2019-11-19 - Given to Their Moods

Technically, if you're not with a particular dancer you're not supposed to be in the VIP room. Technically, Cristobal doesn't hang out at the Club when he's not working. Technically, Cris never drinks beyond the occasional on-off shot when he is in there on his off hours. Tonight, technicalities can go fuck themselves.

He's currently slouched down on one of the couches, a bottle of whiskey on the little side table and a half empty glass balanced on the meat of his thigh. Even though there is someone getting a rather intimate performance in the corner, his eyes are on the ceiling and focusing on a low purple light until the world goes spotted from his stare.

This is not a busy night at the club, you want to be around during the weekends if you want to see a crowd. So more often than she might like, Mae gets stuck in the VIP room during the mid-week. There isn't much of a challenge in here, men come in expecting to drink and feel up dancers, and tip generously for the opportunity to do so. She's standing in front of the couch nearest to the door, listening to a man dressed in a sharp suit as he makes a quiet request. Her sway is half-hearted at best, but whatever the man does say, doesn't go over well.

Her hand flies out, taking the suited man full on the cheek, which of course, pisses him off. He doesn't get a chance to react to it, because Mae has already walked away, giving the man her back and none of her attention. She grabs a bottle of beer from the cooler and leans against it, hoping the man is going to leave.

"What was that about?" Cris asks lazily, the sound of the slap sharp in his ears followed by Zoiya's footfalls. He can track her positioning in the room just by that, as well as the low hiss of heated complaint to the bored girl sitting behind the intake counter. It's a good thing too, because he doesn't seem assed to drop his gaze to eyeball the situation.

"Men are pigs." Mae states, taking a deep drink from her beer, setting a five down next to the cooler. She walks over to Cristobal's couch and flops down to sit next to him, legs crossing. Compared to the girl in the corner, she's dressed, some lace and silk garter set covering all of her assets. "Pay money, fuck strippers, low ball them so you don't have to pay much." She flips the door her middle finger, wishing the man was still here to see it. She tilts the bottle back again, shifting her eyes over to Cris. "Why are you drinking?" Meaning : Why are you drinking in here?

Cris, very calmly sets his glass aside and runs his thumb down the side of his mouth, tracing the line of the carefully trimmed mustache that dips towards the corner of his lips. "Right." The man is up like a shot with a roll of muscle, dressed in low slung jeans and a white tank top, the hint of tattoos peaking up from the collar. His shoulders are bowed up, and with long strides he's headed towards the curtains and the man now complaining about the middle finger he was just given as if he can get some sort of discount for the rudeness.

Mae is considering the complaining man, surely he has been given the middle finger before, because this can't be the first time he tried to buy ass and insulted someone. Then she realizes that Cris is walking toward the curtain. She could get up and stop him, she could join him, but Mae decides that she would be better served scooting a bit to the left to pick up the abandoned glass. She takes a sip, winces at the taste of whiskey and sets it back down. If Cris is going to manhandle someone, she's going to pay attention. The girl near the intake counter looks like she's about to duck behind it.

The man wrongly assumes that Cris is there to commiserate with him, throwing his arms wide and saying, "Can you believe this b-" That's all the man manages to get out of his mouth before Cris is cuffing the back of his neck and slamming the be-suited man's head down on the edge of the counter with a quick and decisive WHAM! Before shoving him towards the curtain for someone else - someone actually working security tonight - to clean him up. The last thing Mae sees of the man is wide eyes and blood streaming down his face from a split forehead. Cris just calmly heads back to his drink.

"You having a night?" Mae asks when Cris gets close enough to hear her voice over the music. She's scooted back to where she was sitting before he got to his feet. She doesn't look inclined to get up yet either, watching the other slim pickings in the lounge with a distasteful look on her face. If she was bothered by the quick violence from the person about to sit back down with her, she doesn't show it. The girl behind the counter gives the pair a look and then gets her own beer out of the little fridge. She then delicately takes a wet nap to the mess on her counter.

"Looks like." Cris says as he sits back down in a diagonal slide, fingers coming up to tent on his forehead just above his eyes, giving his brows a rueful rub. When he goes to pick up his glass again, he notes something, holding it up to the light to confirm the slightest hint of lipstick left on the rim. A side glance given to the dancer before he huffs a laugh that never really forms beyond the chuff of air. "Today a waste of body glitter?"

"Sure does." Mae mutters, but it's not quiet or under her breath so Cris was probably meant to hear it. His body language probably screams for some alone time and silence, but she's ignoring that. "A massive waste of body glitter. I'm about to pack it in and walk home. Think Antonio would miss me if I ducked out?" When he sees the lipstick on his glass she just stares at him, innocent of all charges. "I need to pre-game before I just drink whiskey neat. I don't need hair on my chest, turns out."

"Antonio always notices." Now whether or not Antonio would care is quite another matter, and that Cris doesn't presume to expound on. Everyone is given to their moods. The back of his skull rolls along the cushion of the couch to lull his gaze in Mae's direction fully. "What if I buy your time?" Her expression is watched carefully with his sharp blue gaze as he asks the question, as if to study every little micro expression she may give along with a response.

"Yeah, that fucker." Mae says fondly, sitting back against the couch with a sigh. He's watching her, so he'll note the brief flare of surprise before she turns to look at him, eyebrow quirked. "Alright, I'm curious." She leans a little closer, being careful not to invade his personal space too much. "Buy my time for what? Conversation, lap dance, table dance.... drinking with you. What do you want?" She lets her gaze drift to the whiskey glass, and then snaps her focus back on the man watching her.

As to what, Cris is being a man of few words and so it's not a direct answer she is given, of sorts, but a direct order. "Take off those ridiculous shoes." His hips are shifted slightly, just the barest lift so he can dig his hand into his pocket and procure his money clip. Pulling out the fold of bills with a nudge of his thumb, he unfurls their once-over so he can slide out hundred dollar bills, two of them and then raises them up to flag the counter girl. "Whatever she's drinking."

Take off her shoes? The only thing that trumps that is, 'Take off that bra.' Torture devices, both of them. Mae leans down, unstrapping the ridiculously high heels, sliding them off her feet to set them beside the couch where she can keep an eye on them. They were not cheap. She pulls her feet up on the couch, curls up and watches the counter girl bring a bottle over, something light and bubbly. Her toes wiggle and she lets out a sigh of relief. "You're my favorite person right now, Cris." Her eyes are on his money clip as she lowers her voice. "So, gonna tell me what you want, beyond my shoes?"

"Nope." Cris punctuates the 'p' rather sharply so it pops off his lips, the tiniest tick of a smile forming on his lips before he turns away from her to refill his glass with a clink of a bottle against the rim. The off duty bouncer lets Zoiya tend to her own drink and get settled before his attention finally returns to the tattooed dancer. With his gaze on the curl of her legs, he pats his thighs a singular time to indicate he wants her feet there instead of tucked beneath her.

Mae laughs, leaning over Cris to pour champagne into a flute, letting the bubbles settle for a second before she picks it up. She takes a drink and sits back on her ass, watching his hand pat his thighs. She stretches out her inked legs and settles her feet on his lap, shifting her ass until she's seated comfortably. "Do you get some enjoyment out of being difficult?" The question is asked almost whimsically, like she doesn't expect an answer. Her toes curl, her heel digging briefly against his thigh. "I used to think I was a pain in the ass, you take the cake."

"Mm." The rumble is rather noncommittal but there is a brief twinkle of laughter in his eyes that doesn't quite match the stoic expression on his face but now it's like Cris is doing it to spite her. His hands hover for just a moment before he lays them on her skin, sliding from ankle to feet properly before he sets thumbs to the arches. And he just quietly rubs them, stretching out her toes and rolling around the balls with his fingers.

Any other evening she might push for answers, or argue for the sake of arguing. Instead Mae watches Cris's face, waiting for a crack in the facade that never comes. There are hints, but that's it. When his hands finally touch her ankle, her shoulders are settled comfortably against the arm of the couch. She tries to play like what he's doing isn't having an impact, but the thumb along the arch of her foot makes her tense before she lets out a sigh. It only gets better from there, and if she were a cat, she'd be purring by now. Instead, she drinks her champagne and watches his face, fighting any noise that threatens to spill from her lips.

If this was a living room, if there weren't pulsing music and half naked girls, swirling lights and money exchanged, this might be a rather homey situation. A night cap and a foot rub and quiet bit of peace at the end of a long day. But it's not. It's the Platinum Club and not ten feet from the quaint setting is a girl rubbing her ass on some guys zipper, making him pant in a rather unbecoming fashion. "I hate this fucking town." He says so quietly he might not have said anything at all.

Her head is turned, dispassionately watching the girl giving the lap dance. "Everywhere is a shit hole, Cris. Seattle was worse." Mae shifts her gaze to his face, watching him from under lowered lashes. "You're not paying me for this." She says after some silence, pointing her toes as his fingers find a slightly painful place near her arch. "Don't think you should be driving home either, you didn't bring your ride did you?"

"You'll take the money." Cris' voice is suddenly sharp, insistent, even as he's picking up her feet and depositing them out of his lap and back onto the cushion. Even though his voice is incensed, he's rather careful with her physically instead of just dumping her legs off the side of the couch. "I'll tell Antonio I cleared you going home, and if he has a problem with that, he can take it out of my pay." He's reaches aside to snag up his bottle with one hand and the glass with the other. He'll find some other place to drink.

"The fuck I will." Mae isn't matching his temper, she's still relatively calm despite the expletive. She's on her feet pretty quick, gazing down at the suddenly angry man. She holds out a hand, fingers wiggling slightly. "I will take your keys though." She takes a step to the side, putting her feet between his, and herself in his way. "Don't worry about Antonio, I'm not worried. Give me your keys, Cris." She looks pretty serious, planting herself in case he gets pushy.

Cris is only slightly taller than Zoiya, but in the close proximity he still has to tilt his chin down to look her in the eyes. There is a tightening along his jaw line, a tick of muscle as he considers her. With a curl of his lips, the tip of his tongue runs down the grove between his front two teeth, sucking against them with 'tsch' sound. In answer to the request for his keys, his arms slowly rise above his head, bottle and glass dangling from a grasp that has several fingers splayed out in capitulation. "Come and get 'em." After all, his hands are full.

"Christ." Mae mutters, jamming her hands into pockets, looking for any keys that look like they might belong to that sweet ride of his. She doesn't look at what she's doing, she keeps a steady glare up at his face, her body language clearly saying , ' You did this.' She looks like she wants to shoulder bump him back into his seat as she searches for the keys, but she manages to behave herself. She can just imagine what might happen if she spills the whiskey. She might have been slightly pissed when the search started, but for some reason, she's laughing softly now.

Laughter, they say is contagious. Still, it takes a moment for Cris' own to catch on, just a low chuckle deep in his chest that makes his stomach tense. Or maybe that's as a result of her searching fingers. The keys are easy enough to find though, amongst his money clip and cell phone. And another cell phone. Two? Doesn't matter. They're on a single ring without a keychain amongst other keys that must belong to wherever he lives. He twists his gaze away from hers, looking over to the dark wall as she pulls them free from the curve of his pocket. "We good?" He asks the distance.

"Yep. Enjoy your walk home Cris, when you're done getting fucked up. You can find me tomorrow for the keys." Mae aims a grin up at his face, reaching up to give him a chummy, if not slightly sharp, pat on the cheek. "Swear to fucking god." She is muttering to herself as she retrieves her shoes and walks toward the curtain, jerking a thumb toward Cris, letting the counter girl know to return his change. She very kindly turns to blow a kiss in his direction before she pushes the heavy curtain aside to duck out.

There is a snap of his teeth at the patting hand, harmless as Cris doesn't come close to connecting. It's the same snap she gave him in the Waffle Shoppe when he toyed with her hair. With an annoyed if slightly amused shake of his head he watches her slip out of the curtains. Just as they're swinging closed he suddenly gets struck by something. "Hey! My house..." Keys. Fuck.