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From: jordan@u36.com
Subject: {Jordan Shelbourne} STORY: Unmasked (MF bond superhero)
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[This story has been available on Joan E. Lloyd's web page for
the past six months. Thanks, Joan, for buying it.

[Please don't archive this without my permission; Eli and Deja News
have my permission. Other stories by me are available at my web
site, http://www.u36.com/jordan/

[As for the topic, it seemed to me that superheroes are essentially
about power relationships.  --JS]

				UNMASKED

                           Jordan Shelbourne

Copyright 1998 Jordan Shelbourne

When they were finished making love, Emily looked so untouched by it
all, so passive, that Jim couldn't help himself.  He asked, "Was it
okay?"

She was silent for a moment, her lean athletic body motionless on the
futon.  Jim could hear the TV in her kitchen, tuned as always to an
all-news channel.  They were talking about Goofball, some new
super-powered hero who had just stopped a bank robbery.  In the
between-stories break, Emily finally gave him a half-smile and managed
to convey a shrug without moving.  "It was fine," she said.  "Just
fine."

"It wasn't fine," he said.  "You didn't come."

"No," she said, "but I never come." She shrugged, and for a moment he
didn't recognize her.  Where were the flashes of passion and intensity
that had captivated him?  She had been like this since he had proposed.
Since she had accepted.  Maybe it had been a mistake to propose, he
thought, and hated himself for it.

"That's not good enough," he said.

She rolled gracefully onto her side and watched him.  "Why does it
matter?" she asked.

"It just does," he said with frustration.  "It matters to me.  I don't
like to think of you being married to me and not enjoying sex."

"It's okay," she said.

"What am I not doing?  What do you want?  What turns you on?"

"Nothing," she reassured him.  "You're fine.  It's just not that big a
deal to me."

"It is to _me_," he said.  "I like sex.  I want to make you feel good.
Whatever it takes."

"I'll try to enjoy it more." Emily patted him on the shoulder.
"I love you, Jim.  You know that.  I wouldn't move in with you if I
didn't.  And I wouldn't marry you if you weren't the best man I'd ever
met." She winked.  "In bed and out."

And still not good enough, he thought.  But she hadn't said that.  She
wouldn't, of course.

He rolled out of bed and walked over to her closet.  "We should sort
your stuff.  What do you want to take, what do you want to get rid of?"

"I'll do that later."

"We might as well do it now." He pulled down a box from the top shelf,
flipped it open.  "Scrapbooks.  What were you collecting?"

"Just kid stuff," she said.

"Let me see."

"No--" she began but he already had the box open.

"I just want to see what turned you on.  Aha," he said, flipping it
open.  "Heroes.  Costumed adventurers.  Really, Em?  You never struck me
as that romantic.  Just practical Emily."

"I have to be practical.  You're the romantic.  Besides, I was a kid,"
she said.  "Come back to bed."

"No, this is great stuff.  You never talk about your family, you don't
talk about when you were a kid.  I don't know anything about-- about
when you were younger.  I'd like to know about it.  About you." He
looked at her.  "Please?"

"I guess," she said.  "It's a long time ago, now." She leaned over.
"They're organized alphabetically by subject."

There were almost forty of them.  "I'm impressed.  I kept a scrapbook
too, you know?  Of course, most kids do, I guess.  I was crazy
about the Raven." He shook his head.  "A guy with no powers doing
what he thought was right.  That was simply the best.  I kept that
scrapbook up to date well into my teens." He picked up the one
labeled _Dire_Wolf._ "I remember this guy.  Turned into a giant
wolf, right?" She nodded.  He flipped pages.  "This is impressive
stuff, Em.  You've got nearly every appearance here.  This is
nothing to be ashamed of." He stopped and looked at her.  "You
know, I thought about wearing a costume."

She sat up.  "Most people do.  When they're kids."

"No, it was a little later than that," he said with a touch of defiance.
"In college.  I stopped a purse-snatcher.  I felt pretty good about
myself, felt good about doing good.  I liked it.  I mean, it's not like
I was the first guy ever to do it, right?  Then you'd feel dorky." He
flipped pages as he spoke.  "I got as far as discovering how hard it is
to come up with a name and a costume when that guy from State tackled me
and wrecked my knee, and that was that." He flipped to the last page and
whistled.  "Em, this is serious shit."

"Uh-huh," she said softly.

"Em -- this is _strategy._" He shook his head.  "This goes way beyond
anything we ever did as kids.  Beyond anything I ever thought of."

She nodded.

He grabbed another book, flipped to the last page, read out loud.
"Results of encounter: inconclusive." He looked at her.  "Encounter?"

"There's another box up there, in back.  Get that down, please." Her
voice was tight.

He did.  He set it on the bed beside her.  She opened the flaps.  He was
looking at black cloth.  "Go ahead," she said, watching him.

He pulled the costume out.  He could tell by the sweat-stains in
the armpits that it wasn't for parties.  Then the gloves, the mask,
and the boots.

At the bottom of the box was a belt, bulging with pouches.  He looked at
her.  She smiled shyly.

"You were the Blackbird?"

She nodded.

"I had the hots for you." She snorted softly.  "No, really.  This your
belt?"

She stroked it with a fingertip.  "The old futility belt.  Never had
what I needed at a given time." He reached for it.  She said sharply,
"Careful!" When he looked up, she said, "Old thermite gets touchy."

"Thermite?" He gingerly lifted it out and set it beside her.

"I know," she said, suddenly animated.  "I should get rid of it.  I
could always make more.  But I keep thinking it's a shame to get rid of
perfectly good thermite and I might need it."

_Of_course_, he thought.  "What else besides thermite?"

She opened the pouches on the belt one by one.  "First aid kit.
Flashlight.  Lockpicks and electrical tools -- for burglar alarms.  The
slingshot fit here.  Rope, of course.  I had handcuffs but I stopped
carrying them because the pull-ties were so much cheaper and couldn't be
picked.  Smoke bombs.  Made those myself -- I made most of this stuff."
She laughed.  "I was crimefighting on ten dollars a week."

He watched, fascinated.  He had only glimpsed this animation -- but had
still fallen in love with it.  "How'd you start?"

"When I was a kid, just before my folks divorced, my dad took me on this
shortcut down an alley.  We got mugged.  But the Raven rescued us, like
a dark angel, you know?  So when I was a teenager, I wanted to find him,
the Raven.  Maybe I was looking for a father, I don't know."

He shook his head.  "But you actually did it.  You dressed in a costume
and fought crime."

"Oh, yeah." She beamed.  "I remember once I chased a guy -- the Red
Wraith, you remember him?  -- into a costume party.  Good move on his
part, because there were four Red Wraiths there.  We arrived just in
time for the contest for best costume."

He laughed.  "Did you win?"

"No, but Wraith took second prize.  First prize went to a woman
dressed as the Amazon, but showing more cleavage." She chuckled.
"Wraith had an ego up to there, so he stopped to accept the award
and I whacked him.  The civilians misunderstood.  He got away.
The Zombie later got him."

"You knew the Zombie?"

"I met him once, but we never exchanged real names, if that's what
you mean."

Emily cradled the mask in her hands.  He asked gently, "Why'd you
give it up?"

She shrugged.  "Mom got sick.  I couldn't go to school, work to
pay for her health care, care for her, and fight crime."

"Sorry."

"Yeah," she said.  She sat up straight and squared her shoulders.
Jim noticed her nipples were erect.  Probably just the cold, he
thought.  "But it was time to grow up," she said.

"Do you miss it?"

"No," she said, but he didn't believe her.  "We should put this
stuff away.  We'll burn it or something." She tenderly put the belt
back in the box.

"No," he said.  "We'll keep it."

"It's just kid stuff."

"Try it on," he urged her.

"I don't train like I used to," she said.  "It probably won't fit."

He caressed her rippled belly muscles. "I don't see a lot of spare
flesh here."

"Well..." she said.  Jim handed her the mask.  "The mask goes last.
Normally I'd wear a sports bra, but I haven't got one that fits.
I had a Kevlar undershirt, too, but I lost that and could never
afford to replace it." She shrugged into the bodysuit and fastened
the snaps at the crotch.  "If I were really going out, I'd pee
first.  And wear underwear." He watched, fascinated, as she dressed.
"I've never done this in front of anyone, you know?  It's scary
and sort of liberating to be talking about this.  The leggings are
next.  Hand them to me, please?"

He did.  "I was going to sew inserts here and here like these in
the arms -- see?  -- against knives but I never got around to it.
I mean, aside from learning how to sew spandex, which is not
something they cover in Home Ec.  The boots were expensive." She
pulled on the gloves.  "I had the boots made, which cost me months
of baby-sitting money.  The smoke bombs were cheap in comparison.
But a good pair of boots is worth your life." She had the mask in
her hand.  "Turn around."

"But--"

"Please?"

"Sure."

When she spoke again, her voice was muffled.  She'd dropped the
pitch, too.  He still knew it was her, but on a dark night, frightened
from an averted mugging or whatever, he might not have.

"You can look now." She was standing there, all barely-contained
energy.  This was what Jim had sensed in her so long ago.  Maybe
in daylight or harsh fluorescents she might have looked shabby,
but Jim thought she was dashing.  Glamorous.

She folded the cloak back over her shoulders.  "I worried about the
cloak, but most of crime-fighting was sitting and waiting and
watching, and it kept me warm and dry lots of times.  One guy nearly
choked me to death with it, though, so it's only fastened with
Velcro."

He gaped at her.  She pulled off the mask and wilted as she did
so.  "You think I'm stupid, don't you?"

He sat down next to her and kissed her hair.  "No, I don't.  I
think you were brave." He kissed her again.  "And I think you were
principled.  And heroic." He wrapped his arms around her.  "And
sexy."

She smiled wanly.  "Get real."

"Did you like it?"

"Seriously?" She ran one hand through her blonde hair.  "My hair's
too long for this mask.  Seriously, I loved it.  Adolescence is
just hell anyway but I had this...  _thing_ I did where everything
was clear-cut.  They were bad guys and I kicked butt.  All my
attention was on the problem: how to find them, how to approach
them, how to kick butt.  It didn't matter that I was too tall and
had no tits, that I was too smart to fit in with the jocks and too
athletic to go with the brainers."

Jim guiltily remembered his own high school days when he fit solidly
in the jock category.  He had only discovered he liked thinking
after he lost his athletic scholarship.  "I understand."

"Maybe I was avoiding stuff, you know, by learning how to pick
locks and getting my black belt and memorizing maps of the city
and those" -- she waved to indicate the scrapbooks -- "but I was
doing something useful, too."

"Yup," he said.  "And you were fueling adolescent fantasies across
the city." She didn't smile.  He said, "Did you ever get caught?"

"Once.  Fortunately by a mask.  If the Mob catches you, they put
a bullet in your head and you're dead.  But if a mask catches you,
you'll probably live.  If you're smart enough." She smiled sadly.
"People who wear masks are crazy."

"Who was he?"

"I didn't get his name.  Maybe he hadn't made one up yet.  It could
have been Spartacus.  He was mostly leather straps and big wads of
muscle, all oiled up.  Huge codpiece.  He was buying women and he
caught me."

"But you escaped."

She looked at him, and he ached in sympathy.  "Eventually," she said.

"How old were you?"

"Seventeen."

"Jesus," was all he could say.  She shrugged.

Suddenly she stood up and faced him; the cloak swayed heavily.  "Look,
were you kidding about thinking I -- the Blackbird -- was sexy?" Jim
shook his head.  "Then why don't you fulfil one adolescent fantasy
before we throw this stuff out?  You've worked so hard to please me in
bed, let me do this for you."

"Okay," he said, and then for reasons he couldn't verbalize, he said,
"I'll tie you up."

She stopped still, then nodded grimly.  And pulled on the mask.

"No belt," he said.  He gently took it from her and carefully set it on
the floor, far from the bed.  _Thermite,_indeed._

He pulled out the rope; there must have been a hundred feet of it.
"Lie on the bed," he said gruffly.  She did, and he began to tie
her.  There was, he discovered, a certain kick to this.  He tried
to make the knots secure, but it was a lot of rope.  He peeled off
her leggings and boots before tying her feet.  The last few knots
were difficult; as he bent over her left foot, his erection poked
him in the stomach.

When he was done, he said, "There." It was more difficult to speak than
he had expected.  She didn't writhe, but he was conscious again of that
energy: she was testing all of the bonds.  His Boy Scout badge in knots
was long ago but they held, which pleased him.

He sat astride her to hold her hips still.  "Shhh," he said, though she
wasn't saying anything.  She was still working with that same grim
determination.

The mask was an odd thing, he realized.  She ceased to be Emily when she
was wearing the mask.  It made her something else, an icon or an avatar.

He cupped her small firm breasts in his hands.  She bucked her hips with
all the strength in her lean long body.  He fell forward onto her, then
said sharply into her ear, "That's _enough._" She fell slack again, and
he sat across her thighs.  He unsnapped the crotch of her bodysuit,
exposing her pale pubic hair.  He couldn't resist dipping a finger
between the plump lips of her vulva.  She was wet, wetter than she had
ever been.  He stroked her labia with his thumb and she shuddered.

He slid down between her legs so he could eat her.  She helped, sort of:
when his tongue touched her, she pushed her hips up against him so hard
his jaw ached; they would both be bruised tomorrow.  He held on tightly
to her buttocks and licked and sucked her slick sex until he was
rewarded by orgasmic spasms of hips, thighs, and belly muscles.  She had
still not voiced a sound, though her thrashing had torn the cloak free
of her shoulders.

He clambered up her, thrilled by her excitement.  With both hands he
inched her bodysuit up, exposing her hipbones, the ridges of belly
muscle and ribs, and the small hard mounds of breast topped by taut
berry-brown nipples.  He kissed and sucked each hard nipple in turn,
tasting salt.  She bucked again and he slid down her sweat-slippery
belly to nestle his hips between her thighs.  She spread her knees to
allow him easier access.

He had to use one hand to steady her hips again, and the other to guide
himself in.  She inhaled sharply as he entered her.  She was tight,
clutching at him, and wet.  Her excitement was contagious and he knew he
wouldn't last very long.  He began to fuck her with long hard strokes,
his crotch coming down against hers again and again, and he closed his
eyes as he began the sweet climb to orgasm.

Which was when she rolled over on top of him, free of the ropes, and
began to fuck _him_ hard and strong, one hand pushing against his
shoulder and the other stroking and pressing at her clit.  She threw her
head back and screamed voicelessly as she came once more; then she sank
down on top of him as she pulled off the mask.  He was speechless as he
came inside of her, spurt after spurt happening as if it were someone
else's penis.  Then there was the rush of love and he said, "Oh my God."

She smiled down at him and said, "Was it okay?"

He nodded.  His heart was hammering in his chest.

"Thank you," she said softly.  "I didn't know it could be like that."

He nodded again.

She giggled.  "I'm dripping.  You should have seen the look on your face
when I rolled you over."

"How--" he started to say but his voice broke.

"Too much rope.  You get lazy about the knots.  I slipped my hands out
of the gloves -- and I just had to drag one foot free." She was trying
not to look proud, as if anyone could do this.

He nodded again.  When he felt he could speak again, he said, "We're not
throwing that costume away."

She smiled again.  "No, we're not." She kissed him again.  "I may wear
it for non-sexual purposes, too.  Is that okay?" She anxiously searched
his face.

"Maybe.  Would you be avoiding things?  Avoiding me?"

"No.  I'm done avoiding things."

"Then I'd be proud.  I have only one condition."

She held her breath.

"Make new thermite.  That old stuff makes me nervous."


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