Chapter Twenty-Nine
Four months earlier
....
The next morning, I wake up feeling refreshed and exhilarated. In the shower, I find myself humming
Candlelight
by Relient K.
"Someone's in a good mood," Gabi says as I walk back into our room. "Not sure I've ever heard you hum before."
"Mmhmm. Bea and I went on a date," I say.
"Last night?"
"Next July," I reply simply.
"Uhh, you're going to have to help out, Babes," she says, understandably confused.
I chuckle. "Last night, we were experimenting with time travel, or, more specifically, sending memories back in time.
"Have either of us told you about what we've been calling the Dance?"
"Nuh uh."
"We had to dive headlong into our relationship due to Bea's ability and the domme/sub dynamic, so we skipped over all the flirty, uncertain parts—what she's coined 'the Dance'—that usually precede a romantic relationship. Bea's been crafting a meet-cute for us, temporarily erasing all of our memories of each other for the duration of those dates, so we can experience those butterflies that we missed."
"Aww, that's kinda cute. What's that got to do with time travel?"
"For our second meetup, she wanted us to go to Wild Waves."
"And they're not open right now. Gotcha," Gabi says. "Ya know, I'd be jealous if she and I didn't have a date planned for this weekend."
"What are you two doing?"
"She wants to try ice skating again."
"Fun!"
"Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it," she says. "Trixy's always so in control. Even when she's being silly, she doesn't make mistakes—well, except for Sunday morning, but that's not the kind of mistake I mean. It's kind of nice to see Trix out of her element, see her struggling with something related to skill. Watching her fall on her ass over and over makes her seem more human."
I nod. Beatrix has always seemed very human to me, but I know that I've seen a lot more of her insecurities than Gabi has.
There's a lull in the conversation as I finish putting on clothes and Gabi applies her makeup. "You're not feeling jealous," I ask, breaking the silence, "of my time with her, are you? Like, you said you'd feel jealous of her time with me, but are you and I getting enough date time?"
"Babes," Gabi says flatly with a matching look, "three mornings ago I had you bound and gagged, I had my way with you, and then we spent an hour cuddling. Playing domme was a lot of fun for me, more than I thought it would be, and then the cuddling just made it perfect." She smiles fondly at the memory.
"Okay. Just checking," I say, a bit relieved. "By the way, I think Beatrix had a bit to do with you enjoying yourself more than you expected."
"Really?"
"Yeah. She told me she loosened your inhibitions, prevented you from doubting yourself."
"Oh. I hadn't known," she says thoughtfully. "I'll have to thank her for that."
"And FYI, that cuddling after a BDSM session is called 'aftercare'. Aftercare provides time for the domme and sub to shrug off those personas and return to reality."
She nods. "Good to know.
"Anyway, yes, I feel like I have enough time with you. We fall to sleep most nights spoonin' in my bunk. We're roommates! I get more than my fair share. Honestly, I'm happy that you spend so much time with Bea; if you didn't, I'd worry that
she'd
feel left out."
"Alright. That's a relief. Still, sometime soon, I'd like to go on a real date with you—do something fun outside this room, just the two of us."
"I'd love that! Have something particular in mind?"
"Nope. Let's both be thinking about what we could do," I suggest, "and share ideas in a couple days."
"Sounds good!" she says. "Now get over here and kiss me before I gotta go to class."
* * *
For once in my life, the chemicals actually behave like they're supposed to on the first try, and I'm allowed to leave my chem lab half an hour early. As a result, Beatrix and I get to our Viking Union table at the same time. Bea pouts at being denied a reason to dole out my ritual unpunctuality punishment.
"Honestly," I say, "I'm not really in the mood for anything kinky right now. I'm too excited about our date."
"Me too!" she says with the same happy exuberance I'm feeling. "How much of it do you remember?"
"Not very much, actually. What I do remember, I remember vividly, as if it happened yesterday, but the only memories I received were us arriving at the park and meeting on the river ride."
"That's all I remember, too. Any theories as to why that would happen?" Her tone is positive but controlled, like she's trying not to overthink something.
"A couple. Why do you think that's all we received?" I ask, giving her a chance to voice her concerns before I give my answer.
"I'm not sure. I worry that– well, that we kissed."
"That's something to worry about?" I ask, smiling but slightly confused.
"Kind of, yeah. The whole point of the Dance is that we get to experience the fun, uncertain stuff that happens before becoming girlfriends. What if we skipped all that again? What if that's the nature of our dynamic? If we did dive right in again, Future Me would want to send the memories back in chunks so that we could artificially draw out the butterflies." She frowns slightly. "It kind of makes me sad, to be honest. It would mean that we really don't need a third date."
"I suppose that's a possibility, but I don't think it's likely. Or, well, I suppose we could have kissed—that seems completely in our nature—but I don't think that's the reason for the limited memories."
"Why not?" she asks, a bit of hope returning to her tone.
"Because I don't remember how I got in line. I remember entering the park a minute ahead of you and heading to the lockers, but I don't remember getting to the lockers or walking to the ride. I was at the gate and then, suddenly, I was near the front of the line in my bikini, holding an innertube."
"So?"
"So," I say, "what if the reason is that the amount of info to be sent was too large to be sent back the whole four months?"
"Hmm." She sounds unconvinced. "Why wouldn't we recharge my battery and do another transmission, later, back to the same point in time? With time travel, it doesn't matter
when
the memories are sent, only
to
when they're sent—'where' in the timeline they're received; the destination matters, but the origin does not."
"Except, in this case, the origin
does
matter," I counter. "I suspect the next part of the date was too large to be sent back the full four-and-a-half months. Rather than split the memory of whatever happened next in order to send it back in pieces and try to seamlessly patch those pieces together, we decided to send the full memory back a shorter distance, and we'll receive that next, larger chunk in the next week or two. Remember, not only did you have to send this info back four months, but you had to do it twice—once for each of us. That requires an enormous amount of energy.
"We still don't know what happens," I continue, "if you try to do something that requires more energy than your battery contains. Perhaps we still won't know in July. I think we must have done the math and decided that it was too risky to attempt sending so much information back this far."
"Hmm," Bea says. "I have to admit that I am scared to test what happens. I don't think it would kill me—at least, I really hope that's not the case—but I'm scared I'd 'burn out' my battery and lose my ability altogether." I nod. "Very well. You've convinced me."
