“Well, we’ve been trying to be nice, but we’re not exactly negotiating here,” the mesh top said.
“So I am under arrest,” I said. So much for options.
“No, not really. I mean, you won’t be dragged off to some secret lair or anything. Unless, of course, that’s what you want…”
“What do you say about all this?” I said, turning to the blue outfit and staring at the brand label inside the neckline. “You haven’t said much since you suggested coming back inside.”
“Well, I am practically in your lap,” it responded. “I think this could turn out to be very interesting, if you want it to be.”
“If I want it to be,” I repeated. “Interesting choice of words. I feel like I should be either terrified by all of you, or furious with you all for deciding things for me, but, um… yeah, this could be interesting. How exactly is all this happening, anyway?”
“Well, I kind of brought all this other stuff to life,” the mesh-top-and-jeans outfit said. “I never belonged to Sandy. I was her sister’s. She spent the weekend at Sandy’s once and forgot to pack me when she left. She’s a clothes horse anyway, so she probably never missed me. I’ve been with Sandy’s wardrobe ever since, waiting for an opportunity and a really good reason to chance moving around. I think harrassment is a really good reason, don’t you?”
“I suppose it is,” I said. “And I kind of took you for an instigator the first time I saw you.”
“This crew needed an instigator,” the outfit said. “They were just thrilled to be mobile; it hadn’t occurred to anyone that I made mobile for a reason.”
Voices started rumbling from various outfits. I started to wonder if there was gonna be some kind of clothes-vs.-clothes incident, before the mesh top said, “Oh, come on, you softies couldn’t have pulled this off without someone around to push things along. But since you all think I’m so pushy, I’ll get out of your way. It’s about time for me to be moving on, anyway.”
The mesh top reached into a plastic bag; when it withdrew its sleeve, another plastic bag floated a few inches away from the sleeve end. The jeans lost their invisible support and just deflated, folded in air, and stuffed themselves into the bag, while the mesh top continued to float in place.
“Something I need to do before I get out of here,” the mesh top said. It floated over towards the blue outfit sitting on my leg, and moved its sleeves towards its collar. I heard whispering, and then the blue outfit rose from my lap to float by my side. The mesh top reached for me, and I felt unseen hands grab my collar and pull me up to my feet. As my collar was released, unseen lips pushed themselves against mine. My reflex was for me to put my arms around a waist, or maybe squeeze a butt, leading to more flailing as there was no waist or butt for me to squeeze. Then I reached for hands at the end of the mesh sleeves, and met only air there, too.
The mesh top’s voice chuckled as its unseen lips continued kissing me. After a few moments, the lips withdrew. “Not bad,” the voice said. “I think you and Miss Curvy here should be quite happy with each other.” The mesh top floated a short distance away, deflated, folded itself and pushed itself down into the plastic bag. “Bye, y’all,” the voice said, as the bag floated out of the office towards the elevator. I had to wonder what was with the folding into a plastic bag, when all these clothes had all been outside on their own just a short while earlier. I’d half-expected the outfit to crawl down the side of the building like some kind of Spiderwoman.
“A real piece of work,” a voice said. I didn’t need to know which piece of clothing said it, I’m sure they all felt the same way.
“Yeah, well,” the blue outfit said, “if not for her, Sandy would still be here, enduring Steve, and we’d all be stuffed in drawers and closets, wishing and hoping.”
“Where’s she going, anyway?” I didn’t need to know, I was just curious.
“No idea,” the outfit said. “We didn’t ask, and she didn’t tell.” I went over to the window and looked down. I saw the bag float away from the building towards a waiting car. The passenger door opened, the bag floated inside, and the car drove off.
“So….” I said, turning around and facing my… captors. I was at a loss for words. Apparently I was gonna be kind of a pet for animated empty clothing. How does that work? I thought I’d found some words.
“How do we make this work?” I asked.
“Well, as we speak, everything in your apartment is being loaded into a moving truck for transport to our place,” the outfit said.
“Just like that?!”
“Yeah,” the voice said, “just like that. Miss Thing tracked you and got keys copied and whatnot. Piece of cake.”
“What if I hadn’t gone along with the plan?”
“I honestly don’t know,” the outfit said. “We left all that to her. The idea was that she was in charge of, um, obtaining you, and the rest was up to us.”
Obtaining?! “And when did you work all this out, if you didn’t know I would be here?”
“Oh, we have our own way of communicating, besides speech and movement,” the outfit said. “It was worked out practically in an instant. When she asked who you were, and I told her, we basically had it worked out a few seconds later.”
“So, what happens now?”
“Well, we all float out of here and we go to our place.” And that’s what we did…