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Because you found the secret spot... Here's your prize, a rare Fishnet Angel prose story that first appeared in the iHero E-zine and hasn't been seen since then...
A Thing of the Past
The nerve of that woman. I flicked off the TV in the hotel room, already bored by all the Christmas specials, and ready for the season to be over with and let things settle back into normal again. On the dresser was the box of ten cards, unopened, I bought last week to mail to the only friends I knew shared my secret. One for Andi, one for Arachnid, and just to say thanks, one for the Lake Anderson post office marked for the Swan. The other seven would get tossed into the trash. Too get my mind off the note, I tried the clock radio beside the bed, and turned it off immediately. Still nothing but holiday music. It wasn’t like I had been very religious before, only a “sort of” Catholic by the most liberal definition, but religion kind of becomes a moot point when a goddess from an ancient pagan city chooses you as her new living quarters. I mean, how does something like Christmas still mean anything when you become a goddess yourself? A knock at the door jerked me from my thoughts. “You okay in there?” asked a male voice. “I heard a crash.” I got up and walked to the door and cracked it open with the latch still on. “Sure, I’m fine. Just tripped and fell.” “Well, if you’re sure.” I could tell by the way he was trying to peak into the room that he didn’t quite believe me. “If you need anything, I’m right next door.” His eyes made it down to the top of my shoulders before I glared at him. Sure you are, I thought. I wonder if your wife knows what you’re thinking about right now. “Thanks,” I said and pushed the door closed. Then I turned the privacy latch and headed back to the bed. I’d have to reveal my identity as Fishnet Angel in order to explain the indention in the furniture, that and dig into my public speaking money to replace it—unless the manager wanted to keep the piece as a memento and auction it off on E-Bay to the superhero cult following that always seemed to stay a half step behind me whenever I tried to lay low. I dropped onto the bed, crossed my legs in the style that had become almost second nature to me thanks to the inclinations and contours of the body I’d been growing far too used to, then reached across the sheets for the note and picked it up again. “Marcia,” Andi’s personal bit began, not Mark, reminding me again that in her mind any relationship we might ever consider was a thing of the past. “I know you’re mad. I don’t blame you. But nothing would make me happier than if you came to the wedding. I’ve already told Greg all about you—well, not all about you, but a lot about you—and I hope you can still find it in your heart to make our happy day even happier. I don’t need your blessings on this, but I do want them. And they’d make it a lot easier for both of us to move on.” Move on?! I’d moved on at more times than I liked to think about since taking Andi’s place and getting the magickal whammy that turned me into a supergoddess. My ability to move on had already cost me my place in her apartment, my spot on the left side of her bed, my wedding at her side, the memory of the our first date, my identity as Mark, and God knows what else. If anybody had moved on, I had. But since when did moving on mean she had to get married to someone else just as I was resigning myself to being stuck like as a woman? “Fine,” I said to the note. “Just fine. Get married and have his kids and pick out a minivan in the suburbs. And die fat and miserable and in debt up to both of your freaking eyeballs for all I care.” I stared from the note to the mirror and concentrated on the change I’d only recently learned to control, the physical transformation from petite, Middle-Eastern Marcia to blonde, Amazonian Fishnet Angel. The striking woman staring back at me didn’t have to be lonely. She shouldn’t have to be alone at all. Not tonight or any other night of her life. Only I’d never considered any kind of relationship other than one with Andi, and she’d made it clear that was out of the question. Still, there were thousands of other people in the Cristol City alone who would jump at the chance to spend the night with a superhero as well-known as Fishnet Angel. Maybe even someone like Marble Girl. Sure, there would be lots of guys looking to score too, but I hadn’t moved on that much. The man inside that gorgeous woman still knew what he was. In spite of the body that housed him. And so what if the plumbing had changed. I still remembered how to make love to a woman, and there wasn’t any rule that said I’d have to get as good as I could give. So I did the unthinkable. I went shopping for something to help me pick up someone. Nearly two hours later, I found myself at Wunderland in a black dress, the fishnets I hated, flats that weren’t so casual they looked out of place, and a string of genuine pearls around my neck to top off the whole advertising campaign. The dress hugged and rode my hips with every step, making me regret buying it, and the pearls made me feel like somebody’s trophy date, but I had to admit they were doing the job I’d bought them to do. People noticed me, and in exactly the way I wanted to be noticed—that hungry sort of James Taylor, “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight” way. But after the fifth time I had to let a guy know I wasn’t interested did the magnitude of my stupidity sink in. Sex. I had tramped up and hit the club for sex. Just because I was mad at Andi. And my anger was going to send me to the bed of some strange woman I couldn’t care less about just to get back at a woman who’d never know what she’d made me do. And to top it off, I hadn’t once thought about the baby. Sure, I still wasn’t showing enough to ruin the effect of the dress, but a night of drinking and being around that much smoke couldn’t have been good for even a magickal prophesy child. And the ironic thing about it was that the thought of being a mother was the only thing I’d found worth hanging onto in the whole experience. Not the pregnancy, mind you, but knowing someone was growing and becoming inside me, because of me. God help me, I’d even started picking out names. Still, I’d let my anger at Andi screw up my responsibility to the baby. Damn her, I thought. Damn her for making me think like this and damn her for making me act like this. Almost three years as a woman, and never once had I caved in to contemplating something as drastic as sex, at least not of my own free will. But Andi, with a short, handwritten note, had undone every mental and emotional safeguard I’d taught myself to ensure the man inside me kept his psyche intact, even if just to himself. I turned to a man and woman beside me at the bar chatting about mutual funds over some clear, bubbly drinks and unfastened the pearls from my neck. “Here,” I said, handing them to the woman, a short, athletic brunette who stared at me like she must have just realized who was talking to her. “Take ‘em. They hurt my neck.” “Are… are they real?” “Yes, I just bought them an hour ago.” I caught the guy beside her gazing at my neck and working his way down. “Those are too, but you’d better take your eyes off of them, buddy. They’re mine.” I knew it sounded stupid, but I couldn’t help myself. A guy has to put up some kind of stupid machismo in situations like that. It’s a rule of nature. Even when you’ve become Mother Nature’s whipping boy. Or girl, in my case. “You’re her, aren’t you?” the guy asked, quickly looking up to my eyes. “Fishnet Angel?” I nodded. “Surprise. Yeah, I have more than just the one outfit,” I said, tugging up on the low scoop of the neck. The woman put the pearls around her neck and stared at her reflection in the mirrored wall behind the bar. “Wow. Thanks.” “Enjoy them. They look good on you, really good. And I hope you two have a good night. Somebody deserves to.” The guy started to say something, but I turned around and walked off. His words became mumbles in the loud thumping of techno music, and I pushed through the crowd toward the door. The man at the front waved me out and told me I was welcome anytime, then asked if I’d seen Marble Girl around. I shook my head and kept walking, listening to the stuttered whispers of the folks in the line as I passed. When I reached the sidewalk, I leaped into the air and flew up, not out or east or west or anywhere in particular, just up, until the air got so thin I had to stop and hover. I listened as I waited, hearing only the silence of the air at that altitude. Higher than most planes, and well out of the flight zones of the major airlines. So high that I didn’t have to worry about how short the dress was or whether anyone could look up under it. Not unless that anyone could also fly. “Damn it, Andi!” I screamed at the silence. “Why not? Why can’t you just let me settle into things slowly? I know you’re with Greg now. But marriage?” “Something is wrong,” came a voice from behind me, a voice that sounded as if it had been dragged across gravel before reaching me. “Wha—” I said, spinning around, and saw a man whose skin glowed with a golden sheen, his toned and lean body draped in what could have been a Roman centurion’s uniform, with a huge sword sheathed at his side. And wings, huge wings, big enough to compete with a jet, I’d guess, even though he didn’t have them fully extended. As he gazed at me, I could swear his face alternated between human and a multitude of wild predators. “You’re the Peacekeeper, the angel guy, the one from the Middle East.” He nodded. “Gabriel’s Trumpet or something like that.” His expression remained flat, but somehow friendly. “My name is unknown even to me, but the people on this world call me Tobit’s Angel.” “I should probably get that, but I don’t. Sorry.” I shrugged. “Mister and Miss Angel. So we’re related, I guess.” He didn’t respond. “Well,” I continued rather than just stare, “what are you doing here?” “You called to me, Mark Williams.” The shock hit like a baseball in the stomach, and I dropped a few feet before catching myself and rising to join him again. “How’d you know my name?” “I…” He looked away, and his brow wrinkled up as if he were thinking hard about something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, then he relaxed and locked his eyes on mine again. “I know many things I cannot explain.” “Well, don’t go sharing that around, please. I’ve been really careful to keep it a secret.” “You need not fear my knowledge. When I no longer need to know these things, I will forget.” I rolled my eyes. “Bet you’re a real popular guy at parties, then.” He continued to stare at me. Not at the dress. Or my chest. Or legs. Or hips. Or even my face. But at me, as if he were looking at something beneath my skin. “So what’s your story?” I asked, tugging at the hem of the dress anyway. “What made you book the same vacation getaway as me?” “I was in Israel when you needed me, and now I am here.” “Oh,” I said, as if it made all the sense in the world. “Really?” “You are hurt.” “Damn right I’m hurt. My fiancée is about to marry some jerk she met after…” He neither smiled nor frowned. “After you became a hero.” “After I became a woman.” His gaze dropped to my belly, and he smiled. “It was your destiny.” “It was the worst thing that ever happened to me.” “You regret your fate?” “If you mean would I rather not be a pregnant superhero, then sure, but we don’t all get to be angels with swords and wings and bodies to die for.” I looked down at my own body. “Well, you know what I mean.” “I did not choose to be as I am. But I accept it.” He stopped, and a feral snarl curled across his lips then went away. “I am needed. So are you.” “I guess.” I tugged at the dress again. “Sorry, I guess I feel sort of underdressed, you know, for talking to an angel.” “The human body is created beautiful, whether male or female. Do not be ashamed.” “Easy for you to say, Toby.” He locked his gaze on me again, probing, and I could feel the intensity of his stare even in my thoughts. The sensation caused my neck to tingle, and I glided back a few feet to get control of my head. “What was that?” “I can help you.” “Can you make me a man again?” “I can help you.” I turned to go. “Unless you can give me back my old body, I doubt you’ve got the help I’m looking for.” I let myself drop, then darted back toward the ground. “See ya around, Toby.” I hadn’t made it more than a hundred feet before I nearly collided with him. “How’d you…” I started, but he didn’t answer. “We often do not recognize help when we find it. But I can help you, Mark Williams.” Before I could respond, he reached out and touched my forehead with his index finger, tracing a pattern I didn’t recognize onto my skin. A few seconds later, my neck tingled again and my mind exploded in a Technicolor flashback of the day I received the power of the warrior goddess. Andi stands in the circle or candles, chanting, as I watch the GunGrrls descend into the warehouse. Other than that, nothing else is as I remember it. I run to save her but don’t make it, crashing to the concrete floor as three shots rip into my leg. The wall of flame engulfs her, stopping the hail of bullets as it had stopped them for me, and when the flames die down, Andi stands in the costume and fishnets, staring at the GunGrrls with hatred in her eyes. In a matter of seconds, she tears through them, leaving a scattering of mangled corpses and bleeding victims. Then she stops and makes her way over to me. Her skin burns as she touches me, and her epidermis appears to be charred and peeling. “It’s too much,” she says, beginning to cry. “It’s killing me. I’m not strong enough to do this, Mark. Please help me.” She cradles me for as long as she is able, then lets me go and rises to stand, her body finally giving in and crumbling to smoldering flakes and falling in a pile a few feet away. I reach out to her, but not even her voice remains. And once again, as I look for the statue to set things right again, it lays broken into fragmented shards, shattered by the weapons fire. The THX in my head stopped, and I noticed that Tobit’s Angel’s fingertips were no longer tracing on my forehead. “Is that what would have happened?” I asked. He doesn’t look away. “What did you see?” he asked, his eyes suddenly wide and curious. “Don’t you know?” “I know many things, but not everything.” “I saw her die. I saw Andi die.” “Do you still regret your fate?” I nodded. “But I think I’d regret the alternative even more.” “Everything has a reason and a time,” he said, his face settling into a more human appearance with just a touch of lion-like features along his jaw and nose. “If you start singing the Byrds, so help me I’ll take a swing at you.” “The Byrds?” I laughed. “Don’t they teach you guys anything in Israel or heaven or wherever it is you come from?” His warm expression faded into flatness again. Then he glanced to the right and pulled in on his bottom lip. “I am needed elsewhere.” I reached for his hand. “Sure. Do your thing.” He moved past my outstretched hand and embraced me, his arms full and swallowing my back and cutting off my breath “Never be ashamed of who—and what—you are. It is your destiny. You are a hero. You are chosen for a reason.” I patted his back and hoped he got the signal to let me breathe again. “Yeah, well, next time you wear the dress, Clarence.” He smiled faintly, then backed away and lowered his head and covered his body with his wings. Then he vanished. No puff of smoke. No weird light show. Just one minute he was there and the next he was gone. Like someone snapping his fingers. I waited for a moment for my head to clear away the residual effects of the show he’d given me before trying to fly back to town. Knowing full well I’d definitely need to track down some Ibuprofen before heading back to the hotel. I avoided the repeat of It’s a Wonderful Life on TNT, if only because the irony was too much for me. Instead, I ordered a room service cheeseburger and opted for the Rankin-Bass Rudolph and Frosty specials while I ate and made out my three Christmas cards, saving Andi’s for last. I worded my note to Andi carefully. While I still had no intention of attending the wedding, I told her that I wanted her to be happy. If I loved her, then I should want her to be happy, even if it was something I’d have to fake at first and learn to get used to over time. After I finished the card, I folded it, sealed it in the envelope and dropped it in the trash, unaddressed. “Man, that felt good,” I thought aloud as I returned to the bed and lay down, propping my feet up, crossing them at the ankles, and turning up the sound on the TV. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to actually send it.” I kicked the flats off into the floor and sang along with Burl Ives on “Silver and Gold,” then closed my eyes and tried to remember the sensation I’d felt when Toby traced his finger against my head. But no tingles this time, no pictures, only the memories of them. I opened my eyes and rolled over toward the phone. After taking the receiver and pressing zero for the front desk, I rolled onto my back again and counted four rings. “Front desk,” said a young female voice. “Yeah, hey, this is Marcia in Room 1743. I need to talk to the manager about a desk.”
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