Chapter 11
It was cold. The dim flicker of the street light above was the only thing that illuminated the empty alley. The orange glow casted deep shadows on his painted face making his smile look even more sinister. She was laughing under his idle hand that gently held her throat. His other hand held her wrists above her head forcing her whole body flush against the brick wall. He was laughing with her. Their laughter reverberated off the alley walls and echoed into the strange silence. There was no one else but them. Time seemed frozen for Alice, all she could focus on was the man in front of her, dressed head to toe in purple and sporting a face of black, white, and red. He was warm. His ungloved hand that softly gripped her throat sent burning waves through her entire body and along with the skin on her neck, the skin on her wrists seemed to tingle at his touch. He let his thumb trace her jaw line effortlessly while the other four fingers kept their place on her throat. His body language conveyed that he was still in control but also that he didn't mean harm. The bizarre feeling of his rough thumb stroking her unscathed cheek made Alice shutter, causing her laughter to cease.
He noticed her reaction to his affectionate touch and tilted his head low so that their eyes were level. She met his enticing stare with a challenging yet playful gaze while she let her teeth mindlessly naw her bottom lip. She really couldn't decipher what she saw in his onyx eyes, but she saw enough to understand that his gaze was far from blood thirsty, and more along the lines of prideful domination, like a wolf claiming his prey. This didn't scare her, it oddly enough made her feel safe, like she didn't have to be afraid of the unknown darkness around her because the most feared thing was an inch away from her face. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply letting the smell of stale cigarettes, gasoline, and a strange woody cologne consume her, this combination would usually make anyone gag but she found the lurid scent familiar, comforting and enticing. The clown leaned in closer closing that small gap, so close that he was unable to look at both of her eyes at once. Surpassing this he leaned in further putting his mouth close to her ear letting his scarred cheek ghost against her pure flesh.
"Ya wanna know how I got these scars?" He purred; the mere sound of his voice sent shivers down Alice's spine. She started to giggle as if the question was an inside joke that they only knew the punch line to. He responded with an admiring grin and watched as she laughed delightfully at his iconic phrase. Her abs started to tense from the laughter, begging for relief, but the position she was being held in didn't allow for such a thing. Her body compensated and her back arched against the brick wall completely closing the small space between them. He didn't back away at her contact but pushed back slightly letting her know that he didn't mind the closeness. Their bodies fit together perfectly, like two puzzle pieces locking into place.
"Oh Alice, ya know there's not a lot of people like us. Other people, they just don't eh understand what we see, we see the truth in people, we see who people really are."
With their bodies still touching Alice shifted slightly letting her hips press deeper into his. "and what do you see in me?" she whispered.
A sly smirk graced his scars at her innocent question, he let out a small chuckle and answered, "What I see is ah, is a girl who knows exactly who she is. A girl that no longer has to hide who she really is, you Alice, can finally be you. No one is holding you back, you made your choice. You're not the result of a few unfortunate events, those things that happened, there all just a bad joke, memories that are locked away forever. But you my dear don't need anything to define you, you want something to define you, and that very something is chaos. You see, I'm an agent of chaos, and chaos is the very thing that defines who people really are."
"and who am I really?" she asked challengingly .
"You're a freak, like me."
Alice's eyes shot open immediately, she instinctively grasped her throat, she looked all around the ceiling realizing that she wasn't in a dark alley being pinned to a wall by the Joker, she was safe in her bed. It had all been a dream, or nightmare depending on how you looked at it.
She sat up lethargically rubbing the sleep from her eyes and planted herself on the edge of the mattress, letting her legs sprawl out in front of her. She let out a long sigh and allowed herself a moment to process her delusion filled sleep.
Ever since she killed Will, dreams with the Joker in them were becoming pretty normal. At first his appearances in the dreams were small, most of the time he wouldn't even speak, he would just be there. Other times it would just be his yellowed Cheshire grin surrounded by complete blackness and nothing else. These dreams didn't bother Alice, nor did they really interest her, she was completely unaffected by them, until now. That being said it wasn't everyday that Alice found herself smiling under the death grip of a madman or practically flirting in this case, so this dream caught her attention.
At first she was really uncomfortable with the fact that she just dreamt about the Joker and for that matter having their bodies pressed against one another. It was odd enough to be having constant dreams about him and now to make it even more strange these dreams were becoming a little too real and a little too physical. It was like she could hear him perfectly, smell him perfectly, and even feel him perfectly. The tingles and shivers that she had experienced in the dream still lingered on her as if his hot hands never left her body. Along with his burring touch, Alice still smelt that strange attractive scent, it was heady and deep like an odd cologne that on any other man would be gross, but on him it was alluring. This dream didn't posses that murky haze that other dreams seemed to have; this dream was clear as day. And it was this very fact that made Alice's stomach flutter.
The concept of her and the Joker's bodies pressed against each other would make anyone want to cringe, including Alice, despite the fact that she was all giddy about it in the dream. But as she replayed the dream in her head the idea of having someone so close to her was a tad comforting, even though said person happened to be a psycho clown. His closeness would cause any women to tremble in fear, he had that way of making people turn to putty in his hands, accept Alice. His touch sent excitement down her spine and a pit in her stomach, the exact opposite of putty. It's like when you're swimming and you want to put your feet down but the water is deeper than you thought. You can't touch the bottom and your heart skips a beat. That's how the Joker made Alice feel, he made her feel alive, in her dream at least. She stopped the thought in its tracks immediately, "Alice no. There is nothing comforting about being hip to hip with the Joker, he does not make you feel alive, bad Alice" She said sternly to herself.
Nevertheless she still couldn't shake the fact that she had slightly enjoyed the dream. She really did find comfort in being so close to someone and it didn't bother her that it was the Joker. It also didn't bother her that she kept thinking of it as a dream and not as a nightmare, simply because she found nothing nightmarish about it. But it was all the things that didn't bother that bothered her the most.
She let herself fall back on the bed with a huff and tried to look at this from a psychological stand point, which she often did when she couldn't make sense of something at first glance.
At the time when her parents died Alice was studying to go into psychology so naturally she had obtained a good chunk of information on the subject, including the psychoanalyses of one's dreams. So she concluded that this dream of hers unfortunately had to mean something. As she recalled, according to Sigmund Freud there were two components to a dream, one being the manifest content and the other being the latent content. The manifest content is the actual literal subject-matter of the dream, while the latent content is the underlying meaning of these symbols. Freud believed that the latent content of dreams is suppressed and hidden by the subconscious mind in order to protect the individual from thoughts and feelings that are hard to cope with. By uncovering the hidden meaning of dreams Freud believed that people could better understand their problems and resolve the issues that create difficulties in their lives.
As she thought about this she couldn't help but sigh, "of course leave it to me to be subconsciously attracted to the Joker. Great good going Alice." She tried to justify it by thinking that it was just her mind trying to make up for the fact that she hasn't had any sort of physical or sexual interactions within the past two weeks, but who was she kidding she had gone months without sex before and didn't have dreams about getting flirty with a murderer.
After mulling over the entirety of the dream, the little speech the Joker gave her during the dream crossed her mind, she took a moment to really think about what he said. He had told her that people like them saw the truth in people and he continued to tell her what he saw in her. Of course the Joker never actually spoke those things to Alice; it was purely her own subconscious and like all things that our subconscious makes up, it was exactly what she needed to hear. This is because after her run in with Batman she started to second guess her actions and question if the monster she'd become was really who she was, the Batman told her that 'this' wasn't her and that she was better than 'this'. In all honesty though Alice had never felt more like herself and hearing that from someone else, even if it was in a dream, made her feel a whole lot better.
The dream reassured her that what she was doing was indeed what she truly wanted, here she could be herself, and she wanted to be herself. She didn't want to hide under a veil of normalcy for the rest of her life, constantly trying to hide the bloodlust in her eyes and the dark thoughts that swirled in her head, no. She wanted to see the truth in people, she wanted to be that defining factor in a person's life, like the Joker said, she wanted to be chaos.
Alice reluctantly sat up on the bed deciding that pushing her thoughts about the dream and the Joker aside was the best decision she could make. She had more important things to focus on, she didn't have time to swoon over mysterious serial killers in her dreams, she was running a major crime operation after all. She needed to focus on how she was going to make her big debut in the Gotham underworld, and that needed her upmost attention.
She made her way out of the bedroom and made a b-line for the kitchen, she needed coffee and she needed it now. The living room/kitchen was filled with soft chatter of the henchmen, the TV was silently set on a news channel and some were watching mindlessly and others were sitting sipping on whiskey. This was what daytime looked like for a gang of criminals; they didn't have anything to do until night fall, so they filled their time off with alcohol and senseless activities.
"Hey boys!" Alice called as she entered the kitchen. Everyone's head looked up at her entrance and they all responded as one,
"Hey Diamond." Their choral greeting made Alice smile as she poured herself a cup of straight black coffee. She held the mug tightly in her hands and leaned against the counter facing the living room men. She began to speak and the men gave her their undivided attention.
"So as you all know", she paused to take a sip of her coffee, "the past two weeks have been very successful, and that's all thanks to you." She took another sip and set the mug down signaling that her speech was going to be a little serious. The men responded by sitting a bit straighter. "But as you may have noticed I have been absent on your missions, that's going to change though. From now on I'll be right along with you guys, because our missions are going to get a little more dangerous and more important." She left her position on the counter and moved closer to the group of guys. "The risks were going to take are big ones and I need your complete loyalty, which I already have. So that being said I need you guys to be on your A game for our next little excursion."
The boys all nodded and talked among themselves for a moment before Saul rose his hand to speak for the group, "Diamond what is it that you're planning?" he asked a tad apprehensively.
"Well Saul, we're going to kill the mayor."
A/N: Oh snap, shits about to go down, the only person who tried to kill the mayor was the Joker and he didn't even succeed. Speaking of the Joker I hope that the dream made up for his lack of appearance in recent chapters, but trust me you're going to be seeing him a lot more, don't lose hope! Speaking of the dream…Alice looks like she's getting a little hot and heavy for killer, I mean who wouldn't after having a dream like that. (Oh and if you couldn't really picture their position in the dream please refer to 50 Shades of Grey movie cover, that's kinda the look I was going for) But she can't focus on her subconscious attraction to him, she is in no way of planning on seeing him again, he is the least of her worries…for now ;) Anyway drop a line below and tell me what you think, feedback of any kind makes my day! xoxo