Participants:
| Scene Title | Not On The Clock |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Two people with an agenda in a confession booth. |
| Date | May 23, 2011 |
Eltingville Blocks: Saint Clare's
Low light dapples against skin through small holes in the side of the confession box. Shadow with some hint of light— what one confesses in the shadows should be kept between one person and God, but most of the time the room isn't used for confessions these days.
And no one's around to hear the soft words that Kasha Deanna Beauchamp speaks under her breath while she holds a small necklace in her hand. No cross, like one might expect in this room. It's not God she feels the need to confess to, but someone else equally as distant in this once house of God. If not more so.
"I know you would understand and forgive me, but I am still sorry for what I am doing… and what I must do."
There's noise outside, laughter unbefitting for a confessional. People mingling and talking, but inside the confessional there is privacy, quiet— Or that's the idea.
Unfortunately the confessional has very thin walls and another room.
And so when someone enters into the one adjacent, Cash hears it.
The dull smack of boots in loose-limbed rangy steps, the swing of a body haphazardly entering the neighbouring space and the soft thud of falling-sitting onto padded bench. Logan doesn't bother shutting the door after himself or anything, more occupied with digging around his pockets for the implements he's after. The small, dense lighter. The silver cigarette case of the same metallic sheen, and these things work together in fingers that have done this ritual a thousand, a million times before in lighting up. Soon, smoke is lifting to the roof of the claustraphobic little confessional, once Logan breathes it out in a sigh of relief.
Life is hard. He has an office. But that's where people expect to find him.
Is the problem.
He's in a suit of black and silver pinstripe, missing the jacket but not the waistcoat buttoned closed with brass. His shirt is a bright splash of red, collar laid open and bare as if he were in the process of getting undressed, which is an affect he likes on any gender. There is an exotic rimming of black around his eyes to make the pale discs of green irises stand out, a vain touch as hesitant as it isn't selfconscious. His eyes close, which is why he doesn't immediately notice that he has company. Sort of.
The good thing about confessionals, they should be private. The woman who goes just by Cash at the moment closes her eyes in the silence that predates his entrance— and the sudden smell of smoke and sigh on the other side. The first sound from her side since his entrance comes in the form of a shifting of fabric. She presses her lips against the two rings dangling from a simple necklace, and then places them around her neck and under her clothes once again.
The small holes grant her a small view of the man on the other side, better illuminated than her, since he's left the door open.
"You may want to consider quitting— Those will make you look older than your years." The words could be a joke, but the voice is without humor.
Logan startles, but not by much — there are scarier things in this world than unexpected voices, and that it's a woman's means Logan's hand isn't ducking for the gun beneath his jacket — except he isn't wearing a jacket, or a holster, and so aborted muscle memory saves him a little embarrassment. His fingers grip his cigarette tighter, spilling a scattering off grey ash onto his knee, embers dying rather than burning. Smoke makes thin, snaky wisps through the gaps in the barrier between them, although the most of his exhale is redirected, draconic streams through nostrils and left to disperse into the air. He already looks older than his years, in some ways, with the thinning of blonde hair, the shadows under his eyes, some of his scars.
"I've quit before," he says, squinting through to what he can make out of the woman on the other side of the barricade, in her darker booth. "It's not for me, I'm afraid. You don't have company in there, do you?"
"I am alone— except for you and perhaps God, if one believes," Cash says in the same quiet tones, but there's a hint of at least some hint of humor to the way she talks about God and belief. The shadows make it difficult to see much of her, but the gray blue eyes peek through the holes in the side, dim light catching them enough to highlight the steely quality to them. Bleached hair falls to frame her cheek bones, as she looks through and at him.
"I have noticed that the things that are bad for us are usually the ones we have the hardest time discarding. Vices make us who we are, as much as anything else." No doubt she means more than just cigarette smoking, in this case.
"Since I am alone, would you like to join me— or would you like me to join you?" Somehow the calm and confident tones have an aire about them quite fitting for the location. And what most the women in the building are there for.
Blinking lazily back at her, Logan contemplates both her words and invitation in silence. Most of the sentiment discarded — whore poetry is something he's heard before, talk of vices and such, and scores no impact on the pimp. He lacks the imagination to take it as anything else, such as, perhaps, sincerity, but doesn't sneer at it either. A glance crosses to the watch on his wrist, and antiquated but handsome thing, before he moves.
Light spills in on Cash as he pushes open the door to her booth, light that's knifed aside by Logan's slender silhouette, resplendent in fine suit wool, satin backing, red silk-cotton. He stands in the open mouth of the confessional for a moment, leaning back to see if anyone is around beyond the source of the light and laughter of the brothel, before stepping his way inside, turning to shut the door behind him and trailing smoke as he goes.
Sincerity is something this woman possesses in spades, but that in itself is a selling point. Doesn't mean people need to believe it's genuine, because it usually isn't. "The times are as hard on you as the cigarette smoke," Cash says in the soft voice as she moves to stand, rising to a height that nearly matches his own, rising enough to offer him the seated position in the confessional.
A hand brushes against the wool, then snakes under to find the softer silk cotton.
"I have seen you before," she adds on. It takes a moment before she continues, to explain. "From even before I came here. My previous place of employment was in your former home— I was hired help at the Corinthian until recently. And you stood out." The sneaking hand straightens a fold of his shirt as she adds, "Still do."
Beneath his waistcoat, Logan is thin, and rangy, and warm. His hand comes up to rest on her forearm, smoothing up as he listens, a furrow in his brow at claims of knowing each other before. Smooths out of news of the Corinthian. No matter. "I do try," he says, cigarette held away. "I like to think that I never forget a pretty face, but I'll admit— I see a great deal of them." By now, serotonin would probably make it easier for Cash to dismiss that remark as witty, or at least inoffensive. Logan will, unfortunately, have to rely on the fact she's already touching him.
He turns around her, in a step that would carry him for the bench, although he doesn't sit down yet. Does drop the cigarette on the wooden floor, however, and crush it out with the heel of his shoe. Casual sacrilege, but that's rather the theme of this place.
"You're not following me, are you?"
There's no hint of any offense on her face, in fact Cash manages the smallest smile tease of a smile, lips curling on the edges in a way that makes an already wide mouth a little wider. For her, that's practically laughing— but he could hardly know that.
"No," she says, in the softest lie of omission— not him she's following in the end, but him she's following to get where she wants to go. As he turns around her, she follows, almost a dance with her hand in place. The proximity carries a smell of fresh dirt and flowers against her skin, soft compared to the cigarette smoke, but still present.
"Whether I was following you or not, here is where we have both ended up." Her breath smells like raspberries as she leans foward and up, closing the distance between them to press a kiss against his lips.
It's flattering, to be the one seduced, particularly when you spend so much time on the other side. Logan is compliant without giving, at first, still beneath kiss before, gently does it, it's replied to in push back. His hands find their place on her hips, thumbs settled into the sink of her pelvic bone, insisting her against him so that when he steps back, she's tugged with. He bites permission to deepen the kiss, on a fast track from chastely seduced to claiming his own territory, and ends it himself. His smile cuts broad across his features, simultaneously youthful while also making the lines at his eyes crease deeper.
"If you're on the clock— "
They're close enough that his words are muttered just by her jawline, his voice loud even if it scrapes above a husky whisper. "Then I'll warn you, I don't buy from the bar either."
In this line or work, dresses and skirts tend to be more practical than pants, and normall Cash is the practical sort— but she also prefers pants. And slacks serve as a hurdle to the over anxious customers, as well. Prolongs the moment. The lips twinge toward a smile against his cheek, felt far more than seen.
"Usually I do require cash for anything more than this," she says with a tone that actually sounds humored for an instant. "There are payments other than that, which you can give that no client can," she adds on, as her lips seek out his earlobe. The seducer always has an agenda, but she's going to be upfront with hers. Somewhat.
"All I ask is that you consider me for any special clients, close personal friends, that you may have— any high-rollers, as the casino would have said. And if you can do that…" she stops to deepen the kiss at the nape of his neck. "Then I think I can spare quite a lot of time I could be on the clock for an audition."
More occupied with the slope of her jaw, or the line of her neck that Logan chases with the tips of his fingers, he might have otherwise been attentive — snagged on close personal friends instead of his mouth twisting into a bitter smile at the concept of high rollers in a whore house like this. "You'll find yourself at the hands of soldiers, love," he says, head lifting, leaning back to look at her. "So that our boys have a place to let off a little bit of steam. But yeah, sure." His hips press to her's, pushing enough that she'll find the confessional wall just beneath her, the gapped wall shedding dappled light onto Logan's face like a veil, patterned over the shoulder of shirt and waistcoat.
"I can see what I can do."