The first time I met Beth was when she robbed the bank where I worked as a teller. It was a Thursday, the day before payday. We had just finished off-loading the money from the armored truck and were preparing to sort it.
Her enormous black pickup truck accelerated into the parking lot. The ram bar on the front was modified to look like massive steer horns. The truck hopped the curb and smashed into the front of the bank. The glass windows exploded in, showering the patrons and a few of the bankers with shards of glass.
Beth, I didn't know her real name then, only that she was the super villain Black Hat, hopped out of the truck. She was dressed in her costume which was all cowboy garb, heavy on black leather, but with a Kevlar vest like a rodeo rider. She wore a bandanna tied around the bottom half of her face, leaving only her clear blue eyes visible. She had two Colt .45 revolvers drawn. One was aimed at Jeff, our elderly security guard picking himself off the floor, and the other was aimed at me. Just my luck that she caught me coming back from the bathroom and wasn't behind the counter.
"All patrons wanna' be belly-down on the floor! Anybody workin' here I want hands in the air unless you wanna' see me paint the walls with these fella's brains! Anybody hits an alarm or calls the police and I kill everyone here! Clerks! Ya'll just keep your hands up and move to the vault!"
I was rooted to the spot. I didn't know if I was supposed to go with my co-workers. I stood staring at the gun. Right into the barrel. It was such a small hole. It was amazing that a hole that small held a bullet which had the power to end my life.
When the other bankers were where she wanted them she turned her attention on Jeff.
"Old man, take your gun out of your holster. Thumb and pointer finger only. Even if you had a full grip on your pistol ya' wouldn't be able to outdraw me."
Jeff, normally shaky, did as she asked. He almost dropped the gun as he followed her instructions to put it in the truck bed. He had to get on his tip-toes to reach over the side. Beth then tossed him a pair of handcuffs.
"Go ahead and put one a' those on your right hand. I want ya' to put the other half on...her." Beth motioned at a pregnant woman.
Slowly Jeff did as he was told. The pregnant woman started crying as the hand cuff snapped shut. When Jeff was securely restrained Beth twirled the gun on her finger before holstering it.
Throughout it all she kept the other gun trained on me. I never saw it waver for even one second. If I dared to move I knew she would shoot me dead.
She walked over to me, grabbed the back of my collar and put the gun to the back of my skull.
"Now if anybody tries anything then good ol'...?" she finished her sentence as a question by pressing the gun harder into my head.
"Luke," I whispered.
"Then good ol' Luke here is gonna' be the first one to die. Now let's get into that vault."
She nudged me in the head again. I took the hint and walked as fast as she allowed me to towards the vault. My co-workers were all huddled there. Most of the women and some of the men were crying. I think, if roles were reversed and I was watching a co-worker with a gun to their head, I probably would be crying, too. As it were, I was too shocked to do anything but follow Beth's orders and hope she didn't shoot me.
With her free hand Beth pointed at a rolling cart, "Load that up with as many sacks a' cash as ya' can, then move it to my truck. Don't do anything stupid like put in a dye pack, smoke pack or a transmitter. I got a machine in my truck that'll set it off if it gets too close. I'll know who did it and kill 'em. Simple as that. So if you dye, then you die." She giggled at her play on words. No one else did. They just gawked. This did not make her happy, "Now move! Quick like bunnies!"
She walked us back to the vault door. From there she could supervise the loading of the money and see all the customers. They remained stock still on the floor. None of them were trying to be a hero by going for their phone.
I'm sure all of them were praying for a real Hero to stop by. Mr. Mystic, Roboticus, anyone really. They would have even taken Planarian Man if he jogged over to save them. It wasn't going to happen. The heroes almost never stopped bank robberies. I'm sure they would if they could. Except most crime was random. Muggings happened anywhere at any time. Most of the people in Paradiso only saw heroes when some villain threatened the city with a doomsday device.
They weren't there for the day-to-day stuff.
The cops would arrive sooner than a hero. They could then call one in if Black Hat proved to be too much of a menace for them. It was unlikely. She had no real powers. The SWAT team would be called before Lady Courageous, if only to show that normal cops could take care of the safety of the citizens.
Beth watched while my co-workers loaded the sacks of money into her truck bed. I was so focused on the gun pressed to the back of my head that I didn't notice what Beth started to do. Her free hand was no longer holding my shirt collar. Instead her arm was wrapped around my stomach. Her hand fiddled with my belt buckle until it popped free. Now that there was enough slack in my waistband she snaked down until she a hold of me.
I gasped at the intrusion and tried to pull away. She pulled me back into her and moved the gun so it was pointing under my chin.
"Shh, just be still. Enjoy this."
She stroked me slowly. Despite the terror of the situation I felt myself growing hard in her hand. I hoped nobody was watching.
"I like where this is going," she whispered in my ear.
She didn't do anything else. Just continued to slowly stroke me while my co-workers loaded up her truck with stolen cash. They were getting close to finishing and so was I.
I was confused by what was happening. I didn't know what would happen if I came. Did she want that? Was she going to use it as an excuse to shoot me?
I didn't get to find out. We heard sirens approaching. She pulled her hand out of my pants, grabbed me by the collar again and dragged me towards her truck. I thought, and kind of hoped, that she would abduct me. Maybe drive me to her secret hideout somewhere and have a tumble in the hay.
Instead she cracked me in the back of the head with the butt of her revolver, knocking me out. I had a few moments of darkness until I hit the floor, jolting me awake. I blearily watched her feet as she jumped into her truck and sped off.
The rest of the day was spent at the hospital, making sure I wasn’t concussed, and detailing what happened to the police. I left out the part about her masturbating me. It didn't occur to me at the time that the bank was filled with security cameras. There were no blind spots. Once my co-workers saw what happened to me, from multiple angles, I never heard the end of it.
That night, after coming home from the hospital, I started stripping off my clothes in preparation to go to bed. That's when I found what she left me. Tucked into my underwear was a scrap of paper with her name and number written on it.
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at that piece of paper wondering what it meant. I didn't get much sleep that night.
