This was the third night in a row I followed the boy to work. Being back in Gotham, I was bored. I know, a criminal, bored in Gotham? But I have a particular skill set that is not for generic use. Being bored, I realized I was lonely. It's a strange feeling and I've never cared about feelings. I liked killing and I liked nice things, that's all my life was ever to amount to and that was just fine with me.

I picked this boy to follow because I knew he worked for Fish Mooney who worked for Carmine Falcone; such a combination was sure to cure my boredom. Oswald, Mooney called him, the rest; Penguin. Each time they said it, I watched his face contort in anger, but he never moved to stop it. He was scrawny with sharp, angular features and black hair with bangs cut just a little too short, like his mother did it for him. His skin was pale and he looked to be about my age, but he wore a suit better than anyone I've ever seen.

Tonight, though, I didn't slink along in the shadows. I put on the shortest, tightest dress I could find and walked into Mooney's nightclub with my head held high. I sat at the bar with my drink, turning down every guy who even tried to talk me. I kept casting glances at Oswald as he waited on Mooney hand and foot. It didn't take him long to notice and soon enough he was taking nervous glances at me. I watched as Mooney whispered in his ear and Oswald looked at me. I smiled at him, paid my tab, and walked out. As I had hoped, Oswald followed.

I led him into an alley and he was immediately on top of me. He pressed me up against the side of the building and I wrapped my fingers in his hair. He shoved his tongue down my throat and his hands wrestled with my hips. He yanked the dress up and I moved my hands from his hair to his slacks.

Back at the apartment, I imagined him returning to Mooney after our rendezvous.

"Was she good?" Mooney would ask.

Oswald would grin sheepishly.

"Who is she?" his boss would pry for more information about the new girl on her turf.

Only then would he realize that he never got my name.

I saw him the next day out back of the night club. He was holding an umbrella for Mooney while she beat the shit out of some poor shmuck. I was too far away to hear what it was about. But after Mooney left I watched as a giant handed Oswald the bat. His lip twitched into what might have been a smile. After a few gentle hits, Oswald began whacking the guy without control. I could have sworn his eyes gleamed in excitement.

As fate would have it, I ran into him on his way home from work that night. He was shuffling along a poorly lit street, looking suspicious. "Hello, Oswald."

He started. I guess I had been walking quieter than I had meant to be. "Oh, hello. I am afraid I didn't catch your name last night."

"You can call me Lizzie." Although Lizzie isn't my name, it wasn't a lie because I never claimed that it was. "I saw you beat the living snot out of that guy earlier." He seemed fucked up enough to not care about stalking. "Ever actually kill a man?"

"Why would you ask that?" His eyes narrowed and his voice rose, giving him the illusion of innocence.

I grinned mischievously. "I think you'd like it." I didn't kill for pleasure, not that I didn't like it, but I was good at it and my parents taught me to never do something I was good at for free.

"Well, this is me." He stopped in front of a dingy apartment building. "Goodnight, Lizzie."

"Aw, you're not coming home with me," I teased. I owned several properties throughout the world, none of them truly home and most of them a secret. I wouldn't take him to a place that could be traced back to me, just a tiny apartment furnished minimally to keep up the pretense of a living space, it was almost reminiscent of a flop house. "Can't handle me two nights in a row?"

Anger flashed across his face and he threw me against the front of his building. His forearm was across my throat and his face only inches from mine. I grinned, dangerously, thoroughly turned on.

"You like that?" He asked, surprised.

"God, yes," I breathed.

"Where do you live?"

"Two blocks," I motioned in the direction we were walking. "You wanna go?"

I took him home to the apartment where he pinned me down and fucked me. We went nearly all night and in the morning I couldn't walk right. We lay curled up together on the mattress, my head on his bare chest long after the sun had risen. "Do you want breakfast?" I asked awkwardly, I usually didn't spend the whole night.

"I have to go see Mooney," he shook his head.

I batted my eyelashes at him. "Am I not important enough?"

Oswald looked at me and stroked my cheek. "You are the most important thing to me, darling, but Mooney could kill me."

"I could kill you." I nipped at his nose.

"I know." He moved our position so he was back on top of me. "But Mooney actually would." He put my legs around his waist and began the night's activities all over again.

I had caught the bug. I never thought I needed anybody else, but now I had someone who understood me. He needed violence just as much as I did and I was addicted to him. When he was not with Mooney, he was with me. Oswald didn't talk much about his family or his past, but then again I never talked about myself at all.

And then I had to leave for a job. Oswald never asked what I did; he knew I killed, but I didn't think he knew what a renowned assassin I was. "I'm going to be out of town for a few days," I told Oswald.

"You're leaving me," his face dropped.

"Only for a few days." I kissed him, but he didn't kiss back. "I'll be back before you know it."

Oswald rolled his eyes at me. "Good luck, don't get yourself killed."

I didn't understand where his hostility was coming from. He knew I worked out of town jobs. I wasn't about to shit where I ate, as the saying goes. "Same to you, Oswald."

I returned to Gotham a week later, which was later than I had promised. I found my Oswald once again by lurking through the alleyways which were quite ample in the city. A man was dragging him along, but Oswald took a switchblade and killed the man to free himself. I had to admit it was pretty hot how into Oswald was. The man had to be dead, although he was still bleeding and took this as my cue to approach Oswald. I meant to ask him what that was all about, how he had been, instead I grabbed the upturned yellow collar of the polo shirt he was wearing. It was layered underneath a grey sweater; he looked like a wannabe prep school jock. "What are you wearing?" I asked.

He smirked. "It was all he had."

It was a vague comment, but I knew he had killed someone else. I took his hand and followed as he walked to a food truck across the way. He had stolen all the cash off of his victim. "Are you going to tell me what you've been up to?"

Oswald beamed with pride. "I'm supposed to be dead, but I've killed three others. These two guys picked me up as a hitchhiker. Jim Gordon was supposed to kill me, you see. I was a disheveled mess. They picked me up, but then they called me Penguin. I stabbed one in the throat with a broken beer bottle. I saved the other so I could hold him for ransom, but his mother wouldn't pay for him. The poor lady, he must have been such a trouble maker. If I would be getting any money, then he was just wasting my time. I had to kill him, too."

"That's my boy." I kissed him on the cheek. "Why don't you like being called Penguin, though? You're adorable, Oswald, and I love penguins."

"Y-you do? Maybe it's not that bad of a name."

I giggled. "My Penguin is a killer."

Oswald grinned, pleased with himself.