Spider-Cat-Redhead 4

Peter, Felicia, and Mary Jane laid in the center of the mess they’d made of his bedroom. The sheaf of papers and letters he’d set on the mattress earlier had long since been scattered. A pillow had burst, lacing the room with feathers.

On the bed, Felicia had kicked off her boots, leaving her disarmingly innocent in just gloves and a strap-on, while the spider-suit Mary Jane had borrowed from Peter still hung from one of the redhead’s arms. She just hadn’t been able to struggle out of it before falling unconscious.

In fact, none of them had so much fallen asleep as they had collapsed from exhaustion. Even Peter’s bottomless stamina had been lulled into submission by the two women who’d wrapped themselves around him. Only Felicia stirred, half-awake. She was thinking that this was the perfect end to as perfect a day as could be, minus larceny or brawling.

Only the bed was too small.

It was no problem for Peter or Mary Jane. Red was wrapped around her Spider like a human pretzel. But there was precious little room on the mattress for one person, let alone three. With the marrieds taking up a hundred and twenty percent of one person’s space, Felicia’s left arm and left leg dangled off the side and the bed sheet did not cover her all the way.

It wasn’t fair. They were used to this counterintuitive system of sleeping in a bed with someone just because you’d used that bed for sex. Felicia had to squirm around, trying to get comfortable on the margins of their little world. Trying to thrust herself onto Peter as much as MJ was, but it was impossible. He was slender and Mary Jane was in the way and anyway, he was so warm and a little damp, not like her lovely silk sheets back home. All she succeeded in doing was waking him.

“Eh? Huh? What’s wrong?” he asked, blinking himself awake.

“Nothing. Just trying to get comfortable.”

“You’re not comfortable?”

Mary Jane murmured in her sleep, shifting under Peter’s embrace. He adjusted his arm. She made his pecs look like they were her exact Sleep Number.

“I’m buying you a bigger bed.” Felicia flicked her tongue under his chin. “A little goodie for my boy toy. Want a waterbed?”

“Until then, let me just…” Peter reached up, stuck his hand to the wall the bed was against, and pried himself up. Mary Jane dropped off his body. “There. Room.”

“Peter, c’mon, it’s your bed—“

“No, no, you’re my guest. I’ll ride the couch.” Peter hopped down onto the floor beside the bed. “It’s fine. Go to sleep.”

Felicia scooted over into his warm spot. Mary Jane snuggled into her automatically. The man was a saint to give that up. “You’re a simp.”

“Yeah. Your simp.” Peter leaned over and kissed her, then the sleeping MJ. Then he padded out into the living room.

Spooning with Mary Jane wasn’t Felicia’s idea of a chore, but not sleeping with Peter—uncool. Very uncool.

***

Peter found the lower half of his spare spider-suit—the one Mary Jane had left smelling like salmon—and decided to use it as pajama bottoms. Then he laid himself out on the couch and the next thing he knew, it was morning. 

He got up, assuming he was the first one to do so. No coffee in the machine confirmed his hypothesis. He started a pot, then headed for the bathroom to grab a shower. He remembered his hobo wipe-down the other day at the kitchen sink. Another round with Felicia and Mary Jane had rendered that moot.

In passing, he glanced at the bed. From the rumpled lumps of the drawn-in sheets, Felicia’s face emerged in a tangle of white hair. Her eyes were closed, still fast asleep, her look girlish and peaceful. Peter felt a sort of guy-swoon in his heart. He resisted the urge to kiss her anymore, instead slipping into the bathroom and finding Mary Jane naked in the shower.

She hadn’t turned it on yet. How was he supposed to know?

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, averting his eyes and backing into the doorframe. Oops. He reached behind him for the doorknob, but his hand and memory couldn’t seem to agree on where it was. “Total accident, didn’t see a thing, I’m outie…”

“Peter,” Mary Jane said, sounding just slightly more amused than chiding. He opened his eyes a little. Her hands were on her hips. Her bare hips. Her hands were bare too. That is, she wasn’t wearing gloves. “I kinda think you got the whole picture last night. During the ménage à trois?”

“Well…” Peter had his hand in front of his eyes anyway. In the cold light of day, it seemed a lot more likely that he’d had some sort of fever dream than—what had she called it? A ménage à trois? Three separate ménage? “I wouldn’t want to presume—maybe you had second thoughts?”

“Right now? Little bit.” She turned the faucet on. “Come on, tiger. Get in here. Let’s save some water.”

***

Felicia woke up with her thighs squeezing together. Her pussy buzzed with the same delicious sensations she had gone to sleep with. She didn’t remember having a wet dream, but she wondered if she’d come during her sleep. Maybe Spider or Red had gotten a little handsy with her in the night. They were both naughtier than they let on. Felicia reached down under the crotch of her strap-on. The lips of her pussy were not only wet, but very wet.

Cat laid there, letting the fever of her waking arousal run through her. She could’ve exploited it: squeezed her own tits, fucked her own cunt. She had a dildo close enough for it. But why, when she had the marrieds to do it for her?

Felicia slipped out of bed, proud of how her breasts jiggled headily with the motion, and discarded her gloves and dildo onto the sweat-stained bed. She laughed as she saw the strap-on land propped up, as if the phallus were hungry for more. And she went into the bathroom, her nipples swollen and sore and begging to be kissed yet more.

There was a tiny shower stall in there, tucked into the corner like a very wet closet, and Peter and Mary Jane were washing up in it, under the rinky-dink showerhead that produced just enough steam to be interesting. Their kisses were blissful and passionate. Felicia watched Mary Jane wash hubby’s most important part.

“Room for one more?” she asked, cracking the door open.

“Uhh…” Peter looked about the stall, doing some quick calculations. “Possibly?”

“We’ll make room,” Mary Jane said, pulling Peter to her and lodging them both against the wall.

Felicia laughed as she stepped under the shower spray with them. Or, skirted the edge of the shower spray. The mist made it look a bit more plentiful than it really was. And she couldn’t shut the door behind her. But who cared about that when she could press her body against Peter’s back? Touch and feel and look and listen as he fucked Mary Jane Watson into the wall, right in front of her.

All while Felicia was licking away the sweat where the shower didn’t touch (the showerhead was a little low to get all of Peter’s tall frame without him hunching over) and reaching around to grab at this ass or that, at MJ’s soft breasts or Spider’s hard muscles. It was a great way to start her day off.

Only she was really more standing outside the shower and leaning in, and her feet were on the wet tile of the bathroom and there was no mat and the air conditioning was blowing right through the apartment, all of which made Felicia feel like she was hugging a nice, warm stove while a snowman made her the little spoon.

This wasn’t working for her.

“Spread your legs,” Felicia said, getting down on all fours.

“What?” Peter looked behind himself, then down to find her. “What’re you doing down there?”

“Rubbing up against your leg.”

“Isn’t that a bit literal, Cat?”

“Didn’t you have six arms for a while?”

Peter spread his legs, sticking to either side of the shower walls. It reminded Felicia of some of her Jean-Claude Van Damme fantasies. With Peter out of the way and Mary Jane pinned to the wall, Felicia was free to crawl underneath them and into the blessed warmth of the shower. She sat up, kissing Peter’s leg and Mary Jane’s in turn, before reaching the junction of those long supermodel stems. 

With the shower water running down it, MJ’s puss tasted vaguely of metal, but Felicia could take it. And the way Peter pumped himself into wifey sent his balls slapping into Felicia’s face, which she actually kinda liked.

Felicia had a handful of both their asses, she could taste his cock and her cunt with each swipe of her tongue, squeezing her thighs together halfway got her off, Mary Jane was going limp and Peter was fucking her even as she came. Cat jilled three fingers into her ready pussy. She was going to come, Peter was going to come, MJ was going to come again, then the water turned into Iceman pissing on them.

“Motherfuck this shit!” Felicia cried as she fled the frozen shower—standing up, banging her head into a rather sensitive part on Peter’s anatomy, he dropped Mary Jane, she slipped and slid on the floor, toppled into Peter, he dominoed into Felicia, they tumbled out of the stall all together just like the Three Stooges—but somehow less sexy.

Peter turned off the water with his foot. “Hot water runs out pretty fast around here. Forgot to mention it.”

***

Felicia and Mary Jane had come over to Peter’s place in a leather catsuit and a casual ensemble of MJ’s that had been completely lost in the carnage. Thankfully, Peter’s old roommate Michele Gonzales had left a box of her clothes when she’d moved. Unfortunately, her tastes were… eclectic.

“Ay caramba,” Felicia enunciated dryly, clad in a kissy lip bandana, shades, a leopard-print skirt, and a T-shirt with a picture of a coffee mug and the text Colombian. Warning: Extremely hot.

“Let’s not bring race into this,” Mary Jane replied, wearing an extravagant red dress that could charitably be described as a tribute to Charo and not, say, a hate crime.

“They’re not mine,” Peter protested, a sweatshirt on over his spider-pants. He served them breakfast—Fruit Loops with no milk. On paper plates. If he’d known he’d be having threesome company, he would’ve made a grocery run sooner. “I tried giving them to the Salvation Army…”

“But you’re sure this was a real person?” Felicia insisted. “And not, say, the result of lightning striking the filmography of Michelle Rodriguez?”

“Or the leader of a book club having to go undercover to infiltrate a Mexican gang?” MJ added.

“If you don’t like ‘em, put ‘em back in the box.”

Felicia began to pull her shirt off, but Mary Jane grabbed her hand. “Listen, Peter,” the redhead began, in her sweetest tone. “We love you and all, and we hate to start—‘fixing you’ on the first date…”

“I don’t mind,” Felicia interjected. “Get a better razor, Peter.”

MJ kicked her under the table. “The point is, Peter, if we’re going to do this, we need to move into a bigger place.”

“You want to move in together?” Peter asked. It was with a smile. A somewhat wary smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“You want to move in together?” Felicia asked.

Mary Jane nodded. “Why take it slow? We know where this is going. Let’s just skip ahead. Dive right in.” She turned to Felicia. “Any objections?”

“No. We’ve all done the dating bullshit and the getting-to-know-you stuff. You want us to use your place?”

Mary Jane shook her head. “I live with three guys.”

Peter raised an eyebrow.

“They’re all gay,” MJ clarified.

Felicia raised an eyebrow. “Hey, give me an afternoon to clear out a space, you can come stay at my place. I have more room than I know what to do with, and if Peter isn’t cool with me stealing priceless antiquities to kill the negative space—“

“When have I ever been cool?” Peter asked.

“—then you two can bunk with me. Sure.” Felicia looked up, briefly absorbed into another thought. “By the way, if you find Wolverine in the guest room, it’s only because we’re good friends. Nothing happened.”

“Okay, pause, pause—“ Peter said, holding his hands up.

“Do you mean time-out?” Felicia looked to Mary Jane. “Does he not know what a time-out is? Doesn’t he know anything about sports?”

“He thinks they use blue shells in NASCAR.” MJ quickly swiveled to Peter. “Yes, dear?”

“Okay, it’s great that we’re all on the same page and we want to explore this—stuff—together.” Peter stood, thinking it would make him more authoritative. Considering his red and blue pants, that did not occur. “But we need to be realistic.”

Mary Jane smiled into her coffee. “Honey, you got superpowers from a bug bite.”

“Really?” Felicia gawked in surprise. “That’s how it happened? I thought he was chosen by some mystical spider-god or something.”

“Nope.”

“I have work in forty-five minutes,” Peter told them. “Can you just listen and make fun of me later, behind my back, like normal people?”

The ladies put on mock-serious expressions, sitting up straight with their hands in their laps. Their own laps, even, which was a big deal for Felicia.

“Okay, look, I know I’m a bit hung up on Gwen. I don’t like it either. But you’ve got to understand—she was my girlfriend, it was my job to protect her, and she died when I could’ve saved her if only—“ He looked away. “Yeah. I never want to do that again. So we can’t let any of the Spider-Man stuff turn around on us. And that means we can’t do this anymore. Not this way, at least,” he added at their surprised dismay. “Felicia, your alter ego is a matter of public record. If you’re dating Spider-Man, you can’t be seen with Peter Parker, just like MJ, Spider-Man can’t kiss you if Peter Parker’s dating you. I’m sorry; last night was amazing, it was wonderful, but you two being alive is worth way more to me than—that.”

“Come off it, tiger,” MJ demanded. “You took off your mask in front of the whole world; six months later, everyone forgot it like it was Jai Courtney. If you can swing that, there’s gotta be a work-around for this.”

“Yeah,” Felicia agreed. “I’m not letting fear of the fucking Shocker control my life. We’ll work something out. Like always.”

“Leave it to us,” Mary Jane concluded. “You just go to work and we’ll sort it out.”

“And fool around a little,” Felicia added.

“Time permitting.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not betting against you.” Peter stood. “Just remember, until we do figure this out, if we’re seen together, it’s on accident.”

Felicia nodded dutifully, looking between her two lovers. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, question. So we’re about to go our separate ways, and you don’t know how long it’ll be until we all meet again or under what circumstances?”

“Yeah, I don’t like it either,” Peter muttered dolefully.

Felicia and Mary Jane shared a look, the redhead taking her meaning. “But for now, as long as we’re under one roof, it’s no big deal.”

“Hopefully. With my luck, the Sandman just so happened to see us all duck into the same room.” Peter checked his watch. “I gotta get going—traffic in New York is bad even if you’re web-slinging…”

Felicia pushed her chair back as she stood up. “But Peter, what you’re saying is that if we wanted to do something with you—“

Mary Jane knocked hers over. “To you.”

Felicia came up on Peter’s left. “It’d have to be right here.”

Mary Jane was on his right. “Right now.”

“Yes, I, uh, suppose I am—“ If Peter still wore glasses, they’d be fogging up. “But, really, we should—right now, we should agree to this plan and, and stick to it…”

“Stick?” Felicia asked, her hand at his crotch, her smile liking what she’d found.

Peter turned to Mary Jane for help. “I just. We’ve got a good thing. Here. Good thing. No one knows about it, so the only way this gets ruined is if we do it to each other…”

She took his hands and put them on her breasts. “Do it to each other?” MJ repeated wonderingly.

There was only so much fortitude a man could possess. With his hands still soaking in Mary Jane’s sweaty tits, Peter pushed her back, then Mary Jane felt a buzz as he adhered to her flesh with Van der Waals force. Sidling one elbow over Felicia, he pulled Mary Jane back to him, sandwiching Felicia against him in the process. 

He kissed Felicia and he kissed Mary Jane over Felicia’s shoulder. The three of them kissed for the longest time, their tongues in and out of one another’s mouths with a slow, tender grace that lasted right up until the two women moved lower.

“Hey Miss Kitty,” MJ stage-whispered in her friend’s ear. “Mind showing me how to deep-throat?”

“Sure thing, firecrotch. You just put your lips together and blow.”

Felicia stood, running her hand up Mary Jane’s face as she came away from her. Then she circled around Peter, embracing him from behind, her chin on his shoulder. She looked down at Mary Jane as the redhead knelt; MJ tugged Peter’s pants down under his cock and Felicia held his sweatshirt up out of the way.

“He’s got such a big cock, doesn’t he?” Felicia purred, ostensibly to Mary Jane, but her lips were right next to Peter’s ear. “How are you going to take all of it, MJ? How are you going to fit every last inch in your mouth? In your throat? You’re Spider-Man’s girl now, Red. He’s a bona fide hero. My Spider deserves to have each and every bit of his prick sucked. And I can’t be the only one in this relationship that he throats.”

Mary Jane smirked up at the two of them; Felicia seemed almost more eager than Peter for her to suck him off. She knew what Felicia was doing. A little thrill went through her. Just because they were sharing Peter didn’t mean the competition was over. And Mary Jane had a feeling she was going to enjoy the rivalry now more than ever.

“First I get him all nice and hard,” Mary Jane whispered, her succulent lips getting closer and closer to Peter’s half-hard member. 

Peter had an especially high libido and Mary Jane had never known his cock to be reluctant to perform. It had to be a sign of just how much she and Felicia had drained him—literally—in the last twenty-four hours. MJ wondered if in time, his body would adapt to the new demands placed on it, giving him a more active sex drive than ever, or if she and Felicia would have to rely on each other to sate their own healthy libidos. Both seemed like attractive prospects.

Felicia spoke in a strangled voice. She didn’t seem to care where her sex came from either, or even if it involved her, just so long as she could get off on it. “Yeah, lick him, MJ, suck him. Make that cock stand right up and give you its cum!”

Mary Jane brushed her lips against the very tip of Peter’s member. It stiffened like an electrical charge was going through it, the knob pressing against Mary Jane’s mouth as if remembering the ecstasy she had to offer. MJ could feel it throbbing. It didn’t look like it would take Peter long at all to get fighting fit. Knowing that, she wanted to turn it into a race. See how fast she could get him rock-hard. Set a little record in their relationship for Felicia to be runner-up to.

Opening her mouth wide, she took all of his stirring erection between her lips, letting them rub over the twitching shaft of his member. Welcoming him inch by inch into her warm, wet mouth.

“Ggggh!” Peter sighed, feeling almost all of his length being accepted into Mary Jane’s lips. His erection roared to life, forcing her jaws even further apart. “God, MJ, your mouth feels so amazing on my cock!”

Felicia chuckled, her pendulous breasts pressing into Peter’s back as, wrapped around his body, her hands caressed his abs, stirred through his chest hair. “Just wait. If you think that’s good, I know some tricks that will get you hard for a whole week.”

Mary Jane’s eyes slashed up at the two of them, incensed to see how Felicia’s lips were against Peter’s, stealing the attention that was rightfully hers. She could’ve taken a breath and calmed herself, even with Peter’s massive erection filling her mouth, but she didn’t want to. There was a cleansing purity in her anger and jealousy; she wanted to ride it into a real hot fuck with Peter. 

She bobbed her crimson-tressed head on Peter’s manhood, corkscrewing her mouth to the left and the right as she gulped his cock. It got so hard and so thick that it threatened to choke her, but Mary Jane’s only concern was how much of that engorging was her doing and how much Felicia’s.

Then she felt Felicia’s loving, passionate touch, long slender fingers moving through her hair, pulling back the disheveled curtain that hid her face. “Look at that!” Felicia cried proudly, running her hand down Mary Jane’s flushed cheek to the bulge in her throat that held Peter’s long, stiff prick. “I can’t believe how hot she gets you, Spider. You look like you’re ready to fuck all night!”

Mary Jane’s burning body now swelled with a sense of pride, a curiously intimate warmth that she’d only ever felt with Peter. She felt… loved. Usually, during casual sex, she settled for satisfied. Now, the affection she’d only ever felt from Peter somehow included the Black Cat.

Fittingly, this act by Felicia still managed to annoy her, jarring her out of some perfectly good hate sex—but she still felt unbelievably aroused. Now Mary Jane was determined to set the pace, to give Felicia a standard to live up to. They both loved Peter, after all. MJ would show Felicia that nothing less than the very best would do for the man she, they loved.

She dove down on Peter’s cock with renewed zeal, sucking and nibbling and even gurgling on all she could get of his rigid erection.

“Hhah!” Peter groaned. His balls felt like they were soaring, spurred on by the tongues of flame Mary Jane sent through his shaft with every pitching swallow down to his pubic hair. “Don’t stop! Feels so fucking good! God, you’re the best cocksucker in the world!”

“Doesn’t mean there’s not room for improvement,” Felicia simmered, reaching around Peter to socket her hands onto Mary Jane’s head. 

It was a position Peter had long taken with her, dominant and controlling, but that subconsciously he had always thought MJ was a little too fragile, too pure, to enjoy. Now Felicia did it for him. 

“Take all his cock!” Felicia ordered, pumping her hips against Peter’s to drive him forward as she pulled Mary Jane’s head in, as if she were fucking MJ through Peter, forcing Peter’s shaft down Mary Jane’s throat just as it was ready to burst.

Mary Jane gagged and gulped convulsively, sucking his fat prick all the way down to her gullet. She felt Peter tensing, heard him moan in pleasure as her eager throat descended on his member. His engorged balls rubbed against MJ’s chin and Felicia’s nails dug into MJ’s scalp. That excited her even more, having Felicia be a part of the blowjob, enjoying it as much as Peter was.

“You like sucking cock, don’t you?” Felicia growled, her voice rasping out of her as her breasts pressed against Peter’s back and her pubic thatch burned wetly at his ass. The muscles of her arms stood out in sharp relief, she was holding Mary Jane down on Peter’s manhood so tightly. “I can tell you really love it. Don’t you just want to eat Peter alive, MJ? God! Have as much of him as you want! I’m giving him to you! I’m giving him to you hard!”

Mary Jane clenched her lips tightly around Peter’s throbbing erection, so excited she didn’t know how she was bearing it without passing out. She felt like a repository for both her own lust and Felicia’s. Her pussy ached and surged; she hoped Felicia was feeling the same.

Reaching down to the hem of her dress, she pulled it up over her dripping sex with one hand and parted her swollen labia with her fingers. She concentrated on her own decadent masturbation as her lovers used her mouth, Felicia pumping her on Peter’s cock. Mary Jane only had to enjoy the taste, the feeling of being their toy.

“Yeah, fuck yourself, you redhead bitch,” Felicia hissed. “You know you’re getting off on being our little whore. Come for us. Play with that sweet, pink, pussy while you take Peter’s cock. I know it makes you feel so good, having him in your throat. Suck him! Suck all of him!”

Peter’s hands brushed against Felicia’s wrists, not quite pushing them away as the cat burglar kept him facefucking MJ, or MJ facefucking herself, at a frantic pace. “Felicia, don’t,” he began hesitantly, “don’t…”

“Don’t what? Don’t hurt her? Does it look like we’re hurting her?” Felicia nuzzled cheek to cheek with Peter, guiding his eyes down to Mary Jane’s upturned face. Her glazed over pupils. The running mascara as her eyes brimmed with tears of exertion. “You can see the excitement in her eyes. She loves it. And why shouldn’t she? She loves being yours, Spider. She is yours. Your cockholster. Your cum dumpster. Whatever you want her to be. And so am I, Peter. Think how jealous she’ll be if you fuck me any harder than her…”

Peter could not take anymore, not hold back, not resist being part of this mad lustful thing that had overcome both women and now him. It was intoxicating, addictive—orgasmic. He gritted his teeth. 

“Every! Inch!” he husked, and Felicia forced Mary Jane down on his burgeoning prick harder than ever, stretching her throat, giving her everything both Peter and Felicia had to offer.

“She’s ours!” Felicia moaned, her voice alive with passion, and Peter couldn’t go any longer without claiming Mary Jane for both of them.

“GGGHH! I’M COMING, MJ! COME WITH ME! COME FOR ME! I CAN’T HOLD IT ANY LONGER!” Peter screamed. His cock was buried in Mary Jane’s throat, his pubic hair locked against her lips, but when he came, his seed still surged up out of Mary Jane’s straining lips to streak out across her contorted face.

Mary Jane felt her cunt explode too, her throat an erogenous zone feeling burst after burst of steaming hot cum splash against her gullet. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She felt faint. She couldn’t even swallow it all, no matter how good it tasted. And when Felicia came down to help clean up the mess—lick her dirty face clean—Mary Jane didn’t even mind at all.

***

“PARKER, WHAT ARE YOU SO HAPPY ABOUT? YOU’RE LATE! LATE! LUCKY I DON’T FIRE YOU RIGHT NOW!”

“Yes sir,” Peter replied, still a bit moony-eyed ever after snapping out of his reminiscing.

Mary Jane had proven a natural.

“GOT AN ASSIGNMENT FOR YOU, IF YOU’RE NOT TOO BUSY PONDERING THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE!” As impossible as it seemed, sometimes J. Jonah Jameson could get even louder. “PARKER! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?”

“Yes sir,” Peter replied. “Secrets of the universe. Sounds very important.”

Jameson growled. Ten thousand years of cultural advancement had rendered it socially unacceptable for him to rip Parker’s throat out with his mouth, so that was all he could do. “GOT A NEW GOSSIP COLUMNIST ON STAFF! GOOD GIRL, YOU’LL LIKE HER, WORKS CHEAP! ALREADY PAYING OFF TOO, UNLIKE THE REST OF YOU SLACKERS! SHE’S GOT AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH FELICIA HARDY, THAT BIMBO HEIRESS WHO HAD THE REALITY TV SHOW A FEW YEARS AGO, BACK WHEN NOT EVERYONE HAD ONE!”

And the Black Cat, Peter thought to himself. His new squeeze. What had she and MJ cooked up in an afternoon’s work? He shuddered to think.

“SHE’S GONNA LET US TAKE PICTURES WHILE WE INTERVIEW HER, AND NOTHING SELLS BETTER THAN A CUTE GIRL IN A BARELY-THERE OUTFIT, EXCEPT MAYBE SPIDER-MAN, AND THAT WALL-CRAWLING MENACE HASN’T BEEN SEEN SINCE YESTERDAY AFTERNOON!”

“Maybe he had better people to do,” Peter suggested. Then, hurriedly: “Things! I said things.”

Jameson gave him a queer look. “DON’T GO WEIRD ON ME, PARKER! THIS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF DOESN’T HAVE TIME FOR IT! JUST GET YOUR ASS AND YOUR NEW SLAVEDRIVER TO WHATEVER UPPER EAST SIDE PALACE HARDY CALLS HOME AND SEE IF YOU CAN TAKE A PICTURE OF HER BENDING OVER SOMETHING FOR THE EVENING EDITION! WELL, WHAT ARE YOU DOING STANDING AROUND LISTENING TO ME, I CAN’T GET MORE SPECIFIC THAN THAT, GO! GO!”

Peter belatedly realized he was supposed to stand. He did, though his groin twinged with the motion, even after all this time.

Mary Jane was a natural, but Felicia had been a goddamn professional.

“Sorry, sir, who’s my new—the new gossip columnist?”

“That’d be me,” a voice new to the bullpen, raspy and attractively self-deprecating, sounded from behind Peter. He turned to see a buxom woman in glasses, dressed in a sort of boho chic style for people who had graduated college. He took an instant liking to her. Or at least, his penis did. Peter tried to think unsexy thoughts, but the past twenty-four hours had not been heavy on them.

“Darcy Lewis,” she greeted him. She did not offer to shake; her hands stayed firmly in her pockets. “So, you wanna go write about famous people fuckin’?”