Time to leave work -- I'm already running late.

As I'm walking out the door I'm not sure if I clocked out or not. We have a card-reader system that’s attached to a system app we can check to see our clock-in and clock-out times. I figured I’d better check the system before leaving the building.

As I go back to my desk I decide to lean over my chair rather than sit down and get comfortable and wind up staying later than I have to. But as I'm trying to sign in I feel something like a hand slide into my back pocket and begin palming my butt.

“OK,” I say a bit warily. “Who's that?”

“Shhh,” a familiar voice responds softly. “It's nobody. There's nobody here.”

The voice wasn't a whisper, but it wasn't a normal speaking voice either. And it sounded just like Shannon, a newly-married co-worker of mine who… let's just say we could have made each other very happy. She's fine and cartoon-character cute, a dangerous combination.

“Shan--” I started again, before the voice shushed me again. This time a single finger pressed against my lips.

I didn't see the finger.

“It's nobody,” the voice intoned again.

When the finger pulled away I reached behind me for… I'm not sure why I reached around, really, but each of my wrists was grasped and held at my sides. I looked down and, again, didn't see either hand.

While the hands held my arms in place, two unseen arms wrapped around my midsection as a chin rested against my left shoulder, and a very female upper torso pressed softly into my back as the voice sighed contentedly, but from behind me, not from near the chin on my shoulder.

“You're not Shannon, are you?” I asked.

The voice sighed again -- this time in my right ear -- and whispered, “Can't you just enjoy the moment?”

I decided I could, but it wasn't long before my… companion whispered, “This isn't private enough. Come with me.”

Immediately the chin on my shoulder, the whispering voice in my right ear, and the arms around my sides were gone, while the hands holding my wrists now pulled me gently toward the door to the corridor.

Said door unlatched itself and swung open ahead of us, as the hands led me out into the corridor.

I fully expected to be pulled out into the stairwell, but instead I was directed to the men's room.

“Here?” I said, as we approached the door.

“Sure,” the voice said softly from in front of me. “You're the last guy here on this floor, and the ones who come up to this bathroom from other floors for privacy are all gone for the day.”

But when the door opened we weren't exactly alone. Standing inside the men's room was an outfit filled out to Shannon's shape but without Shannon in it -- a pink hoodie, a pink and white cropped top under it, pink sweatpants, and pink socks and sneakers.

As the outfit extended its sleeves toward me, the hands never really let go of me. It's almost like their wrists slid up into the hoodie's sleeves, while the hands slid down and grasped my hands and squeezed.

“I don't have a clue what's happening here,” I said, “but you're blowing my mind every second. Starting with whatever -- I'm sorry, who-ever you are.”

The voice chuckled, then spoke normally, and it was definitely Shannon's voice. Even her laugh. “Don't worry about who I am,” the voice said again. “Like I said before, I'm nobody. See?” The hoodie let go of my left hand but when I reached for the hand again, there was only empty space. I actually grabbed at the end of the sleeve and it was just a hollow cloth tube.

I hmm'ed and reached into the visually empty hood and, again, nothing. Nothing tangible in the hood, and I could see down into the inside of the hoodie and the cropped top, and yet the hood held the shape of an unseen head.

“And I get why your mind is blown,” the voice said, as I withdrew my hand. “I still can't believe I'm able to do this. Or this.” And with that the hoodie wrapped its sleeves around me and pulled me into a kiss.

I wasn't sure whether there was gonna be a face there or not, but there sure were eager lips there, invisible or not. So I wrapped my arms around the sides of the hoodie, drawing a pleased hum that seemed to vibrate through the hoodie and the kissing lips.

A few seconds into the kiss the voice sighed from somewhere above the hoodie and me, and spoke in an excited whisper even as the kiss continued.

“I can't believe I actually pulled this off!” it said. “Ever since she first wore me here I said I--”

I broke the kiss and pulled away a bit, looking into the empty hood, while its sleeves stayed wrapped around me.

“Ever since she first wore you here?” I repeated.

The voice sighed heavily. “Yeah,” it said quietly, from in front of me. “i thought you had already figured it out -- I'm nobody, just a sweatsuit.”

Part of me wanted to pull free from those empty sleeves, if they would let me, but I was also intrigued. Not just by how this was possible, but why did an outfit -- Shannon's outfit -- want to be alone with me?

“Um,” I started, not really sure of what to say next. Then something came to me. “What were you saying when I interrupted you? 'Ever since she first wore you here you said you…’”

“Well,” the hoodie said shyly, “I thought you were kinda cute and wanted a chance to be alone with you. I had no way of knowing if Shannon would make that happen when she was single -- and she didn't -- so I took matters into my own hands, so to speak.”

“Wow,” I said. That was a lot to absorb -- that I turned on a co-worker’s clothes and they came to see me on their own. But…

“Does Shannon know anything about this?”

“Not a thing,” the hoodie said softly. “Not about me being able to move and talk, or that I'm here with you. Or,” it said with a chuckle, “that I had been checking you out.”

“But -- you're clothes!” I said, feeling a bit silly.

The hoodie gasped. “Really?!”

We both chuckled at that, but I continued. “No, what I meant was, you're cloth, and apparently you were in here when I went back to my desk, so how did you do... whatever that was you did at my desk?”

“Liked that, did you?” the voice said, in a tone I'd never heard from Shannon. “Honestly, I'm not sure how I'm able to do any of this -- walking, talking, kissing, any of it. But since you like it so much…”

At that a pair of invisible arms slid around my sides from behind even as the hoodie wrapped its sleeves around my shoulders. Again there was the feeling of a woman's body pressing against my back, hugging me from behind as the hoodie moved in for another kiss. I just shrugged, moved my hands lower to the sweatpants’ empty hips, and began to squeeze and rub. Instinctively I moved my hands upward, above the sweatpants’ waistband, to find smooth skin.

I hmm'ed again, moving my hands around the unseen midriff as I and the sweatsuit continued the kiss. My thumb even found an invisible navel.

“How about if I take this off?” the voice asked softly.

“Mm-hmm,” I responded, still kissing away, wondering just what… “she” meant to take off. I didn't have to wonder long, as the striped top under the hoodie began to… twitch? I broke the kiss and looked down -- it almost looked like the construct moving these clothes was flexing its chest, except there was no coordination to it.

“I guess if I had more experience moving around, I could do this more smoothly,” the voice said, from above me. The twitching top floated free from the hoodie, moving behind me and syncing up with the other construct, though the unseen arms never released their embrace.

I reached for the invisible midriff again -- and met nothing but air. The voice laughed. “Sorry, I guess I need more practice. I wanted to make a whole upper body for you to… to play with. But don’t worry, I can still do this.” With that the construct in the hoodie moved back in for another kiss. I just wrapped my arms around the hoodie, which again seemed to enclose an unseen body, even though that impression didn’t extend beyond the edges of the fabric.

Meanwhile the construct attached to the tank top had started to peck at the back of my neck. After a few minutes the voice whispered again from above, “I think I wanna go home with you.”

I grunted and pulled back a little from the construct I'd been kissing, though the one behind me continued on. “Can you do that?” I said.

“Sure,” came the reply. “I got here without any problem.”

“Well, sure,” I countered, “but you went from home -- hers and yours -- to her place of work. If you go home with me, well, where's the connection to Shannon?”

“I thought about that,” the hoodie answered, “and I think I have a solution. I don't know if I still need a connection to her as a person, or just to, um, her body. But I have a few things that should help me out.” At the mention of the word “body” the construct behind me actually let out a little snort, though silently. I'd have to ask about that.

But when the first construct stopped speaking, it actually pulled away from me a bit, and I saw a hair brush and a rolled-up pair of socks float out of one empty sleeve into the center of the empty hoodie. From the other sleeve came a knot cap and another pair of socks.

“Um, OK,” I said, “but if it's DNA or whatever that you need, don't you already have that in you? I mean you the hoodie, plus the outfit you wore under yourself?” And again, the unseen arms wrapped around me from behind squeezed me just a little bit tighter for a couple of seconds.

“The rest of the outfit, maybe, but I was just washed yesterday,” the hoodie said. “And yeah, it may turn out to be unneeded after all. I got here just fine without any mishaps. Didn't lose anything, didn't get 'weak,’ anything like that.”

Hmm. “Sounds like you got it all figured out,“ I said. “But just one thing. When the crop top pulled away from the rest of you, you... weren't able to make a upper body inside yourself.” The construct behind me snorted again, while the hoodie laughed outright.

“What's so funny?” I said, a little defensively.

“You were expecting some invisible tits to play with, right?” The hoodie sounded like it was about to burst out laughing again.

“Um, well, yeah, I was,” I said sheepishly.

“I may figure that out in time,” the hoodie said, “or I may not. But what do you remember from when you were at your desk? Besides the hand in your pocket, I mean.”

I had felt something firm but not hard, soft but not squishy, pressing against my back.

“I see what you mean,” I said. “But what if I had turned around?”

“I wasn't going to let you turn around, because I wanted you to wonder what was happening. But if you had been able to turn around, you wouldn't have found anything you could hold onto.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the hoodie cut me off. “So we both can look forward to seeing how that works out. And if I have a full outfit under me, you'll have plenty of places to put your hands, even without a solid form under the clothes. In the meantime, let me show you something else I can do. Hold up your hands, with your fingers spread out.”

I did, and soon each index finger was taken into an unseen mouth. The hoodie hadn't moved. Soon two more sets of lips were on my pinky fingers, and in seconds each finger was engulfed in a warm, unseen mouth. Both constructs were still in place.

My mind was overloading from all this unseen attention.

“You like?” the hoodie asked in a breathy whisper.

I nodded, rendered unable to form words

“Good,” the voice replied, but from behind me, even as that construct was still nuzzling at my neck. “Then take me home with you.”

Huh?

“I'm taking two of you?” I said.

“You're taking just one of me,” the voice said, this time from in front of me but just above eye level. “I can make like I'm in two places at once, kind of, but I can only speak from one.”

“OK, then, let's go,” I said. “But how do we do this?”

The bathroom door creaked open and I began to panic -- but it was just a shopping bag for the clothes. The items began placing themselves into the bag, which hovered in midair next to me.

First the floating items from inside the hoodie, then the sneakers and pink socks. Then the sweatpants, which playfully bumped their hips against mine before deflating, folding themselves, and dropping into the bag.

Then the construct that had been embracing me from behind finally let go, hovering around to grab me again with unseen arms and kiss me hard on the lips, with an unseen tongue more aggressive than the hoodie's, before floating over to the bag and just dropping limply without folding.

Then finally the hoodie. It held out its sleeves, so I wrapped my arms around it and pulled it into another kiss.

“Tell you what,” the voice said after a few moments. “Give me the directions when we get outside, and I'll drive you home.”

“And how will you do that without causing a commotion?’

“Hello? Did you forget already how I got you in here?”

“Hmm. OK. Just let me get my stuff --”

“All taken care of. I've already logged you out of your computer, straightened your desk, and locked the cabinet over your desk. Only one thing left for you to do.”

“What's that?”

The voice giggled. “You never did clock out.”