Power Dating 2 (Patreon)

Ted dropped back against the plush seat cushion like he’d been blown back by a shockwave. “Intimidation! That’s intimidating!”

“I’m not asking you to slay a dragon for me. Just be charming, cute, personable…”

“That’s a very intimidating prospect!”

“There’s no reason it should be,” Karen informed him blithely. “I think you’re pretty cute already.”

Ted flushed and a shallow smile managed to make itself known on his handsome face. Karen chuckled. He was embarrassed by his awkwardness, but pleased that he’d gotten a laugh out of her, so he joined her.

“The truth is,” Karen finally managed through her laughter. “I have no social life. No friends. Women think I’m a whore because of how big my tits are. Men hope I’m a whore.”

“Oh, not Wonder Woman!” Ted cried in dismay.

“No, no Wondy. Or Dinah. They’re great. But I can’t spend all my time with them. Wondy always makes with the teachable moments feminism and Dinah keeps dating Green Arrow. If you told me that guy’s purpose in life was to rope me into a threesome…”

“No worries of that with me,” Ted promised her. “I can barely get one girl into bed.”

“You’ve gotten me to drink down an entire glass of scotch,” Karen mused. “It’s a start.”

“You’re a Kryptonian. That can’t have much effect on you.”

“Ooh, but let’s pretend it does.”

“So you thought you’d go out with me because… I’m here?”

“You’re normal. No, don’t get me wrong, you’re above-average. Smart, athletic, rich. But you’re not trying to get revenge on someone for blowing up your planet or prevent some dystopian future full of robots. You dress up all in powder-blue because it’s the right thing to do. And you have fun. Do you know how many people laugh like you in the JSA?”

“Well—is Johnny Thunder in the line-up?”

Karen smiled. “Funny. You’re funny. I need a guy who can make me laugh.”

“So you’re telling me you want to go out with me because I seem nice, I’m well-adjusted, and you think I’d be a good boyfriend?”

She shrugged. “And you’re cute enough to make a bug-themed supersuit looked good.”

Ted nodded dazedly. “My mother always said it would work out this way for me, but I never believed her…”

Karen’s smile went still, instead of the living thing it had been. She looked at Ted, one hand resting on her half-exposed breast. He really believed her, she thought. She looked the way she did and it was affecting him more to have her praise him, compliment him, than to see her body and hear her innuendo.

“You really like me,” she said in astoundment.

“Of course I do,” Ted said, sounding almost as astonished. “Doesn’t everyone?”

They like my body, Karen thought. If he were one of them, he would be on the make, desiring her, telling her what she wanted to hear so long as it got her. But whatever else he was, Ted was sincere. He didn’t flatter her; he simply appreciated her.

Karen lifted her glass and toasted. “To you.”

Ted couldn’t stop smiling, pleased that he’d managed to cheer her and that she hadn’t yet taken any of his friendliness for some cheap come-on. Booster would probably think he was mad, not capitalizing on this advance he’d made to woo Karen with everything he had. But this seemed nice for both of them. Not playing offense and defense, but simply enjoying each other’s company.

Was it just friendliness? She was stunning. He was staggeringly attracted to her and she actually seemed to like him back. Ted wasn’t much of a man of the world, but he considered himself at least a little mature. He knew that if Karen was going to like him, really like him, then he had to be honest.

Karen had just put her drink on the table when Ted said, “I am hoping for more.”

“Oh,” Karen said, flashing him a look to pretend she knew exactly what he was talking about, like it was all part of her grand seduction. If he was like the rest of them after all, she wouldn’t act as shocked as she felt.

“Don’t get me wrong. It’d be great if we were just friends and just hung out and just talked like we have been doing,” Ted said, almost pleading for acceptance. “I just want you to know I’m not… pretending to be your friend to get you into bed. I think you’re lovely. Absolutely scintillating. I want your friendship—I understand if that’s all you have for me—but I think I can give you more than that.”

“I understand,” Karen said, wanting to believe him, but both charmed and abashed that he was so naïve. What was he even talking about? Did he think it was a state secret that he wanted to have sex with her?

“I just want to be honest with you,” Ted added.

“Then be honest,” Karen told him. “Tell me about your day.”

“My day? Who cares about my day?”

“Ted, you’re a mad scientist. You own a multinational corporation. And you’re a superhero. If nothing else, you hang out with Booster all the time. If he’s not doing something interesting, he’s asleep.”

“Well, I don’t know if I would call this interesting, but…”

Ted talked for almost an hour, pausing only for Karen to comment or question or relate to one of his misadventures. The server regularly brought them more drinks, sparing Ted from having to derail his narrative. He was used to talking with Michael, the two of them barraging each other with repartee back and forth, but Karen really listened. Her own replies only confirming that she was understanding and responding to everything he told.

He thought that he struck a chord with her as he poured out everything from trivialities to deep uncertainties; what started out as the day’s twists and turns became years of dutiful service, infrequent rewards, small satisfactions, and grin-and-bear-it frustrations… all dislodged and pouring out of him. It wasn’t anything like his life story, but it felt full and complete; his voice angry at times, sad at others. Sometimes laughing through his tears. It actually made him feel like he knew himself better—helping Karen to know him.

“It’s odd,” he continued. “Being rich didn’t make me happy and being some captain of industry didn’t make me happy. I lost almost all of that lifestyle to this life, but I really do like helping people. I just feel like I never do much of it—like Superman gets more done in one day than I do all year.”

Karen stared at him, her mouth unable to form words. She could feel the tears behind his eyes, like the tears behind hers. Here was someone who shared a longing with her. She knew how much he wanted to belong, to be a part of something. She felt his losses—a tragedy that wasn’t the same as hers, but that’d had the same impact on both their lives.

For all their power and will and intellect, all too often they were not the masters of their own lives. Regular people, she knew, very rarely felt in control. But them, superheroes, Justice Leaguers, able to enforce their will on so much of the world, felt its randomness all the more keenly.

Which made her wonder what had brought them together. Fortune’s heedless circumstances or their own choices, like a canoe being rowed through whitewater rapids? That resonated with Karen, as she sat there with Ted in the dimly lit cocktail lounge.

She’d actually rescued a few rafters… and not had to rescue several others. The ones who needed help were those who fought the river. Those who didn’t were able to work with the river, to ride the chaos, and live with arriving safely where they ended up, even if it wasn’t where they’d intended to be.

“Oh Rao,” she whispered, and put out her hand to touch his. “I think I understand what you’ve been through. But how can you ever know anything of Krypton… not even this universe’s Krypton? I barely understand Earth after all these years…”

“I speak Klingon,” Ted reasoned, feeling that they’d found something together. “It’s actually pretty fascinating that you’re an alien. I suppose it’s pretty commonplace with J’onn and Kal and all…”

“But they don’t look like me?” Karen chuckled.

“Well, no… but don’t try to explain it to me. Just tell me how it all made you feel.”

Karen actually blushed. “Including you? That would be telling.”

“Okay then. Before we went on our date.”

“I was desperate.” Karen smiled depreciatingly. “Obviously.”

“I know you said that I was normal… more or less. Let’s have a normal conversation.”

Slowly, at first, Karen began to speak. Haltingly, afraid that he might not understand her as she had him. She began with her childhood on Krypton, the panic as it became increasingly obvious the planet was doomed, her parting from her parents… and then faltered when she started to talk about growing to adulthood in the virtual environment of her AI education.

Coming to Earth as a young woman, she’d been thoroughly knowledgeable, but had almost no emotional awareness besides a certain cast-iron tolerance for loneliness and isolation.

But, when she looked at Ted again, she stopped hesitating and kept going, telling him about the ins and outs of the Justice Society and her accomplished but empty life as Karen Starr, CEO.

“Well,” she said when her story had finally reached the present, “what do you think?”

“I think I know how you feel,” Ted answered, not quite readily, but more handily than she would’ve guessed.

“And how’s that?”

“In a word? A lot.”

“That’s two words.”

“One word and a letter,” Ted demurred. “But seriously. You’ve lost so much, but you’ve also had an incredible life. The kind of life that inspired me to chuck everything I’d been working for and put on blue underoos.”

“What you wear is far more flattering than underroos,” Karen informed him.

“Peej, if you knew how flattering clothes were and weren’t, you would never put on the costume you do.”

“Oh, because I turn guys on?” Karen tittered. “What makes you think that’s not what I want?”

Ted coughed. “As edifying as this subject is, let’s keep on track. How do you feel about all that? You’ve had a hell of a life, but what do you think of it?”

Karen considered it for a moment. How do I feel? Her anger at her circumstances was gone. Much as she missed Krypton, she was happy on Earth, with friends like Atlee, a position in the JSA, all the wild and woolly shenanigans she got into. However off-the-wall it was, she still managed to help people.

When she pictured Krypton, she felt sorrow that it was gone, but she didn’t miss it exactly. It had left her life like childhood. It seemed impossible now that it could’ve stayed.

“I feel like there’s been a lot of weight on me,” she told Ted. “I know how to hold it up. But I’ve also started putting some of it down.”

By now Ted’s eyes had perused every inch of Karen that her dress so exuberantly showed off—relishing the fine creamy skin of her breasts that were half-hidden by her low-cut dress, but their softness and proud firmness obvious from the sight of them alone. He’d heard and absorbed every word she’d spoken, but his mind couldn’t refuse the imagining of her luscious body. It was part and parcel with how interesting her conversation was.

He watched, listened, and understood more about her, feeling more sympathy for her even as his attraction to her never went away… like a constant hum of energy, the sexual power he knew he’d possess with her if he took her to bed. It was possible to stand it in small quantities, but more than two hours had gone by since their first round of drinks and the opening salvo of their conversation.

In the pause that followed… equal parts awkward and comfortable… Ted felt compelled to blurt something out before the silence of not saying it could feel like a deception. “I can’t promise that you’d… I mean, I’d do everything in my power to make sure… I really think you would, but I can’t promise… I’d…” He groped for the right words. “I think you’d really enjoy making love to me.”