Bartending!

[capture_eternity]

"Of course, my dear Lady Bar," Dorian Gray says as he comes up to the bar tonight and receives a yellow napkin. "I will be delighted!"

Special Offers:

Sherry
Champagne
Chartreuse
Apple Brandy
Absinthe (with or without water)

So, here is is a dandy in a mauve silk shirt, waiting for your orders.-

Comments

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

A mauve shirt. That's new and interesting. Laigle considers it from a distance for a few minutes before strolling over to the bar. "Champagne?"

[capture_eternity]

"Yes," Dorian says. "Would you like some?"

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Very much so! Taittinger, perhaps? It can go on my tab."

The shirt is just as impressive up close. Bossuet nods his approval.

[capture_eternity]

It's a silk shirt, light and soft and with a gentle shimmer.

"Of course," Dorian says, finding the right bottle and pouring him a glass -- a coupe, not a flute, naturally!

"I think everything goes on one's tab, usually?"

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"I've known at least one person to pay. As it happens, he's a pirate." He takes the glass with a slight bow. "Thanks. --I'm new enough here myself not to know whether anyone else is new. Are you a regular?"

[masterofgunfu]

Andrea bellies up to the bar and says, "Damn," when she sees it's tended.

[capture_eternity]

"Your instant disapproval could almost break my heart," Dorian says, with a little mock-pout at her. "I am sorry to offend!"

[masterofgunfu]

"No, no, I'm sorry. I was hoping to get a book. It's nothing personal," Andrea says with a apologetic smile. "What's Chartreuse? Aside from a color, I mean."

[capture_eternity]

"A green liqueur made of a long, complex list of herbs," Dorian says. "Invented by monks. It's good for you!"

He winks at her.

[masterofgunfu]

Her smile only broadens. A little flirting could be just what she needs.

"I best try it, then," she replies, giving her Texan accent a looser rein.

[sunbaked_baker]

A red-headed woman in a lime-green tanktop, purple jean shorts, and flip-flops, comes out from the kitchen door beside the bar. She tugs off the blue triangular scarf that had kept her hair back from her face, and unties the knot of her blue, sunflower-dotted apron, lifting it off over her head with a frustrated sigh.

[capture_eternity]

"Good evening," Dorian says. "I like your sense of colour; it suits you!"

She looks tired.

"You're one of the cooks? The food here is excellent. Really, really remarkable. Thank you very much. Would you like a drink? It's on me."

[sunbaked_baker]

The baker offers him a smile for a compliment. She is tired, but the smile is true.

"A baker," Rae replies, taking a seat at the bar and draping her apron upon the back of her seat. She smells of baking spices, warm cinnamon, chocolate, yeast dough and butter. A baker through and through, though the scars the tanktop shows suggests there is more than that to her. "I could use a pick-me-up, but tea's not going to cut it, today. What would you suggest?"

[capture_eternity]

"A baker!" Dorian says. "I had some excellent bread here this morning. Would you like some champagne? It gets your blood flowing again. Or maybe chartreuse?"

Beat.

"Or champagne with chartreuse, over ice?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Are champagne and chartreuse good together? I've not tried that before," Rae says, interested.

[i_am_your_host]

Well, well.

The Master of Ceremonies certainly knows a dandy when he sees one, and the sight of one always delights him.

Sidling up to the bar and casting a glance over the specials offered, he then catches the 'tender's eye.

"Absinthe, bitte, darling. Without water."

Leather coat, makeup, cigarette, German accent. The Emcee as he usually is.

[capture_eternity]

"Foregoing the ceremony and going straight for the substance, are we?" Dorian says with a little smile.

He gets out a small glass, and pours a dose of absinthe, clear and bright green in this state, then pushes it over to his customer.

"You're in show business, aren't you?" he guesses.

[i_am_your_host]

"Requesting a stiff drink requires very little flourish," he replies with a wry twist of his red lips, and he thanks him when the glass is set before him.

"And yes, I am in show business. What gave me away?"

[capture_eternity]

"The face-paint," Dorian says. "Your demeanour, louche and studied at the same time; and drinking your absinthe neat."

He smiles.

[i_am_your_host]

He chuckles, an impish twinkle in his eye.

"I think it's fairly easy to place me, as I never hide what I do or what I am. Although perhaps if I had taken water with my absinthe, it would have been an unpredictable anomaly."

And he raises the glass to him slightly before taking a sip of the spirit with barely a reaction to the strong, undiluted taste.

[myshootingstar]

Minx leans on the bar, grinning brightly. It's been a good night and she deserves some downtime. "An apple brandy sounds delightful. May I?"

[capture_eternity]

Dorian smiles at the woman and her exotic looks, like a giraffe or race-horse turned human. She is lovely, and he wonders where she might be from.

"Of course you may, Miss," he says. "Everybody may, here. It's a wonderfully enlightened place."

In his London, there might well be places refusing to serve her; all the more in the America of his time.

He pours her an apple brandy, and pushes it over.

"It is my pleasure."

[myshootingstar]

She takes a deep draft and sighs. "Oh god, I needed that. It's been such a long day."

She smiles, unselfconscious and warm. "Thank you. I take it you're from a less enlightened place? Or is it a time?"

[capture_eternity]

"London, 1891," he says. "We have no slavery in the motherland, but the way we treat the rightful inhabitants of our colonies is much less than enlightened than could be wished for. If they come to our shores, well, we regard them as exotic rather than simply more people who want to partake of the marvels of our Empire's centre."

[myshootingstar]

"Exotic?" She smiles, "I think I like the sound of that. I'm from America, 1998. Slavery ended a long, long time ago but it have left it's scars. I grew up is a nicer part of the city so I guess I wasn't as subjected to the prejudices some people still have."