The Mansion – Week 4

Jake woke up fairly early on the morning of the twenty-second day.  He blinked his eyes to try and wake up, but for some eyes, his eyes wouldn’t blink.  He squeezed them closed as hard as he could, but they wouldn’t close.  He tried to close them by hand, but he couldn’t find his hands.  As his brain slowly woke up, he put two and two together.  He sat up on the couch and looked down at himself.  He was completely invisible.  He could see down into the waist of his pants as if he wasn’t even there.  From the bathroom, he heard the shower being turned on.  A moment later, he thought he heard the sound of crying.

He got up from the couch and knocked on the bathroom door.  “Mandi?  Are you okay?”  No answer.  “Mandi?”  Still nothing.  He tried the knob, and it was unlocked.  He opened the door to the bathroom, and he saw Mandi’s sleepwear in a pile on the floor.  In the middle of the bathmat, he saw two foot-shaped dents facing the mirror.  He moved his hand forward until he felt it hit something fleshy, and he laid three fingers on her shoulder.  “Mandi, are you all right?”

“I’m gone.  I’m not here anymore.”  She seemed eerily calm.

“What are you talking about?  You’re right here.  I can see your footprints.  I can feel your skin.”

“I’ve faded away.  There’s nothing left.”

“Mandi, that’s not true.”

“There’s nothing left of me, Jacob.  Everything is gone.”

“Not everything, Amanda.”

“Everything that ever mattered is gone.  My body, my looks, the stuff on the surface was all that ever mattered to me.  I wanted to make myself beautiful, and I only cared about people who looked beautiful.  Now the beauty is gone.  Everything on the surface has been stripped away.  All that’s left is what’s underneath, on the inside, and there’s nothing there.”

Jake took both her shoulders in his hands.  It took a few tries.  “Mandi, that’s not true.  You have a mind, and you have a heart, just like everyone else.  Better than everyone else.”

“Now I know you’re lying, Jake.  How can you possible think about me that way after what I said to you last night?  You’re the only person who knows what I’m going through and has ever offered to help, and I told you to get out of my life.”  She was starting to break down a little.

“That was stress talking last night.  Admittedly, your life has been pretty easy most of the time, I’d imagine, and you’ve never had to deal with anything like this before, but neither have any of us.  We’re all in the same boat.  You have to look at this as a chance to rise to the occasion and see what you’re really made of.”

“I saw what I was made of last night.  At least now I don’t have to see it anymore.”

“Don’t say that, Mandi.  You are made of some wonderful stuff.”

“How can you know that?”

“I can see it just fine.”

She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his chest, still sobbing a little.

“Oh God, I wish I could see what you see.”

“Well, here, I’ll show you.”  He led her to the shower and helped her into it.  The water ran through her hair and down her body, outlining her shape.  Jake began to see her nude form outlined in the water as she got wetter and wetter.

In the shower, Mandi could see her own outline in the mirror, but she was watching Jake.  He was wearing pajama pants without a shirt and no socks.  Like her, he was totally invisible, except for his clothing.  All of his surface characteristics, which she had always found bland and undesirable since high school, had faded away.  All that was left of him was what was on the inside.  She had always known on some level what was in there, but now she could get a good look at it without anything in the way.  She saw him for what he really was, and he was a person who cared about her, no matter what was happening with her or him.  He had always cared, and now that they had undergone these changes, she was able to care about him.

She took his arm and pulled him into the shower with her.  As they kissed, all of the distance that had built up between them over the years was washed away.  She pulled his clothes off him and tossed them out of the shower.  For the next twenty minutes in the shower, they made love in the shower as two people who finally realized that they well and truly loved each other.

*          *          *

Across the hall, Stacy woke groggily up with the realization that she needed to use the toilet.  She staggered out of bed and walked into the bathroom, where she pulled down her panties and sat on the toilet.  After a few seconds, she snapped out of her state of normalcy and remembered where she was.

Hang on.  I’m supposed to be attached to Katie at the hip.  How was I able to get out of bed without her?  She looked to her left, and she saw Katie’s head still there.  She looked down, but she only saw one pair of legs sitting on the john.  By this time, Katie was also awake and wondering the same things that Stacy was.  They finished going to the bathroom, and when they got up from the toilet, they looked at their reflections in the mirror.

They were now almost completely merged together.  From the arms down, they were one person.  They looked like a single woman with two heads.  They were wearing a single pair of cotton shorts, which were completely normal and unmodified, and their undershirt was normal except for a slightly wider neck hole.  Katie ran her finger across their shared abdomen.  As she reached the middle where the navel was, she stopped feeling her finger on her skin, as though there was a dotted line down the middle of their body.  There wasn’t a lot of room between their heads, but there was enough that their ears weren’t pressed together.

“My God,” said Stacy.

“Yeah,” said Katie.

They wrapped their arms around their stomach.

“Well,” said Stacy, “this should make things a little simpler, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s easier to use the toilet without one of us having to hover.”

“And we won’t have to scoot our chairs so close together.”

“And there’s the obvious advantage.”

“What’s that?”

“If we ever get out of here, it’ll be easier for us to find clothes that fit.”

“That’s a big if, babe.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Hey, don’t worry, Katie.”  Stacy turned her head and gave Katie a kiss on the cheek.  “We can handle this.  I’ll be right there beside you.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” said Katie with a smirk.

“Hey!”  Stacy gave Katie a punch in the shoulder, and Katie tweaked Stacy’s nose.  They then learned how difficult it was to roughhouse while conjoined.

*          *          *

Wake up, Luann…

Luann opened her eyes with a start.  Something in her head had just told her to wake up.  She looked toward the foot of the bed, and her lower half was sitting there facing her.  Usually, her legs were occupied in the gym by now.

“Good morning, Luann.  I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

She looked around the room.  No one else was there.  Wesley had spent the night in his own room.

“I’m right in front of you, Luann.  It’s okay.”

Sure enough, the voice was coming from her lower half.  “What’s going on here?”

“I’m not entirely sure.  All I know is that I can finally tell you what I’ve been waiting to say for the last week.”

“And what’s that?  How are you even able to talk?  Who are you?”

“Um, wow.  That’s a lot of questions.  Okay, here goes.  I don’t know how I’m able to talk, but then I don’t know why I’m not attached to you, either.  As far as who I am, I used to be just your lower half, but I’ve been given my own consciousness or something.  I still remember all of the events of your life up until a week ago, when I gained an awareness of my own.”

“So that’s why I lost control of you!”

“Yeah, I guess so.  That was when I started having experiences of my own.  Well, it was when I got to have an ‘own.’  And there was something else I got, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Luann, you and I are connected, and not just with digestion and blood flow and things like that.  We have a connection on a more subliminal level.”

“What do you mean?”

“For the past week, I’ve been able to sense what you were thinking and feeling.  Now that I’m able to express myself, you’re apparently able to sense my thoughts and feelings the same way.”

“What?  I can read your mind?”

Of course you can.  You’ve done it before.

“Whoa!  What are you doing?”

“I told you, Luann, we have a connection.”

“So I can, like, talk to you with my mind now?”

“Sure.  Try it.”

“Okay, um…”  Can you hear me?

“Loud and clear, Luann.”

“Wow, that’s really cool.  Oh, wait, you said there was something you wanted to say to me?”

“Yeah.  What I wanted to say to you was that I will always be here with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’ve been alone for most of your life.  You’ve never really had a family.  When you came here, you met Wesley, and I hope you two stay together for a long time.  But in case, God forbid, you two aren’t able to be together after this is all over, you will still have someone there with you.  You don’t have to be alone anymore, Luann.”

This was a lot to take in all at once.  “Wait a minute.  I’ve been talking to you for fifteen minutes, and I don’t even know what to call you.”

“My name is Lori.  Think of me as your twin sister.”

“Okay.  You’re my sister Lori.”  She almost turned towards the edge of the bed to go get dressed, and then the weight of what she just said fully hit her.  “Lori?”

“Yes?”

“What did you just say?”

“What, that I’m like your sister?”

“Oh my God.”

“Yes, Luann.”

“I have a sister.  I have a sister!”  Luann pulled Lori towards her and wrapped her up in a bear hug.  Lori wrapped her legs around Luann and hugged her back.  All Luann could do was rock back and forth, holding Lori close to her and almost weeping.  “I have a sister, I have a sister, I have a sister!”

*          *          *

As usual, Rob and Beth were the first to the table.  Wesley and Brad came in soon after them.  Like everyone else, their appearances had changed a lot too.  Rob and Beth’s appearance had changed to match their new abilities.  Beth, the one who could create wind, now looked like a walking cloud.  Her skin looked like a molded cumulus cloud, and her hair had become wisps of cirrus.  Rob looked like he was on fire.  His skin looked like the surface of a lava flow, and his hair was sticking up and waving a little.

Brad’s change wasn’t quite so drastic, but it was impressive nonetheless.  He had shrunk again, from three and a half feet down to two feet even, and he was wearing his bathrobe at the table.  It looked like there was something kind of bulky on his back.  Wesley’s change was probably the most drastic.  He basically looked like a robot.  His entire body was made of metal, and his joints had been replaced with mechanical ones.  Like, the hinge joints in his knees were now actual hinges.  His black hair was now a mass of stiff wires on top of his head.

This was what Stacy and Katie saw when they showed up for breakfast.  The others had noticed that their two name cards were now in front of a single chair and a single plate of food, so they had had some idea of what to expect, but they were still a little startled to see Stacy and Katie’s head poking out of a single normal-sized bathrobe.  They sat down at the table, and Stacy immediately started eating.

“So, I guess everyone changed again, huh?” asked Katie.

“Looks that way,” said Wesley.

“Well, how about you, Brad?  Anything new with you this morning?”

“Yeah, you might say that,” said Brad with a grin on his face.

“You seem unusually chipper for a two-foot-tall guy.  I remember yesterday you were still trying to stretch yourself out.”

“Oh, I’m done with that.  This time I finally got something cool out of this deal.  Check this out.”  He took off his bathrobe, and two wings unfolded from his back and stretched out to almost nine feet wide.

“Whoa, awesome!” said Katie.

“Yeah, I can’t wait to go up to the park and try them out.”

“Hey, Katie, aren’t you hungry at all?  You haven’t eaten anything,” said Rob.

“Oh, that’s no problem.  Stacy’s taking care of it.  Apparently we’re working off the same stomach now.”

Then, Mandi and Jake walked into the dining room, by now fully dressed for the day.  Mandi wasn’t trying to hide herself behind clothes anymore; she was just wearing her normal workout clothes, and Jake was wearing an ordinary t-shirt and shorts.  Again, now that people were expecting everyone to have changed again, no one was too surprised to see what had happened to them.  They were surprised at the way Mandi and Jake seemed to be getting along, though.  Jake pulled out Mandi’s chair, and Mandi smiled at him.  No one saw it, but a few of them could sort of feel it.  There was definitely something going on between these two now.

The real surprise came when Luann came to the dining room door.  “Everybody, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”  The others turned in their chairs, but they couldn’t see who Luann was talking about.  “This is Lori, my sister.”

“Hi, everybody.”  The others stopped in mid-chew.  “I realize this is kind of weird, but this whole thing’s a little strange, right?”

“Wait a minute,” said Stacy.  “You mean to say that your lower half is now your sister?”

“Basically, yeah,” said Luann.  “Hey, look at you and Katie.  Your girlfriend is now sharing your body with you.  It’s kinda of like that, but backwards.”

“Does she know who we all are and everything?” asked Wesley.

“You know, you can talk to me if you want,” said Lori.

“Yeah, I know, but it’s strange talking to someone without a face.  What part am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Actually, I don’t really know.  My awareness of my surroundings isn’t really from any particular vantage point.  Just look at my belly button if you need something to focus on.”

“Well,” said Luann, “I’m hungry, so you guys can continue getting acquainted if you like, Lori.  Wes, a little help?”  She reached up to Wesley, and he lifted her into her seat.

“Actually, I’m gonna go hit the gym,” said Lori.  “I’ll see you there, Brad.”

Everyone else looked at Brad.  His heart started pounding.  Oh, boy, this was about to get really awkward really fast.   

*          *          *

When Brad finally got up the nerve to go to the gym for his workout, Lori was already in there, running on the treadmill.  Damn, but she had good-looking legs.  Brad couldn’t remember ever thinking Luann’s legs were that good looking, but maybe it was because Luann hadn’t been the type to show off her figure.

“Oh, hey, Brad.  I was thinking you weren’t going to show up.”

“Yeah.”  He went over to one of the weight machines.

“You okay, Brad?  You seem tense.”

“Honestly?  I’m kind of nervous.”

“How come?”

“Well, there’s no one else in here to talk to, and I wouldn’t really know what to say to you.”

“Just say what you’d normally say to a workout buddy, like Mandi or something.  Well, don’t say exactly what you’d say to Mandi, but…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I remember some of the things you’ve said to Mandi the last few days, that’s all.”

“Oh, yeah?  Like what?”

“Mostly how she shouldn’t ask you for help dealing with things all the time.  It’s almost like you thought she was weak or something.  I guess it worked out though, since Jake was there to catch her when you dropped her.  I mean, did you see those two this morning?”

Brad was listening to Lori describe what he’d been telling Mandi for the past two weeks, replaying it all in his head.  He stopped pressing weights and held his face in his hands.  “Oh man, I’ve been such an asshole.”

“Hey, it’s all right, man.  It’s just your defense mechanism.”

“I didn’t tell her she was weak, did I?”

“No, no, I don’t think so.  That was just the way I read it.  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you so much about this.  I guess I didn’t know you’d take it so hard.”

“Well, of course I’d take it hard, and I should.  Why the hell did I tell Mandi off so hard?”

“Like I told you, it’s your defense mechanism.  You don’t like having to deal with other people’s problems because, I’m guessing here, no one ever offered to help you deal with your problems before.”

“What are you, a psychiatrist?”

“I’ve spent enough time working out with you.  I’ve got a pretty good idea what makes you tick.”

“Lori, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?  You’ve made it pretty obvious what an asshole I am.”

“I like being nice to you.  You don’t seem like the kind of person who’s gotten a lot of that.”

“But why now?”

“Because now I can.  Plus, you and Luann are the only people here who aren’t way bigger than me.”

“Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point there.”

“Hey, when are you going to try that thing out?”  She pointed with her toe toward the glass room at the end of the gym that, so far, no one had figured out what it was for.

“I don’t even know what it is.”

“Well, I think I might have a guess.”

“And what would that be?”

“Well, you know how everything in the house seems to be customized for our needs?  Like your room has been shrinking along with you, and my shoes are all slip-ons?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I think that whoever set this up knew you would be spending a lot of time in here, and they set that room up just for you.”

“But why?  Do you have any idea what it is?”

“I’ve seen something like it before.  I think it’s a wind tunnel.”

“How can you tell?  You’ve never even seen anything outside of this house.”

“I have all of Luann’s memories.  When she was a kid, she once took a tour of an airplane museum.  Here, look.”  She went over to the door of the room, and Brad followed her over.  “Those gratings at the front and back allow the air to flow through the room.  The streamers on the front one are there so you can see how fast the air’s moving.  There’s a control panel in there to let you control the airflow, and it looks like there’s a rope with a handle attached on the panel to give you something to hold on to.”

“Well, what do you know?  I think you’re right.”  Brad walked into the room and went over to the control panel.  It had a series of controls a lot like a treadmill.  He made a few adjustments to the settings and pressed the start button.  The door locked, and there was a loud whirring noise as a fan started spinning somewhere out of sight.  A strong wind started blowing through the room.  His hands shaking, Brad grabbed onto the handle and slowly spread his wings.

Alerted by the noise, the others came down to the gym.  Through the large windows in the wind tunnel, they could see Brad with his wings spread wide, flying like a kite in the 30-mph air current.

“Cool!” said Wesley.  “I wondered what this thing was for.”

“He’s getting good at that,” said Beth.  “I’m tempted to take him upstairs and fly him.”

Brad turned his head.  “Oh, hey guys!”  He turned to face them, and as soon as he changed the angle of his wings, the wind started tossing him all around the room on the end of the rope.  As the force became too much for him to manage, he let go of the rope and sailed towards the back of the room.  When he let go of the rope, the decreased tension activated a fail-safe mechanism on the panel, and the fan shut down before Brad could seriously hurt himself.  The fail-safe also automatically unlocked the door.

Lori ran into the room.  “Brad, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.  I just need to start a little slower.  I’d be glad to take Beth up on her offer, though.”

“What?” said Beth.  “I didn’t know you could hear me.”

“I heard you a little.  Come on, I’ll race you upstairs.  I could use some sun, whether it’s real or not.”

“I’m right behind you,” said Beth.

“What do you say, Luann?” said Wesley.  “You wanna go too?”

“Sure.”

“Hey, let’s all go,” said Jake.  “I know I could use the exercise, and it’s been a while since we did something as a group.”

“I think they had some stuff in that storeroom up there,” said Stacy.

*          *          *

As it turned out, there was indeed a lot of stuff in the third floor storeroom, including a spool of nylon cord and a Frisbee.  Brad wrapped the end of the cord around his shoulders and waist in a makeshift harness, and Beth whipped up a good breeze.  Pretty soon, he was gliding over the top of the tree.  Stacy found the Frisbee, and she, Katie, and the others were playing catch.  Luann was riding on top of Lori, and Lori was re-learning how to carry Luann properly without the both of them falling over.  By now, they had all gotten used to their new abilities, and they were using them to great effect.  Rob had figured out how to modulate the amount of heat he was generating, and he was catching the Frisbee by generating heat from his hand, allowing the Frisbee to float and spin on top of the rising column of air.  Wesley was using his increased strength to launch the Frisbee from one end of the park to the other, even getting it up as high as Brad.  After an hour or so, Beth reeled Brad in and untied the rope from around him.  She then tied it through one of Lori’s belt loops and gave Brad the spool, allowing him to control his own altitude as Lori ran with the other end of the rope.  It was as much fun as any of the ten of them had had since they first showed up, except now everyone pretty much got along with everyone else.  They were able to enjoy each other’s company as true friends.

*          *          *

On the evening of the twenty-eighth day, everyone gathered together for dinner.  As usual, they were wearing their absolute finest to the table.  Rob and Beth were wearing their usual black-and-white wear, a tuxedo and a shimmering white gown.  Beth looked like she was positively floating, which given her control of wind and light weight may well have been the case.  Stacy and Katie were wearing black bell-bottom pants with a red top that had a single strap between their necks.  Brad wore a black pin-stripe blazer and t-shirt with matching pants and shined leather shoes, and Lori, who now had a chair of her own next to Brad’s, wore a very nice pair of low-rise blue jeans with high-heeled sandals. Jake wore a tuxedo of his own, and Mandi wore a sleeveless Marilyn Monroe gown with a pair of long white gloves.  Finally, Wesley wore the same three-piece suit he had worn the first time he dressed up, and Luann wore a slim black top that stopped just above her waist surface.

By now, everyone was on good enough terms with each other that they all conversed in the cheeriest of moods.  They had grown quite friendly and had learned an awful lot about each other in the past month, and they no longer viewed the house as some sort of prison.  Rather, it was now looked on as a vacation home, a place where they could relax, forget their troubles, and meet some new people.  The past month had been, for each and every one of them, the best time they had ever had.

The ten friends stretched the dinner as long as they could, but eventually, they simply couldn’t stay any longer.  Luann was the first to finish, and she requested that Wesley walk her back to her room.  When they left the dining room and went into the hall, they stopped in their tracks.  Standing in front of them were a couple dressed in a tuxedo and a long red gown.  They both looked extremely pleased with themselves.

“Good evening, Wesley, Luann.  We’ve been looking forward to meeting with you.”

Stacy and Katie overheard.  “Hello?  Who’s there?”  They got up from their chair and went out into the hall, where they saw the same couple.  One by one, everyone else got up from their places and went to meet the two people who had mysteriously appeared in the house.

“Who are you people?” said Rob.

“My name is Derek,” said the man in a very noble British accent.  “This is my lovely wife, Diana.  We are the ones who brought you here.”