Some people call New York, "Gotham City." Others call it, "Metropolis." Most call it, "The Big Apple."

New York is also the home for all sorts of crazies. They range from self-appointed mercenary groups to would-be superheroes. A day doesn't go by that the news doesn't report the daring deeds of the Guardian Angels, Hells Angels, Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Dare Devil, Wonder Woman, Captain America, the Flash, the Green Hornet, the Green Lantern, the Incredible Hulk, the Six Million Dollar Man, the X-men, The Tomorrow People, the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and way too many others to mention.

Larry stopped at a newsstand just after he got out of work Thursday night. He didn't buy it to read, but just to cover his head until he could reach the subway station in the driving rain. Had he read it, he would have learned that, due to a power failure at the cryogenics lab where she was imprisoned inside a block of dry ice, the infamous Inque escaped a few days ago. Being a shape shifter as a result of a mutagenic experiment, Inque can change her body to liquid and elude almost any form of capture. She was last reported being washed down a drain at the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History yesterday. A skylight in the museum was smashed during the rainstorm as a result of a super-fight when Batman attempted to recapture the super villain. She was presumed dead. Larry didn't buy into such stories, though. Tales of superheroes and super villains were urban legends as far as he was concerned -- fodder for adventure movies with wild special effects and Saturday morning animated cartoons.

Fortunately, it was a short walk from the restaurant where he worked as a short-order cook to the Columbus Circle subway station. Larry tossed the drenched paper in the trash as soon as he reached the platform. The rain had been lasting for days, and there were huge puddles all over the platform. A virtual river flowed north between the rails of the subway track. He boarded the next northbound "D" train, which he rode up to Tremont Avenue. From there, it was another short walk in the pouring rain to where he rented a small room in a boarding house above an adult video store. He didn't bother buying another paper this time.

He entered the building and walked up the three flights of stairs to his room. Leaning against the wall adjacent to the door to his room was a woman sitting in a puddle of black liquid. She looked kind of cute, and she was dressed from head to toe in a shiny black vinyl bodysuit.

A New Yorker at heart, Larry stepped over her and put his key in his lock.

"You're just going to ignore me, too, huh?"

Larry looked down at her. "This is New York. What did you expect me to do? If I had said something to you first, or asked if you needed help, you'd have told me to 'fuck off,' right?"

"I've told plenty of guys to 'fuck off,' but I really need help. Please!"

Larry shrugged and held out his hand to her. She reached up to take his hand.

"Oww!" she yelled as he pulled her to her feet.

"Sorry. Uh, what happened to you?"

"You... You don't know who I am?"

"No," he answered then gasped when he saw that his hand was covered with a slick black gooey substance.

"What's this stuff?"

"It's me. I've been poisoned in a manner of speaking."

"Okay, come in and I'll call 911."

"No!" she screamed.

"No?"

"I mean don't call 911. Please. I'll explain."

He opened the door and let her in.

"Do you have any alcohol?" she asked.

"Well, I have some beer. I can't afford the hard stuff. You want a drink?"

"No. Not that kind. I mean rubbing alcohol."

"Just a sec." He walked into the bathroom and returned with a plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol.

She grabbed it from his hand, opened it, lifted it to her mouth, and swallowed it in one gulp.

"Hey! You can't drink that! It'll poison you!"

"Water is poison to me, you idiot! I'm dying of water poisoning. I need more of this," she said, holding up the empty bottle of rubbing alcohol.

It was then that he noticed that she was, in effect, naked. Her black oily exterior was her bare skin. "What the hell? Who are you? "

"I'm Inque."

"You're ink?"

"No! My name is Inque."

"Oh. I'm Larry."

"Well, Larry, if you help me, you won't have to live in this shit-hole room any longer."

"How can I help you."

"First, I'm too hydrated. I really need more alcohol right now. Then I need some other stuff too."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Give me a pen and paper and I'll make a list, okay?"

Larry rooted around and handed her a pen and pad of paper. She wrote a list on the pad and handed it back to him.

He looked down her list. He expected her to want him to get her dope and guns and stuff, but most of the stuff was pretty straightforward, if odd. The list included surgical instruments, kitchenware, and assorted chemicals. The surgical instruments could be bought from a surgical supply house. Most of the chemicals could be bought from a printer's supply shop. The rest could be had from a chemistry supply shop.

"Well, I can go down to the drug store down the block. But I can't get the rest of this stuff until tomorrow."

"Sure, just go! Now! Get me the alcohol!"

Larry went back downstairs. He wondered if she would even be there when he got back. He didn't have any money or anything valuable, so he wasn't too worried about his room, but she seemed kind of freaky. He walked down the block to the drugstore, got several shopping bags of rubbing alcohol, then stopped at McDonalds and picked up some burgers, fries, and Cokes on the way home.

He almost fainted when he walked back into his room. She had the knob on the radiator set to maximum, and his electric heater going full blast. It was close to 90(F in the room.

"Inque, Are you okay?" he asked.

"Did you get the alcohol?"

"Yeah, here. I also picked up some Mickey D's for us."

She tore into one bag containing the alcohol and gulped a bottle down, then another, and then another. It wasn't long before she had drunk every bottle.

"Why do you have it so hot in here, Inque?"

"I'm trying to dehydrate myself. I'm feeling a lot better already. But I'm still suffering from water poisoning and I still need that stuff tomorrow."

"You better eat something too, Inque."

"Yeah, thanks."

She unwrapped her burger and started nibbling on it.

"Can we turn the heat down? I'll never be able to sleep in this heat."

"Yeah, sure," she said.

Larry then sat in his old threadbare sofa and clicked the TV on. He flipped channels until he came to Batman Forever that had just started playing on TNN. Cable TV was one of the few luxuries that he could afford.

"Oh, please!" Inque exclaimed.

"What? You don't like Batman?"

"Oh right, you still don't know who I am, do you?"

"You're, like, some kind of dominatrix dressed like that, aren't you? But what's that got to do with Batman?"

"Forget it! Just turn that damn movie off."

Larry shrugged, turned off the TV, and put a Cass Carnaby Five CD in his boom box.

He settled back into his char and gobbled down his burger and fries, and nearly drank his Coke in one gulp from the heat.

"Here," she said, handing him her Coke. "This is mostly water. I can't drink this."

After finishing eating, he went into the bathroom and showered and changed into an old pair of pajamas he had. He usually sleeps nude, but with a lady guest, well, he couldn't do that. He turned the heat down, then opened his sofa into a double bed.

"Uhm, where do you want to sleep, Inque? You can sleep in the chair over there, or you can share the bed. It's up to you."

Inque walked over to the chair and curled up.

Larry gave her a blanket off his bed and then got in and went to sleep.

The next morning, Inque was still sleeping in the chair when Larry woke and got dressed. He phoned the restaurant to call in sick, then he left with her list in hand and returned late afternoon after running around Manhattan to surgical supply stores, print shops, and chemical supply stores.

She was spread out on the floor in a puddle of black ink when he walked in.

"Inque! Inque! Wake up!"

She moaned and sat up.

"Thank God you're still alive! Here, I got your stuff," he said as he handed it to her.

She stood and wobbled a bit. Her skin wasn't as dark as it was earlier. She was a dark gray, and she was leaving oily stains on the floor with every step she took. She took the bags with trembling hands and dumped the contents on the bed.

She set out some of the bowls he bought and started mixing chemicals. He just stood there watching her mix inks, alcohol, and other printing chemicals together. After a couple of hours, his room started to smell like a cross between a brewery and a print shop. By that evening, she had produced several jars containing different concoctions.

"I need you to help me now, Larry."

"Yeah, sure."

She lifted one jar to her mouth and drank it in one gulp, and then she drank a different jar. Then she laid down on her back the bed.

She looked up at him and said, "Now you have to do something very important. I can't do it myself."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You need to slice me down the middle," motioning with her finger from where her collarbone would be down to her navel, "with this scalpel and pour these two jars in me. This one first, wait about five minutes, then pour this other one in. Then sew me back up with those needles and suture. Then wrap me up with these bandages."

"What? I can't perform surgery on you!"

"You have to! If you don't, I'll die!"

"Then you should go to the hospital, Inque."

"I can't go to a fucking hospital! You have to do this for me! Please!" She held the scalpel out to him.

"You really trust me to do surgery on you?"

"I don't have a choice."

He was sweating, but he took the scalpel from her. He put the scalpel to her chest and pressed it into her inky flesh. Then he pulled it down her body and stopped at her navel. Next, he pulled her skin back as she oozed black blood. Then he poured one jar slowly into the open wound, waited, and then poured the other. Next, he sewed her up like he was threading a new shoe. Lastly, he took a roll of bandage in one hand and put his arm around her back and listed her up to a sitting position and wrapped her in bandage from the neck to her waist. Then he lowered her back down on the bed.

It was pretty late by then, so he pulled the blankets over her, took a shower, and then joined her in bed.

Larry was in the habit of sleeping late on Saturdays, and this one was no exception. The restaurant opened late on Saturday, so he didn't have to be at work until the afternoon. He woke around noon and Inque was sitting in the chair watching him. Looking back at her, her bandages were off and her skin was glowing a healthy shiny black again.

He sat up and said, "Good morning, Inque. Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah, I'm completely dehydrated and feeling great. Thanks for your help, Larry!"

"Yeah, sure, you're welcome. Anyway, I got to get ready for work now. Where are you going to go?"

"You throwing me out?"

"No. I just figured you had somewhere to go. Home. A job to get back to. You know."

"You can get out of this dump, you know. I meant what I said."

"What did you say?"

"I don't want to be vulnerable any more. I thought I was invincible, but that damn caped crusader almost killed me -- twice. I want to get out of Gotham. And I need your help. I'll make it worth your while. You don't want to be a cook all your life, do you?"

"Well, no."

"Get out of those pajamas, then."

"What?"

"Take them off."

"Okay, let me go into the bathroom to get dressed."

"No, idiot. Get naked."

Larry gulped, then removed his clothes. It was months since he last got laid, and never by such a hot babe as this.

Inque walked up to him then melted -- literally melted in front of him.

"Inque! What's happening to you?"

Inque stopped melting and a mouth formed in the puddle that had formed on the floor. "I'm better than ever. Just stand there for a minute."

The puddle then flowed around his feet and started flowing up his legs. Larry gasped as Inque flowed up his body to his neck and down his arms and stopped at his wrists. The sensation was incredible, a perfect fit flowing around every inch of flesh! It was as if he were wearing a leather bodysuit. Only his hands and head was exposed. She felt heavy on him too, like he was wearing a suit of weights. He walked over to his mirror and looked at himself -- or should he say themselves. He looked like a fat penguin.

"Inque, can you hear me?"

A mouth formed just below his neck. "Yes, I can hear you."

"This is so cool! But do we have to look so fat? Can't you just make yourself a thin film over me?"

"I can't change my body mass, volume, or weight. My 90 pounds of femininity has to go somewhere, but I can change the proportions."

A moment later, she sprouted breasts and a big butt. She also flowed onto his hands and fingers and flowed up over his head leaving only his face exposed. They became slightly thinner as a result.

"Any better?" she asked.

"A little, but can we nix the tits?"

"What? You don't like a chest on a woman?"

"Yeah, but I'm not a woman."

"But I am!"

"But... But..."

"Oh, okay," she relented, and the breasts shrunk.

"Now what?" he asked.

"We get out of here is what!"

"What about my job? How long will we be gone?"

"Fuck your job! We're not coming back!"

"But... I can't just leave!"

"Yes, you can. We got to get out of Gotham, and now!"

"Okay, just let me pack some clothes."

"I'm the only clothes you need. C'mon!"

Larry grabbed his wallet, keys, and his handful of music CDs. "But what about this stuff?"

Inque formed a pocket and said, "Put your stuff in there."

He dropped his wallet, keys and CDs in Inque's pocket, and she closed it again.

"Now what?" he asked again.

"Now we go," she answered.

"Go where?"

"Just let me drive."

"Huh? I don't have a car, Inque."

"Duh! That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean?"

"Just go limp and I'll show you?"

"Huh? Go limp?"

"Yeah, relax and go limp."

Larry wasn't sure about that, but he let himself go limp. He didn't fall down, however. Instead, he felt his legs walking and his arms swinging. Instinctively, he tried to take a step to keep from falling, fell resistance, and fell on his face.

"I told you to go limp!" Inque yelled at him.

"Sorry! That was the weirdest feeling."

"Go limp again, and don't try to move yourself."

Larry relaxed and went limp again. He felt himself stand up and walk toward the door. This time, he remained limp as Inque walked for him. They walked out the door, down the stairs and outside to a warm sunny day -- the rain of the past week finally exhausted. They walked down the block to Tremont Avenue and into the subway station. People glanced at them funny, but otherwise left them alone.

They rode a "D" train down to Columbus Circle, changed to an "F" train, and continued down to Penn Station at 34th street. Inque was silent the whole way. He had the feeling that she was frightened about something, but didn't dare talk to her for fear that people would think he was a loon for talking to himself.

In Penn Station, Inque formed a mouth on the inside of her skin against his ear and whispered in his ear. "Buy a ticket to as far from here as you can afford."

"How about Chicago? There's no superheroes in Chicago, are there?"

Inque didn't reply right away, then whispered in his ear, "But what about that guy who gets his newspapers a day ahead?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot about him. So how about the deep south? New Orleans? The Mardi Gras?"

Inque thought again, "No good. Cat People."

"How about we go all the way to Los Angeles?"

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," she protested.