Cabaret & Candy (TONIGHT ONLY!)

[Lih]

Lillian’s eyes opened wide. It was one of those sights she would never forget. She’d seen some things in her life as a diplomat, seen some things before that too. This, however, was a new brand on her memory.

Though not sober, she was not drunk.

She looked up at the stage sharply, as the performance reached its curtain call.

“What the hell?” she muttered.

Why so elaborate? She knew this club had a penchant for the baroque and theatrical, but what all of that? Why take it this far? Why not just play the crowdpleaser eye-candy?

The last half hour of Jaxen Marveet’s act… it was stunning and alarming and fundamentally disconcerting. The whole thing fascinated her, piqued her facilitator’s mind. She thought along different lines, perceived different patterns, but it seemed to her the entire situation had a dislocated, dreamy quality.

She turned to stare at the thin, tall woman sharing her table. She had stopped sipping the wine the bottle girls had fetched out on a lacquered tray, and she no longer picked at the candied fruit in the little finger bowl.

Like all of the others, the woman was looking around, open-mouthed, dumbstruck, astonished, laughing a little though it felt like too serious a time.

Only the entertainer, the performer, the center of everybody’s attention, seemed unperturbed. His eyes sparkled with enthusiastic cunning.

It was engaging--all very clever, very judged. Not much got past Jaxen, did it?

She turned to look at the man on her left.

He was wide-eyed, startled, terrified.

“Holy shit,” he said. “Did you see?”

“I saw,” said Lillian simply.

Together they witnessed the over-the-top finale invoking the Ascendancy a.k.a. ass-candy.

It took some effort, but Lillian kept her grin fixed.

She sipped her drink, listening, watching the crowd.

She could see the full heavy-handed finery, could smell fragrant wine and crushed mint as the bottle girls darted around her.

More laughter. It was genuine this time.

She watched as the man in front of her, with sculptural features and hints of white in his hair, with a deliberate, understated presence, text somebody. Calmly.

But she sensed the fellow was becoming impatient. That happened.

But he retained control, as though he couldn’t afford to be seen, couldn’t make a scene —she was struck by the distinct impression that he looked as though he were about to pin that Marveet fellow to his couch by his scrotum. It somehow felt that way to Lillian.

A good diplomat noticed these details. A good diplomat knew when to up the tempo and move the conversation toward the consummation of purchase.

She never imagined she’d be witnessing this sort of incendiary material. It was her imagination, no doubt, but her flesh tingled despite the central heating. What was she watching? How were these illusions being performed? This … stuff had power. This knowledge, this application, it had a potency of its own. The living art, transgressions, the plumes, the materials used, the very words, the heavy makeup/drag. Partly to add to the interactive, spectacle nature of the cabaret, mostly to combat the gloom of current day Moscow for youths.

Under any other circumstances, she would have retreated to the balcony outside for some air. Or a smoke.

But this evening the club lived up to its reputation. It was not without a few clients of note.

… Aiden Finnegan. 

Lillian was very taken with this particular musician: an elegant man, well dressed, moneyed.  

This man was something different. He had taste. He was handsome, if you liked that kind of thing.

He also kissed the attractive man at his side before the impromptu performance for the whole lounge. The diplomat half-smiled at that.

Her smile was broader when a wasted young man slid off his seat, under his table.

She dropped a generous amount of CCD cash on the table and stood up. Two ambiguously garbed workers with feminine features came to her aid.

Per her request, the club workers took the fainted boy to one of the leather couches.

Lillian sat back on the couch next to the unconscious body and crossed her long legs. She allowed the tension to slip out of her muscles as she listened to the music.

For the first time in a long while, she relaxed.