Chapter 4: The First Experiment

The knock turned out to be their elderly neighbor Mrs. Chen, who'd locked herself out again and needed to use their phone. After twenty minutes of helping her contact the building super and making small talk about the "strange weather patterns" lately—a comment that made Grace and Angie exchange loaded glances—they finally had their apartment back to themselves.

But the interruption had broken the spell of the morning's revelations, leaving them both awkward and uncertain. They spent the rest of the day orbiting each other like binary stars, close enough to feel the gravitational pull but afraid to make contact.

It wasn't until evening, after they'd exhausted themselves with small talk and careful distance, that Angie finally broke.

"We can't just pretend this isn't happening," she said, finding Grace curled up on the couch with a textbook she'd been staring at for an hour without reading a single word.

Grace looked up, noting the determined set of Angie's jaw. "I'm not pretending anything."

"Aren't you?" Angie sat down on the opposite end of the couch, close enough that Grace could feel the heat of her presence but far enough that they weren't touching. "We spent all day dancing around each other like we're afraid we'll spontaneously combust if we get too close."

"Maybe we will," Grace said quietly. "We don't know what triggers it, or how strong it can get, or—"

"Exactly." Angie leaned forward, her blue eyes bright with the kind of intensity Grace had learned to associate with her art projects. "We don't know anything, because we're too scared to find out."

Grace closed her textbook with a soft thud. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting we stop being scared and start being scientists." Angie's voice carried the same conviction it held when she talked about her sculptures or debated art theory with her professors. "We approach this methodically. We test variables. We establish parameters."

"You want to experiment," Grace said, the word tasting strange on her tongue.

"I want to understand." Angie shifted closer, and Grace felt that familiar electric tingle in the air between them. "Don't you? Aren't you curious about what we might be capable of?"

Grace was quiet for a long moment, wrestling with competing impulses. The rational part of her mind screamed warnings about the unknown, about forces beyond their control. But there was another part—a part that had been growing stronger since last night—that thrummed with curiosity and something dangerously close to excitement.

"What kind of experiment?" she asked finally.

Angie's smile was triumphant. "Controlled conditions. We establish rules, boundaries. No physical contact—that way we know for sure whether the connection works without touch."

"And then what?"

"Then you do what you did last night." Angie's cheeks flushed slightly, but her voice remained steady. "You focus on me, and we see what happens."

Grace's heart hammered against her ribs. "Angie—"

"Think about it," Angie interrupted. "If this is really some kind of psychic or supernatural connection, we need to understand it. And if it's not..." She shrugged. "Then nothing happens, and we know we were imagining things."

The logic was sound, even if the implications terrified Grace. She looked around their living room—the same space where everything had started, where the impossible had become possible in the span of a few earth-shattering moments.

"Rules," she said finally. "We need clear boundaries."

"Agreed." Angie pulled out her phone and opened a note-taking app with characteristic efficiency. "No physical contact during the experiment. We stay on opposite sides of the room."

"Time limit," Grace added. "Fifteen minutes, maximum."

"Safe word," Angie said, typing rapidly. "Either of us can stop the experiment at any time, no questions asked."

They spent the next hour establishing parameters with the kind of thorough attention to detail that would have impressed their professors. Distance requirements, verbal check-ins, even a system for documenting what they experienced. By the time they finished, Grace felt slightly less like they were diving into the unknown and slightly more like they were conducting legitimate research.

"So," Angie said, setting her phone aside. "Are we doing this?"

Grace looked at her roommate—her friend, her research partner, the woman whose presence had somehow become the catalyst for something extraordinary and terrifying. Angie's expression was hopeful but patient, waiting for Grace to make the choice.

"Okay," Grace said, the word coming out steadier than she felt. "Let's do this."

They rearranged the furniture, creating clear physical boundaries. Angie positioned herself in the chair by the window, while Grace settled back onto the couch where everything had begun. The distance between them felt both too far and not nearly far enough.

"Ready?" Angie asked, her voice softer now.

Grace nodded, then realized the futility of the gesture and spoke aloud. "Ready."

She closed her eyes and tried to center herself, to find the same mindset that had led to last night's breakthrough. But this felt different—clinical, observed, artificial. How was she supposed to lose herself in sensation when Angie was sitting right there, watching, waiting?

"Having trouble?" Angie asked gently.

"It's weird knowing you're there," Grace admitted. "Last night was spontaneous. This feels..."

"Staged," Angie finished. "I get it. Maybe try focusing on the feeling instead of the performance."

Grace took a deep breath and let her mind drift back to the previous evening. Not to the physical acts, but to the emotions that had driven them. The frustration with Brad, the anger at being treated like an object, the fierce desire to reclaim her own pleasure.

And underneath it all, the growing awareness of what she truly wanted. Not some fumbling college boy or presumptuous pseudo-adult, but someone who saw her clearly. Someone artistic and intelligent and fearless enough to find magic intriguing rather than frightening.

Someone exactly like the woman sitting across the room from her.

Grace felt the first stirrings of that familiar warmth, the electricity that seemed to flow just beneath her skin. She let her hands begin their exploration, trying to forget about the clinical nature of their experiment and focus instead on the growing heat in her body.

But more than that, she focused on Angie. She thought about her sharp smile and piercing blue eyes, about the way she moved through the world with such confidence. She imagined what it might feel like to have those artistic hands mapping her skin, to see that fierce intelligence turned toward the singular goal of Grace's pleasure.

The warmth intensified, spreading outward from her core. Grace could feel the energy building, could sense it reaching beyond the boundaries of her own body. She risked opening her eyes for just a moment and saw Angie gripping the arms of her chair, her pupils dilated and her breathing shallow.

"Grace," Angie whispered, and there was wonder in her voice. "I can feel it. I can feel you."

The confirmation drove Grace higher, the feedback loop of shared sensation amplifying everything she was experiencing. She let herself sink deeper into the fantasy, imagining Angie's hands, Angie's mouth, Angie's body responding to every touch.

The energy in the room grew thicker, more tangible. Grace could see it now—a faint shimmer in the air between them, like heat waves rising from summer pavement. And still she climbed higher, chasing the peak that had eluded her with every previous partner.

When it hit, it was even more powerful than the night before. The pleasure crashed through her in waves that seemed to echo between their bodies, amplifying and rebounding until Grace couldn't tell where her sensation ended and Angie's began. She heard Angie cry out, saw her arch in the chair as if touched by invisible hands.

But this time, Grace kept her eyes open. She watched as the shimmer in the air coalesced into something more solid, more visible. Light seemed to flow between them in ribbons of gold and silver, and the very air sparked with energy that made her skin tingle.

And then, impossibly, the houseplant on the windowsill behind Angie began to glow.

The small succulent—a boring little thing Grace had bought to make their apartment feel more adult—suddenly burst into radiant bloom. Flowers that had never existed before unfurled from its thick leaves, glowing with the same golden light that flickered between Grace and Angie. The plant's ordinary green transformed into deep, rich emerald, and its new blossoms pulsed in rhythm with their shared heartbeats.

"Holy shit," Angie breathed, turning to stare at the transformed plant. "Grace, are you seeing this?"

Grace could only nod, too stunned to speak. The plant continued to glow for several more seconds before the light gradually faded, leaving behind perfectly ordinary flowers that definitely hadn't been there five minutes ago.

They sat in absolute silence, both staring at the evidence of something that shouldn't have been possible. The air between them still hummed with residual energy, and Grace could feel Angie's presence like a warm current flowing through her veins.

"We made a plant bloom," Grace said finally, her voice barely above a whisper.

"We made a plant glow," Angie corrected, her scientific mind apparently still functioning despite what they'd just experienced. "And grow impossible flowers. And..." She looked down at herself, then at Grace. "We shared that. Completely. I felt everything you felt."

Grace pulled her robe tighter around herself, suddenly aware that they'd crossed a line from which there might be no return. "This isn't just about us anymore, is it? If we can affect plants, if we can make things grow and change..."

"Then we're dealing with something much bigger than we thought," Angie finished. She stood and moved closer to the plant, examining the new flowers with the same intensity she brought to her art. "These shouldn't exist. Succulents don't bloom like this, and they definitely don't glow."

"What does this mean?" Grace asked, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

Angie turned back to her, and there was something in her expression that made Grace's pulse quicken—not with arousal this time, but with a different kind of anticipation.

"It means," Angie said slowly, "that we're not just connected to each other. We're connected to something larger. Something that can change the physical world."

She reached out and touched one of the impossible flowers, and it pulsed briefly with renewed light at the contact.

"And I think," she added, her voice filled with equal parts excitement and apprehension, "that we've only just scratched the surface of what we're capable of."

Grace stared at the glowing plant, at her roommate's amazed expression, at the evidence of magic sitting on their windowsill, and realized that their quiet college life had just become something else entirely.

The question was: were they ready for whatever came next?