Straying out of Sanity

"It's too frumpy," I scrunched my face at my reflection in the three mirrors I was in front of. I was apparently really picky when it came to wearing dresses, maybe because I never wear them and I'm just not used to seeing me in them. So far I had tried on nearly fifteen dresses and I liked none of them.

"I think she needs something less 'frumpy'," Leo laughed as he told the sales person. I turned to give him a quick glare before turning back to the mirror and the sales person hurried off.

"Fine, you try wearing a frumpy dress," I told him as he sat down in one of the chairs in the dressing room area we were in.

"I doubt I'll ever wear a dress, let alone a frumpy one. And you're just too picky with this dress shit."

"Shut up," I told him plainly as he yawned.

"I mean why do I have to be the one to take you dress shopping?" he asked.

"You're not just taking me dress shopping, you took me to get clothes and new shoes so I didn't have to wear those heels and that suit everywhere."

"I know but you didn't have to try on any of the clothes I bought you and the shoes took you five minutes. This is taking over an hour," Leo complained. A second later the sales person returned, carrying a few more dresses with her. She handed them to me and I quickly went back into my dressing room to change out of the frumpy dress I was in.

Once I had gotten the frumpiness off of me I started looking through the dresses. There was a knee length black dress that looked like it wanted to suffocate me, a short solid green dress that looked way boring, a light yellow dress with a small black bow that looked like it belonged back in the '50's and a-

A smile burst from my lip when I saw the fourth dress, even If I wasn't a fan of the color gold. It was a plain above the knee spaghetti strap dress with lace over it that had sparkly gold glittery swirls. I'm pretty sure the glitter swirls alone were the only reason I wanted it at first but when I quickly threw it on I actually liked the way it looked on me. The gold went well with my black hair (though the curls in it had been ruined because, like I predicted, it had started to rain) and it wasn't too cleavage-y though it was backless so it'd be impossible to wear a bra anyways. But I was fine with that because I loved this dress, because of the glittery swirls.

"I want this one!" I said as I rushed out of the dressing room.

"Okay!' Leo jumped out of his chair upon hearing me, "We'll buy that one."

"Are you sure? Do you want to try on another-" the sales lady started to ask but Leo and I both spoke as once.

"Nope I'm sure I want this one," I smiled.

"No, were gonna buy that dress," Leo, on the other hand, looked a bit stressed. He obviously didn't want me changing my mind. But he needn't word about that, I liked my glittery swirly dress.

"Alright then," the sales lady said.

I quickly went back into the dressing room to put back on the tank top and jean skirt Leo had gotten me before we bought the dress and left the store.

"Thank God thats over with," Leo sighed after we had exited.

"No, I need shoes still," I told him.

"No you don't."

"Yes I do."

"I already bought you shoes."

"You seriously expect me to go to a party that playboy millionaire Bruce Wayne is throwing in converse shoes? I'm not that cliche`," I told him, crossing my arms.

Leo sighed heavily and ten minutes later I had found myself in a high-end shoe store. It didn't take forever in there though, like with the dresses, because ten minutes into searching for party shoes I found a pair of black wedge heels with a sling back, an open toe and small gold polka dots.

"I thought you couldn't walk in heels?" Leo asked me when I was trying them on.

"These are wedge heels, not spike heels. Plus these aren't has high as those other heels, I'll be fine," I told him as I stood up in them, making sure they were comfortable and that they fit right.

"Okay, I want these," I told Leo after a few seconds.

"Now why can't you be like this when your picking out a dress?" He asked, standing up from his seat so he could go buy them for me while I put my other new shoes back on.

I met up with him at the front of the store and we left together.

"Where are we going now?" I asked him as we stood close enough to the building that we wouldn't get so wet from the rain.

"Well," Leo started, "We're supposed to meet up with the bosses at Croc's joint but it's only five thirty and I doubt Batman is even out yet so we'll probably end up waiting there for a while."

"Oh joy," I said unenthusiastically, "So what kind of 'joint' does Croc own?"

"A strip joint," Leo smiled at me and then rushed to hail us a cab. If you couldn't tell he was from New York by the accent you could definitely tell by the way he hailed cabs.

"Oh thats lovely," I replied to myself and moved quickly into the cab Leo had managed to stop within a matter of seconds. He quickly followed me into the backseat and sounded off directions to some strip club for the driver. He looked back to us with a suggestive look, which made my stomach clench uncomfortably because this guy looked maybe fifty years old and was undeniably unhygienic and fat, before driving off. I glanced over at Leo as he put his arm around my shoulders and winked at me.

I smiled sweetly at him and leaned in close so I could whisper, "I hate you so much right now," in his ear as pleasantly as I could.

"Ain't that sweet of you," he whispered back into my ear, softly laughing near the end.

Because of the rush hour traffic it took almost forty five minutes for the cab driver to get us to the slums of Uptown Gotham, apparently where Croc's strip joint was located.

The weather wasn't anymore friendly than it was downtown and as I got out of the cab and waited for Leo to pay the perv driving us I was throughly drenched. "Come'on," Leo told me, replacing his arm around my shoulders and leading me down an alley where the cab had dropped us off, leading me up to a door before pounding on it a few times.

"We're closed on Thursdays," a man answered a moment later in an annoyed tone.

"You wanna keep a fine lady like this out in the rain?" Leo asked the man, indicating me.

"We're closed on Thursdays," the man repeated angrily.

"Bosses say you aren't," Leo replied easily, "Want me to call'em up and tell'em your closed on Thursdays? I got my cell right here," he continued and pulled out his cellphone, which was kind of stupid because of how much it was raining.

The man sighed but opened the door further to let Leo and myself into the strip club, which thankfully was empty besides the man at the door and an old bartender, wiping glasses.

"Croc and Joker aren't here yet," the bartender told Leo and smiled at me in a way that wasn't creepy in the least.

I smiled back as Leo said, "I figured that," looking around the empty place. "Girls in the back like usual?" He then asked.

Oh my God, please no.

"Four of 'em," the bartender answered setting down one of the glasses he was cleaning, "Croc called 'em in sayin' you's a gonna be here and they four came early. I'm figurin' a few more'll show up eventually."

"Thanks Ace," Leo said and started leading me to the back.

"Leo," I protested but by that time we were already in the back, a dressing room type area.

"Hello ladies," Leo said upon our entrance, drawing the attention of the four women back there to us.

"Hello asshole," one of them, who was sitting in front of a mirror applying a ton of makeup, replied to him. Leo looked slightly surprised and I had a hand over my mouth to keep from openly laughing at him.

"Hi Leo," two of the girls on the couch replied, ignoring the other girl's greeting for him. "Who's your friend?" one of them asked.

"This is Emma," Leo told them as he walked over and sat in between them on the couch, after setting all my new stuff down beside it.

"Hi Emma," they both said to me and I smiled as best I could at them, trying not to have it look as fake as it was. The first girl, who was now finished with her excessive makeup, stood up and rolled her eyes at the other two.

"What's all that?" a fourth girl asked, coming into the room from a separate one, before noticing me quickly and smiling. "Hi, I'm Candy," she introduced herself and I tried to not give her a weird look for her extreme... 'bubbliness'.

"I'm Emma," I said unenthusiastically as she bounced over to all the stuff.

"So what is this?" she asked again sitting down in front of it.

"I had to take Emma shopping today," Leo informed and, for what seemed like the first time, Candy noticed Leo was in the room.

"Oh you're here," she scrunched her face at him and again I had to keep myself from openly laughing at him. I also didn't really have to wonder why half of the four girls here didn't seem to like him because, frankly, he was really cocky half of the time.

Candy then turned around to face me and asked, "Can I see?"

"Um sure," I said. I really didn't care, all it was was my dress, that whore-like business suit and those devil shoes.

"Oh!" Candy squealed and of course the first thing she pulled out were those shoes. "Can I try these on?" she asked me hopefully.

"Sure," I nodded, "If they fit I guess you can have them. I mean if Joker doesn't want them back or anything," I added.

Candy, who had both shoes on her feet quicker than I could complete my sentences looked over to me with with her mouth slightly open and her eyebrows furrowed.

"Oh! No, they're not his," I laughed as I quickly clarified, "He just gave them to me earlier today."

"Oh!" she laughed at herself and stood up. "You sure you don't want these? They're beautiful," she told me as she admired the shoes.

"Yeah, I can't really walk in stilettos," I told her and she gave me another weird look.

The girl who was putting on a ton of makeup before gave a single dry laugh before saying, "Okay. Well if this asshole is gonna be here tonight I'ma need alcohol."

"Oh Dacaries!" Candy laughed happily as the other girl started to walk towards the door leading to the strip club. "C'mon Emma!" she then said, grabbing my arm and dragging me after the girl.

I quickly looked back to Leo for help and he just gave me a salute type thing and went back to 'talking' to the other two girls. Yeah, Leo's definitely an asshole, at least right now he is.

"But I'm twenty, I can't-"I started to explain to Candy but she cut me off.

"Thats okay, I'm nineteen. Ace don't care 'cause Croc don't care and he's boss," Candy smiled at me as we joined the other girl at the bar, who had obviously already ordered drinks.

She smiled, yes she smiled, as Candy and I reached her at the bar and said, "I'm sorry about my attitude back there," she nodded towards the door leading to the back, "I just really can't stand that asshole."

"I understand where your coming from," I replied, returning her smile.

"I'm Stacia by the way," she replied a second before the bartender, as I've learned his name was Ace, came back with with three strawberry Dacaries.

Candy squealed in delight and quickly bit off half of the strawberry placed on the rim of the glass. I turned to Stacia with an eyebrow raised and she returned the same look to me before taking one of the Dacaries and leading us to a sunken in circle couch area, that looked like it could comfortably seat ten or so people, with a metal pole in the middle.