Charming sat cross-legged on his mattress, staring out at the city below him. Jemma had disappeared into her bedroom almost immediately. “Key for you on the counter,” she’d tossed over her shoulder as she left.

Something was wrong with this apartment. He could not quite figure it out. The floor seemed level, a straight brown stretch of even wood laminate planks. The granite kitchen had an almost full-sized fridge and a sink. The front door was a door. The cabinets were a tasteful brown. The living room was spacious. 

He thought maybe he’d like to watch T.V. He looked around for the T.V. There was no T.V.

He unzipped his suitcase and went to lay out some clean clothes on the couch. There was no couch.

He went to sit on a kitchen chair and ponder this predicament. There was no kitchen chair. 

There was no furniture in the entire area, period, except for his twin mattress, laid flat on the floor, and his suitcase, which hardly counted as furniture, Charming thought.

Ah.

With a muffled groan, he padded across the completely empty apartment toward the narrow hallway that shot right off the front door. He walked to Jemma’s door, and then passed it on his left, continuing to the bathroom at the end of the hall, where walls of subway tile gleamed in the light of a single recessed LED bulb. Three clear bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash sat on the edge of the tub, which had no shower curtain.

Then, mustering the unlimited reserves of courage and panache that carried him through his life, he knocked on Jemma’s door.

“What?” she shouted. 

“Ah,” he mumbled, and looked around for a moment. He settled on leaning against the door, his mouth to the door frame. “The kitchen”—the door started to creak alarmingly. He stepped back—“the kitchen is empty.”

“Are you asking me to cook for you?” She sounded like she was going to come out and murder him. He stepped back again.

“What? No. I meant empty. No table.”

“I don’t have a table.” 

He wished she would come outside and talk to him.

“Should we get a table?”

He heard a creak of bedsprings, followed by the marching of giants across the floor. She ripped her door open and was outside before he could blink, her door shut firmly behind her. 

“Yes, Galahad,” she said sweetly. “Why don’t you go rescue us some furniture?”

Charming frowned. “It’s Prince Charming,” he said.

“Dude.” She stared up at him. “I’m not calling my roommate Prince Charming. It’s dumb.”

Before he could say anything else, she slapped his chest. “I like blue and green for couches and would love a round table, so why don’t you go find us some stuff?”

Torn between the desire to get away from her and the desire not to spend money he didn’t have on furniture he didn’t want, he hesitated. “I’m…” A thing his dad said a lot came to mind. “I’m trying to reduce my consumption and carbon footprint,” he said. 

Jemma crossed her arms. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You know, consumerism is an unnecessary drain on our planet’s already limited resources. We need to do our part to preserve this planet. It’s not for our children’s sake. That’s the fallacy that idiots spread in this generation. It’s for our own sake. Unless you’re planning to be dead in thirty years?” He glared at her accusingly. 

Jemma pursed her lips, tilted her head, uncrossed her arms. She leaned against the door. Then she leaned away from the door.

Charming backed up another step; he wanted to make sure she felt like she had room to walk away from him. 

“Alrighty then, Captain Planet,” Jemma said. She tapped her fingers against the door frame. “Why don’t you go see if you can find a thrift shop or junkyard? Or maybe someone left some nice crap on the sidewalk.”

Charming frowned. It seemed that his new roommate wanted him out of the apartment. This felt suspicious. 

“Yes, of course,” he said, resolving not to go anywhere. “I’ll go see if I can find anything. But don’t be disappointed if I can’t. It’s very busy out. It’s nice outside, you know.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is it?”

“Yes. I think I will… enjoy a walk.” He spoke slowly, so that the weight of each word would penetrate her skull, hypnotize her, make her believe that he had left. 

“Will… you?” she repeated, just as slowly. That meant that it had worked.

He nodded. “Bye, now,” he said, starting to walk away backward. If he walked too fast she might break free. 

She gaped after him. 

When he got to the front door, he realized his fatal error. She had still not moved, staring after him with an expression of utter bemusement. This often happened to women who’d interacted with him for any length of time. 

Intellectually, Charming knew he didn’t have mind control powers. And, even if he did, he would never use them on women for nefarious purposes. Except if his nemesis was a woman and had a plot to destroy the city. But sometimes he felt like maybe he had mind influence powers. Influence powers that made people want to watch him walk away. He had a nice walk, too. The sort of walk that turned heads.

He and Jemma continued to stare at each other, both standing next to a door.

“Just have to… grab some stuff,” he called down the hallway. He edged to his left, away from the door, and out of her line of vision. Then he scrambled frantically to the corner of the wall, where he pressed himself. 

If she didn’t go inside soon, he would have to leave the apartment. And then he wouldn’t be able to figure out why she wanted him out of the apartment.

A quiet creak as her door opened. A soft slam as it closed. 

He exhaled in relief, and then glanced down at his stomach to make sure his profile was still flat. 

All good. 

Another deep inhale and he peered around the corner to find her pressed against the adjacent wall, staring back at him with wide eyes.

“Galahad,” she whispered.

“Yes?” he whispered back.

“What are you doing?” 

She had splayed herself along the wall completely, her right hand pressed against her side and her left hand flung wide as if for support. 

“Nothing,” he said, still in a whisper. 

“I see,” she hissed back.

They continued to stare at each other, he craning his neck and she with her face at a forty-five degree angle to her body.

“Is there someone in the apartment?” she whispered after a few seconds had passed.

“Us,” he said, curling around the corner to stand next to her. She slid down the wall to make room. 

“So why are you doing this?” She hadn’t stepped away from the wall yet. He wondered if his mind influence was getting stronger. 

“Doing what?”

“We both know you’re doing something.” She swept her left hand at him encompassingly. “Whatever this is.”

He stepped away from the wall. “Practicing superhero stuff,” he said. “This is what superheroes do. We practice. That’s how we get good enough to save you.”

“And you’re… good enough to save me?” 

When he’d stepped away, she’d relaxed too, though she stayed against the wall.

“I’m the best there is,” he said.

“Okay.” She appeared to digest this information. “Can you go get us a couch, though?”

Defeated, Charming nodded and went back to the front door. This time, he opened it and went out into the hallway.

The marble hall, which had so charmed him in the morning, seemed to have lost some of its luster. He glanced down at the place where wall met floor. There were bubbles in the wall there. He knelt down and poked at one. 

Paper. The whole hallway was wallpaper. And who knew what the floor was?

Frowning ruefully at his own dented front door, Charming pondered his next move. Jemma had outwitted him. She’d refused to call him by his chosen name. She’d been somewhat rude, though he couldn’t have articulated exactly now.

And… she’d known his birth name.

That wasn’t necessarily unusual. Prince Charming was the most Googled superhero in Manhattan. 

Back in 2007, when the 7 p.m. Wednesday night swim class at the YMCA on 63rd suddenly and inexplicably developed superpowers, Charming had quickly become the most recognizable one. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was just that he had the most pleasant superpower. And the best name. Who would you remember, Prince Charming or The Balloon? So the Mayor talked about him the most often. The newspapers interviewed him the most often. And he’d been a charming, fun twelve year old. “Deserving of the name,” the blog posts had read. 

And then this past year, when Mayor Shah started talking about instituting superhero legislation, the press had called the initiative “Charming’s Law.” This was less good, since Charming’s Law (as far as he understood his lawyers) was basically designed to make him — and specifically him — financially responsible for all “collateral damage.” As if being responsible for saving the city wasn’t enough. Not (the lawyers clarified) that it was legal to make him specifically responsible for damage. Just that he was the only superhero causing any.

Some of those articles called him Prince Charming, but some also introduced him as “Galahad Bradbury.” So Jemma could have found his name that way.

But he suspected that his nemesis was keeping tabs on him. He wondered now — only now, when his name and hers were inscribed upon a legal document with a commitment of twelve months — whether he had made a mistake. 

Jemma might not be his nemesis. But she could be working for, or related to, or manipulated by, his nemesis. 

Charming growled and stomped off toward the elevator. All he could do now was find a sofa. But soon, he would come back and befriend Jemma. And once he’d befriended her, he would use Jemma to find his nemesis.