Part 35 - INTO THE SHADOWS, AND OUT AGAIN

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Warning: This is adult literature.  If you’re not of a legal age to read this stuff, don’t.

Disclaimer: This is a work of pure fiction.  No semblance between the characters described here and real individuals -- living or dead -- is implied or intended.

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Plot Synopsis Up to This Point:

Four female postgraduate students in New Mexico (Vicky, Tammy, Louisa and Kim) are living depressing lives fraught with personal and professional failures. 

One day, driving through the lonely new Mexico desert, they are commandeered by aliens.  Turns out, the aliens would like to come back one day and mine the our earthly sphere until it's Swiss cheese.  But in the meantime, they need a little help mapping the earth's geology and perhaps subduing its population.  And who better to help with that than a handful of local females, recruited involuntarily? The aliens soup them up with some supernatural abilities and turn them loose.

No one knows when the aliens are going to come back, if they ever do.  And that gives the girls plenty of opportunity to explore the supernatural abilities the aliens have given them.  In case you've never been superhuman, it involves not only absurd strength, but also being absurdly attractive, with the sexual appetite to match.  It means you can store a city’s worth of electricity inside of you, and blow shit up at will.  And it means you can fly.

Vicky is the leader of the four.  She could have any man she wants, but she pines after the heart of the one man who knows her better than any other: Jared.  She wants not only his touch, but his respect, and his deeper companionship.  Unfortunately, her recent reunion with Jared did not go well: he was uncomfortable with the opulent and self-centered lives the girls had developed, and was less than impressed with some of the damage they had caused in the world with their super-powered carelessness.

As we leave off Part 34, a party has been planned to celebrate the girl's rescue of a stranded commercial space tourism capsule -- a rescue that in fact is scheduled to occur during the party itself.  And it won't be just any party, but instead a seventy-thousand-person blow-out in a football stadium.  Jared has promised to come, but only because Vicky pleaded for him to do so.

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As the start of the party crept closer, Vicky found it impossible not to get swept up in the excitement.   The state had volunteered the seventy-thousand-person football stadium in Tempe for the occasion.  This would be a city-wide celebration --- music, dance, and a huge venue.  It would be the event of the year.  

At 9pm, Kim rocketed heavenward, wearing a bikini with little stars on it-- her nod to space travel, Vicky supposed.  

Tammy (now Tamara) came back from the Ukraine early enough to change into a silvery skirt and top.  Louisa found a pink halter top that showed her assets off perfectly -- the image of which would probably to sell a million dollars worth of celebrity magazines next week.  Vicky wore a dress with so many cut-outs that it would probably account for another million in sales.  The three girls took casually to the skies and came down at the football stadium.

As they descended, Vicky could hardly believe her eyes.  The seventy-thousand person stadium was nearly full, and more cars were arriving.  

Alighting on the main stage, Vicky approached the microphone and turned it off.

"Helloooooo, PHOENIX!" she boomed, her superhuman voice filling the stadium.  The field had been cleared within 30 yards of the stage, to preserve mortal ear drums.  "Are you ready to party TONIGHT?"

The crowd's noise swelled appreciatively in response.  Band after famous band was scheduled to play.  A-list celebrities would be making appearances.  The booze would be cheap.  And of course, the super-girls would be dancing the whole night away, their every sensual move broadcast on the jumbotron for all to see.  

Vicky saw her own image on the jumbotron-- the cut-outs of her dress providing easy views of the body that lay beneath.  She should have been embarrassed, she knew, to have tens of thousands of people staring at every square inch of her.  But there was nothing to be embarrassed about.  Her olive skin was smooth and perfect.  Her outline was chiseled athleticism, without a scrap of fat to be found.  Her curves were in all the right places -- mesmerizing hips and a bust that was the object of a million male fantasies.  Still dancing, she stretched her arms above her head and let them stare.

As the boom-boom of the music began to take over, Vicky saw Jared in the VIP area and motioned him on stage.  He came, with a slight reluctance to his step.  As the raucous festivities got going, Vicky began to dance with him, moving to the music with a fluidity and skill that had been unknown to her before her transformation.  A glance over the crowd revealed an audience that was quickly getting into a party mood.  All eyes were upon her, Louisa and Tammy.

"It feels a little weird," Jared shouted, "to be at the center of all this!"

"It's your night too, man!"  Vicky replied.  "Want me to take you for a flight over the crowd?"

He looked at the massive bowl of the stadium before turning back to her.  "Nah," he replied, looking at the cheering crowd of seventy thousand.  "But thanks.  This is uh...  This is all a little bit much for me.  I think I'm going to sit out the next few songs."

Vicky had a sinking feeling as she watched him leave the stage-- a feeling that he wouldn't be coming back to her tonight.  And she was right.

---------

By 11 p.m., the party was in full swing, and one thing was certain: the seventy thousand party-goers were getting their money's worth.  In addition to the bands and the celebrity visits, the sight of the three girls on the jumbotron kept the crowd at a fever pitch the whole night.  Single guys nearly drooled, and developed kinks in their necks staring at the screens above. Some married men got their faces slapped by jealous wives.  Other married men couldn't tear their wives away from staring at the massive screens themselves.  More than a few couples began to rediscover a sexual enthusiasm for each other than they had long considered lost.

At the stroke of midnight, a white object appeared in the sky.  Kim, her delicious curves on display with the blue, starred bikini, was bringing the disabled space craft down with the grace of a ballerina.  The space craft weighed about ninety thousand pounds, which to Kim would feel like picking up a gallon jug of water.

As Kim descended, Vicky couldn't help but stare at the girl's body and admire her own role in crafting it.  Kim filled out the starry bikini perfectly -- large, full, firm tits that needed to be constrained and tamed, not supported or augmented.  Her muscles flared under the weight of the craft but were never crude or bulbous, only lithe and feminine.  Her curves and hourglass shape were generous but cleanly cut as well.  And it all combined with an elegance that belied the ninety-thousand-pound weight she was handling.

A space in the masses had been cleared at the 50-yard line.  Kim set the craft on the ground, and in moments, dazed space passengers were emerging into the middle of a rock concert -- shielding their eyes from the dozen spot lights focused on them.

The seventy-thousand-person crowd erupted in cheers at Kim's superhuman feat.  Twice, the previous NASA shuttle program had run into difficulty on space missions, and in both cases these glitches had lead to a complete loss of life.  Here, a private space capsule had been in just as much peril, and Kim had saved them.  Vicky wondered whether the crowd realized that, for Kim, the feat had taken less time and concentration than picking her outfit for the evening.

Kim floated to the stage and joined the other girls.  Spotlights crawled across their firm bodies as the girls soaked in the crowd's adulation.

Chad mounted the stage and came to Louisa's side.  So did Roberto to Kim's, and of course Alec appeared behind Tammy.

Vicky allowed herself to revel in the moment.  They finally had it all.  She and her three female companions on stage had bodies that were the envy of women the world over.  Each of them had the strength of an army and a level of invulnerability unknown to science.  Their sensual presence could bend figures of authority to their will effortlessly.  With the aid of cocaine -- harmless to the girls -- they could even alter people's memories and perceptions.  The girls had expanded their wealth in to the hundreds of millions, and could stretch easily into the billions if they felt like it.  And hearing the cheers, Vicky knew that they had the public's adoration as well.  Every whim, every desire the girls had ever possessed, had been satisfied.  They had everything, Vicky mused.  

Everything, that is, except the one person she wanted most.

-------

Without meaning to, Vicky found herself scanning the crowd over and over again, searching for a glimpse of his face.  Unfortunately, she did not have accelerated brain functions for the task -- only rocks, minerals and conflict seemed to interest the module buried deep inside her.  Here, her brain was on its own.  Several minutes and a hundred faces later, she became weary of the task, and had to give up.  

Finally, she felt a slight vibration on her cell phone, and glanced at the screen.  "Had to leave for New Mexico..." the text started.  Vicky didn't manage to read the rest, her vision blurred by tears.

What's it worth, Vicky scowled to herself as she descended the stage?  What's the point of being super-powerful or super-beautiful if it can't bring you the one thing in the world that makes you most happy?

Vicky worked her way toward the exit from the field.  She didn't know where she was going but she strode there with a passion.  

Her troubled thoughts continued.  All the while I was thinking that being super made me superior -- superior to all the other girls he could possibly ever have.  And yet, he seems to think even less of me than he used to.  He's been quietly harboring his disappointment the whole time!

She found herself walking the hallways of the stadium alone, fleeing the confused and ravenous glances of party goers.  What's the point of thinking about it, she lamented?  He's not coming back to me.

The playful glitter of the party dress no longer matched Vicky's darkening mood, and she realized that she needed to get rid of it.  Ripping a fist-size padlock off the metal screen of a closed gift shop, Vicky shimmied out of the dress and snagged an oversized hoodie sweatshirt: XXL went all the way down to her knees.  To make for even greater privacy, she made good use of the hood.  The dress got stuffed in the front pocket of the sweatshirt.

"I hear they can be real bitches in person-- all four of them."

The statement was just a whisper, a muttering between two girls in the ladies room.  But despite the foot of concrete that separated the store from the restroom, Vicky could hear it clear as day. 

"I know," came the whispered reply.  "Did you hear that they closed the 101 yesterday just so that one of them could play with her new car?  I was late to work by 45 minutes!  If that happens one more time, I get fired."

Another voice chimed in.  "My cousin was on that Tokyo flight they grabbed over the Pacific.  What they did was so traumatic that he's scared to come out of the house."

Vicky re-emerged from the store with shaky feet and began walking the back corridors of the stadium.  Even here, the dyne of the concert made the air shake.  But Vicky wasn't interested in the music.  Her hearing cut through it like a scythe.

"...self-centered..." said one anonymous whispered voice in the hallway.

"...so full of themselves!" whispered another.

"...I'm scared to even talk about them," said a third.  "I've heard they've even killed people."

They all hate me, Vicky lamented to herself, feeling suddenly unsteady on her feet.  Or they're petrified of me.  And it's not just Jared.  It's all of them.

Vicky collapsed against the cold concrete wall of the corridor and pulled the sweatshirt around her tightly.  She could spend a night in the Arctic without getting chilled, but for some reason a deeper, truer cold was gripping her now.  Shivering, she watched the foot traffic go by.

"Looking for someone?" a male voice asked.

The light of the corridor was weak, but Vicky's eyes penetrated it easily.  He was decent-looking, but not more than that-- certainly not the hottie material that usually approached her out of the blue.  Guys like this rarely got the nerve up.  

She examined him better.  His face had a studious, nerdy appearance.  Very thick glasses rested on his nose.  He wore a silvery bracelet with unusual bumps on it.

"Not anymore," Vicky lamented, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.  "I'm sure he's gone.  And how about you? Looking for someone?" she asked.

"Not literally," he laughed.  "I'm legally blind.  Shapes and blotches of light-- not much else makes it through."  He waved a hand in front of his face.

Vicky didn't know what to say.

"But you're right.  I'm looking for my girlfriend," he replied.  "Or at least, I thought she was my girlfriend.  She left because she was insanely jeaolous of the girls on stage."

"Oh," Vicky replied, regretfully.  Even here, I've been causing damage.  "What's the bracelet?"  She motioned at the pewter-colored, ornament on his wrist.

He ran a finger over it.  "It's Braille... several portions of the Band of Brothers speech."

"Like, the war movie?"

"No, the original.  Henry the Fifth, by Shakespeare."

"Who wears Shakespeare jewelry to a party?" she derided.

"A guy who gets stood up, apparently.  A guy who needs to find strength in his moments of darkness.  Wearing this reminds me to go forward, no matter how bad the odds.  That's what the English did, at Agincourt."

Vicky thought about this.  She vaguely remembered the play, but it had been a long time since that class.

"So why does a single girl like you decide to wander these depressing corridors, wearing a, uh, dark and formless thing?"

"A hoodie," she clarified.  "I guess I wanted to be anonymous for a bit."

"Well, anonymity I can certainly offer."  He stared unseeingly at her forehead.  "Apart from the black blob you're wearing, I can't see you for shit."

Vicky smiled-- really smiled-- for the first time all night.  And she lowered her hood.

"You must be a celebrity," he continued.  "Only the famous talk about anonymity like it's a good thing."

Dead on, she thought.  "Yes, I admit, I am famous."
 
"You could have found anonymity anywhere.  And you lingered down here for something else as well," he asserted.

Wow.  Also dead on.  "I suppose you're right.  I guess I came here to listen-- to learn what people really think of me."

"And?"

"I thought everyone adored me.  But now it seems to be the opposite.  Some of them hate me outright.  Some of them are sick with jealousy, which I suppose is the same thing."

He stared unblinking into the distance, thumbing his finger over the bracelet.

"But I don't get it," she continued.  "When I'm in public, they openly fawn over me, sing my praises.  But then I slip into the shadows and hear nothing but hatred."

"'I suppose there's no greater loneliness than fame," he observed.  

Right again, she thought.  Blind as a bat-- but he sees in his own way.

He elaborated, "That's the problem with fame.  People love you to your face and hate you behind your back.  In fact, if you can find a single guy who can give you a straight answer on what he really thinks of you, grab onto him and never let him go."

"You're describing the guy I just lost."

"Then you need to get him back."

"I don't know if I have it in me.  I lost his admiration today, and I don't know how to win it back.  And everyone hates me.  I'm so much less impressive than people expect me to be.  I'll never be a good leader."

"That's not true.  You have more potential than you realize," he smiled as he gripped the bracelet more forcefully now.  

"How do you know?  You don't even know who I am."

"I know because you decided to linger in the shadows.  You could have spent the evening in a luxury skybox or some other place that famous people go.  But you're down here, with us, in the shadows.  You wanted to listen for the truth about how people regarded you."

"It's painful, but I'm actually glad I heard it.  But you didn't answer my question.  What makes you think I have potential?"

He thumbed his Band of Brothers bracelet absently.  "Only great leaders have the humility to don a shroud and walk the cook fires before the battle."

----------

It was five minutes later that he heard the footsteps of the mysterious hoodie woman returning, and then saw the dull splotch of her form in his limited vision.  She handed him a beer.  He had told her his name was Lawrence.  She did not supply a name in return.  

"Can I ask you a question?"  Her voice was nervous.  "What do you think of the super-girls?"

"I'm not sure what the hype about them is.  I know they have incredible powers, but at the end of the day they're just people, like the rest of us."

"You seem to be the only person out there that doesn't have a strong opinion about them."

He tried to laugh.  "Well, I do have one strong opinion, now that you mention it.   On most days, I'm OK with being blind.  But tonight was not one of them.  I don't mind using a walking stick, not being able to see movies, that kind of thing.  But sometimes, when people gush on and on about a remarkable work of art, or a beautiful sunset, I get a little bit jealous that I'm left out.  Everyone is simply infatuated with how unbelievably sexy these women are.  I wish I could lay eyes on them, even once.  Is that so wrong?"

"No, it's not so wrong," she replied.  Her voice was quiet, but rich with depth.

Lawrence felt something tug at him, as if someone had hooked a tow cable to his body turned on the winch.  

"That's the worst part about blindness," he continued.  "In order to truly see something, I have to use my hands.  And its not as if I'm every going to have my hands on one of those girls."

"How can you be so sure?" Her voice dropped another notch, and the winch began to pull harder.

"What in the world would those girls ever want with a nerdy guy who has no sight?"

"You lack visual sight, but you seem to have a greater type of sight... " she remarked as she traced a hand over his heart, ".... that comes from within."

Her scent, like a sprig of verbena, was electrifying.  "But that doesn't mean that I could ever--"

"What would happen if you did one of those girls a favor-- offered her your insight?  And what if she was incredibly grateful?"  Her touch was electric.

"Do you mean to suggest... No, they would never..."  He shook his head in protest.  "Don't be cruel by playing with me... I mean, for a moment, you actually got me thinking..."

His voice trailed off.  The racuous sounds of the party drifted down the corridors.   Truth or Consequences was on stage, and the super-girls were signing backup, perfectly in tune.  The band was supported by a system of enormous amplifiers, which the girls matched easily with the immense power of their own vocal cords.

"How many super-girls are there, stud?" she asked, continuing to trace a finger down his chest.

"F.... Four,"

She stroked the pads of his fingers, where the nerve endings are.  "They say blindness elevates the other senses.  How many supergirls are singing right now?"  She took his hand in her own, raised it slightly toward her.  

"Three," he replied.

She gently folded three fingers on his hand.  Her voice adopted a mock tone of shock.  "Then where ever could the fourth be?" she asked as she ran her digits along his fourth finger.

He stammered, but nothing came out.

"Maybe the fourth needs a little break from all her fame.  Maybe she needs to the company of a guy who can see her a little bit differently, who appreciates her a little bit differently."  She lead his hands up to her face.  "For you, touching is like seeing, right?"

He inhaled as his palm touched her face.

She said, "Tell me what you see."

--------

The warmth of her cheek tantalized his wrists.  He felt gently around her face -- the contours of her features, the shape of her skull.

"Tell me," she insisted.

"Your cheekbones are very high," he commented.  "Your features are perfectly symmetrical.  Full lips.  A small-ish nose.  Long eyelashes.   And your skin-- it's very soft."

"Thank you," she replied gently.

Lawrence's fingers continued to scamper across her face.  "In fact, it's wierd.  I can't find a single interruption to the surface of your skin -- no mole, no zit, no birthmark."

"I know," she replied simply.  "It's perfect."

He felt his hands being lowered down over her shoulders to the rough cotton of the sweatshirt that covered her waist.

"Now what do you feel?"  Her voice was burrowed into him.

"A sweatshirt."

"What's under it, dummy?"

Lawrence felt his hands drift lower, looking for the hem.  It was most of the way down to her knee.  Slipping his hands under it, his palms were met by a surface like living marble-- hard as a rock, but warm, and shifting slightly as she inched toward him.  "You're, uh, quite fit."

"More than you could possibly understand."

He felt her fingers on his forearms, gently pressing them upward.  His ams spread as his palms traveled the delightful swell of her hips.  "You've got a really nice shape."

"You like?" she purred.  "I designed it myself -- 40-24-34.  You ought to see what happens when I show up at a beach."

"Turn a few heads?"

"Last time, a guy went into cardiac arrest."

She stepped even closer.  The hips he had held were soon replaced by the rounded globes of her derrière.  

"Sorry," Lawrence said, starting to remove his hand.  

"Don't be."  She held him there.  "Tell me what your hands see."

He tried to squeeze, but it was like squeezing bowling balls.  "Wow, your ass is hard as a rock too."

She purred appreciatively.  He felt the iron landscape under his fingers shift slightly as she wiggled further into him.

"You're glutes seem so strong, you must be a runner."

"I do it when I feel like it."

"What's your fastest mile?"

"Nine, I believe.  I could probably do faster if I tried."

"Nine minutes?"

"No," she laughed.  "Seconds."  

He felt the iron of her ass shift again.

"You're not done yet, buster."

Lawrence's hands slid toward each other as the swell of her hips gave way to the narrowness of her midriff.  "There's not a scrap of fat on you," he observed, as his fingers fingers slid over the concave steel of her sides.  "What kind of diet are you on?"

"Milkshakes, donuts, steak.  Whatever I feel like, really."

His thumbs rounded the balls of iron that defined her abdominals.

"How much do you work out?" he asked, amazed.

"Never," she replied.  But thud, thud, thud, went his thumbs as they skipped off the top of each solid abdominal.

"That tickles a little."  She giggled, and the unforgiving landscape of her abdomen undulated under his hand.

His hands climbed further over the lower half of the ribcage and he tried to imagine the power of what lied within -- a diaphragm and lungs that had easily overpowered the sound system of a seventy-thousand-person stadium.

Lawrence's thumbs encountered the underside of her breasts and he again paused momentarily.  

"There're big..."

"Go higher," she encouraged.

His hands explored further upward, and he heard himself gasp.  "They huge-- huge and full."  He spread his elbows slightly to force her sweatshirt up higher and allow him freedom of movement.  Her torso and legs were now completely exposed.  She pressed up against him, and he felt the warmth of her through his clothes.

"Breasts are usually soft, but these are so heavy and full.  They feel magnificent."

She shifted her position slightly, and her breasts bent his fingers backward, as if he was contending with cannonball and not the softest part of her body.

Lawrence's hands found her the center of each breast.  "What are those, cherries?" he asked.

"Nipples, silly."

He brushed his fingertips over them, and they nearly exploded in response.  She moaned softly.

"Squeeze, them," she asked.

He did.

"Now squeeze them like they are not going to break."

Lawrence did, as hard as he could, and he felt her shiver.

"Wow, that feels good," she purred.

His fingers began to strain from the effort.

"I can't stand it anymore," she rasped.  "I need you now."

"Whaa... what about that guy you've been talking about?"

"In time, perhaps I'll win him over.  I hope."  Her breath warmed the skin of his neck.  "There is a time for everything, and the time for you is now."

The verbena scent of her skin slapped lightly against his senses like a small wave.  But as her lips grew closer, the scent of her intensified.  Lawrence felt an unexpected wave crashing down on him -- sexual power unlike anything he had ever sensed, was churning him mercilessly.  He let his mouth drown in the warm fullness of her lips.

Pinned between her and the wall, he felt a quick tug at his waistline.  His shaft sprang outward into the cool night air.  Somehow, she had undone his belt and his fly.  Her thighs came up around his hips as she expertly balanced herself into him. 

A slippery warmth surrounded the head of his cock, but did not go further.  Without warning, her sex squeezed him firmly, and an uncontrolled moan escaped his lips.  Even her pussy was remarkable.

"Oh my gosh," she cooed.  You're such a stud."

The compliment was preposterous.  He struggled to form the response.  "No... I'm blind, skinny. Girls never..."

"No a stud in that way, silly."  Her sex teased the head of his shaft as she ran her hands over his ass.  "You're a stud in a better way.  You helped me believe in myself again.  And the only way I can think to thank you is to fuck your brains out.  Is that OK?"

But before he assemble an answer, she pulled him blissfully into her.

-------

It was several hours later that Vicky and Lawrence left the stadium.  She was back in her "chain link" dress now. The hoodie lay discarded in a corner.  Thanks to him, she no longer wanted to be a shadow.

Her Lambourghini would be waiting at the valet area she knew, and she would need it to drive him home.  Flying with Lawrence in tow would also have been an option, but she didn't like the awkwardness of it.  And she didn't mind driving him, especially in that car.

The pair walked through the departing crowd, boisterous with the afterglow of the stadium party.

Ahead of them, however, some particularly loud voices were becoming less boisterous, and more hostile.  A fight was starting, and it was loud enough that both Vicky and her companion could hear it.  The particulars soon came into view -- twenty guys on each side, with broken beer bottles and bare fists for weapons.  Punches had already been thrown, and the situation was deteriorating quickly.

Vicky gently tugged on her companion's arm, motioning him toward a path that would avoid the ruckus.

"Why?"  Lawrence asked.  "Why avoid this?"

"If I get involved, I'll just mess everything up: 'Supergirl incites deadly brawl in parking lot after party.'  That's what the headlines will say.  You heard all the bad stuff they were saying about me in the hallways.  I can't take any more of it."

"Yes, you can.  You can use all their criticism to make yourself better.   What specifically were they saying about you?"

"They said I was inconsiderate and unpredictable."

"Then imagine your self being considerate and steady."

"They said I was reckless."

"Then imagine yourself being judicious."

"Those are just words.  What do I DO?"  The shouts between the men in the distance suggested that blows were imminent.  "I can't choose sides in this; I don't even know what they are arguing about."  

"I believe in you."  His voice was insistent.  "You are ready to become something more."

She felt the pale parking lot lights wash over her as the click-click of her heels took her to the center the acrimonious group.  Her dress, with its copious cut-outs, left little to the imagination.  

Vicky let her ams hang loosly at her sides as she gave dozens of eyes an opportunity to appraise her.  Some of these guys were twice Vicky's size, but silence began to spill over the group as men slowly realized who she was.  She could tell that their minds where reeling -- that they were seeing up close, for the first time, a body that could tear them all limb from limb, crush every car in sight to pancakes, and level the stadium-- all in time for breakfast. 

Some of the men backed up a step, as if the adding a foot of distance increased their chances of surviving her displeasure.  Others were frozen in place.

Her voice was only a whisper in the newfound silence.  "It was an awesome party tonight, and it's going to end awesome, too.  I suggest you unclench your fists and go home.  That work?"

She was met with silence.

But then, slowly, some of the men nodded their heads.  Others mumbled a "yes" or a "yes, thanks."  The crowd began to disperse.

A few of the angrier guys, however, continued to clutch broken beer bottles. 

Vicky looked at them and cocked an eyebrow.  She listened as their heart rates accelerated.  They soon smelled of fear.

"I will count to three.  If you don't drop your weapons and clear out by that time, I will be... unhappy."

She felt the fear growing on them further.

"One..."

Their fingers unclasped.  The bottles dropped.  And the men broke into a run.

"Wow," Vicky conceded to Lawrence.  "I didn't even have to raise my voice."

-------

It was about noon the next day before Tamara and Vicky emerged from the house. In a stroke of brilliance, Chad -- one of the rugby guys at the house -- had poured bath suds into the outdoor whirlpool, and the two girls had blissfully climbed in.  Immersion in the hot water was a catharsis -- from the alcohol, from the the sweat, from the sex that clung to their bodies.

"You look troubled," Tamara ventured as her head emerged from a quick submersion.  "What's bothering you?"

Vicky signed.  "I walked the hallways of the stadium last night and overheard what people were saying about us.  It's really depressing.  Some people resent us for how many people we've hurt, either intentionally or unintentionally.  Others are just plain scared of us.  And I'm the leader of this little group.  Their disgust isn't directed at all of you.  It's directed at me.  I deserve the blame."

"I think you're being a little bit hard on yourself.  Nobody's ever lived in an invincible body, until now.  I believe you have more potential than you know."

"That's exactly what the guy said -- the blind guy that I hung out with after leaving the stage.  He said that I had potential.  But how?  I don't know the first thing about how to be a hero."

The hot tub gurgled patiently.

"I heard that you broke up a fight last night?" Tamara asked.

"Yes, it was the strangest thing  I hardly had to do anything.   I said only a few words to them.  It's as if they broke it up themselves.  That's not an example of me being a hero."

"No, Vicky, it's the perfect example.  When I was in the Ukraine, I began to see my role in the world a little bit differently.  Sure, we're stronger than them, and faster and everything else too.  But the reason I was able to bring a whole army to its knees in one afternoon wasn't my muscles.  It was all the power I had ingested from the nuclear plant.  I was like a walking, talking nuclear weapon."

"And?"  Vicky replied.

"The Ukrainians gave me my power.  It came from THEIR plant.  And I gave something back to them.  Then, their admiration followed.  And now, rather than steal power from the plant, they keep begging me to come back, and take more of it.  They are proud of their connection with me.   My relationship with them has become a kind of symbiosis."

Vicky's hand slowly navigated the bubbles and vapors of the pool.

"That fight you broke up-- you and the men helped each other.  You didn't do it alone.  Instead, you inspired the men to reconsider their actions, to find the answers they already lay within their minds."

Tamara paddled across the pool to her friend and snuggled her into an embrace.  The massiveness of Tamara's breasts mashed against the massiveness of Vicky's own-- a crushing pressure that would have reduced granite to sand, but did little more than arouse Tamara's nipples.  "Come on, let's go for a ride," the blond said.

"We should towel off first," Vicky suggested.

"Nah.  Air dry."

In Tamara's snug embrace, they rocketed skyward at 8,000 miles per hour.  The enormous vacuum created by their launch yanked the contents of the whirlpool skyward -- a jet of water and suds that shot thirty yards into the air before collapsing back to earth.

It was so awesome to be super, Tamara thought as the two rocketed skyward.  It would cost many millions to launch a rocket at this speed.  But the girls were doing it thoughtlessly, easily -- all because they were too lazy to use a towel.  
 
When Tamara finally stopped, they were at 70,000 feet-- twice the altitude of commercial airliners.  Much of western North America was visible from here.

Tamara waved her hand at the populated expanse below.  "Have faith in them again.  Do that, and you'll soon find yourself being everything they want you to be.  And that, in turn, will make them have faith in you.  They will gladly treat you like the magnificent woman you are."

The sub-freezing wind-- enough to freeze mortal limbs solid -- gently tickled their skin.  

Tamara hesitated, and then spoke.  "If you can do the hero thing -- and do it in a way that is true to you.  Then, well, maybe..."

Vicky's voice was determined "... then maybe I can bring him back."