The Gastacular Burpstorm - Chapter 3 (Commission) (Patreon)

Richard Benton knew that the Gastacular Burpstorm was Martha, the girl who worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at The Old Time Tavern.

Richard was 99% sure of it. So sure, that he was willing to test it.

Tonight was the night – he would approach the Gastacular Burpstorm in person.

Once upon a time, Richard was in the mall shopping for Mother’s Day. There was nothing particular extraordinary about that day. It was stressful, his mom was picky, and he was staring at his reflection in a storefront window wondering where he went wrong in life that he became a man in his early thirties still living with his mother. Ever since Dad died, his mom became more and more dependent on him for things, especially as her arthritis got worse. A weekend staying over to help turned into a week, and then a month, and then – a lifestyle.

He trudged into the parking lot after spending two hours finding a gift for his mother. His head low, he didn’t see the gang of thieves stalking him from all sides, making sure to cut off any exits. He didn’t think of his car as being very expensive – a black Hyundai Sonata. But people were desperate these days for anything.

One of the thieves pistol-whipped him from behind and brought him to the ground. They tried to wrangle the keys from his hands but he held them tightly, still trying to process what was going on and why.

Maybe I don’t want to let go. It’ll all be over soon…

That’s when someone interrupted them. He didn’t quite hear what they said, as the attack had somewhat discombobulated him. Next thing he knew, he heard a massive belch that nearly ruptured his eardrums. He clasped his ears and waited until the vibration ended.

Car alarms blared.

When nothing more was happening, he cautiously crawled from underneath his car. Standing next to him was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. She wore skintight leggings and a tight tank top that complemented her bust. She was standing over him so he happened to look up directly at a pair of large glutes in those taut leggings. He blushed and looked away, scrambling awkwardly to his feet.

“Uhhhh,” was all he could say.

He surveyed the scene – two of the thieves had run away scared while the third was still moaning from injuries on top of one of the cars.

“Did you…how did…?”

He turned to face her. She had tan skin and striking amber eyes. Her dark hair went down past her shoulders. She stood awkwardly with her hands on her hips, seemingly appearing robotic. She then snorted a laugh. “I burped.”

Richard’s cheeks went warm.

A woman like her burping like that? It sounded so…manly.

That singular burp had such depth and bass to it.

Richard couldn’t explain why – but he started to feel aroused by that fact.

There was so much he wanted to say and ask. The words clogged up his throat and before he knew it, she left cheerfully shouted, “See ya around!” and disappeared into the night.

Richard’s life was never quite the same after that. For the first time in a long time, he was driven to seek something.

I HAVE to know who she is!

He received some minor notoriety at first, apparently both for being the first known person Burpstorm ever saved and also coining her superhero name. He blushed whenever he wondered what she must have thought of that. Hopefully she liked the name. She must have! Else she would complain to the media about it.

The search took nearly five years but it was worth it.

Sometimes, the answers come up when you least expect them. His friends invited him to have a drink at the Old Time Tavern one Friday night. Crowded bars weren’t really his thing but he figured he should try to have a social life once and a while.

Richard and his five friends managed to find a spot in the far corner of the bar. One of the bartenders was a tattooed man but the other was this attractive Hispanic-looking woman. Richard paid attention when she heard her laugh – she snorted before guffawing. Some people might have found it unattractive but to Richard he didn’t mind, and it may have been contagious. But that sound struck him and brought him back to the night Burpstorm saved his life.

Long black hair, athletic figure.

He pictured her wearing the mask…the mouth and chin were familiar.

He looked at a picture of Burpstorm on Google and then back up at the bartender…then back down again…

If that was really her, she would recognize him. He tested that hypothesis, and raised his hand for a drink.

“Yeah?” said the male bartender, popping into view from the side.

Dammit, not you.

Richard pretended not to hear the guy and instead locked eyes in the woman’s direction. She was busy making a slew of cocktails.

“Hey, buddy. I’m right over here.”

The male bartender waved in his face. Richard glumly ordered a whiskey sour.

His friends were typical frat boys he had hung onto from college. Every friend group has the least vocal member who was somewhat the nerdiest. Richard was that friend. He rarely partied with them and shared the same enthusiasm for going out late at night trying to pick up girls until the wee hours of the morning. Despite this, they liked having him around, almost like taking in a stray cat. They always tried to get him to talk a girl, often with awkward results.

Kyle, his first friend from college and former roommate, slapped both hands on his shoulders and said, “I saw you looking at that girl there, man. You think she’s cute?”

Richard gulped, but then realized that for the first time ever Kyle and his rowdy bunch might work in his favor for once.

“Yeah,” Richard said. “She’s pretty cute. But she’s busy. Can’t get her attention.”

Kyle effortlessly called over the woman. Richard didn’t get it. It must have been Kyle’s towering stature. Bald head maybe? Definitely the booming voice.

“Hey, can we get some shots here?”

The woman flashed a smile and said, “Sure, whaddya want?”

“Five blowjob shots!”

Richard muttered a curse under his breath and felt second-hand embarrassment to be there. Blowjob shots were a real thing, coffee liqueur with cream liqueur, but the entire barside was now aware of their order and chuckled and looked at them, while some others were confused.

The bartendress took the order without hesitation. She snorted a laugh again and served them up right in front of them. Richard could hear Kyle whispering to the other guys behind him that he was interested in the bartendress.

For the first time that night, the bartendress actually looked up and paid attention to Richard.

And there it was.

It was a split second but Richard knew it.

She recognized him.

A very brief, awkward look where her smile almost straightened. She very nearly looked like she was about to say, “Oh shit.”

And in an instant, she composed herself and said, “There you go, boys!” with a very customer-servicey smile.

Richard knew it.

This woman – Martha by the name on the receipt – had to be Burpstorm.

Before he could even think of what to say, Kyle said aloud, “You know why we ordered these?”

Martha looked at him blankly.

Kyle patted Richard on the back. “Because my buddy here likes you.”

The rest of his friends went “Oooooo!” and roared with laughter. Richard wanted to die. He grimaced and looked away, really realizing that he wanted to kill Kyle.

Martha seemed nonplussed. She frowned and said, “Does he now?”

With that, she returned to other customers, until she disappeared behind the bar and didn’t come back out for the rest of the night.

So that first night had been an embarrassing bust, but it wasn’t like he had expected that to happen at all to begin with. The moment he returned home to his apartment, he went to work researching more on the Old Time Tavern, Martha, and Burpstorm. There had to be a connection, something to cross-reference. Despite it being almost 2AM he pored over the latest articles and started to make some startling connections.

Nearly every nightly appearance of Burpstorm was late at night within a 5-mile radius of the Old Time Tavern. Richard made a list of the street names and how far they were from the place. In fact, the mall that Burpstorm saved him in was a 5-minute walk from the Old Time Tavern.

The daytime had a completely different pattern. Burpstorm incidents were located further downtown, a 15-minute subway ride that was a direct line to the tavern. Some of the furthest incidents were across the city limits in the suburbs. She must have some family or friends to venture off that far.

The longer Richard sat on it, the more he was convinced that he finally had a lead.

He wouldn’t return to that tavern until he was officially ready to approach Martha. First, he kept tabs on any new Burpstorm incidents. They continued to follow the pattern he found. He may or may not have done a little cyberstalking on a “Martha Old Time Tavern” online, and ran into her last name.

That was as far as he went…before he stopped and wondered how this would play out. He was banking on playing off like he didn’t know who she was. He could easily play it off as a chance encounter that previous night that simply made him want to stop by again. But he wasn’t the type of person to keep a secret like that for long. It would haunt him. He would somehow break telling her that he suspected from the beginning who she was and was trying to find out. And what then?

Richard sighed.

Whatever, so be it. Maybe it was Kyle rubbing off on him, but he hoped not too much.

This was going to be the biggest thing he had ever done out of his comfort zone. If it didn’t work out, then it didn’t work out.

#

When Richard went to the Old Time Tavern alone, Martha looked at him and her reaction was more mixed than anything. Richard immediately thought this was a bad idea. But he stuck to the plan and casually asked for a whisky sour.

Martha served it to him and went away, not really acknowledging him further.

He loitered on his phone pretending to text somebody, all the way eying her from across the bar. She clearly looked frazzled; not the same friendly energy as the first time he came across her.

Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe I’m freaking her out.

Superheroes must be extra cautious about people being onto their secret identity, right? For all he knew, Martha could be wondering if he had some sinister motive. He had to somehow disarm any tension.

At the corner where he and his friends sat the other night, there were a group of three girls, possibly recently graduated from college. They all stirred their mixed drinks and giggled and were talking about someone on their phone.

Richard downed his drink (he would need something to ease his nerves) and approached them.

He mimicked Kyle’s posture and loud voice, albeit a little shaky, and asked them if they could buy any of them a drink. The girl whose phone they were looking at obliged. She was a cute and perky brunette with a boyish haircut. Her name was Janet, and she liked big dogs and reading smut.

When Janet asked for a rum and coke, it occurred to Richard the possibility of getting her to burp out loud. That might attract Martha’s attention.

Janet’s friends weren’t entirely interested in talking to Richard, which was a blessing that meant he could be more in control of the conversation.

Janet had her second rum-and-coke. Minutes after downing it, while Richard was talking about the ins-and-outs of stock trading (he himself was falling asleep just talking about it), she put a hand to her mouth and looked away letting off a closed-mouth burp.

Richard played it off like she was getting sick so he said aloud, “Oh, are you alright?”

She hiccupped and patted her chest, chuckling. “No, no, I just had a burp, sorry.”

“Well, better in than out! You don’t have to be ashamed.”

Richard couldn’t believe what he had just said out loud, but three whiskey sours in and he began to realize that almost anything in his head was ready to roll off the tongue.

Janet laughed and brushed his arm with her hand. “Haha, thanks!”

From the corner of his eye, Richard noticed Martha looking at them.

Yes, thank God she heard that!

As it neared 2AM, Martha rang the bell that hung at the far corner of the bar for last call. Janet’s friends thought she had enough and wanted to take her home. Janet herself was more than a little drunk and was actually interested in Richard, to the point where she left him his number. He stared down at it and was frankly upset because the one time he wasn’t trying to get with someone they were somehow magically interested.

The bar was mostly empty except for him, an old man nursing a glass of bourbon, a small group of friends chatting in low voices at a nearby booth, and Martha herself cleaning off the counter from the night’s debauchery.

Richard was zoning out looking at Janet’s number before Martha actually spoke to him.

“Last call is coming up. You know what you want?’

Richard looked up. Martha was so pretty it was actually quite intimidating to try and talk to her. He blanked out and said, “I don’t know yet.”

Martha nodded her head to the piece of paper in his hands. “So…I guess you were lucky tonight?”

Richard looked up again, amazed that she continued talking to him. He was too infatuated to say anything coherent (and whiskey still swirled in his brain a bit).

“Uh. Ummm. Yeah. I guess.”

“You don’t seem too happy about it.”

He sighed. “Just…rethinking my life.”

“Gotcha.”

She bent down to her knees to put a few bottles away on the shelf behind her. He caught a glimpse of her firm asscheeks, and quickly looked away.

“You gonna call her?” she asked.

“Yeah. Eventually.”

“She seemed nice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she did.”

After scrubbing the counter for a few more seconds, Martha said flatly, “You’re not into her, are you.”

Richard chuckled. “No. Not at all. Can you just…throw this away or something?”

“Sure thing.” She plucked Janet’s number, ripped it to shreds and tossed them in the trash. “What went wrong? If you don’t mind me asking…”

“Nothing really. There just wasn’t that…feeling. You know?’

“Yeah. It happens. People can be nice and check off all the boxes but it still doesn’t feel right. I definitely know that feeling.”

Richard’s heart was racing fast, too fast for his liking. Butterflies swirled in his stomach and he tried not to break into a dumb smile. They were actually talking to each other – chatting.

“No sense in pursuing it if I don’t feel it, you know?” he said. “Don’t want to lead her on.”

Martha gave him a certain smile, tilting her head. “Yeah. Exactly. Lots of men don’t know what they want and keep fucking around.” After rubbing a glass with a drying cloth, she said, “So, do you know what you want?’

“Oh yeah,” Richard said, maybe a little quickly. He cleared his throat. “Yeah. I know what I want. She wasn’t what I wanted.”

Martha shook her head laughing. “No, no, I mean for last call.”

Richard blushed. “Oh. OH! Right. Yeah. You’re about to close right? Shit, look at the time. Ummm.”

Martha went ahead and gave him a glass of whiskey sour. “This one’s on me.”

Richard stared at the drink. “You sure?’

“Yeah.”

After a long moment, he asked, “Uh. You gonna have one to end the night?”

Martha suddenly frowned. She looked away. “Nah. I don’t…really drink.”

“A bartender who doesn’t really drink? That’s interesting.”

Martha didn’t elaborate, so Richard didn’t push it further. He stayed until he was the last patron there, which only took about ten more minutes. Martha locked everything up after him and bade him goodnight.

Richard walked back to the subway to his apartment, all the way feeling warm in his stomach not from the whiskey sour but something else…