Don't Look Away update

The thing about the Penguin was this: Batman could interrogate him. Batman could slip past all his security, beat up all his bodyguards, intimidate the information out of Penguin, and all with energy left over to fight Killer Croc. Steph and Cass were… not quite there. Oh, Cass could probably fight her way in, but not before Cobblepot could get to a safe room, call the police, and spin the whole thing into an international incident in the eyes of the press. So, if they wanted to talk to Penguin, they needed a plan.

Dressed in their school uniforms and toting fake IDs identifying them as eighteen (as well as being named Claudia Fitzgerald and Wu-San Ace), they slid into the Iceberg Lounge. The skirts and unbuttoned blouses helped them get away with the phony driver’s licenses. If Oswald Cobblepot was going to go down, it wouldn’t be for underage drinking.

A slight breeze prickled their exposed skin. The Iceberg Lounge was kept cold enough for furs; they sold liquor to people who wanted to stay warm. The bar had a few solitary figures seated at it this early in the day. Steph was pretty easily able to pick out which of them was one of Penguin’s torpedoes. He was wearing an off-the-racks suit and was built like a linebacker. Steph led Cass over to him.

“Excuse me,” she said timidly, putting on a Norwegian accent while keeping her words scattered and bumpy. “But my English is not so herdy-herdy good. How you order drink here?”

“Speak English,” the man said, not sounding very encouraging.

“But you speak English, yes?”

“Maybe,” he said. The more he talked, the more certain Steph was that he’d been refilling his glass for a while. 

“Could you do us a little favor?”

“Whatever your heart desires,” he said, hoisting his glass to her in an ironic salute.

Cass interceded before Steph could lose her temper, leaning in to plant her hand on the man’s thigh. “We would be… very grateful…”

“Yeah?”

Steph put her hand on his other thigh. “My friend hears that there are dirty shows here, but I tell her there is no way we can get in without… what is word… a person, ja? A person who takes us in?” Steph’s voice trailed off, waiting for him to respond.

“Yeah… I’ll get inside…” Swaying, the man came to his feet, wobbling to be sure, but standing. Steph had to be grateful for that.

She took one arm; Cass took the other. Between them, they steered their ‘escort’ in the vague direction he seemed to want to go. Up close, he reeked of booze. Steph hoped the Iceberg Lounge’s eponymous air conditioning would do something for his sobriety.

They went through the door to the kitchen, turned seemingly at random, and ended up going down a set of stairs to a reinforced door, complete with a judas hole. It opened up after the man knocked at it, a doorman’s beady eyes looking through.

“Hey… we on time for the show, Brucie?”

“Who’re your friends?” the eyes asked, narrowing at Cass and Steph.

“Who? Them? They’re cool. Look at them.”

The eyes leered consideringly. “Fine,” he said, and opened up the door. 

They went into what had to be a basement left over from before the Lounge’s remodeling. It was all cement floor and brick walls, and it was considerably warmer than upstairs. Chairs and couches so shabby that they had to be affordable ringed in a bare circle of floor with floodlights blazing over it.

Steph led the trio to a couch, laying the man down there and sitting alongside him. Cass followed suit. The basement was slowly filling, mostly with men, but here and there a woman appeared and then disappeared into the rows in back.

“Where are we?” the man asked, his voice thick and woozy.

“Portland,” Steph answered.

There was a pause. Steph could see enough clockwork running in his head to keep time at Big Ben. “Portland… I can’t be in Portland… I have work.”

“You got fired,” Cass said. The girl was learning.

“Oh man, I needed that job…”

The lights went off. They sat in pitch blackness. Steph heard feet scuttling around in the darkness. More noises—ones she couldn’t identify—came from the center of the room. As anonymous as they were, they were eerie in the dark.

Instinctively, Steph moved against Cass. She felt Cass’s arm wrap around her. She sat rigidly, wishing her eyes would adjust to the darkness. Then music started. A slow, throbbing beat that seemed to match the tempo of her heart. Steph quivered and hoped the lights would stay off. A part of her was afraid to find out what would be there when they came on. Excitement flared alongside her fear and she couldn’t separate them. She wondered which was stronger. One or the other…

Then she heard it. Waugh Waugh Waugh Waugh Waugh… She doubted anyone else could. They all seemed at ease, waiting patiently for the show to start, but straining her ears, Steph picked it up. She craned her head and was just able to make out a flight of stairs leading up to a trapdoor into a room that was equally dark, except for a cherry-sized light illuminating puffs of smoke. The Penguin’s lit cigarette in its holder.

She turned to Cass. Her eyes had adjusted well enough to pick up Cass’s face and even the blue wig that made her look like she’d dyed her hair. Similarly, Steph was a redhead. “That’s him,” she said.

“Who him?” their escort muttered, but it was in his sleep.

Slipping off the couch and crouching low, they made their way to the flight of stairs. It wasn’t exactly easy for Steph to be stealthy in a schoolgirl uniform. She could only hope that if anyone saw her, they’d think she was just going to the bathroom. 

Finally, they were at the landing of the stairs. Cobblepot had gone, but they could still see the trapdoor, its outline showing no light above. Together they crept up the stairs and tried the trapdoor. It opened up and let them into a darkened corridor. Cobblepot was easy enough to find. However sophisticated his brand of cigarette might be, the smoke it left behind smelled rank. They trailed in the network of backrooms, disappearing into a lit room. It was clear that there were several people waiting for him.

Steph didn’t have Tim’s computer mind for crime statistics, but from their dress and demeanor, she could guess that they were representatives from various crime families. Cobblepot was having a gangland sitdown and it was safe to say that until the meeting was over, he was untouchable. The last thing Steph wanted to do was inadvertently touch off a gang war.

“In here,” she whispered, spotting the door to a stockroom. It opened easily, and once they were inside, Steph barricaded the door. She also left a motion-sensitive bug outside, aimed at the room that Penguin had disappeared into. As soon as the meeting was adjourned, it would let her know.

For now, though, they were on an impromptu stakeout with nothing to do. Steph hadn’t even brought a book.

“What do you want… to do?” Cass asked, snapping a chemlight to illuminate the room.

“I don’t know,” Steph said. “What do you wanna do?”

Cass shrugged. “Maybe play… a game.”

“Wanna arm-wrestle?” Steph suggested. “No, you’d win. War? No, we don’t have any cards.”

“We could—“

 

“We could mess around!” Steph interrupted. “That’s a great idea, Cass.”

Cass looked around the unromantic room, with its linoleum tiles and its cardboard boxes stacked on metal shelves. “We don’t… have time…”

“Pff,” Steph snorted dismissively. “Like it takes you long to come.”

“Steph…” Cass said reproachfully. 

“I won’t go. I’ll just get you off,” Steph promised. “C’mon, Cass. Come on my tongue, real quick. After that we can meditate or whatever…”

Cass sat down on a stack of flour bags, giving Steph a challenging expression. Steph, of course, just knelt at her feet and reached under Cass’s skirt to her panties. Cass groaned—raised her hips to help Steph get the wispy satin down her thighs and off her feet. No sooner were the panties on the ground than Steph had draped Cass’s legs over her shoulder.

“Just like the first time we did it. Remember?” Steph teased, nuzzling into Cass’s thigh.

Cass’s breath caught as she looked down at Steph’s face, so close to her own pussy. Steph nosed Cass’s skirt up her legs, then bit it, growling playfully. Cass groaned and somehow that seemed to give Steph permission to duck under her skirt and begin lapping at her pussy.

“Mmm,” Steph keened. “Your pussy smells so good, Cass. Just the way it ought to. I hope my pussy smells this good…”

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Cass said, though she gasped as Steph extended her tongue a little further. 

“Why not?” Steph asked from underneath Cass’s skirt. “We’re in a restaurant, aren’t we? And I’m hungry…”

Cass shuddered with the feeling of Steph’s tongue traveling over her slit, visiting the folds inside her pussy, then coming out to slick over her clitoris. Her protests ceased. The pleasure was too great; she needed the orgasm promised in Steph’s enthusiastic licks. 

Cass reached down to caress Steph’s hair, while her thighs tightened on Steph’s head. Steph rewarded her by rapidly wiggling her tongue inside of Cass’s opening, flicking the tip over a part she knew Cass just loved.

“Ghhh!” Cass moaned. “That’s so… wonderful… you’re driving me… crazy…”

Steph dragged her tongue out of Cass’s sex with a long lick and looked up at her girlfriend with glowing eyes. “Come for me, babe. Come for me as hard as you can. I want you to gush all over my tongue!”

She went back to Cass’s pussy, this time focusing on her lover’s clit. She closed her lips on the erect button, sucking hard. Cass was instantly reduced to trembling and moaning.

“Oh… my… God!” Cass slowly enunciated, her climax coming up in a pounding wave, tightening in her belly before it burst out of her pussy. Her heels dug into Steph’s back as she bucked her hips, fucking herself on Steph’s face. She pumped her cunt against Steph’s tongue as it lashed her most sensitive places, racing up and down her folds and jabbing into her swollen clit. Each time Cass felt like she was coming all over again.