Power Surge
As she expected, Kimberly found that being invisible and menstruating at the same time was difficult, but livable. It certainly could have been worse--the ever present tampon inside of her was visible, but didn’t show the liquid that saturated it. She thanked heaven for small favors and found one of Peter’s bathrobes to cover up with. Her theory was: out of sight, out of mind. At least, that was her theory until she remembered its uglier implications about her general condition.
It turned out that the tampons she was using did, in fact, belong to Bennett’s ex-girlfriend. The woman in question was a co-worker who had lived there until three months before, when she ended their relationship to take a job on the other side of the country. She left amicably, but Bennett seemed saddened to report that job she took was with a major defense contractor working toward a missile defense shield that showed no hope of success.
Bennett had returned home that first night after work to see his bathrobe sitting at the kitchen table. A pen was dancing above a sheet of paper, scribbling equations. This was vaguely comforting to him—for the first time since Karen left, he had someone to come home to, even if she was invisible. She greeted him enthusiastically.
"Hey! How’d it go today?"
"Well enough. How about you?"
"Lousy. I got my period."
"Sorry to hear it. There are tampons in the medicine cabinet."
She stood up and the tie of the robe undid itself. Bennett watched the lapels scrunch up and it opened wide. He saw everything there was to see.
"Already found ‘em. Wanna pull my string?" she asked jokingly.
"No, thanks. I’ll take a pass. You eat anything today?"
"I had some lunch after you left, but nothing since. You want to order a pizza or something?"
"Yeah, that sounds good. Actually, I think I have an idea about how to make your food problem go away, so to speak."
"Tell me."
"I don’t want to get your hopes up. Let’s eat first."
He ordered a pizza and had it delivered. Kimberly waited in the bedroom while he paid the delivery boy. When the guy left, Bennett gave her the all-clear and she returned. He opened a bottle of white wine and they ate slowly--neither of them used to having company, their conversation dragged one pie out for over two hours. He told her about his ex, she told him about her life before the accident. They talked and ate and drank. And drank. They drank until they were both, in his words, schnockered.
Being drunk took Kimberly’s diminished manual dexterity and dropped it another ten notches. She found it nearly impossible to pick up small objects. After she knocked over her glass for the third time, Bennett had had enough.
"The last time we drank together, you could hold your liquor just fine," he said, "What happened?"
"I can hold my liquor. I just can’t hold the glass."
The bottle floated at the end of her sleeve and tipped back into space. It seemed to pour a small amount of the wine directly down the neck of the robe, as though it was simply being transferred from one container to another.
"How much have you had to drink, anyway?" he asked.
The robe slipped off her shoulders and fell to the floor. Kimberly looked down into herself and traced her throat with her index finger, following it down until she poked herself in the abdomen near the bag of wine and chewed pizza. It responded with a small ripple. She poked again, harder this time, and it sloshed around in a messy wave.
"I don’t know. It looks like about five glasses, though, wouldn’t you say?" She laughed hard, causing the contents of her stomach to churn. "I’m quite a sight. All pre-chewed food and sanitary napkins. Kind of makes me miss the occasional bad hair day."
"Don’t worry. I told you I had an idea."
She had almost forgotten about his earlier intimations until Bennett pulled a paper bag from his leather satchel. He tore it open and dumped the contents on the table next to Kimberly’s glass. She stared at it as though it were alien to her.
"Alka-Seltzer? That’s your big idea?"
He nodded excitedly as he filled a glass of water. "Look, I said, no promises. Anyway--at first, I was thinking laxatives. I figured, hey, the faster the food goes through you, the faster you’re invisible again. Then I thought of the problems inherent with large doses of laxatives."
"And I appreciate that," she replied. She couldn’t even see where he was going with this.
He ripped apart one of the packages and dropped a couple tablets in the glass of water. "I thought that antacids would hinder rather than help the digestive process, and the pink stuff probably would, but Alka-Seltzer’s intense carbonation and sodium...Here. Start with this."
She put her hand on the counter unsteadily and pushed it until she lightly touched the glass, then gripped it tightly. As she took it to her lips, Bennett prepared another glass. The Alka-Seltzer sailed down her throat and mixed with the earlier tenants of her digestive system--the results were immediately apparent. The bubbles started to attach to the food particles in her stomach, and as each bubble popped inside of her, a little morsel of food seemed to go with it. Bennett was ecstatic.
"It’s working! I knew it! Here, take some more!"
"I don’t know if I can, but I’ll try."
She drank half of the second glass, and the carbonation went to work disintegrating the meal she had just eaten. They both stood there, fascinated, until fifteen minutes had passed and only wisps of clear liquid remained. Except for the tampon, she was for all intents and purposes invisible again.
"Would you like to tell me exactly why that just happened?"
"Call it a hunch. The Alka-Seltzer didn’t actually break down the food, but the carbonation...masked it. The gas combined with your stomach acid to create a kind of smokescreen. It fooled the body into making the food invisible before it was actually digested."
"That’s insane. I’ve been drinking soda for weeks and it stays there, same as everything else. Why does this stuff work when it didn’t?"
"I don’t know. The more bubbles, the better."
Kimberly was happier than she had been in a long time. If she had to be invisible, at least she could enjoy it now without the limitations of mealtimes. As long as she was near a drugstore and had fifteen minutes alone, she could eat whenever and wherever she pleased. Besides that, she was still drunk and that didn’t hurt her mood at all. She put her arms around Bennett’s neck and purred in his ear as she hugged him.
"If I wasn’t having my period..."
Bennett felt the weight of her push against his shoulders, but the thing that he couldn’t get over was the warmth radiating from her skin. It went through his clothes and touched him everywhere--her softness pushed against the front of his body and aroused him immediately. The mirror in the corner of his eye showed him standing alone in his kitchenette reaching around empty air, but he could feel, smell...taste...the woman hanging in his arms.
His hair began to feather upwards as she ran her hands through it. Bennett literally stood as still as a statue, unable to react because he didn’t know what she was going to do. He had a better idea when she brought her mouth against his, mashing his lips flat and pushing them open with her tongue.
"Peter...Close your eyes."
He closed his eyes and things got easier in an instant. Even if she were visible, things of this nature always worked better for Peter when he went with instinct. With his eyes shut, Peter worked with his hands, feeling her breasts, running his hands down her sides until they slid back to form magnificently rounded hips.
She pulled at the buttons on his shirt, but she was still drunk and they were still buttons. In any case, she had a lot more on her mind as Bennett’s hand pushed through her pubic hair. Things came to a dead halt when he brushed the string. His eyes opened and looked down. He could feel her skin get warmer as she blushed invisibly. He slowly took a step back and talked to the air.
"This...this isn’t a good idea right now. We’re both drunk and happy and lonely, and nothing good ever happened from that. Besides, if we were to do something...things could get messy."
"Not from me. All my bodily fluids are invisible, remember?"
"I meant emotionally. You’ve only been here for one day. We still have to work together if we’re going to bring you back."
He cleared his throat and waited for a response. She knew he was right, of course. She had lost control just like she did when had first blurted out her presence to him the night before. It was foolish and selfish.
"You’re right. I’m sorry."
"It’s not you being...the way you are."
"I know," she said, but she didn’t.
* * *
The next few days were less eventful, but more tense than that night had been. Since discovering how to stay invisible with food in her stomach, Kimberly found herself back on a three meal a day schedule, though always with an Alka-Seltzer chaser. Her period ended, which was a relief to her, but seemed to make Bennett a little edgy.
He returned late every evening and dutifully shared that day’s progress, but he limited their contact--especially physical contact. When he saw Kimberly’s empty clothes walking around the apartment, he went into his room and closed the door. When she stripped them off and walked around nude, he asked her to put something on. At first, she was offended, but then she realized that one day was much too soon for her to expect Bennett to get used to living with an invisible woman. Kimberly understood--it had taken her a while as well.
Bennett had actually gotten further in replicating her experiment than she had thought possible in so short a period of time. He suggested, almost two weeks to the day since she arrived in Denver, that she accompany him to his lab to double check his work. She gladly accepted, as cabin fever would have forced her to break her promise to him sooner rather than later.
When the next morning came, Kimberly ran to Bennett’s car in full sprint, naked as the day she was born and suddenly aware of the frigid winter temperatures. Bennett saw the snow her feet kicked up and followed her progress easily. He smiled at her enthusiasm and took a little extra time walking to the driver’s side, just to have a little fun. Even out here in the wide open parking lot, Kimberly’s voice almost reached a screaming point.
"Hurry up! Open the door! It’s freezing out here!"
He pretended to fumble with the keys as he listened to her rubbing some warmth into what he thought were her shoulders.
"This isn’t funny, I mean it!"
He was about to turn the key in the door when he looked up and saw her, or more specifically, saw her lungs--the cold outdoor air was mixing with the warm air in her body and he could see each breath as it started in her chest and was respired out her mouth. He sat dumbfounded until he heard her teeth chattering.
"NOW!"
He opened the door and hit the auto lock. The passenger door swung open and the seat depressed with a loud crunch. Bennett could see the imprint of her buttocks and thighs as the door shut.
"You had to have vinyl seats, didn’t you?"
A tiny smile crept across Bennett’s lips as he hit the ignition. Immediately, the heater dial turned clockwise to its maximum setting and within thirty seconds, the moving car was somewhat akin to a Finnish steambath.
When her teeth had stopped clicking, Kimberly looked over and saw her partner/friend/confidante (she didn’t know how to think of him) laughing as hard he could. It quickly became infectious and he heard her laugh join his.
"You thought that was pretty funny, didn’t you?"
"A little."
"Well, maybe a little."
Though he couldn’t see it, Kimberly was wearing a wide grin on her face. She gently put her hand on his leg--he looked down at the palmprint on his pants with a start, but didn’t ask her to move it.
* * *
Bennett’s lab looked a lot like her own had, though the equipment was little newer and the optics a bit bigger. His co-workers had the day off, but they had agreed that she wouldn’t speak or move anything in case the security cameras were being monitored. He picked up a microcassette recorder and pretended to hit the "record" button.
"Dr. Peter Bennett, notes for December second. Barium isotope laser simulations point to massive power buildup in core, leading to possible random systemic discharge."
He hit a button on his computer keyboard and played a graphic simulation of the scenario he had just described, while the power numbers scrolled alongside, hitting a crescendo right before an explosive jolt. He spoke into the recorder again when it finished.
"Wondering if this is consistent with earlier experience."
He felt her hand on his shoulder and her breast against his upper arm as she leant in and whispered in his ear. "Yes! That’s it! You think it was random?"
"Tests suggest random, but power levels are too high to simulate. I believe that a live recreation is too dangerous for lab conditions, but I think that I can guess the neighborhood of the discharge needed for the earlier result. Using this estimate, it may be possible to extrapolate the earlier cellular reaction."
She felt her heart surge. "You know how to change me back?"
"Extremely low possibility of success, but...who knows?"
With a smirk, he pretended to hit the stop button and started to type.
* * *
They got home that night with a renewed friendship and a renewed sense of purpose. Bennett began to light a fire while Kimberly headed to the kitchen. She found a bottle of white wine in the 'fridge--Bennett watched the corkscrew twist into it and pull. The cork wouldn’t come out, causing the bottle to rattle against the counter, louder with each new try. Finally, Kimberly realized that she needed leverage. Having seen people do it a hundred times before, she placed the bottle between her legs--and screamed. Bennett ran to the kitchen.
"What’s wrong? Did you cut yourself?"
"No. This bottle--it’s freezing."
"So?"
"Never mind."
Bennett pulled the cork from the bottle and poured a couple of glasses. Kimberly’s floated into the air and the wine cascaded down her throat. Bennett saw her stomach and got a little nervous--this night felt too familiar. The wine warmed him up a bit, though, and somehow that didn’t seem so bad. It had been quite a day: there had been what he considered major progress on the visibility front, thanks to Kimberly’s tweaks on his calculations. It was, if not Miller time, then Kendall-Jackson time.
Sure enough, a bottle or two later, and everything was fine, even more fine than Bennett knew. Kimberly, sitting on the couch in a post-Alka Seltzer haze, was even more aroused than she had been two weeks ago. However, after the debacle of that first night, she was not going to say or do anything to ruin it. Instead, she had cautiously spread herself open and was slowly satisfying her desire while Bennett talked about the experiment he wanted to run the next day.
She silently moved her finger in and out, then two, faster and faster until she couldn’t take it any more. She let out a low moan.
"Kimberly?"
She answered him, not by speaking, but by reaching over and picking up his hand. He let her direct his hand, first to her breast (where he ran he fingers over an erect nipple) then down her stomach until he was on top of her sex. The warmth was radiating off her and he touched moisture, but there was nothing on his hand.
Bennett leaned in to kiss her, but missed by ten inches. She took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply, noting with amusement the way his cheek pushed in and out in time with her tongue. For a moment, she broke away and his eyes were darting everywhere, though she was right in front of him. He closed his eyes as he had done before, but she whispered in his ear.
"Don’t close your eyes." She took his hand again and led him into the bedroom. "Leave the lights on."
He felt pressure at his waist as his belt slid out of its buckle. His pants undid themselves and suddenly, there was a hand in his waistband pulling him erect. He took off his shirt as the hand worked gently, soon replaced by in intimate kiss before his pants came off--and then she was gone.
Again, he looked around wildly. "Kimberly? Where are you?"
He received his answer in the form of a lipstick which bobbed out of the bathroom door, hovering a few feet off the ground. The cap popped off of it and flew across the room. Its bottom twisted and a deep red tube was raised into view.
She took the lipstick and put the tip of it against her stomach. Bennett was in total amazement as a red line drew itself in the air, then was marked on its sides. He saw it then for what it was--an arrow, pointing downwards. A road map. Two more followed, one on each inner thigh, these pointing upward. Three arrows hanging in space, triangulating her position. Perfect--Kimberly had made sure he knew just where to go.
They made love passionately, first with Kimberly on top, then on the bottom. The sex was clumsy, no doubt about it--he slipped out of her on more than one occasion and accidentally grabbed her face when he was reaching for her chest--but the experience of thrusting into thin air and feeling what he was feeling...it was surreal. For her, the feeling was of total abandonment. She could see him inside of her, but he had no idea where her hands were until they touched him. It wasn’t total control, but it was close, and though the feeling was one of empowerment, she had no desire to take advantage of Bennett. It was more like symbiosis.
He let her know right before he came, and they both watched the condom fill inside of her. When he finished, she poked at her abdomen where it was, but couldn’t touch it. Yes, indeed. Truly surreal.
He pulled out of her. Kimberly immediately got up and grabbed a flashlight from underneath the bed. Wiping the smeared lipstick away with a towel, she turned on the flashlight and put it up to her belly. Bennett looked at it the beam against the wall with confusion.
"What are you looking for?"
"Sperm. Being invisible is the ultimate pregnancy test."
Kimberly moved the beam around, but there was no tiny wriggling shadow on the wall to make her concerned. She turned it off and one deep pit in the bed led to another as she crawled back in on her knees. She kissed him on the lips, then jumped off again.
"I’ll be in the bathroom for a second."
"What’s wrong?"
"Nothing. I just feel a little weird."
She went into the bathroom and swung the door closed. She was sweating, but that was to be expected after the marathon she just ran. This felt different. She turned on the water and filled her hands, then splashed it on her face and picked up another towel. She was reaching to open the door again when she saw them--her hands. For the first time almost two months, she could see them, all five fingers, even the tiny scar she got when she was four. There they were, totally visible up to the elbow. Then, nothing.
Kimberly screamed.
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