Chapter 7 - Fear and Love
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The hot tub was starting to fill up quickly, as Diana and Kenny were not the only ones feeling the chill on the saturday morning of August 1st. Kenny was the first to arrive in his bright yellow short shorts. Embarrassed at his poor choice of bathing suit, he smiled nervously at everyone who took a stare at him. Then, a few moments later, Diana came strutting into the hot tub in her bright pink bikini, and everyone took a gander.
"Blending in. Heh." Diana sat down beside Kenny.
"Hot enough for ya?" asked Kenny
"The tub or your shorts?" Diana joked.
Kenny made a sour-puss look on his face to which Diana grinned.
"This tub is perfect, and even if it were too hot. An amazon doesn't scream at intense heat." Diana relaxed in the tub. Kenny followed suit.
"This hot water sure feels good." Kenny sighed.
"Your scars aren't killin' ya?" asked Diana.
"Not anymore. Actually, that's another thing I forgot to tell ya." Kenny added.
"What's that?" Diana asked.
"That bullet I talked about? It also ruptured a portion of my brain that controls the pain receptors. Now I only feel about a 10th of the pain a normal human does."
"So the salt water didn't hurt that bad when you jumped into it yesterday?" Diana wanted to know.
"I felt it, but it wasn't so bad. Hows your burn scar, is it feeling better?" Asked Kenny.
"I gain energy and motivation from pain." Diana sounded tough.
"Right on." Kenny looked into the sky.
Diana opened her eyes and looked to the left. And then she groaned.
"Remember that fat guy who was hitting on me yesterday?" Diana asked Kenny.
"What about him?" asked Kenny.
"He's staring at me about 3'clock." Diana groaned.
Kenny lifted his head from the water and looked over, and noticed it. There was "Big Frankie" that same hairy, overweight, balding loser, wearing olive shorts. He began to walk over to Diana as if he was a charming person...which he wasn't.
"Let me handle this." Diana told Kenny.
"All yours." Kenny dipped his face into the hot water and then back out.
Frankie leaned over and smiled at Diana with his yellowing teeth.
"Hey, sorry if you were feeling bad yesterday, shall we try again today?"
Kenny spoke to the sky "Please forgive him, father, for he knows not what he's done."
Diana was right back at the comeback machine.
"Try what? There's nothing to try." Diana didn't even want to look at Frankie.
"C'mon...you know...you look like my next girlfriend."
Diana didn't waste time.
"And you look like the guy I shot down 2 seconds from now. Boom!" Diana glared at Frankie.
"Someone get some ice, we have a burn victim." Kenny joked.
"C'mon babe! Leave the zero, get with this hero. I got a nice first-class room, there's a balcony, flowers, private jacuzzi, your bikini would look great on the floor of it."
What a pig this guy was. Kenny was almost moments from wanting to punch him, and not because he called him a zero.
"You know where else it would look great?" Diana raised her voice a bit "Jammed in your windpipe."
Diana began nudging Kenny's foot underwater. At first, he didn't pick up on the signal, but after what happened next, he picked up on it really good.
A few people sitting around her started oohing in shock.
"Oh, that's so kinky." Frankie stuck his tongue out and began to wiggle it, And Diana slapped him across the face really, really hard. So hard, he actually lost a tooth on the inside of his mouth.
"Fiesty...I like them that way." Frankie was determined that he would eventually have Diana, that he had no plan for what was going to happen next.
Then, Kenny went to work - he put his left index and middle finger over his bullet scar and used his psionic powers to work on Frankie. Frankie then began to feel a painful, pressure-like sensation in the front of his forehead, and immediately, walked off, looking dazed and confuzed. It even looked as if he was going to cry. After he left, a group of women in the pool stood up and applauded Diana's choice of words.
"That was amazing, girlfriend!" Said a woman down the way.
"You showed that pig." said a teenage girl sitting with her boyfriend.
"What a guy. Trying to flirt on a Disney cruise of all things!" said a man sitting across the way with his arm draped across his wife's shoulders.
"Is he crying?" Asked a mother sitting with her husband and 2 kids.
Diana looked over, and poor Frankie had begun puking off the side of the cruise.
"He's never been shot down that bad, I guess." Diana smiled.
"That was awesome, Diana." Kenny put his fist out for Diana to bump. "You really clobbered him with that slap."
"If I didn't know any better..." Diana bumped fists with Kenny. "...i'd think you had something to do with that reaction he had." Diana pointed at Kenny's bullet wound.
"Maybe." Kenny tried to hold back laughter, but couldn't help it.
Diana laughed right along with him.
"i'm glad you came along, you know?" Diana laid back to relax.
"Always like making people happy." Kenny did the same.
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For the rest of the day, Diana and Kenny did their own things. Then evening came. Both of them ate at seperate times and didn't see each other until the sun began to set. Kenny was busy watching the sun set in the distance. Diana came up to talk to him.
"You know, every evening in Themyscira...we used to thank the gods for these."
"Sunsets. They're beautiful." Kenny spoke.
Diana took a moment to ask a question that had been burning on her mind.
"Do you believe in a God? Or gods at all?" asked Diana
Kenny turned to Diana and knew exactly what he was going to say.
"Life's no fun if you don't believe in a God. It's foolish to think that there wasn't a creator who didn't paint that sunset, give it it's shine. That couldn't have 'just' happened in itself."
"Apollo is the God of the sun...and many other things. My fellow Amazons used to talk of him. but beyond the borders of the Bermuda triangle...people refer to Apollo as a fairy tale."
"I know those people." Kenny spoke with pain in his voice. "I feel so bad for anyone who doesn't believe in a God. They spend their time trying to disprove the existence of a God. Maybe it's because they feel jealous there's something out there that's legitimately stronger than them. Maybe they feel guilty that those gods are telling them the truth about how they do bad things. But their lives are bitter. They're bitter about having someone try to prove to them that something exists that they haven't seen."
"But i've seen their existance." Diana added.
"I haven't...but I still believe." Kenny spoke.
"Why do you believe?" Diana wanted to know.
Kenny looked into the sunset and spoke without fail.
"That coat...It was not made by human hands. And neither is the shotgun. And the voice that speaks to me...it is not belonging of that to a human."
"The gods have blessed you." Diana gave kenny her opinion.
"Not gods...God himself...the God that is all gods...he has blessed me...But he comes in many forms. You must have seen him in his many forms, both as a god and a goddess."
In the distance, dolphins splashed in the waves, skimming on the sunset.
"Dolphins. Bottlenoses." Kenny spotted them.
"They're beautiful. We used to chase after them, swim with them. We could play all day." Diana remembered back to home.
"They're a gift from God for us all. They are a vision. When God envisioned the world...he envisioned natural beauty and freedom as dolphins skimming the waves. Not trapped in a tank to do silly tricks for nothing."
Diana wasn't happy about that.
"You know, in Victoria, a trainer got killed last year by an orca?" Kenny spoke with sorrow in his voice.
"As in 2018, or 1991?" asked Diana
"1991. Young woman, her whole life ahead of her. Whales aren't meant to be locked up. I long for the day that places that would enslave a monster like that whale, die a quick and economic death."
"I long for the day we see equality...we see friendships, not dominance over each other, not man over woman, or even woman over man, or Human over beast. No dominance...just equality."
Kenny had to agree with it.
"But we're going to have to teach people...change their minds." Said Diana
"Or make money useless." Kenny added.
"We didn't use money in Themyscira."
"Socialism?" Asked Kenny
"Everyone did their share. No one was lazy and complained. Everyone was taught from birth...it's do or die. You don't get a meal if you can't get out of bed. even if you were sick or injured, you might have taken a smaller load, but you didn't sit out...unless of course, you were really, really, really sick. Then, and only then, would you get help."
The sun began to descend beneath the ocean level.
"You know...when you get back, you should find yourself a girl."
Kenny's eyes went as dark blue as they could be.
"To tell you the truth, Diana, Girls scare me sometimes."
"Strong girls?" Diana asked
"The girls in poverty. They're on a downward spiral and they don't want to change. I'm scared to get caught up with them."
Kenny had the saddest look in his eyes.
"Don't be. Fear is just a 4 letter word."
"So is love." Kenny shot back.
"Is that the way you feel? You don't know love?"
"If I know love, it's as chemical as poison...and it kills just as fast."
"So...Aside from that love for your mother...you've never loved a girl?"
"Many...but where i'm from, it seems they wanted someone else...or something I couldn't give them. Something I want to save...for the right girl. But no one...no one saves it anymore. They throw it away like it's a phase."
Diana figured it out. Kenny was almost too nice a guy. He wanted a real romance based on real love, not on lust alone. And it was hard for him to go and ask a girl out elsewhere because of all the hate women had for men.
"I respect that. But you still need to keep looking."
Kenny had his excuse lined up.
"In poverty, everyone wants a quick fix..."
"Then leave the poverty!" Diana interrupted.
"They need me! If I don't watch over them, then what good am I?"
"You're better than them, Kenny! You're a man who doesn't need all the drama that entrails that life!"
"You listen here..." Kenny was cut off.
"No, you listen young man!" Diana got in Kenny's face "When I came to the university, there was a young woman who was in tears because her boyfriend was being unfaithful to her. I told her the truth...get rid of the man...but she's probably back there, still trying to make it work cause she's scared of being alone! She's scared to change! You're living in something that can't be fixed! But this is now, That's your past. Those people, they're toxic! They only live in poverty because they don't want to change, they're scared to change! You're scared to change!"
"Shut up!" Kenny yelled
"No, i'm not done!" Diana yelled right back. "You feel like you owe it to those in poverty, but they can escape the cycle if they keep trying and have hope, but they don't want to try! They make excuses!" Diana went into a whiny voice mode "Oh, there's no jobs, oh minimum wage is bad, oh, I could never be a doctor. Oh i'm going through all these things." Diana changed her tone back to it's angry form. "You can make it! You're a strong young man, and you have it in you, but you have to get rid of the fear! Fear is holding you back! Fear is what causes those who don't believe in a God to become so defensive when someone says there is a God! And if i'm not mistaken, there was a quote about your God, and it went like this; He only helps those that help themselves! So let them help themselves. Let the government handle the poverty. Let the police deal with the situation the ways they do so that maybe one day, the people who live in poverty get so pissed off with it that they do the right thing and fight their way out, as hard as it is and how entrapping is seems! We Amazons thought we had it good until the men overtook us...but we were too scared to do anything, we were held back by fear...but one day, I had enough of the fear, and did what I did. It was hard, But now, i'm stronger than any man I was taught to fear, evil or good. And I fear them no longer."
Kenny had been beaten all around. Diana was entirely right.
"When we return home...promise me...promise me that you'll realize your full potential. Promise me that fear is just the four letter word that should be consumed by your desire to see justice. And promise me, you'll fight the fear of rejection and go find a real woman. a strong woman...hell, that Frankie guy's more brave than you when it comes to that."
"Oh don't get Frankie involved." Kenny broke in "He's got no shame."
"You're right, he's got no shame and he's no real man. It's like baseball, except he wants to skip the bases and stay home and claim his run. He wants what I won't give him and he probably thinks i'll give it up easily if he keeps trying me. He's a creep. You're not a creep. Maybe someone lied to you and you believed it. They'll keep lying to you, telling you you're a creep and then they're believing the lies I believed growing up, but know this...you'll find that good girl...she's somewhere. Sift through all the bad ones...and she'll find you too."
Kenny was back to almost on the verge of tears.
"You're going to be alright." Diana wrapped her arms around Kenny. Kenny hugged her right back.
"I'm going back to the room." Diana let go of Kenny and walked towards the doorway. He didn't follow right away, as he had to let the truth sink in.
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By the time he was ready, Kenny went back to the room. Diana was busy preparing for bed, brushing her teeth and brushing out her hair. when she left the bathroom, Kenny was right there.
"Kenny?" Diana asked
"I want to say thank you. If it's ok...can I call you a friend?"
"Kenny..." Diana gave kenny another hug.
"If I ever had a son...and that's a BIG ever...I really hope that he turns out like you."
Kenny smiled as the hug ended.
"I hope for your sake, he doesn't."
Diana brushed off the comment.
"Now tommorow." Diana switched to business as she let go of Kenny "This attack, happens early in the morning. about 8 AM. There's an alarm in your room?"
"Yes." Kenny replied.
"Then set the alarm and prepare for the attack." Diana instructed. "I'm off to bed. Have a good sleep...we're gonna need it."
"With a nice wake-up call of gunfire." Kenny let some dark humor out, before going into his room to sleep.
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