Page 6 of My Date With A Pair of Gray Sweatpant

“It doesn’t matter,” she laughs as I pull them toward me. “You’ll never break the spell.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” I spit out as I manage to get my leg into the pants and wake up to the sound of my alarm at full volume, Stanley making painful biscuits against my thigh yet again.

5

In Which Matthew is the Pants

Six 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.

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