“What the fuck are you lookin’ at?” she said.
“You know…for a conservative, moral superhero lady, you say ‘fuck’ a lot…fuck, fuckin…”
“Who said I was conservative, moral, or a fuckin’ lady?” she said, apparently not sure which word bothered her most.
“You are…you’re not out making money or beating people up with your powers like Jennifer Fuckin’ Lowe or two-faced Rebecca. You’re helping people. Hell, you know how many people are alive today because of what you did to save that plane from crashing? And it’s not just them. It’s their kids, and their kids’ kids’ kids…” I paused, wondering if I had used too many “kids.” “Hell, it’s a goddamn army of people when you think about it, generations! Shit, you’re a fuckin’ saint!” She didn’t say anything. “You could really be out fuckin’ things up, but you don’t.”
She gestured with her finger over her mouth, seeming more subdued. “Shhh, you shouldn’t say ‘fuck.’”
“Shit, you say fuck all the time!” I protested.
She gave me another “shhh” with a finger over her lips, and then dropped her empty bottle on the floor. “I think I’m fuckin’ wasted,” she said, as I gave her a “shhh” this time. “Sorry,” she said, putting a finger over her own lips.
I looked over at her and found myself staring into her eyes. Hazel, my ass, I thought, studying her gray, almost colorless, peepers. She held my gaze with a smile growing on her face that made me feel connected with her, drawn into her. Then her face distorted, and she gave out a loud burp, covering her mouth with her hand. “Sorry…I’m not usually a pig…really.”
Just then the tablecloth at the other end of the table lifted up and the face of the barkeep appeared. “So this is where you fuckin’ assholes went!” We both gave him a “shhh” in unison. “Get your ass out of there. It’s past closing time.”
I stared blankly at him. “And why is your fine establishment closing so early this evening?” I asked, trying to sound sober and coherent.
“‘Cause its 3:00 a.m., numb nuts. Come on, let’s have a go,” he said, reaching for the B.I.B.’s hand to help her out. He pulled her up while I jealously watched their arms interlocked, wondering if he was feeling what I had. As he pulled, she sat up, and halfway out smacked her head on the bottom of the table. She dropped to the filthy floor, laughing. The barkeep dragged her out on her back while she held her head and giggled. I followed on my hands and knees, but when I got to the end of the table, I stood up too soon and likewise cracked my head on the edge of the table, faking a fall to the floor, cracking up beside her.
The barkeep straightened up and shook his head. “You can go ahead and be assholes, just do it elsewhere. I’ve got an appointment with my bleedin’ bed ta keep.” With that he walked away.
Then the laughs faded and I helped her to her feet, again feeling the warmth of her skin beneath my hand. We tried to brush the floor grime off our clothes, to little effect. There was a tiny piece of a bar napkin in her hair, and I pulled it out, tugging gently, running my hand through her hair. She closed her eyes for a quick second. The look of pleasure on her face sent iron to my shorts. It felt dangerously sensuous and sobered both of us quickly.
The barkeep came back with a coat on and shooed us out of the door. We stood on the sidewalk of a now quiet street, facing each other in air that was surprisingly cool for June.
“I don’t think you’re in any condition to drive to your sister’s.”
“Who’s gonna drive?” she asked, giving a little laugh. “I’m flyyying,” she said, spreading her arms and swaying side to side.
“Flying…fuckin’ flying?” I asked. She gave me a “shhh.”
“Now you? You’re in no condition to drive. Why don’t I fly you home?”
I laughed. “I don’t think so!”
“Afraid?” she asked, leaning into me.
“I’d like to leave with at least an ounce of male dignity intact.”
“Strong women who fly intimidate you?”
“It’s more the possibility of a drunken crash and burn that worries me.”
“Well, it’s been nice knowing you, and all the people who are gonna die when you crash into them on your way home tonight.”
I laughed. “Gee, I didn’t think you knew those people …I think an hour or two in that coffee shop over there should do the trick. Just need some fuckin’ caffeine.”
She “shhhed” me and then slowly put her steamy finger over my lips and held it there while I melted. She looked deeply into my eyes, making me swallow hard. Then came what I had been expecting all night, a repeated blue/green flash of those gray eyes. Hazel eyes….you know the rest.
When she pulled away and said, “See ya,” the trance broke, and I reached for her.
“Wait! You can’t go! How will I find you again? You’ll have a new apartment, a new identity!”
She turned to me over her shoulder as she walked away. She smiled, saying in a tone that was as solid as granite, “I’ll find you.”
“But, I don’t even know your name!” I pleaded, trying to think of anything to make her stay.
She stopped and put her hands on her hips, as if deciding whether or not this was something she wanted me to know. Then she gave in and smiled. “It’s Allie.”
I smiled back, knowing how hard it must be for her to trust someone enough to let that personal information out. Me, she trusted me! Imagine that! Allie, I thought, as if the word were sweet, lyrical music, an entire song in just five letters. Then it occurred to me that there was no Allie on my list of woman born January 18th,1976. Whether it was a clerical error or a smudge of a typewriter ribbon, I didn’t know. But somehow Allie wasn’t recorded as born the 18th. No wonder we couldn’t find her. Still, she had been right under my nose. Just the place I wanted her lips to be.
With that, the fog I had seen before materialized around her, and then she was gone. But a couple of seconds later I heard a loud clang and someone in the distance saying, “Shit!”
Chapter 27
Hung Over and Hung Out
I have become accustomed in the last few months, okay, years, to waking up in unusual places and positions, but this one had me baffled. I found myself lying on my side in a cramped space, like a letter in an envelope. To my back, I felt the smooth firmness of a wall and, to my chest, I had a little room, but not much. At the end of the envelope, I could see the dim predawn light. My eyes were a little blurry still from the previous night’s Miner’s Lites, but I was certain I saw light, and made the decision to move toward it. That was a mistake. My shoulders and neck were tight and sore, screaming as I moved. My back and hip were twisted from a night sleeping “on the edge,” so to speak, and rebelling against any further attempts at movement. I managed to lift my arms from my sides and grab the rim of the envelope, which I discovered was the leg of my couch. Confident, now, I pulled myself out and stood there in my boxers with my entire body tight, sore, and unhappy.
I stared at the sofa, trying to figure how the hell I’d gotten back there. I soon found a trail of my clothes leading to and then onto the couch. My socks were on top of the back of the couch. Apparently, I had curled up there and then fallen down the crack between the couch and the wall. I shoved the couch against the wall to prevent further incidents, then was hit by panic.
I tiptoed to the bedroom and peeked my head into the doorway to see if any unwelcome, or welcome, surprises were sleeping there. Relieved at the sight of my empty, unmade bed, I sighed in relief and began to try to piece back together the events of the previous night.
* * *
The little article on page three of section C of the newspaper caught my attention after the steaming mug of coffee had kicked in and opened my eyes. A man had been found unconscious and injured in the ritzy Maxim Hotel. He had been found naked, tied to a bed, with severe hip, back, and internal injuries. He claimed a beautiful young woman had raped him—right, that’ll get you a lot of sympathy, Charlie. Buried
in the text was the description, “deformed genitals.”
Oh, my God, I thought, that guy is lucky to be alive! Somehow he had survived the Spinderella move, unlike poor Demitri. But who had he been with? Jennifer, Rebecca, the B.I.B.—or were there more of them? After a brief mental vacation imagining them all naked and in action with me, I read the article again, thinking that if things had gone further last night, but for the grace of God, that could have been me.
Then I had to face it again: what to do now? With her identity being changed as I sat, all the information I had was useless. I didn’t even know her old address, let alone her new one. The birth record game was a loser. Did I really have to wait and hope she meant what she said about contacting me? Crap.
The one thing I knew to do was log onto the website and change all the access codes. Monday, I would find a security company to set up a new firewall and check to see if Rebecca had installed a back door. I thought of calling her to officially terminate our relationship, but chose my usual path of least resistance and did nothing but eat some toast.
I turned my thoughts to Dr. Jones. Could he help? Should I tell him everything? No, she was mine, goddamn it. I couldn’t tell him about the B.I.B., but I did need his brain again.
* * *
I had never seen Jones quite like this before. His hair was unkempt, his clothes dirty, and it was clear he hadn’t shaved in days, as he was sporting a thin, spotty beard. But he was glad to see me, and turned down his sitar music when I arrived.
“What can I do for you, my friend?” he said. He returned to his desk, ostensibly to continue the work I had interrupted, but I could see B.I.B. Rescue running on his laptop.
“What are you working on there? Is it about the Super Born?”
“Ah, the Super Born! Is that what you’re calling them now?” He seemed to get irritated. He pounded the desk. “Yes, it is about the Super Born, everything is about the goddamn Super Born. I can’t sleep. I don’t eat. This mystery is ruining my life. I have been so close…”
“We are close,” I volunteered.
He looked up eager to believe. “We are? You have good news?”
I told him everything—well, everything less a lot of things. I updated him about Jennifer Lowe, her connection to Rebecca Sans, and how Rebecca had used my site to search for the B.I.B. I explained to him that I felt the B.I.B. was in serious danger. I made certain he understood that the B.I.B. would now have moved and assumed a new identity. I just forgot to mention my meeting with Allie or what it felt like to run my hands through her hair or look into her eyes…Anyway, I left out the good parts.
I lied, trying to convince him that with Rebecca forcing the B.I.B. to take on a new identity, the birth record search would be useless, and that we needed a new plan to deal with them. The whole time, Jones remained calm and silent, nodding on occasion. “Well?” I asked.
“I am just thinking. As it happens, what I am researching right now is a theory that may explain things.”
“Is this the Patagonian Algorithm again?”
“My lord, no. What is that? You see, my friend, I have come across indications that the social structure of the Super Born will probably be similar to that of bees.”
“Bees? You mean like buzz, buzz bees?”
Jones nodded. “It makes sense as far as my research goes and now is confirmed by the information you’ve supplied. There can be only one queen. These three or however many there are will naturally have to seek dominance. Only one will remain. We are all drones for them, my friend,” said Jones.
I thought quickly back to the birth record search I had made and the unexplainable number of young women born during the Super Bowl who had died mysteriously. “Only one queen…” I muttered.
“So it seems. The battle is going on right now, and here we sit. I am telling you the picture is sad, very sad indeed.”
“What can we do? I have to warn her,” I slipped up.
“Warn who?”
Luckily, I knew how to recover quickly. “Just kiddin’.”
“Kidding about what?” Jones demanded.
“The B.I.B. I wish I could warn her about the others. But I can’t, ’cause I don’t know where she is.” Smooth, aren’t I?
“How do you know which of these Super Born is good and which are the bad ones? The B.I.B. could be the one exterminating the others.”
I opened my mouth in Allie’s defense, but then shut up. “Well, what do you think we should do? If you’re right and we’re the drones, we’ll end up like Demitri . There is no way to approach any of them safely,” I lied.
Jones shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. Why do you think I look like shit? This whole thing has gotten out of control. How could I be so right and be so unable to prove it? It is a dilemma,” he said, coming around the desk and putting his hand on my shoulder.
Simultaneously, we both wrinkled our noses and gave a face that said, He smells like shit.
As I turned to leave, I heard the sound of a woman moaning from the bedroom down the hall. He gave a flimsy smile and said, “Guess she is starting without me.”
“That’s not the one I saw you with the other night is it? The one you took home in the van?”
Jones eyes went wide for a moment then his face turned quizzical. “Van? What are you talking about my friend?”
“I saw you at Flanagan’s the other night with that hot number and you got into a white van with her. It’s none of my business but, she did go willingly with you, right?”
“I’m afraid you are mistaken, my friend. Me, in a white van? Please. Must have been some other hot Indian guy…Well, if you will excuse me, research calls.”
I will see you soon,” he said escorting me to the door.
I shook my head as she moaned again. “What’s your secret? How do you fuckin’ do it?”
“It’s a curse,” he said closing the door.
Chapter 28
Three Superwomen in One Night:
Not as Much Fun as It Sounds
On the way back to my palatial two-bedroom, I stopped at a drive-through for some gourmet takeout (and fries). I was just digging through the bag, trying to figure out what the suckers had forgot to put in there, when my mobile phone vibrated on my belt. I answered, with a fry or two in my mouth, “Yeah?”
The voice on the other end was rushed and near panic. It was a woman’s voice, but with a terrible amount of banging and crashing in the background, I couldn’t identify her. “Don’t talk to her! Whatever you do, don’t tell her anything! Please be careful! I’m sorry!” With that the call dropped.
With a few more fries in my mouth I asked, “Hello? Hello, who is this?”
There was nothing. You know, you used to at least get a dial tone when a call was cut off, but now all you get is nothing.
It haunted me all the way home, through a whole bag of fries, imagining her in danger, battling with Jennifer Lowe: those two beauties tearing at one another, clothes ripping, hair flying around their heads, rolling on the floor, breasts pressed against one another, legs grinding…I almost wrecked the damn car and ruined a good pair of pants worrying about it.
When the blood returned to my brain, I couldn’t think of anything to do. I didn’t know who had called, where she was, or where to even look. I was at a dead end.
I opened the door to my chateau, wondering if I had any Miner’s Lites left to wash down my feast, and found her sitting with her arms stretched over the top of my lavish sofa. The bag containing my half-eaten burger slipped from my hands.
She laughed. “Drop something?”
I wasn’t certain if she was referring to the bag or my jaw. Jennifer Lowe looked at me with the eyes of a butcher ready to chop meat. Luckily, I was cool and had a snappy rejoinder ready. “What are you doing here?” Smooth as silk….on sandpaper.
“That depends,” she said, uncrossing and spreading her legs until only the sides of her skirt stopped them.
There wasn’t anything cool l
eft in me after that. My heart decided it was a track star and tried to burst through my chest like a finish line tape. My brain was full of so many thoughts, possibilities, and worries that it went into overload. Is this it? Am I about to buy the ranch right now, today? Dead as in D-E-A-D? Would she rip me in half or do the old Demitri Spinderella move on me? (I leaned toward the latter.) Generally, what the fuck was going on? I wondered.
“What is it you want?” I asked finally, circling around to the kitchen. “Can I get you something?”
She laughed.
“Something to drink?”
“All you have are those fucking Miner’s Lites.”
I opened the door to the fridge, then discovered she was right. “Well, I have two eggs in here as well,” I offered.
She smirked at me, left the sofa, and moved to the kitchen, apparently tired of games. She picked up my laptop and shoved it into my arms. “That’s how you’re supposed to do it. She’s easy to find in the Pub Crawler game.” On the screen was a picture of the B.I.B. at Flanagan’s with a big text banner blinking, “You found the B.I.B. You Win!”
This is fucking it! I panicked in my head. You’re a dead man!
She rubbed her hand over my shoulder and down my arm. “I need a man.”
Holy shit! Demitri , here I come!
“I need a man to help me find someone,” she said, starting to rub my chest. “Are you that man?” Jennifer asked, reaching for my crotch.
“How…how am I supposed to do that? Sounds like you…you need a private…”
“Dick?” she said, diggin around my pants in search of her elusive prey. “I’ve tried private detectives and they’ve just wasted my money. No, what I’m looking for has proven very hard to find,” she said, with her second hand joining the search. “But I know you know where it is.”
“What…what makes you think that?” I asked, with my voice jumping on the last word.
She stopped her digging, apparently realizing, for the second time, that she couldn’t overcome the B.I.B.’s mark. “You know where she is. Christ, you have a whole fucking website worshipping the bitch! I need to know where she is ’cause they’re gonna kill her. You want that to happen, lover boy? They can do it. She’s next. Only I can save her, and only you can get to her. Think it over and call me, before it’s too late,” she said, turning to leave.
Super Born: Seduction of Being Page 23
