I guess the clothes, or their unseen wearer, decided my lean didn’t bring me close enough, because the whole outfit leaned a little towards me, until the front of the tube top was pressing against my chest. And yes, there was just the right amount of resistance when the top pressed against me, even though there were no actual breasts to be seen. Just because I could, I actually reached down into the tube top and began stroking the inside surface of the fullest part of its left breast. The outfit began to wiggle a bit in response.
“You like that?” I asked aloud, without meaning to. “Well, I like it too. Too bad there isn’t just a little bit more of you. I mean, more to you.”
The jeans cocked one leg behind them, as if to back away, but made no immediate move to get away from my rubbing fingers. But finally it did, backing away a few steps until, again, it was just beyond arms-length. Then, the jeans and tube top just collapsed, like their supports had been removed. But neither of them hit the floor; instead, the now limp tube top came to rest on top of the box I had been standing on just a little earlier. Then the shoes’ ankle straps again undid themselves and the pantyhose lifted their legs into the air, letting the jeans slide free, then fold themselves in midair and place themselves atop the box. Meanwhile the pantyhose continued to hover there in the air momentarily, almost in a sitting position, while the box floated next to it holding the jeans and tube top. Then, finally, the hosiery stepped out of the air and back into the shoes, which again strapped themselves to the pantyhosed ankles.
I should point out that in all this time, not much else was going on in the store, but the apparent lone employee on hand, sitting behind the register the whole time, paid little or no attention to what I thought were strange goings-on. Neither did she pay much attention when a box-with-legs approached the cash register, piled with clothing to buy. She watched placidly as each item floated up off the box and onto the counter, then she rang it up and put it into a bag. Once everything was rung up, lo and behold! a credit card floated up from under the box to pay for the purchases. I tried to get a peek at the name on the card, but the cardholder (there’s a quick way out of what to call her/it) cleverly positioned the card so that I could see nothing but its underside even as the card passed practically in front of my face. I honestly can’t tell you why I didn’t just reach out and grab it…
Once the cashier had processed the card, she put the charge slip, a pen, and the charge card on the counter. Now, the register area was on a small platform about a foot above the store’s floor level, meaning the pen and charge slip rested about eighteen inches above the top of the floating box. But, hey, if you don’t have a solid form, what is eighteen inches, right? The pen floated upright and signed the charge slip, but it was one of those unreadable scribbled signatures I call wannabe-autographs. It must have matched the card, though, because the cashier checked it and then handed over the card, a copy of the charge slip, and the bag with my new “friend’s” purchases. The bag floated up off the counter, then down towards the box, then disappeared underneath it, setting my mind abuzz again. I could see earlier that the box appeared to be just a prop. Yet, again, the pantyhose disappeared inside it at a level improbable (apparently not impossible) to the eye, and now charge cards were first appearing from its underside and then disappearing inside it along with shopping bags full of clothes.
Again I was left shaking my head and deciding not to try to figure out what was going on, since I had plenty of clues that were absolutely no help in figuring anything out…
The door swung open in front of the box-with-legs, the same way it had when we entered, and stayed open until I had cleared it, although the box was by this point a few steps ahead of me. I continued to follow it, not having to worry about being discreet like I had tried to do earlier. We walked around the next corner, where the box approached the first door, which again swung open in front of it and stayed open until I had entered, even though the box was still a few steps ahead of me. As it approached a locked door inside, three keys floated out from its underside; two floated just above the box, while the third unlocked the door and let us in, and again the door stayed open until I had come through a few steps behind the box. The key pulled itself from the lock and returned to where it had come from, under/inside the box, as it waited by a bank of elevators.
When one arrived, a sharply-dressed man exited. When he came out, he was actually looking straight down at the box as he said hello to it, and another to me, then went on his way, leaving me to wonder if the residents of this building were… missing something, or was it me that was missing something. Remembering both the bus driver, the bus passengers, and the cashier back at the store, I figured it must have been me…