I was at a baseball game with Blood Shadow. Hot as hell. We were out in the right field bleachers with the sun beating at our backs. It was the top of the fifth, a close game, but the Paradiso Piranhas were up by two. Blood Shadow had a big grin as he recorded another strike-out on his scorecard.
"We keep playing this well I think we'll make the series. We're definitely going to the playoffs."
"Oh, yeah?" I asked. I wasn't interested at all. It was just filler conversation. I didn't care if the Piranhas won the World Series. It wouldn't make a difference to me. No, that wasn't true. It would. If the Piranhas won their first World Series there would probably be a riot in Paradiso. Actually, that wouldn't be a big deal either. We had the highest concentration of super heroes in America. Any riots we had would be relatively small and easily dispersed. So...I would be mildly inconvenienced by it.
Baseball wasn't my sport. I didn't have any sport which was mine. Not even football, which confused the hell out of Beth. She couldn't understand how I could waste hours of time playing fake football with Wade, but wouldn't sit down and watch a real game. I tried to explain what made it different. At the end of my stuttering, not at all convincing explanation, even I thought it sounded stupid. We both decided to never bring up the topic again.
"They got this new pitcher, brought him up from the farm team. The kid's got an arm like a cannon," Blood Shadow said.
For the pitcher's sake I hoped he kept doing well and stayed out of trouble. Or maybe it would be better for him if he didn't perform all that great. I never did get the details on why Blood Shadow murdered the power hitter last year. I didn't want to know. Same with his power set: I didn't want to know how he murdered him.
That scared the hell of me. With all of Beth's other friends it was obvious what they could do. Blood Shadow had powers, I knew that much, they just weren't apparent. It had to be something dangerous. Beth once told me that he was the villain other villains were afraid of. I couldn't wrap my head around that. Sure, he was in great shape, but he was still a man. I was more afraid of Dana. I'd seen a video of her online of her hitting a tank.
With another tank.
That was weird. All these people I knew now were on the news. And when they were on screen they were frightening. They all looked dangerous. Then I would hang out with them in person a day later and they were friendly. Like, right now. Right now I was sitting next to a guy I only knew as Blood Shadow. If he had a real name nobody ever used it. Instead of being afraid of him I was actually having a good time. Sure, I wasn't interested in the game going on, but it was a nice day. The sun was out, Blood Shadow was buying me beers. Just a nice time. And he was in a good mood. For supposedly being terrifying I realized that I only ever saw him smiling.
"Hey, I've got to pee. I'll be back," I said.
"Okay. Get me another beer on your way back? Let me give you some money."
I stopped him as he was reaching for his wallet, "I've got this one. You've gotten the last three."
"It's no big deal, it's just money."
"Exactly. So I'll pick up this one."
"Thanks."
After an unpleasant experience fighting for a spot at the urinal trough I went and stood in line for beer. I got myself a microbrew and a domestic for Blood Shadow. I could have gotten him a more expensive beer, but he seemed to prefer the cheaper stuff. Whatever made him happy, I guessed.
I returned to the bleachers, carefully so as not to spill the overpriced stadium beer, and handed him his.
"Thanks," he said. He tipped the cup to me in salute then took a drink.
He picked up his scorecard and recorded another hit for the Piranhas.
"Thanks for coming out with me today," he said.
"No problem."
"I know it's not your thing, not really. But it's better than dragging Dana or my friend D.T. out here. All she does is complain, loudly, that she's bored. She always tries to get me to leave before the fifth inning. D.T.'s not much better. He complains about the price of beer, even though I always pay for it. I'd come by myself, but that's no fun. No one to talk to. May as well just fuck off to the bar for that. Which I can do, but I prefer to see the game. It's nice to sit outside."
"It is a great day."
"That's the best part of living in California: we get more good days than bad. Dana was born up North. To this day she cannot stand the snow. Since we've been together it's only snowed here once and that was the angriest I've ever seen her. She spent literally the whole day stomping around her house yelling about the snow. This quarter-inch of snow we got, which melted by that afternoon, pissed her off to no end.
"Didn't work out well for me. To try and cheer herself up, and to apologize to me I think, she decided to have sex. With other girls, angry sex can be pretty awesome. With Dana...it's dangerous. Life-threatening, even. She ended up cracking two of my ribs, dislocated my hip and broke my pinky...it could've been worse."
Blood Shadow sipped his beer. I didn't know what to say to him. I could commiserate with him if I wanted to. Tell him some of my stories with Beth. The times I've had a gun in my mouth, the slapping, the constant biting. But so far she hadn't broken any bones so he still had me beat in the rough sex department.
"Are all you...guys into that type of thing?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Like...pain. Do you guys all go for pain?"
"You keeps saying 'guys' like I know what you mean. Like Dana's group of friends?" Blood Shadow asked.
I looked around to make sure no one sitting within ear shot was paying attention to us, "No, like, you guys...villains," I whispered the last word.
Blood Shadow laughed, not in a mocking way, more jovial, like I just told him a good joke.
"No, we're not all sex freaks into pain. I know that's what people would like to think of us: That we're all a bunch of deviants fucking each other blind in all sorts of ways that would get you arrested in the Bible Belt. There is a lot of sex in our community, yes, but by that I mean the costumed community as a whole, hero and villain."
"You're really trying to tell me that the heroes are having a ton of sex with each other, too? That kind of sounds like sour grapes. Like you're trying to drag them down. No offense."
"None taken. But it's the truth. They're human. Well, super-human. People like getting their fuck on. And look at us: the bulk of us are in the prime of our life with physiques like gods. Some ARE gods in certain cases. It's not this sordid thing, really. There are the perverts with their fetishes, but that's no worse in our community than it is with normal people. With us it's more like high school. No, wait, it's more like the Olympic Village. You know that place all the athletes live in during the Olympics?"
"Yeah," I said.
"That place is one big orgy. One year they had to ship in extra condoms because the athletes blew through them all."
"I remember reading something about that once," I said.
"I don't want to brag, one of my pet peeves are those douche bags who constantly talk about how hot their girlfriend is, but let's face facts: Dana is a very beautiful woman. She could be a model if she wanted to."
"She definitely could be," I agreed. It would be a bit weird, a giantess model, but in print I didn't think it would matter.
"My point isn't that she's hot, not exactly. My point is that she's hot and will look that way forever."
"Really?" I nearly choked on my beer.
"Not forever, but she will look like that until the day she dies. Her race stop ageing at a certain point. They're effectively immortal. Shit. I forgot the point I was making. Sorry."
"You were talking about how you were all beautiful people..."
"Right. That's not true. I said the bulk of us were. Not everyone. There's this guy I drink with. His name is Scalez with a Z. As you can probably figure out he's a lizard person. He won't be voted People's most beautiful person ever. Though he's kicking ass compared to his worthless brother who not only looks like an iguana, but seems to have decided to be the world's fattest man. You've also got cases like the Fear Leader..."
"Who?"
"Sarah."
"Right. I'm used to Beth using your civilian names."
"Fair enough," Blood Shadow said, "So, Sarah has no face. Tough for her to get laid no matter how hot the body."
"Plus she's got that fear power," I added. "I don't know how anyone could fight through that as well as her face."
"I don't know if that's as big of deal as you're making it. Fear is pretty easy to overcome. Especially if the result of conquering your fear is sex. Guys will do a lot of stuff they're uncomfortable with to get laid. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she has found a random guy or two. Not the best life, but you've got to do what you have to."
"I can't get over that fear thing. Just thinking about how she made me feel at that party still makes my skin crawl. I can't imagine anyone overcoming that amount of fear." I shuddered at the memory. My skin prickled into goose bumps and even in the sun I felt a chill pass through me.
"You can do anything you put your mind to. I don't see how that's any different than Black Hat sticking a gun in your face during sex," he said.
The chill faded and my face went hot as I blushed, "Did Dana tell you that?" I asked.
"No, Dana doesn't tell me any gossip about her and her friends. I figured Black Hat was still pulling that trick when she had sex. I never got the appeal of it, but she liked it."
"So...you went out with Beth." I said.
"No, we just screwed around a few times. Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" I was actually unaware that I was making a face. I knew there had been other guys in her life. She hadn't been a nun before we met. I'd already met her husband, so it wasn't any worse than that. I just didn't expect one of them to be Blood Shadow. I never noticed any sort of vibe between the two of them.
I was kind of angry, which surprised me. It was this irrational anger boiling up inside me that Beth hadn't mentioned it at all. Which was ludicrous. It shouldn't matter. I had no claim on her then because we hadn't met yet. Blood Shadow wasn't telling me he had been fucking her since we'd started dating. He said they just screwed around. Stated it as a bald fact. He either figured it was common knowledge or he actually did not care about it. It was a non-issue to him.
"Like you've got to fight for your girl's honor," Blood Shadow said.
"I wasn't going to do that," I said.
"I know that, but look at the way you tensed up. We're having a great day at the ballpark and now you'd much rather take a swing at me."
"It's not...yeah...it's weird. I would never do that. It's just not something you want to hear. I think everybody imagines that their girlfriend's exes all moved across the world and you'll never see them again."
"Understood. Except her and me aren't exes. I mean it when I said we screwed around a little. There were no dates, no sitting in her house watching movies, no flowers, no mix tapes. We hooked up two times after nights of drinking. I don't mind her, but I've never been one to settle down. At the time. I didn't want anything permanent. Neither did she.
"We didn't even click that way. So there was no reason to even try to make anything work between us besides basic friendship. Since then she became Dana's best friend. I'm involved heavily with Dana, so none of us even think about it enough to bring it up."
"Then why are you telling me?" I asked.
"Because you're a good guy and deserved to know. You're sensitive about things like this. It would've been worse to wait until you and Black Hat got further into your relationship and then find out about it. Besides, it really was nothing serious. I don't want to be the guy to spoil things for you two. I figured this was the best time to tell you, after we'd gotten to know each other better. I didn't want to tell you right out the gate 'Hey, I fucked your girlfriend.' So there it is."
All things considered I couldn't really fault Blood Shadow. It did seem like he was trying to do the right thing, whatever that meant. And he didn't seem to care. This was a much better experience than the one with Wyatt. In the grand scheme of things, of all I learned of Beth, this was probably the best. Well, not best. Least horrible.
Blood Shadow had Dana and he never openly ogled Beth from what I could tell. It actually made me feel safe that I could leave them together alone and nothing bad would happen. I didn't have to be suspicious.
That was a relief.
