(Un)Dressing

[Elsa Bellefonte]

Elsa gave her hair one last little fluff as she stared into the mirror. A tired looking young woman looked back at her, most definitely someone who shouldn't be involved in burlesque dancing, even if the establishment involved happened to be relatively high classed with very professional employees. Yet this was part of Elsa quite literally letting her hair down, "finding herself" as it happened to be. She gave herself another look and then rose to turn. Her shift had finished: she'd done a moderately good show, but even she had to admit to being somewhat distracted. There was quite a lot on her mind lately, given how her life had been and what was happening around her.

She paused where she'd left her clothing, paused and looked. and kept on looking. She raised a hand to point, her brow furrowing. Her street clothes should be right there. There was a locker and everything. Said locker was open ever so slightly and there was most definitely not clothes inside it.

Grumbling with frustration, Elsa turned and walked back into the main room. She began looking through the crowd, sending her mind out to jump across thoughts, picking up surface level ideas. She paused, seeing someone nearish to the employee entrance. A quick caress didn't show anything, but... "Excuse me," she said, approaching, "did you see anyone suspicious go through here? Possibly carrying a sack of clothing?" Though at this point, Elsa was seriously considering just "borrowing" someone else's street clothes.

[Richard Buckles]

Richard wasn't one for the sexual stuff as he was pretty innocent about that. But he couldn't help being a little curious. He had heard about this place and see it, reading up on it online. He thought it couldn't hurt to go in and look, not much likely hood to run into anyone he knew as he didn't know many people around here. He walked into the club and spent some time towards the back more in a corner. He was still feeling shy about the whole thing he couldn't help it.

He decided to dress up a bit tonight as he wore black pants, his nice black leather shoes, and a deep green button down shirt with a collar. He had ordered a Shirley Temple though he hated that it was such a girly sounding name they were delicious. Lemon-lime soda with grenadine. He sat and sipped his drinks watching the performance. In particular his eyes were on a dark haired beauty as she performed. He decided to get on his way now that it was a bit late.

He saw someone coming towards him on their way out the door. Which he might not have noticed but he thought it was odd they were leaving before the performance was over. He decided to come over closer to the stage. He was going to head out but wanted to see what it was like up at the stage. He was about to leave when he saw the performed he had been eyeing come out still in her outfit.

He overheard her asking about someone leaving with a bag. He was thinking about it and that person brushing past had a bag on them. So he spoke up and interrupted the person she asked about it. He moved in closer "Not to be rude but I did see someone head out a bit before the end of the..." he said. His trailing off was because he wasn't sure how to refer to the performance and didn't want to say the wrong thing. He didn't want to offend her and the fact that she was rather pretty didn't make him less nervous.

[Elsa Bellefonte]

The words coming from the side distracted Elsa. She turned to look, not immediately recognizing the young man who spoke. He moved in, and she studied him all the more. A bit of her mind extended outward, quickly flicking through to try and get some surface thoughts, not wanting to go too deep for fear of giving him too much of an alert, just in case.

He seemed to be a good Samaritan, and one that was somewhat nervous about being here, likely dragged by classmates or friends or something along those lines. "The show," Elsa finished for him. She stepped closer, raising her brows. "Did you get a close enough look to give me a description?" And again, Elsa was sorely tempted to start poking around in the young man's brain, to literally force the thought to the surface.

"I'm Elsa, by the way," she said, not shy about her name. Many took it as a stage name these days, thanks to a certain incredibly popular Disney film. "And you can stop being nervous: I simply want to retrieve my bag. Any help you give will be greatly appreciated."

[Richard Buckles]

As she stepped in closer his heart started to beat a little faster. He was a little surprised that she was being so open with her name and proximity. He breathed in slowly as keeping his calm was part of his training he knew what he would have to do to settle his nerves. He had just always been shy when it came to girls. If it hadn't been for a particularly aggressive girl in high school he would never even had a date ever.

"Oh ummm nice to meet you Elsa. My name is Richard." he finally said as she asked about what the person looked like "Well I didn't look really hard at him." he gave a pause as he thought about the guy. "Middle aged, salt and pepper." he was close enough to Else he caught wind of her scent ever so slightly. This triggered him to remember "He smelled like cigarettes?" He wasn't sure if that particular detail would help but was giving her all the information he had.

She had encouraged him not to be nervous but the man wasn't what was making him nervous. He nodded "He was not really fat but not thin. Sort of looked a little....chunky?" he said while asking because he wasn't sure that was the best term. "He went out this way." he said as went towards the main entrance.

[Elsa Bellefonte]

Was he... reacting to her? Elsa supposed that made some sense: she had a dancer's build, an attractive face, and happened to be wearing a burlesque outfit. In some ways, the outfit even beat out swimwear. At least he wasn't staring, even managed to roll up his tongue enough to form words. A name: Richard; a description: middle-aged, salt and pepper; a smell: cigarettes.

The direction? "Well, we'd better head that way then," she said, nodding. She gestured for him to follow before quirking a brow. "You were the one who got a good look at him, not me. So it'll be considerably more useful if you take point and alert me if we find him. If we get close enough, we can probably stop him. That does require moving though," Elsa gestured again, trying to gently usher Richard forward. The moment the young man started moving, Elsa would follow suit, falling right into step behind him and hopefully hurrying quick enough to catch up to the "chunky" middle-aged pervert who apparently wanted to steal a dancer's clothing.

Elsa was definitely going to have to have a word with security when this was all through.

[Richard Buckles]

As they went out the door he continued to use his exercises to keep his calm as soon he might be in a confrontation or at the least a pursuit. As the came out to the parking lot he looked around at the lot for a few moments. He thought the only way they would catch up is if he was still parked here or if he walked. Given his physical appearance he doubted the walking theory.

Richard started down a row slowly and watching the car windows, even though it was night he caught sight of something. It was the glow of a cigarette ember that disappeared into a car before a stream of smoke shot out the window. Richard pull up toward that car specifically. He saw the mean between exhales of smoke leaned down so his face was under the dash. When he came back up he visibly shuddered.

Richard did not want to think about what he was doing there. He moved up and as the guy put his hand with the cigarette out the window he grabbed the cigarette out of the guys hand "Hey buddy you got something in there that doesn't belong to you?" he asked as he saw the bag for a moment before the guy pushed it down into the leg space on the drivers side.

"What the hell kid grabbing my cig out of my hand like that." the older man started indignantly "No I don't. I don't appreciate your trying to make me look bad." He started the car up acting like he was going to drive off. When he went to the gear shifter Richard acted rather rashly.

He didn't like how sleazy the guy was being and it made him pretty mad so he took a cue from movies. He put the cigarette's lit end right next to the guys eye in a swift movement "How about you hand me the bag. Now." Sure it was a bluff, he wouldn't blind the guy but he didn't know that. The guy was flinching pretty bad.

[Elsa Bellefonte]

Elsa kept her mind stretched out, seeking out surface thoughts, though carefully. Too wide of a net would have serious consequences: it had been what she'd more or less done to find her sister over a year ago, after all. Elsa's head already felt a bit stretched just moving as she did.

It didn't seem as if she really had to either. Richard made for a car as if directed. Elsa sent her mind out, crawling along the man's thoughts, betting that he wouldn't be able to figure out what it meant. She heard Richard's voice through the man's thoughts, accompanied by a the hell does this kid want? that flickered through for a moment. Elsa came up alongside him.

The guy talked about not having it, insisting, but inside: "He's lying," Elsa said, her eyes flashing for a moment. Before she could do anything, however, Richard moved, grabbing the smoke and threatening the man with it. Elsa arched her brows, watching.

She looked at the man. "He's not bluffing," she said flatly. She took a step forward. "It's my bag. Where is it?" The man looked terrified, but he pointed over his shoulder. Elsa reached into the back seat of the car, pulling it out. She sifted through it, before looking over at Richard and giving him a short nod of confirmation.

[Richard Buckles]

"Ow ow ow okay okay." he replied pointing back to the back seat after she had asked where the bag was. Richard followed him down till he got the bag in hand. He pushed it toward Elsa for her to take. He pulled the cigarette back and blew on it to keep the embers going. The guy put it in gear and was driving off. "Better not come back!" Richard barked out.

He maybe was doing this because the guy was a pervert and disgusted him but it was also maybe to impress the lady a little. Though he wouldn't know that's why he did it at the moment. As the guy started to drive off Richard flicked the cigarette so it hit him on the shoulder, then bounced down his arm till rolling into him lap. He made audible sounds of pain on each strike of the embers. Then the cigarette was thrown out the car in seconds and he drove off in a hurry "PSYCHO!" he screamed back at them.

He breathed out hard as he felt a twinge of head pain from forcing his ability through all his nerves acting up. He put his hand to his head for a moment and scrunching his brow before lowering his hand and keeping a smile on his face as he tried not to show the sudden shot of pain he was just hit with. He kept turned to face her again "Well I am glad we could resolve that issue." he said to her. "Sorry if I seemed a bit intense. I wasn't really going to...put it out in his eye."

[Elsa Bellefonte]

Elsa took the offered bag easily enough, smiling that tight smile at the man all the while. He looked panicky, which made Elsa all the happier. She was, however, slightly tempted to point out that Richard probably shouldn't be scaring off potential customers, but Elsa figured she'd leave talk like that for Julian. She just worked there, after all.

The throw was impressive, and Elsa just quirked the brow at the screamed retort. "They never learn," she said, more amused than anything, watching as he hurried out and got away as quickly as possible. She could feel the thoughts tingling from next to her and turned to look at Richard, who did seem at least a little put out by everything.

"Well, that's disappointing to hear," Elsa replied. She shouldered her bag. "As I was so hoping that you'd have damaged one of the few parts of his body he cared about. If you're thinking that I'm someone who would care about that, you're quite mistaken," she nodded then walked back toward the club, looking over her shoulder: "I could buy you a drink for a reward, unless you're the type who'd rather have a private performance?"

[Richard Buckles]

He heard her comment about leaning and Richard chimed in "Well I hope this is an exception to that and he learned not to...steal a woman's clothes." he said. He smiled as she spoke to him as he was a kindly fellow. He wasn't so nervous feeling now that he had interacted with her. She no long that pretty dancer on the stage, she was just the pretty girl next to him.

He was a bit surprised her nonchalantness about he idea of a cigarette getting put out in the guys eye. It kind of gave a bit of a crazy streak which he did find a tad sexy somewhere down deep he didn't talk out loud about. "I guess I learned not to go easy on the sleazy guy." he said softly still with a smile on his face the entire time.

Her offer of a reward caught his attention, he felt like he could sit and have a drink with her. That was a lot more than he was expecting since he hadn't done it for any reason besides the morality of the situation. Though that smile turned into a bashful expression, including bright red complection to match at the very notion of a private dance. Sure it wasn't a strip club but as it was even coming kind of broke through a comfort zone.

He milled it over trying to decide how to proceed. He new he would be a good time either way but it all just depended on her. Did he have a shot in hell on maybe turning this into a date? If that was the case the drink was the better choice. Though as crass as thought was if this was the only time he would see her really the private dance seemed much more appealing. He kept it safe though and gentlemanly as the red in his face subsided slightly "A drink would be nice Elsa."

[Elsa Bellefonte]

Somehow Elsa doubted this would prove to be an exception, at least as far as the man they'd driven off would be. She'd already dismissed him as just one of many of his type who often showed up here. Julian and the other staff often made it quite clear that sort of behavior and that sort of person wasn't welcome, but that didn't stop them from showing up and getting into things.

What was far more interesting were the thoughts bubbling up in Richard's mind. How he kept categorizing Elsa as a "pretty girl" and "a tad sexy" and seemed almost too defensive when it came to dealing with "the sleazy guy." Not to mention his bashful reaction to the whole offered private dance.

"Good choice," Elsa said, still looking over her shoulder. "You should probably hurry up, unless you're that determined to watch me walk from behind?" Elsa turned back, giving her hips another roll as she strode forward, heading back into the club proper. She did feel a bit sorry for the poor boy, but what also struck her as unusual was that he didn't seem to realize who she was. So many people around here almost instantly recognized her, and then they had reactions to that. Richard had just been having reactions to her personality and her outfit (and the body therein). It was definitely a nice change, and, well, it made Elsa feel a good deal more... normal.

[Richard Buckles]

He had started subconsciously holding his breath after his answer so when she said it was a good choice he released his breath as well as anxiety. "You are very nice Elsa." he said out loud as he thought the same thing. Then came her comment about determined to walk behind her. That made the bubbled of his mind boil over as she walked away he did look down at her butt for a moment out of reflex before looking up at her face and back of her head.

He had a hearty blush going now. He felt like she was teasing him but some of him didn't mind and liked it. He had never met a girl quite so strong in personality as well as beautiful back home in Minnesota. This place was a smaller place than a city but had so much going on it. At first he was angry about getting drummed out of boot camp butt things have been changing for him the better since he came to Bellefonte.

He walked back inside with her still with a bit of the red stuff on his cheeks from his mind boil she induced outside. He went up to the bar with her and sort of stood silently. He wasn't old enough for alcohol so he didn't really think of what to order as he couldn't order the Shirley Temple like he had before.

[Elsa Bellefonte]

The compliment had Elsa letting out a rough laugh. Nice? "Clearly you haven't gotten to know me yet," Elsa drawled. Then again, his thoughts quite quickly drifted down to her rear for a moment, before bounding up. His blush and his thoughts led him to insisting that it was only for a moment, and Elsa supposed she could give him that much. She was dressed rather scantily, after all, and she did have that tight dancer's body on top of that.


But never meeting a girl as strong in personality or in appearance? That made Elsa smile. He'd be hard pressed to find girls like her period. Her sister, obviously, and likely Ellen, but there weren't many others outside of that. She pushed through the door with a good deal of confidence, strolling toward the bar. The bartender recognized her, of course, and also her companion.

"I'm buying him a drink," Elsa said, nodding and pulling up her bag. She rummaged for a moment before extending a card toward the bartender. The man only had to look for a moment before nodding and looking over at Richard. "Well," Elsa said, "it's your reward, hero. So you should pick whatever you want. I'd wager the house wouldn't even mind if you wanted to try something a little stronger this time around," Elsa looked at the bartender, who looked slightly disgruntled, but also like he'd essentially done this before.

[Richard Buckles]

Her comment about not getting to know her was true he didn't know much other than this small encounter between them. But he liked to think first impressions mattered and his impression was she was nicer than she thought she was. He was a bit twisted up inside about her anyways. Not sure how to react to most of what she said and did. He was far shyer than her for certain.

He was far to trusting at times especially when it came to a lady in distress. Part of him was just like that usual macho man sort of thing. See pretty girl in trouble must save. She had him thinking for a now about if maybe he was acting a bit shallowly. But those thoughts quickly snuffed out as she began to talk again "Ummm well then how about Rum and Coke?" he stated questioningly as he wasn't really a drinker himself. But he didn't want to come off as to much of a kid by turning down the offer or ordering something as plain as a beer.


His thought of superficiality just sort of got curb stomped to death when heard her soft but sweet voice call him a hero. Even if she didn't meant much by it, it sort of wound him up inside a bit. Each time he tried having serious thoughts she would speak or do something that just crushed any thought in him besides her. He swallowed a bit hard on nothing as he had to keep it cool on the outside. He was just glad she didn't know what he was thinking about this whole time since they met. So many things that would shatter the image he was trying to project. He did think the drink would help with the headache that had developed.

He had been developing his ability to use it under distracted circumstances by focusing. But he did find the more he fought through those distraction the more the use affected him. Throwing that cigarette shouldn't have caused this but then again he didn't realize just how distracted she made him.

[Elsa Bellefonte]

Such strange thoughts floating across the surface of the young man's mind. Elsa couldn't help but be amused as she picked them up, particularly his semi-fantasy about putting her in the role of damsel in distress. Part of her wanted to point out that she probably could've handled it without his interfering, or at least, handled it once he'd given her the information. However she saw no reason to squash his hopes and dreams, particularly given that she happened to be thoroughly enjoying the attention she was getting from him.

"Rum and Coke it is," she said to the bartender, again catching the bartender's attention. The drink appeared in due time, along with a fruity one in front of Elsa. She looked at it for a moment, then up at him. "It's virgin, isn't it?" she asked dryly. He didn't even need to nod: she was already taking a sip and noticing the decided lack of alcohol.

That was the ever so fun part about drinking where you worked. It definitely didn't help that she'd all but confessed her issues with drinking. They weren't going to give her something except for specific circumstances, and apparently getting her clothing back and celebrating didn't count. "Cheers, hero," she said, extending the glass upward and toward the guy in question.