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Sheila breathed in to be able to pull the hidden zipper up from her crotch to her neck and then ran her fingers over the spandex body suit that clung to every curve. She turned to look over her shoulder in the mirror at her ass to see how the suit neatly separated her cheeks. She had made a modified version of the kind of outfit she wore to her modern dance classes, just having it go all the way down to cover her feet and higher on the neck to look a little more demure. “Demure my ass!” she laughed at herself. Although completely covered, she never felt more on display with the spandex tightly outlining her breasts, hips, ass, and narrow waist. She checked, and no lines were visible from the thong, but she didn’t dare try to wear a bra under this outfit. It would look ridiculous. Besides with such a tight costume, there was no need for any further support. Not that she needed support anyway.
She pulled on her low-heeled, ankle-length boots that blended perfectly in with her body suit, so they almost disappeared. Standing back up, she checked herself in the mirror again. High heels would have added an extra oomph to her look, but those would have been too formal. The lower ones were more practical, but the one-inch heels still added a little extra without making it harder to walk. She snapped on her belt and slid it down to snug against her hips. The belt had a pouch attached to either side, so she had a place for her cell phone and ID, since the body suit left no room for anything, and carrying a purse would ruin the look. Lastly she pulled on a cowl that she had modeled after Batgirl’s cowl. She’d watched a cosplayer’s video online about how to make it. It was a full day’s work, but it was perfect. Sheila wasn’t into the whole club scene like others her age, but her job as a university librarian and her computer skills gave her access to nearly everything going on in the university community, and the fraternity costume party was the coolest thing going on this weekend.
College men were all girly men trying hard to please the queen bee feminists they found on campus and didn’t appeal to her at all. That didn’t mean that she didn’t want to be appreciated though, even if none of them could measure up to what she wanted, and there was always the possibility of a good man out there somewhere. She looked one last time in the mirror and closed her eyes to fantasize. She wanted a man who would wrap his arm around her breasts from behind and use his other hand to pull her face around to meet his in a passionate kiss. Opening her eyes, she saw her fantasy had her nipples trying hard to poke their way out of her costume, and turned up one side of her lips in a sardonic smile. Let ‘em stare if they want to. Her cowl protected her identity, so she was free to be openly sexy. Of course, if there were such a man as she fantasized about around the university, he was probably in jail for rape. There was a fine line between being raped and being ravished, but the culture had blotted that line out entirely as if a man acting like a man with a woman he loved automatically meant he was out to rape every woman he saw.
She parked her motorcycle easily on the crowded block. Mostly she walked to her job and classes on campus, but if she needed to go farther or be out late, the motorcycle worked great without costing a lot. Also it was always convenient to park.
Getting into the party was no problem of course. Once inside she did a quick look around. There was an Alice in Wonderland and a female Robin Hood, a couple of slutty waitresses—one Hooters and one generic—even a Red Sonja who was drawing most of the male attention with her sequin imitation of a metal bikini. It was the men, of course, who interested her more. At the bottom end were the “football players” whose costume consisted solely of a jersey and some eye black, and one Tarzan. There was a Thor who had a pretty good costume and hammer, but, unfortunately, he had a face that looked as dull as the actual mythical Thor was. At least he hadn’t come as The Incredible Hulk, probably the green makeup was too much trouble, but she figured, “Hulk is the strongest there is,” was probably the only dialog he was capable of. The only promising candidate she saw was dressed as Teddy Roosevelt. She went up next to him at the bar and got a red plastic cup filled from the keg.
“Been out rough riding?” she asked him.
“Sorry?”
“Your costume.”
“Oh yeah, got the idea from an old movie. Figure after a few drinks, I can yell, ‘Charge!” and head upstairs to the bathroom. And you’re batgirl without the bat logo?”
She tried to hide her disappointment. “No, just another crime fighter, but then my secret identity wouldn’t be secret if I told everybody, would it?”
“I always thought the one without the costume was the secret identity.”
“Yes, well it’s all about your perspective, isn’t it? In my case, the costumed crimefighter is my secret identity.”
She moved away to discontinue the conversation with someone who’s only knowledge of Teddy Roosevelt apparently came from Arsenic and Old Lace. She found a place to sit and people watch, making up stories in her head about the interactions she saw. After fending off a few more totally inappropriate suitors, she headed upstairs to find the bathrooms that “Teddy Roosevelt” had mentioned. The first door she tried turned out to be a bedroom with “Robin Hood” passed out on the bed, and one of the “football players” trying to remove her tights.
“Whoa, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Butt out babe!”
“Hey, she’s obviously passed out, and not only shouldn’t you be here trying to ‘make her more comfortable’ by taking her clothes off, but if you’re the guy who roofied her, then you wouldn’t want the police to find you here.”
“I said, butt out babe!” he exclaimed, coming towards her, and raising his open hand. She grabbed his middle finger and bent it painfully backward, pushing his arm behind his back and giving him a push to encourage him to leave.
“I’m not going to call the police unless you come back, ‘Joe Montana’, but I’ll be here until she comes around. Go use the bathroom to get your rocks off and count yourself lucky.”
As the adrenaline wore off, she found a chair to sit in, and waited. After 5 minutes, she was pretty sure he wasn’t coming back, but she took out her cell phone and set it to flash dial 911 just in case. He had been about 5 inches taller than her and had probably had a hundred pounds on her, but she had just instinctively used a trick her Aikido teacher had taught for self-defense, and it actually worked! She wasn’t very sure she could take him without surprise on her side though. Despite her costume, she was no superheroine, so the anxiety kept her alert for the couple of hours until ‘Robin Hood’ groggily awakened.
“Do you have a roommate? What’s her number? Let me call her and have her drive you home. I think somebody slipped something in one of your drinks, but I think you’ll be OK if we can get you home safely.”
‘Teddy Roosevelt’ actually helped her get ‘Robin Hood’ downstairs and into her roommate’s car as the party had mostly broken up by then, so he wasn’t completely useless. He made one last feeble pass at her, but she mounted her motorcycle and headed home. “Who was that masked woman?” she found herself saying in parody of the Lone Ranger in her head on the way home. Still, it felt good. She felt she had actually saved someone from a real tragedy, and probably saved the asshole from committing a serious crime for that matter.
It was 3 weeks before Sheila thought about that night again. Since her personal life continued to go nowhere, she pushed herself, continuing to catalog new entries into the Eaton SF collection at the university library. The Eaton Collection had started as a grant and donation of thousands of pulp books and magazines from the early 20th century and had grown to quite the collection of popular fiction, including comic books and, more recently, graphic novels of course. Sheila kept it all up to date, controlled access to the somewhat fragile and mostly irreplaceable collection. She had just added a unique program that automatically tracked the prices that items matching those in the collection had recently sold for. That would make the collection look increasingly valuable and therefore important to the board and the dean. She was thinking about putting in for a paid trip to Comic-Con, so she could make contacts with collectors who might be potential donors. After all, the early giants in the field like Stan Lee were getting older and might want to donate their personal collections. Even better maybe she could apply to be a pro to present a panel on the Eaton Collection. That led her into thinking about enhancing her costume into something presentable for Comic-Con.
She was distracted by an article in the university paper about a rape on campus last night. As part of her job she was also responsible for the newspaper collections since they shared the fragility of the Eaton Collection until their digital versions were appropriately stored, and she was glancing through the paper before putting it out for the reading room and archiving the previous week’s edition. The article mentioned that another rape had occurred on campus 10 days earlier, but it was maddeningly short on specifics. She knew it wasn’t the reporter’s fault. The police were always tight-lipped about crimes until nobody cared anymore about them months or years later. 2 rapes on campus in 10 days made it her business however. The campus was generally safe, but she usually walked home each night, and she was not content with sketchy reports. The same eidetic memory that made school a breeze for her allowed her to catch passwords she saw only fleetingly, even in reflection. She had also taught herself to understand what people were typing by watching their fingers move on the keyboard. It was kind of a parlor trick she had mastered once when she was bored. Her one trip to the police station had been when she briefly dated a cop, and he had taken her to the precinct to impress her. She had managed to collect 3 passwords, including that of his boss just because she could.
It was just a matter of minutes for her to access the police records. Both rapes had taken place between 10:30 and midnight. The young women weren’t exact with the time, but they had both left the library a little after closing and gotten delayed talking to friends who went in the opposite direction. Both rapes had taken place along the same path that Sheila knew well. They had a serial rapist on campus, and it obviously called for a stakeout, but the cops didn’t have the manpower or the motivation to do that, and if they did, the guy would probably just move on to someplace else. But one lone costumed crimefighter who knew where to conceal herself could do a stakeout without spooking the rapist. Was she crazy? Maybe, but this was her library, and she was going to be damned if any other woman got raped from staying late studying. That asshole was going to pay.
She checked herself in the mirror. She had added several more pouches to her belt, and a trip to the hardware store had added a stash of zip ties. She had also picked up a burner cell phone. If she was going to be a vigilante, she didn’t want any blowback on her real identity. The next night she changed into her costume after she closed up the library and went out through the lawns, away from the lights to set up behind some bushes with a good view of the path. The first night nothing happened except for her nearly freezing to death from sitting on her haunches for 2 hours in the November cold. That led to another addition. A cape long enough to wrap around her like a teepee with her head sticking out not only helped to keep her warm, but served to conceal her almost totally in the dark away from the path lights even without being behind a bush. In fact, she looked like a bush herself in the dark.
After about a half-hour, she saw a young woman walking by herself along the path. A man she hadn’t seen before was coming the other way. She internally shifted from patient to alert. There was no good reason for anyone to be walking towards the library now that it was closed for the night. When the woman went to pass the man, he reached over to grab her then lunged at her, forcing her onto her back on the grass next to the path with him on top of her. Sheila was still in the process of rising when she heard the ripping of clothes. Then came the screaming. Sheila’s adrenalin was pumping hard, but she forced herself to walk slowly and deliberately. With the victim’s screaming and Sheila coming up from behind him, she figured she could get close enough to act before he noticed that they weren’t alone. She was within striking range, but couldn’t think of any martial arts move to quickly disable a man in that position. Instead she leaped on his back, wrapped her arm around his neck and used her other hand to push the first towards her shoulder, quickly squeezing the air, and, she hoped, the circulation, out of him with the pincer movement. He was too shocked to have a counter move, and her action was quickly rewarded with him collapsing uselessly on top of the young woman, knocking the breath out of her scream as the weight of both of them pushed down on her. Sheila quickly rolled over until she was on top of the miscreant’s back, and pulled out her zip ties, binding him by the wrists and ankles.
“Are you all right, Miss?”
“I think so,” she replied attempting to pull her blouse back together.
“Someone’s raping a woman near the university library,” Sheila was telling 911 on her burner phone, “Hurry!”
“They’ll take their sweet time getting here if they think the situation is already handled,” Sheila explained. She was rewarded with the sound of a distant siren. “Sorry I can’t stay. There would be too many questions. I need you to stay to give your statement to the police, so they can put him away. He won’t be any trouble now. He’s not going anywhere and from the sound of that siren, the police will be here rather shortly.”
With that she was off before the would-be victim could get in another word. Sheila quickly and silently made her way back to the library, where she donned her normal clothes. It hadn’t made sense to go home to get into her costume and then come back to the library path afterwards, so she had taken to switching after locking up, then exiting via a side door and letting herself back in with one of her keys. By the time she was walking back up the path in her civilian clothes, the police had already carted the rapist off but were still getting the full story from the victim. After showing her driver’s license and explaining that she was the one who locked up the library, the police let her continue on.
#
For the next few months, she took on the identity of a crime-fighter for real. She sewed the stars for the constellation Orion on the chest of her costume. It seemed fitting to model her new persona after Orion the Hunter. The university region was not exactly a high crime area, but it became even less so. Crimefighting gave her more thrills than going alone to parties, and she was actually doing something she felt good about.
“Excuse me Miss,” said a deep voice that caused her to look up from her desk. “I asked where I could find old issues of the campus news, and they told me you were the one to see.”
“They're not wrong. How can I help you?”
“I'm researching Orion,” he said, and Sheila managed to conceal her reaction to just a blink, but that did lead her to size him up. Tall, wavy black hair, blue eyes, or maybe a little green, decent slacks and a neat button-up shirt with sunglasses and a phone in his shirt pocket.
“You should start with last October to be thorough, but you won't find much, certainly not much more than what's in the city paper.”
“You don't miss much, do you?”
“No, I don't,” she replied, handing him a small checkout card, “Fill out the dates you want and bring it back with ID. The paper's a weekly, published on Thursdays. Two weeks into October should make sure you don't miss anything. You can request 3 papers at a time, and read them at that table to the right.”
The newspapers had picked up on her secret identity's name after a few stopped crimes. It gave them something to say other than a mysterious woman seemed to be stopping criminals. She discreetly watched the young man fill out the form, consulting his phone to get the dates right. He pulled his wallet out of his front pants pocket as he returned to the desk. Most men were worried about bulges showing in their front pockets and kept their wallets in their back pocket where it was easy prey for pickpockets. A careful man. She scanned the checkout card and ID and summoned a “stacker” to go to retrieve the 3 requested issues .
“I'll hold your license until you're through Mr. Taylor.”
“It's Jason, but you can't keep an eye on me from where you are Miss Hansen? You seemed to be doing a pretty good job of it while I filled out the card.”
“You don't miss much either, Jason,” she replied, thinking she must not have been as careful as she thought she was being and realizing he had gotten her name from the business card stack sitting inconspicuously on the far edge of the desk, “but it's library policy. And you can call me Sheila, since we're now on a first name basis, and you're likely to be here for several hours if you're serious.”
“Pleased to meet you Sheila,” he said, holding out his hand. His big hand gently enveloped hers. She smiled. She had a thing about hands, and his were perfect. She could feel the strength he was deliberately holding back. After he released her hand, he just stood casually with his arms loose by his sides as if it were the most relaxing position in the world and kept looking at her.
“It may take a few minutes,” she said, returning his gaze.
“I've got all I want right here,” he said, not breaking eye contact. She lifted her chin slightly and tried to see what was behind those eyes. She wasn't exactly used to being sized up by men, but it had happened enough that she was disconcerted that his eyes never left hers to wander down to her chest. This one was different.
“And why the interest in Orion?” she finally asked. She wasn't going to be the first to break the stare, but she felt less uncomfortable at least engaging in conversation.
“I pursue what catches my interest.”
“A man of leisure?”
“I prefer independent scholar. An uncle I never met made me beneficiary of his estate, and he had a generous insurance policy and quite a book collection. I publish occasionally, but the joy is in the pursuit of knowledge. I like researching things to find out what others have missed. It's like being a detective. Sharing it is good too, but my papers don't exactly enjoy a large audience. A bachelor's in History doesn't serve as a great credential for scholarly journals, and my interests are broad, rather than tightly focused. I can occasionally get an old professor to co-publish with me when I write something that intrigues them. As I said, I pursue what catches my interest.”
“And Orion catches your interest?”
“A real-life masked crimefighter appearing from nowhere and pursuing justice when others won't? She's only missing the silver bullet. How could she not interest me?”
Sheila couldn't stop her eyes from widening, remembering what she'd said to herself on the motorcycle ride home from the first crime she had thwarted. There was something about this man that made her...nervous. Well, maybe that wasn't the right word, but she was unsettled by the way he acted, how he looked at her. It took an effort to keep herself from fidgeting.
“Well, it hardly seems historic.”
“As I said, my interests are wide, and, I like strong women, so a sexy superheroine naturally interests me.”
“How do you know she's sexy?” Sheila asked, not even trying to keep the challenge out of her eyes.
“The campus papers aren't the start of my research, just a continuation.”
“And?”
“I've talked to several of the crime victims...”
“You talked to a rape victim?”
“A victim of attempted rape, and I made it clear I only wanted to ask about her rescuer, plus several victims of attempted muggings. From their descriptions, this masked crimefighter is skilled in martial arts, moves with the grace of a dancer, and apparently is quite alluring to the men. At least her backside was. They were preoccupied until she had finished, and she was taking her leave, but they definitely remembered the view as she left.”
Sheila hoped her blush wasn't showing. She did think her ass was her best feature, and liked to fantasize about the right man grabbing and holding it, whoever the right man might turn out to be. She had bigger worries though. Jason seemed well on his way to creating a profile of her secret identity. Just then the papers arrived, and he took them and went back to the table. He took his time, not just skimming them, but thoroughly reading them and taking notes. She was finding it hard to concentrate on her work, so she locked his ID in her desk and headed for the restroom.
The library had nice restrooms, and she sat down on the bench that served as a makeup station with its oval mirror. Not that she was wearing makeup, but she needed to sit down away from the view from this Jason. There was a tingle of danger in that he was unknowingly investigating her by researching Orion. That made every exchange of conversation a tightrope walk, so she didn't give anything away. He didn't seem to have ill intent, but that didn't mean that he couldn't expose her to danger without realizing what he was doing, especially if this was an obsessive quest on his part.
He was handsome, she had to admit with a barely suppressed smile. And he was certainly different from any man she had ever met. She looked herself in the eyes trying to imagine what he had seen there when his eyes hadn't budged off hers for so long. On her part, she wasn't sure what she had seen in his eyes other than intelligence and curiosity. Well, maybe something else, but she wasn't sure what. She lifted her head and took inventory of herself. She wasn't sure what men saw when they looked at her, but she knew she was attractive enough to draw a certain amount of male attention, especially if she tried. She decided she needed some glasses to complete the “sexy librarian” look, so she could whip them off and shake her hair out of its topknot. She giggled softly, imagining herself doing such a thing and then realized she hadn't giggled since she was 12---very strange. The situation was tempting. She doubted Jason needed much encouragement. He certainly seemed rather sure of himself. Part of the attraction was probably the danger of the situation. She didn't need to be a psychologist to know that a good deal of the lure of taking on her crimefighting persona was courting danger. That was as Orion though, with a cowl to protect her identity. Was she ready to play with fire as Sheila? She shivered a little, sucked in a deep breath, and got up to leave.
It was four o'clock by the time Jason had brought back the latest set of the campus papers.
“Only a month and a half to go,” she remarked.
“It will wait until tomorrow. I need a break.”
“See you tomorrow then.”
“Unless I can tempt you with dinner tonight. What time do you get off?”
She silently looked at him for a second. The last question seemed very much to assume the answer to the first one. “You're rather sure of yourself.”
“No, just hopeful. It's not every day I meet an intelligent, beautiful woman.”
She smiled, lowered her face slightly but raised her eyes to keep hold of his. “I get off at 5, but I'll have to go home to change.”
“You look great right now. Please don't tell me you're one of those girls who needs to go home and put unnecessary makeup on just to go out with a poor country boy.”
“I highly doubt you're a poor country boy,” she laughed.
“So I'll pick you up in front of the library at 5 then?”
God, Jason was something else, smooth, insistent, but not crude or obnoxious. This was like a strange man pulling her out on a dance floor and skillfully leading her in a Tango.
“I'll be here,” she said, trying to forget the image that had just leapt into her head.
He was just outside the decorative arch that marked the transition from the library entrance to the concrete path that fronted it. She had taken her hair down when she left her desk, and she smiled to herself as she saw him look her up and down with his eyes as she walked towards him. He was far enough away to not make it obvious, but she could tell. He seemed to like what he saw. “Well, Jason, you are a man after all, aren't you?” she thought to herself.
“Where are we eating, Mr. Poor Country Boy?”
“I thought Thai food, if that's OK. It's about 6 blocks if you don't mind walking.”
“Sounds good to me. I like to walk.”
After they had gone a ways, she asked, “Did you have a backup?”
“Chinese. And Italian as a last resort, but I figure you for the adventurous type, and Chinese restaurants are everywhere.”
“You're so calculating Jason Francis Taylor!”
“What else did you get from my license Miss Smartypants?”
“Everything. As you said, I don't miss much.”
He reached around and held the door open for her. When the hostess walked them to a table in the center of the restaurant, he politely stopped her. “Can we have the table in the corner instead?”
After they sat, she said, “Not holding the chair for me? I'm disappointed.”
“Not as disappointed as you'd be if I tried it. No matter how many old movies I've watched I could never get the knack. I'd just end up knocking your knees into the table leg or worse.”
“How did you know I wouldn't be offended by your holding the door for me?”
“All women like having a man hold a door for them. But if they don't like the man, it just makes a convenient excuse for putting him in his place right off.”
“So, you're saying I like you?” she asked smiling, with a twinkle in her eyes, “And just how much experience have you had with women?”
“Enough with rejection to begin to see the patterns.”
“I would have thought you're the one doing the rejecting.”
“Sometimes,” he smiled.
“OK, so now I want to hear the secrets that men don't divulge. If you do the asking, what makes you decide on doing the rejecting?”
“You can't tell everything by just looking although you can tell a lot, but you get the idea pretty quickly once you've made the first move.”
“And I haven't made the reject pile yet?”
“At this point I'd be heartbroken if you did.”
“Really? And you've sized me up that well already?”
“I've already told you,” he replied, taking the cue and all too obviously visually sizing her up, running his eyes from hers down her plain white but tight-fitting blouse and slowly back up, “I like smart, sexy, adventurous women.”
“And all women like flattery too,” she said, turning her head slightly, “but I know there's more than that.”
“All right, you asked for the secrets men don't tell. If you were someone just out for free drinks and partying, you would have wanted to see my car before going anywhere with me. If you were just interested in a roll in the hay, you would have done more than just let your hair down, you would have undone a button or two on your blouse and shaken your hair out when you came outside. Doing it when you leave a building seems innocent enough to not be obvious.”
Sheila laughed. “So that's why you met me outside the library. You're so devious Mr. Taylor!”
“You asked me to be honest with you, so no fair holding it against me now that I've given you my man secrets.”
“Most men don't have secrets. Men are simple. They go for what they want. If they don't, they're broken. It's how they go for it that's different.”
“I suppose so,” he said thoughtfully, “but then women are just as dedicated to the same thing. They're just more subtle at it.”
“You seem to have us figured out pretty well.”
“One survives by learning.”
Their food was gone, and Jason sat with his perfect hands calmly layered on top of each other on the table in front of him. She couldn't help imagining her own hands lying comfortably under his, gently trapping them in a chaste embrace. Who was this man?
“Do you practice martial arts?”
“Not any more. Too tall to go too far. What made you ask that?”
“You don't fidget. There's a stillness and comfort with one's body that only comes from a lot of practice.”
They were both surprised when the waitress told them that it was closing time.
“Should I drive you home?” he asked as they reached the library.
“It's not far. I'll walk. I always do.”
“Would you like company? I'm afraid I've kept you out rather late.”
“Not necessary. As you said, the crime rate in this neighborhood is way down.”
“I suppose it is,” he said, and a strange look of regret and sadness crossed his face but quickly disappeared. What exactly was that about?
“Somehow this whole day doesn't seem normal. I feel like we're in a book,” she said.
“A good one or a bad one?”
“Good so far.”
“So you're going to keep reading?”
“Not stopping yet. I'll be here tomorrow. Now I need to get my beauty sleep.” She reached her arms up around his neck and kissed him. Their tongues wrestled gently, deliciously for just a few seconds until she broke it off. “Always leave them wanting more as they used to say in Vaudeville,” she said, twirling her loose skirt around her as she gracefully turned and walked away as un-selfconsciously as she could manage. She did smile as she heard the sharp intake of breath that came in response.
#
Sheila walked a few steps away from Jason and dropped her skirt to the floor, revealing her Orion costume. She turned away to face the wall and bent over, putting her palms out to the wall to hold herself with her ass jutted out towards him seductively. She turned her head to him, letting her hair float gently around her face. “Like what you see?”
Jason silently strode up to her, standing right behind her, put one hand around each of Sheila's thighs and pulled them back towards him, pulling her ass tightly against his flat stomach and making the tips of her fingers on the wall the only thing preventing her from falling flat. Well that, and those firm hands holding her thighs tightly. She squirmed, and then woke up.
“Oh boy!” she thought, covering her lips with her hand and inhaling sharply. What the hell was that? This didn't happen. This was not happening. She was 24, not some love-struck teenager meeting Elvis. He did have that seductively deep voice though. “Shut up!” she told herself. She needed a cold shower to get herself ready for work.
Jason handed Sheila his request card and ID as soon as she sat down. “And how are you this morning?” he said with a soft tone in that deep, smooth voice of his.
“Very good, thanks, and thank you for dinner last night,” she added, smiling. Strangely she felt like she was letting out an embarrassing secret like they had actually slept together last night. Must be the dream, she thought.
“Tell me about this collection of yours. Surely they have you in charge of more than just newspapers.”
“It started with Dr. Lloyd Eaton donating his huge personal collection of pulp magazines, fanzines, and first editions of early SF. We've added comics, graphic novels, and when Bob Rogers donated his vintage pulp mystery books, correspondence, fanzines and film noir DVDs, we expanded into mystery as well. It's the largest collection in the world.”
“So I'm guessing you're very familiar with the collection?”
“Well I still haven't explored it all. It's more than 100,000 books and almost as many fanzines, but I do enjoy the collection myself. It's one of the perks of my job.”
“So, in the mysteries and comics, what's your favorite type, the Good Girl, the Femme Fatale, or the Damsel in Distress?”
“Would it shock you that I like the superheroine?”
“Of course you would,” he laughed heartily, “What else could it be? Although you do realize that the superheroine frequently ends up the Damsel in Distress.”
“Yes, but then she rescues herself. There's no reward without struggle.”
“And I would expect no less!” and this time they both laughed.
The papers had arrived, and the “stacker” handed them over with a surprised look at the pair's badinage.
It only took Jason 2 hours to finish his task, and he reluctantly handed over the last set of papers and asked for his ID.
“So, is your research complete?”
“This phase is, but I have one more phase to do, although I'm almost tempted to skip it, and start a new pursuit with another part of your collection.”
“That doesn't sound like you,” she replied, holding his ID in her upraised palm instead of handing it over with her fingers.
“Well, sometimes there are extenuating circumstances,” he said, taking hold of her fingers and flipping her hand over, so the ID fell gently to the desk. He lifted her hand and planted a courtly kiss on the fingers he curled over slightly to receive the gesture.
She smiled and blushed, “and can you live with yourself if you leave your quest undone, or will it haunt you?” she asked. Then, after she said it, she remembered that his current quest was finding everything there was to know about Orion.
“We've known each other for too short a time for you to know me that well, but you're probably right,” he added with a hint of sadness as he picked up his ID and replaced it in his wallet. “Of course some quests come to a dead end, and that takes the sting out of abandoning them to leave it for someone else to find and eventually take up.
“On to the last phase of my quest then. You won't see me for a week or maybe two. If, after two, I'm not back, rest assured I will never forget you,” he finished and turned to leave.
“Wait, what? Is it dangerous?”
“Only to my peace of mind,” he said as a parting shot and was gone.
