15934/Performance Blues

Performance Blues
Date of Scene:	30 December 2023
Location:	Podium at Theatre Row, Colgate Heights
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Satana, Aphrodite

---

Satana has posed:
"Shit!" That's about the fifth time the magician on stage has said that. She stares, flummoxed, at the prop box she has on a podium between her and some hapless member of the audience. Over to one side, a easel holds up a sign: SATANA SATIRA, THE GREATEST MAGICIAN ON EARTH! "Would you believe, my darlings, that I brought the wrong box with me today?" she says, addressing the audience. This causes some raucus laughter from the people assembled near the stage, plus increased interest, because each previous time she's said something like that she wound up doing something that let them see up her skirt. Far up her skirt. Where she Sharon Stones them.

"I won't be but a moment," she says to the flustered volunteer. "Just a jiffy."

She picks up the prop box and opens a hole in the air behind her: clearly visible to the volunteer, not so visible to the audience, though they get the idea that something of the sort is happening, from the seats it looks more like part of the trick. She dumps the box in the hole and then sticks her head, arms, and shoulders into it.

The hole starts to move down, tortured screams of damned souls spilling out of it to flood the stage with the wailing of the doomed. The hole starts to fall, forcing her to bend lower and lower and ... There it is! The Sharon Stone manoeuvre, just in time for her to get what she was looking for and pull out of the hole, the hole vanishing into space.

"OK," she says, turning to the audience with a nervous smile. "Let's try this again with the right trick box."

Beat.

"Shit. I wasn't supposed to tell you that it was tricked out."

This causes more laughter.

Aphrodite has posed:
Entertainment was a key part of an Olympian's existance. Sure there was their divine domain, their dutys and all...but when you lived for as long as Aphrodite did? Well it was easy enough to get bored.

Slipping into the crowd and finding a spot, it was perhaps only the clear 'eye-catching' display of Satana that offered her cover to slip in unnoticed, claiming a spot for herself and the promise of a drink to be served.

Who knows? Maybe the succubus would be entertaining once more.

Satana has posed:
The rest of the act goes along in roughly this way. Each and every stage magic trick fails, in comical ways; the magician, dressed to resembled Zatana Zatarra, only devil-red and FAR more scantily, is utterly incompetent at sleight of hand and other stagecraft. Instead she "recovers" from her failed trips by open use of actual magic (presumed to be the 'real' trick by the audience) and flashing the audience in glimpses just long enough to catch the eye, but short enough to be frustrating; playing the anticipation line like a master violinist playing a Stradavarius.

Finally the act ends, and each of her volunteers ('coincidentally' all attractive people who are known in the underground) gets a kiss as they exit the stage. That apparent brief weakness each gets is probably just a reaction to the disorienting experience of hot stage lights and an incompetent magician.

Right?

Act over, Satana leaves the stage, reappearing almost immediately, dressed in an elegant evening gown (that conceals nothing in any meaningful sense), snagging a drink from a passing waiter before making a bee line for Aphrodite.

"I thought I felt more than the usual amount of lust while I was performing. How are you, Lady of my Loins?"

Aphrodite has posed:
Once more joined, the redhead beauty turns her gaze towards Satana and her elegant new attire, a soft chuckle from the goddess lips. "Oh no daughter of a devil, I'm sure much of that lust was focused entirely on what glimpses of those loins they could see...or thought they could see."

A pause, but only to sip the drink before she comes to rest the glass against her cheek. "Is this how you choose to spend your evening? Or is it merely shopping for you?"

Satana has posed:
"Oh, this is a low-grade feeding ground for me. Disappearing these would be too ... bothersome. Too open. It would attract the attention of people like the one whose name I lampoon. Or worse."

Satana slides into the seat nearest Aphrodite, slithering close, letting the pair's body heat mingle noticeably. "But the grade of sin here is ... perfect." Satana flushes as she closes her eyes, thinking of the smorgasbord she just consumed. "So I take little sips from my 'volunteers'. They feel tired. I feel refreshed. And there's no body to dispose of."

She opens her eyes, smiling. "And now I'm safe for my favourite activity. No risk of accidental consumption. Only deliberate."

She gazes up and down Aphrodite's length languidly, not even trying to disguise where the gaze lingers.

"What brings you to such a hive of scum and villainy?"

The rich and influential of Gotham. Scum and villainy. It seems somehow appropriate.

Aphrodite has posed:
"Just a tasting, like wine?" Aphrodite muses, the goddess leaning in close enough to rest her leg against Satana's own, her form turned to the side and a little smirk on her lips.

"Or perhaps a child eating their dinner so that they might enjoy dessert, no?"

A little muse of the question towards her being here, her shoulders are shrugged lightly. "Distraction, and the knowledge that those that have so much...they tend to be dripping with desire for more."

Satana has posed:
"More like dim sum," Satana muses. "A shrimp dumpling here, a noodle bowl there, a wrap here, etc. and before you know it you're filled. Only here the dumplings are pieces of soul, and the people who give it to me feel like they've just received great head."

A short pause. A lewd smile. "I'm quite good at that," she adds. Short pause to let the mind go bad places. "Eating souls by pieces."

She winks and settles in her seat to bring body contact up to shoulder height.

"See anybody you like here?" she asks, adding, "Aside from the obvious. I feel like taking a few people home with me tonight. See if we can't get a good worshipping session going."

Aphrodite has posed:
"Ah," Aphrodite muses, tilting her head only to draw her hand towards her chin to rest comfortably on her palm while she draws her gaze towards the crowd, considering. "I suppose," she muses softly, closing her eyes as if to 'see' with more than merely sight. "I suppose there are one or two...perhaps more. If one could get them to...'loosen up' as the humans say."

Satana has posed:
"Well, one of the best ways to 'loosen' mortals up in these circumstances is dance. It's a pity I can't abide dance." Satana stares at Aphrodite severely. "It's just fucking set to music."

She pauses just long enough for the words to register.

"And I hate most dance music."

A wink. A grin.

Then her gaze goes over the field and she pensively looks a few over. There's overlap in her interests and Aphrodite's it seems.

"Do you enjoy causing people to go mad with envy?" she asks. "It's one of my favourite things. Luxuria, used well, can cause Avaritia and Invidia in mortals quickly turning, if played well, into Ira."

Satana leans in closer, lips closing in on Aphrodite's near ear, hand slipping around the goddess' waist as she whispers. "That means using lust to cause greed and envy, leading to wrath. My very own ballroom blitz." Her hot breath blows over the goddess' ear and neck with each sibilant and plosive as she speaks. She pauses momentarily after speaking before withdrawing with very evident reticence, sitting straight again and just letting light skin contact remain.

"Does that entertain you?" she asks.

Aphrodite has posed:
"You've never seen one of my festivals, have you?" Aphrodite muses lightly, gently drawing a hand up as Satana comes close, soft fingers gently caressing the demoness' cheek.

"Madness from desire is my 'bread and butter' Satana...but to see another attempt to do so in my name, for my entertainment?"

It was Aphrodite's turn to leans in close, her lips drawing a trace of the path her fingers had laid first.

"That I might just find exciting..."

Satana has posed:
Satana grins with genuine glee at hearing this. "One ... what's the word? ... Greek isn't my strong suit. Call it a 'frenzy'." She winks. "Or maybe a Pandemonium? ... Coming up."

A daring hand slips along Aphrodite's torso, only barely skirting the danger zones before she stands.

"Let's see..."

Her eyes scan the crowd before picking up an obvious self-proclaimed 'alpha' and another who seemed to be wanting the title for himself.

"Showtime," she murmurs as she heads into the dance floor, casually dismissing the woman the first man was dancing with using a simple flick of the wrist (and a bit of mental dominance), taking the woman's place and immediately capturing the man's attention the old-fashioned way: writhing in her near-wardrobe-malfunction outfit to the music in ways that demonstrate that her moving parts are put togeter well.

Upon getting the man's attention she slithers up close for far more personal attentions. While making eyes at the other man she'd identified, blowing kisses behind her first target's back and ...

The inevitable happens. The second target closes in on her and tries to cut in, something which causes instant hostility in the man she's currently grinding her hips against.

Hostility gets fueled by a little bit of magic, surreptitious gestures and vocalizations that are drowned out by the music.

And suddenly two 'alphas' are squared off for battle. 'Alphas' she's selected for the presence of underlings who are now facing off each other, hands under their jackets.

Satana, feigning fear, backs away ... and then slithers through the onlookers back over to Aphrodite.

Behind her the melee begins as the lesser 'alpha' takes a swing at the greater.

Aphrodite has posed:
"Pandemonium," Aphrodite grins, hands folding and leaning forwards to watch. Such a motion might have in the past been a view others would die for...but she could dial it down when she needs to and she would. After all, what goddess would put the work into something that was essentially an offering to her? Her gaze follows Satana's travel to the dance floor, afixed on the offending hips that were about to cause some chaos. A pouting woman pushed away and faded into the background, Aphrodite's entire attention was centered on the press of those hips, that little kiss blown and...well, she practically -felt- it before she saw it, the moment that would spark that hostility and sent the pair to blows and their minions scrambling.

Gotham's best and brightest, proven to be just as base and bendable as any other...

A smile on her lips, Aphrodite's hand is gently offered out to Satana, inviting her to rejoin her and to watch the show she'd set in motion

Satana has posed:
Satana brazenly takes the hand, and uses it to propel herself into Aphrodite's lap, in one smooth motion turning her clothing into something Grecian in honour of the goddess whose lap of luxury she now occupies. Arm across the shoulders, she rests her head on her newfound seat's shoulder as she watches the fight break out. Bouncers move in ... but pause as they realize who's fighting and which other people are positioning themselves for support. Thinking better of interfering, they instead start moving people off the dance floor. Satana's breath quickens, goes ragged, as the wave of Ira flows from the dance floor to fill the room, its spirit beginning to infect others (with a little demonic help). She chortles with glee as people who get accidentally involved spark into violence themselves, starting a veritable Kessler Syndrome of brawling. She giggles and kicks her feet and...

Well, she takes liberties with her seat as well. Specifically in the form of an impulsive celebratory kiss that she draws back from, biting her lower lip, before plunging back in for something less celebratory and more ... call it hungry.

Aphrodite has posed:
So brazen, and yet Satana's little display of supplication in changing to that attire of one of her priestess? Well, that was perhaps the perfect way to avoid drawing her ire. Instead it simply added to the amusement as she leaned forwards, a soft exhaled breath and a half-lidding of her eyes as that mix of impassioned love and envy intermingled with Satana's own response to the very same fight she'd sparked.

Was Satana suprising Aphrodite? If so, she wasn't going to admit to it. To kiss the lips of the goddess of love was the sort of thing poets wept for and mortals had quested for. Still, fortune favoured the bold, right?

Seems so, as the moment of a raised eyebrow at the break of the kiss doesn't halt Satana in the slightest for claiming the kiss with that greater hunger.

A hunger and excitement magnified, almost literally radiating through the club, through the minds and bodies of others around them in some form or another...

Of course, that didn't really lessen things for either of them.