Chapter Eighteen: The Need Outweighs the Want
Jane blinked slowly in the wake of Bane's words, breaking out of her fugue when he shifted to reluctantly move away from her, intent on giving her space to compose her list of wants and needs.
"I don't want to wait to know your demands," she said strongly as she gripped his outer arms, her fingertips curling around the thick horseshoe of his triceps muscle.
Bane reacted without delay to her beseeching tone.
"I want all of you," he rasped lowly as he pushed her hair back and away from her neck, smoothing a hand down to cup her breast, massaging lightly as he continued. "We'll find mutual release in meeting each other's physical needs."
Jane's lips parted as Bane squeezed his hand with growing urgency as he shifted his hips, passively forcing her to spread her thighs further, allowing him to settle closer to her clothed center.
She gasped as Bane lifted his hands and caught up her wrists, pushing her hands above her head, forcing their fingers to intertwine as he lowered his face, his voice a low whisper against her lips.
"I need your hands to heal, your touch," he murmured, "what do you need?"
They both remained wordless in the wake of his question, sharing each other's exhalations.
Jane struggled to take a full breath under the weight of his broad bulk
"You can't give me what I want or need, not completely," she added, holding Bane's eyes, their lips centimeters away from touching.
"Tell me what you feel I'm uncapable of providing," Bane growled, trying to ignore his growing immediate wet wants.
"Well, you're on a timeline that ends in your death, there's no stability, no future that isn't frightening or fatal in the end towards me," Jane managed, her breath rate rapid with the small intake of air she pulled into her lungs with each exhale, her lithe frame pushed into the earth under his frame.
"You're not on any list, your life is not at risk," Bane murmured, trying to be soothing as he squeezed her hands, their fingers weaving further together, their skin in diametric opposition to each other in supple smoothness versus a scarred, roughened landscape.
"And after your death, what is my fate?"
Bane let his forehead rest against hers, "do you want a future with me Jane?"
"What would a future with you look like?"
"You would want for nothing," Bane uttered on a ragged groan as he slid his hands down the length of her arms, down her sides, speaking again when his hands settled on her lips. "Your safety, comfort and security are assured."
"What of your list?"
"I can fulfill a promise without sacrificing myself for the dead."
"And this is part of the imminent future?" Jane asked, her voice catching, caught between emotions as he gripped her hips hard enough to force a startled gasp from between her lips, each pad of his thumb and finger threatened to bruise her supple flesh with its insistence.
Bane splayed his hands under her bottom and pulled her closer, speaking only after she could feel his thick rigidity pressed against her warm center. "My needs are becoming vast, " he stated, his tone strained.
Jane opened her mouth to speak but the words were slow to come, her body wanted more from him, his touch reminded her of how long it had been since she shared herself with another.
Her brain's electrical activity was off the Richter scale, she was a bumblebee unable to take flight from wings crushed under his body, leaving her stuck with the choice of fighting or freezing.
"And what of my needs?" she managed.
"What do you need?" Bane asked.
Jane felt a smile play on her lips as she felt exposed by the fire, illuminated by the flames. The dancing light distorted the shadows, she imagined the glossy beady eyes of rats upon her, nocturnal winged critters hovering in the air, voyeurs of the night.
The eyes she most thought of were those that belonged to bipedal, carbon-based lifeforms.
"Privacy," she finally murmured.
Bane froze above her, a hot coil tightened throughout his core, tangling his central nervous system into knots at the unspoken acceptance that accompanied her single word.
"I will you join you inside the van shortly," he rasped, his words trailing off as he forced himself to rise to his feet, lifting her along with him.
Rising as one.
Jane stared up at Bane once they were both upright, a heady mixture of anticipation and hesitation roiled within her belly, making her clear her throat as stomach acid raced up her throat.
"Jane, may I join you in the van?" he breathed as he caught up her hands, being mindful.
Time stopped in the space before Jane gave a small nod.
The continents ceased to drift before the barest movement of her chin.
The ebb and flow of the Atlantic was disrupted before Jane's acceptance was through the nonverbal.
The very position of the moon in the sky was affected until the slight dip in Jane's head, the softening expression that filled her exquisite features.
Bane let his grip grow slack until Jane moved away from him.
Neither of them stopped looking at each other.
He remained by the burning fire, the flames engorging themselves on the oxygen as she opened one of the van's rear doors and closed herself off from view.
While Bane put out the fire, Jane settled on the edge of the joined gurneys, able to finally pull a full breath into her lungs.
Bane was happy to give Jane the privacy she requested; she was right to be concerned about the various eyes that were upon them.
Multiple pupils dilated as they watched the firelight dance across their intertwined bodies. Many people in the camp were curious about the new arrivals
The big man and the diminutive woman.
The way they looked at and spoke to each other.
Everyone had their own perception of Bane and Jane.
Halo smoked a cigarette down to the filter as he watched Bane extinguish the fire.
Meanwhile in downtown Gotham City, a very different world than the encampment, under the same sun and moon but atmospheres apart.
Inside the Gotham City Police Department, within the four walls of Gordon's office, Blake was finally starting to relax and let the stick began to slide out of his ass.
Gordon had been growing tired of the hothead's tantrum and acting out. He'd sent a rookie to the nearby Gotham's Four Corners Liquor, for enough alcohol to relax a rampaging rhino.
After enough Jack and his cousin Jim, Blake was finally sitting and had rolled up his sleeves.
Agents DC and McKay drank until they became sloshed, McKay later puking in Gordon's trashcan while Blake almost fell out of his chair laughing and Gordon suddenly felt like he was surrounded by children.
As the quartet's drinking organically parlayed into a sleepover in Gordon's office, hours, and hours away, Selina untied her cherry red apron and washed her hands.
She smiled at the opalescent soap bubbles that were born to quickly die under the stream of hot water, she was learning to become someone else, to shed the past and begin a new life.
She'd lost count of what number life she was on.
She pushed open the glass-fronted door at The Daily Grind, an organic coffee shop, to upright several of the fallen, oversized chess pieces in a matte black and bright white.
Her life was well on its way to becoming predictable.
She'd begun working at the coffee shop after walking in with no money, bare feet, a tear-stained face with only the tidal breath remaining in her lungs.
Selina had sprung back to life at the gentle voice, touch and help of the coffee shop's manager Storm Valdez.
Selina and Storm soon easily fell into bed together.
"Clean slate," Selina murmured to herself with a dry chuckle as she cleaned the chalkboard that displayed the specials of The Daily Grind.
Selina Kyle would don her mask and return to Gotham City once the citywide assassinations began.
Inside the commandeered Gotham City Coroner's van, Jane pressed the pad of her index and middle finger to the side of her neck, taking slow, even breaths and trying to bring her racing pulse down.
Jane couldn't help but laugh as she thought about how much the physical act itself would mean. She tried to tiptoe but went through the event horizon of her memories and was forced to relive when she gave herself to a man she was certain she loved.
The man she was even more certain loved her.
How much she'd prepared the room, how much she wanted to give all of herself to him.
Jane shook her head as she thought about the artificial rose petals she'd scattered across the room and the nightgown she'd picked out; the daring neckline made her feel like a goddess.
The way things ended with the doctor reflected the veracity of her vetting process.
She'd nearly seen inside Bane as she'd snaked the modified chest tube inside his chest cavity. Jane had examined his body after he was reported to be deceased and assigned a morgue intake number.
Jane had seen Bane's naked vulnerability, witnessed him as no one else except perhaps the doctor that had treated him in The Pit.
Her heart felt like it was beating inside a pericardial sac that was too small, the opaque membrane was too constricting, her blood threatened to grow stagnant within her compressed valves.
She rubbed her eyes and shifted; the small movement made sheets of paper crinkle under her thigh.
Jane gathered up Bane's pages, skimming the neat characters.
She squinted at the language, not recognizing anything except for the names of various people in nearly every part of Gotham City's infrastructure.
Jane looked over, feeling like she was caught red-handed as Bane's eyes landed on her clutching his handwritten pages.
The wavelengths from the van made his eye's rods and cones dance when he gaze landed on her.
"What does this say?" she asked as she held up a page and pointed to a series of words surrounding the name of Robert Ales, the CEO of The OWL Newsgroup.
"Ramblings Jane," Bane finally answered as he stepped up into the van. "Just ramblings," he added as he pulled the door closed behind him.