2019-09-18 - On Pointe

It's a Thursday night, and Roxy is not at work. Weeknights tend to be slow, and she is making rather good money on Friday, Saturday, and Wednesday. Well over 2000 per week. It's silly, the stigma on being a stripper. The money is fantastic, as long as you steer clear of the drugs and such. She'll have enough for an apartment soon.

The svelte ballerina is at Dance Evolution, and in practice gear, having already gone through her warm up. She left Joey Kelly a message that she'd be there tonight, and part of her is hoping he'll arrive. He may be mostly untrained, but he looks plenty strong enough for lift work.

Joey shows up with his bag over his shoulder and sweat pants on, a hoodie, tank top, and a leather jacket. He will never not look like a damn boxer but it works for him and he's pretty authentic about what and who he is. Digging out of his bag setting it down is, behold, a beaten pair of shoes that look broken in. Maybe he's not entirely green., This can be workable.

Is he nervous here though? Oh hell yes. Little gets him to doubt himself but this is it.

His coat comes off and his phone goes on vibrate into his bag as he swaps out boots on the sidelines. "Hey, Roxy. how the hell you been?" One by one the socks come off and the leather dance shoes slide on.

Roxy smiles brightly as Joey arrives and she makes her way over to him. "Joey, it is good to see you again. I did not know if you would be here tonight." That perfect diction still places her as a non-native speaker, even if her accent didn't. Contractions don't seem to have a place in her speech. "I am glad you came. You should warm up," she advises. Muscle pulls suck.

Joey eases up on the tension in his shoulders at the warmer greeting. "Yeah, well I wasn't planning on it but you asked and I thought, well maybe I won't make a total ass of myself. That'd be nice. " He walks over and finds a seat on the floor and wars starting with simple stretches to get the lower limbs caught up witthe upper ones. "Go easy on my right side. It's fine just... some shit got dumb." He makes up for looking like a brick of meat with some honest to goodness flexibility to work with. "I didn't mean to come off as angry last time it was kinda a weird day I was tryin to work some shit out with."

Roxy looks at Joey blankly, as she tries to parse and translate the phrase 'some shit got dumb.' Yeah, that's not something one learns in classes for the language. This is why English is hell to learn. Blink. "I do not know that phrase," she admits, watching him stretch. "And it is alright. We all have bad days." She smiles.

Joey is so not used to language barriers outside of a sport. Well, his sport. Pausing he looks up up up and tries to think about how to explain, "Someone was being stupid. Accident. Small injury. It's not a huge problem." That's what shit got dumb translates to. "Sometimes I have a lot of those days. Sooooo if you have ideas I'm game to hear em. Usually I come here to blow off steam, but I'm not against the work."

"Oh!" Roxy exclaims. "I am so sorry you were injured." She crouches and sets a hand on his shoulder in sympathy. Unconsciously, her Glimmer seeps out of her hand into his body, and it begins to go to work on speeding up what is broken in his body. For now, he likely just feels a bit better, something easily attributed to being touched by a pretty girl he's seen in the altogether.

"We can start with a simple combination and work on it until we get it right," she offers, straightening again. "For starters, you can just hang onto my waist and support my movements, so we can get a sense of each other's balance and weight."

That can EASILY be attributed to being distracted by fancy fine company. Injuries? Just life's little scuff marks. By tomorrow the stitches are going to be nuisance rather than necessity and that he'll attribute to good genetics. Under the tank there's a patch of gauze taped on there. His focus is on her and a hand goes up in a non-committal swat, "It's seriously nothing important. Jsut stings like a big damn paper cut. SO," He holds out his hands and considers, "You mind?" For all he can jsut pick her up like a lawn ornament and move her he's going to ask. Apparently there's a weird invisible line for him there where he's going to ask instead of just move to see what he's working with balancewise and weight wise so he doesn't drop her or knock her around.

Roxy dips her head in a nod, granting her consent for him to touch her. She seems to find the politeness to be just something normal. It's a dance thing. "Please," she insists, and she sets herself in a position. She rattles off a couple of maneuvers she is going to do, so he can try to put the words to them as they occur.

Joey sets his hands on either side of her waist and like he does his niece lifts up to get an idea of weight and distribution. Which is to say that is a terrible way to describe a graceful woman, but a great thing to know if your job is to lift and not spill said partner. By some miracle he watched Cole and or knows to point his toes towards the 45's."Okay, cool. So yeah. Let's do this. She explains and he tries to commit the words in memory. Yeah, guess who does not speak French. This guy right here. "I'm a butcher some of these names until you repeat them a couple times. Fair warning."

"As long as you connect them to specific movements, it will be just fine, Joey," Roxy notes. She almost calls him Joseph. She was trained to formality in the ballet community, and she is out of her element here. She weighs perhaps 120 pounds, and most of that is from the advent of her curves after she was sidelined for two years. When she was a ballerina proper? It was unlikely she even weighed 100 pounds. "I hope that I am not to heavy for you?"

Joey assures casually, "I'm used to angry 220# gorillas. You got nothing to worry about. Hell, yesterday I got to carry my buddy who was 240# of dead weight and complaining." The odds of him biting her for changing his name are at least low. He clarifies as she goes through the basics that his job is to keep her upright at all costs. Roger that! "How you choose your music anyways?"

Roxy moves lightly, feather-like, and her balance is flawless when combined with her partner's assistance. "Very good! You are a natural! And I usually did not pick my music, the choreographer did. Or do you mean for the Cabaret?" she asks, curiously.

Joey is focused on not letting his pirouetting partner tip over, but admits, "Shit, I didn't know there was a difference. You don't make up all your own stuff? I mean ya did at Cabaret. That was really fucking something." The words are rough and crass as the man speaking them but as genuine. "I guess I never thought of people using a choreographer. So it's kinda like theatre then for you?"

"I was in a ballet company," Roxy admits quietly. "We performed classic and newer ballets. The choreographer and director made the decisions on the dances, but yes, I chose my own for the Cabaret." She blushes slightly at the compliment on her routine. "Thank you. I did some burlesque, but you do not undress entirely in that, so I had to come up with something new for," she trails off, not wanting to say 'stripping'. Lo, how far the mighty have fallen. She goes en pointe effortlessly.

Joey can only talk so much. He got his happy ass up there and let a couple folks stuff cash in his briefs. There's no high ground to be stood on there. He offers, "I got family who works staff there. I at least trust the damn bouncers there not to let shit get too fucked up. Better than some places so there's that." And she's spinning and he focuses trying to use his palms instead of fingers to keep her moving and stable. "I feel like that that dude in the ghost movie with the clay." He ponders and asks, "You miss it? Home... not...Burlesque."

Roxy changes positions in her spin and his help keeps her centered. She slows finally and comes to a stop. "Sometimes. But I do not think I could go back. There is nothing for me there." Her parents may or may not have sold her to the Veil Asylum when her powers manifested and she had a nervous breakdown from it. They had her declared dead. "You are from Gray Harbor then?" she asks, turning to face him.

Joey leaves his hands resting on her waist. He doesn't press the matter as having nothing to go back to is kind of a shit thing to focus on and his day has been pretty wrecked besides. Until now. Scruffy jaw clenches and a small nod follows. She stops and he looks ho from his hands to meet the question staring at him. Quietly there's a grunt of an affirmative answer. "Yeah. Born and raised here. Only moved away from home twice." He smirks and fills in only, "Not fun."

"Do you like it here? I think I am staying, at least for the foreseeable future. I do not know very much about this town. Could you help me learn it? Where is safe, where is not, and such things?" Roxy asks quietly. She's already been scared once.

Joey has two businesses to run technically, and yet? Well there's reason to find time enough. "Ya know, Roxy, I can think of worse ways to spend my time. If I'm honest I probably and either a very good or very bad person to ask. There are though places I don't fucking go unless I have to.I'll be happy to point them out and never make you visit em. Deal?"

Roxy chuckles and it's a merry tone. For all she seems to have been through, she seems to persevere with that gentle, sweet demeanor. Of course that could be some sort of act, meant to drum up more business, because who doesn't want to fantasize about a beautiful innocent girl getting naked for you? "Where do you recommend for eating?" she asks, before she moves to her bag to get out a notebook and pen. She starts writing down some resources for him to look into for dance styles like hip hop which she thinks he would appreciate, and some tutorials for lifts so they can look forward to those.

Joey considers that and checks his phone for things to poke at later as she sends them to him. Looking up he arches an eyebrow and reserves any judgement one way or the other, but stays amicable to actually having this conversation. He pauses on one of the hip hop dance teams and says "I can think of a couple places. I mean depending on your definition of nice. I'm personally a fan of the Pourhouse. They do the best things with potatoes. You have a hangover? Grizzly Diner. You want nicer? Eeeh Two if by Sea. It's got hipsters but it's got really good tater tots and a pretty good menu. Or you can play it simple hit fried fish which has more than just that and go sit on the board walk and just... look at everything." He shrugs and offers his honest perception of the truth, "It ain't fancy or expensive but I like it."

Roxy jots down his suggestions with a nod of her head as he explains. "I did see also a Waffle Shop? Do they do Belgian waffles? Or what Americans think of as Belgian waffles?" She tears off a page for him of places to look online for dance styles and ballet lift techniques. "If you want, I can try to choreograph a small routine for you and I, and we can work on that little by little?"

Joey snorts, "It's safe. It's totally what Americans thing are begum waffles. It's like... a cross between a pancake and a mattress. It's pretty great." he snags the page and takes a pic of it with his phone for posterity in case the page is eaten by pterodactyls... which you know in April is a real concern apparently depending on where one lives.

Arching an eyebrow he looks maybe impressed or surprised, "Huh. I mean yeah like... do that. We'll do a thing. I mean like you said if you're not taking the thing you love and making it yours... why are you doing it?"

Roxy smiles brightly and nods to Joey. "Thank you! I will work on it and have something to start with next week. I should go now though. I have a party tonight for the club. This was fun."

Joey pauses and goes to grab his gear to move it and keep up with his personal work through. "Yeah. It was." A pause later he shrugs, "You... end up wanting to try out the boardwalk lemme know. There's some good places up there." For a cagey creature this might be as direct as that invitation gets and lets her do what she will with that. For now though? God so much stretching and that's why he started this to begin with. He digs out his headset and sticks his earbuds in. Floor, you gonna get rekt!

"I will let you know!" she replies cheerfully. Then she gives the boxer a wave and gathers her things, running back to the dressing room to change before she departs.