Sunday, February 1, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
What's the Loveliest Part of Your Body?
Over at Shakesville, they're asking readers what part of themselves they like best. Here is my answer:
My hands. I liked them even when I was a fat, awkward teenager, because at least my hands had long slender fingers and muscular palms. When I was a fat, awkward young adult, I still thought my hands looked kind of nice, and I also found out that I could get almost any girl to let me touch her because I gave really good back and foot rubs. Now I am a fat, awkward middle-aged man, and I've had a couple of go-rounds with carpal tunnel syndrome and have to sleep with my hands strapped into immobilization gloves that I call the "anti-Onanism devices", but they still give good touch, and my wife gets downright lyrical about what they do to her, so I like my hands just an awful lot.
My hands. I liked them even when I was a fat, awkward teenager, because at least my hands had long slender fingers and muscular palms. When I was a fat, awkward young adult, I still thought my hands looked kind of nice, and I also found out that I could get almost any girl to let me touch her because I gave really good back and foot rubs. Now I am a fat, awkward middle-aged man, and I've had a couple of go-rounds with carpal tunnel syndrome and have to sleep with my hands strapped into immobilization gloves that I call the "anti-Onanism devices", but they still give good touch, and my wife gets downright lyrical about what they do to her, so I like my hands just an awful lot.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Earth-349: The Planet of the Apes
Earth-349: The Planet of the Apes
By Anton Psychopoulos, Ph.D.
Disclaimer 1: This story is based on a story in Superman #349, but is not limited by that
story or any other.
Disclaimer 2: This story is based on characters and concepts copyright DC Comics,
Marvel Comics, 20th Century-Fox, Universal Studios and others. It is written for
entertainment only and is not intended to deny or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer 3: The Planet of the Apes was created by Pierre Boulle.
Disclaimer 4: The chronosynclastic infundibulum orbiting between Earth and Mars was
created by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Disclaimer 5: The healing treatment used by Dr. Zaius was created by someone whose
name I can't recall. If you've read the story, please let me know the title and author.
Disclaimer 6: This story is not recommended for persons under 18, or the easily offended,
especially those who are uncomfortable with themes such as transgender.
Colonel George Taylor of the United States Aerospace Force scratched under his
filthy loincloth and wished one more time that he'd followed that guidance counselor's
advice and become a newspaper reporter.
I could have been the editor of a great metropolitan newspaper by now.
Instead, he had become a fighter pilot, then a test pilot, then an astronaut, and
eventually been given command of Argo 4, charged with exploring the space warp that
orbited the Sun between Earth and Mars.
And look where that had gotten him.
They'd emerged near a red giant star they were pretty sure was Betelgeuse.
Landing in a rare green spot on the mostly-desert second planet, they had found a band of
mute and primitive but quite human people, and soon after they had shared the fate of the
band: rounded up and killed or caged by a band of apes.
There was no two ways about it: the creatures had been recognizably gorillas,
orangutans and chimpanzees, though they had walked on two legs, talked, worn clothing,
ridden horses and carried rifles. Long, deadly rifles.
Taylor's three comrades had been killed, so far as he knew, and he had been shot
in the throat.
Caged at a research station with other captive humans, he had pretty much picked
up their language by listening to the staff. By luck, a gorilla technician often brought her
baby to work, and spent hours talking with him. But with the wound in his throat, he
couldn't talk to them.
If only he could talk, he could surely manage to get them to treat him as a person.
There were at least three intelligent species on this planet – surely they could find a place
for a fourth.
But for now, he sat in his cage, his only companion a pretty but witless female,
praying that his wound would heal enough that he could speak intelligibly.
A fat gorilla entered the room of cages and handed a printed form to the young
chimpanzee who was feeding the captives.
The chimp looked up at Taylor, startled.
"Gee, Dr. Zira was hoping those two would mate."
The gorilla laughed.
"Not after Lab Nine gets through with him!"
The chimp chuckled nervously.
"Um, guess not."
Taylor shook his head slowly, the implications of what the apes were saying
sinking in. It sounded as though they were going to castrate him.
And why not? He was only an animal, after all. Naturally they could "geld" him,
or even "put him down", whenever they pleased.
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse. . . .
The gorilla was saying something about "orders direct from Dr. Zaius". That was
the old orangutan who seemed to be the most important official at the research station.
Not just a senior administrator, but a very distinguished scientist and a "pih ehr-bool", a
title which seemed to mean something like "defender of the faith". Zaius had the bearing
of a bishop and the voice of a Shakespearean actor, and for some reason he radiated a
severe hostility towards humans in general and Taylor in particular.
The chimp opened the cage, watching the two animals warily, while the gorilla
readied a noose on a stick, the standard control device, to capture him.
"If you knew what they were going to do to you," the gorilla said nastily.
At the last moment, Taylor snatched the descending loop and yanked at the stick,
managing by surprise to pull it out of the gorilla's grasp. Leaping past the two startled
apes, he dashed out into a corridor, then made for daylight.
On the street, an unconfined human created a sensation, sending orangutan
mothers snatching at their children, sturdy chimp males grabbing stakes and bricks to
bring the beast down, gorilla teamsters calming their horses. Surprising them with his
perceptiveness, Taylor managed to evade the apes for several blocks, and he began to
think he had a chance of escaping into the wilderness when a net suddenly entangled him
and he was hoist into the air beneath a covered walkway.
He made one last, desperate attempt to force intelligible words from his throat,
but a club to the back of his head silenced him for the rest of the day.
Taylor awoke to find himself lying in a bed, tucked under white sheets. For a
moment, he thought that the whole episode of the monkey planet had just been a dream.
But his wrists and ankles were restrained, and the walls had the odd curving surfaces of
the ape architecture he'd come to know.
And it stank of ape musk.
His body ached, on the edge of acute pain, especially at the joints and between his
legs. He suppressed a moan of dread as he contemplated that fact, and prayed for a
chance to examine himself and know the worst.
An orangutan whose jacket indicated a fairly low rank entered the room, noted
that Taylor was awake and began to prod his chest with long hairy fingers.
"Get your stinkin' paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"
The orang retreated, eyes wide, hands raised, thin lips quivering. Taylor was
hardly less surprised to hear his voice. The wound in his throat seemed finally to be
healed, he could speak without pain, but his voice was strangely altered.
Altered.
But that was nonsense. It was a myth that an adult male's voice would rise in
pitch after he was castrated. But as Taylor continued to snarl invective at the cringing
technician, there was no question about it: he was cursing, if not singing, soprano.
The orang had finally had enough. He bolted from the room, shouting, "Doctor
Zaius! Doctor Zaius!"
The stern-faced old orangutan soon entered, followed at a cautious distance by his
trembling subordinate.
"Well, now, let's see how Bright Eyes is doing today," he said with a confident
air.
"My name is Taylor," Taylor said flatly.
The old orang started momentarily, then straightened himself and dismissed the
technician.
"So, it's true, you can talk. My worst fears realized. But you won't be talking for
long."
The old ape began untying Taylor's ankles and wrists.
"Let's just see how the rest of your body functions. The treatment seems to have
healed all of your wounds, as usual, but let's just see if you can walk, shall we?"
Feeling as weak as a centenarian, Taylor pushed himself up on his hands to a half-
sitting position, then dropped back down with a high-pitched shriek.
"What did you do to me?" Taylor demanded, forcing himself to sit up again and
look at his body.
"You tell me, Bright Eyes. What do you see?"
"This is impossible. You can't do that, it doesn't work that way . . . ."
Zaius gave a brief series of dignified hoots of amusement.
"We were nearly as startled, the first time we saw it. We had been trying to
develop a means of curing crippling wounds, and had gotten as far as testing it on the
higher animals, when we discovered this curious side effect. Male becomes female,
female becomes male. Fascinating."
Taylor swung her legs out of the bed, sitting up dizzily, still much too weak to
stand. Her shoulder and hip joints had been dramatically altered, and something was
different about her spine. Her waist was tiny, her thighs rounder, her calves much
smaller. Even the weight of her modest breasts seemed to unbalance her.
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse . . . .
The senior ape prodded Taylor in various places. She didn't bother to object.
"Most of the humans we have used in testing Dr. Milo's treatment had their minds
shattered by the experience. I'd hoped that would happen to you as well. Since it didn't,
we'll simply have to cut your vocal chords, and perhaps use you in one of my
neurological studies."
"Cut up my brain?"
"Of course. It would be a shame to lose such an unusual specimen – but perhaps
you will attract less attention as part of Laboratory Nine's collection. We already have
quite a menagerie here of exotic specimens from all over the planet. Perhaps . . . ."
Taylor slapped her thigh and forced herself to her feet, to look Zaius in the face.
"Damn it, Doctor, how can you keep treating me like just another specimen?
Can't you see that I'm. . ."
She groped for the right word in their language.
". . . I'm an ape, too?"
Zaius glared at her, nostrils flaring.
"No," he said firmly, "you are not."
The orangutan began pacing back and forth, his professorial bearing contrasting
strangely with his loping short-legged gait.
"You must understand that I am very much of two minds regarding you, er,
Taylor. On the one hand, I am a scientist, and would like nothing better than to study you
at indefinite length. And as a lover of justice, I would like to find a place for you in our
society. But I am also a Defender of the Faith, and simply by being what you are, you
pose a threat to the established order of things. A threat I cannot tolerate."
Taylor was wobbling unsteadily on her feet, feeling terribly weak. Zaius stepped
forward and scooped her up in his arms, cradling her as easily as a child. The old ape
swung her into a fireman's carry and bore her through the corridors of Lab Nine, past
startled subordinates.
Zaius lowered Taylor gently onto a mat of straw in a cage, much smaller than the
one she'd shared with the female, and locked her in. Recovering herself a little, she
looked around and saw that a chimp sat in the next cage. The creature was young, male,
quite large, and naked.
"Say, fella, aren't you on the wrong side of that cage?"
Zaius hooted once.
"You won't get much conversation out of that one, I'm afraid. He's one of our
specimens, from a tribe of mute, almost mindless savages recently found in a remote
jungle region."
"I get it. The talking human and the mute chimp, a pair of amusing freaks."
Zaius laughed more freely, sounding a bit like the fat gorilla who had first come
to bring her to this place.
"Indeed, you will make an interesting pair. We'd already had in mind to try
mating him with a human female, and you seem the obvious choice."
Her jaw didn't actually drop, but she sat motionless for a good long time. She
remained silent as Zaius spoke with an attendant and left. Finally she looked through the
bars at her intended mate, and saw how the partition between their cages was
demountable.
Just when I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse . . . .
They left her alone for a few days, letting her sleep and eat and recover her
strength. Dr. Zaius checked on her once or twice a day, and various tests were
performed. They drew blood, took her temperature and her blood pressure, prodded her
new genitalia with a frightening speculum. Any day, she expected to return to her cage to
find the partition removed. She wondered if she'd be able to put up enough of a fight to
get the chimp to kill her.
She saw a few of the other specimens at Lab Nine, including an orangutan-human
hybrid brought in by an embarrassed farmer. The child was mute, but Taylor wondered if
that might be because no-one had spoken to her since she was born.
Taylor also saw the adult human just three feet tall, and heard the thunderous
rumbling of some very large animal that was being held in a pen adjoining Lab Nine.
There was a lot of talk about an unusual gorilla brought back from the Sin'Ges Islands,
which apparently were quite remote, but she didn't see him in the lab.
One morning the mute chimp was agitated, and seemed to be very eager to get
close to Taylor. She sat against the opposite wall of the cage, away from, his groping
arm. He wasn't the only one upset – the big animal, whatever it was, was growling like
an earthquake all morning.
Dr. Zaius examined her personally that morning, seeming to be very pleased by
what he found when he probed her vagina with a blunt brown finger. He rubbed his
fingers together, feeling their stickiness, and sniffed at them in a way she found revolting.
"Yes," said the old ape, "I do believe that today –"
He was cut off by a renewal of the immense roaring, accompanied by a crashing
of broken timbers and falling rock that could only mean that part of Lab Nine had
somehow fallen down.
Lab technicians screeched in panic. Zaius stood firm, briskly ordering them to
move into doorways. The old ape surprised Taylor by bending over her to shield her with
his own body.
Brilliant daylight cut through the gloom of the room of cages, and Taylor saw
over Zaius' shoulder that part of the roof was missing. Then something else blocked the
light, and she heard one of the terrified gorillas scream, "The island king!"
Zaius was brushed aside like a fly, and Taylor was crushed in a bearhug by some
large animal with too many limbs. But they weren't limbs, she realized as she was
hauled up through the gap in the roof. They were immense black fingers.
And then she was sitting in the palm of a gorilla's paw, with eyes like manhole
covers peering at her, and nostrils big enough to receive her fists sniffing her.
Taylor gave a short, painful bark of laughter.
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse . . . .
By Anton Psychopoulos, Ph.D.
Disclaimer 1: This story is based on a story in Superman #349, but is not limited by that
story or any other.
Disclaimer 2: This story is based on characters and concepts copyright DC Comics,
Marvel Comics, 20th Century-Fox, Universal Studios and others. It is written for
entertainment only and is not intended to deny or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer 3: The Planet of the Apes was created by Pierre Boulle.
Disclaimer 4: The chronosynclastic infundibulum orbiting between Earth and Mars was
created by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Disclaimer 5: The healing treatment used by Dr. Zaius was created by someone whose
name I can't recall. If you've read the story, please let me know the title and author.
Disclaimer 6: This story is not recommended for persons under 18, or the easily offended,
especially those who are uncomfortable with themes such as transgender.
Colonel George Taylor of the United States Aerospace Force scratched under his
filthy loincloth and wished one more time that he'd followed that guidance counselor's
advice and become a newspaper reporter.
I could have been the editor of a great metropolitan newspaper by now.
Instead, he had become a fighter pilot, then a test pilot, then an astronaut, and
eventually been given command of Argo 4, charged with exploring the space warp that
orbited the Sun between Earth and Mars.
And look where that had gotten him.
They'd emerged near a red giant star they were pretty sure was Betelgeuse.
Landing in a rare green spot on the mostly-desert second planet, they had found a band of
mute and primitive but quite human people, and soon after they had shared the fate of the
band: rounded up and killed or caged by a band of apes.
There was no two ways about it: the creatures had been recognizably gorillas,
orangutans and chimpanzees, though they had walked on two legs, talked, worn clothing,
ridden horses and carried rifles. Long, deadly rifles.
Taylor's three comrades had been killed, so far as he knew, and he had been shot
in the throat.
Caged at a research station with other captive humans, he had pretty much picked
up their language by listening to the staff. By luck, a gorilla technician often brought her
baby to work, and spent hours talking with him. But with the wound in his throat, he
couldn't talk to them.
If only he could talk, he could surely manage to get them to treat him as a person.
There were at least three intelligent species on this planet – surely they could find a place
for a fourth.
But for now, he sat in his cage, his only companion a pretty but witless female,
praying that his wound would heal enough that he could speak intelligibly.
A fat gorilla entered the room of cages and handed a printed form to the young
chimpanzee who was feeding the captives.
The chimp looked up at Taylor, startled.
"Gee, Dr. Zira was hoping those two would mate."
The gorilla laughed.
"Not after Lab Nine gets through with him!"
The chimp chuckled nervously.
"Um, guess not."
Taylor shook his head slowly, the implications of what the apes were saying
sinking in. It sounded as though they were going to castrate him.
And why not? He was only an animal, after all. Naturally they could "geld" him,
or even "put him down", whenever they pleased.
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse. . . .
The gorilla was saying something about "orders direct from Dr. Zaius". That was
the old orangutan who seemed to be the most important official at the research station.
Not just a senior administrator, but a very distinguished scientist and a "pih ehr-bool", a
title which seemed to mean something like "defender of the faith". Zaius had the bearing
of a bishop and the voice of a Shakespearean actor, and for some reason he radiated a
severe hostility towards humans in general and Taylor in particular.
The chimp opened the cage, watching the two animals warily, while the gorilla
readied a noose on a stick, the standard control device, to capture him.
"If you knew what they were going to do to you," the gorilla said nastily.
At the last moment, Taylor snatched the descending loop and yanked at the stick,
managing by surprise to pull it out of the gorilla's grasp. Leaping past the two startled
apes, he dashed out into a corridor, then made for daylight.
On the street, an unconfined human created a sensation, sending orangutan
mothers snatching at their children, sturdy chimp males grabbing stakes and bricks to
bring the beast down, gorilla teamsters calming their horses. Surprising them with his
perceptiveness, Taylor managed to evade the apes for several blocks, and he began to
think he had a chance of escaping into the wilderness when a net suddenly entangled him
and he was hoist into the air beneath a covered walkway.
He made one last, desperate attempt to force intelligible words from his throat,
but a club to the back of his head silenced him for the rest of the day.
Taylor awoke to find himself lying in a bed, tucked under white sheets. For a
moment, he thought that the whole episode of the monkey planet had just been a dream.
But his wrists and ankles were restrained, and the walls had the odd curving surfaces of
the ape architecture he'd come to know.
And it stank of ape musk.
His body ached, on the edge of acute pain, especially at the joints and between his
legs. He suppressed a moan of dread as he contemplated that fact, and prayed for a
chance to examine himself and know the worst.
An orangutan whose jacket indicated a fairly low rank entered the room, noted
that Taylor was awake and began to prod his chest with long hairy fingers.
"Get your stinkin' paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"
The orang retreated, eyes wide, hands raised, thin lips quivering. Taylor was
hardly less surprised to hear his voice. The wound in his throat seemed finally to be
healed, he could speak without pain, but his voice was strangely altered.
Altered.
But that was nonsense. It was a myth that an adult male's voice would rise in
pitch after he was castrated. But as Taylor continued to snarl invective at the cringing
technician, there was no question about it: he was cursing, if not singing, soprano.
The orang had finally had enough. He bolted from the room, shouting, "Doctor
Zaius! Doctor Zaius!"
The stern-faced old orangutan soon entered, followed at a cautious distance by his
trembling subordinate.
"Well, now, let's see how Bright Eyes is doing today," he said with a confident
air.
"My name is Taylor," Taylor said flatly.
The old orang started momentarily, then straightened himself and dismissed the
technician.
"So, it's true, you can talk. My worst fears realized. But you won't be talking for
long."
The old ape began untying Taylor's ankles and wrists.
"Let's just see how the rest of your body functions. The treatment seems to have
healed all of your wounds, as usual, but let's just see if you can walk, shall we?"
Feeling as weak as a centenarian, Taylor pushed himself up on his hands to a half-
sitting position, then dropped back down with a high-pitched shriek.
"What did you do to me?" Taylor demanded, forcing himself to sit up again and
look at his body.
"You tell me, Bright Eyes. What do you see?"
"This is impossible. You can't do that, it doesn't work that way . . . ."
Zaius gave a brief series of dignified hoots of amusement.
"We were nearly as startled, the first time we saw it. We had been trying to
develop a means of curing crippling wounds, and had gotten as far as testing it on the
higher animals, when we discovered this curious side effect. Male becomes female,
female becomes male. Fascinating."
Taylor swung her legs out of the bed, sitting up dizzily, still much too weak to
stand. Her shoulder and hip joints had been dramatically altered, and something was
different about her spine. Her waist was tiny, her thighs rounder, her calves much
smaller. Even the weight of her modest breasts seemed to unbalance her.
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse . . . .
The senior ape prodded Taylor in various places. She didn't bother to object.
"Most of the humans we have used in testing Dr. Milo's treatment had their minds
shattered by the experience. I'd hoped that would happen to you as well. Since it didn't,
we'll simply have to cut your vocal chords, and perhaps use you in one of my
neurological studies."
"Cut up my brain?"
"Of course. It would be a shame to lose such an unusual specimen – but perhaps
you will attract less attention as part of Laboratory Nine's collection. We already have
quite a menagerie here of exotic specimens from all over the planet. Perhaps . . . ."
Taylor slapped her thigh and forced herself to her feet, to look Zaius in the face.
"Damn it, Doctor, how can you keep treating me like just another specimen?
Can't you see that I'm. . ."
She groped for the right word in their language.
". . . I'm an ape, too?"
Zaius glared at her, nostrils flaring.
"No," he said firmly, "you are not."
The orangutan began pacing back and forth, his professorial bearing contrasting
strangely with his loping short-legged gait.
"You must understand that I am very much of two minds regarding you, er,
Taylor. On the one hand, I am a scientist, and would like nothing better than to study you
at indefinite length. And as a lover of justice, I would like to find a place for you in our
society. But I am also a Defender of the Faith, and simply by being what you are, you
pose a threat to the established order of things. A threat I cannot tolerate."
Taylor was wobbling unsteadily on her feet, feeling terribly weak. Zaius stepped
forward and scooped her up in his arms, cradling her as easily as a child. The old ape
swung her into a fireman's carry and bore her through the corridors of Lab Nine, past
startled subordinates.
Zaius lowered Taylor gently onto a mat of straw in a cage, much smaller than the
one she'd shared with the female, and locked her in. Recovering herself a little, she
looked around and saw that a chimp sat in the next cage. The creature was young, male,
quite large, and naked.
"Say, fella, aren't you on the wrong side of that cage?"
Zaius hooted once.
"You won't get much conversation out of that one, I'm afraid. He's one of our
specimens, from a tribe of mute, almost mindless savages recently found in a remote
jungle region."
"I get it. The talking human and the mute chimp, a pair of amusing freaks."
Zaius laughed more freely, sounding a bit like the fat gorilla who had first come
to bring her to this place.
"Indeed, you will make an interesting pair. We'd already had in mind to try
mating him with a human female, and you seem the obvious choice."
Her jaw didn't actually drop, but she sat motionless for a good long time. She
remained silent as Zaius spoke with an attendant and left. Finally she looked through the
bars at her intended mate, and saw how the partition between their cages was
demountable.
Just when I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse . . . .
They left her alone for a few days, letting her sleep and eat and recover her
strength. Dr. Zaius checked on her once or twice a day, and various tests were
performed. They drew blood, took her temperature and her blood pressure, prodded her
new genitalia with a frightening speculum. Any day, she expected to return to her cage to
find the partition removed. She wondered if she'd be able to put up enough of a fight to
get the chimp to kill her.
She saw a few of the other specimens at Lab Nine, including an orangutan-human
hybrid brought in by an embarrassed farmer. The child was mute, but Taylor wondered if
that might be because no-one had spoken to her since she was born.
Taylor also saw the adult human just three feet tall, and heard the thunderous
rumbling of some very large animal that was being held in a pen adjoining Lab Nine.
There was a lot of talk about an unusual gorilla brought back from the Sin'Ges Islands,
which apparently were quite remote, but she didn't see him in the lab.
One morning the mute chimp was agitated, and seemed to be very eager to get
close to Taylor. She sat against the opposite wall of the cage, away from, his groping
arm. He wasn't the only one upset – the big animal, whatever it was, was growling like
an earthquake all morning.
Dr. Zaius examined her personally that morning, seeming to be very pleased by
what he found when he probed her vagina with a blunt brown finger. He rubbed his
fingers together, feeling their stickiness, and sniffed at them in a way she found revolting.
"Yes," said the old ape, "I do believe that today –"
He was cut off by a renewal of the immense roaring, accompanied by a crashing
of broken timbers and falling rock that could only mean that part of Lab Nine had
somehow fallen down.
Lab technicians screeched in panic. Zaius stood firm, briskly ordering them to
move into doorways. The old ape surprised Taylor by bending over her to shield her with
his own body.
Brilliant daylight cut through the gloom of the room of cages, and Taylor saw
over Zaius' shoulder that part of the roof was missing. Then something else blocked the
light, and she heard one of the terrified gorillas scream, "The island king!"
Zaius was brushed aside like a fly, and Taylor was crushed in a bearhug by some
large animal with too many limbs. But they weren't limbs, she realized as she was
hauled up through the gap in the roof. They were immense black fingers.
And then she was sitting in the palm of a gorilla's paw, with eyes like manhole
covers peering at her, and nostrils big enough to receive her fists sniffing her.
Taylor gave a short, painful bark of laughter.
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse . . . .
Sunday, January 4, 2009
44 Odd Things
44 ODD Things about you! If you opened this, FILL IT OUT! Learn 44 things about your friends, and let them learn 44 things about you! Send back to me and to several more friends !!
1. Do you like blue cheese? Moderately.
2. Have you ever smoked? No.
3. Do you own a gun? No
4. What flavor of Kool Aid is your favorite? Plain (i.e., just water, with no powder added).
5. Do you get nervous before dentist appointments? Yes.
6. What do you think of hot dogs? I like them but don't really respect them.
7. Favorite Christmas movie? It's a Wonderful Life.
8. Favorite thing to drink in the morning? Coffee with milk and Ovaltine.
9. Can you do push ups? Yes. It hurts more than it used to, though.
10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? My wedding ring, a half-inch gold band that matches my wife's.
11. Favorite hobby? Writing fanfic.
12. Do you have A.D.D.? A pretty bad case.
13. What's one trait you hate about yourself? Aside from my ADD, which is a perpetual burden, my inability to express anger constructively.
14. Middle name? [Not available, but it's one of those virtue names like Felicity or Constance]
15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment. A) Methodists sure do sing better than Quakers (I have escorted my frail father to church, and am sitting in an adjoining room).B) The fog this morning was awfully pretty, lit up all dawn-rosy.C) I wish my knee didn't hurt every single day.
16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Coffee, water, pomegranate juice.
17. Current worry? Work prospects.
18. Current hate right now? My seeming inability to communicate some very basic truths to a friend.
19. Favorite place to be? Sitting propped up on my bed, with a book or laptop in front of me, a warm mocha to my right and my sweetie to my left.
20. How did you bring in the new year? Alas, New Year's Eve was very unpleasant for me because of a misunderstanding with my wife, but we had a better New Year on January third.
21. Where would you like to go? I'd like to watch a space shuttle landing
.22. Name three people who will complete this: How on Earth should I know?
23. Do you own slippers? Yes. I tend to let them get too old to actually keep my feet warm nor to be comfortable against my soles, but right now I'm wearing some very nice slippers because my sweetie bought them for me.
24. What shirt are you wearing? A red-and-maroon print button-down shirt that is just a bit too short in the body and the sleeves for me but too pretty to get rid of, besides which it was given to me by a dear friend I don't get to see much of anymore. Besides, it was clean.
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Never tried. I have always presumed they would be rather chilly on a cold night.
26. Can you whistle? Yes. wish I had a wider range.
27. Favorite color? Blue. The blue of a clear summer sky.
28. Would you be a pirate? No, pirates steal and hurt people.
29. What songs do you sing in the shower? Most often, I take advantage of the white sound of the running water to summon up the hallucination of a Sousa march played by a large marching band.
30. Favorite Girl's Name: Dorothy (my mother's name).
31. Favorite boy's name: Charles (the name of my grandfather, among others).
32. What's in your pocket right now? Cell phone, glasses case, my work schedule for the month, a 3x5 card with some other things I'm supposed to take care of right away, three pairs of disposible vinyl gloves.
33. Last thing that made you laugh? My reaction to one of these questions.
34. What vehicle do you drive? An Isuzi pickup truck, on "long-term loan" from an uncle who is too frail to drive it any longer.
35. Worst injury you've ever had? The hole in my head, if post-surgical wounds count. Otherwise, the chronic-strain injury I have created in my lower back.
36. Do you love where you live? Yes.
37. How many TVs do you have in your house? One. We watch videos once in awhile.
38. Who is your loudest friend? One of the voices in my head, if it really is a friend.
39. Do you have any pets? No, and I am not sure why not.
40. Does someone have a crush on you? Oh, dear, I hope not.
41. Your favorite book? Heavenly Discourse by C.E.S. Wood.
42. Do you collect anything? Not really. I read comic books, and for many years I accumulated them, but one day I discovered that I felt perfectly fine about releasing them back into the wild.
43. Favorite Sports Team? Brooklyn Dodger. Yes, I've heard, but you asked, and that's my answer.
44. What song do you want played at your funeral? Schiller's Ode to Freedom. I'd rather have all of Beethoven's Ninth, but I don't want to demand that much of people's time, so I'll invite them all to go home and YouTube it in my memory later on.
1. Do you like blue cheese? Moderately.
2. Have you ever smoked? No.
3. Do you own a gun? No
4. What flavor of Kool Aid is your favorite? Plain (i.e., just water, with no powder added).
5. Do you get nervous before dentist appointments? Yes.
6. What do you think of hot dogs? I like them but don't really respect them.
7. Favorite Christmas movie? It's a Wonderful Life.
8. Favorite thing to drink in the morning? Coffee with milk and Ovaltine.
9. Can you do push ups? Yes. It hurts more than it used to, though.
10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? My wedding ring, a half-inch gold band that matches my wife's.
11. Favorite hobby? Writing fanfic.
12. Do you have A.D.D.? A pretty bad case.
13. What's one trait you hate about yourself? Aside from my ADD, which is a perpetual burden, my inability to express anger constructively.
14. Middle name? [Not available, but it's one of those virtue names like Felicity or Constance]
15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment. A) Methodists sure do sing better than Quakers (I have escorted my frail father to church, and am sitting in an adjoining room).B) The fog this morning was awfully pretty, lit up all dawn-rosy.C) I wish my knee didn't hurt every single day.
16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Coffee, water, pomegranate juice.
17. Current worry? Work prospects.
18. Current hate right now? My seeming inability to communicate some very basic truths to a friend.
19. Favorite place to be? Sitting propped up on my bed, with a book or laptop in front of me, a warm mocha to my right and my sweetie to my left.
20. How did you bring in the new year? Alas, New Year's Eve was very unpleasant for me because of a misunderstanding with my wife, but we had a better New Year on January third.
21. Where would you like to go? I'd like to watch a space shuttle landing
.22. Name three people who will complete this: How on Earth should I know?
23. Do you own slippers? Yes. I tend to let them get too old to actually keep my feet warm nor to be comfortable against my soles, but right now I'm wearing some very nice slippers because my sweetie bought them for me.
24. What shirt are you wearing? A red-and-maroon print button-down shirt that is just a bit too short in the body and the sleeves for me but too pretty to get rid of, besides which it was given to me by a dear friend I don't get to see much of anymore. Besides, it was clean.
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Never tried. I have always presumed they would be rather chilly on a cold night.
26. Can you whistle? Yes. wish I had a wider range.
27. Favorite color? Blue. The blue of a clear summer sky.
28. Would you be a pirate? No, pirates steal and hurt people.
29. What songs do you sing in the shower? Most often, I take advantage of the white sound of the running water to summon up the hallucination of a Sousa march played by a large marching band.
30. Favorite Girl's Name: Dorothy (my mother's name).
31. Favorite boy's name: Charles (the name of my grandfather, among others).
32. What's in your pocket right now? Cell phone, glasses case, my work schedule for the month, a 3x5 card with some other things I'm supposed to take care of right away, three pairs of disposible vinyl gloves.
33. Last thing that made you laugh? My reaction to one of these questions.
34. What vehicle do you drive? An Isuzi pickup truck, on "long-term loan" from an uncle who is too frail to drive it any longer.
35. Worst injury you've ever had? The hole in my head, if post-surgical wounds count. Otherwise, the chronic-strain injury I have created in my lower back.
36. Do you love where you live? Yes.
37. How many TVs do you have in your house? One. We watch videos once in awhile.
38. Who is your loudest friend? One of the voices in my head, if it really is a friend.
39. Do you have any pets? No, and I am not sure why not.
40. Does someone have a crush on you? Oh, dear, I hope not.
41. Your favorite book? Heavenly Discourse by C.E.S. Wood.
42. Do you collect anything? Not really. I read comic books, and for many years I accumulated them, but one day I discovered that I felt perfectly fine about releasing them back into the wild.
43. Favorite Sports Team? Brooklyn Dodger. Yes, I've heard, but you asked, and that's my answer.
44. What song do you want played at your funeral? Schiller's Ode to Freedom. I'd rather have all of Beethoven's Ninth, but I don't want to demand that much of people's time, so I'll invite them all to go home and YouTube it in my memory later on.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Earth-349: The Flash
Earth-349: The Flash
by Anton Psychopoulos, Ph.D.
Disclaimer #1: This story is set in a hypothetical parallel world within the pre-Crisis DC Universe, based on a story in Superman #349, and on "Target of the Magic Bullet" in Flash #125, but is not limited by those stories or any other.
Disclaimer #2: Some characters appearing in this story are based on copyrighted characters owned by DC Comics, Inc., Marevel Comics and others. Their use here is not intended to infringe or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer #3: This story is not recommended for persons under 18 or the easily offended.
In an easy chair in his laboratory, in an ordinary-looking house on the outskirts of Hub City, Sam Scudder the Mirror Master sat and admired the immense glass bottle that sat against the far wall, and the huddled figure within. Although safely concealed in his private lair, he still wore his orange and green costume, and even his green cowl.
Scudder raised his right hand and flicked the reflective surface of his finger ring. A ray of light reflected from it activated a smoke machine. Green mist issued from the bottle, and the figure within stirred. Clumsily it climbed forth to do his bidding.
Scudder had removed all of the Flash's costume except for part of the cowl, which still covered the upper part of her face. He had refrained from unmasking her, preferring to draw out and savor his triumph. A long, flowing blonde wig had been glued to the cowl; he preferred it to her own tight cap of close-cropped blonde hair. He had dressed her in diaphanous pink harem pants, so sheer they concealed nothing, a tiny red vest that would never have closed around her breasts, and red slippers.
"Your wish is my command, O Master," the mesmerized heroine said, obeying her programming.
The Mirror Master clapped his hands together, delighted.
"Ah, but what is my wish, my lovely genie? What shall I have you do?"
"Whatever you please, Master. I hear and I obey."
"Yes, yes, of course, now and for the rest of your life, but what shall I do with you first? Bend you over the nearest work table and fuck you? But I can do that any time, and I can only do it for the first time just once. No, first I'll exploit your powers. That's what you're really here for.
"But how . . . ."
Scudder snapped his fingers.
"I hear that Hugh Hefner has a collection of photos he wouldn't dare print in his magazine, photos of famous women who could sue him, some of them too smutty to print. Bring me some of them."
He'd been about to add, "Especially any of Daphne Dean," but the Flash was already gone, with a small swirl of air, and returned so quickly the Mirror Master thought she must have encountered some problem until he saw the sheaf of glossy papers in her hand.
Scudder took the photographs eagerly, flipping through them, growing more and more agitated.
"So that's what she looks like in the raw . . . mmm, that's a good one . . . hey, that's Carmen Miranda! But what's so -- Oh my God! She's not wearing . . . !
Scudder's eyes bulged. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He wiped at it for a moment, then glanced up at his slave.
"Bring me the First Lady's panties, still warm from her ass!"
Stopping at a newspaper office to learn where Mrs. Eisenhower would be, the Flash ran over the plains to Gateway City. She was standing on a podium set up between the pillars of the Open Gateway, on the banks of the Long River. With sad irony, the Flash remembered the last time she'd been in Gateway City, and had admired the soaring bronze pillars of the symbolic gateway to the West.
No time for sightseeing now, she thought grimly as she knelt behind the First Lady, lifted her skirt and undid the straps of her garter belt. The Mirror Master's programming allowed her little leeway.
The Flash did, however, apparently have time to redo Mrs. Eisenhower's garters. When she felt a slight breeze around her legs a few hundred milliseconds in the future, she'd be surprised and puzzled by the missing step-ins, but at least her stockings wouldn't fall down. The Flash understood at once the importance of the fact that her programming did contain some room for interpretation.
Dawn Allen was an intelligent woman who thought things through carefully, looking for opportunities in every situation. The powers of the Flash would not have kept her alive through the past three years if she hadn't kept her head, even while embedded in amber or transformed into a living balloon.
Literary agent Peirre-Jules Noire had been one of Hub City's noted eccentrics. He had filled his home with all sorts of strange objects which he claimed had come from parallel worlds. Some were things which could be easily faked, like envelopes with stamps from nonexistant countries or clothes cut to outlandish fashions. But others were harder to explain.
When Noire disappeared mysteriously, Dawn Allen was a rookie forensic scientist assigned to comb his house for clues. She had been intrigued by the device labelled "Cosmic Treadmill", and had violated police protocol by stepping onto it to try a few paces.
Two hours later, according to the treadmill's pedometer, she had run over a thousand miles, her speed still increasing, and twenty pounds had fallen off her formerly plump body. A week after that, her powers still growing, she had appeared in public for the first time as the Flash.
The Flash returned to her master's lab and handed him the drawers. He mopped his brow and looked her up and down.
"Do your titties get sore, running all over creation with no bra, slave?" Scudder asked in mock-sympathy.
He leaned over and cupped her breasts, teasing her nipples with his thumbs.
"No, Master," the Flash replied. "The same control over my body's molecules which allows me to turn corners at speeds faster than sound, and protects my feet from friction, protects my breasts from the effects of my super-speed."
The Mirror Master chuckled.
"That's not how you'd answer if you had control over your voice, is it?"
"No, Master."
"Heh. Why not? For the next five minutes, slave, you have my permission to speak freely."
The Flash clasped her hands before her (apparently her unconscious considered gestures to be part of "speaking freely") and leaned close to Scudder.
"Thank you, Sam. I've wanted so much to tell you how much I've been enjoying this."
Scudder's jaw dropped.
"All my life I've dreamed of belonging to a strong, masterful man, a real man who knows what he wants and takes it. That's why I became the Flash in the first place, to tempt and tease powerful men like you into finding a way to master me. The Top, Abra Cadaver, the Elongated Man, none of them were able to do what you have. Only you were able to enslave me. Only you deserved to."
The Flash dropped to her knees, straining her programming (and her stomach) to the limit, looking up imploringly at Scudder.
"Please, Master, let me give myself to you completely. Use me, not as a performing puppet but as a willing, loving slave."
She reached out but had to stop short of touching him.
The Mirror Master looked down at the Flash, astonished but still slightly suspicious.
"You want me to give you freedom of action, do you?"
"Only to serve you more perfectly, Master."
"Very well, but you may not use your speed powers. You are free to give me pleasure, nothing else."
"Oh, thank you, Master," the Flash gushed, lowering her face to the floor and kissing the tips of his green boots.
She kissed her way up his orange tights, then shyly raised her hands to unlatch his belt. It took her a moment to figure out how it worked, but then his tights were worked down and his manhood sprang free. With her fingertips she brushed lightly up and down its length, lowering her head as though suddenly modest, hiding her disgusted expression.
The Flash took the Mirror Master's penis lovingly in one hand, cupping his scrotum with the other. She felt him tremble under her touch
"There is a trick I have learned to do with vibrations that I would love to show you," she said truthfully."
"Yes, yes, go ahead," Scudder moaned.
The Mirror Master had just enough time to see the Flash's hand blur visibly before he doubled over in agony, his testicles vibrating at precisely the frequency she had learned would cause the most exquisite pain to a man. He tried to gasp out a command but was unable to articulate, and a few seconds later he lost consciousness.
The Flash still could not use her speed powers except for vibrating the palms of her hands at the ball-busting frequency. She could move at normal speeds, but only to give him pleasure. Of course, Scudder would still be terribly sore when he awoke, so obviously calling for an ambulance consisted of giving him pleasure. And of course when one calls for an ambulance, it is necessary to give the address and the patient's full name, and title if any. Obviously.
Dawn Allen told herself all this over and over, straining against her programming all the while she was on the phone. It was a great relief to hang up the instrument and go stand at attention before her unconscious master. Now she could wait for the ambulance to arrive, and the police moments after.
It would be embarrassing to have to stand there in her "genie" costume, but she was on good terms with the HCPD, and she didn't think anyone would take advantage of the situation. They'd call in some reliable hypnotist or psychic healer to remove the Mirror Master's controls, and things would be back to normal.
From where she stood, she could see herself in a couple of the many mirrors in the lab. She had to admit she looked good in Scudder's "modified" Flash costume.
She'd keep it. Her boyfriend would get a kick out of it.
by Anton Psychopoulos, Ph.D.
Disclaimer #1: This story is set in a hypothetical parallel world within the pre-Crisis DC Universe, based on a story in Superman #349, and on "Target of the Magic Bullet" in Flash #125, but is not limited by those stories or any other.
Disclaimer #2: Some characters appearing in this story are based on copyrighted characters owned by DC Comics, Inc., Marevel Comics and others. Their use here is not intended to infringe or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer #3: This story is not recommended for persons under 18 or the easily offended.
In an easy chair in his laboratory, in an ordinary-looking house on the outskirts of Hub City, Sam Scudder the Mirror Master sat and admired the immense glass bottle that sat against the far wall, and the huddled figure within. Although safely concealed in his private lair, he still wore his orange and green costume, and even his green cowl.
Scudder raised his right hand and flicked the reflective surface of his finger ring. A ray of light reflected from it activated a smoke machine. Green mist issued from the bottle, and the figure within stirred. Clumsily it climbed forth to do his bidding.
Scudder had removed all of the Flash's costume except for part of the cowl, which still covered the upper part of her face. He had refrained from unmasking her, preferring to draw out and savor his triumph. A long, flowing blonde wig had been glued to the cowl; he preferred it to her own tight cap of close-cropped blonde hair. He had dressed her in diaphanous pink harem pants, so sheer they concealed nothing, a tiny red vest that would never have closed around her breasts, and red slippers.
"Your wish is my command, O Master," the mesmerized heroine said, obeying her programming.
The Mirror Master clapped his hands together, delighted.
"Ah, but what is my wish, my lovely genie? What shall I have you do?"
"Whatever you please, Master. I hear and I obey."
"Yes, yes, of course, now and for the rest of your life, but what shall I do with you first? Bend you over the nearest work table and fuck you? But I can do that any time, and I can only do it for the first time just once. No, first I'll exploit your powers. That's what you're really here for.
"But how . . . ."
Scudder snapped his fingers.
"I hear that Hugh Hefner has a collection of photos he wouldn't dare print in his magazine, photos of famous women who could sue him, some of them too smutty to print. Bring me some of them."
He'd been about to add, "Especially any of Daphne Dean," but the Flash was already gone, with a small swirl of air, and returned so quickly the Mirror Master thought she must have encountered some problem until he saw the sheaf of glossy papers in her hand.
Scudder took the photographs eagerly, flipping through them, growing more and more agitated.
"So that's what she looks like in the raw . . . mmm, that's a good one . . . hey, that's Carmen Miranda! But what's so -- Oh my God! She's not wearing . . . !
Scudder's eyes bulged. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He wiped at it for a moment, then glanced up at his slave.
"Bring me the First Lady's panties, still warm from her ass!"
Stopping at a newspaper office to learn where Mrs. Eisenhower would be, the Flash ran over the plains to Gateway City. She was standing on a podium set up between the pillars of the Open Gateway, on the banks of the Long River. With sad irony, the Flash remembered the last time she'd been in Gateway City, and had admired the soaring bronze pillars of the symbolic gateway to the West.
No time for sightseeing now, she thought grimly as she knelt behind the First Lady, lifted her skirt and undid the straps of her garter belt. The Mirror Master's programming allowed her little leeway.
The Flash did, however, apparently have time to redo Mrs. Eisenhower's garters. When she felt a slight breeze around her legs a few hundred milliseconds in the future, she'd be surprised and puzzled by the missing step-ins, but at least her stockings wouldn't fall down. The Flash understood at once the importance of the fact that her programming did contain some room for interpretation.
Dawn Allen was an intelligent woman who thought things through carefully, looking for opportunities in every situation. The powers of the Flash would not have kept her alive through the past three years if she hadn't kept her head, even while embedded in amber or transformed into a living balloon.
Literary agent Peirre-Jules Noire had been one of Hub City's noted eccentrics. He had filled his home with all sorts of strange objects which he claimed had come from parallel worlds. Some were things which could be easily faked, like envelopes with stamps from nonexistant countries or clothes cut to outlandish fashions. But others were harder to explain.
When Noire disappeared mysteriously, Dawn Allen was a rookie forensic scientist assigned to comb his house for clues. She had been intrigued by the device labelled "Cosmic Treadmill", and had violated police protocol by stepping onto it to try a few paces.
Two hours later, according to the treadmill's pedometer, she had run over a thousand miles, her speed still increasing, and twenty pounds had fallen off her formerly plump body. A week after that, her powers still growing, she had appeared in public for the first time as the Flash.
The Flash returned to her master's lab and handed him the drawers. He mopped his brow and looked her up and down.
"Do your titties get sore, running all over creation with no bra, slave?" Scudder asked in mock-sympathy.
He leaned over and cupped her breasts, teasing her nipples with his thumbs.
"No, Master," the Flash replied. "The same control over my body's molecules which allows me to turn corners at speeds faster than sound, and protects my feet from friction, protects my breasts from the effects of my super-speed."
The Mirror Master chuckled.
"That's not how you'd answer if you had control over your voice, is it?"
"No, Master."
"Heh. Why not? For the next five minutes, slave, you have my permission to speak freely."
The Flash clasped her hands before her (apparently her unconscious considered gestures to be part of "speaking freely") and leaned close to Scudder.
"Thank you, Sam. I've wanted so much to tell you how much I've been enjoying this."
Scudder's jaw dropped.
"All my life I've dreamed of belonging to a strong, masterful man, a real man who knows what he wants and takes it. That's why I became the Flash in the first place, to tempt and tease powerful men like you into finding a way to master me. The Top, Abra Cadaver, the Elongated Man, none of them were able to do what you have. Only you were able to enslave me. Only you deserved to."
The Flash dropped to her knees, straining her programming (and her stomach) to the limit, looking up imploringly at Scudder.
"Please, Master, let me give myself to you completely. Use me, not as a performing puppet but as a willing, loving slave."
She reached out but had to stop short of touching him.
The Mirror Master looked down at the Flash, astonished but still slightly suspicious.
"You want me to give you freedom of action, do you?"
"Only to serve you more perfectly, Master."
"Very well, but you may not use your speed powers. You are free to give me pleasure, nothing else."
"Oh, thank you, Master," the Flash gushed, lowering her face to the floor and kissing the tips of his green boots.
She kissed her way up his orange tights, then shyly raised her hands to unlatch his belt. It took her a moment to figure out how it worked, but then his tights were worked down and his manhood sprang free. With her fingertips she brushed lightly up and down its length, lowering her head as though suddenly modest, hiding her disgusted expression.
The Flash took the Mirror Master's penis lovingly in one hand, cupping his scrotum with the other. She felt him tremble under her touch
"There is a trick I have learned to do with vibrations that I would love to show you," she said truthfully."
"Yes, yes, go ahead," Scudder moaned.
The Mirror Master had just enough time to see the Flash's hand blur visibly before he doubled over in agony, his testicles vibrating at precisely the frequency she had learned would cause the most exquisite pain to a man. He tried to gasp out a command but was unable to articulate, and a few seconds later he lost consciousness.
The Flash still could not use her speed powers except for vibrating the palms of her hands at the ball-busting frequency. She could move at normal speeds, but only to give him pleasure. Of course, Scudder would still be terribly sore when he awoke, so obviously calling for an ambulance consisted of giving him pleasure. And of course when one calls for an ambulance, it is necessary to give the address and the patient's full name, and title if any. Obviously.
Dawn Allen told herself all this over and over, straining against her programming all the while she was on the phone. It was a great relief to hang up the instrument and go stand at attention before her unconscious master. Now she could wait for the ambulance to arrive, and the police moments after.
It would be embarrassing to have to stand there in her "genie" costume, but she was on good terms with the HCPD, and she didn't think anyone would take advantage of the situation. They'd call in some reliable hypnotist or psychic healer to remove the Mirror Master's controls, and things would be back to normal.
From where she stood, she could see herself in a couple of the many mirrors in the lab. She had to admit she looked good in Scudder's "modified" Flash costume.
She'd keep it. Her boyfriend would get a kick out of it.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Earth-349: Batwoman
Earth-349: Batwoman
by Anton Psychopoulos, Ph.D.
Disclaimer #1 This story is set in a hypothetical parallel world within the pre-Crisis DC Universe, based on a story in Superman #349, but not limited by that story or any other.
Disclaimer #2 Some characters appearing in this story are based on copyrighted characters owned by DC Comics, Inc., Marvel Comics and others. Their use here is not intended to infringe or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer #3 This story is not recommended for persons under 18 or the easily offended.
The guy in the Gotham Knights T-shirt stepped over his unconscious buddy with hardly a hesitation. He hefted his billy club and grinned at Robin.
"I'll let you in on a little secret, kid. I'm the one who did Batbitch. And I'm gonna do to Batbitch Boy what I did to her, and I don't mean just the part where I broke her knees."
The Boy Wonder grinned back, showing considerably more teeth.
"Oh, you're gonna do what you did when you met Batwoman, are you? I hope you're wearing rubber pants this time."
The guy's grin just got wider, and he tightened his grip on his club. He took a step forward, there was a flash of yellow, and he was clutching at his stinging, empty hand. He looked up in time to see the boy coming at him, a swirl of bright colors in midair, and then he was on the floor, his body immobilized by pain, the boy's booted feet pressing the last air from his lungs.
Robin reached up and snatched the spinning club from the air. He leaned down and prodded the thug between the buttocks with his own weapon.
"Wanna tell me again what you were going to do to me?"
"Aw, man, aw, maaan!"
Robin bound the man's wrists and ankles with green zip ties, tucked the club down the back of his pants, retrieved his throwing disk from a corner and left the building, making sure to trip the alarm on his way out.
As he stepped into the alley, he froze, then smiled and opened his mouth to speak as he recognized the silhouette looming above him.
A black-gloved hand shot out a warning finger, then pointed upward. Robin nodded and watched the cloaked figure of Batwoman climb the building's fire escape. He followed, wincing as he noted that her ascent was nearly silent, and his was not.
He reached the roof in time to see Batwoman crossing to an adjoining building. He caught up with her two blocks away, on the roof of the tallest building in the neighborhood. She was waiting in silence while he crossed the tar beach quietly, but puffing with exertion.
"Mask," she hissed, the first word he'd heard from her.
Robin obeyed, untying the thong which held his green domino in place.
"My name is Dick --"
"Gordon, I know. Son of Police Commissioner Gordon, brother of Barbara Gordon alias Batgirl."
"Um, yes."
After a moment's pause, Batwoman pushed her long-eared cowl up and off her face.
Dick took in the woman's tight mouth and watchful blue eyes. With her face set with such grim intensity, her hair matted and sweaty, without makeup or earrings, it was difficult to recognize her as --
"Roberta Wayne? You were my number two choice for Batwoman, after Kathleen Kane."
Something happened to the thin line of Batwoman's mouth.
"Second out of how many?"
"Five. Barbara had seven candidates. You were her first."
The something turned into a smile for a fraction of a second.
"Listen, Batwoman -- Ms. Wayne -- I'm so glad to meet you, so glad to know that you're . . . ."
"Not dead?"
"Or crippled, or captive. I hope you're going to let everyone know you're back. A lot of people in Gotham really admire you."
"Yes, I know. I've been watching developments over the last year. It's been very flattering to see just how many people have been pinch hitting for me: you, your sister, Anarky, Nightwing, the Creeper."
Dick winced inwardly at being classed with the other vigilantes. He considered some of them to be little better than criminals themselves. He said nothing, deferring to Batwoman's judgment.
"But now that you're back," he forced himself to begin.
"You're afraid I'll tell you to cut it out."
This time Dick winced visibly, but Batwoman shook her head.
"Not exactly. What I want you to do is stop acting on your own."
She pulled a sliver of blackness from a pouch in her utility belt. It unfolded silently into a scalloped bat-shape. She tossed it with a seemingly negligent throw. It circled around them and she snatched it from the air without looking.
"I have equipment you could never afford on lunch money or whatever you're using for a budget. I have experience and training you don't. I want you to accept me as your teacher, your sponsor and your commanding officer."
Dick's jaw dropped.
"That . . . that would be . . . everything I could have hoped for. I . . . .
"Are you making this same offer to all the others?"
Wayne shook her head.
"No, just you. And Barbara, since she's so close to you. You're something special, Dick. I've been watching. You've got talent, intelligence, courage and good morals. I admired the way you handled yourself with Crazy-Quilt. You could have killed her easily, but you didn't."
Dick shrugged, embarrassed.
"I didn't have to."
"There's another reason you're a special case, though. One you deserve to know.
"One night, some seventeen years ago . . . ."
Thomas Wayne had taken a train to Star City for a meeting that morning. Martha Wayne had spent seven hours in surgery. They were both more than ready for bed by the time the movie let out. Their daughter, on the other hand, was still full of energy, among other things, zigzagging up and down the block, covering three times as much ground as her parents on the way home. The movie had been exciting, to say nothing of the cartoons, but what had really revved her motor had been the first chapter of a new serial, Zorro's Black Whip. Swinging in a tight circle around a lamppost, she gushed at the tired couple.
"Did you see her? A girl being Zorro! That is so swell! And did you see how she --"
Roberta's orbit of the lamppost halted abruptly as she took in the man who stood in the middle of the sidewalk before the Waynes, a pistol aimed directly at Roberta.
"In the alley," he snarled, gesturing with the gun.
Roberta Wayne was to remember that move many times in the years to come. Using a gun as a pointer was a sloppy, amateurish act. It was probably what inspired Thomas Wayne to try to disarm the man.
Wayne calmly ushered his wife and daughter before him into the alley, and as he passed the hoodlum, made a sudden grab for the gun. They struggled over it for a moment, and it fired.
Thomas Wayne stepped back, eyes wide, mouth open, his hands moving only gradually to cover the bleeding hole at the crotch of his pants.
Wayne fell against a wall, mouth working as though he were trying to force out a scream, though he made no sound.
"Brought it on yourself, asshole," the thug said, amused. He put the muzzle of his gun to Thomas Wayne's forehead and fired again.
The man turned towards Martha Wayne, and his malicious smile turned to a look of utter disgust. Dr. Wayne was lying in the alley, her slackening hands falling away from her chest, obviously dead.
"Shit, I was lookin' forward to having some fun with that one."
He looked at the last of the Waynes and shrugged.
"A little young, but I guess you'll do."
With no more word than that, he approached Roberta Wayne. She had already backed into a doorway as far as she could go, and merely stood, frozen, as the killer pushed up her pleated plaid skirt and pulled her white cotton briefs down to her saddle shoes.
She said nothing. In fact, it was three days before she spoke to anyone.
Dick Gordon looked out over the rooftops, shaking his head.
"Oh, God. I knew it had to have been something . . . major that led you to become Batwoman, but I never, well . . . ."
"They found me in the alley an hour later, sitting beside the bodies. Our butler was there almost at once, fortunately for me. He took charge of me, moved me from the downtown penthouse to our old place outside the city. I was beginning to recover when we realized I was pregnant."
Dick turned back to her, gaping.
"Then you must have . . . ."
"No, we didn't. The following March, a month after my fourteenth birthday, I gave birth to a healthy boy. With my butler's help, I arranged for him to be adopted by friends of my parents who already had a child."
"In March, seventeen -- no, sixteen -- years ago?"
"On the Ninth."
Dick's mouth slowly formed the word, "Mother?"
"No. Ellen's your mother. And Jim's your father, not . . . that man."
"Yes, of course, but . . . ."
"I gave birth to you, yes. I've watched you grow up, taken as much pride as I thought I deserved in your accomplishments. And when I figured out that you and Barbara were Batgirl and Robin, it was the happiest day of my life."
She stared into the night, shook herself and spoke again.
"There's more, though.
"A year ago, I became engaged to Harvey Dent."
Dick remembered that. They had seemed an odd couple, the all-business District Attorney and the madcap millionairess. Now he saw just how much they'd had in common.
"Harvey was trying to convince me to give up being Batwoman after we were married. He had me about half convinced to do it. Also about half-convinced to break it off with him.
"Then I was captured by the Joker and placed in a deathtrap. Must have been the sixth or seventh time. But that time was different. Once he had me stripped naked and tied to the frame, he raped me.
"I escaped, of course. The deathtrap, anyway.
"Afterwards, I told Harvey the truth about what had happened. I told myself it wouldn't be right to hide it from him, but maybe I was testing him, or trying to drive him away.
"He was a very old-fashioned man in some respects. We had been planning to wait until our wedding night to have sex, but now he said he wanted to consummate our relationship then and there. Maybe he wanted to stake his claim on me. Maybe he wanted to confuse the possible issue of paternity.
"It was the third time in my life. The first time with a man I loved, or even one I didn't hate.
"Well, you know what happened to Harvey about two weeks after that.
"I don't know when I'll feel up to telling my daughter she can take her pick of daddies: the Joker or Two-Face."
Dick lifted his head. Roberta frowned at the tears flowing freely down his face.
"Daughter?"
"Born a month ago, during my six-month 'round the world cruise'. Next week I'll formally adopt her, the child of an anonymous birth mother.
"That's another reason I want a close relationship with you as my pupil. At fourteen I wasn't capable of being a mother to you; I don't want to give Delia up, or let her grow up while I'm busy. I need someone I can trust to share Batwoman's burden while I'm raising her."
She drew something else from her utility belt.
"Here, put this on." Dick unrolled the tiny black object into a domino mask that felt slightly sticky on one side. Smoothed against his skin, it stayed in place until Roberta showed him how to pinch it up at one corner.
"Something one of my scientists at Tyler Chemical came up with. Consider it the first installment of your new equipment." Roberta pulled her cowl back over her face, unlimbered her grapnel and scanned the neighboring buildings, considering where to direct it.
"Think it over, talk about it with Barbara. Call me at the Wayne Foundation, leave a message about 'the project we discussed on Friday'."
"Well, okay, but I'm pretty sure Babs' answer will be the same as mine. I can't tell you how good it feels to have your support, your approval, to know that what we've been doing is the right thing."
Batwoman fired her grapnel at a distant cornice. She looked over her shoulder at Robin.
"I wish I knew that."
Dick watched her swing away into the night.
by Anton Psychopoulos, Ph.D.
Disclaimer #1 This story is set in a hypothetical parallel world within the pre-Crisis DC Universe, based on a story in Superman #349, but not limited by that story or any other.
Disclaimer #2 Some characters appearing in this story are based on copyrighted characters owned by DC Comics, Inc., Marvel Comics and others. Their use here is not intended to infringe or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer #3 This story is not recommended for persons under 18 or the easily offended.
The guy in the Gotham Knights T-shirt stepped over his unconscious buddy with hardly a hesitation. He hefted his billy club and grinned at Robin.
"I'll let you in on a little secret, kid. I'm the one who did Batbitch. And I'm gonna do to Batbitch Boy what I did to her, and I don't mean just the part where I broke her knees."
The Boy Wonder grinned back, showing considerably more teeth.
"Oh, you're gonna do what you did when you met Batwoman, are you? I hope you're wearing rubber pants this time."
The guy's grin just got wider, and he tightened his grip on his club. He took a step forward, there was a flash of yellow, and he was clutching at his stinging, empty hand. He looked up in time to see the boy coming at him, a swirl of bright colors in midair, and then he was on the floor, his body immobilized by pain, the boy's booted feet pressing the last air from his lungs.
Robin reached up and snatched the spinning club from the air. He leaned down and prodded the thug between the buttocks with his own weapon.
"Wanna tell me again what you were going to do to me?"
"Aw, man, aw, maaan!"
Robin bound the man's wrists and ankles with green zip ties, tucked the club down the back of his pants, retrieved his throwing disk from a corner and left the building, making sure to trip the alarm on his way out.
As he stepped into the alley, he froze, then smiled and opened his mouth to speak as he recognized the silhouette looming above him.
A black-gloved hand shot out a warning finger, then pointed upward. Robin nodded and watched the cloaked figure of Batwoman climb the building's fire escape. He followed, wincing as he noted that her ascent was nearly silent, and his was not.
He reached the roof in time to see Batwoman crossing to an adjoining building. He caught up with her two blocks away, on the roof of the tallest building in the neighborhood. She was waiting in silence while he crossed the tar beach quietly, but puffing with exertion.
"Mask," she hissed, the first word he'd heard from her.
Robin obeyed, untying the thong which held his green domino in place.
"My name is Dick --"
"Gordon, I know. Son of Police Commissioner Gordon, brother of Barbara Gordon alias Batgirl."
"Um, yes."
After a moment's pause, Batwoman pushed her long-eared cowl up and off her face.
Dick took in the woman's tight mouth and watchful blue eyes. With her face set with such grim intensity, her hair matted and sweaty, without makeup or earrings, it was difficult to recognize her as --
"Roberta Wayne? You were my number two choice for Batwoman, after Kathleen Kane."
Something happened to the thin line of Batwoman's mouth.
"Second out of how many?"
"Five. Barbara had seven candidates. You were her first."
The something turned into a smile for a fraction of a second.
"Listen, Batwoman -- Ms. Wayne -- I'm so glad to meet you, so glad to know that you're . . . ."
"Not dead?"
"Or crippled, or captive. I hope you're going to let everyone know you're back. A lot of people in Gotham really admire you."
"Yes, I know. I've been watching developments over the last year. It's been very flattering to see just how many people have been pinch hitting for me: you, your sister, Anarky, Nightwing, the Creeper."
Dick winced inwardly at being classed with the other vigilantes. He considered some of them to be little better than criminals themselves. He said nothing, deferring to Batwoman's judgment.
"But now that you're back," he forced himself to begin.
"You're afraid I'll tell you to cut it out."
This time Dick winced visibly, but Batwoman shook her head.
"Not exactly. What I want you to do is stop acting on your own."
She pulled a sliver of blackness from a pouch in her utility belt. It unfolded silently into a scalloped bat-shape. She tossed it with a seemingly negligent throw. It circled around them and she snatched it from the air without looking.
"I have equipment you could never afford on lunch money or whatever you're using for a budget. I have experience and training you don't. I want you to accept me as your teacher, your sponsor and your commanding officer."
Dick's jaw dropped.
"That . . . that would be . . . everything I could have hoped for. I . . . .
"Are you making this same offer to all the others?"
Wayne shook her head.
"No, just you. And Barbara, since she's so close to you. You're something special, Dick. I've been watching. You've got talent, intelligence, courage and good morals. I admired the way you handled yourself with Crazy-Quilt. You could have killed her easily, but you didn't."
Dick shrugged, embarrassed.
"I didn't have to."
"There's another reason you're a special case, though. One you deserve to know.
"One night, some seventeen years ago . . . ."
Thomas Wayne had taken a train to Star City for a meeting that morning. Martha Wayne had spent seven hours in surgery. They were both more than ready for bed by the time the movie let out. Their daughter, on the other hand, was still full of energy, among other things, zigzagging up and down the block, covering three times as much ground as her parents on the way home. The movie had been exciting, to say nothing of the cartoons, but what had really revved her motor had been the first chapter of a new serial, Zorro's Black Whip. Swinging in a tight circle around a lamppost, she gushed at the tired couple.
"Did you see her? A girl being Zorro! That is so swell! And did you see how she --"
Roberta's orbit of the lamppost halted abruptly as she took in the man who stood in the middle of the sidewalk before the Waynes, a pistol aimed directly at Roberta.
"In the alley," he snarled, gesturing with the gun.
Roberta Wayne was to remember that move many times in the years to come. Using a gun as a pointer was a sloppy, amateurish act. It was probably what inspired Thomas Wayne to try to disarm the man.
Wayne calmly ushered his wife and daughter before him into the alley, and as he passed the hoodlum, made a sudden grab for the gun. They struggled over it for a moment, and it fired.
Thomas Wayne stepped back, eyes wide, mouth open, his hands moving only gradually to cover the bleeding hole at the crotch of his pants.
Wayne fell against a wall, mouth working as though he were trying to force out a scream, though he made no sound.
"Brought it on yourself, asshole," the thug said, amused. He put the muzzle of his gun to Thomas Wayne's forehead and fired again.
The man turned towards Martha Wayne, and his malicious smile turned to a look of utter disgust. Dr. Wayne was lying in the alley, her slackening hands falling away from her chest, obviously dead.
"Shit, I was lookin' forward to having some fun with that one."
He looked at the last of the Waynes and shrugged.
"A little young, but I guess you'll do."
With no more word than that, he approached Roberta Wayne. She had already backed into a doorway as far as she could go, and merely stood, frozen, as the killer pushed up her pleated plaid skirt and pulled her white cotton briefs down to her saddle shoes.
She said nothing. In fact, it was three days before she spoke to anyone.
Dick Gordon looked out over the rooftops, shaking his head.
"Oh, God. I knew it had to have been something . . . major that led you to become Batwoman, but I never, well . . . ."
"They found me in the alley an hour later, sitting beside the bodies. Our butler was there almost at once, fortunately for me. He took charge of me, moved me from the downtown penthouse to our old place outside the city. I was beginning to recover when we realized I was pregnant."
Dick turned back to her, gaping.
"Then you must have . . . ."
"No, we didn't. The following March, a month after my fourteenth birthday, I gave birth to a healthy boy. With my butler's help, I arranged for him to be adopted by friends of my parents who already had a child."
"In March, seventeen -- no, sixteen -- years ago?"
"On the Ninth."
Dick's mouth slowly formed the word, "Mother?"
"No. Ellen's your mother. And Jim's your father, not . . . that man."
"Yes, of course, but . . . ."
"I gave birth to you, yes. I've watched you grow up, taken as much pride as I thought I deserved in your accomplishments. And when I figured out that you and Barbara were Batgirl and Robin, it was the happiest day of my life."
She stared into the night, shook herself and spoke again.
"There's more, though.
"A year ago, I became engaged to Harvey Dent."
Dick remembered that. They had seemed an odd couple, the all-business District Attorney and the madcap millionairess. Now he saw just how much they'd had in common.
"Harvey was trying to convince me to give up being Batwoman after we were married. He had me about half convinced to do it. Also about half-convinced to break it off with him.
"Then I was captured by the Joker and placed in a deathtrap. Must have been the sixth or seventh time. But that time was different. Once he had me stripped naked and tied to the frame, he raped me.
"I escaped, of course. The deathtrap, anyway.
"Afterwards, I told Harvey the truth about what had happened. I told myself it wouldn't be right to hide it from him, but maybe I was testing him, or trying to drive him away.
"He was a very old-fashioned man in some respects. We had been planning to wait until our wedding night to have sex, but now he said he wanted to consummate our relationship then and there. Maybe he wanted to stake his claim on me. Maybe he wanted to confuse the possible issue of paternity.
"It was the third time in my life. The first time with a man I loved, or even one I didn't hate.
"Well, you know what happened to Harvey about two weeks after that.
"I don't know when I'll feel up to telling my daughter she can take her pick of daddies: the Joker or Two-Face."
Dick lifted his head. Roberta frowned at the tears flowing freely down his face.
"Daughter?"
"Born a month ago, during my six-month 'round the world cruise'. Next week I'll formally adopt her, the child of an anonymous birth mother.
"That's another reason I want a close relationship with you as my pupil. At fourteen I wasn't capable of being a mother to you; I don't want to give Delia up, or let her grow up while I'm busy. I need someone I can trust to share Batwoman's burden while I'm raising her."
She drew something else from her utility belt.
"Here, put this on." Dick unrolled the tiny black object into a domino mask that felt slightly sticky on one side. Smoothed against his skin, it stayed in place until Roberta showed him how to pinch it up at one corner.
"Something one of my scientists at Tyler Chemical came up with. Consider it the first installment of your new equipment." Roberta pulled her cowl back over her face, unlimbered her grapnel and scanned the neighboring buildings, considering where to direct it.
"Think it over, talk about it with Barbara. Call me at the Wayne Foundation, leave a message about 'the project we discussed on Friday'."
"Well, okay, but I'm pretty sure Babs' answer will be the same as mine. I can't tell you how good it feels to have your support, your approval, to know that what we've been doing is the right thing."
Batwoman fired her grapnel at a distant cornice. She looked over her shoulder at Robin.
"I wish I knew that."
Dick watched her swing away into the night.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
It's Only Natural
There is an interesting post on Echidne of the Snakes concerning (alleged) differences between men and women, and the (really alleged) biological causes for them.
Commentor Anthony McCarthy makes an analogous argument, comparing it to suggesting that radio programming could be explained by study of the electromagnetic spectrum. At first glance, this was an amusing and telling argument, but . . . .
Continuing the analogy, though, it is in fact possible to explain the differences between AM and FM radio (talk and news vs. music) by studying the differences between the two forms of transmission: the quality of signal that can be carried, the cost of setting up and running a transmitter, the dates on which AM and FM stations went on the air, &c.
So you can in fact make a case for explaining *part* of the nature of radio programming on the basis of the nature of electromagnetism, and on the nature and history of the technologies which we have developed to make use of it.
What we CANNOT do is justify a law which would REQUIRE all AM stations to stop carrying music because "That's FM work".
Commentor Anthony McCarthy makes an analogous argument, comparing it to suggesting that radio programming could be explained by study of the electromagnetic spectrum. At first glance, this was an amusing and telling argument, but . . . .
Continuing the analogy, though, it is in fact possible to explain the differences between AM and FM radio (talk and news vs. music) by studying the differences between the two forms of transmission: the quality of signal that can be carried, the cost of setting up and running a transmitter, the dates on which AM and FM stations went on the air, &c.
So you can in fact make a case for explaining *part* of the nature of radio programming on the basis of the nature of electromagnetism, and on the nature and history of the technologies which we have developed to make use of it.
What we CANNOT do is justify a law which would REQUIRE all AM stations to stop carrying music because "That's FM work".
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