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Walking into Vesuvius is like opening a bag of skittles.
She's never eaten any of the sugar-bites, but damn the colors were fun to pick from.
Jeanette smiles, all teeth and smudged makeup; some of the patrons looked at her like they though she should be offering them lapdances, instead of sitting down in the dens beside them, ogling pantylines and jiggling blooddolls.
Of course, these deadbeat alcoholic dreamers didn't excite her enough to play any games; no, the blooddolls were more enticing.
The stage was so easy to climb onto.
The girls' gasps were so cute; none of them tried to stop her, not that they could have stopped her.
But their curiosities were adorable, almost.
The pole is rusty in her hands; it's a skill she hasn't put to use in years.
But she's old enough to know how her body works and how to move it to get what she wants, and how to put on a show to make others long for what they can't have.
Or could have, if things played out.
Who was she to deny herself her machinations, after all?
The molten red of the club dazzles her; red red red all around-
The message classes with the green of the neon lights.
Stop. Go. Stop. Go; all as she spins round and round, nice and slow.
She chuckles, catching sight of a pretty blue-clad daisy in the apple of her eye.
She twists around the pole, leaving it to grab at one of the dancers instead.
The audience studies their every move as she pets and digs at the girl, but her mind is filled with a different sort of chatter.
The Toreador Mistress shoots her a look; Jeanette giggles, leaving the girl.
She leaves her without a second thought and bounds off the stage with a little hop; she's in front of the club's owner an instant.
The woman doesn't say anything, which is a terrible waste in her opinion, but she follows her as she she heads up the green neon-lit stairs.
Green is for Go.
They stop in a little VIP room; a couch, a private pole astride molten red, a little hot tub brimming with clandestine blue.
Jeanette licks her lips as the woman turns to face her, shutting the door behind them with a click of a lock.
"You're welcome at my club," the woman states, her voice so oozy it reminded Jeanette of decaying fats; "But please, look but don't touch. If you want to feed, you may, but you have to pay their prices."
"You should wear red, little girl," she lilts, leaning in to look over the deep dark blue of the Daisy's velvet linings. "Red means stop."
The woman blinks, perhaps surprised, but it fades. The Mistress smiles a knowing smile, but it's soft.
"Please, call me Velvet," the woman asks, voice so silky Jeanette wants to drape herself in it; "What's your name, lovely creature?"
"I. Am. A cackle in a cuckoo nest," she answers, drawing closer.
"-A Malkavian?" the Daisy guesses, not stepping back.
Clever and pretty, she thinks, -a toy that had all the right parts.
"I'm Jeanette," she offers, a smile spiraling onto her lips.
"From the Asylum?" the woman muses, apparently recognizing her; for some reason this excites her.
"Visiting little ol' me? I'm honored," Velvet promises, "To what to I owe the pleasure?"
Jeanette doesn't answer right away.
The woman doesn't move as she dissects her face.
Jeanette finds the shimmering blue in the Toreador's eyes pretty like something delicate.
Something she can break.
-Stop stop stop-
"I want to play a game," she decides.
The woman hums.
She presses her fingers to the red of the woman's lips.
"Red means stop," she reminds.
Jeanette runs her hands along the woman's jaw, down along her biteable, rippable neck.
"I'll be the Green," she murmurs, running her fingers along the woman's pretty clavicle, picturing how it would look if Vandal took his clever to it.
She lets her fingertips graze along the woman's shoulders, down along her arms.
-Green Green Green-
As her fingers brush along the Mistress' hands, they fall, landing on thick gartered thighs.
-And she finds herself drawn to the triangle between them.
"Why don't we... get a little more comfortable," the woman declares, stepping away.
She looks up; she doesn't 'no', she doesn't like 'red', but the Daisy is smiling a Welcoming that might as well be stamped and left on the cold concrete stoop.
Velvet Velour, she thinks.
Velvet Velvet.
'Touch Me, Touch Me'.
She licks her lips.
The woman takes her by the hand and leads her to the couch.
She doesn't think about what she's doing; if she thinks the Game will Stop, and it's not the sort of Game she lets herself Play often.
The Toreador pushes her gently onto the cushion and she lets her and then the woman is over her, legs to either side of her own, -and then she's sitting on her and-
Her hands are petting the soft, soft blue Velvet.
So Sad; so pettable.
"That's better, isn't it?" The Mistress coos; "Now, what game were we playing, darling?"
Something squirms between her legs, and it takes a moment for it to slither up inside her and trickle back out between her teeth; it's so strange.
Kissing the woman, is so so easy.
Letting the woman kiss her, is bizarre.
Deliciously dizzying.
"Green light," she murmurs, wishing for a moment that her name meant 'Fuck Me', and not 'I will destroy you'.
It's so, so good she thinks as Velvet kisses her, that the pretty flower couldn't see inside her brain, where all her sickly thoughts lived.
She does her best to swallow the flower's tongue without biting it off; her sister was all too fond of reminding her that she would never be clean no matter how much she swallowed.
Her fingers dig into the Daisy's supple thighs, want her to stay. To grind.
"Gently," the woman soothes, "Here... Let me show you how to make it Yellow..."
Jeanette resists the urge to scowl; she's done this so many times it's easier than breathing.
Always, she keeps control. Always fuck them first. Always spits in their mouths. Always leaves them begging for more. Always breaks them before they can hurt her. Before they can hurt Therese, as their father hurt Therese-
-But the woman's body was supple and soothing and soft against her own.
Nothing like the lecherous faces she toyed with, who all wanted to grab her by her hair and force her to her knees.
Velvet hands brush over her, opening her.
Her clothes come off like shed skin, emptying emptying emptying.
Leaving her raw and naked and green.
Velvet silks glide over her again, weighted like a feathery kiss.
"Red or green," she murmurs in her ear.
"Green," Jeanette breathes, her body struggling to remember how.
Soft hands run her over, gently, softly.
Like they didn't want to rip or possess or cage or tear.
She's so fucking wet by the time the Mistress reaches her thighs she considers rolling them over and taking it.
But Velvet's body is a kiss against her back, and the woman's delft fingers strum her body like a funeral dirge.
-It's the closest she'll ever come to being holy.
"Green?" the Mistress licks, lips absolving her neck.
She arches against her, pressing every bit of their bodies together as she could, pulling the satin fingers into her cunt, knowing she couldn't possibly get enough.
Even if she consumed her, it would never be enough.
"I've a been a bad girl," she moans, her tears globby red and stainleaving; she hates that she says it. Hates that's true. Hates Hates Hates.
Velvet wraps her closer, her body radiating a human warmth.
The woman's heartbeat is a hymnal; it make Jeanette tremble harder when her fingers find no hymen.
"You're beautiful, " the woman assures, her sticky voice so certain Jeanette couldn't argue; it wasn't the first time she'd heard such words, but they taste different.
She supposes a Toreador would know art, and not the sick sick sick-
"Don't tell Daddy," she whimpers; her memories red red red.
"You're safe here," the Mistress promises, hands slowing. Soothing.
Jeanette feels stupid enough to believe her.
A Mother would know absolution, though she knows little Sarah didn't have one.
Like she'd never had one.
She'd only ever had Therese.
Poor poor Therese.
She presses against Velvet harder, her body green green green.
She assumed the Switch would be shut off after she feels the little death, but the Velvet fingers keep dancing.
Silk hands keep bathing her, working her.
Again.
And Again.
Little Deaths stacking larger and longer, again and again.
She gets wetter and wetter, louder and desperate and delirious.
She can't think.
It's not blood, it's not pulled hair, it's not spitting or stuffing or breaking.
But she shatters.
Splinters into shards tinier and tiner that she couldn't possibly keep track of.
So soft and slow.
Deep.
Steadying.
Green.
It takes her a moment, to finally catch up to her thoughts.
She blinks, panting.
Breathing.
Not crying.
-Weird weird weird-
"Don't ever wear green," she begs; she can't loose this so soon.
Other Kindred might break her.
She couldn't allow that.
Not yet.
Not until she figured out Yellow-Green.
She places her hand over Velvet's, trapping her fingers inside her.
The Daisy kisses her, soft and sweet and assuring.
"You'll come back and visit me sometimes, won't you?" Velvet asks in turn.
Jeanette bucks as another wave hits her.
Velvet holds her through every aftershock.
"Red," she whispers.
Velvet's hands stop.
They hold her, but they stop.
Jeanette closes her eyes.
She's afterimages of the clandestine blue, bubbling water across the room.
"You should get a little duckling," she imagines, watching the ghostly idea paddle across the tiny after-image pool.
The Mistress hums.
"It will be sunup soon," the flower notes, whispering. Luring. "You may spend the day with me, if you like."
She works the woman's fingers with her own, practicing 'soft' and 'safe'.
Knowing that she'd be gone before daybreak.
Knowing she'd back, after.
And after that after, again.
It was a fun game.