Super Born: Seduction of Being (32 page)

When the barkeep returned again with a red
plastic rose and a small candle and held his hand out again, I
filled it again so he would leave us alone. What a romantic he was,
I thought, as he walked away with a pocket full of my
cash.

When I looked back to the table, the B.I.B. was
already into her meal. “I haven’t eaten all day,” she said, loading
a forkful. “Well since lunch I mean…and that snack.”

“
And yet you could somehow resist
those chili fries,” I joked. “Well, they’re an acquired
taste.”

She only nodded as she chewed.

It felt good to watch her doing something so
normal and everyday as that. I smiled, but couldn’t escape the
thoughts that the meal had interrupted. Hopefully she would forget
what we were talking about. I fought with myself to keep from
getting too melancholy and overthinking things. I decided to throw
off my analytical uncertainty and just enjoy my time with
her.

That’s when I realized, hell, she was eating
everything! She was packing it away like a busload of tourists at
an all-you-can-eat buffet! My first instinct was to start loading
my plate too, but then I stopped, took only a few bites, and
watched her smiling, enjoying her food. Eventually the chewing
slowed and she began a light conversation with me. My stomach
calmed, and I smiled in the back of my mind. Hell, was I doing
something right for a change?

With the RFDs as a constant sideshow, we were
soon laughing together as we ate and downed Miner’s Lites. She ate
everything in sight, including a few forkfuls off my meager plate.
We bantered questions back and forth about our lives and ourselves.
I was tactful to avoid questions about her as the B.I.B. She told
me about her daughter and of the rigors of becoming a mother as a
teenager. She talked about her job as if her superpowers didn’t
exist.

When the RFDs started a chair race—one young
man being pushed around the bar on a chair, with another two as
engines—I quickly grabbed her hand, found a chair, and entered her
in the chariot (or should I say chair-idiot?) race. When the B.I.B.
pushed over our nearest competition, we were home free for the win.
Our prize? Miner’s Lite’s, presented to us with chili fry baskets
as our crowns. We gave them both to the runner’s up. What
class!

Two Miner’s Lites later found both of us
wearing the antlers from the Antler Game in the back room. As an
RFD struggled to load the rifle, the B.I.B. and I scurried around
the bar. Sometimes she hid behind me and other times I hid behind
her as we darted around the room, hiding behind chairs and tables.
The B.I.B. cracked me up with a great fish face just before the RDF
fired. There’s something about a woman doing a fish face while
wearing antlers that hits a primal cord in every male; or is it
just me?

He missed us, of course, with the new law
requiring blanks, but we dropped and rolled on the floor anyway as
if hit by the same shot. We both laughed and rolled up on our sides
facing each other. Even in an antler helmet, her gray eyes
glistened and the shimmering smile on her lips was lovely to
behold. The intimacy between our eyes was so intense that it awed
me—you know, like the real meaning of awesome? I had to look away,
and fast.

Back at the table, she suddenly seemed to sober
up. “I’ve got to get to my sister’s house. Thank you for the info
on those two super bitches, the food, and a fun night. I needed
it.”

I panicked. “You can’t go.”

“
I’ll be okay. I know who they are
now. I just need to find a new place to live, and make them start
looking all over again. I’ll find a way to get my stuff without
them following me…Paige will be pissed, but what can you
do?”

I grabbed her arm. “You can’t go. How am I
gonna find you again?” Before she could answer, I felt how warm her
arm seemed, but then the feeling changed. She noticed it too. I
could tell by the surprised look on her face as she looked down at
our entwined arms. The intensity grew and I soon learned why the
cat in the news article had risked being run over by the beer truck
just to get back to her. My entire arm began to feel like, well,
like another part of my anatomy, let’s say. A casual brush didn’t
seem to do it, but a solid contact for several seconds brought the
feeling to life.

She dropped my arm, took a step back, and let
out a deep breath. I pushed lightly on her shoulder. “It’s just
your sister. You can be a little late.” She hesitated for a moment
as we traded glances, but this time I wouldn’t look away. Finally,
she slowly sat back down. “Okay.”

* * *

Two hours later we were sitting on the toxic
floor beneath the nasty plastic tablecloth of our booth at
O’Malley’s with our backs to the wall. We’d literally drunk
ourselves under the table. Several Miner’s Lites to the good, we
had both become quieter and subdued. Despite the alcohol running
through her veins, she kept space between us, avoiding a repeat of
the arm incident. Somehow our conversation had become more and more
full of expletives as the night wore on.

As she took a long sip from her beer, I had to
ask, “You know…why haven’t you done that thing tonight…that thing
you do with your eyes?”

“
What fuckin’ thing with my eyes?”
she said, leering over at me.

“
You know…that thing! Like you did
the first night I saw you.”

“
No, I don’t know. You wanna fuckin’
enlighten me?”

“
You know what a fuckin’ lighthouse
is?”

“
Do you know what my fist is?” she
said, putting up a low, unthreatening fist.

“
Okay, you know a lighthouse has a
light on top that rotates around? You know how the light turns away
and you don’t see it, then it gets brighter and brighter as it
turns toward you, until it flashes right in your eyes? Then it
spins around again?” She nodded. “When I first saw your beautiful
gray eyes…”

“
My eyes aren’t fuckin’ gray!
They’re hazel…everybody says they’re hazel.”

“
Get the fuck out! Hazel, my ass!
They’re gray…gray with little specks of blue and sometimes green
floatin’ around.”

She shook her head. “No fuckin’ way. They’re
hazel!”

“
Okay, okay…when I first saw
your
hazel
eyes,
they flashed blue then green, like a light on a lighthouse. It was
fuckin’ amazing. Jones, he couldn’t see it. But I did…right in the
old eyeballs,” I said, pointing two fingers at my eyes.

She didn’t say a word and her expression was
hard to read..

“
You know what the weird thing was?
No one else can see it but me. That’s how I knew that there was
something special between us,” I added, pointing a finger at both
of us repeatedly. She drank from her beer and stared at her feet.
“What’s that shit all about? Why do you do that shit?”

She was silent for a long moment, and then
tried to take a drink from a bottle that was already empty. “I
marked you.”

“
Marked me? What the fuck does that
mean?” I asked.

She looked up at me. “It means none of those
other bitches can get to you. Jennifer fuckin’ whoever can’t have
you…you’re mine,” she said in a low tone.

I laughed, “What?”

“
No other woman can have you,” she
said, “cause I already have you marked. Even those super bitches.
Have you met this Jennifer yet?”

I nodded, before taking a long sip. “Well, did
she put any moves on you? Did she try to get you to do something
you didn’t want to do?” I shook my head. She pushed the bottle in
her hand forward. “That’s ’cause I marked you.”

I laughed. “She did try to put some moves on
me.”

“
And?”

“
And I walked the fuck
out!”

“
What’d I tell you?” she said, again
sucking on the empty bottle.

I thought it was funny, until it dawned on me
how nonexistent my sex life had been since being “marked.” I stared
at my bottle and then took my last sip, uncertain about this
“marked” thing. Even drunk I had to say,, “Wait just a minute
there, Missy.”

She looked over her shoulder at the wall, as if
I were talking to someone else behind her. “Who the hell is
Missy?”

I pointed an accusing finger at her.
“You…you’re Missy, Missy.”

“
Oh,” she said, making a face like I
was crazy.

“
How do you know about how this
marking thing works?”

She laughed like she had just told herself a
joke. “Let’s just say …‘cause I’ve fuckin’ tried it!…Never on a guy
before, you understand. I didn’t know that would work till you just
told me. Good to know…But when I want something, the feelings…” She
patted her chest. “…inside just project out of me through my eyes.
The flash implants energy on whoever is willing to receive it.
Engrains a connection,” she said, flipping a finger she pointed in
the general vicinity of the two of us, “between us.”

“
Implant energy? I’m sorry, but-
what?”

“
Oh, fuck it. You just think I’m
crazy,” she said, shaking her upraised hands as if
frightened.

I felt sorry for turning her off. Then I
thought about what she’d said, my thought process delayed by the
beer. “Wait—you flashed me ’cause you wanted something?”

She tapped my arm and almost knocked me out
from under the table. “Go fuck yourself! You don’t wanna know! I’m
not talkin’ about it anymore…I fuckin’ marked you. Live with
it.”

I looked over at her for a moment, surprised at
how real she was now. Drunk or not, it was obvious that she didn’t
want to admit that she’d marked me because she liked me. She
wouldn’t say it, but I felt better knowing.

“
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.