Sheila breathed in to be able to pull the hidden zipper up from her crotch to her neck and then ran her fingers over the spandex body suit that clung to every curve. She turned to look over her shoulder in the mirror at her ass to see how the suit neatly separated her cheeks.
She had made a modified version of the kind of outfit she wore to her modern dance classes, just having it go all the way down to cover her feet and higher on the neck to look a little more demure.
"Demure my ass!" she laughed at herself. Although completely covered, she never felt more on display with the spandex tightly outlining her breasts, hips, ass, and narrow waist. She checked, and no lines were visible from the thong, but she didn't dare try to wear a bra under this outfit. It would look ridiculous. Besides with such a tight costume, there was no need for any further support. Not that she needed support anyway.
She pulled on her low-heeled, ankle-length boots that blended perfectly in with her body suit, so they almost disappeared. Standing back up, she checked herself in the mirror again. High heels would have added an extra oomph to her look, but those would have been too formal. The lower ones were more practical, but the one-inch heels still added a little extra without making it harder to walk.
She snapped on her belt and slid it down to snug against her hips. The belt had a pouch attached to either side, so she had a place for her cell phone and ID, since the body suit left no room for anything, and carrying a purse would ruin the look. Lastly she pulled on a cowl that she had modeled after Batgirl's cowl. She'd watched a cosplayer's video online about how to make it. It was a full day's work, but it was perfect.
Sheila wasn't into the whole club scene like others her age, but her job as a university librarian and her computer skills gave her access to nearly everything going on in the university community, and the fraternity costume party was the coolest thing going on this weekend.
College men were all girly men trying hard to please the queen bee feminists they found on campus and didn't appeal to her at all. That didn't mean that she didn't want to be appreciated though, even if none of them could measure up to what she wanted, and there was always the possibility of a good man out there somewhere.
She looked one last time in the mirror and closed her eyes to fantasize. She wanted a man who would wrap his arm around her breasts from behind and use his other hand to pull her face around to meet his in a passionate kiss. Opening her eyes, she saw her fantasy had her nipples trying hard to poke their way out of her costume, and turned up one side of her lips in a sardonic smile.
Let 'em stare if they want to. Her cowl protected her identity, so she was free to be openly sexy. Of course, if there were such a man as she fantasized about around the university, he was probably in jail for rape. There was a fine line between being raped and being ravished, but the culture had blotted that line out entirely as if a man acting like a man with a woman he loved automatically meant he was out to rape every woman he saw.
She parked her motorcycle easily on the crowded block. Mostly she walked to her job and classes on campus, but if she needed to go farther or be out late, the motorcycle worked great without costing a lot. Also it was always convenient to park.
Getting into the party was no problem of course. Once inside she did a quick look around. There was an Alice in Wonderland and a female Robin Hood, a couple of slutty waitresses--one Hooters and one generic--even a Red Sonja who was drawing most of the male attention with her sequin imitation of a metal bikini.
It was the men, of course, who interested her more. At the bottom end were the "football players" whose costume consisted solely of a jersey and some eye black, and one Tarzan. There was a Thor who had a pretty good costume and hammer, but, unfortunately, he had a face that looked as dull as the actual mythical Thor was. At least he hadn't come as The Incredible Hulk, probably the green makeup was too much trouble, but she figured, "Hulk is the strongest there is," was probably the only dialog he was capable of. The only promising candidate she saw was dressed as Teddy Roosevelt. She went up next to him at the bar and got a red plastic cup filled from the keg.
"Been out rough riding?" she asked him.
"Sorry?"
"Your costume."
"Oh yeah, got the idea from an old movie. Figure after a few drinks, I can yell, 'Charge!" and head upstairs to the bathroom. And you're batgirl without the bat logo?"
She tried to hide her disappointment. "No, just another crime fighter, but then my secret identity wouldn't be secret if I told everybody, would it?"
"I always thought the one without the costume was the secret identity."
"Yes, well it's all about your perspective, isn't it? In my case, the costumed crimefighter is my secret identity."
She moved away to discontinue the conversation with someone who's only knowledge of Teddy Roosevelt apparently came from Arsenic and Old Lace. She found a place to sit and people watch, making up stories in her head about the interactions she saw.
After fending off a few more totally inappropriate suitors, she headed upstairs to find the bathrooms that "Teddy Roosevelt" had mentioned. The first door she tried turned out to be a bedroom with "Robin Hood" passed out on the bed, and one of the "football players" trying to remove her tights.
"Whoa, what do you think you're doing?"
"Butt out babe!"
"Hey, she's obviously passed out, and not only shouldn't you be here trying to 'make her more comfortable' by taking her clothes off, but if you're the guy who roofied her, then you wouldn't want the police to find you here."
"I said, butt out babe!" he exclaimed, coming towards her, and raising his open hand. She grabbed his middle finger and bent it painfully backward, pushing his arm behind his back and giving him a push to encourage him to leave.
"I'm not going to call the police unless you come back, 'Joe Montana', but I'll be here until she comes around. Go use the bathroom to get your rocks off and count yourself lucky."
As the adrenaline wore off, she found a chair to sit in, and waited. After 5 minutes, she was pretty sure he wasn't coming back, but she took out her cell phone and set it to flash dial 911 just in case.
He had been about 5 inches taller than her and had probably had a hundred pounds on her, but she had just instinctively used a trick her Aikido teacher had taught for self-defense, and it actually worked! She wasn't very sure she could take him without surprise on her side though. Despite her costume, she was no superheroine, so the anxiety kept her alert for the couple of hours until 'Robin Hood' groggily awakened.
"Do you have a roommate? What's her number? Let me call her and have her drive you home. I think somebody slipped something in one of your drinks, but I think you'll be OK if we can get you home safely."
'Teddy Roosevelt' actually helped her get 'Robin Hood' downstairs and into her roommate's car as the party had mostly broken up by then, so he wasn't completely useless. He made one last feeble pass at her, but she mounted her motorcycle and headed home.
"Who was that masked woman?" she found herself saying in parody of the Lone Ranger in her head on the way home. Still, it felt good. She felt she had actually saved someone from a real tragedy, and probably saved the asshole from committing a serious crime for that matter.
It was 3 weeks before Sheila thought about that night again. Since her personal life continued to go nowhere, she pushed herself, continuing to catalog new entries into the Eaton SF collection at the university library.
The Eaton Collection had started as a grant and donation of thousands of pulp books and magazines from the early 20th century and had grown to quite the collection of popular fiction, including comic books and, more recently, graphic novels of course. Sheila kept it all up to date, controlled access to the somewhat fragile and mostly irreplaceable collection.
She had just added a unique program that automatically tracked the prices that items matching those in the collection had recently sold for. That would make the collection look increasingly valuable and therefore important to the board and the dean. She was thinking about putting in for a paid trip to Comic-Con, so she could make contacts with collectors who might be potential donors. After all, the early giants in the field like Stan Lee were getting older and might want to donate their personal collections. Even better maybe she could apply to be a pro to present a panel on the Eaton Collection. That led her into thinking about enhancing her costume into something presentable for Comic-Con.
She was distracted by an article in the university paper about a rape on campus last night. As part of her job she was also responsible for the newspaper collections since they shared the fragility of the Eaton Collection until their digital versions were appropriately stored, and she was glancing through the paper before putting it out for the reading room and archiving the previous week's edition.
The article mentioned that another rape had occurred on campus 10 days earlier, but it was maddeningly short on specifics. She knew it wasn't the reporter's fault. The police were always tight-lipped about crimes until nobody cared anymore about them months or years later.
2 rapes on campus in 10 days made it her business however. The campus was generally safe, but she usually walked home each night, and she was not content with sketchy reports. The same eidetic memory that made school a breeze for her allowed her to catch passwords she saw only fleetingly, even in reflection.
