Chapter Six
The exordium of Jessica's life didn't truly happen on her natural birth, but truly took place after her cocooning phase. She tried her best to understand her momma's diatribe about her condition, but couldn't fathom being anything more than a human being. She sat in the living room on the leather sofa with several of her father's journals, and tried to comprehend what had happened to her. She thought the wasp venom caused all her problems, but she now realized her metamorphoses was a natural part of her life cycle. To put it mildly, she thought of it as a second puberty phase. She had a long body frame with a svelte appearance. Her muscles were elongated, and she looked as if she came from Ethiopia or somewhere exotic.
She thought through her metamorphoses from the beginning to the ending, and realized she was nothing more than an anthropomorphic person. In the back of her mind, she wanted to decathect from the human race as a way to move past the pain of only being human in form. She had two hands, two arms, two legs, and every human attribute possible, but her strength and sensory perceptions had increased beyond anything imaginable. She felt the flow of energy racing through her svelte body, and loved it. Unfortunately, she also felt the pull of the glove. It was like a siren calling her every time she tried to focus on anything of value. Her momma had scurried off to work, and left her at home to deal with her new godlike powers.
The First thing she did was head to the shower, and scrub her skin with a harsh, abrasive scrubbing pad in order to remove all the reminiscence of the sewer from her poor body. She had a complete visual of every rodent that crossed her path as she cooked inside of the cocoon. She felt that she handled the rats with civility, caution, caring because she wanted to kill every last one of them. One of the nasty rodents nibbled on her cocoon, but a burst of energy frightened it, and it retreated to the safety of the water. She realized that she had grown at least two inches while in the cocoon, and it made her nervous about her clothing. The majority of her goth apparel probably wouldn't fit, and she didn't have any money to buy anything new. She had a couple of black dresses that might be okay to wear, but all of her pants would need adjusting or become charitable items for the poor. Once she finished bathing, she admired her tight abs in the mirror, and found it hard to believe that she looked like a figure model. She didn't have a single blemish on her swarthy skin, and she worried that the wasp stings had caused permanent damage to her face. She didn't have one mark on her face.
The algid air blew hard against the quaint, little home, and Jessica watched the snow drifts out the living room window. Wearing some black silk pajamas about an inch too short, she stood by the living room window, and watched the snow fall haphazardly. She hit the "Deice" button in order to keep the snow off the driveway for her momma, when she arrived home from work. She thought about the precarious situation happening in the sewers, and knew all about the horrific prostitution ring that involved the city's elite residents. It seemed like a hopeless endeavor to tackle so many powerful people, but she couldn't imagine living in a world where something as insidious as child prostitution went unchallenged. According to her father's journals, she had the ability to absorb thoughts; and when the boy sat next to her during her cocooning phase, his thoughts became her thoughts. She read every inch of his mind, and saw only sex, drugs, and death. It felt like a world of chaos, and the boy struggled every day with the realization that his death was imminent. Unfortunately, she knew the residents of the sewer lived life as a bunch of mulligrubs—angry about anybody who interfered with their way of life.
She had an epiphany about life in the sewers, about the parents who prostituted their kids in order to bring in the money. Suddenly, her mind went awry with the idea of the parents forcing their kids into prostitution, and she fell backwards onto the couch. How could they do that? She asked herself a million questions, but that was the easiest question to ask aloud. Disheartened, she knew if she told the authorities about the prostitution ring that took place in Gotham, it would cause dissension in the sewers. It would pit the parents against the children and the elite against the paupers. At the same time, she knew about the probability of the children living in the sewers prior to her metamorphoses, and never thought about imposing her will on them. Suddenly, she felt like her newly found powers had gone to her head. She wanted to interfere in the actions of man. What right did she have to exact her will on the authorities of Gotham. Even though Superman's strength trumped any beings on the planet, he never interfered in the horrors of segregation, race riots, or even the nuclear arms race. He sat in the shadows of some of the greatest moments of the twentieth century, silently and passively.
The more she thought about the sewer dwellers the more she became confused about the idea of helping them.