I'm sitting under the studio lights and across from me is Jay Cosmo, nationally famous chat show host. Out there in the shadows is the audience who queued all night to see this interview live. At least I don't have to worry about make up the way he does since my mask covers my face from hairline to upper lip. The director is giving Jay a hushed count down, three, two, one and we're live! Jay swivels his chair to face me and the tense crowd are all agog.
"Tonight we welcome to the Cosmo show Matrix City's premier female superhero, Darkstar. The questions tonight won't come from me, instead, the lucky draw winners from the audience will put their posers to you Ms D."
The questions fly thick and fast, some I answer readily, some I must refuse on security grounds.
"When did I get my powers?" Almost two years ago.
"How did I get them?" Sorry top secret.
"Am I married?" "Do I have kids?" "Do I even have a boyfriend?"
I duck all of these on the familiar grounds of putting friends and family at risk if I reveal any personal details. Does nobody ever consider the slimmest possibility that a superhero could be gay? I am, but it makes no difference to my sex life since I don't have one, gay or straight, since the moment I transformed into Darkstar.
I gained my super powers from exposure to a strange glowing meteorite that landed in my back garden one night and since then I can tear the door off a bank vault or punch my way through a mountain. You can't hurt me with a five ton bomb or a vat of acid and that's where my sex life went. If I were straight I'd crush any ordinary guy between my thighs or turn his cock to mush in my vagina, and do you have any idea how few lesbian superhero's there are? Plenty of gorgeous superwenches I would go for but they're either straight and married or already hooked up with someone else. "Where did I get my superhero uniform, communication belt, and my aircraft the Starskimmer?" All manufactured and supplied by The Boffin, super intelligent research scientist for The Defenders of Terra. A superhero's society of which, I am of course, a member.
The Boffin is among other things an M.D. so when I confessed my sexual frustrations under patient/doctor confidentiality he constructed for me a titanium and carbon fibre vibrator which is virtually indestructable. It helps get me through the night but it's nothing like the real thing baby, but if I could crush a guy with my thighs think what I'd do to a babe's head when I orgasmed, even if her tongue could rouse my super clit.
A few more unchallenging questions and we're off air and it's backstage to enjoy drinks and nibbles at the after show reception. I take a glass or two of Chardonnay and a couple of cocktail sausages but I don't get anything from the wine except it's pleasant flowery taste. Another super draw back, I can't get drunk anymore. As a test I once drank a gallon of white rum in jig time and felt no different and damn sure no trace of a hangover later.
Some of the draw winners have been allowed to join us and I have my own small fan club around me, though I'm not the only one. Another guest on the show is Colleen McGregor, the latest in a long line of super models, six foot tall without high heels and apparently poured into an ivory satin dress with nothing beneath but her skin. I try not to drool too much while replying to questions from my fans that weren't asked on air.
"Who designed your uniform?" The Blademaster, a super swordsman who totes a sabre, stiletto, and throwing stars made from some break proof alloy invented by the aforementioned Boffin. Blademaster is as big a screaming queen as I am a dyke but if he ever quits the hero trade any fashion house would snatch his hand off to sign him up.
He produced exactly what I asked for, black calf length boots and an electric blue uniform that is distinctly Cossack. Above the boots, the trousers flare wide and loose while the jacket's collar fastens high on my neck and buttons across the shoulder. I'm not the shape for black Spandex. When I was transformed into the powerhouse I now am I'd like to say I was tall, slim, and elegant. I'd like to but it wouldn't be true.
The truth? I'm five foot five and I'm big in the tit and ass department, wide thighs and a bit of a plump belly. My girlfriends seemed to like it but I'll never get down to size zero and I mean never. I once spent a week doing non-stop aerobics and again I mean non-stop, twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. No rest and no food and I never lost one ounce. I eat, drink, piss and crap but I figure I could starve myself for ever and a day and still be as strong as I am now and even worse weigh and look the same.
The final straw comes when one of my hero worshippers, a well rounded , mother of three, wants her picture taken with me. Arm round my waist and one large, firm, breast rubbing against mine. I smile "cheese" and make my escape by claiming it's time for my evening patrol of the city. I flee before I start to grope her. Imagine the headlines, "Superhero arrested for indecent assault on mother."
Out in the car park I use my com belt to call down the Starskimmer from high above and begin a slow motion cruise over Matrix City in search of evil doers. Two hours later I'm bored out of my mind, even in a big city chock full of super villains you get your slow nights. I hover my plane above a flat roof selected at random, hop out, and send Starskimmer off into the wild blue yonder.
It's a mild, moonlit, night. Not that a cold, frosty night would be uncomfortable, at least my superpowers give me some things in the credit column. I'll never suffer from exposure, or sunstroke for that matter.
I lean back against an air vent and drowse off. Curiously, I still need sleep, not as much as I did when merely human but I enjoy a nap now and then. The Boffin tells me we all have to or we suffer for it. Even his immeasurable I.Q. hasn't made him immune from the odd forty winks.
I'm woken by a faint crunching noise, it's boots on gravel. From the shadow of the vent I peer out across the roof. Before my transformation my eyes weren't too good and super powers or not they're still not great, so Boffin built lenses into my mask that not only correct my visual failings but let me see well in the dark and into the infrared spectrum also.
She's standing on the roof, tall, a good six inches taller than me and clad all in silver. Thigh boots, leotard, and a domino across her eyes and cheekbones. Her figure rivals or surpasses Ms McGregor on whom I fixated earlier tonight. I recognise the description from a Defenders briefing, she is Night Owl, suspected of a series of art thefts around Matrix City in the past several months.
Considered as strong as a dozen men and as quick as lightning she possesses great martial art skills but has never injured anyone during her alleged criminal escapades. Now I should point out that us superheroes are bound by the law as much as your ordinary street cop, and just because she's under suspicion doesn't give me the right to dive right in and grab her, so I watch and wait.
She produces a number of small tools and electronic devices from pouches on her boots and bypasses the alarm system on the skylight she kneels in front of. That job done she demonstrates her power. Reaching down she flexes the smooth muscles of her thighs and forearms, tearing the steel grill from the bolts that hold it over the roof window. Okay, time to earn my superhero wages. I step out of the shadows and call out to her.
"Alright honey, come quietly, there's no need for anyone to get hurt."