Are You Homosexual?

Mercy Graves' face, impassive, stared out at Lois as she waited for an answer.

"When I found you, Lane, you were getting your pussy eaten out by another woman. Is that what you like?"

The lights continued to get brighter. Lois could hardly see the screens.

"I...no." she said aloud.

"So you didn't like it?" Mercy said. "Could have fooled me."

"No...I..." Lois half-stammered, thoughts and feelings conflicting. She summoned up as much indignation and dignity as she could manage. "That is none of your damned business, Graves. You have no right to..."

"You liked it." Mercy said. "I could see you, when I walked in. You were in ecstasy. I think you like girls, Lane. But do you like men, too?"

"I am not going to answer any more of your..."

The light in the room turned green, briefly. It wasn't from any of the lamps, it was just a single strobe, lasting less than a second. If Lois had blinked she might have missed it. Yet in that moment, her body had wracked. Immediate, overwhelming, she couldn't even call it pain. Her body simple contorted and seized in on herself, paralyzed and unable to breathe. As quick as it had come, faster than it took to tell, it was over.

"There are consequences for not answering questions, Lane." Mercy said. "Answer honestly—I'll know if you don't. Do you like women?"

"Yes," Lois said.

"Sexually?" Grave pressed.

"Yes." her voice was smaller.

"And men?"

"Yes."

"Which do you prefer?"

The question hung in the air, and Lois' heart beat faster. There were discussions she hadn't had with herself yet, about the night's events. She didn't know how to answer it. A small red timer began to count down on the screens. 5 seconds... 4... 3... 2...

"I don't know!" Lois half-screamed. She paused, her heart thumping in her chest. The white light was everywhere now and physically she felt great, but the questions were almost ****.

"You're telling the truth." Mercy noted. "Or at least the telemetry thinks you are. Me, I think maybe you're undecided. Did you like having your pussy eaten out, Lane?" The timer reset to five, and began to clock downwards again.

"Yes," she said, with an air of exasperation.

"But you like cock in your cunt too?"

"Yes," Lois answered, without hesitation—which surprised her a little.

"Would you have licked Maria's pussy, Lois?"

The time started again. Lois let it count down, buying precious time.

"I don't know." she said as it hit 2. "Maybe," as it flashed to 1.

"That's about a one on the Kinsey scale," Mercy said. "Which should make the next part rather interesting."

The face of Mercy Graves disappeared. A short cartoon played, of a woman in a dress, at a bar. She drank a virus. An x-ray closeup of the liquid entering her stomach. Zoom in microscopically, to the crude illustrating of the virus swimming around there. Entering cells. Altering DNA. The DNA grew larger, and morphed in a familiar S-shield.

"What did you do to me?" Lois asked aloud.

"A retrovirus, Lane." Mercy's voice cut in over the cartoon. "A light overlay of Kryptonian genes. Not enough for real powers—although you'll never get a tan anymore. Your cells are soaking up the energy from those sunlamps."

The cartoon had continued. A planet, exploding. Green rocks, through space. Landing on Earth. A careful caricature of Superman, encountering the green rock, and retracting from it in pain. Zoom in on the green rock. See it split into a rainbow of colors. Zoom in on the pink chunk...and watch it slowly fade into a real crystal, rough and irregular.

"Do you know what this is, Lois?" Mercy's voice cut in again.

"Pink kryptonite," Lois said, and she didn't like where it was going.

"And what does that do, Lois?"

"I heard..." she saw the counter tick down. "I heard it turned Superman gay. For a while."

"You ever think of what Superman might have gotten up to, under its influence?"

"No," Lois answered, and then immediately regretted it.

"Ah ah." Mercy's disembodied voice said. "No lying." Lois heard a noise, and looked up—to see a small metal arm directly overhead, with a spherical dome attached. The bottom half of the dome split and retracted.

For a moment the room went pink.