Super Stomach Girl #3 - I Like To Watch
by Jerry Shaw
I pounded on the manager's door as hard as I could. It seemed like ages
(though it was probably only seconds) before the door opened.
"Can I help you Roz?"
"Yes," I said. "Punch me in the stomach."
Kara was the apartment building's manager, and the owner. Her father
had left it to her when he died. And with her keen business sense, she
ran it most efficiently. It was rumored that he had left her with more
than just the apartment building, though no one had confirmed it yet.
Kara was the same age as me, our birthdays within days of each other.
We had developed a friendship since I moved in a year ago, though not a
close one yet. But it was close enough. And it was about to get closer.
"Punch me in the stomach," I said as I barged into her room, closing
the door rapidly but softly behind me. "I want you to punch me in the
stomach."
"But... but... Why do you want me to..."
"Look, I don't have any time for explanations now. Just punch me in the
belly as hard as you can."
"But I'll hurt you if I punch you as hard as..."
"JUST DO IT!" I almost screamed. "I'll be OK. Just do it. There's no
time to argue!"
"OK, if you want. But you'd better tell me what's going on afterward."
She pulled back her fist, and punched me in the stomach, right at the
navel. It wasn't a particularly hard punch, though it still hurt bad. I
responded with a classic, "Oof."
"Harder! I want you to punch me as hard as you can! And keep doing it
until I tell you to stop."
"But..."
"As hard as you can!" I said, and steeled myself for her next punch.
She shrugged and pulled back her fist, not a lot, but just back even
with her own stomach. She let fly with a punch that was so fast I
barely saw it coming. It landed in my solar plexus, sending that
familiar shock of pain radiating all throughout my body.
I awoke on a bed, not my own. Kara was just coming into the room.
"Good, I'm glad to see you're waking up, Roz."
When I realized I had been out, I was in a panic. "Quick, help me up. I
need to..." I said as I tried to sit up. But my body collapsed back
down from the pain that her hard punch had caused.
"Lie back down. You'll need a couple more minutes to recover."
"But I can't! I have to help her! She's being attacked back there!" I
said, still in a panic, forcing myself to sit up against the pain.
"Oh, you mean that girl being mugged in the alley behind the apartment?
I'd already called the police before you knocked. They caught him. And
she's OK.
"I saw it all on my security cameras. I've already burned a DVD from
the video, with two different camera angles, and given it to the
police. With that, they said they'll have no problem prosecuting him
and putting him away for a nice long time. And they won't even have to
involve the girl he attacked either, so they let her go."
"How many hours have I been out?"
"Oh, about ten minutes."
Ten minutes! I was flabbergasted. And a little embarrassed.
I had seen him stalking her out my back window. And it was my job as
the superhero Super Stomach Girl to stop this crime.
Ever since I found out I had super powers, I'd been thinking about
them. Very briefly, I thought about conquering the world with them. I
think that phase lasted all of about five seconds. Then, I thought
about all the good I could do. And since my super powers were only good
in a fight, that left the obvious, fighting crime and criminals,
villains if you wish.
All the really big crimes and criminals and villains were already being
handled by all the other more well-known superheroes. So, I decided to
pick up the smaller crimes, the ones they wouldn't even hear about. I
was going to thwart crime throughout our small town.
"Villains of Fresno, beware Super Stomach Girl, and her Amazing Super
Powers!"
Yes, my powers. They were a mixed blessing. Once my powers were
activated, I could deliver a punch that could hurl a villain 50 feet
through the air. Of course, that was only if I punched them in their
stomachs. My punches were just a little above average if they landed
anywhere else, such as on their jaw. I could take punches to my own
stomach that would incapacitate a pro wrestler, and not even feel them.
But I didn't know if I could take the same level of punishment to other
parts of my body yet (after all, it had been less than a week since I
got my powers).
Once my powers were activated, that was.
Of course, activating my super powers came with a price. In order to
get the power to deliver a pile-driver stomach punch, I had to let my
own stomach be punched, lots of times, hard, in order to store up the
energy to transform into Super Stomach Girl, to be able to deliver
those devastating stomach punches to others. But even this power faded
abruptly after I had been using it for a while.
All this I had gathered from that one fight I had so far, so a lot of
it was guesswork. But I knew I was going to try to make a difference in
the town of Fresno. "Criminals beware," indeed.
The mugger in the alley was going to be my first real villain. My first
real fight. Of course, I couldn't just run out into the alley and
subdue him. And I was pretty sure he wouldn't consent to standing there
punching my stomach until I had gained the power to fight him. So I did
the only thing I could think of. I went to see Kara, to get her to help
me release my super powers. So I could save that girl.
But of course, she had already handled it without any super powers at
all. And she had given me another lesson. I had a weakness. Yes,
punching my stomach would release my powers. But if I was punched too
hard, such as her really hard punch to my solar plexus, the fight would
be over before it had begun, before my powers were released.
I was embarrassed.
"Well," she said. "Are you going to tell me what all that stomach
punching thing was about? Why you wanted me to punch you in the
stomach?"
This was the down side of my plan. I knew that even a good liar like
me, (though I liked to think of myself more as a storyteller than a
liar), couldn't come up with a plausible story that would satisfy her.
So I did the most devious thing I could think of. I told her the truth.
Leaving out details left and right, I told her about the initial fight
with the girl gang where I had been killed, the alien who had brought
me back to life, and obviously gave me my super powers, and the fight
this last Monday with the same gang, where I had discovered what my
powers were.
"... And the red suit," she muttered quietly to herself.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Oh, nothing. Tell me more about this. Have you been able to test your
powers, to find out exactly how much power you have? And how much abuse
your stomach needs to take before your powers appear? You know that
you'll have to know all of this of course."
I hadn't thought of that at all. But of course, she was right.
Especially in light of my newfound weakness. I told her as much.
"Well then, we're going to have to get you in shape. I have the perfect
place in the back. And I want to see that red bullseye on your stomach
up close."
Now that shocked me. I knew I hadn't mentioned that in my story. And I
could feel the suit still tightly tucked under my belt, covering my
stomach. "How do you know... about my bullseye?"
Now it was her turn to pause. And she turned a bright red. "Well..."
and she hesitated.
"Well, you've been honest with me. Let me show you instead. I hope you
can keep a secret, even one that may shock you. Come on."
And with that cryptic pronouncement, she led me to a back door in her
apartment. I had a door in the same place in mine. My door opened into
a closet. Her door opened into another room, bigger than the whole rest
of her apartment. And it was filled with equipment. Gym equipment.
There was a light and heavy punching bag, a complete weight set and
bench, and a whole lot of training machines, like the things I'd seen
in the gym where I had my aerobics class, but didn't know how to use.
These were all clustered on one end, leaving the rest of the gym free.
And this free area was covered with a thick matting, seamless, custom
made for the area I noticed. So I guess the gym was for training, and
the free area was for tumbling practice or something, I surmised. But
this wasn't as shocking as she had made out.
Kara had obviously used the gym a lot. Most of the equipment had that
darkening to the leather covering, the darkening caused by sweat and
hard use. And it showed on her. Today, she was wearing her usual baggy
T-shirt and shorts. But I had seen her in a bikini, and could attest to
her fitness. She was shorter than me. But she had a flat stomach and
trim thighs, hard as a rock they looked. She carried herself like she
had some kind of gymnastics training. And I should know, after three
years of college cheerleading and gymnastics myself. So yes, she looked
fit, no doubt from the frequent use of her gym equipment. And I would
have to do the same, I knew. I'd have to look into doing more at my gym
than just aerobics. I'd have to learn what all that equipment was and
how to use it. And hopefully, my stomach muscles would be built up to
the point that hers seemed to be.
"Back here," she said. She continued across her gym to a small door on
the other side. Right next to the door was a big, red button that she
slammed her fist into. It didn't have any effect as far as I could
determine. If it was a lock of some kind, it couldn't have been a very
good one. Anyone back here would automatically press the button to open
the door.
She turned the handle and opened the door. It was dark inside, at least
compared to the harsh glare of the overhead lights in the gym. But she
didn't turn on any lights.
Rapidly my eyes became accustomed to the dark. The room was shallow but
wide. It had a long desk up against the far wall, runn