Chapter #3Comfort eating by: Unknown The men have all stopped looking at her by now, she thinks, sitting in the food court among other invisible people, spooning the yogurt into her mouth. Its pink contrasts with the pink of her tongue, and she holds it there, savoring it. One of the few pleasures left me, she thinks, and swallows. The yogurt passes down her throat, becoming tasteless as it was before. It was only for that moment, when it lingered in her mouth, that it was, in a sense, real. She swallows another bite. She has grown tired of feeling real.
The other pleasures--if longer-lasting--were more transitory than this, for they came to an end, and she can still always eat. They could pluck out her eyes, stop her ears, do everything but kill her, and she would be able to gorge herself still on yogurt or ice cream or chips or whatever. The pleasure of sex was gone--her young, lithe body naked against Reed's, his advances timid, at first, but soon warming up as they found a rhythm that was completely their own. This was cut short, of course. The pleasure of friendship, also, was gone--the late nights laughing and joking with her brother and Ben, who loved her--who possibly even still would have loved her this way. No way to tell, though. Fighting alongside all three of them, for good or the universe or America, or whatever they thought they held dear, when what they all really held dear was the bond--that fantastic bond--by which they all shaped one another. And slowly, as the other three disappeared into public and private memory, she had also lost her looks. It seemed at first poor compensation, this over-eating, for the world of pleasure she was grieving. But it insulated her, it made her feel safe--and paradoxically, in control. Every day, in the mirror, she watched her body expand to fill the void left by the other three men--brother, friend and lover.
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She does not bother much with becoming invisible anymore. She already is. No one recognized her now--she's let her hair grow out--and her body grow out--and she never wears blue. Occasionally, she uses her powers to spy on ex-lovers and old enemies, just to see what they're up to. She also occasionally strikes up a conversation in a bar with some guy (who would have hounded her when she was thin), watches him become uneasy as he evades her come-ons, and then, quite suddenly, vanishes, leaving him with the realization of WHO it was he had just ignored--Susan Richards, formerly the Invisible Girl.
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She takes another slurp of Coke--the cool, sweet bubbles, the caffeine rush--and looks up. Everyone around her minds their own business. Except for one pair of eyes, taking in the blonde with the double chin whose body has expanded to fill a once-baggy sweater, who is stuffing food in her face and looking warily around her. The pair of eyes think of the svelte crimefighter as she once was, comparing her to the sedentary chunky woman inhaling her food, and they almost give up. Surely this creature is no longer capable of helping anyone.
Almost.
But just then, the former Invisible Woman locks eyes with the intruder and her plump fingers release their tight hold on her food.
"You!" she whispers, and pushes herself up from the table, to face...  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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