Teacher's voice was far away. Amaya was straining her ears as hard as she could, but his voice was fading. Her head fell forward, and the classroom seemed to darken. She realized her eyes were closing. She didn't want them to close but they were closing anyway. She stopped fighting her eyelids. She would listen to Teacher with her eyes shut. She was doing it right now. She wasn't falling asleep, just trying to concentrate. She wouldn't miss a word.
Amaya's head jerked upright. "Huh?" she blurted. Everyone in the classroom was moving, packing up their things, and leaving the room.
"Good nap?" asked Connor.
"What?" asked Amaya. She rubbed her eyes.
"You nodded off," said Greg. "You looked like you needed some rest."
Amaya stretched her arms and shoulders, then leaned back in her desk and stretched her legs. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said before being interrupted by a yawn. "I'm wide awake."
The week had been tiring, but Amaya's new hobby was important to her. It was rewarding, and in a different way from being a superhero. Every night, after saving the city as Owlette, Amaya went home and assumed a new and even more secret identity. She became Birdbabe, author of Flossy Flash fanfiction.
Being a writer was challenging. Amaya wrangled words, placated paragraphs, and clashed with commas. She once spent ten minutes replacing a period with a semicolon, only to decide that the paragraph was better off how it started. But with each story, she honed her craft a little more. She felt like she was on the cusp of becoming a great author. Fanfiction wasn't respectable—until her. Pretty soon, she expected, the world would take notice. Her writing would be so gripping, it would pull people into Flossy Flash fandom. Her reputation would spread into the pages of snooty literary magazines. When her work was shortlisted for major awards, she would reveal her identity, and the public would be astonished at what she had achieved at such a young age.
Birdbabe had developed a reputation for breadth. Her first work had been an action story in which Flossy Flash saved a pair of handsome superheroes from the clutches of an evil supervillainess. The grateful superheroes wanted to date her, and since she couldn't possibly choose between them, she dated them both. Next was a thriller in which Flossy Flash became a spy and was nearly seduced by two attractive foreign agents; but she turned them to her side, saved the world, and slept with both of them at the same time. Then came a mystery that featured Flossy Flash as a private detective hired by two good-looking men who were accused of murder. She discovered both that they had been framed and that they were good in bed. As a joke, Amaya wrote a crossover where Flossy Flash simultaneously hooked up with Master Fang and Kick McGee. She followed that with an alternate universe fantasy story in which Flossy Flash rescued a couple of King Arthur's fairest knights from a dragon and married them both. Her current project was a horror story. In the chapter she posted last night, Flossy Flash defended a duo of comely microbiologists from a horde of ravenous zombies. The microbiologists were destined to discover a vaccine for the zombie virus. Amaya was also planning a surprise plot twist where they both fell in love with Flossy Flash.
Birdbabe's critics (who called her "Birdbrain") said she was repetitive. Amaya knew better than to listen to losers on the Internet. Some day, scholars would publish annotated editions of her oeuvre. She would be classed with titans like Homer and Shakespeare.
That night, the PJ Masks foiled a ridiculous scheme of Luna's to steal all the lingerie in the city. By the time Owlette hopped out of the Owl Glider, she was all too ready to go home.
"Gotta go shower. See you both at school tomorrow." Owlette gave Catboy and Gekko quick kisses on their cheeks.
"What happened to hanging out?" asked Gekko.
"Sorry, I've been really busy. We can spend some time together this weekend, okay?" Owlette hurried toward her locker room.
"Don't worry," Catboy said to Gekko, "we have a whole evening of hilarity ahead of us."
"Really?" said Gekko. "That was fast."
"She's working hard," Catboy agreed. "New chapter dropped overnight."
At the words, "new chapter," Owlette's blood turned cold. She halted and turned around. "Wait, did I hear you right?" she asked. "You're reading something together?"
Catboy and Gekko paused in front of their elevators. "Yeah, it's awesome," said Gekko. "Some girl on the Internet is writing truly awful Flossy Flash fanfiction."
Catboy said, "We found it when she wrote a crossover with Master Fang and Kick McGee. She writes the most unintentionally funny stories ever. We'll show you some time, okay?" They disappeared into the elevators.
Amaya brooded all the way home. The moment she got to her room, she started searching. Plenty of other people had posted Flossy Flash fanfiction yesterday. She clicked through all the author profiles, looking for someone who had also written a crossover with Master Fang and Kick McGee.
She was the only one.
Amaya lay on her bed. Was her writing really that bad? She knew she had started bad, but everyone started bad. She had spent hours fussing over diction and plot and characterization. She wrote well now, she thought. Or at least respectably, decently. Acceptably. Tolerably. For someone writing about superheros. For a silly, childish girl writing fanfiction.
At least she enjoyed writing. It didn't matter if she never won a Nobel Prize. Writing let her imagine things that weren't going to happen to her in real life. She couldn't expect Connor and Greg to spontaneously show up at her doorstep with flowers and chocolates, whisk her away on a private yacht, and waltz with her in the moonlight.
Even if they did, she'd never be able to do what Flossy Flash did after that. Amaya was too much of a good girl to invite them to bed. Good girls were virgins, and they stayed virgins forever. Somehow they stayed virgins even after they got married and had kids. Only bad girls had sex, and only the worst of those had sex with two men at once. Having sex with two men at once made you a slut. Amaya was a superheroine, and superheroines weren't allowed to be sluts. But Flossy Flash was fictional, so she could, and did, and it wasn't awkward, and nobody was ever ashamed.
Amaya already had plans for her next chapter, but she didn't write anything that night. Instead she went to bed early. The next night, she sat at her computer with plot lines and character arcs churning in her head, but no words came, only doubts. The night after that, she stopped trying.
The weekend was calm, with no supervillain activity. So in the evening, Connor and Greg came over to Amaya's house. Hanging out was supposed to be fun. Instead Amaya was silently anxious.
"You're quiet tonight," said Connor.
"Guess so," said Amaya. The three of them were lying on the floor of her room, holding hands and staring at the ceiling.
"What are you thinking about?" asked Greg.
"I'm wondering what we're doing," Amaya said. "I love you so much, and it's great, but …"
"But what?"
"Is this all there is? We go to school, we fight crime, we do homework, we hang out. Is that it?"
"Seems pretty good to me," said Greg.
"You sound unfulfilled," said Connor. "Do you need a hobby?"
Greg said, "You could write stories. Like that one girl."
"The one who writes Flossy Flash fanfiction?" asked Amaya.
Greg said, "Yeah. We never showed you any, did we?"
Connor said, "She writes the same thing over and over. Flossy Flash saves two boys from something, and the three of them have group sex. The sex is clearly her favorite part of the story."
Greg said, "I guess you could say it's the climax." He made a rimshot sound effect.
Connor continued, "I think English might not be her first language. But it would be bad in any language. When she gets a plot idea into her head, all the characters suddenly change. People go from hating to dating in like, three sentences. Here, I'll show you." He got up and went to Amaya's computer.
Amaya said, "So let's pretend I write stories like her. Maybe I am her. Isn't it just a waste of my time?"
"Not if you like it," said Greg. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with having a fantasy. I doubt she's ever had one boyfriend, let alone two."
"How would you know?" asked Amaya. She felt tears coming on.
"Here's her latest," said Connor. "It's titled, 'Flossy Flash Revolutionary Guillotines An Hundred Noblemen.'"
"What?" said Amaya. That wasn't the title of anything she had written.
"And it just gets better from there," said Greg. "It's supposed to be set during the French Revolution. Except they all have cell phones, and Marie Antoinette has a limo. Had a limo, until Flossy Flash drove it over her head."
Amaya looked at the screen. "What web site is this? I've never seen it before."
"Yeah, this site isn't too popular," said Connor. "I don't like it much, but she only posts here."
Amaya mumbled, "And all this time I thought you were talking about me." Then, realizing what she had just said, she clapped her hand over her mouth.
"What?" cried Connor and Greg in unison.
Amaya had never intended to tell anyone that she wrote fanfiction, not even Connor and Greg. Writing was the most intimate act Amaya had ever experienced. Her stories brimmed with private feelings, and that made them too personal to easily share. Writing as Birdbabe let her maintain some distance between herself and her readers. So did not admitting her hobby to anyone she knew in real life. Now she had accidentally broken the barrier between her two worlds. She was mortified.
"You look kinda pale," said Greg.
"Want a glass of water?" asked Connor. Amaya nodded, and he dashed off to get one.
Greg helped Amaya to her bed. When Connor returned with a glass of water, she gulped it all in three swallows. "I thought you were talking about me," she repeated. "And that you were making fun of me without even knowing it."
"I'm sure we'd like your stories," said Connor.
"No you wouldn't," said Amaya. "I'm repetitive."
"Try us," said Greg.
Amaya lay back on her bed. They already knew that she wrote fanfiction. At least, she figured, they would tell her they liked it, even if they really didn't. They were nice that way. "Fine," she said. "Look up, 'Birdbabe.'"
Connor and Greg gasped. "You're Birdbabe?" they said.
If they knew her pseudonym it couldn't be good. Amaya rolled onto her side. Her hair cascaded over her cheeks as she buried her face in her arms. She nodded.
"But you're the greatest!" said Connor.
"You're amazing!" said Greg.
Amaya tucked her cold hands underneath her head. She said, "You don't have to say things like that."
Connor lay in front of her. He tried to move her arms away from her face but stopped when she resisted. Instead he rested his face next to her arms and put his hand on her shoulder. "I didn't even read Flossy Flash fanfiction until I read an awesome crossover with Master Fang and Kick McGee. So I looked up the author. Her name was 'Birdbabe,' and I thought, 'Hmm, that sounds like a name Amaya would use.' But I didn't think it was actually you."
Greg lay behind her. He put a hand on her hip and kissed the nape of her neck. He said, "After Connor told me about your crossover, I went looking for more. That was how I found the other girl. I don't really read Flossy Flash fanfiction either. But Birdbabe's writing is different. It's spectacular."
"It's as good as the stuff we read in English class," said Connor. "Sometimes better."
Amaya asked, "You actually like it?"
Connor said, "I think you're going to be a great writer. Like, really great."
"But all my stories are the same," said Amaya. "Flossy Flash gets two men. Every time."
"It never happens the same way," said Greg. "They're different people every time. And they feel like real people, even when I know how it's going to end."
Connor said, "Plus, the author seems to know what it's like to date two guys at once." He brushed Amaya's hair off of her cheek. "Like you."
Amaya found herself smiling. If they didn't like her writing, they were doing a good job of pretending. There was still one thing she was embarrassed about, though. "But what about the sex scenes?" she asked.
"Hot," said Connor.
"Very," agreed Greg.
"You don't think I'm weird for writing them? I mean, I'd never do any of that stuff with you."
"Really?" said Greg. "Because I wish you would."
"Me too," said Connor.
Amaya said, "I'm not like that, though. I'm not—um. You know." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Not slutty." She had always believed that a virtuous threesome was a fantasy. It was a fantasy that she liked, in fact liked a lot, but it could never be real.
Connor said, "Flossy Flash isn't slutty. Or if she is, she's the cleanest and most wholesome slut ever. She's always in love."
Greg said, "Besides, look at you. You have both of us, and you're not slutty at all."
"But if I had sex with both of you," Amaya said, "you wouldn't say that."
Connor leaned forward and embraced Amaya. "Even if you were, you'd still be you, and I love you."
Greg snuggled closer to Amaya's back and said, "We'll always love you, no matter what you do or don't do."
Amaya had an inexplicable sense of vertigo. Even though she knew she was lying on her bed, she felt like she was falling. It was as if she had been soaring through the air and her wings had disappeared. Gusts of frigid wind buffeted her as she plummeted. The only things near enough to hold on to were her friends, who were so close she could hear their heartbeats. With one hand she grabbed Connor's shoulder. Simultaneously, she reached behind and grabbed Greg's hip. She gripped them, fingers clenched and knuckles white and palms clammy, panting with fear and effort, clinging to them for life.
The vertigo disappeared. Amaya was on the solid surface of her bed again, still encircled by Connor and Greg. A rush of excitement ran through her. She was triumphant. It was the same sense of victory that she got from defeating a supervillain.
Amaya went to her window and shut the curtain. In one smooth motion, she removed her top and dropped it on the floor. She reached behind her back, unhooked her bra, and flung it aside. "This is as far as we're going tonight," Amaya said.
Connor and Greg had their shirts off in moments.
The three friends lay on Amaya's bed. Bare skin touched bare skin. Shoulders, arms, and hands mingled. Warm blood pulsed through their veins, and heat radiated from their chests. They had never seen or touched each other like this before, but the mood was already cozy. Their hearts throbbed in a rhythmic celebration of their bodies.
They got under her blanket to keep the warmth in, and the surprising intimacy of it made them giggle. The heat made their faces turn red, but there was no embarrassment because they were not children any more. Years of heroic responsibility had shaped them into a mature woman and two mature men, three adults in bodies not yet fully grown. The change had been so slow and had spanned so many years that none of them had realized they had reached adulthood. Yet it was because they were already adults that they could enter into bed with each other without shame.
Connor stroked Amaya's shoulder. She leaned her head to rest her cheek on his hand, and he kissed her forehead. Greg placed his hand on Amaya's navel and gently spread his fingers, luxuriating in the feel of her body. She felt a tingle rising from deep within her. Greg's hand slowly ascended her body, stopping when his fingers touched the underside of her breast. He looked at her with anticipation. The tingle inside her became a throb of arousal. No man had ever touched her there before. She laid her hand on top of his and slid his palm over her breast.
Greg pressed his lips to Amaya's. She pushed her mouth back against his, kissing him not just with her lips and tongue but with her whole body. He massaged her breast, and the intensity of the stimulation made her breathing ragged. Connor's hand moved down her arm and cradled her other breast. She hummed with pleasure as his fingertips explored its shape, circling it, rising over the crest and dipping into the valley on the other side. Passion swelled within her as the celebration of her breasts continued. When Connor's fingers traced around her areola, her passion began to overwhelm her, consuming her senses with fiery joy. Connor leaned down and kissed her breast, and as he licked around her nipple, Amaya burst with ecstasy. She felt like she was flying again, soaring higher than ever before, carried away by the hands and the mouths and the infinite love of her men.
Afterwards, Amaya nestled in her bed between Connor and Greg, glowing with warmth and satisfaction. She made a sigh of contentment and said, "PJ Masks, all shout hooray."
Connor said, "What? We didn't do any superhero stuff."
"Because in the night, you made my day."