To Harley, With Love
Those Arkham days
Of telling tales and hearing wails are gone
But in my mind I know that they still live on and on
But how do you thank someone
Who has taken you from insanity to true love?
It isn't easy, but I'll try
If you wanted the sky
I would write across the sky in letters
That would soar a thousand feet high
To Harley, with love
Harley Quinn sat on the bed with the velvet purple sheet barely covering her curvaceous body. She let her long blonde hair fall loose, and she covered her lips in shockingly cherry red gloss. When she heard the Joker begin to walk upstairs, she posed with an inviting smile and deviant eyes. This was the moment she had been waiting for all day.
The Joker stumbled into their bedroom looking rather disheveled and fatigued. His purple top hat was falling off his green-clad head, and his black jacket showed discernable wrinkles. His tired eyes grew wide when he saw Harley lying on the bed so seductively. He wanted to kiss her and hold her. But he couldn't…
"Harley, what are you wearing?" The Joker asked, eyes gawking at the see-through nightgown Harley was donned in.
Harley replied, smiling, "A new nightgown. Bought it especially for tonight."
"Tonight?"
Harley's crystal blue eyes began to fill with tears. "Our anniversary? You forgot?"
Joker looked at Harley in surprise with a hint of guilt, one of his most rarely felt emotions, rising up in him like steam from a teapot. Quickly, he responded, "No, of course not…it's just that I was…gonna surprise you doing the same thing…"
Harley looked at him incredulously. "Really?"
"Of course, pumpkin pie," Joker said, affecting a thoughtful disposition. He smiled at his lover with a genuine grin, and Harley's despondent sapphire eyes quickly lit up.
"Okay, then, Puddin," Harley purred deviously. "Come here."
As Harley motioned for Joker to sit next to her on the bed, he looked away. "What's wrong, Mistah J?"
Faltering in his words, the Joker said, "I'm just a little tired. That's all."
Harley's usual smile disappeared like a resplendent moon behind a dark tree. "But it's our anniversary…"
"I'm tired, okay, Harley?" Joker riposted irritably.
"But…"
Without a second's vacillation, the Joker reached over and slapped Harley hard. Although Harley was used to this pain and abuse, she felt as if she could not do much to restrain from crying. But she knew that if she shed any tears, the man she loved would become even more irate.
Harley beseeched quietly, "Tell me what's wrong."
The Joker just turned around, throwing of both his ebony trench coat and his usual amethyst jacket.
Harley sighed. "I thought you'd be happy…"
"Happy?" The Joker asked, now in an unreasonable rage. "To get home from a long and torturous day of arduously planning my newest crime, and you know how hard I work, and find my girlfriend pressuring me to…"
"I wasn't trying to pressure you…I just…we haven't made love in a long time, Puddin. And what better time than our anniversary?"
Inside, Joker smiled when he heard Harley call him Puddin, but on the outside, he growled at the affectionate sobriquet. However, his anger was deeply rooted in the the fact that he wanted to show his love but didn't know how.
"Get out, Harley."
"What?"
"Get out!" The Joker reiterated. "Go to Ivy's or something. I need to be alone."
Harley was extremely used to the Joker kicking her out of her own home. But usually he knocked her around a bit before demanding her departure. She considered herself lucky that he had only slapped her once that night, and she knew her fortune would be brighter to leave before the Joker really found himself in a tantrum. Despite this knowledge, Harley said, "Okay…if that's what you want."
"Of course it is! Why would I say something if I didn't mean it?"
Harley's plump garnet lips trembled. "Well, you told me you loved me. I guess you didn't mean that."
Harley quickly stepped off the bed, put on her coat and left, leaving the Joker to ponder what she had said. And unusually, he did. He couldn't sleep all night, hearing her voice say the words in a tormenting repetition. He didn't know why it was bothering him as much as it was. He thought maybe it was because Harley never doubted his love for her before.