I Like My Rabbit Stewed

[Black Philip]

This had gone on long enough. Lisa-Joe Hampton crossed the first floor of The White Rabbit, to deal with two very loud customers. They were fighting over a game of pool, and each had accused the other of cheating. They were big biker men. One was bald and thick, with a tattoo of Chinese symbols spread across his neck. The other was big too, but was tall and less wide. He had gauges in both ears, and bright green fireballs for eyes. If Lisa-Joe hadn\'t been so distracted by the two men shouting, she would\'ve thought the second was damn fine.

The bar was a rough place. Lisa-Joe liked it that way. It done her good business these first two years. However, when she felt like a fight was likely to get violent, she always stepped in. A quick use of persuasion on both men ended the altercation. She kicked out baldy. He was always having problems. A bouncer of massive size, escorted the man out of the bar. The second man was allowed to stay. Perhaps even in her panic, Lisa-Joe did recognize how attractive he was. The mind is a funny thing.

With the pool table reset, and any onlookers given the death stare, Lisa-Joe returned to her place behind the bar. In her absence drink orders had pilled up. She made each beverage with dexterity. The tip jar was full, and finally the patrons were attended too. Lisa-Joe was about to call it a night.

She was wearing black leggings, and her steam-punk corset. Short black boots with yellow laces kept her feet covered, and a fishnet shawl was placed over her shoulders. Her makeup tonight was simple. She\'d been rushed to open, and so not much time had been put into it. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail. Lisa-Joe found herself agitated. The night was terribly busy, and plus the fight, she needed a break. She was washing a few tumblers when the voice of a patron made her look up.

[skeggsismad]

“Oh my god.  I see Claud.”  Maggy exclaimed, her high pitched feminine voice almost squealing with enthusiasm. She was hyped up on a combination of coffee and alcohol this time around and Emil didn’t know what to say or do to calm the mortal down.

“My word! What say you?” Emil asked, acting as surprised as he possibly could when the whole evening that’s the only topic the woman had been babbling on about. She’d managed to drag Emil out, wearing her suggestive black dress that hung upon her frame the sort with the exaggerated v-neck dip that showed a bit more than cleavage. It was punk rock because as Maggy had put it, ‘Anything that’s ripped is punk rock’. Emil had protested it- even more so when she’d tried to dress him up in a bunch of spiked barb wrist bracelets and things that he saw the younger 20-something fellows sporting like the sign of teen rebellion at its freshest.

He had convinced Maggy to settled for his causal long and loose fitting white dress shirt that was buttoned down a third of the way to expose his rather (fake) tanned chest, coupled with tight fitting jet black jeans that snugged his frame nicely. Dangling from his neck was a silver snake chain necklace that clung tightly enough it almost appeared to be a choke-collar. His shoes were per the usual: caramel colored Italian made leather shoes that gave his simple thrown-together-on-the-spur-of-the-moment outfit look like it had a bit of class to it. It still wasn’t the typical outfit of the other patrons that frequented The White Rabbit, but so far he hadn’t been thrown looks and for that Emil was appreciative.

“I see Claud. Oh my god. What am I gonna do, what the hell am I gonna do?”

The panic continued as the blonde haired beauty fixated on a man of the opposite side of the room who was slowly but surely approaching the stairs. He’d soon ascend them, and Emil didn’t think twice before he laid one of his paws on the woman’s shoulders and looked her in the face with a grin,

“Close your eyes and think of England. He’ll never notice.”

Maggy’s face crumpled with appall, gaping open for a brief of perhaps two seconds before she managed to shout the word,

“Emil!”

She never did take good humor when she was drunk, and although he felt somewhat terrible for saying the remark (especially as loudly as he had) he was rather upset that she had managed to drag him down here in a place he wasn’t fully comfortable with. The confrontation he was witnessing in the corner of his eye was only one instance of evidence that supported his theory that the ragged and haggard attended places like these, although he supposed he had seen some less barbarically acting creatures around here such as the bouncer splitting the fighting blockheads up. After his lapse of inattentiveness, Emil waved his hand at the girl and nudged his head back to looking at the man who had now vanished up the set of stairs.

“It was only a joke. Shush you drunken lassie and go get a piece of that which lies yonder, or I’ll make sure to give a grand introduction of you.”
 
Maggy shot back a somewhat bitter glance but she followed commands almost like a dog- and Emil gave a playful slap to her behind, calling out to her, “Get a move on it before he runs too far!”

She might have been in earshot to hear that, but he gathered with how lovestruck she was at the moment, Maggy wouldn’t be hearing anything but the words of her beloved.

Spinning on his heels, Emil knew he wasn’t going to sit like a moping broad waiting for Maggy’s return. He could see at the bar a woman who was looking particularly upset over something or the other. Emil wouldn’t assume what, but he couldn’t stand to let the female wallow by herself there and he soon appeared, ringed fingers tapping on the counter in front of him just in case he had failed to rouse her attention with his very presence.

“You’ve such gorgeous hair, missus.” The vampire spoke, sporting a closed mouth smile that looked duck like in nature, emphasizing his thin upper lip in contrast to his bottom thick one. Although it was always incredibly difficult and impossible to say for certain in crowded places such as these, Emil could sense a sort of vampiric nature radiating from the redhead, but he couldn’t be sure. He found it absolutely mindboggling to try to estimate an exact age, but if he were to guess she felt to be…oh, the same age, perhaps somewhat older or stronger. In which case, he took note to try to read her with caution. Getting into some sort of conflict over vampire politics tonight was not what he had been planning on.

[Black Philip]

Lisa-Joe looked up and saw one of the strangest looking people to ever walk in the rabbit. He was too, clique. His white shirt stood out in a sea of black, and his snake necklace looked to Lisa-Joe\'s eyes like ice sickles on a Christmas tree. She observed his stance, and demeanor, and instantly recognized him as someone she knew. She didn\'t know him personally, but there was something... familiar about this man. She put down the glass she\'d been washing, and gave the strange man her full attention.

"Thanks sugar," she said in a calm voice. "Nice chain."

She waited for a response, instead of returning to her work.

[skeggsismad]

Such compliments rolled right off of Emil like a bowling ball that had just been thrown. He basked in the flattery for a moment, changing up his grin to an open mouthed one that bore rather straight and shiny teeth. From experience he was able to hide those fangs of his excellently- but he gathered the redhead would see through such facades in an instant.

He plucked the chain from his neck with the hand that was not preoccupied leaning on the table, raising the piece of jewelry closer to the light so it could sparkle. For a moment he was swept up in the memories of his trinket and the excitement to share the tale burned within him.

“Why, this! Yes I retrieved—”    Emil exclaimed, followed by a pause as the vampire draped the necklace back to hanging as it had been before. The hand that had been examining the snake pendant now dispensed a dismissive wave as if to cast away a layer of smog in front of him, followed by a hearty chuckle belting from the cheerful man.

 “O, thoust must excuse me missus. I have the tendency to go on about things which really needn’t be gone on about- why if I recounted where I’d gotten this necklace in extraneous detail without ye intriguing about it, it’d lead way to ye explaining the origins of your dazzling locks- Mercy! Mercy me!”  Emil laughed some more, keeping perfect eye contact with the woman in what he hoped would show the utmost of respect and polities. The laughter seemed to dwindle down and his facial expression drooped as if in deep thought before another expression of horror crossed the vampire’s face and he gasped dramatically, clutching both hands to his chest as if he were experiencing the heart attack of the century.

“…Oh  my giddy aunt! My gratuitous apologies, missus, for I have skipped the finer of introductions! Or forget them if a request for forgiveness is something you find curt. You may call me Emil Elwira,” His voice was all over the charts as he spoke- struck with enthusiasm when he made his exclamations and friendly sounding when he offered his name, as well as his hand that extended out to Lisa-Joe in expectance of a handshake, even in a place like this .

[Black Philip]

Lisa-Joe coked a curious eyebrow. Lisa-Joe\'s mind was turning over and over as Emil introduced himself. In the south, Lisa-Joe would have used an expression to describe this man that everyone would have understood. However, in the city, she was required to translate such speak into Yankee terms. The expression for a person like Emil is "he\'s an odd squid." Yes, to Lisa-Joe he was a very odd squid indeed. Regardless of how strange he was, he was a patron of The White Rabbit, and Lisa-Joe liked him for that. She would have liked him more if he had a cup of blood in his hand, but there was time for such things.

"I\'m Lisa-Joe Hampton, the proprietor of this establishment," the Brujah said. Her accent was thicker than usual. She was playing it up. To speak in true southern drawl was an odd thing in this city. Seeing as how this, Emil, was about the oddest thing she\'d seen in a while, she felt okay being a little odd too.

[skeggsismad]

Though he had extended his hand, the other vampire seemed to have no intentions of shaking it. Somewhat embarrassed, Emil dropped his hand to his side and tried not to show his dismay at having made somewhat of a minor social friction.

“I defer, you’re quite right. This sort of thing is dreadfully formal considering the setting!” He laughed a great deal to take any tension out of the situation.
 “Ms. Hampton it is, then? Or mayhaps it’s Mrs. Hampton or you would prefer Lisa-Joe?” He threw out all of the possibilities in a quickly spoken breath, trying to save himself the time of figuring out which of all the given names she’d prefer. He decided that considering how informality was the set tone of this interaction she’d go for a first name rather than a last, but Emil could never know for sure so he thought it would be worth it to give the question a stab.

“Regardless of that bit, I’d say! You’ve done a bravo job with The White Rabbit, Pookie.” He glanced around the room briefly and gestured with one arm spread out towards the room as he looked as if he were showing an art exhibit of some sort to Lisa-Joe, although the gesture was soon dropped when he returned to his posture of leaning on the table.

“Albeit it isn’t the sort of place I mainly frequent, it certainly has its appeal and doesn’t show any signs of the economic troubles! Why, were I as daring as you, it has always been a pipedream of mine to renovate one of the olden theaters of the yesterdays and form a theatre troupe within the city.” As he spoke, Emil’s hands danced around illustrating his story. He gave a point to himself whenever he mentioned phrases similar to ‘I’ or ‘me’ and would give a slight nudge of his hand to Lisa-Joe whenever he was referencing to her.
Leaning over the counter and closer to Lisa-Joe he would attempt to get as close to her ear as was possible and whisper into it,

“Say, if it ever were to become a reality, now I knowjust the person to seek wisdom upon how to make the rooms therein said theatre lively!”
Thus he pulled away and gave a wink to Lisa-Joe as he did so, still grinning like a madman in his flurry of enthusiasm.

[Black Philip]

Lisa-Joe laughed warmly at Emil. He was the sweetest, strangest thing. As he spoke, she fixed herself a glass of blood, and put salt on the rim. Finally, she stuck a celery stick in it. The bloody Mary trick was a regular one. Vampires ordered them to not reveal their supernatural nature to humans. Of course, Lisa-Joe did make a great real Bloody Mary.

"Why aren\'t you as sweet as honey in a glass of ice tea on a hot day," Lisa-Joe said with a smile. The southern metaphor was her favorite. The lady vampire could tell she was older, and also that despite his vocabulary, this man was not English, or American. Also, she still couldn\'t quite place where she\'d seen him before.

"I could just eat you up if you keep speaking so damn pretty. Where you from darling?"

[skeggsismad]

Emil was beginning to realize that not all of his questions were going to be answered. Surely this made Lisa-Joe seem particularly interesting because he was always on the edge of his seat, waiting for what her conclusion would be to a query which never did come, such as what he was to call her. Leaving it up to the imagination meant that Emil would settle with the formalist of all of them in order not to be crass.

He watched the woman prepare a drink and felt his nose tingle with a sort of desire for blood. It wasn’t necessarily ideal of course- blood that wasn’t drawn from the body had a tendency not to taste the same- but it was tempting indeed and the man’s gaze linger on the mock Bloody Mary for just a moment before he tipped his head bashfully to what sounded to him like a compliment.

As sweet as honey? My! What a charming lady!

Too, the additional complimentary statements made him feel like a hot mess of bashfulness. Emil did love a bit of flattery sprinkled here and there.

“Well I can’t say that would be the first time I’ve been bitten, certainly! Yet I will say, being someone’s dinner never sounded pleasant to me no matter who did the chomping.”

He obviously was hinting lightly to his nature and being resurrected and all, although that didn’t mean the context was entirely clear and it could have been mistaken as a sort of sexuality preference or kink. It wouldn’t be uncommon talk he gathered in an environment like this. He’d winked once more, too, just to add a hint of flirtatiousness back into the conversation.

“Most would count my accent and say I was a child of the fine lady of Great Britain. Though I was born in Poland, I shall always say England rests in my heart as home sweet home! I suppose it’s all how you want to look at it, the question of where I come from,”

His hand reached out to attempt to caress Lisa-Joe’s face in one of those kindly ways, his fingers hovering over one side of her cheek, wisping across the skin for only a second or two as if in total adoration.

“But you? Let me take a stab, I try to learn myself with accents within languages. I’d say Ms. Hampton that you sound from Southern United States. But the dialect…oh, Georiga, is it?” He thought himself fair at detecting the differences between accents, for as an actor it was his job to be able to accurately portray even a slight difference of region tones.

[Black Philip]

Lisa-Joe was enjoying this encounter more than she\'d first anticipated. She took a plastic straw from the counter, opened it, and placed it in her blood. She then took a sip as Emil guessed her accent. He was close, but not exact. However, a one state difference was not to be scoffed at, especially since most people thought there was only one southern accent.

"I\'m from South Carolina," Lisa-Joe corrected. "Although I must say, Georgia is pretty damn close." She winked at him, and shot a reassuring smile. Emil needed a drink, and Lisa-Joe needed a tip. She decided to try and take control  for just a moment.

"Can I get you a drink," she asked sweetly. "I hate drinking alone."

[skeggsismad]

Emil’s reaction to being told he was wrong was quite an overreacting- but it’s what he knew how to do. The male gasped, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

Oh! What a treachery! I must brush up on my accents, indeed.
He extended his hand to attempt to lightly brush his on hers in an empathetic, apologetic manner. He looked Lisa Joe in the eye as he did this, shaking his head slightly and explaining himself breathily.

“Dear me! Being so close from the correct answer is such tantalizing, isn’t it? It’s on the tip of your tongue and then---you lose it! You’d think by now I would be praised in telling the difference, but alas, I see I might need practicing. Mayhaps by the end of our socializing I’ll know a thing or two!”

He didn’t say ‘by the end of the night’ or ‘once we’ve been mingling together for a while’, for Emil honestly didn’t want to put preconceived notions on how this encounter would unfold. From experienced he’d learned that some people simply didn’t get along and if he rocked any uneasy tides he’d be the first to step down. It was nice to meet someone at least of his years that didn’t want to bite his head off or put on airs. Talking like normal people was a pleasant experience indeed, a rarity he thought in the vampire world.
Lifting his hand back from Lisa Joe and to his side, he tousled a string of hair that hung near one of his eyes.

“A drink would be lovely darling! Do you take plastic? Oh, bother. I think I have some paper money on me. And, dearie, keep the change. I’ve not kept up with the tipping rate around these parts but hopefully it’ll be satisfactory.”
He had caught on to the fact that he was being offered blood and he accepted it with such enthusiasm that indicated that there was nothing more he’d rather do, even if this were to be his dying moment. Though, Emil really didn’t like blood that was pre-drawn from the living, he was willing to be excited and interested for the sake of keeping the redhead entertained and conversing.

He dug into his pocket and pulled out a fifty dollar bill, sliding it on the table towards the woman.

Down the stairs people had been running up and down, but it was when he heard Maggy’s voice that Emil turned in the direction of the stairs to see that the blonde hadn’t noticed him, latched onto a rather gruffly dressed young man who was drunk and gripping the woman possessively. Emil didn’t tsk nor did he seem upset by this. He turned right around with a sizely grin on his face to explain to Lisa-Joe what was afoot.

“That’s Magnolia, we call her Maggy. She’s been swept in by that boy like a lost puppydog- so in head over heels in love, if I could bottle it and sell it as a potion I’d be a billionaire!”  

It looked rather like lust from the outside perspective and if Emil thought long and hard about it he might come around to seeing that the relationship between Maggy and the strapping young lad was nothing but animalistic instincts. Yet, the vampire had a tendency to warp such things and embellish them with tales of romanticism and unconditional love. What use was life if there was not the man to spin the ordinary into fantasy?

[Black Philip]

Lisa-Joe\'s sharp senses picked up the appealing odor of paper money. In order for a human to smell cash, they have to put their nose to the piece and sniff violently. Enhanced vampire senses made the smell of cloth and dye detectable at a whiff. When she saw the amount of cash being tossed her way, the bar owner decided Emil was her new favorite customer. The added order to "keep the change" made this Kindred\'s company even more worth keeping. She pocketed the fifty, and pulled a second glass from the bar. Without taking her eyes off Emil, she made the drink with almost supernatural speed. A second \'Bloody Mary\' was now sitting close to him, and Lisa-Joe shot a dose of that old southern charm as she placed it.

"Thanks again sugar," Lisa-Joe teased. "Where\'ve you been all my un-life?" She opened her mind and shot him a quick mental note.

The blood is pretty fresh. We drew it only this evening. I hope you like it.

She took a sip of her own, and made a face of satisfaction. It was at this moment in time, between the two people above mentioned, when an inciting incident decided to take place. For what seemed a chance meeting between a Southern Belle, and an eccentric Pole, suddenly became a very important meeting for both parties. It all began when Emil\'s Maggy came down the stairs with her new Bo. Lisa-Joe disagreed with Emil\'s interpretation of a satisfying love. The gruff man was gripping Maggy in a possessive way, and something in the way that he looked at her was discomforting. Lisa-Joe couldn\'t suppress a slight frown. She had no reason to intervene, but she wanted to know what the man\'s intentions were. For some unknown reason, Lisa-Joe had a bad feeling about what she was watching. Perhaps it was her natural distaste for men? Could it have been his body language? Maybe it was a vibe Lisa-Joe could detect as a vampire. Regardless of the source, Lisa-Joe needed to get closer to Maggy. She looked to Emil, her new friend, and in him found a means to an end. She probed him with a question.

"Your friend looks a little out of it," she tried to say harmlessly. "Could you go check on her?"

[skeggsismad]

The mental communication of Lisa-Joe indeed startled Emil Elwira, which was evident with the expression planted upon his face. Most of his friends being human meant that he was unaccustomed to being probed like that- although since Lisa had let her guards down mentally as far as he could detect so did he, receiving the message smoothly. Emil didn’t however respond mentally, instead taking a delicate sip of the faux Bloody Mary and making an mmmmm sound afterward.

“Delicious, Ms. Hampton. I’m eternally grateful. And I suppose I could ask you the same thing pookie! Where have you been?!” He gave a chuckle. Indeed, he had needed some good company, not to say that Maggy wasn’t but…she clearly had vanished and left him alone.

“Maggy? Why, she’d quite possibly die of embarrassment if I were to interrupt her! She’s been trying to catch that boy’s eye for months, poor dear.”

He sighed thoughtfully and decided to demonstrate that- turning to catch Maggy’s case and giving a wave that was promptly rejected by Maggy who made a shooing gesture and turned back to her beloved, drowning on and on about some mundane topic.

“You see? I’ve cordially accompanied her here in the chance that…mm…Claud, I do believe his name is.”

It occurred to Emil then that whether he liked it or not, he was bumping heads with a vampire of his kind that was of equal or more age than he. That olden proverb, ‘Honor your elders’ , couldn’t have been more true in the political hierarchy of the living dead. Though Emil was theatrical and lighthearted generally, he had learned long ago not to question or defy those who harnessed greater power. Whether he wanted to disturb Maggy or not was irrelevant if he didn’t want to stir the pot and draw attention to himself. Waving his hand and giving a soft laugh, Emil corrected himself.

“…But, of course, I  could simply check up on her, no doubt. One moment, Ms. Hampton.”  

Like a pet who followed commands on cue, the vampire gave a gracious head nod to Lisa-Joe before he turned to approach the couple that had swung near the pool table and were already heading their way out. When Maggy saw Emil approaching her eyes widened and she continued to mouth phrases like ‘go away’ and ‘back off’. By the time this Claud fellow had the chance to spot Emil approaching, his eyes narrowed and he stood his ground. Maggy didn’t catch on to the fact that her newfound partner was getting irritated until a few moments later, to which she turned up to him, rubbing her hand on Claud’s chest and trying to issue apologies.

“I’m sorry, Claud, like, he’s totally fucking nuts. I have no idea who he is,” Maggy lied…and even managed to drop the F-bomb, something she knew that would widen Emil’s eyes and make him mentally wag a scolding finger.

Claud didn’t disagree with Maggy’s apologies, nor did he fully accept them. He just stood there, staring at Emil with narrowed eyes and wandering pupils that couldn’t stay still. Compared to Emil, Claud  fit in with the theme of the club. His ripped up dark jeans and grimy looking graphic t-shirt fit the genre of grunge. A reddish-brown five o’clock shadow clung to his face and his hair hung down over his eyes umanagable as if he’d just rolled out of bed. It was clear even to Emil why Maggy might have fallen for such a man- for he had a pudgy babyface that looked to be infinitely stuck at nineteen while the rest of his body was bulky and matched to a man in his mid-twenties.

“That true?” He asked, peering at Emil for confirmation Of Maggy’s lies.
Emil bit his lip, pausing on a response. He turned back to Lisa-Joe, wherever she may be right now, as if to look for an indication of what to do. He really wasn’t sure what the other vampire had expected of him and he needed  a hint or something on what she wanted him to do rather than what he was inclined to do: wish the two on their way and hope it a pleasant one.

[Black Philip]

Lisa-Joe was much closer than Emil had anticipated, and so when he turned he found her only a few feet away from him. This Claud was giving off an even worse vibe then before. The Rabbit\'s mistress stood close to Emil, and eyed the hulking man with little fear. She sensed he was defiantly human, but beyond that, she saw a darkness in his eyes. Every fiber of her being told her that Maggy should not leave with this man. She could have easily separated them by force, but she was running a business, and such things would look strange. She needed to invade this man\'s mind, but wasn\'t at a distance to do so. Emil\'s concerned expression about what to do next would be answered shortly.

"Emil, who is this whore," she said, indicating Maggy. Her tone became school girl like, and her actions were that of drunken slut. She was playing a game.  "I thought you only loved me."

Their mental link still open, Lisa-Joe sent her true intentions. I need you to help me piss Maggy and this guy off. I need to get closer to him. Your friend is in danger.

[skeggsismad]

Although rather shocked at first by Lisa-Joe’s unusual behavior and crass words, Emil soon caught on even before the mental message was delivered. His worried expression turned to a smirk, for he felt this was an excellent demonstration of his improvisation skills and acting. Theatre troupes he had worked with in the past had always create imaginary hypothetical conflicts sometimes without announcing it, intending for others to catch on and assign themselves a role that would be more interesting and a true show of their abilities as an Actor. This wasn’t exactly the same thing…namely, neither Claud nor Maggy would have any way of knowing that what he was about to do was fake. However, being that he was asked by another vampire, if he wanted to avoid any sort of conflict he had no choice. If he upset Maggy, it would be better than to get into some sort of tiff with a vampire and end up literally dead at the end of the day rather than the reanimated death he walked now.

“Oh of course she isn’t a whore- whores you have to pay for. This one didn’t charge,” Emil’s voice had changed drastically to a deeper, gruffer and perhaps stereotypically more ‘masculine’ tone. His regular voice was somewhat flamboyant and had been called many a  time flaming by others for no reason other than Emil had a tendency to speak high pitched and theatrically regardless of if he was on stage or not. It would be quite evident to Lisa-Joe and Maggy as well that he was putting on a show- but the only one it mattered to convince seemed to be the only one who wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, dear Claud. He gave a flirtatious wink at Maggy that he knew he was going to have to apologize for later.

Maggy’s facial expression was beyond fuming. Her eyebrows crinkled together in a tight furrow and her cheeks flushed with color, followed by her extraordinarily loud protest,

“I am not a whore! I’m a Christian!” Her face flashed shock when she realized that Claud didn’t know that and wasn’t going to like that statement. Quickly she tried to retract it before he could say a word. “I mean…I’m not a Christian, okay, but I’m still not a whore! Emil is lying, Claud, okay?”

Emil still retained his cheesy smirk and Claud roughly pushed Maggy off him, eyeballing her furiously.

“So you do know him, huh?” The male retorted, stumbling back and forth uneasily as he lost his balance when he didn’t have someone to lean on.  For the moment, Maggy was scrambling for words.

[Black Philip]

Things were going well. The man was off of Maggy and was now free to chat. The fumbling girl was looking less and less impressive to Claud, and Lisa-Joe decided to move in for the kill.

"Emil, keep your slut. If you like her even a bit, we can\'t be together," Lisa-Joe said, still speaking in her bimbo voice.

"I need a real man." With that she turned her pouty eyes towards Claud. She gave him a weak smile. She was truly a wolf in sheeps\' clothing.

"Get lost you loser," she said to Emil, "and take her with you."

If Emil complied, Lisa-Joe would get to interview Claud. She\'d wipe Maggy\'s memory later.

[skeggsismad]

Maggy was fuming as the words spilled out of Lisa-Joe’s mouth. Her Jaw dropped wide open and just like that, the young blonde’s arms lashed out for Lisa, intending to give her the slap of her lifetime in order to shut her up. That didn’t happen because Emil immediately reached out to grab her arm and halt her. This was horrid situation, and the vampire felt like he’d been stuck in the middle of some practical joke gone horribly wrong.He knew he had to stay in character, but the way that Maggy was reacting to this all was making him simply sick to his stomach. He could already predict- oh yes, she’d never forgive him for this.

 Furthermore, the later comments- as well as the telepathic communication of Lisa Joe- led Emil to think Maggy had just one more reason to hate him: He was going to have to drag her away from her true love. It was times like these that Emil realized the downfall of his lifestyle he had chosen some hundred years ago. He couldn’t argue with Lisa-Joe, and since Maggy didn’t know the secret that he wasn’t exactly human, he couldn’t spill the beans and apologize here on the spot.  

Still, Emil gripped the young girl’s arm and tugged her away, giving a scornful look at Lisa and Claud. It was all part of an act, but Maggy didn’t realize this and struggled against his grip.

“Emil! Let go of me!” Her voice was shaking as it had become apparent she was now crying, tears smearing eyeliner and mascara lines down her face.  When the two had reached a distance that he thought at least Claud wouldn’t be able to hear them, Emil loosened his grip on his friends arm and she shook it off, giving some viscious and heartbroken looks in his direction.

“Maggy wait, I can explain,” He  spoke in his normal tone, but the girl continued to walk towards the door. Emil tried to follow but she turned out sharply and held her hand out to indicate he should stop. Between breaths, the girl wiped her eyes and shook her head at Emil.

“I can’t believe you would do that! What’s the matter with you!” She screamed. Emil made a shushing noise and then,

“Maggy I can explain please just let me-”

He was cut off promptly.

“No. I don’t even want to hear your circus story, okay! You can take a taxi home.” She shouted as her finale and then stormed out- and would leave the club if nothing was done to interfere with that. It was clear to Emil that she hadn’t been acting, and frowned, eyes flitting back to Claud and Lisa-Joe. He hadn’t known he was supposed to keep her here so Emil allowed Maggy to storm off, grieving the remains of what had looked like a promising night.
During the entire conflict, Claud had not looked over to pay attention to Emil and Maggy; he didn’t seem to care. Similarly, as Lisa-Joe had flirted with him he showed interest but restraint of that interest. Yes, he was drunk- but that didn’t mean he was going to go for a crazy. There were plenty of women in this club that wanted to fuck a guy who was in a band (whether or not it was just some obscure garage band that hadn’t yet performed anywhere notable) and so he wasn’t worried. However, he wasn’t sure how to get Lisa-Joe away from him…since she seemed pretty persistent.

“I don’t want nothing to do with you if that guys gonna come on back,” He responded, wobbling back and forth on his uneven footing. Claud didn’t consider it would be worth having a physical fight over a girl if there were plenty others who had come here without another guy.

[Black Philip]

Lisa-Joe fixed her cold stare on poor Claud, her power of persuasion taking hold of him. His eyes became glassy and blank. His posture fell to a slouch and his mouth began to drool slightly. He was like putty in her hands. This Brujah was a master manipulator, and although the Ventrue and the Tremere considered persuasion an inferior form of mind control to domination, Lisa-Joe could work whole rooms in a matter of minutes. She held her gaze and finally spoke.

"Hello Claud," she said. "Are you afraid of me?"

In his stupor all Claud could say was, "yes."

"Good," Lisa-Joe mused. "Claud, were you going to hurt that girl?"

Again Claud said, "yes." Tears fell down his face.

"How?" Lisa-Joe asked, her tone a bit more forceful. She was ready to take him out back and drain him depending on the answer.

Claud was so terrified of Lisa-Joe that his hands began to visibly tremble. Emil lay off to the distance, and Lisa-Joe hoped he was within hearing distance of this interview. She knew that she\'d caused Emil\'s friend Maggy to be very upset, and was hoping Claud would provide a justification to her efforts. Otherwise, her hunch would have caused a lot of problems, and was very bad manners to her new friend and patron. However, as much as she wanted to know if Emil could hear, she couldn\'t turn her head to look. Doing so would mean taking her gaze off of Claud, and breaking her gaze would break the mind control. She also had to push her thoughts concerning Emil away. Her mind had to be blank. Otherwise Claud would see her thoughts, and that would weaken the bond.

"How?" Lisa-Joe asked again.

"I- I- I- was going to fuck her, tell her I liked her, and then never call her back. That would teach her a lesson."

Lisa-Joe\'s expectations were slashed. He was just a normal kind of doucebag, not a murderer or rapist like Lisa-Joe had thought. She sighed and for a moment broke eye contact.

"Fuck," she whispered. Just as Claud began to regain control of his senses, Lisa-Joe once again caught his gaze.

"Listen up Claud," Lisa-Joe said angrily. "I want you to promise you\'ll never do that again."

"I promise," Claud said. He nodded his head up and down.

"Because if you do I\'ll know about it. And if you do, I\'ll kill you, understand?"

This was of course a lie, but Claud didn\'t need to know that. He nodded his head, and with that Lisa-Joe told him to get out and never come back. He left faster than any normal human could have ever done. Lisa-Joe turned back to face Emil. She was extremely embarrassed.

"I\'m really sorry about that," she said. "I\'m not usually this crazy. I hope your friend is okay."

[skeggsismad]

Indeed, from Emil’s peripheral vision he could see what was occurring and with his hypersensitive hearing the words that Lisa-Joe and Claud were exchanging ended up being all too clear. He had not been gestured over or spoken to, so he stood his ground, looking around the club idly as he waited.

Phones seemed to be well enough distractions. Not wanting to seem to obviously unattended, Emil plied his phone out of his nearly-too-tight pants pocket and looked upon the screen of the Blackberry curve. The white casing of plastic rested fittingly in his hand and he manipulate the scroll ball in order to look preoccupied. Soon enough Emil wasn’t pretending to be using his phone. Text messages from the dozens of friends that he and Maggy shared were pouring in by the boatload, which such messages such as ‘did u call maggy a whore?’ , ‘wut did u do?’, and one less disturbing one that had been left untouched for the past twenty minutes, ‘when are you coming home?’.

Pecking away at the full keyboard of the phone, the vampire attempted to calm and soothe as many people as he could, as well as assuring anyone who was waiting on him that he wouldn’t be out all night and would be coming home in sure enough time. How true that was, he didn’t know. Lisa-Joe could keep him here most of the night and he wouldn’t cry out that he had to leave until the absolute last minute, for the thought of behaving with bad manners and upsetting the other vampire had put him into silent submission. Too, he had for the most part been enjoying the encounter quite more than just a smidge.

When Lisa-Joe did reproach, Emil gave a polite smile that grew in length when he thought he could detect a hint of mortification within the spectrum of the woman’s emotions. Sure, it had made him feel awful to see Maggy storm out like that- it was true! Too, the threat he had overheard Lisa-Joe deliver made him cringe…it did sound a bit excessive, but at least there had been no sort of physical altercation. Regardless of whether or not Emil thought the behavior of Lisa-Joe was right or wrong, he still felt desperately guilty at the thought of her being so bothered by something. He decided then that it would be his duty to wrinkle the crinkles out of this ordeal and make everything hunky-dory as it had been before.  

“Hark now! Difficulties are meant to rouse , not to discourage! It is conflict itself that grows the human spirits. Albeit, I’m paraphrasing, but I do believe that was William Ellery Channing. Words of quite the wise man!”

Emil gave a chuckle and wave his hand as if to dismiss the whole ordeal. He couldn’t speak on the behalf of whether Maggy would be alright or not, of course. But at least he could give some encouraging words on how conflict was never the end of the world as it always seemed to feel.

“…Now, you were saying something…oh, yes, right, I’ve got it now. About your hometown, South Carolina. Did you fancy it so? I’ve been quite a few times but never really settled much in the south. I’ve always been much more of a western coast lover, myself,”

He attempted to work the conversation back into the direction they had been going before. As well, he made a ‘one moment’ gesture with his index finger after finishing his statement, swooping to retrieve the faux Bloody Mary that had been made for him earlier but had been inevitably abandoned and the first whiff of troubled waters. He took a bit of a sip- not because he was necessarily hungry, but as a sort of social nicety.

Dance with me, because if you\'ve got the poison,
I\'ve got the remedy  

[/size]

[Black Philip]

Emil had a resilience that Lisa-Joe found astounding. She\'d inadvertently scared the shit out of a mortal for basically no reason, pissed off a good friend of his, and he still wanted to chat? It took Lisa-Joe a minute or two to process Emil as a person before responding to his question.

"Ugh, yes, I love the south. Well, I love the old south. Now, the south is dead more or less, damn yankees," she said. She let out a soft chuckle at the thought of her old burning plantation.

She decided to find out more about Emil, as opposed to talking about her past. "What part of the west coast?" she asked."This is a bit embracing, but I\'ve never been west of Tennessee."

[skeggsismad]

It did rub Emil the wrong way a bit to hear someone put the ‘old south’ in such high favor. Admittedly, it really depended upon which old south one was talking about. If Lisa-Joe was speaking over the changes of perhaps a ten or twenty time span, then perhaps it may have been a bit better. Crime increases, the  degrading of society’s moral because of increasingly violent and sexualized media…yes, Emil could certainly agree that in the way of the world things were better in the olden days.

But was Lisa-Joe honestly commenting on a time period that to someone of her agespan might seem like a blink of an eye? Emil somewhat doubted it, and he bit his tongue on what he wanted to inquire about: What was better in the old south?

The vampire shrugged the curiosity off.

“Although I’ve never experienced it much myself, I’m sure that the ideals of the old south were something admirable,”

He couldn’t rightly comment on something he knew nothing about, could he? Up until the eighties, Emil himself had ignored the country for a good sixty years, due to the depression and the lack of glitter and glam that had been present in the 1920’s when the performer had originally set foot on the soil.
The Polish man’s hand shot out onto Lisa-Joe’s shoulder, giving her a good pat on the back as his memory plunged deep into his stays in western coast cities. He was jovial and seemed to have pushed all remains of regret and worry over the disaster that had unfolded moments prior out of his head. Out of sight and out of mind, no?

“Oh yes, Pookie. Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles; they’ve grown to be a part of me, really they have. I love performing in those cities because they’re so full of life- the energy is contagious!”

He now hinted to the extent of his career. He wasn’t only an entrepreneur in the works who dreamed of opening up a theatre one day- he was a performer. Art, music, dance, song, musicals and plays. The only thing left untouched in the world of creative performances by Stanislas Fransquito Wojcik was film, something that had simply never interested him in pursuing.

 “You needn’t be ashamed of not being born with an exploratory nature. Really, it’s something that’s innate in oneself…and if you’re birthed in the same place that happens to be your calling, why move around in attempts to see the world when you’re perfectly content where you reside? Pumpkin, I’ve sailed nearly all seven seas and although I admit I favor some locations over others, there has never been a place I have loved as much as one that I’ve lived in good company with friends amassed.”

He gave a bit of laughter after that, amused with himself. Oooh, that was brilliantly phrased! Hallmark should hire me to be the maker of those gimmick cards and I’d give them all the sentimental lines about friendship, love and grief they’d need for the next century or two!

[Black Philip]

"I must say Emil you got a way with words," Lisa-Joe chuckled. "The south was my first real home. The place I was before that, well, let\'s just say it wasn\'t exactly a hospitable environment for me."

She grew a little sad at the thought of her life before Charleston. She saw the dirty streets of London, the inn where she was both slave and owner. She saw her maker, a long forgotten image now visible for only a moment.

"You see Emil, I know what the old south is famous for. I don\'t pretend. Yet, it was more than just a bunch of white people holding slaves. It was the only place I\'ve ever felt accepted, save of course for here." She laughed at the acknowledgement.

"If I had known what actions being a slave owner would have had I would have done that part differently. But the spirit for me would have been the same. Kindness, concern for your neighbor, and a sense of togetherness. That\'s the old south for me. Oh God I must be boring you silly!"

She gave him an apologetic look. She only hoped he didn\'t mind her yammering. Whenever someone mentioned the old south, she had to just talk and talk and talk.

[skeggsismad]

( Sorry about how late this post is! I got caught up in some things )


There was not a hint of rankle on Emil’s features as he listened to the vampiress speak. He chuckled after the compliment, wishing that he wasn’t in such an undead state so that he could muster a blush to such words. Since he couldn’t, he did his best to express his jovial mood in the rest of his body language and the proceeding words,

“Why! I think you’ve got me quite buttered up this evening, Missus!”

It was nice to be adored, and he absolutely couldn’t adore Lisa-Joe anymore. She was cute as a button and her concern for his reception of the conversation was endearing. Many he had spoken to in this city had prattled on about something needlessly without once pausing to gauge the reaction of their audience. In this day and age of constant entertainment via glowing white computer and television screens, people seemed to be less and less interested in two sided communication. And then there had been that one poetry slam he’d attended where an fashionably dressed young man had spoken verses he’d authored about this ‘The Facebook’ causing the youth to becomes self-absorbed and obsessed with oneself. Yes, if there was anything he could take from this woman’s speech, it was just that: the old south was a time where people spoke to one another face to face rather than behind a screen.

“But, nonsense darling, you’re no bore! Tis’ a conversation that keeps me on my toes. I must admit, too,”

The male lowered his voice to the point that it wouldn’t be able to be heard by anyone who wasn’t a supernatural. He knew the rules of the city and wasn’t a daredevil in the least. Keeping himself looking and sounding as human as he possibly could was something he strived to achieve, and speaking of this to Lisa-Joe would certainly give away the fact that he was born of a different era entirely if he didn’t take the proper precautions.

“ When I was a wee lad, I didn’t know how to treat a lady honestly like in this day and age. I had the misfortune of being born in an era where members of the finer sex were viewed as mere commodities rather than human beings. My mother- bless her soul. If I had known then what I know today, I would have gotten to know her. Truly, I would have. There is no judgment here for actions of the past, Missus Hampton. There is not but one man on the planet that hasn’t had regrets.”

He smiled sincerely afterwards, trying to clear the sudden air of emotion that was radiating from him. He really would have liked to get to know his mother better- it was one of those guilts that no matter what he did, Emil never seemed to be able to free himself from it.