Chapter Two
ALEX
*
"You're just unbelievable, you know that?" Thomas Simpson, corporate lawyer, shook his head at me, waving his hands helplessly in the air. "Really, you are. I don't have any other words for it."
Reclining back a little further on the leather couch, I just raised an eyebrow at him. "You'll have to give me a little more than that, Tommy," I said.
"I mean..." He crossed his arms over his chest, but then immediately undid the gesture, as if it didn't seem to properly communicate the frustration he felt. "Look, you've got superpowers, basically. Even more than that – you're like a god."
"Thanks. So?"
"So the point is that you've got the power to fix, like, just about every problem in the world, and what are you doing?" He waved his arm at our surroundings. "You're sitting in a club and getting drunk while ogling women!"
"Yeah, pretty much." I grinned. "Fun, isn't it? It's like sitting at an unlimited buffet, just watching all sorts of tempting dishes sweeping by."
"Disgusting, man." He struggled into more of an upright position. "I mean, why aren't you out there trying to fix all the problems of the world? There are people starving and hungry and getting killed in wars and stuff, and you're just sitting here doing nothing!"
I sighed as the smile fell away from my face. "Come on, Tommy. We've talked about this, lots of times. Remember all those discussions in my dorm room, back in senior year of college? We decided that I couldn't go around fixing all the problems in the world, that I should just stick to the small-scale stuff so that I don't cause more problems than I solve."
"Yeah, but..." I'd caught Tommy in a tough spot, argumentatively speaking, and he knew it. Not finding a suitable response, he settled for an angry, impotent glare at me.
I put my half-finished flute of champagne aside. "Something's bothering you. Something in particular."
"What, you got the power to read minds, now?" he asked, still sullenly not meeting my gaze.
"Nope – I tried that, and it was deafening, remember?" I turned towards him, planting both my hands on my knees. "But I know my best friend, well enough to tell when there's something that he dislikes. And I also know that he's too stubborn to just spit it out without my having to ask."
Tommy tried to sulk for another minute, but I knew how to get through to him. "Tommy, don't make me start ordering everything fried on the menu," I said.
His eyes shifted over to me at that. Tommy had always struggled a bit with his weight, ever since we'd both gone to high school together. I'd helped him fight off the excess pounds, but he still had to physically control his urges to eat around fried foods. When I wanted to drive him crazy, I just had to start ordering everything on the menu that came with a crunchy battered coating.
"Fine," he finally gave in. "Did you see the latest headlines?"
I shook my head, but he had a newspaper sitting on the table, ready to present to the jury as Exhibit A. He flipped it over, sticking it under my nose.
My expression darkened as I read the seventy-two-point bold headline. "So there's a war going on in the Middle East," I said, roughly pushing it aside. "That's nothing new. They're always either at war, or on the brink of war, out there. So what?"
"So people are dying, man!" Tommy said. "Shouldn't you do something to fix it? Rewrite things so that they aren't fighting?"
"And how, exactly, am I supposed to do that?" I fired back. "What do you suggest that I write?"
He shrugged. "I dunno, can't you just, like, say that they don't dislike each other now?"
"It's not that simple," I sighed. "That doesn't solve the underlying problems out there. It'll only last for a couple days, and then they'll just start fighting again. I've tried it, Tommy. I can't solve the really big things."
For a minute, he glared hotly back at me, lips pursed with the words of a challenge. But finally, he relaxed, letting some of the tension ease out of his neck and shoulders.
"I guess you know best," he admitted. "But it just seems wrong, somehow, that you spend your days drifting along in a sort of hedonistic haze instead of doing something really big with your powers."
"Those sound like the words of a man who needs more booze!" I tried to joke, hoping to put a smile on his face. The ploy didn't work, so I cast about for another distraction. "Or how about some girls?"
"Not if you're just going to use your magical voodoo to lure them over here," Tommy said, but I could tell that the objection was half-hearted. His eyes flicked past me, over to a cluster of tall, leggy blondes who, between the three of them, barely had enough fabric to cover one person's body.
"No magic, promise," I said, holding up two fingers in the Boy Scout's salute.
"You weren't a scout," he pointed out.
"Only because I thought the uniforms looked stupid." I stood up, leaning over the railing that wrapped around the raised VIP booth I'd purchased at the club. "Hey, ladies! Yes, you, the sexy ones!"
One of the blondes, wearing a tiny little purple wrap, turned at the sound of my voice rising over the thumping bass of the dubstep music. She looked up at me with a frown on her face, sizing me up – and then the frown blossomed into a smile as I met her expectations. I might have ditched the ability to read minds, but her thoughts might as well have been flashing in neon letters over her head.
Is he tall? Check.
Is he attractive? Devastatingly so, check.
Is he rich? He's waving us over to a private booth while holding a bottle of Dom Perignon in his other hand, so I'm going to go ahead and assume that the answer is yes. Checkity check.
A minute later, the blonde and her two friends, one in pink and the other in a tiny little top covered in sparkly silver sequins, climbed up to join us in our booth. "Hi there," giggled Purple Wrap, her eyes sweeping over me as if to make sure her initial assessment of my value hadn't been incorrect. "I'm Lexie, and this is Tracie and Suzie."
"Hi," piped up Tommy. Suzie, the one in the tiny sequin-covered outfit, had squeezed in next to him. Her mostly-exposed chest was right at the height of his eyes, and they couldn't seem to quite manage to rise beyond her collarbone.
"You two have this big booth all to yourselves?" Lexie asked, probably trying to scope out any potential competition.
I gave her my best, most rakish grin as I slipped an arm around her tiny little waspish waist. "Not now that you're here, sexy. But that leather's probably going to stick to your bare thighs. Why don't you perch on my lap, instead?"
A few minutes later, Lexie and Tracie were both settled on my thighs, one girl on each, their long and slender torsos pressed against my chest as they both cooed and nibbled at my neck and ears. I raised my champagne bottle in a toast to Tommy, on the other side of the booth, who had his own hands full of sequined Suzie. "Feeling better, buddy?"
"This doesn't fully make up for what we were discussing before," he got out, although the words were muffled considerably by Suzie's chest.
I laughed, leaning back and letting the two girls go to town. Ten minutes later, however, I needed to dislodge them.
"The bathroom calls, I'm afraid," I told them as I fought my way up from the pile of long, slender, bony limbs. "Excuse me for just a minute."
Lexie and Tracie both put on pouts, sticking out their overly plumped lower lips, but it didn't sway me. I'd tried, once, to use my writing abilities to get rid of the urine building up in my bladder. It worked perfectly – until forty minutes later, when I nearly passed out in pain on my couch, my dick shooting out a geyser of piss that splattered on my twelve-foot ceiling. Even my superpower wasn't enough to solve all anatomy problems, it seemed.
Still, it wouldn't take me long. I'd release this load of transformed Dom Perignon into the toilet, pick up a fresh bottle on my way back, and then challenge Lexie and Tracie to a few contests of sexual skill. In the end, I knew we'd all win. Cutting my way across the dance floor of the club as I headed for the bathroom, I clicked my heels together in a little jump of joy, loving how great my life felt.
My eyes ran over the rest of the crowd, and I savored the little surge of pride I felt as I compared their lackluster situations to my own. Did any of them have the slightest idea that a god walked among them? I could charm any of them, give them the best night of their lives – or the worst, if the fancy so struck me!
I paused for a second at an odd couple near the edge of the bar, sizing them up. The girl stood barely four and a half feet tall, in contrast to the guy towering over her at well over six feet. She looked like a tiny child beside him!
"You two should totally hook up," I murmured to them as I wrote the words inside my head.
The light of lust flared in both of their eyes, and their conversation cut off mid-sentence. I laughed as they threw their arms around each other, the man bending over nearly double to bring his lips down close enough for the girl to greedily latch on. As he straightened up, she wrapped her short little legs around him, clinging to him like a monkey climbing a palm tree.
I laughed, drunk on champagne and laughter. "You two, make out!" I cried, stabbing out my fingers at two prissy-looking girls with pinched lips.
They threw their arms around each other as their tongues mingled, and I clapped my hands in laughter. I took another few steps towards the bathroom, but oh, this was so much fun! One more, one more!
My eyes fell on a rather plain-looking girl with flat brown hair emerging from the women's bathroom. She definitely didn't look like she wanted to be here much – she wore a rather baggy sweater, and I frowned. Who the hell wore a heavy sweater to a club? This was the place to show off some skin!
"Let's see some tits, sugar!" I called out to her, writing the words inside my head. Suddenly filled with a thrill of excitement and lust, this girl grabbed her shirt and hauled it up, giving the sexy stranger an unobstructed look at her chest melons-
"Fuck off, you prick," the girl snapped at me, not slowing as she stalked past.
Like a fucking cartoon, it took a moment before I realized what just happened. I did a literal double take, spinning around to stare at her retreating back.
What the fuck?
"The plain-looking girl in the ugly sweater felt horrible for snapping at a stranger, and turned around to apologize," I muttered, hastily scratching out the words inside of my skull.
Nothing. She vanished off into the crowd, leaving me behind with my mouth hanging open.
Holy shit, it wasn't possible.
My powers didn't work on her! What the fucking hell was going on?
My bladder shouted at me that it needed my attention, now, but I barely heard its cries. I just stood there, one hand still up to push the bathroom door open, staring after that girl and struggling to figure out what had happened.
I'd never had my powers fail. They always worked, although the effects were sometimes later reversed or resulted in unexpected consequences. But they always worked.
Until now.
What was going on?