The Sliver

Trevor's fingers clutched the rake as he dragged it across the dirt, the muscles in his arms straining, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. His coworkers were loud, annoying, the usual bunch—Dave, the cocky boss who never did a damn thing, and Tony, always with a joke that wasn't funny, but that morning Trevor didn't care. Let them be sexist, racist, or whatever 'ist' they think is the flavour of the week. Trevor's mind was on other things.

Eric, his buddy from school, was also on the crew that day. It was the one thing that had kept him from quitting, having a friend to work alongside. Manual labour is hard, and at Trevor's level, didn't pay well. But having a friendly face to see every day made it worth it.

"I think you've got it," Eric said, eyeing the patch of topsoil that Trevor had been smoothing out, "let's get some more."

Eric dropped his rake and picked up the handles to the wheelbarrow. Trevor followed suit. Eric had been a year ahead of him in his studies, graduated with the same useless Superhero Studies degree, and thus had been working as a landscaper for an extra year. That didn't bode well for Trevor's ambitions. Eric was smart. One of the smartest. He'd helped Trevor catch up quite a bit when he was struggling with his classwork. To see him give up and lean into a career like this was discouraging.

As Trevor dug his shovel into the pile of earth, he wondered if his body would feel different that evening. Usually he would go home exhausted, muscles sore, mind hazy. Now, though, beneath his worn jeans, hidden under the fabric, his mother's pink thong clung to him like it was holding on for dear life. The thin triangle of fabric rubbed against his testicles, while the string in the back worked its way deeper and deeper into his butt crack, a feeling he had yet to get used to.

The night before, the thong had protected him from a knife attack. Trevor had never felt so powerful, so safe. His skin had been impenetrable. Would he go home feeling the same? Would exhaustion glance off his body like the blade of the knife?

He focused on the work, digging and scraping, moving a pile of soil from one side of the yard to the other. It was mindless work, but it had to get done, and it paid his bills.

He'd made sure to wear an extra long t-shirt that morning. The last thing he needed was to be bending over and have a whale-tail show up behind him, giving his coworkers a reason to focus their ignorance on him. No amount of invulnerable skin could protect him from that.

Maybe he should even test it out a little, really test it, when nobody was looking. He was eager to see just how far his newfound protection went. Maybe he could pick up a heavy rock, something that'd normally strain his back, just to see if he could perform the feat unscathed.

He smiled to himself.

Then, out of nowhere, something sharp jabbed into his hand.

OW!

Trevor jerked back, gasping, his hand instinctively gripping the source of the pain: a splinter from the shovel's wooden handle. He stared down at it, confused. The pain was real. It stung.

What the hell?

His eyes narrowed as he sucked his finger into his mouth, trying to stop the sting from spreading. This didn't make sense. The thong—it was supposed to make him invulnerable. It was the same garment from the night before, so what had changed?

His heart started to pound as questions spiraled in his head. Was it a fluke? Did the thong only work under certain conditions? Did it depend on how hard the **** was?

Suddenly he saw his entire encounter the night before in a new light. He could have gotten himself killed! Flying through the air? BEING STABBED?! How reliable were his powers, anyway?!

Trevor looked over at Eric, who was busy pushing a wheelbarrow, oblivious to his moment of confusion. He hadn't told anyone about the powers yet—not even Eric.

I need to experiment more, Trevor thought, a mix of frustration and anxiety bubbling inside him. The last thing he needed was to be found dead in an alley somewhere wearing his mom's clothes. If he wasn't deal already, he would die of embarrassment.