Invisible Girl (An Erotic Romance), Pt. 3

“’Bye, honey. We should be back by 9:30 or so.” Jane’s mother bent down, slipped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick hug, accompanied by a kiss on top of the head, before continuing down the porch steps and down the flagstone walk to where Jane’s father was waiting in the car, the engine running, in the late afternoon sunlight.

They were off to his Saturday night A.A. meeting. Jane’s mother had originally started going along “to be supportive”, as she’d explained to Jane at the time. Also to make sure he got there, Jane thought. But her mother had come to, if not enjoy the meetings exactly, look forward to them somewhat; to sitting and talking with the other wives and husbands in the same situation.

This of course meant that, between A.A., the counseling sessions and her parents’ other commitments, many nights Jane was left on her own. She didn’t mind; it wasn’t that much different for the Invisible Girl, really, except that she could play her records on the big stereo in the living room instead of the tinny portable in her bedroom or watch whatever she wanted on the color TV. Right now she was sitting on the porch steps, a magazine in her lap, comfortably barefoot in a pair of old red gym shorts and a gray t-shirt on this warm spring night.

She watched the car make its way down the gravel drive and disappear into the woods that surrounded their property. She loved where they lived: a large, ivy-covered brick house with a covered, white-railed wooden porch that ran the length of it in front.

The house was set half a mile back into the woods from the road, a two-lane asphalt not much traveled. Behind the house, a large pond—shared only with the family on the other side, whom they rarely saw—with a dock and a rowboat. They were fortunate to have bought it and paid off the mortgage before her father had lost his job. The costs of maintenance were a struggle now, but so far they had managed.

As the sound of her parents’ car faded away Jane thought idly about going in to play some music, but felt too lazy to move from where she sat, not really hearing the sounds of the birds and insects or the frogs calling to each other in the pond.

She had been feeling lazy all day. Since yesterday, really, after….

She had quickly put on her sock and shoe under the desk, seconds before the bell rang.

She had gotten to her feet, taken a couple of quick steps toward the door, then stopped suddenly as she felt moisture running down her thighs. She’d thrown a quick, panicked glance behind her, looking for a stain coming through the back of her skirt—none, thank god—and then walked, slowly, putting her feet down with great care, as if in a posture class, not daring to look down for fear of seeing a shining trickle on her calf or a trail of tiny drops on the floor, until she finally made her way to the nearest bathroom, dashing into the nearest stall to blot herself dry with toilet paper.

Then she had scurried through the halls to her class, trying to be invisible but feeling as though she had a sign on her back that read, “No Panties”. She had sat through the class with her knees held tightly together, wanting desperately to just put her head down on her arms but, knowing that was a sure way to get called on, keeping her eyes focused in the air about three feet in front of the teacher.

Then riding her bike home, acutely conscious of the rush of air up her skirt. Jumping off and pretending to examine something on her bike if she saw anyone coming the other way. Finally reaching the privacy of their driveway and then home. Climbing the stairs to her room, taking off her glasses, kicking off her shoes and collapsing, fully-dressed (Well, nearly, she thought) onto her bed, where she lay until her mother called her for dinner Not sleeping, not thinking—adrift, cocooned in a pleasant lassitude.

She had drifted through dinner, absent-mindedly giving generic answers to the generic questions about her day. All that evening and all through the next day she would begin to do something—write a letter, read the next chapter in her library book, even just watch television—only to find herself staring off into space, with nothing whatsoever in her mind. She went for a long walk in the woods, only to return without having noticed a single blossom or birdsong.

She felt as if she had never really been aware of having a body before, other than as something to be fed and washed and clothed. It had been an appliance; a means of getting from one place to another. A place to hide. Now she noticed the movement of her joints when she walked or reached for something; the weight of her hand resting on her leg; even, sometimes, the way her hair attached to her scalp.

And in this same way she was conscious of him: not as a thought, or an image, but as an undefined, inseparable part of her awareness of her physical self. He was there when she rubbed her nose; he was there in the heat of sunlight on her arm.

And now, when a tiny figure began to separate itself from the dark silhouette of the trees, outlined in gold by the setting sun behind them, and she heard the distant, echoing tap of footsteps on gravel, she felt, not as if she knew who it was, but as if she had known for a long time that he would be there. Still, the fact of his presence sent a thrill of something very like fear through her.