Yeah, but they’ll have to be hot.

“Yeah, sure, but you know me, I’ve got standards. Hot standards.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll take care of getting it to that stage,” she said with a smirk. “And we’ll be careful to keep our strap-ons smaller than you, so you get the experience of stretching his holes out.”

“If we’re talking about this, let’s use female pronouns, please. Same as Clayface.”

“Yeah! How’d that go, anyway?” I filled her in and the rest of dinner sped by. As did the night.

Again, the next day began, same as normal. Una was up, but I didn’t manage to gain any points. I was too focused on the conversation with Diamond that was coming up. She wanted some more philosophy, which was weird, given her Socialite challenge, but I guess socialite and uneducated bimbo aren’t the same thing.

After work, I was talking myself into a panic, but we were meeting at Diamond’s house. Her kids were visiting the college for some sort of early orientation and her husband was off ‘helping’ Asa. Or being trained by her, I didn’t want to know.

I actually beat her there and had to hang out until she arrived to let me in, as she’d been working late. She looked beautiful and professional and I couldn’t wait to ruin her, as she pulled out the slow cooker, full of homemade chili…my mother’s chili. She’d remembered the recipe and carved out time to make it. She wasn’t a great cook, even with help and a lot of effort, but it was still good and the thought counted for a lot.

Which made the fact that she was transparently only barely focusing on me sort of surprising and uncomfortable. I gave her a deep kiss, drawing her attention. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing…let’s just…I need,” she sat down heavily and I went with her as a sob escaped her lips. “Goddamn it, it poisons even this.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked again.

“They fucked me.”

“Who?”

“Gotham Insurance and Randall fucking Jones.”

“What happened?”

“Randall was the former CEO. He made the mistake of insuring the Cats-Eye Diamond collection, then let it be brought to fucking Gotham. Of course Catwoman stole the whole fucking thing! But he was buddies with the owner and so they buried the claim just long enough for him to collect his golden fucking parachute and me be put in place to take the goddamn fall!”

“But--”

“They dropped the fucking papers in with my appointment paperwork, so I actually fucking signed it. It won’t hold up in court, but it’ll be enough to get me fired for incompetence and costing the company $100 million. Corporate politics! And I fucking fell for it! He beat me!” she slammed a fist down on the table, then winced and leaned against me and sobbed.

I held her as she cried. I wanted to go find that dickhead and beat him to ****. I wanted to save her. I wanted to help her. But what could I do? Even if I’d still been a cop, this was way out of my league. Nothing was going to get reported to the cops, except the theft…which probably already had been? Stuff would have had to be backdated...but if he was going to retire, why bother with this?

Because of the golden parachute. He’d spiked her career so he could collect a fat bonus at the end of his…and he’d made her cry. I wanted to kill him. I hated him more in that moment than I hated Rapetoy and I’d turned her into my Rapetoy, because it was what she deserved. I hated him more than I’d hated Zsasz and I’d had that psycho killed. All because there was nothing I could--

Wait, yes there was…