by Jason Beech
“I have to strip … Naked.”
“Oh …” She backed into the curtain. “Oh God, yeah. Sorry.”
Once the curtain’s sway halted from her exit, he stripped. He made sure she hadn't fashioned a gap for a peek before he clambered out of his underwear. He survived a tumble from the cubicle. He rushed to hide his bare body, his speed heightened by her tuts and foot taps.
“I'm nearly ready, bloody hell.”
“I need to see it in action.” She teased him with a poke at the curtain.
“You’ve already seen it in action.”
“I need to see it again. Out here, in public. I still can't quite believe we managed it.”
He checked himself in the mirror. His chest hardly bulged like a superhero’s. Did this suit give him that ability? It gave him a boost in confidence. He turned and opened the curtain’s upper half.
“I can still see you.” She leaned against the wall and scanned the store to ensure they remained alone. This wouldn't last long – the shop teemed with young women on the hunt for a bargain. He pressed the black button.
She blinked at the flash. “Your eyes.”
“Bloody hell, I forgot about them.”
***
He didn't know anything about contact lenses. He covered his eyes down the street as he held Sultana’s arm. The rhythm of her walk made him stride with as much purpose, though she had to jerk his movement here and there to avoid a pile-up into the masses when someone stopped right in front of them, hooked by a bargain in a shop window. He made one woman leave her arms halfway in the air as she initiated a protest at the shoulder barge he gave her, only to screw her eyes in shock at the slight Asian girl she presumed had hit her. He covered his eyes again. Navigated his way by using the patter of feet around him, the smells, the wafts as bodies passed. Voices – high, low, southern, northern, foreign – all made him dance into what he hoped were vacant spaces.
“This way.” She whispered the order and the pull almost toppled him to the floor.
He risked a peek between fingers and eyed the spotlighted rows and columns of spectacle frames.
“Do you need any help?”
He closed his fingers. Suspected the assistant sensed something.
“I'm just looking, for now, thanks.”
Dean grinned. Sultana’s voice never wavered. He wanted to squeeze her arm. What is that tingle?
“Okay, just give us a shout if you want assistance.”
“I will do, thanks.”
She worked his bag into a more comfortable position on her shoulder. Tapped the arm linked around hers. “Down there. Go.”
“This is nuts. Why don't we just buy them?”
“Just go. Let's see what we can do.”
“I'm not comfortable, Sultana, I’ve never nicked a thing in my life.”
“Always a first time for everything. Go, she's not looking.”
He let his hands drop and took in the shop’s scale. The assistant had gone to the far end to talk to a customer. The corridor invited his tunnel vision. He opened the unlocked door at the end. He slid drawers out and back in. Contact lens boxes of various brands told him to get a move on and get out of here. Each box had a bunch of numbers, which he guessed held their power. He rested one on his index finger. It took an age to get it in. His eye resisted any touch. Every attempt hurt like a needle in his eyeball. The one with which he succeeded blinded him. His eyeball flared and flamed. He flapped a hand in the air across his face, but it fanned the fire. He clawed it out and slumped against a cupboard. Grrrred some spittle from his lips. How did people clamp these things in their sockets? He flicked the plastic torture disc in the little bin. Puffed his cheeks and readied another. This one had less power. It slot in without too much discomfort. His left eye disappeared. Mr Breckin had hit the target. The other eye floated like a Chinese lantern.
The door opened and he shut his bare eye. The assistant must have heard his gasp. She didn't shift as she squinted into the room’s corners. The dim light didn't help her – increased her suspicion – or superstition.
“Hello?”
Dean almost snorted. As if a killer would stand and wave a hand. She retreated. Stared at Sultana down the corridor, who must have stood by the same frames for an age now. The woman’s cogs locked into each other and wound. She aborted the room and locked the door.
Great. He worked through the pain and placed the other lens in his right eye, blinked away tears and discomfort, and waited for somebody to open the door. Sultana’s voice drifted, all crystal and innocent. The assistant’s tone sharpened, each word ready to strike down a victim. He heard, “We have your friend trapped inside.”
“Sorry?” He imagined Sultana’s eyes twinkle in amusement.
“You've been staring at the same frames for so long that I know it's a front for whatever you and your friend in there are planning. I've called security, and the police will follow.”
Sultana wore flat shoes and she stood the same height as Dean. He knew she'd tower above the short-arsed assistant. “Sorry, love, I have no idea what you're talking about. What friend? Planning what?”
“You can feign all you want – I know there's someone in there.”
Dean rubbed at his hands, embarrassed how she'd found him out. How had he betrayed Sultana like this?
“I don't like how you're talking to me. But … you know what … I'll sit here and wait. I have all morning. I don't need to rush anywhere, though there's a nice pair of shoes down the road, on sale. I hope I don't miss out. But … I'll wait here for your man to open that door. Then, I hope your apology will not take so long, because they are truly fabulous shoes – I can't imagine they won't get snapped up. I will gladly take a voucher to trade against some of your goods as compensation. I really like the frames, here, that I've been staring at for so long.”
Dean pictured how the assistant’s lips might have lost a little colour, how that gob of air might have stuck in her throat, and how her eyes might have popped as her doubt pricked at certainty.
“We’ll see.”
“Right, then, I'll make myself comfortable.”
Dean slid the drawer slow. Gritted his teeth at the little metal-on-metal creaks which peeled the air. He snatched another box, two more, a fourth. Ahhhh, it would appear like they floated out the door. Boots stamped the floor outside. Dean balanced the boxes on the thin ledge above the door and pressed into a corner as keys jangled outside. The door edged open and grey daylight poured into his open pupils. The security guard’s torchlight tracked the darkest corners, ran up the wall and ceiling, and scanned the floor for a trapdoor as a means of escape. It pinpointed Dean. Would the suit shimmer in direct light?
“Are you sure there's somebody in here?” The guard pressed his lips tight, maybe at the cuppa he'd left behind.
“I definitely felt a presence.” She moved in behind him.
Dean looked beyond to check on Sultana. She had an arm across the chair’s back, a leg crossed over the other, and a devil on her lips. He edged round the wall and took care in how he handled the boxes.
The security guard had given up. “Maybe the place is haunted. How old is the building again?”
“It was built in the 80s.” The assistant had a wasp in her tone.
“Long enough for people to die and rise from the grave again. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“I’m not sure.”
Dean shifted gear, tip-toed fast out the door, and hurried the boxes into the bag by Sultana before anybody saw a thing. He dragged his accomplice from the shop.
***
After the warmth inside, the wind outside struck at his bones as if it would shake them out of his skin. “I need to get my clothes back on.”
“Come on, then.”
They rushed through the gaps between shoppers down the high street. Fruit sellers shouted their wares and a lonesome trader sold knock-off CDs. Dean stared at kids his age work the market stalls. For money. What had he missed out on? Did Sult
ana have a job he didn't know about? She didn't need one, did she?
She jerked at his arm to shift his feet. The girl never stood still. He mumbled a few “bloody hells” as he tumbled after her.
Customers parted like snow before Sultana’s plough. Her head pushed forward like she dragged Dean at the end of rope, until they reached the women’s section in Debenham’s. She grabbed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt without even a glance at the sizes, and drove to the changing rooms.
“Just these two.” She lifted the garments head-height for the woman who tracked and helped customers. The woman nodded and smiled a crooked one. She sensed something else. Sultana dragged the curtain wide, kept her hand there, and followed him in. She rolled her eyes at the loud girl on her phone in the next cubicle. Sultana drew the curtain across the cubicle again and ran her hands in the air until she found his head. She held it like a ball and guided him to her lips. She twisted them as they smacked the fabric.
“I want to try it on.”
He almost shoved her out the cubicle in fright. She suckered her palms against the sides to prevent embarrassment and pushed back into him.
“Let me try it on.”
He hoped her whispers didn't penetrate next door, or to the attendant. “Why? What do you want with it?”
“It's my invention, too.”
“About twenty-five percent, if that.”
“Arsehole … Let me try the thing.”
He huffed and fell into a silence he hoped would persuade her that the idea didn't hold water. She didn't need the suit. He had the thing under control.
She shaped her fingers into a dagger and stabbed him in the ribs. He grunted and collapsed into the wall. Flung himself back like she had jabbed an inflatable dummy.
“Okay. Ten minutes. No – five, and that's it.”
She placed her fingertips against his ribs. “I can go deeper than last time. Just try me.”
The woman in the next cubicle knock-knocked on the wall which separated them. “Are you okay in there?”
“Fine. We're fine. Thanks.”
The woman hesitated. “Okay.”
The pair didn't budge until they heard her feet shuffle into the distance.
“Fine.” Dean smacked the button on his wrist before he realized what he'd done. His smile lopped to the side. “Don't look down. Turn around, away from the mirror, and let me get dressed.”
“Of course.” She manoeuvred to face the door. Planted her head against it and laughed. “Oh my God, Dean, you are so funny. I don't think I've ever had so much fun.”
He squirmed and contorted so as not to touch her as he climbed out of the suit and into his clothes, but the odd elbow brush against her back sent an electric pulse through him sharper than the finger-dagger to his ribs.
“There.” He thrust the suit over her shoulder, resentful he had to hand it over. What if Mr Breckin’s argument came about, and a whole bunch of people wanted to get their hands on this thing. It had a pull, already, and it hurt to let go, like he had shed skin and exposed not a new layer, but raw flesh beneath.
She turned. They stood almost nose-to-nose. He checked out her lips, not exactly bee-stung, but full enough that a hornet might have landed on each, however brief. Her eyelashes batted, on the edge of a take-off. He scrunched his nose and failed to dive into her eyes. They'd fry his circuits.
“Okay, you face the door now. And don't dare look.”
“I'm going to examine this door hook with all my concentration.”
“Good boy.” She smacked his arse once he'd turned. He couldn't rein in the laugh.
She shuffled, backed into him, tutted, huffed, and snorted. “The material isn't the best.”
Dean ran a finger over the hook, examined the loose screw, swung the hook upwards from its mooring as far as it would go, and used his bitten fingernail as a screwdriver. Once the flash whited his vision for a moment he turned to see those earthy eyes, and only those, twinkle back at him.
“Contact lenses.” He ripped a box, pulled away the covers and held the containers in his palms for her use. One eye disappeared, then the other.
She opened the door. “See you later.”
“What?” He reached out to grab her, but she’d gone.
Once he'd gathered his senses the attendant stood before him, her eyes tractor-beams for his transportation to the exit.
9.
Dean’s head buzzed as if he'd just lost the love of his life. His status. He headed down the street and back, his eyes telescopes for signs – somebody who lost balance from an unseen obstacle, a footprint which normal physics couldn't account for. His invisible woman.
Sweat popped and chilled. He fretted at the manic sensation which rode him hard. He knew where she lived for God’s sake. He only needed to wait outside her house. He wouldn't see her, of course – she'd sneak right past him. He might detect her by the laugh she hurled over her shoulder. He could wait, but he wouldn’t – wanted the suit back. Now.
A kid and his mum halted and laughed. His neck hair turned all hedgehog at this assault on his dignity, until he realised they didn't have cross-eyes and in fact pointed at whatever lied behind him. He turned once they moved on. The Debenham’s window displayed a couple of mannequins, bald women in tight trousers and multi-coloured shirts. One’s hand wafted up and down as if it had learned to dance from her mum. Or maybe it told her to calm down. The other mannequin remained still, as if embarrassed at her mate’s bad dance.
He sprung to the entrance. It didn't have security guards at the door, but he slowed his pace and kept his steps all casual, as a normal lad who hadn’t just been escorted from the premises would. He calculated the mannequins’ bearings and put his head down so the woman who attended the changing room didn't spot him. He ducked and weaved, checked his shoulder, and found himself deep in the women’s section. Exposed. He knew he shouldn't act that way, this is the modern world after all … but did that old woman raise an eyebrow at him? Did that blonde, in her early twenties give him eyes she'd fling at a pervert? He threw off her accusation as he realised he could do without its weight, and found his steps. He lightened his movement on approach to the window display, but he caught the swish of old people clothes down the aisle, with no draught or visible person to accompany the disturbance.
He surged into the section, his hand out to machete Sultana like overgrowth. He slammed his phone to his ear and pretended he talked down the mouthpiece.
“I know you're here, Sultana. I can hear you. I can see your arse.”
The tinkle in her laugh mingled with a squeal. She must have spun to check his whereabouts, and lost balance. The rack, already overburdened with bargain gear, collapsed, like he'd pulled out the screw which kept it upright.
“You.”
He spun and almost joined Sultana on the floor. The attendant bent her head and muttered into the radio in her lapel. Dean reached down and grabbed at air until he found a wrist. She resisted until he dragged her into him. She turned and twisted.
“Your arse is fine.”
“Excuse me?” The attendant jutted her chin at him, her eyes lasers as they pinned him into a repeat of what he had said.
He pushed out his lower lip to brew confusion. Self-doubt made her fidget. He could see she didn't want to throw an accusation so strong without absolute certainty.
“Listen, you can dress how you like. Just don't hang around the women’s dressing room, and don't make our customers uncomfortable.”
Dean clicked his phone and pocketed it. “I'm sorry, I'm looking for stuff for my girlfriend, and I didn't realise how tough it'd be.”
“If you like, son, if you like.”
“Let's go.” He shifted gear and made for the exit as the security guard headed his way. The man popped a smile at the prospect of action. Dean couldn't see any way he wouldn't get a bent arm out of this exchange.
“Oy.” The man broke into a run to match Dean’s and would have caught him if Sultana hadn't broken free from De
an to stick a leg out. The man’s face melted from determined to mortification at the battering his kudos would now take. His hands shot out in front of him, he landed on his belly and slid across the mopped floor for about five or so feet.
“Come on, Sultana. Quick before rain comes and exposes you.”
***
“I don't think …” Sultana dragged the second sock on like the fun of it all resisted this act of seriousness. “I don't think I've had such a good time. I’ve never had to work so hard to stop myself laughing, even during Mrs Zachary’s class.”
Dean folded and smoothed the suit, a habit he’d formed. Placed it with care in his rucksack, worried it might explode, or at the very least, fray and unravel to nothing more than a line of cotton and micro-chips.
“You do know it belongs to us all, right?” Sultana prodded his shoulder.
He turned his face from her and stared at distant traffic from beneath the bridge where they recovered.
“I hope you're using it the right way, Dean. I mean, I hope you're not sat outside my window every night perving.”
He smiled, but only because her burst of laughter allowed it, like he indulged her humour. His phone vibrated to the rescue. His burst pores showed how her comment would have exposed him in the suit. He leaned into the breeze, swivelled his neck to allow the cool down his shirt.
He flipped the phone. “Mum?”
***
“Where've you been? My God, where've you been?” His mum smacked his upper arm and grabbed at him as he lost a little balance. Pecked kisses across his face and held him at arm’s length.
His eyes travelled her face. Worry had dug war trenches across it. He took her arms – a touch which he fought to recoil from. He gripped harder to resist the urge.
“Just out, why? What happened?”
His attention shot to the front door, the opposite of the back one he'd just come through. He could see a cap bob through the frosted glass.
“Two men, out there –”
“Now?”