Super Born: Seduction of Being

by Keith Kornell

  On my birthday, the big thirty three, I just wanted to feel “normal” again. I was hoping some shopping and errands would help—those open-toed Italian shoes I had been wanting would be a good birthday gift to myself. But after I was told, at my first stop, that the phone Paige had dropped in the pool at swim club would not be covered under the warranty—and getting a new one drained my checking account down to nothing—the joy of being “normal” somehow felt pale. There would be no money left for a birthday celebration for me, and no one with whom to share it.

  As I stood outside the shoe store with Paige’s new phone, staring down at those open-toed beauties I could have worn Saturday night, I thought about my empty wallet and nonexistent checking balance. Then I thought of flying and catching that truck—and felt like two different women, tearing away from each other; one so powerful, and one so powerless.

  As I left the store window, I was feeling alone and sorry for myself. It was my birthday. Not that I expected a national holiday or a parade, but someone who cared, other than my crazy sisters, would be nice. Maybe I would just go home. Maybe that black poodle from upstairs wasn’t busy. Instead, I walked into O’Malley’s Bar for a drink.

  Chapter 2

  The Night My Life Changed Forever

  My name is Logan. This journal documents a quest that has transformed me from the disbeliever that I was to all that I’ve become.…Okay, still working on the “all I’ve become” part, but you get the idea.

  Even now, just thinking of her absorbs every feeling and thought in my head and hardens my…resolve. There was the way the sun glistened in the various shades of blond of her hair, the way the moonlight shimmered off her lips before that kiss on the rooftop, the way her whole face smiled before she laughed, her sarcastic humor that always left me guessing, and the way her skin glowed wherever I touched her as we flew over the city that night. Yes, mine was the ol’ boy meets superwoman, boy loses superwoman, boy spends rest of his life (and money) searching for superwoman story. I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times before…no? Well then, this is your lucky day.

  I should forewarn you. If you are the lucky one who finds this journal, just sit back, get a drink and a snack, and prepare to enjoy a stimulating tale of romance, adventure, and wild, unbridled sex. You can read about all those things after you finish my journal. It’s not that long.

  My tale begins on the cold, cloudy evening last January. I had contacted a budding young PhD professor and researcher in psychology from Pennsylvania State University, Rashid Patel Jones. Dr. Jones was the son of learned immigrants, his father a renowned environmental engineer, his mother a brilliant psychologist at Penn State, often seen on Oprah.

  Dr. Jones was hungry to eclipse the brilliance of his parents. I could sense that hunger in his energy on the phone, and in his determination to convince me of his theory. After years of effort, he had created a startling theory that encompassed cutting-edge research from both his father and his mother’s fields, and now he was trying—no, I should say was consumed by the need—to prove his theory to the world.

  Personally, I rated him a jack-off, but I thought there was a paycheck in his story. Boy, was that an understatement…the paycheck part, I mean…well, maybe the jack-off part too.

  After briefly flirting with success writing for magazines in New York after college, my career had dropped to writing for small newspapers and then to freelance articles to pay the bills. I wasn’t a lousy writer, just an unmotivated one.

  I sold the editor at the Times on the idea that Jones’s story had local appeal, and Jones granted me an immediate interview. Even after he found out I was only a freelance, rarely published writer and part-time bartender, he still honored the interview. Damn, he must be desperate, I thought. I know now that my not being born in Scranton allowed Jones to use me as Super Born Bait, but at that point I chalked it up to my magnetic personality, dynamic prose, keen intellect, and dazzling charm.

  Rather than spend hours on scientific mumbo jumbo that would probably shoot right over my aching head, Dr. Jones insisted that it would be much easier to demonstrate his theory in the field. He suggested that we meet at nine o’clock at a beat-up, fifty-year-old house converted into a bar and grill called O’Malley’s in the nearby city of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

  Scranton had once been the fourth-largest city in Pennsylvania, but had been struggling through decades of economic and population decline. Jones had developed a radical theory to explain the downturn; Scranton was the center of his research, and had become his home away from home. On the phone Jones spoke of Scranton the way a man would speak of the woman he loved—or at least a good, inexpensive mistress.

  When I finally arrived at run-down O’Malley’s, I had to circle the block to find a parking space on the street. I slammed my car door, case in my hand and lap top over my shoulder, the consummate professional writer. (Is that what one looks like? I didn’t know, because the articles I wrote tended to end up lining the bottom of birdcages before they were read…if you know what I mean.) When I first saw the peeling white paint, blinking sign, and sagging gutters of O’Malley’s, I could see that its decline paralleled the slump of the city itself.

  I started the short walk to the front door, determined to make the project with Dr. Jones work. I needed some money from somewhere. The tank was empty, if you know what I mean. I needed to completely focus on Jones’s work.

  But instead of keeping my focus, I couldn’t help but notice this chick walking by. Whoa, look at the major-league yabbos on her, I thought as the long haired brunette slithered by with her coat open, revealing a “Ravage Me” low-cut dress. Not that “Ravage Me” was a brand name or a designer or anything, but maybe it should be. I made a mental note to my Get Rich Quick List to start a line of women’s clothing with that name just before I ran head on into O’Malley’s hole-in-the-wall entrance. What made it worse was the fact that Miss Ravage Me laughed at me as she walked away, fully aware of what her slinky dress had done. Now where was I? Oh, yeah, focus.

  I pushed through the doors of O’Malley’s promptly at 9:27 to be greeted by the stale smell of yesterday’s beer. I found Dr. Jones immediately, despite the dim lighting in the bar. There was only one man there that could be him. He was a short, dark man in his late twenties, wore glasses with thick frames, and had a gigantic, endearing smile, like a lap dog ready to pounce. Compared to him, I felt like a giant with my six-foot-two-inch, okay, six-foot…five-foot-ten-inch, cyclist’s build…okay, working on the cyclist part. (Hey, I did own a bike…once…)

  He greeted me with an endlessly pumping handshake that proved tough to break. After a minute, I pulled away and we sat at a table in the middle of the bar.

  Jones gestured with open arms to the room around us. “There, do you see?” he asked.

  I looked around, not wanting to feel stupid or intimidated right away…I’d save that for later. “Just what am I looking at, Professor?” I asked, opening up my laptop and trying to look professional.

  “Just look, look my friend. Tell me what you see.”

  I looked around the bar. “Well, over there I see two young men. One is trying , to ‘pull’ the ‘push’ door to the backroom—with no success, I might add. The other guy is standing too close to the men’s room door and is repeatedly pulling it open into his face. Over there, I see a guy trying to get onto a bar stool and, every time he does, he slides off onto the floor…what assholes!”

  “Good, good,” said Jones excitedly. “And in the backroom, can you see what is happening there, my friend?”

  The lights were starting to come on in my head. “I see five more guys back there. Some are wearing leather helmets with antlers on them, and another has a rifle.” There was a loud roar as the rifle fired. “And that guy just shot at the guys with the antlers! Holy crap, let’s get out of here!”

  Behind the bar, the grizzled old barkeep just shook his head and continued rinsing out glasses, unfazed, as the gunshot rang out.


  “I assure you that we are quite safe, my friend. This curious male-only activity is called the Antler Game. They have been doing it for years and no one has ever hit anything…ever, not even a hit song…not even a.…”

  “Okay, I get it!”

  “The odds of one of them shooting and hitting a target is about the same as you winning the lottery…twice. Now tell me what else you see.”

  “Man, that guy is a lousy shot! He wasn’t even close!” Just then a different man took hold of the rifle and began the Antler Game over again. The men wearing the antlers scurried randomly around the backroom with beer bottles in hand, some hiding behind others while the rifleman tried to decide which end of the rifle to use and how you loaded the bullet, only succeeding on occasion. Most shots ended up lodged in the floor or ceiling, although the man in one beer poster on the wall seemed to have three nostrils and big zit on his cheek. “Holy shit! Somebody should call the cops!”

  “These men have been doing this a long time now. It’s tradition in this part of town. I doubt the police would even come. Would you say that is odd?” inquired Jones.

  “Odd? It’s freakin’ unbelievable!”

  “And, my friend, can you describe these men?”

  I looked around the bar. “Yeah, they’re all young men, maybe late twenties, early thirties.”

  “Good, good. And what would you say about the women?”

  I didn’t see any. I thought, There are no freakin’ women here. What kind of crappy dump is this?

  Jones could see my bewildered face as I panned across the bar. “No, no, look over here,” His finger directed me to a booth next to the front door.

  Kaboom! There sat a luscious, long-haired blond, early thirties, with shining gray eyes. “My God!” I was startled. “Where did she come from?” My eyes locked with hers, and I felt the strangest warmth of connection with her. The air between us felt balmy, fluid, and expectant. I had seen attractive women before, but this one made me feel something electric and special.

  Then, as the tension between us built, her eyes suddenly flashed right at me, blue, then green, like the rotating light of a lighthouse. I had never seen anything like it. Then her eyes flashed at me again. My jaw dropped a bit and I remained speechless for a long, thrilling moment. Holy beaver balls! I thought to myself. Did that really just happen, or was that another trick my imagination was playing on me, like the time I thought I actually paid my rent on time?

  She gave me a quick smile of acknowledgement, as if saying, Hello, this way to heaven. Instinctively, I turned toward her and stood up halfway, all the while feeling something growing and determinedly trying to escape from my pants. I looked over at Dr. Jones, who had also lost his cool—he too was half-standing and looking at her.

  “Did you see what her eyes just did? Did you?” I asked Jones full of amazement.

  Finally Jones responded, “Oh yes, her hazel eyes are lovely.”

  Hazel? Hazel, my ass. They’re gray and they flash like mofos, I thought to myself, before realizing how crazy that sounded. Sure, she was a lovely woman, and sure, she had five empty Miner’s Lite beer bottles on her table. Sure, those eyes melted me as she took a long, sensuous sip of beer—sure, she had an amazing effect going on in my shorts, and sure, her smile was like an angel’s. But those factors alone could not explain the dazzling effect she had on me. There was something else about her that drew me in like a discounted beer display.

  Jones, ever the man of science, regained his composure, began to sit down, and with his hand on my shoulder, gestured for me to sit as well. “Now, now, let’s not forget that we are here to promote a great discovery.” He turned his head to the side and said, “Excuse me a moment.” He mumbled “Think of sports… Hillary Clinton naked,” to himself, He turned back to me, but he might as well have been on the moon. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

  “My friend! My friend!” he said loudly, shaking my arm. “You must be careful. A woman like that could fry you like an insect! Believe me, I know.”

  I gave him a smirk of disbelief, then began to wonder, Do they really fry insects in India? Flour, a little salt…Oh, yeah, focus. You’re a journalist, type something on the laptop. Finally there was enough blood in my brain to rejoin him at the table. “Okay, what’s the point, you give dating advice now too?” I asked while typing I’m fucked…I’m fucked…over and over on my laptop.

  “Do you see that woman? What is wrong with this picture?” Jones asked.

  “Not a thing, Doc, not one stinking thing.”

  “Wrong! Look again. Do you not find this woman attractive?”

  “Ohhh yeah.”

  “I do as well, but there she sits alone. A room full of drunken young men and a desirable female with five empty lite beer bottles on her table, but there she sits alone. How can this be?”

  “I can fix that,” I said.

  “No, no, this is a scientific experiment, and you cannot alter the controlled conditions we have here. Sit there, my friend, and I will tell you what it is that you’re really seeing, the forces that are at work in this place.”

  Jones pulled a folded map out of his leather briefcase and unfolded it on our table. “Do you see all of these numbered locations on this map, a map of Scranton, Pennsylvania?”

  I nodded.

  “The small numbers here,” Jones added, pointing to various locations on the map, “are radiation readings for each of these sampling locations I have taken. This is the radiation level of the soil sample on the epsilon ray scale…I see you are puzzled, my friend.”

  Not really. The whole time he spoke, I was checking out the blond and she was flirting back at me like we were getting it on from twenty feet apart. But I did get something about radiation, samples, and epsilon rays, whatever the heck those were. Focus was a distant memory. Had Jones said something? Whatever. Now I wish I had really been listening that night—but the view, oh the view of her shining gray eyes, lips that shimmered in the light of a Miner’s Lite beer sign, a glow of anticipation surrounding her.

  “Epsilon rays are a rarely monitored type of radiation whose properties and frequencies are largely unknown. They are nearly unmeasurable in nature, so contamination of this magnitude can only be man-made. Epsilon is particle radiation, so I suspect they learned how to make some sort of beam. Do you see that the radiation levels are highest in the center and slowly lower as you leave the city? Just where do you think the highest recorded level is, here at the center of the circle?” He dropped his little finger dramatically on the center of the map. “Here, the highest levels are right here…and here is O’Malley’s bar, where we sit at this very moment!”

  It was certain that something strange was going on. How or why it was happening, I still couldn’t say, but man, I was sure it was happening. As I looked around at the guy on the floor in front of the men’s room—who had literally knocked himself out by opening the bathroom door repeatedly into his own face—and another round of the Antler Game and idiotic laughing arose from the back room, I began to think that this funny little man had truly uncovered something. When two pairs of young men began a “Chair-idiot” race (a Scranton original, with one man on a wheeled bar stool and another pushing him around the room) that ended in a tragic crash of both the bar stools and a tableful of men, I was certain. Unfortunately for both of us, this type of story required a real journalist, not a little-published freelancer whose biggest breakthrough article had been on the health benefits of drinking beer (a subject near and dear to my heart). But, glancing over at the blond as she downed a light beer in one tilt of the bottle and then licked the bottle’s rim, I was in love, L-U-V, and convinced myself I could fake the journalism part. I’m fucked, I’m fucked, the laptop glowed.

  “What exactly do you think is happening here?” I asked, trying to seem professional while also halfheartedly beginning to take notes between quick glances over at the lovely blond..

  “Don’t you see? Isn’t it obvious, my friend?” asked Jones, frust
rated that my intellect could not keep up with his.

  I began to smile and nod, then stopped and said, “Sort of,” stroking my goatee.

  “Sort of? Sort of?” He began digging through his case and pulled out page after page of calculations and graphs. “You can see from these figures that I have calculated the half-life of the epsilon radiation and thereby pinpointed the exact year this environmental tragedy took place. It began,” he said running his finger over a page, “in 1969 and continued through 1981, peaking in 1976. Do you see now?”

  All I could do was rumple my face, embarrassed, and try to listen while I ran my fingers through my long, dark, disheveled crop of hair, as if trying to stroke my brain to life. I began to wonder if Dr. Jones hadn’t been sniffing some of this epsilon radiation himself. Was it time to play my stupid/intimidated card already?

  “During that time, the area outlined on my map was exposed to massive amounts of epsilon radiation. This caused the soils to be contaminated for years. Obviously, all young men born in that time frame show reduced functionality disorder, or RFD.”

  “RFD?”

  “Yes, as you can see, they are morons!” He gestured to the men around us. A young man had fallen over the bar, and now just his legs were showing, dangling over the bar. We watched as the barkeep tried to pull him up. “Their judgment and ability to react to their environment is dramatically impaired. How else can you explain young men in the prime of their lives, incapable of even noticing a woman like that, let alone approaching her?”

  I glanced over at her as she texted on her phone and thought that approaching her sounded like a good idea, in fact the only idea I had in my head. But instead the men around me played around like juveniles. “So, the radiation made all the men born in this town develop RFD?”

  “Yes, yes. But there is more, much more. The epsilon radiation has turned some of the women here into superwomen. It has had the opposite effect, based on the chemical makeup of estrogen. Their powers begin to emerge as they reach their sexual hormonal peak in their thirties, and their estrogen levels power them like nuclear reactors. So you end up with a woman like that one over there, at the other end of the scale, with heightened senses and abilities.”