1:23 Ch. 01

Hello reader. This is a long over due reedit of my 1:23 series. Sorry, I promise no going it alone from here on out. My Volunteer editor is Creativity-Takes-Courage. Thanks Creativity for your hard work on putting a polish on this series.

Enjoy,

Lostindavoid.

*

"I can't see a thing," Kent Orlando said.

Harriett didn't respond as she tinkered with the weird helmet thing on his head.

"What is this thing supposed to do again?" he asked, worried his brain was being cooked by microwaves or something.

Harriett made more adjustments before saying, "It connects to the part of your brain that is stimulated when you're happy."

"What part is that?" he asked but didn't get an answer because now he couldn't hear a thing. "Um, Harriett, I'm blind and deaf now."

He heard a high ringing in his left ear, then it weirdly moved to his right ear. Then the sound seemed to come from in front of him.

"Can you hear me?" Harriett asked, sounding distant.

"You across the room? You sound far away."

"AND NOW?"

"Whoa! It's like you're yelling in my right ear."

"SORRY... what about now?"

"Better, you sound like you're right in front of me, but not yelling."

"Good," Harriett said. "What else do you hear?"

"Normal stuff. The chair you're in is squeaky and you're moving stuff on your work table."

"Good. Can you see anything?"

"Um... the darkness seems less... dark?"

"And now?"

"I think I see flashing lights to my right... no, my left."

"You can take off the helmet now," Harriett said.

He reached up to grip the helmet but it seemed to take forever. It was like his arms were hundreds of feet long. His hands finally touched the sides of the helmet and he peeled it off.

"That's it?" Kent asked as Harriett took the thing away from him. "I thought you were stimulating my happy zone? I was hoping to see myself surfing or dancing with girls in bikinis and stuff."

"You wish," Harriett said putting the helmet down. "This is a science experiment not a frat house party."

"You made it sound like this would take a while," Kent said. He stretched his neck and flexed his limbs. He felt oddly fatigued.

"It did," Harriett said. "It took two hours to get you to hear my voice. Another hour for you to see the lights."

"Really? It felt like just a couple of minutes to me."

"The helmet put you in a deep state."

Kent roughed his hair, his head itched so he scratched. "Wanna go for a beer at the Gardens?"

"Nope, got to collate the data. Thanks for helping me out with this."

"No trouble," he said and watched her tap away at her laptop. "It was really cool to find out that you and I attend the same college."

Harriett nodded, barely hearing as she typed. Kent and Harriett attended the same high school back in Ohio. Then, out of the blue, a couple of weeks ago, Harriett Kono approached him and asked if he would help with her brain helmet thing. Until that moment, he had had no idea Harriett was a student at Honolulu University too. It was kind of weird. He watched her tinker further with her helmet thingy. Harriett Kono was attractive in a quiet unassuming way. She had a slim, pretty figure and looked great in jeans. They'd never talked once in all their four years of high school. She was the total science nerd back then and he a jock. Plus, Japanese girls like Harriett were simply not on his radar. He felt a little guilty for not noticing before, but after two years at Honolulu University, his appreciation for Asian women had grown exponentially.

"What you call that thing again?" he asked

"The Cerebral Mental Enhancer And Image Stimulator," she said as she typed more notes.

"I call it the Brain Tube," he said, looking at the strange helmet. It looked like something from a science fiction movie.

"Sounds too much like YouTube," she said, all serious.

"Won't change your mind about that beer?"

"Sorry, I want to get to full visual mode on this thing before midterm."

She opened a notebook and started writing furiously with a pencil. He took the hint and left the computer tech lab.

Feeling out of sorts and in the mood for company, he headed toward the Gardens anyway. The Gardens was the only place on campus that served alcohol. It was a warm night and it still amazed him that it was mid-November.

"Honolulu ain't nothing like Byle, Ohio," he said with a shake of his head. He wasn't complaining and would be perfectly happy never to put on winter clothes ever again. A group of women, dressed for the warm weather, walked past him. Almost all were locals.

Asian girls, they were everywhere. Understandable, since this was the Hawaiian Islands. He got here on a basketball scholarship. At an even six feet and not the fastest guy on a basketball court, he had no illusions of getting a spot on a top ranked collage team. But, here in Honolulu, he played well enough to earn his keep. Even here, he wasn't a starter but he got enough court time to keep it interesting.

At the Gardens, he ordered a pint of Sam Adams dark and sat outside at a circular concrete table with a big green and white umbrella overhead. Immediately, his eyes fell on a curvy Asian woman in black jeans and a black clingy top sitting nearby, reading a book. It was Meka Okuda, a graduate student in the art history department. He knew her, or, more accurately, knew of her, because he'd taken an art history class last semester, and she was the teacher's assistant. Meka was unusually tall for an Asian female. She was Kent's height with a Beyonce-like body. Harriett was more of what he thought an Asian girl should look like; petite, cute, and slim-figured. There was nothing cute about Meka, though, she was all woman.

Meka looked up from her book and caught him staring and he quickly looked away. When he looked back at her she was reading again. He considered talking to her but made no move to do so. It wasn't that he was shy about talking to girls; he simply knew that Meka Okuda was out of his league. Jocks like him, and academics like Okuda, never hit it off. But he and Harriett seemed to have something going, although he wasn't quite sure what that thing was just yet.

More students and faculty started filtering in. As the tables filled, the noise level rose. People Kent knew joined him under his umbrella. At one point, he noticed Meka Okuda had left. After three beers, he left the gardens and headed for the dorms. He wanted to stay longer but suffered from a universal ailment known to most college students throughout history—he was broke. As he walked to the dorms, his cell rang.

"Hello," he said.

"Kent?" came a female voice.

"Yeah? Who is this?"

There was a long pause and just when he was about to end the call, the voice said, "This is Harriett."

"Harriett? Hey! Wasup? Change your mind about that beer?"

"Stay still," she said in a voice that sounded... worried? Tired?

"Hey, you okay?" he asked, concerned.

"Look around you, when you see the peacock tell me and I will come to you."

"What is this?" he asked, bewildered.

"Look," she insisted.

Feeling stupid, he looked around but all he saw was the patch of grass behind the math building and the empty parking lot lit by lampposts. "Who is this?" he insisted, for this couldn't be Harriett, she just wasn't the practical joking type. Then, there it was, a peacock with its tail in full display stepping out from the shadows between the art and math buildings. "What the hell?"

"Kent," a voice came from behind him. He turned and his heart jumped for there stood Harriett seemingly from nowhere. She wore a white lab coat over T-shirt and jeans, just as he had last seen her, a couple of hours ago. "Can... we... sit?" she asked slowly, like it took effort to get out every word.

"Um, sure, where do you wanna go?" he asked. He was about to say the Gardens but remembered that he had no cash.

She sat down cross-legged on the road that ran pass the math and art buildings. She looked up at him and wouldn't look away. He was about to look around to see if anyone was watching, and, also, he was curious where the peacock had got to.

"Don't look away from me," Harriett said, sounding firm and a bit desperate.

"... Sure," he said, surprised by her strange behavior. He sat on his butt, cross--legged, facing her. "You do know that this is crazy, right?"

"You are still... in the lab... wearing the helmet," she said, her every word a labored effort. "Something has... gone wrong... stay put... no matter what... happens."

"Shit, girl, you on drugs?" Kent asked, really worried and positive she was high on something.

"Don't look away and listen, please... " she begged.

The headlights from a car turned onto the road they sat in the middle of. He looked at the car coming at them. "Harriett, we have to—" He stopped short, Harriett was gone. "What the fuck?" he said, and then he screamed when the car's horn blared and headlights came racing at him.

He was still screaming when he sat up in his dorm room bed.

"Fuck!" he yelled and looked over to see if he'd woken his roommate, but the guy was still lightly snoring. Kent looked at the clock on his desk; it was 1:23. "One, two, three." he whispered as he shook off the fluff of his odd little dream. "No more beer before bed," he promised himself. He stared at the textured ceiling of his dorm room for a long time before sleep finally returned. He rolled on his side and looked at the clock on the nightstand. The clock still read 1:23.

"One. Two, three? How can that be?" he whispered, groggy with sleep, unaware he'd rhymed. Sleep took him down as he pondered the state of his digital clock's malfunction.

He sat up in bed with a start. Did I just scream? he wondered as the slim tendrils of a dream clung to him. He tried to recall details before it all slipped away. The room was full of morning light. His roommate's bed was made, the dude had gone to breakfast.

"Fuck," he said. Even if he hurried he would still be late for Anthropology 101. He sighed. Professor Lane always gave him shit whenever he staggered in late, which was about every class lately. Lane seemed to take his tardiness as a personal affront. He looked at his digital clock and it said 1:23.

"Busted piece of shit," he complained as he got up and dressed.

He stepped into the hall of his dorm building and fell into the late morning flow of students heading to classes. Wonderful smells drifted his way from the Aloha cafeteria that served the circular dorm towers surrounding it. He shook his head in regret as he imagined a heaping plate of fried rice with a side of Portuguese sausage, or linguica, as the locals called it. Loco Moco was a new adopted favorite too, consisting of two runny eggs and gravy over a hamburger patty on a bed of steamed rice and a dash of soy sauce. His stomach grumbled, but he marched past the cafeteria, regretting having slept through his time for breakfast.

Anthropology wasn't his best subject, but he liked the class nonetheless. The course was plenty interesting and years of watching the Discovery and Science channels were actually paying off.

The lecture was rolling when he slipped in the door but it wasn't Professor Lang at the head of the class. Written on the dry erase board were two words; Professor Jasmine. Was Lang out sick? The replacement, Professor Jasmine, gave him the stink eye as he headed for the an open seat.

"The Alpha Male has decided to join us, I see," Professor Jasmine said, cruelly singling Kent out. Everyone giggled. She returned to the lecture the moment Kent took his seat. "As I was saying before the interruption, this particular group of baboons are a matriarchal society, in other words, the women call the shots and all the males show up on time."

A titter of laughter filled the classroom.

"One female in particular is at the top. That is the Alpha Female... "

As quiet as he could, Kent got out his notebook. As usual, he sought out the student assistant sitting to the left of teacher's desk, clicking away at her laptop. She was Filipino and very cute. He racked his brain for her name but was unable to come up with it, He knew it was something unusual like Needa or Nalla.

"Neffie, hand out the hierarchy chart of the baboon group please," Professor Jasmine said.

That was it, Neffie, short for Nefertiti.

The Filipino girl got up and handed out the chart. She wore jeans and a simple top. She had that cute, yet sexy, thing going. She had a slim, delicate figure and he spied her cute ass as she went back to her seat next to the professor's desk. Her dark brown skin and long wavy jet black hair added a nice exotic edge. Kent's eyes drifted to the sub, Professor Jasmine. It was kind of weird but she looked exactly like Sandra Oh from Grey's Anatomy or, better yet, that stripper she played in the movie Dancing at the Blue Iguana. Sandra Oh was totally hot in that one. The scene were Oh posed in just panties and a translucent white top quickly came to mind stirring a certain part of Kent's anatomy.

"The lower ranking males are always at the Alpha Female's beck and call," Professor Jasmine said, drawing Kent back into the lecture. "They bring her food and groom her in hopes of getting to mate with her. Usually, the Alpha Female mates with the Alpha Male, but not exclusively. Sometimes, she will dip into the lower ranking males just for fun. Slumming we humans call it."

The class laughed.

The professor paced the front of the classroom as she lectured. Kent admired her slender figure in her knee length white skirt and snug dark blue long sleeve top. Her dark brown, waist length hair was the perfect accessory for her beautiful Asian face. And damn didn't she look exactly like Sandra Oh!

A weird squawking sound on the other side of the classroom door made him jump. He turned to look just as the door swung open and, insanely, a peacock stepped into the room. It boldly walked between the rows of desks, stopping to peck at the floor right in front of substitute Professor Jasmine. The Professor stopped lecturing to look at the bird. In fact, everyone in the class was staring at the bird and yet no one said or did a thing about it.

"What the fuck?" Kent said. Maybe it was a loose pet or something? He turned to look at the open door and there stood Harriett, in her lab coat and jeans, looking at him intently. She walked his way and sat in the empty portable desk beside him.

"Am I dreaming?" Kent asked Harriett, barely recalling something about a peacock the previous night.

"Like I told you before, you're still at the tech lab wearing the experimental helmet," Harriett said. "I'm getting better at moving around inside your head but it's still not easy."

Kent stared at her slack-jawed.

"None of this is real, Kent," Harriett said heavily. "And I need your help to get you mentally back to the lab. So please, stand up right now and follow. Can you do that for me?"

"None of this is real?" Kent asked.

"Yes, now don't look away and follow me back to my lab, okay?"

"I'm making this all up?" he asked.

"Yes," Harriett said.

He turned his head to look at the bird and Sandra Oh.

"Don't look away!" Harriett said sharply.

Kent frowned for the bird was gone. He looked back at Harriett and she had vanished too.

The professor started back on her baboon lecture. "The Alpha Male has one card he uses that gives him some control over the Alpha Female ... that card is sex. The Alpha Male knows that the Alpha Female desires his genes over all others and she will do whatever it takes to get them."

Kent decided to do as Harriett wanted and go to her lab and rose to his feet. Professor Jasmine looked at him and said, "Sit down, Mr. Orlando."

Automatically responding to her authority, he sat back down quickly. This isn't real. I should get up and just go. He looked at Neffie clacking at her laptop. If this is all happening in my head do I have some control? Focusing on Neffie, he whispered, "Shut the laptop," Immediately she did. "Okay," he whispered. "Neffie, write 'fuck you' on the dry erase board."

The young woman sitting across the aisle from him gave Kent a disapproving look. Kent frowned because the chick looked like that actress that played all the clones in the PBS Orphan Black series. He and his best friend Donny were big fans. With her tight pony tail, she looked just like... "Alison Hendrix? " he whispered. She put a finger to her lips to shush him.

His eyes returned to the front of the room as Neffie got up and wrote in green marker 'Fuck you!' and outlined her work in red then bracketed it with silly blue hearts.

"Wow," Kent whispered. His eyes flickered over to Oswald across the aisle and then back to Neffie, now seated again. Kent looked around to see how the rest of the class was taking this but no one was reacting to the words on the board. "This is unreal," he said.

"You have something to say about baboon society, Mr. Orlando?" Professor Jasmine asked.

With all his will and a pounding heart, he projected a thought at Professor Jasmine.

Kick off your shoes.

"Lost your tongue," Jasmine asked with a small smile as she casually sat on the end of her desk and kicked off her heels with her feet. "If you were an Alpha Male baboon you would have no trouble speaking your mind."

Neffie covered her mouth to suppress a laugh.

"Um... the Alpha Male calls the shots you say?" he stammered just to say something.

"Yes, he does," Jasmine said, not looking away. "He is the only male that can mate with the Alpha Female whenever he likes."

"If I were an Alpha Male... you know... a baboon?" he said, shrinking a bit under Jasmine's relentless eyes. "... and if you were a female you would... you know... listen to me?"

"Yes, Mr. Orlando, if you were an Alpha Male baboon and I the Alpha Female that would be so," Jasmine said.

His eyes went to the words 'fuck you' on the board. If I'm not dreaming I'm going to be SO expelled for this, he thought. He cleared his throat and said, "Um, for the lesson's sake, let's say I am and you're... um the alpha baboon chic and I told you to take your top off, um... would you?"

"Yes, I would," Jasmine said.

"Um... okay, take off your top."

Jasmine stood away from her desk and focused her laser stare at Kent for several seconds.

Fucking idiot! he thought in a panic. This is gonna get me kicked off the basketball team! Goodbye sports scholarship ... goodbye Hawaiian Islands!

Professor Jasmine unbuttoned her top, took it off, folded it, and put it neatly over the back of her chair. Kent stared open-mouth at her standing at the front of the desk in her simple white bra, white skirt, and no shoes. He looked around to see how the rest of the class was reacting. Absurdly, some were taking notes but most were looking at Jasmine like this was just part of the lecture.

He looked back at Jasmine who looked back at him. Even though he was sure that this was all an illusion created by the Brain Tube thing, Jasmine's stern stare made his face flush and he dropped his eyes. They didn't drop too far though and stayed glued to Jasmine's perky bra covered B-cups, her dark nipples visible through the white material.

Professor Jasmine turned her back on the class and went to the dry erase board, her long, dark hair a pleasing contrast against the creamy, pale skin of her back. She picked up the eraser and wiped away 'Fuck you!' with its decorative hearts. In black marker she wrote, Alpha Male suggestions, she underlined it and then wrote below it, female removes shoes, female removes top.

"What else, Mr. Orlando?" Jasmine asked,still facing the board.

"Remove your skirt?" he asked tentatively.

"Female removes skirt," Jasmine said as she wrote it. She turned and undid the zipper on the side of her skirt, shimmied it down a bit and let it drop unceremoniously to her ankles. She had on matching white panties and pantyhose. With her back still to the class, she bent daintily, picked up the skirt, folded it, and draped it on her desk chair along with her top. She turned to face the class, cupped an elbow, walked around and then leaned on the edge of her desk to lecture. Kent's eyes focused on the enticing dark patch just visible under the pantyhose and panties.