“Banned!” Oswald Cobblepot declared, pointing at Poison Ivy. “Banned!” he repeated, pointing at Hugo Strange. “Fired!” he yelled, pointing at Greg Brady. “Banned!” he cried, pointing at Roxy Rocket. “Fired!” at Gina the washroom attendant. “Banned!” at Jonathan Crane. Then finally, the tip of his special machine gun umbrella pointed to the petite groupie covered in vine leaves. He considered for a minute, as a king might weigh arguments of clemency for a first time offender. “BANNED!” he pronounced finally, then turned and left the exiles in the street outside the Iceberg Lounge, returning alone to the ruin that was once his nightclub. “Root rot,” Poison Ivy hissed. The birdman would come around. And if he didn’t see reason on his own, a whiff of jungle mist would bring him around. Having a tantrum because his precious bar suffered a little damage. Why, if anybody should be complaining… she was the one who was humiliated! She had honored his bar with her presence, she had honored his bar as the site to unveil her new creation to the world, and this is how she was being repaid??? Certainly it was her prerogative to take this sweet young thing, so naïve as to be infatuated with Firefly, under her wing. “Smoke,” she decided, was a promising seedling that chanced to sprout in unhealthy soil. She needed to be transplanted to a more fertile environment. Consciously, Poison Ivy saw an open and malleable specimen she could mold into something great. Unconsciously, she was lonely and knew she had found a sympathetic listener. “First things first,” she had ordered, “you’ll need a name. Leaf? No. Sounds like a contestant on American Idol… Petal? Er, no. Harvey called me that once when we were—Never mind… Flora! How about Flora? No, you’re right. That’s a middle-aged cafeteria worker in a hairnet… Oh, I’ve got it. VINE!” Then came the weaving of leaves into a becoming tunic to replace that leotard. The girl was hesitant at first, but Ivy made her understand the great honor: She herself, Poison Ivy the Irresistible, Chosen of Gaia, was to be her mentor. Ivy would train her. They would begin… well, we had to run before we could walk… they would begin at the Iceberg, by enticing that new bartender away from Roxy the Rocket Harlot. That brought the girl around, and Pamela preened herself on her powers of persuasion. Vine started off well enough, entering the room with a grace and majesty befitting one decked out in leaves. She approached the bar as instructed, emitting a silent aura of irresistible sexuality. The object of her seduction seemed appropriately awed and receptive, waiting, it seemed, for an order from his goddess. Ivy waited for her protégé to exert her power. … Then, as sometimes happens in cultivating a new hybrid, things took an unexpected turn. The bartender got tired waiting for his goddess’s command and asked outright: “What’re you drinking, beautiful?” He was only waiting for a drink order. A setback, to be sure, but one that could have been dealt with if Roxy hadn’t chimed in that “the little sprout” didn’t look old enough for more than a Shirley Temple. Snickers led to slaps which led to hair pulling which led to… Hugo Strange really was a vile pustule on the buttocks of Mother Earth. It could have all been handled if he hadn’t pushed her buttons with that smarmy suggestion about mud wrestling. Women, nature’s chosen vessels of life, slathered in mud, the earthy soup from which all plants spring! For the gratification of loathsome, drooling, slimy cretins like that… that… that… STRANGE! Poison Ivy could not contain her disgust and she let fly as any sane woman would! And if that WASHROOM ATTENDANT was so wanting in sense that she actually saw Hugo Strange’s desecration of all that was beautiful and magical in female sexuality as something POSITIVE, then the traitor to womankind would have to be punished along with the men… While Ivy was distracted with these matters, the repugnant Jonathan Crane, the only lowlife low enough to hang with a human weed like Hugo Strange, went to work on the bartender. “Fearsome choice before you, I fear,” the Scarecrow began, warming on his favorite subject. Greg Brady did not see it that way. “You mean the girls? Girls, girls everywhere, I don’t know that that’s anything to quake about, sir,” he answered respectfully. “Two of those girls are wearing leaves, boy,” Scarecrow insisted. “Around here, leaves mean trouble. And usually a rash.” Compared to the dangers at his old job, a rash didn’t seem so terrible a fate, and the former Joker henchman said as much. “An exaggerated immune response to nothing much. Bring on the rash,” he quipped. Cassie and Roxy both heard, and the bar was assaulted with a hail of tables, chairs, bottles, and novelty Iceberg Lounge glassware. It was just like the Ha-Hacienda on movie night, Greg thought, before Poison Ivy’s special wood-free polymer table hit him in the sternum.
I think better in the catsuit. Always have. It’s a sensual experience, not “changing into” but “becoming” Catwoman: the caress of butter soft leather pulled tight across my skin, pulling on the gloves, patting them smooth, tugging on the folds, then the same with the boots… pulling on the cowl and adjusting the mask, drawing my hair out the rear flap… something about it makes all the complicated questions simple and clear. All but one. Tonight, the caress of the leather only stirred memories of another caress,
great hands, warm knowing fingers… and when I pulled my hair through the flap,
it tilted my head back, like he does, running his fingers through, kissing me
over and over… Actually, the catsuit might not help me think when He’s the quandary I’m thinking about. But it was either this or a trip out to the Catitat to see Nirvana, and I was already here so… “Here” was Cartier, our first rooftop. First time it got interesting, anyway.
I don’t want to think about that right now, though. Something about Hell
Month, all his rituals, it all gets bogged down in the past. All the junk
in that damn closet. That was then and this is now. It wasn’t “those jewels don’t belong to you” anymore, it was “I
don’t understand why you haven’t moved in full time.” I still didn’t understand how we could get
there from here. From here, this very roof and “those jewels don’t belong
to you.” Reflexively, I began thinking through how to get to those jewels that don’t
belong to me, how to get there, into that vault, from here, northwest corner of
the roof: Attach a jammer to the
Phoenix relay and pop the vent hood over the power conduits. Swing to the
alley and disarm the floor alarms from the electrical panels, in through the
service door and attach a thirty-second video loop to the surveillance feeds.
Back
out the service door and return up here, in through the office ventilation
ducts, left, down, left, left, down, right and squiggle. Drop out in the
corridor between the private showroom and the main vault. 0010-048-73.
Jewels that don’t belong to me. Then the tingle…
and the voice…
“That’s far enough, Catwoman.” The jolt back to reality was almost physical, as if I was physically sucked out of that vault in my imagination through space and time back to the rooftop here and now.
Catwoman’s Rule #12 states that you never ever react with surprise when he makes
an appearance, no matter how sudden or unexpected. But Catwoman’s Rule #12
was written when I really was opening the vault, not just thinking through how.
Catwoman’s Rule #12 never anticipated anything this surreal. What was he doing here? And “That’s far enough, Catwoman.” What the fuck?
Batman was irked, just for a moment, that he
hadn’t anticipated this. He’d wanted to predict Selina’s response to the mouse, and here it
was: Catwoman. Looking to play. Watching her alone on that
roof, there was no need to confine himself to a twitch, and he felt a full smile
melt over his features. He’d just been remembering this, how she’d show up
whenever he subconsciously needed one of their run-ins, and now, here she was.
He fired the grappler to the cupola of the Frith Building, a spot he knew was
high enough not to be heard on Cartier’s roof, yet afforded the perfect angle of
descent. He swung down to
meet her, his mind locked on old times, fully in the mood to ‘play.’ He landed. “That’s far enough, Catwoman!” …in his best BatGrowl, expecting the obvious, “It’s never far enough, Dark Knight.” …except…
All he got in reply was shocked silence. It took him a moment to process: She looked like she just got caught at something… and wasn’t expecting to… In the old days, there was always that hint that, regardless of how careful she was being, she expected to get caught by the Bat. That was part of the thrill. This time, she honestly looked like she never expected him to show up… It threw him… Hard. He began to suspect something was wrong. In the spirit of Hell Month, he began to suspect the worst.
“What exactly is Catwoman doing on Cartier’s roof?” The moment had passed to register surprise or
not at his appearance. The only choice now was banter or a serious reply.
“That’s far enough, Catwoman,” he had said. A stunning Catwoman rejoinder was called for, and it came out “…”
That led to “What exactly is Catwoman doing on Cartier’s
roof?” The only choice now was banter or a serious reply…
The fact that it was a rooftop, this rooftop especially, argued for banter.
It would be an insult to all that Cartier meant to fall back on something as
mundane as the truth. And yet,
somehow I heard myself saying: “Thinking. Just thinking.” The un-cattiness in my voice startled me much more than his entrance had. What was I saying? Like I owed him
some kind of explanation? Like I needed him to know I wasn’t here
to steal?? Like there was something wrong with all the times that… oh screw
it! “I come here to think,
okay, I don’t have a cave.” Shit! The catty edge was
certainly back in my voice, but at what price?
“I don’t have a cave!” where did that come from? If the son of a bitch had his way I would
have a cave. SHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT! “Thinking?” he asked. I
don’t know if it was Hell Month or what but it came off like: “YOU,
thinking, since when?” “Yes, THINKING,” I shot back, “You rub two brain cells together until
they make a spark.”
Okay, that was a little more like her, so he
grunted. But still, there was something else behind it. It was more
“catty” than he expected, even from her. No playful innuendo, just…
hostile. There was something behind it all. Concern? Anger? … Fear?!
He decided the best course was to get to the heart of it quickly. “And Cartier helps? What
exactly were you thinking about?” Without even realizing, he scanned her for an
empty loot bag—then immediately shifted his gaze back to her face when he
discovered what he was doing.
Did he think I didn’t see that? The once
over, he just glanced down at… I felt insulted, and at the same time I wondered
why. I decided to turn the screw. What was I thinking, he
asked?
“Just thinking about old times…” Maybe it was nothing after all! She was in the
same frame of mind that he was, a return to the rooftop games. Except,
why the new reaction if she just wanted to play? “…vent, left, down, left, left, down, right squiggle, vault,
0010-048-73.” Not
thinking about old times like he was. He felt his blood freeze, and something leapt into his throat from the vicinity of his heart. His worst fear was becoming true: She was stealing again. “You know that’s not going to happen,” he gravelled, trying to hide the shakiness in voice, hoping the growl didn’t betray him. Why? Why was she doing this?! “Careful, Dark Knight, that sounded a little like the voice of the master.” For just an instant, two fingers on her right hand twitched ever so subtly
towards the whip… This couldn’t really be happening. Not Selina. Not his Selina. This
wasn’t banter; this wasn’t play. It was real. This was like what their
confrontations should have been all those years ago. Crimefighter vs. Criminal. Good vs. Bad. Right vs. Wrong. It was suddenly all too much, like a
bad dream. He started to feel something he hadn’t felt in eons: Fear. He was
afraid of what this meant, for him, for her… for “them.” And with Fear,
came The Bat. The Psychobat, the Hell Month Bat. Ready to handle the situation like he would with any of Gotham’s
criminals. He stepped toward her, almost daring for her to go to the whip. “If you’re talking about a crime, in MY city, then ‘master’ is the
least of your concerns.” The reaction was not that of any of Gotham’s criminals, only this one:
eye to eye, nose to nose, never been impressed by that routine and never
would be… “If you’re talking about cutting off the last link to my own life and
moving lock, stock, and Whiskers into yours just because you say so, then a
crime in your city is the least of YOUR concerns.” Lock, stock, and Whiskers?
What did she mean by that?
Bat, Psychobat and Bruce himself stared in deathly silence, until one of
them forced out a bewildered “What?” It did not defuse the bomb. “Why haven’t you moved in yet—like a good
little housecat—little shelf in the vault, little bowl with my name on it in the
kitchen—how about a collar with a bell! Have Alfred change my water now
and then. Insufferable
jackass—” Batman began dissecting the words like one of
Nigma’s riddles. Move in? What was she talking about? Where did she get an
idea like tha-ah. In his mind, it was almost as though Bruce tapped Batman
on the shoulder as the memory clicked. The previous night, before patrol,
a remark blurted in the heat of the moment… a casual, simple remark, that was
all it was. It had been in the back of his mind since missing her in
Paris, but he never meant to… It was the anniversary, he was going on
patrol, he didn’t want to have an argument about her staying the night or not. Why were they even wasting time discussing it: Kitten, you’re here so much, why not dot the i and cross the t?
His stomach knotted. OK, she was freaking over his suggestion to move in. She
felt cornered by it, and struck out. But all of that led her here?! “So that’s what this is? You’re going back to stealing just because I
ruffled your fur a little?” The incredulous “WHAT?” that answered
him echoed his own confused outburst a moment before. But Batman was still
at the helm, and Batman knew the criminal mindset:
Denying it, like they all do. “You heard me,” he growled, “You’re trying to get back at me and you
think this is the way to do it?” The moment hung suspended in the icy stillness
of a Gotham rooftop in January until an invisible string broke with a silent
plunk. Nothing had changed, neither had moved or spoken, but suddenly,
everything felt different. The first thing Batman noticed was her
eyes—while he was not actually being laughed at, the amused “you’re so cute when
you’re stupid” expression was aimed directly at the tip of his nose. “Yes, that’s it exactly…” came the answer at last, a blend of sarcasm,
amusement and affection as only Catwoman could deliver them. “I came back here
to ventleftleft-downrightsquiggle-001004873-jewelsthatdontbelongtome, all to
get back at you for ruffling my fur. That’s it exactly…” Wait for it. “…I salute you, World’s Greatest Detective.” Banter. For the first time ever, it was music to his ears. She really was just
thinking, stewing over what he’d said. He still didn’t quite
understand what that had to do with Cartier, but then he didn’t understand how
Cartier could be their first rooftop when it came 69 days and 7 encounters after
the train station. “Fine,” he grunted, then realized that simple sound was a throwback to
the old way. This was a new game and new rules were called for. Perhaps the truth: “Was it really that bad a suggestion?”
Bruce’s voice. Cheap shot, Dark Knight. “It…” Still. “It… … … … …” My heart was racing. “… … … … … … … … … …” I love him, I had to admit, both of him.
All of him. I love being with him. He brings out the best in
me. “… … … … … … … … … … …
… … … … … … … … …” I like myself with him. “… … … … … It’s an awfully big mouse,” I
whispered finally. TwitchSmile. Does he know how
sexy that is? “But catchable,” he said. The combination
of Bruce voice and choppy bat syntax is freakier than I can begin to express. It unnerved me. And not wanting him to think he had the upper hand, I felt
I better make it clear I wasn’t rolling over like a spaniel. “If I were to say yes, I’d need to have my own space, totally mine,
like an embassy is foreign soil.” “No.” Instantaneous answer. Compromise has
never been a happy notion for the right & wrong crowd. “No chance,” he
said with another sexy lip twitch. This, I decided, was no different than getting
to leave with the diamond necklace. It only required a little feline
finesse. I leaned in close and stroked the edge of his mask, just at the
cheek. I felt him tense and I drew a claw down his arm. “A little space of my own,” I repeated, fiddling with the edge of his
cape. “Totally mine…” I purred, fingering the insignia on his chest, that
oval he uses to mark all his possessions. “…Like an embassy…” There was a
rumble from deep in his chest as I traced the batwing on the emblem. “…Foreign
soil.” There was one final pause, not at all awkward.
He was thinking. And then… “Do you want to pick a room or should I build you a new wing?” I’ll admit I wasn’t ready for the win.
And I knew I only had seconds before the window of opportunity closed. “Just a room or two on the second floor will be fine,” I soothed, “and
an acre on the grounds for Nirvana’s pen.”
Was that greedy? Yes. Why not. Cats always take what
they can get. “We’ll talk about it later,” he brusked, pulling away, “I have to get
to work.” It stung. I should have expected it, the
gruff “that’s enough” dismissal from the end of every encounter, but still it
stung. “That was only ‘if I said yes,’” I reminded
him, letting him of the hook. I turned to go, hoping he’d
stop me but knowing he wouldn’t, when… “Wait!” I turned back, floored, and saw him pressing
his hand to his ear. “Say again, Oracle… How long ago? … No, I’ll check it myself…
Batman out.” In one lightning move, his hand dropped from
the ear to the utility belt, drew the grappler and fired. “C’mon,” he
ordered, extending the free hand, “Game over. It’s Nightwing. He’s
missing.”
To be continued…
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