Daddy Shark

by Maren Smith

  “This is not how I wanted to spend the night,” he sighed, but he was already unbuckling his seatbelt and shouldering open the car door. “Don’t think for a second this gets you out of trouble.”

  She startled all over again. “What, me? Why am I in trouble?” she called as he got out of the car and shut the door behind him.

  He didn’t go back to spell it out for her. Whether she knew it or not, he was absolutely going to talk to her about trying to convert Jim into a villain, and by ‘talk’ he meant he was going to spank her little bottom raw. But he couldn’t focus on that right now. He ran after Jim, catching up to him halfway to the fountain.

  “Get back in the car,” he told the smaller man.

  “It’s fine,” Jim said, which annoyed him.

  “It’s not fine.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Jim corrected himself. “Honest.”

  “I’m not leaving my only damn friend to sleep in a bucket on the beach,” Ommin said, not yet sure whom he was more irritated with in that moment.

  That stopped Jim. So, Ommin stopped too. They stared together at the curved pier that circled the cove. Ocean waves rolled up gently onto the beach, an instant and alluring balm on his unquiet soul and an attractant he dared not get any closer to. A stray salt drop in the air right now would cause him to change, right here in the open.

  “I’m your friend?” Jim asked, soft and surprised.

  Ommin wasn’t sure which of them that made more pathetic. “Duh,” he answered gruffly. “You brought me a croissant and coffee.”

  “Four,” Jim corrected. “Although I did drink most of them. And I ate the scones.”

  “It’s the thought that counts. Or so everyone tells me.”

  “They tell me that too.” And then Jim sniffled.

  Oh God…

  “Don’t cry,” Ommin started to grumble, but the next thing he knew, Jim was hugging him.

  “I’ve never had a friend before.”

  Neither had he, Ommin thought and patted his back. “Get in the damn car,” he said gruffly, but Jim only sobbed.

  “Get a room,” a homeless guy on a bench mumbled.

  Jim sobbed louder.

  Jesus.

  Patting his shoulder, Ommin couldn’t help it. He smiled.

  Chapter 8

  Britney dropped them off at Ommin’s. It was hard for him to tell if she was still in shock from being told she was in trouble and also that she would have to wait to receive her consequences, or if she was disappointed that he wouldn’t be coming home with her.

  “I don’t want to leave him alone tonight,” he explained, practically over Jim’s cheerful, “Just throw a stopper in the sink, I’ll be fine.”

  “I have to go to work tonight anyway,” Ommin told them both, and then to Britney, more softly, “You do too, right?”

  When she nodded, he said, “Can we get together after?”

  “I’ll be home by 7:00 am,” she confirmed.

  “I’ll be there by 7:30. I want your nose to the corner, bare bottom on display, hands behind your head. Daddy’s belt has some things to say to you about encouraging people with differences to turn to a life of evil.”

  When understanding dawned, she had the grace to look ashamed. “Yes, Daddy.”

  He leaned in through the driver’s open window far enough to kiss her on the forehead, and then, because her unhappy lips were beckoning, he kissed her on the mouth.

  “You won’t sit for a week,” he promised gently. “Also, there will be butt stuff, so brace yourself.”

  Dark as it was, it wasn’t so dark that he couldn’t see her shiver. “Okay.”

  Patting the car door, he let her go and took Jim up to his apartment.

  Ommin’s one room flat wasn’t made with friends in mind. Neither were his bathroom or kitchen sinks. Although he felt weird, he eventually put a stopper in the old clawfoot tub and spent the next hour feeling like a crummy human being because Jim was so damn happy about it.

  “If I overstay my welcome, just let me know,” Jim said, as Ommin gave him the three-second tour. And then again, when he popped a couple TV dinners into the oven for them both. And most recently, as they sat side by side on the couch in front of the television to eat. “Oo! The Big Bang Theory,” he commented as Ommin surfed through channels for something to watch. “I haven’t seen that in forever.”

  So that’s what they watched instead of Ommin taking a nap, which was what he really wanted to do, until it was time for him to go to work.

  “I’ll clean while you’re gone,” Jim promised as Ommin changed into clothes he didn’t mind getting dirty in. “When friends are staying with friends, they ought to do something to earn their keep.” He followed like a puppy at Ommin’s heels, keeping up a cheerful chatter while he made sandwiches for lunch break.

  He’d never had anyone talk to him this much. Not in years. It was going to take some getting used to, and all Ommin could hope for was that he did, in fact, get used to it. Preferably before he snapped and bit Jim’s head off for no other reason than simply being grateful.

  God help him, Jim even followed him to the door. “If you tell me what time you’ll be home, I’ll make waffles,” he offered, and then just before Ommin could make his escape from the apartment, threw his arms around him for one last hug. “Drive safe.”

  “I don’t have a car,” Ommin reminded, trying not to roll his eyes.

  “Bus safe,” Jim amended.

  Ommin couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this happy just to go to work, and he did it with wet arm prints wrapping his shirt at rib level. Walking down two flights of stairs to the building’s main exit, he made reminder notes on his phone to pick up waffle fixings on his way home from Britney’s.

  Work was hard. For the first time in years, Ommin found himself watching the clock and damn if time didn’t pass at wintertime molasses speed. Britney was a constant in his thoughts. For the first part of his evening, he found himself plotting what Daddy ought to do when he saw her next. Hug her first, he decided. Spank her second. Ask about her day while she finished up in the corner, with a bright red bottom and probably tears still drying on her face. On his first break, he bought one book by an author named Renee Rose, and another by Golden Angel so he could plot out where butt stuff ought to happen in the coming event.

  When he wasn’t thinking about Britney, spanking or butt stuff, he was thinking about Jim.

  At lunch, he took a hard look at his finances and browsed apartment ads online to see if he could afford a two-bedroom somewhere within commuting distance to both Britney and his work. The entire latter half of his shift was spent cleaning university classrooms and hallways and checking his phone, just in case Britney messaged him. She didn’t, and all through that last half hour, his own doubts over her silence killed him.

  He had no idea what silence meant. She was probably busy with work. She might have been agonizing over the what was going to happen once she got home. According to one of the books he’d bought, having to wait for punishment was a punishment all on its own. Maybe he shouldn’t have done that.

  He took a break he wasn’t entitled to long enough to download more books and told himself he was going to read at least a chapter a night, probably for the rest of his life, until he learned how this whole Daddy-dominant thing worked.

  It was fifteen minutes to quitting time and Ommin was taking out the trash when the entire university was rocked with what he at first mistook for an earthquake. He grabbed a wall for balance, but even as he did so, the tremors ended far too abruptly. That wasn’t an earthquake was the thought that went through his mind, just as the emergency sirens started to sound. He waited to see if the shaking would continue, but there were no aftershocks. A few minutes later, as he was shoving the garbage carts out the university doors to where the dumpsters were located, he saw why.

  The entire horizon to the south of the building was lit up, but not like daylight. Rather, the bright flickering orange-yellow glow was a
fire.

  It was a really big fire.

  He had to walk halfway around the building before he found a window overlooking enough of the southern parts of the city that he could see it. One glimpse at the smoke and flames sent him running for the nearest TV.

  For a change, at least, it wasn’t him in the news. Only minorly relieved, he perched on the edge of the nearest faculty desk to watch as a lunatic in black and orange spandex marched up and down in front of the burning remains of a collapsed building on live action news. He was yelling at the cameras. Grabbing the remote, Ommin turned up the sound to hear what was being said.

  “Can you hear me?” the lunatic raved, in a voice as deep and grinding as gravel. “Where are you? Where is my archnemesis?”

  Archnemesis?

  “Seriously?” If he weren’t so appalled, Ommin would have laughed at the verbiage.

  “Where is the Sharkman!” the lunatic bellowed.

  And just like that, he was back in the news.

  “Oh, for fuck’s—who the hell are you?” Ommin yelled back, instantly annoyed. “When the hell did I piss in your Cheerios?”

  “Come to me!”

  “The hell, you say,” Ommin retorted.

  “Come to me, Sharkman!” Bunching his fists, the man in spandex struck a dynamic pose and flames belched from both his hands, shooting into the already burning building and stoking the destruction higher. “Come to me and we’ll see who’s still standing when the smoke and rubble clear!”

  “Yeah.” Unimpressed, Ommin snorted. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you afraid?” Deep as gravel, mocking laughter boomed through the television speakers.

  “Not hardly.” Folding his arms, Ommin glared at the screen. “I’m also not an idiot.”

  “I can make you come,” the villain taunted.

  He snorted again. “Not in a million years.”

  Turning to something off camera, the lunatic beckoned. “Henchmen!”

  “You’re kidding, who the hell has henchmen? Are you—” Ommin leaned in closer, trying to get a better look as the camera filming the action zoomed out to bring into focus two other lunatics, also in orange and black spandex, only with bright yellow H’s in the middle of their chests. The smoke from the building almost obliterated them, as well as the figure they were struggling to lug between them, out into full view of the reporters. “What—”

  It was Britney.

  Ommin went cold.

  With another deep maniacal laugh, the villain boomed, “I am Master Blaster, Sharkman! Come and meet your Master!”

  “Oh, bitch,” Ommin breathed, his gaze locked on Master Blaster as his henchmen paraded Britney’s struggling, kicking form before the cameras. “Oh, bitch. You just made the biggest mistake of your life.”

  ***

  Ommin had to tip the cab driver an extra ten just to get him to the scene of the chaos. Or maybe it was just to pick him up. He was pretty pissed, by that point. And now, seeing Britney bound with her hands behind her back in person instead of on TV didn’t help soothe his temper. He made a mental note to stop at an ATM so he could get an extra twenty dollars; he didn’t see himself being any calmer for the ride home.

  Police had the scene completely surrounded, but they weren’t doing anything. Hell, they weren’t even talking to the guy still strutting like a peacock on the partially charred rubble of the building he’d destroyed. Now and then he bellowed, “Bring me Sharkman!” And shot flames into what parts were still on fire.

  How people like that got henchmen, Ommin couldn’t begin to guess. He could barely get friends.

  “Oh my God,” cried an exuberantly familiar voice. “Did you see him destroy that building? Excuse me… pardon me please…”

  Ommin turned just as Jim thrust his way past the police line holding back the growing crowd. They recoiled from him as only folks who didn’t want to get wet and who weren’t sure of said liquid would, and Jim came running to meet him.

  “How the hell did they get news crews here so fast?” Ommin snapped. “It was on TV within seconds of the explosion.”

  “Actually, he was on camera yelling for you for about ten minutes before he blew it up,” Jim said.

  “He also called it in before he got started,” a nearby cop replied.

  “Egomaniacal asshole,” Ommin retorted.

  “Master Blaster,” Jim said, instantly adopting his grumpy tone. “Isn’t that a character from the Mad Max movie? What a joke!”

  Said the guy who called himself Liquidman.

  Thought the guy known as Sharkman.

  “None of us gets added points for originality,” Ommin said.

  “We definitely need to up our game in regards to costumes, too,” Jim added. “Do you think he made that himself? They’re all matchy-matchy, and everything.” He brightened. “I could get a sewing machine!”

  “I will spank you,” Ommin snapped. Knowing he might actually do it too in his current mood, he left Jim and his giant puppy-dog eyes standing there, and headed toward the maniac.

  “Where are you, Sharkman, you cowardly—”

  “Oh, keep your matchy-matchy shirt on,” Ommin bellowed back. “I’m coming already.”

  In retrospect, he probably should have waited. Master Blaster whipped around on his rubble pile and both hands lit up in flames. Stopping where he was, Ommin almost took a step back.

  Behind him, however, Jim came bounding forward. “Wait for me!”

  Master Blaster approached as far as the crown of the rubble pile would allow. So the news cameras could see him easily and record everything, Ommin noted.

  “At last,” the villain breathed, his soft voice still booming.

  “Is he wearing a microphone?” Jim whispered.

  Apparently. It wasn’t until he started looking, however, that Ommin spotted a few carefully placed speaker systems.

  “He is,” Jim said, surprise giving way to excitement. “Look! Look up by his mouth. It’s like a Bluetooth attachment. We really have to up our game. We’ve got to go to Best Buy!”

  Oh, for—

  “What do you want?” Ommin had to shout to be heard over the crackling of the fire and the low murmurs of the gathering crowd, not to mention the thirty or so feet that still separated him from Master Blaster.

  “For the longest time,” Master Blaster said, “I thought I was the only one. The only one with powers that elevated me high above the rest of the mortal scum who inhabit this middling city. Nay, the whole of this middling, unexceptional world.”

  “Middling?” Ommin echoed. “Nay? Who the hell are you and why are you talking this way?”

  “He’s monologuing,” Jim softly supplied.

  Ommin glanced at him. “What?”

  “Monologuing?” Jim looked back just as surprised. “It’s how supervillains reveal their backstory and the reason behind their dastardly dare-doing. What, you never read a comic book?”

  Glaring, Ommin’s annoyance grew with damn near every word. From the both of them.

  “Oh, well,” Jim laughed. “Now we have to go to the comic book store, too. You and me, bud. We are up for one hell of a Saturday.”

  “Once,” Master Blaster gleefully drawled, “I was where you are now—lost and confused in the mire of mediocrity—”

  Ommin’s temper erupted. “I don’t care! I’m not doing this with you! Not now, not ever. You want to talk to me, you come down off that rock pile and talk to me like a normal human being. Until then, I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  He rounded on the henchman, both of who backed up a nervous step, their grip on Britney’s bound arms tightening.

  “Let go of—” Ommin stopped himself before he said something as stupidly iconic as ‘the girl.’ He also stopped himself before he said something even more stupid like, ‘my girlfriend.’ This wasn’t high school. Also, she hadn’t yet changed her Facebook status to reflect her being in any kind of relationship. He knew, because he’d found her on social media during his
morning break, although he hadn’t yet worked up the courage to friend her. He’d get to that, probably just as soon as he got her out of this mess.

  “The girl,” Jim whispered, as if he thought Ommin had gotten stage fright and forgotten his lines.

  “Britney,” Ommin snapped stubbornly.

  “Who the hell is Britney?” Master Blaster asked, then looked to his henchmen in feigned surprise. “Oh, you mean the girl.”

  “I’m not doing this,” Ommin announced again, and started toward them. Were he wearing a shirt with sleeves, he’d have rolled them up.

  And Master Blaster would have burned them off as he leapt atop a slightly larger rock on his rubble pile, struck another dynamic pose and shot a massive fireball from his fists. The fireball hit the pavement directly in front of Ommin, blowing his hair back and damn near singeing off his eyebrows. The flames died back to nothing almost immediately, but the blast had left a pot hole in the concrete that hadn’t been there seconds before.

  Ommin backed up, falling in line with Jim again.

  “Whoa,” Jim said, impressed. “Now that’s a superpower.”

  “I think we need to go to Plan B,” Ommin said.

  “What’s Plan B?”

  Good question. Glancing from Britney to Master Blaster, who threw back his head and laughed like a lunatic for the benefit of the awestruck crowd, he looked to the pothole and then decided. “I’ll go after the girl”—he’d hate himself for using that term later—“you go after the villain.”

  Jim blinked, eyebrows arching. “What?”

  “Water cancels fire.”

  “It also evaporates, turns to steam and dies. Horribly. Screaming all the way. I went camping once,” Jim told him, and then started opening up his pants. “Look.”

  Ommin had to grab his hands to stop him. “No! Just… no.” No way in hell was he going to get caught on camera looking down Jim’s pants.

  “I’ve got a scar. S’mores tragedy, 2002. You don’t even want to know.”

  “Button up, buttercup, or we stick with Plan B, and I don’t even try to think of a Plan C. Plus, if that shows up on the evening news, there will be no comics on this Saturday or any other.”