The Most Passionate Dance.

Selecting a table large enough to accommodate not just the three ladies but several others as well, should they be joined, Irina pauses a moment to give her servant some quiet direction in Russian. He bows and heads toward the restaurant's host, pulling from his coat a large coin purse that's stuffed with slightly more coin than it was meant to accomodate. Then the Decados lady slides into a seat, wrapping her thick winter cloak around her and seeming quite comfortable. "I'd been told the climate here was more tropical, but I must say I enjoy the cold. It rather reminds me of winters in my own lands."

Aysel drinks from a snifter of something, surveying the club cautiously. "I wonder, do you both dance... Lady Arisabella I have seen dances well... Lady Irina?"

Devante steps back from the mens room on that. "Oh... She does?" comes the Hazats question as he looks her over, a grin coming to his lips. "And what form of dance does my lady Hazat take part in?"

Arisabella suddenly finds her coffee extremely interesting, and the tabletop and her own fingernails even. She doesn't look embarrassed so much as merely wishing this conversation were happening while she were elsewhere. Finding an opportunity to divert attention from herself, she responds to something Irina said, "Winters of your own lands? Are they typically very cold, Lady?"

"I do, Mistrerss Aysel, but I'm not sure whether the courtly dances I've learned on Cadiz have any bearing at all on those performed here on Vargo." Irina smiles as Devante returns and she rises from her chair, curtseying to him with exactly the same deference she'd shown before and gesturing to offer a seat. As she rises she glances to Arisabella and seems to clue in instantly on the woman's feelings. "My land is a city on the sea, My Lady, and in the depths of winter it is caught between a northern wind and a southern blizzard." Smoothly she turns to Devante to ask, "Tell us of your own lands, Your Excellency. Osaka, on Holy Terra?"

Aysel digs in her coat pocket, and opens a decorative folding fan with a snap of her wrist. "Don Castillo, you know I am the soul of discretion. I'll never tell," she declares. And proceeds to use the fan to waft smoke away from the party, as she attentively listens.

Arisabella slides her gaze over to Aysel, attention drawn not only by the fan but the words. A very slight smile touches her mouth, softening it just so. The Hazat noblewoman drinks her coffee, relaxing further in to her seat.
He answers smoothly... "My fathers lands are extensive for such an ancient world. A county that comprises the largest of the isles of Nipon and large tracts of the City of Madrid. My barony there is traditional, as heir to the entire county... My lands here however, are my home until later in life. I will tell you..." A pause as he turns to Asysel, then to Arisabella, then to Irina.. "That I do love to dance."

"Miestro!" he calls out to the leader of the band... or the DJ... "Some music we can dance to!" Then a look back to the other ladies... "If one of you... would honor me with such a dance?"

Bright-eyed, dark blue orbs turn flatly to Devante, one eyebrow angling up in challenge unmistakable. "You? Dance?" She manages to not sound insulting, but she doesn't sound surprised either. Perhaps this is banter for show.

Aysel smiles lowly and dutifully continues to waft away the vapors. "Oh, yes. Bailaor- Twinkletoes de Hazat we call him in Tuscanice. What was it you favor again, Don Castillo... Tarantella? Waltz... ah, the tango, perhaps?"

An impish glitter turns Irina's smile into one of amused mischief. "I suggest that in gratitude for the Viscount's hospitality, we provide His Excellency with every gentleman's favored desire." Though she doesn't actually say it, the flickering of her gaze between the other two women is distinctly flirtatious and not even slightly innocent, and her meaning is perfectly clear. Three women, one man, what could be better? "Shall we take turns, ladies?" This question is directed evenly between her two female companions.

The first chords of Spanish guitar come from the band, a tango being struck up. Devante's grin is as playful as it is flirtatious. He -is- a very eligible bachelor, the most eligible upon the planet. "I do so enjoy the Tango. Dancing in unison, bodies moving in time with each other... It is the very epitome in motion of a vertical expression of horizontal desire."

The courtesan pushes the fan closed with her palm, chuckling, and wreathes her arm behind her head, still gesturing langorously with the fan. "Tread softly," she says. "When you dance the tango, you are dancing my life. Come, come. Rank before file, ladies. Who will he be wearing out first?"

Arisabella silently stands up from her seat, setting the coffee down. With a glance to Devante that speaks -volumes- she strides to the smallish dance floor. The fact that she does not wear a gown doesn't seem to detract from the sudden grace of her movements. It takes only a moment to shed her boots and then, the Hazat woman has struck a flawless rendition of the starting pose for Tango.

Laughter, thorough enjoyment, and a nod toward Aysel to acknowledge the suggestion. "I do so love the Hazat. So very direct." Irina turns toward Arisabella as the other woman stands and she curtseys, dipping her head. "Donna Arisabella, with your leave I might have the second dance with the gentleman of your House?" This is not quite according to etiquette nor according to rank, but is exceptionally politic. Always ask the potentially jealous and stabby Hazat women -before- dancing with the Hazat men, regardless of rank.

Devante reaches up, straightening his collar. He glances back at the two ladies, the courtesan and the Decados. "Please excuse me. I think I am going to -enjoy- this." He offers, before he saunters on over. His own stride is full of what smells, acts, and looks like Macho. He knows what he's doing here. He glances to the Band, offering a nod. The music resets its beat to come to the start of the tango. One hand comes up, the other goes low..

It is during this intense, emotion-laden dance that the almost-severity of Arisabella's features takes on a sort of grace that a softer, rounder woman can't quite touch. Her features, set neutrally, nonetheless add a dimension to every single move her body makes, even during such a simple action as taking her partner to her. For this, at least, she is not Donna Arisabella dancing with her liegelord, but a Hazat woman embracing a Hazat man. The transformation is staggering.

Aysel grins and raises her glass to Irina at that, watching the dance floor as she sets her fan down in front. "Lets see who backs down first," she suggests.

For the Decados woman, the dance is almost more fun to watch than it is to participate in. Her eyes are alive with interest and intelligence, and she stands with hands folded lightly in front of her. To Aysel she murmurs, "Were I a gambling woman, I would always bet on the Hazat men backing out before the Hazat women." Which is a light jest to Aysel, but takes on several more layers of meaning and joking to those who were with her earlier in the evening.

Devante slides his jacket from his form, a bloused shirt now covering his torso. The shirt is opened to the mid chest, showing his masculinity in true hazat form. He ignores the women chattering behind him. His demeanour changes, his stance shifts. Much like the woman before him, his title, his name, is left behind and now he is 20 again, a rake, a warrior and a man about to seduce a woman through ritualized movements.

Aysel has to catch herself to keep from breathing her drink out her nose in a puff of laughter. "But you are not a gambling woman, my lady?"

A deep grin settles onto Irina's features. "Everyone gambles, Mistress Aysel. I usually don't do so with money, but every once in awhile it is tremendous fun to pay for the privelege of seeing what people are like." She waits, watching happily, avoiding actually staring at either of the dancers. Watching without staring is a nifty trick.

Aysel says, "I always find it fascinating, what a little vigorous dancing will bring out of people. Don't you?"

Arisabella turns to look directly at Devante, pacing once around him, in a purposeful strut. The chilled neutrality of her expression melts instantly into a lazy, teasing smile that offers almost as much challenge and promise of pleasure as the slow lift of her elbow-straightened arm, fingers -almost- brushing the bare skin of his chest. Leaving it at that, she turns her back to the man, leaning her full body against his front.

When his hand slides teasingly around her hip and up the length of her flat belly, and his lips slowly traverse the space from her shoulder to the nape of her neck, just behind the earlobe, the world ceases to exist for her, except the beat of the music, the man she is enticing sensually to join with her.

As the music's tempo works itself into a heart-racing opening, the lights dim to a series of small spotlights on the pair.

If she were of any other House, Irina might be morally obligated to blush. But she's Decados, so she just watches delightedly until such point as watching would become intrusive. And then she turns her head toward Aysel and says lightly, "People are always fascinating when they allow themselves a little indulgence." A few measures later she looks up toward the dancers and smiles calmly. "Especially the Hazat."

The smoke choking the club is no longer the annoyance it was, somehow, as the dance begins, it is transformed into something evocative and mysterious. As one, the pair move, wrapping the tendrils of the music around their bodies as tightly as they have entwined their own limbs. Feet shift, slide and even stamp, but softly now as the Dance has not yet fully woken. One's hips rotate slightly left and the other leans just a touch to the right, showing that despite the skin-closeness of their two bodies, the two are still independent dancers.

With a strong snap of his arm, Devante casts his partner from his body, sending her spinning rapidly away. At the last possible moment, just before the two part fully, he brings her back in with a powerful flex of that same arm. Her return brings them face to face, and his body steps in to hers, demolishing even the smallest mote of remaining modesty. One hand raises to caress his cheek, so softly it is barely felt. The two have locked eyes, but any watching can almost feel the heat smoldering in their expressions.

The courtesan simply smiles a misty smile, and makes her hand to stop toying with her necklace. She carefully flicks her fan open then, and the object performs its office admirably, with her fingers neatly curled. "In my opinion, it requires a little more than a little indulgence ... Its not much of a tango unless things get moderately out of hand. But, especially, my lady?" she asks, following the display with her brown eyes. "Whatever do you mean?"

"The stereotype says that Hazat have a penchant for being stoic in one moment and unleashed in the next. I'm particularly fascinated by the change, to be able to be so chameleon without being two-faced." Irina watches the dancers as she might watch a Magic Lantern show or a bit of really good theater, with fascination and some amount of emotional involvement evoked by the performance. "But each House has its own fascination to me, for different reasons."

Dangerously, the two grind and rotate and spin without breaking bodily contact. More than once, Devante's thigh ends up squarely between Arisabella's legs; every single part of their bodies are fair game for pivot points, fulcrums and any other kind of movement made possible by that lovely goddess, Physics. Lips -almost- meet but never seem to truly touch, yet the two cannot help but be sharing a single breath.

Suddenly, Arisabella drops to the floor, one leg extended almost impossibly out from her body. Her face is scant milimeters from her partner's most intimate of places, and one hand is resting a hair's width away, but her eyes never budge from his, even as the tempo inches her back up the length of his lean body with excruciating slowness. That hyper-pointed leg whips back around his body as she comes back to her full height, stroking the back of his leg with her knee.

Aysel worries her lower lip with her teeth to hold back her smile. "Oh, very nicely done," she comments, of the dancers, as the music just spirals away. To Irina, though: "It is all what you take away from the performance, I suppose. Myself, I will be grateful to have been in attendance tonight, when I am subjected to the very long, cold ride across the river."

"Back to the Serai es-Fanar, I take it," Irina murmurs to Aysel, tilting her head slightly to watch the lust-filled acrobatics with the interest of one at a very good opera. She even lifts her hands to clap lightly and politely for Arisabella's slide to the floor and subsequent slipping over Devante's body. Her smile is almost amused, always intrigued and excited. But.. not like that. "We have a few similar dances in my House, but I've never seen them performed in mixed company." By 'mixed' she means 'with people other than Decados.'

The man, for there is no title being utilized here, spins around with a simple twist of his own feet, moving his partner with him. As the graceful twirl ends, their hips still rotating slowly, he allows one hand to shift from her back, gliding over her form, around to her chest without shame or taboo. When the tips of his fingers reach her chin, after dragging up the line of her torso, he pushes back roughly.

She arches her back, by necessity bringing her hips closer still to his as her center of gravity is changed abruptly. The knee she had locked around his thigh travels up, resting just below his shoulder blade as the backwards lean increases until her head is fully inverted, hair trailing the floor. First, her fingertips kiss the ground, and then her entire palm does, making a soft slap totally eaten up by the music playing. She hangs thus for a heartbeat, supported only by the hand at the small of her back and the tenseness of her thigh. Then, with a flex from her and a tug from him, her body begins to straighten. His lips rush to fill the space, grazing up from the navel area, chasing up her chest to the quarter inch or so immediately under her lower lip.

Once again, their eyes are locked, cemented together.

What in the hell has the man walked in on? He was coming into the Sovereign State in what appeared to be a rather steady pace, letting the door close in his wake when his steps stop very short of the Member's Only Lounge to see there are Hazat sexing each other up. "Oh this I gotta see," he states, to himself and joins said peanut gallery. Porter lights up a cigare, the one he was smoking anyways, but went out on the trip over. Relit, he lets a trail of cigar smoke go as he watches Devante.

The music is obviously reaching it's passionate crescendo, and so too the dancers. Sweeping dramatically to the very outer edges of the floor, the two commence a series of dizzyingly fast tanglements and pirouettes that carry them around the outer edge of the entire space. Never do the two end up closer than half a breath from each other, and with the speed of their footwork, it becomes difficult to tell where one's limb ends and the other's begins. The effect is one of barely contained lust, of passion that threatens to utterly consume.

With a final, punishing set of spins, the two are once more back in the center of the dance floor, mirroring their starting pose, but now, acceptance granted, the woman faces her 'lover', one hand on his chest and the other at his back. The spotlights go out perfectly, leaving a lingering image of Devante's mouth pressed to Arisabella's throat, his hands on her hip and her thigh.

Welcome to the Hazat Spice Channel! From the peanut gallery, otherwise known as a spacious table at one side of the restaurant, Irina stands beside a chair in which Aysel sits. The young Decados smiles to the strange smoking man who walks up nearby, and she inclines her head in a polite greeting. Attention returning toward the dancers, she notes with amusement, "I shall have to learn more of the Hazat dances, if they are all so interesting. Oh I do hope His Excellency has the energy for more than one dance." Highly amused.

Aysel clicks her fan closes, to rest against her chin. "Mm-hmm," she murmurs to Irina. "I seem to recall there being one or two of those that are trotted out for the company, from the... oh, very brief contract I had on Severus."

Aysel says, "As for more than one dance, you go right on ahead, my Lady... I'll just wait riiiiight here with my drink."

The lights come back on, and Devante delivers to Arisabella a bow in the proper spanish style. An arm is then offered, courtly and proper, to the woman. "My lady, thank you for..." A pause as he breaths, deeply.. "Such an -invigorating- exercise.". Yeah, his quads, delts and some other crappy named muscles are gonna hurt tonight. And the cold shower, its not going to help.

Porter looks at the pair of Hazat finishing up their dance in too much sexy. The man shakes his head, though keeping his eyes on the noble pair for a moment he says, "I thought I saw a familiar face," and sweeps his gaze finally to the pair of women. The Decados and Aysel. "Mistress, an' new face," he says to the Decados woman. Isn't he a charmer? "What is it dance night? And did he just have sex with that woman?" Referring to Devante and Arisabella. "If so, is that a crime?"

The light of passion is still bright in Arisabella's eyes, and there is no hiding the glorious flush to her face, her entire body to be honest. She curtsies low to her partner, again unhindered by not being in a sumptuous gown. With flawless grace, poise and confidence she takes the proffered arm, smiling beatifically. "My Lord, that was simply fantastic. You move like the dream of the wind."

Aysel considers Porter and his questions, and reaches out a hand to try and get him to give her a cigar. "No it isn't, I'm not sure, and I doubt either one of them went over the legal limit. Though you can ask for their licenses."

"Good evening," Irina returns to Porter, one pale brow lifting in a thoroughly deep amusement. "It does appear to be Dance Night," the lady says with light laughter. "As to your other questions, I do not know precisely how the Hazat would define a crime of passion, but that may have come quite close." Clearly meant in jest, her dark eyes dancing as she turns toward the dancer again. "My Lady," she lifts her voice slightly to address Arisabella as the other woman comes from the dance floor. "Simply lovely, masterfully done. Your Excellency, a rare joy to watch." Irina seems to mean it.

Devante smiles, touched by the compliment as he leads the Hazat woman back to the table. "Ah!" Says the Viscount, his jacket being brought over by a serving girl. He gives the girl a thankful smile before turning to porter. "And Major Valencia." The man is giving a nod, a hand extended for shaking. "Good to see you."

When Irina speaks, he just offers her a smile as well. "I am honored you found my vice to be so welcome."