Gotham Police Commissioner Jim Gordon is down on his luck when his wife leaves with the kids and sends him divorce papers. But luckily his clerk Claire knows just what he needs to feel better...
Claire's eighteen-year run as Mistress looks like it m...
Song title inspired by "Shallow" - Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper _____________
"Meine Häschen."
Claire felt herself enveloped by strong arms and overcome by a spicy citrus musk. The owner of these two things had barely changed in eighteen years. If there was a fountain of youth, Hans Gruber had found it when he survived his great fall four years before meeting Claire and Grace. He truly was a beautiful man.
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"Hans," Claire greeted him with a kiss to the cheek. They took their seats at a small table draped with fine white linen, upon which sat a bottle of champagne on ice.
"What are we celebrating?" she asked. "Beyond Grace's upcoming birthday of course."
"Merely an occasion to be together again, my dear Claire. I don't make it to the East Coast nearly as often as I should these days."
"I can tell," she teased. "That's the most perfect tan I think I've ever seen on a pale guy. That sunny house on the sea must be agreeing with you."
"It's paradise," Hans agreed with a grin. "Though paradise well earned. I've dealt with copious amounts of mistakes and overinflated egos and idiocy over the years to get here. I must say I'm enjoying retirement."
Claire smiled and began exploring her menu. The man had a tendency to martyr himself when it came to overseeing his operations. He especially liked to bemoan babysitting Stan the two years the men had worked together before the latter's death.
"Have you dined here before?" Claire asked, already torn between about five different appetizers on the expansive list.
"Yes, I brought Grace here a few years back," Hans answered. "She kept saying the entire time how much you'd love it, so I made a mental note to bring you here one day. May I take the liberty of selecting for you?"
For a criminal, the man was very thoughtful and generous— if you found yourself on his good side.
"Yes— I've been feeling a bit on the submissive side lately," Claire laughed. "Order away."
Hans raised his impeccably maintained eyebrows at this news. "Well, that is something to celebrate, when one does a complete 180. Assuming there is a positive reason behind this mood?"
Claire had decided ahead of their scheduled dinner that she wouldn't be mincing any words when it came to Jim. Hans was family to her, and if Jim was going to become a significant part of her life— assuming he passed her little test with Grace tonight— then Hans was going to have to know about him. She wasn't nearly as nervous as she would be for the flip side, when the time came to tell Jim the depths of the world she and Grace had flirted with for half their lives.
She would have to make Jim understand— the girls had just separated the men from what the men did for a living. Hans and Stan rarely spoke of it, and the girls weren't really permitted to ask. Aside from pure kink, the men's penchant for violence hadn't even entered into their interactions with the girls; when they were with them, they laid down their guard and had even been romantic. In later years to Claire, in the aftermath of Stan's death and as he fell more in love with Grace, Hans became more fatherly. Jim would just have to understand that family was family, when the time came. Her stomach knotted a bit when she thought of the conversation, so she decided not to dwell on it for now.
