TM 215: Have you ever been seduced?
*private* (based on comics-canon events of Gotham Central and 52
Charles Victor Sage was the last person on Earth who should have been able to seduce me.
For starters -- to state the obvious -- Charlie was the wrong gender. It's been a decade since I dated a man for any reason other than to make my parents happy and plead off at the end of the night because I was a good Dominican girl. I knew I was a lesbian from pretty early on, and I haven't even been able to hide it since the day one of my other male admirers outed me as publicly as he could. Thanks, Two-Face, I owe you one; though now I've said it sarcastically, I wonder if maybe I do.
In any case, I wasn't exactly a stranger to men coming on to me. Even if I don't count Harvey Dent on the grounds of his pretty serious psychosis. Count every guy who used to see me and Daria out together and just assumed we had been waiting all our lives for his particular brand of man-loving. All the crude remarks from men I arrested. All joking flirtation I ran into from other cops that weren't always such jokes, which we all knew was only a joke if you wanted to take it that way.
But Charlie Sage -- he walked right into my bedroom and into my life and before you could say, "Holy boundary-crossing, Batman," I was following him to the other side of the world.
It helped that he didn't want sex. It took me a while to figure that out. I blame my mother for drilling "Boys only pick on you because they like you." I assumed Charlie was being a pain in my ass because he thought he could sleep with me. When I got to know him better, I realized Charlie was a pain in the ass of everybody he ever met, because he never figured out another way to be.
So why do I say that this man I never kissed -- who I never would have kissed -- who never tried to kiss me -- why do I say it was a seduction?
I put this mask on every night, I slide it over my skin, it becomes my skin. I slip into the shadows, I float through the streets. I used to be a cop. Now I'm an urban legend. It's too bad Charlie isn't alive anymore, to see what he turned me into.
Oh, who do I think I'm kidding? Charlie knew all along.
Charles Victor Sage was the last person on Earth who should have been able to seduce me.
For starters -- to state the obvious -- Charlie was the wrong gender. It's been a decade since I dated a man for any reason other than to make my parents happy and plead off at the end of the night because I was a good Dominican girl. I knew I was a lesbian from pretty early on, and I haven't even been able to hide it since the day one of my other male admirers outed me as publicly as he could. Thanks, Two-Face, I owe you one; though now I've said it sarcastically, I wonder if maybe I do.
In any case, I wasn't exactly a stranger to men coming on to me. Even if I don't count Harvey Dent on the grounds of his pretty serious psychosis. Count every guy who used to see me and Daria out together and just assumed we had been waiting all our lives for his particular brand of man-loving. All the crude remarks from men I arrested. All joking flirtation I ran into from other cops that weren't always such jokes, which we all knew was only a joke if you wanted to take it that way.
But Charlie Sage -- he walked right into my bedroom and into my life and before you could say, "Holy boundary-crossing, Batman," I was following him to the other side of the world.
It helped that he didn't want sex. It took me a while to figure that out. I blame my mother for drilling "Boys only pick on you because they like you." I assumed Charlie was being a pain in my ass because he thought he could sleep with me. When I got to know him better, I realized Charlie was a pain in the ass of everybody he ever met, because he never figured out another way to be.
So why do I say that this man I never kissed -- who I never would have kissed -- who never tried to kiss me -- why do I say it was a seduction?
I put this mask on every night, I slide it over my skin, it becomes my skin. I slip into the shadows, I float through the streets. I used to be a cop. Now I'm an urban legend. It's too bad Charlie isn't alive anymore, to see what he turned me into.
Oh, who do I think I'm kidding? Charlie knew all along.