Hair Power

by Piers Anthony

  Then she had on odd idea. Hair, she thought. What do you recommend?

  And it answered! Stiffen your flesh.

  She didn’t quite follow that. You do it.

  Then she felt it. Her body seemed to go into instant rigor mortis, becoming board stiff. But that still left it exposed.

  Meanwhile the rake had stripped naked himself and was ready. He climbed on the bed, straddling her, his erection leading the way. Then he put his hands on her thighs, seeking to part them for more ready access. They did not part.

  Surprised, he pushed harder. There was still no result. So he spread out on her, set his erect member at her secluded crotch, and shoved. And got nowhere.

  Frustrated, he lifted up his body and peered closely. He took one finger and poked it at her vulva. It did not penetrate. He might as well have been addressing a plastic manikin with no apertures.

  “Bitch!” he swore. He struck at her belly with his fist, as if hoping the shock would spring her legs apart and loosen her tightness. “Oww!”

  For his hand might as well have struck a statue. She was unhurt, but his knuckles were evidently bruised.

  The fact was, he was unable to get into her. He surely had never anticipated being balked in quite this manner.

  She couldn’t resist taunting him. “What’s the matter, honey? Lost your interest?”

  In a fury he jumped on her, trying to choke her around the neck. She barely felt the pressure.

  “If you’re not going to do it, I’m going to go back and dance.”

  He sought to strike her face, but she blocked him with her wrist and shoved him aside. She sat up. “You’re having a bad dream, honey. Maybe you’d better sleep it off.”

  He tried once more to grab her. This time she put her fingers on special touch points on his neck and pressed in. He dropped, unconscious.

  There was one more talent she hadn’t known she had: the knowledge of key pressure points, and the ability to use them. She must have read about it, and forgotten, but now was resurrecting the information.

  Quiti quickly dressed, checking herself in the wall mirror. Then she picked up the rake’s clothing, tucked it under her arm, and departed. He would have a problem attending the dance without it. She returned to her table just as Speedo did. “Let’s dance,” she said, setting down the clothing.

  “You okay?” he asked, concerned.

  “I just needed to freshen up. I’m fine.” Why tell him? There was no need for him to know.

  They finished the evening in good order. “That was one great date!” Speedo said as they exited the hall. “Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome. I learned things.” Such as several new properties of her growing hair. What would it be capable of when it grew to full length? In fact, what was its full length? She had no idea.

  “Maybe we can do it again some time,” he said hopefully.

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “Certainly we can do more meals together.”

  They walked on toward their homes, hand in hand. It was a wonderful evening.

  Chapter 4:

  Arsenal

  Two days later they met again for the big noon meal. Joe saw them coming. “Do you care much what you eat, so long as there’s a lot of it? There’s stuff I’ll give you free, if you want it.”

  Quiti looked around, and saw he had fresh potato salad and mashed potato. “Like new potato peels before they go in the garbage?”

  “Well, they’re sanitary. I noticed you ate the cores of apples and chewed up plumb pits, leaving nothing behind. You have a hunger like none I’ve seen before.”

  “We’ll take them.”

  “It’s not my business, but—”

  Quiti read his mood. He was well meaning but curious. “Come join us in the booth, when you have time, and we’ll tell you about it. But you have to commit to secrecy.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He did join them when there was a lull. “Tell him,” Quiti told Speedo.

  “But he might believe it.”

  “We can trust him.”

  So while Quiti gulped down a mass of potato peelings, Speedo told Joe about her visit to the warehouse and encounter with the hairball. “So now she’s growing this real special hair, real fast, and it’s giving her strength and brains and beauty, and we think it’s even curing her cancer, but it makes her hungry as hell,” he concluded.

  “That’s some story,” Joe agreed. “I’m not sure I believe it, though.”

  Quiti glanced at him and flashed her hair blue.

  “And I’m not sure I don’t,” Joe said, amazed.

  “Want to arm wrestle me to test my strength?”

  “Don’t do it,” Speedo said quickly. “She’s like a gorilla. I mean, not in her looks; her power.”

  Joe shook his head. “I know you, Quiti. I know all the kids who come here. You were shy and quiet. I know that you are, or maybe were, terminal. You always were a bit chubby, and no beauty. I see the changes in you. You’re not shy anymore! If the hair is doing it, it’s changing you every which way. But alien hairball or no, I don’t see how you can eat so much and not get fat.”

  “I’m not getting fat.” She glanced around, making sure there were no other diners in sight, then opened her blouse, which she had kept both loose and tight: loose around the bust and belly, tight around her neck, so as to hide her body. She showed him her supremely fit torso and well mounted breasts. “Same story with the butt and legs. It’s all going to the hair. It’s hardly over an inch long, but it must weigh half a pound, and it’s growing.”

  “I am impressed,” Joe said. “You have been transformed.” Then he frowned. “Why are you confiding in me? You certainly didn’t have to.”

  Quiti nodded as she finished the last of the peels and wiped her mouth clean. “Same reason I confided in Speedo. I don’t know exactly where I’m headed, but it’s obvious I can’t do it alone. I need safe bases, people I can trust, who won’t judge me or try to rape me.”

  “Rape!” Speedo exclaimed. “I’d never—”

  “At ease,” Joe said. “I think I know what she’s referring to. We pick up a lot of gossip here, as people relax and talk.”

  “But—”

  Quiti smiled. “Tell him,” she said to Joe.

  “You went to the dance with a special anonymous date, a beauty,” Joe said. “I didn’t know who she was until she showed me her body just now. There was a set-up. They lured you out of the way, and a punk drugged her drink with a roofie and took her into a back room. We don’t know what happened, but pretty soon she emerged and resumed dancing with you, as if nothing had happened, but that bad man wasn’t found until next morning, naked and alone. He wouldn’t say what occurred; he was just glad to get his clothing back.” He glanced at Quiti. “What did happen?”

  “I didn’t want to make a scene. I could have fought him off; in fact I could have pulverized him. The drink didn’t incapacitate me. So I simply put him to sleep and took his clothes, figuring he wouldn’t be candid about the details.”

  “I didn’t know!” Speedo said.

  “I didn’t want to mess up your evening.”

  “But he tried to rape you!”

  “Tried, yes. He didn’t succeed.”

  “This is pretty personal stuff,” Joe said. “Thank you for trusting me. But don’t gamble like that with others; not everyone can be trusted.”

  “It was no gamble.”

  “Quiti, you can’t judge a man by his face. There are some who will lie to you with perfect conviction.”

  “One more secret: I can read minds, or at least moods. That’s how I knew that rapist was bad news from the start, and that you’re okay.”

  “Reading minds? You mean telepathy?”

  “Or something like it. It’s the hair, again; it’s doing things to my brain. Good things.”

  New customers entered the eatery. “Gotta go,” Joe said, rising. “But thanks. I’ll keep your secret.” He moved off.

  “How did you stop
him?” Speedo demanded. “That rapist?”

  “We were naked. I made my skin tough, and he couldn’t get in.”

  “Tough?”

  “I was like a plastic doll. Nothing budged.”

  He sighed. “At least he got to try.”

  “Speedo, I told you why I can’t let you—”

  “I guess you know I got a crush on you. You can read my mind.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “If I was going to have sex with anyone, I’d like it to be you, not a loser like him. But I can’t do it.”

  “Statutory,” he said sadly.

  He was really hurting. She couldn’t blame him; he lacked the perspective that came with maturity. Most of what he had was hormones. She wished she could accommodate him. But she was not about to break the law. She made a decision. “But I think I owe you. I will let you try, even though it’s bound to just frustrate you worse.”

  He seemed to have difficulty crediting this. “You’ll let me try?”

  “We’ll get naked together, and I won’t resist at all, except for the hardening. Then you’ll see how it is.”

  “Okay!”

  They left the eatery. They walked to his house, which was empty during the day. They entered and went to his bedroom. They both stripped naked. He had a rigid erection.

  She lay on the bed, supine, and spread her legs. “Try,” she said.

  “Remember, you said I could!”

  “Could try,” she agreed.

  He got on her eagerly and tried. She firmed her flesh where it counted. He pushed, but got bent aside. There simply was no access. It was as though she were a doll with the externals in place but no internals. Ridges without apertures. He was wasting his time. “Damn!”

  “You may kiss me,” she said. “Stroke me.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere.”

  He kissed her mouth, and she kissed him back. Then he kissed her breasts, and they remained supple. Her rounded belly, filled with what she had just eaten. Her leather-firm groin. “Damn!”

  He was crying. She put her arms around him, drew him up against her, and held him close, comforting him. “I’m so sorry, Speedo. I know how badly you want it. I shouldn’t be teasing you.”

  “Damn,” he said into her breasts.

  And yet she read in his mind that his frustration was not complete. He loved her, and was more than willing to be with her this way than not at all. She was giving him half a loaf. It was a necessary compromise.

  In due course he roused himself, and they both dressed. “You did warn me. I know you’re just doing what’s right. But—”

  “Yes, we can do it again some time,” she agreed. The crisis was over, at least for the time being.

  “Quiti, I just want to be with you, any way I can. Can I help you any other way?”

  “Actually, yes. I’ve been thinking that I could unexpectedly find myself caught somewhere, maybe being chased, and need to escape. I’m getting new power from my hair; I think it reaches into my brain, and my brain sends hormones or whatever into my body, making it toughen up. But this mood reading—if it’s the preliminary to real telepathy, I want to use it. May I try to read your mind?”

  “Sure. But all you’ll find there is an image of you, looking like a goddess. That’s not even my imagination, it’s memory.”

  “I’m thinking of reading specific thoughts. Could you think of things, and I’ll try to read them? I mean, things other than sex.”

  “Aww.” But he cooperated. “I’ve got a mental picture.”

  She focused. There was something, but it was a blur. She brought her head close to his, and it clarified. “It’s a—a vacuum cleaner!”

  “Got it!” He was as delighted as she. “Here’s another.”

  She stepped back, orienting on the blur. This time it clarified a little farther away than the first had. “A church bell.”

  “Right! Here’s another.”

  The blur formed into a picture of two heads, kissing. “All right, this once,” she agreed, and kissed him.

  “You got telepathy,” he said. “I wish I had it.”

  “I wonder. There may be an equivalent. Let me try thought projection.”

  “My mind’s open.”

  She formed a mental picture of a coiled rattlesnake, and tried to send it to him.

  “I’m getting something, but I don’t know what,” he said. “Maybe a hangman’s noose?”

  “It was a rattlesnake. At least you got the coiling.”

  “Maybe when your hair gets longer, you’ll have more power.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed, wondering. As yet she had no idea of the limits, but the hair effects were getting stronger day by day.

  “Your hair—it can change color,” he said. “Joe almost flipped when you turned it blue. But can it do more?”

  “More?”

  “Like maybe invisible?”

  She made the hair fade out, so that her scalp seemed bald. “I do that all the time, to conceal its presence and rapid growth.”

  “I know. ‘Cause it doesn’t like the wig, when there’s sunlight.” He paused. “Sunlight! It must have more power then.”

  “It must,” she agreed.

  They went outside. “But I was thinking, could it make not just itself, but you invisible? So you could escape when you needed to.”

  “That’s a stretch,” she said dubiously.

  “Try it again. Invisible.”

  She concentrated. “You’ll have to tell me whether—” She paused, for he was staring. “What is it?”

  “You got a mirror?”

  She dug into her purse and found her compact. She fished out the little mirror and offered it to him.

  “No, you use it. Look at yourself.”

  She humored him. She held the mirror before her face and looked into it.

  And almost dropped it.

  There was nothing there. Her body was there, but above her shoulders there was emptiness. Her head was invisible.

  “You’re the headless woman,” he said, awed. “It even takes out your face.”

  “The effect must extend a little beyond the hair itself,” she said, similarly awed.

  “I can see the house behind you. It’s as if your head isn’t there. It’s not blocking out the light or anything, it’s just gone.”

  “Let’s make sure. Kiss me.”

  “Sure! Anytime.” He stepped close and kissed her face. He missed her mouth slightly and got part of her cheek and nose. Then he corrected by feel and centered on her mouth. She could feel his joy of the occasion.

  “So my head is still here,” she said as he broke.

  “It sure is. But I still can’t see it.” She canceled the effect. “Now I see it,” he said.

  “So you were right about the sunlight. It makes the effect stronger.”

  “Stronger,” he agreed. “First time I ever kissed an invisible woman.”

  “I think that’s enough for now,” she said. “I need to go home and assimilate what I have learned in the last hour. Thank you.”

  “Anytime!”

  After that they practiced a bit more each day. Quiti got so she could make Speedo see the coiled rattlesnake. Then she managed to put the snake on the ground. She worked on other images, like a giant scorpion, a splash of vomit, a fallen anvil, a ball of slime, an alligator, and an armed grenade. Any of those should make a pursuer pause in his tracks.

  “How about a nude?” Speedo suggested.

  “You have a one track mind.”

  “No, I mean it. Chances are it’ll be a man chasing you. If there’s one thing to make him stop and look, it’s a naked woman. A snake he might try to bash, but a woman he’d stop to look at.”

  “A nude,” she said thoughtfully. “You may have a point.”

  “Make her look like Lady Excelsior.”

  “That’s a self portrait!”

  “Sure. Should be easy for you to do. And not a giveaway, because you keep your body covered now so folk w
on’t see the changes in it.”

  “I’ll try it.” Later she crafted the nude, in her bedroom, standing naked before the tall mirror. She turned slightly, trying to get new angles, and finally set up a mirror behind so that she could view her rear aspect too. She wanted a holographic image, distracting from any direction. Once she had it, she concentrated on making it look alive, instead of being a still statue. On breathing. Quivering as it walked. Glancing around. Hair flouncing enticingly.

  She showed Speedo. “Oh, god, Quiti, I wish I could take that to bed! I bet it’s not plastic hard where it counts.”

  “It’s not solid at all,” she reminded him. “You can’t touch it physically.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I guess there’s no substitute for the real thing.”

  “But as a distraction, it should be fine,” she said. “Thank you for the idea.”

  The day of her routine MRI appointment came. She had to go into the hospital to have them photograph the inside of her head, checking the progress of the dread brain cancer. Was it still there? She very much wanted to know.

  They set her up in the machine. But there was a problem. “It’s fuzzy,” the technician said. “Are you wearing a metal mesh or something?”

  “You can see that I’m not,” Quiti said.

  “A skull cap? Something is interfering with the field.”

  Suddenly Quiti knew it was the hair, which was now two inches long. It could change its appearance from the outside. That meant it could interfere with the light bouncing off it. It must be messing up the magnetic field too. Why hadn’t she anticipated that? It was obvious in retrospect. “Maybe your machine has a glitch.”

  “Maybe,” the tech agreed dubiously. “It was working fine on the person just before you.”

  Quiti got out of the chair. “I’ll come back another time.”

  “Wait! We’ll get it straight.”

  But she was already on her way out. Coming here had been a mistake. What had she been thinking -? If her cancer was gone, they would be all over her to figure out why. If it wasn’t, she was doomed anyway. She had nothing to gain here, and plenty to lose, like her freedom. Because if she really had suffered a miracle cure, after being firmly diagnosed terminal, they would never let her go. She’d be effectively a prisoner in a laboratory, subject to endless study. She didn’t want that. In fact she couldn’t afford it; she knew she had an important future, one set up by the hairball, and she wanted to reach it.