“I’m starting to lose faith in the process. I’ve seen at least two different bull-men walking about the streets of Madripoor and all we’re getting is guys with motorcycle helmets and creepy weirdos who torture the ghost of their dead twins. Why aren’t we getting anyone good?”
Martialla shrugged “Why are we getting anyone in here is the real question. Where are these people coming from? Also, those bull men are called Minotaurs.”
“What?”
“From the Greek myth? The being that is part bull and part human is called the Minotaur. The king of Minos was being a jerk to Poseidon so Poseidon made his wife fall in love with a bull and so she and the bull did it, and her baby was the Minotaur.”
“What the hell are you talking about? This isn’t a classic literature class, these are just morons who were stupid enough to let some egghead scientists shove bull hormones up their butts and turn them into mutants.”
Martialla crossed her arms angrily “I’m just telling you what they’re called.”
Blue moved to block my sightline to Martialla as he does sometimes when we bicker “I know who you’re talking about. One of those guys is a ram, not a bull.”
I was about to tell Blue to shut up when I noticed that our next applicant was there. And by applicant, I mean a woman in a black catsuit with a god damn whip. She had heels on her god damn boots! How the hell are you going to do anything with heels on your super-boots? I’m not even going to mention her ridiculously pendulous breasts. I stood up from behind Alcazar’s desk and pointed towards the door.
“No, no. You get out of here with that shit! We’re looking for superheroes, we’re not casting for a Russ Meyer movie!”
The small part of her face that I could see seemed puzzled “What?”
I gestured more emphatically “Get the hell out here! You look like you belong in the window of a Times Square bondage store!”
Martialla peered around Blue to glower at me “Calm down Ela, just because you took a women’s studies class in community college doesn’t mean you have to shout at everyone all the time. Maybe she can help us. At least give her a chance.”
“Sure, here’s your chance – give me one good reason why you’d dress like that other than appearing in a fetish magazine!”
I couldn’t see her eyes because her get-up had some kind of goggle type thing, but her voice was flinty “Chill out, you don’t like the way I’m dressed that’s fine, but you don’t have to be a bitch about it. This suit is what gives me my super powers. I didn’t design it, I didn’t make it, I just wear it so I can do my job. If I didn’t wear it just because of what it looks like, that would be wrong. You think any of the people I’ve saved care what I look like?”
“What about the whip? You cannot tell me that serves any purpose!”
“It does actually. I can’t fly. I can jump pretty far, but I can’t fly – the whip helps extend my reach. I jump, I get the whip around something, and I swing up.”
“Bullshit, there’s no way that works. You can’t swing around from building to building with a ten foot whip.”
“Look I’m not here to debate you on whip physics. I was told that you needed help, if you don’t want my help just say so, there’s no need for personal attacks. I don’t need to take your abuse, we can both just go our separate ways. But since you brought it up, if you think you’re the arbiter of how women are dressed, you’re the one who’s the problem. Restrictions on the way women can dress have been used as a way to control and restrict what we can and can’t do for centuries, so don’t sit there on your high horse and judge me. The way I dress is none of your damn business. You or anyone else.”
“You cannot be that stupid, you have to know what you’re doing when you run around in a skintight sex bag.”
She snorted “You’re going to sit there and judge me? What have you ever done? I save lives, I don’t sit on the sidelines clucking my tongue about the bellbottom pants and how two young people’s hips might touch if they do the Bump. Just because you’re dressed like a train hopping hobo, don’t bark at me like a dog because I have some style.”
“The style of a Saigon whore maybe.”
She lifted her chin “Say that again. Say that again and I’ll teach you some manners you prissy little flat-chested plain Jane.”
I laughed “Sure why not, violence, we come to it at last. Somehow I knew we’d end up here. I’m not going to fight you because I’m not a ten year old boy, I’m not going to meet you by the bike rack after sixth period because you said your dad was stronger than my dad. Plus it wouldn’t be fair, with your fat flabby tits waving around, you have me outnumbered three to one.”
She laughed back at me “Figures, you’re all talk, like all big mouths.”
“I’m an adult. I don’t get into fights like a dirty alley cat just because I disagree with someone.”
She crossed her arms “Fifty grand.”
“What?”
“I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars if you fight me. Looks like you could use it. Win or lose the fifty is yours, you just have to show up. What excuse are you going to come up with now?”
Wait, is this the same leather whip woman, or a different leather whip woman, than the one that attacked in the closet-apartment?
Different, it’s an epidemic!