I rang the doorbell and awaited a response. Not ten seconds went by before the door was opened, and I was greeted by a 19-year-old woman in a long-sleeved turtleneck dress, black tights and black leather combat boots.

“Hi!” she beamed, closing in for a hug.

“Hey Rachel,” I replied. “Thanks for inviting me to move in.”

“No worries,” said Rachel. “And I’ll be happy to help move the rest of your stuff here too.”

I entered her house, which she was renting. I had become firm friends with Rachel over the past few months of college, especially since we both took a mutual interest in creative writing. Outwardly in our classes, she was rather mild mannered, but her work demonstrated she had a great sense of humour, and had the potential to be a successful comedy writer. My work was a little more surreal, involving weird things happening to women, and had something of an absurdist bent.

There was a mutual sense of respect for each other’s writings between us. Between classes, we’d swap stories, evaluate our own work, and occasionally send them to the college’s anthology. We didn’t always get in, but we had fun writing our stuff.

That said, Rachel as of late had been coming into classes almost exclusively wearing long-sleeve turtleneck clothing, be it a top, a dress or a dress over a turtleneck top. Her legs were always covered too, be it pants or tights. I never said anything to her about it, but it puzzled me why she wore these ensembles even though the weather was still relatively warm.

Recently, she had started renting a house, and wanted me to move in as a roommate. Not wanting to miss out on any sort of opportunity, I agreed. Perhaps we could get other writing done in our spare time, or even collaborate on something greater than the sum of two of us, who knows? But right now, we were content to just drink some wine and make small talk.

After about half an hour, Rachel put her drink down.

“Okay, so you’re probably wondering why I’ve been wearing mostly turtlenecks lately.” she said.

“Oh…um…not really.” I said, not sounding at all like a convincing liar.

Rachel bit her lip.

“Well, I recently had this strange procedure, and I’m not exactly ready to show it off to other people yet. In fact, outside of my immediate family, no one knows about it.”

“Okay…why are you telling me?”

“I’ve read your stories. You’ve got a weird fascination with women being decapitated or turned into cartoons.”

Before I could say anything in my defense, she put her hand on my knee.

“I’m not judging you for it, by the way. We’ve all got weird interests. I’m just saying that I’m positive I can trust you not to be judgemental.”

With that, Rachel rolled down the collar of her turtleneck to reveal…nothing!

That is to say, she had no neck. Her shoulders were completely smooth, and her head was floating above her body, as if her neck was invisible.

“Whoa. Is this some sort of magic trick?” I asked.

Rachel rolled her collar back up.

“Well, let’s see,” she said, extending both her arms.

“Observe!” she said, rolling up the sleeve of one of them right up to the elbow. “Nothing up my sleeve!”

And she was right - her hand, right up to the wrist was also floating as if the arm it was attached to was invisible. Out of curiosity, I had a feel of the invisible arm, but felt nothing.

The detached hand then floated to her other arm, and rolled up the other sleeve up to her elbow. Likewise, her other hand was floating, seemingly attached to nothing.

Then, Rachel spread both of her imaginary arms out to her sides…or rather, her floating hands floated off to arms’ length away from their respective sides of her body.

“Presto!” she shouted. Then, like magic, her sleeves sprung out and the ends connected up to her wrists. Rachel then proceeded to stand up.

“And now, for my next trick - keep your eyes on my shoes!”

Rachel’s shoelaces then untied, seemingly all by themselves. Rachel took a step backwards, stepping out of her shoes.

“Now focus on my legs!”

Suddenly, Rachel’s stockings fell down of their own accord revealing that Rachel’s legs were indeed nonexistent, her top half floating above a pile of stockings that were seemingly rustling by themselves. After a few seconds, two manicured feet seemed to jump out of the pile before settling down beneath Rachel’s floating body.

“So, what do you think?” she asked, sitting down and seemingly crossing her non-existent legs.

“So, is this like a rare condition or something?” I asked.

“Nope, elective surgery. There’s this company that covers your student loans and house rent in exchange for being a guinea pig in their weird experiments. Of course, looking at all the options, I was intrigued by this one.”

“So, are your arms and legs invisible, or…?”

“Not really. They’re separate from my torso, but they put this chip in my brain to give me telekinetic wireless control over them, as well as any articles of clothing I’m currently wearing.”

“Is that how you fill out your clothes even though there’s nothing there?” I asked.

“Mm-hm. They called this particular procedure ‘phantom limbs’, and…yeah, they’re not wrong. When my neck, legs and arms aren’t covered in something, they feel kind of numb. When I cover them up, it’s like the clothes become a part of my body.”

“I would have just called you a Raygirl.” I said.

Rachel smiled

“I think that description’s so much better! But I’m guessing the company couldn’t use it because of trademark law. Check this out!”

And with that, Rachel reached out her arm, and her hand popped off like a rocket. It whizzed towards the fridge and opened it, grabbing a can before whizzing back to Rachel’s empty arm.

“How far can you launch that?”

“Well, they did plenty of tests. Like, they spread my separate parts over a thousand mile radius, and I could still feel and control each of them.”

Rachel then stood up again.

“Aside from that, I can also…ahem, disconnect any of my parts from telekinetic control.”

She then placed her hands on the side of her head, made a popping noise with her lips, and then lifted her head clean off the turtleneck, placing it on the couch.

“Whoa! That’s…creepy” I said.

Rachel’s head chuckled.

“Comes in handy when I don’t want to mess up my hair.”

As she was talking, her body took the dress off, revealing her torso, floating above her feet and only clothed in a sports bra and panties.  Then the hands picked up her head and placed it over her neck. Once she let go, her head resumed hovering over her shouldlers.

Her appearance was so surreal. She was a head floating over a limbless torso, and her hands and feet were positioned as if her arms and legs were invisible.

“Actually…I’ll take you to my room, this is something I don’t normally do in the presence of others.”

She went off to her bedroom, and I followed her. She laid down on the bed, held out her nonexistent arms and concentrated. When she opened her eyes, she stood up…or rather, her head and hands floated up, but her torso remained on the bed.

“Ahh, that feels good.” she said. “Of course, since my brain’s basically the wi-fi hub, I can’t exactly turn it off like I can with my other parts. Most of the time, I just like to leave my torso on the bed.”

“Wait, it’s not…dead, is it?”

“No, no! It’s just asleep. Of course, I can still feel it, and if I need to go to the bathroom, I can’t exactly pause that function if I’m busting.”

I took a good look at the headless and limbless torso on her bed. Its stomach moved up and down, in sync with Rachel’s breathing. The rest of Rachel was rummaging through her wardrobe, until she pulled out a black turtleneck unitard.

“Hey…watch this.”

Rachel then placed the neck of the unitard under her own head, before connecting the sleeves and pant legs to her hands and feet. The unitard then filled up, presumably with air, until it looked like she could pass for a normal human being.

“Ta-da!”

And with that, Rachel did a few flips and cartwheels back to the living room. I followed her, and she stood up.

“Without a tangible body, I’m so much lighter!” she said, before doing side splits. Then, she lifted one of her legs up and tucked it behind her head. She then stood up again.

“Hey, wanna see another trick?” she asked.

Before I could answer, she twisted her torso around 360 degrees. Then another revolution. And another. And another, until she resembled a rather thick rope with arms sticking out. Then she spun around again until she was back to normal.

“Whew, that was quite a workout. I think I need to…”

And then she plonked herself on the couch and let out a long sigh. As she did so, her nonexistent body proceeded to deflate until it looked like she was just an empty unitard with her head, hands and feet attached.

“You can sit on the couch if you want.” Rachel said. "Just know that I’m not gonna move.”

I tried lifting her legs out of the way, but somehow, her feet stayed in place. I shrugged and just sat down on Rachel’s deflated form. She moaned.

“That doesn’t hurt, does it?” I asked.

“Oh no. My body’s just an empty unitard at this point, I can just feel anything it comes into contact with.”

“So, does it hurt if you get a hole in any of your clothes?”

“Not really. But it does feel weird sometimes. If a draft gets into my stockings, it’s like someone’s injecting air into my leg.”

“God, you’re cute when you do all this stuff.”

“You think so? Because I’ve got a whole bunch of other tricks to show you.”

“How about we discuss it over lunch? Let’s go to a cafe in town.”

Rachel leaned forward as best she could.

“It’s a date, mate! Can you just sit up so I can get dressed?”

I complied with her request, and Rachel went off to her bedroom, not even bothering to re-inflate fully. After a minute or two, she came out wearing another black skivvy, with a flannel shirt, black leggings and ankle boots.

“So, where shall we go?” she asked.