An Unlikely Makeover
None of Kirsten's military and contractor SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) training has prepared her for any of this. Facial. Pore cleansing. Manicure. Pedicure. Spa treatment. Paraffin wax. Mineral Salt scrub. Stone therapy. Swedish Body Massage. Enzymatic Sea Mud Wrap (wtf?). There's a deer in headlights look in her baby-blue eyes as she pads through Hope House, clad only in a soft fluffly warm robe. One hopes she has panties on underneath, although knowing Kirsten they could well be armored. "I notice that /he/ didn't ask /you/ to get even a massage," she mutters grumpily to Sev, "possibly because you were already Companionizing away." Is that really a verb? She's waiting for the 'technician', who she's specifically requested to be female, possibly in the hope that she'll be cute and therefore worth the torture. <English>
Sev Desera is fairly amused and excited with how things are turning out for everyone involved. He smiles in such a relaxed and easy way that it almost feels smug. The man currently moves from the terrace and lowers his smartcomm upon the tail-end of a conversation with others of the Service. He needs to get things prepared and the proverbial ball rolling, and with his distractions done his gaze levels on Kirsten and her robe. "Who says this is my first time here?" asks Sev in reply, rolling out his right shoulder into a half-hearted shrug. He slides the smartcomm under his jacket and presumably within an inner pocket, now pocketing his hands in the outer pockets of it. "I also don't /need/ all of that, unlike you, but you can still be mad at me if you want. I'm okay with that." <English>
"I'm not mad at you," Kirsten replies sharply. "I'm mad with the huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo that took the Temperance." And that's the truth. Her crankiness pretty much started from that news hitting the Cortex screens, and hasn't ceased since. The cab driver, Sev, Aubrey, Fenton, the as-yet-unarrived technician, all are viable targets for her wrath. But having admitted it, she offers an olive branch (or, at least, tries to poke Sev in the eye with it): "Sorry. This is supposed to be relaxing, no?" <English>
Sev lifts his eyebrows at how Kirsten replies, not so much with what she replies. He doesn't say anything in response initially but instead nods to the blonde and then meanders to the side that he can find a proper seat and enjoy the incoming show. He checks a chronometer for the time and then turns his gaze back to Kirsten, lightly smiling. It's apologetic. "That's what we're all trying to do with this, yes. Glad you noticed," he smiles a bit more strongly then, "It's supposed to be relaxing. You'll like it." <English>
The technician comes in; if Kirsten had hopes of a willowy nordic blonde, perhaps, those hopes are dashed; she's broad-shouldered and purposeful. "First let's work on the massage. On the table!" Oil is applied to fingers as Kirsten reluctantly slips off her robe and lays, face down. She is wearing panties. The 'IAV Temperance' tattoo on her shoulder is also very visible. And then the massage starts. The woman is good, it appears, for Kirsten isn't complaining. It's certainly giving her a work-over, though, and her bones crack several times as the massage starts at the neck. Kirsten closes her eyes - there's very few things as helpless as having your neck and shoulders massaged by a one hundred and eighty pound woman kneeling on your shoulderblades. <English>
Sev laughs at the suddenness of the attendant entering the room and demanding Kirsten mosey on over to the massage table. He isn't going to stop anything happening and, if anything, it makes it easier if he simply shuts up and sits in the background. At some point, the man reaches back into his jacket and withdraws his smartcomm so that he can continue shifting the Service's chess pieces around for the two of them. "How are you feeling so far?" the man asks without looking up from the screen resting in his lap. His fingers are a casual blur, only pausing altogether every once in a while. <English>
"Fine," Kirsten grunts. Her shoulders are now being torn out of their sockets (or so perhaps it might feel), the masseuse working her way out towards Kirsten's wrists and fingers. To tell the truth, it can't be too bad (the proof of which being because Kirsten hasn't gotten up and put the poor woman into a headlock yet). "What are..." she starts, and is silenced with a disapproving "Hush!" and glare from her torturess. <English>
Sev whistles lightly under his breath in reply to Kirsten's answer and doesn't dare interrupt things. He does glance up briefly to make certain that nothing less-than-upstanding is happening. Satisfied with the sight, Sev returns to his messaging and then after a minute or so has to lift the smartcomm to his ear and talk. His voice is relatively quiet but it's the only real sound beyond a body being torqued into relaxation. "Setting up the equipment that we'll need," answers the black man, also placing a "So shush like the madame says and don't worry," for Kirsten's benefit. This is not his first rodeo. Although witnessing Kirsten getting worked over is and so he looks back up and watches her as he talks. <English>
Kirsten really is built like a brick shit-house, as the expression goes. Wiry and strong. Lots of muscle to massage. The gorgon has moved to her back and buttocks, now (and very nice buttocks they are too). By this point, Kirsten has actually relaxed enough to close her eyes, although the grimaces of pain as muscle knots are torn open illustrate that she's not asleep. She grunts acknowledgement of Sev's words and earns herself another glare from the Madame. <English>
"Make sure to focus on her lower back and legs, please," mentions Sev in passing after offering a short pause into his smartcomm. He goes on at length to explain to the masseuse that they tend to bear decent loads of weight with their equipment and such things. It's a small request on his part and he also wants to see how much Kirsten can handle. He's a tease in that regard. He's also finishing with the preparations for now and folds a leg over the other. He makes a thoughtful noise. "She'll be fine once she makes one of those mewling noises. You know the ones, yes?" he asks the large woman, "Where things are absolutely perfect in every little which way, reckon that's when we'll know that we've broken past her guard." <English>
Kirsten cracks open a malevolent eye to glare at Sev. The masseuse smirks, heavy fingers and thumbs tearing open those knotted muscles until she's done. Kirsten looks exhausted, incapable of making anything that even vaguely resembles a mewling noise. But there's no rest for the wicked. As the masseuse departs, a trio of young things enter, chattering like birds...the manicure and pedicure girls. Kirsten, still basking in the post-massage-haze, is re-robed and led to a chair with strange contrivances for arms and legs, whereupon a variety of small surgical steel torture implements, sorry, cuticle pushers, are produced. There are tsks and intakes of breath from the three girls as they examine Kirsten's work-stained hands with their gnawn fingernails. "You HAVE been a bad girl, not taking care of your hands!" trills the tallest of the three. "We've seen worse," adds the prettiest. Kirsten eyes Sev pleadingly. <English>
Sev brings up a hand to wave fingers in Kirsten's direction and if it were a gesture done by Aubrey himself it may be far more acceptable; with him, it seems just a little too mocking. Sev doesn't apologize though and instead rests his hands back within his lap and perks at the sight of the trio women. He even sits up straighter. The man looks at Kirsten and then the group, switches his gaze between these two points once again, and then clears his throat. "Go easy on her, girls," he points out calmly, "She's the rare kind of military that likes playing with dirt in and out of the uniform, and we're not going on a date this time. We don't need anything extravagant but perhaps next time. Yes?" <English>
"Yes, sir!" perks the third girl, the bookish one with her wire-rimmed spectacles. Two work on her hands, one on her feet, poking and proding and eliciting the occasional resigned grimace from Kirsten as cuticles get reshapen and nails get trimmed and sanded and buffed. Kirsten seems to be recovering all the time, even to the point of trying to get the bookish one's wave address, but the girl just gives Kirsten a bright smile and wink. Kirsten watches them (and her in particular) go as she shakes off stinging fingers. "I might be persuaded to come here again..." she's just saying, teasing Sev. Or maybe just stating a truth. But there's no respite...now it's the turn of the facial, and in is wheeled a cart with an array of medieval potions - creams, muds, lotions, towels, and even the obligatory cucumber slices. The cart-wheeler is a languid young man with a topknot ponytail, and he eases Kirsten back in her chair, letting loose a theatrical sigh as he regards the damage. The sun, and stellar radiation, have not been kind to Kirsten's skin. First on goes some sort of cream, being worked into her pores with patient skill. Kirsten's baleful eye regards Sev all the time. <English>
"Don't be such an ass, dear," Sev addresses Kirsten just as calmly as he had spoken to the three stylists. He himself doesn't even know if he should become jealous of the lot of them or not but he doesn't bother paying attention to that part of his brain for longer than it takes to stand up. He exhales and then smiles, folding his left arm across his middle and using his right hand to thoughtfully hold his chin. The man watches from a short distance away. The three are gone and are soon replaced by a young gent. Sev knits his eyebrows. His body shifts and he smiles more apologetically towards Kirsten as he stands in front of her and in the middle of the room. "You really should try to enjoy yourself, you know. It's not that bad." <English>
At least TopKnot isn't insisting on silence from Kirsten. She mutters, "I /am/ enjoying it," in the face of all the evidence. But either she's more resigned to it, or she's actually starting to truly relax. Some sort of mud is applied, held in place by leaves, and TopKnot murmurs, "Now I'll be back in half an hour. Try not to move." And he leaves, leaving Kirsten reclined in a chair, her face covered in mud and cucumber slices, a towel around her neck. The door closes behind him, and Kirsten has the decency to wait a few moments before muttering, "Do you think I could get a date from the girl with the spectacles?" <English>
Sev is an honest kind of guy and bluntly states, "You don't look it." He doesn't try to persuade her to smile more or anything of that sort though, only noting that much and settling down to watch the rest of the events unfold. He doesn't try to strike up any sort of smalltalk with the man since he is soon departing, leaving Sev to check the time with his chrono again. The man then slips his hands back down into the pockets of his pants and looks at the reclining Kirsten. "I don't especially think so, but you're more than welcome to try. I make it a personal rule to not involve myself too much with the House." The latter he adds as an afterthought, for one reason or another. <English>
Kirsten considers that in silence for a few moments. Then, "I suppose you're right. You know, Sev, if even a single picture of this hits the Cortex I'm going to throttle you." Kirsten almost naked face-down on a massage table? Kirsten with fingers and toes splayed on a mani/pedicure table? Kirsten with the mud mask o' doom and cucumbers for eyes? What's not to love? <English>
Sev feels particularly satisfied that he does not need to explain any of his personal rules about whatever and whomever. He also feels himself stepping forward and closer to Kirsten now that the two of them are alone. His hands come out of his pockets and he bends down at the knees so that he can pull himself to relatively eye-level with her. It's not an exact science, however. He ends up being a little shorter and looking up at her. He's okay with that. "And why would I ever do that to you? Don't reckon I've ever sold myself as being that kind of guy." He takes it all in stride. "Now, I could see you in a relaxing blue summer dress- like a nice and soft hue, like a clear Heran sky. It'd bring out the color in your eyes. A rosy-like silk scarf to make it all shine. A green could add warmth though too... Heh, then you'd wear Alliance standard issue combat boots to spite the fact that you are still a strong woman even when you look feminine." <English>
(and here we faded to black on grounds of time. I don't imagine the outfit will improve Kirsten's mood.)
