The Quest

I'm the locker room joke come to life. Everyone makes those jokes, about the kid who can see into the girls locker room, or the invisible pervert. I'm superhuman: I can do both those things, and a few more beside. I can shift my shape and sneak into places, through barriers -- but none if makes a superhero.

Not that I ever wanted to be one. We all grew up reading about them, about their exploits and their deed, and until the Super Expose came along no one probed into marriages, team rivalries, bad passport photos: they'd all be scared. But not Mac the Maverick. He went after all of them (even Atomic Crunch) and they beat up photographers issued restraining orders, blew up his offices, sued him -- and that was just the superheroes. But he published anyway , the truth, the lies, the slurs that people gave up and got paid for (sometimes) and showed, sometimes painfully, how thin the veneer of 'super' lies over that of 'human'.

Everyone hates me. Even those who loved what he did hated him. But I never did. I wasn't going to go around calling myself Peeping Tom and being some superhero, or some villain, or work for some shitty shadow government. I was going to get rich. And I did and I have. I don't do it for the money anymore. Mac has other superpaparazzi for that these days. I just follow special projects, like The Eight.

And Dance Master. He's fast, he flies: that makes him hard to take pictures of, track, pin down. I've followed him for that alone. And seen him dance. I've seen his dances that kill ninjas, his dances to woo women, his death dance that took down an entire Chess Board in close quarters. I've seen him at his strongest, his weakest, and every point between.

But he' s clever. For all the press hounds him, he declares he has no boyfriend at all. I understand why: he doesn't get many endorsement deals as it is. I know finding this will hurt him. But there is nothing more important than truth, no matter how many stones we uncover to get at it. He's handsome. Beautiful. Athletic. Male. And his power is superdancing for chrissakes. Anyone can draw the lines, but he still refuses to let them put the picture together.

I admire that. I really do. But it does not prevent me from doing my job. Nor the women he brings home and screws like wine bottles. (I called it "corking them" in an editorial; the lawsuit is ongoing.) I know it's just a cover. I know he loves me, deep inside. I know what his powers are trying to tell him.

I know he'll understand, some day. The letters, the roses. the articles. All of it. We only hurt the ones we love. All he has to do is admit what everyone knows. And I will applaud his bravery, smile
my bedroom smile, and he will know how much I cared for him, how much I love him, to drag him into the light.. With one simple camera, and a flash.