Daylight: A Story In the Dark

 

Chapter 3

 

By Castor

 

(special thanks to Dru for Editing. Once again based on an idea by Rook)

 

"Why is this closet locked" asked Alberto.

 

"It’s got some personal stuff in it" said Keiko I locked it

 

"Okay," Alberto said in a tone of voice that was remarkably accepting.

 

He was helping her clean the apartment that she didn't notice was actually kind of small. She had known it was 700 feet when she bought the place but it hadn't felt so small at the time.

 

Normally she wouldn’t allow anyone into the apartment during the day time. Keiko rarely had accidents, but she did have them. All it took was another person not to be careful with the windows, and something might happen. Alberto knew of her condition, at least that she averse to bright light. She also knew that it was raining today. Even when it was overcast, yes, she would transform. But it would take a few minutes before she lost consciousness. Surely it was okay today.

 

"So, just you here?" asked Alberto.

 

"Yeah," said Keiko. "I normally sleep a lot during the day, not conscious."

 

"Money?" said Alberto.

 

"I try not to worry about it."

 

Alberto shrugged. "Wish I could do that."

 

"So do I," confessed Keiko.

 

They laughed. It was something between them.

 

"For someone who spends so much time here this place is filthy!"

 

Keiko nodded. She had a vacuum cleaner, but seldom used it. Though she did a reasonable job with keeping trash out, there was abstract truth to what he said. With time she could live in a cleaner place and she had that. Maybe a cleaner place, cleaner mind.

 

She shook her head.

 

"Don't feel bad," said Alberto. "Whatever you do: don't feel bad”

 

"What if I chop off your arm?" Keiko asked.

 

"Okay … if you chop my arm off, then you can feel bad," conceded Alberto. "But other than that …”

 

"Will have to settle for a hand then."

 

She looked at him. Frequently she woke draped over underwear models of various genders. He was no underwear model, however, he wasn't a bad looking guy. He was tall, and had large muscles on his body, especially his chest. But they weren't very symmetrical. It looked as if his right arm was maybe an inch bigger then his left, and there was little separation from his top his bottom. He wasn't superfat, but he wasn't superlean either. Six packs were made in the kitchen went a phrase, and he didn't cook six pack meals. He had a kind face, but a rounded one, and hair that was slightly patchy with baldness. He looked like a man. He looked human.

 

He swept her kitchen

 

"You don't have to do this," observed Keiko, smiling.

 

"I know." He paused. "It’s nice to be useful to someone."

 

Keiko shook her head. "Not always. I am sure you’re useful to people all the time at work"

 

"I guess," said Alberto. "But no-one really wants to see an elevator repairman, as no one wants problems with their elevator."

 

"This is your free time," said Keiko. "You should spend it on yourself, be yourself."

 

"This is who I am," Alberto assured her.

 

Keiko looked at him. When she was a kid she’d read comics, and Keiko remembered how batman, in his secret identity, would always spend his time as Bruce Wayne taking inner-city kids on camping trips or volunteering at soup kitchens. Because that’s who Batman really was. A helpful guy. She felt a wave of self revulsion in her mind. But she was used to that.

 

Alberto got on his knees and started to clean the floor.

 

"I like to clean for other people … did it all the time for Daisy."

 

"Tell me about Daisy," said Keiko, as she washed old dishes.

 

Alberto shrugged. "She was very pretty. We met at junior college but she went further than I. She became a social worker. But that’s who she was."

 

"I am a biologist," Keiko told him.

 

"Right, um. Daisy was very good at Trivial Pursuit. People always said she should go on Jeopardy. She was smart like that, quite the know-it-all. But it was fun. Everyday I would come home and learn something. Pretty … before it got a hold of her. You know, they said I should keep telling her she was pretty as it happened, keep telling how gorgeous she looked … "

 

Keiko stoped as he started to cry. She knelt on the wet floor and began to hug him.

 

"It’s … it’s been so God-damm hard for me. So God-damm … Lung cancer, which is either a very long-term thing, or a very short one. She was so sweet throughout it all, oh Alberto you don't have to do that, I don't want to be a bother, just so sweet and kind … what can yo do?”

 

He was crying more then she was cleaning but Keiko held him.

 

"It’s okay," she said, "I'm not going anywhere."

 

But reality had a sense of humour, as was revealed when a large distant explosion filled the air. It wasn't visible in any way, just a huge rumble in the distance.

 

"What was that?” Alberto demanded,

 

"I’m not going anywhere," said Keiko firmly.

 

But Alberto got up and looked out the kitchen window. For a second she felt light, and quickly recoiled … moving to the living room before it happened.

 

"I’m sorry!" apologised Alberto.

 

"What’s going on?" asked Keiko.

 

"It looks like something’s burning," said Alberto, "maybe a power-plant."

 

"Stay here," Keiko commanded, surprising herself.

 

"Why would I leave?" Alberto inquired curiously.

 

"Close the window, tell me more about your … "

 

No. That’s not fair …

 

"Tell me more about yourself," Alberto requested.

 

Keiko sighed. She could hear the sounds in the distance, but took a mop and started to sweep it. "Um, I grew up in Orange County, California. I got my degree from Stanford … and, but that’s things I guess. Who was I before this started, I’m not sure. I mean I liked the Backstreet Boys, I had boyfriends. I was less of a nerd then you might think a Japanese-American science geek should be. But … I don't know I was all that interesting.”

 

She could hear the sound of burning.

 

"You know, Alberto … I am kind of feeling a little sick.”

 

Alberto nodded with more understanding in his eyes then perhaps she thought he would have.

 

"Too much?"

 

Keiko nodded. "I can't strain very much.”

 

Alberto got up. "No problem we finish later."

 

"Thank you.”

 

She put her hands around his for a second, and felt his genuine warmth. It felt good as he gathered his stuff and got out.

 

The second he did she opened the curtains and felt the light, the heat. Well, it was very cloudy and would take a minute or two. Keiko managed to open the closet and had her costume half on before she blacked out.

 

*****

 

She was close. She was so God-damn close.

 

She was on top of a guy, and she was feeling it build up inside her, such an intense sensation, as she kept moving on top of him as fast as she could, moving to be filled by him, his gigantic manhood filling her. It felt good. She needed this … deserved this … so much. She had just performed her duty as the city’s mighty heroine … and now she needed to take of herself. It been so hard, so close … the constant buzzing in her love-nest …

 

Tearing herself away from this completion took more willpower then Keiko could …

 

Oh wait … she was Keiko.

 

And then she came, in a moment of glorious sunshine that filled her soul with lightness and joy.

 

The realization of her realization filled her. The moment of transference was palatable. It was a good feeling, and she was feeling sublime. She was one, and then she was another.

 

And now Keiko looked down to see a large black man underneath her. A mam who clearly was not Alberto.

 

All of her hair fell out in a shock, all over his face. He coughed.

 

*****

 

Not Alberto. She took the bus home and contemplated that thought. That’s where her mind had gone, the first thought that come to her. She now realized she really did care about him, in a way perhaps she had never cared for anybody else. She had never been married. Keiko had boyfriends in the past, of course. Some had been quite serious. But there was something to Alberto’s dignity and bearing that was so … so good.

 

And Keiko was sleeping around like a slut …

 

Not that she had much choice in the matter.

 

She shook her head and read the latest news on Daylight’s activities that day on her phone. It had been a power-plant explosion. Daylight had saved seven people from the fire. It was almost certainly a real accident, with no obvious signs of foul play. She had done good, quite a lot of good. Probably worth more than any feelings of being unfaithful to a helpful guy at her apartment building. He wasn't her boyfriend. They hadn't even kissed. He was just a guy who took pity on her pathetic secret identity.

 

Keiko shook her head. Secret identity? Was that what she was now? She wondered what the ditzy supergirl thought of her. Did she resent her? Did she look at what she was doing and think, what a poor little girl? Should she take her man and fuck him like Daylight did? (Except her superpowered alter-ego sometimes did it 20)

 

Keiko got off the bus, and left such thoughts behind. She watched, however, the bus go past.

 

*****

 

Professor Blackstone examined the image of the bald girl who had grabbed him. He knew he recognized her … or something about her …

 

"Computer: enhance," he commanded, but shook his head. Computers couldn't actually do that.

 

He shook his head again as his phone rang. He picked it up, but said nothing. There was no point.

 

"WE WANT RESULTS. YOU PROMISED US HER SECRETS, AND WE WANT THEM DELIVERED."

 

Blackstone sighed. He had taken a lot of money from them, which he used to buy robots, a lab … and now … now he was in bed with them. But he didn't know who they where. A group somewhere. The Chinese, he figured. Probably the Chinese.

 

Still, this wasn't that different then his university days. Publish or Perish.

 

He could capture her again, probably. He knew she wasn't that smart, but the word 'smart' kept making him think. There was something about that face …

 

*****

 

Alberto did research of his own, in his own way. He was in the library using one of their computers. Daisy used to have one in the house, but it was very old when she died and scarcely worked with the modern internet. It was in storage with, along with a lot of her stuff. He knew he had something like it on his phone, but never bothered to learn about it.

 

So instead he was here in the library, looking into a subject he knew something about, though he wished he didn't: diseases. Keiko didn't talk about her illness, of course, but then neither had Daisy. Alberto needed answers, needed results, even if they weren't always forthcoming.

 

She:

1. Was extremely sensitive to light

2. Had lost all her hair

3. Had lost a lot of body weight

4. Didn't have cancer.

5. wasn't terminal (though he took this a grain of salt)

 

Light senility was known for dermatitis or psoriasis, neither of which were visibly present in the patient. Her skin was pale, but normal enough. Smith Lemli Opitiz disorder didn't cause one to loose ones hair, but tended to a dysmorphic (whatever that meant) face. Mycosis Fungoid was a cancer. Porphyria was a possibility, but again this disease didn't cause hair loss.

 

Encephalitis.

 

That could be it. According to wikipedia, Encephalitis was commonly called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Weight loss, loss of hair, sensitivity to light(though this wasn't universal, and wasn’t that serious), not wanting to go out and do stuff … it didn't precisely make sense, but it set Alberto’s mind racing.

 

There were different types: Bickerstaff, Rasmussens, Wernickle's Emcephalophly. He closed his eyes and turned off his time at the computer. He knew at some point in his life, he wasn't quite sure when, he had laughed at a joke about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He just didn't remember how or when, just that it had happened.

 

It made him feel guilty.

 

*****

 

They watched a movie together that night. The not-so-good sequel to Analyse This, Analyse That. Frankly, Alberto didn't think the first movie was any good either, as he vaguely recalled. DeNiro doing a comedy version of a mobster from The Sopranos. Still, it seemed to make her smile which was important.

 

He had gotten out the guitar to play for her. He played her lots of Spanish music, the kind of Spanish music people don't usually hear in the US. He wasn't that good really, but Alberto played and Keiko occasionally offered applause.

 

Then they kissed on the couch for a bit.

 

And then he had to go.