“No, Nadine, get back in here, thank you.” The children’s mother, whose name was either Pauline or Paulina and Janet could never remember which, was calling them in as Janet blinked again.

Sometimes memories from the last weeks of her time as a hero bubbled up. She’d struggled with them, at one point, but Neil had been a great help to her; he would sit with her, and hold her, and talk softly to her while he stroked her hair, and in time she would feel better.

It happened less often these days. She sighed and went back to her weeding. Presently she began to hum, and before long she was feeling quite back to her usual self again. She went back inside thinking that she should text Whitney and let her know how much she’d enjoyed their conversation, and offer her any support she might need with Brian.

She sent the message standing just inside the kitchen door, dictating it aloud to her phone on the countertop. She’d got into the habit of doing it that way lately, because it freed up her hands.

As she dictated, she freed her hair from the bun, kicked off her shoes, and unbuttoned her blouse. While it sent, the shrugged it off and undid the clasp of her skirt, then reached down to pull off her socks. Being barefoot felt better if she was otherwise naked.

Gathering up her clothes, she took them back upstairs to the master bedroom, where she opened her closet.

With no guest that afternoon, she could serve her husband dinner the way he liked it best. She started with a garter belt, then a pair of wide-net fishnet stockings which she clipped into place. Over this went a short black vinyl skirt with white vinyl edging designed to mimic lace frills.

There was an accompanying… top would not really be the right word. It was more like a chestpiece, clinging tightly to her body, kept up by shoulder straps, and while it had a narrow black vinyl strap at the waistline to fasten around her back, it was still best described as backless.

As she strapped it into place she caught a glimpse of her smile in the mirror and stopped to take in the woman she’d become, her figure on display while dressed as a fetish maid as clearly and visibly as it had been while she still wore a heroine’s costume. She did nonetheless, she felt, give off a very different and more desirable vibe now.

It occurred to her that Neil would probably skip ‘desirable’ and substitute ‘fuckable’, at least if nobody else was there to hear him. She made a noise at the thought that was halfway between groan and growl.

She plaited her hair, letting the plait run down her back, and settled a little white headpiece into place.

Then she went downstairs to attend to the final touches in that night’s dinner.

Whitney had texted her a reply already.

Good to hear from you too. We need to catch up more often. Thank Neil for the ride.

She smiled. How was he?

A few moments later, the answer came back. Neil is a perfect gentleman, and you’re lucky to have him.

Janet giggled. About a month into dating, she’d sent Whitney a message herself when heading back home late one night: Neil is a perfect gentleman, and I’m lucky to have him. Her friend had been worried about how quickly their relationship had been going; that message had been all about acceptance.

It had been another couple of weeks before Whitney accepted what was happening in front of her and started to be happy for them. Seeing her own words echoed back so precisely felt like a win.

She sent back Let me know when you decide what you’re doing about Brian and went back to her work.

It wasn’t actually difficult work, preparing meals like these for her husband. It was often time-consuming, and she rose very early to prepare his breakfast before he’d want it, but because she was doing no other work, she found it easy enough to plan and shop and prepare and cook, always thinking about a week in advance. Very few items she used were pre-bought these days, simply because she had the room to batch make doughs, stocks, and other complex components, and store them in advance.

None of these had been skills she had when they married, but she’d prided herself on being a fast learner beforehand and the same skills still stood her in good stead.

Time continued to roll on. Neil was very keen on getting home on time; had been at least as long as she’d known him, but of course work could be unpredictable, and sometimes it ran late. She had everything where it needed to be, and was wondering if there was anything else she could do with her time before she settled down with a book instead.

It occurred to her that making a batch of fudge would give her an excuse to check on Whitney. As she moved to the cupboard to find ingredients, she dictated a short message to her husband.

I want to make fudge for Whitney.

To Janet, alerting her husband was the natural first step, even though she hadn’t felt the need to consult him on anything else while at home. She had free rein to do as she wished.

Her phone chimed; she had an answering text.

Use the good sugar.

She answered, then deleted the text. Her eyelids fluttered for three seconds.

She put the sugar she used for baking back in the cupboard and fetched out the bowl she used for her teas and coffees, then set to work.

*

She met Neil in the hallway, there at once to run her hands over his shoulders while helping him out of a heavy coat. She hung it from the peg, then turned back to face him, smiling demurely as his eyes drank her in. He had seen her in the outfit or others like it countless times, but she knew how much it excited him every time when he saw it, and anything that prompted that reaction from him was always worth it; the experience of being looked over so possessively, of provoking him to consider her his greatest treasure never got old.

He held up one finger and moved it around in a tight circle. Holding her hands out from her hips, she twirled on the spot. Janet always cheated when she did this; if she was just a half inch up in the air, flying as little as you could do and still technically be airborne, you could turn perfectly smoothly, pirouetting in the air without the need for the many tiptoe steps often employed in this.

His hands stopped her partway through, one on her hip to halt her. The other slipped under her skirt to grope her ass for a moment then around to her thigh where his thumb traced slow circles on her skin. “You know,” he said softly, “you’d be amazed how much better I feel knowing I have you to come home to.”

She turned the rest of the way, facing him again, looking up with a bright smile. “I love being able to do that for you,” she purred. And then, because even if it had been for a guest she prided herself on being a good hostess, she asked “Is this a day where you’d like to start off with a drink?”

“Let’s get one made, shall we?” he said, amused. “And then it’s there if I want it.”

“Of course.” She dimpled and turned and led the way into the living room, where the sideboard with all their alcohol awaited. Janet had enjoyed a drink of her own, most of her life, but in finding fulfilment as his wife she had realised how often the drinks she’d enjoyed had been ways to manage one disappointment or another.

She didn’t need that anymore. Sometimes Neil did. Privately she had decided that the difference was just in the fact that Neil’s work wasn’t as personally fulfilling as what she did.

She fixed him a drink and brought it back over to the sofa, which he had already sunk into. She knew his moods well now, so she set the glass down on the little table by his arm, and without talking she slipped behind the sofa, where she squatted down behind him so that she could lean in, giving him her chest as a warm, yielding headrest.

He relaxed back into her almost immediately, head tilted backward. Her hands slid over the back of the sofa and found his shoulders, felt the tension in his muscles. She began to massage his shoulders, working away at the tension she felt.

The first sign of success was a sigh, a long, audible hiss of exhalation. What thoughts might accompany it she wasn’t sure but she knew it for what it was, the pressures of the day being consciously let go.

She couldn’t imagine that the choices and challenges he faced in an office had stakes on the level that her heroic deeds had done, but that wasn’t the point; everyone’s battles were their own, everyone’s goals and drives belonged to them, and the lines everyone drew in their personal sand, the points they had to stand fast on, were all individual and often secret.

His challenges mattered as much as hers had, as Whitney’s did, and for that matter so did Paulina’s next door. Everyone deserved the chance to fight their own battles and only the very worst did not deserve the occasional victory to brighten their lives. Janet had to believe that or question everything she had stood for.

After the sigh came a short period of silence, then a grunt, a hard sound of satisfaction. “We’ll put dinner back a half hour or so,” Janet said, decisively.

It was not her decision, she thought privately; not really. But she knew him well enough to know he would want longer here on a day like this, so she voiced what he would wish.

“Mm-hmm,” he answered, and the approval and satisfaction in his voice made her squirm where she squatted. She did her best to allow none of that to show in her efforts as combined shelf-pillow and masseuse.

“Rough day?” she asked, judging it to be the right time.

“It shows, does it?” Humour rumbled through his voice. She smiled. “We might have a few of those coming up,” he said. “Consolidating things.”

Those two sentences were about as much as he ever mentioned about work. Janet was aware that some people told their spouses everything that happened at work, enough that a husband or wife might feel they knew all the people who worked with their lover. Neil kept it quiet, kept it buried. It was his way.

In this house, he had once told her, we can draw a line under everything before and let it go.

*

“Good girls don’t struggle. Good girls don’t fight. Let it go, Thunderstorm.”

It was strange, she thought, but she had been breathing in the gas for some time now and she didn’t feel sleepy at all. Perhaps the lightheaded feeling, the tingling at the top of her scalp, was a prelude. If so, this wasn’t much of a knockout gas.

She called up all four winds, sent them rushing away from her to flush the air clean, but she got the answer she expected as it was all funnelled back toward her, the winds she had conjured up powerful enough, when channelled back toward her, to buffet her where she stood.

She wasn’t sure if that was an argument for the unstoppable force or the immovable object. She had moved, after all, but she had not fallen.

“You know I can’t,” she told him. “You’re a criminal. You need to be stopped.” Janet liked to think she served justice, rather than the law, and so there was more nuance to it than that. But this didn’t apply to a man who’d spent over a decade securing his hold over organised crime in his city and building it up into something bigger. Not to a man who hired supercriminals to achieve his ends.

“What would you do to stop me?”

“Anything it takes,” she declared. This, too, was a statement that hid the nuance of her actual position. It seemed easier to deal in absolutes, though. Simpler. Her mind was happier with simple at that moment.

“Because you’re a good girl?”

“Sure.”

“Good girls don’t struggle. Good girls don’t fight. Let it go.”

She didn’t tell him she wasn’t that kind of good girl. Didn’t disown what he was suggesting. That was nuance and complication again, and again, her head was insisting on simplicity.

She opened her mouth to defy him, but the words wouldn’t form.

The tingling was all through her head now.

“You can’t stop me, Thunderstorm,” he said. Again, she opened her mouth to answer him. Again, she couldn’t find words. After a few moments with her mouth vacantly open, she giggled to herself and closed it.

What had she been doing? Oh, right.

She looked around again slowly. “Show me,” she said. She’d meant Show yourself, but she’d only realise that later. Fleetingly she thought it was a good thing that Torrent wasn’t there, both because this still felt dangerous somewhere at the back of her mind but also because she was sure she’d feel embarrassed.

“Accept it, Thunderstorm. Like a good girl.”

She stood, swaying slightly where she did. She didn’t want to accept it.

But she was a good girl, wasn’t she?

“Uhhh….” was all she managed.

“What would you do,” the Night Mayor asked again, “to get out of here?”

“Anything it takes,” she answered. The same answer she’d given before, she thought, and felt obscurely proud of that. She didn’t register that the question had changed, and that the answer might need to change with it.

“All you have to do,” he said, “is accept that you’re a good girl.”

She continued to sway, breathing in the heady scent of the gas. Thinking was slow, and somehow it felt wrong, too. Like her head was meant to be quiet and peaceful and unused instead.

Those might be related, or might not. Deciding would involve thinking.

She was smiling. She knew she was smiling. So whatever it was, it couldn’t be too bad.

What was it?

“Okay,” she said. Sometimes when you agreed, people restated things to check. She might find out what she was agreeing to.

“You’re a good girl.”

“Okay,” she said again. Accepting it was important, for… something. But it was clearly important.

“I want to hear you say it.”

Did she want what he wanted? It was confusing. She thought maybe she didn’t.

But she couldn’t remember why, and she was smiling. Had been since she giggled.

“I’m a good girl,” she said.

“You’re a good girl.”

“I’m a good girl!”

“Good girls draw a line under these conversations.”

“Sure.” She wasn’t sure that was the right answer, but she wasn’t really sure of anything. Agreeing was easier.

“Good girls let these conversations go.”

“Okay.”

“What are you?”

This was much easier. The words were waiting on her lips. “I’m a good girl.”

The sound of the fans ebbed away and she heard the locked door behind her loudly disengage.

She stood, swaying, until the door swung open.

Then she left, sure it would make sense in due time.

*

Janet’s eyelids fluttered again. She caught her breath; it was soft, but her lips were so close to her husband’s ear that of course he heard it. “Everything alright?”

“Uh, yes.” Sometimes, when she remembered her last conflicts with the Night Mayor, she didn’t hear the voice of the man she’d faced in court, but instead she heard Neil’s voice. They had talked about it, early on in their relationship, when she’d first felt able to confess to him that the memories of those times were surfacing. Neither of them had offered an explanation that made sense, but in time she had decided it didn’t matter. What they had was more than strong enough.

She shivered. “Just… remembering.”

He lifted one hand and patted the back of hers, where it rested on his shoulder. He didn’t have to ask her what she was thinking about; if she had a bad reaction, it was always that. “They went away for a while,” he said, his voice soft and gentle. “They’re back?”

Janet thought about it. Two in the same day, but only one day of it. “Maybe,” she said. “Or today was just a bad day.” She hadn’t told him about the last time a memory had surfaced; it had been months ago, the last winter, and there had only been one. Before that it had been a year or more since the last, and that had been an isolated incident. Most of the bad days had come in the run up to the wedding; she hadn’t had one in over four years.

He patted the sofa next to him. She rose, moving around to sit next to him rather than be his pillow.

That was one of the things she loved about Neil. If she ever had problems, he wanted to help her, either finding a solution or comforting her through it. It was one of the reasons she was happy to offer him whatever he needed or wanted.

He had an arm raised ready, and when she sat she snuggled up against him, burrowing in under his shoulder. She sighed, the breath which had caught on the way in escaping much more easily. She always felt content with him, but doubly so in his arms.

“Was it a bad day in other ways?” he asked softly.

“No,” she said, after a moment to consider. “No, actually it’s been a happy one. I got that fudge made for Whitney, so I might drop that off tomorrow, while you’re out.”

“Invite her round,” he said cheerfully. “We’ll have dinner, then I can run her home and she can take the fudge then.”

“I’ll do that, then.” She smiled. More than anyone else, Whitney represented the life she’d led before they met. Neil wasn’t challenged by that the way some people seemed to be, not even now he knew that Whitney hadn’t just been a friend but something more.

*

It had been a couple of months earlier - actually, it had been after the previous time Whitney had dropped by.

A combination of mild annoyances - she was buying a house, which was bad enough, and was already in a feud with two members of the HOA even before anything was signed, and on top of that, Torrent’s recent costume change was being heavily criticised on local TV by the widow of a megachurch preacher - had led her to seek out Janet not for advice but just for a sympathetic ear.

Janet had assured her friend that the new costume was still firmly within the bounds of taste, adding that she couldn’t blame her for cutting away enough fabric to show off the musculature across her shoulders and thighs. Beyond that, on that topic they’d rapidly dissolved into giggles, and a bottle of wine had dispensed with the HOA issue.

Whitney had left that time before Neil had got home, and Janet had even had dinner ready for the normal time that night; while she was fixing him a drink after dinner, he noticed one fewer bottle of wine in the rack.

“Day drinking?” he’d asked, his tone amused. It took her a moment to realise what he meant, and then she laughed.

“Sort of. My friend Whitney was around.” She passed him his glass, then sat on the sofa beside him; the TV was on, and she enjoyed those nights where they watched together. She tucked her feet up on the sofa itself, under the vinyl skirt she was wearing.

“Oh, right.” He nodded, his eyes on the screen as he sorted through the menu, trying to decide what to watch. “Is she okay?”

“Um…. I think she will be.” If this had just been small talk, she would have just assured him that all was well, but she always gave him the respect of an honest, thoughtful answer. “She’s just going through a lot right now.”

“Sounds frustrating.”

“Well, to begin with, she’s buying a house.”

“She and her boyfriend?”

“No,” Janet had said thoughtfully, mentally filing that there might be more trouble coming with Brian. “No, I don’t think that’s moved any further forward. This is just a place of her own, but it’s her first, and-”

His hand closed around the back of the neck, his grip light but his intention firm. He guided her head down toward his crotch, where - as she looked toward her destination - she saw he had unbuckled his belt and produced his cock.

Happily, her mouth was open in any case. She set to work happily, reaching down to cradle his balls in her hand, running the tips of her long red fingernails lightly over his skin, loving the vibrato edge this leant to the sounds of his appreciation, the grunts and groans he made as she pleased him.

She found a blissful peace in moments like this; when her husband simply decided to put her mouth or her pussy to use, everything else seemed further away, seemed irrelevant.

Other women, she knew, would have taken offence at being interrupted just because he wanted his dick sucked. Janet couldn’t understand that attitude. If you truly loved your man, you wanted him to be happy; if it would make him happy to be able to exercise his right to you on a whim, it followed that you should indulge him.

The fact that she felt more fulfilled while pleasing him than at almost any other time in her life to date was a bonus, but it wouldn’t have been enough on its own. She had pledged to love, honour, and to obey her husband.

She had slipped, gradually and gracefully, from her perch beside him on the sofa to kneel on the carpet before him, and had done so slowly and steadily enough that she had been able to do it without interrupting the rhythm at which her head moved.

Her free hand was now resting on his thigh, her thumbnail tracing lazy circles against his inner thigh through the fabric of his trousers, and his cocktip was twitching. She loved the way he tasted, loved the sound of him and the feel of him shuddering under her as he got closer and closer to filling her, loved the feel of his fingers intertwining in her hair.

Those offended women, she decided, simply were missing out on the clarity and peace he brought her. They couldn’t understand how good it felt to be a good girl and let it go.

Soon enough he proved again that it wasn’t just good girls who let it go; under her eager exhortations he came, filling her throat with his seed, which she gulped down before lapping him clean.

He had started watching something while her head had been occupied; once she had him clean, she tucked his cock away again and zipped him up, then resumed her seat on the sofa beside him. “On top of that,” she said, “her new costume’s being criticised by people on TV.”

“New costume?” he asked almost absently. As she snuggled in against his shoulder, his attention sharpened. “Whitney?”

“Yeah.”

“What costume?”

“The new Torrent costume.”

“Oh! Whitney’s Torrent?”

“I’m sure I told you,” she said, with the sinking feeling in her stomach at the realisation she probably hadn’t. She hoped this didn’t mean he would object to her friend or fear that she’d end up putting the Thunderstorm costume on again - well, for anything other than a little roleplay for his birthday, anyway.

But Neil just chuckled. “I assure you, if I’d been told two superheroines’ identities, I’d remember.” She’d looked up at him, sure her fears would be unfounded but needing the reassurance anyway, and she’d seen him smiling thoughtfully, the way he often did when he was still thinking about work as the evening wore on. “If that’s the case, I’m glad she’s got you,” he said. “I get the impression people in her line of work need friends who understand.”

She squeezed him, gently, conscious that her full strength could injure him but wanting to show her gratitude. He slipped one arm around her and kissed the top of her head, then sipped at his drink; meanwhile, Janet rearranged herself so her head lay in his lap and tried to catch up what had happened in the show while her attention had been blissfully elsewhere.

*

The following morning, once Neil had driven off to the office, Janet hung her white apron up on the hook in the kitchen and went upstairs, where she pulled on a pair of bright blue leggings and a too-tight Minnesota Twins shirt, which by virtue of how tight it was “put her own twins on display,” as Neil had once laughingly commented, had become a frequent item of her wardrobe when running errands.

“I’m not one of those people who has to be the only one who sees what’s mine,” he’d said once. “I’m not a jealous man. After all, we’re married.”

With some sneakers to complete the outfit and her hair tied back in a ponytail for ease, she climbed into her own car and drove off on a grocery shop.

Sorting through produce finding the best quality was another of those tasks where she felt truly fulfilled and during which her mind seemed to run only at low ebb; it didn’t take thought now she’d had time to learn.

Given that she had the time to devote to it, it was also very worthwhile, a key part of having tastier, healthier meals than she had before, but Janet still knew she’d never have done it for herself.

She’d been lucky as it was that her metabolism had handled all the cheap ready meals and ramen packets she’d relied on as a heroine; still, she did wonder occasionally now how much longer even a superhuman physique could have maintained her health and fitness levels if she’d kept up her old all-junk-food, zero-sleep regimen.

She’d bought her proteins and vegetables and was loading them into the trunk of her car prior to the last stop (a bakery and coffee shop whose bread she and Neil liked better than anyone else’s, which would have been far out of her way if she didn’t take getting her husband the best so seriously) when she heard sirens.

Straightening up and turning to look in the direction the noise was coming from, she saw two motorcyclists shoot into view, accelerating along the street, followed by three squad cars in hot pursuit. A quickly conjured gust of wind would end the chase, and with her mastery over the elements, she could even cushion the riders’ falls…

She was suddenly very conscious that she was standing completely still. Her scalp tingled, and her thoughts seemed diffuse and irrelevant.

*

“All units in the vicinity of 2nd and Washington, be aware that a hostage situation has just begun. Suspected metahuman involvement.”

Just luck that Janet had heard it, at what had been intended as the tail end of a night’s work. Torrent had already taken off, heading for home via a late-night burger shop she loved, and Thunderstorm would have done the same if she hadn’t lingered to make sure the police collecting their collar had Arachna properly secured; the woman was so flexible Janet thought of her as triple-jointed.

But since she’d heard it, she knew she was going to take a look. Hostage situations ended messily too often, and supers being involved often made it worse.

She was surprised by how little activity there was when she got there; the police had cordoned a four-story building off and were getting themselves settled in for what could be a lengthy encounter, but there was no visible activity inside. On the other hand, a couple of years ago they’d busted a smuggling operation which used that building as a staging point. Janet’s experience was that once organised crime got access to a location, that access tended to remain even if the location changed hands.

Since the situation wasn’t going bad yet, she went in quietly, finding a second-floor window overlooking the fire escape which was slightly ajar. She proceeded to check the building carefully, starting with the ground floor - easiest to make a break from - and then working up one floor at a time.

Three paces after she arrived on the top floor, a heavy steel shutter slammed shut behind her, cutting her off from the doorway. Moments later, she heard a telltale hiss that seemed to issue from all around her; casting around, her eyes narrowed as she saw, tucked into one corner, a camera and speaker together.

“Night Mayor,” she growled.

“Thunderstorm,” his voice answered, sounding pleased. “Welcome back.”

“There never was a hostage situation, was there?”

“Just reports of one, carefully timed for when you’d be wrapping up the fight with Arachna. I wanted to be sure you heard, and I wanted to be sure you came here alone.”

“Why?”

“Because you were alone the first time,” he said. “Torrent becomes a different question.” There was a moment of quiet. “And one with a better solution, I think.”

There were windows on this floor, and she doubted those would withstand the force of the wind she could summon up. She could blast them open and vent the gas out. She knew that.

She should do it.

She didn’t want to.

She wanted to enjoy - yes, there it was, the strangely sweet scent, and with it, the tingle in her scalp. Janet smiled deeply and inhaled slowly, exhaled happily. She took another deep breath.

“Good girls don’t struggle, Thunderstorm,” the Night Mayor said. “Good girls don’t fight.”

“Don’t fight,” she agreed dreamily, barely even thinking about it.

“Are you a good girl, Thunderstorm?”

“I’m a good girl,” she answered. These questions had easy answers. That felt good. She was smiling.

“Good girls don’t question,” he said.

“Don’t question,” she agreed. The more she breathed this stuff in, the more she felt that way anyway.

Eyelids fluttering, she drew in another deep, slow breath, savouring it for three full seconds before breathing out.

Ahead of her, a door swung open. “Go into the room, Thunderstorm.”

“Okay,” she answered, as accepting of the situation she found herself in as if she were dreaming.

The room had likely been a manager’s office at one time. It boasted a wide, floor-to-ceiling window along one wall, which looked out over several other businesses. As she made it to the centre of the room, the room’s own lights blinked on, still low but enough to show that just to one side of the window in the otherwise empty room was a small round table, the kind used at bars for two-person tables. Atop the table was an egg vibrator.

“You are about to be given a test, Thunderstorm,” he said. “Good girls pass tests.”

“Pass test,” she echoed. She felt so lightheaded, so peaceful, knocking on the edge of bliss from below, as if she could just let go and float upward into the truest happiness.

“One of my men is currently in a building across the street. When he emerges, he will have stolen from that business. You would easily be able to arrange for his capture.

“Or you can pass the test, and stand by the window and pleasure yourself with the vibrator while you watch him to safety. Because good girls do not interfere in my operations.”

That was too many words. She did not attempt to echo it. But she remembered it.

“Stand at the window and the test will begin.”

She crossed quietly to the window, noticing as she grew close that it was not locked; the large pane she stood in front of could be slid to one side at a moment’s notice. Moments later, the front door to one of the buildings opened and the shrill wail of an alarm rose up, tinny through the glass.

A man sprinted out of the doorway and along the street. His route took him close by the building.

She could be on him in moments. She would have the height advantage. Even if he anticipated her, he would be easy to subdue with her mastery of the elements.

She reached out and picked up the vibrator, which she thumbed on as she moved it into position over her costume, it not being designed to allow someone to easily insert a toy. As it throbbed through her, her scalp tingled, and her thoughts seemed diffuse and irrelevant. The egg was surprisingly powerful, and her costume seemed to do nothing to reduce its effect.