It was pitch-black in my room as I lay there half-asleep in my bed. Then, something warm snuggled against my lower half. I grinned, figuring it was Marla lying next to me, though something seemed a little not-right about that.

I moved to rub my hand against her hip, when i felt... fabric? I moved my hand down a bit and yes, there was a seam. A little further down and I reached the bottom hem of the fabric. But why would she wear shorts to bed?

I moved my hand further up and around her body, finding her navel. As my fingers began playing around the area she flinched at first, then wriggled against me some more.

Something still didn't seem right. She was moving, but she was completely silent. She should be gasping or moaning or something, I thought.

It was still pitch-black in the room as my hand roamed upward a bit, brushing against the soft rounded curves of a breast. Plenty more wriggling but still no sound...

I leaned forward to kiss the back of her neck. I shouldn't have had to move more than a few inches, but i was pushing against her back and butt without my lips making contact with any skin. She pushed back against me, but something still wasn't adding up...

"Marla?"

No answer. I had a lamp on my nightstand matching the one on hers, but unlike her I'd have to move to turn on the lamp, so...

"Could you turn on your light for me? This feels... too good for me to move."

I heard the pull-string click, and both lamps came on. As the room lit up immediately some of the questions in my mind cleared up. The sheet was draped over my invisible bedmate, but the pillow gave no evidence of a head resting against it. In fact, the top edge of the sheet was flat against the mattress on Marla's side. Not usually a problem for Marla, since she's... "not like us," but that's not something she would normally do. Her constructs are normally whole bodies. Also, why was she so quiet? Not being a physical creature, she didn't automatically react to my ministrations the way a woman would be expected to; she generally did that for my benefit.

With a sigh, I moved the sheet off both of us, to see there was just a pair of shorts under the sheets next to me. As the shorts rose from the bed and turned to face me, I remembered Marla had left town for a top-secret "no-fleshbags-allowed" meeting. But before she left, she told me she had something to show me...

---------------------------------

I was sitting on the couch in front of the TV, with an apparent naked and voluptuous invisible woman lying in my lap. The TV was on, but who could pay attention to the news with one of Marla's constructs in his lap? My right index finger was inserted into an invisible mouth, as its tongue was busy bathing it. That, of course, didn't interfere with what Marla was saying...

"Remember what I told you when we met?" she said.

"Could you be a little more specific?" I said, as I pulled my finger out of the invisible mouth and moved it downward to massage an unseen breast.

"Well, when I moved in I said that I couldn't promise that I was leaving my old life behind completely. When you have security clearance as high as mine, you can't walk away from 'the service.' From time to time I might be called back in to handle matters more conventional personnel can't." She sighed, something she didn't really have a physical need to do, before continuing. "This time it's just a meeting, though, but I'm not sure just how long I'll be gone. It could be two days, it could be two weeks."

"I couldn't just tag along?" I asked, as I ran a finger along the underside of a breast. "It's not like I could get in the way, or anything."

"That's just it," she said. "I can't even tell you where the meeting will be, so no you definitely can't come with me. But check out what I want to show you." With that, a long orange shirt-dress walked into the room, filled out to curves that seemed similar to the invisible "woman" in my lap, with orange knit gloves at the ends of its sleeves .

"So, what did you want to show me?" I said. Motioning to the dress, I said, "You do this all the time."

"But that's just it," she said. "I'm not doing that."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm serious," she said. "We've always been together, practically every second since I first came into your life, so you wouldn't have been aware that, when I'm not around, my clothes can move around by themselves, more or less."

"When you're not around?" I said.

"Yeah, something that got put to use quite a bit before I decided I needed a change. It's great for security when you can send an outfit of clothes into someone's office to retrieve a flash drive."

"Hmm – that's just your clothes? Not another... person like you?"

"No, just clothes. In fact, it's just the gloves that are 'alive.'" With that, the dress moved closer, as the invisible body lying against me went away, leaving my hand that had been rubbing a breast to drop to the couch. The dress bent forward as the gloves began pulling up the hem, looking as if an invisible woman was pulling off the dress. I was wondering about why the gloves would "pull off" the dress, rather than just letting it drop. But the gloves and dress all moved as if the dress was moving up and off an invisible body. The gloves, still positioned as if they had been at the end of the dress's sleeves, moved closer.

"Move your hand towards the gloves," Marla said. I did, only to find that there was still an apparent invisible woman standing there. My hand had brushed against the form's waist; when I moved my hands around a little bit, I felt a tiny strap of fabric.

"You sure that's not you?" I asked Marla.

"It's not me," she said, in a resigned tone, as if she had expected my disbelief.

"But that also wasn't you I was groping just now," I said, as I hooked a finger inside the waistband of what seemed to be an invisible pair of panties, or a bikini bottom. "What's the difference?"

The difference is, that wasn't my body physically lying in your lap just now, but I put 'her' there. What you're feeling up now" – she paused for effect, and I could hear the smirk in her voice – "was created by the gloves."

"By the gloves?" I repeated, as an unseen hand took hold of my wrist and pulled my hand upward until my finger had let go of the invisible waistband. "But you pulled my hand away, right?"

"No," she said, "the gloves did that too." The gloves had made an extra invisible hand to move my hand away?

"OK. But why the panties?" I said.

"Well, in this case the clothes are just here to keep you company. I can't have my own clothes giving me competition for my man. So I had to set limits."

"Well, let me see what those limits are," I said, moving my hand upward against the invisible body that apparently wasn't even really there. I had expected the limits – no total nudity, I figured – to allow bare boobs, so I was surprised to find what felt upon inspection like an invisible sports bra, holding a rather impressive bust.

"I feel a bra," I said. "That's not your doing, Marla?"

"No," she said, "but I like it."

I moved my left arm around the invisible waist as my right hand traveled upward a bit more, not quite sure what to expect. Since the items only had to emulate an invisible body, I don't know what I expected to find above the neckline, but according to my fingertips there was a more-or-less compete face. I didn't go as far as checking for eyes; it would have been awkward if there had been and I mistakenly poked one. Not that it would have affected "vision," or whatever its visual perception would be called, but I didn't want to take that chance. Maybe I didn't really want to know right then just how complete the construct was, or maybe I didn't want to find out in front of Marla. But when my fingers brushed an invisible cheek, I felt a widening smile.

"You're smiling," I said, holding my hand against the invisible face. The head nodded. "So you like what I'm doing?" The head nodded again. I put my arms around the invisible waist and was about to move in to see how 'complete' the mouth was, when Marla cut in.

"OK, that's about enough for now," she said. "I think you're enjoying this too much. At least you're enjoying it more than I wanted to watch you enjoy it."

"That's not jealousy I hear, is it?" I said, not moving my arms from the invisible waist. I heard a snort that seemed to come from all around me.

"Of course not," she said in a derisive tone. "They're my clothes, and you're my man. They know who's boss. Besides, they're just in a kind of demo mode right now. I just wanted to show you what was possible."

"Hmm. If your clothes really can do all that, and I've seen how you react to them, then how do I know you're really going anywhere?" I had to ask. It's not like she had to prove she was really going away and not just testing me somehow, but I wouldn't have been me if I hadn't asked.

"I suppose you don't really know," she conceded. "But if you think about it, if I wanted to test you, wouldn't I have done it long before now?"

"I suppose," I said. I sighed, then made my move. I moved my face forward until my lips were pressing against the invisible ones in front of me, then I turned my head and began kissing. The invisible head turned slightly in the opposite direction and kissed me back. A tongue gently pressed against my lips, just as I was about to do the same, so my tongue met it halfway. We went on like this for a few moments. When I pulled away, I could sense a smirk from my invisible partner.

"That was you, wasn't it, Marla?"

"Of course," she said. "When I saw what you were about to do, I shut off demo mode and took over the construct and the gloves." Her voice was right in front of me, but just beyond the construct.

"Nice," I said. "Sneaky, but nice." I sighed, then continued. "So when are you leaving?"

"Right now," she said, as the construct moved in for another kiss. I broke it after a few seconds.

"But don't you... " I realized what I was about to ask was kind of ridiculous. "OK, I guess you don't need to pack."

The construct moved in again. While it was still kissing me, Marla replied, "Well, if I did, I would have before now. And even if I had packed, this wouldn't stop me from bring my luggage out. I do kind of want to bring those gloves along, though."

A pair of knee-high pink socks walked into the room towards where the construct and I were standing. A couple of seconds after the socks positioned themselves about where I'd expect the firs construct's invisible feet to be, I saw the gloves floating a few feet away from me. I broke the kiss.

"OK, now I know you had to be the one doing that," I said to Marla.

"Yes and no. Once the socks were in place, I handed the construct off to them," she said.

"No way!" I protested. "We never even broke contact! How could that not be all you?"

“By not being me," she countered. "Now be good, and I'll talk to you later." The gloves waved at me.

"Have a good trip," I said. Then, "Wait a minute! How are you gonna--" I was still talking when both gloves just vanished, answering the question I was in the middle of asking. "Oh, like that I guess," I added with a shrug. "I didn't know you could do that."

"You have yet to imagine anything I can't do," she said. That was kind of a catchphrase of hers. Not saying that she was omnipotent, just that her abilities could not be contained by my imagination. She often spoke of things she wouldn't do, or things she hadn't done and didn't ever picture herself doing, but never what she couldn't do, except that she could never hurt me.

"Bye, meatbag," she said, as invisible lips pecked me on the cheek. Then the door opened, closed, and locked. Only Marla could lock a deadbolt from ouside without a key. She hadn't taken any keys with her, nor tickets to wherever she was going. As she explained to me, she could take any kind of conveyance without need for little things like tickets, or she could get there "by her own methods..."

-------------------------

The shorts walked over to my side of the bed and the I felt an invisible hand take hold of mine and pull me up from the bed. I yielded to the pull and got up, as my robe floated over to me, holding itself open. I put my arms into the sleeves and then the sash tied itself closed. I supposed I didn't really need the robe, since I was going right into the bathroom to take a shower, but old habits...

I made my way to the bathroom, dropping the robe to the floor as I got there and stepping into the shower. I adjusted the water temperature, letting my mind wander again to when Marla told me about all this...

------------------------

It seemed kind of strange to be standing there with my arms draped around an invisible woman that didn't really exist, a construct created by a pair of socks given the ability to do so by an invisible feminine... whatever-Marla-is.

She had always been kind of coy about her true nature, saying that the English language really didn't have a word for what she is, and that as far as she knew no other Earth language did either.

The fact that she specified "Earth" language led me to believe that maybe, just maybe, she was some kind of alien. But whenever I asked her that specifically, she just laughed it off, saying I watched and read too much science fiction and that it was rotting my brain.

The current situation was just surreal enough that I figured, hey, just talk it out. Why not?

"So," I said to the construct (!), "you're really just a pair of socks?" I was again standing with my left arm around "her" waist and my right hand against her face, so I was able to feel the head nodding "yes."

"A pair of socks that can make an invisible body to keep me company while your intangible owner is off at some top-secret meeting somewhere?" Another nod. "Marla isn't really here doing this in secret?" The unseen head shook back and forth. No.

I moved my hand to the also-invisible bra. "And I'm guessing you can't take this off?" An unseen hand gently grasped my right wrist and moved it until my hand was against the unseen head again as it nodded "yes." Then the hand moved my hand to the invisible thong strap, then back up to the unseen head, which this time shook back and forth.

"Marla said something about limits, so I guess that's her doing," I said. The head nodded.

"You were smiling earlier, and I think you're smiling now." The head nodded, as the smile grew. "So are you aware when she's around, and you can't really move around on your own?" The head nodded. "That's good to know," I said. "I'll keep that in mind." The smile grew even wider.

"Can all of her clothes do this?" The head kind of rocked back and forth before nodding again. "More or less, I take it." A nod. "And I guess they each kind of take it as far as they want, within Marla's limits." Another yes nod.

'Hmm. It'll be interesting to see just how that plays out..."

---------------

There must have been something about that couch that the clothes considered special, because that and my bed seemed to be the center of their interactions with me. Maybe it had to do with the couch being the main place (outside the bedroom) where Marla's invisible girls found their way to my side, or lap.

Anyway, I was sitting on the couch again, flipping channels, when a tan knee-length sweaterdress walked into the room. I looked up and waved. An empty sleeve waved back, as the dress moved closer. I just sat and watched to see what it would do, as it stopped right in front of me and sat in my lap. Didn't just sit, in fact, but leaned back and -- I don't know how to describe it, but I guess the best way is to say it sighed without any sound. The sweater moved as if the form inside had taken a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

I don't recall what I had been watching -- or what I had been trying to find, since I was really just flipping channels -- but after a few moments I idly asked, "So are you the sweater?" The hood shook back and forth, and stood up to show me... something. The sweater turned around as the unseen hands at the sleeves' ends undid the two or three buttons holding the sweater closed and pulled it open, displaying a very well-filled floating white halter, as well as tiny white shorts that hovered below.

"OK, are you the halter?” The hood shook no. “Then you're the shorts?" I said. The hood nodded. "Shorts that small are pretty much right to the point," I said, as I reached out to put my arms around the waist of the invisible form inside the sweater, only for them to pass right through to the sweater itself. It shook with pantomimed laughter, the sleeves moving towards the open hood to where its wearer's mouth would be.

"Ha, ha, ha," I said. "Kinda limits the options, though, doesn't it?" The hood nodded in agreement. "So whatcha gonna do about it?" The sleeves moved absent hands to hold the sweater open again, as the hood's invisible support collapsed, leaving it to fall backward. I took the movement as a cue that something had changed. I reached forward again, and this time not only did my hand make contact with an invisible midsection, but when my hand brushed by where I'd expect to find a navel, it also brushed against... a barbell piercing? An invisible barbell piercing?

"You have a pierced navel?" I had to ask. The sweater's hood pulled upward a little and nodded. "You did that yourself?" Another nod. The hood hung at a weirdly low angle, like the hood wanted to stay up even though there was no form there to keep its shape, or something. Whoever developed these things, and gave them their ability to... do what they do, really put some effort into giving them individuality. I moved my arms around the waist of the unseen form but inside the sweater, as the sleeves draped themselves around my shoulders and pulled me a little closer. I slid my hands downward, grabbing the invisible butt through the shorts just as the form's lips made contact with mine. We both flinched, me because I had no clue that a kiss was coming, and the form because... well, I guess because it hadn't expected me to grab its butt.

After a few moments the sweater moved a sleeve from my neck and gestured toward the stereo, which switched itself on and tuned in to a Latin station. The form began moving in place, but I sensed a bit of impatience, and I knew why.

"Have a little pity on this meatbag," I said to the sweater. "I feel the music, and I know the moves, but I can't do them so easily anymore."

The hood nodded slowly and gestured again behind me. I turned to see an outfit of my own clothing approaching, I guess to dance in my place...

Approaching from behind was a gray sweatsuit I rarely wore. As it drew closer to the sweater, the two outfits reached for each other. The sweater draped its sleeves over the shoulders of my sweatshirt, while its sleeves found their way around the waist of the sweater, but this time outside the sweater. The two outfits began what could only be called a very spirited dance, and I couldn't help but notice the sweatsuit moved much more smoothly than it ever did with me wearing it.

As the outfits moved around, I also couldn't help noticing what appeared to be be impressions from invisible fingers pressing against the sweater's butt. After a few minutes of dancing, the sweater waved a sleeve at the stereo again, and the stereo switched to a station playing slower music. The two outfits kept their sleeves around each other as their dancing slowed, and at one point the sweater's hood rested against one of the sweatshirt's shoulders as they danced. But then...

The sweater's hood moved until, from my perspective, the unseen face inside it would have been right against the equally invisible face of my sweatshirt. Both outfits were voiceless, of course, but the movements of the hood and of my sweatshirt's collar, along with the unmistakeable sounds – the unseen forms inside these clothes were kissing! And as they did, the sweatshirt's unseen hands roamed all over the outside of the sweater, rubbing and squeezing as the two outfits made out with each other.

It was difficult to stand there and watch an outfit of my own clothes making out with what I thought were Marla's clothes. They gave every sign that there were invisible people wearing the clothes and yet I knew that there weren't, and knowing that made the interaction even more riveting as it became more... animated.

As the lipsmacking sounds continued, my empty sweatsuit pulled back just a little bit from the sweater, moving one of its sleeves upward and appearing to caress the form inside the sweater. Occasionally a sleeve would rise high enough that its invisible fingers would brush against or poke at the tightly-stretched halter top, which in fact is what I was just about to do when the music started. For its part, the sweater moved one of its sleeves downward, rubbing what was plainly an erection inside my invisibly-filled sweatpants.

I couldn't help but wonder where this was leading, if in fact it was leading anywhere. I had to speak up.

“You two want to get a room?” I said. “This is kind of hard to watch.”

There was more movement from the next room as some more objects moved to join us in the living room. I turned to see a shapely headless zentai suit walking into the room, with something in one hand, while something else floating along behind it. I'd seen this suit many times before during Marla's... “games.” The zentai suit stopped, extending a sleeve and opening its hand, allowing the black object it had been carrying to unfurl so I could see it clearly. It was a sleep mask.

“Ha ha ha,” I said. “That wasn't what I meant when I said this was hard to watch.” Whatever was holding the mask in place dropped it onto a chair, while the bundle that had been floating behind the zentai came into view more clearly.

The bundle's plastic outer wrapper tore itself open, and a bundle of cloth began unfolding. It was a sheet, which opened itself out fully and wrapped itself around... nothing? It created a surface about two feet above the floor, but there was nothing below it to hold it in place.

Curiosity wouldn't let me just stand there and wonder. I walked over to the floating sheet and pressed down on it. I half expected to hear a creak, like there was an invisible mattress there. There was no sound, and when I pressed down on the sheet, it felt like it there was a very thick mat of some kind beneath it. I reached under it and, of course, there was nothing there. The sheet even conformed to my fingers when I pushed up on it.

Still curious, I sat on it. It was basically like sitting on a very tightly filled air mattress, only one with a smooth surface instead of the usual emulated-mattress surface. I pulled my feet up from the floor, and marveled that a floating sheet with nothing under it was holding my hundred-and-eighty-pound self two feet above the floor.

“I wish Marla had told me about this,” I said aloud, looking around at the outfits. “I could save a fortune on furniture.”

The sweater actually pulled away from my sweatsuit, shaking its hood back and forth and shaking its sleeves in tandem. It extended a sleeve towards me, then shook its head again. It aimed the empty sleeve back at itself, briefly making an indent with an unseen fingernail, then did the same to my sweatshirt before nodding its hood.

“OK, so this is for you?” I said. The hood nodded again, as it began walking over towards the floating sheet. A sleeve extended towards the empty space at the end of my sweatsuit's sleeves, which heeded the sweater's pull as it followed along behind the sweater.

The zentai beckoned for me to follow it, as it turned back to the direction it had come from. As I followed, I turned to see the sweater already lying on its back on the floating sheet, with my sweatsuit starting to crawl up to it. I shook my head, not wanting to even try to tackle the physics, or lack thereof, involved in whatever was about to happen on that sheet, when some things occurred to me.

She had said she didn't want to let her clothes be able to compete with her for “her man,” meaning me. But apparently whatever limits she had placed on them didn't apply to interacting with my clothes in whatever way suited (ha!) their fancy. For that matter, she also hadn't mentioned anything about bringing my clothes to life. Maybe Marla wasn't connected to the white shorts and their abilities? They certainly distinguished themselves by creating a more slender figure than the voluptuous forms Marla usually used to fill out clothing.

But, if the shorts weren't Marla's, then whose were they? Why were they here? I had a feeling the more Marla-shaped zentai suit wasn't going to allow me much time to dwell on that right at that moment. But I couldn't help but wonder...