Author's Note - Talking In Bed by Philip Larkin is used completely without
permission. Please don't sue me - I'm making no money from this fanfiction.
'The Grape Vine'
The private journal of Pamela Isley.
Tuesday the 27th
As our bodies came to their inevitable resting-places, I leant gently on Harvey's chest and listened to his heart beating steadily. His chest hair tickled my cheek as his chest rose and fell rhythmically. I smoothed it down with my hand. Absent-mindedly I kissed his chest.
He said nothing. I kissed him again, expecting at the very least a sarcastic comment. He still said nothing. Moving softly, I rose to look into his beautiful eyes.
He was asleep. Typical man, I ruefully thought.
To be perfectly fair to the man with the bisected face that lay beneath me, Harvey is anything but normal. Other than his well-documented psychological defects, he makes me happier than any man ever has before.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not just about the sex – despite what I told him earlier. Don't get me wrong – sex is a huge part of our relationship. As you might imagine, it's quite a wild ride for both of us, colourful personalities that we are. But there just seems to be more to it somehow. . .
I rose quietly so as not to disturb my sleeping Deuce. I trod softly on the carpeted floor of his apartment bedroom, conscious that Harvey more than anyone else needs his beauty sleep.
I am only joking of course, dear diary. You above all else know I am truly not the bitch I pretend to be around others. I am the rose, presenting nothing but thorns and barbs against the (mostly male) evils of the world that would pluck its flower for their own enjoyment, not even giving a second thought to the hysterical pain of the flora. . .
I think about this as I quietly get a glass of water – the only real sustenance for a plant.
What am I protecting myself against? To be honest I don't know. Plants require constant care – they cannot be neglected. Could a man such as Harvey be counted on to tend to such a delicate flower as Gaia truly intended? Or would he flee with the first sapling to burst into blossom for him? Yes, it was partly for that reason that I broke up with Harvey the first time. You might remember that four-page poem I wrote to you about it? How I despised myself and my inability to form relationships. Things were just going too well between us. . . It's true we argued a lot, but that simply made the eventual retreat to the bedroom all the more exciting.
I think eventually I broke up with him because I hated the way he had got under my skin. I still do actually. He is a man – I am one of Mother Nature's true followers. By definition we shouldn't get along.
But then... To paraphrase Harvey himself, are we in fact two sides of the same coin? Yes we're different, but are we therefore mutually exclusive? And the conclusion I keep coming to is 'no'.
When he literally appeared at my side after all this time I was overjoyed. Naturally I didn't show any of this – I am after all an Ice Queen, and the only public show of happiness we allow ourselves is when we are crushing someone else. But it was so good to see him again.
I don't know. I really struggle to understand myself sometimes. I blame my hormones. Aside from the usual womanly ones that make me. . . well, me, I also have to put up with my plant urges for nothing more than fertiliser and a spot in the sun.
I finished my glass of water and softly padded back to Harvey's sleeping abode. As I snuggled down alongside him, I realised just how silly I had been.
He and I are two consenting adults having a good time. No more, no less. On the surface anyway. So long as we keep it that way then there will be absolutely no complications.
I nestled in the bed covers. I remembered enjoying the warmth he brings to the sheets. I laid a hand on his hairy chest, yawning heavily.
"Good night, Harvey, my love." I managed to murmur before drifting off into a peaceful sleep.
***
Our eyes snapped open in horror. A cold sweat began forming on our brow and our mouth was suddenly horribly dry.
Did she say what we thought she had said? Gently, we removed her hand from our chest and turned over again, trying to return to our slumber.
But we couldn't. Our mind was racing. We wanted to believe that what she had said was merely idle pillow talk. We truly tried. But something was nagging at the back of our mind. What if what she had said was true?
Annoyed at ourselves, we rose from the bed and made our way over to the kitchen. We grabbed a glass from the table and viciously ran the tap, not caring if we woke her or not. After a few seconds, we shoved the glass under the shooting water and took a sip.
We smiled ruefully as the taste met our tongue. Sweet mandarin. Ivy had been here. It was probably her glass.
A quick note. Ivy's lemon scent is well known both amongst the Rogue's Gallery and, we would suspect, among the spandex wearing fraternity. Generally speaking, she secretes it when she is angered or if she is upset about something. In other words, whenever we're usually around, one can't inhale for fear of choking on lemon Pledge. Mandarin is the opposite – this scent lingers if she is particularly pleased for some reason.
The taste in the glass had been prevalent. We grinned, pleased with ourselves. We don't intend to explain why this revelation made us smirk – we'll leave that mental jump for you to work out. But despite that, her words were still troubling us.
We looked longingly from the refrigerator to the glass of water. The coin was nowhere near grabbing distance, sitting as we were at our kitchen table merely in our boxers.
Contrary to popular rumour (one that we're sure Jack started), we do not have an emergency coin stitched into every pair of underpants we own for situations like this. Although sometimes we wish we did.
Taking the scented glass as a sign, we pulled open the door of our fridge and pulled out a can of beer. We snatched the top off. With a crack and a fizz, the drink was ours for the taking. We took a refreshingly long draught before setting it down on the tabletop, a thought having struck our addled brain.
As far as we were concerned, that night was all about one thing and one thing alone. If the three of us had fun together, then sure, we could do it again sometime. Not like we were complaining too much. In fact, this was one thing both sides agreed on. We were getting our kicks, so we were happy.
Truth be told, Harv was happy too. After his recent spectacular failings with members of the opposite sex, he was more than happy to have finally enticed one in. He was in no hurry to get all emotional with Ivy. Not after the last time. It seemed to him that every time he developed any feelings for a woman, she simply upped and left, probably merely to spite him. Well not this time. The Dentmeister took another gulp of his cold beer, at one with the world.
With hindsight, we have no idea how we managed to fit our ego through the door that night. Call us a mind reader, but we bet you were thinking the same thing.
That still did not answer the Ivy problem however. If she truly was in love with us ('and who wouldn't be?' we thought, again arrogant as a result of getting some at last) and we don't feel the same way, then how do we go about things from here?
'Blind ignorance,' came the inevitable duplicitous answer.
'Thanks buddy,' Harv thought back. 'But that really isn't going to solve anything.' For every emotional high in our experience there swiftly follows a low. We had just hit ours and it had hit back.
Ivy. . . we couldn't lead her on. We just couldn't. How would we feel if she did the same thing to us? Who's to say she wasn't now? What if we were actually spectacularly bad in bed and she wasn't telling us?
We crossed our legs defensively.
'Stop this Harv,' he spat. I hate it when he spits. He can never be bothered to clean it up so I always end up doing it. Yet more time scrubbing floors with rubber gloves on. 'You're so damn insecure. Besides, who gives a damn about her feelings?'
'I do!' I angrily retorted.
'Sap,' he growled. 'Look. There's only one way to settle this. Get the coin. Clean, we tell her we love her, offer to take her to a Pottery Barn, that kind of thing. Or, if you've got the balls for it, tell her the truth. That it's just sex and nothing more. Scarred, you shut the Hell up, go with it and enjoy the ride – you know what we mean. Deal?'
We thought about it. Taking one last swig of beer, we threw the empty can into the trash and rose.
'Deal,' we said.
We stood over her beautiful sleeping form, coin in hand, will suddenly lost. She was so beautiful. Even more so then either of us remembered.
Hearing the jackal wailing in our ear, we flipped - largely to shut him up.
Scarred.
We crept sheepishly back into bed, huddling up along side her for warmth. In her sleep, she moaned slightly, and rolled into our arms.
Few people know it, but we studied English Literature as well as Law at Harvard. To Harv at least, the words of the English poet Philip Larkin seemed particularly apt.
Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds about the sky,
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.
***
For some unknown reason, we had kept the personal business card Ra's had given us the last time we had seen him. We must have hurriedly stuffed it into our pocket as we leapt atop the camel in order to flee his accursed country, a legion of natives at our heels. All for suggesting that Joker posed more of a threat to Batman than he did! We didn't even mention the fact that he was nothing but a glorified hairdo.
We say card – it was more like a personal business dossier what with all the prefixes and titles he had managed to squeeze onto it. Someone had crossed through all of the names and titles and simply written in its place, 'Cadaver'. We grinned at the meticulous handwriting. Harv may be a real sap, but he's got quite a good sense of humour from time to time.
We turned the card over in our fingers, suspiciously inspecting the innocent document for signs of coffin mould. There were none. We grabbed a pen from our breast pocket and scrawled our own addition underneath the chess pieces that framed his email address. 'Dead and Loving It' we scribbled.
With a chuckle, we tapped the number into our phone and listened to the ring tone. Within two rings, a voice answered.
"Hello."
"Hey there, we don't suppose..."
"My apologies sir, but you did not let me finish. Hello venerable caller. You have reached the answering service of the great and powerful Ra's Al Ghul, Light of the East, Terror of the West, Apex of the age of Oneness..."
On and on it went. We rolled our eyes on the other end of the phone and made obscene gestures at the handset, all the while trying to sound interested.
"Anointed of Anubis and Osiris – that sounds like it hurt... Chosen of Ra huh? How's that going for him? Phoenix like you say? Always wanted to be one of them. Uh huh... uh huh... what's that? Oh did I? Sorry about that. You could always just leave it as it stands – we both know whom you're talking about. NO – don't start again... Look, all we want it to ask your master if he'd be interested in buying a lovely set on Encyclopaedias... what kind of Encyclopaedias? We were joking, you brain washed simpleton! Oh, go on then if you insist... well, the short version preferably! Actually - would you stay there for just two seconds? Thanks. We'll be right back."
We covered the handset with our hand as the other snaked toward our breast pocket. There was a slight shing noise as the coin arced into the air, a thwap as it landed expertly in our palm, and a torrent of abuse as we saw the result.
"The long version would be... lovely," we managed to say, through gritted teeth, much to the delight of the man on the other end of the phone.
***
Only a man like Ra's could have the sheer audacity to keep you on hold as long as this. It had been a migraine inducing experience to even get this far. We were shuffled from one operator to the next with increasing curtness, each of them introducing themselves as 'Telephone Operator Number such and such' and telling us repeatedly that our call was important to them and that they only wished to serve in as great a capacity as The Demon's Head could offer to an infidel such as ourselves.
Beethoven continued to drone in our ear. Harv is actually a fan of the piece, but certainly no longer. We wondered what the longest time someone had ever spent on hold was, and whether we were nearing it or not. Our instincts told us that we had swept past it a long time ago, as Joker does the line of taste and decency, the white chalk line nothing more than a speck in the distance as he hurtles away from it toward total vulgarity. The earpiece was hot against the side of our head. We growled, rubbing the sweaty surface on Harv's sleeve before shifting it back to the other ear.
Come on Ra's. . .
Perhaps he knew about the nickname Selina and we had given him and was keeping us on hold as some kind punishment. We smiled a wicked smile. Truth must hurt Lurch. Besides, it wasn't our fault the miserable old curmudgeon chose to reanimate himself on as regular a basis as he did. We could almost hear Luigi Galvani turning in his grave. . .
Suddenly, there was a deft click, followed by the calm, measured tones that only a man who captures pomposity and arrogance in equal proportion can muster.
"Dent. Good evening. I sincerely hope this matter is as serious as you claim. You have interrupted the Royal Toilet and now seventeen perfectly good telephone operators will have to be shot."
The Royal Toilet. . . suppressing a snigger, and resisting the urge to ask whether it was here that the Demon's Head was bathed with the Demon's Flannel, we ignored his abruptness and spoke unabashed. The nature of our call was business after all.
"We certainly think it is. It regards Poison Ivy. . ." We held the phone away from our ear, a torrent of Arabic and static flying from the receiver. "Ouch. . .sensitive subject for you obviously. . . We promise. No, your Highness, we promise not to mention her by name again. Two of your finest assassins eh. . . One for each face?! We get the picture! We won't mention her again. Scout's honour. . . Excuse us? Well, no, not really. We went for a couple of sessions, got a second level cooking merit badge. . . Pineapple upside down cake as it happens. But that's not why we called. It is regarding. . . She who shall not be named. If you will forgive our obtrusiveness, we had heard a rumour that you and she were romantically involved. Who told us? Uh. . ."
We thought quickly, rifling in our mind through the various possible gossip queens we could have heard this particular tidbit from. We hit upon the perfect fall guy.
"Joker told us in the Icerberg last Tuesday. No I quite agree – he should be punished. But anyway – I am relieved to hear that you and the Plant Witch are not in any way engaged, your Highness. Why? Well. . . we are not two to gossip. . . but apparently Black Canary has been talking about you a lot as of late. . ."
From down the hall, seductive laughter filled our ears, blocking out Ra's pleased murmuring. Ivy emerged from our bedroom, wearing one of our shirts and very little else. She smirked at us, the lips forming 'the pout', and immediately, chemicals or otherwise, we were her thrall. We pretended to be surprised as a vine snaked up our arm, removing the phone from our less than disagreeable grip, replacing it on the handset. We doubted whether Ra's would be upset, or even that he had noticed our hanging up. The way he had been talking for the past few minutes, he had a new object to captivate his affection. As did we.
As the vines began to undo our belt buckle, their mistress already astride our lap, our ravaged lip stretched into a grin. There was a spark of mischief in our eyes, a glitter of danger in hers.
But then, that was the way all three of us liked things to be.
Ignorance we decided with a smirk at Harv, was most definitely bliss.
The End.
Why not come and visit myself and the other CatTales writers at the official CatTales Message Board?
'The Grape Vine'
The private journal of Pamela Isley.
Tuesday the 27th
As our bodies came to their inevitable resting-places, I leant gently on Harvey's chest and listened to his heart beating steadily. His chest hair tickled my cheek as his chest rose and fell rhythmically. I smoothed it down with my hand. Absent-mindedly I kissed his chest.
He said nothing. I kissed him again, expecting at the very least a sarcastic comment. He still said nothing. Moving softly, I rose to look into his beautiful eyes.
He was asleep. Typical man, I ruefully thought.
To be perfectly fair to the man with the bisected face that lay beneath me, Harvey is anything but normal. Other than his well-documented psychological defects, he makes me happier than any man ever has before.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not just about the sex – despite what I told him earlier. Don't get me wrong – sex is a huge part of our relationship. As you might imagine, it's quite a wild ride for both of us, colourful personalities that we are. But there just seems to be more to it somehow. . .
I rose quietly so as not to disturb my sleeping Deuce. I trod softly on the carpeted floor of his apartment bedroom, conscious that Harvey more than anyone else needs his beauty sleep.
I am only joking of course, dear diary. You above all else know I am truly not the bitch I pretend to be around others. I am the rose, presenting nothing but thorns and barbs against the (mostly male) evils of the world that would pluck its flower for their own enjoyment, not even giving a second thought to the hysterical pain of the flora. . .
I think about this as I quietly get a glass of water – the only real sustenance for a plant.
What am I protecting myself against? To be honest I don't know. Plants require constant care – they cannot be neglected. Could a man such as Harvey be counted on to tend to such a delicate flower as Gaia truly intended? Or would he flee with the first sapling to burst into blossom for him? Yes, it was partly for that reason that I broke up with Harvey the first time. You might remember that four-page poem I wrote to you about it? How I despised myself and my inability to form relationships. Things were just going too well between us. . . It's true we argued a lot, but that simply made the eventual retreat to the bedroom all the more exciting.
I think eventually I broke up with him because I hated the way he had got under my skin. I still do actually. He is a man – I am one of Mother Nature's true followers. By definition we shouldn't get along.
But then... To paraphrase Harvey himself, are we in fact two sides of the same coin? Yes we're different, but are we therefore mutually exclusive? And the conclusion I keep coming to is 'no'.
When he literally appeared at my side after all this time I was overjoyed. Naturally I didn't show any of this – I am after all an Ice Queen, and the only public show of happiness we allow ourselves is when we are crushing someone else. But it was so good to see him again.
I don't know. I really struggle to understand myself sometimes. I blame my hormones. Aside from the usual womanly ones that make me. . . well, me, I also have to put up with my plant urges for nothing more than fertiliser and a spot in the sun.
I finished my glass of water and softly padded back to Harvey's sleeping abode. As I snuggled down alongside him, I realised just how silly I had been.
He and I are two consenting adults having a good time. No more, no less. On the surface anyway. So long as we keep it that way then there will be absolutely no complications.
I nestled in the bed covers. I remembered enjoying the warmth he brings to the sheets. I laid a hand on his hairy chest, yawning heavily.
"Good night, Harvey, my love." I managed to murmur before drifting off into a peaceful sleep.
***
Our eyes snapped open in horror. A cold sweat began forming on our brow and our mouth was suddenly horribly dry.
Did she say what we thought she had said? Gently, we removed her hand from our chest and turned over again, trying to return to our slumber.
But we couldn't. Our mind was racing. We wanted to believe that what she had said was merely idle pillow talk. We truly tried. But something was nagging at the back of our mind. What if what she had said was true?
Annoyed at ourselves, we rose from the bed and made our way over to the kitchen. We grabbed a glass from the table and viciously ran the tap, not caring if we woke her or not. After a few seconds, we shoved the glass under the shooting water and took a sip.
We smiled ruefully as the taste met our tongue. Sweet mandarin. Ivy had been here. It was probably her glass.
A quick note. Ivy's lemon scent is well known both amongst the Rogue's Gallery and, we would suspect, among the spandex wearing fraternity. Generally speaking, she secretes it when she is angered or if she is upset about something. In other words, whenever we're usually around, one can't inhale for fear of choking on lemon Pledge. Mandarin is the opposite – this scent lingers if she is particularly pleased for some reason.
The taste in the glass had been prevalent. We grinned, pleased with ourselves. We don't intend to explain why this revelation made us smirk – we'll leave that mental jump for you to work out. But despite that, her words were still troubling us.
We looked longingly from the refrigerator to the glass of water. The coin was nowhere near grabbing distance, sitting as we were at our kitchen table merely in our boxers.
Contrary to popular rumour (one that we're sure Jack started), we do not have an emergency coin stitched into every pair of underpants we own for situations like this. Although sometimes we wish we did.
Taking the scented glass as a sign, we pulled open the door of our fridge and pulled out a can of beer. We snatched the top off. With a crack and a fizz, the drink was ours for the taking. We took a refreshingly long draught before setting it down on the tabletop, a thought having struck our addled brain.
As far as we were concerned, that night was all about one thing and one thing alone. If the three of us had fun together, then sure, we could do it again sometime. Not like we were complaining too much. In fact, this was one thing both sides agreed on. We were getting our kicks, so we were happy.
Truth be told, Harv was happy too. After his recent spectacular failings with members of the opposite sex, he was more than happy to have finally enticed one in. He was in no hurry to get all emotional with Ivy. Not after the last time. It seemed to him that every time he developed any feelings for a woman, she simply upped and left, probably merely to spite him. Well not this time. The Dentmeister took another gulp of his cold beer, at one with the world.
With hindsight, we have no idea how we managed to fit our ego through the door that night. Call us a mind reader, but we bet you were thinking the same thing.
That still did not answer the Ivy problem however. If she truly was in love with us ('and who wouldn't be?' we thought, again arrogant as a result of getting some at last) and we don't feel the same way, then how do we go about things from here?
'Blind ignorance,' came the inevitable duplicitous answer.
'Thanks buddy,' Harv thought back. 'But that really isn't going to solve anything.' For every emotional high in our experience there swiftly follows a low. We had just hit ours and it had hit back.
Ivy. . . we couldn't lead her on. We just couldn't. How would we feel if she did the same thing to us? Who's to say she wasn't now? What if we were actually spectacularly bad in bed and she wasn't telling us?
We crossed our legs defensively.
'Stop this Harv,' he spat. I hate it when he spits. He can never be bothered to clean it up so I always end up doing it. Yet more time scrubbing floors with rubber gloves on. 'You're so damn insecure. Besides, who gives a damn about her feelings?'
'I do!' I angrily retorted.
'Sap,' he growled. 'Look. There's only one way to settle this. Get the coin. Clean, we tell her we love her, offer to take her to a Pottery Barn, that kind of thing. Or, if you've got the balls for it, tell her the truth. That it's just sex and nothing more. Scarred, you shut the Hell up, go with it and enjoy the ride – you know what we mean. Deal?'
We thought about it. Taking one last swig of beer, we threw the empty can into the trash and rose.
'Deal,' we said.
We stood over her beautiful sleeping form, coin in hand, will suddenly lost. She was so beautiful. Even more so then either of us remembered.
Hearing the jackal wailing in our ear, we flipped - largely to shut him up.
Scarred.
We crept sheepishly back into bed, huddling up along side her for warmth. In her sleep, she moaned slightly, and rolled into our arms.
Few people know it, but we studied English Literature as well as Law at Harvard. To Harv at least, the words of the English poet Philip Larkin seemed particularly apt.
Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds about the sky,
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.
***
For some unknown reason, we had kept the personal business card Ra's had given us the last time we had seen him. We must have hurriedly stuffed it into our pocket as we leapt atop the camel in order to flee his accursed country, a legion of natives at our heels. All for suggesting that Joker posed more of a threat to Batman than he did! We didn't even mention the fact that he was nothing but a glorified hairdo.
We say card – it was more like a personal business dossier what with all the prefixes and titles he had managed to squeeze onto it. Someone had crossed through all of the names and titles and simply written in its place, 'Cadaver'. We grinned at the meticulous handwriting. Harv may be a real sap, but he's got quite a good sense of humour from time to time.
We turned the card over in our fingers, suspiciously inspecting the innocent document for signs of coffin mould. There were none. We grabbed a pen from our breast pocket and scrawled our own addition underneath the chess pieces that framed his email address. 'Dead and Loving It' we scribbled.
With a chuckle, we tapped the number into our phone and listened to the ring tone. Within two rings, a voice answered.
"Hello."
"Hey there, we don't suppose..."
"My apologies sir, but you did not let me finish. Hello venerable caller. You have reached the answering service of the great and powerful Ra's Al Ghul, Light of the East, Terror of the West, Apex of the age of Oneness..."
On and on it went. We rolled our eyes on the other end of the phone and made obscene gestures at the handset, all the while trying to sound interested.
"Anointed of Anubis and Osiris – that sounds like it hurt... Chosen of Ra huh? How's that going for him? Phoenix like you say? Always wanted to be one of them. Uh huh... uh huh... what's that? Oh did I? Sorry about that. You could always just leave it as it stands – we both know whom you're talking about. NO – don't start again... Look, all we want it to ask your master if he'd be interested in buying a lovely set on Encyclopaedias... what kind of Encyclopaedias? We were joking, you brain washed simpleton! Oh, go on then if you insist... well, the short version preferably! Actually - would you stay there for just two seconds? Thanks. We'll be right back."
We covered the handset with our hand as the other snaked toward our breast pocket. There was a slight shing noise as the coin arced into the air, a thwap as it landed expertly in our palm, and a torrent of abuse as we saw the result.
"The long version would be... lovely," we managed to say, through gritted teeth, much to the delight of the man on the other end of the phone.
***
Only a man like Ra's could have the sheer audacity to keep you on hold as long as this. It had been a migraine inducing experience to even get this far. We were shuffled from one operator to the next with increasing curtness, each of them introducing themselves as 'Telephone Operator Number such and such' and telling us repeatedly that our call was important to them and that they only wished to serve in as great a capacity as The Demon's Head could offer to an infidel such as ourselves.
Beethoven continued to drone in our ear. Harv is actually a fan of the piece, but certainly no longer. We wondered what the longest time someone had ever spent on hold was, and whether we were nearing it or not. Our instincts told us that we had swept past it a long time ago, as Joker does the line of taste and decency, the white chalk line nothing more than a speck in the distance as he hurtles away from it toward total vulgarity. The earpiece was hot against the side of our head. We growled, rubbing the sweaty surface on Harv's sleeve before shifting it back to the other ear.
Come on Ra's. . .
Perhaps he knew about the nickname Selina and we had given him and was keeping us on hold as some kind punishment. We smiled a wicked smile. Truth must hurt Lurch. Besides, it wasn't our fault the miserable old curmudgeon chose to reanimate himself on as regular a basis as he did. We could almost hear Luigi Galvani turning in his grave. . .
Suddenly, there was a deft click, followed by the calm, measured tones that only a man who captures pomposity and arrogance in equal proportion can muster.
"Dent. Good evening. I sincerely hope this matter is as serious as you claim. You have interrupted the Royal Toilet and now seventeen perfectly good telephone operators will have to be shot."
The Royal Toilet. . . suppressing a snigger, and resisting the urge to ask whether it was here that the Demon's Head was bathed with the Demon's Flannel, we ignored his abruptness and spoke unabashed. The nature of our call was business after all.
"We certainly think it is. It regards Poison Ivy. . ." We held the phone away from our ear, a torrent of Arabic and static flying from the receiver. "Ouch. . .sensitive subject for you obviously. . . We promise. No, your Highness, we promise not to mention her by name again. Two of your finest assassins eh. . . One for each face?! We get the picture! We won't mention her again. Scout's honour. . . Excuse us? Well, no, not really. We went for a couple of sessions, got a second level cooking merit badge. . . Pineapple upside down cake as it happens. But that's not why we called. It is regarding. . . She who shall not be named. If you will forgive our obtrusiveness, we had heard a rumour that you and she were romantically involved. Who told us? Uh. . ."
We thought quickly, rifling in our mind through the various possible gossip queens we could have heard this particular tidbit from. We hit upon the perfect fall guy.
"Joker told us in the Icerberg last Tuesday. No I quite agree – he should be punished. But anyway – I am relieved to hear that you and the Plant Witch are not in any way engaged, your Highness. Why? Well. . . we are not two to gossip. . . but apparently Black Canary has been talking about you a lot as of late. . ."
From down the hall, seductive laughter filled our ears, blocking out Ra's pleased murmuring. Ivy emerged from our bedroom, wearing one of our shirts and very little else. She smirked at us, the lips forming 'the pout', and immediately, chemicals or otherwise, we were her thrall. We pretended to be surprised as a vine snaked up our arm, removing the phone from our less than disagreeable grip, replacing it on the handset. We doubted whether Ra's would be upset, or even that he had noticed our hanging up. The way he had been talking for the past few minutes, he had a new object to captivate his affection. As did we.
As the vines began to undo our belt buckle, their mistress already astride our lap, our ravaged lip stretched into a grin. There was a spark of mischief in our eyes, a glitter of danger in hers.
But then, that was the way all three of us liked things to be.
Ignorance we decided with a smirk at Harv, was most definitely bliss.
The End.
Why not come and visit myself and the other CatTales writers at the official CatTales Message Board?
