private party.

witch

Red barstools with low bags, quilted red leather with a new-new sheen. Enormous mirrors with thick gilt frames hanging on messy exposed brick-and-concrete walls above horseshoe booths with old-world upholstery. Lights are strung, dancing, giving an ethereal quality to the otherwise dark subterranean bar. Larimer Square is overhead but down here you escape the noise and much of the light. Everything is dim and red and rich and dark except for hints, here and there, of the bar's name-color. Green Russell, it's called, and it claims to be the best.

It's behind a barbecue place and pie shop. To get to Green Russell you slip through the kitchen doors into the darker space. The people working here are friendly. The prices are high. The drinks are, if you ask for it, created and tailored to your taste. I like bubbles. I hate citrus. Fan of gin. Hate bitters. In a mood to sip for a long while. The drinks are strong even if you get them off the menu. Many of the people here are older, and can afford it. The gentlemen working here wear a cap and vest, sometimes suspenders, sometimes a bow tie. They are equally forgiven and praised for the style.

There is a private event going on in a cordoned-off portion of the bar at the moment.

The scentless woman has straight hair tonight, and it looks so long like that. There is a thin headband through it with miniscule dots of light -- stones of some kind, fake ones, but they catch the light (what little there is) and sparkle like the stars themselves have wafted down to crown her. It's pretty. Her eye makeup is dark, but not smudged this time: there are dark wings at the corners of her eyes. Her lips glisten. It is hard to see what she's wearing where she sits at the bar, but it looks to be gray, or blue, or stormcloud colored which is both. The sleeves are short and gauze and only cover the tops of her arms. She is wearing many, many necklaces. Many, many bracelets on her left wrist. Fishnets. They look blue, too.

Her drink is pale green.

wolfman

Private event in there. Low key bouncers in tuxedos guarding the doorway. Strictly by invitation, and invitations are rare. Denver isn't New York City, isn't Los Angeles, but it's got its share of the rich, the beautiful, the privileged and prestigious. Damned if it doesn't feel like they're all here tonight.

Drinks are flowing in there. French-fusion canapés circuiting on stylish matte-wood platters. Some sort of silent auction going on; all proceeds donated to -- some charity, some organization, some lobby, some righteous cause. No one in there really cares. When you're of a certain social strata, certain things are expected. They used to call it noblesse oblige.

Guests come and go. Twosomes, threesomes, foursomes, half-dozens in black tie, in eveningwear. Some of them duck out for a breath of fresh air. Some of them are talking. Some of them crane their heads around to get another glimpse.

No idea what rock he...No one's even seen or heard...Took the lawyers three weeks to even...You won't believe what I heard about where...

Scandalized laughs. People hush each other, go back in.

The bartop beside the girl creaks when the wolf momentarily leans his weight on it. He slides onto the barstool. Came from in there too. Must have, because of what he's wearing. Back in the impeccably tailored threads. Black tuxedo and a bow-tie he's unraveled. Tonight the cufflinks match the ring on his finger.

He sets an empty glass on the bar. The staff recognize him immediately. A bartender refills his drink; skips over two other customers to do it. He pulls it in close, shoulders looming over the frail little glass and its amber contents.

He turns and looks at the girl. Her bracelets. Her necklaces. Her fishnets and her short dress. He takes his drink in one long drink. It is refilled again even as he sets it back on the bar.

"You here for someone?"

witch

They brought their own food. The menu here isn't much; the restaurant outside is barbecue and mashed potatoes. They came for the speakeasy, the strict entry code -- parties of more than six are not permitted and cannot be split -- and the ambience. The color, the leather, the cost. The darkness, perhaps. Brought in caterers to please the people in the other room. Pour them heavy drinks, treat them well. They are dressed better than everyone else who slips through the kitchen doors into the Green.

She sips her drink, slowly, and does not stare at the people who come and go, talking of --

--

The woman with stars in her hair and no smell of her own gives a short exhale when the skin on her arm prickles. She looks at him, unraveled bow-tie and all, and watches as he downs his something-something. None of her jewelry cost above $10. It's possible she got the dress for $12, maybe $18, at some trendy consignment place. Surely as short as that hem is she can feel the leather on her ass.

She is not looking at him directly. He looks at her, and speaks, and then she turns her head, looking at him without using the mirror behind the bar.

"Mm," says she, committing to nothing but sounding vaguely affirmative. "Not ten thousand, sadly."

wolfman

The mirror. He uses it this time. Eyes come up, find her through a forest of jewel-toned bottles. Classy place, this. A lot of wood in the furnishings; no fancy future-lighting. He studies her profile critically. Then he picks up his drink, newly refilled, takes it a little more slowly this time.

"Enough about that."

witch

She looks at him through the air between their faces and he looks at her through the glass. It means they both see each other in profile. She is watching his cheek. Her head tips a bit.

"You're embarrassed."

wolfman

"No," like a fist on a table. His head turns. Shoulders too. A heavy swivel, one hand braced on the bartop. People don't want to be near him suddenly. People don't want to be anywhere close to him.

"Just sick of you bringing that one thing up over and over like it means you know something about me. You don't know me."

witch

He turns to face her, and she moves slightly. Her body draws back a half-inch, an inch. It gives her a sway, a half-step of retreat -- or merely escape -- from his air, his nearness, his presence. And her brows furrow a little, tugging together. Not deeply.

For the third or such time, her eyebrow just lifts. There's a pause; her eyes flick over him, downward. Then she turns away, back to her drink. "Never said I did."

wolfman

"That's right. You don't."

Tells her something about him, though. That behavior. That aggression, the way he chased it down and beat it again even after she'd relinquished the point. The ferocity in his eyes, too, his stare until her eyes flick down. Until she turns away.

He turns away too. Tension around him like a shroud, charged and electric. He sips; halfway through the sip it becomes a gulp, he knocks it back. Sets the glass down, clak, tears suddenly at his cufflinks. Not an uncontrolled motion, no. Vicious, controlled, efficient. He strips one and he strips the other and he slaps them onto the bartop under his palm like they'd offended him.

witch

There's a puff of air from her nostrils, restrained, stifled but not entirely and not perfectly. Laughter. At his that'srightyoudon't. Maybe it goes unnoticed, the way that he doesn't seem to notice that it wasn't his stare that made her turn away, it wasn't his glare that made her eyes flick down.

The cufflinks come off. And she goes on sipping her drink.

wolfman

A sharp, dangerous flash of his eyes at that sound. Was it a laugh? Can't tell; he assumes the worst. She says nothing of it though. Neither does he.

Cufflinks come off.

Girl sips her drink.

Bartender wonders if he should refill the wolf's glass. Decides not to come near him.

Wolf broods over his empty glass. Looming, like a beast over a kill. Thumb rubs forefinger, restless. Abruptly: "I am embarrassed. Not because I was looking for a whore. Because I stopped for you. A kinswoman. Knowing you were kin. Because of it."

String of words like rocks tumbling down a well. He looks at her on the last, a challenge to say something back half so brutal and honest.

witch

She is not tiny, this woman who feels like the green woods and looks like the streets and is crowned by stars and smells of the void. But she is thin enough to seem small. She has elfin features and an enigmatic smile. Her physical delicacy yet, somehow, does not give the implication of fragility, just as her perfectly normal-seeming body does not give off a normal-seeming scent. There is a focus and a liveliness to her that moves under the surface. She is withholding

something

always.

Sitting right where she is, she goes on with her drink. No one comes back from the bathroom or returns from a phone call taken outside. She just sips, ignoring the beast beside her better than most but still imperfectly. Conversation over. Snort finished. Begins again, sudden.

During because of it she turns to look at him. Her expression is still, the way fleet-footed things in the woods are still, and can thus go any direction from their silence. His words hang for a moment. She has her fingertips on her glass. She lifts it, draws it over, holds the double tiny straws, black, still with her free hand.

"All right,"

sips.

wolfman

Eyes locked. His are green. Dimly, glimmeringly green, shadowed by heavy brow ridge, heavy brow. He stares until she looks away, and when she does his eyes flick briefly to her lips around those tiny straws.

Away.

"Yeah."

Few seconds pass. His palms smack the bartop and he pushes up. Maybe he doesn't mean to strike so hard. Startle everyone. Maybe he doesn't know his own strength. That's the story, right?

His fingers close around the cufflinks. They scrape the bartop as he picks them up.

"Night," he says.

witch

"Hey."

It's not a call; her voice isn't raised because he hasn't moved away yet. Turned away, though. Fist around cufflinks. He turns or glances or pauses. She isn't sipping her drink anymore. Half full now.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Not a barb; her eyes flick toward the private party. Faint emphasis on the doing.

What is he up to.

wolfman

Half-turn. A glance over the shoulder. Looks so damn polished tonight, professionally shaved and professionally styled, his clothes professionally cut and tailored and matched. Can't hide that brutish presence, though, the way he carries his shoulders forward and flexed, the way his face seems to default into a glower.

Thinks a moment before he answers, though the way he scoffs when he does makes the pretense of spontaneity.

"It's my fucking party," he says, and starts walking again. "We're saving the whales."

witch

The corner of her mouth curves. Smirks. Eyes are sharp; cut like stones. That's what makes them glimmer.

He walks. She says, this time a touch louder than before.

"Not going to invite me along, then?"

wolfman

The wolf laughs with his back turned. Sharp, harsh sound. Then that half-turn again. A moment, a considering glance.

"You're underdressed." Despite it, he holds his hand out.

witch

She says nothing to that. Hops off her barstool, the end of that hyper-short dress fluttering for a moment. Her shoes turn out to be boots, black ones. Flat ones. 'Underdressed' is being kind.

Lifts her drink. Walks past his hand. Past him. Sips from those straws again, walking ahead of him into his party.

wolfman

The wolf snorts: his gallantry ignored, his hand drops to his side. He follows her in. Not so close that he feels like a lapdog. Close enough that the bouncers don't bar her way.

Air is different inside. Smells like money. Laughter sounds a little more contrived and the drinks aren't free, but they are complimentary. Jazz quartet in the corner contains just about the only people who aren't rich and white.

People glance their way when they're inside. Depending on just how much confidence she has, might or might not feel like they're all looking at her, her dress, her boots. But they're not. They look at her, and then they look at their gracious host. Supposedly. Unkind smiles skitter through the crowd. Whispering lips move closer to listening ears. All eyes fall away when the wolf meets them, though. Some things are the same, gutter or skyscraper.

His dinner jacket brushes her arm when he leans in to her ear. "Now they all think you're a whore, too." Maybe he means it as a taunt. He straightens: a man with the sharp, supercilious look of a headservant to royalty is approaching.

"Sir, we're ready to announce the winners of the auction." There is just enough deference in the tone. His eyes sidle to the girl and back without comment. "Would you care to do the honors?"

"No. Get it over with."

The manservant nods, face blank. The wolf knows enough to know it is a mask. "As you please, sir."

witch

He still has his cufflinks off, his tie undone. Roughness about him, heaviness that moves too quietly for comfort. Safety. He looks inappropriate. She looks inappropriate. That dress is so short that walking behind her as it flicks and bounces with her step he can see the curve of her ass. Sometimes can see something black, and something as starry-studded as her hair, and only surmise that it is an undergarment of some kind, hugging that skinny body.

If he looks. If not: anyone else can see it, too.

She sips her drink and steals something from a passing tray: it is circular and ornate and involves some kind of pate. The wolf comes up alongside her as she's considering a bite; her chin turns slightly in his direction, head tipped to listen, but eyes outward, scanning. He says: they all think you're a whore. She turns, faces close enough to almost touch for a moment, meets his eyes for a moment, says in an equal whisper, equal taunt:

"I don't care what anyone thinks of me."

Straightening, talking to someone else. She sips at her drink through those ridiculous tiny straws, why two of them, why not just give a reasonable-sized straw. She does not look at the servant, or note that she is looked at. Her drink is finished; it goes on another passing tray. She pops the tiny bite of meat and vegetable and finery into her mouth wholesale, chews with her lips together, dusts her hands off.

Plucks a different drink, martini glass, something blue inside. Starts drinking that, instead.

wolfman

Maybe he does look. Maybe that's what makes him think he has the right to denigrate her like that. If that's what he was doing. Trying to do. Call her a whore. Tell her everyone thought of her like one.

She doesn't care, though. She says it like a bite. She sees him draw back from her,

just a little, it's not even a step back, it's just the way he pulls back from the shoulders. Still more than she's ever seen him back down.

Then the servant. Then the conversation, which leaves his jaw tight and his eyebrows lowered. The cufflinks in his hand grind together. Then he slips them into his pocket. Meanwhile the girl is taking advantage of her on-the-sly admission. She helps herself to food, drink, or what passes for it here. The wolf doesn't stop her.

Across the room the jazz quartet brings their little number to a premature end. Plays a little flourish. People turn expectantly to see what was going on. There's a little announcement by some woman presumably in the wolf's employ: they're going to start announcing the winners. She's charming. The guests are drunk enough to be charmed.

The wolf stays where he is. He's not charmed. He's not excited. He's bored, and restless, and waiting for it all to end. A forty-something man with the sleek look of a stockmarket shark wins an auction for an oil by a semi-well-known pointillist. A much older man wins season box seats to the opera for his much younger mistress.

The wolf takes a drink off a passing tray. "They all think I'm the son of a whore." Maybe he's explaining. Maybe it's some sort of apology. "Fuck what they think."

witch

Doesn't care what they think. Whether they look. If she's underdressed. If he thought she was a whore. If he offered to pay to fuck her in spite of her being kin. Because she's kin. Sips her drink like she doesn't care, and after he draws back looks around the room again like she doesn't care.

They stay in the same spot, occupying the prime real estate of floorspace afforded by the fact that he terrifies everyone around him. She looks at the quartet and then the woman, tossing her hair off her shoulder and away from her cheek. She half-hides a yawn behind her wrist at the opera tickets. It's not a small, delicate yawn either. Her face screws up; her mouth is wide. Her exhale is audible.

son of a whore he says, and

fuck what they think.

She smiles, that enigmatic, misanthropic little smile of hers. Taps her glass against his.

"Fuck 'em," she says, agreeing, and drinks.

wolfman

Glass gripped in his hand barely rings with the tap. More like a clumsy thunk. He glances down, surprised by the gesture. Laughs in a huff and throws the drink down.

Auctions go on for a while. The sorts of things you'd expect the rich to throw away their money on. Jewelry and furs and art and decor and tickets to expensive things. A bachelor wins a date with a model.

The wolf watches from the back, if only to have something to rest his eyes on. He's forgotten for the moment. He folds his arms across his chest, puts wrinkles in the sleeves of his jacket, puts stretchmarks across the back.

"So who were you waiting for? Or was that a lie."

witch

"I was making fun of you," she corrects, without the tone of correction. She takes her drink more slowly, is still holding on to it as the auction awards progress.

"This is so boring," she adds, flatly.

wolfman

What little goodwill may have gathered evaporates. Brow darkens. Of course she was. He's angry; perhaps most of all at himself for not seeing it earlier.

"Then leave." He's just as flat.

witch

That takes her aback. She turns her head to look at him. Look up at him.

"You're not bored?"

wolfman

Eyebrows flash together again. He flicks a glance her way.

"Of course I'm fucking bored."

witch

Her eyebrows slip up. She lifts her glass to sip again.

"Then leave."

wolfman

Gives him a moment's pause. Calculations behind his eyes. Things he could say but doesn't care to. Why bother. She doesn't know him. He reaches out and sets his glass down abruptly. Not on a passing waiter's tray; on a pedestal that holds one of tonight's merchandise. Turns to go.

Most people don't notice. The manservant does. He watches. His face is blank. The wolf pauses at the cordon between private party and public bar.

"Unless you want to take the bus again," he says, "you might as well come along."

witch

[perception + empathy (hidden desires)]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 2

wolfman

[he wants to get out of there. it seems to go beyond simply being bored out of his skull, though he is. he feels some obligation to be here, but he wants to get out of his suit, get out of this party, get away from these people.

and he doesn't particularly want her to come along. but he does.]

witch

She's watching him while he does not say things. And she does not know him but her eyes are penetrating. She takes a sip of her drink as he's setting his glass down. Sips, as he turns.

Hasn't moved, when he pauses. Is sipping through those thin, black, straws.

Raises a hand, using the backs of her fingers to shift a few strands of hair back from her cheek. And says nothing, turning to watch more of this very, very boring auction.