Power Surge
"So...what can I do for you?"
Kimberly Harlow sat on the couch, fully clothed and covered, and if Peter Bennett could see her face, it would have shown an expression of pure gratitude. Here, after a long month of being invisible, alone, separated from the world--someone was offering help. She had spent the last month convincing herself that she could live forever as an invisible woman--that she didn’t really care about having to sneak around, didn’t mind looking through the reflection of her clothes in the mirror. She knew with this offer of help how many lies she had told herself. There was a choke in her voice as she replied.
"I want to be normal again. I want you to make me visible again. I can’t be like this forever."
The floodgates opened, and she cried long and hard, like she hadn’t in weeks. Bennett slowly approached her and put his arm around the shoulders of a shirt that he now realized clothed a real person. The empty sunglasses looked up at him, and he in return at them.
"I’ve almost forgotten what I look like."
"It’s going to be okay. You’ll obviously stay here--I’ll go to the lab tomorrow and start looking at what might have happened. For starters, you need to tell me everything about what you were working on."
Kimberly laid out basically a rehash of her grant proposal for him, and he studiously took notes as she went along. He stopped, however, at her description of the accident that had made her invisible.
"Is there any chance this was supposed to happen?" he asked.
"What do you mean by that? That I would willingly do this to myself?"
"No. You told me that the building had emergency generators and protectors to prevent this kind of accident. Is there anyone who might have an interest in you not being...protected?"
This was the first time such a thing had occurred to her. Up until now, Kimberly had assumed that the generators had been turned off as a cost-cutting measure. Even now, she couldn’t think of any enemies she had who would wish her dead, or invisible, or both. Bennett watched the scarves above the neck of her blouse shake "no."
"Okay. I have enough information for now. Besides, I imagine you’re pretty tired."
"You don’t know the half of it."
"You hungry?"
"You bet. I could--"
She stopped herself in mid-sentence. With Bennett at the lab all day, Kimberly would have plenty of time to eat and disappear without disgusting him at the sight of her digestive process. He didn’t let it go, however.
"What is it?"
Kimberly made a decision in her mind to be totally honest with him. He was the only one in the world who knew about her "condition"--there was no point in leaving anything out. She spoke in starts and stops.
"I am totally invisible. All of my organs, fluids, everything that makes up my body is gone."
"But..."
"Everything that goes into my body stays visible. Until they’re digested, the things I eat tend to...stick around. It isn’t pleasant for me, and I’m the one eating. Even if I stay covered up, there’s still the chewing. It’ll probably make you want to be someplace else in a hurry."
He shrugged.
"We’ll see."
And with that, Bennett stood up and went to the kitchen. As he made pasta, she told him about what the last month had been like for her--how she had been holed up in a motel room, how she had created a new identity for herself, how the loneliness had driven her to find him. He listened closely as the water boiled. When she finished her story and the dinner was ready, he stared at her for a moment.
"What?"
"Are you going to...?"
He mimed an unwrapping motion around his head. She nodded and took off her sunglasses. The scarves came flying off, and suddenly Bennett was face to face with a headless blouse. He served her a plate and looked at her expectantly. It made her feel even more self-conscious than usual about eating, and for a second she debated telling him to forget it, but she was starving and he’d have to see it sooner or later.
She took the fork and twirled some spaghetti around it, lifted it to her mouth, and closed her lips around it. Bennett stared in amazement as the fork pulled away, leaving a portion of spaghetti hanging in midair for a second before it seemed to flatten, pull and tear in all directions at once. The food stuck in some places, almost forming the shape of a palate. Bennett moved forward to study it closer, and ended up head-butting Kimberly, who made a high-pitched squeak with her mouth full.
"Oh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean...it’s so fascinating..."
"It’s okay...I understand."
She swallowed the bite, and Bennett’s eyes followed the glop of food as it slid down the back of her throat into the neck of her blouse. Kimberly picked up a glass of juice and took a sip. The swirl of liquid went down the same path, and Bennett didn’t even blink. She was about to pick up the fork again, when he made a request.
"I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind...opening your shirt. It’s not for any lewd reason, I assure you..."
She did as he asked, removing her gloves and unbuttoning the blouse. It pulled off her, and Bennett saw a small puddle of juice that sloshed around just above the open waist of Kimberly’s skirt. The pasta was floating in it, too, and every motion she took sent the mixture flying about an invisible bag in space.
Bennett couldn’t take his eyes off of it. Bite by bite, sip by sip, the bag filled a little more until Kimberly was full. The plate slid across the counter a few inches as she pushed it away.
"That was delicious. Thank you for everything."
"You’re welcome. How long does this stay visible for, usually?"
"About three hours."
"You must not get to eat more than once a day."
"I’m getting used to it."
"It’s not healthy. That’s something else we’ll have to work on."
He walked over to a small closet and pulled out some sheets and blankets. He then threw the cushions off the couch and started to pull a hide-a-bed out of it. Kimberly, naked from the waist up but shockingly visible, took her blouse and, after a couple tries, put her arms through the sleeves. He caught a glimpse of her as she fumbled with the buttons.
"That’s not easy, is it?"
"No, it isn’t. When you can’t see your fingers, your manual dexterity goes in the toilet. You should see me try to type."
"Don’t bother with the blouse. I have some pajamas for you to sleep in."
He walked into his bedroom and opened a drawer in his dresser to find the pajamas. It was then that his mind took a moment to fully process the last couple of hours. There was, by all accounts, a scientifically impossible situation that he was being asked to deal with--and he didn’t really even know this woman. They had had drinks one night. He remembered thinking she was very smart and very pretty--he tried to ask her into his room, but she seemed uncomfortable. He even tried again the next day, but she was all business. And now she was here...and invisible. He didn’t know what to do for her, but he knew he had to help.
He walked back into the living room to find her totally undressed, the sack of digestive fluid still hovering over the hide-a-bed. He tossed the pajamas in her direction and noted with amazement that they never touched the ground. She opened up the pajama tops and looked for the sleeves.
"Sorry about...the stuff. It’ll be gone by morning."
"Don’t apologize for any of this, okay? I’m glad you came to me. We’re going to do everything possible to make you visible again."
She put her feet in the pajama bottoms, pulled upwards, and suddenly they had curvaceous form. His face turned away for a second.
"Listen...everything I know tells me what happened to you couldn’t have happened. I don’t even begin to know where to start deconstructing the accident, let alone curing you. It’s going to take a while."
"I know."
"And I can’t make any promises."
"I know. Thank you...for everything."
"Well...Good night."
He walked into the bedroom and closed the door. He was going to have a hard time sleeping tonight.
Kimberly slipped between the covers of the hide-a-bed. The pajamas were soft--a little big, but comfortable. She would shower in the morning and give Bennett a list of things she would need. Overall, she thought as she drifted away to sleep, it has been a very good day.
* * *
Bennett woke up to the sound of frying eggs. He got out of bed, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and began to get dressed. After a second, his memory of the night before kicked into gear. A few hours worth of sleep had not made anything more believable.
He stepped into the living room. From there, he could see past the neatly remade hide-a-bed and into the kitchen, where his pajamas were busy cooking breakfast. They turned to greet him.
"Good morning! How’d you sleep?"
"Well enough. You’re making me breakfast?"
"You made me dinner. It only seems fair."
The skillet on the stove shook back and forth near the end of the pajama sleeve. Bennett looked up at her and imagined a smile on her face. Then he imagined her face--still beautiful.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Great. Look, no gunk."
She pulled the front of her pajama top open to show him, and sure enough, there was nothing to see. All of last night’s dinner had digested into thin air. She left the pajamas open, though, and Bennett could make out the outer curve of Kimberly’s breasts where they pushed against the fabric. This was not an unwelcome discovery for him to make, but he shifted in his seat to keep from thinking further on it.
The skillet flew off of the range and two eggs fell out of it onto a plate. Kimberly reached over and pushed a slip of paper toward Bennett.
"I’m going to need this stuff whenever you can get it. It’s just toiletries and stuff like that--I’ll write you a check when I can, and you can take whatever cash I have left if you want to."
"That’s okay."
He stuffed the list in his pocket, but ignored the eggs.
"What’s the matter? You had the eggs in the fridge. I figured you liked them."
"I do. I just don’t really eat breakfast, that’s all. I’m kind of a two meal a day person myself. Sorry to make you go through the trouble."
The pajamas sagged for a second, then perked back up again.
"I guess we have a lot to learn about each other if we’re going to be roommates, huh?"
"Yep. Anyway, I’ve gotta get to work. The first thing I’m going to do is try and program a computer simulation of that barium isotope you were working with. In the meantime, and I know you’re very experienced at walking around in public, but try and stay here. It’s a long way across Denver, and it gets very cold very fast. God forbid you should get caught outside for the night... Will you promise me you’ll stay here except in an emergency?"
Kimberly was touched by his concern for her. She slowly nodded and waited for him to speak again. And waited. Finally:
"Is that a yes?"
"I nodded. Sorry, I forgot you couldn’t see."
"Okay, we’re going to need to work on communication. By the way, my work number is on the bulletin board by the phone. I’ll check in with you, but if you call me, don’t use your real name. Tell them you’re my cousin Gina."
"Do you have a cousin Gina?"
"Yes, but nobody knows her. Shit, I’m gonna be late."
"Have a nice day. Good luck."
She walked over and kissed him on the cheek, a kiss for luck and an expression of the gratitude that she had never felt this sincerely. She forgave him immediately for twitching as she touched him.
"I’m sorry."
He walked out the front door and locked it behind him. Kimberly was alone. She walked into the bathroom and stripped to invisibility. She took a shower, then brushed the tangles out of her hair with one of Peter’s hairbrushes. It was painful, and for a second Kimberly considered just shaving her head, but she knew she could never bring herself to do it. She thought about how she might get a haircut when a trickling down her leg alerted her to a new problem.
She had been feeling cramps for the last couple of days, and dabbing at the liquid on her leg confirmed that Kimberly was having her period. She didn’t have the most regular cycle in the world, but it had been six weeks since her last one and five weeks since she became invisible. It was bound to happen eventually.
Even though the blood wouldn’t show, she didn’t want to ruin her only pair of underwear with her heavy flow. Kimberly opened the bathroom drawers, one by one, but they were full of guy stuff. She hated the idea of calling Peter out of work for something as stupid as a tampon, but this was getting uncomfortable already. Finally, opening the medicine cabinet, she surprised to see a full box of tampons sitting next to some Advil.
An old girlfriend, maybe? Or was he just incredibly thoughtful of his houseguests? She didn’t care. Kimberly ripped open the box and took a tampon out. The wrapping tore itself in half to reveal the product. She inserted it into herself with minor discomfort and stared at her own abdomen in stunned silence as it took shape, just at it had done in a commercial she had seen--except for the fact that the commercial was a cartoon and this particular tampon was inside of her.
So here she was, she chuckled to herself, the invisible woman, the floating tampon.
The next few days were going to be long, she knew it.
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