ArchivedLogs:Fast Times

Fast Times
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Kaori	2013-12-22 Kaori makes a new friend, and an impulsive purchase
Location <NYC> Riverside Skate Park - Morningside Heights
Tucked between Riverside Drive in Morningside Heights, and the Hudson River, the Riverside Skate Park is a mecca for skaters of all ages. The fenced in area is ringed by trees, and the park itself is actually manned by a city attendant during daylight hours. Skaters must sign a waiver before using the facilities, but anyone can come in just to watch. Also, Friday-Sunday food and drink vendors often circle the park, or come inside to sell their wares. Inside, the park is packed with skate trick elements. Many can be daisy-chained together in complex routines; ramps, jumps, rails and curbs. There is also a competition-sized half-pipe wide enough to support several riders at once. All of the trick elements are sturdy, and well built, because the city doesn't want to get sued. Skate on! With an unseasonable burst of warm weather climbing up to seventy this afternoon, the skate park is crowded with people enjoying the break from slush and ice. It's noisy, the grate of wheels over wood, trucks on metal, the talking and laughter and curses as someone fails to land a trick, music playing from a couple stereos and conversations happening on the sidelines over food. Colourful, too, with bright skater fashion and bright skater hair, a million different logos and decorations gracing boards, inline wheels that light up when they roll. Among all this, Lucien is sort of an isolated pocket of quiet. He is not skating. There are certainly other people here not-skating, taking a break to chat or eat, sitting on the benches and watching friends out on the course. Lucien, though, manages to convey that not only is he not skating, he has never skated, /will/ never skate, and, indeed, holds some very mild level of disdain for the entire enterprise. In /age/ he fits in with many here; in dress he would fit in better in the elegant confines of the Hellfire Club's library. Grey twill trousers and slim-fit green short-sleeved button-down both impeccably /tailored/, black Alexander McQueen boots and sleek gunmetal Salvatore Ferragamo watch each probably costing more than many people's monthly rents. There is a thermos (also smokey-dark gunmetal) on the bench beside him, a book (Maugham's /Of Human Bondage/) in his lap, and a top-of-the-line Stark cellphone in his hand which he is currently giving a small /glare/ before he slips it back into a pocket. Intermittently his brilliant green eyes lift towards the skaters, though only briefly each time; he doesn't watch them with /interest/ so much as quick-brief cataloguing, before his gaze shifts back downwards. Standing on her board, rolling across the yard like she's on a moving conveyor belt, Kaori reenters the park with a plastic container from the sushi truck parked outside. She rolls past Lucien's sitting spot, standing still on the moving board, while she uses chopsticks to stuff a bite of roll into her mouth. It's much too big a bite to eat and maintain any illusion of lady-like manners, but luckily she isn't worried about any such thing. She's wearing purple cargo shorts, a black tanktop with the bright yellow RockstAr star on the front, and her hair is parted down the middle to make two neat little buns on top of her head, kind of like teddy bear ears. One side is poinsettia red, and the other is pure evergreen, making the look decidedly Christmas-y. Kaori's head swivels to stare at Lucien while she munches sushi and rolls by. When she reaches the drink machine on the other side of the benches patio, she swipes her card to get a coke, and then gets on her board to roll past Lucien again, going the other way, watching him curiously the whole time. One could even call it staring, in one was so inclined. Lucien's shoulders tense at the sound of wheels rolling so close past him, but relax again in short order. His eyes stay fixed downward on his book while Kaori gets her drink, save for a brief shift to glance at and then ignore the short buzzing of his phone. It's only when Kaori has obtained her drink and is en route back that he looks up more steadily, his eyes meeting hers. His brows lift, very slightly. He stares /back/. "-- Yes?" His voice is mild, a soft touch of francophone accent to it. "You're so pretty..." Kaori says as her board rolls to a halt about arm's reach from where Lucien is sitting. Her accent is much more obvious, though she also spoke with her mouth still half full of food. She wolfs down the last of it and smiles. By some miracle there is no food stuck in her teeth. Up close, even her eyebrows are dyed green or red to match the color on that side of her head. "I've never seen you here before. Do you come often?" Yes, she really just asked that. No, it would seem she doesn't realize how it sounds. A very faint upward tug curls Lucien's mouth into something /almost/ a smile. Almost, though it does not quite actually reach. "It is my job to be." His answer is light, his accent more noticeable now that he has said more than a syllable. His green eyes skip over her thoughtfully, and then he shakes his head. "Not," he answers with a soft thread of amusement twined into his tone, "if I can help it." His fingers drum against his book for a moment, and then he closes it with his forefinger holding his place between the pages. "The eyebrows are a nice touch. You should have alternated, though." His hand lifts, describing in the air a line down the center of her face. "Red on the green side, green on the red side." Kaori's smile doesn't falter as she regards the beautiful man. She just raises both colored eyebrows when he mentions his job. "Oh, are you a model or something? But why wouldn't you come here? It's so fun! All the people, and music and everything! I love this place." She pauses, just about to stuff another whole sushi slice into her mouth, and pulls it back, handling it deftly between the cheap wooden chopsticks. "Oh wait, are you a stylist instead? That's a good idea! I wish they'd thought of that at my salon." "All the people, and music and everything," is Lucien's dry reply. "I have no taste for crowds." He reaches beside himself to pick up his thermos, uncapping it to take a small sip of its contents. "Or something." The question of being a model draws another twitch of lips from him. "I am a whore. You --" His eyes sweep over her bright attire, bright hair, again. "Look like you do rather have a taste for audience, though." Kaori seems slightly puzzled by Lucien's statement about crowds, and is just putting that slice of sushi into her mouth when he mentions his line of work. Her eyes widen and the sushi tumbles out of her mouth, bounces off the chopsticks and lands with a splat on the ground between them. She doesn't seem particularly worried about the sushi though. "Oh uh... is that, I have trouble with english sometimes." She certainly seems fluent, but she's obviously trying to cover her fluster. The color in her cheeks is a little hard to hide though. "Do you mean the..." she looks down for a moment, thinking and embarrassed, before glancing up again. "You have sex for money? Isn't that illegal here?" Lucien's eyes shift again; he sips his tea calmly as he watches the sushi splat towards the ground. "I provide temporary companionship, for a moderate fee." He looks back up at Kaori with an /actual/ smile this time, thin and small. "-- Or, yes. I fuck, for money. Why, do you plan to arrest me?" He sounds more amused than concerned at this notion. Kaori laughs out loud at Lucien's explanation, though the laugh is as much awkward as mirthful. "No no! Fuck the police, right? Or I mean..." She laughs again, feeding her nervous energy. "Sorry," she says in Japanese, apparently not worried about whether Lucien can understand her. Her tone is clear enough, in a world where no one can say 'sorry' anymore. "I've just never met a... a gigolo before." She pronounces it as 'giggle-oh'. "I find that unlikely. More likely that you've simply never met one who /told/ you of it. And I prefer whore, actually. Escort, if you're feeling proper, sex worker if you're feeling politically correct. Gigolo sounds so --" Lucien flutters fingers vaguely in the air. "Archaic." Her 'fuck the police' line earns a small huff of laughter. "Only if they are paying. What is it /you/ do, then?" Kaori blinks and then shakes her head. "Oh, I meant never a man-whore. But I knew a couple of women in Tokyo who did that." She scoots and invites herself to sit down on the bench next to Lucien, her board still under feet, idly rolling it back and forth. "I'm an athlete," she says cheerily. "I get paid to snowboard, and wear advertisements, this time of year. I skate in the summer, mostly. And some biking. But I really like the skate and snowboard seasons." She frowns and pokes at her sushi briefly before adding. "I was supposed to go to Sochi this winter, but I'm staying home because the Russians are being such fuckwads to the gays, you know?" "Ah." Lucien nods at Kaori's explanation. "An athlete. In that case you have no doubt met /many/ in my line of work. It's all so much the same, after all. We are all paid to use our bodies for other people's entertainment." He hums soft and quiet at her statement on Russia. "Mmm. What will you do in the meanwhile?" "That's ok," Kaori says brightly. "I don't mind getting paid for my body. I'm really fucking good. And pretty hot." She shrugs, apparently not as shy to boast about herself as finding out some guy is a whore. "But there'll be local competitions and stuff. Rockstar was pretty pissed, but they can't exactly be vocal about it, or they'll get slammed. Stark was only mildly annoyed, and those are really the only two I have to worry about much." She stuffs a whole slice of sushi roll into her mouth and mumbles out, "Also, I can practice my parkour. Just started." "As am I." Lucien's small smile curls back into place; amusement glimmers in his brilliant green eyes as he leans forward a little more towards Kaori, elbows propping on his knees and his chin resting on steepled fingers. "Rockstar and Stark. /Sochi/. You /must/ be good." His eyes skip over her with slow consideration, appraising. "Does parkour come with quite the same prestige, or is that one just for fun?" "Well yeah, /look/ at you man..." Kaori blinks when she realizes she's staring at Lucien's shoulders, and remembers to finish chewing, and swallow the bite. "Parkour is just for fun, honestly. I mean, there are some competitions and stuff, but they're honestly kind of lame. I just run with some guys around town though. That's a lot of fun." She opens her bottle of coke, takes a sip, and leans forward, elbows on knees as well. "So, if you don't mind me asking... do you ever... just get to have sex for fun? Or is it, like, not fun anymore?" The idea of sex not being fun seems pretty concerning to the young woman. Lucien's eyes slip lazily half-lidded, his smile still lingering on his lips. He draws in a slow breath, one long forefinger tapping slowly against his cheek. "For fun," he echoes, soft and amused again. "Do /you/ enjoy your job?" "Well yeah, but I... Oh." Kaori smiles down at the ground for a moment, blushing only a little. "I love my job, actually. But I definitely prefer big snow park to being judged for points. Less stressful to just go out for fun." She looks up watching the other skaters for a minute, and then turns slightly toward Lucien. "Do you date, though?" "It is helpful, non, when your job itself is an enjoyable pasttime. Certainly, people get into their lines of work for all sorts of reasons but --" Lucien turns his hand upward. "It is good to love what you do." His lips twitch upwards, eyes lifting to flit out searchingly over the park for a moment and then raising higher, to the sky. He turns to angle himself towards Kaori as well when he looks back down to her. "Why does this concern you?" He's not asking it in a 'it's none of your business' tone, more with genuine curiosity. Kaori reaches for another bite of her lunch only to find she's eaten it all (minus that one). She frowns at the box briefly, but sets it aside, shrugging. "I dunno. I was just curious." Her expression says otherwise though. And finally she gives up the charade. Her body language says it all, but she adds, "I was gonna ask you out. You're... kind of fascinating." She looks up and over at the man, losing a moment watching his eyes before she smiles and looks out at the skaters again. "Tea?" Lucien offers his thermos out when Kaori finishes her lunch; inside it's a light very mildly jasminey oolong. His eyes shift down, the slow lowering of his lashes almost coy if not for the warmly amused smile on his face. "It is my job to be fascinating. And you are charming. I am a rather expensive date, though." Kaori smirks and nods. "Yeah, I was worried about that," she says, already convinced she can't afford Lucien's time. Her smile turns wry when she asks, "Is the tea free? It smells really good." She caps her coke and sets it aside. "My clientele uniformly seem to think it well worth the expense." Lucien depresses the button in the center of the thermos lid, popping it open for drinking. His smile is a little brighter here. "The tea is free. An oolong. Tung-ting. It is Taiwanese, and this from a particularly excellent plantation." "Yeah, I bet," Kaori says, chuckling. "Oh shit, that smells good..." she says when Lucien opens the thermos. "I get my favorite jasmine shipped over from Japan, but I sort of get in a rut, because most of the stuff here is... pretty shitty. Where did you find that?" "There is a place down in Chinatown, Ten Ren. A lot of its stock is always excellent." Lucien pours some of the tea, still piping hot, into the lid of the thermos, offering the lid out like a cup to Kaori. "Mott Street. Between Canal and Bayard. I owe them a visit, my tea stores were rather thoroughly ransacked by looters, I need to replenish. I would have preferred," he admits, "that they just take my cash and valuables, some of those teas were hard to find." "Cool, thanks, I'll have to check it out." Kaori grins down at the concrete again before adding, "To be honest though, I didn't try very hard when I moved here. That sucks about the looters. I never got looted, but yeah, cash and shit is way easier to replace than stuff like that. I'm surprised they even took the tea though." "They didn't." Lucien lowers the cup to his lap when Kaori doesn't take it, a faint shift of posture angling away from her and back towards the skate park at large, now. "Mostly just destroyed my kitchen and left the tins opened and tea scattered across the floor. They did take the entire stock of my bar, though. I am glad to hear that you fared better. Do you live around here? Some neighborhoods were far more badly hit than others." "Fuckers! That's even worse!" She's not really angry, but more horrified. She takes a breath and then visibly remembers the offered tea. She picks up the thermos top, holds the cup in both hands and inhales the aromas coming off the tea. The expression on her face is nearly orgasmic. "Jesus Christ that smells good..." She turns and grins at Lucien. "That's your name, right? Jesus Christ? It's nice to meet you. I'm Kaori." She offers her hand and then nods, pointing up through the leafless trees. "That tall building across the street? I live up there." Lucien's fingers brush lightly against Kaori's hand with the exchange of the cup, a small smile on his lips at her exclamation. "I have been called that quite frequently, yes. -- Enchante." He turns back towards her, accepting the handshake, his grip firm and warm. Both the light touch and the longer shake come with a subtle-soft whisper of feeling, quiet and unobtrusive. Warm, comforting, relaxing, just a hint of /desire/ mixed in that could easily be attributed to the delicious tea or the easy smile Lucien offers her. "But more often I go by Lucien. -- Convenient. That must be pleasant --" His fingers gesture from the building to the skate park next door. "When the weather is warmer." Kaori blinks and her mouth works like she's about to say something but can't remember what it was. Easy enough for someone like Lucien to read, Kaori was interested in him to start with but she loses the thread of her though for a moment. Her own feelings regarding Lucien have straightened out to fly in formation with one singular goal. Kaori would clearly like to sample Lucien's wares. "I um..." Kaori licks her lips, still distracted, looking up at her condo. "What? Oh yeah," she laughs, a tinkling happy sound. "I heard some of the die-hards take their trucks off and play around out here anyway when it snows." All of this sounds utterly distracted though. Her heartbeat and breathing have sped up just a little, and she swallows hard before finally saying, "Fuck it. Do you wanna come up and see my place? Like, right now?" "Playing in the snow I can get behind," Lucien allows with a small smile, "I may not know much about skating but I /am/ looking forward to spending some weekends out of town on the mountains." There's a greater warmth to his expression at Kaori's laugh. "Right now? An impulse buy, then." This seems to amuse him. "Have I made that good an impression?" He reaches out, fingers resting lightly against Kaori's hand -- to stabilize it as he tops off the tea in the cup again, and for another soft-happy flutter of warmth. He reaches for his phone once he sets the thermos back down, opening it to send off a quick text message. Not far away is a small cluster of teenagers; one girl standing and watching the others on a halfpipe stops to check /her/ messages, turning to give him an amused grin. "YEAH SURE WHATEVER," is the answer she hollers back without bothering to reply by text. Lucien slips his phone back into his pocket. "... Right now looks good, then."