It was just getting dark as I pulled into the resort parking lot. I had the music cranked up and once again I was singing along and almost felt like dancing. I found a parking spot, and wound up sitting there for another few minutes sort of dancing in my seat till the song ended.

I shut off the car then grabbed my purse and the two little shopping bags, and headed back to my room. I still had a spring in my step and a smile on my face. Apart from the frustration of talking to that girl at the occult store, it had been a fun afternoon.

Once in my room I dropped one bag on the bed with my purse and set the other one on the bathroom counter. My boots and jacket went back in the closet, and I proceeded to undress. I left my clothes on the bed for now, and pulled my phone from my purse then went into the bathroom and started running a bath. From the little shopping bag I produced a new bottle of bubble-bath and a bottle of lotion.

The lotion went on the counter next to my make-up bag and I poured a good measure of the bubble-bath into the tub.

A few minutes later I was relaxing in a nice hot foamy bath and the whole bathroom smelled of patchouli. I kept my head up above the bubbles since I wasn't supposed to soak my ears in the tub while they were healing, and my hands stayed dry for now too so I could do some research with my phone.

I figured it was time I got to know myself. That is, I wanted to find out a little more about girl-me, who she was and what her life was like. So I started with social media, there were a couple new apps on my phone I recognized even though I'd never really used them before.

I started with the one social media app I was familiar with, and quickly discovered girl-me seemed to be as much of a loner as I was. It made me wonder if girl-me came on this vacation for the same reason. Like whether a guy or a girl, maybe I'd come to this resort hoping to meet people and make friends.

Judging from the social media app, girl-me didn't have a lot of friends and wasn't any more active on there than I was. The main difference was where I tended to post depressing rants or gripes, girl-me posted selfies. And they got a lot more likes than my boring posts ever did. Girl-me followed more and different accounts too. Where I mostly followed stuff related to my course at university, girl-me followed a lot of people I didn't recognize. The few I did recognize were some bands and pop singers, including some of the ones I'd been listening to in the car today.

Most of the selfies girl-me posted were actually cross-posted from another social media app, one that was mainly for sharing pictures. So I checked that out next.

I noticed my handle in both these apps was 'rms_rachel'. Of course it was different than the user name I usually used as a guy. I wondered if it had some significance other than just being my new initials and first name. If there was some deeper meaning though, it currently eluded me.

I had more followers in the picture-sharing app, and more interactions. It seemed like girl-me was much more active in that app than the other one. The most recent post was from two days ago, it was a picture of the resort with the ski runs in the background. It was taken on Tuesday morning before my accident, though of course girl-me didn't have that accident.

Actually I wondered now if girl-me had even done any skiing at all. I didn't recall seeing a lift-ticket anywhere, and hadn't found gloves or mitts or a scarf or winter hat among my things. I figured I'd have another look around the room later to check for that stuff. That would be weird, coming to a ski resort without any intention of skiing.

On a whim I decided to take a selfie right now, since I had the app open anyways. It wasn't lewd but it was a little suggestive. I made sure the bubbles were positioned discreetly and my new earrings were visible, then flashed a cute grin as I took the pic. I tapped out a little comment about new bling and new bubbles, then hit the upload icon. And I made sure to cross-post it back to the other site too.

I'm not even sure why I did it, but it was fun and I felt a little thrill about it. My first selfie, and I was naked in the bath.

After that I moved on to my email, and started going through there to see what else I could learn about girl-me. What I really wanted to know was whether or not girl-me was still in university, and still taking the same course.

I'd fought like hell to get into that robotics engineering program and struggled to keep my grades up. My biggest fear was I'd discover girl-me was taking some arts thing at a community college or something. Or worse, that she'd completely quit school and was just working cash at some store or something.

I looked at my email address and was relieved to find I was still a student at U of T. Of course it wasn't exactly the same as my old email, now my account was under 'rms.rachel.stewart'. I wondered again about that thing with the initials. It had to mean something special, since I kept using it for all my accounts and things.

Whatever it was, I wasn't going to figure it out soaking in the tub so I let it go and moved on.

Scrolling through my inbox, my heart sank as I didn't recognize any of the names I saw. There weren't any emails from any of my profs, or even other students in the robotics program. I went all the way back to the start of December before I spotted a familiar name. Andrew Campbell was in the same robotics program, same year as me. He was pretty good at it too, I was sure he was one of the top students.

My blood went cold for a moment as a terrifying thought crossed my mind. I hoped like hell I wasn't dating that guy. I could picture him and it wasn't a pretty image. He was tall, like just under six feet, but he was skinny and kind of lanky. His face was plain, and he had sort of grey, watery eyes. His muddy brown hair was always a bit of a mess, and I couldn't think of a single kind thing to say about his fashion sense.

The thought of potentially dating Andy led me to wonder if I was even into guys at all.

I thought back to this morning. I was definitely into that brunette who winked at me. The guy and the blonde were both attractive, and thinking about the guy I could still picture the muscles I saw under his shirt. I could totally see myself with the brunette, but I realized I could see myself with the guy too. I actually found him more attractive than the blonde.

Realizing I might be bi made me suddenly question guy-me's sexuality.

As a guy I always assumed I was straight because I was into girls, but now I had to admit guy-me was way too self-consious and insecure to ever actually question or explore anything beyond the expected default.

That little revelation led me to wonder what other assumptions guy-me made about himself that may have been wrong. For now I just filed those thoughts away and returned my attention to my phone.

I tapped Andy's email to see what he had to say.

It turned out to be the last message in a fairly long thread, so I scrolled up and started at the top. The discussion began on the first of November. In addition to me and Andy, two profs were involved. I recognized one name as a top guy in the robotics course, the other I didn't know at all.

As I read, I started to piece things together. Apparently I was interested in using robots for underwater research. My prof, some guy named Doctor Edwards, put me in touch with the robotics prof Charlie Blake. And professor Blake connected me with Andy.

In a way it was weird going through this stuff. Like supposedly this was my life, this was stuff girl-me wrote just a few weeks ago. But I had no memory of this at all. I was trying to piece together the life of this stranger known as Rachel Stewart.

As I read more, I was glad to see from the emails that I knew my stuff when it came to robotics, even if I wasn't taking that course myself. Apparently me and Andy were talking about collaborating on a project that would have him providing the engineering know-how while I supplied the parameters and requirements, as well as a real-world use-case.

As I got near the end of the thread I finally clued in what this collaboration was all about. For Andy, it would be his big final project to build and operate an underwater robot that could be used in marine research. For me, it was part of my thesis about using autonomous submersibles to perform surveys of submerged archaeological sites.

I stared at that email for a few moments as it sank in. I was in some kind of history program. I was interested in archaeology. A slight frown settled on my expression as I thought about that.

I was always interested in that stuff. I loved watching those educational BBC shows on the public broadcasting channel. Time Team, Two Men in a Trench, Digging for Britain, the list went on and on. I even enjoyed the experimental archaeology shows, where people would try and live as if they were in the past to get a feel for what it was like back then.

That sort of thing always fascinated me. I might have even wound up studying that myself, if guy-me hadn't gone into the electronics and robotics stuff. Except as Rachel, apparently that's exactly what happened. I passed on the robotics stuff and went for my childhood dream of studying archaeology instead.

I finally focused on my phone again and scrolled to the end of the thread. It seemed me and Andy left off with us both taking a break for December. We'd get back to work on the project again in January.

That proved to be the most interesting and most useful thing I found in my emails. After leaving that app I was surprised to see I had a bunch of notifications waiting in the photo app, so I opened that again.

Apparently my bubblebath selfie was popular, I already had about two dozen likes and comments. Most were complimenting me on the earrings and my looks in general, a few asked for more pics.

By now the bubbles were all starting to give up and the water wasn't so warm anymore, but I decided to oblige. It wound up being a little more risqué than the earlier picture since I had fewer bubbles to work with. Instead of a cute grin I went for more of a suggestive look for the second pic. Then on a whim I followed that up with a cheeky wink and saved that too.

I let out a naughty little giggle as I uploaded both pictures, and crossposted them to the other site as well.

After that I figured it was time to get out of the tub. I put my phone on the back of the toilet for now, then let the bath water drain out. I finished with a quick shower to rinse off, but I was careful not to get my hair wet since it was still clean from this morning and I didn't feel like styling it again.

Once I was cleaned up and dried off, I got myself dressed. I picked a matching set of black lace panties and bra this time, then wriggled back into my black skinny-jeans. Then I got out my other purchase from this afternoon and slipped it on. It was a dark forest green blouse, solid in some spots but sheer in others. I thought it looked totally sexy when I saw it in the fashion boutique. Finally I redid my make-up and checked my hair again.

It wasn't too cold out and there wasn't too much snow on the road, and it was only like a hundred meters or so from the lodge to the main resort building so I went with the sneakers instead of winter boots, and I skipped the jacket completely. I tucked my phone back in my purse then slung that over my shoulder as I left my room.

My new blouse was as close to nothing as could be so I really felt the cold breeze, but it was only a short dash from one building to the next.

A minute later I was in the main resort building, and found myself trying to decide if I wanted to just have a quiet dinner at the restaurant, or if I'd rather visit the bar. I could always get a snack in there, they served appetizers and bar-food along with drinks.

PurpleCatGirl

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