~ [closed post]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Now that the Mansion is producing goods again, it's very easy for Susan to compile a picnic basket full of, essentially, the makings of a rather international charcuterie board. Four cheeses (a good British cheddar, a French camembert, an Italian sheeps-milk ricotta, and a wedge of Dutch Leyden), three meats (jamon Iberico from Spain, mortadella with pistachios, and something labeled as an American bison-blueberry salami), along with some honey, fruits and fruit preserves, a baguette, olives, nuts, and crackers. She tops this off with nice linens and silverware and all the necessary ingredients for French 75s. It's definitely more than enough for two people.

Something about the end of that dreadful month has her considering wearing color again. As a first step toward moving past mourning clothes, she experiments with a very flattering deep navy dress that's definitely not black, though it looks it in most lights. She adds a coat of lipstick, and then takes herself and her basket to Janet's room, where she raps lightly on the door.

NSFW!

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[quote_gentle_unquote]

"If he knows what's good for him," Susan agrees.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Aw." Janet laughs. "Yeah, I bet you could take him, actually."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I believe I could," Susan says, thoughtfully. "As could you. You'll do brilliantly at the job." She means stage managing, but she does also a little bit mean Bacchus-managing.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"They won't know what hit them." She sounds borderline delighted about it. Because there's still so much cheese left to eat, Janet does reluctantly let go of Susan's hand, but not before giving it a firm, decisive squeeze. She assembles herself a cracker topped with camembert and mortadella. "It's The Wizard of Oz, right?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan sips her cocktail, and then bites into a slice of apple with cheddar as she nods. "I've added some rather pointless sword-fighting scenes in an obvious attempt to generate more interest."

[sorrowandsorrow]

That makes Janet laugh a little around the sip of her drink she's using to wash down her bite of charcuterie. "Makes sense, after the zombies. A lot of people here are pathologically attached to their swords."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I suppose I could consider it to further my other machinations," she says, thoughtfully. "Perhaps it might generate deeper interest into the ability demonstrations."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh, yeah?" And now for another olive. "Just gratuitous sword violence in everything? Come for the potluck, stay for the fencing."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Perhaps," says Susan, contriving to reach for a Brazil nut in such a way that it allows her to brush her fingers against Janet's, "it might also afford you a glance into Revised Welters aptitude."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Very thoughtful," Janet tells her, in the kind of airily joking tone that indicates she actually means it. She leans her shoulder against Susan's again. "Laertes agreed to help me judge the new game."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Has he! Very good," says Susan, approvingly. "Have you decided whether to teach him some magic?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Not yet," Janet admits. "I've navigated some insane social dramas before, but your husband married you, didn't tell me, then fucked me, and you were the one who accidentally broke the news to me has been a weird one to get past. We're a little..." She grimaces. "We're fine, but sometimes it feels like Laertes and I are kindergarteners learning Friendship 101 again."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Ah," says Susan, wisely, in a way she hopes will make Janet laugh. "That old agony aunt classic."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Susan is wholly successful, and Janet snorts out a laugh. Luckily, she's not in the middle of a bite, though she does have a slice of baguette in one hand. "Exactly. And he feels so guilty, but it's not his fault. He doesn't control Sagramore."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"He certainly does not."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet briskly spreads ricotta on her baguette slice. "I got stuck in a closet with him. Sagramore, not Laertes. This mansion thinks it's so fucking funny."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Do you reckon Laertes is homosexual?" Susan wonders, before she processes what Janet has said. "Did you! That sounds dreadful. I got stuck with Enjolras."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"What--" Janet laughs again, this time with the sheer surprise of their insanely crossed wires. "The blond Frenchman? At least he's easy on the eyes. Laertes is obviously not heterosexual, but I'm guessing that's not the question?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan shall address these things one at a time. She takes a sip of her drink and starts with, "It was too dark to make him out, and anyway, Enjolras is a terrible bore¹. I asked him if his disrespect for me was general or specific and he told me it wasn't because I'm a woman, given that women are the mothers of the republic and ought to be treated as such."


¹Or did she say boor?

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet rolls her eyes expansively and pops an olive into her mouth. "We're the mothers of the republic, huh? Every single one of us? How fucking generous of him to acknowledge our vital wombs."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"He seemed rather perplexed that I would take issue with the claim, but as we hadn't anywhere else to go at the moment, he became party to some of my concerns," Susan says, primly. Next topic: "You were stuck with Sagramore?" She swallows the are you all right brimming at her lips, and leaves the question as the mildest of prompts.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Yep." Janet knocks back the remainder of her cocktail, because it feels like the appropriate time to do so. "I was pissed, and he was just so..." She shrugs, as casually as she can. "We hadn't talked since I tore him a new one after Laertes broke the news. I've never seen a man with his tail so firmly between his legs."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan glances at Janet and then says, delicately, "Perhaps if a man is so full of regret for his various actions, he ought to choose different actions."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet starts to say something, hesitates, and then gives Susan a sharp look. "Did he do something to you?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, no, not at all," says Susan, who doesn't think of her assignation with Sagramore as him doing something to her, and who certainly doesn't mind that he was thinking about Janet the entire time, or want to tell Janet that Sagramore was thinking about Janet the entire time - she suspects Janet mightn't be so sanguine about it. That is, he apologized, which she doesn't care for, but she's never been interested in friendship with one-off sexual partners, so it barely registers.

Susan isn't typically very open about her assignations; this is partly because to date, there haven't been many important enough to bear mention, and partly because her friends, save Ingrid, had unwelcome opinions about their frequency and volume. Perhaps she ought to have mentioned this when it first came up? Now it feels like, if she doesn't mention it now, she's making it out to be a bigger deal than it actually is. Certainly the sex hadn't been good, but it had been pretty standard for most of her couplings immediately before her arrival, too, so it only stands out in the slightest in that she encounters Sagramore with greater frequency than 'never at all.' Ugh.

She rolls her eyes, conveying with every scrap of posture, tone, and expression that she can command that this is an entirely neutral tidbit that she's sharing, and clarifies, "I suppose I initiated a rather maudlin assignation when I first got here, and he's avoided me ever since. I don't mind, naturally; we don't get along. I just think that if there's a pattern of regretted behavior it ought to be a sign that the behavior should change. Otherwise it stinks of self-flagellation." Which she'd just been talking with Laertes about. Could he have meant...?