Disclaimer: I do not own Quantum Leap or Leisure Suit Larry. Universal Television produced Quantum Leap, and Al Lowe and Sierra Entertainment created and distributed the Leisure Suit Larry series.

Quantum Hearts

"Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator – and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap… will be the leap home."

It always was a strange feeling the way Sam Beckett felt when he made his next quantum leap. To have his essence pulled out of one body and time and pushed into another, it was like someone was using his soul like a volleyball. It was never truly painful, for the mind or the body, but it always left him with a feeling of vertigo when he suddenly realized where he had ended up next. Each new situation seemed stranger and stranger (or weirder and weirder) than the last. He had been in the bodies of numerous women, children, legless war veterans, people he personally knew, even a chimpanzee on one occasion. No wonder he always said, "Oh, boy," when he saw what was happening around him.

But nothing had prepared him for what his next leap had in store for him. As he leaped out of another body and into another one, he found himself standing in a dirty old room full of unmentionables of numerous types. That was the first thing he noticed upon arrival. He saw the second when he looked down at his body, wondering what clothes he was wearing. He wasn't wearing away. He was naked! Third, he saw a clot of clothes lying nearby that look like a short, cheap dress and a white leisure suit. Finally, he noticed the small bed next to him, and that a young, pseudo-attractive woman was lying in it with the sheets pulled up almost to her shoulders. She was naked, too!

Sam couldn't believe it. He had just landed in a hooker's flophouse. And apparently he had just had sex with her, because he also noticed the condom that was the only thing he was wearing!

"Oh, boy," he muttered, as he usually did when he made a leap.

"Oh boy is right, pal," said the hooker sultrily as she puffed on a cigarette and blew smoke up to the ceiling. "For a fat, balding, 38-year-old virgin, you've got damn good style in bed."

Sam looked at her face, trying to keep his eyes off of her assets. It wasn't the kind of face he would consider pretty. "Uh, yeah," he said, "Listen Miss… what was your name again?"

She blinked and pouted at him. "What? You've just hit the sack with me, and you've already forgotten who I am? Typical of men who just want one-night stands! It's Cynthia, though I'm not telling you my last name, Larry."

Sam blinked in surprise this time.

"That's right," said Cynthia, "I didn't forget your name. And I'd suggest you be careful in here, 'cause my pimp'll have your butt in a vise, his arms, really, if he catches you having sex with me for free!"

Oh, dear God! The prostitute's pimp is in the building too! That's all I need. Sam mustered up the willpower to speak again.

"Listen, Cynthia," he said, "I've got to go now, if that's all right. But do you know a way out where the pimp won't catch me, like a back door or something?"

"Sorry, there are no back doors," she replied, "But there is the fire escape, just outside that window on the far wall. Be careful, though. The ladder is a bit slippery to climb down, and there's all kinds of sex tools and toys in the dumpster below, if you don't want to get messy."

Sam didn't like the sound of that, but since he didn't know of any other safe way out, he agreed to that. "Thanks, Cynthia. I'll get out of your hair now." He remembered then that he was still naked, and quickly put the leisure suit on. He felt a little dumb and sleazy with it on, something he didn't like at all, but it was the only outfit at hand besides the hooker's dress.

Sam started to leave, and then he noticed a box of chocolate candies on a little table next to a clothesline of unmentionables. "Can I take this box of candy with me?" he asked. "I want to get the monkey off my back after that… stimulating experience we just went through."

The hooker said, "Sure, why not? My pimp always has plenty extra for me (and him) to eat around here. But wait! Are you implying that our sex wasn't as good as you thought if would be? Because I'll be very disappointed if you do."

"Oh, no," Sam said quickly, "It was good! Yeah… it was good. I just want to… expand my horizons a little when it comes to the ladies. You know, try to fulfill my heart's desire as well as my body."

The hooker almost jumped out of bed and spat at him, "You men are all alike! Ya can't find true love with a hooker, so you go looking among the more 'decent, civilized' women of society! Listen, pal, I never wanna see your face again. You just take the candy and get out that window right now, or I'm calling my pimp up here anyway and telling him that you took abusive advantage of me."

"But hookers aren't always bad people-" started Sam, but Cynthia cut him off.

"Get out!" she hissed as quietly as she could, giving him one more chance to leave before she called the pimp.

"Okay, okay," said Sam, "I'm going, I'm going!" He quickly opened the window near the little table and climbed out onto the fire escape, grateful to be out of that putrid room. He was on the second floor of a building with a HOTEL sign flashing in neon letters, and the 'E' failed to flash with the other letters, a sign that it was broken. Sam saw another window next to the one he had just exited, and it looked like something was just inside it, but he couldn't tell what. Oh well, probably not my business anyway, he thought. He walked over to the ladder and started to climb down, but the ladder slid downwards unexpectedly, and he lost his grip on the slippery rungs, falling into the dumpster directly below.

"Yuck!" he said out loud.

A familiar voice said from nearby, "Yeah. Lucky for me, I don't have to get dirty in it. By the way, Larry Laffer does want to fulfill his heart as well as his body, but I don't think he'd put it quite that way. He doesn't talk like you, Sam."

Sam started and climbed out of the dumpster in a hurry, cleaning himself off as best he could, accidently pulling a left-handed hammer with the name '"Lefty's" engraved on it out of it with him. Then he turned to face the interior of the alley, and there was his friend and guide once again, the hologram of Al Calavicci.

"Al!" exclaimed Sam, "Where the heck am I? And why was I just making out with a hooker?!"

"Ssshhh! Quieter than that!" said Al, "You want that hooker or her pimp to hear you talking to me?"

"Oh yeah, fine," said Sam in a quieter voice. "But why am I here? And who's Larry Laffer? What's going on?"

"Relax, pal," said Al, "Ziggy and I are working on it right now." He consulted his artificial intelligence device that had "Ziggy" programmed into it. Soon, it began to speak part of the story to them.

"Larry Laffer," it said. "38-year-old virgin, lovable loser, and all-around unlucky guy. Lived in his mother's basement during his 20s and 30s, until he could bear it no more, and has now come to Lost Wages, a parallel twin city of Las Vegas, to get laid with the best woman in town."

Sam stared at Ziggy, not sure what to make of this.

"It appears, according to Ziggy," said Al, "that you're Larry Laffer, a luckless swinger in a fictitious city named Lost Wages. And-"

"What?" said Sam, almost forgetting to be quiet again, "I've heard of quantum leaps into the future, into the past beyond my lifetime, and into animals' bodies, which shouldn't be logically possible, but how can I leap into the body of a man in a city that never even existed except in fiction? Al, that sort of thing can't happen. Science hasn't found a way to do such mumbo jumbo!"

"I don't know, Sam," said Al, "I just don't know, so don't get your silk undies in a knot. Ziggy hasn't figured it out either, but we're working on it. In the meantime, while he works on it, you have to prevent a little tragedy from happening to Mr. Laffer."

Sam looked suspiciously at Al. "What sort of tragedy?"

"Well," said Al, reading more information on his Ziggy device, "apparently, Larry is desperate to find true love, so much so that he needs it tonight, before sunrise, or he'll get a loaded gun and kill himself. Then he won't be able to go on a lifetime of future adventures around the world as a suave swinger after his 'true love' eventually dumps him."

Sam was aghast. "You mean I have to keep flirting, smooth-talking, and making love with young girls until I find Larry's 'true love?' How do we even know who this true love is? And what happens to Larry in the original timeline of history?"

"Basically, that's it," said Al, "Though I don't think you'll have to do as much sex as you think you will. Ziggy claims there are only three other women about to come into Larry's life, and one of them is his 'true love,' but Ziggy won't tell me her name, or where she lives. As for the other question, Larry finds a girl named Fawn in a disco club, and they get married quickly, but Fawn betrays him and leaves him behind in the dust, or rather, in bed. Then, he wanders around aimlessly, not knowing how to come on to one of the other two women, getting drunk at Lefty's Bar, which is in this very same building, until sunrise comes, and he kills himself."

"But why can't I just will Larry not to kill himself in the morning? It would probably be pretty easy to do that, even though I'd leap out of his body eventually, and he'd be completely back."

"Ah, now that's another complication," said Al. "Ziggy claims that you will make your next jump at some point shortly before morning, so if you fail, Larry will kill himself anyway."

Sam shook his head in disbelief. "Al, I am not a swinger. I care too much about women for who they are inside to play a sleazy ladies' man. This isn't something I can do."

Al shrugged. "Evidently, you have no choice, as usual, Sam," he said, "It's what you do as the quantum leap time traveler, isn't it? If you don't do it, there's no telling what the cosmic forces will do to you sometime. Frankly," he said with a wink, "I envy you a little. If I were on this mission-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Al," said Sam, "Your head would be in the clouds of heaven. But the fact is, you're not Larry. I am. And how am I supposed to play the role of a sleazy loser, anyway? I'd probably be too embarrassed, or too humiliated to play the role right."

"Actually, that might not be so hard for you, Sam," Al said. "Usually, losers who want to sound suave with the ladies talk like they're trying too hard to be suave, and don't quite get it right at all. For a man like you, that shouldn't be hard at all, as long as you don't let yourself die of embarrassment or humiliation. Come on," he continued, as Sam looked at the ground, and at his leisure suit in despondency. "It has to be done, or at least tried. It's your job."

Sam heaved a sigh, and looked at Al again.

"Oh, all right," said Sam, "I don't imagine I'll enjoy this, but I guess maybe I can do it, but only to save an innocent man's life, and not out of a desire for kinky sex."

"Good man, Sam," said Al. "Now listen, you need to make some money in order to go on with Larry's quest, and the Casino Hotel, which is a medium-long taxi ride from here, is the kind of place where Larry makes money the most commonly and easily. Just catch a taxi. There are plenty of them working day and night in Lost Wages. I'll meet you there, as soon as Ziggy and I find the right coordinates."

"Okay then," said Sam, resolved to get this done as quickly as possible, "Let's get it over with." He started to walk out of the alley and onto the sidewalk.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" shouted Al. "Wait a minute, Sam! You're not seriously thinking of walking around out there still wearing that rubber, are you?"

"What?" said Sam, ducking back into the alley. Then he noticed that he was indeed still wearing the used contraceptive. Grimacing in disgust, he discreetly rolled it off and disposed of it in the dumpster, after making sure Al wasn't looking. Nonetheless, Al couldn't resist an amused smile at Sam's near-fatal action. Sam noticed a piece of a mirror lying in the dumpster too, and he looked into it, seeing a short man approaching middle age, with dark, balding hair, a fat stomach, and an incredibly boyish and goofy face for someone that age. Shuddering slightly at how unattractive Larry Laffer really was, he put the mirror back and straightened himself out.

"Thanks, Al," said Sam, "But why were you so frantic about it? It's just the two of us here."

"Good evening, sir," an intelligent voice suddenly greeted Sam/Larry from behind. He turned in surprise and saw a police officer in full uniform standing there with a flashlight in hand and a cap on his head. "Nice night for a walk, huh?" the cop asked.

"Uh, yeah, nice night for a walk, all right," he said, smiling sheepishly.

"What's your name, sir?" the policeman asked.

"Sa- uh, Larry. Larry Laffer," he replied. "I'm an out-of-towner. I was out looking for girls."

The cop looked surprised. "A man your age? Well, I can tell you that the clubs, businesses and bars are better places to look than these dark alleys. Listen, let me give you some helpful advice, assuming you don't already know about it."

"Sure," said Sam/Larry.

"First of all, don't go into any more alleys around here, even if you really have to. Bullies and punks always hide behind the dumpsters and garbage cans, looking for people to beat to a pulp. They can be very dangerous. And second, stay away from hookers if you can. Despite the legality of prostitution in Lost Wages, it's still a dangerous thing to get into, and not just because of the pimps."

"Oh yeah," said Sam/Larry, thinking about his excursion with a hooker just now. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Thank you sir," said the officer. "Well, I need to resume my beat now. Have a nice night, Mr. Laffer."

"You too, officer," said Sam/Larry, waving as the cop left.

"Well, that was close," he remarked once the cop was out of earshot.

"I think you handled that pretty well," remarked Al back.

"Thanks, Al," said Sam sarcastically. "Now I guess I'd better get a taxi before anybody else comes along. Do I have enough money for a cab ride?"

Al gestured at his pocket. "Take a look for yourself," he said, "You're not a kid, Sam."

Sam frowned and pulled out Larry's wallet. There was approximately $80 in the wallet at the moment, and he noticed that it also had a little bit of money in a secret compartment. "Better than nothin'," he said, putting the wallet away again.

"Go for it, Larry!" said Al encouragingly. "That's right. From now on, you answer to the name Larry, except when talking to me, of course."

"I know that, Al," said Sam.

And with that, he walked out to the sidewalk and shouted, "YO! TAXI!" He noticed that the aforementioned "Lefty's Bar" was right there in the same building as the hooker's apartment. Al's hologram vanished at that same moment. A cab pulled up, and Sam/Larry got in, hoping he was ready for one of his least favorite things, a night of debauchery.