Very Important Person (Gomorrah)

Chloe felt a rush. Her little trick worked perfectly! She had out-played Gabriel; she learned something that he was trying to hide from her.

Chloe also felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her little trick worked perfectly. She tricked Janica into giving her an answer she didn’t want to hear. But now that this was actually happening, she was starting to realize how much she truly didn’t want to hear these things.

She wasn’t smiling anymore. The trauma in Janica’s voice sobered her up immediately.
She came in here hoping to cut through her comfortable ignorance. It was working. She was learning things that made her uncomfortable. Did she really want to keep going, though? Did she want to see how deep this rabbit-hole went?

The half-demon looked at her glass. At least they weren’t trying to drug her. If they were, the name of the drug would have appeared in black lettering on the white fluid, when she did her little experiment earlier. There was an alchemist who took university courses at the Academy and sold these dropper bottles at a significant discount to female students. She took a long, greedy gulp of her drink. Even if she ought to stay sharp, she didn’t like feeling on edge. The feeling would only get worse if her evening went as planned, she was sure.

“I’m probably a lot softer than my – than Gabriel, I mean.” She almost called him her dad. Almost, but not quite. “You can relax around me. I won’t say anything.” She bumped Janica’s shoulder lightly with her own, imitating the waitress’s light-hearted gesture from earlier.

“There are strippers upstairs too, right?” She grinned, and it was genuine. “I kinda want to check that out, actually. Do you think anyone will buy it if I tell them I’m really 100 years old?”

Trick question Chloe already knew that trick worked. It was a shock that trick worked so frequently; one of the few perks of having a completely undocumented existence.

She didn’t look a day over eighteen. Chloe grinned. “Oh Janica, you flatterer.”

Chloe looked to the boy being carried away, to the spilled bottle on the dance floor, and back to the boy. “…Of course someone would try to steal those,” she mumbled. Those little elixers were worth tens of thousands. Chloe doubted that they were really worth that price – but she did see the strategy in selling them. There were absurdly rich people on this island, who would gladly pay thousands for a magical luxury available nowhere else on the planet.

She didn’t think too much about what would happen to the troublemaker. He would probably just get thrown out the back door unceremoniously. Maybe they’d wait for the police to come pick him up.

The half-demon followed Janica up the stairs. She laughed, nervous. She was beginning to realize that she had no inkling of an idea how to act around strippers. “Uh, Janica?” Chloe asked, “I’ve never done this before. Is it actually standard practice to, uh, to tip by shoving money in a stripper’s underwear? Or can I just… give them the tip? Like, just, handing it to them, like they’re a person?”

Chloe had never seen this many breasts at the same time before. For some reason, she didn’t expect there to be so many naked breasts jiggling around at an establishment where naked breasts were the main attraction. It was making her a little uncomfortable, but at the same time it turned her on.

Which stage would she want the best view of? “Do I have to pick one?” She wanted to grow extra eyes and look at all of them at the same time. Her gaze flicked between the three of them and she stayed in place, struggling to decide. “Mmm… I think I’ll go with the blue girl.” Blue girl had moves, and she had little spots on her face that were sort of like freckles, which was cute. She was also more flexible than her human counterparts, and the half-demon found herself wondering what those smooth, blue scales would feel like pressed against her skin.

Chloe still had her drink in hand. She sipped at it, then started looking at some of the many half-naked beautiful people on this floor. When one would notice her stares and made eye contact, she would quickly look away – she knew that staring at naked people was the whole point, but still, it felt… rude.

Chloe was starting to get into it. The dance was mesmerizing. It was arousing, too, of course, but it was fun to watch for more reasons than that. These moves were impressive. She was so acrobatic! Even before the tentacles came out, she was doing things with her body that Chloe doubted were humanly possible. How was she able to stay up on that pole without using her legs? Could human bodies and legs bend that way, or was that something special to her species?

The last move was particularly impressive. Hanging on to the pole with only her legs, the blue scaled dancer spun around and extruded several tentacles from her back. Chloe laughed and started clapping, delighted by the performance. All the beautiful bodies in various states of undress were making her blush.

She sipped at her drink through her straw, and in doing so learned that it was empty. She promised herself that she would only have one alcoholic drink tonight. “Uh, Janica?” she asked the waitress softly. “Could you get me a… diet cola?” It would be sodas for her from here on out, and she would keep checking them for drugs as she got them. It would make more sense to drug one of the later drinks if they were ever going to drug her, now that she thought about it.

Chloe was also considering getting a lap dance. How did she ask for those? And now that she thought about it, what even was a lap dance? Maybe she could ask one of the strippers these questions.

“H-Hey.” Chloe blushed and looked away. It was reflex. An attractive, topless stranger was talking to her. She had to remind herself, once again, that this was the entire point of a strip club and re-established eye contact.

“Er, sorry. I’m new to this universe and… I’ve never been in a strip club before.” These things were strictly true, but also unrelated. “That was a really impressive dance.” She had a feeling that this would be an appropriate time to tip. She reached into her small, black purse for a wad of cash and slid a 5$ bill into the blue dancer’s garter. Her hand accidentally brushed against her smooth, blue scales when she did; it felt almost like a snake’s skin, smooth and slick. Otherwise she kept her hands off.

Janica came with her cola. It came in a highball glass; someone could have easily mistaken it for a cuba libre. Chloe thanked her and retrieved her dropper bottle from her purse, once again placing a drop in her drink.

“I’ve never seen anyone like you before,” she told the blue girl. There was some awe in her voice.