i'm a burning effigy of everything i used to be;

[apostatised]

Who: Martel with Irene Adler and Marie-Sixtine St. Vincent (separately).
What: An auction.
Where: The Vault.
When: Coardi evening.
Notes: I am assuming none of you wanted your character to buy a nude of Martel. Also I'm not apologizing for the cut text, annnnd if you're interested in having your character attend this, just drop me a line and we may be able to figure something out. I am also amenable to people who were in attendance but did not speak to Martel who may wish to reference it later!
Warnings: Martel's dick is ever-present in this one. llllladies.

Currently occupying pride of place on one of the Vault's smaller stages is a portrait, its subject unmistakably a younger incarnation of the gentleman currently circulating the floor with drink in hand; he had been all of twenty-one, his hair already a shock of white, his body shaped by training but not yet scarred by experience. The deft hand (wearing a ring on the left that currently occupies a locked box in Martel's study) of the artist is visible in the painting itself, Martel posed standing before a long mirror, lit warmly by an open window to a summer's afternoon, his back to the artist whose image can be partially seen in the reflection. Jewelry is all that they both wear; his the Pandion medallion, silver, resting heavy on his chest with its chain around his neck, not quite yet the noose he'd think of it in later years. Her body and much of her face are hidden by the canvas she works on, but her crossed knees and slim, similarly bare arms and wrists are mostly indicative of what it had taken to persuade him to get undressed in the first place.

Or to get undressed for this. That they had only so few brushes with unintended parenthood was sheer luck more than anything else - Elenes, for you. Unabashed in bed and antsy as unbroken horses with sensuality outside of it, but the small, almost private smile Martel offers over his wine glass to those interested in the painting's subject speaks to having grown up some, compared to the long-suffering and skeptical look his image is offering the mirror. (Despite taking pains to obscure her own face in the painting with the careful hang of her long, dark hair, she'd signed her name neatly at the bottom in Elenic characters: Petrana.)

The auction itself is scheduled later in the night; it had been suggested to him that an opportunity to appreciate both the piece and its subject might encourage interest, given how quickly he wants the thing off his hands, giving little enough time for suitable advertising. He is the advertising, with red wine, tailored suit and ready, low conversation. The man can be charming when he wants to be-- always easier when he's getting something out of it.

Comments

[thedominatrix]

"Well, now-" She likes that opening; what have we here? It's a bit schoolmistress and a bit threatening, and if you say it suddenly enough sometimes people jump. It's lovely.

Irene is here to work, but she doesn't believe that should mean she can't have fun- in fact, if work wasn't fun she wouldn't do it, simple as that. It does mean, of course, that she's dressed interestingly- but this is a sex club, most people are.

"-what a moneyspinner."

She has this habit of just descending on people as if they're old friends and this is a conversation they began years ago which has been going on for so long, intermittently, that there is no need for greetings nor introductions. Sometimes she goes further and, just for her own entertainment, invents past history, as you told me at that darling little restaurant you took me to last year- oh, you remember the one, out of curiosity as to whether the stranger she's talking to will carry on or not, out of a desire to push people.

She doesn't try that with him, but there is a sense of this being a demand, or a dare; react to me. It doesn't matter how.

[apostatised]

Martel, more's the pity, does not jump. He could probably do with a proper startle, now and then, or at least being taken down a peg or several, but-- well, that's already happened, and it was more than several, and presently he only leans slightly back in the seat he's claimed to better take in Irene's arrival. To appreciate it as a connoisseur, if you will. (He misses Thalesia, briefly, and wonders if the Thalesian ever mentioned his brief presence in his 'court'. Unlikely.)

“Well,” he offers in a drawl, frank, “I don't know that it was what Petrana had in mind, but one may hope. It was never going to suit the decor in the dungeon.”

Reasons Martel shouldn't talk include 'finding himself amusing'.

[thedominatrix]

Dungeon.

It's one of those words you do have to be careful with around Irene. Upon hearing it, something glints in her eyes, and suddenly her grin is sharklike- as if she's tasted blood in the water, in fact.

"No?"

She's still standing, one hand on her hip, perfectly happy to loom. (Look, she's 5'4 without her heels- give her a chance to enjoy this).

"What a shame. Why, was that what she had in mind?"

[apostatised]

Petrana was about her height and her coloring, which makes their two very different temperaments something Martel is briefly, acutely aware of. It's moderately surreal and if he were further into the drink it'd probably take a turn into the maudlin-- but he isn't, quite deliberately, and he lets himself smile, just a little. He wonders what she would make of this place, this woman, this conversation.

“I daresay she wouldn't have been as opposed as I've no doubt her husband might guess.” ...he has absolutely no grounds on which to base that assessment of Sir Davidias of Gatas, except that the Deiran, the country knight, is ought to be his very respectable replacement. Poor Petra, shielding herself from scandal-- best she find a good shield, he supposes, and so he draws his own conclusions about the man who saw fit to marry her in his stead.

[thedominatrix]

"Husbands, by and large, are such an unimaginative breed," she laments, eyes wide as if she were imparting some kind of sacred wisdom. A second late, however, that expression disappears, swallowed up by a sharp little smirk and raised eyebrows. "Best to keep them in the dark and not trouble the poor things."

Irene being a connoisseur of other people's spouses.

"Were you being serious about your dungeon, or just trying to make me feel at home?"

[apostatised]

With a faint laugh, he tips his hand. “If I were to put it anywhere,” which evidently he wasn't, “then doubtless it'd have been the room I don't use.”

The dungeon, in other words, so - half serious, for a given value.

“Remnants of the place's exceptionally lovely first owner, I am told.”

[thedominatrix]

"I'm sure that added to the price, you know."

Perhaps he should consider renting it out. Just a thought- though while she's curious, she's not getting her hopes up too high. She's been looking for a decent playspace for a while, picky as ever about it- at home, she had a whole separate house converted specially for her needs and those of her clients, because that's just the sort of thing she does. Baedal has some interesting prospects, but nothing's clicked with her yet.

And yes, feel free to imagine her inspecting possible prospects, testing wall fixtures for their strength and considering the sound-proofing- no, it's just not working for me, I'm afraid...

"Don't you like it? --The dungeon, but also the portrait."

[apostatised]

“Neither, I'm afraid, are quite my style, and in neither case do I quite have the heart to simply take them apart,” he says, easily amused in a way that suggests, amiably, that he's well aware he's as much a part of the punchline as anything else. Martel's ego has never been in as much competition as some might imagine with the fact that his sense of humour is absolutely ruthless; here is a man who'll crack a terrible joke about his own death, given the opportunity.

A loose shrug - on one side more than the other, an old injury keeping one shoulder more taut - and he says, “Petrana was an exceptional artist and my predecessor in the manse a woman of admirable creativity; I have my own amusements, and wouldn't dream of infringing on theirs.”

How modest.