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Trick's Own Ladies' Choice

Jeph had a girl in every quantum reality... at least, it seemed that way!

By Eric WolfPublished about a year ago 9 min read
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Trick's Own Ladies' Choice
Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

There came a night on which Trick made dates with two women, who shared his existence in two different universes, to attend the same graduation party, because of course, he could.

His life, or rather, lives as an undergraduate student of history at the higher education institution he lovingly referred to as “Ill U.” was an eventful one, even when he limited himself to a single quantum time-Stream. This, too, a more distracted Jeph Van Niftrik had discovered unwittingly, as constantly-shifting narratives in his daily experiences forced him to keep track of all of his ‘travels’; he would be able to keep himself on track in his ‘main’ living experience.

About the nickname: the campus was in quite good health, even thriving, though it was not Northwestern, not the University of Illinois, certainly not one of many posh private campuses in town. He had traveled to alternate Streams in which he had been accepted to each of these institutions, and had found himself not at all sorry to have chosen his default alma mater instead.

It was at Ill U. that he met the first of his major junior-year distractions, and what a distraction she was! Vetta Morris, short and buxom, possessed a personal energy level that, whenever he was in her presence, left him breathless. Ironically, he had met her on one of his para-temporal jaunts. His attempt to charm her, by claiming that she bore a resemblance to En Vogue’s singer Maxine Jones, did not meet with immediate success. To put it mildly.

In that Stream, she was only too impatient to inform him that a single young woman, she most definitely was not; she had a jealous, attentive boyfriend — who was, naturally, all things to all men, and to this one woman, end of story. Trick chalked it up to his usual bad luck with the ladies, finished his beer and ordered another one.

He decided to investigate the "nearby" time Streams for a more positive outcome; out there, somewhen, had to be a line in which he had won her over. He did not realize he had to look no further than right in his own space-time setting for what he sought; it wouldn’t be the first time his efforts yielded less than his relaxation did.

It wasn’t until almost six months later, back in his own Stream, on a night out with his friends, that he met her again. In an excellent twist, Trick had found her when she was deliciously, and attainably, single in that iteration. Perhaps 1997 would be his year to land not just a degree, but a serious relationship for the first time. He had experienced gratification of his senses; he was anxious for more than that, and he could ‘cruise the frequencies’… until he found the one that answered his longing.

^^^^

Trick was going to figure out how to navigate the multiverse to his personal advantage, but only if he managed to remain in school. As an only child (in most temporal modes), he was expected to fulfill his parents’ expectations for his success. He had chosen history as his major field of inquiry, in his main timeline; it was an interest that made sense to him, even more since he had discovered he was in a a privileged position to witness it unfolding from many different perspectives.

Even during his awkward middle-school years, he had been a determined, if not always stellar, student, and had maintained good grades. It seemed to be Vetta’s role to test his powers of concentration… but not only hers.

Because time progressed at the same rate in each Stream he experienced, Trick had to recall where he was needed or wanted in his main time-line, whenever he was “traveling” his frequencies. He had kept a notebook filled with detailed notes in his quasi-legible handscript, explaining where he was and with whom (so that he could offer up a plausible explanation for how he had “vanished” a day or an hour). This action proved to be not only time-consuming, but ultimately of little use, because other people perceived him as being “present” in his default Stream, he learned, if he wasn’t gone for very long, which made sense, since it was his main life-time. Trick wasn’t in any of the other time-lines a majority of the time, yet they seemed to unfold as if he had never left any of them — which made sense, too, because he was alive, in each of them, living as if it were the only life he had.

He was getting worn out from his active recreational pursuits with Vetta. She was in great demand, as a partner in crime, so to speak, with her friends, who ranged from musicians to pre-law students to community activists. She flitted from one crowd to another, never overstaying her welcome, always laughing, always playful, but never quite able to dim the lights, let it hush a bit. Things had to race along, for Vetta to sustain an interest.

Trick had left a message with her roommate, saying he couldn’t meet her at their favorite off-campus nightclub one night, and ‘dialed’ a nearby Stream, just a young bachelor in search of a different experience, and a quieter one at that. He grabbed dinner at a rib house, and let himself roam downtown, until this brought him to a quiet coffeehouse which doubled as a bookstore. It was his fortune, that night, to encounter Honor Foley, as she browsed for something interesting to read. She found him more appealing; they hit it off, despite the unlikeliness of their chance encounter, and he asked for her digits, which she provided to him, under the approving stamp of a bashful smile.

Trick had to wait a few days before he could call her. His studies, back in his default Stream, demanded his attentions, as he had been slipping a bit in class; he wasn’t trying to be a “player”. His eight a.m. class in social rhetoric was a source of concern; his late nights with Vetta were forcing him to cram, before each class, for the mini-quizzes his professor would give every morning. More than once, Trick's answers scored less than exceptionally well. Far less so. Vetta was becoming a problem, for his academic health.

Honor, on the other hand, was another kind of temptation. She was a blond, introspective beauty, who seemed to have her mind on ethereal subjects, that ordinary mortals could not possibly comprehend. She had this way of looking, no, piercing-with-her-eyes, that he found fascinating... and a bit unsettling. While she was not the diva that Vetta was, she was likewise no wilting flower, as more than one acquaintance reminded him, though he needed no reminder.

^^^^

Comes the night of the graduation parties, and Trick found himself unable to choose between his budding divas. He was about to graduate, despite a rare, and embarrassing, scholastic stumble he could blame, at least in part, on his recent exhaustion from the jetting back and forth between universes, to savor his female companions while he still had some time left with each of them. A late night spent with Honor had left him unable to catch up on his sleep, until he found he was no longer able to stay awake. He knew it couldn't last; he couldn't remain, with either of them.

Trick slept through a midterm, in his capstone class on U.S.-Canadian relations. His professor seemed more concerned than offended; he had never fallen so far below expectations before. Trick promised her it would never happen again, asking for a makeup exam. In fact, he was one of her top-scoring students. A less illustrious student might not have won this concession, but she suspected that he was aware of his mistake and wanted to make amends, and his past record of scholastic accomplishment implied that he would make good on his promise.

He had to cool things down on the dating scene, and he did, for a number of weeks. He decided the best way to slow down with Honor would consist of his not visiting her Stream for a while; if his alternate self was still a part of her life, then he would ‘step back’ into their relationship with no harm done. Vetta, on the other hand, was in his ‘home’ Stream; he could not simply fail to ‘dial up’ her time-line, he was already in it, and she knew where he was, and 'where'.

Vetta took the news, that he needed to chill, on the eve of his graduation, rather better than he had expected. At first, it worried him that she would trade him in for a new distraction, but he had not given her enough credit, for she was a bit worn out from partying, too. They decided to attend a big graduation bash, two Fridays, before their commencement ceremony, at their favorite tavern.

He couldn’t have been happier, until he took the risk of ‘dialing’ up Honor’s line. To his horror, it seemed that she had kept seeing 'him' — the local ‘him’ — and they had gotten more serious. Plans had been made for them to attend an intriguing little soirée of their own, on the same night as his evening out with Vetta. He could not possibly drink and dance and entertain, at both events, on a single person’s energy, could he?

Trick decided to find out. Vetta didn’t even seem to notice when he had been ‘away’ for what, in either Stream, was more than an hour. It turned out that his level of alcohol intake in one Stream did not carry over into the other, so he drank more with Vetta, but he excused himself, at irregular intervals, to go to the men’s room, ‘dial’ Honor’s Stream, and discover he was still reasonably sober. He was present in both times, even when he wasn’t.

It was a madhouse lifestyle he was trying to maintain, but as he saw it, it was the price of an education!

[Roam the multiverse with Trick: https://vocal.media/fiction/trick-s-own-stationary-roadshow.]

© Eric Wolf 2022.

FantasyHumorSci FiYoung Adult
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About the Creator

Eric Wolf

Ink-slinger. Photo-grapher. Earth-ling. These are Stories of the Fantastic and the Mundane. Space, time, superheroes and shapeshifters. 'Wolf' thumbnail: https://unsplash.com/@marcojodoin.

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