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an excerpt from
Supervillainz by Alicia Goranson
a Project: QueerLit novel
Prologue - December 2000, Friday Night
This was not art anymore.
The Blue Danube waltz drifted from the boombox and returned to them in echoes
throughout the warehouse. She grasped the clawed gauntlet outstretched to her, and wrapped her
other arm around the back of the metal shoulders. The armored sleeve encircled her waist and
guided her through the steps.
One-two-three, one-two-three. The steel wolf mask tilted slightly, offering her
reassurance.
She held her neck still, facing the dark pupilless eyes, and let her other senses take over.
Air rushed and subsided; a brief rest before the next triplet.
There was a smear on the side of the muzzle that shone like a faded rainbow in the
florescent light. She willed herself not to let the hand go to wipe it clean.
They had almost completed the circle. The exoskeleton was so much more graceful than
she was, so much more predictable.
The waltz ended and they released each other. The dark torso bowed with a flourish of its
paw, and she curtseyed. She gripped the end of her sweatshirt sleeve and pressed close to its cold
chest and legs. She rubbed the smear from its muzzle, and relaxed again. The steel arms
delicately embraced her, and the muzzle rested against her cheek.
"You're so good to me," an electronic voice said.
She had expected that response. She worried that her sweat would leave another smudge.
The Wolf's frozen face moved forward as if to kiss her, and then stopped, aware of the
three inch snout that stood between their lips.
"Let me check the results," she said, as she snaked out of the arms. She walked over to
the monitor and parsed through the numbers. Each step of the waltz was categorized for
accuracy, exertion, and duration. There was a minor deviation in the pattern of one of the early
motions. Most likely when it cocked its head.
"You're fine," she said, "All set to save the day."
"I hope so," the voice said, "What do you say we cut it short tomorrow night and go out
for dinner?"
She wanted to say yes, but her mouth could not form the sounds. There was too much to
do. They had already danced. There was no private time anymore. Everything had a little work
mixed into it.
"I'd like that," she said, "But we haven't seen ER in months."
"Fine," the voice said, as it slipped off toward the van, "You do that. I'll still be out."
She listened as the vehicle drove off, and sat down in front of the monitor. She paged
through the screenloads of numbers. They had stopped making sense. She wondered where she
would go if she left.
The punk music and laughter from the living room softened as Devon Manetta stuck his
head in the refrigerator. He snaked his hand into the back to find the six-pack of Labatt Blue he
had brought to the Chanukah party. Even though it was BYOB, only two of his bottles remained,
and he had only drunk two. Three, at most. He could have stayed at home and had the extra beer
himself. He would not have had to strap down his breasts, locate clean underwear from the pile,
and scuff his nice boots on the journey from Somerville to Jamaica Plain.
He took another of his bottles and shut the door. He would not take this issue up with
Samantha, the hostess. He would not even think about it anymore. Accidents happened, like
when he cut himself shaving. Next time he would write his initials on every one in big black
letters. Who cares if they talked behind his back that he was overreacting and his first year of
testosterone was getting to him. Maybe it was.
A blast of cold air swept over his buzzed hair and down the collar of his sweatshirt as
another group of dyke musicians and their groupies slipped in the back door. One of them put her
hand on his back. "Excuse me, can we get by?" she said. The old kitchen was shrunken with the
cases piled on the linoleum floor and the plastic countertop, but there was room to sneak by him;
just not as a group. If he did not know better, he would have thought she was giving him a 'Get
your fat ass out of the way.'
He clenched his fist and decided not to get mad. Many of these girls were unsure what to
do with someone if they could not flirt with them. He dutifully pressed himself against the
refrigerator and let them pass by. He watched them ascend the stairs in the living room, probably
to the third floor to the infamous stoners' room. He wanted to go there and mellow out, if only he
could stand the people. He really needed new friends.
He stepped back into the room, as Samantha leapt down the stairs and cranked down the
music. "Guys!" she said to the party-goers who were not him, "They just spotted one of the
supers! The woman who always bags my groceries at the store was just on the radio. She got
attacked by some of the guys who live in her building. Someone told them she always comes in
late on payday. They had her pinned down outside her building and a super jumped down and
knocked them around. Tied them up and the cops got them."
Several intrepid girls went out the front door into the frozen streets to investigate. The
rest stayed behind to drink their share of the alcohol.
The blurry photographs of the black gargoyles from the Globe flashed through Devon's
mind, though he did not particularly care if they were here. So what if they had been in every
newspaper in the country for months since they first appeared. So had the Red Sox and they
never amounted to anything. The only differences were that the Red Sox had actually been
spotted during the day, and they made public appearances. Nobody knew much about the
mysterious strangers. Perhaps there were as many as five of them, or as few as two. Maybe they
could fly, or only jump great distances. He had seen talk show guests toss contradictory facts at
one another. It seemed like everyone but him was very curious to know who they were. One
more reason, he decided, to get drunker.
He popped the cap off his bottle and returned to the neon inflatable chair he had claimed.
It was against a wall and did not have a counterpart in which someone could spark conversation.
Tonight was a test run. Two months ago at the club, one of his friends had rolled her eyes at him
and said, "You are such a girl," for no reason he could see. Suddenly, he had snapped and hit her
in the jaw. That shut her up. As if he was not getting enough people making him feel guilty. He
immediately pleaded with her for forgiveness, and explained he did not know he had it in him.
He had run home afterwards. He had beaten his pillows before sobbing in them. Time would take
away what his apologies could not.
This party was the first place, besides work, he had been to since then. Of course, nobody
had told him Samantha was banging his ex until he got here. More fodder for the "whatever"
pile. He sat alone, drank his beer, and sulked.
"You enjoying the party?" Devon looked up to see the hyper Samantha crouching in front
of him. Behind her stood a tall, slender, Nordic girl with shoulder-length dyed-purple hair. Some
transchick; he could tell. She wore bootcut jeans with sneakers. Her sweatshirt had an image of a
naked Santa licking the boots of an elven dominatrix.
Devon turned back to Samantha and raised his bottle in cheers. He did not speak.
"Bit here was just saying, from the door, that you looked like Divine on a bad day," she
said. She giggled, to encourage him to do the same. Devon's jaw dropped. Samantha's face
turned ashen when she realized that Devon did not know that the girl's name was Bit.
Bit's face flushed, and she ran away.
Samantha put out her hands to calm him. "Oh, wow, I'm sorry," she said, "I thought you
knew each other…"
He pulled himself up and gritted his teeth. He let his bottle drop and held back all the
words his tongue wanted to say. He pushed his way through the kitchen to the back door. He
glanced at a Labatt Blue label in one of the other girl's hands. He slammed open the door and
stomped outside, over the sagging weather-beaten porch in the back. He huddled in a corner of
the snowy driveway.
Thought you knew each other.
He remembered when he came out to his mother, how she had stared at him and asked if
he was serious. Then, she mentioned that she knew a transman, a biology professor who had
visited her university recently. Did Devon know him?
How about an, "I love you?"
Devon crouched on his boots over the snow and lit a cigarette. The smoke burned inside
his chest as he inhaled, feeding a flame always ready to spread. His fingers grew numb and he
cupped his hands under his armpits after the first cigarette was finished.
"Hey," a nervous female voice called to him. It was that transchick, wrapped in a thick
hiking coat.
He looked at the white ground. "Fuck off," he mumbled. He would break soon. Everyone
would be talking about him.
She stood stiff with her hands in her pockets. "I wanted you to know that, um, I'm sorry,"
she said, "I didn't mean anything by it."
The cold wind slipped around them. She watched the white air rise from his face. Devon
stood up, stomped out the glowing ember of his dead cigarette and wished she would go away.
"Sometimes, I can't control what comes out," Bit said, "Sam's taking it pretty hard, too."
Devon pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. He wanted to shut her up and stew in silence.
He offered her the cigarette, "You want one?"
"I don't smoke," she said.
Devon grabbed her by the coat and swung her against the fence surrounding the parking
spaces. Bit yelped and tried to push him away, but he took her wrists and pressed them against
her stomach. With his free hand, he jammed the cigarette into her mouth. She held it there. He
whipped out his Zippo and lit the tip, the orange light illuminating her red lips wrapped around
the filter, and her fierce wide eyes.
"Smoke," he hissed.
She worked one of her wrists free and grasped the filter. She sucked in a breath through
the tunnel of tobacco and fiberglass, pulling the acrid tar into her throat. She coughed, and took it from her mouth. Her eyes never left his. She returned the cigarette to her lips and took another
drag. This time she held it inside, and then purged it, coughing softly. The lit end quickly burned
into ash.
Devon dropped her hand and stepped back.
"This tastes like shit," she said, "But if it'll keep me here, can I have another?"
Devon squatted down on his boots again, and gestured for her to join him. "This isn't like
soda," he said, "You need to take shorter breaths."
She sat down next to him. The resulting smoke was thickly relaxing. She looked up at the
stars and said, "All us freaks know each other, huh?"
Devon nodded. "Or we end up that way, I guess."
They did not go back inside for the remainder of the party. She sat with him and talked
about how their bodies and minds betrayed them every day. Bodies were strange husks in odd
shapes that had to be mastered like playing a cello. Minds were raging oceans filled with
clanging vessels, which had to be docked one at a time.
Finally, it sunk in how he had snapped and she had embraced him. He did not mind
sharing his pack with her.
That was the thing about Bit, he would think often. She would run away but she would
always come back.
Chapter 1 - July 2001, Friday Night
Bit watched the dark shape on the firehouse rooftop several blocks away in the hot
summer air, and wanted it to be one of the supers.
She sat in a wire frame chair and slumped over the side of the balcony. She scanned the
old shops and tenements framed in Boston's perpetual twilight. This was a working class
neighborhood, in the midst of gentrification, almost funny to watch. A billboard advertising a
"network solutions" dot-com long out of business balanced above darkened apartments with
neon-laced convenience stores and delis below. Taxis circled, tires screeched, and the figure on
the rooftop had a tiny glow in its mouth, which it threw over the edge. Bit looked to a twinkle on
another rooftop and thought she could see it leaping along the uneven landscape like a great cat
on two legs, hunting for something to be wrong in the world, pouncing, and setting it right. As
right as instinct would allow.
In the condominium behind her, the soft moans of the women's sex party drifted out. It
was 10:30 at night and her date had not arrived yet. Sandy was not really a date. She had necked
with Bit at a local role-playing game and asked her why she did not come to these sort of parties.
"They won't mind you," Sandy had said, but the female passion in the condominium said
otherwise, and she wanted to be anywhere but here.
Behind the glass patio doors, she could hear the slaps of latex and moans, the flesh
grinding as twenty women flushed out their stresses in sharp cries. She should have said she had
plans.
It was easy enough to impress them if you were the right sort of person. Like Markie, her
roommate, a wiry little spitfire, dressed in boyish clothes with plenty of cleavage hanging out. These girls would have drooled over Markie, if Markie had not preferred her sex private. It lent
to Markie's appeal, never screwing before an audience, but the walls at home were too thin so
Bit always spent her Friday nights out.
Bit turned her gaze down to her stretch jeans, tight against her own thin limbs and
rounded belly. She was amused and disgusted that her hips told the truth only when they were
clothed. Her sleeveless pink "Bitch Goddess" T-shirt could come off and her chest would remain
the same shape with the same little tits. Her pants would make a liar out of her. The estrogen was
enough to bleach her facial hair invisible but it did nothing to change her crotch to a shape more
pleasing to the dykes inside.
Bit stretched her toes against the rims of her sandals and blew her dyed-black bangs out
of her eyes. The July air was saturated with dust, and it did not look like anyone was coming to
rescue her, or even provide a brief diversion for an escape.
Bit stepped onto the little path in the shag rug running through the semi-naked bodies on
couches, sleeping bags, or bathroom towels. There was a goth who Bit had a crush on running
her black nails down the chest of a plump boi who drove his strap-on into her. There was a
geekette with the most luscious lips who still wore thick framed glasses, slipping her skinny hand
into the wetness of a girl covered in faerie tattoos. Bit shuddered at how little she was being
touched. This just was not her place of power. She did not know what was. The drinks table in
the entryroom beckoned and she headed for it. She helped herself to a soda, freezing the
mugginess inside her.
The doorbell rang and the hostess, clad in a campy biker slut outfit, ran to get it. Bit
swallowed what was in her cup as Sandy stepped inside with another trannygirl in her arms.
Sandy took her cover charge out from the pocket of her leather jeans, as Bit approached
her.
"Hey," Bit put on a concerned look and hugged her, "You're late. What's going on?"
Sandy accepted the hug and gave her date a "just a second" wink.
"What do you mean," Sandy said, "I sent you the invitation. Did you think we were going
together?"
Bit paused a moment before she answered, "No." She considered spending another hour
on the balcony, perhaps discovering if the date would pass the "no jeans" test and whether or not
they did, it would depress her. She hugged Sandy again to get her human touch quota for the
night and said, "I was just leaving anyway."
"Okay," Sandy said, and smiled, "It was good to see you again." Sandy took her date's
hand and they wandered into the living room with a bounce her step.
Bit turned to go, and the hostess already had the door open. "Thanks for coming," the
hostess gave her a quick kiss, as if to say, "Or not." Unwelcome even when invited. Bit
descended the staircase back to the street.
Her pocket was empty of more than just the $25 cover charge. She still had the printout
of the invitation Sandy had forwarded to her. She unfolded and read it in the stairwell. She had
scribbled Sandy's address on it, just in case she had been asked to escort Sandy to the party.
Sandy lived on Mall Street in Allston. It was like a nursery rhyme. Mall Street in Allston. She
tore the invitation to shreds and dumped them into a trashcan at the bottom of the stairs.
She could still catch the bus to go by Club Icarus. Devon would be there until it closed.
As she walked to the bus stop, she gazed upward, hopeful that something larger than a bat
would fly by. Bit had believed in the shadowy figures long before she saw the photographs in the
paper, even before the first transcripts of police logs appeared on the Internet.
Bit believed in charity and respect, not in gods. She thought religions of the Book were
too dogmatic; Wicca was too flaky; Eastern philosophies did not speak to her. Bit preferred her
mythologies in pulp or comic form. This was the language of the outsiders, people too smart for
their own good, ground down under the inequities of others, and betrayed even by their own
shapes.
Bit knew the power that a kind word had to transform an entire week. A clerk might ask
her, "Can I help you, ma'am?" out of compassion or instinct, but nonetheless, the simple gift of
honor and dignity would be the crumb Bit needed to find the strength to smile. Preventing an
assault with super-strength was not so different.
She did believe in the Divine just for a moment, when she read on the Internet that the
spirits of compassion had been made flesh, and were running around saving people in and around
the Somerville area. It irritated her that it was her parent's God she believed in.
Her inner cynic rescued her, confiding that anyone with the money to build a
superpowered suit and to break up acts of poverty and desperation either had an ego complex or
was reading too many comic books.
She still looked upwards.
Devon sat in the smoky, garage-styled Club Icarus with the Friday night gang of bois and
did not play pool. The little green stadium sat unused under the staircase leading into the club, guarded by the eyes of groups at several other tables. Devon was more into the beer than the cues
and balls, but the bois had a long-standing tradition of coming to not play pool. One did not rack
up the balls until one was willing to be on stage with the pros. It was the bois' unspoken belief
that it was enough to talk to each other over the heavy dance beats and fight over the nachos
without seeming too greedy.
Devon was relaxed in his boots, black jeans, and leather vest, even if he had to suffer the
numb ache of his breasts wrapped down. He had chosen the vest to give him a tawdry elegance
like a bouncer, but he knew he was all bark and all flab. He was not the cutest of the crew at the
table either. His buzzed hair was not even in the back; it regrew faster every other square inch.
He thought his nose was too pudgy. He was proud of his chin fuzz, and was working on a
mustache. The bois kept telling him he was not that bad looking, and he did the same in return.
After a few beers, no one at the table cared.
The fat boi next to him, Galeno, had Bono Fly sunglasses wrapped around her head, and
her hair was delicately mussed and sprayed. Everyone else had their hair slicked like James
Dean, in the direction that most suited them.
"Check out the honey in the white T," Galeno said, and gestured to a blond dyke in ear-length
hair and blue low-risers which revealed the ubiquitous Celtic knot tattoo on the small of
her back. The honey took the one remaining stool at the bar across from them. The other bois
nodded in approval.
"Oh her," a boi nearby said with a wide grin, "I've seen her shopping at the White Hen
across from my place. She's alright."
"Looks like she's alone," Devon said to Galeno, "Why don't you go get her?"
"I don't know," Galeno said, chuckling, "Why don't you?"
Devon loved how the discussion would switch from anything to girls in one second flat.
He could live without the actual girl discussions. They would be psyching each other up to ask
her to dance when, in reality, they would just be looking for reasons not to. It was fun to pretend
to be attracted to a girl for superficial reasons, but it took too much energy to act on it.
"Okay, I will," Devon said, and nodded back. He dealt with screaming nonprofit
employees all day as a public relations consultant. He could handle asking a girl to dance.
Galeno watched Devon leave his beer on the table and approach the bar. The honey had
pink nails and scuffed engineer boots. Devon thought she was a student. He wanted to do this
right. Without breaking pace, he swung a left into the men's room to check up on his face, hair,
and clothes. He brushed off the nacho crumbs. He washed his hands. He smiled a couple times
for practice. He considered all the things he could do if she said yes.
The girls on either side of the honey were preoccupied with their own conversations.
Devon slipped to the honey's right and called the bartender for a Sam Adams, the same as she
was drinking. She was reading over a flyer from the club entrance, advertising a dance on
another night. The bottom of the flyer read, "Female superheroes admitted free* - * Proof of
superhuman abilities required. Abilities involving alcohol consumption are ineligible." She took
no notice of Devon.
Devon leaned on the four inches of countertop available to him and winked pleasantly at
her. "Hey," he said.
The honey gave him a confused glance. "What?" she brayed in his ear, over the thumping
bass of the stereo behind the bar.
"Hey, I'm Devon," he almost raised his voice to a shout, "I like the knot tat."
"Thanks. So do I. Hi, I'm Alyssa." She gave him a quick smile that flushed her cheeks a
little, and thrust the flyer in his face, "They wouldn't let me in for free."
"Huh?"
"I said, they wouldn't let me in for free," she said, louder. She wobbled in the bar stool
but caught herself before she fell over.
"I heard you. That really sucks. So, what's your power?"
She giggled and leaned onto the counter. "I got into Harvard. I'm a junior and I haven't
killed anybody yet."
The bartender handed Devon his Sam Adams and took his money. Alyssa was in no
position to consent to anything except a ride home, and he readied himself for a clean break.
"So, why're you in here?" she said.
"What do you mean?"
"This is a dyke bar. Do you, like, turn into a girl or something?"
Devon heaved a sigh, and popped open his bottle. "Yeah. Nice meeting you." He took a
gulp of his beer on the way back to his seat, and scritched his chin hair. There were too many
girls like her.
His table was empty when he returned, except for Galeno, who was working over the
abandoned nacho dish. One of the bois had worked the nerve to play pool and the others were
hanging around the game shoulder for moral support, and cheerful heckling. Galeno pulled out
Devon's chair for him, and shook her head. "It's okay, brother. It happens."
It was getting easier for Devon to slug it off. Slumming rich girls would never know any
better; never have to account for it. He considered leaving early. If they had migrated to the pool
tables, the guys must have been out of good conversation.
A tap on his shoulder and he spun around to see Bit standing behind him. She had a
playful grin and one raised eyebrow. "Hey you," he said and spun around to hug her, "Grab a
chair."
Bit flopped into the seat next to him and also sighed. "Sandy came with someone else at
the party."
"No shit. Tell me all about it." He handed her his old beer.
Bit smirked and waved the bottle away, "You already got me smoking. I don't need any
more bad habits."
He glowered at her and took her wrist gently, holding up her arm to show her her own
bitten-down fingernails. "Uh huh. Don't worry. I saw Markie go home by herself, too. It hasn't
been a good night for anybody."
Club Icarus closed at one in the morning, like all the other clubs on the street. The buses
were not running at that hour and the nearest T stops were many blocks away. The clubbers left
in jagged waves, like soda spilling from a knocked-over can. Bit and Devon were in the first
wave out. Devon had his wits about him but was grateful for the company. Bit took his tough
hand in hers and felt a little safer.
Neither of them was in a rush to get home. Devon guided Bit down a semi-darkened side
street, , eventually leading to the Red Line. Many of the triple-decker, double-family, single-car-space
houses were walled off by fences, mostly rusted leg-high wire ones with white paint
flaking off, though some were wooden, painted with grass-roots slogans. Bit did not mind,
wanting some sleep and to forget that the sex party was winding down now.
After a little while, Devon's boots turned into toescrews, and he asked Bit to stop, to rest
his feet. They found a space under a streetlight where the sidewalk had buckled. Bit sat down
and leaned against a fence as Devon loosened his bootstraps. "Got a cigarette?" she said. He
patted his vest pocket to indicate its emptiness.
Bit did not really want a smoke, just something to do besides staying still and letting the
night come back to her. She scowled at the city's stenches settling in without moving traffic to
disperse them. She listened to the few cars in the distance and said to Devon, "If we see that
Alyssa chick, I think it'll be safe to jump her here." Devon grinned back.
The light over their heads went out.
"Fuckin' rape lights," Bit said. Like those on a college campus, they were supposed to
deter attackers, but they saved energy by going out just before one was attacked. She grew
concerned at the stillness of the neighborhood, and jerked at Devon's hand as he tightened his
boots again. "Let's go," she said. He nodded and followed her as she stood up and hustled down
the street. His heels echoed on the gritty pavement.
The beer had mellowed him out. He was not as surprised as Bit when the huge white man
stepped out in front of them from behind a corner. The man loomed over them, and was close
enough for them to smell his unwashed Red Sox sweats. They could make out his shoulder-length
hair from the streetlights far behind him. In the dim light, they saw his short thick
mustache with a set of fat lips pulled emotionless against his jaw. Devon thought he saw a gun in
his hand. Bit saw only the hand.
"Wallets."
He could've been asking for tickets. It was hot outside, yet a cold shaft of air rippled
down Bit's throat. Her skin became as sensitive as from a lover's touch, without comfort or care. She glanced about for a direction to bolt but Devon could not run very long and she could not
leave him.
Devon's hairs stood on end, and he realized how small he really was. His muscles failed
him. His resolve plummeted inside his belly. This simply was not happening. He tried to breathe
slowly and hoped Bit would not freak out. He could live without the five dollars left in his
wallet, his credit cards, and his driver's license. It did not say, "Male," on it, so he had nothing to
gain but hours of indignity at the DMV. What Would Jesus Do. Nod, and offer it like a friend.
Thank you for your business. Devon could not really tell if it was a gun in the man's hand but
that meant nothing. He pulled out his leather billfold and nodded to Bit to do the same.
The man carefully took Devon's billfold with his empty hand and looked at her. Bit felt
her frantic, feeble heartbeat like when she watched AIDS documentaries of people's bodies
failing them, decomposing and inviting death with open arms. The cool ripple in her throat had
seeped down into her viscera.
Bit considered every part of the man's body into which she could press her fingers and
knuckles, his throat, nose, eyes, and elbows. She thought about screaming but her voice did not
sound like a woman's. No one helps out guys in a fight. Do what you need to do to get out alive,
she thought. Would her wallet be enough? Would she make it to the hospital or be left on the
ground by the EMTs?
She reached into her pocket for her few remaining dollars wrapped around her driver's
license, and placed it in the man's hand. The man stuffed them into his own pocket and extended
his hand again.
"Empty them."
Bit was confused.
"Your pants."
Devon sensed Bit snap inside and wanted to reassure her but did not dare move. He was
dazed, like in a dream, and he had to remind himself that this was really happening. He nodded
to her, as if to say, "It's okay, it's not some alley, and he won't be here long."
Bit slipped her fingers in her pockets and prickles on her chest reminded her that she was
exposed, could not defend herself if he hit her. Hit her. He could. Her pockets were like
handcuffs. She pulled them inside out to show that she had only her keys and some T tokens. The
man fluttered his fingers, palm up. Fine, she thought, how much more, and dropped them into his
fist.
Devon could have sworn that the man must have heard the crunch of gravel as the dark
metallic figure hit the ground a corner behind him.
"Yours, too."
The man was still holding Bit's keys. Devon put his hand in his jean pocket and
considered keeping it there. The figure's shadow was too symmetrical, too perfect, to be a
person. It walked too quietly. Another part of the not-dream he was having. He watched it come
leisurely towards them.
Devon wrapped his keys tight in his fist and yanked them out. He had never felt their true
weight before. They were simple things; homes that could be entered, mail that could be read,
and closets that could protect precious things. Everything safe in his life guarded by simple
pieces of metal, and without them, he would be alone and naked on the street. He gasped, and
threw his keys down the street at the figure behind the man.
The rape light above them sputtered on.
His right hand did hold a gun. The man hesitated, even after hearing the clink of the keys
behind him.
Bit was going to hit Devon. She could do that and he would not hit her back. Then she
saw the approaching figure. It was taller than her, covered in a dull black finish without an inch
of flesh. It was a suit or armor, vaguely shaped like an Emmy, tight leather gloves, no muscles,
and no cape, with an Expressionistic hawk's head, and the beak with held shut with resolve. Any
other time Bit might have laughed at it, the audacity of the wearer and its asexual chest and
crotch. She wondered how a redemptive spirit could appear so frightening and silly.
The man heard its step and spun around.
"Motherfucker," the Hawk spat out in a low digitized voice, and without stopping, struck
the man on his cheek. The impact made a wet snap. The man gripped his face, dropped his gun
and Bit's keys, and cried out while spitting blood on the Hawk's chest.
"Run!" Devon shouted to Bit and took off. Bit bent down to pick up her keys. Another
blow sent the man crashing down on top of her. Her head smacked the pavement and she blacked
out for a second. She awoke and pulled herself out from under his quivering bulk. Her right
temple had gravel embedded in it. She bit down on her tongue to bring herself back and scurried
away as a metal foot smashed into the man's kidneys.
"How do you like that?" the Hawk said, kicking him again. Bit got to her feet as her head
pounded, her keys in hand, and ran back in the club's direction. Devon retrieved his own set of
keys and chased after her. In her panic and blood loss, she tripped on the sidewalk. Devon helped
her up and checked where she was bleeding.
"I'm okay," she said, "I'm okay. I'm okay."
He embraced her, fearing she had suffered a concussion. Her own hug became stronger as
she had time to catch her breath. She hated that she had skin, and not metal.
"It's going to kill him."
"Not our problem."
Bit shook her head, "We have to call the cops. Come on!" She released him, ran over to
the nearest door, and banged on it. "Fire!" she screamed, not caring how she sounded, "Police!
Fire!"
Devon had thought he was doing his wallet a favor by not having a cell phone. He looked
in vain for a payphone, and saw some other clubbers heading his way. He called out to her, and
hustled over to them.
They were high school boys. Devon wanted to roll his eyes at their hip-hop T-shirts and
well-groomed complexions. They stared at him like he was a junkie.
"Do any of you guys have a cell phone?" Devon said breathlessly. A couple of them
nodded. "My friend's been hurt. We need emergency help. Can you call 911?"
Bit hobbled next to him, trusting the boys as far as she could throw them.
"No problem, man," one of the boys said to Devon, and pulled his phone out.
The Hawk let out a metallic roar. "Holy shit," another boy said, "It IS a fucking super!"
The boy with the cell phone hit a button and pointed at Devon. "Man, I'm gonna call for
you in a second. Hey, Toons!" he ran off toward the figure and shouted into the phone, "You
gotta get your ass over here! There's a super whaling on some guy!" He shouted out directions
and caught up with his buds.
Bit gripped his shoulder anxiously. "We should go. Call the cops"
"You're not going anywhere. You're still bleeding and you might pass out."
"We gotta call them." She slumped against a chain fence, light-headed.
"Yeah, well, everybody's gonna hear about this in a few," he made her more comfortable.
He put her hand on her head wound to keep the pressure on. He took off his vest, reached under
his shirt, and unwrapped his breast binding. He gritted his teeth as they came loose, numb and
swelling and he did not know what to do if the boys turned around. He put one end under her
hand and rolled it around her crown until it became a lopsided turban with a dark patch on the
long side, securing it as best he could. Bit's breathing became erratic as the pain worsened and
she held onto the fence, to him, to consciousness, moving like her whole body was asleep from
lack of circulation. She feared she had seen her first murder and the mugger was now an obituary
and maybe she and Devon had been somehow responsible.
The clubbers trickled into the street from every direction, encircling the Hawk as it
continued to torment its prey. Mostly school and college kids in tailored casuals or junky
weekend wear; they took their places on the outer ring, while some of the shorter, flirtier girls
worked their way inside. Some of the residents threw open their windows to watch people draw
together. Almost a hundred people stood around, silent at first, in awe of the modern knight that
kicked a man who howled in pain, leaking blood out of his mouth and down his Red Sox jersey.
They grew louder as the drunker boys egged the Hawk on.
The Hawk acknowledged their presence with his middle finger, provoking more hooting.
As the circle grew, it performed some touchdown dances in between its beatings. It howled at
them and succeeded in getting them to imitate it. It lifted the man and tossed him into the air a few feet, catching him and then sending him to the pavement. The crowd "oohed" and "ahhed"
and followed its lead precisely.
Eventually, the Hawk noticed that it was completely surrounded. The sheer mass of
people extended half a block in every direction, chanting and shaking their fists in the air. Boys
bellowing and girls hooted like standing in the Fenway at the bottom of the ninth. It let them see
that it was running out of steam, it would not deliver the final blow. Suddenly, the mob rushed it.
It crouched down as the mass of hands swarmed over it, and leapt twenty feet into the air.
Its clawed feet caught the edge of the rooftop, which crumbled under the weight. The Hawk lost
its balance, waved its arms, and fell backwards. It smashed down on the sidewalk below. The
mob descended, grasping at every inch of armor and Kevlar joint for a souvenir. They yanked on
its limbs, its head, anything they could pull off, not caring if they had to rip apart the body
beneath to get a piece.
The Hawk flailed out, sending out taser-like electric shocks from its arms and driving
back the crowd, briefly, until its power failed and the mob continued consuming its body.
Devon and Bit watched in horror as, amongst the screaming, they heard a gunshot.
Instantly, the crowd poured in all four directions away from the spectacle. Bit finally heard the
sirens, and saw the red and blue lights turn onto both ends of the street. The clubbers fled past
the two of them, barely making an effort not to trip on them. Devon pulled up Bit to join them.
She was still in pain, and caught a glimpse of two skinny boys who stopped and slugged
each other over something that had fallen to the ground. She broke free from Devon and pushed
her way through the crowd. While the boys fought, she swept up the football sized object, stuck
as much of it as she could under her shirt, and rushed away before they could catch her. She fed
off the group momentum, going anywhere they would. She stopped on the club street out of breath and wheezing. She grabbed a newspaper and wrapped the object up tight. They would be
after her, she thought. Someone would, for this. She joined the clubbers slowing down their
escape and followed them onto the Red Line.
Devon stomped the pavement and screamed her name, ready to finish killing her if he
could get his hands on her again. She was hurt, and prone to even more stupid decisions. Leaving
him alone in this mass of idiots. He managed to get his vest on, but he still felt his unbound
breasts straining against the undershirt's fabric. He ran into the crowd in hopes of finding her,
eyes to the ground, afraid to find her trampled. The crowd dissipated as it hit the club street, and
there was no sign of her. He wasted more minutes chasing after the remaining clumps of
clubbers, but Bit did not turn up. The police had already blocked off the street. They would have
found Bit and taken her to the emergency room. Pissed and helpless, Devon decided to go home
and hoped she had the sense to do the same.
Alicia Goranson is a destructionist writer from the Boston area who
wanted to see some rump-smacking good action-adventure trans fiction
that post-modernists would be ashamed to bring to class – so she wrote
it. Supervillainz has romance, car chases, brutal superheroes, clever
queers, epic battles in dyke bars, and a climax that will have you
reaching for the tissues. Her writing has appeared in the anthology Pinned Down By Pronouns and
Other magazine. Currently, she is working on a book-length folktale
about identity play and spirituality in the furry community, called
How Cheryl Got Her Tail.
back to the Project: QueerLit page
go to the Project: QueerLit website
go to the Supervillainz website
email Alicia Goranson
The work featured in this journal is under copyright protection
by the individual authors and artists and may not be duplicated
or reprinted without their permission.
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