I sat on the couch for a little over two hours, waiting for Leona to return from her first patrol of the city as a hero. The longer I sat, the more miserable I became.
I could see how all of my plots had been cries for Miracle Man to notice me, to see me for who I was. But all along I’d been deluding myself. My final plot to get him back in the game would give him back the love of his life, which certainly wasn’t me, and I was forced to admit that my entire life had been built around the flimsiest of fantasies.
Worse, I had screwed up by giving in to my desires for Wallace. I could have tried to convince myself that I was happy to learn that he felt as much for me as I did for him. But I heard Wallace reminding me over and over that what I wanted was just another dream. I couldn’t be with him without jeopardizing his career, family and marriage. Even I wasn’t deluded enough to want that.
I was crying to myself when Leona walked in. She took one look at me and went to the kitchen as she began slipping off her bodysuit. I heard her mixing a drink, and she walked up to me with a glass.
She handed me the drink without a word and went to her room, her suit slung over her shoulder. She returned to the living dressed in her kimono robe and sat down at the other end of the couch, for the first time in a while giving me some space.
After several minutes in silence, she scooted across the couch and took my head in her hands, pulling me against her before she rubbed my shoulders.
“Something happened with Wallace,” she said.
“I kissed him,” I whispered.
Leona nodded. “Did he reject you?”
“No, he kissed me back.” I sniffed and raised a hand to rub my eyes. “In fact, he kissed me the way I’d always wanted Mir—Chet to kiss me. Then he told me that I couldn’t have him either.”
“Welcome to my world,” Leona said, continuing to rub my back.
I looked up at her apologetically. “I didn’t mean to whine at you about it, but Wallace made me realize how lonely I am.”
“That’s our lot in life,” Leona said. “We hang on to every bit of attention we can get, thinking that something is better than nothing. But it’s nothing like the real thing and there’s always something to remind us of that. Then those bits here and there don’t fulfill the need anymore, do they?”
I shook my head and sat up a bit to sip my drink. “I know one thing for certain. I don’t want to play the game anymore. This plot of mine now has only one goal, and that’s to get Chet and Vicky back together. After that, I’m going to quit whether this city has a hero or not.”
“Then what?” Leona asked.
Draining my drink, I lay back on the arm of the couch and patted my chest, feeling a little better as she lounged against me in her usual way. “Then the two of us will leave and find some place to enjoy a peaceful life without the game.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Leona whispered.
“I know that I kept beating around the bush by saying I would think about retiring, but I’m sure about this now. If I hadn’t promised Vicky that I’d help her, I’d be ready to leave today.” I patted her neck. “Why don’t you tell me about your first patrol? Did you kill anyone?”
Leona smiled as she shook her head. “No, but at times I felt like some of those jerks needed to die. I swear, it never ends out there. Every time I’d think about calling it a night, someone would rob a store a few blocks from me, or I’d have to stop yet another drive by. If this is a regular night for Wallace or Chet, I can see why they get tired of it. I’m ready to quit, and I didn’t even spend the whole night out there.”
“My plan should take care of that as well,” I said.
Leona regarded me with a puzzled scowl. “How? There are so many super villains out there, and they just keep coming now that Miracle Man is gone. More than that, how are you going to stop all this petty crime? I certainly couldn’t. Wallace can’t scare the bad guys away once he’s gone, so how do you plan on getting them all in line when we can’t even stage a kidnapping without fucking it up?”
“It comes down to this: if Miracle man shows up, it will bring fear to the villains who are already here, and send a great deal of them back where they came from.”
“Yes, but what if he doesn’t?” Leona asked. There was a note of anger in her voice to match her scowl, and her tail was flicking back and forth fast. “What if he decides to ignore us and not even turn on his TV?”
“Then our last crime in this city will be the systematic eradication of every super villain within the city limits,” I said.
Leona’s expression was horrified, and her tail went stock still.
After almost a minute, she shook her head. “You can’t ask me to do that. You can’t. I’m so tired of killing, and even if some of the super villains deserve it, I don’t think I can murder them in cold blood.”
“That leaves only one other option, and with your new conscience, I would think it would be just as bad for you. We’ll be leaving this city to an ever increasing flood of violent criminals with no fear of being punished. Try to imagine a thousand people just like us at our worst.”
“God, Duggan…” Leona huffed a gasp of exasperation and got up to walk into the kitchen.
I watched her pulling things from the freezer for dinner, and she slammed frozen food down hard enough to make me cringe every time.
I got up, standing at the door of the kitchen. “Can I help?” I offered quietly.
“You can make the salads,” she said, pointing to one of the cabinets.
It didn’t escape my attention that she was speaking through clenched teeth.
We didn’t speak to each other again during dinner. When we finished, Leona mixed two drinks and we returned to the couch.
However, Leona once again sat at the other end, glaring at me as she drank.
She shook her head and set the empty glass on her table under the gold wings of the angel. “I want to believe you Duggan, I really do. I want to think that we’ll quit and go away, win, lose or draw. But with every failure, you’ve looked up and said, ‘ooh, I’ve got another idea,’ like any of these plots has done anything but get someone else hurt. Well, damn it, with this plan, you’ve got to know that the person you’re hurting is me.”
“Leona—”
“No, just shut up for once,” she cut me off. “You talk all the time, but I’m not sure you ever think about the effects of your so-called brilliant plans.”
I pouted, but said nothing. She was right, and so I kept my mouth shut to take the lecture that I knew I had coming.
Leona rubbed her forehead. “I know I don’t need you, but I still can’t stand the idea of being alone. I want so much to leave this damned city and never come back, but I don’t think I can do it on my own.”
I sat there quietly, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, I set my drink down on the table and crawled to her.
I took her hand in both of mine. “Leona, I swear to you from the bottom of my heart; you won’t have to leave City alone. Tonight, I’ve seen how right both you and Wallace are, and I’m truly ready to quit.”
I reached up to stroke her cheek.
Leona turned her head to bring my palm into full contact with her face. She huffed, this time amused by some random thought.
A soft smile thinned her lips. “You said if I went on patrol for Wallace, you’d give me an extra special treat. Is that still true?”
“Yes, I’m keeping all of my promises to you from now on.” I stood up. “Lay on your stomach.”
When she did, I knelt on the couch with her thighs between my legs. I leaned forward to knead her shoulders and upper back, chuckling when I was rewarded with loud purring.
I said, “I take it this feels good?”
I got no reply. Leaning down, I discovered that Leona had passed out, a wide smile glued to her lips.
I continued to rub her back for a few minutes before I got up and went to her room, tugging the blanket off of her bed. I draped the blanket over Leona and went back to her room, planting myself face first into a pillow.
Just before I went to sleep, I asked myself if it wouldn’t be better for us to simply leave the next day without bringing Miracle Man back.
One image stopped me: Vicky with tears in her eyes, thanking me for doing the right thing.
I realized that the intention of my last plot was to do good instead of evil, and this confession brought a soft smile to my mouth as I drifted into sleep.
In short, I was becoming a total pussy.
... I write dark fiction in a variety of genres. My blog contains my rants and rambles, and some short fiction that can only be found here.
I can be pretty fucking offensive, so viewer discretion is advised.
Oh Duggan I doubt it’s that bad, but having a heart does make it so you can’t leave it only half done. Leona is hopefully having nice dreams of doing nothing but fishing and being silly.
Wel, as pessimistic as he sounds, Duggan’s estimates weren’t so far off from the truth. So him growing a conscience was really a good thing. Even though it took a while for it to take hole.