He could feel her. Touching him. One fingernail dragged slowly across his shoulders, along his spine. A touch so light it was hardly a touch at all. What she intended to be sensuous was instead making his skin crawl. He crossed his arms tighter in front of his chest in discouragement, but only succeeded in pulling the skin taught, making each movement that much more evident. And of course she was so stupid, she probably thought he was angry at himself, having a battle of urges – trying to hold out as long as possible before succumbing to her feminine wiles. A tiny giggle confirmed it; the dumb broad had zero concept of personal space. She continued with the fingernail and moved closer to his sides where she would eventually try to tickle.

He sometimes tried to show her, taking her violently with the kind of touch you really feel. None of this damned ghost-touch, nothing that could be mistaken for one of the cockroaches in the mattress, or something to mark the passing of a rat. None of it should be like a rat – except, maybe, when they bit you. Fingernails should sting and leave wounds to get infected. Mouths ought to draw blood. Hands should bruise and pressure internal organs when they feel someone, because that -- that is the kind of feel that is real. Sometimes he would show her, but she never learned. In fact, it sometimes seemed to be the kind of reward that reinforced that type of behavior he so disliked and she would do it more. So most times he wouldn’t even bother, just kick her around a bit until her libido calmed.

Maybe three times since she was his shrink, he had done things to her of a more conventional taboo. Maybe she had done something very right while they were performing one of his schemes; maybe she just hadn’t been as annoying as usual… maybe it had nothing to do with her. He didn’t think that much about it. A wicked thought would enter his head and he’d grab her, wherever she was, and throw her to a bed or table or whatever was handy. A dirty smile and a wink and he’d open her legs. Her whorish moans and screams were muffled by her thighs, clenched tight around his head. She was never louder and it always made the boys in the other rooms extremely uncomfortable for days… so maybe he just did it for the laugh.

But here she was again, softly rubbing his shoulders and breathing softly against his ear. His brow furrowed as her thigh crept about his waist, her foot rubbing slowly between his legs. Like a cat flipping in the air defies physics, he spun in the bed, landing his fist square on her hissing lips. Blow after blow his mind replayed the unnerving sensation of her fingernail until her face was a mess of red and the sounds bubbling out of her were soft and indecipherable. He looked at her lying there, bleeding at him, and softly chucked her on the chin, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

She was going to have to do something. He wasn’t getting better and she had the sneaking suspicion that he had started faking it for the attention. For over two weeks now, Harley had been waiting on her Puddin’ night and day – more so than usual, even. But he had simply descended into quiet depths of depression and illness. And Joker was very scary when he was quiet.

Twelve days ago was the birthday party. His birthday party. No, not HIS birthday, “his.” GCPD Commissioner James Gordon’s sixtieth birthday party. Gordon was going all-out and having a huge gathering with the Mayor and almost everyone at the Gotham Police Department… and Batman was probably going to show up. It was going to be huge because that stupid fop Bruce Wayne was throwing it, and he had some real money to throw. It was going to be huge because Joker was out of the Asylum and “unaccounted for.” It was going to be a real blast. Because a shipment of explosives was hijacked out of Metropolis’s commerce port.

“Was” was the operative word.

Poor Puddin’ didn’t make it.

He got sick.

Harley had never known Joker to take ill. The thought that he would be susceptible to a virus never crossed her mind. He was immune to most poisons and toxins (not to mention her feminine wiles), so why not microbes and bacteria? Alas, he must have been running on good luck – or maybe just ignoring the situation. There were, after all, many times when he had gone on heists and sprees while under influence of powerful drugs (administered by the fellows back at Arkham) despite their sedative or hallucinogenic effects. Once, had he not been shaking uncontrollably due to neurological drugs (from some treatments administered before his escape that same day), Mr.J might have even killed Batman. As it was, Joker’s every shot missed wildly as he tried to force his aim.

Whatever it was, Joker had never before been sick like this. Vomiting, fever, chills, and other, even less savory effects all combined to make her big strong man into a puddle of miserable. The first day he tried to ignore it. It was, after all, just two days before the Grand Party. He brushed off his suit and shined his shoes (or, at least, watched Harley do so) all in final preparation for the big day. He was going to blow them out of the water! But the coughing… at first it had been a simple nagging tick. Then it progressed into a rasping, ragged hacking that doubled him over and left him gasping for air. By the next morning he had even lost his voice. If only he had gotten some rest…

Harley made him gallons of chicken soup at a time. She robbed three pharmacies of everything she could carry. She even set him up with a VCR and all the Laurel&Hardy tapes she could find, just in case laughter really *was* the best medicine. Poor Harley. All that work and all it got her was first degree burns from having nearly-boiling soup kicked over onto her, almost arrested by some stupid night-watch rent-a-cop at a pharmacy, and those weird L-shaped bruises you get when a VCR flies at you and strikes you corner-first. Well, that and puke in her shoes every day when she woke up. Even when she hid her shoes, Joker somehow found the strength to hunt for them while she slept. Because it meant so much to him, she eventually just gave up and put them on anyway, just so he could get a few giggles in the morning.

But now it was all starting to stretch thin. She knew he wasn’t feeling ill anymore. Heck, he hadn’t even been able to force himself to vomit in her slippers in four days. Joker just stayed in bed all day, in the quiet, in the darkness she tried to supply him with (she had to nail an old blanket and overcoat she stole from some bum to the wall to cover the two windows). Occasionally he would sigh, but he had stopped talking. Stopped threatening. Stopped caring. It really broke her heart to see him like this. She would have to do something to cheer him up.

Harley knew that she could never match the draw of a party with police officers and Batmans and balloons all by her onesies, but she had a friend. A friend called PVC. She found a kinky store just a couple blocks away that sold costumes, and there was one that was simply perfect. He would *love* it! Well, he BETTER love it… Stealing away into the bathroom next to Joker’s depression chamber one night, Harley donned her get-up. She wore a skin-tight white mini-skirt and a similar top, with a bright red cross on one of her breasts. The zipper on the front of her Naughty Nurse costume had a large silver bull-ring that she pulled halfway down to show maximum cleavage. She had some trouble moving at first, being unused to the shiny, plasticine cloth, but soon got the hang of it. She pulled her hair up into the sort of loose bun she used to default with when she was a doctor at Arkham. Taking particular care with her makeup, Harley made sure her thigh-high leggings had the seams straight and pushed open the door to her Puddin’.

“Mistah J, it’s time for your physical,” Harley pouted and stepped into the dim room.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Joker mumbled as she did a small pole dance with the door frame, his first words in a day and a half. She was getting somewhere! Pulling down the zipper of her shirt with each writhing step, Harley snaked her way toward him and slithered up onto his bed.

“Medicine’s in my blood, Puddin,” she whispered, “almost as bad as you. Now: turn your head and cough.” With a wry smile, she slid over further on the mattress, closer to his side. Joker closed his eyes as tight as they would go and crossed his arms on his chest, face forward, resolute and determined to ignore her. Harley frowned and bit her lip. This was it, her last run. If she couldn’t cheer him up now… Harley was saddened by the thought that her Puddin’ might stay in this funk forever. He was certainly stubborn enough.

Since he refused to watch her, she hiked her skirt up and out of the way above her hips and tossed a leg over, mounting him. It had been more than two weeks since he last had a smile. No longer was she going to wait for him to fix himself. She let out soft “mmm” sounds to encourage him and dug down at the elastic bands of his pajama pants and boxer shorts, dragging them out of the way also. Joker’s eyes popped wide open in shock at her blatant defiance against his *perfectly clear* indications of wanting her the hell away, but then the pupils shrank and his eyes narrowed considerably when she began to grind slowly against him.

“Hey! What are you… RAPE!” Joker struggled to pull his left hand out from under her knee to give her a good smack, but Harley had foreseen this possibility and was intentionally pinning it down. She also held his right wrist captive in her fist, and their arms jerked about in tense struggle to gain/maintain some sort of advantage.

The words Joker said were certainly a colorful sort, running the gambit of crude to absurd, as he spat insults and threats at Harley. She might have been more frightened if not for two things. One, she had the physical upper hand in the current situation. Two, he was getting excited in more ways than one. Harley shushed him softly, pressing her finger to his lips that foamed with rage – just barely pulling the finger back out of the way as he snapped his teeth at it. Still struggling with her left hand, Harley used her right index finger, moist with his saliva, to drag slowly down his breast bone and follow the curve of his rib cage down to his side. When she reached the place at his hip where their skin joined, she ran her palm up her inner thigh and up her stomach, moaning like a whore, and finally unzipping the last remaining inch of her top and exposing the her breasts completely. She shoved her left hand (holding his right) into the mattress and sighed softly as she played with a couple fingers at her lips, licking and sucking them, still humping him rhythmically. Joker groaned and rolled his eyes at the fellatio pantomime as she dripped warm saliva down her hand. But then Harley suddenly popped her fingers out of her mouth and shoved the dripping wet digits as far up Joker’s nostrils as they’d go.

“WHAT THE – FUCK?!” Joker jumped in shock, ripping both hands back into his own possession, wiping his nose desperately with the back of his hand. Harley couldn’t help cracking up. Joker sat up as far as he could with Harley on his lap and was completely silent for half a second before bursting into a roar of uncontrolled laughter. He threw himself back into his pillow and gasped for air between peals of belly laughs, “Harley! You finally… the timing, misdirection… perfect!” He smiled and giggled genuinely at her, and a real twinkle of affection crept into his eye before he grabbed her waist and twisted her around and started spanking her ass with open palm. Harley squealed and Joker chided merrily, “You nasty, dirty little girl! I oughta-“ and he bit her right cheek, teeth sinking deep into the soft flesh and taught muscle. Harley screamed, but only for a surprised second. Joker rolled her over and leaned over her prostrate form, his elbow by her head, her blood dripping down his chin from a wide, crescent-moon smile, and he kissed her.

It had been nearly twenty-five minutes of silence. Harley hadn't spoken a word since the guards had brought her in and Joan was getting tired of it. It was obvious why she wasn't speaking: she didn't want to talk about the incident that had landed her here. Joan needed her to discuss it, because once Harley began the whole story would come spilling out and then they could move forward with her therapy.

But first Joan needed to get her talking. So far, all of her attempts had been met with indifferent shrugs and her patient refusing to meet her gaze. This wasn't like Harley though, who was usually so joking and talkative. Something had definitely happened that had affected her so deeply she wasn't even willing to discuss it with Joan, her one true confidant.

Finally, having had enough of this, the psychiatrist sighed heavily and decided to be upfront about it. "Harley, what happened?" she asked firmly, leaning forward.

Beginning to sob uncontrollably, the young woman managed to work her story out between sniffles. "Well Joan, it all started with a surprise…”

Harley crouched behind a small wooden crate trying to stifle her own giggles and the soft whimpers of the woman she held against the floor. The woman, or really, the girl – she couldn’t have been more than nineteen, had stopped struggling a few minutes ago. Maybe it was the wire they had used to bind her hands, which had probably started to dig in. The woman seemed to regain her drive and tried to fight again at the sound of her husband? boyfriend? baby-daddy?’s voice. Harley leaned down closer to the woman’s tear-stained face and softly shushed her, trying to calm her down with a gentle petting on the woman’s pregnant belly.

Harley perked up at the sound of a second man’s voice. Mister J. She listened carefully to the conversation taking place elsewhere in the cavernous room, ever approaching her concealed location. Harley chewed her lip. She had to wait for her cue. She had to hit it. Or else.

“Dear boy, did you think it was a present? That I would not expect my due?”
“No, sir. I-“
“You thought I was a fool, then.”
“No! I-“

“Then the problem here is rather eluding me. I let you have a generous loan… it was quite generous, don’t you think?” Joker’s brilliant grin was visible to Harley now, peeking slightly around the crate. The second man’s back was toward her hiding place.

“Yes, sir. It’s j-“
“And all I wanted was a tiny smidgen of gratitude with the returns, that cannot be too much to ask for, can it?”
“Oh, oh NO sir, it’s just the amount-“
Joker smiled wider, “The amount, boy, is non-negotiable. You will see this.”
“It’s just so soon! I don’t have it yet! I tried-”
“You didn’t try hard enough.” His smile fell, replaced with feigned confusion, and Joker continued, “Do you expect a bank to let you slide on your payments? The government, even?”
“But those loans are for years! You loaned me last month!”

“Ah, and that is really the point, now, isn’t it?” The pair stopped. They were mere feet away from Harley and the woman. Harley shivered with excitement and tried to concentrate on Joker’s words and not his voice. “I’m not a bank. I didn’t run your credit. I gave you thousands, no questions asked…” Joker’s eyes sparked up and his voice became quiet, “although you told me anyway, didn’t you? Yes you did. You told me all about your little sob story, your little oven cooking up your little bun.”

“Oh god…” it finally dawned on the man what a terrible mistake he had made.

“It seems to me you have a choice.”

“I have a kid. Oh god. I can’t -” He looked at the tangle of hot wires looping along the wall.

“You could give me my money…”
“Oh god pleasedon’tkillme!” the man dropped to his knees; his eyes followed the wires to a dark corner behind him where, near a wooden crate, there was a large vessel full of water.
“OR…”
Harley sprang from behind the crate, jerking the woman along, shouting, “Surprise!” The man screamed.
“…maybe I burn the toast.” Joker finished with a hearty laugh from the belly.

“Don’t you touch her!” the man demanded as he rushed Harley to protect his wife. Harley kicked him in the face, knocking him back into a sobbing heap on the floor. The woman screamed a little under her gag and Harley shoved her toward Mister J, turning her attentions to restraining the man with more wire.

Joker dragged the woman and tossed her into the tub of water, clipping the wires around her wrists to a tie affixed to the side so she couldn’t remove herself. Harley grabbed a handful of power-cords and the wire-clippers, skipping into place by her man. Joker took the supplies from her and addressed the pitiful, horrified boy, hogtied on the concrete. He cut the wires.

“What’s it gonna be?”

“Harley, stop. I know what happened next,” Joan looked a bit nauseated.

“Oh yeah, you probably got the police reports, huh.” Harley blew her nose again and sat back, slightly less tense than before, on the sofa in Joan’s office.

“Actually,” Joan corrected, “he’s one of our patients now.”

“He did have a pretty bad day…” Harley got a scowl out of Joan.

“Harley, you weren’t found for two more days after this incident. What does it have to do with anything?” Harley returned a scowl to Joan and dropped her eyes. “You’re avoiding the issue; what happened?”

For a long moment Harley was quiet and Joan feared she had clammed up again. When Harley finally spoke, all the animation and life that her previous recollection had afforded her was gone again. She looked down to the far corner of the room, her eyes unfocused. Her voice was at a whisper, “It got me thinking about babies…”

“Puddin’?” Harley peeked around the front door for the fifth time in the last hour and a half, convinced she had heard them come back. Like before, the hallway was empty. “Phooey!” she sighed and again closed the entrance. Mister J had gone out with the boys to get some celebratory booze forever ago. They should have been home with it by now.

Harley sauntered back to the couch and tussled her hair. After this morning’s escapades with the electro-shock “therapy” she felt all sweaty and gross, so she had taken a shower to freshen up. Her hair was dry now and she busied herself by pulling it back up into their familiar piggy-tails as she slouched into the worn cushions.

Time passed as it always does when you’re waiting for someone: slowly. Harley turned on the television for a distraction. Some show about prenatal babies was on. She watched the grainy images and the CGI wantonly. Her hands rested on her stomach, remembering the different feel of the woman’s belly earlier. She sighed and daydreamed, as she often did, of a day that she and Joker could have a couple rug rats tearing around whatever abode they happened to be living in.

Mostly she anticipated how fun it is to make the little bundles of joy.

“HARRRRRLEY!” Joker exploded through the door, obviously skunked. He clapped his hands together and smiled drunkenly at her. Harley rocketed off the sofa and smashed the television set to “off” in a mad dash toward her beloved companion.

“Puddin!” she squealed and leaped onto his tall and currently unbalanced frame. They toppled and the two ended in a pile halfway out into the hall of the apartment complex. Harley grinned and adjusted herself to straddle his waist. Joker put his finger to her lips.

“Shhhhh… we gotta be quiet” he pushed her off and tried to stand back up, pausing to motion downstairs “the boys are sleeping!” He fell over again in a fit of giggles and Harley helped drag him into their abode. Before she closed the door she peeked down the stairwell to make sure; a pool of blood crawling across the floorboards confirmed she and Joker would have to wake the dead to wake the boys. Harley giggled at Mister J’s joke, skipped back into the apartment, and bolted the door behind her.

Joker was leaning on the wall behind the door and grabbed Harley when she entered. She gave herself to the embrace and initiated a kiss.

“Today was wonderful, Mista’ J,” Harley beamed at him. “I especially liked how you took care of the Bat-Brat!” They both lingered on the memory of dispatching the little mute cutie and Joker laughed at her misfortune. Harley pressed herself against him to absorb the rumble of his mirth that resounded through his chest, and lightly commented her wonder on whatever became of the old redheaded Batgirl. Joker grasped Harley’s shoulders and pulled her off him, pushing her down. She trailed her hands along his sides, expecting to stop at her knees. To her surprise, Joker knelt instead and took her down to her back on the floor.

Joker’s fingers traced lightly over her bosom as he unbuttoned Harley’s fitted blouse. He leered at her nakedness for a moment before the change. It wasn’t a big change, just a slight dulling of the wildness in his eyes. He continued to stare at Harley who was becoming anxious under his gaze. After an extended moment of his continued inaction, she became restless and asked, “What’s wrong, Puddin?”

He pressed a thin finger into her stomach, hard, about halfway between the bottom of her sternum and her navel, “bang.”

“Ouchie! …Puddin’ …?” Harley called after Joker as he abruptly stood and stalked out of the room to the back of the apartment. She stood and followed to find him rummaging through a collection of old belongings they had pulled out of a storage facility a month prior. Poisoned joy-buzzers and flag-pistols and other random gadget projectiles launched themselves out of the pile Joker rummaged through with seemingly reckless abandon. As suddenly as it started, the furious search froze and Joker again stood at his full height. In his hand he held a collection of photographs. He flipped through them and started to laugh.

“It was a GIRL!!!” Harley sobbed into the chair in Joan’s office. “Some red-headed floozy and she was naked and he had pictures and he wanted THEM and not ME-e-he-“ her words again became indistinguishable from the blubbering tears. It was obvious that Harley had reached her limit for this session so Joan closed her notebook. She walked over to Harley and reassured her that things will eventually make sense (although she was far from believing so herself) and to calm down. At Joan’s direction the guards approached to manacle Harley for the trip back to her cell. Joan sighed and hoped vainly that a comparison to the notes of the next few Joker therapy sessions might shed some light on the girl in the photographs. She knew the possibility was slim to none and Slim didn’t live in Gotham. If it actually meant something it was assured that the Joker would never divulge it to a doctor.

Joan sighed again and looked through her top drawer for the aspirin.