Ambition(17)

I leaned over and kissed her shoulder, nuzzling against her silky soft hair. "If you want, my love."

It was perhaps one of the best parts about being with Sophie. Being with her, we'd both blossomed in self confidence, which sounds weird considering that I had such a reputation as an Alpha Male type before meeting her. But being in her arms, knowing she both accepted me and depended on me, protected me as well as being protected by me, we could both let go of our inhibitions.

Sophie turned her head a little more and smiled. "Really?"

"Really. Just... one thing."

"What's that?"

"After last night, well, no more using Mistress, okay?"





* * *



Mark





The next morning, as I prepared breakfast for everyone, Tabby came in with a grin on her face. "Hey, guess what?"

"You won the lottery," Sophie quipped, wearing the yoga pants and t-shirt she preferred for indoor work. She didn't look like a normal housewife, that was for sure, but like some sort of fitness instructor who just happened to be doing laundry or dusting the furniture before her day began.

Tabby, who was wearing one of her business suits, shook her head. While I know Sophie didn't miss wearing the overly constricting and sexualized suits, I had to admit part of me missed seeing her dressed up as the naughtiest of secretaries. "Nah, Tabby decided she wants to run off to Tibet and become the Dalai Lama's interior decorator."

Tabby stuck her tongue out at both of us, a familiar reply when we joked with her, and one that said she was in a good mood. "No, but turn on the TV. Seems we're inspiring people in more ways than one."

I reached over and flicked on the small television on the counter, a leftover from Tabby's old apartment that we just didn't want to throw out. It was too new for one, and fit perfectly underneath the cabinet in the kitchen as well. Jabbing the button, I turned the channel to the local NBC affiliate, which was Tabby's favorite recently due to their favorable coverage of MJT.

"Wait for it, they said they'd repeat it at the top of the hour," she said. I glanced up at the clock and saw it was five minutes to seven, and finished up breakfast. Plating the eggs with grilled mushrooms and eggplant, along with a kale smoothie for Sophie's Vitamin K needs. "Oh, here it is."

"Our top news this morning, it seems our city has gained another new public figure," Don Thompson, one half of the lead anchors, said. He had been on the air with NBC for nearly a decade, and had been one of the first anchors to break the color barrier in the city. I had met him once when I was Marcus Smiley, and thought he was a pretty good journalist. His trademark was his smooth voice, a bit more academic than Billy Dee Williams, but still silky smooth. I momentarily compared him to Gerald Traylor's voice, and thought that while they had some similarities, Don Thompson sounded much more calm and educated.

The screen shot changed as Thompson's voice narrated. "The Filmore Heights neighborhood is no stranger to gang fights and violence, especially from the notorious group known as the Eighty Eights. Here at one of their favorite hangouts, a group of Eighty Eights encountered something new, as a masked vigilante dropped out of seemingly nowhere. Security camera footage...."

I tuned out Don's voice as I watched the multiple angles of security video. The attacker had come off the roof, that was for sure, and attacked with a lot of ferocity. I was slightly impressed by what I saw, but there was a lot that worried me.

"This idiot's going to get himself killed," I said as I saw him stagger under a shot to the back of the head from one of the last 88's. "He's brave, I'll give him that, but he's going to get himself killed."

I reached over and switched off the TV when the story shifted to news in Washington, turning around. "I understand your enthusiasm Tabby, it's good to see that someone is trying to do something positive for their neighborhood, but taking on a mass of Eighty Eights while swinging around nothing but a couple of aluminum batons is stupid even when you're as good as I am. And in what I saw, he's not that good.”

"How would you have done it?" Tabby asked, curious. Sophie just hid her smile, knowing that while her best friend knew the results of my nighttime actions, she didn't know exactly the details, and for good reason.

"For one, I wouldn't have just dropped down with nothing but two sticks," I replied, twirling a bid of eggplant around on my plate. "I probably would have started with either a smoke grenade or a flash-bang if I didn't mind blowing out the windows on that Circle K. Anyone that was still up after that I might have taken out with the sticks, but honestly I wouldn't have dropped from the roof. There's too much of a chance of twisting your ankle or blowing out your knee, at which point you're pretty well screwed."