Since time travel was first perfected in the late twenty first century scholars around the world have debated the nature of time itself. Did those first early time travelers inadvertently alter history, forever altering the world in which we live? It’s impossible to say for sure. It wasn’t until the development of multiphasic cloaking technology in the late twenty second century that made routine travel into the past safe. Surgically implanted, the multiphasic cloaking device doesn’t just render its wearer invisible, the cloaked person is actually out of phase with the real world, almost as if they were a ghost, making time altering interactions with the past impossible. But still, it wasn’t until 2214 with the development of the high density anti-matter power systems, that the temporal tourism industry finally became practical.

Of course, with time travel, like with any new technology, come those willing to misuse it for profit. Which of course brings us to why I’m standing here in this cold, damp dungeon in late twelfth century northern Italy. In a way you might say that I’m a tourist finally taking that dream vacation I’d always longed to take but unlike most temporal tourists, my dream vacation into the past is also highly illegal, I don’t have a multiphasic cloaking device.

I know you might be outraged to know that there are people out there who, for enough money, would allow someone to travel into the past without a multiphasic cloaking device but it seems theirs is an unimaginably lucrative business, that they’ve already fulfilled the dream vacations for thousands of people, all without altering the past.

Imagine taking part in an ancient Roman orgy? For a very reasonable price they can arrange it, of course you’ll be visiting Pompeii just days before the volcano erupted. They’ve carefully researched historical moments where their customer’s interactions with the locals can’t alter the past. Let’s say you attend that orgy in Pompeii and seduce a handsome Roman Centurion preventing him for getting one of the locals pregnant, did it really matter, in less than 48 hours they’re both going to be dead anyway.

Well, that brings us back to this cold, damp dungeon in late twelfth century northern Italy. You see, I specifically requested this darkly masochistic dream vacation. I arrived earlier today, appearing in a bright flash of light and with a scent of brimstone, standing on the local church’s alter at the height of the Sunday morning mass, nude. The locals quickly summoned the town guards who dragged me out of the church and into the castle dungeons where I’m now.

In the morning the inquisition will begin, their goal to force me to confess to witchcraft so that they can burn me at the stake. Personally, I don’t expect to end up roasting out in the town square for the amusement of the locals. In this town the local inquisition rarely sent a woman to the burn at the stake. Most women simply died screaming in agony in the dungeons, here in the late twelfth century the inquisition truly believed in Exodus 22:18, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

Anyway, I hope the inquisitors are more dedicated to the persecution and torture of witches than the dungeon guards who spent this evening taking turns raping me. Sadly, it wasn’t until they realized I’d been reaching multiple orgasms that they finally gave up and left me here alone. Of course, looking at all those instruments of torture arrayed before me sends a delightfully unstoppable masochistic tingle racing through my body. And besides, what’s a submissive girl to do, with so many unspeakable torments, where to begin.

Still, I know what you’re thinking. Risking the future of the world for a few days of brutally cheap thrills, but it’s not like this is going to change the timeline. Within months, everyone in this area of northern Italy will be dead, killed by one of the earliest outbreaks of the Black Plague. So, what could go wrong? One extra woman dying in a dungeon torture chamber in a doomed town in northern Italy in the late twelfth century can’t change history. After all, it’s not like the Allies managed to win World War Two...