As she listened to her husband’s footsteps coming down the stairs, Janet Downey was humming a tune cheerfully to herself and trying to remember how it had popped into her head.

She hummed a lot nowadays, really. In its way it was a way to, not express herself exactly, but to really enjoy how happy and free she felt. Whatever catchy tune happened to have stayed in her mind was enough, whether it was an ad jingle, a pop song from her childhood, the band which played at her wedding to Neil. While she was humming, everything was right with the world, no matter how busy her day ahead might look.

Not that her days ever felt dauntingly full these days either. Sure, their suburban home was big enough to require attention to keep it as smart and neat as she liked to have it for Neil, and she liked to make sure their evening meal was something special every night.

It was her way of making sure everything always felt special for the two of them, a job she took very seriously. They’d never discussed that this would be the plan, not really; it was just what had happened, off the back of a romance that her friend Whitney had jokingly described as ‘whirlwind’; less than five months from first date to married. Sometimes, Janet thought happily, you just knew.

There had been no gourmet, two-hours-to-prepare weeknight (or even weekend) meals in her life until she came here. Before she was married Janet James had relied on a young metabolism to keep her figure, microwavable meals for nutrition, and she’d survived on four hours’ sleep a night, sometimes less, as she tried to fit a full-time job and a superheroic career as Thunderstorm.

She’d officially retired her heroic identity a week before the wedding itself, not long after dismantling the Night Mayor’s criminal organisation and seeing him put behind bars, meeting him face to face for the first time when they stood opposite one another in court. She’d given her day job notice just before she and Neil left for the honeymoon.

A month together in Cuba (Whitney, who was also her former sidekick Torrent, had joked that she’d be pulled into some kind of villainous plot while they were there, but it hadn’t happened) and she’d moved into Neil’s house in the suburbs of Madison. She’d been living at the comparatively relaxed pace of the housewife ever since, and while a part of her had worried that it wouldn’t be enough for her, she’d discovered early on that she loved it. Five years on that was as true as ever.

Thinking about Whitney ‘in costume’, Janet realised suddenly what the tune she was humming was. A year or so before her sudden retirement, a producer at a new kids’ channel had contacted Thunderstorm (and, probably, dozens of other heroes). They wanted a new cartoon to anchor their Saturday morning offerings, a superhero cartoon, and they were prepared to pay licencing money to have the gimmick of featuring real names the kids would also see in live action on TV. The tune she was humming was the tune to ‘Thunderstorm & Torrent’ which continued now just as ‘Torrent’.

She smiled happily, her footsteps taking her lightly over to the kitchen counter where the coffee was brewing, and began to pour a mug for her husband.

Almost every weekday morning, when he made his way into the kitchen, she had her back to him doing this, and almost every weekday morning he announced his presence with a low, raunchy whistle of approval that made her smile, giggle, and quiver all at once, her long dark hair swaying.

“Now, that’s the kind of view a guy wants to keep in sight,” Neil told her. She kept her back to him but wiggled her rear, knowing it would make the ribbons of her apron ties bounce above her ass.

As he advanced through the kitchen toward her she added sugar and cream and stirred his coffee, waiting until his hands came to rest on her hips, skin warm on skin, before she turned around in his embrace, holding up the coffee mug as if it were an offering.

“Are you sure you have to go off to work?” she asked, her tone soft and playful, her eyes big. “You know I’d love to have you to myself for a day…”

In answer he lowered his head to hers and they kissed, long and tender and loving. She melted against him, pressing against him, conscious of his warmth through his shirt and her apron.

She didn’t always ask him, because it wouldn’t be fair; Neil was vulnerable to temptation, after all, but he also had work to do.

“Today I’m busy,” he said, and he did almost sound apologetic as he smiled down on her, eyes twinkling. “But maybe we’ll make tonight something special, hmm?”

Standing so close he couldn’t help but stand over her. Neil was a bigger guy, always had been; if he didn’t put in time in their home gym he could easily run to seed, but he was driven to keep his size mostly muscle, and his hands were far more calloused than those of the average civil servant. She painted his jawline with affectionate kisses, feeling suddenly needy, the way she always did when he suggested ‘something special’.

“You could really make me something special if you put a baby in me,” Janet said quietly. It wasn’t a topic she raised often, but it was something she craved. Had done since the honeymoon.

She had lowered her gaze, unwilling to meet his eyes until he responded to the topic. She felt as if she was holding her breath in anticipation, though she wasn’t foolish enough to do any such thing. After a long moment of silence, he took the mug from her and kissed her forehead. “Might not be too long,” he said.

Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped. She lifted her gaze to meet his, though he was already turning away toward the kitchen table. “Really?” she blurted. It was the first time his answer hadn’t felt like a gentle deflection; Janet felt like she finally knew with certainty that he really wanted a child too.

“Really,” he said, settling onto his chair at the table. “It’s safe now.”

Janet’s eyelids fluttered rapidly for three seconds. “That’s so good,” she said, turning his words over in her head. Really. It’s time now. God, the excitement she felt.

She opened the warming drawer below the hobs and fetched out his breakfast, prepared a little in advance and kept warm. With a broad smile on her lips, she scurried barefoot across the kitchen tile to rest his plate in front of him, her other hand resting on his shoulder, bending over so that her warm, yielding body pressed against his shoulder.

She never wore a scent before he’d had breakfast. Once, early in their marriage, he’d gone off to the office redolent of her perfume, and had been upset that evening.

There had been no rebuke. No criticism. Certainly there had been no payback - to hear Whitney talk about her own romantic issues, payback seemed to be a common way for men and women to get their own way, when talking or even just listening could be more valuable.

After Neil had finished his breakfast, she kissed him at the kitchen door and let him walk down the hall to the garden and his car alone, standing well back; most of their neighbours would likely gossip if they caught sight of Janet wearing only her little white apron.

She undid the apron, hanging it neatly on a peg by the door, and went upstairs to their home gym, tying her long dark hair back with a hair tie as she went. Janet always exercised nude.

Her husband had been using the leg press, so Janet detached his seat and set it aside. Her own, which lay beside it, was almost identical except for the bubble-pink PVC coating and the familiar purple dildo mounted in the centre. Locking her seat into place, she adjusted the weights to represent a good workout for her low-tier superstrength, settled herself on the seat and eased the dildo inside her, enjoying the feel of thickness moving through slickness, and began a set of slow, smooth, teasing reps around it.

She was humming again, smiling brightly to herself.

*

The doorbell rang not long after lunch. Janet was by this time back in the kitchen, once again wearing her apron alone. Kitchen knife in hand, she was systematically dicing up a selection of vegetables and transferring them into a crockpot nearby. With a few last additions, this would soon become a rich, flavourful stock.

Janet lifted her head from the task. Resting just a short way along the kitchen counter was a tablet, and a few brisk gestures on that tablet showed her the camera feed from their front porch.

Her eyes widened and she squealed in delight when she recognised Whitney waiting there. It was always a pleasure to see her old friend, a woman she’d befriended a decade ago when Whitney was still a teen grappling with hydrokinetic powers which had only just activated within her.

Janet’s first impulse was to hurry to the door. The knife laid down, she had turned and was flying at a swift pace over the kitchen tiles when she suddenly came to an abrupt halt. Her eyelids fluttered for three seconds.

At a much faster pace, Janet blurred upstairs, where she found a pleated green check short skirt and a white blouse, settling both of them into place before slipping her feet into comfortable fleece slippers.

She clipped her hair back with a silver lightning bolt clip she’d favoured in the days when being Janet was her civilian identity, rather than her only one, and whisked herself downstairs at the same blurring speed. She’d first flown probably fifteen years before that moment; her control now was effortless, the curtains at the windows and the pictures mounted down the stairs undisturbed by her passage.

A few brisk checks of her hair at the door to ensure all was in order, her eyelids fluttering as she did, and then she was opening the door wide. “Whitney!” she exclaimed in enthusiastic surprise, opening her arms and welcoming the younger woman into an embrace. “So good to see you again. Come in, come in…”

She fussed around her friend constantly, keeping up a steady stream of chatter into which Whitney contributed intermittent syllables, the gist of which was that it was great to see Janet too, even if left unspoken was her visible unhappiness at some aspect of her life.

Janet wasn’t going to ask what was wrong. This wasn’t the first time Whitney had showed up like this since Janet’s retirement; they saw each other probably ten times a year or so, mostly with Janet playing host, and perhaps eight of those ten would have been triggered by frustrations or sadness bubbling over in one corner of Whitney’s life or another.

It wasn’t that her former sidekick had a bad life, or that she took setbacks particularly hard. This was just the pattern they’d established in the first year after the wedding, in which Janet just hadn’t wanted to go out to socialise much, focusing on her new home and her husband. Now it was more likely for Whitney to reach out with a reason.

Add on the fact that Janet had always been her mentor, always made time to support her, and it was no surprise that their conversations began this way.

No doubt that by the time the conversation ended, both women would be smiling and laughing and talking about the very many positives in their lives. “What will it be?” Janet asked. “Tea?”

“That’d be nice,” Whitney said. “You always seem to have the best teas.” She smiled.

Mostly, the ritual of drink preparation was an excuse to turn away from Whitney. Janet had long found showing someone her back could be an effective way of helping people let their guard down; Neil loved to pay compliments to her rear view and could sometimes be prompted to take her right where she stood. Whitney, on the other hand, just needed to feel she wasn’t being watched when she took the deep breath and unburdened herself. Easier to do, somehow, when your audience had only your voice to go on. She fetched down a jar of Neil’s favourite loose-leaf tea and spooned two generous measures into the teapot’s strainer.

“It’s Brian,” she said. “But I think this one might be the end of it.”

“Oh.” She filled the teapot itself with hot water, putting the lid on to let it steep, and busied herself assembling china cups and saucers and the sugar bowl on a tray while she thought. Brian and Whitney had started dating about two years ago now and hadn’t quite moved in together, though in other respects their relationship seemed to be pretty close. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“It’s stupid, really.” He’d known her secret now for a little over a year, owing to an unfortunate incident in which their mutual day job’s Christmas party had been raided by the Vengeful Three, who had been almost as surprised that Torrent showed up as Brian had been terrified that his girlfriend was the only co-worker he couldn’t account for. This had also been a source of some concern, when it happened, but he had born up well under the news.

She added a small plate beside the teacups and arranged a selection of homebaked cookies on it. Janet was proud of her baking, these days. Then she placed the teapot on the tray, too, and carried it back to the table. “Go on,” she said.

“He’s been… distant… for a while,” Whitney said thoughtfully. “I’m not sure how long. You don’t notice, to begin with, you know?”

Janet nodded.

“I asked him a couple of months ago if something was bothering him, and he said no. And we both knew it was a lie then, you know, but things were still pretty good, and calling him out on it wasn’t the right choice, or at least I didn’t think it was. I thought he’d find the solution, and he’d tell me.”

The tea had steeped long enough for a first pour, so Janet did so. She was fairly sure she already knew the end of this story and debated whether or not to guess. Decided in the end that it might help her friend if she bore the burden of saying things aloud. “I did notice, on the news,” she said, “that you had a rough one this weekend, with Serpentine.” The fight had been broadcast live from a weather helicopter, all thirty minutes of it, and for a long time it had looked like Serpentine was going to win.

Whitney was quiet for a moment, then laughed, a noise that was an exclamation of surprise and affection more than amusement. “Ha! Yeah… you’re ahead of me, huh?”

“It does come with the territory, somewhat.” She set the teacup in front of her friend, who added milk and a spoonful of sugar. Janet’s own tea had three spoonfuls - she had taken to adding more and more over time, as her husband had encouraged her sweet tooth. “Brian isn’t comfortable with the risks you run, now that he knows it’s you running them?” Whitney nodded, and Janet continued. “We tend to think that our partners, when they know the secret, will understand that we’re more likely to make it through trouble than most. They’ll think of us as special. In fact, they tend to think of our costumed identities as more human, and more vulnerable as a result.”

She took a sip of her tea, satisfied with her pronouncement. Whitney took a sip from her own, sitting quietly, then asked “Is that why you hung it up, in the end? To save Neil worrying?”

“Hm? No, no.” Janet smiled. “I think I’d always known I would want to stop if I got married,” she went on. “Although I hardly remember - sounds silly, doesn’t it? But I can’t really remember how I felt back then. I know that I felt more comfortable giving up the mantle because I knew you were out there.” She met Whitney’s eyes with a warm smile. “Watching you grow up, I knew absolutely that I was leaving Madison in your good hands. Not that you should have to keep going against your will, of course.”

“I told Brian I couldn’t stop while the city still needed me,” Whitney admitted. “Anyway, last night things exploded a little over that.”

“Go on.”

“Would you believe he actually came over last night with crime stats?” There was an annoyance in Whitney’s voice, vibrating all through it. “Violent crime is down across the city, so I should feel good about leaving it to the police. There are officers out there I barely trust!”

Janet nodded thoughtfully. She’d had her own issues with the police, largely how many of them were happy to co-operate with the Night Mayor. Presumably these were other issues.

“It’s none of my business, anymore,” she said. “In my experience, if violent crime is down but other crime is up, that might mean someone’s brokering alliances between the different organised groups again. Most violent crime is unpredictable, but when conflicts between criminals goes away, a whole category of violence drops out.”

“Not that the woman who beat the Night Mayor would think about organised crime,” Whitney said, laughing. “No, I take your point. I do occasionally think about bringing a thorny case over here and seeing what insights you have.”

As Neil had encouraged her to, Janet closed her eyes and counted to three. “I won’t put the costume on again,” she said, then relented. “Not that I’m entirely opposed to helping out our local heroines, of course.” They shared a smile, which became a quick giggle. “Congratulations on bagging Professor Piledriver, by the way.”

“Oh.” Whitney leaned back in her chair, smiling warmly. “That was a fun one. You’ve got to hear about his lair. Get this - so I found this cage in there, right, about five foot on each side, and…”

*

She’d been having so much fun chatting to her friend that she’d completely lost track of time, and the rattle of Neil’s key in the front door was the first she realised that he’d finished work for the day. Janet was glad as she rarely was that her hands always wanted to be doing something, and that as a consequence she had still put the stock on to simmer for later use, and had taken her pastry dough from the fridge to let it come up to room temperature, and had started to prepare the fillings.

She could not be at the front door to welcome him home, and she had not prepared a drink ready for him. These were things she usually did, but she sat in the kitchen with her friend and they continued to talk as he came in, and she knew that he would not be upset.

True to form, when he pushed open the kitchen door and saw them both, Neil was all smiles. “Whitney,” he said. “How’ve you been?”

“Well, I’ll spare you any complaints,” she returned with a grin.

“I’m sure you’ve already been through them with Janet.” She had stood by this time, was by his side, and kissed his cheek affectionately. “Are we having a guest to dinner?” he asked her.

“Oh,” Whitney said, before Janet could answer. “No, no, nothing like that. I’ve really got to go if I’m going to get to book club at a decent time.” Janet wasn’t sure whether or not her husband believed ‘book club’ or knew it had to be code for a patrol. Certainly it was implausible that a book club would change the night it bet on so frequently.

“Oh, well.” Neil smiled. “In that case, you’ll let me run you home in the car?”

He was so generous, Janet thought, and also he was so proud of his car. It was a convenient combination sometimes.

“Oh, I couldn’t put you to trouble…” Whitney said, but there was no firmness in her voice.

“Nonsense,” he said. “I’m sure Janet will want a little time to put the finishing touches on things, and the engine’s still warm. It’s no trouble at all.” He smiled, produced the car keys from one pocket, and as if to settle the dispute he aimed them out of the kitchen window and tapped the button. “There, it’s unlocked. If you’re really not staying, why not get settled?”

Whitney laughed gently. “Well, if you insist,” she said, “I guess I’ll just enjoy a ride home in a car I couldn’t afford.” She stepped across to where Janet stood and hugged her tight. “Thanks for everything,” she murmured.

“Always,” Janet answered, smiling in return and squeezing her friend tight. When the hug broke, Whitney walked out to the car and Janet fondly watched her go.

“Take care of my friend,” she told Neil, her eyes twinkling with amusement. Her husband lingered long enough to kiss her passionately - she pressed herself against him, moaning with eagerness into his lips - before heading in her friend’s footsteps. At the kitchen door, he paused. “Janet?”

“Yes, love?”

“Don’t wait up.”

Janet’s eyelids fluttered for three seconds.

*

As she listened to her husband’s footsteps coming down the stairs, Janet Downey was humming a tune cheerfully to herself, washing up her husband’s dinner plate from the night before. It hadn’t gone into the dishwasher with everything else, which she’d briefly thought strange, but probably he’d wanted a second helping or something and had taken the plate into his study with him, where she assumed he’d spent the evening, coming to bed long after she’d nodded off.

It wasn’t that Janet needed more sleep since her retirement, really; that wasn’t why she had the occasional night where she went to bed so early she didn’t even have the chance to let her husband fuck her first. It was more that she’d never got as much sleep as she wanted, and without patrol to take a toll on it, some nights she just took full advantage.

She knew really that this was letting her husband down, at least somewhat, as it was a night where he didn’t get to use her body or have her ride him, but he was a generous man, and he clearly understood that sometimes she just needed to sleep deep.

She crossed to the kitchen counter where the coffee was brewing, and began to pour a mug for her husband.

How lucky she was, she thought. It didn’t seem like most people ever met someone as compatible for them as she and Neil had found in one another.

Soon enough, he announced his presence with a low, raunchy whistle of approval that made her smile, giggle, and quiver all at once, her long dark hair swaying.

“Genuinely one of the best bodies in history,” Neil told her. She kept her back to him but wiggled her rear, knowing it would make the ribbons of her apron ties bounce above her ass.

He crossed to her, put his hands on her hips. “And it’s all mine,” he said quietly, into her hair, his voice a soft, exciting growl, almost a promise.

God, that kind of declaration turned her on so much. At least when Neil did it; she could still remember a college boyfriend who’d said something similar and provoked a hell of an argument.

She didn’t turn in his hands this time but set his coffee mug down on the counter, taking hold of the counter edges in her hands, and she pushed her hips backward until her ass brushed against his pants and she could feel his hardness as a warm presence within them. Then she wiggled her butt again, rolling her curves against his erection.

She heard the growl from the back of his throat and smiled wider to herself, loving this proof of what she was doing to him.

“You know you get me all worked up,” he said, and his voice would have been a threat if it wasn’t a promise.

“I hope so,” she purred.

Suddenly he was lifting her by the hips; those gym-honed muscles in his bulk making light work of her, but even as she squealed in excitement, Janet made it even lighter work, lending her own flight. He pivoted on the spot, turning her to face toward the kitchen table; two quick steps forward and he was lowering her onto it. Her white apron bunched up around the edge, her bare torso pressed against the cool polished surface of the table, and she was putty in his hands.

She might be stronger than him - well, she was stronger than him, she was strong enough that any regular human was out-muscled - but she couldn’t have brought herself to struggle against him to fight back, even if she’d wanted to.

She heard his belt buckle clink as he worked it open, then the brisk sound of the zipper, which had become, over the past years, almost an aphrodisiac to her, since it signalled how well she’d done at getting his attention.

Janet shifted her grip on the table so she could better brace against him, exerted her flying faculty just enough that her own enthusiasm wouldn’t break the table itself (this had happened once early on, and she still remembered the odd and heady mix of euphoria and embarrassment with a pleasurable ache) and just like that he was in her.

It was lucky he ran a department, she thought, and not for the first time; he had always told her this was why he could sometimes indulge in the morning, getting to the office late, as nobody would criticise him. He still didn’t like to do it too often; some mornings Janet would instead crawl under the breakfast table to service him, as she liked to send him off to work relaxed more often than not.

It was the least she could do for him.

She wrapped her legs around him, gripping him tight to her without looking, tits bouncing as his cock pumped in and out of her, his belly clapping against her buttocks with every thrust. Through it all she kept up a run of squeaks and moans, not just because she loved how he made her feel but also to encourage him in noises of his own. Few things were hotter than hearing the effect she had on him.

After he was done he seated himself primly on his usual chair while she licked his cock and balls clean of their mingled juices, then tucked them away. She brought his coffee and breakfast over and sat opposite him while he ate. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“The pleasure was all mine,” he told her, smiling.

“Yes, honey,” she said, almost automatically. It made perfect sense, because the pleasure he received was his, but she belonged to him, so her pleasure was also his. The logic was familiar, but she found herself working it out again from first principles, every time she thought about it, which was every time he said that. It was a gooey kind of fun to work through, and it always reminded her how happy they made each other, and that was always worth remembering.

That afternoon she put on the same pleated skirt she’d worn the previous day, along with a red sleeveless blouse, her hair tidied away into a bun, and bobby socks to match her tennis shoes before going out to weed the herbaceous borders.

Perhaps she was an hour or so later than she’d planned to be, or perhaps Nadine and Tim, the kids who lived next door, had stayed home from school; either way, they were out in the next garden along, and by the sounds of things they were playing at heroes, the way many kids did.

“It’s over, Night Mayor!” she heard Nadine cry, her voice full of the brassy confidence of youth. “You’re no match for Thunderstorm!”

She smiled warmly to herself, as she always did when she heard evidence of the impact she’d had on the lives of others. As much as that chapter of her life was firmly closed, she was proud of it, all the same.

“Maybe,” Tim replied, “but you have no idea what I have planned for you.”

*

“I know you’re in here,” she called out. From the outside, it had looked like a neglected warehouse; inside, and past a narrow layer of scenery built specifically to make anyone looking in the window think they saw an empty space, it was a warren, full of storage shelves, control consoles, strange machinery, and more. “And the way out is behind me. So this time, Night Mayor, we’re coming face to face, and you’re leaving here in handcuffs.”

His voice was suddenly very close to her; she whirled as he spoke, heightened senses locking on immediately. But all she saw there was a loudspeaker, doubtless one of a network. “Oh, Thunderstorm,” he said. “You have no idea how this ends. And you have no idea what I have planned for you.”

There was a confidence in his tones; he was taking this seriously. Not only that but there weren’t many good reasons for him to have a speaker network like that rigged up if he hadn’t anticipated someone coming in. Keep him talking, she thought. Distract him while I find him.

“So why don’t you tell me?” she countered. She was still moving, taking slow, measured paces along the alleys that the shelving formed. Sweeping her surroundings with her eyes, moving slowly enough that she could easily screen her own noise out from any other sound. “Some supergoon or other is my guess. Serpentine, maybe. You’ve believed she was a match for me before.

She reached the first internal doorway separating one section from another. The door swung open at her touch. “Kind of glad you’ve stopped just sending the regular goon squad out,” she said. “I always felt kinda embarrassed for them. Hey, you remember that guy you hired, early on? The one who thought a whip was a good weapon against gale force winds?”

“You’re not the only one who’s learned from our encounters, Thunderstorm,” he answered. “Do you know the top speed of the winds you can summon?”

“Never given it any thought.” Which was true, more or less. She’d had a boyfriend, back when she first met Torrent, who’d discovered her secret, and he’d asked her a lot of questions like that. What was her top speed? Were her lightning bolts ‘more electric’ than the ones you got in the weather usually? (What did that even mean?) What was the lowest temperature she could bring a city block down to?

She hadn’t had answers for any of them, had seen them all as irrelevant, but hadn’t been able to make him see that.

“I made it my business to find out,” he answered. “You’re right. You don’t need to worry about that.

“But if I’m going to build a proper trap for you, I need to know you can’t blow it down.”

The door behind her suddenly slammed shut. She jumped at the sound, but the door would not budge, held in place not just by magnetic locks, which she might short out, but also by tumblers heavier than a man.

She couldn’t melt them and short out the magnetic field at once. With a sinking feeling she reflected on how unlikely it was that any other escapes she’d used before would work here.

Into the silence of her thoughts came another sound. Much quieter, but still present. A soft whirring, as the internal ventilation system started pumping a sweet-smelling gas into the room.

Thunderstorm tried to hold her breath, but the first whiff had smelled so good that she’d taken another before she realised.

Her scalp was tingling, the top of her head feeling light and fluttery.

“Good girls don’t struggle,” the Night Mayor told her. “Good girls don’t fight…”