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 me 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.”

I give her the fifteen-second Dance rundown.

“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 it’s 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 lookin’ 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 wicked 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.  It helps prevent or mitigate what’s called sub drop and dom drop—an empty, depressing feeling that comes on after an intense session.”  I wince, then, realizing I’d educated her when she hadn’t asked.  I firmly remind myself that Gabi isn’t actually that interested in BDSM.

She nods indifferently.  “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 of Sarah time.  Honestly, I’m happy that you spend so much time with Trix; if you didn’t, I’d worry that she’d feel left out.”

“Alright.  That’s a relief,” I say.  “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 forty-five minutes 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 inner tube.”

“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 from 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.”

“Good!”

We each take a few bites of our lunch.

“What did you think of the portion of the date that we did receive?” she asks.

“I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl,” I gush, suppressing a giggle.  “I feel like I’m dating two versions of you, or, more like hoping to date a second version of you.  Even though I know how I feel about you and you feel about me, I don’t know how the other version of you feels about me.  I’m legitimately nervous about it, ’cause I’m completely infatuated with her.”

“Right?!” Bea says excitedly.  “I want to ask Other You out, but I have no idea if you’ll say yes.  Even you telling me, right now, that you’re infatuated doesn’t seem to matter.  It’s like I can feel that other version of me—feel the flutter that she’s feeling—but she can’t ‘hear’ you right now; Other Me can’t apply my knowledge to her feelings.”

“I think that’s a good thing.”

“Oh, for sure,” she says.  “I wouldn’t want to ruin the happy suspense.  This is all turning out better than I had imagined when I came up with the idea last week.”  She pauses.  “Wow, that really was only last week.  I’m surprised that it didn’t feel contrived to meet you at Wild Waves”—she silently counts the time between Friday and now on her fingers—“five days after we first ran into each other at the movies.”

“I suspect you accounted for that when you set up the date,” I say.  “Several times, I started to notice incongruities and the thoughts faded before I could consider them fully.  Forced immersion for the win.  If only Ant-Man had that ability,” I say, winking at her.

She completely ignores the quip and the attached eye movement.  “Huh.  I suppose I’ll have to update the ‘code’ of With Forgotten Memories.  Actually have to, I mean; I get the feeling that I’ll be compelled to do so.”  She chuckles.  “I’m glad you’re enjoying this all as much as I am.”

“I really am.  Thank you for this, Bea.  I know it’s a lot of work, and I want you to know I appreciate it.  A lot.”

“Well,” she says, a glint in her eye, “it’s not exactly altruistic.”  She smirks at me.

“True.  That doesn’t make it any less of a gift, though.  I worry sometimes that I don’t do enough for you.  Being a sub often feels like being a consumer while the domme does all the work of producing.”

“Oh?  And what would you call last night?”

“You mean experimenting with your ability?  I dunno.  Just that, I guess.”

“I call it planning,” she says.  “Maybe I should stop erasing your memories of our planning sessions.  I just like the things we do to be a surprise to you.”

“Have I forgotten a lot?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that.  I’d guess about two or three hours since that first time I installed the ‘please’ and ‘thank y-o-u’ triggers.  I’d guess I’ve done another couple hours of planning on my own, but the payoff is so, so worth it.  I love making you come, love doing such a good job bringing your fantasies to life that you have no choice but to orgasm.  You have no idea how rewarding that is.”

I smile at her awed tone and facial expression.  “Oh, I don’t know.  I think I have some idea.  Yesterday, as much fun as I had controlling you, I had at least as much fun seeing you enjoy being controlled.”

“Yeah,” she says softly.  There’s something she’s not saying.

“What is it, Babe?”

“Oh!” she says, the ‘h’ clipped by her accent.  “No, it’s a good thing.  You probably didn’t realize it but you called me beautiful, Baby.”

“You are!”

“Thanks, but I don’t think you understand.  You called me beautiful while I was entranced.  Intellectually, I know that people find me attractive, and I believe you when you tell me I’m beautiful—that is, I believe you are telling the truth of your opinion.  But I don’t feel it.  Or at least, I didn’t.”  Her voice softens nearly to a whisper.  “Not until yesterday.  You called me beautiful and it’s like it became part of my identity.”

She giggles shyly.  “After you left, I tried to say that I’m ugly.  I’ve never been hypnotized before and I could tell that the suggestion had lodged itself in my psyche.  I wanted to see what effect that would have, so I tried to say that I’m ugly.  I couldn’t.  I physically could not get the words out.  I sort of choked and stuttered until I stopped trying.  It was kind of fun, to be honest.”  A faint blush accentuates her freckles.  “I’m uhkkkkkk–  See?”

“That’s adorable,” I say, unable to hide my amusement.  I take her hand in mine.  The thrill from the intimate gesture hits me every time.  Every. single. time.  “You’re right: I hadn’t meant it as a suggestion.  I’m glad it had that effect, though.  You deserve to feel beautiful.”

“I’m glad it did, too.  Thank you, Sarah.  Really.”

“You are most welcome, Mistress,” I tease of my own volition.  It then occurs to me that I made another suggestion while she was in trance.  “And how do you feel about being a bimbo?”

“I love being a dumb little Bimbo!” she says cheerfully, then claps both hands over her mouth, looking shocked and wholly mortified.

“And why is that, Pet?” I ask, a little knowing sadism in my tone.

“Because,” Bea answers shyly through her clasped fingers, “being dumb feels good.”  I can’t tell if she’s being shy compulsively in character or shy embarrassedly out of character.  Perhaps both, I think with satisfaction.  Despite the shyness of her tone, I can tell that she means it.  Or, I think, has been made to mean it.

“Good girl,” I say flippantly.  Beatrix shivers autonomically, and I shoot her a condescending smirk, hungry for every bit of her, every inch of her body and facet of her personality.

“Are you done eating?” she asks, tersely changing the subject before I can tease her further.

“Yep,” I say.  I stuff my lust back down for retrieval at a more convenient time.

“Not that you deserve it after what you just made me say, Pet,” she says, petulantly, “but I’ve been daydreaming about playing with your hair with your head in my lap all morning.”

“I’d love nothing more.”