Playboy Fiction The Domestic Lives of Super-heroes

Pete's wife can read minds...it's hard for him to stay out of trouble

- JOHN HORNOR JACOBS

“If you could have any superpower,” she says, resting her hand on his chest and curling his chest hair, “what would it be?” She’s a journalist through and through, Pete thinks. Even in bed. All the times before when they had played this game, it was as a prelude to another bout, another frenzied round of lovemaking. She’d grab his cock and he’d say, “Always be hard,” in hopes of hardening.

But today, on the pallet of sheets and blankets they made on the floor of the one safe and shielded room in the universe, he says, “If I could have any power, it would be to take away superpowers.”

“What, like steal them?” she says.

“No. Take them away. Forever.” From where he rests, spent, he looks at the blank face of the ceiling, its dull black surface made of alloys and elements he cannot even begin to fathom. A bower constructed of alien material to hide a wife’s private hours, her secret thoughts—and deeds. “Create a world where all men are equal,” he says. He doesn’t mean for it to come out sullen.

“Men?” She removes her hand from his chest and stands, nude. “Is this about Chris?” She looks around, a reflexive habit, checking to see if anyone is watching. Outside of the “blackbox,” it is possible. Her husband, Chris, the leader of the League of Heroes, can hear any heartbeat anywhere in the world, peer through walls, see through flesh. He can translocate—can travel anywhere—almost as fast as thought. But not in the blackbox. It is shielded. Liza insisted on it when they moved in. She needed her privacy, her sanctuary.