that the love she had felt then hadn’t been wiped away with the rest of her memories.

Jarod, for his part, had had along the viewing of the first three discs and almost half the fourth, the same constancy, the same exclamative and unconscious comments about her, the same urge to have cold showers now and then (and now she knew that this sweet, innocent, boy wasn’t jerking off everytime he was alone. Because she had said he shouldn’t), and the same awe at seeing himself loved and touched by her.

You didn’t need to be a genius to guess that Jarod’s constancy extented also to his love for her, over the passing years.

She watched, almost embarrassed, (while Jarod had stopped feeling the slightest bit of embarrassement after she had declared her love to him on the screen) how her 88-self pumped Jarod’s penis with one hand while the other played with the hairs on his torso, and her mouth was doing something she thought she would never do.

"It was amazing. I’ve... never come this hard. You’re a wonderful lover."

The worse part of it was that she remembered her words to be the truth.

"Can I extract that part and make a public declaration to the Centre with it?" asked the current Jarod with smugness.

She turned to him and noticed that beneath the sarcastic tone of his voice, his eyes showed pure bliss. She let it pass, out of a feeling of pity for this beautiful man who had been robbed of one of the best experiences in his life.

She had to admit it was true for her too. It was one of the best things that had ever happened to her. These thirty-some-five days when she had met Jarod every night, talked to him, listened to him and made love to him, had been the most amazing days she could remember ever having, along with her time with Thomas and the years she had had with her mother.

But something was nagging at her, as if aknowledging to him that she had loved him then could destroy some part of her heart.

She remained quiet. Until her pain became overwhelming and as she watched their encounter of the 23^rd of august, her tears began spilling from her eyes uncontrolably.

Jarod wasn’t oblivious to the fact that their separation was impending. But he had decided to enjoy every part of it while he could. And somehow, for him, it didn’t matter anymore, because they had finally remembered and they could be together now if they wanted... ok... if she wanted!

But even if he couldn’t hear her crying, he could feel her. And when he turned to her, he found her face crumpled in pain, her cheecks red and her breathing uneven. He stopped the machine.

"Hey... what’s going on?" he asked softly.

But she didn’t answer, instead fled from the room.

She found herself in the bathroom again, and shedding her clothes, she stepped under the hot spray, her tears mingling with the water.

She finally calmed down and as she scolded herself for using all the hot water, she chuckled realising that anyway, Jarod wasn’t going to need any hot water.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

When she opened the door of her room, she found Jarod sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, in front of her door. His cheecks were flushed and he stood up quickly, taking in her appearence. She had stopped crying and during a second, Jarod feeling guilty, forgot about her pain :

"I brought myself off... I’m sorry." He blurted out.

She smiled weakly, and advancing on him, she stroked his cheeck with her fingers. "It’s okay," she assured him while heading back to the living room.

He found her sitting on the couch, waiting for him. Concerned, he asked : "Will you tell me what’s bothering you, please?"

She lowered her head, diverting her look from his face, and eluded his question. "Nothing."

He sat beside her, not dropping the matter.

"We were watching the 23^rd, right?" she tried.

He nodded. And resigned, he turned the machine on.

They were still in the same state in which they were when she had fled the room, naked and sweaty, flushed and out of breath. A mess of tangled limbs, ones more hairy than others.

When she rolled off of him, there was this look in her eyes, as if she was sensing something terrible would occur. She laid there, her gaze fixed on the ceiling, while Jarod’s features were only showing satisfaction and happiness.

But it didn’t last of course, because he had her in his blood and soon he knew she wasn’t swimming in bliss as he was. He turned to her and took her in his arms, spooning his front into her back, drawing a thin sheet atop their bodies, trying to comfort her even without knowing what was disturbing her mood.

They slept, and once again, once more, Parker had to face the truth that said that her best night’s sleeps had been these, when she was in Jarod’s embrace, deep down, in the bowels of hell.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

He had always guessed what she needed. And now, he was not pushing, because he knew that it would only make things worse to force her to tell him why her eyes were constantly tearing since the damn date had changed from 22^nd to 23^rd of august.

He had let her be, giving her space, allowing her to prepare them dinner, while he walked outside, bathing in the last rays of the settling sun. His heart swelled every now and then when the image of her, professing her love to him, popped up inside his head.

He would be eternally grateful to Angelo for having hidden the DSAs, and to fate for having brought her to him that day, on sublevel 12, when he had seen her for the first time since 12 years.

He loved her. And more than that. He knew that even without having lived that wonderful summer together back then, he would love her now. He would have fallen in love with her again.

And if Raines was to wipe away their memories right now, wipe away their regained memories and their five years of chase, he, Jarod, would fall again, deeply in love with Parker.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

It wasn’t getting any better, and her red eyes were a vivid proof of it. But still, he ate in silence, not once mentionning her tears to her. And she would have been mad at him for not giving her disarray the attention it deserved, if she didn’t know him that well.

It was tearing at his insides to see her go through such pain. So she tried her best to control her emotions if for nothing else than to keep him from suffering for her.

The 24^th their lovemaking was somehow even more intense than all their former matings. They were like mad with desire and that left her in a very embarassing situation when her father opened the door to find her on her hands and knees, on Jarod’s bed.

Her body was jerked back and forth under the pretender’s violent assault, and her father clearly wasn’t expecting such a sight.

The determined look on his face turned to utter surprise than to disgust and finally to anger. She was surprised that in this exact moment he could still call her ‘angel’.

"Angel" he bellowed, loudly. And Jarod reacted for the first time. Lifting his head to Mr Parker, his eyes showed surprise followed by fear, and he stumbled forward, still joined to Parker, and pushed her into the mattress, collapsing on top of her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in a very protective gesture.

He had come down to Jarod’s room with work for the young man, an urgent matter he needed resolved with his african associates. He expected to find the pretender asleep. He didn’t bother to inform Sydney about it. The chairman thought he was only going to need two hours of the genius’ time.

He wasn’t expecting to find his daughter there!

"Get.Off.Her" enunciated Mr Parker in a very threatening tone. She was trying to wiggle out of Jarod’s death grip on her body and when he let her go, she heard him say : "Don’t hurt her. It’s all my fault."

She made a beeline for her clothes, while her father turned around and drawing a large device out (a cell- phone), he called Mr Raines.

The weezing ghoul arrived within minutes which passed very slowly in the room, where the two young people, both dressed now, stood in fear in front of a very angry but silent Chairman.

Raines’ surprise at seeing the chairman’s daughter in Jarod’s room, her disheveled hair, and the mussed up sheets on the bed, turned to a slight smile that sent goose bumps through the skin of the audience.

"Mr...Parker" he breathed out. The chairman turned to him, and asked : "Did you bring what I asked?"

"It’s... on the... way" said Raines, breathing heavily.

A little knock on the door alerted the men to the sweeper that stood behind the door. When he gave them the syringes he had been sent to fetch, he looked up and saw what nobody was to know. Three seconds later, there was a bullet between his eyes. And Jarod’s scream of horror covered the painful gasp that escaped Parker’s lips. Her eyes were fixed on her father’s gun with disbelief

Raines approached Jarod first and the pretender backed away, until he found himself trapped by his bed and had no other escape than to sit on it.

"What are you doing?" asked the 88-Parker with a trembling voice, and present-Jarod felt a weight lift from his heart when he heard the concern she had had for him, once.

Raines forcefully pulled Jarod’s arm to him and in a very fast motion, he had lifted the younger man’s sleeve and stuck the needle in his flesh. In the blink of an eye, Jarod was unconscious, and he collapsed back on the bed, just as Miss Parker felt the arms of her father around her shoulders.

Dr Billy advanced on her and sedated her too. On the screen, Mr Parker lifted his daughter in his arms and went to lay her down on the bed beside her lover.

"Lock the door, and to my office." Ordered Mr Parker, and Raines followed him out the door.

The recording continued for some two minutes more, while the crying couple watched their sleeping forms on the bed. Their heads had rolled to the side, to the other’s side. And they slept, facing each other, drawn to each other, even in a drug induced sleep.

The screen blacked out, and Jarod stopped the DSA player for the last time.

He saw her crawl across the couch in a silent cry for comfort, and he hugged her, crying in her hair while she cried on his shirt.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

It had been four days, and she had to get back to Blue Cove before her absence began raising suspiscions.

Jarod was driving silently. They had barely spoken to each other after their long and very soothing embrace on the couch. Her pain was fading, maybe because she realised that what had been lost wasn’t totally so. In fact, it was sitting right beside her. Warm and alive.

The silence was calming. Little needed to be said. Everything was so clear now.

Her father and Raines had decided that such a relationship was out of the question. And they had taken the necessary measures to prevent it’s consequences.

She guessed that what had frightened them then was the risk such a relationship could have on Jarod’ productivity. She could have a bad influence on him.

She could have distracted him from the sims, she could have given him ideas like wanting his freedom, like wanting details about the destination of his sims...

She could have... been so happy. And they had taken everything away.

They had robbed her of two lovers.

And a mother.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Once at her house, Jarod seemed reluctant to leave her. She was glad he was lingering around. She didn’t want him to go.

She brought him a soda, and sat beside him on her couch. The glass was about to slip from his trembling hands when she caught it.

"Jarod?"

He took a deep breath and stood. Pacing the length of her lounge, he tried to convey his feelings with simple words.

"I thought that I’d be... satied. I mean... after seeing that all that lust I carried around with me... for you, had once been channeled into release. But I’m not. I still feel like I’ve been wanting you for years and have never had you."

"You’ve been wanting me for years!" she stated, matter-of-factly.

He smiled at her... "Yeah, but five years are not the same as thirty!"

She smiled. And he came back to sit beside her : "Where do we go from here?"

She shook her head. And with a sad voice, she said : "I don’t know..."

"My bedroom?" she added a second later, with one touch of mischievousness and two of incertainty

His grin could have been the wider that have ever crossed his face.

"No" he replied with a low voice and at the startled look she gave him, he explained as he leant towards her, pushing her body into the couch, "can’t lose time getting there... want you here." And he kissed her mouth sensually, touched her face and her hair, licked her neck and left ear.

Their sensations were a sea of contradiction. It was new but at the same time, so familiar. He remembered how she tasted, but he discovered that he had never tasted anything better. She remembered how his hands felt on her skin, and she discovered that her skin only felt under his hands..

He was life and life had just dragged her down to the ground. They kissed and touched and nipped at each other’s flesh, until they were naked on the flour, moving breathlessly together, all thought of the Centre forgotten.

She was heaven on earth, and heaven had just turned into hell because it’s door had opened and in had come a father.

It felt like a déjà vu, something they had experienced before. Save that this time, the father only smiled, and even laughed. Then he turned around and went out the door.

Everything would turn out just fine if these two had finally found each other.

Sydney was sure of it as he kept chuckling to himself on Miss Parker’s porch.