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horrible things. I know that I’m supposed to be a hero, despite how I’ve done some horrible things. Well, to air it out, Siren is one of those horrible things I’ve done. Consider it this way, all the internet porn that’s ever been shown, all the strippers you’ve ever seen, all the women you’ve spied at odd moments, random beauties straightening a garter or twirling a finger through her hair… consider that to be level one . Having actual, real sex with one of these women, when you separate the pretenders from what’s real, when all of your senses are engaged, when everything is perfectly focused, that’s level two .
    And then there’s nasty, let’s-feel-ashamed-about-this-later-but-not-right-now sex with one of those beautiful women. And that’s level three .
    Just being around Siren is level five .
    Unless you’re a superhuman, you couldn’t live through level six or seven. Having sex with Siren is section eight. Wait. Level eight. I meant level eight, of course.
    For who she is, she dresses remarkably conservative. She doesn’t prance around in a bikini anymore (like she did in the beginning) or the slutty dress (like when she was first teaming up with Eleventh Hour) or the latex outfit (as when she first started sleeping with Octagon) or the Japanese cosplay outfits (which she once changed as often as she cuckolded Octagon) or anything of that type anymore. These days, it’s a simple dress in the 1920’s “flapper” style. It has a lot of beads. They move with her. They fall off a lot. You can find the individual beads online, scavenged from her appearances, scooped up by an army of amorous vultures. It seems like it would be something that’s easy to fake; they’re just small glass beads, after all. But, if you’ve ever held one… you know. Absolutely. The beads retain a sense of her perfume and her scent, and even touching one of the beads is a private affair.
    They’re not cheap.
    “You going to say anything else?” Siren asked me. I wanted to say something else. I really did. Maybe I wanted to say something impressive, or maybe I wanted to say that it wasn’t going to work on me this time… that if she came any closer I would turn not into a puddle, but a knife, one that would slice her in half. But with her so near, my voice seemed to be gone, and the walls and everything else were gone as well, or at least far past my range of focus. I wanted to lean on one of the walls, use it to catch my breath, but I couldn’t find anything. I wanted to quit sweating. I was aware that I looked ridiculous, with my costume torn and stained. Siren moved protectively in front of Octagon, who was laughing, not with insanity, but pleasure. He reached into that damn costume of his and took out a vial of green fluid. I knew what it was; he’d once distilled an essence of my blood, and could use it to heal. Siren, back in the past when we were having our fling, had told me that the process was incredibly expensive. As Octagon emptied the vial onto his arm, and as the bones began to knit back together, he was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe millions. I remembered Siren telling me about the process involved, why the costs were so high, remembered her winding one of her hairs around her finger as she spoke, then plucking the hair from her head (she had long brunette hair, at the time) and wrapping the other end of the hair around her toe. The second smallest toe on her left foot. Around and around and around. Linking her toe and her finger. We’d been in the Philippines, I think. Or maybe Japan? Brazil? It doesn’t matter. It was the second smallest toe on her left foot.
    Octagon was standing again, watching the interplay between myself and Siren, maybe smiling, maybe not. Behind the costume, whatever was happening behind his mask, it was hard to say. It’s interesting to understand that the man is the greatest foe I’ve ever faced, responsible for some of my worst defeats, my narrowest