Workin' For The Man

[tiny_dancer81]

The Dive never really got crowded until the weekends, but they had s steady stream of people coming in on weeknights as well. As the club's promoter, Theresa dealt with the reviewer from the local entertainment rag in addition to trying to book new acts. All in all, things were looking promising. With summer nearly here, the college crowd would have more time and money to spend in places like this.

The vampire was nursing a beer on the patio. She had thought of suggesting they start serving something stronger, but she hadn't gotten around to it yet. It sounded like the latest set was wrapping up. She checked her upper lip for beer foam, hauled her slight weight off of the bench where she'd been sitting.

Summer in Las Vegas might man the days were long, but the nights usually made up for it.

Comments

[maddy_ricks]

As the final chords faded from the amplifiers, Maddy burst through the door onto the patio. Her band wasn’t playing tonight; she just needed to get out and stretch her legs, and the Dive was a second home to her. The newly-platinum bassist cupped a hand around her cigarette and lit up as she wandered blindly toward a table and chairs. Her false eyelashes fluttered and she saw the vampire. “Hey,” she mumbled around the bummed cigarette. She tucked the lighter in her shorts. “You working?”

[tiny_dancer81]

Theresa snorted out a laugh. She was aware that she wasn't the most physically imposing specimen of vampire-kind around, and her lack of interest in gratuitous bloodshed set her apart further. So it wasn't that she wanted Maddy to be scared of her.

"I'm not mean enough to be scary."

She watched the glowing ember of the human's cigarette go out, dropped her nearly empty cup into a plastic trash barrel. "You really should come over to my place sometime," she said. "I know we had that whole thing where you called and then I never called back, but I've gotten past what was bugging me. I think."

[tiny_dancer81]

Theresa frowned down into her cup, picturing antlers or cloven feet, something that wouldn't be immediately noticeable. Maddy must have been around for a long time to pick up on stuff like that. Maybe she should start paying more attention.

"It's weirdly funny, 'cause I kinda used to like the summer," she said. Before, y'know. Once the sun becomes your enemy, long days aren't that great."

She shrugged when she said it, took a pull of her beer. "Did you know when you inherited that key that it was a lifetime gig?"

[tiny_dancer81]

"Fuck."

Theresa stopped fooling with her hair and drank some more of her beer. For days after that party, she'd been able to remember the burn of the Slayer's blood on the back of her tongue, and what felt like a dull-orange glow in her belly. Coke had nothing on the high that super-powered blood carried.

The diminutive vampire tried to arrange her features into a suitably contrite - or at least chagrined - expression, lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug. "It was one time and I haven't seen her since. I didn't even get a whole afternoon."