In this world, there are people with powers. I'm one - my power allows me to command others with words, albeit with some serious limitations. My wife is one too, her power allowing her to create and iterate on technology decades ahead of its time.
My wife was once a fairly well known and popular superheroine known as the Ruby Shield, fighting crime and performing acts of vigilantism, flying about via jetpack and fighting with various high tech weapons.
I corrected that, naturally. Today, she's a happy domestic housewife, eager to get fucked by her beloved husband. She cooks, she cleans, she watches the kids, and she fucks every which way on demand. She doesn't go out in costume - it's too dangerous, really - but occasionally she'll dress up in that skintight red outfit she used to wear and let me use her body however I like. She does still fight crime, just remotely, via drones and similar.
She was also the heiress to the several billion dollars in market value of the Ross Corporation, a title she still holds, as her parents have yet to quite shuffle off the mortal coil. Her body was absolutely to die for; pale skin, full lips, gorgeous red hair, and amazing tits. Her muscular physique was also the pleasant treat as well.
Suffice it to say, she was quite the keeper, even before my adjustments to her mind. Afterwards? Perfect.
I didn't expect to find any woman worth more than the mild effort of making her a happy, temporary fuckbuddy for Elizabeth and I to enjoy together. But I didn't expect to see Ruby Shield dragging an abusive husband into custody and fall in love with her on first sight, either.
We were preparing to let go our nanny, and were considering possibilities to replace her. A nanny helped relieve the workload on Elizabeth, and with just a bit of mental manipulation, I could enjoy a live-in fuckbuddy until I got tired of her and had her replaced. We'd gone through a few, Elizabeth and I, and she found it relaxing and fulfilling to help pick a new one out.
Our kids (we'd had three at the time - not bad for a little over three years of marriage) were in a playpen as we absently chatted, the television tuned to the news, when Elizabeth heard something, her attention snapping to the television. I quirked an eyebrow, curious as to what made her change her focus so quickly. She watched for a few seconds longer, when a clip of a woman being arrested appeared on screen, two police officers taking her into a car as she passively went along with them, head hung low.
"Something interesting?" I asked.
"Yeah," Elizabeth said, staring at the screen. "I've been investigating her."
I tilted my head, curiously inspecting the screen. The woman was apparently being arrested for... a domestic disturbance? Didn't seem to rise to the level of Elizabeth's investigations. "Why?"
"She's a supervillain," Elizabeth explained. "Hm." She paused, tilting her head to one side as she thought it over. I waited for her to speak, curious what about it had her so interested. "Apparently she's hitting her boyfriend," Elizabeth noted. "Must have been fairly bad, for the cops to take his side." She paused again. "If you think about it," she said, turning to me, "that's bad."
"Hitting your partner is generally bad," I told her with a gentle smile, absently running my fingers through her hair.
She laughed. "No, I mean. She should be submissive to him, since he's her lover."
"Oh, sure," I agreed. "Lots of women would be happier like that."
"I wonder if part of the reason she's a supervillain is that she's not happy?" Elizabeth pondered. "I suppose it doesn't really matter. Well," she paused, glancing my way. "What do you think of... taking on a charity case?"
"A charity case?"
"You know," she said, laying down atop me, her bosom a bit perkier and fuller than it had been before we started having children, drawing the eye. "Defend her. You've defended wifebeaters before. It's not so different."
"I suppose I could. Why do you ask?"
She gave me a look. "You could fix her," she said, simply.
"Ah," I responded, with a nod. "I see what you mean." I leaned down to kiss her on the lips, my own pressing against hers. She sighed softly into my mouth at the touch. "And would this fix happen to involve the two of us acquiring a new nanny?" I asked, with a teasing smile.
"It might," she replied, leaning up to kiss me back.
My mind started to work at the problem even as her tongue slid into my mouth; once the two of us were done making out, I spoke again. "Tell me what you know about her."
She didn't hesitate to obey.
Her name was Sonya Torres. "Queen Neith" was her nom de crime, the false name she operated under. Her gang was local, a breakoff from a larger Hispanic gang that she'd left, not wanting to kick money upstairs. Her power - plus, in part, Elizabeth's work in the city as the Ruby Shield - meant that they'd given up on her and the city as a whole. Eventually, after years of struggle; gang leaders don't like giving people and territory up.
Sonya's power was duplication - the ability to split her body up. One consciousness, five or six or ten bodies. Elizabeth wasn't clear on exactly how that worked, with the physics of that much biomass and all, but she suspected that 'splitting' wasn't something she did in a pinch, given she'd never actually seen the woman do it. Rather, it was more like the end of a long process of gorging on food (which she had seen her do).
I'd seen her well enough on screen, taken my measure of her. She was short; I guessed about 5'0" by the images, and Elizabeth confirmed as much. Her skin had a slightly darker hue to it, olive and golden, and her body was simply put voluptuous, tits that beat out even my busty wife's in raw size. She was almost on the edge of plump, with her hourglass figure, thick hips and big tits, but not quite. She lacked the hard-won muscle of my wife, which I suppose made sense given that she fairly routinely gorged herself on food to produce a duplicate.
Her style was defiantly unique: short, tossled and dyed blue hair, earrings in one ear but not the other, a nose ring, tattoos of the cross on her upper chest and other images on her torso and side. It marked her out for anyone with half a brain as a gang member, meant she was taken seriously, even by people who didn't know just how high ranking hers was.
Elizabeth's read of her noted her confidence above everything else. She was brash, almost overtly so, perhaps in part because her power meant she was very difficult to kill. She was cocky. She felt invulnerable because for all intents and purposes she practically was. That would probably work to my advantage, given the subtle nature of my power, assuming my power would work on her. I decided I had nothing to risk by finding out.
The next day, I stepped into the interrogation room in my finest business suit, sitting down across from Ms. Torres. "Good morning, Ms. Torres."
"It ain't very good for me," she responded. "You a cop?"
"No, ma'am, I'm an attorney." I took one of my business cards out, sliding it over to her. "I'd like to take your case."
She pursed her lips as she read the card, then glanced up at me. "Yeah?"
"Yes."
"Aren't you expensive as all fuck?" She asked in reply.
I coughed. "Fair question. My wife," I said, holding out my hand to show her the ring, which got little comment but a disinterested glance, "saw your case on the news and asked me to take it pro bono."
"You that pussy whipped?"
"She has her views on women, and it's better to indulge them from time to time," I explained, giving her a noncommittal shrug. It was technically true, and it's easier to tell a lie smoothly if it's not technically a lie. "It'd help me a bit around the home if you would take me on as your defense attorney."
"Maybe you should be paying me, if I'm doing you such a favor."
I laughed. "Well, perhaps that can be arranged," I said, playing it off. My thumb absently rubbed my ring. "In all seriousness, Ms. Torres, you allegedly severely beat your boyfriend-"
"That bitch ain't my boyfriend," she interrupted.
"Fine. You allegedly severely beat one Marco Garcia with a baseball bat, to the point that he was taken to the hospital. He is currently in a coma, but it is likely that he will make a recovery, so it won't be murder charges you're avoiding but they certainly aren't easy charges to beat either. Now, judging by your tattoos I can guess you're not very afraid of prison, but there are still concerns even a woman in your position must have. It's terribly inconvenient to be on the wrong end of the justice system."
She snorted. "I heard you were a cold fucker."
"It's good to hear that my reputation preceeds me," I told her. "This is my pitch. I have never lost a case. The only times I have dropped a client is because the client did something so outrageously stupid and illegal and obvious to the point that all I could plausibly do is reduce the damage. I want to take your case, for free, to satisfy my wife's... feelings about women. From my perspective, this is all benefits for you with, quite literally, no costs." She gave me a cold look. "Am I wasting my time here?"
"Well," she said, tilting her head to one side. "On the one hand, yeah, you probably could get me out of this, for free, but, on the other hand," she leaned back, as best she could in her seat. "You're white."
"That I am," I said. "But, sadly for you, justice is not so blind that she didn't see you beat the shit out of your..." I trailed off, waiting for her to complete the sentence. She didn't. "Out of Marco Garcia. You have the right to an attorney, but that doesn't mean you have the right to a good one. I'm given to understand there's a certain, ah, ideological component to the gang from which you hail."
"I ain't in a gang," she replied, with the immediacy and reflexiveness of someone who absolutely was in a gang.
"Well. There's a certain ideology going around, in some circles, maybe you've heard of it, that the state is the white man's tool to oppress everyone else. Latinos such as yourself, most obviously." She nodded. "Defense attorneys are one of the ways that you prevent the state from oppressing you. My job is to protect you from the state, and I do my job very, very well."
She tilted her head, keeping up the impression that she was considering it, but I knew that she was going to go with me. I'd seen similarly proud individuals give the same false affectation that they didn't really need my help, and were basically just deciding to spontaneously. None of it really mattered. "Sure. You can be my attorney," she said, at long last.
"Good to hear," I said, cracking my knuckles and pulling out a pen and notepad. "Now, let's hear the story from your side of things. Mr. Garcia currently can't give his side, so you've got the chance to get out in front of this."
"Am I supposed to lie to you?" She asked. "This one of those plausible deniability things you lawyers like?"
"No, Ms. Torres," I told her. "I would like you to tell me the truth. I need to know to muster a good defense."
"Right. So, Marco, yeah we fuck from time to time. He's got a cock. He thinks he's bigger than he is, though," she explained.
"His cock, or...?"
She laughed. "His cock too, but no, I mean he thinks he's some big tough guy, just another dipshit. Anyway, he takes some money from my purse, thinks I won't notice. But I do notice."
"Ah. He stole from you? That could help in your defense. Did you notice when he took the money, or later?"
"Later. He took it, I think on Friday?" Today was Monday, and she'd been arrested Sunday. "I figured out it was him yesterday, so I go to, y'know."
"I see," I said, taking it all down. "And this was all in his home, correct?" She nodded. "Do you know for certain it was him who took your money?"
"Found the damn money clip under the mattress. Little puta thinks he can get away with that, not even hide it somewhere not his own damn house? He's got another thing coming."
"Right, that's useful information," I said.
The process of going over the details of her case, preliminary legal advice, coaching her on what to say to the cops instead of what she had told me would take well over an hour, giving me ample opportunity to slip in a command.
The obvious angle for her legal defense was to cast what happened as defending her property. The exact specifics would depend on what Marco said in court (if, indeed, he made it there), so I told her to avoid saying anything to the police for the time being.
"Don't need you to tell me not to talk to the cops," she said, her voice and expression sardonic.
"Still, sometimes it's important to remind clients of this sort of thing. The police have, as one of their main jobs, getting men and women such as yourself to incriminate themselves. I believe that, with what you've told me, I can ask a few pointed questions to Mr. Garcia, and create enough uncertainty as to what exactly happened that you can be acquitted on the basis of reasonable doubt."
She snorted at that. "You think a girl like me will get reasonable doubt?"
I smiled. "I can be very persuasive. Regardless, I would recommend you wear a suit or similar the day of to hide your tattoos, and remove your piercings, though. With your short hair, you might also be able to wear a wig with a more ordinary color over it. Justice may be blind, but juries aren't. It's best not to prejudice them against you."
"You want a jury trial?" She asked.
"I always recommend one, and I always win them," I told her, succinctly. "There is the matter of your bail, as well. Do you have family in the city?"
"My mom died when I was two," she replied. "My father ain't around either."
"Who did raise you?"
"Is my autobiography relevant?" She asked, annoyed.
"One of the major concerns with a defendant regarding bail is their flight risk. Foreign citizenship, lack of local ties, these kinds of things suggest to the authorities that you might hop on a plane and fly away, for example."
"I was born in this city, raised here, guy who raised me's dead," she explained. "I work here, this is where my people are."
"Good to hear. We'll likely want to review in more detail, though, given you have no immediate family, adoptive or otherwise."
"I got an aunt in the city," she said. She tried to scratch her nose, but her hands were cuffed to the table, making it difficult, and gave up rather than lean forward to do so. "She ain't, uhh, exactly on the up and up, though. Crack whore."
"That's better than nothing," I told her. "Do you have a local job that is the sort of thing we could cite?"
"Madre de dios, I really gotta tell you all this shit?"
"It will help me ensure you get out on bail, which in turn will help me ensure you do not go to prison. People who don't get out on bail are significantly less likely to win their eventual legal case."
She huffed. "You get off on making chicks tell you their life story? Help you deal with having your bitch wife make you take up some random DV case?"
"My wife is not a bitch," I said, maintaining a pleasant tone and passive body language, even if inside I was extremely annoyed at her use of the word.
"Sounded like she was some white feminist doing the little," she waved a hand, looking for the words, "charity to the less fortunate, shtick, from what you told me. She ride you this hard in bed?"
I saw my opportunity, and took it. "My wife does find me very attractive," I said, applying my power, "thank you very much."
"Guess that's how they do it, right? Make you addicted to the pussy, then you get lead around by the nose?" She smirked.
I could tell she was enjoying getting under my skin. That was fine. If my power worked on her, well, her perspective would change soon enough. If it didn't, I'd pass her case off to someone else at my firm and never interact with her again. "I would not have agreed to do this job if I did not agree with her views on this particular matter."
"Oh, so you're a big feminist too?" She smirked. "Wonder if you held those views before or after you stuck it in?"
"Her perspective has rubbed off on me a bit, sure," I said. It was true, too, even if not even the most generous of impartial observers would describe Elizabeth as a feminist. "Is there a particular reason for your obsession with my wife?"
"I just think it's funny. I mean, it ain't like Marco was beating me or nothing," she added. "You're still here, though."
"My wife would..." I trailed off. "She honestly wouldn't care."
"There we go, some honesty." She smiled.
"Not much respect for feminism?"
"White feminism, no. It's all about white bitches trying to become white masters," she said, with a dismissive flick of her hand. "There's two kinds of 'feminism:' one kind, it's about becoming a man, getting all the men's shit. Only white chicks want that, because their hubbies lord over everything, so they got ninety percent of everything and want the last ten for themselves. The other kind, it's about getting a good deal for you and your kids, while being a woman."
"I see," I responded, with nod. I cracked my knuckles a little. "Back to business, if you would?"
"Sure, fine." She leaned back in her seat as best she could. "Where were we?"
After further discussion with her, I had a fairly clear idea of exactly how to legally defend her, and we got her out on bail before the day was through. She was able to pay her own bail, and as much as I might have liked to have her declared a flight risk and therefore not have to risk her running away, legal cases take quite a long while to resolve, even when I'm involved.
She would likely be wanting to have sex with me long before the case was finished, after all.