SUPER BORN
Seduction of Being
Published by:
Harper Landmark Books
New York / London
Copyright © 2012 Keith Kornell
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0982645201
ISBN-13: 9780982645208
CHAPTER 1
The Change Begins
The first clue came the day I innocently jumped to get a bowl off of a high shelf. This was not a big leap, mind you, just a little hop. But I found myself chest deep through the ceiling and into my upstairs neighbor’s kitchen. Amazingly, my first reaction was to wonder how my neighbors got a new refrigerator and stove out of our cheapskate landlord. And was that a new dishwasher? Mine barely worked.
Until that moment, I was simply a single mom with a dead-end job and a sullen teenager, destined to remain in my hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, forever. But stuck halfway up through the neighbor’s floor, I began to suspect this had changed.
I looked around their apartment and was glad to see no one was home to see me like this, except their small black poodle, who padded over and dropped his empty food dish drop for me to fill. Although he was cute as hell, it wasn’t going to work out between us, as my hands were still down the hole in my kitchen. When I failed to produce any dog chow for him, he found a little red bouncy ball and tossed it to me. It rolled right up against my chest.
I looked into the little dog’s expectant face, sensing a sweet kinship to him. In that moment we seemed connected. I smiled at his pure acceptance and felt the weirdest sensation shoot like a bolt through my body. I saw a blinding flash of blue light, but it did not come from the room around me. Instead it felt like it was coming out of my eyes at the little dog. While I tried to figure out what was what, another flash blinded me, but this time it was a green, focused light. I saw it beam out of my eyes in my reflection in my neighbor’s new stainless steel refrigerator door, while the little dog barked with excitement. Even the flashes didn’t scare me. They just left me with a warm feeling that made the dog seem another piece of my new, expanded life.
My face must have told the poodle I was sorry for being unable to move, being unable to play, and flashing him with bright lights, so the little guy came over and licked me on the nose, just before gravity took over and I returned to my kitchen with a thud. I got a nine point five from the Russian judge for my Olympic performance
My little four-legged friend peered down at me through the hole with beaming eyes and his tongue extended in an excited smile that said, Let’s do that again. The determined lil’ devil barked at me and then dropped his red ball through the hole—it bounced several times at my feet before landing in my lap. I sat on my butt, tossed the little ball back up through the hole, and listened to the clicking the nails of the dog’s frantic feet made on the tile floor above as he ran off in hot pursuit. Gee, I wish I could meet a man who was so thrilled to have met me, and equally as understanding of my little tiny teeny weeny peculiarities, like making mystery holes in my ceiling.
That hole took some explaining. I told the landlord my nephew’s rabid, over-filled basketball was responsible. ..Kids. That, and a heavy contribution from my renters insurance, seemed to make the cheapskate satisfied. Anyway, those nasty basketballs are a plague in my town, punching holes everywhere. Best be careful of those lil’ suckers.
A few days later when I went out for my annual “I should- really-start-exercising” jog, it happened again. As usual, I had tucked in the earphones to my music player. I began the jog down Henry Street. As usual, I was bored before I reached the corner, my mind drifting into the music and away from the pounding of my running shoes. I should have known something was wrong right then and there. There was none of the usual burning in my bum knee. In fact, there was no bum knee anymore. Beyond that, I wasn’t even breaking a sweat or breathing heavily. But instead of wondering what these clues meant, I was content to drift into the music. I guess ignorance is bliss, for a while.
The next thing I knew, I was bumping into people in crowded plaza that could only be Times Square in New York City, some hundred and forty miles from Henry Street. The mob of people seemed to be in a frantic hurry to get somewhere. I stood amongst the flashing billboards, loud music, and car horns that echoed down the concrete caverns, wondering how the hell I’d gotten there.
I backed up against a storefront and tried to put it all together and figure out how to get home. But something made the sense of fear and uncertainty evaporate in a second. Suddenly, I was glad to be there. I looked into a nearby storefront and there it was, the stilettos my little black dress had been missing it whole life. Are those shoes on sale?
After that I got smarter. I realized I could use my newfound powers to my advantage and began testing and probing their limits…and expanding my shopping universe to find great shoes. Scranton was hardly the hub of the fashion shoe industry, and seeing those shoes at Times Square made me aware there was a big, bad world out there beyond my commitments to my family, my hometown, and my daughter.
I waited for dark, until my daughter, Paige, was off at her friend’s house. I pulled on some black sweats and snuck out into the cool October night. A nearby high school athletic field seemed the perfect “roomy” place for the test; no rabid basketballs in sight.
I stood on the track and began to stretch my thirty-something-year-old muscles before thinking, why bother? I started running and finished my twentieth lap before the dust from the first had hit the ground. My bad knee was fine. I wasn’t even winded, so I laughed and ran fifty more laps. That should cover me for the whole year! It was more running than I’d done in the last year…okay, five years…okay, lifetime.
The smile on my face must have been big enough to drive a dump truck through. I was having fun. Do you remember fun? I hadn’t felt that simple childish joy of “just doing” for years. With raising a kid alone and trying to keep everyone in my big family from killing one another, there was little room for fun or “just doing.” So for years I had hidden behind the limits of those responsibilities and built walls to protect Paige and everyone I knew. Thing is, when you build walls around you, they become a prison.
I remembered the remodeling work I had done to my kitchen ceiling by jumping, so I decided to give it a try again, to see how high I could jump. I gave my creaky ol’ legs a bend to find they weren’t the least bit creaky anymore, and they propelled me up into the sky. I didn’t stop. I just kept rising until Scranton shrunk into an irregular circle of lights.
It was beautiful, but when I began to drop, it scared the shit out of me. I panicked as I plummeted. I held out my arms. I flapped them like a bird. But still the image of the ground below began to shoot up at me like a rocket. My arms and legs flailed as I struggled. I remember having the time to tell myself what an asshole I was for doing this.
Then, as I neared the ground, I recalled all the skydivers I had seen in movies, how they always laid out and used their chests to slow their descent. I assumed the position and, just before reaching the treetops, prepared for the crash. I angled my body, and suddenly felt myself banking to the left and rising back up over the neighborhood. I continued the turn until I was back up in the air, high over Scranton.
“Yahoooooo!” I screamed, and proceeded to bank left and right, doing it for kicks. I soon learned even subtle tilts of my arms, legs, and torso would control my flight. After a few minutes of practice, I was spinning, doing barrel rows, quick dives, and exhilarating climbs into the starry sky.
I cut my flight short when I began to worry about someone seeing me in the moonlit sky. Hell, the ‘barbies’ at the PTA had finally just began to accept me as a single mother in th
eir midst. We do school fundraisers and volunteer work, not loop-the-loops. What if they found out I had a secret?
Everything went fine until I contemplated landing. How? Pick somewhere soft—that was the clever advice I gave myself. I fooled with different body positions until I found one that seemed to slow me down. I came in over the football field, flew through the back side of the goalposts—it’s good, three points!—then laid out my body in hopes of slowing. I slowed, all right, cutting into the field with my chin, chest, and shoulder all the way from the end zone, down the field, and into the other end zone before stopping.
I shook my head, dizzy and light-headed, amazed I felt no pain and thought, Touch down. That was enough fun for the night.
Other changes appeared. I began eating like a horse, or two—okay, maybe a team of horses. But here’s the good part: I just slowly continued to lose weight. I guessed that my powers sent my metabolism into high gear. I was rapidly eating my way down, dress size after dress size, my pre-baby body slowly returning. It was fun, until Paige caught me finishing off a half gallon of ice cream after dinner. Luckily, she didn’t see the bag of cookies beside me that would have been next.
“Eeeew, Mom, that is soooo gross. No wonder you never have a date!”
“I have dates!”
“I mean with a real man, mom.”
“What do you call Jason then?”
She paused reflectively, “Farm animal, some sort of sub-species, pure Booty Call.”
“Paige! That’s not true!”
“Mom, He burped the alphabet for your birthday!...and he takes pride in his farts.”
I began to speak then closed my mouth and reflected for a moment, “You know…you’re right. I don’t have dates.” I looked at the ice cream and dropped my spoon.
From then on I had to become a closet eater. But with a sixteen-year-old’s social schedule, Paige gave me plenty of time for snacks, as well as dinner #2 and #3.
She wasn’t completely right about the dates. First of all, let me defend myself by saying that the men of Scranton my age are like children—okay, morons. We are not talking slim pickings, we are talking no pickings. Long ago I had given up on finding Mr. Right. With so much of my time dedicated to my daughter, all I had time for was Mr. Right Now.
The new part of my problem was the fault of another change the powers brought on, this one…not so good. My current friend-with-benefits, Jason, decided to get frisky the other night as we watched a reality show on TV and he drank my beer. we made a beeline for my bedroom.
Just as I had drifted into the music while jogging, I let myself drift into a potent arousal. It’s all a bit foggy to me still. I wasn’t thinking or planning anything. I just began doing what felt good. I do remember being totally impatient with him and tossing him onto the bed. He bounced like a basketball for a few seconds before I pinned him to the bed and…climbed on board. I remember quickly changing positions, directions, and angles of attack without finding the one that would get me home. I’m afraid Jason’s equipment wasn’t made to handle many of the slants or twists I chose.
When one try failed, I remember offering his tool various sorts of encouragement before trying again. Somehow I’m guessing his yelps meant I encouraged him a bit too much. And I don’t think my verbal encouragement worked either. (On second thought, “Can’t you do that?,” “Is that it?,” from a woman possessed weren’t the best choices if I wanted “firm” results.) I didn’t snap out of it until I heard Jason’s incoherent jumble of expletives, followed by moans of pain.. I tried to figure out what had happened. He yelled at me and struggled to get his clothes on as he made a slow escape from my bedroom, He stopped at the door.
“What the hell is wrong with you, bitch?”
“Excuse me? You’re calling me a bitch when you couldn’t even satisfy your own hand with that little thing? Sure, I’m a bitch and proud of it.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Yeah, I am…what’s your excuse?” As his feet heavily pounded the floor while he left, I imagined hooves hitting the ground. Maybe Paige was right about farm animals.
Surprise, surprise, Jason doesn’t call anymore. I figure my new level of sexual desire was a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, teeny-weeny bit too potent for the average male. And Jason had never even measured up to even an average sexual experience. I’m certain I did some damage to him, though, so now I had a complex about that: being afraid to do it to anyone else. Thanks for the complex, Jason. I faked ’em all anyway.
After that, I started dressing in black and practicing my new skills in the mountains surrounding town. I mastered flying, lifting boulders, and running at high speeds through a maze of obstacles. I soon learned that, at the speeds I traveled, it made no difference if I wore running shoes or my Times Square stilettos. So I ran with the most stylishly firm calves you can imagine, and a good three inches of extra height. I did it all for that childish feeling of fun—until I was overtaken by the “adult” feeling that there had to be a purpose for this.
I found that purpose while cruising through the sky on my way home one night. I noticed a truck fishtailing down a steep hill, apparently having lost its brakes. Ahead of it lay a hairpin curve above a steep drop into a valley. I had a decision to make—be safe and watch, or change the outcome.
I was tired of being safe. I reached the truck just as it broke through the guardrail and began to plunge into the valley. I told myself that this was no different than catching a boulder, but this was an eighty-thousand-pound boulder traveling at 60 miles per hour that could easily carry me with it to the rocks below. I felt a serious instinct to flee as I approached, but fought it off, locked my arms under the trailer, and pushed as hard as I could, wondering how long I should try this before giving up. But after the initial jolt of impact, the truck responded, and felt no heavier than holding a basket of laundry over my head. I smiled, thinking, this is easy.
Then the truck and I began to fall through the air toward the rocks below, and the hitch that coupled the cab to the trailer started to break apart when it realized, Hey, I wasn’t made to fly. The hitch that connected the cab to the trailer worked fine when everything was touching the ground, but up in the air…not so good. Now I had two pieces to support.
Just at the final creak of the separating metal, I worked my way forward and took a desperate handhold of the cab as it started to drift away. My plan was to drop the trailer if I couldn’t manage both that and the cab, but I could, just barely. It wasn’t the weight, but the awkward shapes, angles, and poor handholds that made it really hard for me. (If you’ve ever lifted two laundry baskets over your head and held them out at arm’s length, you might know what I mean.) I lifted the truck beyond the lip of the cliff and then set it down. The tail of the trailer held in my right hand and nose of the cab in my left hit first, and then the other wheels came down to a bouncing halt.
But there was no time to gloat. As I ducked out from under the truck, the wide-eyed driver, saw me. Cars began to stop. I didn’t want to be recognized or have to explain what I had done—or how I had done it—so I flew away as quickly as I could, vowing to disguise myself from then on whenever I flew.
Out came the sewing machine and a homemade outfit, lame by superhero standards. Hell, I was a single mom working forty hours a week in the accounting department of a wireless company and another twenty hours part time at a retail store for minimum wage, not Batman on a Hollywood budget. It was no high-tech suit, but it helped hide my identity. For me—and if there were any more like me, probably for them too—remaining unknown was critical, or these powers would run off with my life.
And so it went, night after night. I would wear a mask and some black clothes and cruise the city. There was always pain or disaster to find. I was shocked how much went on during those “quiet” nights I never had taken notice of before. Once you knew the suffering and violence around you, your view of life was changed forever. Whether it was an accident, crime, or just the simple cruelty of
mankind, I was a busy woman.
But the more I changed the fates of the people of Scranton, the more it forced me to hide in the shadows. No one could find out, I knew, or they would find a selfish use for my powers. My life would no longer be mine. And worst of all, Paige and the rest of my family would no longer be safe. It was a horrible, helpless feeling that even all my power couldn’t contain. I was torn between my two lives; the only one I had known, and the new, attractive one where I felt I mattered. Sure, every single mom is already a superhero, considering the mountain of things we juggle daily, but for the first time I felt like I was making a diffence. I was moving the world, and not it me.
Batman wouldn’t last a day in my world, I thought bitterly, feeling the strain that these newly manifested superpowers had brought to my life. Gone was my known, controllable existence, quietly raising my daughter and making ends meet. Gone were the simple days of drinking, dancing, and partying with my friends. Being “real” and being a superhero made for a unique combination. Sometimes it was a real bitch.
My new powers were confusing and frustrating, yet wildly seductive, opening my mind to a new world. They filled me with questions and challenges but, worst of all, forced me to face them all alone. I could trust no one with my secret.
How should I use these powers? How to deal with all those who would search for me, wanting to share in, use my strength? Who to trust? What really was right and wrong, when the laws of man no longer applied to you? Yet through the dangers and the challenges, more doors opened than closed. Perhaps there was a route to a new level of being—perhaps even a new level of romance.
Oh, by the way, as you get to know me better, you’ll probably hear people call me a bunch of different names (or expletives) but for the record, my name is Allie, and Paige calls me Mom. (Call me Ishmael, but I won’t answer.) I’m known as the B.I.B.; the bitch in black. And please don’t say, ‘bib.’ It’s ‘B-I-B.’ Just say every letter and there won’t be any trouble. Remember that, and remember I can break you in half if you don’t. (First one I hear saying ‘bib’ gets it. Don’t make me hurt you.)