A red tide has come in with the moon, it pounds in my temples. Red spray in my face: salt, iron, hot. Far away a woman's voice is calling, calling.
"Please mister, please stop. Please, you'll kill him."
What does she mean, stop? I can't stem the tide. Her hands tug at my cape... cape?
The tide recedes for now. Blood covers the stones, smears the brick wall I've been slamming him against. He falls like a drowned man into a pool of blood and vomit, cracks his head, and groans. Lucky tonight, still alive. Another rapist saved; but not for another day, he'll be lucky to walk again. My knee aches from his broken pelvis.
She cowers back amidst the overturned trash cans. Her clothing is all awry, pale fish-flesh in the moonlight. Is it as simple as this? Blood, torn lingerie, garbage,fear? I raise my eyes to the waxing moon. Yes, Selina of the cats, you call up this tide in me. Fou amour, madness. Blood oozes from between kevlar-covered fingers as they clench spasmodically--still hungry.
What is the difference between violation and murder, between punishment and sadism? You don't care, Selina, but it matters to me. That is the difference between us, the one I cannot bridge.
I vaguely note the horror in this victim's eyes, her rescuer transformed into a worse monster. I've seen that look before.
Across the rooftops a cat howls angst at the cheese-round moon. I too could raise my muzzle and bay a mating call of challenge and lust. But I am not just another werebeast... I am the Batman.
Sweat stings my eyes and drips on the mat in front of me. It would take a concentrated physical effort to even wipe my face. Pity it's harder to tire the mind, pity it doesn't wipe clean.
Alfred looked in when I was late from the exercise floor; saw me destroy the practice dummies, heard me singing like a demented droog in time with the blows. He'd taken my sodden costume away without a murmur, not even a dry witticism about the exchanges of bodily fluids. He's worried. Alfred turns a blind eye to my taking steroids for the injuries and fighting muscle. I can't pretend it's those hormones; unfortunately there are others, and we ignore them at our peril.
I'm forty, the trophies in the cave are like some kid's toys now. Crime thrives, and justice is a game for lawyers. Lately, when the moon is full, there's too much Bat and not enough Man.
My over-callused hands ache, not from the gravel sacks, but to feel bone give beneath cringing flesh, it's my only human contact after all. Bruce, my persona, has taken to wearing white gloves everywhere; never shakes hands anymore. Gotham society thinks he's gone the way of Howard Hughes. He lets them think he's eccentric; germs in swimming pools, sunbathing causes skin cancer. There are limits to what Alfred's expert tailoring skills can hide, so Bruce puffs out his stomach and eats like a horse in public to pretend the bulk is all fat. It isn't. There isn't any fat and it feels like wood. What isn't muscle is scar tissue, under some of the scars are alloy... ah, improvements.
A polite cough. Alfred again. How does he sneak up on me like that?
"A card, master Bruce. Sent via Commissioner Gordon. The Commissioner conveys his apologies."
It is a playing card, and I don't need to turn it over, don't want to. Across the Jester's grin is a familiar scrawl.
Vacancy in Arkham. Book now, and avoid the full-moon rush.
"Shall I make reservations, sir, or wait till they come for you?" Alfred inquires, poker-faced.
"I don't think they have the room to hold me, Alfred," I say, gazing at my reinforced hands.
"Perhaps the bridal suite, if I may be so bold."
Alfred Pennyworth doesn't miss a trick, and he whisks away just ahead of a fifty-pound dumbbell. As usual, he's right.
The card lies before me; new, and from an exclusive deck. The writing has barely touched the surface, probably used a goose-quill. The card has been marked with a cheating gambler's pin-ring, but as the Queen of Hearts. I hate the Joker.
I telephone Gordon on the secure line. We maintain the polite fiction of my identity; it's safer that way for both of us.
"How many this time, James?" With the Joker it could be hundreds, or just one very spectacular homicide.
"He made a pipe bomb out of the plumbing and a cellulose deck of cards, blew two attendants apart and escaped in the ensuing fire."
Jim sounds tired; it is an old game, and the stakes are innocent lives. We'll sit down and tally them up after I put our comedian back in Arkham, then wait for it to begin all over again. The Joker and I have an unhealthy relationship, but it's all the Joker's got. I hope he doesn't know about Selina yet; jealousy can twist a normal mind, but his...
"Jim," I pause till he acknowledges. It comes slow; he knows I'm going to ask for a favour, another one. "You know Selina Kyle; ex-hooker, suspected cat-burglar?"
"Yes, I think so." Another polite fiction. James knows damn well who she really is, he's seen the scarred faces in the morgue. So have I, hard to forget no matter how you try.
"Jim, I think the Joker knows..." My voice tails off, what can I say? That I can't trust myself to watch Catwoman, that I'd kill him if he hurts her.
"I'll set up protective surveillance, but you know how good she is at losing cops." There is a silence. That means Jim wants the favour returned. "You're my friend, and as a friend I'm tel... suggesting you take a break. Visit your outer-space buddy in Metropolis, anything. It's getting so city ambulance crews won't work the graveyard shift on full-moons." Jim clears his throat; I can almost hear him reaching for a smoke. The hesitation when he remembers he's quit. "Jesus, do you want to end up like The Shadow?" he snaps irritably. "Him and the Joker would have made a hilarious double-act, same crazy laugh."
Ouch! I've been called a shadow of the Shadow, but he was a stone-killer. Jim has all the sensitivity of a life-worn cop, but he knows human nature in the raw. He's right too. I should go visit Clark, but we'd only end up fighting and I'm not ready, not yet. His omnipotent innocence provokes me. I spell out the facts of life to see him squirm. I may be the freak, but he's an alien. He'd never understand what flows between Selina and I. Besides, I can't run out on her, not with the Joker loose. Compared to him Big Ruby seems normal. Even I seem normal.
Jim is waiting, patient as an old cop.
"I can't help it, Jim. I love her." There, it was out. I hear his breath released at the other end.
"Do you remember my thing with Sarah?" Gordon says. "I gave her up."
"You had Barbara and the baby," I remind him. "Loeb was trying to blackmail you. You had no choice."
"What choice do you think you have?" he replies, and hangs up without waiting for an answer. Perhaps there isn't one. That means I'll have to make my own.
Black cats are invisible at night, however a bat has other senses. Women are not unlike cats in their curiosity, and the odour of fish tends to attract either. This gallery stinks to high heaven.
Poor Alfred had raised an eyebrow when Bruce announced his intention to procure a comprehensive collection of vintage pornography. Not just the old reels of starlets clawing their way up from the casting couch, but everything from Pompeian brothel frescos to Oriental pillow poems. Alfred proved amazingly resourceful in locating the obscurer items. One does hear those stories about terribly respectable Englishmen. Gotham, of course was scandalised--and lined up in droves on opening day.
I know how Selina feels about the 'green fruit' pedophile material, she has reasons. There is every degradation here, every vice made high art. She hates men like Bruce; fat, neurotic pigs who can't get it up without humiliating somebody. But she does like expensive trinkets and, however perverse, some of these items are eminently collectable and cost Bruce the earth.
All the publicity, irreplaceable records of the sexual enslavement of women. She will come, not just for profit, but revenge.
A hiss of breath at the gallery window, the scratch of a diamond-tipped claw on glass. Like fingernails on a blackboard, the faint sound electrifies me. Adrenalin thrums in my veins and hairs bristle beneath kevlar. This isn't any amateur, this is Catwoman.
Fur glides against the shadow, a glint of mirror as she evades the security beams. She has night-eyes too, but my Wayne
Electronics prototype is better. If she sees me at all, it is as a draped outline. I'd see her clear as day with my ultra-sonics, I could even see her very heart. All I have to do is switch on and trace its pulsing, drink in its rhythm.
Yet for now I prefer the dark and my own senses. She whispers over to a large, framed painting. 'Hippolyta Raped by Theseus', rather overdone and explicit as to the spoils of male victory. Soft pads brush the Persian carpet and static rustles in her fur. I hear the nails snick out.
Canvas slices cleanly at the kiss of those claws and I find myself wincing at their memory. She has felt my hands in anger. You could say we have an abusive relationship.
I switch on reluctantly. She has done terrible things to Theseus; yet, surprisingly, she's resting her cheek against the sorry tatters.
"I'm over here, Catwoman." My challenge lacks menace, but she spins around so fast, so lithe. She is a frozen instant, timeless. The perfect female at bay, Artemis surprised bathing by Actaeon.
"You!" she spits. "You dare to show up after the last time?"
Oh, yes. I remember the last time. She was fast, however I was disciplined, and fire can't beat ice. Then somehow the combat became a kiss, an imperative. There was only one possible outcome--I didn't, couldn't. Instead I suffered the backlash of rejection and the fury of a scorned woman. She needed me to fight back, overpower her, give myself to the passion that had claimed us. I fled, bleeding, into the night
Tonight there would be no escape. I see her muscles bunch up, she will be on me in another second. I have to keep her thinking, not reacting.
"We need to talk, Selina." That stops her gathering rush; it would give me pause to be addressed as Bruce. "I know everything about you, but it is Catwoman that fills my mind."
"Fills your tights, you mean," she hisses. "You're just like all the rest, scared of the wild woman." But she doesn't attack. Maybe if I don't have to touch her...
"Okay, I'm scared. But this is my trap." I gesture at the pictures, the perverse sculptures. "Couldn't be more appropriate--aren't lust and power our demons? It's not you I fear, but us." I pause. "The Joker is loose."
"So? He's a homo-maniac, if you were any kind of a man that last joke with the kids would have been his epitaph. What's with you two anyway?" Her eyes narrow again. No time for subtle explanations.
"All emotions are one," I snap. "If he learns about us, you're dead. Then I kill him--and he'll probably love every minute."
"If he hurts you, I'll skin him alive," Selina snarls, her claws fully extended.
Yes, I believe you would, you magnificent creature. Only I won't be giving him the chance, I've been pulling my punches for too long. It's actually much easier when you intend to kill someone.
"If I deliberately kill him, it's the end of the Bat." I set my jaw against the dark. "I drew that line a long time ago."
"The beginning of the man, of us," she whispers, lips parting, tempting.
"I couldn't just hang up the cape and slink off. I'd have to give myself up," I tell her. "Even with Gordon on my side, you'd have to wait your life away."
She turns on me, eyes moon-bright with sudden tears. "What's wrong with you? Boys? Ball-less?" She snickers nastily. "Don't tell me you're married."
"I am married. She may be blind, but she can weigh right from wrong and I have been her sword." That rings phony even to me and she is on it like a mouse.
"Quit hiding behind the skirts of Justice," she sneers. "What happened to avengers like the Shadow? He'd know what the Joker needs, what I need." A tremor ripples through those dancer's muscles. Oh, to stroke this cat. Desire and fear twitch through mine as will resists imperative. Will it be you or the Joker who pushes me into the darkness? I can almost feel him squirm beneath my insatiable finger implants. The others were for you mother, for you father. This one is for me.
For a moment the hate breaks through, pure and irresistible. The sound that swells in my throat distorts the sonics, and I sweep them off impatiently. Not before I see her face flinch, see the blood pump up as a heart leaps.
I can't recall moving, but she is in my arms. I have held brutes more gently.
"Selina," I gasp desperately. "We're psychos in animal skins, closet Nazis. If our alter-identities passed in the street, they'd feel nothing, be nothing."
Her claws dig into me, the infra-reds hanging about her neck. We're both blind now. But I don't need sonics to feel the pulsing blood, to hear that deep purr vibrating in her throat as she tilts back. It's the tide coming in.
"Selina," I croak. "We're monsters, we can't br..."
Claws fetch blood. "Here! Now!"
Guttural, insistent, arching her back till I feel it will break. She is right; I'm caught in my own trap. Nobody gets out, and I don't care.
"Ha, ha, ha, ha..." A madman's laugh. Suddenly,--lights!
The very last sound I wanted to hear; perhaps the last I will now. It's always bad when he laughs like that; this is worse, he's right out there on the footlights.
I throw Selina roughly away from me, ignoring the dug-in claws. Make it look like a fight. He likes blood.
The Joker stands, silhouetted by the corridor light. A dandified skeleton; that leprous white face with its death-head rictus of a smile, the punk hair. He assumes a nonchalant pose, but he's faster than either of us and never without a trick.
How long was he there? That laugh tells me too long. I was a fool to risk Selina like this.
"You're out of your league here, Catwoman," I growl convincingly. "This is between me and the Joker now." I try to maneuver between them, misdirect.
"Just you and me, freak-face. Like old times--a few laughs, a rough and tumble, then back to Arkham." Keep needling, distract.
"That's right, little kitty. Slink back to the cathouse and peddle your tail." His laugh is a distillation of every insult heaped on women. Can't kid the Joker.
I hear the hiss of Selina's breath as she springs to the bait. No sane man would face that panther-like charge unmoved; he merely raises his cane. A soft splat, and her silent rush ends at his feet.
A dart gun! If that's lethal... I'm already moving, and catch the next one in the folds of my cape. A stiletto flashes from his sleeve, but I'm on him.
You remember agony, Joker? The way bones feel just before they break? How lungs strain against the constricting bands at your pencil neck? Maybe this time it's the wild card.
A last whisper escapes the pain-clenched lips.
"Darling."
Then a pin prick on the inside of my wrist where the Kevlar is thin for flexibility. Too late I see his marriage ring's tiny blade. No time to reach for my belt kit--the paralysis strikes as fast as its master. Muscles shut down like a power outage, and I slump against the wall. No merciful unconsciousness; the Joker would never put his audience to sleep, unless permanently.
I can move my eyes, my tongue barely, the rest is gone. He observes me like a speculative vulture, head twisted awkwardly to one side. His right hand dangles, the other caressing the livid weals rising on his throat. Does he know how close I came?
"That was the best, darling," he rasps painfully. "You know I like it best when you're rough, but that was Homeric."
He turns Selina over with his foot. Her eyes are open, and they glare venom. Thank God, it wasn't lethal. Then I look into his eyes and my relief curdles. With the Joker there are worse things than death.
"I'm so glad I came to view the exhibits," he murmurs, a penlight coming on as he points his cane. "Our love-life was getting rather stale, hmm? And you never know who you'll bump into." His mouth twitches showing more teeth. "You naughty boy, I simply can't leave you alone."
The Joker strolls at random, the beam picking out generations of sexual convolution. It lights on a Celtic Sheela-na-gig, a defiant squat shot to afright men with their origins.
"How revolting. Don't you think that females are revolting?" Stone hands stretch threatening labia, an obscene smile mocking the Joker's hauteur.
"Boring, boring. Prosaic variations on a tired theme." He yawns extravagantly, and shifts the light to a canvas of Zeus and Ganymede. "Tut, tut, so juvenile. Women, boys, animals; mere physical torture. Where is the imagination, I ask you?"
He stops and shines the light into my eyes, checks Selina nodding to himself in satisfaction.
"There now, wide awake and ready for fun." He strokes a chin, fleshless and white as porcelain, and makes a show of seeking inspiration from the artifacts.
"Ah, now there is one of my heroes," he announces. "Caligula, dear 'Little Boots', a man above petty conventions. He raped a centurion and his bride on their wedding night, a double jus prima noctis. They cooperated wonderfully with a double suicide."
The Joker looks from me to Selina. "Eenie, meenie, minie... No, alas. An earlier loss of, shall we say, chemical balance prevents me from following that virile example. But then, the Joker never does follow-up acts."
A giggle starts in his stomach and works its way up to a mirthless, out-of-control hysterics that ends in painful coughing. I feel some slight satisfaction till I see his eyes.
"Now, Bruce..." He hesitates in mock-shock. "...I do hope you'll forgive the familiarity. Nobody is going to tell any stories."
I'm shocked. Not only does he know, but it is thrown away like the fact of his impotence. It's gone too far.
"Surely you had heroes as a boy?" He waves his hand. "No, Bruce, let me guess." He picks up the stiletto and absentmindedly taps his long yellow teeth. "Hemingway sorts, of course. Men of action and integrity would be your models. Men with tough, manly names like... Jake. Yes, Jake Barnes." A tick starts in one eye like a countdown.
Yes, I remember Jake Barnes. I very much wish I did not.
"Poor Jake," the Joker sighs. "How romantic. He loved the girl, she loved him, alas, it couldn't be. He'd lost a little something in the war against wickedness. Sometimes the pure have to make... ah, that extra sacrifices." He wipes away a mock tear, and looks at Selina. Her eyes are wide, staring into mine. Now she knows the Joker.
"I see it also dawns on you too, Selina," he commiserates. "You no doubt recall the heroine's progress. Poor Bret, what was a hungry girl to do?" The Joker is in his element, playing to a gallery of freaks and horrors. It's his big night.
"I'm so honoured to be able to solve the knotty problem at a stroke." He gestures extravagantly with the razor sharp blade. "I can't imagine why we didn't think of it before; we have so much in common already."
Selina's eyes are terrible. Only a madman would look into them and laugh. So, of course, he does.
"I'll give kitty her antidote before I leave and she can find a way to stop you bleeding to death. Women are so resourceful." Joker checks his watch. "I'd love to stay and watch, unfortunately I'm heading the bill tonight in Arkham. I feel so... appreciated there."
He kneels out of my vision and fumbles with the utility belt. I've never known him sweat, never seen his hands shake. But they do.
"Soon, darling, soon," he croons. "You won't have to worry about the nasty thing at all, and you'll hate me even more."
I can't feel his hands or the knife's edge, I see Selina's eyes widen. I pray she'll faint and know she's too strong.
"Bruce," he's lisping now. "I'm impressed." He raises his blood-flecked face to mine. It's not an injured throat that distorts the words and his scarlet lips are writhing like cut snakes. The tide has burst all dykes.
I force adrenalin into frozen nerves. I can just move my mouth.
"Joker," I gasp, fixing my eyes on his.
He leans closer, savouring the moment. I've never seen his eyes so wild, so hungry.
With every fibre of will, I press with my tongue--and feel a click. Frantically I work the tooth into position, taking a deep breath. He comes nearer to hear me beg, his twitching lips close to mine as a kiss.
I bite down and exhale for my life.
Last joke.