Chapter 4: Pockets are just the best...

[Amos]

"What are these?" Ityira asked, and I turned around to look at her. She had gotten dressed in the bathroom and was now standing in the living room wearing her borrowed clothing. I couldn't help it, I looked her up and down. The shirt I lent her did not fit her even slightly, it was both too long and to tight around the chest, and in it it was apparent that she wasn't wearing a bra, moving on before my eyes got me in trouble I went down her body, and saw that the shirt was just short of covering the area her legs came together at. The shorts were too long, and to wide, making them capris like on her but not really tight enough to be capris. "Amos?" She asked and the sound of her asking me a question stoped both my wondering eyes and mind. My eyes focused back on hers and she rose a single eyebrow, though whether it was mocking or simply questioning I had no way of knowing.

"What?" I asked, looking at her, and making an attempt to not have my eyes wander lower to her che- 'Nope, Nope, gotta stop doing that, don't even think about it,' I chided myself in my head. I followed her gaze and found that she was exploring the pockets on her shorts. "Those are pockets?" I said it more like it was a question than an answer, and she looked at me.

"And what are these pock ets used for?" she asked, annunciating the word weirdly, almost like it was two words and not one.

"You put stuff in them," I said and to demonstrate I pulled out my phone and then slid it back in. She watched me do it and then looking down at her legs she broke into a smile. Before I could stop her or even ask what she was doing she was snatching things up and putting them in the multitude of pockets sewn on her shorts. The remote to the tv went in her right front pocket, followed by a coaster, and then a rolled up magazine, The salt shaker went into the left one and soon was joined by a water bottle. My ps4 controller ended up in one of the side pouches, and she smiled like a cat well pleased with itself. "You have some on the back as well," I said jokingly, but as I did so her hands went back to her backside and she found the two back pockets, slipping her hands into them.

"These-" she let out a breathy sort of whoosh of air, "these pock ets are wonderful, "she said. "I could hold all of my reagents and have my hands free and still have room in the satchel!"

"What you don't have pockets in what was it called again?"

"Holtrasta," she informed me, and then shook her head. "I used to carry all my ingredients and reagents in a satchel, but then I would have to take the satchel off and look through it, if I had pockets then I could easily have access to the most needed reagents that I had stashed!" She bounced up and down, and I did my damndest to not stare at her chest when she did so, especially considering there was two rather suspicious points on the otherwise smooth surface that tightly pressed against the shirt.

"I see, well then we will have to make sure whatever clothing we get you it will have propper pockets," I said, smiling at her, making sure to keep eye contact and not look anywhere else. Those things were seriously dangerous…

I pulled out my phone and checked the bank app, looking to see how much I had saved up. It was thursday, which meant I was going to get payed tomorrow, so it was no big deal if I spent a little, plus it was the middle of the month which meant no bills. As I watched the little logo of the bank icon spinning I started questioning the ease with which I had stepped into this provider role, I mean, I didn't owe the girl anything, I hadn't even had a one night stand with her, and yet here I was about to go out and buy clothes for her.

What was she going to stay here? Did I just get a room mate? A girlfriend? I barely knew the woman, and yet here I was being a fucking white knight for her. I was far from a fucking simp, or at least I hoped I was-

My musings were interrupted by the chirp of the bank app as it loaded my account info and displayed the numbers on screen. I sighed at the rather low number, and attempted to cheer myself up by thinking of pay day tomorrow. I would have enough to buy her clothes, and even a pair of shoes or something, but thank God she decided to show up when she did, as I doubted I would be comfortable getting her things if payday wasn't tomorrow. Besides, if she wanted to stay here she would need to get a job.

That thought caused me to pause, it was a problem that just occurred to me. If she was, as she claimed, from another reality, how exactly was she going to get a job? She had no social security card, no Id, no birth certificate,hell, she had less papers than an illegal alien. I racked my brain but couldn't think of a single way to fix this, at least, not right then. Resolving to do a little research later and figure out what the fuck to do, I pushed the question to the side, I had things to do right now, and a limited time to do them. I looked over at her and found her in the process of stuffing yet another thing into her pockets. The shorts were bulging, the fabric of the pockets expanded past their limit and firmly into the 'gonna bust a seam' territory.

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"What are you-" she looked up at me, that massive smile still in place and I stopped talking and simply shook my head at her, fighting the urge to smile back. "Alright, let's go, but uh, leave the stuff here please?" I asked and she nodded and started pulling things out of her pockets, an impressive amount of things, they formed a pile on the coffee table and if I hadn't seen her pull all of it out I doubted I would have believed that it had all fit. Checking my own pockets for keys, phone and wallet I led her out of the apartment and down the stairs towards my car.

I didn't normally drive it, seeing as work was only a short distance away, only on occasions like this, where I was going to be heading in to do some shopping. It was an old 1999 ford taurus, dark red, and had a rather deep dent in the back quarter panel where some asshole had hit me when I was parked at college. It still pissed me off even though I had stopped going to college well over a year ago, much to my parent's dismay. The dent was about a handspan or two wide, and three or four inches deep, and while I had never found out who had done it, and trust me I had tried, walking up and down the school isles, looking for a vehicle that had red paint on it, I still strongly suspected that asshole Mack Simmons.

Me and Mack used to be good friends in middle school, but that had changes some time in high school when he had decided I and the rest of the people he had hung out with were not the right crowd to be seen hanging out with. He had changed his appearance over night, new clothes, new attitude, worse attitude rather, and in general just becoming a major douche. Not the 'look at me I'm the football superstar' sort of douche, more like the 'I wear plaid and have a man bun' sort of douche.

Now, I have nothing against plaid, fuck I have a couple of work jackets of my own, but I don't tend to pair them with skinny jeans and skater shoes either, so you know. Anyway, he was the sort of person who not only abandoned his friends overnight, but just to prove he wasn't one of us he would target me and my friends, and I wasn't the sort of guy that would take shit like that. What had resulted had been a sort of escalation of attacks that had morphed into a sort of covert cold war. In front of others we were civil enough, hell even to each other we were civil, but in the dark behind everyone's back we were arming the fucking nukes.

My car may have ended up with a dent, but his, mysteriously, ended up with about a gallon of water in the gas tank. Fyi, the whole sugar in the gas tank thing is just an urban myth, it doesn't do shit, it might clog the filter, but it's not a sure thing, if you really want to fuck someone over pour in some water. Gasoline floats on top of water, so if you pour in several cups of water, the fuel pump will fill the fuel lines with water instead of gasoline and the car would have some major problems.

Not that I would know anything about that…

I loved my car, sure she was nothing to write home about, but she was the first and only vehicle I had ever purchased. I had gotten her when I was 15, paid a single grand for her and ten years later she still ran, granted the wiring harness was shot to shit, and I had to bypass it with a starter tester kit, wiring it from the starter to the battery and then mounting the button under the steering column, but still, she ran.

I opened the door and slid in. Ityira looked at me through the window and I patted the passenger seat next to me, she nodded and walked around the car to the passenger side. For a second I thought I would have to get out and show her how to open the door, but she was able to figure it out pretty quick. She slid inside and shut the door behind her and looked over at me, eyebrows raised.

"What sort of conveyance is this?" she asked. "Does the teamster come out and hook up the horses?" It was at that moment I realized there was a fundamental problem with taking Ityira out into public. If she asked questions like that we would undoubtedly draw attention to ourselves, more attention than even her ears would.

"It is a car," I said slowly, carefully thinking through my words. "It doesn't use horses, you give it a liquid called gas and it moves itself," I said, and was pleased to see the light of understanding shine in her eyes.

"Oh, so it is an automaton then?" she asked.

"Sorta," I said with a half shrug, it would seem that automatons were big in her world, seeing as she had brought them up numerous times now. "Listen, asking things like that, those are things most people already know, its common knowledge here, so if you ask things like that-"

"I would draw attention," she said, nodding her head in understanding." I shall endeavor to keep my questions to myself until I can ask you when no one is around," she smiled at me, and I couldn't help but smile back.

"Cool," I said, and buckled my seat belt, seeing this she mimicked my movements and clicked her own into place.

"Can I ask questions now?" she asked as I inserted the key, turned it to the start position and reached under the steering column to push the starter test kit button. The taurus purred to life.

"Go for it," I said as I straightened back up and shifted into drive.

"What exactly does cool mean in this context?" she asked, smiling I told her, and she nodded, looking thoughtful. "Cool," she said.