More than a Ghost Ch. 02

"That is entirely superficial," I said.

"Isn't it great?" She was practically beaming with anticipation. We crossed the empty courtyard in silence and swiftly made our way to the bustling theater. She glanced into the guest entrance and quickly made for the back portico.

"Prepare to be rich," she said and patted me on the arm. I watched her step behind the curtain and suddenly meet what sounded like hundreds of excited cheers.

I paced behind the curtain itself, listening to the opening joke about how stodgy the rest of us scientists were and how they must have all felt overdressed. Or something like that. By that point I was livid. Bostwick! An ignoramus spawned by a community of ignoramuses! What passed for science in his febrile mind would have choked a primate with its absurdity! And Priscilla knew! She welcomed it just as the Institute had because she knew it was exactly the kind of thing the investors were willing to pay for: flash and fury... There was nothing subtle about the atmospheric shield. It was just another buzz word for missile defense only now it was the twenty-first century and the magic was just within our grasp - for upwards of several billion inflated dollars!

I threw my arms about petulantly and felt ridiculous. Hadn't I just come to reinvigorate this greedy place? One swig of this elixir and disappear! No need to invest in overpriced tomfoolery when you could send some invisible operative to just deactivate the enemy's defenses. No missiles required! All it needed now was testing - testing to make sure the effects lasted, that there were no side-effects, that it worked. Hell, I knew it worked...

No missiles required.

I glanced over my shoulder at Priscilla's erect posture while she dazzled the murmuring crowd with facts and figures and a questionably tasteful decolletage. She was right; she could sell them on it. She was poised, confident, and well organized.

The security was guarding the outside doors, not the inside. There were men at the foot of the stage but no one behind the curtain. I reached into my pocket and pulled the vial out. It caught the reflections of the stage lights in its thin glass, the liquid within shimmering where the light didn't quite refract the way it should have. Why did I bring it anyway? For science.

I popped the rubber cork and drank it, not stopping to think, as I swiftly began to unbutton my shirt, what would happen if this invisibility gag was all in my mind when I stepped out in front of three or four hundred monied ladies and gentlemen. If it worked as quickly as last time I'd only need a few minutes for it to take effect. If it didn't last as long as last time I could be in for trouble. But what was I going to do exactly?

I was already down to my boxer shorts and black socks when my fingers drained of all their color. It was like staring through a glass statue, my forearm. I trailed my fingers down my chest and watched chest hair hang in space and then shorten and vanish. I reached down and pulled the sock off of nothing at all, then the other, finally drawing my boxers from mid-air to the ground. I was gone.

"Priscilla," I whispered into her ear, "do you believe in ghosts?"

The girl snapped her head to the side as if a bullet had swiped across her face. She hadn't heard me come up behind her from around the curtain and, despite my lifelong stage fright, picturing myself naked in front of the fully clothed assembly was doing much more to inspire my confidence than the other way around. As soon as she turned her head I tapped her on the opposite shoulder - just like some kind of looney tune! She started and whipped to the side, suddenly reaching out into nothing.

I backtracked quickly behind her and let the projector at the far end of the auditorium glide through me to the opposing screen. The happy murmurings of the crowd had suddenly frozen; the whole gathering waiting to understand what had happened. Priscilla, ever the diplomat, smiled broadly and apologized for the sudden interruption. There was a mad fly looking to sabotage the operation. That got an appreciative chuckle from the crowd.

She went on with the speech, the projection behind us outlining the basic planning stages of Bostwick's idiot schematics. I couldn't have that. I moved back beside Priscilla and breathed softly in her ear. I had to hand it to the girl, she had talent. All she did was deftly cup her ear, as if pulling a stary hair back around her earlobe (which, for anyone close enough, was ridiculous - each of her hairs was perfectly in place). Then I glided behind her and blew into the next. When she waved that off I suddenly realized just how many were in the crowd before us.

Tentatively I strode towards the edge of the stage. I stared out at the legion of faces, even waved my privates at them, stuck out my tongue, made crazy grimaces. Nothing, no one could see me. I cast no shadow. I danced before the projector and made not a single impression. This was brilliant!

Of course I still hadn't achieved my objective. So I sallied back to Priscilla and decided to do something drastic. I placed two fingers, very gently, on the back of her neck.

Her whole body went bolt upright but she continued her drone. Perhaps it wasn't noticeable to the eyes in the back but those at the front were visibly bemused. Priscilla by now realized there was something on stage with her but I was just over her shoulder and I could see her scan her periphery and then the eyes of the audience. No one, not even her, could see anyone but her.

I let my fingers glide down her back, over the fabric of her suit jacket. One elbow tried to nonchalantly brush me away but the gesture was too awkward to carry off, so she swung her arm back, right into my face. Her fingers gave a trembling spasm as they connected with my nose and she couldn't help but turn. But no, I still wasn't there, but yes, she did let out a yelp.

Priscilla was by the second looking more frantic - not afraid, but suddenly on unfamiliar ground. She returned to the podium and gripped the sides of the lectern with overeager excitement. Now she had happened on a stilted tangent about the return on investment the bigwigs were guaranteed. Most of them were still on board. Some of them looked unconvinced.

When she went for the lectern she removed herself from my radius, but that was easily remedied. I came up behind her again and drew my fingers down her back. Her legs were shaking behind the podium, each muscle punished by the high stilettos and sweat actually visible in the spaces behind her knees. I wasn't sure how far I intended to go but my hand was now resting on her impressively toned buttocks. The red skirt glided under my fingertips but still, even still, Priscilla continued to sell it.

So I gently brushed the skirt back and reached underneath. It ocurred to me, even at this stage, that this was twice now I'd used invisibility to my voyeuristic advantage. I wondered if the corruption was inevitable. Yet how corrupt was seeing a round, flexed bottom (my fingers crept stealthily past the band of her panties and into the wet crevice of her ass crack) and not experimenting?

Below Priscilla's waist everything was shaking. It was as if her legs were caught in a miniature earthquake and her upper body was capable of floating above it. But I could see the tremors in the white knuckles on the podium. And we both knew that she couldn't risk giving anything away to the attentive eyes in the darkness. I slipped deeper into her ass crack, coming behind her and laying a hand over her left fist. Priscilla glanced at it, glanced at where she figured my shoulders were, and after a sudden eruption of laughter or applause from the audience I heard her whisper away from the microphone, "Are you enjoying yourself?"

"You stop I'll stop," I whispered into her ear.

"You don't have the balls."

My hand slipped underneath her. I twisted my palm and pressed my fingers between her legs. I cupped her vagina and sunk my middle finger up inside her.

Priscilla's sudden gasp was swallowed by a cascading round of applause.

"Okay," she whispered as the applause died down. "Okay..." But even as she said it I watched her tighten her resolve and simultaneously felt her vaginal muscles tighten around my finger. She was going to try to ride it out. Ride was the operative word.

I began rocking my middle finger back and forth inside of her. Priscilla caught herself just before her knees buckled, then caught herself again as she tried to rock with it. The intense sweat collecting underneath her made her extremely slippery and my wrist and forearm were already damp wedged up against her body. I decided to send an exploratory thumb up into her anus.

"Polychromatic cells go beyond mere shading in this instance and na-ahhhhhhh!" Her sudden (almost erotic) outburst sent more than a few men to attention. It was as if I held her erect with my right hand, my left hand locked over hers, my fingers plugged into her body and her lower body noncomittally trying to force me out. "Nnmm," she went on. "The fibers..." I wiggled my ring finger up inside what felt like a thick labial lip. "The fibers..." she gasped. "Ah." She wet her lips and let out a tremendous breath. "To create this process, we..." My slick middle finger withdrew from her vagina and I slipped it gently up...

"We..." she tried again (the audience could not see her ass gently arching back onto my thumb, her back twisting).

My finger fondled.

"Oh," she sniffed. "We, uh, ahm. Excuse me."

My middle finger wicked across her clitoris.

"OH my God!" she suddenly blurted into the microphone. She slapped her hands over her mouth and darted to the right of the stage. My hand still stuck inside her panties I was dragged offstage with her, a weird fin-like protrusion seeming to hump out behind the girl's skirt.

I finally pulled my hand away from her as she stalked through the theater doors and started lambasting the air.

"You dirty fucking bastard!" she shouted. The security guard started moving towards her and she shrieked at him. "Get away from me, asshole!" The man spoke some stuttered words into his walkie and backed away terrified. Priscilla clomped about ten more steps before cracking one of her heels. She swore loudly and kicked the shoe off, then ripped the other one off with her hand and continued to march across campus back the way we'd come. I followed behind her.

"Are you there?" she snapped as we strode back into G. We were in the hallway again.

"Indeed I am."

She clawed wildly at the air behind her, realized she looked insane, and let out another stream of enraged curses.

"You might have gotten me fired!"

"Principles," came the floating voice over her shoulder.

She groaned and shook her platinum head. "You touched me..." she muttered. We were stomping back to her office.

"You're taking this rather well," I replied.

"Well you're obviously fucking invisible."

"Language, Pris."

We banged back into her office and she whirled on the space behind her. "Where are you?"

"I'm reluctant to say."

She stepped backwards in her bare feet and sat on her desk. "Is this easier?"

I stepped forward cautiously. "Maybe."

She flipped up her skirt. "Is this easier?"

"...I'm confused."

"Come here..." she said huskily and reached out for me. "Are you naked?"

Before I knew what I'd done I was standing over her desk and she was reaching out to me. Her fingers first brushed my cock and I watched her eyes go wide as my stiff member passed invisibly through her hand. "Oh my God..." she whispered. Her manicured nails sifted into my pubic hair and roved up my stomach and chest. "You're...you fucking did it..." Her fingers continued across my shoulders. She kept pinching and poking, dragging her nails down my sides. All the while I noticed that she was spreading her legs over her perfect desk. "Do something to me," she whispered.

"What?"

"I- I don't know. My hair!"

I reached out and swept my fingers through her thin blonde, nearly white, hair. I let the hair slip through my hand as I pulled it towards me. Priscilla watched wide eyed as her hair floated before her eyes. She let out a low, earthy laugh. "Do something else," she whispered.

"What?"

"Do what you did on stage, you bastard."

"This?" I laid my hand over her left hand.

"No..." she said. Her legs opened wider on the desk.

"This?" I breathed softly into her ear.

She shivered but shook her head. "No," she said. "But you don't have to stop doing that..." While I moved in closer her hands reached up to run down my chest and stomach again.

I pulled my hand away from hers and dragged my trembling fingers up her soft thighs. "This?" I breathed into her ear.

"Oh..." Her breath was coming so rapidly that it was catching in her throat.

I drew a finger over her (what I now saw were lacy, crimson) panties. She sucked a tremendous amount of air down her upturned mouth and fluttered her eyelids. "This?" I said into her ear as I slipped my fingers inside of her.

Her legs clamped shut over my invisible hand and she ground her pussy against me. "Yes," she groaned. She pressed her head against my temple and reached behind me to claw at my back. "Oh, you fuck..." she groaned.

I don't know what possessed me other than sheer, powerful lust. I reached down and tore her panties apart. She gasped as she saw the flimsy material fly from her bald pussy. "You wouldn't," she taunted.

"This?" I said, and pushed my cock up against her skirt.

"Bastard," she whispered, reaching for it and dragging it down. "Bastard," she moaned as she led it to the entrance of her slit. "Fuck me," she demanded as her thighs raised to allow me entrance into her-

"PRISCILLA!"

The two of us slammed back to reality as the voice came bawling from the hall. "Holy Hell..." Priscilla rasped as the sound of footsteps came trundling towards us. Gathering her bag and a few choice items she grabbed where she figured my wrist was (missed, but I grabbed her fingers) and pulled me out her office door and down the hall in the opposite direction. Both of us were barefoot and our soles slapped down the hall and made several extreme turns around and around the complex, all the time the voices behind us, all the while more footfalls in pursuit. At last we burst from the building and sprinted towards the parking lot.

"You have to make sure I don't get fired!" she yelled over the racing wind.

"Why's that?"

"Sexual harassment!" she screamed. We scurried over the grass and flew into the parking lot. "Where's your-" She must have realized I was either invisible or without pockets because she suddenly pulled to the left and started pumping her elegant legs towards her own car. "Are you there?" she called back.

"I am," I said at her side.

She panted. "How are you right there?"

"I run a lot."

She unlocked her doors from a distance and we piled in on either side.

"I did not intend to get you fired," I said.

"Right," she replied. "Fuck you just the same, Abner." She started the car and we pulled out fast. "And if you don't mind, nobody needs to know about what may or may not have almost happened back there. This has been an incredibly stupid morning."

I buckled the seatbelt over myself and Priscilla did a double take.

"That's so weird."

We pulled away from the complex and got back on the highway towards suburbia.

"Okay, look," she said, dragging her fingers through her hair. "I'm going to try to salvage this. I'll tell Corman and the heads that you're on top of this." (She seemed awkward with the phrase.) "I'll tell them... I had a bluetooth or something and you had a eureka moment or... Dammit, Abner, you better not have got me fired!"

"You're still taking this well."

"Because fuck Bostwick!" she bellowed. "You're invisible!" She reached over and spread her hands over my chest. "And you're...in much better shape than I imagined."

"You imagined?"

"You're still a pain in the ass, Beal. And I'm not the only one who thinks so."

"But I am a genius."

"Unfortunately," Prisiclla sighed, merging into the carpool lane, "you are."

"You're in the HOV."

"So what?" She thought for a moment. "Right." She merged back into the fast lane. "I will help you," she said. "But you have to help me, too."

"That's why I came to you."

"You can't tell anyone else for now. Who else knows? Your wife? You have a wife, right?"

"She doesn't know."

"Who knows?"

Briefly I thought of Amber. "No one," I said. "And," I continued, "the formula is not in my laboratory."

She glanced at me, or the window really, from behind her blonde tresses. "So what?"

"In case you were thinking of having the Institute take what they rightfully own...instead of firing you."

She turned back to the road. "I wouldn't do that."

"Wouldn't you?"

We drove on in uneasy silence.

I gave her directions to my address and she drove me home. It was almost one in the afternoon but it already felt like a whole day had passed. I had taken the serum only two hours before so I had at least four (and likely five) more hours until I was visible. It would be strange, I realized, when I saw Priscilla again. Being invisible, without meeting one's eyes in reflection, gave a curious but compelling objectivity to one's consciousness - and at the same time an inescapably powerful lack of accountability. I could never have done the things I'd done in the past few days if they could see my face.

But it wasn't just that they couldn't see my face, Amber, Priscilla, my wife, the audience... It was that I had no face at all. I was not simply myself invisible; I was a void: a complete non-entity who nevertheless had hands and blood. And could do things. And could both create and destroy while being nothing, nowhere at all. I resolved not to think on this too deeply. It was not my way, and I wondered if it was not to my advantage to ponder too deeply on how unfettered and unopposed I had become.

"Can you get inside without a key?" Priscilla asked.

"I'll find a way," I said. I unbuckled the belt and opened the door. "Thank you."

She reached out. I stopped. She held my forearm in her fingers, not out of longing but curiosity. I let her study it, pinch me again, feel my veins beneath my skin and the hair under her thumb. "You really did it, Abednego," she said. "You sick bastard." She gave me an alluring, half-mocking smirk and watched the door swing wide and shut. Then she peeled away from the driveway and zoomed out of the suburbs honking all the while. We had agreed to meet at the week's end when she had had time to smooth over the mess I'd caused.

At the very least I had saved over sixty-five projects from total obscurity, and the jobs of at least half that number. Not something I would have considered before and, in truth, my actions this morning were selfish ones. Yet selfish actions can have charitable results, now and again.

My front door was unlocked.

I hadn't really thought about it. I'd just wandered to the front door, forgetting my nudity and the fact that I was keyless, and pantsless besides. But the knob turned and swung open in my hand. I denied the urge to call out, to ask if anyone was home.

Because there was very definitely someone home.

I could hear them upstairs. At first, as I searched the bottom floor, all I heard was a muddled bumping, an inconstant creak that was gone as soon as I focused. But there was a greater urgency to the sound, a harder force behind it. The commotion was building somewhere and it was becoming clearer that whoever was causing it was certain they were alone.

The sound of a woman's voice filled the house. It echoed down the stairwell with an unquiet command, wild, gaining ferocity and passion as it bounced throughout the kitchen. Was it Rebecca, I wondered? Had she cut class and come wandering home with some teenage specimen of fumbling ardor? It sounded too harsh for Rebecca.