(For reference, Marla is my OC, an intangible "woman" who a less considerate person might refer to as an AI or a bot. Her intro story and a full profile to come...)

I walked inside the house, tossing my jacket on a chair a few feet away. I caught a powerful whiff of... chili? And garlic, just as strong. One of my favorites, which I hadn’t had in a long time.

As a joke, I called out, “Honey, I’m home!” I’d started to say “Lucy” but thought better of it. I knew Marla would know the reference, but I didn’t know what she’d think of it. But as it turned out, I shouldn’t have worried.

“I’ll be right there,” she called from the kitchen. At least, the voice came from the kitchen. She could very well have been right next to me. She can do things like that. She had already done things like that...

I heard sounds of a serving spoon tapping against a metal pan, and figured she was fixing me a bowl. But I wasn’t prepared for what came next.

A pair of tightly-filled black spandex leggings sauntered in from the kitchen to the dining room, wearing black leather ankle boots on their feet. “Well, hello there,” said a voice from the leggings’ direction that sounded just a bit... off-putting, for some reason It had a bit of an edge to it. Before I could respond, I heard something coming from the stairs. I turned to see tight black jeans with a pink long-sleeved button-down shirt walking down the stairs, with pink socks inside the jeans. The sounds I heard, though, were of a solid personage, like the clothes were being worn by an invisible woman, not being manipulated by an intangible being.

“OK, what’s this?” I said, a bit confused.

“I could ask the same thing,” Marla’s voice responded, but from behind me. I turned to see yet another outfit, this time a shiny peach-colored blouse tucked into a tightly-filled black pinstripe  miniskirt, paired with translucent stockings and low-heeled shoes. “What’s with this ‘honey I’m home’ business?”

“Are these all you?” I ask, gesturing towards the jeans outfit now at the base of the stairs and the leggings standing halfway between me and the kitchen. I had to buy a little bit of time to come up with an answer.

“Answer the question,” came her voice from the jeans outfit, which then folded its empty sleeves below its chest and began to tap a socked invisible foot against the floor.

“It was just a joke, Marla,” I said, putting my hands in the surrender position. “I’ve been gone most of the day, and I figured you were probably cooking, so...”

“So,” her voice cut in, from the direction of the leggings, “you figured you’d signal me to begin my domestic duties, is that it?”

Foolishly, I replied, “Uhh, not exactly, um--” That’s all I got the chance to say.

“The correct answer would have been ‘No,’” Marla said, her voice seeming to come from nowhere in particular, as the skirt outfit and the jeans outfit drew up to about arm’s length. “I had a little joke of my own I was going to play on you, then I thought better of it. But since you want to play games, I think maybe I need to remind you that I’m not your ‘little woman,’ or your little girlfriend waiting for her big strong man to get home so she can feel safe and fulfilled and loved.”

“Marla, it wasn’t about any of that. It was just a joke. Seriously, that’s all it was.”

“Well,” she said, “this is not just a joke.” From behind the leggings floated a bowl of chili. But not the kind of bowl I expected. It was a double-bowl dog dish, with chili in one bowl, while the other was empty. The bowl came to rest right by my shoes, as a plastic jug floated near. It lowered itself to the floor and uncapped itself, pouring water into the dog dish’s second bowl.

“Well?” Marla said. “What are you waiting for? Eat up!”

“You’re serious?” I said, looking from outfit to outfit. “A dog dish? Is that safe for me to eat from? Is it clean? Is it new?”

“It’s brand new, and was just washed,” Marla’s voice said, with a huff. “Now quit stalling and eat.” The pink shirt moved its sleeves to put invisible hands on its hips. As an angry-sounding sigh came from the jeans outfit, unseen hands firmly pushed down on my shoulders -- they clearly meant business.

“Do I at least get to wash my hands?” I asked, thinking maybe I’d at least be able to scoop the food into my mouth.

“You won’t need them to eat,” she said, this time from the leggings, In resignation, I dropped to my knees and prepared to do my best to eat from this dish like a dog.

Dogs have the advantage of being able to cup their long tongues to scoop their food or water from a dish. I lowered my head to the dish, prepared to get the food all over my face and even in my nose while doing my best to emulate how a dog eats. But, as it turns out, I didn’t quite need to. As I lowered my head and stuck my tongue out to try and make do, a bit of chili moved toward my mouth. As I chewed, I started to ask about the moving food, but decided against it. It had to be her doing. Maybe she wasn’t really as mad as she sounded. Maybe it really was a joke, after all. But, since she didn't have a face to look at, all I could go by was her tone of voice and the angry “body language,” so to speak, of her outfits standing around me.

I was glad, though, that she hadn’t made it too spicy. I’d be able to eat it without having to stop to take a drink after each mouthful.

I noticed that there was no toast or crackers, or garlic bread, or any of what normally went along with chili at our table. I really wanted to ask about it -- chili without crackers at the very least just seemed wrong -- but I figured that I could make things worse by asking for anything if she really was angry. I just stayed there on all fours, lowering my head to eat and raising it to swallow. I noticed, too, that when I went to slurp up some water, the surface of the water would swell below my lips, making it easier to get it into my mouth.

Yet that garlic smell had to be coming from somewhere. There was only a hint of it in the chili...

I heard movement in the kitchen, though all three outfits stayed put in the dining room. The leggings, which were closest to me and in my line of sight, began shifting positions to catch my attention: first crouching, with their butt facing me; then bobbing up and down but in that same crouched position; and at one point, even facing me, still crouching but with their legs spread wide apart. I couldn’t help but stare at the shape of a big round invisible butt and shapely nonexistent thighs inside those leggings.

Finally the leggings stood up, and a foil-wrapped bundle floated up from behind them, which unwrapped as it approached. Fresh garlic bread!

The leggings dropped to their knees, with the bread moving in sync, appearing for all the world as if an actual invisible woman were holding the bread. A small chunk tore itself loose from the hovering half-loaf, floating a few inches away as I continued to chew. When I looked at the floating oily morsel, it drew closer to me. But instead of floating freely into my mouth, it was placed there by invisible fingers, which lingered a couple of seconds longer than they had to. Long enough for me to close my lips around them before they pulled away.

Another chunk of bread floated to me, again put into my mouth by lingering invisible fingers. The fingers then began to feed me the chili, and soon the fingers weren’t just “lingering” -- after each few mouthfuls fingers covered with garlic spread residue and chili sauce began sticking themselves into my mouth for me to clean the food off them. Some punishment, I thought, though I had the good sense to keep the thought to myself.

After I had finished off the chili with the help of the invisible fingers, a napkin floated up and wiped my chin and lower face.

“Have you learned your lesson?” Marla’s voice asked, in a stern tone coming from the miniskirt outfit behind me.

How do I answer? I wondered. She sounded pretty ticked off at the start, and still did, but yet she’d more or less hand-fed me. Maybe this was the joke she’d been planning all along before my apparent gaffe. I figured I’d better play along.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” I said, turning to look at the empty collar of the shiny blouse. “I will never equate you with a housewife again.”

Chucking from directly in front of me. “I knew that’s not what you were doing,” Marla’s voice said, coming from above the still-kneeling leggings. “I was just having a bit of fun, is all.”

“Was this the joke you were talking about?” I said, looking once again at the well-filled thighs of the empty leggings, letting my mind wander to places that Marla might find interesting in ways that would make me nervous. That thought snapped me back to the present in no time...

“That was it,” her voice said, again from the leggings, as they stood up straight. “I was gonna find some kind of pretext to bring you chili in a dog dish and make you eat it like a dog. You just played right into my plans with your little Ricky Ricardo routine.”

So she did know the reference. I figured she would.

“Were -- um, I mean, are you a big ‘I Love Lucy’ fan?” I said, just a bit curious.

“Actually, not that much,” she said, her voice coming this time from the jeans outfit. “But when the Soviet Union broke up, and one of the new republics found itself with nuclear weapons, I was called on to keep it from flexing its muscles in a venue it wasn’t ready for.”

“And how’d you do that?” I asked, and immediately regretted it. I didn’t know if this was something she was free to talk about, even twenty years later. If it wasn’t, she could feel the need to “teach me a lesson.” But she was way ahead of me.

“Let’s just say the defense minister was a huge Lucille Ball fan, and very ticklish, and leave it at that.”

I took the cue and dropped the subject, figuring she’d used his ticklishness to “reason” with the man and defuse the situation in her own special way.

“Can I stand up now?” I asked. After all this time, even though the story, I was still on my hands and knees..

“Of course, hon,” Marla responded, as her leggings and boots stepped closer. I stood up, only to have unseen arms from above the leggings to wrap around my shoulders. As the leggings drew closer, an unseen form above them pressed unseen breasts against me.

I didn’t complain.

Momentarily she said, “I should do something about this,” accompanied by something unseen picking at my shirt even though the invisible arms were still draped around me. I stepped away from the unseen form as my shirt unbuttoned, pulling itself off me with my complete cooperation. I moved my arms behind me so the shirt could pull itself down and off my arms, after which the leggings approached again, this time allowing me to get the full effect of the voluptuous invisible topless form pressing itself against me. I even felt an invisible cheek against mine, as hair brushed against my face and against my hands while my arms were locked together around an unseen back.

Well, half the effect. I was still wearing my pants.

I’m not sure how much time went by before I idly said aloud, “I guess I shouldn’t worry about it--”

“You shouldn’t,” Marla seconded, her voice vibrating through the invisible form embracing me.

“But,” I continued, “what about the others?” Meaning the skirt outfit and the jeans outfit. I had assumed these were also Marla, and I figured, Marla being Marla, that they hadn’t just collapsed or otherwise “gone away.”

“Turn around and see for yourself,” she said. I reluctantly pulled my arms away from the unseen form, after which the leggings stepped away and turned around. But before they moved further, the waistband of my pants unsnapped and unzipped, allowing the pants to pull themselves down and off one leg, then the other, as I stepped out of them.

I turned around, allowing the leggings to back into me as I took in the sight of what appeared to be two invisible women -- the jeans outfit and the miniskirt outfit -- groping at each other.

“Wasn’t that all you?” I said, recalling that she hadn’t answered when I asked the first time. As the leggings began to press backward into me, I automatically reached around the unseen form above them, resting my chin in the crook of an invisible neck.

“Mmm,” was all the response I got, as I moved my hands up to cup large unseen perfectly shaped breasts. As I did so I watched as the jeans outfit, or the form inside it, basically did the same to the shiny blouse paired with the striped miniskirt. The surface of the blouse and skirt rippled from the effect of invisible fingers at the end of the pink shirt’s sleeves as the fingers pressed and rubbed themselves all over the shiny blouse and miniskirt.

“Do you actually feel this?” I asked, as I kneaded unseen tits of the form pressing into me. We’d had conversations before that would have answered that question, but in such an... intimate situation she was reacting just like I’d have expected any woman to.

“Not the way you do,” she responded softly, her voice actually right beside my ear though the unseen form’s back was pressed against me. “I guess you could say I feel the mood.”

“And how about those two?” I said, moving one hand away from an invisible breast to motion toward the two outfits in front of us groping each other.

“Well, these are my clothes,” Marla’s voice said from the skirt outfit, not nearly as softly as she’d spoken from the form wearing the leggings but also not as sternly as earlier. “So the answer would be no. But men and sometimes even women like to see things like this, and I know you really like it, so I thought I’d put on a little show for you.”

The two outfits pulled their sleeves away from each other, after which the blouse and skirt stepped behind the jeans outfit, which had turned to face me and the leggings. “Do you like it?” Marla’s voice asked playfully, which fit the jeans outfit, as the blouse’s sleeves reached around from behind the pink shirt and jeans. Invisible hands at the end of the blouse’s sleeves began to sweep up and down the pink shirt, finally coming to rest at the shirt’s chest to rub and squeeze. The jeans outfit did a good approximation of swooning under the blouse sleeves’ ministrations.

“I definitely like,” I said. I didn’t really have any more to say, just taking in the sensations of this curvy invisible body that really didn’t exist, even as it expertly filled out the leggings pressed against me and swayed back and forth in reaction to my hands cupping its tits.

As I continued to watch the flirting clothes, the pink shirt reached up and undid two of its buttons with invisible hands, after which the blouse reached into the open shirt and the shape of a hand began to press against the inside of the shirt -- looking like an invisible hand positioned between the shirt and the invisible breast inside it. I momentarily found myself wondering if my hands would find a solid breast in there, or if the clothes were just giving the appearance of one.

Marla’s clothes and forms can make your brain go through those kinds of gyrations...

NOT QUITE FINISHED... or is it?