Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, The Rest Want Redheads! (Ch. 28 ET)

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

This is it… Aerin thought as she sat on the bed, combing through her hair. She’s counting on you not to foul things up like you have since she met you… It was a hard bit of self-chiding, but a necessary one, Rat’s words coming from her lips in her voice. She thought back to all that she had been taught by that motley crew, how to look and act alluring without seeming too obvious. How to scan a crowd for a face without ]looking like you were looking for someone. How to bait the hook properly.

It had all sounded easy enough when the men had first began to prep her for the job – after all, how hard was it for a relatively pretty girl to just stand in a bar and get a man’s attention?

Too hard…, she thought to herself as she remembered the pitfalls in the first few sessions.

First, there was what they called ‘casing’, where she was to enter and look around…but not be obvious. Even when walking into a place she had never been before, they said, she was to enter the night before and commit details to memory to make it appear the next night as if she had spent every night there for a month, pretending to know some of the faces that smiled at her, but not send the wrong signals to them at the same time. To learn the layout so that she knew exactly where the bar was…where the exits were…and had a good notion as to what they served there. Even after a few lessons, it was not a subject that she did remarkably well in, her eyes betraying her and wanting to peer at every face right away.

She did not have the luxury of ‘casing’ with Ashari’s mission – she was flying blind.

The second lesson had come at some great expense to her inhibitions and dignity although it had been done at Rat’s den in order to conceal the fact that they were training her. It involved alcohol. ‘You want to be tipsy at best. Not drunk.’, said he. ‘Not a problem…’, said she. ‘You might be waiting all night for a mark’, said he. ‘I can wait. ’, said she. Four marks later, Rat was holding back her hair while she vomited into a bucket. The next night, he had shown her how to fill up on bread first, a tricky task, and how to carry a few handkerchiefs in her bag, taking sips and wiping her mouth with ladylike dignity, all the while disguising the fact that the mouthful of liquid was being soaked up by the cloth. An empty mug was also an option, but far more obvious and frowned upon by pub masters. It had taken her a few nights of recurring hangovers, but it had taught her two important lessons – Sip…don’t gulp’, and Only swallow when you’re with the mark…. But sparingly.’.

Aerin prayed – actually prayed – to the One that the mark would be found early enough in case alcohol were involved. After the incident with Wrinkles, she had been pretty much scared into a stint of sobriety and wanted to be as lucid as possible for this mission. Ashari was counting on it.

The third lesson, she discovered, was harder still. It was the lesson where Rat had shown her how to put on makeup ‘properly’ by first cavorting her past a few whores and pointing out the ones who did it correctly, a process that she found both enlightening and amusing, he had given her the peaks and pitfalls of fishing for men. ’When a woman is excited here…’ he had whispered softly in her ear as his hand brushed against her crotch. ’…you will see it here… The latter sentence had been accompanied by a tap on both her lips and cheeks. ’What do you mean?’ she had asked, before looking into the mirror that he had handed her and memorizing her colors and features as he instructed. When her memorization was completed, he had begun to kiss her neck, earlobes, eyelids, cheeks, and mouth – all at random – his hands exploring her curves through her clothes as he did so, stopping only when her breathing was on the verge of hyperventilation. ’Now look, and think…’, he had instructed. ’Ooooooh!’, she had slowly sighed as she noted the flushing of her cheeks and the reddening of her lips, among other small tell-tales. It had taken her several attempts, all with the promise of him following through with the seduction that he had started and all but the last refused, but she had slowly learned to use the powders and oils to make herself look exactly as her body had made her look when he had tickled her fancy.

Anxious, but not lustful… Promising, but not promised… she thought as she repeated the lesson from months prior as she continued to prepare for the mission. She hoped that, even now, Ashari would double-check her work to make sure that she was taken for neither a clown nor a whore as the next lesson taught.

The fourth lesson, she had decided at the time, was the most unexpectedly hard lesson of them all. ‘You want to attract a man…a…man…’ Rat had told her as she pretended to have light conversation with him at the bar. He motioned to a man across the room, a stranger picked at random. ’Easy…’, she had foolishly challenged. He had shrugged and moved away, the look on his face that of a man shot down. Aerin had turned more toward the man and put on her most alluring airs. Half a tide and half a dozen incorrect suitors later, she sat dejectedly at the bar, watching her target walk out without being so much as aware of her presence, having assumed that she held no interest in him. After that, Rat had shown her subtle tricks to dissuade unwanted advances, little white lies to tell, and most importantly, how to make the mark feel as if he were the only man in the room without feeling targeted. Again, due to her somewhat amiable nature and small setbacks with the alcohol lessons, it was not something that she had excelled at even after a few practice runs as she often found herself engaged in conversation with the wrong men for too long, thereby losing her mark half of the time.

Look available, but not too available, interested, but not too interested, and for Nether’s sake, make eye contact once in a while… she reminded herself as she looked at her reflection in the mirror for a full burn, checking to make sure that she looked appropriate for the environment the mark would be in. With a deep breath, she stood and turned toward the window, looking out at the part of the city that she could see.

“You can do this…”, she whispered to herself in the most reassuring voice that she could muster. It would be a test alright as it had been primarily pure drunken lust behind most of her successes with Rat. This guy might be different and she needed to start expecting the unexpected if she wished to survive.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

OOC: Summary post of the events for GW, in order to wrap this up for recess while still ‘playing it out’.

A mark and a half later, Aerin found herself immersed in the crowd at the Ha’Penny Mermaid, so similar to one of the dives in Murrelbuck and still so altogether different. She had spent a handful of burns mingling around the area, sipping lightly on her wine and balancing on the fine line between available and aloof, taking in a dance or two afterward until time seemed to pass without her notice. What she had noticed, after a bit, was James Sullivan – “Jemmy” to his friends, as she found out - the short thug whom she had met at the rubble of the Banner and, as planning…not fate had decreed, her target for the eveningtide.

She had pretended not to notice him at first, coming away from a group of chatters as if to walk past him, ‘noticing’ him at the last flicker and, acting tipsy, pretended to dredge his face up from her memory. After that, and a friendly word or two, she did the best that she could to engage his attention, keeping chatter about the Banner and his profession at a minimum and talk of frivolous things such as accents, recent happenings like the University’s disappearance, and such at the forefront. Being careful not to seem to overtly sexual (which was easier than she would have figured since her interest in the man outside of her mission was next to nothing), Aerin pretended to grow a bit more tipsy with the slow passage of time, spitting her drinks daintily into her kerchief and nursing each glass until such a time as she could grant some lucky patron her near-full drink in exchange for their near-empty in order to pass off the illusion that she was drinking more than she really was.

A short, informal conversation about the Seaside Slayer mixed with a small splash of honest concern about her safety would, hopefully, net her an escort to wherever Ashari (and any friends) lay in wait, the redhead slipping as quickly and as safely as she could toward the Burpin’ Dragon after delivering 'her mark' to Ashari, where she would spend a bit of time really relaxing before heading home, the act both a treat for herself and an effort to shake anyone following her from the Mermaid.

[Grey Wolf]

It was the boobs. Plain and simple, the boobs were what got Jemmy's attention and he barely looked up when Aerin recognized him, talking to her lovely pair and not her face at all. It took him a good burn to tear his eyes from the breasts and then he remembered her as apprentice magician from the rubble of the Banner and struck an idle chatter about what she had been up to since then. He even remembered her taking the dressed and wondered if the dress she wore was one of those she took from under the wrecked brothel, taking a chance to grope her, as he admire the cut and make of Aerin's attire.

Even had she drank every drink that came their way, red-head would have hardly gotten as drunk as Jemmy, the man clearly a light-weight as he was already mumbling after his second mug of ale. After fourth he was all over her, hugging and professing his love and adoration, all but groveling at her feet to obvious enjoyment of other patrons who had seen him make a fool of himself to whores and trollops before. He was full of bluster and acted high and mighty when she mentioned Seaside Slayer, and took the opportunity to behave all self-important and suave, as much as a man as plastered as him could, hinting openly that a bit of hanky-panky was the price for his escort. Which was ridiculous as he could hardly find a man-sized hole in a wall, let alone line a limp cock to Aerin's little hidey-hole.

Look of disgust on Red's face when she clobbered him with a sand filled sack and knocked him out was obvious and there Aerin's involvement ended. The man was taken to a secret location and Ashari given plenty of time to work her suggestion into his weak mind. She hardly broke a sweat and thus James Sullivan went to seek his boss, Michael Crane a trigger word planted into his brain. He was a clumsy weapon, but one that could get close enough to at least hurt the young crime-lord if not end his evil reign forever.

[Turi]

locked, summarised and archived