32. Emory
Emory
The following night, at the foot of the bed, a helmet with a pair of binoculars affixed to them rested in wait.
The idea had come to Emory in a dream, and at morning’s break, he dug through his trash bag of belongings.
Thankfully, they’d not broken in transit.
He’d purchased the helmet with several years’ worth of savings and stipends that were meant to go toward books and food.
With his invisibility project ever swirling in the back of his brain, he chose instead to lead a meager life and invest in this—a helmet that he would’ve used to monitor Marvel Jr. had Anderson not cruelly mousenapped him.
That evening, he formed entirely new plans for the sunken investment.
“Emory?” Gerard called when he entered the apartment, looking around.
Emory tapped his invisible toe against the helmet. “Over here.”
Gerard unloaded the dulcimer, his satchel, a bulging shopping bag, and then took off his coat all while wearing a suggestive smile. “Naked and waiting, huh?”
Once Emory had gotten the walkie-talkie message that choir rehearsal was running a bit late, he cleaned up his work, showered, and tried his best to replicate Gerard’s impeccable setup for sex.
God, he needed more sex after the previous night’s foray.
But he downplayed his yearning to not come across as too greedy.
“Something like that.” Emory tried out a purr.
“Sorry we went long. We didn’t even get through everything.
” Gerard untied his boots at a normal speed that Emory assessed as achingly slow.
His desire kept mounting, making him impatient.
“Regina was drilling our harmonies. She wants to make sure they are tight for the big performance, but as soon as she saw how tired we all were, she decided not to hold us any longer and that we could return to the songs fresh in the morning. Then everyone got to talking about the storm that’s expected to land sometime tomorrow evening. ”
“How bad is it supposed to be?” Emory asked, mind elsewhere.
Gerard shrugged. “We said enough prayers that everyone seems to think it will skip the island entirely, if that tells you anything.” He made a goofy face.
“It’s a tropical storm. Nothing the island hasn’t seen before.
They’re just worried about the wind speeds, given everyone will be out and about. ”
Gerard strode over to the end of the bed and touched the helmet. “What’s this?”
Emory gathered himself. “Remember last night when you mentioned how warm I was?”
“How could I forget?” Gerard said, grin growing but only on the right side, giving his symmetrical face an imbalance that Emory found fetching.
“These are thermal binoculars. I bought them with the intention of using them in my experiment when I assumed I wouldn’t be the test subject.
” In many ways, experiencing his work in his own body gave him a unique perspective.
While he still saw an immense value in his discovery, the discomfort and uncertainty he’d endured up until that point was a stab into his hard-shelled doggedness as it became subtly clearer that perhaps in his rush to see results and beat Anderson to publication, he’d lost his ability to be objective, which was a touchstone of science.
Gerard fingered the chin strap on the helmet. “What will this do for me?”
“It will show you a thermogram … of me…” Nervousness invaded his voice.
The bandages and the makeup obscured his features in clownish ways.
Naked beneath the powerful lenses of the binoculars, Emory’s slender body would be on full display in moving patches of red and yellow.
“They detect and display infrared radiation. Essentially, I’ll be a moving heat map for your eyes only. ”
“Wait—you’re saying that I could see you?” Gerard asked.
“In theory, yes.” Emory worried Gerard might not like what he saw. Maybe his torso was too slim or his ass was too flat or his knees were too knobby. But everything was already in motion. And he wanted to be bold.
“Won’t this,” Gerard said, “get in our way?”
“I was thinking you’d only wear it if I…” Try as he might, he still couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Getting this far—initiating sex—was enough of a challenge.
“Topped me,” Gerard finished for him. If Gerard had already donned the helmet, Emory knew his head would’ve turned the deepest shade of red the thermogram could display.
“Only if you still want to.” Emory’s words were shaky.
“Oh, I want to,” Gerard said. He gave Emory a delicious kiss before disappearing into the bathroom to ready himself for what would be a pivotal experience in Emory’s life.
Hours later, laughter from outside woke Emory with a frantic start.
He hadn’t slept that deeply in years. Sex tuckered him out.
Being inside Gerard had sent his body into a heavenly tailspin, and the comedown made him crash straight into the pillows, energy sapped from every muscle in his body. Lights out.
A vivid dream had materialized right away.
Most nights, he’d dreamed about Gerard. That night, instead, he saw hair clips, asphalt littered with crushed candy wrappers, and his own cold, shaking hands.
They weren’t kid hands like they had been before.
They were his adult hands, newly calloused from playing guitar and scratched up at the backs from overwork.
Awake, the laughter—closer now—was followed by a bang, a splat, and a low, nearly inaudible thud. Any chance at remembering his dream fully evaded him as worry pinged through the room.
Is someone trying to break in?
He blinked the crusties from his eyes and checked the bedside clock. It was a little before midnight. His stomach roiled even as he stayed stuck in bed. Still naked, Gerard slept peacefully beside him, blithely unaware of the approaching chaos.
A firm but muted knock came from the front door.
Inhabiting that groggy space between dream and reality, and with some protective instinct kicking in, Emory slipped on his robe and tiptoed to the door to inspect.
Sex-drunk and sleep-addled, when the knock sounded again, he opened the door quietly so as not to wake Gerard.
Below the landing, in the yard beside Regina’s house, he could just barely make out movement. The moon reflecting off the bay lent the only light to the scene of toilet paper dangling from tree branches and a shockingly white carton that appeared to be floating midair.
At first, Emory worried this was Anderson—he’d replicated his serum and come to gloat of his achievement—until the carton came closer.
There were at least four people out there.
The reason they couldn’t be seen was because they blended in, clad all in black.
Ski masks, gloves, turtlenecks. The figures weren’t tall, and their laughter was high-pitched, so they couldn’t have been more than young teenagers.
“Gotcha, mister!” came a shout from the steps to his right.
The first thing Emory saw when he turned was a speckled brown egg sailing through the air before it collided with his cheek. The second thing he saw were the frightened eyes of a teenager framed by a woolen mask.
The egg guts dripped down Emory’s yelping face.
Emory’s yelping face that couldn’t be seen.
Stumbling back inside, he slammed and locked the door.
Finally, Gerard stirred. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?” His voice bobbed in a sea of sleepiness.
Emory wasn’t sure what was worse: the sting of the yolk in his eye or the fact that he’d unwittingly revealed his invisibility to a prankster. “I’ve been hit.”
“Hit?” Gerard sprang up and turned on a light. His initial panic visibly subsided when he marched into the kitchen and must have realized that the liquid on Emory’s face was egg and not blood. “Who did this?”
“Some teenagers were vandalizing the house,” Emory said, breath still wedged up in his chest. “I think … I think one of them saw me.”
“You and I both know that’s impossible.” To remove the drying residue, Gerard ran a warm, damp paper towel over Emory’s face.
“I wasn’t thinking when I answered the door.” Emory remained undeterred by Gerard’s attempt at reassurance. “You can see my robe. You can see the egg. The kid saw it, too. Dripping down an invisible face.”
“It’s dark out. The kid probably didn’t know what he was seeing. He’s running on adrenaline and preholiday candy. I’m sure it’s fine.”
Emory let those words sink in and sat himself at the kitchen table. “But why did they come here dressed like that?”
“Because it’s mischief night.” Since the first paper towel didn’t complete the job, Gerard wet a second at the sink. “Well, it was. It’s after midnight now.”
“Mischief night?” Emory stammered out the question.
“Yeah. You’ve never heard of mischief night? Kids go out on October thirtieth to raise hell and play pranks on unsuspecting adults. They got you pretty good.” Gerard’s care curdled as Emory snuck his own glance at the clock over the stove.
Past midnight? October thirtieth? His whole body froze.
It was Halloween.
Words lodged up in Emory’s throat. He wished the holiday didn’t have such a viselike hold on him, making air harder to breathe and thoughts impossible to express.
Given the ample distractions, he’d nearly forgotten all about it.
The calendar had been more for tallying the number of days he’d been invisible than for tracking the passage of time.
He abhorred the holiday. Cursed it all—from the songs straight down to the decorations. On October 30, every year, he stocked up on essentials, and on October 31, he hunkered down inside a quiet, dark room, reading until the hullabaloo passed and he could pretend it never happened.
This was much harder when he was still in school and teachers made the class paint pumpkins or cut out paper bats, but when he became an adult, he vowed to extricate the day from his life. As far as he was concerned, the calendar only contained 365 days if it was a leap year.
“You okay?” Gerard asked.
“Yes,” Emory lied.