Feline Desperation, Part One

by J. Rosemary Moss

Genre: Fan-Fiction (Batman)
Rating: R

Summary: Bruce Wayne guesses the secret that his mistress, Selina Kyle, has been hiding. But is the notorious Catwoman just a cat burglar--or do her tastes run to murder?

~

I remember the exact moment when I realized the truth about Selina Kyle. It was May 13th—three weeks to the day after we first fell into bed together.

She was in my bed that morning, purring like a cat as I massaged her back muscles. I grinned as I leaned down and nipped her on the neck. She arched her back with pleasure and then ordered me to rub her shoulders. I gave her a smack on the ass to reprimand her for the imperial tone, but she just snorted dismissively. I grinned again and decided to obey her.

I didn’t usually bring girls home to Wayne Manor. Alfred’s disapproving stare was a remarkably good deterrent. My butler, you see, is old school when it comes to a certain class of women. I half expected him to remind me that a gentleman doesn’t soil his own linen. Hotels are the proper place for such goings-on.

But Selina was different. It wasn’t that I was serious about her. Neither of us had serious intentions. It was just that…well, Selina made me believable. I was Bruce Wayne—an obnoxious playboy who bought whatever he wanted. An attractive, gold-digging girl on my arm was part of the image I needed to project.

But the other gold-diggers had left me cold. With Selina, I didn’t have to put on an act. I let her tease me because I was genuinely amused. I let my eyes trail after her because she was a genuine pleasure to look at. And I let myself stare into her eyes because I genuinely wanted to get lost in them.

Alfred never spoke a word against her. A lift of his eyebrows sufficed to convey his opinion. As far as he was concerned, she was just another gold-digger. And he was right, of course. I might curse Alfred’s out-dated mores—but I never said he wasn’t a good judge of character.

To be fair, however, Selina didn’t seduce me under false pretenses. The first time I was alone with her she had given me a hard, mercenary look and told me just what she expected.

We had snuck into a spare bedroom during a gala at one of Gotham’s society mansions. As soon as I shut the door, Selina put her hand under my chin and winked up at me.

“I’m expensive, Bruce,” she warned me.

I stared at her as I put my arms loosely around her. Despite the reputation I was cultivating, I didn’t have much experience at this sort of thing. I still felt like a new batter facing a seasoned pitcher.

“Uh, are you expecting cash?” I asked.

I felt like an idiot as soon as the words were out of my mouth. And she didn’t cut me any slack—she laughed instead.

“No,” she said. “But I like gifts—and I like having my bills paid.”

I cocked my head at her as I risked pulling her closer. “It sounds like you have more than a quick hook-up in mind.”

“Don’t you?” she countered.

I gave her a crooked grin that probably looked pathetic. “Yeah,” I admitted.

As I said, that was three weeks ago. Since then, she’d forwarded a steady flow of bills to Wayne Manor, including her credit cards, car payment, rent—even her dry cleaning. Despite that raised eyebrow of Alfred’s, I passed them all onto my accountant.

I didn’t mind the bills and they didn’t stop me from drinking in the sight of her as I massaged her shoulders. She had the long, muscular body of a dancer or an acrobat—and, in fact, she had trained as both when she was younger.

She was a beautiful woman, all told. I loved her dark auburn hair and the way it spilled over her shoulders. It was her natural color, although she periodically dyed it black for a change of pace. I’d seen her with the black hair last year, before she took any serious notice of me.

But I think her legs were her best feature. They were impossibly long—and there was nothing better than feeling her wrap them around my torso while I was thrusting deep inside of her.

But there was more to her than that. She could keep up with me outside the bedroom. She was just as athletic as I was. We’d already gone kayaking, rock climbing and spelunking together.

I think I guessed her secret that first time we went rock-climbing. She was an acrobat who knew how to scale a cliff. I was pretty sure she could scale the side of a building just as easily. Moreover, she was a socialite—well, a courtesan, I suppose, but she still mixed with all the right people. She would know who had the best jewelry and which of it was worth stealing.

And I pegged her as a dare-devil almost from the first. Yeah, it takes one to know one, I suppose. But Selina was even worse than I was. She had a real hunger for living dangerously and, judging by her carelessness, she didn’t value her safety. That left me to be the responsible one. I took all the necessary precautions for both of us.

I started to wonder if she was the sort of person who would pull off a robbery just for the thrill of it. And, to add to my suspicions, I knew that Selina had little sympathy for the wealthy victims of larceny. I had watched her as she read about a burglar’s exploits in the paper one morning. She wore a look of intense satisfaction, as if she was happy to see some snob come by his just desserts.

But, until this morning, I had kept these suspicions in a locked box in the back of my mind. I had no proof, after all. All I had was a hunch based on extremely circumstantial evidence. I could easily be wrong.

And yet, right now, those suspicions broke free. As I stared down at the muscles in Selina's back, I couldn’t stop thinking that I might be massaging Gotham’s notorious cat-burglar: the Catwoman.


LINK TO PART TWO