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It’s moments like this when isn’t not so bad.
Moments after a night of sex that can only be described by Harley as steamy, moments when Mr. J actually settles down to sleep with her afterwards.
They don’t usually sleep together, mostly because Mr. J is busy planning his next evil scheme and ignores his body’s signals until he crashes midday and Harley has to carry him to bed. Of course after that there’s the traditional rearrangement of his carefully set out plans that she’s not supposed to touch. After all, what’s life without a little fun?
Tonight, though, he stays, and with her back against his chest it feels both foreign and at home. His arm is curled around her in sleep, tight enough to bruise and to eliminate the merest notion of getting up.
Harley doesn’t mind. It’s just her Puddin’ showing he cares.
While she has the upper hand of his death-like sleep, though, she runs her thin fingers along the white skin of his hand. She sometimes wonders what made him like that, but will never ask. Whenever he tells it, it’s a different story. She doesn’t know if even he knows the truth anymore.
She doesn’t mind. If he wants his mystery, he can have it.
Mr. J only stirs when she tries to resituate herself, and he must assume it’s an escape attempt for his grip tightens even more.
Sometimes she thinks about life before her Puddin’. The memories are starting to fade, though. Clipboard here, white wall there, a devilish smile she can almost place. That’s about it. Maybe it’s something she doesn’t need to be thinking about. Life was so boring without Mr. J. She has fun now.
Harley drifts into a dreamless sleep after she stops thinking so much, her hand still resting easily atop her Puddin’s.
----
It’s moments like this when it’s not so good.
Moments in the early morning when she wakes up and Mr. J’s gone, moments when he’s no longer gripping her like she’s the only real thing outside his twisted mind.
Harley sits up and stretches, raising her arms over her head and dropping them again. She lifts the hem of her shirt to gaze lovingly at the finger shaped bruises on her hip, all purple and blue.
She pulls herself to her feet and pads out to the kitchen, where Mr. J’s hunched over the table. When he hears the creak of her footsteps he turns to face her, forever-manic look in his eyes.
“Harley-pie,” he drawls, coming closer. He’s nearly a foot taller, and he looms over her like some kind of horror movie monster.
“Yes, Puddin’?” She asks in a sllepy but cheerful tone. The nickname, always spoken in badly concealed anger, sends a shiver running up her spine. Fear is such a unique feeling; she missed it.
Now, though, it runs through her veins and makes her try to give Puddin’ her best puppy-dog face.
He comes closer, red smile angry. “Did you draw on my plans,” he starts carefully, looking over her. “In lipstick?”
Ah. In their almost-domestic bliss Harley had forgotten her mischief from the afternoon before while Mr. J was out. He hadn’t noticed when he came home. Harley had been able to distract him.
She shifts under his eye. “They looked so boring, Puddin’, I just thought I could cheer ‘em up a little.”
Mr. J stares down at her for a long moment, before his first collides with her face.
The force is enough to knock her down, and while she cradles her face in hand he glares down mercilessly at her.
He sinks down to kneel beside her after a long moment, after he’s paced away and come back to see Harley in the same saddening position with the same sad look on her face. “Always trying to make things more exciting, aren’t you?”
“What’s life without a little fun?” She asks, but her voice isn’t as bright as before. Beside her, Mr. J heaves a heavy sigh.
Then, without warning, a white hand tugs her chin up and hauls her into a bruising, wonderful kiss.
“You know I don’t like seeing you frown,” he says after he pulls away, staring at her expectantly until she concedes and gives a bright, if not dimmed, smile.
Mr. J grins back at her, crazy reflected in every last one of his features. “There we are.” He tugs her into another rough kiss before he’s gone, leaving Harley on the floor alone.
It’s not so bad.
It could be worse.
Her Puddin’s not here now, but he’ll come back soon. And when he does, Harley’ll be waiting.