In daylight the visible rays blanked out all infra red visibility. Possibly just as well as a hot day, or a fire in a room, could have been a blinding...experience. But, with time I could tune down the visible light receptors (without closing my eyes, which blocked the infra-red receptors too of course), and tune up the heat and infra-red. The result then was that I could see through objects. Living objects that is. A plain piece of wood was the same at 2 inches or 10 inches.But a body was a. ” He looked exactly like what I expected Bill to look like if he were in his early forties. He was six feet tall with a slightly receding hairline, just a touch of grey in his dark brown hair and that infectious smile. Bill’s dad had lost his wife to cancer about five years ago; as far as I knew, he had not formed any female attachments.I walked over with Mom, stuck out my hand, and said, “Hello, Mr. Carter.”“Good to see you, Ted.” he shook my hand, looked at my Mom, and asked, “Are you going. Princess." I mumbled."Well, you have exactly five seconds to get back on your feet, or I will double the intensity of those kicks." She warned, quite ominously.Oh, fuck! I thought. "Five!" She hollered, starting her countdown.My head was reeling with the pain."Four!"Resisting my urge to curl up into the fetal position and die, I desperately tried to lift myself from the floor."Three!"Clambering onto my knees."Two!"Slowly forcing myself up..."One!"...onto my feet."Stand up properly, you fucking. "Gradually, as a few weeks passed, and then a month, and then two months, they found it was easy to act like step-siblings at school, calling each other brother and sister and achieving a sort of public level of peaceful coexistence with each other. People expected them to learn to get along, so they gradually did that. But it was clear to their friends that their relationship was based on the tolerance required of two young people who had been forced into close contact. They were, as things.