That same apartment.
Seconds later.
A young man just over the cusp of adulthood sat uncomfortably close to a gorgeous young red haired woman on a rather comfortable couch. The boy was shaking his head while the girl rested a finger on his lips.
“No boys in your peerage, I mean, not as friends.” Jean began, pushing her finger against his lips to keep his mouth from moving, “Ah ah, no talking. If you have questions, I’ll pick them out of your mind, remember?
“I already knew you aren’t attracted to other men, I read your mind? Though I was a little worried when we first met, you are much more attractive and respectful of women than any straight man has any right to be. I’m aware that you have no interest sexually in other males… you almost have no interest in females as well, your mind is surprisingly focused on gaining knowledge. It’s cute.”
Jean waited for Greg to nod before continuing.
“I at least want a ‘no boys’ rule for right now. For the foreseeable future. I’ve already had more than enough dick measuring and ‘alpha’ posturing to last me my entire lifetime. I don’t want to have to deal with that ever again… and I especially don’t want you to have to deal with it… even though I know your answer would be to teleport them to the moon or something.”
Greg raised his hand as if ready to speak, but the woman shut him down before he could interject.
“Nope, my turn to talk now, remember, I know that’s not how teleportation works. It was hyperbole.
“For a little while, at least a couple decades or so, I just want to go through an entire team meeting without some hairy chested asshole ignoring my input or telling me that I need to be more rational when making decisions…
“And I swear, if I hear the words ‘um, akshually Jean,’ one more time, I’m going to start murdering people.”
Greg turned his head to the side, as if questioning something.
“Oh, not the way you do it, love. You do it because you genuinely love to share knowledge, and you automatically assume I’m intelligent enough to understand your reasoning. They do it because they automatically think I’m too dumb to understand the real reasons behind their logic.
“So, do we have an agreement? At least for a little while?”
Greg Nodded.
“Good,” Jean sighed in relief, but then paused as if listening to something, “Yes, I know women can be petty and condescending as well, but at least with them it's not because they assume my entire gender is too emotional to make rational decisions.”
Jean sighed, shook her head, and continued.
“Which brings me to my second ground rule, you need to clear any new peerage members with me before you’re fully committed. I don’t need to approve them, but I at least need to be able to scan their minds to make sure they’re in this for the right reasons. It would also help to make sure we’re at least mostly compatible.”
Nod.
“Good, that was one that I was worried about. Now, the last few rules, though they are all somewhat related.
“We need to be completely honest about this. I know about your people’s culture, and how they handle marriage, and I’m totally fine with a Poly relationship… but it needs to be a true polycule, none of that Harem bullshit, and no ‘first’ or ‘official’ wife bullshit either. Everyone needs to be comfortable with each other and on even footing… at least outside of the bedroom.
“Inside the bedroom, well…” Jean's voice suddenly dropped into a cutesy, Marylin Monroe-esque ‘babygirl’ tone, “...let's just say, Sir, that I will be a very capable servant for you. And if… oopsie, I were to make any mistakes, I would happily accept any punishment Sir wishes to grant to me…”
Nod, whine.
“Now, I know we’re not likely to run into any pureblooded nobles or arranged marriages, knowing that you came from another reality and all, but it would be stupid of me to think none of the other girls in the peerage are going to catch feelings.”
Shake.
“I know you’re not interested in relationships, or at least that’s what you tell yourself to avoid dealing with your social anxiety, but feelings happen sometimes when people that are sexually compatible spend time together. Just know I’m not opposed to having another woman or four around. We’re basically founding another species, and if what you say about our fertility is correct, we’re going to need all the help we can get.
Sigh and a shrug.
“Good, I don’t think this really needs to be said, but we’re laying ground rules, so we should really be explicit. Just because a girl is part of the peerage, doesn’t mean she’s part of our relationship. I don’t want to assume that. Also, any girl that joins our relationship needs to be ok with being exclusive. That doesn’t mean that she’s stuck for life, just that if she’s in… she’s committed… if she leaves, she’s out for good.
“That goes for you as well. I don’t want you screwing the maids. I know you’re not that kind of guy… I just want to get that on record.
“Obviously there can be extenuating circumstances, I’m sure things will change once we’re all a thousand years old… but for now, those are the rules. Are you ok with this?”
Nod.
“Great, now that we have have that out of the way,” Jean pulled her finger back from the young man’s mouth, and started inching closer once again, her voice going back to the sultry ‘babygirl’ tone, “We need to discuss the mistakes your clumsy servant made earlier… I think you might be a little upset at the mess I made… Sir.”
An underground base in an undisclosed location.
That evening, well after dinner, well past the point of unpaid overtime.
A nearly featureless modern corner office with a glass wall overlooked a busy office filled with cubicles, filled with active men and women with professional suits and stern demeanors. There was no sign that the activity was dying down due to the late hour.
A relatively young (for her position) and extremely classically beautiful woman in a sharp, professional suit, sat behind a sleek and modern desk. The serious look on her face and the intensity with which she read through the folders on that desk were an implicit argument that the fact that she was young and beautiful were completely incidental to the reason she was sitting behind that desk, and not in a cubicle with her fellow coworkers.
In fact, modern feminism drove her agency, following the principles of its capable female founder, even with the fact that it was established during one of the most sexist periods of the 20th century.
This agency lived by the guiding principle that when a drone pilot ‘accidentally’ leveled a children’s hospital or residential apartment block, that neither the reporters that ignored the scene in favor of the latest celebrity gossip, nor the war crimes tribunal that would be paid off to look the other way, should be able to assume the pilot’s gender, race, sexual orientation, or even species. It was a truly inclusive edifice of imperialism.
Sure, she was second in command to a man… but he was an African American man, so that was fine. Especially since the person before him was probably a gay man (though that was before the time people were open about it) and the director before him was the white woman that started it all. The young woman took pride in the fact that the one giving the orders to ignore developed nations rounding up and incarcerating innocent mutants because they ‘might’ be dangerous, was in fact, a diversity hire.
The woman behind the desk lived for those principles, as she’d been indoctr… trained to believe. In fact, this was evident in the only piece of flair in the room that wasn’t part of the decor, a pink mug that had been gifted to her by one of her nieces that simply read “GIRLBOSS” in glossy gold letters.
Behind the woman was the logo of her organization, a large circular black emblem, depicting a stylized bird of prey, and the words Strategic Homeland Enforcement, Intervention, and Logistics Division. It was a mouthful, but it was one of those agencies that had a name that some politician in Washington or Berlin somewhere decided on before they actually filled out the acronym; a ‘backronym’, as they say.
The door to the office, a sleek glass job with a chrome frame and tubular handle, hung slightly off center in the glass wall to the front of her desk. The door had the words “Maria Hill, Assistant Director” at around her eye level. This forced most visitors shorter than Hill (which was a lot of them, since she stood at a reasonably tall five feet ten, and tended to wear 3 inch heels) to look up at her name when entering her office. This was a deliberate power play on her part, designed to disarm the ‘good ol boys’ and ‘smooth talkers’ that any spy agency gains as a matter of course.
It also did a great job intimidating the women in the office, who… let's be honest… are often much worse when gossiping about a young, good looking female in a position of power, and how she ‘worked her way’ into the position.
One such woman… a female coworker in general, not a coworker inclined to dismiss Hill’s accomplishments as the result of keeping a pair of kneepads in her purse… was entering the office at that very time.
“Agent Morse,” the assistant director said tersely as the shorter woman dressed in workout clothing entered her office, barely looking up from her desk to acknowledge her colleague, “Sorry to interrupt your workout. The operation is a go. The staffing agency selected your resume for the job.”
“Maria, you look so tense,” the blonde woman said with a warm tone and a concerned look as she entered the office, “Loosen up girl. You never used to be this wound up as an analyst. Is the job that bad?”
“Bobbi… sorry, I don’t mean to be a ‘B-word’,” Hill let out a sigh as she took in the sight of her much more petite but extremely athletic and attractive friend, and found herself turning up a corner of her lips when she saw the warm smile on the field agent’s face, “No, the job is great. The employees, however… Let's just say I’d rather deal with field agents than analysts and administration people. At least the field agents are more likely to swing at you if they don’t like you than talk behind your back.”
“Eh, we got our fair share of shit talkers too, they just tend to do it much more openly. So what’s going on with this new operation? I heard it's a cushy monitoring job, some billionaire trust fund baby with dead parents.”
“It is, though I don’t know how cushy it's going to be. The target is definitely enhanced, and he might be a telepath, though that hasn’t been confirmed. Your cover is going to be as his personal assistant.
“Be prepared to have your cover blown immediately. If that happens, feel free to come completely clean. This is an assessment and recruitment push, not a shakedown.”
“Ok, so I’ll be singing the ‘badger badger’ song in my head for hours while I keep an eye on the guy. I can do that. Are we just looking to get an assessment, or is this a long term thing?”
“Currently we’re assessing, but the assignment may become semipermanent if we can turn him into an asset. We think he’s one of the good guys, or at least he’s not impulsively violent. The thing that put him on the radar was an intervention in a fight between mutants… one that he ended bloodlessly after sitting everyone down to talk. Honestly, we were getting ready to do damage control until he calmed things down. The director thinks that kind of person could help out around here.”
“Wow, a huge battle between mutants ending without civilian casualties? Man, this guy must be the king of negotiators.”
“I don’t know if I would go that far, he mainly just calmed everyone down, handed out snacks, and then took the main aggressor away from the situation.”
“Snacks, what kind of snacks?”
“Popcorn and iced cream, or possibly Gellato, the agents on site weren’t sure.”
“I like the guy already.”
“Anyway, the Director has hopes of getting him on board, but I don’t think it’ll be that simple.”
“Let me guess,” Morse said with a snorting chuckle as she started flipping through the file, “The director said that he is in no uncertain terms, definitely not ordering me to use a honey trap to get the guy to sign on… but if it happens…
“Oh, wow… hey Maria, if this is the guy…” she pulled out a glossy 8x10 photograph of the young man in a pair of pajama pants handing an ice cream cone to one of the mutant participants, “I might decide to trap this man in a little honey myself.”
“Bobbi!”
“Oh, relax Maria. I’m just kidding…” she pulled a second photograph, one with the subject walking down a Manhattan street with an older red haired woman in a tank top and shorts, “...or am I? Wow.”
“If you’re going to be like that, give me back my file.”
“What, you can keep it for a little ‘rubdown’ material later, but I’m not allowed?”
“Bobbi!”
“Relax hon. I’m pulling your leg. Got you to pull the stick out of your ass, didn’t I?”
“Fine. Anyway, yes, the Director definitely believes that seduction would be effective, but I have my doubts. Anyway, whatever you do, don’t rush into it. I don’t want to push too hard and end up screwing up contact.”
“Relax assistant director, I’m an experienced field agent… I’ve been doing this for a few years, remember. I’m not going to let my lady bits do the thinking and screw up the mission by jumping the kid’s bones. I’ll wait until we have the kid locked down, and then I’ll jump his bones.”
Back in the apartment.
Much later that evening… though it was closer to the following morning.
A young man and young woman in their early 20s were lying beside each other in a rather large loft bed in a spacious studio apartment, covers pulled up to both of their armpits in the universal “just had sex” pose common to Hollywood. The woman pulled out a hand rolled cigarette, placed it between her lips, and the tip burst into flames. She took a long drag of the cigarette and blew out the smoke dramatically.
“Wow,” Jean turned to Gregory while the burning cigarette was held aloft in her left hand, “That was… something.”
“It definitely was,” Gregory answered, “It started out awkward, with a lot of fumbling around, but by the second or third time I think we got the hang of it. The fourth and fifth time… well, that was amazing. Everything after that is kind of a blur.”
“It was a good blur though. Uhg, I’m going to be sore for a week. I didn’t realize devils didn’t have much of a refractory period.”
“Yes, it has a lot to do with the fact that we’re semispiritual beings, our semen is actually just a solidified blob of magical potential used to initiate reproduction with another semispiritual being. The biology is much less gross than it is with humans. As long as we have magical power remaining, we can keep going… it’s going to get much worse as I get more powerful.”
“Then it’s a good thing we already talked about adding other women to the mix. I don’t think I could handle another night like tonight for a while. Oh! That explains how you changed the flavor halfway through.”
“Quite, it’s rather easy for a devil with control of their power. By the way, since when did you start smoking?”
“It’s a joint,” Jean shrugged, “I found it in Kitty’s room when I was tearing through the place, and I thought, hey, why not… maybe it’ll help with the whole ‘hearing everyone’s surface thoughts in a mile radius’.”
“That explains the smell,” Greg nodded with a disgusted look on his face, “Is it helping?”
“No, actually, it’s really not doing anything for me. It’s actually just kinda gross.”
“That makes sense, you should find it harder to get drunk now as well. Intoxicants don’t work as well on our kind. Though the flavor is definitely enhanced.”
“Wonderful,” Jean grimaced as she took her second drag, coughed, and held the joint as far away as she could from herself, “Gross, could you…”
“Of course,” Gregory nodded, and runic circles appeared. Instantly the joint and all of the lingering smoke in the room disappeared, leaving only the smell of sex and air freshener, “Now you can kiss me again.”
“Oh hell no mister, not again… not after the last three times you said you ‘just wanted a good night kiss’.”
“Fair eno… eh?” Gregory looked confused for a moment as he paused his thought, “What the, Jean you’re not going to believe this, but I’m receiving a summons.”
“Eh, from the little business card thingies you told me about? It’s almost midnight… and, wait, did you hand any of those things out except to Ororo, Kittie, and Anna?”
“I handed out quite a few in the last couple of months during my vacation with Auntie. The case never seems to run out, I could plaster them all over Manhattan if I wished.”
“Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting about that. It always feels like it happened before you came to this world. Do you have to go now?”
“It seemed like a rather urgent request, though it was quite vague in the wording.”
“Ok, now I’m curious. What was the wish?”
“Five words, ‘help me… please help me’.”