by Jack Bristol
(Kidding. No it doesn't.)
"Don't say her name," he spits. "You don't get to say her name."
"Super Fucking Villain."
"Fuck you!"
Not that I've got anything against football players, but I can see why these guys were failing English lit.
Says the guy who dropped out of college. In my defense, my mother got shot, Dad flipped out, and I signed on to become a superhero.
"What do you guys know about starfish?"
Meathead blinks. I've switched the channel on him and now he's trying to figure out what show's playing. "Starfish?"
"Yeah. It's when you fuck a girl and she just lies under you, contributing nothing to the experience except a warm pussy."
"I figured you were talking about the sea creatures that shit out their mouths. Never happened. Girls love it when I fuck them," he says.
I check out the other guys. They're all focused on their leader. "What about you guys?"
One at a time, they shake their heads.
Nope, not one of them's ever met a starfish.
Not buying it, but okay. Not much I can do. Torture isn't my thing. But the odds of a group of sexually active college-aged guys never encountering a single starfish have to be low. Saving face—they're doing it.
Their secret's safe with me. And all of you.
"So Super Fucking Villain wouldn't be turning women into starfish?"
That all-American, cornfed nose of Blondie's wrinkles. "Why would she do that?"
"I don't know." Shrug. "You tell me."
"She wouldn't stoop that low."
"But she would stoop—right?"
"Go fuck yourself with a bag of dicks."
Where does one acquire a bag of dicks anyway? Besides PetSmart. Bully sticks don't count to anyone except the bull. "That's your beloved professor's bailiwick." Hearing me mouth off, you'd think I don't care. But I do. All these kids did was blindly follow a hot chick's instructions and try to blow up Superhero Headquarters. It's not like they murdered anyone.
Although they probably would have. But because of her.
Regrets—one day they're gonna have them, when Super Fucking Villain scores a new posse of equally pliant minions and she cuts this cage-full loose.
The temperature in the room drops. Hotheads are cooling off. "Have you seen her?"
"Professor Hart?"
He nods.
"Sorry, kid. She's gone."
Temporarily. Arch nemeses never stay gone for long.
At least not in the comic books or movies.
Eleven
There's a surprise waiting for me when I come out of the closet. It's my buddy Mario. He's sitting on a barstool, nursing a beer.
Ted the bartender says, "Forgot your shadow."
"Not my shadow, man. Just a stray."
Mario points to himself using both thumbs. "Hey. I'm sitting right here."
I slap him on the shoulder. "We know, we can see you. That's why we're talking about you."
"What's with the janitor's closet?"
"If I tell you, I'll have to kill you."
"Really?"
"No, not really. But it's a secret."
"He went in," Ted tells me.
Mario says, "I looked. Figured you were playing a long game of seven minutes in heaven."
"Who with?"
"I dunno, man. Didn't exactly think it through. Then I looked and you weren't in there anyway."
"Did you go in?"
"Yeah."
"What happened?"
He shrugs. "Nothing."
Huh. How 'bout that. My previous source was right. That guy stumbled into the closet one night, pissed in the bucket, because a bucket's identical to a urinal if you drink enough.
My phone jangles. Text from Mrs Margarita. I can tell by the tinny Twilight Zone chime.
Got to fly. Again. There's a sweet thing in trouble on the far side of town. Not my neighborhood, but close.
"Stop following me," I tell Mario. "I can't teach you to be a superhero, man. Doesn't work like that."
"I could be your apprentice. Like, your sidekick. Superheroes have sidekicks."
Wait—what? "My sidekick?"
"Yeah, brah. Like Robin or Aquagirl or Pieface or—"
"The Falcon," I breathe.
"Don't know him, but yeah, like the Falcon."
"Captain America's sidekick. Now he's the new Captain America."
"There's a new Captain America?"
"Superheroes live and die and retire, but their superhero identities live on."
Ted gives an almost imperceptible nod. Makes me wonder who—or what—he used to be. He wasn't always a bartender, that's for sure. He's lousy at it. The only glass he ever cleans is the one in his hand.
I point at Mario. "We'll talk. In the mean time, quit following me."
"Hey, Super Fucking Hero?" he calls out, when I'm halfway out the door.
"What?"
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Not yet."
* * *
BIFF!
POW!
KABAM!
The babe standing behind me had a stalker ex problem. Now … let's say he just made other plans. He's all tied up.
Hogtied.
Like my knots? Learned them from a dominatrix.
No, not mine. I already told you, I'm more of a giver.
"What's going to happen to him now?"
Those aren't angels singing. It's the girl, the one I just rescued. She's long and lean and gorgeous. Not much of an ass, but my cock likes variety. As long as she's got three holes and at least one of them is willing, I'm a happy guy.
"He violated the Restraining Order. Now he's Captain Kern's problem. And Kern doesn't go easy on guys like him."
Speaking of Kern, here he comes. Just him and his mangina. He parks at the curb, nods to the guy hogtied on the sidewalk. "That for me?"
"Merry Christmas, Jerry."
"You shouldn't have."
One-handed, I toss the guy into the back seat.
Yeah, I'm showing off. Totally worth it when the honey behind me lets out a soft gasp. Jerry looks at the girl, looks at me, looks at the girl.
"I don't know how you do it." He shakes his head, gets back in the car and drives away. Now it's just me and the girl and … mmm …
"Like that?" she asks.
I'm already starting to see how this girl wound up with a stalker. Her hand's rubbing my cock, and my cock? He's lapping up the attention. Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? I am!
She drags me inside, pushes me onto her couch (not a Mighty Fine Furniture couch, but equally sad), sits that nothing of an ass in my lap and starts to grind.
Feels goooood.
For now, I'm content to sit here, hands resting on her hips, watching her body move. Don't know if she's ever done this for a living, but she could. My cock's rock hard; she's got all my attention. The pressure's building up in my balls already. They're all hands on deck (dick?) packing the wadding, preparing the hot load.
The girl wiggles her jeans down, kicks them off.
No panties. Baby goes commando. Nice.
In a flash, I've got my dick out and the condom on. Which is perfect timing, because next time she lifts that ass she eases her pussy down onto my pole. Girl's so ready she's leaking all over my balls. She smells hot and wet and wild.
Which is how I like them.
My fingers drum her clit, working her into a hotter frenzy.
"Choke me," she moans. "I need your hand on my throat."
"Yeah, baby." With one hand I'm working her slick marble, while the other encircles her throat. I've got big hands, so that slender stem is almost completely encased.
A huge chunk of pleasure I get from sex is getting a girl off. Yeah, it's fucking awesome to come, but when she's squealing and moaning and saying my name while that cunt of hers clenches? Can't beat that feeling, my friends.
My hand tightens. Not too much. Mild pressure. That's all most girls—in my
experience, which is significant—need so they can lose control. I'm the one in control; that hand on her throat says so.
And it's exactly what this girl needs. Her cunt tightens around my cock. She gasps. Comes.
Fifteen seconds later I'm shooting that load.
Five minutes after that I'm flying home, girl already erasing herself from my memory. More important things to think about, like the current spate of starfishes and Clarissa Westlake's cryptic comment about manipulation and how I can't possibly be every girl's type.
Hope I can remember where I put that file …
Twelve
"Eureka!"
Mrs Margarita rolls her eyes. Apparently that's not an affectation limited to the young and sarcastic. "By Zeus's balls, now the boy he thinks he is Archimedes."
This is so much more important than water displacement.
Okay, not really. Physics is pretty important. But this matters to me. It's personal.
The file, by the way, was on top of the refrigerator. I like to keep important things up there. Like this file and my dust collection.
Need to tell my imaginary maid to earn the money I don't pay her.
"Not Archimedes, Mrs Margarita. Super Fucking Hero."
"What is that?" She cranes her neck. "Super Fucking Hero's confidential file?"
"That's right."
"Hmm. What do you expect to find in there?"
"The truth."
"About what?"
"Why girls are so attracted to me."
At that, she thunks me on the head with my wooden spoon. "You are Super Fucking Hero, of course they want to do the sex with you. You save them. Girls love to be saved by a handsome man—usually Sean Connery."
Is it any wonder I feel affection for the elderly Greek woman? She's always on Team Super Fucking Hero.
"Do I look like Sean Connery?"
"Only around the nowhere." She nods at the file. "What does it say?"
It's a lot of reading. No wonder I didn't do it the first time. Some considerate person did include a Table of Contents, though. So I run my finger down the page, hunting for a needle in this wood pulp haystack.
Superhero Powers.
Sounds promising.
Flip to the page. Scan. Read the words I skipped last time. Slam the file shut.
Shove it back on top of the refrigerator.
"What?"
I shake my head. "Nothing."
"Do you know how I can tell when a man is lying?"
An oldie but a not-so-goodie. "When his lips are moving?"
"No! When he will not look me in the eye."
"Which eye? Because you've got three. Could be I'm looking in your third eye."
I'm not. I'm looking at the table. It's a nice table. My mother had good taste.
She gives me a heavily loaded look, the kind you give a guy before you torture him to death.
It's enough to make me talk.
* * *
Thought I wasn't going to share, didn't you?
True story: I almost didn't. But if I want you to stick around for my further adventures, I owe you the truth.
Okay, here goes.
According to the file, along with my other superpowers (strength, the ability to fly, super hearing and eyesight, and myriad other minor—but useful—things), I also maybe, possibly look different to every girl I rescue.
Meaning, none of them are seeing Hunter Forrester in the Super Fucking Hero costume. Who they see is their fantasy man. My superpowers tap into their heads, extract their ideal sexual partner, and project that in my stead.
I'm a fucking lie.
This must be how my old buddy Jerry Kern feels every night, when he's sitting in front of the TV with his wife, sucking down another Reality TV show.
"I'm a fucking lie."
The guy grinning at me babbles something about how Syria's the problem child of the Middle East. Fucking news anchors with their stupid hair and blinding teeth.
I click the TV off. Flop on the couch. The cushions cuddle me. Definitely not a Mighty Fine Furniture couch. Their cushions would slap me onto the floor, after pinching my ass and stealing my loose change.
I want girls to like me for me. Not because of, you know, some kind of superhero pheromones or a glamour.
You know who casts glamours? Fairies in urban fantasy and paranormal romance novels, when they're trying to trick you. I don't want to trick girls into fucking me—I want a mutual attraction.
Do I sound like a little bitch?
Go on, say it: You're a little bitch, Super Fucking Hero.
Oh, that thing I said about romance novels? Forget about it. I never said it. Wasn't me. I especially wouldn't read paranormal romance.
I mean, c'mon. Do I bleed once a month for a week without dying?
Okay, yeah, I dig romance novels. They're my guilty pleasure.
My front door swings open. In walks Mrs Margarita, looking like a black rain cloud.
"Here." She holds out her hand. There's a gift balanced on her wrinkled palm. "I bring you a present."
"What is it?"
"Why do people always say that? Open it and you will find out."
Nice package. Pretty silver paper. Looks Christmasy. Under the paper there's a box. And inside the box there's a …
"A black pen?"
"Is not a pen. It is a black eyeliner."
"You bought me …" I squint up at her. "… guyliner?"
"You are emo now, yes? All you do is boohoo about this, boohoo about that. Either you are emo or you are a girl. And you do not have boobies or the vagina—at least not that I can see—so you must be emo. Do not be ashamed."
"I—"
"Of course," she says, "a Greek man would never be emo. Greek men do not cry."
"What do they do?"
"They go to war with Turkey."
Head tilt. "The country or the bird?"
"The country! My God, what kind of man fights a helpless bird? Not a Greek man. Maybe a Chinese man. That is how they get the SARS."
Ladies and gentlemen, my Alfred.
"That stray dog of yours is downstairs," she continues. "He looks very sad and pathetic. Maybe you two can cuddle and make the world sunshine and puppies again, yes? Then you can have a makeup party, just you girls."
Uh, no. "You don't like him?"
"I do not know him. And you do not know him either."
"Hey, nobody knows anybody until they meet."
"You have to be careful. You are special. And when you are special, there will always be people who want to cut out your heart and sell it to the highest bidder on the black market."
"Relax," I tell her. "He doesn't want my heart. The guy wants to be a superhero. Or my sidekick."
"Sidekick! You are Super Fucking Hero, you work alone."
I squint at her. "What are you? Scotch mist? You're kind of my sidekick. I can't do any of this without you."
"Bah!" She waves a hand at me, but I can tell she's pleased.
Thirteen
My apartment building has a doorman. People with money don't like to open their own doors. Never know who contaminated that knob. Plus it keeps the poor riffraff out.
When I say doorman, I don't mean the building employs several men or women who rotate shifts and who share the duties and responsibilities that come with the job.
We have one doorman, 24/7.
Just between us, I don't think the guy's human. He doesn't sleep, doesn't take sick days, and he's perpetually cheerful.
Reed. That's his name. Could be a last name, could be a first name. Could be he's the Cher or Madonna of doormen.
His is the face you'd see if you looked up ordinary or typical in a dictionary—if dictionaries had pictures. He's tall, but not too tall. Medium build. Medium skin tone. Sandy hair, leaning towards brown. Age? Somewhere between thirty and fifty. No matter how many times I stroll through the lobby, I can't pin an age on the guy.
Honestly? I couldn't pick the guy out of a lineup, and I see him
every day.
Alien mojo, guaranteed.
Okay, maybe not guaranteed. But highly probable.
It's like the Superman/Clark Kent thing. When I was a kid, I wondered how a bunch of grownups in the comics were so fucking stupid that they couldn't tell Superman and Clark were the same guy.
Now, I get it. Superman is super, but he's a spaceman. Those way, way, out-of-towner superheroes have got themselves some cool tricks. In the beginning, the average person had no fucking clue Clark and the S-man were one and the same. You could duplicate them and stand them side by side, and people still wouldn't get it.
The cat's been wandering around outside that bag since the movies came out. (Word is, the cable networks keep dangling cash in front of Kent, offering him his own news show. But the guy won't bite. He's a newspaper guy, through and through.)
Could be that's where the SuperCouncil scored the technology or magic or whatever to turn me into every girl's fantasy man.
Anyway, there's no way Reed's human; if he is, he's not vanilla, powerless human. But he's a great doorman. And he's cool with me getting my own door.
"Yo," Mario says when he spots me stepping out of the elevator. "This guy wouldn't let me come up to your place."
"That's his job, man."
Reed says, "I called up, Mr Forrester, but there was no answer."
"No problemo." I nod to my wannabe sidekick. "Let's take a walk."
Mario bobs his head up and down. "Okay, cool. What's that in your hand?"
Oh. That. Seems I carried Mrs Margarita's oh-so thoughtful gift down with me. "Guyliner."
"Guyliner?"
"Yeah, if this superhero gig doesn't work out, I'm thinking about joining a rock band."
"You play an instrument?"
Reed salutes me when I open the door all by my self. "Nope. But that's never stopped anyone before."
Dark out. Late. Life is still happening, but mostly not the kind you want to smash into in the dark. Doesn't bother me. Even in civilian clothing I'm still Super Fucking Hero.
"You drink coffee?" I ask my wannabe sidekick.
"This late? Naw."
"Eat pie?"
"Who doesn't eat pie?"
Two blocks away there's a diner that sells mediocre coffee and pie that's the figurative, Urban Dictionary definition of the bomb. That's where I take him. Dining him so I can let him down easy.
