It was like a countdown I couldn't see. I knew the summer weather would come, but until I woke up and my phone said at least twenty degrees I'd have to keep waiting.
Some people get super powers and they immediately blow it on a flashy media announcement. They put themselves out there like the next big thing and everyone is amazed as they fly or change shape or melt something with their eyes. But it turns out that when Dave, an insurance broker from Philadelphia, or Yvonne, a C-student attending high school in Vancouver, gets super powers it doesn't make them any more charming or interesting.
Dave tried to leverage his new powers of x-ray vision into a career as a private investigator. Turns out spying on people through their walls isn't any more legal than spying through their windows and he's on probation with some lead sunglasses.
Yvonne became pretty popular at school when she used her new powers of levitation to give rides over the tree line. But just because you can fly doesn't mean you can carry a 140-pound high school student for more than a few seconds and she ended up grounded in more ways than one, with a child endangerment suit filed by litigious parents on top.
Of course there is always the crime fighter route. There are, at last count, forty-five so-called "heroes" trying to rid the streets of New York of crime. Most aren't even from the city and it's not easy to fight crime when you depend on Google Maps to find your way around. Several are wanted for minor infractions and destruction of property, and although there are a few stories of people being legitimately saved from house fires and difficult situations, they are not as common as stories that another "hero" has converted to a life of crime so they can afford their New York rent.
So whatever way you go, celebrity or crime-fighter or crime-doer, getting superpowers is a gamble with bad odds. Like winning the lottery and spending the rest of your life picking up the check: a lot of people who get it say it isn't worth it.
So when I walked into the bathroom one morning, a few days after my eighteenth birthday, and saw a pair of boxer shorts floating in the mirror I locked the door, told my mom i was too sick for school, and started faking retching noises until I had worked out how to go visible again.
It felt weird, like learning to operate a hand I didn't know I had until it just appeared one morning. Changing between visible and invisible took a lot of concentration in the moment, but once a tingling sensation floated over my skin like the fallout of a great sneeze, I could go about business and forget about it and it seemed I didn't change accidentally. What happens while I sleep, I have no idea, but like any perpetually-horny teenager I keep my door shut and locked just in case.
That first day I spent wandering around the house after mom left for work, carrying a mirror, testing different lights and camera filters to see where I may have a weakness, but it seemed like aside from splashing my skin with something sticky (which I figured out when I took a quick cum break) I was just as invisible after several hours as I was when I woke up.
I just had to be naked.
And it was November in Canada.
If these powers really are gifts from a God, as some people believe, then God is a dick with a dumb sense of humour.
In the discussion around super powers that still dominated the news from time to time when a new power was discovered or another former hero went rogue or turned super-villain and was quickly taken down by the FBI, the power of invisibility was a little sidelined. There had been others like me but they had all been arrested for various stupid crimes like trying to rob banks or jewelry stores. Turns out a big floating bag of money draws a lot of attention and there are only so many diamond rings you can shove in your mouth (or elsewhere) before someone in the store notices them disappearing into the air like soap bubbles. The idea of an invisible man hiding out and watching you from the corners was mostly just a meme at this point.
When the power first manifested I made a real effort to think it through and try to imagine all the ways I could help mankind do better and be better. There was the whistleblower route, which had made a few headlines early on. This political science student in Washington DC woke up like I had, a pair of floating boxers in a dorm room. He had seen the possibilities and worked in secret to master the art of naked sneaking.
It was the dying days of the previous administration and the security around the White House had drifted back to a normal level. The plan, according to later reports, was to sneak in, locate key personnel, shadow them as they went about their day, and watch over their shoulders as they unlocked their computers and secure phones. Then he would find an opportunity to snatch one and use it to access secure documents and government secrets.
What he would have found we'll never know because a thermal camera that had been around since the Clinton era caught him entering the side door and he was tripped by a secret service guard who had read enough comic books to know what was up.
If I had grown up in a government town or near a military base that could have alien corpses, or even a particularly large corporation, maybe I would have tried to reveal the secrets of the wealthy and corrupt and get an A on my journalism assignment at the same time. But the reality of his shitty little town was the power of invisibility only had one use -- casual perverted voyeurism.
My first winter with invisibility turned out to be one of the coldest and longest on record. School was a tolerable distraction for a little while, even though not telling anyone was more exhausting than when I had held out not telling them I was gay. Then winter break hit and I was home all day with mom, or going to the mall with some friends, and the temptation to use the power was overwhelming me.
Two days after Christmas a familiar truck engine caught my ears and I rushed to the window over my bed. Out the front of the house, coming down the street, was a forest green Ford with the hottest boy from school behind the wheel. Only half the kids in class even had their learners license, but Nick Powell had his full license and a truck of his own to drive. He slowed down in front of a speed bump that my father had pushed the city to build when I was born. It was something I never though twice about until last summer when Nick started driving himself home from swimming practice, shirtless. Suddenly, four times a week, I was glued to the window for the moment around three-thirty when Nick Powell, windows down, bare arm dangling out, slowed down and gave a tantalizing twelve second look at his tan, bare chest, only slightly concealed by a seatbelt. It was hardly an OnlyFans account, but it was just the glimpse I needed to let my imagination race. The idea of Nick emerging from the changing room, still shirtless, damp shorts drying on his waist, driving in the summer heat, burned a hole in my mind.
Now of course, in the dead of winter, Nick wore a sweater as he drove by. But the images from the summer remained, and I recalled every detail as I sprawled out on my bed, face buried in my pillow. I could hear the truck pull into Nick's driveway a few houses down. So close, yet so far. What would he be doing at home on a Saturday afternoon? Would he strip off that sweater when he got inside? Would he strip off more?
My cock hardened against the mattress. This pressure was too much! I had to do something with this power. There had to be some place to go to see hot guys taking off their clothes!
Part 2
I finally broke down and decided to take a risk. The malls were still packed with shoppers after Boxing Week deals, but I was willing to risk bumping into a few strangers if it meant I got the chance to feel what the sick freedom of invisibility was like.
I borrowed my mom's car and drove an hour away to the larger mall because it had an underground parking garage where I could strip off and get inside without having to dance around naked in the snow. It also reduced the risks if something went wrong and I found myself naked -- and visible -- in public. Most of my grade had holiday jobs in the other malls, and chances are a naked teenager streaking during Boxing Week would make the rumor mill.
I parked away from anyone else and slipped into the back seat, going invisible before quickly pulling off my shirt and jeans and underwear. I piled them neatly on my shoes and socks and looked around once before I stepped out with just the car keys.
The garage was cold but not unbearable. Bare feet on cement was the worst part, but I quickly stowed the keys behind a tire and dashed towards the entrance.
A couple of girls babbled about the order of stores they were going to as I slipped through the door behind them and followed them up into the mall.
Inside the mall I stepped aside into a little corner away from foot traffic. I'd spent weeks imagining how this could go and even scoped out the area a few weeks ago when I bought mom's gift.
My skin prickled as warm and cold air currents blew around my exposed body. The noise of chatter and footsteps and plastic bags and echoing Christmas music was a capitalist cacophony, but once I adjusted and tested out waving my arms and making rude gestures I was feeling a little more relaxed in this new mode.
I took a deep breath and plunged into the current.
The best strategy I could think of was to hug close behind someone so there would be minimal chances of hitting someone crossing sideways. I felt people and their bags slip in behind a little too close for comfort, but on the whole it seemed to work and I was quickly to the other end of the mall where a large food court and grand staircase to the upper levels was the heart of activity.
The short man I was following had six bags tucked under his arms already but he seemed to be puffing his way towards a few more clothing stores. I hadn't been sure where to go so I just followed the man inside and then broke off as I got clear of the crowds.
