No Questions, No Answers

Fran had been jogging her way down the hall when she had to take a moment to adjust the heel of her shoe. It was being stubborn again, sneaking a pesky inline fold against her foot's 6 o'clock. In doing so, her forearm periodically grazed against her hindquarters, sensibly covered in skin hugging volleyball shorts that were nevertheless comfy and natural, on the floor and out, as they were designed to be; or as the cheesy clothing line motto would put it, "light, tight, just right." Quickly, she returned to her jog, looking down just a whisper later to make sure said shorts were on right. Then, out of the blue, a flutter took to her eyes as she started for their bottom edge.

For a moment, a flicker, it seemed as if the hall puttered in and out of a crackle of light only to dissipate in a harried phantom of emptiness once more, and the girl tried to refocus her sights. What was she going on about again? She swiftly looked down and frowned. Oh, er, right. Her -- correction -- protocol crack riding thong. Pulling the middling string of soft fabric up tight in between her buttocks, she let it slap back down onto the two globes' upper curvature satisfactorily. As she gave it a once-over, she ensured it was slid on correctly and in accordance with uniform policy. To her casually expressed approval, all her ass cheek was exposed and ready to go, gleaming under the dim, sporadic string of light. Perfect and all-skin reppin'. Back on the run she went.

"Melanie!" Whence she found the girl she was standing in the doorway of Coach Vane's office. Firmly, but gently, she clasped the other's arm with a tug. She took this second to swish her sights around the perimeter, and saw no immediate presence lurking in the boys' locker room, by which Coach Vane's office was situated. "We need you to set up." A motion caught her peripheral vision, and she looked over her shoulder to see Coach Vane at his chair, staring blatantly at her bare ass. "Oh," she perked, "hi, Coach!"

Vane snapped his gaze up from Fran's tanned, famously bubbly rear to meet her genial eyes, framed delicately by her cropped hair and bangs, and nodded silently in reply. Must have had his mind on other things, good enough for her.

Upon finishing up their sordid hi's (and goodbye's), Melanie and Fran then took off to the auditorium.

"Everything cool with you and Coach?" Fran pried after but a brief minute.

"Yeah," nodded Melanie, "just had to give him that overdue essay. He was staring at my butt like there was something on it the whole time I was talking to him," she scrunched a lip, "but it's all good."

Fran shrugged her shoulders mid-run. "He was looking at mine, too." She popped an exaggerated, conspiratorial brow. "Maybe he just likes BUTTS. Maybe he wants to eat and lick them for breakfast... and kidnaps you at night to prepare his next meal!"

The two girls laughed. Zero discomfort seemed to stir in their innards at the thought of Coach actually perving on them and their bottoms. It was just... well, not really a thing. Or -- it was more like...

You could say...

Even if he, a 70-something-or-so-year-old man, was truly, honestly creeping on and ogling them, a bunch of maturing 18 year old high schoolers, and doing it all cavalier like that, like. It wouldn't really be that big of a deal. Not in the grand scheme of things.

After all, even if he was doing something like that, staring bluntly at their thong covered bottom halves, like... well. Like some predatory freak. Like some drooling bungling loser who couldn't keep it in his pants whenever they took out their professional sportwear before hitting the floor and treating every little glimpse of skin as some sexual invitation to creep.

That...t-that's...

Pahooey, well. That would be perfectly normal and swell. Who gave a damn? Who cared what his stares were lasered on in any given occasion? Who really cared about such droll road forkers? What if this, what if that, as if any of it mattered much if at all. Grampa Vane was some ordinary, unassuming man with occasional back pain. Who gave a flying pie what he looked at on his spare time, on-the-clock, or in the bed.

"So, who else is posting up?" Melanie casually shifted subjects.

"Oh, Eleanor, for one." Fran laughed at the look Melanie made. "I know! She actually showed up, I can't believe it. Remember last week when..."

A minute later, amid a casual bungalow of chatter, the two were submerged in a chorus of female greetings and squeaking shoes and promptly got to work volleying balls, as plenty of balls were ready for the volleying, those bouncy, cheeky, round... balls.

---

Later that night, Mr. Vane, after removing his watch and setting it down on the dresser by his bed, took up some walks down memory lane -- not something he was prone to do, on any occasion.

What he found was interesting. Some would say fine grounds for early onset dementia. Even so, he didn't care. He already lost his flowing mane. They had nothing else to take from him, screw it all with a Phillips.

In old photo albums of the school, some he accessed online, others he had lost in stacks in the dusty recesses of his garage, the girls' volleyball teams were, remarkably, equipped with those same sport thongs he witnessed earlier. The style, though, had evolved; while still being a thong, the earlier editions originally slid up to the upper buttocks and covered a parcel more of the cheek with its fabric as a result. Around the 90s, it had basically become a g-string, and both butt cheeks were fully on display and completely exposed like the (apparent) contemporary version Melanie had pirouetted in front of him today. Only, there was one possible difference. Perusing all of the game shots, individual highlights, and group pictures, the front fabric portion looked a little thicker and wider than he remembered it being on Melanie and her mate Fran. Otherwise, they were essentially the same, still skimpy and scantily scandalous as they would be in anyone's right mind's eye.

Except that, clearly, as these officially approved photobooks indicated, as the people and masses in said photos proved in their ridiculously nonchalant conduct, it wasn't. Not here. Not in 'this world'. Oh no.

In this world, mothers and fathers and siblings alike cheered on Fountain High's butt baring volleyball retinue in cavalier, ignorant bliss. Hugged them. Kissed them. Even had a casual hand slide down there in one candid frame, after a triumphant match against the Liddard Ravens. Who even knows if that was a consensual photo moment or some frisky boyfriend being brazen on camera, both.

That, or they simply didn't care. All that backside meat on show, huh? No biggie. My daughter's rocking it on the floor. It's not obstructing performance. It's not making her uncomfortable. It's just a uniform, surely spilling out her high schooler ass cheeks for all to see as she goes for a blinding smash and it jiggles like globes of meat on display for fast, efficient sale. But otherwise, what harm does it do?

None.

None whatsoever.

Vane set down his glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose, and opened the window. He needed some air.

Clearly, he remembered coaching some of those teams. He was even in several of the pictures, side-hugging a girl or three. Smack dab in the middle of so many of these photos bent and jiggled their naked, smooth, fruity teenager bottoms as they knuckled an approaching volleyball or caught a high pass. Swathes of them, in every yearbook. Innocent young ladies in uniforms struck by one particularly significant difference as compared to how he remembered them looking at the time of said photo. With near every page flip was a memory corrupted, warped by a single thing: that girl's exposed ass in candid light.

After cleaning up his menage of storybooked, forever immortalized times, Grampa Vane wandered into the kitchen, and began readying himself a cup of tea.

A ride like this one he hadn't had in a while. And previously, a lot of those 'whiles' involved a bit of experimental recreation with herbs. Of course, he grew out of it. He grew old.

The events of today still trickling over his brain, Vane focused on pouring his tea as the purr of the house accompanied him. The tile felt nice and freshly cold against his feet. Always made sure to keep the place clean.

After all, he may have been on the other side of the number scale these crusty days, but he wasn't about to just lay down in some elderly home and let it all slip away. Frankly, as his physician could attest to, he was fairly healthy for his age, could still lift and run and shimmy. Talk and think and two-step. Write, shoot hoops, even some mild climbing was still in his vocabulary. Not dead yet.

With a soft squeak, he took a seat. Sat down. All by his lonesome in a big wide crisp cut domicile.

Sip.

Ahh.

A content smile colored his lips as he stared at some indistinct part of the opposing wall.

Nope.

Not dead yet.

Suddenly, with more verve than he expected, Vane left his half-finished cup of tea to hum under the ceiling lamplight and dove back into the hallway. He switched on the light in his room, intrepidly stepped in, and slowly approached his dresser, before finally stopping to give the watch that modestly sat atop it another optical up-and-down, crouching to get a better look. The light of the wall bounced off the watch's shimmering glass surface, in turn reflecting off of Grampa Vane's bared pupils like a finicky river of light. "I wonder..."

Somehow, with him barely registering it, one hand was reaching out. Then, gingerly, grabbing it. Fingering its make. Then turning it around in a mirror of that afternoon; then finally, carefully, the affixed older man began to slip it onto his wrist.

'I, BELIEVE, IN MIRACLLES!'

The grey-haired croucher scrambled, hands patting pocket and pansy, as the muffled shrill of a throatily gifted vocalist reverberated across the room. Finally, he noticed a glow emanating through the dangling sheet of his bed and lifted it to find his phone staring back at him. Concurrently accompanying it with the dispatch of some catchy melodies into the air was Hot Chocolate's ever iconic anthem to, quote, sexy thangs.

Unquote.

Vane's fingers promptly snared the device into their grip.

After skimming the name flashing across the screen, he slid his finger over the Accept button. Instantly, the music was cut off. Darn grandkids. Boy did he love them. If they kept tinkering with his stuff for laughs, though, they weren't getting any more ice cream.

Oh, what was he saying, he was going to just give them more, damn himself.

"Charlie, hey."

"Hey, Dad! Just wanted to check up on ya." The voice on the other end of the line was succeeded by a haggard rustling sound. And thuds. Add some muffled words on top of that. "How you feelin'?" apparent distractions cleared up, the so called 'Charles' returned to the line. "Feelin' alright?"

"Oh, you know, just the usual. Was thinking of finishing up with the fence today, but decided to hold it off 'til Saturday. Heard there was going to be some rain tomorrow. Would kind of defeat the purpose of painting it!" Chuckle, chuckle.

"Ha!" Charles acknowledged. "Yeah, right."

"How're the kids, Charlie?" Vane sat himself upon the quietly creaking mattress as he settled into the long-held human tradition of casual, contrived conversation. "Did you take them biking today?"

A click of the tongue snaked out the speakerbox. "Tried to. Lowell fell and scratched his knee so we had to head back to patch him up for the day. Janine was pretty upset about that..."

Vane chuckled under the receiver. Those two were rascals alright.

Through a yawn, the other end of the line went on, "Heather's still doing her fitness training work. She's actually been pretty busy recently."

At the mention of Heather, the man banged his knee on the bottom of his dresser's ledge.

Gosh, there he went again.

Even still, the discreetly perverted grandpa couldn't deny the splash image that was shucked through his mind; of Heather, his own son's wife, in those tight thigh-exposing shorts and back-baring tanktop. The woman had great legs on her with decently muscular thighs that were also kept nice and smooth as a pearl. Honestly, how could you rationally expect a hot-blooded male to resist? Everybody knew when Charlie and her got together, officially, they were going to be jungle diving under those covers like no tomorrow. After all, Charles was well-bodied and sporty and blessed with fine facial features (just like his mother) and Heather was a walking man melter whose legs could wrap you up any day of the week -- and with a firm pert chest on her as well. At least, before Lowell and Janine came around.

Yet at 33, she gave him the same humena-humena's that first electrocuted him when she strutted around the house a fresh young 20-year-old whirling through school to acquire her communications degree. As focused and sunny as ever. As leggy and beautiful as your everyday pin-up. As heat seeking as a Lockheed missile.

"...ad? Dad, you there?"

"What? Oh, um, yes, correct. I mean," the grandpa rubbed a temple, "sorry, son, you were saying?"

"You sure you okay, Dad?" Charlie's voice was caring, if suspicious.

Meanwhile, Vane's eyes had already begun drifting back to the watch wrapped around his wrist. "Yes, Charlie, I'm sure, just got distracted for a second. Please, continue."

The two went on for a while. Discussing family matters, how the lease on the house was doing, school affairs. Eventually, just before they wrapped up and as Charlie was getting ready to go wash up and go to bed, Vane had to make one final point of inquiry.

"Charlie, I, uh --"

The rustles on the other end subsided. "Yeah, Dad, what's up?"

Hesitation gave way to the seeds of curiosity, long sown and primed to sprout. It wasn't quite possible to dismiss it, now. "You didn't happen to leave me this watch, did you? At my office in Fountain?"

"A watch? At the school? No... why?"

"Oh," Vane exhaled, out of what sentiment, he couldn't figure, "never mind. It was nothing. Maybe one of the kids did it."

"Hey, that sounds real nice of them," another yawn left the invisible face's lips while he continued. "That's always something that should be encouraged. These days, few kids really appreciate their educators. I hope you have some good apples in there -- you've really done a lot for that school, so naturally it'll come back around. That's what Heather always says, anyway. " The man half-chuckled, half-groaned. "Great, I sound just like her, now. Anyway..."

Not long after, the pair said their night goodbyes, Vane wishing him, the kids, and Heather well, before being left, once more, with the silence of his empty bedroom amongst many.

After a heavy stretch of thought, Vane whispered to himself as if somebody was just down the hallway to catch him in the act.

"Uh... ahem. So.

"It...

"It's absolutely normal for women to flash me their behind if it isn't already visible and smack it when greeting me."

An instance of silence followed. The bed was creaking again, Vane almost subconsciously leaning forward as if to draw some sort of sign to his ear. A proof of concept.

Only to extract... nothing.

Great.

But of course -- it was, by design, a seamless re-texturizing of what was already there. And nothing here was currently relevant to his alleged 'change'; so, of course... there would be nothing as mind-shattering as the sight of Melanie's steadily exposed ass cheeks and new-and-improved thong dress code earlier that day.

As the man felt his body pulse in more ways than one, he was also suddenly blanketed by an irrevocable blueness. One that was an innate, irreversible state of human anatomy. One that reminded him that, no matter how far or vividly he realized his fantasies, reality, alas, could never be as good as the stars aligned themselves to imply.

Only for him to be struck with another idea.

One that also included the abnormal capacities of this reality-altering watch.

Which is, of course, what it did, didn't it? Alter reality?

This thing retroactively manipulated history. So, surely... it could make miracles, too?

"It's... also," he swallowed. Would this work?

Could it, really?

Continuing, he finally ventured, "...it's also normal for me to have the same sexual prowess and sensitivity as I did when I was a young adult, including allowing for erections and an actively blooded penis for extended periods of time -- or rather, enough to rightfully engage in the kind of scale of fantasy I would like to see lived out in real lif...hoooo-ooolly yellow fever on a popsicle stiiicck!"

Before he could even properly finish, Vane found his crotch area suddenly imploding with a burst of erotic sensation and throbbing feeling that he could only recall in distant, dead memories, now resurrected, brought back to life. Right there, on his bed, as he squeezed his thighs together and felt a hard rod of manmeat in between them twitching and pulsating back and boinging past to stick its way all the way up like a laser cannon in search for an aerial target vested somewhere in the sky.

"Hoooo-oooolllyy sheeeet!" Flabbergasted, the coach curled back up on his bed and instinctively shucked an arm down into his pants. Vacant of all pretense, he started attacking his penis with one hand, massaging its tip, carressing the shaft, basking in the tingling sexual bursts of pleasure that it generated within him. How it felt this hardy and thick, how it seemed so floppy and fat, he did not know -- surely, it had something to do with his wording. And certainly, at this moment, he did not care.

As the man consummately jerked himself off to sleep, overcome with boarded lust, he fantasized feverishly of the volleyball girls in his class, Heather, the hot teachers in Building B, particularly Mrs. Rosebury, damn those tits on her fuckably slender leggy body, and the stars twinkled away, the backyard murmured, and the croak of the fence softly bellowed, the posts standing firm against the sporadic gusts of wind that began to usher embers of slumber over the neighborhood and the sufficiently built, once lively 20th-century home just by the corner of the street. You know, the one with muffled old-man moans coming out of it. Those perfectly normal, questionable moans. The big looking hole in the front yard. Can't miss it.

All that huffin' and that puffin'.

You just can't.