Like a heartbeat drives you mad in the stillness of remembering what you had and what you lost.

KJ was nervous. Decades of a lack of introspection having come to an end over the last few days had done a serious number on her confidence. This wasn’t to say that she didn’t think she looked good… hell, it had been years since she’d last seen her own toes, let alone had the upper body strength to do pull ups or the stamina to climb several flights of stairs; her body was back in its prime and she knew she wasn’t going to fall into the same traps that had led to its previous decline. Her hair was back to being lustrous and her natural curls were full of life and color, her formerly blotchy complexion was back to the healthy glow of youth, and for the first time in years her smallish breasts stood firm and high instead of laying flat and lifeless, but somehow still sagging against her ever expanding belly.

No, she knew damn well that she looked cute again, that even with all the beautiful women running around here, she wasn’t physically inferior and was easily objectively as attractive as any of them.

No, this would be the first time she talked to Bob in years and if what she’d surmised from all the goings on of the last few days was true, he had every reason to hate her. So… how to approach it? She had spent hours agonizing over what and how to go about this and had come to a point where she had three choices.

First was go in guns blazing; try to dust off the old sex appeal and just outright seduce him. She had discarded this almost immediately due to the fact that he was getting it on the regular. Why would he want her when he had already probably made the beast with two backs with at least two if not four of the other girls?

Her second approach was the act like nothing had happened. Just be the flirty fun Kathy Jo that he’d dated senior year. This was also discarded, due to the fact that he was clearly still holding on to the pain she had caused him, even after almost three decades. That was made clear by the fact that he hadn’t even looked at her after the transformation, even when she’d spoken during the commercial break.

And so it was that she had arrived at the third option. Throw herself on her knees and beg for forgiveness. After one part of this week’s self-revelation the very idea of doing so, being on her knees in front of Bob, made her wet.

It was to that end that she’d planned the date for today. Something to remind him of the good times, something to show off the body that he’d once touched and enjoyed.

Which is how they’d ended up at an athletics complex, with her jamming a batting helmet onto her head. The first couple pitches from the machine whizzed past her, the unfamiliar action of swinging a bat at a softball slowly coming back to muscle memory, before she found her swing again and started dinging them into the backstop net.

Bob had been understandably distant when she’d shown up at his door, but had slowly warmed up to her when she’d started making cracks at the alt-right dwarf chauffeur, and when they pulled up to the indoor batting cages he’d started to look sentimental. “Our first date…”

“Yeah. I let you pick and you chose this.”

His turn in the cage was impressive. His body now was far more athletic than it had been in high school, and it seemed that his reflexes hadn’t faded in the least, a fact made all the more astounding by his admission that he hadn’t touched a bat since the last time they’d been to the cages. On a lark he’d cranked the machine up to 90 mph and was cranking the balls out just as fast as they came in, not a single whiff in the entire run.

Their next destination was a ropes course, zip lines and harnesses, followed by indoor skydiving, axe throwing, and finally a climbing wall. Both of their new bodies excelled at the physical activity and although sweaty, neither was winded by the time they broke for lunch.

“So have you ever thrown an axe before?”

“Actually yes,” Bob’s chuckle was genuine, as was the grin on his face, “before I dropped out of college the first time I was in the SCA. We’d do it at events just for fun.”

“SCA?”

“Society for Creative Anachronism. A group of people with curiosity about the time period between the dark ages and the Renaissance. Then they try to live it.”

“So… like military re-enactments?”

“More like a cross between that and LARPing with a good dose of educational material thrown in for good measure.”

“So what did you learn from them?”

Bob grinned wickedly. “Calligraphy, dance, sewing, weaving, how to give a killer massage, fencing, brewing-“

“One of these things is not like the others…”

Bob’s contagious laugh rang out as he picked up the sandwich wrapper and started walking toward the mini-golf course. “Action Nerd.”

Apparently having the bodies of athletes and the stamina of marathoners does nothing for one’s golf game. The miniature golf game lasted two hours and by the end of it the two were laughing and joking, easily slipping into the pattern of banter that had been a hallmark of their long-dead relationship. That turned to awkward silence on the ride back to the chalet.

Bob seemed preoccupied by something, just staring out the windows, while KJ sat, facing him, and pondering how she was going to go about this. Against all expectations the day had gone well, had even been fun, but now the night was closing in and… there were certain hopes and expectations that went with that.

The lobby was fortunately empty when they arrived and Bob walked purposefully to the elevator, with Kathy Jo trailing meekly in his wake. When he’d opened the door to his room, she’d followed, eyes downcast, gathering her resolve to do what she knew she had to.

Bob left her standing in the living room to use the bathroom, slightly confused and wondering what he should do about it. She was a manipulative bitch in high school and everything he’d seen so far indicated that that had not changed in the least. He was absolutely sure she was going to try to talk herself back into his good graces. He resolved right then that that wasn’t going to happen. He was going to go out there and tell her just that, then give her the bed and bunk down on the couch (regardless of how much the wound still stung, he had always prided himself on being a gentleman).

Of course all of that resolve drained away when he stepped out and saw her on her knees with her head bowed and not a single stitch of clothing on her.

(Title: “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac)