Chapter 2

I take us several jumps eastward, following a series of well-lit areas and empty spaces that I’m familiar with. Joey’s never serial-teleported like this before, and he lets out a long “Whooaa” which is broken into staccato chunks as we flicker across the city.

We stop on top of a building near my house. Joey looks around erratically. “What? Where are we?”

“Almost there. Two more jumps. Come here,” I say, turning to him and pulling him close.

Joey startles as I draw him to me. I let go of his hand and wrap my free arm around his body, holding him tight. My breasts push under his chin, and our stomachs rub against each other. He’s warm and he trembles, suddenly nervous from my unexpected embrace.

I look down into his eyes. He’s surprised, and a little scared. “Hi,” I say.

“Um ... Hi.”

“Don’t get to excited. It’s just going to be a tight squeeze. Keep your arms in.”

“Oh. Okay.” He pushes his arms down straight.

VRAMM! We appear in my safe room. I glance out the half-silvered mirror and acquire a spot in my bedroom. VRAMM!

We’re in my bedroom. I let go of him and hand him his bag. “Welcome to The Singularity. Make yourself at home.” I pull my mask and gloves off and grab a towel to rub my hair with. Joey spins around, checking out my bedroom.

“Where are we?” “My place.”

He frowns as he puts his bag down on my king-size bed. Had I known I was going to have a guest tonight I would have made it. Scrappy’s head pops out of his bag. “And where is this?”

“Cheverly.”

“Oh. I know where that is. What was that dark room we were in?”

I point to the bedroom mirror that’s built into the wall. “My safe room, behind that mirror.” He squints at the mirror. I take advantage of his distraction to snatch up some underwear on the floor and throw it into the hamper. “It used to be a bathroom, but I took out all the fixtures and the door, and I sealed the wall closed. It’s an empty room that only I can get into. Always a safe place to teleport. That mirror is half-silvered, so you can see out of the room, but not into it.”

Joey leans into the mirror, shielding his eyes as he tries to peer into my safe room. “Cool!” he says.

Scrappy jumps out of the bag and explores the bed a bit, and then he suddenly jumps off the bed and runs out of the room, barking madly. Joey startles and runs after him. “Scrappy! Stop!” I smirk as I hear him run after the dog down the stairs.

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.

“Scrappy!”

“RA-RA-RA-RA-RA!”

“MMRREEOOWW!” <Hiss!>

Oh shit! I forgot! Schrödinger! I can’t run downstairs in costume, so I shrink down to normal height and port out of the costume. My underwear sags and my boobs drop down because my bra is way too big for me now. I grab my robe as my costume falls to the floor, throw it on, and run downstairs.

Joey is in my living room holding Scrappy, and the dog is barking at Schrödinger, who is currently cowering on top of the bookcase.

“You have a cat!” Joey says.

“Of course I have a cat,” I say, picking up the black cat from the bookcase. Schrödinger purrs in my arms. “I’m a single woman living alone. I have to have a cat. It’s the law.” I tickle the cat. “Are you okay? Did that doggy scare you?” I turn to Joey. “Is Scrappy okay around cats?”

He shrugs. “I suppose so. He’s usually okay around anything too big to eat.”

I smile. “Scrappy, this is Schrödinger. Schrödinger, Scrappy. Now you be nice to each other.” I head to the kitchen. “Let’s get them something to eat. You hungry?”

“Um, yeah.” He follows me into the kitchen, looking around at my house with what looks like either a confused or disappointed look on his face.

I drop Schrödinger on the floor and pull out a couple bowls. “Is Scrappy okay with Meow Mix? I don’t keep dog food here.”

“Oh, Scrappy will eat anything.” He puts the dog down. Scrappy immediately runs to Schrödinger and starts sniffing her butt. Schrödinger pretends she doesn’t notice, and she rubs against my leg all affectionate-like because she knows she’s going to get fed soon. “We’re used to eating whatever we can find or catch.”

“Catch?” I ask, filling some bowls with water.

“Yeah.” Joey leans against the counter. “You know, mice, squirrels, rabbits, rats ... Well, HE eats the mice.”

I give him a double-take. I keep forgetting that Joey was homeless for many years, and he’s had some experiences one wouldn’t normally expect. “Did YOU eat any of those things?”

He nods. “Yeah. Squirrel’s not bad.”

“Well, I’m afraid I’m fresh out of squirrel. I should have some microwave burgers. You can help yourself.”

As I pour out some dry cat food into two bowls, Joey frowns and looks in my freezer, and I hear him chuckle. I turn to him. “What is it?”

“Nothing. This.” He shrugs. “It’s just that, you’re a superhero, and you eat microwave burgers.”

“Well, a girl’s got to eat. What were you expecting?”

He shrugs again. “I don’t know. Something superhero-like. A butler, or a robot or something. This whole place is just so...”

“So what?”

“So ... normal! I mean, this is The Singularity, and I know you keep your weapons here, but...” He looks around. “I don’t know. I guess I was expecting ... a superhero headquarters. With robots and computers and video monitors everywhere. Not IKEA bookshelves and potted plants. I was afraid that Scrappy was going to set off your security-system and the gun-turrets were going to pop out and start shooting at him.”

I laugh. “Well, this is just my house. We don’t all get to live like in the comic books. Some heroes may have butlers, and I think Technarch may have a robot, but the rest of us have to just fend for ourselves.”

“Yeah, but in New York they had...”

“Well that’s the EarthGuard Embassy, and they can afford all that stuff, and it’s what people expect to see when they visit. But I don’t need all that stuff, and I certainly can’t afford it.”

“MMEEOOWWW!” I look down at Schrödinger, who sees me holding bowls of food but not bringing them down for her. Scrappy is looking a little annoyed as well. As I bend down to put the bowls on the floor, my robe opens up a bit up top. I can feel the light waves collapsing on my chest as Joey catches a glimpse of my cleavage. I pretend not to notice, and put the bowls on the floor. Schrödinger and Scrappy immediately dive into the bowls and start eating. I stay near the floor and pet the cat, letting Joey have a good look.

As I turn to catch his eyes, Joey averts his, quickly unwraps the burgers, and puts them in the microwave. It’s so cute the way he gets shy. As he starts the microwave, he asks without looking at me “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What do you do for money?”

I lift an eyebrow. “Depends. How much do you have?”

Joey looks baffled at me for a second, and chuckles as he gets the joke. “No. I mean, what do you do when you’re not being a superhero? Do you have a job?”

“Well,” I stand up and tighten my robe. “I tried that whole mild-mannered-congressional-aid-by-day, dark-avenger-by-night bit, but it turns out that holding two full-time jobs is just too much work. So I quit my day job. I’m a full-time superhero now.”

“So, EarthGuard just pays you to be a superhero and catch bad guys?”

I shrug. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but yes and no. It’s more about image and licensing. They can’t just pay us for every crook we catch, because if the pay is based on catching criminals, then that quickly gets abused, and soon super-heroes are just grabbing innocent people randomly, accusing them of crimes, and getting paid for it. No, part of it is just being paid to be on call 24/7 for disasters and emergencies, but a big chunk of it is about being, like ... professional role models.”

He frowns and I continue. “Look, I own the name and image of Quantum Knight, which means I also get to change the costume as I see fit, and also I get to decide who uses that image for whatever reasons. Companies pay me through EarthGuard to use my image on things like T-shirts and toothpaste and action figures and in video games and cartoons, and the more I do to maintain a positive image in the public eye, the better it is for these companies, and the better it is for me.” I give him a grin. “I gotta tell you. That fight with Desdemona may have been traumatic for you, but it did wonders for my licensing fees.”

Joey gives a half-smirk. “I’m glad somebody got something good out of that day.”

I cock my head at him. “Can I ask you something?”

He nods. “Okay.”

“Why did you ask me about my job?”

He thinks and shrugs. “I don’t know. Just wondering.”

“Cause I have to tell you, ‘What do you do for a living?’ is classic first-date material.”

He blushes. I love teasing him. “No, it’s not that,” he says.

“Joey, I told you. I don’t do first dates. I like to skip straight to the third date.”

“No, I mean...” He’s flustered, and I’m enjoying this way too much. He gestures about at the house. “I’ve just never seen this side of you before. You’ve always been Quantum Knight, superhero. You’re always in this costume and you’re teleporting and fighting with these cool weapons, and now you’re in a bathrobe and in a house with a cat. So now, you’re like a regular person, and I was just wondering, since you are a superhero, how to do make money?”

I smirk at him. “This is because of the lottery ticket, isn’t it? Are you’re still angry about that?”

Joey shakes his head. “No ... I mean, maybe a little disappointed, but...”

“You know you couldn’t have gotten the money.”

“It’s not fair that you can’t win the lottery if you have super-powers.”

“Well, it wasn’t fair the way you won it. Did EarthGuard find a...”

“Yeah.” He nods. “They found a homeless family, and gave the ticket to them, and helped them with the money. They’re setting up a homeless shelter which Tricia wants to work at, and we got a, what-do-you-call-it? ... a finder’s fee? So now Annie is reading up about stocks and ... future comrades or something.”

“Commodity futures?”

“Yeah, that’s it.” Joey pauses for a moment. “But you know, for two days, we were millionaires, and that was fun! And then when Amanda said we couldn’t get the money, that was just so, that sucked, you know?” I nod, grinning. He continues. “But Tricia is right. She said to me ‘Imagine you made a hundred thousand dollars a year. Could you live on a hundred thousand dollars a year?’ Well, yeah, I could. ‘Now imagine you made a million dollars a year. Could you live on a hundred thousand dollars a year?’ So it’s all about just not being greedy, which I can do.”

So says the guy with two live-in girlfriends. I nod and let the subject sink for a moment. “So you’re interested in how a superhero survives, right? How do we live? What do we do? How do we pay the bills?” I scrutinize him for a moment. “You thinking of joining the ranks? Becoming a superhero?”

Joey shrugs. “Well, I do wonder about it. I mean, I’m one of the few people on the planet who can do that for a living. But I don’t know.”

I smirk at him. “Well, the alternative is, if you’re not interested in becoming a superhero, then you asked me about my job because you’re interested in me.”

Joey’s mouth drops open, and he flusters. “Well, I...” I giggle as I watch him struggle. “I can be interested in both, can’t I?”

“I suppose so.” I let the words hang for a moment. “It’s thick, isn’t it?”

Joey blinks in perplexity, and he glances down to his crotch momentarily. “What’s thick?”

“The sexual tension between us. It’s the unanswered question that’s hanging in the air; will we or won’t we?” I give him a leer. “Our first conversation ended with you feeling me up and my tongue in your mouth.” I hold up my hand and wave my fingers at him. “A few hours later I’m in a hotel room with you, trying to rape you because you ACCIDENTALLY gave me the most intense sexual experience this one hand has ever had. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that.”

“Sorry,” he says shyly.

“Don’t be. It’s one of my favorite memories. I can only assume you’ve been practicing with that ability, haven’t you? I mean, you’ve got two gorgeous girlfriends, and I know you’ve got to be doing something special keeping them happy.” Joey blushes. “I can see their eyes light up every time they look at you. And Tricia and Annie are not the easiest women to satisfy, are they? Tricia, she’s just over-exposed to sex, probably has had far more lovers than I have. And Annie is numb below the waist. I would guess she’s a challenge too. But here you are, keeping them both happy, and at the same time, right?”

Joey blushes some more. It’s so cute, and he nods. “Yeah. I’ve been ... practicing ... making them feel good.”

I smile at him. “I bet you do.”

He looks at me shyly. “So, um ... what’s going to happen?”

The microwave beeps at us, breaking the moment. “Well, first we get some burgers. I assume one of those is mine,” I say grinning. He smiles back and nods. The tension is shattered between us, and I open the microwave and extract the food. “And after that ... well, I once told you that you don’t have any responsibilities towards me. But I got to thinking about it and I realize I have responsibilities towards you.” I point to the refrigerator. “Mustard, ketchup.” As Joey fetches the condiments, I continue. “I believe you can be a great superhero, but you need to know what it’s like. And I once promised you I would take you out to see the city at night. Tonight is as good a night as any. Interested?”

Joey looks amazed. “You mean, go out on patrol with you?”

I nod as I put the burgers on the kitchen table. “Yeah.” I glance at his slacks. “Did you bring jeans? You’ll want to wear something durable.” As I walk to the cabinet to get glasses, I point to the refrigerator again. “Filtered water.”

“You mean, go out and look for muggers and rapists and...”

“And gang fights and drug dealers and robbers and any other trouble makers. Yeah.”

He’s holding the filtered water and looking confused. “That sounds dangerous!”

I nod to him. “Uh-huh. It is. Extremely. And irresponsible and reckless too. You interested?”

He grins. “Hell yeah!”

I sit down and gesture to him. He sits as well and pours glasses of water as I start squirting mustard on my burger. “Good! Well, eat up, and get changed, and I’ll take you out and show you Quantum Knight’s city. We’ll see the sites, run over the rooftops, take out a few bad guys ... Turn you into a real superhero.” I raise my glass of water to him and we clink our glasses together. “And after that, we’ll see what else happens.”

Joey smiles and goes to take a sip of water, but his eyes drop down and go wide. “SCRAPPY NO!” he yells, and he jumps out of his chair. I turn to see that Scrappy is currently mounting Schrödinger from behind and is humping furiously. I shriek in laughter as Joey pulls his dog off my cat.

“BAD DOG! NO!” Scrappy continues to hump the air in little spasms as he’s pulled up. “Sorry about that!”

I’m giggling and laughing at the sight of the most blatant foreshadowing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I point a finger at Scrappy. “Bad dog!” I scold him. “Buy her a drink first!”

We finish our burgers and Joey heads upstairs to change his pants while I go down into my basement washing room to get a fresh costume. August always makes me sweat like a Westboro Baptist in a gay bar, and I know the costume upstairs is disgusting already. This one down here is the one that got all of the brain stains in it, and I’ve finally managed to get them out. It took forever. I don’t know why I use white in my costume. I told Matilda that I didn’t want to wear white, but she insisted, saying it tested well.

Rather than taking two flights of stairs up, I just port upstairs into my safe room and into my bedroom. Joey is just pulling his jeans on when I appear, and he startles and shrieks at my sudden appearance. “Oops. Sorry,” I say, and I pick up the other costume and take them both into the bathroom. There I swap the blond ponytail wig piece and visor, attach them to the clean suit, and remove my robe. I grow to my full height, which makes the bathroom appear to shrink and gloom over. I adjust my brassiere, step into my costume, and come out, zipping up.