She’d wondered at it, at his consistent use of “date”. Where he clearly didn’t like her, nor anything about her, and detested the idea of having to dance with her…why was he going out of his way to continue to call this conversation out a date? It was just to build some sort of a bond, some sort of a trust, so that she knew he’d catch her when she threw herself at him, that he wouldn’t drop her when he held her, that he’d support her like a dance partner should.<br/><br/>Not go on some sort of date, which is apparently what he had in mind.<br/><br/>But, she’d go along with it. If it meant possibly forming a bond and making things stronger between them so that they could perform as they needed to at the end of the month.<br/><br/>Finding a dress was a little difficult, as she wasn’t sure where he’d be taking her nor what sort of dance he’d try to get her to do. In the end, though, she settled on a<a class="postlink" href="http://www.nastygal.com/product/wreckless-skater-dress">black dress</a>, one that was tighter at the top to keep everything in place and loose on the bottom so she’d have room for movement. A pair of heels to pick her frame up a few inches, hair loose about her shoulders and her makeup done in a natural-esque fashion (only an added shadow about her eyes), and she slipped down to wait in her lobby for him, at nine o’clock sharp.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF0000"> This was interesting and out of character for him. To  even pretend that he wanted to know anything more about the trailer trash two bit wannabe was hard. Yet, as they say, dancing had a lot of acting in it as well, so it would make sense that he would be able to pretend, and pretend well, that he actually gave a fuck.<br/><br/>The hot water was shut off and he stepped from the shower to wrap a towel about his waist. As he usually did he paused at the sink and stared at the mirror. How long had it been since he had seen his reflection? His true reflection and not the faint and distorted mess that stilled pools of water offered him. How many years had it been since he was human? Of course now that this woman had been forced into his life, these questions would come back to him. <br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Stress and annoyance at the lack of respect I am being shown about this whole mess....</span> <br/><br/>A deep and unneeded sigh, was released before he set about getting ready to pick her up. The black shirt, slacks and shoes were all perfectly made to fit his form. To accent the lines of his body and even give small hints at the muscle that laid beneath the material. Athanase was a man who knew his body and knew the reactions that people had when they saw it, so he knew always dressed to show it off in a more professional manner.<br/><br/>At nine exactly he rolled up. The car placed into park, he excited the vehicle and walked over to greet her. “Well look at that,” he said while he opened the passenger door for her. “Don't you clean up nice,” he smiled.</span><br/><br/>The car…was exactly what she’d expected: big, sporty, overcompensating. It was the same type that all macho men used when their packages were lacking. Why else spend more on a car than you do on your home?<br/><br/>And, as he stepped out of the car, she allowed her eyes the once over. At least she looked like she’d picked a dress that would be appropriate to where he was taking her, since she’d guessed. Aside from that, he looked…alright, she supposed. Good enough for the normal masses who likely flocked to him if he so much as glanced in his direction. That’d be fun…fighting his wandering eyes to get in a good conversation, since he seemed the type. All that ego-fueling from skanks must be why he had such a chip on his shoulder.<br/><br/>At his remark, she smiled back, lowering into the car. “And, don’t you look like a gentleman…”<span style="font-style: italic">Must’ve taken a lot of work,</span>she added quietly to herself. “So…where are you taking me for this dancing and conversation?”<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF0000"> “Just a place I know,” he said while he shut the door and climbed into the driver seat. The engine roared to life, he dropped it into gear and soon they were off to their “date”.<br/><br/>He could tell she was not unnerved by him calling it a date and for some reason that actually endeared her to him a bit. Not so easily caught off guard and able to thus far give as good as she was given. Either way this night would be the start of him extracting this cancer from his life so that he could go back to being happy once again. <br/><br/>The drive was short, or at least it seemed short. No effort on his part had been made to even attempt some kind of small talk. To him, that was pointless and only someone that one did when they actually gave a fuck about the person they were with. At the moment he even had the thought of an accident. Something that he would easily survive, but something that might just....put her out of commission for a while. It was cruel, it was dark and a thought that actually crossed his mind more than once. <br/><br/>You don't get to be as old and powerful as he was without getting your hands dirty. Fortunately, for Tempest, he did not think that would be best in this case. Instead he just drove them to the restaurant, his hand waved off the valet so that he could open her door himself. Hand offered, he helped her from the car, keys handed over to the valet and then together they walked into the establishment. <br/><br/>“Monsieur Durant,” the man who was obviously the host greeted them when they entered. “Nous ne savions pas que vous seriez ici ce soir. Vous aurait dû appeler,” the french rolled easily from the tongue of the other man who looked to Tempest with a warm and friendly smile. “Bonsoir, madame. C'est un plaisir de vous ici dans notre établissement humble,” he took up her hand and kissed the back of it. <br/><br/>“Michael, c'était un plan de dernière minute. Puis-je avoir ma table habituelle?" Athan replied just as easily. <br/><br/>"Mais bien sûr ! L'heure de cette façon!" <br/><br/>From there they were lead to a table that overlooked a dance floor where a few couples danced and moved to the live music that was being played. <br/><br/>Left with their menus Athan pulled out her chair for her before he took his own seat. When their waiter came over, he ordered them a wine, then waved the man off. “So, what shall we talk about?”</span><br/><br/>For the duration of the car ride, one that felt like it took an eternity, she just kept thinking about what he’d possibly put her through. What was it going to be? Public humiliation on the dance floor…Probably some hoity toity restaurant she’d never be able to afford yet somehow need to pay for, while getting dragged around the dance floor until he decided to drop her and pick up some cougar bar crawler for an hour romp in some motel because she’s the one paying for the room? Insults the duration of the night, trying to drive her off? Pawn her off on some lesser dancer so that he could show off, bolster his ego and then do the same as scenario a?<br/><br/>Inwardly, she continued to speculate, but outwardly, she was glad for the silence. No need to pretend to like the person and put in the effort to have a conversation before you had to. If he wouldn’t put in the effort, neither would she. What was the point at talking to someone so thick, with an ego to match, that the words would likely be lost in the fray of his own white noise hot air anyway?<br/><br/>Once the car came to a stop and he helped her out—another gesture she was unsure of—and they entered, she got another surprise: he’s fluent in French. Sure, the last name was of the same descent, but that didn’t mean he’d understand the language, let alone speak it with such fluency.<br/><br/>Whatever he said (begrudgingly admitting to herself he could speak it properly and had to have some sort of standing as they weren’t thrown out on their asses), they were led to a table with a view of the dance floor. The floor wasn’t crowded, which was by far a saving grace; That just meant whatever he’d put her through would be for the world to watch.<br/><br/>Settling in, her eyes slipping from the dance floor to him, she shrugged. “Anything, really. Get a feel for the man behind the,”<span style="font-style: italic">robotic</span>, “moves and such,” Tempest replied. “Tell me about yourself, about why you got into dance.”<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF0000"> It was not a question he had been prepared to answer. Sure he had been asked about his love of dancing and where had he studied. It had been a while since someone asked him why he had gotten into dancing .<br/><br/>Briefly he left the table, in his mind anyway. Back to a time of class, monarchy and when there were true social classes. <br/><br/>Across the ballroom there had been a woman. Strong, beautiful and alluring in a way he could not put his finger on. Face hidden behind a fan, that she would peek at him from time to time, until he finally worked up the courage to approach her. Soft words, light touches and then a dance that he would never forget. It was like magic and he thought he had been blessed to meet an angel.<br/><br/>He could not have been more wrong. <br/><br/>Turned out she was a vampire. One that wanted a new young male companion to spend her eternal life with. Athanase Jean Durant. A talented dancer and the son of a wealthy land owner, a minor lord became the companion of a creature of the night who enjoyed a variety of things. One of which was dance. <br/><br/>“Athanase,” she said to him one night. “You are gifted with a natural grace and fineness that other men would kill for...”<br/><br/>“What does any of this have to do with me? I can't dance anymore.....” he snapped. <br/><br/>“Do not take that tone with me!” she snapped back. And the anger he felt from her more than enough to silence another retort. “With your gifts now you could be better than anything you ever were going to be. It is why I choose you, because you were so....talented and I knew I could make you better...” with a whisper of air she was at his back, arms about him while she nuzzled against his neck. “Dance for me....dance with me. Just dance and let what I gave you make you better. Make you stronger, faster....” she turned his face to look over at her own. “Perfect...”<br/><br/>A clang of dishes roused him from his thoughts and he focused back on Tempest, “My mother thought it would be good for me and my father supported it. Pretty simple.” He shrugged and took a sip of his wine, “What about you? Why did you get into dance?”</span><br/><br/>His mind seemed to wander at her question, eyes taking on a more distant look while he seemed to ponder her words. Perhaps remembering a specific memory, the start to his dance, his career? Perhaps the love he once had for it that was now gone? She could only speculate as he gave a generic answer, his thoughts seemingly coming back to the table, to the present, eyes refocusing, turning the questioning onto her.<br/><br/>“It was an escape,” she answered with a shrug. “It allowed me for a time to lose myself in the music, the emotions, more than just listening to it and drowning out the sounds of the world around me…”<br/><br/>This time, it was her turn to allow her mind to drift, back to a time when the only thing louder than her music was the screaming that her parents had been doing, mainly about bills. Her mother wanted to live a life her father couldn’t provide, despite his efforts, and she was never happy with the lack of “stuff” to show off the wealth she wished she’d had. It led her to cheat, to flaunt her exploits to her father in the hopes that he’d step up and make what she wanted, to fill that need to be spoiled as she had been all her life.<br/><br/>And then she ran out, tired of him taking too long to make her feel “special” and “loved”. Tempest hadn’t heard from her since the final blow up.<br/><br/>Her father had wanted her to make something of herself, to be the opposite of her entitled mother. He wanted only the best for her and tried his hardest to give her what she wanted, but schooling, some stuffy job up town…it was never what she wanted. Listening to the music loud, on repeat, and watching the dance shows (when their cable was working) had her wanting to learn, wanting to do what they did. It was a way for her to get out what she was feeling without needing to say it, to verbalize it. It was a satiation for something that she couldn’t express any other way.<br/><br/>When she’d left college to pursue it, her father hadn’t been happy with her, but he’d supported her nonetheless, right up until the day he died. He’d signed over everything to her so that she could afford a place in the city, and could give it a shot. He’d been nothing but good to her, working three jobs, right up until he drew his last breath.<br/><br/>For her.<br/><br/>And now she wanted to show him that it wasn’t a lost cause, that she could make something of herself, to prove his hope in her wasn’t in vain.<br/><br/>“Just took to it as well as I could and didn’t want to do anything else,” she added with a shrug, taking a sip of her complimentary water, eyes slipping to the dance floor. “You didn’t really tell me about yourself, though…Merely the why you started dancing.” It was more of an offhanded remark than anything else, eyes glancing back at him with a slight curiosity.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF0000">There was more to why she started to dance and it had to do with this need for an outlet. However, he was a patient man so he was prepared to bide his time until he could ask her again. The questioning was back to him and he shrugged, “I suppose that you can tell that I grew up in a life where I had a sense of entitlement. My father owned land and my mother...” his voice dropped off for a moment as he thought about his mother. That look started to again take hold of his eyes, though this time he was quick to banish it before it took full hold of him. <br/><br/>“My mother was a dancer as well and wanted me to follow in her steps,” he offered as extra information from the earlier question. “But I am an only child, so I never had to share and never had to want for anything,” he explained.<br/><br/>His own eyes wandered to the dance floor and then back to her, “Any siblings for you?”</span><br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Born with a golden spoon in his mouth…never would have guessed that,</span>she thought wryly, keeping it to herself and instead only nodding.<br/><br/>“No siblings for me.” Not that she didn’t want any; She’d have loved to have a sibling to play with, to escape with, to take the focus off of her when the fights rolled around in her direction. But, when the fights started, the affairs did, too, so there was no way for her to get another child unless illegitimate anyway. In a way, she was glad her mother didn’t have one of those; One less thing to fight about.<br/><br/>“What sort of land did your father own?” Temp asked after a moment.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF0000"> “He was a farmer,” he took a sip of the wine, his eyes noting that she had yet to take a sip of her own. “A winery actually, so he grew grapes then turned them into wine. Some of the finest in the area,” he said with a small smile. “Perhaps that is why I myself have such a taste for the stuff? Though I see that you do not...”he looked to her glass. <br/><br/>“What did your father do for a living?”</span><br/><br/>At his remark, she took up her own, swirling it about and inhaling its scent before taking a sip. “It’s not that I don’t have a taste for it,” she replied, following it up with another sip. “Just that I don’t have it often.” Replacing the glass on the table, she focused back on the dance floor for a bit. “A little bit of everything. Factory worker, janitor, dishwasher, golf-ball collector…Anything to make ends meet.”<br/><br/>“What drew you to the type of dance you do? The structured sort?” she then asked. “I’ve noticed your moves are far more…structured, hard, even the motion looks like it’s meant to be…softer.”<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF0000"> This time he could not fight back the flashback as he thought back to the times he would dance for <span style="font-style: italic">Her</span>. <br/><br/>“What are you doing, Athanase?” her voice cut through the music and halted his routine. <br/><br/>“I am dancing, as you requested,” he replied in a voice that was tired and annoyed with the constant interruptions.<br/><br/>“No you are just....so...sloppy....” she remarked as she came over to him. “Why do you drop your arm so, when it should be straight. Why do you let this leg just fall?” <br/><br/>“That is what feels right, that is how my mother showed me to dance,” brow arched while he followed her with his eyes as she circled him.<br/><br/>“Your mother was just a lowly human and you are far better than that now...” she replied. “Do it again, but do it perfect, understand?” <br/><br/>He sighed but did it again as she wanted, the moves more perfect. <br/><br/>“Better, but still lacking. Eventually....” she laughed while she sat back down. “You will lose that humanity and just be the perfection that I know you are...” <br/><br/>Again he refocused and took another sip of his wine, a light shrug given. “I wanted to be perfect, to be the best. Make each move perfect without error. Took many years but now I am perfect, which is what matters.”</span><br/><br/>Again, his mind drifted, and she felt that there was more of a weight to his “perfection” than the seemingly casual shrug let on. But, it wasn’t her place to press it, so she merely shrugged herself. His perfection, or what he perceived it to be, wasn’t what she’d consider such, as the moves themselves were too robotic, lacking feeling, too forced. It was like he wasn’t even present for the performances anymore.<br/><br/>If that was perfection and what he wanted to drill into her, she wanted no part of it.<br/><br/>“How many years have you been dancing?”<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF0000"> That question made him smirk, his tongue ran over his lips in an odd habit,  “Professionally I am assuming you are asking.” He looked toward the dance floor for a moment and remembered his years in dance. How he would dance with feeling, with emotion and humanity....<br/><br/>Slowly that was eaten away by the jaded feeling of living forever. The comments from the one who had sired him influencing him more and more. Until he was the man he was today. Cocky, arrogant and entitled with the thought that he was perfection and everyone else was beneath him. <br/><br/>“For about...10 years now. Though sometimes it feels more like 200 hundred years,” he chuckled. <br/><br/>“What about you?”</span><br/><br/>It took all of her restraint to hold back the eye roll at his question, and then his final answer. But, when it came down to it, how long had she been dancing? Not as long as he, surely, and nothing that he’d consider really dancing, given his egotistical stance on things.<br/><br/>“Since I was…fifteen…so eight years, I guess,” she answered. “Yes, I’d been doing some movement and things beforehand, but I wouldn’t have counted it until then, because that’s when I really started working at it.”<span style="font-style: italic">Though you’ll likely think of it as nothing more than “pole dancing” or something like a seizure standing up,</span>came her added silent remark.<br/><br/>“Favorite food?” There, a random question, off the subject for the moment.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF0000"> <span style="font-style: italic">Eight years....what did that make her like a veteran in the pole dancing circuit?</span> He thought with another smirk while he took a drink from his glass. The subject was changed and it again made him smile at the thought of his favorite food. <br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Something young, fresh and likes to scream....</span><br/><br/>“I have always been a red meat man. A nice, rare, thick steak,” he said after a moment. “Do I have to keep saying the same question back to you, or you understanding how this question and answering thing goes?”</span><br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Ever the cocky one,</span>she thought at his comment about questions.<span style="font-style: italic">Perhaps you should put more effort in and come up with something for a change, rather than me coming up with them all.</span><br/><br/>“Well, anything you want to ask me? Or are we just going to play parrot for the duration of this evening?” she asked coyly over her own glass of wine, eyes regarding his own as she took a sip.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF0000"> A perked brow and a slight tightening of his lip is all that showed of his annoyance from her comment, “Alright,” he said. “Besides dancing, what do you enjoy doing?”</span><br/><br/>Glancing at him with her own perked brow, she took another sip of the wine, the warmth of it making her throat burn in a pleasant sort of way, the feel of it spreading through her limbs. “Is that really what you want to know?” she asked him rather bluntly. The annoyance only gave her an inward sense of satisfaction, even if it didn’t get spoken aloud, nor show in her features; She’d gloat later.