The Endgame

Chapter Ten

Roll the Dice

"You really know how to spoil a guy's appetite." He finally spoke after her startling interruption.

"I had to bring this up. It's the reason I have to get out of here. I have plans and I have things to do to make sure it all happens on time." She was relieved to have this out in the open. She felt now that he would understand why he had to let her go.

"Ah…" He squeezed his eyes shut tight for a moment as if reacting to a headache and then opened them again and shook his head like he was shaking off a bad dream. "Let's play the game while we discuss this … this, whatever it is, you need to do, okay?" He looked at her warily like she had suddenly become dangerous.

They moved over to the chess board where she took her place on the edge of the bed behind the white chess pieces. He pulled the straight back chair from the dinner table over to sit across from her, taking the black. They took a moment to settle as he handed her a glass of wine and then sat down, slouching a little, as he studied her, clearly puzzled.

"What?" She caught his expression and was anxious to get this thing out of the way. "Ask away. I know you're wondering."

"Well, yeah. I'm wondering." He sat up and leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers together as he rolled his eyes, trying to figure out where to begin. "I'm wondering why the female of our species always feels like they are unfulfilled if they don't add to the population of this dooooomed planet."

"It's biological. It's hard-wired. We can't help it." She moved a pawn out two spaces to the centre. "I mean, there are some that escape it."

"The really, really, smart ones." He pointed out. "I thought you'd be one of those."

"Jack. I have no one. No. One."

"Considering the ones you might have, that could be a very good thing." He reasoned, moving a knight toward her army. He took a sip of wine. "I think I might have to get drunk now. This is making me so depressed. And that's sayin' a lot, ya know. I'm usually a fairly undepressable guy."

"I've thought it through carefully. I've been preparing for nearly a year. That's why you need to let me get back to my life. I have an appointment and preparations to make leading up to it. And I've worked very hard getting enough money together to pay for it all. It's not cheap having a baby by yourself – especially the getting pregnant part."

He winced at the word and she smiled at his reaction.

"You know when Charlie brought your meds and there was no birth control, I just assumed that you had done something permanent about it. Something sensible. You know, the old knot in the tubes?"

"I know I'm old to be considering this but I'm still fertile. Well, as fertile as you can be at my age. The chances of this working are not great but I'm trying to stay positive."

"What are you doing, exactly, and I know I'm going to regret that I ever asked." He looked at her with trepidation. She was amazed how disturbed he seemed about this.

She smiled and added a knight to her front line. "A.I. – artificial insemination. Dr. Jenson is a wizard at it. He has a very good outcome rate. So, I have a date on or close to the fifteenth to give it a chance. But I have to make arrangements at the donor clinic, sign papers, and other things, to be ready for the day. I need my basal kit to keep track of my cycle for the five days leading up to it." She wasn't shy about sharing her situation.

"You mean the turkey baster thing?" He squinted at her and grimaced like he smelled something unpleasant.

"Yes." She laughed out loud at the face he was making. "But it's not a turkey baster. They use a syringe and a tube. It's all very clinical."

"You gave up on a relationship? You really want to do this alone?"

"I'm not interested in even trying the relationship thing." She said confidently. "I really don't believe I'm any good at it."

"Well, you married Gary." He reminded her, pushing his other knight toward the centre. "You must have believed in it then."

"Not really." She admitted, taking a sip of wine. "I just wanted a baby. I'm not marriage material. So, this is perfect. I can have a child without having to navigate the choppy waters of matrimony or a relationship. Remember, we decided that marriage blows?"

"Well, what about the choppy waters, and typhoons, and shipwrecks, of parenthood? You think you're up to that?" He looked at her doubtfully.

"I know what you're thinking…" She stopped contemplating the board and looked at him.

"Hmmm?"

"You're thinking that with my psychological problems that I wouldn't be a good mother."

"Well?" He wasn't going to let her off easily.

"I'm doing better. I've worked hard to figure out my short-comings and my quirks and the way ordinary life seems to leave me befuddled…" She seemed to be trying to convince herself more than him and the catch in her voice gave away her lingering uncertainty.

He felt something odd when he watched her so desperately trying to defend her decision. It must be something like sympathy, he reasoned, without having first hand experience of that particular emotion. It was difficult to watch her floundering with something that was out of her control. She couldn't help who she was any more than he could help who he was.

"Are you taking fertility drugs?"

"No. No. See? There's something." She seemed to get excited as she explained. "I purposely declined fertility drugs because even though I know it would help my chances immensely, I know I can't take the chance of a multiple birth. I can only handle one child. I know my limits. I honestly do. I'm being responsible." She watched him for a reaction.

"Yeah, I mean….twins….that's like ….well, twice as bad." He didn't know what to say and that was a rarity. He frowned at his very lame response. This was truly uncomfortable for him.

"Jack, can't you just try to understand? I need to go home."

He looked at her seriously for a moment and then shook his head in that odd way, like he was erasing an etch-a-sketch to start over again.

"Look, we're playing a game here, remember?" He pointed at the board. "And you're ruining it with all this mother hen garbage." He chewed on the last word for effect. "Are you forgetting our earlier conversation about the state of this world and how modern life is a farce? Hmmm? Do you really want to bring a child into a world that has guys like me in it?"

"I will protect my child. It's instinct." She argued, taking up another pawn.

"Yeah, until it goes to school and becomes programmed to run with the delusional masses, to grow up to fit some pre-ordained role, like veal in a holding pen, slotted into an artificial sense of well-being because they 'fit in'." It was clear he had thought of this before.

"Except my child will not go to school." She challenged him. "I'm a teacher, remember? I'll home school. I intend to keep my child a free thinker, an individual, not afraid to swim upstream or shake a few cages. He can explore his own educational pursuits without the negative effects of social programming. I'll guide him right through pre-school, grade school, middle school and high school, until he can write his SAT's and find a university or college, if he wants it."

"He?" Joker caught her reference to a son.

"Well, I admit, I want a boy. But a girl would be okay too." She looked at his curious expression. "It's your move."

"Why a boy?"

"Because they just have more options. They can be more free-wheeling and don't feel the social pressure that girls do."

"Oh, but you're going to spare your child from social pressure, remember?" He nodded at her, trying to drive home how futile her hopes were.

"Don't make fun of me." She looked down into her wine, resting her dark head in her left hand, sighing deeply and looking somewhat defeated.

"You're lonely Sweetheart. That's all. Get a puppy. You want me to get you a puppy?" He was serious in his offer, feeling again, that odd tug in his chest at her misery.

She didn't say anything. He wanted to reach across and touch her face. Just a little caress right there along that soft cheek, rosy now from wine and emotion. Women with babies on their mind were always certain to drive his libido underground immediately. The Joker had actually had a few, extremely besotted, not to mention, misguided, women, in his life express their overwhelming desire to give birth to his offspring. It was always the last conversation they ever had. As much as he hated having to forgo the pleasure of full-on penetrative intercourse in most of his encounters with women, he was meticulous in his practice of safe sex. Because of his extreme dislike, and mistrust, of condoms, and his even greater loathing of the idea of actually impregnating anyone, his sex practices leaned heavily toward the oral variety. Yet, here she was, in full monthly flow, talking about insemination and fertility and her desire to give birth and he was still finding her so very alluring. Maybe because she wasn't eying him as the potential father. That thought brought him up short for a second, languishing in a sort of confusion that began to make him even more uneasy.

"So, who's the Dad?" He suddenly wanted to know more, not less, about her venture. "Is old Ham bone gonna do his little friend a solid?"

'We did discuss it." Claire admitted. "Ham would be a wonderful candidate, actually. But he's a sensitive guy and he doesn't think he could father a child biologically without feeling the need to parent it as well. And, it might strain our friendship which is very important to both of us. So, I had to rule him out. But, he's on board, ready to support me in this. The baby will have an instant Uncle Ham."

"So you're fucking him, right?"

"I told you before.." She grit her teeth in frustration. "I am not, as you so charmingly put it, fucking, Ham. Can't you put things a little more delicately? You have an above average vocabulary. Why don't you use it?"

He chuckled deeply at her very teacherly advice. "It's a word that describes that activity perfectly. I usually reserve it just for that. And it sounds so much dirtier when you say it with that accent, I gotta tell ya." He leaned back in his chair and smiled. "So if you're not fucking Ham, who are you fucking? Hmmm?" He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"Who are you fucking?" She turned it around to demonstrate how invasive that question was. He didn't miss a beat.

"Connie." He answered flatly, without hesitation, "Oh, and … Marta, if Connie's unavailable."

"Really?" She looked at him in wonder. "That's very interesting. And do they know about each other?"

"They should. They're sisters."

Claire shook her head in wonder. "And anyone else you'd care to mention?"

"Well, there's that seamstress over at the tailor's last week. Took a little too much interest in my in-seam measurement-t. And well, she was down there on her knees already. We had a little thing happen while the Rusky was doing up the order."

"So, you're promiscuous." She concluded, feeling oddly disturbed by this discussion.

"Oh no." He giggled. "Women are promiscuous. I just …. get around." He said it without a shred of irony. "Okay, I shared….your turn." He waited.

"Well, I'm not having relations with anyone." She dropped his colourful word for the moment. "Thus, the need for a donor."

"Thus, the need…..did I tell you before? I love the way you talk." He spun his king on its square and licked his lips. "You could have any man you crooked your little finger at, Sugar, you gotta know that." He was confused. "Why resort to the unseen ocean of spermatozoa and take the chance on an anonymous knuckle dragger, political pinhead or Wall Street reptile?"

"It's a leap of faith, I guess." She was amused at how he could argue a point so graphically. "And if it's anonymous, there's less chance the father will have second thoughts later and want to get involved in our life."

"You're not adverse to risk, that's for sure." He picked up his glass of wine and held it up to her. "It's commendable, really. The lengths you are willing to go to get something you want. Despite that oh, so feminine veneer, you're a tough little biscuit."

She looked back at him, accepting the dubious compliment, a little more hopeful that he was finally getting this.

"It's between two donors. I've studied their profiles. One's an engineer and the other's a medical student."

"Well. Lah dee fuckin' dah. So, you don't actually meet them?"

"Oh, no. It's just a vial of sperm in a thermos, frozen solid. You go by the profile." She explained, moving her bishop out a couple of spaces.

"No videos? Not even a phone call? Candy gram?"

"No. It's better that it's anonymous like that. You know there are fewer donors now since they made it possible for the biological child to find the donor. Men don't want to have that headache later so less are deciding to donate. And, as I said, I certainly don't want the father involved in any way."

"So, just the fact they jerked off in a paper cup, doesn't entitle them to an invitation to the graduation ceremony?" He joked and she smiled patiently.

"My experience of fathers is not one that makes me feel they are required."

"Oh, don't get me started." He nodded sagely. That was one topic they were completely in agreement about. "My old man was like a plague. He died you know."

"He did?"

"Uh huh. I think I killed him."

The conversation stopped like a radio being unplugged. She just stared at him, frightened to continue but after a few moments, she gave him her entire focus and went ahead into the fear.

"Why do you think it was you who killed him?" She asked gently.

"Because I hated him and he died under suspicious circumstances that I just learned about last year. He was found shot in the head, at the end of the street we lived on. I don't remember it, of course, but later, when I learned about it, I thought I could have done it. I had thought about it. Even before I became who I am. I thought about doing him in. So….." He put his hands up in a gesture that indicated helplessness. "Why not me?"

"Did he die in Gotham?"

"No, we went back to Indiana after my mother died. He died there. A few years later. I only have a few memories of that house and trying to live with him. She asked me, in the last days, get this……she asked me, no, begged me, to look after him. She still cared about that evil piece of shit. I had to try. But I hated the air he breathed and resented every moment he existed. It had to be me. I must have decided to finally take him out." Joker stared at the board in front of him and captured her pawn with his knight. "I'm not sorry if I did. But, something in me still feels that family should not kill family. It's unnatural, you know, anthropologically speaking."

"I met him once." Claire decided to share in this dark moment. "I came by to leave some homework for you when you didn't make it into school for a few days, looking after your mother. He stopped me at the door and wouldn't let me speak to you. I was on the back porch with him and he cornered me between the house and the railing. He frightened me more than any person, including the Joker, ever did. Your father had no soul, Jack. I looked into his eyes and he was an empty vessel."

"What did he do to you?" Joker asked, frowning in anticipation of her reply.

"He didn't have time to do much. You called from inside the house and he had to let me go." She assured him.

Joker thought about it for a few moments and then nodded, satisfied. "Then I'm glad if it was me who did it."

Claire returned to the game as she tried to digest what he had just told her. It was difficult to know what to say. Normal sentiments toward his life just didn't seem to fit. It was like he had lived, and was living, a life completely out of the ordinary. It went outside the bounds of everyday experience. His life was about as much like the man on the street as a recently landed space alien.

"Your turn there Mommy." He turned away from the gloom and she rewarded him with a smile.

"So you understand?" She asked hopefully. "You can see that I need to take care of things?"

"Claire, you're losing already. You better concentrate on the game, Darling." He ignored her question and pointed at a weak spot in her line-up.

She went silent for the moment, complying with his order to concentrate on the game, but her mind was busy trying to figure out how she was going to get him to give in. He had to give in. There had to be a way. He interrupted her thoughts.

"So, if you don't meet Mr. Right Donor and you don't get to eyeball him or have a conversation, how do you know it's not the village idiot, drooling and picking his nose?"

"Oh, lovely mental picture, Jack. Thank you so much."

"Well, just saying."

"Because of the profile. They fill in a questionnaire about their health, their hobbies, their accomplishments, even their family's medical background, any exposure to STD's, or other tendencies toward factors like drug addiction or heart trouble." She said emphatically, pleased at how official it sounded.

"And do they swear on a Bible or other good book of their choice that it's all true? Or do they leave it to the people who work at the clinic to check it all out and, in fact, keep all those little faceless and nameless vials, all sorted correctly, hmmmm?"

She looked up after she moved her bishop a little further, stalking his queen. She frowned at what he was inferring. He went on making his point.

"Guys jerking off in little paper cups, filling out questionnaires compiled for the sole purpose of accepting them so someone can be charged at some point for their frozen cumsicles, and all checked out by lowly, all-too-human clinic workers, maybe over-worked, and maybe pissed off at the boss, and maybe just stupid, charged with the ominous duty of ensuring that these donors are who they say the are and that you will, in fact, receive exactly the correct vial that you so carefully select and pay for." He shook his head and moved his queen out of her bishop's trajectory neatly. "Sounds like a recipe for disaster and maybe offspring that resembles Dr. Jenson just a little too much."

"What?" She looked alarmed. "What has he got to do with…?"

"Well, it's just the age old problem, and quite a few stories…" he looked up as though he was sifting his memory for examples, "about these turkey baster doctors indulging their ego a little too serioussssleeee, replacing the vials of donors with their own little swimmers so they can rule the world or something…." He let his voice trail off and she bent closer, eyes wide, trying to understand what he was saying. "But, it's probably just a rumour." He ended it cheerfully and reminded her. "Claire Bear – your move. Are you hungry? Snackies?"

She was staring at him in undisguised horror. He had to bite down hard on his lower lip to keep from barking a laugh at her expression. He looked nonchalantly at the board and took another sip of wine. He could check her king now but decided to cut her some slack because of the obvious distraction she was suffering. He would toy with her a little longer. He wouldn't humiliate her with such an early kill.

"What are your odds?" He asked, remembering her notation in the day book beside her appointment with Dr. Jenson. It said 'roll the dice.'

"Five to seven percent." She said in a rather flat voice, still reeling from the very disturbing picture he had seeded in her mind about her plans. "That's why I needed to save my money. I'm going to have to do this often to get results. And I need to get started now because as you age, your eggs become less viable. The quality is poor."

"Oh I'm sure you got some fresh little ovum left." He made a big show of cheering her up, knowing full well, he had ruined her enthusiasm for the evening. "You're not that old."

She looked at him bleakly, accepting the very awkward encouragement with chagrin. "I'm not getting any younger."

"Look, Claire, you don't know that this will be a good thing. It could be horrible. Your mother died giving birth to you."

She looked startled.

"See? I remember. You told me that once. How your father was so disappointed to lose a beloved wife in exchange for a squalling baby who couldn't even carry on the family name." It reminded her of how they had shared so much when he was her favourite student. "How do you know you won't suffer the same fate, hmmm?"

"My mother had an aneurysm. It went undetected. It was a fluke. The hike in blood pressure giving birth caused it to rupture. She died before she even had a chance to see me." Claire told him quietly. "The chance of the same thing happening to me is very remote. I'm in good health. I had it checked out."

He could see her stubbornly retaining a hold on this ridiculous plan of hers. It was irritating to him that she continued to defend it. And she wasn't playing chess.

"Are you going to move or are you determined to ruin the evening with this?" He said tersely, getting her attention.

"It's important to me." She tried to make him understand.

"This game is important to me." He challenged her.

"You're not going to let me go home."

"I'm going to save you from making a very big mistake." He concluded, never actually thinking for a moment that her plans would make him change his.

"You can't stop me forever." She met his challenge and pushed her rook out too far into his territory.

"Are you forgetting that I can?" He stared at her, ready to remind her that Jack was a memory and that the Joker didn't care if her hand ever got to rock a cradle or if sperm donors told the truth or if she was lonely beyond comprehension. "I knew it was a mistake to take the paint off around you. I knew you'd get all confused. Mistaking me for someone you used to know." This was getting out of control. She had to be brought back down to earth.

Her eyes latched onto his and she didn't flinch. He watched her chest heave as she worked on a rising tide of anger that was actually thrilling to behold. He waited for her to express it. He could feel the air getting tighter around them where they sat, starting to swirl and curl in a way that he could sense like others could not.

"You're going to ruin everything, aren't you?" She finally spoke, darkness clouding her words as they drifted out towards him like smoke.

"Well, that's chaos for you." He smiled and then the smile cracked into a grin and her dark green eyes went nearly black with emotion as she reacted by raising her chin and looking at him as though she was warning him. He felt a sudden rush to the groin and he nearly swooned at the deep pleasure and desire she was awakening in him. He reached into his vest with his right hand and retrieved the magnum from its holster. He held it up for her inspection, the barrel pointing toward the ceiling. "It's why you should never make plans, Cookie. You're bound to be disappointed."

She looked at the gun and sniffed out a derisive laugh that made him blink in wonder at her nerve.

"I'm disappointed all right." She didn't show any sign of backing down and he was getting heady from the excitement of what she might do next. "But I'm not surprised. It's not the first time you've ruined something important to me, Jack. It's not the first time I've had to turn away from any possibility of happiness because of you."

They were just words, he told himself. She was venting. She was naturally upset and she wanted to hurt him. She just didn't realize that he was impervious to insults. He didn't get hurt – he just got angry. He could take her out right now. Just end this and get back to more important things. It was easy to reason his way toward using the gun. If she was so lonely, if her life was so unsatisfying, he might even be doing her a favour. As it stood now, no one of any consequence would miss her.

"Shut up." He snarled, knocking the chair back with his heel, standing up to get leverage on her where she sat on the bed, the chess board between them forgotten. He tilted the gun down now, aiming at her heart. Her eyes followed the barrel and then came back up to look into his eyes again. He thought he detected a strange fascination in her gaze as she continued to defy him.

"I won't shut up. I need to tell you that you're deluded. You're just a little bit sicker than they say you are. Because you actually believe all your own bullshit."

He made a violent sweep with his left arm and the table and chess board became airborne, disappearing from between them. The crash of wine glasses smashing against furniture and the floor and the chess pieces scattering in all directions made her pull back onto the bed quickly as he lunged toward her. He landed beside her as she attempted to leave the bed but he grasped her good arm and pulled her back down as he moved halfway on top of her pinning her casted arm under him as he pushed the gun against her throat. His right leg was over hers, to keep her subdued. She stopped fighting and just lay quietly against him.

They were both breathing heavily as she lifted her gaze to his, just inches away. They both seemed surprised to find themselves in this position.

"I've caused you a lot of grief. I guess I can cause a little more before we're done." He told her calmly. "I sent you to Arkham. I brought you to this wasteland of a life where you feel like you have to fill it with another human being, even if you have to demean yourself to do it."

He trailed the gun barrel up and along her jaw, his eyes trained on hers, looking there for some direction. Then he moved the gun up into her hair and nudged the barrel under the pins on the left side, causing some long dark waves to tumble down onto her shoulder. He blinked hard and then moved the gun back down to her throat and pushed it up under her chin harshly. She stayed very still, just watching his eyes calmly. She moistened her mouth before speaking.

"I shouldn't have said that." She told him urgently, ignoring the pain in her arm and the cold hard gun barrel against her throat. "It was my own fault. You were not to blame. I don't blame you for any of it. Please believe me, Jack."

He blinked hard, trying to sort out what was happening here. Part of him wanted this to end so badly. She continued.

"You just made me so angry. I attacked and I did it the wrong way. You had nothing to do with how my life turned out. And you're not deluded. You're the most brilliant person I know." She didn't let her eyes leave his as she spoke. She was trembling a little. She should be, he thought to himself, with disdain.

"You're just saying that because you'll say anything to live." He gave her a disgusted look and his leg clamped over hers a little tighter. With his groin pressed in against her hip, she could feel his arousal through the corduroy trousers.

"I'm saying it because I know I'm likely to die in a moment and I don't want to leave you with those angry, ugly words. I don't want you to think I actually believe that about you." She was a little breathless, reacting to the weight of him on her and to some rampaging emotion she couldn't name that was sweeping her toward some vague promise of ecstasy.

"Last words. Tell the truth." He growled and she heard the cold metallic click of the safety coming off. She closed her eyes, grasping the bedding with her left hand, ready to be launched into whatever lay on the other side of this dark, deranged thing she called a life. When she spoke, her voice was high and clear like a bell. There was no mistaking her words.

"I loved you so much. It was wrong. But I couldn't help it. I just loved you so much."

She waited. She listened to his breathing. She heard him make a sound, like a strangled gasp, deep in his chest. She kept her eyes closed. The pressure of the gun disappeared. She felt him lift himself from her. She rolled onto her left side, grasping pillows to her head and face, trying to calm herself.

Before she could compose herself to face him, she could hear the locks being done up on the outside of the door and he was gone.