Title: You're It
Chapter Completed: January 25, 2005
Soft smooth skin; silky, pliable and fragrant. It assaulted her senses. The soft flesh moved under her hands. The long black hair castigated around her face and tickled the sensitised and flushed flesh. Light and careful touches, long lean fingers tracing out the exposed skin.
New moans captured by full lips, already kiss-swollen, pulled in by twisting pink tongues. The hot burn of cinnamon gum.
Red polished fingernails scrapping pert, rose nipples. Their hands kneading tight breasts.
"Sss-Cindy," she hissed, writhing under the other girl's exploratory, and expert, touch.
"You know you're beautiful all flushed like this," she cooed, leaning in again with her cinnamon tongue and lips.
Barbara threw her head back and gasped, her whole body alive and tingling, "Oh!" she gasped again feeling her friend, and now lover's fingers brush between her thighs.
The other girl giggled in an almost purr, and bite her lip before pushing her finger into the slick folds of her junction.
Barbara moaned, arching her back off the bed but finding no fulfilment, no sensation outside of her own burning ache. Slowly she opened her eyes; she was alone in her bed, and not her old college dorm either. The dark emptiness of her Gotham apartment greeted her.
It was a dream. A long ignored memory.
She had long since put her hidden college life behind her, opting that she would only live one double life. You can't be three different people at one given time. She was already the perfect daughter and becoming the rogue vigilante – adding experimental sexuality just wouldn't work. It wasn't an option. The perfect daughter by day balanced the vigilante by night, anything more or less would ruin her – or at least that's how she saw it.
Shaking her head to clear the dream, and the memory of Cindy from her mind, she dragged herself out of bed. The problem, one woman replaced the other.
Sara.
The quick and chaste kiss on the rooftop. A cliché in itself for epic romances, but this was anything but a romance. By definition they were enemies, polar opposites – but when it came down to it they were more similar than she would like to admit. They were both trapped women, both fighting against two personas. Both Poison Ivy and Harley had deserted Pamela Isley and Dr. Harlene Quinzelle, long ago – no longer faced the torment of living both lives. There were few who knew what balancing personalities was like, what living two lives was like, what fighting to stay these two people was like. Even fewer who knew what it was like for a woman to keep fighting. There was her and she still hoped Sara and …Selena Kyle.
An idea dawned on her. If one person had in insight on Sara, it would be Selena.
Before her mind caught up, she was already pulling on the purple spandex. Only to feel the least like Batgirl in her life.
Selena walked down the dark streets, her hips still swinging as if she had every right in the world – a characteristic that Catwoman had taught her. A confidence and power that she first found when she, ironically, squeezed her hips into a tight fitting uni-tard.
"I can tell you're following me," she seemed to say into the empty darkness, "You might as well just come out."
As if on the invitation, Barbara as Batgirl, came out of the shadows.
"Don't worry, you're not getting sloppy, I've just learned how to hear your kind," Selena gave a cat like smile. A mention of her on-again-off-again relationship or just her pervious criminal career it wasn't clear.
"I wasn't really trying," Barbara became defensive, ignoring the neat laugh given in reply, "I need you're help."
"I doubted this was social," she hadn't stopped walking, "If you could make it fast…it wouldn't look good to keep your company, especially in that get-up"
"Right," she fell in step with the other woman, "I need advice, insight, on Sara Adams…Star…"
Selena smiled again, "Sweet girl. Confused, and in over her head, but sweet."
"You've met her?" she grabbed the older woman's arm, forcing her to stop, "What did you say to her?"
"Now now, resorting to brutality are we?" Selena stared at the fingers grasped around her elbow.
Barbara looked between her own desperate grasp and Selena's eyes before releasing her, "Sorry."
"Yes…well," she took her time now, eyeing the other woman, sizing her up and trying to figure out just what was going on. Why wasn't she talked to the other member's of her hero family?
Barbara let out a defeated breath, feeling trapped in her costume for the first time, "I need help with Sara…Star."
"Can't help you," she gave a wicked smile, "I already helped her. Gave her the little words of wisdom I wish someone had shared with me…"
She worried her brow. Various versions of their possible conversation went through her mind, each more damaging than the last. A slight panic grew in her. Selena could have given her a push in any direction, a last push off the edge she was teetering on.
"Oh relax," Selena rolled her eyes, "My how high strung you are," she gave her a waning eye, scrutinising her, "Taking this personally. Something else worrying you?"
In reflex she narrowed her eyes, "No. Just her."
"Ah," Selena nodded, still watching the other woman carefully. She had long since learned how to read the human part of these heroes, "Well then. She wanted to know which one of her personalities was really and truly her," There was a mocking tone laced in the words. Barbara was far more interested in the words themselves, rather than their tone; her face was one of shock and interest. "And of course," she continued, "that's an answer that's always different for all of us."
A moment of quiet understanding settles over them. It was a universal statement really, who didn't have two sides to themselves, but it spoke directly to them especially. The two of them, standing on a street; one dressed in an elaborate guise to hide who they are, the other wearing an invisible mask to hide their dark side.
Selena cleared her throat to break the silence, and the odd feeling of bonding, "She did seem bent on blaming a man for her split. That is going to get her in way. Isn't vengeance a nasty torn in your side?" Her voice hissed out, "Or is that a demented sense of duty?"
Barbara's attention snapped back to the woman in front of her, a curious look in her eyes. Questioning without words.
"We're all the same aren't we? So willing to give the credit to some man, doing it to please or appease someone else," she was cryptically reflective, "Like I said, in over her head. Might just loose that sweet girl for good." Selena began walking away now, sure that her presence was no longer needed, but tossed over her shoulder, "Do you think we all failed her?" before continuing on her way.
Barbara thought for a moment. Failed her? There were clues in what Selena had told her, even with the snarled voice and obvious dislike of each other; there was an understanding that they both shared.
Credit to some man, the same, failed her.
They were all clues to what Star's next step would be. They pointed to the same thing, or really, the same person.
Barbara just needed to get there first.
TBC
