Amanda Filipacchi - Vapor

“I understand,” said Damon. “Forgive me.” And Damon put the shirt back on as soon as he had bought it.

He then took off his lace pants, and for a few seconds was completely naked from the waist down, which caused the salesman to loudly say, “Excuse me sir, this is absolutely unacceptable in this store. If you don’t put your clothes back on this instant, I will call security, and action will be taken against you, which I can assure you will not be pleasant. You will be punished according to the policy of our store, which consists in being deprived of your privilege to return your purchases for a full refund.”

By the time the man had finished talking, Damon had finished putting on his new opaque pants. I took his lace clothes out of the wastebasket where he had deposited them. I thought this was wise, in case of clothing intolerance or a delayed allergic reaction.

But I wasn’t around him long enough to find out. We embraced each other — he passionately, me tearfully — and he was off to L.A.

Damon’s visit with his brother had lasted a few days and had gone well. It had left him feeling relieved that they had resumed contact, but pained at the sight of his mangled body. What was most upsetting, he said, was the extent to which the child’s death had scarred his brother’s expressions.

After visiting his brother and before returning to me, Damon worked on an invention that had nothing to do with trying to make clouds solid. Even though we spoke on the phone every day, he wouldn’t tell me more about it.

During Damon’s absence, I tried to persuade my parents to accept my relationship with him. I begged them; I even fenced with them willingly. They threatened to cut me off. I threatened to cut them off.

“He’s dangerous. You can’t be safe with him,” said my father.

“Yes, I can be, and I have been, and I will be.”

“Don’t you care what this does to us? You are ruining our health. Not one moment passes these days when we are not stressed.”

“He’s not dangerous anymore,” I said. “What made him dangerous has been resolved. He can even wear opaque clothing now.”

“Oh boy, the mere thought of that dinner and his striptease gives me a headache. It’s easy to say he’s not dangerous, until we find you lying dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“And then won’t you wish you had listened to us,” interjected my mother.

“He’s an extraordinary person,” I said meekly.

“Why? Because he can make small clouds?” said my father. “That’s the most useless thing anyone could ever do. What good is it to anyone?”

“And he’s working on an invention now that sounds very remarkable,” I said.

“I’m sure humanity can do without it.”

Neither they, nor I, made any progress. Perhaps they softened a little more than I did, but they refused to make any promises to behave in a more civilized manner, to stop chasing me in cabs, to stop stalking my building, etc.

The next person I had to deal with was Nathaniel. I had seen him on rare occasions, and he had been acting so miserable since I broke up with him, despite my willingness to remain friends of sorts, that I asked him about it. He finally said: “You broke up with me. I accepted it. You agreed to remain friends. But you haven’t been acting like a friend. You’ve become secretive and uncommunicative.”

“I told you it would be different,” I said. Nevertheless, to make him feel better — or worse, I’m not sure — I told him all about my involvement with Damon.

To my surprise, he was entertained by my story of the cage, and of my meetings with Damon in public places for safety reasons, and of my overall love affair with my own kidnapper.

The only thing he reproached me for was having introduced Damon to my parents.

“What were you thinking?” he said, a bit harshly. “That was an ill-thought-out move on your part; it was bound to fail miserably. Now you may have alienated him.”

I was annoyed by his pessimistic attitude, but said nothing. The visit ended well; Nathaniel seemed in good spirits — considerably cheered up, in fact — to my slight confusion. I wondered if I understood anything about people.

While Damon was away, my friend Jeremy asked me to baby-sit his cat, Minou, for a while. I missed Damon and welcomed the company, even though I was busily working on a film almost every day.

Three weeks after Damon left me and the city, he finished his invention. He still wouldn’t tell me what it was, but said he’d be back in a week and would show it to me then, after doing some more tests on it. He added that he couldn’t wait to see me.

To my surprise, when Damon came back, he was wearing his old transparent clothes. But now he was also wearing huge, clunky metal shoes. I was very happy to see him and hugged him as soon as he walked in the door — or rather, as soon as he wobbled in (due to his weighty shoes). He kissed me and held me tightly. In my arms he felt unsteady, as if tipsy or tired. He sat down in a chair and was smiling expectantly, perhaps waiting for me to say something.

“How’ve you been?” I asked.

“Very well,” he said, nodding and still grinning.

“Have you had trouble wearing opaque clothing?”

“No trouble at all. I’m dressed like this today out of necessity. But don’t ask me about it right now.”

“Did you bring your invention?” I looked at his big shoes.

“Yes.”

He got up and walked to the middle of the room. He unlaced his shoes. So I was right: the invention involved his shoes.

He slipped one of his feet out of one shoe, and then slowly, delicately, slipped the other foot out of the other shoe.

“Do you remember how badly I wanted to make clouds solid?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, I failed. So then I thought: if you can’t solidify them, join them.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He gently hopped once. But the word hop is not accurate because it implies coming back down right away, which he did not do, at least not very quickly and not before having practically reached the ceiling. I understood then what he meant when he said he had joined them.

I felt weak.

Still, the explanation for what I was seeing had to be less far-fetched than that Damon had become a cloud. “Have you become bionic?” I asked.

“No. Just light.”

And he hopped again, and started leaping around the room, like a gazelle, practically hitting the ceiling each time, and doing it in slight slow-motion at that. His white flimsy clothes were fluttering and his blond hair was flowing. He looked like a privileged person.

After a while he stopped and stood in front of me. He took my hand.

“Raise me,” he said.

He was indeed very light. He couldn’t have weighed more than two or three pounds. I continued raising him until he was above my head. I slowly waved him over me.

Once down, he said he wanted to go to the car to get his accessories. He put his shoes back on and went clunking out. I went with him.

He took some bags out of his car, and we went back upstairs.

He opened his carrying case and out drifted a live rat. It floated in the air around us, trying to run away, but going nowhere, really. Minou, the cat I was baby-sitting, was transfixed. I had never seen a more miserable rat or a more excited cat.

“I had to experiment on rats before experimenting on myself,” explained Damon. “I’m sorry about it. I’m not in favor of testing on animals, but I didn’t know what else to do in this case.”

He then pulled out of his shoulder bag some hypodermic needles and a tourniquet.

“Bring out the scales!” he exclaimed.

“What scales?”