Causing Trouble at Steele's Sporting Goods

You think about telling Bridget that you want to go to a lingerie store right off the bat, but then you figure that maybe you should build up to it. You imagine that a super-smart telekinetic girlfriend can probably figure out a way to have fun just about anywhere, but as the two of you walk down the long, wide receiving hallway, you spot a rollaway door and a sign next to it that says 'Steele's Sporting Goods: Returns and Outbound'.

"Hey Bridge, how about a sporting goods store?" She turns to you and smirks, raising an eyebrow as if she wasn't expecting that.

"Yeah, that could be fun." She snaps a finger, and you hear a click on the other side of the door. The rollaway pulls up as it opens to a back room complete with stocking shelves, marketing signs, procedural posters, a few desks and a time clock.

"We're going to go in this way?" You ask, and she grins – nodding back at you. She wanders inside, looking around for a sign of someone else present.

"Of course we are." She shrugs, looking around the stockroom. "After the entrance we made, I think we're going to be doing a lot of things we're not allowed to do." She waves her hands at one of the computers sitting on a desk, and the keys begin pressing themselves as it comes to life. "Ooh, a very big recent shipment..." Bridget said. "Looks like they gearing up for the summer."

As she walks over to some of the higher shelves in the stockroom, you follow right behind her.

"Recent shipment of what?" You ask.

"You'll see," she winks at you as she takes your hand. "I'm gonna save that for when we need a distraction." She lifts herself up into the air with her telekinesis, pulling you with her as you sail toward the double doors leading to the public-facing side of the anchor.

"Hey, Bridget — Bridget…we can't just fly out into the store like this!" She shrugs at your comment and lets go of your hand, allowing you to drift to the floor. She crosses her arms in front of her.

"I thought you were going to trust me," she mopes, frowning at you. You reach your hand back out to hers, and she lets you take it.

"I do! I do trust you. It's just — maybe we could start out a little more subtle before we cause a panic in there." She nods at your suggestion and allows herself to drift to the floor as well.

"Okay, maybe you're right." She looks at the double doors and snaps as they burst open. She grips your hand and leads you out to the sales floor where at least one surprised staffer obviously witnessed the stockroom doors opening on their own. "So if you wanted to start shopping here, what is it that you wanted to get?" You look around the store, knowing that your answer is going to fuel Bridget's newfound taste for causing a scene. You think about some of the things that she can probably do with her telekinesis, and immediately you're drawn to the racks of sports equipment. You look at a couple of the set-up basketball hoops, and you grin at her as you finally have the subtle starter you were thinking up. You whisper something into her ear, and her eyes light up as she giggles.

"I'm sorry I doubted you," she says, pulling you over towards a rack of basketballs. "What do we play, horse?" You nod, grabbing the first basketball you see. "You start," Bridget says.

You look up at a hoop, gauge your shot, and release. The aim isn't perfect, but the ball bounces off the rim and manages to roll in after a couple reflections. You've gotten the attention of a staffer, who wanders over to you both.

"Something I can help you find?" He asks. Bridget holds her hand up as the ball bounces right back into it. Something in the clerk registers that it shouldn't have bounced in that direction, but he holds steady as if he didn't believe what he'd just seen.

"We're just trying a few things out right now," Bridget says, never looking him in the eye. She makes a point to move to right where you had been standing and tosses the basketball aloft, sinking it into the hoop perfectly.

"Nice shot," the clerk says. "If you two, uh, need any help--"

"We'll let you know," Bridget says, holding her hand out as the ball returns to it. This time, the clerk can't help but stare. The ball literally changed direction mid-bounce. "Your shot," Bridget says as she tosses the ball back to you one-handed. "Something harder this time, okay?" You shrug and nod, catching the ball and moving back about 10 feet behind two racks of clothing.

"Guys, if you don't mind — could you keep that in the court area?" The clerk says. You ignore him and take your best attempt at what you guess would be a three-pointer. The release isn't great, but Bridget nods her head the slightest bit, correcting its trajectory and sending it through the hoop with a swish.

"That's a nice shot," Bridget says, looking the clerk in the eye.

"It...was," he responds. "But like I was saying–" He stops as he feels himself pushed out of the way. Bridget doesn't touch him, but as she walks to where you were standing, he's clearly moved aside a bit – not by his own volition. He tries to process it, looking at Bridget, then down around where he was standing, as if he possibly bumped into something...but then Bridget takes her shot.

The thing is, she doesn't really 'take' the shot. It sort of takes itself. She simply holds the ball aloft, and without any visible motion through her arm, the ball lifts itself out of her hands and sails in a graceful arc straight to the hoop.

This time the clerk has to react to it. He looks at the two of you, then at the basketball bouncing unceremoniously.

"This is some kind of joke, right?" Even though he says this aloud, you don't believe he believes it.

"Okay babe, time to be a real show-off." Bridget grins at you, and you're pretty sure you know what she means. The clerk walks toward the settling basketball, but as you approach it, it responds—even though the clerk is closer. It jumps right to your hands, and the clerk audibly gasps.

"Okay," you say. "Half-court." You walk around behind the backboard to a spot 30 or 35 feet away, behind a clothing rack of women's yoga clothes. From this perspective, no single arc—human or otherwise mechanical—could make this shot.

You throw it, and it makes an S-curve, going all the way around the backboard, and hovering over the rim where it settles — spinning in place. You watch the clerk's reaction, which is much the same as before. He looks back and forth at the both of you and asks his question again, this time, stuttering.

“Am — am I being filmed?" Now he nervously looks around for the camera, even though no part of him can justify what he's seeing with special-effects. The ball drops through the hoop, and now he cautiously walks up to it. He looks back at you before he decides to get any closer. "How… Did you do that?" He asks you.

You just shrug him, smiling. Bridget lets out a chuckle, and you know you've played your role correctly.

"My turn." Bridget says. She gives the slightest nod toward the basketball settling on the ground, and the clerk jumps back as it begins bouncing itself into the air. The ball bounces itself right next to where you're standing, and hovers nearby you. Bridget blows it a kiss, and now it covers the same strange arc as your assisted shot. The clerk stands, shaking his head.

"No, really, how did you do that?" Just as you think he's about to snap, Bridget seems to get the ultimate delight out of his reaction. She waves a finger at the other basketballs on the court rack, and they all dislodge themselves at once, bouncing around the court area independent of each other, in no particular pattern. "What the fuck is going on here?" The clerk cries, backing away from the cloud of balls. "Seriously, who are you people?" You're not sure how much further you want to take this situation with this poor guy, but then again, you're not in charge.

Bridget is practically doubled over laughing as the clerk is more upset, racking his brain to find an explanation for all the equipment bouncing around by itself. Your girlfriend has just started, though. With the raise of her eyebrow, you watch the hangers on the clothing rack in front of you begin to sway.

You take a deep breath as the clerk backing away in the opposite direction sees what's beginning to happen. A barrage of clicks from the pant hangers signals the release of dozens of yoga pants from their hangers on the rack, but when they drop out they don't fall to the floor.

The sports bras hanging on the rack no longer drape lifeless — instead, their shoulder straps begin to fill, and the shapely cups turn even more three-dimensional as they begin plumping against themselves, still on the rack. The clerk yelps as he backs into something hard. He turns around to see two hockey sticks, crossed over each other and blocking his retreat. His animal senses almost tell him to try dodging the things until he notices a couple of Louisville sluggers rising from their places in the bat rack. You feel bad for him as he begins mumbling to himself, completely unintelligible.

You look back at your girlfriend. She's watching the clerk with wild eyes, slightly biting her lip as he tries to determine what to do next in this unreal situation.

Just as you think about signaling to her to lay off, you hear a voice in your head.

I'm not going to hurt him, she says in your mind. You turn to her, the look in her eyes reaffirming the message you just experienced. I told you to trust me, remember? She raises her eyebrows at you, and you simply nod slowly. Something about her command of the situation brings your libido to the front of your focus again. You're not exactly sure where Bridget is going with all this, but you trust her promise, and something about the questionable morality of her fucking with someone like this is getting you going again — just like your ride on the way to the mall.

You both look at the clerk again, but he's too busy to notice either at this point. The yoga clothes from the rack began pairing and assembling themselves, filled out to what looks like a yoga class of invisible women of all shapes and sizes. When they all walk toward him, he mumbles something like 'stay back', but at this point he doesn't have the mental capacity or the wherewithal to try to dodge them.

For one, there are too many of them – you figure the rack probably held four or five pairs of each size, and with the extra smalls and 2XLs factored in, that made something like 30.

When they begin to approach, you notice that he's simply staring at the cups of the bras paired up with the yoga pant entourage, and when they engulf him he looks from outfit to outfit, mumbling to himself as they all begin to sway against him.

Satisfied that while his brain is broken, he's certainly not being hurt by these things — you find yourself transfixed by the hollow rear ends of all the shuffling yoga pants — slightly shiny, and every single one of them perfectly rounded. Even on the largest pairs, there wasn't a hint of mis-distributed fat, and the shapes make you wonder how it would feel to grab a handful.

"Gosh, are you jealous?" You snap out of it, turning around. Bridget's right behind you, grinning. "And you are worried about him just a second ago."

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!" A voice shouts from one of the main aisles. You and your girlfriend both look to see a manager, another clerk, and what looks like a security guard. They've sighted the clothing entourage engaging their colleague, and when they look at the both of you, they determine — correctly — that you're a part of this situation.

"That pair in the SUV, what did they look like?" The security guard says into a radio. Before you hear anything else, Bridget grasps your hand and pulls you along with her, laughing all the way as she drags you running through the sporting goods store.

"Now it's about to get really fun," Bridget says.