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God , you think, shifting in clinging grey lycra as you walk under golden lights in a corridor that costs more than your husband has ever made, They made this form-fitting but not even decent heat protection? There is endless window to your left as you walk, and rubber soles of a far-too-sexy one-piece mock you as you glance into the inky black mirror-the dark city just behind it- and stare at the way this supersuit hugs at the curves of your frame like a dog’s jaw clenching onto a slab of raw meat. You like saving lives-no, really, you do, it’s an honour to be out there every night, beating up criminals and showing off the ol’ stretch- but sometimes the glances you get, the leers. Men with lifted brows and lips that sneer. You remember one time, how when you put your life on the line to stop a runaway train and all that good-for-nothing mayor can do is put his hand in the small of your back and tell you how fucking “proud” he was of you? What a crock of shit. Your last suit was hot, sure, but at least it was hot on your own terms- this just made you feel like a piece of sexy vigilante criminal-fighting ham...or other, similarly salacious meat.
You barge through the door at the end of the corridor, your pace quickened, slamming it aside and making quick time to the other end of the room where just one door (and a set of stairs) stands between you and the parking lot, where you can get in your stupid family car with its stupid tinted windows and you can peel this stupid rubber suit off your skin like you would rind off an orange.
But then a voice rings out-and it’s not a comforting voice but it's not… uncomfortable- it’s a voice that sends lightning down your spine and raises your hackles like water does to a cat, a voice that is thick with wine and sleep-deprivation, a voice cascading over you like molasses, slow but all-encompassing. It's a voice that wraps around you and draws you in. It’s Evelyn’s voice.
“Hey there, Elastigirl, come sit with me, you all-american sweetheart. ”
You turn on your heels a little too fast, let out a “heyy” that is a little too long. The carpet under you is plush and your turn leaves you stumbling. Evelyn sits and chuckles. She's lounging - sprawling, honestly - on a couch, half-full wine glass in her hand, casting long shadows onto the wall from her art-deco self-designed bullshit lamps that dot the room. Her cheeks are a little too red and the wine bottle rolling around on the floor has little more than dregs in it. She waves you over frantically.
“Come sit, come sit,” She's patting the couch beside her awfully close and you can’t help but bite at the corner of your lip in a way you never have before because her hand looks so soft and warm in this moment, and you look up and her and oh my god she wearing the shirt. The shirt, the one with the stripes and the loose folds and the pants with the horizontal dashes and you can't see her form or her body but it’s better that way because all the things you can’t see isn’t why you want to badly to be near her. You want to be near her because she’s smiling at you, and asking for you. And her voice is lulling you over.
So you go, and you go happily. Your legs are stiff, though, for no reason at all, like a doll she’s manipulating, so your gait is off- and this from the most flexible woman in the world- and she’s laughing at you, or with you, you can’t tell. Heat rises through your cheeks and collects in your head like cotton wool and you absolutely can’t think straight.
“Something stressing you out over there, Stretch?”
Oh you forgot she could only call you nicknames, that behind this suit your flesh was anonymous, your body and face knew not of her, and her not of them. You wish that you could say it, the words that hung off the edge of your lips, It’s Helen, actually. But you can’t.
Instead what you do is you sit beside her and pinch the bridge of your nose, to hide the blush, and reply.
“I don’t know, Evelyn, guess it’s just the stress of the job, huh” You chuckle- that was a dumb fucking thing to say.
She chuckles with you, apparently not observing any dumbness. Oh thank god.
“Nonono, Elastigirl, listen. You’re doing good work! You're doing good, good work out there,” You go to interrupt her, say it's all part of the job, anyone would do it, but she places a soft finger on your lips, stopping your speech and your heart, “No, Stretch, don’t give me that shit! Without you.. Then what? Leave the saving the world to the men? I don’t think so!”
A snort erupts from the back of her throat as she echoes your old motto from years and years ago. Before you got married, before you left the saving the world to the men . God, you’re married, oh my god you're married... but why do your lips feel so empty when she pulls her finger away?
After regaining her composure, Evelyn waves her wine at you. It’s blood red, deep and rich, and the edge of the glass is smeared with a similar shade (though in lipstick instead of wine). You take the glass in your hand and look - rather awkwardly - at her while you take a long, deep sip. You can feel the lipstick smearing against your lips, though it doesn’t bother you, in fact it’s the reason you chose to take a sip in the first place; you almost never drink. The sip lasts forever and it also lasts barely seconds. Sharp wine washes over your tongue and swirls down your throat, coating your mouth in a tartness that stings. You feel a kiss-by-proxy resting on your lips and your heart no longer beats in your throat. It’s as if you’ve begun existing anew. An idea of what you want, what you really want, forms slightly in your head. Danger is the only word to describe it- it’s the sixties -a woman who wants in this way is not the norm, but yet you continue wanting.
“Hey, you’ve got something there.”
And suddenly Evelyn is leaning in, flicking a pink tongue across the pad of her thumb and getting closer and closer and closer. You lean back instinctively but she’s too drunk to take a hint and so she just leans over you, propping herself up with a hand pressed hard against your thigh. Her thumb continues along its path through the air, drifting to your lips, pressing against them, rubbing till the smear of lipstick remnants have gone, wiped away.
“Isn’t that better, huh?”
She’s so close that you can feel her breath, hot like a sauna, on your face. Her thumb still pressed onto your lips in such a fashion that you can’t talk. From here you can see how the light dances in her brown eyes, scattering within them like gold leaf in pools of chocolate. Her eyes look so tired, edged with dark rings and heavy eyelids, but her pearly teeth still shine from her mouth as she smiles, very very softly, at you. Where laughter once was, there is now silence, you sit in this position with her, her manicured hand on your soft thigh, her delicate thumb on your wanting lips. Your breath intermingles in the air.
Evelyn’s hand wanders up your face, dancing across your cheeks and perching at the edge of your mask. You can’t take it off. You wouldn’t care if she did.
“Who are you, under the mask, under the suit? I don’t know you, not really. Please, stretch, what’s under the mask?” Her voice isn’t molasses anymore, it's desperate, pained. This isn’t a want for her, or a curiosity, it’s a need. She needs this, she needs you. You need her too.
You form the only explanation possible- of who the woman behind Elastigirl is.
“Under the mask, there's a woman. And she has a husband, and children, who she loves very much.-
When Evelyn sighs, you taste it. You taste her breath and so much more. Her breath fills your mouth with swirling nebulae of stale cigarette taste, too-much-wine, and something worse: Bitterness. A deep resentful bitterness. Disappointment so strong it drowns out the wine. An end to wondering and wanting and the creation of a unfillable hole in her heart. She starts to pull away, and you feel small spots of warm on your chest where you know tears have fallen.
-But Evelyn. I’m wearing the mask.”
And you don’t think, you don’t even bother to close your eyes until it’s happening, it’s all instinct -all need and want and desperation- you pull her closer and closer and closer and it’s happening- her lips meet yours and they're warm and soft and completely for you in this moment. This kiss could be over in a few hours, or a few seconds and it wouldn’t matter because it's happening now. Soon-though not too soon, this event will resurface in your mind as you plummet a thousand feet towards the ocean, clinging onto Evelyn for her own life as she struggles to free herself from your grasp and guilt overcomes her for betraying you so deeply that it comes to this- but for now, you’re kissing, and you’ve never wanted anything more than to keep kissing in your entire life.