(no subject)
=NYC= Apt 510 |Travis| - Autumn Lights Apartments - East Village
As you step through the doorway you see a rather spacious apartment. In a word, minimilistic. In two words, chrome and minimilistic. The living room boasts bare pinewood floors, one lone couch along one of the walls, a small television along the other, an end table tucked in one corner, a standing lamp in the opposing quadrant. The only other furnishing of note is a small sound system that is placed in the center of the remaining wall. The kitchen in set off to the side of the main room and it is adorned with many polished metal surfaces and a giant metallic fridge. The bathroom is fully tiled and has a toilet, shower, and a small jacuzzi, maybe enough room for two. The master bedroom does contain several small shelves and two large chests, in addition to the king-sized bed that dominates the room. In the spare room is a respectable weight set, a large floor mat and yet another large chest, also locked to the inquiring mind.
At 8 PM on a Wednesday evening, most people have something to be doing, even if they aren't, perhaps, all that interested in it. Ismena Diatrephes is interested in what she does, however. Especially since what she's doing is picking the lock of her next door neighbour's door. Has it been upgraded? We shall see.
Periodically changes. Force of habit. Travis is in the bathroom, steam from the shower billowing through the partially cracked door, and there's even a radio going in the hall. All this to say, he's as of yet, unaware of any lockpickery that might be occurring.
Ismena hasn't picked this lock in a while. Other things distracting her, it's taken time for her to flit back to what was once habit. The lock is different. In the hallway, Ismena smiles. One long slim piece is inserted after a long but wavy bit of metal, tapped just so, twisted a little bit... Click. The smile widens.
Scrub, scrub. Travis twists the knobs, reaching for the waiting towel as he steps from the shower and begins to dry off. Towel gets wrapped around the waist, and he grabs a toothbrush, next item on the hygiene list.
The front door is eased carefully open. One slender wrist (Sans gloves, for this is a benign sort of burglary.) slips in and twists at an odd angle to find where the chain is, and whether it's caught or hanging loose.
That catches his attention, and Travis rinses, crossing the living room to stand at the door. "I could undo that for you. Or would that spoil your fun?"
A thin sliver of hallway is interrupted by a willowy Greek woman, who purses her lips in a little moue that's passably charming for all it's completely studied and they both know it. "Oh, -damn-," says Ismena, without heat. "I can see that my timing is off after such a dreadfully long absence. You had better let me in."
"Watch yourself," Travis chuckles, waiting for the hand to get out of the way before sliding the chain back and holding the door open for her. "Excuse the apartment. I wasn't expecting company." Of course, the excuse is for a few scattered newspaper leaves and an unpacked bag of groceries near the kitchen door. "How have you /been/?"
For Travis, such disorder practically qualifies as squalour. Ismena politely doesn't comment, instead stepping through the door once its' been unchained and reopened, and surveying the place with the air of some foreign dignitary on a grand tour. "Initially far too stimulated, and now far too bored. I managed a trip overseas to tend to a few loose ends."
"You don't say," Travis nods, shutting the door behind her. The wrapped in a towel part doesn't seem awkward in the least, as much a comment about him as about her. "Been to Amsterdam and back myself. Loose ends all tended to, then? And can I get you something?"
"Thoroughly. I anticipate a bumper crop of..." Ismena pauses, and then substitutes in a delicately worded "Closure," for whatever she was planning to say. "Did you aquire anything interesting in Amsterdam? The only places to find absinthe here are all infested with would-be vampires."
Travis snorts at the likening. "Any self-respecting connoisseur of alcohol could hardly do otherwise," he says. "Particularly when you can expect Customs to pose no problems. Would that be cure enough for boredom?"
Assembling herself on the couch, Ismena pulls denim-clad legs beneath herself, and gently wriggles bare toes. "It could perhaps be a gateway to inspiration -- if there was enough wormwood in it. Action," she informs him, "Is probably the best solution."
"Action," Travis repeats. "That sounds like it requires clothes." With that, he heads for the bedroom, though his voice carries back from the room. "Floor cupbord, right of the refrigerator, if you want to test the wormwood content. Did you have something in mind?"
"Only if you feel the need for them," Ismena assures, with a blithe lift of her voice. "I'm sure that the New York Post would delight in reporting on the naked catburgler."
"I'm pretty sure that's been done before," Travis says, emerging from the room a moment later as his head emerges from a black turtleneck. "What challenge rating were you thinking?"
Ismena's voice migrates. It ends up in the kitchen, and then lowers in altitude, as befits someone rummaging for the Green Fairy. "Mmm, nothing too challenging. More amusing. Closer to home -- I don't wish to wear socks."
Travis chuckles. "Close to home. There's a certain neighbor of ours I'd be interested to learn more about."
"Oh -really- now," Ismena wonders, with a lift of her eyebrows over one shoulder. She straightens, absinthe in hand. "And would that be the strapping fellow beside me, or the mysterious newcomer beside you?"
"I have a mysterious newcomer beside me?" Travis asks, pulling two tumblers from the counter and passing them her way. "Male, female or undecided?"
"Decidedly male," is Ismena's verdict. "Although he seems to flit in and out and not linger, I'm surprised you couldn't smell the desk clerk's frustrated lusting for him."
"Oh, I learned to tune that out the week after I moved into this place," Travis smirks, derision seeping into his tone. "There's always someone or another. I think she got that job just to watch the pretty people walk past. But no, I'd been referring to the one on your side of the hall."
"Ah yes," Ismena considers, rummaging around Travis' cupboards and fishing out a pair of glasses. "The -fireman-. He who took up with your darling Sabitha. Are you still worried that his manhood might be larger than yours?" A pause. A smile. "Sugar lumps?"
Travis snorts. "Well, she was a bit of a whore, so it wouldn't surprise me in the least," he says, reaching past her to the cupboard where the sugar resides, kept safe from the humditity in a small sealed container.
"How very lightly and neatly you categorize her," Ismena reflects. "Pigeonholed and out of mind. Tsk, tsk." The absinthe is opened, and two glasses poured. The bottle recorked, she stows it away and leaves Travis to turn the absinthe its proper state of green.
A lump is dropped into each glass, the sound of it hitting the liquid filling the silence, then he repackages the sugar and returns it to the cupboard. "You'd prefer I pined and wasted away over her? I'm surprised at you," he says, passing her one of the glasses.
Ismena tilts her head and lets her lips settle into that playful moue again. "Travis, -Travis-," she chides him. "I'd prefer you be honest with yourself, my dear man. She was more than a whore to you, for all she was less than your equal. Such self-deceit is -beneath- you."
"Ah, and therein was the problem," Travis says, swirling the drink around. "We could never decide if we wanted to be more than just that. But that's an old tale. Cheers," he says, lifting the drink then tossing it back.
"Ya mas," replies Ismena, with a smile that promises the discussion is merely postponed until later, wen further poking presents itself. But she clinks her glass to his, swirls it once, and then drinks. Deeply enough that colour comes to pale olive cheeks, she awards the absinthe a satisfied "Ahhh," and then nods towards the door. "To the fireman's," she decides. Because burglary is -totally- more awesome when drunk.
Ismena is bored. Fear, world, fear.