Paperback Trade

Untitled Part 1

It amazed Peter how beautiful Mary Jane could be. Not just how pretty she was, but the different kinds of beauty she shifted between as easily as he'd change his shirt. He didn't know if it was make-up, some kind of acting technique, or an alchemy coming out of just what kind of beautiful her boundless self-confidence was feeling at the moment.

Sometimes, she was like some awe-inspiring rock formation or body of water, a transcendent look of aesthetic perfection that almost precluded lust. Sometimes, there was just something cute about her, a kittenish adorability that amplified all the affection he felt toward her until he could barely stand not to wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair, just smell her and feel her warmth and be touching her. Then there was how she looked when she wanted a man to desire her: raw sex, the way she moved, the way she talked, just the way you could feel her looking at you. You could believe—often rightly, in Peter's experience—that she was thinking up some kinky way of passing the time that you'd never dream of in a million years.

And the way she shifted between them! There she'd be, looking like some oil painting by a Renaissance master, and then she'd smile and instantly be as cute as a baby bird. And just when you were getting used to that, the smile would get a little more sultry, she'd look over at you a little more intently, and all of a sudden you'd be reminding yourself about birth control.

Peter wondered if people could guess that the 'empty-headed sexpot' (a much hated review Mary Jane hated so much she had to dredge it up once a week) had sides to just being a sexpot that they'd never seen. And they say I have a secret identity.

Right now, Mary Jane was bounding up to him, looking as cute as a baby ocelot, with a grin and a bounce in her step like she was going to throw herself in his arms and Eskimo kiss him or something. It was adorable. "Hey Pete, need a favor."

"Hit me," Peter said, and got a bopping blow on his upper arm reminiscent of a bunny rabbit.

He was sitting at their apartment's kitchen nook at the moment, looking through their bills. He was convinced that the mechanism of the universe in charge of sending those things was busted, because he got no time between paying one and getting another. You'd think there'd be a little time slotted for him to actually be able to see money going into his bank account, but no, it seemed to go straight from Jolly Jonah's hot little hands to his creditors, without Peter even getting to smell it.

But, it was hard to worry about that with Mary Jane sitting down next to him, cute as a button, so cute he could almost ignore the average, everyday sex appeal of Mary Jane in a tight blouse and tightish jeans—the bagginess intriguing because he could make out the shape of her legs, but not the actual outline.

"I'm meeting with someone on Craigslist to get a book and I need someone—" She prodded his ankle with her foot. "To come with me and make sure I don't get murdered. Or at least that I don't die alone, like some loser."

"Sure thing." Peter dropped the bill on the pile. It could wait a little bit. And with the way trouble (sorry, 'excitement') seemed to cling to Mary Jane, he gave it a fifty/fifty chance that this would all lead to him fighting good ol' Doc Doom. Which would mean pictures for Jameson, which would mean he could start worrying about the next bill instead of this one. "Let me get my jacket."

"Actually," Mary Jane said, favoring him with a beguiling look. "I was thinking you could put on the costume. You look so good in it..."

"Coming from you, that's high praise," Peter commented. "But come on, who are you buying this book from, Galactus?"

"No, just some guy," Mary Jane said. "But he could be six foot five, or a mutant, who knows? Even an Inhuman, they're a thing. And even if he's just an average guy, you're—"