A Separate Society -=Wildest Dreams=-

Status
Not open for further replies.
M

Mikael Sisko

Guest
Original poster
SeparateSociety.png

A Separate Society is an idea of mine I’ve had to catalog my modern day roleplays, allowing for integration and interaction across characters and storylines that live in this city. All A Separate Society roleplays are set in a fictional version of modern day Chicago, and are all set in the present day.




Wildest Dreams
Jonas Quinn, a middle aged computer software engineer for Cavalier, Inc, has grown weary of his ordinary life. He’s been married for nearly twenty years to his highschool sweetheart, and is the father of two teenage daughters. For a while, it had been enough. He had been genuinely happy, but when he turned Thirty Seven, something just felt off. He woke up one day in his home, went to work, and started to wonder what else there was in this life. His life seemed rather ordinary to him, plain, and he found himself hungering for more. This revelation was nearly six months ago. Now he is separating from his wife, living in a one room apartment downtown, living off one night stands and cheap thrills. He knows that he cannot go back to the life he’s left, but can’t find a way to move forward.

This roleplay will center on Jonas Quinn, and a much younger woman whom he meets randomly, and the resulting romance. It will be an exploration of the idea that opposites attract. Jonas is, even through all of his attempts to break out of his shell, a very predictable, very confined individual. A cup of coffee with his eggs and toast for breakfast kind of guy. The character opposite him should be outgoing, fun loving, charismatic. Someone who can teach Jonas Quinn above life, and fill in that part of himself that he’s missing.

Themes: Age Difference, Romance, Possible Drug Use, Adult Themes.


full

Jonas Quinn
Date of Birth: 03/15/78, Thirty Seven
Occupation: Computer Software Engineer – Chevalier, Inc.
Hair/Eye: Brown Hair, Green Eyes

Marital Status: Married, Separated
Spouse Name: Katie Quinn
Children: Grace Marie Quinnn (15), Elizabeth Noell Quinn (12)

Bio: Jonas Quinn was born in Chicago in the late 70’s to Michael and Marie Quinn. He is the first of three children. His childhood was pretty uneventful. He played football in high school at J.F.Kennedy High, and was your typical teenager. He broke curfew, stumbled into his own share of teenage trouble. He had no problem with the law, no problems with drugs or alcohol. In his Sophomore year, he met his future wife, Katie Sanders. They married soon after high school graduation.

Jonas attended the University of Illinois, Chicago Campus and received his BS in Computer Software Engineering in the Spring of 2000, and two years later finished a Masters degree. Currently, he’s a project leader at Cavalier INC.





Mimiko Cambridge
Gender:
Female
Age:
21
Occupation:
Perpetually between jobs.
General Appearance:
=-=-=-=-=


She's got blue-stormed eyes, dark brown hair, and a petite stature. Standing at 5'1" and weighing under 100 lbs, she looks like a toothpick could fall and break her. Also has a tendency to wear outfits that show extra skin somehow (fishnets, short tops, short shorts, free shoulders, torn jeans...).

_________
Talents:
=-=-=-=-=


Adapting to new jobs and new lifestyles. Finding new hobbies. Being good at being bad at things (home-cooking, arts and crafts, etc.).

_________
Inabilities:
=-=-=-=-=


Maintaining a job. Commitment. Holding herself responsible. Getting mad (or staying mad). Being sad.

_________
Fears:
=-=-=-=-=


Being self-centered. Feeling sorry for herself. Regret. Having a reason to lose someone.

_________
General Personality:
=-=-=-=-=


If there are people who smile a lot and make others smile just by talking to them, there's Mimi. She's a rodeo of glee who'll dance with an alleyway homeless just to help warm them up in the city winter. She's the worst kind of lovable employee because she's hard to fire but a blessing when she quits. People make all sorts of assumptions about her because of the way she dresses--sometimes punky, sometimes goth-filled, other times rave-inspired--but she's never afraid to defend herself.

_________
Inner Personality:
=-=-=-=-=


Mimi's behavior is as sincere as it is a facade and she's fully aware of it, but her stance on the matter is that if you live something long enough, you become it.

_________
History:
=-=-=-=-=


Mimi was raised without a father who was apparently a junkie that OD'ed the same year she was born. She was raised by a mother who valued being an honest parent, namely because it became a way to keep her alcoholism in check. Honesty being a number one priority as well as the mother's young age, Mimi and Yuuko (勇子) formed almost sisterly bonds, but discipline was much more lacking.

Yuuko named her daughter Mimiko (巳水子) for "April water child". Her American upbringing be damned, Yuuko wanted Mimi to have at least some connection to her Asian heritage especially since there were no other familial connections nearby. Nevertheless, Mimi had a hard time in school because she took after her father more than anyone while her mother was still fairly ethnic, making Mimi a weeaboo, a fraud, a kidnapped orphan, amongst other things.

High school was a mixed bundle of isolation and popularity, depending on the standard of the day. Sometimes she was bullied, sometimes she was exotic, and other times she was just another one of the mean girls hanging out with a jock on the hood of his car. She was one of those teenagers that had a little bit of everybody's experience, with different kinds of grades that averaged out to being a decent student, and a couple of friends from completely opposite sides of the popularity spectrum.

College was when she started thinking about self-exploration more than her social ties. The easy decision was picking an Asian American Studies degree. The hard one was realizing that she lacked a sense of identity. She'd only just started talking to her mother about the family she never got to know when one day Yuuko had an aneurysm.

With the surprisingly sizable assets her mother left behind, Mimi paid off her loans and dropped out of college, moved into a small one bedroom apartment on the eighteenth floor and began the search for herself. It's been a couple of years and a dozen or so jobs since then, but she's still partying with discovery and dating history.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Once, it had all seemed so surreal, like life was a storybook. There was one part there, in my youth, I was truly afraid that I would wake up to some mediocre life in some broken home in the projects. I remember talking to my best friend at the time, James, about it. Its funny how when you’re young, the status of friendship holds more sway than the doctorial diploma sitting on someone else’s wall. We decided, between the two of us, that I was simply afraid of losing, a fear that we, in our infinite adolescent wisdom, had declared to be totally irrational and unfounded. It is truly amazing how age changes your perspective on things. Because here I am, nearly twenty years later, and I have finally awoken from the dream, into a broken home, and I dare say I am quite devastated by the realization that my dream has finally come to an end.

I blame contentment, as much as I blame myself for my failure. I just couldn’t see why anyone in our situation would have wanted more.

So take some advice, all our you out there with something, or someone to lose. Open your god-damned eyes, and take a look around you. You may notice the songbirds you thought were signing praises to your glorious life turn out to be Poe’s Raven in the end.

Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

--Jonas Quinn.


He sat in stillness for a moment, red, blood shot eyes staring at the laptop’s screen as he re-read his blog entry a final time, before tapping the thumb pad, submitting the submission into cyberspace. That piece of his soul bared, that open, festering wound placed on display for anyone knowledgeable of him or his blog could read, dissect, judge. It was the critics he welcomed the most, forcing him to protect himself from their assaults was an exercise in self-image that Jonas had found to be quite fruitful in the past.

“And I’ll be damned if I don’t need some now,” he spoke, more to himself than to anyone else, as he pressed closed the laptop, before picking up his glass of whiskey from the pile of bar napkins it was resting on. He took a sip of the cool, watered liquid, still feeling the familiar and somewhat glorious burn of Crown Royal as it slide down his throat to light its fire, and fume up his nostrils. The warmth was almost as intoxicating as the alcohol would be if he had managed to finish more than one drink in the hour he had been sitting in the club.

But he wasn’t there for the drinks. If he wanted to get smashed, he could do it at his apartment. Lord knows he had enough whiskey on hand. Tonight was because the walls had started to close in, the darkness became too permanent, and at midnight, when work had began to look too much like Egyptian hieroglyphs, and less like pearl-code, he had decided a change of venue was necessary. He came here looking for life, and excitement. Anew form of high.

What he had found was loud music, rowdy jeers, and a bowl of stale pretzels, the last of which he popped into his mouth as he took another look around the smoke filled club. Here, the young and beautiful creatures of the night came to service those willing to pay a modest fee for their attention. A place of dreams, where men of all walks of life come to imagine themselves fortunate enough to have attracted the attention of one whose body is pristine, whose attitude is eager to please, and whose tongue is removed of all the venom and hatred a long, sustained relationship can bestow upon it. Like he, these fellows take part in a dream, and however kindly, these women limit exposure to just ten minutes a time. Admirable, given the circumstances.

“Another drink,” the saint in charge of his night had offered, to which he simply smiled, passed the watered down remains of his double crown on the rocks to her, while allowing his amber eyes a complimentary pass over the bare skin offered in advertisement of the dream. In the end, she was quite beautiful, even if she does have a jagged scar lightly showing on the left side of her abdomen that ran at an unnatural slat for a few inches before terminating into pristine, soft looking skin.

“Yes please,” Jonas spoke in a soft voice, amongst the loud music and rowdy calls of the men gathered around the characteristic silver pole center of the room. He was sure his voice wouldn’t carry, and he was sure she didn’t care what he had said at that moment, as long as it didn’t concern the words lap dance, or back room, she was paid only to smile and giggle in response. Jonas watched her go, sitting back to allow himself to enjoy each step she took as she set out after his drink, before exhaling a breath in a tired groan, and passing a wide, broad hand over the short, black hair on his head.

His pocket vibrated, and from it he pulled out his phone, sliding his finger across the face to unlock the screen. The multi-tone blue and green background that came pre-equipped on the phone stared at him from beneath its lattice of apps, with a small icon up in the top left corner to alert him of the text he had just received. He scratched at the days’ worth of stubble on his chin as he debated reading the message, and finally giving in to curiosity, Jonas pulled it up. A ten digit phone number greeted him, with a single phrase below: “Call me - Heather”.

With something of an amused grin on his face, Jonas stood from the table, leaving his laptop sitting hidden by his jacket, to let the waitress know that he’d be coming back, he stepped out to the parking lot. The light night’s weather bit at him as he stepped into the damp night. The falling dew making everything smell of dirty rain, collecting in the potholes in the paved, ill repaired parking lot. He dialed the phone, raised it up to his head, and before the first ring even finished, a man’s voice spoke out to him.

“You know Jonas, I can’t believe you. Running off to a strip club in the middle of the night and not telling your boy here,” the voice spoke, a mock sense of betrayal about his tone.

“It was late,” Jonas excused, “and you have to work in the morning and…”

“And nothing,” the retort came, “you know I’m always down for tits and ass man. This is a major faux pa in our friendship.. Its against the code.”

“How the hell did you even know,” Jonas asked.

“Its wasn’t hard. Katie posted a picture of your car out front about an hour ago to facebook. Guess she was just driving by. Damn man, is she hot. I’d read you the comments she made, but I don’t think you’re old enough for the language,” Daniel’s tone changed, letting go of the joviality. “But don’t worry man, I got your back. I told her you were with me, and that it was my idea. And you’re welcome.”

“Thanks Dan,” Jonas spoke after a moment, letting settle just how close that shit storm had come. Undoubtedly Katie wasn’t going to believe it, but with a alibi in Daniel, and his continued denial that he wasn’t alone, perhaps he could escape this mess pretty much unscathed. After all, he was just blowing some steam… it shouldn’t hurt anybody. “Hey listen, I gotta get out of here, and to bed. I’ll see you at work tomorrow man. And thanks.”

The call died, and Jonas dropped his I-phone back into the pocket of his black trousers, rubbing his hands over his shirt sleeves to pass some warmth through to his arms, to fight off the cool night’s chill. He surveyed the parking lot a moment, taking in the few people who had, for one reason or another, come out of the club and into the chill night as he dug back in his pants pocket, pulling out a half smoked pack of Marlboro Reds. He took one out, hung it from his lips, and leaned into the lighter as he lit it up. He leaned back against the wall, the rough brick cold through the blue cotton of his shirt. He inhaled the smoke, enjoying the warmth in his lungs, feeling it pass through his blood in a moment of calm, before exhaling out through his nostrils, and into the night.
 
So there's this strip joint downtown that I haven't been to yet.

There was a girl kicking at pothole puddles with little idle heel drops. Bits of slushy dirt caked onto the stick-thin stilettos which she scraped off the jagged edges of asphalt before moving on to the next pothole to start the process again. They were starting to look dirty, which probably said something about how long she'd been going at this for. Even her hair--a generally fluffy bushel of dark chocolate--was starting to look like a sad sponge watered by long exposure to drizzle. She hadn't thought to bring an umbrella, but then again she wouldn't have needed it if her friend had been there on time.

I was thinking, you've always thought about checking out strippers, right?

In one hand she had a clutch purse--no straps, no handles, just a pouch--she'd bought the night before. Half of it was covered in gold glitter, and the other half had washed off in cow patches. In the other hand she was holding a handkerchief with some dark purple and light tan splotches hiding on the inner folds from when she had to wipe off her running make-up. She was plain-faced now, but the kerchief was still out to wipe the water out of her rainstormed eyes every so often.

Wouldn't it be great if we went looking like Hooters girls? You know, just get our skank on and all that!

They hadn't been able to go shopping together either. Luckily she'd had the perfect T-shirt just lying around since her last birthday party--surprise!--and although it was now plastered to her bodily form, a lightly endowed chest made it easy to make out the large bold type that said:
MY NAME IS
MOCHA
LATTE​
The shirt stopped right underneath, black threads limping off from tearing away the fabric with bare hands. The sleeves were so small they never even left her shoulders, but she made up with colorful neon bangles and electric blue nail polish. She wore the largest gold hoops she could find for her ears and since her stomach was so bare she'd touched it up with some paste-on plastic diamonds that somehow held through the dripping moisture to maintain a star around her bellybutton which showed off a galaxy-colored cat as a piercing. To complete the look, she had on a pair of denim skorts that were now the color of wet, and the front skirt flap was beginning to droop and show some of the crotch of the shorts underneath. Knee-high stockings pulled maroon up her calves from the hot pink leopard spots of her shoes, and a silver chain jangled around her right ankle with X-O-X-O-X hanging off the inside.

Bzzzzz--bzzzzz.

The tremors at her hip made her jump like a mouse over a broomstick--tickled by nerves and squeaked by surprise--so she pulled out her phone to stop the flesh-invading madness. "Gina, baby, I'm growing old and people are already leaving." Even though she was clearly young enough to be part of the trend, the size of the phone alone said it wasn't smart. A push of her thumb had slid half of it up, revealing the keypad underneath. The screen was tiny, the weight was like a baby's plastic toy, and the color was blue with some awful grey accents. Its one saving grace was the enormous amount of volume coming out of the speaker, which was an absolute necessity when someone like Mimi was constantly going to loud events. It also helped that she could hold it up to her hair and still hear her caller, but on the other hand it also meant her conversations weren't even remotely private.

I'm so sorry, Mocha, darling. I know I do this a lot, but my brother's crashing at my place again and I-- "Have to make sure he doesn't have a seizure on the couch. Gotcha." I don't deserve you. "Just let me know how he's doing in the morning, alright?" Yeah, of course. Oh sh--barf bucket! Click. "Achoo!"

"How the hell did you even know?"

She looked up and sniffled as her phone went away and saw a few more people out. Some of them were going to their cars, but there was the one hanging out in the rain talking on his phone. She couldn't say who he was talking to or what about, but maybe he was being caught red-handed? It was almost too bad there was no one to catch her red-handed. She shook some fingers through her hair and wrung out as much of her shirt as she could, a glimpse of her baby pink push-up bra showing over the stretch of her collar. These clothes were mostly uncomfortable compared to her usual outfits and the dank and cold weren't making it any easier to stand in them. Being stared at would at least make it kind of worth it, but everyone already had their eyes filled with pole-dancing.

"Well, I'm probably never doing this again." She had to walk past the guy on the phone to reach the door, and for a moment she tripped on her own exhaustion and skid herself back to balance. "Okay Mimi, you're cool. You're good. We'll just walk in like I haven't been out here casing the parking lot for the past couple of hours." True to her word, she thrust her chest up and put on her best stare-at-me-slutty walk (which came out more like hey-there-I've-got-small-tits!) as she pushed through the door and...walked into a big beefy arm.

"You're turning around, miss." She watched the bouncer stare at his arm and shake off the slugs of water she'd splashed on him in their collision. "But why? I just got here!" Both his brows furrowed up into a cold volcano--unsympathetic, and completely unconvinced. "I can't even hear the rain and somehow you're drowning the welcome mat. I don't think so." He was right, she could clearly see the puddle growing at her feet. "Come on, I can't be the only wet customer you've had." "Not wet, female." She threw her chin up and laughed. "Oh that's good, like you've never had any girls come in before." "The owner doesn't like it. Neither do the girls. We're traditional like that." ".....You're kidding me." "Turn around." "I could've sworn that a couple went in together earlier." "Turn around, stalker girl." "You're kidding me!" "Turn. Around." "Oh you've got to be kidding me." "Out."
 
  • Love
Reactions: 1 person
It is the mark of the times, that as soon as his cell phone had settled down into the folds of his pocket, he had fished it back out again. Cigarette in the corner of his lips with smoke rolling from his nostrils, and whiskey upon his breath. His mind wondered back to the drink that should have been delivered to his table, to the coat and laptop he left sitting to mark his spot, and the tab he’d have to pay as he made a mental note of things he’d need to accomplish before leaving. Kind of an idle mind’s way of staying focused, and thus just north of the torrent of confusion and anguish that spun on in his mind since his last, greatest argument with his wife. Nearly a month ago, and he still found himself living alone in that apartment, renting month by month in some optimistic futility that things would right themselves.. that he could find himself coming out on top of this one.

But in truth, things were stacked against him. Society already dictated that she didn’t need him, not once the legal bind had been tied was freed. She didn’t work, so It was his income that provided for them both, and with business being the way it was, it did so handsomely, so one could imagine she’d need him for financial support, if for nothing moral or emotional. However, society dictated that once they were married, she was entitled, and even if she decided to leave, even if she were to toss him away, dissolve the ties that bind between them, he would still be responsible for her. Society dictated that she didn’t need him anymore, and seemed all but actively trying to persuade the legal framework of a divorce to fit over the shape of their lives. Its funny, how clearly these things seem once you’re in the situation, and how obtuse the logic seems to those on the outside. Paranoia, they call it. But the longer he sleeps alone, the more time he spends in the dull darkness of his apartment, the further away the past seems, and all the more clearer the future becomes.

He was digging into his phone when the impact came, totally catching Jonas by surprise. The night was dense, and he really hadn’t been paying attention, the thought that swirled in the dark depths of his mind having taken hold due to his momentary loss of concentration. He bit back a swear as his phone tumbled from his fingertips, landing with a weak clatter to the concrete, while his other hand extended out to help him maintain his balance. The verbal assault he readied, as Jonas laid amber eyes upon the woman who he collided with would never come. For a moment he just stared, seeing nothing but an interesting silhouette outlined amongst the darkness, as lit and illuminated as the moon’s frail light could muster beneath the thick clouds of an approaching storm. The stars were hiding, the night darker than some, and on the chill breeze, mingled with the scent of rain, Jonas could smell her perfume.

“My God. Sorry,” Jonas whispered in astonishment, mostly because he wasn’t exactly sure how he had come to be moving, mostly because the woman whom he had accidently walked into possessed qualities of flesh that convinced Jonas that she had been born out of his dreams. Quickly he recovered from his shock, so rapidly so that he prayed that it hadn’t been noticed. How slowly moments on intense emotion seem to crawl. It had felt like an eternity passed in that first second he looked onto her, standing dripping wet before the bouncer, an obvious frustration lining every feature of her face. He hadn’t noticed her voice, hadn’t been paying attention for it, but in contrast in that moment he noted that small sparkle of light reflecting on the slightest bit of moisture in the corner of her brilliant eyes. How precise the breath of time had been to allow him so complete a recollection of her face as he turned to step past the bouncer, and into the doorway of the club.

“Hey Joey, why don’t you let the lady in, at least to warm up. I’ll take her with me in a few, just got to pack up my things,” Jonas spoke, looking to the pair of them, knowing that he didn’t know this woman, and she would most likely refuse, but it was the most he could do in the situation. Jonas figured if the big man knew she wasn’t going to stick around, he’d be more inclined to let the drowned mouse in to warm up. Ofcourse, all she had to do was outwardly object to the suggestion, but he trusted she had more sense than that. After all, he could imagine just how miserable she was, wet in this chill air.

What surprised Jonas the most, excluding her appearance, was the fact that she was alone. A young woman like her, half drowned from the drizzle, dressed as… impressive as she was, alone outside a strip club. It brought to mind the Madame’s trade, but something told him she’d have been capable of talking her way into the club if that was the case. There was a story here, that much was sure, and as Jonas disappeared into the club to get his coat and laptop, he was hoping he would get to hear it.

He drained the heavy glass, grabbed his jacket and the bag holding his laptop, and turned to see if she waited on this side of the door, his signal that she had accepted his invitation.
 
  • Love
Reactions: 1 person
Probably the one thing Mimi had worn without thinking about the oddity of tonight's fashion was the scent of cherry blossoms fused with a hint of coffee. It was a weird kind of perfume by a cheap Japanese brand that wasn't very well known across the states but had a niche consumer base. Generally this flavor had a reputation of being a love-it or hate-it choice, where the love and the hate seemed to depend on the person who wore it. Mimi was the love kind. She never put on more than a dab or two on the nape of her neck, but it was the kind of fragrance that stormed under her hair and became a part of her. It was almost as if it made the smell of her stronger, rather than change it, though boys that were attentive enough usually noticed either the flower or the drink.

"Yes, Joey, that's a genius idea! We can be a temporary couple, just for a few minutes. You can't turn away a customer that was practically never here, right?" In the back of her head there was a vague recollection of the man on the phone getting caught at a place he wasn't supposed to be, but before she could make the decision to either trust or reject him, her eagerness to complete the night on some kind of high note had taken over. The response to her newly invigorated persistence was just a grunt, but she smacked him on the shoulder--or rather, the corner between his shoulder and his chest which was as high as she could reach--and continued their growing bond of familiarity. "Joey, Joey, he's a regular, right? I'll be in, we'll be out, and we'll never see each other again. Just like old pals. How about it?"

Joey the Bouncer turned his head to appreciate the dark wet handprint on his shirt then shrugged it off. "Fine. In and out. And stop calling me Joey like you know me. We don't know each other. I've never seen you, and you've never stepped foot in this fine establishment." "Ditto!" She sprung from the welcome mat and made to catch up with her strip club hero when Joey stopped her dead. "I thought--" "Invisible, not wet." A warm fluffy towel fell over her shoulders, soaking up the cold in her arms and steaming her cheeks back to life. Mimi flashed him a full-mouthed giggle and started drying herself off as she pranced--as well as she could on such fragile heels--after the man who had made all this possible.

"Wow, the girls here really are babes, aren't they?" Now that she wasn't trying to get past a living wall of bricks, the whine of frustration had left her voicebox to leave a smooth chocolate shake made of dark truffles (the kind of low key tone that made a small woman like Mimi look bigger and more proportionate than she was). 'Deep' was the wrong word for it, but it was too short of 'sexy' or 'jazzy' to call it that either. And when she watched one of the women dance up a pole and slowly turn on its axis without the ground under her feet, her voice went back up in a pitch-based exclamation. "Do you have any idea how hard that must be?" By the end of her question she'd transitioned into a melt of strawberries'n'creme candy--sweet enough to sound pretty, just short of being a song.

"Especially if they're doing that for hours." She finished wiping off the drips from her legs and started patting at her hair when she realized her temporary companion was already packing up for the night. "Oh, so sorry, my bad. Thanks for convincing Joey to let me in for a little while. I'd ask you to leave me here, but I'd hate to break the word of a perfect stranger." Her hair was feeling fluffy again--with outer layers broken up like Smuckers' Magic Shell cracked from freezing over ice cream--so she wore the towel like a shawl (warm side down) to try and build back the hours of warmth she'd lost. A surprise sneeze attacked her sinuses to let her know that this was working.

"'Scuse me." She laughed at the rudeness of her body's poor attempt to protect her from sickness and unzipped her purse to pull out a couple of twenties. "Here, I don't know how much you're paying for, but let me contribute something to your night since you're saving mine." The money went on the table and under his empty glass before he could stop her and she zipped her purse back up. "And I mean that. The saving part, I mean. My friend was supposed to be here with me, but she never turned up, so I've been standing around on these needles for hours. And what for? Five minutes to oggle at other women's body parts."

She didn't seem miserable, much less upset. There was a punchline somewhere that she started laughing at, and the entire situation was just one big joke. "Actually, I think we were coming here to get oggled at more than anything. I mean, not that we were making fun of anyone or anything, we just thought it would be funny to stop inside a strip club looking like strippers." Another sneeze came on, but this time she was prepared and the corner of the towel served as a good muffler.
 
  • Love
Reactions: 1 person
He finished packing, but paused a moment, just listening to her comments, the prospective they provided. He had never heard anyone, when watching the dancers, comment on the skill or strength it would take to perform as they do, especially for the duration of a night, at least, he had never heard it in a manner that wasn’t meant to be crude and purposefully inflammatory. There was a depth to the insight that spoke more about what lies beneath her eyes than anything else she’s offered up for interpretation. When she sneezed, he found himself amused, not so much by the meek sound of it, though there was something in that that was oddly pleasing, but by the almost giddy laughter that accompanied it. If she played at being adorable, she was awfully good at it, or perhaps the act was simply her natural demeanor. The part of his mind that gave voice to paranoia and conspiracy whispered to him of the possibility of it being a snare, something that he would most definitely fall victim too. There was no denying it, she was the most interesting thing that had happened to him in quite a while.

But how long could it last?

Jonas picked up the money she put down on the table, turning the twenty in his hands until it was folded between his pointer and middle fingers, and held it back towards her to take. “I guess we’ve saved each other’s night then,” Jonas spoke, laying the money back into her hand, releasing it for her to put away. He pulled out his phone, pressing it to light the face, checking the time in the new fashion of the world, where watches and time pieces have faded away to the lock screen of the iphone. It was just barely after midnight, in some quarters, the night was still young. He doubted, due to her age, that she felt the same weariness drifting over her that Jonas had been feeling out in the parking lot., a weariness that seemed to have drifted away from him once she followed him to the table.

Was it too much to think she might spend the rest of the night with him? Even if the thought was unburdened by the sexual tension given it by hours of watching trim, lithe figures dancing on stage in next to nothing, or in most cases ending up in nothing, the thought seemed to be preposterous. In today’s world, one didn’t simply spend a night in conversation with another without some expectations. Time is too precious to waste on spending it with someone you weren’t looking to form some kind of bond with, be it platonic, or sexual.

Gods, why does sex keep crossing the mind

He swatted the idea away, as even in the briefest of moments the idea of her bare stomach, which he had witnessed peaking beneath the paste on diamonds, covered in a haphazard splash of vodka from the glass he had balanced on her navel flooded his mind. He was grateful for the privacy of the inner most thoughts, as he allowed himself the privilege of taking the shot, while he smiled a perfectly innocent and normal smile, picking up his laptop case and slinging it over his shoulder. “I don’t know how long Joey would let you stay, but if you’re not feeling the end of the night, perhaps you’d care to go get a drink. I’ll buy,” He offered on a whim, his eyes skipping past her to the door, where amongst the ethereal bodies of the pair of them he could see Joey staring back at them, in anticipation of their departure.

Jonas started moving for the door, his black coat draped over his right arm as he walked slightly behind this girl, realizing that he was still ignorant of her name. Of course, he was meaning to get around to knowing it, but the time to ask just hadn’t come up yet, at least, not without looking like he was asking for the wrong reasons. He passed Joey, who simply shook his head as they passed, Jonas stopping and handing a few bucks to the bouncer, for his consideration. The man quickly pocketed it, and out the door they went, Jonas with his coat on his arm, and her with the towel.

He opened his mouth to introduce himself, but stopped. There was an odd electricity in the idea that he didn’t know her name, that she didn’t know his. They were, for the moment, just people, without pasts, without histories, without reputations or baggage. The only truths that existed in the moment were those physical truths that they couldn’t deny: her eyes were blue, and he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He tried to think of something to say, something to excuse his partially gaped mouth as though he hadn’t thought better about what he was going to say, and in the moment, the only thing that came out caused his eyes to widen in disbelief.

“It’s probably not smart to pick up men in a strip club, their minds are always on sex.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: 1 person
She saw his arm reaching out to pass her something and her hand came up like a reflex. Her eyes followed after, when she recognized the feel of green paper. "But--" She stopped at the sight of him distracted by the clock on his phone. From where she stood, she guessed that she might stand as high as his eyes, but no further. He had to be a working professional, the way he was dressed. And now that she took a good look, he was older than she'd realized. Not too old--he didn't fumble with his smartphone that way--but enough that she recognized the lines of age.

She saw the rectangular reflection in his eyes from the screen lighting up and had trouble registering what the color of his irises were, but she was more interested in the reel flashing behind his vision. (What in his head was so fascinating that he hadn't already set his modern-age timepiece away?) It could have been her imagination, but she thought she might have seen him blink himself back to life from some foggy faraway realm of possibilities. Was it an ever-hanging carrot promotion at work? Was it marriage counseling? Was it the trickery of youth and its brief temptations on a body that had moved beyond it?

Or maybe it was all in her head.

He gave her a smile she didn't deserve, and in that moment she spun around to hide her devious prying. She almost collided into another woman and popped a yelp that skipped into a laughing apology. It was quick, and the returned money in her hand disappeared into the woman's cleavage in time for Mimi to turn back around and hear her company's proposal. "Oh, do you know any good places?" She followed his gaze to the bouncer and had to swallow a snort. Her hand flew up to waggle at Joey as if they hadn't seen each other since high school. "I wonder if bouncers get their jobs because they're prudes, or if they have to learn to be prudes on the job."

She made for the door, but her walk was made up of small steps that had trouble deciding if they wanted to stay on the toes or risk leaning on the heels. She wouldn't be surprised if she had blisters in the morning, but that was a problem she'd get to when it came to it. In the meantime, she patted Joey's arm as she passed him by and said, "Don't feel bad, Joey, you're sweet." Outside, she threw the towel over her head to block out the rain and waited for her replacement Gina to lead the way when...

"It's probably not smart to pick up men in a strip club, their minds are always on sex."

It began with a chortle, accompanied by a light blush and followed up with a burst of laughter that threw her weight backwards--so much she had to bend at the knees to keep herself standing. The sounds were cut short when she felt the towel falling and she had to control herself to catch it. Once it was safe, she balled it up in her face and proceeded to laugh some more. She did try to form words midst her outbreak, but they were nothing more than vibrations in the fluff broken up by sharp intakes of much needed air. When she finally came up for some real oxygen, she shoved the tears out of her eyes.

"I wonder what that says about the man picking me up at a strip club." She paused for some of the aftershocks of her glee. "You know, I have to disagree. If sex was the only thing on your mind, you would be sitting somewhere at home with a box of tissues at your side. Or in a cheap hotel. Whatever it is, you'd be doing something about it. If you've got time to spend sitting back, throwing money at girls you know aren't real in a space where you can't even touch yourself because you're sharing it with other men who are sharing the same view, then you're not thinking about sex, you're thinking about your ego. Which, if you think about it, makes you the perfect guy to pick up because that makes me the only person in the world right now who can stroke that for you."
 
  • Love
Reactions: 1 person
Her rendition of what, at this time stands as his class of man, made Jonas chuckle slightly. His eyes peered through the darkness of the night, standing on the awning of the club while the drizzle fell lightly all around them. The air was alive with the rain, spiced with the scent of it’s freshness, yet made bitter as it washed up the dirt and filth that covered nearly every inch of the city. It was a bitter sweet thing, the smell of rain in the city. He spotted his car amongst the darkened shadows, pulled his key fob from his pocket and clicked the lock button, to make the car honk, and the lights flash. From a distance, his car appeared a darker shadow amongst a row of them, a black Sedan parked in the back of the lot. He returned to their conversation a second after she spoke.

“I believe you don’t give us men enough credit,” He spoke, as he started out towards the car, looking back to make sure she was following, while continuing his point as they walked. “After all, to simply masturbate and be done with it, and I won’t like, while that is a choice, it is a last resort. We’re talking fall out plan C, if A and B don’t work out.” He spoke, turning his eye to look to her, to make sure the humor at which he was meaning the quip to be taken was adequately relayed along with his words. It was anxiety that made him check. She was someone new, someone he hadn’t figured out the non-verbal tells to her emotions. Plus, in the night of failures, where Plan A hadn’t quite worked out as planned, she was an exotic, beautiful plan B.

The last part made him laugh a little at himself. He could talk, sometimes might even be able to walk the walk, but there was a large difference between speaking a thing, and doing a thing. Jonas watched enough movies to know how Hollywood would say this should go, but in the truth of the situation, he wasn’t so outgoing. She was exotic, almost otherworldly in comparison to him. It was almost a minor miracle that she’d agreed to go get a drink with him, but seeing as how her prospects were returning to the cold, drizzling rain, he’d imagine the choice wasn’t so difficult after all. But he can dream.

He stopped at the passenger side door of a black Ford Mustang, As she stepped closer, he unlocked the car with a press of the key fob in his left hand, and opened the door with his right. He swung it open for her, hanging by the otherside of it, watching as she moved to the side of the car. “Society may have most men domesticated,” He spoke, holding the door in his hands, staring into her eyes as he spoke, unsure where the confidence, the zeal to speak the next words came from. It’s unlike him, a man who has been coming out on his own for the past three weeks, who always drank his drinks and wrote his blog about the poisons of society and the decay of the modern world, but never even spoke with another woman. But the words flowed easily, spurred by some unknown source of confidence. All he could think it was the last ditch effort of a desperate man, trying to cling to a chance of fulfilling a dream. She was gorgeous, and so far above him that he shouldn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell. “But we all love the chase. It’s the hunt that keeps humanity thriving.

Her would wait at the door until she sat in the black leather seat, and then he’d close the door on her, walking around the car to get into the driver’s side. As he walked across the front of the car, he was careful to keep his eyes low, pulling his phone out to fix his eyes on something, so he didn’t look back at the car, make that horribly uncomfortable eye contact while she waited for him. He felt the butterflies twisting in his stomach, felt his mind rebelling, telling him this was a mistake, telling him it wasn’t going to go the way he hoped. Telling him he was setting himself up for problems, for failure, for a let down. He listened to the voices telling him that he should just take her home, telling him that he should take her back to his place, to drop her off at her door, to carry her across his… He never had a one night stand…. And he reminded himself that nobody had mentioned the pair of them having sex… he was dreaming, getting ahead of himself.

He opened the car door, settled down into the seat. His composure was intact, none of his inner turmoil showing through the perfect mask he presented to her. He smiled, stretched his arm to reach behind her seat, turning to look behind him as he backed out of the parking spot, swung around to position the car in the lane. “I think Wither is playing at Passion tonight, if you are up to it.”
 
Standing there cooling back down in the drizzle after her warm frothy eruption of amusement, the sound of a car and the flash of its lights were great reliefs to both her dying heels and shivering body. She'd probably still have to take a taxi eventually, but for the time being she could just sit and relax. Delighted with this prospect, she mustered a final baby-steps hustle to the back of the parking lot where the man went and held the passenger side door open for her.

"Straight out of a black and white screen."

It was a small comment (more like a thought that hitched a ride on a whisper), but it was the beginning of an intensely preoccupying reflection of the night's events. She somehow imagined the combined efforts of Godard and Gene Kelly creating the beginnings of a romance this way: the painful hours of dreary weather silence wherein the main female protagonist decides to maintain her night plans without the best friend who doesn't show up but then the protagonist is confronted by every obstacle still until the moment that the male protagonist arrives on the scene only to turn possibly the worst platonic date in the world into the greatest spontaneous romance ever to be known to mankind (or at least within the universe of that particular fantasy film).

This was but a passing flash, given nesting grounds during the minute that it took her to lay the towel down over the seat so that when she slipped inside the car she wasn't waterlogging the leather. But it was a haunting prospect, that a total stranger--who was nonetheless sweet and friendly--might fulfill the one truly foolish and girlish desire her heart could not dearly part with by playing the realistic counterpart to the role of a sweet and caroling Casanova with chivalrous manners. The idea drew tap dancing butterflies in her chest, and she had to grab a fistful of shirt to calm the upper ribs. Unfortunately the one thing that embarrassed Mimi the most was impulsively fantasizing in front of the subject of her fantasy, and in an effort to hide this she tugged at the fabric (it was plastered to her skin anyway and needed some stretching). It left the inner rims of her bra out in the open, just over the shirt's collar--not that she noticed.

Mimi welcomed any distraction from her childish imagination, so she thought about his comment on His Gender; The People. "You sound like a writing major." She made the brief correlation between her choice of phrase and her choice of crowd, then laughed. "Sorry, I'm used to hanging out with college suaves." Seatbelt. Towel shift. "Don't know the band, don't know the locale. In fact, I'm not actually from anywhere around here, so whatever floats your boat, honey. As long as I have an excuse to postpone the taxi, I'm good."

She jut out a hip to help twist her legs so she could reach her shoes, popping them off the back of her heels and dropping them on the floor of the car. There was an immensely soothed sigh once her feet were free and lifted onto the dashboard as she slouched back, knees drawn up and tucked together in her arms. She had to savor the feeling of pain being aired from her soles, so her eyes closed and the sigh simmered down into a trail-off moan. It wasn't until the car started moving that she remembered what he'd said earlier.

"I'm not such a great plan B, then. I'm too pragmatic for that. I mean, it's one thing to have hopeful expectations," such as the ones her brain was trying to pelt her with, "but it's another to have a completely alternate agenda, you know? Like when a guy thinks that being Asian means I'm a closet freak and so he lies straight to my face that he doesn't care about sex. What makes him think I'm going to get down and dirty with that?" A lot of this was a clear murmur, half of it a serious response and the other a mild ranting spurred by her well-enjoyed relaxation. It wasn't a touchy subject--she was smiling and there was the hint of a chuckle on her lips--but it was such a smooth recounting that it was obviously a true event. "I think the hunt is just an excuse to justify crap tactics and cheesy pick-up lines. If you want to be as modern as your phone, then clear intentions are where it's at."
 
“A bold faced lie it would have been too,” Jonas spoke, sparing a sideways glance towards his companion as they pass through the darkness, only the dim lights on the dash, harsh azure against the velvet black, and the warm glow of headlights the only light as they passed from the city proper to a darkened street. Like anywhere in the city, there was more than one way to go about things, and it seemed everyone had their own way of doing it, no two ways alike. Jonas liked the isolation one could expect from residential roads and neighborhoods at night. No lights, little traffic… in a world where solitude seemed a precious commodity, one learned to take it where one could find it, and appreciate it when it was around. The radio played a soft tune, an old guitar melody, harsh and aloft with the sounds of the late 70’s, early 80’s. His words easily spoke above the music, which was kind enough to stay in the background, a subtle accompaniment of their night. “All men care about sex. What makes them deny is it either fear of being perceived as we actually are, sex-crazed. You see, we know that women know this about us, but we are more comfortable with the delusion that you haven’t figured it out yet.” He spoke, as he pulled his phone from his pocket, tossing it into the center console of the car, as he slowed, took a right hand turn, down another residential road.

“And yes, we know it’s delusional. We know that it’s not the best approach to the situation,” he spoke, continuing to lay out his version of what men think, as though you can explain the beast in psychological terms. Jonas continued to shoot her quick glances, to judge her continued humor with the situation, as though choosing carefully how far to go, or perhaps looking for some indication that he should stop, find a new topic of conversation. He saw no such sign, and though this does not precluded the existence of it, it simply means he hadn’t noticed if such a sign had presented itself. He was hardly the most attentive to detail, it was actually to be listed amongst one of his weaknesses, not his strengths.

“I know, you’re probably thinking why we persist then. It’s actually quite simple. Because in those moment, when the decision has to be made, our brains are actually functioning on an acute and temporary blood loss,” He cracked a smile, telegraphing his joke, while he turned his car again, this time to the left. They moved slowly, 25 mile an hour speed limits making the drive feel somewhat relaxing, luxurious. He adjusted the temperature in the car, cutting the heat up to accommodate the woman’s damp exterior.

“But you are absolutely correct. Intentions should be well known. But, and please do not take offense, if you were to see twelve caged tigers, each in their own cages, each eating a zebra leg. When you came to the thirteenth, would you seriously expect him to be enjoying a nice salad? Should not the same be said about men?” He spoke, as they pulled up to a stop sign. This time he turned to her, looking at her eyes, as though to pose the question properly. “If you know, as women do, what is on our minds, does it need to be properly stated? Can’t we simply skip by the awkward conversation in which I confess to you my intent to take you home at the end of the night, strip you down to your skin, and fuck you until the world dissolves into a dozen shades of purple and green, and you cannot move for the sheer exhaustion of it all.”

Jonas turned himself back around, faced the road, and again the car started forward.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.