5. In Which Matthew is the Pants

5

In Which Matthew is the Pants

S ix days pass without another “dream.” When I’m not wearing them, I watch the pants carefully for signs of movement. It sounds insane and I feel crazy for expecting the pants to come to life, but he has to be in there somewhere. Right?

During the day, Stanley takes to laying on them. He starts to seek them out, and eventually will only lie on that one pair of pants, making biscuits as he purrs.

Does he know something I don’t?

I try to keep myself busy. Dale’s drag show is on Valentine’s Day and he’s finally reappeared, quiet, but ready to work on his gown. We sit at my table together in silence as he works on the hem by hand. I work from my machine, cursing at it now and then when I inevitably sew in something backwards or upside down. I’m on my third mistake of the evening when Dale looks up and says, “Okay, spill it. What’s wrong?”

I look over the machine at him and shake my head. “Nothing, why?”

“Something’s the matter. Tell me.”

I shake my head and go back to sewing, only to catch the edge of my finger with the needle. “Fuck,” I curse, bringing my finger to my mouth.

“Kat, seriously?” Dale says, eyebrow raised.

I sigh. “It’s so incredibly stupid. I’m afraid to say it out loud.”

He tilts his head and gives me a look. “Even if it is stupid, it still needs to be dealt with.”

“Fine, but just remember… you asked.”

So I tell him everything—the pants, Matthew, and the confrontation with Matthew’s mother.

“So, there are two ways to look at it… your subconscious is going through some shit, or—”

“Or what? You don’t think it could be real?”

He shrugs. “Weird things happen all the time. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, Matthew wasn’t turned into pants, but he was killed by his mom on that day in 1987. Maybe the pants have somehow kept that event and you’re just a witness. Like a residual haunting—”

“A residual haunting of pants?”

“You make it sound weird,” he teases and I give him a half smile. “Can I see the pants?”

“Sure.” I walk over to Stanley and, after a bit of hissing, manage to pull the gray fabric out from under him. “See,” I say, dropping it in Dale’s lap. “Just generic gray pants.”

“I thought you said they were like new. There’s a big hole right here.” Dale pokes through a huge hole in the thigh of the right pant leg.

“Well, they were new, but I guess Stanley owns them now. He keeps digging his claws into them.”

“Maybe if you mended them, it would fix your problem.”

“Problem?”

“Well, you want to help Matthew, right?”

“I–” His question stops me for a minute. Do I want to help Matthew? I mean yes, of course I’d want to help someone in his situation, but this isn’t real. It’s my brain messing with me.

“Even if it’s just your subconscious, what could it hurt to try? The worst thing that happens is that you don’t have the dream anymore.”

And if it’s not my subconscious? What happens when I interfere again with the plans of a woman who can change a person into an object? I look down at the pants, pick up a needle, and get to mending.

***

When I find myself in Matthew’s bed for the fourth time, he’s finally figured out this whole thing. His body is pressed up to mine, still warm, still inviting, but he’s clothed.

“Matthew… Matthew,” I hiss, turning in his embrace and trying to gently shake him awake. “Hmmm…what’s wrong, Kaitlyn?”

“I’m what’s wrong. I’m the wrong Kaitlyn, Matthew.”

“You’re not the wrong Kaitlyn, remember? It’s okay. I don’t think it matters.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”

He clears his throat. “Things have changed since you were last here.”

“Changed?”

“I’ve been stuck here, so I’ve had a lot of time to think about what you said. You know, about what happens between times. And–” he pauses. “Maybe I should just show you.”

“Show me?” All I’m capable of at the moment is repeating Matthew. Something about the tone of his voice fills my belly with dread. He pulls away from me and flicks the bedside lamp on.

For as many times as I’ve said, “It’s the pants,” in the past two weeks, I’m not prepared for what I see.

Matthew is the pants.

I stare at him for a long moment, trying and failing to think of something to say. His entire body is the gray of the sweatpants. Along the top of his forehead, is what looks to be the scrunched up pattern of a waistband. Here and there bunched “fabric” creates lines down his face. It’s like the fabric of the pants has been stretched into the shape of Matthew. I try to school my expression. Whether he buys it, I can’t tell. He looks away from me almost immediately and heads toward the window.

Strangely enough, it's kind of hot. He's still wearing the sweatpants and they sit low on his hips. I can't help but stare as he stands with his back to me, lifting the blinds so he can see outside. There's something incredibly sexy about a man's shoulders and arms. I find myself wanting to get up and run my hands down the now-gray skin of the muscles in his arms and drag my hands over his variegated gray back.

“Well, now you know what you would have been turned into in the Beauty and the Beast house.”

“Huh?”

I shake my head. “Never mind. So what has happened?”

He turns away from the window to look at me. “In reality? Nothing. I’ve been here. Stuck for days like this.”

I cover my mouth with my hand. As usual in this “dream” I’m naked. “Could you throw me a shirt?” He throws me the Mike’s Discount Furniture shirt once again and I pull it over my head.

“Does everything reset when I leave?”

He shakes his head. “Not this time it didn’t. I picked that shirt up off the floor and folded it back up after you disappeared last time.”

“What about your mother?”

He shakes his head. “Haven’t seen her. Once you disappeared, she went back to her room. I haven’t been able to open the door since.”

I’m considering trying to open the door myself when the door down the hall slams again. Purposeful footsteps move toward the door, each one a loud click-click-click against what sounds like a hardwood floor.

Matthew sighs and moves to my side of the bed. “Stay behind me. I don’t know what she’s going to do.” I stand up and move closer behind him as the door is thrown open.

She laughs as she leans against the door frame. This time she’s dressed like an evil version of Dolly Parton—her large breasts are definitely the star of the show. “I see the whore is back.” It takes me a second, because I’m dense apparently, to realize she’s talking about me.

“Mother, she’s not hurting anything. She’s not even the right Kaitlyn.”

The woman laughs. “The right Kaitlyn. It doesn’t matter, my polyester son. That Kaitlyn doesn’t exist anymore–she’s an old woman by now, with grandchildren of her own. She doesn’t think about you. You’re just another man like your father who talks a big talk, then disappears when things get hard.”

As far as I can tell, Matthew’s pretty much fucked at this point. He has to escape this woman, but how the hell do I get him out of here when the only way out is the pants?

It dawns on me in that moment that he is the pants.

I can’t put them on anymore, but I need more time to think.

I stare at Matthew’s gray back, trying to figure out what to do. Even though he is pants, he somehow still has pants on, too. I guess he’s lucky that’s all he had on when she bound him. What if he’d only had on a pair of socks or tighty whities? Would he be a giant pair of underwear? I shudder at the thought.

“Matthew, take a step back,” I hiss. He’s only half paying attention to me as he argues with his mom. Obediently, he takes a step back. I plop down on the edge of the bed and pull his waistband away from his gray skin.

“Kaitlyn, what the hell?”

“I’ll be back,” I promise. As soon as I figure this out.