"Thanks for the great evening. I really enjoyed our date." Lilly kissed him. "And thanks for bringing me home." She kissed him again.
He looped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer.
"And..." Out of excuses, she just kissed him a third time.
"What was that last one for?" Frank was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"For being a great kisser." She lingered in his arms indecisively for a few moments, glancing at her door.
"What is it? Deciding whether to invite me in?"
She bit her lip nervously. "I want to. But..." She sighed. "Oh darn it. I really like you." She looked him in the eyes earnestly, "Frank, there's something I should tell you before we go any further."
Frank was a bit perturbed by how the mood had suddenly turned serious. "I don't need to be worried, do I?"
"No," she said. And under her breath, "not as worried as me."
Whatever it was, he could see in her eyes this was a crossroads Lilly had more than once walked away from alone, and hurt.
He followed her as she led him inside.
"I'll make us some coffee. Have a seat."
After pouring Frank and herself a cup of coffee, she excused herself to change.
When she returned a few minutes later, she was wearing shorts and an over-sized T-shirt, and clutching a huge teddy-bear to her chest. This was the most casual Frank had ever seen her.
One defining characteristic of Lilly, as he'd known her until then, was that she always wore a corset. He'd assumed at first that she wore it because she was a goth, but he'd had it backwards. She'd told him she wore it for medical reasons, but without going into further detail. The goth style had developed around that. The blue hair and lacy dresses were a perfect cover, something to excuse wearing a corset.
Lilly dropped into the large armchair across from Frank. She pulled up her legs and sat cross-legged. She parked the bear in her lap, arms wrapped around it, and leaned her chin on it's head. Then she just stared at Frank for a while, considering how to broach the subject.
"The thing is," Lilly stretched her arms out in front of her and leaned into the bear, "I don't have a waist."
Frank raised his eyebrows slightly, either he was misunderstanding, or she was making a bigger deal of it than she needed to. "I really don't expect it to look as thin as the corset makes it look, if that's what you're worried about."
"No, I mean it's not there." She gestured with her hands on the bears stomach. "This part, between the chest and the pelvis, it's gone."
Frank looked at her uncomprehending.
Lilly sighed. The condition she was born with was too ridiculous to describe by words and expect it to be believed by someone over seven. There was only one way to make him understand. "Here, let me show you, but... Please don't freak out... too much."
She set the bear down besides the chair and breathed in to steel her nerves, then lifted her shirt up to her chest.
Frank blinked. He was staring at the back of the chair, right through where her belly button should have been. And he could see the back of her shirt being pulled into the gap from how she was holding it. "That's... peculiar."
"Hah. Peculiar. That's the understatement of the year." She put her shirt back down. "It's absurd. Preposterous. A cosmic joke. The midwife delivering me had a nervous breakdown and quit her job. My father disappeared on us. My first boyfriend never even came back to school after..." She grabbed the teddy and buried her face in the back of its head.
Frank gave her a few seconds to gather herself. "Lilly, I won't deny it's weird, and it might take some getting used to. But if I can be frank with you...", he paused a moment, "then you can be Lilly with me."
Lilly looked up at him, and burst out a snort of laughter, tears still fresh in her eyes. "God, Frank, that's a terrible joke."
"I know." He grinned. "I suppose this dashes my dream of ever seeing you in a crop-top, and showing off your belly button to all my friends to make them jealous."
He walked over to her and bent down to kiss her. Then took her hand and pulled her up. "I'm not going to give you up that easily." He hooked his arms around her and pulled her closer. They looked at each other, and then looked down. He'd only managed to pull the bottom of her shirt through the waist-gap.
"Frank." She took his hands, one in each of hers, and looked up at him intently. "If you want to grab me," she planted his hands firmly on her ass, "do it here."
Honestly, I had named him Frank before thinking of that awful pun.
I just tried to think up the weirdest secret I could at the moment.
Also, I think her abdomen crosses into another dimension. It's there and connects both halves, but with a detour. But the story's too darn long as it is without shoehorning in a sci-babble explanation.
