DENT (Part 3/??)
Title: Dent (3/??)
Previous Parts: | Prologue | One
Fandom: Batman (general comics continuity)
Characters: Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Gilda Dent, Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon, Vincent Moroni
Genres: General, Drama, Angst, Romance
Rating: PG-13
This story contains: Alcoholism, brief mentions of child abuse, graphic violence, swearing, character death, sexual content
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
A/N: When I first set out to write Gilda, I wanted to make her something more than just the two dimensional saintly, suffering love interest that she's often been in canon, and avoid the more well known one dimensional mousy, crazy-wife version of The Long Halloween. She needed to be a character in her own right, which meant pretty much creating her from the ground up with the sparse details available in canon as her foundation. Over nine drafts, I struggled to perfect her, finding that she kept falling into those canon traps or, worse, becoming something of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
After a lot of refining, I think I've finally got her. It's about bloody time, too. As for her dynamic with Harvey, I like to think of them as John and Abigail Adams by way of Seth Brundle and Veronica Quaife, but we'll see how that shapes up over the rest of the story.
With just one hour left to prepare for my benefit banquet-which will probably be more like my funeral after the stunt I just pulled in front of Gotham's entire television watching populace, and its political elite-I unlock the door to my house and wonder for the hundredth time how I'll be able to face her. She'll chew me out, and she'll be right to do it. With one conscience driven impulse, I've jeopardized everything. Everything I've worked so hard for, everything we've built, everything-
The door swings open, and a woman elegant beyond her years, dressed to the hilt in ballroom finery, all but tackles me with kisses.
"Marry the hell out of me, you great big dope!" she says, planting another one before yanking me inside by the lapels.
"I already did!" I yelp. "You were there!"
"Then do it again!" she beams. Jesus, she's luminescent. Maybe it's the dress, an elegant number too long to quality as a little black dress, accompanied by the long white gloves that cover the arms that cover me. But no, that's not it. It's her. It's always just Gilda.
"You don't think I just pissed away my entire career?"
"Harvey, no!" A thoughtful pause. "Well, maybe." A smile. "I don't care! You showed them the real person they're going to elect. The real Harvey Dent, not some watered-down, kid-tested-Hill-approved edition. Just the real, actual you."
"Oh, you mean the real, actual me that put his foot in it? On live TV? In front of several mobsters?"
"Yes. That one," she grinningly responds without pause. "That speech was the first time in months that you've sounded like yourself, you know that? I was actually starting to miss you."
Miss me? "I've always been here."
"I know, it's just..." she leaves it there. I wonder if I'm not missing something. "Never mind. I'm so proud of you."
"You're the only one who is."
"Oh, well, good thing I'm the only one who matters, then." She smirks. "And really, what's the worst that can happen?"
I almost say, "We get killed?" but that's not going to be an issue. From what I can tell, no one's taking me that seriously. I'm a laughingstock who just shot himself in the foot, not a threat to anyone.
"Worst case scenario? My career is in ruins, all the people I've pissed off get me blacklisted, it rains, there's a plague of locusts and we probably have to fall back on your career."
"Oh." Attempting to perk up, she offers, "Well, maybe one of my sculptures will finally sell? For several thousand dollars?"
"Yeah, exactly. That's why I've got to try to salvage this disaster at the banquet." I break away from her, unbuttoning my shirt as I head into the bedroom. "Where's the damn penguin suit? I've still got an hour to compose myself and-"
"Um, about that banquet..." Gilda utters from the hallway.
Halfway into my trousers, I freeze. Leaning out the door, I find my answer in her sheepish smile, but I ask anyway.
"Cancelled?"
"Hill called an hour ago. Or rather, his aide called. Basically, he wants nothing to do with you for the time being."
I fall backwards onto the bed, my pants hanging down around my ankles. "He couldn't even tell me himself. He had to have little Artie Reeves do his dirty work."
"He said hi, by the way," she adds, leaning by the doorway, phone in her gloved hand. "So. Pizza?"
"I think I've lost my appetite." I stare upward at the popcorn ceiling, one of the many renovations we'll need to perform on this place. So many things that need to be done before this house can feel like home. It's made all the more jarring by how extravagant she looks, not that I'm complaining, as she sets the phone aside and closes the distance between the doorway and me. Tuxedo pants forgotten, for the first time since I got back, I actually look at her. Really look at her.
I'm honestly not used to seeing her like this: gentle, sloping curves in black satin and chestnut curls spilling from the loose bun at the nape of her neck-overalls caked with clay, hair hastily swept behind a bandana to keep it out of the way; that I'm used to. But this...this is different.
Not for the first time, I wonder how many other facets I've overlooked that she'll eventually surprise me with. Even now, I catch another detail I missed on first glance: the dress is subtly patterned with tiny black velvet roses, an understated contrast to the black satin. I might have noticed a little quicker if not for the stark white satin gloves. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have. Probably wouldn't have.
"Wait. Why are you still dressed up if you knew the party was cancelled?"
"After I spent four hours of hard work to look this way?" she demurs, sauntering towards my bare legs. "It wasn't for the benefit, boy. It was for your benefit."
"Gilda, I'm really not sure-four hours?-I mean, now's not the time to..." She climbs onto the bed, pushing the tailored dress to its limits as she straddles me. "Okay, overruled."
I suddenly remember the surprise I've had hidden away for the past week and wonder if now's the time to spring it on her, since we're staying in anyway...
Then again, as she leans toward me, those eyes full of intent, I wonder if maybe I just don't give a damn...
And that's when the phone rings.
She rolls off with a throaty, "Daaaaamn!" gracelessly flopping on the bed in defeat. She sulks there as the phone rings a second time. With a disappointed huff, she arises and grumbles, "Go on, answer it. I'll go look for the pizza delivery menu."
"Love you," I say, to which she scoffs in frustration, dismissively flapping one hand in my general direction as she heads out. The ring cuts off as I lift the receiver, and I'm suddenly filled with sickening anticipation of whoever's on the other end of the line. Readying myself for a personal chewing-out from Mayor Hill, I instead hear a ghost from my past. The only time I've heard this voice in recent memory is on TV or news radio. But not in person. Not for what seems like a lifetime.
"Harvey! Buddy! Long time no anything! Where're you at?"
"I'm... home. Which you should know, since you apparently somehow have my number...?"
"Home? But your benefit is already in full swing! Everyone's been asking about you!"
"Wait, what? What benefit? The banquet was cancelled."
"Yeah, I heard. So I decided to throw my own! I just had an hour's notice, so I could only get a few hundred of my closest friends. Hope that's enough!"
"It... I... you..."
"Your ride should be arriving right about now to bring you to the mansion. The driver may need directions. I assume you still know the way up here, right? Swell! See you soon!"
Before I can even sputter, he hangs up. And before I can tell Gilda, I hear her from the living room, "Uh... Harv? Why is there a stretch Rolls in our driveway? I mean...I think it's a Rolls. Do they even make those?"
"Bruce Wayne," is all I can muster by way of an answer. "Just... Bruce Wayne."
She gawks. "The millionaire? The tabloid fixture? You're friends?"
"I guess you could say that." Although I'm not sure that'd be the truth. "He's certainly under the impression we're friends. He's throwing me a benefit. Now. As we speak."
Her brow knits for a second before she gives a one shouldered shrug. "Well, much as it pains me to say so, put on your pants."
"Whoa, we're not actually going."
"Harvey, you need help."
"I thought that's what my shrink was for."
"Be serious." She says it so rarely that I know she means business. "He's offering you a hand when you need it the most. So what if he's an airheaded playboy? Support is support."
It's so much more than that, but I don't know how to explain it to her. So I comply, throwing on the tux, putting all the parts in the right places.
Glancing out at the waiting limo while I dress, she marvels, "You know, for a gutter press darling, he really goes all out, doesn't he?"
"He never did before," I say, and that's what gets me. Why has Bruce cobbled together this scenario? If I were paranoid, I'd suspect a trap. Strange enough he should return to town out of nowhere, but this, with our history...?
"You should be savoring this, you know," she says, watching as I dutifully slip on the suit jacket. "After tomorrow, the real work begins."
That's true. The real work, either looking for a new job after pissing away the last one, or working at the office I've dreamt of having for years. Facing off against enemies, both old and very new.
I pause the tux assembly, staring at the man in the mirror, and the woman behind him. She looks at me, our eyes meeting in the glass.
"Today… today really happened, didn't it? I called out Vincent Moroni in front of the whole city, didn't I?"
With full understanding, she nods. "Yeah."
"That was really stupid."
"Yes, Harvey. Yes, it was."
I sigh. One way or another, our lives as we knew them are gone forever.
"Everything's changed," I say.
She takes my hand, and I can feel her wedding ring within the glove. "Not everything."
I don't deserve her. How I ever got so lucky to find her, I'll never know. And more than ever, a party is the last place I want to be.
"We should be staying in tonight. We won't have many other chances starting tomorrow."
"It'll be all right, whether you win or not." When she says that, I actually believe her. "But if you do win the election," she adds, with consternation, "try not to spend all of your time with that Justice hussy, or I'll have to take her down a peg. After all, a blind woman can't appreciate a god of light."
"Not you too."
"Oh, you love it, you closeted narcissist," she giggles, which become cackles as I struggle with the bow tie. "Need some help, Mister Bond?"
"Hell with it, I'll worry about it on the drive." I give myself one last look in the mirror. A couple mahogany stragglers dangle over my forehead, so I go for the comb in my study, maneuvering past towers of unpacked law books and documents. With one last sweep of the comb-everything's in place, good-I make sure I'm not forgetting anything. "Right, now, once I lock up the house..."
"You can call it 'home,' you know."
"I will once I believe it," I say, patting my pockets, which are empty. I glance to the kitchen counter, but still nothing. Where the hell...?
Handing me the house keys, she asks, "You don't really miss the cloister, do you?"
The cloister: the tiny cell I moved into after I left Dad. Hard to believe that Gilda and I survived three years in that cramped, stuffy, box-stacked, paper-strewn hellhole of a flat.
I snatch the keys from her hand and shrug. "It was home."
"Well, the suburbs can be home too."
I open the door, and the air outside is cool in an artificial, recirculated way. This is the furthest I've ever been outside of the city in my life, and I'm living here now.
"All I've ever known about the suburbs was from sitcoms," I say, flipping the locks. "I'm not cut out to be the dad from Love That Baby."
"Or Ward Cleaver?"
A shudder of old embarrassment. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"
"Nope!" she says, punctuating her response with a small bounce. Turning to the Rolls in all its glory, the chauffeur waiting oh-so-patiently for us, she says, "Well, I was looking forward to properly christening the house tonight, but if Bruce Wayne is going to twist my arm..."
I reach for the limo's door to-oops, that's right, let the chauffeur take care of it, la-dee-dah-and let her slide in first. It's a whole lot of vehicle for just us (for justice), but... wait. Damn, I almost forgot!
"Don't go yet," I tell the driver, and then to her: "Wait here. I've got to get something."
"Oh god, what do you have planned?"
"Don't worry, it's awful, I swear!" I run inside, the keys jangling in my hand. I undo the locks, dash into the bedroom, head to the closet, reach for the top shelf, pull down the box with "Legal documents S-Su" written in marker on the side, grab the heavy object by the spout with one hand, support it by the bottom with the other, run into the kitchen, put the surprise under my arm, grab two glasses, check my hair, run outside, and then lock the house back up through some miracle of dexterity. I turn to Gilda, who looks at me with bewilderment, which turns to shock when she sees the green bottle I'm lugging her way.
I thank the driver for opening the door, get in, and hand her the bottle as she sputters for the right words. I'm frankly amazed that she didn't find it already.
"Harvey!" she exclaims, delight mixed with genuine surprise as the door slams shut behind me. "You actually got this?"
"Not for me," I say, handing her a glass. "I was thinking of saving this for after my victory party, but since that may not happen..."
She hesitates, sizing me up. "Are you sure about this?"
"Well, I don't want to have to carry you into Wayne Manor. Bruce wouldn't forgive being upstaged in the tabloids."
She's nice enough to smile, then scans the label without interest. My first-ever visit to a liquor store was itself a discomforting experience, filled with unhappy men and sour, indeterminate odors. The clerk assured me this was some pretty high-end bubbly. For the price, it'd better be.
"Tell you what," she negotiates, "Let's hold off for now. Save it for a really special occasion."
"What's more special than tonight?" I aim for irony, but somehow it comes out as sincerity. Even in the midst of imminent disaster, she makes everything okay.
In reply, her warm smile gives rise to a dozen silent ambitions. "It'll come to us. I'm counting on it."
Good answer. With relief, I say, "And I'll second that."
"Now, where's that tie?" she asks, her hand slipping into my left pocket and fumbling around for effect. "Nope, not in there, maybe the other one...?"
"You're as subtle as a cinderblock," I say, pulling it out of the front corner pocket. She reaches for it, and I protest, "I can do it myself," but it's for naught.
Resigning myself, I let her drape the tie around my neck, watching her eyes focused on her work, glancing up to me and down again to finish the job. With satisfaction, she tugs on the bow as if putting the finishing touch on a Christmas present.
"There we go," she says, looking me over, taking me all in. With her hand to my cheek, she says with adoration, "My handsome Apollo."
"Jesus, for the last time, no more of-"
She shuts me up. She's so good at that. Fingers cradling my cheek, she moves in, slowly but deliberately. Her tongue slips against mine for the briefest, tantalizing moment, before she breaks away.
"What was that for?"
With a crafty smile, she says, "I need a reason?"
After a moment's held hesitation, I respond with a touch less grace and deliberation. Her lipsticked-lips stick ever so slightly against mine, but never once smear nor smudge, not even as our kisses intensify. Silken hands slip inside the tux jacket and caress my chest through white cotton. I peck her cheek once, twice, enticing without mussing her make-up, before moving to give her earlobe a single nibble, which never fails to elicit a tiny gasp.
Hushed between heaving breaths, she asks, "It's a...long drive...to Wayne Manor from here, isn't it?"
"Not long enough," I respond, before calling to the chauffeur, "Driver? Driver! You mind getting lost in the city for a bit, if you know what...?"
I can see his eyes roll in the rearview mirror. "Yeah, yeah," he wearily replies, the gray partition rolling up with an electric hum. "I do drive a limo, y'know, 'Mister Apollo.'"
Gilda fixes her smug gaze on me, eyebrow cocked.
"Not one word," I warn, placing my finger on her soft mouth. Her lips part and she gently bites down on the finger, sending little shockwaves through my system. My hand runs over the curves of her body, patterns of black roses appearing and vanishing between glances.
"Why, Mister District Attorney," she says, tugging on the bow and undoing all her hard work, "whatever would your mistress say if she could see us now?"
I pull her closer. "Just another reason I'm glad she's blind."
To be continued...
Previous Parts: | Prologue | One
Fandom: Batman (general comics continuity)
Characters: Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Gilda Dent, Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon, Vincent Moroni
Genres: General, Drama, Angst, Romance
Rating: PG-13
This story contains: Alcoholism, brief mentions of child abuse, graphic violence, swearing, character death, sexual content
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
A/N: When I first set out to write Gilda, I wanted to make her something more than just the two dimensional saintly, suffering love interest that she's often been in canon, and avoid the more well known one dimensional mousy, crazy-wife version of The Long Halloween. She needed to be a character in her own right, which meant pretty much creating her from the ground up with the sparse details available in canon as her foundation. Over nine drafts, I struggled to perfect her, finding that she kept falling into those canon traps or, worse, becoming something of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
After a lot of refining, I think I've finally got her. It's about bloody time, too. As for her dynamic with Harvey, I like to think of them as John and Abigail Adams by way of Seth Brundle and Veronica Quaife, but we'll see how that shapes up over the rest of the story.
With just one hour left to prepare for my benefit banquet-which will probably be more like my funeral after the stunt I just pulled in front of Gotham's entire television watching populace, and its political elite-I unlock the door to my house and wonder for the hundredth time how I'll be able to face her. She'll chew me out, and she'll be right to do it. With one conscience driven impulse, I've jeopardized everything. Everything I've worked so hard for, everything we've built, everything-
The door swings open, and a woman elegant beyond her years, dressed to the hilt in ballroom finery, all but tackles me with kisses.
"Marry the hell out of me, you great big dope!" she says, planting another one before yanking me inside by the lapels.
"I already did!" I yelp. "You were there!"
"Then do it again!" she beams. Jesus, she's luminescent. Maybe it's the dress, an elegant number too long to quality as a little black dress, accompanied by the long white gloves that cover the arms that cover me. But no, that's not it. It's her. It's always just Gilda.
"You don't think I just pissed away my entire career?"
"Harvey, no!" A thoughtful pause. "Well, maybe." A smile. "I don't care! You showed them the real person they're going to elect. The real Harvey Dent, not some watered-down, kid-tested-Hill-approved edition. Just the real, actual you."
"Oh, you mean the real, actual me that put his foot in it? On live TV? In front of several mobsters?"
"Yes. That one," she grinningly responds without pause. "That speech was the first time in months that you've sounded like yourself, you know that? I was actually starting to miss you."
Miss me? "I've always been here."
"I know, it's just..." she leaves it there. I wonder if I'm not missing something. "Never mind. I'm so proud of you."
"You're the only one who is."
"Oh, well, good thing I'm the only one who matters, then." She smirks. "And really, what's the worst that can happen?"
I almost say, "We get killed?" but that's not going to be an issue. From what I can tell, no one's taking me that seriously. I'm a laughingstock who just shot himself in the foot, not a threat to anyone.
"Worst case scenario? My career is in ruins, all the people I've pissed off get me blacklisted, it rains, there's a plague of locusts and we probably have to fall back on your career."
"Oh." Attempting to perk up, she offers, "Well, maybe one of my sculptures will finally sell? For several thousand dollars?"
"Yeah, exactly. That's why I've got to try to salvage this disaster at the banquet." I break away from her, unbuttoning my shirt as I head into the bedroom. "Where's the damn penguin suit? I've still got an hour to compose myself and-"
"Um, about that banquet..." Gilda utters from the hallway.
Halfway into my trousers, I freeze. Leaning out the door, I find my answer in her sheepish smile, but I ask anyway.
"Cancelled?"
"Hill called an hour ago. Or rather, his aide called. Basically, he wants nothing to do with you for the time being."
I fall backwards onto the bed, my pants hanging down around my ankles. "He couldn't even tell me himself. He had to have little Artie Reeves do his dirty work."
"He said hi, by the way," she adds, leaning by the doorway, phone in her gloved hand. "So. Pizza?"
"I think I've lost my appetite." I stare upward at the popcorn ceiling, one of the many renovations we'll need to perform on this place. So many things that need to be done before this house can feel like home. It's made all the more jarring by how extravagant she looks, not that I'm complaining, as she sets the phone aside and closes the distance between the doorway and me. Tuxedo pants forgotten, for the first time since I got back, I actually look at her. Really look at her.
I'm honestly not used to seeing her like this: gentle, sloping curves in black satin and chestnut curls spilling from the loose bun at the nape of her neck-overalls caked with clay, hair hastily swept behind a bandana to keep it out of the way; that I'm used to. But this...this is different.
Not for the first time, I wonder how many other facets I've overlooked that she'll eventually surprise me with. Even now, I catch another detail I missed on first glance: the dress is subtly patterned with tiny black velvet roses, an understated contrast to the black satin. I might have noticed a little quicker if not for the stark white satin gloves. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have. Probably wouldn't have.
"Wait. Why are you still dressed up if you knew the party was cancelled?"
"After I spent four hours of hard work to look this way?" she demurs, sauntering towards my bare legs. "It wasn't for the benefit, boy. It was for your benefit."
"Gilda, I'm really not sure-four hours?-I mean, now's not the time to..." She climbs onto the bed, pushing the tailored dress to its limits as she straddles me. "Okay, overruled."
I suddenly remember the surprise I've had hidden away for the past week and wonder if now's the time to spring it on her, since we're staying in anyway...
Then again, as she leans toward me, those eyes full of intent, I wonder if maybe I just don't give a damn...
And that's when the phone rings.
She rolls off with a throaty, "Daaaaamn!" gracelessly flopping on the bed in defeat. She sulks there as the phone rings a second time. With a disappointed huff, she arises and grumbles, "Go on, answer it. I'll go look for the pizza delivery menu."
"Love you," I say, to which she scoffs in frustration, dismissively flapping one hand in my general direction as she heads out. The ring cuts off as I lift the receiver, and I'm suddenly filled with sickening anticipation of whoever's on the other end of the line. Readying myself for a personal chewing-out from Mayor Hill, I instead hear a ghost from my past. The only time I've heard this voice in recent memory is on TV or news radio. But not in person. Not for what seems like a lifetime.
"Harvey! Buddy! Long time no anything! Where're you at?"
"I'm... home. Which you should know, since you apparently somehow have my number...?"
"Home? But your benefit is already in full swing! Everyone's been asking about you!"
"Wait, what? What benefit? The banquet was cancelled."
"Yeah, I heard. So I decided to throw my own! I just had an hour's notice, so I could only get a few hundred of my closest friends. Hope that's enough!"
"It... I... you..."
"Your ride should be arriving right about now to bring you to the mansion. The driver may need directions. I assume you still know the way up here, right? Swell! See you soon!"
Before I can even sputter, he hangs up. And before I can tell Gilda, I hear her from the living room, "Uh... Harv? Why is there a stretch Rolls in our driveway? I mean...I think it's a Rolls. Do they even make those?"
"Bruce Wayne," is all I can muster by way of an answer. "Just... Bruce Wayne."
She gawks. "The millionaire? The tabloid fixture? You're friends?"
"I guess you could say that." Although I'm not sure that'd be the truth. "He's certainly under the impression we're friends. He's throwing me a benefit. Now. As we speak."
Her brow knits for a second before she gives a one shouldered shrug. "Well, much as it pains me to say so, put on your pants."
"Whoa, we're not actually going."
"Harvey, you need help."
"I thought that's what my shrink was for."
"Be serious." She says it so rarely that I know she means business. "He's offering you a hand when you need it the most. So what if he's an airheaded playboy? Support is support."
It's so much more than that, but I don't know how to explain it to her. So I comply, throwing on the tux, putting all the parts in the right places.
Glancing out at the waiting limo while I dress, she marvels, "You know, for a gutter press darling, he really goes all out, doesn't he?"
"He never did before," I say, and that's what gets me. Why has Bruce cobbled together this scenario? If I were paranoid, I'd suspect a trap. Strange enough he should return to town out of nowhere, but this, with our history...?
"You should be savoring this, you know," she says, watching as I dutifully slip on the suit jacket. "After tomorrow, the real work begins."
That's true. The real work, either looking for a new job after pissing away the last one, or working at the office I've dreamt of having for years. Facing off against enemies, both old and very new.
I pause the tux assembly, staring at the man in the mirror, and the woman behind him. She looks at me, our eyes meeting in the glass.
"Today… today really happened, didn't it? I called out Vincent Moroni in front of the whole city, didn't I?"
With full understanding, she nods. "Yeah."
"That was really stupid."
"Yes, Harvey. Yes, it was."
I sigh. One way or another, our lives as we knew them are gone forever.
"Everything's changed," I say.
She takes my hand, and I can feel her wedding ring within the glove. "Not everything."
I don't deserve her. How I ever got so lucky to find her, I'll never know. And more than ever, a party is the last place I want to be.
"We should be staying in tonight. We won't have many other chances starting tomorrow."
"It'll be all right, whether you win or not." When she says that, I actually believe her. "But if you do win the election," she adds, with consternation, "try not to spend all of your time with that Justice hussy, or I'll have to take her down a peg. After all, a blind woman can't appreciate a god of light."
"Not you too."
"Oh, you love it, you closeted narcissist," she giggles, which become cackles as I struggle with the bow tie. "Need some help, Mister Bond?"
"Hell with it, I'll worry about it on the drive." I give myself one last look in the mirror. A couple mahogany stragglers dangle over my forehead, so I go for the comb in my study, maneuvering past towers of unpacked law books and documents. With one last sweep of the comb-everything's in place, good-I make sure I'm not forgetting anything. "Right, now, once I lock up the house..."
"You can call it 'home,' you know."
"I will once I believe it," I say, patting my pockets, which are empty. I glance to the kitchen counter, but still nothing. Where the hell...?
Handing me the house keys, she asks, "You don't really miss the cloister, do you?"
The cloister: the tiny cell I moved into after I left Dad. Hard to believe that Gilda and I survived three years in that cramped, stuffy, box-stacked, paper-strewn hellhole of a flat.
I snatch the keys from her hand and shrug. "It was home."
"Well, the suburbs can be home too."
I open the door, and the air outside is cool in an artificial, recirculated way. This is the furthest I've ever been outside of the city in my life, and I'm living here now.
"All I've ever known about the suburbs was from sitcoms," I say, flipping the locks. "I'm not cut out to be the dad from Love That Baby."
"Or Ward Cleaver?"
A shudder of old embarrassment. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"
"Nope!" she says, punctuating her response with a small bounce. Turning to the Rolls in all its glory, the chauffeur waiting oh-so-patiently for us, she says, "Well, I was looking forward to properly christening the house tonight, but if Bruce Wayne is going to twist my arm..."
I reach for the limo's door to-oops, that's right, let the chauffeur take care of it, la-dee-dah-and let her slide in first. It's a whole lot of vehicle for just us (for justice), but... wait. Damn, I almost forgot!
"Don't go yet," I tell the driver, and then to her: "Wait here. I've got to get something."
"Oh god, what do you have planned?"
"Don't worry, it's awful, I swear!" I run inside, the keys jangling in my hand. I undo the locks, dash into the bedroom, head to the closet, reach for the top shelf, pull down the box with "Legal documents S-Su" written in marker on the side, grab the heavy object by the spout with one hand, support it by the bottom with the other, run into the kitchen, put the surprise under my arm, grab two glasses, check my hair, run outside, and then lock the house back up through some miracle of dexterity. I turn to Gilda, who looks at me with bewilderment, which turns to shock when she sees the green bottle I'm lugging her way.
I thank the driver for opening the door, get in, and hand her the bottle as she sputters for the right words. I'm frankly amazed that she didn't find it already.
"Harvey!" she exclaims, delight mixed with genuine surprise as the door slams shut behind me. "You actually got this?"
"Not for me," I say, handing her a glass. "I was thinking of saving this for after my victory party, but since that may not happen..."
She hesitates, sizing me up. "Are you sure about this?"
"Well, I don't want to have to carry you into Wayne Manor. Bruce wouldn't forgive being upstaged in the tabloids."
She's nice enough to smile, then scans the label without interest. My first-ever visit to a liquor store was itself a discomforting experience, filled with unhappy men and sour, indeterminate odors. The clerk assured me this was some pretty high-end bubbly. For the price, it'd better be.
"Tell you what," she negotiates, "Let's hold off for now. Save it for a really special occasion."
"What's more special than tonight?" I aim for irony, but somehow it comes out as sincerity. Even in the midst of imminent disaster, she makes everything okay.
In reply, her warm smile gives rise to a dozen silent ambitions. "It'll come to us. I'm counting on it."
Good answer. With relief, I say, "And I'll second that."
"Now, where's that tie?" she asks, her hand slipping into my left pocket and fumbling around for effect. "Nope, not in there, maybe the other one...?"
"You're as subtle as a cinderblock," I say, pulling it out of the front corner pocket. She reaches for it, and I protest, "I can do it myself," but it's for naught.
Resigning myself, I let her drape the tie around my neck, watching her eyes focused on her work, glancing up to me and down again to finish the job. With satisfaction, she tugs on the bow as if putting the finishing touch on a Christmas present.
"There we go," she says, looking me over, taking me all in. With her hand to my cheek, she says with adoration, "My handsome Apollo."
"Jesus, for the last time, no more of-"
She shuts me up. She's so good at that. Fingers cradling my cheek, she moves in, slowly but deliberately. Her tongue slips against mine for the briefest, tantalizing moment, before she breaks away.
"What was that for?"
With a crafty smile, she says, "I need a reason?"
After a moment's held hesitation, I respond with a touch less grace and deliberation. Her lipsticked-lips stick ever so slightly against mine, but never once smear nor smudge, not even as our kisses intensify. Silken hands slip inside the tux jacket and caress my chest through white cotton. I peck her cheek once, twice, enticing without mussing her make-up, before moving to give her earlobe a single nibble, which never fails to elicit a tiny gasp.
Hushed between heaving breaths, she asks, "It's a...long drive...to Wayne Manor from here, isn't it?"
"Not long enough," I respond, before calling to the chauffeur, "Driver? Driver! You mind getting lost in the city for a bit, if you know what...?"
I can see his eyes roll in the rearview mirror. "Yeah, yeah," he wearily replies, the gray partition rolling up with an electric hum. "I do drive a limo, y'know, 'Mister Apollo.'"
Gilda fixes her smug gaze on me, eyebrow cocked.
"Not one word," I warn, placing my finger on her soft mouth. Her lips part and she gently bites down on the finger, sending little shockwaves through my system. My hand runs over the curves of her body, patterns of black roses appearing and vanishing between glances.
"Why, Mister District Attorney," she says, tugging on the bow and undoing all her hard work, "whatever would your mistress say if she could see us now?"
I pull her closer. "Just another reason I'm glad she's blind."
To be continued...