Title: Second Nature
POV: First Person
Setting: DCU
Disclaimer: I do not own, please do not sue.
Author's note: Inspired by the Sam Keith Arkham Asylum: Madness novel
Synopsis: Harley Quinn reflects on her lifestyle. It begs the question is it control or was it classical conditioning?
The metal bracelets claw and pinch against my wrists. I could almost smell the hemoglobin as it comes into contact with the metal. It reminds me of the garbage or blood when it has been exposed for too long. I used to worry if I could have gotten gangrene or something. Back then when it was a different time and wasn't the same person that I am now. Now, it has become an afterthought just like this strip search has become routine. I don't react and scream like I used to. That would only give them an opportunity to exploit their authority. Besides, I really want my oatmeal raisin cookies and you can only get that if you cooperate with them. My blood sugar level is low and although it might not be healthy for my figure, I really need something to eat, so for now, I let them touch, pinch and grab what they can. I am lucky because this time Dr. Arkham was there to supervise my arrival. He was there to make sure that none of the orderlies puts a finger where it is not supposed to go.
I lost times as to how many times we had gone through this. They arrest me, bind and gag me like a rabid weasel and bring me back to this place. You might as well say I should call it home. I get my meals, a bed, some friends to talk to and a teensy amount of privileges because apparently I am not as bad as some of my peers. But home should not feel like pricks underneath your feet. They take my thumbprints and update my photo. In my last one, I had messy hair a la Courtney Love after a bad drug binge. At least I have a ponytail this time. It accents my best features. Plus, I am in a slightly better mood. My last….place of residency was this dump on the east side. I heard rumors that Pussycat lived around there but I must have missed her. I noticed that there were a lot of hookers in the last area I used to stay at. I can't even begin to tell you how many sanitary napkins I must have stepped on while staying there but Mr. J said it was for the best.
"Welcome back, Harleen," one of the workers says to me. I know he is trying to be cordial but I give him a face because I know he is disappointed in me. I am not in the mood to be lectured to. I am not in the mood to be talked down to but that is all that they do here. They look down and belittle you because of some of the choices you had made so that they can feel good about themselves while they smugly check and mark on their desk of notes. It kind of amazes me that behind their Harvard degrees, their certificates of achievement, PTA awards and their My Kid is on the Honor Roll at Sunnyridge Elementary bumper stickers, these people were one crack or alcoholic binge away from being in the position that I am in. Think about it. In California, the limit is point zero eight. One or two sips from the margarita at Cholo's could make the difference between making it home tipsy, getting pulled over by the cops or hitting a six year old running across the street to reach for her ball. Some people make the choice of not taking their Doberman to obedience school. Is that exactly a wise decision if someone in the family has a small kid?
The doctors here obviously made a different choice than the one I made and take it upon themselves to show it off. They take it upon themselves to project whatever it is that conforms to their pool of ethics and try and pin that on us, those who choose this alternative lifestyle, quote unquote
They take my print and I smudge the black gunk from my thumb. I smudge the blackness until it turns into a smokey grey between my index and thumb, watching the once pristine black ink fade into my skin. Once you wiggle around a little bit, you will find that rigid definitions can lose their meaning over time. It is a fickle thing and with enough persistence and time, it will disappear just like the mark on my skin. I find it funny considering that being homosexual was considered a mental disorder until forty years ago. There was a time when blacks were considered subhuman and to cavort with them was unthinkable. It only makes me wonder what else they are wrong about, what else is fluid, what else is condemned today but will be encouraged tomorrow.
"Good evening, Harleen," Dr. Contreras says to me. She is a fat, stubby matronly old broad who got transferred here from Upstate New York.
"Hello yourself, bitch" I muttered.
I have been seeing Dr. Contreras for about two months now. She is a lot nicer than my last captive, Dr. Cicero. He was an old grouch. He had this 'tough love' stance I guess. I try and not let these people take advantage of me. I am just sharing my new philosophy now that I have seen the other side of the coin, seen the outside of the box and understand the 'other side'. To them, I fell into the pit of Hell and my opinions don't matter. Dr. Contreras was nice but even I could tell that she looked down at me. It did not help that she took my peers more seriously than me. Mr. J, Red, all of them took more heavy duty precedence. I was just treated like a rebellious school girl. In fact that is what they called me. It made me feel belittled, like a child, something to be ignored. I just wanted to share with them and explain my newfound wisdom. I am not out giving kids needles, spreading AIDS or burning abortion clinics. I am myself. I just happen to have a life that would make the most hardened of bikers pee their pants.
"Why are we so testy today, Miss Quinn?" she says behind her exaggerated eye shadow and lids. The mole on her upper lip did not help. I wanted to prick it really bad. I wanted to see the pus come out and be free from that little prison.
"Well, if you had something pointy and cold put up your snatch, you would be grouchy too." I hissed. I can tolerate a few things but hands in certain places from certain people are not one of them.
I could tell that their violation of my privacy meant little too her. She may have had that grandmotherly look but the woman was a snake. She had a good poker face and was as serene as the Pacific Blue.
"Tell me why you are here, Harleen," Dr. Contreras says in her grossly soothing tone.
"Dr. Quinzel," I said. I was not going to let her take the shots. I was once on her side. I was once her equal and I was not going to let the past give her a leg up to look down at me. Not now and not ever. If she was going to talk to me, she was going to have to address me as an equal. If she was the owner of Tyco Toys then that would be different.
"Okay, Doctor Quinzel," she said in a reluctant tone, "tell me why you are here".
I smile but it was really a triumphant one rather than trying to connect with her on an equal plane. You had to do things in a subtle manner if you wanted to gain influence and I was not going to let the woman sitting across from me exploit that.
"Because I have been a very bad, bad little girl and I need to be punished." I say automatically. It was practically scripted. I just tell them what they want to hear. I am tired, I stink of sweat and musk and I want to sleep.
"And why do you think that is, Har, Doctor Quinzel?" She says in a calm manner. I just wanna slap that stupid look off her face. Why is she asking me this? She knows my history. She knows my stats. Why are we going around with this again? It is as if she thinks I will understand if she tries to put things into my head on repeat when all I want to do is change the damn record.
"I made some decisions that did not conform to your protocol? Slept with some of the doctors and patients?" Back then when I was a virgin to all of this, I played dumb. It was easier back then because I was fresh out of school and wore miniskirts on a daily basis. Now, I was tainted like the whore with the scarlet letter in the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.
"Yes, those are BIG reasons…" she said as an assertion but she trailed off, obviously wanting me to fill in the blanks.
"What is that supposed to mean? I have been here for years and no one's told me that." I spat back. Mind games were only amusing when you were the one in control. This time around, not so much. Talking to the doctors was like playing a game of chess and one small move could make the difference between losing or getting the Queen. God, it is half an hour until Letterman!
"Well that is because some of us thought that you would figure it out for yourself. You are a big girl with a college degree. Why throw it away for this?" She said in her sweeter than honey voice.
"I did not throw it away. I let it blossom. Coming here as the doctor was a baby step. I utilized my opportunity and got what I wanted." I said finally.
"Harley, why are you doing this to yourself?" she said. It was better than walking around tip toeing across one another.
"Do what to myself?" I ask. I hate it when they treat me like I started my first day at an AA meeting.
"Harleen, why did you CHOOSE to do this? Why did you CHOOSE for your life to be this way?"
She called me by my first name but I was not going to dig my heels and make myself look like an idiot. I was going to suck it up and explain it to her for the hundredth time. I was not going to let her mold me into a piece of stone the way SHE wanted. She wanted a scripted answer. She wanted me to cater to her ego. Make her gets some points from the higher staff. Something that will say 'progress' on her record next time they renew their licenses.
"I did not CHOOSE this life, Doctor. Some things just came naturally." I said with a sugar coated smile.
"Natural in what way?" the fat cow pressed on.
"Well, when you have that nurturing talent, you can't help but extend that to other venues. The most natural is to become a doctor, right?" I answered.
"Okay," she said calmly and checked her notepad. The last time we had this talk, I said it was because I wanted to help kids. The details are sketchy I admit but I can say that helping was one aspect of it all.
"If you like to cook, you can practice all you want and then maybe you can be the next Wolfgang Puck. If you are good with sports, you can try and be the next Scottie Pippen. What part of that don't you understand?" You utilize your talents and own them, like Tyra owned the catwalk.
"I can understand that part, Doctor Quinzel. But I need you to explain to me why you would sacrifice all that you had for one particular individual." She said to me with a stern look. She knew it was a sore spot for me. I let it go because at least she granted me some authoritative voice and not brush me off as someone insignificant.
For some people, politics are things you should not discuss, especially over a family dinner. You know how they are. They get into this passionate rant mode and try and discount anyone who does not conform to the same views. Some folks do that with their musical idols, me I have one soft spot. Talking about the clown to me was like asking a devout Christian when they found Christ when they lived their whole lives as atheists. Life was so….sterile before. I even forgot what it was like before him. Things were so….grey. It's like trying to remember life before someone who meant so much to you passes away.
"He showed me a new way of looking at things." I said calmly. Giving him a name would be reducing him. Naming and labeling him would be too limiting. You can call your powerful life force God or Allah but it still limits the power of this being, this state of bliss, this new way of life. It is a very multi-faceted and complicated thing. The Japanese got it right with Shinto.
"What did the Joker teach you?" she says in an almost offended manner. Score one for me. "What doctrine can someone like him show you?" She asks in a way that poorly disguises her distaste.
"A few things," I say to her. "Commandment number one, thou shalt not be limited to societal expectations. Commandment number two, express yourself don't repress yourself. Commandment number three, thou shalt not watch Jay Leno, only Coco….."
"Harleen!" Dr. Contreras asked. She was fat, no kids, not married and had a small apartment in the Hills. She probably had two or three small dogs. If she had cats, she would have been a bit more pretentious. Dog people were more nurturing but even they could be arrogant. She was just projecting her empty motherly authority figure onto me. Just grin and bear it, I thought. "I just want to help you…." She said softly.
"Bull and you know it." I said as I puffed my cigarette. It was one of the few freebies I got for being a 'good girl'. "If you want to help someone, you don't look down on them and try and train them like a dog. If someone is drowning, you give them a life saver. You don't look down at them and yell at them." I stated simply. I must have hit a note or something because she looked at me like she just had an epiphany.
"In this world, with all these complications, laws, procedures, legal files, bureaucracy, a little simplicity is like a breath of fresh air. They look at me like I am a simple person. No complexity or depth. Someone not worth talking to because I do not have the house in Bel Air or married with two point five kids with a golden retriever while donning my designer wear funded by my ideal 'Sex and the City' lifestyle. You want me to be a soulless consumer like you see reading those tabloid trash mags? People in Mexico live very simplistic lives and they seem happy, to be free from all this stress and expectations."
After a few seconds, Dr. Contreras adjusted her glasses. She did not hear a damn word that I just said. It was supposed to be an ice breaker but here she is ignoring a basic fundamental truth.
"Dr. Harleen Quinzel, the Joker is not a messiah. He conditioned you." She stated simply. I heard the words but they were no different than hearing a car run down the streets. Totally and utterly forgettable. "He is a mass murdering psychopath and will eventually use you like a sacrificial lamb."
I took the opportunity to school this old bitch.
"See, now that is where you are wrong." I pointed at her with my cigarette. It was half done, just like my temper. "See, I choose to be by his side. I choose to follow what he says. I was not held at gunpoint, I was not coerced."
"I never said you were a victim in all of this Harley. Our records clearly indicate you willingly and knowingly were an accomplice to the Joker and sometimes Poison Ivy's schemes."
I make a slow clap.
"The operative words in those sentences were 'knowingly' and 'willingly' at what point was I half asleep?" I say in a sour tone. I have just about had it with their invasive prodding and poking.
"Never did I say that. Maybe the others did when they first treated you but I am trying to understand what makes you come back to all of this. His history of violence is not limited to his henchmen whom he treats as objects."
"Oh so you want to go all Doctor Phil on me and wanna know what the big payoff is, right?" I reply coolly. "You wanna know I keep going back in spite of what he does. Well, lemme ask you something, sweets. Why do people keep going back to their crappy jobs, the same ones they complain about day in and day out?"
"Harleen, it is not the same-"
"Don't. Call. Me. That. Name. Do. Not. Belittle. Me." I said with all the control I could muster.
"Doctor Quinzel," she began but I cut her off.
"Call me doc, if we wanna be a little informal." I snapped back. I leaned back and stretched my muscles. I was going to tell her a story and this one jumps my bones. You know that feeling you get when you reminisce that magical moment in the past? Here it is my turn.
"Doc, you know it is not the same thing. Paying your bills because you have to is not the same as being an accomplice for the Joker's crimes because you want to. On top of that, not batting an eye when he gives you a mark on any part of your body. I do not understand how you can choose to tolerate that."
"Lemme ask you something, Doctor. When someone becomes famous, like, mega famous and puts themselves out there, you think they are insane because they have to deal with the verbal attacks that certain members in the media print or choose to publish?" Doctor Contreras was going to make a counterpoint but I stopped her ahead of time. "Is Madonna crazy because of what she does? Look at the stuff they write about her! Oh, and don't get me started on a certain horse-faced actress." Yeah, I like Entertainment Tonight but only when Riddler wants to watch Jeopardy! She just sat there. I didn't care if she was trying to come up with a response or if she was baiting me.
"Unlike these people, Wendy. I don't look for money or fame or a book deal. My reason for choosing this life has nothing to do with material possession. It is something far more, personal…..more spiritual you might say."
I got up and looked out at the window. It was close to five PM. The traffic was filling up over Kane Bridge. The sunset was an exquisite pink and orange over the horizon. It had that perfect noir feel to it and I was going to say something that she might go to bed with and think about.
"April, five years ago when I was fresh out of grad school. After I had the honor of being granted private sessions. It was a day I will never forget."
Now she looked at me not as a doctor to a patient but a stranger listening to my story and it felt fantastic. I had gotten her attention and she HAD to listen to me.
"It wasn't what he said that won me over. It was what he did." I said in a tone just above a whisper. I got an electric current in my veins remembering that day, back then when things were not as complicated, as ugly.
"He did a few things, doc. He killed people, children included. Did you not think about that?" Dr. Contreras asked.
"Doctor, when you are in the presence of an alpha male whose sole interest is you and only you, that goes out the window. It becomes secondary. It is irrelevant. We are all complicated individuals with skeletons in our closets, no? I just happened to know which ones he had. At least he was honest."
Dr. Contreras rolled her eyes. I saw that she understood that I was not going to get out of this 'hole' as they liked to call it. I was not captive. I quite liked where I was and I was about to explain to her why. I knew my surroundings. I was not born yesterday.
"It was probably the eighth or ninth session. I had just finished with him for the hour. We exchanged our goodbyes but not before he held on my arm tightly. I admit, I was a little scared but flustered as well. He got down on his knees and began to pull from underneath my skirt. I could still feel the fabric go down against skin. I felt the breeze against my bare skin. The protective layer was off. He looked at me with a devilish glare I would never forget. He parted my thighs. He then let go aimed for a slice of heaven."
I knew Dr. Contreras was angry not because I gave up my life for a psychopath from hell. It was because I sacrificed, notice, and became less selfish, to someone else. I found out that she wrote that I could not help myself and not because I was a devoted groupie with a crush. She said that I said that so that I could deflect any responsibility for any harm that I caused. I knew it broke her Gloria Steinem reading heart but what did I care? It was my body. Why could they not see that part? Was it shallow, yes but it was no different than indulging in the simple pleasure of an ice cream. Sure it is full of an insane amount of sugar and other unhealthy preservatives but it is a simple pleasure. Some people chose only one time because they did not want to detriment their health, I chose to indulge again. And again. And again.
Then again, when a man touches a woman in such a sensual manner, it is only natural that she react that way.
End note: I wrote this because I wanted to write a view of why Harley stays with the Joker even though he is an abusive psychopath. I want to stress that if you at anytime got the idea that I condoned abusive relationships, please do not as it goes against what I firmly believe in. Abusive relationships are NOT 'alternative lifestyles'. I wrote this as a challenge. As a lot of you should know, Joker and Harley are not exactly my top OTP but I still wanted to write something out of my comfort zone and I would like to think I succeeded. Please let me know what you think.
Love, WR.