A Bar Beneath The Bar

They dressed. Angelica Blaze stuck out her elbow, and Lois Lane threaded her arm through. Out into the crowd and noise, Lois letting Angelica take the lead. The crowd seemed to part before them, not through any conscious effort, but like a kind of magic—people moved out of their way and then closed back behind, without giving any indication that they even saw the two women walking through the club.

They took the freight elevator down to the basement level. Lois could hardly hear the music down here. She looked left and right, the corridor bearing graffiti on the bare concrete walls, but no trash or foul smells. That in itself was odd...people had come down here, but didn't stay.

Blaze unlocked the unmarked black door. They walked into an empty bar. Chairs on tables, old dark wood paneling, a mirror hanging behind the bar. Angelica lit a candle and closed the door behind Lois. Then there was no noise at all, just the two of them. They glided toward the bar.

"Wine?"

"I was thinking beer," Lois patted her stomach. "Just in case."

Cold bottles of some IPA. They clinked bottles, sipped. Bittersweet brew washed down the reporter's throat. She licked her lips, glad for anything to hydrate with.

"So...tell me about yourself," Angelica's dark eyes flashed.

They talked, back and forth, give and take. The reporter learned her lover was new to Metropolis, though she had visited before. The business was only a few weeks old, and she didn't have much family except for her brother, whom she didn't want to talk about. No college, though she had been educated, and Lois got the impression of a life that was at once privileged and dark, full of things she didn't want to talk about—including things that Blaze had herself done. Yet her questions were open, honest, displayed real curiosity; as an experienced interviewer, Lois could see that Blaze was both hiding things and being as honest as she could.

The reporter waited until they'd finished their beer before asking the next question.

"Have you noticed any women going missing around the club?"

The dickgirl reached behind the bar and pulled out a dusty bottle of white rum, and two glasses.

"We had a few...regulars, who stopped coming around. No cops have come in asking about them yet."

"But I'm asking now."

Blaze measured out two shots. Lois took hers without thinking. They clinked glasses. It burned as it went down—not a neutral spirit, but nothing like as sweet or cloying as some of the rums the reporter was familiar with. The dickgirl refilled the glasses while Lois railed off the names, the descriptions, when they were last seen here.

"They were here," Blaze knocked the drink back quickly.

Lois felt her heart quicken.

"What happened?"

Silence. Lois leaned forward on her barstool. Her hand came to rest on Angelica's thigh—felt the erection there, through the material of the jeans.

"Hey," she said quietly. "If this is going to work, you have to be open with me."

"I told you...I've been trying. To have a kid with someone."

"I can hardly forget," Lois said, and rubbed her palm up and down that leg. "My pussy is still sore."

"It's why I came to Metropolis. Why I opened this bar, really. At first I thought it would just be fun...sow my wild oats...but as I...failed..." The dickgirl swallowed heavily. Refilled the glasses.

"You got ****," Lois finished, ignoring the full glass in front of her. The reporter's vivid purple eyes were focused on her lover.

"I got stupid," Angelica said. "I thought that...I have access to a ****. If used correctly, it can make people...more like me. I thought that would make them more fertile."

Lois sucked in her breath. "Did it work?"

"Fertile? No," the dickgirl reached over and took and emptied the reporter's glass. "But they did become more like me."