The Cheater
A short story
“How long have we known each other?” Jefferson Salter asked before he took a long drink of his Sam Adams. He rested the mug on the coaster, only to notice there was still some amber in the glass, and quickly drank the remainder.
“Thirty-six years,” Clayton Greer replied.
Jefferson and Clayton had been roommates and best friends at Tufts. Luck transported them from Medford, Massachusetts to Cambridge, where they entered graduate school at MIT at the same time. More good luck brought them both to San Francisco, where Jefferson taught at Sanford and Clayton worked as Chief of the City of San Francisco’s Planning Unit.
“Let me ask you a question.”
“Sure.”
Jefferson twirled a toothpick between his fingers. “Are you happy?”
Clayton nodded, sipped his beer, and replied, “Generally, yes.”
“Generally?” Jefferson narrowed his eyes.
“I think you know that Maddy and I aren’t at the height of our relationship.”
“More like a low point, I’d say,” Jefferson said. The pub erupted in unisonic cheer as the 49ers scored a touchdown. At this pace, they’d be a sure thing for Super Bowl 60. He waited for the din to subside before continuing. “When was the last time you two had sex?”
“Three years ago.”
“And with no one else?”
“That would be cheating.”
“Would it? If your wife won’t have sex with you, is it cheating to seek pleasure outside of marriage?”
Clayton frowned. “Yes, it would be cheating. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t.”
“But you want to.”
“In an abstract way, I do. I miss sex. I get that Maddy’s busy, wrapped up in her career, raising Peter and Jack—”
“You have a career and are raising your sons, too.”
Clayton shrugged.
“Cheating isn’t illegal.”
“It feels amoral.” Clayton snapped the toothpick he was holding.
“You won’t be arrested for having sex out of marriage.”
“I can’t do it.” Clayton surveyed the pub, a dimly lit place with walls of stained, dark wood and a glowing mirror behind the bar. He wondered how many of the dozens of couples were having drinks with their spouses. He wondered if all those smiling faces were because they were having affairs.
Jefferson slid his chair closer to the table and lowered his voice to a barely audible volume. “Was it cheating for you to have sex before you met Maddy?”
“Of course not.”
“And would it be cheating to have sex with somebody if Maddy didn’t exist?”
“What? What are you talking about, ‘Maddy didn't exist.’”
“Let me rephrase. “Would it be wrong if you had sex in a time before Maddy was even conceived?” Jefferson asked.
“Huh?”
“What if you went back in time and had sex with a woman? Maddy wouldn’t have been born. Heck, her parents wouldn’t have even been born. Would that be cheating?”
Clayton studied his best friend’s eyes, the ocean blue eyes of one of the most brilliant mathematicians at Stanford and possibly the entire country.
Jefferson held his stare, too, and he didn’t blink.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a thought experiment. Would it be cheating on your wife if you had sex in a time before she existed?”
Clayton took in a long breath. “Well, it wouldn’t be cheating to have sex after she no longer exists, like”—he swallowed audibly— “after she’s dead.”
“And?”
“It still would be wrong to have an affair in the past because my wife would be here when I returned to the present. I would have cheated on her.”
“But you would not have cheated on her in a time when you were married. Hence, you would not have cheated.”
“Where is all of this leading?” Clayton asked. “Are you trying to prod me into having sex outside of my marriage?”
“No, I am suggesting you travel back in time to have sex.”
Clayton rolled his eyes and raised his arm to call the waiter for another beer, but Jefferson placed his hand on his friend’s elbow and gently lowered it. Clayton shook off Jefferson’s hand. “You’re not joking.”
“I am not.”
“I definitely need another beer now. Have you traveled back in time?”
Jefferson nodded.
“And did you have an affair in the past, a guilt-free affair that doesn’t break any rules or norms like you’re proposing I do?”
“Nope. I’m happily married, and Denise and I have sex every Sunday night, which, while less frequent than when we were dating, is adequate.”
The waiter appeared. Jefferson pointed to their empty mugs and raised two fingers.
“You built a time machine?”
“No. You don’t need a time machine to travel in time, and I doubt one could ever be built. However, time travel is relatively easy once you understand the mathematics. To travel to the past, you must visualize a four-dimensional structure—like a Maurits Cornelis Escher drawing turned inside out. You have to see it, not just have a vague sense of what that object looks like. Unfortunately, our brains are wired to see objects in three dimensions, and while we can get a rough idea of what four dimensions might look like, we can never completely comprehend what four dimensions.”
“Like trying to draw a Klein bottle.”
“Something like that. I created an object using certain equations to project a four-quad-dimensional tesseract in three-dimensional space. I fed those equations into a 3D printer and produced what I call an MC Escher 4D box. It’s a four-dimensional construct that’s stable in three dimensions. I broke seventeen printers in the process. Denise was not happy when our credit card bill arrived.”
“And time traveling works how?”
“You stare at the Escher box for a few seconds, and poof, you’re back in time.”
The waiter arrived with their drinks.
Jefferson and Clayton drank, and then Jefferson resumed his explanation. “Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that. You have to first visualize an image from the time to which you want to go, or you will end up in a random year. Believe me when I say that dinosaurs are scarier than you can imagine.”
“Dinosaurs?”
“Stare at the image for a full minute to embed that scene in your brain, then immediately look at the Escher box. In a second, you’ll be back in time.”
“Always the past?”
“Unless you have photos of the future, always the past.”
“And how do you return to the present?”
Jefferson smiled. “Looking at the Escher box rearranges your brain’s neurons, and while I haven’t been able to take an MRI of myself, I believe some of the brain’s cells shift into four dimensions. But they can’t stay there long because the higher geometric space rejects them. When that occurs, you return to your time.”
“How long are you in the past?”
“I’ve made eight trips into the past, each lasting twelve hours.”
“Long enough for—”
“For a good sexual experience.”
“I was going to say, for a sense of what the past is like. But if you insist on me having sex—”
“So, you’re warming to the idea? I know it will do you a world of good.”
Clayton ran his finger along the mug’s rim. “Yeah, I am. Like you said, it doesn’t break any laws, and it would be something that happened a long time ago, long before my wife was born.”
“To what year and where do you want to travel?”
“How about New York City in 1920? The Roaring Twenties. Should be fun.” Clayton felt a warm flush flow over his face.
“New York City in 1920 it is.” Jefferson fished his phone out of his pocket, tapped it several times, summoned a photograph of old Manhattan, and smiled. “It looks awesome. I’m sorry you can only stay half a day, but many return visits are possible.”
“Twelve hours will be fine. But I—um—have a question. How do I find a woman to, you know—”
“Fuck?”
“Yeah.”
“Look for a speakeasy—Prohibition is on—or a nightclub.”
“Or maybe I’ll just find a prostitute.”
“You could, but how would you pay her? With money from 2025?”
“Gotcha.” Clayton downed the remainder of his beer. “And there will be no repercussions vis a vis my marriage?”
“Look, only you can answer your conscience, but as far as morality goes, as I said, you’re not sinning because you’re not married in 1920.”
“Is fornication a crime in New York in 1920?”
“I have no idea, but even if it is, you won’t be around long enough for that to be a problem.”
“Okay.”
Jefferson slid his phone with the 1920 New York photo to Clayton. After a minute, he asked, “Are you ready? Is the image stuck in your head?”
Clayton smiled broadly.
I’m going to have sex, he thought.
“Yes.”
Jefferson unsnapped his briefcase and retrieved a cuboid object about the size of a pack of cigarettes. He cupped the object between his palms and held his hands above the table. “I’m going to close my eyes and open my hands. When I do, think of the photo, look at the object in my hands, and you'll be in 1920 before you can blink. Have fun. Ready? On the count of three: Three, two, one…”
Clayton’s hard-soled shoes clicked against the cobblestone sidewalk. The long red rays of the morning sun reflected and refracted against the milk bottles outside the stoops of the Third Avenue brownstones.
He glanced at his watch: 2:55 a.m. But because he hadn’t reset it from California time, it was off by three hours. Rather, one-hundred-five years and three hours.
How long had he been in 1920? Eleven hours, a little longer? He’d be returning to his time soon, and that thought sent a wave of melancholy through his soul.
He paused outside the four-story apartment for a moment, taking in the sights: boxy cars as big as modern minivans, all men wearing hats, a trolley, green awnings shielding shops from the sun, and a smattering of early risers walking dogs.
But no horses. Clayton expected to see horses, but there was a lot he didn’t know about America’s history. Maybe he’d learn more on subsequent visits.
The sidewalks were mostly empty, but last night, when he arrived, they were as crowded as Manhattan sidewalks in 2025.
He looked up at the second-story window of the building he had just exited and waved. Betty raised the window open, waved back, and blew a kiss. They had met at the speakeasy two tenements down the block, a basement workspace converted into a bar. It hadn’t been hard to find: Clayton watched and followed the line of people in a seemingly never-ending stream walking through an unmarked, industrial-looking steel door. He overheard the password, pigeon, and used that to gain entry. A few minutes later, he met Betty, who offered to buy him a glass of Canadian whiskey. Within the hour, they left the speakeasy and headed to bed, where they stayed until dawn.
Betty had asked Clayton if she’d see him again, and he replied, “Yes,” which wasn’t a lie, though it may not have been the truth—he wasn’t certain yet.
How will I feel when I see Maddy?
For the short time they’d been together, he’d grown to like Betty, and she him, and there were a lot of pleasant things about that.
A mistress a century in the past was safe. A mistress his wife would never discover, a mistress who would be a lover and friend in another time and place—how amazing was that?
Clayton waved and blew Betty a kiss, too. As he turned to walk to the alley adjacent to the building where he’d wait for his automatic return to 2025, he spotted a dime, which he slipped into his pocket.
Maybe this will be a thing of value, a rare coin.
Clayton fished out a dime from 2025 and placed it on the sidewalk.
Take a dime, leave a dime. I may be a philanderer, but I’m not a thief.
Clayton had just entered the alley when his world transformed back to 2025, back to the San Francisco pub where he and Jefferson had been sitting, back to the same seat, with the same beer mugs on the table and the same chiron about global heat waves scrolling across the television above the bar.
I can escape global warming by traveling to the past. Time travel is boundless in its benefits, Clayton thought.
Jefferson sat across from him, but instead of a smile, the last expression he’d seen on his best friend, he wore a stern face. His jaw muscles were tense, and he folded his arms tightly in front of his chest.
Jefferson turned toward the man in the loose-fitting suit standing to his left and then to the police officer on his right. “I told you he’d be here,” Jefferson said.
Clayton stood. The man in the suit pushed him down, swiftly returning Clayton to his seat. The police officer squeezed Clayton’s arms together behind the chair and attached handcuffs to his wrists. Clayton shrieked, “Ouch!” The metal against metal clinked as the cuffs closed and caught the attention of nearly everyone in the pub, even over the hubbub.
“What is this about?”
“Clayton Greer, you are under arrest for violating The Federal Sanctity of Marriage Act,” the suited man said. “You will be remanded to Rikers Island pending your appearance before a judge. He leaned close to Clayton and whispered, “I have the best job in the world, arresting deviants like you who think they can escape the law’s reach by traveling in time.”
Clayton shook his head. Sanctity of Marriage Act. There’s no such law. Time travel—how does he…?
The cop hoisted Clayton up.
He looked at his friend—my former friend?—and said, “I don’t understand. Didn’t you just send me back in time? What’s going on? You invented time travel.”
Jefferson laughed. “I wish. Time travel was invented in 1949 by physicist Emily Crawford. Everyone knows the story about how she found a dime from the future, which inspired her to solve the puzzle of time travel.” Jefferson momentarily studied his friend’s face and added, “But you didn’t know that. Somehow, you didn’t know.”
“Let’s go,” the agent said. “Maybe they’ll give you a history book in prison. You’ll have ten years to read up on it.”
“Wait, wait!” Clayton shouted as the men frog-marched him out of the pub. “This is wrong! Something’s wrong.” He glared at Jefferson and asked, “How did you know I’d be here if you didn’t invent time travel?”
Jefferson shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged.
Clayton turned to the agent and screeched, “I’m innocent.”
“That’s what they all say,” the agent replied.
If you enjoyed The Cheater, I think you’ll also like my short story The Billboard.
Poor Clayton hadn't read the Bradbury story with the butterfly....
Give me those time travel stories…always thought provoking and twisty . I enjoyed the suspense. When I was tenish I read a book called Danger: Dinosaurs! By Ricard Marsten, 1953. I was truly scared. I found a dusty copy in a used bookstore and reread it. Still scary!