New Story Title: Little Packages (Erotica)
Second chances sometime come in little packages.
(Enjoy reading)
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I paused at the edge of the bedlam and smiled for what felt like the first time in over two years.
Around me, people rushed passed, anxious to get to their event, or get some limited edition item. A pair of Batmen strolled past holding hands. An overweight man dragged a trolly behind him stacked full of comics to get signed. A trio of teenage girls dressed up as anime characters I didn’t recognize giggled and posed for what was likely the first of a thousand pictures taken of them over the weekend. Banners announcing cosmic events featuring women in serious, and seriously uncomfortable poses hung from the rafters. It was early and already the noise level was bordering on uncomfortable. Perfect.
Comic con. Christ I’d missed it. I almost hadn’t made this one. The amount of wrangling, well-meaning “are you sure?” and offers to come along with me “just for some company” were well meaning, but maddening. I understood their concern, honestly I did. And part of me was deeply touched that my friends and family, who had kept me sane after Beth and the accident, were still worried about him, after two years.
But a man can’t stay coddled forever. I was creeping up on 50 and was determined I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life dwelling on a moment. I had to live again. I had to remember how to be happy.
Family and friends didn’t get it, of course, but there were few places on Earth that made me as happy as wandering around a convention room floor filled with tens of thousands of mildly crazy geeks. That many people, all so happy to immerse themselves into a thing they loved… it was like a massive positive energy generator. Positive energy I was more than to absorb. I could feel the muscles in my face ache slightly, unused to their current configuration. They’d get used to it. Adjusting the straps on my backpack, I put the cane forward and began slowly walking through the con.
It was a different pace for me. At previous cons I was going flatout almost all the time, convinced I was missing something cool. Some signing, some exclusive, a cool panel, some hot shot artist who was only taking commissions from the first 5 people to come to his table. The walking stick and the knee brace made sure that wasn’t happening. People rushed past me, some uttering a brief apology if they jostled me. It was my new reality and I was going to have to adjust. This time I had to be content enough to ramble down the aisles and past the booths and tables and just soak it in. I needed my joy back, not a ton of stuff.
But it was still a comic con. Comic cons are, by design, made to suck your money away. The only people who didn’t spend a ton of money there were the ones who didn’t have any. And even those people sometimes found themselves at event ATMs, paying outrageous fees, so they could take out enough to get that thing.
Comic cons had a distortion field. Every decision made at the con made sense. It was only after you left the building and walked a couple of blocks could you look at what you had bought and go “what the fuck was I thinking?”
Five hours in and so far I’d managed to avoid any outrageously stupid purchases. Some new graphic novels, signed by the creators. A fun t-shirt. The page of art was an extravagance, but I’d always liked that artist. And I highly doubted it was the last page I was going to buy before this weekend was over.
Still, I was feeling good. I knew my friends were worried I was going to come here and freak out and just make a series of bad decisions. I was getting texts asking how things were going, which I responded to with happy emojis just to keep them from worrying. But it was nice that so far they were completely wrong about disasters.
That’s when the witch slammed into me, sending me flying onto the floor.
I loved cosplayers. I really do. Anybody willing to spend weeks and hundreds, hell, thousands, of dollars on a costume so they could pretend to be Boba Fett, or Elvis as a Stormtrooper or Spider-man… I admired them. I really did. It wasn’t my thing, but they were fun and mostly harmless.
Mostly.
An occupational hazard of cosplayers is that they were often oblivious to their surroundings. The older ones eventually developed some radar sense. But the younger ones were normally too excited to be at a con, happy to be with their friends and, well, broke from putting together their costume. So their main thrill was hanging out and posing for photos for everyone who asked.
This one was so eager to do a dramatic Scarlet Witch hex pose that she really didn’t notice I was walking behind her. Bam. Splat.
If my knee wasn’t fucked up, I probably would have managed to stay upright. If it wasn’t aching after overdoing it and spending hours walking around concrete floors, it probably wouldn’t have hurt when I landed on the concrete floor.
Since my knee was fucking up and aching, it meant when I landed awkwardly, I yelled out “Ow, fuck!”
“Oh, my God! I am so sorry,” I heard.
Then there were peals of laughter. “Christ, Ashley, why are you always such a ditz? You just about killed that old guy.”
So it turns out that five hours at a comic con wasn’t quite enough to repress two years of anger and depression. I was fully gearing up to tear the head off this stupid bitch and her friends and then possibly do something that was going to get me tossed out of the con and likely committed to an asylum
I looked up and there was just…
I still don’t have the words. It was like all the pent up anger just switched off. She was… adorable. Not sex personified or anything like that. You just immediately wanted to pick her up and put her in your pocket to keep her safe. Big, luminous green eyes, pouty lips and a mass of red hair kept barely in check by the headpiece she was wearing. She had a face that made it almost impossible to stay mad at, and was young enough that she didn’t know she had this particular super power and how she could use it for evil if she wanted.
She also appeared to be about 100 pounds soaking wet and maybe five feet fall. More pixie than anything else. I suspect normally she would have bounced right off me, but she must have caught me at just the right angle and had some momentum on her side.
She also looked utterly horrified.
“Oh my God,” she yelled. “I am so sorry! I’m such an idiot, I was posing for a photo, and I don’t have my glasses on because they clash with the costume and I didn’t see you there and oh Jesus, are you ok?”
I was sprawled on the floor and my knee was singing a minor aria, but I managed to find it in myself to give a small laugh.
“I think I’ll live,” I said, using the cane to leverage my way up. The girl grabbed my arm to try and help pull me to my feet. Except this was when my knee twinged, I lost my balance and since I was easily twice her weight, she didn’t have the strength to keep me upright, which meant she also lost her balance. I went back down on the floor with 100 pounds of cute redhead landing on top of me.
And now we were in a sitcom. I could hear people laughing around me. She got up on her hands enough to look down at me, utterly horrified.
“HI there,” I managed. “You ok?”
“Oh my god!” she yelled, getting to her feet so quickly I briefly wondered if she might not have super powers.
“Jesus, Ashley. You’re such a clumsy bitch,” said a girl nearby, one of her friends, I’m guessing.
Before I could say anything further, a dark figure loomed over me.
“Need a hand up?” asked Darth Vader.
Perfect. I grabbed his hand and he easily leveraged me up to my feet. He was well over 6 feet tall and I had the feeling it was all him, and very little of the costume.
“Thanks, Lord Vader,” I managed.
“Don’t mention it,” he rasped. “Literally. Bad for the reputation.”
I surprised myself by laughing again. A minute ago I was ready to commit murder; now I was laughing. I looked around for… Ashley? She was a couple of feet away, looking utterly mortified. Her two friends were still laughing at her.
“I mean, honestly, Ashley, that was hilarious. I just wish I had the camera going. That would have made an awesome TikTok video. You’re such an awkward bitch.” That’s when her friend, dressed up like Rogue, finally noticed me. She stepped back and, with what she thought was stealth, slipped her phone out to record what she was sure was going to be an epic meltdown on my part.
“You ok?” I asked? She looked dumbfounded.
“Am I ok? I just crashed into you and then landed on top of you. I almost killed you!”
A brief flash of the crash shot through my head. I repressed it.
“I’ve been almost killed by heavier things than you. I’m fine. On the other hand, I’m concerned you might die of embarrassment. It’s ok,” I said. I wanted to put a reassuring hand on her, but I was a fully clothed middle-age man with a foot of height on her and she was, maybe, 18 in a red swimsuit, stockings, thigh high boots and cape. Discretion won out.
Sensing a blowout not in the making, Rogue turned her phone off in a huff.
“She’s always a ditz like that. I don’t even know what to do with her,” she said.
“Perhaps try being kinder and a better friend,” I said, knowing instantly how that was going to go over.
“What the fuck do you know,” said the other friend, who was an anime character I didn’t recognize. That’s when I realized getting into drama with teenagers at a comic con was something I absolutely did not need. I ignored the two friends and turned to Ashley.
“I’m fine, I promise. Don’t spend the rest of the con beating yourself up on this, ok”
She nodded.
“But maybe do wear your glasses even if they clash with the costume.”
“Ok,” she said with a hint of a smile.
And that was enough drama for me. Fortunately, there was a room nearby with a panel getting ready to start in a few minutes. I had no particular interest in a History of Archie comics, but it would let me sit down and give the knee a break and escape the drama. I hobbled off towards the room, feeling death glares from a pair of teenage drama queens drilling into the back of my skull.
I’d felt worse.