working nine to five

who: Cassandra
where: Club Fister - a sleazy club down towards the far end of the Promenade
when: hundreds of years after the 12th Century
OOC - day job post as requested ;)
The pulsing music thudded inanely inside Club Fister as the club lights strobed and whirled around the room in epileptic confusion
Cassandra grasped the glistening, rigid pole in front of her firmly with both hands and pulled herself upwards; Swinging one leg and then the other around the shaft in time with the pulsing music, she leant back, and letting her hands fall away, began a slow inverted pirouette, sliding down around the pole, all her cheeks burning with shame.
The crowd of men and more worryingly, some of the women with them roared in drunken approval
'how had it come to this', she wondered, watching the nearest of Club Fisters' punters slide around past her field of vision: drunk, pervert, pervert, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk pervert... This wasn't meant to be how her new start had meant to be; she was meant to have taken control of her life by now and be forging ahead with her bright and brilliant new future - Being destitute and having to work as an "exotic" dancer in a sleazy joint like this didn't figure large in her earlier plans
Cassandra's hands brushed the scarred podium floor on her next revolution, jolting her from her reverie in time to perform an elegant back walkover manoeuvre, dismounting from her inverted position, and bringing herself back upright in time to see a bottle arc lazily through the air, trailing the sparkling remains of its contents in the club lights, before smashing down into the midst of a drunken mob from the cargo decks.
Shouts and then screams followed, and then as the music died, the rending crack of breaking furniture as the wiser punters scrambled to lay their hands on something reassuringly heavy.
From her elevated position on the dance podium Cassandra could see the Fisters bouncers swarming in from all corners, but it was too late; the room erupted in an orgy of glass and violence
'Oh, for smegs sake - not again...' Cass thought, ducking one of the many bottles that quickly swarmed upwards through the air
The Fisters bouncers normally kept a close watch on the clubs patrons, ensuring that this sort of thing didn't happen too often, but Cass had seen brawls like this more than a few times during the last few months she had been working here; Chances were that given the unpredictable nature of the clubs manager, someone was going to cop the blame for this mess. Cass just hoped that it wouldn't be her, although given her luck; it was likely that she'd wind up with the blame just for not being entertaining enough for the punters.
Making a break for the edge of the podium to get out an obvious line of fire, Cass mused if she should perhaps have worn something a little more revealing than the old stilettos, fishnets and bikini combo that she was currently in; this brawl might not have happened if she was just in a low slung corset and bright smile. Although that said, pole dancing did tend to chafe more the less you wore, so perhaps it wasn't the best idea
Vaulting down off the podium, Cassandra tottered slightly in her heels, before being scared almost witless by an angry bellow behind her. Turning, she clocked a drunken engineer bearing down on her, brandishing a broken table leg, which Cass couldn't help but notice in crystal clarity, was splattered with quite a lot of someone's blood
Grunting, the maintenance ape swung the table leg at her.
"For smegs sake, all I was doing was dancing!" she snapped, dodging his first blow, "That was a difficult move, damn it!"
Obviously unappreciative of the artistry and physical fitness involved in pole dancing, the engineer swung again forcing Cassandra to duck down into a crouch as the table leg smacked off the podium just above her head.
'What the smeg have I ever done to deserve this?' Cass inwardly wailed, cowering down as her assailant drew the mock teak weapon back to rain down a heavy blow
Time (as is usual in these instances), slowed to a dramatic crawl, allowing Cassandra to rather uselessly raise her hands to hide behind and wonder blackly if the engineer was a civil one or not, as he brought the table leg crashing down one last time
To her surprise and intense relief, the intended blow never landed and was instead deftly deflected by one of the Fisters bouncers, who followed through with a savage punch to the engineers face, detonating in a hot flash of electricity and singed flesh
'Cool - ElectroNux(TM)' - Cass was mildly impressed
"Uh, thank you Mr...?"
"Butler", he growled, "This way Ma'am. Le Souteneur wants to see you."
He clamped one of his massive hands on her shoulder, deftly steering her through the violence towards the screened off VIP area at the back of the club where Philipe le Souteneur, Club Fister's dangerously unstable manager apparently awaited
Cassandra quailed, physically sagging beneath Mr. Butlers heavy grip - Le Souteneur's reputation was legendary so she knew she was about to be in a whole world of pain
Nervously glancing about as the clubs lights went up, Cass tried to spot an opportunity to escape; anywhere but here would be good, but what was the point? - she was a persona non grata on board the Blue Dwarf, and one day, sooner rather than later, one of le Souteneur's agents would catch up with her like some of the other girls who had disappeared, and then maintenance technicians would be digging bits of her out of vending machine nozzles for weeks.
For some reason, the lights continued to get brighter and brighter, forcing her to shield her eyes against the harsh blue white glare, until as suddenly as it had began the light vanished, leaving Cassandra standing alone in chilly woodland
Cass chewed her lip
"Huh, this is wierd..."
<tbc>