When she was young and the world was new, he would hold her in his arms and waltz her through the many empty rooms. Dipping, sweeping by the pale moonlight they would dance to the erratic tune that played endlessly in his mind. The two of them swirling in a silent world of silver and shadow. She would feel his fetid breath on her cheek and hear him whisper "Do you love me?" She thought she knew what love was then, but that was when she was young and the world was new.
She wakes with a start, head throbbing her slim athletic body drenched in cold sweat. That dream again. The hall of mirrors in the old amusement park hideout. She hadn't thought about that place in years ever since ........ she does not remember. It was on the news last night, they were finally going to tear that old wreck down and build a multi-story car park facility on the site. Gee just what this God dammed city needs, she thought ruder-fully with a shake of her blonde tousled head, more people parking on her memories.
The bed feels cold and much too big. She reaches for the woman she shares it with; feeling for the silk of her skin or the lift of her breast, but finds nothing but empty space quietly cooling in the cold night air with the lingering smell of sex. Despite herself she smiles as she remembers the languorous nights they spent intertwined together, their bodies locked passionately into each others, neither willing to release the other from the snare of their limbs.
She was unperturbed by Her absence; she knew that the love of her life was probably potting around downstairs for munchies. After all we all get hungry and we all need to eat. A hungry stomach cannot hear.
Pulling on her dressing gown, she starts picking up the scattered books and tidying the mountains of papers stacked carelessly all over the floor. In the soft moonlight leaking through the sole window pane of the small bed-sit (our room she reminds herself, Hers and mine), the papers which litter it helter skelter seemed to her to look so much like the skeletal remains of monsters long dead and gone. Monsters? Are there really monsters? Yeti, wolfman and vampire? Strange how fragile the human mind is she wonders to herself, prone to romanticism and forgetfulness; she loves me, she loves me not. Are we not all monsters? Who kill our fathers and fuck our mothers?
The most merciful thing in the world, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. As if there were some monster in thought, too hideous to be shown.
Idly she picks up a sheet and turns it in her hands ever-which way. It was filled with the sloppy scrawl of a woman's hand. She cannot make out the full of the symbols and notations, but instinctively knows that they are scribbled with formulas for the mutation of crops, algorithms for the production of lethal biotoxins and models for the spread of poisonous contaminates in urban environments. Her lover's twin obsessions laid bare for the world to contemplate; sex and death.
Death. She does not understand this obsession with death. Like Her, He was also obsessed. Obsessed in love with a Mesoamerican symbol of destruction and decay. But He went further with his obsession, seeking every opportunity to provoke its coming. She remembers the last time with a frown, Him shrieking in glee when the shadow thundered out of space to wreck its terrible vengeance upon them, his maniacal laughter heralding the coming of pain. Oh but for the pain. She hated the pain.
She remembers retching as the metallic taste of her own blood filled her mouth, followed by the sensation of a thousand brilliant suns simultaneously exploding in the exposed nerve endings of her brain; bright sharp exquisite and the eventual merciful darkness. When she awoke in a pool of her own vomit and waste, they were gone. He had fled across the roof tops for yet another moonlight chase with His other half before finally crashing 7 floors to the ground. He survived the drop, He always does. There is a part of Him that does not believe that He will die like all things. There is only one Batman and one Joker, He always says. Only the pair. Everything else is but a delusion.
She shudders when she recalls Him, not because she is afraid of Him. She is never afraid of Him, but that they would be so alike. That pain and pleasure would be so interwoven for them like night and day.
They were after all mirror images of the same mad divinity; father of the holy fool and mother of the demon clown. She understands that she exists because He willed her into being. He was the mirror in which she saw herself as she truly was and the measure of all things. She was to Him His word made flesh, a creature of His own making, brought forth like Eve out of Adam's own body. A thing distinct and yet forever connected to Him. He called her His love child. The child which He had dreamed and longed for, for so very long to remind the Batman of their love.
She remembers a time when she was just another woman among a million others living in a dirty chaotic city riddled with crime and rot. A smart ambitious woman with champagne wishes and caviar dreams. How trite that all sounds now. She remembers how she thought she could use Him to further her aims, and how instead He saved her from herself. Opened her eyes to the dearth of God; for how could beauty, truth, and innocence exist in a world without meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. He baited her with the knowledge that in so far that the world is knowable it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings and in her heart of hearts she knew that what He said was gospel. He had seen something in her that no one else had ever seen and in extending His hand to her to walk the doors of perception with Him where action, suffering, willing, and feeling had no rhythm or reason. She could not say no.
She remembers how strange and difficult it was to be newly born into the world. Everyday brought forth new interesting and curious challengers. He had to teach her everything; how to speak, how to act, how to think. Like a puppy that had fouled itself and needed the iron rod of discipline, she was His to mark and score along the lithe and willing lines of her body. She understood that He loved her in His way and that in time she would learn how to read the language of His love. But sadly she never did. It was not meant to be she would console himself in time to come. His love was too pure. It was never meant to be.
She smiles as she gently strokes the massive green vines which encircled the bed and ran the length and breath of the walls and floors of the cosy room. Bringing the pillow to her face, she inhales its sweet scent; lemon grass, cinnamon, apples. Her love always smells of spring. Always. Once this was all she ever wanted. A shared room with a shared bed filled with Her warmth and presence; Her books, Her papers, and Her plants. She didn't mind that her babies had to sleep away from them. At least they were warm and unharmed (she could never say the same about Him) She found over time that she didn't mind anything, anything at all so long as she could feed her fingers to those soft sensual lips and feel that warm smooth flesh open under her.
Their relationship was not difficult to understand; it was as depraved and carnal as her relationship with Him was esoteric and spiritual. She had never intended them to be platonic; there was nothing of a sister or a mother about Her. Yet at the same time she loved Him, loved him in that way that all children love their fathers. She knew, she believed that she belonged to Him and with Him. But she could not deny herself the pleasure of Her and over time she found herself straying longer and longer until anguished with guilt she tore herself away and ran back to Him only to find herself longing yet again for a glimpse of Her. She knew it was only a matter of time, flesh is ruinously weak, soon she would find herself straying back to Her and then when the guilt became too much she would run back to Him.
In literature as in love, we are most often astonished at what is chosen by others. Sometimes He would make an unkind comment, it was so like Him to find her soft spot and hurt her there (He thought it funny to see her color and squirm) but if He missed her He never said. Likewise, She never brought up her sudden comings and goings in conversation (She didn't talk much, being content most of the time with tending Her plants) if She missed her She never let on. It was like her presence or absence didn't matter with either of them. Their life continued along the same oiled grooves cut into the iron of their days, He with the Batman; flirting always flirting, She with Her plants. It seemed to her that it did not matter to them if she was with Him or Her, so long as the other knew she would eventual come back to each in turn.
She returns the pillow to its place on the bed and makes her way out the door into the dark narrow hallway. They have made their home in a decrepit apartment building (sadly, one of many others) in a poverty stricken inner city neighborhood. Outside the screams of police sirens mixed with the shouts and obscenities of drunk and angry young men. But inside the walls of their own private sanctuary everything was still; there were no sounds of insects in the rooms or rats in the walls. There was only the suggestion of movement from the vibrant green vines that travest the walls and floors and filled the windows and doors with their strange phosphorescent blooms. How beautiful like Her they are, she thinks to herself as her eyes slowly adjust to the interior gloom. She breathes in the perfumed air and putting her lips to the vines, kisses them slowly, feeling, probing them with her tongue as they shudder and shake with pleasure at her touch. Like She shuddered the first time they kissed.
She smiles. Their history together was so strange, so intense, and so wonderful. She was with Him when she first saw Her, and she felt the world turned into onto and of itself. She was beautiful. So beautiful it hurt. So beautiful that she had to run away and hide herself least He found the stain that had taken root in her heart.
In the days and weeks after, she would tell herself that she loved Him, nobody but Him and know that to be the first of many lies that she would tell herself. He only had to look at her face to read the desire that was stamped on her breast.
She found herself often restless, unable to sit or to stand. Sleep became impossible and so did eating and drinking. He found her distracted and it irritated Him no end because she was no good for His schemes; she was all hands when she should have been feet and all feet when she should have been hands.
One night when she could bear it no longer she stole away to seek Her out. She found Her in the park where she had been told She would be, taking a midnight bath in the great algae crusted lake at its centre. Hiding herself in the trees, she watched enthralled from a respectful distance fearful of causing distress to her beloved. She returned the next night and the night after that, always moving from spot to spot, changing her position to avoid being detected. She knew that the vines would sniff her out otherwise, and dismember her as she had seen them tear apart a troublesome dog that had strayed too close and did not have the sense to flee.
Her vines. She had asked Him what He knew of those strange living green appendages that wound around Her arms and body and thrived in symbiosis with her. His eyes glittering like polished jewels He knew enough to tell her to stand clear away from them for He had seen them attach themselves to the skin of certain men that had the bad luck to cross Her and sucked the blood, mallow and fat off their unfortunate victims until nothing remained but screaming bone dry husks. He found it fascinating from a professional perspective of course, that She could keep a head alive on a withered body indefinitely if it so suited Her. He admired Her sense of dedication.
She would learn much later that the vines were a living breathing part of Her (beneficial but not essential for her long term survival) but still a much loved and valued part like an arm or a leg until torn screaming from Her body with hot irons by men in biohazard suits. She saw them do that to Her in Arkham. It was no wonder that She hated them all.
She breathes in more of that wonderful intoxicating scent and finds herself drifting along with it. She is in the very air. Following the lay of the vines, she makes her way down the hallway pulling her dressing gown to her to ward off the chills. She is naked under the thin sheath of terry cloth and the floor boards feel like ice against her bare feet. She wonders if she should return to the room before she catches her death of cold. She pauses as she reflects if death would come as easy for her as it was for the goats whose throats she slit once upon a time on so many cold autumn nights like this. Why is it that her memories return time and time again to blood and death? The scent of monsters.
She had not meant to spill so much blood. The plan had come to her in a fever dream, hot and vivid with the color and stink of congealing blood. After 2 weeks of patiently waiting and watching she had finally realized with a desperate glee that in order to reach the lake with its Goddess, she would have to feed the vines that gathered around it like a nest of snakes.
The next day, when she woke she obtained a goat. It was a rank but good sized animal with a healthy layer of fat under its skin. She wanted something that would bleed well.
When night fell, she made her way along the park's silent paths away from the bright lights and the echoing laughter of happy families crowded around the refreshment pavilion and the amusement rides. She sprinted past mindful of the gangs of disenfranchised youth huddled in the shadows with broken bottles in hand, hunting for the blood of careless couples giddy with love. Gotham is a city of grinning predators. Eat or be eaten. Adversity breeds heros, and prosperity monsters.
She jumped over the traps laid by the bands of roaming feral children lost to the society of men as to their own families, running running with the unwilling goat in tow into the very heart of darkness; where guarded by her vines, her Goddess laid waiting in her emerald lake.
The vines sensed her approach long before she became aware of their presence. She suddenly found herself cornered into a thicket surrounded on all sides by a green mass of angry swaying eye less snakes, the goat pulling and bleating in blind fear and panic.
Undeterred, she nimbly fished out the large plastic bowl from her backpack and placed it on the ground before smashing the goat's skull deftly with the butt of her gun. Dead, the goat dropped silent to the ground allowing her to swiftly slit its throat with the small boning knife hidden in her palm spilling its steaming blood carefully into the bowl. The vines retreated at first; their primal intelligence startled by the sudden act of random violence, but soon reemerged in force to sniff the air now thick with the stink of blood and death. She stood motionless and watched dazed by their beautiful vibrant green skins as they moved swiftly as if to strike and then pulled away at the last moment to stand dancing before her face. "It is a gift" she whispered, "for you. I want to go to Her. I will not harm Her. I promise you. I love Her like you do."
The vines hesitate, their indecisiveness reflected in their slow hypnotic swaying. They seem to argue among themselves, some limbs more aggressive than others before a consensus of sorts was reached. They lifted her into the trees, placing her among the branches where she could be watched by others of their kind before heading down to devour her quickly cooling gift. She calmly surveys the horror unfolding below her as they greedily lap up the offered blood with their small jagged mouths and dragged the remains into the bush. Soon nothing is left of the goat; blood, flesh, skin and bone – all gone. Their hunger sated, the vines silently retreated into the green from whence them came from leaving her alone with her tears. Despite the feast they had denied her, her heart's desire.
She returned the next night with another goat and again and again and again until she lost count of the days and the nights for all that seemed to matter was the stink of fur and blood and the repeated tears of disappointment. She remembers that as a lost and desperate time.
There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness. One night when she could no longer bear the thought of never reaching Her, she made her way through the silent paths alone and finding her way barred yet again by the vines, she bared her breast and cut herself with the boning knife from collar to naval. All for love, she thought to herself, the important thing was to love rather to be loved.
She remembers the color of her own blood on her hands, the violent frenzy of the vines as they surged forward towards her, the horrible cacophony of a thousand jagged mouths clicking simultaneously filling her ears. She remembers muttering an apology before closing her eyes and then that sweet strange silence.
Stupefied, she opened her eyes and blinked in surprise at the figure standing before her, a beautiful oh so beautiful woman with long wind swept red hair, her naked body draped with the rotting pelts of goats; her Venus in furs.
The woman smiled, Her brilliant green eyes unreadable. She remembers telling the vision before her, "I love you", and feeling the acidic burn of Her tongue along the length of her bloody cut. Her cool breathe on her burning cheek. She remembers a time when as a child, she was brought to watch a ballet. The beautiful lady turning turning on the stage. She smells of sugar plums and peppermint. Leaning over she kisses that beautiful mouth, hot and hungry with the tang of blood. Her blood.
Does loving too deeply in one direction make us more loving in all others? Since that first night, she has stolen Her away with kisses, and threats from the forest of trees and its emerald lake. Her vines now nest hidden from human sight in the bones of forgotten buildings where the eating is good; feasting as they do now on a diet of rats, dogs and the occasional cat. Her love is now dressed in coats of costly sable and mink with a collar of diamonds at her throat and Manolo Blahnik heels. Yet has anything really changed? She wonders as she makes her way down the stairs into the gutted innards of their home to where she knows her love lies waiting. Has anything changed? Are we not all still monsters? Wolves decked out in sheep's clothing? Will she ever stop obsessing about poverty, rape, imperialism, homelessness and the fact that the average age of entry into prostitution in Gotham is the age of 13?
She does not think that the naked man with the liquid eyes huddled on his knees on the blood stained floor will believe her if she told him otherwise.
We all get hungry, we all have to eat.