The Quantum Affair

The Quantum Affair

 

An Erotic SciFi Novel

Elliot Silvestri

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this work are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

 

The Quantum Affair

 

Copyright © 2024 Green Bush Publishing

 

First Edition

 

Cover Design by James, GoOnWrite.com

 

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

 

 

A Green Bush Publishing Book

 

The characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Contains adult material that might not be suitable for all audiences. This work is a fantasy; in your own life be sure to follow safer sex practices.

 

All characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.

 

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

CODA

 

 

Preview

About the Author

 

-1-

Chapter 1

 

Ed woke up, slipped out of bed to use the bathroom, and returned to press his body against his girlfriend. Just being next to her was enough to stir his cock and he was sure she could feel it against her ass. Reaching over her body, he cupped her breast through the thin material of the sleep shirt she wore.

“Is it morning already?” she sleepily asked. They were spooning and she was facing away from him.

“It’s been morning.”

“You’re horny.”

“I’m always horny.” He moved his hand down from her breast and over her stomach, intending to head lower.

“No,” she protested weakly. “Let me pee first.”

“Sure.”

Lys hurried from the bed. Ed could hear her in the bathroom. She returned a minute later, pulling off her sleep shirt as she walked into the bedroom, tossing it aside. He smiled at her small, perky breasts. She slipped under the covers with him. 

“You woke me up horny,” she said, giving him a kiss, her blonde hair falling into his face as she moved on top of him. “Was that your intent?”

“Always.”

Her legs went on either side of his body and she rubbed her pussy on the bulge of his cock still inside his pajama bottoms. 

“It’s got to be a quick fuck,” she said. “I’ve got to get to the lab this morning.”

Ed had been about to make a joke about being too fast for her, but was distracted by her hair. 

“Did you get a haircut recently?” he asked.

“Your pillow talk sucks,” she replied as she pushed down his pajamas to allow his cock freedom. A moment later she was working her pussy down on him.

Ed was positive that her hair was shorter than he remembered. Yesterday it was halfway down her back and today it was only to her shoulders. But Lys was right, he needed to focus on what was important: her tits and pussy.

Lys adjusted her position, kneeling up on him, displaying her body, letting him see her small, firm breasts that always distracted him. His eyes didn’t move from her pink nipples as she started to ride his cock. 

“I have eyes, you know,” she said.

“But your tits are prettier than your eyes.”

Lys sighed in annoyance. “For a guy who studies poetry, you are a shitty poet.”

“That’s why I study it. I can’t write it.” Ed managed to tear his eyes away from her breasts to look into her blue eyes. He still couldn’t imagine what she saw in him: shaggy brown hair always unkempt, a scruff of a beard, and features that were half-hidden by his thick glasses. He was short and squat, but Lys did like his muscular build. He wasn’t an effeminate or weak scholar of poetry. 

They quieted for a minute while Lys rode on Ed’s cock, enjoying everything about it inside her body. She leaned forward, wishing she had bigger tits to tempt his mouth, and rested her hands on his barrel-like chest. In doing so, she changed the angle of his cock’s fitting in her pussy.

It didn’t take long for her to cum. When she did, Ed grabbed her hips and thrusted up in her. Lys couldn’t do much more than look at him in shock, pleased with how his thick cock filled her. When he finally came, she climaxed with him.

“You’re going to wear me out,” she gasped when they were done. “Last night you exhausted me.”

Ed couldn’t remember fucking his girlfriend the night before, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe he had a little too much to drink at the weekly grad student conference at the bar frequented by his peers.

“What do you have planned today?” he asked her, ignoring her previous comment.

“Got to get to the lab and fix yesterday’s fuck up.” She rolled off him and headed for the bathroom.

“Fuck up?” Ed grunted. He was going to follow Lys, possibly joining her in the shower, but opted for a minute of rest instead. 

“I told you,” she called to him as she ran the water in the shower. “Our calibration was off on the cerium electro-plasma destabilizer. It sprayed quantum cerium particles everywhere.”

Heaving himself off the bed, Ed wandered into the bathroom to witness his girlfriend washing his cum from between her legs. The shower had only a clear plastic liner to keep the water inside. She was covered in soap bubbles and was more attractive than usual.

“I didn’t understand a single word of what you said,” he said, joining her in the shower.

“And you think you’re worthy of earning a doctorate,” she teased him, turning her back to him as he entered the shower.

“Yes. But only in English literature. Everyone knows that PhDs in theoretical physics is just made up shit.”

She laughed as he kissed her neck.

 

Reina was already in the tiny basement room designated as the writing lab for undergrads. As part of his program Ed and every other grad student had to spend time there tutoring freshmen on the basics of grammar and spelling.

Grammar and spelling were the bane of freshman, Ed had decided the second day he worked in the lab. Even with spell check, grammar check, the various AIs and websites that were available, along with—supposedly—a discerning admission program to the university, most freshmen didn’t know the difference between “lose” and “loose”.

“Hey,” he greeted Reina. 

“You’re late,” she said, not looking up from her laptop. There weren’t any students in the lab yet. It was too early in the morning, too early in the semester. Term papers weren’t anywhere near a due date.

“Had a big night,” he said.

That caused her to look up at him and then glance at the door. “You’re supposed to keep your fucking mouth shut,” she hissed.

“About what?”

“That’s more like it,” she said with a smile. Glancing once more at the door, she fiddled with the top button to her blouse, popping it open, showing the deep crevice of her cleavage. Reina had massive boobs that were barely under control of her bra. It was a pretty pink bra peeking out that contrasted nicely with her tan skin.

Ed’s eyes went wide as she popped open another button.

“What are you doing?” he whispered to her, shocked.

“I thought you liked to be teased,” she said, one eye on the door. They were in the basement of one of the academic buildings. Classes were being held upstairs. Newly hired professors had offices just down the hall. Anyone could walk in on them at any point.

“What?”

“You liked it when I teased you,” she pointed out.

“I did?”

Reina snickered. “You liked it when—” one more glance at the door “—when I sucked your cock.”

Ed froze. He had often fantasized about Reina. She was everything that Lys wasn’t. But he had never cheated on his girlfriend. He would never cheat on his girlfriend.

“When did you suck my cock?” he asked.

She smiled and looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “Last time was two days ago. You owe me a little pussy licking.”

“Here? Now?”

She laughed at him. “Don’t be stupid.” She assumed a more serious aspect. “Does Lys know about us?”

“No!” Of that Ed was sure.

Reina was wearing a skirt. A rather modest skirt that came down to her knees. It was decidedly less modest when she leaned back in her chair, parted her legs, and licked her lips. “Want to indulge in a little dangerous cunnilingus?”

“What the fuck, Rei?” Ed’s heart was thumping in his chest. At the same time, his cock got instantly hard. It should have turtled. This wasn’t what he wanted, but at the same time, he suddenly was intrigued and didn’t want the opportunity to pass him by.

“You know you want to,” she teased him, pulling up her skirt. 

Ed couldn’t help but just watch. The hem of the skirt went up and up. He found himself suddenly desperately wishing that she would either stop or abruptly reveal she was wearing thigh high stockings, something no one would wear in their casual work environment.

She didn’t stop until the skirt was gathered up around her waist. Her nude stockings weren’t perfectly sheer, but close. He focused on the bright pink panties she was wearing. Had she planned this this morning when she dressed? Had she intended to seduce him or was she simply taking advantage of an opportunity.

Not knowing what to do, Ed just stared at her.

Reina hooked her thumbs into the top of her stockings, but then paused. “Close the fucking door, Hugo,” she told him, using his given name. Making the point that she wasn’t kidding around.

Ed whirled around and pulled the heavy fire door free of the magnetic lock that kept it open. By the time he turned back around Reina had removed the stockings and her panties. They were in a wad on the floor near her feet. She spread her legs wide again, showing off her pussy. Her lips were dark pink and slightly parted. They glistened in the harsh lighting of the writing lab. Reina spent time grooming herself. She had a narrow landing strip that decorated her mons. It was the same black glossy color of the long hair that fell to her shoulders, only curly. 

If she spoke anything else to him, Ed didn’t hear it. He stepped forward and went down to his knees between her feet. The hard cement floor didn’t bother him; he didn’t notice it at all. 

He hooked his arms around her thighs and noted how soft her skin was. She sighed softly as he leaned all the way in and inhaled her scent. It was musky and heady and he couldn’t stop himself from licking her lips. His tongue found the way up to the apex of her slit and he gently sucked on her prominent clit, causing her to gasp.

“Yes. Fucking yes. Don’t stop. Fucking make me cum,” she babbled, leaning back further.

Her back had to be hurting; the chairs in the lab were either uncomfortable or half-broken or both. She didn’t seem to care. Ed continued eating her out, removing one hand from her thigh to slip a pair of fingers up her pussy, looking for that secret spot.

Either Reina was a horny little minx or hadn’t cum in far too long, or maybe both, but as he started working both fingers and lips on her sex, her breathing increased abruptly in speed and she shifted around in the chair. She was going to cum. He was determined to make her cum.

Reina came. Her thighs clamped around her head and she stifled a cry of pleasure, not wanting any random passerby to know what was happening inside the basement room.

Ed kept working his fingers and mouth on her, bringing her through the climax. He wanted to make her cum a second time.

The lights went out.

“What the fuck?!” Ed pulled his face from Reina’s pussy causing her to groan in frustration. Her eyes opened a second later as the emergency lighting came on. The mini floodlights in the room were adequate, but were oddly angled. 

A smile played on Reina’s lips. “I mean, you sort of made the earth move. Shouldn’t have caused a blackout.”

“I’m just that good,” said Ed. Sounds of excited and worried people penetrated through the walls. Screams of anxiety and joking bounced off the walls.

“Shit,” Reina cursed. “I wanted to do more.” She grabbed her underwear and stockings off the floor and pulled them back on. 

“Do we have to stop?” asked Ed. He didn’t want to sound like he was whining, even though he was. “No one is going to come through the door.”

An instant later there was a knock at the door. “Everyone okay in there?”

“Yes!” Reina said. 

“You’ve got to evacuate the building.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re moving,” Reina grumbled as she finished dressing and put her shoes back on. Ed wiped her amrita from his face.

“Should we meet later?” asked Ed, not wanting to waste this opportunity with Reina, but not wanting to destroy his relationship with Lys either.

Reina rolled her eyes at him. “Yes. Later. Fucking hell, Ed.” She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. 

Students and staff were slowly making their way along the corridor, stumbling in the terrible lighting as they all eventually wound up at the stairs. 

“No one use the elevator!” a voice cried. “It’s not working.”

“No shit, shithead!”

They moved out with the growing crowd. The entire building was dark. Once outside, even though it was broad daylight, it was obvious there was no power on campus. People were streaming out of all the university buildings and milling in the quads. It was disorganized. Some began to leave. Ed wasn’t sure what to do.

“I’m going home,” said Reina after they had asked several other people what was going on. Normally there would be campus-wide alerts sent out via text, but when Ed checked his phone, there was nothing. He sent a text message to Lys.

 

Is your building out of power?

 

“Should we wait?” Ed asked Reina as she started to walk along the paved path in the quad, toward the common parking lot.

“Wait for what?”

“For the power to come back on?”

She gestured around. “Take a look. Power’s off for the entire campus. It’ll be down for hours. I’m going to my apartment and getting some work done.”

Before he could answer her, Ed received a text from Lys.

 

No power. It’s my team’s fault.

 

He looked at the message and stopped walking alongside Reina. She didn’t seem to notice. 

 

How is it your team’s fault?

 

Her message came back after a minute of him, sitting on a bench in the middle of campus, worriedly fiddling with his phone, trying to get some information from the university website.

 

It’s complicated. I’ll explain later. Go to your apartment.

 

He sent her several more texts but there was no response.

 

 

Chapter 2

 

It was late, absurdly late, when Lys finally let herself into the apartment. It was his place, but she spent most nights there. The university owned the small apartment building and leased exclusively to grad students. Lys’s place, further off campus, was nicer, but much less convenient.

He snapped on the light as she slipped into the bedroom and started undressing. The blonde woman froze in the middle of unbuttoning her shirt like she had been caught doing something wrong.

“You’re late,” he said as if accusing her of doing something wrong.

She groaned and continued undressing. “Today was fucking exhausting.”

“Is the power back up on campus?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

She looked at him as she wiggled off her pants, leaving her in just a camisole and panties. “It’s a long and complicated answer.”

“I’m not a stupid man,” he told her. “Explain it.”

“I’m going to dumb it down. We were in the process of cleaning up the destabilized quantum cerium particles when we had an accidental power surge and that blew back through the campus power grid.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I told you it wouldn’t interest you,” she said, slipping into bed next to him and relaxing. “You’re warm.”

“I’ve been in bed.” He switched off the light. The room was now not completely dark, but only dim; light seeped in around the blinds. 

“Did you have power here?”

“Yes.”

“Did you work?”

“Yes. Got a huge section of my thesis done.”

“Great. Did you masturbate?” 

The question came out of nowhere. Ed tensed up. He was certain she had no idea what he had done with Reina. He had even taken a shower. He hadn’t contacted Reina at all. 

“No. Why would I do that?”

“Bored?” she suggested and moved her hand over his body, down to his crotch. He wasn’t hard, but the moment her hand was resting on his cock, he started to stiffen. “Fuck me?” she asked him.

“You want to have sex? I thought you were exhausted.”

“I am, but my mind is racing a mile a minute. I’m just going to lay here. You need to fuck me. Make me cum. Put me to sleep.”

He scoffed. “You make me sound pathetic.”

“Not at all. You fuck me perfectly. You’re going to make me cum so hard that I’m going to pass out.”

As much as he wanted to say no to her. Ed wasn’t a machine, easily turned on and off, but Lys was pretty, his girlfriend, and an often enthusiastic participant in their sex life. If this once she wanted to be fucked hard as a stress relief, he could do that.

She wiggled out of her panties as he pulled down his pajama bottoms. Ed wasn’t hung up on his need to be seduced by his partner. A second later he was on top of her, Lys still wearing her cami, him in a t-shirt, and his hard cock was pressing at her pussy’s opening. He was young. It didn’t take much to get him hard.

Lys reached down between them and guided him in. He briefly thought about her smooth pussy, with just a little bit of stubble from not being shaved in the past couple of days. 

“You’re wet,” he commented as he took a couple of slow strokes, going deeper with each thrust.

“Yeah. I need this.”

“Makes you seem like a bit of a slut,” he commented.

She smiled up at him. “I am a bit of a slut.” Lys angled her hips, letting him go deeper.

“You make me nervous when you mess around with that stuff in the physics lab,” he said, starting to pick up the pace.

She shook her head. “No. No shop talk. Just fuck me.” Grabbing his head, she pulled his face down to hers for a kiss.

“Just fuck me,” she begged. “Fuck me. Put me to sleep.”

He did exactly that. Ed had to force himself to not think about Reina. He didn’t want to cum too soon. When Lys came, he was relieved. Then he let the fantasy of him fucking Reina while Lys looked on in approval. That was enough; he came in Lys, making her sigh in relief.

A minute later she was snoring softly. He rolled off her body and drifted off to sleep next to her. 

 

Ed woke up, slipped out of bed to use the bathroom, and returned to press his body against his girlfriend. Yesterday had been a weird day. He needed to have a day to focus. Power had been restored to campus late in the day, but he hadn’t gone back. It didn’t matter.

Lys was sleeping on her side, facing away from him, her blonde hair scattered over her face. She was snoring softly, the way she always did. It was more endearing than annoying. It seemed a shame to wake her, but he was certain she wanted to get back to the lab to solve whatever problem had happened yesterday.

He brushed her hair from her face and let it fall away from her shoulder. She was still wearing just her cami top. The thin straps hid nothing. That was the problem. Ed was well familiar with his girlfriend’s body. They had been together more than long enough for him to notice even the smallest of changes in her.

Ed was absolutely certain that he had never before seen the tattoo over her shoulder blade. It was an almost generic piece of skin art: an angel reaching for a star just out of reach. It was well-done with brilliant colors and crisp line work, but it hadn’t been on Lys’s body the day before. It was roughly three inches in diameter, so not big, but easily noticeable. She hadn’t had time yesterday to go get a tattoo, and even if she had the time, it was the sort of thing she would have mentioned to him. Besides, it wasn’t fresh. It had been in her skin for a while.

He stared at it for an exceedingly long time. He stared at it for so long that he was certain he was starting to hallucinate.

“Am I losing my mind or my memory or do you have a tattoo on your shoulder?” he asked her while gently shaking her side to wake her up.

“It’s too early,” she complained.

“It’s nearly nine a.m.”

“Fuck!” She sat bolt upright. “I need to get to the lab.”

“Is that a temporary tattoo on your shoulder?” asked Ed, insistently.

She gave him a puzzled look as she climbed out of bed. “I’ve always had it,” she said, continuing to look at him strangely. “Well, ever since I finished my bachelor’s.”

“No you haven’t,” he said.

Lys shook her head. “Maybe you are losing your mind,” she said dismissively, pulling off the camisole as she walked to the bathroom.

Ed was left alone in the bed, thinking. He heard Lys turn on the water to the shower and get in.

Ten seconds later she cried out, “Fucking hells that’s got to be it!”

Her outburst alarmed him and he struggled out of bed, getting caught in the sheets. When he finally freed himself, he managed to get halfway to the bathroom before running into Lys who had fled the shower, soaking wet and naked. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked her.

She turned half around, craning her arm to point at the tattoo. “You say you’ve never seen this before?”

Ed nodded, his eyes flicking back and forth between the tattoo and her wet, naked buttocks.

“Never?”

“Never,” he confirmed.

Her eyes went wide and she smiled. “This is good! No. This is bad. Shit. Quick. What else is different?”

“Different?” Ed was confused. “Different about what?”

“About me. About the world. Anything that isn’t what you expected.”

“Uh…your hair is shorter than I remember from a couple of days ago, but I figured you got a haircut.”

“I haven’t.”

A sudden thought occurred to him. He looked at the two framed posters he had hanging on the bedroom walls between bookcases. One was of William Shakespeare and the other of Geoffrey Chaucer. He had had them since his sophomore year of college. They weren’t particularly odd or remarkable, but he was certain that he had hung them with Chaucer on the left and Shakespeare on the right, sort of in chronological order.

They were now reversed: Chaucer on the right and Shakespeare on the left.

Ed pointed. “The posters are reversed.”

“You need to come with me to the lab.”

“I’ve got a class this morning,” he told her.

“You’ve got to come with me to my lab!” Lys was all but ordering.

Ed was easily manipulated by wet, naked women.

 

There was no one in the lab used by Lys and her fellow grad students. It was early in the day and they had been working late into the previous night. Ed stood just inside the entrance, uncomfortable to be surrounded by all the equipment they used. Like most labs on campus, it was in a basement and filled with computers and sensors and large pieces of electronic machinery that were incomprehensible to Ed. 

From a supply area Lys grabbed what appeared to be a yellow flashlight with a tapered end and a small LCD screen attached to it. Turning it on, the screen flashed and a faint hum emanated from the body of the tool.

“What’s that?”

“Quantum cerium particle detector. A simple one.” She pointed the tool at herself and moved it around, up and down her body and along her limbs while pressing a button in the handle. “Shit. I can barely do this. Here, you take it.”

Ed accepted the device. “What do you want me to do with it?”

Lys stood with her feet shoulder width apart, her arms almost straight out. “Just hold down the button and aim it at me. You have to hold it about six inches away. The range is limited. We cobbled this together from a flashlight and spare parts.”

“Obviously.”

He pressed the button and started moving it over her body. “What is this doing, exactly?”

“Detecting quantum cerium particles. Duh.”

“I have no idea what all this on the screen means.”

“Don’t worry about it. If there’s something to be worried about, it’ll let us know.”

The only thing that happened of note was a slight increase in the numbers being flashed on the screen when Ed moved the sensor over her midsection.

When he was done, Lys took back the device and tapped the screen reviewing the data.

“Huh. Nothing. Well, almost nothing. An elevation in cerium energy when you pointed it at my…” She trailed off and looked up at him.

“Your turn,” she said and pointed it at him. “Stand like I did.”

She repeated the procedure on him. At first it started out like hers, nothing noteworthy. When she pointed it at his crotch, the LCD screen lit up like a fireworks display.

“That’s not good,” Lys muttered as she stared at the screen and tapped on it, trying to get more information.

“What the fuck is it?” Ed started to panic.

“Looks like…um…like you’ve got a particle stuck in your body.”

“A particle?”

She sighed in annoyance. “A quantum cerium particle, haven’t you been paying attention?”

“Is it going to kill me?” Ed could feel his heart thumping spasmodically in his chest. His stomach dropped through the floor. He felt faint.

“Drop your pants,” she said, not looking up. 

“Now’s not the time for sex.”

That caused her to look up. “We’re not having sex. Your clothes and probably your belt buckle are causing interference.”

“So it’s a shitty scanner?”

“No, it’s a quickly and cheaply made scanner. Drop your pants before someone comes in and sees us.”

He briefly flashed on his quick encounter with Reina but said nothing to Lys about that. He unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans, opening them up. Lys was already waving the scanner around and wasted no time pulling down his underwear as well.

“Hey!”

She ignored him. The business end of the scanner went from his waist to his lower abdomen as she sniffed out the particle embedded in his body. 

Ed’s tension rose as she pointed it directly at his cock. It wasn’t that he had a small cock, but the anxiety was causing him to turtle.

“What the fuck!”

“I think it’s in your penis,” she muttered.

“My dick! Am I going to get cancer? Is it going to kill me? Is my dick going to fall off?”

“No. Stop panicking. Quantum cerium can’t hurt you.”

Ed tried to calm himself. “It can’t?”

“No.”

“Then why are you…making it? Searching for it? Playing with it? I don’t know!”

“It’s an unstable quantum particle. We’re using it to explore the possibilities of shifting back and forth in different realities, to put it in simple terms.”

Ed took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. “Oh. Like being able to go to different planes of existence, different universes. The whole multiverse thing. I thought you were just working on theoretical physics.”

“Applied theoretical physics.”

“I was partly correct. But what’s it going to do to me?”

“Well, up until yesterday, I was fairly sure that quantum cerium particles couldn’t do anything to people. Pull up your pants.”

He tucked his cock away and pulled up his pants but he didn’t feel any better about the situation. “What do they do?”

“Apparently they allow people to move between realities.”

Ed snorted. “Yeah. Right.”

She gave him a withering glare before turning half around and unzipping her sweatshirt, exposing her shoulder and the tattoo on it. “Before this morning you said you had never seen this tattoo. I’ve had it since I was nineteen. We’ve been together almost a year now. Explain that.”

“Uh…I can’t.”

“You shifted between realities.”

“Doesn’t seem real. I mean…everything else is the same…except for the posters. But that’s just minor stuff. Maybe I forgot how I hung them. Maybe you changed them to mess with me.”

“There’s an infinite number of realities. Most of them would be fairly similar to one another. Minor changes. Tattoos. Posters reversed.”

“Different haircuts,” he added.

“Yeah. I suppose.”

“Two mornings ago I noticed that you had shorter hair. Not a lot, but a little.”

“See. Small changes.”

“How do I get back to my reality?” Ed asked her.

“Uh…”

“You don’t know how?”

“We’re just learning about this. Up to now, it was all theoretical. I should probably tell the others and Prof. Quackenbush about this.”

“I can’t get back to my reality?”

“Not right now…” she hedged. 

“What about the guy who I replaced?” he asked. “Whoever I was before today.”

“Well, he was Hugo as well.”

Ed gave her a blank stare. “Ed. My name’s Ed. You know that.”

“Your name is Hugo Edmond.”

“But I go by Ed.”

“I’ve always called you Hugo.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Ah! Another difference. Minor changes. Fascinatingly cool!”

“This isn’t helping. What about the guy I replaced?”

Lys shook her head. “You didn’t replace him. You just shifted.” She frowned. Presumably all the Hugo Edmonds in the multiverse shifted as well. You’re probably all confused. Or maybe it’s a localized thing. Only a couple or maybe a few dozen shifted around.”

“So it’s affecting more than just me and the other guy.”

“Probably a bunch more. Wow. I wonder how deep the change is. We can do a whole study on this.”

“What’s causing me to shift?” asked Ed with a growing sense of dread.

“The quantum cerium particle, duh.”

“I know that, but why? You said it’s harmless.”

“Mostly harmless.”

“That’s not helping.”

Lys gave it some thought. “We’ve been exciting the particles with different energies. When I used the sniffer, some of those latent energies were still dissipating in me. They are all over you. My guess is the shift is happening when a certain type of energy triggers the QCP.”

“Okay. What’s the trigger?”

Lys shrugged. “Got me. When did you notice that you have shifted between realities?”

“In the morning, today and yesterday, but I didn’t really notice it yesterday. Just your different hair and…”

“And what?”

Ed looked away. “And nothing.”

Lys folded her arms over her small breasts. “You’re hiding something. You can’t hide from science.”

Ed swallowed. “You’re not going to like it.”

“I’m a scientist. I like to study everything that is interesting.”

“It’ll make you angry.”

“I doubt that.”

Ed tried to reason his way out of the problem. “So, it wasn’t me. Just to keep this straight in my head, three days ago I was in what I’m going to call Reality 1. Yesterday I was in Reality 2. Today is Reality 3 with your tattoo and my reversed posters.”

“What was upsetting in Reality 2?”

“Do you know Reina Torres?”

“Isn’t she one of the other grad students who work in the writing lab with you?”

“Yes. Ed from Reality 2 was…is…I don’t know…Ed 2 was having an affair with her.”

Lys just nodded, not upset at this bit of information. 

Ed hurried on. “But me, Ed 1, has never cheated on you—”

“You mean you haven’t cheated on Lys 1, assuming you’re calling me Lys 3.”

“Right. And maybe Ed 3—”

“Hugo.”

“Right. Hugo. Hate that name. Maybe Hugo/Ed 3 isn’t having an affair with Reina. I don’t know. I haven’t talked with Reina 3.”

Lys just looked at him.

“What’s the matter?” he finally asked her.

“I’m trying to figure out if you’re lying about any of that or if my Hugo—that is, Ed 3—is cheating on me.”

“We could ask Reina,” he suggested.

“We could.”

“Do you think that your…boyfriend was cheating on you?” Ed asked her boldly.

“I don’t know. When did you first meet Rei?”

“Same time I met you. At the grad student mixer back when we all started our programs last year.”

“I have a theory.”

“You are a scientist,” he allowed.

“I think the shifting is happening whenever you have sex.”

Ed snort laughed.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Did you have sex each night before noticing the changes the next day?”

“...yes?”

“Three days ago we lost containment of the quantum cerium particles we were experimenting on. We cleaned up the mess, but I was in the direct path of the leak.” She held her hand over her lower abdomen. “I was blasted right here. And then we had sex that night. I think I transferred the particle to you when we had sex.”

“Uh…okay? But how?”

She shrugged. “We don’t know a lot about QCPs yet.”

“But it’s just sex. A little bit of kinetic and heat energy. That’s causing me to shift realities?”

“You tell me. Maybe that’s all it takes. We’ve always had the QCPs in magnetic containment chambers until the accident.”

Ed shook his head. “You know, there are some ancient beliefs that during sex an energy is released, but that’s just primitive religion. It’s not a thing.”

“Maybe it is a thing.”

“How do I get home?” he asked her.

“I don’t know. Maybe never.”

“Well that’s not fucking good!”

“No. You’ll like my next suggestion even less. You shouldn’t have sex ever again if you don’t want to shift to another reality.”

He laughed like he had just been told an alien had eaten his girlfriend’s brain and she was now a zombie. “Okay. Great. Perfect. But maybe I don’t like this reality. Maybe I jerk off or find a slutty girl to fuck to shift to a better reality.”

“You might not want to do that. So far all of your shifts have been minor things. A tattoo. Haircuts. Poster placement.”

“An affair.”

“But minor. You could live in this world. What if you have sex several times? You could wind up in a reality where aliens have invaded Earth and are eating human brains, turning them into zombies.”

Ed started to raise a put but put his finger down. “That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not.”

“What do we do?”

“I want to talk to my team. We’ll have to tell them everything. The cleanup wasn’t successful. The energy surge yesterday fucked things up. A bunch of stuff. But first…”

She didn’t finish her statement.

“But first what?” he prompted her.

“But first you and I should speak with Reina.”

 

 

Chapter 3

 

Even with his much longer legs, Ed had trouble keeping up with Lys as she marched across the campus. The university wasn’t huge, but it was big enough that he had a few minutes to persuade her to change her course of action.

“This is a terrible idea,” he told her as they followed one of the winding paths from the sciences building to the arts building where the writing lab was. It was still early enough that there were few students walking so they didn’t have to dodge other people. 

“No it’s not. We need to get you back to where you belong.”

“Yeah, yeah, but talking to Reina seems like an unnecessary step.”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Why would you say that?”

“Uh…because anything I might have done would be completely different than what Ed 2 or Hugo 3 would have done with Reina. It’s apples and oranges. You can’t compare them.”

“They’re both fruit. They’re both foods. One is usually red when ripe and the other is orange. One is usually a close to perfect sphere, one is more of an oblate spheroid. I sure as hell can compare them.” Lys abruptly stopped walking, Ed continued on for two steps before stopping as well. Her eyes narrowed on him. “Did you fuck her?”

“What? No!” He was happy to not be lying.

Lys caught something in the tone of his voice. “But you did something with her.”

“No.” Ed was a terrible liar.

“You did. Stop lying.”

“Okay, I did do something with her, but not her. With…um…Reina 2. This is Reina 3.”

Lys considered that a moment and then resumed her march across the quad.

“And I want to apologize for cheating on you. Or for cheating on Lys 1 or 2. I’m already lost.”

She ignored his apology. “We need to consider that if you’ve shifted, others have shifted as well. Some will have noticed, some will have not. We need to get this fixed as soon as possible.”

“And talking to Reina will help that?”

They paused at the exterior doors to the liberal arts building. “Yes,” she said flatly.

Ed was alarmed at how Lys knew the most direct route to the writing lab. As far as he knew, Lys had never even been in the liberal arts building. He chased after her. “We should talk about this some more first.”

Lys stormed through the open door to the writing lab. It was too late to stop her. 

“Are you fucking my boyfriend?” Lys demanded. She had walked up to the table where Reina was sitting with a very young looking freshman. He had a terrified look on his face. Ed couldn’t tell if that was because of the attitude that Lys had, like she was going to kill Reina, or because he was afraid he was going to be expelled from the university for poor academic performance. Ed had previously read a short essay from this freshman, Josh was his name. It was much more likely Josh was afraid of getting expelled, if he was smart. Judging by his writing, Josh was not smart.

“Excuse me?” asked Reina, glancing at Ed and then Josh and then back to Lys.

“Are you fucking my boyfriend?” she repeated. Lys hitched a thumb at Ed. “This guy. Should I put it in other terms? You are an English major, right? Fucking? Sleeping with? Having an affair? Being his slam piece?”

“Of course not.” It was impossible to read Reina’s expression. It wasn’t confused. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t neutral.

“You’re a fucking liar. He just told me you did.”

Josh backed away from them and moved toward Ed. “Are these two going to fight over you, dude?”

“No.” Ed had no idea what was going to happen. He just couldn’t imagine two women physically fighting over him.

“I’m not having an affair or anything with him,” Reina repeated.

“Liar!” This time Lys punctuated her accusation with a slap across Reina’s face.

Reina gasped and clutched her cheek. “What the fuck!” She jumped up out of her chair and for a second just stared at Lys. 

Then she slapped the blonde in response.

The two women looked at each other in shock for a long moment. Both Ed and Josh were silent. 

Then Reina and Lys screamed at each other and started slapping and scratching and hitting.

“What the fuck!” Ed jumped back out of the way.

Josh ran out of the room, calling for help.

 

“That was supposed to help?” Ed asked Lys.

His girlfriend, who had never before shown any physical aggression toward anyone or anything, was holding a bag of ice on the left side of her face. The right side had several scratches from Reina’s fingernails. 

“Shush,” she said, tapping away at a computer keyboard while the other members of her research team busied themselves in the lab.

Ed was honestly surprised that neither of the women had been arrested by campus police. It had taken a whole lot of explaining…along with a few surprises.

“You could have told me that she had made passes at you.”

Lys barely glanced his way. “I thought she was a lesbian.”

“She’s not. Or at least Reina 2 isn’t. Maybe Reina three is bi.”

“Forget it. Too complicated. I let my emotions get the better of me.” She finished typing on the keyboard and turned to face Ed. “You need to stand over there.” She indicated a space in the corner of the lab in front of some scary looking equipment that just threatened to project a disintegration ray at any moment.

“Are you going to kill me? I didn’t cheat on you. That was Lys 2.”

Lys glared at him. “But you did cheat on her. Us.”

“I only went down on Reina.”

“I don’t care. I’m over it. I’m trying to fix this. Stand over there.” She pointed again.

The rest of the staff in the lab stayed busy with their tasks. They all knew what had happened in the writing lab. Some were smirking. There had been some laughs. No one was brave enough to look directly at Lys or Ed.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked, only half joking.

“If I was going to kill you, I wouldn’t do it in front of half a dozen witnesses.”

That was good enough for Ed. He stood on the pad in front of the disintegrator ray emitter.

He knew it was actually a quantum cerium particle portal and accelerator, but it sounded more badass to make it a disintegrator ray gun.

Everyone got into their places, monitoring equipment, adjusting machines, and just watching him. 

Ed briefly wondered if he’d walk away from this with super powers.

There was a steadily increasing hum followed by some sharp pops, a dimming of the lights, and then…nothing.

The power to the machines wound down. 

Everyone continued working like nothing happened.

“Well?” he finally asked Lys.

“Do you feel the same?”

“Uh…yes.”

“Are you Ed 1 or Hugo 3? Though really I want to be talking to Hugo 1 and you’re Ed 3.”

“I don’t think anything happened.”

She approached him with the quantum cerium particle sniffer. After a scan, she announced. “Nothing. Shit. Go home. I’ll be by your place later tonight.”

He wanted to talk and argue. Instead, he went home.

It was late in the evening when Lys was knocking at his door. The moment he answered it, she asked, “Is everything the same? Are you you?”

“I’ve been tempted to switch Chaucer and Shakespeare, but I don’t think your experiment changed anything.” He let her inside. 

Lys flopped onto the couch with an annoyed sigh. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure it didn’t.” 

“What now?”

“I’ve got an idea…”

She paused for too long. Ed couldn’t stand it. 

“And that idea is?”

“I want to watch you jack off.”

“Is that supposed to get me home and fix everything?”

“No. It’s just going to turn me on,” she said sarcastically.

“You want to have sex?”

Lys groaned in frustration. “No! Well, yes. Too much built up sexual tension. But I really want to watch you masturbate.”

“You could have just asked.”

“I just did.”

“But you made it seem pervy.”

“Why?”

“Because women generally don’t want to watch me jerk off.”

“Have you gotten a lot of requests?”

He shook his head. “No. I mean, women generally don’t want to watch men jerk off.”

“Shows what you know.”

“I know men like to watch women masturbate.”

“And sometimes the reverse is true of women.”

Ed’s eyes narrowed on her. “I think you’re up to something.”

“You’re half correct.”

“I’m confused now. You actually want to watch me jerk off?”

“Yes. For science.”

“Why am I doubting you?”

She gave him a tight smile. “Because I might enjoy watching you jack off. It’s fine to mix science and fun.”

“You’re not telling me something. I know you aren’t.”

She looked away from him, out the apartment window, at the darkness. They were at the edge of campus and nothing was visible other than some hazy lights. “You might shift again. I’m betting that you’ll shift. You might go back to where you’re from—”

“Earth One. I’m naming it after myself. It has a snazzy ring to it.”

She ignored him. “Or you might wind up somewhere else and have to start all over.”

“You mean I’ll go back in time?”

That was enough to make Lys laugh, not exactly hysterically, but strongly. “Of course not. You can only travel through time one way, forward. Can’t go back. We can go sideways, which is sort of what you’re doing.”

“What do you mean about starting all over then?”

“If you wind up on Earth Four, they might not be aware of what we’ve discussed. You’ll have to explain this all again to Lys 4. Or you might wind up on Earth Eighty Seven. That’ll really screw you.”

“What? Why?”

“The further you travel away from what you’re calling Earth One, the less likely it is you’ll ever get back to where you want.”

“That’s not inspiring.”

“But on the upside, I’m aware of what happened now, so every action I take will spawn more realities where we’ll be working to get you—and everyone else—back to where they belong.”

“So this is all one big shot in the dark.”

“A cosmic roll of the dice. Einstein was wrong. God does play dice. He just doesn’t care what the outcome is.”

“And this all starts with me jerking off.”

“Actually, it started with me and my lab fucking up the QCP containment, but yeah, close enough.”

She looked at him expectantly.

“Well?” she finally prompted.

“Well what?”

“Whip out your dick and start spanking it.”

“So romantic. You might want to buy a guy a drink first. Maybe warm me up with a kiss. I’m not a machine.”

“I bet if I flash you my tits you’ll be hard in ten seconds.”

“I’ve seen your tits before.”

“Once. And don’t forget, they’re not really the tits you’ve seen before.”

“I’ve seen them hundreds of times.”

“You’ve seen Lys 1’s tits hundreds of times,” she corrected him as she leaned forward and started unbuttoning her shirt. “I’m Lys 3, as you’ve named me, and you’ve only seen these girls once.”