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Death by Chocolate?

⚡#1- "When They Need It Most"... Friendship

By Lightning BoltPublished 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago 16 min read
14

My sister video-messaged me early in the morning with the big announcement, with that news, the best news imaginable, news way bigger than a divorce, or engagement, or pregnancy!

Mary had finally gotten her superpower!

“You’re not going to believe it,” she said into her camera.

“I probably won’t,” I agreed. I was already split in two at that moment and my core-self was feeling slightly dull because of it. Not to mention I was only on my first cup of coffee.

“Well,” said Sis, “you know Brandon was being considered for that big promotion. Well… the other day, he was bragging about what an amazing cook I am to Mr. Hawthorne and—”

“You are an awesome cook,” I interjected.

“Oh, don’t I know it, Sis!” She snapped her fingers. “Even more so now! I’m a Pleaser!” And then she asked, “Do you know what that is, Mary? I mean specifically: do you know about the different classifications of paranormal powers?”

I hate when Joan goes all condescending on me. She knows I rarely watch the news. She, on the other hand, is always up on current events, especially when it comes to stories about people getting their superpower. She goes into, like, teacher-mode at times, so she can Let Me Know. I do learn a lot from her. I admit that. But it's aggravating how snotty she can be when her knowledge inevitably surpasses mine.

And it’s not like I’m completely ignorant about what’s going on in this New Age of Extra-Awareness. I know about Wish Master, of course, the greatest superhero of all time, and how he sacrificed himself in the Extinction Event. His final words are legendary! He declared, When they need it most, let them all have their wishes come true.” And with that proclamation, millions of people worldwide instantly gained metaphysical abilities.

And now, almost three years later, billions more are still waiting for their legacy, knowing that at the appropriate time, when the Universe deems it most advantageous to everyone, they too will have a subconscious desire of theirs externalized.

Eventually, every human alive will gain a superpower.

So, you see, I knew enough. I knew the basics. But 'Pleasing' being an entire category of superpowers?

I’d never heard of that.

What I said was: “Self-explanatory, right? You, um, please people?”

"You're basically correct." But Joan further explained, “One of the Big Brain federal heroes came up with all these different classifications of extraordinary talents. A 'Pleaser' is someone who increases the pleasure of certain activities.”

I understood what she was saying. “You make people happy with your cooking.”

Yes,” she gushed. “And, Praise Jesus, my power did come to me at exactly the most fortuitous time! Last night, I gave the dinner party to end all dinner parties! My crab-stuffed mushrooms killed it! By the end of the evening, it was like all Brandon’s colleagues were heroin addicts and I just gave them the greatest fix of their lives!” She looked so proud.

“So,” I said, jumping to the chase, “I’m guessing Brandon got the partnership?”

Bet! And a hefty raise to go with it! We’re moving up!”

Dully, I had to point out, “Your superpower is superior cooking skills and I get the ability to clone myself as many times as I need to take care of our kids. Wouldn’t Mom be so proud?”

A year ago, our parents were early victims of the Purple Flu. It seems like a lifetime ago to me.

“I’m the chef,” said Sis, “and you’re the babysitter. Yeah, Mom would be ecstatic. Hometown old school maternalistic values and all that yadda yada yadda.”

I asked her, “Have you watched Sex Powers of the Rich and Famous?”

“All three seasons! Twice! And that’s exactly what I’m talking about! Why’d we have to get such domestic powers? Why couldn’t we make someone have an orgasm just by looking at them?”

“Or see right through clothes.”

Right?” And then I admitted my secret shame. “If my conscious wish materialized instead of some buried desire, I’d consciously choose to be Birth Control Girl! Just by looking at someone, I’d be able to bestow magical contraception! Including on myself, by looking in a mirror!”

“You do not wish you never had the boys. But I feel ya, Sis.”

“When will he stop? That's what keeps me awake at night. Donald once said he wouldn’t mind if we have a dozen kids!”

Holy shit!

“I know, right? And he was drunk when he said it too, so I’m pretty sure he was serious!”

“Would you even be able to split a dozen times?”

Who the fuck knows? I mean, hypothetically I could, I guess. If you’re talking about maternal love, maybe it can be carved up that many times? Maybe love doesn’t have limits? But I’m pretty certain my body does! How many duplicates can I safely make?”

“You overthink things, Sweetie! This is wish fulfillment! You’ll be able to make as many copies of yourself as you need!” She went on, “And that’s such a blessing, considering what a fertile Myrtle you are!”

I had already squirted out four kids and I was only twenty-three years old. “The son of a bitch won’t let me have any friends! He loves keeping me barefoot and pregnant! And he thinks I should be perfectly happy with a life that consists of nothing but diapers and pacifiers!”

“Us big girls need a different kind of pacifier to keep us happy.” She was always so nasty!

But I wasn’t in the mood. “He’s got a point, Sis. Motherhood is all it takes to make all my clones exultant. So why shouldn't I be happy too?”

“We’ve discussed this,” she said. “You don’t think I pay attention to you, but I do! One of the side effects of having clones split out of your body is that it leaves the core-you feeling apathetic. Not exactly sad or depressed— you just don’t give a shit about anything when there’s more than three of you walking around at the same time.”

I loved her so much. “You nailed it, Honey. The real me doesn’t care about anything when I'm cloned that many times. Not even Scarlet Johansson!”

“Damn, Sis! That’s serious!” Joan and I had always agreed that we would leave our husbands in a heartbeat for Scarlet Johansson.

“Right?”

“I still don’t understand why you don’t divorce him.” She looked so miserable for me, God bless her.

That was when I heard a car door shut outside, followed by the chirp of a Tesla’s alarm system being engaged. “You've gotta be kidding me,” I exclaimed. “Speak of the devil! He’s home!”

“I didn’t think he was due back from Arizona until next week!”

“I didn’t think so either."

“Call me tomorrow.”

I promised I would.

Moments later, my heart was pounding hard when I greeted my husband at our front door.

⚡___________________________ ⚡

His work was his life, and I hated him when he was gone, which was most of the time. But the moment he came home from one of his business trips, the instant I saw him take off his shirt, I swear: it was like my loathing was instantly transformed into lust!

It was no different this time.

I wonder sometimes if his secret superpower is some kind of control over me. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I did see a frightening documentary on the Paranormal News channel. According to the presentient reporters on PNN, men with small egos often developed superpowers that allow them to get over on their spouses.

Outside of work, Donny had a very small ego.

The sex was always phenomenal. The longer he was away, the hotter we burned when he came home. But I always had the same thought at some point during the act: Is he going to knock me up again?

I hated him so much. It was his insecurities that made my existence a living hell. All I wanted was exactly what he had: friends, maybe an actual career, some freedom, all the things that he took for granted! But he denied me all that, always, forever, with no consideration whatsoever for my feelings!

I seriously wanted to murder him.

After we fucked like rabbits, he slept like a rock.

As he snored, I got myself off imagining his funeral.

Tired from getting up so early, knowing my clones had it under control with the kids, I fell asleep too, with frustrated curses on my lips…

⚡🩸________________________😴⚡

Like a giddy schoolgirl, I skipped down Epiphany Avenue to an out-of-the-way saloon called Time Flies. It was one of the first locations in the city to be officially registered as a ‘paranormal hot spot’; the bar itself had a superpower. If the patrons who drank there were having a good time, they could slip into a chronological pocket dimension where they could party for hours while only minutes passed outside in the ‘real world.’

It was hot as hell!

Standing beside the tavern’s main entrance was a big-bellied bouncer wearing a Jeff Goldblum mask. “What’s the password,” he bu💤💤💤zzed.

Morpheus,” I whispered back, acknowledging that I was dreaming.

Someone gasped and someone squealed, but the doors parted, and I made my way inside.

As I sat down at the bar, the mixologist-on-duty asked me, “Whaddaya havin?”

“Clarity,” I said. And then, unable to help myself, I wailed, “SHOULD I MURDER MY HUSBAND?”

Absolutely,” came the immediate enthusiastic reply from behind me. “It’s long past time you stop living his dream and start living your own!”

I turned and there she stood, looking elegant, radiant, extravagant, electrifying. I was too breathless to ask who she was. Luckily, she read my mind.

“I’m Drew,” she said, “the Dreamer.

I deduced immediately she had control here. This bar was far too detailed, far too real, whereas my usual dreams were more like a Carl Jung Meets Lisa Simpson mashup. Except for the Fly at the front door, this flight of fancy was nothing like my normal night-time excursions. This dream was lucid!

“This dream is guided,” said the guide.

I freely admitted, “I’m impressed.”

“We can help you grow,” she promised. “We need you, Mary. And we want you.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” I needed to know.

“Weeee…” she paused dramatically, “…are Amazons.” She winked at me. “A She-Woman Man-Hater Club, you might say.”

That sounded good to me. But I felt obligated to admit, “I don’t really hate all men— just my husband.”

“Good enough for us, girl.” The Dreamer winked and said, “Let me show you how we roll.”

From out of the shadows stepped a woman wearing a white apron and a fluffy white chef’s hat. “This,” said the Dreamer, “is Candice, also known as the Cake Baker. She has the power to make the most delicious chocolate delights!”

Chocolate bragged, “We’re talking: Nirvana with icing. And deadly as hell!”

The Dreamer clarified, “Eating her empowered treats creates such intense euphoria, the experience is actually lethal!”

“Unlike some of us,” Candice flashed a sly grin at the Dreamer, “when I killed my husband, it was an accident. At the time, I was completely unaware I could energize desserts like that! When he ate just a single slice of my triple chocolate cake, and then had an orgasm and keeled over dead, no one was more surprised than me!”

“I think, actually,” the Dreamer corrected her, “he was more surprised.” She quipped, “He came and went at the same time!”

I snickered.

The Baker continued with her origin story. “I loathed my husband. He was so narrow-minded and abusive. Mean-spirited. Bad-tempered.”

“But be honest," urged the Dreamer. "You never would have had the guts to intentionally kill him. No shade.”

“That’s not throwing shade, honey. That’s the truth.”

“And when you did gift him with death by pleasure,” the Dreamer said to Chocolate, “you certainly didn't celebrate! You were riddled with guilt!”

“She was in shock,” said the next woman to step out of the shadows. “She was about to confess her ‘crime’, which would have been the worst mistake of her life.”

The Dreamer said, “Meet Allison. Her power awakened in specific response to Candice’s predicament.”

“She’s my best boo,” said Candice.

“She’s our Alibi,” said Drew. “Allison has a kind of super persuasion. When she vouched for Candice, the police believed her without question. They permanently eliminated Candice as a suspect in her husband’s untimely death.”

Beaming at me, Alibi took a bow.

“And I played my part too, of course.” The Dreamer admitted, “I’m the founder of our little group.”

“Our fearless leader!”

“Our Hippolyta!”

Drew only said of her own abilities, “Dreaming alongside other dreamers affords me unique opportunities to learn secrets... and manipulate.”

“But don’t worry,” said Chocolate, starting the sentence. “She’s not manipulating you,” said Alibi, finishing it.

The Dreamer assured me, “We’re all equal here.”

“And where exactly is ‘here’?” It was a ridiculous statement under the circumstances, but I said it anyway: “This bar is real, isn’t it?”

The mixologist was gone, replaced by a grumbling matron holding a bottle of mineral water in one hand and an empty glass tumbler clutched in the other.

Before the Dreamer could introduce the proprietor of this fine establishment, Alibi gushed, “Show her what you can do, Frieda!”

The barkeep guzzled Perrier and didn’t stop until the entire bottle was gone. Then, without an instant of hesitation, she dipped her head over the empty glass and coughed up ice cubes.

“Freida Frost… also known as the Ice Machine.”

“Pleased ta meet ya,” said the Ice Queen, curls of smoke wafting from her lips.

The Dreamer said, “It was Freida’s husband who enchanted this tavern.”

“He’s dead now,” said Chocolate.

I didn’t need to ask what took his life.

“He was a dickhead!” The Ice Maker raved, “He loved this bar more than he loved me! Can you blame me for jumping at the chance to kill the bastard?”

“We can’t blame you at all!”

Alibi told the next part: “Not long after Frieda joined us, the Dreamer found our Balm.”

“That would be me,” said the next babe to step into the limelight. “Bunny Palmer,” she said. “I’m the Bubbly.”

“Of course, you are,” I said with a snort. Just looking at Bunny made me feel giddy.

The Dreamer continued narrating the dream. “Bubbles was having her own relationship problems until we came into her life.”

“Issues with my girl,” she felt the need to clarify. “I’m a lesbian.”

“Don’t worry,” Alibi said in a joking tone. “You don’t have to be gay or bisexual to hang with us.”

“But it couldn’t hurt!” Bubbles giggled.

Alli gave Bunny a high five.

Ignoring them, the Dreamer said, “Originally, Bubbly simply had the power to intoxicate everyone around her with her sweet-smelling bubbles.”

“When Drew says ‘intoxicated’,” said Candice, “she’s underselling it. We're talking about bubble baths that can get a bitch shit-faced!”

“But then I came along,” said the last woman to step from the shadows, “and really rocked these bitches’ world!”

Amen, sister!”

“Damn skippy, you did!”

“Meet Audra,” said the Dreamer, “our Booster!”

Audra struck a pose. “The Augmenter.”

“Yay!”

“Our idol!”

“We’re all present and accounted for now!” Their Empress gestured with dramatic flair, roaring, “Welcome, Mary, to our Unity Dream!

The six ladies gave themselves a round of applause.

Then the Augmenter said, “You didn’t finish telling her what I did for everyone.”

The Dreamer told me, “Booster expanded all our superpowers.”

Alibi testified first, saying, “I can persuade people now… over the phone.”

“I used to make only cubed ice,” said our barkeep. “Now… I can make crushed ice too!”

“I can now make chocolate yummies that don’t kill people.”

“And I,” said Bubbles, “can be such a soothing balm that I actually wash away guilt!”

“She’s not exaggerating!”

“And that was the real game-changer,” said the Dreamer. “Killing your husband is incredibly exhilarating…”

“Trust us,” said Ice. “It’s the fucking bomb.”

“… but what is even more liberating is living guilt-free!”

“Amen!”

“For real, for real!”

“And,” said their proud Booster, “I also expanded the range of our leader’s ability... which led us to you, Mary.”

I felt honored and privileged. I was in awe. They were an answer to my prayers. I had no friends— none— because of Donny. And suddenly here I was about to get a whole coven of bad-ass superbitches to chill with?

I pinched myself on the arm to see if it was real.

The flesh on my arm chortled madly, a rude reminder that this was a dream.

“Yes, this is a dream,” said the Dreamer, “but you decide if it is real or not. Do you want this?”

Bubbly batted her eyes at me. “Do you want us?”

“Do you want to be free?”

“Free of shame? Free to have some fun?

“Free of your husband... forever?”

Thinking there had to be strings attached, I asked, “So what do you want from me?”

As if invisible headphones were removed from my ears, the Dreamer then let me hear the crying babies, somewhere in a back room of this saloon. I knew this entire clique had young children. All except Bubbles.

The Amazons of the Eastside smiled at me. And I realized suddenly exactly why they had sought me out.

They needed a babysitter!

I brayed cynical laughter. "Except for the fact none of you will get me pregnant," I said, "how is this deal any better than what I have going on with my damn husband?"

Bubbles giggled.

The Ice Machine grinned. "What if we told ya that our Booster could liven up the core-you while your clones are out babysitting?"

"Turn that frown upside down, baby doll!" said Alibi.

The Augmenter asked, "How would you like your core true self to be our Party Girl?"

Now that certainly intrigued me!

I'm a fantastic dancer!

“Will you join us, Mary Homemaker?”

“Please say you will!”

“The choice is yours.”

I awoke from the dream, startled to find myself sitting at my kitchen table.

In front of me on a small silver platter was a big chunk of chocolate cake.

Was this a non-lethal piece just for me to enjoy?

Or was this a bliss-kill slice meant for Donny?

For the first time in a long time, I knew I had a meaningful choice to make. And I honestly didn’t know what to do! I jumped up and went looking for my cellphone. I needed to call my sister Joan immediately!

I couldn’t wait to spill this Tea!

⚡ 🥂 __ THE END __⚡🥃

Author's Note: I'm brainstorming many different stories all set in this same superpowered universe. Each tale is a standalone story with different characters (so far 😉). They can be read in any order.

☝ You just finished Episode 1.

Check out Episode 2 of this series! ⚡👇😁👍

And this is Episode 3 of this series! ⚡👇😁👍

This is an overview of this wish-fulfilled reality. 👇

I greatly appreciate all LIKES. Tell a neighbor. Phone a friend. Please SUBSCRIBE. ⚡😁👍

Thank you kindly for your support!

_____________Bolt

[email protected]

Series
14

About the Creator

Lightning Bolt

From out of the blue, _Bolt writes horror galore, Sci-Fi, Superheroes & strange Poetry + MEME-ing MADNESS X12.

Vocal needs a Comedy Community!

Proud member of the Vocal Social Society on Facebook.

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Comments (2)

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  • Marie Sinadjan6 months ago

    Ooh this was very interesting!

  • Such a great story!

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