Star City Stories: Enter Sandman

The regulars looked at each other in abject fear. They knew each other somewhat and were already analyzing their fellows to try to determine which of them might say something. As they looked down at the huge man on the floor who was just then only beginning to stir, the bartender spoke up.

"None of you bastards had better say anything," he spat. "I have a wife and kids and the Sandmen don't play. They don't bluff and they don't lie. I'm not dying in my sleep over that pile of shit." He indicated the man on the floor.

"Say anything about what?" asked one of the regulars.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said another, turning to finish his beer.

The man on the floor moved into a sitting position. He rubbed his sore mouth and jaw. His bottom lip was already beginning to swell.

"Didth oo gyz thee were dat guy wen? Thum body call duh copth. Ahm putting hith ath in jail!" he mumbled through his swollen lips. He spat out a tooth and looked around.

"Thumbody Thay Thumpthing, dammit?" he said angrily.

"About what buddy?" asked a guy calmly drinking his beer.

"Yeah?" said another. "You came in here complaining about women and then started smacking your head into the wall and knocked yourself out. It was kind of funny."

"That didth not happen," screamed the man on the floor loudly. "I was attackth."

"By who?" asked the bartender. "...My concrete wall? Son, some of us just can't handle alcohol. Know your limits. Now go home and sleep it off. The bar is closed for you."

Robert Lynch got up off of the floor. His head hurt. His mouth hurt. Shit, his entire body hurt. This wasn't his fucking day. It had all gone south when...when he'd hooked up with that blond woman. Maybe this wasn't a coincidence. He knew that scientists were powerful. They had all kinds of influence.

Blondie had been sure that her husband wasn't going to do anything, but maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe her husband had sent that gorilla to do what he didn't have the balls to do himself.

Maybe the little guy was going to send an army of thugs to take Robert out, or maybe this was it. Robert needed to know. Was this guy a warning that Robert should get the hell out of town, or was this all of it? He really needed to know where he stood.

* * * * * *

Beth

When I heard the warning chimes of the front door opening, I jumped up and ran to the doorway. My son, Donnie, walked in still engaged in one of those endless conversations with his father. Donnie was a very gifted little boy and the world would need him as much as it now needed his father. I had my own theory about why they'd been born but I had yet to share it with anyone.

I looked at them before they noticed me. They were so similar that no one could have mistaken them for anything other than father and son. Despite my mission; perhaps in spite of my mission, I loved Denton Woods. I loved him so deeply that I sometimes felt like I couldn't breathe. That was never supposed to happen. I didn't sign up to fall in love with Denton Woods. In fact, I'd tried my ass off to prevent it.

But as he looked at me with those deep, soulful eyes, his pain became my pain. Denton wasn't a six foot, 200 lb., muscular hunk of man with rock hard abs. He was a five foot-nine inch, average looking guy. But Denton had another type of power. He could literally figure out anything. He had a brain that was more powerful than all of Hercules' muscles combined. But that wasn't it either. What I fell in love with was his capacity for compassion.

Denton, more than any other person on the planet, made me feel special and important. For the entire time that I'd known him, he'd always put me first. When we first became friends, he was too shy to ask me out. I had to keep arranging to run into him "accidentally." Even after the third or fourth such accident, when I suggested that our meetings must be fated, he didn't get it. He actually jumped back from me and assured me that he wasn't stalking me or trying to manufacture the meetings.

"Denton, I never suggested that you had," I told him. "Why would you even think that I would think that?"

His answer told me the kind of man he was. "Look at you," he said quietly. "Your hair is the color of spun gold. Your eyes are as blue as the sky. Your mouth, with those pouty lips was made to be kissed. Your body almost defies description. I'm probably supposed to be a great scientist, but even I'm at a loss to come up with an equation or a theory for how they got all of those curves to come together into one body. You're simply too beautiful to exist." I was speechless.

"Me, on the other hand," he continued. "I'm nothing to look at. Ten years ago, before they discovered Shiva, you'd probably have laughed at me just for walking past you. For over ten thousand years, human beings have been hard wired to be attracted to members of the opposite sex with the best genes and the traits that indicate survival. Women want a giant of a man with huge arms and a big chest. Secondarily, they want good looks, about fifty overly white teeth and a huge bank account. But today, the tables are all turned upside down. All kinds of women that look like supermodels are going after Engineers and Physicists. Some of my colleagues are just arranging to meet hot women, but I swear to you I'm not doing that. I'd never do that." He was very sincere. He was pleading with me to believe something that I already knew was true, because I was the one manufacturing the meetings.

"So you wouldn't go out of your way to arrange a date with me?" I asked, batting my eyes and smiling.

"You're so beautiful that almost any guy would," he said sadly. "But I guess I'm not just any guy. Don't get me wrong, I understand it. I can see the benefits from both sides. The women, like everyone else nowadays, are afraid. We all want to live. We want to have healthy children and we want them to live. We also want to live our lives in at least relative comfort, with security and safety, while at the same time being free to do whatever we want. And these days, to have those things it means being involved with one of the projects for getting humanity off of the planet. Maybe those women are just using what they have to get what they want. They've always been able to throw their beauty at men and turn their heads. They're just throwing it at a different type of man." I smiled when he said that.

"And the guys," he continued. "Hell, I don't blame them at all. For all of their lives, these guys have been belittled and humiliated or even made fun of because they're smart. They've had to stand by and watch hulking behemoths who think a slide rule is when you don't go down the slide until the guy before you gets off, so you don't crash into him. This is their time to shine and have all of the things that they've been denied for most of their lives. This is the true version of, "Revenge of the Nerds."

"Aren't you one of the nerds?" I asked.

"Not really," I said. "I've never had to be jealous of guys who had women. I'm also not nervous around women because I've had women for most of my life."

I was shocked but then he didn't seem to be as nervous around me as I'd expected.

"My twin is an ex-football player," he said. "We're really close and he'd always bring home a bunch of girls, so I ended up with way more than my share. We've always taken care of each other."

"So why aren't you married?" I asked.

"I have a hang up," he said shyly. My blood went cold then. I hadn't been told about any hang ups or kinks. I hoped it was only a mild one like bondage or needing to wear a costume or something like that.

"What's your hang up?" I asked.

"Aren't we getting a little personal?" he asked. As soon as he said that, I knew it was probably something I wasn't going to like. But I also knew that for the success of my mission, the good of humanity and my immortal soul, I needed to not only find out whatever it was, but to put up with it and pretend to like it.

"Sorry," I said. "I just like hearing you talk."

"That's nice to hear," he said. "I always thought that I rambled on and on about obscure scientific concepts that no one is interested in except for other eggheads." He stood up then and waved goodbye to me. I was frustrated and fascinated all at the same time.

Back in the present, as I looked at my husband, I felt as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest. I'd been such a God damned fool. After that initial eye contact, he never even looked at me again. As much as I tried to make eye contact with him to try to read him, he never even glanced in my direction. For the past eight years, this man had literally worshipped me and now he wouldn't even look at me. The worst part of all was that there was no way I could explain to him that I'd done what I'd done for him, for us. I no longer cared about my fucking mission. I had over the past eight years come to love that man as much or more than he loved me. I wanted more than anything else to figure out a way to tell him the truth. But I was so afraid of losing him that it made me catatonic.

I needed a way to distance myself from Denton and the way he made me feel. So I'd stupidly tried to pretend to be someone else. I just wanted a different perspective. I'd picked up that nameless idiot on the spur of the moment and I don't even know why. I'd been told by my superiors that they were afraid that I was losing my emotional distance from the subject. They were afraid that I might do something that I'd already done a long time ago. In short, I was told that I should go out and screw another guy to make sure I didn't fall for Denton. Actually, I was supposed to do it regularly, for just that reason. Somewhere down the line, I'd stopped doing it and as they'd surmised, I'd fallen for him.

The truth was that I'd stopped sleeping with other men only a few weeks into the relationship with Denton. Why I'd done it today was beyond me. Maybe it was because I'd recognized a face in the supermarket and suspected that they had a person following me to assure that I was adhering to the protocols. I guess I was going to take the idiot back to our house and just send him on his way. I'd done that a few times when I thought I was being watched. But this bastard wouldn't leave without getting a piece. So I'd figured that I could just give him some and get rid of him. Since I wasn't on the pill, there was no way I was letting him in my vagina; that was Denton's alone. I just wanted it over and quickly, but then disaster had struck.

Now, I was in jeopardy of failing in my sacred mission. But even more importantly, I was in danger of losing my husband.

I decided to attack, instead of waiting and defending. I just walked up to him and put my arms around him. He moved away from me as if my touch burned him and I saw that I'd hurt him even more than I ever suspected. I really can't say that, because if he'd ever done to me what he thinks I did to him, I'd have been crushed too. That is one of the problems with love. It leaves you vulnerable.

He'd moved away from me as if I was smeared with shit and he was wearing a new white suit. I also didn't like the look on his face.

"We'll talk after he's in bed," he said.

"Den, I'm so sorry," I said. "I swear to you it'll never happen again. It shouldn't have happened this time. I didn't enjoy it. I just didn't have a choice."

"I guess that's something," he said. "I was expecting to hear you tell me that it was only sex and it didn't mean anything. Or maybe you'd tell me that it was because you were lonely because I was always working. But realistically, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later."

We'd kept our voices low so Donnie wouldn't hear us. But a wave of anger so severe that I started to sweat went through me. I yanked Denton into the kitchen away from Donnie.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I hissed. "Explain that! Why was it bound to happen? Are you insinuating that I'm a whore or something?"

"Nothing of the kind," he said. I glared at him.

"Then...?" I began.

"Beth, look at you," he said. "And look at me. Sooner or later you were obviously going to get tired of me or bored with me. I'm just surprised that it took eight years for it to happen." He pulled his hand away from me and went back into the living room with Donnie. I stood there, still feeling my fingers where they'd gripped his wrist and I cried my eyes out. Even after all of this time, the man who was probably most responsible for saving a huge chunk of humanity doubted that he was good enough for me.

I thought back to the beginning again. Over the next few weeks after our first conversation, I'd made sure that I didn't run into Denton quite as often. And I made doubly sure that if we did end up in the same place, that I was always the one who got there first. I also positioned myself so that he would run into me or come into a place that I was already at and never the other way around.

What frustrated me then a lot was that sometimes I'd make arrangements to go to a certain place like a restaurant or a market and Denton and I would both be there and he wouldn't come over to talk to me. Sometimes, he didn't even notice that I was there. It finally occurred to me that Denton wasn't actually pursuing me. I was playing this game of seduction alone. He truly wasn't involved and had no clue that we were supposed to end up together.

I needed a different tactic. I had a friend who was dating one of the guys that Denton had building some sort of machine or something. I spoke to her and got her to invite Denton to a barbecue along with some of the other guys that they worked with. I showed up and spent most of the morning fending off advances from a bunch of guys that looked like half of the cast of King of the Nerds. There were even a few Nerdesses trying to flirt with me when they saw that all of the male nerds had failed.

I was getting to the point where if one more nerd had walked up and made some vague reference to Star Trek or the Big Bang Theory and then told me what he did for a living, I was going to scream, when Denton walked in. He smiled shyly at me across the room and I bolted for him.

"You look like you're pretty popular," he said. "I told you that you're ridiculously beautiful."

"Denton, I've been wondering about this for weeks," I said. He looked at me curiously.

"Remember you told me that you had some kind of hang up?" I asked. "What is it?"

"Are we getting that personal again already?" he smiled. I just nodded.

"Love," he said.

"What?" I asked. "That's it? I was expecting something bizarre like being whipped with a cat o nine tails while being suspended over a vat of flaming spiders while wearing nipple clamps smeared with crunchy peanut butter."

"Ooh, that sounds like fun," said a guy who'd just wandered over to join our conversation. "You're Dr. Denton Woods aren't you?" he asked, gushing at talking to us. He held out his hand and I gave him the iciest glare I could. "I've read all of you papers and I'm...he stopped talking for a second and looked at both of us. "...I'm gone," he said, realizing that his company was unwanted.

I pushed Denton over into a corner. "How the hell is love a hang up? Everyone wants that?"

He pointed out a short fat man and his statuesque girlfriend. "That's Dr. George Summerville. He's brilliant in terms of designing propulsion systems for spacecraft. He and I are working on the Ionic drive system for the ship. I don't want to get too heavily into the specs and concepts because it would bore you to tears, but until George met Marga two years ago, he was a forty three year old virgin. Marga was in the Miss Universe pageant three years ago. She was engaged to some actor or something before George. Do you really think the two of them are in love?"

"Why couldn't they be?" I asked. "They seem happy."

"She's happy not to be living in a fifth floor walk-up in what's left of Los Angeles," he said. "She loves the fact that she lives like a fucking princess and lies around on her ass all day. So if you call that love, maybe she does love George."

"Well, what does it hurt? He seems to be happy," I told him. "So it isn't hurting him any."

"Oh, he is happy," he told me. "George doesn't love her either. I've had dinner with them a couple of times. George doesn't even know her middle name. He just loves pussy. Now that he's getting some, George is going hog wild. He's already cheating on her. It wouldn't surprise me if he dumps her off soon in favor of someone younger and built even more extremely. Or maybe this time he'll go after someone more beautiful." He looked at me curiously.

"No one wants to be alone," I said. "You can't blame them. They're just using what they have to get what they want."

"I'm not blaming them," he smiled. "I just don't want to join them."

"You're confusing the shit out of me," I said irritably. I really was frustrated. This wasn't going nearly as easily as it was supposed to. "I thought you said that you were hung up on love?" He just smiled and nodded.

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit, right?" I said. Then he looked at me in confusion.

"If you want love then why are you alone?" I asked. "It doesn't seem to make sense."

"Because I want real love," he said. "I don't want to get stuck with some woman who doesn't care a fig about me. Why do I need to end up with a stranger just because she was born with two giant squeezable melons on her chest and a nice smile? I'd much rather be with a short, fat woman with bad teeth, who loves me so much that every time she sees me she lights up. I want someone who knows all of my faults and failings and loves me anyway. I need a woman who laughs when I burn up the kitchen trying to make a light saber and who kisses me even when I am wearing my Spock ears and it's not Halloween and we're not at a costume party."

I'm not really sure, but I think that was the moment that I fell ass over tea kettle for him. "Good luck finding that!" I said sarcastically. "Let's get something to eat." I was trying to change the subject but deep down inside, I was thinking that I really could be that girl. And on an even deeper level, I wanted to be that girl.

During dinner, Donnie chattered excitedly about a variety of subjects. Denton answered all of his questions and shared his excitement. I did tell Donnie to drink his milk. He told me that he wanted soda instead and that he should actually be drinking soda because its chemical composition was totally synthetic and since there would probably be no live animals on the ships he should be getting used to it.

He looked back at me expecting an answer based on logic and sound reasoning. "Drink your milk anyway," I said.

"But why?" he whined, sounding like any other seven year old.

"Because I'm your mother and I said so," I quipped. I did notice Denton crack a smile at that.

After dinner the two of them played video games until it was time for Donnie to go to bed. Denton followed him to his room as usual. I touched him lightly on his shoulder and told him that he should start a fire so we could be comfortable while we talked and I'd tuck Donnie in because I hadn't spent much time with him since they got home.

He nodded and went off to start the fire.

Donnie had gotten himself into his Starfleet uniform PJs all by himself. He was growing up so quickly I could barely follow him. I laughed as I noticed that he had the pants on backwards and the fly was in the back. Perhaps he hadn't outgrown his mother just yet.

"Mom is Uncle Dalton really a Sandman?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I said. "Why?"

"I think I want to be a Sandman," he said. I was shocked.

"I thought you wanted to be a scientist like your father," I said.

"That's probably my second choice," he said.