What A World

Participants:

logan_icon.gif miranda_icon.gif mortimer_icon.gif

Scene Title What A World
Synopsis On a date with Miranda to Burlesque, Mortimer gains something back.
Date September 2, 2009

Burlesque

A flashy little strip club, its name advertised in bright neon pink above the door in swooping cursive, with the figure of a woman outlined in the same seeming to kick a leg with each flash of the light. Two bouncers stand by the door, which is a reflective chrome and stays closed unless opened by the security duo, with a red carpeting extending out onto the pavement. They will check you for I.D. before permitting you entrance. You'll be greeted by a woman in full burlesque regalia, with exaggerated makeup, a corset that barely keeps everything in, fishnets and feathers. Provided you can pay the cover charge, she will show you to a table, offer to get your first drink of the evening, and leave you alone to enjoy what Burlesque has to offer.

The main room's focal point is the generous stage, a circular platform with Broadway lights around the edges, and a catwalk that extends further out into the scattered round tables where patrons can sit and drink. The lights that shine down on it are never particularly clear, often shards of pink, green, blue, which hide as much as they reveal. There is almost always a dancer on the stage, even as even more girls move around the room to give more intimate shows on tabletops. There's a long bar that crawls along one side of the room, with a couple of bartenders behind it, a counter of black glass with rows and rows of liquor on display on glass shelves. Leather booths are tucked away towards the back, offering some privacy for whatever purpose.

Despite the proposed theme of the club, impressions of burlesque only factor in with the permanent staff and particular shows of featured dancers. Otherwise, the tunes are standard for any kind of strip club, and the girls will wear what they like. There are private lounges for more expensive, personal shows, and a darkly lit, obscured staircase leading up to both dressing rooms and the manager's office.


Walking through the doors of Burlesque with Miranda on his arm at around 8 PM, Mortimer is wearing a light-blue denim button up shirt, a black unbuttoned suit jacket, some neatly fitting blue jeans, and a pair of black boots. He's looking around, quite impressed with the club, though mostly impressed with the boobs. Boobs are usually impressive, even the small ones.

A fake but very well made ID is flashed, the cover charge is paid, and soon they're sitting at the table. "It's like we're in the movie Scarface, except English is one of my best subjects and there's a hot black woman in the movie."

Stepping into the club after showing her own ID, Miranda cannot help but flash a grin as she takes in the place and the general vibe of the room. Laughing, she moves with Mortimer towards the table they're shown too, and once she slides into the booth, she leans in near him to be heard over the music pounding away. "Well, here's hoping that you enjoy the evening." She teases, turning to the waitress and ordering a whiskey sour for herself, a glance given to her companion to see what he wants.

"Girls are quite lovely to look at.. most of the time." Miranda answers him as she studies the dancer on the stage at the moment. Catching him turning to glance at her eyes, she meets his gaze, smiling mischieviously at him. "Hmm.. I've been known to date a girl here and there, though it takes someone truly special to catch my attention." A pause, her gaze to follow the path of one of the girls weaving her way through the tables, flirting with the patrons, and she soon adds, "I can still look at them, and enjoy the image they present. I do prefer guys, though."

It takes a little time, but eventually, someone seems to notice them - the one weaving through tables, in fact, catching Miranda's eye as she starts towards them. She's tall, with willowy limbs and a slightly more generous figure, her hair dark and long, with artificial sparkles run through it. The same stuff is painted around her eyes, on her lips, down her cleaveage, and if all that wasn't enough to identify her as a woman of employ at Burlesque, the black and silver lingerie get up and the old school feather boa twined around her arms will solidify the notion. She calls herself Kitten.

She approaches Mortimer and Miranda at a saunter, glancing between them with dark, amber-brown eyes, her skin tan beneath the ever shifting kalaidoscope of lighting. "You two enjoying yourselves?" she asks, her voice cutting through the music, and though she's asking them both, her eyes are on Mortimer.

"As far as I can remember, I've always been into women." Mortimer's attention is quickly taken by the new woman, siding his hand into his pocket for a dollar. "I haven't visited too many strip clubs, but I'd say I'm enjoying myself. Not to be disrespectful or anything, but if I give you a dollar will you take your top off?"

With a quiet smile, Miranda leans in closer to Mortimer, and murmurs, "I'm glad you're into women.." Teasing words are given before Kitten's approach is noticed by her, the dancer watched quietly, perhaps seeking to know the woman's emotions. She chokes back a laugh at the offer that Jack gives, and waits, though it's obvious to the dancer, that she's pulled out a bill from her own pocket, perhaps to add to the ante?

Kitten smiles, wide, a hand gliding up her body to finger the clasp at her top, as she insinuates herself closer. One leg goes up, plants her highheel against the edge of his seat, her other hand coming to rest on her thigh. "I think you can do better than a dollar, big spender," she says, before her gaze slides towards Miranda, and trades a wink with her. "Or should I be stripping for your girlfriend?" As she talks, the world seems to cancel itself out around Mortimer - even Miranda's presence seems to dim into the same blur as everything else. Touch, sight, sound— anything that isn't Kitten just diminishes in importance to the point of ignoring it. Her hips shift a little to the beat.

Miranda's drink that she ordered comes to set itself down on the table, Logan's long fingers spidered over the rim. "Good of you to make it," he tells the woman, with barely a glance at Mortimer. His full three-piece suit is charcoal in tone with minute pinstrips, no tie in sight and the cream-golden shirt beneath it is open at the collar.

Mortimer's attention fixes completely on Kitten, sliding four more dollars from his pocket to offer them up to her. "Look at that, five dollars. That's at least fifty in Canadian money, y'know." He laughs, reaching in for a full five, making it ten.

Miranda slides the twenty into Moritmer's hand, letting him keep it, in case he wants to up it further once the ten is handed over. But, her attention is drawn from him, and the lovely Kitten, towards the man who's delivered her drink. "Told you that I would come by and bring a friend with me.." The drink is snagged, and a sip taken from it before she licks her lips, casting her gaze towards Mortimer's spellbound viewing of the dancer with a certain piked curiosity.

"You've done exceptionally well," Logan says, with a knife-quick smile to Miranda as he moves around the table towards the other side of the booth, where he slides to sit down on Mortimer's other side. His own drink, a glass of white that's near finished, is set down on the table with a plink! and he slides a gaze up towards where Kitten has sit herself on the edge of the table, directly in front of Mortimer. The woman has removed her glittery top, stretching her arms above her as she murmurs to the music, keeping Mortimer's attention on her.

As for Logan, well, his aura is different to the stagnant pool of apathy from before. There's glimmers of anticipation, nervousness, but certainty too. "Kitten'll make sure his eyes are on her, and everything'll be right as rain," he tells Miranda past Mortimer. "Barely sees what's going on around him. Will barely feel it too. She's good at what she does."

And his hand moves to place on the back of Mortimer's neck, as if in demonstration.

"Breasts for ten dollars, what a world." Mortimer's completely ignoring the hand on his neck, eyes fixated on rhythmatic boobs as he holds up the twenty he suddenly realizes is in his hand. "What'll you do for another twenty?"

"Interesting.." Miranda murmurs, though it's hard to say whether she speaks to Logan, or perhaps in answer of what he says about Kitten's ability to keep Mortimer's attention so transfixed on the sway and bob of those scrumptious swells. Laughing at some mental thought, she watches as Logan reaches out to touch Jack's neck, curiosity to show in a brief look as she waits for what might happen. She'll even give Jack another twenty to 'find' if needed.

The ten dollars is extracted from Mortimer, and slipped securely into a garter belt, before that hand can travel up her inner thigh. "I think the question is, what won't I do?" Kitten says, with a toss of her dark hair. Her other hand comes to rest against the side of the table, and she shifts her hips forward. "Why don't you go ahead and find out for yourself?"

Logan doesn't move his hand once it's there, his gaze directing, now, towards Mortimer, his expression slightly pensive as he concentrates, ignoring, now, the exchange between stripper and patron and his companion. For a short amount of time, there's nothing happening, not visibly, but then perhaps Miranda, should she look, will notice that Logan's ordinarily glassy pale eyes have become a more vibrant green, detectable even in this shifting light.

The pimp takes a breath, surprise ribboning through his aura, before concentration sets back in. As for Mortimer…

There's something happening. Something between receptors and pathways and neurotransmitters. Surges and redirections of dopamine and a distinct shift. There's a lot of ways it can be described scientifically, and you can say the same for what happens when the dip of a hammer comes down on a plate of glass, calculate the rivets of breakage combined with the force of momentum but really, in the end, it's as simple as—

It breaks.

Even Kitten's capabilities can't detract from the way the world bends in a familiar pattern to Mortimer, a headache spiking through his brain along with a shortness of breath that could be related, might not be, probably is. Chemicals control so much.

Mortimer stands there, silent, not saying a thing as he stares at the woman's stomach. He's completely still. Then, possibly something only Logan and Kitten might notice, his left eye starts to violently shake, then suddenly looks up at her, completely independent of the right. Then it starts looking around in other directions, and suddenly… thunk, his head falls directly into her lap.

Mortimer briefly finds himself in a dreamscape, staring at a seven foot tall man in an executioner's mask with the words 'Denial' written vertically in blood.

The aura of fear overwhelms every other around Mortimer's body in the real world, still completely lifeless.

A sword thrusts through the executioner's stomach, then extends into a chainsaw, cutting the man in half to reveal another Mortimer with a bright toothy smile once the top half of the man's body falls to the ground. "Sorry, Mortimer, it was you."

His body springs up from the stripper's lap, then his hand springs out in an attempt to violently squeeze her neck with a gleeful smile. That aura of fear is suddenly overwhelmed with excitement, relief, happiness, and if Miranda's never seen an aura for it before, murder. "Oh joy of joys, I can kill again!" he exclaims for the entire bar to hear, still locked in his spell of hypnosis, not realizing all the people around him.

For Miranda, things are getting… interesting. From the aura's read, the way they flicker and pulse, she picks up on a variety of things. And yet, even what she picks up, doesn't quite prepare her for the reaction that comes over Jack. When he slumps over, head into the dancer's lap, she blinks, and almost reaches out to him, her gaze snapping to Logan in question. But before she might voice it, Jack's back up, and choking poor Kitten. "Jack?!" Wow. Talk about your changes! She was /so/ not prepared for this!

Kitten's scream is cut off when the hand goes around her neck, her fingers clasping around his arm and her brown eyes wide. Her legs kick in panic as opposed to true defense, a bill or two of money floating to the ground as she tries to squirm out of that grip - but Mortimer certainly knows what he's doing in that regard. One fortunate fact - the hand at her throat cuts off her voice, breaking the hypnosis.

For what it's worth, anyway. There are other madnesses to count on.

Logan is already scrambling out of the way, a flailing hand from Kitten knocking over his wine glass where it spatters and smashes on the floor. People are turning to look at that exclamation, even as the music continues, but there are men in suits quickly moving through the crowd to break up whatever's gone on. Logan, however, is moving to grip Miranda's arm and pull her away a few steps backwards. Linderman would probably not appreciate his employee getting some violence on her.

Mortimer looks around when he realizes there are people, then tosses Kitten to the ground, releasing her throat in the processes, and moves to slide out of his seat. "Men in suits, I do hate a man in a suit, but I'll have to indulge later." He's suddenly trying to cut through the crowd himself, attempting to head to the exit with a glass in his hand for some reason. "Now, let's see, the bomb went off and then…" he mutters to himself, as if trying to remember where he is and why he's there.

Miranda is just stunned, and luckily, Logan is there to help remind her that it might not be a good idea to be sitting that close to a madman. "Jack??" His name is spoken again, though it's garbled as she stumbles backwards out of the seat to stand near Logan. Wide eyes watch as the man tosses Kitten aside, and heads for the door, her head turning to peer at Logan as she murmurs, "And this is what the boss /wanted/? Shouldn't we go after him?" Fuck, this was not exactly what she had in mind, that's for certain.

"Sorry, my dear." Logan's hand loosens from her arm, watching avidly as Mortimer tracks his way towards the door, mostly to make sure he doesn't kill anyone on his way out. "Apparently, he's no good to the Group when he's got a conscience, and Linderman wanted his boy back. Think of it as giving a cat back its claws - anything else isn't natural."

He glances towards where Kitten is getting to her feet, snatching back her top and making with a hurry upstairs with a venomous glare in Logan's direction, who only steals his attention back to Miranda, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. "I did my bit." No intention of hunting down a madman, it seems. "He'll be fine. He was before."

"That's Mister Jack!" Mortimer corrects before bursting out the doors, running down the street, cutting through alleys as he makes his way to god knows where, singing. "Things that bother you, never bother me, I'm as happy as pie, a-ha! Livin' in the sunlight, lovin' in the moonlight, havin' a wonderful time!"

Miranda is hard to read in that moment as Jack leaves her behind, his shift of moods, of base sanity, catching her offguard completely. Brows furrow above hazel eyes as she watches the man disappear out the doors, finally to turn towards Logan, "So do you call the boss, or do I, to let him know a near-murdering madman is back on the streets, and may need to be watched before he gathers too much attention?" There is much held back by the woman, expression oddly blank.

Logan's head cants to the side, before a smile alights his features. "Well if you put it in that tone with that face, you can make anything sound bad," he says. "I did as I was told, you remember that. Remember that when you go and call up the boss and tell him what happened, that you wanted to take care of this, not me. What was I to do, lie to you, or work on picking out your claws you got hooked into the boy? I'm not a patient man, Miranda."

A security guard moves on over, mutters something to Logan, who dismisses with a nod and focuses back on the woman. "For the record, I suspect the boss will be all too happy to hear that everything's back to normal. He likes his women pretty and his men psychopathic."

"Someone could have at least warned me he'd be like /that/ though.." Insanity is such a many tiered thing, after all. Miranda shakes her head, then moves away from Logan, murmuring, "Don't worry. I'll be sure and tell the boss you did your work just fine.. " A hand brushes a lock of hair from her cheek, tucking it away behind her ear before she sighs, "Catch you around then… best to make this call as soon as possible.." And with that, she starts to head for the door, still uneasy about the whole thing now. She so hates working blind like this.

"Take care," Logan calls towards her back, and watching her go for as long as it takes for her to disappear into the milling crowd, before he's swiveling on a heel to move back towards the bar and get a renewed glass of wine. His remains in a splash of glass and dampness on the ground, until someone who's job it is to clean up messes sets about doing so.


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License