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Rex had never really liked sex. She found it biologically interesting in that she had buttons on her body that made her feel good, but she’d never understood what a second person added to the party. She never told her partners, of course, because only psychopaths and traumatized people were supposed to be uninterested in sex, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t either of those.
She tended to forget that people were supposed to be able to pretend they didn’t know when someone else was having sex.
“Most of them have gadget people, anyway. Or they use alien technology that should probably be looked over by the EPA, or they make it themselves because they have every skill due to weird childhoods or training adjacent to their tragic backstories.”
Professional dress was so aggressively gendered. The feminine cut pressed around her, making her want to slink around like a cat in a Halloween costume. They’d done what they could with pants and flats, but it didn’t seem like truly gender-neutral business wear existed. Flora had encouraged her to think of it as a disguise, but to Rex it felt more like a lie.
“It must be a big responsibility,” Lewis said, that brow crease finally replacing the pout. It was almost a relief—Rex hadn’t known his face could make those shapes. “Oh, it is. And I’ve always worked alone. But with everything she’s been through, seeing her parents decapitated like that, being subjected to the same ultra-light radiation that gave me powers—” Holy crap, that was actually horrific. Rex glanced around at the politely sympathetic faces. Had they not heard the same thing she’d heard? Bright Jack shook his head. “She needs this. She needs to know that she can use these powers to
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“But the people want to know someone’s out there, standing for justice. The victims of supervillains need that hope.” Was that what victims wanted? All Rex remembered wanting was her mom.
“Lots of people lose their families.” Rex’s head was filling with noise—the frustration, the illogic, the sheer inane friendliness of Gorgeous’s smile. “Not that that’s not a good reason to snap,” she backtracked. “I just don’t get where the lines are. Losing loved ones is an acceptable push off the edge but prolonged, systematic abuse by your peers isn’t. Except when it is. The categorizations defy logic.”
“It’s weird being a kid, because you’re still learning about the world, and you can believe that the good things outnumber the bad. And at some point you catch on to how impossible that is, because any good thing can be taken or broken or ruined, and that good thing can hurt you. But you’re not supposed to say it. Because there are kids around, and they still believe in Santa.”
“This might not be a good time,” one of the techs said behind her, “but some of the dinosaurs have become ashamed of their nakedness and are fashioning clothes out of leaves.”
The woman who sauntered out of the shadows wore a long, black coat over what looked like a corset and skintight leather pants. Yet another supervillain dressed like a dominatrix. Rex wondered if they knew they’d have a shot at morally gray hero status if they put on combat gear or a cape.
There was sex-repulsed, which Rex was not. To Rex, sex was like watching football in that it was boring, and she only did it for her partner. Sometimes she got into it when it was on, but it would never be something she was actually interested in. She liked touch—she’d hang off Flora like a koala, except Flora didn’t like it—but whether that was about attraction, trust, comfort, or a weird mishmash, she couldn’t tell.
SPOTLIGHT ON LOVE When people say unconditionally, they really mean with a few conditions, and as long as no one else they love needs them at the same time.
“Fear is so strange. I mean, the word: fear. It’s like a photograph. There’s this missing depth when you try to say it.” She leaned too far forward and lost her balance, but Lewis helpfully grabbed her shoulders. She appreciated being held still against the vertigo, although she felt like her head would be better off on the floor. “You can try to make the word more accurate,” she picked back up. “Let’s say I was very scared. I was very, very scared. But every modifier makes it weaker. You can’t say the real thing. You can’t even remember it that well. It’s just a snap, and then it’s in you,
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She’d come to think asking anyone to accept her like that meant asking them to accept less than they deserved.
There were times the situation demanded more than was fair. There were times people who were supposed to love you didn’t choose you.
“All right, let’s all put on our most gendered clothes and go play flirting-or-friendly roulette with a bunch of strangers.”
