Jack was a smart guy, good with computers, but suffered from chronic low self-esteem. He had few if any friends and just couldn't connect with people. Every attractive woman he'd ever see would cross the street upon seeing him, and when he'd stop at the bar, all the young pretty girls hunting for boys would immediately pay their checks and go somewhere else. He felt as if he didn't even look human to them. Over time he fell deeper and deeper into a fantasy world, obsessing over superheroines and their sexy costumes. He once, only once, had a girlfriend, but it didn't last long.
Mistakenly believing she might share his fantasies, Jack had purchased a superheroine costume of mask, leotard, satin gloves, cape and boots. He hoped that upon seeing it she would take the hint to be his fantasy, but she stormed out and left him alone. "You don't want me, you just love that costume!" she yelled as the door slammed. He obsessed over that costume for years, desperately wanting someone to be that dream for him. He retreated from society, purchasing an old cabin in the woods far from others where he lived frugally with a telecommute job, nurturing this fantasy all the time as it was the only thing that could slake his never ending desire for someone to love him and see him as desirable.
Unknown to Jack, the cabin had another resident. Emily was a ghost, a disembodied mind and soul who had never found love when alive. As a ghost, Emily had forgotten who she had been in real life, when she had lived and all memories of family. Previous residents of the cabin had never noticed her at all as she was a quiet, gentle ghost, not a poltergeist. She had tried to speak with them to ease her loneliness but to no avail; she couldn't make things move and no one could hear her disembodied entreaties. Watching people as they came and went, she longed to find a way to connect with someone.
As she watched Jack day by day, she saw he was as lonely and disconnected as her. Observing his obsession with the costume Emily the ghost watched over his shoulder as he read his comics and surfed the Internet vainly hoping to ease his frustration. One night as his desires were at their peak she floated into the closet and attempted to inhabit that costume he held so dear. To her ghostly senses it shone brighter than the sun and seemed more real than any item she had ever seen in the cabin or anywhere she had drifted in the surrounding grounds. As she did, it filled out as if perfectly fitted to a shapely woman, the leotard bulging in all the right places as it floated in the air above the boots yet below the mask.
Tentatively she flexed the gloves and tried to move, finding that she had now become a living costume that could move as if alive. She could see but could not hear, taste or smell. She had a limited sense of feeling, but it was very muted. If she touched something with her gloves she could discern shape and mass, but not temperature. If she bumped up against other objects in the closet with other parts of her costume body, she felt nothing.
Jack's attention was still fixed on his comics as the living costume slowly opened the closet door and quietly moved aside and a little behind him. "Oh, Jack!" she thought. "I'm not fully real, but I would so like to get to know you!" Jack jumped up in the air in complete surprise. Her thoughts had been heard in his head!
"What...are...you?" he stammered, as he backed away. "Don't hurt me!"
Emily was similarly surprised. "You can hear me? Oh, please, all I want is someone I can talk to! I'm so lonely!" Curiosity and desire clashed with fear within Jack, as here was apparently what he had always most desired standing in front of him. But how?
"Are you real?", he said. "Have I lost my mind?" Emily knew how scary this must be for Jack and did her best to keep a safe distance.
"No, Jack. My name is Emily. I am a ghost who has lived in this cabin before you bought it, but I mean you no harm, trust me!"
"How can I hear you? Why are you here, and why do you look like that?" he cried.
"I believe it is because of your strong attachment to this clothing", she replied. "I have wanted to just be able to talk to you and get to know you since you arrived, but have never before been able to interact physically with anything here. I believe your strong feelings and desires have allowed me to merge with it and has given me the ability to speak with you telepathically. I cannot hear, as I have no body, but it seems we have a telepathic connection. As you speak I 'hear' the words you are forming in my mind."
Shaken to his core, he managed to sit down on the couch and tried to process what was happening. "All you want to do is talk?", Jack asked. "That's all?"
"Yes", she thought back at him. "I can feel my connection to these clothes weakening with your fear. Please don't let that happen, I only want the simple joy of companionship."
Looking at this living costume, the object of his greatest desire, curiosity tinged with a tiny bit of lust won out over fear. "OK. I'll do my best to hold that back. Let's try to get to know each other, but please, keep a distance for now."
That was enough, and the man and the costume started to talk. As the night progressed, Jack started to realize there was nothing to fear as the costume had not displayed any powers or been aggressive in any way. Conversation started to flow, and they learned they shared some interests. They both loved to read and learn, she had in ghostly form been watching some of the same TV shows he did, and they both loved the beauty of the woods surrounding the cabin.
The need for sleep overtook him and he soon was unconscious on the couch. Living costume Emily, with no body, had no need for sleep, but spent the night exploring her new existence as the living costume. She could hold things in her gloves as if they were real hands, but she possessed only the strength of a normal woman. Her sight perception was actually somewhat enhanced; she could see not only light, but also heat. "That's handy", she thought. "That makes up a bit for not being able to feel hot and cold." Fascinated by the man before her, she crept closer as he slept, and gently put her glove on his hand. In shock, she realized that if she touched him, it felt warm as if her glove was a real hand! "It must be our connection!" she realized. "I have only the faintest connection to the rest of the world so all I can sense is whether a thing is there or not; but he is my tether to this reality and is thus fully real to my touch!" Thrilled at this shred of human contact that had been denied her so long, she held his hand all night long in her gloves until he started to stir. Not wanting to frighten him, at that point she went to the kitchen.
"I bet he'd like some morning coffee", she thought. As he woke he was greeted with the smell of freshly made coffee and could not figure out how that could be. "I made some coffee for you, Jack" came a gentle voice within his mind. "Please come in to the kitchen and let's talk some more." He went in to find a living costume sitting at the kitchen table, and a hot cup of java at the other side. A gloved hand beckoned him to sit across from her and he heard "Please, join me" in his mind.
He did, and with the resolve that comes with having slept, they started to learn about each other. "Emily," Jack said, "It is somewhat embarrassing that you inhabited that particular costume. That's always been a secret of mine."
