Jack & Selina

I shrugged my shoulders. "I told you that already. I took something that I shouldn't have."

"Don't treat me like I'm some kind of clueless airhead." Selina snapped at me. "They don't lock you up in that place for stealing stuff."

"They do if you steal one hundred and sixty thermonuclear bombs." I replied.

Her jaw dropped open, the gun dipping. I almost made my lunge then but then she recovered her senses, gritted her teeth and steadied her aim. I tossed a mental coin and it came up heads. I should be dead ten times over anyway. One more didn't matter. I stepped forward.

"Don't." She warned me.

I took another step, and I saw her turn her head away slightly, her finger tightening on the handgrips of the revolver as her eyes compressed into a squint. I dived to my left but strangely no shot rang out so I threw myself upon her, wrenching her arm upwards before she could bring the gun to bear on me again, and crushed her wrist with all the strength I could muster, my teeth forming a fearsome grimace as she flinched in fear and pain. The gun fell from her grasp as she cried out, thudding into the carpet. I slapped a hand over her mouth and held her down on the sofa with both her hands clamped tightly in one fist until she stopped squirming beneath me and just glared in mute rage at me. I glanced at the gun, saw that the safety catch had been left engaged and laughed.

"Selina my love, I really do believe that you just tried to kill me." Either she said 'thank you' through my hand or 'fuck you', I never quite figured out which. I pulled the gun toward myself with my bare feet and picked it up, thumbing the safety off and pressing the cold steel barrel against the side of her head, then I released her arms, keeping her silent with the other hand squeezing her jaw shut. "You see, pumpkin, the difference between nice guys letting you down and bad guys doing it is in the degree of danger they put you in. A nice guy would never dump you at gunpoint right after making love to you. A bad guy, however, would happily fuck you up the ass for good measure before blowing your brains out to ensure you stayed quiet forever, capische?"

Her eyes widened in fear at that. "Lucky for you I'm kind of halfway between a nice guy and a bad guy. Haven't quite made my mind up which path to go down yet, though the lure of the dark side is strong, as a great man once said a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Now promise me you'll be a very, very good girl - no screaming unless I make you - and I will let you go unharmed. I have no desire to hurt you, I just want to be left to go my own way, okay?" She nodded rapidly or maybe her head just vibrated up and down in terror.

"Good girl. I'm going to release you now. If you make any sound at all I will bash you over the head with the gun and knock you out, then tie you face down on the bed and rape the shit outta you when you wake up and keep doing you over and over again until it gets dark enough for me to leave, got it?" She nodded again and I pressed the barrel to her temple a little harder to assure she complied with my instructions.

Hesitantly I removed my hand from her mouth but kept the gun pressed to her head with no intention of telling her that I had just put the safety catch back on. "Fucking bastard." She snarled.

"And you struck me as such a nice lady last night." I smiled down at her. "Still, sticks and stones may break my bones but a bullet to your brain could only break my heart if I had one. I know I promised you that I wouldn't hurt you, but I really don't know how exactly this works..." I breathed in her ear as I released her arms and I chopped my hand hard down on the upper side of her neck, under the ear and just below the jaw where the main external artery supplying the brain divides. She had tried to hit me and break free when I pulled back to strike her, but before her arms made contact with me she went limp and they flopped to her side. I smiled, mightily impressed with myself.

I swept her inert body up in my arms and carried her back through to the bedroom where I tied her to the bed, taking my time to do it right - not too tight around the wrists and ankles so as to cut off the circulation, but not so loose that she might be able to work herself free. By the time I had finished I had divested her of her towel and she was stark naked, face down on the bed, arms and legs spread in the shape of a large X, and secured with, of all things, bra straps as that was all I could find in her apartment that I considered suitably resistant to any attempts to break free.

I gagged her with a rolled up strip of fabric that I had cut out of a pillow case before she regained consciousness and quickly dressed, tucking the .38 into the waistband of my jeans and shoving the deck of cards in a pocket. The playing cards went everywhere with me, and had done ever since Lurch had shredded the larger sketches. I even slept with them just in case he tried to do it again which was why they had escaped from Arkham in my pyjamas with me. I relied on them less and less, though. As time passed more was coming back to me, though I felt certain that there was a point where my memories just stopped altogether, those recollections damaged to the point where they were probably irretrievable and always would be.

There was a hundred bucks or so in her purse, but I only took the fifty that I had spent in the web cafe the previous night, and I selected the sharpest knife in the kitchen, wrapped it in a tea towel and dropped it into a small backpack that I found hanging up on the back of the bathroom door. A battery powered torch also went into it as I had lost mine when the police found the van, and I pocketed her keys. There wasn't much else worth taking other than a black plastic raincoat that might fit at a pinch, though I did throw in a couple of pairs of socks from her bedside cabinet, her head turning toward me and glaring at me angrily as I rifled through her drawers. I pulled out a nine inch black rubber coated vibrator that looked uncomfortably thick, turning the ridged device over in my hands and smirking as she reddened in embarrassment. I turned the white dial in it's base and it came to life, buzzing noisily in my hand.

"Well, Selina sweetheart, I must say I do feel somewhat inadequate now." I chuckled as I opened the dildo and tapped the batteries out into my hand, noting that they were the same size as the ones the torch used, then I dropped the reassembled sex toy onto the bed beside her. "Last night will live in my memory at least until the next time I'm lucky enough to have another hot bitch fuck me," I continued, placing a hand on her bare backside. "But now I really must bid you adieu. I feel I may have outstayed my welcome just a smidgeon. I will give you some advice for the future, though - if you really must play with bad boys, you'd best be a little less of a pussy and a bit more of a tiger."

I kissed her on the back of her head - I had tried to kiss her on the forehead but she wrenched her head away in disgust - and walked away, promising her that I'd phone the authorities and let them know of her predicament as soon as I got out of Gotham, but not mentioning that I had plans for the day that required she remain immobilised until she'd wet the bed at least twice. I closed the door softly behind me, got in her death trap of a car, and drove with whitened knuckles and my heart in my mouth through rush hour traffic back to PCafe.