by Stone, Naomi
“But I digress. These recent reports were not confined to such isolated communities, but came instead from individuals with no prior connection to one another who happened to be present at the same time and place. This leads me to question whether they are, in fact, cases of collective delusions at all. Of course, one might also point to the rash of flying saucer sightings following an initial report in 1947. The UFO phenomenon is a good example of a collective delusion that’s an exception to the pattern of occurrence in confined populations.”
“Unless, of course, you believe in alien visitations.” The hostess laughed.
Sitting at the kitchen worktable with a cold soda in hand, Greg frowned at the television and flicked it off. He’d made it back to Aggie’s kitchen ahead of everyone else. Not surprising, as he’d flown most of the way as Wonder Guy while the others contended with traffic gridlocked in the Walker’s parking lot. He waited now, wanting to see how his mother had held up in the wake of the events at the sculpture garden, and wondering what Gloria would have to say concerning her adventures.
That kiss–maybe it hadn’t meant as much to her as to him. She was engaged to Pete and had gone out with other guys, giving her a lot more experience with the opposite sex than his few attempts at finding anyone who matched her in his affections. Maybe this kiss was nothing out of the ordinary in comparison to the others she’d experienced.
Nothing had ever come close to kissing Gloria, the girl of his dreams. To say the kiss had rocked his world constituted a massive understatement. His world had been rocked, shaken, flipped upside down and turned inside out. His world probably had a whole new topography he’d better re-map at first opportunity.
While eager to hear Gloria’s reaction to the kiss, at the same time, it felt wrong to hide from her in plain sight, listening to how she felt without revealing himself as the one who’d held her in his arms, the one who’d shared an amazing kiss with her. It didn’t seem a heroic way to handle things and that wasn’t the only thing bothering him.
The more he considered it, the less he liked it. Gloria had kissed him, yes. A kiss realizing everything he’d never dared dream. But, as far as she knew, she’d kissed a stranger. A hero, yes, a man who’d saved her from a terrible fate, a man who looked good in tights, but a man in a mask. She didn’t know who that man was. She didn’t know she’d kissed him, Greg, the guy who’d been here for her all along, someone she’d taken for granted for years.
As much as he’d loved kissing her, it bothered him that as far as she was concerned, she’d kissed someone else, someone not him. It bothered him how much he inwardly quailed at the prospect of unmasking himself to her, facing the risk of her ardor turning to scorn if she found out Wonder Guy was plain old Greg Roberts. He couldn’t let fear stop him from taking the next step. Hadn’t he learned anything about heroism these past days?
Too, since he’d acquired these superpowers, an elephant had nearly trampled Gloria and giant mosquitoes had carried her away. Her best friend had been killed. Coincidence? Coincidences did happen, but he’d known Gloria his whole life and stuff like this had never happened to her before.
“Serafina?” Greg called. And there she sat, in the chair opposite him, perky, purple velvet pillbox hat on wispy white hair.
“Yes, dear?” Her large, alert eyes turned to him.
“Ma’am.” He nodded, collecting his thoughts.
A sinking sense of loss weighted his gut as he leaned forward across the table. He’d only had these powers for a few days, less than a week. It felt good to be a hero, to make a difference. It felt more than good to have Gloria look at him the way she had, eyes shining with admiration and with the kind of interest he’d do practically anything to inspire. He spoke in a rush, before he had a chance to reconsider, “I want you to take these superpowers back. Gloria seems to be in more danger than she’s ever been before. It’s got to be connected to me, to the superpowers, somehow.”
“Tsk. Young man, have you considered you were given these powers specifically to assure you’d be in a position to help when the young lady’s need arose? Given her heroic impulses and proximity to unscrupulous persons who have already resorted to murder, danger was inevitable. Danger comes not because you have powers, but quite the opposite. You have powers because danger would arise one way or another.”
“Is it true? Is that what’s going on?” He’d been leaning forward in his chair, now he leaned back again, reassessing.
“Giving up your powers won’t prevent your young lady from being endangered. The forces at play would endanger her regardless of what you do, not least her own impulse to do the right thing.”
“Oh,” he muttered, deflated. In that case... “And I have a better chance to help her this way?” He spread his arms, taking in the whole present situation, superpowers and all. He might be glad for the opportunity to continue to play hero, not so glad to hear Gloria would be in danger even if his world returned to normal. “She needs me.”
“Exactly.” Serafina nodded, her hands folded neatly before her on the tabletop.
“I don’t have a choice then. If Gloria needs a hero, I have to be one.” He let his breath escape in a whoosh.
“Well spoken, dear.” Serafina’s smile twinkled at him.
“Ma’am? I have to ask...”
“Yes, dear?” She tilted her gaze up to meet his.
“I’m a rational man. I believe in the physical laws of the universe. I don’t understand how all this can be happening, but it is happening. How?” He ended on a bewildered note.
“I’m sorry to make things confusing for you, dear. You’re a bright lad, and I’m sure you understand what you call physical laws aren’t actually laws so much as they are patterns your people been able to discern, given the limits of human perception.”
“Well, yes, but this magic, what’s been happening lately, violates everything we’ve learned about how the physical universe works.”
“Yes, but you have not yet learned everything there is to learn about how these things work.” She twinkled again. “When you get to the true roots of creation, you’ll find what some of your scientific thinkers dismiss as mere emotion, the connections between caring and perceptive beings, are the very warp and woof and threads with which physical reality is woven.”
“But...” Greg faced an empty chair. How did she do that? Frustrated, he took a swig from the can solid and cool in his grip. Connections between caring beings? Maybe it would make sense if he understood more about quantum connectivity and string theory...
* * * *
Gloria headed directly home after leaving Hank and Aggie next door. Her earlier adventure might have been a half-forgotten nightmare if not for the bruises the giant mosquitoes had left on her arms. She hoped the marks wouldn’t itch the way the bites of ordinary mosquitoes did. All she wanted now was a chance to relax in a nice hot bath while she had the house to herself. The quiet neighborhood, where a robin warbled among the trees, had already begun the job of easing her nerves. Just as she raised the key to the lock, a rushing in the afternoon air alerted her and she turned, the sound awakening her memories of recent assault by giant, blood-sucking insects.
Poised for flight, her heart lifted to see Wonder Guy instead of the monsters, alighting beside her. She released a sigh, and her shoulders relaxed as if removed from a hanger. She took a fresh breath and straightened, taking in the lean, long-legged form standing before her. The remembered kiss lit a chain of signal fires along her nerves.
He cleared his throat. “Gloria.”
“Yes? How do you know my name?” She flushed, suddenly self-conscious over how familiar she’d been without even introducing herself. “How did you find me? I mean, I meant to introduce myself. I forgot.”
“I’ll explain everything.” He stepped closer.
The warmth in his gaze reassured her, even from the shadows cast by his golden mask. Everything in her yearned toward him, despite her doubts about kissing a virtual stranger. Had he followe
d her because he felt as she did?
When he moved nearer still, she surged to meet him. He lifted a gloved hand to her shoulder and leaned in when Gloria lifted her face to meet his lips with hers. Magic.
Her world blossomed into a deeper, richer place. A sensation of rising inner tides sent electricity into every watershed of her limbs, rushing through the tributaries and estuaries until even fingertips and toes tingled with awareness. Desires only sleeping in her before kicked her wide awake, as if she’d slept all her life until now. She moaned and sank into those desires, bringing her arms up around his neck, moving into his arms as if reenacting the moment when he’d carried her flying high above the sculpture garden. He scooped her up, dragging her tightly against a chest as warm and solid as homecoming.
She lost herself in the luxury of silken sensations flowing within and under her hands as she smoothed the silky fabric of his costume across his shoulders. She basked in the golden warmth of the embrace and relished the rare spices tasted where their mouths met. His kiss welcomed her responses, called for more. She might fall into such a kiss and be lost forever, never missing whatever else life might offer.
He moved with exquisite slowness, as if she were his sole focus and there was nowhere he’d rather be than in this moment, in this kiss, melting together with her.
His gloved hands, at first merely drawing her close, wandered lower, cradling, holding, shaping themselves to the landscape of her curves. His touch affirmed the shapes of her back and shoulders, following to the outer swell of her breasts. She shivered when his fingers climbed onward toward their peaks.
Her hands moved from his shoulders to trace his jaw and face. She found the edges of his mask, the boundary between flesh and mystery. His breath grew harsh when she slipped a finger under the taut fabric shielding his features.
When he pulled away, she moaned a protest. She half stumbled, left colder for the lack of his warmth against her, opening her eyes as he lifted his hands to the golden mask.
He tugged the fabric away, up and over his head, revealing a handsome face under tousled brown hair. It actually took her half a moment to recognize him.
“Greg?”
Her mind reeled. Greg? Not possible. A flying man, okay. Giant mosquitoes, maybe, but this? No way. She took an unsteady step back, shaking off his reaching hand.
“Oh my God, Greg! What’s going on here? Since when do you dress up in tights and a cape? What is this?”
“I don’t wear a cape.” He held both hands up, looking as bewildered and defensive as the time she’d accused him of programming her computer for alien takeover. She hadn’t understood SETI at Home then, and still wasn’t totally clear on how it wasn’t a set up for aliens to take control of the internet, but he’d explained it all so earnestly. It was probably okay. But not this, not this time.
“I don’t care about any stupid cape. What are you doing dressed up in a costume? What are you doing kissing me?”
“You kissed me too,” he pointed out logically enough. “What were you doing, kissing a total stranger?” His tone put her on the defensive.
“You’re not a stranger.”
“For all you knew, I was a stranger.”
“You didn’t seem like a stranger. But, good heavens, Greg, you’re practically a brother to me! Oh jeeze.”
Shaking her head to get rid of the very idea, she turned away. It was too weird, so embarrassing. Greg was part of the landscape of her life. She thought she knew him. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know him at all. She refused to think of the familiar Greg in the same breath as those kisses.
“But, Gloria–” He put a hand on her shoulder.
She shook it off, spinning to face him again.
“How could you? You lied to me, pretended to be someone else, this superhero. You kissed me under false pretenses!”
“But I am this superhero.” His jaw firmed as he pulled the mask back over his face and shot into the air. He did a loop-the-loop, swooped back down, landing in the driveway by the garage. He put his hands under the chassis and lifted Aggie’s specially-equipped SUV over his head before setting it gently back in place.
“Oh, stop showing off,” Gloria shouted at him. Fumbling with her key, she got the back door to her house open and stepped in. “I’m not talking to you any more, Greg Roberts.” She slammed the door between them and leaned back against it, heart pounding in her ears.
Oh my lord. It was true. Greg was Wonder Guy. One and the same. Greg had saved her from the elephant, saved all those people from dinosaurs and giant mosquitoes and stopped all those crimes they’d reported on TV. Had the world gone mad?
She very strongly suspected the world had gone mad. None of the old rules held true and everything she’d ever believed was now subject to doubt. And a good thing. Good because it meant none of this had happened. Jo hadn’t really died, she hadn’t really kissed Greg and he wasn’t really a superhero. There were no such things as superheroes.
If only she could believe none of it was true, but the world remained too real around her. Every familiar object combined to deny the happy theory that she’d imagined everything. The solid slab of the door at her back upheld reality whether she liked it or not. The familiar sight of the kitchen tiles beneath her feet–especially the cracked ones from when she’d dropped the roasting pan–declared the validity of her whole history.
But how could Greg be Wonder Guy? Greg, the nerdy, quiet, boy-next-door, practically-a-brother guy she’d known so long he seemed like part of the furniture. She’d never even suspected he had the potential to become someone like Wonder Guy. Wonder Guy, so handsome, tall, and strong, with his long, sleek-muscled form so well displayed in his skin-tight costume, rescuer of maidens in distress, adored by swarms of belly-dancers. She couldn’t get her mind around the two being one. So this is what they meant by cognitive dissonance. She needed an aspirin. She finally moved away from the door, headed to the bathroom medicine cabinet.
All she knew for sure was Greg had deceived her. He’d kissed her under false pretenses. Or just plain pretenses if not false ones. She wouldn’t let him get away with it. She couldn’t let herself think about the kisses. They’d never happened. She’d kissed the guy she imagined Wonder Guy to be. Not Greg. Never Greg.
* * * *
When the door slammed shut behind Gloria, Greg stood frozen in place. For how long, he had no idea. The world might have ended for how little it mattered now. The sun shone from the bare blue sky as the breeze stirred in the heedless trees, but neither sight nor sound touched him.
At last he shook himself, straightened his mask more securely over his face and shot into the sky, straight up and away from the earth. He’d see how high he could climb. Beyond the atmosphere maybe, to some place as sterile and barren as his heart had become. The moon might be nice this time of year. With Wonder Guy’s powers, he could probably survive without atmosphere. For a while, anyhow.
He soon crossed above the flight path of an airplane headed out from Minneapolis International Airport.
When he’d passed at least a mile above anyone’s earshot he finally let out a pent-up roar, a blast of sound torn from his gut, loosing anguish, frustration and a passion to deny everything that had ever gone wrong on the planet. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. It had all been for her. The costume, the heroics, the magic.
The sound of his voice faded away into the blue surround as if it had never been. He was an idiot. He should have known better from the start. If Gloria hadn’t loved him to begin with, none of this would change her heart. He’d been a fool to think anything else.
But it hadn’t all been in vain. A more sensible part of him fought its way to the surface of his mind. He, Wonder Guy anyhow, had helped a lot of people. One or more of whom would be dead now if not for the heroics. Who knew where Gloria would be if he hadn’t been there to save her from those mosquitoes? She might not love him, she might not want ever to see or speak to him again, but at least she remained alive a
nd well, making the world a finer place for the bright spirit she brought to it. He couldn’t stand the thought of the world without her in it.
His fairy godmother’s scheme to win him Gloria’s love had failed. He’d at least take advantage of the powers he’d been given and keep doing what good they made possible for those who needed his help.
His upward flight slowed as the course of his thoughts brought him at last to a sense of resolve. He might feel for the rest of his life as if something inside him had died today, but that didn’t mean his hero’s work was done. He turned, angling his flight path back toward earth and home.
He still needed to deal with Professor Stevens’ scheme and find out the identity of the woman involved, and the fairy godmothers still had their enemy. The one Serafina had told him of must still be out there, dreaming up worse plagues than dinosaurs and flying bloodsuckers.
Chapter 20
The bath helped. Gloria scrubbed herself dry with her oversized Egyptian cotton bath sheet and wrapped herself in its folds. The magical properties of hot water had soothed away the day’s stresses and eased the troubles from her mind. She headed to her bedroom, shaking out the damp curls of her hair.
Now she felt sorry to have been rough on Greg. He was a sweet boy who’d always been a good friend. She wasn’t as much of a comics fan as Greg, and had never thought much about it, but superheroes probably had good reasons to keep their true identities secret. She’d overreacted to the deception. It wasn’t like he’d played superhero just to fool her. She was an idiot if she imagined this was all about her.
Gloria pulled on her favorite, much-worn jeans and a baby blue V-neck t-shirt. Wonder Guy had flown down and landed near her before he’d gone and revealed himself as Greg. It must be true. Greg. She picked up her hairbrush. She couldn’t get over it. Greg as Wonder Guy. Greg as the one who’d flown through the sky to rescue her, twice. Greg as the one who’d carried her up into the sky and the one who’d kissed her like a whole new world exploding into being between them.