The Future Utopia Ch. 08

Chapter 8: How I Came Back from the Future and Created My Own Erotic Utopia in the Present

It takes me less time than you might think to recover from my rapturous experience of everything, everywhere, all at once (yeah, I just had to get that reference in somewhere!). The twins and the city together help me to process everything that's happened so far. I start to settle back into my comfortable routine.

But then one ordinary day, the twins come by to tell me they've got some news from the Timesync research group. The scientists have properly calibrated the equipment that will send me home. (Actually, I felt the exact moment that one of them had their big "eureka!" when I was above the city, though it seemed like just one of many peaks I was feeling at the time.) Since then, they've worked in a white-hot fervour to test the inspired concept, and to everyone's delight, it works. The twins tell me the research group is now confident they can send me back, with reasonable certainty, to a mere millisecond after I left, so that it will be like I was never gone. Even if someone was looking right at me, they wouldn't see so much as a flicker. Not that there was anyone around when I vanished. It was still the middle of the fucking pandemic and the suburban streets were like a ghost town.

Clearly, I don't want to go back. The twins feel my disappointment, and the fear that underlies it, as soon as they give me the "good" news.

"Ah. I understand," Raine says at once.

"You're used to life here in the city now." Sunni continues. "It'll be tough to go back to the shitty situation you came from."

I nod, feeling tears well up in my eyes.

"Can't I stay?" I whimper, sounding pathetic even to my own ears. Both of them move to embrace me, pressing their soft, warm bodies to mine in comfort.

"Of course, darling, you can stay if that's what you want!" Says Sunni.

"We would never throw you out against your will." Says Raine.

I feel a ray of hope pierce through the fog of my fears. But in that illuminating light, I can see the gaping pitfall in my decision.

"What about my parents, my sister, all my friends...my houseplants...?"

Raine and Sunni look at each other sadly, then back to me.

"You'll never see them again." Says Raine.

"And they'll never see you." Adds Sunni. "They'll think you've gone missing and search for you. They won't be able to find anything except what you left behind."

"Hopefully they'll take care of your houseplants. But we can't guarantee it."

I suspected as much. I don't want to hurt the people I love like that, I really don't. But for a moment, I allow myself to believe they'd get over the loss eventually. They'd come to accept that I died and went to heaven, and in a way it's true, I'm in heaven right now, so why should I leave if I'm finally happy, the way my parents and friends always wanted me to be...?

Then the twins throw me another curveball.

"Also, any contributions to society or changes in people's lives that you made in our past--or, things you're going to do in your future--won't happen any more."

I stop dead in my happy fantasy tracks, staring at them.

"Wait...what does that mean? If I don't go back, will it create, like, some kind of time paradox, or an alternate branch in the multiverse, or something like that? What actually happens if I stay?"

The twins shrug.

"We don't know. Neither does the Timesync research group. We've never had a chance to test this before. They're not too worried, though."

"Why not?"

"Because they're optimists. They believe in the best possible outcome."

"Besides, the city makes sure we're safe, no matter what we do."

I shake my head, feeling for the first time in a long time like I'm talking to naïve children who are playing with the switch for the atomic bomb.

"But what if me not being there in my time accidentally erases the city along with everything else in this time? What if I'm supposed to do something in 2021--or even 2051!--that makes the city possible down the line? If I've learned anything from time travel stories, it's that the smallest changes can have massive effects on the timeline. I mean, there was even an episode of The Simpsons about it."

"Those are probably just old scary stories that come from your culture's anxieties. But if you do erase us, I guess it will be like we never were, and none of us will mind it at all because we won't be around to feel bad about it."

They giggle, but I shake my head.

"No, my dudes, no! I can't risk that. I can't doom your entire universe just because I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. I would have to be the most selfish person alive to do that."

Now it's Raine's turn to shake her head at me.

"There's no such thing as 'selfish.' You need to act in accordance with what you desire. The rest of us will flock with you or not, depending on what's best for our needs."

"Raine and I will probably stay with you no matter what, though. We've come to love you more than anyone besides each other." Sunni says kindly.

I can feel the love behind his words and it makes me want to cry even harder. In my mind I scrabble desperately through all the stories I've ever read, searching for way to have my happy ending and eat it too.

"What if...what if I pull a Narnia? Like, I stay in the city until I'm old, and then get sent back to the moment I left and be young again? You do all kinds of body modification stuff here. I know, I felt it when I was with Tsuna. I bet the city can make me look 35 even if I'm 90."

The twins give each other doubtful side-eyes.

"I think we need to ask the Timesync research group. This is really, um, 'out of our wheelhouse.'" Raine says.

"Wheelhouse! Good one!" Sunni whispers to her. I have to laugh, despite my tears.

So together we go to the research lab. It's just the same as I remember it, but now I understand things I didn't before, like why the scientists don't wear shoes and are, in fact, naked beneath their white lab coats. The city keeps them safe. They don't need to wear anything at all. The lab coats are just for fun, like a costume. Or a fetish.

I explain my Narnia plan to them. As I expected, however, there are complications.

"We could send you back and you would look young at first," the striking Black woman with silver hair--I've learned that her name is Tavi--explains. "But the city can't actually stop you from aging. We haven't solved the problem of telomerase shortening yet, not even with lobster genes. They just don't take."

"Telomerase is a bitch!" The enthusiastic doll-like one puts in. Their name is Cher. I have a feeling they're a twentieth-century fan.

"So, if you go back, chances are that you will age more rapidly and visibly than you would here, where the city can maintain your body. You'll soon be visibly out of sync with the rest of your age group in 2021. Depending on how long you stay in the city, you could die of old age within a few years of your return."

"Well," Horacio, the fish-skinned boy, interrupts, "That's the worst-case scenario. I think she could safely stay here for five years. It won't make that much difference to her aging. Oh, menopause might seem to come on early, but that happens in your time, doesn't it? Early-onset menopause?"

"Yeah, maybe. But..."

"You don't want to stay that long, right?" Raine intuits.

"Right. And no, it's not the early-onset menopause that bothers me. I'm just worried that the longer I stay, the harder it will be to leave. Right now, it's like I've been on a wonderful vacation. I can always go home from a vacation, no matter how fun or luxurious it was. But if I stay five years this will become my new life, and I might never go back. Then my family will think I'm dead. And I might still cause some sort of timeline collapse. I just...I can't risk it. I can't risk erasing you, all of you, every single person in the city. I've felt them all, the richness of their lives, all their joys and frustrations and...and more than anything I could want for myself, I want to keep them safe. So I should just go, rather than trying to cling to you here."

"That's very compassionate. We appreciate it a lot." The twins say, speaking for once in a perfectly united voice.

"Well, if that's your choice, then we're ready to sync you with your previous time and location now." Tavi says brusquely.

"Your original clothes are over here. We kept them for you. Say your goodbyes and then you can get ready to go." Cher says a bit more kindly.

This is the moment I've been dreading. I throw myself into the arms of the twins. I'm still naked, so I can feel Raine's subtle coolness and Sunni' gentle heat against my bare skin.

"What do I do when I'm back?" I wail as I bury my face in Raine's shoulder. "I'll be alone again...no intimate empathy...no confluencers...no way for anyone to know who I really am, or share what I feel..."

They think about it as I break into sniffles. Then Raine says,

"Well, there's the internet. Didn't you say you used to write fanfic?"

"Yeah, a long time ago. What does that have to do with me going back?"

"Did you ever feel aroused when you were writing about those characters, even if no one was there touching you?"

"Umm..." My cheeks grow warm, as much in chagrin as remembered arousal. "I was just a teenager, but I guess I did get kind of horny for anime characters. I didn't even know what to do with myself. But that was just stupid kid stuff."

"Not at all. Don't you think other people got off on reading what you wrote too?"

Suddenly I see what they're getting at. I hug them both tighter than ever, feeling their pleasure soar at my revelation.

"Hey, yeah! I feel good when I'm writing. I'm sure I'll get excited writing about everything I saw and did and felt here. Then if I post it online...without anyone physically touching me, and without me touching them...I can share the pleasure I'm feeling through my story. And they can feel it too, in their own way, dialed up or down. I can make my own erotic utopia with words. I mean, I'll still miss you. I'll miss the whole city and everyone in it, even Tsuna. But especially you two..." I sniffle again.

"Whenever you miss us, write about us. Write everything you can remember." Raine says, rubbing my back.

"Or hey, make stuff up!" Sunni adds. "Imagine what we're doing. You know us well enough that you might guess right. Only good things, though, ok? Don't make yourself sad for no reason."

"Ok," I promise them. "I'll write it all down. Everything I remember, including you. Thanks, my dudes!"

So, here we are. I won't bore you with all the technicalities of how they transported me back. Obviously, I'm back in my own time now--or I should say, in 2023, since it's taken me a couple of years to work up the courage to write this out and post it, given the harsh and judgemental climate of these times. I've tried my best to take you with me into the future. If you've enjoyed my vivid, and sometimes violent, pleasures in your own way, through your own touch or a partner's or just through pure imagination, flying solo, then in a way you've been to the future with me, because that's what happens there. You, too, have experienced someone else's bliss through the magic of intimate empathy at a distance. My sensations have crossed space and time, traveling from the moment I wrote these words, in my city, to you in the future, however long has passed and wherever in the world you may be. If you open yourself up as I did, maybe you'll hear me crying out in pleasure with you in the ever-present now. Maybe I'll hear you crying out with me. And that way, for a moment, maybe we can touch the future utopia together. At least, that's what I'm hoping, and why I wrote out this strange tale for you. Thanks for reading!