Chapter 13: First Kiss

Jaime and Emerson

IN COMPUTER SCIENCE CLASS, Jaime had a hard time looking at Emerson. No matter what his response had been, the visual of her taking off her shirt in front of the mirror was vivid in his memory. He couldn’t look at her without blushing.

“Hey, Zip, you okay?” she asked as they sat next to each other going over the initial diagram for her project.

Emerson was tackling an interesting concept of using AI predictive techniques for sociological phenomena. She was starting with color theory and thought she could use historic data regarding color trends over the past twenty years to predict what the popular colors would be in the next year’s fashions.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Jaime signed, quickly recovering his composure. “Your project reminded me of something in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation.”

“Isn’t that an old science fiction book?”

Jaime quickly switched to his laptop so he could use text to speech. He had to keep the volume really low so they didn’t disturb anyone else in class. Emerson leaned in close. She smelled good, which was distracting to Jaime.

“Yeah. Almost like a hundred years. But it’s pretty good. I read it when I was a freshman and was really into anything that had to do with mind reading,” he typed.

“So, what reminds you of my project?”

“Well, in the book, Hari Seldon establishes what he calls ‘psychohistory.’ It’s a new field of science and psychology that allows for the probabilistic prediction of the future. But one of the things he says is that it might not be possible to predict the behavior of an individual person, but the mob was always predictable. Hence, whenever you are dealing with a mass event in history, it is possible to predict what will happen, even though you can’t predict what any individual will do.”

“So, I’m predicting a mass event and not what an individual designer will do?” Emerson asked.

“I think that’s the parallel.”

They started listing out the variables that Emerson’s algorithm would need to consider. The list started getting long.

“Did you ever have someone just randomly cross your mind?” she asked hesitantly.

“Oh, yeah. Happens all the time,” Jaime typed. He laughed his odd little squeak.

“I suppose so. You just happened to cross my mind after school yesterday. It was odd. Then whatever it was I was thinking of at the time disappeared and I forgot all about it until just now.”

Jaime opened his senses just slightly and was flooded with Emerson’s memory of her afterschool session the day before. She’d been about to kiss her Paris lover when Jaime’s face flitted across her memory and she kissed him. Then it was gone and she was back with her lovers.

«Can you hear me, Emerson?» he asked, projecting to her.

“I think it’s weird how the mind works and random thoughts hit us. I guess that’s how dreams are made. The synapses in our brain fire and suddenly there’s a happy dog running across a field that turns into a hideous monster under the bed and disappears in a lullaby or something. I think that’s why I liked your original project description of tech for transferring thoughts from one person to another. It was a little ... uh ... tinfoil hat-ish, but it was interesting.”

“I have a lot of studying to do before I can tackle that one. And even if I figured it out, I’d never be able to convince anyone I was serious about it,” he typed.

“I suppose.”

The class period ended and both closed their computers to head for the last class of the day.

“Thanks for all the help on this project, Jaime. It seems a little less daunting, knowing that you’re thinking about it, too. Let me know if I can help on your thought machine. See you tomorrow.”

Jaime signed “later,” and went to his psychology class.

Jaime and Keira

«Do you think she can hear you?» Keira asked when they got off the bus at her house.

«I don’t think so. The image I got, though, is that she thought of me at the exact same moment as her remembered kiss, which is when I suddenly saw you there and shut her off. Is there some stage between? Like when someone receives the impression of something, but didn’t actually hear it?»

«That would sure cover a lot of situations like ‘premonitions.’ Someone thinks of a loved one and says, ‘Be careful on that road tonight.’ That person doesn’t hear what they said, but something tells them to slow down right before the curve where a car is stalled in the road.»

«That’s logical. I don’t know if that’s what happened with Emerson. And I don’t want to run any experiments on people without their knowledge. It’s just ... It never used to scare me that I could hear people’s thoughts. I thought everyone could and just chose to ignore me. But now, there are all kinds of issues and ... ethics to deal with. I’m afraid I’ll implant something into someone’s mind unintentionally and they’ll do something terrible.»

They stopped on Keira’s front porch before going inside.

“I love you,” she said, taking his hand.

«What?»

«I had to say it out-loud before I could say it inside. I love you, Jaime.»

«Yes. I mean, yes! Love! So much love!»

They were of one mind when their lips came together and they kissed for the first time. And time stopped. That’s not unusual when lovers kiss for the first time. The world seems to go away as they are lost in the first sensation of lips to lips. It was more than that for Jaime and Keira.

The world dissolved away from them as their minds melded in that touch. Every conscious thought in each other’s mind was transferred between them. The emotion of their attachment to each other overwhelmed them and they swam at the border of consciousness as they felt the first rush of acknowledged love through their combined nervous system. It threatened to completely overwhelm them.

And then the kiss was over. It only lasted an instant, but in that instant their lives had changed.

They felt a happy sigh in the backs of their minds.

«I ... I ... You ... We... » Jaime’s thoughts stumbled over each other as he tried to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him.

«We need to do that again, soon!» Keira said. «No! Not yet! I need to ... How did we...? This might take a while.»

They sat on the porch on either side of the door and just looked longingly at each other, still holding hands.

«You were jealous of Emerson?»

«Oh, God! I didn’t want that to come out. I didn’t mean it. I mean, it was just a flash when you described her image of you just as she was imagining the kiss in her fantasy. I didn’t want another girl doing what I wanted to do so badly.»

«It’s okay. She imagined that. It was right when I imagined you. But nothing in my imagination compared to the reality of you.»

«Did you ever think that when we kissed it would be like that? I mean this?»

«I could never have imagined what we just had. Not in a million years. It felt like I stuck my lips in a light socket and flipped the switch.»

«Wow! That’s expressive, » Keira giggled. «Shocking!»

«I mean ... Yeah! I felt so much energy and power and immensity that I thought I was flying. I thought for an instant, I’d died and my mind was completely released from my body.»

«Yes. We were like one person for that instant. Soulmates. Do you think it will always be like that?»

«I don’t know if I should hope it is or hope it isn’t.» Jaime squeaked his laughter. «I mean, if it’s always like that, we won’t ever be able to kiss for more than a second. You know? I kind of hope that we’ll be able to control it a little so we can do it more often. Like... »

«Holding hands.»

The teens looked at their hands, held tightly together. There was a flow of energy between them—a resonance in their thoughts. They could see the automatic controls that had kicked in so that holding hands didn’t continue the overwhelming input to their brains.

«But it’s there. I can see it. If we opened ourselves a little, we’d be able to hear everyone near us, like we did in the theater, or the park the other day, » Jaime said.

«Lucky there aren’t any people near us right now. I’m not sure I could hold them back. And I don’t want to stop holding your hand.»

«Did you mean it, Keira?»

«That I don’t want to stop holding your hand?»

«No. I can feel that. When we said, ‘I love you,’ was it more than a spike in our hormones? Was it more than a flash of jealousy, or a stab of lust? The only real love I’ve ever known was from my parents. It was ... is ... nothing like this. This sense of wanting to be with you always—to share everything in my life with you. I have to define love by these feelings.»

«Yes, Jaime. I’m sure of it. I’ve been fond of people. I’ve certainly had lustful thoughts about some who caught my attention with their daydreams. But I’ve never experienced anything with the depth and passion I feel for you. I love you.»