“Your lips gave it away. Even with the rest of your handsome face bandaged, I knew right away.”
“Well, fortunately, my face is supposed to be good as new—better, they claim. Though I doubt that’s possible,” the arrogant but somehow still desirable one said. “That’s what’s most important, right? That and getting back to what I do. And hey, I guess you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t one of us.” He settled back into bed. “So, it’s okay you know my alter ego.”
“Well, I may be one of you. I may not. Oh. Don’t worry. I would never reveal your secret either way. It’s just that, I wasn’t a superhero, before. They found me. Jack Monterey did, after the fire. He brought me here. He explained it all when I woke up. I can maybe be one of you, he said. Because of stuff I did. But now, depending on if I heal…. My future is pretty uncertain, I guess.”
“Tough break, kid.”
“Yeah. I mean, I guess I’m at a crossroads. I could really use some advice.”
No words of wisdom came, only snoring. Smash was taking a post-sex nap.
Bulldog tried to fall asleep, too, but his mind, like a hive of angry bees, was way too active.
He had grown up in foster homes, each one more terrible than the next. One of his so-called fathers, the worst one of the bunch, had set his bed on fire because Bulldog didn’t want to get up one morning for school. He had always felt safe in that bed, hidden from the world—until that night, when he didn’t.
Like Pennsylvania, the character he created, Bulldog spent much of his childhood deflecting stares and comments about his face. The rest of his body looked worse, but at least it was usually covered.
He’d been a loner since kindergarten, really. His “work,” helping people, though he didn’t get paid for it—he lived homeless on the streets—was his life’s mission from his mid-teens on. His newest injuries, not the burns, but the way he tore up his legs, inside, threatened to take that all away from him. After weeks of little activity, moving only when hoisted by sturdy Nurse Nancy from bed to wheelchair, the L.O.P. docs were going to test him. In less than twenty-four hours, now that the burns were healing, they were going to try to get him up on his feet. What if he couldn’t walk, or even stand? If he ended up needing crutches, braces, a wheelchair, Bulldog didn’t know what he would do.
Then he thought about his face. Would it be even worse? He hadn’t even considered how he’d look—not until Smash brought it up.
That’s the most important thing, right?
Bulldog brought his lightly bandaged hand up to his heavily bandaged face. A tear stung his cheek when it seeped beneath the wraps.
It was probably a good thing, Bulldog decided, that he and Smash messed around before Smash’s bandages came off, before Smash could see. That way, the hot, shallow underwear model need never know how revolting the short, younger, redheaded writer truly was.
THE next morning, as Smash chowed down on cereal and toast, Bulldog was wheeled in after his grueling exam. He asked Nurse Hooters to turn him away from the open curtain, so that his roommate might not be able to hear him sob.
Smash did ignore the first loud sniffle. He tried to overlook the second, third, and fourth. Finally, “You got a cold, kid? Hope I didn’t catch it,” he said.
Nurse Nancy returned with Bulldog’s tray.
“I doubt cold germs are passed through mouth-to-cock action,” Bulldog snarked.
“What happened is our little secret. You know that, right?”
Nurse Nancy just grinned. The League of Protection infirmary was like Vegas—what happened there stayed there. She had wiped dried semen from Bulldog’s tootsies and found Smash buck naked. She’d had a feeling something went on.
“You listening…?” He paused trying to come up with the kid’s name. “What’s your name again?”
“Doesn’t,” loud sniffle, “even matter anymore. And I don’t have a cold.”
Whatever, Smash thought.
The sobbing continued.
Smash pushed his tray table aside. “Is he crying?” he asked Nancy.
“Do you actually care?” Nancy responded with sarcastic disbelief.
“Bite me!”
“Maybe later. I just ate.” She and her tits left the room.
Smash leaned toward the curtain. “Superheroes don’t cry!” he scolded.
“This one does. Although, I never even got to be a superhero, really. And now I never will.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, kid.”
“Don’t call me kid!”
“Sorry.” It didn’t sound all that sincere. “What should I call you?”
“My name’s Bulldog.”
“Bulldog?”
“I didn’t make it up. Kids called me that. On account of how I look.”
“Too much backstory, get to the fucking.”
Bulldog struggled to roll over. It hurt like hell. Still, he almost smiled.
“Obviously, Jack Monterey considered you superhero material. They don’t bring everyone here they come across. I’ve dumped lots of people on the sidewalk outside some local ER. Anyway, what are your powers?”
“Ain’t got none. I just saved some people from a fire, got hurt, and I guess the Big Cheese found me before the ambulance did.”
“You got nothing?”
“I hear good. I see good. And I used to be able to run good. Now I can’t. I can’t even stand.”
That morning’s test had not gone well. Though the doctors stressed his paralysis was in no way permanent, with weeks of rehab ahead of him and no promise it would even work, Bulldog was pretty depressed.
“That sucks. And Jack hates Cheese jokes about his name.”
“Who cares? I’m no good to him this way.” Bulldog turned back toward the wall. “He’ll probably throw me back out in the street.” The sentence ended with a weepy wail.
Smash rolled his eyes, huffed a little, and stood. He felt his way over to Bulldog’s bed. “So, why did they call you Bulldog?”
“I thought you just wanted to fuck.”
Smash allowed a bark of laughter. “Almost always.” He sat on the edge of the really narrow bed. “Shove over.”
With a grunt, Bulldog slid to his right.
Nurse Nancy paused at the door, watching in amazement as self-centered Smash actually comforted the struggling young man.
“So, the Bulldog thing?” He tenderly stroked the kid’s red hair.
“I’m kinda built like one.”
Smash let his body, ever so gently, settle against Bulldog’s. “You’re little—for having such a big cock.”
“It’s not that big.”
“No, but it’s nice. I’m not hurting you, am I?”
“No.”
“You feel hot.”
“Naw. These blankets are pretty thin.”
“Not hot like that, idiot.”
“Oh.” Bulldog felt himself blush.
“So, kid, suppose you can’t be a superhero. What do you wanna be? Why can’t you be a writer?”
“You thought my story was boring.”
“No. Not really. I wouldn’t mind hearing the rest of what happened to Connecticut someday.”
“Pennsylvania.”
“Yeah, him. My point is, you’re young. You can be whatever you want. It’s not like me. If I ever had to give up being Smash, I don’t know what the hell I would do.”
“Be a pity if you had to fall back on that whole newsman/underwear model thing.”
“Yeah, well, don’t think for one minute either one of those positions wouldn’t be snatched away from me if my face had been fucked up for good.”
“Faces aren’t everything.”
Smash was quiet.
“Are they?”
“Naw,” Smash finally said. “A hot body counts too.”
Bulldog offered a short half laugh.
“Tell me more about….”
“Pennsylvania.”
“Yeah, I remembered.”
“Sam loved h
im, a lot. He didn’t care what he looked like. Pennsylvania hid his face, though. They only made love in the dark.”
“They fucked again? Maybe Pennsylvania stuck his schlong up Sam’s ass that time?” The question ended with a yawn.
Bulldog smiled. “Maybe.”
When Nurse Nancy made her rounds again, seeing the two sound asleep in each other’s arms, she brought Mayor McCheese—er, Jack Monterey—over to see for himself.
A FEW hours later, the plastic surgeon came in.
“Good morning, fellows. Are we ready to see what’s going on under those face bandages?”
“Not really,” Smash admitted.
“Me neither,” Bulldog said.
Smash felt his way up Bulldog’s neck, touching his chin, then the thick covering on his cheek. “You were burned.” It wasn’t a question.
“Really bad,” Bulldog said.
“Back to your own side,” Dr. Cutter ordered. He offered Smash a gentle butt-pat as the superhero climbed from the bed.
“Like Pennsylvania’s?” Smash asked over his shoulder.
Dr. Cutter drew the drape between them.
“Yeah,” Bulldog said. “Only worse. And twice,” he added in a whisper.
“Fire! You saved that family—and their cat! That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“I reported that story.” He added in his anchorman voice, “as Jacob Cannon. Tell me you ain’t no superhero,” he declared. “Bullshit!”
“We’ll have to keep the bandages on a little longer,” Dr. Cutter told Bulldog. “Your surgery was far trickier than Smash’s over there. Fortunately, the loon who attacked him wasn’t all that good at chemistry. But… you are healing quite nicely. Want to see?”
“No!” Bulldog immediately turned away, though there wasn’t a mirror in sight. “I haven’t looked at my face in a long time.”
Dr. Cutter put a supportive hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I understand.” He gave him a squeeze.
“Your turn.” He pulled back the drape, moving over to Smash.
He unwound bandages, like some movie doctor about to reveal a gruesome monster, or maybe nothing at all—an invisible face on an invisible neck, an invisible man, just a hospital gown. “Not bad. Not bad, at all.” He nodded. “It’s still really red and swollen. It’s early, Smash. You’re not gonna like what you see,” he warned.
“I can’t see!” Smash bellowed.
“What? Oh, I’ll bring you a mirror.”
“Forget the mirror,” Smash thundered anxiously. “Forget my face!” he said unbelievably. “I’m blind, man! I’m motherfucking blind!”
BLAST was in her lair about that time, planning the biggest, baddest crime she would ever attempt. She had finally realized, since being out of the limelight, that she wasn’t necessarily sad about not changing the country. What she missed most was the fame. In her current state of mind, rather than try to figure out a way to regain it, she decided to go after those who had it. What better group to take down than Hollywood’s self-centered, self-aggrandizing, self-congratulatory set on the very night they were patting themselves on the back? She was going to crash the Oscars.
Which brings us back to the beginning....
IT WAS Smash and Bulldog’s fourth assignment together. They had been paired up by the League of Protection boss, Jack Monterey himself. He watched as the two continued to bond in the infirmary. Doctors could find absolutely no reason why Smash was blind. There was no injury to his ocular nerve, no burn damage from the acid, no pressure on the brain.
It was simply baffling.
The staff psychiatrist suggested a case of what soap opera writers called “hysterical blindness.”
“He definitely isn’t faking,” the shrink told Monterey, Jack, “but with no physiological reason for his condition, there must be a psychological one. Perhaps he is so afraid to see his possibly-less-than-perfect face, he simply refuses to see at all.”
What Smash definitely refused to do was leave the infirmary. He stayed by Bulldog’s side as the boy wonder went through grueling therapy, day after day. The network replaced Jacob Cannon with an even hotter, younger guy, and played up the case of the missing news anchor for weeks until the audience lost interest, and they moved on to exploit something else. By mid-February, Bulldog was finally up on his feet. Feeling particularly euphoric after a really good session, during which he actually walked without aid, Bulldog kissed Smash on the lips—not a “Thank you” kiss, or a quick, friendly “Hello,” it was the kind of kiss that started something more.
“Make love to me,” the kid whispered against hot, pink lips.
“Make what?” Smash had balked. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh. I just…. We seemed to be getting along….”
And they were. Smash had never been more congenial, more compassionate, more committed.
“And you said I was hot.” Bulldog grinned, not that Smash could see him do it. “And I’m healed enough, the doctor said.”
“You asked the doctor if we could have sex? Look.” The big guy rebuffed him, harshly. “The only reason I’m hanging around here, hanging around you, is because I have nowhere else to go. I’m not interested in sex right now.” Neither Jacob Cannon nor Smash had ever spoken those words before. “And if I was, it wouldn’t be with you. Got it?”
“Got it.” Bulldog’s punished pup look returned.
“I HAVE an idea.” That very evening, Jack had come to them with the plan. “The two of you are great together,” he said with a smile.
Bulldog felt a twinge in his heart.
Smash just huffed.
“I want to put you out on the street as a team. We’ll start off small. There’s word of a bank heist next week.”
Miraculously, it seemed Bulldog could actually be released by then.
“I want you two to stop it.”
“Whoa!” Smash interrupted. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m fucking blind, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. You’re blind for no good reason.”
Smash started to object.
Monterey didn’t give him a chance. “That’s where this little guy comes in.” Jack Monterey wasn’t much taller, but he was a whole lot older than twenty. “Smash,” the League boss said, “meet your seeing-eye Bulldog.”
THE two trained hard. The plan was that Bulldog would use his super-sight and hearing, and then his uncanny ability to direct and control Smash—at least when the stud was about to come—to get the superhero off the ground and in the right position to pounce on the bad guy.
It took a while to get there, for sure. Their practice sessions, especially the early ones in the hospital, often resulted in just-off-the-mark painful crashes.
One night, the two ended up in Jack Monterey’s indoor pool, figuring crash landings would hurt way less in water. The heated water soon approached boiling when frustration got the better of the two, and denied sexual tension could no longer be.
It started with a question.
“What does my face look like?”
“It… it’s beautiful,” Bulldog said dreamily.
“Seriously?” Smash reached up to touch his cheeks, his nose, and his forehead. “Do I look like I did before?”
Bulldog paused a moment, a moment too long, which made Smash think the little guy was lying.
“No. I mean, yes…. You look like you did before.”
Smash just grunted.
“Do you ever wonder what I look like?” Bulldog asked softly.
“Sometimes,” Smash admitted. “I guess.”
“Here.” Bulldog took Smash’s large hand and put it on his face. “Feel.”
The warmth of skin-on-skin contact quickly turned more explosive. They kissed, and before long were going at other body parts with lips, tongues, and even teeth.
Smash ended up bent over the side of the pool while Bulldog slammed into him, pumping in and out. “I love you, Jacob,” Bulldog said against his tan,
gritty neck, pulling out to let white spunk ribbons dance freely through sparkling blue water filling the lit-from-the-inside pool. “I can’t help it. I do.”
Smash’s lips came apart, but he didn’t speak. He couldn’t say it back. As soon as he shot off in Bulldog’s mouth, he climbed naked from the water. He turned his back, not as a treat this time, but as a gesture—he was walking away from that aspect of their partnership, for good.
THEY caught the would-be bank robber. A couple more rescues—a train derailment, a bungee accident, a six-car-pile-up—and Jack felt his team worthy of the Oscar night gig.
The League of Protection’s spy system was better than the federal government’s. They knew Blast was up to something—though exactly what she had up her silvery sleeve remained a mystery.
Smash and Bulldog had arrived before the first starlet hit the red carpet. They hid behind golden statuettes and marble pillars for what seemed like hours, waiting for something to happen. Smash began to pace. Just as he was about to reveal himself, Blast came into view.
Unable to warn him with words, Bulldog leapt up, throwing his entire weight at the tall stud’s broad, “S”-emblazoned chest, taking him down with a thud.
“What the—”
He covered Smash’s mouth with his hand. “Ssh. It’s Blast. She’s here.”
Bulldog had gotten a very thorough lesson in super-villains at the league. He recognized the demon dame in silver right away.
“That evil snatch!”
Lying one atop the other, their bodies rubbing in all the wrong-but-oh-so-right places, feeling close, literally, and really vulnerable, with Blast comfortably out of earshot but well within their crosshairs, Bulldog summoned the courage to ask a serious question.
“You don’t wanna be with me anymore because you felt my face, right?”
“What?”
“You felt something wrong. I’m… I’m ugly, from the fire, and you can’t stand that.”
“Why would I care what you look like? I’m blind, remember?”
“Yeah,” Bulldog huffed, the contraction of his stomach, his hot breath on Smash’s face doing very little to ease the erotic current between them. “Unless you’re lying.”
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