Sequel to: MAU: More Than Meets the Eye

Jenna discovers that an aspiring female action star dealing with a macho male star is more trouble than she expected.

Note: This is Jenna's story, separated from Sadie's ( Robot in Disguise ). The two stories in one story became too unwieldy and seemed to make more sense --to me-- as stand-alone. They will merge again near the end, but seen from their own POVs. For the folks that have read what I previously had posted with Sadie's story, I have the first six chapters of this one written, but I'm not sure how much of it will be new content.

Jenna sighed with relief as she stumbled into her private dressing room, really a camper trailer.  Fifteen hours of non-stop filming filled with stunts wore a person out. Thankfully, her regeneration kept her feeling somewhat human, but with a touch of guilt because her co-star and the other members of the crew looked positively dead on their feet.  If she thought being an actor, or actress, was going to be easy compared to construction work, that idea flew out the window over a month ago.  She missed her friends, family, and especially Natalie. 

Jenna stripped out of her clothes and tried to enjoy a shower in the trailer’s cramped bathroom.  “I know this beats Iraq, but what I wouldn’t do for a full sized shower right about now!” She muttered as she struggled with her hair.  She realized she didn’t have much room to complain because Jill, her hair and makeup artist, would take care of it in the morning, but she still had to get all the muck out of it.

It had been three months since she changed into Jenna for Natalie. The first month as Jenna was more part time. There was the inevitable ‘girl-time’ with Natalie, followed by the audition and finishing with more legal stuff as Hector worked on getting his affairs in order.  After a few hours of answering questions and coming clean about Natalie to Agent L, she provided him an ID and full background for Jenna. 

Natalie convinced him to come clean with his family about his powers and he took the opportunity to also introduce them to Natalie. He wanted them to meet the woman whom he thought might be the ‘one’. However, he didn’t think his papa would understand his ability to become Jenna, but since he was going to be away for a few months filming as Jenna, he figured he needed to, at a minimum, tell his mom.  

At first, she flipped out, but once she calmed down; she tearfully welcomed Jenna with open arms. “Your Papa, he not need to know about Jenna, but when Jenna is around, you’re my sister’s niece from Florida, comprendre?”

Jenna was glad she got all of Hector’s affairs squared away before she left the States because once they were flown out to the remote Pacific island that served as the set for the diabolical villain’s lair, the filming was brutal and almost non-stop. She thought Hector had a long schedule in Iraq, but working on a movie put his tour to shame. The actors and crew worked twelve to sixteen hour days with one day per week off and most people spent the day sleeping instead of enjoying the island’s scenery.

The island was another problem. As a remote island, it was also very lightly populated and lacked all the modern amenities, hence the camper trailer instead of a real hotel room.  No TV, barely any radio and certainly no internet, but with the brutal schedule, no one would have had the time to enjoy any of those conveniences. So, it probably didn’t matter.  

The only concession the production company made was to provide everyone with a satellite phone to make calls to their loved ones. The phones helped a ton, but they were limited to 100 minutes per week and with the time difference, it was hard to coordinate her schedule with Natalie’s. However; she had an extra 90 minutes saved up and  she intended on trying to talk to Natalie for at least an hour before she went to bed.

It was mid-morning in California and a weekday, Natalie should be awake, but she might be in class.  No answer. She left her a mushy message letting her know how much she missed her.  After hanging up, she decided to try Sadie.

“Rogers Technology Incorporated, Sadie Williamson speaking…” Sadie’s voice trailed off as Jenna stifled a laugh. “Oh, crap. Sorry Jenna, I just started a new job and I’m kinda in the zone.”

Jenna knew how down her friend was about not being able to find a job. So, the fact she was working was great news. “Nice! Congo-rats! You found someone willing to hire on a new accountant?”

Sadie sighed. “No, Executive Assistant for the CEO of Rogers Technology, International.”

“No shit?” Jenna gasped, simultaneously grateful that her friend found a job and surprised by the fact she accepted a job that sounded like a glorified secretary.

“Yeah, turns out that the guy I almost ran over outside our hotel rooms is a CEO and I ran him over again in the lobby of his own company. So, he offered me the job as his assistant and today is my first day.  So, what’s up with you, little Miss Movie Star?”

Jenna heard the minor note of jealousy in her friend’s voice and a month ago, she would’ve felt the same. Now, she knew better. Starring in a movie was damn hard. “Pffft, I wish!  Just got done with a fifteen-hour day and thought I’d call Nat, but she wasn’t available. I got you instead, happy?”

“Ahhh, you say the nicest things…” Sadie gushed with mock affection.

Jenna giggled in spite of her exhaustion. It felt so nice to talk to her friend. “How’s Michelle?”

“Oh, she’s doing great. We still have another month before we go in for her first ultrasound, but, well, it’s awesome.”

Jenna could hear the wonder in her friend’s voice and hesitated to ask her for a selfish favor. “Well, I’ve still got another 2-3 months of filming here and I’m guessing since you just started, you probably won’t have any time off, but I really miss Nat and was wondering if you would be willing to fly her out for one of my days off?”

“Umm, it would have to be during a weekend, and not this weekend, but I could probably sneak out in two or three weeks, but wouldn’t someone notice?”

“Oh, this place is pretty damn remote, but last week, I found a cool cave with a nice sandy grotto, complete with its own underwater entrance. You could come in and out without anyone spotting you.”

“Hmm, okay, shoot me the coordinates the next time you have Internet access and I’ll check with Michelle to see what day works best for me to sneak away with Natalie for ya, okay?”

“Great! Hey, when you come, can you bring me Hector’s swimsuit? I’m so tired of having to deal with tits that it will be nice to be me for a few hours, ya know?”

“Sure, no problemo and no, I don’t know, ya know?” Sadie chuckled as she reminded Jenna of her own situation.

Jenna grimaced with embarrassment. “Yeah, shit, sorry bud.”

“Hey, de nada, I know what ya meant. I was just giving ya shit. I could always scan myself a smaller chest, if I really wanted to.”

“Ha! Yeah, so, umm, could ya send Nat a text for me? Let her know I love her?”

“Okay...sent!  You should get some sleep dude and well; I gotta get back to concentrating on work. Mr. Rogers’ email and schedule is an f’ing mess!”

Two weeks later, Jenna struggled to contain her excitement as the streamlined shape of Sadie, in jet mode, surfaced into the hidden cave with Natalie waving happily.  She wanted to change back into Hector before the cockpit canopy had a chance to start opening, but she held back. Rubbing Sadie’s nose into the fact that she couldn’t change back into her old male self wouldn’t be cool. Besides, today, she would have tons of alone time with Natalie and that would give her plenty of time to do what she planned to do.  She prayed Sadie was able to find the ring Hector had bought for Natalie before he left and keep its existence a secret from her.

As soon as the cockpit opened, Natalie jumped out and bowled Jenna over, onto the sandy beach of their hidden cave and smothered her with kisses.  Sadie transformed into her robot mode and blew raspberries at the couple as she set down the full picnic basket with a lunch for two prepared by Momma Vasquez, complete with a bottle of sangria and two wine glasses.

“Here’s your bag with an extra towel and Hector’s swimsuit. We will need to leave in six hours to make it back in time for me to make it work tomorrow morning, okay?” Sadie asked as she waded back into the water and turned back into a jet.

Natalie rolled away from Jenna and propped herself up to face Sadie. “Awww, you should stay Sadie. It’s not fair that you fly me out and not have any fun yourself.”

Sadie turned back held up her hands and emphatically shook her head. “Oh no, that’s perfectly fine. You two haven’t seen each other in almost two months and I’m pretty sure Hector will wanna make an appearance. I don’t need to even think about what that will mean for you two love birds.  Besides, I can just fly up to low earth orbit, remote into the office and get some work done while I wait, no biggie.”  She turned her back on her friends, switched back into jet mode and sunk into the water; leaving behind a few bubbles and a brief whirlpool pattern in her wake.

Jenna and Natalie spent a few minutes catching up to confirm that Sadie wasn’t coming back and that they were truly alone before Jenna stripped and initiated the change back into Hector.  Wearing only his swim trunks, it took Hector longer than he expected to get used to baring his chest, having hairy legs, short hair and hearing a man’s voice coming out of his own throat. Much to Natalie’s amusement, he absently kept trying to adjust a non-existent bra strap and clear his throat, but he refused to give into the months of conditioning and wear his t-shirt.

Hector enjoyed Natalie’s presence and the lunch his mom had provided for the pair.  Eating a home cooked meal with the love of his life almost made him cry, but he held the traitorous emotion in check and covered it by hugging Natalie tightly against his body.  It was the delicate floral scent of her hair mixed with the familiar scent of her favorite perfume that caused him to finally break down and shed a tear. “Oh my god, I love you and I’ve missed you so much!”

She turned and kissed away his tears.  The pair lost all track of time as the shed their clothes and made up for lost time.   The unexpected beeping of an alarm interrupted the pair.

Hector sighed with regret as looked down at Natalie. “Damn, I guess it’s time to clean up and say goodbye before Sadie gets back.”

While Natalie dressed and repaired herself, Hector surprised her by not shifting back into Jenna. Instead, he re-donned his swim trunks and pulled out from his bag, a t-shirt designed to look like a tux.  “What are you doing?” She asked, suspiciously.

“Simply attempting to maximize my time with you, my love.” Hector innocently smiled.

Natalie skeptically crossed her arms. “Yeah, right…”

Hector reached into his bag and palmed something in his hand before approaching her.

Natalie turned white and anxiously glanced down at his hand. “What is that?”

Instead of answering directly, Hector dropped to one knee and held up a small box, displaying a ring to her. “Natalie, I love you more than mere words can say and there is, absolutely no one on this earth that I would rather spend the rest of my life with than you. Will you marry me?”

Natalie opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out until tears began to stream from her eyes. “Yes, oh my god, yes!”  Natalie’s hand shook as she accepted his ring before dropping down to her knees and kissing her kneeling fiancé.

A few minutes later, a slight low humming sound mixed with gurgling water came from behind them as the sleek form of Sadie in jet mode, rose up from the pool. “I take it she said yes?” Sadie asked as she transformed into her robot form.

With a grin from ear to ear, Hector stood and helped pull Natalie to her feet.  He hugged her tightly to his side as the pair faced their friend. “Yep! Now, all we need to do is start planning the wedding!” He looked down at Natalie’s happy, tear streaked face. “Right, dear?”

Natalie turned to her fiancé and numbly nodded with agreement. “Uh, huh…”

Natalie turned back to look at Sadie and found her changing into her human form.  “What are you doing that for?”

“Gotta give my friends a hug before we go, right?” Sadie’s voice in mid-transformation sounded digital and robotic compared to her normal voice. 

Not wanting the moment to end, Natalie turned and buried her face in Hector’s strong, muscular and all male chest.  She inhaled his manly, slightly musky scent and found herself loving the man even more. “I love you, Hector Vasquez!” She hugged him tightly, not wanting the moment to end.

Hector’s eyes were still a little misty as he looked up and spotted Sadie standing politely, yet anxiously a few feet away. He leaned down and affectionately kissed the top of Natalie’s head before he gently disentangled himself from her.  “It looks like Sadie has something she wants to tell us.” He gestured with his eyes to Sadie.

Sadie took a deep breath to calm herself, causing both Hector and Natalie to grow concerned. Since they both knew she didn’t actually need to breathe, it meant she was very nervous. “Well, two things and Michelle wished she could be here to congratulate you two and we know it might be a little too soon, but…” She shrugged apologetically. “Okay, so, first thing, we got the results from our ultrasound yesterday and we are going to have twins and-”

Natalie interrupted her by breaking free from Hector with an excited scream as she rushed to hug Sadie. “Oh my god, Sadie! I’m so happy for you two!”

Hector followed at a much more reserved pace. As Natalie stepped back, he also gave his friend a quick hug. “Congrats.” He whispered before stepping away, back to Natalie’s side.  “And the second…” He prompted.

“Yes, second, and you two don’t have to say yes or anything and you don’t have to answer now…” Sadie nervously glanced at the faces of her two friends before taking a second calming breath. “But, Michelle and I talked it over and we are wondering if you two would mind being our children’s godparents?”

It didn’t take much for Hector to know what Natalie thought of the idea. He felt her excitedly tense up and caught her glance up at him from the corner of his eye.  He nodded once and gave her body a squeeze. “Of course, we would be both honored and delighted to be their godparents.”

Sadie looked to Natalie for confirmation and received a mutual hug from both her and Hector in response. “Thank you both so much!”

Hector chuckled and affectionately mussed Sadie’s hair. “Hey, No hay problema hermana. Somos una familia, ¿no?”

Sadie’s hair fixed itself as she blinked away some oily tears and gratefully smiled at Hector. “Si, familia, gracias. Damn female programming or whatever...” She grumbled.

Sadie backed away from Hector and Natalie. “I’m sorry that we need to leave now if we want to make it back to the States without causing the Air Force to get curious…” She smiled apologetically before turning her back to her friends. “So, I’m going to change back while you two say goodbye.”

Natalie gazed up into Hector’s eyes. “Mr. Vasquez, I love you and can’t wait until you and Jenna are done filming here. It’s been hell not having you around.”

“What, you’ve missed not having Jenna around to go shopping with you?” Hector smirked mischievously to cover his concern that Natalie might want him to be Jenna more than himself.

“Silly man…” Natalie sighed before looking up and focusing her full attention on him. “No, while I love being with Jenna and having Jenna around, it’s you,” She tapped him on his chest. “I love and you, who I started falling in love with when I thought you were Jenna.  I would never choose to be with her over you. You are the person I love and who I want to be with. Please, never doubt who truly holds my heart.”  She began to softly cry into Hector’s chest.

Hector felt relieved, but also more than a little ashamed for doubting her feelings for him. He pulled her even tighter against his body. “I’m sorry for feeling like you might like Jenna more than me, but,” He held her out at arm’s length so he could see her face and she, his. “Well, acting, being a woman, dealing with guys.” A smirk betrayed her amusement to him. “And surprisingly, dealing with ‘other’ women as a woman, but worst of all, being away from you. It’s all been harder than I expected.”

It took Natalie a couple more minutes of kissing and hugging before she was willing to let him go. Hector didn’t complain and thankfully, neither did Sadie. He sadly waved as Natalie and Sadie sank below the surface and disappeared from his sight. He waited in case she forgot something and needed to come back. After a few minutes with only the sound of his own breathing and the water gently slapping against the rocky cave walls, he sighed with resignation and began the Jenna transformation process.

Once complete, Jenna picked up her clothes, but instead of feeling a sense of resentment, she found himself looking forward to being Jenna again. For Hector, Jenna no longer felt like a threat to his relationship with Natalie.  His subconscious fear and anger was gone and in its place was a new sense of self-confidence, peace and dare he say, excitement.  He, well, Jenna was going to be in a movie and maybe even a star someday. How cool was that?

Jenna made her way back to her trailer and stowed her bag containing Hector’s swimsuit and t-shirt.  She still had a bottle of her momma’s homemade sangria.  It needed to be drunk soon and she decided to bring it with her to the chow hall this evening. Maybe share some with her fellow actors and workers as a way to celebrate her friend’s engagement to Hector.  The irony made her giggle, but it also made her wonder how her co-star would react because she was sure that he thought that Jenna and Natalie were a couple.

Mike was actually ‘the’ star of the movie and she was a co-star, but since this was her first and maybe only movie; she didn’t consider herself a star.  Her role in the movie was more of the sexy, plucky and competent sidekick to the ultra-male, badass martial artist, super spy Mike was portraying.  She still didn’t know how it would end for Olivia, her character.  Mr. Stevens was a little vague on that little detail, but she guessed Olivia would probably be killed off in the final scenes by sacrificing herself to save Mike’s character, her sometimes lover, sometimes enemy for the greater good.

The week after Natalie’s visit was a blur to Jenna and she felt uncommonly good about her scenes, but she looked forward to her day off and spending some time in production’s small training gym using the elliptical and working on her katas.  It had been a couple of months since she felt like trying them and now she was feeling extremely foolish for letting her skills get a little rusty over something silly like her feelings about Natalie.

Jenna was in the zone and had just finished her final kata when she heard someone softly clapping with approval. She turned to the sound and spotted Mike standing off to the side with a smile on his ruggedly handsome face.  She grimaced with mental pain at the realization that he was a handsome man. “Maybe I’ve been spending too much time as Jenna?” She thought.

“Bravo, excellent form Olivia!”  Mike used her character’s name.  After three months, pretty much all of the actors referred to each other using their character’s name instead of their own. It made getting into their character a touch easier and they just got used to calling each other by those names.

Jenna smiled at him as she grabbed her gym towel and wiped the light sheen of perspiration from her forehead. “Thanks ‘Roger’, it’s been too long since I pushed myself.” She also used his character’s name, causing him to chuckle.

“Well, I just got here, but from what I could see, you looked great.” Mike glanced over at the cleared area with foam exercise mats that he often used to spar against his trainers. “We should spar, maybe I can show you a couple of tricks.”

“I dunno, aren’t we supposed to be enemies?” Jenna wasn’t too comfortable with the idea of sparring against him.  He was the big name star of the movie, what if she accidently hurt him?

Mike laughed and his eyes twinkled with mischief. “Yes, but former lovers too.”

“Oh, that could be bad.” Jenna smirked at his veiled pickup line.

“Why’s that?” Mike feigned concern.

“Well, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and since I’m sure Roger scorned Olivia, well…” Jenna shrugged her shoulders apologetically.

“How do you know it wasn’t Olivia who scorned Roger?” Mike cocked his head to the side and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Jenna found the underlying message amusing, but also a little confusing. Until this week, the big name star of the movie had kept himself fairly aloof, only speaking to her when he had to during a scene.  The only thing that had changed was Natalie being engaged to Hector.  “Are you flirting with me?”

Mike held his hands up with mock surrender and chuckled. “Whoa, Nelly.”

Jenna dubiously crossed her arms over her chest. “Go on…”

“Miss Vasquez, I would never risk a production by attempting to enter in an unwanted romantic relationship with my beautiful co-star or anyone associated with the film during the filming of said movie. That would be both risky and unprofessional.”

Jenna relaxed a little, but she still didn’t know what his motivations were. He was a man and Jenna knew exactly how men thought. If he wasn’t trying to get her in the sack, then there was something else going on.  Was he trying to get her kicked out of his movie? She nodded slowly, as if she agreed with him. “Yes, I could see how something like that could make things more difficult, but why now?  Except for the two scenes we’ve filmed together, you’ve barely said a word to me.”

Mike exhaled and ran his fingers through his hair as he considered his response. “Hmmm, I guess that’s a fair question.  Spar with me, I need to know if you have what it takes or if the past week has just been a fluke.”   He reached into a large rucksack, pulled out a pair of gloves and tossed them to her.

Jenna frowned as she put on the red, padded sparring gloves.  They fit her perfectly.  Why did Mike have gloves in her size and what about headgear?  “Okay, but I’m not sure what’s so different about this week…”  She bowed slightly to him while keeping her eyes on his face in case he was thinking about attacking her before she was officially ready.

He returned her Japanese style bow, but finished it with a Chinese style salute by bringing his right fist into his left palm.  The pair of them dropped into ready stances, his favoring the fluid kung fu style over the more rigid karate style.  In response, Jenna shifted from a hard, karate style front stance into a looser kick-boxing stance to allow for faster footwork.

Mike’s eyes briefly flared with respect before he launched himself forward, into a flurry of rapid, but light punches followed by a cautious front snap kick.  He telegraphed his moves far enough in advance that even without her enhanced reflexes, Jenna was able to easily block, deflect or simply move away from each attack.  She returned two counter attacks of her own, which Mike easily blocked, as she expected.

After the initial exchange, she thought Mike would pause and engage her some trash talk or compliment her ability to deal with his initial attack, but he didn’t.  Instead, he immediately initiated a fresh round of attacks, except slightly harder and more complex. 

Mike was performing well below her level and telegraphing his moves. She decided he was either going easy on her because she was a girl or he was testing her. Instead of using her enhanced reflexes and superior strength to destroy him, she used them to make it look like she was barely able to defend herself and only launched one counter-attack.  She made sure it connected, but only with a light, grazing blow to the side of his rib cage versus a solid hit to his body.

“Excellent, now let’s see what you’ve got!” Mike grinned at her before launching a fresh round of attacks.  His third set of attacks was a little on the flashy side and Jenna could have taken advantage of a few of them to stop him cold, but doing so would have given too much away. Only another black belt with a lot of matches under their belts could have hoped to break through his defenses and while Jenna’s resume included some martial arts training, it didn’t include black belt level training. 

Jenna retreated a few steps as she lightly blocked his easier attacks before going for an obvious opening, knowing that it was a trap designed to throw her.  To keep him from noticing her weight, she gave herself a little push to help him throw her, but instead of flopping onto her back like he expected; she rolled with it and sprang back onto her feet, ready for his expected follow-up attack.  This fight was starting to get fun and she enjoyed it immensely because it was more of a challenge to not use her MAU abilities to destroy the martial arts super-star.

“KE-YAH!” She dipped into her MAU abilities and attacked, catching him off guard with the speed of her counter strike, but purposely over-extending herself to give him an opening. He took the bait, lightly tapped her ribs with a backfist and following up with an easy snap kick to the back of her knee, causing her to drop and roll away from him to recover. “Damn it!  Grrrr...”  She snapped back into a ready stance facing him.

“That’s what I’m looking for!” Mike stepped back with admiration and bowing out of the ring. “That’s the Jenna I saw at the party and during the audition, not the Jenna that has been moping around the last couple of months.”

“What?” Jenna hesitantly stood and returned his bow before taking off her gloves.

“This week, your performance behind the camera has been excellent. I was worried that we were going to have to let you go and bring in your understudy, but now, I think we may need to re-shoot your earlier scenes.”

“I sucked that bad?”

Mike shook his head and frowned. “No, not bad, but not good either.” He took a step forward and looked into her eyes. “The spark wasn’t there, but the scene we filmed this week...perfect.  The confident and dangerous woman I met earlier is back and I hope she sticks around.”

“Oh.” Jenna looked down, ashamed at herself. “I’m sorry…”

Mike surprised her by reaching out and tenderly lifting her chin to look at him. “Hey, it’s your first film, you’re on location half a million miles away from everyone and now, your friend is getting married.”

She appreciated his concern, but it also bothered her because his body was only a few inches away and she couldn’t tell what his game plan for getting her in the sack was. He was sending mixed signals to her.  His proximity told her he was testing her physical attraction to him, but at the same time, his eyes remained focused on her eyes versus dropping down and taking in her assets. “Thanks, but that’s not an excuse I’m happy with.”

Mike was one of the few action stars Hector admired and made it a point to watch his movies as soon as they were released. Up close, his presence felt a little overpowering to her. Her enhanced sense of smell took in and processed all of the subtle odors and pheromones his body was giving off. His masculine scent smelled good to her, causing her body to react in a manner that confused and alarmed her.  What confused her even more was the fact that, unlike most of the men she had come into close physical contact with during the stunt work, Mike’s scent was missing that subtle marker she had come to associate with sexual arousal.

Could he really be a nice guy instead of the womanizing playboy the media reported him to be?  “Why are you helping me now?”  She asked as she turned back to face him.

His satisfied, confident smile set off all of her danger alarms and suspicions. The guy had to be playing her because that is what all guys do. She stepped forward, stared into his eyes and spoke in a measured tone. “Listen, I appreciate the match and feedback, but you better not be trying to make me another notch on your bedpost or the next time we spar, I won’t go fucking easy on you!”

“Whoa!” Mike stepped away and raised his hands in an attempt to placate her before it registered what she said. “You honestly think you could beat me?” He smirked self-confidently as he shook his head with wonder.

“Grrrr!” Jenna spun on her heels and walked away from the man before she followed through with her threat and got herself fired.  “I was never that bad, was I?” She muttered under her breath as she considered how well he had played her, but she had to admire his technique. He was almost as good as Hector.

The next two weeks flew past and Jenna’s on screen relationship with Mike was, according to an ecstatic Mr. Stevens, full of fireworks and barely restrained passion.  Off screen, she couldn’t decide if she liked him or if she should kill him.  He constantly addressed her by her character’s name and brought up the made up bits of her character’s background and their past relationship as if it was her own. 

Half the people on the set thought he was banging her and the other half thought she was using sex to get ahead.  After all, she wouldn’t be the first young actress who used her body to get a part. Her understudy went from being kind of friendly to downright bitchtastic.  The only people who still treated her nice was her makeup artist, Mr. Stevens, her stunt coordinator and Mike. 

Natalie wasn’t a lot of help either. She found it hilarious that her fiancé was stuck fending off the sexual advances of one of his favorite action stars.  “Make sure he wears a condom and don’t forget to take your pill.” She helpfully reminded Jenna.

“Nat, you know I’m not interested in men, at all!” Jenna shuddered with revulsion. “And even if I was, it would be cheating on you.”

“Oh, I know, but you have to admit, it’s pretty damn funny!” Nat giggled.  “But, hey, he’s a hunk and I’ve heard he’s good in the sack. You should try it. I’m not worried about losing you to anyone.”

“Not helping Nat…” Jenna growled with frustration as her body and imagination briefly betrayed her by briefly considering what it might feel like to have sex with a man. The mere thought of having sex with Mike made her question her sanity. “Damn it, Natalie! You’re evil, you know that?  I’m taking your Louboutins and never giving them back.”

Natalie dissolved into helpless laughter on the other end of the Pacific.  “You and what Army, bitch?” She managed to gasp out after regaining her composure.

“I wouldn’t do it…” Jenna softly muttered.

“I know babe, sorry. I’m just messing with ya, but did you ever think he’s doing all this to help you get into your role?” Natalie asked.

“Yeah, I’ve considered that, but he’s a dude and if he’s not working on some way to get into my panties; it means he’s either dead or gay and I’m pretty sure he’s not either. I mean, for one, he’s clearly breathing and two, he’s made it a point to show me his little black book!”  Jenna growled with frustration. “He even acted proud about his many conquests! Who does that?”

“Wouldn’t Hector?”

“No, Hector wouldn’t. He, I mean, I never kept ‘score’ and I would’ve NEVER shown a chick I was interested in all my past lovers like it was some medal of honor or something!”

“Weeell, I dunno what to tell ya then. I guess you’re just going to have to figure it out, but I have to say, whatever he’s up to, it sounds like it’s working and it’s helping you at the same time. Relax and just go with it.”

“Ha! Easy for you to say, you don’t have a sex scene with the man planned to start filming this week.” Jenna mentally cringed at the idea of kissing a man and pretending like she enjoyed it.

“Oh my, I wonder if Sadie can fly me out tonight…” Natalie’s voice trailed away.

Jenna laughed, despite her misgivings. “Natalie! You’re seriously not helping here, but what are you doing the week after next?”

“Nothing major, why?”

“Wanna meet in Hawaii? We have one big action sequence planned and after that, the set is being reconfigured and most of the cast is getting a week off. Most will be flown to Hawaii, but I’m ‘lucky’ enough to get an invite to ride aboard a yacht with Mike, Mr. Stevens and a few of the other studio bigwigs.”

“Great!  Perfect timing. I’ll check with Sadie and reserve us a hotel room!”

Sequel to: MAU: More Than Meets the Eye

Hector has a wonderful week with his fiance, but Jenna's success pulls him deeper into the pink side.

Hector was not looking forward to the return trip on the yacht.  The three day cruise from the island to Hawaii wasn’t too bad and it was even kind of relaxing. Never, in a thousand years, would he have ever imagined that he might enjoy lazing about in a skimpy bikini while drinking fruity drinks delivered by well-dressed waiters and waitresses, but there was something deliciously decadent about the yachting, ultra-rich lifestyle.

The bad part about the yacht was it limited his time with Natalie because he had to leave a few days early to make it back in time for shooting to begin.  While hobnobbing with the big guys was good for Jenna’s possible career, it sucked for Hector’s relationship with Natalie because he wanted to spend all the time he could with her.

“Geez, Hector. You’re more clingy them I am!” Natalie laughed as he procrastinated with saying goodbye to her.

Hector chuckled and kissed her again. “I’m sorry, but I’m just not ready to let you go and…” He sighed heavily and glanced over to the bed. Jenna’s small, single carry-on sized bag was ready to go and her clothes were laid out on the bed, ready for her to don. “I’m not looking forward to going back to being Jenna again.”

After four days of mostly uninterrupted man-time, he was just starting to get comfortable in his own skin again. It was nice not having to wear a bra, wash a ton of hair and simply be a man with simple clothes, easy morning routines and quick bathroom pit stops.

The only interruption was the one time he had to briefly change back into Jenna to return a call from Mike. Jenna told Mike to just text her after that if he had any questions for her because she was going to be relaxing, out of touch and didn’t want to even think about the movie until it was time to return to the set.

Mike honored her request and decided to annoy Hector with offers to take Jenna out to lunch, dinner, dancing, drinking, etc. The texts didn’t stop until “Jenna” agreed to go out to a casual and friendly dinner non-date with him the last night of their vacation. Hector stressed the casual and friend part, but only if he’d leave Jenna alone until then.

“I’m sorry Nat, but I’m finally getting used to being a man again and I’d MUCH rather spend our last hour together by taking you out to dinner tonight instead of being taken out to dinner by Jenna’s lecherous co-star!” Hector groaned with frustration and, not for the first time, questioned his decision to use the machine to become Jenna. “I wish the movie was done already. Who knew doing a movie and dealing with a horndog of a man was going to be so fricking tough!?!?”

“Well, that’s what ya get for being such a hot and kick ass woman, but I think it’s made you a better man and it makes me love you even more.” Natalie hugged him tightly and sighed with regret. “I’d love to stay, but Sadie’s waiting for me at the airport and she’s anxious to leave due to the friendly mechanic that took a shine to her when she dropped me off.”

Hector chuckled at the situation. “Well, she’s pretty much every man’s ideal woman…” He realized he was skating on thin ice and quickly back pedalled. “Not mine, but you know, she’s a beautiful woman who can turn into a hot motorcycle, a bitchin jet and doesn’t need to eat or drink. She’s a cheap date!”

Natalie playfully punched his chest. “Hmmmph! I think Jenna should go out on a ‘date’ with Mike. It might teach you a thing or two.” She giggled into his chest before standing on her tiptoes, giving him a toe curling kiss on the lips.

The kiss threatened to delay her departure, but the pair managed to control themselves, barely. Once they came up for air, Natalie reached into her bag and pulled out a small, rectangular, gift wrapped box with Jenna’s name written on the tag and handed it to Hector. “Here, this is for Jenna. Don’t open it until after I’m gone, but it’s something she needs.”

He shook it once, but it didn’t make any noise that might betray its identity to him. “What is it?”

Natalie laughed and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Girl stuff, you wouldn’t understand.”

Hector glanced at her with confusion. Didn’t she know he was Jenna?  Instead of fighting it, he shrugged his shoulders and tossed it gently onto the bed, next to Jenna’s small suitcase.

Surprise gift forgotten, he carried Natalie’s compact bag and proudly escorted his happy fiancé to the car, catching the jealous gazes of every man along the way.  He drove her to the airport and walked with her to where Sadie was parked.  He was a surprised to see Sadie’s hologram impatiently standing beside her plane body. “Hey, Sadie. What’s up?”

“Thank god you’re here!” Sadie turned and waved to a man dressed in mechanic’s coveralls standing alertly by the door of a large hanger. “Matt’s a nice guy, but I think he’s a little too smart for his own good. He spotted me land, but when no one got out; he came over to make sure the pilot was okay. I told him I was waiting for my ride.”

As Natalie faked hugging Sadie’s hologram, Hector glanced over to the mechanic before turning back to Sadie with a grin. “I think the poor man has a crush on you, but how are we going to do this?”

“Well…” Sadie gestured to an older couple loading their plane from their car parked next to it. “How about if you bring the car over and I’ll make it look like I’m your passenger while Natalie takes off?”

Hector nodded with agreement. “Okaay, I didn’t realize we could drive the car in here, but I guess it will work. How far can you project your hologram?”

“Not sure, maybe fifty meters, but it should be good enough to fool him.” Sadie hesitantly bit her lip. “I hope.”

Once he brought the car over, it took Hector a few extra seconds to say goodbye to Natalie. Sadie’s hologram waited for him to open the passenger door and she projected herself into the car. Their plan seemed to work, but Sadie was only able to keep the hologram solid looking for thirty meters due to the car windows. It flickered out completely after forty meters, but it was good enough to get him past the curious mechanic. He felt a little creeped out when she started to fade before disappearing completely as he drove away.

He made it back to his hotel and the room seemed so much emptier without Natalie. Her surprise gift for Jenna drew his eyes, but he glanced at the cheap alarm clock and sighed with frustration. He had thirty minutes before Jenna’s “date” with Mike and he had to switch and get ready.  Why couldn’t the man just hook up with some random chick and ignore Jenna, or better yet, fly his own damn girlfriend out and hang with her instead?

Sighing with frustration, Hector took off his clothes, jumped in the shower and initiated his Jenna transformation. The process still unnerved him a little. Especially the part where his penis retracted into his body and turned into a vagina, but what messed with his head more was the fact that he was starting to get used to and even enjoy some aspects of being a woman.  He would never admit it to Natalie, but he kinda liked all the options women had for clothes and how their clothes could reflect their mood or personality.

Pushing the traitorous thoughts aside, Jenna turned on the water and took a steaming hot, relaxing shower.  Even though she only had twenty minutes or less to get ready, she still washed and conditioned her hair. She wasn’t worried about the extra time because she had zero plans to do some elaborate style job with it. A quick blast with the blow dryer and a pony tail was all she needed because she didn’t want Mike to get the wrong idea. Casual dress was her plan and one perk about being a woman was the ability to be fashionably late for a date. It was almost expected.

With her hair done, she quickly got dressed in the light camisole top, denim skirt and beach sandals that Natalie had helped her pick out. A touch of lip gloss was all she needed for makeup and out the door she went, only five minutes late.  She quickly found Mike in the hotel lobby and, instead of lying low and not attracting attention, he was surrounded by adoring female fans. The self-centered jerk even had a stack of glossy photos to autograph for the girls.

Jenna growled with frustration as she made her way toward the gaggle of fans surrounding him.

Mike spotted her coming. “Oops, it looks like my beautiful and talented co-star, Jenna has arrived.” He quickly signed and handed out the remaining glossies.

Jenna forced herself to smile graciously as a few of Mike’s fans turned to her.  “Wow! You’re so pretty!” A teenage girl gushed with admiration causing her indignation to quickly fade.

After that, she found herself surrounded by adoring teenage girls and even a few young adult women while Mike smugly observed from the side.

“Mike said you do your own stunts. Is that true?!?”

“What’s it like being in a movie?”

“Is this really your first?”

“When I grow up, I wanna be just like you!”

“Can I get your number?”

How did they know so much about her? Mike couldn’t have been promoting her, could he?

She answered their questions, but the last request kind of threw her for a loop.  It was from a kid, no, older teenage boy who looked like he was in high school or maybe in his first year of college.  Her first impulse was to punch him, but she instantly suppressed the urge because judging by the nudges from behind he was getting from his friends; he was probably put up to it.

Jenna debated on how to handle this one. Her first urge was definitely not the best way to handle it and chewing the kid out in front of all the fans wasn’t a good option either. She motioned for him to come over as the girls watched anxiously to see what she would do. “So, umm, interesting question. What’s your name?”

He glanced back to his friends who were retreating from view. “R-Ryan and I’m, umm, sorry...” He blushed and tried to take a step back, but Jenna reached out and grabbed his hand, stopping him.

“Okay, Ryan.” Jenna pulled him into a conspiratorial hug. “Here’s how it usually works. Before you ask a girl for her number, you need to accomplish a few goals, okay?” She glanced out to the girls and their raptured faces.

Ryan hesitantly nodded. “Umm, I guess?”

“Right, so first of all you need to reach a comfortable level of rapport with the girl if you want to have any hope of getting her number or even the correct number.” Jenna grinned as a few of the girls laughed. “That begins with exchanging names, followed by some conversation centered around common points of interest.” She glanced over to a girl who looked to be closer to Ryan’s age. “You, what’s your name?”

“Rebekka…” The girl blushed as she became the momentary center of attention.

“Okay, Rebekka, what’s your favorite Mike Powers’ movie?”

“Umm, ‘No Surrender’...”

“Oh, that’s a good one!” Jenna stole a quick glanced at Mike before returning her attention back to Ryan. “What about you?”

Ryan relaxed a little. “I liked that one too. The fight scenes were pretty good and I liked that the chick in it could fight.”

“Whoa there Ryan.” Jenna turned him to face her. “Negative points there!” She looked over her shoulder at a smirking Rebekka. “You can’t refer to a girl as a ‘chick’. She has a name, but here is where you might be able to recover the fumble.” She studied his eyes expectantly for a moment. “What was her name?”

“Umm, Vivian?” Ryan nodded to himself. “Yeah, it was Vivian and I remember because I really did think she was a good character and I hated it when they killed her.”

Jenna glanced over to Rebekka, who seemed impressed with Ryan. “Okay Rebekka, what do you think? Should I give him my number?”

Rebekka shook her head. “No, not yet. He hasn’t gone far enough, but there might be a little something interesting about him…”

“Okay Ryan, why don’t go over and introduce yourself to Rebekka. If you can convince her that I should give you my number, then I’ll see if I can invite you both to the premier of the new movie.” Jenna glanced back to Mike. “Can I do that?”

Mike grinned and nodded. “Yeah, there are usually a few spare tickets available for fans.”

“Okay, lemme borrow your pen, please.” Jenna reached out expectantly as he smoothly retrieved the pen from his pocket.  Pen in hand, she stole Rebekka from Ryan. “Do you have something I can write on or maybe Mike’s picture?”

Rebekka quickly handed over her autographed picture of Mike in an action pose, showing off his muscular chest and rock hard abs. Jenna sighed with resignation as she held up the picture to Mike. “Really!?!”

He simply replied with a shrug.  Shaking her head with exasperation, Jenna resisted the urge to draw a silly, handlebar mustache on Mike. Instead, she turned the picture over and wrote her Jenna email address. “Now, don’t be handing that out please. If I get too much spam, I’ll have to cancel it.”

“I won’t.” Rebekka protectively clutched the picture to her chest.

With the fans satisfied, Mike guided Jenna to the doors and to a waiting limo. “Good job there. You’re a natural!” He smiled.

“¡Órale!” Jenna stopped in her tracks and gasped with surprise. It was only supposed to be a dinner with Mike, not something that would require a chauffeured limousine. She glanced to her side and felt a little annoyed by Mike’s smug smile and even more annoyed by the fact he was dressed up.  Not tuxedo dressed up, but all it would take for him to more formal would be a tie and suit jacket.

It made her feel decidedly underdressed and annoyed. “Esto se supone que es una simple noche a cenar!” Realizing she had just spoken in Spanish, she calmed herself. “I mean, this was just supposed to be a simple night out for dinner. What’s all this!?!”

Mike sighed with resignation. “You didn’t read your texts.” He gestured to the open door with the driver standing politely to the side. “Get in and I’ll explain on the way.” He glanced at his expensive Rolex and smiled. “We have thirty minutes and fortunately, I expected this.”

Inside the limo, Jenna was surprised to find Kimberly, her hair and makeup artist, standing by with a tackle box sized makeup kit. Kimberly patted the seat next to her. “Hi Jenna! Sit here. We have a lot of work to do.” She momentarily paused as she studied Jenna’s face. “Well, not a lot.” She tested Jenna’s hair. “And I see your  hair is its usual, annoyingly healthy self...”

Jenna’s head was spinning out of control. “What’s going on?” She glanced back to Mike.

“Well, the money and marketing folks back in the states watched some of the pre-production footage and they want to make a few changes.” Mike chuckled. “It’s kinda funny that you mentioned, Vivian, the female character from my previous movie.”

“Que?” Jenna slipped back into Spanish.

“Yes, because of the feedback from the fans and the desire to draw a larger female audience, they want to give your character a larger role and not kill her off in the end as originally planned.”

“Oh, I guess that’s good, but what’s all this?” Jenna glanced around at the interior of the limo and Kimberly’s makeup kit.

“The head of the studio and the director of marketing want to meet you.”

Jenna glanced down to her very casual outfit. “Mierda!”

Mike chuckled, but didn’t look concerned. “Exactly, but lucky for you; I’ve got your back.” He grabbed a garment bag hanging next to him and tossed it into the seat next to Jenna. “I took the liberty of consulting wardrobe to get your sizes.”

Jenna hesitantly reached for the bag. “Is this a...?”

“Dress? Yes.”

She unzipped the bag, revealing an ivory, beaded sheath dress with a matching pair of four inch silver heels. “Hijo de puta! You expect me to wear this and where in the hell do you expect me to change into this thing!?!?”

“Well, yes, unless you would rather meet them in that.” Mike lazily pointed to her current outfit.

Jenna huffed with annoyance. “Fine! But, I’m not changing in front of you.”

Mike laughed. “I’ve seen you naked, but we could pull over and you could change on the side of the road.”

Jenna lost it. The stream of Spanish that erupted from her mouth was strong enough to strip paint, but much to her annoyance, Mike obviously didn’t understand any of it.  She sputtered to a halt. “Fine...I’m so kicking your ass the next time we spar…”

He chuckled, confident in his ability to win. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Jenna sighed with resignation and rapidly stripped down to her panties. She felt a touch of relief offset by a pinch of male angst when she realized her current panties would match the dress and not show any lines. On the plus side, the dress was a braless design which meant she didn’t need to worry about matching her bra. She wasn’t at all ashamed of her body and due to her recent ‘guy’ time as Hector, going topless didn’t bother her. It was Mike’s presence that bothered her and made her feel self-conscious.

The dress went on smoothly and felt nice against her skin, but it only came down to slightly above mid-thigh. The damn thing was very short and she would have to be careful exiting the limo, else she might flash everyone her panties.  She tugged the hemline as far down as it would go and glanced over to Mike. “Seriously!?”

He irritated her even more by simply smirking and shrugging his shoulders as if to say, “Your fault for not checking your texts.” It was that or, “Hey, I got to see your boobs and you have great legs.”  She decided the horndog was probably thinking the former.

With the dress and footwear in place, Kimberly expertly applied a touch of evening makeup and styled her hair using a brush and some strategically applied hair spray.

Mike surprised her by being the perfect gentleman and assisted Jenna, allowing her to perform a graceful and modest exit from the limo. The strobe light effect of many flashbulbs going off surprised her. She didn’t expect to have her photo taken by some paparazzi and even more surprised when they shouted her name. The movie wasn’t even done filming, but she smiled and waved to a few as Mike expertly ushered her into the restaurant with a light touch against the small of her back. Once inside, the pair were escorted to a table with a larger contingent of expensive, suit wearing executive types than she expected.

“I’m not dressed for this!” Jenna anxiously clutched Mike’s arm and murmured through her smile. “I look like I’m going out to a nightclub, not a business meeting.”

“No, you look like a movie star…” He calmly whispered as they approached the table.

“Jenna, as usual, you look absolutely stunning!” Mr. Stevens stood and intercepted the pair.

Jenna gave Mr. Stevens a quick hug, but felt like a side of beef on display due to the ridiculous dress and how much attention it seemed to attract to her. “Thanks sir, but I’m feeling a little overwhelmed here. I’m not used to the movie business and if someone had warned me how hard it was, I probably would’ve laughed in their face, now, ¡Ay, caramba!, making movies is hard work!”

Mr. Stevens laughed as he turned back to the suits. “Did you hear that? She’s a gem alright.” He turned and whispered to Mike. “Thanks for bringing her.”

Mike replied with a simple nod, but on his way past, he gave Jenna a light pat on the butt and whispered. “Knock ‘em dead.”

Jenna refused to jump or acknowledge the pat. Instead, she smiled and turned her head away from the suits and toward Mike. “I’ll rip your hand off and feed it to my pappa’s pigs if you try that again…” She growled softly in his ear.

Mike laughed and swaggered to his seat, causing Jenna’s blood to boil until her attention was drawn back to the guests at the table by Mr. Stevens. “Now, for those of you who haven’t met her yet…”

Of the ten people there, there were four people she hadn’t met before and they were the ones who made her feel the most nervous because they had the power to end her career. John Herbert, the head scriptwriter could kill her character in the least memorable way. Kelly McKenny, the Director of Marketing could decide she didn’t meet some target demographic and Henry Jorgenson, the studio’s president could decide to not like her for any reason at all.  Lisa Reed, Henry’s Executive Assistant was also present and Jenna wasn’t as worried about her, but based on how much influence Sadie seemed to have over her boss, she didn’t discount her either.

She felt some relief about not being the only woman in the group. It also amused her to feel that way since less than an hour ago, she was a man. In addition to Kelly and Lisa, Stefanie from the legal department was present.  Stefanie was one of the people she knew already. She helped her during the contract negotiations phase and even though she worked for the studio, she made sure Jenna didn’t get screwed over by the deal. Of course, Jenna had Sadie and her own lawyer review it, but it all checked out.

Once all the hands were properly shaken, Jenna was directed to sit in the open seat next to Mike. Once again, he surprised her by getting out of his chair and pulling out her chair like a perfect gentleman. She thanked him as she carefully pulled down and smoothed the back of her dress while she sat. What she really wanted to do was ask him what in the hell he thought he was doing, but there were too many witnesses. She let him play his games because even though it was nice, it wouldn’t get her into his bed.

Kelly sat across the table from her and once Mike had reclaimed his seat, she leaned forward and smiled like she knew a secret. “You two seem to be getting along well. Is there something we need to know?” She laughed as Jenna turned beet red from embarrassment.

Mike leaned back and chuckled. “We’re not dating or seeing each other, Kelly. Our relationship is ‘strictly’ professional.”

Kelly leaned back with a frown of disappointment. “Ahh, that’s a shame. Since you and Gisele broke up last week...” She glanced back over to Jenna. “A match between the two of you would be a perfect PR for the movie.”

Jenna was shocked. She thought Gisele was a total babe and the one time she met her, she seemed like a nice girl.  Not at all stuck up and bitchy like she expected a supermodel to behave.  As a result, the news of their breakup caused her to gasp with surprise and glance over to Mike to make sure she heard what she thought she heard. The big jerk better not have broken the poor girl’s heart.“What?!?  She was nice! What did you do?”

Her accusation caused everyone at the table to chuckle as Mike raised his hands with mock surrender. “Whoa tiger. I didn’t do anything. I’ve been stuck filming on an island, same as you.  We just decided to move on with our lives.”

Mr. Jorgenson laughed and gave Mr. Stevens a congratulatory pat on his back. “Well! I can see why you picked her for this movie. Even though they both deny it, the chemistry between the two of them is clearly beneficial.”  He glanced over to Mr. Herbert and nodded with approval. “John, you have the green light to make the changes we discussed during the flight.”

“Yes, sir.” Mr. Herbert smiled and gave Jenna a knowing glance that raised a few alarm bells in her head.

“Umm, what changes?” Jenna glanced nervously between Mr. Herbert, Mr. Stevens and Mr. Jorgenson.

Mr. Jorgenson chuckled. “Well, for one, your character won’t sacrifice herself to save Mike as we originally planned, but also, a slightly larger role in the last half of the production, a little more romantic entanglement with Mike and the possibility of a sequel if it does as well in the box office as some of our folks are now predicting.”

“Oh…” Jenna didn’t know what else to say.

Hector and Natalie had been so star struck with the idea that they never considered what might happen if Jenna was successful.  They both figured it would be a once in a lifetime chance and like the majority of hopeful actors and actresses, nothing would come of it.

Hector as Jenna would have his fifteen minutes of fame and once over, life would move on. He and Natalie would get married. He’d go back to work building roads while she finished med school. Maybe a few years later, they’d have a couple of kids, maybe a dog or a cat. He’d have some good stories to tell his kids, but never once did he consider that Jenna could become a real movie star and how much of an impact it could have on his life.

Mr. Jorgenson glanced to Lisa and she nodded once as if silently acknowledging a telepathic communication. “You’re not thinking about modifying the terms of your contract, are you?” He sounded a little suspicious of her motives.

“What?” Jenna shook her head to clear the cobwebs. “Sorry sir, No, I’m just surprised.”  She glanced over to Mike, expecting him to be upset for taking some of the spotlight away from him in his own movie.  He winked, causing her to forget about being worried over his feelings. “I mean, I never planned on any of this sir. The audition came as a complete surprise and an even bigger surprise was getting the role to star opposite Mr. Powers. He’s been one of my favorite action stars for a long time now.”

She smiled mischievously as he visibly swelled with pride. “But not anymore…” She mimed an explosion with her fist, causing everyone at the table to chuckle as Mike pretended to be wounded. “I guess what I’m trying to say; is that I’m very grateful for this opportunity to be in this production and I’m glad you’re planning on making some changes. I do have a few suggestions though…” She hesitantly added as she thought about how the majority of women were portrayed in movies, especially in action movies.

The discussion that followed was only briefly interrupted by the main course and Jenna found it highly ironic that she might be viewed as a feminist.  Hector never cared how women were portrayed in film. Sure it was nice to see a hot babe show a little T and A on the big screen. Even better was when the babe could kick a little ass, but he never once gave it a second thought about how it might make women feel because it was just entertainment, a movie and everyone knew it was fake.  The fans in the lobby were sort of a wakeup call to her.  Those girls looked up to Jenna and damned if she was going to give them some brainless, two-dimensional and helpless chick as a role model to follow.

A few hours later, Jenna found herself in the center of three other women as they ganged up on the scriptwriter, the director, producer and Mr. Jorgenson over how Jenna’s role could be made to better portray a strong and determined woman who could be viewed as a role model for girls instead of a victim who needed a man to save her.  Surprisingly, Mike appeared to support her and even made a few good suggestions himself.  

She drank a lot of wine, but with her regeneration, the alcohol had zero effect on her. None the less, she was feeling a little more generous toward Mike when it was time to leave.  She didn’t flinch or pull away when he placed his hand on the small of her back to help guide her into the limo.  The touch was fleeting and his hand never strayed, but she felt a pang of confusion because his hand was warm and it left a slightly pleasant tingling sensation with its absence. Maybe the wine did impact her a little more than she expected.

Instead of moving to the seat that would place her as far away as possible from him, Jenna remained at his side, but instinctively crossed her legs. “I don’t understand you sometimes. Why did you help with the script modifications?” She turned to him once the limo pulled away from the restaurant.

“What do you mean?” He raised an eyebrow with confusion.

“The mods. It looks like I will have a bigger part. You’re not worried about me upstaging you?”

“Nah!” Mike chuckled. “It’s like this. I’m getting old-er. I’ve made eight movies and except for the last one, most sucked at the box office. Hell, if it hadn’t been for the last one, my career would be pretty much over. If the fans want a stronger female role and it sells more tickets, who am I to complain?” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh…” Jenna figured Mike would be a little more chauvinistic and this new side of him forced her to reevaluate her assumptions. “I’m sorry about Gisele. She was nice.”

“Thanks, but it’s okay. Our careers kept us busy and apart from each other.” His hand found its way to her thigh. “It’s kind of hard to maintain a relationship when you never see each other.”

Jenna didn’t know what to do because on the physical level, her body was telling her his touch felt nice, but on the emotional level, she was not happy. In light of his recent behavior, she was willing to cut him a little slack, until his hand started to slide north. “You have one second to remove your hand, or you’ll be pulling back a bloody stump.” She growled and started to put tension on her claw’s extension mechanism not caring about the consequences.

Mike’s hand jerked away. “Shit!” He moved himself to the seat opposite to give her some space, almost as if he really was sorry. “Sorry about that Jenna, won’t happen again.”

“Damn skippy!” Jenna glared at him, arms crossed to keep her from doing something she would regret because in spite of her anger, a small part of her liked his touch.

Jenna spent the first half of the ride in blessed silence, lost on her own thoughts. As a woman, it sometimes felt like she was cheating and a big fake.  Thanks to the machine, she was 100% fake and physically, an almost impossible ideal for other women.  Until this evening, what other women thought about her hadn’t been a blip on her radar, but the girls at the hotel plus the other women at the dinner meeting kind of drove it home for her. They all looked up to her and she didn’t want to disappoint them.

It was just a dumb action movie with hot women, shit blowing up and good fight scenes; it wasn’t supposed to be some social statement.  She felt a low growl escape her throat.

“Hey, I said I’m sorry.” Mike turned to her.

Jenna sighed and casually waved his apology away. “It’s not that and I forgive you.”

He gasped with surprise. “You do?”

She found his reaction funny and a grin danced across her face. “Yeah, yer a man, ya can’t help it.”

Mike started to reply, but stopped himself. “Ahh, never mind. You’re right.” He scooted himself to within kicking range and pointed to her feet. “Gimme a foot.”

“What?” Jenna glanced down to her heel clad feet. “I hope you don’t want your shoes back because I don’t think they would fit.”

Mike chuckled and shook his head. “No, but gimme a foot and I’ll give you a foot massage.”

Hector had given plenty of women foot massages, but he’d never had one himself. The women seemed to enjoy them, especially after an evening wearing high heels.  Giving a woman a massage was a great way to get her to relax and increased his odds of scoring with her. As Jenna, her feet were fine due to her regeneration, but the idea intrigued her. She figured the offer was probably just another attempt to get into her panties.

“I promise. I won’t go any higher than your ankle and I’ve had some training.” Mike rubbed his hands together to warm them.

Jenna wanted to, but hesitated and studied his eyes. After a few seconds, she raised her foot and placed it on his lap.  The last half of the ride went too fast for her. Mike was an excellent masseur and she learned a few tricks for the next time Natalie asked for a massage.

With Mike’s gallant assistance and her heels in hand, she managed to exit the limo without flashing anyone.  There were only two photographers nosy and quick enough to track down and harass Mike. He offered to walk her past the annoying photographers and into the lobby, but she figured they were more interested in Mike and she was pretty confident of her abilities to take care of them if they got pushy.

As she reached the doors to the lobby and safety, Mike’s limo started to pull away when one of the photographers yelled. “Jenna! How long have you and Mr. Powers been dating!?”

The question stopped her in her tracks. It was so ridiculous it didn’t deserve an answer. Jenna shook her head; amazed anyone could ever think they might be a couple. She laughed and it took her few seconds to bring it under control. “Sorry, that’s pretty damn funny. Wow, thanks, I needed that.” She cheerfully waved to the man and entered the sanctuary of the lobby.

In her room, Jenna dropped her heels inside the closet and silently padded over to the sliding glass door leading to the balcony. She had an excellent view of the ocean and decided to waste a few minutes simply enjoying it.  The only thing that would’ve made it better would be to have Natalie at her side, well, Hector’s side. Sighing with longing and regret, she made her way back into her room and spotted Natalie’s gift.

“Well, I’m Jenna. So, I guess I can open it now…” She gave it another shake test, but nothing came to mind. It was too heavy to be clothes though.  From the size and shape of the box, it could be anything from a hair curler to a small bottle of wine or liquor. With that cheery thought, she ripped it open and gasped with surprise mixed with revulsion at what was revealed.

“Natalie!?!? What in the hell were ya thinking?!?” Jenna dropped the adult sex toy, aka “dildo”, like it was a snake and wiped her hands against the covers with disgust, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the thing. The box proudly extolled the virtues and realism of her gag gift and it had to be a gag gift because Natalie couldn’t expect her to want to use it, could she?

Taped to the box was a small, hand-written note folded in half.  Without touching the box, Jenna carefully peeled it away and opened it.

“Jenna, I know Hector wouldn’t approve, but trust me girlfriend, you need it. You’re wound up way too tight and you deserve some relief!   Love, Nat.  P.S. Tell Hector I love him and xoxoxoxo”

“Sorry Nat, but there is no way I’m using that thing.” Jenna picked up the box with her fingertips in an effort to touch as little of the thing as possible.  She debated tossing it in the trash can, but didn’t want the cleaners to find it.  Throwing it off the balcony was also an idea, but what if someone saw her toss it or worse, it hit someone in the head? Desperate, she glanced around for someplace to stash it, but nothing came to mind that couldn’t be traced back to her.  Instead of tossing it, she stole a small hand towel, wrapped it up and stuffed it in her suitcase.

The morning and checkout came far too fast for Jenna.  She didn’t want to go back to the island, but, like the Army, she was foolish enough to volunteer and she had a job to do.  In anticipation of the yacht’s casual atmosphere, she wore her bikini under a pair of denim shorts and a white tank top with a simple pair of flat sandals. She found it somewhat ironic with how little clothes a woman could wear, yet still be considered fashionably dressed because the same outfit, in men’s styles would be considered far too casual with the tank top possibly referred to as a “wife beater” shirt.

After turning in her rental car at the marina, she boarded the yacht and spotted Kelly, the Marketing/PR Director up on the lounge deck. She was sipping from a fruity cocktail and the focus of her attention appeared to be on the shirtless men working on the boat docked next to their boat. All that changed when she spotted Jenna. She quickly stood and enthusiastically waved for her to join her. “Woo Hoo! Jenna, get your butt up here, girl. It’s happy hour!”

Wearing a bikini top and a simple wrap or sarong thing around her waist, Kelly made her feel a little over dressed, but not unwelcome as she excitedly motioned for Jenna to join her.  “Oh my god, Jenna! I totally hate you and can’t believe how awesome you look!” She laughed and saluted her with her martini glass. “Get up here girlfriend, I’ll get one ordered for you!”

Jenna lifted up her suitcase. “Sure, just lemme-”

The first officer interrupted her and smiled. “Go ahead. I’ll take that to your cabin for you Miss Vasquez.”

She was kind of looking forward to dodging Kelly for a few minutes, but there was no way she could do that now without making it look like she wanted to avoid the woman.

“Thanks.” She smiled with gratitude as she handed the man her suitcase before joining Kelly on the lounge deck.

With Jenna’s arrival, Kelly jumped up and gave her a friendly, welcoming hug. “I’m so happy for you and Mike!”

“What?” Jenna asked, confused by her greeting.

Kelly pointed to a Hollywood gossip rag lying on the table next to her drink. On the cover was a picture from last night with her and Mike as they entered the restaurant. He had his hand on the small of her back as he guided her into the doors and the headline proudly proclaimed, “Powers finds his mojo!”

The steward picked the perfect time to deliver her drink.  “Thanks!” Jenna gulped it down in one shot and handed her empty glass back to the man. “I’ll take another. Hold the juice and the ice.”

Sequel to: MAU: More Than Meets the Eye

Jenna wonders if she has been transported to a pirate movie.

By the time Mr. Mike ‘Mojo’ Powers boarded the yacht, Jenna found the gossip rag’s news story to be kind of funny. To think that they thought she would date Mike and that it was worth being splashed on the front page. She expected the accompanying ‘Breaking News!’ article to make it look like she was just arm candy, but it didn’t. Instead, the article used buzz words like, ‘natural beauty’, ‘skilled martial artist’, ‘vibrant’ and ‘independent’ to make it sound like she was going to be a big star.  

“Pffft!” She laughed derisively as she sipped her fourth cocktail.  “These guys are so full of it. We haven’t even finished filming the movie. How in the hell can they think I’m going to be the next big female action lead?”

She felt a very mild buzz from the alcohol, but that was only because of how fast she had downed the first three drinks. Based on her past experience with trying to get wasted, her regen would have her pleasantly buzzed feeling gone in only a few minutes, but she could enjoy it while it lasted.

Kelly giggled before covering her mirth with a cautious sip from her second cocktail. “My bad...I accidently on purpose leaked a few seconds of the early post production shots from your last fight scene to a few of my sources.”

Before she could react, Mike chose that moment to make his appearance on the deck. “How’s my favorite PR chick?” He roguishly grinned at Kelly, causing Jenna to feel a slight pang of annoyance over his use of the sexist chick term.

Kelly laughed, jumped up and gave Mike a quick hug before pointing to the offending gossip rag. “Just peachy, ya big stud muffin!  Check out the headline. Isn’t it great!?” She gushed as she sat back down and gestured for Mike to join them.

Jenna didn’t know what to think of the scene she just witnessed. It appeared like the two knew each other a bit more than she expected. Could Kelly and Mike be a couple? If so, was that the real reason for Mike and Gisele’s breakup? Kelly was an attractive woman, but not super-model attractive, not that looks should matter. Deepening the mystery was the fact that she didn’t smell any sexual pheromones coming from either of them.

Maybe they were just friends, but more alarming to her was the tiny note of concern Jenna felt when the two hugged each other. No, she wasn’t jealous. It had to be a remnant of Mike’s use of the chick term, right? She smirked at the mere idea that she could be jealous, because even if the two were a couple, why would it matter to her? She was going to be a married man in less than a year.

Oblivious to Jenna’s inner turmoil, Mike sat down next to her and glanced at the cover before dismissively waving away Kelly’s excitement. “It’s a start, but we still have a few more months of filming to complete before we can really start trying to promote the film.”

“True, but the early buzz is encouraging. We’ve never had this kind of a bump so soon,” Kelly smiled and affectionately patted Jenna’s arm, “and we can all thank our wonderfully talented and kick-ass Jenna for that!”

Jenna squirmed in her chair from the unjustified praise. “I’m not that good…”

Mike surprised her with an encouraging hug. “Hey, don’t be so down on yourself. You’re awesome. The best female co-star I’ve ever worked with.”

Now Jenna knew he was full of shit. “Bullshit, I’m not a real actress. This is my first film and dare I remind you, Mr. Mike ‘Awesome’ Powers, that you almost shit-canned me.”

There was no way that she was the best. Prior to this film, she had zero acting experience and zero stunt experience. She would’ve said zero fighting experience, but that wasn’t true. She lacked fake fighting experience, which kind of fell under the acting experience part, because performing the highly choreographed martial arts fight scenes took a lot more work than she expected.  

Mike chuckled and pointed back to the attention grabbing headline. “Well, I’m glad you proved me wrong and don’t worry about the gossip rags, Jen. Their editors and readers have a very short attention span. By the time we are done shooting, they will have completely forgotten all about this.”

Jenna thought about it over and realized Mike was probably right. The headlines changed daily and no one remembered who was dating who because some celebrities changed sexual partners almost as often as they changed their underwear.  She wasn’t sure she liked him shortening her nickname to make it sound even more familiar, but the sense of relief, plus the still present and rapidly fading alcoholic buzz helped her push it aside. “Okay, I guess so…”

The trio was joined a few minutes later by Mr. Stevens and Mr. Herbert, or John, as he insisted Jenna call him. The conversation drifted to the proposed script changes, which Jenna liked hearing about.  Forty-five minutes later, the yacht got underway and the men drifted away, but not before Mike once again surprised her with a quick, friendly good-bye hug.

The hug felt good and it was only few seconds after he was gone that Hector surfaced enough to cause Jenna some angst. “What in the hell? I just got hugged by a dude and I’m not freaking out. What is wrong with me?!?!”

Her eyes absently followed Mike’s retreating back until Kim, her makeup artist, walked up from below deck, looking a little lost and shy.  Kelly reflexively turned to see what caught Jenna’s attention and spotting Kim, motioned for her to join them. “Kim! What are you doing here? I thought you were going to catch the flight back.”

“Oh, I was, but Mr. Powers,” Kim glanced down to Jenna, “insisted I join you all on the yacht.” She hesitantly paused and apologetically cringed. “They put me with you. I hope you don’t mind Miss Vasquez.”

While not happy about the surprise roommate situation, Jenna could tell Kim was horribly worried about sharing the cabin with her. Kim hadn’t called her Miss Vasquez since the first week on location. She jumped up and gave the poor, nervous woman a reassuring hug. “Having you as a roomy will be great! I was feeling guilty for taking both bunks.” She gestured to the open seat at the table. “Come on, join us.” She waved over one of the stewards. “What would you like to drink? The bartender makes a mean mojito.”

Kelly used the opportunity to shift the conversation to ‘girl-talk’, but Jenna felt out of place as the pair started discussing men, fashion, hairstyles and makeup techniques. Instead of looking like the lost lamb she was, she followed the sage advice of staying quiet versus opening her mouth and removing all doubt at how clueless she was about the topic.  She lasted another thirty minutes before she couldn’t take it any longer.  The estrogen poisoning reached fatal levels when she found herself wanting to learn more about eye shadow techniques.

Jenna stood. “I’m sorry, but I need to, umm,” she desperately searched for a reason to leave the table without sounding rude, “go to the head.”

Kim and Kelly both looked confused. “The what?”

“Sorry, bathroom.” Jenna winced as she realized her exit strategy mistake when both women abruptly stood and joined her.

“Oh, me too! Let’s go.” Kelly took charge, grabbed Jenna’s hand and momentarily pulled her along, with Kim following.

Jenna found it simultaneously alarming and amusing that it was expected for all three of them to enter and use the single stall bathroom at the same time versus each woman taking a turn in privacy. The bathroom was small, with just enough room for the head with a washbasin and mirror. It was a tight fit for all three women.

Jenna could understand why Kelly might be less inhibited; she had just finished her third cocktail, but Kim was still nursing her first cocktail. Why didn’t she think there was anything wrong with sharing the same tiny bathroom? Hector never had to worry about having an audience while relieving himself. It just never happened with men.

Oh well, when in Rome, and since it was her idea and neither of the women seemed to be getting ready to leave, Jenna went ahead and did her business. Kelly followed and while she sighed with relief, Kim thought nothing of continuing the makeup discussion by insisting that Jenna show her how she preferred to do her own makeup.

“Okay Jenna, what colors do you normally use?” Kim asked as she rummaged through her purse.

“I dunno, the darker colors?” Jenna was completely lost. She never expected to be asked such a technical question about makeup because she had never once applied her own. Natalie or Kim always did it for her. If they wanted to know which grader to use or which bulldozer was best for a specific job, she was your man, err, woman, but this was way out of her comfort zone.

Kim offered her a chocolate bar shaped compact with a large assortment of strange colors like Gilded Ganache, Milk Chocolate, Black Forrest Truffle, Triple Fudge, Salted Caramel, Marzipan, Semi-Sweet, just to name a few. Those were not colors in Jenna’s vocabulary, they were foods. Unaware of just how lost Jenna was, she also opened her kit of professional makeup brushes. “These are my best brushes. Which one do you wanna start with?”

Did Kim carry a makeup kit everywhere she went?

Jenna pretended know what she was looking at and after studying the various brushes; she couldn’t even begin to guess where to start. “They look so expensive and I wouldn’t want to ruin them. How about if we do this some other time?” She smiled and hastily tried to give Kim back her compact with all the good tasting colors.

Well on her way to feeling no pain, Kelly abruptly stood, pulled up her panties and intently studied Jenna for a few seconds.

“What?” Jenna asked, afraid that in a drunken moment of clarity that Kelly had somehow figured out she wasn’t a real woman.

“I don’t believe it!” Kelly pulled Kim to her side and pointed at Jenna, mouth agape as if from a sudden and dramatic realization.

A concern flashed through Jenna’s mind. “This is it; she knows I’m a guy.”

“Kim, is it possible that our sweet and innocent Jenna was a nun?” Kelly’s outlandish question was almost a relief to hear.

Kim glanced over the Kelly like she might be onto something, but wasn’t sure either. “Umm, I don’t think so. She doesn’t act like a nun.” She giggled. “Well, not that I would know because I’ve never actually met a real nun before.” She smiled dreamily. “Maybe she grew up and learned martial arts at one of those monkey temple places?”

Jenna wanted to correct her, but it was kind of funny how she confused ‘monk’ with ‘monkey’. Kelly stepped forward and stared up at Jenna, as if daring her to deny the charges. “Just admit it; you don’t know how to put on makeup, do you?”

Jenna felt a touch of guilt because she knew how much time, energy and money most women put into looking their best. School age girls self-indoctrinated themselves with slumber parties, fashion magazines and online video tutorials. She wasn’t a real woman. Jenna was what Hector thought was his perfect dream girl made real by an impossible alien machine.

Her eyes began to tear up and her throat constrict. She felt like a fake and didn’t like lying to people she considered her friends. The fact that she considered these two women friends and desired their approval made her feel even worse. “I’m sorry, I never thought it was important…” She glanced down, ashamed.

Kim hugged her. “Hey, don’t be like that. It’s a little weird, but not a big deal.”

Jenna glanced up, feeling a little bit of a reprieve. Maybe she wasn’t the only woman Kim knew who didn’t know how to apply their own makeup.

“Well, okay, it is, but you’re the nicest actress I’ve ever worked with and with your perfect skin, you’re saving the studio a ton in makeup supplies!” Kim giggled happily and pulled Kelly into the Jenna sandwich.

“Yeah, a few hundred at least!” Kelly happily supplied the cosmetics budget numbers. “But, you know what this means, right Kim?”

Kim put her finger to the side of her mouth and made a cute little moue expression as she pretended to think it over. “Ummm, g-”

“Girl Time!” Both women chorused as they dragged Jenna down to her cabin for an all-night and well into the early morning makeup marathon. After the initial panic subsided, she found the education/indoctrination to be surprisingly interesting and the women’s company endearing and enthralling.  Together, Kim and Kelly were a fountain of Hollywood gossip and they had zero qualms about sharing all the dirty details over a few bottles of wine.

The first two days of the cruise proved to be surprisingly enjoyable for her. Jenna started morning with a workout that included her katas, some cardio to work up a good sweat; some unneeded strength training just to keep up appearances followed by a little bit of sparring with Mike.  The sparring part of her workout always drew a crowd and even though it wasn’t about winning, the competitive side of her chafed at the restraints she built for herself. She wanted to win, but she knew better than to make the star of the movie look bad.

After the morning workout, she would shower, dress, try her hand at applying her own makeup, wake up Sensei Kim, the makeup black belt, for a critique, followed by breakfast and then, spend the rest of the day wearing next to nothing while sunbathing and socializing with the girls. She never expected to have so much fun, feel so close to other women and not want to have sex with them.  It felt surprisingly liberating and she even enjoyed joining her new girlfriends teasing the men with a little topless sunbathing on the upper deck.  Well, not fully topless, but undoing the straps to avoid bikini tan lines and occasionally forgetting to clutch her loose top tightly to her chest before she rolled over.

On the second evening, after another excellent dinner, Jenna decided to take a break from the girls and visit the very front of the bow for a few minutes of alone time. She enjoyed the wind in her hair and the sound of the yacht’s bow slicing cleanly through the waves as it chased the slowly setting sun. Natalie would love this. She sighed with frustration and hugged her arms to her chest while wishing it was Natalie who was hugging her.

She casually glanced over her shoulder as she sensed Mike approaching from behind. He smiled as the stiff wind caused her billowing hair to wrap around her face. “Are you cold?”

Annoyed with her hair, Jenna turned back to face the wind. “No, not really. I was just enjoying the view here.”

Mike’s body lightly brushed up against her side as he joined her, carrying a brief whiff of his masculine scent before the wind took it away. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he deeply inhaled the fresh salty ocean air. “Ahhh,” he exhaled and glanced sideways to her, “yeah, it’s a stunning view up here.”

Wearing a bikini top with only a small wrap around skirt to cover her bikini, she felt a little exposed and somehow, vulnerable. Mike was close enough that she could feel his body heat against her bare skin and she found herself fighting the urge to lean in and steal some of his warmth. She pulled away, grabbed a handful of hair to keep it under control and turned to face him.

“Yeah, it can be kind of nice,” she ignored his innuendo as her voice started out soft but changed as mischievous smirk formed on her lips, “but if you are expecting to work your ‘mojo’,” she put her hands up and sarcastically air quoted him, “on me and do that scene out of Titanic, you’ve got another thing coming, buster!”

Mike took a step back, held up his hands and chuckled. “Whoa there tiger, I’m just out here to enjoy the view, but I can come back later if you want some alone time. I know how hard it can be to get some personal space on a small,” he grinned as he glanced meaningfully at the large yacht’s deck, “boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”

Jenna couldn’t help herself. She giggled as he pointed out their luxurious surroundings because if you had to go by boat, this was definitely the way to travel. “No, it’s okay. You can stay, if you want to.”

She turned back to face the wind, watch the waves and listen to the soothing sounds of the water crashing against the yacht’s powerful bow. Jenna expected him to stand next to her, but a few seconds later, she felt his warm hands against her shoulders. She momentarily tensed, but quickly found her body relaxing --almost against her will-- as he began to expertly massage her shoulders.

“How does this feel?” Mike leaned forward and whispered into her ear.

“Mmmm...nice…” Jenna leaned back, against his strong chest and savored the warmth of his body. His touch, combined with his warm breath against her neck and the strong, masculine scent of his cologne gave her goose bumps. Under the shelter of his arms, she felt her body responding to a man in ways she never expected and it confused her.

The closeness allowed her to catch a hint of sexual arousal in his scent. Mike had never smelled that way to her before, not even when she had been lying naked with him during the filming of their sex scene. Admittedly, there wasn’t really anything sexy or comfortable about be surrounded by all the people and cameras and she couldn’t blame the man for feeling a little performance anxiety down there. Hell, Jenna thought even Hector would’ve had trouble getting it up under the same conditions.

Mike must be a little drunk or something, but she didn’t smell any alcohol on his breath. No way, no how, her body might be a little confused right now, but she was not going to have sex with a man, ever.

Jenna briefly felt something hard brush against her butt before Mike twisted his hips away from her in an effort to hide his growing arousal. She gently elbowed him in his stomach and twisted away from him. “Not. Going to. Happen. Pal!”

Jenna stormed off, upset with her traitorous body and her lecherous co-star. She heard him try to apologize, but she wasn’t in the mood to listen. He was a man and all men were the same, well, except for maybe Greg, but that didn’t matter because Greg wasn’t really himself anymore. Jenna knew that most men thought with their dicks because that was what drove Hector’s sex life and since she knew Mike had Hector beat for the role of best male gigolo, he was definitely not an exception to the rule.

“I swear, the next time he tries anything; I’m going to gut the bastard and I don’t care who sees me do it!” Jenna muttered under her breath in Spanish as she made her way to the stern of the yacht. In the lounge area, she spotted Kim and Kelly watching TV, laughing and chatting together on a couch. The sight of her friends brought an unexpected smile to her face and a spring to her step.

After a few more drinks, she began to relax and feel like maybe she had over-reacted. She knew from personal experience that sometimes Mr. Happy had a mind if his own. It wasn’t really his fault that his body reacted the way it did and the back massage did feel good. Thinking about it made her feel a little guilty for enjoying it --like she was cheating on Natalie-- and the guilt was compounded by the growing desire for some sexual relief.  

Kim and Kelly were definitely not candidates for sexual partners and neither was Mike. That made Natalie’s surprise going-away present begin to not seem as repulsive and she felt less of a desire to be rid of the thing. Just thinking about it made her consider giving it a test drive, but she had very little private time in their shared cabin and she was worried what Kim would think if she accidently walked in on her.  

“Umm, Kim, I’m feeling a little tired. I’m going to run down to our cabin, take a shower and maybe read a book, or something...” Jenna turned away as she felt a blush starting to form as she thought about what she could do with a few minutes of alone time.

“Take your time, girlfriend.” Kim gave Jenna a knowing smirk as she gave her a quick goodbye hug. “The party’s just starting and I’ll make sure I knock.” She suggestively glanced over to Mike.

Jenna laughed. “Seriously, you two,” She glanced down to Kelly, “there’s nothing going on between me and Mr. Powers and there never will be.”

“Never say never!” Kelly sang as she and Kim toasted each other with a light clink of their cocktail glasses.

“You guys are impossible!” Jenna laughed and dismissively waved good-bye to the troublesome duo.

Reaching her cabin, she carefully closed and locked the door. Secure in the knowledge that she was alone, she dug through her suitcase and extracted Nat’s gag gift.  Her pulse began to race, her lips felt dry, her nipples began to tingle and she began to have a curiously warm feeling between her legs, but when she unwrapped and revealed the realistic dildo, everything stopped.

“I can’t believe I’m even thinking about this thing! It looks so...wrong!” She muttered with frustration as she quickly wrapped it back up and stuffed it into her suitcase.

Still feeling a little frisky and very frustrated with herself, she decided to take a cold shower. The initial blast of cold water had the desired effect on her libido, but she couldn’t punish herself for long and shivering, she turned on the hot water.  After the shower, she dried her hair and pulled it back into a simple pony tail to help keep it from getting tangled.

Jenna debated on whether or not to rejoin her friends, but decided to read a book instead. She pulled on a pair of silk, boy cut panties and the women's sleep shirt Natalie insisted she buy. Jenna thought the long sleep shirt made it look like she was wearing a men's long sleeved shirt after waking up from a one night stand, but somehow, wearing it made her feel closer to her fiancé and it was comfortable.  She also liked the fact that it covered her butt.

As she got into her book, Jenna lost all track of time. Even though it was the third time she had read it, she still found the gritty and realistic military science fiction novel about Earth being invaded by an alien horde utterly captivating.  Her only complaint was the fact that the main protagonist’s name was Mike.

It was getting close to midnight before Jenna felt the need to take a break from reading and wonder where her roomie was. “Oh well, I guess she’s having fun.” She shrugged as she decided to brush her teeth for bed.  She was rinsing her mouth when the lights went out and she was forced to brace herself as the yacht suddenly slowed to a stop.  

“What the hell?!” It was pitch black in the small bathroom.  She tried the light switch a couple of times before opening the door and stumbling out of her cabin.  The passageway was lit with only the ship’s emergency lights and she considered returning to her cabin for her sat phone and sweat pants, when the emergency lights flickered and died.

Now she was really worried. The emergency lights should’ve never died. They were tied into the ship’s batteries and on a redundant circuit. Once again, she thought about going back for more sensible clothes, but her instincts were screaming to her that something was very wrong and time was of the essence. They were dead in the water and the lack of the ever present vibration caused by the big twin diesel motors added to her growing sense of dread.  

Could there be a fire in the engine room?  Jenna didn’t smell any smoke, but her cabin was near the bow of the ship.  Thanks to her father’s auto-shop and time in the Army, Jenna felt that if there was a problem with the yacht’s engines, she could help fix them. She heard some laughter coming from the upper deck. It sounded like the party was still going strong, and there was nothing that made her think the ship was on fire or sinking. No sounds of groaning steel, people screaming, the ship listing, or the passageway filling up with water.  The mystery deepened.

From the open hatch leading into the engine room, Jenna spotted a crewman with a flashlight. “Hey, what’s going on?” She asked, drawing the man’s attention to her as she stepped into the room and into a spot of unknown liquid on the deck.

Her nose identified the liquid; it was the sharp, iron metallic smell of blood and it was still warm. “What the!?”

“You shouldn’t be down here ma’am.” The crewman shined his flashlight in her direction, causing Jenna to turn her face away. “But,” The unknown man chuckled mirthlessly as the distinct sound of a knife being drawn from a sheath made it to her ears, “I’m glad you’re here because a fine piece of ass like you will make my job here even more enjoyable.”

Jenna stepped fully into the engine room and turned to face the man. “Drop the knife and I’ll let you live.” She softly growled giving the man a chance in case this was just some prank. She was on a ship full of movie people. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility for this to be some weird method-acting exercise by Mr. Stevens, but she felt pretty sure he wouldn’t go this far.

“Hehe, ya got some spunk girl. I’ll give ya that, but your fake movie martial arts won’t help you.” The man shined his light off to Jenna’s left, showing her the body of the chief engineer. It was his blood she had stepped into.  “Now, just head over to that console over there, turn around and show me that fine ass of yours. If I like the merchandise, I might just let you live.”

“No.” Jenna stepped to the side and out of the dead man’s blood. The chief engineer was really dead. Her nose confirmed it for her and that meant that the man with the flashlight was his killer. This wasn’t some Hollywood prank, but what was it?  

The man sighed with resignation. “Fine, but it’s a crying shame...”

Jenna caught a glint of the man’s knife as he charged her. His right hand held the large combat knife while his left clutched the flashlight high to his chest, aiming the beam of bright light at her.  If the man expected her to scream and panic, he was sadly mistaken when her left hand shot out and locked onto his right wrist.  For the first time in months, she used her full speed and strength as she twisted her hand downwards, snapping the man’s wrist in the process of keeping the sharp end of the knife away from her body.

The man gasped with shock and pain before Jenna swung a right hook into his lower jaw, breaking it with an audible crack and instantly knocking him out. “Fake martial arts, my ass!”

The man collapsed to the deck and Jenna wasted no time grabbing his flashlight and searching his body. On the deck, next to the man’s left ear was a small, tactical ear bud radio with a small boom mic. The force of her punch and the fall knocked it out of his ear.  

Due to the man’s crew uniform, there was still a teeny tiny amount of doubt in her mind about this being a prank gone horribly wrong, but the loaded 9mm pistol in the man’s shoulder holster along with its two extra magazines completely dispelled those doubts.

“What to do, what to do?” Jenna muttered as she shined the flashlight around the engine room, looking for what might be wrong with the ship’s power. She didn’t spot anything obviously broken or leaking. The engines were probably shut down and the power mains flipped off.

[pop-pop-pop]

The muffled, yet distinctive sound of an AK-47 firing along with a woman’s scream from above decks decided Jenna’s next course of action. She considered shifting into Hector and going full ninja-Snake Eyes to prevent anyone from recognizing her, but it would take thirty seconds to do the shift and there was no time to waste. Kim and Kelly were on the upper decks and they needed her help now.

Jenna didn’t need to be Hector to use the Snake Eyes costume. It worked just the same no matter which sex she was. Even better, it took only seconds to activate and the built in armor and weapons were hard to pass up. As the costume activated, what little she wore was instantly transformed into a full, form fitting ninja costume, complete with the blackened, super-sharp katana. She marveled at what Greg had been able to accomplish with the MAU, but she realized that her secret was going to be busted because the available pool of female ninja candidates was a little small.

“This better not be a fucking joke...” Jenna softly grumbled as she left the flashlight behind and silently padded out of the engine room, making her way toward the upper decks. She spotted a man carrying an AK-47 coming down the stairs from the upper deck. It looked like he was heading to check on his pal in the engine room.  His flashlight’s beam was focused on the stairs and that gave Jenna a second to hide.

Instead of going back to the engine room, she silently jumped up and braced herself, back against the ceiling by pressing her hands and feet against the walls of the narrow passageway. When the man passed underneath, she noiselessly dropped down and after running through a small checklist of possible attacks, decided to simply punch him in the back of his head.

The human skull is kind of hard and her hand stung for a second, but her punch had the desired effect. He fell to the deck like a puppet with its strings cut, his weapon clattering noisily against the steel deck caused Jenna to cringe. She quickly padded to the end of the passageway and glanced up to see if anyone had noticed.  All clear, but she heard more than a few men yelling orders in badly accented English for people to get down.

Who in the hell were these people and why were they on the yacht? The man in the engine room looked and sounded American, but the second man was Asian. When the men upstairs weren't yelling at her friends, it sounded like they were speaking some form of Chinese, but she couldn’t be sure. It certainly wasn’t Spanish.

“I’d give anything to have Wheelie and Sadie here right now.” Jenna softly muttered as she considered going back to her cabin for the sat phone. Even if she called Sadie, there would be no way her friend could make it here in time. She was more than a few thousand miles away and even if she broke every law in the US and went suborbital, it would probably still take her thirty minutes to an hour to get here.

Jenna slowly poked her head up and spotted two men, armed with AK-47’s, threatening Kim and a few of the crew. Her blood began to boil at the sight of the bullet riddled body of the second officer. She didn’t see Kelly, Mike or Mr. Stevens, but assuming the pirates or whoever they were would take the bridge, maybe they were there with the Captain.  

“Time to bite the bullet and get this over with.” She sighed with resignation as she consider how risky this was going to be for her friends and how it would probably get her kicked off the movie once Mike and Mr. Stevens found out.

Jenna reached down to her belt pouch and extracted two shurikens. Her first target was the man furthest away from her and with a rapid flick of her wrist, her shuriken made a soft whirring sound as it traveled almost as fast as a bullet through the air and into the man’s throat. A second shuriken followed less than a heartbeat later, striking the throat of the second man just as he was beginning to wonder what the sound from the first shuriken might have been.

She rolled over to the man closest to her and punched him in his temple to knock him out and end his misery. The second man and her first target were already face down on the deck and starting to twitch.  Once again, Jenna felt very impressed with Greg’s creativity regarding Hector’s Snake Eyes costume.

Jenna held her finger up to her mouth to signal everyone to be quiet and then, once she had their attention; she motioned for them to stay down and get below decks via the passageway she just exited.  She knew that it was safe for now and if not, below decks was probably a lot safer than being out in the open.

No one wanted to move and Kim looked petrified, but her eyes widened with shock as she recognized her friend. “Jenna?” She mouthed silently.

Jenna prayed that no one else recognized her, but at the moment, she was in no position to deny or explain. She curtly nodded as she once again motioned for Kim to be quiet and motioned for her to get below decks.

Kim’s eyes expressed her intense relief and she rapidly nodded her acceptance of Jenna’s request. She anxiously stole a glance back toward the bridge area before taking a deep breath and moving in the direction Jenna indicated.

Jenna breathed a sigh of relief when the remaining passengers and crew followed Kim’s lead.  With the lounge area clear of potential hostages and enemies, Jenna risked a quick glance toward the stern to ensure there weren’t any pirates behind her. There weren’t, but there was a powerful, twin engine ocean going speed boat tied up to the port side of the yacht and gently bobbing alongside in the waves.  

It looked expensive and based on the weapons and organization she had witnessed thus far, the pirates were definitely not the run of the mill, desperately poor pirates that had been making the news over in Africa. What was going on?

The pirates failed to leave a rear guard with their boat and Jenna felt extremely grateful about that oversight because it also meant there wasn’t anyone to spot her. She felt a little concerned about the size of the boat because it looked like the craft could have held anywhere from eight to fifteen pirates. Without running over and inspecting the boat, it was hard to for her to tell and she didn’t think she had the time to give the craft a full inspection. If there were any pirates still on board the boat, she would have to deal with them later.

Three, no four down and who knew how many to go. With that cheery thought in mind, Jenna drew her blackened katana as she cautiously crept forward and toward the bridge.

“Thank you for your cooperation, gentlemen. This yacht will fetch an easy twenty mil on the black market and once my men have the power restored we will begin the final preparations for your crew and passengers.” A man said in Australian or maybe New Zealand accented English.

“What do you plan on doing with us?” Kelly asked, her voice trembling with panic.

The man chuckled. “Don’t ya worry yer pretty little head about that love. A fine Sheila like yourself will be well taken care of by my men. Won’t she, boys?”

Jenna heard a couple of predatory laughs. “Oh yeah. We’ll treat the lady right...”

In addition to the man she figured was their leader, there were at least three more men in bridge, maybe more. “Great, just great. How in the hell am I going to do this?”  She reached into her pouch for her ninja smoke-flash bombs. “Hmmm, I think I have an idea...”

Once again, Jenna thanked Greg for his costume ideas because the ninja inspired flash bombs were just what she needed. The flash and instant thick smoke should temporarily blind and confuse her targets and thanks her goggles’ thermographic vision mode; she would be able to see through the smoke.  Hell, with the handful of smoke bombs she planned on tossing into the bridge, she might even get lucky and not be seen at all. She briefly lamented the fact that Kim recognized her and it was going to be pretty hard to deny that she was the female ninja to the rest of the folks.

“Vic, go see what’s taking Jerry and Cho so bloody long with the motors of this tub.” The leader forced Jenna into action.  She had to move now before the element of surprise was lost.

[Pffft!][Pffft!][Pffft!][Pffft!][Pffft!][Pffft!]

Jenna tossed a handful of smoke bombs into the bridge and katana ready, she dove into the smoke filled room.

“What tha fu-huugghf”

The shocked cry of the man closest to her was cut off as her sword effortlessly cleaved the man almost in half from the top of his left shoulder and through the bottom of his right rib cage. Before the corpse hit the deck, she was past him and with her left hand; she threw a shuriken at the man holding Kelly.  

“Gurck!” He instantly fell to the deck as her shuriken punched through his windpipe and stopped when it partially severed his spine.  

Their leader lost his hand as he switched the aim of his pistol from the general area of the first man she killed, toward the second.

“Ahhhh!” He screamed in agony as he fell to his knees clutching the spurting stump of his arm in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

Mike erupted into action and lived up to his action star billing by grabbing onto and taking out the pirate closest to him, but that left the third and final pirate to her.  His firing discipline was excellent, far better than she expected. Instead of simply spraying and praying, the man slowly duck walked backward, toward the side door of the bridge, his weapon’s stock tucked into his shoulder, ready to aim and fire at any target.  Jenna watched as the barrel of his AK-47 tracked toward the sound of Mike beating the crap out of his fellow pirate.

Trusting in her armor and regeneration, she yelled to draw his attention and charged across the room. It had the desired effect, the pirate’s weapon rapidly switched toward her.  

[crack!][crack!][crack!][crack!]

The man got off a controlled, four round burst. The first round proved to be the “Golden BB” when it struck her in her lightly armored abdomen and between the hard armor plates. If she had been further away, her armor would’ve stopped it cold, but from point blank range, the heavy, 7.62 round managed to punch through the bullet resistant material. It helped reduce the speed of the round, but not enough to keep it from being a critical wound for a normal human. Before stopping, the round bored through her intestines, ricocheted off her spine and up, into her left lung.

As the AK-47’s barrel rose, the second round bounced harmlessly off her chest plate while the third round managed to impact on the weak point of her shoulder armor and penetrate into her right shoulder. The round was stopped by her shoulder blade with an impact felt like a mule kicked her, causing her body to spin to the left. The fourth round went high and ended up punching a hole in the ceiling.

Jenna was hit and hit badly, but she couldn’t stop. She had closed the distance and put everything she had her swing. She felt the barest resistance as her sword separated the man’s head from his body and continued through the upper receiver of the man’s AK-47.  The weapon and the man fell onto the deck in two pieces.

She attempted to take a breath, but instead coughed and gagged on her own blood. Desperate to avoid being seen by anyone, she staggered through the smoke, past the headless pirate and into the open air of the upper deck that surrounded the bridge.  Her chest felt like someone was squeezing it with a giant vise. She couldn’t breathe and she fell to her knees, dropping her sword as she struggled to get air into her lungs.

“Hmmm, maybe my regeneration isn’t going to work. Sorry Natalie.” She thought as she continued her struggle.  “I have to get away now!”  

Using the railing, Jenna tried to pull herself to her feet, but the effort only caused her to cough and wheeze again. “Oh yeah, nothing tells you to --*cough* *cough*-- slow down like a sucking chest wound…”  She muttered as she fell to the deck on her hands and knees, barely stopping herself from face planting on the deck as her weakened left arm momentarily buckled. “Ouch…--*cough* *cough*-- ”

Her chest was starting to feel a little better, but all the blood trapped in her mouth by her mask wasn’t helping. Jenna pulled up the bottom of her mask and spit out the blood. It splattered all over the pristine white deck and caused her to cough a few more times. Each successive cough cleared more blood from her mouth and the pain rapidly subsided from a searing hot knife edge to a dull throb.

“Okay, now I really have to get out of here…” Jenna glanced back over her shoulder and noticed the smoke was rapidly dissipating.  She dropped a fresh smoke bomb at the door and rolled under the lower rails. Hanging down, she dropped to the deck below the bridge.

Still feeling woozy and out of breath, Jenna fell ungracefully backwards and onto her butt, leaving a smeared, bloodstained handprint behind when she pushed herself back onto her feet. “I’m not being very ninja-ee am I?”  

She heard the sound of a man coughing and heavy footsteps exit the bridge from above. He sounded like Mike and to avoid being seen by him, she hugged the wall and dashed into the nearest hatch.  Closing it softly behind her, the little bit of starlight from outside cut off, leaving the passageway completely black to normal vision. With a thought, her mask’s thermographic vision cut through the darkness, showing her the way toward her cabin.

For being critically shot less than ten seconds ago, Jenna felt surprisingly healthy and very grateful for her comic book hero regen. She cautiously padded through the pitch black passageway. She heard some whimpering and crying, followed by a desperate shush echo down the passageway from the stern of the ship. She guessed it was Kim and the crew she had directed to hide.  She made it forward and to her cabin without being spotted, but realized she had dropped her sword and left it behind as evidence.

“Son of a...” She swore under her breath as she briefly debated going back for it. Instead, she willed her costume away and prayed the sword would follow suit. The cabin plunged into pitch darkness, causing her to stumble and hit her shin against her bunk. “Damn it!”

Jenna worked by feel to find her suitcase and extract her satellite phone. In her cabin, it was useless as a phone, but the glow from the display worked perfectly with her enhanced vision as a flashlight. First, she inspected her nightshirt for bullet holes and blood and breathed a sigh of relief when she found neither.

“Thank MAU! This is my favorite sleep shirt.” She softly giggled as she considered how much she sounded like a woman, more worried about her clothes than getting shot.

Next, Jenna made her way into the bathroom and checked her face in the mirror for blood. She spotted a few traces of blood in her nose and around her mouth, but without power; there was no water pressure and no way to wash her face.  She had a bottle of water next to her bunk. She quickly used that to rinse out her mouth and wash away the blood from her face.

Exiting the bathroom, she spotted something shiny on the deck.  It was a bent AK-47 round and evidence that would place her on the bridge. Her body must have rejected the foreign object and thanks to her super-powered regen, she didn’t need surgery to remove it. She shuddered as she thought about how freaky it must have looked to see the round pushed out of her body all by itself.

Jenna shrugged, grabbed the round and spotted a second, misshapen and flattened round lying nearby.  It must have been the one that hit her shoulder. She policed those up and tried to figure out what to do with them. Her cabin lacked a porthole to toss the rounds out and into the ocean. Flushing down the toilet and into the ship's bilge tank seemed like a good option, but not without water pressure.

The toilet still seemed like the last place anyone would look for evidence. So, she dropped them into the bowl, ripped off a few sheets of paper to cover them and closed the lid. Hopefully, when the power was restored, the water pressure would be strong enough to handle the rounds and she would get a chance to flush them down before anyone noticed.  With the last bit of evidence temporarily taken care of, she pulled on a pair of sweatpants and made her way back toward the engine room. There was no way she wanted to be caught without pants on when the lights came back on and the police or Navy got here to investigate the hijacking attempt.

She ran into the body of the second man she took down. He was right where she left him and didn’t appear to be breathing. She tested for a pulse and unfortunately for him, it looked like her punch to the back of his head killed him.  She felt a twinge of guilt, but quickly dampened it down with the realization that he would’ve killed her if he had the chance.  Based on their leader’s comments, it sounded like everyone on board would’ve been ‘disappeared’ to prevent messy inquiries about the missing ship when they sold it. They and all her friends would’ve just been another lost ship, presumed sunk by the weather or some other calamity at sea.

“Jenna?” Kim whispered from about fifteen feet away. She and the rest of the crew and passengers were all huddled together at the bottom of the stairway that led to the upper deck.

“Kim, what’s going on? Are you okay?” Jenna whispered back as she fell back on all the acting skills she had learned over the last few months.

“What, you don’t know? I thought you were...Who’s he?” Kim cautiously came forward, but halted a safe distance away from the body.

“Dunno, but he’s dead. I woke up to the sound of someone shooting AK-47 and realized the power was out.” Jenna directed the phone’s light further down the passageway and toward the engine room. “My dad is a mechanic. So, I thought I’d see if I could lend a hand with the engines.”

Kim looked confused. “But, but, I thought...”

Jenna needed something to distract her friend. “Hold this.” She handed her phone to Kim and picked up the fallen man’s flashlight and AK-47.  She debated keeping the AK-47, but decided it would only get in her way. Instead, she offered the weapon to Kim. “Do you know how to use one of these things?”

Kim reflexively reached for the offered weapon before her eyes widened with shock when she realized what Jenna was offering her. She shook her head from side to side and backed away. “N,n, no, I don’t know. You keep it!”

“Umm, I’ll just leave it here then.” Jenna set the weapon down and pointed the flashlight toward the engine room. “Okay, I’m going to check the engines.”

She only made it a few feet before Kim broke down and followed. “Wait for me.”

Knowing that there was a still hopefully unconscious pirate in the engine room, Jenna glanced over her shoulder. “Stay out here.” She said as she peered through the hatch and aimed the flashlight’s beam to where she left the body.  He wasn’t there.

“Merde!” Jenna muttered. Where in the hell was the guy?

“What’s wrong?” Kim’s voice trembled with barely suppressed fear.

“Nothing, stay here.” Jenna cautiously stepped into the engine room, avoiding the chief engineer’s blood this time. That reminded her that she had stepped in the blood the first time here and a quick glance down to the floor showed her bloody footprints as well as the dried blood caked onto her foot.

[Papow!][Papow!]

She spotted the fake crewman just as two shots rang out, striking her in the abdomen and chest, the shock of the impacts caused her to stagger and trip backwards on the lip used to seal the engine room’s hatch.  She landed on her back in the passageway, dropped the flashlight and reflexively clutched her stomach from the pain.

As she struggled to deal with the pain of getting shot, she heard a garbled. “uck u isch!” As the fake crewman, clutching his pistol in his left hand and cradling his broken right wrist against his chest stalked toward her, his jaw askew and clearly broken. She broke his wrist and jaw, but forgot about the bastard’s pistol.

Jenna dimly registered Kim’s scream of panic as she dealt with getting shot a second time. If only she had been wearing her costume, it would’ve easily stopped the puny 9mm rounds, but no, she had to be the hero. The round to her chest didn’t feel too bad, she figured that it must have hit a rib and been stopped instead of puncturing a lung like the AK-47 round did. The round in her stomach, that one hurt like a son of a bitch. The asshole must have been using hollow point rounds because instead of a narrow, hot knife in the gut pain she got from the 7.62 round. She felt like she had just been punched in the stomach with a sharpened baseball bat, but even as she groaned from the pain, she felt it starting to fade.

She watched as the fake crewman slowly walked over to her side. He pointed his pistol down to her with a broken, pain filled smile that seemed to say he was going to enjoy watching her suffer.

That was what she was waiting for. The small pain from the round in her chest was gone and the baseball bat sized pain in her gut was now down to a punch in the gut sensation. Now that the asshole was in range and not expecting anything, it was time for her to go on the offensive.

[Snickt!]

Jenna grimaced with pain when the claws in her right arm erupted from her knuckles as she began to rotate toward the man, intending to rake his left arm and maybe cut it off to disarm him.  She knew the claws were sharp enough to cut through steel, but wasn’t sure if they would cut through flesh and bone with a simple swipe.

[Crack!]

She never completed her action. The man’s head exploded as a 7.62 round entered from the base of his skull, showering her in a fine mist of hot blood and bits of brains before his body collapsed on top of her.

“Eeek!” Kim screamed and dropped the AK-47 on the deck like it was a snake about to turn on her.

Thankfully, it didn’t accidentally discharge, but now Jenna was pissed. There was a dead guy pinning her to the deck, she could feel the tiny droplets of blood on her face, but worst of all, she had two, blood stained bullet holes in her favorite sleep shirt.

[Snickt!]

Jenna retracted her claws and with a groan, pushed the dead guy off her. “Eeew, gross…” She sat up and heard two, dull metallic clunks as the 9mm rounds rolled out from under her ruined sleep shirt and hit the deck.

“Oh my god! Jenna, are you okay?!?!” Kim rushed forward, but stopped herself when she caught a glimpse of her friend’s blood soaked face and attire.

“Yeah, he missed, but where in the hell did you learn to shoot like that?!” Jenna palmed the rounds as she stood.

“Umm…it was, a-an accident?” Kim broke down, forgot about the blood covering Jenna and began to cry on her shoulder.

The flashlight was still on the deck and pointing away from the dead body. It was probably a good thing Kim couldn’t see the top of the man’s head due to the lack of light.  Jenna turned Kim to face away and hugged her tight. “Shhhh...it’s okay. It’s over now.”

Jenna tried to let go of Kim, but she started to panic and held her tighter. “No, don’t go!”

“Kim, it’s okay. Look at me,” Jenna looked down at Kim and gently pushed her face up so she could look into her eyes, “you saved my life and I know it’s not easy taking a life, but you did what had to be done.”

“I did?” Kim asked with a small, hesitant and frightened voice.

Jenna nodded and smiled, trying to encourage her friend. “Yes, you did and you did good.”

“I had to. You saved us all up there,” Kim relaxed a little, pulled away and looked back, over her shoulder toward the general direction of the upper deck.

Jenna patiently smiled and tried the Jedi mind trick. “That wasn’t me. I’m not the person you thought you saw.” If only the Jedi mind trick could work in real life. Was it even possible for the MAU to give someone Jedi mental powers?

“What? But I saw…” Kim’s eyes rapidly scanned Jenna’s blood spattered face as if she might find something recognizable.

Jenna slowly shook her head from side to side. “You know I would do anything to keep you guys safe,” Kim slowly nodded with agreement and Jenna could see a bit of hero worship in her eyes, “but what you thought you saw, it wasn’t me and you don’t know who it could’ve been, got it?” Jenna asked, praying that Kim would back her up and help protect her identity.  If not, things could get very tricky when the police or the U.S. Navy arrived.

Kim surprised her by slowly nodding with agreement. “Yeah, umm, you’re right Jenna. What could I have been thinking?” She giggled, causing a little of her haunted expression leave her face.  “You’re just an actress. It would be absolutely impossible for you to be this super-secret kick-ass ninja. I mean, I’m your roommate here and there is no place for you to hide a freaking ninja costume and sword in your suitcase. Completely impossible, right?!?”

Unsure where her friend was going with her line of reasoning, but feeling hopeful, Jenna nodded with agreement. “Yeah, totally impossible…”

Kim laughed and her eyes glowed as she tried to contain her excitement, and failed. “This is so cool and now I know why you didn’t know how to use makeup. You weren’t a nun. You were raised at one of those ninja places!”

Jenna wasn’t sure if her new theory was better or worse than the nun theory, but in light of recent events, it was probably more believable. “Kim, listen, you can’t tell anyone, not even Kelly. It’s a ninja clan secret, okay?” She held her friend by the shoulders and intently studied her eyes, forcing her to meet her gaze.

Kim took a deep, calming breath. “You’re right, I can’t because no one would believe me,” she smirked mischievously, “okay, maybe a couple of people would, but I won’t say a word. Promise.” She solemnly nodded.

Jenna sighed with relief. “Good, now I only need to hope everyone else believes it would be impossible for me to be this female ninja that miraculously appeared on this boat, but no one saw leave.”

It was only then that she remembered the pirate’s boat. She could’ve tried making it look like the unknown ninja escaped using the boat, but she wasn’t entirely sure how the logistics of that idea would’ve worked out.

“I dunno, but I thought the ninja I saw was a dude.” Kim pretended to be confused.

Jenna laughed and hugged Kim. “I doubt that will work, but thanks!” She released her with a defeated sigh. “Regardless, I need to see if I can turn the power back on and you don’t want to see what’s in here. Can you go to the bridge…” She considered the number of bodies she would have to pass to reach the bridge. “On second thought, back to the stairs and wait for me? Let the crew know what’s going on and what you ‘thought’ you saw?”

“Oh, I will, but you might wanna get rid of your shirt before anyone else spots you.” Kim pointed to the blood stained holes in Jenna’s night shirt. “Even in the dark, I can see those holes in your shirt and girlfriend,” she paused, glaring up at her with determination, “you’re totally going to tell me everything.”

“Umm, sure…” Jenna glanced down at her night shirt with dismay before turning around and picking up the flashlight. She turned and watched Kim gingerly make her way back toward the stairs. Dealing with alien machines, secret government agents and horn-dog movie stars were bad enough, but why did these greedy pirates have to go and make her already complicated life even more complicated?

“Cabrón…” Jenna muttered with frustration and instead of stepping over the dead pirate’s body to enter the engine room, she took it out on him by moving him out of her way with a less than gentle kick.

Sequel to: MAU: More Than Meets the Eye

Jenna discovers that she is a secret agent.

{“Hey Jenna, what’s up?} Jenna heard Sadie’s cheerful voice followed by a faint metal on metal sound on the other end of two thousand plus miles.

{“Ummm…”} Jenna stalled, it sounded like Sadie was busy in the kitchen and she wasn’t sure how to break the news that she screwed up.

{“What did he do?”} Sadie asked, catching on far too quickly that something was wrong with her friend.

Jenna found her mood temporarily buoyed by her friend’s suspicions, but the truth brought her back down, forcing her to heavily sigh with resignation. {“Nothing, but I sorta ran into a little trouble tonight and I wanted to see if you could give Agent L a heads up for me.”}

{“Oh, that’s not good.”} Sadie instantly replied before pausing for a brief second. {“What happened?”}

It took Jenna a little over five minutes to give her the details of the pirate attack on the yacht and she had to switch the conversation a few times from a report of her actions, to a distressed sounding recount of what she heard happened due to potential eavesdroppers. A normal friend would’ve been stunned and tried to accuse Jenna of trying to play a joke on her, but not Sadie. Even though repelling pirates on the high seas sounded like the making of a good movie plot and Jenna knew that her friend believed her and was more than willing to drop everything and come to her aid.

{“How long ago did this happen?”} Sadie asked.

Jenna thought back and guesstimated the time based on the stars and the moon. She felt weary and slightly shell shocked. It seemed like it was hours and hours ago, but in reality, only a little over an hour had passed. {“An hour or so. I’ve been helping with the cleanup and I’ve tried to tell them it wasn’t me, but I can tell they don’t believe me and I expect things to change once we meet up with the U.S. Navy ship that has been dispatched to meet us.”}

{“What’s the ETA?”}

Jenna sighed. {“Somewhere between six and eight hours.”}

{“Well, I think you did the right thing; you couldn’t let the pirates kill everyone, but you’re right, your alibi is paper thin.”} Sadie paused for a few seconds before continuing. {“I just grabbed your location and calculated the flight time. If you need me, I can be there in forty-five minutes.”}

Jenna nearly dropped her phone. {“Seriously?! Holy crap dude, that’s cool, but that probably wouldn’t help and I’m guessing a lot of three letter agencies wouldn’t be happy with you either.”} She chuckled before letting out a defeated sigh. {“No, I’m just going to have to face the music and take my lumps.”}

{“Okay, I’ll call Natalie and give her a heads up. Then, I’ll give the Agency a ring. Maybe Agent L will have some ideas.”} Sadie paused. {“Today looks pretty light for meetings. I might try to bug out extra early and fly over to provide you with some air support. I’ll check back with you in two hours and if I don’t hear from you in four hours, I’ll assume you need help and come in hot and heavy.”}

{“Thanks-”} Jenna’s voice caught, forcing her to pause and gather her composure. {“I really appreciate the offer and I don’t know what I’d do without you and Michelle. It’s nice to know you’ve got my back.”}

{“Hey, de nada. I know you’d do the same for me.”}

Jenna felt a lump her throat as her friend proved to her how much of a true friend she really was. She sighed with resignation as she fought back her tears. {“Okay, I need to go now. Mike and the Captain are coming this way and I think it’s ‘that’ time.”}

{“Good luck and remember, I got yer back, bud!”}

Sadie’s willingness to do whatever Jenna needed left her feeling a little more optimistic. With her spirit buoyed, she anxiously turned to face the music. She could tell by the Captain’s expression that they he had a few questions and they probably weren’t what she wanted to have for breakfast. Thinking of breakfast caused her stomach to growl, reminding her that she needed to eat. Her regeneration took a lot of energy and the pound of cold cuts and cheese she snuck from the galley fridge wasn’t enough.

Captain Hayes looked authoritative in his clean and non-blood stained uniform and Mike had also changed out of his blood stained clothes. The two men she had dispatched with her katana, and the pirate leader’s amputated hand had sprayed a lot of blood on the bridge. No one got off the bridge without a few bloodstains on their clothes and the blood was impossible to avoid during the cleanup and removal of the bodies.

Jenna self-consciously glanced down to her own bloodstained top. It had a few small stains to go with the larger stains on her sweat pants. She had elected to remain barefoot because she was sure that whatever shoes she might have worn, would’ve also had some blood stains on them.

After restoring power to the ship and reaching the bridge, she promptly ruined her top when she used her Army first aid training to treat the pirate leader and stop his bleeding. He feebly tried to fight her, but his reaction was almost pitiful due to the large amount of blood he had lost before she got there. He was currently under lock and key with a guard posted and she doubted he would be a problem any time soon. He might still die, but no one seemed to care one way or the other.

The pirate Mike fought put up a good fight, but Mike knew what he was doing and quickly disabled the man. The pirate was not a happy man and he was in a lot of pain because Mike broke his right arm and dislocated his shoulder, but Jenna didn’t think he had much room to complain. He was still alive and that made Jenna wish she had been able to disable the pirates instead of killing them. With six dead pirates to her name, she felt incredibly guilty. Like she should’ve tried harder to not kill those men and if she had only been a better person; she would’ve found a way. Mike was the real hero; she was just a killer and a fake.

Mike and Jenna put the dead pirates and the weapons in their boat. No one wanted them on the yacht. Jenna thought it would’ve been easier and less messy to simply toss them overboard and feed the sharks, but the Captain decided that the authorities would want them for evidence.

Mike surprised her during the cleanup and body removal. He had no problems dealing with the dead bodies and she belatedly realized that she probably should’ve pretended to be more freaked out, but, thanks to her time in Iraq, she had far more experience than the typical American woman. As a result, she only reinforced her cold blooded killer identity and removed what little doubt there was over who killed the pirates.

As the pair approached her, Mike looked relaxed, but she could read his body language pretty well by now. He was on edge and was ready to fight her if she tried something. She didn’t want to fight anyone right now and especially not him, but she understood his reasoning. She wasn’t who he thought she was and he probably felt a little upset with her.

Jenna lied to him and she felt guilty for deceiving Mike and her friends in the film crew, but she didn’t have a choice. How does someone start a truthful conversation around finding an alien machine and not only turning themselves into a super-hero, but a woman too? Mr. Stevens kind of knew a little. Well, he knew that she could heal faster than normal and had some strong bones, but she had been purposefully vague when she confided in him and he hadn’t asked for more details either.

Captain Hayes’ eyes were steely serious as he politely acknowledged her with a respectful nod. “Miss Vasquez. If you would be so kind as to join us in the dining area. We have a few questions for you.”

This was it. ‘Game over man, game over!’ Jenna found her ability to find humour, even dark humour, in the situation very encouraging considering how likely it was that she was going to be fired and maybe even arrested once the Navy got here. “Yes, sir.” She sighed with resignation.

Both men parted, allowing her to pass before they followed her into the dining area. She felt mildly surprised that they didn’t try to detain her, but what would be the point? She was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and no one was that good of a swimmer. She could take the pirate’s boat, but where would she go?

Well, where would Jenna go because once she changed back to Hector, she would be in the clear. It would be pretty simple. She could call Sadie to come get her and then Jenna would disappear forever. No more movie to deal with and Hector could return to his regular life, get married to Natalie and live happily ever after. It was so simple, but for Jenna, it felt like the coward’s way out and neither Jenna or Hector was a coward.

The crew and all of her fellow passengers were waiting in the dining room and everyone still looked a little shell shocked over what had happened. One of the crew and Mr. Steven’s assistant were staring off into space and didn’t react to her presence. Kim smiled and restrained herself with a half-wave, but it looked like she wanted to jump up and hug her. Mr. Stevens calmly nodded while John studied her with an excited gleam in his eyes that told her he was thinking about how he might be able to work this into the script.

She expected Kim to be the one having problems, but it was Kelly who worried her. Jenna expected her to be working the angles to try and spin the attack into something positive for the movie, instead she sat alone and visibly flinched as Jenna’s eyes passed over her. It looked like she was afraid of her and Jenna didn’t know what to do about it. She wanted to go over and reassure the woman she thought of as a friend that everything was okay, but she now didn’t seem like a good time.

On the table was a small pile containing the various and dubious forms of identification the pirates carried on their person as well as the AK-47 she had cut in half. Jenna frowned at the sight of the AK-47. She was hoping no one would notice or even better, simply toss the broken weapon overboard.

Her katana sat next to the AK-47, but it didn’t look the same. The blade was now a flat piece of black metal and the hilt was a slightly larger block of metal without any details. If she didn't know any better, she would’ve thought it was a simple, crude sword shaped object someone in metal shop hacked together to look like a sword.

It was more evidence to be used against her, but it certainly didn’t look like a sword that had sliced a man’s head off. If only she hadn’t dropped the thing or if it had disintegrated like the shurikens, but a disintegrating sword might have been harder to explain. However, she wasn’t sure if the hunk of black metal sitting on the table was any easier to explain. She worried about what would happen if she didn’t reclaim her sword. Would her symbiote reform the katana the next time she activated her costume or would she not have a sword anymore?

This was the closest she had been to her sword since she dropped it and she knew Greg was smart enough to not make his symbiote intelligent, but she felt a powerful urge to hold her sword. The urge wasn’t hers. It came from somewhere else and that worried her a little. Did Greg somehow mess up and was her costume going to go bad on her?

Her eyes remained focused on her sword until Captain Hayes started the ‘interview’. “Now that we have everyone together and the unpleasant tasks are behind us, it’s time to review what we know. We will be rendezvousing with a U.S. Navy Cruiser in approximately six hours and it will be a good idea to have all our ducks in a row.”

He paused and brief, brittle smile crossed his lips before he heavily sighed. “We have two crew members dead and after questioning Mr. St. Vincent and his lackey, Mr. Bowler, I consider it extremely fortunate that we have Mr. Powers and Miss Vasquez on board.”

Captain Hayes nodded in Mike’s and Jenna’s direction. “Yes, very fortunate indeed. I have learned that our assistant engineer’s hospitalization was not an accident and his temporary replacement was not the man he appeared to be.”

He glanced briefly to Jenna, but she forced herself to remain stoic when what she really wanted to do was grab her sword, rip the bandaid off and admit to being the murdering ninja, but Captain Hayes was playing his cards close to his chest. “At a prearranged time and place, Mr. James, or whatever his real name was, murdered our chief engineer and completely disabled my ship. While we were dead in the water, Mr. James’ associates boarded and murdered First Officer Lovets. Their plan was to force everyone overboard without any life vests or life rafts, where it was expected we would drown in the middle of the Pacific, another tragic and unexplained loss at sea.” His lips compressed with barely controlled fury. “Then, the Bastard’s plan was to sell this ship on the black market where it would be renamed, retitled and sold to some unscrupulous buyer on the other side of the world.”

“Oh my god!” Kelly woke from her fugue and began to cry softly, causing Kim to rush to her side and comfort her.

It broke Jenna’s heart to see the woman she had come to think of as a friend so distraught, but there was nothing she could do. Especially, when she was probably one of the reasons, but she wasn’t willing to take all the blame. It was really the pirates who were responsible, but based on Kelly’s reaction to her, she couldn’t help feeling that she blamed her.

Captain Hayes’ revelations didn’t surprise Jenna in the slightest and it didn’t appear to surprise Mike either. After all, he was there on the bridge when their leader boasted about selling the yacht and how else could they have done that if there were witnesses to report the yacht stolen or contest the sale? Mr. Stevens grew pale and he shakily reached out for a glass of water, but it looked like he wanted something stronger and John happily scribbled in his notepad, presumably for the script.

Captain Hayes focused his attention on Jenna. “And this brings us to the identity of our mysterious benefactor.”

Everyone turned to look at Jenna, even Kelly. “Umm, hi?” Jenna gulped and wished she had a bottle of vodka she could shotgun to help with the initial pain.

“I was getting ready for bed when the power failed...” She started from the beginning and with all the questions, it took her a little over twenty minutes for her to tell her account of the action.

The Captain asked her why she decided to go to the engine room and how she figured out how to restore the power.

Kim told her part and explained how she shot the man threatening Jenna. She seemed to be coping with the fact that she killed a man fairly well, but she also didn’t see the results at close range and the shot was pure luck.

Jenna thought she was in the clear until Mike skeptically crossed his arms and turned to face her directly. “Hmm, that’s an interesting story Jenna,” he gestured to the AK-47 cut cleanly in two, “but you haven’t explained where you hid your impossibly sharp katana, shurikens and ninja costume, where those items are hidden now and,” He gestured to the lump of a sword, “how that thing could cut anything, let alone a human. The costume, I’m not worried about, but the sword and the shurikens are a little alarming to me. The shurikens completely disappeared and the sword turned into a,” he gestured to the sword. “lump of metal in my hand. How in the hell did it do that?”

She debated about telling him what she knew about the costume, but she couldn’t because how could she explain a secret alien machine to these people? The Agency would not be happy with that at all. It was far easier to go on letting everyone think she was some sort of ninja thing because ninjas were more believable.

Jenna shrugged and apologetically smiled. “Umm, I’m not sure. Ancient ninja secret?”

Captain Hayes and Mike didn’t look very pleased with her reply, but Kim, Mr. Stevens and Mike were the only people she felt that she might be able to trust with part of the secret. She thought it might be okay to show them the costume and claim it’s some super top secret government project. It would be kind of a stretch, but, in her opinion, it was more believable than little green men from Mars letting her play with their crazy machine. She would’ve also liked to think she could trust Kelly, but based on her current state of mind, she wasn’t sure if that would be wise.

The Captain pinched the bridge of his nose and slowly shook his head as he considered his response. It looked like he wanted to order her to tell or consider making her walk the plank, but whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by the acting First Officer’s call. “Captain Hayes to the bridge, please.”

“Excuse me.” Captain Hayes glared at Jenna for a moment before heading to the bridge.

Without the Captain, Jenna became the center of attention. “Well, care to explain yourself Jenna?” Mike asked. “If that’s your real name…”

“Yes, it’s my real name.” Jenna cringed as she lied to him, but she couldn’t tell them she was really a man named Hector. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t exactly tell you about-”

Jenna’s phone began to ring, drawing everyone’s attention to the unexpected interruption. “Sorry, I probably need to answer this.” She gingerly picked it up and glanced at the calling number. It wasn’t Sadie and it wasn’t a number she recognized. Unsure over who it could be, she walked to the stern to get better satellite reception and some privacy.

Mike looked like he was about to try and stop or follow her, but he sighed and waved her away.

“Hola?” Jenna hesitantly spoke into her phone.

{“Hi Jenna, Agent L here.”}

Jenna was a little surprised that she was calling her so soon. “That was fast and why can’t you use something other than a letter? Agent L just sounds so weird.”

Agent L chuckled. {“You’re a very ‘busy’ woman these days Jenna, but I made a few calls and everything has been handled.”}

“What? How?” Jenna didn’t know what to say or think. How could Agent L, who was thousands of miles away have any impact on what happens when they meet up with the Navy?

{“Congratulations, you are now CIA Special Agent Jennifer Vasquez!”} Agent L was having way too much fun with her.

“Ha, ha...not funny.” Jenna sighed.

{“I’m serious. When you get into trouble, you don’t take half measures, do you?”}

“It wasn’t exactly my fault! I mean, how many yachts get attacked by f’ing pirates?!?!”

{“You’d be surprised. Ten, at least. Interpol has been on the case for three years now and thanks to you, they got their first big break.”}

“Huh?”

{“Yes, a fairly large number of yachts have been thought to be have been lost at sea, but a few have miraculously turned up under a new name and owner a few years later.”}

Jenna felt the yacht’s course change. It seemed to be moving to a northerly heading. “We just changed course.”

{“That would probably be the instructions to head to the Marshall Islands. A team of Interpol and CIA agents will be landing there in about four or five hours. They will take the bodies and the pirates off your hands and after a few hours, send you on your way.”}

“Okaaayy, but I don’t know how to be a CIA agent! What in the hell am I supposed to say and how am I going to explain what I did?”

{“Simple, you don’t. It’s Top Secret, Need to Know and none of them are cleared. You’re there on a different assignment and just happened to get lucky.”}

“I am? What’s this other assignment?”

{“Sorry, that’s classified.”} Agent L giggled as Jenna groaned with frustration.

“That’s not going to work. Well, it might work for the agents, but it will probably get me fired because no one likes having a spook around.”

{“Hmmm, true. Okay, you’re honorably discharged, but like the Army, you’re never really out; they can call you back at any time. How’s that sound?”}

“That might work…” Jenna mulled it over. “Yeah, it’ll probably work, but what about my sword and ninja costume?”

{“Fall back on the ‘it’s classified’ excuse, because it’s true.”}

“Even to the other CIA agents?”

{“Yep, but they’ve been instructed not to ask. Special Agents have a certain amount of leeway. Just think of yourself as Jenna Bond and you’ll be in the right mindset.”}

“What about the AK-47 I cut in half?”

{“You cut an AK-47 in half?!? Wow, that’s a sharp sword. I think we need to bring you down to our labs so our material science geeks can take a look at it, but for now --the CIA doesn’t need to know-- get rid of the evidence.”}

“Okay, is there anything else I should know about my CIA career?”

{“Most of it is redacted, but you spent a few stressful years undercover in Central America and received a commendation for you work. I think you can adlib what you did down there.”}

“Yeah, probably. Okay and thanks for your help.”

{“No problem Jenna and good luck with the movie. I’m looking forward to watching it.”}

“Thanks and if I’m not fired; I’ll see if I can get you some tickets.”

Jenna walked back into the dining area with her head spinning and everyone anxiously watching her. Captain Hayes hadn’t returned yet. She guessed he was plotting the course and talking with the Interpol folks. “Umm, it looks like we are going to the Marshall Islands now and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you all sooner, but I’m with the CIA.” She heard a few gasps of surprise.

“I knew it!” John slapped the table, causing everyone to jump.

Jenna noticed the look of concern on Mr. Stevens’ face. He was either worried that she was going to quit now or he was planning on firing her. “Well, I was, but I got out last year.” Mr. Stevens relaxed a little, but Mike still looked a little apprehensive. “Anyway, I just got off the phone with my ex-boss and he said that a team of Interpol and CIA agents are going to meet us instead of the Navy. The pirates have hijacked and killed the crews of about ten other yachts before reselling them.”

Jenna glanced around the room. She had everyone’s undivided attention. A few of the crew looked horrified, but Kelly seemed to be coming around. She was smiling and wore her ‘I’m plotting something big’ expression. She fell back to her Army briefing training, stood tall and smiled. “So, despite the cost,” she glanced around the room, “we, did a good thing and I’m glad Mr. Powers was onboard to help bring these dangerous men to justice. I’m sure that Interpol will be very grateful that he was onboard too!”

“Gimme that!” Kelly reached over, grabbed the notepad from John and started to furiously write in it.

Mike stood and motioned for her to stop. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just slow down there Jenna. I only stopped one guy and that was only after you stopped the rest.”

“No, it’s perfect!” Kelly shouted triumphantly. “Working together, the stars of the upcoming Mike Powers movie stopped an international gang of pirates!” She laughed and hugged both of them.

Considering Kelly’s previous state, her hug surprised Jenna and even Mike was left scratching his head. “But, that’s not what happened. Well, not exactly. Everyone,” Mike glanced over at the crew, “knows that it was really Jenna.”

“Yes, they do!” Kelly giggled excitedly. “But, you did help and thanks to both of you, the pirate’s plans failed!” She pointed to the pair and glanced back to Mr. Stevens. “We couldn’t buy the amount of buzz that this story will generate once the major news networks get a hold of it.”

Jenna was a little worried about Kelly’s idea because she was pretty sure that issuing a press release would blow her secret. “You can’t do that.”

The three of them paused and glanced up to her. Jenna had no clue what to say, but one of the crime dramas she saw on TV gave her an idea. “Umm, it’s an active investigation and Interpol might need to keep this quiet until they’ve got all the suspects. You should wait and talk to them. Find out if or when they are going to make an announcement.”

With her ‘official’ pronouncement, Mr. Stevens, Mike and Kelly were drawn into a planning huddle until Captain Hayes returned, confirmed the change in plans and dispersed the crew back to their duties. He also respectfully addressed Jenna as “Agent Vasquez”, causing her a little bit of internal conflict because the lies just kept on growing by the second.

Jenna reached for her sword and the thing almost jumped into her hand. It immediately reformed into a sword and she got a feeling that her symbiote was happy to have its part back. It started to absorb back into her body, but she stopped it before it became noticeable. She hoped.

“Holy shit!” Mike edged away from the table.

“Umm, it’s a smart sword?” Jenna hesitantly explained as she looked down at her hand. She was relieved that the hilt looked normal to her. “It’s a safety feature that the Agency is experimenting with and umm, it’s very classified so you all didn’t see this. These are not the droids you’re looking for.” She tried to laugh, but it came out a little hollow and no one else seemed to find it funny.

She glanced down to the broken AK-47. “Ahh, well, so, yeah, I need to go change and I’ll just take care of this too. It’s Classified.”

No one stopped her when she grabbed the broken AK-47 and tossed it overboard, but Mike did give her a glance that said he was going to ask her about it later. As soon as she was out of sight, she let the sword reabsorb into her body and blew out a huge sigh of relief as she leaned against the passageway.

Feeling at a loss for what to do now that she was mostly off the hook, Jenna returned to her cabin, stripped out of her bloodstained clothes and took a shower. First, it was a few drops of red and then, when her hair became saturated, the water ran red. She fell to her knees and began to cry as everything hit her at once. She had never been shot or killed a fellow human being before and the blood brought back the image of the pirate’s head falling from his neck with a spray of blood. She felt like throwing up, but since her body was still demanding fuel for all the repairs, she had nothing to give.

Jenna idly noted that the water was no longer tinted red, but it didn’t matter. If only the memory of seeing her sword cut through another human being was so easy to clean. She knew her actions were justified, but that provided scant comfort.

“Jenna?” Kim called out and receiving no response, followed the sound of running water. Through the frosted glass shower partition, she spotted her friend sitting on the floor and not moving. She opened to door a crack and poked her head in. “Jenna? Oh my god, are you okay?”

“Not really…” Jenna listlessly glanced up, her eyes swollen with tears.

“Oh, you poor thing.” Kim reached over and turned the water off. “Let’s get you out of there before you turn into a prune.” Ignoring her friend’s naked body, she pulled an unresisting Jenna up and wrapped a towel around her torso.

Jenna let Kim push her out of the bathroom and onto her bed. “Lemme get another towel for your hair. We wouldn’t want it to get all tangled.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not real. It’s fake, just like me.” Jenna started crying again. “Damn estrogen…” She muttered.

“Shhh, don’t say that. You’re real, but you’re probably suffering from a little PTSD from dealing with the pirates. It happens to the best and it’s nothing to be ashamed about.” Kim smiled encouragingly as she wrapped Jenna’s wet hair up in a towel.

The PTSD diagnosis, Jenna could agree on. She’d had a few buddies who needed to be treated for it and she recognized the symptoms. “Yeah, maybe a little. I’ve never actually killed anyone before. It seemed so easy at the time and I sort of wondered why it didn’t bother me, but then, in the shower, I saw the blood and…” Jenna stared at her hands and couldn’t continue

“Well, I’m here for you!” Kim giggled and gave Jenna another hug before grabbing her hand and sitting beside her. “You did the right thing and saved the lives of a lot of people today. You can be proud of that and in all honesty, I’m kind of glad you’re feeling the way you are because I’d be even more worried if you weren’t.”

“What?” Jenna wasn’t sure why Kim was reassured by her breakdown.

“It’s simple.” Kim looked her in the eyes. “When I saw you in your ninja costume, I was a little scared, but then you saved us and killed all those men. At first, I thought it was great, but then I thought about how I killed that man and how upset it made me feel and I watched you walk around like nothing was wrong. Hell, you even helped with the dead bodies and I thought to myself, ‘How could she be such a cold blooded killer? I thought I knew her.’ “She smiled and gave Jenna’s hands another squeeze. “But now, I know you’re not that and I’m happy to consider you my friend.”

Jenna smiled wanly at Kim before sighing and looking down to her perfectly attractive legs and feet. “You shouldn’t waste your time with me. I’m just a liar and a big fake.”

Kim gasped and pulled on Jenna’s hand, drawing her eyes back up. “You’re wrong and I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re feeling better.”

Jenna felt tears began to fall from her eyes. “Why? I don’t deserve to have a friend like you.”

“Because you’re you.” Kim smiled encouragingly and gave Jenna a hug before she pulled away and sighed. Her voice turned somber. “And, I had a fiancé. We were one of those sickeningly sweet high school sweethearts you hear about in the stories and we loved each other so much. He joined the Army and I was so proud of him, but he came back from Afghanistan a different man. I didn’t know what happened and he wouldn’t talk to me. He kept having nightmares, but wouldn’t see a doctor. We had a lot of fights and I ended up leaving him because I was afraid he was going to hurt me. Worst mistake I ever made.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He killed himself…”

Jenna pulled Kim to her gave her a hug. “Oh, Kim, I’m sorry for being such a jerk and lying to you.”

Kim wiped her eyes and sniffled. “You’re not a jerk and you had to lie. I mean you’re a ninja and a CIA agent. It’s expected.” She giggled.

“I am not a CIA agent or a ninja. That’s a lie too.” Jenna started to feel a little better as she confided with her friend.  She felt guilty for lying to everyone. Mike and the other people she could ignore the minor pangs of guilt, but not Kim. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt like Kim was a real friend, maybe even one of those BFF’s other women rave about having. Besides, Kim had killed a man to save her life and had been willing to keep her secret like a true friend would. Yes, she didn’t need to be saved, but Kim didn’t know that.

Kim laughed and dismissively waved away her statement. “What? You looked like a ninja to me and I heard what the Captain said.”

“Well, I’m not and I wasn’t in the CIA until I got that call, but the funny part is that not even the CIA knows that I was never in the CIA.” Jenna chuckled as she considered the pretzel logic of her statement.

“What do you mean?” Kim canted her head to the side with confusion.

Jenna held up a finger, signaling Kim to wait a minute as she got up, insured the door was locked and turned on their cabin’s stereo system. “Do you believe in aliens?”

Sequel to: MAU: More Than Meets the Eye

Out of the fire and into the pot.

Meeting her ‘fellow’ CIA agents was a challenging role for Jenna, but her ‘Special Agent’ status, Army background and acting experience all came together to help her pull off the deception. As expected, she was asked to re-up with the CIA, but it was Interpol’s surprise job offer at the end of the final interview that surprised her the most. Mike and Mr. Stevens looked a little nervous when the offer was made and visibly relieved when she politely refused them.

The yacht spent an extra day on the island while the crew and everyone else were given a few sessions with a grief counselor to help them with the shock. Captain Hayes wasn’t too upset with the delay because the ship also needed a few minor repairs and Interpol flew in a professional crime scene cleaning service to take care of the blood. It also helped when the pirates’ high-end, quarter of a million dollar speedboat was awarded to the ship’s crew under Europe’s ancient prize law.

As a Special Agent, her role was minimized in the official report while Mike’s role was maximized. Mike was given full credit for bringing a dangerous international criminal to justice with his beautiful and talented co-star lending him a hand with the action. The investigation was still ongoing, but Interpol expected to have things wrapped up in a month or two, tops. Kelly absolutely loved the official story and couldn’t wait until she could use Interpol’s press release to help publicize the movie.

After the legal stuff was taken care of, things on the yacht mostly returned to normal. Kelly was friendly again, but not as friendly as before. With Kim, she was the same, but for Jenna, she put up a subtle emotional barrier that saddened her a little. Mr. Stevens and John the scriptwriter went through a lot of laptop batteries working on the script; presumably to make her role even stronger or to kill her off faster. She wasn’t sure which and was too afraid to ask. The crew all treated her with the utmost respect and went out of their way to make sure she was happy.

After the big confession, Kim proved her BFF status and rallied behind Jenna. It amazed her how relieved she felt to finally have someone to confide in and not lie to outside her small group of distant friends. Still, it wasn’t easy telling Kim and she worried if she did the right thing. She focused on herself and left Sadie’s part out of the story, but more than once, she debated stopping and trying to change her story into a more plausible amnesia story to help explain her lack of female skills. However, once she starting telling the truth; it seemed to want to come out of her mouth.

Jenna figured Kim would laugh it off or even accuse her of lying before she even got halfway through because who would believe such a crazy story? Somehow, Kim believed every word and thanks to the movies, she knew who Wolverine was and what his powers were. Jenna’s own powers lined up with what Kim saw and if that hadn’t been enough proof, Jenna’s ‘magic’ ninja costume clinched it for Kim. The major surprise for Jenna was that Kim never asked to see her change into Hector, somehow still thought of Jenna as a woman and had no problems with continuing to share the cabin with her.

Jenna’s only regret was how excited Kim became about the prospect of teaching her about makeup and fashion. Kim’s I-am-woman boot camp was positively brutal for Hector’s male ego and Natalie didn’t help. While concerned about telling someone Hector’s side of the secret, Natalie thought Kim’s mission to teach Jenna was hilarious and couldn’t wait to see the results firsthand. She even insisted on talking to Kim and the pair gleefully itemized all the experiences they had growing up that Jenna missed and needed to experience. They tried to claim it would help Jenna with her role, but she didn’t buy it. It was going to be torture, pure and simple.

After a her second late night of girl boot camp, Drill Sergeant Kim was still blissfully asleep while Jenna dutifully toiled away with painting her nails. As part of the ‘girl list’, Jenna was waiting for Kim’s not-even-called-a-color, but it looked green-to-her toe nail polish to dry in preparation for the sage colored outfit Kim had picked out for her the night before. Jenna was still confused as to why women needed to have so many different words for minor variations of the primary colors. The primary colors augmented with light and dark versions of each color were the only color differentiations a man ever needed.

A polite, yet firm knock sounded at the cabin door causing Kim to mutter something in her sleep. “I’ll be right there!” Jenna softly spoke as she cringed, worried about waking Kim and hoping that the person heard her and wouldn’t knock again.

It had to be Mike, but what was he doing here? It was his normal workout time, but he hadn’t asked her to work out with him since the pirates and it was hard for her to get a good read on what he was thinking about her. Did he still want her in his movie? He was nice, but kept his distance. Jenna gingerly walked over and opened the cabin’s door. The nail polish was mostly dry, but she didn’t want to mess them up and have to re-do them.

“Are you ready for a workout?” Mike asked, taking a half-step back and nervously running his hand through his hair as she opened the door a crack and peeked out, hiding her body behind the door.

Jenna wasn’t naked, but she wasn’t about to let Mike see her panties and the rumpled tank top she had been forced to sleep in since her regular sleep shirt was now ruined. “Umm,” his offer surprised her and she wondered what she could wear, “sure? Lemme get some clothes on. Meet ya on the deck in five?”

After carefully closing the door, Jenna grabbed her workout clothes and ran into the bathroom to change. Looking in the mirror, she noticed that her bed-head hair was a disaster barely held in check by a lazy ponytail. She was pretty sure Kim would not approve of her current state of repair. Oh well, at least her nails were mostly dry and it was only a workout where it was expected of a person to get gross and sweaty.

After spending more effort on her ponytail, Jenna quickly pulled on her cleanest pair of skin tight yoga pants and an athletic tank top shirt. Despite her initial hesitation at wearing something so form fitting and feminine, she quickly learned to appreciate the built-in sports bra for the support it gave her breasts. She found the extra sweat zone under her breasts annoying, but compared to how sweaty an athletic cup ended up making Hector’s groin feel, it was a minor annoyance.

Okay, maybe a bit more than minor when she considered how short of a duration Hector had to wear a cup compared to how long she had to wear a bra in a hot and humid environment while performing strenuous physical activity. On the plus side of the argument was how comfortable, light and airy the stretchy yoga pants felt compared to men’s briefs and the relatively bulky, loose fitting shorts Hector normally wore during a workout.

Jenna chided herself for even thinking about the silly differences between men’s and women’s clothing while also worrying about her appearance, but after washing her face, giving her hair another quick and minor adjustment and brushing her teeth, she felt tons better. She considered going barefoot to give her nails more time to set, but a quick and risky test proved to her that they were dry. She tossed on her thin-soled wrestling-inspired sneakers and walked to the upper deck where she found Mike sitting in a lotus position, performing his usual morning meditation. Without saying a word, she sat down beside him and mirrored his pose.

Until she started training with Mike, meditation hadn’t been part of her normal workout regime. Following the “no pain, no gain” philosophy, Hector liked to get started on the workout and build a healthy sweat as soon as possible, but after her initial “this is dumb” skepticism wore off, she started to see some benefits. When she meditated in the morning, she found it helped reduce her stress and it was easier to concentrate for the rest of the day. With all the chaos from the past few days, it took her a few extra minutes to calm herself and find her center, but once she did, she felt tons better as the stress she didn’t realize she was carrying with her started to leave her body.

Letting out a deep, cleansing breath, Jenna opened her eyes and was surprised to find Mike standing in a relaxed pose, patiently studying her. “How long have you been waiting for me?”

Mike smirked. “Not long. Are you ready?”

Jenna smoothly rose to a ready stance as Mike responded in kind. “No stretching or warm up today?” Jenna asked, curious over the change in routine.

“There’s no time to do all that in a real fight, is there?” Mike punctuated his question with a light feint.

“No, I guess not.” Jenna snapped a kick, lightly grazing his leading leg. “Is this a real fight?”

Mike forced her to take a few steps back as she blocked a rapid flurry of light kicks and punches. “No. Do you want it to be?”

With the gauntlet thrown, Jenna responded by going on the offensive, forcing Mike to retreat a couple of steps as he blocked and counter-blocked. “Not really, but I hate losing.”

“So do I...” In a flash, Mike dropped and tried to sweep Jenna’s legs out from under her. A move that had worked for him in the past, but she easily jumped back. Mike surged up and forward, pressing his attack. “I saw the hesitation in your eyes. Why didn’t you attack?”

“Who says I hesitated? I dodged your sweep.” Jenna taunted him as she considered what Mike was trying to do. He must know or suspect that she had been holding back all this time and now he wanted her to go full out and not hold back. The problem she had with doing that was A) technique wise, he was far better than her. It was only her enhanced reflexes that allowed her to keep up with him and maybe surpass him if she chose and B) she didn’t want to accidently hurt him with her strength. It could be bad for both the movie and his ego. In addition, a few of the crew were watching and there would be too many witnesses.

“I guess that means I don’t have to go easy on you.” Mike followed his words by going full out and not holding back like he had in their past matches.

Jenna was forced to up her game, raising the stakes higher. She blocked, dodged and counter-attacked, but let a few of Mike’s hits penetrate her defenses. Not as many as she had in past matches and she made a point of landing a few more attacks of her own. She hoped that doing so would give Mike what he expected to see and not leave him with more questions about her true ability level.

Without pads, Jenna was very careful to only hit hard enough to lightly touch Mike and in turn, Mike did the same. Occasionally, a harder hit would accidently happen, but it was expected by both participants. She let a strike land and felt the blow rock her body to the side. Mike was pushing her and purposely hitting harder than he should. This impromptu match needed to end now. She blocked his next few attacks with a little more force to account for his increased power, causing him to smile with satisfaction.

Jenna saw Mike’s next sweep coming and she could’ve jumped back or even moved in, breaking his attack. Instead, she launched her own attack, letting his sweep take her down a fraction of a second before she could land her kick. She fell to the deck as Mike continued his rotation, ending with an axe kick to her throat. His kick was barely a tap, but it would’ve been a finishing blow if he hadn’t controlled himself.

“Damn, I thought I had you that time!” Jenna gasped for air. The match was less than two minutes, but it was far more intense than any of their past bouts. It was a good workout and one she would love to repeat, but Mike was on to her.

Mike propped himself up on his elbow and glanced over to her as he got respiration back under control. “You’re still holding back on me.”

“Ha!” Jenna forcefully exhaled. “I’m the one on the mat, errr, deck here.” She turned her head to him. “I might have a little CIA training, but I’m not a seventh degree black belt with tons of real fights under my belt like you.”

Mike stood and offered her a hand up. “Riiight.” He shook his head with disbelief as she accepted his help and smoothly rose to her feet. “I bought that before, but not anymore. In the past, I took your hesitation at face value, but now I know better.”

“I don’t want to further inflate your ego or anything, but I’m really not that good. You’re way better than I am.” Jenna felt pretty good about telling him the truth, but a small part of her really wanted to tell him that she didn’t want to hurt him. Just to see how he’d react to the taunt.

Mike sounded a little skeptical as he responding with a simple grunt and a dismissive wave of his hand before he walked away, leaving her to complete her exercises on her own. With the fight done, the respectful audience faded away and returned to their duties. Jenna knocked out an easy fifty pushups, slowing for the last few just to make it look like she was struggling and a hundred sit ups before performing her katas.

Mike and Mr. Stevens didn’t fire her and as she hoped and feared, instead, they substantially increased her screen time. Aside from her pay raise, the major benefit from the increased screen time was her reduced window for exercise -- specifically, sparring matches with Mike. She did everything she could to make sure their schedules didn’t line up for gym time. Her plan worked for the first few weeks, but eventually, the pair were forced together to train for their joint fight scenes.

Jenna tried to keep their fake fights, fake, but Mike pushed. Kim confided with Jenna that she thought Mike might actually be attracted to her and the mystery she presented him was only making his attraction to her worse. “You should just kick his ass and get it out of his system. The big bully might leave you alone.”

Jenna didn’t disagree with Kim, but she was too afraid that she might hurt or piss him off. It was a little late in the filming to fire her, but they could still kill Olivia off in the end like they originally planned and she was starting to get attached to her character. Additionally, their relationship seemed to leaking out in front of the camera and adding to the chemistry between their characters. Mr. Stevens and John positively ate the pair’s natural interactions up and Jenna was loath to risk messing things up.

Of course, Natalie found it hilarious and after a second sneak visit with a practically insatiable Hector, she recommended that Jenna should break out her special battery powered friend to help take some of the edge off before her next visit.

Hector shuddered at the thought of sticking something like that inside himself. “I should probably throw that thing away.”

Natalie sighed. “Babe, Jenna needs it, but Sadie will be in here in fifteen and I kind of miss seeing Jenna. Can you change back, pleeaase?” She smiled coyly, looking up Hector as she swayed slowly back and forth like a little girl asking for a piece of candy.

Hector couldn’t resist her puppy dog eyes. “I’ve got to learn how to do that…” he muttered as his resistance crumbled under the onslaught. “Well, I kind of wanted to spend as much time with you as possible, but I guess I still would be, right?”

Hector was rewarded with an excited hug and kiss from Natalie and a few minutes later, Jenna briefly wondered why Hector had considered Jenna-time and Hector-time as separate. Natalie’s loving and smoldering kiss quickly got her motor running. She quickly lost all track of time as Natalie quickly brought her right to the edge of an orgasm and kept her there until Sadie politely cleared her digital throat. “Hmmmp, hummm, ladies, we have a schedule to keep. Michelle is due any day now.”

“Wha-What?!?” Jenna gasped with frustration. “Nooo, just one more minute, please???”

Natalie mock-pouted as she disentangled herself from an increasingly distraught Jenna. “Oh darn, I guess we’ll have to wait until you get home,” she smirked mischievously, “or maybe you can take care of it yourself with you know what?”

“You’re evil.” Jenna sat up looked around for her clothes while feeling very distracted by how flushed she felt. She was just beginning to cool down when Natalie’s goodbye kiss got her juices flowing again.

She hiked the two miles back to her trailer in a slight haze. As Hector, the very recent and highly enjoyable sex with Natalie had been great, but Jenna couldn’t get the feelings Natalie caused out of her mind and it kept her body in a constant low boil. She knew Natalie did it on purpose and why, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how it felt when Natalie’s soft, sensual lips lightly kissed her throat as she moved down to give her breasts some attention.

“Oh my god…” Just thinking about it caused Jenna’s knees to weaken, forcing her to pause next to a tree a few yards from her trailer.

“Are you okay?” Mike surprised her. His sweat stained shirt and gym shorts made it clear that he was coming from the gym. Her sensitive nose picked up his strong masculine scent and instead of finding it slightly repulsive like Hector would, she felt her body betray her and become more aroused.

“No…” Jenna found her gaze dropping from the concerned look in Mike’s eyes and lingering on his gym shorts. She felt her face flush with embarrassment when she realized where she had let her gaze wander to, she hastily looked away. “I mean yes, sorry. I’m just feeling a little winded from my, umm, run and I might have twisted my ankle, or something.”

“Oh, lemme help you to your trailer.” Mike reached over and gallantly took her arm, supporting her weight.

She didn’t need his help, but to help sell her ankle story, Jenna found herself leaning against him a little more than she needed to. His thoughtful gesture and her reaction sent her mind into a panic. “I’m not gay, but why did I check out his package and why am I letting him help me? Oh my god, I’m going to kill Natalie!”

“Thanks...” Jenna muttered. Her emotions were in turmoil and she didn’t know what else to do or say as Mike gently settled her on the couch in her trailer. She knew she should have said something like, “Thanks, see you tomorrow!” or even better, “No thanks, I’m good.” when he offered to help, but she didn’t.

“Hey, not a problem Jen.” Mike sat down next to her, pulled her feet onto his lap, took her sneakers off and lightly probed her right ankle. “Was it this one?”

His touch felt wonderful. “No...” Jenna hesitantly shook her head as she considered asking him to leave. Her hesitation was rewarded with a foot massage that slowly worked its way up to her calves. Ten minutes later, Mike somehow had her down to her panties and lying on her stomach as his skilled hands expertly massaged her thighs, back and shoulders. He had given her massages in the past and that’s probably why she didn’t think to turn down his offer, but this time the experience was different because her mind was in a fog as her body was brought back up to a low boil.

The kisses started and Jenna somehow found herself on her bed, staring up at Mike’s strong, muscular shirtless chest. An increasingly small part of her knew having a man intimately touching her shouldn’t feel so good, but when he leaned over and teased her body with a kiss on her throat while one of his hands lightly played with her breast as his other hand teased an inner thigh.

“Oh my god!” Her back arched as a jolt of electricity shot through her body, vanquishing the part of her that thought having sex with a man was wrong.

Taking her reaction as signal to continue, Mike kissed his way south. Each kiss caused her body to shudder with anticipation until she felt her panties catch, trapping her knees. Realizing where things were going, she felt horrified that she was about to cheat on Natalie and, even worse, cheat by having sex with a man. Jenna sat up and pushed Mike away from her. “No!”

Mike flew off the bed and landed on his butt a couple of feet away. Jenna hastily pulled her panties back up and protectively clutched her sheets to her chest. Gasping for breath, her body wanted to have sex, but she knew how guilty she would feel about cheating on Natalie and she was freaked out about wanting to have sex with Mike. Even worse, she was worried about how having sex with Mike might mess up their on-screen relationship. “Sorry Mike, but I just can’t right now. I don’t want to take a chance that this would ruin our relationship.”

Jenna knew right away how flimsy her excuse sounded, but not less than an hour ago, she was a man and happily had sex with the love of his life and now, she almost had sex with a man. Not just any man, but Mr. Mike Powers. A man that she, as Hector, practically idolized, and what comes out of her mouth as her reason?

Their relationship?

How could she be more worried about her ‘relationship’ with Mike? The only relationship she cared about was Hector’s pending marriage to Natalie. She wanted to hate him for almost making her cheat on Natalie, but he didn’t know and couldn’t ever know that Hector was Jenna. For all Mike knew, Jenna was a single, unattached woman, but that made her feel even more confused.

How could she even think about having sex with a man? She knew Natalie purposely put her on edge and she did encourage her to experiment, but that didn’t mean it was right to cheat on her. Jenna’s subconscious use of the ‘right now’ qualification also concerned her.

Mike sighed and slowly picked himself off the floor. Instead of getting mad and yelling at her or trying to guilt her into continuing, he surprised Jenna with a shy smile as he rubbed his butt. “You’re pretty damn strong, but it’s okay. I understand and it was my fault. I should’ve known better than to take a chance with our relationship, but…” He seemed to stumble as he searched for the words. “There’s just something about you that I’ve never felt with any other woman.”

She knew Mike was a total player and that was almost the worst line she had ever heard another guy try and it was a line Hector had used in the past. It ranked right up there with, “You’re the only girl for me!”, and “Would I lie to you?”

Still clutching her sheet to her chest, Jenna stood, pulling the sheet with her as she glared at him. “¡No Manches! Yo no puedo creer que tratar esa línea conmigo!”

She realized she was yelling at him in Spanish and he didn’t understand a word. He probably got the intent though. She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath as she took a step toward him. She felt a smidge of satisfaction when he reflexively retreated a step. “Unbelievable, I bet you say that to all your freaking super-model girlfriends and one night stands!” She pointed back to the door. “Now, get out and I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Jenna couldn’t help noticing how defeated Mike looked for a second before his usual cocky attitude reasserted itself. “Yeah, sure babe. See ya mon yana!”

She wanted to throw something at him. His attitude infuriated her and worst of all; he purposely butchered “mañana”. After making sure her door was locked, she returned to her bed and lay down with a frustrated sigh. “Damn it!”

Less than a minute later, she found herself rummaging through her suitcase for the toy she had meant to throw away. Thirty minutes and four incredibly strong and satisfying orgasms later, she felt a lot better. She started her session by fantasizing about Natalie, but somehow the memory of Mike’s kisses and touch worked their way back into her sexual fantasy a couple of times. She managed to purge those distractions and focus solely on Natalie, but it took the first two orgasms to do it.

Jenna woke up the next morning feeling like a new woman and ready to face whatever Mike could throw at her. “Yep, I think I’m going to have to apologize to Nat. Mr. Happy was the best gift evah!” She couldn’t stop smiling as she brushed her teeth before getting dressed for her visit with Kim for hair and makeup.

Kim picked up on her relaxed and buoyant attitude right away. “Oh my gawd! The rumor mill can’t be right. Did you and Mike,” she mimed cocking a gun, “you know?”

“Kim!” Jenna sighed as she felt a little of her calm serenity fade. “No, Natalie was able to make a visit yesterday and well, you know...” She found herself grinning like a fool as she recalled the memory.

“What?!?! She visited? How and why didn’t you bring her by and introduce me to her?” Kim pouted and looked genuinely hurt by her exclusion.

Now she was in hot water. During Jenna’s bout of honesty, she never told Kim about Sadie or Michelle. She figured it wasn’t her secret to tell and if Kim proved herself to be untrustworthy, then her friend’s secrets would still be safe. “Umm, for the ‘How’, I can’t really tell you, but I kind of have a friend who’s a private pilot. There’s a small cove on the other side of the island and we were able to meet for a few hours. It’s a long hike and I’m sorry, but I needed some alone time with Natalie.”

“Oh…” Kim visibly deflated.

Jenna rushed to reassure her friend. “But, Natalie asked about you and she really wants to meet you. She plans on inviting you to our wedding and asked me to ask you if you would be willing to do her makeup.”

“Really?!” Kim’s mood brightened.

“Really, really and can you?” Jenna asked, hoping that her only girlfriend would say yes.

Kim pretended to think about it. “Hmmm, I’m not sure…”

“Please?” Jenna was not above begging and Natalie really wanted to meet her.

“Well, since you asked nicely.” Kim giggled and gave Jenna a hug. “Sure, I’d be happy to!” She stepped back, grabbed a hair brush and pointed it menacingly at Jenna. “Tell me about Mike. Something happened.” She started detangling Jenna’s hair. “Now, spill it.”

“Ow!” Jenna whined as Kim aggressively worked out a minor tangle. “Fine, I’ll talk. Geez, you’re worse than a real interrogator. They should hire you at Gitmo.”

Kim playfully bonked Jenna on the top of her head with the back of the hair brush. “Ve hafe vays of making people talk. Now, tell me and I’ll let you live.”

Jenna felt a lot better after she confided with Kim and neither could stop the giggles when she told her about Mike’s corny line. Kim promised to help quell the rumors by telling everyone that Jenna had twisted her ankle and Mike was only helping her when he accidently pressed too hard on her injury, causing her to yell at him.

“Wait a minute, people heard me yell at him?” Jenna asked, suddenly concerned about how loud she may have accidentally gotten during her session with Mr. Happy.

Kim laughed. “Of course silly. You know how close the trailers are.”

Jenna blushed and prayed no one overheard her during her alone time. She didn’t think she was loud, but there were a couple of times that she saw stars and Hector had a few girlfriends who could get pretty darn noisy during the moment.

“Why are you blushing?” Kim asked, suddenly suspicious.

Jenna squirmed in her seat and turned her face away from Kim. “Oh, no reason. No reason at all.”

Kim was relentless and when she finally got Jenna to talk, her only question was why it took her so long to use it and to come see her when she needed more batteries. She further shocked Jenna by giving her some recommendations for additional toys with tips on how to get the best results. Guys NEVER talked about sex toys with each other, but then again, most guys only needed their hand and they certainly weren’t ashamed to taunt their single buddies about how often they needed to resort to dating Rosy Palmer and her five sisters.

The next few days on set were a little tense between Jenna and Mike, but it worked out for the best. Mr. Stevens couldn’t get enough of the pair’s on screen fireworks caused by the sexual tension. There were many times when Jenna didn’t know whether she wanted to punch or kiss the man and the idea that she might want to kiss him only made Mr. Happy’s batteries run out sooner than she expected. Mike could be so damn infuriating and it didn’t help that some of the cast members started joking about them being married.

The final week of filming couldn’t come fast enough for Jenna. She missed the births of Sadie and Michelle’s twins and she was anxious to get back to being Hector full time. She almost prayed for the movie to be a big flop, but she doubted that would happen. She might be a little biased, but she thought it was going to be pretty good and due to the press caused by the pirates, the movie was now one of the most anticipated releases the studio ever had on its hands. Thanks to the contract she signed, even if it did flop, she would probably be forced to do at least one more movie, maybe two. She had no idea what would she would do if it turned into a blockbuster and more studios started calling her.

The final action scene called for a lot of pyrotechnics with the villain's secret underground island lair being destroyed as the pair made their escape. All made possible by Olivia realizing she loved Roger enough to betray her evil boss. Jenna thought it was kind of trite, but at least her character didn’t have to die like the lead female love interest in most action spy movies.

First, Olivia saved Roger from certain death by hacking the security camera feed and pulling him out of the standard evil villain shark tank in the nick of time. The pair kissed and tried to escape out of the secret back door, but Olivia’s evil boss anticipated her betrayal and the pair were met by the villain’s unstoppable robot warriors. Forced to surrender, the pair were disarmed and taken to the villain to be executed.

Unknown to the villain, Olivia had inserted a backdoor command code into the robots. It activated when he instructed them to open fire on Olivia causing the robots to turn on their master, killing him instead of the pair. With his death, the lair went into the much overused, in Jenna’s opinion, self-destruct mode.

Olivia and Roger fled to safety, always one step ahead of death as the lair exploded behind them. Finally, they jumped over the last obstacle to freedom, narrowly escaping a fiery death. Doing the action scenes were pretty fun, tiring and exhausting, but still fun.

For the final scene, they were in a natural cave that had been slightly modified to look like the secret backdoor exit. They hit their marks as a flame pot blew up in the background to simulate their narrow escape. As the flames died down, the main camera panned out, showing Roger holding Olivia in his arms as the pair simulated a passionate kiss. The kiss ended up being less of a simulation and more stimulating than Jenna expected.

Roger looked calm and collected while Olivia’s chest heaved as if from a long run. Her long hair was a little disheveled, her face had a couple soot marks and her costume had a couple strategically placed rips and tears augmented with faint traces of blood that looked like minor scratches. Everyone wondered if she was only acting when she appeared to slightly swoon from his kiss, but somehow, Jenna’s knees really did wobble on their own and her lips tingled when Mike kissed her.

“What’s next?” Olivia recovered and smiled at her super-spy lover while her hand suggestively traced a path down Roger’s chest, stopping at his belt.

Roger flashed his trademark smirk as his secret communicator watch interrupted her by loudly playing “God Bless America” as an alert song. “I’m not sure babe. Let’s see what our boss has to say.” He brought his wrist up to his chest and pushed the side button causing a hologram of Director Omega to materialize in mid-air between the pair.

“Welcome aboard Agent Olivia. Sorry, no rest for the wicked, but two weaponized canisters containing the deadly Sarin nerve gas have gone missing in the former Soviet Union. It’s now your job to find and prevent them from being used.”

“That’s not much to go on…” Olivia frowned after the message faded away.

Roger confidently smiled as the pair turned, hand in hand to exit the cave that hid the now demolished secret lair’s entrance. “No, but with you as my partner, anything is possible!”

“And...Cut!” Mr. Stevens yelled, causing the crew to cheer. “We may need to do some minor retakes back at the studio, but otherwise, this baby is done. Good work everyone!”

Jenna and Mike helped the film crew breakdown the equipment. Officially, they couldn’t due to union rules, but there was some heavy lifting that they were able to sneak in. An hour after Mr. Stevens yelled cut, the cave floor was mostly clear. There was only a single work light remaining when Jenna felt the earth start to shake.

The island was occasionally jolted with minor tremors and familiar with earthquakes after living most of her life in California, she wasn’t overly concerned and neither was Mike. The tremors stopped after a few seconds, but just to be safe the cave was evacuated. After ensuring everyone was out, they followed.

Jenna was a step ahead of Mike and ten to fifteen meters from the cave’s exit when she felt what had to be a tremor of at least a five on the Richter scale hit. She began to run toward the light.

“Go, go, go!” Mike unnecessarily encouraged Jenna from behind.

A few pieces of the cave’s ceiling fell, partially blocking the exit when Jenna heard a loud cracking sound from ahead. The entire floor violently shifted and she realized they weren’t going to make it. The ceiling shifted above and ahead.

“Merde!” She slammed on the brakes and stopped Mike from running past. A loud, explosive crack echoed through the passageway as the ceiling began to drop.

“Back!” Jenna yelled as she pushed Mike with all her strength, easily throwing him five or more meters back into the cave and hopefully to safety just before she felt solid rock slam into her back, crushing her to the floor.

Jenna blacked out for a few seconds. When she came to, it was pitch black, everything hurt and she couldn’t move or breathe. She discovered she could move her left arm a little, but her arm was the only part of her that wasn’t buried under what had to be tons of dirt and rock. She tried to pull herself out, but couldn’t get enough leverage. Her tomb shifted a little, but unable to breathe, her strength rapidly faded.

“Jen!” She thought she heard Mike’s muffled voice yell, but it was hard to be sure.

“Sorry Natalie. I guess not even Wolverine can survive without being able to breathe. I love you...” was her last thought before she lost consciousness.

Mike heard the ominous cracks reverberate all around him and he debated stopping, but the light from the exit was only twenty or so feet away.

Go, go, go!” He yelled as he chased behind Jenna.

He heard Jen swear in Spanish as she suddenly stopped in front of him and turn back, plant herself to stop his forward charge. It felt like he had just run into an offensive lineman.

“Back!” Jen yelled as she pushed him backwards.

His feet left the ground and he found himself flying back, into the cave. Everything seemed to slow down as he saw the ceiling smash into Jen before all the light was cut off. It seemed like he flew at least ten feet, maybe more, but at 250 pounds, he knew it was impossible for his sexy co-star to throw him more than a foot or two. He knew she was strong, but it just wasn’t possible for a woman or even a man to thrown him as far as it felt like she did.

After the earth stopped shaking and the noise stopped, Mike picked himself off the floor. He was covered in a fine layer of dirt and rock. Mercifully, one of the battery powered work lights was still in the cave and functioning even after falling over.

“Jen?” He coughed and looked around.

He had to have imagined seeing the ceiling fall on top of her, but she wasn’t where he expected her to be. Instead of his beautiful co-star and the only woman he thought he might have feelings for, there was just a wall of rock and dirt blocking the exit. She couldn’t be under all that. She had to have somehow passed him or even better, made it out because there was no way anyone could survive being buried under all that rubble.

As he looked for a sign of her, he noticed some rocks fall as the dust began to settle. Attracted by the movement, he spotted Jenna’s arm move and her hand desperately trying to grab onto something before it went limp.

“Jen!” Mike screamed as he scrambled to reach her.

More dirt and rock fell, forcing Mike to retreat. “Shit, shit, shit!” He looked around for a shovel or a pry bar, anything to help him dig her out before it was too late. He knew how to perform CPR and he also knew he had between four and seven minutes before brain damage would start. If he couldn’t get her out in ten minutes or less, there was nothing anyone could do for her.

His quick search turned up nothing he could use as a tool; he only had the one light and his hands. He quickly propped the light back up on its tripod and waded back into the cave in, using his hands to scoop away the loose dirt and rock that had covered up Jen’s arm. “Jen! I’m coming, don’t give up babe. I’ll dig you out!”

As he excavated her arm, more loose rocks fell from above, causing him to briefly hesitated, but after the initial fall, things seemed to stabilize. He got her left arm free to her shoulder, but she was lying face down with a watermelon-sized boulder pinning the top of her head.

Fearing the worst and dreading that he would find her skull crushed by the heavy rock, Mike carefully lifted and rolled it off her. The left side of her face and temple was covered in blood and he couldn’t spot any signs of breathing, but otherwise, her skull appeared to be in good shape.

He frantically worked to free the rest of her body. Once he got her right arm and shoulders free, he had enough room to try mouth to mouth respiration in an attempt to get some air into her lungs. He noticed that her lips still felt warm against his and it gave him hope. He dug a little more and freed the top of her chest to give her lungs room to expand. He tried to pull her out, but her body wouldn’t budge.

“Come on Jen, breathe!” Mike screamed at her as he tried to force another breath of air into her lungs. He ignored the fact that her lips felt cooler compared to the last time. “Damnit, I know I never told you this, but I love you and I’m not going to let you die!”

Beyond desperate and full of adrenalin, Mike dug like a man possessed. His fingers bled as he ignored the pain of his nails and fingers being torn against large and sometimes jagged rocks. His upper body was covered with many minor cuts and scrapes as he selflessly protected Jenna’s body from further injury as more debris fell under his onslaught.

He stopped digging every twenty to thirty seconds to try and perform some CPR on Jenna, hoping beyond hope for a miracle that deep down inside, he knew wouldn’t happen. Her lips and skin were cold to his touch and her eyes stared sightlessly at him each time he tried to breathe life into her rapidly cooling body.

It took him over twenty minutes before he was able to completely free her and pull her body from the rubble. She was pretty damn heavy for a woman, but he barely noticed the weight as he gently set her body down on the only clear, flat spot he could find. As he aimed the light on her body, he thought he heard her exhale, but figured it was only his imagination.

“Damn it Jenna!” Mike cried as exhausted, he dropped to his knees beside her. “Why? Why’d you have to push me instead of saving yourself?”

Jenna suddenly coughed and breathed in a large lung full of air on her own. Mike gasped with astonishment as she turned her head and smiled at him. “Because, you’d be dead ya big idiot--”

Mike couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a miracle. She was alive! Forgetting that she could have spinal or other internal injuries, he ignored her protests and hugged her, pulling her off the cave floor. “Oh my god! I thought I’d lost you!”

Jenna coughed, reminding him of her condition.

“Shit, sorry Jen…” Mike gently lowered her back down, “I thought you were dead and I didn’t know what I’d do without you!”

“Ha!” Jenna chuckled as she propped herself up on her elbows. “You’d just move on to your next super-model conquest, but hey, thanks for digging me out.”

Jenna’s sexy, black villain minion costume was dirty, cut and torn in many places with dark stains around a few of the larger costume tears. Mike was surprised that she didn’t appear to have any broken bones or actively bleeding cuts. He was even more surprised when she absently brushed away some caked on dirt and dried blood from a large cut on her right thigh because underneath was dirty, but otherwise, perfectly smooth and unblemished skin.

“What?!” Mike bent over and examined her leg closer. There was no sign of injury. “How?” He glanced back at her as she casually pulled her leg away and stood, ignoring him as she stretched her body and causing her spine to crack.

“Ahh, much better!” Jenna smiled down at him before taking a quick glance around the cave. “I’m dying of thirst. There any water in here?”

“I don’t know, but how are you...” Confused, Mike started to stand, but Jenna reached down and gave him a hand up.

Mike was afraid to let go of her hand. The physical contact was proof that he wasn’t dreaming and he was elated that she was alive, but at the same time, he was very confused. She had stopped breathing and despite his attempts, she hadn’t taken in a breath on her own for over twenty minutes. He felt pretty damn sure of that fact. After being crushed under tons of earth and twenty minutes with no visible respiration, she shouldn’t be alive, let alone standing and joking with him.

Jenna sighed with resignation. “Can’t you just let it go?” She asked softly, glancing away as if she was afraid to meet his eyes.

“Jenna,” Mike reached for her other hand and brought them both to his chest, “I thought I lost you and it was at that moment, when I felt your lips growing colder by the second that I realized-”

Jenna gasped and her eyes shot to his dirt and tear stained face. “No…” she softly whispered in protest as her eyes began to tear up.

Viewing her emotional reaction as an encouraging sign, Mike plunged forward because she had to know how he really felt about her, even if she didn’t feel the same way. “Yes, Jennifer Vasquez. I love you and I can honestly admit that you’re the only woman I’ve ever felt this way about.” He hugged her as she began to softly cry.

Mike affectionately kissed Jen on the top of her forehead. “I don’t care if you don’t love me, but the sight of you trapped, helpless and maybe dead in the rubble made me realize how I truly felt about you.”

Jenna felt herself regaining consciousness in stages. The first sense to return was hearing and she wondered who was crying. She heard Mike’s voice call her name and whine about it being her instead of him who had been trapped.

Her sense of touch returned next. Somehow, she was lying on her back and was no longer buried under tons of rocks. She also didn’t feel any pain, but wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad sign. Her vision went from black to grey to blurry blobs before finally returning to the crisp, sharp focus she was used to seeing.

“Damn it Jenna!” She heard Mike protest from her side. “Why? Why’d you have to push me instead of saving yourself?”

He was kneeling beside her covered in dirt and sweat, bleeding from minor cuts to his face and neck. His shirt was torn and blood stained and his arms and hands looked like he needed some first aid, but she thoroughly enjoyed seeing the shocked expression on his face when she coughed and drew in her first, sweet, full breath of air into her chest. She grinned at his reaction. “Because, you’d be dead ya big idiot--”

“Ack!” Jenna gasped with surprise when Mike pulled her to his chest and hugged her like she was a life vest and he was afraid to let her go.

“Oh my god! I thought I’d lost you!” Mike’s desperate hug forced some air out of her abused lungs. She coughed, causing Mike to gently lower her back down to the cave floor. “Shit, sorry Jen…I thought you were dead and I didn’t know what I’d do without you!”

“Ha!” Jenna chuckled and levered her torso up, resting on her elbows as her strength slowly returned. “You’d just move on to your next super-model conquest, but hey, thanks for digging me out.”

Glancing down to her legs, she noticed that her costume was torn pretty badly and spots were covered with caked on dirt and blood. She couldn’t let Mike see the blood. He might start asking questions. Casually, she reached down and brushed away some of the dirt to get rid of the evidence.

Mike was a little more observant than she expected. “What?!?!” He moved his body to let the light shine on her exposed leg. He glanced back to her, confusion written in his eyes. “How?”

Jenna decided to play it off, stand and stretch. A few joints in her spine cracked, sending waves of relief through her body. “Ahh, much better!” She glanced down to a still stunned Mike and grinned. He obviously wasn’t ready to let it go yet, but her mouth and throat felt like she had been stuck in the desert.

“I’m dying of thirst,” she glanced away, looking behind her and towards the area around the light, “there any water in here?”

Mike winced as he started to stand. Jenna reached down and gently helped him to his feet. Still holding and unwilling to let her hand go, he turned to her. “I don’t know, but how are you...” He asked clearly shaken by her miraculous recovery from certain death.

Jenna’s smile faded as she sighed with resignation. Why did he have to be so damn curious and why did he have to look like he really cared about her?

“Can’t you just let it go?” She asked, softly as she glanced away, ashamed to meet his eyes.

“Jenna.” Mike surprised her when he gently took her other hand and pulled her hands together against his chest. She could feel his heart beating like a drum. “I thought I lost you and it was at that moment,” he blinked as his eyes began to tear up, “when I felt your lips growing colder by the second that I realized something.”

No, the man standing here getting ready to bare his heart and soul to her can’t be the Mighty Mike Powers she loved to watch kick bad guys’ butts and admire him for his way with women both on the set and off. Jenna searched his dirty and tear-stained face and saw only pure honesty in his eyes.

“No…” she whispered as her throat caught and tears began to slowly drip from her eyes.

Mike stared earnestly into her eyes. “Yes, Jennifer Vasquez. I love you and I can honestly admit that you’re the only woman I’ve ever felt this way about.”

Jenna felt confused as conflicting emotions warred with each other. She loved Natalie with all her heart, but she felt a portion of it melt for him. With that realization, she started to cry. In response, he pulled her tight against his strong muscular chest making her feel even more confused as she realized how warm and protected his arms made her feel. Is this how Natalie feels when Hector hugs her?

Mike leaned forward and she felt his lips lightly kiss the top of her head. His chest rose and shuddered as he took a deep breath before continuing. “I don’t care if you don’t love me, but the sight of you trapped, helpless and maybe dead in the rubble made me realize how I truly felt about you.”

Jenna didn’t know what to do or what to say. This wasn’t supposed to happen to her. Mike was supposed to be an unrepentant, womanizing asshole and she, as Hector, was in love with Natalie and going to marry her. Hector wasn’t gay and there was no way he could love another man, but now, Jenna wasn’t sure because she felt something for Mike and it wasn’t just a bro-mance. Did that damn alien machine mess with her mind or did she just spend too much time as a woman? Was what she thought she might be feeling just a natural part of being a woman?

“Mike...” Jenna reluctantly pulled away from him, unable to find an answer to her questions and not sure what to tell him.

She could see the pain in his eyes when she didn’t respond to his declaration and feeling ashamed of herself for being such a coward, she turned away from him. “Umm, we should probably start trying look for a way out of here and maybe see if we can signal the others to let them know we’re okay.”

“Yeah, good idea…” Mike hollowly replied, driving an unseen dagger deeper into her heart. He chuckled, making it sound like he wasn’t hurt. “You’re right. It’s a good thing you’re a real secret agent while I just play one in the movies because I’m sure all that training of yours will come in handy in here, right?”

“Yeah, I think so…” Jenna absently nodded and wiped away her tears before she turned back to face him. CIA Special Agent Vasquez was her cover and now it was time to live up to his expectations. “I’ll go listen near the cave-in and maybe bang some rocks against the wall to signal the rescuers.”

Jenna placed her ear against the wall and heard some random muffled banging coming through the rock. It sounded like they were trying to dig them out. Hector wasn’t a miner, but as a construction worker, he had a fair understanding of geology and natural rock. There were a lot of roads where they had to blast and dig out hills to put a road through. As a result, Jenna felt fairly confident in her assessment that there was at least five or more meters of rock between them and freedom.

“Can you hear anything?” Mike whispered as he absently placed his hand against her back.

“Yep. There is someone out there, but I don’t think they are going to be able to reach us anytime soon.” Jenna grabbed a fist-sized rock and tested it by lightly tapping it against the cave wall.

“Why do you think that? Can’t they just use the tractor thing and dig us out?”

“The backhoe?” Jenna slowly shook her head. “No, at least not right away. It’s on the other side of the island and this cave is halfway up the hillside. They would need to dig out a stable platform before they even start using it to dig for us.”

“Oh…” Mike didn’t sound encouraged by the news and he didn’t argue with her over how she could know so much.

Jenna started to bang out a modified S.O.S. against the wall. Dot Dot Dot for the “S” was easy, but the Dash Dash Dash for the “O” was a little harder. She settled with a pair of rapid, double dots to try and simulate a dash, but she was hardly a morse code expert and she wasn’t even sure if anyone would hear her signal.

She beat out the signal for a minute, and then paused for a minute to listen against the wall for an acknowledgement. After ten minutes and five cycles of hearing nothing in return, she decided to try for an hour before giving up. After fifteen minutes, Mike wandered away and rummaged around in the area where they had been filming. He returned with an unopened bottle of water and at the sight of it she greedily grabbed it and gulped it down.

Her body was starving for energy and the water helped, but she knew she needed to get some food in her soon. It wasn’t until she handed the empty bottle back to Mike that she even considered his needs. “Oh crap. Please tell me you found more than just one bottle…”

Mike slowly shook his head. “No, not yet, but I can go look some more. Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you needed it more than I do.”

Thirty minutes in, she put her ear against the wall and was surprised to hear a rhythmic tapping in return. “Mike! They heard me!”

“Whoa! See, I told you your spy training would come in handy.” Mike proudly grinned at her. “What are they saying?”

Jenna didn’t have the heart to tell him that she didn’t know. S.O.S. was really the only codes she knew. “Umm, not sure yet…” She placed her ear back against the wall.

“Dot DotDot Dot - Dot Dot DotDot - DotDot DotDot DotDot - DotDot Dot DotDot” The sequence paused for a few seconds and repeated itself for another minute before stopping.

She recognized the “O”, but the rest was Greek to her. “I don’t know. It’s letter, letter, O, letter. We covered Morse code once, but I never used it so the only thing I remember is the S.O.S., sorry.” Jenna cringed, knowing she was letting Mike down.

She wished Sadie was here because she would know what the codes meant and if not, she could’ve activated her massive arm cannon and blown a hole in the side of the mountain. Why did she have to pick a hero like Wolverine and Snake Eyes with his stupid ninja costume and sword? A light saber would’ve been a better choice for swords!

Jenna replied with the SOS code sequence and prayed they would understand. A minute later, the return message was even shorter. “DotDot DotDot DotDot - DotDot Dot DotDot”

“It’s O something now.” Jenna glanced over her shoulder to Mike.

“Could it be ‘OK’?” He shrugged.

Excited that they seemed to be making some progress, Jenna jumped up and surprised Mike with an enthusiastic hug. “Yes, that’s got to be it!”

Realizing what she had done, she blushed and let him go. “Umm, sorry. Did you find any more water?”

Mike shook his head. “Not yet, but I think the guys went a little deeper and I didn’t want to move the light.”

Jenna sighed with remorse. “Sorry about that. Keep the bottle. We might be able to find some natural water deeper in the cave.”

“Good plan.” Mike grinned and saluted her with the empty bottle.

Jenna sighed. “Well, I’m going to reply with OK and see if they have any ideas.”

The next message was four characters followed by a long pause and OK. Neither of them could figure it out. Jenna replied with SOS again. The message after that was five characters followed by a long pause and OK.

Jenna and Mike thought it over and simultaneously arrived at the same conclusion. “It’s our names!”

“They’re asking if you and I are okay.” Jenna jumped back to the rock messaging device and hammered out M-I-K-E--O-K followed by J-E-N-N-A--O-K, repeated for the full minute.

They spent the next hour getting an education in Morse code by playing a game of Hang-man. As her letter vocabulary grew, they were able to pass on detailed messages about their situation and receive rescue updates. As Jenna thought, it was going to take them at least a day to get the heavy equipment here, but a U.S. Navy Seabee team specializing in tunnels and mining was on their way too. They were told to hold tight and stay safe.

Jenna suggested they use the light and explore a little. They needed water more than anything else, but finding a back door wouldn’t hurt. Mike carried the light as they worked together to expand their knowledge of the cave system. After half an hour and a lot of dead ends, they were forced to stop their exploration when they came across a vertical shaft leading deeper into the cave.

It was deep, deeper than the light could penetrate. Jenna dropped a small rock and after it clattered against the unseen cave floor a few times, she thought she heard a faint splashing sound of the rock hitting water.

“I can climb down.” Jenna sat on the edge, prepared to begin her descent when Mike stopped her.

Mike protectively held her arm. “No, it’s not safe and I’m not about to let you risk your life again.”

Jenna debated activated her Snake Eyes suit and climbing down using the built in gecko pads that Greg had built into the hands and feet of her costume, but to do so would give away her secret. No, he was right, they were going to be rescued and unless something changed, she should wait.

Feeling defeated, the pair trudged back to the cave in and sat next to each other.

After a minute or two, Mike pulled her close to him and she didn’t fight him on it. Instead, she found it somewhat comforting and his chest was far more comfortable than the hard rock wall. After thirty minutes of just sitting silently and contemplating their lives, Jenna noticed the light starting to dim. Alarmed, she pulled away from him. “Merde! We need to shut off the light when we’re not using it.”

The cave was plunged into total darkness and it took Jenna a couple of seconds to navigate by touch back to Mike’s side. Now that Mike couldn’t see, she once again debated cheating and using her Snake Eyes costume with its thermographic vision mode, but there wasn’t a strong enough reason yet.

She was still very thirsty and after digging her out, Mike had to be just as bad. She knew she could easily make the climb and they needed water sooner, rather than later, but she didn’t want Mike to worry about her. Instead, she decided to sneak away and get some water after Mike fell asleep.

The island was in the Pacific and the Japanese used caves and tunnels a lot during World War Two. Maybe there was another way out or some usable supplies left over from the war. A rope would be handy, but she wasn’t sure if she would be willing to trust a fifty plus year old rope with Mike’s life.

With her plan of action worked out, she leaned against Mike. He moved his arm and drew her body against his chest. She felt pretty comfortable and a little guilty for letting Mike bear the brunt.

His heartbeat sounded strong and reassuring to her as they both began to relax. She tried to justify her close proximity with Mike as hyperthermia prevention. The cave floor was less than body temp and prolonged exposure could reduce a person’s core body temperature, but she was forced to admit that wasn’t the reason.

Jenna sighed with unexpected contentment before bringing up the topic of survival. “This is nice, but we need water and if they can’t dig us out soon, we --meaning me, since your hands are injured and you’re the star-- might need to climb down that shaft.”

“Maybe,” Mike chuckled and gave her body a light squeeze before letting her go. He was silent for a few seconds before he sighed heavily. “So, are you going to explain to me how you managed to live after being crushed to death?”

Jenna found her breath catch her throat as she hurriedly contemplated what to tell her co-star.   She couldn't tell him the truth, but she had to give him something that sounded plausible.   She had the secret agent story in play, it had some supporting evidence and he believed it.  She decided to add a few more layers to the established lie.

Mike chuckled, interrupting her train of thought. “You’re going to lie to me, aren’t you?”

“No…” Jenna sighed with resignation and rested her head on his chest. “Okay, not completely, but since you know I’m an ex-CIA agent; I guess I can tell you most of the truth, but you’re probably not going to believe it.”

“Oh, you don’t think I can handle the truth?” Mike adlibbed the famous movie line perfectly, causing Jenna to smile.

“Ha!” Jenna pulled away and poked him lightly in his chest. “You totally can’t handle the truth!” She said with a passable Jack Nicholson impression.

He responded with a chuckle and pulled her back to his side. After a slight pause, Mike resumed his line of questioning. “So, are you going to tell me or what?”

“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya. I’m not sure your oversized male ego can handle finding out that a girl can kick your ass,” She smirked as she considered how hypocritical she sounded to herself. Hector used to look up to this man. “But no telling anyone else and I do mean no one, got it?”

Jenna pulled away from his warm embrace and looked in the general direction that she assumed his face was in.  She thought about activating her Snake Eyes goggles so she could see him, but decided against it.

“Yep, Top Secret, CIA stuff. Go directly to jail, do not collect 200 bucks, got it!” Mike chuckled.

“Exactly!” Jenna nervously licked her lips before continuing. She decided to sprinkle in a little of the truth. “Okay, so it started when I was in the Army. I went in as a 12N or Horizontal Construction Engineer and no jokes about “horizontal” being a euphemism for sex!” She paused, expecting him to say something. “Anyway, I figured being an engineer and building things was not only a safe job, but a good career when I got out because people are always building roads, right?”

“Uh, huh…” Mike dubiously replied. “I just can’t believe that a woman as beautiful as you, was in the Army.”

Jenna agreed with him because women in the construction field was incredibly rare and beauty had nothing to do with it. Now it was time to lay on the bull shit and pray that he believed her. “Anyway, I was in Iraq and my vehicle got hit by an IED. I was hurt pretty bad and airlifted out. The docs expected me to lose my legs, maybe an arm and my intestines were pretty bad. That was if I didn’t die first, but a doc from a secret project showed up at my bed and offered me a chance.  I took it and now I’m here.” She purposefully left out a lot of details from her superhero origin story. She hoped that Mike wouldn’t think ask for specific and technical details.

“Whoa, now that is a pretty big gap. What happened? Did they inject you with on of those super soldier serum or some other top secret thing?”

Mike’s imagination was pretty good and it gave her an idea on how to fill in the gaps. “Well,” Jenna pretended to hesitate. “This is all Top Secret, but, it was kinda like Captain America’s super soldier serum.  It fixed me up in no time. Gave me super regeneration, strength and reflexes. but it hurt like hell because pain meds didn’t work.”

“That’s cool. So, the Army has a bunch of super soldiers now?”

Jenna laughed as she figured out a reason why the Army didn’t have a ton of super soldiers if her results worked.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, the serum worked for me, but it didn’t work on men. They canceled the program as soon as they found that little defect out because having an army of super women didn’t appeal to leadership.”

“Why didn’t it work for men?  Seems like it should’ve.”

Jenna was very glad Mike couldn’t see her face because his question was pretty good. She wracked her brain for a good answer. “Well, I’m not sure, but I think it was because women have two copies of the X chromosome, while men only have one. You know, XX and XY?”  She paused for a second, waiting for him to call bullshit and when he didn’t, she forged ahead. “So, that’s why I can kick your butt. Happy?”

Mike laughed. “You’re still leaving a lot out babe because that doesn’t explain why you’re so heavy.”

Damn, he had to bring that little detail up. Jenna sighed with frustration. “Oh, that…” She hesitantly laughed as she thought of her favorite superhero’s origin story. “That kinda hurt, a lot.”

“Go on…” Mike encouraged her to continue.

“Before they figured out it wouldn’t work on men, they had one more enhancement. They figured that having stronger muscles wouldn’t help if it caused the soldiers to break their bones when using the strength…”

“Okay…”

“So, they figured out a way to replace all my bones with a super strong metal alloy and that’s what added the weight.”  Jenna prayed he didn’t have any more questions.

“I see...” Mike paused, mulling over her story.

No, he really couldn’t see and Jenna was grateful for that because she was pretty sure her poker face sucked.  She really didn’t enjoy lying to people.

“So, what you’re saying is that the Army made you into a female Wolverine, right?”

“Umm, yeah?” Jenna hesitantly answered, worried about the direction his statement could go. Did he believe her story or was he going to call her on it?

“Well, that’s pretty damn cool! Do you have claws? How did you meet Natalie? I kinda thought you and her where, you know. Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” The questions gushed out of his mouth with no control or filter.

It took a second for Jenna to process his questions and figure out how to answer. “Yes. At a club. No, we’re not and who has the time?”

“So, you’re not a lesbian?” Mike completely ignored her origin story and skipped directly to his libido.

“Damn it Mike!” Jenna angrily pulled away. “I tell you my secret and all you care about is sex!”  She activated her Snake Eyes costume and it’s built in thermographic vision mode. The cave walls suddenly flared into being with bright shades of blue and green due to the heat differences. Looking back at Mike, he was mostly yellow and red.  

“Jenna, where did you go?” Mike glanced blindly around the cave as he reached out to try and find her by touch.  He shifted directions, heading for the light.

“Don’t use that. I’m here. Hand me the water bottle. I’m going to go get us some water before I do something I’ll regret!” Jenna expectantly held out her hand for a few seconds before she realized Mike couldn’t see her.  She leaned over and pulled the bottle from his hand.

She made it ten to fifteen feet away before the light flared to life behind her. “Damnit!” She spun back, “I told you not to waste the batteries. I can see fine without it.”

“What? How?” Mike stammered and reflexively aimed the light toward the woman wearing an armored ninja costume, complete with sword.

“That’s another story and based on what you really seem to care about, not one I’ll be telling you anytime soon. Now, turn the damn light off. I’ll be back in a fifteen to twenty minutes. Don’t come looking for me if not.” Jenna softened her tone as she realized what might happen to Mike if he had an accident in the cave. “Remember, I can heal and you can’t.”

“Umm, okay…” Mike clicked the light off as Jenna turned away. “Sorry and be safe.”

Jenna was a little surprised the jerk didn’t try to stop her, but then again, he probably realized that it would’ve been pointless for him to try.  His apology did surprise her. “I will. Don’t worry about me.”

It took her only a few minutes to find the vertical shaft leading deeper into the cave. Glancing down, it appeared to be between twenty and thirty feet and far too straight to be 100% natural.  Using her super-gecko gloves, she easily climbed down the shaft.  At the bottom, was the rotted remains of a wooden ladder, telling her that someone had been here in the past.  She followed her nose deeper into the cave system and found a larger cave with a small pool fed by a natural spring. 

After drinking her fill, she filled the water bottle. She debated heading back for Mike, but decided to explore a little more before she did. The cave had been used by people in the past and maybe there was another way out. 

Jenna used her sense of smell more than her vision to guide her.  She found more evidence of human habitation, but it all looked very old. Probably from World War 2, but it was hard for her to say.  Another decayed ladder and a small pile of animal skeletons gave her the first clue that she might have found a second exit. Looking up, she spotted a square hole cut into the ceiling of the cave.

The dead animals must have fallen down and died from the fall. The entrance to the hole was a little over ten feet and if not for her powers, it would’ve been hopelessly out of reach for her.  As it was, she simply crouched down and jumped up, easily reaching the start of the shaft. 

Her gecko gloves easily latched onto the wall of the artificially cut shaft, allowing her to pull herself completely into the shaft where she could use her feet to help with the climb.  The shaft went vertical for about forty feet before turning ninety degrees, creating a small ledge. On the ledge were a few more small animal skeletons and looking up, she noticed a small shaft starlight poking through about ten feet away. 

Checking the time with visor’s built in display, she decided to forgo freedom to return to Mike and give him the water and an update. She had been gone for twenty minutes and she didn’t want him doing something stupid. Not that she expected anything different from him at this point. 

A soft growl of frustration escaped her throat as she replayed his lesbian question.  She climbed back down the shaft and dropped soundlessly to the cavern floor below.  It took her less than five minutes to retrace her steps back to the shaft that led up to the part of the cave she left her macho co-star. 

Predictable, Jenna was met with a bright light and the idiot trying to figure out a way to spider climb down the shaft. “Damn it Mike! I told you I’d be back.” She yelled up at the man, stopping him from attempting his climb down.

“Hey, I was worried!” Mike yelled back. “You’ve been gone for over thirty minutes and I couldn’t take it any longer.”

“Geez, ya big baby. It was only twenty-five!” Jenna snickered, her anger momentarily forgotten.

“Fine, whatever. Did you find anything?”

“Yep, but you need to move you fat ass out of the way so I can climb back up there.”

“And that’s why I love her…” Mike softly muttered to himself as he stepped away from the top of the shaft, his voice too low for anyone else to hear.

Jenna caught his words and paused, tempted to yell at him for being an idiot, but stopped herself. Sighing heavily she jumped and quickly reached the top. 

“That is a cool costume.” Mike reached over to help her finish the climb.

Jenna brushed off his help. “I’m good and yes, yes it is.” She handed him the filled water bottle. “Drink. I found a good source of water and an exit, but there is zero chance you can make the climb.”

“Hey, I’ve had some training. I can climb it.”

“No, you can’t. One, look at your hands.” Jenna pointed to Mike’s cut up fingers. “Two, it’s a forty foot vertical shaft and Three, the opening to the shaft is in the ceiling of the cave, ten plus feet off the floor with no way to get your fat butt up there.”

“If you can do it, I can do it.”

Jenna reached over and lightly punched Mike’s arm with frustration. Her frustration caused her to punch him a little harder than she planned.  “Don’t give me that macho bullshit! Did you not listen to anything I said?!?!”

Mike winced and pulled away, rubbing his arm. “Of course I did babe, but we need to get out. So, I’ll just have to suck it up and do it.”

Jenna growled. “Stop calling me babe and no ‘you’ don’t. We have a rescue team outside. We tell them about the shaft and they can drop some climbing gear down so we can safely get your movie star ass outta here, got it?”

“Oh, yeah…” Mike glanced away, embarrassed. “Umm, so now what?”

“Drink, and I’ll see if I can’t reach the folks outside the cave with our Morse code trick.” Jenna pointed to the water bottle in Mike’s hand as she strode past him, back toward the cave in.

The stunt crew found the back door and using their copious supplies of professional climbing gear, they were easily able to drop the set’s medic, a few addition stunt men and a small camera crew into the cave. After the medic treated Mike’s hands, they extracted him and Jenna from the cave. 

Jenna wasn’t too keen on the camera crew showing up and documenting their ordeal, but Kelly was beyond ecstatic and filled with ideas on how to use the harrowing --her words-- cave-in and rescue to generate even more publicity for the film.

The next day, she found herself boarding the yacht to get back to Hawaii for the flight back to the states instead of the much faster cargo plane. Jenna really wanted to get home and away from Mike’s influence, but it seemed like the universe, the producer and Kelly were conspiring against her.

Jenna would’ve liked to say the three extra days on the yacht sucked, but they didn’t.  They were very relaxing and she was caught more than once by Kelly and Kim glancing at a bare chested Mike with an expression that looked suspiciously like affection showing in her eyes. Instead of sitting across the table and as far away as possible from Mike during meals, for some reason, she found herself gravitating to his side.

Embarrassingly for her, her friends didn’t point out her behavior until the evening before the third and final day of the trip. After realizing what she was doing, she tried to fight the feeling by using Mr. Happy while fantasizing about Natalie, but once again her body betrayed her.  It wasn’t until she starting coming down from an unusually powerful orgasm that she realized she had been thinking of Mike ravishing her body instead of Natalie.

Stunned and horrified by the revelation, Jenna spent the final day on the yacht avoiding Mike like the plague. She didn’t want anything to do with him and reciting the mantra that ‘knowing is half the battle’, she felt a dose of renewed confidence in her ability to resist the man’s charms.

Her resolve and confidence was tested when the pair arrived at the airport and were mobbed by the flashing cameras and news crews anxious for a few words from the heroes of a pirate attack.  Jenna was completely surprised to learn that Interpol had just released the news after making a ton of arrests the day before.  It wasn’t the news and the mob that upset her, it was the fact that her first reaction was to cling to Mike and look to him for protection.

Her reaction lasted less than a second before she caught herself, but with all the cameras; the damage was done.  Jenna found herself being referred to as Mike’s stunning co-star and girlfriend by the gossip magazines and even worse, the press.  She wanted to punch the man, but couldn’t with all the cameras and witnesses.  She also was forced to sit next to Mike for the flight.  Thankfully, the seats were first class and she had plenty of room to sit next to him without sitting in his lap like she would’ve been forced to do in the coach section.

An hour into the flight, Jenna was surprised by an adorable ten year old girl’s request for an autograph.  Glancing behind the girl, she spotted more than a few anxious and hopeful young faces peering her way. She used the opportunity to get away from Mike and meet her fans.  It was a new and uplifting experience for her to realize she had so many girls who knew her and looked up to her as a role model. She didn’t understand how they could know her so quickly. The movie was not even close to being released.

It wasn’t until she met and spoke with girl’s mother that she found out how popular the story about how she introduced two fans to each other was on the social media sites.  The news about the pirate attack and her official role only added fuel to the media frenzy.  She was known as the woman who wasn’t afraid to risk her life for her friends and was dating one of the most eligible bachelors in Hollywood.

Jenna managed to spend two hours away from Mike by speaking with her fans in coach class. It wasn’t until the plane hit a little turbulence that she was forced to return to her assigned seat.  Even though she knew it wasn’t his fault, she blamed Mike and used that as an excuse to keep herself from falling for his attempts to engage her in conversation. For the rest of the flight, she pretended to read a book and kept her responses as short as possible to avoid looking at him.

She also used a small amount of perfume in an effort prevent his intoxicating masculine scent from invading her nose.  She was only partially successful. Her enhanced sense of smell was too good and it betrayed her by filtering out her own scent to track the one her body wanted.  She never felt happier to see Sadie and Natalie waiting for her in baggage claim, just so she could get away from Mike and back home with Natalie. She prayed Jenna’s influence would go away once she returned to being Hector.

The first few weeks back had been a little frustrating for Hector. The first week back, Jenna was forced to put in a solid week of 12 to 14 hour days doing retakes and voice overs for CGI effects, which kept Hector from enjoying his time with Natalie.

Once he was finally able to be himself for a few days, Hector was immensely relieved to learn that he wasn’t at all attracted to men and it made him feel a little ashamed because he hated feeling like a homophobic jerk.  He discovered that it took about six hours before his sexual preferences would start to shift to match his body’s gender.  He used that knowledge to minimize his time spent as Jenna and thus, reduce his confusion about Mr. Powers.

As a result, as soon as Jenna returned home from the studio after a day of retakes, she jumped into the shower and shifted back to Hector. Once, she felt a little reluctant to shift back, but she reminded herself that Hector loved Natalie.  In the morning, before returning to the studio, Hector waited until the last minute before he shifted back to Jenna. The strategy seemed to do the trick. Jenna was able to easily ignore Mike and return to having more of a professionally friendly relationship with the man. 

It had been almost a month since he returned from the island and well over six months since Hector had been in the bar he frequented with his construction worker friends. After he exchanged greetings and some banter with his former work crew, he debated if setting up a meeting with Sadie at his favorite watering hole was a good idea.  He and Greg occasionally met each other a couple of times and it was never a problem, but at the time, Greg was a guy. Sure, he was an accountant and viewed as a REMF by his fellow construction workers, but since he was Hector’s friend, they only mildly teased him about his cushy office job. 

Now that Greg was literally a robo-babe, Hector expected Sadie to be bear the brunt of an entirely new level of abuse from his rough and tumble former co-workers.  She was coming directly from the office and he expected her to be dressed in high-end white collar fashion. Making her stand out even more in the firmly blue collar establishment. She was due to arrive any minute now and he had no idea what would happen when she walked in.  It did not go well for the last white collar woman who dared to intrude.  The poor woman must have thought she was going to be raped due to all the cat calls and whistles from the burly and sun-burnt construction workers.

His old Army buddy Ratchet was belly up to the bar nursing a beer.  Hector caught his eye and gave him the signal that he needed to talk to him.  His plan was to ask Ratchet to be his best man, but the plan went to hell with Sadie’s arrival.   She surprised him by being dressed in a casual outfit, but her super-model height and good looks accented by her eye catching, flaming red hair, skintight jeans, high heel ankle boots matched to a modest top drew the eyes of every red blooded male in the room, including his. 

The door closed behind her and the conversation halted in an ever expanding ripple like a stone thrown into a calm pond. Her eyes locked onto him, bringing a friendly smile to her face as she confidently began to make her way to his table. In her wake, she left a smattering of love struck men as she politely, with just enough force to sting, smacked their wandering hands away.  Hector briefly wondered if she wanted to be in Jenna’s next movie.  She would make an excellent villainess or femme fatale. Hell, put some glasses on her and pull her hair up and she might even manage to pull off the sexy tech geek look.

Hector, along with every man in the bar, tensed when Ratchet politely stopped her advance with a light touch on her shoulder to get her attention. His buddy was a pretty big guy, but a teddy bear at heart. He prayed that Sadie didn’t take his friend’s advances the wrong way. 

“Pardon me ma’am, can I get you a drink?” Ratchet’s deep, bass voice easily carried across the still silent bar area as every man ached to know what was going to happen.  It was uncanny how much of an effect Sadie’s presence had on the men.  Hector made a mental note to himself to never come here as Jenna.

Sadie smiled politely and gestured toward Hector. “Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. I’m just here to meet my friend Hector.”

Ratchet spun around on his barstool and angrily scowled at Hector.  “Damnit Hector! It’s been six months since we saw your ugly face and you’re already back to your old tricks!”

Hector chuckled, leaned back in his chair and blew on his fingers as if they were burning.  His reputation as a lady killer was still intact and thanks to Sadie, even stronger. He decided the best course was to play along. “Hey, what can I say? When you’re hot, you’re hot.”

The bar erupted with laughter and the conversion returned to its normal level as the men accepted Sadie as off limits.  Ratchet chuckled and stood, revealing his full six, close to seven foot height. The man was like a brick wall and not for the first time, Hector wondered why his friend never tried out for the NFL. He would make an excellent defensive lineman.

“Make a hole for the lady!” Ratchet bellowed, using his best Army drill sergeant voice while he forced his way toward Hector’s table, pulling a bemused Sadie along in his wake.

“I’ve seen Michelle and she’s not her. Yer not thinking about cheating on her, are ya!?” The imposing giant glowered at Hector.

“Nope, she’s not Natalie, but sorry, she’s already married, two babies. She’s here to go over some of the wedding plans,” Hector chuckled, “but I think I should’ve picked a better location.” He turned to Sadie. “Sadie, meet Ratchet. Ratchet, Sadie.”

Sadie’s startled gasp reminded Hector that Ratchet was the name of an Autobot. He knew Ratchet was also a Transformers fan and he prayed he didn’t make the connection with Sadie and Arcee. Not that he expected him to. Sadie looked human and that bit of trivia was pretty esoteric and he didn’t think his buddy was that big of a Transformer’s nerd.

“Nice to meet you, umm, Ratchet.” Sadie stumbled a little over his friend’s name as she politely shook his hand. “You’re a Transformers fan?”

“Ha!” Ratchet’s face broke into a big grin. “My real name’s Tom, but my friends call me Ratchet. Not many people get the name, but yeah, I fix the big machines that this,” he gestured to Hector, “knucklehead likes to break and the nickname kinda stuck.”

Hector sighed and shook his head. “Can I help it if the previous operator ran over something and weakened the track?”

“Right buddy, sure.” Ratchet chuckled. “If that helps you sleep at night while yours truly is stuck fixing the track, in the pouring rain and with mud up to top of his boots.”

Hector leaned back in his chair and took a sip from his beer. “Ya big baby! And who was there helping you?”

“Ahh, I know. Just giving ya shit bro.” Ratchet pulled away a chair and politely motioned for Sadie to sit before he took a second chair, reversed it and sitting down on it backwards.  “So, you said you needed to talk to me about something. Is now a good time?”

Hector glanced guiltily over to Sadie for a brief moment. “Yeah, I guess so. We’ve know each other for, well, a while and we served together. So, how would you like to be my best man?”

He could tell Sadie was momentarily saddened by his question, but she seemed to recover quickly. Ratchet responded exactly how expected him to with a hearty “Hell yes!” and an order for a few rounds of tequila shots and not the cheap stuff either.

Much to his chagrin, Ratchet decided to recount some of their Iraq war stories. Not really war since they never did combat patrols like the infantry, but they did come under fire a few times and had their share of craptastic situations. 

After their third round, Ratchet chuckled and glanced over to Hector. “Hey, you remember that time the company was convoying to a site and the whole way there the lead vehicle was blasting 'America, Fuck Yeah!' at full volume?”

Hector grinned apologetically at Sadie as she looked on with confusion, not getting the joke. It was kind of something where you had to be there to really understand, but he found himself laughing as he recalled the aftermath. “Yeah, the LT was not happy about it when he found out, but I thought it was pretty damn funny when the MPs guarding the gate at the next FOB actually fell down laughing as we passed through!”

After a few more shared experiences, Ratchet left the pair to get some grub.  Sadie surprised Hector by giving his buddy a hug before he left the table. “He’s pretty nice. I’m glad he was available for you.” She said after she returned to her seat and Ratchet was out of earshot.

Hector sighed, once again regretting his lack of tact in asking Ratchet in front of Sadie. “Yeah, me too and sorry.”
 

“Hey, de nada. Shit happens.” Sadie smirked mischievously. “I’m just glad I’m going to be able to witness the taming of El Gran Lobo.”

“Ha!” Hector laughed at Sadie using his old lady killer nickname before his thoughts fondly returned to Natalie. “Yeah, Natalie’s the One, ya know?”

Sadie smiled and nodded with agreement. “Yep, I know how you feel.” She sat forward. “So, how’s things going with you being,” She furtively glance around the bar, “Umm, away?”

“It’s been, no is, very weird.” Hector sighed, his frustration with being Jenna resurfaced. He was regretting his decision more and more as his time as Jenna grew exponentially. “She’s taking over my life. I was only supposed to be her for one night, just to see what it was like, ya know?”

“Oh yeah, I totally know…” Sadie nodded, solemnly agreeing with him as only someone who had also jumped the gender fence could.

“Yeah, but then I met Natalie and everything changed. Then, it was the chance to be in a movie and now, all hell is breaking loose because when I’m Jenna, it’s like I really am Jenna. She’s starting to like Mike and that totally creeps me out.” Hector shuddered with revulsion as his thoughts crossed over and into the forbidden homosexual zone. “I feel like I have a split personality or something.”

“Hmmm, I’m not sure if I can help you because I’m not exactly a normal woman,” Sadie sighed, looking disappointed, “but I’m guessing that when you’re Jenna, your body’s female chemistry impact how you think and feel.” She paused, searching his face for understanding.

Hector considered what she said and he found himself nodding with agreement. He wasn’t a doctor, nor did he know a ton about how the male body versus the female body actually worked, but it kind of made sense.

Sadie continued with her explanation. “Estrogen and Testosterone are pretty powerful and as Jenna, the balance of hormones are a bit different from what you’re used to.  Combine that with the amount of time you spent being subconsciously socialized as a woman, and well, I think you get the idea.  You, as Hector are a heterosexual male, which means that Jenna is probably a heterosexual female, or maybe bi.”

Hector didn’t feel comfortable with her theory. It made sense and seemed to match his own observations, but he didn’t like the idea that he, as Jenna might be attracted to men. “Maybe you’re on to something there, but it’s not easy for me to adjust to the idea. I kind of hope the movie is a flop and everyone will forget about Jenna.”

Sadie smirked and shook her head. “I dunno if you can count on that bud. The movie is looking to be one of the most anticipated new releases for this year and the trailers look awesome.”

The news wasn’t what Hector wanted to hear, even though he knew it was true.  “Merde, I know. Hell, even I’m looking forward to watching the damn thing.” Hector sighed, finished off his beer and ordered another, plus a burger while Sadie simply ordered a water. The two sat in companionable silence until his drink arrived.

The next problem he needed to tackle was how to deal with Mr. Powers’ request to join Jenna at the wedding.  Hector didn’t see how it was possible and he debated long and hard before even thinking about asking Sadie, but something, probably Jenna, wanted Mr. Powers to be at the wedding.

“So,” Hector anxiously leaned forward, “I have a question for you.”

“Yeah?” Sadie cocked her head inquisitively to the side.

He wanted to back out and just have Jenna tell Mike it wasn’t possible, but he couldn’t figure out a good enough reason. “Mr. Powers heard about the wedding from Jill, Jenna’s makeup artist who is doing the makeup for the wedding, and he wants to come to the wedding, with Jenna and I know you’re not too jazzed about being a bridesmaid, right?”

“Yeah…” Sadie hesitantly agreed. 

He said it, now it was time to go for it. He prayed she told him no. “I know this is a crazy idea and I don’t even know if it’s possible, but can you be Jenna at my wedding?”

Sadie gasped, momentarily shocked by his request, but after a second of thought, leaned back in her seat as she mulled over the idea. “I’m not sure...”

Hector felt conflicting emotions as his friend kind of zoned out. He wanted her to say no, but his Jenna side wanted her to say yes.

Looking back up to his eyes, Sadie slowly nodded. “I think I can, but I’d need to get a good scan of Jenna and to help pull it off, I’d also need to spend some time with her to copy her mannerisms, but,”  she crossed her arms and leaned back into her chair, “There’s just one problem, Natalie. Okay, two, Michelle and the babies.”

Hector understood why Sadie’s wife and the kids might be a problem, but we wasn’t sure why Natalie would be an issue. “Michelle I get, but why Natalie?”

“Simple, she will want to have Jenna, her BFF, as a bridesmaid.”

“Oh yeah...She would.” Hector sighed with resignation as he realized how much more he was asking his friend to do for him, no for Jenna.

“On the plus side, I think Michelle would find the idea hilarious and Grandma has already offered to watch the twins. So, I’d be willing to try. Besides, it could be fun to be a movie star for a day, right?” Sadie smirked as timed her response with Hector taking a swig of his beer, causing him to cough.

“Yeah, only a day…” Hector chuckled and smiled at Sadie. “Thanks, but there is one more wedding ‘opportunity’. Wheelie.”

Hector never felt more happy, nervous and terrified at the same time in his life. Natalie, his bride and love of his life was being escorted down the aisle by her father.  She looked so beautiful and radiant in her wedding gown. His heart was near bursting with joy, but a traitorous thought escaped from the depths of his mind when he wondered how Jenna would look wearing a wedding gown.  He hastily beat it back and chained it down with triple pad locks.

He stole a quick glance at Sadie out of the corner of his eyes. She, as Jenna, looked fabulous in the bridesmaid’s dress. Without even trying, Jenna somehow turned the frumpy dress into something stunning, easily outshining all the other bridesmaids. He felt a touch of guilt over that. It was his fault that Jenna was so damn beautiful, but for some reason, he thought Sadie looked a little sad as her eyes tracked Natalie.  He decided to ask her about it later.

His parents looked happy. Natalie’s Mom looked happy. Hell, even the womanizing bastard, Mike Powers looked happy, but he had one of Hector’s, barely legal, female cousins sitting next to him.  Hector forced himself not to growl and focus on his bride instead.  Except for Mike being here, everything was going well.  Hell, even Wheelie was doing a bang up job as the ring bearer. His presence raised a few eyebrows, but overall, the guests seemed to find it more cute and funny than tacky.

Ratchet cut an imposing figure in his tux. The tuxedo rental company had to custom order and fit his suit. The man was huge, but other than Greg, there was no one else he would rather have as his best man.  Even better, it looked like Ratchet’s dry spell with women might be at an end because Julie, the Maid of Honor, looked like she might have a thing for him. The two of them had been mighty friendly during the rehearsals.

The ceremony itself was relatively short. It took the priest less than thirty minutes to get the happy couple to seal the deal with a kiss.  Natalie never looked happier and he never felt happier in his life. It was kind of strange how happy he felt to be committed to one woman when during his wild and woolly single years, the slightest hint that a girlfriend was thinking about the big M word would cause him to run for the hills.

“You look happy!” Natalie whispered into his ear after they broke their first kiss.

“I am. Never been happier and it took all my willpower not to run down the aisle and ravish you when you started walking down the aisle.” Hector replied, causing her to laugh as the flashbulbs fired from all the guests taking their picture.

“Save your energy for the honeymoon big boy!” Natalie giggled, smothering him with another steamy kiss before the preacher politely coughed to get the ceremony back on track.

The reception was another challenge and that was primarily due to Mr. Powers being there. It proved to be a little more difficult than he expected to act like he was meeting Jenna’s co-star for the first time.  He had to constantly remind himself that Hector didn’t know Mike. Hector didn’t know how much of a womanizing jerk the man could be. Hector only knew Mr. Powers from the movies and as such, thought Mr. Powers was awesome.

It wasn’t until after the dinner and all the toasts that Hector was officially introduced to his action star hero.  He spotted Mr. Powers and Jenna making their way to his position. He laughed at himself for thinking of where he was standing as a place needing to be defended, but Mr. Powers raised his hackles.  “Focus Hector, you don’t know him. He’s a big time action star and the man you’ve admired for years now…” He silently reminded himself as the pair reached knife fighting range.

He noticed a mischievous twinkle in Jenna’s eyes as he reach out to shake his hero’s hand.  “Oh man, Mr. Powers, thank you so much for coming to our wedding!” Jenna giggled at him, but instead of showing how annoyed he was with the situation, he pressed on.

 “I’m a huge fan and when Jenna told me you wanted to come, what could I say?”

“Mike, just call me Mike. This is your day, not mine.” Mr. Powers glanced over to Jenna and grinned. “I’m just glad Jenna invited me because it’s not every day that I get to witness two people, who clearly love each other, being joined together and if there’s anything I’ve learned over the last ten years in the movie business, finding your soulmate isn’t easy.” 

Hector found his honest and heartfelt statement enduring and he almost forgot how he really thought of the man, but then, Mike gave Jenna a hug that seemed to imply she was the one for him.

Mr. Powers chuckled as he fondly gazed at Jenna. “Your cousin is a very lucky man, don’t you agree Jenna?”

Hector wanted to pull his claws out and rip the man to shreds, but Sadie quickly defused the situation. “Yes, Natalie’s a very lucky woman because my cousin Hector is an honorable and hardworking man,” she quirked an eyebrow at Mike, “unlike some men I know.”

“Ouch…” Hector whistled with relief and amusement. Sadie certainly knew how to handle the man.  He realized he was probably showing a little too much relief for the situation, causing him to cough into his hand to cover up his reaction.  “Mr., umm, Mike, sorry about my cousin. She can be a little headstrong at times. Something mi tía complained about all the time.”

Hector felt Natalie bury her face against his arm as she struggled not to laugh and Michelle snorted with amusement.

Ever the brash show-off, Mr. Powers played to his audience, but as Hector knew, the man was also a glutton for punishment when he affectionately gave Jenna a hug. “Oh, I know! She’s a spitfire for sure, but that’s why we all love her and why her fans are going to love her even more once they see her in action.” He wisely released a glowering Jenna and played it off by snapping his fingers as if struck by a sudden idea. “You know what? I’ll have to see about getting you some advance screening passes so you can be one of the first to see your cousin on the big screen.”

Hector didn’t know what to say. He was surprised by Mr. Powers’ offer. Fortunately, Jenna “reminded” him about a construction project he was expected to be busy working in the northern part of the state during the same time.   Hector, not wanting to rely on Sadie again, wisely played along. 

“Oh yeah, sorry forgot about that project. It’s kind of a big one…” Hector apologetically grinned at Mike.

“No problem man. Since Jenna’s sometimes a little hard to reach, I’ll make sure her PA, Sadie, gets a few passes. You know, just in case.” Mike smiled and shook Hector’s hand before turning his attention to Natalie and Michelle.  “It’s also been a pleasure meeting both of you,” one at a time, he gallantly kissed the back of their hands, “Jenna spoke about the two of you all the time when we were filming, but her descriptions didn’t do either of you ladies justice.”  He slyly glanced back at Jenna and smirked at the fire dancing in her eyes.

Hector wanted to end the man right then and there for his flirtations. It was obvious that Mike was purposefully trying to get a rise out of Jenna, but he had to force his reaction away. He wasn’t Jenna and thankfully, Sadie was an expert at dealing with men. He actually felt a smidge of jealousy at how easily she seemed to be adapting to being a woman.

Sadie laughed and coyly waved to the three of them. “Hector, Natalie, Michelle, I’m soooo glad,” her voice dripped with sarcasm, “I was able to introduce you all to my ‘lovable’ co-star, but he ‘really’ needs to be going now. It’s getting late,” she turned to Mike, “and Mr. Powers has a big party up in L.A. that he simply can’t miss, right dear?”

Mike chuckled. “Oh that, yeah, but it’s not starting for another few hours.”

Hector smiled when Jenna bodily pulled Mike away and fiercely whispered something in his ear. He couldn’t hear it all, but he did catch Jenna calling Mike a “cabrón!” and that made him happy. Yep, Sadie was far better at being a woman than he was and it looked like he didn’t have to worry about her accidentally letting Mike know she wasn’t the real Jenna.

With Mr. Powers out of the way, Hector looked forward to spending an entire week as himself with his lovely wife relaxing on the beaches of Hawaii. The fact that there would be no paparazzi harassing him, no bra’s to wear, makeup to put on, hair to style and lines for the bathroom made his smile even larger.

“What are you so happy about?” Natalie grinned, giving him a hug and an invitation to a kiss.

Hector took the invitation, relishing every second. “Mmmm, just happy to be me, thankful to have you in my life and anxious to get out of here so I can properly kiss you.”

“Just a kiss?” Natalie coyly smirked.

Hector chuckled before lightly kissing her neck, tracing a path up to her ear before whispering softly. “Does all over count as ‘just a kiss’?”