Under Rob’s skin

Author’s note:  New story day!  It’s another visit to the Superstuniverse, but this time round the story focusses on Robert Ribblesdale, the elasticated working class hero known also as Rubber Rob.  Rob is a character who is a pleasure to write.  He’s so utterly not like me, that writing him is a bit like acting.  You have to find the points you can identify with and work from there.  Frequently, when we were writing the original Superstu stuff, we would find that the scenes with Rob in them were our favourites and frequently the funniest.  This is because Rob is the grit in the oyster.  He’s a great source of conflict and dramatic tension, because he’s on the edge of likeability.

As such, this story lurches back towards the humour of those older stories, which I think is a good thing.

Disclaimer:  Any resemblance the wholly fictitous characters and events portrayed in this story have with actual, real people and events is coincidental.  Also, no skinless millionaires were harmed in the writing of this story.

It was cold in the office.  The air conditioning was cranked up and blowing a gale, even though outside it was mild and still.  It didn’t bother Rob so much; the manner in which his powers altered his physiognomy meant that he didn’t conduct heat like other human beings.  It had proven quite useful in the jungle and when he, Stu and Matt had ridden a space station through Earth’s atmosphere.

But it also meant that Rob didn’t feel things quite as well as other people did.  It was like being permanently drunk but without the buzz.  Or like someone had sat on his whole body for half an hour.  Generally Rob didn’t tell people about this and made it a point to get drunk so that he would have the buzz as well.  He also didn’t tell them about the dreams where one of his limbs would not retract after stretching or the cold sweat he would wake up in afterwards.

He did tell them about the dreams where he pleasured two women at once, only omitting the fact that it was a dream.

Well, it didn’t hurt anyone.

Except the cause of Feminism.
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